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OUTLAW - Shot in the Dark
A DROME magazine and Lomography Photo Competition

Have you ever walked down a dark ally with your beloved LC-A in hand? Have you ever seen a vandalized building and couldn’t help but to admire that urban art covering the walls? Share this rawness from the streets with us! In this collaboration with Lomography, we are looking for your best images of stencils, posters, stickers, graffiti or any other form or “illegal expression” that you can find on the streets…

The winners will receive a Staple Colorsplash camera and a feature spot in DROME magazine. One important rule: Lomography will only accept photos taken with analogue cameras. None of the following would qualify, but it was a nice excuse to take a look back.

Banksy. London, 2004

Orgasmo Roma. Rome, 2004

CCTV. Milan, 2007

Milan, 2007

 Brooklyn, 2008

Godless America. San Francisco, 2009

NYC, 2008

Freak What You Feel! Brooklyn, 2008

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Trigger: Shot in the Dark details and entry form here

Time.com recently announced their First Annual Blog Index “Top 25 Blogs“, and asked the public to rate the sites they selected. Outranking the rest by a huge margin is the blog of Italian political satirist Beppe Grillo.

Grillo likens Italy to a sinking ship captained by criminal politicians. Instead of just making a case against them, he mobilizes his readers to protest, resist, and work to change the situation in any way they can.

To those voting in the upcoming elections he writes:

“The least worst is the son of the worst. It is his creature. Without the worst the least worst could not exist. The worst is the reference point for the Italian. It’s useful for orientation.

The Italian always tries to do better than the worst. The least worst is a leap in quality. The Italian chooses the least worst dentist, he reads the least worst newspaper, listens to the least worst TV programme, works for the least worst company, votes for the least worst party, gets his operation in the least worst hospital, eats in the least worst restaurant, drives on the least worst road, breathes the least worst air, lives in the least worst apartment, uses the least worst notary, gets to be buried by the least worst funeral directors in the least worst tomb.

The worst is the best alibi of the least worst. Rather than the worst, the least worst is always better. Anyone can do better than Alitalia, than Asphalt Head, than Telecom Italia, than the RAI. Without the worst, who would have voted for D’Alema, traveled with Air One, listened to Rete 4 or made telephone calls with Wind? However… there’s a but, why do you have to choose between the worst and the least worst? Why this blackmail? I don’t want a least worst life. I demand a normal life, in fact I want it to be beautiful, optimum, excellent. Perhaps I won’t succeed, but I must try, I’m obliged to try.”

Although Grillo blogs for Italians, his ideas resonate in every part of the world affected by political corruption.

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Trigger: Blog di Beppe Grillo and English version

DROME magazine is pleased to announce the launch of

sideways
a smart art project

New York, March 19th 2008
9.00 p.m. - midnight

7 World Trade Center, 52nd floor, 250 Greenwich Street

smart chose DROME magazine as the only Italian magazine together with 10 other excellent cross-culture magazines from all over the world, to select the gifted artists of different ages, backgrounds and levels of fame of the sideways project, the sought-after art anthology book produced by Die Gestalten Verlag in conjunction with smart.

The recent ecology-inspired works recommended by DROME are by: Karin Andersen, Zaelia Bishop, Silvia Camporesi, casaluce-gegier, Rubens Lp, Native & ZenTwo, Christian Rainer, Sten and Fernanda Veron.

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Trigger: smart green marketing and Drome magazine

4/5/04
Piazza della Repubblica

20 short Italian men talking in front of a ferris wheel with breakdancers stretching in the corner while a girl on the merry-go-round shouts “Mamma!” and waves at every turn just like I used to do.

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Trigger: memories

How disappointing- the trailer for L’Avventura cheapens the film immensely. It’s not a scene upon scene sex romp of passionate kissing and exposed skin. Monica Vitti is breathtaking, and director Michelangelo Antonioni captured with a beautiful dream-like quality another place and time.
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Trigger: Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007)

I thought I had captured a scene straight out of the film Malèna on my recent trip to Porto Venere, Italy.

In the center of the photo is a stunning blonde woman, eyes downcast, dress blown open by the wind. An old woman looks disapprovingly in her direction. The jealous shopkeeper in the foreground almost confronts her in the middle of the street.

But then I took a closer look…

The blonde is just on her way to the beach.
The old woman is eyeing the ugly hats.
And the shopkeeper is eager to sell her one.

From near or from afar, one thing is for sure: Porto Venere è bellissima.
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Trigger: Porto Venere

• As of today, total number of Residents in the used-created virtual world, Second Life: 7,877,298

• Total number of authors credited to Second Life: the Official Guide: 6

• From the latest stats, the average number of minutes spent in Second Life per user, per day in the US: 122

• Total number of minutes I’ve spent in Second Life: 120

• Total number of minutes I’ve spent in Second Life that I will never get back: 120

• Total number of Second Life: the Official Guide I’ve purchased: 0

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Trigger: Second Life: the Official Guide as displayed at La Grande Libreria Internazionale Hoepli, Milan, Italy

Wooster Collective recently posted this photo from the latest Diesel Wall International Art Contest. Winners get their design prominently featured in the center of four major cities: Milan, Copenhagen, Beijing, andToronto.

The artists on the Milan Wall (Fabio La Fauci and Daniele Sigalot) were also showcased in the Street Art Sweet Art exhibition at the PAC museum. At first I thought, very cool that these guys locked down such an amazing spot in the city. The downside- their work is now a marketing tool for the Diesel brand.

But is that such a high price to pay? The website listed in the bottom right corner leads to the Diesel site, but directly to information about the competition.

The requirements state that participants are free to submit any kind of image for consideration. And having such a large space in a major city is a coup for any artist- especially because the sites are all situated in hip, high-traffic areas. It may be a marketing ploy, but it gives artists the opportunity to access to an audience that they might not normally reach.

That said, La Fauci and Sigalot’s Blue and Joy characters are not so underground- they have also been on Adidas shoes and in other corporate-sponsored events. I suppose these artists have found that delicate balance; their pieces can be found both on the street, and at the intersection of art and commerce.

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Trigger: Diesel Wall

From the land of Silvio Berlusconi and a compliant and self-censoring mainstream press, Drome magazine presents: Copyleft.

Drome is the first Italian culture magazine to license their content under copyleft. This grants their readers the freedom to reproduce all articles as they wish.

Copyleft is, naturally, a play on the word copyright. The difference is that while copyright laws control and restrict the redistribution of an original work, copyleft frees the information to be modified, reused, and passed on under the same generous terms.

While copyleft was originally developed in relation to software, there are licensing options available for non-software production. Creative Commons provides this service to writers, artists, scientist, and educators who want to share their work with greater flexibility than what standard copyright laws allow.

An adaptation for Italy has already been produced by Creative Commons Worldwide. There are also salons taking place across the globe to bring together those interested in licensing that promotes freedom and cooperation.

Don’t see your city listed? Organize it.

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Trigger: Creative Commons

After taking in all the ancient art that Milan has to offer, it was refreshing to check out the Street Art Sweet Art exhibition at the Padiglione Arte Contemporanea.

The beauty of the exhibition was its lack of mass appeal. The 30+ Italian street artists featured were so stylistically varied, the fun of it was the search for the most wicked pieces.

Personal favorites included the floor-to-ceiling redheads by Nais, and Microbo’s twisted and tangled design.

The upstairs gallery showcased wheatpaste and sticker campaigns. Some, like Matteo Donini’s “Wake up!!” wheatpaste bells, were instantly recognizable from a neighborhood here or there. Others were so vibrant or interesting that you wished the artist would come to yours and jazz it up a bit.

The show has received so many visitors that the closing date has now been extended to April 25th!

Sweet art from a sweetheart. No piece in the exhibition could compare to a birthday gift I received. Umberto’s sister happens to know Sten, and they asked him to spray a T-shirt for me.What makes it such a treasure is that I know this stencil- Umberto pointed it out to me on the streets of San Lorenzo in Rome. Madonna Santa- it’s so nice!
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Trigger: Street Art Sweet Art exhibition