Canada Day, Canada Act 1982, Disco 82

Eh, tomorrow's Canada Day!

Because Kate and Will are gracing Ottawa with his balding head and her over-tanned face, I thought it would be nice, just for fun, to go over the year 1982. Not because that's the year Kate and Will's Highnessesses came to life, but rather because that's the year things supposedly changed for Canada:

"The Canada Act 1982 (1982 c. 11) is an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament that ended all remaining dependence of Canada on the United Kingdom, by a process known as "patriation."

Remember that? Apparently not... the Canadians and their government's lust for these young feudal capitalists is so as infuriating as it is pathetic that playing Bollywood 'Disco 82' while reading the same wikipedia page makes for a much less frustrating experience. I encourage you to do the same.

Greenpeace Toys with the Innocence of Childhood

After the publicized success of Ken's breakup with Barbie earlier this month - the revelation her packaging contributes to tropical deforestation annihilating all the lust left in Ken's heart, - Greenpeace has again used the joyful innocence associated to childhood to better reveal environmental horrors. If their use of Barbie was entirely their initiative, their campaign 'Dark Side' is based on Volkswagen's latest ad for their new Passat. In the Greenpeace campaign the young endearing Dark Vador trying to animate everyday objects gets swapped for a young yet evil Dark Vador backed by a float of polluting earth killers that must fight an adorable group with young Leila, young Luke, young Droids, young R2- D2, young C-3PO, young Chewbacca and more...

Pretty cute and pretty successful at attacking a brand with a four start branding history (Volkswagen) and a toy every girl under the age of 60 has played with (Barbie):

The Heavy Materiality of All Things Virtual

Coding Secret Wars vs. Experiencing Public Security

After last's post theme that gay rights is all too often a guy's club, I think it is only appropriate to post on two very dude topics - war and coding (see below). Who knew anything about Stuxnet? Who knew anything about this compared to the ratio of those who know the security measures in airports? I'm about to take a plane right now, and as I will be getting my water bottle scanned, I'm going be reminded the great risk my country is at and the great security measures my country is putting in place to save me from this danger. But really a part from pissing me off, forcing me to buy an expensive water bottle and convincing me Western society is going mad, clearly this type of visible security is worth peanuts...

Hh: It's Guy Pride Month

The Idea Behind Virtual Search Engines

eCatophile

I've recently noticed and become quite self-conscious by the amount of cat-related stories I've posted. I like to think this is a coincidence, but evidence suggests otherwise making me some kind of a cat lover - a human-type which I don't particulalry identify to. This morning however, while exploring the fantastic worlds of eharmony, réseau contact, OkCupid and the other virtual decendants of the personal classified ad sections of news papers I was able to relativise the situation. Thank you eHarmony:

Stella and Heineken: The New Beer Drinkers

Stella Artois has long tradition of advertising itself as the la bière pour les hommes à femmes. In their past ads women and Stella Artois bottles are interchangeable because both are light and straight out of the 60s, and the male characters are handsome Frenchmen with perfect-fitting suits and ravishing taste. Their latest ad keeps to their manicured nostalgia but changes the narration making the girl the one who switches the boy for the Stella.

Heineken seems to be wanting to go somewhere somewhat similar by presenting an ad with a lovely couple, a touch of humor, choreographed eye movement and 60s beats that calls anything but "beer is exclusively for men who like sports, bawling and junk food."

Girls, not feeling those sugary Smirnoff Ice delicacies any more, well both Stella and Heinken are thinking of you:

Jane, the Newest Necklace

I just finished a new necklace. It was named Jane, after the women who commissioned it. For more of these noisy attention seekers click here: http://chloeroubert.com/bijoux

The Wonders of Human Associations and The Benefits of Digital Stalking

The Funniest Use of Personal Digital Branding: Harper's Adorable Kitten

The realisation that in less than two weeks more than the equivalent of two thirds of his nation's population had seen the video 'mom cat hugs baby kitten (having a nightmare)' must have sparked somekind of fabulous lightbulb within the Canadian Prime Minister's personal branding team; something like adorable kittens do well at making things go viral and our client (Harper), although viral, is anything but adorable so let's try to use that 'insight' and make Harper adorable.

A few days later they came up with a facebook status and an album - "We have a new family member, a grey tabby, what do you think he should be named? Nous avons un nouveau membre de la famille. comment devrions-nous l'appeler?"

Interested in helping Harper? Go to Harper's personal facebook page before midnight or else Stanley will be the attributed winner. Not interested in helping the Harpers baptize their new grey tabby or contribute to the 505 messages left by the kitten's friends? Then at least go check out Stephen Harper's profile picture and discover what a Harper family picnic looks like:

http://www.facebook.com/pmharper

Moving On But Where Are We Going?

There's a great ambiguity in this documentary which makes one unsure if Welles is making fun of those 'unprepared' for the future individuals or actually seriously serious about a future he describes as filled with contestant instant decision-making, en-temporary prepackaged knowledge, stressful technology, impermanent lifestyles, transient societies, disposable friendships and future shocked individuals.

In any case its relieving in some sense that before Google, facebook friends and Wikipedia people were already freaking out about change, in particular Oxford chemistry professors.

HistoryPin: Giving Google Street View a Human Soul and Sense of Humour?

Consumer Data?

Your Phone Is Hungry

After the Hipster Dickhead...

It starts off like a car ad, but actually it's another youth sub-category appropriating a derogatory term to ironically stigmatize itself.  And like the dickhead hipster, it's sort of funny:

Modern Matters: the Parking Meter vs. the Human

I've been in Brazil's Bahia region for the past week or so now, and in addition to enjoying the beaches and indulging in caipirinhas I think I've come closer to understanding what 'Modernity' stands for - very roughly it goes something like this:

Here, in Bahia's regional capital Salvador, in dense areas a man will always rush to you as you are in the process of parking or while you are attempting to find a spot. As you park he will help (with hand gestures "a little to the left, the right, back, stop") and while you are away he will 'watch' your vehicle. But really nothing is required or set as to what his functions exactly entail. Sometimes you'll find him sitting next to your car, other times napping, chatting with friends or even washing your car after a rain. In exchange for this service he will ask for change. He can ask for 10 and you can easily bargain to 2.

In Montreal in dense areas when you park you are required to pay with your credit card a parking meter with a fix hourly price set by the city (an abstract concept embodied by elected humans that are hopefully clean). The parking meter does nothing that comes close to watching your car and you can't ease the pain of paying through bargaining with it, you can just grumble to yourself as you are paying a machine. But the rate is fixed and the money goes to the community's greater good.

Both are means of making money by taking ownership of the conveted public space. And both have questionable legitimacy and different pros and cons. In Brazil it's an annoying human that gives directions, a chance to practice your Portuguese and a smile, and in Canada it's a horribly annoying machine that hopefully feeds a fair bureaucracy that than feeds a human in need...

Salvador de Bahia, Brazil

Off.

Salvador de Bahia's Cats

http://www2.b3ta.com/i-love-you/iloveyou.swf

The Internet has a history too: circa 2005 http://www2.b3ta.com/i-love-you/iloveyou.swf

With The Elections Around the Corner...

Jean-Louis Cohen: L'Architecture durant la deuxième guerre mondiale

Je suis allée au Centre Canadien d'Architecture écouter Jean-Louis Cohen parler des changements que l'effort et les effets de la deuxième guerre mondial ont eu sur l'évolution de l'architecture. Période oubliée des livres alors qu'il y regorge les innovations matérielles, politiques et esthétiques, caractéristiques des villes, usines, quartiers et bâtiments imaginés et construits durant le reste du siècle.

Cohen tisse des liens entre, entre autres, le plan formaliste des années 30 et le plan des baraques d'Auschwitz, les débats politiques qui se cachent derrière l'implantation du bunker individuel versus collectif en Grand-Bretagne (campagne commencée dès 1924!), le rôle des professionnels d'Hollywood dans la reproduction méticuleuse des villages allemands et des préfabriqués japonais dans le cadre de test pour l'amélioration dévastatrice des bombes alliés et le développement remarquable du faux, du préfabriqué, de l'artificiel et du camouflage pour tromper l'adversaire du ciel.

Enfin toujours avec autant de justesse Cohen soulève le rôle de la responsabilité et de l'éthique: si tout a du être dessiné durant les années crescendo de la guerre - des plans d'usines pour les camps de concentration à ceux fabriquants des bombes à Los Angeles - qui était là pour les faire? Il y avait de tout, évidemment, de la lâcheté attendue, de la cruauté pure, de la naïveté facile, de l'instinct de survie...

Une conférance remarquable! (La conférance accompagne l'expo Architecture en Uniforme qui a pour commissaire Jean-Louis Cohen)

Images: La Bête est Morte bande dessinée par Calvo publiée chez Gallimard et une équipe de camoufleurs au travail à Fort Belvoir, Virginie, illustration dans Robert P. Breckenridge, Modern Camouflage: The New Science of Protective Concealmen, 1942 (prise du site du CCA).

Carton d'Invitation (the exhibit invite that looks like a book cover)

Wedding Photos

It's Spring, and after Spring comes Summer and all the weddings both seasons imply. To celebrate the beginning of this festive season here are some of the photographs from the McCord Museum's collection on the topic. 

The first image from 1925 is particularly striking: the Church representative is prominent and the bride and groom are native. Compare his shoes to her shoes, the priest's face to the groom's face and to the bride's posture. Seems like the image encompasses the complexities of colonial rule in a nutshell. 

The rest of the images are more flamboyant. The 1930s wedding party on St. Urbain Street is terrific (again notice the bottines of the little boy of the right side of the frame - that very same model is doing a real fashion come back in that same area today). The 1895 bridal party looks like a mash-up of Tommy Hilfiger's happy family meets Grace Coddington's version of a funeral. Finally Miss Ryan's wedding photograph is adorable because of the size of everything: the girls' dresses, the girls' hair (it was after all les années folles - flap girls) and the size of the four protagonists relative to each other.

Vive les mariés!

Wedding, English River, ON, about 1925

Wedding party on St. Martin's Church steps, 730 St. Urbain Street, Montreal, QC, about 1930

Mrs J.E. St. Binney's bridal party and guests, Halifax, NS, about 1895

Miss Ryan's wedding, Montreal, QC, 1921

Deux des Meilleures Pub Pour Préservatifs

Le Poisson Rouge de Cédric Klapisch

Zazoo Condoms