REDEFINE

"I will light a fire that spreads beyond your fences and into your house. I will set ablaze your dormant minds. I will turn your preconceptions to smoldering ash. I am the arsonist that will wake you the fuck up." 

So says San Francisco based graphic designer Johnny Selman. Selman has embarked on a year long project wherein each day, he designs a visual representation of a daily BBC headline. Aptly named, BBCX365 is Selman's artistic crusade against the diluted, polemic and incendiary nature of America's Newertainment. The manifestations of his own visual engagement range from the abstract to the literal and I kind of enjoy tracing his steps from the literary to the graphic.

                                                             North Korea’s Kim Pavesway For Family Succession, 28 September 2010

                                

With an important political message at its core (or...... on its face, much like a pair of tortoise shell Moscots (I bet he has a pair, that liberal-media loving artiste!)) and a novel way of presenting current events, this project, at its most base level, is trying to encourage people to engage with headline news from reputable news sources. On another, it aims to pose questions about how our involvement and engagement with current events, both local and international, affect how we conceive of, and act out, our duties as citizens. Does reading the news make us better voters? Does it affect our choices as producers and consumers? Does it make us more aware of the repercussions of the choices of our government? Did we even know what those choices were?

                           The Dutch anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders has gone on trial in Amsterdam accused of inciting hatred against Muslims.

                                                               Pope Offers 'Hand of Friendship' to UK

I think reading the news is part of growing up and becoming a responsible adult. I reached a landmark place in my life when I changed my alarm radio station to NEWS1130. Although, it is harder to get out of bed now that I don't have Kid Carson to stir me out of my slumber with a deadly rage that only his inanity could provoke. Along with the rest of this city, I seriously fucking hate that guy.

THE END.