A Day in the Life of a Consumer

Harun Farocki edited together hundreds of commercials that collectively depict a day in the life of the ideal consumer. For every moment of the day, there is a suitable product to promote. From sunrise, after pressing the snooze button, the day is filled with a succession of breakfast products, skincare routines, traffic jams, work stress, happy hour, dinner, and nightlife, until the sun sets again and every need has been met. Forty years of advertising, presented without commentary, show how the life of an average consumer in West Germany was progressively refined.

As in his related work The Creators of the Shopping Worlds (2001), Farocki examines the commercialization of nearly every aspect of life. Consumer needs are created and fulfilled, to the point of absurdity. He made the work on commission from the public broadcasters SWF and WDR, and in the closing credits he reveals the creators of this ideal consumer: a long list of the names of all the production companies and advertising agencies that contributed to the video collage.