The exorcism of the roadside ghosts
Nov. 24th, 2008 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustSomewhere, I'm sure, I must already have written about a feauture of the French roadsides: the life-size black silhouettes standing - I assume - at the locations of fatal accidents. I started seeing them, all over the country, a few years ago - and was thoroughly spooked by them. As a road safety campaign it's more vivid than our: "Last 3 years: 92 accidents" type notices.
This year, they were much diminished. Literally, too. The full size figures - all identical, as far as I could see - of indeterminate gender have been replaced by smaller silhouettes, fully dressed. Perhaps they represent specific individuals, but they are no longer Everyman.
Perhaps the campaign is becoming more familiar, and so less effective. For the first time this year I saw a silhouette with a poster stuck on his chest, like a sandwich-board man.
Because I had been thinking about this, I made what I'm sure was an unintended connection when I saw this series of sculptural flower-beds around the town of Saint Dizier: the old ghosts have not vanished, they have simply taken up water sports.
This year, they were much diminished. Literally, too. The full size figures - all identical, as far as I could see - of indeterminate gender have been replaced by smaller silhouettes, fully dressed. Perhaps they represent specific individuals, but they are no longer Everyman.
Perhaps the campaign is becoming more familiar, and so less effective. For the first time this year I saw a silhouette with a poster stuck on his chest, like a sandwich-board man.
Because I had been thinking about this, I made what I'm sure was an unintended connection when I saw this series of sculptural flower-beds around the town of Saint Dizier: the old ghosts have not vanished, they have simply taken up water sports.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-27 12:39 am (UTC)