Lost Arts' photos of the Rio Whole Train project

(press the colored buttons to get into the photo albums)

More news from Brazil

The update about Carolina and this tidbit of goodness are from Lost Art:

Mural SP II by Os Gemeos, Nina, Nunca, Finok, and Zefix
(scroll sideways)

Photographers' rights, UK, US

BTP rail enthusiasts guidelines (UK)

A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography (US)

Amtrak photo contestant arrested by Amtrak police in NYC

The linked article shows what idiots some train company police can be (arresting a photographer during an Amtrak photo contest and then lying about why), but nonetheless it's legal to take photos in public places in the US unless a sign prohibits it.

If you actually resist arrest, though, train security might shoot you dead, like a BART officer in Oakland did to Oscar Grant, just days ago. Oscar was not taking photos, but there too, the train police confiscated cameras and phones from witnesses after one of the cops killed Oscar. Some youtube footage is surfacing anyway, because so many people witnessed the killing.

The right to take photos is one we must all continue to fight to keep, but take that fight to the courtroom for your own safety, and to benefit everyone.

Electrabel candle stop-motion production

This is insane and yet so cool. I'm glad the people doing it got paid (it's an ad apparently).

Stop-motion animation is so wonderful to consume and so mind-boggling to create. Amber Case tweeted about this one (link above, just do it), which took weeks, but here's a cool claymation she did recently with a family member in one day.

Anyone with a digital camera, tripod, and some time can make stop-motion now by sequencing photos using almost any modern computer, so that's pretty exciting. It's just a really fast slide show, technically, like a cartoon.

The Craft of War: BLIND from Percula

The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.
Another bit of great machinima, this one by Percula, via Project Lore

The size of our world, by comparison

Happy new year! (for some parts of the third planet from this sun)

Pixelator subvertising

Elegant, low-tech, visually pleasing solution to unwanted video advertising in public.

RISK on URB

Hobo Hideout - places to stay / rent your rooms

Looks a bit like Couchsurfing.com but perhaps you get more if you pay a bit, and HH covers a lot of places off the beaten path.

Wade's Vagabond Journey

Wade is the best sort of wanderer: the kind who publish their photos, stories, and insights. He's got a blog where his 9 years of world travel (ongoing) are documented. He's going to Eastern Europe and the Middle East next, so give him a shout if you're over there. He writes good stuff about graffiti now and then too. Here's an interesting look at graffiti in Portugal with Odeith, Eskema, and Mr Dheo. And he tries to publish about 50 photos per day.

Jason Atomic sketches Rammellzee

(Music is from the CD "The Bi-conicals Of Rammellzee")

Ash's new mural in Berlin

Our store is hot

Our store server turned itself off today because the ISP's air conditioning system failed ... Should be OK a little later. I hope they fix it before graffiti.org decides to take a nap too. Workers are there now, so here's hoping. When it comes back, check out our new DVDs and magazine sale.

More Christmas artwork

by SlacSatu, from Singapore


by Leon Rainbow, from New Jersey USA

Holiday humor break

Robin Williams, performing in the UK recently, riffing on politics and celebrities. Laugh, it's free.

Merry Christmas paintings

I thought I'd share some of the Christmas pieces from my inbox this week.


Azerox, in China


Doodle Dubz, in the UK


Kafy, in Mexico

WTF is a Legend Anyways?

Estria says:

The word 'legend' has become blasé in today's world of Hip Hop. It seems if you painted for a couple-few years, you're a legend. If you were in graffiti for a minute, back in the day, and now you start getting back into the culture, you can consider yourself a king and an OG, a dope authority on the game, if only because you knew so-and-so, or you were there when so-and-so painted such-and-such piece. In fact I think you can now claim the crown without ever having earned the crown.

Read the rest at Estria's blog ...

The Wholesale Sedation of America's Youth

Common population estimates include at least eight million children, ages two to eighteen, receiving prescriptions for ADD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, autism, simple depression, schizophrenia, and the dozens of other disorders now included in psychiatric classification manuals. Yet sixty years ago, it was virtually impossible for a child to be considered mentally ill.

[...]

In 1980, hyperactivity, which had been imprudently named “minimal brain dysfunction” in the 1960s, was renamed Attention Deficit Disorder in order to be more politic, but there was an unintended consequence of the move. Parents and teachers, familiar with the name but not always with the symptoms, frequently misidentified children who were shy, slow, or sad (introverted rather than inattentive) as suffering from ADD. Rather than correct the mistake, though, some enterprising physicians responded by prescribing the same drug for the opposite symptoms. This was justified on the grounds that stimulants, which were being offered because they slowed down hyperactive children, might very well have the predicted effect of speeding up under-active kids. In this way, a whole new population of children became eligible for medication. Later, the authors of DSM-III memorialized this practice by renaming ADD again, this time as ADHD, and redefining ADD as inattention. Psychiatry had reached a new level: they were now willing to invent an illness to justify a treatment. It would not be the last time this was done.

[...]

Once a medical illness has been identified, all unwanted behavior becomes fruit of the same tree. Even the children themselves are often at first relieved that their asocial or antisocial impulses reflect an underlying disease and not some flaw in their characters or personalities.

Zedz

zedz.org (new stuff!)

Above releases a print for charity

HDR graffiti photos and HDR tutorial

I'm not sure how documentary it is, but HDR photos of graffiti sure are dramatic. The tutorial link is at the bottom of the page and it's aimed at typical cameras and hobby photographers.

Flickr has an HDR pool where you can see lots of interesting landscape and building HDR effects, also.

Brazilian girl still in jail after other writers let free - UPDATE

YAY, she has been freed. English translation by Google

Original post, Dec 15 2008:

Apparently Caroline Pivetta da Mota is very poor and can't prove she has an address, which is why she's the one still in jail. She was arrested for graffiti along with a large group of other writers, but she is the only one left in jail more than 40 days later. In a country where people are said to get away with murder routinely, this seems a bit cruel and unusual. In fact they could keep her for years if she's eventually convicted of the trumped up charges. She sure needs an advocate in SP.

"The 28th Bienal de Sao Paulo came to a close in the first week of December, but the graffiti painter arrested on October 26 for spraying its pavilion's walls remains in jail. Caroline Pivetta da Mota spent her 24th birthday last Saturday behind Santana Penitentiary's bars, where she shares a cell with another young woman, convicted of armed robbery. She will probably still be there for Christmas and maybe even when the next arts biennial takes place in 2010, as the punishment set by the Environmental Crimes Law for the "destruction of cultural heritage" is of one to three years imprisonment."

Graffiti in Hong Kong

This PopMatters article discusses the Wall Lords event in the greater context of HK graffiti over the years.

Solving the Afghan poppy surplus problem

Here's someone thinking outside the box. What a great idea. Buy opium farmer direct and make medicine out of it. Much cheaper than bombing and occupying, plus the world needs the meds. Cut out the middle man and maybe your repressive theocracy goes away too.

Win, win, win.

Because the opium finances the repressive forces in Afghanistan, this problem needs to be tackled head-on in order to stop the war.