ADBUSTERS totally summed up how I think about Hipsters, especially about the Keffiyeh part! Haha! I don’t need to explain myself anymore:
Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.
But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”
An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.
Do you want to spin the Axis of Evil! Do you wanna fund terrorism with WMDs? You can expand your empire through funding terrorism, wage war, nuke others, funding regime change and kidnap politicians! or you can simply be a terrorist!
Everyone starts with the best intentions. Then things start to get cramped. Then you notice your neighbour has more oil than you. Before long, war is waged, nukes are dropped, revolutions are fought and terrorists are doing your dirty work, before turning on you…
This is the War on Terror, the boardgame: A quality boardgame for 2 - 6 players, lovingly illustrated and politically correct (in a very literal sense). Playing it will bring out the nastiest, greediest, darkest, most paranoid aspects of your character. It’s all great family fun.
The goal of War on Terror, the boardgame is to liberate the world, ridding it of fear and terrorism forever. Naturally, only the biggest and strongest Empires are up to this task and so a certain amount of dominance needs to be shown. Alternatively, you can play as the terrorists, fighting for a world without empires.
Political Circus is comprised of three components (or rings) assembled together to present contemporary popular culture, art influenced by the current presidential election, and art reflecting politically motivated works of the past few decades.
RING I: Hating Hillary, Baiting Barack, and Mocking McCain presents a wide array of promotional and anti-promotional political materials selected to demonstrate racist, sexist, and misogynistic tendencies running rampant in the 2008 presidential election. This section is selected and thematically by FAU Women’s Studies Professor, Jane Caputi whose commentary accompany’s the objects.
RING II: Artists Weigh In presents the work of several contemporary American artists mostly from the southeast responding to an open call to artists to propose a work or installation influenced by the 2008 Presidential campaigns.
RING III: Reflections and Refractions is a selection of existing works that both generally and specifically reflecting on American politics, political figures and events. This group of works will be selected from area private collections by internationally recognized as well as lesser known artists.
Images: Sonya Clark’s Afro Bell;Hillary Coming;Alien Obama; Kate Kretz’s Untitled, (embroidery on deconstructed flag); Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung’s Residential / Erection, (still from an animated video), courtesy of the Artist and Postmasters, NY.
Florida Atlantic University Ritter Art Gallery
September 5 - November 1, 2008
Please come to the opening reception! I am gonna fly down for the symposium and the opening. Thank You Millions to FAU and Mr. Rod Faulds!
Have you guys watch the delayed, edited Beijing Olympics opening on NBC last night? The movable type printing scene is just incredible! Zhang Yimou and Tan Dun really did a great job (I wish I have 300 million to make art). I cannot get over the huge LED scroll.
I was hanging out with my buddies and some of them are politically active and conscious. The Chinese human rights issue keeps coming up, not to mention the NBC sportcasters Bob Costas continuously smearing shit to different countries to show how strong U.S.A. is. Anyhow, as Chinese I have mixed feelings about how strong the political undertone this Beijing Olympics has.
So I will post the beauty and the ugly here. First, the Beauty (source The Big Picture):
Here’s the Ugly. Below is a campaign for Amnesty International by TBWA\Paris. It won the Bronze Lion Campaign in Cannes in the category Press.
