Wednesday 13th July 2016At the outset, it's probably important to say that I've never been a particular fan of the work of Jeff Koons. It's hard to pin down exactly what it is that bothers me about him specifically, but there's something there, a thread winding its way through all my perceptions of his work and poisoning them. Hopefully that isn't (just) what's happening here, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
Koons' latest piece is a distinct departure from his previous works, both in terms of medium and of content. It features video, dance and … a product. A cheap product. A cheap phone case. Right now, you're asking yourself…. 'What?'
Google wanted to unveil a new product, the 'Live' phone case for their latest flagship smartphone, known as the Nexus. It's not a bad idea, in and of itself, since they can be completely customised to whatever you desire for a grand total of $40 USD, which is pretty decent for a custom phone case. The case comes paired with matching live video wallpaper that you can only view on the phone when you're using it with that particular live case.
Say, for example, you had a video of your baby's first birthday or a kitten playing with a puppy, you could make a case that was adorned with a still frame from the video and then the video itself would play in the background when the case was attached. Not particularly innovative, perhaps, but it could be an interesting way of passing on videos. The part where it all breaks down is why they chose to launch it with artworks by Koons.
Some of the selections shown in the post image above are fairly appealing, but in general, the piece sort of falls flat. You could argue that this is because it was Koons' first experimentation with video, but that hardly seems fair considering that this is really a Google product launch and Koons is more of a prop than an integral part. It consists of a re-imagination of the ballet Swan Lake, performed with a classic Koons reflective object - in this case, a giant sphere like a medicine ball - which sort of destroys the entire point of Swan Lake.
Ah well, perhaps nobody would even have noticed that Koons was involved if it was just a typical product launch.
Posted on July 13th 2016 on 09:08pm