In continuous evolution…
From the series: Visions of humans

Mirae and Jesse

Sharing knowledge and tools is at the very core of Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) an international federation of autonomous cells, founded by Evan Roth and James Powderly during their fellowships at the Eyebeam OpenLab.

Each cell is completely independent, with its own political or cultural focus, but all share the basic idea that code and software belong in the public domain – each tool is published under a non-commercial creative commons license.
GRL can be defined as an art group dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protesters with open source technologies for urban communication, tools that can be found online and used, so long as it is for non-commercial purposes.
Among the tools developed and put at the disposal of protesters everywhere, the LASER Tag, Led Throwies and Projection Bombing are the most well-known. In a continuos dialogue with graffiti writers and activists, who bring their specific needs and expectations, projects are always in development.
There are also some very interesting international projects, such as the 1LT/C (1 laser tag per child), initiated by the Utah cell of GRL.

Jesse

The Canadian cell of GRL focuses on graffiti as strategy for media democracy, allowing for the reshaping of the people’s interaction with public space. Two of the members of this cell, Jesse and Mirae, have now created a German cell in Berlin and introduced themselves and the project at the Open Design City on the 27th of October.

They decided to come to Berlin because “in Berlin there is a very big DIY spirit and a very good attitude to this sort of projects”. The main focus of the Berlin cell of GRL, though anyone is welcome to pitch in, will be to continue the research on the “bombIR” application to make it as open source as possible. The “bombIR”, which was originally developed by GRL Canada, is a “scaleable drawing application built for use with a rear-projection screen and custom-made infrared pens – as well as a version for use with touchscreens -  that allows artists to physically gesture against a surface and create real-time graphical output“.

“Sharing code and software is an old idea and there has always been the need for it. It makes more sense and it is also more economical”, said Jesse.
“Graffiti writers have always been inventive and have always tried out new technologies, taking tools normally used for profit and using them in a subversive way”, he added.
Even though it is not always easy to work within the framework of the market economy, they think that “art can go at the core of this system and establish a deep criticism of it, which eventually makes it obsolete”.
As for the “traditional” graffiti, “the aim of GRL is not to replace it, but to grasp a renewed understanding of the new technologies and the world around us as they evolve”. This of course means using the technology and putting it in the hands of the people, releasing it into the public domain avoiding the banalization of these resources that results from commercial use.

If you are curious about the work of the GRL Germany you can attend their workshops at the Open Design City and get involved!

Photography: Gabriele di Stefano and Elisabetta Lombardo

Negatives have been scanned, photos have been chosen, light has been evaluated and during an almost perfect end-of-summer night, while strolling around Berlin for the Lange Nacht der Museen, this light has been captured.

When I look at a beautiful photograph of a mountain I think that what I am looking at is inserted into a much broader environment. A city or a village must not be too far away from the mountain, there surely is someone skiing on its paths, climbing its walls. Is there a tunnel, a road, a passage nearby?

I’ve been looking at some of my photographs from the past and I have realized that I am moved by – literally, in that I function and work through – this contradiction. Although presence has been a topic in the past, I began exploring this more openly only very recently.

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The aim was, of course, to tell the world leaders who were then meeting in Copenhagen, that the people wanted a “real deal”, that is a binding legal agreement to stop climate change (or more accurately, to settle on a level of emissions that would allow us to stay at a level that is controllable enough and thus avoiding a catastrophe of huge magnitude).

Copenhagen was a failure, no one is hiding this fact.

I am publishing these photos NOW, that is months after the demonstration, not so much because of a gained perspective on the issue of climate change in the light of the failure to come to a binding agreement, but rather because my account was not so much aimed at documenting the demonstration, but at taking a piece of that atmosphere, the impression (real or not, that’s not up to me to decide) that at that moment those people who were holding these candles could affect the world to a great extent.

The idea of capturing this idea of being able to change things with showing up at a demonstration is not an attempt on my part to say that “nothing can change with simply holding a candle” (I am rather against this point of view, which usually masks one’s inability or laziness to be socially active). Sure I know the difference between people standing in the cold in Berlin and in other cities and politicians lobbying for a deal, weighing their pledge to their citizens with the interests of those who donate money to their campaigns. On the other hand, if we simply take this demonstration as a genuine interest on the part of the citizens to “do something”, there is still a point on keeping the information flowing, on other issues too, on all types of social issues that affect us all to different extents.

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