on fashion, fascism and giving offense.

it may be old news to you but since i've been mostly offline for a few days now, i feel the need to address all this recent hype on a fashion editorial shot at berlin's holocaust memorial for easyjet airlines' in-flight magazine. the few articles i read begged so many unanswered questions, and i found myself fuming....
but not for the obvious 'offenses' you'd expect either.
i dare say i remember when the memorial first opened, i felt like a naughty child as the first thought to sneak in my mind was:
if the rectangular blocks were primary colors, they'd be like real time tetris blocks!! and the second swiftly followed...how great would it be to do a fashion shoot there!
not only for aesthetic reasons but to create a fashion space existing on multiple levels of meaning and document the process....a way to go beyond the surface while tackling ideas of time, humanity and the use of space through clothing....an act always discredited, watered down as trivial and frivolous.

would any other artistic piece with the intent of "generating awareness" for this location and period of time be received with such a huff and cold shoulder?
had this piece been executed in any other medium, would it be received with more validity? would it even be a question of "taste" if it wasn't fashion?
why is 'fashion' not considered an appropriate medium to address social issues or the ghosts of them, current or past?
who says that fashion must be a trivial, vain platform incapable of addressing the darkness that is such a vital part of human nature?
isn't the concept of fashion itself a very primal conflict between fascination of the flesh and the desire to hide it, shame it, cover it away?
why is it such a horrific offense to take photographs at a location deemed by a specific group of individuals (white first world europeans) to be a physical representation of tragedy?
how does technology transcend physicality?
what about the auras and energies imprinted in a physical place, especially after destruction that linger there regardless of the uses humanity designates as "proper" for them?
why can't the fashioned self or site be a platform for exploring anger, extremity, darkness?
what is it here that confronts notions of perceived vulnerability, reality and possession?
is it this destruction of notions that makes the critics so uncomfortable to begin with? or are they made to be uncomfortable because this forces them to confront their own bourgeoisie ideas on death, beauty, morality, brutality?

who writes the rules that state things along the lines of "when has anyone in the fashion industry ever been acused of having depth, they are shallow insubstantial waves turning to the next wave contributing...nothing!" ? who is to judge a creative project's level of creative contribution and so-called good taste to begin with? why is contemporary europe still so haunted by its past?

  

i challenge those critics to answer these questions. will they then, with any sincerity, be able to claim that the act of dressing means and contributes nothing to society, history or creativity as a whole?
 
i don't buy it that anyone is really so shocked and awed by all of this...is society, especially european society that puritanical and touchy? or is this just a product of media hype, over-saturation of information and the resultant need to ooze with excessive drama for attention or other forms of gratification?

***

this year we also saw numerous articles and racism complaints over the "offensiveness" of models painted with black faces in french vogue....

viktor & rolf's fall 2001-02 line based on black holes featured solid black structured garments, razor cut angles and models with painted black bodies. years before. by using the solid darkness and shapes they addressed various issues from flatness, depth, space and depression. offensive? racist? not hardly. a new idea that just happened last month? don't think so either. and i never heard one complaint of racism towards v&r's collection. when it comes to offense, its more offensive to be bombarded by the righteousness of these creative dictators who use the internet as a platform for their pompous insecurities and biased historical viewpoints than it is to see an artist address a social issue such as race or history by using fashion in a thought provoking and innovative manner (if that is even the purpose to begin with!).

 

how long will it be before they crucify me as a racist for the black series i've been working on? and as a war-mongering bigot for planning to use old soviet war tanks in upcoming projects or doing a line based on the ethnic/political crises of the former yugoslavia? some people just don't get it!

 

fear and love come from the same place. a few things to think about.

love, light and offense,

-kafkavodka

CLEARSEA

Around september/oct, more recent, an unbiased glance. my writing style in its purest so far.

on clarity:
the sword is lifted, i want to test its edge....wether we are tightrope walkers over abysses without safety nets or we delicately tiptoe on the edge of that sharp blade willfully knowing that one false slip will surely cut us in two (this time literally)...
we no longer have the fear.
but are we really sure either?
its been long forgotten in favor of mindstrike lightning vision, where no thought is ever finished but merely a transition forging pathways into the next deprivation. clarity is usually the first to be let go, somehow the imposing crevices and widening rifts become a more comfortable place to reside. in the shadows of this veil its shockingly comforting (even though we may never admit to it).
so what if i've become ungrounded, lost in a chorus that no longer sings my tunes, a vision that reflects nothing that i see. i'll still scream from the rooftops even if it benefits only the turquoise veins of my own throat chakra. seeing is no longer believing but constructing, with every sight we transmit a brand new world built on aural spectrums and tactile curses. ahoy mate, this manifestation thunders inside of me, churning waves of simultaneous future life crash one by one against the rocks of my sharpest fears....which should have been forced to walk the plank a lifetime ago at least.
we are lost at sea, circling in the whirlpools so similar to the ones inside our minds, where the end result is obviously so contrary to our natures but so recognizably familiar, so comforting in that strange diametrical sort of way. in this paradox we sink down to the deep sea, another far away land where the blackness settles in, we may as well as cut out our own eyes. underneath we've learnt to flash but have yet to understand how to perceive the flashes of others.