Team Farang is a group of freerunners from around the world that each year gather together in Thailand to explore the unique cities and breath taking country sides. Seeking out new challenges and adventures, and having a ridiculously good time in the process. 

By the way, Farang is the bastardization of the English word Foreign; the generic thai word for your average Westerner.

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

Young & Free is the most significant exhibition by Australian street artists ever seen in the United States. The show features fresh work by thirteen of Australia’s finest urban art guerrillas – from the already internationally acclaimed to the burgeoning up-and-comers.This tribe of artists comes from a variety of backgrounds: brilliant new work by notorious 80’s train painters through to the sublime subtlety of a modern day Rembrandt armed with a spray can. Young & Free is a reflection of Australia’s thriving street culture with a strong grounding in the past and a firm focus on the future. These are modern day bushrangers, patrolling the lanes from Melbourne to Manhattan. This show features a mix of direct sprays, stencils and paste-ups, representing the rich and varied groundings from which these artists have grown. No matter their age, medium or style, the Young & Free artists all share one thing in common: they want to give the urban landscape a fresh coat of paint.

(HT @JonasJanssens, cheers.)

The Ghostvillage Project was created over 3 days on the west coast of Scotland. 6 artists (Timid, Remi/Rough, System, Stormie Mills, Juice 126, Derm) were given free reign to paint in an abandoned 1970s village.

Working together on huge collaborative walls and individually in hidden nooks and crannies all over the site the artists realised long held dreams and were inspired by the bleakness and remoteness of the site. Drawing on the history of the village the artists’ stated intent on completion of the project was to populate the ghostvillage with the art and characters that it deserved.

Over the weekend I payed Utrecht a quick visit. A wedding with friends, a 30-45min walk through the city before. Snapped some stuff on the way to the ceremony though …

Roadkill.

Urban knitting.

Work in progress, launch is imminent.

In the meantime check our facebook or twitter.

Tattoo Age is a documentart which follows Dan Santoro at Smith Street Tattoo Parlor. The first clip gives us the chance to get to know Dan Santoro, alongside his shop mates Bert Krak, Steve Boltz, and Eli Quinters. Dan takes a nostalgic view on how destiny landed him at Smith Street, and what a person can expect to find if they enter this hallowed bastion of traditional tattooing.

In the second episode of  we get enlightened about the flash that adorns the walls at Smith Street Tattoo Parlor, and since this is about Dan Santoro, we focus on what set his flash apart from the rest of the pack. Flash, for those of you who don’t know, is the term for the tattoo designs that are on the wall at a tattoo shop. Dan also goes past the tattoo realm with some of his more personal art, and shares it with us at his home.

In the final installment of the Dan Santoro series we get an inside look at the impetus behind his collection of antique objects, and how he turned his childhood dream into reality.

The sweat dripping from your face. The exhaustion after giving it your all. We have mentioned it before.

The following short film by Dave is a great caption of how the behaviour of fans at a gig is a key part of the relation between them, the band, and the music. Crowd surfing, along with pogoing and moshing, is an act of rock’n'roll defiance, a demonstration that you are there in the thick of it, lost in the music.

The fifth entry in the 2011 Short Stories film competition fuelled by Relentless Energy Drink, “The Pit,” takes viewers into a world of bodies and bouncers. Depares introduces us to the fans who risk ejection from the venue, the musicians who live it every night (including Liam Cormier of Cancer Bats and Lee Spielman of Trash Talk) and the bouncers who try to keep everyone safe. The film contrasts the focused energy of the band with the seeming chaos of the pit.

Crack the surface is the first in a series of short documentaries focusing on the culture of Urban Exploring.

Kidult might not need an introduction for many, allthough I reckon for some he might be new. He has become an infamous (yet rec­og­nized) artist mainly because of his actions targetting several high end luxury brands’ stores (most recently Supreme in New York), which he considers ‘hypocritical in a society that predominantly lives under the poverty level’.

A while back the French graffiti artist released ‘ILLEGALIZE GRAFFITI‘, a video which documents his controversial activities in the streets of Paris & abroad. “Angered and frus­trated by the sud­den ram­pant com­mer­cial­iza­tion of graf­fiti into the main­stream, French street artist Kidult has taken to the streets of Paris to remind peo­ple of the impor­tance of street art as a counter-culture move­ment.”

Each and every day I walk by this mural. Its en route to our offices. Peeps better have a good look as it might just be your last chance to see it as demolition work has started …

Update: seems this wall will remain intact till at least September.

The Pool was more than a BMX comp, it was one of the most extra-ordinary gatherings of the BMX community this century.

From the draining of a soon to be demolished local authority swimming pool in Dagenham, East London, into a world class park in less than two weeks was a feat in itself, but to see the diversity and level or riding on display at the launch event was truly remarkable.

40 international riders with a brand new team format saw non-comp riders, veterans, street destroyers and park animals all throw down into something far better than we could have dreamt of.

Brazilian street art took over the walls of the prestigious MuBE Museum in São Paulo (Brasil) for the biggest graffiti showcase of the year. 65 Graffiti artists from 13 countries descended upon São Paulo for the 1st Biennial International “Graffiti Fine Art” Exhibition at the MuBE Museum. In an art world where semantics matter, graffiti artists from around the world wonder what exactly is ‘Graffiti Fine Art‘. After all, once graffiti leaves the street… is it even graffiti at all?

A Documentary by Jared Levy.

What happens when you place musical instruments in random spots all over town …

courtesy of  NARCELIO GRUD

Seems a few spare hours in Ghent and hooking up with Bue results in the following. Read all about it at Insaland.

Unfamiliar with Insa’s work? Have a look overhere.

[through MashKulture]

Hong Kong is home to more than 7 million people. Amongst the high rise apartments, product designer Michael Leung founder of HK Honey, has created his own space bringing nature back into the metropolis one box at a time.

HK Honey is an organisation of Hong Kong beekeepers, artists & designers who aim to communicate the value of bees to the human food chain & the benefits of locally produced honey. With a network of bee farms and a design studio, Michael and HK Honey harvest local honey & design products and services relating to urban beekeeping.

Seems ROA has been in San Fran the past weeks in preparation of an exhibit at the White Walls gallery during the month of April. Spencer Keeton Cunningham documented this in a lovely fashion. More images can be found overhere.

[More Roa overhere btw]

Crossing Lines is a short film that documents Irish artist Conor Harrington trip to Tel Aviv, Israel and Bethleham, Palestine in May 2010.

I first really read about JR with his 28mm project a couple of years back. Saw stuff popping up on the interwebs and loved the way it made people think about situations time and time again. Its that subtle form of social criticism that makes JR one of those artists that keeps drawing peoples attention and I reckon you ought to watch the clip below. Its an introduction on the TED prize winner.

and if you want to find out more I suggest you also read this piece in the NY Times on the man’s life & work. Or how one man has one wish to change the world.

What has Kid Zoom been up to the last 6 months …

The project was created by Joris Debeij, a European currently residing in LA, who wants to document the city through portraits of intriguing and unique personalities living there. Each single one on people who found a specific niche for themselves in a city of millions.

Enjoy the selected clips, we know we did.

Salvador Preciado has lived in East LA for most of his life. Growing up, he always was impressed by the tattoos worn by local gang members and he later decided to become a full-time tattoo artist. Sal is now the proud owner of El Clasico Tattoo, a tattoo shop in Echo Park.

Sean Martin has been riding bikes for over ten years. He started out on a BMX and now feels “one” with his fixed-gear bike while riding through the streets of LA.

Imagine this: There are mature fruit trees planted and cared for all over your neighborhood, so you can just pick fresh fruit and enjoy it as you walk down the street, without ever needing to go hungry. The guys of Fallen Fruit started 7 years ago as a one-time project that involved mapping out the locations of public fruit trees.

The Subs are dropping a brand new one. As usual a great video to accompany their latest track.

Regular readers probably do not need an introduction when it comes to Shepard Fairey. For many he symbolises part of the Obama presidential campaign as he gained global acclaim by altering the image above which was widely used throughout 2008-2009.

Fairey has been creating great iconic (street) art since the 1980s and can be considered an icon himself.

What follows is an interview with Obey at the end of last year. A great introduction for anyone who might not be that familiar with Shepard’s work.

through gestalten.tv

We mentioned this already a couple of times , but pleased to read that “Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul” made the Sundance Film Festival among this year’s short film program which features a great 9-minute documentary on the park, including brief interviews with the manager and young people who skate there.

For those of you that never heard about this before, Skateistan is an unregular skate park in Kabul, Afghanistan. The project was started by two Australian aid workers who began giving skating as well as educational lessons to more than 350 kids in Kabul.

Urban exploration is the act of going places you’re not supposed to go. It acts as an umbrella phrase for other terms like infiltration, draining, buildering and other actions which take place in an urban setting. Often the act of urban exploration is illegal, as trespassing is usually necessary. However, the majority of urban explorers do not intend to vandalize property. One of the cardinal rules of urban exploration is “Take only photographs, leave only footprints”.

Well, the following clip is a nice urbex example. I reckon a couple of you might have already seen this one through  LaidbackRadio, Mom’s place or Vandalog (seems they beat me to it ), but its too good not to share it here also.

Andrew Wonder follows Steve Duncan, who as an urban historian & photographer tries to peel back the layers of a city to see what’s underneath. “From the tops of bridges to the depths of sewer tunnels, these explorations of the urban environment help me puzzle together the interconnected, multi-dimensional history and complexity of the great metropolises of the world.”

For more info on it all you can always visit UnderCity or follow twitter.com/andrewwonder.

I remember as kids, we would find our way into abandoned houses, warehouses, … Trespassing for many, curiosity for others. Remember once threading onto military terrain a couple of years back. Nothing harmful, curiosity and stupidity mainly. Walking around, looking at training grounds, fire ranges, … and suddenly hearing/seeing a vehicle approach. This followed by the fatest 100m dash ever. Could have qualified for the Olympics

Anyways, closest we have come to urbex the past months must have been the Doel visit we did, but that’s ages ago. Maybe we should consider picking it up.

If this kind stuff interest you, there are several sites you can follow for locations (forbiddenplaces or UEF for instance)  if you want to go out yourself but I also have to mention Wim’s latest project urbanexploration.be here. Kudos for that!

UNDERCITY NYC - through Vandalog, thanks for that!

So a documentary on Wikileaks was released by Sweden’s public service television SVT. This one-hour documentary takes us through the history of WikiLeaks. Besides this the Swedes also followed Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange for several months starting from the past summer. It gives us a great firsthand report on the inside story: Where is the secretive organization heading? Who is Assange: champion of freedom, spy or rapist? What are his objectives? What are the consequences for the internet? Stuff to ponder upon once you’ve seen the report above.

through StupidDope

Amazon dropped some fresh stuff last week. Amongst several Christmas gifts some new books for yours truly. The Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia is a nice addition to my bookshelf.

Fascinating stuff the Russian tattoo, especially the fact it goes hand in hand with criminal culture in which tattoos are codes one must learn to master early in life. I recently even read an autobiography on growing up amongst a Russian criminal community and how important they were as one knew his place within a group through them, recognising superiors. There’s an exhibit on the matter in London right now which looks pretty good btw.