Oppressed Majority
The feminist in me adores this representation of sexism inverted but it's only funny up to a point and that is the point.
Facebook Lookback movies
Yesterday my friend Jess commented on Facebook about the phenomenon of their personalised Lookback movies. Her phrase was 'mind-blowing' and it gave me pause because I'd discounted it as sentimental narcissism, in part because their choice of moments jarred with my own sense of my life. Though I liked the use of the format to comment on Vladimir Putin's Russia, see video above.
Here was an advert, Jess observed, that didn't work to demographic data like sex, age, salary, ethnicity or location. "Lookback is nothing more than an advertisement for Facebook itself, but it's an ad made just for you."
This innovation seems significant. It's mass-marketing at a micro level.
It kinda unsettles me, I replied to Jess, because it underscores how much they know about me and the potential for them to mine that data. Then again, I often think if advertising is going to get better then maybe that'll be good because they rarely interest me at present. I can think of only one advert on Facebook that gave me pause, when I watched a video about improving productivity when making electronic music.
The thing I learned reading Jess' thread was that a friend of hers had found she didn't have a Lookback movie to watch because she posts too infrequently on the site. "...There was just a polite but vague message about how they look forward to seeing more of her in the future, and she told me she is now planning to post more actively..."
Which leads me to see the purpose of the exercise as relationship-building.
At present I think Facebook is the best social media platform because it has the biggest audience. There are a lot of people who I only manage to keep in contact with through the service. Google+ doesn't have that despite being thrust on me a number of times. Twitter is interesting for entertainment outside of my personal networks, and email is becoming a thing of the past.
Engagement is Facebook's advantage and to maintain it they will need to continue to innovate. Lookback is an interesting step and one that shows skill in repackaging individual data on a massive scale.
It was interesting that another aspect of their 10th birthday was a message to advertisers thanking them for being part of Facebook's life, envisaging this milestone as 1% of their journey. A Facebook millennium is an ambitious statement, possibly designed to shake comparisons with MySpace, but it also comes soon after their response to recent 'research' from Princeton and it's interesting to see how much they used Google's resources for that.
Another interesting aspect is Lookback shows Facebook can produce video content. Previously I posted a video called The Problem with Facebook where the commentator made an observation that they would have difficulty running video adverts because this was lacking.
I've seen good results from using Facebook advertising at work, in part because their metrics beat anything from traditional media. They can reach people in ways that others cannot and I hope they use this power responsibly.
In Real Time
Cut-up poetry
My partner Jo has been making cut-up poetry for a few months, inspired by the originator of the form: Tristan Tzara. Apparently he was kicked out of the Surrealists for thinking he could compose a better poem automatically and, as a result, started the Dadaists.
Today I had a go, with mixed results. It's quite exciting the way the juxtapositions force your brain to make sense from random combinations of words. Burroughs thought the process could be a magical ritual, revealing hidden meaning. I like his idea of audio being used the same way to cast curses by intercutting 'bad' sounds into a recording, such as his example of closing a restaurant he didn't like by recording them and then adding police sirens and screams. It's a kind of remixing.
Call Me Burroughs records a quasi-magical revenge attack on a Boulder deli from which two of his opiated friends had recently been thrown out. First, Burroughs arranged for a surreptitious tape recording to be made inside the deli—ambient noise, kitchen clatter, waitress-customer banter—and then, days later, with equal surreptitiousness, he played it back from a cassette recorder inside his coat as he sat at one of the tables. As Miles writes: “Over the next hour he increased the volume so that you could just about hear it, but no one appeared to notice.” Yet subliminal damage was being inflicted: discontinuous time streams, information feedback. “After forty-five minutes … one of the waiters threw down his apron and stalked out, followed by the owner, arguing loudly. The owner returned and began to scream at the serving staff, sending two of the women running to the ladies’ room in tears.” Burroughs, psychic vandal, was 63 years old at the time of this incident.
Rising up
'Rising Up' is the recent project with other producers from the Ninja Tune Forum and I've written about it for Cyclic Defrost this week.
Building poetry wanted
Reminds me of Frank Zappa's line on how "writing about music is like dancing about architecture"
The weirdest thing happened
My track 'Having a Barney' appears on the new compilation from New Weird Australia. Looking forward to hearing the other contributions.
Moody Indigo
Another great version of Mood Indigo is this one by Charles Mingus:
By all accounts Mingus was a moody bastard but the bass playing blows my mind every time I listen to this album. (II B.S. is another killer cut.) The way it weaves around, supporting the melody yet dextrously moving up and down the fretless neck of the double bass.
Once I looped those opening piano chords and they reminded me of something from a Bond soundtrack.
By all accounts Mingus was a moody bastard but the bass playing blows my mind every time I listen to this album. (II B.S. is another killer cut.) The way it weaves around, supporting the melody yet dextrously moving up and down the fretless neck of the double bass.
Once I looped those opening piano chords and they reminded me of something from a Bond soundtrack.
Visually stunning
The graphics in this film clip are quite amazing, surreal and trippy.
On first viewing I wasn't sure why I started thinking about Kraft macaroni and cheese but then I spotted the packet in the background. Maybe subliminal advertising does work?
Hemp seed
The terms agreed to when purchasing this packet prevent me from eating it, so I best just follow the directions on the back to make a 'body cream'.
Mood Indigo
'Mood Indigo' is my second favourite Duke Ellington track (after 'Blue Pepper'), so I hope it features prominently in Michel Gondry's new film -- which looks fantastic (in all senses of the term).
Here's my favourite version of the tune, featuring Ellington with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, from the album "Money Jungle":
Australia Day
I've commented on Australia Day before but these items in a Woolworths catalogue make me wonder how much tackier it's going to get.
Artist Bernie Slater has taken aim at these sort of products before and the image below is one of his works.
See Gene Pitney live
I've been amusing myself with the idea the word 'live' in the headline infers the opposite of dead, rather than perform in person. Like they're bringing him back from the grave.
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