Banksy has a knack for exploiting the feverish interest in his anonymity and has provoked a lot of hype around his recent documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop. The world’s most notorious street artist turns the camera on himself in the only way he can, to reveal a backlit figure, gesticulating hands, and a voice carefully distorted, as he explains that this isn’t really a film about him. In fact, it is a film about Thierry “Terry” Guetta. Guetta, a Frenchman living in LA, is obsessed with street art and sets out to follow and video major practitioners like Shepard Fairey, Invader and the ultimate catch, Banksy.


What follows is the Guetta creation of an alias dubbed Mr Brainwash, who takes over Hollywood’s derelict CBS TV studio to create a huge-scale, much-publicised pop-street-art exhibition of massive unoriginality, aping Warhol and dribbling paint Jackson Pollock style onto prints passing them off as collector’s items. Entirely taken in, LA Weekly put him on their cover and the art world declares Brainwash a success. What we are left with is an exposé of the art market and the suckers with too much money who want to be part of the latest trend.

But is the joke on us the viewers? We never really know the extent to which Banksy directed this film as we are given no clue of Guetta’s involvement. Indeed, in Banksy’s world we really know nothing and nobody to be who they say they are. Indeed, Banksy has the potential to remain anonymous forever. Even if someone was to come forward and say I am Banksy or if a person was caught doing a Banksy painting, could we ever really belief them to be the real deal? What Banksy has done is to create a persona that is utterly a media construct based on fragments truth and hearsay, where everything is speculation and lives up to Banksy’s inversion of Warhol’s words that ‘In the future everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes’


Thanks to Gavin Cumine for this story.


References
Telegraph
Guardian

This month, China’s cybercitizens hailed an anonymous beggar from Ningbo as China’s most handsome and fashionable man – all based on one photo taken by an amateur photographer testing his camera. When posted online, the picture of Cheng Guorong attracted a cult following all admiring his ‘good looks’ and ‘bohemian style’. There was also an offline search to discover his exact whereabouts and bestow upon him a dubious celebrity status, as envisaged in various photoshop creations. He has been dubbed the The Handsome Vagabond, or more commonly, Brother Sharp. One superfan is even trying to trademark ‘his look’ on his behalf. His appeal has been summed up nicely by one commentator: ‘Look at him wrinkle his brow … nothing needs to be said … sexy …’ We think Brother Sharp is an amusing parable of our times – high fashion being indistinguishable from the results of 6 months of sleeping rough.


Homelessness in the fashion world seems to be having a zeitgeist moment. Vivienne Westwood latest men’s collection for A/W 2010 was inspired by vagrants. Last September saw a homeless-chic cover on Italian Vogue. Elle awarded an internship to a homeless girl. Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist has been snapping the homeless. There is even a website dedicated to snapping the trend-setting homeless. The famed Olsen twins have been dressing like elegantly homeless hoboes for years. This may well be a statement to keep their distance from the celeb world. Maybe there is a parallel between the conscious shabbiness of the Olsen’s and the dressing down that has always been a way for the upper class to signal their distance to the nouveau riche? We love this quote from model Erin Wasson, which perfectly sums up fashions removal from reality on the subject of ‘homeless chic’:
‘The people with the best style for me are the people that are the poorest. Like, when I go down to Venice beach and I see the homeless, like, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they’re pulling out, like, crazy looks and they, like, pulled shit out of like garbage cans.’


Thanks to Jacob Wright, Paula Bjork and Gavin Cumine for this story. This article was a two thirds Scottish and one third Swedish creation. With a dash of sarah rabia editrix multiculturalism!


Reference
Chinasmack.com

Image Credit
Funkydowntown.com

Andy Warhol’s prediction that everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes has to an extent, come true. Surveillance culture means we are all subjects of the camera whether we like it or not, and via our Facebook page or blog, we can all be more visible and vocal a lot faster than ever before. Celebrity then, is no longer elite, elusive or arguably, even desirable anymore. Anonymity, we predict, could become the new celebrity. Last December, a user called iamamiwhoami uploaded a strange video to YouTube. The video featured a metallic-skinned woman in the foetal position and a goat giving birth. Its soundtrack was devoid of vocals and led by quivering high-pitched synths. The 55-second clip, titled Prelude 699130082.451322, quickly went viral, with over 122,000 views to date and more videos have since mysteriously appeared. All of which begs the question: Who is this? Christina Aguilera, Goldfrapp, Bjork and Lady Gaga have all been suggested, but there is no official answer, all of which has set MTV and music blogs alight and created an intriguing viral guessing game.


Underground artists have better understood the power of anonymity to create their brands. This includes Mercury nominee Burial, who was wholly anonymous until The Sun tried to ‘out’ him; cult rapper MF DOOM, who performs behind a metal mask; then there’s Banksy, of course. It’s the less is more dictum. Take Lady Gaga for example. If you take away the glasses, the make-up, and the various costume changes, little is really known about who Miss Gaga is or what she really looks like. She is the biggest star in the world right now, yet completely anonymous. She is her persona, which is a blank canvas to which she projects a variety of images that provoke the cameras whilst at the same time keeping her unobtainable.


Thanks to Morgan Clement and Gavin Cumine for this story. This is Morgan’s and Gavin’s 3rd and 5th minute of fame, respectively.


References
The Roundtable
Pitchfork

For a while now we’ve been hearing from bloggers and industry analysts that the age of ‘The Big Idea’ is coming to an end. It has been passionately argued by the likes of Ian Tait, Russell Davies and Joseph Jaffe that the modern communications landscape calls for smaller ideas, and lots of them. This week Nigel Bogle made a stand for ‘Why Big Ideas Still Matter’ on BBH labs blog, something that got us thinking. He makes a solid case for the importance of Big Ideas in bringing order to brands, demonstrating value, and providing economies of scale. But the most salient point is that Big Ideas shouldn’t mean the lowest common denominator: one-dimensional creative work or advertising amplification. What we need is a new set of language to describe the kind of ideas we create. We talk a lot about Rich Ideas, ‘An expression of the communications idea that allows for multiple facets of the brand to be revealed’, as Dylan Williams would say. A Rich Idea gives us the flex to bring alive the brand in ways that best harness each channel, enabling stickiness in web content, immediacy in posters, cliff-hanging in episodic storytelling. So let’s not argue over Big or small ideas and worry about whether our ideas are rich enough.


Thanks to Chris Gallery for this story. Chris is still angry that the Irish football team will not be travelling to South Africa this summer…damn the Hand of Henry!


Image Credit
Epixeirein

Last Call is the first interactive horror movie which allows the audience to communicate with the on-screen victim and become responsible for the impending horror/happy ending on screen. To participate, audience members submit their mobile phone numbers when they buy a ticket. When a scene appears where the protagonist takes out their phone, the film’s controlling software contacts one of the audience to personally guide the victim to safety – should they choose. Every choice the viewer makes shapes the film’s fate, leading to a different film and outcome every time. While a film controlled by the audience blurs boundaries between game and film, surely it extinguishes the potential for horror by eliminating the fear of the hidden and the uncontrollable?

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As men’s role in society becomes more ambiguous and uncertain, the concept of ‘brotherhood’ is resonating as a source of familiarity, support and guidance. Film has been preoccupied with such a question for decades, offering various sentimental, anthropological studies examining the meaning of brotherhood, from Some like It Hot to Grumpy Old Men. More recently, buddy films have been rebranded as ‘bromances’. Todd Phillips’ The Hangover documents the angst and indecency lurking beneath the surface of adulthood decorum and the importance and even beauty, of male bonding. Looking back at the 90’s evolution of the Loaded Lad, to the Beckham-idolising metrosexual depicted by GQ, we seem to have gone full circle to a stage where men need the rituals of being men and hanging out with their mates more than ever. Our hunch is that The Hangover’s portrait of man will be remembered for capturing the zeitgeist of Noughties Man.


Thanks to Matt Hardisty and http://iheartgum.blogspot.com/#mce_temp_url# for this story.


References
Time

Alcohol, for all its benefits, has many drawbacks. Now, Korean researchers have found a way of tweaking alcohol to limit the fallout without cutting its potency. Doctors Kwang-il Kwon and Hye Gwang Jeong of Chungnam National University, studied the properties of oxygenated alcohol – booze with oxygen bubbles added – a popular concoction in Korea. In these drinks, oxygen is added the way carbonation is added to soda, and scientists have found that it sped up how fast drinkers got sober and cut back hangover time.

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Women will happily ask random women on the street where they got that lovely top from. This is seen as far too gay or awkward for the average bloke, so could Nerdboyfriend be the Sartorialist-style solution to where did you get your cardigan from, mate? A picture of an iconic male look is posted everyday on the site, which could range from Neil Young offering his take on the denim shirt over a polo neck look, to a pervy, mac-wearing Eric Idle. This is helpfully accompanied by real-life products you click through to buy to ‘get the look’.


Thanks to Paula Bjork and Matt Hardisty for this story.

Walt Whitman once said of masculinity: “I am large, I contain multitudes.” Advertising and pop culture has mostly been guilty of stereotyping men, but right now, we’re seeing something genuinely quite new and interesting which attempts to portray the ‘real man’. The Old Spice ad has caught everyone’s attention, shifting from macho man to centaur man. Then there’s the new male Dove campaign, which is a very planner-y rollicking ride through modern manhood. According to Unilever, 3/4 of men find it difficult to identify with the men they see in advertising and feel stereotyped and misrepresented. In turn, Dove attempt to tell men they don’t have to be 16 and desperate for sex, a buffed model or a sporting titan to want to smell better. Instead, they can just be themselves. It’s a nice sentiment and conversation-starter. At the heart of these ads is a mockery of macho masculinity used to sell anything feminine. The gag about the subservient man whose life is controlled by a woman is tackled in Dodge’s recent Man’s Last Stand campaign. We are introduced to emasculated men with defeated faces and patronised taglines like, ‘I carry your lip balm’ (sorry paddy!), which are then used to justify the purchase of a Dodge Charger as an act of male rebellion. Of course, when you take on gender you get a reaction and Dodge certainly has with the official female response: ‘Woman’s Last Stand’.


Thanks to Gavin Cumine and sarah rabia for this story.


References
The Independent
The Globe and Mail
Chatting to Ed Warren and Matt Hardisty

“We launched Manzine because I and the guys who make it, got the feeling that men’s magazines, infact, most media and marketing that attempts to communicate with us, are based on audience archetypes that haven’t been revised for ages,” says editor Kevin Braddock. “Most are either puerile or patronising: we aren’t ‘lads’ or ‘metrosexuals’, nor do we aspire to be James Bond (and I can say for certain that none of us have the kind of abs you’ll see on the cover of Men’s Health anytime soon).” The point of Manzine is men talking about life as it actually is, rather than how it’s supposed to be: Simon Mills writing about his air dog, Mark Hooper raving about trees and gravy boats, Alex Bilmes and his psychogeographic shopping trip to Westfield have been big successes so far – plus photos blokes have taken, poems they wrote, drawings they’ve done and other ephemera from the somewhat furtive, Seinfeldian side of the modern male experience. “Men are eccentric and complex today, and often life doesn’t have any grand meaning, narrative or outcome. Manzine reflects and celebrates that.”


Thanks to Kevin Braddock for this story. Kevin is the editor of MANZINE and a Contributing Editor for GQ.