Image: Weniwasu, Excetra, 2020 (cover art by HKE)
Kagami Smile and MOD-COMM 81’s new collaborative album as weniwasu has just dropped this week, Excetra on Dream Catalogue. Here’s one of the eerie, captivating, dreampunk tracks, ‘Through the Ground’. Love it. Check it out.
Artwork: by Addam Yekutieli, Separate Reality/Shared Reality, Jerusalem, 2020 (photo: @kid_aroke)
Isreali artist Adam Yekutieli (aka @thisislimbo; Know Hope; www.thisislimbo.com/signsofhope), has created a series of “textual collage” paste-ups situated around Jerusalem addressing the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a snapshot of people’s responses to the crisis that hopefully allows viewers to connect with each other despite the isolating and potentially devastating experience. This resonates as in Melbourne we’re at the tail-end of a Level-4 lockdown. Thankfully the number of transmissions, infections and deaths in Victoria, and within Australia, have been far lower than many countries world-wide. Here’s the text featured on the two paste-ups pictured here:
Artwork: by Addam Yekutieli, Separate Reality/Shared Reality, Jerusalem, 2020 (photo: @kid_aroke)
“They weren’t able to see my difficulty with this (21).
I was disappointed to see how many people don’t understand that we’re all (14) meaningful (38).
At first there was hope (28), but in order to allow everyone (36) to fill the space that loneliness took (28), I made sure to lower expectations (34).
I’ve been trying to let go (20) the fact that I still hold a grudge against them for that (21).
It seems that the success of this (16) is the ability to be an anchor for others (23).”
“Those who make the decisions still think that they have control (34).
The transition wasn’t easy (29), but the boundaries (28) and worry were replaced with hope (28).
After all, hope (23) is a furious, large and shared prayer (23).
We will remember this year (5).”
And here’s Yekutieli’s explanation of the project:
“The happening of Covid-19 is immensely collective, but our experiences are immaculately personal.
I recently collected testimonials written by Jerusalem residents regarding the first quarantine period, requesting them to share their experiences, reflections and lessons learned from these times.
I later created a ‘textual collage’ by extracting fragments of sentences from their texts and rearranging and connecting them to fragments from other participant’s words, to create new stories.
These stories, composed of individual and personal descriptions of experiences, now depict a ‘collective experience’, creating newfound notions and highlighting similarities and broader issues.
Posters with these texts were installed around Jerusalem’s city center for people to recognise slivers of their experience, see it in a new light and understand their part in the larger, shared reality.
This project, titled 'Separate Reality/Shared Reality' was produced in collaboration with and as part of the @israel.festival.
Thank you to all the participants who shared their stories, to @vainernimrod, @kid_aroke and @lebonsworld for the working hands and to the Israel Festival for the opportunity.”
Something beautiful and meditative. Surfer John John Florence and Parallel Sea produced a series of short films called VELA, and here’s a short piece featuring the musician/composer Ron Artis II from North Shore, Oahu, creating original music for the series that ended up not being used, paired with footage of a surf session of Nathan Florence in Line Islands, Pacific Ocean.
Image: Poem by @r.cliftpoetry
This says a lot…
Artwork: Paste-up by @adidafallenangel, Montreal, 2018
Massive wheatpaste 3 piece by @adidafallenangel, created in 2018 for the Underpressure international graffiti festival in Montreal.
A great reminder: Make Art. Live Free. Love Life.
Artwork: SETH, ‘Face covering required/Port du heaume obligatoire’ Part 1 , Paris, la Butte-aux-Cailles, 2020
A wonderful new series by SETH Face covering required, where he “took advantage of an empty Paris to paint my feelings about our new world.” (@seth_globepainter')
Like Studio Drift, Refik Anadol’s art centres on the intersections of art, technology and nature. Anadol’s mesmerising and immersive Black Sea: Data Sculpture explores the relationship between simulation and reality, and the human desire to create stories that mediate our perceptions of how we make sense of the world.
From Anadol’s website: “‘Black Sea’ is a kinetic data sculpture that explores the organic interaction between representation and reflection. Using high frequency radar collections provided by Turkish State Meteorological Service of the Black Sea, this piece aims to highlight the symbiotic interplay of technology, art, and nature in relation to humanity’s quest to push the limits of possibility. Our modes of representation and inquiry become a part of our natural world, reflecting and augmenting our perceptions of reality. In our quest for resolution, stories offer us a simulated environment that are in fact just as real as nature itself. The transformation of this sea surface data collection becomes then not just a means of visualizing information, but rather a transmutation of our desire for understanding into a poetic experience.”
I came across musician RY X (Australian singer-songwriter Ry Cuming) via his band The Acid and their album Liminal before I discovered his music with Frank Wiedemann as the duo Howling. RY X’s vocals are distinctive in both bands, which feature minimal electronic sounds: ghostly, meditative, intimate and a touch melancholic. Just last week Howling released their album Colure, and prior to the drop I’d been listening to the gorgeous track Bind on repeat. Check it out.
Artwork: by @ami_imaginaire_streetart, Paris
a pink paper bird
in a tree
unlikely
unseemly
but beautiful
© Angela Jooste
Artwork: mural by Millo, Beyond the Sea, Monopoli, Italy, 2020
Wonderful new mural from Millo (@millo) Beyond the Sea in Monopoli (Italy) for @_phest_ festival.
The mural is about shelter, climate change, and the the tropicalization of the Mediterranean sea. It’s an important reminder that even while the world is focused on the pandemic, the climate change crisis is still a priority.
Millo’s description of the project : “It's typical of marine environments to change in relation to climatic fluctuations, but the combination of this change with other ecological stressors such as pollution, eutrophication, anoxia, fishing pressure, the acidification of the oceans let us think that the new species arriving in the seas are not the main problem but that there won't be any species left at all in the future if we continue to ignore how strong is our impact on the ecosystem.
The tropicalization of the Mediterranean should not be regarded as something apocalyptic or irreversible we can make a huge difference by acting consciously towards our environment.”
Artwork: Trailblazer’ by pipsqueak was here (@pipsqueakwashere)
Just a girl and her friend creating a new path in the wild…
Wonderful work titled Traliblazer from duo @pipsqueakwashere.
I’ve been listening to this a LOT! Vaal’s awesome remix of Elison 404 & 404 Guild’s track Morning Mist (2020). Vaal is a big fave of mine since I heard her mind-blowing and original mix (2018) on DHA FM (Deep House Amsterdam) Mix #347 (listen here). I keep going back to it, as well as Vaal’s album Nosferatu (2019) released on her label Pale Blue Dot, which features a number of tracks from the DHA mix. Anyhow, check this out!
Image: charcoal sketch by @emelimartensson_illustration
I’ve posted before about my love of the fashion brand 5PREVIEW, headed by Creative Director Emeli Martensson. The first top I bought from them was an oversized dark grey, silk-jersey t-shirt with “WHATEVER” printed in black. I wore it ragged and today, i’ve got a simple white t-shirt version that’s become an iconic part of their collection. For me, it encapsulates letting anything happen; letting go of control and just seeing what comes; that anything is possible, and confronted with the world and all it can throw at you, it’s like a shrug and a release and a giving into the moment and just letting yourself be—WHATEVER.
Artist Olafur Eliasson, in conjunction with the Goethe Institut across the EU, has developed an art project that allows kids to create an artwork that speaks up for the future of the planet, and that adults can listen to what they have to say. It gives kids a voice on environmental issues, and the opportunity to connect and collaborate with a global audience. Earth Speakr is free of charge and comprises an app, website (https://earthspeakr.art/en), physical presentations and more!
Olafur Eliasson wrote this about the project:
“Earth Speakr is a collective artwork that invites kids to be artists. What Earth Speakr will become depends on the Earth Speakrs – their creativity and imagination. The artwork is made up of their thoughts and visions, concerns and hopes. What they create can be playful and whimsical, serious, or poetic. There is no right or wrong, and it is easy for everyone to take part. Earth Speakr invites kids to speak their hearts and minds and participate in shaping our world and the planet, today and in the future.”
Trying to stay true…
The winter solstice this year was a doozy: a solar eclipse, new moon, solstice trifecta. It’s wonderful to know the days will be getting longer as the sun’s light becomes more prominent.
Flipping to the northern hemisphere, here’s a short film by director/photographer Lewis Arnold Solstice 58.58° documenting a trip made on the Summer Solstice exploring pertinent issues of sustainability, creativity, revolutionary surfboard designs and travel during these challenging times.
Set in northernmost Scotland the film features Easkey Britton, Sandy Kerr and Chris Noble musing on alternative ways to approach taking a journey “in search of pristine Atlantic waves and the liminal Solstice light.”
Artwork: installation by JR and OSGEMEOS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016
Artist JR (@jr) posted this yesterday on IG, a timely reminder of a project he worked on with the Sao Paulo twins OSGEMEOS (Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo) in the tunnels under the Palais de Tokyo, Paris in 2016:
Artwork: installation by JR and OSGEMEOS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016
“4 years ago, with my brothers @osgemeos we did a very special project in the basement of the @palaisdetokyo #LascoProject@hugovitrani.
During Occupation (1940-1944), the basement of the Palais de Tokyo was requisitioned to store the 1200 pianos stolen by the Nazis to the Jews. Working on the walls and on memory, we used archive images, paintings, and drew candles on the ceilings. The pianos and the pianists came back. For security reasons, these pieces are not accessible to the public. They will stay forever on these walls and our memory.
Racism and antisemitism kill. We must refuse them.”
Recently I discovered Malorie Blackman’s YA series, Noughts & Crosses. First by watching the BBC adaptation of the books, which is excellent, then, I began reading the books (and I’m hooked!).
Bringing into razor sharp focus the corrosiveness of racism and prejudice, Blackman reverses the racial hierarchy where Blacks (Crosses) dominate Whites (noughts) to emphasise how discrimination based on skin colour infects all aspects of life, including love.
Here’s a précis from Malorie Blackman’s website:
“A Book of Love
‘Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be. Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make out time and our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.’
‘Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.’
‘Radical superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination.’
Sephy is a Cross – a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a nought – a ‘colourless’ member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood. But that’s as far as it can go. Until the first steps are taken towards more social equality and a limited number of Noughts are allowed into Cross schools… Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity by Noughts, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum – a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger…”
(www.malorieblackman.co.uk)
Truth ❤️
Image: Words by David W Orr, mural by @creativaty
Artwork: Jenny Holzer from Survival series, San Francisco, 1987
“Turn soft & lovely anytime you have a chance”
Jenny Holzer’s truism from her Survival series (1987, San Francisco) seems an appropriate reminder for navigating life with grace, even during difficult times.
However, there’s always a dark undercurrent to Holzer’s work that layers the truism’s message, in this case the message has been interpreted as referring to women through time being encouraged to be deferential and obliging in their behaviour, often simply to survive, instead of being vocal and strident. The double edge meaning can also be a sign for balance—that both softness and stridency is equally effective when the situation calls for it.
Today, I see it as a sign for kindness, to oneself and others. Any chance you get.