FISH

 

I got a feel for the island listening to Fish https://t.co/GyuheX2zfH

— CharlesEdwardFrlth ⚔️ (@CharlesFrlth) August 17, 2023

Virgins

It's been revealed Branson met Epstein after his conviction for child sex trafficking.

He always maintained he had no link with him despite being next door neighbours.

Honestly there has never been any inkling of impropriety with Branson who called his company Virgin.... pic.twitter.com/jrqlRBWyvr

— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) July 23, 2023

Russ Baker in Santa Fe - Reality Check

Russ hits the nail on the head in this lucid speech. He says America is frightened and that's because it's all Terror fiction on the news punctuated by advertising that says the only real thing is consumerism. Be happy. Brush your teeth (or have black teeth and bad breath at work). It's all fear isn't it.

Hermaphroditism

Very pleased to see that my hot tip of January 2008 Joy Island, is back in Beijing (after a spell at St. Martin's I think) and is being picked up by Neocha on her latest exhibition at Yang's Gallery in Beijing called Hermaphroditism.

Beijing Art

I recieved an invite from Joy Island to see her band play at a Shopping Mall (coincidentally called Joy Shopping Mall) on Saturday and I went along to check out her band Two Oranges' music. I discovered that it was also an art and environment combo (is that the original word for mashup?) sponsored by Arrtco who seem quite clued up.

I wanted to share some snaps of the art for the time being because it was rather good and seemingly transcended the language barrier. I particularly like the feces theme on the video installation below. I think we'd all be a bit more careful about our electricity use if our notebooks or TV's took an occasional crap. Anyway here ya go it was on sale for 1200 Euros in case you are curious of the prices.

I quite like that pick up your phone and get your money ready line. QVC couldn't have put it any better could they?

The bike below looked like the frame had grown out of the trees or vice versa.

The print poster below was called something like 'Bath together, Save water'. Which reminded me of an old campaign I think from when the UK suffered a very memorable drought in 1976. Beijing is almost rain free and needs to pump its water in from further and further afield each year as its next to a desert. I can't help thinking about Frank Herbert's SF book Dune that I was into as a lad and where water is so scarce on the desert planet Arrakis that it is considered an honour to be spat upon.

Lastly I really like this piece which with a bit of typography help and a couple of word tweaks would have got a full 10 out of 10 for its 25 mini frames. Each contained a line that built up a narrative of human development from nature to robot and one particularly poignant frame on the bottom left with a jet plane and the planet earth, and the line; "They began to see the world as a plaything" which is kind of true when I think about say the time I took a plane to the airport and jumped on the next random flight out - I ended up in Phnom Penh. Imagine when most people in China can afford to do that. I'm guessing it's not too far off.

Update: Today's China Daily reports today that 97 airports are to open in China within 12 years. Naturally this is seen as only a good thing because the West taught China that the only benchmark worth knowing is the economic growth that we are all seemingly choking on.

Joy Island

I've just come across the astonishingly talented Chinese Photographer Joy Island. Not bad for someone who started taking photos in 2005 is she? With creativity like this it shouldn't be too hard to breath some life into brands that all too often are sclerotic and asphyxiated with a marketing bullshit that has crushed the life, tonality, voice and ability to inspire or provoke thought, through endless quantitative measurement of the difference between idea free and idea less.

Great brands are about ideas, not about doing everything possible to avoid an idea, and we need to let let talented local Chinese creative people and artists connect at this level. Creativity doesn't come from an Apple Mac it comes from people. The brand idea that sticks out often gets hammered in, here in Asia, but with photography like this I just know that China has a brilliant future as long as the creativity is protected.