Coffee cups: expressing modern identity (Expression and signification)

Ok guys, given the many problems I encountered to post, I'm late. (I eventually post from my neighbour's access). If you can read it and give me a feedback at the beginning of the class ?

Basically one can say that the coffee cup is used for… drinking coffee. You pour hot coffee inside, you may add sugar, milk etc… The cup is warm; it warms your hand during the winter. In a word, everyone knows how to use a coffee cup. As we have seen in looking at the medium, coffee cups are multiple: you have an impressive variety of materials from wood to stainless steel and numerous shapes. That is in fact the most remarkable feature of this object, because each cup tells us a specific story and describes a different moment. Very short ristretto after a great dinner, dark and long, quickly swallowed in walking to your office or your school, with milk and a lot of sugar before going to sleep… Each of these coffees has its cup, from the huge Starbuck paper cup to the silverware used twice a year, you can guess one’s state of mind from the coffee ritual at stake. The so called “pop culture philosopher” Chuck Klosterman said that as coffee is a drug, and modern people are addicts, the best way to understand them in their daily life is looking at the way they get high.

(More precise description of the different uses ?)

Then, given this omnipresence of the coffee cup it is used to design some advertisements. I already mentioned Starbucks, that you identify directly to these paper cups. But another famous example is the Anthora. http://www.eatmedia.com.au/

Decorated paper cup from the sixties for NYC coffee to go, the Anthora cup is the symbol of these urban people who drink coffee in the streets in the morning. Just as starbuck, it is part of the US urban culture (and settles progressively in Europe => Warsaw)

+ movies (classy or creepy cups) the coffee shared with the stranger in your bed, etc… The coffee cup is a precious element of context.

+ Coffee = linked to work and/or creativity (the empty coffee cup on a table late in the night for workaholic, students, artists)

+ A question of identity ? Souvenir cups, and famous icons (cf Rolling Stones cups) and a way of expression (Cheeming Boey + image from Nick Taylor)