With less than a month ’til DEMF and a lot of anticipation for Mutek’s 10 year anniversary, May is bound to be full of excitement. AIRDROP attended DEMF aka the Movement for the first time last year (check out part of our 2008 review), and we have been waiting for the next one!

The 2009 lineup is definitely jaw dropping and diverse, expanding the horizon of electronic music by bringing in headlining acts like RJD2, Tiga, Seth Troxler, Tiefschwarz, Innervisions Live, Marco Carola, Damian Lazarus, Wighnomy Brothers, Busy P and many many more…

If this is enough for you, which it should be… then you are in for a treat, because on top of all the action at Hart Plaza, DEMF also has an afterparty madness culture where top promoters local, regional and international throw parties drawing in some more talent and offering additional playing opportunities for artists you may have missed at the festival.

Lineups are always exciting and interesting, wondering not only how they are picked, but why? Is it worth spending $10+k on Luciano or booking RJD2 (YES!)? Or which artists were part of the bundle (encouraged as part of the package by the agency)? All in all, its a back n forth of compromise and of course the calculations of cost effectiveness, branding and value. For instance, some artists will be relatively unknown to a large majority of attendees, yet they will generate press and strong emotions from core followers that are willing to travel and rave just for them (maybe like Wighnomy bros?). Whereas, just saying the name Carl Cox or Francois K gets a llloooottt of people excited.

A festival this big must appeal to different styles and genres of electronic music: whether the hard techno lovers, the ex-minimal heads who recently fell in love with deep house or the many other facets of electronic music represented at this year’s festival. Drawing on diverse interests makes it possible to create such a large scaled success, something Made Event will use as a reference in the upcoming September debut of its Electric Zoo…

In any case DEMF has done a good job of creating this balance and will make the festival a success. We will be live blogging and twittering as well as keeping you updated on the afterparties, many of which still to be announced.

So stay tuned as we have more DEMF news coming (including the details for our party!). Get your plane, hotel and festival tix asap!

ABOVE, one of our favorite street artists just completed his South America tour with interventions from Brazil to Chile. This particular work was completed in Chile. I would have expected something a bit different from an artist whose latest works have been more socio-economic in their criticism, but then again, this may just be a more subtle approach. In any case, he does show a sense of humor “rite”? YES, he does. Read through his website and try to buy one of his paintings to realize that ABOVE really is on to something. Check out some of his other works and projects here. Visit supertouchart for more!

Sometime ago, we had dedicated a post to the fantastic Italian artist Blu. We thought that you would all be happy to end this year 2008, with some news from him. So here is a video of his recent intervention that happened in November in Berlin. Funny thing being, in the process – you can actually see him covering some of Fase’s signature characters, that they had done on their Berlin trip last year!! I think many of us would like to thank Blu for bringing such a great new dimension to street art and activism over the past few years. So check out the video below to see the whole making of the PIECE. Also check out his website by clicking here for all his most recent news.

Check out a small preview of the pieces and more info about the artist below:

Anda Stelian was born in Romania, migrated to Belgium, lived in France, Italy and New York. All of these moves, and the back-and-forth between Paris and New York shaped her perceptions of the World and ceramic works.

Initially a trained Belgian Architect, but after practicing architecture in Belgium, France and New York, Anda turned to ceramics in 1995 as a hobby. In 2003 Anda decided to concentrate on Ceramics and after professional classes at the Institut Francais de la Céramique de Sèvres (the prestigious French Ceramics Institut at Sevres), she set up her own studio, bought her kiln and started giving ceramic classes to kids and adolescents. Anda has participated in competitions and thematic exhibitions in France as a way to visit new subjects that she would not have done instinctively. The results of participating or working on imposed subjects explains her diverse portfolio of works.

Currently, Anda works out of the Greenwich Pottery House in New York City. Over the years, Anda has developed a unique and innovative style, fusing the 3-D and material elements of ceramics with illustration as she creates her signature square tablets evoking themes of life, nature, sexuality and even legends. The works that will be shown at Fringe are some of her more recent ones. For more information or requests to see some of her other pieces, please contact us.

FASE MIUSIC SENDER – DISASTER (LIVE SET)

This is a very special episode, paying honour to Fase Miusic Sender, the Buenos Aires audio-visual quatuor. For this AirPod N°7, we are very happy to present you with two parts, a visual Part 1 with the video clip for Fase’s Missing Keyframes, which appears on our Extraction compilation. This video was EXCLUSIVELY MADE FOR AIRPOD!!! And an audio Part 2 with Fase’s new live set: Disaster! So put all of this amazing content on your iPod and enjoy the whole world of Fase! This is without mentionning that we are dying to officially announce our next digital release! Guess who?? Fase M.S of course, accompanied by a Sr. Replicante remix! How amazing is that… you will tell us very soon!!

Behind Fase are: Gustavo Gagliardo, Leandro Waisbord, Pedro Perelman and Martin Tibabuzo. Fase is a collective founded in the year 2000, that is active in Buenos Aires and works on both end of the audio-visual spectrum. From musical production to visual animation and street-art to VJing, Fase finalizes all-inclusive projects and shows, which create a truly complete realm, allowing it to fully expressing their vision. On the musical side, even if experimentation surrounds a Techno essence, some sounds have been surviving since the very foundation of Fase: Aquatic sounds, clicks and glitches, video-gaming bleeps. Fase keeps the groove as main purpose, using kicks and basses to create melodies coming right from the under layers of the earth, factory sounds and darkness. Detroit Underground and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work can stand as referents to the universe they perpetually share. Fase Miusic Sender plans its live sets to build climates and organically evolving structures. The video sequencing that comes to complete Fase’s world, is solely dependent of, and exclusively adapting to the evolution of the music. Exploring the graphic language, Fase keeps fantasy, synthesis, abstraction and powerful colors as main visual focus. Music expressing visuals, visuals expressing music… The circle is now complete.

www.mundofase.com
MySpace.com/FaseMiusicSender

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“The exhibit explores the mestization between organic and abstract forms that expand themselves within various spaces, with the aim of creating an original nature, more bound to the artificial than to the natural. Art’s Nature, or Nature’s Art, both in perpetual threat for imperfection. The pieces presented invade the space and create a dialog with the architecture of pure and modernist conception, created by Mario Roberto Alvarez. The noble materials of steel, wood, glass and marble used in architecture, are in counterpoint with the recycled materials such as wax, fabric, chalk, cardboard and paper used by the artists. The contrast between the images of an idealized New York City and of a scarred Argentina, converses as well with this counterpoint. The whole results in a signalization on the diversities between the modern, and the creativity of the present, in a society that has been through the rationalist ideal of Modernity, the mistakes of the utopist Postmodernism, until perceiving a higher and open path, the one of imagination.”

The internet is great because it is what makes the world “flat” to a great extent enabling all artists to have their moment. Not every artist produces great works, but there are a rare few that have shared their greatest works. I recently discovered the website artistsupandcoming.com which is exactly what it sounds like, a site for up and coming artists. I did some looking and there was definitely some lame and corny stuff, but among all of the works, I was able to find a painting that truly touched me. Maybe it’s because Roy Lichtenstein is one of my favorite artists of all time, but this painting by Justin Lui, that is listed as “not for sale,” truly is priceless to me.

His art is more than a picture and in fact became street art. He would post enlarged versions of the pictures on walls of the city where they would be seen by all, taking people out of their daily routines to think and understand what was going on with a portion of the population.

Since this project, he has continued to find ways to use art to bring positive change in our world. Check his site out for more great pictures and projects.

Globalization has a profound impact on our existence, so much so that is a recurring theme in much of modern and contemporary art. From Andy Warhol to Banksy, many artists have created art by hijacking brands and Ron English is one of my personal favorite hijackers. He has found fame in part as a billboard vandal, but continues to play around with cultural icons and create his own. Not only does he have creative and thoughtful art, but the detail and painting techniques he uses are unparalleled. One has only to see some of his art parodies, where he creates a work based on renowned masterpieces such as Guernica or works by Van Gogh such as his “Starry Night”

I have not put a picture of his most recent “Grade School Guernica,” because it is a work so impressive that it must be seen in full dimension as it dominates the surface of any wall (currently it is for show and sale at Opera Art Gallery in New York City)