DASH SNOW: NYC ARISTIST, 27 AND DEAD

Dash Snow, NYC rock-star photographer & artist, dead of a heroine overdose at 27. He was also a graffiti writer (aka SACER) who ran with the infamous NYC IRAK CREW.

"His death has shocked anyone who had any contact with him or knew his work. The drugs were all there in the artwork (and the rumours), but so was a sense of real beauty and honesty. It wasn't necessarily the aesthetic of his work, but its independence that made it so influential. He simply didn't give a shit." * guardian.co.uk

WATER TOWERS: FROM THE CHICAGOLAND AREA

So, if you've ever read my blogs or viewed my Twitter, then you'd know that I have a bit of a have a thing for water towers...honestly don't have a clue why I'm so damned infatuated with them, but clearly, I am.

These days, water towers are like visual 'white-noise' to most of us. Many of us are surrounded by them just about every living, breathing moment of our lives. How many of you out there in blog-land can see one from the computer where you're reading this blog this very second? We see them, but we don't see them. You probably can't tell me if there's one on the building you are in right now, can you? They compete for rooftop spaces nationwide. They get crowded out by high tension power lines. Trees don't get pruned and push up against them. Stripmalls, discount cigarette stores & car washes are packed tightly around them. You might even have one right outside your apartment, work or school window. Sadly, I do not. Maybe when it comes time to pack up and move, my new digs will have a water tower, I'll definitely make sure one's on my checklist when that time comes.
They obviously serve a very useful purpose, don't they? They must, mustn't they? Why else would these rooftop structures be strewn all across the landscape, from coast to coast? The bigger question should be, why can't we decide on one common design style? They come in far too many shapes and sizes. Some are way too structurally & aesthetically complicated for their own good.
Do you have a favorite shape or construct? I mostly do, I dig on the classic oak timbered breed, but I'll drop what I'm doing to get a good gander at any of the older varieties made of steel...funnels on stilts or something that looks like an extra from that movie starring Tom 'Mission Impossible' Cruise 'War of the Worlds'...those damned ill mannered Martian 'Walkers'!
Drive through an older suburb near you. Did they see a building boom in the late 70's or early 80's (before the bubble popped), with their fauxe marble and stucco finishes, dark greens, brown and beige painted boxes trimmed in Roman and Spanish arches. I will put money down that you will be staring at an example that looks about as outdated as a Donald Trump building, with it's useless marble and brass bells and whistles.
Do yourself a favor, the next time you're jetting past a water tower, slow down and just look up at it...for a second or two. Don't over think it, just take a mental picture (or better yet, pull out your cell phone a snap one) and be on with your day. Is it a dilapidated oak structure? A bulbous steel phallus decked out in cell phone antennae? A monstrous 10-legged bell shaped beast?

All photos were taken with my cell phone, almost always from the drivers seat of a moving vehicle.

The soundtrack to this slideshow is by: Dengue Fever titled 'Seeing Hands/ Sleepwalking Version'. Grab it off of iTunes.

All photos were taken with my cell phone, almost always from the drivers seat of a moving vehicle.

The soundtrack to this slideshow is by: Dengue Fever titled 'Seeing Hands/ Sleepwalking Version'. Grab it off of iTunes.

CODY HUDSON aka STRUGGLE INC, CHICAGO

Cody Hudson better known to many as Struggle, Inc. has a new gig that opens on May 11th.

For Let’s Do Some Living After We Die, emergent artist Cody Hudson will create a new collage and sculpture installation. Hudson’s art work will explore feelings of euphoria and doom, community and solitude through the combination of found materials and media images, paintings, and drawing. The installation will change and grow in three intervals, May 11th, July 19th, and August 19th, during the six month exhibition period. Installed in the Foyer Project Space of the Art Center, this volatile mixture of optical information inspires visitors to consider the relationship between hopefulness and tragedy upon entering the building.

Hudson’s art work will explore feelings of euphoria and doom, community and solitude through the combination of found materials and media images, paintings, and drawing.

Cody Hudson is a Chicago-based artist and graphic designer who produces work under the name Struggle Inc. Known for the production of clean, multi-dimensional and geometric graphics, Hudson’s design aesthetic is part urban modernism, and part organic visual deconstruction. His drawings, installations, and paintings have been exhibited throughout the US, Europe and Japan including the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), New Image Art (LA), Rocket Gallery (Tokyo), The Lazy Dog (Paris), & Bucket Rider Gallery (Chicago). In 2006 he was commissioned by the City of Chicago Public Art Program to create a permanent installation at the Sox/35th CTA station as part of the Arts in Transit Program. Hudson’s work has been featured in numerous magazines and publications including idN, Arkitip, Anthem and Juxtapoz. He is currently represented by Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago.

This installation takes place in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition Signs of the Apocalypse/Rapture curated by Front Forty Press, offering a provocative look into the current trend of blurring the line between annihilation and bliss in contemporary art, thought, and sound, held in Galleries 1, 2, and 3 at the Art Center from July 19 until September 29, 2009.

DARK DAYS: NY SUBWAY MOLE PEOPLE

Deeply moving and surprisingly entertaining, Dark Days is an award-winning documentary by Marc Singer, who abandoned his life on the outside to live in the tunnels beneath New York City for two years. It is an eye-opening experience that shatters ... Full Descriptionthe myths of homelessness by revealing a thriving underground community and capturing their resilience and strength as they struggle to survive.

DARK DAYS, a groundbreaking documentary from British director Marc Singer with a moving soundtrack from DJ Shadow, shows a way of life that is unimaginable to most people. The film focuses on a group of homeless people that live deep underground in an abandoned New York City railroad tunnel. During the daytime they scavenge for food on the streets of New York. At night, they retreat to the tunnel where they have built homes out of scrap metal, plastic, and plywood. They have electricity, furniture, and working kitchens, not to mention community, comradery, and the support of each other. Some of them have lived in the tunnel for 25 years. Shot in vivid black and white, capturing both the grit (chicken wire, concrete walls, all precisely detailed) and the honesty (the residents have hit rock bottom and admit it) of the tunnel, Singer's film consists of candid conversations with tunnel residents, who are intelligent, funny, optimistic, and above all, human. One man confesses that he once had a wife and a child, and that he lost both to his drug addiction (crack cocaine), while one teenage boy living in the tunnel explains that he was abused by his family in Florida and simply ran away, finding life in the tunnel more redeeming. In the film's emotional, understated conclusion, Singer turns to New York City's Coalition for the Homeless for help.

Theatrical release: August 25, 2000 Filmed on location in a tunnel underneath Penn Station in New York City. Singer, who was working a regular day job in the fashion industry and had no prior film making experience, became fascinated by the people living in the tunnel and decide to move underground himself. After two years, he convinced his friends--the tunnel residents--to help him make the film, which was done entirely with borrowed equipment and donated film. Because of the extreme conditions of the tunnel--pitch blackness and rat infestation, primarily--director Marc Singer had the tunnel's residents serve as the crew for the making of the film, as he decided they were most familiar with the tunnel's terrain. When Amtrak tried to evict the residents of the tunnel, it was Singer who intervened, going to the Coalition for the Homeless for help. They cut a deal with the federal government and got funding to relocate the tunnel's residents. Each of them was given an apartment and a job in a work program. DARK DAYS was named Best Documentary of 2000 by the Village Voice and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

CATCHING OUT dvd TRAIN HOPPING HOBOs:

The phrase 'Catching Out' describes the act of hopping a freight train. In the documentary film "Catching Out," several contemporary hobos dissent against mainstream American consumer culture by traveling for free on freight trains. The film features a seasoned eco-activist named Lee, a young nomad named Jessica, and a tramp couple known as Switch and Baby Girl. In three interwoven stories, "Catching Out" follows these trainhoppers as they navigate between the constraints of society and the freedom of the road.
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