This amazingly realistic image of a child pushing an automatic revolving door in Amsterdam is meant to bring attention to unfair child-labour practices and is an excellent example of how guerilla marketing has been used to highlight a social cause. Guerrilla Marketing was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, in his popular 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing, as an unconventional system of promotions on a very low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big marketing budgets. One of the most recognisable social guerrilla campaigns is the ‘Obey’ campaign, which has since seen the designer of the campaign develop a type of global anti-marketing, anti-corporation and anti-mainstream brand out of his original graphic sticker design. Continue reading ‘guerilla marketing for a social cause’
Monthly Archive for June, 2008
Matt is a 31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.
In 2006, Matt took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal.
July kicks off with some major names in Aussie music playing preview gigs in Brisbane. Those with their ears close to the ground will have heard the whispers of The Grates secret gig this week. Scheduled for Friday at an unknown location, the free gig is ahead of the band’s CD launch in August for their second album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won. Following the release of their debut album in 2006, after a heap of Triple J airtime, the locally grown three-piece have taken home a swathe of awards – from ARIAs to an Australian Music prize – for their high-energy indie rock sounds. Often compared to the sounds of New York-based indie rock outfit Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Continue reading ‘aussie album previews’
As part of the Melbourne Design Festival in July a luscious manmade garden will transform Melbourne Central into a vertical, verdant field. Created by renowned French artist and scientist Patrick Blanc, the soil-less garden injects biodiversity into the built environment in a burst of beauty. Patrick Blanc is the guy behind the Musee Du Quai Branly building that I wrote about last year, and he’s installed Vertical Gardens across the globe in hotels, restaurants, lounges, museums, showrooms and numerous other public buildings. I’ve seen Vertical Garden concepts planned for new Brisbane buildings and it’s this very concept and technology that is also planned for Airport Link at Toombul.
Imagine yourself on a summer’s day, sitting on the edge of an old weathered jetty with your feet dangling in the warm water, basking in the glow of the sun. The delicate tinkling of a guitar being lovingly strummed drifts along the breeze, accompanied by the gentle, raspy tones of a man’s singing voice. If you can’t quite conjure the image now, after a few minutes spent listening to Arkansas-based folk singer Joe Purdy’s LP, Julie Blue, you certainly will. His relaxed musical musings about life, love and everything else in between are a simple but worthy pleasure for the ears.
Dutch-born New York artist Sebastiaan Bremer started out his career as a painter. Soon after, he began covering colour photographs of the people and places in his life, with hundreds of white pointillist dots. Sebastiaan’s images depict a world as seen through a screen. Hand-drawn lines cover photographs that either Bremer has taken or someone else has commissioned him to make his own. Through the clash of the drawn and the photographic, Bremer presents a world that can never be experienced directly. Grafting contoured lines into the photo, Bremer creates fantasy-like images that are irresistible in its visual appeal, making the viewer want to go to the imagined place that Bremer has created. Another artist to modify photographs, to achieve greater meaning, is Martin Smith who was recently exhibited at Ryan Renshaw Continue reading ‘altered photographs’
limes hotel
A little taste of up-town New York has made its way to our fine city of Brisbane. The Limes Hotel is a new, uber-hip destination for style-seekers and design lovers alike. Designed by Alexander Lotersztain inside and out, the hotel is the first Australian member of Design Hotels, an exclusive group of 150 international hotels that represent the best in original, future-forward design as well as a commitment to sustainability, inspiration and sophistication. The Limes Hotel is located just a hop and a step away from Fortitude Valley’s entertainment, dining and retail precinct. Housing a mere 21 rooms, the hotel matches sleek contemporary furnishings in a subtle monochromatic palette. The piece de resistance is Continue reading ‘limes hotel’
Via Inhabitat: ”Astro Boy, Japan’s favorite mid-century anime android, was recently immortalized in a stunning metro ticket tableau at the Shinjuku Takashimaya department store. The pointillist portrait is composed of scores of recycled subway tickets folded into black and white squares to create a pixel-perfect rendition of the iconic robot as he ushers in a new era of public transportation. Created to celebrate Tokyo’s new Fukotoshin subway, the mural measures 10′ by 7′ and is composed of a staggering 138,000 tickets. We love to see projects that explore innovative applications for cast-off materials, and this Astro Boy artwork strikes us as the perfect way to stir public sentiment around an exciting development in public transit. The new Fukotoshin line will ease inner-city congestion by providing convenient service through the northwest, southwest, and central districts of Tokyo. The piece was created entirely through the collaborative efforts of a team of volunteers, and serves as a testament to the emblematic appeal of Astro Boy, whose modern message has resonated through Japanese culture since his creation in the 1950s.”
Then you’re lucky. Many kids in remote Indigenous communities struggle to read and write, affecting their capacity to learn, get a job and lead full and healthy lives. They face extra barriers to literacy – many are learning English as a second language; many suffer serious middle ear infections, affecting hearing and speaking; while most lack basic access to reading materials. Indigenous Literacy Day encourages all Australians to help raise money to buy books for kids in remote Indigenous communities. The day falls on 3 September, but you can start to contribute now by participating in the Reading Quest - starting with a book you’re already reading! Choose at least seven books from an age-appropriate suggested booklist, and up to three of your own choice. On completion, you are asked to make a small donation to the literacy project. Squirrel some dollars for a book-buying splurge on 3 September, when participating booksellers will donate a percentage of the day’s takings. Organise a Reading Quest, activity or event at your workplace, school, group or bookclub. Or send this post to your friends (see that button up there?). It’s the best excuse you’ll have all year to make time for those must-reads gathering dust on your shelves.
The monthly Little Market at Avid Reader is held on the last Friday of each month. The next installment in the little market series is scheduled for this Friday night June 27 and promises to be as good as previous markets. There are ten stalls of unusual and unique jewellery, cosmetics, cards, clothes and other handmade items. All stallholders are the makers of their wares so you can talk to the creators directly about his or her work and at the same time, support local creativity! The market is held in the back of West End bookstore Avid Reader so use the opportunity to sift through some interesting fiction and non-fiction reads on the bookshelves. Afterwards, head out to one of West End’s bars or restaurants, or head over to Cascade Gardens at QPAC for the last weekend of In Stitches Outside.
music and art
The revolutionary move away from purely realistic or representational artwork at the turn of last century saw many artists attempt to express the relationship between music and art. Mondrian, Kandinsky and Pollack are all known for their abstract paintings, which were inspired by the affinity between art and music. Mondrian’s Boogie-Woogie series is a reaction to the then-new genre of jazz and it is rumoured that the rhythmical patterns of Jackson Pollack’s splatter paintings were created in time to music that he played in his studio. A different expression along the same lines is the work of Sydney-based artist Phil Williams. In his first Queensland solo exhibition, titled ‘Tactile Sound’, whichs open at the Ryan Renshaw Gallery tonight, Continue reading ‘music and art’
united nude
Why do women have an obsession with shoes? Is it because they always fit? Or is it because they complete an outfit, or are they considered the modern-day sculpture? Adding to the temptation of buying more shoes is United Nude’s range of obscure heels, flats and wedges. The ‘Mobius’ shoe was the brand’s first design and has proven to be a completely new shoe silhouette. Continue reading ‘united nude’
What kind of house does a man who has lived in a 2 by 3 metre cell for over 30 years dream of? This is the question posed by artist Jackie Sumell in collaboration with Herman Wallace, a man who has spent the last 35 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary. Robert King Wilkerson, a fellow inmate of Herman’s who was exonerated by Louisiana State in 2001, put the pair in contact. Through written correspondence over a period of 5 years, Jackie has put together a rendering of the house that Herman dreams about in a project titled “The House that Herman Built”. On show as part of the current London Festival of Architecture, the project has resulted in Continue reading ‘the house that herman built’
[weAREtheIMAGEmakers] (WATIM) is a not for profit online publication which promotes Australian artists, illustrators, designers and photographers. WATIM provides a platform for both established and emerging Australian creatives to show their work to a worldwide audience online. So go make a name for yourself and submit your stuff to be featured in it their next issue. Currently on in Sydney, is WATIM’s 12X12 exhibition which features 12 Australian artists who each do 12 artworks on 12×12 inch canvases. It includes Brisbane artist Plump Oyster
Chilean-born cult film maker, artist, cartoonist and poet (he does not want to be limited to one), Alejandro Jodorowsky is responsible for films El Topo (1970) – a trippy surrealistic western and The Holy Mountain (1973) – a spiritual request for enlightenment filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery, which was financed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. IMA@Dendy, a collaboration between the Institute of Modern Art and Dendy Cinemas, is presenting these films this weekend for a rare big-screen viewing. Familiarise yourself with Jodorowsky’s work before his anticipated return next year, as he will be releasing a film twenty years since his last. King Shot (2009) starring Nick Nolte, Udo Keir and Marilyn Manson is set to provide to the world of modern cinema with a beautiful madness, for which Jodorowsky is renowned. Jodorowsky has had many projects fall through in the past years – hopefully this one comes through.
Continue reading ‘cult classic – alejandro jodorowsky’
At first glance it looks like a Monet painting but actually if you look closer it’s an amazing 3D collage of found objects by Tom Denininger. That yellow you see isn’t a stroke of paint, it’s actually a Simpsons figure, a rubber duck, or SpongeBob! It’s a lot like the work of Australian artist, John Dahlsen, who often makes works from plastics he finds washed up on beaches. It makes you think of all the junk we have floating around. Incidentally in 2000, John became the “Official artist of the new millennium” for the environmental organisations Clean up Australia and Clean up the World.
the long now
Imagine if we planned for life 10,000 years ahead. (It makes a five-year ‘strategic’ plan seem kind of trite.) But that’s exactly the kind of thinking that The Long Now Foundation urges. Established in 01996 – they added the extra ‘0’ in anticipation of the deca-millennium bug, due in 8,000 years – Long Now encourages long-term thinking, understanding and responsible action as a counterpoint to the contemporary paradigm abetting ‘faster’, ‘cheaper’, individual gain, four-year electoral cycles and the like. The foundation has a few projects on the boil. The 10,000 year clock is one: “It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium.” The idea behind the large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock is to extend our short-sighted worldview of minutes and hours to one that considers the world beyond our own lives. When built, it will “embody deep time for people” and “do for thinking about time what photographs of Earth from space have done for thinking about the environment”. The first prototype is on display in London’s Science Museum. If that’s given you pause for thought, Long Now also hosts and publishes a series of ripping seminars by some of the world’s leading minds. Tick, tock indeed.
Ahhh Radiohead – it continues to astound me with its forward thinking and courage to do what it wants to change the highly-controlled music industry. After dumping its record label and releasing its latest album In Rainbows over the net for free – to its latest carbon neutral world tour, Radiohead is heralded as one of the most creative and brave bands of our time. The tour came about as a response to its own research conducted with Best Foot Forward about the effects that touring has on the environment. After gathering information about its own environmental impact when touring, Radiohead wanted to include their fans’ carbon footprint too, because the transport mode of the fans makes a big difference to the overall environmental impact of a tour. This is important for a band like Radiohead as people will fly hundreds of miles to see them. Continue reading ‘radiohead’s carbon neutral world tour’
Who wants a free VIP pass to a top Brisbane arts event? The catch? There isn’t one. Aimed at seducing Queensland residents back to the arts, Test Drive The Arts is a joint initiative between the Australian Government, Arts Queensland and the Australian Council for the Arts. The initiative means there are double passes to an array of live shows up for grabs, including ballet, live music, dance and theatre. If you’ve been out of the arts loop for a while, or know someone who is, it’s a free taste of what’s on offer and a chance to enjoy a show with no risk to your wallet. Test Drive the Arts has also compiled some arts guides for newcomers, including tips for arts etiquette and guides to de-mystifying opera and classical music.
Once upon a time, the Earth was thought the be flat. Here’s another prediction: By the year 2050 your lover may be a robot. Romantic human and robot relationships is no longer the stuff of science fiction – researchers expect them to become reality within four decades. Author of the book Love and Sex With Robots, David Levy predicts a time where robots will also have emotions, personalities and consciousness. The robots will be able to talk, laugh and look remarkably like humans. And someday, people will have sex with robots. Continue reading ‘love and sex with robots’
