12/04/2006
The introduction
I can't even remember how long I have been facinated by campy, corny and poor creations of the culture. The interest has always been with me, but sometimes sleeping during the years. It woke up again some years ago when started to collect different kind of magazines and children songs. I bought them from second hand shops and found music from low price sections of malls. Some of them were really campy but still inspired me a lot. Since then I have often wondered, what is that fascinates me in that kind of crap?
I started regularly to use Internet in 1996, but in the beginning sharing of culture wasn't very developed. Only some years ago it really started. Of course many of artists and especially companies want to prevent this to happen. Copyrights (or distributors rights) are another hot topic that I could say a lot about, but the only thing I say about it now is that all culture is based on the past and Internet just helps me to look what kind of things have been done before. Technology makes it possible to have an electronic library in my home to help me to learn history.Why do I want to know what kind of crap this so called civilization has vomited out during these years? I'm studying graphic design which creates natural interest towards these things. I have found camp as a source of inspiration as well as "good" and "professional" material too. Actually, many of my designs don't have any notable camp elements in them. One reason might be, that influences of camp seem to go more to my art projects. Perhaps I just need to wait untill I find a customer who wants a website with certain campy style!
Among the students of graphic design, there is always debate about good and bad design. Even though my own designs often aim to be something "serious" especially for clients, I think all art and design don't need to be serious, which I think is one of the most important aspect that camp has to offer. It's also been said that good art is at least a bit entertainy and vice versa. Of course it's not necessary to go to extreme and start doing bad design. All kind of influences should be filtered, not taken straightforwardly without a question.
Like mentioned before, Internet is a wonderful tool to find different camp phenomena from all over the world. For example, Ultraman (the picture above) would be totally unknown to me without Internet. When I have watched this campy and corny TV show for children, I have also seen what kind of costume design, stunts, script, music and other cultural elements Japan has had during the 60's and 70's (at least in the context of children program). A lot of this get into unconsciously and I don't even realize what kind of things I have absorded! It is imporant to me stop think these things more careful and summarize things here into this blog. And naturally at the same time all who are interested, can read my thoughts and also write comments. Please, I really want comments of yours and also links to delicious camp things in the net!
This suposed to be introduction, so I guess I should leave something to say another entries too. But before you leave, check out this David Hasselhoff's video, especially if you haven't seen it before. It might be one of the most campy music videos that is ever made. I woder if he is a human being. Perhaps he is one of Ultraman's villains from outer space? At least he seems to fly like many of them. Anyway, here it goes, straight from the YouTube!
