Getting Lost will help you find yourself

I haven’t been blogging in a looong time now. Too long if you ask me.
Yesterday I had a conversation with me friend Gorka around this. Why am I not blogging that much any more? and what should I blog about and bla bla bla. I came to the conclusion that I do “blog” a lot ON MICRO BLOGS. everyday Twitter is rolling, nearly everyday a new photo of graffiti is posted to Instagram,Flickr is Flickr and facebook is facebook… allways action. So how should this blog be used then? There are so many other small web sites and smartphone applications that tells a story and so many other possibilities. Then I got this video to day from an other great friend. Liher. He just returned to Spain from China, where i helped him with some  contacts. He passed this video on to me, and I think it strikes the situation pretty well.

Getting lost will help you find yourself

You can see the video here if you like.

Go home yankee hipster… ??

I nearly feel obligated to write this blog after I wrote my previous blog post about Shepard Fairey. So much has happened around the art exhibition in V1 and the creation / destruction of a mural at Jagtvej 69 originally by Shepard Fairey. I am not going to give the whole story from A-B as that is already written here: Copenhagen Post 2 (Bad) by S. Fairey him self. Of course with his viewpoint, which I quite like and support. Personally I live just behind the old youth house at Jagtvej 69. I have always supported the Youth house in the battles and the conflicts against the government and the insane Christian sect, Faderhuset. As I wrote in the previous post I was thrilled about the initiative of decorating the wall. And I was amazed to discover that Shepard Fairey was the one to do the decoration.
After just one day the mural was bombed with statements:
- No Peace! and “Go home yankee hipster”

Photo by Peter Grønkjær, from Flickr.  
I know and I understand that the tention around the youth house still is very tense. The slogans that remains: “not forgotten, not forgiven” also states that peace don´t come easily. And that I understand. When I saw the art piece I saw it as a positive change to an abandon and at the moment filthy ground. I saw it as a well known and respected artist paying respect to the Youth house and the movement. How ever, some unknown individuals bombed it with paint and took the wording “peace 69″ as an insult. I personally think that’s an act of narrow minded individuals that seeks the opportunity to feel Suppressed. In my view this act is based on looking for trouble and reason to be offended more than looking for possibilities and positive change.

Well, Shepard Fairey chose to restore the artwork, as he meant no hard feelings with it. It appears from his own blogpost that various newspapers, specially Politiken, have been quoting him wrong, by stating that the municipality was paying him to paint…

What I really like was the solution to join forces with local streetartist from the youth house culture, to find a way where they felt represented too. When I read that in the newspaper I though by my self that a powerful piece would evolve from this cooperation.

It did in deed !

Photo by “Glans Galore”
I really think that this is fantastic art! super skillful young people from the Raxart crew. Well done!

And as I love to see this action and creative, politically and historically decoration of my neighborhood I likewise hate to see the destruction of it…

To day it looks like this:

This photo is by  Rasmus Osterhammel, taken from Shepard faireys facebook blog.

Wonderful Copenhagen!

 

 

 

 

 

Shepard Fairey painted my hood !

This saturday night I was going to cook lasagna with me good friend Anders Graae. I came out of my flat and turned the corner and saw some guys doing a serious paint work. It was for sure professional course they had a lift and everything… From where I stood I could only see the word: Peace, and that the work was in progress. I love streetart, so I took a photo to put on Instagram, I added the text saying: I´m looking foreward to the end result! This is the photo I took that saturday:

Then Monday morning I wake up to the headlines: Shepard Fairey is painting walls in Copenhagen!

Now thats just amazing! And specially that he is decorating that specific square that once was so beautiful!! It looks like Shepard Fairey is painting different wall´s around town. And it´s amazing to see the different updates on twitter, Google+ and Facebook about it!
By random, my good friend Henrik Chulu came by the Kadaver office today also being exited about the famous streetartist decorating the town. He pulled out his camera and showed me a photo of one of Shepard Fairey´s stickers. Just next to Ground 69. You can see the photo right here on Chulu´s Flickr account.  So when the day was over I took a turn pass the good old ground 69, and saw this fantastic piece of art!
- Peace 69!
- Peace Shepard Fairey! Thanks for an amazing wall!

After watching the work I started to stroll around in my hood to find the sticker that Chulu had showen me. I found a lot of brand new stickers in the area… wondering who that could be from…
Some of them was the classic Shepard Fairey sticker called Andre The Giant, others was the Obey sticker! Then the last couple of oriental stickers goes very much in hand with huge wall paint.

I first became familiar with Shepard Fairey when I was during my Internship in New York. This was at the time where Obama actually won the election and used Shepard Fairey´s poster “Hope” as an icon for the election.

 

Then I found this on Wikipedia about the Election campaign.
In February 2008, Fairey received a letter of thanks from Obama for his contribution to the campaign.^[36] The letter stated:

I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can change the status-quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign. I am privileged to be a part of your artwork and proud to have your support. – Barack Obama, February 22, 2008^[37]

 

 

Hummel, csr, Roskilde Festival, Inshallah Express and a streaker

During this year Roskilde Festival 2011, Hummel had arranged a football tournament to support the woman’s national football team in Afghanistan.  It was beautiful to see how different teams participated to support the noble cause, and there was a lot activity. The rules for the participation was:

• all teams had to be dressed up
• only girls allowed to play

The money from the tournament where to sponsor a buss for the national woman’s team in Afghanistan to transport them between matches and training. Great little concept and very well executed. I was lucky to be there and watch some matches and get some photos too. The winner this year was a team of brave girls sponsored by Arrivaand therefore dressed up like buss drivers. A very suitable outfit for a tournament with the focus on sponsoring a buss. They called the team for Inshallah Express which I´m not sure what means… do you?
Christian Stadil was there to announce the winner and tell about the buss project. I am personally a huge admire of the work that Christian Stadil and Hummel are doing, especially  the works and support in Sierra Leone. Right now Hummel is supporting a Jungle Run for the Masanga Hospital which has a huge impact for the local society.

During the tournament a streaker ran to the field to get attention… where else than Roskilde Festival would that take place..?

Hummel tournament streaker Arriva, football, Csr

The Empathic Civilisation

My previous blogpost about DF (Danish people party) stealing the Danish national flag, generated a heavy offline debate in my mailbox. I am not going to share that here as it was sent to me personally and not shared as a comment. But I would still like to follow up on the thread, because I see no meaning in building these walls around our country and I see no meaning in fearing the unknown! I speak from my own point of view and I might represent my generation too, but that I can not asure. I wrote the previous blogpost because I so strongly disagree with the political agenda from DF, and that my disagreement with them results in a distance to ”my” flag, the flag of the nation. Not the flag of a part of the nation. It sounds a bit nationalistic saying “my flag”, but I am Danish and that flag represents me, just as well as I represent the flag, but I don´t represent DF! And thats the issue here!
The debate also took a turn in the direction of religion and thats why I think that this little video is such an interesting story to listen to!

I came by the video on facebook, where Uffe Elbæk had postet it with a comment that all politicians should see this (especially politicians from DF). I agree with that statement!
The empathic civilisation. 
From the dictionary:
empathy |ˈempəθē|
noun
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

 

 

 

Danish folk party should not have Dannebro!

Every year my family on my mothers side gathers to enjoy a picnic during the Danish “Grundlovsdag” (Constitution Day). This year I was lucky to have my camera with me and I managed to get some photos. I have uploaded some of them to a badge on flickr, but I wanted to make a blogpost about this specific photo right here. It has the Danish flag in the background and it stroke me how much I automatically associate that setting with The Danish Folk Party (DF). I agree with the politician Ikram Sarwar in his blog post about “The Day Of Constitution” Give back Denmark. (Grundlovsdag 2011, giv os Danmark tilbage) The right wing in this country has claimed the Danish flag (Dannebro) as their symbol, some could call their logo… I think its a disgrace!  Associating political agendas with the symbol of the Flag of the Nation i pissing me off. See if this has been on a company level in the private sector, we would witness a lawsuit for “stealing or claiming” something that ain’t yours to claim! Here DF and the conservatives use Dannebro to claim their nationalistic agenda… but is it in line with the Danish values? To have closed boarders and intolerance? It´s not a part of my agenda and certainly not my family either! Still this photo gives association to a political agenda which is so far from anything that is represented in this photo!
This photo represent warm hearted people with love for strangers who gives a helping hand for others in need and fights for a more equal society, both on a national level and international level!
To view more photos just klick this link: HERE

The Pool! A wonderful story!

I have been watching this video many times by now! I must say I´m a hugh fan of the trending video style with blurry pictures and the use of all kind of effects to spice up the story! Fast forward effects, slow motion etc. The idea about The Pool is fantastic! I would love to work with a project like that! Check out the video, enjoy the beautiful pictures and the very skillful guys participating!

The Pool – The Full Story from Nike 6.0 on Vimeo.

Two dogs Dining in a Restaurant! New viral!

I just got introduced to this fantastic little movie about two dogs waiting patiently for food at a restaurant. It´s amazingly funny and I must say I was surprised that it wasn’t a comercial for something! The dogs are really well trained and the actors behind them are acting significantly well! Again it’s fantastic to see how videos can spread around the web so quickly! I can say no more than – Watch it!

The debate about online interaction! Comment or not-to-comment?

There are many talks around in the corners if companies should open up for a two way communication by for example having a comment thread on their blog, or an open page on facebook. I love this debate be course it brings forward so many different aspects of the challenges the different companies are facing. My personal opinion is; of course it should be opened up! The question is then how you deal with it. And this is a challenge for everybody!

Yesterday I came by this little cartoon from the shoeboxblog.com that addresses the issues with humor! 
 

The small beautiful things you find on the internet!

As so many others, many hours of my day is spent online. I normally come by a lot of different things, some better than others and some messages more beautiful than others. Yesterday I came by a photo that really got my attention. I downloaded it right away, and now I can´t find it again… which mean I can’t link to the site… so to the rightful owner, I am sorry for that!

Well, here it is, it gave me a smile, as I love to take photos.

Alternative football

I have been wanting to try this out for a long time! And then I see that Faxe Kondi has done it as a comercial. I love how the flow of the game changes when you tale away one of our senses. Check out this video which i believe is running on tv.. but as i don´t have a Tv i wouldn’t know.. I just can’t understand that only 180 people have seen it…. ?

Video Art ! Stop motion! scary stuff

I have seen this video a couple of times by now and I must say I find it really inspiring!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Sarhat my favorite little kid from Copenhagen!!

Yesterday I wrote a very serious blog post about how horrible and awful I found Alex Ahrendtsen election video campaign. And that made me think of what I really do like instead. In order to stay within the frames: integration, open boarders and video… I started looking for a video I saw along time ago! I love this video with little Sarhat from Nørrebro Copenhagen dropping knowledge to a great little beat! It´s all in danish but the boy really do have some great viewpoints!

Check him out, and let me know what you think about it!

A good example of bad communication

The other day I got a tweet from @kaaresorensen a journalist from JP. It was a about a new “election” video in favor for Alex Ahrendtsen from the right winged Danish Folk party. The video is pretty much everything I am against and I had my doubts if I should post it on my blog or not… I came to the conclusion with my self, that I would rather help spreading the word of “how bad” it is, rather than just leaving it and pretend it wasn’t there!

I would also like to give my reason for why I think it is so bad!
Firstly I find it extremely narrowminded to draw the conclution that violent assults in private residents are made by people from Poland and are due to the Schengen-agreement. Alex Ahrendtsen wants to show short and effectively that one of the main results from open boarders to Germany, is violent assaults in private residents – In his opinion!!
Stats from the police shows differently. The numbers I could find shows 30 burglaries in 16 months and 50 people was caught! and only 1 of them was from the baltic countries.

So the message of this video is firstly generalizing the polish people to be violent thiefs, then stating false facts and finally the hole video builds on fear which is in my opinion a horrible position to communicate from! Why does a politician want to build a society on fear? What good will it bring? I simply don´t understand!

Our wold is getting more and more international so why does Alex Ahrendtsen want us to be afraid of the unknowen?

No Alex, my advice to you is to leave your uptight bow tie at home, pack a backback and travel out in the world and meet people. Sit down with foreigners that you don´t even understand what are saying, and have fun! Bring that experience with you back to you miserable political agenda – And rethink it all!
Here is the horrible video:

If you cant sell it – add SEX.

Isn´t that one of the first rules of advertisement? That´s at least what these guys did! I am not sure how much more they sell.. but for sure they get attention around it! it got me to watch the video at least… maybe be course it was recommended to me or maybe be course of the action…? Any way if it´s a viral storm or not, it got me laughing!

I found the video and photos on the Bandit blog! thanks guys for sharing!

Researching made me remember – Guinness!

During an assignment to day at Kadaver, I had to find different videos which turns negative associations into positive. While searching and searching I came to think of the time I lived in England. I did some bar jobs while studying English and one of the advertisement that I really remembered from back then was the Guinness – Evolution. When you see this one then think back to 2005 or so, where it´s from, and imagine that you just ordered a pint of Guinness – and now have to wait for it!

“Good things comes to those who wait!”

The Danish Ngo Masanga

For 5 years ago my father Peter Bo Jørgensen got an idea.. He wanted to rehabilitate a hospital in the jungle of Sierra Leone! Now 5 years later the Masanga organization has experienced a massive growth and achieved extreme results. I am now responsable for the online communication for the project and recruitment of new volunteers. I take part of the task force group who is coordinating the many different projects that takes place in Sierra Leone, Masanga. Today the official yearly gathering of the organization is happening. Peter, the chairman, is going through the results and listing the achievements at the moment. He is telling about the visit of the National Health Minister which you can read more about here. An other very great achievement is the national tv coverage in Sierra Leone which you can read about here.

Tonight there is a charity party for the organization in Copenhagen where everybody is invited to come and have fun! We open up the doors from around 22.00. Bring a friend and come and party with us! The adress is Nørrebrogade 68B where Ibis have their office.

We are celebrating that we by now have treated more than 100.000 people, have 140 employees and we have a momentum for growth!

Support the democratic forces in North Africa and Middle East

I attended a peaceful demonstration in Copenhagen yesterday to show support for the different democratic forces in the North Africa and in the middle East. It was a demonstration arranged by Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, Folkekirkens Nødhjælp, Amnesty International, Dansk Ungdoms Fællesråd, Dansk Arabisk Ungdom, Palæstinensisk Ungdom og Nasim. acording to the facebook invitation that got spread around the internet!

There where not that many people participating but the crowed was full of people who shared the same dream: peace and democracy in the world! Unfortunately i missed Søren Pind who was one of the speakers. Some hours before there had been a huge viral storm on facebook: “Assimilation af Søren Pind” And I would have loved to see what his reaction was to that! Bassically many 1000 people changed their profile photo to a profile picture of Søren Pind. I did hear Johanne Schmidt´s speech and i liked her energy and many of her view points. I specially liked her finish, “We can not stop Dictatorship, by supporting a Dictator!” with these words I went to Cafe Din Nye Ven in order not to freeze to death.

The Economic Hitmen of the planet!

Wauw! I came by this little animation about the cash flow and economical issues in the world. The animation movie is made by www.studiojoho.com and its an animated interview of John Perkins, author of ‘HoodWinked’ and ‘Confessions Of An Economic Hitman’
Copyright of the audio belongs to John Perkins.

Running for Balls! – Tattoo for Balls!

A good friend of mine, Jonas Skafte, has recently created the concept “Running for Balls“. He is basically taking action on his own to collect funding for prostate cancer and testicular cancer. Jonas is preparing to run a marathon for the cause! You can support and donate money to his charity work from his webpage www.runningforballs.com. Not only is it possible to donate money for the run, Jonas donates his own shoulder to a tatoo chosen by you. He calls it “Tattoo for Balls”. Everybody can submit their design for the tattoo competition and the tattoo with the most votes on April 10th will win the honorable spot on Jonas left shoulder for the Marathon run! Great publicity!

Lately Jonas took part in the Action Duchenne 10k Love Run in Finsbury Park London as a part of his training for the marathon.

I love this concept! I am a huge fan of Jonas´s work and I see great marketing potential in this type of campaigns. After the Action Duchenne Love run the danish Løbemagasinet wrote a story about Running for balls.

Bikes in Copenhagen – and Abus marketing campaign

I have been without a bike for a very long time! – some people would say too long..! Now however i finally got my self together to invest in a bike. I found a pretty good one for a cheap price and then came the next question. Which lock should I get? probably the most important choice if you don´t want the bike stolen… And believe it or not but there is a lot of bikes being stolen in Copenhagen! from ibikecph.dk you can see that more than 16.000 bikes are stolen from Copenhagen alone, thats nearly 2 bikes pr. hour. in a city with only about 1 million inhabitants… So as you can figure the choice for which lock you choose is just as important as for which bike you choose. The employee at Loke’s cykler told me that he normally advice people to invest 20% of the bikes value in a lock! wauw! 20%!! I started to look through the different possibilities of brands etc. and I cam by a unique offer that I really liked. Both marketing wise and product wise! The Abus lock had a very specific offer for their users. If you buy the Abus lock and then gets your bike stolen and that you can actually show that the Abus lock was broken open by the thief – you will get a reward equivalent to the value of the lock!  Simple and great! I am a huge fan of a company that truest its product to a such extent that they bet the value of the product on it´s function! It made me trust it too and I ended up buying it in the end. So far I am a huge fan of it! let´s see what happens.

Here are a snapshot of the bike and the Abus Lock. Further down there are some links to danish articles talking about the issue of organized bike theft in Denmark.

This is the bike I bought!

Link to Politiken article about organized bike crime
Link to Politiken: The Mayer want´s to stop the bike theft.

Superbowl 45! More than sport and adds!

As so many others I too watched the Superbowl 45. I’m not a huge fan of the sport but for the last couple of years I have been seeing the show. Course a show it is. What I like about the whole arrangement is the hype! The American hype! It´s fantastic how much talk and statistics there is produced as warm up material for the game. I was as so many other just as interested in the add´s which is produced for the game as I was interested in the game it self. But must of all I like the atmosphere around watching the game. This year we where about 6 good friends who arranged big screen and a projector, enormous burgers and beers. I had the pleasure to share this evening with some good tweeps and my brother. If I could tag them as a check in i would do so, but now I will just mention them, and then you can look them up if you feel like it. @unclegrey the host, @andersfredsoe, @megamoeller, @gorkacardona and my Brother who is not on twitter.

Before the game I looked up the reciepe for a Roethils-Burger… Being a player from the Pittsburgh Steelers team with a burger named after was enough for me to choose which side to cheer for. Which didn´t work out quite so well as the burger!

The first round of beefs for the burgers. Due to Netto´s small size of burger buns we could fit a 400 gr. beef in it. Therefore we had to make two burgers for each. This photo is the first round of beefs

Yep. Here is the final burger

I will still like to name my absolute favorite of the different adds that was showed that night!
The Volkswagen Commercial: The Force is for sure my favorite. I love that the theme aint got nothing to do with the car. But the family feeling and experiment around it. Check it out if you are not one of the 20 millions that have already seen it…

 

Foursquare and Fucksquare!

Checking in and checking out…

I came by this extremely funny little video – Fucksquare –> Foursquare for Sex. Originally it got out through the blog laughingsquid.com but I got from facebook and my good friend Laura, who is blogging a lot of good stuff at www.laurajul.dk. Most of the time i get the hints of laura´s blog from twitter where she tweets about her newest updates with the twitter name: @laurajul.

I do have a strong feeling that this video will make it´s way around the web! Check it out:

 

The blog only lives in my head!

For way too long this blog has only been living in my head! It has been trying to get out, but it got stopped by the heavy workload! Most of my blogging time, have been spent on voluntary work for Masanga Hospital and the Christmas Calender blog. See it at www.masangacreatinglife.wordpress.com. I made a new update every day during December with stories from the different volunteers at the Masanga Hospital.

In order to get the many blogupdates down in written and uploaded to the web, I have decided to move towards a blog containing more material based on inspiration/thoughts/projects and things that I am a part of. Rather than the previous focus circling somewhat around powerful photos.

Now it´s out there, and hopefully this will give this blog a more lively touch

The other day I came by this stencil in Copenhagen. “Min Kamphund har ingen venner” meaning “My pit bull doesn’t have any friends”

I find it as a great way to give alternative focus to the ongoing debate about pit bulls and “fight dogs” specially in the Nørrebro area. It´s now a political issue, if the different dogs should wear protection so the can´t bite. This Danish article is addressing the situation.
I am just a huge fan of artistic people who can make art with a political statement and bring it to the public like the picture above! My Pit bull doesn’t have any friends just underlines the whole debate! Who ever you are: thanks for sharing your work!

Chinese man reading the news paper – me missing Cph!

I was sitting next to this old man when the rain pored over Shanghai. He was very focused on the newspaper and the cigarette and didn´t pay any attention to me taking the photo what so ever. The photo is edited as HDR photo as I am still practicing that (for me) new technique. Sitting here together with my girlfriend under the umbrella in the rain really made me miss Copenhagen! For so many years the goal has been to explore and discover the world and everything in it! It has changed now in away… I feel more connected to Copenhagen than ever before and I am looking very much forward to get back and continue the great adventure I am living there!

More post will come about the many great experiences and photos I have gotten from this trip! so stay tuned.