A great example of a media artifact was done by Michael Lesy who stumbled across a collection of late-19th century photographs taken in a small town in Wisconsin called Black River Falls. Intrigued by what he saw, he started reading the town newspapers from the same period. Artfully arranging the photos and newspaper fragments in sequences, Lesy published them under the title “Wisconsin Death Trip” in 1973. This audio slide show includes an interview with Lesy and images from the book, in addition to other images of Victorian post-mortem photography.

A more conceptual media artifact could come in the form of Mel Bochner’s Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper not Necessarily Meant to be Viewed as Art. So as you can see, a media artifact can actually work as Art as well. In Bochner’s seminal conceptual piece he collected bits of paper from his peers which included Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, John Cage and Donald Judd, and then photocopied them. In doing so he created a new type of portrait of the individual which was completely conceptual, but only based on what they had which was not meant to be viewed as art. Old receipts, working drawings, etc. Then we can look at how all of these works combined not only documents a subject, but also can stand alone as a separate art piece.

Kathie Lee Gifford Is a Creep. In these clips from an exercise video made by Kathie Lee Gifford we are watching very banal scenes created in an undoubtedly suburban and hygienic environment. I am sure this video was distributed to many suburban moms and others who saw absolutely saw nothing disgusting or unsettling. Yet to a larger community for some reason the style, the lighting, and the words of Kathie Lee Gifford make us tremble with revulsion.

In “Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend” we see what is mostly likely an intentional attempt at creating a WTF video. It bridges into the surreal because of its unexpectedness but still leaves many viewers questioning what the fuck they just watched. A recent user of the popular website Reddit.Com remarked that in a hundred years the definition of WTF will be accompanied by this video.

Great new documentary about Helvetica from Gary Hustwit.

New advancements in glass has fostered the development of smart glass with the French based company PrivaLite leading the way. SGG PRIVA-LITE® is a laminated glazing made of two sheets of extra clear glass and a liquid crystal film.
The current standard composition is +-12mm thick.

The polymer and the liquid crystals are encapsulated in the LC film of which both faces are covered with a transparent, electrical conductive coating and are connected to the power supply thanks to 2 flat electrical busbars.

Simply speaking this new technology can turn any building with a glass facade to be turned into what resembles a large screen for a projection. The Chanel building in Tokyo is the first major piece of architecture to incorporate this technology into its facade. Currently their is a large disconnect between buildings and advertisements/billboards. Expect the two mediums to merge in the future. With architects as well as designers who will have to tackle new problems as to how to create a building facade.  Buildings will became less of what we think of them today and begin to resemble media more and more.

Interesting use of body motion combined with imagery. They kind of remind me of early animated gifs.

Watch it online HERE

Or Watch it on YouTube for free
Part 1

Part2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Americans are swimming in a sea of messages.

Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists—most of whom work for one of six giant companies—spend billions of dollars and millions of man-hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. Increasingly, these techniques are migrating to the high-stakes arena of politics, shaping policy and influencing how Americans choose their leaders.

In “The Persuaders,” FRONTLINE explores how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them. The 90-minute documentary draws on a range of experts and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in the words of one on-camera commentator, “the principal of democracy yields to the practice of demography,” as highly customized messages are delivered to a smaller segment of the market.

Take the 2004 presidential sweepstakes for example. Both the Republicans and the Democrats were prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to custom craft their messages. “What politicians do is tailor their message to each demographic group,” says Peter Swire, professor of law at Ohio State University and an expert on Internet policy. “That means…Americans will live in different virtual universes. What’s wrong with living in different universes? You never confront the other side. You don’t have to deal with the uncomfortable facts that go against your worldview….It hardens the partisanship that’s been such a feature of recent American politics.”

FRONTLINE analyzes the 2004 campaign where, for the first time, the latest techniques in narrowcasting were put into effect. The antithesis of traditional broadcasting, narrowcasting involves crafting and delivering tailored messages to individual voters based on their demographic profiles.

Political marketers are just now discovering new ways to use the techniques that have long been employed by the private sector. FRONTLINE visits Acxiom, the largest data mining company in the world, where vast farms of computers hold detailed information about nearly every adult in America. Data mining, a practice that predicts likely behavior based on factors such as age, income, and shopping habits, has been the gold standard of commercial advertisers. Acxiom promises its clients a better way to target their messages to individual consumers.

“There is an age-old anxiety among advertisers that they are wasting their money, that they cannot know whom they are reaching and with what impact,” says Rushkoff, who collaborated with Dretzin and Goodman on FRONTLINE’s “The Merchants of Cool,” which examined the process by which corporate conglomerates have co-opted teen culture in order to capture the multibillion-dollar adolescent market.

But Rushkoff predicts, “Anxiety is giving way to a confidence that they will soon have access to the core emotional needs of nearly every American shopper and voter.”

There is, however, a paradox. While the techniques of the persuaders have become more sophisticated, consumers have never been more resistant to marketing messages. Yet today, advertisements fill up nearly every available inch of the landscape.

“You cannot walk down the street without being bombarded,” advertising writer Bob Garfield says. “You go to fill your gas tank and you look at the pump and you’re seeing news headlines in advertising. You go into the bathroom and you look in the urinal and you’re staring at an ad. You look up at the sky and there’s skywriting.”

This clutter creates a dilemma for advertisers, Garfield observes. “The advertisers know they need to have more and more advertising to get an ever narrower slice of your attention,” he says. “And that means we are going to be ever more inundated. And then of course ever more resistant, requiring ever more advertising, making us ever more resistant and so on.”

But clever marketers have found ways of overcoming the clutter conundrum. As television viewers have found ways of avoiding ads by using personal video recorders like Tivo, advertisers have responded by becoming a part of the program through sophisticated product placement. FRONTLINE follows this new trend in advertising known as “branded entertainment.” Rather than marketing products around a TV show or other entertainment vehicle, industry insiders predict the future will bring a seamless blend of marketing and entertainment. Producers are already moving in that direction. Take for example a recent Sex and the City story line in which a character becomes a poster-boy for Absolut Vodka. The idea was actually proposed to HBO by Absolut’s public relations agency.

Some industry leaders claim that such tactics have evolved in response to consumer preference. But others worry that as advertising becomes more deeply integrated into television, movies, and music, those cultural forms will become ever more homogenous. “The worry is not so much that the actual ads themselves will become ubiquitous,” says media critic Mark Crispin Miller. “Rather, it’s that advertising desires for itself a background that will not contradict it….The aim here is not so much to find a show that people like and then get your ads on it. The aim here is for the advertisers to create a show that is itself an extended ad.”

As consumers grow more cynical toward marketing claims, the persuasion industries are developing and refining techniques to reinforce an emotional attachment between Americans and the brands they buy.

“What consumers want now is an emotional connection—they want to be able to connect with what’s behind the brand, what’s behind the promise,” says Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising. “The brands that can move to that emotional level, that can create loyalty beyond reason, are going to be the brands where premium profits lie.”

Douglas Atkin, a partner at advertising agency Merkley + Partners, goes even further, comparing the brand loyalty that companies are trying to create to the passionate zeal once enjoyed only by cultists and religious fanatics.

“I’ve interviewed people who are brand loyalists of Saturn Car Company,” Atkin says, “and they will use the same vocabulary as someone who is a cult member of Hare Krishna. They will say that other car users need to be `saved,’ or that they are part of the `Saturn family’ with no hint of irony. [They] absolutely and completely believe it.”

Although some brands have been more successful than others in making the magic connection to consumers, the techniques the marketers are developing are startling and include the hiring of anthropologists, ethnographers, linguists, and brain researchers to plumb our unconscious desires and urges so as to better influence our decision making.

But there is reason to wonder if these emotional connections are real. Says author Naomi Klein, “When you listen to brand managers talk, you can get quite carried away in this idea that they actually are fulfilling these needs that we have for community and narrative and transcendence. But in the end it is…a laptop and a pair of running shoes. And they might be great, but they’re not actually going to fulfill those needs.”

Correspondent Rushkoff observes: “We Americans value our freedom of choice—choice in the marketplace of goods, and choice in what has become a marketplace of ideas. When the same persuasion industry is engaged to influence these very different kinds of decision-making, it’s easy for our roles as consumers and our roles as citizens to get blurred. By revealing some of the most effective practices of the persuasion business, we may better understand our choices and perhaps make wiser ones.”

Imagine surfing endlessly through a television. Every time the channel flips you get a split second piece of visual culture. Now imagine that there are one hundred television sets surrounding you in a room. And you are channel surfing all the television sets at the same time. This may sound extreme because the idea of watching more than one television at a time seems impossible. However if you are living in any city in the world one cannot walk outside without being barraged by thousands of instances of symbolism infused with meaning. Images don’t converse. They just talk. They try to tell you things, and sometimes you won’t agree with what it is they want to tell you. Most people don’t have a problem with the little green man that illuminates and let’s us know it’s ok to cross the street. However the totalitarian symbolism that seeks to dominate our daily lives via politics, religion or marketing campaigns can be as annoying and disconcerting as an annoying friend who always finds out about your birthday party even though he wasn’t invited. So it is no surprise that after years of being forced to listen to a piece of visual culture that many feel the need to tell it to SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Kadhim al-Jubori is a weightlifting champion. He trained extensively lifting hundreds of pounds on his back and pushed his body and muscles to the limit. When he competed in international competitions the country inscribed across his uniform read IRAQ. Kadhim al-Jubori is the man who started the mob which in the end (with the help of a US tank) tore Saddam’s statue down. His huge muscles which once represented saddam’s country were now being used in a vicious assault on a pediment. His huge hands brandished a thick sledgehammer and with every swing he was sending a very clear message. This statue and what it represents are going to fall. Kadhim’s message of destruction was so powerful that it instantly became co-opted by the new occupying force. The Us military. In a contrived publicity stunt the US military was quick to give aid to the man, however when a soldier climbed the statue he wanted to use his own piece of visual imagery as part of the colloborative performance piece. The American soldier who climbed the statue draped an American Flag over the face of Saddam. Kadhim al-Jubori and the mob which had gethered underneath were furious. The Iraqis present were most likely happy to have a tank on the scene, but they were unhappy with the co-opting of their frustration into what became a publicity stunt in support of the US occupation of Iraq. The flag was removed, and an Iraqi flag was put in its place. A chain noose was placed around Saddam’s head, the tank engine roared into reverse and the statue came tumbling down into a crowd which looked like piranhas swarming a dead cow in the amazon. Fists and shoes pummeled the bronze statue and Kadhim admitted that his hands were still sore for twenty days after the incident. Their knuckles bled and bruised as they beat the hell out of a piece of art. The American media wanted to see the incident as being pro-American, however the Iraqis were having none of it. The frustrations and hatred they held toward this man were all part of their own personal stories. And the desire to destroy the statue started long before any American tank drove into Bagdhad. When asked about what caused Kadhim to take action against the statue he stated
“It became my dream ever since I saw them building that statue to one day topple it.”. But the media wasn’t through with Kadhim’s statements yet. Five years after the statue fell he stated that “I really regret bringing down the statue,” “The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.” I would propose that it isn’t his act which he regrets, however he hates how this act made him a symbol for pro war American forces. In fact when questioned on Al Jazeera he still refers to his action as a “ joyful day for me, which I try not to think about anymore”

Kadhim al-Jubori talks to Al Jazeera about his action against the Saddam statue.

Otakar Švec’s Stalin Sculpture

In 1951 Otakar Švec was contracted to build a large statue of Stalin followed by a flank of proletariates in Prague, Czech Republic. Three weeks before May Day (The day which the statue was to be unvieled) Švec followed the lead of his wife and stuck his head into a stove, inhaled the gas, and killed himself. Otakar Švec won a contest held by the communist party (the only party) to create a piece of art with which he didn’t agree, and it would be that same government which would also eventually side with his position. After revelations were made public about Stalin’s various war crimes the political climate had changed and Stalin was no longer regarded as a communist hero. In October of 1962 the largest statue of Stalin on the planet was strapped with 800 kilograms of dynamite and blown up in a colossal display governent funded artistic destruction. The message being sent was loud and clear and bits of the statue scattered all over Letna hill in Prague. The space remained empty until after the velvet revolution in 1991 when a large metronome was erected. The metronome represents the constant passage of time, and so far no one has felt the urge to attack it. The area at which Stalin once stood looking over Prague is now inhabited by skateboarders who enjoy riding the smooth granite surface which was laid by the communists.

The largest sculpture of Stalin is Blown to smithereens.

Governments all over the planet have recognized the power the destruction of a political symbol can carry. In Iraq the toppling of Saddam was started by one man, and then co opted by the US military. In Prague, a statue made by communists was blown up by communists. But there is one group which simply doesn’t care whether or not their actions are twisted by the media or parties in power. They are called The Black Bloc. The Black Bloc has its roots in anarchism, and they all wear the same black masks, black hooded sweatshirts, and black jeans so that if an individual commits an illegal act the entire group is to blame. In essence everyone in the Black Bloc is a collective anonymous force. Today there are cameras everywhere and the police and property owners surely don’t see the destruction of visual culture as a piece of performance art. They are interested in protecting these symbols at all costs. Using pepper spray, CS Gas, and batons to beat back the Black Bloc as they near a McDonalds. To those in the Black Bloc, McDonalds represents everything wrong with globalisation and it is no mistake that the first thing they attack are the corporate symbols which talk to them every time they leave the house. When some of those in the Black Bloc were asked about why they choose to destroy imagery one is likely to get a variety of answers. Some will go into the unfairness of the current Free Trade system put into place by Bill Clinton’s neo-liberal policies. Other’s will give a lengthy explanation as to how McDonalds exploits the environment, and its workers. But some will answer “Because it is fun”. This type of explanation many times will leave moderate liberals angry. They don’t want to be lumped in with a group of stick and cobblestone wielding masked individuals. But then again, the Black Bloc also doesn’t want to be associated with them either.

Black Bloc Attacks a McDonalds and Police in Prague, Czech Republic

I believe that the destruction of visual culture is just as likely as a parent telling their child to be quiet. It is inevitable that there will be a backlash to the constant chatter going on around us all the time. Sometimes the destruction will be sponsored by the state, sometimes the action of one individual will be co-opted by a new occupying force wishing to capitalize on an emotional act. But at the heart of the issue there is something else going on. To many, seeing Saddam’s bronze being drug through a street, or Stalin being blown into a million bits, or even seeing a young masked individual attacking a the golden arches with a hammer emotes a response which makes many people feel good. Until that feeling changes expect more pieces of visual culture to be beaten, burned, and smashed into tiny fragments. Each one of those fragments carries with it its own story. It is evident that these broken bits of media detritus littering the scene after an attack carries just as much, if not more, weight as it did when it was fully erected.

They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the “next big thing” that will snare the attention of their prey–a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a year.

They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts–and wallets–of America’s youth?

FRONTLINE correspondent Douglas Rushkoff examines the tactics, techniques, and cultural ramifications of these marketing moguls in “The Merchants of Cool.” Produced by Barak Goodman and Rachel Dretzin, the program talks with top marketers, media executives and cultural/media critics, and explores the symbiotic relationship between the media and today’s teens, as each looks to the other for their identity.

Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. At 33 million strong, they comprise the largest generation of teens America has ever seen–larger, even, than the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom generation. Last year, America’s teens spent $100 billion, while influencing their parents’ spending to the tune of another $50 billion.

But marketing to teens isn’t as easy as it sounds. Marketers have to find a way to seem real: true to the lives and attitudes of teenagers; in short, to become cool themselves. To that end, they search out the next cool thing and have adopted an almost anthropological approach to studying teens and analyzing their every move as if they were animals in the wild.

Take MTV. Long considered to be the arbiter of teen cool, the late 1990s saw MTV’s ratings on the wane. To counter the slide, MTV embarked on a major teen research campaign, the hallmark of which was its “ethnography study”– visiting teens’ homes to view first hand their lives, interests and ask some quite personal questions.

But what lessons do MTV and other companies draw from this exhaustive and expensive study of teenagers’ lives? Does it result in a more nuanced portrait of the American teen? In “The Merchants of Cool,” FRONTLINE introduces viewers to the “mook” and the “midriff” — the stock characters that MTV and others have resorted to in order to hook the teen consumer.

The “midriff”–the character pitched at teenage girls, is the highly-sexualized, world-weary sophisticate that increasingly populates television shows such as Dawson’s Creek and films such as Cruel Intentions. Even more appealing to marketers is the “midriff’s” male counterpart, the “mook.” Characterized mainly by his infantile, boorish behavior, the “mook” is a perpetual adolescent: crude, misogynistic–and very, very, angry.

But also very lucrative. To appeal to the “mook,” MTV has created programs such as Spring Break — a televised version of teen beach debauchery–as well as a weekly program capitalizing on the current wrestling craze.

“What this system does is it closely studies the young, keeps them under constant surveillance to figure out what will push their buttons,” says media critic Mark Crispin Miller. “And it blares it back at them relentlessly and everywhere.”

Of course, there is resistance to the commercial machine. FRONTLINE takes viewers to downtown Detroit, where media analyst Rushkoff speaks with teens at a concert by the Detroit-based Insane Clown Posse, purveyors of a genre of music that’s become known as “rage rock.” When asked to describe what appeals to them about such music, the teens invariably respond that it belongs to them; it hasn’t yet been taken and sold back to them at the mall. Full of profanity, violence, and misogyny, rage rock is literally a challenge thrown up to marketers: just try to market this!

But marketers have accepted the challenge: rage rock is now big business. Not only has Insane Clown Posse become mainstream, but much bigger acts like Eminem and Limp Bizkit are breaking sales records and winning industry accolades in the form of Grammy nominations and other mainstream music awards.

In “The Merchants of Cool,” correspondent Rushkoff details how MTV and other huge commercial outlets orchestrated the rise of Limp Bizkit–despite the group’s objectionable lyrics–and then relentlessly promoted them on-air.

But in doing so, critics ask, is MTV truly reflecting the desires of today’s teenagers, or are they stoking a cultural infatuation with music and imagery that glorifies violence and sex as well as antisocial behavior and attitudes?

In today’s media-saturated environment, such questions, it seems, are becoming increasingly difficult to answer.

“It’s one enclosed feedback loop,” Rushkoff says. “Kids’ culture and media culture are now one and the same, and it becomes impossible to tell which came first–the anger or the marketing of the anger.”

Therein lies the danger of today’s teen-driven economy, observers say: As everyone from record promoters to TV executives to movie producers besieges today’s teens with pseudo-authentic marketing pitches, teenagers increasingly look to the media to provide them with a ready-made identity predicated on today’s version of what’s cool. Rather than empowering youngsters, the incessant focus on their wants and desires leaves them adrift in a sea of conflicting marketing messages.

“Kids feel frustrated and lonely today because they are encouraged to feel that way,” Miller tells FRONTLINE. “You know, advertising has always sold anxiety and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It’s always telling them that they are not thin enough, they’re not pretty enough, they don’t have the right friends, or they have no friends…they’re losers unless they’re cool. But I don’t think anybody, deep down, really feels cool enough, ever.”

And as more and more teens look to the media to define what they should think and how they should behave, even some cool hunters are no longer sure that their work isn’t having a negative impact.

“Even though I work at MTV…I am starting to see the world more like someone who’s approaching forty than someone who’s twenty,” says Brian Graden, the channel’s president of programming. “And I can’t help but be worried that we are throwing so much at young adults so fast. And that there is no amount of preparation or education or even love that you could give a child to be ready.”