One-Minute Guide to Planet Earth

February 22, 2011 by cogixo in visual pamphlets | Comments Off on One-Minute Guide to Planet Earth

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eph6ClpGOQ[/youtube]

This video was a uni project. In our first term at film school, we got the brief to create a one minute video, about where we come from. The title of that project was Place. Years later, I still remember Armen’s One-Minute Guide to Planet Earth. The imagery is very evocative, going far beyond the mundane explanations. Here voice over and visuals create something more than the sum of the individual parts. The short, fast paced clip triggers a wave of associations and ideas each time I see it.

A fun to watch clip, which kinda explains things almost by raising questions rather than answering them. I like the attitude, it’s not very serious, but brings up a very interesting perspective. Also taking a step back and getting a fresh perspective on the everyday.

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The Big Brother State

February 21, 2011 by cogixo in visual pamphlets | Comments Off on The Big Brother State

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJTLL1UjvfU[/youtube]

The Big Brother State is a very well made video, explaining the use and dangers of cctv and other surveillance tools. Sadly the website at http://www.bigbrotherstate.com/ seems to not exist anymore.

It summarises the arguments for surveillance and then goes on point out some of the downsides. Visually it is very appealing, the pink and grey aesthetics are easy on the eye, the little bombs and hearts visually represent abstract concepts and ideas and make them more tangible, without making them too concrete. The pink ‘wallpaper’ background is a bit sickly sweet, but adds a self ironic element, which counteracts the somewhat dry and depressing subject matter.

It is made from a mix of footage of real people, 3D and 2D animation, creating a well paced, informative and entertaining little video.

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Visual Pamphlets

February 21, 2011 by cogixo in visual pamphlets | Comments Off on Visual Pamphlets

There are those ideas for projects that would be great to make, they keep nagging in the background, but there’s always something else happening and you never really get around to tackling them head on.

The idea to make short films about political key concepts is one of them. It first popped up during the Anarchist Bookfair in 2010. (Check out the Virtual Anarchist Bookfair over at Imc London.) We were chatting about how difficult it can be to communicate political ideas, especially more abstract concepts to a wider ‘audience’ (for lack of a better expression). Since the crisis, we keep reading about the market, the free market, debt, and the economy in general. But very few people (me included) actually have a firm grasp on what those terms mean. Even though they are affecting our daily lives very directly, they seem very distant concepts. Of course we are constantly told that we could not expect to understand things, and we should leave them to specialists. To make matters worse, these are the very same “specialists” who triggered the whole crisis. Being specialists and all.

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Mobile publishing

February 19, 2011 by cogixo in General | Comments Off on Mobile publishing

image

Just checking if this is working. Here is an awesome pic of a public toilet hidden in the backyard of the Camel and Artichoke at Waterloo. There’s no way anyone could ever find this. Also for some reason it makes me think of the Tardis. Maybe because the Tardis would be way less out of place in that spot.

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cogito ergo seditio

February 19, 2011 by cogixo in General | Comments Off on cogito ergo seditio

Here we are, let’s see where it takes us. I’ve tried starting a blog before. A few times. Some I never did anything with. Other’s prospered for a while and then fell apart. One reason was that I have been inherently incomfortable setting up a blog hosted on corporate services. It’s just so cumbersome. They log my IP address and I have no idea who they could be passing this information too. They also log the readers IP address. They could take down my blog or suspend it at any time, and there is no way to dispute this. All I would be able to do is appeal to their good will. While they can find out about me, including where I live and other personal information, I have to deal with an anonymous and unaccountable organisation. And it is a corporation. While I do not necessarily want to get paid for the creative work of writing and maintaining a blog, publishing pictures and video, I just don’t like the idea to let others make money on the back of this labour.

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