Bloodgroup - Hips Again

Hidden New York: 5 Pointz

5 Pointz is a year-long graffiti exhibit spread across the facades of a 200,000 square ft (18,600 square meters) factory building used for art studios. Graffiti artists need to obtain a permit to leave a mark on these walls, with more prominent artists / sophisticated art getting the most visible spots. The lifespan of a single graffiti piece at 5 Pointz ranges from 1 day to 2 years, depending on its quality, popularity (pedestrian traffic around it) and the artist's name. This ensures that, no matter how many times you visit, there will always be something new to see.

I highly recommend this free exhibit, especially if the weather is nice. Not only will you see many unique works, but the combination of so many of them on a single object makes the facades of the abandoned factory resemble an enormous technicolor mosaic. Circle the building and find the stairs to climb on top, chill and take a deep breath of Manhattan and Long Island City (or at least take some awesome photos).


Address & Directions: 5 Pointz, Jackson Avenue at Crane Street and Davis Street, Long Island City, NY 11101; take the E or V subway to 23 St/Ely Ave, 7 to 45 Rd/Court House Sq., or G to Court House Square.

Another Yugoslavian Breakup & Lousy Makeup

After several false announcements, the Sarajevo - Belgrade railway is back in business. Some foreign media have romanticized this but I must say I find it rather confusing.

The luxurious Olympic Express, coined so after being garnished with a red carpet, upscale dining and stewardesses in smart uniforms for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, is now an outdated train segmented into 3 mismatched cars, each under the jurisdiction of a different railway company. Moreover, the Bosnian-Serb car disconnects where the Serbian part of Bosnia ends, never even reaching Sarajevo.

This faded train resembles the chaos that captured Yugoslavia during the war. What used to be a cross country train now has to cross two borders and two (often very unpleasant) passport controls. It runs once a day, rather than 3 times as was the case prior to the war. Its passengers - once cheerful party-goers, skiers and businessmen - have transformed into none but a few worn out faces.

Smoking is kind of allowed in the cafe car... While travelers may light up when passing Serbia and Bosnia, they are forbidden to do so when the train is crossing the more European, Croatian non-smoking tracks.

18 years after its last run through Yugoslavia, the Olympic Express is slower. Due to the severe warfare damages that the railway, bridges and facilities underwent, it now takes over 2 additional hours to get from Belgrade to Sarajevo. So finally, the results of our war have in some way been quantified: we are two hours further apart, whatever that means.

Its windows smeared and seats shabby, the train looks nothing like its old self, when it was called the Olympic Express and trumpeted as the pride of the Communist-run nation.

www.guardian.co.uk , 13 December 2009

Documentaries : A Wonderful Weird World.

With the sprawl of monotonous topics in mainstream movies, it has been increasingly difficult to find a film that both shakes and teaches you something. Apart from independent fiction films, I have always fancied documentaries as a pitchout from the microcosm of my simple life and petty worries. If you never considered yourself a documentary geek, here is a couple of films that should convert you:

• The Cove (Louie Psihoyos)
  
• Devil's Playground (Lucy Walker)
  
• Below Sea Level (Gianfranco Rosi)

Last night, at the European Feature Documentary Film Festival "The Magnificent 7" in Belgrade, I saw Below Sea Level, a story about the homeless in California, settled in a camp in the desert, 190 miles southeast of Los Angeles and 120 feet below sea level. With no particular narrative, this film follows the daily lives of several different people ranging from a (former marine) transvestite to a woman who lost her son because he took a bullet for her. It is shocking in many ways, without ever communicating the director's thoughts. I kept expecting the political or sociological message that usually follows plots of this sort but it never came. All of the audio, both dialogue and music, came directly from the characters. No narrative text to answer the many questions rushing through my mind. It was on me to decide. It was on me to react.

The result? Bothered by so many dilemmas, I have been completely distracted by these peculiar Californians. I have been telling their story and recommending the movie to my family, friends, coworkers... Thumbs up to the self-generating marketing move, Gianfranco Rosi!

Prostitution: Prohibition, Abolition, or mere Regulation?

Whore. Hooker. Slut. Wait a minute. Do not take the image of sex workers as you may know it for granted.
Unlike the prohibitionist legislation in most western countries, Sweden and the Netherlands have somewhat alternative views on sex work, and neither of the countries criminalize the worker.

Since 1999, Sweden has been attempting the abolitionist approach to prostitution by criminalizing the purchase of sex services. Thus, it is the client, rather than the prostitute who is considered guilty. By subtracting a large number of purchasers, Swedes are hoping to disrupt the sex market to the extent to which it can no longer sustain itself. The general view is that prostitution represents the peak of men's oppression against women and that no prostitution is voluntary. Thus an important purpose of this law was to influence people's attitudes through numerous feminist campaigns, emphasizing that gender equality is impossible if men are still able to sell, consume and exploit women's bodies.

The Dutch, on the other hand, are strong believers in voluntary prostitution. Their view is that prostitution has existed for so long across the world, that the only pragmatic approach is to accept the situation and regulate it so that it excludes involuntary actions. The Netherlands lifted the ban on brothels in 2000. The 6 main objectives of this legislation are:

1. control and regulation of prostitution;
2. better combat against the exploitation of involuntary prostitution;
3. protection of minors;
4. protection of the prostitutes' position;
5. separation of prostitution from criminal activities;
6. reduction of the portion of illegal immigrants in prostitution;

This voluntary vs. involuntary approach makes the Swedish one seem so conservative! A report written by the Norweigan working group for the legal regulation of the purchase of sex services shows that the legislation in Sweden has caused prostitution to go underground, the prices of sex services to drop and the fear of violence to grow among prostitutes while the Netherlands' hunt on street prostitution after the legalization of brothels sent a lot of illegal immigrant workers back to places they may have been trying to escape. Has anyone asked the sex workers before taking a stab at solving their problems?

Air - La Femme D'Argent

Market Middlemen

While the post-communist transition process picks up in Serbia, even the make up of our open air markets has been transforming. As real peasants can no longer afford to travel to the cities to sell their produce, the middlemen/women of the markets have prospered. The buyers do not trust these new "businessmen", partly because the prices have considerably risen and partly because they are unsure about where the food they buy comes from. Thus, the market middlemen wear clothing as similar as possible to the stereotype image of the Serbian peasant, in hope that someone will mistake them for one and become a regular customer.