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    New Statesman – Art attack: “The phone rings; the number is withheld. It’s Banksy. He wants to know whether I can go to Bethlehem over Christmas. He is putting on an exhibition, bringing together like-minded artists from all over the world to raise awareness of the situation in Palestine. Like the annual guerrilla art shows that have taken place in London for the past six years, it will be called ‘Santa’s Ghetto’. Two weeks later, I find myself involved in an experience that transforms my ideas about what artists can do in the face of oppression.

    We are living through an exciting time for political art. I have been an artist for 40 years, and my work has always focused on political and social issues. In the 1970s, I started making photo montage work, drawing on imagery from the Vietnam War and the row over nuclear armaments (a retrospective opens at the Pump House Gallery this month). Since the build-up to the Iraq War in 2002, I have been collaborating with a younger artist, Cat Picton Phillipps, developing new techniques and using digital technology to expose the lies that led to the invasion and the subsequent humanitarian disaster.

    Over this period, our work has become linked to a group of young artists who work outside the official art world. Most of them started out painting graffiti on walls. The central figure in this group is Banksy, but although he attracts most of the press coverage, he is surrounded by a growing band of talented, politically committed artists. Our associates come from Spain and Italy, the US, Britain and Palestine. Since the era of the Bush/Blair war in Iraq, this movement has become increasingly politicised, just as my generation was politicised by the war in Vietnam. These are artists who want to connect with the real world, rather than work for the market, which has more of a stranglehold on art than ever. They combine creativity with protest, insisting that art should be more than the icing on the cake for the super-rich.”

    (Via http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/.)


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    Frontline Blogger Covers War in Iraq With a Soldier’s Eyes – New York Times: “Instead, he has spent most of the last three years in Iraq, writing prolifically and graphically, and racking up more time embedded with combat units than any other journalist, according to the United States military. He has been shot at, buffeted by explosions and seen more people maimed — fighters and civilians, adults and children — than he can count.

    ‘The easiest thing in the world to write about is combat, because all the drama is there,’ said Mr. Yon, a fit, ruddy-faced 43-year-old who was a Special Forces soldier more than two decades ago. He insists that he still does not really know the rules of journalism, but says he has recently, grudgingly, accepted that he has become a journalist.

    His detailed, mostly admiring accounts of front-line soldiers’ daily work have won him a loyal following, especially among service members and journalists and bloggers who follow the war. One of his photographs showing an American soldier cradling an Iraqi girl injured in a car bombing (the girl later died) appeared on Time magazine’s Web site and was later voted one of top images of the year by visitors.”


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    Back To Shooting: I need to write things down: “I neglected to enter POY this year, because I thought I only had a couple images worth entering, both in the pictorial category. I forgot that when I left Lincoln, I thought I might have a good sports portfolio. So for your viewing pleasure, here’s what I could have entered, if I had stayed on top of things.”


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    The Video Game May Be Free, but to Be a Winner Can Cost Money – New York Times: “In a major departure from its traditional business model, E.A. plans to announce Monday that it is developing a new installment in its hit Battlefield series that will be distributed on the Internet as a free download. Rather than being sold at retail, the game is meant to generate revenue through advertising and small in-game transactions that allow players to spend a few dollars on new outfits, weapons and other virtual gear.

    At a conference in Munich, the company intends to announce that the new game, Battlefield Heroes, will be released for PC this summer. More broadly, E.A. hopes the game can help point the way for Western game publishers looking to diversify beyond appealing to hard-core players with games that can cost $60 or more.”


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  • The Photographs Not Taken: “The Photographs Not Taken is a collection of essays by photographers about the times they didn’t use their camera. “


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    The Sun News On-line | Wiveslive: “Ayobamidele Atinuke
    I personally don’t support premarital sex. The Bible doesn’t support it but we must be very realistic. Sometimes, the situation might warrant it to happen probably once a week. I must make it very clear that if it must happen at all, then it must be with reasonable protection. However, if those involved are married, they can do it anytime and anywhere, even if she’s cooking in the kitchen.”


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    CONTEXT – This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times: “The pictures come from a new coffee-table book, ’20th Century Russia in Photographs: 1900 to 1917,’ which covers the turbulent period in hundreds of full-page archival images, ranging from high politics to gritty documentary photography to family portraits.

    The book is part of an ongoing project by state-owned gallery Moscow House of Photography to collect and catalogue historically interesting photographs taken over the last century. It’s planned that another four books will follow, loosely divided into the pre-war period, World War II, the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras and perestroika to 2000, the gallery’s director, Olga Sviblova, said in an interview on Sunday.”


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    Getty Images – News Blog » Blog Archive » The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto: “As the former prime minister’s car surged forward, I pushed out of the way, ahead of her vehicle. I needed to adjust my camera. In the melee, the shutter setting had been bumped down to 1/15th and 1/8th of a second, giving the photos an unintended impressionistic look.

    I turned on my flash, but just before resetting the lens, I turned and glanced back at her car.

    That’s when I heard three shots. I knew from the sound that they were fired close to her car. I watched her drop down through the sunroof. Instinctively, I raised my camera, my finger pressed down on the shutter, starting to shoot without looking.

    Just as the camera came up in front of my face, the bomb went off.”


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  • John Nack on Adobe: Casio spitfire cranks out 1,200fps, does DNG: “‘Casio will put on sale in March a digital still camera capable of shooting up to 60 full-resolution images in one second, and video at more than 1,000 per second to realize a super slow-motion effect.’”


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  • whats the jackanory ?: London calling: “I did a shoot for Sunday Times on the 3rd Jan. The wold champion female track cyclist. A Brit. Big hopes for the Olympics. Great ! A job immediately after the new year – it gets your confidence up and your new year is out the traps. I got £250 fee. One of my very first commissions ever was for The Sunday Times in 1993. My fee was £250. In 15 years they have held down their costs 100%. What an amazing achievement. The chief picture editor of the whole newspaper – a man I’ve never even heard of or met – so the boss over and above the PE’s in all the sections/magazines – was so impressed with my picture that he got his p.a. to call me and ‘ask’ me if it was alright if they could hold on to the pictures for a little bit longer as they were so good he felt that they were very syndicatable. How long for? Not long, just a while, well until after the Olympics. Is there going to be a split in it for me? We’d give you 10%. The institutional disrespect for photographers and photography cannot be over emphasised.”


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    Rob Walker – Consumed – Marketing and Advertising – Yo Gabba Gabba – Nickelodeon – Television – New York Times: “With a host in a crazy orange outfit called DJ Lance Rock (‘equal parts Jimmie Walker and Bootsy Collins’ as OC Weekly put it), ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’ stars five cute creatures and features dancing children, animation and upbeat messages in a somewhat campy and surreal setting. If the title reminds you of, say, ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ and the Ramones’ chant ‘Gabba gabba hey,’ that may not be a coincidence. The show was created by Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz; each has young children and each is in his mid-30s. ‘They were thinking, What would inspire our generation of dads?’ Rivkin says. The answer included recurring segments in which rapper Biz Markie offers kids a human-beatbox rhythm of the day and Mark Mothersbaugh, a founder of Devo who also composed the music for ‘Rugrats,’ gives drawing lessons. Musical guests have included current indie rock heroes like the Shins and Cornelius.”


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    redlights and redeyes: portland or bust: “Portland has always been one of those cities which I knew I’d love the second I set foot in. I got an invite from Sol Neelman to join him for a little shindig with some of The Oregonian crew and a few who made the trip from the newspaper-lands. While I didn’t get to wander as much as I wanted to for photos, this trip was more about seeing old friends and meeting some new ones. One of those friends, the infamous Scott Strazzante, got hitched while I was there. It was a disgustingly cute ceremony in a small courthouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, witnessed by only a few photographers who only saw the ceremony through a darkened rectangle in the viewfinder with vows recited through a chorus of shutters.”


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    Navel gazing – Reuters Photographers: “At various times some of our photographers and picture editors have talked about how the eyes, hands and even feet can be used as the subject of pictures. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ‘middle way’ – the human belly as a means of self expression.”


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    China: “citizen journalist” beaten to death – Boing Boing: “Wei Wenhua was beaten to death after he snapped photos of a confrontation on the street between village residents and authorities. His death has sparked controversy in Chinese media, and the blogosphere:

    Wei Wenhua was a model communist and is now a bloggers’ hero — a ‘citizen journalist’ turned martyr. The construction company manager was driving his car when he witnessed an ugly scene: a team of about 50 city inspectors beating villagers who tried to block trucks from unloading trash near their homes.

    Wei took out his cell phone and began taking pictures. The city inspectors saw Wei and then attacked him in a beating that lasted five minutes. By the time it was over, the 41-year-old Wei was slumped unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital but was dead on arrival.”


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    SUPERFICIALsnapshots: ye olde’ yashica: “I have been scanning some photos from the past..1999-2001. mmmm..The days of trying to focus my Yashica A ( I still can’t remember who I loaned it to.)”


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    Sports Photo Slideshow | Reuters.com: “”

    (Via Rob Galbraith.)


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    Design Police | Bring bad design to justice.: “Visual Enforcement Kit”

    (Via Digg.)


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  • larrylivermore.com: At Gilman Street: “The MTX song pokes gentle fun at the Gilman purists, of whom I was undeniably one. ‘And if you’ve got nothing better to do, there’s a meeting every Sunday afternoon, you can talk about skinheads at the show, you can vote on whether you’re gonna vote, and you can make a speech, you can rant, you can rave, you can preach…’ Anyone who ever sat through one of those seemingly interminable meetings – sometimes they’d have to postpone the show for an hour because we were still voting on whether we were gonna vote’ – will recognize that picture.


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    The Year in Pictures: Stormy Weather: “Extreme weather is a category of photography we don’t think much about here in New York City, but it has its fans, publishers, and practitioners just like any other genre. Top amongst these is probably Jim Reed, a 56 year old former writer and film-maker who moved from Los Angeles to Wichita, Kansas 16 years ago in order to be
    near the strongest hurricanes and tornadoes in the country.”


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    Gang Leader for a Day – Sudhir Venkatesh – Book Review – New York Times: “On a hot summer day in 1989, Sudhir Venkatesh, a callow sociology student with a ponytail and tie-dyed T-shirt, walked into one of Chicago’s toughest housing projects, clipboard in hand, ready to ask residents about their lives. Sample question: ‘How does it feel to be black and poor?’ Suggested answers: ‘very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good.’ Actual answers: unprintable.

    Mr. Venkatesh got rid of the clipboard and the questionnaire, but not his fascination with life in the Chicago housing projects. He stuck around, befriended a gang leader and for the next decade lived a curious insider-outsider life at the notorious Robert Taylor Homes on the city’s South Side, an eye-opening experience he documents in the high-octane ‘Gang Leader for a Day.’

    In a bit of bravado Mr. Venkatesh, who now teaches at Columbia, styles himself a ‘rogue sociologist.’ Dissatisfied with opinion surveys and statistical analysis as ways to describe the life of the poor, he reverted to the methods of his predecessors at the University of Chicago, who took an ethnographic approach to the study of hobos, hustlers and politicians. Much like a journalist, he observed, asked questions and drew conclusions as he accumulated raw data.”


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