BigShinyThing

Street art site Wooster — a fine picking ground for BST in the past — has launched its own street photography library online.

Of course, it’s tagged and uses Flickr. Rather usefully, you can use Flickr to download images in whatever size you like — usage doesn’t have to be attributed but it’s always polite to.

Wooster says:

We’re extremely excited to announce today our latest Wooster Collective project – STREETSY, a “daily street art photography site” developed by our friend Jake Dobkin.

For years, Jake has been taking photographs of street art in Lower Manhattan and around the world. With the launch today, over 2500 photos have been uploaded and tagged. New photographs will be added to the site each day and every day.

Looking for a photograph for your site, article, or research project? All of the photos on Streetsy are being released to the public domain, and can be used in all commercial and non-commercial projects without charge.

The above photo is from the ‘cat’ tag and was taken in New York by Jake Dobkin.

Although the PSP is designed primarly to play games, it can also store digital photos, play MP3 files and play video. There are a number of portable video devices on the market already – pocket computers, mobile phones and media players. But none have had the crucial support of the film studios who are already producing films in formats suitable for the PSP. The PSP also has the added attraction of a widescreen format and a bright screen that makes it possible to watch outdoors.

It helps that Sony has its own film studio but Fox, Universal, Paramount and Buena Vista have also pledged to produce films for the device. Of the majors, only Warner and Dreamworks (rather critically) have yet to embrace the format.

Films for the PSP come on a new disc format, the Universal Media Disc (UMD). The disc can hold three times as much data as a CD – enough for a ‘DVD-quality’ movie. According to the BBC, more than three million UMD movie discs have already been sold in the US, with two films – Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse and House Of Flying Daggers – selling 100,000 copies each in the first month since launch.

But despite being a hit in the US, UMD is not faring so well in the classic early-adopter market of Japan. A recent survey of Japanese PSP users found that only 10% had used it to watch a UMD movie. This may be due to the explosion of file sharing culture where high broadband penetration and file sharing software such as BitTorrent is enabling users to download films and TV programmes off the Internet illegally. Moreover, most of this content can be easily converted to watch on the PSP with some pirates already providing ‘PSP friendly’ versions of films and shows. Ironic that a company such as Sony may be giving consumers the very tools that they need to undermine their business.

On a similiar theme: David Batchelor’s Found Monochromes of London, a mesmerising slideshow featuring hundreds of blank rectangles. Until 24 October 2005, Londoners can catch more of Batchelor’s work on the platform at Gloucester Road tube station, as part of the Platform for Art initiative.

In a similar vein: Delete!, which a BST reader kindly reminded me about [via Wooster]. Artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf were allowed to cover all the advertising signage, logos and company names on Neubaugasse, a Viennese shopping street, in a monochrome yellow fabric.

Photos of both Monochromes and Delete! are below.

Both Gawker and ad-rag have already picked up on this but we thought we’d cover it because it’s genuinely Out There. You can imagine the brainstorm: ” so, Mr Cumming what can we stick your name to to leverage your celebrity brand. Cumming, cumming, cumming … hmmm … I’m cumming … Eureka!”. Nice. And he means it – having deployed the radical perfumer, Christopher Brosius, to develop the scent.

It’s either the most audacious/downright silly celebrity perfume launch ever or a brazen postmodern deconstruction of the fragrance industry. An anti-perfume, if you like. If it’s the latter then Comme des Garcons got there first but full marks for trying. Check it out for yourself on the ‘Cumming the Fragrance’ site.

Pete Doherty is bloody everywhere at the moment. Similarly, actress Juliette Lewis can be seen on magazine covers and in clothes ads flogging her band Juliette and the Licks.

Juliette and the Licks have had pretty respectable reviews for a band fronted by a Hollywood star. Let’s face it – Keanu Reeves’ Dogstar wasn’t treated this nicely. And then you notice that Lewis is currently also fronting a campaign for Swedish designer J Lindberg who is obviously in need of a bit of rock mystique. He has also taken on the services of Doherty’s old mucker, ex-Libertine Carl Barat to front his clothes campaign – oddly, Barat has a new album of solo material coming out.

In last week’s Evening Standard magazine, Lewis raved, “I am really into Swedish designer J Lindberg, who is known in LA as the rock’n'roll designer and who has a store in Covent Garden. I got a pair of black jeans from him recently and a grey sweater.”

How kind of her to mention in a London-based publication where his shop is. And oddly neglect to mention that she fronts his campaign and is therefore paid to wear his clothes. Pictured is Lewis on the cover of another Evening Standard publication, the listing mag Metro, wearing – yes – J Lindberg.

Could it be that Juliette Lewis and the Licks are an actress’s hobby rolled into a clever marketing ploy?

Meanwhile, Pete Doherty spent most of last year selling stories about his drug habit, Kate Moss and various other misdeamenors to the tabloid press and building up a nice bit of rock’n'roll notoriety in the process. Marketing for his previous band, The Libertines, rarely shied from exploiting the ‘glamorous’ side of his drug problems – witness the cover shot of their last album, The Libertines. It also hasn’t hurt his current band Babyshambles, whose new single has entered the charts at no. 4. Just as the song Fuck Forever entered the top 10 in the UK, the band turned up late for a gig in Norway because Doherty and a friend had been detained at Oslo airport for carrying 1.7g of cocaine and 1.5g of heroin. Just enough to get arrested and enjoy the ensuing worldwide press coverage, charged £700 each and released.

Now, as even Iggy Pop can tell you, rock’n'roll sells. All of a sudden, Doherty is muse for Hedi Slimane, creative director of Dior Homme – the designer has even published a book of his photographs of the singer. A canny move, given that Doherty’s cover image is selling issues of everything from the News of the World to Arena Homme. Now, he’s launched his own website, Balachadha.com, to tell (and sell) his side of the story to his fans. And gotten round to issuing a press release about it.

Funnily enough, the site is subscription-based – how else to squeeze more money out of journalists and teenagers for access to his louche lifestyle? Of course, the website can also provide access to ‘censored’ coverage that TV and tabloid can’t reach – how else can Doherty make a killing from carving up his arm? The site promises to show such footage that was expunged from a documentary about the singer – all of which has garnered even more press. A quote from the director of said BBC 3 documentaryabout the singer shows just how calculated the whole enterprise has become:

When I first met Pete I felt he had multimedia potential and he would break the mould, dismantling the barriers between the band and the audience. The potential for him to work in different media is immense but it is also necessary for him to keep control. This site is making a statement. It’s way for Peter to be in control of all the different aspects of his work.

There are, of course, plans to develop the site so that clips of Doherty’s performances can be downloaded to 3G mobile phones. Maybe they should consider selling a ringtone version of Fuck Forever. After all, in its own way, the canonisation and selling of Pete Doherty has been as calculated and cold as Jamster’s Crazy Frog.

Human Beans is a collaboration between advertising creative and designer Mickael Charbonnel and design strategist Chris Vanstone. I came across their work at the HearWear exhibition at the V&A, which is concerned with new and exciting ways to enhance human hearing. The show also includes future devices from designers such as Ross Lovegrove, Priestman Goode, Industrial Facility and IDEO. One of the most compelling products was the Human Beans’ Goldfish, a device which augments our existing hearing ability with short term audio memory. In brief, if you don’t hear something right – it repeats it for you on request.

They have myriad imagined products to view on their website. The Hearwear exhibition is on at the V&A until 5th
March 2006. Goldfish box featured by kind permission of Human Beans.

So says Evan Shapiro, executive vice president of niche cable channel Independent Film Channel.

Lots has been written over the past few years about the re-emergence of Advertiser Funded Content as a force to be reckoned with the media convergent world. But few people have been doing it either well or effectively. Advertiser involvement in programme content is nothing new. The first soap operas were so-called because of the heavy advertising sponsorship from household product companies like P&G that funded their development.

But Advertising Age reports this week that a couple of niche cable networks are making lots of money out of effective advertiser funded content. In the past two years Independent Film Channel has doubled its advertising take to $10 million by fogging the line between ads and short, subtly branded films for Target, Heineken and Acura. IFC has drawn on its connections in the independent film industry to integrate brands into these short films – it doesn’t accept 30 second commercials but instead integrates sponsors into movie promos based on the supposition that trailers are the ads consumers are most interested in seeing.

Shapiro also points out that his network’s audience boasts the second highest rate of DVR ownership – he needs to TiVo-proof his commercial messages: the network doesn’t edit for content. Its tagline ‘uncut’ means not only does it not interrupt movies with ads but also that it doesn’t censor – some advertisers are falling over themselves to work with the channel.

As a result of such ventures, IFC has become perhaps the most ad-supported, non-commercial network on TV. One client is Rockstar Games, the developer of Grand Theft Auto, which sponsors promos that promote upcoming IFC films with video-game animation woven into the movie clips. Marketers are also free to repurpose the spots for other off-channel use and IFC handles all the creative production.

And the big boys are getting involved as well. Heineken was introduced to IFC via indie director Jon Favreau, who used the beer marketer in a scene in his 2001 movie Made. Heineken had been targeting independent film fans at the Sundance and Telluride film festivals and, according to Pattie Falch, promotions and sponsorships manager for the beer marketer, in the world of indie film, IFC and Heineken boast the same brand image. Heineken, in fact, now airs its 60 second IFC spots at film festivals.

This all follows a very – as BST has said before- a Give the People What They Want model. Advertisers can get on side with consumers and even get crucial credibility with key audiences by facilitating the kind of entertainment people want. In the 1950s it was soap operas, and now its independent and (hopefully) edgy film making. Advertisers need to get wise to this before their 30 seconds are up.

In a phenomena mirroring the sudden take up of Hotmail in the nineties and the weirdness that was Friendster, myspace is suddenly seems to be playing host to some of the hottest new musical talent around. Oh, and legendary acts including Sparks and Kraftwerk. And Bjork.

Both established musicians and up-and-coming talent can use the service to host their personalised websites (no more annoying webhosting fees or fiddly design) and share tracks with each other. They can also use it to keep in touch and grow their artist networks as well as showcase new track, blog and hook up with other artists (and fans) online. All this for nada — perfect for struggling musicians. It’s already getting to stage where if you want to be in the electro music scene you have to have a profile on myspace.com.

Myspace adminstrators have clearly hooked up to this trend — the main site now boasts ‘myspace music’ which showcases bands that have signed up to the site. They should probably check if the last band that played down The Cock has tipped up yet.

You can currently download legendary chanteuse Billie Ray Martin’s latest tracks from her profile.

This summer, all 90,000 volumes were transferred to other collections within the campus’s vast system in a radical rethink of what constitutes a modern place of reading. Last week a new public high school in Vail, Arizona became one of the first to opt out of supplying actual textbooks altogether in the hope that students will be more engaged by digital learning. All students have been assigned laptops instead and will read and submit most homework online.

The library says of the change, “While most people have been hugely supportive of this idea, some have been grieving over this iconic loss of the book as the means of scholarly communication.” To ease the transition, the administrators have removed the word ‘library’ from their vocabulary when referring to the Flawn Academic Center. When classes resume on 31st August, the space will be filled with comfy chairs for lounging, barstools for people watching and booths for group work. In addition to almost 250 desktop computers, there will be 75 laptops available for checkout, wireless Internet access, computer labs, software suites, a multimedia studio, a computer help desk, a repair shop and a cafe. In short, it will be a PC Paradise and not a library (literally ‘a place for books’) anymore.

The university argues that the change is simply one of practicality. “Libraries are about information and books were simply a way that information was packaged. But more information is being packaged online and we have a duty to provide access to [it],” says Judy Ashcroft, director of the Instructional Innovation and Assessment division at UT. Certainly a clinical attitude from someone with a clinical job title. The full story was reported in Christian Science Monitor this week.

This virtual book-burning isn’t just occurring in the States. Earlier this month, in the East End of London closed its doors for the last time. The library had been open since 1892 serving its multifareous community and many historic playwrights, scientists, and artists used it. The libary facade even holds a blue plaque fo Isaac Rosenberg, as the only surviving building associated with the artist and painter. The playwright Bernard Kops was brought to the building as a child and immortalised it in a play with a poem beginning:

“How often I went for warmth and a doze
The newspaper room whilst the world outside froze
And I took out my sardine sandwich feast
Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East”

The library will be replaced by an ‘Idea Store’ which will stock CDs and DVDs as well as books. One libary user told The Guardian of the change, “They’re throwing away a rich and important history, without even realising what they’re doing. It’s symptomatic of an unreflective, uncritical, consumerist culture. I find it really depressing.”

After all, how easy is it to re-read, reflect and relax with a website? Apart from this one, of course.

In April of this year, arts collective Heavy Trash deposited three bright orange viewing platforms in front of three Los Angeles gated communities: Brentwood Circle, Park La Brea and Laughlin Park. The platforms are intended to draw attention to the growing phenomenon of gated communities where the Haves can lock themselves away from the Have-Nots in our society. According to Setha Low, a professor at the City University of New York, there are now more than 1 million homes behind such walls in the greater Los Angeles area alone.

Heavy Trash intend the platforms to call attention to the walls of gated communities and provide visual access to parts of the city that have been cut off from public use. They also profer a replacement solution for the fear and loathing in society. According to their blog, Heavy Trash advocates:

Unrestricted pedestrian access. Since it is difficult to commit a property crime in Los Angeles without a car, unrestricted pedestrian access could be provided to all gated communities. This would return the parks, streets and sidewalks that have been removed from the public realm back to the residents of Los Angeles.

Investment in public infrastructure. Encourage investment in public infrastructure — like parks, streets, sidewalks and schools — by restoring local control over property tax revenues, essentially fixing the unintended consequences of Proposition 13.

“More eyes on the street.” Amend zoning code to encourage more mixed-use residential neighborhoods with 24-hour activity. Legalize second units (“Granny Flats”) in single-family homes. Both of these actions would put more people outside during the normal course of a day, and nothing works quite as well to make neighborhoods safer, friendlier and livelier.

Gated communities and other examples of the rich barracading themselves off from society are hardly a new phenomenon. As Mike Davis wrote in the seminal City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles back in 1990,

The dire predictions of Richard Nixon’s 1969 National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence have been tragically fulfilled: we live in ‘fortress cities’, brutally divided between ‘fortified cells’ of affluent society and ‘places of terror’ where the police battle the criminalized poor … The old liberal paradigm of social control, attempting to balance repression with reform, has long been superseded by a rhetoric of social warfare that calculates the interests of the urban poor and the middle classes as zero-sum game. In cities like Los Angeles, on the bad edge of postmodernity, one observes an unprecedented tendency to merge urban design, architecture and the police apparatus into a single, comprehensive security effort.

For me, Davis’s dystopian vision of a city that repels its poor is typified in the ‘bum proof bench’ – a bench that it is impossible to sleep on without rolling off.

In a truly sweet campaign, the history teacher from Mill Hill County School in North London plans to travel on the tube from seven in the morning to seven at night throughout the month of August. He explains that the inspiration for his campaign came from an article in The Guardian about a woman finding it difficult to get back on the tube after the bombings:

On one occasion she completely broke down in the middle of a busy carriage and only one person went to comfort her. I thought it would be beneficial to do something that would make us notice and care about our fellow passengers a little more, the idea being that we make each other feel a little safer … My main aim though is for people to acknowledge fellow passengers, remain alert to unusual packages and incidents and generally take on a sense of ownership for the underground, which many of us depend upon each day. By doing so I feel that we can increase safety on public transport to a degree.

Dominic carries a counter with him to record how many people have waved back – so far 11,000 have done so. He is giving out a handwritten card to every hundredth person with a message thanking them for saying hello and wishing them a good day.

The only publicity he has done so far is with the Teacher Support site and is keen to stress that he is not interested in raising his personal profile. His campaign is testament though – in its small way – to the power of one.

This Wednesday it was reported that Google would be launching an internet telephony and messaging service. Last week’s announcement that Google was flogging off more shares sparked speculation that it was planning more acquisitions such as VoIP market leader Skype. This launch suggests that Google is confident enough in the strength of its brand to go it alone. It will also make its service an open platform for voice calls and instant messaging – this would challenge the ‘closed’ instant messaging networks run by Yahoo!, AOL and MSN.

Google took its first step into the communications business last year with the launch of Gmail – the invitation-only email that has already trounced hotmail as the address to have. Google Talk, a free service that lets two computer users talk or exchange messages, will be available only to people who already use Gmail. Google has now opened up Gmail to anyone in the US provided they give a mobile telephone number as a confirmation of their identity – this will eventually be available to people in other countries.

Google also launched on Monday an upgrade to its Desktop – the free software that allows users to launch programs on their computers. The move is yet another encroachment on Microsoft’s domination of PC desktops as the upgrade mirrors many Windows features.

Joslin constructs the sculptures out of

antique ceremonial collars, antlers, bone, brass, velvet, antique hardware, glass eyes, universal joints, springs, brass standoffs, casters, sculpted/painted leather, mink collar, saxophone keys, antique shoehorn, beads, lamp fittings, glove leather, music wire, cast pewter feet… I find things anywhere that I find myself… in obscure junk shops, flea markets, attics, taxidermy supply houses, speciality hardware distributor … or walking through the woods.

The creatures range in height from 1 inch to nearly 6 feet tall.

Taxidermy and the use of deceased animals in art seem to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance – one that has very little to do with either Damien Hirst or moth-eaten ancestral homes (thank god). Rei Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market features the work of taxidermist Emma Hawkins whilst BST has previously written about the art of Nathalie Edenmont and Pinar Yolacan. Perhaps it is a reaction both to the interiors minimalism of the 90s and a celebration of skill and intricacy in art. Maybe we’ve just got our curiosity back.

There are more of Joslin’s recent sculptures on her homepage. The ‘Lula’ sculpture pictured is reproduced here by kind permission of the artist.

Thompson committed suicide in February of this year.

Photo courtesy of BBC Online.

We’ll let him explain: Qingsong says,

My work “Competition” focuses on the power of ads and the misconceptions that ads can create. For this photo work, I constructed a chaotic backdrop where over 20 people are depicted in a frenzy of competition with some even fist fighting while jostling for ad positioning on a huge billboard advertisement; this struggle for the most optimal outdoor ad placement is perceived as inevitably bringing power and influence.

The struggle for ad placement in public space in China is not unlike a battlefield strewn with casualties after a pitched battle for power. Today one brand wins. The next day, its competitor will replace it with better positioning on public spaces. Every day, new ads go up, and old ones fall down, scattered in pieces, and discarded on the ground under newly erected billboard advertisements.

In this work, I’ve constructed a huge wall, that stands about 14 meters high and 40 meters across, and I fixed over 600 pieces of paper (110x90cm each) on which I wrote in traditional Chinese ink brush style in some instances and in felt tip pen and magic marker in others, a random selection of slogans and phrases from the advertisements that bombard us here every day. These ads include both domestic and international information about companies and famous brands, such as the lease of houses, education programs, restaurants, foot massage, etc. Everything is advertised, from items as big as airplanes (BOEING) or as small as vinegar and condoms.

On my gigantic wall, I make the fight for advertising as fierce as a struggle for military power, with inevitable casualties on the battlefield. I have also included some of the famous brands that proliferate in China, such as Shell, McDonald’s, Durex, Starbuck’s, along with a few of the anecdotes behind them and the misunderstandings that arise in translating these for a foreign audience. Altogether, I’ve used around 3000 varieties of products and services on my wall to show off the allure of this mass advertising campaign that surrounds us.

Finally, without even being able to understand English, the inundation of advertising these famous brands in China give people the impression that they can easily follow what the words say, despite their lack of English skills! In terms of visual form and content, this outdoor advertising onslaught is not unlike the big character posters (“Da zi bao“) posted by competing factions and littering city streets in China during the Cultural Revolution.

In the past the streets were hung with posters in fights over political beliefs. Now the struggle is over financial power and business gain. Ads for items are like psoriasis found everywhere on our city streets.

Link courtesy of Artkrush.

Pictured – Competition, 170 x 300 — 85x150cm, Photograph, Wang Qingsong, 2004.

There has recently been an advert for Flora Pro Active in which Lulu gets some cholesterol test results. It looks like part of a longer campaign but advertisers cannot guarantee that people will see the rest of the work so it should be judged in isolation.

Lulu is at home. She tells us that her three weeks of eating Flora Pro Active are up and she is waiting for the results of her cholesterol test. The call comes, Lulu listens and her eyes grow huge. “Whoa,” she says, “4.7.” Her brow furrows as she does a quick mental calculation, “that means 15% reduction in bad cholesterol.” We see a shot inside Lulu’s fridge. She tells us that; “if you put your mind to it you can do it.” And we fade out.

This spot falls foul of a number of common advertising errors: it plays fast and loose with statistics, it features the singer, Lulu, it credits her with expertise she does not have and it has her saying, “Whoa,” in an annoying faux American/Scottish voice.

Let us consider a few of these errors in more detail.

First, a simple mistake in logic: Lulu may be able to sing the song — Shout — very loudly, but that gives us no reason to believe that she is an expert on the body’s capacity for fat absorption.

This confusion is common in modern life. Jamie Whyte covers the issue very well in his book, Bad Thoughts: A Guide to Clear Thinking. People with expertise in one area are automatically assumed to have expertise in another. Men in pubs will often tell you that we only use 10% of our brain capacity, and that, “Einstein said that.” Einstein saying it, is given as proof of the statements veracity. Whether he did in fact say it is not important. What is important is that Einstein was a physicist not a neurologist. Whatever he may or may not have said about brain function has no greater value than the pronouncements of your mum. Unless, of course, your mum is a neurologist. But I don’t think she is.

The fact that anyone might accept Lulu as an authority on body fat may be linked to a wider retreat from rationalism. People have become very sneery of scientists and doctors and pieces of medical evidence that has passed a stringent double blind test. At the same time they have become absolutely dim for homeopathy, reiki massage, spirit guides, star signs, magic invisible creatures and all sorts of medieval snake oil. Lulu is light entertainer; she is not someone you should instinctively turn to for medical advice.

Lulu gives us a series of figures, out of context, and we are expected to accept the conclusions she draws from them. She tells us that her cholesterol result is 4.7. Is this a good cholesterol result for an ageing singer or is it a bit steep? Lulu’s grinning face suggests that 4.7 is a good figure but we should be wary of taking her face as evidence. Lulu strikes me as a woman who grins quite easily; whether or not it is appropriate. She might grin and chuckle all day and still drop dead of a giant heart attack – the shape of her mouth and the amount of deadly fat in her arteries are entirely unrelated.

When Lulu frowns and calculates that 4.7 means she has experienced a 15% reduction in bad cholesterol something rings extremely false. How does she get from 4.7 to 15%? It seems like a very fast and complicated piece of mental arithmetic. I was unaware that Lulu had such a keen mathematical brain. And what is 4.7 a measurement of anyway – joules, kilograms, florins? Many things are being assumed that ought to be proven. What else has Lulu eaten in the three weeks? Who ran her cholesterol test – was it Phil Collins? And what is bad cholesterol and how much of its reduction can be definitely linked to Flora Active?

Beyond the statistical gape Flora Active make a grave mistake in their choice of front woman.

Many people don’t like Lulu and will feel no warmth for a company that has helped her reduce her cholesterol and therefore stay alive even longer. She is always singing and making a noise and being on TV. Casting is very important in advertising. If Sean Connery tells me to eat more cancerous factory pies I will probably go for it. Sean Connery is cool. If Sean Bean tells me to do it he can get stuffed. A lot of great actors will not do commercial work, but as a general rule of advertising, Lulu should not be cast in anything – except perhaps a massive hole in the ground with an anvil tied to her face.

The setting of the advert does not help things either. It is filmed in a house that seems to have been cleared out by the bailiffs. Did Lulu have to do this selling job to pay for some new furniture? I feel sorry for her if she did but I think the advertisers make a mistake by letting us see the empty shell in which she lives. I think it undermines her credibility.

Lulu still has a fridge but there is nothing in it except Flora products and she has stuck a Flora magnet on the fridge door. Obviously she is mad and is obsessed by Flora and that’s why they thought she would be a good person to represent their brand. But this is another mistake. Very few people aspire to being mad and having no food in their fridge except margarine and yoghurt. Flora has targeted their campaign too narrowly.

This advert is weird and wrong on a number of levels but most particularly in making the product synonymous with the perpetuation of Lulu. This raises an important philosophical question. Is it better to live a long and healthy life, full of yoghurt, milk, margarine products and Lulu, or is it better to live a short, fast, Lulu-free existence, smoking cigarettes, drinking pints of gin – vodka top – sherry chaser – and dropping dead early due to too much very bad cholesterol?

Something for us all to ponder.

Jonathan Thake is a copywriter at HHCL/Red Cell.

Trace Magazine features the Absolut Metropolis shoot which took place in Japan a few months ago. The vodka brand invited a bunch of club kids to incorporate the bottle shape into their various outfits and this was the result. The magazine’s rather lumbering explanation reads , “This Absolut Metropolis idea was born – and brainstormed – out of Absolut’s decision to add a new twist to their communication within fashion by infiltrating the busy streets and teaming up with original, creative thinkers in the Big City [Tokyo]. Over a seven month period, we travelled to Toyko numerous times in search of those urban creators who best supported our claim that rapid change could be brought by a few single-minded individuals who unleash their passions through self-creation. With this global initiative, which is being launched within these pages with future extensions into magazine ads, a special website and events, we gave these creators an international platform where their ideas, as channeled through homemade fashion designs, could be shared with a captive audience. ”

Looks like dodgy clubwear label Cyber Dog is still big in Japan.

More balls of fluff on the site. For more zeitgeisty fun with Google Image Search, try a search on the word ‘me‘.

The International Olympic Committe (IOC) is fiercely defensive of its intellectual property (IP) rights. Woe betide anyone at Athens 2004 who was caught on their way to the stands wearing non-sponsor-branded clothing or drinking the wrong soft drinks.

With the help of the UK government’s Olympics Bill, drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to establish the legal framework for London to stage the Games, the IOC is tightening the screws even further ahead of London 2012. The BBC reports that, in the interest of protecting the Olympic brand from other brand-owners ‘cashing in’ on the event, the new bill will make it illegal to combine words like games, medals, gold, 2012, sponsor or summer in any form of advertising. The IPA is not amused, and argues that fines of up to £20,000 for breaches of the Bill will rule out any sort of 2012 ‘halo effect’ for businesses in the UK. According to IPA legal director Marina Palomba, as quoted in the BBC report:

Blatant ambush marketing has to be prevented but there are already laws in existence to prevent that.

This is new legislation which gives the event holder unparallelled power. Why should the IOC have the monopoly on the terms London, 2012, summer, gold, silver and bronze?

London businesses in particular will be paying for these Games but they are being deprived of benefiting from them because they will basically have to pretend they are not happening.

At this point, the Government has come down firmly on the side of the IOC. Will the IPA manage a last lap sprint and get restrictions softened? Keep track of the Bill via our favourite source of Parliamentary intelligence, TheyWorkForYou.com.

It was created by created by Akio Kamisato, Takehisa Mashimo and Satoshi Shibata of IAMAS (Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences). They say, “We tried to create an marginal space of the theme related to existence. In this installation, visitor can detect the images of butterfly inside the vapor steam. And if visitor touch them, they start to swarm around your hands and fly biside the visitor interactively. But it is impossible to touch them phisically. The visitor will experience the mystic phenomena between real and unreal in this space.”

More images are available on the Ars Electronica site. The installation is currently at the V&A as part of the Touch Me exhibition until 29th August 2005.