SUSO

Residual Space

Photographer Xavier Ribas explores the culture of leisure in and around Barcelona.

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Categories Photography Tags

By on 29/10/08

The Year It All Changed

Hackney Marshes hits the big time. 

I’m going to take you back. Back to a time when Brit pop ruled the airwaves, to a time of New Labour, national mourning, cloned sheep and mad cows. I’m talking 1997. That year, Man Utd had won the premier league with a 7 point cushion, the memory of the season before was still fresh, Stan Collymore denying Newcastle the title leaving Kevin Keegan slumped over the ad hoardings at Anfield. It was pure theatre.

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Categories Sport Tags Nike Football

By on 24/10/08

The Lone Collector

One man’s anthological record collection should not go to waste.

Paul Mawhinney likes his records. Over the years, he’s amassed a few; over two and a half million in fact. Yep, Paul Mawhinney owns more records than anyone else on earth. He’s dedicated his life to it; he believes in it. Yet today, blind and desperate for his archive to be put to good use, he’s learned, through his struggles to move it on, that no one else really cares. His public access archive/shop has been closed down and no individual or organisation around the world will take the collection off his hands. It’s valued at $50 million, but it’s surely worth every cent. Of the music he owns released between 1948 and 1966, only 17% of it is available to buy anywhere today. The collection is more than just another archive. It’s a unique record of humanity’s musical output that we can’t afford to let slip. In this beautifully put together short film, Mawhinney introduces us to his life’s work while raising his own concerns about the health of recorded music today.

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Categories Music Tags Music Records

By on 22/10/08

Low And Slow

Turning the jalopy into an ethnic banner.

The Lowrider has a strong claim to be one of the most grossly misunderstood subcultural icons of Americana. Spawned on the boulevards of East L.A, these hydraulic ‘carruchas’ have been embedded in gangland culture by Hollywood and in turn the white middle-classes of the United States.

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Categories Culture Design Tags Design Cars

By on 21/10/08

Not Just A Catch

Sachin Tendulkar announced himself to English cricket fans with a moment of brilliance 18 years ago.

1990, Lord’s cricket ground, home of the MCC. England vs. India. What do you think of? Eh? You what? Shut it you babbling fool. OK, so cricket isn’t for everyone, but if you’re into it then you’ll know what I’m thinking: unshaven, imposing at the crease, powerful. Yep, make no bones about it, 1990 was Graham Gooch’s year. Or was it?

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Categories Sport Tags cricket

By on 17/10/08

Backcountry Spirit

An open world in your living room.

This christmas, a landmark new video game will be the flagship stocking filler for kids, and slightly bigger kids, all across the world. ‘Stoked’ is the love-child of developers, Destineer, and renowned snowboarding movie creators, Absinthe Films. This collaboration could be a masterstroke. Absinthe have been inextricably linked to backcountry riding, and capturing that pioneering spirit, for almost a decade. 

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Categories Tags Snowboarding Gaming

By on 16/10/08

On The Prowl

When Diego went hunting for Belgians.

There are great sporting moments, and then there are great sporting photos. It can be hard to distinguish between the two. Usain Bolt pounding his chest, Roger Federer collapsing to his knees at Wimbledon, Bobby Moore lifting the world cup - all great moments, but not necessarily leading to great photos.

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Categories Sport Photography Tags Football Photography World Cup

By on 14/10/08

Queen Of The Soundtrack

Tarantino’s music advisor changed music and movies.

“Everybody be cool this is a robbery!”

“Any of you f***ing pricks move, and I’ll execute every mother f***ing last one of you!”

Pulp Fiction’s classic opening scene set a whole new tone, one that would alter the movie soundtrack landscape forever. In 1994, as popcorn toting, soon-to-be-Tarantino-worshipping young movie fans settled into their seats, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones’ pounding surf-stomp, ‘Misirlou’, kicked in, its stuttering guitars and unforgettable Mariachi trumpet pinning the audience down. The soundtrack was an absolute must-have. 

Karyn Rachtman, music supervisor for Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, transformed the way we listen to movies. She put the music out there, up front, on centre stage, competing with the characters for our attention. Dusty Springfield’s sultry ‘Son of a Preacherman’ accompanies Vincent Vega’s arrival at the Wallace household in Pulp Fiction, and it couldn’t possibly be any other way. ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ by Stealers Wheel establishes the rhythm for Mr Blonde’s psychotic earectomy attack on the captive cop in Reservoir Dogs. The cinematography and the music are completely interdependent.

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Categories Music Film Tags Music Film Tarantino

By on 9/10/08

Earth From Above

Yann Arthus-Bertrand shows us the world in a whole new light.

The world looks different from above. Sounds obvious, but you don’t quite realise it until you see it. You can get a sense of that on a plane, but then you get too high, or the clouds move in, or you fall asleep. Unless you own a helicopter, opportunities to see the world from above are fleeting at best. But the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has made his name doing the work for us, circumnavigating the world’s lower atmosphere in all manner of transport seeking out shots that make you go ‘Woah’. In 2009 he brings a new exhibition to New York, appropriately entitled ‘Earth From Above’, that he hopes will do more than startle; Bertrand’s images are inextricably linked to the environmental issues facing humanity today. More pics inside.

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Categories Photography Tags Yann Arthus-Bertrand Photography

By on 8/10/08

Skeletons And Closets

Opportunistic Favela-dwellers are relocating to central Sao Paolo.

Festival Emergences is an international festival dedicated to electronic cultures and emerging artistic forms. Based in Paris, it’s basically a mash-up of performing and visual arts, multimedia, design, architecture and electronic music. A presentation made by mOmentoMoNUMENTO at the annual event last week has got people talking. 

mOmentoMoNUMENTO is a joint project between Brazilian collective Coloco and the French experimental artists of Exyst (who we’ve written about before). In 2001, Coloco started researching a phenomenon known as ‘Skeleton Dwellings’. They observed, analysed and documented a group of people that were bucking a trend in Sao Paolo, Brazil. While most people were moving to the suburbs amidst economic unrest, war and the ups and downs of the housing market, a few opportunists seized their chance.

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Categories Culture Politics Tags Sao Paolo Architecture Cities

By on 7/10/08