Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 24, 1942 |
| Occupation | co-founder of Adbusters Media Foundation |
| Known for | Adbusters, culture jamming |
Kalle Lasn (born March 24, 1942) is an Estonian-born Canadian author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent his childhood in a German refugee camp. He was then resettled in Australia. In the 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved to Vancouver, Canada. For twenty years, he produced documentaries for PBS and Canada’s National Film Board. He is the founder of Adbusters magazine and author of the books Culture Jam and Design Anarchy and is the co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, which owns the magazine. Lasn currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
His “epiphany” that there was something profoundly wrong with consumerism happened in a supermarket parking lot. Frustrated that he had to insert a quarter to use a shopping cart, he jammed the coin in so that the machine became inoperable. This act of vandalism was the first (quite literal) “culture jam” -- defined as an act designed to subvert mainstream society.
Documentaries
Before founding Adbusters, Lasn directed a number of award-winning documentaries, including Children of the Tribe (1980), Japan, Inc (1980), Japanese Women (1984), The Rise and Fall of American Business Culture (1984), Satori in the Right Cortex (1985) and The Autumn Rain: Crime in Japan (1990).
Books
In his first book Culture Jam, Lasn argues that consumerism is the fundamental evil of the modern era. He calls the "meme war": a battle of ideas to shift Western society away from capitalism.
His second book, Design Anarchy, calls on graphic designers, illustrators and other creative professionals to turn from working in service to corporate and political pollution of both the planet and "the mental environment," and instead embrace a radical new aesthetic devoted to social and environmental responsibility.
Views on Activism
Lasn believes that humans struggle with activism because they have failed to identify the key issues. He sees corporate rights and power as deeply problematic and a pressing issue. He has attempted to examine what he sees as the greater structural problems at hand, and declared a need to “recode the corporation.”[1]
Bibliography
- Lasn, Kalle (2000) Culture Jam, New York: Quill.
- Lasn, Kalle (2005) Design Anarchy, Vancouver: Adbusters Media Foundation.
References
External links
- Adbusters website
- Kalle Lasn Interview
- Kalle Lasn's Biography
- Kalle Lasn: 4 video messages for the Cologne Thumper design award (2007)
- Kalle Lasn, Typo 2006: »The Future of Design« (video)
- Donovan King 2004 Optative Theatre: A Critical Theory for Challenging Oppression and Spectacle [1] [2]