Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // Easter Promises

Do not look for a fight with the enemy. Beg God for peace and security. But if you do end up facing the enemy, then show endurance, and remember that the gates of paradise lie in the shadow of the sword. - Muhammad

Does this sound like a religion that goes looking for a fight to you? It says what every other ideology has spouted, what every national state has imbued in their citizens. Protect your loved ones, seek peace and only fight if you must - and then reminded them that there is honor in defending those that cannot fend for themselves.

Suicide bombers are suicide bombers, terrorism is terrorism and radical is radical - they are not married to one ideology, and are, rather, just examples of how broken we are as a race. We just celebrated Easter, a Christian holiday for a man that Islam recognises as a prophet. So what is the problem really? Same as in what we have just seen in respect to the (former) conflict in Ireland. Some people just want to see the world burn. In Denmark we have an idiot wrapping the Quran in bacon and BBQ’ing it. You can have one guess as to how our media handles it. Exactly, it is all they talk about. A piece of shit provocateur with no following to speak of, but he gets a ton of media coverage.

So here is my message for Easter: pull you head out of media in general and make up your own damn mind - chances are, that you are smarter than journalists anyway. Sod media personalities, journalists and ‘celebs’ - do not let them define your outlook.

Truth is not out there - you have to take life from instance to instance in constant analysis.

Zaar Riisberg // What's Life About

I am moving. In so many ways, but also physically. Going through stuff, I come across an old journal. A lot of the entries surprise me, and not only the ones laced with ‘weltschmerz’, but also some moments of clarity mixed in with frustration. In 1997 I wrote, that I still had no idea what life was about.

I still wrestle with that question. But I guess I found some part of the answer - since, for me, it is about being a factor for others and an inspiration. My role is to tell you ‘it is going to be alright’ or ‘I got you, do not worry’. I have been frustrated, because that was taken from me. But I will not -again- examine what that cost me. Rather, I would like to examine what life is about.

Your answer most likely differs from mine, which fits well with Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus’ notion that generally speaking, there is no higher purpose. In this meaninglessness it falls to the individual to create its own meaning in the face of this. It also sits well with the fact that no two living entities experience reality the same way.

For most people that dot the landscape of this amalgamation of rock and dirt their children become what their life is about. Not only due to the feeble nature of our offspring the first years, and the need for constant nurture - but also because life stops being about your choices and what you want. Yet others decide on realising themselves understanding that kids are not an option. There is a blessing in both.

But one thing, I am pretty sure of, and biology backs me up on this one - we are supposed to care for each other, not seek vilification or division or push people in need away. If you agree with this, I am quite sure you also feel like you are constantly repeating yourself when you write or talk to people. I know I do.

And I still wonder, to the point of frustration, why, when life is that easy - when being good or honourable takes less effort than scheming to manipulate, when sharing trumps hoarding and greed, when helping feels better than fucking people over - why be an arse?

I find it ironic that I am going on about honour, but even more so, with my life long resistance to religion - I find it piss funny that I am the one going on about morals.

Kids and animals make it worthwhile for me, and more importantly, the people I love. My thirst for knowledge is what keeps me going and gives me drive.

What about you? What is your answer?

(you can comment as a guest on AB posts, you don’t have to log in)

Lasse Fischer // On the Subject of The Moment

There is a certain something about arriving in a new geography. The mountain top you haven’t seen before has a certain shimmer to it, and you swear that the sun never broke through the clouds quite like it did just now. The opera of the world is to be found in places where you let it slide underneath your skin, out where the need to put up your guard dissipates.

Open roads and sweeping fields of rock and ice; they find their way through the pores of your skin; they seep into your bones and drive away the ache. It feels reinvigorating, it feels honest, it feels grandiose. Shadows moves on boulders as the car cuts through the landscape. In the horizon a church spire grows over a still lake. Vulcanized rubber makes a steady roll, and a gnashing of gravel accompanies the silent hum stemming from underneath the hood of the car, and you start to remember why you keep a camera nearby. Pick it up, try to capture the moment. It doesn’t succeed. The moment is already gone, it was meant to be something fleeting this time. Clouds drift lazily around in the sky. It doesn’t matter. You put down the camera.

A dreamlike haze has descended on the passengers in the vehicle. Seeing the world through a haze is an oft-forgot tool. It dulls the senses just enough to let the sharp edges turn round and soft. The heavy knots that tie you to the crust of the earth have loosened and slips off your wrists. As soon as the bonds hit the floor of the car the though tears itself free, and your body starts to feel light. You can see the thought leave through the window next to you and speed off to frolic on the nearest mountain top from where it dives into a milky white cloud. And the road, the road with its yellow lines stretches itself through the windshield and leaves out the back.

The car slowly dissolves until it isn’t there anymore, and you hover in the midst of nature, suspended over asphalt and snow in the hum from the motor, and then you blink again, breaking the hallucination. There is something to be learned here, there is a truth in this, and it is to be felt. This truth is not to be put on the torture rack of analysis and discussion; it is not to have its soul plucked from its chest through confession. It is quiet and dignified, and it slips through your fingers as the car follows a bend in the road.

The ocean sneaks up on you from the right. White foam dances on top of the wave before it is thrown ashore and its bubbles are left to burst on the black sand of Iceland. You step out of the car and slam the door behind you. Making your way to the water the wind whips your face, making it blush, feeling tiny needles on your skin. Deep breath, long exhale. The cold burrows underneath your coat from the outside seeking to warm itself with your body heat. You raise the camera and try to catch the clash and dance.

In the city, darkness slowly sets upon people, and the street lamps flicker on, spreading their yellow cones over blankets and signs. In front of the police station, you hear the drums of the poor and forgotten.

Short Editorial

I have been bogged down in moving arrangements and other stuff. We are still looking for new and steady contributors, and a new page will be added as a lobby that explains the nature of the blogs. I have a larger post coming on ‘the many faces of anti racism’. Martin is working on something on it as well. There are pipeline collabs and other stuff, but we are in no hurry - we want to be viable, sustainable and we want to make sense. The site is well sought out across the globe and the monthly numbers rise. Why? I am guessing there is not a lot of stuff like this out there. Something real.

/Zaar Riisberg

Kristina - always fun ro be around :)

Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // Puddles

I had been dumb enough to register a desk at this place called ‘Grisk’ to be in an environment with other creatives. Trouble with modern creatives is their greed and willingness to exploit others, even harvest them, for their own gain. Grisk was just another place with people that were less than genuine - and in the end, not very creative.

But this story is not about them. Grisk was close to where the homeless hung out, and in the months I was there, I saw things get progressively worse - and now we are even passing a law, so they can be removed from places so ‘good people’ do not have to look at them. This law would serve better if it stopped ‘event marketing’ in the streets - you know the assholes who stop you and want money for a cause or indeed wants you to change phone company or some other trivial crap, so a CEO somewhere can make more. Those, apparently, need to be here, as they are important to society.

One day when leaving Grisk, I checked out a reflection as I sometimes do. This time a fresh puddle of rain. As I experimented shortly with perspective and distance, I started getting looks - anyone that shoots street and abstract know what I am talking about. You will get people trying to see what you are seeing, looking at the same place or in the same direction - and they see nothing. Which always makes me chuckle. This is what I saw:

I hear a voice behind me ‘you should take a picture of me’ - I go ‘sure’ and turn around and click to see a rather surprised man. He was clearly homeless. He could not grasp why I was pointing the lens toward a puddle. I asked if all he saw was the puddle and not the reflections in it. He looked a bit befuddled, then smiled - I am sure he was not used to people reacting to him this way, which is just heartbreaking. Sometimes it is the simplest things that opens a whole new world for someone - and we need reflection - we need to reflect on why some people end up on the streets, why a lot are poor, why we let fat cat CEOs run away with it all and why we elect the people we do. Now, I, in all fairness, did not open a new world to this guy - but I interacted with him, I ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ him and I gave him a little bit of myself. I hope he gets off the streets.

…well, you kind of asked for it ;)

Both shots are unedited if memory serves. I normally have qualms about shooting the homeless or destitute. It seems invasive to me and as an empath, I do not find it very easy to depict people in squalor - because my brain screams ‘why’ at me. If you are not an empath, I do not know how to describe it to you.

Lasse Fischer // Window Pains

Come closer, squish your face against the windowpane, and let me trace the pale outline of your cheek with my finger.

Doesn’t it feel safe?
It does for me.

And when you remove your face from the glass you leave behind a greasy stain, and I can continue fingering your outline for hours on end until you return.
Sometimes I pace around my room in the dark while I frantically, and with a harsh jerking of the neck, look at the window to check it every time I pass.

It glows with a cool blue light, and it is filled with outlines of the faces, the faces I caress.
Whenever I lie on my side in the bed, with my legs tugged up under me, resting my head on my stretched out arm, and my hand in a ninety degree angle, I do not surrender willingly to sleep.
I keep my eyes on the glass.

I lie in fear of blinking.
I lie in fear of absence of the light.

When I finally close my eyes there is nothing but an unending parade of rooms.
The faces do not press themselves up against the windows in here, in here I am alone, and I have no outlines to trace. I am separated from the light and the glass by the lids in front of my eyes.

Bathed in sweat I awake.

I keep my mouth open, ready to scream, but nothing ever comes out. My breathing is too shallow to create the explosion, so instead I chew on the air, like a fish lying on shore. Trying to make sure that the mechanics aren’t broken I feel for the rising motion of my chest, resting my hands on my ribs. The sensation of touch confirms that the function is maintained.

The blue window attracts more faces.
Their breaths fog op the glass.

‘Something is not right. Something seems off.’ The thought is fleeting, and even though the feeling lingers longer than the thought it too soon dissolves over the faces in the blue light. I take my hands off my increasingly protruding ribs and press them against the light making two stark silhouettes of something human on top something less than that.

There is something between the face and my hands, something that draws my finger to the cheek every time. It pulls on my elbow, it commands my sinew, and it makes my brain fire its neurons. I slip my tongue over my lips and spread saliva on the dried skin, feeling the rough edges as the organ goes from one end of the orifice to the other.

Nothing else lies outside my room and the surface of the window.
I continue living, forever haunted by the thought that the blue light one day might fade and disappear.

Just a Thought

I just wrote a friend to tell her that I still wanted her to contribute to AB. I was wondering why I had not seen her around. Turns out her town was flooded. Displacement is never fun, unless you actively seek it.

She is a real patron of the internet arts, and has been a brilliant curator for many struggling artists on SOME during the early years and on. I have been friends with her for years and cannot remember how we started talking.

Last I saw on IG, she was trying out some of the new motion genres, but also a lot of sassy streets that would sit well here at AB.

Hang in there, Melinda.

/Zarch

Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // Miles Apart

I once knew a man that hated seagulls. He would try and influence me against them. But damn it, if the right light shines on them, I do not see why they should be excluded. This from a cat that adored ‘god beams’, the most boring form light can possibly take. But money, a bit of talent, the right gear and all of a sudden bullshit seems to be walking as well as talking. As with most people that do it, I wondered why this man took an interest in me, try to build me up and guide me. I was not to cahoot with other people’s art or seagulls, and carry a light meter in my rectum at all times. i met a lot of people through this man, but I always seemed at odds with my new friends whom were all smokers of a different brand than I.

They all shared this man’s ideals - you know what? Let us call him Jon Doe, he is dead to me anyways. Doe would lead his congregation in prayer, as they waited for the next Progressive Algorithm, or ‘Al’, as they affectionately referred to their god. Sermons would be once a day, and as sermons go, they would utterly boring. But I stuck around - Doe even had a special name for me ‘Sunshine’, although, he would only use it when he was mad at me.

Soon, I felt a certain popularity in the cult, they seemed almost in love with my black and white view of the world, even to an such an extent, that they would laud my performance and ideas, even when they were evident manure. So I would not feel sad, you know? Bless their misguided hearts. I left. I had a falling out with Doe’s portrait, and that was it. After that, his avatar looked distinctly like an arse excruciatingly tired of farting.

My bleeding art had suffered a stroke, but I took it in stride as the smoke cleared. I turned into a hedgehog, sporting the blades in my back as a defence. So do not worry, when the knives come out - if they are in your back that means your integrity, the most important part of you, was preserved.

We were, artistically, miles apart.

Lasse Fischer // On the Subject of Why the World Seems Askew

When they divided the world into solids and fluids they simultaneously constructed the walls in the never ending labyrinth that we have no choice but to stumble through.

Taking a stroll into the city is following roads and noticing corners, stepping within the lines, failing to do so means going astray and consequently removing you from the rest of reality by mere millimeters.

Within that tiny gap, however, lies everything that was not meant for the labyrinth, everything that was supposed to be erased in the first totalitarian takeover of our thoughts and senses.

While cosmic rays vibrate to the same ancient hum as our flesh, men with their hands dipped in oil and tar keeps hauling rocks from the underground to expand on the walls on the surface.

Their greatest feat was covering up the sky, keeping our sights firmly aimed on the ground and the yellow lines.

The greatest tragedy inflicted on humanity was removing it from itself with copper wires and shrill voices, and twisting its limbs until it could no longer move.

Peeking inside the millimeters makes the world rot and the sky open, and while escape never will amount to much more than a spasm of the mind and a sense of great dread while lying in bed, the knowledge that the world inside the labyrinth will never be as real as what lies beyond the crumbling mortar still brings great comfort for those who still have the fortitude to dream.

Martin J. sabine // Femme Fatale

“A femme fatale is an irresistibly beautiful woman who uses her sexuality to seduce men and lure them into dangerous situations to serve her own selfish interests.They are defined as women of great seductive charm, mysterious, duplicitous, subversive, double-crossing, gorgeous, energized, intelligent, powerful”

The “Playground” for the femme fatale was usually or though not exclusively portrayed in the film noir genre where the contra character was more than likely a male either in legitimate or non legitimate business with a large circle of business colleagues and friends.

Film noir, was the highly successful style of filmmaking which peaked in the 1940s, and focused on crime, corruption, and a cynical look at humanity. These key thematic elements are only part of what a standard noir is made of. Speaking to genre, film noirs also tend to be thrillers, crime dramas, or gangster films. Moreover, and to get more existential, noirs often explore the isolation of humanity, and, conversely, the claustrophobic nature of humanity’s limited existence, which ultimately points to an unbalanced society/social structure.

As far as narratives go, film noirs are often set in urban areas, like major cities, which include, architecturally speaking, juxtapositions in size, shadows, and have plenty of back alleys for dodgy deals and criminal enterprise. This set factor connects with the quintessential lighting of a noir, which is low-key, grimy, grungy and emphasizes shadow. Also, noirs tend to break nonlinear storytelling by relying on flashbacks. Jazz music is often a part of a standard noir, setting the mood from the audible perspective.

Most importantly, there is always an antihero; a fraudulent man, who, somehow, gets involved with the underbelly of humanity, but, thankfully, has a moral compass unlike the femme fatale, the sexy female character of a noir, who instigates corruption, motivates the antiheroes wrongdoing, and often completely lacks any morals or social standard. She is a vamp, she is exotic, alluring and overtly sexual a drug of choice, the drug that is the femme fatale........A Poem.

Her perfume like opium

Captivates my mind

Her ample curves

A favourite of mine

Invitation only

A secret best kept

Venture into the abyss

A hornets nest

The temptress is beckoning

Seductions her art

Her charms beguile me

Fool for a tart

Femme Fatale

Lips honeysweet

Mistress of untruths

Death in defeat.....

© M.J.Sabine 2018

Ron Rubenstein // The Riverbank Project

EDITOR’S NOTE

As always with Ron, it is about shapes and geometry. He often portrays stuff that just ‘exist’ when you look at it, if you even look at it - hence HIS interest, I think.

Artballistics Editorial // We are more than Photography

We are about process, art, critique. Critique is needed to create better. We are about video as well as stills, about canvas as well as technique. We hold each other to a higher standard, while we seek to appeal to not only a few. The focus of Artballistics is the ‘worthwhile’, the opposite of thumbing, as it were. Just like sex, art and creation get better and more immersive the more you focus on it.

I have asked some people to participate that bewildered tell me they are not photographers. It was never the intention of AB to be exclusionist in that way, which Eskild Krogh’s contributions show. You have to think of AB as a reaction to ‘the new old world’. We were entering an age of science, arts and reason when it, quite literally, blew up in our faces because we forgot to educate the broad masses - oh, and oops, did not eliminate poverty.

We have entered an age of stupidity and greed instead - the age of the CEO, corporate shells and a system that only sees you as a consumer. To combat that we need charm, art, humor, satire, wit and guile. We need to eliminate the noise and focus.

New stuff includes 2 new blogs coming up and stuff from Rubenstein and Sabine.

Zaar Riisberg // In My Darkest Hours

Singing in the Dead of Night

As I sit here, I can feel my body returning to a state it was in years ago. Recently someone remarked to me that I reflect all the time. I get compliments on how fast my mind works. But it is a curse if I do not control my sleep. If you have not truly tried being an insomniac - there’s no real way of describing it. The days get increasingly weirder and a veil starts to exist between you and the real world. Sounds seem muffled and periods of stark focus as well as periods of not being able to focus pass by rather rapidly. Your eyes dart - one minute you’re ready to collapse, the next, wide awake. it is not until it is 3 days running that  it gets really interesting, you go to another realm, you really do - as if you are not in reality. You're not really thinking, then again, that is all you are doing - but it feels like a flat line....a hum - a noisy quiet. The passing of time is extremely slow and feels as if it slows even more as the clock reaches the time when everyone else turns in. Not you. You wander, you think, you watch lectures on Quantum Physics, you read stupid stuff you have no interest in, just to pass time, you clean, you watch conspiracy theories to laugh at them, but end up being depressed at how stupid humanity really is - anything to keep your mind off how fucked up you are.

The Sands of Time Run Red

I have never told anyone that I am an insomniac, not even my parents - some know I had trouble sleeping for awhile and thought it was brought about by stress. Well, it enforces it - but I’ve been a light sleeper and an insomniac since childhood. Lying in my bed watching the moon and the stars travel across the sky as night became day. I could sleep heavily sometimes when I was a kid if I was exhausted but it got progressively harder as I grew up…it would get 1 AM for awhile, then 2 AM…..3 AM. Nowadays I just give up, if I even hit the sack in the first place. You want to know what loneliness truly feels like - it is when everyone else is sleeping and you sit up hour after hour for no reason at all. I have been sleeping for the past 3 years for various reasons. It was great while it lasted.

Why am I writing this? Process. It will not help, but it has a nice bullshit-placebo-effect: it soothes.

When Focus Fails

I wrote this a few years back when my hell was ripe.

Graham O'Neill // Fields of Minimalism & Refuge

Text by Zaar Riisberg

But for me, it is the tone. Seeing as it is only in arts production the world can be black and white. Although, most people in the world do not seem to know this. It is important to be able to breathe, to feel calm - no less so, in the world that has manifested from human stupidity on speed.

We look to nearer stuff, we look to sex, we look to forget. Reality will not let us. You can conjure up happy places, imagined worlds to refuel - but you cannot stay in them. Particles are real, and there is a world outside your brain - I guarantee it.

The bond to nature must be reforged if we are to leave the mind’s refuge.

Thank you, Graham, for letting me muse on this, and sorry for the delay.

Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?

Clean Boys // Morten Halding Ildvedsen

Yeah, actually I do. My Saturday was spent with friends performing in the underground with me shooting. I am an old circus horse - I feel most at home sitting, leaned against the speaker having my ears blown out while I click like a nut job. 30 mins of hardcore punk, 30 mins of catharsis and 30 mins of me thinking ‘why the fuck have I been hiding’?

Why I ever gave a fuck about anybody’s attention, when I can shoot like I do, when I am at my best, is beyond me. Call it mojo, call it waking up - but it is not - I have been going back to my roots for a long time. This is what I am, this is really me. The way I felt Saturday, I have not felt in a long time - like I truly did not give a fuck, because I know now that if I die tomorrow, I have seen myself for what I am.

Retreating to a corner of the internet not caring if anyone would look, is incredibly liberating and I can be me here - my sarcasm, my wit, my talent, my worldview - I can play with here, and be ever so oblivious to whether YOU like it, comment it or share it.

I used to be anti-establishment, but I turned into a dumb consumer like everyone else. Fuck that shit.

Check out the band here https://www.facebook.com/cleanboys.dk/

Martin J. Sabine // X Marks the Spot

X Marks the Spot; This statement conjures up a number of connotations, the most obvious being a treasure map although it’s also used to pinpoint people and objects on maps both paper and electronic and it also alludes to sexual themes and descriptions and a number of other rather obscure situations.

The most common perception for most people is where it is used to mark treasure on pirate maps, but now it is used electronically as a little blue dot rather than a X that tracks our every step on Google maps on our smart- phone, locating each of us at our exact coordinates in time and space at any given moment. We no longer move towards our destinations guided by paper maps, the night sky, compasses or other analogue means. Instead, we are tracked from the sky by satellite. Among the things lost in the switch from analogue to digital wayfinding systems are the joy in the search, the anxiety of losing yourself, the ability to finding yourself again, within your own body, or within the space of the world.

In World War One Army Officers would mark a white X on a piece of black paper and pin it over the heart of a prisoners chest so that when they were executed by firing squad, the marksmen would be able to deliver a clean coup de grace, the command to shoot being X Marks the Spot....Take aim, Fire!

There are several sexual themes and positions tagged with the phrase X Marks the Spot, it's not for me to enlighten you here, you can do the legwork/fingerwork yourselves, I just thought I'd bring it to your attention as some of it is truly “Out there” some of you may already be aware, those who are not, the fun is always in the journey.

Another situation which is pertinent to what we do here on AB is how do you show what cannot be shown? X rated, that marks this spot, the question faces all artists, photographers and filmmakers who work on projects involving sexually explicit material. There are various answers: develop a clever abstract treatment; imply nudity, play peek-a-boo with salacious details; hide offensive details; avoid truly risqué material, but create an atmosphere that evokes the forbidden erotic world; opt for candor and humor; or simply don't do that type of work in the first place.

Why is he using naked female buttocks in support of the narrative I hear you ask? Gratuitous, probably, necessary probably not, but hey I couldn't really use a pirate map now could I, that would be way too boring and obvious.So next time you see an X marking a spot take care you could be a target for being shot or for getting involved in some bacchanalian adventure. Good Luck my friends!.....

Ron Rubenstein // Raiding the Riverbank

I often find my mind wandering off when looking at Ron’s work. Sometimes it takes me quite a while just having the simplest idea of why and how he decides on a motif. I suspect he is much like me - it is a mix of patterns and an interest in where light might take you. You can take an eerie path here, wondering about what secrets a riverbank hides. Or you could just delight in the soft geometry of nature. It is about feeling. I have tried to tell a lot pf photographers this - a shot is not ‘taken’ or ‘planned’ - it is felt.

Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // A Touch of Comfort

I took this shot on a whim - and it was taken at least 2 years ago. Still, I remember a certain feeling of endearment which was possibly why I took it. And I was right. As I edited it, I see the woman on the right had put her hand in a classical position, trying to signal comfort. A lot of people would not see that detail, evident as it is, because they would be focussing on their clothes and the horrible notion, that islam is the biggest threat against Western society. It is not. Stupidity is.

It is a shot I am very proud of, as it is one of my signatures to capture emotion. Here, I must have sensed it, as I was passing, because the hand was initially obscured. I will be putting more up of my earlier high end stuff, and pouring my mind into it. People scream at me to be an author or a writer full time. I will do both then.

In Memoriam XMAS 2017

I have more flower shots going into this post - and I invite others to contribute to make it grow larger and more beautiful every week. Thank you for being a friend Martin.

Martin J. Sabine // It's Magic!

I love magic or prestidigitation the way sleight of hand deceives the eye the speed and manipulation the distraction techniques employed to give the magician or artist an advantage, a kind of artform that's for sure. What we have here in this image is a similar thing, the impact of the foreground acts as the distraction the background then drawing the eye away from the action, a visual version of magical trickery and manipulation.

There are approximately 10 layers in this composite image all photographs taken at different times and places blended together with filters to create an atmospheric scenario. Taking time to study the finished piece one can see that the hands don't seem to be attached to anything the cards have an almost 3D appearance the light and shadows create a surreal ambiance, but isn't that the magic of the creation a visual feast for the eyes, some people will call it a deception, I call it art.....

© M.J. Sabine 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE

This marks a change for us at AB, as we convert this to be Martin Sabine’s column. It also sees the end of Editor’s Notes, with a shift in modus and possibly a thinning of categories. But more about that in the Main Fat at a later date.