hi,
atomic elroy wrote:
> The sad thing is that most people find commercialization comforting.
yeah… it's kind of hard not to feel comforted when it's all most of us know (that tylenol/shirt/car will make me feel better). i guess that's why i find the nikeplatz work one of 01's more interesting pieces. they dealt with desire and dis/comfort within the space we usually encounter it. in a way this relates to the discussion going on about M.Barney's work… they executed the piece in corporate, polished form and that's partly why there's a reaction from the swoosh guys - a cardboard display and amateur web site would probably not have generated any reaction from the Viennese publi, let alone Nike. but , i find this work much more interesting than Barney's because it's using its production and distribution very self-consciously and reflexively. Barney is just creating esoteric and insular narratives (could vaseline be a better metonym?) with amazing visuals (not unlike the fashion world art is ever so connected with) in a format that is isolated and hermetic by nature - they're not even distributed in a way that larger audiences could see them, that way us sophisticated artists can have our own celebrity encrusted spectacle to applaud alongside T3 without worrying about the philistines making too much noise with their popcorn and jujyfruits. there's commercialism for comfort. i'm personally waiting for the swivel wrist Serra action figure. that would make me feel better. :)
ryan
ryan griffis wrote:
> i'm personally waiting for the swivel wrist Serra action figure. that
> would make me feel better. :)
yeah me too, but barring that, maybe this'll have to do:
The LIBRARIAN ACTION FIGURE
http://www.mcphee.com/laf/
"The role of a librarian is to make sense of the world of information. If
that's not a qualification for superhero-dom, what is?"
hah!
best,
joy
> "The role of a librarian is to make sense of the world of information.
> If
> that's not a qualification for superhero-dom, what is?"
great! thanks joy - that made me feel better, even without the cor-ten steel ;)
gotta love a site that can bring Regis Philbin and Jorge Luis Borges to the defense of librarians!
i like the albino bowler personally
"Soon everyone in the alley will be gathered around his lane to witness his extraordinary display of bowling virtuosity and his thick white sideburns."
http://www.accoutrements.com/actionfigures/11006.html
take care,
ryan
Hi Ryan,
This seems kind of weird. You're dissing Barney because of his lack of pop distribution, and you're holding the nikeplatz prank up as an example of well-executed pop distribution? The Cremasater Cycle is regularly held-over at art theaters all over the place, where students and punks and the merely curious show up and check it out.
There are even verifiable philistine discussions of it at the internet movie database:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321781/usercomments
And the nikeplatz prank is discussed by 010101's lawyers, Nike's lawyers, rhizome readers, anti-globalization trendies, and who else? Perhaps if John Grisham wrote a screenplay about the resultant court case, with Tom Cruise as Luther Blissett, then maybe.
Until then, 9 out of 10 philistines prefer amazing visuals to anti-advertising faux happenings.
peace,
curt
ryan griffis wrote:
Barney is just creating esoteric and insular narratives
> (could vaseline be a better metonym?) with amazing visuals (not unlike
> the fashion world art is ever so connected with) in a format that is
> isolated and hermetic by nature - they're not even distributed in a
> way that larger audiences could see them, that way us sophisticated
> artists can have our own celebrity encrusted spectacle to applaud
> alongside T3 without worrying about the philistines making too much
> noise with their popcorn and jujyfruits.
> gotta love a site that can bring Regis Philbin and Jorge Luis Borges to
> the defense of librarians!
gotta love that; btw, apparently there are a lot of angry librarians out
there who don't want to be typecast as navy blue /comfortable shoes +
shushing types. all those repressed dominatrices…
best!
j
hi curt,
> This seems kind of weird. You're dissing Barney because of his lack
> of pop distribution, and you're holding the nikeplatz prank up as an
> example of well-executed pop distribution?
you got me there - that was bad rhetoric. but i wasn't dissing Barney (or didn't mean to come off that way) per se, well maybe a little. it isn't about pop distribution - as clearly neither examples are pop phenomena- but rather about what distribution there is does. and this goes to (sort of) what jim and marc mentioned in another post, the nikeplatz project did involve an audience in an unexpected and local manner that resulted in some heated discussion. obviously they're totally different initiatives, i just find one more interesting than the other. but it's not like Cremaster is being marketed, distributed, or celebrated as mass media. (and as trendy as anti-globalization may seem, just look around and tell me what trend is stronger. but i supposes we don't want critical civic thinking catching on.)
> Perhaps if John Grisham wrote a screenplay about the resultant court
> case, with Tom Cruise as Luther Blissett, then maybe.
sounds like a project to me…
>
> Until then, 9 out of 10 philistines prefer amazing visuals to
> anti-advertising faux happenings.
yeah, but do they choose Barney or Arnold?
ryan
It seems like art that is supposed to be against the notion of the Brand
shouldn't create a piece of work that only ends up putting the mental image
of a swoosh into everyones head that hears about it. But its 010101, so all
the academics will marvel at how "punk" they are while everyone else in the
world ignores it. I think in all honesty I don't hate 01010101, because
their work is not really "bad" as much as it is straightforward mediocrity.
I think what I can't stand about them is the sycophantic critical response
they bring with everything they do, as if they are actually inventing
anything. They aren't; and they never have been- all they do is move symbols
around in larger and more obvious swathes than other artists do.
If anyone can tell me what ideas this latest "Nike" piece has generated, I'd
appreciate it, because so far the epiphany that it's produced for me is that
large companys don't like it when you use thier logo without thier
permission. Just as thier previous thefts of net.art sites were all about
the insight that net.art is downloadable. And just like "life sharing" was
all about the stunning conclusion that people can create an open ftp
directory on thier computer. How punk(TM)!
-e.
—– Original Message —–
From: "curt cloninger" <curt@lab404.com>
To: <list@rhizome.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 3:14 AM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Does Barney Wear Nikes?
> Hi Ryan,
>
> This seems kind of weird. You're dissing Barney because of his lack of
pop distribution, and you're holding the nikeplatz prank up as an example of
well-executed pop distribution? The Cremasater Cycle is regularly held-over
at art theaters all over the place, where students and punks and the merely
curious show up and check it out.
>
> There are even verifiable philistine discussions of it at the internet
movie database:
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321781/usercomments
>
> And the nikeplatz prank is discussed by 010101's lawyers, Nike's lawyers,
rhizome readers, anti-globalization trendies, and who else? Perhaps if John
Grisham wrote a screenplay about the resultant court case, with Tom Cruise
as Luther Blissett, then maybe.
>
> Until then, 9 out of 10 philistines prefer amazing visuals to
anti-advertising faux happenings.
>
> peace,
> curt
>
>
> ryan griffis wrote:
>
> Barney is just creating esoteric and insular narratives
> > (could vaseline be a better metonym?) with amazing visuals (not unlike
> > the fashion world art is ever so connected with) in a format that is
> > isolated and hermetic by nature - they're not even distributed in a
> > way that larger audiences could see them, that way us sophisticated
> > artists can have our own celebrity encrusted spectacle to applaud
> > alongside T3 without worrying about the philistines making too much
> > noise with their popcorn and jujyfruits.
> +
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> -> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
> It seems like art that is supposed to be against the notion of the
> Brand shouldn't create a piece of work that only ends up putting the mental
> image
> of a swoosh into everyones head that hears about it.
i understand that thought, but i don't think one can simplify the issue into being against brands or not. and i certainly don't think that this work is "against the notion of a brand." but how else do you talk about the relationship between obviously mediated space and what is usually considered (falsely?) un-mediated space, esp if your after specific relationships? maybe there are better ways, but i haven't heard many yet.
But its 010101,
> so all
> the academics will marvel at how "punk" they are while everyone else
> in the
> world ignores it.
sure, i'm not much of a supporter of their work and have many problems with their general practice, which would be ridiculous to call "punk" - not to get back on that old subject ;) unfortunately (for me anyway) it seems the discussion gets stuck on how novel/original/cool the work is on some tautological level- what is just not persuasive or interesting to me. if people (whether academics or whomever) are talking about something, i think it's more interesting to consider why? who is the discussion serving, etc… i don't think the viennese audience was necessarily academic.
>
> If anyone can tell me what ideas this latest "Nike" piece has
> generated, I'd
> appreciate it, because so far the epiphany that it's produced for me
> is that
> large companys don't like it when you use thier logo without thier
> permission. Just as thier previous thefts of net.art sites were all
> about
> the insight that net.art is downloadable. And just like "life sharing"
> was
> all about the stunning conclusion that people can create an open ftp
> directory on thier computer. How punk(TM)!
again, i would generally agree with this assessment, but ask who cares? if the project doesn't do it for you, great. i'm certainly not going to take the position of defender of it or any other of 01's, but if we're looking for novelty, i'm not interested anyway. if you want to make it about "Art", you could place it in the historical tradition of art-legal disputes from Christo to Serra's "tilted arc." or even easier the tradition of "plop-art" in the public domain. hell, just call it process art and it's mediocrity becomes genre specific…
Hi all,
AND 9 out of 10 philistines also prefer bread and circuses to revolution.
what does that prove? the public-at-large is lazy and complacent?
I enjoy amazing visuals and spectacles as much as the next philistine
but in contemporary culture these techniques are used mainly to keep
the masses wide-eyed and out from behind the curtain.
Pop cultural consciousness is a poor measure of artistic quality.
exhibit number one: B. Spears.
Cross-over from the art world shouldn't occur by art becoming more
like the (mostly) junk that rules pop cultural sensibility. It should
work the other way around. (that is, art shouldn't be similar to
B.Clinton beating the republicans by becoming one and pushing them
farther to the right but losing many of his values in the process.)
I'm not defending 01etc, the strategy of this piece is fairly tired
IMO. But Nike is playing right into their hands with the lawsuit.
You'd think corps would learn by now..
I did fwd to a friend of mine who is an executive at R/GA (the agency
of record for Nike's interactive marketing) if I hear from her I'll
paraphrase to the list.
cya
>
>—– Original Message —–
>From: "curt cloninger" <curt@lab404.com>
>To: <list@rhizome.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 3:14 AM
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Does Barney Wear Nikes?
>
>
>> Hi Ryan,
>>
>> This seems kind of weird. You're dissing Barney because of his lack of
>pop distribution, and you're holding the nikeplatz prank up as an example of
>well-executed pop distribution? The Cremasater Cycle is regularly held-over
>at art theaters all over the place, where students and punks and the merely
>curious show up and check it out.
>>
>> There are even verifiable philistine discussions of it at the internet
>movie database:
>> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321781/usercomments
>>
>> And the nikeplatz prank is discussed by 010101's lawyers, Nike's lawyers,
>rhizome readers, anti-globalization trendies, and who else? Perhaps if John
>Grisham wrote a screenplay about the resultant court case, with Tom Cruise
>as Luther Blissett, then maybe.
>>
>> Until then, 9 out of 10 philistines prefer amazing visuals to
>anti-advertising faux happenings.
>>
>> peace,
>> curt
>>
–
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>