Manufacturing Consent
August 17, 2010 | by Maxwell | Comment
As one of our brightest suns, Noam Chomsky, begins to set, we should again take note, before his light has gone out, of his contribution to the unending discourse between deception and truth.
“Verily, the universe swims in light. Everything is alive and alight. Man too is the recipient of inexhaustible radiant energy. Strange, only in the mind of man is there darkness and paralysis.
A little too much light, a little too much energy (here on earth), and one is rendered unfit for human society. The reward of the visionary is the madhouse or the cross. A grey, neutral world is our natural habitat, it would seem. It has been for a long time now. But that world, that condition of things, is passing.”
-Henry Miller 1963
Tags: Henry Miller > media > mind fuck > Noam Chomsky
AN URGENT CALL TO DESIGNERS
July 14, 2010 | by Dylan | Comment
Stop it. Just stop it. Hold on to your humanity and stop it.
MXD MSG full version 7min from BREADTRUCK TV on Vimeo.
Adbusters posted this short film on their blog as “An urgent call to designers worldwide: It’s time to break free.” As a designer myself, I clicked. To my excitement, it was a short film created by one of my home-town heroes, Jeffrey Durkin. The film takes place in San Diego, and follows a graphic designer with ADD – and for me, that hits pretty close to home. Excited for Jeffrey and his blossoming production company, BreadTruck Films, I felt spreading the word was the least I could do. Keep it up Durkin – great stuff.
As for you creatives, I’m not done with you. For the last 6 decades we have basically tricked everyone into a lifestyle of false desires and consumption as remedy for the very stresses of life as a wage-slave. We coerce consumers in exchange for a paycheck. But the truth is we do not live in the Advertising Age nor the Space Age nor the Age of Industry. We live a Post-Everything world in which every product/corporation/government that still exists RELIES on you, the Creative. So just stop it. Make it obsolete. Advertise collaboration, thought & reason. Advertise health and love. You are culturally immersed, educated, constantly thinking and rethinking everything; what are you afraid of? We own them, and they know it. It’s time to switch sides.
>> Note to self: quit job.
Tags: Adbusters > Breadtruck Films + Design > design > Jeffrey Durkin
Pollution of the Mental Environment
May 24, 2010 | by Maxwell | Comment
Micah White‘s new anti-advertising message is refreshing, albeit reminiscent of a quick-hit advertisement. Watch with caution.
Globalization is for everybody!
March 1, 2010 | by Maxwell | Comment
The Western lifestyle is characterized by aggressive and expanding rates of consumption. We already knew that. What many don’t know is that much of what we consume comes from places far away. In these places, people and their environments have been, and continue to be, destroyed so that items like Bananas (Ecuador), Coffee (Peru), Sugar (Brazil), Cotton (India), and Cocoa (Ghana) can be shipped to “wealthy” countries for consumption year-round.
The Fairtrade Foundation, a London based non-profit that licenses FAIRTRADE products in the UK, has designed a clever campaign to challenge people’s consumption habits. Buying FAIRTRADE products for two weeks sounds like a step in the right direction. Now if only we could design a way to float the containers here using only the ocean currents. I’ve never heard of FAIRTRADE oil, have you? Better reason yet to support local commerce.
If its shiny, pick it up right?
November 24, 2009 | by Dylan | Comment
Volkswagen is behind a new online campaign called The Fun Theory that caught my attention. It’s a big social experiment “dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better.” Good thing it’s for the ‘better’ – If it weren’t it would sorta remind me of the movie WarGames where the innocent kid is playing a fun game but he’s actually starting WWIII – mind control via ‘fun’ – NICE!