#primitiveprimelab

PERLA SANCHEZ

NYC-based illustrator, graphic designer and dedicated plant-mami, Perla Sanchez has launched PerlyBlooms as an on-going series of botanical illustrations centering on themes of nature, femininity, and self-love. 

 HENDRIK KERSTENS

The Dutch photographer pays tongue-in-cheek homage to the Dutch master painters of the past by recreating photo portraits of his own daughter Paula. Mimicking their styles of lighting and composition, most notably the work of Johannes Vermeer (famous for his Girl with the Pearl Earring painting) is a recurring inspiration but Kerstens adds yet another layer of light to manipulate through his chiaroscuro lens...humor. 

In deadpan seriousness each photograph demands we accept its absurdity. Whether of a trash bag bonnet, or lampshade hat, or tablecloth habit--These jokes seem to question idolization of the subject while simultaneously beckoning us to admire how even the most mundane items are perfectly captured to seem painted by oil on canvas. 

Most remarkable of all perhaps, these photos, through camera lenses more than capable of capturing reality, bend instead to mimic the painted ideal of reality as explored by the foregone Dutch artists of light and shadow. Maybe that’s the joke, we can take pictures now of things as they are, but its still higher art to copy the painters who did it less realistically, by hand.

Alexander the Great once walked up to the philosopher, Diogenes, who was sunbathing, and asked if he could grant him any request--Diogenes replied to Alexander, “you can stand out of my light!”

The idea of being a citizen of the world, or cosmopolitan, has been around for quite some time. In the 5th-Century B.C., philosopher, Diogenes the Cynic proclaimed himself as one, refusing to limit his identity to a singular locality. A controversial figure of his day, Diogenes rejected not only local citizenship but also other values, such as possessions and social status. So much so, he owned little to nothing and lived in a tub or cask in the streets of Athens. He considered society a pretentious construct that filtered out one’s true nature, at times inspiring him to take to town with a lantern in broad daylight in search for an honest man.

An interesting fact about the philosopher is his exile from his native city of Sinope (present day Sinop in Turkey, then a colony of Greece). His father was a banker and either Diogenes, or his father, or both were at some point involved in a counterfeit scandal of minting debased coins; that is, reducing the value of the money by tampering with the amount of the material it should be made out of. Banished, Diogenes lost all his possessions and citizenship. Whether Diogenes took up his cynical philosophy as a result of this earlier experience, or if it instead humbled the man, allowing him to find a better way of life is anyone’s guess. 

His reported disdain for cultural conventions, supposedly, went as far as going against the norms of even sleep and eating, choosing to do either whenever he felt like it, rather than the time(s) of day that society selected as appropriate. Manners and tact, were also fake to Diogenes, he wanted people to be as real as they could be.

“If I were not Alexander, I would want to be Diogenes.” --Alexander the Great

When you read of his exploits, ranging from comically sarcastic remarks to explicitly vulgar public behavior, there’s almost a mission, on the behalf of the philosopher to teach his society a hard lesson. Possibly a spiteful lesson. Whereas he lost his citizenship and possession so too, should everyone else. 

Because of this disposition, one could argue Diogenes’ view of cosmopolitanism—Under the framing of his tendency toward brutal honesty (emphasis on brutal)—Being a “world-citizen” is less about a uniting camp-fire principle of global community. In fact, Diogenes could not practice true world citizenship as much of his world was still limited to a mainly Euro-Mediterranean and Asia-minor geography. Instead, for Diogenes the Cynic, cosmopolitanism is perhaps simply a fact as blunt as a club used to strike a sleeper awake. Easily supported by the common experience we each undergo everyday (unless we’re astronauts)—That of being aboard the same floating planet moving about in space.

TIINA MENZEL

For all their symbolism of death and poison or danger, skeletons always seem to me, wrongly branded—The victims of bad, or unjustifiably outdated PR. We seldom celebrate the human skeleton outside gothic romanticism, or badass counter-culture rebel. To simply look at the bones we are underneath and accept it as a joyous fact, almost seems counter-intuitive because of their innate association with death and the anxiety death itself produces. Artist Tiina Menzel seems to treat them a bit kinder. 

Among her work, are countless re-depictions of skeletons holding, petting, or fondly interacting with cats. According to an interview with Fandom Wire, Menzel explains her skeletons are a metaphor for depression, more specifically, feeling dead inside. In this vulnerable skeletal state, we’re exposed to our mortality, our deepest anxieties from which there is no flesh, no muscle to shield us. The pairing of these skeletons with feline friends was inspired by her own depression and eventual pet cat, who helped ease her anxieties. 

In illustrating this bond between cat and bone, Menzel places these skeletons on a path of self-healing. What’s lovely to watch, for me, is this literal x-ray of a human, undefined by sex, race, color, country, or god; simply enjoying a warm beverage (I’m imagining and smelling coffee) and spending time with a furry buddy. Whatever worries this person might have, they’ve been momentarily exempt. Menzel’s work is also a reminder that during our moments of peace, of comfort, or happiness, we have a skeleton within, sharing the moment with us.

TISHJ BARZANJI

London-based artist, Tishj Barzanji really makes me understand something about luxury through space, color, and light. The artist’s love for architecture and interior spaces dances hand in hand with what also appears to be a love for fiery, atmospheric light—Like that from the setting or rising of the sun; when the sky offers up its most grand theater of intense hues.

What hits me from viewing illustration after illustration of Barzanji’s living spaces—With their high ceilings, long windows and doors, as if made for columns to enter and exit—Is the prestigious guest who might as well be given a key, the sun. Sunlight is valuable. It paints your home, or rather plays it like a pianist houseguest who unaccidentally discovers your piano. The full drama of a passionate sunrise or violent sunset is transmitted on the luxurious homes Barzanji broadcasts because the homes aren’t blocked by other buildings; because the ceilings are high, the windows as long as the shadows they lure, the rooms minimal and leisurely, not at all practical like an artist studio or factory.

The walls appropriate the sunlight, luxury sells this too. Makes it part of your home most breathtakingly. The grand hall of atmosphere, the ballroom where twilight moves about freely. Right where you dry off after a bath, or sip your morning tea, or even sit in silence after a lover’s quarrel. This capturing of the life-sustaining star--That breathes warmth, daily to the planet--In your habitat like a radio station, or satellite network on your television. Awaiting your engagement should you desire to give it.

My favorite deep corners of YouTube music contain content like this. Audio manipulations that become augmented experiences of the original tracks. I’m definitely the fan who appreciates hearing all the songs from Talking Heads’ Remain in Light played at the same time or entire songs reversed, and when it comes to Radiohead (one of my favorite bands), whoever decided to upload versions of their songs at -800% deserves a special place in my heart.

Pyramid Song which at normal speed comes in at 4:49 is slowed into a 38:35 ambient hurricane, as elemental and ethereal as a mythology of Nu, Poseidon, Varuna or some other sea deity. Anyone familiar with the death and transformation theme of the song will feel it literally stretch across the track, allowing you almost to feel the molecules of the song.

Kinda reminds me of what Hans Zimmer did with that Edith Piaf song for Inception. Indeed, it feels like I’m listening to Radiohead from within a dream where time has slowed.

Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore An Antipode Foundation film (directed by Kenton Card)

“The relationship between slavery and race, race and unfreedom, freedom and labor, is one that we constantly try to untangle. At our peril we ignore it; but also at our peril we make it too simplistic. Because the complexity of it matters for what we do in the current moment to undo the catastrophe of mass incarceration.” -Ruth Wilson Gilmore

A look into the work of geographer and abolitionist, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who specializes in the study of prisons, carceral punishment, it’s industrialization and policing. A professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, as well as Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York, Gilmore constantly intersects the dynamics between people and place, and more specifically, human interaction with long-lasting environmental well-being.

Her provocative stance on prison abolition (and police abolition by extension), is misinterpreted, due to failure to understand abolition is not about absence but rather, presence. To replace the old systems of punishment with the presence of newer systems based on social support in areas including but not limited to education, health, and social services. 

Gilmore furthermore insists, sustainable social solutions must have general impact that can be applied globally for the benefit of the most, if not all the people of the world.

The Technology School of Guelmim (Morocco)