Permanent Transience

LOOK: "Albino Mayan," from Glimpses by fucoid

2011-11-19T14:14:00.025+02:00

Albino Mayan, Solola, Guatemala 11.16.11 (from Glimpses) by fucoid

LOOK: Bus Terminal from Glimpses by fucoid

LOOK: Bottle Collector from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Stockman Sales Clerk from Finnish portrait series, by fucoid

WATCH: Fat mexican rambo sing and dance (badly)

2011-11-19T00:27:00.029+02:00

Diego Alione: A Rambo No Le Gusta La Guerra

I like this, sans irony. It's the little things that make living in strange places worth it, example: pop mutations. Ephemeral amalgamations of junk culture speak fascinating langauges. Want to say more, but 1) Pico Iyer exploded that niche decades ago, with some really great books and 2) just watching is almost enough to intuit what I want to write but do not feel like doing right now because I am actually pretty hungry and also need to do quasi-real work and then run to the...¹

1. Lest I generalize the audience, Rambo is a transnational/transgender/transgeneracional brand. So is Mexico.

WATCH: Freakish Soviet horror film, Viy (1967)

WATCH: Soviet animation, Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) by YuriyNorshteyn

WATCH: Surrealist stop motion, Street of Crocodiles (1986) by the Brothers Quay

TRACES #1: Urban campsite, Lviv, Ukraine Spring 2009

2011-06-24T02:49:00.009+03:00

Urban campsite, Lviv, Ukraine (spring, 2009: CLICK)

...shot between two decaying apartment buildings, when the snow had first melt and migrant workers from the East were beginning their move into urban construction areas.

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine
LOOK: Shpytalna Street from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid
LOOK: Baba 1 from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid

IMAGE TAPING #4: Old tales

2011-06-14T02:52:00.005+03:00

Wherein I add text from random bits of media that I am currently consuming to images that I am working on:

"...an old told tale... another version... a little girl went out to play... lost in the market place... as if half born... then, not through the market place, but through the alley, behind the market place... this is the way to the past. But it isn't something you remember. Forgetfulness..."

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IMAGE: Industrial alleyway, by fucoid
TEXT: from Inland Empire, by David Lynch

IMAGE TAPING #1: Soft machinery
IMAGE TAPING #2: Plastic revolution
LOOK: Shpytalna Street by fucoid, from Lvivski Streets

LOOK: "Bus Terminal," from Glimpses by fucoid

2011-06-09T08:16:00.007+03:00

Bus Terminal, Antigua, Guatemala, 6.7.11 (from Glimpses) by fucoid

LOOK: Bottle Collector from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Stockman Sales Clerk from Finnish portrait series, by fucoid
LOOK: Suburban Princess (2005) by fucoid

URBAN EXPLORATION #3: Lvivsky street kids

2011-06-07T07:49:00.017+03:00

It has been ages since I last posted here. Decided to start back again, so without further ado...

Was sifting through some remnants from my time in Ukraine and ran across these, shot from the hip in a dilapidated playground, city center on a weekday afternoon:

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The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'

-Susan Sontag, on how the camera has become the tool of the flâneur

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine

LOOK: Shpytalna Street from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid
LOOK: Baba 1 from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid

Back from the Dead?

2009-09-09T11:10:00.007+03:00

Not Yet. from Svirgh Festival, Ukraine, August 1st 2009

LISTEN: What should have been, c. 1997 (Arabic version)

2009-07-21T20:01:00.013+03:00

To my lost friend Hicham, from Casablanca: Why did you not have this dude in your beat down tape collection? Those late night journeys in Tampa would have been that much crazier:

I miss you, you bastard.

You Must Hear This: Bjork Picks Omar Souleyman

SUNDAY MIX #1: Gary Numan

SUNDAY MIX #2: Lo fi eruption(s)

SUNDAY MIX #3: Indie optimism

WATCH: Katy Perry + Ukrainian polka

2009-07-21T11:59:00.010+03:00

Sublime hilarity. Los Colorados dishes, Hot N Cold :

LISTEN: Sunday mix #3, Indie optimism
LISTEN: Sunday mix #6, Lvivski tsymbaly busker
LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy invasion

LOOK: Tripped out folk icon, from Kiev

2009-07-11T11:46:00.011+03:00

The Blessed Virgin of Pechersk, mid. 19th century

I added this one to the collection today. It is from a Kiev school of folk painters; they used funky curve-linear lines, explosive colors and floral patterns vs. the stolid aesthetics of traditional Orthodox iconography.

...currently researching patterns of fungi ingestion in the region.

LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikolai Nedbailo from Moscow

LOOK: Lvivski cult graphic artist, Bohdan Soroka

LOOK: Naïve artist, Ivan Skolozdra from Lviv

A Hütz homecoming, Gogol Bordello in Lviv

2009-07-08T18:45:00.004+03:00

I am into Eugene Hutz and his music. His life story is the stuff of movies. From the Chernobyl evacuation and gypsy wanderings to his performances at Tate Modern, Whitney and the Venice Biennial. What shitty, marginalized band doesn't look up to him? And the music... so rich.

Last week, Gogol Bordello was in Lviv... Hutz tossed frisbees, broke a few mic stands and spoke Ukrainian to his fans from the homeland. The sets were inspired and it was a great show. From various U-tubers:

Start Wearing Purple, everyone bounces @ 1:51

The beautiful insanity

Tribal Connection w/extended dub break at 2:10

LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy punk invasion

LISTEN: Sunday mix #6, Lvivsky tsymbaly busker

LISTEN: Gypsy Punk 101

LOOK: Warhola returns

2009-07-05T12:44:00.005+03:00

...via nationalistic graffiti (Taras Schevchenko, Ukraine's national poet). At Dziga Contemporary Arts Centre, Lviv.

WATCH: Pop legend goes back to the village in Absolute Warhola

LOOK: From Lvivski Streets, by fucoid
LOOK: Abandonded Lvivski palace

SOVIET KITSCH #8: Gymnastics (1953)

2009-07-04T12:07:00.002+03:00

Gymnastics (1953) postcard, from street vendor

SOVIET KITSCH #5, The Poem Mountain Vietnam (1972)
SOVIET KITSCH #4, Gardinia (1966)
SOVIET KITSCH #2 Umka (1975)

WATCH: Arthropoda animation, "The Cameraman's Revenge" (1912) by Wladyslaw Starewicz

2009-07-03T11:11:00.015+03:00

Killing bugs for the screen

Another regional cinematic obscurity, Russian-born Wladyslaw Starewicz: etymologist-filmmaker and stop motion pioneer.

Yes, bug vs. camera... something had to give for this guy. And his method of animation was pragmatic genius. Stymied by an inability to control his shelled subjects, eureka was found in the form of stop-motioned dead. He in fact removed the limbs of grasshoppers, beetles, dragonflies and the like and then supplemented them with wax prosthetics, which were manipulated between takes. The results were singular, effective and influential (if not more than a little creepy).

"The Cameraman's Revenge" (1912, 13 minutes) is his first short with a narrative. And it is as cynical as you would expect when having dead bugs as the players:

"It is about infidelity among the insects, a topic which dare I say has never before or after been attempted on film.

It opens with Mr. Beetle going to town "on business," to stop at "The Gay Dragonfly," a burlesque parlor.

He meets a dancer who he takes to a hotel room... the grasshopper at left wanted her too, though, and he is mad at the beetle's rudeness... he's also got a movie camera!"

-from UbuWeb

There is a shrewd plot twist that I won't reveal:

WATCH: Freakish Soviet horror film, Viy (1967)

WATCH: Soviet animation, Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) by Yuriy Norshteyn

WATCH: Surrealist stop motion, Street of Crocodiles (1986) by the Brothers Quay

WATCH: Giant white glove

2009-06-28T09:16:00.002+03:00

Curating the Uncanny #2: Philip-Lorca diCorcia, old and new

2009-06-25T04:58:00.001+03:00

Eddie Anderson (1990)

...from hustlers and prostitutes to pole-bound strippers and random wanderes, diCorcia still suspending and crystalizing fringe realities:

Brent Booth (1990-1992)

Ike Cole (1990-1992)

Hannah (2008)

Head #7 (2001)

Andrea (2008)

Curators of the Uncanny #1: Ralph Eugene Meatyard
NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from Painter (1995)
NEGLIGENT HERO #4: Tod Browning, wedding celebration from Freaks (1932)

The Roots of Digital Technology and Revolution: Tweets, texts and internet in the former Eastern Bloc

2009-06-24T13:04:00.027+03:00

The world's first 'Twitter Revolution,' Chisinau, April 2009.

Last night I was talking Iran with some Ukrainians who took part in their own Color Revolution, the 2004 Orange version. Between sips of a bitter local brew, they reminisced about realtime reporting and SMS strategies like they were old school- like, sooo... pre-Twitter.

Overblown as the role of digital technology in protest movements seems to be (vs. will, access, funding, education...), their histories must indeed be instructive for the current moment. And the strategies of this "first online revolution" have been explored in detail by Harvard Internet and Democracy guru Joshua Goldstein, here.

Ukraine's elaborate 2004 election protests were among the first to be organized with the help of the internet (photo by Janice Papar).

Protester's now famous Tent City on Kiev's main avenue during the 2004 Orange Revolution (photo by Janice Papar).

Meanwhile, five years and a few color revolutions later, Andrew from Romania at Web Upd8 mused, "If you asked me about the prospects of a Twitter driven revolution in a lo-tech country like Moldova a week ago, my answer would probably be a qualified 'no.' Today, however, I am no longer certain."

Twitter was incorporated into the Moldavian protest strategy months before Iran.

That was on April 7th, months before the current Twitter-fueled situation in Iran began to unfold. Moldavian reformers had already added to the Ukrainian model. And the results were mixed. More on the role of Twitter, texts and blogs, etc. in Moldova's 2009 insurrection, here. And on strategies and potentials of digital activism in general, here.

The situation in Chisnau has yet to stabilize.

TYT: This revolution brought to you by Twitter and Youtube

More documentary photography by Janice Papar
DigiActive.org

WATCH: Pop legend goes back to the village in "Absolut Warhola"

2009-06-19T11:59:00.024+03:00

Intimate portraits reduced to decisive line and shade... It was only natural, considering Warhol spent many a morning staring at the neighborhood iconostasis while growing up in a Slavic ghetto of Pittsburgh.

Byzantine icon: Image of Edessa or Holy Mandolion ("miraculous image made without hands")

Self Portrait (1986) by Andy Warhol (made with hands?)

This fascinating diffusion of cultures is captured in a documentary by Stanislaw Mucha, in which:

"he traces the family roots of the American pop artist Andy Warhol back to two ethnic Ukrainian villages in Slovakia. There he finds Warhol’s eccentric relatives, all of whom treat the famous hometown boy with pride even though none of them has actually known him or understands his art. They know so little of him that when Warhol sends original art work to his relatives, they use the art as clothing for children’s toys. With gentle humanism, the film gravitates from the art of Warhol to the lives of his relatives – characters in their own right. We see the “artfulness” with which they come to grips with their everyday lives and the strange outside world. These villagers’ healthy attitude towards art, life and the encroaching modern world makes Absolute Warhol a buoyant documentary."

-from The Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University

The full film can be seen here (then follow the links):

Curating the Uncanny #1: Ralph Eugene Meatyard

2009-06-17T11:02:00.012+03:00

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, orchestrating the known unknown in midwestern backyards and broken buildings with the help of friends and family:

Romance 1962

Lucybelle Crater & her good, good Mertonian friend Lucybelle Crater 1970-72

Lucybelle Crater & her 15 yr old son's friend Lucybelle Crater 1970-72

Lucybelle Crater & Bi-Polar Friend, Lucybelle Crater 1970-72

from The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater 1970-72

LOOK: Bottle Collector from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Stockman Sales Clerk from Finnish portrait series, by fucoid
LOOK: Suburban Princess (2005) by fucoid

TYT: This revolution brought to you by Twitter and Youtube

2009-06-16T11:27:00.004+03:00

Currently destroying my cynicism:

WATCH: Freakish Soviet horror film, "Viy" (1967)

2009-06-06T09:00:00.010+03:00

After a few weeks of uninspired movie-watching, I ran into a batch of regional gems. I will begin with Soviet horror classic, a Gogol adaptation lit up by effects master Aleksandr Ptushko, "Viy" (1967):

"This Russian film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's story was for a long time the only horror film made in the Soviet Union. Khoma (Leonid Kuravlev), a young novice, travels across the countryside and stays for a night in a barn that belongs to an ugly old woman. When she attacks him at night and takes him for a broom ride, the scared novice fatally wounds her, and before she dies, she turns into a beautiful young noblewoman (Natalya Varley). The latter leaves a will, according to which Khoma should pray for her for three nights in the chapel until her body is buried. At night, the witch rises from the coffin and tries to catch Khoma. She flies around but she can't reach him or see him because he stays inside the circle that he has drawn around himself. During the third and last night, the witch makes the last attempt to scare him out of the circle, and she calls all sorts of ugly creatures to help her... Gogol wrote several stories based on Ukrainian folklore, many of them dealing with the Devil and the supernatural."
-from Allmovie.com

The following is the beginning of the climax, as the witch summons her horde of demons. Dig the stellar and (and genuinely creepy) retro effects work and early Sam Raimi vibe (flavors of Evil Dead?):

A remake is being released in Russia later this year... and it looks lo-res CGI awful. Meanwhile, Italian horror maestro Mario Bava helmed a forgettable (for me) AIP adaptation back in 1960, known in the US as Black Sunday, which I wouldn't mind re-watching now.

WATCH: Soviet animation, Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) by Yuriy Norshteyn
WATCH: Surrealist stop motion, Street of Crocodiles (1986) by the Brothers Quay

Urban Exploration #2: Traces, remnants and hidden churches

2009-06-03T14:21:00.013+03:00

Urban snapshots taken on whim (click to enlarge)...

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I stole these while looking for old wooden churches on the edge of Drohobych, Ukraine. The city went from Central Euro charm to industrial wasteland quick. Like, one block-quick. And amidst a few traces of remaining terrestrial life, some amazing pieces of history are hidden out there:

The beginning of the edge...

Where sidewalks become makeshift junk markets.

And further...

Amidst the remnants...

...Holy Cross church pokes its central tower up from a deserted village-cum-factory complex.

While the wooden domes of St. George fight a losing battle with a Ukrainian chop shop (click to enlarge- they are scrunched between garage roof and oak tree).

Enter 15th century courtyard... historic vertigo now complete.

...and then it always seems to end with a gypsy bus back.

-------
The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'

-Susan Sontag, on how the camera has become the tool of the flâneur

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine

LOOK: Shpytalna Street from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid
LOOK: Baba 1 from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid

Urban Exploration #1: Cats, dolls, Stalin etc. (from a Lvivski courtyard)

2009-05-18T17:33:00.020+03:00

Urban snapshots taken on whim (click to enlarge)...

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From an old courtyard in the city center:

Location/Time: courtyard B off Khmelnytskoho St., Lviv on 5.17 @ approx. 16:00

FOUND PHOTO: @44 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine

LOOK: "Hipster Shrine," from Lvivsky Streets by fucoid

2009-05-15T19:29:00.012+03:00

Hipster Shrine - Old Town, Lviv

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine
LOOK: Shpytalna Street from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid
LOOK: Baba 1 from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid

WATCH: Surrealist stop motion, "Street of Crocodiles" by the Brothers Quay

2009-05-14T00:21:00.002+03:00

Going to Drohobych this weekend and it got me to thinking about Drohobychian author/artist Bruno Schultz, which then got me to thinking about the Quay Brothers' stellar interpretation of his novella, Street of Crocodiles.

Set in the author's home town during the interwar years, when there was forced assimilation and a growing consumer culture, it is a surreal analysis of a spiritually bankrupt society. And the film is a barren and highly stylized exploration of the novel's desperate psychologies:

Street of Crocodiles (1986) 1/2

Street of Crocodiles (1986) 2/2

SEE ALSO: Tool's reworking of the Quay Brother's imagery

Prison Sex (1995)

SOVIET ANIMATION: Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) by Yuriy Norshteyn
LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikifor from Krynika

"Delinquent School Girl 2" or "Anya's First Bardo"

2009-05-13T00:36:00.004+03:00

Original Delinquent School Girl

Delinquent School Girl 2 is the first in an ongoing series, called Anya's Bardos. Watch as she begins her travels through time, space and memory...

Stay tuned to see where the street car takes her....
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LOOK: Bottle Collector from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Stockman Sales Clerk from Finnish portrait series, by fucoid
LOOK: Suburban Princess (2005) by fucoid

LOOK: "Fetish 4.2" from Ukrainian Grotesque, by fucoid

2009-05-11T10:54:00.005+03:00

...another one from the Ukrainian Grotesque series. I used a found shoe and a semi-rancid cow tongue from the meat lady down the street.

LOOK: Rooster (2008) from Ukrainian Grotesque, by fucoid
LOOK: Pig Fat Hut (2009) from Ukrainian Grotesque, by fucoid
LOOK: Ruptured Garfield (2005) by fucoid
LOOK: Meat Coaster (2006) by fucoid

For the Moms

2009-05-10T11:25:00.004+03:00

Happy Mother's Day.

Untitled postcard, USSR (1965)

SOVIET KITSCH #5, The Poem Mountain Vietnam (1972)
SOVIET KITSCH #4, Gardinia (1966)
SOVIET KITSCH #2 Umka (1975)

LOOK: Nasty Lvivski graphic artist, Volodomir Pinigin

2009-05-09T07:12:00.012+03:00

Stumbled upon some prints of his etchings at a gallery yesterday. And they are just plain nasty: Giger bio-machines and Arcimboldo veggie head reversals collide in surreal, sometimes gestalt compositions. Excuse the generic description (it does no justice), but not much by way of background information for me to offer, nothing online in English. Check him out (click to enlarge):

More here

LOOK: Lvivski cult graphic artist, Bohdan Soroka
LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikifor from Krynica (Poland)
LOOK: Neoprimitive artist, Nikolai Nedbailo from Moscow

FOUND PHOTO 26.4.09

2009-04-26T17:54:00.002+03:00

FOUND PHOTO: @44 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine

Coming May 13th, 2009

2009-04-26T09:05:00.009+03:00

Delinquent Schoolgirl ran away with the voting at 38%, with Naive Prostitute and Escaped Housewife following pretty closely at 28 and 23%. Outcast Gypsy was in the middle with 14%, while there was not much love for the Forgetful Outpatient at 9% and the Forgotten Clown at 4%.

So we will meet this Delinquent on May 13th and see exactly what she has been up to....

ALERT: Choose which misfit we should catch up with

TRANSMISSION RESUMED

2009-04-26T08:37:00.002+03:00

Post Carpathian programming

CHECKING OUT

2009-04-07T03:15:00.007+03:00

...for about 2 weeks. Going to explore some Carpathian mountain villages and work on some ideas and images. I decided to leave my laptop behind and see what happens when I de-mediate and live at a different pace. Looking to return fully stocked... cheers!

ALERT: Choose which misfit we should catch up with...

2009-04-03T11:56:00.007+03:00

Ukraine's tundra having just melted, I began to wonder how its street people made it through the winter.

Please vote within the next two weeks on whose fate you would most like to discover. Then I will revisit that character by the end of the month for the blog.

CHARACTER 1: Delinquent school girl
CHARACTER 2: Forgotten clown
CHARACTER 3: Forgetful outpatient
CHARACTER 4: Outcast gypsy
CHARACTER 5: Escaped housewife
CHARACTER 6: Naive prostitute

WATCH: "Henry Fool" (1998)

2009-04-01T08:06:00.009+03:00

For April 1st, a sacred fool:

RADDEST.SCENES.EVER. (FRENCH NEW WAVE): Cafe dance from Bande à part (1964)
RADDEST.SCENES.EVER. (JACK): Chicken salad sandwich from Five Easy Pieces (1970)
WATCH: Hangover flick #3, Rolling Thunder

IMAGE TAPING #3: DNA of commerce and empire (mutant)

2009-03-31T20:10:00.010+03:00

Wherein I add text from random bits of media that I am currently consuming to images that I am working on:

"This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of it, was nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a rare thing, parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate funding. Here it seemed to be the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire."

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IMAGE: Old town fringe with yellow car, by fucoid
TEXT: from Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson

IMAGE TAPING #1: Soft machinery
IMAGE TAPING #2: Plastic revolution
LOOK: Shpytalna Street by fucoid, from Lvivski Streets

CULTURAL CURIOSITY (WTF?): Stalin's mouthpiece in my kitchen (still)

2009-03-31T14:45:00.013+03:00

Greetings comrade! (1945 state issued radio in my kitchen)

One of the first things Stalin did after he took Lviv from Poland? He installed himself into every private apartment. He has only one channel, you can't turn him off and you can't unplug him. You can only lower the volume on Sir Mustache. "News" all. day. long. and at 24:oo he goes quite after singing me the national anthem (which I appreciate).

SCRIBBLINGS: fucoid flees future porn set
CULTURE SHOCK: Commie paranoia, 2009
TRANSMISSION RESUMED

RETRO SLEAZE: "The Babysitter" (1969) original trailer

2009-03-30T15:42:00.003+03:00

Earnest movie trailer voice: "She's good with babies... and even better with daddies..."

With bitchen' lesbian ear nibble at 1:38 and creepy outdoor molestation at 1:58:

More @fucoid's Youtube channel

RETRO SLEAZE: I, A Woman c.1968
SCRIBBLINGS: fucoid flees future porn set
LOOK: Soviet New Year by fucoid

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine

2009-03-29T19:03:00.008+03:00

...from an abandoned empty bureau, 3.08.09

FOUND PHOTO: @44 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine

LISTEN: Sunday mix #8, Traditional Ukrainian folk songs 1/2

2009-03-29T08:37:00.005+03:00

A Wild Otter Catches a Bird (1984) by Mariya Prymachenko

As enchanting as a Prymachenko, this collection was done with a full arrangement of pre-modern instruments (no acordian abuse or cheesy synth riffs). And with songs about "precious shoes," "deep wells" and "green rye," it is a trip back to village. Enjoy this celebration of the small:

Traditional Ukrainian folk songs

LISTEN: Sunday mix #3, Indie optimism
LISTEN: Sunday mix #6, Lvivski tsymbaly busker
LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy invasion

GOOGLE: does

2009-03-28T06:54:00.000+02:00

LOOK: Getty Images by fucoid
READ: The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick, by Robert Crumb
READ: Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson

WATCH: Indian Remi

2009-03-27T10:52:00.003+02:00

The latest, uh... social intervention(?) from Remy Gaillard. Set to the Doors. Nice:

RADDEST.SCENES.EVER.(JACK): Chicken salad sandwich from Five Easy Pieces (1970)
WATCH: How to Sell Out from Howcast
WATCH: Flowers are disgusting whores

TO SANDRA...

2009-03-26T19:13:00.004+02:00

...may the doctors put you back together again. Good luck tomorrow.

FOUND PHOTO: @19 Lychakivska St. Lviv, Ukraine

2009-03-26T14:10:00.014+02:00

...from construction site, 3.23.09 (see: Soviet Woman)

FOUND PHOTO: @44 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine

RADDEST.SCENES.EVER. (JACK): Chicken salad sandwich from "Five Easy Pieces" (1970)

2009-03-25T17:34:00.009+02:00

...I am told there used to be a dynamic counter culture in the U.S. And this was its face:

RADDEST.SCENES.EVER. (FRENCH NEW WAVE): Cafe dance from Bande à part (1964)
WATCH: Žižek on fantasy and perversion in David Lynch's Blue Velvet
WATCH: Žižek on utopia today

REGIONAL NEWS: Prague's Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport

2009-03-25T12:43:00.005+02:00

Business Week ranked the airport last in customer satisfaction due to long delays, bureaucratic employees, and overall oppressive atmosphere.

REGIONAL NEWS: Spam Crackdown Threatens Koy4Goff's Penis Enlarger, Free iPod Industry
WATCH: Zizek on utopia today

READ: "The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick," by Robert Crumb

2009-03-25T09:25:00.002+02:00

Two underground cult figures come together in this unlikely short. Crumb takes dialogue from Gregg Rickman's Philip K. Dick: The Final Testament and weaves it into a narrative about Dick's ongoing bouts of ~~schizophrenia~~ religious vertigo... sprawling, grubby and visionary:
Robert Crumb - The Religious Experience of Philip K Dick

From fucoid's Scribd library

READ: Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson
READ: Taschen Fall/Winter 2008/2009 catalogue

LISTEN: Sunday mix #7, Best of "Hydrogen Jukebox" by Allen Ginsberg and Philip Glass

2009-03-22T17:55:00.010+02:00

La civilización occidental y cristiana (1965) by Leon Ferrari

In retrospect, it seems like it had to happen at some point; America's poet of transcendent bodies and it's composer of trance-inducing orchestral sessions teamed up circa 1988 to record a series of unrepeatable tracks, some to Ginsberg's readings, others to a choral arrangement... dizzying, hypnotic, quasi-religious:

LISTEN: Sunday mix #6, Lvivsky tsymbaly busker
LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy punk invasion
LISTEN: Sunday mix #3, Indie optimism

SOVIET KITSCH #7, "Soviet Woman" (1970)

2009-03-22T14:30:00.002+02:00

Soviet Woman (1970) postcard, from street vendor

SOVIET KITSCH #5, The Poem Mountain Vietnam (1972)
SOVIET KITSCH #4, Gardinia (1966)
SOVIET KITSCH #2 Umka (1975)

RADDEST.SCENES.EVER. (FRENCH NEW WAVE): Cafe dance from "Bande à part" (1964)

2009-03-21T14:21:00.010+02:00

Before Godard became a militant bore, back when the French were the coolest Americans (reworked by Tarrantino @Jack Rabbit Slim's):

WATCH: Hangover flick #3, Rolling Thunder
WATCH: Hangover flick #1, The Brainiac
ROGUE ROAD MOVIE REVIEW: Vanishing Point (1971) Richard C. Sarafian

WATCH: Obscene Ukrainian bling-drome, Потап и Настя

2009-03-21T13:49:00.011+02:00

Uhhhh... clever satire or gag-inducing tripe? Whatever, a delicious bit of cultural fuctness:

Потап и Настя, Внатуре

LOOK: Found photo @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine
LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy punk invasion
LOOK: Untitled 1, from post-Soviet identity project by fucoid

IMAGE TAPING #2: Plastic revolution

2009-03-19T09:10:00.022+02:00

Wherein I add text from random bits of media that I am currently consuming to images that I am working on:

"...Parker stumbled and nearly... ...dead body... ...icy creek. Flies rose up, angry cloud, then settled again, ignoring him. Was this his history? No, history was now the loathing for a perfect body... ...empty closet... ...cleaned of sweat and dirt. A hologram reality. Inside plastic shell."

--------
Image: Melting soldiers on snow (detail), by fucoid
Text: snips from Fragments of a Hologram Rose, by William Gibson

IMAGE TAPING #1: Soft machinery
LOOK: Meat Coaster (2006) by fucoid
LOOK: Ruptured Garfield (2005) by fucoid

FOUND PHOTO: @44 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St. Lviv, Ukraine

2009-03-17T07:37:00.003+02:00

...from nearby construction site, 3.10.09

...then located the exact corner yesterday. Not much has changed...

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine
FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine
LOOK: Shpytalna Street, from Lvivski Streets by fucoid

IMAGE TAPING #1: Soft machinery

2009-03-15T15:51:00.008+02:00

Wherein I add text from random bits of media that I am currently consuming to images that I am working on:

"...Know the answer? ...Around in vacant lot 1910... ...Weeds growing through vacant towers... ...smell of healed and half healed scars... ...silver film at the exits... ...won't be much left... ...little time so I'll say: Goodnight."

Image: Gnarley weed in my courtyard, fucoid
Text: from Soft Machine, Burroughs

READ: The lyricism of shit ingestion
LOOK: Untitled from post Soviet identity, by fucoid
LOOK: Bottle Collector, by fucoid

WEEKEND WINGDING 14.3.09: Quiche @ Shameless Self Promotion

2009-03-14T05:13:00.018+02:00

SVG- Super Vector Girl! by Quiche

A ninja with the vector, Quiche commentates her nifty-oddball (and thoroughly scalable) sketches with effortless wit and playful irreverence. Plus, she is the only person I know who can successfully quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Bowie and The Re-Flex... all in the space of one post.

You won't be disappointed when you check her out @ Shameless Self Promotion

------
GoTo: Jade Blood
GoTo: Exile on Moan Street

LOOK: "Pig Fat Hut" from Ukrainian Grotesque, by fucoid

2009-03-11T14:12:00.009+02:00

Pig Fat Hut (2009)

...another image I am working around for my funky exhibit of grotesqueries in Lviv.

Salo, unrendered pig fat, is a delicacy to Ukrainians and a staple of their culture. It has for centuries helped them rough out the cold winter months. To them it has magical powers. To me, though undeniably tasty, it is a bite-sized heart attack.

So these are the remains of a generous gift I received. Since I could not eat it, I decided to immortalize it on film. Then I hooked up my favorite homeless mut with the lumpy mess. Everyone is happy.

LOOK: Rooster (2008) from Ukrainian Grotesque, by fucoid
LOOK: Ruptured Garfield (2005) by fucoid
LOOK: Meat Coaster (2006) by fucoid
TASTE: The cult of salo

NEGLIGENT HERO #6: Jean Genet, "A Love Story" (1950) 1/3

2009-03-11T12:49:00.008+02:00

French icon of sacred defilement, Genet showed a sympathy for capital-O-Others that only an ex. thief, vagabond, homosexual hustler could manage. Here is part one of his hypnotic and achingly sincere cinematic poem about homosexual fantasy:

NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from Painter (1995)
NEGLIGENT HERO #3: Nick Zedd, Why Do You Exist (1998) 1/2
NEGLIGENT HERO #4: Tod Browning, wedding celebration from Freaks (1932)

FOUND PHOTO: @36 Svobody Ave. Lviv, Ukraine

2009-03-10T16:43:00.013+02:00

...from an abandoned bureau, 3.08.09

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya St. Lviv, Ukraine
LOOK: Shpytalna Street from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid
LOOK: Baba 1 from Lvivsky Streets, by fucoid

LISTEN: (Belated) Sunday mix #6, Lvivski tsymbaly busker

2009-03-09T14:02:00.004+02:00

...lost my connection yesterday:
sometimes he plays here

I have a favorite busker in Lviv, an old Cossack-looking tsymbaly player. Most street performers stake out a corner with mafioso intensity. But this guy wanders, never in the same place twice. I caught him in a passage through the medieval defense wall the other day. I spent a few hry for a disc.

I imagine him recording this in a one room apartment, while his family members all hold their breath. Intimate and rewarding...

Enjoy the spells of Lviv's wandering tsymbaly player:

tsymbaly street performer from Lviv

LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy punk invasion
LISTEN: Sunday mix #1, Gary Numan
LISTEN: Sunday mix #3, Indie optimism

SOVIET KITSCH #6, Untitled postcard (c. 1960)

2009-03-08T16:22:00.006+02:00

Untitled postcard c. 1960

SOVIET KITSCH #4, Gardinia (1966)
SOVIET KITSCH #2, Umka (1975)
PERMANENT TRANSIENCE EXCLUSIVE: Hedgehog in the Fog (1975)

TRAUMATIC TOILETS OF LVIV #2

2009-03-08T15:58:00.005+02:00

Location: 29 B. Khmelnytskoho Street @ nameless beer bar

TRAUMATIC TOILETS OF LVIV #1
LOOK: From Toilet Babe, post-Soviet identity project by fucoid
READ: The lyricism of shit ingestion

TRANSMISSION RESUMED

2009-03-08T15:39:00.009+02:00

...from my new 18th century lair, amidst rotary dial telephones, wood burning stoves and an FM radio the size of a microwave oven.

It is a loft in a converted storage space, on top of one of Lviv's oldest hotels. If not for my IP address, the combined forces of NATO and INTERPOL would have a hard time locating me.

I dig this place; it is central yet hidden, the view is amazing and my landlord isn't conspiring to convert my living room into 'Orgy Zone UA, Inc.'

I am free to play monster in the attic to all of the unsuspecting tourists below. Currently lookin' forward to springtime weather...

LOOK: The Journal by fucoid and Digital Fishie
SCRIBBLINGS: fucoid flees future porn set
CULTURE SHOCK: Commie paranoia, 2009

STAY TUNED

2009-03-04T17:59:00.003+02:00

Regularly programmed entertainment should resume sometime tomorrow... been stranded for a couple of days but things should fall in place soon.

FOUND PHOTO: @7 Gogolya ST. Lviv, Ukraine

2009-03-02T15:53:00.006+02:00

...from building hallway, 3.02.09

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #2, Umka
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #4, Gardinia (1966)
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #5, The Poem Mountain Vietnam (1972)

LOOK: "Pig Toe" from Fetish series (2006-09), by fucoid

2009-03-02T12:14:00.004+02:00

Pig Toe (2006), from Fetish series

...came across a small print of this while moving. The hoof was donated to me by a good-willed neighbor in my building. He used to give meat products in return for a print. The dime store frog I recycled from Meat Coaster. And 15 minutes of Florida summer heat produced the flies, a "happy little accident."

LOOK: Meat Coaster (2006) by fucoid
LOOK: Ruptured Garfield (2005) by fucoid
LOOK: Path (2008) by fucoid

RETRO SLEAZE: "I, A Woman" c. '68

2009-03-02T10:20:00.014+02:00

"...a woman's responsibility is to awaken and to arouse (in deeply penetrating movie trailer voice)."

Original exploitation trailer with a righteous twig spankin' at 00:52 (1:32 total). Brought to you "in the great tradition of Scandinavian film realism":

More deliciously sleazy exploitation trailer's on fucoid's youtube channel

SCRIBBLINGS: fucoid flees future porn set
LOOK: Soviet New Year by fucoid
LOOK: Yura Mikalovich from Nizhin by fucoid

SCRIBBLINGS: fucoid flees future porn set

2009-03-01T17:45:00.006+02:00

Every month I would pay rent and every month new objects de swank would show up at my apartment: jacuzzi bathtub, pool table, Scandinavian bed, leather couches and assorted velvety atrocities.

At first I thought my landlord was trying to impress a foreigner with his ~~good taste~~ new found income. But after recently seeing some of his smutty photos for sale, along with his sudden reluctance to renew my lease, well...

...dude has clearly been setting up a porn palace right under my nose. It is popular sport here in Ukraine (porning, that is). But I wish him all the best on his mission to create quality wank material (someone has too).

...will be relocated by Tuesday.

'Till then:

artmusicfood
Deathronic existence
Exile on Moan Street
the hangover helper
Krell Laboratories
M.IV
Shameless Self-Promotion
Shaping Stones

SCRIBBLINGS: The bond of ethnic slurs
SCRIBBLINGS: Visions of Malevich in Ukrainian Village
SCRIBBLINGS: Drifting to my apartment

SOVIET ANIMATION: "Hedgehog in the Fog" (1975) by Yuriy Norshteyn

2009-02-28T17:10:00.012+02:00

Friendly little hedgehog meets not so friendly owl in Hedgehog in the Fog (1975)

Everyone knows that the avante garde of revolutionary Russia produced wicked collage art and montage film. But few in the West know about another outcrop of their constructivist experimentation: puppet animation.

It is a delicate stop motion style that was perfected in the early years of the USSR. Banned by Stalin, it experienced a renaissance in the 60s, climaxing with a handful of films in the 70s, particularly Norshteyn's Hedgehog in the Fog (1975).

Regularly ranked internationally as one of the best animated films of all time, it's followers include contemporary animation maverick Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle), who rates it as one of his favorite films.

Experience ten minutes of dreamy magic with an inquisitive little hedgehog on the edge of the unknown:

LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikolai Nedbailo from Moscow
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #2, Umka
LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikifor from Krynika

LOOK: Soivet kitsch #5, "The Poem Mountain" Vietnam (1972)

2009-02-27T20:17:00.010+02:00

...more delightfully tacky ephemera from a dustbin in Ukraine.
The Poem Mountain Vietnam (1972) from street vendor

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #1, Bring Some Beer! (1989)
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #2, Umka (1975)
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #4, Gardinia (1966)

LOOK: "Getty Images" by fucoid

2009-02-27T16:00:00.009+02:00

Getty: Photoshopping your memories since 1992.

original photo by Boris Mikhailov

LOOK: Bottle Collector from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Untitled 1 from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Wire from Lvivski streets, by fucoid

REGIONAL NEWS: Spam Crackdown Threatens Koy4Goff's Penis Enlarger, Free iPod Industry

2009-02-27T09:53:00.004+02:00

The U.S. is considering sanctions against the Eastern European nation if it does not reduce the number of unsolicited offers for Viagra and replica handbags it sends.

More regional news: Ukrainian Champions (via Micro)

WATCH: Zizek on utopia today
READ: Anthropologists gone wild

NEGLIGENT HERO #5: Karen Finley, "Enter Entrepreneur" (1987)

2009-02-26T21:11:00.006+02:00

See NEA 4 psycho bitch extraordinaire Karen Finley lather her nude body with egg yolks and glitter and then scream her desire to castrate wall street tycoons (and then feed their dung covered testicles to their unsuspecting children as chocolate treats):

NEGLIGENT HERO #3: Nick Zedd, Why Do You Exist? (1998)
NEGLIGENT HERO #2: Pipilotti Rist, I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much (1996)
NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from Painter (1995)

LOOK: From "Nouveau Riche" (2006-09) by fucoid

2009-02-26T19:24:00.006+02:00

Treasure Island 1

LOOK: Bottle Collector from post-Soviet identity project, by fucoid
LOOK: Stockman Sales Clerk from Finnish portrait series, by fucoid
LOOK: Suburban Princess (2005) by fucoid

GoTo: Jade Blood

2009-02-26T18:53:00.006+02:00

For your funky finger puppet needs, you cannot go wrong with Unhappy Cat's emporium of retro fuzzy, digit-dwellers.

As offered on Jade Blood:

Five finger puppets + one zine catalogue + pouch made with 'vintage' (old, ha) material=
FIVE ENGLISH POUNDS.

animals as follows...

Sleepy kittys
polar bears
playful bunnies
suspicious hedgehogs
brown bears
pandas- SOLD OUT!
penguins
ginger bread- limited christmas ed.
robbins

GO HERE FOR WARM AND FRIENDLY FINGERS

------
Other recommendations:
GOTO: Exile on Moanstreet

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #4, "Gardinia" (1966)

2009-02-25T18:49:00.006+02:00

...more delightfully tacky ephemera from a dustbin in Ukraine.
Gardinia (1966) postcard, from street vendor

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #1, Bring Some Beer! (1989)
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #2, Umka (1975)
LOOK: Soviet kitsch #3, Bag of Apples and Where is the Bear?

NEGLIGENT HERO #4: Tod Browning, wedding celebration from "Freaks" (1932)

2009-02-25T13:12:00.003+02:00

The only person in the world who could have created the film to inspire generations of punks and surrealists; this is the scene that bequeathed us with the skin crawling chant, "Gooble, gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us!"

NEGLIGENT HERO #3: Nick Zedd, from Why Do You Exist? (1998) 1/2
NEGLIGENT HERO #2: Pipilotti Rist, I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much (1986)
NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from Painter (1995)

TRAUMATIC TOILETS OF LVIV #1

2009-02-24T20:52:00.006+02:00

Ahhh... Lviv, the city of sleeping lions, the Florence of the East... "there is a coffee shop, cafe or cathedral on every corner," as the locals like to brag.

Surely. But it's sceptic facilities are just as memorable; there are some of the most remarkably nasty shitters in the Western world here.

My mental map is equally defined by traumatic encounters with raw sewage as it is with baroque architecture and turkish roast beans.

Location: 83 Horodotska Street @ Circus Arena (click for full effect)

READ: The lyricism of shit ingestion
LOOK: From Toilet Babe, post-Soviet identity project by fucoid

LOOK: Cursed sanitarium ruins in Kirovograd, Ukraine

LOOK: Queer graffiti

2009-02-24T16:25:00.005+02:00

SCRIBBLINGS: Drifting to my apartment
LOOK: Abandoned Lvivski palace
LOOK: Gray urbanism on Kiev's 'Left Bank'

NEGLIGENT HERO #3: Nick Zedd, "Why Do You Exist?" (1998) 1/2

2009-02-24T11:10:00.002+02:00

This is what Warhol's interview reels may have looked like had he had a sense of humor (sans the nude, blue-painted Kembra Pfahler strummin' a guitar like she was on the set of Häxan, of course).

NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from Painter (1995)
NEGLIGENT HERO #2: Pipilotti Rist, I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much (1986)
LOOK: From America Swings, by Naomi Harris

READ: The lyricism of shit ingestion

2009-02-23T19:18:00.011+02:00

Twenty sparrows

a scattered

turd:

Share and share

alike.

-William Carlos Williams

Pigeons in dumpster today

LISTEN: Bukowski reading in front of live audience 1/2

LISTEN: Bukowski reading in front of live audience 2/2

LOOK: Shpytalna Street, from Lvivski Streets by fucoid

LOOK: "Rooster" (2008), from Ukrainian Grotesque by fucoid

2009-02-23T16:24:00.008+02:00

Rooster 2008

I was lucky enough to find someone willing to take on some of my stuff here in Lviv. Based on my old assemblages, they agreed to exhibit a new series with Ukrainian themes.

This one started with a kitschy stuffed pheasant that I found sans head in my attic. Like Igor on a midnight mission, I had a baba at the market decapitate one of her fowl and bag up the loose noodle for me. The rest was achieved via clothes hanger and superglue (problem solved).

LOOK: Chia-meathead (2005), by fucoid

LOOK: Ruptured Garfield (2005), by fucoid

LOOK: Yellow Brick Road installation (2006), by fucoid

NEGLIGENT HERO #2: Pipilotti Rist, "I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much" (1986)

2009-02-23T09:02:00.008+02:00

While playing with issues of gender, body and sexuality, Pipi creates some the most enjoyable video art you will ever see in a museum collection. Hyperbole? I think not.

See music industry stylistics turned upside down by topless Swede who sings John Lennon like a chipmunk on speed:

Pipi on her orgiastic installation that just ran at MoMA

NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from Painter (1995)
LOOK: Lviv Market Vendor, post-Soviet identity project by fucoid

LOOK: Untitled 1, post-Soviet identity project by fucoid

LISTEN: Sunday mix #5, Gypsy invasion

2009-02-22T13:21:00.003+02:00

...you know I had to catch a Ukrainian circus while I was here.

Like a grizzly bear riding a bicycle into your living room, I bring this gypsy punk mix. As written here before:

"The genre defies genre-ization by nature; it's multicultural and contradictory to the point of confusion. But self-styled spokesman Eugene Hütz (Gogol Bordello) has stated that it's roots lay with the Romy people of the Ukrainian Carpathian mountains. From there it explodes into the Balkans, Israel, Hungary and wherever else musical instruments are made available."

And the music that follows is some of the most invigorating since the mid-seventies when John Lydon embraced the safety pin. Give it a chance if you haven't already:

gypsy punk sampler

SUNDAY MIX #1: Gary Numan

SUNDAY MIX #2: Lo fi eruption(s)

SUNDAY MIX #3: Indie optimism

NEGLIGENT HERO #1: Paul McCarthy, clip from "Painter" (1995)

2009-02-21T11:00:00.011+02:00

Paul McCarthy: Marking the spot where porn, children's programming and food stuffs meet for over thirty years. See an elephantoid Bob Ross have a nervous breakdown while trying to apply shit to canvas in a deeply meaningful way:

Looking back at monumental, chocolate-shitting Blockhead on Tate Modern's north lawn (2003)

Full version of Painter (1995)

WATCH: Soviet Playground by fucoid
LOOK: Suburban Princess by fucoid

LISTEN: Bukowski reading in front of live audience, 2/2

2009-02-20T18:44:00.011+02:00

It has been a long time since the last Bukowski readings and they were popular, so here you go: more vintage recordings from one of his burlesque recitals.

He is in classic form, drinking, reading and at one point challenging the audience to an old school street fight: "One more beer and I'll take all of ya!"

bukowski readings 2/2

Bukowski's neo-primitive paintings, via Alice

LISTEN: Bukowski reading in front of live audience, 1/2
ROGUE TRAVELER PROFILE: William S. Burroughs

GoTo: Exile on Moanstreet

2009-02-20T10:33:00.006+02:00

For a blast of highly literate neo-psychadelia, Mona will take care of you...
Miss Atom 2009, "the most glamorous woman working in the Russian nuclear industry" as seen in Exile on Moanstreet

LOOK: "The Journal," by fucoid and Digital Fishie

2009-02-19T18:55:00.012+02:00

Below is the result of a collab I recently completed with Digital Fishie (click to make it bigger). I supplied the images and she took them to her dungeon. If you appreciate her filthy abuse of post production apps like I do, check her blog and deviantart shop.

LOOK: Soviet New Year by fucoid

LOOK: Bottle Collector by fucoid

LOOK: Suburban Princess by fucoid

LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikifor from Krynica (Poland)

2009-02-19T04:45:00.009+02:00

Nikifor (perhaps the most unassuming man to ever be known by one name) is commemorated by a prominent piece of statuary here in Lviv. I was told he painted on bits of ephemera like discarded cigarette boxes and paper bags, which piqued my interest. Wanting to know more, I consulted WIKI:

"Nikifor painted over forty thousand pictures - on sheets of paper, pages of notebooks, cigarette cartons, and even on scraps of paper glued together. The topics of his art include self-portraits and panoramas of Krynica, with its spas and Orthodox and Catholic churches. For most of his life he lived alone in extreme poverty in Krynica, and was considered a mentally challenged person. He had difficulties talking and was almost illiterate. Underestimated for most of his life, in his late days he became one of the most famous primitivist painters."

His life is the perfect recipe for primitivist mythology: isolated, nearly deaf/dumb and illiterate and labeled as mentally ill (just the right proximity to 'retardation'). Accordingly, he has recently been the subject of a feature film wherein he is depicted as a pissy, old diogenes type, living with the dogs on the edge of town.

~~Exploited~~ discovered late in life, his works are represented in major collections around the world, where modernist versions of art history still awkwardly lump it in with all of the other "direct depictions of the spirit and emotion of humanity" given to us by Asians, native peoples and other nearly-'retarded'-but-still-able-to-hold-a-paintbrush artists.

But rather than viewing him as some child or idiot, impervious to moral decay, perhaps he was just a guy looking for respect, a little money for his work and the ability to score with reasonably attractive women. And maybe the utter lack of all of the above is a major reason why he came across as so pissy, downtrodden and 'authentic'.

Either way he produced a ton of interesting images and it is not difficult to find what he was doing in contemporary art.

-----------------

Primitive audio from Eero Jahannes, a practitioner of Skwee out of Finland... I imagine he rocks out with 8 bit synth leads from something like a Gameboy or Spellchecker, it is infectious:

Katt Witt 700 Watts - Eero Johannes

LOOK: Naïve artist, Ivan Skolozdra from Lviv

LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikolai Nedbailo from Moscow
LOOK: Abject artist from Kiev, Alexander Kadnikov

LOOK: From "Lvivski Streets," by fucoid

2009-02-16T16:55:00.009+02:00

Gypsy View

I followed a gypsy couple from the market a couple of days ago. I see them every day... she stands on a table and sings Romani folk songs for change. He watches.

They live in a makeshift cabin and do not like to be photographed. This is the view from their 'courtyard'.

More images from Lvivski Streets:

Postcard 2

Untitled 2 '08 (tree with stairs)

Baba 1

LOOK: Post #100 @ Permanent Transience

2009-02-16T14:05:00.006+02:00

from Modern Fashion, winter 1959 (Polish)

LISTEN: Sunday mix #4, Roller rink nostalgia '87

2009-02-15T23:59:00.013+02:00

Horses from kovacovsky.com

Nostalgia sits on the opposite side of wanderlust and travelers know it all too well. There are two basic encounters with this sickness:

1. The uninitiated: typically late at night or after phone calls back home... moments of girlish neediness. At other times, it is triggered by association, elevating the most mundane objects like a favorite mug or even front door keys (with their specific American cut), to the level of Platonic form (uh... was my 'big blue mug' ever really that special?).

2. Nostalgia as medicine, the chosen embrace of stupid old shit that is suddenly (and unreasonably) hypnotic. Old films, baseball websites and improvised cajun food all assume narcotic form for me when things aren't going so well abroad.

But the hands down, most guilt-inducing indulgence of wimpiness is a playlist of freshly pubescent pop faves. No one can escape its tentacular snare. For me, it consists of pre-house roller rink tracks from the late 80s.

----------

Growing up in south Florida, we had a steady flow of freestlye, with its Latin roots, mixed in with the standard oldschool rap/electro and sappy Stevie B. ballads. It is a musical mix stuck between two eras, teetering between analogue and digital... always sounding a bit awkward yet so self-assured. Love it or hate, no one has to know if you listen (be advised, 2 couple-skates):

roller rink nostalgia 87

LISTEN: Sunday mix #1, Gary Numan

LISTEN: Sunday mix #2, Lo-fi eruption(s)

LISTEN: Sunday mix #3, Indie optimism

READ: Anthropologists gone wild

2009-02-15T18:10:00.009+02:00

I studied anthropology in a department full of postmodern pusses. Identity, symbols, tropes and representation were our primary concerns... intervening in a culture was considered dubious, maybe even imperial. How could we justify violating its ~~sacred~~ percieved balance? Right or wrong (and I firmly believe contemporary theory is crippling), for me, and many of my friends, it was a dead discipline with no where to go except toward art and literature (where we become the best pretenders).

But there are other programs out there that apparently produce academic commandos who make a real difference in the world, like Paula Loyd from Wellesley. She spied on Afghan civilians for American military forces under the guise of ethnographic respectability. Not surprisingly, she was treated as a combatant and eventually set on fire by an Afghan rebel. Her "research assistant" then followed the fleeing attacker and shot him to death- while he was running away.

Can you say, "conquistadores?"

------------

Anthropologist's Death Highlights Questionable Role of Social Science in War
by Farah Stockman

In a hostile corner of southern Afghanistan, an American platoon fanned out around a market, forming a protective circle around a petite woman with a notebook. Paula Loyd, a Wellesley-educated researcher, began interviewing villagers about the price of cooking fuel - a key indicator of whether insurgents had hijacked supply lines.
Full article

SCRIBBLINGS: My education made me a pussy unfit for travel

LOOK: T.A.Z. in village Altynivka is gone

WATCH: "How To Sell Out" from Howcast

2009-02-11T22:14:00.005+02:00

WATCH: Žižek on feminine sexuality in Bergman's "Persona" (1963)

2009-02-11T14:15:00.004+02:00

...more film analysis from the eminent (and fuzzy, furry, coked-up) philosopher and culture critic from Slovenia.

In this clip he uses that famous scene in Persona, where Alma (Bibi Anderson) describes an orgy on the beach to Elisabeth (Liv Ullmann), to illustrate female sexuality in Lacanian terms, as a biological and narrative experience (with one before the other).

I of course am severely limited in my experience so I cannot make a call (other than ideological) on what he is saying, but I asked some girlfriends and it made for interesting conversation...

WATCH: Žižek on fantasy and desire in Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979)

WATCH: Žižek on fantasy and perversion in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986)

WATCH: Žižek on utopia

LOOK: Naïve artist, Ivan Skolozdra from Lviv

2009-02-11T11:57:00.011+02:00

Always on the lookout for work by outsider artists, I discovered this gem at the book market today: a collection of paintings by naïve artist Ivan Skolozdra.

In a byzantine fashion traditional to the region, he applies oils to the underside of old window panes, reversing the images by transcribing from a reflection in a mirror. The resulting 'primitive scenes' glow through the layer of glass. From the text:

"Painting on glass became popular in 19th-century Ukraine mainly in the Carpathians. At the turn of the 20th century this kind of painting, once so popular with the broad masses, declined noticeably due to competition with printed material. The traditions of the painting technique were nearly lost and there was no attempt to renew them until recently in academia. Ivan Skolozdra is the sole amateur artist who has rejuvenated and now promotes this kind of folk art which was traditional in western Ukraine in the past."

His scenes draw heavily from myth, literature and history. Depictions of Ukrainian folklore are especially rich, many layers of narrative are rolled up into single paintings (Chumok Road, Firmness). Likewise, his Themes of Gogol looks like a Ukrainian Bosch in its devilish complexity.

He is perceived differently by the art world than the previous Eastern Slav "naïve" artist I looked at, Nikolai Nedbailo. An artist with (advertised) formal training, Nedbailo's use of the awkward appearance of folk art is described as social critique. Meanwhile Skolozdra from the village is presented as having no social perspective (or training), he is only channeling tradition.... like some sort of missing link to the past. It is a dubious claim for many reasons, not the least of which (aside from the obvious condescension) is the view of history as some sort of static, precious chunk of stuff that sits in isolation outside of metro areas, in need of institutional protection.

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To sample a dynamic collision of musical histories, check this world music track that left even the Pitchfork nerds at a loss of words:

Sabali (Produced by Damon Albarn) - Amadou & Mariam

LOOK: Naïve artist, Nikolai Nedbailo from Moscow

WATCH: Harvest of Despair (Holodomor doc) 1/6
LOOK: Lvivski cult graphic artist, Bohdan Soroka

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #3, "Bag of Apples," and "Where is the Bear?"

2009-02-09T20:06:00.006+02:00

...more bits of delightfully tacky ephemera from a dustbin in Ukraine.
Bag of Apples (1984) pocket calendar, from street vendor

Where is the Little Bear? (1982) pocket calendar, from street vendor

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #1, Bring Some Beer

LOOK: Soviet kitsch #2, Umka

LOOK: Chia-meathead (2005) by fucoid

LISTEN: Sunday mix #3, Indie optimism

2009-02-08T19:10:00.001+02:00

Oneness (2003) by Mariko Mori

Bizarre alien orgy directed by Stanley Kubrick? No... there was recently a Mariko Mori exhibit at the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev. The centerpiece was the above installation, Oneness. From the original catalogue:

"Oneness is a sculpture of six “alien” figures, linking hands in a circle. When the viewer participates in the work by hugging the figures and welcoming them, the aliens’ eyes light up and their hearts start beating. When all six are hugged at once the base lights up as well. Oneness is an allegory of connectedness, a representation of the disappearance of boundaries between the self and others. It is a symbol of the acceptance of otherness and a model for overcoming national and cultural borders."

It was a great exhibit and I had a good time. But I couldn't help thinking that such elaborate installations seemed to be out of place with the times. Besides being ridiculously expensive (and undemocratic in materials) it may be time for mainstream art to become openly critical again. I want Mariko Mori but I also want to see more engagement with history when I go to the museum or gallery. That being said, the following mix is an exercise in optimism:

indie optimism

LISTEN: Sunday mix #2, Lo-fi eruption(s)

LISTEN: Sunday mix #1, Gary Numan

WATCH: Pinchuk Art Centre (toilet as spectacle)

CULTURE SHOCK: Commie paranoia, 2009

2009-02-07T10:44:00.008+02:00

Great Castigation Series: Coca-Cola (1993) by Wang Guangyi

I have had my share of shocking experiences the last few years. I once drank champagne in the back seat of a moving squad car with two on duty officers in Odessa. My maid in Kiev preferred to clean my apartment topless (and she was my grandmother's age). And I was once asked to cut the head off of a live turkey with the equivalent of a rusty butter knife in a Polish village. Other things I would rather not write here. This is the family version.

And I was culture shocked again this week when I found out that the Ukrainian communist party has been spying on me. They cut my phone connection, knowing that I am an American, to get bribe money. Where are these spies and how do I contact them? No one knows. Of course it is complete crap but my landlord fervently believed that my internet usage (a capitalist symptom) had drawn the attention of the government to his little apartment in Lviv and he wanted no part of the ensuing political scandal. He refused to offer any assistance as I am probably a known enemy of the state (not the first time I have been accused of such lofty status).

So I roughed out a trip to the phone company and surprise, the phone now works. Many older Ukrainians are deeply suspicious of all institutions, and for good reason. Ukraine is thoroughly corrupt (it sits between Pakistan and Liberia on the CPI, no easy feat) and has been since... forever? So it really is not strange for my landlord, the whackjob that he is, to believe that the state has a problem with me checking baseball scores and sending emails. The unpredictable nature of life here needs some sort of explanation. Do imaginary commies play a much different role from, say, a sun deity, wrathful god or pissed off witch in other cultures? They give some form to all of the uncertainties in a society in transition. Ukrainians are superstitious for very real reasons.

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Does neoliberal art like the Wang Guangyi above feel annoyingly complacent today, post-global meltdown? Guangyi from the Saatchi collection.

SCRIBBLINGS: Visions of Malevich in Ukrainian village

TASTE: Carpathian witch's dumplings with grave soil

Corruption Perceptions Index

SCRIBBLINGS: The bond of ethnic slurs

2009-02-06T14:34:00.006+02:00

Tourists II by Duane Hanson (1988)

There is a Russian guy who lives in the apartment next door to me. Shocking, I know... follow me for a minute. He is about my age, late 20s, but we have never spoken before. It is generally not accepted to speak to strangers (while sober) in Ukraine. Surly head nods were the extent of our relationship. But over the last week we have been forced to get know each other through a shared problem with our electricity. Several times I have had to go to his place and he to mine as we waited for technicians. During these awkward meetings we soon discovered that in addition to our technical maladies we also share a love of classic horror films... a friendship was born.

But we are not at full warmth and fuzziness yet... we took our man-love to a new level this morning when I dropped of a copy of The Brood for him to borrow. He answered the door with a ginger, "Good morning stupid American," to which I quickly responded, "same to you, dirty Russki." We chuckled, shook hands and I went on my way knowing that we have an honest relationship and I can trust him... as far as I can trust anyone here.

Late Floridian artist Duane Hanson left an amazing body of work behind. Check out his hyper-real, body cast sculptures if you haven't yet: Saatchi retrospective

SCRIBBLINGS: My education made me a pussy unfit for travel

SCRIBBLINGS: Ukrainian roadside diner

THINK: Towards a definition of 'rogue traveler'

LOOK: From "Lvivski Streets," by fucoid

2009-02-06T01:21:00.009+02:00

Wire

I don't know. It is winter, I am locked inside, and I keep turning to old movies, books and images for comfort. Nostalgia is closing in on me. These are frames from a bit I staged behind an old sanitarium in Lviv's city center.

LOOK: Meat Coaster (2006) by fucoid

LOOK: Ruptured Garfield (2005) by fucoid