Sneakers and Interactive Media Culture

“The average New Yorker sees upwards of 50 pieces of graffiti a day. But they never stop to think about the stories behind those pieces… this is one of those stories.” Bomb the System is the first feature in over 20 years to delve into the world of graffiti art. The film, shot entirely on the streets of New York City, is the feature debut of 23-year-old writer/director Adam Bhala Lough.

Mark Webber (People I Know, Storytelling, The Laramie Project) leads a talented young ensemble cast as Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer fresh out of high school with no ambition for the future. New York City is Blest’s playground. He spends his days stealing spray paint from local hardware stores - and his nights getting high and “bombing” the streets with his graffiti crew. He is the most wanted writer on the NYPD Vandal Squad’s hit list, and at the same time, is attracting attention from the local gallery scene.

But things quickly turn ugly when 15-year-old Lune, the youngest member of Blest’s crew, is arrested and brutalized by the NYPD. The crew retaliates by waging an all out “graffiti war” against the city: a war that ends up costing more than one life in the end.

Bomb the System is a true New York story - a cinematic poem dedicated to the art of graffiti, and to the city where it all began more than two decades ago.

Check out the ‘Bomb the System’ site.

Check out the ‘Quality of Life’ site.

Read an interview with the directors of ‘Bomb the System’ and ‘Quality of Life’.

Check out the pictures from San Francisco

Click here to peep the full “Thunderbird” Vandals collection.

Check them out at deluded monkey.

This piece, “Air Force One #3″, has been chosen for exhibition in the Sneaker Pimps Tour. This tour hits 55 cities all over the world, featuring the world’s foremost sneaker artists.

Check out his site.

The Daily News tries their hand, er, foot at a new sneaker vending machine at New York’s swank SoHo store Michael K. Originally debuted in Japan (of course), the Sneaker Vending Machine takes cash and dispenses a refrigerated Reebok Travel shoe in the size and color of your choosing for $60. We just want to know what happens if the shoes get stuck in the coil that drops the food into the bin.
[from engadget]

Also posted on Josh Rubin’s Cool Hunting site.

[from Boldtype]
Review
What does a 30-something, British white guy have to say about the current state of affairs in hip-hop? More than you might think. Patrick Neate has been a self-described hip-hop head since his fascination with the music began in the ’80s, and his curiosity and love for the genre and culture led him on a journey around the world to see what was up.

Neate begins his cultural pilgrimage with a visit to New York, birthplace of hip-hop, where he finds an industry that keeps the genre under such tight control that smaller labels there are targeting primarily overseas markets. His journey to Tokyo leaves him questioning the legitimacy of hip-hop fandom there, as he witnesses the outrageously hip Japanese youth hungrily consuming African American culture as they strive for redefinition in a post-industrialized world. As he travels, the author subtly reworks his own understanding (and the reader’s) of what it means to be “real.” Perhaps that’s why he isn’t surprised anymore when a “Tokyo teenager greets him with ‘Word up, dog’” or when he meets a “white Afrikaaner rapping in a suit and tie.” Neate globe-trots and muses over the cultural communication that hip-hop is fostering, all the while taking copious notes on how that communication is being utilized. From its left-wing political role in France and Italy to its use in South Africa and Brazil as a postcolonial tool for reshaping notions of race and identity, hip-hop is changing the world.

By the end, Neate’s work coalesces into something far more important than a snapshot documentary of hip-hop today. Linking globalization, political struggle, race, identity, and alienation, the author constructs an entire worldview through the distinct lens of hip-hop. He offers us hip-hop as an international, cultural medium of the people; something

Check out the site.

Check out more photos. Photos courtesy of Kenny Eng.