16/05/2012

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The Editorial: Shard, Supervillain

It isn’t often a single piece of architecture changes a world city: the Acropolis, the Empire State Building, and of course, that tower of rivets and pick-up sticks in Paris. It’s generally less than a once-in-a-lifetime event. But as these words are written, builders are putting the final touches on Renzo Piano’s jarring, colossal Shard just steps away from London Bridge. And the London of quaint, reserved British icons we once knew is beholden to it. This is now a new city.

Its size is exaggerated by the fact that it doesn’t sit in a cluster of other towers. Everything adjacent looks flat. Smashed. The Shard lords over the city. When I met Mr. Piano in 2009 in Bologna – when the Shard’s planning was already well underway – he extolled the importance of architecture’s user and went on at length about the importance of good materials. He built the cheeky, colorful Centre Pompidou. So it’s a strange that his friendly modern modernist ethos is behind this work of architectural supervillainy, a structure that recalls North Korea’s terrifying Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang. One might have expected one of Hadid’s bio blobs mutate and strike London first…

The name (and the tower itself) conjures up the image of a jagged piece of broken mirror used in a jealous murder. Smeared with lipstick and blood. Or maybe something Courtney Love might keep handy in her purse for that occasional line-on-the-go. In any case, it feels every bit as aggressively violent as its crosstown neighbor, Norman Foster’s cheekily nicknamed Gherkin, feels frustratedly sexual.

And so even before it’s opened, the Shard has stabbed a new hole into the calico and tweed fabric of London. It is visible from positively everywhere, from Primrose Hill to Poplar and probably far beyond. As shabby tenement houses and icons of midcentury modernism in the east and west are torn down at a feverish pace, the Shard seems to embody a new London. Its cold, jagged lines are being finalized just as the first examples of the new retro-futuristic Routemaster buses are hitting the streets and as the city gears up for its transformative Olympic summer.

Just as the chippies and jellied eel and tawdry charity shops of yore have given way to generic sushi bars and boxed sandwiches and uniform high streets, London’s architecture has a new overlord. Like it or not, the Shard is London’s 21st century symbol.

The building is slated to open to the public in early July. A couple swashbuckling adventurers – the minds behind www.placehacking.com – have already heroically broken in and climbed to the very top. We’re dying for our turn to see the big smoke from so high up.

Tag Christof – Video courtesy Jason Hawkes

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25/04/2012

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The Editorial: Print Your Gastronomy

This month Freakonomics Radio rehashed an old episode in which it pitted Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame against polymath physicist/inventor Nathan Myrhvold. (And if you don’t already listen to Freakonomics, subscribe to their podcast. Really. It’s not an option.) Alice Waters is the world’s foremost Slow Food crusader: her impossible-to-book-a-table-at restaurant in Berkeley, CA is synonymous with the movement and she herself has worked tirelessly to advance the cause of organic, fresh-from-the-earth fare. Myrhvold, on the other hand, is one of a number of visionary types working at the edge of molecular gastronomy to imagine food’s far-out future on the fringe of technology. Both are chefs. And they despise one another’s ideas.

On the show, Waters’ trembling, benevolent-sounding voice barely hides clear acrimony and dismay at the prospect of contrived and fake food, while Myhrvold’s confidence belies sarcasm at what he believes is Waters’ anachronistic dogmatism. But why are these two, despite their radically different philosophies, really so antagonistic and deeply resentful of one another? Both are reactions to a broken food system that continually pose important social questions about what food should be.


As fate would have it, also this month, the world’s first food printer has been made commercially available. Long the pipe dream of technologists and sci-fi fanatics alike, this printer, unimaginatively billed Choc Creator, is an outgrowth of research from the University of Exeter. Since it’s so far only for making additive designs in tasty chocolate, it is in and of itself pretty innocuous. But while not quite the dot-matrix full meal maker imagined by Philips and other firms with an interest in the sector, it is nonetheless an unequivocal first step towards what could prove to be a drastic change for food. Its trajectory could end at pretty patterns and ooh-aah 3D treats, but the massive rise in sophistication of rapid prototyping machines used by industrial designers is a clear signal that this is just the beginning.

For acolytes of Waters, it’s easy to imagine a dystopian future in which this type of technology, as well as that being pioneered by the likes of Myhrvold, will be appropriated by ruthless food conglomerates to consolidate society’s march away from the real, the good, the natural. And they make a solid point that resonates with every foodie today dismayed at western food wastelands that are directly responsible for a mountain of societal ills. For this reason, Waters’ driving ethos simply isn’t up for debate (just imagine arguing that Edible Communities or Slow Food are bad things!). Still, Myhrvold’s isn’t a crusade against natural food, but rather an exploration into unforetold possibilities and an impetus for innovation. It is for that reason that I’d like to believe that the the contrived fakes Waters has traditionally rallied against (GMOs, pesticides, processing) are quite separate from the thoughtful gastro-innovations Myhrvold envisions. In a world of more than 7 billion people – with alarming numbers of us either obese or undernourished – nobody can deny that drastic innovation in our food system is necessary. High technology, sensitively and responsibly applied (as opposed to a wholesale return to the earth), is likely the best path forward.


As a disclaimer we should probably admit that we are and generally have always sat squarely inside the Waters camp. Not simply as a matter of philosophy, but also as a matter of being in Italy. This country is one of the last western countries to have truly held onto a proper local food culture (though it is slowly being eroded), and it’s no secret that passionate Italians have long been at the epicenter of the Slow Food movement. I myself have a deeply personal connection to homegrown food, and herbs and vegetables grown on 2DM’s rooftop terrace in Milan go into our lunches on a regular basis. But we’re relatively privileged. With problems of urbanism, access and economics, the prospect of new food frontiers that might give better means and better food experiences to more people is almost irresistible.

So, somewhere in the not-too-distant future, we hope the two warring ideologies can somehow reconcile. But until then, we’re happy the debate is taking place at all. There is, after all, a profound value in a deep intellectual and philosophical interest in food. For now, support your local farms and stick to stuff sprouted from healthy, chemical free soil, but keep in mind that Luddites almost always end up on the wrong side of history. Try some printed chocolate if you get the chance. For now we’re pretty sure it’ll make you like imperfect, handmade treats even more.

Tag Christof – Images courtesy Jennifer Rubell

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18/04/2012

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The Editorial: Mr. Stevens’ Salone

For the occasion of this year’s Salone del Mobile, The Blogazine will be bringing you behind-the-scenes and up close and personal looks at happenings around Milan. From today until Monday, we’re diving into design and we hope to see you both here and out on the streets! Happy Salone!

It was many, many moons ago that industrial designer Brooks Stevens popularized the seductive idea of planned obsolescence. The formula was straightforward and seductive enough: design objects would come with an abbreviated lifespan built-in that would pay dividends both for producers and consumers. A constant need for new would ensure a steady stream of demand, and by keeping the populace steadily supplied with the latest goodies their quality of life would ostensibly rise. The bold postwar logic paid off handsomely for decades.

And while our unbridled consumer society is still very much entrenched in this vicious cycle, we have at the very least begun en masse to question the deeply unsustainable system on which our throwaway culture is based. Demand for durable goods continues to rise in tandem with a vibrant DIY culture. And Brooks Steven’s successors, the designers of today, must consider any product’s birth to death cycle as a central matter in its conception.

Except, it seems, at our hometown’s signature event, Salone Del Mobile. Behind the flashy kitchens, clever new chairs and utopian marketing speak lies a post-postmodern version of planned obsolescence that is perhaps even more toxic than its forbear. A kissing cousin to fashion’s dramatically accelerated throwaway cycle, design objects at Salone are sold both on the basis of their implied quality and innovativeness, as well as on pure considerations of cool. Since it’s more than a bit difficult to actually make a chair obsolete, the impetus is to put it out of fashion. Translucent plastic is in! Now wood! Metal! Now formica! Curves! No, angles! Neutrals! Come on, neons!



All of which is well enough in isolation: just as runway fashion influences the wider ecosystem of clothes, Salone’s whimsy and taste making serves as an important reference point for a constantly richer world of designed objects, and its influence inevitably trickles down through all levels of culture. Nevertheless, its most unfortunate byproduct happens to be that, as with fast fashion, concerns of sustainability almost always take a backseat to a gotta-have-it mentality amped up by powerful marketing and masterful branding.

As an added downside, the fast fast fashion ethos on display in Milan’s design seems also to have drowned out the radical innovation the fair was once known for. A sense of “Salone is nothing like it used to be” is nearly universal among those who were lucky enough to attend the fair in the 1980s and 1990s. And the very sad truth is that design’s vanguard is no longer in Milan: the hyper-imaginative works of the likes of the Memphis designers have given way to pricey “design” trinkets designed by celebrity designers. The only real innovations on display have recently come from optimistic students and other young designers and are relegated to Lambrate and other cubbyholes around the city. But the real problem solving, visionary and radical design moved on a long time ago.

So, hit the fair this year with a critical eye. Listen to the young designers. Listen to the very old designers. If we look beyond the trends to to the good design beneath, if we keep asking the right questions, we might just bring Milan back.

Tag Christof, Images courtesy Vitra

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11/04/2012

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The Editorial: Ikealand and Your Freedom

It’s been more than a decade since Naomi Klein published the anti-corporate tirade, No Logo, and even longer than that since William Gibson penned Pattern Recognition, the quintessential 90s novel in which the cool hunting protagonist was famously allergic to brand logos. But despite the massive waves made by these generation-defining books, the hyper-branding and total corporate domination they both stridently rallied against has anything but receded. Instead, more than a decade on, we are altogether the savviest, smartest, most well-informed and connected populace the world has ever known. And our lives are dominated ever more comprehensively by brands.

Very much unlike our parents, who used brands to distinguish one product or service from another, we use them on a much more sophisticated level as badges we amass to succinctly tell the tell the story of who we are. Most of this is old news, but as pop culture now seems to to be utterly incapable of thinking about anything outside the terms of brands, the phenomenon is so omnipresent it’s almost entirely invisible. But Gaga isn’t a musician, she’s a powerful and obnoxious brand. Berlusconi. Damien Hirst. Ghandi. All brands. Hell, sexuality and sex itself are branded! Each and every one of us is a meticulously constructed brand! Everything is homogenized into a neat little package, probably as a way to easily decode and deal with the overload of information thrown at us from every direction on a constant basis. But when everything we do, own, are, and surround ourselves by is a powerful signifier for others to read, substance and nuance give way to ease of understanding and true individuality is completely lost. Hipsters? Yeah. But at least they’re keenly aware of what they’re up against.


This week, IKEA announced plans to build an entire neighborhood in London. Now, this isn’t particularly striking on the surface: many brands have built integrated communities. Disney built an entire city! And IKEA makes furniture and white goods, so why shouldn’t its logical next step be to create well-integrated and immersive living environments? It even seems a logical strategic progression of the top to bottom ethos that has worked so well for Apple. The problem is, this is an entire neighborhood–and a central one, at that–in one of the most important cities on earth. And IKEA will own it, perhaps not financially, but certainly spiritually. People who live and work there will exist within a carefully controlled bubble of IKEA’s making and it will be a living, immersive extension of IKEA’s labyrinthine suburban stores. Residents will wake up and go to bed inside IKEA.

In any case, it’ll probably be pleasant enough. Restrained Scandinavian design. A good dose of modularity. Hopefully some smoked salmon and Swedish Fish. But it all begs the question of whether we should have to live inside a brand. Now, they can certainly be good catalyst for identity, but to exist entirely within one seems more stifling than the Nike swooshes and Adidas stripes that legions of short-sighted fanatics tattooed on themselves in the 90s.

So, it’s at once absurd and entirely logical that in this age of truly infinite choice that we chose time and again the homogenized, simplified world of the brand. Despite the pervasive hipster paradox, in which we chase down the least brand-y kinds of brands (yeah, bro, P.F.Flyer is so much cooler than Nike because it’s totally authentic…), we still invariably choose to reject one brand in favor of another instead of a rejecting a stale idea for an original one. A lot of why I like my Voigtländer camera is because Ashton Kutcher will never, ever pitch one to me. I like Muji because it’s invisible. But despite my well-intentioned tirades, I am inevitably as much a slave to the brands as anyone else. And now we can pack up and live in one.

But I’m still sorta rooting for the future Klein and Gibson hoped for way back in the late 1990s. Not exactly a utopian world devoid of branded status seekers, but one in which we more actively sought do differentiate ourselves through substance and not through symbol. It’s time we give a long, intellectually honest think about what the individuality we ostensibly cherish so much really means.

Tag Christof – Images courtesy of Ikea.com

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04/04/2012

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The Editorial: Race. Disgrace.

Over the past few weeks it’s been impossible not to notice the sudden fever pitch of racial tension the world over. Two headline killings, one a slaughter of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse and the other an shooting in cold blood (ostensibly in self-defense) of a black teenager by a gun-toting citizen in Florida, have set the Twittersphere abuzz and made for some provocative headlines the world over. And the message is clear: racism is not dead.

The Toulouse killings may or may not have been driven by anti-Semitism, but it has certainly served to highlight France’s (and Europe’s in general) polarized population. In the lead up to the impending presidential elections in France, the event has inadvertently led to a resurgence in popularity of the divisive and right-wing incumbent Sarkozy, whose policies many blame, ironically, for exacerbating racism in the first place. He does, however, espouse security and authority above all, and in the midst of tragedy, electorates always seems to take solace in authoritative leaders. Still, one can’t help but wonder whether fighting fire with fire in this case is a wise choice.

The American case instantly transformed a dead teenager into a martyr, as his killer has still not been arrested despite a massive public outcry. One group has even offered a bounty for his capture. The killing was blatantly motivated by race, but whether the shooter was defending himself remains an issue of serious contentious. What is abundantly clear, in any case, is that the deep black-white racial lines that have haunted America since its founding have been once again ripped wide open in a way that even having a half-black, half-white president can’t seem to heal.

This editorial space is usually reserved for contentious issues, things that we can’t help but stand strongly on one side of and argue for or against. Art, society, politics, culture, technology: as culture creators, citizens, creatives we must remain well-informed and stand up strongly for transparency and progress. But these are usually, at best, two sided issues. The issue of race and racism, however, is not. It is a hideous anachronism and its existence in globalized, transcultural 2012 is disgusting.

Decades after the last parts of America were desegregated, more than a half-century after a horrific war that left untold numbers of minorities dead, years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, racism is still piping hot. After senseless genocides from Rwanda to Kurdistan to Tibet, there is still so much hate in circulation. Almost a century after the FSA photographers documented the poverty and despair of economic depression across racial lines and decades after Jacob Holdt first published his outsiders account of class and race tensions across America, the same scenarios can still be readily found in any western context. Latins are still hating whites are still hating Muslims are still hating Jews are still hating blacks are still hating Asians are still hating Latins. We’re still battling over the burqa while AIDS and cancer and problems of economics and climate change remain unsolved.

What gives?

Tag Christof – Portraits Paul Kwilecki, courtesy Duke University archives.

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28/03/2012

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The Editorial: Robin Hood Gardens, Modernist Murder

Modernism, especially in brutalist form, is an understandably misunderstood beast: its unfriendly concrete and absolutely unadorned exteriors are lightyears away form classical notions of beauty. Its major works are relics from a simpler time, when it was believed that human behavior could be easily influenced, predicted and planned for. And while many were poorly executed dilutions of their grand ideological underpinnings, others remain supremely important places that despite their controversy are key pieces of world architectural patrimony: more than Stonehenge or the Sydney Opera House, they are important because they reveal deep truths about the realities of human society.

Robin Hood Gardens, a social housing estate in London’s Poplar neighborhood designed in the 1960s by Alison and Peter Smithson, is a prime example of just such a place: its design was remarkably innovative and still distinctive and had a huge impact on successive architecture. And in a blow to the design community around the world, its definitive demolition was announced just this week. The news comes after a drawn out battle between a local council strapped for money and eager to shed its ghetto image and many prominent voices such as Zaha Hadid within the architectural community who have been outraged at the prospect of its demolition. The place was even a subject of a book, Robin Hood Gardens: Re-Visions, in which several practices pitched in ideas for its renovation and preservation.

But today in London, with the exception of the Barbican, the Commonwealth Institute (slated to become the Design Museum‘s future home), the Goldfinger towers and a small handful of others who have managed to achieve “protected” status, Robin Hood Gardens is now among many major modernist sites that are systematically being demolished to make way for other, less-offensive and less visionary projects meant to solve urban problems as cheaply and unremarkably as possible.

Still, the overwhelming truths about places like these have been well documented. From Pruitt-Igoe’s colossal failure in St. Louis, Missouri to the continued plight of South London’s rotting, crime-infested Aylesbury Estate and the notorious United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, gang violence, disproportionate poverty and blight all seem to be the standard aftermath of modernist solutions to urban problems. Apart from those which have been heavily gentrified and/or colonized by architectural connoisseurs like the Barbican and, more recently, Trellick Tower, the places are just dismal. Peter Pan Gardens is no exception: it is today in a shambles, with tons of blown-out glass and its lower floors entirely boarded up. But that’s a product of decades of neglect – what would these spaces have become under better circumstances? Perhaps models for an equally optimistic 21st century modernism?

It’s no great wonder that many want these places demolished, but it’s a nevertheless a shame that the grand ideas will be destroyed to make way for anonymous cookie cutter houses. But in the end, architecture’s role in society is that of open-minded innovator rather than sentimental preservationist. But I just can’t help but believe that many of these these last, iconic, exotically beautiful brutalist spaces can’t be preserved and responsibly updated. They could stand for centuries as reminders of the last time we humans fancied ourselves all-powerful creators…


Tag Christof – Images courtesy ArchDaily

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21/03/2012

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The Editorial: Pirate Space Race!

Just this month Russians voted (however dubiously) to put Putin back in their presidency. And like we saw last week, the USA is still keen on flexing its bully muscles to show the world who’s boss. Leaving aside economically-hobbled Europe and still-teething China for a moment, the world looks poised for yet another generation of long distance provocations between two bratty superpowers. The two remain stubbornly at odds despite Russian socialism’s ostensible demise. And despite its streets now crawling with the shiniest Italian fashion and German luxury rides, Moscow’s brutal crushing of both political and civil rights protests proves the place is pretty much as Soviet as ever. And as the clashes unfold in Russia, America–always nicely stocked with right-wing crazies with no shortage of terrifyingly ill-minded policy rhetoric to spew–continues to beat its hugely hypocritical chest about freedom and liberty and all of the blah blah that any casual observer of its recent wars in the Middle East know is mostly propagandistic tripe. The whole thing feels more than just a tad Cold War.

But wait! Remember the Space Race? It was far and away the coolest conflict-driven competition in the history of mankind! It was a crucible for endless, fantastical dreams for human possibility and a source of immense pride. Sputnik versus Explorer, Luna versus Apollo. Oh, the good old future!

Sadly, the next wave of antagonism between the world’s superpowers is not likely to include plans for cosmic settlements or Mars probes, but rather skirmishes over oil pipelines, food supplies and trade agreements, all driven by fractured ideologies. America, as it tends to do when short-sighted conservatives call the shots, has divested its grand space program to the “private sector” and Russia’s has withered in neglect as resources have gone into consolidating military power. In any case, it looks like dull old terrestrial life for us little earthlings.

But there still may be life in the space race, in some form or another: in a remarkable recent twist, infamous torrent website The Pirate Bay has declared that it plans to send its servers into orbit in the near future to avoid the sorts of legal battles that had temporarily closed the site down. So while America and Russia may not go at in the cosmos anymore, it seems that the next frontier of the brewing IP and copyright war might indeed be in space. If their plan seems a bit far fetched, consider that they’ve long thrived as renegades, dodging bullets from irate media conglomerates, artists and, of course, vengeful governments.

So, just as last week, as both a consumer and producer of content, we remain on the fence about the polar core issues of “stealing” and “openness,” but are valiantly watching the battles. The ethics of torrents could surely use a good old shakedown from an ethicist, but the argument seems to be bigger than the list of grievances against them from the likes of DreamWorks, Apple, Warner Brothers, the Linotype type foundry and various Swedish institutions. Clearly, the pirates are stepping on some powerful toes and will eventually have to result to drastic measures to save themselves from the wrath of their enemies. (Wired UK even reports that they tried to buy their own micro nation in the North Sea.) We can’t imagine any Western government would be keen to see a satellite devised to undermine a chunk of its commercial underpinnings make it off the ground.

Still, the overall picture is about more than just ripped off music and software. Unlike stilted speeches from policymakers about net neutrality, this kind of radical maneuvering really indicates a huge will to maintain an unpoliced realm within the web. The ideas of free space, equal access and uninhibited sharing embodied in the contemporary Occupy and predecessor Share The Streets movements (and many before them) is captured well in the spirit of The Pirate Bay’s defiant ethic, and the time seems right for such a radical move.

And while we remain doubtful that the project can really take off–pricey satellites for free content? really?–it’s a lot of fun to imagine how this epic saga might unfold. Will the pirates manage to pull off an orbiting content coup? Will they be ruthlessly shut down? One thing is clear: it’s much more exciting to imagine the former. So, in the spirit of rebellion and the joys of conflict-driven imagination, let’s imagine a benevolent pirate flag hurdling far above the skies sometime soon.


Tag Christof – Images courtesy of NASA

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14/03/2012

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The Editorial: Ode To Richard

And an ethically complex war that will undoubtedly impact our media-fueled futures rages on: just yesterday Richard O’Dwyer, the student accused of copyright infringement, has been ordered extradited from the UK to America. Yikes.

This year has already been a rager in the battle between traditional content producers and the quicksilver warriors of the internet. So far we’ve seen the sideshow spectacle Kim Dotcom’s fantastic downfall and enormous worldwide protests against the proposed Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act bills introduced by the United States’ legislature. And now, helpless Richard, who ran a two-bit site that linked to copyrighted content, is being hauled away from his home to face a wrath tied up in a sociopolitical and economic discourse much bigger than his actions.

Alas, television and movies (and their protected legal statuses) overwhelmingly originate in the USA, and the massive media conglomerates who produce them have a vested interest in making sure those programs and films can continue to generate steady profit. Fair enough. But the sudden push to toughen up criminal laws is reflective of a legal system that readily bends to the will of those with lots and lots of €£$¥. The conglomerates are scared. The porous, dynamic nature of the Internet has chipped away at their anachronistic models, and so they’ve been lobbying lawmakers around the clock to come to their defense. “Save us from that big bad Richard!” they cry, melodramatically.

But since power and money [almost] always flock together, helpless Richard loses. And while that may be a rather simplistic down-on-the-street 99% style argument, it’s nevertheless a scary proposition: like pirates rushing to shove dirty rags in the holes of their rickety ships while forcing someone to walk the shark tank plank because he helped steal a tarnished cubic zirconia, the conglomerates are ignoring their most pressing issues while they unscrupulously attempt to bend the rules to their favor. But since Hollywood and Silicon Valley stand on starkly different sides of the debate (Google wants open, Disney wants closed), there is a vast amount of clout (and money) on both sides of the issue. It will be fascinating to see how the story unfolds over the coming years. In any case, the implications are huge on both sides.

2DM itself is an agency whose signed talents produce a great deal of high-quality, original content. We shoot for the glossies, illustrate for the generation-defining independents and style for some serious brands. And despite inevitable minor skirmishes over rights and misappropriation, we generally feel that the world is a better place with our artists out there making it slightly prettier. So on the face of it, we agree with the old-style content creators – photographers, actors, musicians and designers alike cannot get by if people steal their hard work – but we see everyday the tremendous value that the open and dynamic nature of the internet has brought to the world. We might all make a bit less for our content, but in return we get far more and far better content than we once did.

At the heart of the problem lies more than a seriously unlucky student whose life will likely be ruined by the out-of-control complex that wishes to make an highly visible example of him: the open, transparent future we dream of has no place for the massive concrete walls of PIPA, SOPA and the lobbyists whose indirect actions are going to land that poor student in American prison.

Let’s all root for Richard. This is serious.


Tag Christof – Images courtesy of Walker Evans

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07/03/2012

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The Editorial: Film Rescue International

Whether you still shoot film or not, you know the feeling of getting a fresh roll back from the processor. Those little cartridges and rolls that hold 12, 24, 36 odd images, each a mystery until its chemical unveiling, are magic every single time –and it’s magic made all the more apparent when the norm is instant previews on the backs of digital cameras. Way to spoil the fun. Imagine the feeling, though, of getting a roll back decades or even more than half-century after its exposure. The untold treasures!

Film Rescue International, with outposts in Canada and the USA, makes a job of dredging up those treasures: they process old still and movie films from all variety of stocks, both contemporary and obsolete. It’s all an incredibly delicate process, and one which meets with varying degrees of success (some film stocks are more volatile than others), but one whose outcome is dramatic regardless of the objective quality. All the hope, emotion and significance tied up in photos seem to be amplified over their lifespans, and when they see the light of day for the first time long after their origins, it’s almost as if we’re allowed to step back in time momentarily.

“We have very exciting work. We essentially open time capsules for a living. Ten, twenty even up eighty years ago, someone took the time to get out their camera and take some pictures or shot a movie. Someone else may have stood to pose or just gone about their normal routine. We get to open the doors to the past and be the first to look in. It’s very special work and we are privileged to be doing it.”

They often get extraordinary finds through the door. In a short chat with The Blogazine, partner Greg Miller cited, “film related to famous murders, dead presidents, lost and found people, rock stars, remote plane crashes, the Holocaust, suicide cults, nefarious and disturbing criminal cases… Even the day to day stuff can be extremely moving and exciting…” Who’d have guessed that so many pivotal snaps would go undeveloped for so long!

With the huge posthumous discovery of Vivian Maier’s canon of work, most of it on rolls and rolls of undeveloped film, the potential for this project is clear. Perhaps Film Rescue might just unveil the next Maier. The patina these photos invariably possess makes them all the more special and forceful than any contemporary photograph could be. And beyond providing a utilitarian service, Film Rescue’s work comes with an intrinsic understanding of the importance of the image as object, and as a genuine token of its time.

Miller also spoke with us about film imaging in general and its future, a topic about which he was cautiously optimistic but soberly realistic. Like most onlookers, he doubts the future of color film, citing the ominous and worsening circumstances for companies like Kodak, but interestingly points to Lomography as a rare bright spot and source of hope for the medium.

We wish them all best for continued success. And keep snapping in film. You’ll thank yourself decades from now.

Tag Christof, Special Thanks to Greg Miller

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29/02/2012

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The Editorial: Fifteen Too Many

Fashion has always been about gloriously enormous vision (and equally enormous ego), but once-upon-a-time it was a space populated by a cohesive and rarefied coterie of tastemakers and savants: breakout models, prodigy designers, inspired photographers and critics who had spent entire careers carving out distinctive editorial voices and nuanced, well-informed tastes. It has always been a circus, but it was a fascinating one filled with strong, smart voices. But now, fashion’s periphery is a lifestyle, overrun by countless self-proclaimed style mavens, pandering PRs, and countless other hangers-on. Bewildering narcissism abounds. Everyone wants a fifteen-minute piece of the Warholian fame pie, and they’re selling slices for cheap nowadays. Limit one per customer.

These fashion victims and prima donnas and party kids tromp around in improbable outfits sipping Clicquot and feigning fabulousness, less interested in the serious rigor of fashion than in flashiness and fame for its own sake. And while they’re nice enough as a sideshow spectacle, their feelings of entitlement are troubling, if understandable in a culture perpetually entranced by celebrity, no matter its source.

Tweet. Namedrop. Sip champagne. Repeat.


The fashion weeks themselves have multiplied, popping up everywhere from Buenos Aires to Bombay to Bangkok. More platforms for more fifteen minutes. And while it’s certainly a good thing that the world of style shall no longer be lorded over by an oligarchy on the Milan-Paris-New York axis, it is at risk of fracturing irreparably. That style axis at least held the arguments together gracefully and lent the fashion system a solid MO. But the cacophony of voices each self-servingly shrieking for attention is progressively drowning out the overarching narrative that gives fashion its credibility. And ladies and gentleman, without that all-important, well-recited narrative, all we’re left with are showy, impractical clothes: a sparkly runway and legions of wannabe Anna Wintours do not a fashion system make.

In this context, brands under pressure to out-manoeuvre Zara and others have taken the path of least resistance and dished out equity to those hangers on. And their predictable fifteen-minute attention spans have led to the implementation of lightning-quick collection changes that have, in turn, engendered lightning-quick caprices of preference. The mix-and-match zeitgeist veers wildly back and forth without much reason as look-at-me cool hunters and myopic bloggers convince labels that deco and jazz are cool. No, wait, punk. No, wait, fifties. No, wait, Italy. No, wait, military! (Does anyone bother to ask why anymore?… Shut up. Just grin and try to look fabulous.) These weak stylistic trends have led to diluted product lines and way too many garish, even hideous collections that will almost certainly age badly. We can look back at the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s with relative certainty about their style evolutions and what they meant in the context of politics and sociology and society. What will posterity look back on and see in this decade? A capricious, schizophrenic mess? Well… I don’t really remember because all the bloggers that told me so aren’t cool anymore…


For fashion’s own sake, it is unfortunate that it has become the platform par excellence for those desperately seeking an easy fifteen minutes. Maybe it’s just easier to fake it here. But there is so much substance behind those doing the real, hard work of envisioning and executing fashion’s advance that a focus on these narcissistic sideshows is to miss the point entirely. Funny thing is, the toilers who really do make it all happen often work in silence. Their work is their reward, fashion truly is their passion (excuse the lame but inevitable alliteration), and when they do achieve fame it’s for exceptional work. Not desperate screams for attention.

In the meantime, if fame is your aim, excellent. Get to work. Really. A half-hour. A day. A week. Maybe even a lifetime of celebrity might just be waiting. But if you’re in it for the fifteen, stop screaming already. We’ve already forgotten you.

Tag Christof – Images by Cecil Beaton

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