Popular Culture Review
kitchens across the country. Here an exuberant and haphazard collage of bits and
pieces mascaraded as a message center and the visual pulse of daily hfe.
The second page provided a stark contrast. The page itself was predominantly
white and, with the exception of a compact plastic device and a bit of black text,
quite empty. Below the device (which based on its shape and graphic monitor
might have recorded blood pressure or radon levels) was written “Audrey™,
anyone?” At the bottom of the page was written “Is this what your refrigerator
looks like? Thought so. That’s why we invented Audrey. Audrey™ is an onhne
family organizer, with a date book, address book and calendar. You get a new way
to access pre-selected sites on the Internet with the turn of a dial. Plus e-mail you
can send by scribbling, talking or typing.” The stinger was the company logo:
“Simple sets you free.”
The message was clear: the era of chaotic refrigerator communication was
over. There was no longer any need to hve with, or to tolerate such a random and
physically cumbersome system. Now one, decidedly female, hand-held, electronic
instrument would introduce efficiency and order into all comers of family hfe.
I was simultaneously fascinated and flabbergasted. As I sat pondering the
message and its assumptions several questions spmng to mind. What is the matter
with a decorated refrigerator that it should inspire such an austere and expensive
(i.e., $499.00) technological fix? And why are we so dedicated to order, especially
order for order sake?
The refrigerator, it would appear, is an assault on our senses. Not only is it
messy, but “essential” information must compete with a riot of color, a hodge
podge of shapes and quirky personal presentations. Audrey™ will remove the
distractions, she will isolate the messages, and she will organize them in a
functionally efficient manner. Every family member wherever they may be will
now know that the dog has not been fed, that there are three suits at the cleaners,
and that Grandma will be serving dinner at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Regardless of
whether they knew such things before, they will now know them by interacting
with Audrey™ and not with each other.
Unhke the advertisers, I find something wrong with this picture. In the first
place, it privileges “facts” over context. A note on a napkin, an address on a match
book cover, or a recipe on a sweat sock are irrelevant (and invisible) to Audrey™.
So are the personalities and the relationships of those who produced them. There is
nothing particular or singularly expressive in her management of information. She
selects for the quantifiable and not for the humorous, the aesthetic or the interpretive.
The latter are not germane to an ordered hfe.
In the second place, Audrey™ “disappears” one of the few remaining free or
“wild” spaces in our domestic lives. While a decorated refrigerator is hardly
equivalent to an old-growth forest, a mountain range, or a school of salmon, it is.