The manifestos I have been asked to analyse, 'First things first' by Ken Garland (1964), the reprinted version by Adbusters (2000) and 'Fuck Committees' by Tibor Kalman (1998) all share the same message advocating a repositioning of priorities regarding the ethics of their work for people working in the creative industries, though to different extents. The original Ken Garland essay argues the basic point that a creator's skill set is better served elsewhere than to advertisers and corporate interests, advocating a 'reversal in priorities' in order to contribute more 'useful and lasting forms of communication', explicitly stating they do not advocate the 'abolition of high pressure consumer advertising.' Adbusters (2000) reprieve of this essay has no pretensions of being an anti-capitalist statement, explicitly attributing environmental, social and cultural crises to the capitalist system, calling it 'reductive and immeasurably harmful' to the public discourse. The manifesto goes so far as to state 'designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting and implicitly endorsing a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact', painting those who contribute to this system, no matter how well meaning as part of the problem. Adbusters' manifesto as a result is a much more radical view of the issue calling for extensive social change. Tibor Kalman's (1998) manifesto more indirectly supports Adbusters' thesis, painting a bleak picture of the culture, calling the culture of the late 20th century an extension of the corporate culture. Kalman (1998) questions the corporate world's influence on culture, stating 'culture used to be the opposite of commerce' and calling into question what billionaires such as Bill Gates have contributed to the culture when compared to Rockefeller and Ford.
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Animation Analysis:
David Firth's 'Ready err not' music video for Flying Lotus is about as anti-corporate as music videos in the 21st Century can get. Due to the nature of how music videos are mostly shown and seen on the internet, David Firth uses this as an opportunity to explore imagery which would not pass on corporate network television in the heyday of MTV. Kalman, in his 'Fuck Committees' manifesto, talks of 'lunatic entrepreneurs', people who 'understand that culture and design are not about fatter wallets' and Firth certainly fits this description. The animated music video contains a plethora of uncompromisingly surrealist and gory imagery, a stark contrast to the usual for music videos of this kind. With it's images of disembowelments and a sea of disfigured infants, 'Ready err not' is a prime example of anti-corporate content creation for the sole purpose of contributing something to the culture, a position Kalman argues in favour of in his essay.
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Adbusters' (2000) reprint of Ken Garland's 'First Things First' manifesto deliver's a similarly welcome message as the original 1964 writing, however with more urgency following the decades of rampant consumer capitalism and Thatcherism which has wrecked havoc in the western world. Most of the main argumentative points made in Garland's (1964) essay remain intact, but with more relevant, updated details and specifics which lend greater urgency to the piece and while the original essay states that the 'abolition of high pressure consumer advertising' is 'not feasible', Adbusters' updated version stands in opposition to the consumer capitalist ideology, which it argues is 'running uncontested', speaking to the more destructive side of the capitalist system. While both texts share the same basic message, Adbusters' version stands in stark opposition to the consumerist ideology, while Ken Garland's simply suggests 'a reversal of priorities'.
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Summary of Tibor Kalman's 'Fuck Committees' essay (1998)
Kalman argues in his essay that culture has been relegated to the role of corporate servitude. Corporations, in America at least, have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste, and the line between culture and commerce has been blurred. Kalman supports this theory by pointing out how TV scripts are vetted by producers, advertisers and lawyers, to determine whether they are 'dumb enough to amuse' and how film studios screen focus groups to determine whether the ending of a film will please target audiences, arguing how culture has become commodified to the point of being homogenised and neutered.
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