connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by lanadandan)

That’s all, folks.

I’ve been steadily moving towards shutting down c*t*d for the last six months or so and today seems to be as good a day as any to make it a reality.

At some point, I plan on relaunching seancoon.org, but it’ll take on a much more creative slant, focusing on the output of my personal craft.

What that means exactly, I’ve no idea. And that is, well, that is truly exciting.

If you’d like to stay in touch on these internets, you’ll be able to find me at a few different spots:

• dotmatrix project
• flickr
• facebook
• twitter

A big thanks to everyone who participated here over the last two years.

Adios, amigos.

(originally uploaded by spotmaticfanatic)

(originally uploaded by electricgecko)

On vacation this weekend, on the road all next week.

Found in the Mission, San Francisco, CA.

I found this striking mural a few months back while knee deep in my late night Flickr ritual of browsing imagery by contextual navigation of topical tags. As the night wore on I drifted from tags like art to street art to graffiti, eventually resting on Malcolm X.

After staring at the shot for a few minutes, I realized why this particular image struck me — on two distinct levels:

• The mere existence of such a powerful representation of Malcolm X and his words embedded in the public square for all to see
• The absence of his complete representation, both physical and philosophical, due to elemental deterioration over time

In the real world — before the internet created another dimension for the documentation of expression and our collective histories — all atom based elements had a shelf life.

Street art, by it’s very nature, had even a shorter life span.

But here I was, stumbling across this deteriorating, real world representation, frozen in time (at what point in time I have no idea) by someone who made an explicit decision to digitize the real for the sake of posterity.

Without the internet, this work — this message — might have already drifted away from our consciousness.

Speaking of the message, only a few lines of Malcolm X’s quote remained legible in it’s original format. It seemed familiar to me, so I took a few moments to run a Google search of the words I could decipher.

Thanks to the collective participation of people publishing to the internet, within a matter of moments, I was able to piece together the original context of the quote from the mural:

“With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally the dictionary’s A section had filled a whole tablet — and I went on into the B’s. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary.”

Context is knowledge, so I circled back to the image and added the text that would have surrounded the original quote on the wall if the wall were 50 feet high.

The Internet On This Day

Eighty-two years ago today, Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little to Earl Little and Louise Helen in Omaha, Nebraska.

Depending on your company, Malcolm X is often remembered as either an inspiration — an educated, revolutionary, evolutionary force — or an extremist that preached hate.

Without the internet, the latter of these two descriptions could easily edify his legacy for future generations to come.

With the internet, we have context of evolution and truth:

The Early Years In The Nation Of Islam

Debating At Oxford University

Returning From Mecca

A New Direction, Seeing Death In The Distance

The Assassination Of Malcolm X

Paying Tribute

Living In His Footsteps

Our Collective Responsibility

Prior to the internet, the reality of our lives drifted into the annals of time and both the discrete and general narratives of history were crafted by those with the power to publish and distribute knowledge.

Today, we must recognize the importance and responsibilities of living in a digital age.

It is our responsibility that we be vigilant in documenting our knowledge for the serendipitous discovery of our fellow man, both today and years into the future — no matter our focus or industry.

Because if it’s not us taking advantage of this platform, the traditional owners of history will be more than happy to seep into play and stake their claim.

And that would be a wasted opportunity to make his-tory, our-story.

(originally uploaded by JaciVico)

Harlem, New York

(originally uploaded by Caitlinite)

The Village, NYC.

(originally uploaded by ectomorfo)

A few years old now, but as powerful as ever:

The reporter didn’t correct himself, forgetting to mention that the wall that Banksy addressed actually divides Palestine from itself *not* just Israel from Palestine.

In any event, Banksy went to town with his unique style:

(originally uploaded by FREEPAL)

(originally uploaded by FREEPAL)

(originally uploaded by the walker cleavelands)

He followed up the street art with a more traditional painting of Jesus & Mary unable to get to Bethlehem because of the Israeli wall:

(originally uploaded by FredR)

Classic.

(originally uploaded by counterclockwise)

Bloomington, Indiana

UPDATE: I just found a video clip of this work w/the artist’s description on WC:

From the Artist:

“This piece is part of a line of work I have been developing over the last year or so, which is called “Urban Impressionism”, in which represent 3D objects in 2-Dimensions through shadows. These shadows are created at a particular point of day, or night, and later stenciled and spray-painted in order to resemble real shadows. Through this process I am able to discuss light and form, in an unconventional way, placing it directly on the streets of the contemporary urban “cityscape” that surrounds us.

Ideally I hope to create a moment of magic or illusion in which the spectator or passer-by questions the space around him/her, through the shadows that are either naturally cast or artificially created. This particular piece incorporates text to politicize a very important issue for many of us today — the end of the war in many regions of our globalized world.

PS. I noticed that on the site, the piece had been mistakenly tagged as a “chalk” piece… The piece itself is was stenciled on the floor using a shadow cast by a light post at night, and later carefully sprayed with a ‘camouflage black’ can.”

(originally uploaded by pietel)

Gent, Belgium

(originally uploaded by Luna Park)

Over the past 30 years, the Greensboro Police Department has developed a long history of mistrust within the local community:

• In 1979, the predominately black and poor Morningside community was left unprotected during a permit enabled, anti-KKK rally that came to be known as the Greensboro Massacre.

  Oh yeah, the GPD also had an informant riding shotgun with the Klan during the fatal firefight who reported just the day before that there would be bloodshed.

• In 2006, whispers of racism and charges of mismanagement and suspect behavior led to the dismissal/quitting of then police chief, David Wray.

  Ever since then lines have been drawn within the community here, with some folk pointing at reverse racism within the local media and city government hiring a shill third-party as the reason for Wray’s dismissal

Tim Bellamy does not have an easy road ahead of him.

JR and Marco on the Face2Face project:

When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t find a way to get along together.

We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world with amazement.

This holy place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea, deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair embedded together.

After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families.

A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him.

It’s obvious, but they don’t see that.

We must put them face to face. They will realize.

We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.

The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.

In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.

All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic.

We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, “Face to face” is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for “Hand in hand”.

(originally uploaded by xylonets)

Background on the entire series.

(originally uploaded by Akcelik)

sponsored by…

(originally uploaded by annette 62)

In Newcastle, UK.

UPDATE: Sorry for the crappy image, but annette 62 seems to have left flickr, so the clean copy went with it. In its place is a scaled up version of a cashed thumbnail.

The text on the billboard reads:

EVER THOUGHT OF JOINING?
TALK TO SOMEONE WHO HAS
(added graf) LOST A SON IN IRAQ

Ana in Honolulu forwarded me this after coming across it in a Google search. Anyone happen to know where the shot was taken?

UPDATE: It appears that Mantis dropped this stencil across the UK.

(Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times)

Iraq’s Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S.

[…] “Escalating tensions between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East are rippling through some American Muslim communities, and have been blamed for events including vandalism and student confrontations. Political splits between those for and against the American invasion of Iraq fuel some of the animosity, but it is also a fight among Muslims about who represents Islam.” […]

Kate W., a reader from from St. Louis, MO, sent me this great find the other day. She took the picture last summer while on a trip to London.

Thanks, Kate!

The above photo is of a 3′ x 3′ charcoal or rubber marking, found about 30 feet from the steps of the Capitol in Washington D.C. It was one of about five in the area, with the rest of the bunch all smaller and no more menacing than this particular marking.

I took the picture around 2pm, as my brother and I participated in and covered the anti-war protest.

Now, a number of conservative blogs — with large threads of clueless readers — are referring to this benign event as protesters vandalize Capitol building! In the posts, there are references of “spray paint” as the protester’s media of choice “to spray their dissent all over the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.”

Take a look at the picture above — it looks like someone busted out a rubber heel of a bar stool and rubbed the mark to fruition.

In any event, for the two hours we spent on the steps of the Capitol, as far as I can report, nothing worthwhile regarding violence or destruction occurred. At least nothing to dent the taxpayer’s wallet.

I can report, however, that there were some awkward, interesting, funny and stunning expressions of free speech just a few feet away from the steps of the Capitol:

The Soldier’s Wife

Man, this scene was rough.

This poor girl — she looked no older than 19 — just stood in place for an hour while completely releasing her frustrations regarding her husband’s deployment to Iraq.

It was great to see the wife of a soldier at the steps of the Capitol, releasing her pent up anger and frustrations, but man… I actually felt for the fuzz. When she finally left, after an hour of non-stop venting, the cops sort of looked at one another, took a deep breath, and stood at attention once again.

It’s too bad she can’t get 5 minutes on the floor of Congress — speaking directly to the people who can actually put an end to this madness — instead of spending an hour shouting into the wind directly outside.

To The Capitol! (Where’s The Capitol, Dude)

While the soldier’s wife vented, a huge group of punk rock kids walked over the grassy knoll to the right of the steps, chanting different things at different times — though I have to say the funniest was, “To the Capitol! To the Capitol! (followed by the guy in the lead with “Dude, where’s the Capitol?)”

We were standing right in front of it.

Various members of the group attempted to look menacing, but it was obvious that they were a bunch of students — a remnant of the 60’s radical organization, the SDS — who seemed to be looking for something to do on the fly.

They might have been the party guilty of tagging the pavement earlier in the afternoon (again, I don’t know for sure, but it seemed to fit their vibe), but by no means were they violent or radical.

The above picture isn’t showing a guy with a bullhorn working a crowd into a fist-raising frenzy; the leader of the pack simply asked the kids to raise fists if they wanted to join the “normal protesters in the march” or, and I quote, “just go do other stuff.”

They decided to join the marchers.

Dance, Dance, Revolution

This girl had me cracking up.

As the SDS broke off to meet up with the “normal” protesters, she moved directly in front of the officers guarding the steps and before you could say, “Michael Jackson,” she had already started to bust a move.

That was funny by itself — the bandanna covered revolutionist dancing her ass off — but as she continued to gyrate, she started a one-way conversation with the officers in front of her:

Come on, dance! Dance! It’s good for you! Dance! I see you smiling, come on, why can’t you dance?!…

That went on for at least 20 minutes. Somewhere in the midst of her bopping and prodding, someone screamed, “Dance! Dance! Revolution!” and as if on cue, she emulated the dance moves on the floor interface of the arcade game with the same name.

Too damn funny.

Tri-be: Performance Art

Identical triplets from tri-be performed all around Washington D.C. Each square inch of red cloth represented a specific number of casualties in the War on Terror.

• The businesswoman represents the victims of 9/11
• The soldier represents the fallen US service men and women
• The Muslim woman represents the fallen Iraqis and Afghani’s

From the silent execution of the performance to the details of the wardrobe to the absolutely compelling subtext of identical triplets as the participants, I was moved to my core.

Check out tri-be for yourself.

So Did The Protest Make The Slightest Dent In Policy?

I’m not sure if anti-war protests these days have the same teeth that they did back in the 60’s and 70’s. Quite honestly, law enforcement on the scene seemed pretty laid back, almost as if they were babysitting for the afternoon.

I’m not advocating chaos or violence as a vehicle for change, either.

On this day, the crowd was already diversified via organizational groups and each seemed to be focused more than a few degrees away from the next — one would be for the impeachment of Bush, the next for the liberation of Palestine, etc. Without a focused and consistent message — and a organized, regimented march — the message itself became diluted. So instead of delivering a powerful message through the action of tens of thousands of coordinated Americans, protesters, as a whole, opened themselves up to be reduced to “anarchists” and pegged as “anti-American.”

But there is a flip-side to such a perspective.

The internet in 2007 allows like-minded people to not only connect with one another, but to extend discourse beyond letters, meetings and protests — as anti-war activists were limited to 40 years ago.

These permanent hooks of discourse now live in the ether of the web, ripe for furthering conversations and introducing new realities to millions of Americans and global citizens each day.

Four years into the Iraq war, the representative arm of our government has heard the voice of the American public loud and clear and is beginning to at least challenge the administration’s policy. How long, and how many protests, did it take for a similar foothold to take place in the anti-Vietnam war era?

Much more than four years and a protest counter-culture needed to become established.

For numerous reasons, modern day American anti-war protests are an immature brand of past struggles — no centralized and respected leadership; no coordinated approach to physical movement; no single, simple message to sell to the other side — but the unpaved, decentralized streets of the internet just might be the flip to the script that makes the difference in the long-run.

For all our sakes, let’s hope that’s the case.

From Wooster Collective:

Yesterday, Nico woke up in his flat in Split Croatia. On his closet door was a map created by his girlfriend, Andrea. The map showed different places for Nico to look as his took his usual route from his apartment to the academy where he studies.

What Nico found was an elaborate love poem done on the streets of Split by Andrea. She had put up stencils, paint, aerosol, collage wheat pastes etc. with last piece reading…. “i love you”.

Simply beautiful.

Margaret, a reader from Minnesota, sent me this beaut the other day from Northern Minneapolis.

Thanks, Margaret, and keep ‘em coming!

(originally uploaded by - ♡ 14.2.1 ♡ -)

(stencil created, shot and uploaded by asboluv)

Update: The original artist makes contact in the comments:

when I did this stencil I had some text to accompany it which simply read:

BUSH BABY

during the act of spraying it onto the wall in my local town (Ipswich UK, where it still remains today) I broke the stencil with the text so only the image went up which in retrospect is more powerfull on its own than with the text which would have had a more direct and obvious message

[…]

I’m more proud of the fact that after 35 years of living on this planet and now working 9 to 5 and living the life of a parent, husband, car owner and home owner I still have the passion, anger and inspiration to want to challenge and comment what is going on in the world by sitting down for a few hours designing this stencil and getting up at 4am to spray it up on the street!

[…]

(originally uploaded by Nomine UK)

(originally uploaded by twotone streetart)

“If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road.”
- George W. Bush, October 3, 2000

(originally uploaded by ’stpiduko’)

(originally uploaded by BombDog)

(originally uploaded by JerryDoughnut)

(originally uploaded by James UK)

(photo by ethanz)

Be sure to read the story behind the image.

(originally uploaded by .beauty.obscured.)

(photo by jewschool)