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