Writen about our projects

From our friends at Pangea Day
http://www.pangeaday.org/post_article.php?article_id=64&from=home#comments
http://www.pangeaday.org/post_article.php?article_id=50&from=home#comments
http://share.ovi.com/media/PangeaDay.film/matthewtrost.10002?sort=5 (Video Interview)

Freesoftware : Out of the box
http://freesoftwareexperiences.blogspot.com/2008/05/out-of-box.html

Professor Ranjan NID Ahmedabad
http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/04/kaospilots-at-nid-and-in-mumbai-design.html

TED.com TEDblog

India Express
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/In-Dharavi-a-celebration-of-dreams-unlimited/308243/

DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1163631

NDTV
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videopod/default.aspx (video look for the 3rd or 4th artikle)
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080049580

Me and half a billion = true

Like many of you know the Pangea Day global film festival was yesterday. We in our little KaosPilot group, together with Pelle spent our night with people in the Dharavi Slum, Mumbai. While the rest of our co-pilots sat at the official screening in Colaba (hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did). There was a strange feeling in the air knowing that there were so many others out there, in 60+ countries, watching the exact same thing at the same time.

Here is a sample of my favorite films from the evening my top 5

ELEVATOR MUSIC- By Serdar Ferit from United Kingdom
About the film:

Problems arise when a conservative old man walks into the same lift as a 15-year-old girl who likes to play loud music from her mobile phone.

MORE- By Mark Osbourne from United States
About the film:

More is the story of an old, tired inventor who struggles through a joyless life – leading the same cold, colorless existence accepted by the identical drones around him. Yearning for his carefree days as a child, he struggles to finish the invention he hopes will give his life meaning and worth. His world, and the world of those around him, is transformed when his secret invention is completed.

The Ball - By Orlando Mesquita from Mozambique
About the film:

Children in Mozambique have found an interesting way to make a football.

Papiroflexia- By Joaquin Baldwin from Paraguay
About the film:

Papiroflexia (Spanish for “origami”) is the animated tale of Fred, a skillful paper folder who could shape the world with his hands. Originally created as a poem by the director, it was turned into a short animated film in the UCLA Animation Workshop.

Sierra Leone’s Refugee all Stars- By Zach Niles and Banker White from United States
About the film:

The remarkable, life-affirming story of a group of six Sierra Leonean musicians who come together to form a band while living in a West African refugee camp.

Hope you enjoy them to!

Riding with the Godfather

It’s countdown time for the Global Pangea Day festival. T-minus 24 minutes. I’m sitting like a king on a thin concert sky bed with a view over the big screen and the people who are excitingly awaiting the big moment. We are all together inside the Community & Education centre in Dharavi where we’ve been working on putting up a screening for the people of one of the biggest slums in the world.

I hear a low kissing sound, a sound which Indians use to get attention like the westerners do whistling. I didn’t realise that it was meant for me until I hear it again followed by Pinn, Pinn (Finn, Finn). I turn my head and see the cousin of a boy that has been helping us out with the set up for the PD screening. He gives me the sign to climb down and come out.

I had talked to him earlier in the evening about his bike and how I’d like to ride a bike in Mumbai someday so he decided to fulfil my wish. I was a bit skeptic jumping on his Indian Bajaj 180 special edition, without a helmet wearing only a t-shirt, shorts and my Jesus sandals, afraid of falling of and dieing. I think alright the hell with it I’ll go for a short ride.

The ride starts in a slow paste, riding against traffic - everything is still normal to me. He steers the bike over to the “right” lane (left) and starts to throttle a bit more. I fell like an idiot hanging on to his hips, which are smaller than a models starving herself for her first catwalk, when another bike comes driving past us and the guy in the back i chilling talking on his cellphone. Trying to win some cool-points I re-sit myself holding on for dear life to the handle on the back of the bike. I try to dry my eyes, watery like never before because of the wind, driving in 45 km/h zigzagging between cars, trucks and potholes. Feeling afraid like before in my life until, he says “This bike good yes?” my reply automatic “yes! really good”. So he, happy with his 6 months old bike, asks me “you want to go to Bandra to see bike show?” I reply with a “WHAT?” not hearing anything because of wind and traffic. So the dude turns his head to me and shouts it again “BANDRA YOU WANT? BIKE SHOW? 5 MINUTES ONLY” Then I realized that being afraid of my life before was a dream compared to when we almost crash into a bus driving in 50 km/h. A bit in shock after a emergency brake I think that it just cant get much worse than this. Then an open space comes and I realize that we’re on the highway. And he tells me that this bike is so good you see see, gives it a bit more gas and we are driving in a little over a 100km/h.

For you people that haven’t been in India possibly don’t know how much dust is on the streets. And for those others that don’t know that dust gives lesser grip. And you that don’t know my history of falling of bikes in those situations. I can tell you that my pants were not far away for turning color to brown.

Thank god we come to the “bike show” which is a service line on a bridge in Bandra where a big gathering of young bikers do whealies (riding on only the back wheel) and talk trash about the police while drinking coffee, from a kid salesman with a big thermos in a normal bike. We see some shows and talk some trash and then head home.

I notice my phone vibrating in my pocket and guess that It’s my co-pilots are wondering where I am, since the show just started a minute ago. I pick it up when we slow down to a normal speed and it’s Ingemar asksing if I’m all right. I’d been gone for a long time and one of the Indians was a tad worried that something had happened.

Apparently he told Ingemar that if was alone I might be in trouble but If I was still with his cousin nobody needed to worry. Ingemar curious why so gets the answer than I was apparently out riding with a Don in the Mafia.

Ain’t nothing wired about that!

“When they thought I was out they pull me back in!”

All the best from India
Finn, Babyface, bambino, Sverrisson

Dharavi Flyer made by yours truely

I made this flyer to give to the people in Dharavi. To be able to get them to come to our Pangea day show.

Where are you watching the show?

Useless Facts!

I found a website with some useless facts (bold ones) today and I started thinking how is that compared to India? (and some own thoughts)

1. In Kentucky, 50 percent of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.
-In India people get married because their parents tell them to

2. Einstein couldn’t speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.
I met a 42 year old woman that couldn’t even speak one language. Jesus was her father and mother Mary was her mother.

3. In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.
In Mumbai there are more taxis then there are people in the second biggest town in Iceland (over 40.000 taxis)

4. About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they’re still sitting on it.
About all Indians use their left hand to was their behind and many grow their left hand pinkie nail to extreme lengths to scoop their “shiat”

5. You’re more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.
In India there is only one weather, fucking way to hot, humid as nowhere else, always sunny and always over 30°c

6. An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
Thank God I’m not an average person, I laugh all the time, what does that make me?

7. Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.
HAHAHA Bullshit, mosquitoes are attracted to everything that moves and has blood inside

8. Penguins can jump as high as 6 feet in the air.
That’s NOTHING Michael Jordan was able to make a slam dunk from the penalty line in the basket court. THAT is high (and long)

9. The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night.
Ahh. That’s why the ladies are more attracted to me when I’m at the night clubs! I thought it was because the alcohol (and because I’m hot like that)

10. A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 600 m.p.h.
Driving from Colaba to Bandra, Mumbai (20km) can take anywhere between 30 min to 3 hours depending on the traffic. That’s between 25 km/h and 8 km/h

11. The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500’s.
The people in India are not that keen on condoms, having in mind that they are a billion people. In 2050 they estimate that they’re going to be 1.6 billion. Or that their still using the original condoms passed on from generation to generation, with more holes in them than a 40 year old American woman’s diaphragm in heat.

12. The Neanderthals brain was bigger than yours is.
That’s why I use a computer to be able to think as creatively as the Neanderthal. Although Isn’t it so that they think that we only use about 10% of our brain (which I by the way think is bullshit, I use much much more) How many percentage did they use?

13. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.
Yes but why does he still were a towel around his waste when he comes from the shower? (Indians bathe in the sea fully clothed, so Donald would probably be shot on sight if he was at an Indian beach)

14. The average bank teller loses about $250 every year.
At what? Gambling? Cockfights? Drinking? Dropping coins when stepping out of their car? WHERE GOD DAMN IT? WHERE?

15. Bubble gum contains rubber.
So are you able to use that instead of a condom if you’re desperate? That’s probably the reason why the Indians are so many, they’ve all been misinformed

16. You can only smell 1/20th as well as a dog.
Good gadininlg God how I feel sorry for the poor dogs here in India. At some times I’m close to puking when I walk close to a few not so nice places here in Mumbai. That might just be the reason why the dogs look so thin and under nursed because they cant hold anything down.

17. Most American car horns honk in the key of F.
Most of the car horns in India should be disabled because of to much usage. Sometimes they honk just to honk. Some kinda fetich they have. Having a car without a horn in India is like having a car without brakes in the rest of the world.

18. Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.
Every time I try to write music I have to pour water over my head to realise that I have no musical talent.

Got any more useless facts that I can compare to India?

Homeless in India or in Iceland- you choose

This post is about the difference between the homeless in Iceland and the rest of the world.

Walking down the streets of Colaba in Mumbai is an experience like no other I´ve had, although Rumania had their share of baggers as well. Some thoughts come to mind when I’m out like:
God damn! I’m a poor student from Iceland but here I’m a freaking high roller hanging out with my millioner friends and looking away from all the poor people.

I’ve was at a lecture recently where the subject of baggers came up. My principal was talking about how they, in her country (Denmark) are ashamed of their homeless people. That their population feel failure when they see a homeless person on the street, begging for money.

The professor was put in a tight position and felt attacked for a while when some persons were bashing him about how he felt about the people on the streets and how the government was handling the situation. He was talking about it been a Macro problem so that to save one person you just give space for another one. An Indian guest at the lecture told us that begging is a 18 billion rupee business in India directed mostly by the Mafia.

Well in came Finnur to the rescue with his innocent eyes on homeless people from an Icelandic point of view:

OK It’s like this! We have about 11 homeless persons that are actively on the streets, or had when I moved from there in 2004. These were probably the most popular peeps in town. A night on the town was sure to be a great one if you met up with guys like Hringurinn and Lalli Jones. These guys had, and still have, the best most entertaining stories of all the persons in the city. Lalli usually just arriving back from prison with some crazy stories about how he tried to escape from there but got stuck in the window bars. Hringurinn telling us about when he rode his bike down the street the day before rammed 4 or 5 cars on the way. Because of extreme drinking took of all the side mirrors, while trying to escape the cold hands of the cops when they were trying to catch him for his every other week bath. (Yes you were able to call the police when one of the homeless once were smelling just a bit to bad. They took them to the hospital and got some nice looking nurses to clean them up). Yes they had a few stories about them as well

Lalli Jones had a documentary done about him, all his jail time and other adventures. The best part in that film is when the film crew meet up with Lalli when he’s getting out of prison, for the 13th time in his life (or so) and he’s given a buss ticket from the prison guard and when the guard closes the front gate on Lalli, Lalli realises that he forgot his bible in his cell and shouts to the guard when he’s half way back inside the prison, “Wait! wait! I forgot my bible inside my cell!” and he gets the answer “Ehh I’ll keep it in my office until you come here next time”. Lalli turns to the camera and is a bit sad and disappointed of loosing his good book but shrugs his shoulders and says “I hate to admit it but he’s right”. -Haha what?
The film about him won the price for the best documentary in Iceland in 2005 and Lalli there with all the snobs. LOOVE that guy.

Can you imagine how the world would look like if everyone would treat their homeless ones like gods? -A pretty fun place to hang out at but WAY tom many celebrities…

So all you people on the street here in India, that read my blog and understand English, just hold out for a little bit longer, you might get an Oscar soon.

This is the fantastic Lalli Jones

Some information about our work

We attended a youth festival called Yuva vividha last weekend where we introduced our projects to the Indians. Say It Out Loud, where we asked them to talk to our camera about what they wanted to change in the world. People from 4,5 up to 77 years old told us their dreams and how they wanted to change the world. We also got around 250 pictures that children from 8-15 painted for us answering the question “I have a dream that…”. Those pictures will now be sent to Oslo, Norway, to be placed on an exhibition with paintings from youth from 15 other countries.

You can see some pictures from Yuva vividha on Ingemars blog
And some films (more to be uploaded) on our Say It Out Loud webpage or Youtube & the movements Facebook group.

So back to work, uploading more films, designing a new brochure for our Pangea Day show in Dharavi.

So what are you up to? (leave a comment)

Indian humour

A joke an Indian told me today

“What two words get the most letters?”
(Hold on to your hats people)
Post Office!

I had such a hard time faking my laugh that soda almost came through my nose. -Although the Indian postal service is some what of a joke just see the description that my team mate Sophie has written about it: “Att posta paket” (unfortunately  it´s in Swedish but for those of you that understand it then it´s a very enjoyable reading)

For the others that cant read Swedish then here is a picture of some nerd humor that I found on google

from: www.CartoonStock.com

Question number 3: Ron Pompei

(from wikipedia)
Ron Pompei is an American designer born in Washington DC. Trained as an artist, sculptor and architect, he received a Bachelor of Architecture from The Cooper Union in New York, a B.A. in Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, and studied Industrial Design at Pratt Institute.

Pompei’s work is based on his design philosophy, C3: Commerce, Culture and Community. This integration is at the heart of the idea of the “transformative environment,” a running theme throughout Pompei’s work. His unique approach earned him a spot in “Mavericks at Work,” a book written by Fast Company co-founder William C. Taylor and longtime editor Polly LaBarre, about the “most original minds in business”. Pompei’s philosophy of “transformational experiences” as applied to his work with Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters is discussed the book “The Elements of Persuasion,” written by Robert Dickman and Richard Maxwell as an example of effective storytelling. Pompei’s understanding of the customer’s role in a retail environment, specifically Anthropologie, is discussed in David Wolfe’s book “Ageless Marketing”. In his 2004 article “Ron Pompei can’t be obvious.” Jorge Forbes explains why Pompei’s idea of the customer is so successful. “Pompei’s work is getting to people precisely because he doesn’t treat them like customers. He gave up understanding them through any collective references that would conceive everyone like anyone. Pompei has permitted each one to be each one, and that’s not something people “have”, not even in their brains. That’s something they “are”.”

To find out more about Pompei’s work log on to his website

His question(s):
“Will India be able to learn from the missteps of the West regarding ecology, energy and education?
Will they recognize earlier in their economic and social development that material resources are finite yet human resources (such as creativity, innovation and expression) are infinite?
Will India achieve a true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?”

Well India has already made many of the mistakes that the western world has made regarding ecology, energy and education so to answer to answer that question is pretty hard. But I’ll try my best.

To start with education. Education in India is getting better and better in fact they have some of the best schools in the world over here. Of course on the lower level many millions do not know how to read. Just today I met this wonderful woman, 42 years of age, barely capable of speaking her own language (English). She had been abandoned by on the streets by her parents at birth. All that she knew was washing and cleaning, no cooking no nothing. She asked my co-pilot Sophie where we were from, because we looked strange to her. We told here Sweden and asked her if she knew where it was. No she replied, “only Bangor and Bandra” (a suburb of Mumbai) these are the only places she has ever been. The only knowledge she had was about Jesus who she said was her father and mother Mary, who she said was her mother. Then she sang a song about Jesus and how he was going to save me and Sophie and her life. So talking about education is hard because I have met people from the both the extremes that you can find here in India.

There is an energy crisis in many towns as well as cities, the only place in India that has electricity provided 24/7 is here in Mumbai. Other cities have blackouts for some hours of the day and they who have the luxury to afford a power generator are the middle class people and above. The use of alternative powers is already being introduced here like solar, water and biogas.

I’ve been working at a children festival for two days now talking to young children about what they dream of for the future and so many of them are talking about:
Stop the pollution
No more terrorism
Energy waste
etc etc

I see as an obvious answer that the Indians are learning from the missteps from the western world. I see it as an obvious thing because of the new technology that gets people more easily in touch with other parts of the globe. Learning about what is happening in the other parts of the world through information cells like the internet, newspapers, satellite television and so on.
The rising of the middle class is enormous here in Mumbai, not as much in the country side but the bigger cities are making a huge progress forward. The worst part about the “new rich” is that they want all the things that we westerns have had through our time. That in my mind means that they are aware of what we have, and what we had in the past. After a few years of “letting go off all boundaries” it’s time to settle down as the westerns are gradually doing. There is so much that happens in lightning speed in this country (although constructions is not a part of that). The communications business is blooming, internet cafés are at every corner, for an example one and a half year ago in the tourist attraction beach in Kovalum only had one internet café. Today you can only walk about 40 meters without bumping into a place with a fast connection or a wifi spot.

Creativity is hard to talk about because in some form the cast system is still around and the people that live in that have a hard time to think outside of their little box, just like the woman mentioned earlier who ONLY knows about Jesus, it´s just to follow in the families footprints. (if you have a family) There are of course many success stories that I´ve heard of. The middle class people that I’ve met have almost all of them a grate amount of knowledge about what is happening in the rest of the world and all see grate opportunities in India. These are mostly people that have the luxury of having money to travel to the expensive western world. Creativity is although hard to define. If you go to a slum and ask for something to be constructed they will think of a way to do it, within a few hours. That is the thing about India and the “luxury” of not having too many rules and regulations about how to construct things. In Europe, especially Scandinavia it can take months to construct anything because of all the laws that we have made up.

Expressing you’re self can be a bad thing in some places because people that say the wrong things, today still, will be stoned. The freedom of speech is not accepted everywhere you go unless you have some power or money behind you.

India will for sure have a long struggle to achieve the “true” global consciousness. There are many people, in power, that have said it out loud that: “Now the western world has had the fortune of luxury, now it is time for the east to enjoy some of that”. But as we all know no one knows what the future brings and hopefully there will be a future for all of us to live in.

Design by yours truly

A poster that represents us at the Yuva Vividha youth festival in Bandra, Mumbai, India

Design by yours truly, took me some time but I’m happy with it