Contemporary Emblems
Mauro Ceolin‘s latest project, Contemporary Emblems, is a series of insigna that playfully mix videogame icons with other popular culture references. The result is an imaginary logo that speaks only to the cognoscenti. The irresistible rise of reputation systems in the age of massive user-generated content requires new hierarchies, thus new insignia, symbols, and emblems. This proliferation is not to be feared, but to be welcomed as it celebrates the mass production of uniqueness.
Agent provocateur Mauro Ceolin is clearly amused by the didactic intent of the emblem. After all, he offers a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the military-entertainment complex that shapes the contemporary imaginaries, from cinema to digital media. Hence the abundance of [images of] guns, shields, and weapons [Boom! Headshot].
Ceolin, a logo-factory disguised as an artist, chronicles the rise of invisible and visible companies ruling our very existence. In fact, insignia are conventionally used as emblems of a specific or general authority.
(Matteo Bittanti, San Francisco, May 2006)
