“Yesterday you said today, so now just do it!”
Creative genius, performance artist, actor, and former Disney Channel star (yeah, remember those days) Shia LaBeouf recently raised quite a few eyebrows when he, Nastja Rönkkö & Luke Turner, collaborated with CSM students to create a video project entitled #Introductions. While some of you may have been cracking up over all the parodies, others were probably wondering why the heck our beloved Shia was doing this (probably because he simply wanted to “just do it”).
Turns out, according to Dazed, the piece was an art project in which students would write some kind of performance art for Shia to act out. Whether it was simply breathing, reading, or screaming motivational slogans in your face, the actor said he would do it in front of a green screen, which anybody could later edit to use as an introduction for their own projects. I guess this makes him sound a little bit less crazy now.
Art student Joshua Parker contributed the “just do it,” piece was, who suggested Shia perform the words from the famous slogan. Josh spoke with Dazed and said he wanted to examine consumer culture, particularly in relation to the fitness industry.
I feel a culture is being created where it is fashionable and marketable to be healthy. This way of life is leading to potential “health anxiety” with the increase in “need” for health tech, vitamin supplements and body trackers that remind us to stand up and walk, to “Just do it!”
Josh also said he wanted to focus on the campaigns that encourage us to “just do it,” without ever telling us what it is. “[It is] just the fact that we just have to be doing something! These parodies and adaptations highlight the reflection that the ‘JUST DO IT’ idea and slogan can relate to anything.]
And speaking of parodies, in case you missed the best “JUST DO IT” compilation ever…
[Featured Image Credit: #Introductions]