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• MEDO Street Art
• 2011-09-29T11:04:00+00:00
  

  

  

  

  

  The work of Brazillian street artist, MEDO, has recently shifted from dark, often geometrical human-like figures to the anatomically correct abstraction.  The subject of his work comprises “cathedrals, monasteries, sacred art and the horror of the inevitable.”

  His almost sacred figures stood amidst the crumbled locations like Incoherent saints with void as eyes staring at the skies for impossible answers.
  There is a Dreary quality in their faces and gestures but also a glimpse of compassion and maybe true hope.

  I love the selection of anatomical elements he places together.  They have a silliness and sense of desperation to them.

  View all of Medo’s street art on his Flickr!

   

  
  
   
• published by Vanessa Ruiz

• Nick Agin
• 2011-09-13T12:18:00+00:00
  

  

  

  

  New York based graphic designer, Nick Agin created this lovely series titled, Cryptozoology.

  His work actually reminds me of the fabulous Mark Weaver.

  
  

  [Spotted by Leah Tran]

  
  

  
   
• published by Vanessa Ruiz

• Skull “Hobo” Nickels
• 2011-09-06T12:18:00+00:00
  

  
  

  

  

  Man, I wish we had legit coins as cool as this, but it wouldn’t be as special if it were machine made this way. These gems are a sampling of skull carved “hobo” nickels, mostly stemming from the 1930s depression era.

  The sudden scarcity of jobs in the early 1930s forced a huge number of men to hit the road. Certainly some coins were carved to fill the idle hours. More importantly, a ‘knight of the road,’ with no regular source of income, could take one of these plentiful coins and turn it into a folk art piece, which could in turn be sold or traded for small favors such as a meal or shelter for a night.

  Coin carvers would cover buffalo nickels with all kinda of folk art, faces, scenes, and skulls and have become a collectors items these days and more can be read about these rad coins here. Also, check out some more skull coins here.

  [via thisiscolossal]

   

  
   
• published by Heather Tompkins

• The radical shift in economic psychology
• 2011-08-18T22:06:00+00:00
  

  The U.S. economy is no longer unquestioned. Stagnation, with pockets of recession, threatens now the developed economies. The Fed and the ECB are not convincing. The monetary authorities seem as they have been transformed into “grooms” of budgetary and fiscal policies and political calendars...
  
  Read
  

   
• published by LISwires

• Sex Machines: Photographs and Interviews By Timothy Archibald
• 2011-08-06T12:36:00+00:00
  

  

  Advertise here with BSA

  
  

  
  

  Sex Machines: Photographs and Interviews unveils an astonishing American subculture, and the homespun inventors and users who propel it. Meet a laid-off tech industry exec who transforms a thrift store pasta maker into a high-powered sexual appliance and a new career; an apocalyptic visionary who builds a sex machine prototype for female survivors of a future without men; and an Idaho cowboy who intends to use his device as a form of Christian-based marriage counseling.

  Sex Machines celebrates the spirit of American ingenuity and bold approaches to an ever-changing sexual landscape.

  Timothy Archibald’s photographs have appeared in New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, GQ, The New Yorker, and Outside Magazine, and in ad campaigns for Apple Computers, Eastman Kodak, and IKEA. Archibald lives in San Francisco with his wife, Cheri, and two sons, Elijah and Wilson.

  Sartan’s Workshop
  Redwood City, California

  

  Sartan’s Workshop, a place known for being committed to advancing the art of sex machines, is cluttered with kids’ bikes and hedge trimmers tossed around the band saw and drill press. Sartan is really a guy named Paul, and he happily agreed to spend time with me as long as we were done by the time his kids were home from school. We hung out in his garage and his kitchen, surrounded by former domestic appliances he has converted into sex machines. A pasta maker chassis found at a thrift store had been transformed into a powerful love machine named “The Thumpstir.” A spiderlike, four-person machine called “The Gang Bang” sat on his family room pool table. Paul and his wife Jenny are open about their own use of machines.

  The popular image of the adult industry, or anything sexual in general, has dark rooms and black curtains and kinda grungy nasty people behind it—people not in touch with the emotional factor. And it’s not true. Look at us. We are average neighbors. We mow our lawn, we feed our kids healthy food, we go to school meetings. I guess we are the perverts of the world. We could be next to you in the supermarket.

  

  I went to school for an MBA in strategic management with a minor in human resources. I moved up very quickly in my job and ended up at the director level. I had always figured that sex was the one thing that really was recession-proof. In hard times, people will still spend money to comfort themselves with life’s simple pleasures. When I got laid off in early 2001, it was my time to put this idea to the test. Making sex machines for my wife and me had been a hobby. Then I turned the hobby into my real job. I’ve designed 153 machine designs and built 142 of those, with five more in development right now. It’s more enjoyable than a typical job, and there is a market for these things. I think it is a very common fantasy, this machine fucking fantasy thing. It really comes down to the desire to have something that can out-perform a man. There are also people who have a very personal reason to have a machine. Like the closeted homosexual guy.

  He’s not comfortable finding someone, so this would let him try it. For a couple, it opens up a lot of possibilities sexually. Then we have people who are away from their wives. This guy was a driller on a platform, leaving his wife behind three months at a time. He told me he wanted her to be satisfied so she wouldn’t cheat on him. I had one couple, he’s 93 and she’s 87. He’s running out of steam, but she is still into it. It can allow him to participate in sex with her, participate in her enjoyment, and enjoy that himself. People share these things with me.

  James
  St. Paul, Minnesota

  

  The Huskette has a $300 KitchenAid mixer motor inside it. We thought it was silly to spend $300 on something with only one use, so we made this detachable. So, if you wanted to make cookies, you can detach the mixer from the machine, hook it to its original base and bowl—clean it off, of course—and you can get to work in the kitchen. We aren’t kidding. We did have a kinky cookie bake with our local BDSM group last year during the holidays. We do every year, in fact.

  
  Deb and Bill Howard
  Woodbridge, Virginia

  

  Deb and Bill Howard live in Northern Virginia with their two kids, ages 19 and 13, and two romping dogs wearing Grateful Dead collars. Before launching their own homemade pornographic pay site on the Southern Charms portal, Deb and Bill were supporting the family on their disability and retirement paychecks. For years Bill posted erotic shots of Deb to various online listservs, but decided to try his hand at running a pay site this year. They post three photo shoots of Deb a week, all shot on location in their three-bedroom house. Deb has adopted the porn name “Virginia Belle.”

  Bill

  I was always taking pictures of Deb, since the day we got together. When the Net came along I got into posting them. It felt good knowing that other guys found my wife attractive. A few months back we looked at our bills and felt we should try to make some money with this.

  I got hit by MS and ended up in this wheelchair. Then Deb had to have her hip replaced. She couldn’t have sex with me, and look, I’ll be honest: Deb likes sex. I can’t deprive her. A friend we met on the Net offered to make us a machine. We used it and we liked it.

  Deb and I have always been sexually open and ambitious, and we explore all options together. The same old thing gets boring, and our physical situation has something to do with it. This machine fit in with our life perfectly. Now with the website it’s a whole new thing—it’s become an asset.

  We felt there was a need for something erotic on the Net that involved the machines and involved a woman like Deb, a real woman. We wanted to get machine sex porn into the hands of the average Joe, with a woman they could relate to.

  Right now, we’re pretty excited. Our site has 35 members! We are the only ones using the machines on the site, so that may give us an edge…or it could be Deb.

  We send thank you notes out to everyone who joins. We like to remind them that we are real people and they are too.

  

  Deb

  Doing this lets us keep our house and have a few little luxuries. Plus, it’s great for the selfesteem. I’d never have the confidence to do this at a younger age. But now I feel great…I’ll do anything.

  I’m not going to pretend I’m Marilyn Chambers, you know. I’m Virginia Belle, a middle-class housewife in Woodbridge, Virginia. I’m a 51-year-old mother of two, a big woman… look at me. This was about acceptance of myself. When someone would say I was beautiful, I always denied it. I couldn’t accept it. Now I can.

  It made me feel good to read guys’ notes about how they liked me. Yeah. You bet. And that was when Bill was doing it for free. And now…they are spending MONEY TO SEE ME… It feels great to have guys want to spend money to see me! You bet. I’m shocked, but I like it. These people…I don’t know what they see in me, but if they are into it, then great. And if I can make their lives happy, bring something happy to them for just a little while, and they get their ya ya’s out, that’s great. I have a good feeling about this.

  Smitty Smith
  Inventor of Deb and Bill Howard’s machine
  Wappinger Falls, New York

  

  The original idea came from a conversation I overheard in a restaurant one night. It was two women talking about their fear of disease, and not having time to be involved with a relationship. They were discussing the idea of finding a replacement toy instead of trying to meet men.

  I’m a welder/mechanic by trade, and I own a small lathe and milling machine. I started on the basic parts of the flywheel and linkage the next day. I had a crude, working machine in a few days, and happened to see exactly what I was building on HBO one night. I got a couple of ideas and perfected it in about two weeks. I was looking for someone to try it out and came across the machine site. I joined and emailed a couple of people from the message board. That’s where I met Deb and Bill, and
  two other people who I built machines for.

  I built a couple with the idea in mind to help women with sexual problems. One machine went to a woman in California, and I received an email from her that she was completely satisfied with it. One went to a woman in Florida, and she absolutely raved about it and said she had G-spot orgasms that she didn’t have before receiving the machine.

  One went to Deb and Bill. That machine was built with the idea in mind to help someone with a disability. The last machine I made was made for a retarded girl at the request of a family member. I don’t even know how they got my email other than from the machine site. I never heard from them again after I shipped the machine.

  For the most part, everyone I built a machine for had choices to make during the entire process. The end result was a machine with their own personal preferences (color, stroke length and speed). One was even finished to match other furniture in the house.

  All the machines were donated free of charge and all I asked in return was input about the function of each machine. I build custom flatbed trailers and enjoy the interaction with people, building what they want, and the same was true about the machines.

  Jon Traven
  Idaho City, Idaho
  
  

  Jon Traven’s homestead sits on four acres of land in the woods outside of Idaho City, Idaho. He acquired the sprawling property at a time when he was exiting a marriage and looking for some purpose to his life. He is slowly renovating the main house and various buildings to be used as a Christian children’s ranch, serving the needs of the local foster care system.

  Here I am, this divorced Christian guy, not promiscuous at all, and here I am with a sex machine. It was an idea I came up with in the last year or two of the marriage, as a lastditch attempt to save whatever we had…our sex life, if nothing else. She actually pushed me for a divorce before I could finish it and give it to her.

  As a single person, I’ve had more married couples come to me and ask, “Jon, can you sit down with us, listen to us, and give us feedback?” They were essentially asking me, the single divorced guy, for marriage counseling. Maybe that is God’s way of giving me direction and being real. This counseling is something I’ve begun to take seriously.

  How does this all relate to the machine? Well, I just think it would be a good door to open for people who are looking for help. The people who would be interested in these sorts of things sometimes also are the same people who are searching for answers. And I think that at those intersection points I could help out.

  

  So, I want to sell it to a couple. I was a virgin when I got married. I think sex outside marriage is, quite simply, destructive. But if a married couple wants something I can build, to add spice or enjoyment to their own relationship, I am all there, and am open to building more.

  I will require anyone ordering a machine from me to provide proof of marriage and a signed statement of intent to use only within that marriage—kind of like a gun dealer that requires proof of age and proof of passage of a firearm safety test before selling someone a firearm. Sexual arousal is a doorway to a person’s very soul and isn’t to be messed with lightly.

  Ruiin and Tuesday
  Portland, Oregon

  

  Tuesday

  Ruiin is a pervert, he really is. Well, he’s not a pervert. He’s just really into sex. He’s openminded. He’s not into sex in a creepy way or a gross way. He’s just like, “Everything is beautiful”, and he sees sex in that way, too.

  We met three years ago. Ruiin was working as an airplane mechanic and really wasn’t liking it. He hated the grease, the dirt—all the things boys like, Ruiin really hated. I was working at Hot Topic in the mall and he came in as a shopper. Hot Topic is a big chain store in malls that essentially tells you how to be Gothic. It’s the Gap for the Goth crowd. He came in and I dressed him up in vinyl dresses. Then we started hanging out.

  Ruiin

  Well, I’ve gone through a lot of name changes recently. I was Raven Solace for a while, but now I’m Ruiin, with two ‘i’s. It’s not really based on anything, it just looks cool when it’s spelled out. I was using Solace as my last name. I liked the meaning, like solitude, being there for someone, being comforting and all those nice things, but Tuesday thinks it sounds too much like the word “lettuce” so I may be changing it.

  

  Ruiin

  For me, the Holy Fuck is just something to have that I made. Like with sex, I’m not really into the orgasm. I just really enjoy the path to get there. The machine was like that for me: I really enjoyed making it, working out the details and the design, finding ways to do it affordably, thinking it through. But using it was not really anything special.

  Tuesday got to take it out for a ride, but that’s about it. It’s not like I’m loaning out a rake to someone to use in their yard. A lot of people gross me out. I’m picky as far as who could use this thing.

  I don’t really know what we are going to do with the machine now. Halloween is coming up. I was thinking of putting a ghost on the end and setting it up in front of the house for the trick-or-treaters.

  Scott Ehalt
  Sex Machines Unlimited
  Champlin, Minnesota

  

  Scott and his dad Cy search for an extension cord as his newest sex machine sits on the kitchen table. Tapping into his skills as a customized motorcycle builder, Scott began Sex Machines Unlimited and has named his newest machine the Ultimate Ride.

  I always felt good about building things. I think I got it from my Dad. It started with Legos, then Lincoln Logs, then it got real with the Erector Set. I’ve built houses, I’ve built machines, but I’ve never built a business…the learning curve is steep! We were planning a spam mail campaign of 20 million email addresses, but unfortunately the spammer ended up in prison.

  I’m not bisexual in any way, shape or form. I’m strictly about the pussy. But this machine is good for any person I can think of. Gay men, gay closet cases, couples who aren’t having sex, couples enhancing their sex life…Renting it out to the women’s prison is another idea I was thinking of. Why can’t we do that?

  My boss, who is very religious, thought it was a great idea, because this could be saving marriages. I can’t think of anything else you could invent that you could market to every demographic like that.

  

  The Bank of America was giving me problems when I was trying to get my money together to put into startup costs. I was telling the guy at the bank about my invention and I think he thought I was just bullshitting him about this. So I decided to bring it to the bank, ask to see the vice president, and show him the thing.

  I brought my machine in, with the dildo on it, and placed it in the center of the lobby. All the tellers were curious about it, old people were checking it out—I think they had a good idea what it was used for. Everybody when they see it usually has a smile on their face.

  Scott reaches me five months after my visit. He has just sold an Ultimate Ride through his Internet site and calls me to share the news.

  Looks like I just sold a machine. The Ultimate Ride, not the meatloaf one. Yeah, I’m still making them, but I realize that it’s probably not going to be as big as I thought it might be. I had a rough few months. Had some personal problems, looked at my life and began looking at my relationship with The Lord. I took Jesus as my savior and it really put things in perspective.

  I had to sell off some stuff, I was afraid I was going to lose my house. Nah, still got it. Now I got my job, my girlfriend Jill—she’s on the site, that’s her—and I’ll make the machines when I get the orders. And I’ve got another one I’m working on called The Pipeline.

  I realize when you were out here I never asked you about your relationship with the Lord.
  Have you thought about it?

  Steve Ryan
  Kansas City, Misssouri

  

  Steve Ryan lets me into his home off the highway in south Kansas City. Currently single, Steve has been through marriage, divorce and some long-term relationships in this home. His current housemate is Cassie, a 19-year-old community college student whom Steve has known for a few months. Cassie and Steve are telling me about the business they are planning to launch in the months ahead, an Internet porn site called “Cassie’s Dollhouse.” The plan is to use Cassie and her friends as talent, and Steve’s classically decorated home as the set. Steve explains how this all got started:

  I ran an ad in the local newspaper that read: “Voyeur seeking sexually adventurous beautiful females with excellent bodies and excellent attitudes to audition on simulated sexual machines. Up to $200 per session. Please call: 816 668 XXXX.”

  I would explain that I have these machines I bought for my ex-girlfriend that are home collecting dust. I’m a voyeur. I want someone to come over and play on them while I videotape them. Totally honest, totally frank. This was just for myself and my viewing, there was never any idea of putting together a web site.

  The first one I got a huge response from because no one knew what the hell I was talking about! I met a lot of nice girls that way. At my age, age 45, these 19-year-olds are what I’m attracted to, and these girls are not going to be attracted to me, so I gotta have a hook, something to make them comfortable coming over. The machines are that hook.

  With the machines, there is this wonder and curiosity and it still seems safe. And, of course, I was offering money, up to $200 per session. You’re not going to get girls to come over just for fun and games. But once they get to know you and your personality then the money thing goes out the window. Certainly it started out as something to fulfill my sexual interests, but now the sexual part seems to have gone on the back burner, and we’re all pals; it’s like a community. They come back over because they know I care about them. I call them if they are sick. I remember their birthdays. Oh sure, there’s drama. The last thing I need in my life is drama, and hanging around with 19-year-old girls gets you that, but it’s a trade-off. It’s a hell of a lot better than hanging around with a 45 year-old wife you never talk to and never want to have sex with.

  How many guys wanna be Hugh Hefner? I don’t have the money Hefner has, or the empire, or the means with which to have lots and lots of women at any given time. But I’ve created an atmosphere that simulates that on a smaller scale. Honestly, I knock on wood a hundred times a day. I’m very thankful for the great friends I’ve made. Now it’s not really permanent like a marriage, but that was never a good fit for me. That’s why I film it all, ‘cuz things could change and I may never see that girl again.

  

  Jessy

  One of the first times I went to Steve’s house, me and my friend went over there, and he’s got like a normal two-story house, but if you go past the kitchen, there’s the back room that, like, everything’s set up in. One wall is all mirrors, and it’s the room that all the pictures are taken in, and it’s black and white with a bar, and then he’s got a backdrop for taking pictures. It’s a really pretty room.

  There are four different machines in there, and lots of costumes, and handheld vibrators and stuff—anal beads and pearls, just a little bit of everything to play with. It was totally like a chill atmosphere, you know, because if you’re going to be down for doing sex machines, you’d have to be pretty open-minded, I think.

  Me and Steve have never done anything. I’ve always been with girls and he’s just been the watcher. He likes to watch. He just has a way of making you feel comfortable, I guess. I don’t know exactly how old he is, but he’s older. I think he might have been married once, but all the time I’ve known him, he’s been single. I think he just likes being around females and likes the whole lifestyle of having pretty girls running around all the time. So he likes that, and I like it too. So he makes me feel good, we make him feel good.

  

  Adrienne Montoya

  I answered an ad in the newspaper; they were having auditions for a recurring role in an adult-oriented website. I met Cassie and Steve at a restaurant. They seemed cool. They explained the machines to me, but I had never tried one or even seen one before.

  I liked it as much as I thought I would. But I wouldn’t buy one. It was missing warmth. If I never got married and I was 40, I’d get one. Because I’ve always liked young guys, and an old guy can’t go like that. A person with this thing would have been better. If I had the man on top of me who I was fantasizing about, that would have been better.

  

  Cassie

  This is what they are pushing us towards, making society all mechanical and automated. It’s just like that. The machines are like part of that. I hate all this stuff in society that leaves the person out. I’d rather go into the bank and deal with the teller than use an ATM. I need to see someone, talk to them, have them see me. At a drive-through, I won’t talk to the speaker on the menu, I’ll go up to the window and order. I mean, what are they trying to do to us?!

  I think the machines negatively affect the world, because it tells us that we don’t need anyone else, we don’t need other people. Why try to build relationships or nurture friendships or work on the sexual problems that come up? Here you can just get yourself off, you don’t need anyone else. It’s negative. It has a negative force on the world, it’s trying to replace people. Working through problems helps us grow as a species

  Other images from book:

  
  
  
  
  
  

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• published by Dmitry

• ‘Riding along in my automobile’: Photos of Los Angelenos driving their cars by Andrew Bush
• 2011-07-18T18:14:00+00:00
  

  
  
   
  Great photo series from photographer Andrew Bush called “Drive” (also the title of a book you can purchase here). He’s posted 66 photos of Los Angelenos in their cars on his website. A lot of the snaps were captured in the late-80s through early-90s. I like how some of the drivers are completely oblivious that they’re being photographed. 

  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   

   
• published by tara_mcginley@yahoo.com

• Anahita Avalos
• 2011-07-11T16:07:00+00:00
  

  Sorry for being so silent over the past few days. A combination of medicine-proof flu and weak wifi at the hotel have thrown me into the arms of Jo Nesbo again and i've only emerged from this lethargy now. So here's a last and light post about the ongoing London Street Photography Festival where i discovered Anahita Avalos's tableaux of everyday life in Villahermosa, Mexico.

  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  More of her images on flickr.

  Anahita Avalos's work can be viewed until June 22 at Photofusion in Brixton, as part of the show On Street Photography: A Woman's Perspective but her photos have also been selected for the festival award along with the following talents:

  
  Jesse Marlow, Three people look inside a skip that was full of 3rd prize trophies from a ten pin bowling alley

  
  Jesse Marlow, A cardboard box I encountered on the streets of Milan, Italy

  
  Julien Coquetin, Count the flakes do not fall asleep, counting snowflakes

  
  David Solomons, A boy plays keepie uppie outside Marble Arch Subway toilets

  
  Douglas Ljungkvist

  Told you that was a light post. I'll do better tomorrow when i finally know how inspector Harry Hole catches the serial killer who marks his victims with the 'devil's star.'

  The photos of the winners and finalists are on view through July 24 at the German Gymnasium, along with Vivian Maier's solo show.

  Previously: Vivian Maier at the German Gymnasium.

   
• published by

• "The Mercenary" - Fresh Stuff From Ludo in Paris
• 2011-07-05T11:28:00+00:00
  

  

  More from Ludo here.
  

   
• published by

• Seen On The Streets Of Perm, Russia
• 2011-06-20T12:43:00+00:00
  

  
  
  

   
• published by

• Fresh Stuff From iemza in Reims
• 2011-06-15T12:18:00+00:00
  

  

  More from iemza here.
  

   
• published by

• Postopolis DF - notes from Day 3
• 2010-06-14T14:45:34+00:00
  

  Previously: Postopolis DF - Kumbia Queers and Postopolis DF - notes from day 2.

  Some of the Postopolis bloggers brought a unique, extremely well-curated perspective on the event. Wayne Marshall is one of them. One by one the speakers he had invited drew a picture of Mexico's hip hop and street art culture.

  On Thursday, Wayne had invited, among others, graffiti artist Saner who is now exhibiting his work both on street and museum walls all over the world.

  
  

  

  
  Plegaria. Calle del Pez (Photo by Javier IA, via belio magazine)

  Jace Clayton invited Jorge Legorreta that day. The architect and professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City talked about one of the most paradoxical issues of Mexico City: in the long-term, the city will suffer from the over abundance of water, and not, as the millions of Mexicans who do not have access to piped fresh water might assume, from its scarcity.

  
  Jace introduces Jorge Legorreta

  I had no idea Mexico DF was built above a lake. When they arrived in Tenochtitlán, Spanish conquistadores found that it was difficult to overcome inhabitants who moved fast and limber on canoes while the conquistadores and their heavy machinery were clumsy and slow. The Spanish solved the problem by draining the lake. After that, they started building on an unstable lake bed. Nowadays, the vast water reserve that this aquifer constitutes is being drained to provide water for the millions. As the water is sucked out, the city lurches downwards. Parts of Mexico City centre are sinking at an even faster rate than Venice. Over the XXth century, the city sank 10 meters, that's some 7cm per year. Some areas sink up to 30-40 cm per year per year. Xochimilco, declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO, is slowly sinking. Legorreta forcasts that there might be no Xochimilco within 15 years.

  
  Tenochtitlan was built on an island in Lake Texcoco in what is now the Federal District in central Mexico

  Mexico city is also surrounded by 45 rivers. Tenochtitlán was thus built on a delta and this delta will eventually inundate the city of Mexico. The rivers are appallingly administered. When the water from the rivers arrived in Mexico city they have already been heavily polluted by industries.

  This mismanagement has led to the greatest irony of all. One answer, according to Legorreta, is to control the pollution of the rivers but also capture and conserve more of the copious rains that fall 7 months of the year in reservoirs and household tanks.

  In the early evening, Nicola Twilley from Edible Geography (can't recommend you that blog enough) presented the work that Sissel Tolaas had done in Mexico City. The artist gathered air samples from 200 neighborhoods, bottled them then recorded the reaction that 2,000 people had to these smells.

  The work is documented in a video called "Talking Nose" as well as in a scratch-and-sniff panel. Tolaas believes that our civilization represses the sense of smell. She wear no perfume. Instead, as Nicola recalled, Tolaas wears an encapsulated concentrate of her own smell.

  
  Rozana Montiel

  I had invited architect Rozana Montiel to present the work of her studio. She's one of the few architects who gives a smart and original twist to the idea of 'recycling'/ One of her projects involves turning 22 buildings connected by Mexico City's metro lines 1, 2 and 3 into one big building, each of the 'units' would be open to the public. Some buildings, most of them currently abandoned, would be dedicated to sport, others to performative arts, culture, etc.

  

  Just a quote from Gregory Berger, invited by Ethel and Cesar from dpr - barcelona. The Director of satirist documentaries about political and social issues said: "Piracy is a fantastic instrument for distributing my movies."

  The day closed with Gabriela Gomez Mont from Toxico Cultura introducing three Mexican photographers whose work show the city from another perspective.

  Helicopter photographer Oscar Ruiz had some stunning images of the city from above:

  
  Oscar Ruiz, Taxicabs rounded up for not having permits, Taxis Piratas

  
  Oscar Ruiz, Fire at the dump

  
  Oscar Ruiz, Mercado Sobre Ruedas, (weekly food market)

  & José Luis Cuevas screened several photo series he made. Amateur. Porno hecho en casa (home-made porn) explores the way ordinary people reinterpret the clichés of 'professional' porn movies.

  
  José Luis Cuevas, Amateur. Porno hecho en casa

  Mark Powell, a gringo living in Mexico DF and interested in street photography.

  
  Mark Powell, from the series Mexico

  
  Mark Powell, from the series Mexico

  
  Mark Powell, from the series Mexico

  Image on the homepage: Oscar Ruiz, Nezahualcoyotl and Iztapalapa .

   
• published by