Levi's Photo Workshop

Last night I went to the launch of the Levi's Photo Workshop. If you haven't heard of the Levi's Workshops yet, they aim to encourage and foster the creative spirit as part of their current Go Forth campaign. The first one was in San Francisco in July, and it was a printmaking workshop. Very happy that the one to hit New York was about photography! The whole thing was put on by friends of Undercurrent Sub Rosa, and was held where Deitch Projects used to be at 18 Wooster.



Now, this party was a fantastic madhouse. It was one of the best vibes I've gotten from an event in a long time - probably all year. The music was great, the crowd was great, the drinks were great (thank you Skyy), and there was photography stuff EVERYWHERE. Light tables, vintage cameras for renting, tons of film and other goodies, photo booths, a machine that puts any photo you want onto a t-shirt, huge Macs with editing software, this place was hooked up. And lining the walls was a really great curation of photographs hand-picked by Tim Barber of tinyvices.com. You can buy supplies, take classes, go to panels, see rotating exhibits and just mess around with all of the goodies for almost the entire month year. I highly, highly recommend this thing if you live here and have even the slightest interest in photography. Seriously, there's something for everyone.









Out of the entire space and event, I don't think I saw a single piece of Levi's branding, which is just insane. Over the years I've seen the worst of the positive correlation between size of brand and how much control they want to have re: "make the logo bigger" syndrome. The most I saw were three little racks of jackets and shirts on the upper level. Very well done, guys.



Speaking of brands, the collaborators' list is nuts. Everything from Aperture Foundation to Leica and Kodak, Taschen and Vice. And there's a community partnership component, which supplies the warm fuzzies. A+ to Levi's, Sub Rosa and everyone else involved.

[More of my pictures here; see the Levi's Workshops pool here.]

EDIT 12 Oct | Marisa blogged about the workshop and event as well; if you're in the mood for more polished editorial (and some other shots courtesy of The Selvedge Yard), it's worth a read!

Clay Shirky

A few days ago, I went to a small event at Daylife that my friend Michael invited me to. It was framed as cocktails and conversation with Clay Shirky; the email mentioned the topic of Clay's talk as being "the difference between sharing, cooperation, and collective action when designing group software." Now, that kind of sent me into a panic because I pictured myself in a room full of designers nodding with great understanding of "designing group software" and me sitting there drawing a complete blank, since all I know about design is that I like minimalism and typography.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. No, I was explosively surprised. According to Wikipedia, Clay is:

an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He teaches New Media as an adjunct professor at New York University's (NYU) graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). His courses address, among other things, the interrelated effects of the topology of social networks and technological networks, how our networks shape culture and vice-versa.

And that's what he talked about. He essentially spoke of what my Great Love was in college – social cognition – and added the dimension of The Internet to it. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.

His theories were fascinating, and his book that the talk was based off of – Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations – is coming out very soon and I am very much going to buy it. Shirky gave three examples of online platforms leading to sharing leading to cooperation leading to collective action; my favorite one was a story of teenagers forming an ice cream-eating flash mob in October Square in Belarus. They organized it on LiveJournal, so it obviously wasn't a "secret conspiracy," but in any case it is illegal to form a group in October Square (Lukashenko apparently outlawed it, declaring groups in October Square a sign of plotting to overthrow the government). Five of the kids were arrested and others were harrassed. One blogger wrote, "The whole world will be laughing.” As Clay said in his talk, "Nothing says dictatorship like arresting people for eating ice cream." brilliant.


Two added bonuses to this whole thing were:
1. Clay Shirky is super friendly and approachable and I want to be his friend,
2. I saw Nick Denton there; he was in my "people as corporations" column that was published 2 days earlier. neat.

[images from litota_'s LiveJournal and Amazon]

All Hallow's Madness

Last night Satish and I went to Judson Church for a NYxNY event (put on by NY Magazine) called All Hallow's Madness. As they put it:

New York by New York is an experiment in six parts. We're collaborating with some of our favorite bands, D.J.'s, vegan chefs, comedians, and underqualified art auctioneers on an event a month (six in all) through the beginning of the new year. We're not sure how they'll turn out.

There was a photo scavenger hunt that people with tickets had the opportunity to participate in all day. Upon arriving, one could hand in their memory card, and the winner would be announced right before the main performance of the night. Buying a ticket also got you an open bar and year's worth of New York Magazine. People were really creative with costumes; I saw Calvin & Hobbes, Wayne & Garth and a very politically incorrect Sharon Tate, among others.


Kudu, Dan Deacon and Chromeo performed; Satish and I mostly went for Chromeo. I saw my friend Tristan there, whom I actually met in the summer right after I put photos of his circuit bending performance on Flickr.








This was one of the best shows I have ever been to. For their encore, they came out with switched clothes (which was hilarious since Dave 1 is itty bitty and P-Thugg is a little larger). At the end, they pulled everybody up on stage to dance with them.

I shot a tiny bit of video and will upload them tomorrow. You can mostly hear Satish screaming along to the songs in all of them, which was great.

[photos by me and Satish]

Style Wars

On Saturday night I went to Style Wars, put on by House of Diehl.


Similar to a LVHRD event, Style Wars was a live battle. I think this is a traveling competition that happens in multiple cities globally. There were eight designers (or teams of designers) competing on Saturday night, and each had five minutes to design something on their assigned model, live on stage.

Competitors cut, tear, burn, spray-paint, and otherwise destroy/rebuild clothing, live on models or on people pulled from the audience.

House of Diehl have been all over the world, from supporting Sonic Youth in Europe, to performing to tens of thousands of people alongside Elton John and Versace at the Life Ball in Vienna, to shows at New York's fashion week. [going.com]

Eight got reduced to four, which got reduced to two, and the final showdown revealed the night's winning fashion designer (who got five hundred wonderful dollars). There was a panel of judges to comment and choose their favorites after each round, and the final winners were determined at the end by audience cheering. It was a cool event and experience, even though it was so crowded that my neck hurt by the end from having to crane to see.






I saw a few friends there, including Satish and Vicky (who were lovely line buddies for the hour that we waited outside), Alex, Merlin and Zachary (whom I spent most of the night with down at coat check).


[photos by Bronques @ LastNightsParty]

Cause for Drinks

Last night I went to Cause for Drinks at Max Fish. It's put on every month by All Day Buffet, which is a relatively new project that links events with social causes. They explain it best on their web site:

alldaybuffet connects likeminded people by bringing together the things we like with the things that matter most. equal parts event filter, party planner, social network and think tank. Think Flavorpill on a Mission. Ed Banger with a Social Spin. Japanther for Cancer, etc… There’s a buffet of good options to choose from, we just want you to get full on good.

Every month, $2 from each drink goes towards a charity. September's proceeds went towards the New Orleans Kid Camera Project, which helps to expose the children who survived Hurricane Katrina to new means of expression (through photography, creative writing and mixed media).




[Adrian, cofounder of All Day Buffet, and Noah]


[Arthur at the pool table]




[the guys from Behance, a network for showcasing creative projects]
Cause For Drinks is held at the same time in multiple cities, much like Likemind, which is pretty awesome (more cities = more people attending = more drinks bought = more money towards good causes). September welcomed Austin into the mix, along with New York City and New Orleans. I have a feeling this thing will grow quickly and more cities will start participating soon.

tonight.

You only have a couple of hours, but here you go.

Just Jack, 9.00pm @ Hiro Ballroom.

RSVP here.