A while ago I produced a few episodes of a web comic entitled Maul which rips off the visual style of a friend’s substantially more successful series. This one is entitled RomCom and is based on the Hollywood romantic comedy genre. The idea came from a conversation about how trite and formulaic romantic comedies are, invariably involving some sort of chase (normally to an airport) once the troubled protagonist[1] realises the he/she cannot just let the other one slip away. The result is invariably a reconciliation and a beautifully flawed life together. A happy ending.
Somehow it seems more fun to think of what could be the worst possible ending to a romantic comedy. Let’s keep the chase (possibly even to an airport) and the troubled/yearning roles, but what would be the worst possible revelation that could happen in the very last scene? So here we go – RomCom, a web comic of despair.

The Goons have been building! Goon City is a pixel-art project by Ryan Allen which is growing rapidly[1] because it is built on two of the staples of web 2.0[2], user-generated content and Google Maps. If you ever played Sim City the isometrically tiled layout will be instantly familiar, and the bustling streets are filled with everyone from the little lego man to Mr Orange staring down Mr Blonde. The result is brilliant, a technically slick train smash of fanboy art and pop culture references.

Here’s a couple of snaps of how Goon City has grown over the last while.

circa 16 July

circa 16 September

19 September

My favourite inhabitant is Thich Quang Duc (who sits near the city center) and apparently Waldo is also around.

Thich Quang Duc

Man, I really don’t feel like spending too much energy on this. I’m sooo over Sarah Palin, but feel that I should at least document the passage of time. Will she win[1]? I don’t know, but I do think that it is likely that America’s wobbly middle is strong enough in their collective delusions/beliefs to make it happen. And by now it is clear that Palin wasn’t chosen to reel in the female vote; her mission is to bring Christianity to the McCain campaign, and by extension to the world. Hot damn, I can’t wait.

America’s most glorious believer had the following to say in a recent interview on US network television when questioned on her immediate willingness to jump aboard the McCain ticket.

I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on — reform of this country and victory in the war — you can’t blink.

That’s a hectic thing to say; describing yourself in such militaristic terms; on a mission, a mission of country and victory and war.

God’s own fist

Here’s more from the interview

Charles Gibson: [you said], “There is a plan and it is God’s plan.”

Palin: I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That, in my world view, is a grand — the grand plan.

CG: But then are you sending your son on a task that is from God?

P: I don’t know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer.

God’s own family

Ok now I’m scared. There are several things here that freak me out but I won’t bother with the obvious absurdity of linking the rights of nation states to God’s plan for the world, or how unsophisticated it is to present God’s perceived grand plan as always being the American concept of life, liberty and happiness. But her concept of her son’s ‘decision’ is ludicrous. There is nothing ‘independent’ about Track Palin’s[2] decision. How could his decision possibly be independent when his mom cannot help but to remind him that it is serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself? He has been given from his mother’s bosom to serve as God’s own man, in God’s own family from God’s own land.
There is no trace of individual strength in this young man’s glorious conformity.

Christmas ’07 brought a new level of high-end retail to Cape Town. The charge was led by Louis Vuitton which opened an impeccably designed and massively intimidating store in the V&A Waterfront’s new luxury shopping hall. Gucci, Prada and Jimmy Choo followed shortly thereafter and now even Canterbury has taken its place, peddling a luxury line called Off Field.

What originally drew me to the LV store was the window display which I had read about in an ’07 edition of Wallpaper[1]. The display, named Latitude 48.914/Longitude 02.286, was the winner in an international design competition and the elegant lines of its balsa contours are just so – luxury. The display was very impressive, very high-end. But now LV have a new display and I’m ready to name this as my design statement of the year.

The display is of a wall of chromed surveillance cameras hovering around an LV product. The cameras watch the product adoringly, fixated by its beauty. The arrangement of the cameras render them more like silver hummingbirds buzzing around a flower than their cold steel counterparts on wet London streets.
By fixating the cameras on the product in such a swarm the display makes several powerful associations all at once. The first is about desirability; the way the cameras fawn over the product is more about desire than control. The second is about pervasive celebrity. The cameras act as paparazzi[2] to the scene and the products are the images of a pristine 24/7 society.
But it is the last association of the display that immediately made it, to me, the culmination of 2008 modernity. I don’t like using the word zeitgeist, but the LV display makes an immaculate case for total surveillance as being desirable – a powerful luxury. The cameras themselves are chromed and, unlike the viewer who is separated from the display by glass, share a rarified, exalted space with the products. By desiring the beautifully made bag or tie we also reach out for the privilege, wealth, exclusivity and protection of the cameras.

The standard conservative[3] response to surveillance is ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong you shouldn’t be worried about it’, and invariably total surveillance like that which is emerging in the UK ends up being a protective shield for the wealthy who remain behind the deeply tinted windows of their estate cars until they are ready to emerge into the public eye. The last few years have crystallized a deep-rooted desire for luxury as defined by LV, Ralph Lauren and Armani[4], their products are the standard-bearers for a life lived well. And within such a well-lived life surveillance is not something to be feared. Pervasive surveillance loves you, it holds you in its tender gaze as you emerge from your SW1 home and it protects you from the grime through which you temporarily pass.

Update - 19 September: AnimalNetwork featured a variant of this display which places the product in a museum-type glass case. In this version the cameras act as protection against burglars and offers a humorous spin, in effect – this is what we need to do to keep people from stealing our product. Very desirable.