White City

by Karl Jorssen
Editor-In-Chief

New Year’s Eve in Belgrade. So many options to ring in the NewYear. If you chose it to spend it at Club Cinema you were in for a few surprises. Of course almost everything in this town is not what it seems and Thursday night at this particular venue was no exception.

Neverne Bebe, Serbia’s favorite and most well-known contemporary rock band is no stranger to playing New Year’s Eve. Although usually playing at some gig in one of Serbia’s other cities, or outside in some main square as part of the municipal festivities, this year the band played the smaller and more intimate Club Cinema in town and if the club’s patrons were looking forward to a great performance, they were not disappointed. About 500 of them were provided with what one would come to expect from one of Serbia’s best bands, the sextet of Milan Đurđević - the band’s leader and keyboardist, Saša Ranđelović on guitar, Vladan Đurđević on bass, drummer Vladimir Ružičić and the powerful vocals of Jelena Pudar and Jana Šušteršič.

In what could be considered a radical departure of their usual playlist, about 75 per cent of the tunes belted out were popular covers, carefully selected to highlight the strengths of all the individual band members, while still providing the best of the best NB tunes. While the hardcore Neverne Bebe fan might have been slightly let down by the evening’s limited content of the band’s own repertoire, there probably wasn’t a whole lot of their core fan-base represented on this night. And at 40 Euro a ticket, one can understand why. The band’s habitual audience being the student set normally paying somewhere between 6 and 10 Euros a ticket, let’s just say the audience on this night at this particular venue was more Club Magasin than Sunset Café, more collars than T-shirts, more thirty something than twenty something, more dresses than jeans. But Neverne Bebe’s solid fan base was represented, as it always is wherever and whenever they play, some of them bringing foreign friends with English, Spanish and French overheard amongst those in the audience.

The band was tight, as they always are. You’ll never get mediocre performance from Nerverne Bebe. These guys are professionals, for every three-hour gig they’ll spend at least as many hours in the studio practicing for their upcoming performance, and New Years Eve was no exception. They’ve had over 500 shows together so it’s no accident that they have such an acute sense of self awareness when on stage – knowing where the other band members are musically, lyrically and physically on stage. A rare treat at this gig was the lyrical contributions from Ranđelović, who led one tune while still providing the strong guitar lead their fans have come to expect. The covers they belted out included everything from James Brown to Queen to Pink Floyd to Katrina and the Waves and a lot of the stuff in between. And they played it like they played it every night – and they don’t often do covers that often.  A strong performance, most notably in the band’s rendition or Prince’s Purple Rain led by Jana, backed up by an equally strong guitar lead and solo by Ranđelović who seemed to relish the opportunity that this cover provided him to display his magic on the Fender Stratocaster in what is a very technically-challenging guitar piece.

The big surprise of the evening, of course, was an impromptu guitar performance by Serbia’s Minister of the Economy Mlađan Dinkić who played three of four tunes and not just chords. Dinkić, who attended the evening with his partner, showed that he is a capable musician in his own right, not just strumming the axe but providing vocals as well. Though to be fair, he could probably be advised to ease up on the microphone when reaching a vocal crescendo. Perhaps the Minister’s performance was not the highlight of the evening but it was certainly entertaining and the place ate it up, digital cameras coming out in droves. One can assume you can see it already on YouTube.

All in all, an exceptional evening, with exceptional entertainment, from an exceptional band and Minister Dinkić now has an interesting story to share with his colleagues at the next Cabinet meeting.

image coursey of NSW government, Australia

by Jelena Maksimović

Though the first blogs appeared a little over a decade ago, only to be considered seriously as an alternative to the mass media, with the emergent citizen journalism movement, it seems that the whole blogging fever may as well be on its way out. It is obvious that blogs can react quicker, provide better coverage from the world’s remotest locations or places plagued by catastrophes, as did citizen journalists during Hurricane Katrina, who did a better job than their professional counterparts.
The terrorist attack in Mumbai or the plane going down into Hudson river in New York City demonstrate that blogs are not as responsive as we once thought they were. People have turned to microblogging - using mobile phones on services such as Twitter, providing news snippets containing only 140 characters. The witnesses, despite fear and confusion, posted their whereabouts and what is going on around them on Twitter. Their subscribers (followers) took notice of it and spread the word. Social networks started buzzing, as more and more people wrote in their status “go to Twitter, follow Mumbai attacks”. Political institutions are following suit, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs used Twitter for press conferences during its attacks on Gaza.
Furthermore, the whole “You” as the person of the year, proclaimed by TIME magazine in 2006, initiating the rhetoric that each of us, creating content online is making history, proved to be a tad premature. Surely, there have been incidents, where that was the case – take Thai student Alisara Chirapongse, who blogs about fashion under the moniker Gnarly Kitty (gnarlykitty.org), who suddenly and perhaps unwillingly turned into a political reporter, as she started posting photos of a military coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, which drove huge traffic to her personal blog and served as a reliable source on what was happening in Thailand at that time.
Yet in reality, not every budding political blogger can reach such wide audience or monetize on his/her efforts. The most influential political blogs are group blogs, perceived as viable alternatives to the broadcast or print media, best exemplified by the success of US liberal blogs such as The Huffington Post, Daily KOS or conservative Instapundit. They resemble 24/7 news networks in a way that that they provide constant coverage, consisting of unedited opinion or political analysis. Same rule applies for non-political blogs. The blog with the highest number of fans, according to Technorati is Boing Boing - group blog from Sillicon Valley, a pop culture magazine covering politics, gadgets, science fiction and films hosted by sci-fi writer and open source activist Cory Doctorow. Serbian writer Jasmina Tešanović occasionally blogs on Boing Boing.
This all goes to show – blogs can be influential, though only a small portion; blogs can make money for their authors, but not intentionally, as those are perceived in the blogosphere as not genuine are soon abandoned.
In Serbia, blog entered a public discourse, when one of the strongest media brands, certainly the one wanting to be described as forward thinking, B92 initiated a blog on its popular web portal four years ago. At that time, Serbs were already blogging using platforms such as Blogger or blog.hr, as the blogging swept quickly over Croatia, while the common language and cultural references attracted many Serbian bloggers to host their individual presentations there (the same company later established mojblog.rs). BlogB92 wanted to create an alternative public sphere by inviting people, underrepresented in the mainstream media, who reflected the general open-mindedness of B92. Notable bloggers included film director Goran Marković, writer Marko Vidojković, as well as gay activists – Queeria, whose blog remains one of the most popular on BlogB92 until this day.
Blog92 gained popularity and certain notoriety quickly in Serbian media, as clashes between readers and authors, as well authors with different political agendas occurred. In 2006, blogs entered the world of tabloids, as several posts by the renown playwright Biljana Srbljanović on one side and Nebojša Krstić, media advisor of Serbian President Boris Tadić, dealing with the trial to the assassins of former Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić hit the headlines. The decision of the web management team to allow non-VIP bloggers to post on the same platform, while several prominent bloggers stopped posting, diluted blog’s influence. One of the civic initiatives of this blog is a website Majka Hrabrost (Mother Courage, www.majkahrabrost.com), dedicated to the improvement of conditions in maternity wards in Serbia. Due to her posts on BlogB92, the author of the project Branka Stamenković (posting under a pseudonym Krugolina Borup), was received by a Minister of Health, where she was able to present the testimonies of thousands of mothers, who suffered unpleasant experiences.

Larisa Ranković, media consultant from Belgrade, says that we can not speak about the influence of blogs in Serbia. “Talking about stronger presence in the public sphere, I do not believe that an individual blogger can make a difference. Firstly, due to low intake of Internet within society and secondly, printed word does not have an overwhelming significance in Serbian public, as the percentage of newspaper readers is far lower than compared to the same figures globally, as well as in the neighboring countries”. Larisa wrote her first post in 2004, while a year later with a group of friends started a group lifestyle blog called Yahti (yahti.com), which documents their travels, observations on cultural scene, books or TV, has a collection of recipes, photos and videos. This project was presented on European media competition in Berlin – Prix Europa. Meanwhile, Larisa started MediaMix (mediaserbia.blogspot.com), a blog about her professional interests, which got her consultancy engagements abroad, she admits.

Getting a job as a result of the reputation created by the blog buzz is not a rare occurrence, even in Serbia. The case of Nebojša Radović, better known as Eniac, supports that claim. Nebojša started his personal blog (www.eniax.net) in 2005, but soon the topics switched to more professional, such as e-commerce or social networking. His interest in the latter did not pass unnoticed, as he was offered the position of web manager on the first Serbian-language social network Furka (www.furka.com). “All of that would not have happened, if my name was not appearing frequently in discussions on Serbian web, while my posts were quoted or published in classic media” Nebojša claims. His view, confirmed by many, is that Serbian bloggers can not make a living this way, as the advertising revenues are negligible, but certain benefits still exist. In his case: consulting, participating on conferences or job opportunities.
Nebojša dismisses the hype, saying that there is only a handful of blogs with tangible influence, thus turning my attention to the group of blogs, created by the citizens of Bor, one the poorest places in Serbia, known for its copper mine. The most active blogger within this community is Vladimir Stanković, primary school principle in a village Krivelj, next to Bor, whose blog Dedabor (www.dedabor.com) was responsible for the action, which lead to the cancellation of the concert of a pop star Zdravko Čolić (originally it was to be a free concert, for which town authorities were to pay Čolić a staggering figure of 100.000 Euro).
That Serbian blogger community is vibrant is shown on the event BlogOpen, organized for the last three years in different cities in Serbia. The last one, held in Bor, gathered regional bloggers, activists and consultants, allowed them the opportunity to finally meet face to face, have a drink and network. If Serbian business community is not participating, at least parts of it are monitoring what is going on within a blogosphere, Miloje Sekulić, Director of E-PR sector, at McCann Ericsson Public Relations tells me. “My department maintains relations with bloggers. There are two millions Internet users in Serbia, out of which, 1.250.000 people use Internet on daily basis, 100.000 has blogs. With Internet, blogs as well, the number of people reading is not the key, it is more important who is reading. Companies in Serbia, especially those with foreign ownership are aware of the blogosphere, some are closely monitoring. I know a case of marketing director of a company interrupting his Saturday dinner, over something that was published on a blog. Yet, blog posts on companies are of lesser significance, then announcements in the printed media”.
But Sekulić is not too pessimistic, as he followed bizniblog.com, created by the young Marko Bijelić, from Laktaši, close to Banja Luka, who started writing the posts about interface design, online branding and usability, at the age of 17, until its recent sale to a company based in Zagreb. “He shows us what it is all about. If you are selling a blog, you are not just selling the content, but the your ranking on the browsers, your audience, RSS subscribers.” The fact is blogs are read on the area of former Yugoslavia, emphasizes the importance of regional aggregators (Blogrola based in Slovenia does that), which are picking up blog posts, as soon as they appear.
If we look at the blogosphere, Serbia is a place of modest means and rare, but emerging opportunities. Sekulić tells me of his experience on the previous BlogOpen event held in Bor, embodying these paradoxes – “After a night of partying, a bunch of bloggers were searching for a place to have a coffee on a Sunday morning in Bor. As expected, everything was closed, except a bar on the railway station. We were sitting in this outdated setting, remnant of Socialist times, with Robert Basić, a Croat, who is one of the most influential bloggers in Germany (www.basicthinking.de). He was deliberating on the concept of creating useful and profitable applications for the Iphone, while we drank coffee, overlooking the copper mine, which awaits its buyer and all the old machinery there.”

Start exploring

www.blogodak.com
www.planetasrbija.com
www.blogrola.com

photo by Adam Rakicević for White City

by Tijana Radovanović

Another cold and windy November night. And another. And another. Still the plans did not blow up in my face. I decided to go out and see which way the wind was blowing since you could feel there was something in it. The first winds of change blew through the City Assembly of Belgrade, the traditional patron of Belgrade Fashion Week right on the night of the 2^nd of November. Neither cold nor unfeeling.  From that night, I was moving like the wind.

The ceremonial opening of the 26^th Belgrade Fashion Week was in the light of the exposition devoted to Milena Pavlović Barilli- a painter, poet and fashion illustrator whose creative talent was indisputable among the elites in Europe. Not only did this great woman and artist have her fashion illustrations published in many leading fashion magazines such as American Vogue, Harper’s Bazzar, Glamour, Charm but her creative talent encouraged many young Serbian artists to try and outdo her by exhibiting the fashion sketches in the City Assembly of Belgrade. The costumes with her illustrations were prepared by another great Serbian artist designer Vladanka Celić whereas numerous famous actresses did their best to present the 20s and 30s spirit of the last century. The importance of this exposition was even greater because it had a humanitarian character and the whole revenue was for the Center for Integration of Youth – Hangout for Children from Streets.

PUMA is all about passion, colorfulness and diversity. As a sponsor for 12 out of the 16 African teams, Puma worked hard to make the brand synonymous with African football betting that it will distinguish the brand and win a significant increase in market share. Bringing Africa to the rest of the world or innovation through modern Africa is an approach that no one has ever selected before. That is why Kehinde Wiley, Puma designer presented a new collection Puma United for Africa showing that Puma’s love affair with 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa gives an opportunity to the world to get acquainted with Africa, its culture, music and sport.

 ANA LJUBINKOVIĆ – one of the most famous among young designers takes an artistic approach of a painter where elbows, hands, knees and armpits are giving the sensual pleasure. Every manner of her artistic expression, every experiment, however imaginative, however preposterous or outrageous is permissible. Her new spring/summer 2010 Galactic Collection presented at the 26^th BFW was inspired by the Milky Way. The runaway was like the sky at night- you could see the pale white band of models who were running like shooting stars shedding pink and green beams of Polar light. This show definitely was not a runaway success.

BUGATTI underwear – the outright winner of “Belgrade winner” statue that Belgrade Chambers of Commerce gives every year to distinguished individuals and companies for remarkable business achievements and progressive increase in market share.

 No Excess- for men & Excessive- for women - autumn/winter 2009 are new international, ambitious and successful international brands – for those fashion conscious yet not fashion victims. It is a winning combination of casual and trendy.

TIJANA PAVLOV – the author of symbolic expositions (S.N.O.B., Soul Mecanikz, No Brothers No Sisters) regularly puts up the shows for getting the post-apocalyptic message across to the business community and to the general public. This time she passes an urgent message “touched by” the 2009 swine flu outbreak- the spread of a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus: Why do you make such pigs of yourselves?

The 80s dark fashion comeback- black, dark grey and silver colour code- is presented through cotton, twill and PVC with asymmetrical folds and cuts with extended shoulder line blazer and jackets with an open and high collar. It is as though the shocking and somber untimely death of Michael Jackson haunted us triggering the 80s style around the world.

BFW has been confirmed by great number of regular participant, sponsors of manifestation as well as appearing of new foreign brands and designers that this kind of fashion review is necessary in our country.