Several readers of this blog probably received a request from Brian Collins a few weeks ago to equate politics with "something" (Politics=???). This was part of a campaign to promote CNN=Politics, the mantra the cable news network has been using since the presidential campaign began eons ago. The conceit was a "CNN Grill" in Denver where the elite come to eat. On the eve of the opening of the Democratic National Convention, I asked Collins about his master plan.

What was the aim?
If CNN=Politics was going to be their mantra, then I wanted our project to explore what politics equalled.

The outside wall of the Grill (above) has a lot of writing on it. Why?
We wanted to create a visual language based on some historical visual context. The building in Denver, like many turn of the century brick warehouse buildings, would have been covered with advertising and painted signage. There are "ghost signs" all over Denver, remants of long gone businesses and brands.

How did you determine what the words would be?
We invited people who watched CNN online to send us, in ten words or so, what "politics" meant to them. We selected a variety of quotes that best reflected the wide range of sentiments we heard.

Aren't you concerned that the Grill will encourage riotous gaiety?
In addition to the restaurant, it will be the key broadcast studio for CNN from which they will broadcast most of the convention news, shows, and interviews. The broadcast can also participate with our guests as the cameras and anchors will roam around the Grill at select times, interviewing them.

RememberTibet.org is an initiative started by Jonathan Barnbrook and Pedro Inoue designed to engage people during (and after) the Beijing Olympics Games through art and design to help raise awarness of China's policies towards Tibet. I asked Barnbrook to explain his goals:

What is your long term plan?
Our long term plan is, in some small way, to add to the weight of opinion that will change the situation. It's important, though, to not see this as only a design project even though we are asking for creative pieces; it is these pieces that can be used as tools but without getting hung up on whether they are legitimate design or not.

Do you think this will make a difference?
We will never know. Things aren't as simple as someone putting up a poster and the world will change. But I do believe that things change because of people forcing an issue onto the agenda.

What is the inspiration for the animated sequences (shown below)?
The animation is the first part of the project. It is there to publicise the web site and encourage people to contribute their own work.The main point of doing this animation is to remind people very simply and clearly about this situation in a balanced way. That is why it is just two people [in the narration] discussing the situation; there is no heroic ranting and we are trying to tackle the grey areas that Chinese government constantly tries to bring to this argument.

I always wanted to belong to the Nielsen family. You know, kind of like the Ozzie and Harriet Nielsen family who, through their TV viewing habits, determined what Americans were "thinking," "desiring" and "consuming." Yet it never came to pass. I guess I was just not the ideal Nielsen subject, nor, as it turned out, was anyone in my extended family--hence, our TV watching had no greater purpose than to divert us.

These feelings of exclusion welled up this weekend while reading the New York Times' sports supplement PLAY, which was sponsored in its entirety (like Target's exclusive ads in The New Yorker in 2006) by the Nielsen Media Company. Each of the 20 or so ads was a quiz (i.e., Which country has more internet users than any other? What singer(s) recorded songs with the word "summer" in the title?) that captured reader's attention even more than the editorial content (which was exclusively devoted to the China Olympics).

I found that surge of Nielsen envy emerging not just because I still long to be one of them, but because the ad campaign--and the monopolization of PLAY--was so brilliant. I presume it boosted their Nielsen rating considerably.