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Mincing about in waistcoats

Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.

Mincing about in waistcoats

Art dealers usually target the older and wealthier set, but not so Adam Bryce and Ben King of recently opened Auckland gallery Plaything. Instead, Adam and Ben would like the young’uns to become interested in art and learn more about the artists themselves.

How are the contemporary pop and street art hipsters going about this? Read Felicity Monk’s story about Plaything and Noise Media, and learn how having good contacts helps shave off zeroes in the name of democratising art.

SP TV

Semi-Permanent 09 is done and dusted but the ideas presented will linger on. Deirdre Roberts and Vincent Heeringa were at SP, videocamera in hand, capturing some of the zeitgeist and speaking to Paul Soong (The Church), photographer Alexia Sinclair, typographer David Carson, Harry Pearce from Pentagram in the UK, and animator Philip Hunt.

And don’t miss comic artist James Jean spilling the secret to ageing backwards: only on Idealog TV, of course.

Crack spot

Obviously, the advertising brief for the MSI X-Series laptops was to show off how thin they are. From there, however, to this clip … what happened? Potentially offensive to anyone with any modicum of taste at all. (Via Gizmodo)

Avatar sneaks

Weta Digital’s involvement in the new James Cameron (Titanic, Terminator) movie Avatar has been all very hush-hush. So have Cameron’s infamous temper tantrums. But the first sneaky trailer is now out, and includes a surprising mix of real life and animation effects. Curious. Is this the, er, finished product? Not sure if I like it—yet.

Manufacturing discontent

What if advertising could be, like, good? I mean really good, as in morally uplifting and a positive force in society? Insanity such as this has won Art & Copy, a film about advertising, official selection at numerous film festivals including Sundance. Ridiculous—see what you think.

Location based cheers

Congrats this week go to Pocketweb of Wanaka, which has made it to the finals in the Forum Nokia Developer Community 2009 Calling All Innovators competition that received over 1,700 submissions from 85 countries.

The software that put Pocketweb in the running in the Apps on Maps category is PocketLife, a location-based social network app for the web and mobile devices that uses GPS and Nokia’s Ovi Maps.

Well done, guys, and good luck on September 3 in Stuttgart, when the winner of the Calling All Innovators contest is announced and cash prizes handed out.

Soft and yellow

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman says the Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, doesn’t discriminate against people and is without political connotations. That may be, but Duckie is still quite menacing at 14 metres high. Hofman’s biggest duck was floated in Nantes two years ago, standing 26 metres tall.

Ska music

SKA could be the biggest thing since the Big Bang. Well, at least the Square Kilometre Array—up to 4,000 antennas spread over a 5,000-kilometre baseline—will be the next best thing to being there. The project, partly led by AUT’s Professor Sergei Gulyaev, got a boost this week with the official Aussie-NZ agreement on the bid for the for billion-dollar project. Back when the project was a baby, Matt Cooney was looking forward to big things.

Gear up for GuideGecko

You’re a writer looking for some exposure, of the business kind? Then take a look at the GuideGecko International Writing Contest, which runs from now until September 24.

GuideGecko publishes travel, lifestyle and entertainment guides, and is holding the competition in conjunction with that massive tribute to literacy, the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, where 300,000 visitors mingle among the works. The competition is open to anyone, and the winner gets a trip to the FBF. Plus, the top three titles will be showcased at the fair.

There are more prizes, such as a selection of Lonely Planet travel guides and travel magazines subscriptions as well, and the competition has very flexible rules. Copyright is retained by the authors and royalties paid, too, which beats the pants off most New Zealand pirates—sorry—publishers.

More about the GuideGecko competition at their website.

Quote of the week

“Creativity is like watching spores. You know how when they multiply? Without a certain few number of spores, you’re not going to get more spores. Does that make sense?”

—Te Radar has creativity sussed.

More at Idealog online

Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, creative directory, Idealog TV, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.

  Juha Saarinen
  Ideologue, Weekly

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