ekloff

More and more people are becoming interconnected on a conceptual level. The other day I saw on 6th St. a paper stapled to a telephone pole advertising free strips of paper, similar to the one seen in the flickr pic.

I was about to do the something similar and had the phone number strips idea being blank, but never got that far. Glad to see people do this in real life and that it has already spread! Let the free stripping begin…

Project Proposals (2 categories):

windshield into action campaign

1. faux ticket with sleeve(windshield to website)

Content of ticket:
Thank you for obeying all parking laws [made possible by the Tucson Kindness Enforcement]
Your normal driving activities have been acknowledged and appreciated.

www.ekloff.com/kindness

website text: “Design should be kind”

2. Formal invitation/Envelope response card SASE

(placed on bikes, cars, abandoned strollers) addressed to my home, possible link to ekloff.com/windshield
You are cordially invited to travel on the public streets of Tucson. The public streets of Tucson are open 24 hours a day, and can be used for transportation purposes or even leisurely joyrides. Legally, all you need is your driver’s license, proof of insurance, and vehicle registration–then you are eligible to drive wherever you wish, so long as you have enough gasoline. Take this opportunity to let us know you will attend the street at some point in the future.

_ I will travel
_ I regret to decline
_ other (my car is broken, I remain permanently parked, I don’t know how to drive)

(sponsored by the Information Design Study by ekloff.com. No personal information is collected)
(codify a number on the response card and note where inserted)

Photo-Manipulation Buildings Series

1. “room service please” on dirty office doors
2. “this is not an exit” on unexpected openings such as A/C vents, mailbox slot, toilet stalls
3. “No Trespassing” inside gutters, small pathways
4. “Found” fliers of lost litter or a house that has too much shrubbery obstructing its view

Banksy is the mysterious graffiti artist with a conceptual bend. He can be seen in his documentation of photos and books.He is very popular for his subversion of ads, fixing ugly walls that are empty, and for political or social subject matter.

“Designated graffiti Area” sprawled on a wall is a perfect example of intervening in urbania. Another brilliant idea is to designate picnic areas as seen in this Banksy tag by some garbage bags on the street. Or when “what are you looking at?” is written in front of a security camera.

From the people that brought you the film, Helvetica,  is a new film called Objectified, which discusses some important considerations in consumerism, technology, design, and the battle between marketing,materiality, function, and aesthetics. It’s a good film if you have a chance to see it.

As part of New Genre in gameplay, the game Quelf is preprogrammed absurdism in action. It’s quite amusing…

Come out of the norm, escape your shell at an innocent party or gathering. Have a hand puppet sing a love song, point and stare at a spot in the ceiling without talking, keep your elbow on the gameboard, draw targets on a piece of paper and tape them to your clothing. If you violate the criteria or fail a certain performance or action or answer, you pay the random consequences of the card you draw.

This game is like a softened blow of NeoDada, more accessible to the general public, especially the board game audience. Playing this game is interesting and certainly challenges expectations even within a board game. Someone had to wear a item around their neck that wasn’t used as normal jewelry. In this case, they found toilet paper and made a bowtie object. Another turn, they had to build a fort out of furniture.

The final chapter of Ways of Seeing seemed to be most interesting and most applicable to my processes.

You are what you have.

Publicity, Advertising, Marketing, Design. It shapes us, forms ideas, alters culture, it gives and takes a components of life. It is all based on persuasion, consoling the viewer with a dream of what they could be in the future. It has to pull from the past to sell the future.

The power to spend money is the power to live. The understanding of this in advertisements is that you become lovable with this power. On the other token, you become faceless if you can’t spend money. This strict distinction (and in fact a extremity of reality) provides the idea of glamor.

A fear of being desirable is the product of social relations in advertising and culture.

Documentation of Bolie Folke’s new genre practices.

Watching Man on the Moon, I find Andy Kaufman to be an inspiration of a new kind of artist. Andy Kaufman used life as a medium. He didn’t think of himself as a comedian, but as a “song and dance man.” He was someone that would illicit a response–any response (laughter, anger, shock, annoyance, childlike purity, sympathy). He led others to question the reality of his behavior and anyone he came in contact with. His antics altered how life was seen as accurate and believable.

Even his death is a legend, and mystery and gimmick are still following him. His life is riddled with amazing spectacle, mimicking real life and enhancing it in ways that make him an innovator and challenger of comedy, art, and life. He was his own great social experiment.