Bricksy by Jeff Friesen is a Lego Homage to Banksy
Photographer Jeff Friesen has emerged with the “Bricksy” series, a classic American take on some of Banksy’s most iconic work that substitutes the figures in Banksy’s art with Lego pieces. The Lego spin takes the ominous colors and sense of anonymity Banksy accentuates in his work and plays with it, developing a contrasting angle to his art by means of depicting it with a lighthearted, multicolored, and childish spirit. While it’s a completely distinct way to perceive Banksy’s art, the pieces still manage to stay true to what Banksy is all about: repetition, incognition, and the manipulation of consumerism.
My first glance at Friesen’s “Bricksy” was an interpretation of a nod to pure entertainment, with Lego facial expressions and body language serving as a comedic homage to Banksy’s work. After all, even with only a limited comprehension of the Lego world, it’s difficult for me to instantly construct an association between a seemingly innocent child’s toy and negativity. A closer look at Friesen’s work reminds us that the misleading and innocent nature of the iconic, mass-produced, and homogenous toys serves as satirical commentary on postmodern consumerism, doing the exact opposite of what Banksy does in an artistic sense but still conveying the same subject matter to the masses.
While Banksy pushes the limits on street art himself by exploring relatable and controversial themes, Friesen takes “Bricksy” to a unique level, permeating the Banksy charm and giving his cult following something new to talk about. Check out Friesen’s “Bricksy” series below.
[via Co.CREATE]
Tattooers, the Tattooed: Exploring the Evolution of Body Art
Now through October 2015, at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, is an art exhibition titled Tatoueurs, Tatoués (translates Tattooers, the Tattooed), that explores the evolution of body art through the ages. As tattooing dates back more than 5,000 years, the exhibition features ads and images taken from various photographers and artists throughout this time. Amongst some of the oldest examples are remains of Ötzi, the Neolithic iceman found in the Alps in 1991 who was covered with 57 tattoo marks, and two-thousand-year-old mummies discovered in Egypt and Syria who carried tattoos of mythical monsters and animals.
For a modern take on tattooing, the exhibit also used thirteen artists from countries ranging from Samoa to Switzerland to ink their art onto disembodied legs, torsos and arms crafted from silicone. This is used the explore the contrasts and comparisons to old and modern techniques and symbolisms. However, regardless of time, it seems that tattoos have always been used as declaration of individuality. Whether for beauty, beliefs, mourning, hatred or love, tattoos have always been used to identify, cure, honor and even defeat those who wear or who were forced to wear them.
Check out some of the images taken from the gallery, and find out more on the exhibit here.
[Via i-D Vice]
Came to the Balkans for the Music, Stayed for the Flooding
Photos by Aleksandra Pavlovic
I left to study abroad in Madrid on May 15th with the original intent of attending the MAD music festival in Belgrade, Serbia and visiting family before flying back home to Chicago. What I was completely unaware of was that instead of attending the music festival, I would be a first-hand witness to a natural disaster that hasn’t happened in Serbia or in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the beginning of modern record keeping. The floods in the Balkan region began on May 16th and are still destroying parts of Serbia today more than 96 hours later.
I could enumerate many of the horrid aspects of the flood straightforwardly: out of five pumps being used to try and manage the Drina, the flooding river in my small town of Bijeljina, three pumps were defective and two were working at half-capacity. The electricity in Bijeljina was shot on the 16th, long before the water had reached a height of three meters. Thousands from cities and villages nearby have had to evacuate their homes, while some of their hometowns are currently portrayed as having “disappeared” by the media.
What is much more difficult to communicate, however, is the silence that makes the entire tragedy proliferate in its apocolypticality. When an emergency situation happens in Chicago, help can be guaranteed at the most within the hour. In Bijeljina, while waters were swiftly rising, the assistance was as bleak as it could get. In my part of town, there was absolutely no form of communication available; after the batteries from our cellphones gave out, we received updates by standing on our patio and asking our neighbors questions, despite most of them knowing as little about what was going on as we did. When the flooding became heavier, I watched one canoe pass by and waited for others, only for none to come. I waited for the sounds of a helicopter to fly overhead, but didn’t hear any. My uncle laughed at me when I told him the assistance I was anticipating, because “We’re not in Chicago. This isn’t America.” After asking my aunt how we were planning on evacuating if need be, looking down from our patio she told me that once the waters swallowed our car, we would find a boat and row to the safest city. Keeping the absence of boats in mind, I translated her words as “grab a sturdy surface, jump, and hope for the best.”
I am dumbstruck at how lucky my family and I were that the Drina pulled back and that we came out of this tragedy unharmed. One villager from an affected area nearby described the moment he was loading a tractor in an attempt to rescue his cattle, saying, “I had to choose between our calves and our pigs. The pigs were standing by in dead silence, as if they were about to burst into tears.” The loss has been tragic on a monumental scale, and my hopes are that rescue efforts in areas still suffering are multiplying rapidly, saving the lives of those looking ahead at an unforeseeable future.
I managed to take the photos below in Bijeljina with my iPhone before its battery went out. They capture the Drina and public efforts to contain it in its early stages of flooding and the predominant areas where my family communicated with neighbors, searched for signs of aid and came up with options for evacuation. Considering that other towns are still awaiting their first or even next flood wave to hit, it’s safe to say that Bijeljina had it very lucky, despite the tragic and outstanding damages, both psychological and material.
[Documentary] Bob Marley: Giant
Photo by Dennis Morris
At the very young age of 16 years old, photographer, Dennis Morris, met Jamaican reggae king Bob Marley, in 1974 at a Speakeasy club in London. The two immediately formed a strong friendship, one that would later lead to shooting some of the most popular photos of Marley today. In a short documentary, titled “Bob Marley: Giant”, Morris recollects their relationship by sharing the life of Bob Marley through his own eyes and camera lens.
The short documentary also features interviews, voiceovers and photos (both personal and exhibited). He also humbly speaks on his opinion on the various bootlegged use of many of the shots he's taken of Marley, one being the infamous shot of him holding a "spliff" while blowing smoke. Not many people actually know that this was taken as he was teaching the photographer how to properly smoke a joint.
While watching the short documentary, it's immediately apparent that Morris understood Marley in a very unique way, while very few photographers understand their subjects like such. Here are some of the infamous photos of Bob Marley shot by Dennis Morris, and below is the 18-minute documentary. Marley fan or not, the experiences these two shared are extraordinary and it's definitely worth a watch.
[youtube id="mpR06HoVIdc"]
[Via PetaPixel]
X Games Austin to Offer Festival Experience
X Games will be making its debut in Austin TX in just a few short weeks, and they're doing everything they can to make sure their first event in the city will be a memorable one. While the main attraction to this year's X Games will be on the sports, ESPN has decided to expand on the entire experience for patrons by introducing a huge festival village-like setting full of various attractions for everybody in attendance. In addition to the extreme sports competitions, other attractions include a galleria, gaming shack, music stage, go-kart racing, and more.
You could start your day watching BMX Vert, wander over to the Sound Factory and partake in some karaoke, head out to the ESPN Clubhouse to catch the baseball scores, catch an Alamo Drafthouse showing at the Texas Ranch, get a haircut at the Galleria, race a couple of Go-Kart laps in The Garage, stock up on some water for your bottles at the Green Planet, conquer the obstacle course at The Playground, set a high score in Pac-Man at the Gaming Shack, practice your kickflips at the Next X Park, then head back out to catch some Skateboard Vert. Sounds like an amazing itinerary, doesn't it?
You can read the full summary of each individual "village" on the X Games Austin's official website. The full map can be found below. X Games Austin will take place from June 5th to June 8th. Expect some amazing photos from the weekend in the near future.
Google Glass Available to Consumers in the U.S.
Outside of a brief purchasing window a few months ago, there wasn't a guaranteed way of getting your hands on a pair of Google Glass; tou pretty much had to be chosen to experience what it was all about. Many people have heard about Google Glass, but in some ways it's still kind of mystery until you've actually have had to wear a pair. However, that's all changed as Google has finally made Glass available to people in the U.S. for a price tag of $1500. For now, they'll only be available to those living in the States until Google really pushes the product to more consumers. Until then, they'll continue to work on improving the software and hardware, as well as bringing ways to lower the cost. If you've been dying to own Glass, you can head on over to Google's official website to buy a pair. Check out the video of some of the first to experience Glass and what they enjoyed about it.
[youtube id="zHqp5nFq5Pk"]
[Via PetaPixel]
Evocative Portraits of Holy Men in India by Joey L.
Photos by Joey L
Joey Lawrence (known as Joey L) is a Canadian commercial photographer, director and published author based in Brooklyn, New York. Although he is recently best known as the creator of the Twilight movie posters, he is also known to have a deep interest in endangered cultures, traditions and rare religious practices. As a personal project, Joey traveled to Varanasi, India to create images for a series called, “Holy Men". While focusing on featuring religious ascetics in one of the oldest cities in the world and the “epicenter of the Hindu faith”, he was able to capture evocative portraits of actual holy men for this series.
In addition to the portraits, he was accompanied by filmmaker Cale Glendening, and Ryan, a close friend/assistant, to also create their documentary titled, “Beyond". The short film features a behind-the-scenes view of their experience in this third world, along with an emphasis on the photographer’s subjects, and mesmerizing and sometimes bizarre lifestyle.
Most of the portraits focus on the Aghori, a sect known for engaging in postmortem rituals, such as covering themselves in human ashes, meditating on corpses or crafting jewelry from human bones. “The Aghori have a profound connection with the dead. Death is not a fearsome concept, but a passing from the world of illusion,” says the photographer. Check out the photos below and find more on his website. Also be sure the see the eye opening documentary here.
[Via Demilked]
Sony's Developing a 185 TB Cassette Tape
Header image via 8lacknightshade's DeviantArt
Cassettes used to rule the world. If you're older than 25, chances are your first experience with music not on the radio came from a cassette tape. I know people from my generation perfected the art of the mixtape, painstakingly crafting the perfect double-sided tape to express our love to all of the cute girls of the world. With the advent of the CD and MP3 in following years, cassettes died a quick, fiery death. While it's not uncommon to catch indie bands pressing music on to cassettes these days, the format carries nothing more than a kitsch aesthetic for those that want to make their lives extra analog.
However, the cassette tape is about to find a second chance at life thanks to Sony and IBM, but not in the way most of us may remember it. Last week, Sony announced their development of a cassette tape that can hold up to 185 terabytes of data. 185 TERABYTES. To give you perspective, that's 3,700 Blu-rays' worth of data, with each square inch of tape able to hold 148 GB. The development of the "super" cassette tape bucks the cloud trend, allowing Sony to create a tangible product that can store a plethora of data for tech companies looking for some serious backup storage.
While Sony has plans to release their new cassette tape commercially, it won't attract everyday users as they're not intended to store playback files like games, music, and video. Rather, as I mentioned previously, they'll be targeting tech companies looking for industrial-strength means of storage. Don't call it a comeback, kids.
[via Consequence of Sound]