FRAGILE PERFECTION

We wish we could have used Chris Gilmour’s cardboard typewriter to write this post. Words would have come out more softly, gently adapting to this humble medium. Chris has chosen a simple but meaningful material for his work: in first place because corrugated cardboard is usually employed to pack and ship the artist’s work, rather than physically representing the oeuvre itself (the container, in this case, becomes the content). Even more interesting is the gap between the cheap, discarded material and the height of the final output. It’s an elegant operation that goes beyond the usual theme of recycling, and underlines the role of the modern artist as a new ‘artisan virtuoso’, at ease with the industrial material as much as the icons of an industrial culture. The end result is a “fragile perfection”, a sober refelction on our own world, where the value of beauty is too often misunderstood with its price.

All of Chris Gilmour’s super-detailed works are lifesize and don’t use metal frames or wiring as a support. Every piece is just made of cardboard, and glue. That’s probably why we can’t take our eyes away from his simple masterpieces.

This article was written by Monica Turlot, senior writer, artist and critic at Brandpowder, after a couple of Dry Martini and a bowl of black olives.

ANIMALS’ RIGHTS.

Your dog is stressed? Demotivated? Hanging around thinking he’s leading a dog’s life? Give him a Bubble Zoo, the chewing gum specifically produced for your pet, as well as for many other animals. Brandpowder is well aware of animals’ rights; that’s why we developed a product to give them all a good chew.

Bubble Zoo is sugar free, it doesn’t stick to their teeth and, given the animals’ lack of proper lips, it’s also very easy to inflate. We tested our product on several species, and we found out animals love chewing gum and, most of all, love to make bubbles.

Napoleon is a real master. He gets a kick by pinching the bubbles with his claws.

All cows are natural chewer, of course, and very good bubble makers.

Monti, a very old donkey, finally managed to make his own bubble.

Only 50% of bats can make bubbles. But all of them get addicted to Bubbles Zoo.

We found out tree frogs are flamboyant bubblers and make a lot of noise too.

During mating season, a Bubble Zoo can be a kinky ice breaker among bull frogs.

Birds are hopeless. Their beck makes it very hard to inflate a bubble without puncturing it. Brandpowder is studying a “run-flat” bubble for them.

Since the Animal Kingdom varies in size, Brandpowder developed a full range of chewing gums, from the chubby 3-lbs. elephant portion to the very tiny squirrel gum. New micro-size gums for ants and spiders are at study, at the moment.

Above: Bubu, a young grizzly bear who often comes visiting our offices, asks for a treat. He loves Bubble Zoo chewing gums. And we hope your pets will love them too.

ZIP THIS!

Top: Gideon Sundback, inventor of the zip (…you mean, the postal code?)

We’d like to pay a tribute to Gideon Sundback, the man who invented the zip, a device that beautifully separates and joins not only two pieces of fabric, but reveals a whole world of things, opening up and closing, showing and concealing, freeing and restraining both flesh and spirit, and the fireworks of fantasy.

“Thank you Gideon!” for your ‘embroidered’ drawings of the 1917 patent (above). Inventions like this were a mix of technology and poetry. The etiquette, in such official documents, dictated meticolous handwriting, reflecting a sense of brainy elegance and aesthetic discipline.

“Thank you Gideon!” for opening (and closing) a new path in history.

“Thank you Gideon!” We couldn’t exist without you (The Cat Women).

“Thank you Gideon!”. The Shut Up logo (courtesy caoazul.com)

“Thank you Gideon!” Politicians should wear this on campaign. (The voters).

“Thank you Gideon!” for letting me properly torture women’s feet. (Loboutin).

“Thank you Gideon!” because shorts must be short, but never short of zips.

“Thank you Gideon!” for filling another gap in the fashion industry.

“Thank you Gideon!” for giving a ‘time-poor” society a chance for quick love.

The monster was stitched together by hand. B-movies show zips on his head and neck, but this is an historic false. Frankestein was written by a 19-year old Mary Shelley in 1817, exactly one hundred years before Gideon Sundback’s invention.

” °°°° you, Gideon!”. The button.

ON HAIR.

Above: “Me No Blonde” oil on canvas, 55×73 in. (140×185 cm).

I am happy to present a brief selection of jumbo-size paintings from Klaus Kizzinskitz, a Polish artist who is going to be in New York and London (not at the same time, of course) to promote his “On Hair” exhibitions, both on schedule at the Late Art Gallery. Kizzinskitz, 26 year old, is considered one of the new talents of the Art World. One of his paintings passed, unexpectedly, the 1,5 million dollars’ mark at the Shanghai Auction Fair. Half of the profits, he told me, will be donated to support scientific research to solve premature baldness among business people.

Above: “Alive!” a massive triptych stretching, top to bottom, for almost 30 feet. Kizzinskitz’s technique involves women’s hair brushes. He also personally prepares oil colors, following the Renaissance’s antique recipes. Below: “Sexy Keratin”, another huge canvas. To have an idea of its dimensions, the artist is the size of the woman’s nose.

Kizzinskitz’s fascination with hair is not new. While attending the Warsaw Art College, he found inspiration in the work of Botticelli, De Camp, Degas, Kahlo, Truong and Zhang, just to mention a few. “Hair is made of keratin, a fibrous protein produced by our organism. What fascinates me is the fact hair is made of dead cells, yet is the only part which keeps growing after we die.” Kizzinskitz moves his hands while talking to me, filling the air with imaginary volumes; his grey blue eyes look at me as if I were the only person left in the Universe. His work, when you are in front of the canvas, emanates a particular energy, animated by this ‘lively sense of death’. Colors flow like lava on the surface. This effect, he says, is the result of years of experiments and hard work.

Sandro Botticelli: “Young Woman” (oil).

Joseph De Camp: “Woman combing her hair” (oil).

Edgar Degas: “Woman combing her hair” (oil pastels).

Frida Kahlo: “Self portrait with loose hair” (oil).

Winnie Truong: “The Ginger Bread” (color pencils).

Hong Chun Zhang: “Life Strands”, charcoal on paper.

Kizzinskitz draws hundreds’ life-size sketches before realizing his huge canvases.

Above: Mammoth’s hair from the Ice Age. Kizzinskitz bought it from a collector and it’s now part of his Cabinet of Curiosities. He plans to use it to craft his next brushes. “I never painted with an elephant, before,” he said, smiling childishly.

Monica Turlot (correspondent for the Brandpowder Team, Paris 2012)

WORLD FLAG

Globalization has been so fast and out of control that, in the end, no one thought of a global flag, an emblem for all of us, representing the planet as a whole. To be honest, a world flag already exists. It is called  the One World Flag (pictured below). It was designed by David Bartholomew in 2006. In his blog, you read that “the One World Flag is an international symbol of diversity, Honoring the Talents, Abilities and Uniqueness in Each of Us, as Strengths that can Benefit All of Us” for whatever that means.

This flag is very inspiring, and perfect for a summer campsite but, in our humble opinion, it has got three little problems: first, being the output from a single person, and not from a congregation of people representing different countries, it is perhaps a bit solipsistic;  second, it has been conceived as a free gift to the world, but then the project had to find a way to make a profit in order to finance its ideals. We have nothing against it, of course, we’d like to think it as free for everybody to use. Last but not least…the yin-yiang. What does that mean for an Aboriginal, an Inuit or a Maori? This is in fact a symbol based on a local culture which doesn’t represent everybody’s values. It’s revealing more of the creator’s beliefs than of a worldwide sentiment. Our considerations are limited, of course, to constructive criticism. Following emblems’ etiquette, we highly respect this flag as any other flag of the world.

Nevertheless, the Brandpowder Team, one year ago, started to focus on the subject with a more structured approach, trying to find a universal code that could work for everyone, independently from race, language, culture or religion. After sending a letter to several Governments and other worldwide organizations, asking their point of view (and getting no answer) we rolled up our sleeves. The first step for the worldwide flag project was to put together a worldwide team. Here below we list only those who signed their work, even if many others, due to political reasons, participated anonymously to the task. We wish to thank them all for their effort and sometimes colorful considerations on the subject. Their contribution and ideas have been priceless, and we all had a great time together.

In our office a considerable amount of data on existing flags has been collected. We went through the story of each flag, trying to work out which colors are more present, in order to get a proportion that could represent all Countries. We found out a lot had already been done on this topic. For sorting out color quantities and distribution, for instance, we found particularly helpful the crwflags database. Also wolfram‘s blog has been valuable for extra insight on color statistics, based on Mathematica software. We then shared all the collected information with every contributor to the World Flag project, letting everyone run wild with his or her proposals.

Below: the first chart shows worldwide color’s presence on a flag; the second shows what would it look like if flags were ranked according to population’s density. It’s evident, in this case, the impact of China.

Red has always been the favorite color, representing – also today – more than 30% of total flags’ surface. The rank has gone through minor changes in the past. One hundred years ago, for example, yellow gold was more popular than green, and light blue was more widespread than ultramarine. For our case study, we obviously concentrated only on contemporary flags.

Above: we have been intrigued by an interesting essay by Diane Guyot, who created an algorythm to get the average color from each of the 248 world’s flags. Below: the Union Jack, as it would appear after her mathematical blender.

The challenge was to come out, in the end, with a flag that could represent, in the most accurate manner, the average values, taste and mood of 6 billion people. The first evidence of colors’ proportion on worldwide flags, and their meaning, is pictured here below:

It is worth to mention this interpretation is simply based on an average from all contributors’ point of view, with 39 different countries representing 85% of the total population. Red, the most popular of all colors, represents not only blood, of course, but also courage, love, aggressivity, heat and pride. Blue, likewise, bears with it several symbols: freedom, independence, democracy, aspirations, moral values, ideals and peace. White stands for spiritual values, pureness, neutrality, excellence and abstraction. Green is a symbol of land and hope, but it’s worth to consider that for some countries land is expressed by yellow or black. Black, in some cultures, is linked to roots, tradition and a sense of belonging. In others it is a warning to maintain a distance from borders. In our resarch we discovered that, if all flags of the world could be re-designed from scratch, blue would be the dominant color, followed by red, white and green.

The World  Flag, according to a set of agreements voted by all contributors, must not represent a symbol, a figure, an existent or familiar shape, neither had to bear a link to dogma, language, race or political statement. The Flag of the World, which we are happy to introduce here for the first time, is a 10-color emblem based on flags of the world’ color quantity. It represents the five continents plus the five main bodies of water. The black, as tenth color, and always in proportion to worldwide’s colors, is connecting together every field in a pathway which helps readability also in very small sizes. It was not easy to choose among hundreds proposals; in the end the top flag, voted by the vast majority of participants, won by a good length. The design is by a Chinese refugee who didn’t want to reveal his identity. The anonymity of the artist, he wrote us in letter accompanying his work, is the best prerequisite for a world’s creation. For whatever that means.

The World Flag is the result of a worldwide project that involved 39 countries. There is no copyright. Click on the flag to download it. It’s free and can be used for any purpose.

Above: The Brandpowder Team hoisted the World Flag in front of their office.

REAL FAKE

Fake or Authentic? How many times did you ask yourself this question, when in doubt about a person, a product, a moment or a statement? The topic is way too vast and rich to be discussed exhaustively in just one page. In our case study we just wanted to offer a few hints for reflection, in order to rehabilitate the idea of Fake. If you look at Mother Nature, for instance, you discover she is a master of deceit. She shows things by hiding them, she camouflages and mimicks, mirroring herself in countless forms. Compare the Coral Snake and its deadly poison with the Scarlet King, which is not poisonous at all, but is almost identical. It’s so easy to mistake one snake for another that somebody came up with a proverb: “red and yellow kill a fellow, red and black venom lack,” (we reckon you need a blood colder than a reptile to remember the rhyme when you mostly need it.).  Another striking animal is the dead leaf butterfly, which is a double-fake since she’s not dead, and even less, a leaf. This evolutionary gimmick simply helped her to survive throughout time, effectively cheating on dumb predators. Deceit has million tricks, all of them based on perception.

A lively Dead Leaf Butterfly (courtesy conservationreport.com)

But what happens when the notion of Real and Fake involve human beings? If you type the word fake on Google images, you’ll find an infinte array of pictures: from fake tits to fake scoops, there’s virtually everything: fake documents, fake cars, fake bombs, fake poop, even fake money for buying fake Gucci purses.

At first, deceit can be seen as the main pillar of a rotten civilization but, at a closer look, you realize it’s a biological shortcut, a trick that saves you the effort “to be” in favor of “to seem”. Life itself is a gigantic distorted lens, a fantastic make-believe that, in the end, makes existence more funny, surreal and bearable for all of us. Padded panties are an almost touching example of reality bent to personal benefit, a bait to lure (and fool) the prey. The advantages of fakeness, in any case, outnumber the drawbacks in many aspects. Not last for the fact human beings love to be tricked.

What an ass! (is the expression referring to the girl, or the guy looking at her?)

Authenticity, as you see, has its raison d’etre as long as falsehood is there to prove it through counter-evidence. What’s in fact the value of an authentic piece, if there isn’t a fake one which worship it by imitation? You can own a fake Ferrari, for instance. It can be yours for 30,000 dollars, if you are happy to drive the lousy version of the real thing and, most of all, accept fooling yourself before fooling your friends. This act, in any case, will give immense satisfaction to every owner of a real Ferrari. It will make them feel privileged and unreachable. Even Ferrari will be happy, because fakes indirectly reinforce the brand’s totemic power (honestly, have you ever heard of a fake Nissan?)

Above and below: Fake Ferrari cars, reachable for the unrich (photo: courtesy motortrend.com). Human beings, according to anropologist Chris Law, follow Nature’s Law. Fake Ferrari cars are the cultural equivalent of enhanced self representation among  animals, while competing against each other for the mating season. A luxury red car, he claims, is a hybrid symbol that melts sexual power, money and success on a piece of metal.

In spite of all this, we all know big brands spend billions to fight illegal imitations and lousy copies, mostly made in China and Taiwan. But why nobody ever thought of defending the rights of the poorer? What’s wrong with fakes, when we all know some brands produce both, the authentic and the false, only to get a wider slice of the market?

To solve this problem, and help the less fortunate folks that roam the planet, the Brandpowder Team came up with an idea: to protect the authenticity of the “Real Fake”. We are not talking here of giving crime an incentive, of course.  We just want to certify the dignity of fakeness.

Above: the R(A)F logo, i.e. the “Real (Authentic) Fake” stamp which guarantees the product you are buying – besides being an exquisite by-product of consumerism and advertising’s fake mythology – is genuinely false. You can download it here for free and proudly apply it to all of your really fake belongings. Jim Peary, one of our staff, tattoed it on his chest, saying his sentiments were not really true but kind of R(A)F.

Below: construction of a fake Porsche (courtesy of the author). Artist and designer Hannes Langeder built a pedal-powerded model which has been dubbed as the slowest (and cleanest) Porsche ever. The Brandpowder Team wanted to give a place of honor to this real fake piece of art.

CYCLOPTICS

Some clients are unusual and Philip Sunsbeats, founder and owner of Cycloptics, a small firm based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is definitely more than that. He’s anomalous, to say the least. A few months ago he showed up at Brandpowder’s Headquarters, introducing himself as the one and only producer of eyeglass in the world. The product is singular, and not only grammatically (never mention the word eyeglasses in front of him!) So it hardly surprises us to know it has no rivals in the market. Who is going to buy this stuff?

The client showed us the Polifamous, a sleek eyeglass that looked like a mix between a 1960′s bubbly tv screen and a pair of Ray Ban after a car accident. He told us he wanted to launch the Polifamous with a worldwide campaign. While our client was talking, I struggled to wear the bloody thing. “It’s a lady eyeframe,”  he said, as if that could explain everything. The situation was getting surreal. At that point we asked him whether he had a specific target in mind, for the campaign. Mr Sunsbeats dropped his jaw and looked at us as if we were a bunch of dumb asses. “Who needs a target?” – he asked. And that’s when we learned one of the most important lessons in contemporary marketing. The campaign, unexpectedly even to us, was a worldwide success.

Above: the teaser campaign for the worlwide launch of Polifamous eyeglass. The  puchline “I’d give an eye for it” became instant jargon among trendsetters.

Below: mega poster in Thailand. Cycloptics jumped from 30 to 95% in awareness among two-eyed people too. In 2011 it ranked among the 20 fastest growing Companies and most loved brands in the world.