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

Notaro deals with what she defines as the new ‘dromology of consumption’ by discussing Nike’s ‘Art of Speed’ ad campaign. The French critic Paul Virilio is the inventor of the term 'dromology' — the science (or logic) of speed — intended as the foundation of technological society in relation to warfare and modern media, however the term in question had never been applied to the cultural category of consumption before.

The author considers the impact of Gawker media (an American online company and blog network), that in May 2004 designed a blog micro-site for Nike to promote the ‘Art of Speed’ ad campaign. The site consisted of a short film series showing 15 digital artists’ interpretation of the concept of speed. At the time blogs were beginning to surface as part of the marketing landscape and the campaign represented a unique approach to blog advertising. The article’s significance lies in the fact that it discusses with use of artistic sources and historical examples (i.e. the Futurist artistic tradition) not just the impact of the contemporary culture of acceleration on the phenomenon of Internet branding, but it also engages with the concept of speed in the broader context of the politics of technology and artistic practices. The short films produced by the 15 digital artists who were commissioned to create their own visions of speed through a ‘Nike lens’ (to quote from the Gawker blog) are in the end contrasted with the ‘new’ discourse of speed by the Australian artist David Noonan whose videos show how speed can be negativised or neutralised of competition and useful end.