I think it’s about time for one of those every few years whoooshy music/aesthetic changes. That are unplanned but come as a relief when they do happen. Everything is a little uneasy right now. This first image is form Halloween 1973. Today was pretty much uneventful; last night was (began) excellent. I dressed as TSS – Toxic Shock Syndrome this year. Red tights, bloodied skin, a string from the centre of my head and a billowy dress with a strange organic/carnivorous anemonic pattern that faintly resembles a gangrenous tampon. Possibly my favourite costume ever?



I also acquired a wondrous guitar on the L train last night. 3D, made from mostly cardboard, that fake-wooden laminate stuff and thick vinyl tape, with pushpins and bulldog clips for pegs and dental floss strings. It’s pretty similar to a Warlock in body shape and surprisingly heavy given its materials. The guy made it for his office halloween party, except it was cancelled due to a mass firing. And he didn’t want to take it home because of some inexplicable wifely wrath (?). A little sad, but I’m glad I have it anyways. Speaking of custom instruments, these countervielles and counterharmonium, built by someone I interviewed a few months ago are especially fascinating, and lovely too with intricately carved oudlike soundboxes. My own oud playing meanwhile is (still) unsurprisingly not making too much progress, though I’m a bit more comfortable with fretlessness now.

Meanwhile the fratboys appear to be pre-rioting? Kent state version Morningside? There’s already a paddywagon waiting. huh.

Or perhaps molotov? It turns out there’s not so much menstral art out there in the world. This is surprising? A womb is a weapon and should perhaps be used accordingly (…and in a less essentialising manner). Why menstrual art? I’m going to be TSS – the vaguely apocalyptic Toxic Shock Syndrome (how real is it??) this year. This will be super exciting – having decided this at some early hour on Nov 1st 08 it’s now middle October again! Not supersure how, but luckily the internet has dressed up as Tampax before. The above image is from a 1973 exhibition, “Issues”, by the mysterious Judy Clark, who seems to today run some kind of art agency in Cornwall. I wish I knew more about her? These pieces are kind of intriguing, especially “Grooming” below.

“Menstruation“

In other non news life is (a) socially chaotic. Which reminds me that I want to perhaps address Monday’s ‘Social Justice or Social War‘ at some point (would that be legitimising? eh). There’s another kind of social war intensifying outside my bedroom and it’s a little bewildering. I finally have khan-el-khalili fabrics on my walls and an orchid on my bookcase (need to learn how to stem the decay). I do not have any thesis progress. Jennie’s mum makes fascinators which are super compelling. I sat in at a jazz jam recently and it was nice/reassuring. I am politically crazy burnt out but maybe I don’t believe in politics anymore! I am making music again! Abolishing exchange will be difficult! But dig the Bolivia summit..!

Not to mention the internet as various “sanitary/feminine hygiene” accoutrements. I’m guessing I can work with all white, some kind of synthetic cloudy material and a string out of my head? Not that i really own anything white, but then again it’s going to be a fair bit bloodier than below. I don’t even know if TSS involves some kind of putrification, but then I could fiddle with black/green? Too much?

[via eva101]

Greg: “I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.”

Men at their most masculine? There’s so much that could be said here, but artist Chad States, and then the men’s own narratives work so so well. Some of the answers are incredibly revealing (psycho-somatically and some perhaps unsafe for work). Admittedly they’re all constructions of ‘normative’ masculinity – I think that kind of makes them all the more interesting. I am unsure if the rooms were doctored by either the photographer or the subject, but what they choose to surround themselves with is fascinating too. In an interview, the artist does note that “The subjects have made specific decisions about the way they are posing. I am never catching them off-guard or unaware”, and that his only request is that they look directly at the camera”.

(above) Mike: “I want to show that, despite stereotypes, gay men can be masculine too.”

(centre) Dex: “First off, I’d say I’m masculine because of how I feel inside, who I am, and how I carry myself. In a lot of ways my masculinity is tied to my male gender role and how I want to project that and be perceived by others.”

(below) Michael: “In my mind I am masculine. I feel I don’t have to prove it to anyone who might think otherwise (I don’t care what others think).”

Where did you find your subjects? Are they all men?

I found all my subjects through Craigslist. I began by asking the question “Are you masculine?” in the heading. In the body of the posting I talked briefly about the project. Much to the effect of: “I am doing a photography project on masculinity. If you identify as being masculine, please get back to me.” I intentionally leave it gender-neutral so males, females and transpeople feel free to respond. Most of the respondents are men, but a few are female and a few are trans. I posted to a bunch of different categories to cast as wide a net as possible.

Liz: “When I wear men’s clothes I feel comfortable and confident in how I look on the outside which now matches the inside.”

Bill: “I am strong emotionally, have always stood up for myself, and fear nothing. I happen to be physically strong but that isn’t where I derive my masculinity.”

Dennis: “I feel masculine when I am home, I can take care of myself. I often feel emasculated when I leave my apartment though, with everyone asking me if I need help. I don’t need any help.”

How is a personal conception of femininity different from masculinity?

I don’t know. One thing I did notice through the project was that masculinity was mostly seen as an innate characteristic, something the subject possessed regardless of outward appearance. Like Dwight says, “it is an attitude.” I imagine that femininity is seen as more of an outward construct (long hair, clothes).

Parker: “I have been called a SNAG (sensitive new age guy), a renaissance man, a man in touch with his feminine side, etc. I think that I am masculine in the sense of self-reliance.”

And whoa, very best of all, Luke.

“I am masculine because I abandon women after taking their love. Because when you study Freud, you don’t let him study you. Because I study philosophy, not literature.”

August was good/ august was overwhelming and now it’s over. In between, Left Forum, DC, Harper’s Ferry and being stranded in Virginia (replete with Confederate flags? what). Living on Tiemann and now, a lovely apartment inculcating super-domestica (and battling spidereggs, mould). I got a flute gig to fund further degeneration and/but my 3oud skills are declining along with the arabic. This year will be really good, I reckon.

{The image ps is from a Dutch film “De Stilte Rond Christine M” or ‘A Question of Silence’ – watch it, it’s heartwarmingly castration-friendly]

I came across these killer Iranian graphics from Belog today – mostly posters and book covers, and all pretty sick. I don’t speak farsi so I can’t be sure but the one on the left seems to say something like “(her?) song incites/stirs”? Speaking of the script, I taught myself to read it when in Mumbai/Srinagar earlier this summer – it’s pretty close to Arabic, except with a few more letters and joined differently. Which works fine reading Urdu, but Kashmiri not so much – though I do have a fair amount of years before I’d need fluency for PhD research.

These images are from the 1971 and 1967 yearbook editions (“Ettela’at Sal”) of long-running newspaper, Ettela’at which calls itself “the only Persian daily newspaper published outside Iran”. It’d be interesting to see one published today, if they’re still even being made? I especially like this flipbookish advertising mechanism from the cover of the 1967 edition.

These next images are political posters, all done circa the 1979 Iranian revolution- I wonder what’s being put out, if anything these days? I kind of suspect it’s probably to be found on Twitter, which I should probably figure out how to navigate sometime, but still creeps me out in its hyper-techocratic be-connected-in-140-characters-or less. Though not as much as “Augmented Reality”, in which iPhone users can point their phone at things to retrieve data on them. Perhaps it’s useful for places – they give the example of visiting a museum or the Eiffel Tower, and having the opening/closing times and admission fees brought up on screen. It also works for people though – ostensibly for security purposes but imagine the access nightmares – ” sorry you can’t dine here, you make less than 20k a year and livein the wrong postcode” or similar. Like any border or technological barrier worth its salt it is never something that is enables access but instead something that is denied. It seems unknown how accurate these will be though – would they not recognise someone with a beard, or would it be more like airport iris scanners that are fairly inescapable?

And finally, some mid-late 70s RIPAH -the Review of Iranian Political Economy and History – and the supercurious/mysterious Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den. The texts are seemingly available in full here, and seem pretty interesting, if long. They’re described as

“a legendary series of Iranian books containing classified US documents that were found in the American Embassy in Tehran when it was taken over by revolutionaries. These books are very hard to come by, and until now there has been no concerted effort to post them. In 1977 Iranian students seized an entire archive of CIA and State Department documents, which represented one of the most extensive losses of secret data in the history of any modern intelligence service. Even though many of these documents were shredded into thin strips before the Embassy, and CIA base, was surrendered, the Iranians managed to piece them back together. “

“They were then published in 1982 in 54 volumes under the title “Documents From the U.S. Espionage Den”, and are sold in the United States for $246.50. As the Teheran Embassy evidently served as a regional base for the CIA, the scope of this captured intelligence goes well beyond intelligence reports on Iran alone. They cover the Soviet Union, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. There are also secret analysis of arcane subjects ranging from the effectiveness of Israeli intelligence to Soviet oil production. Most of these documents are labeled “Confidential” or “Secret” and remain classified to this day”.

So Dash Snow aka Saker Irak died of an overdose recently, RIP. Some say he’s already being Basquiatised, and probably not a minute too soon. Stephen Marche fittingly points out in a fairly caustic article, “Basquiat’s hedonism fuelled his creativity, but for Snow hedonism was the creativity.” He’s already not one, but two four letter words and surely an adjective (or more fittingly, adverb) can’t be far off? Photos aside I couldn’t dig much of his art but as a person(a) he’s fascinating – for me maybe the ultimate embodiment of the downtown art scene today.

Kind of like the way in which coffee&cigarettes became &crack (80s), &cellphones (90s) and &crackberries (00s), Dash Snow, known for his near-neo Ludditism, goes hand in hand with the era of digitalia for me. Also kind of like the interlinked Cs of the Chanel sign, (speaking of which, ZEVS of the liquidated logos got picked up in Hong KongMaybe it’s the anthropologist in me (albeit one lacking a senior thesis) but I find pictures taken of him to be more interesting than his own. Is this what happens when money runs away from home and implodes on itself? Again from Marche:

Snow was much more successful as a muse, with his gorgeous long blond hair and beard and his tattoo of Saddam Hussein. An image of him tagging on a New York building ledge was one of the most famous photographs from Ryan McGinley’s show at the Whitney “The Kids Are Alright” (this title is now an unfortunate irony; the kid isn’t all right, the kid is dead). The art that resulted from Snow’s life, the table scraps of his orgies, gave the pleasant shiver of possibility that all the indulgence and self-destruction was something more than a nasty good time. But Snow himself, and the amanuenses of his self-destruction, were also able to convert his antics into a highly profitable commodity. His parentage, which provided a stabilizing connection to the Establishment, and his subversiveness, which stamped him with authenticity, turned out to be a valuable combination.

These images though -perhaps it’s the braces/suspenders and shorter hair? – by Mario Sorrenti from Muse Magazine, S/S 2009 are really sweet. And this quote from Vice’s Gavin McInnes quite striking:

When I used to run around with a camera and a notepad following Irak and documenting as much of their lives as I could, he said something that changed my life forever. He said, “Why are you always reporting on shit and reviewing other people’s shit? Why don’t you do your own shit?” I couldn’t get it out of my head. I still can’t. And you shouldn’t either.

Not to mention this from Ryan Mc Ginley:

One of my favorite things about Dash was always his unconscious moving hand. He would be sitting there smoking cigarettes, writing his tag in the air without being aware of it. I would just smile and watch the smoke twirl into the letters S A C E. That’s how I’ll always remember him.

[last image by Rachel Chandler]

Who is Princess Hijab? She’s my age, yet anonymous; an “unseen character” And

since 2006, the Princess, who has begun a movement (Hijabism) based on the subverting of advertisements (Hijabizing) veils faces on billboards using a black marker pen.The black hijab encompasses every existing form of distinction. PH also operates on the Internet by creating animated gifs. She initiated the hijab_ad collective.

There’s some debate over whether she is a hijabi or even a Muslim. Or even a woman (take that as loosely as you will). I kind of like that it’s ambiguous
and that you don’t necessarily need to subscribe to certain identities to dislike the oversexualisation of women’s bodies, and especially the creepily prepubescent
(hello, Tom Ford! though I do think those ads are kind of unintentionally brilliant in their hyper-plasticity, kind of like lucy and bart). Princess Hijab, anyway, sees her work as a kind of culturally specific Adbusters-ish response – except for the part where you consume to cut down comsumption. She tells Menasset that

“I created PH to be connected. I wanted to mix elements from different extractions and cultures, starting from my initial subject: the veiled woman. I believe it’s the reason why PH had such an impact. She never let herself be defined by religion nor gender. It was really crucial for me,: she said”.

I kind of love her take on the French tricolore, presumably in response to all the noise around the banning of the veil? She’s kind of a superheroine too, according to her manifesto :

This is the story of a young woman fighting every day for a noble cause: she wants to “hijabize” advertising. Princess Hijab knows that L’Oréal and Dark&Lovely have been killing her little by little. She feels that the veil is no longer that white. She feels contaminated. When she was a teen, she heard about movements such as Adbuster; but since 9/11, things have changed. She does not subvert images in an American way. Princess Hijab will go on, veiled and alone, forever asserting her physical and mental integrity. By day, she wears a white veil, symbol of purity. By night, her black veil is the expression of her vengeful fight for a cause (custom ad).

With her spray paint and black marker pen, she is out to hijabize advertising. Even Kate Moss is targeted. She knows all about visual terrorism! And she will not spare her right of expression for the likes of publicists. Make sure that all advertising can be hijabized “ ‘cause that’s her fight Jihad is her art”. And don’t forget, she acts upon her own free will. She is not involved in any lobby or movement be it political, religious or to do with advertising. In fact, the Princess is an insomniac-punk. She is the leader of an artistic fight, nothing else.

Admittedly I’m a little unsure how I feel about her pure white veil – vengeful black veil imagery. Or art-as-Jihad (perhaps that’s the way it should be?). Or after railing on BR1 for neo-orientalism, wondering if she’s not doing the same thing, creating an alterna-consumerism (kind of like Adbusters’ $65 heavily marketed ‘Black Spot’ sneaker)? Or if all images of hijabis/veiled women are necessarily orientalist (or if it’s orientalist of me to think that?) I think my head just imploded.

Perhaps no worries as her work all seems fairly tongue-in-cheek anyway. Kind of like a PoCo that’s post both colonialism and consumerism, and doesn’t take itself too seriously either? (Next up: the postmodern-industrial-complex!) Some of her images especially make me giggle, like these animations with unicorns, pentagrams, guns, blingy shades and wolves (is she secretly a consummate hipster? aka PRNCSS HJB?). Or the use of scribbly black marker, which isn’t far off from the thick black markered censorship you see on the covers of men’s magazines (does this not defeat their sole purpose?) / general near-nudity in even fashion magazines in the UAE. Not to mention the confusingly contradictory Day-Glo Fatwa.

Her inspirations? She tells Menasset:

“…the Woman. No logo from Naomi Klein, The anti-advertising movement… the gender movements… the straight edge, the nerd-centrism, atheism symbolism, urban legends, the allegories and the new myths…”

Ads aside, she’s taking on everything, with even Cinderella and Maria The Nun not exempt from her pen and wheatpaste. She’s had a bunch of shows anyway, and it seems hijabism has at least resonated worldwide, with copycat hijabising scribblings popping up now and then. Unrelatedly I really dig the idea/language of ‘visual terrorism’ she cites. Kind of like ‘literary terrorism’ – a piece I still remember from Korrina Irwin’s ‘Rock Star With Words’ zine (no 4) -one of the first I remember reading circa age 12/13 and just getting riot grrrlish stuff (with the awkward girlpunk band to match) – and a really clear ¡ting! point where I thought ooh, words can do rad things, I want to be a writer!.

An ill fated stint interning for a teen magazine when I first got to NYC soon put paid to that though. Not that the internship was excruciating in itself – my boss and everyone working there were incredibly lovely – upon hearing horror stories from others, probably a rare scenario in the industry. And I did learn a lot about SEO/web publishing/monetizing/ the business-driven side of the magazine industry – probably more than I wanted to in some places – good way to disabuse me of any romantic writery notions though? The content, though- and the stuff that was being carefully constructed and marketed to young girls – disgusted/creeped me out no end and I pretty much cocked it up. Just as well, perhaps, though not so good if I ever want to be, yknow, hired in the future. With impending gutter/visa-less status looming in 10 months I should probably try interning again? Or umm figure out how freelancing works.

[nb: photo changed at request of artist

I can’t decide if these pieces – by BR1 in Turin, Italy – are really rad, or just another rehashing of orientalist tripe in street art form? The artist deals with

“the representation of Muslim women and their social condition… I would like to make people know that there is nothing strange with this particular subject: Muslim women are equal if compared to Western women. My Muslim women are represented in daily life situations: they are mothers, grandmothers and daughters, smoking, taking pictures and smiling. My message is: pointing out that Muslim women have the same needs and necessities of the majority of Western women. Certainly, the only exception is the veil. The veil changes in different countries, and here comes the sociological aspect of my work: I am very careful in rendering the different types of veil, the Maghrebi veil, the Afghani burga and the Iranian chador.

Great to see Muslim women are equally capable of living up to the patriarchal ideals of womanhood, then. Replete with the same universal needs and necessities – childcare, raising families, taking pictures and smiling? Nevermind seeing any Muslim men (not exotic or fetishisable enough? too dangerous?), it would have been nice to see hijabis in other situations outside the traditionally feminised. Like perhaps working, or, I don’t know, holding AK-47s? Then again, his Western women probably wouldn’t be able to do these either. It’s interesting that he notes that “the veil changes in different countries”, and looks to carefully depict several variants. And also that the veil remains a constant – would an unveilled woman not be Muslim/Otherable enough I wonder?

The women depicted all seem to have had a healthy dose of the skin whitening Fair and Lovely, to boot- perhaps they look more amenable this way? He continues:

In my opinion, nowadays it’s crucial to conceive street art as a tool to spread social messages. Moreover, I made a deep research and I discovered that I am the only artist, in the street art movement, that deals entirely with this topic. Isn’t it strange? In general, the woman is the best source of inspiration for artists, why Muslim women wouldn’t be the same? I would like to create a network of artists of all nations, about this subject, eventually to compare the different viewpoints

It seems his deep research didn’t get him too far though – I can think of a fair few who do this, with the brilliant Princess Hijab being one of the first that pop to mind. Worth doing some sort of series perhaps? Unrelatedly, here’s something that’s incredibly sick – MUTO, a wall painted stopmotion animation by BLU, done in Buenos Aires and Baden. That’s right, wall-painted – as in the bricky equivalent of those old handdrawn flipbooks animators used to use.

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To be honest, I really just wanted to recycle Critical Culture’s amazing take on Proudhon, in which ze ” wanted the back of my iPod to read, “intellectual property is theft” (Proudhorn [sic], motherfucker!), but Apple denied my request”. That got me thinking again about intellectual property though – like the fact I thought about just snatching that rather delectable phrase, but wouldn’t have felt right doing so, and so linked to the blog. Does the same thing apply then, with the internet as with academia? You’d think that on the internet, intentions are rather more mercenery, with the whole maximising traffic/linkbacks/ad revenue bit. But then doesn’t the same happen in academia with citations, and a scholar even being judged by how often and widely their works are cited? I suspect it all plays back on itself in social media (I’m thinking of LinkedIn, but there’s probably scores more that are more industry specific)?

Back to intellectual property, and the questions of Copyleft or Anti-copyright? I realise I never responded to Cayden’s response to my own previous thoughts on the subject. I really like hir definition in that it clears up a bit of the confusion I had between the two.

Being anti-copyright, to me, means you don’t believe in any kind of checks or requirements for re-use or adaptation of someone else’s work. Being all about copyleft, on the other hand, is more about liking progressive copyright law that allows individual makers and thinkers to place their own requirements on how others can re-use or adapt their work. Anti-copyright is about a standard of free use for all; copyleft vests some power in the creator to say what happens next, but encourages progressive ways of dealing with information as opposed to forcing people to pay each other to use ideas. At its core, anti-copyright versus copyleft asks a fundamental metaethical question: who gets privileges over stuff after that stuff has been produced?

Perhaps it’s the language used, but doesn’t this map rather well to Leftism and the (a)political spectrum – working within electoral politics, or eschewing it completely? With a similar question of idealism versus pragmatism – in this case, Cayden thinks through the superbenefits of completly free information, versus the fact that ‘ideas professionals’ still need to put food on the table. Ze continues

“Fortunately, just because this is the status quo doesn’t mean there are other ways to feed your family if you’re an ideas professional that don’t include draconian copyright over your “intellectual property.” Just because your job doesn’t produce stuff doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t benefit from the production of it — but then again, just because your job produces stuff doesn’t mean you own it”.

Therein lies the second part of Proudhon’s much-regurgitated quote. Intellectual property may be theft, but can it be freedom too?

As far as redistribution goes I’m still fairly torn (though thankfully not in Parecon-ish directions..yet?). Considering social media, I shuffled over to see what academic/activist danah boyd is up to, and came across a really interesting talk, “The Politics of Class online“, which looks at the way social networking sites (ie, MySpace, Facebook) mirror existant oppressive societal structures, and entreats the audience to examine their own privileges. I found this idea of a digital public sphere fascinating too:

In many ways, the Internet is providing a next generation public sphere. Unfortunately, it’s also bringing with it next generation divides. The public sphere was never accessible to everyone. There’s a reason than the scholar Habermas talked about it as the bourgeois public sphere. The public sphere was historically the domain of educated, wealthy, white, straight men. The digital public sphere may make certain aspects of public life more accessible to some, but this is not a given. And if the ways in which we construct the digital public sphere reinforce the divisions that we’ve been trying to break down, we’ve got a problem.

How does this map to art – and especially street art versus (often institutionally approved/granted) – the very physical public sphere – in the shape of streets and the urban fabric – isn’t accessible to anyone either…

Unrelatedly, these photos are again from Srinagar, from a carpet weaving factory called Ali Shah, as well as the adjacent showrooms of the finished product. Each of these carpets take one person two years to complete, with twelve hour days and six day weeks – probably more though. The conditions were well lit, clean, chemical free and not sweatshop like – but I do wonder if they would seem like so to an American/similar? The guy showing us around seemed a bit evasive, and was quick to assure me that the weavers are taken out for “picnics to the park and things like that” (general quote). They really are close to works of art though, and indeed many of the weavers – although their names would be perennially unknown- will often sign their names into the finished product, which can run several lakhs of rupees – I suspect they don’t get too much of it. I really liked that though – like the handicraft equivalent of sewing something inside a sleeve – I wonder if other craftspeople do similar with handmade goods? Or even if there are invisible signatures and names floating unknown and perhaps underfoot everywhere – the thready equivalent of a digital signature maybe?

Kashmir’s considered the most militarised zone on the planet, with a general ratio of 6/7 soldiers to every civillian. Brutality, atrocities and clashes ensue, with the standard being stone throwing, fires and gun battles, yet unlike its counterpart intifadas in Palestine, this insurgency has been going strong without pause for over 20 years. There’s actually a lot of parallels between Kashmir and Palestine, with the military occupations (in this case, India, Pakistan and China), checkpoints and independence movements being only the beginning. Replete with the same “liberate..into a state? what.” dilemmas, further exacerbated with my being half Kashmiri and fairly confused to boot. The picture above (from Reuters) is from Maisuma, an area in the inner city also dubbed “Gaza Mitty” by locals – ie, ‘the Gaza Strip’. Here’s a couple of poses and surreptitious shots from the boys in brown-camo from slightly more peaceful days (minus checkpoint shots which proved near impossible).

Perhaps it was intensified as a Hartal (general strike) had been called for the day we arrived in Srinagar, Kashmir. The reason(s) – the recovered throat-slit body of a missing 20 year old, police inaction/corruption, the conflict in general, and probablyt the recent Shopian gangrapes/murders too. With the hartal on, the streets were eerie-quet and all shutters down, with only the police and soldiers, with their batons and AK47s respectively, keeping a silent watch on the city. The clashes were generally localised in certain areas, and havingt o attend mekhal functions coupled with very paranoid parents meant near house arrest when things got bad. One day we drove up to Gulmarg, and were lucky to miss a grenade blast by about an hour. It’s fairly high at 9000 feet though, and my mother got altitude sickness which turned out pretty harrowing anyway.

Yeah and the part about ridiculously beautiful mountains, lakes, landscapes, and righteously kitschy urbanscapes? There’s a lot of it, though with the lovelies at DU still blocking Flickr, it’ll have to wait will I get back to NYC. And possibly find housing and/or a place to leech wireless? Next summer I’d like to be a better photographer please?