Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Movie

This year Banksy did something that no other graffiti artist has probably done before. He made a critically acclaimed movie called "Exit through the Gift Shop". This movie is about the best graffiti art movie never made. That is the movie's tag line. Even though this movie was never supposed to be made, it was the most entertaining and insightful documentary movie I have ever seen. It wasn't essentially about Banksy or even graffiti art, it was about an unusual french guy, Terry. Terry lived in Los Angeles with his wife, kids, and a video camera rolling 24/7. He started recording every moment of his life after death of his mother. Poetic!

After developing an interest in graffiti, Terry met Banksy and started recording him for a documentary, but that documentry never saw the day of light. Instead, it became a movie about the man with the camera, Terry, famous for his graffiti work, Mr. Brainwash. This movie essentially shows insanity of Terry and raises the question whether we should even consider him as a graffiti artist? His work is mostly done by hired hand, many has labeled him a 'retatd', and his ideas are more less repeated to a point that it becomes meaningless. But unlike Andy Warhol's practice of repetition, as Banksy puts it, Terry's makes his ideas truly meaningless.

Banksy: A Histarical Revolution

Graffiti artist Banksy makes his work more than vandalizing walls and buildings at night. His ideas are fresh and histerical. Recently at Glastonbury, England, Banksy was disguised as a hippie in the crowd waiting for the arrival of Prince Charles. On his arrival, Banksy pulled out a sign saying 'Drugs For Sale' and asked the Prince if he wanted to smoke marijuana with him. When Prince didn't respond, Banksy threw a bag of "drugs" towards the Prince with a plea to just try it. It was one of the most hilarious things I've seen in performance art.

But Banksy's art is not just for fun. Most of the his work seems to be an attempt to trigger a much needed revolution. He tries to bring forward apparent problems in the world that most turn a blind eye to, like his life size Guantanamo Bay detainee replica displayed (for 90 minutes on 9/11 anniversary) in Disneyland. But the one that required more bravery was when he vandalized the wall at West Bank, which was built to keep Palestinians from entering the area. He traveled to the West Bank in Middle East and plastered at least a mile along area on the wall with pictures showing the beauty on the other side of the wall through hole ou window. Banksy faced a great risk on this assignment; he was asked to leave by Israeli soldiers; guns were pointed at him; and according to some witnesse, shots were fired. But Banksy made it back alive with his mission (to raise awareness of the wall) accomplished.

Banksy

Recently I came across a graffiti artist whose work mesmerized me. As most graffiti artists he keeps his identity extremely secret and only identifies himself as Banksy. The reason for the secret identity is because graffiti work is more or less considered vandalizing, which is a crime. Banksy started working on the streets of London and quickly gained fame for his unique style. He took his work from streets to Museums, but his work wasn't exactly curated by the Museum. He took the liberty to smuggle in his version of famous paintings and hang them on the Museum walls. Some of his paintings that he hanged went notice for about a week, but once noticed people started paying attention to this fearless graffiti artist.

After gaining fame he took his work abroad targeting famous cities and iconic places. One of my favorite Banksy work was done at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. On Sept 11, 2006, he made a life size replica of a detainee of controversial Guantanamo Bay Prison, and hanged it in middle of one of the rides. The artwork remained there for 90 minutes before the ride was shut down and the artwork was removed.

Oriental-ism

It was an interesting lecture today on orient and the misconceptions embedded in the western society about that part of the world. Being born and raised in the part of the world (Pakistan) I was aware of the problem but I always wondered if the general public or scholars from the west are aware of it or not, and if they are why don't they widely acknowledge it or do something about it? After today's lecture I came to understood more clearly the reasons behind these misconceptions.

But now I wonder if only white people do this or is it something that we all share as humans? In Pakistan, people have misconceptions about the west that they believe are true. After coming to the west and experiencing the culture first hand I found out that a lot of those conceptions weren't true. Or what if the orient were to trade places with the west, would they have done anything differently?

Inspired by Fallen Art

Recently I came across a short animated movie called Fallen Art by Tomek Baginski. The movie was produced in Poland on limited budget. It is visually stunning with a dynamic story.
The metaphor for war and military is used as never before. Acompletely fresh and disturbing idea is handled with dark humor. Baginski humiliates all the military forces by unveiling something they all have in common: insanity.
This short is a definite accomplishment for him but it is not his only accomplishment. He won an Oscar for his previous short in 2002 called The Cathedral.

What fascinates me more that the short itself is the people behind the short. It was produced in Poland where there is very little commercial market for animated movies that dramatically limits the resources available to artists and animators. There are no big animation studios, high-end animation schools, or wide audience for animation. Most of the artists who worked on this movie mostly learned their skills on their own as did Baginski himself. He wanted to be a filmmaker but didn't own a camera so he taught himself animation just for the sake of making a movie. They had a lot of creativity and a drive to tell a good story and no proper outlet, but that didn't stopped them. That is what inspires me!

Animation/Illustration Major Annual Meeting

It is always an experience to attend this meetings. Our program faculty members holds an annual meeting mandatory to be attended by everyone who is either in the program or wants to eventually get in the program. During the meeting, they do a head count, make announcements, screens latest reels, outstanding short animations done by faculty and students, and introduces the student club (shrunkenheadman) leaders and faculty members. This year it was a little different. Our department was recently merged with Film and Television departments for some budget and funds allocation advantages. So we were introduced to a few new faces whom we gave our warm shrunkenheadman welcome.

It would be interesting to see how this merger effects us. Is it good or bad? I don't know, only time will tell. May be it won't make any difference at all and things would stay the same, who knows. But one thing, which is always fun to see, was still present in the meeting despite the new development, new faces among students. They are mostly confused, worried and have minimum knowledge of what is going on. Some of them are overwhelmed by our unique group of people, some just fit right in. I remember when I was one of them and first came to this program, I was definitely lost but soon enough I found my place.

Marilyn Manson without make up

I was reading an article on a website about the rocker Marilyn Manson that covered the story of how he gave up his trademark gothic make-up. I've been following his career for some time now and I never thought he would give up his make up. Even if I considered that scenario best reasons I would guess for such an act would be: he's doing a serious movie role, he is retired and settled down as a family man, or he found God, which would be highly unlikely since it would contradict his body of work but it would be hilarious if that actually happened. His apparent reason for losing his make-up? He wanted to dress up like a character from a TV show that he is obsessed with. Really? He gave up something that separated him from the rest of us just to act like one of us.

May be it is not that big of a deal, but this does show that no matter how popular, rich, and rebellious one appears to be and no matter the distance one goes to separate themselves from the 'normal' we all as human beings share similar values. We all fantasize about being someone we saw on TV even if one occasionally appears on TV themselves. Interesting.

College Resources We Take for Granted

I went to the library recently searching for a book. During this search I came across several books and other media that I was interested in but I never knew they were available in our library. I spent two hours discovering all the interesting stuff, one book leading to another, from shelf to shelf, from one floor to another. My back started aching and I convinced myself to end this venture for now. I checked two extra books than I had originally planned before coming to the library. Not to mention I almost forgot the book I came for in all the excitement. I rarely go to the library and anytime I actually go is to either do homework or for group projects but I almost never check the shelves or the library catalog. Even if I have book in mind that I want to read, checking our library never occurred to me.

This made me realize how many resources we take for granted in our school. We pay for all this but never even bother to look into the stuff that is available to us, things that would make our lives a bit easier. Not just in the school there is a lot of other stuff we pay for but never realizing what exactly we are paying for. That is pure human ignorance and laziness that hurts us in so many ways. Well, now I at least know one more useful tool available for me: the library!

It seems obvious but I never really realized its full potential until now and I'll try to make the best of it. Unless I forget.