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Creative Korean Advertising #17: Human Arcade Games

James Turnbull — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:45:56 +0000

Creative? Certainly, and pretty cool if it’s the first time you’ve seen it. Long-term readers though, may be reminded of this Tetris video that I posted back in February last year:

Knowing of that, I would have been very surprised if Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond hadn’t also produced a Pole Position video, and indeed he has:

Albeit not as good as the Tetris video, which the music adds a great deal to. Click on either of those videos to see many more human versions of classic arcade games in his “GAME OVER Project,” and apologies for the slight misnomer in the title, although the Korean “Show” version still seemed worth posting!

(For all posts in my “Creative Korean Advertising” series, see here)

The Grand Narrative

Creative Korean Advertising #16: The Male Gaze

Posted in Creative Korean Advertising, Korean Advertisements, Korean Sexism, Korean Sexuality, Korean Women’s Body Images by James Turnbull on June 17, 2009 Edit This

( Source: Add Shots )

Given my Feminist pretensions, then usually I’d instinctively feel defensive about my decision to post an ad like this, and in the past this has often prompted me to write lengthy arguments about how, say, exposure of breasts per se shouldn’t be regarded as sexist. But with some notable exceptions (and from which I’ve learned a great deal from), whether through preaching to the converted, most of my readers being men(?), or some other reason, judging by the lack of detracting comments on those occasions then such justifications have probably proved unnecessary.

So, I’ll let it go: readers certainly don’t need me to spell out that on the one hand this ad is definitely objectifying, but on the other that men would behave exactly the same way even if women had achieved complete equality, and can decide for themselves if it’s sexist or not (I’m still happy to discuss that in the comments section though). In the meantime, I’m learning to feel less ashamed about the unabashed grins ads like this put on my face, especially the first ad in this post.

Actually, a much more interesting issue it raises is its directness. Of course objectifying women is hardly new or unique to Korean ads, but I can’t think of any other example that so blatantly incorporates the corresponding (sexual) male gaze into its message, and this makes it more sexual than, say, the sudden spate of couples kissing in Korean advertisements that is making news recently (see here, here, and here). On top of that, it actually went up way back in November 2007 too (see the details here), which raises some interesting questions:

How common was it?
Where was it posted?
Were there any complaints?
If so, was it removed from circulation?
If not, why have there been no similar ads since?
Or perhaps there have been, it’s just that I didn’t notice them?

If any readers can help me with any of those, I’d appreciate it. In the morning, and with apologies for not doing this first, I’ll scour Naver and so on and see if there’s anything in Korean on it.

Update: Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything at all about this ad in Korea, either at Naver or Yahoo! Korea, and which makes me wonder if it was actually released or not? But as for ads featuring the male gaze, I forgot about this one with Han Ye-seul (한예슬) for lingerie company Venus (비너스). From February 2008:

(For all posts in my “Creative Korean Advertising” series, see here)

human tetris

nummynims — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:15:46 +0000

The GAME OVER Project by artist Guillaume Reymond. awesome sound effects!

Human tetris

kemas (Design The Sign) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:31:37 +0000

09/10 :: O cinema trash invade o Espaço Multifoco

Marketing — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:28:54 +0000

O Espaço Multifoco recebe no próximo dia 9 de outubro mais um festival de vídeos independentes e trash produzidos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. O I Canal BRV Trankeiras Festival, organizado pela produtora Canal BRV – responsável pelas mostras TrashRio I e II, realizadas em 2003 – reunirá as mais recentes produções brasileiras em vídeo digital. Na programação também estão presentes algumas co-produções internacionais, como os filmes Where the hell were you? e Pit Fighter, realizados em parceria com a produtora independente norte-americana ScreamKings Productions.

O objetivo é realizar um festival anual com a melhor programação de vídeos independentes do país, trabalhos que normalmente não recebem espaço nos festivais de cinema e vídeo convencionais.

A programação conta com os mais recentes trabalhos da Canal BRV.

- Teaser The Running Man Brasil

- Game Over Project

- Where the hell were you?

- Contos de Carnaval

- O Vôo do Perdigão Saga Celestina – episódios 3: O estreito do inferno

- O Vôo do Perdigão Saga Celestina – episódios 4: O perdigão cego

- O Vôo do Perdigão Saga Celestina – episódios 5: Uma sombra nefasta

- Pit Fighter

- O Gato Chester

As exibições têm início às 19h e (o melhor!) a entrada é franca. Quem curte cinema trash não pode perder esta oportunidade. Convide a todos os amigos e compareça.

Juegos familiares

Liyo — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:36:17 +0000

A años luz del Tetris humano de Marley, Guillaume Reymond recrea videojuegos usando sólo un salón grande con butacas y muchos pero muchos amigos. Al final, en los créditos, figuran todos los que participaron (su rol es simplemente pixel) y son como mil.

Una proeza de la planificación y del montaje y un muy gracioso, y económico, trabajo de sonido.

Tetris

Si quieren ver otros:

Space Invaders

Pole Position

Pong

Great Video Experiences (3): Stop Motion Equalizer + Game Over

johnsonlab — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:17:58 +0000

Todays SNACKYSODE BREAK: © Marcelo Costa and John Evans, Tim Foster. With special thanks to Lean Mean Fighting Machine and Fabia Barbieri. Originally posted 2nd of June 2008.

Self-initiated stop-frame animation project. Initially it was thought for a client’s brief, but as the job was cancelled, the guys decided to go ahead anyway just for the sake of having fun.

Of course not as brilliant as the GAME OVER project (over 10 Million views in total inbetween) by Not So Noisy …

“TETRIS is the 4th video performance of the GAME OVER Project (over 6 Million views). This stop-motion video was shot and played during the Urbaines Festival at the Palais de Rumine (Lausanne, Switzerland) on November 24th 2007.”

… but worth looking.

the game over project: human tetris.

shape and colour — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:59:07 +0000

It’s been a fruitful week in my on-going quest to dig up all things Tetris. The cultural obsession surrounding the little game that could knows no bounds. First, we had Mikontalo Tetris. Now we’ve discovered the old skool arcade glory that is Swiss artist/designer Guillaume Reymond’s Game Over Project.

The Game Over Project is a series of stop-motion video performance pieces where Reymond re-enacts classic games with real live humans as pixels. It’s almost hypnotically entertaining – much like playing Tetris itself. I also have no words to express how happy it makes me that someone (in my mind, it’s Reymond himself) physically sings the little Russian folk ditty/ Tetris song. It’s familiarity is immediate and nostalgic to the max.

It took over four hours of shooting 88 people to get the 880 shots that comprise the Tetris video. But it gets better. Earlier installations in the series include Space Invaders, Pole Position, and – get ready for it – Pong. That’s right. People Pong.

See the full four Game Over Project videos by reading on.

Via Queerty