Design and communications experts converge on Auckland

6 September 2012

Design, social change and communications experts converge on Auckland

We Can Create, New Zealand’s alternative art and creative industries showcase, has announced a stellar line up of six communication change makers for the one day event on 27 October 2012 in Auckland.

Three leaders from Adbusters Media Foundation, the culture jamming legends, will share how they attempt to change society through communications and design.

Ad-free since 1989, its flagship publication, Adbusters magazine, has been instrumental in launching numerous global campaigns including Occupy Wall Street and Buy Nothing Day.

Then there’s London-based Jonathan Barnbrook, one of the world’s most renowned graphic designers. Barnbrook’s work features in the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Design Museum, London and among others he’s collaborated with David Bowie and Damien Hirst.

“We’ve curated a thought provoking event with people who have not only changed the world of design, but in some cases changed society. Speakers from Japan, Brazil, Toronto, London, Germany and Auckland will present their diverse mix of thinking and influences. The quality of the line-up is beyond anything we’ve presented in the past,” says event director Jon Raymen of the agency GOODFOLK.

Japanese artist and musician Rockin' Jelly Bean started his career by helping to define the visual style of the LA Garage Punk scene. His art evolved and he made his name in the Lowbrow art scene in the 1990s. He now works on a range of projects including producing uber-cool artworks for his Erostika shops in Nagoya and Harajuku.

German twin brothers, Thomas and Martin Poschauko are the authors of NEA MACHINA, a book based on a four month creative experiment that examined how creativity is unleashed through the head, guts, hand and computer.

Berlin based New Zealander Sarah Maxey is a graphic designer and hand lettering artist with a distinguished career in book design. She has produced award-winning work for literary publishers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Auckland’s creative duo Matt von Trott and Johnny Kofoed from Assembly will provide insights into how their thinking is creating award-winning work.

Chris Allen, founder of The Light Surgeons from East London, returns to Auckland for a special live performance, Super Everything*.

SUPEREVERYTHING* is an audio visual experience combining a range of different media. The live cinema performance layers together stunning documentary footage and motion graphics with a original live electronic musical score.

“It will be a day where you’ll risk sensory overload, but most of all it will provoke and stimulate experienced creatives and the broader communications industry like no other creative event,” says Jon Raymen.

The main one day event We Can Create is surrounded by a programme of related events. These events include master classes with The Light Surgeons, Adbusters and Jonathan Barnbrook, a poster design competition, a live digital art exhibition and other events in the weeks leading up to 27 October.

Tickets are on sale now at 1 Night http://1-night.co.nz.

We Can Create, Saturday 27 October 2012 at the Mercury Theatre, Newton, Auckland.
Proudly sponsored by Spicers Paper, The Pond, Goethe-Institut, Idealog, Phantom Billstickers, Atomic Coffee and 95bFM. For more information, visit www.wecancreate.co.nz

Adbusters Media Foundation is a global network of culture jammers and creators who are working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power and the way meaning is produced in our society.

Ad-free since 1989, its flagship publication, Adbusters magazine, is available worldwide and has been instrumental in launching numerous global campaigns including Buy Nothing Day, Digital Detox Week, Kickitover.org and, most recently, Occupy Wall Street.

Unbridled by corporate sponsorship and completely reader funded, Adbusters has dared to go where few publications have gone before: spoofing megacorps, challenging the governing economic paradigm, publishing provocateurs and philosophical heretics, advocating for mental environmentalism and demanding the total reboot of the Western imagination. Their most recent project is a 400-page economics textbook – Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics – available everywhere Sept 17, 2012.

Three Adbusters leaders will be in Auckland speaking at We Can Create and running a workshop leading up to the main event.

ENDS

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