Art Elemento Ocho

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Art Elemento August 2012

Transcript of Art Elemento Ocho

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6PRODUCED BY / Joe WabeEDITORS/ Stephen Redeker, Lorryn Smit, Frank McKinleyART DIRECTOR/ Joe WabeCONTRIBUTING WRITERS/ Andrew Sweeney, Adam Hogue, Doug Stuber, Lorryn Smit, Monica Martinez, Dirty1CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS/ Lorryn Smit, Hedgie, Paul Charles, Gilda Wilson, Doug Stuber, Joseph Hewitt MEDIA & DISTRIBUTION/ , Lorryn Smit, Jane Moon ADVERTISING/ Joe WabePRINTING/ Jane Moon WEBSITE/ artelemento.comEMAIL/ [email protected]

SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THE VENUES THAT HELP US DISTRIBUTE AE:

The First AlleyThe Underground GrocersThe German BarTop BookstoreSpeakeasyGIC CenterN.S.O.M TattooBar ZeppellinMix LoungeFirst Nepal

One of the qualities that makes an art magazine a compelling me-dium for artists is that they also make a fascinating art historical documents, situating the reception of art within specific places and time—not only the year but often the exact month— They show us things that might otherwise get lost, that might not be considered important enough at the time to get recorded in more authoritative documents, such as books or exhibition catalogs. Artists’ Maga-zines attempts to make this vast archive of magazines more known and accessible, and to situate these publications within the histori-cal conditions in which they were first produced and encountered. You are holding in your hands a piece of history. History that was written in Gwangju. Summer might be gone soon, but this piece of colorful paper that you just picked up, has the potential to become very valuable in the years to come. Enjoy issue ocho.

Cover design by Gilda Wilson

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE WHO HAS FURNISHED INFORMATION AND MATERIALS FOR THIS ISSUE. UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ARTISTS FEATURE IN ART ELEMENTO RETAIN COPYRIGHT TO THEIR WORK. WE WILL BE PLEASED TO CORRECT ANY MISTAKES OR OMISSIONS IN OUR NEXT ISSUE. WE WELCOME EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS; HOWEVER, RETURN POSTAGE MUST ACCOMPANY ALL UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, ART, DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIAL IF THEY ARE TO BE RETURNED. NO RESPONSIBLITY CAN BE ASSUMED FOR UNSO-LICITED MATERIALS. ALL LETTERS WILL BE TREATED AS UNCONDITIONALLY ASSIGNED FOR PUBLICATION AND COPYRIGHT PURPOSES AND SUBJECTS TO ART ELEMENTO’S RIGHT TO EDIT AND COMMENT EDITORIALLY.

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Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the author. All rights reserved on entire contents. Advertising inquiries should be directed to [email protected]

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The first picture I took looked like a scene out of a very bad teen movie. It was one of those typical Friday-night-in-downtown-YES-we-are-drunk photos. An underachieved photo deleted from Face-book because the very sight of it made us cringe, not to mention the thought of an hour long Skype session with our mothers on “how to be a lady”. Not cool. I looked at this picture and I wished that this photo memory would last me a lifetime, but what if I can tweak just a little of this image? Just enough to keep the laughter, the tears, the runny mascara seem ‘stylish’…

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So this is what I did and it looked pretty damn good! I finally found my (as Oprah always says) Aha! moment. I believe this is my passion. Taking a photo is easy, but sometimes finding that extra special imagination booster hidden within a single frame is a little bit harder to find. So this has become my mission and now, I’m pretty much hooked.I’m not one of those “I-have-been-taking-pictures-all-my-life” photogra-phers. Truth is I have only been doing it for a couple of months. Cameras were never a huge part of my world growing up. Being raised in a middle class family in South Africa, cameras were a luxury. Then I came to Korea. Here, life as I knew it was completely different. I wanted to show my friends and family “what’s out there”, so I bought my first camera at the age of 22.I’ve learned a great deal from many photographers here in Gwangju. I’ve learned how to look at things differ-ently, from different angles, to rec-ognise the potential for an amazing photo, in the most unlikely places or situations. I draw great inspiration from their work and continue learn-ing from them and grow as a photog-rapher. Photography to me is more than just telling people a story. It’s putting

“I am always seeing something, and nev-er seeing nothing. I am being a photog-rapher.” – Walter De Mulder.

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yourself and your personal vision out there. Essentially it’s like sharing your feelings as you would to a close friend. Some people will get you others won’t – just as it goes in real life. Through my photography I seek to document my own personal experi-ences, to capture scenes and events as I see them and to share with others the beauty and diversity of the world through my personal experience. As the images of other photographers have inspired me to explore the world, I hope my photos will inspire others to do the same.I draw inspiration mostly from peo-ple. I capture moments shared by people. I try to project warmth, hap-piness and love from my photographs. I don’t photograph subjects but rather feelings. I photograph the way ‘some-thing’ makes me feel. When some-thing evokes a feeling of intrigue or joy inside of me, I start clicking away from not one but many angles. There is nothing more exciting to me than getting home and going through my pictures that I took.The entire process from shooting to editing is a very tantalizing experience for my mind. I look for the perfect an-gle while shooting and when editing I try to portray my feeling at the time of the shot, my vision for the end re-sult and that one piece of magic that I saw. I wrestle with every picture that I shoot. I know that the perfect image is possible and I want to wring it out of every picture. It’s a lengthy process of finding the best frame, the best filter, the best enhancements, but when it’s done there is nothing more that makes me feel so empowered. My next challenge that I would love to master is the art of night photogra-phy. And although I normally shoot in black and white, colors found at night are very powerful and make amazing photographs.

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When I had to decide on a theme for a painting project in my final year of the bachelor of art, I chose the still life genre, more spe-cifically single objects. I was puzzled by the mysterious attachment that we have for certain domestic items. Would these objects create a similar reaction taken out of their domestic situation and depicted on a flat surface, in a neutral background? Do objects have a meta-physical presence? My lecturer suggested a lot of reading in order to back up my project with a concept based on “Art theory”. The readings covered many issues from gift giving to collecting, identity, family memory, and domesticity. None of these related to the way I felt about the objects, to me there was a broader sense of longing, something more universal. Finally, this passage in Michel de Cer-teau’s book “The Practice of Everyday Life” resonated enormously to the way I felt:

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Was it fate? I remember the marvel-lous Shelburne Museum in Vermont where, in thirty-five houses of a recon-structed village, all the signs, tools and products of nineteenth-century every-day life teem; everything, from cook-ing utensils and pharmaceutical goods to weaving instruments, toilet articles, and children’s toys can be found in profusion. The display includes in-numerable familiar objects, polished, deformed, or made more beautiful by long use; everywhere there are as well the marks of the active hands and la-bouring or patient bodies for which these things composed the daily cir-cuits, the fascinating presence of ab-sences whose traces were everywhere. At least this village full of abandoned and salvaged objects drew one’s at-tention, through them, to the ordered murmurs of a hundred past or pos-sible villages, and by means of these imbricated traces one began to dream of countless combination of existences (1984:21).In a period of globalisation where we are solicited by a multitude of plastic gadgets and disposable items which all look very similar, old objects repre-sent a link to a time when there was a tradition of making. It is the presence of generations of traditions and skills passed on by craftsmen and women. By looking at objects depicted outside their domestic setting, one can imag-ine the movement of the knowing fin-gers touching and creating.

Objects do have a presence which I aim to demonstrate with my drawings, paintings or photographs. I want to evoke a sense of nostalgia for a tradi-tion of craft, a time when there was a connection between the maker and the object.Although I use modern materials, the choice of wood as a support and the technique I apply are a direct reference to the tradition of the old masters. Be-fore I start painting, I always draw the objects to become intimate with them. I want to know which details I should emphasize or not. At times the draw-ing takes on a life of its own and be-comes quite abstracted and will not be used as a reference for the painting. On other occasions, the drawing remains academic. Photography also plays a part in working out the composition and the colour of the background.The body of work I am showing at the Gwangju International Centre Gallery is a narrative on the theme of a Dowry. The items selected could have been given on the occasion of a wedding as they are made of silver, crystal and porcelain. Some of them were wed-ding presents from previous genera-tions in our family, whilst others just found their way to us. This is a homage to the artisans who have manufactured these objects. Not in fashion anymore, they have the charm of days gone by when handcrafted objects were part of a couple starting their life together.

“A Dowry” July 28 till August 24th 2012

Gwangju International Centre Gallery

Jeon-il Building 5FGeumman-no 1-1

Dong-gu, Gwangju

Gilda Sénécal Wilson was born in France and now lives in Gwangju. She has a Bach-

elor of art (Arts) and a Gradu-ate Diploma in Painting, both

from Australian universities

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Doug Stuber often quotes Steven Jobs to his Chonnam University students: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” To this he adds: “follow your dreams” an idea that for years has been plastered to the eastern wall of the Jeon il building downtown. They snicker and respond “there are no jobs in my dreams,” or “jobs don’t pay.” (And Steve Jobs didn’t pay much to his Chinese workers either.)

Fine Arts

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Then he goes historical and quotes spiritual teachings of the Iroquois, his grandfather’s tribe, “those who do not follow their dreams become a burden on the tribe.”OK it was a different time, and al-though Stuber left his bass guitar at home, he never stopped painting or writing. The painting led to the GIC Gallery idea, and he joined in the Gwangju Artist Collective (GAC) af-ter Victoria Heaton and Sarah Helen Epp got that going. His occasional art booths at International days have fos-tered many friendships around town, but best of all, his support of other art-ists has come back in triplicate. His exhibit at O’s Square at Chonbuk Dae-

hakyo in Jeonju is a perfect example. Anjee Di Santo was one of 12 artists showing in the GAC’s Jami Art Center show. She got an intro for Stuber at O’s and bingo he landed a big show (21 pieces). The show got extended too so the dates were June 15 to August 16. Stuber was overheard saying it was one of the highlights of his time in Korea so far.The exhibit had works from 2010 until 2012, and four large ones. It followed on the heels of group shows at the Eunam Museum and Gwangju Museum of Art last year. No matter what your dream is, a large dose of persistence and a whole lot of making many friends can make it come true.

O’s 1Moon beam bounces backthrough deck slots next to

palatialgarden hidden in

the heart of Jeonju.

Curved pines riseover crooked-branched

maple asworkers scurry to wrap up

another food day.

Diners linger longafter the kitchen

closes, asthis sanctuary

is genuine, calm,respectful

of others, mindfulthat this short

life deserves moments that shine.

Beauty surpassesThe anger

grind as oversized, puffybread arrivesby imaculate

delivery: awaiter straight

form the L.A. scene, butnot, just well

trained. O’s, the hipsterjoint hangs your work.

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When Joseph Hewitt lived in Canada he was an active participant in the small press comics scene. Since moving to Korea he started the club Polar Bear Comix in the hope of connecting with other lo-cal and foreign cartoonists. He has just released his first book spe-cifically for a Korean audience.

http://www.comicw.co.kr

By Joseph Hewitt

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Polar Bear Comics was founded in 2010. It regularly attends Comic World, a convention which is held every two months in Seoul and Busan.Members of the group include Jen Lee of the webcomic “Dear Korea”, illus-trator Leroy Kucia, and freelance artist Jason Burnett. They will be attending Comic World Busan on July 15th at the BEXCO Center and Comic World Seoul on July 21st and 22nd at the SETEC Center.

“Reaction to our work has been good”, said Joe. “Some people get scared off by the fact that everything’s in English. On the other hand, that kind of serves as our gimmick. It sets us apart from all the others.”

Joe’s latest book is SnowCone City. Pet Monsters are the hot new toy in Snow-Cone City, but when the monsters start running amok it’s time to call in the Penguin Rangers. Who would sell a box of zombies to a ten year old kid? And can our heroes stop the chaos be-fore their own toy sales plummet?

“The Penguin Rangers started out as a background gag in one of my other comics”, said Joe, “but they were very popular with my students. It got to the point where, at the end of class, instead of asking for a game they’d ask for an-other Penguin Rangers story. That’swhen I knew I had to do something with these characters.”

Joseph Hewitt is originally from New-foundland, Canada. He has been liv-ing in Korea since 1998. Prior works include Voles of the Dusk, the web-comic Ataraxia Theatre, and the com-puter game GearHead. In 2011 he was featured in a documentary about cartoonists on Sky News Asia. His car-toons have been shown at Scientific American Blog Network, Seed Sci-enceBlogs, and Comment is Free.

Reaction to our work has been good, some people get scared off by the fact that every-

thing’s in English.

http://www.comicw.co.kr

By Joseph Hewitt

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I know I arrived at the Instagram party a little late, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a quick rave about it. I don’t remember the last time something captured my attention so immediately. In the mod-ern age of constant advertising. Twitter is lame and Facebook is ad-dictive and makes me waste so much of my time. So I felt the urge to try and question exactly what it is that makes Instagram so compel-ling for me.

I think it’s the simplicity of it that makes it so addictive. There’s no overly elaborate settings to fiddle with, you just take a snap and post it. I love the fact that you can’t save pics so you have to be ruthless. If a pic isn’t up to scratch, ditch it and take another. I have my phone with me all the time so it’s great to be spontaneous and snap when I like. I’d never remember to take my digital camera out with me everywhere and I certainly wouldn’t have time to transfer those pics to my computer and then decide which ones to post online and then decide where I should post them – Facebook? Flickr? Arrrghh!It’s great seeing what other people are taking pictures of too, in fact it’s a great source of inspiration and creative net-working with peers.

Instagram has not yet celebrated its second birthday – but to Facebook, it is already worth a billion dollars. Ins-tagram is essentially a social network built around photography, offering mobile apps that let people add quirky effects to their smartphone snapshots and share them with friends. It has dozens of competitors, but Instagram stands out for its fast ascension and almost cultlike following. It has more than 30 million users who upload more than five million photos a day, even though it was only available for Apple devices for a very short time.For most of Instagram’s early days, the company consisted of just four em-ployees, including its two founders. They worked in what had been the early offices of Twitter in the South Park neighbourhood of San Francisco,

crammed in with other start-ups.The walls were painted dark gray and Ikea lamps sat on the ground, light-ing an otherwise gloomy ground-floor space that looked almost the same any time of day or night. The team sat in the middle of the room at four desks pushed together to make one large ta-ble – although none of the tables lined up quite right. Later on they moved to a larger office across the street.The coolest part of all of this is that I am now connected to people in a new way, and don’t feel like I’m wasting my time as bad as with Facebook.

You can follow my Instagrams “WA-BENET”

By Joe Wabe

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By Joe Wabe By Joe Wabe By Joe Wabe

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“Paint everything, everything”, said the Korean man to the Ameri-can in a German bar. This is, you’ll be thankful, not the start of a bad joke; rather it was the instructions given by Song, bar owner, to Paul Charles, a teacher and artist here in Gwangju. Perhaps these words were a result of the ambition of the owner for his new bar, German bar 2, perhaps it was due to the willingness of the artist to take up the challenge of painting Song’s new bar on his own. No matter the reasoning, Song gave Paul the task to paint, decorate and celebrate German bar 2 with his own blueprint, his imagery and design. A task not many I feel would have taken up.

Song himself is an interesting charac-ter. For those who have been to Ger-man bar and can’t place him, he is the guy smiling from ear to ear as you en-ter, giving you a very warm welcome. Having gotten to know him since ar-riving here in Gwangju he has been telling me about how German bar 2 came about. I was amazed to hear that prior to its present state it was a car park. Song, seeing a business opportu-nity where, let’s face it, very few people would imagine, he, armed with ham-mer and nail, set about constructing the bar as you see it today. This includ-ed, the ceiling, the walls, the furniture, the bar, and he even brews his own beer. While the bar is still a work in progress (note that fresh ‘woody’ smell as you next enter the bar) for the artist the structure of the bar itself provided an extremely unique setting and can-vas to work from. Due to its former life as a car park, the low constructed ceil-ing gives the bar a very original and authentic ‘underground’ feel to it. The setting of the bar is defined predomi-nately however through the structure

of the walls. The walls are, according to Paul, “blocky, with the open space of the walls broken up into inconsist-ent sections”. Consequently, the bar is a very open and spacious one that con-nects fluidly. The colour of the walls however was a different story. Prior to Paul getting his hands on them, they were an eye sore to say the least. ‘Blank, white, and empty’ were just some of the words used by the artist to describe the state they were in. It was definitely a work in progress.When I spoke to Paul about this pro-ject the design had yet to be decided, yet he knew it was this ‘emptiness’ he wanted to quash. Thematically he knew exactly what he wanted to achieve. The goal was not to use this opportunity to paint for himself. Rather, he would paint primarily for his audience, the foreign community of Gwangju. Having spent almost two years in Korea with his wife Jessica, Paul wanted to portray a facet of his Korean experience in the hope that it would resonate and ring true to those who stood before it. This ‘facet’ he de-

fined as ‘Korean nature’. I found this to be very true myself. Having only been here six months, it does not take long to see how the natural landscape sur-rounds the city of Gwangju. It has an obvious beauty to it and gives not just Gwangju but the nation as a whole an authentic character and presence. Paul had this as his manifesto for his work and it would be the catalyst that would guide him through presenting some-thing “vibrant, welcoming and joyous” to celebrate the Korean environment. And so we move towards the actually painting of the bar. You will be happy to hear that rather than follow the words of Song and ‘paint everything’, Paul decided on a far more pragmatic approach. For the main wall as I see it, located at the back of the bar a mural painting was decided upon. Sticking to the underlying theme of nature, and inspired by his visits to both Jiri moun-tain and Geo-jae Island, Paul painted a huge mountainous area with waters running in the foreground. When you inspect the landscape you will notice the artist’s keen eye for detail. The

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mountains painted are distinctly Ko-rean. They are not smooth nor are they flat, rather they are layered and jagged. When you see the mural there is a real depth to the imagery which gives it the authenticity that was craved prior to painting it. This is evidenced by the painting projecting outwards, giving it an added dimension. The bright and neon colours used, coupled with the burning sun in the background cap-tures a very joyous and welcoming picture for its audience. On completion of the main wall and seeing just how much presence it embodies, a contrast was needed for the remainder of the walls. Korea is constantly growing. There is an over-whelming battle between the natural Korea and the city; its roads, buildings, bright lights and people. Paul wanted this to be portrayed in his work. The beauty of the mountains coupled with the tall buildings of the city once again captured another facet of his Korean experience. This is celebrated in Ger-man bar. It was important to Paul to continue the ‘peaceful’ environment and not to allow it to become aggres-sive. As a result, for the remainder of the walls, water is replaced by roads and mountains are replaced by build-ings. Yet the flow and the rhythm of the bar are unchanged. ‘Movement’ became a constant component in the bar through the waters and roads but also through the fluidity of the bar it-self. The colours used for the city mu-ral, while not as fluorescent as before, continue the aura of peace in the walls. The burning of the sun is replaced by the shining lights depicted by Paul. It is a remarkable achievement to be able to capture so much depth and envi-ronment within the confinements of the space at his disposable. There is something ordinary and sim-plistic about the work. It’s an every-day image; mountains, a sun, water, buildings and roads. Yet its impact it makes on you the second you walk in is explosive. Consequently, the envi-ronment is one created for those who come to German bar. When the bar is busy there will be a beautiful syn-ergy between both the people and the

There is something ordinary and simplis-tic about the work. It’s an everyday image; mountains, a sun, water, buildings and roads. Yet its impact it makes on you the second you walk in is explosive.

art. The movement on the walls will be mirrored by the movement of the people. Those enjoying themselves, chatting, laughing and cavorting will provided the act, with the imagery of the city becoming the backdrop. Thus, rather than viewing the art work, it is hoped by Paul that you will see your-self as an extension of the artwork; you are in it as opposed to being on the outside. I do urge to come down to German

bar 2 and see what you make of it. The work and dedication that has been gone into the bar has to be applauded by all. As for the art, I really like it and it is something that sums up the beautiful contrast between country and city here in Gwangju. So come down, sample Song’s home brew and feast your eyes upon Paul’s work. At the very least, it can be that ice breaker you need to talk to that someone you like......

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The 2012 World Music Festival will be held in Gwangju from Fri-day, September 8th to Saturday, September 9th. The festival will be staged at The National Asian Culture Complex – being that Gwangju is the Hub City of Asian Culture, the Asian Culture Com-plex is being constructed on and around the site of the former Jeol-lanamdo Provincial Office (scheduled to open in 2014) Supervised under the artistic director “In Jae-jin”, who has also directed the previous two festivals, this festival will continue to delve into and proudly present the beauty and spirit of, what we call, “World Mu-sic”.

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The festival will take place on 4 dif-ferent stages and run for 2 nights. Gwangju audiences will be able to come and see a wide variety of artists and musicians from around the globe: Danilo Perez is considered to beone of the finest contemporary pianists and jazz composers of our era. With his third album, PanaMonk, Perez re-ceived a firm reputation of Panama’s Thelonious Monk, letting the mu-sic speak for itself. Perez is coming to Korea as a leader of a 7-member band formed in memory of 50 years of friendship between Korea and Pan-ama.Nueva Manteca creates a synergy be-tween Cuban nd Jazz music “pur sang” and are unique in performance, style and repertoire. In the 90’s, the group was praised as “Europe’s finest in Latin Jazz”. The group belongs to the top of the Latin scene as can be judged from USA radio playlists which regularly show a top ranking position for Nueva Manteca’s CD’s.Balkan Beat Box is an American-Israe-

li musical group and has established their own unique sound by fusing the musical styles of Mediterranean and Balkan traditions with hip hop and dancehall beats. They will be rocking the stages of Gwangju with ancient and traditional musical infused with hip hop, in order to create a new mix of musical styles.La Caravane Passe has a particular brass sound and an explosive energy on stage. The band became popular in Paris, acquiring a reputation as a celebratory gypsy-klezmer ensemble. As a naturally born festival band, this promises to be a must see show. The above mentioned international artists are just a handful of the talent-ed mix of performers that the World Music Festival will offer residents of Gwangju. A few more traditional and classical Korean artists will also take to the stages:Yim In-geon & Atman feat. Lee Seok-joo, Kim Bo-ra, and Kang Min-soo: This act will showcase a progressive collision between Jazz and Korean

classical music including “Sae-yah Sae-yah” and “Arirang”, appealing to more the Korean audience.AUX: wittingly rearranged familiar, traditional Korean songs into remixed versions with unforgettable melodies and thumping rhythms. Recently, they showcased their new projects nation-ally (becoming a hot issue in Korea) as well as in New York.Komungo Factory: is a quartet made up of 3 Komungo players and 1 Kayagum player, both of which are traditional Korean instruments, to promote charms of Korean tradi-tional folk music. Just as a factory can produce any product imaginable, the quartet is also able to produce a wide variety of music from traditional clas-sical music to contemporary creative music by harmonizing Komungos and Kayagums together.EasterNox: Their name combines Eastern and Equinox and their sound, instrumental fusion music. They are musically rooted in Korean traditional folk music where they combine the beauty of Korean folk songs and bal-lads and tacitly evoke the excitement of the Samulnori to put on one amaz-ing musical show through expression in the form of contemporary western music.Zaha Torte: is a band born in “the Street of a Cafe” in Kyoto, Japan. They present sweet and replenishing music for our daily lives. The trio is made of an accordion, a guitar, and a cello. Under the musical concept of “nos-talgia”, the band will present romantic and nostalgic instrumental tracks, in acoustic forms, giving its audience a taste of teatime.This is surely a musical production not to be missed and we are looking forward to presenting Gwangju with fantastic sets by legendary artists and their ethnic and authentic spirits that will become part of history, and as a result a myth...

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photo by Joe Wabe

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We’ll go in our wagon, you and I, without a warningand leave this godforsaken cityWe’ll take shelter in the tattered gray lung of canvas clothand press ourselves into the space between our clutter

On nights when everything billows about us in asthmatic wheezing, You’ll light the kerosine lamp, holding it high above our squalorA proud queen of sulfur, rendered in flickering lights and darksand I, a moth to the flame, flitting in a death dance about your feet. We will arrive at the land of patriarchs, and take our rightful placeBetween the colossal ivory pillars, under the glorious sunsetthat dapples colors onto our lips filmed with the varnish of blood red wine. We’ll learn to live blinded, blinded by that light We will play in the vineyards, knowing.Knowing that the winepress is coming, grinding its steel wrath in the distance knowing that somebody is pleading our case, in the distance knowing that somebody is paying scarlet, in another distance. We will call it all distance till it corners us and breaks through our skin.

One day I’ll come back, to look, and perhaps to findBetween charred wooden panels, I’ll recognize youA still statue of scintilating white salt

There I will wait, with steadfastness previously unknown,to make and keep my grandest promise --that between you and I, I will be the first to crumble.

By Hedgie

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How many days have passed since I moved? I thought this while laying on a particularly sunny spot on the floor of my apartment. It gets sunny here from about 9 in the morning until after lunch. I love laying here. Lately though I’ve taken to just staying here the rest of the day too and just lazily follow the sun lines across the house by moving my eyes. It is part of my study called Cat Culture. It is my study in movement philoso-phy. Soon I’ll be famous you’ll see. My name is Henry. Henry Jacobs. The watch, enjoy, and be cynical philoso-phy. All of the life you need to see will be shown to you and you can either accept or reject it.On November 22, 1988 I’m going to get published. I’m going to make mil-lions and millions of people around the world are going to lay in sun trails and on rainy days they will watch the rain on window sills. People will poop in sand boxes and watch with bemuse-ment as life goes by. I’m going to be famous.Before Henry Jacobs made his mil-lions Cat Johnson watched him. Cat Johnson was an innovator of the Cat

Cynic Circle. The Cat Cynic Circle used to follow and track the message 3seeyousee?weC written next to the ground on the corner stone of large buildings in New York City. They would go down the alleys late at night and find the messages. Cat Johnson was the original prophet. It was rumored in the Book of John-son that he once followed a stray cat for five years and eventually mated the cat and fathered a litter of cats with near human intelligence. It was these cats that the Cat Cynic Circle sought to find. The culmination of Johnson’s philo-sophical path ended with the finding of his children. Some say that it is the kittens themselves who leave the mes-sages. In the defense of these theorists, the messages are incredibly low to the ground and messy. As if say, a cat wrote them. The Cynic Circle and Cat Johnson had over five hundred recorded and photo-graphed messages and they remained dedicated to the Cat following. It was the only way to complete the path.Cat Johnson never found his children, but in the 1980s he found an eager

young disciple in Henry. Johnson and Henry would lay in the sun for hours licking one another and napping. Servants would bring food pellets to them and they would remain behind a locked door in the basement of an ani-mal shelter, only coming out to see if any of the cats brought in could write.On September 9th 1983, remember that date, Cat Johnson died and the messages stopped appearing. Most people said that Johnson himself was scrawling the messages, but a few at the funeral remembering seeing a small bemused tabby wearing a small black collar watching from a nearby tree. It is rumored that the messages stopped because he failed.Henry Jacobs paid for the funeral.Before Cat Johnson died I began to document his life. I never liked Henry Jacobs, but I did like the way he smelled so I let him stay in my apartment. I figured the extra money towards rent wouldn’t hurt. He only slept most of the time anyway. I was a writer in those days and I was a grad student at NYU. I used to spend my time wandering the streets for my next big feature. What was out there.

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There was so much but I couldn’t find it! I knew I was thinking too big. So I thought small: cats. I followed a a stray cat one day just to see where he went. Eventually, after four hours of walk-ing, he climbed up into the arms of a man who wrote his name on a pad of paper. “Snip ‘Tabby’ Ignatius” it said. Snip couldn’t talk but he was writing on buildings in those days. I came to find out that he was writing what “prophets told him.”Cat prophets. Their names in alpha-betical order were Elijah Whiskers, Furry Job, Sniffy Jefferson and Tuna Toyota “Che” Tonka. This was a fea-ture. This was also a feature that got me fired from The Daily Squirt, the independent investigative newspaper I was working on at the time. The cats made me go crazy. It was the cat underground. The prophets wrote their messages through Tabby Ignatius in the hopes that Cat Johnson would find them. But they made me promise not to tell him about them. He had to find them on their own or it would be an unworthy find.On June 9, 1983, remember that date, I killed Sam Fritz. She was going to tell

Cat Johnson about his children. That would have made fools out of all of us.Before Sam Fritz died, an old Chevy of a woman named Eloise was baking bread outside of Baton Rouge. She had been working on the mixture of this loaf for fourteen years. Just slowly mix-ing it in the bowl. Her fingers swirled in with the dough as she kneaded it. The dough sunk around them coat-ing her hands in flour and she was one with the dough giving care and needed time for it to bind together and become something beautiful and new. A little piece of the creation story in Elly’s kitchen. On August 1st 1976 Eloise put the bread in the oven and let it bake. She sat on the porch while it baked and sat on the porch while it rose. The next day Eloise walked in from the porch and put her perfect bread on the table and sliced it so perfectly and slowly you could have watched her all day and never saw the knife move. Eloise had an easy, relaxed smile on her face while she cut the bread. It was a know-ing smile that only people of great peace of mind keep plastered on their face. The knowing smile of a cat.

After she was finished she knelt down and sat on the floor with two slices of the bread and her friend Hugo Sir Rompstad came over to join her. Hugo was tired from his journey overseas. Hugo was one of the cats in Francoise De Fleurs intellectual salons of the late 1960s and he was eager to come back and publish his work in the United States. Eloise gave Sir Rompstad a piece of her bread and she packed one away for his journey north. While she was tying the tiny parcel around his neck she looked in his eyes and whis-pered, “Three see, you see? We see.”Rompstad knew this was the truth De Fleurs told him Eloise would tell him. As the sun began to set on the flat Louisiana horizon, Hugo Sir Romp-stad began the journey of his destiny unsure of where the winds of fortune would take him.

By Adam Hogue

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Recently I stumbled upon Enter the Void. This movie came out in 2009 and starred Paz de la Huerta, Nath-aniel Brown and Cyril Roy. This story is about a guy that needs some extra cash. Oscar, the main character, is ex-perimenting with drugs and decides this would be a good way to make some dough. Oscar’s friend, Alex, had just lent him The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which he had not finished when his money making venture leads him to his death. At this point, the movie switches to the perspective of Oscar’s soul floats above the city of Tokyo and watching the lives of loved ones and associates unfold.

Enough with the synopsis and on to my extraordinary opinion. I thought this movie was worth the time. The movie was about two and a half hours and in my opinion this was a little too long. There were some scenes that could have been cut and the story would not have lost anything. Some

of the scenes were just flat out disturb-ing. For instance, one time Oscar was enjoying suckling on his female asso-ciate’s breast and then suddenly she turned into his mom and he turned into a baby. While it might be beauti-ful, I don’t know if I will be able to find enjoyment in that activity for a while. There is another time when Oscar time slips back to his childhood and sees his parents doing it doggy style and then suddenly Oscar’s dad turn into his friend Alex. Just a little weird, but the constant time slippage caused a little trouble when following the movie. Even though this scene involv-ing Alex was not one of my favorites, he was my favorite character. Paz de la Huerta played the part of Oscar’s sister in this movie and was also a very good character.

Overall, this was a very good movie. It does not make it into my list of favorite movies, but I was definitely glad that I watched it.

By Dirty1

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There is something here for everyone, from graphic designers to fine art. Anything that catches my eye , I’ll share with you. I am ram-dom. Get inspired. Think. Create. Evolve.

This artist deserves all 5 stars! His name is Chris Carlson. It took him 11 hours to draw Mario in chalk on the ground. This video was made re-cently in Denver, Colorado on June 2012. Those of you who are gamers, got a think this is cool and you can’t go wrong with Mario. He has been drawn in all kinds of different mediums. This just caught my attention and its neat to watch how it was all built in fast speed, throughout the video. The back-ground music isn’t bad either, “Super Mario Theme” by The Boston Pops. Press Start and enjoy! Follow his blog: http://chriscarlsonco.tumblr.com/

It takes a great animator and illustrator to create this one video. For those of you who are photographers, would ap-preciate this. It shows all the cameras throughout history in a pixilated form and it’s very colorful. I hope you all enjoy this fun video and share it with your friends.

PES (Adam Pesapane) is really known for his short animation films on Show-time in the United States, but he is also well known internationally. He would take objects around the house or anything and make it just plain AWESOME! It’s mind blowing and makes me just keep looking for more of his work. He is not only an artist, he is also a director and I consider him an engineer. There really isn’t an of-ficial website for his work, but you can Google it! >_< Plus, Youtube is the best source to view his short films or view blogs about PES.

Super Mario - 3D Chalk Art (Time Lapse)

The Camera Collection Fresh Guacamole - PES

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