TED with and without the x

being inspired...
I love TED talks! It is amazingly cool to see very interesting people casually talk about what they are up to. And I especially love the sciency talks, where you get instant insights into cutting edge research, without having to be emerged into that particular community and without having to deal with the technical talk. However, I also appreciate the enormous breath of different speakers. You get to hear about stuff you never even knew exited.

I can't even say what my favorite TED talks are, because there are so many I like. If I would have to pick, I would choose these talks:

• Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
• Amy Purdy: Living Beyond Limits
• Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

The "categories" I enjoy the most are science/technology, inspiration and activism. Lately however, I find the problem to be the overwhelming number of talks. That's why I like the newly introduced playlists. Recently TED scored 1 billion views.

Adding the x

TED grants licenses to third parties to organize independent TEDx events internationally. As of October 2012, more than 19'900 talks have been given at more than 5'088 TEDx events in more than 137 countries (source). This really gets the community thing going and inspires a distributed and global effort to share "ideas worth spreading".

TEDxZurich 2012

In 2010 the first TEDx event was launched in Zurich. On the 25th of October 2012, the third edition was organized. It was a fun and eventful day and my favorite talks can be categorized as follows.

Inspiration:

• Charles Eugster, at an age of 93, on having a beach body at 94 (see also these TED talks on longevity and multiple sclerosis)

Inspiration and activism:

• Enrique Steiger on balancing a life as a plastic surgeon in Zurich and as a trauma and reconstructive surgeon in war zones
• Christoph von Toggenburg on humanity in action

Science and technology:

• Bradley Nelson on bacteria-sized medical robots
• Davide Scaramuzza on autonomous flying robots
• José del R. Millán on mind-controlled machines
• Stelian Coros on replicating locomotion

Activism:

• Eleanor Tabi Haller-Jorden on avoiding gender stereotypes (see also Mahzarin Banaji's talk, or test your biases yourself at Project Implicit)
• Ellen ‘t Hoen on making advanced medicines available to the world
• Mikael Colville-Andersen on modern urban bicycle culture
• Jorge Viñuales on a tax on bottled water

Aesthetics:

•  Jan Henrik Hansen on making music physically manifest

Inspiration:

•  Christian Maurer & Thomas Theurillat on winning the Red Bull X-Alps race

Finally, this is the talk I gave about complex systems, economic networks and the study, The Network of Global Corporate Control:



More information can be found here:

• The list of power-holders
• The study
• The New Scientist article that went viral, as it happened to be published in the exact week the Occupy Wall Street movement went global
• An article I wrote for the Montreal Review
• The slides can be found here
• For corrections on the things I said wrong, see the description of the video I re-uploaded to my youtube channel here
• My TEDx and ETH page

Thanks @gklain, Ronald Slabbers, @lazyhotstepper and @kompostnyc for the help:)

Sometimes TED is accused of being an elitist thing. Indeed, when I applied to attend TEDXZurich 2010 I was rejected;) Now, on the one hand, there are only so many seats to fill and of course in Zurich the demand is way too big, forcing a selection process. On the other hand, it was a real pleasure to meet the really nice TEDxZurich crew. I experienced them as being modest and highly dedicated people, who really enjoy organizing this even, without seeking the spotlight or giving the event an air of superiority...


---

Update:
The guys from TED.com picked up the talk and featured it:

• they re-edited Who controls the world? and stuck it on their page,
• wrote a blog post,
• created a profile page.

occupy wall street vs. the tea party

black and white?
What's up with Occupy Wall Street? Just a bunch of hippies? A group of whiny complainers? Or the mirror image of the Tea Party: a radical, ideology-driven, left-wing political movement?

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but [...] their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.

Josepg Stiglitz, May 3, 2011

Let's see what some commentators are saying (italics refer to quotes, see sources at the end).


The Tea Party

The Tea Party, for all its apparent populism, revolves around a vision of power and how to attain it. Tea Partiers tend to be white, male, Republican, graying, married and comfortable; the political system once worked for them, and they think it can be made to do so again. They revile government, but they adore hierarchy and order. [1]


Occupy Wall Street: The Differences?

In contrast, what should we make of Occupy Wall Street? The movement is, of course, nascent, and growing: on Oct. 5, it picked up thousands of marching supporters of all ages, many from unions, professions and universities, and crowded Foley Square. Its equivalents rallied in 50 cities. Deep anger at grotesque inequities extends far beyond this one encampment; after all, a few handfuls of young activists do not have a monopoly on the fight against plutocracy. Revulsion in the face of a perverse economy is felt by many respectable people: unemployed, not yet unemployed, shakily employed and plain disgusted. A month from now, this movement, still busy being born, could look quite different. [1]

Occupy Wall Street, then, emanates from a culture — strictly speaking, a counterculture — that is diametrically opposed to Tea Party discipline. [1]

[For Tea Partiers] the tents and untucked shirts, the tattoos, piercings and dreadlocks [...] are eye candy for lazy journalists. [1]

Is it any surprise that Fox News and its allied bloggers consider the protesters “deluded” and “dirty smelly hippies”? [1]


Occupy Wall Street: The Commonalities?

As more than a few observers have noted, the Occupy Wall Street chant, “We Are the 99 Percent” — a shot across the bow of the wealthiest 1 percent of the country, which includes the financial predators and confidence gamers who crashed the global economy with impunity — seems synonymous with the Tea Party’s “Take Back America” ethos. [1]

Until now, fury at the plutocracy and the political class had found no channel to run in but the antigovernment fantasies of the Tea Party. Now it has dug a new channel. [1]


The Motivation? 

As protests have spread from Lower Manhattan to cities and towns across the country, they have made clear that indignation against corporate greed and economic inequality is real and deep. But at least equally important is the protest against the lack -- or failure -- of political representation. It is not so much a question of whether this or that politician, or this or that party, is ineffective or corrupt (although that, too, is true) but whether the representational political system more generally is inadequate. [2]

One obvious and clear message of the protests, of course, is that the bankers and finance industries in no way represent us: What is good for Wall Street is certainly not good for the country (or the world). [2]

Confronting the crisis and seeing clearly the way it is being managed by the current political system, young people populating the various encampments are, with an unexpected maturity, beginning to pose a challenging question: If democracy -- that is, the democracy we have been given -- is staggering under the blows of the economic crisis and is powerless to assert the will and interests of the multitude, then is now perhaps the moment to consider that form of democracy obsolete? [2]


How Political Is Anarchy?

And yet it remains true that the core of the movement, the (mostly young and white, skilled but jobless) people who started the “occupation” three weeks ago, consists of what right-wing critics call anarchists. Indeed, some occupiers take the point as a compliment — because that is precisely the quality that sets them apart from the Tea Party. [1]

In this recent incarnation, anarchism, for the most part, is not so much a theory of the absence of government, but a theory of self-organization, or direct democracy, as government. The idea is that you do not need institutions because the people, properly assembled, properly deliberating, even in one square block of Lower Manhattan, can regulate themselves. [1]

The culture of anarchy is right about this: The corporate rich — those ostensible “job creators” who somehow haven’t gotten around to creating jobs — rule the Republican Party and much of the Democratic Party as well, having artfully arranged a mutual back-scratching society to enrich themselves. A refusal to compromise with this system, defined by its hierarchies of power and money, would be the current moment of anarchy’s great, lasting contribution. [1]


The Tools?

It is no surprise that [Occupy Wall Street] makes fervent use of the technologies of horizontal communication, of Facebook and Twitter, though the instinct predated — perhaps prefigured — those tools. Not coincidentally, this was also the spirit of the more or less leaderless, partyless revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt that are claimed as inspiration in Lower Manhattan. An “American Autumn” is their shot at an echo of the “Arab Spring.” [1]


The Message?

Not sure where this came from, but it was making the rounds on Facebook:

1. End the Collusion Between Government and Large Corporations/Banks, So That Our Elected Leaders Are Actually Representing the Interests of the People (the 99%) and Not Just Their Rich Donors (the 1%).
2. Investigate Wall Street and Hold Senior Executives Accountable for the Destruction in Wealth that has Devastated Millions of People.
3. Return the Power of Coining Money to the U.S. Treasury and Return to Sound Money.
4. Limit the Size, Scope and Power of Banks so that None are Ever "Too Big to Fail" and in Need to Taxpayer Bailouts.
5. Eliminate "Personhood" Legal Status for Corporations.
6. Repeal the Patriot Act, End the War on Drugs and Protect Civil Liberties.
7. End All Imperial Wars of Aggression, Bring the Troops Home from All Countries, Cut the Military Budget and Limit The Military Role to Protection of the Homeland.

[3]

What is the "real democracy" they propose? The clearest clues lie in the internal organization of the movements themselves -- specifically, the way the encampments experiment with new democratic practices. These movements have all developed according to what we call a "multitude form" and are characterized by frequent assemblies and participatory decision-making structures." [2]

In a Nutshell?

So this activist movement appears to be about expressing one's resentment against the status quo of the corporate and (to some extent) political power-structures that are perceived as the source of inequality and responsible for the current economic crisis. It is an ad hoc, decentralized, multifaceted, self-organizing movement, using social media to organize. By now, there is no social class, geographical region, religious affiliation or explicit goal associated with it. One defining trait is perhaps the dominance of young people. The formulation of goals is an emergent process and bottom-up. Indeed, the movement is not only spreading across the US, but also to other countries...

So, What About Greed and Inequality?

Read more in the next post...

Sources

[1] The Left Declares Its Independence; T. Gitlin; New York Times; October 8, 2011

[2] The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street; M.Hardt and A. Negri; Foreign Affairs; October 11, 2011

[3] Post on slashdot

---

Update 15.10.11

CNN:  Occupy protests spread around the world; 70 injured in Rome

---

Update 26.10.11

As the above quotes can be put off as ideology-driven, here some more quotes from the authoritative Economist magazine, in its current issue. From the article Rage against the machine, October 22:

Yet even if the protests are small and muddled, it is dangerous to dismiss the broader rage that exists across the West. There are legitimate deep-seated grievances. Young people – and not just those on the streets – are likely to face higher taxes, less generous benefits and longer working lives than their parents. More immediately, houses are expensive, credit hard to get and jobs scarce – not just in old manufacturing industries but in the ritzier services that attract increasingly debt-laden graduates. In America 17.1% of those below 25 are out of work. Across the European Union, youth unemployment averages 20.9%. In Spain it is a staggering 46.2%. Only in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria is the rate in single digits. It is not just the young who feel squeezed. The middle-aged face falling real wages and diminished pension rights. And the elderly are seeing inflation eat away the value of their savings; in Britain prices are rising by 5.2% but bank deposits yield less than 1%. In the meantime, bankers are back to huge bonuses.

To the man-in-the-street, all this smacks of a system that has failed. Neither of the main Western models has much political credit at the moment. European social democracy promised voters benefits that societies can no longer afford. The Anglo-Saxon model claimed that free markets would create prosperity; many voters feel instead that they got a series of debt-fuelled asset bubbles and an economy that was rigged in favour of a financial elite, who tookall the proceeds in the good times and then left everybody else with no alternative other than to bail them out. To use one of the protesters’ better slogans, the 1% have gained at the expense of the 99%.

However, they see a danger:

If the grievances are more legitimate and broader than previous rages against the machine, then the dangers are also greater. Populist anger, especially if it has no coherent agenda, can go anywhere in times of want. The 1930s provided the most terrifying example. A more recent (and less frightening) case study is the tea party. The justified fury of America’s striving middle classes against a cumbersome state has in practice translated into a form of obstructive nihilism: nothing to do with taxes can get through Washington, including tax reform.

The Economist notes again in the article The 99 percent:

OF ALL the many banners being waved around the world by disgruntled protesters from Chile to Australia the one that reads, "We Are the 99%" is the catchiest. It is purposefully vague, but it is also underpinned by some solid economics. A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) points out that income inequality in America has not risen dramatically over the past 20 years—when the top 1% of earners are excluded. With them, the picture is quite different.

 

talking with kellee...

interacting

We are able to create and be whatever we say we are [...].

[...] there is a deep capacity for human beings to transform.

Any human is capable of being anything [...].

Kellee Maize is a singer/songwriter, hip hop artist, entrepreneur and activist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She writes inspirational lyrics strongly focusing on positivity. Her music is available for free and her songs have been downloaded millions of times from amazon.com.

She has an active web presence. For instance, if you google "female rapper", her name pops up in the top ranks.

An interview with Kellee:

JBG: You currently offer your songs free of charge, with the disclaimer that this won't always be the case. How important do you think it is nowadays for new artists to initially offer free songs in order to build up a reputation and start to be successful in the business?
KM: I think it is extremely important that new artists offer their music for free. It is always more effective to allow someone to sample something before they buy.  People often don't like something new right away, they need to get related. Who I am, and what I stand for in the world is that everyone has access to the kinds of things that have helped me as a person get thru a lot of B.S. and that they have access to information and art. So, my music will always be free for those who can't afford it and my hope is that I can build a strong network of support so that art like mine has a place in the world and can be sustainable. It also creates structure to find out what works, and what does not work; what resonates and what doesn't. If I could find a way, it would always be free!

Your music videos and the production of your songs look very professional and costly. How do you manage to do this?
For my music videos and production we work with a low budget and find amazing resources and people to make it all happen. I get a lot of support from my friends too, for which I am sooo greatful. Many of the videographer's are either still in school or recent graduates of school. Some are professionals from around Pittsburgh but align with my vision. As for the music, I have a team of producers who create unimaginable works of art for me to flow to. They all are very inspiring and ambitious individuals who also see the vision and work with me to make things happen on very low budgets. The same goes for make-up artists and stylists. They all basically want what I do, to be seen/heard and given a chance so our visions are congruent and complimentary... not to mention we have mad love for each other.


You incentivize people to share your songs using their social networks. For instance, by offering a gift in return for sharing one of your videos on Facebook or Twitter. Do you believe this is the future of marketing in the music business?
I believe that this is one way of doing things. Social media is very important in terms of promotion. By sharing a video one time that video can then be shared on, and on, and on. The free gifts are just an added feature that a lot of people are really interested in. I love to make my fan's happy, and offer them an added bonus when I can.

Lady Gaga has over 8 million followers on Twitter; Tila Tequila became famous for having the most friends on MySpace. What are your views on this high level of connectivity using social networks?
Social media is revolutionizing how we communicate. It really allows one to connect to another in a way that may not happen in "real life". People from all over the country and the world can talk to me, ask me questions, express their feelings about my music. When you provide that sort of relationship to the people who really understand my lyrics and really strive to be this world of unconditional love, it creates a space of fulfillment in my heart and in theirs. It's like when a fan meets his or her favorite music artist in the world. They go crazy, they get excited, it all becomes real. I think the artist in turn is inspired and enlivened by such an interaction and that is how I think we both feel when we communicate via social networking!

I believe there is currently a merging to be seen between hip hop and electronic music. What is your take on this and how do you view electronic music in general. 
I think hip hop and electronic music have always been synced in many ways. I became aware of it during my first trip to the Winter Music Conference when I heard all the emcees spit over electronic music... and I myself have always done this. Electronic music provides an extra sense of aliveness, joy and creation. When I hear electronic music I become totally engaged with moving my body and creating a work of art in it's own, dance. It's like massaging the Earth when we dance... the native people have done it for thousands of years. I almost see electronic music as extra terrestrial too, like the higher bpm is communicating with other dimensions and other worldly life. So, it only makes sense to me that it would then merge with more direct language communication in hip hop... because such a big part of hip hop is the emcee and the lyrics!

You describe yourself as a female rapper. However, your lyrics are unconventional in the sense that they are inspirational and spiritual. Could you say something about this uncommon mixture?
I am a female rapper, singer, and dancer and I think hip hop has always been a medium for activism. I am an activist for my listeners to become inspired and more open to ideas and concepts that I think are very useful in our current times. I often also cover the state of the world, as a means to hopefully presence the listener to what is going on and then offer various things that have helped me recognize my own power to overcome and our power to create in the face of no agreement in the world. You could say that a lot of it is spiritual, but sometimes that word leads people down the wrong path. I am really just about understanding how humans (we) work at promoting, love, peace, compassion and creation. We are able to create and be whatever we say we are and for too long, we have been controlled by the negative voice inside that results from domestication. The one that says we can't do this or that. I believe we are entering a stage where that voice will be dealt with in a direct and powerful way, just in time to redirect the focus of this planet from fear and hate to love... .and just in time.

Could you say something more about what inspires you, what your spiritual message is and what role it plays in your life?
I am very inspired by all of my beautiful friends, family, teachers, creatures and plants. They all are a "team" in allowing this space of fulfillment, success, love, peace, and joy that I am creating moment to moment... .and then when I go to a negative space, which we all do, they that bring me back! I receive many letters from fans that just touch my heart in so many ways it's hard to describe. They all keep me going. It inspires me to consider a realm of true unconditional love, where war is not an option, where there is food for every person on the planet. I know this is possible, given the fact that there is enough wealth in this world, and that there is a deep capacity for human beings to transform. This is what inspires me. I spend as much time as I can focusing on this kind of world, envisioning what it would be like, imagining it is here, writing from the space of what it will take to be there.

The current zeitgeist has been described as being postmodern (stressing the plasticity, plurality and constant change of reality and knowledge) and afflicted by the data deluge (the petabyte age of information overload). What is your advice for young people to successfully navigate these uncertain, changing and challenging times?
Well, I think I answered a lot of this above. I know how hard it can be. As a young person I was confused, depressed and angry. I think the single most important thing I can think of is to focus on what you want. And I mean this on an individual and global level. We are not taught that what we spend our time concentrating on expands. From a personal perspective, that can be as simple as thinking that I am stuck with a certain trait. Any human is capable of being anything and we all have a unique role to play. So, for example... a kid that may want to be a painter, but someone told them they are a shitty painter. Then, moving forward, that is all they can hear. That is all they focus on, that one voice of another, becomes our own voice. This also makes me think about how important it is to be loving and compassionate to others, because you never know how one moment can alter a persons life particularly when they are young. So, I think its just important to know that what you focus on expands and that we need to keep an empowering, inspiring context in all that we do. I think that young people are really being brought into this world with new and different brain capacities and they will be the ones leading the way on all of this!  If you google indigo children, that is specifically what I am talking about. We just need to make sure we aren't medicating our youth!

Are you vegetarian/vegan? If yes, why? If not, why?
I actually consider myself a pescitarian, which means that I occasionally eat eggs (free range) and wild fish (no farm raised). It is somewhat rare however that I eat them so I am currently in a space where I am considering becoming a a full vegetarian and eating only organic foods. I teeter back and forth on that decision so I have stopped calling myself a vegetarian for that reason. I learned entirely too much about the meatpacking industry years ago that I cut out meat for a long time and don't miss it. And, films like Food Inc have really restricted what I will eat these days.  There are so many issues with pesticides and processing!  And I just feel the animals are not killed responsibly and not raised responsibly. It hurts my heart when I see animals killed in the manner that we currently do... .like literally, I feel it when I see or think about it.

How do you see yourself in 10 years?
Well, I am going to phrase this as if it is already happening... cause that is how u create :). I will be doing shows internationally and speaking on a regular basis. I will be releasing an album a year... so that would mean I would have 10 more albums by then :). I will definitely start a family by then as well and hopefully become versed in the healing arts of reiki and cellular expansion. My business will also always be a big part of my life... check it out at www.nakturnal.net!

How do you see the US in 10 years?
Again, I will phrase this from what I want to see, as if it is real!  The US will be an aid to all countries, we will offer reparations for slavery to African Americans, we will cancel all depts owed to us by third world countries. We will have universal health care. We will be leaders in the healing arts, technology, scientific discovery, and medicine. I know it sounds idealistic but, I am not gonna offer the other side of how I think it may be cause that just isn't worth my time. I cover it in my music to raise awareness but, in this format, I think it is better to answer how I WANT and feel it could be. :)

How do you see the world in 10 years?
All cultures are respected and maintained but also open minded to others and willing to learn from each other. I think a lot will go down between now and then that will help to create a balance so that we can be understood as individuals throughout the world community but also develop a oneness that creates compassion and love for each other. If you ever see the end of Zeitgeist where it talks about the Venus project, i am tryin' to see that as the future!


She just released her newest video, with fast vocals and a dubstep bassline. See the lyrics here

who cares?

mood: more bewilderment and head-shaking
is the human brain big enough to save one of the most intelligent creatures? greenpeace asks cynically in an add, aiming at banning whaling amongst other ocean related concerns.

when i mention i'm vegetarian in restaurants, a frequent response is to point me in the direction of the fish...


greenpeace campaign

fact i: the ocean is humanities last frontier of ignorance

• 72% of earth's surface covered by sea
• 97% of the ocean is unexplored
• with one yearly NASA budget, the exploration program of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) could be funded for 1600 years
• largest mountain range covering 23% of earth's surface area underwater (visited for the 1st time after the moon in 1973)
• coral reefs still unexplored between 60 and 150 meters
• there are better maps of mars than the 50% of total US territory which lies under the sea
• most of the southern hemisphere's underwater terrain is unexplored (more exploration ships in that region during captain cook's times than today)
• the seabed is harboring countless well preserved archaeological artifacts
• underwater hot springs are basically commercial grade heavy metals deposits
• underwater volcanoes are emitting methane

fact ii: the oceans are teeming with life

• although most of the ocean does not get exposed to photons from the sun, and hence there is no photosynthesis, it is completely erroneous to not expect life
• the antarctic sea is, unexpectedly and only recently discovered, teeming with marine life
• hydrothermal vent systems are islands of life
• bacteria replicating photosynthesis in the dark by chemosynthesis where accidental discovery as no one ever predicted their existence
• resilient bacteria living in ph 11 environments
• 7 new species found per hour of deep reef exploration
• 2000 to 2500 estimated new species in the indo-pacific ocean alone (vs. 5000-6000 known species)
  
• not only new species are still being discovered, but also new behavior and new ecology
• amazing variety of bioluminescent animals
  

fact iii: the seas are being destroyed at breakneck speed

• 90% of all big fish have disappeared in the last 100 years
• 50% of all coral reefs are destroyed
• for 1kg of fish ending up in a market, at least 10kg of bycatch was killed and thrown away
• 1.7% of the blue whale population is remaining
• 10% of the tuna fish population is remaining
• commercial trawlers are forced to access ever deeper seabed due to the depletion of fisheries; this completely destroys potential habitats which are totally unexplored and eradicates possibly unknown species
• throwaway plastic accumulating in the sea (half of the 100 billion pounds of plastic pellets a year are made into throwaway plastic produces of which a large fraction ends up in the sea)
• 100000 albatross chicks in remote habitats dying from stomachs filled with plastic trash
• some ocean water samples contain more plastic than plankton
• plastic debris concentrate pollutants and become "poison pills"
• these are been eaten by many fish at the bottom of the food chain
• gigantic garbage patches in the pacific and atlantic
  

Sylvia Earle's moving (and prizewinning) TED talk:


Robert Ballard: Exploring the ocean's hidden worlds


Captain Charles Moore on the seas of plastic


Richard Pyle: Exploring the reef's Twilight Zone


David Gallo fascinating TED talk:


update 20.04.2010:
Edith Widder: Glowing life in an underwater world


update 05.05.2010:


update 02.06.2010:
Brian Skerry reveals ocean's glory -- and horror


update june 30th 2010:


update july 12 2010:


update july 27 2010:

messages from banksy

mood: respectful
"people who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine"

"sometimes i feel so sick at the state of the world i can't even finish my second apple pie"

"the greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules.
it's people who follow orders who drop bombs and massacre villages.
as a precaution to ever committing major acts of evil it is our solemn duty never to do what we're told. this is the only way we can be sure"

"it takes a lot of guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom"

"we can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles; in the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves"

"people who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one"

"a lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to"


banksy is a british graffiti artist. he has reached international fame notably for stunts like:

• hanging a picture he painted (depicting mona lisa with a yellow smiley face) in the louvre
• or painting images on the israeli west bank wall showing, for instance, a girl being blown away by holding on to flying balloons
• or spraying "this is not a photo opportunity" on certain well-known photograph spots around the world
  
• or painting official looking signs on white walls reading "this wall is a designated graffiti area" and documenting the progress of tags and graffitis being created there by other street artists.

hollywood celebrities have purchased his art and one piece was auctioned for over half a million usd in 2007. he responded to a sotheby’s sale of his work by posting a painting on his website featuring people bidding for a picture, with the caption "i can't believe you morons actually buy this shit."

his view of life is anti-authoritarian, anti-war, anti-consumerist and anti-establishment, using very strong imagery for his pictures. his messages are often ironic, cynical, very to the point and critical comments on the current zeitgeist.

his true identity is unknown...

sources: webpage, wikipedia, wall and piece.