LSD Magazine New QR Codes - Looking Good

LSD Magazine has had over 5 Million Unique Page Views in approx 20 months. This has been achieved using only online viral marketing techniques implemented by Wayne and team. LSD has never used any printed media or paid advertising which means sitting in front of computers 7 days a week! We deploy various methods of tracking exactly what we're doing as we really do need to know if a campaign is working because we only have two people running the entire campaign and for no money (bigger picture). 


We recently started using QR Codes and was more than happy when contacted by a newly launched company whom design QR Codes on Steroids. The next generation of QR coding is looking pretty exciting and may well bring our QR Code usage in line with the rest of Europe. Lets be honest as much as QR codes are essential they're not exactly pleasing to the eye. The team at QR-Reactor have the solution in hand. They can design your own uniquely branded fully track-able QR Codes so yours stands out from the rest. We're gonna be working with the lads so you will be seeing a lot more codes like the LSD Magazine one. 

QR-Reactor Website

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Elate on Censorship - LSD Magazine Issue 7

Censorship, simply put, is controlling the information and the ideas that are being circulated within a society. The truth about censorship is that it has truly been a hallmark for dictatorship all throughout history. Censorship is achieved in many ways, including through examining plays, books, television, films, news reports, radio programs and all other forms of communication in order to alter or otherwise suppress any ideas that were determined to be offensive or objectionable. ~MBCnet.org

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading.....is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.
~Claude-Adrien Helvétius

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real. ~Charles Bukowski

I've been the victim of a campaign of vicious harassment and intimidation to stop me from opening an independent gallery in Brick Lane, East London showing visionary fine painting by oldskool London train writers as well as straight-up graff and visionary art.
I had a notice pinned to my wall saying 'Art gallery not needed' then a car was driven at me at top speed outside our intended gallery one night. It nearly ran me over...that's when I knew it was serious. In this age of corruption and decadence, outsider and street art is clung on to as one of the last vestiges of purity, it is vital that it remains peoples free will to paint, show and enjoy which art they so choose, and not be subject to censorship.
~Elate LSD Issue 6
Never has tyranny and censorship been such a burden to art than when shouldered beneath the clear blue skies and fluttering false flags of anarcho-meritocracy and liberty.
~Elate LSD Issue 7 May 2011

If a company's reason-to-be is to make and increase profits, ideals such as freedom of expression and the free sharing of ideas, are by nature, a conflict with the aim of the business entity. Some ideas and some forms of expression will eventually conflict with the character, desires, and motives of the company. With the power to dictate the flow of information to some extent, why wouldn't a business direct that content to suit its own needs?
How does one know what information is missing, if it is missing? How does one know what art they are not being exposed to, if they are not exposed to it?
..the solution is as simple as cultivating awareness. Seek knowledge, discover art, listen to alternative voices. There is the freedom to choose an independent source, rather than the source that is overshadowed by corporate interests.

In our modern capitalist society, there may be many interests trying to cultivate public awareness as a means to financial gain, but accessing a wealth of art, inspiration, and information is possible.
~What is Corporate Censorship? Defining Censorship in Modern Society

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. 
 
All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of all censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell. - ~George Bernard Shaw

We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways ....which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way. ~Kathy Acker

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder "censorship," we call it "concern for commercial viability. ~David Mamet

The test of democracy is freedom of criticism. ~David Ben-Gurion

In the long run of history, the censor and inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. ~Anthony Witney Griswald

Read the full article here

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LSD Magazine Interviews Ian Phenna (Issue 7)

Lashing a passionately poignant prism of portraiture to the end of his spray can and letting fly with the visual poetry of textured metaphor, Ian Phenna is coughing up some seriously sublime slices of figurative art. As the line between ‘street’ and ‘fine’ dissolves into a radical synthesis, aspects of the can and stylistic starting points born onto brick dance through an ethereal mirror of human emotion where lonliness and alienation meet mishief and a wry twinkle and settle in for paint drenched piss up. Playing with texture and mediums, some of Ian’s most fascinating work lifts the cult of letters out of graffiti and abstracts them into layers of elusive, indefinable feeling...

Did you initially start out writing and develop into wider forms of painting, or did you have an ‘finer’ art background?

I started drawing and painting when I was very young and never had any formal training but was a vandal before actually thinking about ‘art’

How did portraiture become the major focus of your work?

I’ve always been naturally compelled to draw and paint people around me...

What are you looking for in a face?

Contrast, expression, gaze, I dont really know...some faces come directly from my imagination 

How do you weave emotion and the abstract into a portrait?

One «tag» or symbol starts the process..then I find and lose an image repeatedly with tags until the process stops,I think this way of working adds an emotive edge.

Should realism ever be an end in itself ?

Why not? For each their own... I can paint realism, it just doesn’t really engage me...I prefer the unpredictable way of working 

What is it about seminal musical figures like Bob Marley, Sid Vicious and Jimi Hendrix that speaks to your spray can?

They are just good subjects to paint...

  READ THE FULL INTERVIEW IN ISSUE 7 FREE

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EAST POP WEST Sept-30th - Oct-2nd 2011

EAST POP WESTSeptember 30th - October 2nd 2011

Red Gallery presents a selection of the best East London art and design collectives & directives. EAST POP WEST is a celebration of contemporary creative collaborations, during a three-day event at the 20,000 sq ft former Innocent Smoothies HQ. 

It will be a rare chance for West London to engage directly with East London’s artists and designers – to make an investment and be part of the first EAST POP venture.
Adam Dant, Artswipe, Bert Industries, Blink Art, Carl Burgess, Cedric Christie, Christopher Duncan, Claire Howells, ContainerPlus, Dan Canyon, The Dark Times, Darren Coffield, David Wilson, Decima International Art Projects, The Department of Memory, Don’t Tell Stories, Dr D, East London Furniture, Found Art Collective, Hackney WickEd, Hato Press, Joesph Mann, KeelerTornero, Le Gun, Liam Scully, Macarena Yanez, Marco, Martin Sexton, Martin Wollerstam, Material, Max Hattler, Metric Collective, New Found Original, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Pure Evil, RART, RAX, Raul Pina, Rodolph de Salis, Ronzo, Root 5, /seconds, TheUnconsciousCollective, This Is It

East Pop Website

                              Collective + EAST POP Films

Curated by Alexa Kusber

Admission price £5     Concessions £3      Under 12s Free

Date: September 30th - October 2nd 2011

Location: Unit 1, Goldhawk Industrial Estate,
Vinery Way (off Brackenbury Road), London W6 0BE

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Stik - Solo Show at Graffik - October 6th-20th

Stik solo show at Graffik

October  6th-20th   2011

As one of London’s most established and celebrated street artists, Stik continues to bless our streets with his unique, hyper-minimalist stick characters. Deceptively simple in form these striking images hold a hidden depth of subtlety which reveals itself long after the initial impact. Using only six lines and dots for eyes Stik gracefully evokes a frailty which transcends the stark form of his iconic work. He draws from the tradition of the logo but imbues it with something imperceptible, striking straight to the centre of the brain with a hidden message that will keep you guessing. Untrained, he draws purely from life experience exploring gender, sexuality, social status and the darker side of city life but manages to elevate these themes through the elegance of their execution.

Stik is invited to paint across Europe and lectures about the importance of street art in social change.  In a notorious move, he recently made sketches on the front line of the U.K. riots provoking mixed reactions from both press, rioters and the police when he reproduced the image as a mural in the aftermath. As unofficial social commentator Stik maintains he is not breaking the law but changing it.

Graffik Gallery curate Stik’s fourth and final solo show of 2011, a vibrant culmination of his creative processes. Unusually for Stik who is usually a solo artist, the elements that dominate the gallery are the result of  muti-media collaborations in industrial neon, traditional stained glass and machined timber. These are counteracted by Stik’s own epic “Crowd” and “Family” canvases reflecting on recent unrest within the context of tribal unity.

Graffik are proud to launch his long awaited, limited edition print; “Lovers” produced by Squarity.

Stik will be painting live at the opening.

The show runs from 6^th-20^th October at Graffik Gallery, 284 Portobello Road, W10 5TE.

 Nearest tube Ladbroke Grove. (6th Oct private view)

STIK WEBSITE

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Issac Cordal's Cement Eclipses Book published May

Friend of LSD Magazine Issac Cordal

Book

Cement Eclipses (Small Intervention in the Big City)
Published in May
by Carpet Culture Bombing

ISSAC WEBSITE

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Meeting of Styles London October 8th

So we're back with the event that the riots put paid to in August. Not to be deterred we've programmed an event set to be even better. More artists and more music...and as it's in October maybe even some mulled wine.

Meeting of Styles London 2011
ALL DAY GRAFFITI BLOCK PARTY

OCTOBER 8TH 2011

... The International Meeting of Styles arrives in London on the 8th of October. This annual showcase of spraycan art returns to newly rebranded venue, The Studios, in Holloway Road. The block party with a street festival vibe brings with it even more artists, more walls, louder beats, BBQ, licensed bars, and once again entry is FREE!

Hosted for the fourth year in a row by EndoftheLine, this event offers the public a chance to experience live painting, great music, win prizes and enjoy an after-party set in a custom painted warehouse space.

Meeting of Styles provides a unique platform for expression, raising awareness and demonstrating the incredible talent of this generation of contemporary artists. The individuals and crews painting this year will be released daily on the MOS UK site over the next few weeks.

In addition to all the visual delights on offer there will be cold beverages from our specially painted icecream truck bar and amazing gourmet burgers from Meateasy's cult Meatwagon.

Music will be provided by DJ Mylon, Chu-i, Trol23, and Rolls Royce playing block rocking sounds alongside MCs like Crossbone T and Granville sessions who'll be jumping on the mic throughout the day. The after-party will feature live sets from Phi Life Cypher, Lazy Habits, and Joe Driscoll, whilst Wrongtom flexes his ample musical muscles on the ones and twos.

Meeting of Styles - October 8th
The Studios, Hornsey Road
12 'til 12
Free entry
50+ specially invited aerosol artists
DJs, MCs, and Beatboxers
After-party in a custom painted warehouse space featuring: Lazy Habits, Phi Life Cypher, Joe Driscoll, and Wrongtom amongst the acts.
Licensed bars
Meateasy Meatwagon
Cinema space
Art raffle

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