Now its been 2 weeks that I’ve been more or less locked up at home, doctor’s orders to rest the arm/shoulder. No work & hardly any play means I’m a pretty dull boy right now. At least I’ve come to the point where I can type a couple of sentences efficiently without massive pain. Getting round online one-handedly *pun intended* ain’t all that efficient by the way .

Anyways, collected some of the instagrams we took along the way and hope to hit the slopes once again next year as this season might be too soon considering the projected recovery.

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.

Over the weekend a couple of friends and myself started contemplating our roadtrip for 2012′s summer. Having considered several options our mind has set on ITALY and more specific Tuscany where we’ll be looking to rent a place for a week.

So, give us the boot but also give us your Tuscan travel tips & experiences as we are total novices when it comes to the region.

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

Spent past weekend in the Ardennes, a bank holiday in a sunny autumn setting with great/longtime friends.

Chalet Suisse life mainly existed of good food, drinks & little sleep.

It usually also involves maps, guides, walking …

and sometimes people who rather wear their trousers in their sock.

It also means not being allowed in certain areas, I blame the 1% for this personally.

Did I mention ‘a weekend amongst good company’ already?

Fitting club to come along as Volvo was so kind to lend me my horse and carriage for the weekend: V60 R design DRIVe by Volvo A great driving experience overall, with brakes that work like a charm, I can testify after having tested them intensively during a wild bore vs car stand off.

You can see me and the V60 here btw, sporting a green winter jacket and a bordeaux sweater by an unknown brand. Shoes: from the walking type with fancy red laces and stuff. Oh, I’m such a personal blogger … watchout LookBook here I come!

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.

This has been in the make for a while. Already great work by everyone involved.

For all additional info visit http://streetartbelgium.com/ or feel free to contact us.

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.

“There is no algorithm to define cool, you just know it when you see it“. – Anonymous hipster.

I have been meaning to digitalize a selection of analog photos for a while now. This is one of the first scans I got sent to see if I was happy with the result. Cracks me up every time I see it and looking forward to see the full collection. I’m betting its gonna be priceless.

Went to Rotterdam with the missus. A quick break, nothing fancy. Must admit the rain and foul weather changed/ruined our plans a bit, but enjoyed visiting a new city none the less.

What did I take note of:

• Dutch NS railway services really suck
• Rotterdam is a way smaller city then expected, making public transport pretty useless when just visiting and you’ve got several days. Everything is walkable, reckon renting a bike is way more interesting.
• The Eden Savoy Hotel was hell on earth when it came to their beds. I will not recommend staying there.
• Woei is a nifty little store, worth paying a visit.
• I still can go through life as a student, as along the way I got discounts without having to show a student card here and there #win
• Rotterdam has a lot to offer. Besides its shopping potential and good food, its Museumkwartier is worth a visit. The NAI, Witte de With and off course the Boijmans.
• Spent several hours walking around the Boijmans. Dali, Magritte, …  they all got their spot. Pure art pr0n throughout the times
• Dudok can serve me food anytime, ended up eating there twice (not counting coffee and cake for tea that is )
• So much more …

[more imagery overhere]

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

A sausage fest, gone horribly wrong.

[Work by Kati Heck]

Onio, Ox-Alien, Rotterdam

A spring afternoon in the Madrid Mountains, longboarding with the Longboard Girls Crew. Got to give this method of transport a try out one of these days. Wonder if its as easy as some make it out to be.

[through Fubiz]

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.

Buraka Som Sistema just dropped a bangin’ hot track for the summer. You might remember them from their Sound of Kudoro (which featured M.I.A and started it all) or their Kalemba (wegue wegue) but for those of you who are really not familiar with Buraka, they are one of the driving forces for bringing the Kuduro genre to the masses with their mix of techno beats and the specific African kuduro sound.

Hangover (BaBaBa) is out on June 6th. But for now Wegue Wegue.

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]

“This mountain is like nothing you have skied before! Spend a day riding the tiny tram and shredding miniature backcountry lines in Jackson Hole. Or how tilt-shift is pretty awesome when used like this.

[through @OrT]

I have said it before and I will say it again, a lot is happening in Ghent lately and with the opening of the A&Gallery another spot gets added to the list. Not just any opening as Moby will be opening this new gallery with his DESTROYED exhibit.

The Belgian exhibition, which starts on on Wednesday May 18, serves as the official opening of A&Gallery – run by Ben Van Alboom and Wouter Van Vaerenbergh, the creative duo behind the renowned photography project Angels & Ghosts. Moby will not only attend the opening but also play a DJ set at a still secret and very exclusive location.

Most of us mainly know Moby as a music artist, yet photopgraphy and other visual artwork has always been an interest of his. Once a film and photography graduate student, Moby’s been a keen SLR lens man ever since his uncle, a photographer working for The New York Times, presented him with a camera at age ten. To this day, Moby carries a camera wherever he goes.

A photography book (55 photographs taken by Moby while touring the planet) will accompany Moby’s new album Destroyed by the way.

A&Gallery, Schepenhuisstraat 17, 9000 Gent

We’ve mentioned this one before, but fixed gears keep on turnin’ and right now we got the full feature which has clearly turned out to become a nice piece documenting the trip from London to Paris which 10 riders took on as a challenge in 2009 in order to meet Lance Armstrong as the Tour De France came to a close. It takes a while to load in vimeo, so be patient

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

The following is a documentary about a journey to “The Edge of the Earth”. The Gates of the Arctic National Park. This Arctic park, with no roads, facilities, or campgrounds, is one of the northernmost national parks in the U.S.

“For the next two weeks you must survive using the knowledge, skills and gear you bring with you. You will walk or float through intact ecosystems where people have lived with the land for thousands of years. You will experience solitude, self reliance and nature on its own terms. Are you prepared?”

Its a great piece of work and inspiration for journeys to come.

New video for Gold Panda‘s track ‘Marriage’:

I was touring throughout December and January (with the Glitterbug live show), so the only way to make a new video for Gold Panda was to make it along the way. So I filmed the people and places I met. I wanted to keep the personal humbleness of the track, it’s warmth and beauty and to simply focus on people and the notion of something shared, regardless of place, situation or climate zone…

I always showed whoever I filmed footage from previous shoots, so people would see one another, and in some sense strangers became friends and the video grew a life of its own. The funny thing was that many strangers came up to me along the way so fascinated by the light of the lantern and asked me if they could please have one… So I left most behind and came back home with almost none, loving the idea that the video just continues on its own…

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.

And we’re off to Val Thorens for the week. On the menu we find a diet of snow, friends and beers (usually lots of beers ). Good times overall and since its been 2 years since we last hit the slopes I am pretty much looking forward to it all.

In the meantime break a leg stay frosty.

Besides making great products they also make great content such as the following clip of an expedition this past September in which TNF Snowboarder’s Xavier De Le Rue , Lucas Debari , and David Porchron ventured down to Chile with the Transworld Snowboarding crew to shred some long forgotten lines inside a volcano.

Strange we had not picked this up before. A great production showing the city we live & work in from another perspective.