The PoMoNow Press Release turned out to be an utter failure with the press being missing from the scene entirely. The press was at another venue: the wedding of Viola Renegade. The editor of PoMoNow, Miz P, thinks that Viola arranged her wedding on the same date as the release date of the magazine in an attempt to spite P. The two had fought over the use of a white flower headband during her interview with PoMoNow.
Last weekend, visual artist, Holly Polyester, caused a frenzy in the art world by placing a urinal in the MoMA. Everywhere, people are talking about the audacity of this artist. Critics and audience are outraged. Famous critic, Steven Pinksom said, "By bringing in an object from the bathroom into the gallery, Ms. Polyester is encouraging everyone to basically pee on MoMA! What the nerve!" Soon after this comment was released, however, people young and old, gathered around the Museum of Modern Art to urinate on the museum's walls. Pinksom refused to make any comments regarding his initial comment.
Meanwhile, people are pouring in to see this radical work of "art" by the young artist. Can this be even called art? Fellow artist, Sister Liquor said, "The artist picked up a common urinal and signed her name on it and simply put it on display. I think it is a stroke of genius. I think this revolutionary piece will free us from the chains of post-modern and push us into the age of post-post-modern."
Artist and environmental activist, Roberta Bitts, gets inspiration for her new project from the ghost of an artist, who is still alive
Roberta Bitts, the founder of the Green is the New Black Foundation, says that she found herself drowning in the dark sea of creative block while working on her latest project that involves making a giant Hello Kitty house out of crocheted yarn. She became an avid fan of the famous cat designed by Ikuko Shimizu after she came across a Hello Kitty 'Go Green' t-shirt, a part of the corporation's attempt to go green. She expressed deep admiration for such a big corporation that "doesn't really have to give a shit but they do, cause they are awesome and they care about the environment." Bitts has been working on this gargantuan project that is going to cost an estimate of $7 million for the past 6 months. The project came to a standstill after the first 2 months because of the artist's inability to channel her creative juju into the process of creating. However, in an exclusive interview with PoMoNow, expressed her plans to start up the project again due to recent experiences involving the spirit of an artist. Last month, the artist bought a collectible lunchbox featuring cartoonist Robert Crumb's creation, Devil Girl. After the purchase, Bitts realized that she was constantly surrounded by a celestial aura that she is convinced is the spirit or ghost of Crumb. Crumb, a founder of the Underground Comik movement, is still alive and currently resides in Southern France. When questioned on how the spirit of a living person can possibly haunt someone, Bitts told us that Crumb may be alive in body, but his spirit is dead and it talks to her at night. Bitts believes that this special situation has come about because of his incompatibility with his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, who he has been married to since 1978. "His spirit will once again reunite with his body once I have rescued him from that bitch."
When asked about how the so-called spirit of Robert Crumb has helped her make progress in her project, the artist answered that she simply does not feel like what she is doing is trivial because the ghost of a famous artist has told her that the company Sanrio, responsible for making Hello Kitty an international phenomenon, is ultimately going to be responsible for saving the world from global warming with its green products. Sanrio declared that "Hello Kitty leads the go green campaign in her cool green overalls and nature-inspired adornment on her paws." This new line of merchandize includes jute tote bags, notebooks made of recyclable paper and soy ink, stainless steel coffee mug, etc. So far, Crumb's body has refused offer any comments regarding his supposed loss of soul.
I am currently absolutely obsessed with Andy Warhol, and if you are a fan of Pitchfork.com, so will you. Hipsters are nothing new and the term only makes sense if put into the context of time. The first-wave hipsters were the suburban white kids who wanted to be black and ghetto and listened to Coltrane, the second-wave hipsters were suburban white kids who were into flipping the finger and listened to The Ramones and now we have the third-wave hipsters, who are suburban white kids who are into being ironic and are currently listening to the new album by Joanna Newsom. People say that our generations hipsters don't really have much to say, but I think that's a little harsh. Hipsters are the calm before the storm. They are the in-between from movement to movement in American subcultures. The first movement in hipsterism somehow ended up in the Hippie generation of the 60's, the second movement resulted in Punks, so what, may we ask, is the third movement going to result in? A generation full of Andy Warhols! (Kawaii!) In the Andy Warhol subculture that is going to emerge in middle America and change the course of history, kids will be sexually fluid to the point of asexuality, obsessed with technology, loving and hating consumerism, ironic (oh, so ironic) and wearing white wigs.
Artist, Brandy Copiur, takes the book "The Radicant" to heart.
Artist Brandy Copiur, 24, who became somewhat of a celebrity in her celebration of non-celebrity has recently announced that she is going to kill herself for her final work of art. She plans to have scientists use her post mortem body parts to help create a special fibre optics that has been announced by the scientific world as the solution to 'slow internet' in under developed countries. Recent research in Culumbia University found that there is a special fibre in human parts, called The Trivial, that can be used to construct a certain type of fibre optics that will far surpass our current technology of fibre optics. Scientists are especially excited because they found that construction of this new technology is highly cost effective because the majority of the materials come from a currently understood as unlimited resource: dead people. It has been speculated that if this technology becomes the it IT thing of the future, underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh will never have to worry about slow internet ever again. Artist, Brandy Copiur, inspired by the book by Nicolas Bourriaud, has announced that she wants to dedicate herself to this cause. Copiur who rose to fame with her still continuing art-piece, 'I Refuse to be Seen", which involves her refraining any photos of herself to be uploaded to the internet. She has, almost miraculously, managed to keep herself completely closed off from the public eye in this ctrl+S universe where even my tabby cat, Ginger, is no longer safe from Facebook and other such constant and merciless means of documentation. In her exclusive interview for Pomonow, the artist said, "Bourriaud said in his book, 'The modernity of the twentieth century was pased on coupling the human to the industrial machine; ours confronts computing and reticulated lines.' I want to be, like, you know, a person who brings forth this idea of Altermodernity out to the world. Not many people have really read the book so they don't know. I want to tell everyone in the world that, yes, this is the new post-modern and what better way that to make my dead body to become a part of something that really symbolizes this change: the internet." Criticism has already started to flow in, the main topic of outrage being that the artist is missing the point of the book. Many say that she has taken the lines "No doubt, one could describe the ambition of the twenty-first-century artist as the desire to become a network" a little too much to heart. The upper middle class in Bangladesh, however, are overjoyed and have named a new road in the ever expanding capital, Dhaka, after her.
One of the greatest poets of the 21st Century, Stuart Rimes, dies at the age of 27.
Stuart Rimes, noted by critics and fans, as one of the most renowned poets of our generation dies of a cardiac arrest. The case is currently being investigated by the police and details are being held from the general public as investigators speculate that the death might have been caused by 'unnatural ways'.
The artist led a very public life, being constantly under the spotlight since his modeling days. He rose to fame after becoming the face of Walmart and really reached a rockstar status after his brief romantic stint with Paris Hilton. He rose to fame as a poet after his book Die baby, die won the prestigious Griffin Poetry prize in 2005.
Today he is no longer with us but Pomonow features the last interview with the poet extraordinaire, Stuart Rimes, taken 5 days before his tragic death.
A environmentally conscious lip gloss manufacturer markets a new line of lipgloss to promote awareness about the depleting bat population in the Philippines due to deforestation. They are planning to team up with Environmental Biologist, Jodi Sedlock, a professor at Lawrence University, WI in an attempt to "save the batz". Sedlock is currently working on documenting the behavior and population of insectivorous bats in the Philippines. So far, Jodi Sedlock has refused to associate herself with the project but the company maintains that she has been their number one inspiration. Reliable sources reveal that Sedlock does not agree with the main focus of this project and that in reality, their project does not particularly pertain to anything related to her research. She is reported to have said that, "They don't really care about bats. I think they are more interested in the different flavor names that can be named after the different species of bats." I mean, bats are definitely in this season.
For the past couple of days I have been coming up with ideas that I would want to execute for the magazine and researching on other cool subculture magazines. I have not been on campus so it has been hard for me to really execute any of the plans but I have gotten my hands on some awesome mags to inspire the magazine design and interface.
First up, I am thinking about doing some outrageous video collaboration with fellow artiste, Nick Stahl. These videos will function as something being featured in the magazine as well as be included with the bound copy in form of a dvd perhaps. Our inspiration was this really interesting music video that Nick found, called Plump Bisquit by Femme En Fourrure. Please check out the vid. It's real crazy. We plan to make something visually interesting like that. It probably won't make any sense at all but we figured that it doesn't have to.
Second, I found these two magazines: Code and Lemon. Code is a street fashion magazine from Holland and Lemon Magazine claims to represent pop culture with a twist. I am looking through these magazines to help me in terms of formatting and designing. I have also been trying to get the hang of Indesign. Real fun.
So, I guess I have changed my mind about doing the mouths video. I started working on it and the prospects seemed highly uninspiring. I guess it could be kinda funny but I'm not willing to make bets on it.
So now, instead of that, I am going to make a fake hipster magazine. So far, I have worked on the cover and brainstormed a few ideas for potential articles that will be featured in the magazine. All the advertisements and artwork will be photographed or created by me, but I will have a few of my friends write the articles. I hope it will be interesting.
A few ideas for features:
Josh Youngren: the top 10 albums of 2011
Sivanich takes on Vonnegut
Evan Micheal Tracy "I hate living." and "My life's a joke but I know it."
Everyone knows Andy Warhol. He projected the image of the quintessential pretentious artist and just like Klaus Nomi, his image was very constructed. However, I personally find Warhol to be a lot more interesting because his persona is a lot more consciously constructed and it is as meticulous as it is annoying. He said he loved plastic and that he wanted to be plastic.
The lecture did not make any particular impression on me but I found it very interesting that Andy Warhol changed as an artist as a result of the assassination attempt on him. Warhol thoughts on the attack were:"Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
The lecture was about Andy Warhol's work in his last decade and since I knew very little about his later works, I was all ears. I was disappointed to find that the lecture seemed to scream a lot of you-just-had-to-be-there and there wasn't really anything said that stuck to me or swayed my ever eager heart. I suppose the most I remembered about was how he revisted his earlier works and turned them into memento moris. I share Warhol's fascination with popular culture and popular imagery and find it interesting how he started to look at those very same objects/people that he treated as symbols of whimsy from a very different perspective after his brush with death. Makes me wonder what Hello Kitty would mean to me if someone attempts to kill me.
Anyway, I'm sure the exhibition is really great and a work of curatorial genius.
So we watched a documentary on Klaus Nomi for class and I got out of the room feeling rather sad. I don't particularly know if it was because the man had died of AIDS alone in a hospital, or because he was portrayed to have lived a lonely life or because it didn't really seem as though Mr. Nomi was trying to really do anything other than becoming famous (not that I have a problem with that). The film was very New York centered and the information provided about Nomi may have been rather biased and I don't really know what to make of it. The part that really did interest me was in the beginning when they talk about the underground punk/club scene that was happening in New York during the 70's that came to be known as 'The New York Scene'.
The mid 70's till the early 80's came to be a period of musical revolution taking place in the city of New York, where 'kids' from all over the place (US and other countries) were gathering to show their work and make their mark. These were people who felt out of place in their small town beginnings and wanted to do something less mundane than a white/blue collar future. It seems that Nomi came to the right place at the right time, or more importantly, met the right people at the right time or else he would have probably died in obscurity as an unsuccessful opera singer. His whole look was rather outstanding and I can see how artists today (e.g. Lady Gaga, Bat for Lashes) may have been influenced by his method of assuming a completely constructed stage persona but I don't know if his music had any function in revolutionizing pop music. The interesting part is that it almost seemed as though Nomi had stumbled on to this idea of creating this special stage persona, like it was almost an accident. It could have been the biases in the way he was portrayed in the film, but he was not really made out to have been a pillar of intellect and all his innovations were credited to the people he had the fortune of having stumbled on to in the New York scene. Nevertheless, I suppose it takes someone special to wear the weird suit and Nomi wore it quite well. I enjoyed the fact that there was a scene that gave birth to and encouraged performance artists like Klaus Nomi but I must admit that I found him to be a lot more intriguing before I watched this film.
So these are things that I have recently ran into or have been thinking about.
1. Bath Ramen
This is a product that recently came out and it is basically a bath set made to look like instant noodles. The bath sponge is in the shape of instant noodles and there are bath agents in the sauce sachets. This really got me thinking, is this a product catered to Japanese people specifically or is there a demand for something like this all over the world? This product just boggles my mind. For more info go to: JapanTrends.com
2. Elizabeth Báthory
I was looking up female serial killers, specifically the female serial killer in the world, and I ran into her. So this woman was a 16th-17th century countess from the Kingdom of Hungary and she was said to have killed around 600 little girls. According to popular belief, she would bathe in virgin blood in order to preserve her youth and beauty. Ballin'.
I would love to work for this magazine. Or for this company. Anything. Or maybe I can make little dolls or paintings to sell at their stores. Everything looks so shiny and nice.
That is the theatrical trailer of Abigail Disney's debut film, Pray the Devil back to Hell. She produced this award winning documentary film that tells the inspirational tale of the women of Liberia who joined forces, overlooking all religious and class differences, to bring peace to their war torn country.
Disney came to Lawrence University to talk about her film, her experiences and about peace. The story that the documentary covers is truly extraordinary and why I had never heard of it before. It made me wonder about if a country like Bangladesh (where I'm from in case y'all didn't know) were to be inflicted by some genocide, if the women of the country would be able join forces, hold their own and make peace happen like these women did. In a muslim country like Bangladesh, if the women were to take their clothes off, I don't even know what would result from that.
Disney said, "Peace is a process, it is not an event." That is a very strong, inspirational statement and she very eloquent in describing her views on peace and war. The sad part about talks regarding major topics such as peace, war, the environment is that they always run the risk of sounding trite very easily. The message is very important but it is truly hard to hold the audience's attention when speaking about ideologies that the audience is being exposed to everyday. That is why I think it is really important to find new and interesting ways to retell these stories.
I liked the part when she said, 'There is no such thing as a smart bomb. All bombs are dumb."
The Evolution of the Hipster. I don't really know if it is alright for me to post this but someone sent me a link to this and I thought it made an interesting commentary regarding the consumerist ideologies pertaining to the hipster culture. Please feel free to check it out from this link and look at their other pages. Real shiny and colorful.
The so called science loony, Buckminster Fuller really reminds me of my dad. I don't know if that's a good thing or not but there is something about the way he tried to explain triangles that reminded me of my father who, to this day, refuses to use deo or soap because it's just not "what nature intended".
Mr.Fuller was not crazy. He was adventurous, perhaps a little foolhardy but in the end, an inspiration to the people. The interesting thing about Mr.Fuller is that he never really "invented" anything that changed the world but he certainly had ideas that paved the way for those who want to change the world today. It was not so much his actual inventions but his attempts and his ideologies that makes me want to be him (almost). When I saw the film documenting his life, I just couldn't stop thinking about his tenacity and conviction towards his projects and how I really wish I had the balls to be like him and confront life as a series of experiments. Nothing about his trials or exploits intrigues me more than the way he wasn't afraid to present the world with his outlandish ideas. I feel as though every artist or creator must look at his life and gain inspiration to let go a little.
I am currently working on playing through the hours of west coast hipster confessionals that my friend has caught on video over the winterbreak. My general concept for this project is to create a video documentary that comments on current youth subcultures in the United States and their relationship with consumerism. My main focus is on the 'Hipster' subculture which started off in the 50's as a counterculture resisting the white collar dumbing down of individuality.
My initial idea was to make a video very similar to another video I had made for class which was also a commentary on American consumerist culture. Please feel free to check it out as it provides a general overview of the way I want to present my observation of current youth subcultures. I hope to be able to translate the fact that I am an outside observer (not a citizen of the United States) into the video as my personal opinions regarding the matter is a direct result of my unfamiliarity with it.
The PoMoNow Press Release turned out to be an utter failure with the press being missing from the scene entirely. The press was at another venue: the wedding of Viola Renegade. The editor of PoMoNow, Miz P, thinks that Viola arranged her wedding on the same date as the release date of the magazine in an attempt to spite P. The two had fought over the use of a white flower headband during her interview with PoMoNow.
