Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anarchism, ☭☭☭, collective amnesia, doris salcedo, el otro lado, eyal weizman, gentrification, green scare, istanbul biennial, postco, postracial scars, property not people, racism, RAF, rupture reveals structure, sds, seattle, shibboleth, violence, weather underground, western freedoms
A lot of things can happen between the gaps, and down little alleyways and other narrow spaces between one building and the next. Like this installation by Doris Salcedo at the 2003 Istanbul Biennial, which fills a gap between buildings by lowering in 1600 chairs. Or this ridiculous house in Seattle, found by Kyle Gabouer. He says that it was owned and inhabited by an elderly woman, who “was so insistent on living her last days in the home that no matter the price, she refused to sell it in order to make way for construction. The contractors decided they’d build around her. I heard that she recently passed, and the building isn’t even finished yet…” Something to think about with “Manhttanville”, perhaps?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: allen ginsberg, america, ☭☭☭, expat, headspace, nationalism?, possibility, western freedoms
[photo by Jacques Strappe]
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
MORE: THERE’S NOTHING ON THE TV NOTHING ON THE RADIO THAT I CAN BELIEVE IN
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, ☭☭☭, banksy, cctv, china, civil liberties, film, FISA, free speech?, privacy?, spy bill, street art, surveillance society, western freedoms
[photo by view-askew]
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So everyone’s all up about their western freedoms and civil liberties, post-Sweden. The FISA affair can only mean another little Democratic heartbreak, though perhaps nothing will top the ‘Public Finance? Eh, No Thanks’. Chris Dodd remains a kind of baller though, or as much as once can be while still plugged into recementing electoral politics? While they’re busy buttressing up the telecoms anyway, some more cctv related stuffs, including a Manchester band that filmed a video entirely on CCTV, for want of cash. Is this what post-lofi looks like?
In Montreal, even the fashion police are in on the act, using it both to track suspected criminals and, ridiculously, monitor the brand spreading of corporate logos. I wonder if it would make people start dressing more consciously – a kind of Hearst/ Condé Nast elevator effect? Hopefully those ridiculous Louis Vuitton and Gucci monogrammed prints will be the first to come under fire? |
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Above is a sweet stencil found in Marseilles by Tai Bright. It’s a little scary how similar they are in shape. I guess photography can be kind of violent though, with all the shooting terminology?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, ☭☭☭, billboard, billboard liberation front, BLF, civil liberties, consumerism, culture jamming, FISA, obama, privacy?, spy bill, surveillance society, western freedoms, wiretapping
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I’m not much of a Kant fan to be honest. Or of universal morality in general (sorry Megan, Sarah, that guy at the next table who moved to the other end of the Hungarian Pastry Shop). This culture jammed billboard by the aptly named Billboard Liberation Front, however, I can definitely get behind. |
A pretty rad anticonsumerist (and often anti-smoking, it seems) group, the BLF have been altering/improving billboards for a few decades now. I especially like that the original advertisers of each project are listed as the ‘clients’ that these subversions are executed ‘on behalf of’. You can find their pretty solid anti-advertising manifesto here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ☭☭☭, civil liberties, google, lex orwell, patriot act, privacy?, surveillance society, sweden, western freedoms, wiretapping
 [photo by karmalize] |
Whoa. So something very akin to the US Patriot Act has just been passed in Sweden, authorising the government to wiretap. Pretty sneakily, given the nighttime vote + Euro Cup timing. Phones, faxes and email are now all fair game.. And OK so I no longer believe it to be the socialist happy paradise I once thought it was, but this is somewhat unbelievable? It doesn’t seem like Scandinavia in general is anywhere on any terror organisations’ radars. At most, maybe Denmark, after the Mohammad cartoon controversy (which seems to have seen a reprise that I missed, but eh, Sweden, really?
Seems like there’s a mad backlash on the blogosphere but to no avail. Shockingly, even Google is refusing to host its servers there anymore. They’re still collaborating in China, though – guess there’s not so much dough to be sucked out of Sweden. As a Swedish friend noted, ‘if Google cares about human rights you know its bad. |
| Interestingly, I haven’t been able to find all that much in english about this. Apparently the Swedish blogosphere is dominated by teenage fashionistas? Not that I could find many of those either, save for démode. Perhaps (un)surprisingly, they all don’t seem to mention the new act. lifeiscarbon has some sweet design stuff though, and a look at (even more) fashion inspired by Piet Mondrian. |  |
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