Passing through San Francisco, I spotted these near 16th street and Valencia. The Arnold poster says nothing about the substance of the initiatives — it doesn’t need to. For locals, there’s no explanation necesary.

Like the U.S., Australia has a growing problem of fundamentalists in politics.

In response, graphic designer, artist, and activist Deborah Kelly has undertaken a large scale public art project in the streets (skies and train stations) of Sydney. From bewareofthegod.com:

“This site intends to be a resource of diverse material documenting, analyzing, and musing upon the impacts and aspirations of religious literalists in the public sphere. It is being produced in Australia, in 2005, so that is its first focus. However, you will also find here information, ideas and reportage from other places, because even though context is everything, a global phenomenon is also something.”

The project incorporates multiple media, including:

A 30 second film shown every ten minutes on 42 billboard screens in Sydney train stations, viewable in miniature here [Quicktime 874 Kb]

Projections onto clouds over Sydney Harbor:

Distribution of 40,000 free postcard/stickers (you can mail or peel the front off and stick to your door.)

And essays and analysis posted on the project Web site. On the site is an open call for further cultural and analytical material.

The effort is backed by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney as part of their biennial Contemporary Australian Art show, this year called Interesting Times.

Related projects from Kelly include a series of posters designed with Tina Fiveash satirizing the right wing regime of “compulsory heterosexuality”.

And a series of illustrated matchboxes satirizing the Christian right push in Australia to have muslim women and girls banned from wearing hijab “because they might be hiding bombs.” Kelly and friends made thousands of satirical matchboxes and left them lying around.

Kelly is also involved in a collective challenging the rhetoric of politicians calling refugees ‘boat people.’ See more at http://www.boat-people.org/

Though not aligned with a specific organizing campaign, I think such cultural work is important in the battle for hearts and minds.

On the west coast last month, I had a chance to visit the amazing folks of the Desgin Action Colletive in Oakland. Talking process and vision, something Innosanto Nagara said really stuck with me. It was something like:

“The challenge for progressives is not a lack of ideas. The models exist. The arguments exist.

But when you ask someone on the street if they want universal health care tomorrow, they say ‘Oh, that’s communism.’

The problem is a failure to communicate. And visual communications is a powerful tool that we need to learn to use better.

I strongly believe that on-the-ground organizing is where it’s at. And the communications work we do is to augment that.”

Now there’s a concise manifesto.

On October 28, Wired ran this bit on NYC’s new solar powered subway station:

“On a sunny day, 60,000 square feet of integrated solar paneling on its roof can generate 210 kilowatts of power, enough to meet two-thirds of the station’s energy requirements. The solar energy doesn’t run the trains, but is expected to contribute approximately 250,000 solar kilowatt hours per year to the station’s other energy needs — primarily lighting and air conditioning in the station and its attached offices and retail stores....

In addition to the Stillwell station, photovoltaic, or PV, cells help power a bus terminal and rail yard in Queens, as well as the Whitehall Ferry Terminal at the southern tip of Manhattan.”

OK, pretty cool. (But are we subsidizing those retail stores? Or are they paying the MTA for the juice?)

And of note is this little factoid:

“Total renovation costs approached $300 million, though it’s not clear how much of that came from expenses related to the solar roof.”

OK, pricey, but these things stick around a while. And of course, there’s the MTA’s $1 billion dollar surplus this year.

But it all puts into further context the MTA’s last minute demand that pushed the union to strike.

From today’s NY Times we learn that in the final minutes before the midnight deadline for negotations, the MTA changed their “final offer”, and pushed a demand to cut the wages of new workers by 4 percent. The plan would have the union win current benefits at the expense of future members (a classic tactic of employers negotiating with unions) and save less than $20 million over three years:

“less over the next three years than what the New York City Police Department will spend on extra overtime during the first two days of the strike.”

Just in time for the new year is this massive collection of social design notes from the Associazione Italiana Progettazione per la Comunicazione Visiva, the Italian Association for the Design of Visual Communication.

SocialDesignZine Vol.UNO collects two years of posts from the blog SocialDesignZine.The book weighs in at 464 pages with over 1100 color images.

In my broken translation:

“The book is an immense anthology on topics of visual communication and the social responsibility of the designer. An appeal for us to think about the future, this collection is a small contribution to the formation of an Italian design community.

Introduced with essays by Steven Heller, Mario Piazza, and Oliviero Toscani, the text draws from a wide range of sources collection (text, Web, video) that deepen the arguments over time. Many pages include a sidebar of selected user comments from the site itself. Also of use is the immense analytical index that allows one travel over the pages again. Articles are cross-indexed on repeated themes through the book. The book costs 30 Euros online plus shipping.”

The book grabs a few items and images from my own site, though is more tightly focused on graphics. In fact, the introduction cites this site as an inspiration! It’s thrilling to see how far they’ve run with the idea. I can’t wait to see what happens in volume 2.

Onwards!

I’m not big on “humanitarianism” as a political strategy, nor posters as limited edition collectibles, priced as luxury goods. But The Hurrican Poster Project hits a few good notes. From the site:

“The Hurricane Poster Project seeks limited edition sets of hurricane-related posters from high-profile and up-and-coming artists, designers, and firms from the United States and abroad. The donated posters will be sold online, and all profits will go directly to the Red Cross.”

As of this writing, the site shows 108 posters from around the U.S. and the world. As with any open call, the sophistication of the messages is checkered — but there are a few that do a good job. It’s also instructive to see the wide variety of approaches. And, despite the depoliticized context the campaign, several images do hold FEMA, Bush, and the media to account.

Manhole cover seen on the Venice Beach boardwalk.

Who’s the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?

Back in November 2004, a portrait of a U.S. Marine in Iraq rapidly became an icon of weary, insouciant toughness and cool that so many love in their cinematic heros.

Patrick J. McDonnell wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

A smoke break creates icon of the war; now groupies seek out the weary Marine

“Miller is the young man whose gritty, war-hardened portrait, shot by Luis Sinco, a Los Angeles Times photographer, appeared Wednesday in more than 100 U.S. newspapers, including The Seattle Times. In the full-frame photo, taken after more than 12 hours of nearly nonstop deadly combat, Miller’s camouflage war paint is smudged. He sports a bloody nick on his nose. His helmet and chin strap frame a weary expression that seems to convey the timeless fatigue of battle. And there is the cigarette, of course, drooping from the right side of his mouth in a jaunty manner that Humphrey Bogart would have approved of. Wispy smoke drifts off to his left.

The image has quickly moved into the realm of the iconic.

More than 100 newspapers printed it, although it took the New York Post to sum it up in a front-page headline: ‘Marlboro Men Kick Butt in Fallujah.’ The fact that Miller’s name was not included in the caption material only seemed to enhance its punch....

The photo was taken on the afternoon after Charlie Company’s harrowing entry into Fallujah under intense enemy fire, in the cold and rain. Miller was on the roof of a home where he and his fellow First Platoon members had spent the day engaged in practically nonstop firefights, fending off snipers and attackers who rushed the building. No one had slept in more than 24 hours. All were physically and emotionally drained.”

See this previous post on Bag News Notes for further analysis of the Times article and photo.

See also Human Rights Watch‘s report on Charlie Company‘s earlier seige and occupation of Fallujah.

Today, however, we learn from Editor and Publisher that:

‘Marlboro Man’ in Iraq War Photo Suffers from PTSD

Back home, he got married in June, but on duty during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, Miller suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and was granted an honorable discharge from the Marines in November....

Miller went into therapy, but knows he is not alone. ‘A lot of guys have had way worse incidents from being in Iraq,’ he said. ‘And I guess it just -- it troubled me due to the fact that their incidents may have been more severe, and they weren’t suffering from the same things I was. I just didn’t understand how it could affect me so dramatically and not affect some of these guys. But a lot of them deal with different ways.

‘The more and more I talk to [other guys], the more I found out there were a lot of Marines that are going through same or similar emotions. It’s tough to deal with. Being in Iraq is something no one wants to talk about.’”

In November 2003, I blogged Edward Mazria’s analysis of the environmental impact of architecture in the U.S. Namely, that buildings are responsible for a whopping 46 percent of carbon dioxide production in the U.S.

Yesterday, Mazria and company launched a Web site to spread the word and promote a response. From the press release:

“www.architecture2030.org is part of an ongoing effort, initiated by architect Edward Mazria, to provide information and innovative solutions in the fields of architecture and planning, in an effort to address and reverse the destructive trend toward global climate change.

The website clearly illustrates, using the latest research, that the Building sector is currently responsible for about half of all U.S. and global emissions annually and that this sector’s emissions are increasing at an alarming rate.  Architecture2030.org outlines the steps necessary to address this situation.  As part of this effort, the website includes a variety of resources to help professionals, government officials, and those in the building sector, plan and design for a carbon-neutral future....

The website will report on the activities and progress in the building sector around the globe and critical information will be updated regularly.”

In particular, I liked the case studies.

Also of particular note is the organizing work of the American Institute of Architects, a professional association:

“The American Institute of Architects, representing 74,000 prefessionals, recently announced a bold initiative to reverse the environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. building sector. The AIA... set a goal of reducing the fossil fuel consumption of buildings by 50 percent in four years, with additional 10-percent reductions every five years thereafter. The implications of this initiative are considerable and when implemented will transform the built environment in a way we have not seen since the time of the industrial revolution.”

AIGA where are you?

Reader dru writes in about this graphic campaign around the upcoming elections in Canada:

“In February 2004, Canada backed a coup that removed Haiti’s democratically elected president (Aristide) and the entire elected government. Since then, they’ve been training police that have been shooting demonstrators, and propping up a ‘justice’ system that is systematically jailing political dissidents (the ones that aren’t in hiding or dead).

A bunch of Haiti solidarity activists are trying to unseat the Foreign Minister, Pierre Pettigrew (who had a brief cameo in The Corporation as a corrupt international trade minister), who played a key role (and continues to) in backing the post-coup government.

In the last election, he won by a very small margin in his riding of Papineau in north Montreal, which has a high population of Haitians.

In conjunction with groups in the Haitian community there, we're waging an all-out propaganda battle to unseat Pettigrew. Thousands of these posters: http://outofhaiti.ca/pettigrew/

Similar flyers have been distributed in the riding, and we hope to get a few thousand more out before election day (Jan. 23). Because the riding is such a hotspot, our posters have appeared on two nationally-broadcast TV news shows (in French and English).

Posters have also been created for the Prime Minister and his special advisor on Haiti and are going up in cities all across Canada.”

Read more about the campaign at http://outofhaiti.ca/