I'm calling it 'Friends season 4 episode 16 "The One with the Fake Party"'

Yes, it's the short film I made when I was thinking about how to do this anti-vert idea. It's a classic I think you'll all agree.

I'm calling it 'Friends season 4 episode 16 "The One with the Fake Party"' after one of my favourite episodes of the beautiful juggernaut.

This is so so so strange

Barbie on happiness

She says some strange/problematic things, ie "you cant have the spring without the winter" which isn't very helpful for people with depression or who are fgoing through a bad situation-i think it sounds a bit self help book-y but then     ! She starts talking about the pressure to be happy and know we should reject that and revel in happiness (right at the end...)

Weird format, but maybe Barbie overheard our meetings at the Marquis??

Hey lovelies just been re reading the hand book and noticed we haven't yet posted the vid and need too........

So hear it bloody is!!!  - Our baby, from blood sweat tears and some late night bevvys in the library!

Current views - 807 on Facebook plus 114 on Youtube whoop whoop

Sari and i also had an adventure up to covent garden with the Ipad showing people which was really interesting. We, by chance showed it to someone who had written a self helpy book criticising self helpy books. He was a real character!

big love xxx

the key to happiness (again)

Just another clever man giving us the secret. Re-evaluate your perspective on hardship. IT'S ALL IN YOUR MIND. THINK YOUR WAY TO HAPPINESS.

This is just another example of responsibility being placed within the individuals mind. He also works for google. He speaks about our evaluation of happiness, and that it is our perspective on the lacking in our life that needs attention.

WHERE DOES THE LACK COME FROM?

It is both physical and phycological. The notion of lack in itself is created and reinforced by society. Other than basic needs of food, clothing and shelter, many of our needs are created. Advertising relies  on our lacking.

He makes a good point on the confusion between happiness and fun. Happiness being a calm state . Fun being the thing we do to try and get away from our unhappy thoughts - a distraction. I think that is true, but once again this surface solution with only ever paper over the cracks of mass capitalism.

ANTI-VERT is teetering on the edge of completion. Now to get some people watching it! Some thoughts that we have discussed:

Ipad - Covent Garden / Oxford Street - taking it to the mecca of consumerism

Curzon Cinema - Sari is asking if they would show it

Magic Roundabout - I'm trying to get it played there (a big venue in Shoreditch)

Sari has one hell of a pen for more raging. I have my sharpie on me and am in central today so will keep my eyes open for opportunities. Bending the edges of the system...

Sari and I had a chat about the project and getting actions moving in the next few days. The anti-vert sounds great, albeit with a bit of uncertainty around recovering the files. Reading the blog post from Lucy and Rosie yesterday got me thinking about condensing our message down to a simpler, more focused take-away for the viewer (this is not an easy task by any means)

So..

Project One: The Anti-Vert

 - Sari's working on this now upstairs
 -  structure outlined in the post by Rosie and Lucy  seems well worked out 
 - Message of advert should align with overall rationale, which still feels like a work in progress

Project Two: Pen-Rage

 - Appropriating advertisements by writing anti-consumerist messages and slogans 
 - Conveying the idea that it's OK to be sad
 - Rejecting the Happiness Industrial Complex
 - Potential to link these actions to a Facebook or twitter account, but brings in more chance of getting 'caught'

Potential other actions:

Me and Rosie discussed doing another physical intervention, one that would compliment the other projects. There was discussion of creating a booklet that ascribed the key tenets of our message into a form that other people could pick up, understand and get involved in quite quickly. 

Sari mentioned the idea of going to Covent Garden and showing the anti-vert to people around the area, we could integrate another action into this. Rosie and I are thinking of potential actions and will post ideas on the blog when we have them.

My personal feelings are to distill and finalise the rationale so we can utilise it in both projects as soon as possible. 

Sari's earlier post on rationale:

 "We went on to break down themes/points within this, such as the objectification of happiness (as Will Davies talks about), the atomisation of the project as individual responsibility/opportunity (and failing if you don't manage to be happy - see pathologising of unhappiness, both Davies and Sara Ahmed talk about this), and normative function of happiness when happiness is embodied by certain lives, lifestyles and goods (which fit in with marketable hegemony)." 


Lucy's earlier post: 

• Develop action, thought and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization
• Do not demand of politics that it restore the "rights" of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power 
• Do not become enamoured of power

My rationale for this project is centered around the unspoken sadness and discomfort people encounter and the way the market weaponises this and uses advertising to encourage comfort consumption. 

Let me know what you think


xx