A selection of anti war posters..





anti war advertising - culture jamming at why-war.com

war vets arrested for anti war advertising -nicked for 'defacing public property' by putting up posters with an anti war message

smurf bombing ad campaign by unicef in Belgium to highlight the problem of child soldiers in Burundi - an animation of a smurf village being bombed.

advertising in WWII

How to end the war - naomi klein discusses how the rebuilding of iraq is done at the expense of iraq, with the US and foreign investors being the sole source of regeneration going on

Army life is a lot more relaxed than I thought....

army recruitment

Join the Army, the initiation ceremony may be brutal, but the rest of your service is no picnic either.



If ya just wanna stay home and play soldiers, then this is the toy for you...

What Barry Says by Simon Robson

This graphically stunning video is a reaction to the American dominance of the world. I was so impressed at the visual style that i had to watch it several times to get the message (which can only be good if you are trying to make a political comment, the more times you see it the better the message gets across ,maybe) of Americas military and foreign policy.



EMPIRE by Edouard Salier

Another stunning video, images of the American dream and middle class suburban life subtlety invaded by the military in a stylish effect. Looks like it was made using a displacement effect to distort the images.

Both these films have appeared on 'onedotzero select' DVDs for obvious reasons. Very inspiring stuff.

visiting speakers - Relentless and Jon Bird

Relentless software developers

Relentless come in to talk about their work as software developers for Sony Playstation. They specialise in social games, like their popular 'Buzz' series of quiz based games. Games take around 2 years or so to be released, with only around half making it to the final stage. The explained their business is run efficiently, with a more 'regular' 9-5 working day, which seemed very unusual in the industry.
They gave some good advice on compiling portfolios and showreels, namely keep in minimal, don't overdo fancy editing and effects, and don't included anything that's not your very best. They made their work seem very appealing, just not sure I've got the right skills for that line of work - my experience of working in 3D is very limited.




Jon Bird from the Creative Systems Labs at the University of Sussex gave an interesting talk on his work on Interdisciplinary Research Projects, where maths, science and art meet to go wild. Evolutionary robots built to produce creative works, which raises the question of what is creativity?. The challenge is to build a robot, yet programme it without controlling its creative output. Fascinating stuff, some of it just out of reach of my understanding, but all very impressive.
(by the way - the slide of the Bower Bird he showed - if you've never seen these fellas, you should check 'em out, (theres a low quality clip here) they are one of the most amazing things I've seen in the natural world. David Attenborough's Life of Birds has some stunning footage, i recommend taking a look)

Virtual Propaganda

Computer games as a military marketing and propaganda tool

After Andreas and I realised that using a computer game aesthetic for the army recruitment material, for this would allow use of parody easier than overtly graphic or sensational images and is accessible for the age group targeted in the brief. We also discussed contacting ex-soldiers to hear their stories for material, but decided using photographic imagery of ex-servicemen could be limiting for various reasons.

America's Army is the most familiar to me, a tactical multiplayer F.P.S, featuring realistic environments and military hardware thats said to authenticity depict the real life equivalents. There are some 8.6 million registered users, who play online. The play works on a honour system , with tactical play increases the players points, as does healing wounded comrades etc. Players showing good skills in the game are contacted by recruiters directing them to websites and further information for the army.

Ethnic Cleansing is somewhat more suspect, a 'game' for white supremasists and ignorant racist lowlife everywhere. Not sure what i can say about this as it doesn't really deserve any more of my time, it's a filthy lithesome game, as is White Law , another such game full of racist hated.

Saving the Port is a game which recruits for the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, a response to the West’s cultural onslaught and in order to promote the Islamic-Iranian culture.

Anti-Japan War Online is another imaginatively title online game, this time promoting Chinese nationalism - "Our developers hate Japan, so they want to make the game very provocative, but the team leaders have tried to tone down the violence," said the project manager, Liu Junfeng of PowerNet Technology, a Shenzhen-based gaming company (from the Guardian)


Under Siege is a computer game set in the middle east, which focuses on a Palestinian family caught up in the occupation by Israel forces. At the time it was released it recieved a lot of media attention in the middle east because of its use as a propaganda tool for the PLO. The protagonist makes his way through the game shooting at soldiers from the Israeli Defence Forces. It differs with most FPSs in that if you hurt or kill innocent civilians the game ends. Much of the rest of the content is no different in tone and format than pretty much all western war based games,(of which there are a great many) which despite the relentless killing of Iraqis/Afghanis/Russians/Germans/Chinese/whoever - are not generally labelled as propaganda tools. Apparently,the demo also has the tagline "A real life story or a political propaganda? You have the right to decide". Its a statement about the Israeli occupation of the west bank and Gaza strip, it's creators say all the levels are based on true stories, and although the protagonist shoots at Israeli forces, it doesn't simulate any terrorist activity, suicide bombings etc. These guys produced something spawned by the events happening in the streets around them, a touch different from the giant developers producing games for the western market, who don't get blamed for spreading propaganda.