For reasons known only to Blogger, this site has been frozen for two weeks, so apologies to anyone that wanted to find the location of the fire/ wish me well or ill / tell me to give my stuff to charity.
Anyhow, the fire takes place on Finsbury Square, London EC1 at 7pm sharp this Sunday 17th. Please pass by if you're in town. There's a free bottle of (non-branded) water in it if you do.
13 Comments:
I applaud what you’re doing, but is there any way you could not have ‘really hard to read’ white text on a black background, I know it looks trendy, but it’s a typographical no-no (first rule -> legibility) in fact I had to paste this entry in because your ’submit’ form has black text on a black background, legibility->0
Good luck
Dave
I just read your article in the Guardian. I disagree with what you’re doing and not because I have missed the point, I agree totally with you about brands and would in no way equate burning them with burning a book. I just object because the fact is that you have bought all that stuff anyway and if you no longer want it then pass it on to people who do. Making a statement by creating a wasteful, environmental hazard by burning all sorts of materials sends out the wrong message. If people do not takee the time to understand your point then, on first glance it seems that you are supporting the view that if you get tired of your posesions then you should just dispose of them with little thought about the resources you are wasting in doing so and go on to buy new ones, thus perpetuating the cycle of consumption that you have come to object to. Why don’t you have a de-branding party instead where you remove the brands from your posessions or cover them up with cool patches and rtwork and then seel them to raise money for charity?
Keep it up, Neil! Keep the faith!
Never mind the nay-sayers - remember that this is your choice, this is what you’ve chosen to do and this is the way you’ve chosen to do it.
Despite what others say, it isn’t enough to give your stuff to charity, and it isn’t enough to just remove the brands - if you take the crocodile off a Lacoste shirt, it’s still a Lacoste shirt. The product has become the brand; the brand has become the product.
What you are doing is more important than what you’re not doing - people give their stuff away every day, but not many wilfully destroy it. I think this is a beautiful thing you’re doing and it is the clearest possible way that you could wish for to send a message to the brand makers - all brand makers. (Charity and the environment have become branded too, unfortunately.)
If you gave your stuff away, Neil, it would be a tiny gesture, a drop in the ocean. No one would take any notice. But burning it - that gets everyone’s attention.
Over and out,
Colin, Italy
Coiln
thanks so much for that post. It really cheered me up. Blimey, it’s ferocious out there in cyberspace. Shame you’re not in town to be there but thanks all the same sir.
neil.
Maybe the problem is that the people who have complained so vociferously have spent so much of their time and hard earned money obtaining their status symbols that anyone who rejects them makes them look foolish.” What if he is right?”, they think, “then I’ve been the dumb participant in a not - so - clever scam”. At the very least your bonfire casts doubts on all their “clever” choices and who feels comfortable with the thought that they’ve been made to look stupid?
I would like to say that I’ve always been above such petty obsessions with brands, but alas that is not so.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first match.”
You are doing such a good job, keep it going and don’t pay attention to anybody
The reason you are getting so much negative feedback is that you are telling people something they already know but do not want to hear. If ones very rationale for being is so entwined with consumerism, brands and self-image, the last thing one wants to hear is that this is a false god - after all, what is the alternative? You would be surprised at just how many people are ahead of you on this - including ridding the kitchen of toxic waste, branded or otherwise!
Dear Neil - I produce By Design, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National. We would like to talk to you on our radio program - can you contact me?
www.abc.net.au/rn/bydesign
Janne Ryan ryan.janne@abc.net.au
I burn stuff too! Mainly fine art masterpieces. Check out my Burning Mona Lisa video. This is an insult and a compliment, destructive and hopeful. "Art for people who hate art" I'm excited about burning lots of other things. OBEY I find it to be therapeutic and a lot of fun.
I know it's great publicity but you really should give all your designer gear to charity - it's so wasteful to burn it all. Do the right thing!
Joyce
Neil -
why not have a 'symbolic' bonfire?
Think about the environment instead of your self.
Steve
What a boring self-agrandising soul you are. The whole exercise of burning your brands and drawing attention to yourself is in and of itself an exercise in the very thing you profess to despise - branding.
You need to get over yourself. Can Boorman live without brands? Hmmm, dunno, I mean it seems impossible right? Well, not if the question is directed to the 40 million refugees in the world. Or maybe ask whether half the world's population living on less than $1 per day can live without a Dior tshirt.
Boorman is as his namesake suggests - a pathetic little bore.
Have a nice day.
Well, thanks for your charming response.
I would suggest this project is obviously not pitched at the 40 million refugees or those on extremely low wages. It is not a statement on the world's disadvantaged, it is a statement on the nature of branded consumerism. Surely we can discuss 1st world issues without having to refer to the state of the third world, important a subject though it is.
Following your logic, I'm supposing that you yourself abstain from consuming any goods beyond your basic needs because you worry constantly about the world's poor. If you do, then I whole heartedly applaud.
When you posted a note on the blog to call me a 'pathetic little bore' you had the option of leaving your email address so that I could respond personally. Why did you choose not to leave your address?
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