Dr. Norah Campbell

Summary

We present a psychoanalytic reading of 332 images of bacteria in advertising and public service announcements in the period since 1848. The non-rational mechanisms that are at play in these images suggest that the depiction of bacteria in advertising operates according to a dialectic of alienation and belonging that is the foundation of our social world. There are four recurring discursive-aesthetic categories that draw bacteria into visuality: cuteness, overpopulation, the lower classes, and sex. We propose that bacteria may be viewed as symptoms of the fears and pleasures that are awakened by living in mass market society and in the midst of a plethora of microscopic Others. We then identify an antibacterial sinthome at play, which makes it possible to ask why these symptoms appear to us in the way that they do. The antibacterial sinthome expresses and gives form to our ambivalent position as individuals in a market society, where our lives are preoccupied with identifying and controlling enemies and incorporating allies. In this way, the antibacterial sinthome enacts an autoimmune logic that encourages us to ignore the macro and long-term consequences of living in an antibacterial society.

Project Type

Original Research