insights, ironies and idiosyncrasies in communication and design

from the wide, wide world and the world wide web

Saturday 9 May 2009

No bull.



While over at The Musings of an Opinionated Sod a brand of bog roll really not to be, er, poo-pooed boldly presented itself.

Initially art (not novelty) and now a fully-fledged FMCG, Jed Ela's ShitBegone is really no bull. As the Poop Report so clearly states "ShitBegone is art masquarading as commerce, and is succeeding in both worlds", and as Jed Ela himself tidily explains in perfect marketspeak, the piece, essentially a by-product of Duchampian readymades and commodity-art, is now in full "commodity stream" – while fulfilling one of the key contemporary functions of modern art: operating as a "system for the production of knowledge."

Monday 4 May 2009

Capping the occasion.


Seeing as I actually do have all my best ideas in the bathroom – something I've attributed to both the sudden physical shift from my working space to the smallest room in the house, and to the intense, fiery red walls of my own hong nam – I decided to celebrate the enlightenment (elevating the process to a contemporary creative custom) with a 'Brain' shower cap from Bangkok's quirky product design studio Propaganda.

That's as far as it goes though and so the purchase of a Dive Slate will just have to wait.

Delete.



We've seen the street fight back before in the shape of pockets of Brandalism, but now direct volunteer action has reached an unprecedented scale – with NYC collective New York Street Advertising Takeover (or NYSAT) whitewashing 126 unregistered (and unsightly) bill boards that were up until now being used illegally. And the good news too is that in most cases the replacement imagery is more pleasing to the eye than the typical corporate clutter that it's supplanted.

Via social media master Neil Perkin.