WE'RE SUPPORTING

Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal spent an entire month living in a Chicago art gallery where he had rigged a webcam and remote controlled paintball gun which visitors online or at the actual gallery could use to shoot at him. The piece highlighted the danger everyday Iraqi citizens face both in terms of actual violence and the vitriol generated by the controversial and geopolitically convoluted war. The experience re-triggered the post-traumatic stress disorder that Bilal had acquired in his home country. The installation as well as his life as an activist, artist, and refugee are documented in his book, Shoot An Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun.

WE'RE THINKING

Jason Hackenwerth must get invited to a lot of parties with his amazing balloon-animal-making skills. I’d like to see an average clown or magician make elephant-sized plankton and protozoa. Read more

Lasse Gjertsen is the future of cut and paste music. He’s just arrived ten years too early and with a really bad haircut.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

On the roof of Bangkok’s Banyan Tree Hotel is a dining experience like no other. The Vertigo Bar sits sixty one floors up, and serves delicious gourmet meals and cocktails. These are expensive by Thai standards, but cheap enough for shoestring travellers to indulge in now and then (a cocktail costs around AUD$12). I’ve spent hour after hour in the bar, drinking and smoking and taking in the amazing view. Most nights at Vertigo end the same, with fast-moving storm clouds rolling in without fail at about eleven pm. While wait staff scurry to move tables, and drunken diners navigate the steep stairs down to the safety of the hotel, the more hardy can sit and watch the clouds race closer and closer towards the building, soaking in both the atmosphere and the rainwater until the lightning gets too close for comfort.

WE'RE READING

I really don’t understand cat haters. Most of them claim that our feline companions are aloof and distant, graceful and mysterious to a fault. In my opinion, cats are just as goofy as dogs, which is why any documentation of them acting like spazzes makes me chuckle uncontrollably. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Silver Summit make the sort of hazy psych-folk that would suit a long, night-time drive through the badlands. Incorporating an array of acoustic instruments, strings, slide guitar, and haunting female vocals into gossamer melodies, the collective sound like they hail from a dusty town on the Great Plains rather than their native Brooklyn.

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WE'RE WEARING

Wearing this print will not only geek the fashionistas at their own game, but also guarantee inner peace at the bitter end. Or maybe not. But it will strike fear into the hearts of psychiatrists around the world, and you just never know when that might come in dead handy.