Hasta La Ideas

Entrepreneur brings a punk-inspired DIY spirit to the Internet age

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Creator, activist and entrepreneur Sean Bonner assumes the cyberpunk intrigue of a character cast in a William Gibson novel one might say. As both a co-founder of L.A.’s hacker haven, Crashspace and regular contributor for BoingBoing, Bonner is a subculture clairvoyant on the cusp of technology and social trends. Growing up to the anarchistic anthems of the punk rock scene, Bonner naturally gravitated to the “make or break” ethos of technology. Bonner explains, “The punk rock world has a very strong DIY ethic and from a very early age, my instinct was that when something needed to get done the best possible option was to do it yourself.”

Actively adopting a grassroots spirit, Bonner opened the acclaimed art gallery sixspace with Caryn Coleman, featuring such street art luminaries as Shepard Fairey and Space Invader. In 2002, the gallery relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles, later launching the photography group show, Sent: America’s First Phonecam Art Show. The show’s debut prophesized the pervasive popularity of the device, which the LA Times likened to “a socio-anthropological study as much as an artistic display of technological capability.”

Bonner began to further pioneer the techno-sphere with his finger on the digital pulse. In 2003, he and business partner Jason DeFillippo started Bode Media to publish a community of blogs under the unification of Metblogs. In a time when the Internet was forging the emergence of the great “Global Village,” Bode Media looked locally, creating a pilot Metblog that exclusively reported on his home base of Los Angeles. Bonner explains, “In 2003, the idea of a group blog almost didn’t exist and there was next to no local media online at all. We wanted to inspire more of both of those things and help people connect with their cities and other locals via the web.” With a city-centric focus, the international success of Metblogs expanded to cover local culture in over 50 cities around the world.

Conjuring technological savvy and astute activism, Bonner heads up the “Black Ops” of Neoteny Labs, a “consumer internet startup fund” with a focus on South East Asia. Giving a leg up to bootstrap start-ups, Neoteny Labs pairs software companies with angel investors. In 2009, Neoteny Labs held the Singapore Camp conference covering “investing and incubating” topics. Bonner elaborates, “We wanted to inspire people to venture down a route that wasn’t decidedly ‘safe’ rather than just do what was expected. I tried to bring in speakers who I felt embodied this attitude of doing something they loved rather than something they thought might be profitable.”

Continuing his altruistic efforts in Asia, Bonner continued his altruistic efforts in Asia with Safecast, “a global sensor network monitoring the radiation levels” of Japan in wake of the nuclear disaster caused by the March 2011 earthquake. “After the earthquake we quickly realized how little information was available and set out to change that by collecting and distributing the data ourselves. We’ve provided countless people with detailed and accurate information about the radiation levels in their areas. To date we’ve collected more than 1,000,000 individual radiation readings and published them free and open for anyone to use,” says Bonner.

A dedicated evangelist of awareness, Bonner also has a hand in Coffee Common, “an education brand” launched at TED in 2011. Bonner recently spoke at the TEDx conference in Vienna, returning to his DIY ethic with his talk espousing how less is truly more. Inspired by the liberation of downsizing his belongings and traveling around the world with his family, Bonner forecasted “Neominimalism” and discussed the rising subculture of “Technomads.” Bonner posts on his blog, “Technology enables this lifestyle shift, and is changing the way we interact with our surroundings.”

This story is part of an editorial series sponsored and inspired by Le Meridien.
New Perspectives explores fresh ideas and distinct points of view in global art and culture.

This little fellow comes free with every issue of this month’s CR. We’d like readers to cut him out, stick him together and give him some personality. The best effort wins a free subscription

In the December issue of CR, Gavin Lucas has written about the paper toy movement – the origami-style paper sculptures that make for a low cost, easily distributable alternative to vinyl.

To tie in with the issue, We have teamed up with Arjowiggins Creative Papers and French designer Tougui who has created a special CR toy (shown top). Between pages 26 and 27 of the issue, you will find a blank template for the toy (shown below) printed on 170g Pop Set paper.

We’d like readers to customise the toy with their own design and email a picture of the result to emma.tucker@centaur.co.uk

You can submit as many as you like. We’ll post our favourites online and choose one lucky toy designer who will win a free one-year subscription to CR (if you are already a subscriber we will extend your current deal) plus a copy of the book Papertoy Monsters (Workman, US$16.95) by Brian Castleforte donated by PlayLounge. Please send your submissions by Friday, December 9.

To give you an idea of the possibilities, here are some by Tougui himself

Thanks to Arjowiggins Creative Papers.

Tiré de l’album du Late Night Tales, le morceau de MGMT “All we ever wanted was everything” est ici mis en avant par l’intermédiaire de cette très belle vidéo d’animation. Dirigée par Ned Wenlock, cette création mêle typographie et dessin afin de donner de la profondeur au titre.

Previously on Fubiz

• Dead Sea Lions – Yellow Books
• Cold Mailman – Time is of the Essence
• All Mine – Little Red

Copyright Fubiz™ – Suivez nous sur Twitter et Facebook

Earlier this month, 12 posters by leading artists for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics were unveiled to a largely skeptical public. Given the same brief, Kingston University students have come up with their own versions

Over the current term, I have been doing some lecturing with the third year students on Kingston University’s graphic design and photography courses. A couple of weeks ago, following the release of the 2012 Olympics artists posters, course director Rebecca Wright and I asked the students if they would like to respond to the same briefy given the artists. We asked them for a personal response to the idea of the London Olympics and the intersection between art and sport. Here are their responses.

Leanne Bentley and Ben West came up with this cheeky and somewhat damning response to the artists involved with the official series: DNF stands for Did Not Finish, the ultimate Olympic fail.

For her poster, Ran Park overlayed images of athletes performing various sports to create this beautiful composition

A lot of the student responses were quite critical or dubious about the supposed benefits of the Games coming to London. Here Libby Wimble compares LOCOG’s ambitions to those of a Stalinist Five Year Plan: presumably she feels they have as little basis in reality as each other. The background to the poster is made up of 250,000 tiny tractors

Rosie Palmer and Helen Ferguson were also dubious, focusing on the terrorism threat

Tamara Elmallah was concerned about all the overcrowding the games will bring to the Tube, overlaying an image of spectators rendered in all the Olympic colours until it becomes a brown sludge of humanity

And Alice Tosey wants us all to ‘mind the gap’

And Paul Chanthapanya points to the insidious nature of sponsorship at the Games

While Stephen Messham points out that suffering in the world will not go away just because the Games are in town

Others, though, chose a more positive view. Benji Roebuck and Clara Goodger created their poster from the word for ‘hello’ in the languages of competing nations, allowing the ink from one word to run into another suggesting the coming together of different nations at the Games.

Coming together is also the theme of Jo Hawkes’ poster

And this cut paper piece by Fred North

Hannah Parker had a neat idea for a digital display in which segments would gradually appear over a period of time running up the opening of the Games until the image was completed

Maddy Whitty’s rather beautiful image of the madding crowd of spectators was created using jelly beans

Sam Carroll plays with those famous rings

While Signe Emma created this image from tape which she then photographed

Sophie Burt reminds us of the different races taking part in the games

While Felix Heyes, Josh King, Paul Nelson and Ben West cleverly capture the excitement of the starting block

The same team (minus Paul Nelson) also came up with this wonderfully witty idea. ‘Who’s there? The Olympics!’

Thanks to all the students who took part. They only had just over a week to come up with these, alongside all their other work. Set alongside the efforts of our illustrious artists, I think there are some worthy contenders here.

Read our opinion piece on the official 2012 Olympics posters here

Selected untitled works from skateboarding’s favorite eccentric artist

Wielding pen, paint brush and skateboard, Mark Gonzales has been creating art in many forms for more than 20 years. Gonzales has graced each of his various disciplines with one of the most unique personalities around, gaining recognition within the skateboard community for his endless influence, free-flowing style and unconventional drawings captured on Krooked Skateboards. A presence in the fine art world since the early ’90s, Gonzales has exhibited across Europe, Asia and the Americas. He returns to NYC with his latest collection of untitled paintings and poems, opening at Franklin Parrasch Gallery today, 22 November 2011.

This time around Gonzales has selected a group of work completed over the last year in New York and Paris, from poetry rendered in spray paint on mirrored acrylic surfaces to a series of small scale acrylic paintings on linen canvas. The collection explores notions of love, death and the spiritual occult, often shown through the free association between text and imagery that draws a direct parallel to Gonzales’ lifelong dedication to self published zines.

Although those unfamiliar with his work may be skeptical of the quirky aesthetic, those who dismiss their conventionally critical eye and keep an open mind will discover its depth—an approach that applies to understanding the Gonz in general. His untitled paintings and poems will be on display at Franklin Parrasch Gallery from 22 November 2011 to 7 January 2012. To learn more about the extensive work behind the singular character check his gallery bio online.