WIKIREBELS, THE DOCUMENTARY. OPENLEAKS, THE SEQUEL

You got access to some secret and shocking documents that could change the course of history. You feel ready to leak them, but how? Chasing Wikileaks around the internet has become a very exhausting sport! Don't worry, you should be able to drop your info-bombs on Openleaks starting on Monday. At least that was the plan. The site, mirroring Wikileaks concept, is been built by Wikileaks dissenters, as you can learn, among many other things, in the following documentary, Wikirebels. Go and tell the US government! The nightmare, multiplied!

The Swedish Television has spent the last six months working on this one hour report about Wikileaks. It's the story of this organization from the very beginning until last week. They posted it online yesterday. It's a rough cut but it is quite good, with many in depth interviews with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, his collaborators, his ex collaborators and with investigative journalists from different countries. You will discover, among other things, that he was the brains behind the proposal of creating a sort of offshore safe haven for information in Iceland. What a brilliant idea! Bankers put money in their offshore accounts (shame on you!), and journalists will eventually put their lives when feeling in danger (I wonder what ever happened to the First Amendment...). The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, approved unanimously by the Icelandic parliament last summer, is intended to be the strongest media freedom law. It seems that so far can only protect Icelandic journalists, but it could get improved, and maybe it will. Let's hope.

WIKIREBELS, THE DOCUMENTARY. OPENLEAKS, THE SEQUEL

This time in English.

You got access to some secret and shocking documents that could change the course of history. You feel ready to leak them, but how? Chasing Wikileaks around the internet has become a very exhausting sport! Don't worry, you should be able to drop your info-bombs on Openleaks starting on Monday. At least that was the plan. The site, mirroring Wikileaks concept, is being built by Wikileaks dissenters, as you can learn, among many other things, in the following documentary, Wikirebels. Go and tell the US government! The nightmare, multiplied!

The Swedish Television has spent the last six months working on this one hour report about Wikileaks, the organization that is leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents that are telling the truth about all those things that our governments never openly say or even deny. It's the story from the very beginning in 2006 until last week. They posted it online yesterday. It's a rough cut but it is quite good, with many in depth interviews with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, his collaborators, his ex collaborators and with investigative journalists from different countries. You will discover, among other things, that he was the brains behind the proposal of creating a sort of offshore safe haven for information in Iceland. What a brilliant idea! Bankers put money in their offshore accounts (shame on you!), and journalists will eventually put their lives when feeling in danger (I wonder what ever happened to the First Amendment...). The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, approved unanimously by the Icelandic parliament last summer, is intended to be the strongest media freedom law in the world. It seems that so far can only protect Icelandic journalists, but it could get improved, and maybe it will. Let's have some hope. Otherwise we might have to look for a different job, or being called 'terrorist', and fear prosecution, like Assange.

BARBARIDADES V

This time in English

In Spanish Barbaridad means 'something very outrageous' , like barbarity in English, but it could playfully mean 'Barbara's world' (on a very wide meaning). Barbaridades is a section I opened in this blog long time ago to talk about two extremes: my favorite creative projects by people not necessarily famous and also the weirdest, flat or outrageous phenomena out there, like Sarah Palin. In Barbaridades the two extremes touch each other, because, as in life, you need a split of a second to go from heaven to hell.

Japanone from bombonia on Vimeo.

That's Japan according to super talented Spanish artist Celina Alvarado. I want to talk about her and her magic way to look at things. She is my friend therefore this post is biased but I am convinced that she deserves media attention because she is giving beautiful gifts to New York like her home gallery, Onebyone or the interactive project Try Me, an electronic t-shirt that tweets the meaning of hugs (she explains that project here in Spanish).

Onebyone breathes in Alphabet City, on Avenue D, inside Celina's apartment. The idea is not new, many New York artists in the eighties used to have galleries in their homes, in the same neighborhood. Today everybody shares pictures of drunken nights on facebook but who is willing to share something really useful and intimate such as their private space?

In this video Celina herself explains the origins of the project, and the first show she organized, appropriately called ONE:

One by One Gallery from Kaleido Works on Vimeo.

It was up for a few months and then, last September, she decided to take it down inviting two performers to do an action, Down with one, and so she created another great and intimate event:

*you can look at a video of this whole performance on onebyonegallery.com

She was born in Madrid and moved to New York about a decade ago, after working in Canal + Spain doing those amazing promotional clips that made that channel shine like no other at the time. When I met her she used to travel around Brooklyn with a plastic alien on her bag and a Super 8 camera. It was a weird and beautiful image, looking at this smiling woman with green hair taking out this small alien in the middle of the street and start filming it. She also took lots of pictures of him, a series that yet has to be shown in New York. The Super 8 material became my favorite short film about New York, the awarded I live in Brooklyn:

I Live in Brooklyn from bombonia on Vimeo.

A couple of years ago she decided to learn more about the digital world through the Interactive Telecommunications Program at FIT and now she gives us presents like the Try Me t-shirt or a program that allows you to throw a book against the wall and see the letters falling down like in a visual poetry.

You should check out her whole production at www.celinaalvarado.com

Then you will understand why I am in love with her work. She is one of those awe-inspiring people that make New York still unique.

WHEN LEONARDO BECAME A FILMMAKER

This time in English

It will blow up your mind. Leonardo's Last Supper: a Vision by Peter Greenaway will open on Friday at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan and you shouldn't miss it. Imagine that Leonardo da Vinci could have had the tools of a XXI century filmmaker: cameras, projectors, 2000 lights and gigantic screens... He only had his genius and his brushes, and just with that he gave us one of the most delicate and impressive paintings in history, The Last Supper, a fresco housed in the Refectory of Santa María delle Grazie in Milan, which changed and revolutionized the idea of painting, perspective and art in the XV century. Then, six centuries later, a man in love with painting such as artist-filmmaker Peter Greenaway has done magic. "Painting is the cutting edge of all art notions. Painting will be the last activity men will do when the civilization collapses" he said during the presentation. He has taken that masterpiece and has played with it using the tools of a filmmaker and the admiration and respect of a real art lover (before jumping into filmmaking he was trained as a painter).

The results are difficult to describe: you need to experience this massive installation that will involve all your senses with lights, images, multimedia and sound in a celebration of the Italian masterpiece. First you will find yourself surrounded by massive screens that will immerse you in the history of Renaissance painting and architecture (the music and sound help to travel in time), and then you will enter The Supper Room: in front of you an almost perfect reproduction of the painting (high end technology by the Spanish company Factum Arte has allowed Greenaway's team to do this superb clonation) that looks at you as if you were for real in the original church.

A massive reproduction of the table on the floor allows you to give a closer look at the setting in which Jesus told the apostles that one of them was going to betray him. Then, 2000 lights start playing with shadows, perspectives, colors, projections... giving you dozens of possibilities around a painting that transforms itself into a live creature. "We use the language of our age to farther enrich with contemporary tools one thousand years of culture" Greenaway says.

He wanted to mix "8000 years of western culture with 115 years of cinema". On his mind a big worry: "The laptop generation believe there is no painting before Pollock and no cinema before Tarantino. This is my way of showing Da Vinci to this new generation".

The whole experience doesn't end here. The epilogue of the show is a third multimedia exploration based on Paolo Veronese's The Wedding at Cana. In this case Greenaway has chosen to play with more than hundred guests that populate the painting and imagine the sound of the party, the gossipy comments around Jesus and even the barking of the dogs. The filmmaker's voice takes over at one point to explain, as in a guided tour, the different mysteries that surround a painting that was plundered by Napoleon from the monastery San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (the painting was part of the Refectory built by Palladio, the most perfect marriage between architecture and painting of that time), cut in three pieces, and placed at the Louvre in Paris.

I saw it this morning and I am still in awe. I can't help it. I love Greenaway. He reminds me of my father, a painter himself fascinated by art and filmmaking, (not as famous, though).

He showed me some of Greenaway's first movies, The belly of an architect and The cook, the thief, his wife and his lover...

Greenway wants to continue the Nine Classical Paintings Revisited series (that's the name of the whole project) with Guernica by Picasso and Las Meninas by Velazquez. I won't miss it.

Pd: a quick pick at the highlight scene of The cook, the thief, his wife and his lover... just for film lovers and Helen Mirren fans:

ZOMBIES WITH A MISSION

Hollywood is always late. Years before a rain of zombie movies flooded theaters around the world, a bunch of zombie-lovers created an annual zombie-gathering in New York. If my dead brain doesn't fail me, I was there in 2005, dragging my rotten flesh around the city with a bunch of crazy zombies that took over Manhattan streets for a whole day. It's an unforgettable experience, hundreds of zombies with a mission enjoying the daylight. In fact, the gathering goes beyond the zombie-mania, as the organizers explain in their website: "We gather once a year to attack NYC in a theatrical, absurdist parody of blind consumerism and brainless politics. Each year, we choose a theme to resonate with the times and attack city landmarks accordingly, stopping frequently for brains and beers".
This year Fox News was one of the targets, and those insane tea party people as well. Unfortunately, I wasn't there but you don't need a journalist anymore to get the news:

EL 11s Y LA NADA

This time in Spanish

Sobretodo recuerdo el desconcierto, la adrenalina y el silencio pastoso frente a un televisor lisiado en el que apenas se adivinaban, tras una imagen carcomida por una antena defectuosa, la silueta de dos edificios echando humo. El tejado de Brooklyn donde tantas noches disfrutábamos de la luna y el skyline se convirtió en la platea soleada desde la que, con legañas aún pegadas a los ojos, descubrimos que una de las Torres Gemelas escupía humo negro. El segundo avión lo vi estrellarse en la televisión de mis vecinos Anne y Tommaso, que años después vivirían su propio 11S con la enfermedad de su hija Amina. Anne acababa de dar a luz a su primer hijo, Francesco. Y miraba la televisión conteniendo las lágrimas mientras abrazaba muy fuerte al bebé. Yo, que la noche antes me rompía en casa de una gran amiga bajo un pesadísimo mal de amores, desperté lenta, sin acabar de entender nada, abotargada por una gripe, resaca y dolor de corazón privado. Pero de repente, todo lo personal quedó sepultado bajo las torres. Lo que estaba pasando ahí fuera era tan grande e incomprensible que se impuso de golpe sobre cada una de nuestras vidas pequeñas.

En casa, en The Family, nunca faltaba gente. Había artistas, periodistas y cineastas y un grupo de gallegos de visita que aquella mañana tenían previsto haber ido a ver las torres muy temprano, pero gracias a las muchas copas que nos bebimos juntos la noche anterior, se quedaron dormidos. Una juerga providencial. Enseguida pusimos en marcha varios equipos de trabajo. Nos vendimos al mejor postor: todo el mundo en Europa quería palabras, imágenes, testimonios. Supongo que fue la semana dorada del freelance: es la oscura ironía de las catástrofes, los periodistas que están en el sitio justo en el momento justo, se forran. Luego se vuelve a la normalidad: pasar hambre.

Quisimos cruzar el puente de Williamsburg pero la policía no nos dejó. Fue desde allí donde vimos como las torres se desmoronaban. No sentí nada, solo rabia por no haberle dado al 'rec' de la cámara en el momento preciso. Asqueante frialdad periodística. Los sentimientos, en esos momentos, se esconden en alguna parte de las entrañas para poder trabajar y luego estallan imprevisiblemente cuando menos te lo esperas. En mi caso, fue casi dos días después, volviendo a casa, agotada y sin dormir tras caminar por la zona cero y el resto de la ciudad con la cámara al hombro escuchando demasiadas historias trágicas. Una señora me ofreció su asiento en el metro y el gesto me hizo echarme a llorar. Otros lloraron conmigo. Vaya número lacrimógeno, ahora al recordarlo me parece una imagen sacada de una tv movie barata, pero es lo que yo viví. Y entonces hasta me pareció entrañable por lo improbable de la situación.

Luego vinieron semanas muy borrosas. Cada avión en el cielo te provocaba ansiedad. Cuando sonaba el teléfono se te aceleraba el corazón. Cruzar un puente daba mal rollo. Meterse en el metro también. Escuchar una sirena policial te erizaba los pelos. Los arrestos indiscriminados se multiplicaron. Y los pocos que se atrevieron a criticarlo, acabaron convertidos en ‘anti-patriotas’. A los periodistas extranjeros nos pincharon los teléfonos. Nos quitaron las credenciales para cubrir sucesos en la calle. Todos éramos sospechosos.

La culpa de la paranoia colectiva fue de la televisión. Escucharla era un infierno: el fin del mundo estaba a la vuelta de la esquina y sólo Bush podía evitarlo. Guerra. La palabra empezó a llenar las bocas de todos esos presentadores insoportables que pueblan la tele americana y que por alguna razón incomprensible fascinan a los periodistas del resto del planeta. Supongo que es por su talento para mantenerse en antena durantes horas y ser capaces de no decir absolutamente nada. Cuántas horas de ‘nada’ llenaron la prensa los meses siguientes al 11S. Bush y su cuadrilla supieron hinchar la nada con un par de malos para la película, Osama y Saddam. Los utilizaron para hacer terrorismo psicológico contra sus propios ciudadanos. Y funcionó. Tardaron menos de un mes en invadir Afganistán. Y en poco más de un año entraron en Irak. Siete años después, con el mundo en mucho peor estado que entonces, Obama anuncia que retira sus tropas de aquel país hoy convertido en triste y peligroso polvorín.

Hace nueve años del 11S y el vértigo que nos nubló colectivamente la vista ya amainó hace mucho. Todos hemos vuelto a mirar a nuestro mundo pequeño y privado. En el mío falta alguien: mi amigo Julio Anguita Parrado, al que mataron en Irak mientras trabajaba empotrado como periodista en esas tropas que transformaron la nada en guerra. Bush, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza ya no están ahí. Pero su nada dejó nueve años de muertos a su paso cuyos nombres yo desconozco y nadie leerá el sábado en la zona cero. El nombre de Julio lo puedo repetir y repetir. Y sobre todo hoy, lo quiero repetir en alto. Aunque la nada lo siga llenando todo.


Julio.

BRING BACK THOSE ROARING 20's!!!

This time in Spanish





El pasado fin de semana ocurrió: Governor's Island se llenó de flappers, de sombreros elegantes, de calcetines a rombos, de collares de perlas, de mujeres de aire exquisito con trajes vaporosos, de charleston, de gramófonos y de trompetas. Era el Jazz Age Lawn Party, con la Michael Arenella Dreamland Orchestra. Probablemente la mejor fiesta temática anual de la ciudad junto a la Mermaid Parade. Casualidades neoyorquinas, Aranella había sido mi roommate años atrás. Siempre vestido como quien acaba de salir de un libro de Scott Fitzgerald, nunca tuvimos química ni nos hicimos amigos pero siempre pensé que era un músico excelente y tras escucharle el otro día lo reitero: este artista y su banda tienen talento. Me hicieron feliz al convertir esa pequeña isla neoyorquina en un viaje maravilloso al pasado que me hizo soñar con Dorothy Parker, Duke Ellington y una época del planeta marcada por el progresismo ideológico que hoy debería ser un punto de referencia para todos. Y además, bailé sin parar, transmutada en flapper junto a mi inseparable compañera de disfraces, Idoya. (sigue abajo)







En cambio, los gurús de las tendencias se empeñan en vendernos otra vez los años ochenta, con esa pinta infame que teníamos todos. Y juro que fui fan absoluta y entregada de Depeche Mode (mis dioses de entonces), Sister of Mercy y todos aquellos grupos que iluminaron con su oscuridad mis teen years. Tuve cresta y guardapolvos pero si pudiera elegir, votaría por el regreso de los twenties y por ser flapper forever. Después de ver este video, os incito a desear otra cosa. No podréis!!