culture pb & jamming

What is culture jamming? Forget the pb & j because its quite the contrary, actually. 

Society today functions on the base of the consumer. That is you, that is me. Consumerism has become an over emphasized focus... we work so that we can consume, we consume to work.

 Life=consumption. Should it? 

"Commercials, media and public entertainment venues offer environments carefully constructed to avoid politics and real world problems that might disturb these consumer impulses." 

http://depts.washington.edu/ccce/polcommcampaigns/CultureJamming.htm

When we are constantly being pelted with billboards, radio & television commercials, magazines, product images, fashion statements, the newest technologies etc., we are in the

meantime becoming receptive to only consumer-oriented messages, and becoming less concerned with other important issues that may be going on outside of our goals of keeping up with the Jones'.

Culture-jamming is a movement that is an "individualistic turning away from all forms of herd mentality", and therefore is sort of a 'non-movement'. It is a unique form of communication that uses satirical play on the things consumers are numb to and used to seeing every day, to call our attention to culture, politics, and social values; to "momentarily consider the branded environment in which you live". The focus is to reveal a negative behavior, to an issue that we have been a part of, and now may want to be a part of solving. Culture-jamming sounds like serious business (and it is when it comes to evoking change) but within this non-movement, humor is a must.

Banksy is a culture jammer: http://www.banksy.co.uk/

Check the culture jamming headquarters: http://www.adbusters.org/

thesis thoughts

I found this beautiful compilation of photos while clicking around graphic-exchanGE.com. The images were supplemented with some lively lil typography touches. For the thesis I want to incorporate something that I feel proficient in and passionate about, and I do very much love photography. Also, thinking about the fact that I am drawing near to the end of my PSU schooling, I am naturally having a slight bout of nostalgia already, thinking about my classmates and teachers. SO, I was thinking about photographing each of your lovely faces and somehow incorporating typography...possibly corresponding a favorite typeface to the individual's portrait. Though, I will admit, I feel like this idea is inspired by current projects already being done (such as the Yearbook, and Clusterface) so brainstorming farther from those ideas is in. the. works...

love laura more

The woman splashing her surplus of coffee into the trash can that's dangerously close to my computer, the man who just asked me if I could "spare any part of a dollar", the little boy on the other side of the glass window, sitting on the bench with his tiny feet swinging back and forth, far above the ground on which the bench legs rest...

any of these humans could be containers carrying incredible stories, and potential art pieces, just like the instance of Laura Lark, who was the inspiration to take an art project farther on learningtoloveyoumore.com.

I walk passed hundreds of faces a day, sometimes looking at them, sometimes remembering their features for a few extra seconds after they're behind me. It's a rarity that I contemplate what their lives may be like, what stories they have to tell. I buzz around the city getting my errands done, checking the boxes next to my "have-to's" & taking detours for my "want-to's", and I often do this with little thought of those around me.  But when and if I do enter a more altruistic mode

, incredible things happen.

Somehow the world seems to rotate with a little more ease. 

The beautiful undercurrents of life rise to the surface and begin to sparkle for me. 

The typically mundane becomes an inspiration .

Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July began a project that puts the sparkles on display. Turning the interesting life story of Laura Lark into an entire project for others to partake in has stitched a little patch of humanity together, helping us pay attention to each other and realize there is something beautiful and important to learn from those around us. 

I never believed art should isolate, but that it should integrate, catalyze, propel...Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July set a standard for art and remind us in a new way that art is not complete without a conversation, and that success can be measured in the movement it creates.