Raramente um disco de música pop me toca, tão insensível sou. Aconteceu com este.
(Tocou-me, não exactamente lá no fundo, mas algures…)
Archives for category: Arte
1989 the number another summer (get down)
Sound of the funky drummer
Music hittin’ your heart cause I know you got sould
(Brothers and sisters hey)
Listen if you’re missin’ y’all
Swingin’ while I’m singin’
Givin’ whatcha gettin’
Knowin’ what I know
While the Black bands sweatin’
And the rhythm rhymes rollin’
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Chorus
As the rhythm designed to bounce
What counts is that the rhymes
Designed to fill your mind
Now that you’ve realized the prides arrived
We got to pump the stuff to make us tough
from the heart
It’s a start, a work of art
To revolutionize make a change nothin’s strange
People, people we are the same
No we’re not the same
Cause we don’t know the game
What we need is awareness, we can’t get careless
You say what is this?
My beloved lets get down to business
Mental self defensive fitness
(Yo) bum rush the show
You gotta go for what you know
Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say…
Fight the Power
Chorus
Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant —- to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother—- him and John Wayne
Cause I’m Black and I’m proud
I’m ready and hyped plus I’m amped
Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check
Don’t worry be happy
Was a number one jam
Damn if I say it you can slap me right here
(Get it) lets get this party started right
Right on, c’mon
What we got to say
Power to the people no delay
To make everybody see
In order to fight the powers that be
(Fight the Power)
Ei-lo, para os que já não se lembravam deste marco na história da Street Photography:
Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville, Paris, 1950, Robert Doisneau
Esta representação do beijo, que marcou profundamente várias gerações, está hoje desactualizada; as gerações mais jovens desconfiam dela. Não porque Paris tenha perdido o seu encanto ou o poder para excitar os transeuntes. Mas porque hoje o mundo, para um número cada vez maior dos nossos contemporâneos, está fundamentalmente dentro daquilo que o Google Street View representa:
O beijo descoberto pelo Street View, Paris, Michael Wolf, 200
A outrora mais alta estação ferroviária do mundo é o cenário apropriado para um tema singelo mas profundo do maior poeta sonoro (sim, poeta: faz odes, ainda que num pouco habitual formato techno, dedicadas à, e inspiradas pela, sua amada cidade) da Detroit decadente dos nossos dias.
Zé Reis, andas por aí?
Os processos algorítmicos que permitem ao Google Earth redesenhar (reinventar) a geografia deste planeta tão profundamente humanizado produzem, por vezes, enormes aberrações que Clement Valla sintetiza no projecto Postcards from Google Earth.
Eis algumas dessas obras de arte (os fundadores do surrealismo sabê-las-iam apreciar, estou certo):
Alguma semelhança com o clima que vivemos em Portugal é pura fantasia:
Autóctones na América do Sul, os jacarandás ajudam a definir a paisagem de cidades como Buenos Aires ou Montevideo.
Debaixo de um jacarandá, Lisboa, 2012, Andrea Morgenstern
Como tantas outras importações que marcam a paisagem da nossa elegante Lisboa, também por cá eles revelam os seus encantos. Principalmente nesta época do ano, em que o azul violeta das suas flores introduz novas tonalidades no céu ou simplesmente salpica, a pinceladas grosseiras, as calçadas que pisamos.
Jacarandás com o Tejo e o céu como fundo, Lisboa, 2012, Andrea Morgenstern
As sombras dos seus ramos produzem pinturas efémeras no chão, cuja beleza desconcertante (não será, aliás, toda a beleza efémera desconcertante para o homem [sempre obcecado em conservar ad aeternum ‘o belo’ nos seus museus]?) leva facilmente à loucura todo aquele que se disponha a entregar-se livremente à sua linguagem sem idioma, a mesma que apenas os grandes improvisadores também conseguem criar na sua música:
Sombreado improvisado por jacarandá, Lisboa, 2012, Andrea Morgenstern
“Mass tourism is one of the subjects I have photographed consistently over the years. I have documented many of the most well known tourist sites in the world including Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat and Copacabana beach. Tourism is the biggest industry in the world and the tourist spend is always growing, despite the current downturn in global economies.
One thing that has really changed in recent years is how the tourist uses photography. When I started shooting this topic many years ago, people would take one photo of themselves in front of the site and move on. Now mobile phone cameras and digital photography mean that the entire visit is documented. From the moment the tourist enters the site, everyone has to be photographed in front of every feature of note. Now it is almost impossible for me to shoot a photo where someone is NOT taking a picture or posing for one. So I am under the impression that no-one is really paying attention to the splendours and beauties of the site, as the urge to photograph is so overwhelming. The photographic record of the visit has almost destroyed the very notion of actually looking.
The question I keep asking myself is what happens with all these images? I assume most are loaded onto Facebook or other social networking sites. But is anyone really interested in seeing hundreds of images of you in front of say Sagrada Familia? Probably not. But they will have to look at them anyway. In the days of analogue, photos were printed up then carefully selected images were placed in an album. Now they just hang around clogging up the hard drive on the laptop or phone.
I was motivated to write this blog by a recent visit to Barcelona, a city enjoying a massive tourist renaissance. I was there taking photos for an upcoming show at the CCCB, having decided to visit during Easter when I knew it would be busy. Every attraction had huge lines, but the most overrun of all was Gaudi’s Park Guiln in the north of the city.
The famous ceramic lizard was the main hot spot; throngs of visitors queued to be photographed as near as possible to this icon. It was sheer madness, as hundreds of people tried to get the same photo at the same time. I imagine Gaudi turning in his grave.
While I am on the topic of tourism, I often wonder why people buy souvenirs when they are so patently useless. The urge to buy souvenirs seems second only to the compulsion to take photographs. Every time I visit a charity shop, I marvel at the shelves full of discarded souvenirs. They have fulfilled their function as the climax of any pilgrimage and they can therefore be given away. There must a dawning realisation that the purchase is entirely pointless.
Hang on, I hear you say, surely this is all too cynical. For if anyone has a shocking carbon footprint it is me. What am I doing at these sites? Doing exactly what I am now questioning ie taking photographs. Do I think tourism is good thing? Of course. It provides a much needed economic boost to countries that are struggling. It educates and enlightens the tourist. Perhaps it is the iconic sites that we all know before we get there that are in danger of becoming overwhelmed. Other equally impressive but less known sites tend to become overlooked.
My theory is that the act of photographing ourselves at tourist sites becomes so important because it makes us feel reassured that we are a part of the recognisable world.”
paisagens contemporâneas 