To Berlin!!

Tomorrow I hop onto a train to Berlin at like 6 in the morning! I'm really excited, everyone keeps raving about Berlin over here, whether its the art scene, the night life, the people, everything. Everyone apparently freakin' loves the place. And it's supposedly a lot cheaper than the Netherlands, so hopefully I should be able to hook myself up with a good camera from there for relatively cheap.

Masa, the Japanese guest, broke my heart earlier though. He told me there are no ninjas in Japan anymore...

Last Night

256 Pages of Thrill and Excitement

I just finished reading the graphic novel Teenagers From Mars by Rick Spears and Rob G, which I picked up from the comic book shop in Brussels enthusiastically the minute I laid my eyes on this lonesome copy, and I really haven't experienced so much fun, thrill, and excitement reading something since Quentin Tarantino's original True Romance script, and the novel Jennifer Government by Max Barry. Teenagers From Mars has it all, witty script, a true cause, subtle references and inside jokes, cool romance, plenty of haha's, badass characters, and a vintage chevy full of action. Rick and Rob were so unafraid of taking chances with this thing. In fact, they didn't even consider the thought of chances at all, they just flew with this baby and made it awesome!

Here's to the Comic Book Liberation Army! Woohoo!

My next purchase must be a Becky Cloonan comic, yes it must. She has a guest pin-up at the end of the book and boy, she makes anything look like a wicked punk rock poster.

When Too Much Happens

When too many things happen, you end up not having enough time to write about these things, which sucks, because they can be many interesting things that you would like to write about but can't, and when too much time has passed afterwards, your capability of writing about these things just fwooshes down because the intensity of the events is just less and so... unfresh.

So to recap what's been happening really briefly:

- Went to Mediamatic's re-opening in new location in Amsterdam with Nat, where they had bizarre fashionista clothing recycling party filled with uber fashion enthusiasts and very spandex-clad gay boys. Oh, and later in the night, Nat was cool enough to show me the red light district which in a nutshell is the Khan El Khalili for sex.

- Coupla dates

- Brussels with Nat, and two very cool friends of hers, where we saw a 3-floor Mike Kelly exhibition, which wasn't very good but was nicely put together and rather absurdly funny the same way Blood For Dracula and Mod Fuck Explosion are. Brussels is darn beautiful though, and the comic book shops... ah, heaven. And, I know I'ma sound like a girl when I say this, but... their chocolate!

- Agreed on concept for the video for Rikke's song, which we're shooting with a really old and massive analog B&W camera he had, which we managed to get working and capture directly into the computer. Shooting shall commence upon my return from Berlin, which I'm going to on the first of August to hang out with Ben & Sascha.

- In the meantime I'm also working on a couple of other short videos for the LiteSide Festival in Amsterdam.

- I'm due to do a little show and tell at Rotterdam's Pecha Kucha Night on the 27th of August. It's a really cool concept, several artists are invited to show 20 images, each image for 20 seconds, and speak, do a quick little presentation. The audience walks away with a multitude of contemplative concepts and digestible ideas in just one night.

- In the daily paper, there's this little graphic on the bottom corner of the page which I guess can be referred to as a "political graphic." It's kind of like a political cartoon, except instead of using comic-esque illustration, it utilizes graphic design to communicate political commentary, and I freakin' love it. An archive of these political graphics is made available online. Example?

The Rabbit Master is here

After much hard work, sweat, and tears, and one of the most creatively intense collaborations in the past decade, The Rabbit Master by Abner Garson Preis with the help of Ina Smits and myself, a 5-minute fairytale is finally here:



"A fairy tail for the family. When all is quiet outside and most children are sleeping the Rabbit Master will steal away their beloved toys. With the help of his friends, 1 bird, a bull, one dog, little scooter, and a helping hand, the Rabbit Master will get away with the toys you love,so you better take care of your shit."

Yoga For Graphic Designers

Today I had my first real Yoga lesson with Daniella the new Italian guest at B.a.d, and I must say it's actually pretty difficult, especially for a graphic designer, we tend to spend many hours huped in front of a computer so we kind of develop the anti-backs for Yoga. Daniella on the other hand has an intense contemporary dance background and has been doing it for over 10 years, so resting on her shoulders, while her legs fly over her face with her feet touching the ground and her arms spread straight on the floor behind her buttocks is absolutely normal.

It's a really good thing to take on, Yoga; not only is it uber relaxing, but its also somewhat physically demanding and does your body good.

So I've decided to do a bit of Yoga every day. I found a pretty okay resource for beginners to start from.

Breaking Boredom Coverage

All my homies talk about Breaking Boredom on TV:


And Mariam Hamdy writes a not so enthusiastic review (rips apart into itty bitty pieces) for The Daily News under the title of "Surrealism Undermined by Breaking Boredom"

She writes "The success of “Breaking Boredom” lies in how it presents the outcome of a conceptually sound experiment made by accomplished designers, but the work falls short of being just mildly interesting, or being solidly surrealistic."

It's a really witty and well-written review though.

Smacking Forehead

Apparently, I forgot to hit the "save" button after getting the phone numbers off the new friends I made, so if any of you are reading this, I don't have your number and I can't freakin' call you.

In other good news, I've got a round of new photos from Breaking Boredom in Cairo.



And Friederike sent me a photo she took during the barbecue last night:

Sitting next to me very bored is Martijn, and standing next to me being cool is Roderick. Approaching with the bowl of luscious cherries is John and the guy asking him if they're fresh and tasty is Sicilian man Pepe.

Oh and apparently, beaches are pretty nice on this side of the world it seems.

Breaking Boredom - July 6

So I've been told by my homeboys back in Cairo that the opening of Breaking Boredom at the Townhouse Gallery was freakin' huge! 2000 people easily showed up, and the place was packed, and people would look at the exhibited pieces, go to the room where the step-by-step process of the making of the pieces was exhibited, and go back and look at the actual exhibited pieces again, and have long discussions and debates about it.

2000 people, man, in groups of 200!

Affordable limited edition posters were made of the pieces and pretty much everyone who attended bought a poster or a dozen. Some people even bought extra to give to their friends. Wish I was there.

But what exactly is Breaking Boredom all about?

Well, Far from the consumptive aspect, which is closely connected to the nature of the field of graphic design as one of the applied arts, this project is based on exploring new design approaches that depends on the coincidence in its construction; 6 Graphic designers participated in this project to create 12 designs according to particular rules that differs from the traditional thought patterns.

(Breaking Boredom) is a project that relies on the idea of “Exquisite Corpse”* game, which was invented in 1925. The rules of the game were used to generate a succession of designs, as each participant will use the endpoint created by the previous designer to start his contribution. Each design consists of four consecutive contributions.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_Corpse

Participants
----------------
Engy Aly
George Azmy
Hani Mahfouz
Ibrahim Eslam
Mahmoud Hamdy
Mofa
----------------
Curated by: Ahmed Foula

The show will stay at Townhouse Gallery in Cairo until July 30, and will be at ACAF in Alexandria starting August 7.

Me and Bad Films

Shit. Mod Fuck Explosion is probably the crappiest movie I've ever seen in my entire life. Shit, its so fucking horrid, everything from script, dialogue, performance, production, everything, there's not a single okay thing about it. It's even worse than fucking Blood For Dracula... which I saw on the shelf at Worm right next to Mod Fuck Explosion. Shit, I should've known.

I'm quite happy to actually own the DVD though. Fucking weird.

I R'dam

So here are some photographs of some of my drawings from the Art Threesome. They're behind glass, which is a bit reflecting, but you still get the idea.











I've only made 8 pieces so far, but I'm here till the end of August, so I'm very likely to create some more, alongside a couple of videos maybe.

I Don't Speak English Good, Butahh... Habibi!

So Roderick posted some pictures of my presentation for Art Threesome at B.a.d. a couple days ago.


You can tell I have everyone totally engaged. Har har.

It was good, I managed not to make a complete fool of myself, I think, and we had a nice barbecue after, a couple of people ended up making out later in the evening, everything you can ask for. And I was asked to speak and present my work at some other places by a couple of the attendees, so that's good. It was all good. And both Friedereke and Masa had wonderful installations.

Yesterday evening we went to the coolest club on Earth, Worm. It was the last party of the season, because they take a summer holiday, so I won't get to experience the Worm again, but its really cool and inspired me to do something in Cairo even. The place is so cool; the ground floor is a store that sells the most obscure and weirdest of records, DVDs, and art/music books and magazines. The top floor is where the bar is and the DJ spins, and there's another separate room for the more odd audio experiments, VJs, and film/video screenings. All chairs are either made out of car seats or tires, and because the place is actually a warehouse of historical significance, the owners were not allowed to punch any nails into the walls, so they set up metal structures all over the place, a few inches away from the walls, and everything is built on or hanging from these structures. Freakin' brilliant and inspiring. Place was uber packed and has a huge audience and everyone loves it. Actually bumped into people I know, and ended up buying a record, From the Kitchen to the Garage: Dutch Girls and Girl Groups From the Sixties, and a DVD, Mod Fuck Explosion. I just couldn't resist. They both looked so fucking cool, and I played the record on the record player at the place and it was just too brilliant not to buy. Not only because the music, but records are just so friggin' sexy, dammit. I figured its worth it to buy a record player for that record alone. I ask someone where I can buy a portable record player for cheap, and as he explains it on my map, a very nice girl, Sarah, volunteered to lend me hers and gave me her number. Score.

Another girl, Denise, very hot, pink jeans, pixie haircut, noticed the LP in my hand, came up to me and recommended a couple of other record stores I can buy cool records from, and volunteered to show me around town and gave me her number. Double score.

And today there was a little project near B.a.d called Mental Charlois, where people living in th neighborhood were invited to draw their impressions, and their mental maps of the Oud Charlois area, where we live. It was beautiful, it was in the garden which is a courtyard shared by several artists' very nice studio apartments, and we had delicious food, and live music from Rikke Korswagen, which I loved so much I decided to work on a music video with him for one of his songs. Towards the evening we made a little fire in the middle of the courtyard, barbecued chicken wings and salmon, goofed around and listened to Rikke's soulful music all night.

Tomorrow, I post pictures of my Rotterdam-inspired drawings that were showing the day of my presentation.

People Drawing People

My article for Magaz Magazine about the psychology of character design is now online with their new website.

Available in English and Arabic.

Kareem Lotfy's off-beat portrait of an army officer bestows the front page with much awesomeness.

Rotterdam vs. Amsterdam

There's a bit of rivalry between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Kinda like Dubai vs. Abu Dhabi. And just like Dubai seems to be winning against Abu Dhabi, so is Amsterdam against Rotterdam... except in one area I just discovered today; art.

That's right, I went to the graduation show of one of the art schools here, and I must say... the quality of the work there was quite significantly better than the work I saw at the Reitveld exhibition in Amsterdam. Given that yes, maybe the atmosphere at Reitveld might've been livlier and well, cooler, but the quality of work: Rotterdam.

Jonathan would be crushed.

Oh, and apparently... today is Harley Davidson day? Yeah, there was a heavy metal concert taking place on the street near the harbor earlier today, horded with Harley Davidson fanatics and their very mean motorcycles shining in the afternoon sun, like hot bikini-clad chiquitas bathed in sun lotion at the beach.

I was told by a nice waitress that there's a concert like that one in almost every city in Holland today.

Space

Friederike keeps taking pictures of me in my studio at B.a.d when I'm not looking.

Art Threesome, July 11th, 5:00 PM!

Witness and experience the "Art Threesome" that is due to take place on Friday, July 11th, 5 PM at the B.a.d Foundation in Rotterdam. Guest artists Masashi Echigo (JP), Mofa (EG), and Friederike Mainka (DE) will be giving presentations as well as creating new work specifically for the occasion. Mofa's new drawings inspired by the city of Rotterdam will be showing in the Main Hall, and Masashi will be showing drawings of his own as well as an installation that involves welding in the meeting room, and last but not least Friederike will be presenting an intricate installation in the basement.

The back garden is where we'll be having a sizzling barbecue (weather permitting, oh please God yes), and the bar will be open and we will surely have some groovy music on for head bopping purposes.

Be sure to show up, and bring all your art-loving friends and those who you think should start loving art, because this event will surely convert them to the good side.

Friday, July 11th, 5 pm. Art Threesome.

Peanut Butter + Celery + Printing

I ate peanut butter with celery today.

This must be heaven.

Seeing and dealing with the cross-dresser who owns the print shop Freidereke and I printed our fliers at wasn't so bad either.

Our fliers, that's right. We have an event on Friday, the 11th of July, and we just had fliers printed out for it. Will post more details later.