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January 31, 2009 Walker Entrance
I’ve been running around like crazy lately. The process of moving to a new apartment is… more stressful than I remember. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to update this blog as much as I would have liked.
Something good…
I’m beginning to shake off the frigid weight of winter and photograph again, with hopes of eventually building a portfolio of architectural photography.
While that is starting to simmer on the back burner, I am also beginning to expand on the dialog that was initiated with a post on Dec. 05. A post on Elysium, the blog of Colleen Mullins, caught the attention of another blogger… creating a trifecta of discussion about the role of the market in art production.
Check out the first question in the discussion here…
Stay tuned for updates…
After a long weekend of phlegm, I’m back in action. I was riding in my buddy Mike’s car on an errand at work and the topic of cool new ads and the Walker’s hosting of the British Advertising Awards came up.
What does it mean when the most interesting parts of a society’s visual culture are advertisements? I’m asking this in lieu of both the Brit’s advertising foray’s and also the Adicolor series from Adidas. For the most part, there seems to be a distinct lack of products (aside from the following VW commercial) -but- these ads seem to go beyond the touchy-feely, emotional adverts of the 90s.
Lets take for example the Cabury advert of a Gorilla playing the drum sequence in the Phil Collins’ song “In the Air Tonight”. The advertisment has nothing to do with the crappy chocolate from Cadbury… but… I can’t stop watching the ad. Taken a step further… apparently the studio that owns the rights to the song has prevented it from being included in versions of the ad posted to You Tube. So, the gorilla ad runs… without Phil Collins.
The result is something akin to a piece of video art you could find in any white cube gallery. (Embedding has been disabled… you’ll have to… click)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hfNNcOrfY
*****
A different side of the coin: What happens when a social fabric (in this case a city) decides to openly reject advertisements? The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil decided last year to ban outdoor advertisements. Photographer Tony de Marco has been documenting the city’s empty billboard structures…
From Tony de Marco's FLICKR
My next question: If visual advertisements are banned – how have the advertisers retaliated? Is all advertising product placement? Word of mouth? Do people “randomly” break into the Coke jingle in order to sell soda?
