12ozProphet

Many of the people that know ‘Also Known As’ probably don’t know that we also operate as a boutique creative services agency catering to a select group of clients. In fact for the last two years or so, we’ve been so busy outsourcing our services, that there hasn’t been much time to put efforts into our own stuff. Hopefully by Fall ‘09 you’ll start to see a more public refocusing on our own brand, but until then, I figured I’d give everyone a small glimpse at some of what we do behind the scenes for other companies. Unfortunately, I can’t really discuss the details of this project or even who it was for, but needless to say it was a real pleasure to have access to Robert Ammirati’s Soho photo studio for a couple days while we were shooting. Robert is an incredible photographer in his own right, who’s been shooting fashion and product photography for the better part of the last 25 years here in New York City. He was also generous enough to lend out his space for a particularly challenging photo assignment, and share some pretty incredible stories about guest lectures from Salvadore Dali he sat in on as an undergrad at Cooper Union or the eccentrics that queued up outside Studio 54. Anyhow, here’s a few production shots…

Figured I’d one-up Grotesk.

Have a good weekend!

Source: http://www.news.com.au

Guess not everyone was as impressed with Supreme’s Lou Reed collab as I was.

Last time around it was my son August going nuts over Supremes collab with Kermit the frog. This time around it was my wife Christy waking me up after a long night in the photo studio to gush over Supreme’s new face man, Lou Reed. Seems like while most people were sleeping, the Supreme camp was creeping, and this morning downtown NYC wakes up to find new Supreme posters featuring Lou Reed plastered up all over the neighborhood. Tip of the hat to James for always being on point.

Here’s a couple shots I took around the neighborhood this morning…

Anyone following my posts already knows I’ve been steady exposing my kids to art, culture and some of the cool stuff living in NYC has to offer. Usually it seems like my son August makes it into the spotlight on these sorts of posts, so I dug through some old photos to give my daughter Ava a little shine. Here’s a couple shots of her over the last few years… From helping Os Gemeos on their first Deitch opening, to hanging with her earliest best friend James (Dalek‘s son) at openings, to more recently checking out Eric Elms installation at the NikeID studio (She was a big fan of the plush zipper), and Kaws’ last big art opening in NYC, she’s definitely had no shortage of cool stuff to see.

Here’s a few references relating to a project I’m looking to pop off this summer that I ordered into a brief narrative. Figured it would help get people’s minds off work and ready for the weekend…

Now that I’ve gotten the new site up (and worked out most of the major bugs), I can finally take a quick break and actually get around to posting something on the blogs before getting back to work on the new sections we have planned. With all the effort that went into the redevelopment of this site, it makes me look back on how far 12ozProphet has come.

Originally launched as a graffiti zine back in 1993, 12ozProphet continued along for a full five years before we even got around to registering the domain back in March of 1998. Back then the World Wide Web was still pretty much in its infancy, and the technology used to build websites and access them was crude at best. Companies were just barely beginning to realize the potential of the Web and why building an online presence could eventually be useful, if not important. In those days internet access was still pretty rare for most people, and mostly seen as more of a novelty than the ubiquitous part of life it’s become today. When deciding to bring 12ozProphet online, my motivation was mostly a personal response to finding newsgroups way too complicated, which is how most graffiti-related discussion on the internet was happening at that time. Likewise, in those days ‘Streetwear’ had just begun to splinter off the action sports industry, and most of the pop culture heavyweights and artists we admire today were still deeply rooted in graffiti or hip hop, assuming they’d even begun doing their thing yet. Some 11 years after the fact, the forums here on 12ozprophet.com have grown to become the largest hub of graffiti and pop culture related discussion found anywhere on the internet, as well as now being one of the longest running online communities of its kind.

With the relaunch of 12ozprophet.com, I feel like we’ve hit a new milestone with the remarkable array of talent, experience and accomplishment represented on our blog lineup. Not just limited to masters of graffiti style, our roster has grown to include a top notch assortment of designers, photographers, artists, musicians and other personalities. Though the heritage of 12ozprophet.com is firmly established in graffiti, over the many years since its inception, our efforts have evolved to portray a much wider view of life, style and the culture surrounding it. I welcome you to sit back and read up on the life and times of many of the key individuals that are shaping it. Enjoy…

In acknowledgement to 12ozProphet and its early years, I’ve dug up an old shot of me and my right hand man Julio (in our much younger and slimmer days) back at the original 12ozProphet warehouse shortly after receiving the shipment of Issue #6, which was the breakout issue for Os Gemeos back in the summer of 1998. Shout out to the original 12oz Crew circa 1998… Cody Hudson aka Struggle Inc, Julio Jimenez aka PSM, Caleb Neelon aka Sonik, Sandra Guarin aka Shorty Rock.

12ozProphet Magazine Issue #6, Featuring Os Gemeos

Over the years I’ve heard the case pled by many graffiti writers that the results of their efforts are no worse than the intrusiveness of commercial outdoor advertising. That ‘liberating’ a billboard or taking over a high profile outdoor space is no worse crime on the public at large as the product and corporations that are given official sanction to violate these same spaces with their own messages. The opposing argument to this stance (and generally most widely accepted) is that because the latter has paid for the rights to push their message, there’s a clear distinction between the two, and so little more regard is usually given to the rest of the world that is unfortunate enough to have to pass by the paid advertisement.

I’m not going to argue the merits (or flaws) to either side of the graffiti versus advertising argument, but it would seem that thanks to the ingenuity of TruMedia Technologies and Studio IMC, it has become a moot point anyways. In a move that puts the world a huge leap closer to a Minority Report-like interactive advertising era, miniature cameras are now being embedded into advertisements to help track the effectiveness of the message being broadcast. Further, in true Orwellian style, those sensors are feeding the captured data to facial recognition and pattern matching software so that it is now possible to distinguish and track the general age, gender, frequency and time a person spends engrossed with the propaganda with 85 - 90% effectiveness.

Perhaps now a compelling case can be made (as well as widely accepted) that as a (somewhat) free people, it has become our duty to now systematically do graffiti over these advertisements for the social good. Now that it would seem that some people’s intrusiveness is now a lack of everybody else’s invasiveness, the distinction that defines the true quality of life villain has become more blurred than ever.

Newsweek article via PSFK