Our Strategy team recently made a visit to MoMA PS1 to experience Beijing-based artist Feng Mengbo’s’ Long March: Restart. It’s an immersive floor-to-ceiling interactive projection that combines classic video-game elements with imagery of political propaganda, placing the viewer in control as he navigates the hero from level to level, and from one projection wall to the other. Familiar scenes from Street Fighter mingle with the imagery of a communist military demonstration, creating an entirely unique environment and gaming narrative.

Leaving the installation, an adjacent PS1 collection caught our eye: The Logic of Association. Featuring the work of multiple artists, the exhibit interplays visual elements extracted from
the fields of science, advertising, and education. By borrowing from preexisting visual vocabularies and recombining known elements into new or surprising combinations,

The Logic of Association forms new narratives out of existing symbols.

The two exhibits could not be more different in execution, but we were surprised at how

similar they are in concept. Both work by juxtaposing established symbols in curious ways

to form new associations in an attempt to deconstruct the rigidity of accepted language and visual systems.

As strategists, we often find ourselves doing similar things. We observe patterns of behavior, trends and evolutions in culture, emerging technologies and platforms – and look to find the often-surprising places where they intersect. The combining and recombining of insights helps us continually challenge and validate our ideas.

On the ride home, we talked about how brands attempt to do this by utilizing their own established symbols, placing logos and campaigns in new arrangements and mediums.

How do brands balance the need to maintain an established identity with the demand to be culturally relevant within a moving landscape?

Long March: Restart and The Logic of Association ran at PS1 through April 4.