Re: Extropic Flare In NY Art Scene

Elizabeth Childs (echilds@linex.com)
Thu, 23 Sep 1999 01:35:35 -0700

> At 05:41 PM 9/20/99 +0200, Anders wrote:

> >Any ideas of what this
> >new stuff could look like?

Anybody see those new Sprite commercials which combine hip hop and Japanese imagery, with a little Hong Kong movie style thrown in? I think they're very striking, and very modern. They take two very sophisticated, technologically advanced cultures that are extremely disparate and combine them in an interesting way.

I see more and more of this kind of internationalization of American popular culture. Some of it is strikingly successful (there was a wonderful MTV ad recently that used Indian imagery) and some of it seems very forced (Madonna as a geisha?)

If those Sprite ads had aired ten years ago, the audience might not have understood what they were seeing. But today's audiences are more culturally literate - the kids in Iowa who watch MTV probably have at least a glancing familiarity with Anime, Jackie Chan and Tupac Shakur that makes the synthesis more comprehensible to them.