Edition 107

In this week’s Our Take it’s raining fish in Honduras and a campaign is turning this divine sign into a community development initiative. On World Environment Day, one dirty brand is asking us to break up with our shower heads. In the world of AI, do we have a new digital Michelangelo? And we check out a new conceptual camera with an interesting viewpoint.  

Climate Activist, Climax Advocate or both?

Photo credit: Love Not War

We are obsessed with sustainable sex toy brand Love Not War’s recent masturbation campaign ‘Break Up With Your Shower Head’. The campaign launched in advance of World Environment Day which fell on 5th June. 

The climactic campaign features a hilarious video of heartbroken shower heads crying over their break-ups after their environmentally conscious lovers left them for Love Not War’s more eco-friendly sex toys.

While the campaign will surely sell plenty of ‘toyfriends’, it also highlights issues around water waste and sustainability, such as, the estimated 300 million litres of water that are wasted each year through shower masturbation.  (“Wasted” is doing a lot of work here, but we get the point).

As a consolation, Love Not War are offering 20% off their toys throughout the month of June so pleasure seekers can switch to more eco-friendly modes of masturbation.

This campaign finished us (!).

Check out the video if you need a giggle.

Future Ren-AI-ssaance

Photo credit: NVIDIA

NVIDIA Research has unveiled a brand-new AI model titled Neuralangelo: High-Fidelity Neural Surface Reconstruction. Named after the greatest sculptor of all, Michelangelo, the model is able to “sculpt” digital 3D structures from the visual data blocks of conventional 2D recordings.

The tech behind the software heralds a significant leap in the field of 3D reconstruction. Neuralangelo’s AI uses 2D images from a video that analyses multiple angles to accurately capture textures, patterns and colour variations resulting in a 3D model with an accurate and highly detailed sense of depth, size and shape.

To be named after one of the finest artists in history might be setting expectations too high, but Neuralangelo is definitely carving out some new prospects for animators, designers and architects.

A truthful snapshot

Images Sourced from: https://bjoernkarmann.dk/project/paragraphica

In stark contrast to the trend of using more and more lenses to take pictures, (what’s the current lens count on an iPhone? 3? 4?), Danish artist Bjørn Karmann has created a new type of camera – without a lens at all.

Called “Paragraphica”, his conceptual camera uses a range of data – think GPS, weather, Google Maps, info on what’s nearby– to generate a descriptive paragraph of text. This description is then fed to an AI image-generator to produce the final ‘photograph’.

According to the artist, “the photos do capture some moods and emotions from the place, but in an uncanny way, as the photos never really look exactly like where I am.”

We are all too acquainted with how AI is drastically altering our trust in the truth of photography. 

Paragraphica is a welcome creation that is putting a different kind of truth back into “photography”  by showing us how technology sees the world.

Explore the virtual prototype here.

It’s raining fish, Hallelujah!

Image: Ogilvy Honduras

In Yoro, a small rural town in Honduras, it rains fish every year. Yes, you heard us, FISH.

There isn’t a sole scientific explanation for this phenomenon, but the two most popular theories are that strong cyclones suck up fish from the sea, or subterranean streams overflow during raining season. Either way, for the townspeople of Yoro this rain of fish or “lluvia de peces”, is a true miracle.

Despite its fame for this this biblical deluge, Yora remains a town that suffers heavily from poverty and job scarcity. But one campaign is hoping to change this.

Ogilvy Honduras partnered with Regal Springs – a leader in sustainable fish production – to launch a campaign to help the people of Yoro. Aptly titled ‘Heaven Fish’, the collaboration hopes to commercialise the annual miracle. As the fish are gathered during the annual rain of fish, each one is registered and with the help of Regal Springs can quickly be distributed to restaurants and markets across the country.

Tapping into the oddity of this cultural phenomenon while creating a good Samaritan moment, this campaign can hopefully turn an unusual rainfall into a much-needed windfall for Yoro.

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