Although it’s sold out at my favourite magazine spot, I’m pretty sure you can still pick up Adbusters #78 at select stores throughout whatever city you may be living in. If not, there is of course, always, les internets. I wrote a couple articles for the issue as well as an untitled piece of speculative short fiction. The story explores our intensifying relationship with the ‘net and the increasingly bizarre forms of social interaction that taking place all over the web.
I was quite struck by DDB Berlin’s award-winning campaign for Funk Sunglasses “No one needs to know what you did last night” . The eyeball-narrative illustrations, which contain references to ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine, succinctly communicate the two following ideas:
Japan and Iran both have excellent snacking cultures that exist on opposite sides of the snack spectrum. As the Japanese are naturally inclined towards mass production and hi-tech innovation, their snacks come in a variety of easily consumed forms that range from complex potato chip flavours (fried mayonnaise, raw egg, etc) to biscuity micro-snacks like Pocky and Pretz. The Persians on the other hand favour healthier and more natural snack forms like sangak w/ tahini humous, peeled walnuts and unripe plums.
This evening, doing my best to avoid the horrific amount of work I have on my plate at the moment, I walked across the street from my apartment and went into a store that specializes in digital entertainment products (stuff for your TV) with the intent being to buy a TV series from the early ’90s. After browsing the aisles for a few minutes I came across something I liked - The Tick: Season One. If you haven’t seen The Tick, then you’re probably too old (or young) to relate to this blog post and should probably stop reading right now.
Americans eat an average of 3 cheeseburgers per week, amounting to 150 cheeseburgers per annum for all 300 million citizens of the United States, totaling 45 billion cheeseburgers per year as a nation. The production of these cheeseburgers produces 200 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Depending on how the cheeseburger is cooked and transported, a single burger will produce between 766 to 3000 grams of C02, not including the methane produced by the cows from which the tasty cheeseburgers come from.
According to these numbers, cheeseburger consumption produces more C02 than SUV operation, so if you enjoy hitting the drive-thru in your BMW X5, you’re really doing your bit to tropicalize the arctic.
In the wonderfully literate world of Terminator mythology, SKYNET is humanity’s primary antagonist - an artificial intelligence system that becomes self-aware and turns on its creator, destroying the majority of human life and developing a highly evolved military machine.
The RZA has let loose a couple joints off the upcoming Bobby Digital “Digi-Snax” album. While the production and lyricism on the new tracks are undeniably hype, I’m unconvinced that the RZA’s alter-ego is still relevant in 2008. Bobby Digital made his debut a decade ago, when people were listening to the likes of Puff Daddy and Will Smith - the dark ages of modern hip-hop - when any attempt to freshen the aesthetics of the genre was more than welcome.
Quite possibly the most prolific designer in modern Japanese history, Kashiwa Sato is a one-man monolith of visual communications who has created ground-breaking work in all areas of the discipline. An accomplished name in environmental design, graphic and product design, art direction and video, Sato is one of those rare individuals whose work is instantly identifiable by style alone.
What distinguishes Sato from the average designer is that he is able to exact artistic control over all aspects of a product’s environmental presence, allowing for a unified visual narrative that is completely engaged with the reality of the product. While Sato’s ability to create a seamless flow between product design, advertising campaigns and cultural appeal is nothing short of genius, what I find truly interesting about his work is that it often seems like parody. Many of his campaigns have a self-reflexive quality that draws attention to a product while simultaneously questioning its very existence.
I think this is why his outdoor advertisements, even though they often conform to a high-contrast pop-minimalism, are somehow able to effortlessly blend in with urban environments, almost as if to say “ce n’est pas un produit de consommation”
There are many so-called trendsetters who think that an 80s resurgence has come and gone and believe that it is now somehow acceptable to start listening to Nirvana again. These people are impatient and lack understanding. Yes, Corporate America has manufactured and repackaged certain “macro” elements of 80s culture and successfully remarketed them to an unsuspecting, Bush-sick public. But that’s just the first wave, the real 80s, the 80s that you dreamed about when you were living in the 80s, that 80s is slowly beginning to find its way back into our hearts and minds. Just stay strong and believe, because if Obama gets elected, the super-awesome 80s - the 80s that promised us hoverboards and never-ending weird science houseparties - is going to make all our wildest dreams come true.
