Crowdsourcing, hip pop and schizophrenia

Art reviews of the end of the year will focus on two somewhat schizophrenic pieces of work.

One reflect a 5 year long art path of a man crossing the musical bridges.
The other is a bipolar art broadcast, the two works being displayed in a month.

Kanye West new joint "808s & heartbreak" features no rapping at all, autotuned torn sinister singing, sonic pulses, tribal drums and kid A-like fading bass synths. All that is far from warm and soulful preaches of his 2004 debut, the college dropout. In his early career, West first introduced a cinematic approach to the hip hop song, emotional evocations, songwriting and pyramidal instrumentations that are more folk music inspired than Jay Z influenced. Now, bridging the musical gap is complete : as Kanye himself affirms, 808s' single "Love Lockdown is just a great accomplishment in the idea of, like, Thom Yorke in the strip club."
M.West has exploited the current vogue of electro pop, but he has built something far greater in the process for two reasons.
First, the death of his mother and break-up with fiancée Alexis Phifer has unleashed dramatic emotions, which seemed contrary to the current identity of "electro hip pop".


Second, he may have created the first crowdsourcing album of music history. West posted a few songs on his blog during the week preceding 808s' released. A few days later, he re-upped new versions with changes in line with the comments that had been made on his blog. He tooked a similar networking approach in the studio, writing and confronting his stuff with the views of associates -singer esthero, rapper consequence, dj A-Trak and others - and using his travels wisely, making listening sessions with strangers, in airports or planes. How can we not raise the parallel with our new web-social dependant way of life ?


I'm still startled reading the "what are you doing right now" tag of some of my friends on facebook...(on this social website people use to describe shortly what they are doing, anyone being able to access the information) It seems like daily life and decisions are to be audited by the judgement of the community. Website Twitter is devoted exclusively to this way of social communication. One can doubt the legitimacy of this approach. There can be two risks : it jeopardizes the intellectual independency, freedom and roughness, passing thoughts and willings through the filter of common wisdom, it pollutes the factual and somewhat cynical european school of thought with cheerfulness and happiness, forced by the willing to please the reader (i.e. the friend).
About M.West creation process, both risks are minimized. The musician takes the best of the social approach, mining the tastes to create the breakthrough. Entourage input is not a constraint on creation, but a precious and fresh cultural background insight.

Will our web-social dependant way of life bring us the same successfull insight, or be limited to intrusive and friendly "pokes" and "what are you doing right now" tags ?

It's not only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby!

Being in Brussels last week, I had the opportunity to notice how rock star living can disturb one's mind. It wasn't the famous self-derision of the belgian, neither was the "art nouveau" mansion of baron Horta that showed us the depths of someone on the edge.

It was "It's not only Rock 'n' Roll, Baby!", an exposition being shown at the centre for fine arts of Brussels, ironically nicknamed bozar by folks and by the institution itself.
Among others, Sculptures by Bianca Casady, blood paints by Pete Doherty, large scale installation by Brian Eno, light sculptures by Alan Vega can be seen there.

P. Doherty does stuff with his own blood!?

The exposition's aim is to demonstrate the indistinguishable nature of rock and visual arts.

My favorite one is one of Bianca Casady's (member of cocorosie) sculptures :


Amongst her work, a lot of paints focusing on religion or female condition :


Be free to interpret those, I do like looney tunes

Also at bozar, an even more incredible exposition : Sioux in paradise by Johan Muyle

Native from Charleroi, Johan Muyle makes monumental animated paintings and motorised sculptures. Muyle takes a look at modern media streams, disappearance of utopias, radicalisation of religions. At bozar he shows motorised skeletons topped by his own head's replica. These dark and funny characters assault the visitors, revealing provocative messages.

Take the data overload and surveillance for example : one of our skeleton friends rushes towards the visitor, with a board telling "be careful, you're being watched"... One the back of the character there's a small TV linked to a camera that is filming the people in the room... So you're part of the show.
Another favorite one is a TV revealed behind red curtains under a blood rain, and broadcasting "Singing in the rain"...

Carry trade, false alarm?

A popular currency strategy, notably amongst hedge funds, carry trade have been a goldmine for investors hungry for yield. Following this strategy, investors borrow money from a cheap currency, such as the yen, and invest in a currency that offers higher interest rates. For exemple, an investor borrow 1M yen, sells those yen to buy 10 000 $, and then invest in US treasory bonds, offering 4% yield whereas the interest rate is near to 0 on the yen. As a result, the investor profits from the spread between the two interest rates. However, a dollar fall could jeopardize the return and bring huge losses.

Those higher rates paid by countries receiving the cash flow of carry trade can come from a large external deficit. Take US' example : imports exceeding exports, the selling pressure is strong on the dollar, hence the government offer higher interest rates on bonds to compensate the risk of currency depreciation. On the other hand, Japan has a strong external surplus, hence offering low interest rates.

Carry trade has a collateral effect on the economy of countries benefiting from the cash inflow : investor buying dollars to pile in government bonds, the inward pressure keeps the dollar high, which keeps imports cheap, and at the sime time bring the exports down. A few months ago, a lot of people were worrying that a carry trade collapse (for example caused by a strong increase of the yen) could bring currencies of all emerging markets down, pushing oil even higher, and breaking the equilibrium of global economy.

This paradox has been illustrated on the first half of 2008. Risk aversion has dried carry trade money. Consequently, the selling pressure on the dollar has prevailed, pushing the currency down and increasing the oil prices. But on august 2008, it has been revealed that thanks to the cheap dollar, US exports have boomed, GDP growth forecast being re-assessed to more than 3%, nothing similiar to the recession talk that have been thrusted forward since early 2008.

Now, doom-tellers have left the carry trade talk, the health of the banking system seeming like a more important thing to worry about.

So, carry trade, false alarm?

The dunk on McCain

From http://thevagabondset.com/blog/

Obama force one, maybe the best answer to Palin...

From http://thevagabondset.com/blog/

Want your own tee ?

"La Fraise" is a website that sells tee-shirts. So far everything is normal, except that their concept is an interesting one :
Designers submit their visuals, and the NERD members vote for those. The winning visuals continue their life, on tee-shirts impressed in the limit of 500 copies and sold on the website.

Life is colorful par
kiwimee EMPYSTRING

Cereal Killer par
DracoImagem.com EMPYSTRING

Given the colourful visuals and the limited editions, you'll make a friend if you meet someone that has the same tee as you...

Management guru rock star

Michael Eugene Porter is the nearest man to a rock star status when you talk about management gurus :

The thinker 50, which provides a ranking of the most influential living management thinkers, ranked him #1 in 2005 and 2006 (notably ahead Bill Gates or Alan Greenspan), and #4 in 2007.

Among others, he's famous for his Porter's five force analysis, which determines the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market, and is now a benchmark in the industry. Particularly, strategy consultants use this framework when making a qualitative evaluation of a firm's strategic position.

M. Porter redefined the way companies understand and achieve their competitive advantage. He also advised countries on competition and clusters of competence for regional economic development.

He's famous for his style, the extent he breaks up his thoughts on bullet points, which makes him a thinker frustratingly unquotable. The star has his own Institute for Strategy and Competitivness at Harvard Business School, and he also found the time to set up a successful global consulting firm called Monitor...