thank u Misrak, that article confirms most of what I have been saying up to now

what do you mean? it doesn’t confirm what you are saying. You said something else at first and when I told you about movies you said orwellian. Again you said that the only reason you brought it up in the first place because its to counter my comments. So how does it confirm your initial comments. Finally you are going to get this tshirt. You are one confused soul my brother.

This is by far the best Tshirt Bernos has ever done. It’s a social commentary & aesthetic beauty in a package.

exactly!!!

I love bernos.org.

You reminded off a comment made by an Ethiopian to a jamacian who was wearing Haile Sellassie shirt.

You know you shouldn’t be wearing that shirt Haile represents oppression, feudalism to all Ethiopians. You are insulting me.

I rephrased but that is what he said….

lets leave this as your opinion[/quote]

Ok it is my opinion but dude like Injera said understand that I am not tryin to knock you concept or discourage you in anyway. All I am saying is that u should at least be occasionally considerate to your customer base who is more sensitive about the msg of the images on the t-shirts than that actual aesthetics of the t-shirt. I for one would purchase more t-shits if u guys had more progressive or humorous msgs on the t-shirts instead of modified corporate logs and images of oppression as the barcodes. But that is just me, I understand if u can’t accommodate everyone and I understand that u gona have to do what is best for your business. But other than that I think you are running a very impressive operation. You guys are efficient and consistent with what u do. And that is exactly why I keep comming back. Keep doing what u are doing. With that said I would like to buy another Merkato T-shirt.

I suggest you all read this about the representation of Barcode in Mass Media.
http://www.jetcityorange.com/barcodes/BarcodesJargonSlang.pdf/quote

thank u Misrak, that article confirms most of what I have been saying up to now

You reminded off a comment made by an Ethiopian to a jamacian who was wearing Haile Sellassie shirt.

You know you shouldn’t be wearing that shirt Haile represents oppression, feudalism to all Ethiopians. You are insulting me.

I rephrased but that is what he said….

lets leave this as your opinion

I suggest you all read this about the representation of Barcode in Mass Media.
http://www.jetcityorange.com/barcodes/BarcodesJargonSlang.pdf

Further more I made the Orwellian comment to counter the argument made by Misrak on comment 66 who said that barcodes tattooed on humans are used in sci fi movies to show futuristic and techy trends. But even if u are a very casual sci-fi fan u would know that the barcode symbology is invariably used to conjure up thoughts of disenfranchisement and utter human oppression. They are used to show the utter depravity of living in a totalitarian state where the government or ruling entity has absolute control over your existence including track your every move. That is what Orwell was partially talking about in his book “1984” and the movies Misrak quoted – Fortress and Matrix express ideas along the same line. I mean I can list u a lot of other references but I am kinda tired of spoon feeding. Yes, the special effects were very nice, but if u don’t get it, well then u don’t get it and I can’t do anything about that. But I suggest you go read “1984″ then watch a few dystopic science fiction movies. Maybe start with the two movies mentioned above.

temari–…and we respectfuly accept that…

I see technology, label, postmodernism, but not a for sale sign.

uuuhmm yes. I am not skiping steps bro and this is by no means a free association.

What do you mean you are not free associating, ofcource you are! And I can prove it.

Yes Africa is sorta ambiguous but the barcodes, are as unambiguous as it gets.  

If Africa is ambiguous and the barcode is not how can it be unambiguous. Because this image is both. Its like the -1x 1 = -1  just that makes it ambiguous… by your definition. Africa is ambiguous but the barcode is not but Africa with a barcode isn’t. Free association one!
Secondly, the fact that we are all not on the same page reaffirms the ambiguity.
 
#65 you said Africa is for sell, agreeing with injera. If a barcode is tracking system why & how is it for sell.  Free association 2… relative symbolic association J
#70 you said it Orwellian, big brother type and the conjures negative images
#72 you defended your Orwellian symbology by reducing the human to a product, Free association 3!

Now take a human and assign him a computer generated number or a barcode. The barcode becomes his identity so u take away his name, take away his face and his individuality then what is left but a semblance of a human being.

You used words like commodification of African people, reducing to product, taking away humanity in self, negative Orwellian big bro cryptogram
First you made me question your motivation. Because you are really stretching the English language to fit whatever your agenda is.
Secondly don’t tell me it’s not ambiguous when even you don’t know where to stand.
This is just for nyala nobody else

representation of information in a visual format on a surface.

encryption is the process of obscuring information to make it unreadable without special knowledge.

But, I dont see where from in the definition of barcode, you come up with encryption. This aint the engma code.

“A barcode is a way to systematically keep/[track] inventory of the goods, as well as the transactions the goods go through.”

“You’re seen as a number, not a person. A barcode; as way to keep track of ppl moving in and out of the continent”

There are barcodes on immigration documents, drivers licence etc- Information is encrypted about that specific individual/thing. an officer scans someone’s drivers licence the pdf file of the front of the licence/I-20/greencard etc comes up on their screen.

A barcode is a way to systematically keep inventory of the goods, as well as the transactions the goods go through.

I completely agree with Q, nya and inja’s interpretations But I, personally see the crypting as a positive - the tshirt is making a statement, its doing a social commentary about 21st century africa. The shirt says africa is encrypted… I would have liked it even more if there were words to direct the interpretation on the tee- because nya’s right about immediate negative connotations.

For me, the Africode is a great tee to create awareness about the miserable condition of Africa such as the braindrain bgFelasafit mentioned, commoditization of Africa Celebratelife alluded to, Q and I have pointed out, and Nyalasmokes has eloquently spoken of. These are dominant African themes considering the foreign exploitation of African resources and the fact African people have become only numbers, statistics of poverty and war.

I can see myself wearing Afrocode to create awareness, but not to celebrate my identity. A great product does miss its target sometimes. A great example is the Z3, yes the car, the 007 car. The car was marketed to young people, women and men, the James Bond fans, but the buyers turned out to be middle aged and old men.

We can agree to disagree, let the barcode mean whatever you want it to mean to you.[/quote]

betam nicely eloquent… I’m crushing on mr. inja right now! gotta say yekeydama — luving reading ur comments, and the DNA concept makes sense– tho I’ll say I like the complicated barcode tshirt concept better!!

[quote comment="54288"]
Bernos, how about I give you a similar vision for free:) How about doing the DNA strand and find a way to incorporate the picture of Africa in there…[/quote]

You are my tag, you are my sign, you are my convention, my cipher, my private language, my secret code. Africa, you are my DNA!… That was what we wanted to delve into when we started out on paper for our third concept… The spirit of being African can not be described by neither a couple of sentences nor by a painting but we wanted to say ‘Africa is my brand.’A mesh of a 21st century sticky tag and our soul ‘stomped’ upon us. We hereby proclaim this concept Afrocode.

Naya and some of you are delving in deeper than the surface, nothing wrong with that… that is the very beauty of a work of art, that you see something different and far more sophisticated vision than the person next to you and perhaps even something different than what the actual artists visualized. That is what art is all about; it is not meat to be one dimensional or self-limiting. As injera put it so eloquently “Art does not need to be defended. Art either appeals, or it does not.”

One person can wear this very same T-shirt but can be conveying completely different message in each of their mind. If I may quote Injera again…

I can see myself wearing Afrocode to create awareness, but not to celebrate my identity.

Had this T-shirt been the over used arenguwade, becha, key bandira with Ethiopia karta in it, none of us would have had this conversation on it because it is just that simple (not to mention redundant)…that is one more reason why this tee is great.

For me, the Africode is a great tee to create awareness about the miserable condition of Africa such as the braindrain bgFelasafit mentioned, commoditization of Africa Celebratelife alluded to, Q and I have pointed out, and Nyalasmokes has eloquently spoken of. These are dominant African themes considering the foreign exploitation of African resources and the fact African people have become only numbers, statistics of poverty and war.

I can see myself wearing Afrocode to create awareness, but not to celebrate my identity. A great product does miss its target sometimes. A great example is the Z3, yes the car, the 007 car. The car was marketed to young people, women and men, the James Bond fans, but the buyers turned out to be middle aged and old men.

We can agree to disagree, let the barcode mean whatever you want it to mean to you.

we agree on the first,

but on the second aspect, not a product but a labeled human, how and why do you reduce human to a product? because it has a label? you are jumping two three steps like before and associating

Anyways, I will be happy to go on and explain more if you have question, gin tset bleh if you free associate something with something else… then I can’t defend any concept! let alone these one which is somewhat ambigous.

uuuhmm yes. I am not skiping steps bro and this is by no means a free association. Yes Africa is sorta ambiguous but the barcodes, are as unambiguous as it gets. They are simply computer generated numbers/codes to identify and track inventory. Now take a human and assign him a computer generated number or a barcode. The barcode becomes his identity so u take away his name, take away his face and his individuality then what is left but a semblance of a human being.

What the first thing they do when u go to prison? Yes, they give u a number. What did the Nazis tattooed on the forearms of the Jews in the concentration camps? Yes, numbers again. I am sure Heinrich Himmler would have used barcodes if they were invented back then. Using numbers and codes as means of identification does have the uncanny ability to objectify ppl and any other connotation u want to associate it with is probably more of a step skipper than reducing humans to a product.