transformer t-shirt seen as threat to airline security

This guy was stopped and forced to remove his shirt at Heathrow airport in London.

From the blog::

No t-shirt, no flight

Going out to Dusseldorf for work.

Flying British Airways, leaving from terminal 5.

Go through security, get pulled to the side. I'm wearing a French Connection Transformers t-shirt. Bloke starts joking with me is that Megatron. Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly. WTF? It's a 40 foot tall cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. There is no way this shirt is offensive in any way, and what I'm going to use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?

Now here's the stupid part. I was only taking carry on luggage, so my clothes were in my bag, so I said I'd get changed. So I stripped off at security and changed t-shirts, putting the "offensive" t-shirt in my bag. Now I haven't been a dick so far, I've done what they've said. No point in arguing with the drones.

The supervisor comes over and is now a dick to me, telling me if I put the shirt on I'll be arrested. I then told him that I wasn't going to waste time arguing with him and he wasn't worth the effort and didn't have any power to change anything anyway. With hindsight I should have said, yeah arrest me, great publicity for you guys to arrest a bloke wearing a transformers t-shirt.

68 redux

Our Dutch buddies at trendbeheer always find the best work.
As we research the year 1968 this image seemed appropriate to post.
"Proposal No. 18 by Anno Dijkstra

123 ideas

Some dutch art action..

from the website

123 Ideas by Helmut Smits

ISBN 978-90-78454-15-1

A sketchbook containing ideas for art and design by Helmut Smits. This sketchbook is for all people interested in both funny as hard-core concepts. It’s both a book for salon tables and a book for activists.

The work of Helmut Smits is extremely contemporary, since it revolves around communication strategies known in the field of design. His use of these strategies are progressive (which is rare in the design world) and autonomously applied very functional. His choice of material is very conceptual, whereby he often generates original, deviant work.

This publication aims to trigger the autonomous thinking of designers and the applied thinking of artists, while it would do both for a general audience. It creates a fuller and more critical engagement of readers with their environment.

The book was presented on the finnisage of the solo-exhibition ‘7 works’ by Helmut Smits at De Krabbedans, Eindhoven.

Hobo King, Anarchist champ: Dr. Ben Reitman

Marc Moscato just sent us a link to his new video:

the more things stay the same

Lumpen cholos will like it.


the more things stay the same from marc moscato on Vimeo.
.

"The More Things Stay The Same examines the life and world of Dr. Ben Reitman (1879-1942), known in his day as “the Clap Doctor”, “King of the Hoboes” and “the most vulgar man in America”. It forms an endearing portrait of Reitman’s colorful life, and investigates the cultural and social context of his times. From labor unrest to sex education to the genesis of the homeless crisis in America, Reitman’s work continues to have importance and relevance to the hard-hitting issues of today. The More Things Stay The Same not only sheds new light on this lost but vital slice of underground Americana, but also provides an urgent rallying cry for the present."

two things this weekend

Found two events that we are going to.

There is this one day freakout called mostmodernist at the Logan Square Auditorium on Friday May 30 http://mostmodernist.com/

watch the video ad....

The other is a show curated by Lumpen magazine designers:

Sears sells eco clothes.

New "EcoGIR" suits from Bagir, available maybe now at Sears, are made in part from recycled PET plastic bottles. They're also machine washable, which is sort of awesome, too.

They're also only $200 for pants and a jacket. Please let us know if you get a suit.

(Thanks boingboing gadgets)

Photography ban in London?

Current Tv has a segment about the rumored ridiculous law in the UK re: taking photos in public.

" Thousands of UK residents have signed a petition against a law preventing photography and filming in certain public places. Yet this all turned out to be a misunderstanding, and no such law was proposed. Rajesh investigates the way we view the lens and the way it views us."

Still believing

Scott Hansen aka ISO50 has designed the new poster for Barack Obama's campaign. You can purchase the print for $70, all proceeds go to Barack's campaign. (repost from Computerlove)

1968 Videos

We are doing research for our 1968 videos. Did some youtubing and found footage that was on the Dreamers DVD. great stuff out there.

New video action may happen

Recently many of us at the Co-Prosperity Sphere have talked about doing some new tv shows in the space. We have had a long secret history of doing stuff. Back in the 90's we did streaming video on lumpen.com and then we launched the ubermedia Freakout Supersphere.com.

Recent attempts at putting audio/video online have been done at WPBR. And we have made over 50 episodes of our experimental video show , TLVSN, that airs on Cable Access channel 19 in Chicago. But here we are again going into beta mode with another effort. Taping begins this June.

We are totally inspired by the latest TRS-80 video, Tinted, directed by Eric Fensler.

Surveillance State News From China

Naomi Klein writes about China's All-Seeing Eye in Rolling Stone

As the Information age takes hold in China the command and control complex of the State is grappling with the loss of power . Naomi talks about Shenzen the model city for everyone? You thought Chicago had the most advanced surveillance system? It's nothing compared to what is coming..

'With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export." read on..

Early May Euro mission

Some of the makers of Lumpen were invited to some festivals in Europe.
Here is a quick little photo tour of some of our stops in The Netherlands and Germany.

On May 4 we arrived in Oberhausen for the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. We met some great kids like Caspar, Gabrielle and Jan. All filmmakers from across the world. The festival hosts gave us a great hotel at the NH Oberhasusen.



We noticed that German Tv has lots of nudy tv shows on at nite.



We decided to take a break from the festival and we went to try to see this big factory monument site-seeing trap... but instead we wound up at the mall and found these awesome king Arthur figs.



here is a surreal beach bar in the biggest mall of europe . It's called Circle O and it is in Oberhausen, Germany and it freaked us out.



We booked over to the Impakt festival opening in Utrecht May 7 for a panel regarding the Future of Festivals. We were invited to talk about Version and Select and all the other stuff we do. We got there just in time..



Lots of friends stopped by> Here is filmmaker Jan De Bruin. He was just in Chicago a few weeks ago at Version>08. Seemed totally natural to us to see him a few weeks later in Utrecht.



Our old buddy Annette holds the first Proximity mag to be read in Holland.



We met these fine folks from the former New York Underground Film Festival. Kevin and Nellie. They are going to start doing a festival called Migrating Forms.

After a day at Impakt we booked over to Rotterdam for a date with some Art Space cholos>



We hooked up with Annemiek and Peyter of De Player in Rotterdam after a horror of train trip and then we called The Jeroens. They picked us up and took us on an action packed tour of Art spaces and studios in Holland. Here we are in a studio at the Bad space. They have an entire grammar School with residencies and studios and garden and a lot of possibilities... The tour requires an entire post about the spaces. We are going to feature this stuff in the next issue of Proximity...



In the garden of the 'BAD" artist studio / community in Rotterdam, during our space tour.



Jeoren Koester's Studio building on the harbor>

We left Rotterdam and went back to Utrecht for the festival. We met our buddy patrick Hendrickse..

Patrick and Rachael Marszewski found themselves running into Dutch artist Jeroen Koester at a Utrecht gallery.



Sweet sculpture by Jeoren's pal.

The next day we went back to amsterdam and wen to Art Pie.
Am gonna skip the art pie and just show some pics of the De Player show that nite.



Saturday May 10th at De Player club in Rotterdam



Radar Eyes Prints were shown at the club.

ok more pics soon.

Spam from MAy 3, 2008

We want to thank all of you for making this year's Version especially wonderful, memorable and full of good projects, art and ideas.

We feel great because it was a very focused and sweet theme to pursue, we reached some goals, and trimmed off a lot of fat this year.

Milestones for us:

Our space, the Co-Prosperity Sphere is nearly complete. Believe it or not we have been converting this once abandoned crack house full of junk for over a year and a half. It has driven some of us crazy, caused depression, induced vomiting. But now we feel it's in the state we want it to be in.
Thanks to Mike Slattery, Peggy and Matt for the new gates, Hugs to Ringo and Aron for the finishing touches and big ups to the Villagers for throwing down at crucial moments.

Proximity!
We released our new art magazine Proximity. This project is a big deal for us. We are feeling so good about working with so many different people in Chicago and making connections around the world. It's helping us get to know each other better, widening social and professional networks and helping us have a dialogue about the arts in this city. We hope you will help us make Proximity magazine the resource you want. Give us some feedback. Write for it. Buy your mom a subscription. Read it!

Btw you can buy at Quimbys now...
http://www.quimbys.com/product_info.php?products_id=20934

Version People....
We are so in love with all of the participants that made Version happen again. Especially our guests from LA, Telefantasy Studios; the kids from Space 1026 in Philly; our visiting guest speakers Aron Gach, Jack Bratictch and Greg Sholette; the girls from Germany; and the dudes from Holland. They made Version really special. You made us happy guys. We do this for you!


We had some great epiphanies this year and are ready to raise it up another notch. So thanks. Thanks for helping, attending, showing work, sharing ideas and giving us feedback. We will serve you 'til they pry the guns from our dead hands.


We blogged some pics here:
http://version08darkmatter.blogspot.com/

/////

The future....

So... We are now embarking on a research mission for the next issue of Proximity magazine in Europe. We will be doing some interviews and mapping projects while we attend some festivals in Utrecht (Impakt festival) and Germany (Oberhausen Film festival)

While there we will be hosting the Rotterdam Radar Eyes print show.
Yes! Radar eyes is on the road! The halluconogenic print show that we did back in March will have its debut in Rotterdam May 10 at De Player/

Remember these pics? http://www.flickr.com/photos/versionfest/sets/72057594136155224/

Reuben Kincaid will be in attendance trying to set up some future intercontinental collaborations.

Also in Chill On May 16 at the Co-Prosperity sphere we host two simultaneuos openings.
One is Baby Robots in the Reuben Kincaid Project Room. It's an art show auction group show hosted by the infamous Michael T Rea.

And the big deal show of the month will be the Upset show.
Details below..

Have fun!

see you on campus.


"The Upset"

THE UPSET: A MULTI-MEDIA ART EVENT
FEAT. ARTISTS FROM CHICAGO and NYC
with Pop Up Shop from NYC’s Coat of Arms.

Opening Night Friday, May 16th 2008, 6pm - 11pm

The Upset, a collective of artists and photographers from Chicago and New York City, is pleased to present a self-titled multi-media art show at Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago. The show features over thirty artists with work ranging from photography, paintings, illustrations, street art, and video installations.

The show, which aims to champion the work of underexposed artists, runs for two weeks from May 16th through May 25th.

Additional hours are May 17th,18th,24th, and 25th from noon-6 pm.
Co-Prosperity Sphere is located at 3219 South Morgan Street in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago.

The Upset is a community of friends, photographers, and artists who have pooled their talents into an artist’s collective. With a focus on American street culture, The Upset currently curates art events and publishes an independent magazine.

For more information, visit: www.upsetmag.blogspot.com.