A single-channel view of the piece. Check out the installation documentation video here: http://vimeo.com/11270893 The New Water Sports: Totalitarian Aesthetics, Pride and the Cleansing of Queer Identity in Noam Gonick’s No Safe Words. By Francisco-Fernando Granados Noam Gonick’s No Safe Words is a multi-channel video installation that expands on a short film originally shown in large outdoor screens during the 2008 Toronto Pride Parade. The short film is contextualized by footage documenting the parade and the prominent participation of police forces in the festivities. Queer and politicized, the piece operates at the uncomfortable juncture where oppressive state apparatuses meet public expressions of non-normative sexuality. Appropriating the conventions and venues of mass media, Gonick uses contemporary and historical references to draw a link between the politics of totalitarianism and the aesthetics of sexual power-play that coincide in current North American culture. No Safe Words makes visible a kind of late capitalist gay identity that seeks to un-queer itself, obscuring the history of struggle for gay rights and creating a problematic dynamic that allows some queer bodies to pass as normative and achieve privileges while leaving oppressive hierarchical structures intact. Gonick utilizes the aesthetics and channels of mass media to intervene in the logic of popular visual culture. No Safe Words recalls Sunday Night Football promotional spots, putting together electric guitar-driven music, animated commentary, popping captions and action shots commonly featured in sports advertising. But the conventions and the logic end there. The players are called “fudge packers.” Instead of famous NFL giants like Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson, the stars featured here are Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet. The teams in the scoreboard are Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Muscular young men, most of them white, cross the boundaries between the athletic and the erotic by engaging in light bondage and making each other wet with beer and water. This is not NBC, but it looks like it could pass. Placed in an outdoor mega screen, the film functions as a queer impostor, planted by Gonick as a means to address the lack of political awareness that is often encountered in contemporary pride parades across large North American urban centres. By creating a sequence that passes as a mainstream media form, the film gives its public something to recognize, but quickly twists this recognition by inserting a seemingly unrelated combination of references to gay male sexuality – “fudge-packers” being men who to anally penetrate other men – and totalitarian politics – Hitler and Pinochet being genocidal dictators. While the relationship between homoeroticism and totalitarianism explored in the piece may not be immediately recognizable, there are a series of iconographic precedents in the history of Western art that link the two. Gonick shows one of the football players, shirtless, tied to a post; his long curly hair drips with beer poured on by his mates. “I think he likes it!” says the announcer, explaining the athletic young man’s open-mouthed smile. He is presented in ecstatic captivity, the sexual appeal of his body only intensified by the vulnerability of his situation. The open-mouthed smile grants an identity to the body. His pose and expression recall Il Sodoma’s 1531 work, Saint Sebastian. The painting presents the saint, almost naked, being pierced by arrows but with a rather orgasmic expression on his face. Gonick’s allusion to Il Sodoma provides historical context to his choice of subject matter. Citing examples that range from Ancient Greek sculpture to early twentieth century photography in the racist American South, Stephen F. Eisenman traces the history of representations of violence as bliss. The “formula of beautiful suffering” (111) presents victims in rapture, as though their punishment transported them into a state of delight. The representation of such delight in punishment works as a legitimization of violence. The Christian civilizing mission of sixteenth century Europe frames the beautiful suffering in Il Sodoma’s image; Gonick’s critical iteration of the formula is framed by the politics of North American occupation in the Middle East. He restages the formula of beautiful suffering in No Safe Words, amplifying its scale and highlighting its persistence in Western culture. No Safe Words recasts the images of (homo)sexualized torture that have emerged in the aftermath of North American intervention in the Middle East. In another scene, five bare-chested hunks, arms tied back again, kneel in line facing the camera. Rainbow coloured underwear is put on their heads by men dressed in dark gear. The men then pour bottled water on the captive’s heads. These are “the new water sports,” the voiceover says. The image of underwear covering a man’s features echo

• published: 18 May 2010
• views: 0

There are many things about bike polo equipment moving out of the DIY world and into the business world that gets me excited. Seeing how a company or entrepreneur approaches a certain problem and solves it, or compounds it. Seeing how the players determine what sticks and what gets left behind. God, the trends and how quickly that info is traded coast to coast and turned canon by the end of a week. That’s not to mention the financial aspect and what the future holds for our sport as money is gravitating towards core suppliers and away from street hockey companies that could give two shits about us. So listen, I’m a fan of companies and individuals making things specifically for polo. From capriotti caps to the first 1/8″ mallet head, I look at every piece as worthy of my polo museum I’ve building upstairs at work (ok so it’s just a box of junk). Then there is Malletheadz, a company as relentless as they are confusing. If nothing else, they are the most tenacious company in polo today. Like most other folks who follow #bikepolo on twitter, I saw many, many tweets by them late last year. Very earnest, and very protective of their “proprietary mounting system”. There were no pictures of the mallets anywhere to be found, and if any player or blog asked for one for review the answer was always a firm “NO, Buy one”. The sleuth in me had to know more about this mysterious mallet system that was ground breaking yet still undiscovered by any single person I know on the internets. Please understand that I fully expected to get this Malletheadz, and see that it’s an OEM ski pole on some hdpe. No harm in offering that. As many mallets as I’ve made for folks, I can see how there is a market for a finished piece. I fully expected to review it as such and move on. But what I got, it was so not that. At all. After I came to terms that I was going to have to pony up some money to write you this review, I contacted the folks at Malletheadz. They quickly directed me to their site, and I filled out my order. After contacting them when I couldn’t find a way to pay online, they notified me that they ONLY accept personal checks (they now accept paypal). I thought to myself “kiss this money goodbye homie”, but my curiosity was too strong. I wrote a check and put it in an envelope like I was ordering Dischord vinyl back in 1990. The folks at Malletheadz were super fast with communication, let me know when to expect the mallets, and I was relieved that I had no problems. I ordered the Malletheadz special, which is 2 complete mallets for $29.95 and it came in about a week just as promised. Now what I got was unfortunately really bad. It was so bad that it separated during testing in the most dangerous of ways. In my attempt to get clarification on how a customer is to take advantage of the lifetime warranty Malletheadz offers,I was eventually greeted by the of the owner of the company. My question was clear “What do I tell our readers to do when the head falls off”. I’m a little more than amazed that I got a response saying that they see now there is a fatal flaw in the design and that they are suspending all orders until they get it resolved. I would even get an updated model asap for my patience. What did I expect really? Nothing. So, I’ll be damned if they didn’t actually suspend sales for almost 3 weeks, and just the other day my new Malletheadz rig showed up in the mail. It’s clear that they want to make a quality product and be involved in this sport. I’m just not convinced that they actually play the sport and understand how a mallet is supposed to play, look, or even feel in your hand. Let’s start with everyone’s favorite polo talking point… WEIGHT: One of my favorite things to listen to, is people complain about how heavy a super light set up is. I sometimes wonder if the vocal weight weenie even has complete control of their faculties. I think, “do these people cut the sleeves off their hoodies because it’s too heavy to lift their arms?” Now, I want to be clear, I am NO weight weenie, but the weight of the completed Malletheadz polo mallet is 1 pound 1 oz. That’s almost twice what a standard competing pro set up weighs (average 10 oz or less) . It’s completely unusable in a competitive or even comfortable pick up situation. There’s just no other way to put it. The coupler bolt is where most of the weight is, and then add on 1/4″ wall un-drilled UHMW at 6″ and you can imagine what kind of behemoth we are talking about here. CONSTRUCTION & DESIGN: The mallet head itself is a small 2″ diameter UHMW head that has a type of coupler through it. One end of the coupler is inserted into the straight aluminum pole and attached with small rivets of some sort and then covered in heat shrink. The other end is screwed into just one wall of the head and then pinched with a cotter key just on the other side. Now the previous model w

• published: 17 May 2012
• views: 955

A single-channel view of the piece. Check out the installation documentation video here: http://vimeo.com/11270893 The New Water Sports: Totalitarian Aesthetics, Pride and the Cleansing of Queer Identity in Noam Gonick’s No Safe Words. By Francisco-Fernando Granados Noam Gonick’s No Safe Words is a multi-channel video installation that expands on a short film originally shown in large outdoor screens during the 2008 Toronto Pride Parade. The short film is contextualized by footage documenting the parade and the prominent participation of police forces in the festivities. Queer and politicized, the piece operates at the uncomfortable juncture where oppressive state apparatuses meet public expressions of non-normative sexuality. Appropriating the conventions and venues of mass media, Gonick uses contemporary and historical references to draw a link between the politics of totalitarianism and the aesthetics of sexual power-play that coincide in current North American culture. No Safe Words makes visible a kind of late capitalist gay identity that seeks to un-queer itself, obscuring the history of struggle for gay rights and creating a problematic dynamic that allows some queer bodies to pass as normative and achieve privileges while leaving oppressive hierarchical structures intact. Gonick utilizes the aesthetics and channels of mass media to intervene in the logic of popular visual culture. No Safe Words recalls Sunday Night Football promotional spots, putting together electric guitar-driven music, animated commentary, popping captions and action shots commonly featured in sports advertising. But the conventions and the logic end there. The players are called “fudge packers.” Instead of famous NFL giants like Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson, the stars featured here are Adolf Hitler and Augusto Pinochet. The teams in the scoreboard are Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Muscular young men, most of them white, cross the boundaries between the athletic and the erotic by engaging in light bondage and making each other wet with beer and water. This is not NBC, but it looks like it could pass. Placed in an outdoor mega screen, the film functions as a queer impostor, planted by Gonick as a means to address the lack of political awareness that is often encountered in contemporary pride parades across large North American urban centres. By creating a sequence that passes as a mainstream media form, the film gives its public something to recognize, but quickly twists this recognition by inserting a seemingly unrelated combination of references to gay male sexuality – “fudge-packers” being men who to anally penetrate other men – and totalitarian politics – Hitler and Pinochet being genocidal dictators. While the relationship between homoeroticism and totalitarianism explored in the piece may not be immediately recognizable, there are a series of iconographic precedents in the history of Western art that link the two. Gonick shows one of the football players, shirtless, tied to a post; his long curly hair drips with beer poured on by his mates. “I think he likes it!” says the announcer, explaining the athletic young man’s open-mouthed smile. He is presented in ecstatic captivity, the sexual appeal of his body only intensified by the vulnerability of his situation. The open-mouthed smile grants an identity to the body. His pose and expression recall Il Sodoma’s 1531 work, Saint Sebastian. The painting presents the saint, almost naked, being pierced by arrows but with a rather orgasmic expression on his face. Gonick’s allusion to Il Sodoma provides historical context to his choice of subject matter. Citing examples that range from Ancient Greek sculpture to early twentieth century photography in the racist American South, Stephen F. Eisenman traces the history of representations of violence as bliss. The “formula of beautiful suffering” (111) presents victims in rapture, as though their punishment transported them into a state of delight. The representation of such delight in punishment works as a legitimization of violence. The Christian civilizing mission of sixteenth century Europe frames the beautiful suffering in Il Sodoma’s image; Gonick’s critical iteration of the formula is framed by the politics of North American occupation in the Middle East. He restages the formula of beautiful suffering in No Safe Words, amplifying its scale and highlighting its persistence in Western culture. No Safe Words recasts the images of (homo)sexualized torture that have emerged in the aftermath of North American intervention in the Middle East. In another scene, five bare-chested hunks, arms tied back again, kneel in line facing the camera. Rainbow coloured underwear is put on their heads by men dressed in dark gear. The men then pour bottled water on the captive’s heads. These are “the new water sports,” the voiceover says. The image of underwear covering a man’s features echo

• published: 18 May 2010
• views: 0

There are many things about bike polo equipment moving out of the DIY world and into the business world that gets me excited. Seeing how a company or entrepreneur approaches a certain problem and solves it, or compounds it. Seeing how the players determine what sticks and what gets left behind. God, the trends and how quickly that info is traded coast to coast and turned canon by the end of a week. That’s not to mention the financial aspect and what the future holds for our sport as money is gravitating towards core suppliers and away from street hockey companies that could give two shits about us. So listen, I’m a fan of companies and individuals making things specifically for polo. From capriotti caps to the first 1/8″ mallet head, I look at every piece as worthy of my polo museum I’ve building upstairs at work (ok so it’s just a box of junk). Then there is Malletheadz, a company as relentless as they are confusing. If nothing else, they are the most tenacious company in polo today. Like most other folks who follow #bikepolo on twitter, I saw many, many tweets by them late last year. Very earnest, and very protective of their “proprietary mounting system”. There were no pictures of the mallets anywhere to be found, and if any player or blog asked for one for review the answer was always a firm “NO, Buy one”. The sleuth in me had to know more about this mysterious mallet system that was ground breaking yet still undiscovered by any single person I know on the internets. Please understand that I fully expected to get this Malletheadz, and see that it’s an OEM ski pole on some hdpe. No harm in offering that. As many mallets as I’ve made for folks, I can see how there is a market for a finished piece. I fully expected to review it as such and move on. But what I got, it was so not that. At all. After I came to terms that I was going to have to pony up some money to write you this review, I contacted the folks at Malletheadz. They quickly directed me to their site, and I filled out my order. After contacting them when I couldn’t find a way to pay online, they notified me that they ONLY accept personal checks (they now accept paypal). I thought to myself “kiss this money goodbye homie”, but my curiosity was too strong. I wrote a check and put it in an envelope like I was ordering Dischord vinyl back in 1990. The folks at Malletheadz were super fast with communication, let me know when to expect the mallets, and I was relieved that I had no problems. I ordered the Malletheadz special, which is 2 complete mallets for $29.95 and it came in about a week just as promised. Now what I got was unfortunately really bad. It was so bad that it separated during testing in the most dangerous of ways. In my attempt to get clarification on how a customer is to take advantage of the lifetime warranty Malletheadz offers,I was eventually greeted by the of the owner of the company. My question was clear “What do I tell our readers to do when the head falls off”. I’m a little more than amazed that I got a response saying that they see now there is a fatal flaw in the design and that they are suspending all orders until they get it resolved. I would even get an updated model asap for my patience. What did I expect really? Nothing. So, I’ll be damned if they didn’t actually suspend sales for almost 3 weeks, and just the other day my new Malletheadz rig showed up in the mail. It’s clear that they want to make a quality product and be involved in this sport. I’m just not convinced that they actually play the sport and understand how a mallet is supposed to play, look, or even feel in your hand. Let’s start with everyone’s favorite polo talking point… WEIGHT: One of my favorite things to listen to, is people complain about how heavy a super light set up is. I sometimes wonder if the vocal weight weenie even has complete control of their faculties. I think, “do these people cut the sleeves off their hoodies because it’s too heavy to lift their arms?” Now, I want to be clear, I am NO weight weenie, but the weight of the completed Malletheadz polo mallet is 1 pound 1 oz. That’s almost twice what a standard competing pro set up weighs (average 10 oz or less) . It’s completely unusable in a competitive or even comfortable pick up situation. There’s just no other way to put it. The coupler bolt is where most of the weight is, and then add on 1/4″ wall un-drilled UHMW at 6″ and you can imagine what kind of behemoth we are talking about here. CONSTRUCTION & DESIGN: The mallet head itself is a small 2″ diameter UHMW head that has a type of coupler through it. One end of the coupler is inserted into the straight aluminum pole and attached with small rivets of some sort and then covered in heat shrink. The other end is screwed into just one wall of the head and then pinched with a cotter key just on the other side. Now the previous model w

• published: 17 May 2012
• views: 955