People Of The Now 9: Gemma

A shop space in Kingly Court. Beer and ink flow freely, intermingling with synthpop as the evening glides along.

Me: So, this is pretty awesome.
Gemma: It is? Oh, thank you! I'm so glad everyone likes it!
Me: Well, I think you've tapped into a zeitgeist here. I mean, everyone wants to draw, right? But something stops them...
Gemma: Yeah! I designed the new t-shirts and I can't draw, really...
Me: This a one-off thing?
Gemma: Not at all! We try and do something with every new line release at Lazy Oaf; this time we just wanted a bit of a drawing party. Only had two weeks to organise it, but its worked!
Me: Well, you've hit on the kind of thing where the people make the event. It's changing the way people act, you can see it.

Vlad: And maybe they'll come up with some new designs for you!
Gemma: Oh no, its nothing as serious as that! We just want people to come and well, draw! How are you guys getting on? Drawn yet?
Vlad: Yeah!
Me: ...I had my drawing inhibitions for a while. I've been trying to shake them for a year, and then something like this comes along and smashes it...
Gemma: Have a beer!
Me: We certainly shall. Oh and, isn't this basically the best job ever?
Gemma: It's got its good points!

The Lazy Oaf drawing club stays open all weekend in Kingly Court, Carnaby. It's awesome as all hell and deserves YOUR support.

One And Other - because i can't think of plinth pun right now

Anthony Gormley's new venture to occupy Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth, One & Other, has now been opened for registrations - and its gathered over twice the number of applications to places. Shit. Even shittier shit for those of us in London, as you're looking at a 10% chance of success right now, which is set to change for the worse.


What? Oh right, well basically: it's a project spanning the summer months whereby a different member of the British public gets to occupy the plinth for a hour, every hour, day and night - that makes 2,400 slots. And once on the plinth, you can do whatever the hell you like - except:
-drinking/drugs (and you can't be affected by them when you start, cheeky rulebenders)
-bringing weapons or 'dangerous items' (fireworks, surely)
-race hate (tut tut! Naughty!)
-infringing copyright. So no freebie client work.

That all said, there's the potential to use your hour of fame to do something genuinely thought provoking and memorable. You can bet that's what Gormley is banking on. Alternatively, it might very well be an equally unique and valuable experience to just sit there and enjoy a unique view. I'm still undecided as to which is best.

But go on, sign up. It's gotta be worth a punt.

What would you do?

Yes, Client

Last night, I got to watch the hilariously scathing In The Loop:

The website has a nice flavour to it: a Guido Fawkes-style political blog that provides enough to entice people (e.g. the actual trailer), but isn't afraid to to have a lot of slightly impenetrable extras for the benefit of those who saw The Thick Of It and have been crying out for more Malcolm Tucker adventures for years now. Oh, and you can follow him on Twitter.

...and yes, it is 60, no, 70% about Tucker's capacity to work the phrase "Lubricated horse cock" into polite conversation, but he doesn't rule every scene. The beauty of the film is that every single character has a weakness, all of which are exploited at some time or other by someone else, and - oh yes - when the film reaches its conclusion, you have no doubt that every one is culpable in some way. And that's gotta make you think about what's happening today.

But don't despair! It is, at its core, very funny indeed. The mix of humour, human interest, and unabashed voyeurism at a secret world is irresistible. Which makes me think - we need one of these for ad agencies. Imagine! The toadying young account exec. The bothersome head-in-the-clouds planner. A foaming, psychotic head of traffic. The Client - always referred to with a mix of reverence and disdain, never seen. And various other one-dimensional stereotypes.

What d'you think? Any more compelling agency 'personalities' (not people!) the world needs to see? And who on earth could play them?

Bonus footage:

People of the Now 8 - Mike

A quiet, empty gallery in Totnes.


Me: Which is your favourite?
Mike: My favourite?? Um, haha... I can't have a favourite. But I guess that portrait at the end is the main focus of the exhibition. It took me the longest.
Ellie: Ahh, okay...
Me: I like the saws. Cutting up a book though?
Mike: Yeah, it felt like sacrilege! But I lost the book then found it in the bin, so-
Me: -I guess you saved it.
Ellie: How is the fruit so fresh on the saws?
Mike: This is only the first day of exhibition. I was cutting them up like mad at the start of the private viewing! But people didn't seem to mind.
Me: I guess the performance intermingled with the art itself. It's as though what I can see here is only a tribute to what happened in the making.
Mike: Yeah! Only got halfway through Bill Bryson before I had to saw him up, though.

**entry censored by Chinese Government. Thankyou for your cooperation**

After a heady bout of research at the British Library, a spare half an hour found me at the Taking Liberties exhibition. If documents outlining the intricacies of curtailments of feudal nobility give you a hard-on (on whatever happens to you if you happen to be female), this is for you. It was at times a little difficult for me to invest the old parchments with the sense of awe they deserved, but the copy of Magna Carta and the materials on female suffrage were quite arresting, as they obviously were to everyone else.

Moreover, kudos to whoever curated this and wrote the accompanying copy for making all the exhibits relentlessly relevant to today. It worked - I saw a couple studying the Laws of The Forest as they pertained to 42-day detention (or something), with the following exchange:
-Terrible, isn't it. So unconstitutional.
-...actually... I don't agree with you.
-What?
-...I just don't. I'm...sorry!

They rounded the corner at that point, but I like to think that the debate didn't end there, as it so often does in the real world.
Like the best adverts, the entire setup was designed to seize you and force you take a stance on what you saw. Everyone gets a wristband which they scan at various terminals, at which point they have the opportunity to 'vote' on various issues. This had the beautiful Huxleyan side-effect of reducing the individual to a number:

Best of all, these responses were aggregated in real-time, and available to view at a final, big-screen terminal at the end of the exhibition. The results were presented in a visually pleasing, almost artistic way, and almost made me go back in to vote for what I missed, which has to be a first for an exhibition. And, apparently you can continue your barcoded interaction online afterwards. The voting system was elegant in its simplicity, and makes me wonder why this hasn't been fully realised in the experiential world yet. Not the the seeds aren't there: voting at the co-op tills always makes me smile, and mine was one of the families that went mad for supermarket self-scan then promptly ditched it once the novelty wore off. When the synthesis is realised in the marketing sphere (and make no mistake, all the technology is there and affordable), we could see some really exciting developments. I can't wait to shout "I am not a number!" and mean it for a change.
A couple of final observations before I go enjoy the sun:
-In almost all cases, I voted for the wet-blanket wishy-washy middle option on the terminals. Is this a product of middle-class handwringing? Because it kinda pissed me off. Or is it a result of the proliferation of media meaning that we overdebate the issues, and can't take a side? Tough to say. Aww, I just did it again, huh.
-This child (?) has it right:

-Apt, Neil :)
Happy weekend, everyone! Go picket something...

Everyone's favourite engagement - the Trail of Breadcrumbs

Walking along a road in Farnham the other day, I stumbled across this little gem!



Gasp! An intriguing prospect indeed. I took a picture for the sake of interest, but I didn't do anything more. But then I saw another one, in the town centre... then another! Then four more! Each one with a piece of jewellery, or a handbag, or whatnot. What could it possibly mean? "Do not return" naturally indicates there was probably nothing to return - well that's my lame excuse for not finding anything.

So what was the purpose of the number (which I've smeared out, but perhaps the experiment would be better served if I didn't)? I called it to find out:


Ring, ring.


Ring, ring.


beep.


"Hello, and thank you for calling. Please leave your response to this poster"


Click.

Huh? My response? Well, my response was to call the number I guess. But the number did nothing to provoke a further action - it didn't give me any criteria to guide my reaction. Was I supposed to say whether I liked it? If I'd found an item? A personal story? I usually like to play along with stuff like this and response in character, but in this case I didn't know what that would be. At least when Danny Wallace scattered his number about London he attached the message "Let's have a conversation". People knew what they were getting, sort of.

I've got a hunch that this stuff was connected to the Art College. Maybe the responses they wanted were just a lot of 'I'm confused' messages. Hopefully other people plucked up the courage to give them!

...but it goes to show that in any conversation, you need not just to be able to hold your end up, but to give the other participant the guidelines to want to do his part to.

What would you have said?