Från Millennieskifte till Nutid : En Semiotisk Analys av Y2K Estetik som Visuell Genre

Sammanfattning

Y2K has had an increased popularity over the last few years. The aesthetic has been reproduced in many visual terms, especially in music videos, commercials and fashion. But there’s a relatively limited exploration when it comes to looking at which visual elements signal associations to the original aesthetic. This study uses journalistic articles as well as blogs to get a closer perception of what the public defines as typical Y2K aesthetics and compares them to a contemporary commercial in pursuit of understanding how Y2K is visually constructed. Through a semiotic approach using theories of both Stuart Hall's representation and Roland Barthes concept words denotation and connotation this research deep dives into interpreting visual elements and how they can be associated to Y2K. Gillian Rose's theory of genre will also be applied in this study to categorize many visual elements to Y2K as an own visual genre, with the reason to be able to directly see similarities in the contemporary commercial with the original visual genre. The result of this study confirms that many visual elements that are connected to the early 2000’s are used in contemporary visual media. But the meaning behind them are changed once they’re put in a modern context. Apart from this study I made a commercial collaboration with Ropas Secondhand in Malmö. This project consists of three promotional videos with a purpose of being released on the store's social media. The videos take account of the store's personal visual image and its target audience.