The Null Device

Those rabble-rousers at Adbusters are taking Nike and such on at their own game, with the Black Spot sneaker. It looks like a Converse All-Star (now owned by Nike), only is made using unionised labour, and will cost about US$40. The shoe, however, is only one part of a campaign which involves "culture jamming" Nike billboards and stores. (via bOING bOING)

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The Graun's Simon Hattenstone interviews Banksy:

Banksy's attitude to brands is ambivalent - like Naomi Klein, he opposes corporate branding and has become his own brand in the process. Now, people are selling forged Banksies on the black market or stencil kits so we can produce our own Banksies. Does he mind being ripped off? "No," he says. "The thing is, I was a bootlegger for three years so I don't really have a leg to stand on."

Incidentally, some of the fake Banksies (in particular, the chimp with the sandwich board and the parachuting rat) have ended up on the walls of Fitzroy (look around Brunswick St., between Gertrude and Johnston Sts.) They lack Banksy's signature (though at least the people responsible didn't try to take the credit, regardless of clueless journalists putting photos of them next to features about "the Melbourne underground art scene" or whatever it was).

Over the past couple of years the very brands he despises have approached him to do advertising campaigns for them. Is there work he would turn down on principle? "Yeah, I've turned down four Nike jobs now. Every new campaign they email me to ask me to do something about it. I haven't done any of those jobs. The list of jobs I haven't done now is so much bigger than the list of jobs I have done. It's like a reverse CV, kinda weird. Nike have offered me mad money for doing stuff." What's mad money? "A lot of money!" he says bashfully.

Why did he turn it down? "Because I don't need the money and I don't like children working their fingers to the bone for nothing. I like that Jeremy Hardy line: 'My 11-year-old daughter asked me for a pair of trainers the other day. I said, 'Well, you're 11, make 'em yourself.' I want to avoid that shit if at all possible."

And Banksy is having an exhibition at an undisclosed London warehouse. He won't, of course, be in attendance there (or so he says, anyway), with his art being technically illegal and pseudonymity being vitally important.

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Arch-villains of open-slather late-capitalism and intensive perception management Nike buy Converse. Guess that means I won't be buying any more pairs of All-Stars then. Good thing it's not Doc Martens.

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Psst! Want some free Nikes? Well, if you're in north-western North America, they're washing up all over the coast. Apparently a container ship was caught in a storm a few months ago, causing 3 containers of shoes, all fresh from the sweatshop, to be lost at sea. All 33,000 shoes are said to be still wearable (in fact, the exposure to the elements could cause them to look fashionably weathered). The catch is that the pairs weren't tied together, so you'll have to look hard for a matching pair. (Or maybe some enterprising thrifthound will put up a web site allowing people to trade their finds with fellow finders?) (via NWD)

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Seen on a mailing list: Athletic lifestyle product company Nike has a promotion, in which customers can have shoes made imprinted with any word they choose. One customer ordered a pair of Nikes with the word "SWEATSHOP"; not surprisingly, Nike cancelled the order, mumbling something about it being "offensive slang".

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