Survivaball Suit

A woman (not pictured) dressed like an executive, handed me a brochure as I tried to snap the picture of the woman in the Survivaball Suit on a very busy 42nd Street corner by Sixth Avenue. A couple of years ago, they pulled off a stunt at a Halliburton function where there was a brief moment where people believed it was a real product. The SurvivaBall Suit is “marketed” to corporate executives worried about Climate Change, for an undisclosed though presumably exorbitant price, this suit protects the wearer from problems in the climate. Those are mittens that running down the front. The website –http://www.survivaball.com/—has some pretty funny diagrams. The ball is an enclosed environment, you see, and the message you can destroy everybody else’s environment and save your own, of course touching on the selfishness and self-absorption driving social irresponsible corporations and their unhindered corporate greed. Both the website and the brochure has a “brought to you by,” with logos of famous corporations, the usual suspects, like Ford and Exxon. Some funny stuff—“A self contained living system, a gated community for one.” The woman who handed me the brochure, explained that the woman inside is just demonstrating the model, buying the suit would be above her socio-economic class. In October, there are going to have demonstrations at the Film Forum Exhibition Halls. I guess they are moving from Hoax to Political Theater. But, it’s pretty clever stuff, drawing attention to issue and the philosophical underpinnings behind the politics.