'Swoosh time': Nike's 'Art of Speed' advertizing campaign and the Blogosphere

This paper deals with what I define as the new ‘dromology of consumption’ by discussing Nike’s Art of Speed ad campaign. In May 2004 Gawker media designed a blog microsite for Nike to promote the project which consisted of a short film series showing 15 digital artists’ interpretation of the concept of speed. Web logs (better known as blogs) are beginning to surface as part of the marketing landscape and the campaign represented a unique approach to blog advertising. The paper discusses not just the impact of the contemporary culture of acceleration on the phenomenon of Internet branding, but also engages the issue of commercialism and art in the context of today’s new media practices. The short films produced by the 15 digital artists who were commissioned to create their own visions of speed through a “Nike lens” are contrasted with the new discourse of speed by the Australian artist David Noonan. In Noonan's videos, speed has been negativised or neutralised of competition or useful end, becoming almost hypnotic to the point where it reaches its ultimate limit: inertia