Banksy, Lights, Hip, Camera. Action?

I remember the Leake Street tunnel, near Waterloo, when it was a convenient shortcut to get from the side of the Thames to the Cubana on the other, but it was just as dodgy. The old taxi station, abandoned when the Eurostar moved from Waterloo, smelled like piss, and the presence of the many homeless was all the more accentuated by the trap-like feeling of the tunnel. For a moment both them and I were stuck half-way towards the light. Then I emerged, had a drink and tried to shake off the feeling with some heart-lifting Latin music.

Now the tunnel is one of my favourite spaces in London. There is still a faint whiff of piss lingering but the cigarette and spray-paint smell almost over-powers it, and rather than speeding off towards the comforting other end, I loiter from side to side wishing it would never end. And it doesn't. The changes occur in front of the eyes, new sketches emerge, covering old ones, day after day; depicting, criticizing our world in a cruel and direct way, that seems to be largely absent from any form of media that is poured down our neck minute after minute. Pictures say a thousand words, because the words are ours. We are not told what to think, our mind is shocked by an impression that can trigger thousands of individual interpretations. One of the few things praised by the works is the individual. The thoughts we can think, the love that we make, the changes we can create. But the fear is detectable. You are capable, but what you do with your gift remains a question.

Graffiti is a form of expression (artistic or not, let's not get into it here) that is, through its originally clandestine nature, temporary. Then came Banksy. You think of rats making political statements, you think of kids with balloons flying over the Western Wall, you think of some chick sitting on the Queens face. Banksy made it huge with his talent, and the somewhat elegant style of cruel criticism of basically everything, and because nobody new his face. If he is really Gunningham or not is quite irrelevant. He turned the art of graffiti from illegal destruction into constructive hip. 

Banksy makes a load of money. (Or at least I would think so, he published a number of books, and his works are being sold for crazy amounts.) Good on him; his art can be dispersed to an even wider audience, making hopefully more people think. His works haven't seem to lost the piercingly cynical attitude, just look at his recent 'pet shop' in New York, where chicken nuggets eat ketchup, the monkey watches monkey-porn and Tweety still dangles in the cage, some 20 years on. The twisted relationship of man and his animals. Some we dress up, some we eat. 

The Cans Festival kicked off sometime in the beginning of May last year. It lasted for three days at the Leake Street tunnel, with large installations and the possibility for the spectators to participate with stencil works of their own. It was a day or two before my Italian orals, but I just couldn't miss it, so I queued for a couple of hours with my quickly purchased Il Resto del Carlino. When I got in finally, in my momentary crowd-spirit I regretted not bringing a camera. Everybody seemed to be taking pictures around me. After a while, it just got very bloody irritating. I couldn't spend time reading, looking, admiring something, because there was always one sucker who, glaring at his digital screen, was flashing around like a maniac. I kept ducking, until I had enough. I emerged on the other side, had a drink and tried to shake off the feeling with some heart-lifting Latin music. 

Apparently it was 'hip' to be at the 'Bansky-exhibition'. There was of course a number (countless actually, including the participant turned spectators) other artists involved. But Banksy is famous, he is controversial, we don't know who he is, but I was there, therefore I am cool by association. It is besides the point, that I can't remember anything I saw without looking at my camera. 

I need to emphasize, as an enthusiastic amateur photographer myself, that there is nothing wrong with taking a photo, as long as it is a personal interpretation of the world as you see it. When applied in this context, it is the perversion of the concept and intention of graffiti on a number of levels. First and foremost it denies the inherent quality of graffiti as temporal, and therefore destructs its value in leaving an imprint on your mind rather than your camera. The spectator who is asked to be the interpreter remains a spectator, hiding behind a machine, not coming into worthwhile direct visual or emotional contact with the work. 

Feel the atmosphere, reflect. Let the work speak to you. Let yourself appreciate what you see, and how it is making you feel. Take a picture if you want. But enjoy it first. It maybe temporal, but it won't disappear in the next 5 minutes. Graffiti is hip, fashionable these days. But it can speak to you through the same clandestine channels about the different ways to see the world as it did decades ago. Just listen. 

A recent addition to Sara's box

"At my apartment, the ceiling is pounding with some fast music. The walls are murmuring with panicked voices. Either an ancient cursed Egyptian mummy has come back to life and is trying to kill the people next door, or they're watching a movie.

Under the floor, there's someone shouting, a dog barking, doors slamming, the auctioneer call of some song.

In the bathroom, I turn out the lights. So I can't see what's in the bag. So I won't know how it's supposed to turn out. In the cramped tight darkness, I stuff a towel in the crack under the door. With the package on my lap, I sit on the toilet and listen.

This is what passes for civilization. 

People who would never throw litter from their car will drive past you with their radio blaring. People who'd never blow cigar smoke at you in a crowded restaurant will bellow into their cell phone. They'll shout at each other across the space of a dinner plate.

These people who would never spray herbicides or insecticides will fog the neighborhood with their stereo playing Scottish bagpipe music. Chinese opera. Country and western. 

Outdoors, a bird singing is fine. Patsy Cline is not.

Outdoors, the din of traffic is bad enough. Adding Chopin's Piano Concerto in E Minor is not making the situation any better.

You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound. You don't win with a lot of treble.

This isn't about quality. It's about volume.

This isn't about music. This is about winning.

You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword.

You dominate. This is really about power.

[…] 

These music-oholics. These calm-ophobics.

No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted.

We could turn it off anytime we wanted.

[…] 

These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics.

Old George Orwell got it backward.

Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He is pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He 's making sure you're fully absorbed.

He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. 

And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

[…] 

There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead.

You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. 

These people with a dead chid, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself.

There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.

The music and laughter eat away at your thoughts. The noise blots them out. All the sound distracts. Your head aches from the glue.

Anymore, no one's mind is their own. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion.

Someone's always spraying the air with their mood.

Their car stereo, broadcasting their grief or joy or anger all over the neighborhood.

[…] 

This isn't anything new.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.

At least the ancient Greeks were being honest."

-- 'Lullaby' by Chuck Palahniuk

Initial concerns over the title

I have to admit this blog is the result of a dire need to procrastinate, therefore the title and the URL address are also products of spontaneous decisions. It is not an order, it is a delightful invitation to 'Think Inside My Box'. Which leads me to think do I really have a box? Which leads me to think, should I change the title?

Even though the Internet-age didn't quite catch up with me until mid-teenage years (I'm a technological conservative, I used to swear upon tapes, and snarl at CDs), thanks to my relative laziness and the constant typing I tend to abbreviate a fair amount, 'r', 'u', 'w/' et cetera, nevertheless 'lmao' and the likes give me distinct chills. I'm content with a 'hehe'. Anyway, the point here is, that because of this laziness I tend to also neglect capital letters, so I figured why not defy grammar stylishly and refuse capital letters altogether, and name the blog 'against-the-capitals'. Or something along these lines. Do you see my problem?

A title with such strong (although at first totally unintended) political overtones would have implied very rigid borders to my box. Instead of a light, first attempt to give a comprehensive frame to my thoughts that are usually very difficult to catch and organize anyway, I would have been forced 'by titling' to constantly defend one important but not necessarily central idea to my box. I like my box to be as flexible as possible, I am taking in new things, wherever, whenever and from whomever I can. I can't really throw out the old things, I was always rubbish at spring cleaning. As I'm growing, so is my box, as, needless to say, I live in my box, constantly experiencing what others and myself put in. My box is my living space, it has hardly any walls, they are see-through and very stretchy, and most of the time I'm not even sure they are there. I'd like to believe they actually aren't. That I've been told wrong. What are your walls like? 

'againstCAPS' would have required me to say something like this: I am not per se anti-capitalist, I only feel that consumerism, encouraged by this particular economic construction, is ruining things that are truly important in this world. It is not the question of ideological orientation, it is the question of individual world-view and value system. But I am not anti nor pro CAP. And there. I am defending my box as I feared. Bugger. I am not here to defend, I am here to share.