Picture courtesy of  Street Art Festival

Little stop motion clip for the mural ROA made for the Street Art Festival in Hasselt, Belgium found its way to our mailbox today. Pity he couldn’t make last year’s fest, but glad he found the time to turn up a couple of months later and put that straight We had previously seen the images of the finished mural turn up, but always more impressive to see such a massive piece take shape bit by bit.

For those who missed last year’s festival, we have a small round-up of how we experienced the weekend first-hand overhere. Have a look/read in order to get ready for this year’s edition because as we speak, this year’s organisation & the city of Hasselt are puzzling together yet another great (inter)national line-up.

Interested in finding out the latest info first-hand, visit the festival’s facebook page http://www.facebook.com/streetartfestivalbelgium and get the latest as soon as everything’s confirmed.

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Woodkid has been an OOTB favorite, remember the great Iron track and video?

Been waiting for Woodkid’s new video for a while now, ever since we saw the teaser pop up. Once again the look of the black/white video for the song is very unique and impressive. Beautiful and strong images. Can only agree and suggest you all have a look and share this masterpiece by Yoann Lemoine.

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So, started work on our own little Gidsy project/listing. Polle had launched a call to unlock Gidsy for the city of Gent and after Istanbul it seems Hasselt & Gent will follow next week. Great to see Hasselt pop  up next to Gent, an underestimated town/travel destination if you ask me (but who am I). This reminds me we have to revisit Hasselt urgently, before this year’s STREET ART FESTIVAL (in other news, a 2nd edition has been confirmed!!).

Anyways, back to Gidsy & Gent… seems we are gonna try to offer (working on several others, maybe) a Street Art/Bike Tour of Gent. A quick round up:

Take a tour through Ghent and discover some great spots and work by a wide range of local & international artists. 

Over the past decades Ghent has drawn lots of attention for embracing youth culture. Besides an interesting (electronic) musical scene it also has its own urban art scene. Roa, Bue The Warrior, Resto & A Squid Called Sebastien are just a few of the local artists, besides that you will spot works by a wide range of other local/international artists.

Depending on your available time we will take the back street of Gent and visit several spots  through town by bike (or foot), also uncovering the little stores, coffee bars and/or galleries that might interest you. Our tour will bring you across several parts of town you might not usually visit, giving you another view on the city. 

Although we have never been real fans of “street art tours” (something you should discover on your own, at your own pace) we reckon it might be nice starting point to take people across town and that on bikes.

Never done this before, but reckon its a good way of going through town with visitors and curious to see how everything unfolds the next weeks/months, hope to meet some great people and reckon even we will (re)discover parts of Gent ourselves.

Hit us up if you’re interested in doing some test-runs for the tour as it is still a work in progress that is gonna need a lot of finetuning!!

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Passed few days a certain Hulk has been stalking me, distrupting me from doing my work, mingling with my other compagnons, … He even followed me to the office & found his way to my #drawsome :s

Reckon Hulk is trying to tell me we have to go and see The Avengers this weekend. Heard he has a massive final scene, curious to see the result! #challengeaccepted

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Golden tune by the golden A$AP ROCKY.

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Remember how the Art of Flight blew everyone in the extreme sports world away? Well, now there’s the next best thing, a fine spoof

(HT Oemebamo)

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Invader has been one of our favorite artists for years now. Ever since one of those first Paris visits he drew our attention. Back then we had no idea yet who or what was responsible for the mosaic pieces, but we knew we liked them. Small interventions throughout the city making Paris beautiful one piece at a time.

Over the past winter, Invader made a short movie inviting us to spend one night in Paris with him. A great capture of how he gets round to doing what he does best. Have a look as its a great piece.

Also, for those who find themselves in BXL over the next week(s), Invader still has a show at Brussel’s Alice Gallery then (video repo can be found here) and he recently also visited BXL for one of his largest invasions. Open your eyes while walkig through the city and check the following map as it might help you to spot some tiles There’s a great overview on Invaderblog also which might be a help.

through our longtime favorite WoosterCollective

picture courtesy of zzkt. & ArrestedMotion

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Last week I dug up some old sketch books, pencils & markers. It had been a while, although I never was a heavy user, since I had drawn anything. Felt the need to be able to do something in a little corner at home, away from other distractions. Grab a seat from time to time and plot some things on paper, in the hope it turns out to be something good.

Basically I’ve started with drawing some simple characters, stuff you can freehand in no time. A couple of lines and nothing fancy. Stuff I’m not willing/ready to share yet. Sketches and drawings that need lots of improvement. Improvement I’m looking to find… but have no idea where to look.

But for now you can just call me a bit sketchy, and who knows maybe you might spot something somewhere near you.

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Earlier this week London rapper Plan B released a video for his latest single, ‘ill Manors’, part of a wider project of the same name, including a forthcoming film, designed to explore and address the issues surrounding poverty and alienation in Britain, in particular examining the London Summer Riots of 2011.

It’s an aggressive assault on everything from people’s perception of the working classes (“Oi look there’s a chav, that means council housed and violent”), to the Olympics (“Built an entire Olympic village around where we live without pulling down any flats … Don’t bloody give me that”) to David Cameron’s softly softly approach to dealing with teenagers (“He’s got a hoodie on give him a hug, on second thoughts don’t, you don’t wanna get mugged”).

Couple of days ago Plan B also caught up with MistaJam to talk about the controversy surrounding the ill Manors project and the inspiration he had for this new track…

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A while back, the hotel Au vieux Panier asked Tilt to design a room, you’ve seen images of the work/installation pop up everywhere across the web and now there’s some moving imagery to accompany it all.

“I first told them that I wasn’t interested doing just decoration in the room but I wanted to create something that will look more like an installation. I thought about it also as a huge canvas where I needed to think about the composition and play with the empty white part of the room to accentuate more the idea of Chaos on the other part. Then I asked my friend Tober who gat a great old school style for tags, Grizz who is also the man behind the camera and Don Cho who is a Hip Hop singer from Marseille but who used to be a tagger from my home town Toulouse. It took one week to do the whole thing cause the idea was to exaggerate what you can usually see in some abandoned places. Too much tags, too much drips, too much sentences, too much throw ups … What I also wanted to show is that people can appreciate any type of graffiti, even the more basic, it’s just a matter of point of view …” – Tilt

Images  courtesy of BigAddict

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London is calling for the 22tracks gang, but they still had to get one thing scrapped off the Brussels bucketlist: their own t-shirt!

With the new 22tracks t-shirt designed by Brussels artist Oli-B they finally got that item done. And it turned out to be a great new design by one of the freshest artists our capital has to offer!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the whole 22tracks concept, have a quick read overhere and definitely have a look on 22tracks.net where since last June 22nd 22 great selectors present us the freshest sound for Brussels.

The shirt is available through T-junk amongst the other 22 tracks gear.

Ow, and also have a look at UglyMelly who happened to feature Oli’s work this week.

picture ©Numbi

Video by the talented Eckelwood (get in touch with him if you need anything video done) and sounds by MonkeyRobot.

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Monday eve we gathered some like minded bloggers/tweeps in Bar Buro for a cosy pre-listening session of Miike Snow’s Happy to You. Sony Music Belgium (worth the follow on twitter btw) hosted a Twunch, in order for us to get a first eavesdrop of the Happy to You album amongst good company and a little bite/snack.

As Miike Snow fans ourselves we were more than eager to hear what the result was. We had previously heard some stuff on their Soundcloud, but that just don’t cut it as you really need to listen to all 10 tracks in the order you’re supposed to, which was the case with this Miike Snow piece.

Reckon most people heard the album’s closing track Paddling Out (check the video below, always instant bliss when I hear it passby on the radio) as its the current single, but the album has a lot more to offer for sure. I suggest you also check what Deborah, Zofie & Lluisa already wrote about it amongst others.

Their previous album has been part of my car discography ever since it had been released and their new work is yet another great roadtrip soundtrack.

The cover is graced by a jackalope btw,  a mythical creature, which basically is a rabbit with antlers  Thanks for pointing that out @N_A_G_D!

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‘I Am An African’ is the first single of Papa Ghana‘s EP ‘I Am An African’.

Papa Ghana, a Dutch vocalist with Ghanaian roots is also member of the creative collective Daily Paper and is one third of the music trio L’Afrque Som Systeme. Influenced by many cultures Papa Ghana uses a variety of styles and genre’s in his music such as afrobeat, coupe decale, kuduro, grime, dubstep, electro and hip hop.  

Dope track/video, something else for your Sunday afternoon.

[through Ofive]

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New work by PES who once again tansforms some familiar objects into Fresh Guacamole.

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We must admit, Instagram is becoming  became an addiction overnight. We start our day with flicking through the images and usually also end it that way

Yesterday we read about a new iOS app called Decim8 and the description triggered our interest right away. Remember how a while back someone told us he was looking for an app to make really crappy pics, as he thought the iphone camera was too good and felt the need to give his cellphone pics the 90s 1MP feel. Decim8 does just this, under the motto “FILM IS DEAD”.

Contrary to many camera apps that insist to attempt simulations of that long-past era, decim8 says no to artificial nostalgia, pushing forward in the digital realm with different forms of creative destruction. It simply is a digital tool for photographic destruction, armed with a set of bit-mangling filters. There are no effects to simulate your grandpa’s snapshots. No virtual replicas of plastic instant-cams from your imaginary summer of ’73. Just mad combinations of digital data-mashing. 

You can arrange/activate effects in any order and to make it even better, effects never are exactly the same twice  You may call me a hipster now, but I actually like this app a lot and reckon its gonna be a great combination with instagram!

Download it overhere for a small fee and also check their Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/decim8/ for more examples of the effects Decim8 got to offer. Looking forward to seeing what strange pics you’ve got, just add me on instagram. Or, just check out the group  is capable of.

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No stopping Odd Future who dropped a new insanely funny video. Directed by Wolf Haley, the track will appear on OF yet to be released LP The OF Tape Vol. 2 Looking forward.

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By the way, @SSTRID also took up this blogging thing.

Shaved billboard, giving it a whole new level.

Invader.

Fred le Chevalier.

Invader.

Fred le Chevalier.

Bonom.

Pole Ka.

Super Tat Pa.

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New video for DJ Muggs feat Dizzee Rascal & Bambu: ‘Snap Ya Neck Back’. Heard the track on the radio over the weekend and still don’t know what to make of it… almost had a fit while driving to be honest.

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Curls in Paris.

As you might have read previously, we headed out to Paris over the weekend for the Duvel Collection finale, Showroom Belgium & the Paris Fashion Week experience. Had been 2 years already since my last visit, looked forward to it and was not disappointed at all

 PIGS ON WHEELS. No, helmets are only for smart people.

Friday started off with some cross-city walking/window-shopping. As the evening came we headed on out to the Duvel Collection finale. A quick presentation of the finalists was followed by an ‘and the winner is…’

Belgian designer Philippe Debongnie took home the grand prize and from June 2012 onwards, his glass will be available for all you Duvel lovers and collectors worldwide. Looking forward to seeing who will tag along aside him…

Saturday morning was an early wake-up call, breakfast and a quick walk around Oberkampf before heading to the Jean-Paul Lespagnard show. Tried to drop by Tigersushi amongst others, but seems stores in Paris open up later on Saturday mornings

No worries though, as we had little time to waste with the Lespagnard show starting at 12.

Was a great experience, a first for everything n’est-ce pas Got the whole 15-30min preshow-runway experience (ma’am even got to sit front-row for it) and bumped into some friends even! Rests to say that I even liked most of the stuff in the autumn/winter collection.

Paris Metro was plastered with John Carter posters btw. Happened to attend an early screening in Gent this morning and must say its a great movie! (check the trailer)

Also happend to see some great street art throughout the town. Its incredible how Paris has been covered with paint & pastes. More on that in a following post, promised!

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Ha, seems I’m heading to Paris next week to attend the Duvel Collection finale on Friday, but since I’m there I might just as well see what fashion week is all about. Now for those of you who missed Duvel’s competition last year I will give a quick rundown of the facts.

First off, Duvel gave creative talent the chance to design a Duvel Collection glass throughout several weeks . Their competition ran from September till December in several countries and at they end they gathered over 800 entries. Now, from these entries, the 20 entries with the most votes got selected and presented to a panel of international judges who selected their top 3 and their designers have been invited to Paris for an official award ceremony and party where one of them will be chosen during Showroom Belgium which is a joint initiative by the Flanders Fashion Institue and Wallonie Bruxelles Design Mode at Galerie Magda Danysz. Afterwards the winning design will become part of this year’s official Duvel Collection.

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out and seems that besides this all we also got an invite for the Jean-Paul Lespagnard show. Heard last year’s show was great so looking forward to this year’s runway.

But first things first, and that’s finding out who’s design will be joining the Duvel Collection amongst some great names likes Arne Quinze, Denis Meyers, Eley Kishimoto , Stefan van Glerum & off course Parra.

Mentioning Parra, have you seen the great interview/clip by Stussy on the man? Seems their 2012 spring collection includes a series of T-shirts from the Dutch artist’s hand and they caught up with him at his studio a while back.

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Fleischer Studios, 1930.

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Been MIA for a couple of weeks so got some backlash when it comes to my words of the day. As you might know/have read, (almost) every single day – when I don’t forget – I post a word of the day on twitter, inspired by my Urban Dictionary Calendar.

Conintuing the tradition in 2012 with a fresh stack I reckon I need to do a quick catch-up for my slacking. What follows are some of the best words I saw the past weeks

nap mouth - The bad taste in your mouth just after waking up from a nap.

time vampire - Something or someone who literally sucks your time like a vampire sucks blood.

seat gypsie - A person or group of people that travel from one unclaimed seat to another (normally at sporting events) because their cheap asses couldn’t fork up the money for better seats. Said people are forced to move once seats are claimed by the rightful ticket holders.

nomonym - When you eat something and it tastes like something else.

cheappuccino - Any of the wide variety of flavored coffee drinks offered at convenience stores that can be purchased for less than half the price of a coffeehouse cappuccino.

X-rayted - TSA rating for airport, naked body scan images.

thrift whore -  person who shops at many different thrift stores, thereby often finding wonderful deals.

testicular fortitude - balls, guts, intestinal fortitude

dweet - Twitter tweet sent when drunk. A drunk tweet

airport vultures - Passengers waiting to board a plane who stalk around near and clog up the boarding gate before a flight, regardless of where their seat is or when boarding actually is.

masturdating - Going out alone. I.e. seeing a movie by yourself, going to a restaurant alone.

party claim - Objects left at a party may be claimed by the host.

pornocchio - A person who embellishes their sexcapades to sound cooler.

economic vegetarian - Only eating Vegatables because you can’t afford to buy meat.

dish envy - Sudden, intense longing and regret derived from watching a particularly appetizing dish being delivered to a nearby table.

Oh, and yesterday I tweeted the classic ‘ass antlers’ (known as tramp stamps amongst the general public) courtesy of @Gammet

A type of tattoo, usually worn by women, on the lower back and branching upwards from the buttcrack. From the original German “Arschgeweih”.

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Classic silly Symphony produced by the Walt Disney Studio and a slightly different MGM feature with them Three Little Pigs.

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Mentioned the I Am Los Angeles portraits a couple of times before and just saw that some great portraits have been added over the passed weeks! One of them features Belgian artist & expat Chase who’s murals, paintings, and stencil art graces a huge amount of walls across LA and other cities. 

More portraits at iamlosangeles.com

Picture = work by Chase & Bue the Warrior, Ghent.

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Yesterday RedBull Belgium premiered The Art of Flight in Brussels. The movie has been on a world tour throughout this fall (after having been released earlier in September) and yesterday Travis Rice & co found their way to Brussels. The ‘sold out’ (ticket were up for grabs through RedBull’s site) venue was Studio 4 in Flagey, a great location that was for this event.

The movie/documentary itself follows Travis Rice, John Jackson, Mark Landvik, Scotty Lago, Jake Blauvelt, Nicolas Müller, Gigi Rüf, DCP and Pat Moore as they dream up new global adventures and progress the sport to unimaginable levels. For this, production company Brain Farm gathered an arsenal of the most advanced and progressive filmmaking technology to bring the masses a snowboarding adventure of epic proportions. Filmed on location in Jackson Hole, Alaska, Chile, Aspen, Patagonia, British Columbia, … the movie brings viewers along for the perfect blend of adventure/travel drama and high-energy snowboarding action.

Overall the verdict was that its a great (and I really mean GREAT) snowboard movie if not the most epic of them all. Everything about the movie was super-sized, from the budget (read it was around $2 million) to the riding. A mix of sweeping landscape shots of enormous mountains and huge rides/jumps. Even the run time of an hour and a half is more than twice that of your average snowboard films. The sheer size of everything just blows you away and I reckon anyone will appreciate watching it.

The screening tour continues to Amsterdam, Paris, Stockholm & Moscow throughout the week. If you can attend one of the dates I suggest you do or get your hands on a copy  of the DVD. Besides impressive the footage the movie also has a great soundtrack worth checking out.

Thanks to the guys over at RedBull Belgium for the invites. Can’t wait to hit the slopes this winter myself although I will keep it more real(istic) & amateur

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Skinemax is Koyaanisqatsi  for a generation raised on late night television and B-movie VHS tapes. It’s long form entertainment for short attention spans. An hour long VJ odyssey, it will move your body and warp your mind.

A nostalgic look back at a half remembered childhood growing up in the 80s and early 90s, Skinemax takes a close look at the culture of that era. The images that motivated, delighted, and terrified us on the silver screen, set to propulsive modern music that pines for a simpler time.

And what’s even greater, it stars Kurt Russel Lots of scenes shot by that I hadn’t seen in while …

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“We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists“ is an upcoming documentary on Anonymous and the history of hacktivism. Expect this.

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Mentioned SupaKitch & Koralie a couple of times before and today another great ‘making of’clip for one of their wall paintings popped up. Their work is so nice, have a look yourself. In the meantime stay out of trouble!

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Kid Robot & Swatch have been a favorites of mine for a while so I could not have been more delighted to see yet another collab as this take place. I had been longing for one of my own for a while … et voila

Its Frank Kozik‘s (his name by creating full-color silk screened posters for various legendary rock bands of the 90s) contribution to the collection. ”I wanted to make the designs as clean as possible,” he explains “I like Swatch for its plastic future sense.”

As Flava Flav‘s iconically states “What time is it?!”

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Still owed you this post:

Couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in Hasselt for the Street Art Festival surrounded by a great line-up. Coincidence has it that I happened to help out Mymo with here massive piece. Operating the bucket, painting where possible. Besides that some other great pieces got shape. Full set overhere but thought I should share a couple of them here …

A first for me and a great festival overall.

Mymo

Resto

Oli-B x Billy x Resto x Bue the Warrior

Polak x Locatelli

DinDin

Aryz

Also, as I have been getting questions/requests over the past 2 weeks I thought I should enlighten everyone that I did leave the StreetArtBelgium.com thing. Our paths were clearly going other ways. Several people had warned me for certain elements while starting our efforts, and in the end it seems they were right on this from the start.

Stuff has been done, stuff has been said, a story which has several sides to it, so I wish not to get strangled in between. Besides that I could not find myself within the way things turned out, kicking someone off a mutual project without discussing this amongst everyone does not float here.For that reason I decided to quit all efforts within the project and for what its worth, I regret it had to turn out this way as we had something nice going as a team. Personal side of the story available offline for the those interested.

For those of you who wish to support the festival and see it return once again, please join the facebook page which will keep you up to date on what happens in the future.

Also, on a final note, Oemebamo shot a great overview/recap of the festival. Hope this will return next year or the near future.

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