Space Hopping madness by SonyEricsson #pumpt

Pumping horny balls full of air and interacting with monkeys live on the internet.

The internet came alive again today, with a nifty interactive Space Hopper campaign from SonyEricsson.

Before I go on... Thanks to the nice girl [or boy in a wig] that responded to my tweet "Hey @chiefhopper Please give a Space Hopper a hug. Need a better screen shot for my blog ---> http://bit.ly/6nLoyl #pumpt ;-p". So funny, she gave me a big green one too. I think the chief hopper cracked his monkey whip.

I love it, about as much as the IKEA vs. Matrix thing yesterday, but in a different way. It's simple, genius, interactive, and highly contagious. It's mixing live streaming performance, by real people in a room full of Space Hoppers, with creative direction from the Twitterverse. This is a great example of a mega-budget mobile brand production vs. the on-the-cheap but ingenious IKEA production ---> I think there's an IKEA brand pun in there somewhere.

So the Twitterverse is bouncing ideas to the ring-master AKA @chiefhopper, locked away in a warehouse, somewhere in the real world, and a big screen is relaying the crowd-sourced crazy ideas to a team of white overall-clad SonyEricsson elves [it's nearly Christmas - give me a break - OK let's call them hopper-monkeys]. The aforementioned hopper-monkeys are performing tricks on demand e.g. Space Hopper pyramid building, Space Hopper races, posing for photos, and other cruel tricks [etc] - live on the streaming internet. Monkey business indeed.

Meanwhile, the Twitterverse is pumping life and more monkey-fun [OK air] in to shed-loads of deflated Space Hoppers. More air is pumped with every #pumpt hashtag tweeted. Hey Presto, the more #pumpt tweets you tweet, the more Space Hoppers the hopper-monkeys get to play with.

The campaign is cruel to animals, but I’m struggling to find meaning in the monkey madness. Oh, aside from some playful monkey cheerfulness on a cold, miserable, winter day. Which is nice - much better than going to the zoo. Thanks for the bouncy monkey nuts.

Unfortunately the whole bouncing monkey thing is nowhere near as funny as learning "how to say fu*k you in a pie chart" - which is puerile comedy genius from some crazy ape in OZ, that I also stumbled upon today.

Whatever will tomorrow bring? Dancing giraffes? Paint-balling crocodiles? Swearing snakes?

On Twitter? Hit retweet below [and add #pumpt to your tweet] and we can both have a #pumpt together. Offer expires in about ten days time.

Like this? Have some more inflatable fun <--- click there.

Why Frieze is Still Playing David Beckham and Missed a Trick Shot

I just read over on Artinfo.com that sales by young emerging artists were pretty good at the Frieze Art Fair. Which is nice. Hmmm. Reading between the lines of this bacon saving, I'm reading something more along the lines of "Art world struggling to sell stale art but managed to sell a few tit-bits". IMHO [and unless I totally missed something?] the show was not ‘hot’ and properly lacked guts. Where was the X-Factor, the bleeding edge and the genetically modified new blood? With a broad brush I’m saying that irrespective of age or emerging status, the majority of the Frieze fair art was actually bad monkey art grade unimaginative tosh.

Bouncing out of a recession Frieze 2009 was an opportunity to blow people and the cobwebs away, and to try something new. Let’s look at the spin picture another way, with the same devastatingly broad brush, the art world is founded on the principal of the Emperors Clothes, the opinion of a few and sales hype regurgitated and force fed down the throats of the beautiful people by clipboard clutching hawks. Absolutely there was some well executed and cool classical stuff going on at Frieze but blow me it was hard to find in the herds. Frieze is about art for walls [and floors], not art on walls. And sure it's fine to play David to pull the crowds. But moving on, where was the weird, wired and wonderful? And why doesn’t it sell, that’s the problem. The art herd needs a new LED powered sheep dog to lead it, and a new tune to whistle. Frieze you missed a trick, you old [show / sheep] dog.

Read my further Frieze Art Fair rantings ---> Freak Show at the Frieze Art Fair.

Extreme sheep herding and the sheep dipping point of social media

Welcome Earthlings. The eagle has landed and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are here for real, in your world. Yesterday, I was at The Future Laboratory’s New Normal trend briefing over in trendy new Kings Cross. Nice. Apparently now I’m a freelance journalist. Maybe I am. I’m certainly not working for free right now.

Anyway this New Normal business was good, thought provoking, packed with excellent visuals to keep you awake, free half time coffee, fat people and farting cow gags, and easy to swallow chatter boxing. Actually it’s not the case that cows fart methane, they belch it, and guess what there’s an app for that (well a science solution anyway). I got there an hour into the first session because of a baby dressing disaster and missed the first bit on Snap Shot Britain (Arse - I hope there’s a PDF for that on the LS:N trend site) and most of the bit about Generation Jones, but snuck conspicuously onto the front row just in time for the third bit called Brandtocracies (right up my street). The second session had interesting bits on Prohibition Culture and Homestead 3.0 (who comes up with these names?). And then I went home, had some dinner, put my jim-jams on and went to bed, via the pub quiz. Sadly none of the stuff I’d taken on board during the visit to Kings Cross came up. But unless you’re still hooked up to AOL dial-up or you’ve been hiding behind the sofa since last Christmas you may have noticed that the world isn’t the same place as it used to be and it’s changing, and is fortunately still spinning.

Now there were two completely brilliant visual things I just wanted to steal and pretend they are my own finds, which they are not and they are really quite dated but they are good. And well what’s new to me might just be new to you too so I wanted to share them here completely out of context. The first is the AUDI vs. BMW checkmate thing above (look up). And the second is the extreme sheep herding viral (click behind / or visit my YouTube channel). It was the sheep thing that got me thinking about the stuff I’m into. Art and design and social media and general cleverness and stupidity. So whilst a lot of the stuff the FL boys were waxing off about in the Brandtocracies bit yesterday, like the ‘we’ philosophy that I’m all too familiar with in a previous and current online life, was not so new to me. Maybe to some of the fat cows in the room all that shit was brand new, news even. And maybe just maybe one of them will drive home in their sporty electric car to their practical and eco-aware RFID live and eco-regulated home, slip in to some loose house pants, drink a responsible glass of local wine, munch on a South African banana and a tiny portion of sustainable cheese - or two, take a piss in the shower, slip in to their big hand crafted smoking bed and have a big fat eureka moment. Think it’s a good idea to dip their toes in the social media swimming pool and pay a cheeky swine like me to come in to their world and get down with the people they really need to engage with in a socializingly collaborative, creative and conversational way. Everyone else that’s smart out there seems to be doing the warm social thing, and there’s nothing like following the herd. Word up. Btw, do cigarette companies do word of mouth, or just social cancer?

Are art teachers freaking out the kidz?

Breaking yet another, actually two of the seven deadly sins of blogging, again... Here are a few sketches from today's killer cat drawing session with the nipper, who's learning to recognise shapes and words (eyes, legs, ears etc), to put pen to paper in the right (and wrong - see below) places, and to keep her crayons* within the lines. Posing a few questions I'm not one hundred percent sure I know the right answer to, from a responsible parenting point-of-view at least. *Medium un-specific - note the use of felt tip on paper in these works.

Drawing in the lines vs outside the lines: Is teaching children to draw within the lines stifling creativity, or just a natural process? Nuture vs. Nature etc. Can you force creativity? Should you force it? I'm thinking inside vs. outside-the-line / outside-the-box or wild-sky-thinking ---> whatever the latest buzz word is. It's all just a big bunch of stinking cods-wallop anyway. I'm sitting on the wall, with my spray can at the ready and just letting this creative river flow baby.

I'm loving the slightly in and slightly out the line thinking in these sketches, and her interpretation of the subject matter works on so many different levels. The best part is when her drawing extends off-the-canvas on to her hands, face, legs, clothes, me, my hands, my arms and my clothes. Is this an early sign of my child understanding the concept of trompe-l'œil? Is she the next (she) Banksy, or should she/I be locked away with the Prinzhorn Collection?

Freaking out the kidz: I just can't help but sketch outlines of freaky scary killer animals for the litte-un to fill in/out. Is she actually trying to scribble the scary monsters out of existence, or is she just following nature innocently? Parenting is all about protecting innocent minds? Well I'm not so sure and anyway what harm can it possibly do. Compared to the above line dancing issue, it's by far the lesser of two very evil cats and surely the toughest cat gets the cream.

Are these drawings or my approach to teaching art worrying you? I welcome the opinion of a qualified child art critic or a psychiatrist. Right she's woken up from her afternoon nap. Time to go throw bread at the ducks and stamp on mole hills in the park.

Putting glorious spam in the spotlight

Is Eric Cantona the king of spam?

It’s been a wee wee time since my last post. I’ve been up to stuff. Stuff that means I'm checking my mail like a seagull relentlessly chasing a trawler looking for a tasty tit-bit, and I realized I that I seem to be getting inundated with the old spam.

I’ve come across a whole lotta spam spam glorious spam and it just keeps coming all day and all night long. Without usually giving spam the time of day I tend to just hit the delete button and blast it from the spam folder straight in to eternal spam hell. Hurray, no spam here! I don’t need that Viagra stuff, dating tips, handy advice for the bedroom stuff, another worthless degree, and I really don’t want a cheap Rolex at any price. Well that’s what I thought until I noticed that some of that spam stuff is pure gold. I thought, long and hard, and I started to see the wood for the trees, and realized that I should be putting some of the inglorious spammer bastards sh*t in the spotlight. So I have been collecting (preserving / dry curing etc) some choice cuts of fine spam.

Sure we can live without Mr Spam’s pestilence but lest we forget his/her relentless and occasionally truly creative efforts. Sure enough most of his/her work is worthless junk but you just have to confess that some of that stuff is award winning puerile genius, and some of it is really quite weird, a bit like the idea of cramming a dead pig in to a tin can, and certainly as mad as Eric Cantona.

Anyway below are a few recent unforgettable (subject) lines - the all new hall of fame for spam if you will. I’ll keep this up to date for as long time as I can keep it up or until the spam river runs dry. Thinking about it, Mr and Mrs Spam of Spamalottaville must be having a totally spamtastic time, generally rolling about laughing, writing loads of spam and creating occasional priceless porkers. You’re not exactly up for the Booker Prize but I’m a fan. Write again soon Eric.

Preserved spam: the spam hall of fame

21.08.09 ---> Gain the full control over your drilling machine

22.08.09 ---> In a Sieve we'll go to sea

22.08.09 ---> Get the longest banana

23.08.09 ---> Support your custard launcher

24.08.09 ---> Be a love rhino

24.08.09 ---> Oxford brain-test

25.08.09 ---> He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile

26.08.09 ---> Put your cork in every girl that your dream of!

27.08.09 ---> From now you don't need a crane to raise your instrument up

28.08.09 ---> Viagra Soft Tabs

01.09.09 ---> Maniac cut Hefner's balls

02.09.09 ---> Join online massacre

03.09.09 ---> Want 3D-slaves?

04.09.09 ---> And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace

And I thought the spam river had really run dry... Until --->

02.10.09 ---> Mate like Clinton!

Bad ass creativity: Becks Dicks ad

My entry to the arty Becks bottle design contest that's running online at the mo. I simply put myself in the mind of a child and let the pen do all the work. Sophisticated, yet simple - see above. For a limited time only you can make your own Becks Dick sketch - see below below below. I'm sorry Becks for p****** on your art parade. I hope I win. BTW if you have any clever, young trunk-sure elephants, tail-ented monkeys or talented kids don't forget to enter them in to the worlds first and last International baby and captive animal art contest.