Art for good - New York artist asks Londoners how they feel about street crime
June 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Profero have teamed up with New York urban artist Paul Notzold to create two events for Channel 4’s Disarming Britain season. The events will show Paul’s work projected onto the side of buildings around London showing images relating to street crime accompanied by questions such as “How can we get weapons off our streets?” encouraging the public’s response. The public are invited to text in their answers which are displayed in real-time alongside the image. The events will be held in Brick Lane on 26th June and Shepherd’s Bush on 27th June between 9:30pm and 11:00pm For more information on Channel 4’s Disarming Britain week click here.
Innovation Edge 2008
May 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Last week I headed over to NESTA’s Innovation Edge conference at the Royal Festival Hall. I didn’t actually know too much about NESTA before I signed up to the event however they invest in early stage companies who put innovation at the forefront of their offering. The day was made up of talks in the morning and then breaking out into smaller seminars during the afternoon. The morning talks were actually very inspirational with some great speakers including Tim Berners-Lee. Tim discussed his reasoning’s behind making the World Wide Web open source by giving it all away for free and managed to say the best quote of the day when he described the frustrations he experienced of sharing information when new colleagues were brought on board “that’s why I invented the Web”….golden!
After Tim, Sir Bob Geldof came on stage and gave a very heartfelt and honest account of what inspired him to make it when he was living in poverty in Ireland. The main take out of the day that stuck in my mind came from Sir Bob who pointed out that as a nation we have become so engrossed in watching people fail that we have forgotten what we are trying to achieve. We should celebrate trying and not be afraid to fail.
After Sir Bob, The PM Gordon Brown came on stage to give a 15 min talk on the need to develop and support creative talents within the UK and how the government will support innovation within the UK which was pretty good. The afternoon seminars however, were a bit of a let down. I think there was a general feeling that innovation was not at the heart of most of the seminars which I found to be particularly true to one that I attended solely to hear Giles Andrews (founder of Zopa) talk about the company and what they are doing to develop their offering. Unfortunately the panel seldom let him actually speak and after loosing interest I returned to the main hall to speak with Six to Start.
All in all Innovation Edge was great and for those who couldn’t attend, NESTA have put all the talks on the site which you can view here.
Rickroll flash mob
April 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
So I am a little late writing this post but on Friday evening I headed over to Liverpool Street Station to take part in the Rick Astely flashmob. If you don’t know what a flashmob is then you can look here. If you don’t know what all the fuss is about with Rick Astley then you can find out here.
As flashmobs go, it wasn’t one of the greatest but it was still really fun nevertheless. 5:59pm people were loitering around the departure boards and as the final ten seconds took us to 6pm the excitement began. It is unfortunate that more people watched rather than participate as it’s not really in the spirit of flashmobs however, you can see what you think courtesy of my Qik video
Adidas originals build your own festival
January 14, 2008 | 2 Comments
Adidas have teamed up with Vice magazine in Australia to launch a great new site allowing users to create their dream music festival. The Originals Festival site allows users to select from a range of artists within their $100k budget, pick their running order, pick their location for the event and then design a poster to advertise the festival on their MySpace pages and blogs to friends. The users with the highest attendance (most number of visitors) will win tickets to the Berlin Festival 2008. I spent most of my money on Underworld and LCD Soundsystem so mine was more of an evening affair rather than the full festival!
New York underwear flash mob
January 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
On Saturday, 900 people gathered in New York for the latest flash mob courtesy of Improveverywhere for the 7th annual No Pants Subway Ride. Escorted by the NYPD, participants had to spread across three subway lines and stretched six per car. The event also took place in Boston, Washington DC, Portland, San Fransisco, Chicago, Toronto, Baltimore and Salt Lake City. Source: Trend Hunter
Top 20 gadgets from CES 2008
January 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment
So this week CES 2008 has been running in
Bonfire of the Brands debate
September 8, 2007 | 1 Comment
So Thursday evening I headed over to Mother’s offices to hear Neil Boorman author of Bonfire of the Brands, share the epiphany he experienced just over one year ago, that made him want to live a brand-free life. Neil was joined by Dylan Williams, strategist at Mother, Adam Curtis, director of BBC documentary The Trap and media commentator Peter York to discuss the ethics of advertising. For someone who publicly set fire to everything he owns to raise awareness of this life choice and has just released a book detailing his experiences, I didn’t quite know what to expect from Neil. His actions have been received with mixed emotions ranging from full admiration for believing in something so much that he was actually prepared to do something about it, to some more self-righteous opinions (fellow Guardian readers I mean you) who believe Neil should have donated all his belongings to charity and only set fire to them to raise awareness of his own brand.
From meeting Neil I have to say I found him charming and wonderfully honest. He genuinely believes that brands have come to mean too much in our lives to the point where we think that they will enable us to achieve a better quality of life. Choice has become too much of a burden. He openly discussed the vitroil he has experienced since burning his branded belongings, and admits that he could have given everything to charity instead of burning it, and that’s ok. It is really as simple as Neil Boorman believed in something so much that he decided to change his way of life, and he has let us share this experience with him. Personally I think it is a very brave decision.
Neil I know you are reading this and as we discussed even though you have received mixed emotions, I hope you always have faith in your decision and wish you every success with your book. Those who wish to purchase it can do so here.
Sonic Youth does `Daydream Nation’ start to finish
September 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Now, I know that I predominantly write about advertising and technology in this blog however, it was originally developed to inspire creativity and that includes experiences. So last night I went to the Roundhouse to see Sonic Youth perform the final night of their tour performing the 1988 masterpiece “Daydream Nation” in it’s entirety, the very album that in 1996 was one of 50 albums chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. Those who know the album know that the best comes first in the form of “Teen Age Riot” which sounded even better live last night than it did eighteen years ago. Despite being in her mid-fifties, Kim Gordon is still the original rock chic and can pull it off better than Karen O (who I also admire BTW) or any of the other twenty somethings that the naughties have to offer. All in all, it was bloody marvelous to be able to relive my youth again, and I don’t know if it was because Daydream Nation was re-released again in July of this year, but they just sound better and better.
Virtual tours for avatars at Somerset House
August 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment
London Gallery Somerset House has commissioned Turner Prize finalists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell to create an online 3D interactive version of the gallery. Users will be able to create their own personalized avatar and explore the gallery, including its courtyard, whilst meeting and communicating with other avatars. The doors to the virtual gallery open on September 6th.
Addictive TV
August 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This is very cool. Addictive TV are a London based collective made up of DJ’s and audio-visual artists, who compile mixes using scenes from films combined with music videos. I have recently attended an Addictive TV party on the roof of the National Theatre on London’s Embankment where the visuals were projected on the side of the Theatre and it was spectacular. They have worked with the likes of New Line Cinema to audiovisually mix trailers for their forthcoming releases and are currently touring around the globe so their shows are well worth a visit if you get the chance.
