Keep Yer Coins

In the past days, Humboldt Squids have migrated north to the coast of California, expanding their territory due to climate change. A perfectly normal thing » Read the rest of this entry «

It was just a few days ago Michael Jackson upset a crowd at the O2 arena in London.  It also seems a few days ago, when my parents took me to one of his concerts at River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires.  We sat in the back.  The sound was the worst I’d ever heard, I can actually say there was no distinguishable sound.  I can also remember » Read the rest of this entry «

This essay will try to define and comprehend the concept of the spectacle as understood by Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard. It will look at how this concept, together with Baudrillard’s concept of Simulation, and the Situationists International have influenced contemporary art, particularly in the category of performance, happenings and arts criticism of the mass media. It is relevant to mention, that as the Situationist International » Read the rest of this entry «

It’s been a week since I came back to London. It took longer for my mind to arrive, and it finally did yesterday at the London College of Fashion graduate’s show.

It was delayed for an hour, in which I sat by my better half and friends fiddling with my hands, my eyes heavy, and stomach growling for a burger. I sat on the third row at the very beginning of the catwalk and dreamed on.
The lights turned off and the fashionista music rose to a deafening volume. A spotlight turned on illuminating the beginning of the catwalk. There was a moment where everything stopped, the music played but the scilence was numbing. As my eyes lightened and a long leged burger walked on to the catwalk.  It stopped right about where I was sitting, turned in its place and faced me opening it’s arms.

The lights turned off and the fashionista music rose to a deafening volume.  I was exited to see my friends work on the catwalk.  I’d seen some of their designs, but I wasn’t ready for what would come.  Clothes in movement look much better, usually.

Irene Brandt

I am an outsider insider to fashion, so I will try my best and comment about the show.  I’d like to start by Irene Brandt, who displayed an elegant collection inspired in Guillermo Kuitca’s theatre paintings.  A concise collection made of silk and wool, with a black, grey and soft beige palette.  Everything sown and finished to perfection.  It is worth mentioning her hand held purses and rope legings stood out in the collection.

Joseph Lazo 1

Josef Lazo 2

Josef Lazo 3

Second, Josef Lazo presented a sexy collection with painted fabrics, soft fabrics and rough fabrics.  I saw a lot of legs out in the air, which to me is a plus.  Also, very elegant body suits made of rough looking painted fabrics, alway’s keeping elegance and quality before anything else.

Fran and Jess

Fran & Jess 2

My two favourite though, I must admit were Frances & Laetitia.  Their series, bodering on coherence, displayed a mixture of fur, batik, hoodies, fury leggings, polygonal patching and crazy punk shoes.  It was surprise after surprise, and the coolest most extravagant clothes in the show, I found much of them actually wearable.  Perhaps not all at once, but combined with other things.

Anyway, this is the opinion of someone who knows nothing about fashion, but enjoy’s it none the less.

Thanks to “Serbias Ambassador to the World” for quoting a passage from one of the articles in this blog.  It is a great site working for Serbia against the negative propaganda that the media has spread along the years.

“Serbia’s Ambassador To The World core mission is to change the negative image of Serbia that has been present for many years, and systematically begin repairing Serbia’s image in the world. The way we do this is mostly by getting the right information to the right people at the right time, combining frequent posts to Serbia’s Ambassador blog and diplomatic relations, with blog comments and editorial replies in response to online news and editorials about Serbia.”

To know more about it, and read about Serbia, visit Serbias Ambassador To The World website.

I was happy to see the day was grey when I rose late this morning. I took my time to get out of bed and make a coffee. The hostel was quiet and empty bottles lay on every surface. I made myself a Turkish coffee and smoked a cigarette on the balcon. At 12, I started out to photograph the city.

My first destination was NATO street, as I call it. Perhaps Serbians call it the same way, I don’t know. Along a distance of 400 hundred meters you can find the American embassy, the Polish one, Croatian, Canadian and German. Also the bombed Police Headquarters and Central military headquarters. These two buildings were bombed in 1999 by NATO.

The American embassy looks like a bunker. The windows have been covered with steel sheets and cement. It is situated on a corner, and the perpendicular street to NATO street is barrackaded and cars need a special permit and security check to go through. The residents of the area are not very happy to have to go through this every time they return home.

Across from the bombed Police Headquarters is the new Police Headquarter. I wasn’t very welcome when I photographed the facade. A police officer ran towards me from his booth. I played stupid and walked away.

At the military headquarters I took some photos from the street. There is a wall made from metal panels so one can’t see at street level what is behind. I asked a military guard if there was any possibility to enter the building to photograph. He said I could only do it from the street. I wouldn’t give up that easy. I climbed a tree were the guard couldn’t see me, or I couldn’t see him. I made a shot and he pulled me down by the heel. He had told me it was not possible to photograph inside. I said I was sorry, and he told me I should delete the photo. Fortunately it was a film camera. Unfortunately he wanted to take me in and get the film. I once again said I was sorry and that I was a student from Argentina.

“Argentina!” he exclaimed, “Ok, but please don’t take photos inside the building.”

“I’m sorry.” I shook his hand and introduced myself properly.

We talked about politics. Kosovo was mentioned, America was mentioned. Chavez, Che Guevara, Hugo Morales and Fidel Castro. I asked Ivan if I could photograph him. He smiled, I could tell he was flattered, but he was doubtful about it. He said that if somebody saw this he would get in trouble. In the end he said I could photograph him from behind, only because I was from Argentina. I made him walk towards the wall and shot. All throughout, he looked worried that someone might see us. When it was over, we walked away in opposite directions.

It started raining. I went into a street restaurant to rest and have some food and write my diary. I spend one hour there until it stopped raining. A city’s tempo changes dramatically when it rains, I enjoyed seeing this happen for a short time. When it stopped the normal tempo was restored.

I would like to make clear that I am aware of some mistakes in my writing for the posts of this trip.  I am blogging from a phone and on the go, so I tend to make things short.  For the spelling mistakes, blame Apple, they don’t seem to be very good at literary skills.

Hi everybody, I am proud to say I will be part of “30.” exhibition which will take place at Shoreditch Townhall Basement in the end of April.  I hope to see you all at the private view on the 28th of April at 7pm.

Press Release – March 2009

30. Shoreditch Town Hall Basement

28th of April – 2nd of May 2009

Tuesday – Friday 10am-6pm

Saturday 12-6pm

The Basement Project is proud to present 30., a collective exhibition of thirty

emerging photographers whose common denominator is experimentation,

diversity and innovation.

30. aims to bring together broad ranging photographic and visual disciplines

through a non-conventional approach. The show seeks to immerse the

viewers within the labyrinthine basement in the Shoreditch Town Hall,

allowing for unconstrained exploration whilst creating unique narrative paths

around the work.

30. encourages an open dialogue between photographic works and

installations that incorporate found objects and video projections. By pushing

and blending the boundaries of photographic genres, the show creates an

atmosphere that is at the same time familiar and estranging.

30. reflects the uneasiness and malaise that characterizes our everyday life,

from the personal to the political, while asserting the need to creatively

negotiate the spaces around us. It is through this need that we reaffirm our

desire for openness and diversification, for an encounter with the real that is

not prejudiced by grandeur or mastery. By interrogating the relationship

between individual subjectivities and given states of reality, the show unfolds

the moment where the personal engages the social.

Private View: Tuesday 28th of April 7-10 PM

Free Admission

Shoreditch.Basement.Project@gmail.com

380 Old Street, London, EC1V 9LT – 020 77396176 -

More information at http://30-photography.blogspot.com/ .

See ya.. !

Artists working at the London Design Museum will be exhibiting their work at the Shoreditch Town Hall from the 27th of March to the 29th.

The private view will be held on the 26th at 7pm, and will be a great occasion to see the work and meet the artists, so make some space in that busy agenda of yours and pop in for a drink.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.” (Marx and Engels, The communist Manifesto.)

According to the latest news the world is in an unprecedented economical crisis.  I was born in Argentina, a country in constant crisis, and I’ve seen crisis where people raid supermarkets because they don’t have anything to eat, where the banks freeze your money while they devaluate the coin to return you only an oat from your oatmeal, where the raided supermaket owner shoots himself the following day because he’s lost his lifes achievement.  Nothing to be proud of, but one should never look away from these things.  That has never afected the first world.  In england today, the media fills us with panic advertisement for the current economical crisis.

But is anybody, specially the economical institutions, aware of the crisis or trying to do anything for a change?  It is in times like this that there has to be a call for the restructuring of burocratic and government institutions, not only cut bonuses, and bail out banks, but optimize these institutions for future “happenings” (which never happen by themselves).  Has anybody heard anything about restructuring or change? 

Banks are on the edge of the cliff, but no action has been taken within the institutions.  For some, it is made impossible to open a bank account.  It seems as if they are not interested in having peoples money.  Lets take my case.  I go to Barclays Bank to open a bank account with my proof of address and enrolment letter to university.  I am an EU citizen.  But no, because I don’t have an id card from my country of origin, Denmark, I don’t “qualify” for an international student bank account.  As I have not been living in the UK for more than 3 years, then I don’t qualify for a UK Student Bank account.  But I don’t work either, because I have a student grant from the Danish government which I am lucky enough to be able to live from, so I don’t qualify for any other type of account.  

Now my thought on this is the following.  A university student is a potencial earner in the coming years, hopefuly he will be making good money and buying a house and getting hooked up on a loans and debts, having to work for the bank, not for himself.  Added to this, there is an economical crisis in which banks cannot sustain themselves because many costumers have withdraw their money, amongst other “bigger” reasons.  So why on earth don’t they take peoples money, and potencial money.  A good buisness man would keep potential costumers happy as they would do with their current costumers.  So banks, at least Barklays Bank, seems to be managed by a bunch of retards who have no idea what to do in the current crisis.  There needs to be a call for restructuring, and it has to happen now.  Not when the world has finally fallen appart and people really suffer from it.

Stop calling the crisis as if it were a morning cereal (“Credit Crunch” is the term used in England), and start calling it a CRISIS, we need to take this seriously.

Credit Crunch Morning Cereal

The guard and the nun, TAH, 2007.

 A story unfolds from a captured moment.  One thousand stories one could tell about an image, and yet, all a product of our imagination.  For a story did unfold when the image was taken, but most likely one which has nothing to do with ours.  The story is not contained in the image, it is the viewer who projects a flux of narratives and speculations on the image, falsly atributing this flux to the image.  Even so, only a powerful photo can set us off in this way and create a dialogue between image and viewer.  

In order for a photograph to set of this flux, you need a creative viewer, otherwise no narrative would emerge from the heart of the photo.  This takes me to think that one has to consider, even when it is merely photographing reality, the audience to which the image will be exposed.  Without an appropiate viewer the image will not have a life of it’s own, and is most likely to be lost in infinity.