What Would Jesus Deliver?, originally uploaded by alexo05.

Apparently, a Papa John’s The Works Medium Pizza and a 20 oz. Diet Coke…

       

armani exchange and barbara kruger, originally uploaded by alexo05.

I’ve been doing research on Barbara Kruger, the prolific American conceptual and visual artist that gained prominence in the 80s by combining photography and graphic design to create compositions that openly attacked/questioned/mocked the viewer into thinking about what they were seeing.

Well, a funny thing happened on my way to the mall, or shall I say, as I cruised the mall on black Friday. Passing by the Armani Exchange store in the Mall of Georgia in Buford, I glanced at the inside of the store and, whaddayaknow, the familiar Futura bold font, the familiar white letters, the familiar red background.

All four walls of the store featured this iconic design, as well as the literature on the current sales going on. Since taking photographs inside a mall is a no-no here in Georgia (at least, I think it is), I was only able to sneak a few pics with my iPhone.

They also had this mirror display on the window out front, with the words “YOU MAKE ME FEEL,”center aligned, with no spacing between the lines. That phrase is the centerpiece for their current marketing campaign, and it’s also visible (in Kruger-like Futura font) on the A|X website.

I searched the Armani site for some kind of press release on the possibility that Kurger herself was involved with this, but didn’t find anything. What’s interesting/ironic is that Kruger was invovled with an American apparel company to produce an article of clothing, a GAP T-Shirt commemorating the Whitney Biennial.

And I was beginning to wonder that Kruger had fallen off relevancy. Funny how the truth smacked me in the face.

Now, I myself have tinkered with some of my own Kruger-insipired creations, and Kurger herlself was an avid marketer of her own art. So Armani may only be guilty of being un-original. But it just doesn’t sit well that Armani Exchange is using her style as the basis for their entire marketing campaign.

A little minimalist, then a little deep, then a little rump…

1. Stray -  Florian Kruse     06:21
2. Again (Mangelt Remix) -    Chris Zippel     06:13
3. Everywhere (D.O.N.S. Meets DBN In The Box Remix) -    John Dahlbäck     08:28
4. Mirror Dawn (Mike Salta’s Camp Reflection Remix) -    Chris Zippel     05:53
5. Body & Soul feat. Mic Murphy     - Home & Garden     06:41
6. Yes We Can - Original Mix     - House Music United     06:57
7. Guinea Pig (Vocal Variation (with Julia Biel)) -    Ben Watt     07:22
8. In My Scope     - Florian Kruse     07:42
9. Rock To The Bit -    The Youngsters     06:25
10. I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On (Kaskade Mix Edit) -    Colette     05:00
11. Hot (Treasure Fingers Remix) -    Big Gipp     05:32
12. Tenderoni (MSTRKRFT Remix) -    Chromeo     04:44
13. Lucky Girl     DJ Tim & Andi Vasilos     - 07:13
14. Breathe You In (Andy Caldwell’s French Kiss)     Samantha James - 07:48

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Thought I’d add a little more context to this assignment for my Photography and Social Change class. In light of the recent news that Detroit’s big 3 car manufacturing companies want a bailout, it strikes me as poetically just that the demise of the American auto industry is pretty much a self-served cocktail mix of failed energy policy, dull products and marketing, and inefficient machines.

Some more context: 10 cars that sank Detroit - U.S. News

Crazy Rally driver drives from under the hood!

Notice: The green frog on the hood. WIN. The navigator strapping on while his driver is under the hood, manually operating the throttle. DOUBLE WIN.

h/t: deadpsin: axis of oversteer

Channeling Barbara Kruger, originally uploaded by alexo05.

]]> http://a2lv.com/2008/11/12/channeling-barbara-kruger/feed/ http://a2lv.com/2008/11/12/channeling-barbara-kruger/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/a2lv/~3/445804847/ http://a2lv.com/2008/11/07/dan-rather-on-media-ownership-and-independent-media/#comments Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:25:26 +0000 alexo http://a2lv.com/?p=323 As I’m sure many were, I was consumed by news coverage of the presidential election, but if anything was transparent about the coverage, it was the outdated nature of the “journalistic standard.” In an attempt to present “both sides” of the story, I would often watch CNN’s Larry King Live or Shepard Smith on Fox News, or Keith Olberman on MSNBC, have partisan hacks and political analysts engaging in little more than a superficial exchange of “Joe-the-plumber-isms” or “redistributor-isms” while failing to really expose the “truth” behind any one of the day’s talking points.

I hadn’t really articulated that idea anywhere, or found confirmation that what I was watching was really nothing more than this black/white political commentary (pun somewhat intended) until I saw this:

Which really drives home the point about independent media and its role. The fact that the Obama campaign relied equally (or at least, significantly) on social “new” media, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and my.barackobama.com, has to be testament to the importance of the independent message being distributed via independent media (online and broadcast) to independent minds.

Just think about how I came across this video.

Reddit (aggregator/source) > Youtube (medium) > LinkTV (content provider/message)

And you, dear reader, complete the circle by watching it on my tiny little blog.

(Coincidentally, or not, Googling “barack obama social media” yields no mainstream media links in the front page of the search results)

I’m not much of a designer (yet) but I dared make a few things with them (click for 1024 x 768 size):

» 1440 x 900

» iphone 320 x 468

OBAMA rally, originally uploaded by alexandra.matzke.

Barack Obama is my presdient.

Change is here, CHANGE IS NOW. YES WE CAN, YES WE DID.