www.banksy.co.uk

New art etc.

this is stanley donwood.

this is JR.

this is paul insect.
this is faile.

the other weekend matt took me to a pretty amazing little gallery at charing cross road, called Lazarides. that experience, looking mostly at examples of street art, combined with the show at the tate this weekend, well let's just say that i have another new fascination (see following blog). I have copious amounts of "downtime" in the evenings here after class, so i'm now able to do some internets research and generally check out images from these artists that i'm really excited to be learning more about.... i will give you some examples. I hope that Joe Havasy has seen some of this stuff! alot of the work that I saw, I automatically thought that he would appreciate it.... so here goes. see what you like. these are just the ones that caught my eye...

i think i'm attracted to the subversive, cryptic nature of street art. I know that these examples here don't really engender that, these are pieces i saw in gallery, which somewhat contradicts the intent.....i think that these appeal to my love of the pop art aesthetic more than anything. the elusiveness of artists such as banksy really appeals to me though... "artivists" is a term i saw somewhere. work that invades the public space and commands to be seen, transforms ordinary surfaces into art and by extension statement.
there is one image that i saw at the tate that is sticking with me and won't leave my mind... this shot by jr:

it is breathtaking in scale and even more amazing in the current state of decay... the print is peeling from the building. i don't know what to think of this. it's surely powerful though.

the greatest thing, however, is that one of the common threads in the shots i've been inclined to take (esp. around new york) is that of street art and graffiti....finding it accidentally almost always and being pleasantly surprised by it constantly.
so now i have the platform from which i can learn more about street art as a form, those who create it, and seek it out where and when i may...

Remainder

i am newly fascinated by this writer Tom Mccarthy and his International Necronautical Society.... www.necronauts.org. There's an interview in the June Believer issue. Sounds like he's a pretty great novelist and an even more interesting artist...naturally I wiki'ed the society first... and by the by, he praises david lynch in the interview, which gives him extra gold stars in my world. here's why i'm intrigued....
."In 2004 the INS opened an office in Berlin, declaring it to be the “World Capital of Death.” The artist Anthony Auerbach, who holds the position of INS Chief of Propaganda, did field work in the city to seek out sites where the traces of death had most evidently been erased, especially monuments and memorials. These were surveyed using “low altitude aerial surveys” —that is, close-up photography of the pavement at each site. This material was then interpreted using, among other things, a painstaking inventory carried out by professional accountants of each grain of sand visible on the surface of the photographs." (wikipedia)
i love this wiki world so much! from here i am led to the Association of Autonomous Astronauts. a network of people dedicated to building their own spaceships. yes! check it out.

and go to the INS website... fascinating stuff. read the manifesto.

Halfway through training.

we are about to finish up our 757 Conversion training though none of us needed converted as we were all already members of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Flight on Boeing 757-200s. Today was most exciting as we got to put on oversized jumpsuits and white booties and slide down the big slide. also put out fires. also wear a spaceman oxygen hat and stumble through a smoke filled simulated cabin. so much fun. i have some photos here.
just a few examples anyway.
tomorrow i have three tests and im going to go study for them now. it's also my birthday which is neither here nor there, since i'll be studying. but maybe fun will happen this weekend!

Blogging from Merrye Olde

I can't mention the name of the company that I'm training with, turns out. So the moniker will be "The Airline" from here on out.
Here are some photos from the flight over and the barbecue to celebrate the graduation of the last class.... ao here we have the hotel "manor", lyndsea and arellys in club world on our ba flight, terminal 5 at heathrow..
went to brighton on the coat today, so more photos of that when i've got time to organize them...