Working on that Summer Body

Ian Taylor & Cece Nobre

 

One of my favourite photographers Ian Taylor who specialises in children was the inspiration for Bangkok based Graffiti artist Cece Nobre. You can follow them both on Facebook. Ian here and Cece here.

Banksy On Advertising

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like, wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”

For further Banksy posts click the banksy tag below

The People's Artist - Banksy - One of a kind - Respect

Banksy - Fallen Soldier

Growing up as an army brat and later working alongside the US military I've had a little more experience of the the war machine than most.

These days I've no patience for the way the military and war is unfailingly portrayed as a noble thing. It's not. The RAF pilot that blew this Libyan kids chin off deserves a good hiding instead of being lionized as compassionate because his cocker spaniel missed him while he was bombing the shit out of brown people.

I know the men in the line of duty are not the war creators but that's why it's so important to speak up.

Recently during Memorial Weekend in the States I was listening to my favourite radio host repeating the ' we honour our fallen soldiers' line and I got really annoyed. It''s pure conditioning and plays into the hands of uneducated kids by portraying that joining the military is honourable. So I tweeted this.

And so the Banksy synchronicity continues.

Banksy On The Vatican

The Banksy on Advertising post has been phenomenal for internet traffic here and I couldn't work out why. - I discovered the reason just now. 

His Cardinal Sin bust, with pixelated face was just donated to  an art gallery causing the usual outrage from Rome. Banksy responded "At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse."

In further digital trigonometry the other post that wont stop pouring in internet traffic is my Vatican Bans Advertising, Endorses Child Pornography.

Coincimental - Banksy Vs Ai Weiwei

Anybody got any credible explanations as to why Banksy and Ai Weiwei are both colliding on similar themes at the same time? I wrote PW Bridgman's definition for coincidences at the end of my post over here.

Générique de Simpsons par Banksy

Uploaded by FilmGeek-TV

Is advertising dying?

 ithementalist 

I could quite easily both create or miss a million pound plus spent on advertising but stuff like this gets me thinking about how powerful a good idea using public space and then channeled into social media and shared with the right people can turn into something which frankly doesn't even needed to actually exist except as an idea.

It could be turned into a global media idea by a 14 year old student on a laptop, as George Parker highlights in Bob Garfield's Adage piece . You should read it because the parting shot is why we are "exquisitely, irretrievably fucked"

There is no commandment that thou shalt monetize media space. 

Although monetizing delivery is much much easier if we try and keep the mobile phone a pull not push media space. Keep an eye out for more of the above work going up on Flickr 

The future is looking awesome the sooner we let go of the past.