This is so inverted or reflexive or something that it’s making my mind implode when trying to describe it! The people from “Reality TV” shows (which everyone knows isn’t real at all) Big Brother and Survivor have been placed inside a giant Yellow Pages billboard (which thus is now not really a billboard anymore) and are being pitted against one another. They’ll apparently be assigned tasks to complete via Yellow Pages interfaces on smartphones, YP websites, Facebook pages, Twitter, etc. (Reported on The Ads of the World)
Yellow Pages Reality TV Billboard in Israel
So, let me try to boil this down to the basic concept if I can: this Yellow Pages company — you know, one of those companies working hard to prove they are still relevant in the modern world — therefore, a company trying to survive — is trying to do so by taking “reality” TV stars from shows which involve survival competition games — and having them play their survival-style games inside a billboard — games which apparently will involve challenging them to try to figure out how to use the Yellow Pages products to complete their tasks — all this to prove to real people in the really-real world that YP/IYP products are not only cool, but still useful to use and worthwhile to advertise in. Whew!
This smacks somehow of irony, although I can’t parse if that’s the technically correct term to use in this case. (more…)
Artist Friend Margaret Withers’ New Blog
Sunday, September 26th, 2010My good friend, Margaret Withers, has just launched her blog: Compound Artist Margaret Withers.
bacterial monster figure :: © by Margaret Withers
I’m really quite proud of her — she is a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to marketing, and she’s got a fantastic instinct for it. Blogs are a great way to promote and represent one’s self, and a great way to create a dialogue with the online community.
I’ve often found that visual artists frequently avoid writing much, which is a loss to the community as a whole since it results in a sort of “silence” around their work as well as reduces the overall promotion benefit they might otherwise gain. It’s not surprising, really — most independent artists already have so many claims on their time, what with creating their art, schmoozing with gallery owners, operating small business paperwork, planning showings, preparing for showings, and more. Anything which reduces the time they can spend on creating art is often resented, and for many of them, writing falls into that category.
However, Margaret has always been effective at treating writing as yet another medium for art, and her infrequent writings involving art criticism (more…)
Tags: abstract art, art, artists, compound art, expressionistic art, New York City artists, Williamsburg artists
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