Adriel Luis: Blog

Surprise! Clearchannel is WACK! Above is a billboard concept I...

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:07:09 -0400

Surprise! Clearchannel is WACK!

Above is a billboard concept I was working on with Forecast the Facts to call out companies like Phizer, Microsoft & Comcast, which are throwing money at Heartland Institute – a conservative think-tank that recently put up a huge ad saying that if you believe in global warming then you’re just like the Unabomber, Osama Bin Laden, and Charles Manson.

Guys, I was UBER excited to see my first ever full-sized LED billboard go up, especially because it was going to be shown exactly in the same spot as the original Heartland billboard, overlooking the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago. Sweeeeet!

But alas, this is a concept that shall forever remain in the dwellings of my hard drive, for Clearchannel – the same good folks who had no problem projecting an image of Osama for Chi-Town to see – rejected our concept over property rights. Boooooooo!

BUT! As a neat consolation, we got featured in The New York Times!

Click here for more info on our campaign and how you can get involved.

The Adventures of Kim Jong Un I hate that I love this. (via...

Wed, 16 May 2012 21:57:42 -0400

The Adventures of Kim Jong Un

I hate that I love this. (via bombshelltoe)

Living through disruptive times, our family had to move thrice....

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:24:00 -0400

Living through disruptive times, our family had to move thrice. On September 21, 1969, Sau Ping once again took the children to emigrate to San Francisco. At Easter 1970, we went on a trip to Sacramento and took this in front of the Capitol Building for remembrance.
- Yee-Fat, Mexico City, Summer 1970

I’m often greeted with suspicion when I reveal to people that I’m Chinese. My last name “Luis” is the stamp left on my lineage when my grandfather & great-grandfather moved to Mexico City decades before the rest of my family settled in San Francisco.

My dad uncovered this bit of family history a couple of weeks ago. Consider it real-life Instagram.

My friends have expressed concerns that I’m dating a spy....

Thu, 10 May 2012 03:37:32 -0400

My friends have expressed concerns that I’m dating a spy. (Taken with Instagram at Vietthao)

WHEN YOU SAY "NEW MEDIA"

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:20:17 -0400

editorrealtalk:

Good bye, Maurice Sendak I just got word that writer and...

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:49:00 -0400

Good bye, Maurice Sendak

I just got word that writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak has passed away. It saddens me deeply, he was one of the greatest defenders of childhood and imagination we had. His most famous works are Where the Wild Thing Are and The Night Kitchen, but my all-time favorite book of his is Chicken Soup With Rice, which is the song that taught me my months in the 2nd grade. The book is only twelve pages long, but it took my class a year to read it – my teacher unveiled a new page on the first of each month, and I anticipated it with the wild excitement.

Here’s the fantastic animated musical adaptation of the book, directed by Sendak and sung by Carole King, which my teacher didn’t show us until the last week of school. It’s filled with fantasy and delicious weirdness. The fact that I learned the phases of the months and seasons through this song – and that it comes to mind whenever I think of chicken soup – is some indication of why I view the world the way I do.

Thank you for all you’ve done, Mr. Sendak.

PS: Here’s a fantastic interview Sendak did on Fresh Air. It’s pretty damned sad, but it’s also an existential mindfuck. When I heard it in September, it touched me in a way that hasn’t quite left me, and probably never will. Enjoi!

Kickstriker.com A few months ago I launched Economist-Staff.com,...

Mon, 07 May 2012 07:41:00 -0400

Kickstriker.com

A few months ago I launched Economist-Staff.com, a satirical take on The Economist, a publication that touts a global view but that features a monochromatic staff.

Much of my inspiration came from my dear dear compadre Josh Begley, mastermind of meme sites like Prisoncount.org & Racebox.org. Now he’s at NYU studying sciences & techniques behind internet viral behavior (watch out now!)

With some colleagues, his latest offering is Kickstriker, an ironic take on crowd-commodification. To me, it’s an effective critique both of supposed harbingers of change who argue that the sole barrier of social change is money – and of social clickers who are convinced that a Like and Paypal invoice means they’ve done their part.

What do you think?

Kickstriker.com

I promised I’d be better at keeping you updated about my...

Thu, 03 May 2012 11:49:22 -0400

I promised I’d be better at keeping you updated about my design-double-life, so here goes…spanking-new website for NYC’s Asian American International Film Festival!!!!!

One of my gripes with film fest websites is that there’s never enough actual film to watch. So I worked with Asian Cinevision to pack this with loads and loads of trailers and short films…enough to whet your appetite to see stuff on the big screen.

Over the next few months we’ll be dropping the trailers for this year’s AAIFF, as well as a Tumblr archive of its 30+ years of film screenings. It’s gonna be sweeeeeeeeeet!

AsianCinevision.org

Ooooooh my boy learned Final Cut! Check out this dope new poem...

Wed, 02 May 2012 06:42:00 -0400

Ooooooh my boy learned Final Cut!

Check out this dope new poem from my fellow iLLian Dahlak.

#poemtitlesicantsay

Just because you bought a ticket to this museum doesn’t...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:25:10 -0400

Just because you bought a ticket to this museum doesn’t mean you’re not an exhibit. (Taken with Instagram at mumok)

Soundchicken with the iLLs (Taken with Instagram at Denison...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:27:52 -0400

Soundchicken with the iLLs (Taken with Instagram at Denison University)

One last errand before moving out of NYC. (Taken with Instagram...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:56:03 -0400

One last errand before moving out of NYC. (Taken with Instagram at Kimmel Center NYU)

Start your morning with THIS.

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:43:03 -0400

Start your morning with THIS.

I closed the iLL-Literacy blog today. Just deleted a couple...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:19:00 -0400

I closed the iLL-Literacy blog today.

Just deleted a couple lines of code. A feed I’ve been running since ‘06, when I was a snot-nosed Oaklander experimenting with Blogger. There was a time when this site took up 3 hours daily. I cut it out before I brushed my teeth this morning.

In the strange nuanced corner of the internet sphere where i’ve been doing my reading lately, there’s been a lot of talk about death. Cyber-death. Where Facebook profiles go when the logger doesn’t come home one day. When lives expire before the credit cards that pay for their domains. When passwords can’t be retrieved.

A little over a year ago I decided that I didn’t want to be a blogger anymore. I didn’t want to have to devote a minimum of 1/24ths of my day to retelling the rest of my day, and the rest of the 23/24ths of my day feeling like it was only worth living if I blogged about it. I shut down.

These days, I can’t tell if it matters.
What’s a million views? What’s a comment? When did Like become a noun? When I stopped blogging about iLL-Literacy, so many people came up to me assuming we were done. In the world of the Cloud, that which hath not been uploaded hath not existed. Memories only get remembered on Youtube. All bands keep blogs.

I’m moving out of New York in a week and although I’ve been ridiculously busy I’ve filled my free time with contemplation over the state I shall be in when I exit. Looking into the mirror today, the circles around my eyes seemed darker. A salesman at the store mistook me for some balding Asian dude he helped earlier. I am nowhere near a bad place in my life but I feel displaced as ever. I’ll be homeless in a week. I’ll be in Austria as well. It’s cool, and it’s fucked up too. It’s fucked up, and it’s cool too.

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged and it’s been even longer since I’ve been candid – since I’ve pushed send without rereading. The internet used to feel like it meant so much. Who cares about who cares anymore? The truth is, lately I’ve had plenty of epiphanies about interesting things to write about while in the shower, only to override them as ridiculous before I’ve finished drying off.

There’s a certain rawness I’m looking for that I can’t find in this overcooked city. Goodby NYCE.

Remixing Slip of the Tongue multimedia stylee tonite at...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:57:21 -0400

Remixing Slip of the Tongue multimedia stylee tonite at @ACPAConvention in Louisville! @ACPA_MRN (Taken with Instagram at Galt House Hotel)

Taken with Instagram at Muhammad Ali Center

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:20:38 -0400

Taken with Instagram at Muhammad Ali Center

The fact that this guy is growing tea solely using panda shit as...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:00:06 -0400

The fact that this guy is growing tea solely using panda shit as a fertilizer isn’t all that weird. It certainly sounds cleaner than the ozone-melting medicated cow defecation we use to plumpen our Jamba Juices.

But the panda outfit is just plain silly.

On my way to DC to speak in this tonight: New Organizing...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:34:00 -0400

On my way to DC to speak in this tonight:

New Organizing Institute presents

Art & Activism: A panel for art as a catalyst for movement

Thursday March 22, 6-8pm

Busboys & Poets (5th & K)

Ft. Adriel Luis, Kristen Arant, César Maxit & Nadine Bloch

Moderated by Simon Isaacs

Livestream it here from 6-8pm EST!

"The media portrayal of George [Zimmerman] as a racist could not be further from the truth. He would..."

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:36:45 -0400

“The media portrayal of George [Zimmerman] as a racist could not be further from the truth. He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever.”

- – Father of George Zimmerman. Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin – an unarmed black 17-year-old – on the basis that he looked suspicious.

This is infuriating. Why is it that every time someone does something extremely racist, there’s someone to comment that the possibility of racism is the furthest thing from the truth. The furthest? Really?? Like, THE furthest. Further from the truth than, like, the existence of griffins. You’re saying that it’s more likely that at 3am on Wednesdays butterflies wear monocles and conduct readings of The Great Gatsby than it is that your son – who weighs twice as much as his victim, who followed his victim in a car, wrestled his victim down, and then shot his victim in the chest…all because he was “walking around, looking about” – is a racist.

Usually, my beef is with society’s lack of imagination. In this case, the problem is clearly a lack of reality. ARREST HIM.

R.I.P.

Racism is Perpetual

More on this.

Hi. My name’s Adriel.

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:52:58 -0400

Hi. My name’s Adriel.