Polaroid Grey Label and Lady Gaga at CES

I wrote about Gaga's appointment as creative director back in May, and it looks like she lived up to her title, not just as a celebrity spokesperson, but as a legit part of the creative team. Gaga and Polaroid debuted 3 new products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this past week.

GL 20: Camera Sunglasses

Gaga got the idea for this initially on her Fame Ball tour, where she made glasses out of iPod screens for her set on stage. Now her idea has become functional. These glasses take photo and video, and it registers them into a USB that is the earpiece of the sunglasses. The earpiece (USB) comes out and can be connected to comp or you can use the bluetooth capability to connect it to your devices.

This is rather innovative in the way that it is bridging together fashion and technology. Gaga calls the product 'innovative and also cultural'. I guess we will have to wait and see if the glasses take on cultural iconography.

GL 10: Mobile Printer

When asked what the camera of the future was (presumably by her Polaroid creative consorts), Gaga held up her cell phone. I guess this ticked them off a bit seeing as how their brand is built on a camera which she is suggesting now be replaced by a phone no less. But she has a point. How many of us actually carry around digital cameras (even to special events)? Most of us rely heavily on our camera phones, which take pretty good photos these days as evidenced by the number of mobile uploads on facebook and the twitpic overflow.

So the idea is to integrate the cell phone camera into the polaroid family, and it seems they have found a way to do so. This could possess even more utility when you think about how many times we have actually printed our digital content. I'd venture to say, not often, because it's just too much of a hassle in most cases.

All you have to do is set up the bluetooth on your phone to connect to the printer. The printer produces 3 x 4 prints, and you have the option of the polaroid trade dress or full bleed.

Unfortunately, the printer is NOT compatible with the iPhone, but it does work with all phones with bluetooth capability.

GL 30: New Polaroid Camera

Last but definitely not least, they unvelied THE camera. Gaga described it as sexy, sleek, and hearty. It takes regular instant polaroids, and has a zink printer (zero ink) which is in the actual camera and the printer and makes this fantastically eco-friendly. Each cartridge holds 10 photos, and the photos register both digitally and as a regular polaroid. Pretty freaking awesome, and should be out by Christmas.

***In the future, they are working on a forward camera that is also digital and will link to all social media outlets, yikes.

2010's Most Underrated Films

All the best and worst lists that came out at the 11th hour this past year (weird to say that) got me thinking about all the movies that didn't get a mention, because even for the Razzie winners, there is no such thing as bad publicity. So here's my two cents:

5- Bright Star

Can't say I had high hopes for this, especially since Abbie Cornish's angsty face is on the poster, but boy did this little film show me. Don't be afraid, it's not a John Keats biopic, and it's not an over the top melodrama either. The story is subtle yet captivating, and the cinematography is stunning. Abbie Cornish is rather good as well. Check it out, you won't be sorry, and read some Keats to fuel your pretentious ways while you're at it.

4- Nowhere Boy

Never ever will there be enough creative content on John Lennon. He is probably one of the most fascinating human beings EVER. That said, I was very confused as to why this film didn't receive more attention. For one thing, the acting, particularly by Aaron Johnson, who played the young Mr. Lennon was brilliant. So many of these 'before they were stars- type' films make annoying foreshadowing gestures, but this film makes you forget the enormity of his future celebrity, and really focuses on the coming-of-age story. Ah-mazing.

3- A Single Man

Two Words: Tom Ford.

I was going to leave it at that, but between this film and An Education I wish I could time travel back to the 60s, and never come back...yes, just freeze me in that decade, thank you.

2- Sin Nombre

Talk about impactful. I challenge you to watch this and not feel something. I just learned that it was EP-ed by Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, so if you don't trust my opinion, then their association should say something. Not only does this film add perspective to the immigration debate, it raises questions often left out of the discourse. MUST WATCH.

1- Never Let Me Go

For those of you who have seen One Hour Photo, you might have a slight idea of what you're in for. But only slight, because Romanek (who is mainly known for his music videos, remember MJ and JJ's Scream? yea, that was him) is given MAJOR ammo to work with thanks to Ishiguro's fantastical novel. If you've read the book and are afraid the film won't live up to it, fear not. Yes, it's that good. If you haven't read it, you most likely will after watching. Carey Mulligan is perfect. Please just see it because anything I say won't do it justice.

** some of these may have technically been in production in 2009, but were not released until 2010 (in the US). Just go with it people.

Most underrated film composer of 2010

Alexandre Desplat

His score for Coco before Chanel (also completely underrated, Audrey Tatou was fabulous) was awesome, and he also did these other little movies some of you may have heard of, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But more notably check out his work in The Painted Veil (and also for Ed Norton!)

Oh the Olsens

After a short hiatus from the massive Middle America market, the Olsen twins return with their line for JC Penney, fittingly (or not) called Olsenboye. If you check out the site for the new clothing line, the twins are noticeably absent from much of the promo. In fact, I wasn't sure they were even associated with the brand until I saw a post on teen vogue's website about their new launch. It seems as though they may be avoiding a repeat of their faces plastered on every product per the Wal-Mart days.

Check out her shirt (on right)! What a hipster, even back in the day...

And maybe this is a smart move. What with their sort-of-high-end Elizabeth & James, and even higher-end The Row, it looks like the twins are carefully choosing their associations to maintain their image in the fashion world. Are Mary Kate & Ashley trying to wear too many hats or putting their hands in all the cookie jars, or however the saying goes? Possibly, but if anyone is to pull off the high and low saturation of the fashion world, they may be the ones to do it.

The Space Between

I love John Seabrook's ideas on "nobrow" culture. It reminds me of the sort of tenants of a lot of postmodernist ideas, and of course of the pop art movement and into the post pop art movement of street art which redefines and reinterprets meanings, lines, boundaries, etc.

"The brand is the price of your admission to the subculture. The brand is neither quite marketing nor culture; it's the catalyst, the filament of platinum that makes culture and marketing combine."

Additionally, as defined by American culture: high and low brow--> intellectuality vs business

"In the United States, though, people needed highbrow-lowbrow distinctions to do the work that social hierarchy did in less egalitarian countries. Any fat cat could buy a mansion, but not everyone could cultivate a passionate interest in Arnold Schoenberg or John Cage."

"In Nobrow, the challenge that élite institutions such as the major museums face is how to bring commercial culture into the fold--how to keep their repertoire vibrant and solvent and relevant without undermining their moral authority, which used to be based, in part, on keeping the commercial culture out."

"In the changing rooms, which are tastefully designed, the fashion psychopath makes an appearance. Buy it, he whispers. Go ahead. Buy it. You know you want it. Then you can be part of that whole hip-hop thing happening down Broadway, while at the same time being secretly above it all. You'd spend two hundred dollars for a dress shirt, so why not a two-hundred-dollar T-shirt that you'll wear a lot more? It's anti-status as status, another important principle in Nobrow."

I loved that at the end of the day, his Jersey tomatoes from Dean & Deluca might as well have been from the 'low-brow' supermarket...

(This is especially comforting because I hate Dean & Deluca, and every day I walk by I just want to mess up all their perfectly placed produce, and break their duck eggs one by one. Ok, so maybe this is the bitterness talking, but seriously, I hate that place.)

All this talk of high and low and 'no' got me thinking of new ways to interpret or assign meaning to things...in this case, Street Art:

Fashion as Street Art

The Sartorialist : While this may not be what is conventionally seen as street art (graffiti, tagging, etc), The Sartorialist fashion blog takes snapshots (let's keep in mind that photography, and fashion photography are a part of the art world) of both unknown and well-known people on the street and has gained much notoriety in fashion by doing so. The idea of a blog like the Sartorialist as a type of street art may be a stretch as it is not a permanent fixture on the street as much of street art can be, but when I was thinking of this, it got me thinking of O’Doherty’s “Inside the White Cube”. These photographs are snapshots of street culture in multiple places and times that collectively serve as an artistic representation of that occurrence, in this case: fashion in the streets. So could this be classified as street art?

W Magazine: The Art Issue

W Magazine: The Art Issue

In thinking about Art media theory and discourse, I wondered about what mainstream magazines featured art. It's pretty rare that non-art specific magazines will showcase art or up-and-coming artists unless it somehow fits their agenda in that particular time, for instance if a particular artist or work of art intersects with something important to their brand, they will feature it.

I was looking at some of the more mainstream magazines, and it looked like W was one of the ones that will feature art occasionally. This could be due to the fact that their subscribers and readers have interests in the art world and art discourse, whereas readers of some other magazines would not. Also, W considers art to be one of it's 'tags' (Fashion, art, & culture).

They even have an art issue, and you may remember the November 07 cover by Richard Prince. who famously painted portraits of celebrities to look like photographs.

In another 'Art Issue' cover, W attempts to cover the art world key players and even feature some of the more up-and-coming artists.