Following on from my post ‘Mistakes are good’, more found art popped up today courtesy of the excellent Poptimist tumblr blog.
Shopping losts turns old shopping lists into little works of art. How lovely. I hope he recycles them after though. Oooh I’ll be mad if not…
The Analogue TV switch-off hit the North West of England earlier today at 00:26, and as only Auntie can, this historic moment went off air in true British fashion:
via @aleceast
I was informed by AgencySpy today, via the brilliant Animal NY, that Jung von Matt/Nectar released 200 ad-flies in a convention for the relaunch of German publishing house Eichborn. No it’s not April Fools’ day, the video below is real. Now I’m certain there’ll be ‘animal’ right activits up in arms over it, after all the promo tail is some 4 times the length of the little critter. But where does it all end? Where next? I can’t see EasyJet signing up for it just yet.
Just try explaining this one to your gran this Christmas, she’ll be straight off to self-cert for a home.
Nice work Guinness. Or should I say Tempo Advertising. If you don’t mind me saying, the sign off is a little over-played, and set in a rather nasty oblique with a drop shadow, but the concept is wonderfully simple as a piece of seasonal creative.
I’ve not been very insightful of late, so if you read this blog for that reason (which is a mistake) then skip this post. Comedy is the category for this one. If you want some up-to-date insight see this, this, this or this, or if you do want my insights, this.
Apparently the credit for announcing this should fall to @downatheel. But as I wasn’t following him, AdLand Suit, you, sir, made my day with your profanatory ReTweet:
@adlandsuit: I fucking LOVE this. RT @downatheel: A treat for Wednesday lunchtime. Gentlemanly hip hop played on a banjo. http://tinyurl.com/yzso9cs
Allegedly produced by the other half of @fivegalloncan, Paul McConnell and directed by Dave Alexander
On a similar hip-hop based vane, Brett Domino had a pop at chronicling Hip-Hop too. With similarly comedic results:
Well done all of you for bringing Hip-Hop to the twittering classes.
I’m a bit of a sucker for accidental or found art. Maybe it’s because I don’t have much faith in my own ability to create it, or maybe it’s because found art challenges our perceptions of what art is, and creates images which are truly unexpected, out of context, and therefore exciting.
The other night I was chatting to my more talented half in iChat, when bandwidth bandits forced this rather wonderful error. Now I’m not for a second suggesting that this is an improvement to my stunning girlfriend, but I do like the idea of Art created from these glitches.
In the same breath, art created from seemingly mundane things such as Google Streetview by Michael Wolf thows up exciting results, and requires artists to reappraise the way they use their talent. I’m a firm believer in making the most of a situation. Some people complain that Google invades our privacy; other’s create art from it. Some people see litter as a blight on our world; others see it as a fascinating glimpse of other people’s life. Some people see graffiti as vandalism; others see it as an expression. Some people see disabled people; others see past it or with it become an inspiration to others. In my situation less epic than these – I had a sluggish broadband moment; but It made me smile as the art unfolded before my eyes.
In summary the unstoppable progressin of technology and society is oppressive to some, but I for one find it’s unexpected results and our mistakes even more fascinating: Mistakes are good.
Subnote:
I can’t find my collection of brilliant links to some of the wonderful found and accidental art I’ve come across before. So if you wouldn’t mind posting anything you feel relevent, then maybe I’ll create a tumblr for it all.
Simplicity seems to be a theme on here lately, and I’m cool with that. Everybody can benefit from some more of less. It’s often easy to try and over-sell ideas. To overdevelop and over-complicate. So amongst the hoards of emails with ‘cooool ads’ that people you know outside of advertising send you, these were refreshingly simple. The McDonalds one below is a particular favourite. Ticks all the D&AD boxes:
A simple solution from Sharp:
And a simple piece of reactive outdoor:
Below is a clip from an excellent post by the venerable Charlie Brooker in the Guardian. I admit this is lazy for simply including his words below mine, but It’s a sentiment I’ve shared for quite some time, despite being guilty of stuffism myself.
I’ve long fancied opening up a shop called Simplicity, where you get only one choice of everything. So you want bread? Here’s a loaf. Need a T-shirt? Here’s this week’s. Want a ready meal? Have this. You see, I’ve wasted hours in shops such as Tesco’s behemothic cow sheds deciding between such pathetically meaningless choices as 15 different varieties of sodding mint sauce.
I do wonder too, how many design jobs exist solely as a result of our megalomanic lifestyles. I’ve pointed out before how my being a part of the Scouting movement helps you put your life into perspective, and I concur with Charlie: When I’m on camp without phones, Google, TV, blogs, Twitter, last.fm updates, social media architecture meetings and decisions about mint sauce – life seems free and easy. Don’t get me wrong, I’d not trade my career for any other – it was made for me – it’s just that our lives have become a little smorgasbord-tastic. Less ’stuff’ = less stress. And our minds are free to think – and free thinking feels great.
Every day we humans gleefully churn out yet more books and films and TV shows and videogames and websites and magazine articles and blog posts and emails and text messages, all of it hanging around, competing for attention. Without leaving my seat I can access virtually any piece of music ever recorded, download any film ever made, order any book ever written. And the end result is that I hardly experience any of it. It’s too much. I’ve had it with choice. It makes my head spin.
Here’s what I want: I want to be told what to read, watch and listen to. I want my hands tied. I want a cultural diet. I want a government employee to turn up on my doorstep once a month, carrying a single book for me to read. I want all my TV channels removed and replaced by a single electro-pipe delivering one programme or movie a day. If I don’t watch it, it gets replaced by the following day’s selection. I want all my MP3s deleted and replaced with one unskippable radio station playing one song after the other. And every time I think about complaining, I want a minotaur to punch me in the kidneys and remind me how it was before.
In short: I’ve tried more. It’s awful. I want less, and I want it now.
Charlie Brooker, The Guardian, Monday 5 October 2009
