Urban Confrontation

It's the urban space, where all the magic happens.
To have an idea is one thing, however in order to transform it into material reality one must go out there and try.
And trying is a process, sort of conversation. 
Sometimes more of an argument, that you don't always win. 
There are many factors that shape the riding, but the city environment has probably the most tactile, indisputable influence.

Although it's nearly impossible to capture such broad phenomena, these fragments could give you a partial insight.
Photos from Bratislava and Wien ( excluding photo of David's decade over macba ).

  

 

 

Text: Juraj Klas

Photos ( in no particular order ): David Tiefenthaler, Juraj Klas, Lukas Rozhon, Robo Moravcik

Split,splitting irony & Zagreb

     Without really remembering how the idea came into existance, I ended up taking a bus to Zagreb to meet with Goran. The rough plan was to get down south to Split the next morning,  where Madis should have been awaiting us. 

 Since entropy leads to disorder, you should never underestimate the chance that something will go wrong. Whenever possible, life will tease you with heavy doses of irony and nonsense.

   Well, to get started, after my arrival to Zagreb, I've sat on a bench in front of station, waiting for Goran's train to arrive. Only after two hours, when his train arrived and I set off to meet him, I got to see that the bench had " scooters suck" written on it. 

   But even after leaving Zagreb in favour of Split were we not spared of irony's claws. After Goran stripped a clamp on his prehistoric bars ( they are super cool and look mean despite of that ) and some hostel drama, I managed to split my shin at the very first spot ( I literally split my shin in Split ). So after a lenghty wait at emergency, my leg got stiched up and we finished the day by picking up Madis, who actually did arrive.

    Now to cut it short, seeing Goran and Madis sesh it, I couldn't resist and got my crippled self into some riding. Split experience was crazy, and we ended up having some silly good times. 

    Scooters suck, but hell, they rule! It's like the schrodinger's cat, dead and alive at the very same time. Thanks to scootering, and many many thanks to superhuman beings,who Madis and Goran indeed are. 

 

* also, go peep the vid!

be there and be square (6x6)

Things have changed and still stayed the same. We have put out our nighttime video "NA GUADE NOCHT"  recently, that shows the last 18 months of our nightly adventures. But we also continued with photographic challenges, such as deepening the midformat science we have been working on for the past years.

The collection here is a compilation of various non-scooter-related projects, independent from each other, on various locations and shot with various cameras that all hail the same square spirit. Feel free to leave your feelings on the pictures in comments on FB, the blog or to whom it may concern. Thanks.

first five photos: David Tiefenthaler

last three photos: Juraj Klas

karl would have bought this shirt (+video)

To expand our field of abilities, we did experiment with some fabric printing techniques in the past months. The result is a limited number of hand-printed t-shirts, bearing the face of "Communist Manifesto" author Karl Marx on the back. The intention we had while sketching, printing and working in the darkroom was - put simply - to get out some selfmade goods we would also appreciate. Also there is now a way to support our activities so we can continue with taking analog photos, shoot tons of footy and travel to connect with other minds around the globe. All of this is not for free - unfortunately.

This leads to our decision to put the iconic Marx on our first shirts. Countless times, he has been made responsible for the horrors that went along with the Soviet regime. But anyone who has read his works and studied Marx's philosophy realizes that the politics of the Soviet regime were the opposite of the world he imagined. A world in which not capital is the driving force behind everything - but creative and fulfilling work. Where one is not governed by another but power over people is only executed by all people. This was also the promise of modern-day-democracies. You can judge by yourself how far this promise has been fulfilled. 

Not all of his thoughts can be applied to our modern societies, but when Marx's texts began to be released in the 19th century, they gave instant voice to countless oppressed workers. Today we have the same situation. The workers are not in Europe or America, they work in massive factories overseas, producing goods they will never be able to afford. What Karl Marx showed in his analysis are the fundamental mechanisms of capitalism and which social problems arise from it, having their source in alienation from the product and the isolated individual - something that can be easily observed in our everyday world.

Hence the DIY approach we wanted to apply to our own stuff.  While it might'd been easier to just get the shirts printed, we've made the extra effort. Using the linocut technique, you can sort of feel the printing process from the product itself.



 Every shirt comes with a photoprint on high quality Ilford paper, giving a lookout on the next video project that is going to be finished soon - the all night time video "Na guade nocht".

For motion pictures and the Karl T Promo, head over here.

text and flicks: Juraj Klas & David Tiefenthaler

The atomic character of scootering

    Just a brief, late night analogy. Imagine some crystal structure, each atom oscillating on it's own, whitin the molecules,  all tightly hold together by bonds. Now break it all down to a single atom, though there's no doubt it's the key element, when isolated, there's not much use of it. Also if there are some dents in the structure, lets say just few atoms are missing, the effect might be detrimental for the structure as a whole.
    Right, that was put pretty straight-forward-scootering is not about shameless self-presentation, it's just as much of a social activity, as it might be sport for you or art for me. Thus, if you want to support the community as a whole, you'll have to approach its broader structures, not just individuals.
   Would there be no crews, no locals, no homies, no squads etc. , there would be no scootering.


 

text by Juraj Klas

Photos by Juraj Klas, Tobias Mayer & David Tiefenthaler