THANK YOU

D.I.Y

 

 These concepts excite me. The thought of D.I.Y. gives the same excitement as when I was in grade 5, and would tape songs off the radio and distribute them to my class mates as top 5's, I had this weird Norwegian kid named Trigve who helped me. 

 My girlfriend, who unfortunately lives on the other side of the country, is apart of a community which revolves around local social capital. She belongs to a group of women who are all entrepreneurs, they are using this concept to remain separate from the recession as it is affecting Edmonton's oil based economy greatly. These women all run small businesses and try to only buy from each other. Karen makes women's clothing and sells it at the meetings, in turn she buys her feminine products or anything the group provides through their circle. If she wanted to open up a store there the group would put up the money for it, they all pitch in a thousand dollars twice a year and it goes into an investment, twice a year she receives seven times the amount she put in to the investment. Not a bad racket. While the caucasian families who have been in Edmonton for several generations are wallowing in stress, the immigrants are sticking together and getting richer. 

 Part of me cackles like some evil villain boiling a child in a cauldron when I think of all those jerk off rig pigs. Jobless. With lease payments for their ski-doo's and pick up trucks bashing there swollen testicles into reality. My girlfriend is moving here in august, thankfully, hopefully we can find a similar community or create one here in Montreal. If it can happen in Edmonton it can happen anywhewre. 

EDIBLE EXCESS.

Despite all my travels I still have troubles shaking the disturbing scenes of an Albertan shopping mall, lifeless slugs, screaming brats, trophy wives, blindly following their consumer instincts through those horrible labyrinth's of food courts, outlet stores and junk kiosks. Its Fear and Loathing In West Edmonton, bare witness Eddy Bernay's successful massacre of the human spirit.

Wednesdays field trip gave me some hope, for many reasons. Not only for the actions being taken by people to thwart the beast, but also because the upper echelon of the art world is looking at some counter cultural youth movements as important catalysts for change.

Seeing Steve Alba's name at the Canadian Centre For Architecture really took me by surprise. As a teen I idolized the whole Californian skate movement, the music as well. My shit poor garage band mainly covered T.S.O.L. tunes and of course the Circle Jerks and Black Flag. I loved the whole energy, and nothing topped it all off like seeing Salba, Gator etc... shred pools that werent theirs!! I tried to mimic this lifestyle the best I could living in Airdrie, unfortunately prairie bedroom communities dont have too many pools.

The most inspiring part of the exhibit was reading about the contemporary actions being taken by people in North America and Europe. Urban Gardens in London that actually produce vegetables, Turin using sheep to mow grass, Edible Excess stickers and the fascinating protest of new development in San Bernardo, Seville Spain. Its so good to know that people are getting active, smart people, people with money, hopefully if there is enough of us we can create our own beast. The energy is here in Montreal, it just needs to be harnessed. Two sundays ago Craig and I witnessed it first hand, as we watched through the lenses of our cameras, mobs of angry youth hurl rocks and bottles at riot police. The act of documentation is apparently grounds for arrest now, and found us detained for several hours, still well worth the footage.

What we witnessed was a display of wild youthful disobedience, with no brains behind it. It looks bad but it will come in handy, and it isn't as poorly received as one would think. A french buisnessman with grey hair passed me on the sidewalk and asked me why these kids were breaking windows and throwing rocks at the police, i replied "because they hate them" he smiled and said "they should". People of all ages and class know the world is getting fucked over, and their unhappy about it. Some fight it by not showering and being pissed off all the time, some are starting to fight it with organization and logic. Both are needed. The owner of the Indian import store down the street put it best when describing the goddess Kali to me.

"my friend, the forces of evil cannot always be beaten with kind words and soft prayer, sometime you need kick a little ass"

Thanks Raj.

I really appreciated the variety of ideas being displayed at the CCA, however, there was alot of stuff to go through without much visual stimulation. The overall display was overcrowded with only a couple pieces that really stood out visually, the photos of downtown Detroit for example. My Brain is also completely fried from three months of Rap and the accessibility of good hash in this city, so take my criticism with a grain of salt.

Since Jan 1 2009 I Have Only Listened To Rap Music

 

First Things First. 

 Bierut is right when he says the designers which took part in the manifesto 'have specialized in [designing] extraordinarily beautiful things for the cultural elite, not the denizens of your local 7-eleven.'  Though this is one of my main beefs with art/design in general, I don't think it is entirely wrong. Before real change is to happen, the people calling the shots need to be converted, their the ones who own all the "space". That age old issue of space, who's space? It's definitely not mine, and its rarely owned by someone with a soul. Thats what a lot of this boils down to. space.

The Designers.

 This is why First Things First didn't start the revolution it intended, the designers, the "play it safe's" of the art world. Most designers I meet are in design because it is one of the few ways to earn a steady paycheck as an artist, its sad but its true. A majority graphic designers are nestled deep in the bosom of materialism, settling to be art slaves, held captive by the life they think they must sustain. My generation is no different, its made obvious by their work, that's why classes like this are so valuable, especially at this time. I hope after this course some of them will want more out of life than to design brochures and be comfortable. 

Average Joe.

Is in need of rescue, thats what this is all about. His brain has been fried from too many flashy advertisements. I thank CBC because I can watch the Oilers without some computer effects exploding in the top left corner to tell me the score. I don't think anyone realizes what this does to our brains, how much space this takes up. ZAPPED. Go to a Wal-Mart in West Edmonton, the situation is grim.

The Gravediggaz

Six Feet Deep. 1994. I have listened to this album weekly since I re-discovered it this January. It was a side project of The Rza's before he released the first Wu-Tang album. Prince Paul on the beats, and aided by Poetic and Frukwan, the Gravediggaz were a group of young drug dealers on the verge of making it big, and intent on making it out of the ghetto. The album sparked a small sub-genre of rap called horror-core, as all the lyrics were derived from horror films. After reading some interviews and listening to the album over twenty-times in the last two months, my mushed brain finally realized that this album was a metaphor for the dead soul of a ghetto dweller. They commonly refer to "resurrecting the mental dead" from the "graveyard"(the ghetto). "Long has the ghetto dweller been caught in a death trap".  The same can be said for the suburb dweller, though it is a different kind of death trap. The ghetto dweller is held down by the strong arm of the man, the suburb dweller is held down by the strong arm of lease payments.  

"another day another ducat"

 

 

Flash In A Pan

 Ok, time to step out of my roll as contrarian and tell you how I really feel about technology and its relation to our current condition, despite my emotionally loaded statements.  

 Too be honest I don't have much faith in humanity's ability to fix this mess, the problems are too deep and unfortunately far too big. Now regardless of the probable outcome, I believe it is our duty to try as hard as we can to fix the problems, and live as if it were possible. World peace and equality don't exist, but the idea does, and the idea becomes more real with more effort, somewhere.  

 

 The production of affordable technology has been one of the main causes of the Earths crisis, especially as most of it is unnecessary and developed to serve only the most basic entertainment needs. However, the technological advances discussed in this article are an indicator of technology finding its way home. Expression opposed to distraction. 

 I believe that every thing on this planet comes from one source, and the entire earths evolution is an energy developing the most sophisticated way to express itself. Human beings are the latest model, the most specialized. A dog can express itself by barking, a human being can do much much more, how we do this is what separates one from another. 

 Recent technological advancements have given us even better forms of expression, this is something to cherish. 40 years ago I would've had to choose, musician or painter, writer or photographer. I think I utilized all these mediums just last week, turning abstract thought into many different types of physical materials, that another human being can enjoy and interpret. Expression is now made accessible to everyone, we can feel exactly what someone else was feeling 20 years ago when we listen to their music. I get goose bumps when I listen to Fela Kuti's "Coffin For Head Of State" written shortly after his elderly mother was killed by Nigerian military. The bass tones have obtained immortality. 

 The age of the remix has made this kind of expression accessible and easy to so many. At the present, this isn't happening, why do something meaningful when I can remix a popular electro tune and sniff my ego to divinity. I think this stage we are in is some kind of weird post analog fall out, where things have been too good for us to realize the potential of the tools we have in front of us, everything is still so fun and so instant. No one values substance, right down to the drugs we do. Most party kids will spend $40 bucks on a gram of heavily cut cocaine so they can make their hearts beat faster for an hour, instead of spending ten dollars on a hit of acid and embarking on an adventure for the next 14 hours. The conservatives are so right, moral standards have slipped. 

 Hopefully the recession will encourage people to really think about what they choose to create, I have been inspired to hopefully design for Subway instead of McDonald's.  

CHARLIE DONT SURF

As We May Think.

 Bush's optimistic hopes for the direction of science were most likely shared by many others in his field. Its too bad the war wasn't over, more weapons needed to be developed, chemical weapons, agent orange, napalm. Thankfully science was able to contribute once again, or else the Viet Cong would've tunneled their way to Washington and punji sticked Kennedy on the White House lawn. 

 

 I can see why Bush would be so optimistic, so many amazing developments and possibilities. The possibility of producing "cheap complex devices of great reliability", sorry buds, that was about as likely as world peace. However, one device was produced to be reliable and cheap. One of the most reliable designs of the 20'th century. It is so reliable that Mozambique put it in their coat of arms, as did Zimbabwe and East Timor. The AK-47, the antithesis to designed obsolescence, used against U.S. soldiers in at least 3 major conflicts and many smaller ones, I wish the designers of my Samsung cell phone were operating under the same mantra. 

 I'm very pleased to say that my Technics 1200 turntable was built to last, the design has barely changed since the late seventies, and they still beat out any other turntable on the market. I apologize in advance, I'm going to talk about music and DJ'ing again, its the only way I can keep myself from talking about wizards and seances. Back to the turntable, the Tech 12, which somehow isn't a dying breed, despite being technology dating back to before Bush wrote his article. Its a vital instrument in the enjoyment of a musical catalogue, even in this digital age. The serato program allows DJ's to play MP3's as if they are records, unfortunately, most DJ's have awful taste, and this allows any party ego to take his shirt off and play terrible electro remixes. I love vinyl and I love turntables, I love vinyl because its physical, because if its taken care of it can last forever. My "catalogue" of vinyl may be cumbersome, but I value it, its music you cant find on the internet, its music I chose to move across the country with me, and its music that had its own journey before I owned it. The bad music I purchased I got rid of, the good stuff stayed, I cant say the same for the music on my Ipod that was lost when it crashed this fall. 

 Bush predicted the future path of technology so closely its spooky, and as he is so correct in our need to "mechanize" our records, I think he would be saddened by the devaluation of important information worth keeping and the obsession with the instant.  There are so many positives and negatives to discuss on the subject of technology that I feel I have to take one position, this doesn't mean that I don't value the other side. However, due to my generations massive hard on for technology and any fan-dangled bullshit thats fed to them, I have to fall into my predictable roll as curmudgeon, and say that I will embrace technology grudgingly, fighting it every step of the way. 

Whoops.

 I stand corrected on the techno front, I guess I have to admit that my knowledge of Det.Techno is only the relatively knew stuff, which is garbage. The dancing that developed out of the scene is amazing though, Jit vs Juke, Detroit vs Chicago, pure footwork, love it. Thanks for the links, new stuff to check out, old is good, especially when old is new. I know where is some Carl Craig 12's collecting dust in a store down the street, so I'll keep digging! 

 By the way, I kept digging this saturday, for a long time, until I was deep under the shelves and into the old boxes of records. The dusty lonely ones, with old board games and vintage playboys stacked on top of them. Near the end of my search I found a single off an album thats been haunting me since I discovered it this January, exactly what I was looking for, excellent condition, 8 dollars. KEEP DIGGING!

 This article just tied together everything that shaped me as an adolescent, and I had no idea they were all tied together. Starting with the soil that these seeds need to grow, an unhappy, lower class youth sub-culture. The progression from an angry withdrawal into ones own society into more thought provoking forms of art such as Philip K Dicks novels.

 It starts like this, Dad pays son a visit in small Albertan town, hands him a Never Mind The Bollocks cassette and tells him he may identify more with this than the christian rock his mother gives to him. Before you know it every other confused adolescent in town has a dubbed copy and the local newspaper cant seem to go a week without being vandalized in some way. That music had a way of resonating with pissed off caucasian youth in a way that nothing else will, even the punk music that came out of California in the 80's.

 On the comic book and sci-fi front i was a little off, reading the more conventional comics and reading Robert Heinlen opposed to Dick. After reading this I've already checked out Mobius and will be hunting that down. 

The little detail I have found to be increasingly important with the birth of these movements is entrepreneurship. Malcolm McClaren's clothing shop gave him a source of income that was somewhat separate from the labour crisis in london, this made him free from the economic burdens of society and allowed him to launch his ideas. The same can be seen with Fela Kuti's movement in Nigeria, as he owned a Nightclub, and also with The RZA, as he allegedly used the method of gun running to supply the birth money for Wu-Tang, though he was never incarcerated for those charges.  Entrepreneurship is the most important facet of any free people, and needs to be in place as a support for any artistic movement.

The interesting transformation seen in the punk movement is the eventual embrace of technology.  I imagine Pink Floyd was hated due to its over use of synthesizers, yet Kraftwerk relied completely on digital recording equipment. So it must be the attitudes behind the use, Pink Floyd is using synthesizers to tell you how to feel, in an emotive sense, especially with "Learning to Fly" where Kraftwerk is doing this in the bleaker punk sense, promoting the ideas behind dystopia. Personally I don't put  Detroit Techno or the different House genres on the same level as the German industrial music, but only on the subject of post-punk and the ideas behind music. Unlike punk and its seedlings, Detroit Techno,Chicago House and Garage House are genres of music based solely around nightlife, there is no political or conscious rebellious energy in this music. However, I collect Chicago House and Garage House on vinyl, and prefer its use of  samples to the cold industrial feel of techno. 

 The whole concept of the post-punk movements and cyberpunk all fall in to Mcluhan's statement "technology is an extension of ourselves" or something close to that I hope... The digital age has made communication possible for almost anyone, since the 80's the sounds of the oppressed and pissed off have been exported to the otherwise ignorant around the world. My favorite personal example is when I first heard Wu-Tangs 36 Chambers, or better yet, when my Dad did, the anger and the rawness of that album appealed to him, in his 50's.  Its too bad Wu-Tang eventually started wearing leather suits, and making music videos dressed up as the Flinstones(Gravel Pit), brutal.... I guess everyone goes soft eventually, Shepard Fairey got a clothing company, Jim Jarmusch made Broken Flowers, Ice-T plays a cop on a terrible T.V show, and I went back to school. Shit. 

*BUCK SHOTS*PART DEUX*

 I felt the last reading gave an excellent overview of who Bucky was, and what kind of effect he had on the world of science. But I also felt that it didn't share enough of his ideas, and I found it hard to write about the article because of this. Hence, my long winded tangent about ghouls, goblins and indigo children. I decided to look online for some of his writings and came across a fascinating book called Humans In Universe by Anwar Dil, which is basically a conversation between him and Fuller. The portion readable on Google Books is mainly about the relation of the triangle to gravity,gravity to humanity and humanity to the universe. 

 I got the sense before that Fuller was a spiritual man of some sort, and I when I use the term spiritual I don't mean religious. This conversation with Dil illustrates his spiritual side in a very deep sense. This analytical view taken by Fuller in his belief of a higher power is what I was talking about earlier with the death of Theosophy. This is the humanist approach that began to vanish with the rise of big business, and this is the approach that needs to make its way back into modern science if we want this world to improve.  I'll definitely be heading to the library to see if they have this book, as Fuller provides theoretical answers for some of those universal questions that have sat in my mind since I was a teenager. His belief that we are from nature and not above it is what drives his yearning for our healthy coexistence with mother earth. I'm excited to dig deeper into this mans pool of knowledge,  as I can tell from reading only a tidbit of his ideas that it is the most enlightened thought of our time. 

RESURRECTING THE MENTAL DEAD

COMING SOON

*BUCK SHOTS*

 This was a very uplifting read in the wake of last weeks frightening documentary, which was fascinating, and answered some questions to studies I have been conducting on my own time. "Starting With The Universe" ties into my personal interests as well, but in a positive way.

 In 2008 a close friend and I developed a fairly deep interest in eastern religions and their journey into western thought. We've been collecting works written on these subjects and have found that many of these ideas had existed in some form prior to the arrival of the 1800's New Age philosophies. The major difference was the secrecy that these beliefs were shrouded in, through secret Hermetic orders and codes. The Theosophists of the late 1800's combined these "secrets" with eastern teachings, which have a more humanist approach, and made them public for anyone to read.  

 Natural Scientists such as Goethe and Rudolph Steiner had significant impact on the way Europeans would approach spirituality and science. It has been hard digging up non-biased detailed information on these movements, but I've made some very interesting discoveries involving social trends at the time.  

  Theosophy-  This movement expanded from the 1850's onwards having its heyday from 1890 until around 1920, when its membership in Europe and North America decreased drastically for no specific reason.  Theosophy was vogue in academic circles and accepted by the mainstream, some of its teachings would later be twisted by German Nationalists to promote their anti-semitic agenda. Theosophy itself was the complete opposite of these racist agenda's, basing its moral code largely around Jainism, the oldest of the eastern religions. The thing that ties the Theosophic movement to our studies in Design Theory is its outright protest of materialism. Early 20'th century authors such as Max Heindel predict that materialism will be a new form of slavery, forcing the average north american to submit to forces they cant even recognize. Completely unaware of their shortfalls in life, mesmerized by the new product they have purchased. If Heindel could see how accurate his prediction would be he would shit himself.  

 I could go on forever about these belief systems, their history and how I think they would better our society and still I know very little about them.  What I find relevant is their sudden disintegration from mainstream western society, while Edward Bernays and his pals are taking very deliberate steps to transform the masses into ravenous consumers. I haven't found evidence of any direct relationship between the American businessman and the death of mainstream spirituality, but I know that the former was well aware of the latter and definitely 

threatened by its prominence. 

 Reading about Buckminster Fuller, and his relationship with the world he lived in is uplifting but at the same time depressing.  His motivations were pure and for the people, his ideas were for the benefit of the human race, not for his pocket book and for that reason he wouldn't have the same impact as Architects and Engineers with half the brains as him.  This seems to be a sad trend throughout the 20'th century, thankfully Fuller had enough of an impact that his approach is being taught in schools today, at least to designers.  His belief in forces we cannot see and his incorporation of the arts is something that needs to find its way back into science, badly. 

 This was all over the place so thanks for bearing with me. 

Upon Further Reflection

 I'm starting to understand where Loos and Le Corbusier are coming from now, being that there entire world was covered in some type of decor, and I guess I cant hate them for wanting to try something different.  The other two articles I only glanced over,  but they paint a better picture, these guys were introducing entire new schools of thought to the world of design., which can never be a bad thing.  However, I believe strongly that ornament is part of what makes us human, it is the proof of abstract thought even amongst the most primitive tribes. People need ornament, whether they are aware of it or not. The problem with ornament in the west today is that it is not treated as something sacred,  it is almost non existent, it has been replaced by advertising and kitch.  Here is something interesting for us to ponder, in Sao Paulo, despite being a big shit babylon hell hole, they figured something out. They made a law there against visual pollution, due to all the advertisements and billboards that had sprung up. On the other hand, they have a relaxed attitude towards graffiti, it is legal as long as you are using multiple colors and have chosen a suitable location.  This attitude allowed street artists to take the act of painting walls further, spending more time on their work , advancing the entire subculture. 

 

 Le Corbusier expresses great admiration for painters, unless I missed his sarcasm.  I wonder how he would react to the idea of designing buildings so the public can paint them freely, which would show the pulse of a city in a way that other types of ornamentation do not, due to its constant evolution and originality. Below is some graffiti typical of Sao Paul streets. 

Photo JD

Sao Paulo Housing Projects

Sao Paulo, from urbandecay.ca

Hot Blooded. Sorry I'm Scottish and Pisces.

 

  Le Corbusier speaks of architecture from an almost romantic standpoint, with more than just a hint of existentialism. I like the way he speaks of his craft, and I like a majority of his work even more, yet I find some of his idea's expressed through his work quite controversial to his words in these articles. His proposal for low income housing in Paris is frightening, we've seen the effects of these buildings in many cities world wide.  These highrises set in a grid pattern across a poor section of a city must affect the minds of their inhabitants in ways unimaginable to us. Not only are these people already on the periphery of society, but they are all squashed into these buildings and subliminally told that they are all the same, and always will be. 

 In Sao Paulo, young men scale these buildings and adorn them with graffiti, putting their lives at risk almost daily just to stand out amongst their peers. All across the U.S.A. these projects have become fortresses for gangs, and are symbol of hopelessness for ghetto youth.  These buildings are a cheap band-aid for a massive problem, they are a symbol of "the man's" minimal efforts to correct his past crimes, just give these people shelter, some food stamps and let them eat each other. 

 I personally think Le Corbusier's house's to be some of the most beautiful buildings of the modern age, the only problem is I have only ever seen them in the country side, where only the "big business man" he speaks of can afford to live.  

 Of course these plans for Paris were drawn up along time ago, before Rap music made everyone violent, how could he have known?  Guns or no guns, "badmanism" or not, it doesn't take a Jainist monk to realize that cramming all the welfare recipients into the same hive is inhumane.  

.

Ornament and Crime

  

 Mr. Loos makes some interesting points about the usefulness of ornament, and I tend to agree with him in many cases.  If done wrong it is incredibly tacky and can ruin what could've been a beautiful object, and I understand that he came from an era when nearly everything was decorated.  At the same time he sounds like a complete idiot while making his "educated" yet pig headed statement about the craft and reasoning behind ornament. I imagine he would swallow his words if he saw an Ikea factory, full of under-payed workers laminating particle board, preparing it for its maximum life span of 4 years. A chinese worker spending 16 hours carving a nature inspired pattern onto a bookshelf doesn't seem that bad suddenly. The fact that the worker goes home being proud of something rubs off on his wife, his children and his neighbor.  Its better for the world when people feel like they've accomplished something, rather than toiling in a plant for some unknown economic authority. 

 Loos makes no effort to understand the difference between a  plate set stamped with tacky images and work which is built with incredible care by someone who has spent years perfecting his/her craft.  However, his opinionated rant is colorful and fun to read, his harshest expressions bringing me to laugh aloud. I think his depiction of the Papuans may be accurate on some levels despite its unapologetic linear approach, but at the end of the day Loos' superior cultivated brain has left him just another boring white guy with no flavor.