Brands That Fit Me in NY: Reflections on Samsung & Adidas

I’m in Chelsea, drunk, feeling good. Three hours dancing to Disclosure, the music act Samsung hired for the launch of its latest phones, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. I’ve been to these types of parties before so I am used to the usual food-music-alcohol-demonstration-routine that accompany product launches.

But tonight is different.

It’s the first time I think of Samsung as an entity that really speaks to me. Odd because I never imagined myself in the corporations-as-people camp. As far as creativity and innovation are concerned, Samsung is at the forefront of mobile design. In fact, I think most of its mobile designers are futurists: Phones with curves? Check. Phones with hi-resolution cameras? Check. Phones with ginormous screens? Check. Samsung, it appears to me, is genuinely concerned about how people share and create experiences with one another. Ditto Adidas, a brand I’ve turned to for comfort, style and inspiration since I was 13, thanks to RUN DMC and its seminal hit “My Adidas”, which reverberated and indoctrinated youth throughout my Queens, NY neighborhood.

I’ve always associated Adidas with music, dance and style than sports because its cultural currency was cemented at a difficult time in US history, 1980s NYC, filled with drugs, violence and poverty. The brand has motivated me to look fly as well as create art whether it’s documentary photographs of break-dancers and B-Boys in Times Square or production of sculptures and scans of iconic footwear made in my apartment/studio.

On the subway ride home to the Bronx, listening to SoundCloud house music mixes on Samsung’s Level Over headphones, I tried to imagine how I’d use S6 or the S6 Edge with its bleeding and edgy, curvy, display. (The Edge’s design extends on a curve, allowing apps to be displayed on the right side of the phone). Would I update my three year old blog with it the way I do the Note 3, my all in one laptop, camera and mobile phone since 2012? I wasn’t sure. The S6 felt small in my hands compared to the Note 3 and its replacement, the Note 4. Samsung’s design push towards the future, with its heart-rate monitor that acts as a trigger for taking selfies (hover and press your finger over the monitor on the back of the phone and you’re transported to selfie heaven) and its 16 megapixel rear, hi-resolution camera, which I could use to document my paintings or to contribute to my Live From New York Series, resonated with me.

Like always.