Fifty designers, architects and thinkers have their say in the 50th issue of Icon magazine.

MANIFESTO #01
PETER SAVILLE Designer
LONDON

Being a designer used to be like being on a crusade – we were fighters, evangelists. But in the last ten years, since the recession of the early Nineties, the situation has changed. Our establishment has suddenly “got it” and they want “creatives”. Creativity has become part of the business of social manipulation. The problem is that everybody got what they wanted.

Morals
The cultural adventure has been consumed by business. Making things better is a moral issue, but morality and business don’t go together – business is, if not immoral, then amoral. We know we should be keeping people out of stores but we all have to work with business. It can’t really be all about idealism and altruism.

Meaningless design
Much of the work being done now lacks meaning and the designers know it. There’s a reasonable chair design once every five years and that’s usually the result of a new manufacturing or material innovation. We all see what’s happening at Milan – there are countless new chairs and they’re nearly all a waste of space.

Where are the NGOs?
Everyone does their best but you have to pay the rent. Even hospitals have to run to profit. You can’t avoid the issue merely by working for an NGO – even Amnesty and Greenpeace have to be “business facing”. The only bastion of free speech could be the art world, but even that is a preciously engineered marketplace with its own complexities.

Value finding
Creative people have to believe in the value of their work. If you don’t have any belief then you can’t give anything – designing is an act of giving, and a belief in the value of the work fuels the desire to express something. It’s important to know what your values are and to take care of them.

Post-war socio-cultural democratisation
It’s a long term, but broken down it’s simple. Over the last 50 years culture has been disseminated to the wider public rather than being the domain of the privileged. There is an inevitable loss of substance in the process of becoming a culture of entertainment. If it’s not popular, it’s not happening.

Design as drugs
Pop culture used to be like LSD – different, eye-opening and reasonably dangerous. It’s now like crack – isolating, wasteful and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Dystopia
In the early 20th century designers envisaged utopia, they were optimistic and visionary people. We now acknowledge the dystopian reality.

The new cause
I was part of a system that wanted to change the look of the everyday world. That ideal, manifest through consumerism, doesn’t sit well with me now. I am not wealthy and completely understand how we all have to pay our way.

49 further Manifestos here.

“It’s August in Chicago. But, don’t let that stop you from coming out and feeling the heat affront the glow of the projector! This year’s Chicago Underground Film Festival–August 15-19, at the Chopin Theater (1543 W. Division) and Elegant Mr. Gallery (1355 N. Milwaukee Ave).–features films and videos from locals and beyond. The festival packs in as much fun as it can in five days. Check http://www.cuff.org for the entire schedule! Advance tickets are available at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/5499

The festival kicks of on Wednesday August 15th with the World Premiere of “Orchard Vale”, the first feature from Chicago musician Tim Kinsella (Joan of Arc), winner of the “Made in Chicago Award” at last year’s CUFF. The film is an apocalyptic family drama that tells the story about five people in the near future living together in the ruins of the contemporary American suburban landscape. Cyan Walker stars as Sophie, a quiet 15 year-old girl, who provides material and emotional support to her family as they try to cope with the dangerous world around them. Says Kinsella of the film, “Orchard Vale raises more questions than it can possibly answer. Much of the story is told in between the moments other movies would have probably shown to tell the same story. This is done to invite the viewer to become an active participant, hopefully prompting the audience to expand upon the questions it raises. In a way, it might be like Planet of the Apes without the apes and in a different way like a zombie movie without the zombies.” This screening is already close to sold out so get your tickets now!

The festival concludes on Sunday August 19th with the Chicago Premiere of Jim Finn’s “La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo” the follow up to “Interkosmos” his internationally acclaimed debut feature from last year. “La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo” is a documentary styled political drama concerning women prisoners devoted to the Peruvian Maoist revolutionary-terrorist group the Shining Path and it’s charismatic leader Chairman Abimael Gonzalo. As with “Interkosmos”, the film features original music from Jim Becker (Califone) and Colleen Burke (We Ragazzi). This lo-fi feature reaffirms Chicago-native Finn as one of the most exciting talents in the current underground film scene. As The Rotterdam Film Festival wrote: “Jim Finn has made a name for himself…thanks to his feeling for irony and his capacity to shape something new from propaganda, news and other historic images. Not to forget his very dry sense of humor.”

Other feature films in this year’s festival:

EVERYBODY IS HURTING (World Premieres) – Award winning photographer and videomaker Richard Sandler’s first person look at New York City’s emotional state during the first week following 9/11.

LIKK YOUR IDOLS (U.S. Premiere) – Angelique Bosio’s documentary LLIK YOUR IDOLS documents the Cinema of Transgression and ’80s downtown NYC scene. Featuring Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch, Jarboe, Richard Hell, Joe Coleman, Nick Zedd, Thurston Moore, Jack Sargeant, and many others, plus clips of BANNED and OUTRAGEOUS underground movies

GO GO MOTEL (World Premiere) – Feeling like a mix of vintage Waters’ trash, Lynch surrealism and Selby sleaze; Baltimore filmmaker Dan Bell delves into the dark and foreboding world of strippers, hookers, bums, boozers and skid row criminals.

THAX (World Premiere)– Alex MacKenzie’s portrait of Thax Douglas, Chicago’s ‘poet laureate of indie-rock.’

THE DESCRIPTION OF BANKRUPTCY (U.S. Premiere) – Kang-hyun LEE directs this documentary on the all-consuming nature of credit card debt in South Korea, and the lengths to which people go trying to get rid of it.

Other features screening in competition include:

BACCHANALE – A ‘lost’ adult arthouse film from 1970, released towards the end of the grindhouse era and at the dawn of XXX. Enlightened pornography is overwhelmed by a script chock full of low-budget surrealistic pretensions. New audio curated by Sam Zimmerman, Nick Hallett and Montgomery Knott of Brooklyn’s Monkeytown

BEGGING NAKED – A documentary directed by Karen Gehres. In 1976 Elise Hill left home at the age of 15. In Union Square she met her first pimp. After leaving prostitution, Elise supported herself for 15 yrs creating art, but ,is slowly forced back into sex work and drugs to survive.

BLOOD CAR – In this horror-comedy directed by Alex Orr, gas prices are at an astronomical high. One man is determined to find an alternate fuel source. That alternate fuel source turns out to be blood…HUMAN BLOOD.

CELLULOID #1 – Steve Stasso’s confetti of references/passions to the genius of Warhol, Fassbinder and the era of ‘The Hustler’ as well as the glory of black and white. Celluloid #1 is ultimately about celluloid and how it captures us.

EAST 3 – British filmmaker Mr. Young explores the Arctic town of Inuvik. This disturbing and surreal film investigates life in the sub-zero temperatures of the Canadian wilderness focusing on the hunting/trapping lifestyle, the community greenhouse, dog cruelty, traditional games and music.

EACH TIME I KILL – The 29th and final film by the late queen of sexpoitation cinema Doris Wishman, completed just months before her death in 2002. “Each Time I Kill” is a horror film about an unpopular high school girl who finds a magic locket that will allow her to exchange one physical feature with anyone she kills.

THE GOOD TIMES SKID – The second feature from Azazel Jacobs (son of avant garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs) is the story of two men with the same name who cross paths one day and the girl between them who gets the chance to escape her daily routine. A story about stolen love and stolen identities, shot on stolen film.

HELL ON WHEELS – Bob Ray (Rock Opera) directs this from-the-trenches look at the dizzying clash of athleticism, exhibitionism, egos, politics and business that is modern-era roller derby.

HOOKS TO THE LEFT – Frequent CUFF Alum Todd Verow’s tale of a male hustler shot entirely on a cell phone camera.

MILK IN THE LAND- The second feature documentary resulting from collaboration between Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum following their 2001 film “Hybrid.” Milk in The Land weaves together a quirky, alternative history of America’s most committed culinary choice.

OFF THE GRID: LIFE ON THE MESA – Jeremy and Randy Stulberg examine a loose-knit community of radicals who live in the desert, struggling to survive with little food, less water and no electricity, as they cling to their unique vision of the American dream.

RANDOM LUNACY: VIDEOS FROM THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED – Victor Zimet’s documentary about the travels of a nomadic Dixie jazz-playing family. Led by the charismatic Poppa Neutrino, the family builds several rafts to sail the Mississippi, joins the circus, and plays in a band in Russia.

REVOLUTION SUMMER – Miles Montalbano’s debut feature tells the story of three young people adrift in the city, their search for meaning, and the paths they choose over the events of one summer.

THE SKY SONG – Chicago’s notorious avant-gardist James Fotopoulos says this long form video has “something to do with revenge (particularly in action films), American Indian tribes, goblin sharks and fragments of memories of the day the Chicago Cubs lost the playoffs in 1984.”

URBAN EXPLORERS: IINTO THE DARKNESS – Filmmaker Melody Gilbert (Whole, A Life Without Pain) plunges into the world of urban exploration, a growing international subculture of adventure-seekers who explore places where most people would never dream of going.

VIVA– Anna Biller’s ode to vintage sexploitation and swinging playboy-era sexuality. A suburban housewife in 1972 goes out to find herself in the middle of the sexual revolution.

In addition to these features CUFF will, as always, present a wide array of short films and videos from around the world including new work from Miranda July, Marie Losier and Guy Madden, Kent Lambert, Robert Todd, Deborah Stratman, Deco Dawson and many more.

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: TERRABYTE 2.0 – ECOSCAB PAVILLION

“Have you ever built anything with fresh bamboo? Why not join this all volunteer effort to produce a 3600 sq. ft sculptural structure that celebrates the natural properties of bamboo and its remarkable ecological role.

“We are currently seeking volunteers to help in building the ECOSCAB PAVILLION on the weekend of August 11 & 12 and August 18 & 19 at The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. We are also looking for volunteers in all capacities to help out at the day of the event – August 26th. Whether you have a few hours or a few days to contribute, we’d love the help and promise a fabulous experience!

“Please contact: ecoscab@gmail.com or Aimee Lopez 323 899 0395 Dewey Ambrosino 323 839 4346

“TERRABYTE 2.0 is an event that celebrates our creative natures by bringing together sound, art, and emerging ecologies/technologies to produce one extraordinary evening under the sky at

The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Gardens
on August 26, 2007, 5pm – 10pm.
http://www.terrabyte.la

“About ECOSCAB: Research suggests that bamboo functions as an ecological healing scab for traumatized areas of the earth. Cleared teak forests in Thailand and defoliated bomb-sites in Vietnam, as well as, the sites of hurricanes and earthquakes have become quickly revitalized by the fast acting canopy of new ecology and regenerative life provided by bamboo. In addition, bamboo has mythic medicinal properties that make it a formidable healer in Chinese medicine. ECOSCAB aims to create balanced symbiotic design, and highlight the generative vitality of our living ecology with the amazing qualities of bamboo.

THE ECOSCAB PAVILLION is a 35’H x 64’W x 64’D, experimental construction made of on-site arboretum bamboo. It is a project that uses the metaphor of bamboo’s canopy, and the generative ecology that happens within, to realize a pavilion of creative cultural ecology for TERRABYTE 2.0.”

Tony Wilson; NME 31 May 1986 (photo: A.J. Barratt).

Tony Wilson, co-founder of Factory Records and the Haçienda nightclub, TV presenter (who gave the Sex Pistols their first television appearance) and Manchester hero, died on Friday after a long battle with cancer. RIP.

Paul Morley in The Guardian:

Tony Wilson was furious when I left his beautiful north back in the late 1970 for a new life down south.

He felt this was a terrible betrayal of my responsibility to Manchester, a city he had definite plans for. He wanted to connect where the city was going with where it had been, with its radical, pioneering industrial past.

He wanted to work out how the 19th century visit to the city by Friedrich Engels led to the 1976 visits of the Sex Pistols. And his absurd, splendid solution, Factory Records, including the Hacienda nightclub, became an emblem of the city’s belief in progress.

Factory became the great Manchester label; it had Joy Division and Happy Mondays – but mostly it celebrated provocative northern imagination.

He was convinced I was the writer to chronicle the changes he knew would happen; he wanted me where he could see me. I left; it took years for him to forgive me. Eventually I accepted that his surreal mission to remake Manchester was not madness, and I have taken on the role he saw for me. I think he always knew I would.

We used to make fun of Wilson and the mantle of grandeur he often assumed, but we knew that in his idiosyncratic and subversive way he was a great and important figure. Good things happened because he was around. This flamboyant, infuriating, pushy hybrid of light entertainer and anarchic Situationist was so in love with life, with music, with ideas, that he infected you with his passion.

No matter how far from Manchester, you couldn’t escape his plans for a better, brighter and definitely stranger north.

Bush War Adviser Says Draft Worth a Look
Aug 10 06:25 PM US/Eastern
By RICHARD LARDNER

WASHINGTON (AP) – Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush’s new war adviser said Friday.

“I think it makes sense to certainly consider it,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

“And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another,” Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.

President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a “major policy shift” and Bush has made it clear that he doesn’t think it’s necessary.

The repeated deployments affect not only the troops but their families, who can influence whether a service member decides to stay in the military, Lute said.

“There’s both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families,” he said. “And ultimately, the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions.”

The military conducted a draft during the Civil War and both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System, re- established in 1980, maintains a registry of 18-year-old men.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has called for reinstating the draft as a way to end the Iraq war.

Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington. Lute, an active-duty general, was chosen after several retired generals turned down the job.

“Hex-education.com presents a fund raiser for Arthur Magazine:

“No Library Left Behind!”
featuring
Used to be Women
Tomorrows Friend
Jerimiah Rifles
Fletcher C. Johnson
It Lives
Minetta
DJ Jay Diamond and friends

Friday, August 10
8pm til ???
6 dollars at Bar Matchless (Greenpoint)
http://www.barmatchless.com/
557 Manhattan Avenue @ Driggs, Brooklyn, NY 11211

“This is the first in a series of events set up by Hex-education.com to raise funds to buy subscriptions to our favorite publications, then donate them to public libraries all across the country.This month we are working to raise subscriptions to Arthur Magazine, a publication that is very near and dear to the hearts of all of the people involved in this benefit, and will have its return issue out this August.”

(flyer by Trinie Dalton)

Arthur Magazine presents
The Echo Park Sociali(ist) & Pleasure Club
Little Joy
1477 Sunset Blvd.
90026
213-250-3417
Sunset at Portia St.
ECHO PARK
EVERY THURSDAY – FREE
9:27pm – close

carte blanche deejaying tonight (Aug. 9):

9:30pm: Matt Greene & Trinie Dalton
11pm: Elisa Randazzo
1230am: TBA

from Boston Review

Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?

Race and the transformation of criminal justice

Glenn C. Loury

The early 1990s were the age of drive-by shootings, drug deals gone bad, crack cocaine, and gangsta rap. Between 1960 and 1990, the annual number of murders in New Haven rose from six to 31, the number of rapes from four to 168, the number of robberies from 16 to 1,784—all this while the city’s population declined by 14 percent. Crime was concentrated in central cities: in 1990, two fifths of Pennsylvania’s violent crimes were committed in Philadelphia, home to one seventh of the state’s population. The subject of crime dominated American domestic-policy debates.

Most observers at the time expected things to get worse. Consulting demographic tables and extrapolating trends, scholars and pundits warned the public to prepare for an onslaught, and for a new kind of criminal—the anomic, vicious, irreligious, amoral juvenile “super-predator.” In 1996, one academic commentator predicted a “bloodbath” of juvenile homicides in 2005.

And so we prepared. Stoked by fear and political opportunism, but also by the need to address a very real social problem, we threw lots of people in jail, and when the old prisons were filled we built new ones.

But the onslaught never came. Crime rates peaked in 1992 and have dropped sharply since. Even as crime rates fell, however, imprisonment rates remained high and continued their upward march. The result, the current American prison system, is a leviathan unmatched in human history.

According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States—with five percent of the world’s population—houses 25 percent of the world’s inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century.

Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. But the other two thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.

How did it come to this? Continue reading →