“Zeynep Arsel, Assistant Professor of Marketing at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University:
I think seeing hipster as a narrative, rather than a distinct group of people, is a great way to understand how urban middle class identities are constructed and how postmodern class distinctions are established. The mythology of hipster is an extremely fragmented, occasionally contradictory, frequently derogatory narrative about a subculture that may or may not exist. But it doesn’t matter, because regardless, we are using this narrative to make sense (and express) our identities. By frequently othering hipsters as superficial trend-seekers that seem to do things “for the wrong reasons,” we are also authenticating our own acts that might actually mirror those of this group. Thus, a seemingly autoimmune reaction to our own consumption acts serves us to mark the boundaries of our more authentic identities from the other groups that we deem as more consumerist, superficial and inauthentic.”
With/Without deals primarily with the sectarian codification of space in the Middle East. And like any set of treatises on the Middle East’s urbanity, its architectural growth, it is obsessed with Dubai, that startling jewel in late Capitalism’s crown (and its voyeuristic facets).
The book is composed of a series of essays, most illustrated with photographs and/or computer generated imaginings of future projects. Some are much better than others, but I’ll leave it to other readers to decide the strength of each as my designs may not be theirs.
The interview with architecture’s great ambassador, Rem Koolhaus, is exciting and stultifying. Interviewer Markus Miessen is every bit as lucid as Koolhaus and reading their dance is exhilarating. Unfortunately they do seem to talk at cross purposes at times such as when, in discussing the mediation of space in Dubai, Miessen questions if any space has been left for ‘conflict’. Koolhaus seems to not understand the question and moves on to say that they are no longer building cities, but resorts. Or perhaps that is the answer.
Rarely does the question of the condition of migrant workers in their closed-off island world come in to play. That’s sad as it’s one of the more important questions that needs to be addressed in the issue of Dubai’s phenomenal growth.
Dubai At Night
Later, in the section ‘Symbolic Boundaries’, Miessen talks with Philipp Misselwitz about the fastest growing cities in the word, refugee camps. This chat is loaded with ideas on the resistance to normalization by camp dwellers. It would make a fascinating TED Talk or an entire book of their conversations.
Fawwaz Traboulsi provides a fascinating piece on the struggle to create a new flag for Iraq in the appendix. Kurds flying the pre-Saddam flag. The commission of a flag that bears a startling resemblance to Israel’s that gets thrown out. Short, but exciting.
Perhaps my favorite piece was the interview with Iraq’s director-general of the Iraqi National Library and Archive, Dr. Saad Bashir Eskander. Here we learn how they manage to keep the project going in spite of document theft and intentional destruction, only 5 hours of electricity per day in Baghdad, and the murder of several employees.
There are many great essays in this book and my only lament is that they are all teasers. Many of them could have been expanded to book length or would make excellent documentaries. The image reproduction leaves much to be desired as the paper they’re printed on appears to be reclaimed and the inks are perhaps soy-based. It leaves them appearing washed out and muddy.
I borrowed this via inter-library loan, but I believe I’m going to have to purchase it. This is the type of small tome that needs to be loaned out to anyone who thinks of the Middle East as a drab collection of religious fanatics who beat their heavily cloaked women and only aspire to the role of suicide bomber. The intellectual and artistic achievement of this region would put any of those ridiculous notions to the grave.
Whoa, Angolan production team Nirvanas & Beats fire up the heavy kuduro. I’d never heard of these cats until tonight, but I’ve listened to Buraka Som Sistema for a long time. Buraka is a Portuguese kuduro act that can break the night.
What I don’t know about kuduro could fill many books. Doesn’t matter, though. My only intention is to let you feel some joy.
What I like about the Vagabandas video above is that nothing is happening. These kids are standing in some tunnel in the middle of nowhere and singing and dancing for no one. The camera pans and shows desolation with a cityscape behind it. Sometimes we see a soul or two dancing for no one on a sidewalk. Then we are shown an entire neighborhood sitting on the steps looking bored. This reminds me of the early WuTang videos where the RZA, the GZA, Meth, Ugod, Ol’ Dirty, and company would pose in abandoned buildings and vacant lots doing nothing. By the light of oil can fires like classic New York bums. Surely there must be oil cans in Angola. Example 1. Example 2.
The Buraka Som Sistema video for ‘Aqui Para Voces’ is no better; it takes place in the ephemeral world of intercontinental shipping, but in its liminal zone the port.
Here we see deviants (dark-skinned mutants, psychedelic refugees, sexual fantasists) careening, performing, parading through the ever-so-popular world of the shipping container (but again for no one). The shipping container has come to represent a sort of Third Way for architecture to intervene on the behalf of the poor and provide them the novelty of shelter. The shipping container is also a representative icon of global mobility and anonymity in its ascendance. These things travel everywhere and no one knows what’s in them. Hundreds stacked end to end on boats that might travel under the flags of many nations or none at all.
In the end the police come and deliver the stick for their attempts at a night-masque of liberation never having shown the carrot.
well, this is supposed to be my new space for discussing my work and art by others, but i just couldn’t get started in as timely a manner as i wanted. instead, i have been working on a lot of new projects and getting to the blog was just getting impossible.
then i stumbled across a video that i just had to share…
every cultural worker in these united states is aware that we have spanned the globe media-wise far more effectively than our deployments of our governmental concepts. hollywood is what everyone decries as america’s cultural span taints the world, but nobody lashes out at motown.
now i have traveled a lot in my adulthood (ahem) and what i am constantly coming across is the prevalence of kids from all over the world to engorge themselves on american RnB and hiphop. the fashion, the moves, the sound, the sound, the sound.
i used to work with all these cats from cameroon back when i was in school in oklahoma at a lebanese bakery. these guys would blast cameroonian pop all night/’til dawn, and it was cool. and it was the eighties. and it all sounded like afrikaa bambataa and newkleus.
and that shit hasn’t changed.
i was in japan and korea last year for an extended period (and i am ready to go back) and the kids there were all over black america. every store we passed was blasting rap and new millenial soul. all the kids love akon. they breakdance in the streets. and it’s as sexy there as it is here. or at least i want to touch it…
but here’s the video i want to share with you: ‘tell me’ by wonder girls from south korea. if you wanna know about them or their nkotb-style sevengali producer (overused, but apropos) look them up on wikipedia.org.
i find this to be about as deep as it gets. it moves straight to the heart of junk culture. i mean who really remembers the 70s this well? it’s not just the wonder woman show they got down it’s the whole feel of sid and marty kroft, too. just plain disturbing. but i love it. i honestly do.
i can’t tell you why. i don’t really feel it bears mentioning. it’s just aesthetic pleasure for me. i won’t tell you about my dreams, either. why bore anyone with that nonsense?
just enjoy.
hopefully, i’ll start writing about my nonsensical art life soon. i’ve got some pretty fun things planned for this year. i hope we all survive to see their fruition.
take care,
be good,
pol
UPDATE: so i was very mystified as to how well known wonderwoman, the tv show not the comic, was in korea. so i called my friends over there and was immeadiately told: “we love wonderwoman! everybody knows wonderwoman!” they in turn, having already seen my blog post were curious as to how i knew about wondergirls… they could hardly fathom that i would be aware of something so particular to the land of morning calm.
apparently, the wondergirls are about the biggest thing in the world over there. and they have a special dance, too. go on youtube.com and look for it. you’ll know you’ve found it when you start seeing all those videos of old ladies, cops, janiytors, tykes and school kids, rough tough thuggy school kids, with the title ‘woder girls’ on them. people love these ladies and they love their dance. kinda like how everybody had to learn the beat-it moves back when michael was still on top, but not yet the king of pop.
and even more xcitingly are the stories of lolita-branding. these girls really have it cut out for them. a number of different posts bring that American Prurience to the province’s predilection for young cute girl imagery. it’s strange, too. i always assume a degree of cultural relativity can stymie an analysis. as in, just because we lust after little girls in a particularly odious way does that mean that’s what’s going on over there?
i don’t know. i wouldn’t sleep with a 16 year old. but then where i live 16 year olds aren’t that cute. actually, in seattle, hardly anyone is that cute. just another reason to move, move, move. and maybe to korea. the pop music is just as bad, but the booze is cheaper, you can drink it where you want to, and the women are flash. links to some lolita agitation from the ex-patriot press over in old seoul:
