The Society Of The Spectacle

Richard, July 2006. Amazingly, this is London Fields.

Dazed Digital have quietly launched a little online experiment in collective memory. One that is actually close to my heart, as it seeks to immortalize (or memorialize?) East London from 1997 – 2012. The Secret History of East London, from it’s about section, is as much a response to the Olympics and the changes they have imposed on East London as much as looking back at the rapid evolution of a district, that in 15 years, Shoreditch, and then wider East London lodged itself firmly into the cultural conciousness of the city, and the world.

It also serves as somewhat of a pause. A moment to reflect (certainly for me) on a district lived, loved and loathed in equal measure. I vividly recall my first visit to Shoreditch in early 1999. The bars, such as Dragon and Showrooms were just springing up, the Blue Note had passed, the 333 was an essential stop. The area felt new, dangerous, and alive. I’ve still got (almost) all the Shoreditch Twat fanzine’s from that time. (They are still funny BTW). St Martin’s days were inevitably followed by a blur of nights and days in the east-end playground. The move eastward to Hackney started full time in 2005. Shoreditch inexorably became it’s current Essex horrorshow, (punctuated by mini revivals of interest with nights such as Boombox). Then London Fields become a cramped and cliched caricature, full to bursting. And now most recently, Dalston go from no go zone to must be seen zone in under 2 years. The Secret History of East London is an apt title, as it does feel like there is nothing ‘secret’ left in East London. Different venues and experiences get assimilated in record time. (See the breakneck speed of Chatsworth Road’s emergence as an example). The thrill of discovery and pioneering in East London has been blunted. It’s finally just another part of town.

So an online exercise like this has the potential to be a strong nostalgic moment. The guys and girls who were 20/21 tearing up the east side of town back when the Libertines were rolling out of the Albion Rooms, are now 30+ and moving up, and in some cases, moving on. Whether settling into an urban (whitewashed) suburbias of Islington, DeBeauvior, Clapton or Stokey, or jetting off to find their fame and fortune. There is (and should) be movement afoot. East London has rightfully established itself as the playground for the young, the carefree and more often than not, the skint. When we were all at St Martin’s it felt right to be there. Safe in the knowledge that it would be that stepping stone. So, when you want to go and earn the big bucks and the power (whether it be in Advertising, Fashion or wherever else) you head to Paris, Milan, Tokyo or my own personal exit strategy – New York City.

But East London has matured, it’s not that stepping stone. It’s a home. A place to settle, and bring up kids. In fact, it’s more of a playground for those (like me) who want to (and can) have their cake and eat it. They can still be plugged into the hipster urban middle class consciousness, but also afford the trappings of expensive meals, and fine wines. The very people who dulled the East London experience, are the ones who made it fun and interesting the first time around. Dazed’s online mausoleum shows shows off the best of East London as it found it’s feet, and some of these moments highlight the best of what made(?) the area so special. But doesn’t answer the question of what’s next. That’s probably half the fun.

So as the warehouses raves fall away to memory,  (I *vividly* remember the Output Records 2005 warehouse party) and are replaced by the gastropub’s and the handmade boutiques, this digital wake for East London is a reminder of all the best things about this contradictory part of town. Dazed might be right, it might not have a future full of innovation, and certainly I might not love London much anymore, but I’ll always have East.

Check the map here.

This project, premiered at TED 2012 in Long Beach last week. Creative Director Cesar Kuriyama, quit his job, and is now recording one second of everyday in his 30′s. (Which will equate to a 1 hour film of that decade). The video above edits those clips together from 2011 – Feb 2012 (I assume the day of the TED talk itself).

An incredibly simple idea, this is heartwarming, honest and deeply intriguing. The simplest thing to come out of this is something that you forget quite easily.

Alot can happen in a second.

In Cesar’s year, you can instantly pick up real human emotions that feel familair to all of us, but are experienced in unique ways too. Laughter, joy, relaxation, tension, boredom, contemplation, the end moments with his sister-in-law are particularly raw. Kuriyama admits. “We take our cameras out when we’re doing awesome things; we rarely do that when something horrible is happening.” . I’m not sure why this is so inspiring”

I took something else more personal out of it. Do more with your time. Each second counts.

(H/T @nicowen There doesn’t seem to be a TED video up on this yet, when there is, I’ll update.)

With such a strong brand behind them, Amnesty International are always coming up with novel, creative ways to get their (traditionally0 hard-hitting message across.

But, sometimes those messages can be somewhat preaching to the converted. That’s why this idea from the Amnesty and Activision (creators of the Call Of Duty series) is smart, and in some ways, hopefully more effective in spreading their message.

Anybody who even has a passing interest in gaming will be aware that the Call of Duty series is somewhat of phenomenon. The previous ‘Black Ops’ addition to the series was the highest grossing entertainment product in the 2010. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 broke records itself, and the anticipation for the game was pretty self-evident to anybody who walked past a HMV store the weeks of release. However (as this film touches on), it’s really the ‘stickiness’ of the game that provides the biggest opportunity. Online, players are spending hours completing extra game maps and linking online with players around the world.

Here’s where the power of Amnesty’s message steps in. Supplanting their own ‘map’ into the online experience. Now it’s not just about saving the world from Nuclear disaster, or despotic rogue Russian heavies, it’s about helping victims of war crimes and torture escape their captors. Players buy the Amnesty map on the Playstation store and are instantly transported into the narrative. The hyper realism that CoD prides itself on, becomes the most valuable asset in bringing visually to life the suffering of victims and the visceral danger that these victims are constantly under.

I could imagine that there would be critics of this approach, potentially seeing that their message was being diluted with it’s inclusion in a ‘video game’. But as the gaming continues it’s march from geek pursuit to mainstream entertainment platform, the power of these games to create narratives that smart brands can disrupt and twist, is all too real. Amnesty have taken this to the next level. I for one, am excited to see this in action.

(Via Edward Boches)

(Photo – Cabin Overlooking the Pacific by Mark Wickens)

Cabin Porn has spread like wildfire these last few weeks. Surely some of that is down to it’s title, (There’s no better link bait than porn is there?), beyond that, there’s actually something a little bit more interesting going on underneath this staggering collection of beautiful shots of Cabins. All collated, they start to reflect a rising sentiment that has swept over social networks (and therefore the ‘Digerati’) at the beginning of 2012.

“The Joy Of Quiet”

The article in the New York Times popped up towards the end of the 2011. It raised a very pertinent question at the end of a very exhausting year economically, socially, politically and crucially, technologically.  Have we lost the ability to enjoy peace and quiet?. An even handed argument for the profound benefits of technology, and social networks was presented, but also sounded a warning. In the whirlwinds of our technological advancements, we were in danger of losing our ability to switch off, to enjoy those moments of peace and quiet. To just be. That place where actually we can do some of our best, and clearest thinking.

At the end of a transformative ‘social’/internet enabled year for me, it really hit home.

It seemed as though I wasn’t alone in this reflection. ‘Quiet’ was something many of us had been ignoring. See, the idea of doing nothing in the 2010′s, especially in the peer pressure-24/7-content-factory that our social feeds have become are now persona-non-grata. Everyone is now multiple media node. (And as the article points out for teenagers, who have grown up with the web, this is even more true). No-one is off. People now even pay to be removed from their devices. I know that I personally have Freedom installed on the machine and on more often, ready and waiting to shackle the Internet’s Pandora’s Box of delights. But this is great for desktop, but what prevents you picking up the iPad or iPhone?. Nothing, but your own willpower.

Social connectivity is pervasive.

The article clearly hit home. Some of the people that I respect the most in my twitter stream posted it, many of the people that I know had made significant life choices in 2011 (looking at you UberBlond) wrote about the moment of pause that the article reflected. This unassuming article  stuck in the middle of the NYT, seemed to stop alot of people in their tracks. It resonated in other ways, in the way that many people had renounced their previous careers, to pursue something more, something that they loved and in that way, created their own level of quiet. Their own freedom. The article suddenly took on more multi-faceted elements.

At Christmas, the pace of media (naturally) slowed. A quirk of the British holidays (gawd bless ‘em), meant that the time off was actually rather lengthy. I for one spent lovely languid days in a deserted London, catching up with friends, loafing about in the Cow in Notting Hill, escaping the East London fug, and generally taking shit out of fourth gear. It was great.

I also took a long hard look at how much I was sharing, (which in truth, had moved towards more talking as opposed to sharing as my interactions with multiple Twitter people, who I would now call friends, had evolved). I reflected on how much time I would refresh my feed, even if only for that extra new tweet on my phone. It was getting a bit nuts.

I vowed to try and create a space in 2012 for the Joy Of Quiet myself. Naturally in January, this can look like a hollow ambition, more akin to Protestant guilt than actual change. I’m skeptical of cold turkey. However, I do believe in moderation. That moderation through January has helped slowly subside that killer FOMO moment. I haven’t opened up Twitter on my iPhone since January 1. I have a renewed focus, more time to write, (and I mean write) things, like this. Long things, thoughtful things. (I know Mr Tait & Mr Kinsella are sharing the same sentiment with their blogging habits). More time to sit, read, listen to music, drift away, and wander. Things that I’ve loved doing from the moment I first moved to London. More focus on what I want to do and achieve in 2012. (Big moves, big things).

While I adore things like Twitter, and Instagram, and have been life-changing platforms for me, they also aren’t going anywhere, it’s OK to miss out, to keep quiet sometimes.

Which brings me back to Cabin Porn. If the Joy of Quiet was the written manifesto of evolved internet interactions is 2012. Then Cabin Porn is it’s visual doppelganger. Take a close look at these photos. The most interesting images here are not the beautifully stylised homes on Lake Tahoe or in an exclusive upstate enclave. They are the ones of little shacks, seemingly period pieces from gritty Westerns or rural Apalachian nowheresvilles.

Their remoteness, and therefore disconnectedness, is the true appeal. They are places to write, to create, to contemplate, to escape. They are the 21st Century communes. They remind me of a hippy utopia, or films like Vanishing Point. They are silence. Incredible, magical silence. Even with all the technological, social, economic and cultural upheavals around us, sometimes we just like to “Get Back to the Garden” (as Joni Mitchell put it). We would do well to keep these images in our mind, lest, go and explore them ourselves. Cabin Porn is the The Joy Of Quiet.

Last Wednesday was bookended by two talks and events from a couple of my favourite creative disciplines; Advertising and Branding. Both face profound challenges in addressing the shifting marketing and business landscape they roam. There are many other places and posts that deal with those challenges in greater detail, so I’ll leave that for other more relevant voices to cover. But the happy coincidence of these two on the same day allowed me personally to assess where each discipline is at. The results where both inspiring and frustrating.

The morning saw Albion’s The Albion Society  run the ‘Hacking Advertising‘ event. One presentation stood out as the most timely and well considered presentations I have seen yet on the state of Advertising. Presented by Gustav Von Sydow, CEO of Burt (and former CPB Europe alum), his presentation, F**k The Future was a hugely compelling argument for Advertising to deal with the ‘now’, to reduce it’s obsession at predicting the future of advertising, but instead, create ‘agile advertising’ that is iterative, and adaptable, focussed on long term business problems, (KPI’s instead of ROI). It was packed full of challenging thinking, that reminded me very much of the things that I have read and seen coming out of Made By Many, and the guys at BDWCU, as well as an article that James Cooper wrote for AdWeek on the need to build, not just talk, and build ideas fast, small and iterative.

While a process of Agile Advertising has it’s problems, (and it still feels like a niche argument). It does illustrate a willingness, indeed, an excitable energy that pervades much of the leading thinkers of the Advertising industry to rethink, remake, and ‘hack’ their industry. Advertising as a discipline, has rethought itself time and again. It might take a while for those evolutions to bear fruit, as Von Sydow pointed out in the Q&A after, but once they do, the work reflects this shift, and becomes better than ever as a result. It strikes me now more than ever that that evolution is not only underway, but we are fast approaching a tipping point where this goal of an evolved Advertising discourse is fully underway, the uncertainty that the last half decade has wrought, is breeding excitement and innovation that makes me excited to work in whatever ‘Advertising is these days.

The provocative, but thoughtful (and exciting) tone of the morning presentation, focussed my thinking on what my other favourite discipline is up to these days. What Brand Consultancies were doing to respond to similar challenges to their industry model. As a veteran of one of a Brand Consultancy with considerable clout and experience, and now working away from one, I was interested to see if the big (and small) agencies were willing to show off new thinking and new approaches on building and ‘designing’ Brands, as well as embracing the possibilities and challenges that a digitally connected populace would demand of their brands and the work they create for clients. That they were ‘kicking the tyres’ (As Moderator Simon Manchipp noted) of the Brand Consultancy model.

Unlike Advertising, the discipline of ‘Branding’ is a relatively recent development. With a history of evolutions, not revolutions. Most of the venerable Brand Consultancies, evolved out of the world of Corporate Identity. Adopting the term ‘Branding’ allowed more diverse projects other than design and implementation to pass through the Consultancies. Strategic thinking, the ‘Big Idea’ distributed through a series of defined implementation channels, became the bread and butter of Consultancies. Branding, was not the most agile of disciplines. A brand could wait 18 months for it’s new brand strategy, and eventually new Identity system, rolled out in a methodical manner, with consistency, order, and discipline shot through it like a rod of iron.

With this discipline in it’s relative infancy, you would expect that the ability and energy to absorb changing models and relish innovation would be abundance. Alas, the Branding 2.0 event illustrated that while Design itself is in rude health, the relationships between what that Identity should do and how much it actually impacts on the Brand day to day was as far away as ever. Indeed, the revolution and impact of the web, on how Consultancies approach projects was reduced to seemingly a passing fad, a website, as opposed to a fundamental communication shift.

The discussion had me questioning what a Brand Consultancy is in 2011. What it’s principal focus should be, and how it delivers it. Identity design and delivery is one facet of what an Consultancy does. If an Identity is considered the natural conclusion of a Brand Consultancies work, then are they just not design agencies that happen to have a strategy department? With over 10,000 Consultancies/Agencies in the UK claiming that they do ‘Brand’ It seems clear that the role of  Branding 2.0 should be about defining and arguing for a wider role for Brand Consultancies, taking in UX, community management to name just two, and using Design thinking and making through every single platform, and touchpoint be they  internal or external tools and platforms.

Fundamentally, I was taught that a great Brand is every single touchpoint of a consumer’s experience, regardless of industry or sector, consumer facing or not. It is not, and never should be just an identity. That Identity should be a symbol of change, not the concluding output of a job. Great Brand Consultancies use Strategy and Design in harmony to solve large scale business issues. In an age where as Marina Willer rightly pointed out; ‘Your Brand Is Only As Good As Google Says It Is’, a Brand Consultancy has to be much more than just an Identity roll out.

If the outputs, or yardsticks we measure Brand Consultancies must change , then another thing that struck me was the of discussion on the models of business that underpin a Consultancy. Why for example, are not more Brand Consultancies investing in the Brands themselves? This has always puzzled me, if you are a Brand Consultancy, charged with creating new ones, or refreshing moribund ones, why would you not build compensation models that tie reward to that Brands’ success? Is that not an ultimate validation of your ability to build them in the first place? Anomaly, an ‘Ad Agency’, has been doing this for years, so where’s the Brand Consultancies innovation here? Marketing chaos is spawning other interesting models like Co:, which from here, looks very much like a model that Brand Consultancies should have embraced some time ago. Or maybe really got their hands dirty with product innovation, pursued by the likes of Red Scout or IDEO.

One of the reasons I have moved away from Branding as a discipline is this lack of innovation (and having mostly it’s digital head in the sand). Brand Consultancies should be at the cutting edge of Brand innovation conversations, and delivering on them. They should be places of experimentation and bravery, not conservatism and timidity.

To be fair, Brand Consultancies may well be doing much of this, and I would love for agencies to show more of this. But, to truly talk about Branding 2.0, then these innovations should be championed, less pushed to the side to repackage old thinking as brave new worlds. The morning’s event showed one creative industries response to change, to innovate and to tear up conventions and practices, to create better work. In contrast, Branding 2.0, looks alot like Branding 1.0, and that just won’t do anymore. I for one am glad that the debate has kicked off. I believe passionately in the work these agencies do. Because in doing so, it revealed far more fundmental issues that just sticking your head in the sand and shaping the conversation around the whether the logo moves or not. Lets hope the next talk is about looking forward, not just shaping the past to look like the future.

Check this really rather amazing short film that shows us the moment of discovery of one of the Uncontacted Tribes. There are 67 of these tribes within Brazil itself. It’s mind-blowing to think that there are still tribes out in the world that remain cut off not only from the developed world, but the even the poorest of countries. Contact however, must remain minimal at best, as the consequences for the tribes of making contact with the rest of the world can be devastating.

This website (from Survival) Augments the uniqueness of the main discovery video with a huge amount of video and pictorial content, as well as a cool use of Google Maps illustrating where the tribes are around the world. (Also, more photos HERE)

This really is fascinating stuff. It somehow stretches believability, but when you think of it in the context of our hyper-connected planet, where everything feels smaller and smaller, it’s somehow comforting fascinating to know that not all our world is discovered. That, in fact, there is much we don’t know about it.

I managed to get my hands on an advance copy of a new film called The Hurt Locker. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break – need i say more?) this is absolute monster film… (more…)