Street Art/ J.R. 28 Millimetres

In one of my classes I had the idea of a project i always wanted to do since I moved to Paris. The project consists of  going to the suburbs of Paris, the 93 district, and just photograph people there and learn about their stories. I hoped like that I could take away a stigmatization of a whole society by another one. The 93 district’s population is stigmatized by society, as there is a lot of immigrants and a high criminality rate. Especially in 2005 after the death of two young men, the department got know for it’s violent youth, by burning cars and house. 

The way society projected an image on especially young people living there, got a counter reaction, in exactly the same way people expected those other people to react: violently. The architecture of the buildings enforced the image of a “ghetto-society”, the entrance not accessible for other’s then living there, enforces the places to become a drug dealing spot. 

Looking at J.R.’s work i was really impressed what he did to fight exactly this ghettofication of a society. 

So when I told my teacher that I was about to go to Clichy sous Bois because I knew somebody who lived there and was willing to show me around, he told me that this could be very dangerous and I rather should not do it. He also told me to look at this video of J.R., which was (what a coincidence also done in Clichy sous Bois.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rWJo0U_Qes

I was even more impressed considering that it was a video about somebody actually going to this “very dangerous” place and trying to connect the images and faces of those people living there, connoted by a bad reputation considering their cultural background, as well as their way to dress and the place they lived, with a place like the center of Paris. Everyone there could see those images and relate to them from human to human.

Going there two days ago for my own project I realized that even the video done had a connotation which did not correspond to the entire impression I had doing my research about the 93 and my visit to Clichy sous Bois.

A lot of the buildings in the past 10 years have been torn down and rebuild. The bad reputation still exists, online as well as in stories told from one to another, as well as in the news about this place which is most of the time negative news. 

Where as from my own experience I can tell that it is a suburb, who through it’s bad reputation from the past, it’s rumors about all the youth being “bad guys” and criminals, creates a vicious circle projected on a whole community. ( I am not saying that this does not exist there, but it is not the only place and people should not judge from something they never experienced on their own and from others projection.) The sense of community and familiarity is very strong, people greet each other on the street, stop and talk to their neighbors. Like everywhere people also have a life, although very sceptic about other people taking photographs of them. Before J.R. and after, the guy who showed me around told me, a few people already made a “project” about Clichy sous Bois and the 93 and it’s inhabitants. Together with journalists going there to photograph it becomes a skeptical way of putting people who actually want to live a normal life in their neighborhood on a status which doesn’t represent their way of living in the real sense. It is a deeper and more complex reality of a problem, which is quite difficult to grasp in one “art project” about the people there. It is different factors about how we judge from appearance and stories, which for sure come to reality sometimes, but also because the stigmatization exists and we believe in it. This would explain a psychological aspect of representing reality and the representation becoming reality. On top of that the density of youth unemployment given in the news etc. gives the impression of an “underdeveloped” part of Paris. But we should not forget to also tell the positive aspects, the rebuilding of those cement blocks to more nice looking buildings, the urban planning and development in this direction. The familiarity and the invisible boundaries of the community, the educational aspect etc. Considering people there as same then we would consider us, in a way restricted by what has happened and in which direction the story was taken further.

If we forget to see, acknowledge and show improvement society looses interest and hope in rebuilding itself and helping to rebuild it, because what we don’t see we don’t believe. Showing this will maybe help to give motivation to keep on and tell the positive stories about the place.

 

Leopoldine Liechtenstein

Representation of the body in different cultures

The body is present and represented in every culture. Depending on where we live a different representation of body, personality and life and their relationship to each other exists. The three cannot exist without one another.

In extreme islamic culture the power of the body, especially the women body is highly recognized and feared for it’s impact it can have. The way people are trying to take away this power, is by enclosing women in wearing a complete veil, which is an extreme way of treating the subject matter.
The veiling of the complete body, takes away the personality as well as it changes the life of the person who has to be veiled. With hiding the body and personality, power is taken away, which creates a patriarchal society. It is the creation of control over the body and personality and so a person’s (and group’s) impact on society as well as the image of this group in society.

In western culture the nude woman is present everywhere especially in new media. Never it has been that easy to access images and be constantly displayed to those nude images. The over doing of representing the nude and it’s different representations create an objectification of women body. It is the other extreme of the fear of the body.
The western culture is believed to live in a so called ‘rape-culture’ where, shortly explained, the woman, through misrepresentation of an objectified body, is lead to a misrepresented reality of her individual personality. She is subconsciously representing herself the way it is portrayed by the images. Men as well, subconsciously accept and expect a woman’s body and personality to be and react a certain way.

The power of the body here is used in a complete different way but it has the same outcome on a society as in extreme islamic culture. A power of one group over another, acquired by taking away the body’s initial meaning, ignoring the fact that tied to a body there is a life and a personality.

In third world countries, for example India, where death is present and people are confronted with decreasing dead bodies everyday (may it be animal bodies or human bodies), the body has a much different value. The body is holder of life. Being confronted with death on a daily basis makes the own and also the other’s body more valuable.

All cultures should accept that the body in first instance is the holder of life in it’s pure essential form of being a body. The power it beams upon others is created by rules and prohibitions as well as false representation in form of an object. We should find a healthy respective middle between those extremes to accept human body as what it is: a body, holder of life in relation with individual personality.

Leopoldine Liechtenstein

WHY THE RAIDERS

Why is it that The Raiders is the only NFL team anyone in Europe seems to support by wearing the gear? I never understood this for two reasons. First, Europeans not only don’t watch American football-they couldn’t give a lesser shit about it. I’ve lived here for almost 3 years now and I don’t think I have EVER seen an NFL game being played on a television ANYWHERE. The second reason I didn’t understand the European love for the Raiders merchandise was that even if they did like football, the Raiders pretty much suck as a team. So up until recently I just kind of thought- Whatever, they wear the Raiders logo because they think it makes them look tough. The truth is they don’t really understand how right they are.

Having grown up in the Bay Area I had to choose between the Oakland Raiders or the San Francisco 49ers. I don’t really care for football; to be honest I have no idea what the hell is going on like 90% of the time, but that’s not what’s important. The important thing is to just pick a side. Either you support the Niners because you’re a regular joe and you just live your life and maybe you like football…. or you’re a fucking Raider fan. Raider fans are truly a force to be reckoned with. I never understood the die-hard love these people had for a team that never seems to win. But for them it doesn’t matter because Raider fans aren’t there to support a team- they’re there to be bad ass. Needless to say, having had a safe and pleasant childhood (and living in the same neighborhood as Jerry Rice) I’ve always naturally been more of a Niners girl. However, I digress..

My whole understanding of the “Raider Nation” was changed when the other day it was brought up in a conversation I was having with this random Austrian guy. I was trying to convince him why it was so dumb for Europeans to wear Raider gear when they are such a shitty team. But he posed an idea to me that totally made me think differently about the Raiders, their logo, and their fans. For him, the Raiders logo doesn’t represent a team as much as it represents a tool that totally fueled the gangsta rap movement in the late 80′s and early 90′s.

Picture my brain exploding right now because that’s pretty much what happened. I took a minute to kind of marvel at how so far, every Austrian I think I’ve ever met seems to have a real affinity for gangsta rap, and then I quickly recomposed myself to ask him to expand on his statement. Instead he just told me to watch this documentary – so upon his suggestion I went home and looked it up.

Now I finally feel at peace with the Raiders. Not only were they the first football team to really turn into a brand, but it was all kind of by coincidence. It was just some kids from bad neighborhoods who identified with the team and wore their gear while rapping about their lives. In this way it’s almost like the Raiders brand is actually an honest one. They didn’t try to use fads to plot out ways to make money off youth. No, they actually were just a super bad ass team, the youth identified with them, and everything sort of fell into place. And it was also cool to see that back in the day the Raiders actually were a really good team. So my hat goes off to the Raiders, the logo, the brand, and the legacy.

Kirsten Young-Clark

Lifted from the uncanny valley?

-The Alternative Limb Project

-http://www.thealternativelimbproject.com

-Designer: Sophie de Oliveria

- Custom- made prosthetic limbs.

 

Donald Norman mentions ‘misshapen human bodies’ in his list of conditions that cause a negative affect on the visceral level.  Realistic false limbs could also make us feel bit uneasy, as supported by the idea of the uncanny valley .  The more realistic a design is, the more uneasy we feel. 

On her website , Sophie not only has a gallery of strikingly realistic limbs , but ‘alternative’ options as well.  Shown above are ‘Floral leg’,  ‘Crystallized Leg’ (used in the 2012 Paralympic closing ceremony), and  ‘Stereo leg’.

 These decorated limbs have a different effect.  On a reflective level, wearing decorated limb might help with your self image, as a customer claims on the website, the limbs removed the stigma attached to those with missing limbs.

 But does the visceral level take over the behavioural  level?  Does a ‘Stereo Leg’  work better because it is more attractive, or has another added function of playing music ?  Possibly . Why not have a limb that is multifunctional?

 

Mona B.

New technologies changing the world how we know it

A new device appearing, similar to google glasses may change how we have lived our lives. The last big impact of technology on our lives happened with the release of the iPhone and other smartphones. Now this could be the case with MYO. This device is a Gesture control armband which uses electrical activity of our muscles to control other technical devices, through existing devices and bluetooth.

The question is do we really need these kind of innovations for everyday conformity when there are more serious problems we should spend researching and innovating on?

https://getmyo.com

Leopoldine Liechtenstein

World globalization and charity

Charities are an interesting effect of globalization. Without globalization there would hardly be any charity. We think about spending a little money to feel better about something and/or somebody we don’t know on the other side of the planet. 

 

One of the best examples lately was when we think back to 2012 and the effect of Kony, a youtube video which went viral within a few days.

People started to feel and wanted to care for people they didn’t even know and the response was huge. The video spread over youtube in a speed no one expected with more than 100 million views the first week. At the end the video was quite controversial due to not very clear information about facts, as well as blaming a single man for the existence of child soldiers. The fact that also government military used children as soldiers was left out. People donated money without clearly knowing where it would actually go. 

The video shows that people believe too fast in what they see, especially in moving images. Seeing this and knowing about it makes them feel better. Spending money on it makes them feel even the best. They did something against a striking problem in the world. After that this far away problem is forgotten, as are the countless homeless people and children in distress right when we leave our house, in our own country and city.   

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.html?source=facebook#.UUTCtlLDofh.facebook

 

Another interesting Video I found is activist Dan Pallotta talking about how we actually think about charities. Non-Profit organizations are rewarded for small amounts they donate but not for what they actually have achieved or which big impact they try to achieve in the future. We have to change our way of thinking about charities just spending tons of money, but thinking about what they really do and change in the world. We can only succeed by mistakes and throwbacks to get a lot of steps further, knowing how not to do it. This takes a big risk of loosing things, but for a better purpose. In this case it is money, our money.

 

Leopoldine Liechtenstein

Food labeling

The horse meet scandal taking place in europe right now is an interesting point in globalization.

It is a complex system. The consumer expects something to cost a certain prize for a certain quality, the market so sets a prize for the producer, lets say 0,90€ for the product. This includes packaging as well as all the other steps until the finished product, so that the end product can be sold to us, the consumer, according to our demanding. The producer although limited by those 0,90€ has to find all those elements for the finished product. This can be quite difficult considering all the limitations by set protocols. The place where he finds those materials to compose the end product is irrelevant in this sense as he has to find the cheapest solution to conform the market limits of 0,90€. If he would go above this limit there won’t be any profit and therefore he would eliminate himself from the competitive market.