CURIOUS FILM'S BBTV GOES LIVE ON JOOST

Curious Film has launched Bikini Bandits TV, an alternative film network showcasing short films, music videos and animation hosted from the iconic music club CBGBs in New York. Clips include, 'Eagles of Death Metal: Know Thy Meat', 'Zombie Blood Chaos', 'The Adventures of Dirty Sanchez', as well as excerpts from Bikini Bandits feature films and a series of commercials for Charles Mason Salad Dressing. http://www.joost.com/360awa9/t/Bikini-Bandits-TV "Advertising is the economy of human attention. If you have something to sell, there's no cheaper, faster, easier or less imaginative way to get maximum attention on a minimum budget than positioning your product next to a bikini," says Pete Grasse at Curious Films in Australia. As a result, Grasse and Philadelphia agency Quaker City Mercantile, created Bikini Bandits as a vehicle to advertise the agency's retail outlet G*Mart ( http://www.thearcadiaproject.net/gmart.htm) and its in-house label Sailor Jerry (http://www.sailorjerry.com/index.php).

"We wanted to explore the relationship between sex and consumerism, and so elevated the role of women in the global marketplace from disposable ornaments to predatory robber barons. Hence, we juxtaposed the life-giving symbols of feminine submission with the life-taking accoutrements of masculine sovereignty. The result was entertainment," says Grasse.

Philly Agency Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) Worlwide? Oh. You Can Suck My D***

"Virus: The Outrageous History of Quaker City Mercantile" is new coffee table book about Philly ad shop, Quaker City Mercantile. The shop is one of the most hated in Philadelphia. Maybe it's because their internal blog is called, Ad Pricks. It could also be their general disdain for other advertising folk. From their website:

"Besides, we think most of the people in the ad biz are geeks anyway. And, we could really give a rat's ass if they honor us with a friggin' golden pencil or lion (Nerds!)."
Personally, the blurb below is what got me to shift them from neutral to moderate dislike:

"The Life Cycle of Hipness explains the evolution of "hot" - how trends, brands, people, music, fashion and ideas go from obscure to blisteringly hot to colder than a day old dog turd."

Philly Agency Quaker City Mercantile? Oh. You Can Suck My D***.

"Virus: The Outrageous History of Quaker City Mercantile" is new coffee table book about Philly ad shop, Quaker City Mercantile. The shop is one of the most hated in Philadelphia. Maybe it's because their internal blog is called, Ad Pricks. It could also be their general disdain for other advertising folk. From their website:
"Besides, we think most of the people in the ad biz are geeks anyway. And, we could really give a rat's ass if they honor us with a friggin' golden pencil or lion (Nerds!)."
Personally, the blurb below is what got me to shift them from neutral to moderate dislike:

"The Life Cycle of Hipness explains the evolution of "hot" - how trends, brands, people, music, fashion and ideas go from obscure to blisteringly hot to colder than a day old dog turd."

To the uneducated viewer, Bikini Bandits might appear to be nothing more than eye-candy. However, the creator of the series, has much loftier ideas.

In fact, Gyro Worldwide CEO, Steve Grasse, sees Bikini Bandits as a post-feminist attack on the way women are portrayed in modern culture, especially by advertising.

According to the artist's statement on The Arcadia Project (which he describes as "a sequence of five projects that together form a phenomenology of attentional economics and American pop culture at the beginning of the 21st century):

Advertising usually presents women as passive objects who are acted upon. And the consumption that advertising promotes--though it may be dressed up as an act of rebellion--is equally passive. Before the retail environment swallowed the natural world, satisfaction was wrested by violent force from the land. Today satisfaction is not longer a visceral atavistic exchange but a hollow, symbolic one, obtained by calmly waiting in line and exchanging symbols of credit for symbols of desire.

With the Bikini Bandits, I restored the old sense of blood-and-guts dominion to the act of consumption and the feminine form.

It's copy like that leaves me dumbfounded. I don't know whether to stand up and cheer, or roll around on the floor in a fit of laughter.

If You Call It Art, It's Art. Yes, It's That Easy. [AdPulp]

ATTN: STEVE GRASSE SEEKS TO JOIN MATTHEW BARNEY AND DAMIEN HIRST AMONG THE RANKS OF THE WORLD'S FOREMOST CONCEPTUAL ARTISTS
To the uneducated viewer, Bikini Bandits might appear to be nothing more than eye-candy. However, the creator of the series, has much loftier ideas. In fact, Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) CEO, Steve Grasse, sees Bikini Bandits as a post-feminist attack on the way women are portrayed in modern culture, especially by advertising. According to the artist's statement on The Arcadia Project (which he describes as "a sequence of five projects that together form a phenomenology of attentional economics and American pop culture at the beginning of the 21st century):

Advertising usually presents women as passive objects who are acted upon. And the consumption that advertising promotes--though it may be dressed up as an act of rebellion--is equally passive. Before the retail environment swallowed the natural world, satisfaction was wrested by violent force from the land. Today satisfaction is not longer a visceral atavistic exchange but a hollow, symbolic one, obtained by calmly waiting in line and exchanging symbols of credit for symbols of desire. With the Bikini Bandits, I restored the old sense of blood-and-guts dominion to the act of consumption and the feminine form.

It's copy like that leaves me dumbfounded. I don't know whether to stand up and cheer, or roll around on the floor in a fit of laughter.

Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) spins UTA pact... Ad agency also at work on AtomFilms deal"
Philadelphia ad agency Quaker City Mercantile, which in 10 years has grown steadily into a small-scale new-media, merchandising and retail empire, has just signed with UTA and is negotiating a first-look deal with AtomFilms.

Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) made its Atom debut in May with "Bikini Bandits, Episode Seven," a five-minute tale of "girls, guns and carnage," in the words of Quaker City Mercantile (formerly known as Gyro Worldwide) CEO Steve Grass, in which four buxom women rob a convenience store called the G-mart. It was one of the most popular live-action short films on the Web, receiving more than 460,000 views within the first six weeks.