neverhappened

Bonfire of the Brands

Burning_sneakers

Neil Boorman will burn all his branded possessions in a London warehouse on the 26th of August.  Here's what he has to say about it:

On 26.08.06, I am going to gather every branded possession of mine into a warehouse, douse them with petrol and burn the lot. Jacobson chairs, Christian Dior shirts, a Louis Vuitton bag; I'm too frightened to calculate the financial cost of this action, but I know
it's a lot. Far more unsettling than the money is the emotional cost I'm going to suffer. You see, It's not simply a pile of expensive clothes and accessories going on the bonfire, Neil Boorman is being destroyed too.

Until recently, I thought I knew who Neil Boorman was. I felt sure how the outside world regarded me because I had spent a fair amount of time engineering an image. I found the best way to understand and articulate 'me' was through the owning and displaying of things made by brands. They provided a source of comfort, a reassurance of my own self worth, they project my identity to others around me.

Frustratingly, this attempt at branded self-identity has been accompanied with a numbed sense of dissatisfaction. Attempting to cure myself, I have sought comfort and reassurance by buying yet more branded goods, treating myself 'because I'm worth it'. I now understand that this behavior only made matters worse. For all the time and money I have devoted to collecting these brands, these symbols of self, I have absolutely no idea who I am. For every new material extension of my character, I become more distant from the person than I really am.

The reality however is only just becoming clear; with every new emblem of identity I add to my collection, I lose a piece of myself to the brands. They cannot reciprocate the love I give. They cannot transport me to the places I'm promised exist. I am not, nor will I ever be remotely similar to the people that appear in their ads. It is a lie, a lie I have believed in for too long.

I had a similar kind of feeling after reading this as I did when I watched Xmen 3.  In the case of Xmen 3 I was thinking "why didn't Wolverine stab Storm with some of the same stuff he stabbed Magneto with?" whereas in the case of Neil Boorman's Brand Bonfire I wonder why he doesn't find a new home for each of his branded items with someone who really needs them rather than burning them in a London warehouse - which surely isn't good for the environment for one thing?

Link

Posted by Barnaby Bretton on May 28, 2006 at 03:57 AM in Impenetrable Philosophy, Shopping | Permalink | Comments (0)

TShirtism

Pin_fashion_1

Conceptual designers Experimental Jetset designed a shirt five years ago that just said 'John & Paul & Ringo & George',  The idea was to abstract archetypical shirts as far as possible, in an attempt to reach some sort of essence.

The concept of the tshirts has spread like a virus. There's a section at their website showing the various manifestations and variations the design has taken.

Link

Posted by Barnaby Bretton on April 16, 2006 at 04:42 PM in Art, Design, Impenetrable Philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maurice Doherty

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Good old fashioned conceptual art from Maurice Doherty, younger brother of the infamous Pete.  I would love to have a pint of Guinness with this guy... Maurice, that is.  Even though I hate Guinness. 

Art school hooligans (you know who you are) will enjoy Missing - as well as Guinness, of course.

Link

Posted by Barnaby Bretton on March 27, 2006 at 08:33 PM in Art, Impenetrable Philosophy | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Plane of Immanence

Deleuze

"Thinking provokes general indifference.

It is a dangerous exercise nevertheless. Indeed, it is only when the dangers become obvious that indifference ceases, but they often remain hidden and barely perceptible, inherent in the  enterprise. Precisely because the plane of immanence is pre-philosophical and does not immediately take effect with concepts, it implies a sort of groping experimentation and its layout resorts to measures that are not very respectable, rational or reasonable.These measures belong to the order of dreams, of pathological processes, esoteric experiences, drunkeness and excess.

We head for the horizon, on the plane of immanence, and we return with bloodshot eyes, yet they are eyes of the mind.

Even Descartes had his dream. To think is always to follow the witch's flight....danger takes on another meaning: it becomes a case of obvious consequences when pure immanence provokes a strong, instinctive disapproval in public opinion, and the nature of the created concepts strengthens this disapproval.

This is because one does not think without becoming something else, something that does not think--an animal, a molecule, a particle--and that comes back to thought and revives it.

The plane of immanence is like a section of chaos and acts like a sieve. In fact, chaos is characterized less by the absence of determinations than by the speed with which they take shape and vanish.  This is not a movement from one opinion to the other but on the contrary, the impossibility of a connection between them, since one does not appear without the other having already disappeared, and one appears as disappearance when the other disappears as outline. Chaos makes chaotic and undoes every consistency in the infinite.The problem of philosophy is to acquire a consistency without losing the infinite into which thought plunges...

To give consistency without losing anything of the infinite...."

"What is Philosophy?'

    DELEUZE & GUATTARI

Posted by Melissa_WS_Wong on January 26, 2006 at 01:09 PM in Impenetrable Philosophy | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)


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