Tag: advertising

(We are the resin)

Piece of Berlin Wall removed in secret government raid.

We moved house today. This consisted of trying to sleep in and failing, folding endless black t-shirts, murderously cramming three months into one suitcase, trying not to break anything, and finally giving up the bathroom for lost. When we were done, the suitcase weighed more than him. Not a difficult proposition to be sure, but amusing. Today was my first glimpse of what he’ll be like at the airport in a week. Only a week. Already, a firmly planted seed of grief.

The new room is up Cambie street at 12th, dead centre of The Snarl like a hotel patient zero. The only Pros: I have a key, the beds are comfortable and across the street, City Hall looks like a toy.

Billboard ban in São Paulo angers advertisers. from jwz

The law is “a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash,” Roberto Pompeu de Toledo, a columnist and author of a history of São Paulo, wrote in the weekly newsmagazine Veja. “For once in life, all that is accustomed to coming out on top in Brazil has lost.”

But advertising and business groups regard the legislation as injurious to society and an affront to their professions. They say that free expression will be inhibited, jobs will be lost and consumers will have less information on which to base purchasing decisions. They also argue that streets will be less safe at night with the loss of lighting from outdoor advertising.

“This is a radical law that damages the rules of a market economy and respect for the rule of law,” said Marcel Solimeo, chief economist of the Commercial Association of São Paulo, which has 32,000 members. “We live in a consumer society and the essence of capitalism is the availability of information about products.”

“What we are aiming for is a complete change of culture,” said Roberto Tripoli, president of the City Council and one of the main sponsors of the legislation. “Yes, some people are going to have to pay a price. But things were out of hand and the population has made it clear it wants this.”

We were going to have this here, when COPE was in charge. “Billboard free in five years.” It never happened.

sorry I’m only thinking out loud

There’s a black silhouette engraved in the corner of my screen I find as comforting as a cigarette always seems to be (looking from the outside in). He drinks coffee and talks with his hands almost savage enough I might pick out words. I’m working on the pictures I took at the Cultch for Shane. Some of them burn with light, some of them are too blurry to use, but there’s not one bad picture in the lot. I’m a little proud and yet it’s anticlimactic. They’re everything I expected them to be. Everyone kept mistaking me for a reporter.

BomChickaWahwah.

It’s snowing again. Two days now of brittle sunlight and these flakes floating down like the ashes of someone’s favourite million page book. It makes me want to find a vast pale room with a giant skylight and a hardwood floor and lie in the middle of it with grand orchestral pop music on, just staring up into the sky.

what I get up instead of sleeping properly

Johnny Rotton on Judge Judy.

Sanex has created a beautiful film that transforms over 100 naked strangers into living skin cells for their new brand campaign. A UK exclusive, it just went live this week. The mesmerizing advert, built to sell how Sanex different from other skincare products because it works with your skin’s natural processes to “keep it at its healthy best”, was made in only three days by Director Lucy Blaksted, with a crew of 45, which included four skin airbrush artists.

This style seems to be part of a trend. Vaseline did two shorts this year that also featured astonishingly nice use of naked people – Sea, which has beautifully placed people in enchanting situations I wish I could have been part of, it sparks of a seriously fantastic art director, someone who could maybe make me cry, and Locked, which is lighter in tone and only uses hands.

Dolphin’s leap crushes woman in freak accident.

Stuck is a nice piece of work too. A two minute viral spot promoting a Canadian Becel Margarine contest, it uses the idea of an escalator break-down to play nicely on public assumptions of transportation. The type-casting is a little strong, but I think it works well. Apparently it’s based on a short film created back in 2003 by the writer/director that I’ve been unable to track down. The cute 30 second TV version is available on ihaveanidea.org, (appropriately, as it’s a margarine ad, a contender for “slimmest website”).

Heavy snow falls in Jerusalem; dozens injured due to bad weather.

While we’re on the topic of art tied to the hand of advertising, V&A and Playstation® sponsored something interesting this season, ‘Volume’ – an array of columns that respond to movement set in the centre of the V&A’s John Madejski Garden in London. A luminous interactive sculpture, the columns have been programmed to respond to movement with startling audio-visual displays that ripple complexity. On the surface this sounds hokey, a science-centre trick from the 80’s that’s been done countless times before, but the photos by John Adrian are unexpectedly lovely. The striking placement of the pillars and the obvious depth of the patterns mix so nicely with everyone’s obvious delight that it makes me wish I could hear the project as well as see it. It seems like such a perfect thing to stave off the darkness of winter.

(mcstrick, who put up the Volume pictures I linked to, also posted about Jeongmee Yoon, the artist behind the eerie Pink & Blue Project, a collection of photographs wherein children are almost lost in the vast mono-colour array of their blandly gender-coded belongings.)

Space for Rent

Alrighty, I’ve tried to friend everyone interested in the rooms for rent in our house, to keep track of them, (keep track. wow), and in the vague hope they will friend me back, so that updating people will become easier.

Current news, to those interested:

We will not be showing until after our current roomate has moved out and we have painted the space. That will prolly be next week.

Thank you

~jhayne

Seeking Roomie

My partner, Bill, and I have the top floor of the house for rent. Bill is a musician and sound designer for television, film, and theatre, so be warned – we have a studio in the basement, complete with drum kit, which can become loud. As the space is the top floor, this has not been a problem, but just thought I should let you know. *grins* Also – his tap dance troup comes over sporadically to practice.

It’s $400/month, plus 1/3 utilities. There are two rooms, both with built in bookshelves, a large yard with giant cherry trees, (and parking pads, if you’ve a vehicle), and lots of storage. It works out that we share kitchen, bathroom, & livingroom, but each have a room to ourselves.

There are shops nearby, mostly chinese food stores, a Value Village, and a mostly organic supermarket 10 min walk away.We are on the Langara bus route and are 20 min max to downtown by transit.We have pets, (cat + chinchilla), but sadly cannot accept any more furry creatures into the home, unless they’re the sort what live in tiny cages.

Um… I can’t think of what else to say, so I guess that’s my blurb. If you have any question PLEASE feel free to ask.

Thanks,

~jhayne