this blog is a visual notebook of inspirations for a group of bandit bloggers. we post things we see and like. our lives don’t revolve around singular topics and neither does our blog. sorry! nothing is in-or-out of context here. enjoy xx
“…one day they came and they took the communists, and i said nothing because i was not a communist.
then one day they came and they took the people of the Jewish faith, and i said nothing because i had no faith.
then one day they came and took the unionists, and i said nothing because i was not a unionist.
they burned the Catholic churches one day, and i said nothing because i was a protestant.
one day they came and they took me, and i could say nothing because i was as guilty as they were of genocide, destroying the rights of any man to live…”
some great words by charles mingus, genuine people should follow them regardless of the parties – follow them when they effects the jews and follow them when they effects the palestinians. cease fire now, free the hostages, stop the illegal settlements, demand a just peace, there is no humane alternative – by xy
curator ralph rugoff talks us through five of hiroshi sugimoto’s photos, revealing his fixation with humanity’s precarious place in history
“my camera is like a time machine” confessed hiroshi sugimoto, the japanese photographer, who, since the 1970s, has been radically rethinking and expanding the medium. known for creating large-format, black-and-white images, sugimoto’s works appear to freeze time as a means to investigate humanity in a deeper, metaphysical sense. in his own words, his work is an attempt to capture “the essence of time itself”.
for the first time in britain, a major survey of the renowned tokyo-born photographer is open at london’s hayward gallery. aptly titled time machine, the retrospective assembles key works from his 50-year practice, revealing his fixation with humanity’s precarious place in history. beguiling and uncanny, his shots veer towards abstraction; simultaneously attracting and confounding the viewer. they invite us to contemplate representations of reality, or something more transcendental – beyond our cognitive faculties.
in conversation with another, curator ralph rugoff argues that sugimoto “uses the camera as a tool for thinking”. below, he spotlights five key works from the artist’s five-decade career.
hiroshi sugimoto – polar bear, 1976
“works such as polar bear convince many people that sugimoto is a wildlife photographer. but the polar bear in this photograph is not a real one. it’s a piece of stuffed, taxidermy in a display at new york’s american museum of natural history which he visited in 1974. this is an example of sugimoto’s diorama pictures, which draw from the early history of photography – when 19th-century figures such as louis daguerre used staged, fake backdrops in their photography studios. cultural theorists such as walter benjamin would then describe the diorama as an early precursor of photography. sugimoto is thinking about how dioramas were historically used to deceive the viewer. he wants to make the polar bear appear alive again, allowing the fake subject to appear completely real after being processed by the camera. nevertheless, death hangs over this image. in that sense, his diorama works are all like memorials.”
hiroshi sugimoto – goshen, indiana, 1980
“one night, sugimoto was working late in the museum taking these diorama pictures. then the lyrics of a song came into his head, the line: ‘let the light shine on you’. he had a vision of filming in a movie theatre. sugimoto asked himself: what would it look like if i left my camera open for the whole movie? he imagined it would create this intense, glowing light. it’s almost as if the screen has sucked everybody out of the theatre into this kind of white void. sugimoto was thinking about movie theatres as secular spaces in which people look for a certain kind of collective emotional or transcendental experience. the movie theatre represents the sublime. and in this time, the empty movie theatre – devoid of people – paradoxically represents a void, which nevertheless feels very present.”
hiroshi sugimoto is represented by the marian goodman gallery
hiroshi sugimoto – lake superior, cascade river, 1995
“lake superior, cascade river is part of a series sugimoto started in the 1990s. i chose this photograph because it so obviously relates to painting, and in some ways, you could argue sugimoto creates work more like an abstract painter than a photographer. this could be a rothko. in reality, it’s an example of his seascapes, which he began in the 1980s. by the time he took this shot, he had probably photographed over 200 seas around the world. he took this photograph just before the sun rose, so you see the light from the sun that’s coming up; it’s going directly in the clouds, over the water, and then the water is reflecting that white light above it. i reference rothko because he was a big influence on sugimoto. rothko was a painter conveying rather than illustrating emotional states. that’s something that sugimoto has spoken about in relation to his work; he’s trying to project his own thoughts and feelings onto his photographs, rather than document things that already exist in the world. in that sense, even though we know him as a photographer, his work stands outside of photography. his work isn’t about documenting the world.” excerpts from an article in “another magazine”. by ac
elektron digitakt 8-voice drum computer and sampler – approx $800
this video picks the roland as the winner – but hey it’s a free market out there
oh the digitakt 8 – this was always on my list, despite newer, cheaper, and better units like the roland SP404 have come to challenge it. im putting this here so we don’t forget what to get next christmas. by bh
sykes-picot-agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the united kingdom and france, with assent from the russian empire and the kingdom of italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the (turkish) ottoman empire.
full documentary : how britain started the arab-israeli conflict
“the bitter struggle between arab and jew for control of the holy land has caused untold suffering in the middle east for generations. it is often claimed that the crisis originated with jewish emigration to palestine and the foundation of the state of israel. yet the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier – in british double-dealing during the first world war. this is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to arab and jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the middle east.” a good watch – one more documentary to better understand the world we live in. by dd
“…i wouldn’t go so far to call the brother fat, i mean hes gotta weight problem, what the niger gots to do? hes samoan…” – that’s a damn shame
“…check out the big brains on brett, you’re a smart mother fucker, that’s right.” – check out the big brains on brett
“…man …i will never forget your ass for this… in fact what the fuck am i doing in the back, you’re the motherfucker who should be on brain detail…” – car scene brain detail
“…now, i want you go in that bag and find my wallet… its the one that says bad-mother-fucker…” – diner scene bad mother fucker
quentin tarantino’s classic pulp fiction — watched this gem on my flight west and remembered all the greatest bits of dialogue that tarantino and samual jackson mouthed off. just brilliant! the film is not a story but rather bits of ingeniously funny dialogue, and i’m not even including the great parts with bruce willis, just great stuff… worth another watch. by uh
squaring the circle (the story of hipgnosis album cover art)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO238OvVRGo
and the full film watch it before its taken down
great film for all you music lovers, this goes back into the 60s and 70s and the rise of album cover art of the era. pink floyd most famous album art; from dark side of the moon, atom heart mother (cow cover), and animals, with the flying pig that escaped the tethers and almost crashed airplanes landing into heathrow. watch it all on this free link on youtube before they take it down. by bb
this strange design is, at first glance, a warm gray square. however, once handled, the thermochromatic ink reacts to the heat of the holder’s hands and becomes clear. the design is thus your own handling. with time the chemicals weaken and ghost manipulations are left behind. a collector’s quandary – who’s to say who handled the collection in the past? their impression might be worth more than a virgin copy.
mind the differences between the cd and vinyl editions. i much prefer the vinyl packaging but enjoy the collateral far more of the cd version.
the design work was done by the folks at artomatic. uh seems to think their website is overly done, i enjoy the asmr treatment to the product video. by lsd
david lynch loves lithography, we love that he does.
here’s a short film he shot of the paris atelier where he makes his work ,and where so many other artists pass through to make their work. a magical place if there ever was one. on the bucket list to see it in person.
we’ll take an office trip one day. see what they think of our idea to put all our butts on a stone. by lsd
it’s important to take stock of this past year. a lot happened. here at tomorrow started i’ve taken it upon myself to present some of the more important and notable moments of the year 2023.
good riddance, as they say ( i quite liked it personally )
we rekindled our intimacy with ourselves after a difficult few years
we made time to be with each other
but also look after our needs
there were things none of us had ever seen, we all had to look
some of us opened our homes (and hearts) to newcomers
we took our physical health very seriously
and when that didn’t work, we minded our mental well-being
can jerry lorenzo save adidas and fill the sales kanye’s welcomed departure left behind? we think that’s a yes. but we are not the broad market that adidas needs, so lets see. well… fear of god and adidas’ collaborative “fear of god athletics” line is here. nearly 3 years after the partnership was first announced, at the tail end of 2020, fear of god founder jerry lorenzo has finally revealed what he’s calling the “third pillar” of fear of god, standing tall alongside with the brand’s vaunted “mainline collections” and world-conquering “essentials” sub-label. by dd
we are all trying to sort out how we got here? the atrocities on oct 7th were hard to take in, followed by more blood and death on the other side, which is also hard to accept. let us try and understand how we got here. why cant these 2 people (palestinians and israelis) live together in peace like they did until they didn’t some 75 years ago?
let us clarify that there are two categories of arabs living there – and they are often referred to “interchangeably”. they are those 1- the arab-citizens of israel who live in israel proper and those 2- the palestinians living in westbank and gaza who are facing much harsher set of realities such as settlements in west bank and check points across their territory. this article from “council on foreign relations” ( cfr.org ) refers to the ones living in israel proper as “citizens of israel”.
“council on foreign relations” was established in 1921 and is currently run by michael froman (president) and david rubenstein (chirman).
unedited excerpts :”israel’s declaration of independence recognizes the equality of all the country’s residents, arabs included, but equality is not explicitly enshrined in israel’s basic laws, the closest thing it has to a constitution. some rights groups argue that dozens of laws indirectly or directly discriminate against arabs.
israel’s establishment as an explicitly jewish state is a primary point of contention, with many of the state’s critics arguing that this by nature casts non-jews as second-class citizens with fewer rights. the 1950 law of return, for example, grants all jews, as well as their children, grandchildren, and spouses, the right to move to israel and automatically gain citizenship. non-jews do not have these rights. palestinians and their descendants have no legal right to return to the lands their families held before being displaced in 1948 or 1967.
another major difference is that, unlike the vast majority of jewish israelis, arab citizens do not have to serve in the israel defense forces (IDF), the country’s military. they can still enlist, and some do, especially druze and circassians, but some are stigmatized in their communities as a result. yet, not enlisting can significantly disadvantage them both socially and economically. for instance, many israelis make important and lasting personal connections with their fellow citizens through the idf, and they also receive many financial benefits, such as education assistance and discounted permits for building homes and owning land.”
“statistics from IDI show that arab citizens of israel continue to face structural disadvantages. for example, poorly funded schools in their localities contribute to their attaining lower levels of education and their reduced employment prospects and earning power compared to israeli jews. more than half of the country’s arab families were considered poor in 2020, compared to 40 percent of jewish families. socioeconomic disparities between israel’s jewish and arab citizens are less pronounced in mixed cities, though a government audit in july 2022 found arabs had less access to municipal services in those cities.
a good historic context in the recent history of the conflict and the rise of netanyahu, america & the road to war in gaza (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
gideon levy is an ex IDF soldier and an israeli journalist for the israeli daily haaretz
arab citizens’ concerns about inequality mounted after israel passed its nation-state law in 2018. among other provisions, the law removed arabic as an official language but gave it a “special status,” declared israel the nation-state of the jewish people, and said the jewish people have a unique “right to exercise national self-determination in the state of israel.” the language left many arabs feeling that their rights as citizens were being undermined.
to address disparities in the so-called arab sector, in 2021, the government approved a $9 billion, five-year plan to boost employment, improve health-care services and housing, and develop infrastructure, among other goals. it followed a similar initiative by the previous prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, who designated more funding for the sector than any of his predecessors, even as he frequently incited anger toward the arab community.” and then there is the west bank and gaza which is another story – the full article currently available here. by xy
a visual collective outlet of inspiration
