Sunday, 19 August 2012

Manic Pixie Dream Dissidents

Imagine this: The three men sit in court, awaiting their verdict. The youngest, a experienced dissident described by the media as a “sultry sex symbol” with “Angelina Jolie lips”, glances at his colleague, an activist praised by the Associated Press for his “pre-Raphaelite looks”. Between them sits a third man, whose lack of glamour has led the New Republic to label him “the brain” and deem his hair a “poof of dirty blonde frizz”. The dissidents – or “boys” as they are called in headlines around the world – have been the subject of numerous fashion and style profiles ever since they first spoke out against the Russian government. “He’s a flash of moving color,” the New York Times writes approvingly about their protests, “never an individual boy.”
If this sounds ridiculous, it should – and not only because I changed the gender. These are actual excerpts from the Western media coverage of Pussy Riot, the Russian dissident performance art collective sentenced to two years in prison for protesting against the government. Pussy Riot identifies as feminist, but you would never know it from the Western media, who celebrate the group with the same language that the Russian regime uses to marginalize them. The three members of Pussy Riot are “girls”, despite the fact that all of them are in their twenties and two of them are mothers. They are “punkettes”, diminutive variations on a 1990s indie-rock prototype that has little resemblance to Pussy Riot’s own trajectory as independent artists and activists. “Why is Vladimir Putin afraid of three little girls?” asked Huffington Post columnist Ron Galloway, intending it as a compliment...
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(Thanx Josh!)

Viona, Pussy Riot, and the Russian Winter

Pussy Riot trial gives Russia 'the image of a medieval dictatorship'

Steve Reich - Drumming

The Cole Conservatory New Music Ensemble (Directed by Dr. Dave Gerhart)

Inside Scientology's Rehab Racket

Josh Bryan: Einstein

(Click to enlarge)

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Bombin' (1987 Documentary About British Graffiti and Hip-Hop Culture)

First broadcast in 1987 on the UK's Channel 4, Bombin' was directed by documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine and was a sequel to his earlier 1984 documentary "Beat This!", once again taking a look at how American hip-hop culture was making its way over the pond to the UK, this time using the lens of the graffiti and tagging subcultures.
The documentary offers a fascinating look at 1980's UK hip-hop and graffiti culture and specifically for Massive Attack fans, 3D during one segment is also featured tagging alongside future Drum n' Bass/Jungle musician Goldie in Birmingham. The two had already at this point setup the Trans-Atlantic Federation, a collective of UK/US based graffiti artists.
Perhaps the most interesting element of the Bombin' documentary, is when we see some of the British establishment's dismissal and even disdain to the tagging ethos and how that further alludes to the social implications of ethnicity and poverty, and their relationship with the hip-hop culture before it became widely accepted.
NB: sound improves after a couple of minutes
(Thanx DevHool!)

HA!

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Water Light Graffiti

The "Water Light Graffiti" is a surface made of thousands of LED illuminated by the contact of water. You can use a paintbrush, a water atomizer, your fingers or anything damp to sketch a brightness message or just to draw. Water Light Graffiti is a wall for ephemeral messages in the urban space without deterioration. A wall to communicate and share magically in the city.
More pictures and details on Digitalarti : bit.ly/O2v7aw
Water Light Graffiti is a project of Antonin Fourneau (atocorp.free.fr/)
Engineer : Jordan McRae
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Gay parades banned in Moscow for 100 years

Moscow's top court has upheld a ban on gay pride marches in the Russian capital for the next 100 years.

Earlier Russia's best-known gay rights campaigner, Nikolay Alexeyev, had gone to court hoping to overturn the city council's ban on gay parades.
He had asked for the right to stage such parades for the next 100 years.
He also opposes St Petersburg's ban on spreading "homosexual propaganda". The European Court of Human Rights has told Russia to pay him damages.
On Friday he said he would go back to the European Court in Strasbourg to push for a recognition that Moscow's ban on gay pride marches - past, present and future - was unjust.
The Moscow city government argues that the gay parade would risk causing public disorder and that most Muscovites do not support such an event.
In September, the Council of Europe - the main human rights watchdog in Europe - will examine Russia's response to a previous European Court ruling on the gay rights issue, Russian media report.
In October 2010 the court said Russia had discriminated against Mr Alexeyev on grounds of sexual orientation. It had considered Moscow's ban on gay parades covering the period 2006-2008.
@'BBC'
Image: Blue Noses Collective - Kissing Policemen (an Epoch of Clemency)