043 - C is for Concrete for all Ages

043 - C is for Concrete for all Ages, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

This is Ania in Poznan, questioning why concrete should be the foil for the youth and very old in photographs, can't we all contrast with it?

The concrete in question is part of the base for a huge war memorial in Poznan, built by the communist authorities in that inhuman stylised way that they used to pretend concern that never touched them.

Ania was born in communist Poland and had to grow up with the propoganda, so another contrast of this picture is the ugly balanced by a mind that survived the propoganda.

Interestingly enough, the ever-lasting flame has gone out, but the ever-lasting youth has taken overt the monument as skateboard park.

Ania is also wearing a top she bought from Orsay, which after we had tried it on in the changing rooms there we run into a friend and former employer who had also been on the same diet as Ania. She seemed quite surprised to see us choosing this very bustier top, but I said I was quite happy with it, and why didn't she consider something similar. As we left the shop she was examining the rack in question, but I suspect that she will remain in cream blouses for, well for a long time.

033 - T is for Trust

033 - T is for Trust, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

I believe that trust is one of the many keys to life as we know it. For many long years I never could decide whether God existed or not, but eventually I came to understand that it is not a matter of belief but trust.

From where I am sitting I could hit half a dozen believers with a stone, should I be so careless to toss one, but I would be hard put to find one who would trust God enough to argue the toss with him and still come out with both of you winning.

Whatever form your God or god takes, trust him or her enough that they are there to help you find you, rather than a causer of trouble when things go wrong or bonuses when things go right.

031-R is for Responsibility

031-R is for Responsibility, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

All countries have their problems, just as all people have theirs, but what happens when you meet someone who always blames someone else for their troubles?

This year sees the 20th anniversary of Poland leaving behind it's Communist era, and perhaps it is time for a change, to turn its back on a whole sum of other problems of the past and try to create a better future for its citizens.

Some people say that a nation recreates itself every decade, and since 1989 we have had two periods - the intital struggle to transform a socialist system into a functional democratic one, and then a decade of expansion of the demcratic system. Companies, for example, transformed from State owned enterprises in the early 1990s, have spent the past decade expanding, remodelling their management process and often making remarkable amounts of money. Middle class people have absorbed this windfall and outfitted themselves with new clothes, cars, vacations, educations for their children and the like, much as one would expect.

What has not changed are the basic attitudes and life at the bottom of the pile. One would not expect rapid change in either area, but perhaps their time has come. However, we are still at the stage where the middleclasses still tell the world and themselves that they are poor - as they drive their high spec cars home from their comfortable job to their new high spec home in the new suburbs and recently absorbed villages of their city.

Smug in their comfort, they allow the nation to be ruled by the mini-dictators, also known as priests, professors, lawyers, doctors and politicians. These people look to the West for their model of a comfortable life, and then to the East for the service they give, smugly boasting of the high Christianity of their nation while at the same time attempting to ensure that the people who could make a difference remain in ignorance of their power.

Poland does not need pity, financial help, it needs some plain speaking from the international community.

Football: Basic Instinct

I really feel sorry for people who follow football, but then, I was never much of a spectator, probably why I do not do much in the way of commenting on current affairs. Much better is to be involved, in actually creating new solutions rather than sitting on the sidelines being Me Clever.

However, wouldn't life be boring if 'never' was a real word.

As a result, even I can spend some wordage on commenting on football, especially when it comes to the current situation with Polish football. Football here has long been more of a mafia scene than the mafia, as dumb ass people slip money here, there and everywhere so that one particular group of players 'win' some championship or other. Who cares, if it is not one fairly then the 'win' has no value, and if it continues the supporters should simply walk away - don't worry if you are a supporter, there are plenty of other things to do with your life than watch Polish football, and as long as you do and sit around letting people abuse the game, you get the kind of situation you deserve. And we can all do something, even if it is only walking away. Once people in Poland put their televisions in their windows and went out for a walk to demonstrate their belief that at least one can publicly demonstrate one's disapproval of the current situation.

However, I never found anyone who would do anything about the corruption in football, and now that Poland is set to co-host the 2012 championship it is a bit late to demand any action. Recently the Polish government has dismissed the board of the Polish national governing board, an action that goes against the constitution and the basic precepts of law. But no, people think it is OK, but how can you prevent one criminal action by using another? It is just for this reason that Poland remains in the mess it is in - the sitting on backsides when something could be done, and only shifting off them with the realisation that international embarrassment might outweigh any benefits of non-action.

As an interesting aside, the other co-host for 2012 is Ukraine, and Lublin lies on a direct line between Warsaw and Ukraine. A new road is needed between Lublin and Warsaw and on towards Ukraine, so where are the plans? Um, eh, in the current situation... blah blah blah." The reality is that Lublin sits on its collective ass (a kind of donkey), and I just wonder at what point soemone else will notice that opportunity came and passed us by.

16: Beautiful Mistakes

Swing Your Camera, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Today's task was to produce a mistake, as if you were about to press the shutter and something changed the image to create a different kind of beauty. Fine if it happens, but how do you achieve accidentality within any particular 24 hour period?

Thinking about the camera, I realised that using the timer could help as you are less certain about when the shutter will operate, so if you play around in front of the camera you might eventually create a suitable image. Secondly, I remembered a group I found on Flikr that was about creating shots by throwing one's camera in the air.

Finally, I just held the camera in my hand, pointed it in roughly the right direction and pressed the shutter. I had to do this a few times in different locations before I came up with this one.

Other people used my suggested timer and throw techniques, which in a way puts an element of my art in their images, as it is my thought that directed them to produce their images. I think this area of idea creation needs further investigation.

Life Rules

Do you think that this blog is all about writing? Well, whatever, it isn't, it's about design. Writing is such a great subject that I want to return to it again - and again. I live in Poland, and living in a foriegn land is never easy because cultures are different. The main problem is not with the many varying aspects of the culture itself, though, but with respect for foriegners. I am lucky because back in the UK I was able to live and work with people originating from many different cultures and I assumed that they were not that much different to me or anyone else, they were just people. OK, they often had different habits, like the Chinese born guy I shared office space with who always noisily slurped his tea. It was a cultural slurp where he was brought up, just as the family next door where I grew up watched football. I do not slurp my tea and I do not watch football, they are merely other people's culture, wherever they were born or with whatever racial history they might have. I knew several Polish people in the UK and we just talked about life, politics and the rest in the UK about the UK, whether or not all or any of us were born in the UK. We all lived in the UK, and we all accorded each other the same level of respect.

Poland, though, has proven to be a different case. Here in my city it is really hard to find anyone who will see me and think "Yo, another human!" What I say is mostly not seen in terms of human-living-here speaking but as he-English-speaking-about-Poland speaking, often without the person being concious of this. Keep the conversation light and on neutral subjects and there is no real problem, but in trying to talk about the social issues here is a nightmare, despite the fact that I have lived here for about eleven years, have been married to a Polish woman all that time, worked for Polish companies and not spent my free time down the bar drinking with my English-speaking-ghetto buddies. And I do care, as I think that anyone with any feeling for others would. No, I am not supposed to say anything that reflects even slightly badly about Poland, and by doing so once it means that I always do so. Mind you, even the press in Poland has been subject to the same requirement, not that this makes me feel any better, quite the opposite.

However, this is not a rant blog but a design blog, so we need to examine some of the dynamics. But first, what kicked this subject off in my head this morning was the inability of many people in politics and the media to deal with Poland being defeated by everyone they played in the UEFA football cup. You cannot escape newspaper's publishing the official email and phone number of the referee who 'did Poland down', or the fact that the same referee has got death threats from Poles unable to deal with the defeats. What is their problem? Where is all this hate coming from?

Poland has had rather an unfortunate history over the past couple of centuries, and this is what usually gets the blame, but the reality is different. Much different. Poland is a country where people are brought up largely as peasants, not in terms of the volume of knowledge taught in schools, but in a defeatist attitude that is designed to keep people where they should be - in their set social position. Hard words, true, but one measure of a cultures freedom is its ability to accept change. In a peasant society you certainly do not want your peasants understanding the reality of the control they are under, only that they respect the hierarchy enough that they become in awe of its highest members. As a result, the answer I get to suggestions is "Oh, that can't be done (here in Poland)". Mu!

A good example, and we need an example, is that of education. This where you are not taught to respect your elders, say, but only to respect the people in power, especially those with a big badge or an important job. Doctors, professors, priests, politicians, lawyers - you cannot say a bad word about them and succeed because the doctors will not treat you, the professors will not let you pass, etc. In this way is created the godhead that must not be questioned. Of course, people do rebel, with the oppression of the godhead to live under you either comply or rebel - and the best thing is that the godhead is so built in that you do not rebel against the godhead itself but break their rules only in ways which effects their fellow sufferers.

At this point I will just mention that I know some fine doctors etc. who are as frustrated as I am by the system and the people who take advantage of the it.

I have no desire to destroy the people around me because the godhead is oppressive, instead I question the godhead and in doing so I become something alien to the people here. I ask of these people why do they do certain things and not others, and again this is against the principle of the godhead. Only if the godhead says yes does it become possible to accept change. Whether the person is passive or rebel, they are taught that change is the enemy, and by association the bringer of change who is not the godhead is the enemy as well.

The teaching involves a lot of focus on 'tradition' and the usual 'this country' biased history most education systems to specialise in, but here always with the twist that sometime in the past was a better time - the 'golden age of Poland'. The assumption that everything went wrong some centuries ago is incorrect, the people in power, Polish or foriegn, have simply never let slip the reins of power, but instead continued to ensure they, as the godhead, remain in power, the movement from nation to dominiom to state to communism simply being the replacement of the people at the top, not their attitudes.

Poland, as I see it, is in pain, but a pain that remains untreated as the symptoms have been mistaken for another disease. Until enough people who care realize that the problem is the retention of an essentially feudal peasant society wrapped in technological gift wrap, then the situation will continue much as it is at present.

All hail the godhead!