Ged Carroll

Category: culture | 文明 | 미디어와 예술 | 人文

Culture was the central point of my reason to start this blog. I thought that there was so much to explore in Asian culture to try and understand the future.

Initially my interest was focused very much on Japan and Hong Kong. It’s ironic that before the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ initiative there was much more content out there about what was happening in Japan. Great and really missed publications like the Japan Trends blog and Ping magazine.

Hong Kong’s film industry had past its peak in the mid 1990s, but was still doing interesting stuff and the city was a great place to synthesise both eastern and western ideas to make them its own. Hong Kong because its so densely populated has served as a laboratory of sorts for the mobile industry.

Way before there was Uber Eats or Food Panda, Hong Kongers would send their order over WhatsApp before going over to pay for and pick up their food. Even my local McDonalds used to have a WhatsApp number that they gave out to regular customers. All of this worked because Hong Kong was a higher trust society than the UK or China. In many respects in terms of trust, its more like Japan.

Korea quickly became a country of interest as I caught the ‘Korean wave’ or hallyu on its way up. I also have discussed Chinese culture and how it has synthesised other cultures.

More recently, aspect of Chinese culture that I have covered has taken a darker turn due to a number of factors.

  • Magic Leap + more things

    Magic Leap has shared an interesting concept video. Magic Leap that has technology which provides a more immersive experience, layered on top of the real world. It would be impressive if Magic Leap manages to pull it off. A demo are notorious for being the technology equivalent of snake oil salesmen who sell but can’t deliver. There’s even a name for it: vapour ware. I have no idea yet if Magic Leap is vapour ware. But the engineering challenges in terms of optics, software, power management and hardware are immense. More on web-of-no-web type experiences here.

    Once they have nailed the device, there is a requirement for content development. Lots of it. This also has implications for story telling.

    The Rise and Fall of China’s economy is a provocative title. The title was designed to be really good link bait rather than accurately reflecting the content of the video. The video actually does give a good background on how the Chinese economy has developed on a macro-level in a way that the interested non-economist would understand.

    I like the way Nestle has brought on board a gingerbread man character to advertise Coffee Mate in the US. There has been a move away from mascot-type figures in marketing in general. This is a really nice counterpoint to that trend.

    Nikon seem to be reaching out to millennials with this profile of a skateboard photographer, it is likely to appeal to a contingent of generation X too.

    It targets a very different type of photographer who would wouldn’t be impressed by the traditional photography ‘personalities’ from Rankin to Dave Lee Travis (Leica paid him good money back in the day, apparently he was interested in bird-watching).

    This is a world away from the first skating video shot by Stacy Paralta back in the mid 1980s, with grainy low-fi VHS cameras.

    Really nice mobile experience: Sync! Illumination lets you watch Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade from home on multiple phones

  • On the sofa: No blood no tears

    No blood No tears – One of the best kept secrets in London is the free sessions put on by the Korean Cultural Centre just off Trafalgar Square. I caught the last film of the year to be shown at the centre. No blood No tears is a Korean heist story. Gyung-Sun is a former safe-cracker who has reformed and become a taxi driver.

    Her husband is in the wind and left behind a lot of gambling debts that local loan sharks try to collect on. She doesn’t know where her child is and to cap it all Gyung-Sun has a difficult relationship with the police and her short temper.

    A chance car accident brings her into contact with a petty gangsters moll and a plot ensues to rob the dog fighting arena where illegal gambling takes place. What ensues is a film that is part comedy, part Thelma & Louise and a healthy dose of ultra-violence that would be familiar to Hong Kong cinema and Tarantino fans.

    Over the next few weeks I will be getting my fix of Korean cinema at the London Korean Film Festival. I can recommend from personal experience:

    • Raging Currents
    • The Man From Nowhere
    • The Classified File

    More Korea-related posts here.

  • MANifeste + other things

    Hermès MANifeste is a short motion graphics based video aimed at their menswear collection

    Hermès MANifeste has got an Eames or Rand feel to it. It is full of clean mid-century modern imagery with icons that would have been in the library of every letterpress and hot metal print works prior to digitisation. This gives the animation a clean masculine feel, that doesn’t feel too old world or conservative. Which is different to the way many male consumers might see Hermès.

    The Project Apollo archive on Flickr gives us access to all the NASA photography from the project. What people don’t appreciate is how comprehensively Project Apollo and the moon landings were documented

    The Spirit of Buffalo video by Dazed Digital featuring Jamie Morgan and Neneh Cherry is a documentary about the Buffalo Collective who influenced the way modern streetwear is styled. The centre of the Buffalo Collective was Ray Petri, who pretty much invented the stylist as a modern concept in the fashion industry. Petri partnered with photogaphers Jamie Morgan, Mark Lebon and Cameron McVey. Models included Barry and Nick Kamen, Naomi Campbell and 13 year old Felix Howard in the iconic Killer picture taken by Jamie Morgan. You can blame Buffalo for the whole Pharrell Williams look which borrows from late 1980s London.

    More content on the buffalo collective here.

    (1) 香港警察 Hong Kong Police | Facebook – acts as lightning rod for the divisions in society made apparent during the Occupy protests, but its also very surreal. Full disclosure: I ran training on social media for the Hong Kong civil service including what they call the disciplined services (this included the police, government flying service, emergency ambulance service, prison service, customs and immigration). The people that I came across were smarter than whoever is managing this page.

    A great remix by The Avalanches which has been on heavy rotation during my dipping into Soundcloud

  • Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition, 180 Strand, London

    Having been involved in a number of events over the past couple of years where creative digital work intersected with experiential marketing I was keen to look at Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition before it closed.

    Burberry tends to get the plaudits for digital experiences in the luxury sector and they do a lot of interesting work. Louis Vuitton’s initiatives like an online service that allows ladies to personalise their bag a la Nike ID.

    I found it interesting that Louis Vuitton’s approach seems to have been guided by exclusivity not being the same as accessibility. There was a wealth of helpful staff, you were positively encouraged to take your own pictures – again unusual for a luxury brand, many prefer to give you content that upholds their standards.

    A few touches that I really liked at the Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition

    #LVSeries3 Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition, 180 Strand, LondonLV logo motion graphics at the start of the exhibition, no real surprise right? What the designers did was remove the polarisers from the LCD screens so that the screens are apparently blank. The polariser is laid out in vertical strips at different distances and widths from the screen. This gives a kind of lenticular effect when you walk past it. This modern logo morphs through matrix-like digital noise and on to the more traditional LV design.
    #LVSeries3 Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition, 180 Strand, London
    It seems absurdly simple, but the idea of using projecting mapping techniques on a flat LED screen to emphasise how Louis Vuitton products are cut from a common material before being assembled was clever. Just because you have projection mapping technology at your finger tips means that one often looks for complex shapes like building fronts rather than a flat panel.
    #LVSeries3 Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition, 180 Strand, London
    The glass bins got the balance right between protecting the product so that it doesn’t look grubby from being over-handled, whilst still making it accessible and tactile rather than a museum experience.

  • Gundam themed advert + more things

    Toyota have made a Gundam themed advert for the Japanese market. It is interesting that this Gundam themed advert is a Japan only creative. It might be intellectual property rights. I think something like this would be popular abroad as a Gundam themed advert would tap into Cool Japan.

    In many European countries Toyota’s safe but boring line-up would benefit from the uplift provided by tying into Cool Japan. The reason for these boring product lines is free trade agreements and import quotas.

    Japan now means quality, engineering, design and is generally very much appreciated with a lot of goodwill. More Japan related content here.

    ISART digital animation school students came up with this great short film about a gravedigger and his son. It’s as good as anything that’s been coming out of the likes of DreamWorks animation.

    London DJ Kid Batchelor and E-Mix on this 1989 mix at Confusion de Londra, Shaftsbury London. It’s hard to understand now how much of the early house seen was built by the likes of Kid Batchelor in central London clubs. Now culture as moved away from the centre as property developers have moved in.

    NOTCOT.ORG | Rhei electro-mechanical clock with a liquid display – From an economic point of view this makes no sense. There are much easier ways to solve this as an engineering problem. But I can’t help but love the sheer bloodymindedness that underpins this as a project. More design related posts here.

    Parks and Pickering did a slow tempo mix with tougher beats of Imagination – Just An Illusion, but this uptempo live version kills them all. I’m surprised that there was never a more uptempo club mix of it as it sounds like a classic house track. Another Imagination track Changes was remixed by the legendary Larry Levan. Leee John is still very underrated as a performer.