More nice and nonsensical images (and info-graphics for nothing in particular) right here
(Via Oh Colour Me In)
Posted in July 2011 …
DESCENDING INTO MEXICO CITY No. 004: ANTONIO VEGA MACOTELA
“Going dancing, visiting a prostitute, watching a son’s first steps, getting drunk at the baptism of a nephew: These are the kinds of ordinary pleasures and transgressions that make up everyday life, and artist José Antonio Vega Macotela has partaken of all of these experiences. There’s nothing remarkable about that – except that in each case, the life Macotela was living belonged to someone else. Neither the son nor the nephew was his, he didn’t know the woman with whom he went dancing, and he limited his interactions with the prostitute to conveying a greeting from somebody else. Over the course of his project Time Divisa (Time Currency), 2006-10, Macotela acted as a …”
–Excerpt from article by Chus Martines, from last month`s ArtForum Magazine
**
Oh yes. Toñito is back in town for some weeks–nopal accomplice, bisabuela medium, and artist extraordinaire; Mexico city boy, but now living in Amsterdam for a couple of years, since he was awarded the ultra prestigious Rijksakademie Residency scholarship.
The image above is part of the Time Divisa project, in which he would exchange time with prison inmates: while he was in the outside world doing errands on their behalf, they would simultaneously and under his instructions create an art work–many of which had to do with measuring the passing of time… here: a book of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, continuously scratched with a single fingernail by a prisoner while Toño did his deeds.
You can read more about it an interview I did with him right here.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
The end. Today it’s all over. Three decades of the Space Shuttle, with its many amazing successes and two horrible failures, are gone forever. This video shows those thirty years in one single launch.
The space shuttle was the most complex machine ever created. Even with all its faults, it was a mighty beast. Combined, the shuttles travelled 513.7 million miles (826.7 million km) in 135 missions. It’s an staggering number—we could have visited Jupiter!
As a spacenerd who never saw Saturn V roaring up to the skies, I couldn’t imagine a more amazing display of power and engineering prowess more amazing than the launch of the Space Shuttle. Strapped to 1.6 million pounds of liquid fuel and two solid rocket boosters pushing 5,600,000 pounds-force of liftoff thrust, it was a thing of beauty that we will never see again.
For someone who saw the original launch of Columbia as a kid, I’m finding it hard to believe that everything is over just three decades later. If I feel gutted today, I can’t even begin to imagine how people working in the program must feel. Still, I’m hopeful that things will get even more exciting in the coming years, hopefully with a mission to Mars and other planets. Until then, I’ll watch this video to remind me of the genius of human engineering and the American space program.
Godspeed Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. And thanks for all the fish.
(Text by Jesus Diaz, from Gizmodo. Video edited by Woody Allen Jang on an idea by Jesus Diaz. Additional video editing by Jesse Martinez)
(Click here or on the image to watch 30 Years of the Space Shuttle In One Single Launch)
HENRY MILLER AND ANAIS NIN ON DEATH AND DREAMS
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJHmzWDgG-c&feature=related[/youtube]
“Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself. All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. “
- Henry Miller
(gracias marÃa josefina)
VIRTUAL BORDERS NO MORE. AND FILM LOVERS REJOICE
This was a happy happy week.
Celebrating that I recently found out how to watch Netflix and Hulu in Mexico City–and surprised how simple it was.
The good folks over at hideipvpn.com have a great way of side-stepping boring protocols: follow their instructions and, from then onwards, with an easy click of a button: voilá! You have thousands of films and programs and talks at your disposal. (Did you even know that Hulu.com has a whole section devoted to Criterion Films? Amazing.)
“Your IP is hidden while using HideIPVPN. Make your traffic appear to originate from United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany or Canada. Access sites like Hulu, Pandora, ABC, NBC, BBC iPlayer, ITV… Create an account and start browsing anonymously.”
It`s almost too good to be true. Yet it is oh so very real. Have been happily overdosing on films for a week now, so I should know, ajá.
Click click click.
(NOT YET) DESCENDING INTO MEXICO CITY No. 003: ROSS MCDONNELL
The images above are by Ross McDonnell, and part of a photo series that he shot while filming “Colony“, a fabulous documentary co-directed by him and Carter Gunn. (Thom Powers–”Mr. Documentary” himself–recently mentioned it as one of his 20 favorite documentaries of the last 5 years.)
I met Ross over mezcales–as one should preferably meet when living in Mexico City. And after more of those, and many coffees, and films, he left for his home country (Ireland) to do a short project and was supposedly coming back quickly, since he is working on a project here as well–trailer here. Alas, this was many months ago, and our dear wayward Ross has been side-tracked by the UK, Japan, newly formed countries and who knows what other places and projects.
So Ross, when you read this: know that a drunken mariachi somewhere is howling your name in song, awaiting your return. A ver si es cierto que ahora sà en septiembre.
More of his work here.
***
BTW: I recently saw to my happy surprise that “Colony” is on Netflix, so do check it out.
And people outside of the USA: do not despair, the amazing http://hideipvpn.com will let your computer permanently pretend that it (and you) are on American grounds: and you can watch Colony and other thousands of movies to your heart’s content, without virtual border patrols breathing down your neck.
***
“We admire some documentaries for their artistry and others for their urgency. Rarely do we see a film that combines both those qualities as impressively as this debut by directors Carter Gunn and Ross McDonnell. Their unlikely topic is the world of honeybee keepers during the on-going crisis of “colony collapse disorder.” Beautifully photographed by McDonnell and skillfully edited by Gunn, their film “Colony†follows several American beekeepers over the course of eighteen months as the country’s economy spirals downward. Among them is David Hackenberg who first identified colony collapse disorder when he mysteriously lost 80 million bees from his Florida hives. Many keepers blamed insecticides for killing more than one quarter of bees in the U.S. But no one had any evidence. We see the beekeepers search for solutions, testify before politicians, and confront pesticide manufacturers. The mystery is like something out of science fiction and has dark implications for the future. Because our agriculture depends on pollination, when bees are in trouble, so is society.”
-Thom Powers, TIFF Programmer
NON-LINEAR STATE No. 047: DANCING
*
“Then you will teach him again to dance wrong side out
as in the frenzy of dance halls
and this wrong side out will be his real place.”
-A. Artaud-
*
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Tagged Camera, Digital, Who would have said
HAVE I SAID IT BEFORE? I AM LEARNING TO SEE
*
“Have I said it before? I am learning to see. Yes, I am beginning. It’s still going badly. But I intend to make most of my time. For example, it never occurred to me before how many faces there are. There are multitudes of people, but there are many more faces, because each person has several of them. There are people who wear the same face for years; naturally it wears out, gets dirty, splits at the seams, stretches, like gloves worn during a long journey. They are thrifty, uncomplicated people; they never change it, never even have it cleaned. It’s good enough, they say, and who can convince them of the contrary? Of course, since they have several faces, you might wonder what they do with the other ones. They keep them in storage. Their children will wear them. But sometimes it also happens that their dogs go out wearing them. And why not? A face is a face.”
-Fragment from “Faces”, a short story by Rainer Maria Rilke
*
LOS THROWAWAYS
Images by Keith Dannemiller.
My portrait project, Los Throwaways, is another station on a continuing photographic journey over the past 25 years in Mexico. It is an encounter with a group of ‘pepenadores’, garbage separators, who spend their day picking over and recycling some four thousand metric tons of refuse out of the thirteen thousand generated each day by the megalopolis that is Mexico City. A sufferable job, but one that has nonetheless sustained generations of families. These men and women work at the Bordo Poniente (Western Edge), which will be closed permanently on December 31, 2011. The long-standing tradition of the pepenador in Mexican society is slowly disappearing, but more importantly, some 1500 laborers will be out of work. Fortunately, a good portion of the trash of modern society that they sort is, in one way or another, recyclable and even reusable; sadly, as is usually the case, they and their jobs are not. For me, this project presents the possibility to discover directly something of the lives of this rather recalcitrant, closed group. They operate on their own, with tenuous ties to city authorities and outsiders. But the fact that they represent an outmoded work model places them in an extremely vulnerable position. Asked what they plan to do when left without a job, most have no idea.
***
(Yes. Bordo Poniente is closing. It is said to be the one of the 5 largest dumps in the world. The city government argues it is for the best, since the contamination it provokes in the area is extremely high: it releases almost 1.5 million tons of methane per year, according to the Clinton Foundation. The new plans promise new methods of recycling, greener areas, cleaner air, the possibility of rescuing the lake near by. So we shall see what we shall see. Though, meanwhile, as Keith points out, it is strange how ‘sustainable solutions’ rarely take the local human element into account.)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIKINI!
Says Time Magazine:
The unveiling of the newly named bikini was a spectacle that almost didn’t happen. It seemed designer Louis Réard had a hard time finding a woman willing to model the skimpy suit. Luckily for him — and millions of beachgoers to come — a 19-year-old French showgirl by the name of Micheline Bernardini rose to the challenge. Introducing the small suit to the world on July 5, 1946, Bernardini strutted in the newspaper-printed, G-string bikini for a fashion event at the Piscine Molitor, a popular swimming pool in Paris. Unsurprisingly, the suit was a headline-making success and Bernardini received over 50,000 fan letters.
And take a look at the Top 10 bikinis in pop culture here
(In case you were wondering: she is now 65 years old as of last week)
(v @PedroMeyer)
NON-LINEAR STATE No. 046: NI DE AQUI NI DE ALLA
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD3G6eM3tPI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Facundo Cabral, Argentinian Singer and Songwriter, shot to death a few days ago in Guatemala.
(This song was improvised and invented during one of his concerts, some time ago)
NON-LINEAR STATE No. 044: LIVING TWICE
*
“Another, that while we sleep here, we are awake somewhere else, so that every man is in fact two men.”
Jorge Luis Borges
*
TWO MEN
And one the same: Jorge Luis Borges. Portraits by my very dear Pedro Meyer.
(Was at Pedro’s house yesterday for lunch, dinner and almost breakfast; as always, returned home with a mind-full of things.)
(Gracias Pedrito y Nadia)
—
“Un hombre se propone la tarea de dibujar el mundo. A lo largo de los años puebla un espacio con imágenes de provincias, de reinos, de montañas, de bahÃas, de naves, de islas, de peces, de habitaciones, de instrumentos, de astros, de caballos y de personas. Poco antes de morir, descubre que ese paciente laberinto de lÃneas traza la imagen de su cara.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY x 2
Image by Juliana Beasley, who gave a fabulous Tóxico Lab workshop for emerging Mexican photographers several months ago.
(Was great to catch up with her in NYC last week and hear about all that she has been up to since I last saw her.)