13 June 2003

MobileLifeEvent: brand overload, little content, sensory torture MobileLifeEvent, Earls Court, 13 July 2003: Shiny skull-faced young men and bored expogirls grinning desperately as they try to persuade you to put hand in pocket to buy a 3G/GPRS/new handset/ringtone, or to enter a competition, or just to take a free doggie bag of shitty brandware. Avoid eye-contact with the brands clawing for your attention and you can be in and out in 15 minutes. You try to ignore the sound of a dozen sound-systems mashing into each other (it's like being in an interrogator's white noise room with the volume up to 11) whilst you work out whether T-Mobile's T-Zones GPRS service is better than Vodafone's Live!. It might or might not be, you can't really tell, such is the sonic distraction. The only popular stands: Panasonic's Legends Penalty Shoot and Carphone Warehouse's car boot sale corner. Persuasion by sensory torture. As you leave, staggering through the other shell-shocked consumers slowly wheeling through the hall, you wonder whether you've just experienced an intense-but-safe consumer equivalent of being shell-shocked. Disney versus Nokia at Passchendaele. 8:06:20 PM     comments

COMICA at ICA: 27 June - 6 July 2003 Someone tell Warren Ellis. Includes the launch of the British branch of OuBaPo (Ouvoir de Bande Dessinee Potentielle). 6:40:05 PM     comments