M.I.A. by M.I.A.

by Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam

A groundbreaking and always controversial musician, M.I.A. is an influential artist and an important cultural figure of the last decade. Here is a documentation of her entire visual output and a telling of her story in collages, photos, and prints from her early years in art school at Central Saint Martins London through to her hugely successful three albums, mixtapes, live performances, various exhibitions, installations, and music video shoots. The artwork is comprised of a wide variety of materials and video stills turned to stencils pieced back together to make animated installations; spray-painted canvasses scanned then made into digital collages; photographs videotaped, then run through bad computer connections to create graphic prints; artwork on nails, walls, prints for T-shirts, handmade stage costumes—anything she could find while she was touring. Also included are assorted lyrics and portions of an exclusive interview in which she discusses candidly the personal events and themes which informed her art and music at the time of each campaign.

Genres: Music, Art, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, better known by her stage name M.I.A., is a British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director. The moniker "M.I.A." is both a play on her own name and a reference to the abbreviation for Missing in Action.

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam (try saying that three times-fast) traces her rise from dipshit Saint Martin's film student to internationally acclaimed music icon M.I.A. In this handsome volume, Maya's art and techniques are presented alongside her own footnotes and explanations, and Steve Loveridge's loving introduction.

I am shocked by the depth of Maya's work. The edgy, urbane styling of M.I.A. is, of course, just plain cool visually, but it's also so much more than that: Maya digitally and manually manipulates layers and layers of photographs, stills, stencils, spray paint, etc. pieced together from Sri Lanka's war torn present and her own imagination. The redundant processes employed by Maya create some visually stunning and often overpowering patterns, abounding with messages. I think her techniques are very postmodern, but exciting: Maya's reproductions of reproductions with several layers of technological interference (stencils of photos of TV screens displaying photos, for starters) are something I haven't really seen, or experienced, before. Fresh.

Arular is my favorite M.I.A. conglomeration of art, music, and history. Maya manipulates the tapes used by Tamil rebel forces in Sri Lanka to communicate to common people who is missing in action, presumed dead, etc. The stark images of missing children and adults are replicated with all their gritty charms, and in a thousand different large-scale methods. Here, I feel her work has the strongest impact, this direct connection to Sri Lanka.

And of course, Kala and Maya are both interesting as well: in addition to her search for her Tamil identity, Maya also takes on her artistic identity, especially as it relates to a globalizing world and art scene. Monetary images, charts of diseases and poverty, chatspeak, and WikiLeaks all come into play in these albums and Maya's other endeavors (N.E.E.T. and Vicky Leekx).

Some of Maya's explorations and alterations in these later sections came across as... well, tacky. I mean that in the nicest way possible. I think. Um, it's just, they looked so computer-generated, so cookie-cutter pre-Photoshop basic, that it took me a while to see the "art" in them. However, when placed in the context of Maya's thought processes, and juxtaposed against some of her later manipulations, in which these same digital icons are placed in patterns and stencils and other contexts, I can dig it. Totes.

My one real bone to pick with this book is its reluctance to take me to the one place I was hoping to go: the mind of M.I.A. I am presented here with gorgeous photographs of Maya's work, and a pithy selection of footnotes, but I am left wanting more. Quite a few of the images are only accompanied by a date, and maybe a setting... but none of the detail she festoons upon others.

I am assuming this is intentional, so as to highlight her more obscure thought processes, or her favorites. Perhaps she even intended to leave interpretations of her work more open-ended: Maya presents the basics, and I fill in the gaps. Mucking my way through obscurity, just as Maya did in her journey to fame.

Or maybe I just need to shut the fuck up.

Sweet book, gurl! xoxo

Buy this title from Powell's Books.

[Matt Matt Tobin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight terrific graphics

[Michael Vagnetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's fascinating is how a music culture for millions of non-Americans doesn't really need to be written about in a way that complies with "pop journalism" or "music criticism." There's mass support for a whole visual language that to many is still genuinely shocking, bewildering, garish and vulgar. I call it a delicious invasion. The internet happened. The standard set of adjectives used to describe green-on-pink-on-yellow are blind. It's repetitious and gloriously loud. It's digitized felt-tip counterfeit leopard.

More than handmade, this is something of a scrapbook with an interview and essay included. There are insights into technique, planning, strategy and look-backs on how it fits together, and how it doesn't. There's an awareness of how this aesthetic is a criticism of how real and fake get first confused, then end up "getting eaten without any question." (118)

This might be world music gathered under almost-difficult conditions. This is an artist for whom being in touch with the rest of the world is a practical and necessary issue. She describes "witnessing a shift because the technology thing had hit the third world, and it was really interesting to watch how they worked it out...I recorded in Liberia, Jamaica, Trinidad, and India." (52) M.I.A. pulls rank to score dancers for videos, but gains legitimacy by getting around with enough savvy to score photographs of AK-47s customized with colorful stickers.

[heyyonicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished one of my favorite book ever. As a huge M.I.A. fan, this book touches me particularly. She talk about the different parts of her life with the background of her works on her albums. The details and stories that this book contains are worth it. I got very emotional reading these lines, it made me full nostalgia. So bad that there is not enough text ! The pictures are just amazing and rediscovering M.I.A. artwork is so inspiring. The quality of the paper and the ink is very good too and makes the reading very confortable. I would love her to do her second volume with Matangi, Matangi Mixtape with Kenzo, and A.I.M.
N.-B. : Steve Loveridge's foreword are just breathtaking, when you realize where does M.I.A. really come from. She is an example for all the people that hold on to their dreams.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was aware of Maya's roots through past interviews but I now see her in a new light after reading her process and some of the meaning behind the art. She has control over her entire image and there is nothing that she creates without purpose or sociopolitical context. She does not make art for art's sake. I get the sense that this is just the beginning of her career.

[Taylor Cayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was nice reading a bit about what was going on behind the music and the artwork. And getting to read the lyrics! Finally cleared up some points for me.