Tag: Make it funny

TACTIC: consider including some dark humour in your trade justice activism. Not only is it how people living and working along supply chains cope with difficult situations, it’s also a reaction that can leave audiences hooked by what they’ve just experienced. Trade injustice shouldn’t be funny. But what if it is?

Posted on by

Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board Of Directors

followthethings.com
Ship my order

2010
MAERSK
ELECTRONIC DOCUPOP
ORIGIN – JAPAN
DESTINATION – CANADA
TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
START SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT
BE THE CHARACTERS
MAKE MUSIC
FOLLOW THE THING
TELL A STORY
LIE TO TELL THE TRUTH
MOBILISE THE FANDOM
MAKE IT FAMILIAR
MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL
MAKE IT FUNNY
MAKE IT A MYSTERY

“Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board of Directors“
An electronic docupop album by Icebreaker International (Alexander Perls & Simon Break).
Free Spotify stream embedded above. Used vinyl & CD versions available on Discogs here.

NATO’s art division commissions electronic musicians Icebreaker International to create on board a container ship called the Trein Maersk as it travels between the ports of Yokohama in Japan to Halifax in Canada. NATO wants this to be a musical celebration of ‘free trade’. It’s a concept album that samples audio from its travels (including squawking seagulls) as well as ideological soundbites from champions of unregulated markets. Its tracks include ‘Port of Dubai’ and ‘The Third Way’ and they were written as the ship passed through these places, and as they reflected on these ideological arguments. The purpose of this work is educational. The CD booklet contains lots of information about world trade and a map of the ship’s journey. Online reviewers praise it as a masterpiece. This is a work of genius. Many are moved by the depth of feeling that this ‘electronic docupop’ has for the sea and for free trade. It’s the album Kraftwerk would have made if they weren’t so preoccupied with autobahns. So many of these reviews are so effusive in their praise that some think that something suspicious is happening here. Is this a genuine concept album or an elaborate prank? Does NATO even have an art division? Have these musicians ever travelled on a container ship? Are they really right wing musicians rebelling against activist representations of free trade? It could be true that that this music vividly evokes its logistics. Even if it does so sarcastically. Have a listen. See what you think. What role can a right wing (maybe) concept album play in trade justice activism? What can it do?

Page reference: Rachael Midlen (2013) Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board of Directors. followthethings.com/treinmaersk.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 31 minutes.

Continue reading Trein Maersk: A Report To The NATOarts Board Of Directors