News & views
14 July 2010 /
by Wayne Smith at 1:59 pm 14 July 2010
Filed under: Art, Viewpoint
It’s Monday morning and must be getting close to 6:00am. The sun is rising around us, the birds are starting to sing and faces around the campfire are coming into view. The music’s still going and the conversation flowing. People lay sprawled across the ripped and battered sofas, some asleep under blankets, but many are still awake and lively. Some are even still dancing by the fire. This is Strummerville at Glastonbury Festival and the party isn’t over yet.
Joe Strummer was a regular at Glastonbury and was a strong supporter of the festival. In fact he lived only a short drive away in the Somerset village of Broomsfield, which is where he passed in 2002.
The following year, festival organiser Michael Eavis and Joe’s widow Lucinda Tait laid a memorial stone on the site. Regularly decorated with a few photographs, Clash memorabilia and surrounded by candles, it quickly became a regular feature in my Glastonbury experience and every year I’d make some time to visit the stone and light a candle in his honour.
I’d never heard of Strummerville until they set up camp near the memorial stone last year. Founded by friends and family, shortly after Joe’s death, Strummerville is a registered charity, dedicated to creating new opportunities for aspiring musicians. They set up camp at the festival and build a huge fire which they keep burning for the full five days.
Joe was infamous for his campfires at Glastonbury and it’s rumoured that he once kept one alight throughout a terrible storm, refusing to submit to the fierce wind and rain. Not only is this the perfect tribute to Joe, but the heart and soul of the festival. When that fire eventually goes out, it’s all over ’til next year.
This is my 8th Glastonbury Festval. My first was in 2000. This was the last year before the ‘super-fence’ was installed and I feel privileged to have seen both sides – the before and after (or the over-the-top and through-the-gate years). People will tell you that it’s not as good as it used to be, that it’s lost its edge. Of course in some ways this is true.
Glastonbury, has become part of middle England’s social calendar. They are a familiar sight around the Pyramid Stage, these days. Sitting on their fold-up chairs, drinking Pimms from their cool boxes and enjoying a ‘magical’ set from Kylie, Lady Gaga or Coldplay.
Despite what the BBC coverage will have you believe, there’s a lot more to the festival than the main stages. It’s in the late hours, after the headliners have played their final encores and the ‘cool boxers’ have returned to the comfort of their B&Bs that the festival really comes to life. Strummerville is just one of many secluded pockets across the massive site that still manages to capture the true spirit of Glastonbury.
When I get back people always ask me “what was your highlight?” I know they’re kind of expecting me to list off a bunch of bands and say how amazing they were live, but Glastonbury is more than just a gig for me. Gorillaz were incredible, one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Toots and the Maytals on a scorching Sunday afternoon, priceless.
But if I had to pick my absolute highlight of this year’s festival, it was sitting around that campfire at Strummerville, listening to bands I’d never heard of, chatting to strangers and watching the sun come up. That’s what it’s all about for me anyway.
www.strummerville.com
12 February 2010 /
by Avik Chattopadhyay at 8:36 am 12 February 2010
Filed under: Art, Branding, Luxury
Why is there all this fuss about the new Apple iPad?
It isn’t the first of its kind in the world. Microsoft, Panasonic, HP, Fujitsu and a few others have all done it before. Fujitsu even has a hand held device also called the iPAD!
Apple’s iPad doesn’t have earth-shattering features. It may not be particularly user friendly and the after-sales service may leave a lot to be desired.
So what is all the noise about?
It is the ‘thought’ behind everything Apple does. Every Apple creation has been more than just a device. It’s about benefits as well as features. It’s about the strength of human alignment directly proportional to the length of ownership and experience.
Another simpler way of putting it is that every Apple creation is about the Apple brand. The power within the Apple brand lies in its intuitive ability to gradually build a unique bond with its owner. Not only do you not mind the electronic intrusion into your life you positively adore it. This is branding in its most supreme form.
Interestingly every Apple experience has been designed around the core of Zen Buddhist theology. Steve Jobs is a Zen Buddhist since 1975. He practises it not only in his own life but also in his creations.
These are the definitive, deliberate manifestations which are seen in the Apple brand. They show how the greatest brands can be a powerful manifestation of the human condition.
20 July 2009 /
by Mila Linares at 10:04 am 20 July 2009
Filed under: Architecture, Art
Kazuyo Seijima and Ryue Nijizaha exploring the Serpentine Pavillion
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is a unique yearly event in the cultural and architectural calendar of London. A temporary structure designed without a budget and at breakneck speed (6 months from invitation to completion) by an internationally acclaimed architect, designer or artist. Previous pavilions by the likes of Rem Koolhaas with an inflatable glowing space, Toyo Ito with a pristine geometric gem or Oscar Niemayer’s timeless swooping forms, have graced the Serpentines’ lawn for summer.
This year the Japanese couple Kazuyo Seijima and Ryue Nijizaha of Sanaa have conceived an absolutely breathtaking ethereal canopy reflecting the park and the sky above it, a free form characteristic of the oeuvre which is playful as effortlessly elegant. The slim reflective canopy was engineered, as the Serpentine pavilion is every year, by our client Arup, and reflects their innovative and ingenious capacity to consistently deliver outstanding engineering.
As always, the Pavilion will be auctioned after dismantling in the end of summer, so forgo your holidays and place your bid for a unique addition to your home… More info here
20 April 2009 /
by Ben Knapp at 3:34 pm 20 April 2009
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Home Page
Wally’s on the 
weekly audio digest. He discusses Saffron’s work on place branding, shares thoughts on the old (non-)contest between India and China and reveals who usually decides on a new logo (the CEO…or his bedfellow).
9 March 2009 /
by Wally Olins at 12:34 pm 9 March 2009
Filed under: Art, Branding
All political movements depend for their popularity on art. Art makes power, dramatic, exciting even. It draws people in, it engages, instructs and involves. That’s when art becomes propaganda.
The more dramatic the political movement the more dramatic the art. For thousands of years in every civilisation from the ancient Egyptians onwards, political rulers have mounted creative, art fuelled propaganda displays to sustain the loyalty of the citizen. They have constructed buildings; pyramids, palaces, citadels, temples, and triumphal arches. They have painted heroic and instructive pictures demonstrating triumphs, real or imagined. This is of course official art. Art as a component of the national brand.
Official political art simplifies, distorts and dramatizes events in order to create loyalty and enthusiasm.
Over centuries while the technologies of political art have changed, its intentions have remained the same. The Romans created buildings, erected triumphal arches, built statues of heroic figures and celebrated their military and civic virtues. During the latter part of the twentieth century the Maoist Chinese communist state in China developed the process a lot further. The Great Leader swimming, the Great Leader smiling on crowds, the Great Leader both swimming and smiling. The parades, the statues, the exhibitions and above all the icons, the portraits, the statuettes and the little red books – more and more ubiquitous. The whole point of traditional art as manifested in political power has been to underline the official political system, it has been carved out by official artists and architects supported by the state. It’s an internally directed manifestation of the national brand.
The Che Guevera material is exactly the opposite of all that. Images of Che also capture and encapsulate a political movement but they are subversive and unofficial. They are not from or for the system, they are despite the system and they undermine and threaten it. And they also present a much more individual, even anarchic political view.
The whole point of traditional art as manifested in political power has been to underline the official political system. The really interesting thing about the Che stuff is that it undermines the state and is intended to change the status quo.
The Che material is heavily, cleverly, wittily branded. The Korda photograph particularly, is iconic. It is as grand a piece of art as anything that Jacques Louis David painted for Napoleon, much better than anything created for Hitler, Stalin or Mao – it serves the same kind of purpose – to demonstrate to inspire and to educate. But it emerged spontaneously – and that is its unique strength. And it’s profoundly anti-state, and anti-official. It’s a counter cultural highly contemporary symbol of international revolt. Remarkable!
Literary credit
The above is an extract from a contribution written by Wally Olins for the catalogue Art and Power: Europe under the dictators 1930-45, organised by the Hayward Gallery, London, in collaboration with the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona and the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 43.
