Pill-A Logistical Pharmaceutical Micro-Technology

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Capsules and Tablets as a Logistical Pharmacuetical Microtec

A Logistical, Pharmaceutical Micro-technology Diamond

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Chau Tran | Yuliya Veligurskaya

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Flight Through an Image Stack of a Capsule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pharmacological_Capsule_Diclofenac_%C2%B5CT_RIGHT.OGG

Introduction This paper looks at pills as concentrated pieces of technology. The understanding of their physical attributes, designs, packaging and logistics of production and distribution, policy and procedures, as well as their illegal economic strata help us understand how pharmaceutical contents are designed, manipulated, and packaged to become familiar, standardized and attested objects that assimilate into our daily lives. The range of exploration includes, but is not limited to: pharmaceutical marketing, advertisement, color theory, tablet design, and consumption. With these findings, we aim to understand how its consumption affects our interactions and perceptions of our environment. Take for instance the proliferation of SSRIs in the 60’s which allowed people to endure inadequate deep office plans with artificial light and an abusive top down management scheme. Prozac allowed for the endurance of operating in such spaces. How did Prozac become a household name simultaneously with the new generation of ever changing lifestyles? Corporate offices used it, housewives in new suburbs used it, as well as college-aged young adults. How does one pill provide a solution to a multitude of negative experiences, which in the first place may be necessary for personal growth? Supposedly bright yellow pills with a clear imprint are perceived more effective than pale yellow pills with light imprints(11). How have the concept of pills expedited this phenomenon?

Next Nature In Next Nature, Van Mensvoort and Grievink argue how nature has evolved to become the next nature: How nature became one of the most successful products of our time. Yet much of what we perceive as nature is merely assimilation: a romanticized idea of a balanced harmonic inherently good and threatened entity. How evolution continues none the less. How technology – traditionally created to protect us from the forces of nature – gives rise to our next nature which is just as wild, cruel, unpredictable and threatening as ever. How we are playing with fire again and again. How we should tread carefully; yet how this is simultaneously what makes us human.” (1) Pills, according to Next nature magazine, have been ranked among the accepted technology. The magazine has methodologically categorized different technology in term of their different levels of assimilation and acceptance into our own life today. Fire and cooking, for example, have emerged to be the essential technology that human can’t live without, and thus have been taken for granted, or even forgotten that at one time, they were novel and marvelous technology. Similar to the technology that created it, pills are never neutral. Pills’ physical attributes, as well as the manufacturing, packaging, and distribution

logistics that have changed dramatically over the past century, have evolved from what were once essential to alleviate physical pain, to a point of becoming household names that associated with the American consumerist healthcare strata, to a point that they associate with certain social and status implications in modern life. (1) For example, contraceptive pills not only help women have the freedom to choose their motherhood obligations, but also tie to the larger conversation and controversy about women rights, women’s freedom, and morals, etc.

This reference Next Nature provides a great window to look into pills, their technology and their intended effects as the idea of the next nature, and of the perceived assimilation. When the “nature” of man’s behavior is deemed as abnormal, or framed as abnormal, these medicine claim to make human “normal” again. It changes the conception of what being normal is. These medicine take over what we should naturally, and biologically have done for ourselves to cope with our own tensions. Going directly to these pills as a solution to all our problems has become the most natural thing to do for human beings.

These medicine, with their claim of the standard and normal, frame and influence our image and perception of who we are and how we should cope with our daily lives. They change the nature of how we live, and how we perceive our own capacity to cope with pains and stresses. From controlling heart rate, blood pressure, to psychological conditions, these pills have become an accepted technology that assimilates into and regulate every aspect of our life.

When the “nature” of man’s behaviorisdeemedasabnormal,orframed as abnormal, these medicine claim to make human “normal” again. It changes the conception of what being normal is.

Throughout human existence, we have manipulated the physical environment so much so that something seemingly natural as a banana is actually very engineered. It turned into a fruit that is “highly ergonomic and sophisticated: bananas fit perfectly in the human hand, and they come with a non-slip surface, a bio-degradable packaging that is easy to open, and they have an advanced informative skin that turns yellow when the product is ready for consumption- green means not yet, brown means too late.” (1) Similar to the transformation of the banana, humans have collected, manipulated and transformed chemicals and herbs into the concentrated form of a pill, which then allows for distribution and mass consumption depending on demands and desires.

Precedents In an effort to examine the ephemeral quality of modern life, artist Marti Guixe invented a hypothetical regimen of pills designed for the rising nomadic professional population. (6) In preparation for this project he traveled to a new city every two days for three weeks, which was then followed by a period of research. What was then developed was a hypothetical regimen of “oral units” to help this population with human interaction and adapting to new environments. Each unit serves to aid with the implications of physical, psychological, and personal concepts. For instance pill number 4, Relax Anywhere, soft and injected with herbal substances, is meant to have a calming effect similar to that of chewing gum or tobacco.

The pills, conceived as conceptual objects, aim to speak about the implications of how work, “now conducted almost everywhere, is perhaps the drug with which we most concern ourselves with.”

(Antonelli 214). The critique of our acceptance of invasive biotechnology raises an examination of the implications of the overworked society and the psychological changes necessary to sustain it. Similarly, using the concept of the pills, our investigation aims to observe the design, marketing, and logistics of tablets and capsules to further understand the phenomenon of human decoupling from the environment, and to which degree it has influenced our responses via the built environment.

Even earlier than the Marti Guixe’s Hi-Bye regimen, in the ‘60s, Kiik is “a unique, functional product to help cure body discomforts and mind obsessions, is designed to be a hand pill that is recommended for breaking all habits ‘bad or good’.” (12) This product includes a set of instructions that are also intended for the relief of ailments, posing a critique on consumable medication. “Kiik is the only ideal non-pill for quick temporary relief for any ailment... at any time and in any way you feel like using it.” Not only does it reframe the ailment, need for relief, and the cure, but it also poses the question on the effectiveness of the medication as well as the propaganda that the pharmaceutical companies impose on its public. Does taking medication, or in this case playing with the hand pill, really solve any issue at all? This hand pill aims to form a visual connection to the illusion that is given by a traditional pill that is normally consumed and then rendered invisible. Precisely what tangible details of pills that make them seemingly more effective?

“Kiik is the only ideal non pill for quick temporary relief for any ailment...at any time and in any way you feel like using it.”

Perceived effect on the mood by elderly patients.

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The FDA Guidelines for Industry on “Size, Shape, and Other Physical Attributes of Generic Tablets and Capsules” examines a prime concern to the forms of pills in regards to successful medication administration. (19) The document highlights that the “difficulty swallowing tablets and capsules can be a problem for many individuals and can lead to a variety of adverse events and patient noncompliance with treatment regimens. It is estimated that over 16 million people in the United States have some difficulty swallowing, also known as dysphagia.” This condition can affect as many as 40 percent of Americans and 8 percent admitted to skipping medication and 4 percent stopped a medical regimen due to the difficulty of swallowing tablets.

For any given size, certain shapes may be easier to swallow than others. In vitro studies suggest that flat tablets have greater adherence to the esophagus than capsule-shaped tablets. The document also explains how some “studies in humans have also suggested that oval tablets may be easier to swallow and have faster esophageal transit times than round tablets of the same weight. Patient compliance with medication regimens may be influenced by the size and shape of a tablet or capsule.” (19) Some of the variables besides size and shape include the age of the patient, fluid intake, position, or presence of certain medical conditions. Other considerations include the pill coating and increased pill weight which can expedite esophageal travel, as well as the palatability and smell provided by the coating.

There are a variety of ways to record the volume of pills, although the main method suggested by the FDA is the use of a computer model which provides the highest accuracy.

Colors also play an important role in shaping consumers’ behavior, perception and drug administration. From early child development, colors is one of the primary and early interest that a child learns to associate with. The pre-attentive mode of color, or visual detection through colors, has help information transfer in an automatic processing manner, thus, the repetition of color stimulus provokes an automatic response, which becomes the “priming” effect. This priming effect of colors has therefore boosted it as the most prominent feature in pills. However, historically, one of the first pills which came from Egypt was a little round ball containing medicinal ingredients mixed with clay or bread. Up until the middle of the 20th century, pills are generally round and white. Started in the ‘60s, color transformation became a phenomenon in 1975 when the new technology of “soft gel” was invented. Today, there are over 80,000 color combinations for gel caps, and both consumers and manufacturers benefit from the variety of colorful pills. First, for consumers, colorful pills serve as a sign for consumers to distinguish between prescription and nonprescription medications. The rise of the aging community further brings attention to the significance of pill identification, and colors, besides shapes and imprints, etc. are primary means to help consumers associate with certain medicines, which further increase the effectiveness of their medication regime.

For example, patients who take medicine on a daily basis prefer bright color pills more than dull color pills. Furthermore, colors also contribute to patient’s response to the effectiveness of the medicine.

It works best when it matches with the intended result it claims to achieve. According to a study on the perceived effect on the mood by elderly patients, toned down colors such as brown, dark blue,

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and purple and pink are best perceived for its calming effect while bright colors such as red, yellow and light blue are better perceived for its stimulating effect.

Pill colors also affect patient’s perception of its taste. According to a report in the International Journal of Biotechnology by R.K.Srivastava and his colleagues at University of Bombay (New Mumbai, India), for three quarters of people out of 600 people, color and shape of the pills serve as memory tags for compliance in administration. They found that pink pills, for example, are perceived as tasting sweeter than red pills, and yellow pills as saltier regardless of their ingredients. Also, 11% of patients think white or blue pills as tasting bitter and 10% said orange pills are sour.

Not only benefiting consumers, colors also have a huge role in defining brands and images for the medicine. However, colors were not much of a consideration in the making of pills up until the 1950s. The significance of color in pharmaceutical branding climaxes together with two important events that transformed the market.

The first event is an increasing shift from prescription to non-prescription (or “over the counter,” “OTC”) medicines, which paves the way for an increasing amount of drugs being sold in stores. (11) As a result, more and more people are getting medicine and making decisions about what to buy in stores mostly based on advertised

information and associated images. In order to draw customers’ attention and effectively communicate their messages, pharmaceutical companies heavily research and test their products, perhaps as much as the content of the medicine itself, to bring forward the most effective color combinations and designs for their pills.

...“studies in humans have also suggested that oval tablets may be easier to swallow and have faster esophageal transit times than round tablets of the same weight. Patient compliance with medication regimens may be influenced by the size and shape of a tablet or capsule.”

The second critical issue is the Food and Drug Administration’s relaxed restrictions on direct-to-consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals. As a result, there began an aggressive explosion in the amount and variety of content on pharmaceutical advertising on media and TV, which inevitably leads to a huge impact on consumers’ choices and behaviors. Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs has become an omnipresent feature that assimilate into the American consumer society. Within this growth, questions were raised about the changing role of physicians, who are no longer the intermediary in the flow of information, and the replacement of this model with a consumerist model of health information. This growth, though remains a subject of controversy, is a phenomenon proliferated by the changes in the federal regulation of advertising in the past two decades. In latter part we will further discuss the interplay between this issue and the impact of it on healthcare and pattern of consumption.

Capsule—Soft Gels The invention of capsules was very helpful towards the issue of palatability of medication. (17) However, it also posed other opportunities that allowed drugs such as antibiotics that would change in chemical form if they went through the process of becoming tablets, transformed into an object of correct dosage. Unlike substances rolled into gum that frequently failed to dissolve and release the medicine, capsules allowed for a very quick administration into the body. Although tablets were manufactured at about 10,000 pills a minute compared to capsules that were at about 3,000 pills a minute, capsules have a certain mystique about them that allow for drugs in this form to sell better. (17) The advent of encapsulation in the pharmaceutical industry allowed for the decoupling of the consequences of taste and chemical consumption. For the first time, unpalatable substances such as antibiotics that could not undergo the process of compression were contained in gelatin shells that easily dissolve within the body. Unlike the failed attempted to wrap the medication in gum, this simple technology serves as a buffer between perception and the physical qualities of medication. (17) Whether it be an organic herb or a synthesized chemical inside a capsule, its finished appearance, and lack of repercussion to the senses can be accredited to the cure-all idea associated with pills. Similar to the example of the banana, the once respective shapes of the original substances were extracted, condensed, and packaged into a capsule: including a self-disintegrating shell, smooth oblong shape ideal for passage through the esophagus, which obscures the perception of taking the raw substances, and further skewing the relationship with cure and medication, and the idea of what a cure really is. Throughout the years this seemingly simple package has encountered nearly endless color and shape combinations that help brand the equally endless amounts of cures that are offered by pharmaceutical companies. These miniature

versions of brand identities compete in the marketplace in order to appeal to consumer tastes, selling a substance designed for a need, and marketing it based on wants.

Started in the ‘60s, color transformation became a phenomenon in 1975 when the new technology of “softgel” was invented.

Van Huesen ad, Colliers Magazine 1951

Van Huesen ad, Colliers Magazine 1951

Pills and the Environment In order to understand pills in a larger context, we also examine the American society and landscape changes during and after WWII. With this investigation, we aim to understand how the concept of pills have assimilated into many aspects of modern society, and involved in this large network of issues, including advertising propaganda, graphic manifestation, architecture, and capitalism. First, we study societal changes during and after WWII which led to the changing roles and perception of women/men. During the draft of WWII, this was really the first time women were encouraged to take the role of their male counterparts.(2) The once “timid, fragile minded creature”(2) that was culturally expected to be bound within the confines of the home, subjected to menial labors as well as serve as a defenseless watchman, receives an almost blasphemous message: “We Can Do It!” This period of time was notorious for a widely

accepted misogynist media as can be witnessed in the ads for Van Heusen’s “Show her it’s a man’s world” campaign. Suddenly, this argument falls apart as the men of the country are pulled from their offices and homes, and that new quasi-pro-feminist slogan relegates power to the fairer sex. So they do it, working in factories with little to no union representation and less pay than their male counterparts. When the veterans return, however, most women are laid off in order to accommodate them, and culture insists to exile women once more from of the position of power and back to their nest. A large population archives the brief taste of freedom and enters the post-war lifestyle. (2) Up to this point, the design of a home was centered around the idea of a container for the domestication of a woman’s “lack of internal self-control [that is typically] credited to men as the very mark of their masculinity” which stems from Greek thought. (2) By this philosophy, the female is a wild beast by which marriage is the pathway

to domestication, and the house is the tool. However, by the time of the advent of the television, these ideas begin to violently shake at their foundation. Lynn Spigel explains this collapse in “The Suburban Home Companion: Television and the Neighborhood Ideal in Postwar America.” The reason for the women’s liberation of the 1960’s was due to the presence of the television in the household, which allowed for the first time a male perspective of places and interactions to the homebound woman, “‘television [became] an especially potent force for integrating women because television brings the public domain to women...’” This electric space was novel but yet remained a pipe dream as women at the time are skeptical of the promises of the television really being able to transport them into the public realm. Controversially, advertisements for drugs did.

What fuels the success of drugs such as SSRI’s post war was the already prevalent value of the consumer lifestyle. Whether it be advertisements in the paper, ladies journals, radio or the television, the pressure of keeping up with the joneses involved a tension of

the uprooting of the family in the city and moving to a place full of strangers in a homogenized pre planned neighborhood, coupled with super-conformity defined by this demographics desire for luxury goods. (21) The constant unfulfillment paired with surface level relationship with their communities was the “the problem that has no name… the ubiquitous malaise, tension, and anxiousness that results from the gap between the expectations of a fulfilling life and the realities of a stifling existence.” (21) At first, it was believed to be a problem that is one of the housewives, but the illness had spread itself through corporate male establishments likewise. The idea of having everything, being privileged, living the American dream, and having no possible way to do more to change things for the better, leaves a very tempting opportunity to sell salvation. Serentil, for example, directly markets “for the anxiety that comes with not fitting in,” a one size fits all treatment for both the orgman and housewife.

“Patients with pains often have anxiety. Patient with anxiety often has

Top Left, Valium Advert, 1965: http://www.biopsychiatry.com/diazepam/valium.html Top Right, Serax Advert, 1967: http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/femfree.html Bottom Right, Meprosan Advert, 1967: http://prescriptiondrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005706

pain.”( Thorazine’s advertisement). Targeting not only pain but also anxiety, it is interesting, yet controversial, to see how the definition of “cure” or treatment has broadened to include a variety of disorders and anxiety associated with our modern life problems. Medicine no longer only helps with physical problems, but also with our psychological, and social problems. As highlighted in many of its drug’s advertisements, Thorazine claims that it is “especially useful in controlling hyperactivity, irritability, and hostility. And because Thorazine calms without clouding consciousness, the patient on Thorazine usually become more sociable and receptive to psychotherapy.” The antipsychotic Thorazine promises a cure for emotional stress, severe asthma, stress of cancer, senile agitation, violent outbursts by the severely mentally ill, prevention from institutionalization, among many others.

These chemical substances, distributed to the masses via the assistance of a graphic designer created a tangible solution that the

electric worlds failed to provide. In the form of pharmaceutical tablets and capsules, these concentrated forms of technology come in a variety of shapes, color palettes, and chemical substances. They allow for the decoupling of human reaction to external stimuli and their environment. As technology evolves, its purpose at once was to find ways to cope with the uncontrollable. However, the pervasive invention of pills and the logistics of pharmaceutical processes and consumption have enabled us to gain a perceived control of the environment within our very own biological capacities in unprecedented ways.

Composition:

El Lizzitsky & Paul Rand

Pharmaceutical Advertisements To understand the advertising propaganda of Thorazine, and the potential network of designers involved in this movement, we trace Thorazine advertisements, compare and analyze their graphic features to those of the prominent designers at the time. Thorazine is a brand by Smith Kline French, which is now known as GSK or Glaxosmithkline. In 1945, Paul Rand is responsible for designing their logo, (4) as well as various advertisements for inhalers and postnatal vitamins in an (undisclosed year). Upon an analysis of the known graphic design work of Rand and the advertisements for Thorazine, there is a clear correlation of the styles, however, there is no published evidence of the connection between them. His style, which features the application of modern faces to smooth white surfaces, combined with the cutouts of photographs and etchings, bears much resemblance to Thorazine’s ads: “He was one of the first designers to use traditional Garamond in a modern design; he used and understood san serif letterforms long before the invention of Helvetica; he mastered the application of modern faces like Bodoni, Baskerville, and Walbaum to the smooth white surfaces of modern paper; and he was a pioneer in the effective use of typewriter type and stencil letters .” (4) It is worth mentioning that there are no controversial advertisements published on the Paul Rand Foundation website, although the fact that he does have an affiliation with Smith Kline French during this period suggests his influence on the graphic philosophy of their advertising campaign as they exemplify Rand’s style.

A more publicized project is Geigy Propaganda, led by Max Schmid and his team of graduates and colleagues. It is known as having the intent to incorporate the Swiss style into pharmaceutical advertising, by the epitome of a Swiss designer. (5) Much like the capsule that abstracts medication, the pharmaceutical advertisements that Geigy produces “lent themselves to a high degree of visual abstraction,

Composition:

SKF Thorazine & Paul Rand

Drama:

El Lizzitsky & Paul Rand

Geigy Project: http://www.thisisdisplay.org/tag/Geigy

and were ideal subjects for the reduced aesthetics of Swiss Design” says Hamish Thompson of the article the Romance of Chemicals.

(5) Minimalistic Swiss design further obscures the already abstracted substances by the use of symbolism to suggest an intended cure rather than advertizing the chemical, which aided in the proliferation and consumption of pills.

We consume illusions. Buffered by images and barriers of packaging, even our food is hidden in carefully designed packages, which influences our choices as consumers. “If it’s true that we eat with our eyes first, then what we eat are ads.” (1) This same principle applies to pills, with their ambiguous, symbolistic, dramatic, evocative imagery, the ads sell fear, cure, happiness, and freedom. The Geigy Style is a critical example of how pharmaceutical campaigns further distill information from substances, with their simplified forms, and evocative colors that are respective to the effect of conditions. Bold neon colors used to imply a toxic appearance is one key stylistic

component in this movement. Furthermore, by the manipulation of graphic and abstraction, symbolism is used to reinforce intention and to help sell the ideas associated with pills. For example, a package design by Geigy for an antidepressant almost literally suggests that the opening of the package is freedom from depression.

Symbolized by a solid black ball and chain, a rippable tab crosses the chain and the user experiences breaking the bondage from their condition. The proliferation of pills is ultimately fueled by the selling of the fulfillment of our desires through images. Advertising is key to communicating these illusions.

...although the fact that he does have affiliation with Smith Kline French during this period suggests his influence on the graphic philosophy of their advertising campaign as they exemplify Rand’s style.

Language of Vision - Gyorgy Kepes

Influential Thinkers on Images and Ads So how do graphic artists manipulate elements to sell these images and illusions to consumers? We look at prominent, influential graphic artist/art theorist Gyorgy Kepes to understand how this advertising and their graphic manipulation relate to the larger graphic discourse at the time. In chapter Plastic Organization, Gyorgy Kepes mentions the forming process of image perception: To perceive an image is to participate in a forming process; it is a creative act. From the simplest form of orientation to the most embracing plastic unity of a work of art, there is a common significant basis: the following up of the sensory qualities of the visual field and the organizing of them.

Independent of what one “sees”, every experiencing of a visual image is a forming; a dynamic process of integration, a “plastic” experience. The word “plastic” therefore is here

used to designate the formative quality, the shaping of sensory impressions into unified, organic wholes. (Kepes 16) This passage is a revealing moment in realization of how advertising, and graphic design in general work to influence public taste. Every advertising piece, when carefully designed and intentioned, is a work of art. If every experience of perceiving a work of art is a plastic formative process, then it means that this “plastic” experience can also be easily influenced, and skewed by the manipulation of the work of art. Images are powerful! In the process of perceiving the images, the messages are already integrated and assimilated into our brain, and thus impact our perception of the world. Furthermore, the experiencing process is a result of an interaction between external forces and internal forces of the individual. The external optical forces form the physical bases of the plastic image experience, while the internal forces filter and absorb the external forces through their respective frames of reference. However, according to Kepes, the distinction

Gyorgy Kepes

Marshall Mcluhan

“Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors.

Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.” (McLuhan) between these two forces and their frames of reference is artificial, and “is used only for convenience, since in every experience the external frame of reference is transformed into a part of the internal one”. (Kepes 16) The idea that “the external frame of reference is always transformed into the internal one” is important to understand the effectiveness of advertising. Though it is hard to evaluate the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical advertising campaign, we reckon that it may balance between the level of relevancy and the emotion that it evokes. Through their simplified graphics, Thorazine’s provocative and dramatic messages play on consumer’s psychology and emotion. Geigy, on the other hand, though not as provocative as Thorazine’s advertisements, are also effective in their use of abstraction and symbolism. More often, these optical forces are very well designed to fit a propaganda of pharmaceutical company. Before we realize it, it already assimilated into our own perception, and influence the view of ourselves and the

way we live in the world.

In the introduction essay in Language of Vision, Sigfried Giedion commented on the influence of images and advertisings on public taste: “Everyday something new” reveals helplessness combined

with lack of inner conviction, and always eager to flatter the worst instincts of the public. It means change for change’s sake, change for the sake of high-pressure salesmanship. It means demoralization... Public taste today is formed mainly by publicity and the article of daily use. By these it can be educated or corrupted...( Kepes 7).

The fast, changing pace of advertising and their graphic representations, as studied in Thorazine, Paul Rand and Geigy examples above contests Giedion’s idea of how images are manipulated to adhere to public taste, and in the worst case, corrupted and demoralized in order to sell.

Sleep—Andry Warhol (1963)

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep—Jonathan Crary

Another important figure that also looks into the importance of advertising is Marshall Mcluhan, the author of Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Though ambivalent in his attitude towards advertising, he is triggered by the power of it: “Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century.” He further wrote: Many people have expressed uneasiness about the advertis ing enterprise in our time. To put the matter abruptly, the advertising industry is a crude attempt to extend the principles of automation to every aspect of society. Ideally, advertising aims at the goal of a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors.

Using handicraft methods, it stretches out toward the ultimate electronic goal of a collective consciousness.

When all production and all consumption are brought into a pre-established harmony with all desire and all effort, then advertising will have liquidated itself by its own success. (Mcluhan 251)

From Post WWII to 24/7 Society The publication One Dimensional Man “argue[s] that advanced industrial society creates an uncritical consumerism that it uses to orchestrate social control as it integrates and binds the working class to endless cycles of production and consumption. (12) Rather than tending the multidimensionality of the human experience, it was eroded along with “the capacity for critical thought and opposition” (12) This is accredited to the economic boom that followed years of strife and sacrifice during the depression and the War. Now that it becomes an accredited superpower, the United States is under the impression of abundance. This elated state combined with the technological advancements industry, science, medicine, and economy was the ideal breading ground to develop this perception. (12) By the same vehicles that attributed to the creation of this condition, the postwar consumerist lifestyle loop remains closed as cures were being

sold to alleviate the daily anguish from an unfulfilling, “dimensionless” existence. The invention of the pill, especially the capsule, combined with the barrier of evocative advertisements, pharmaceutical representatives, and doctors allowed for the abstraction of the cure to this situation, and the very lifestyle itself.

The changing lifestyle post war, coupled with the new economy of consumption of images and information have introduced new roles, standards, and “problems” associated with the changing environment. Women are the main demographic in response to many of these new issues in 1950’s and 1960’s pharmaceutical advertisements. The growing lifestyle of the suburban landscape, the changes in role and liberation of women in jobs and household work has brought to new anxiety in women lifestyles. Reaching back to the 1960s and 70s, Valium - “Mother’s Little Helper,” was over-prescribed to help women cope with the pressures of motherhood.

Valium, Butisol, Mornidine, Meprospan/400 are just among many drug brands that target women population for sustained anxiety and tension of motherhood. On top of promises to treat psychological problems, pills also claim to treat social problems, which associated with changing lifestyles and adjustment problems. Serentil, among other drugs, claims to release the tension of adjustment associating with moving to a new neighborhood, getting along with new family members, or stress when going into retirement, etc. Essentially, there is a medicine for virtually every problem humans encounter in term of physical pain and psychological imbalances. Whether the effectiveness of the treatment in all of these categories is debatable, the medicine seems to have an effect in releasing tension seemingly because it serves as an escaping means for us hold on to to solve our problems.

Sleep, a fundamental human function, has also elevated from being a fundamental human function to a modern day problem, as people are increasingly having a hard time sleeping and not-sleeping. Thus,

...Sleep has become part of the equation of manipulation process in which taking a pill can help temporarily release tension and foster a good night sleep. However, while the pills can provide solutions to sleep problems, they don’t work without side effects...

sleep is controlled through the administration of pills. Between 50 million and 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorder or sleep deprivation, and 8.6 million turn to sleeping pills in a desperate search for a good night rest. It is reported to be most used among adults in their 40s and 50s, and more popular with women than with men. According to IMS Health, about 59 million sleeping pills were prescribed in the U.S. in 2012, up from about 56 million in 2008. Sleep has become part of the equation of manipulation process in which taking a pill can help temporarily release tension and foster a good night sleep. However, while the pills can provide solutions to sleep problems, they don’t work without side effects.

A study in 2012 by BMJ shows that people who take sleeping pills were nearly five times as likely to die over 2.5 years as those who didn’t. Ambien users, for example, report having allergic reactions, while some others have bizarre behaviors, such as Ambien-fueled sleep-eating, sleep-driving, even sleep sex.

At the other end of the spectrum is the idea of sleeplessness, or how to stay awake for a long time. This idea of superhuman, or the transcended capacity of human is fostered by the products of pharmaceutical company. As humans are vulnerable and are still buying into products that help stabilize their life, pharmaceutical companies, as part of capitalism, contribute to the control of human life. In his book “24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep”, Jonathan Crary explores the threat of the future “sleepless” society. In an examination of sleep as one barrier that capitalists, generals, and druggists have not yet overcome, Crary argues that sleep, a human’s fundamental function, has become a part of capitalism’s ongoing colonization of human consciousness. It is a part of the commodification process. One of the examples is how technological advances in the digital age is employed as a tool to provide the structure of the sleepless society. Take, for instance, the “smart phone” culture that transformed how human operate, interact, and entertain. The book, which depicts the 24/7-ization as a threat to humanity, evokes a dystopian view of a future in which advertising penetrates into even our dreams. Under the influence of capitalism, not only sleeping and dreaming become commodified, but everyday experiences are also a part of the commodification of a culture of fervent individualism, separation, routine, and homogenization. Not only targeting sleeplessness, but also promoting sleeplessness, pills have become part of the equation of the capitalism machine’s process of deriving humans of their own natural capacity and consciousness.

The solution the the postwar culture provided was one of medicating the reactions of this new way of living, rather than making changes. The most menial of discomforts became an excuse to administer a chemical solution.

This paradigm was concerned with the stabilty of the household and workplace by compensating with chemical helpers.

Postwar: Serentil Advert, Sandoz (Novartis) 1960’s

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LSD—Counterculture Movement

drug being LSD.

In contrast to the propaganda of homogenized landscape of postWWII, and the ongoing colonization of human consciousness by capitalism, the development of the counterculture produced its own media to advertise their agenda through arts and culture events.

With their opposition to postwar culture, and hunger for social reforms, groups such as ecologists, women’s rights activists, gay rights activists, black panthers, among many other groups established their own ideology and actions. Juxtaposed to the society that insists on continuing outdated and unhealthy behavior, the countercultural movement offered a culture of freedom, experimentation, and exotic eastern spirituality, a reformed ecological worldview, sexual liberation, and a rejection of violence and establishment. Parallel to the legal strata of pharmaceutical drugs, the counter culture also employed chemicals to push their agenda, with the most associated

How was LSD made, proliferated, and associated with certain counterculture movement? First, it is helpful to understand the origin of the substance. Sandoz (after merger with Ciba-Geigy is now Novartis) was responsible for the origin of the first instance lysergic acid diethylamide, lead by the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman. He was conducting studies on the medicinal properties of alkaloids in the rye ergot fungus, and in the process accidentally discovered LSD-25. It was later marketed under the name of Delysid, acquired over 2000 research papers on the substance, but was later banned by many governments around the world due to its recreational use.

(9) Sandoz responded by halting production in 1965, leaving the drug to be distributed on a very limited basis for research, mostly on topics of easing the suffering of the dying and uses for helping drug addicts and alcoholics. Despite the legal action taken, the drugs were highly available at festivals and rock concerts such as ones headlined

The Countercultural movement offered more than enthogenic drugs, but also a culture of freedom, experimentation, and exotic eastern spirituality, an ecological view on the world, sexual liberation, and a rejection of violence and establishment.

This movement offered solutions, and was the home of womens rights activists, gay rights activits, black panthers, amoung many other groups.

Counterculture: Pow-Wow, A Gathering of the Tribes, Golden Gate State Park, 1/14/67

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by the Grateful Dead. These events were synonymous with forums for entheogenic drug users, and once the band dissolved, the critical connection that they provided broke the supply chain(8). The availability of LSD began to severely plummet.

Due the government’s involvement on the legality of LSD, the new legislation inspired change in its form. A caveat in the legal status of the drug considered the total weight of an LSD infused item to be equal to the total amount of illegal substance. For example, the once popular sugar cube infusion became too risky for distribution as one cube could equal up to 100,000 doses of acid in its solid form. (20) This naturally led to experimentation with other forms of lightweight carriers, and manufacturers arrived at the invention of “blotter sheets.” They are typically large square sheets impressed with gridded perforations, which gave opportunity for dealers to print their brand on it, typically in the form of surrealistic, psychedelic art, or a more simple approach of applying a bizarre stamp.

Juxtaposed to the society that insists on continuing outdated and unhealthy behavior, the countercultural movement offered a culture of freedom, experimentation, and exotic eastern spirituality, a reformed ecological worldview, sexual liberation, and a rejection of violence and establishment.

This established a fascinating concept for the drug: not only did the sheet provide uniforms doses similar to that of a traditional pill, but the user literally ingested the advertisement of the drug. It was a logistical victory in the LSD supply chain; dealers were protected which prevented the collapse of distribution, personalization of the blotter art started to build recognizable brands which built loyalty, and these images were congruent with the countercultural themes.

The change in the technology of the means of distribution was an agent in the cultural and logistic success of the drug, and its demand is one manifestation indicative for the desire to transgress established social boundaries of the time.

As the movement gained momentum, the disciplines of art and design were tasked with the question of how to evaluate the extremely experimental period. The United States was split with the East coast focusing on the “art object, artistic medium, and disciplines, and the West which was interested in subjects that challenged boundaries

often “commingling art, craft, design, and performance with filmic and architectural practices; extending the notion of medium into a riotous range of media assaulting the senses; and tending to privilege individual experience as the basis of social transformation, while creating a personal yet political commitment that went largely ignored by the New Left political scene.” (12) These ideas found validity in the minds of young architects who were critical of their professors and the traditional school of thought. The results produced were extremely rich paper projects, mostly unbuildable, but throwing critique at society’s low standards of expectations of architecture, and the “servile state of the profession.” (12) These multimedia compositions in the form of collages and psychedelic schemes rejected established pedagogy. The other camp includes individuals working with experimental structures outside of orthodox architecture such as Buckminster Fuller. The decentralizing tendencies of the work from both of these groups transgress disciplinary boundaries, and promise to address the avant-garde utopian agenda that late modernism failed to achieve.

Archigram—Suitaloon (1967)

One architectural result of the critical thinking of this time were pneumatic structures, challenging issues of economy of construction and climatic response of envelopes. (10) The release of Architectural Design issue titled “Pneu World” in 1968 opened a conversation for architectural application of the technology through examinations “spanning from the aeronautics industry, and marine technologies, to inflatable furniture… just as bubbles appeared unmoored and weightless in the construction, [pneumatic structures] functioned as agile and noncommittal forms of architectural expression given their low cost, portability, and functionality” (Hippie Modernism).

Art and paper projects expressed ideas and criticisms, however, the decoupling of architecture from traditional materiality, professional practice, and cost made pneumatics an effective physical vehicle to experiment beyond established boundaries in architecture.

feilds, a film that takes place in St. Katherines Docks, which was turned into a testing ground for various pneumatic explorations.

Some of these structures allow one to walk on water, defy ideas relation of scale between humans and operable objects, as well as challenge the notion of built environment through the use of transparency. Another project called Suitaloon by Archigram goes further than material and physical exploration by questioning the intersection between wearable technology and architecture as one idea. On a larger scale, although not quite pneumatic, Buckminster Fuller’s paper project, dome for Manhattan promised to address utopian issues by creating a weather controlled, pollution minimized space for people to live. The countercultural movement had set the stage by propagating questions of social and ecological issues, thus requiring free, interdisciplinary thought that made its way into architecture.

Pneumatics took an active role in being the technology to test new ideas. Some interesting projects include Graham Steven’s Atmos-

In the post-war desire for a utopian way of life, pharmaceuticals were partial change agents as they promised relief and freedom. The

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notion that something can be changed in an instant is a consumerist idea, by which the treatment of medication is the epitome. For any problem, at any place, psychic tension could be released. Although they do not cure the causation for the source of discomfort, they can provide lenses to view the world from. In the case of the drug Thorazine, it can allow one to find comfort in their current surroundings, or on the other hand, LSD arguably allows the perception of something otherworldly. Medication, particularly of the psychoactive kind, assists society in the way it makes decisions, and all associated advertisements are supplementary materials that can engage budding concerns and emotions. The focus here is not to make the use of any of the medication right or wrong, but rather illustrate how ingesting a substance in the form of an ambiguous quality of a pill, blotter, or micro-technology has become an attested way of solving issues and guiding decision makings, which spreads through all areas of social issues, and even the built environment. Pills are part of this equation of fast changing environments, from the 1950’s homogenized

landscape to this 24/7 society, without the consideration of consequences. What is discovered through this project is a larger network of interrelated circumstances, players, and issues that are involved in societal decision makings, and how their actions manifested on the built environment.

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