It
permits no replicas, assumes authoritarian
and illogical behaviour, censures and never
once answers. And if you complain, you are
simply cancelled. No, it is not the North
Korean government. Nor am I hinting at
Ahmadinejad. Rather, I am talking about
Faccialibro, the most entertaining,
free-spirited invention to be seen in the
last 10 years and which is helping the
social network alter social, relational and
political dynamics, along with creativity
and the sharing of knowledge and thoughts
more and more as each day passes.
Possible? I would have to say so, on the
basis of reading the desperate (and entirely
unheeded) e-mails of those who are cancelled
because the number of messages sent, perhaps
for a social cause, is simply not considered
to be in line with a logarithm.
As has happened to Pasquale Barbella (unfortunately
Advertown goodbye!). Or
Aldo Nove, who experimented with innovative
and provocative language, not provided by
the system.Not to mention what happened at
the end of August, when Facebook
single-handedly censured the campaign
Just Say Now in favour of the
legalisation of marijuana in the United
States. Entering headfirst, full-on into
electoral choices and causing all hell to
break loose on the internet. The symptom of
a market and philosophy of use that has
exploded in the hands of its creators. And
those who apply rules that are no longer
understood by users (...it is ok if you
contact your school friend, who you haven't
seen for years, today a perfect stranger, it
is not ok if you ask people you do not know
for friendship, even if they share your same
passions and interests). Perhaps, dear
Faccialibro, before the toy breaks, a
little review is required.
This is the message
that the delivery and courier company UPS
looks to enforce amongst its regular
customers and, above all, communicate to
potential newcomers.
To promote its express
delivery and courier services in Indonesia,
UPS has contacted Jakarta’s Ogilvy&Mather,
which, clearly, did not disappoint and has
developed a fun and interesting operation on
the territory.
A
promotion that takes a sidelong glance at
street art and the ambient marketing and
exalts the ‘express potential’ of UPS, a
company that delivers the world over with
extremely high standards in terms of both
reliability and speed.
Hence a series of
out-of-focus shapes have appeared throughout
the streets of Indonesia – the UPS porters
making their regular deliveries of parcels
and boxes. Shapes that cannot be seen to the
naked eye thanks to an effect on the
structure of the installations, conveying a
clear message of speed and rapidity – a true
feature of UPS.
Those making deliveries
for UPS are so fast they can’t even be seen
by the naked eye!
A very different open
day entrusted to an advertising agency: this
is the initiative taken by the Faculty of
Technological Engineering of Swinburne
University in Australia.
Given the current
drought conditions of Australia, this
faculty focuses on training its engineers in
sustainability and has decided, for the
latest campaign, to create rather original
posters. Not your usual notice stuck to the
wall, but a different type of advertising
that exalts the preparation, along with the
ductility of future engineers graduating
from Swinburne University, because: “A
Swinburne engineer finds sustainability
everywhere”. This is the claim of a poster
where plants native to the island are rolled
up, unique in their capacity to survive with
very little water.
An
enormous success for an initiative that has
taken form through the use of a truly
negligible budget. Will enrolments go up at
the faculty? The tough decision lies with
the posters!
Nature or Art?
A dual concept, a contradiction but also
union and co-penetration set to amaze and
astound. What are we talking about? The rare
beauty of a truly extraordinary work: the
Plant Cathedral of mount Arera by the
Lombardy artist Giuliano Mauri who passed
away last year and around ten years ago
‘laid the basis’ for this masterpiece that
blends nature and art in the flourishing
heart of green Trentino. A cathedral
designed and developed by Mauri who, even at
the time, knew he would never see it
complete. A project that was the jewel in
the crown of the 2001 edition of Arte Sella
under the scope of the international Arte
Natura meetings; a project that has been
developed with the fundamental assistance of
the Servizio Ripristino e Valorizzazione
Ambientale (Environmental Restoration and
Optimisation Service) of the Autonomous
Province of Trento and which was finally
opened on 4th September.
We are in the
province of Bergamo, on Mount Arera in Oltre
Il Colle in the district of Plassa, at an
altitude of 1200 metres and we are talking
about a proper Gothic cathedral with 5 naves
and 42 columns, built using 1800 rods of
fir, 600 branches of chestnut, 6 thousand
metres of hazelnut branches and 42 beech
plants. Over the years, the plants have
grown around 50 cm per year and all the
artifices positioned to accompany the
plants’ growth have rotted, thereby
favouring the natural growth of these
hornbeams that today form a spectacular
plant cathedral that occupies an area of
1,230 square metres. A project that is a
work of art as well as a manifestation of
what has to be the absolute form of
eco-compatible architecture.
Her name is Elena
Gallen, she is Spanish and lives in
Barcelona where she works as an eclectic,
versatile artist and designer. We unearthed
her on the internet and were curious to find
out more about her provocative style that
spills over entirely into her creations and
t-shirts in particular.
What really struck us
about Ms. Gallen is her mania for subverting
the fable-like imagery and protagonists
recognised and loved by the whole world.
Her
portal tells of her life, her works and her
future plans but, above all, it is here that
one can buy one of the creations that, more
than anything else, attracted our attention:
The Bearded Lady. What are we talking about?
A t-shirt printed with an unprecedented Snow
White, a Snow White that totally subverts
the graceful image we have of one of the
undisputed protagonists of our childhood
fairy tales. The Bearded Lady is, in fact,
no less than a Snow White with a beard… yes,
that’s right. Grace, sweetness and
femininity have been brushed aside by the
subversive creativity of Elena.
If many of you will
have your noses put out of joint, we can
assure you that this t-shirt has enjoyed
incredible success. We wrote to Gallen for a
Bearded Lady t-shirt and she replied saying
we would have to wait a little while because
given the enormous popularity, it has been
sold out for several weeks. Cool!
The warmth of
the people, the beauty of the food, culture
and hospitality. Home Food is all this and
much, much more: a project desired by the
Association for the optimisation of the
culinary gastronomic heritage typical of
Italy, sponsored by the Ministry for
Agricultural Policy, by some regions of
Italy and in collaboration with the
University of Bologna. In extremely
practical terms, this is a website developed
with the idea of creating a circuit of ‘Cesarinas’,
women who lovingly make their homes and
mastery in the kitchen available for dinners
seeking to rediscover ancient recipes and
forgotten flavours. On the website, you can
choose whether to become a ‘user member’ or
‘Cesarina member’. By becoming a user
member, you have the option of being hosted
by the Cesarinas: grandmothers, aunts,
mothers of Italian families all over, in any
region of Italy, to discover the typical
local dishes, the tradition and the history
behind these recipes. By instead becoming a
‘Cesarina member’, you will be called to
give proof of you ‘culinary’ skills and
knowledge of the history of the territory in
which you live. Once you have passed the
exam, it will be a question of pulling those
sleeves up and getting cooking! Home Food
offers a wide variety of services, with the
S.O.S. Cesarina service particularly
entertaining: if you are members of the
organisation and wish to organise a real
‘traditional’ dinner, but simply do not have
the skill to do so, you can call the Bologna
headquarters of Home Food, and a certified
Cesarina will be sent to your home!
Adeline Adeline bicycle store goal:
rediscover the pleasure of bicycling.
Located in the heart of Manhattan, the store
was conceived by its owner Julie Hirshfield,
former graphic designer, who decided to open
a store that could be a real alternative to
all the technical bicycle stores for
professionals or followers. Adeline Adeline
is a store for the person who wants to
rediscover a relaxed and, why not, romantic
way of bicycling. In the store one can find
beautifully designed bicycles, helmets,
bags, pet baskets and other accessories.
Loving Europe and its “slower” way of life,
Julie conceived Adeline Adeline with two
European cities in mind: Copenaghen and
Amsterdam, where the daily use of bicycle is
spread everywhere. “I focus on a
comfortable, relaxed and stylish riding for
pleasure”.
Hence, a store that sells a real European
philosophy right in the heart of the most
important city in the US.
In case you want to pay a visit, we give you
the address: 147 Read Street.
We know our
readers (male, of course) will be very
pleased to hear of this, but would
immediately tell you that bookings cannot be
made until November, the month when the
opening is scheduled (the exact date has not
yet been decided). Australia’s Lynx Lodge on
Lake Macquarie (between Sidney and Brisbane)
will be the ideal place to enjoy a man-cation
with all the comforts. The play on words has
been created specifically to describe the
originality of the place and the phenomenon
already looks set to become one of the most
popular trends in terms of themed holidays:
a luxury resort reserved exclusively for
men. Excellent food, room service breakfast,
fantastic landscapes, sports and
recreational activities of all sorts
(including twister and mud wrestling). But
above all, staff that are exclusively
beautiful girls who are described as
“friendly and flexible” according to the
official description on the hotel website.
Again according to this description,
relations between staff and guests shall
remain professional, which, at least in
terms of intention, avoids equating Lynx
Lodge to a plain brothel. The more cunning
see it as covering up a marketing operation
(the launch advertisement recalls the Lynx
commercials). Try it to believe it.... or
change your mind!
Playing on the idea of
inversion forms the key point of a
surprising initiative held a few days ago in
the centre of San Paolo, Brazil.
To promote their latest
refrigerator creation, the Brastemp Inverse,
the electrical appliance manufacturers
Brastemp has decided to amaze the public by
developing a real flash mob that could
convey the concept of a change of
perspective, of an upturning, inversion,
precisely as the product name suggests, to
the whole world, and thereby promote it as a
key characteristic: the Brastemp Inverse has
the freezer on the top, the opposite to
other refrigerators available on the market.
More
than 500 people met in the city centre. They
were given mirrored panels and, when a
pre-established signal was given, the
participants raised the mirrors they were
holding up into the air. In just a few
seconds, an enormous reflective sheet, as
long as the road, took the form in the heart
of São Paulo, creating a spectacular
inversion effect. The street’s urban
structures, the buildings and beautiful
Brazilian sky were all magically inverted.
An enormous reflective floor made it
possible to walk on the beautiful sky of São
Paulo!
Last 26th May
Dubai hosted the third edition of the Middle
East Events Awards, the appointment that
consecrates the best events agencies
operating on the market of the Middle East &
North Africa (MENA). Filmmaster Events Dubai
– the events agency controlled by the
Filmmaster Group operating on this market
and founded in 2007 – was awarded the
Outstanding Production Achievement for the
opening ceremony of KAUST, the University of
Science and Technology commissioned by the
Saudi King Abdullah and scheduled for
development along the coast of the Red Sea
in Thuwal. The opening ceremony, which took
place on 23rd September 2009, saw the
participation of 3,500 guests, including 50
heads of states, 30 Nobel prize winners, 400
national and international journalists and,
of course, the King with other
representatives of the Saudi government. The
prestigious award, one of the most important
in the Middle East, rewards innovation and
excellence in the events industry and is
added to the many awards already obtained by
the Filmmaster Group in the Arab Emirates
(the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the
Dubai Endurance Championship and the opening
ceremony of the Dubai World Cup). It further
enhances the leadership position that the
holding company is conquering in this new
market too.
The future
belongs to those capable of imagining it
Like every year, the Rimini Meeting ended
the month of August with a rich calendar:
meetings, exhibitions, music and shows. This
year’s new entry has been the participation
of ENI, leading Energy Company that has
decided to pursue culture promoting new
artists. For the occasion, “Meet ENI” chose
K-Events as partner. K-Events created an
exhibition set way beyond the traditional
stand: an open space “work in progress” set
up with a stage and an exposed editional
office animated by 8 young artists, with a
schedule rich in contents edited live and
aired on a circuit of 5 screens and one
large led-wall. Moreover, visitors had the
chance to participate to the contents
through two interactive totems with I-Pad
technology. Plus, NU Factory (K-Events
partner) edited the “Meet Eni News”; “Meet
Eni Café” has soon become the Literary Café
of the meeting where artists and authors
would meet on a daily basis.
Amongst the surprise events, a class in
Creative Writing created by Alessandro
Baricco’s Holden School and an innovative
evening happening: sax player Sebastiano
Ragusa and the actor Raffaello Fusaro
interpreted, according to one’s own “arts”,
the meeting themes.
Meetings, events, shows,
seminars and networking. Major companies,
individual businesses, associations and
institutions. From 27th September to 3rd
October the city of Milan will become an
open-air site where a sole imperative shall
reign true: communicate. Large and small
players have made an appointment to exchange
ideas and opinions in order to improve the
relations that govern social practices, the
sphere of consumption and political
consensus.
The format of the
Communications Week comes about as an
appointment to join forces and enhance the
value of the Italian communications system,
stressing its actual strength but, above
all, the potential that this sector has in
the eyes of society, the economy and the
territory. All this in a city, Milan, that
is increasingly strengthening its status as
capital of the communications industry.
And in the
communications capital, the presence of the
Filmmaster Group is an absolute must.
For
all week the
Group will be present with actions devoted
to training and to entertainment.
Alessandro Cattaneo is a
promising young up-and-coming star of
Italian film direction. Born in Milan in
1975, he graduated in economics but
immediately began working as a video
reporter and producer in the Milan world of
advertising. In 2004, still in his twenties,
he joined the great Filmmaster family, first
in research and development and then finding
his feet with the directors. His experience
in Filmmaster led him to compare notes with
professionals of all walks, working on a
huge variety of valid projects, granting him
access to increasingly important works. As
director in office for Filmmaster,
Alessandro Cattaneo has already signed off
interactive and commercial videos for
Armani, Coloreria Italiana and Nike. And
most recently, no less important, the
Converse advertisement that is part of the
world campaign promoted by the brand on the
web and which has been produced by ACNE USA,
the company that has just signed a
partnership deal with Filmmaster precisely
with a view to giving new stimuli to
director products and training the directors
of tomorrow.
Claudio
Sinatti, 1972, is one of the most well
instated multimedia artists in Italy and
amongst the most famous and popular abroad
too.
His work
mainly focuses on wide-scale video
projections, on the design of video
projection devices and on the viewing of
sound in real time.
His works are
entertainment videos and installations. His
decade of work and wealth of artistic
production have always looked well towards
two specific horizons, that of quality
commercial production and that of a more
experimental artistic research.
After an
initial career as an illustrator, comic
cartoonist and graffiti artist, he
approached film and video in the early
1990s, experimenting with the film and video
cameras available at the time. His obsession
for video documentation and passion for
music led him to meet the Milan band Casino
Royale, for which he directed his first
video clip with Riccardo Struchil in 1996.
He was one of
the first in Italy to become interested in
VJing and live video, and in the gaps
between one production and the next, began
experimenting with projections and video
projections. He began a close-knit series of
performing projects seeing the collaboration
with foreign and Italian artists such as
Christian Fennesz, Ulrich Troyer, Scanner,
Stephan Mathieu and Deaf Center and
developing visual tracks for the tours of
Ligabue, Renato Zero and Negramaro.
In 2009, he
founded the Live Video Ensemble performance
project where he directs a group of 10
elements that together generate a single
sound-reactive image. He was one of the
first in Italy to develop trompe l’oeil
videos on architecture, transforming the
facades of historic palaces such as the
Cathedral and Triennale of Milan, the
Perugia Cathedral and the Madrid
Conservatory into animated buildings.
The contents and the contents of this
digital magazine are the result of revision
by the editors of NOT.
Each image is the source. We reserve the right to accept
any further reporting. Where the source is not indicated, the authorship of the image is
attributable to the editor.
Photos are taken from the site sxc.hu
