The electricity bill terrorism

New sticker, Terrorism is the Electricity bill...

A bill much larger than our monthly pay... not by consuption but by taxing, illegal taxing since do not take in consideration people's ability to pay them... hence a sure method to baptise people "indebted" and blakmail them.

Behind these fences...

New Stickers!

Greek Parliament fences stickers.

Goverments that (like the greek one) that rule behind fences,
make the role they play against the will of their society and people, more than obvious.

A SOS (inverted flag) signal from a country kept captive by its rulers.

Collaboration

The screen of the MOIRASOU "share" sticker, originally a joint Lotek & Mapet stencil project. Refurbished and printed after they called me on board.Still you can note on my screen, shades of an older refurbished Mapet stencil idea screen printed sticker.

Studienkolleg zu Berlin...

Hey,

I found your work on the internet and read some articles about you and liked it quite a lot. My name is Ann-Sophie and I am from Germany. I am doing research on Urban Art as a means of protest at the moment. I am currently participating in a project called Studienkolleg zu Berlin. Within the framework of this project we work in small teams composed of six students from across Europe on societal questions in Europe. The research topic of my group is Street Art as a form of political protest - the creative conquest of public space?

We want to examine the urban art scene in several countries and find out what strives street artists to chose the street as the scenery to express themselves. We are also interested in whether street art permits conclusions about political developments or perhaps even reveals trends and similarities or differences between the different countries. At the end of our investigation we will present our results in form of an exhibition and in a written way as a publication.

We will be in Athens from March 21 till 26 and would very much like to meet you to get to know more about your work.

It would be great to hear from you...

Best regards, Ann-Sophie

Hi, Ann-Sophie

Thank you for your kind words,
unfortunately I will disappoint you by refusing your call.

Please understand that maintaining a graffiti police-force while
subsidize students to learn about it in foreign countries is so
oxymoron that embarks to stupidity. I really wonder how this could
possibly be missed by your organizers...
Further more... we're expected to act as their "Petri dish"? For what? Safe in-vitro observation?

If Germany needs or wants to understand something, it might as well
let it develop and flourish instead of oppressing and haunt it. You
lose some you win some... that's life... win/win attitudes/policies
shouldn't neither be tolerated nor encouraged. Plus any "trend"
develops differently from space to space, and expresses different
needs.

Characters in comedy and drama in ancient Rome, dear Ann-Sophie, had always been "foreigners"... slaves... teachers... merchants... always foreigners, degrading the "self correction mechanism" of these genres to "self-accommodation"... and it's only by means of narcissism and self accommodation that a society chooses to leave it's "parent/child", "citizen to citizen", "public/private" and "freedom of speech/unsettling concepts" relations and matters to be regulated by the armed hand of police.

I deeply wish you a life of freedom of speech rather than a life of seeking it in foreign lands.

Truly yours
Absent. 

Dear you, Absent,

thank you for your answer, it shows at least that you spent some time on thinking about my request.

I dont know if I can still convince you to meet us, I guess not, but I feel the need to answer, since your view on our group seems to me a little black/white.

1.) We are doing this project mainly out of curiosity. We are six young people from Romania, Macedonia, Ukraine, Austria and Germany so actually Germany is the country least represented. But that doesnt matter so much since we are not traveling as ambassdors of our countries or as representatives of government policies, but as individual beings that want to know something about how people deal with dissatisfaction and crisis (and I am not speaking of the euro crisis,but of crisis in the very basic meaning of the word) in an unconventional way. 

2.) Doesnt every country maintain something like a graffiti police force or at least a unit which tries to eliminate it? And isnt that also a reason why street artists of however you wanna call people expressing themselves on the streets actually choose the streets to display their thoughts and ideas? Isnt the official chasing of street art what makes the art subversive? Isnt that why you do not go to galeries to exhibit your work? Because that way you simpathize with the people showing their discontent on the streets as well by demonstrating?

3.) We are not subsidized to "learn" about street art or graffiti or sent by any organizers. We chose the topic ourselves out of interest and curiosity. No one controls our "output" or if there is an output at all. All the efforts to organize our trip, places to sleep at (no, we cannot afford a hotel, we couchsurf), bus or hitchhiking opportunities, research about the history and current situations in the countries we travel to and so on are not paid for by anyone, they are only paid in impressions that we can take home and learn from.

4.) We are not seeking anything else in foreign lands than better understanding. We are not going there with pre-maid ideas or schemes, but with an interest in being taught.

I really hope that your answer was only inspired by how I formulated my request and not by the simple fact that my nationality on paper is German. Because how much does a nationality actually tell about a person, his/her liffe, ideals, hopes, desires, interest etc.?

I am still up for meeting you not to do an "interview", but to get to know you and your opinions. 

Ann-Sophie

 

Thank you, again, for your e-mail.

I'm sorry that my response didn't meet your expectations.
I assure you however that the rejection of your request is far from personal.

Absent

athensville - The Wake Up Call

The Wake Up Call documentary on Athensville.

Corriere della sera - The Wake Up Call

Corriere della sera (blogs), relay.

The Wake up call, Cinema Mag relay

The Wake Up Call feature in CINEMA mag.

Silence is Violence, Brussels Expo

Pictures from Silence is Violence in Brussels, more on Newsville.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve...
For many, if you've been out lately, the mayan eschatology has been painfully fulfilled...

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Volos (Iolcus), Greece.

For the "It's all Greek to me" amongst you, the trash can text "KAI TOU XRONOY" is a typical Greek wish to repeat this year's good times, while being in the same time a word play between... "Next year what?" and "Are you gonna take it one more year"?

Extra thanks to "K" and the Leopard Crew

The Wake Up Call - Versione Italiana

The Wake Up Call Documentary, Italian Version.
The Wake Up Call, Documentario, Versione Italina. And Valigia Blu Kallergis interview translated.

The political graffiti in Greece: a long course tradition or a result of the crisis?
It is a long-standing tradition. Athens is one of the capitals of Europe's most dynamic and active in terms of street art. Even the state authorities have supported - mainly due to their inadequacy to deal with the "problem." Artists are invited to paint large surfaces to cover public degradation. The political aspect, then, is historical, but the number of graffiti has increased exponentially since the crisis.
One thing struck me most graffiti is their grimness of the background (for example, gas masks, hoods, scene of riots, fire, etc..). These graffiti reflect the general feeling of the Greek society?
Not really, at least not in the sense that the majority is ready to buy a mask, make a Molotov cocktail and destroy everything. There is certainly anger but not thirst for violence - for now. The mood is more pessimistic and fatalistic. The graffiti reflects this mood in an almost post-apocalyptic, painting a scenario where people walk in a gray city and the only colors that surround it are those that come from the urban guerrilla.
In your documentary we see artists are not extremists or dangerous anarcho-insurrectionists. They are ordinary people, belonging to the middle class. Now, the question arises: the Greek middle class is becoming more radical?
Certainly, but not in a rational manner. There's definitely a bias: people become radical and head or to the far left or the far right. My opinion is that it is not a conscious decision made to save the country, but people are also faced with the absence of traditional politics (centrist).
Whats Greek police stance over street art? And the media?
I'm not particularly worried: there are so many problems - and far more important - that you do not put a chase street artist. Unless, of course, the latter does not go too far with the provocations (like trying to paint the Parliament, for example). However, the police and the media are among the five favorite subject of political graffiti, because of the role played by the media in crisis and historical trends oppressive police.
Paul Mason, a BBC journalist, recently wrote that "at this time, Greece is a country full of resignation," and how this resignation may be "strangely liberating." Do you agree with this view?
There is some truth. People are resigned in many ways, but most do not harbor any hope against the State. Two years hopeless enough to ensure that people will have enough rules and political moderation. Street art is a way through which artists are an area of ​​freedom - without getting your hopes up, though.
At a more general level, I think the feeling of liberation comes from the fact that people no longer have anything to lose. The loss of material goods in a sense, free, making them live with less fear. People are less afraid to change, to speak, and - hopefully - to vote for something different from the usual.