[SPECTACLE] OCTOBER 2011 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
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PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST MOLESKINES & LATTES PINHOLE CAMERAS CHECKED SHIRTS TOP 10s UNDERGROUND POETRY ORGANIC VINTAGE
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The photo on the cover was taken by our featured artist, Costa DiSambuy, with a Canon 50d. The subject is his sister, Edme, posing in the middle of Cappadocia, Turkey.
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21..............................................................BUY
25..................................................................................................short-cuts 26..............................................................................i want to ride my bicycle 30...................................................................top 10 things to buy this month
33...........................................................WEAR
34....................................................................................................check it out 35............................................................................................slims VS skinnies 37.........................................................................................................in focus 38................................................................................streetstyle photographer 40...................................................................top 10 things to wear this month 42.............................................................................................vans: cool steps
43..............................................................GO
44.....................................................................................................meet Italia 46......................................................................................postcards from Milan
54...............................................................DO
57.....................................................................................................indie picks 58..............................................................................................global festivals 61...................................................................................................jack knows! 63.........................................................................curious about street markets 64.........................................................................top 10 things to do this month
66.........................................................KNOW
67..........................................................................................portrait of an artist 72..........................................................................................moleskine diaries 84........................................................................poems from the underground 86...................................................................top 10 things to know this month
91..............................................................EAT
92.......................................................................recipes from around the world 94.......................................................................................healthy bites - graze 95................................................................................................uncle organic 96.........................................................................top 10 things to eat this month
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99...........................................................................................diy: hair to wear 101.....................................................................vintage finds: pinhole cameras 102.................................................................................................your stories 109..................................................................................................#top10
[postcards from milan] Spectacle readers portrait a city they love
o n a rd a u g i s i, z z D u e ra g a . a t it r c s a n u a i t n a dav
THIS PAGE: Milan is dramatic without even intending to be. This couple having a loud argument against this wall was sad but also so beautiful. --Jeremy Brooks, with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi
FACING PAGE: Picnicking at Castello Sforzesco. Handsome Italian men. I asked for a light and it ended with dinner on the Navigli. --Jorinde DeNil, with a Konica Minolta Dimage A200 After a week of grey, the sun finally broke one morning. We had breakfast in bed. Pasta alla carbonara, of course. --Johnny Heslin, with a Nikon D200
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f S o l l e t s a C l e d o n i d Godiirarzseoslceo in un pomeriggio
Un raggio di sole ha rotto la monotonia mil
anese
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costa disambuy Here at Spectacle, we are always looking for new artists to profile. Introducing Costa DiSambuy: a young Italian photographer who now works as an architect in L.A. A quiet, modest individual, Costa perfectly combines the intensity of his two chosen art forms in an eclectic mix of beautiful and poignant images. Nervous but at ease, artistic yet analytical, friendly but cool. Meet Costa.
Would you say you are more of a photographer or an architect? In a way, I have always been an architect, but I only recently started thinking of myself as one. Do you think there’s a connection between photography and architecture? My photography was definitely influenced by architecture and vice versa. I refer to the first one mostly as my own work and to architecture as a much wider discipline, a way of thinking and producing work. I like to think of architecture as language, something that can be read and spoken. The camera is one way of recording it, or of selectively looking at it. The frame is a powerful architectural tool. I’m interested in knowing when you shifted from photography to architecture. In 2007, I moved from Milan to London to study at the Architectural Association School. The change was drastic. It had a profound influence on me, not just as a photographer or as an architect, but as a person. It allowed me to form and develop
“Goodbye”
a new sensibility of which I was totally unaware, leaving a lot of freedom to let my work and ideas come together. It wasn’t easy at first. The mental framework I carried with me was completely demolished. I learnt to question things and, eventually, myself. I owe as much to the institution as to the people I met there. For instance, thanks to them I had an eye-opening trip to Galapagos in my second year. Tell us more. After a trimester of introductory work in London we flew to Quito, Ecuador, and from there visited the Amazon Forest and the Galapagos Islands. We created narratives about the extremely delicate ecologies of the islands and gathered a lot of data to develop individual projects. Despite their fantastic beauty, the islands were for many of us disappointing, which is completely due to our presence there. It is an extremely strange paradise. Not many people know that they kill goats with machine guns from helicopters because they endanger the native giant tortoises. Altogether it was an amazing trip. I remember the moment we arrived at our bungalows in the forest after three hours cruising in a motor canoe carved from a
long tree trunk. We were all whispering, almost afraid of raising our voices. I have never been so overwhelmed by nature. Tell me about your dark, almost monotone pictures like Goodbye. I used to go through my mother’s old photography books—she started her career writing about photography, accumulating a series of books that I gradually stole and moved to my room: LIFE Magazine’s book of photography from the mid-‘40s to the mid-‘50s, a Mapplethorpe book and others, which were mostly black and white. That was my starting point. At the beginning, I aimed at isolating things from their background—almost a beautifying act, like putting something on a pedestal. I lost interest in that idea of beauty as I went along. Is that when you moved entirely to colour photography? I always wondered if the canonical pictures that we all think of as the photography ‘classics’, the work of Cartier-Bresson to quote one, would look good in colour. Black and white is like a veil, it can conceal the dissonance of colour, it depicts the
“South Bay’s Finest”
world as a play of light and shadow. Initially, I struggled to adapt to colour: it broke the balance that seemed to be inherent to grey-scale images.
and I rarely sit and think twice about a photo. I generally give myself a couple of seconds to frame a shot and then I forget about it till I see it on my screen at home.
I take only colour photos now, and really rarely I make them black and white after.
“I lost interest in that idea of beauty as I went along”
You mentioned photography as a ‘beautifying act’. Is the beauty of an image as important to you as capturing its reality? There is a very subtle threshold between form and content. It’s a problem that photography shares with all qualitative disciplines. In my earlier work I was often unaware of content. I looked at photos almost as freestanding objects, the link with the subject not being very important. As I went along my study of architecture, I discovered that consciously choosing the subject of the photograph is a key factor in determining the aesthetic of the image, the object. John Szarkowski, an influential American critic and curator, wrote that photography is like an act of finger-pointing, and some naturally point at more interesting things than others.
Italian at all? I do. Italy will always be home, and I might go back to it one day. At the moment there is no reason for me to be there. Living abroad made me realise a lot of Italy’s limitations but also showed me its beauty in a new way. You always need something to compare it to. I need to be in Italy every now and then, it reassures me. Just out of curiosity, what’s in your bag right now? A pair of sunglasses, a pair of socks, two empty sunglasses cases, two CDs for my truck, a power converter, some cables, the battery charger for my camera, Americana by Don DeLillo.
Which camera do you use? I shoot with a Canon EOS and a compact Olympus point-and-shoot. The quality difference is noticeable, but the compact camera can always be in my pocket.
How do you feel about your camera? Is it a tool you use or an extension of who you are?
I also have two film cameras in Milan: one of them is an old Hasselblad that I haven’t started playing with yet. I shot some pictures but never had the time to develop the film.
It’s a beautiful tool. I used to rely on it a lot more. I felt attached to certain cameras. Now I trust my eyes more than the camera,
So you were born in Milan, lived in London, travelled around the world and now you live in L.A. Do you feel
by ginevra bernabo | @gbernabo
www.disambuy.com 69]
“one mole skine and a latte” [72
This morning, I wake up and decide to treat myself. So I venture into a Starbucks in Soho, my Mac in my bag, iPod in my pocket. I buy a blueberry muffin and a chai latté (it’s ok, I’ll run two hours tomorrow afternoon) and take a seat. Mmmm, the chai is delicious. It must be the mixture of sugar and spices. This is a potion for happiness. I take a look around: I’m surrounded by men and women in their twenties, sporadic families and one-off groups of friends. I focus on the people who are here alone: they seem extremely self-confident, armed with a studied blank expression and the awareness that they perfectly match their surroundings. They have developed a specific set of untold rules that immediately define whether you’re ‘in’ or ‘out’
of the Starbucks crowd. There’s a dress code (Mac – check, iPhone – check, Moleskine – definitely check, a tall cup of something hot to drink – check, huge headphones – not yet, but they’re on my ‘to buy’ list). Take note. Here is how you pull this off: 1. Try to look at ease with yourself while cautiously sipping your latté – don’t react when the hot liquid painfully burns your mouth. 2. Take your laptop, mobile, pens and Moleskine out of your bag. 3. Remember – you are cool (even if you’ve just spilt some of the latté on your new Moleskine – nobody noticed). 4. If all these operations are successful, switch on your laptop (a Mac, obviously), wear your headphones (the bigger, the better) and open your Moleskine.
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What people draw in their notebooks has always fascinated me. It tells you so much about their personality. I love the fact that in such an Internet-dominated culture we’re still able to enjoy the beauty of the written word and a beautiful piece of stationery. To my left, a girl is doodling and daydreaming. Maybe she is thinking about finding Mr Right? A cute guy is sitting in front of her. The only moment of interaction between the two is when he lifts her cup by mistake. She looks at her cup, then he looks at her cup, he lifts his cup, smiles and takes a sip. And they both go back to what they were doing. This is the only form of communication they will have for the entire time they share a table. While amusedly watching the little
the moleskine ® diaries A column by Reander Leeves | www.rleeves.com
dance of their eyes and cups, I find myself thinking, ‘Hey girl, look up. Maybe he is the one and you haven’t even noticed him!’ I suddenly realise we are part of a population of lonely clones. We all share the same space, our bodies nearly touching each other’s, but we all feel the discomfort of this closeness. In this imposed intimacy, there is not even the smallest interaction. We might be conducting prolific conversations on Twitter or Facebook, but in the real world, outside the safe space of the Internet bubble, we are unable to communicate. We shelter behind screens and notebooks, isolate ourselves through music that plays for our delight alone and quietly pour out our loneliness onto the creamy pages of our Moleskines.
Why is this happening? Are we so obsessed with appearances that we’re more concerned about fitting a stereotype (Mac + Moleskine + latté + café) rather than appreciating where we are and who we are with? Or are we so insecure that we need to hide our heads in a notebook to avoid talking with strangers? Suddenly, I notice the guy who has just sat next to me. I start wondering about his life: What does he do? Where does he live? He doesn’t look British. Surprise, surprise, he has just pulled a Moleskine out of his bag. As he opens it, I shamelessly take a peek. I am delighted to find it filled with beautiful drawings. His fingertips are stained with ink. I catch his eye. Smile, then ask: ‘Are you an artist?’
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Luca, 25, Italy, Graphic Designer “I like drawing people, little features catch my attention. And I always match a song to each drawing. This one was This Beard is for Siobhan by Devendra Banhart.”
Elly, 22, London Fashion Design Student “I never leave the house without my Moleskine. It’s my diary, my friend, my source of inspiration.”
Ross, 29, Berne Architect “My Moleskine is full of the buildings I would love to create someday...”
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