the other morning i walked out into our front garden to find various plastic bags, sweet wrappers and a cigarette packet strewn amongst the flower beds, either thrown from the pavement by a random lazy bastard or blown over the gate from the street by wind. needless to say it really really pissed me off to the point where i was muttering under my breath. a few hours later - by coincidence - i found the photo above which i'd bookmarked last year of a polluted river in indonesia and immediately felt thankful, and then pretty depressed.

remember, the photos below aren't unique. there are many, many places on earth where the infrastructure needed to ensure that such seemingly basic systems are put in place either just don't exist or are compromised for various reasons - the main one being poverty.  a huge amount of people have been born into this kind of environment and subsequently know nothing else than to walk out of their homes to be faced with seas of litter and be subjected to a serious threat to their health on a daily basis.

note: these photos aren't necessarily a representation of the areas today. hopefully they've since been cleaned up.

naples, italy, early 2008

[above] naples is an unlikely place to see streets covered in litter but for over a decade the area has been victim to a 'garbage crisis' resulting from the actions of the camorra, the local mafia, who control the local garbage industry. read more here. i believe this situation has been cleaned up for the time being due to pressure from the EU. 

estero de paco, manila, philippines

[above] according to photographer dennis villegas, 'the garbage in the river (estero de paco) has become so thick that rats are able to run on top of it - chased by cats. the river and its surrounding areas has a very hideous odor'. apparently the 'pasig river rehabilitation commission' plan to rid the river of litter by moving all homes so that they sit more than 3 metres from the river bank. read more here.

dharavi, mumbai, india

[above] 'because water in mumbai, india is prohibitively expensive, many residents of this slum rely on leaks found - or created - in the massive tubes that carry water to more affluent neighborhoods. the poor of the city avoid the garbage and human waste surrounding their dwellings by walking on top of the pipelines'. read more here.

citarum river, west java, indonesia

[above] 'rapid urbanisation over the last 20 years has seen a rise in untreated household sewage, solid waste and industrial effluents, affecting public health and threatening the livelihood of poor fishing families. a new industry has sprung up - collecting the plastic waste in the river for recycling'. more here,

yoff, dakar, senegal

yoff is a town in dakar. that's all i know, apart from the fact that it's heavily polluted. fill me in in the comments.

photo sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

i remember reading about the stadium featured in the video above a couple of years back, just after construction had begun. fast forward what seems like a week and whaddya know, it's finished. and stunning. practically every square inch of its dragonesque roof is covered by 8'844 solar panels, ready to supply the enormous record-breaking building with clean power.

at the moment it's called (in english at least) the 'world games stadium', can be found in kaohsiung, taiwan and was built to coincide with the opening of the world games - the unpopular but cool family member in the sporting events calendar - which are to be held in taiwan this july. it can hold 55'000 spectators, was designed by the brilliant japanese architect toyo ito, and cost upwards of US$150m to build. now, according to wikipedia, this structure is 'the first stadium in the world to provide power using solar energy technology', but i beg to differ, as at least one stadium i know of already has a similar, albeit smaller, rooftop setup which provides the venue with a large percentage of its power. however as far as i know this taiwanese effort does hold the record for 'largest solar-powered stadium in the world' as a result of its incredible 14,155m2 roof which could potentially generate 1.14 gigawatt hours of electricity every year; enough electricity to power up to 80% of the surrounding neighbourhood after being fed into the grid on the days when the stadium is unused.

hopefully it won't be too long before all stadiums have similar systems. apart from manchester that is. you'd be better off using piezoelectrics to harness energy produced by the relentless rainfall around here. not that i'm bitter.

read more about the stadium here, here, and here.

pictures below, all at various stages of construction (earliest to newest). found at the links just mentioned, plus here.

did everyone just have a weekend stolen from under their noses or am i the only victim? thieving bastards.

what do the following pictures have in common?

what? who said 'leg over'? incorrect.

they've all been drawn using a ballpoint pen.

you know, a biro. the one you have trouble writing with smudge-free. that's right, the pens that leak in pockets indiscriminately. i find these pieces absolutely incredible and i'm not too bad at ballpoint drawing. these pictures though are flawless, hardly a patch of cross-hatching in sight. the top 3 are by an english chap named james mylne, the bottom 3 by a spaniard called juan francisco casas. check out their websites for more biro-art. there are a few biro-art groups on flickr too, here's one of their photostreams on flickriver.

oh yeah, did i mention how big juan's pictures are?

[this page contains a lot of pictures. apologies if your computer cries due to the hard work but i'd rather that happen than have to split the fucker into seperate pages, resulting in the annoying kind of multi-page article i personally cannot stand. thanks]

a huge amount of people don't realise just how artistically and technically incredible graffiti can be these days, and a depressingly large section of society still believe this kind of street art consists purely of text and tags, crudely sprayed onto public toilet walls. after seeing a piece by belin here in manchester, i've spent the past year or so pretty much addicted to the subject of photorealistic graffiti (aka graffoto), whether it be on walls, floors or canvas, and thought i'd point you in the direction of some incredible artists and collectives. the fact that these people are able to produce designs of this quality using a spraycan absolutely astounds me and i have a huge amount of respect for all those who manage it.

where possible i've included links to the artist's website/myspace/flickr page but in some cases i'm still unaware of them. if you happen to know any that i've missed, let me know and i'll add them. also, if i haven't included a 'photo source' link it means the picture is from the artist's site.

onto the talent.

1. belin

[website]

larger version

larger version

2. ma'claim

[website]

larger version

3. tasso

[website :: myspace]
photos' source

4. herakut

[website]
photos' source

5. fate

[website]

larger version

larger version

6. neve

[myspace :: flickr]
photo source

7. trans

[flickr]

larger version

8. berok

[website :: flickr]

pretty good huh?

it's maybe worth noting that ma'claim (no.2) is a collective of graffiti artists of which tasso (no.3) and akut (one half of herakut, no.4) are members. tasso was also the person originally responsible for the word 'graffoto'.

these 8 are just the tip of an exquisitely sprayed iceberg - i'll post some other artists' work in the near future.