[Senph42]

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Seeker NSC

I made this sketch today just for fun, sometimes it's good to practice other letter combos than your own... This one is for my old friend and crewmate Seeker

(click to enlarge)

Seek had one of the sickest handstyles I've ever seen, I remember some great actions we had together across Subotica and Kikinda....

Fuck Kony2012

So, this Kony hype reached me the other day, someone posted the movie on my facebook page with the following text:

"Please, USE YOUR ART to make the face of one of the biggest criminals well known: KONY.
It's too important our contribute. And you, writers, can give a help here.
So, thank you very much."

I admit, for a moment I felt like this is a great thing, the whole internet community is standing united behind a great cause, but after watching the movie, I realized that it's full of fails and there's no way I'm going to stand behind this, and let me explain why:

The video is supposed to tell about the crimes about Joseph Kony, a criminal warlord from Uganda. Yes, it does, almost this briefly as I did in the previous sentence. Instead, it's more like an half hour commercial for the filmmaker and his organization. I don't know whether the infos are true or not, but it seems like this organization is spending the major part of donations on propaganda, filmmaking and lobbying for military interventions than actual help. And I don't want to help these pricks by USING MY ART 'cause this way I feel I'm betraying the actual Ugandan victims of Kony's crimes.

And if we're at the art theme, there's more: almost every day I'm faced with negative criticism from online and printed media regarding graffiti and street art. We were been labeled as hooligans, vandals, criminals etc. who are destroying the beautiful cities and landscapes. But when it comes down to advertising products or ideas in this case, suddenly street art is becoming a glorious media that represents the pure innocence, the voice of the free. It's obvious that the filmmakers were fascinated by the success of Shepard Fairey and the Obey campaign, but there's a big difference between art and fake activism for profit. I hope I'm wrong, but if hundreds of "civilians" start putting up stickers and posters on the streets, they gonna destroy a lot of actual art, fill the streets with this Kony crap which will result an organized cleaning which will result even less artworks on streets than previously.

Finally, I would like to highlight that I'm really sorry for the victims in Uganda and wish I could help. But I can't be the only one who thinks this whole hype is nothing but exploiting the same victims to raise profit for making films and stickers? Or advocating more violence by sending foreign soldiers to Africa. This Kony guy deserves a rope around his neck, not fame. Especially not by raping the "hooligan culture" of street art and in the meantime making the filmmakers rich...

I understand that many of you won't agree with my point of view. I just wrote it down to explain why I think different and with my own brain.