Rhizome Gallery

Dash Museum of Interactivity

Connect the Dots Exhibition

 

http://theroadbetweenus.net/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.witnessthatplace.com/

http://www.steveshaddick.com/2roads/

http://www.unfamilia.org/

something new to CRaVe

Commercials, you hate them when they interrupt whatever it is you’re watching, unless they’re really good and make you forget what it is you were actually watching. There’s seldom ads I can think of that strike me as being clever and innovative enough to remember them, but there is one brand that stands out among a plethora of semi-amusing sale-pitches, Honda.

Car Commercials are a whole ‘nother category when it comes to brand embellishment. All you hear is the terms 0% APR and no down payments or no payments until January of the following year, then they throw in the gas milage and whatever else the producers of those commercials want their customer base to hear. Problem is, ALL car commercials say the same thing, so the smart thing to do would be to revamp the commercial all together. Honda came out with a new line of ads for their sports utility vehicle, CR-V a year or two ago. They were different commercials than any other I’ve seen. It seems to me that they were engineered to appeal to that crowd of people who were tired of being spoon fed the same stats and facts every other company was trying to sell.  At least that’s my take on this. So take a look…

The three commercials I embedded are spiffed up and created to showcase the new line of CR-V’s, their color palettes, and “soft” suspension as shown in the SNOW commercial. Both COFFEE and POPCORN are an animated 360 degree review of the outside of the car, a function similar to those that are commonly seen on brand websites. In these commercials, however, that tactic along with animation [white popcorn popping and black coffee filling] aid in creating a more friendly and appetizing feel to the commercials, and ultimately, the car.

Is it art? Yeah, I think it is. The simple fact that the car and it’s effects had to be animated by using a computer constitutes it as art. The brains behind the idea, are also artistically inclined because they appeal to the viewer’s eye. The ending of each commercial eludes the key word CRAVE and with the use of the same special effects used in the commercial, either pop out or smear the A & E from the word, leaving CR-V to stand alone. What appeals to me, is what I’ve already stated; it’s different than all the other commercials because it doesn’t simply sell facts. Honda is obviously confident enough in their product, and rightly so since they’ve been around for ages, to open the doors towards a new way of brand marketing on TV screens. This way, they’re not only successful on paper, they’re also hitting it big on the screens of viewers at home, all across America.

 

8:11

chain clinking/train/change/church bells/spinning/dialing old phones/phone lines/echo/FEEDBACK/speed/zoom/HEARTBEAT/horses/hooves/magnetic force/metal clanking together/metal objects zipping through space and getting attached together/footsteps/cellphones on vibrate/RHYTHM/continutally pressing one key on a keyboard/tempo/space/spinning the wheel of fortune/GOSSIP/pstt/short circuiting/dropping nails on metal/zapping electricity/powertools/counting down/knocking/CD skipping/fast forward/rewind/sounds from boardwalk games/alone/strumming on a guitar.

So this 8 minute version of a “song” if you want to call it that, got me thinking. Like we were told to do, I sat there and listened to the very instrumental rendition of a song. At first, it was tough to just simply listen to it. I sort of had to challenge my brain to focus solely on what I was hearing, meaning getting every other random thought out of my head. That wasn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s a good thing this song was 8 minutes and 11 seconds long, otherwise, I’d only have 5 words written down on our lovely three-fold piece of blank computer paper. I really had to concentrate on what individual sound could represent, and as soon as I got into the swing of things, I think I managed to jot down some accuarate words and descriptions.

You can see some words are in all caps, the reason why is because while writing them down, I felt they were the ones that were the most overpowering; more apparent and relevant to the composition then the rest. After the excercise, I looked over the words I had written down, and I was actually amazed to see that most of them made some sort of…well, sense. FEEDBACK and HEARTBEAT have, for a lack of a better word, a beat in real life; they follow a pattern. In music, notes often follow particular patterns as well, therefore that is one fact in favor of this song actually being categorized as a song. With the illusion of a heartbeat and feedback, you could sort of hear the sounds coming alive, experiencing some sort of vibrancy.

Others, such as “zapping electricity”, “short circuiting” and “metal objects zipping through space and getting attached together” are what I like to think of as the music makers; they are the instruments used to make the noise aka music. Aside from traditional music instruments, ordinary objects can produce music just as well as anything else. No one ever categorized music as solely being produced with musical instruments.

I would identify “Echos” and “sounds from boardwalk games” as special effects. In the music studio, artists and producers use a variety of special effects to enhance the sound they are trying to portray. In this case, I think familiar sounds were used to create a balanced, yet unbalanced sound.

Most of these sounds stem from an electronic base, cellphones, powertools, CD’s, keyboards, zooming in/out. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that this 8 minute 11 second song would not have been created before the Electronic and Technological Age. Not only because half these sounds wouldn’t have existed, but also because without a computer, I don’t think such sounds could be compiled in order to make a song. I guess in this case, the song is a product of its generation.