INSA - Self Reflection is Greater Than Self Projection

London Newcastle Project Space
Redchurch St, London

29 March 2012 ONLY


All photos: NolionsInEngland except the proper photograph stolen from Ian Cox


It’s not porn, it’s critiquing porn. That’s the fine line INSA’a one night only installation of chrome, arse and tit straddles.


photo Ian Cox


The installation comprises an all-enveloping wallpapered collage of images of INSA chicks photographed reflected in mirror balls. To the voyeur, it’s the hyper contrasting optical distortions that delight the eye most,




The photographic collage builds from studies (interesting how when it’s INSA, we use "studies" rather than “readers wives shots”) of two pouting females. The artistic concept is raised another power of two as this surround-fetish installation is evidently a collage of photographs themselves taken in an all embracing installation room.




The blurb says something about a Francesca Selby from Papergraphics who donated the digital printable wallcovering, Digimura (www.theartofwallcovering.com). One of the other Graffoto contributors is actually some kind of un-sung global hero in the world of printing bloody big stuff but I can’t be arsed to ask him what this printing technique is; to this author it looks like a distorted colour dottery (whut?) which itself becomes a bit abstract if you try to get to close.




The first 50 fetishists through the door were given a numbered limited edition print derived from the imagery in the show. Usually a free print is so insignificant, so little to write home about that it veers close to a debasement of the artist’s usual quality of work. A bit like getting a Michelin chef’s ready cooked diffusion meal range from the 24hr petrol station down the road. The 42 by 59 cm freebie INSA print given away tonight is undeniably a stunner. It looked so lush there was a hope that it might grace the walls of NoLions Towers but Lady NoLions wasn’t swallowing it.




There is some kind of sick irony in the fact that this all-encompassing immersion art installation is photography based and in itself is magically photogenic. These photographs may not do justice to the trick on the eye in which people appear to be poised perfectly balanced on tanned bootilicious contours.




INSA’ s signature stripes, flesh and swoosh come together all over the installation




(Our good friend from Hookedblog reckons that the original shoot for the wallpaper was done in some kind of kinkily dis-orientating strobe flash mode. This explains the intense points of light scattered around the wallpaper, not to mention the ghost tripod in the shot above.)




The Graffoto photo collection from this show includes a beautifully composed “from the hip” shot of an friend with his mouth wide open, perfectly juxtaposed in front of one of the images so that his bearded mug looks like a carelessly trimmed Brazilian. Unfortunately, such is the way with that kind of “street photography” technique, the pic was hugely over-exposed and will never be published, this will hopefully prevent a generation of young boys growing up with a bizarre idea of where a G-Spot is found. Here is a completely unrelated pic.



Arses


Someone cleverer than this author may make a case that a room full of lathered up penises might fulfil the same intended artistic concept but if INSA ever takes that as inspiration to a produce a similar gender opposed installation then you might have a bit of a wait to read about it here on Graffoto.

Secrets Of The Sticker Shed - Sticker Making Workshop

High Roller Society
10 Palmers Rd
London E2 0SY

25 March 2012

All photos: NolionsInEngland

Stickers photographed in the wild are by a variety of artists and are not all made by Stickee



Stickers operate at the margins of general acceptability, slightly less vilified than tagging by the “I love street art but tags are mindless vandalism” brigade. Stickering is a vital and vibrant culture where the graffiti's “up and prolific” mindset fondles street art’s aversion to risk.


feat Nylon, printed by Stickee


High Roller Society took time from its hectic schedule to host a workshop by sticker maker Stickee. In the presence of some of London’s leading users of robust and permanent stickers, who understandably shied towards anonymity on the fringes of the gathering, Stickee demonstrated how the gap between you and home production of top quality screen printed stickers is bridged with a bit of software and some low cost hardware, most of which you probably already own.




Stickering is a broad label so to put Stickee’s product in context, sticker “artists” get up using anything ranging from hand written courier labels with acres of lovely white space, check our 2011 novelty street stickering interview with wordy DHL label supremo Curly, lazer jet printed envelop labels, “my name is” stickers to hi end multi-colour giclee printed and shaped vinyl productions. Often a glance around the edges of a street art show might reveal a little pile of artist stickers filling the function of calling card, usually worth trousering a few of those whilst sinking a few of those free weird tasting Ukranian cyders (or whatever they are, often it becomes difficult to remember).




Stickee is a full time sticker maker and the quality of his product belies the slightly Heath Robinson ramshackle production line. Starting with the art work which is imported or scanned into illustrator, a black template is prepared including registration marks which are incredibly important for the shape cutting at the end. Working in the CMYK colour scheme the template is printed on to acetate which is then used to burn the silk screen. Eschewing the very expensive vacuum photo exposure unit, Stickee creates the screens using a duvet vacuum bag (£1!!) and piece of foam, a black tee shirt, a vacuum cleaner and 1 cigarette’s worth of free sunshine. The enemy of sharp imagery at this stage seems to be light sneaking around under the black areas of the acetate, Stickee gave loads of tips, does and dont’s and tricks to minimise the risk of producing a crap screen.


Printing the reversed image on acetate



Duvet Covers - not just for housewives



Burning the screen, vacuum holding good!



Rinsing photographic emulsion off the screen

After all that care and cautious processing to ensure a blemish free image with sharp edges, no dust specks, nothing missing, the fun and quick bit is slapping around the ink at the screen printing stage, we all got a fling at that. Curiously, while the objective of printing the acetate is to get as much black ink as possible out of the nozzle, the nature of the vinyl paper and the ink are such that you actually need to be quite sparing with the ink at the screen printing stage, who’d have thought?




Then there is the cutting, which is computer driven on a digital blade cutter, this actually cuts the sticker but not the backing paper behind, must be pretty sensitive and/or clever. This is where the registration marks on the sheet are very important so that the optical device on the print head can find out exactly where the image on the computer screen is located on the sheet of paper. Best way to be wowed by this precision cutting is to look at Stickee’s own youtube video below.


Sticker contour cutter



video by Stickee


The Finished Product - main image attributed to ARREX


The gallery walls had a lush looking selection of various stickers produced by stickee, see below, as well as several intriguing "making of" demonstrators such as this collection showing the four screens used to produce the famous TEK 33 trident stickers.


Top left to bottom right: pink layer, red layer, yellow layer, black layer


Like all these things, the technology is impressive and it is quite an eye opener to see the skill and length of time involved in producing even a single layer sticker. Anyone at the workshop could go home and have a fair stab at producing top quality stickers but as always the art is actually more important than the medium, so without a big flow of ideas probably your best bet is to let Stickee do it, Graffoto has known for a long time that his work is about the cheapest and highest quality!


Stickers by Mighty Mo, Aida, Nylon, Sweet Toof, Mr Penfold, Stickee, available from High Roller Society

Links:
Stickee Facebook
Stikee Flicker
High Roller Society
Arrex

Word On The Streets Is....

All photos: NolionsInEngland


Fate conspired to stop me pressing the shutter release on any camera for 9 whole days until yesterday lunchtime. It was nothing in particular, nothing special, just a bundle of things from the normal routine of life that cuts perpendicular across a passion for street art and graff. Yesterday lunchtime every surface seemed to throw up a splash of colour and artistic intervention begging to be memorised. Though Graffoto tends to be about the words, for a change here’s a string of pics which would normally be consigned to flickr where the image is the law.


CEMO


Last time out, Graffoto reported on the toyish dogging doings of someone with a grudge against Malarky’s colourful shutter and wall murals; the street cartoon machine didn’t let that stay up for long, completely re-doing the Redchurch St wall with a notably more gnarly and snarly tone.


Malarky, Lucas


At the other end of the size range there were a lot of ultra small interventions catching the eye and begging to be photographed. A prominent proponent of what we might refer to as the beauty in the male form, this Paul Le Chien sticker isn’t new by a long shot but yesterday the colours and composition begged to be photographed.


Paul Le Chien


Still at the macro scale, someone had a minor clearout of their toy collection or, as HowAboutNo observed, possibly something from a cereal packet. Just one of those quirky little bits you find that you can’t see any rhyme or reason for its presence but it’s just good someone thought it should go there. “Artist” unknown.


Unknown


Back up to the mahoosive, productions in this car park plot escape the usual life cycle of dogging and 1 day max going over, perhaps due to the 24 hour security presence. This new(ish?) piece by Probs echoes and appropriates the rail line that arcs over the plot, so much so that I wanted to bring that link into the picture which is my lame excuse for this somewhat contorted context shot.


Probs


DON has been out there smashing prominent “street art trail” spots which will keep the tour guides happy. You’ve got to admire the quality and detail of this partially stencilled piece, the two characters also by DON mugging their way into the shot are Darwin and Hirst.


DON UA


This collection of irregularly sized charcoal portraits look sweet. Would they have been better spread around the parish rather than clustered in this one over-pasted go-to “urban back alley”?


Unknown


What is the word on the streets? For some reason none of the massive number of doorways bearing ancient and modern tags made it onto the camera’s memory stick but RUSHT is one of the few writers who deems the Shoreditch art fag vortex worth bothering with, here’s a dirty and new Rusht piece.


RUSHT


This sticker is cool. Whoever the proud stickerist is, they wanted to create a long lasting legacy as this is about 10 feet off the ground. Artist anyone?


Unknown


One more sticker, bit of a curio, this is an image of the flyer advertising Banksy’s Graffiti, Hostility and Jubilee show in Southwark in May 2002. The event went ahead based around various Banksy images including the Monkey Queen and sentry with pants down but the fuzz were all over it. Why make a sticker of this? Why cross out the date? You think got a micro piece-ette of a Banksy factoid you want to hide from us? Pesky forum types perhaps.


Unknown


Getting more sculptural here, no idea who this is by, possibly an artist with a show that I missed but it’s nice to see someone putting up something one off, crafted and abstract.


Unknown


You just can’t beat a bit of colour and the writing IS the word, so it’s good to end with a nice piece by RULA ONE.


RULA ONE

Fuck Street Art - this year's model

Photos: NolionsInEngland except HowAboutNo where stated.


Every year throws up it’s street art hating graffiti purist, thankfully 2012’s has arrived early.


Malarky, Lucas & feat Kamba


Malarky, Lucas, Mr Penfold and co are clearly guilty of wantonly putting up sweet and bright painted walls and shutters all over Shoreditch and someone, step forward Kamba, resents that. “Street art is not for galleries” and “street art is not a business” is Kamba ‘s message, propagated by stencil, ironically.





Kamba‘s tag hasn’t exactly got the finest handstyle but he/she evidently trusts in the purest of graff colours – chrome and black.




The message is curiously accepting of street art. Unlike many of Kamba‘s more illustrious predecessor crusaders against the corruption of the graff culture, it’s not the existence of street art itself get Kamba‘s goat just that it shouldn’t be in galleries. Ok, most us accept that you don’t get street art in galleries, in galleries it becomes just art but lets not nitpick.


photo: HowAboutNo


Maybe Malarkey does own too much Shoreditch, maybe we could use a bit more variety, hopefully the tacit acceptance of Malarky’s epic walls and shutters will mean that those dogged murals will now be painted by a greater variety of street artists. Let the production/dog/ buff/production cycle commence. And may the artists raise their game cos Kamba is on their ass.

Quick ting.

Graffoto Round Up of the Year - Part 4

Photos by HowAboutNo and NoLionsInEngland And here we have it folks, part 4 of 4 in the round up of 2011. This final look at the year now covers September all the way through to the end of December. Being that it was mild for the time of year, and there were a shed load of art festivals and paint jams in town, the surrounding areas had a nice smattering too. Street art pastes and stencils seemed to be out of the window for pretty much most of this quarter, and I think that was also a big shift for the year. Good to see more talented artists grafting it at the side of a wall. Also nice to see lots of quick and dirty damage throughout town. Rowdy/Horror, photo HowAboutNo Rusht, photo HowAboutNo Shane ODV, photo HowAboutNo Roid MSK, photo HowAboutNo D*Face in progress outside the Moniker Art Fair, photo HowAboutNo And completed, photo HowAboutNo Various, photo HowAboutNo Gold Peg, photo HowAboutNo A solid year for the machine of graff that is Probs. Think this is my fave piece he has done ever. (photo HowAboutNo) I think we'll see a bit more of JimmyC in 2011 (photo HowAboutNo) Motor, photo HowAboutNo C215, photo HowAboutNo , photo HowAboutNo 2011 was the year Ronzo turned his hand away from sculpted pieces to graff.....and a welcome turn it was. This piece painted with Conor Harrington photo HowAboutNo Evol impressively buggered about with scale this set of blocks making up a mini housing estate complete with Elk, Drax and Shun tags. Read more about his visit here photo HowAboutNo Banksy did quite a few street pieces, all outside Soreitch - consequently I didn't get off my lazy arse to photograph them. No bother, this was my favourite thing he did all year anyway. General and most lovely damage . . . (photo HowAboutNo) Swoon, photo HowAboutNo This superb paste up by Gaia lasted no more than a few days and was fly posted over (photo HowAboutNo). Revok/Roid at the most single hit "legal" spot in Shoreditch (photo HowAboutNo). Don’t believe the nay-sayers saying the scene has tanked, looking back we have been overwhelmed with top quality shit on the streets of London in 2011. Stuff that should have got a mention earlier but just got missed in the admittedly random selection process includes: Phlegm was down several times during the year photo: NoLionsInEngland One of the highlights of the year was the privilege of seeing Sweet Toof and Paul Insect collaborate on this stunning rooftop piece, and in case you missed it, the timelapse is here photo: NoLionsInEngland Elbow Toe photo: NoLionsInEngland This Chu sticker made us chuckle earlier in the year photo: NoLionsInEngland So that's it for Graffoto's round up of the action in 2011. At the beginning and at lots of points throughout the year it did seem like it was stale and not moving anywhere. Part of wanting to look back at the year at the beginning of a new one has shown that it was a busy and colourful year, full of lots of new names and techniques and people to watch in 2012. The shift also seemed to go towards lots more "with permission" spots last year, I guess a big test for those shutters and areas may fall closer to Olympics time, when the council may decide to buff at random for no reason whatsoever. Happy 2012. Fuck The Buff.