From Kama to Lana Sutra, by Erik Ravelo

A simultaneous event in three Benetton concept stores: Istanbul, Milan and Munich, worldwide via Web.

The emotions each colour gives, the cosiness of wool, a warm embrace: these are all feelings that unite the human kind and are expressed in a new art form in line with its time. The Lana Sutra is a series of 15 installations conceived as a homage to love and dedicated to the desire for an equal and sharing society. 

The series of 15 art pieces, created by the young Cuban artist, Erik Ravelo of "Fabrica", will be on display for a week in three Benetton stores. 

These will convert into art galleries, highlighting, once again the traditional affinity between Benetton and the world of artistic expression.

It is humanly natural to think of things and forces that separate us from each other. Language, culture, place, values and tradition; they all create a separation which we call differences or diversity. Erik Ravelo is a Cuban artist at Fabrica who has viewed those differences as the palette to break down and dissolve those differences. In his latest work, Lana Sutra, with United Colors of Benetton, his experiences concerning diversity shaped and unified the convergence on diversity, love.  Lana Sutra is a series of 15 installations conceived as a homage to love dedicated to the desire for an equal and sharing society. Derived from 'Lana', Italian and Spanish for wool and 'sutra', which means a thread which unites, this concept begins to unfold very natural and compelling visuals. Ravelo utilizes real models to articulate the different positions of love using plaster to capture the forms. Each installation is composed of two plaster sculptures: two bodies embracing covered in wool threads in various colors. Provocatively and artistically, Erik Ravelo decides to show us the two points where the entities meet where the colours would merge into one another. The intersection of differences creates one shared point, new colour, binding emotion and moment. This is yet another way to symbolize how love can cancel differences and bind humanity as one.

Reference: Lanasutra, by Erik Ravelo.

The dude is outstanding!

Untouchable Right to Childhood, by Erik Ravelo

Brazil

Japan

McDonald's

Priest

Syria

Thailand

USA

Reference: Los Intocables.

A friend posted a set of photos on Google+, from among the above, and I was immediately taken.  Thankfully I saw Erik Ravelo's name on the photos, and easily reveled in his artistic genius and social conscience.

 

The right to childhood should be untouchable.  

Campaign for Violence Prevention, by Erik Ravelo

Violence by Intimate Partners

Child Abuse and Neglect

Elder Abuse

Sexual Violence

Reference: Print, by Erik Ravelo

Who doubts the power of art to make a difference?  Cuban sculptor, painter, and multimedia artist Erik Ravelo dares to challenge anyone who does.

The Global Campaign for Violence Prevention (GCVP) aims to implement the recommendations of the World report on violence and health by raising awareness about the problem of violence, highlighting the crucial role that public health can play in addressing its causes and consequences, and fostering prevention. It also seeks to ensure a coordinated international response. In support of these aims, the GCVP provides a platform for the dissemination and exchange of science-based knowledge about violence prevention, and the sharing of violence prevention policies, plans and experiences.

Kennedy Center Honors Led Zeppelin

(image credit)

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.

There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven. 

Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder. 

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking. 

Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder. 

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,
And the forests will echo with laughter. 

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder. 

Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind? 

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll. 

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

Stairway to Heaven, by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant

I discovered this performance on a friend's Facebook timeline, and like her, I was moved to tears.  Ann Wilson clearly studied and practiced Robert Plant's vocals perfectly.  But really the entire performance is so superbly done, as, I'm sure, to make the rock legends themselves very proud.  Such a stirring rendition mirrors the original as a religious experience.  

Ann and Nancy Wilson's performance was just the denouement of the Kennedy Center's full honoring of Led Zeppelin. 

Dance Like Michael Jackson, Do the Brain Good

If you are prone to dizziness, a new study has found that dancing may help improve your balance and make you less dizzy. In September 2013, researchers from Imperial College London reported on specific differences in the brain structure of ballet dancers that may help them avoid feeling dizzy when they perform pirouettes. You don't have to train to become a professional ballet dancer to benefit from some type of dancing.

Reference: Why Is Dancing So Good for Your Brain?

Even If "Nights on Broadway" Take Forever

Here we are in the room full of strangers,
Standing in the dark where your eyes couldnt see me
Well, I have to follow you
Though you didn't want me to.
But that wont stop my lovin you
I can't stay away

(image credit)

"Bonnie," by Neil Krug and Joni Harbeck

Reference: Pulp Art Book | Neil Krug and Joni Harbeck.  

I stumbled on these photos, when I Googled "artistic pond."  Go figure.  

Maybe it was a woman in lingerie.  With a gun.  Looking nonchalant.  Then blood-spattered windshield and window.  Glass as canvas for abstract painting.  Blood as paint.  Now looking worried.

Maybe it was all of this that captivated me.

Pulp Art Book, by Neil Krug and Joni Harbeck

Joni: We had never worked together before this project; in fact we first met late last year. Since we were both in the industry on different sides of the camera for years, it was natural that we quickly started playing around with ideas. Late one night we were shooting for fun with a Polaroid camera, this Indian headdress i made, and a cigarette, and this amazing picture turned out. We posted it the next day online and the response was incredible. As we continued to shoot and receive public interest online, Neil suggested we self-publish a book of our work. Thus began Pulp Art Book and off we went shooting one vignette after another.

Neil: I had the idea to shoot something in the style of a vintage Robert McGinnis paperback cover years ago, but didn’t have the ability to pull it off. Immediately after we did the headdress shoot she’s referring to above I realized we had touched on that aesthetic with the Polaroid film. It was after that shoot we realized we had great chemistry and it was something we both wanted to pursue.

Joni and Neil: The inspiration for the pulp theme comes from our collective appreciation for the artistic expressions and societal life of the 1960s and 70s. Old LP covers, Giallo posters, vintage book covers, and B-movie cinema themes have defined our taste for this project. Initially we wanted to capture something simple and sexy; as the shoots progressed, however, natural story lines emerged. We wanted to capture almost the smell of those decades and express them in our own way.

Reference: AN INTERVIEW WITH SUPERMODEL JONI HARBECK AND PHOTOGRAPHER NEIL KRUG.

World of Dance Network Remixes "Thriller"

This is easily the best remix and rendition of "Thriller" out there.  I love it when YouTubers don't just regurgitate music, and instead put their creative stamp on it.  Well-done, by World of Dance Network.

What Is Halloween Without "Thriller"?

One of the biggest thrills we got from this video becoming so popular was when MJ added us as one of his YouTube "favorites." Yes, it was probably just his management team, but it was cool nonetheless. He'll be missed.

Thriller as choreographed by Chloe Bell for a Big brother House task in 2008. This is a great video to learn the dance steps for Halloween ;)

1,500 plus CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines at practice! This is not the final routine, and definitely not a punishment!

WHY THRILLER?

What made me choose Michael Jackson's Thriller for the aerobics routine is that Michael Jackson was a convicted man to the eyes of those who hated him. He would have been in imprisoned had it not been for settlement arrangements, they would say. Still Michael Jackson's frailty as a human being makes him like one of us -- whether one is a prisoner or not.

I saw in the lyrics and video of Thriller much of what jail culture is like. Because of the hideous conditions in jails, prisons are like tombs and inmates are like ghoulish creatures. The only difference is that dancers in the MJ Thriller video come with make-up and costumes. The Dancing Inmates come as themselves. People perceived to be evil.

The message of the Thriller is a message for all of us. The funk of forty thousand years embedded in the cycle of sin and punishment is a legacy no mere mortal can resist or is capable of resisting. No prison wall can and will stop evil from lurking in the dark. No shackle can stop the beast about to strike. No punitive or brutal treatment is ever too strong to stop creatures crawling in search of blood. Unless we stop breeding demons in jails, gruesome ghouls from every tomb will seal the doom of nations and civilizations.

What I wanted inmates to do in dancing to the Thriller was for them to be convicted to sin. When I uploaded this on the YouTube, what I wanted viewers to see is how evil dances in our lives without knowing its deathly consequences.

But then the song and dance number is but a medium to the message. The message is, governments must stop looking at jails darkly. We have to stop being entertained and thrilled by the sting of sin. We have to look at prisons beyond the cycle of crime and punishment and certainly look inside underlying social, cultural and psychological implications of rehabilitation.

No matter how jails are called, prisons by any name are still hell -- the corpse's shell. It is a location in the map that governments would like to hide but cannot conceal. It's like the "horror looking right between the eyes, you're paralyzed." This paralyzing reality is such that if we make jails a living hell, we may be breeding the next generation demons or beast and we may be sending out devils once they are released and reintegrated to society.

Michael Jackson may have exposed the evils of this Earth in the Thriller but he had a strong message of saving humanity from doom in his "Heal the World" where he said "heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race." Michael Jackson's message was a message of salvation. "There are people dying if you care enough for the living, make it a better place for you and for me." We may have missed out what Michael was trying to say beyond the lyrics.

PEACE TO ALL MANKIND! Byron F. Garcia