Hayde Lachino

Everyone must have had similar thoughts at least once. Broccoli and parsley might sometimes look like a forest, or the tree leaves floating on the surface of the water might sometimes look like little boats. Everyday occurrences seen from a pygmy’s perspective can bring us lots of fun thoughts.

I wanted to take this way of thinking and express it through photographs, so I started to put together a “Miniature Calendar” These photographs primarily depict diorama-style figures surrounded by daily necessaries. Just like a standard daily calendar, the photos are updated daily on my website and SNS page, earning it the name of “ Miniature Calendar”.

Faith, God, Science, Belief, Doubt… LA artist duo Cyrcle tests these every day philosophies in their glow-in-the-dark exhibition, “NOTHING EXISTS!”. The title points to their theme, Solipsism, a theory that asserts that nothing exists but an individual’s consciousness. It’s a grand concept tackled by concise forms, shapes and a largely monochromatic color palette. With hints of glowing green, their acrylic paintings on wood and relief sculptures feature deceivingly simplistic, spacey imagery. We recently got a behind the scenes look as they prepared for the exhibit, now on view at Station16 Gallery in Montreal. 

as·phyx·i·a

Motion project by Maria Takeuchi and Frederico Phillips uses performative dance captured with two XBox One Kinect sensors, presented in an abstracted yet recognizable and fluid form:

Here is a Making-Of video showing how the work was put together:

The project is an effort to explore new ways to use and/or combine technologies and different fields in an experiment without many of the common commercial limitations. The performance is centered in an eloquent choreography that stresses the desire to be expressive without bounds.

Motion data was captured using inexpensive sensors and that data paved the way through an extensive number of steps.  Once all the scanned point cloud data was combined, that was then used as the base for the creative development on the piece.  A series of iterative studies on styles followed and several techniques and dynamic simulations were then applied using a number 3D tools for various results.

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Violence in Mexico

While the media focuses on exploiting false crises, like the ‘risk of Ebola in the U.S.’ or whatever might have ‘inexplicably’ happened to Renee Zellwegger’s face (who gives a damn?), serious problems are being drowned out by all the noise.

We need this list: in order to do anything about violence, especially that which so deeply affects us, we need to know certain things and see our implication in them.

But first, it is important to clarify that there’s a lot more to Mexico than violence. Yes, it is in desperate need of a course reversal, but the narrative that only constructs it as something that needs ‘rescuing’ is highly problematic. Rather, we must think of it as a place with much cultural and ecological diversity and beauty, and with much to offer the world. And like any other, it is a place that deserves dignity and peace.

So, I think the question shouldn’t be between, “Poor Mexico, when will the international community save it?” and “Damned neo-imperialism; won’t they ever leave Mexico alone?” Rather, I think the point is to show that we are in the worst possible limbo somewhere in between, where:

1.The Mexican and U.S. tax payers pay billions of dollars for the drug war, mainly to military contractors, to no avail and creating no improvement for either country’s national security. As Musa al-Gharbi wrote for Al Jazeera:

“In 2013 drug cartels murdered more than 16,000 people in Mexico alone, and another 60,000 from 2006 to 2012 — a rate of more than one killing every half hour for the last seven years. What is worse, these are estimates from the Mexican government, which is known to deflate the actual death toll by about 50 percent.”

2. The U.S. military and intelligence communities collaborate with and empower acorrupt narco-state in Mexico.

3. The DEA collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel, providing them support such asvisas and legal access to move drugs into the U.S., including inside of a cocaine-packed 747 cargo plane, in exchange for “intel” on the other cartels.

4. The CIA distributed U.S. weapons to cartels (allegedly to “track” the guns, although some believe this is meant to help fight the rogue and ruthless Zetas cartel, which was started by former members of the Mexican army’s special forces also trained in counterinsurgency tactics by the U.S. army in Fort Bragg, Georgia).

5.Corruption is pervasive, and not only in the public sector: even the giant Walmart allegedly bribed its way through the Mexican bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the world’sbig banks help launder money for the cartels, which rack in profits to the tune of roughly $40b each year.

6.With that kind of money, the narcos can, and do, purchase police chiefs, entire departments, and higher levels of the state—both within Mexico and, increasingly, in cities across the U.S. (not to mention, in scores of other countries as well, such as Peru and Australia).

7.The Mexican government does not prosecute 93.8% of reported crimes. That is, it attends to less than 7% of them (perhaps because it is difficult to find a politician, at any level of government, in any part of the country, who is not in deep collusion with organized crime or at least with big business).

8.And while the population gets scared to death at incessant violence, the state pushes the structural and economic reforms to open the country for business, such as through the removal of protections and standards. It uses its alliance with the media monopoly to silence opposition, and the armed forces (and other thugs) to crush resistance from workers, farmers, students, teachers, environmentalists, etc.

9.Which is partly why the immigration crisis only increases, flooding the U.S. labor market with easily exploitable labor and filling U.S. for-profit prisons.

10. Fortunately, there’s a lot that people in both Mexico and the U.S. can do:

When elections come around, make sure your would-be representatives know that your vote will be strictly conditioned on their concrete actions to pressure for a change (for example, through aid, trade, and diplomatic sanctions, etc.). (Thanks to Manuel Rivas from Barrios Unidos for this comment.)

Organize collectively, wherever you are: talk to your neighbors, set up events, hold vigils and rallies, attend information sessions, gather speakers, host potlucks and letter-writing campaigns, distribute leaflets with calls to action, visit your government representatives, sign and deliver petitions, etc. Many people don’t have the luxury of organizing without fear of reprisals, so if you do, get involved.

If you’re in the U.S., check out #UStired2 to organize and coordinate collective action.

Share news and information about it to keep people engaged and organized.

Write letters-to-the-editor to demand attention to this situation.

Boycott companies that benefit from the ongoing violence.

Be creative, public, and loud: paint something, write a poem, compose a song, do some improv, make a video, and raise awareness about this situation. Do whatever you do best, whatever you love to do, to shed light on the matter.

What else do you think we can do? 

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Violence in Mexico

While the media focuses on exploiting false crises, like the ‘risk of Ebola in the U.S.’ or whatever might have ‘inexplicably’ happened to Renee Zellwegger’s face (who gives a damn?), serious problems are being drowned out by all the noise.

We need this list: in order to do anything about violence, especially that which so deeply affects us, we need to know certain things and see our implication in them.

But first, it is important to clarify that there’s a lot more to Mexico than violence. Yes, it is in desperate need of a course reversal, but the narrative that only constructs it as something that needs ‘rescuing’ is highly problematic. Rather, we must think of it as a place with much cultural and ecological diversity and beauty, and with much to offer the world. And like any other, it is a place that deserves dignity and peace.

So, I think the question shouldn’t be between, “Poor Mexico, when will the international community save it?” and “Damned neo-imperialism; won’t they ever leave Mexico alone?” Rather, I think the point is to show that we are in the worst possible limbo somewhere in between, where:

1.The Mexican and U.S. tax payers pay billions of dollars for the drug war, mainly to military contractors, to no avail and creating no improvement for either country’s national security. As Musa al-Gharbi wrote for Al Jazeera:

“In 2013 drug cartels murdered more than 16,000 people in Mexico alone, and another 60,000 from 2006 to 2012 — a rate of more than one killing every half hour for the last seven years. What is worse, these are estimates from the Mexican government, which is known to deflate the actual death toll by about 50 percent.”

2. The U.S. military and intelligence communities collaborate with and empower acorrupt narco-state in Mexico.

3. The DEA collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel, providing them support such asvisas and legal access to move drugs into the U.S., including inside of a cocaine-packed 747 cargo plane, in exchange for “intel” on the other cartels.

4. The CIA distributed U.S. weapons to cartels (allegedly to “track” the guns, although some believe this is meant to help fight the rogue and ruthless Zetas cartel, which was started by former members of the Mexican army’s special forces also trained in counterinsurgency tactics by the U.S. army in Fort Bragg, Georgia).

5.Corruption is pervasive, and not only in the public sector: even the giant Walmart allegedly bribed its way through the Mexican bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the world’sbig banks help launder money for the cartels, which rack in profits to the tune of roughly $40b each year.

6.With that kind of money, the narcos can, and do, purchase police chiefs, entire departments, and higher levels of the state—both within Mexico and, increasingly, in cities across the U.S. (not to mention, in scores of other countries as well, such as Peru and Australia).

7.The Mexican government does not prosecute 93.8% of reported crimes. That is, it attends to less than 7% of them (perhaps because it is difficult to find a politician, at any level of government, in any part of the country, who is not in deep collusion with organized crime or at least with big business).

8.And while the population gets scared to death at incessant violence, the state pushes the structural and economic reforms to open the country for business, such as through the removal of protections and standards. It uses its alliance with the media monopoly to silence opposition, and the armed forces (and other thugs) to crush resistance from workers, farmers, students, teachers, environmentalists, etc.

9.Which is partly why the immigration crisis only increases, flooding the U.S. labor market with easily exploitable labor and filling U.S. for-profit prisons.

10. Fortunately, there’s a lot that people in both Mexico and the U.S. can do:

When elections come around, make sure your would-be representatives know that your vote will be strictly conditioned on their concrete actions to pressure for a change (for example, through aid, trade, and diplomatic sanctions, etc.). (Thanks to Manuel Rivas from Barrios Unidos for this comment.)

Organize collectively, wherever you are: talk to your neighbors, set up events, hold vigils and rallies, attend information sessions, gather speakers, host potlucks and letter-writing campaigns, distribute leaflets with calls to action, visit your government representatives, sign and deliver petitions, etc. Many people don’t have the luxury of organizing without fear of reprisals, so if you do, get involved.

If you’re in the U.S., check out #UStired2 to organize and coordinate collective action.

Share news and information about it to keep people engaged and organized.

Write letters-to-the-editor to demand attention to this situation.

Boycott companies that benefit from the ongoing violence.

Be creative, public, and loud: paint something, write a poem, compose a song, do some improv, make a video, and raise awareness about this situation. Do whatever you do best, whatever you love to do, to shed light on the matter.

What else do you think we can do?