blakkbox

About Me

manifesto:

blakkbox is the revolutionary aristocracy. the revolution is focused on the ideals of living beautifully and engaging the most intense humans in the world. blakkbox demands the most from every breath, and every interaction. the revolution rejects the definitions of the words danger, foreign and impossible. commitment, exploration, and understanding are the foundation of the movement. love, knowledge, guns, and pure hearts are the tools. adventure and a brilliantly executed existence are the goals.
we question every notion of life in the civilized world. life is creativity, knowledge, and engagement with others. it's about getting outside of self-absorption to understand what is outside you, your life,your culture, your ideas of what is true. this is where we start. if it's rogue, uncivilized, off-limits, dangerous, or unknown, we will go. if thousands of people are willing to give up comfort and their lives for an idea,we're listening. zeal, fanaticism, and commitment are worth more to us than all the cold calculation in the world. we travel to the last places on earth anyone is supposed to go to surf, skate, work, and discover new ground. we take all of it home and make a different level of art, design,architecture, text, friends, and a whole new way of living. it's all about blowing out the notion of what fun is and how intense cultural knowledge makes every loaded gun aimed at your head into a good time waiting to happen. chinese detention cells in the deserts of central asia are fun, offroad racing in mexico, shootouts in somalia, illegal border crossing in Pakistan, midnight in Zurich, dawn in Paris; this is the revolution,
this is blakkbox.
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bios...

J Winters is a PhD student in Islamic Studies who specializes in the intellectual and revolutionary exchange that has been happening across the Indian Ocean for a thousand years. He started the blakkbox loft as a creative hub for artists, writers, and musicians, as well as a gallery of street and skate art in downtown Los Angeles. He writes, designs clubs, and likes to climb things. He has a taste for danger, overcrowded trains, and decaying colonial architectural relics.

Charlie Smith studied linguistics in Los Angeles,Cairo and Oxford and now teaches English at various colleges in the LA area. He balances revolutionary ideology and subversive linguistic theory with copious amount of surfing and writing. Charlie demands a good time out of everything, and this insistence pays off for the rest of blakkbox as well. He likes good waves, 78 people on a big carpet outside watching one small tv, and baseball.

NT Sterling was raised in Bolivia, educated in Los Angeles, Oxford, and Beirut. He edited a book on Hizbullah and has effortlessly arranged everything from a blakkbox meeting with the leader of Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade at their secret HQ to a week on a yacht in the southern Red Sea with the man contracted to handle all border security and passport control for the new Iraq. He likes a serious velvet rope, the Velvet Revolution, and velvet bags for the cognac glasses.

Andrea Keller was expelled from prep school for being too punk rock, went Ivy League anyway, and can make anything with her hands. Her architecture firm, Berry/Keller Architects, does commercial & civic projects in LA. She teaches design at USC and Otis, designs for HGTV & DIY,and handles blakkbox’s European logistical arrangements. She is a Swiss citizen, multilingual, and has little use for sleep. She likes black jackets, good tea, and several bands you haven't heard of yet.
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resume...

magazines
/multipage features: black book, anthem, lemon, surfer's journal, surfer, transworld surf, stab (australia), australia's surfing life, automatic, vice, zenith (germany), swindle, salt
/profiled in: paper, planet

books:
in the path of hizbullah, /nizar hamzeh, ed. nt sterling

exhibitions:
blakkbox gallery, los angeles, started 2004
table brothers, new york 2006

lectures:
late antique maritime and overland transport in the western indian ocean /american oriental society
borrowed scenery /shakkei; garden /landscape typology; architecture of french enlightenment/usc
hammer forum /hammer museum, los angeles

My Interests

Music

Movies

Television

Books