Television Commercial for Communism
2011
5-channel video installation:
Synchronized. 5:45 hours. 1920 x 1080. 25p. Color. 5.1 surround sound.
Television commercial animatic:
60 sec. 1920 x 1080. 25p. Color Stereo.
TELEVISION COMMERCIAL FOR COMMUNISM
Imagine for a brief moment, that world’s last five remaining communist countries decided to unite forces and hire the world’s top advertising agencies to re-brand and create a resurgence in the ideologies of Communism? Television Commercial for Communism [TVCC] embarks to re-position our relationship to current global economics and socio-politics by getting the world’s leading advertising companies to pitch their most radical ideas to re-brand Communism. How will capitalism’s most flamboyant progeny, the advertising machine, process it’s political opponent in a post Cold War context, still saturated with Cold War idiosyncrasies?
PROJECT DETAIL
This video installation work has 2 components, a synchronized 5 channel video installation projection and a single channel video presented on an LED monitor. It is a collaboration with TBWA \ Viet Nam. TBWA [tbwa.com] is the advertising team behind Apple’s “Think Different” campaign as well as the award-winning advertising campaigns for Nissan and Adidas.
The first component is a synchronized 5 channel video installation that documents the creative team at TBWA \ Viet Nam in their process of brainstorming, discussing and presenting their pitch as they develop a media campaign to promote and gain positive “brand identity” for Communism.
As the brainstorming sessions are the meat of the advertising process, every round-table discussion is documented with 5 cameras shooting simultaneously into the ‘round-table’ setup. These synchronized video channels are then projected outwards in a pentagonal configuration inside the exhibition space; rendering a complex viewing experience, turning a round-table advertising brainstorming session shot from the outside-in into an inside-out panoramic view of how advertising processes it’s Cold War antithesis.
The agency’s animatic, a video mock-up of the actual commercial that utilizes storyboard images, music, and voice over to help clients visualize the final commercial, is displayed on a large LED monitor as the second component of the installation.
The project’s ultimate ambition is to work with more of the world’s top advertising agencies and realize a series of compelling television commercials and advertising campaigns. The campaign will launch featuring cinema, TV, print, out-of-home installations, digital elements and more. All of the media will be made available as free downloads via an official website and made available on social media sites such as facebook, youtube and vimeo.
Watch a historical timeline of how advertising and politics have evolved, leading up to Television Commercial For Communism.
