Psychogeography is a critical tool encouraging the study of the effects of a particular urban environment on the emotions, cognitive responses and behaviour of individuals. The term, first defined by French political theorist Guy Debord in his essay Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography, encompassed the “study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” At the core of this method of urban data gathering was the dérive, a form of walking or drifting. For Debord, a dérive was “the practice of a passional journey out of the ordinary through a rapid changing of ambiances.” Initially, the dérive was a tool to increase individual awareness of urban surroundings and its alienating effects. Unlike the flâneur of Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, Debord was less interested in interpreting the space and more in the personal experience while observing a drift. At stake was the exact investigation of the effect of the geographic, architectural space on individuals’ emotions and consciousness. Continue reading “Psychogeography: A New Paradigm?”
Dapper Dan 11
Dapper Dan is back with its 11th issue, in which Andreas Kronthaler talks about being Vivienne Westwood’s right hand man, Katerina Kana delves into the mysterious world of writer and curator Valentinas Klimašauskas, and shoe fetishist photographer Jacopo Benassi lets us in on his passion for slippers. There’s also an essay by Nuno Coelho exploring psychogeography and the urban environments of the future and a look at the work of controversial architect Dimitris Pikionis. Added to this are an article by Lisa Rovner on the trickery and fakery of the art world and an interview with Vasilis Toufexis, the pioneer behind Greece’s boundary-pushing comic magazine, Kolumbra.
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Dapper Dan 10 Launch
To celebrate the launch of its 10th issue, Dapper Dan welcomed guests to Paris’ Palais Royal, in a space that was once one of Jean Cocteau’s apartments. Continue reading “Dapper Dan 10 Launch”
Maison Martin Margiela talks to Filep Motwary
Maison Martin Margiela has existed since 1988, intelligently creating fashion that goes beyond any system required by the industry. The house has proved to be an important antidote to high fashion’s dullness—established or ephemeral— by being true to its own principles: anonymity, conceptualism, artisanship and the power of process, to name a few. The statements are not verbal but designed, and true to Maison Martin Margiela’s visual concerts are its customers and devoted followers, always eager to watch without prejudice. Continue reading “Maison Martin Margiela talks to Filep Motwary”
Ettore Guatelli Museum – Create Wonder from the Obvious
There is such a thing as magnificent obsession, in which passion and endless work, free from the restrictions of time, can create incredible expressions that are unlike anything known.
The Museo Ettore Guatelli is a perfect expression of magnificent obsession. Just a few kilometres from Parma, in the heart of the Italian food valley, surrounded by a bucolic landscape, is the museum house of Ettore Guatelli, a rural teacher who built his encyclopedia on the walls of his farmhouse, spending years collecting all kinds of objects whose common value is the stories they tell of the lives of the people who used them. Guatelli collected tangible objects of social life in order to save a fast disappearing civilization from oblivion, at a point in the 20th century that saw interest in material culture spreading in Italy, to create an archive that is completely unlike any other folklore, rural or ethnographic museum. Continue reading “Ettore Guatelli Museum – Create Wonder from the Obvious”
Dapper Dan 09
Dapper Dan 09 is out featuring among others, interviews of Daniel Silver, Christophe Lemaire, Marc Ascoli and Milovan Farronato.
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Dapper Dan 08 out soon!
Dapper Dan 08 is coming out soon featuring, among others, AA Bronson, Aldo Maria Camillo, Consuelo Castiglioni, Simon Costin, Maxine Doyle, Pat Murano and Herbert Huncke. More soon…
Harry Peccinotti talks to Filep Motwary
In the visual world, Harry Peccinotti is the epitome of a Renaissance man. As an artist, graphic designer, art director and photographer, he created a distinctive style in the 1960s that feels as fresh as ever— and is as mimicked as ever—today. His work captures women’s bodies and faces in a graphic, almost abstract way that has earned him the nickname “Mr Close-Up”. Despite a career that has spanned the art direction of Vogue, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, the creation of iconic title sequences for films including Alfie and Chappaqua, the founding of the groundbreaking magazine Nova, the almost single-handed introduction of models of colour into the fashion mainstream, and photographic commissions from the Pirelli calendar to the Vietnam War, the London-born, Paris-based legend was a bit shy when Dapper Dan visited him at home. Continue reading “Harry Peccinotti talks to Filep Motwary”
Light A Match, Start A Fire: Michael Gira Talks To George Skafidas
Slow-moving and punitive; visceral and crushing; dour and blatant; repetitive and atonal; never played the same way twice; constantly trans- forming into whatever is next; a process of discovery for its creators as well as its audience: the music of Michael Gira, and in particular his creative output with Swans—the band he birthed, bore, buried and brought back to life over the course of three decades—is disorienting and destabilising. With themes that plumb the depths of human depravity, it even touches on the horrifying. Yet for those who imagine music as a redemptive, transformative, epiphanic experience, Swans occupies a sort of holy space in the artistic cosmos. Continue reading “Light A Match, Start A Fire: Michael Gira Talks To George Skafidas”