[SIC] DAY THREE HUNDRED FIVE

Vol. 3, No. 24. Saturday Baby Make Up Edition: Unlocked.

[SIC] DAY THREE HUNDRED FIVE

Hi all.

Excuse the timeshiftedness of today’s [SIC] Day; I started ruminating on brands building ‘worlds’, inspired by Breakfast Club occasional Gray Broderick’s “Amuse: Saint Laurent” newsletter yesterday, examining the house's efforts to create a ‘neighborhood,’ but I got waylaid and didn’t send it. Sorry to keep you waiting.

It worked out in a funny way though, because last night I trucked out to Maspeth to see the NYC premiere of Harmony Korine’s new feature Baby Invasion, which is less a movie and more a world (of dubious merit, but nonetheless) of its own.

As the Wiki says “The film centers on a home invasion, which, in the film Korine swapped with baby faces using artificial intelligence” - so you’d think going in maybe it’d be a caper flick. What you actually get is more like a twitch stream of a class-war first person shooter being played by dudes in skull masks. The baby gang wanders around a few obscene mansion-type houses in Miami doing crimes - though the actual ultraviolence is never shown, just implied. There’s also a very banging soundtrack by the secretive UK producer Burial, a consterning detail for many of his fans, since he’s taken very seriously and this project (and Korine’s whole oeuvre) are so seriously unserious.

Unserious tho it may be, I found Baby Invasion very effective. It’s not very much fun and the plot is totally nonexistent, but in merging the dynamics of film, video game, livestream and nightclub Korine’s created something that feels like the entertainment that the KIDS of today demand. Its totally ephemeral - you could walk in or walk out at literally any point past the first minute (the only real exposition in the film) and come away with as clear a sense of what’s going on as if you stayed for the whole thing. Which I did, kind of in spite of myself. I don’t like the Baby Invaders world at all, but I found it compelling.

Part of the good/badness of all video game / metaversal entertainment is that everything is inherently shoppable; discreet pieces of exploitable IP that can be productized digitally or in IRL. Being superformat-minded I appreciate that quality, but I find most of the output deeply unsatisfying. Where the onscreen-offscreen dynamic of idea to product works better is in the hands of A24 - which Ana Andjelic delves into with her Flip the script, on ‘why movie studios are building retail capabilities (and if they are not, they should be)’.

Corollary to that: Substack on Film is A new series celebrating writers and creators, launched by the publishing platform, the latest in a series of interesting but random marketing moves.

I guess the philosophy (bouncing bath house reading nights off of print publications) is that you only need one hit to break through. Interesting example from design history in Dezeen’s story about the designer and artist Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron - AKA Cassandre - whose posters helped art deco to "elbow its way in" to popular consciousness by thrusting the style into everyday life. One way to build a world.

Another way: make a product for every occasion, as in the case of Jean Touitou’s A.P.C. DOGGY, or as they describe them: “Thoughtfully resized classics for your buddy. Accessories crafted from recycled denim and deadstock leather for a minimalistic matching moment.”

Cute. I don’t need any, but I won’t say no to a free seeding kit. More interesting to me has always been Touitou’s long-standing and perennially unsung Quilts project, whose latest round are really pretty great. Per the APC site,

Round 26 is organized into seven color groups as varied as those found on butterfly wings and also bears the mark of the artists Jessica grew up with. Jean Touitou then added his personal touch by sending Jessica the album cover of the band Iron Butterfly, which added a psychedelic touch to the patchwork. Each model is named after a specific butterfly according to its chromatic palette.

Handcrafted, one-off, with a point of view. That’s a real world. Adding item to wishlist now for in-game purchase later.

[SIC] DAY THREE HUNDRED FIVE