THE OS GEMEOS THREAD

eros · September 13, 2001

Not more than 2 hours a go I told my professor to go look at this web page, that there was a collection of some of the most amazing graffiti ever. ...Oh well...

brown twinkie · September 13, 2001

Originally posted by ig:
It's NOT about money.

.........sure...

It's About respect for the time (and cost) we take to share these images.

hmm...okay.....i can respect that.....a link WAS provided to your site....of course i/we appreciate and respect your efforts.....

We don't charge for anything, our photography isn't motivated by money, but it needs money to continue.

thats fine. we all appreciate your efforts.

What is wrong about wanting to keep our images on our own site?

i know that its not a selfish act to provide these photos for people to see, but coming here and telling me to remove them, becuz of all your hard work and effort, comes off that way a bit.........people post images all the time from various sites from around the world here...by your logic almost everyone on this site that posts in the bench is a thief....if everyone decided that, hey, those are MY photos of SOMEONE ELSE'S art, and you can't use them whatsoever, even in a context such as this board, then all of a sudden the world becomes a much larger place and nobody knows what the twins or anyone else is doing half way across the planet or if they even exist. but hey.......

Besides, it seems obvious that most of the people who steal photos are exactly the ones who aren't out there creating anything new, or shooting their own.

..thats a low blow coming from absolutely nowhere with absolutely no knowledge of anything pertaining to myself or anybody else that uses images from other peoples sites to post here....

It is very easy to steal, quite different than creating.

..sure............

you know, i didn't have to personally remove those pictures...i could have left them up and maybe, MAYBE one of the moderators would have gone through and removed them, but i did, becuz i

can respect that without your efforts they wouldn't have made it here

in the first place and alot of people would never get to see much

of their work anyhow......and i respected the fact that it IS an effort to

have those up on your site....anyhow...

next time i want to share some images of some beautiful & inspiring work that everyone should see, i'll definitely pass up your site...

goodbye.

[This message has been edited by brown twinkie (edited 09-13-2001).]

Susan · September 14, 2001

This is a good illustration of the difference in photographer culture and graffiti culture regarding the role of photos.

Photographers believe they have created a new thing, their very own vision of the subject (and many times they have, IMO, unless they are documenting paintings, generally). They want to have control over their work, to control where it is shown, who has it, and so forth. Photos are valuable artifacts, and require vigilence to prevent copying. Many photographers at least partly live off the sale of their photos, so photos are a stored form of work. that becomes a salable asset.

Graffiti writers and painters who take photos generally understand photographs in a different light. Most of us are not trying to make a living or become famous because of our photographs. We understand the photo is a record of a piece of artwork, which belongs to the artist who painted it. People in this camp like to give photos away, share them, show everybody. Photography is simply a convenient medium for paintings to live on in. We trade them on CD or whatever. The value lies in the original work and the talent that produced it, and neither can be stolen. The photo is just a window to see it through.

Neither point of view is wrong, of course.

There are some risks and consequences to images posted on a board like this or on the net anywhere. The most disturbing one is this:

- the images can become anonymized, untraceable to either artist or photographe. Once they lose their initial context and become just filenames and visuals. Like music samples, they become the medium for other things.

-Once photos go into the cloud of anonymized images on the network, others scoop them up and use them for whatever they like. Calendars in China, mousepads in Madrid, whatever.

It is reasonable to be annoyed by this process if you are creating the work that others are using for unintended purposes, especially if someone else makes money and you don't.

But it happens to everything we put on the Web right now, because the images and the systems they travel through do not support enough portable context (meta-information) about each image, such as where it came from, who holds the rights to it, acceptable use, and so on.

Everyone knows we need a solution to this problem, but right now, it's not possible to show everyone AND maintain any kind of reasonable control over your own images.

Folks who are concerned the most about this issue, but still put stuff online for everyone to see, watermark their images (and/or put their name on them) and use descriptive filenames.

Sorry for the lecture, but I think it's necessary to understand the problem from both sides in order to help resolve it.

At Art Crimes, we don't try to control our images, except to ask other websites to remove them when we discover someone has borrowed our content for their site. We do this so that when people want to make calendars, they can have a good shot at asking permission from the artists. We also want to show the artists respect by keeping the images in context.

Posting flix on this board is not the same as some toy on geocities who wants to front like he has some cool flix on his brand new homepage, though. It's like sitting around the room showing flix and talking about them, which is an important thing for any students of any art to do. We consider this fair use.

Everyone who hangs out here understands that these photos might have come from anywhere and that it's important to say where you got it from so it doesn't immediatly become detached from its source. I hope everyone knows not to throw them up on some home page later. Using and enjoying images is not the same as republishing them.

So anyway, no gripes from me about similar situations with Art Crimes photos, so far, but I can sure understand why these photographers are upset, especially since their extensive Os Gemeos collection, perhaps in its entirety, was reposted here, instead of us all going to their site to see it. We owe them a lot for providing those images for us to look at, so let's respect their wishes and their hard work. Maybe they'll sell us 8x10 glossies if we ask nicely. I know I want some.

Peace and respect to Os Gemeos. May they get the recognition they deserve.

If you want to enjoy more of their work, we've got some you didn't post here and an interview, over on AC. Might as well just check them out there because they are very large in many cases, and it will waste a lot of time for everyone to make them load everytime someone wants to see this page on 12-oz.

http://www.graffiti.org/osgemeos

Sonik3000 · September 14, 2001

Yo -

Ig and the crew at Lost Art fight the good fight. They've done the legwork to place these photos in public view and all they're asking here is that y'all go to their site to do it so it's not totally forgotten who went to the trouble. Besides, if you go to their site, you get to see Herbert, Vitche, and a grip of other dope stories. Soon, their site will be the only place that I know of that will contain the text of the Brasil article I did for 12 Oz a few years back. They may even translate it into Portuguese (hint, hint)... So these guys are cool, aiight?

Oh, and the Gemeos are the Tiger Woods of graff... did I say that already?

Sonik3000

Ham One · September 14, 2001

Originally posted by rancid:
I know it's a fairly large generalization, I overstated, but when you flip through an American mag like Scribble, all you see is the same stuff. No one dares to be different.

This is true, when you look at a graffiti magazine, you do see the same shit. But when you watch MTV you see the same stupid shit over and over again too. This doesn't mean that there are no talented unique mucians out there, they just aren't in the public eye so much. Graffiti magazines are neat and all, but they show the same style over and over again, they show pop graffiti. This makes many kids write pop graffiti, because thats all they see, it's up to you and everyone else to trancend all of this, but oh well, I'm a toy anyways...

hamski the horrible

uselessuse · September 15, 2001

sum of it i like,sum i dont.

brown twinkie · September 15, 2001

i'll say it one more time..........i am very grateful for the guys

at lost art and their efforts...i realize the situation they are

in and i acted accordingly........as such, you will never see

me use an os gemeos image again from their site on this or any other site, regardless of the context its being used..unless they are my own photos...

susan brings up some very

good points....the grey area of intellectual

property such as photos and samples on the net or

otherwise for that matter....for anyone that cares about

such things, you can look into negativeland's legal battles, or

you can look into john oswald's battles of sound sampling..........which is somewhat

different stuff from what we have here...but overall puts ideas of

ownership and copyright in the limelight for critical thought....

anyhow.....this was never about causing some harm to

the guys at lost art. it was about showing people the twins'

work in a context that was never meant to be seen as malicious OR thieving....

i respected their points and removed the content of the thread..

done.

[This message has been edited by brown twinkie (edited 09-14-2001).]

bear · September 15, 2001

first: bump for the most thought provoking, senitmental graffiti ever.

also, good luck with revamping 12oz the mag and the vapors. 12oz was the first graff mag i ever bought and seeing these cmp and spin peices, the monolith 7 dwarves shit, really opened me up to graff in a whole new light. thanks for that and good luck

September 16, 2001

Good to see the level of intelligence and thought going it to these comments. Refreshing change from the usual, "How do you make Krink?" posts we usually get.

Anyhow, as stated in the original thread Ig posted, as well as knowing what both sides of this scenario feels like, I pretty much agree with what was stated in Susan's post. I know what it feels like to create content based upon the work of others, in turn making it my own in some respects. I've never had a problem with others republishing articles or sections of 12ozProphet/theVapors, so long as proper credit is posted as well. Graf Cafe actually did this for a time, as well as several other smaller sites. Although, I do understand people's (including my own) natural inclination to horde things they consider precious, as well as the drive to remain competitive by the use of exclusive content.

However, it is my opinion that this art form, like most things in life, often extend beyond any one individual and become an integral building block in an evolutionary process that defines, or at least contributes, to us all. In other words, this is larger than any one of us.

In this case in particular, I know that Os Gemeos create their art for the people. Although they are particular about the context in which their works appear, ultimately they are attempting to raise awareness, and give back to a people that have little, if anything at all. Ultimately, their goal is to bring color and joy into the life of a people that generally have neither. However, they also understand the impact their work has made on our scene, and have conciously used their gift as a vehicle for commentary on the plight of the underpriveledged in Brasil.

When I first began speaking to the twins, and even later when Sonik and I choose to go to Brasil to do an interview that later brought the twins international recognition and respect, we really had no clue how profound an impact any of those decisions would really make. I can honestly say that trip changed Sonik and I in a way we both never expected. Much of it definately had to do with the technical skill the twins had with a spraycan, but really this was only a small detail in a much larger experience we were fortunate enough to be a part of. Despite how personal an experience that trip to Brasil was for Sonik and I, fact is it was bigger than the both of us and even bigger than 12ozProphet. The fact that Os Gemeos is now a household name amongst writers is testament to that fact.

Further, I believe the underlying philosophy the internet was built upon is the non-centralized proliferation of information. Not to say credit shouldnt be given in each instance where it's due, but I feel it would irresponsable to not keep information that's considered precious, relevant or important in a way that's easily accessable and reduntantly stored.

It is because of the above stated sentiments that I have never discouraged users from posting links to images outside our domain or beyond their ownership (if such a thing exists in this context). Like Susan so eloquently stated this message board could be compared to sitting at a bench passing around albums, since ultimately it is a gathering of writers swapping flix.

Lastly, I realize where Ig is coming from with the costs issue involved with publishing. Facts are I pay each month out of my pocket to keep this message board going since for some time now, neither this site, nor our company has generated the cash flow to support itself.

*On a side note: We are working hard to restructure ourselves in an attempt to once again become financially viable enough to continue developing product and content you all can enjoy (and hopefully start being reimbursed for our time and efforts). However, currently we are dealing with a series of circumstances beyond our control that almost put an abrupt end to all our efforts, and. We've spent long hours putting new plans together and have been slowly developing strategies, relationships and positions that will hopefully allow us to became bigger and better that ever within the not too distant future. I can also assure you that although it's been slow in coming, there has been much work done behind the scenes towards the redevelopment of this site, as well as our magazines- 12ozProphet and theVapors.

November 22, 2001

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I encourage those who have original gemeos pictures to share them

RESPEKT, YO!

Harpo Marx · November 22, 2001

Originally posted by ZENYTH.ASP
....how would a gringo like myslef properly pernounce "OS GEMEOS". Doesn't it translate to "the twins"?

I have always been astonished at their work. I love the colors they use and admire their can control. Such a great post.

it's portugeese for 'the twins' you are right sir

O-S jee-me-ose

Harpo Marx · November 22, 2001

I look at art done by the twins, and I'm blown away. Every time I see something that they've done I have trouble comprehending it, as if it couldn't actually done by people, but when I realize it again, and also realive that art and graffiti are bigger than me, and that it's bigger than me people who do it. People like the twins with such a love for the culture that they were brought up on are representing something bigger than one person could ever entirely comprehend. Thay are truely gifted individuals.

deceponer · November 22, 2001

their art work is so fucking nice.... i would love to see it up close. how do they geet all of their paint? montana should sponser them instead of some of their writers that are not as talented as them. i think that the twins would appreciate and deserve a sponser more than some of the writers on the montana team

mark4_relax · November 22, 2001

I saw some Os Gemeos stuff in Hamburg. Those guys are really fresh. I'm diggin it for sure.

ope · November 22, 2001

:) i want to see more pictures

CiRe · November 22, 2001

damn os had some weird shit. sometimes im not sure if its art or lines that make no sence

IVO AKM KILLERZ · November 26, 2001

:king: ;) ;)

November 18, 2002

SKEROK_____SKEROK

keep this page alive!

tom dongo · November 21, 2002

carnaval11'>

Vlad · November 21, 2002

Check out the Brazil Diary in Braindamage #7 for a better view on the Brazilian scene

bufme1 · November 21, 2002

http://www.graffiti-art.com/urbandiscipline2000/photos/03134.jpg'>

http://www.graffiti-art.com/urbandiscipline2000/photos/daim0913.jpg'>

effyoo · November 22, 2002

Good for the bump...

The first graff mag I ever bought was the Os Gemeos edition of 12 oz, thus turning me onto this board etc. Looking back, I am glad that I was turned on to the works of these two early on in my "serious" appreciation of art.

I've read the entire thread for the first time right now and I can assure you that the few pics that are still running and the responses of you all (still posting and not) remind me of the time that everything was fresh for me and the inspiration was there for the taking.

I traveled to the Philippines a while ago and stayed in the capital city Manila a year ago. Seeing how everyone there, no matter how poor, no matter how well off, tried to appreciate everything that was around them and how, no matter how insignificant it was, saw the best in their current situation. For example, a pop song, one that got big here (i can't remember the name), was popular there and I immediately wrote if off. My friends asked why I didn't like it and I was unable to come up with a response. When asked why buddy liked it, he said he appreciated how the lyrics made him feel about his wife. Meaning that the artist was making him understand something that he was not able to notice on his own.

When I see the art of the Os Gemeos, I hope to understand the way these two see the world.

From Autumn · November 22, 2002

about a year ago i was passing through a small town in canada, way out in the middle of nowhere. stopped in a bar one night and there was os gemeos tags in the bathroom. it was so random. im not sure if it was him or someone copying, but it looked pretty authentic to me.

some pittsburgh flavor · November 22, 2002

Originally posted by bufme1
http://www.graffiti-art.com/urbandiscipline2000/photos/03134.jpg'>

good lord. this is so fresh. he's shooting a slingshot at a bottle.... and the boots are splendid. "hey, get off their nuts SPF" hey, fuck you, guy.

the creativity is awesome.

From Autumn · November 22, 2002

http://www.fotango.com/p/eba00262061f00000082.jpg'>

http://www.fotango.com/p/eba00262061f00000081.jpg'>

he definitely has his own color.

MrChupacabra · January 27, 2004

bump cuz the twins are two of the dopest artists out there. Unfortunetly i don't have anything to add right now, but i'll see if i can find some shit later.

GnomeToys · January 28, 2004

I was just going to go to the page of that guy who was being a whiny little bitch about having his images posted back in 2001 and direct link them all, but all they have is a flash slideshow.