contact.
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Close your eyes for a moment and imagine the worst possible future abuse by a government over its own citizens. The first thing likely to come to mind for many would be assassination of citizens without due process. Sadly, you will have to think a bit harder; in the US, which so often describes itself as the world’s leading democracy and regularly criticizes the human rights records of other nations, the right to kill its own citizens before allowing them a chance to give their side of the story has already been reserved. Targets are placed on a ‘kill list’ by a secret panel working out of the White House, and their findings are brought to the President, who makes the final decision on whether a suspect will live or die. And not just the suspect, anyone else unfortunate enough to be standing close by when the drone strikes.
It is a fundamental tenet of law in any country that can call itself even remotely civilized that one is innocent until proven guilty, and that no matter how bad something looks on the surface, formal due process must be followed to get to the root of any alleged guilt. The alternative is chaos: lynch mobs and random punishment based on hearsay or unverified evidence. Terrifyingly, the World’s Leading Democracy(TM) now countenances such lawlessness, setting a precedent that other nations are bound to follow, basing their judgments on ‘secret evidence’, while the citizenry are supposed to blindly trust the actions of the same government that has demonstrably lied and orchestrated cover-ups on multiple issues.
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New York radio personality Jean Shepherd had a midnight to 5:30 AM show on station WOR in the early 1950s. He and his listeners created the “I Libertine” hoax. Unlike most hoaxes in which a few conspirators are involved, this one involved anyone who listened to Shepherd’s late night show. It worked because those who listened to late night radio were separate from the mass of daytime people. Shepherd’s purpose was to raise skepticism about fads and popularity and show these could be produced artificially. The demonstration remains relevant for a wide range of phenomena, even financial bubbles, which rely on imitative behavior, once an idea is planted.
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Jan van Toorns talk at Curating Reality
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[Above: A hip-via-minimal identity for Belkin by Wolff Ollins.]
“Advertising has reengineered our mental associations with wealth in relation to the size and number of actual possessions: opulence and abundance has been rendered as “kitsch,” while minimalism conveys “class.”
The latter also carries with it a certain spiritual purity. The low weight of models within advertising and the sparseness of their attire communicate a retro Puritan work ethic which decries consumption as sinful or “dirty”; moreover, purity is derived from one’s restraint, or his/her control over consumption (while the ad’s true message, of course, contradicts this idea entirely.)This linking of spiritual elevation and material lack becomes more ironic when considering that significant movements within the tradition of a more brutal, linear, or “reduced” aesthetic—from the Bauhaus to Rothko to Ikea or Apple—stemmed from the gaping spiritual void endemic to the postwar, industrialized environment. Details were abased as craftsmen were made redundant. So, it is apt that this anti-human advertising/manufacturing praxis should serve as the theoretical template for neo-elegance and modern conspicuous consumption. By extending this tradition, the absence of the human is seen as normal and aesthetically-pleasing, rather than a calculated choice with deleterious social implications. Advertisersing, in the past two decades or so, has cleansed the aforementioned aesthetic of its bleakness and cynical social commentary. This theft and reappropriation of these movements’ meanings arrive at a cultural moment when mass-production and consumption have effectively supplanted organic, original “spirits” or identities: we are but walking amalgams of consumer choice and [sub]cultural representation (Alex Cruse, KULTURKAMPH).” -
The 1998 Robert Smigel animated short film “Conspiracy Theory Rock”, part of a March 1998 “TV Funhouse” segment, has been removed from all subsequent airings of the Saturday Night Live episode where it originally appeared. Michaels claimed the edit was done because it “wasn’t funny”. The film is a scathing critique of corporate media ownership, including NBC’s ownership by General Electric/Westinghouse.
Via (Tagbanger and Reference Library)
C’mon, kids, sing along!
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The Image of ANXIETY
Let’s talk about images for a moment. I know we don’t do that on Tumblr. Perhaps because it’s just easier to drop and post, leaving the scene of the meme. However, it is important as message makers to discuss where images come from, why they are shared, by whom, and for what purpose. Now take these cover images for TIME magazine.
[Image: TIME Magazine cover for U.S. December 5, 2011 | Vol. 178 No. 22]
In the U.S. you are given ANXIETY in all caps, bold and black, taking hierarchy over even the magazine title. Then you have some cute cartoon on soft blue that’s supposed to represent the article title (which is misleading in it’s own right—Anxiety is good for us? *as long as we know how to use it?). ANXIETY and FEAR are powerful words to welcome you at the checkout line so you’re pulled in and then given some soothing news as they are actually ‘good for you’. Wholesome, right? Then what about Europe, Asia, South Pacific? The masked young man raising his arm to cross the M out (TIE?), to cross TIME out? In other parts of the world, anxiety looks quite the opposite of ‘good for us’ in that it actually is an anxious image, centered and ALL CAPS as well, albeit of a smaller proportion. The juxtaposition of the two covers calls into question the messaging Americans, citizens of a country created by revolution, are allowed to receive from veteran, so-called news organizations. You can talk about anxiety in America as if it’s a good thing during our own crisis, but you can’t show Egyptians fighting for freedom, equal rights, and a better society. It’s not really the parallels one could draw that are so dangerous to the establishment, it’s the idea that empathy for and solidarity with the Egyptian people, i.e. using our anxiety for change, would tug at the threads of our own controlling system which prevents us from progressing as a society that values truth and transparency. We’re buying the smiling illustration, a cartoonish distraction, and apparently a lottery ticket rather than a photograph that would tell us a great deal about what is happening in the world, in our TIME.
As designers and citizens, we are not beholden to the narrative of the mainstream and it is our duty to find ways to communicate around the apparatus that exploits and perpetuates a misinformed public.
[Image: TIME Magazine cover(s) for Europe, Asia, South Pacific. December 5, 2011 | Vol. 178 No. 22]
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Very entertaining and insightful talk examining how the design of products and services comes from working intimately with the materials of your domain, even if they are intangible—like radio or data.
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