19/05/2010

More Images on Flickr

Want to see more impressions from the dakar exposition in Dakar? Click here!

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09/05/2010

Vernissage Bastard-Project at Goethe Institut Dakar

Happy to open the exposition...
Vielen Dank, lieber Uwe, Norbert, Fatou und das gesamte Goethe-Team! Merci!!!

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08/05/2010

Impressions from Dakar
Preparing the expostion

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03/05/2010

DakArt Off: „Bastard - Choose my identity“
Dakar, Senegal, Vernissage 8.5.2010

After a long break we´re on the road again. The Goethe-Institut Dakar in Senegal invited us to work there and present our work. The exposition takes place during the Dak´Art.

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11/04/2008

Art Bastard
Urban Contemporary Art & Culture

Art Bastard, brothers in name, are a new plattform for urban, contemporary art & culture, presenting a selection of artists from all over the world. The site lead their readers to events, galleries and present all kind of brilliant researched informations about and around art.

They present our book and made a nice portrait of sunny andré.

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06/12/2007

Leonora

Leonora Oppenheim once worked in Barcelona, now she is back in London. We met here during our exposition last year in Barcelona at the Ras Gallery (she helped us to set up the exposition). Now she writes for Cool Hunting. Thanx for presenting André´s work in Paris!

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03/12/2007

André goes Paris
Illustrative Paris, 29.11.-9.12.2007

André is not getting tired of travelling around the world and painting walls in galleries. Just one week after Dortmund he rushed to Paris for an exhibition with Illustrative Paris from 29.11. - 9.12.2007 in Espace Commines, 17 rue Commines, 75003 Paris

Mehr Infos hier

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26/11/2007

Impressions from Focus Award
Dortmund

We just came back from our weekend in Dortmund where we presented our work during the FOCUS AWARD (See also Slanted).
The students of the Design School Dortmund made a great job. Excellent organisation, perfect accomodation, interesting line-up, great audience, good vibes. The blue containers where amazing! We loved the typographic work on the posters and catalogues. Thank you!

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19/11/2007

BASTARD goes PTV AG
New Exposition in the main Building of PTV AG Karlsruhe

From 15 of November till beginning of next year a part of the work of Bastard-Project is shown in the main building of PTV AG in Karslruhe, Stumpfstr. 1
This is part of a pre-show. The main exposition (beeing announced soon) will open on 24th and 26th of January 2008 in the old slaughterhouse of Karlsruhe (a beautiful place that has been changed to a music/exposition space during the last few weeks).

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01/06/2007

Typo Berlin, 18-20th of May
Instant Gallery on tour

Time is running. We will try to upload a bunch of images from our road-trip to berlin in the upcoming days.

We drove up to Berlin with our caravan tuesday 15 th of mai, arrived at typoBerlin on thursday and stayed till sunday. Our lecture on friday showed images we took on our way to Berlin, a kind of experimental road show. On stage where also DJ Frank Wiedemann (Âme) and Sudabeh Mohafez.

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16/04/2007

translations 02 | Fernweh. Positionen zur Identität im Design
4. und 5. Mai 2007, Fachhochschule Mainz

On Saturday 11th of Mai we are invited to present the Bastard-Project in Mainz, during the translation 02.

Lectures Friday, 04.05.07
09.30 Begrüßung durch Dr. Petra Eisele
10.00 Barbara Knorpp, London (GB)
11.00 Florian Pfeffer, Amsterdam (NL)
13.30 Erik Spiekermann, Berlin (D)
14.30 Thomas Manss, London (GB)
15.30 Filip Blasek, Prag (CZ)
16.30 Ruedi Baur, Zürich (CH)
18.00 bis 20.00 Bootsfahrt
21.00 TDC-Ausstellungs-Eröffnung
22.00 Party

Lectures Saturday, 05.05.07
10.00 Einführung durch Dr. Petra Eisele
10.30 Mark Terkessidis, Köln (D)
11.30 Bastard-project: Lars Harmsen, Christian Ernst, André Rösler und Ulrich Weiß, Karlsruhe (D)
12.30 Rodrigo Castaneda, London (GB)
15.00 Johannes Bergerhausen, Köln (D)
16.00 Vier5: Marco Fiedler und Achim Reichert, Paris (F)
16.30 K&K: Katharina Tietze, Zürich (CH) und Katharina Hohmann, Weimar (D)

Here the information about this event.
Unter dem Titel »Fernweh. Positionen zur Identität im Design« richtet translations 02 ein internationales Symposium aus, das sich mit gestalterischen Strategien von Identität und Differenz befasst. Mit Vorträgen, Diskussionen, Filmen, der „Kistenöffnung“ und Preview des 53. TDC New York und einer rauschenden Party am Rhein feiert die Fachhochschule Mainz den erfolgreichen Start des neuen Bachelor-Studiengangs Kommunikationsdesign.

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29/03/2007

Ein Ritt um den Globus mündet in einen schwergewichtigen Bildband
Von Richard Rabensaat

Richard Rabensaat wrote a nice critic (in german) about the bastard-book in kunst-blog.

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08/03/2007

Colophon Luxemburg
INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE SYMPOSIUM, 09 - 11.03.2007 LUXEMBOURG

Colophon 2007 will take place in Luxembourg. Magazine makers, art directors, photographers, illustrators, journalists, brand managers, students and a larger public will come together for a three-day-event.
The objective is for many of the most intriguing personalities in the worldwide magazine culture to interact with interested audiences and players from a multitude of fields and to exchange ideas, experiences, and view examples of some of the best and brightest offerings.

The bastard crew will be there! And we hope to bring home millions of pix, ideas and contacts. Florian Gärtner from Finest/Magma Brand Design will talk together with Lars Harmsen about typography and magazine design. The title of their lecture is “Killing White Space: about paper murderers and print-junkies”. Besides, we are bringing the new issue of Slanted-Magazine to Luxemburg. And a mobile Gallery...More pix following soon!

For further informations please take a look at the agenda

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08/12/2006

BLANK MAGAZINE

I met Carola Redondo on the Heimatdesign Event in Essen. She wirtes for Blank Magazine and presented our project. Blank Magazine seems to be quite interesting (see Colophon Interview)

Carola has here own blog and you can find the article in the section design.

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11/09/2006

Pictoplasma Berlin / character walk 2006 /// exhibitions, installations & partner events
11-14 October, Berlin

We are happy to announce that the bastard-project goes on with a presentation in Berlin during the Pictoplasma Conference.

Confirmed speakers, presenters and revisiting friends: Airside (UK), Tim Biskup (USA), Jon Burgerman (UK), Gary Baseman (USA), Doma (ARG), eBoy (GER), Sune Ehlers (DK), Friends With You (USA), Furi Furi (JP), Derrick Hodgson (CA), Nathan Jurevicius (AUS), Motomichi Nakamura (USA), Akinori Oishi (UK), Passion Pictures (UK), Pete Fowler (UK), Rob Reger (USA), Rinzen (AUS), Fons Schiedon (NL), Ian Stevenson (UK), Studio aka (UK), The London Police (NL), Wayne Horse (NL) and many, many more...

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04/08/2006

Two Expositions with André Rösler
Illustartive Berlin and Städtische Galerie Lahr

We proudly announce two expositions that will show work from André Rösler.

DIE ILLUSTRATIVE BERLIN 06
Zeitgenössische Kunst deutscher Illustratoren
25. August bis 30.September 2006
ehem. Vitra Design Museum
Kopenhagener Str.58 Berlin
www.illustrative.de

"THEY CALL IT MISCHKALKULATION"
Eine Werkschau in der Städtische Galerie im Alten Rathaus
Eröffnung am 24. September
Kaiserstraße 1, 77933 Lahr
Info: KulTourBüro-Tickets&Touristik Lahr
Tel. 07821-950210

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10/07/2006

Heimatdesign, Essen, 8-10th of September, ENTRY 2006
Event World Heritage Site "Zeche Zollverein"

We have been invited to present our work at an event organized by Heimatdesign

Heimatdesign in Essen 08.- 10.09.2006
Mit einer dreitägigen Veranstaltung wird Heimatdesign im September die Zeche Zollverein entern - Weltkulturerbe trifft die jungen Helden und alten Hasen des Design. Mit einer interdisziplinären Mischung aus Ausstellung, Messe und Workshop und Geschmacksverstärker Musik werden wir während der ENTRY 2006 der Startpunkt einer jährlich wiederkehrenden Heimatdesign-Veranstaltung in Essen setzen..

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06/07/2006

Stereo Issue 4 / Remote Control
Art Publication from Holland

STEREO is an international art publication that sets out to bring original collaborative work by upcoming artists. We met Arjen de Jong lats year at the CMYK Festival in Barcelona and he invited us to contribute to Stereo. The issue came out quite a while ago, but I jsut got hold of the publication now!
Check also the Website of Stereo.

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29/03/2006

Bastard goes MILAN, opening 27th of April
Raas Gallery Bookstore, via Pietrasanta 14, edificio 2

From Barcelona the Bastard-Exposition will go to Milan, opening on the 27th at 8:00 pm.

Raas Gallery Bookstore
via Pietrasanta 14, edificio 2
Milano 20141
www.raasgallery.it
+39 0230901414

The SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE will open a week later...(Mercredi, Avr 05, 2006-Lundi, Avr 10, 2006)

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17/02/2006

BASTARD COVERS
PRINTING THE BASTARD_PROJECT

It was a struggle with the printers... but it came to a happy end. When we asked the guys from Ingoprint to use the maculatur papers for the cover, have them turned around and overprinted again and again, turning off one by one cyan, magenta, black or yellow – they thought we must be crazy bastards. The goal was to produce covers that are all different. A white image and type will overprint those covers at the end. It took two days to have everything printed. It looks sooooooo gooooooood! Actar and Ingoprint made a great job!

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15/02/2006

Printing the Bastard!
Barcelona

Here we are again. Tomorrow the book will be printed at INGOPRESS in Barcelona. And we hope to show some pix soon.

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16/08/2005

Publication in Page
Stadtrundfahrt

We are very happy about the article Claudia Gerdes wrote about our project. PAGE is the most important german design magazine. And most of the articles cover less than 3 or 4 pages. The BASTARD-story made it up to 5 following pages. Thanx!

PAGE also invited everyone to talk about globalism, design and bastarding on their Page Weblog

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03/06/2005

Scott Durzo
Rare pictures of Christian and André

We met Scott Durzo in L.A. / Huntington Beach. He took shots of surfers, Christian talked to him about waves, life, germany, money and god...
Our focus during the world tour was to take pictures from others. So there are only a very few of our own (most of them bad and uggly). Thanks, Scott - your e-mail from yesterday with pictures of André and Christian is lovely!

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26/04/2005

Venise
Tracking Italian Style

Yes, the Bastard-Tour goes on. I´ve been in Venise with my wife and my son. Couldn´t get rid of the "scanner in my head"...More pics will follow soon!

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02/04/2005

Cabin-Crew and Future Dreams
People and Buildings

Dubai wanted a landmark to rival the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Opera House. The UK-based architects WS Atkins & Partners built the Burj al Arab and it became Dubai´s icon. We haven´t been inside, but everything that looks gold is gold...the costs of the building has never been revealed.

Its just the beginning of what will be in a few years one of the biggest cities of the world. Huge advertising panels show already what dubai is going to look like in a few years.

Natalie's friends come from all over the world. And when asking them, where they feel at home almost all of them say "not Dubai!". dubai is very artificial: the shopping malls look american, the hotels are disney-like, the historic part of Dubai is to young to look really old. Most of the cabin-crew hang around and have parties just in their flats. Until the next flight.

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31/03/2005

Skyscrapers and Souks
A very young city

Natalie, our lovely french scout and Dubai-guide came here to work as Emirate Airlines cabin crew. She started travel by here own at the tender age of nine, stayed three month in Hong Kong when she was twelve. As soon as she has more than 4 days off, she jumps into a plane to discover a new place. Dubai is an ideal home-base for such a life, as it is just in-between east and west.

That might be one of the secrets why this city is growing so fast: approx. 10 million people live here. But only 3.000 are originally from Dubai. All the others are foreigners. Dubai is one of the fastest growing cities of the world. It takes less than half a year to built an over 50 level skyscraper. Most of those new buildings full of glass look horrible.

Every thing has to be higher, longer, bigger than in any other place of the world. Natalie is living in the highest residential building of the world (The 21 Century Tower has 53 levels and a swimming pool on its roof). Just close to it will open soon the world biggest indoor ski resort. Imagine the energy needed to cool down something so big. Summer temperatures easily climb up to 50°! But it shouldn't be a problem, gasoline costs as much as water: 25 cent per liter! Nice place to drive fat cars.

While most traditions are less strict than in Saudi Arabia, a lot of things are still forbidden: sex and drugs and rock´n´roll are absolute no-noes! Jail here is full with foreigners! So people live in a traditional way and modernism is shown more by material things than in personal expression.

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29/03/2005

Back to Future
Lost Traditions?

What surprises a lot about asian imagery in public is the lack of traditional elements. In Bangkok a temple is around every corner. The ornaments are a highly developed visual language. The most famous temple, the Wat Phra Kaew with its Emerald Buddha, is a rich "book" of ornamental art.
Looking at the oversize imagery of advertisements wont make you aware of being in asia: they just look the same as in Europe. The ideal model is not even Asian, but Western.

We spent our last day here in the temple, later in the afternoon we went to the indian Market on Phahurat Rd. and took the plane at 1:30 to Dubai.

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28/03/2005

BUY ME
ALTERNATIVE CULTURE AND DOMS OF CAPITALISM

People have different reasons to come to Bangkok. In Khao San Rd you'll find travelers from all over the world, either on their way to further destinations or on their way home. First ones will buy all accessories needed to look like a real honest freak, the second ones will buy western labeled shirts and luxury articles.

In the center of Bangkok the business center attracts people from all over the world, glass palazzos, air-conditioned skyscrapers, bank- and insurance buildings, stylish coffees and interior-design-shops. Just every thing western.

And some people come to f*** The most popular place is Patpong. A place full of tristesse. Not even the loud music and the busy atmosphere can hide the dark side of Thailand's soul.

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28/03/2005

Spiritual PLACES
Amulet Market, Thai Boxing

For the first time we feel what hot and humid means: walking and talking in slow-motion.
Walking to Phra Athit Road to see the Amulet Market: manly locals buy here statues, small buddhas, gri-gris and everything related to go spirituality. In-between all this mess small kitchens presenting a few specialties.
Bangkok is all about copy/paste. Its a tourist-trap-trail. Come here and you'll buy Lacoste, Ralf Lauren, Billabong, Boss... just everything that belongs to our western religion: identification by brands.
Back to tradition: two stadiums (Ratchadamnoen and Lumpini) present every night thai-boxing at its best: children and young men beat the hell out of them. It just hurts by looking at them. The crowd wakes up after the second round when starting to bet. Every hit in the body is acclaimed by a loud "ho".
To feel where your own body is fragile we went to a traditional thai-massage (not the one you are thinking of!). My masseuse made me discover my back and all the hidden places of pain! It still hurts today.

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26/03/2005

Hong Kong - Bangkok
From rich to poor

Only 2,5 hours flight separate Hong Kong from Bangkok. But its a whole world in-between. Sir Norman Foster designed the Hong Kong airport: steel, glass, oversize corridors and waiting areas...Bangkoks immigration service looks like a old-fashioned ticket booth for a minor sport-event. Taxi-drivers beat the hell out of their rusty cars, tuk-tuks battle with motorcycles, its all about noise, speed, dirt, jam, traffic...and in-between all this human chaos temples, monks, shrines and sleeping people. They just sleep every where: on a chair, in their shop, on the green in-between two main roads, on the sidewalk...
Our place here is the Hostel "New Joe" just behind the backpacker hot-spot Khao San Rd. A place where people from all over the world come to relax, buy tickets to foreign destinations, hang around and try to be and look cool. German "Biedermann" turn into Eastman. Guess we'll have some nice shots tomorrow!

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25/03/2005

Markets and High-towers
Tradition and Future

Eastern. And we saw a group of christians beating the hell out of "Jesus" shouting at him "you bastard, you bastard". 10% of the Chinese population are christians. That are 120 millions!
People here not only believe in God but also in traditional medicine. All kind of mushrooms, horns, roots, dried animals, plants and whatever mother nature gave us is sold in the markets of HK. A Chinese proverb says that people eat every thing where the back looks to the sky. People just trust in both tradition and future! We have seen no other place yet were both worlds live in such a contrast and harmony. Bastard is Hong Kong and vice versa.
Another funny story: the population of HK is the most dense of the World. Approx. 7 million people live here, 8 million cell phones are registered.
We met John and later in the evening Tinka, had dinner...and went to bed again at 2 in the morning...

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25/03/2005

And the Winner is...
ADC Illustration Award for André Rösler

Nice news from good old Germany: André has just been informed that he won the Art Directors Club Germany Germany ADC Silver Award for illustration.

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25/03/2005

IN THE HEART OF IT
ABOUT DESIGN AND INTERNATIONALITY

Some days in your life seem to be long because boring, others are long because full of action, movement and discovering.
We met John Wu, a 35 year old, very busy Hong Kong Chinese. Instead of working in his parents restaurant he preferred to be a designer. So one day he cut of his hair, quitted the job at the airport and started to work for an agency. 9 month later he opened achetype:interactive His office is a large room packed with books, puppets, toys, computers and found objects. All his live is about design: learning, checking out things, collecting books and meeting people. Johns dream is to come to Europe to study typography to design a chinese font (18.000 signs, a lifetime project).

He first took us to a traditional chinese dim son resataurant before hidding to AllRightsReserved to see Sklam, the chief-editor. ARR publishes as well beautiful art-books as commercial projects (sony), their office is in the Art-Center of HK with view over HK harbor. Slams aim is to create beautiful books, considering them to be like a human body: the cover is the skin, the inside is the body with a complex system where design, paper, material and binding have to be in perfect harmony. Sklam believes that high-end designers are getting less and less.

Half an hour later we jumped to IdN to meet the publisher Laurence Ng. The office is situated in-middle of a traditional market, having a butcher close to its entrance. You would never imagine that this is the headquarters of one of the most ambitious, innovative and interesting design-magazines of the world (available in five editions: English, Asia Pacific, Australian/New Zealand, Chinese/HK and Taiwan versions)! Its founder and publisher is a 200% awake older man, speeding through his office like a teenager. Jesus! What a power! What an enthusiasm, what a love for his work. He showed us what IdN will look like in future: together with the magazine a CDR will present live interviews, soundtracks, film-clips and whatever fits on a CDR to its readers. They just fixed the content till late in the morning, and it just looks great!

John, we love you!!!! Thank you for introducing us to those wonderul people.

A taxi took us way out to the New Territories to see Tinka Heeckt from Baden-Baden. She studies, together with other 250 students from over 87 different countries, at the Li Po Chun United World College of Honk Kong. The director who came here last year, is proud of this international, multicultural project. Tinka introduced us to all of here friends and took us to a weird indian restaurant situated in an apartment in the 7th floor of a flat, full of black and indian hang arounds and drug dealers. Tinka: thanx! It was great to see and talk to all of you!

At 0:30 we met John again who designed the flyers, posters and some of the VJ-screens presented on the Centrium/Sinosphere DJ-event featuring Amil Khan. Known in the past for making music accross the web, Technasia fuses the east and west uniquely whereby their multi-cultural backgrounds encourages them to bring forward a distinctive sound universally. Nice club, loud music, nice people. When are we going to sleep today???

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24/03/2005

TOKYO - HONG KONG
Taro

This morning we had a meeting in the suburbs from Tokyo with Taro. He's photographer and skater. Actually he works on a book about (skating) pools in L.A. Beside his portraits of famous skaters he works for record companies. His office is situated in a small house with 3 levels and it took us almost an hour to find it. Japanese people are so friendly, that they prefer to indicate you the wrong instead of saying the truth: they often just don't know where it is!

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24/03/2005

THE NEVER ENDING CITY
STATUE OF LIBERTY

The subway system in Tokyo is brilliant and very easy to understand. The main stations are as big as airports and it could easily take you half an hour to walk from one end to the other! And of course its very crowded. After two days we still didn't get used to those masses of people.
The Starbucks Coffee close to Shibuya is situated on strategic corner with an overview over the masses. We where kindly asked not to take pictures. We did and almost got kicked. Paranoia!
Tokyo's harbor is immense, From the Tennozu Island we had a rainy view on the bay. Japan bought the statue of liberty a few weeks ago. Hopefully we didn't flew to NY this time, we would have been disappointed.

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22/03/2005

TOKYO: VISUAL CLASH
LOLITAS, NEONBABIES, BASTARDS.

One day in Tokyo and your hard-disk is full. It´s a flash. A killer. Compared to Tokyo Europe is empty, slow, boring, silent. A dessert. Tokyo is a real-world science-ficition. A world full of unanswered questions. How could this be possible? How do people live, work, love, feel, communicate, meet, dream etc here?
Our Hotel is located in Shinjuku, the heart of Tokyo´s amusement and shopping district. Two trainstations south in the Shibuya district is situated the Yoyogi-Park. Like Central Park NY it offers a playground to all the young and crazy ones. A nice place to see artists, gamblers, bastards...
We had no meetings today and met a million people...

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20/03/2005

TOKYO L.A.
10 Hours Flight, SUNLIGHT HOTEL IN SHINJUKU

Traveling is wired: you wake up and grab a low-fat muffin and a midsize cappuccino to go, the airport bus-driver (black mamba with long nails) wishes you a "nice flight, guys, take care" and a few hours later you're in Japan. Somehow its a day later (we took of from L.A. at 11:50 on the 19th and arrived 10 hours later in Tokyo at 15:50 on the 20th). Traffic jam, flash lights, neon publicity's, millions and millions of people everywhere... for the first time we are in Japan!

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19/03/2005

LAND OF PLENTY
ABOUT SHOE-CLEANER HENRY, A SCHOOL-KID, AND A DESIGNER

Henry is one of those people you'll find everywhere in the US: he works hard under bad conditions and gets hardly enough to live. His working-place is in the entrance of a garage just in the middle of L.A.´s business center. Every car her is huge, fast, expensive, the seats are made of expensive velour or smooth leather. Henrys seats are older than he is. But in this place full of tristesse Henry is showing proudness. He shows us pictures of his family, on a mirror between the two chairs a photography of his grand-mom. He says from himself that he is a real bastard, quarter indian, quarter african, quarter white and god knows what else. When we asked him if we might take a picture of him he took of his hat. He first looked for a longer time out of the garage, later into the camera.
From the business district we went to chinatown, a group of children payed less attention to the place than to their coolness. When the teacher saw us talking to them and taking pictures he wanted us to stop immediately - or call the police. He didn't ask the kids stop smoking.
At the Art College of L.A. in Pasadena we met the german designer Stefan Buchner, He studied here and now designs record sleeves and books. Last year he published XXXXX. The school, a black steel building, is placed in the hills surrounded by trees, parks and gardens. A year costs approx. 36.000 $. Therefore the equipment in the classes is one of the best I have ever seen. And some of the work was brilliant.
Driving back from Pasadena to Venice Beach to the hotel took us almost two hours on a 5 to 6 lane highway. Everything is big here: poorness, richness, loneliness.

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19/03/2005

WAR GAMES
Paint Ball and Hollywood

This day is all about cultural identity!!!
Huntington Beach is known for its surf-culture. Talking about culture means talking about a spirit, a lifestyle, a way of life. There is a wonderful museum of surfing, with images, old surf- and skate boards.
This weekend Huntington Beach will change to the biggest Paint Ball Event of the year. 5.000 People from 10 to 70 years old will fight in teams of 9 against each other. Its all about killing. The same music, the same wear, the same gear, the same coolness, the same guys like once the surfers and skaters and bmx-riders are now killers. This is where culture goes. To be honest, we really felt shocked!
In a cafe we met Yan. He's from Reutlingen in Germany, was married to an American girl, has two Kids and is now divorced. He hates everything here, and hates europe two, and loves every thing here, and loves europe to. Some people don't know where they belong to!
We drove to Hollywood, the Place where every thing is possible, the big dream, the Star Walk. False, Plastic, Dreams? This place has no human identity. Sorry.

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18/03/2005

Mexico City - L.A.
Market, Old Trucks, Mexican Busdrivers

Merced is one of the biggest markets in MXC. When you leave the metro right under the market you´ll catch the odor of fresh fruits directly. Everything is brought in by trucks. Crazy constructions between improvisation and perfection.
We took the plane at 14:50, arrived to L.A. 3,5 hours later. To get into the country you first have to stand in line, get yourself checked by a drug-control-dog, fill in 2 visa forms, have fingerprints of both hands and a porträt made and show you flight tickets. Welcome to America.
We caught the car and drove down to Venice beach. The busdriver to the Alamo car rental was Mexican. He complained that less Germans (and other tourists) come to L.A. since 9/11. Strange, isn´t it?

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17/03/2005

ABOUT BIKERS, MAGAZINES AND ARTISTS
PETER, COMPLOT, MALCOLM

Our last day in MXC was a long one! Finally we saw Peter, the partner of Jacob and fixed an appointment for an exposition opening.
Then we hited to COMPLOT. Spiritual head of this brilliant magazine is the photographer Enrique Covarrubias . He is assited by 15 people, lovely Maricarmen Guajardo showed us their office. When Complot, that was founded 9 years aga, was taken over by the actual team it was more an dark underground magazine. It now has turned over to a larger audience, talking about fashion and style. The main goal is to develop an own Mexican identity. Most other Mexican magazines are unfortunately strongly influenced by American productions. The complot team showed us a brand new tv-comercial that shortly will be shown on MTV: a brain gets spashed on a magazine cover, making it bleed...to cool.
Jacob took us to his loft. He lives in the atelier of Malcolm Coelo, and artist from Gibraltar who´s into steal, wood (and rust) sculptures. Very humourous stuff, asking you to touch and having them move. The atelier is an incredible mess: millions of nails, screws, cut out peaces of steel and wood, ready mades, spear-parts...And it´s every where: on the roof, in the entrance, hall, in rooms. A great atmosphere, a wonderland....
We went to his expostion opening (Galería Pecanins, Durango 168, Colonia Roma) around 8, talking to the exotic flora of upper-class foreigners and artists. I liked the childrens-wood-gun-installation!
Jacob took us for dinner to a place where the traditional domino game is being played by old men. Brilliant food, nice atmosphere. The evening finished at Malcolms home, having after-opening beers.

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15/03/2005

Cool people, nice Work
Jacob, Dr. Latex, Escobar

The BASTRAD PROJECT is doing very well. Every day we meet a lot of exiting people, Christian is making millions of Pictures, Andre is into drawing like hell. My spanish is getting better every day...

Jacob came with his friend Pete from Danmark, to MXC 6 years ago and now owns a bike messenger company. Asking them if it´s dangerous he just showed us a picture of a fellow they lost this year. "Strange image, isn´t it? We took it just 2 days before he died. His arms look like angel wings, dont they?" said Jacob. Both owners still ride 4-6 hours a day beside the office-work. All in all 10 messengers work for them. Jacob want´s his first million when he gets 30. But its realy hard!

At 7 pm we met Dr. Latex in his home. He is the guy who designs strange bags (made of latex), small figures and all kind of crazy fanzies. He worked with the guys from FAKIR on a project in Barcelona where they where asked to show their perception of the city. Thats how he came to place the wrestling figures on a gaudi like animal. We had real great fun on the shoting at his place.

Dr Latex took us to Escobar, he runs a design agency far south of MXC. During daytime it would take you more then an hour to get there. At 1 in the morning its a fast ride! Escobar is a Wrestling fan, he has a wonderfull collection of masks, posters, trash and just every thing related to wrestling.

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14/03/2005

WRESTLING MASKS, TORE LATINOMEXICANA, FAKIR & FRIENDS
First walk trough a 25 Million City

Today´s highlight was the meeting with Javier “Javo” Caballero, his wife Diana Patricia “Path” Gonzales and his friends Dr. Latex (Artist), Rafael Benítez “Rafakir” (CD at DDB México), Eduardo Escobar “Escobas” (designer), Omar Mijangos “1000 Changes” (illustrator) and Morbito (Designer).

What suprises most about MCX: it´s a megacity (approx. 25 Million People) with a small-city-atmosphere (on Sunday a lot of bars close very early or do not even open). Only a few big buildings, very little traffic, not realy crowded (on sunday). People seem to be less stressed than in other big cities. Cops hang out every where. “You like it or you hate it. But even if you hate it, you won´t move away from here”, says Javo. We went up to the Tore Latinomexicana with a view till the end of horizont. No smog today!
Looking into the faces is all about cultural mix: dark-skinned indians, white spanish characters, latin americanos...We bought wonderfull wrestling masks. And will open a Wrestling-Mask-Shop once back in Germany. Escobar is a fan of Mexican wrestling and designed a great font with wrestling dingbats and masks, decoring a funny mousepad.
In the evening we went to Javo´s home. He lives with his wife and two girls in a flat pretty close to our place and now designs the Complot magazine http://www.complot1.com. He is front man of Fakir (the other fellows call him captain), a collaborative group of very active and very funny people. Anna from Actar who linked us to those guys called Fakir a “chamoy-style magazine, defined as a magazine, object or fanzine plus, and which, basing itself on the philosophy of the creative itch has published things as dissimilar as Fakir acolchonadito, Revista por kilo, Fakir para vestir, Vacaláctica, Golosina visual and Audiofakir” . The Fakir-Project started 10 years ago and 7 issues have been published yet. Friendship, music and beer is the spiritual gasoline of this project that has no commercial intention. Every issue assembles work from different artists and is published a 100 issues. (Hey, out there in Germany, do you rember Gruppe 10…?)
Javo also worked as a DJ for a couple of years (wild partys in wired places!). He knows millions of people and gave us a lot of new links…hope we gonna make it to see a few of them.

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13/03/2005

The World Tour started
Frankfurt-Madrid-Mexico City

This morning Recip and Holger picked us up at 5 in the morning and brought us to Frankfurt. The highway was covered of white, speed killing snow! First shot of the day was censored by security: Andrés attempt to take a picture of the x-ray machine, just to show what our equipment looks like from the inside (cameras, dvds, ipod, computers, james bond tools...). No food on the flight to Madrid...3 hungry men starving! The following 12 hours showed how it must feel beeing in jail: nothing to do, no bed, tired people every where. Christian got scolded for photographing the stewardess, the food was lousy, the seats a shame. But finally we reached Mexico City, took the metro (corwded... good practice for Tokyo) to our place in Colonia San Rafael, the Hotelito San Rafael. (Thanx Peter, good deal!). The owner Miguel Legaria talks german, english and spanish. He has two huge german shepards. Down in the street wonderful old cars, tacos, bars...and just a 20 minutes walk from the historic center. We'll discover that tomorrow!

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