Is an American photographer who has shot a series of really interesting new images – Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) etc.
He says “This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.
Barbie dolls (2008)
Depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006.
This is the cover from Kings of Leon’s new album ‘only by the night’. I love it and I am not sure why. There is a huge poster version by Shepherds Bush and every time I pass it on the bus I can’t take my eyes off of it. It’s really quite dark but just draws you in.
Amended for their local market. Nowadays, I imagine they just look the same as they do all around the world but with Polish text. I love these though. The first one is for ‘Gremlins’. How cool is that?!
Every year we take our whole company to a music festival. It was originally my idea and admittedly as much a selfish as a practical one. When you get to 50+ people, where can you go for a Summer party? Normally, you end up spending a fortune trying to lay on entertainment but with a festival all the entertainment is laid on for you and people can enjoy it in any way they like. Bestival is a perfect fit for glue. Lots of silly dressing up – this year’s theme was ‘20,000 freaks under the sea’ and loads of good electronic music. Despite the hardcore rain and mud this year we all still had a great time. I particularly love the smaller stages. The brands that get their sponsorship right really get it right. Take a bow Rizla for their superb recreation of a Space-style terrace and XBOX 360 for their living room vibe. Barry Ashworth from the Dub Pistols played an amazing set that went through everything from disco re-edits to electro house.
This is cool. A guy posted a video on youtube claiming to have found a glitch in EA’s latest Tiger Woods PGA tour game where he can play off water, a shot he nicknamed the `Jesus Shot’. EA’s response was brilliant. They have posted their own real video of Tiger himself walking down the fairway, onto the water reaching the middle of the pond to take his next winning shot. The Freshen Up blog put it well ‘It is one thing for brands to actually use tools such as Twitter and Google alerts to see what is being said about their brand, however this is a prime example of tackling potential negative publicity and turning it into an opportunity of getting talked about in a positive way amongst the hard-core EA fans’. I agree.
From NY Times. Nice way of showing medal tallies at the Olympics since it began. Medal tally and a countries economic or political strength often to go arm in arm, like Germany being so dominant in 1936.
A brilliant new competition on the already brilliant Nikeid site. Both Man U and Arsenal are Nike sponsored teams, so when they play each other (in what is always one of the games of the season), all the players are contracted to Nike. They are currently running a competition to design the actual boots that the players will wear that day. The designs with the most votes get worn. It’s a fantastic idea. They just get it so right where Adidas get it so wrong. They are always innovating, always getting things out there. The Nike marketing department is probably one of the only client side jobs I would be really interested in.
I don’t think any of us will ever see something like that again in our lifetime. As a show, it was mind blowing on so many levels. Where do you start? The choreography, the lighting, the sculptures, the length (nearly 4hours), the bugger the expense attitude (it cost between £20-30million according to the papers). How on earth they co-ordinated the whole thing is beyond me. Perhaps it is only possible in a dictatorship. China has a long history of huge choreographed communist rallies and I guess with a population that is used to being marshalled in this kind of way, it’s doable. But can you imagine trying to pull the same thing off in the UK? I would love to know what the British Olympic committee thought. I think we should do the polar opposite of this most grandiose of statements for the opening ceremony in 2012. Perhaps a few cockney one man bands, chaz and dave and some fairy lights.
Was lucky enough to get tickets to see Damon Alban’s Monkey ‘opera’ last night. It has had mixed reviews but I loved it. Admittedly the music was probably the least impressive thing about it but the acrobatics and fight scenes were amazingly well choreographed and the last scene was particularly stunning. This is Jamie Hewlett and Damon talking about how it came about. Love him or loathe him, Mr Alban is a bit of a genius.
