Grassroots Obama Video

Watch this Grassroots Obama Video, unfortunately I can not embed it in the WordPress blog.  which I have now found on YouTube.

Thomas Finely from www.tff4.com wrote:

Check out this original, grassroots-made music video supporting Barack Obama. The level of effort put into the design and video production is enviable, not to mention the message and impact of the video being incredible. Just… Wow.

Nothing much to add. It seems all the talk about participation enabled through new digital media is epitomized in this really well made video, combining the grassroots aesthetics of  “social realism” used by Obama supporters with Hip Hop lyrics and music and a visual interpretation though animated words and images, which has become so typical for Web 2.0 online video rhethoric.

A quick look at the Cafepress Website (where people can order T-Shirts, Mugs etc with thousands of different designs) and a comparison of the designs for Obama and the for McCain shows that at least one thing is definite: Obama seems to inspire a lot more creativity in people, not only in terms of numbers (87.000 versus 30.000) but also in terms of quality and originality of design. The CafePress Meter, which tracks sales also refelcts a clear Obama lead (in sales).

hand made campaign

Obama President 08 - Letterpress from antique fonts by Yee-Haw

So much happening and so little time to blog. But I cannot resist to add 2 pennies to the dabate by posting this Etsy find and pointing you to this article featuring a detailed analysis of Obama Practices Looking-Off-Into-Future Pose. I don’t know whether this is a traditional practice in the United States, to create handmade election campaign items, or whether this phenomenon is inspired by the current election campaign and Obama supporters in particular. In any case there are plenty of handmade Obama fan item to discover and buy on Etsy, giving Obama’s campaign a grassroots movement feeling. Here in Austria before elections people may be collecting useless made-in-china novelty items given away by the various political parties, but hardly anybody wears their support on their sleeves, or T-shirt for that matter. 

This print above, hand printed from 100 year old wood type, emulates the feel of vintage posters and ads, telling us that history here is in the making, whatever the outcome of the presidential elections. To buy from YeeHaw on Etsy where you can find more stuff ranging from “I’m Joe the Plumber” T-Shirts to “Knitters for Obama” and “Middle aged white woman for Obama” Pin-back Buttons, from “My Mama is for Obama” baby clothes and bibs to “Yes I can” hand pottered mugs, and various styles of screen printed T-Shirts, pendants and you-name-it – with Obama hopefully looking into the future (here). Ah, and for this you have to read this (tongue-in-cheek) analysis of Obama Practices Looking-Off-Into-Future Pose.

Kress & Van Leeuven in their Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design claim that in our culture the right of an image indicates the NEW and the top of an image the IDEAL. This seems to prove the point that there is good reason why Obmama is shown gazing in the distance, usually to the top right.

So think of the history of Che Guevara and Mao images – and buy Obama items on Etsy if you want to own a future classic.

Obama Pendant by hegildedlily

Obama T-Shirt Design based on Shepard Fairey design

vernacular creativity

Young Woman Reading. Petit Point.

Recently I have spent quite a lot of my spare time browsing sites like etsy, dawanda and ebay, looking at art and craft. I love many of things people make and put up for sale. I have always liked naive art, folk art, outsider art and crafts, precisely because it is lowbrow. Often these things are made by woman, without any claims to creating great art, but simply because they enjoy the process of making and creating things. I would like buy some of the pictures, prints and collages on etsy which capture my fancy. And then there is all the stuff you can find on ebay, where I spent quite some time looking at kitsch petit point embroideries. (Kitty images galore – they were popular long before the arrival of the Internet!)  If anybody is looking to give me presents for my birthday or Christmas – I have a list of favourites already :-).

Continuing the theme of girls reading, also here, started earlier on this blog, here are two images, one collage, and one petit point embroidery of girls reading. Made by women, I presume.

The print below, by buzzbuzzbee can be bought here. Apparently “all profits to be donated to ReBooK (Recycling Books for Kids), a non profit which “promotes youth literacy and social and emotional development by recycling gently used children’s books for distribution to literature-poor areas of the United States.” The image above, a petit point embroydery can be found for sale on Ebay.

DONATION Girl Reading

repl1ka watches spam

 

repl1ka watches spam, originally uploaded by Linzie Hunter.

I once blogged about the surreal and poetic quality of spam subject lines on my German blog. It seems other Internet users feel similarly, however taking it to new heights.

Check out this whole series of Spam-One Liners by Linzie Hunter on Flickr, also available as a book. Makes me smile.