We are witnessing the rise of the middle-class proletariat. This formerly temperate caste is now rebelling to safeguard its place in society. Long-range forecasts by the Ministry of Defence warn that the middle classes could become the new Marxist revolutionaries. “The growing gap between themselves and super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban underclasses are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability.” This week, the Daily Mail reported that this group accounts for the sharpest rise in crime. The increase in ‘middle class crimes’ ranges from VAT evasion to over-filling a wheelie bin and is estimated to be £14bn annually, nearly five times that of burglary. Economic shifts leave the middle class in the same relative position that the proletariat used to occupy. They have the same motives and an even keener sense of entitlement.


Many revolutionaries were middle class: Che Guevara was a doctor, and Castro and Lenin each had a degree in law. As in any other domain, education, money and brains make success more likely.

We are already witnessing signs of the global middle class proletariat in action. When the Pakistani president General Musharraf suspended the constitution in November 2007, many protestors took to the streets. The majority of those arrested were not guerrilla fighters, but the country’s lawyers. Venezuela is also seeing a middle class rebellion; driven by economic and political instability, large numbers are seeking to emigrate.

“The real point of proletarianism is a middle class start, going into a depression,” says social commentator Peter York. “It’s the Guardian classes, historically. The first middle class generation concentrate on ‘my son the doctor’, the house, the PhD. It’s the kids who are more complex and militant.”

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Mother NY’s Christine Gignac and her artist husband Justin, have found a surprisingly clever way of getting what they want. They paint it. Be it a t-shirt, an iPhone or one month’s rent, they paint it, post it on their website Wants for Sale, sell each picture for the exact price of the subject, and use the cash to buy the real thing. So a picture of a beer costs $7 and a Nintendo Wii $270.92. So far, they have fulfilled over 60 ‘Wants’ including a slice of pizza, $360 to save kids in Africa, and all-expenses-paid holiday to Las Vegas (they also got their one month’s rent). The last batch of paintings, which are in themselves great pieces of graphic art it must be said, sold out in less than 5 minutes. However, “Financial Security”, a painting of a stack of money, is still available for only $1,000,000.00.


Reference


Image credit: WantsforSale.com


Thanks to Alexandra Robinton for this story. Alexandra is lovely.

Politics is now a dirty word, when it should be the heart of our public life: diverse, optimistic and open. That’s why Mother has been working on the Open Up project, an ambitious campaign to reengage people with politics and get every MP in the land to stand for reselection before the next General Election. We think comedy can change our perspective on politics, which is why we’ve joined forces with Comic Relief, Spitting Image, and Harry Enfield in a campaign to sort out our dire political situation. The result is a series of films called Tales From The Duck House – featuring ducks discussing politics, expenses, and the splendors of their new accommodation.


Today, candidates are chosen by the parties, often from secretive lists. This fosters a culture of patronage and privilege. Open Primaries would bring a new lease of life to our democracy, encouraging more people to run, and more voter participation. The goal is to compel the main parties to adopt Open Primaries. As part of this, we’re hoping that plenty of people will add their name on the website OpenUpNow.org.

The campaign is just a week old, and already it’s been picked up by Sky News (pick of the day on their website), BBC, the Times and the Guardian, with Twitters from Stephen Fry. Hurrah!

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In celebration of her 50th birthday, Barbara Millicent Roberts, better known as Barbie, has opened a flagship store in Shanghai. The six-storey, 35,000-square-foot House of Barbie offers a total brand experience from Barbie clothing (”I’m Hot!” or “I’m a Doll!” slogan tee anyone?), Barbie beauty salon, Barbie Spa (offering ‘Plastic Smooth’ facials and bust-firming treatments), and Barbie café (though she’s probably on a diet after Christian Louboutin recently declared that Barbie has “fat” ankles). Our favourite bit is the neon pink escalator which reverberates with pre-recorded giggles. Genius. Interestingly, House of Barbie has been modelled on a fashion emporium rather than a toyshop. “In China, we don’t know anything about the Barbie brand. It may not be Louis Vuitton or Gucci, but it is very attractive and it comes in pretty colours,” a 24-year-old shopper told the Daily Telegraph. There is also a bar with a DJ, karaoke, and pink martinis (what else?). “Barbies want to talk to Kens, so you have to have a place for that,” a spokesperson said. With US sales declining, Mattel hopes that Barbie will appeal to new markets in China, where she is known as Ba Bi Wa Wa.

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Last week, the big hype in the technology world was the launch of Microsoft Windows 7. Whilst the release of the new operating system was never going to be launch of the century, Microsoft coincided it with the opening of its first ever store. Curiously, it is based in Arizona (known for being trendy rather than techie). As you’d expect, it has the look and feel of an Apple store, it even has an ‘Answers bar’. But there are a few surprises. There’s a repair shop for Xbox consoles and you can buy products from other brands such as Panasonic, LG and Dell (Microsoft partners). But the Video Game printer is the best one. A touchscreen kiosk allows customers to choose and pay for a PC game from a giant selection, which is then printed and packaged on-demand within four minutes even if they don’t physically have it in store. We think this is the model for brick-and-mortars to challenge e-commerce – bring the efficiency of digital distribution to physical product and retail experience.


References: Geek.com


Thanks to Neil Bennett for this story. Neil is from Liverpool. You can tell from his haircut.

Augmented Retail, born out of Augmented Reality (A digital innovation that lets you see things that aren’t really there through a lens of your webcam or mobile phone) is enhancing the shopping experience for consumers both online and in store. Glasses Direct is leading the way with their 3D – Mirror, which lets online shoppers try on their glasses virtually without going in store. The online shop simply accesses the consumer’s webcam, they’re then asked to mark key points of their facial features, then with a click of a button the consumer is faced with an image of themselves wearing a pair of glasses. They can move their head around to check themselves out or simply flick through the library of styles available.

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We’ve been reading lots about the demise in how fashion brands market themselves recently. Gill Clinton, founder of The Joneses, a creative agency in New York and regular contributor to fashion trends portal MPDClick, recently posed the question; ‘Does the fashion industry really know what brand strategy is?’ Questioning the old fashion-advertising model, she makes the point that ‘tactics are mostly differentiated only by the aesthetic and personality of a designer/retailer and their collections which, for a lot of mainstream brands isn’t actually that different’. She makes the point that rather than simply trying to out do each other with the recent must do iPhone app, or collaborating with whoever is ‘hot right now’, they should look to create difference ‘after all that is the point of marketing’.

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The Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall has been home to the sun, the crack and the giant spider, and last week saw the unveiling of the ‘black box’. Polish artist Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is installation is a giant steel structure that encompasses an unlit space. The box is raised off the ground allowing visitors to walk both under and around it. At the far end of the steel box is a ramp that acts as a leaver into the darkness. Entering the void causes sensory deprivation forcing visitors to reach out to locate each other and the walls. One visitor even had to be escorted out after walking into a wall and giving himself a nose-bleed. Balka explains that he wanted to “make a place that gives us opportunities for thinking”. Not without controversy a number of journalists have had their say on the piece. The Observer’s Laura Cummings used connotations of ‘a sea container of migrants gasping for air, [and] a cattle truck of Jews transported to their deaths.’ Rachel Campbell-Johnson of The Times describes the experience as ‘sombre, discombobulating and perhaps a bit sinister. But it is beautiful too.’ We love it, but perhaps take an art safety course before visiting.

How It Is will be on display in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern until 5 April 2010


Source


Image Credit:
Official Press Image
Installation view at Tate Modern, Turbine Hall
© Miroslaw Balka
Photocredit: Tate Photography

The Naturmobil is the ultimate green car. It is not a new and advanced hybrid but an environmentally friendly vehicle with 6 wheels, a treadmill, and a horse. The horse walks on a treadmill within a Perspex box on wheels generating speeds of between 20 and 80 mph. The vehicle took two years to create and uses ‘many types of technology to make the horse comfortable;” the horse is cooled under a jacket of cold water and its ‘waste’ is collected beneath the treadmill to avoid polluting the roads. There are a few drawbacks to this ‘car’; it is not suitable for hot climates, motor-ways and main roads. Following the failure to attract the right publicity the Naturmobil’s creator, Iranian engineer Hadi Mirhejazi has launched a competition to give away the prototype and $100, 000 to anyone that can explain why it was invented. We can’t wait to see this on Shoreditch High Street.

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Imagine if the city of London was built not around commerce, culture and tourism but instead built around health care and stopping the flow of disease. In the latest copy if the UK issue of Wired magazine, architectural and landscape futurist Geoff Manaugh, blogger and author of The BLDGBLOG book, has done just that as part of the magazine’s cover feature on ‘Unlocking the digital city’. His short story depicts a London in 2047 following an outbreak of flu in Holland. The outbreak has completely shifted society – ‘doctors, surgeons and chemists are the elected MPs’. Designing the city is about stopping the flow of germs and infections – walls are made from ‘microbe-resistant plastic and have built-in air filters and blood-testing checkpoints’. Congestion charges to pedestrians, watchtowers, body scanners and written permission from GP’s to cross into London boroughs are all ways to stop the widespread flow of flu. Parts of the city are now built to cure, ‘Space itself is on subscription’; and the cities parks used to grow ‘genetically engineered flowers for pharmaceuticals’. It’s a case of ‘If you have a condition, there was a district for you’. Is this simply Sci-fi or is it fully plausible? It certainly makes you re-evaluate the places we live in time when flu is very much a part of everyone’s agenda.

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