Hell, Frankenstein and Type
Société Réaliste is a Paris-based cooperative created by Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy in 2004. Developing exhibitions, publications and conferences, Société Réaliste works with political design, experimental economy, territorial ergonomy, and social engineering consulting. They are now the focus of an exhibition a P! Gallery. It is the first solo exhibition in New York City.
Curated by Prem Krishnamurthy and Niels Van Tomme, the exhibition dates are Sept 5 – Oct 27, 2013. “A rough guide to Hell” spans several of Société Réaliste’s recent works revolving around figures and forms of capitalist utopianism. Pitting two discrete discursive investigations against each other — the typographic language of global-local media communications and the architecture of anarcho-capitalist modernism — the exhibition resolves into a singularly strange and unsettling total installation.
“A rough guide to Hell” premieres a new typeface. Combining the logotypes of international newspapers that include geographic locators in their names, media police (2013) is a Frankensteinian font that belies its diverse origins through a fractured assemblage. All communications about the show use the typeface; this includes the storefront awning signage, which hijacks a quotation from Dante’s Inferno. A new room-sized piece, Circles of Errors (2013), introduces a recursive poetic text of common computer error messages. The media police font will be available for free download at http://p-exclamation.org for the duration of the exhibition.
For additional information, please contact David Knowles at david@p-exclamation.org or +1 971 219 4373.
+ + + + + + +
Justice = Plaigarism?
The European Citizens’ Initiative is an importing group fighting for a “fairer and more efficient society.” “Unfortunately,” argues Mirko Ilic, “their fight for a ‘fairer and more efficient society’ is fought with totally unfair treatment of me.” They co-opted his image of “Liberty & Justice” on their promotional materials without asking permission, giving proper credit, and collaged it together with other images. Moreover, to add insult to injury, they redrew the image on other materials “I have given the ‘Liberty & Justice’ image to hundreds of different organizations and individuals after I was asked,” he adds. “never charging for usage. Most of them have credited me out of respect. That is how that is supposed to work.” If they had asked, he would have given it to European Citizens’ Initiative too.
+ + + + + + +
Wake Up Sleepyhead, Its Time for CreativeMornings
The new website for one of the most refreshing creative international live design events, CreativeMornings, launched today. It features a trove of talks from fave knowns and inspiring unknowns and even something from yours truly.
Tina Roth Eisenberg told me the new site is unique because “All of the thinking that has been shared over the last five years in 57 cities around the world is now accessible for the world. It’s a tremendously valuable, rich database of creative thinking. But I am most excited about the searchable “People” section of the site. I started CreativeMornings because I believe that real connections are not made behind the screen but in person. Now, we can see the ever-growing CreativeMornings community. We can search it, read about them, see what talks they like and attend. I couldn’t be more excited and humbled by what CreativeMornings has turned in into. I had no idea when I started this exactly five years ago in my Brooklyn design studio.”