Promo for Cards For Humanity

Cards For Humanity recently provided Radical Beat with some nifty materials, and in return I agreed to write a promotional item for them. I also wrote a bio of my own project for them that you can read below.

Although the smartphone peddlers of the world and paranoid placard wavers at Black Mirror might cause you to think otherwise, there is still a whole lot of life that goes on in the physical realm.  If you’re a creative type in St. Petersburg who needs good promotional materials for said realm and are into ideas such as interdisciplinary arts collaboration, alternative advertising, the barter system, analogue communication, the charm of imperfection, getting cool stuff for free and building altruistic communities, then you might want to investigate Cards For Humanity.  Their personalised, zero cost calling cards will get your work to places that a link never will.

The project takes its name from the popular backroom-giggling party game Cards Against Humanity, which in turn took its name from the horrifically necessary term crimes against humanity.  An imprint of an imprint, taking this journey puts you inside a hall of mirrors where no outcome is certain, but thus is the life of the impassioned artist.  Imprint is certainly the pertinent word as well, as the cards are all handmade individually by letterpress. Partakers can expect a thoughtful process of face-to-face meetings, individualised curiosity, professional design, and a fat box of hundreds of cards.  In return, participants are asked to use their specific skill to further promote the Cards For Humanity concept. So if you’re a musician, for example, you could record an absurd jingle about the project for use in local media, and help further the not-for-profit experiment we are building underneath capitalism.  If you’re a sculptor, you could construct a small monument to the printing press. If you’re a writer, you could put together a few paragraphs full of really clever and funny observations.

Needless to say, you have nothing to lose, and artists of all kinds (the term is used loosely) can always use cards.  And if you are a writer I challenge you to delve in, get some humanity, become obliged to write another promo for the project to contrast this one, and we’ll see how deep the hall of mirrors goes.

You can look at the Cards For Humanity website here.  You can email the project through designstudiocolab[at]gmail.com.  Let them know who you are and how they can help.

Radical Beat Portrait

Radical Beat is an alternative journalism and media project based in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Its focus is the underground music world and the militant political fringe. On the one hand, you can expect coverage of the punk diaspora, the hip hop universe, and any other interesting musical moves that float into the periphery.  On the other, climate change, human migration, transport justice, anti-monarchism, the war industry, class inequality and capitalist instability. It deals in live gig and festival write-ups, local, national and international record reviews, action reports, hilarious observations, radical opinion columns based in fact, promo spots, and the appropriate intersections between them all.  Radical Beat is influenced by punk rock zine culture, professional music paper journalism, hip hop wordplay and edutainment, alternative comedy, on-the-ground grassroots media, and hard hitting investigative reporting. We cannot spread urgent political messages without spreading compelling entertainment, and we cannot make satisfying entertainment without in some way considering the issues that affect our lives.  The project’s goal is to cover the political topics that give good art its beating heart, and the art that makes politics comprehensible.

Radical Beat is written by James Lamont, and can be found at this link.  Updates can be followed at Facebook.