randform

dodgeball on wikipedia

The sport of dodgeball is experiencing new growth in recent years, often attributed to the 2004 release of the film “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”: Grab life by the ball

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images are from the defra campaign about climate change

This is a follow-up to my recent WYSIWYG versus WYChYWYG post in which I tried to explain that I think it is important to enforce communication about the climate change.
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This is a follow up post to the first part of focus and context a post in which I tried to reflect on marketing from the viewpoint of an ordinary customer. This post gets again a little longer. (more…)

“How the physical existence of an aesthetic object vaporizes into an inmaterial play of forces” by Jacob Dahlgren
size: 870×465 cm, plastic mirrors, wood and paint
Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm 2001

(the link to Jacob Dahlgren is via VVORK)

sport fans of sport club Vëllaznimi, Gjakovë, Kosova

When discussing videogames in this old randform post, I was also mentioning examples where “virtual identities” where mingled with real war. It would be exagerated to see this already as a trend. Nevertheless I recently found a similar example of this mingling – however this time in marketing strategies, namely in the new marketing campaign “James Blunt returns to Kosovo”.

A lot of people think the NATO troops in 1999 brought peace into Kosovo and may be they did, however it is not clear yet how the conflict will end. But regardless of what the result may be – the main message of that conflict was sofar more or less: there seems to be no other solution than to fight violence with violence. The same old story. In a civilized “post war Europe”.

Where in fact – not only Kosovo – but the entire war in former Yugoslavia was a slap into the face of civilization. Sarajevo – city of culture and mulitethnicity – wiped out like nothing. Accumulated traumatas are again going to be distributed over generations. But back to the campaign.

James Blunt – whose marketing adepts were already quite extensively playing out his double identity of being a former soldier in Kosovo and likewise a heartful popsinger returns now to Kosovo according to this campaign.

Is this in order to make him more attractive following an old evolutionary paradigma that a warrior is guaranteeing a better fitness? Is this for giving more authenticity to his virtual identity? Make him more real?

As I already said may be the Kosovo mission was sucessful, despite the violence of the mission. This is one thing. It is something else which is leaving me with a stale flavour after watching the above video teaser, namely the citation of James Blunt (at least thats what I hear towards the end of the video, blame me if its wrong):

“….in Kosovo the issues were real….”

.

or was this just a Blunt-vs.-Bond joke by Blunt – sotosay a my-own-private-Kosovo, what I was hearing? a sudden ironic self-reflecting outbreak?

two ironic James Blunt cover versions:
->my cubicle and
->bloody cold.

(James Blunts original song)

for he knows who.

The at sign (or commertial at) is nowadays mostly known for its use in e-mail addresses. (more…)

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One difficulty with displaying (mainly) conceptional works is that a lot of these works have no full and immediate sensory output – especially those with not many interactive and performative ingredients. In other words: it is hard to see an idea/imagination/thought if it is represented only in a few images/ sound/ narratives/ descriptions etc.

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monochrom performed a nice test on how people remember trademarks. (more…)