So you were pretty lame for missing Anne Elizabeth Moore and I hope you feel super bad...

On March 10th, 2008 Anne Elizabeth Moore came to talk to 200 hundred people.

About 15 showed up.

And it's sort of ironic more than anything else if you were present that night, listening to the things she had to talk about. The things that not a lot of people pay attention too, the things that eat away at our culture and very soon, our future.

She pretty much summed up her new book, "Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity" with great imagery (in the form of an old school slide show), touching upon brand marketing that literally steals its ideas and tools from urban underground forms of expression, and in the end sells it back to us.

Remember when Sony PSP first came out?




*images used for educational reasons only, not to promote the Sony brand in any way.*

These "Graffatti" ads were sprayed on buildings nation wide. Moore talked about the difference of advertisement and expressionism, and the line that has become quite blurry. Using this instance as an introduction and examining cases where young graffitti artists in Chicago were prosecuted for displaying their art in public, faced fines, and a threat of prison time if caught in the possession of art supplies. We're talking markers and paint folks. Pretty damn absurd. All the while Corporate advertisers were not held accountable whatsoever for graffatti ads that were purchased for legal adverstisement space.

Pretty 'Effed up Right?

Moore also had a lot of interesting things to say about things we can do as artists and thinkers. She maintained that we should keep our ideas secret so that corporations don't steal what is ours and try to make money off of it. Moore then raised awareness to the notion of labor rights regarding viral marketing... rights I never knew existed and should be fought for.

This goes out to all the interns, street team leaders, and even hard core fans around the country who put up flyers and hand out stickers with out any sort of compensation.

Watch out and Don't be a sucker.

Moore concluded the night on a light note and a final slide of a unicorn floating in front of a rainbow. a distracted and enlightened group of fifteen learned not loose hope and to keep on doing the only thing we can do:

keep on creating something.
Any kind of something.


Please Visit her site and Check out her Book.
edited by: brenda malvini