tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56705508291790403552024-03-19T09:35:21.344+00:00The Lepanto Leagueclocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-59530626858383854652010-11-11T18:52:00.012+00:002010-11-12T03:52:44.203+00:00Brandon Jan Blommaert<span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4212096470_44626e8eb0_o.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 450px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4212096470_44626e8eb0_o.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2802/4212186398_c6a7d2301a_o.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 450px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2802/4212186398_c6a7d2301a_o.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">Brandon Jan Blommaert is an artist currently living in Montreal, his work encompasses video work, still images and gif loops and is at times reminiscent of vector graphics and early 90's inspired net art, yet a closer look shows off his eye for sensous colour schemes and quality and fluid animation. His short films have been exhibited across Europe and North America and his recent film Black Moon is part of </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.onedotzero.com/">Onedotzero's Adventures in Motion Festival</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> in London 10-14th of this month.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Arranging the time for an interview was a bit more tricky than it usually is, but I ended up talking to Brandon over gmail chat whilst he was on a coach going from Montreal to New York. He had a wi-fi on the bus. What an age we live in.</span><br /></span><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >TLL: What do you do in montreal, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >do you exist on just your artwork?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />No, sometimes, but not all the time. last time we spoke I was working full time as an animation assistant (at the National Film Board of Canada), which was no super creative, but it was still interesting.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Still better than a standard office job just to pay the bills</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, no, it was super fun and I was working for 2 amazing directors. But, still an office job</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Did you study art as well?</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />I studied print making in Calgary, which I wasn't super into. they expect you to buy lots of nice expensive paper which I wasn't into. I spent a lot of time searching for free stuff around the school to print on, backs of posters worked pretty well</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNUlF2vVHxZYztRC2XW1q8RH0hkymv0WoIeQMu2IkKR-bf_5qEjYpfmYz5gJO0Zog1QDT1ELepLFHiUNf3CAWPso_wSPuvc-uRxqy32WGRFI9zJeVy0SMToX1g5mfVtewGIylZ81UogM/s1600/ecostationbrandon.jpg"><br /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwC-S_6mC5G1xD6E4APEVt-rYrxLobMwBEqtHYfdx-sfzoL1t5B-Z6IrW9yC0uRcVsuyrKGPm2ZuRWx-NjKAzGHDRNxkYuBgrng6NCXlVlupzfUTrfHOtJXsLTf_0cd6eGr_2nNBvoHX8/s1600/brandon+an+electric+u.gif"><br /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5064153428_5249ffebbb_o.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 450px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5064153428_5249ffebbb_o.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4149/5063454511_fbdf906803_o.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 450px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4149/5063454511_fbdf906803_o.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Do you think that's why a lot of your work is made on a computer now?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Not entirely, I think digital work is only half of what I do. I still enjoy working with hand made objects. I think of the computer as just another tool, I am not married to it. When I was in school I owned a real shit box of a computer so I barely made any digital art.<br /><br />I use it a lot now but I rarely create %100 digital work, but I guess I am making more purely digital art lately, mostly because of lack of time</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >So are you 100% happy with what you make? What would you be making if you had the time?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" > Well, I am fine with making whatever I can. I am ok with adapting to whatever situation I am in and I think that making quick digital things can be pretty enjoyable and stress free. If I had time and money I would like to make films</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I think a lot of people would say the same thing, you're on your way though, a few of your films have been screened across europe</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, that was part of a touring screening package put together by <a href="http://www.hooliganship.com/">Hooliganship</a>, they show tons of nice stuff<br /><br />As much as I want to make films I am in no rush, it is pretty draining. so one part of me wants to make a new movie and another part of me just wants to work a day job and relax.<br />and eat</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><iframe style="font-family: courier new;" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/12448804?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" frameborder="0" height="326" width="580"></iframe><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;font-family:courier new;"><br />Black Moon - <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/sweetandsoundsubmissions/videos/12448804">Watch it on Vimeo</a> as blogspot is helpfully covering up half of the video</div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" > Is there anything that you really want to convey in your work?<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Brandon went offline after I asked this question, and I honestly thought I had just pissed him off. Fortuneatly though his internet had just cut off and I stayed online, and for the time inside, due to it being a ridiculously windy day outside. We reconviened a few hours later. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Hey, sorry about that</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >, it might cut out again, bad timing</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Yeah the question was do you feel like there's anything you want to get across with your work aesthetically or mood wise, perhaps</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That is a tough one, I think I am still trying to figure that out. I think the things I make always have an other worldly feeling to them. I rarely approach anything with an exact idea as to what I am trying to convey. I have a fairly on the spot way of working. If I think to much about what I am trying to say I get super bogged down and clam up.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />But I do think I am trying to capture some kind of psychological state that can not really be described with words.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I suppose the way you have all those gifs looping, the repitition, works well like that</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" > Yeah, I think those can convey something completely different then any film I would make<br />they are more ethereal in some way</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/5078521980_c0796719e1_o.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 450px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/5078521980_c0796719e1_o.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/5077927811_eacf5a0b05_o.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 450px; height: 450px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/5077927811_eacf5a0b05_o.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >What sets off the creative process for you, inspiration wise,</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Usually I start with a tiny nugget of an idea, it is hard to say exactly how something starts, often these things come from a long chain of tiny ideas that eventually turn into something. It is rare that I get a solid pre-conceived idea that I jump into, all of thee things evolve over time<br /><br />I do a lot of random little things though and eventually they evolve and grow into something bigger, hey, we just pulled into a rest stop, I am going to go grab a sandwich, BRB</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Okay I'll go get some food from the shop, also I'll leave you with a question, are there any particular artists or even just one off videos that inspired you?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Just got your question. Well, there are a lot of obvious pop cultural things that I reference in my work, like muppets and smurfs and various things that we all loved (or tolerated) as kids. But since I started animating I have been discovering works of more experimental animators or film makers that I find interesting, so I think I blend these two worlds. I like early digital animations by people like <a href="http://www.well.com/%7Ecuba/">Larry Cuba</a> (who worked on Star Wars) and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKgyY5aDvA">John Whitney</a>.<br /><br />A lot of people bring up the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Quay">Quay brothers</a> when they watch my short films, they where not really much of an influence, but I appreciate them</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNUlF2vVHxZYztRC2XW1q8RH0hkymv0WoIeQMu2IkKR-bf_5qEjYpfmYz5gJO0Zog1QDT1ELepLFHiUNf3CAWPso_wSPuvc-uRxqy32WGRFI9zJeVy0SMToX1g5mfVtewGIylZ81UogM/s1600/ecostationbrandon.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 216px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNUlF2vVHxZYztRC2XW1q8RH0hkymv0WoIeQMu2IkKR-bf_5qEjYpfmYz5gJO0Zog1QDT1ELepLFHiUNf3CAWPso_wSPuvc-uRxqy32WGRFI9zJeVy0SMToX1g5mfVtewGIylZ81UogM/s400/ecostationbrandon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538379597757079378" border="0" /></a></span><div face="courier new" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">'Ecostation'</span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwC-S_6mC5G1xD6E4APEVt-rYrxLobMwBEqtHYfdx-sfzoL1t5B-Z6IrW9yC0uRcVsuyrKGPm2ZuRWx-NjKAzGHDRNxkYuBgrng6NCXlVlupzfUTrfHOtJXsLTf_0cd6eGr_2nNBvoHX8/s1600/brandon+an+electric+u.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwC-S_6mC5G1xD6E4APEVt-rYrxLobMwBEqtHYfdx-sfzoL1t5B-Z6IrW9yC0uRcVsuyrKGPm2ZuRWx-NjKAzGHDRNxkYuBgrng6NCXlVlupzfUTrfHOtJXsLTf_0cd6eGr_2nNBvoHX8/s400/brandon+an+electric+u.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538379208872846978" border="0" /></a></span><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />'An Electric U'</span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >You say you want to make films, but what's your next step</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Right now? no idea, I have no strategy planned out. It is impossible to get money to make the moves I want to make, so, I don't know exactly how that will actually work</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Could you not fund it through commercial projects</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">?</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" > I could try, but I rarely get commercial gigs that pay that kind of money. I know there are a lot of animators who work that way but they have seriously huge clients, like Kleenex.<br /><br />I don't think I am really at that point, but I would love to make a commercial for Kleenex.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://pandaclock.com/phantom_hand/"><br /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;">Brandon can be found online at </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://pandaclock.com/phantom_hand/">pandaclock.com/phantom_hand</a><br /><br /></span><br /></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-76368414350272304032010-10-01T02:02:00.019+01:002010-10-04T00:11:20.916+01:00Chelsey Hoff<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJdUc9q5jq9yRjhJZ6k5c5jk5QgOp08yq1W4Mg-SpEuIz4dziMbsp4eufsKNwpyQ1pAHijECjACMda-X6aCC1yw3uAnpCL3vCs2N1tMUd7cml1-7bmpQA8HQe1HvplRIQyU0oxBoRXr58/s1600/sweetandsound.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 326px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJdUc9q5jq9yRjhJZ6k5c5jk5QgOp08yq1W4Mg-SpEuIz4dziMbsp4eufsKNwpyQ1pAHijECjACMda-X6aCC1yw3uAnpCL3vCs2N1tMUd7cml1-7bmpQA8HQe1HvplRIQyU0oxBoRXr58/s400/sweetandsound.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522883601336241858" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Chelsey Hoff is a visual artist, living and studying in Chicago. Hoff's videos act as a dreamlike synthesis of recurring visuals and sound, often recontexualising grainy footage from MTV-era VHS tapes whilst also drawing on the the laid back and nostaligic iconography of musical contemporaries. I interviewed her last night on gmail chat about her current location, projects, collaborations and time and space.</span><span class="fullpost"><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Are we just jumping into it, however you want to do it?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Not to do the whole tedious a/s/l thing but some background's always nice like location, did you study etc<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Sure. I'm 20 years old. I was born and raised in Florida. I ended up in Brooklyn on a whim (aka my car broke down while visiting). I spent a year there, and recently moved to Chicago to study at SAIC.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >So your course is arts based?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Definitely is - it's not all concentrated in film / video. SAIC is pretty open about which departments you work in. I'm starting to explore sound and new media.<br /><br />SAIC aside, Chicago is a pretty groovy city with a tech noir vibe. A lot of creative vibes and energy going around. This week, there is a <a href="http://gli.tc/h/">big glitch art event happening</a>.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Like a live show?</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Gallery openings, screenings, workshops, real-time video shows<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Are you involved, do you do the real-time stuff as well?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Err performances rather</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >. I'm not involved, some of my friends are. I like some of the glitch aesthetics, but as far as the whole movement goes, I'm not associated with it. I actually just did my first real-time video gig with my friend, <a href="http://www.theodoredarst.net/home.html">Theo Darst</a>, at a sky limo and teaadora show last week. Its something I'm going to keep pursuing.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >How does it work, do you just project in a gallery? Is there music as well? Would ever use the term 'VJ'?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >People have different ways of going about it. This event took place at a bar (beauty bar of chicago), and was specifically for a show put on by Acid Marshmallow. We used a simple, freeware real-time program, and ran it through a little analogue glitch-making device one of our friend's built, then ran that through an ancient digital effects processor. The term VJ sounds so cheesy !!!<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >It does, but it kinda suits the work I've seen of yours, i.e that whole 80's vibe and you know being a 'VJ' must have been so hot in the 80s - I realise that sounds like a facile connection</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Haha yeah I bet, wasn't there, couldn't say, can only imagine through a lens of blurry/artificial nostalgia.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14473411?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="558" frameborder="0" height="400"></iframe><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Is that it that disconnection, as it were, that inspires your style?<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Definitely. There is something so enchanting about experiencing an era I was too young or non-existent to have experienced first hand, through outmoded media. Its like having a memory that was never formed placed in my brain. I also have an obsession with the ethereal and ephemeral. I love moments. At first, I was trying to capture and stretch ones that stuck out to me.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah that idea of focusing in on something, well empheral, that comes across with the way there's loops of sounds, mixed with looped and recurring visuals<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Its all about the feeling. Its about creating a third meaning while superseding a framework or larger context, extracting that meaning.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />'recontextualise'<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, recontextualised media appetizers<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Yeah, I know this is gonna seem like another poor comparison but you work with similar grainy vhs style footage, that evokes or is taken from the same era that a lot of the music you use to soundtrack it with tries to emulate via samples/recording methods<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Not a poor comparison! I experience some form of heavy synesthesia. I think of the sound and video as one, I experience them as one. The video feels like the music.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Do you create the video from the music and vice versa then?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Without the music, there would be no video. I'm just beginning my venture into sound. For blss, I had all the footage and textures ready to go, but couldn't complete it until there was music. I jammed on my friends synth for a day, and was able to complete it.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14624582?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="558" frameborder="0" height="400"></iframe><br /><br />'bnc' above was a collaboration with my friend and noise-maker, <a href="http://piratesofthecaribbeaniiandiii.bandcamp.com/">Anthony Engelhardt</a>. I asked him to make me a 15 min jam, and went from there.<br /><br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14723884?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="558" frameborder="0" height="400"></iframe><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >When artists approach you to make videos, do they have anything specific in mind?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" > Most of the time not. I feel like the ones that do approach me do so because they know we share a mental, aesthetic link - they trust that I can articulate what they are trying to say.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/13662959?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="558" frameborder="0" height="400"></iframe></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Just back to the found footage/you, do you prefer working with that, rather than creating your own videos from scratch or is it more, different paths to the same goal?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Video is a pretty new thing to me. I started working with found VHS because it was the quickest way to achieve my goals. Obviously, there are limitations to what you can do - I am starting to branch off and film things myself. Now its about recreating those portals and zones I found in recycled footage through new footage.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I suppose that's why the internet has spawned so much of this type of work, because all these mediums are free to access whereas video cameras/setups are expensive, Does your uni help you out with that?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />SAIC has a ton of resources, we even have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandin_Image_Processor">Sandin Image Processor</a>!<br /><br />Re: internets - the type of work I do is possible because of the interwebz. Its a trend of the 'post-modern condition' For me, its also about archiving this obsolete footage, making it more topical, showing people footage that might otherwise exist unseen.<br /><br />In the case of weirdo, found VHS. Not many people would watch Diabetes: A Positive Approach or Mastering the Art of Carving with Merle Ellis all the way through<br /><br />Travel videos are great too, they paint hyper-realities<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/9004872?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="558" frameborder="0" height="400"></iframe><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Yeah in the same way that infomercials do, it's that cheesy, lack of irony that's quite attractive</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Right, the 80's and 90's was a powerhouse for ridiculous, garbage media. Somebody has to go through and sort it all.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I'm seeing a lot of tumblrs that seem to just re-hash something that I had semi-forgotten about, from say 10/15 years ago. Does remoulding something contemporary not interest you?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Its the distance and time from these events that allow us to romanticize them, but the gaps between trends and eras do grow smaller.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />How do you mean?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Our perception of time is tied into the speed and amount of information we take in. That speed and amount of information continues to quicken at an exponential rate. I think it naturally follows that our perception of time would change too.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/15288415?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="558" frameborder="0" height="400"></iframe></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Do you always see yourself creating visual/video art? Is that what you want to specialise in?</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />I really just started. I am going to continue doing the video thing, but I feel there will be a point when just a video is not enough. I'm starting my venture into sound. Video will always be my base, but its going to become more of how I incorporate and expand it into other interactive systems.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah I feel similar, but from the opposite direction, a lot of my friends make videos and music, i'm tired of asking others to create them for me</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Same with me for music, not tired of it, I love collaborating, but, for things I do on my own.<br />venturing off into new mediums can only widen your perspective.<br /><br />Speaking of widening my perspective - I'm going to begin working on my first short soon! The short is a meta-tation on media, video, and industrial zones (I live next to a tortilla factory and down the street from a steel mill) permeating my hypnagogic and dreaming states. Sometimes, I have dreams where my mind turns into a monitor projecting pure, raw video. While its happening, I'm unable to tell if its something I've seen or something I've made, or a premonition of something I will see or make. Pairing that with the continuous, often abrasive, sounds of Pilsen - its going to be a journey into the realm suspended between video and reality, an attempt to find the true video-self. I plan on making the score, an ambient/drone/industrial noise soundscape, with my friend and fellow media-maker, <a href="http://videoyearbook.tumblr.com/">Zahid Jiwa</a>. I'm hoping to keep the music and video as one symbiotic being - shooting and jamming, allowing them to feed and inspire each other. Its going to be shot on VHS and the first camera I ever used as a child - a decaying, Olympus Movie 8. In some ways, it will be the extended, loosely narrative, darker version of 'blss'.<br /></span><br /><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="fullpost"><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://www.chelseyhoff.com/">chelseyhoff.com</a></span></span><br /><span class="fullpost"><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://vimeo.com/chelseyhoff">vimeo.com/chelseyhoff</a></span></span></div>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-72597874445824970852010-07-08T03:23:00.012+01:002010-07-12T15:18:15.156+01:00Megazord<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIe_KzPmGFLGulXASMpCswW0qKxklxgUSy4SRiI02wHjX3n6Q2beEUVL6DnqY6AB_AlG9HKxE1rTul-hs_MsCIas5DQp9-AJ8WCcMgV5JC5HKwvfb2vin8HyVQg4tnQI5Tkb53P2A7FIk/s1600/whowillrememberfzero.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIe_KzPmGFLGulXASMpCswW0qKxklxgUSy4SRiI02wHjX3n6Q2beEUVL6DnqY6AB_AlG9HKxE1rTul-hs_MsCIas5DQp9-AJ8WCcMgV5JC5HKwvfb2vin8HyVQg4tnQI5Tkb53P2A7FIk/s400/whowillrememberfzero.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493009567048823378" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Christian Oldham is an artist who exists on the internet as <a href="http://megazord.tumblr.com/">Megazord</a>, a personal brand of meta like proportions. The design, music, tumblr and videos of this teenager from California all combine to create this incredibly of-the-now distorted visual aesthetic that has the same fascination with the unusual and plain as Joe Coleman and Nike7up, but with so much more of prolific output and psychedelic bent. We spoke to each over a e-mail providers instant messaging service, which was a lot less hassle free than Skype usually is.<br /></span><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >So yeah Sacramento, you're 18?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Studying?</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />I am going to college so right now on a vacation and I mean going to go to college. Just finished high school. Planning on studying business and art, media, and technology</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >At Sacramento?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >No in Salem, OR at a school called Willamette Univ</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Congrats, yeah okay that's enough, just for a bit of context to things</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Rad</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYC66TIUnmD_k7tW0mCdshYij1W6a3yWaQ-_-pKuHwKrRj8Ci-K3mgdmpjguK8RZerZit18pUSSyDKdmu5msfcpY-w764byx-cM6bXhN7GCvPSCgeZzckwE9Sz3Pl5JalHpe0PyLppAc/s1600/gotu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtYC66TIUnmD_k7tW0mCdshYij1W6a3yWaQ-_-pKuHwKrRj8Ci-K3mgdmpjguK8RZerZit18pUSSyDKdmu5msfcpY-w764byx-cM6bXhN7GCvPSCgeZzckwE9Sz3Pl5JalHpe0PyLppAc/s400/gotu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493010847703048146" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWz1-X36t_vS802KY7nI56LvRTOkFIxL_-h024i-sWTtKjoYGfFzOBfhv3_PvyvQjaOwff1F3DE3hSZhyphenhyphenjrJdYCB4QLvXMJXpFvGhRSrJY5aVtOijaOAPuaqiUKGX0HHmGLDoi4G080jM/s1600/4771338355_b985332d1b_b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWz1-X36t_vS802KY7nI56LvRTOkFIxL_-h024i-sWTtKjoYGfFzOBfhv3_PvyvQjaOwff1F3DE3hSZhyphenhyphenjrJdYCB4QLvXMJXpFvGhRSrJY5aVtOijaOAPuaqiUKGX0HHmGLDoi4G080jM/s400/4771338355_b985332d1b_b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493022872075700978" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >So what is 'Megazord'? Why the name?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >It's strange because I was just asked this by a friend about an hour ago. And by definition a Megazord is some sort of mech in the Power Rangers universe that takes on a humanoid form and is created by several smaller mechs. All very child-like but then again Power Rangers was one of my favorite shows as a child</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >As to why I chose it, I really can't remember, I think it was 2 or 3 years ago when I decided to use that alias, for a long time I was throwing names around but I think Megazord stuck because I had a strong connection to it and it was short and kind of had a strange feel to it</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Also not everyone knew what it was, it sounded kinda cool</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I suppose it also ties with in how you operate, working with various mediums under the same alias</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, for sure, It's nice to have all my media under one umbrella. And I thought having an alias would achieve that better than just using my name</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Do you feel like there is a certain aesthetic that you have to stick to with MZ?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >No, definitely not, it could be anything and everything and that's what I love about it. No boundaries is such a freeing feeling and it's really hard for me to make something within a set of boundaries, I usually feel like it's not my best work and feels more forced</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >---</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(do the hyphens represent when you're finished? that would be really helpful)</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(I was using that as a pause, I will use a . when I'm finished)</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(wait I'm done).</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >With your music, there's a real feeling of sterility, not in a negative way, more focused on the beauty in the more placid, it also crops in your visual work, real simple shapes and patterns but used to good effect</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah I mean, when it comes to music that's a whole other ballpark. Making the music is quite easy since most of it is one take but I usually plan things out in advance and then allow room for some improvisation here and there. Each song kind of rolls on with one idea and sticks to that, I sort of prefer long, repetitive pieces because repetition is something I'm really big on sonically speaking</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Also I wanted each "release" (if you could call them that) to be a sort of similar "zone" so to speak So from song to song there might be a recurring structure or sound that is used.</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />(wait hold on)</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />(wait no)</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77TzUC_s0SZckI0dYWsC2GLReVBt9BPbyfXS7JcWznTyc_7SeTnrmao4Oxvno6rr9WMPVamqlihwa1AGBA-oHaRsRe7vUCLvHGRwr4mvOv0JghdShGXGf3M1JRL4u-e9k2syFF3EA8Lk/s1600/l_fcbd01a76cfc4eb68f764377570e1f1c.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77TzUC_s0SZckI0dYWsC2GLReVBt9BPbyfXS7JcWznTyc_7SeTnrmao4Oxvno6rr9WMPVamqlihwa1AGBA-oHaRsRe7vUCLvHGRwr4mvOv0JghdShGXGf3M1JRL4u-e9k2syFF3EA8Lk/s400/l_fcbd01a76cfc4eb68f764377570e1f1c.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493020039160462354" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXRsJ_uiEgqXfadmqwxpMjv_EcBwnfjMusIFgVDYRd9C4lUltXFEsxD5cfnTJSeqE7Aaol_-69PrLtPOkrTLUnXBou49bTmVzTE7lHG7gianwMCzd6Fh70TG72xo8PTJpEK8mZAoALjiw/s1600/rihanna.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 296px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXRsJ_uiEgqXfadmqwxpMjv_EcBwnfjMusIFgVDYRd9C4lUltXFEsxD5cfnTJSeqE7Aaol_-69PrLtPOkrTLUnXBou49bTmVzTE7lHG7gianwMCzd6Fh70TG72xo8PTJpEK8mZAoALjiw/s400/rihanna.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493020033768115634" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Where do ideas come from for you? I know you've had a few commissioned pieces (we'll touch on that later) but what inspires you to create?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >That's a really tough question to answer due to the fact that I really don't know. The only "art" class I have ever taken was a beginning photography class I needed to take in order to graduate</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >. But otherwise I've never really learned anything about art history or form or any of that</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >. </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I think being a child of the internet I've always been influenced by technology but that can only account for so much. Having a Tumblr has definitely helped me out with ideas because I post what I'm looking for so in turn it's sort of like laying out what I have to work with and then using the images I post whenever I feel like they need to be included in something I make</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >As to what inspires me to create, I've always been a fan of the arts whether it be music or visual or whatever and I've always felt like I've needed to give back to those mediums, and I think that's what really got me going creatively. The hope that I would please someones senses as someone else had pleased mine (as corny as that sounds)</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >No, I understand, funny that you brought up being a child of the internet, as I'm guessing it influences a lot of your life, it's strange that i can look back on your progression as an artist via flickr</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah I kind of love that idea though, It's like one of those baby diaries that shows all of your big moments</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgav18aq0zyfM0m622L35yKqbsjooZaW4LakSFeT6x8fVOg1F8ZvRT59-D1mh8EPmczE5xPFkVjJmGzdMs_IDvKGZq09JM2UJ6oVVfNDkjdmX_FjTuHOJ1Yc0dEXjsXsf-vT_ktZtH9tLc/s1600/fuck.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 392px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgav18aq0zyfM0m622L35yKqbsjooZaW4LakSFeT6x8fVOg1F8ZvRT59-D1mh8EPmczE5xPFkVjJmGzdMs_IDvKGZq09JM2UJ6oVVfNDkjdmX_FjTuHOJ1Yc0dEXjsXsf-vT_ktZtH9tLc/s400/fuck.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493010828645113058" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhaI0Fz-bp5OP8bN9e9LzT286-vOdpnJ0CNckHbT7AClAEfM8LYkEUujHAT_dyYvQIylDemogwr5noPL6NRbgjQzihldTz4JvszTNlTJTKuVyp0SOpykmwbA4MBsqwECF5s_WwztOyjY/s1600/reboot.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 392px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJhaI0Fz-bp5OP8bN9e9LzT286-vOdpnJ0CNckHbT7AClAEfM8LYkEUujHAT_dyYvQIylDemogwr5noPL6NRbgjQzihldTz4JvszTNlTJTKuVyp0SOpykmwbA4MBsqwECF5s_WwztOyjY/s400/reboot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493023277540461618" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >It's something that's only starting to become more prominent, with the dominance of facebook, to think that one day you might be able to look back at someones entire life on that site</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Oh yeah for sure, it's almost sickening, I've been slowly taking more and more information off of mine although I don't think I can entirely disconnect due to so many people who I have connections with only through that site.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah that's the thing about facebook, and the internet in general. I mean can you ever see yourself 'disconnecting' as you put it?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Oh definitely not, although I've always had that dream of going to New Mexico or Texas and living in a cabin in the middle of the desert with no internet and all my gear, just creating weirdo stuff for a month or so, I'm not sure how feasible that is but I like to hope it happens one day</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >The internet has definitely become more and more forgettable, sometimes I just roll through blogs and then forget what I saw within seconds. I think it's either that a lot of people are posting the same thing or that I am rejecting the net.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8VIV37QDdWeU95fUyn7kkXunRGT5AEU12zwGcRY2SOKcDB7mzJ7xdijjwLSXoY8nCVsHdHz3m7MztPEqaB77jRTFAli5KCKFs_sPh2sEIP7H-zN-4Znnz9hHxu5OcJMA0z6vGHwPWsJU/s1600/hud.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8VIV37QDdWeU95fUyn7kkXunRGT5AEU12zwGcRY2SOKcDB7mzJ7xdijjwLSXoY8nCVsHdHz3m7MztPEqaB77jRTFAli5KCKFs_sPh2sEIP7H-zN-4Znnz9hHxu5OcJMA0z6vGHwPWsJU/s400/hud.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493010854215888434" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIGzO2aNm32OHCbOuX4LjD4XfTBo38f244hgea2PMpm7Eb203ZSxNySYjvk8ZtYWepMlytpilyIXDKW7cb_ieM_A64m3WozWkMAgDCeEzBRPnCr4O7pKY3zCEs4K2I9xcXQhasanJwtQ/s1600/coolpool.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIGzO2aNm32OHCbOuX4LjD4XfTBo38f244hgea2PMpm7Eb203ZSxNySYjvk8ZtYWepMlytpilyIXDKW7cb_ieM_A64m3WozWkMAgDCeEzBRPnCr4O7pKY3zCEs4K2I9xcXQhasanJwtQ/s400/coolpool.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493010816052570130" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I was thinking the exact same thing, but I blamed my own poor memory rather than the internet, says a lot about our respective mindsets.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Age can only dismiss you of so much!</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Haha, I'm 23! haven't got Alzheimer's</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah I mean you're still a part of the net</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >But I know, it's weird, you trawl through Flickr and it's easy to find so so much stuff that it all blends into the same and nothing stands out</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >To be totally honest I don't like Flickr all that much! There isn't a huge sense of community and I feel like I never really get any comments on what I make. I always like to hear what people have to say about what I make. Because I'm really into introspection and although I might not want to change anything, I think it's always a good thing to recognize your flaws.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >But I guess I have to give my thanks to Flickr because that's the primary place where people can see what I make without all the text posts and random other things I put on my Tumblr.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Lets talk about some of your work, what was the process (thought and physical) behind the melted/furniture of the world series</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJXkd0jVoB5VHeulWb0mk2G9EmTz3ilXVZ4aqB-ailGutv3uYmR3JQKSH510b0IwsNQaG72dygHMfrUUa0pQnFCr4swGXm57NcxYjLneitq-10u1SgJK_QlY6MfxkrlyYwdjgOEPIMrhc/s1600/mfotw1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 296px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJXkd0jVoB5VHeulWb0mk2G9EmTz3ilXVZ4aqB-ailGutv3uYmR3JQKSH510b0IwsNQaG72dygHMfrUUa0pQnFCr4swGXm57NcxYjLneitq-10u1SgJK_QlY6MfxkrlyYwdjgOEPIMrhc/s400/mfotw1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493009550274526642" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_AnU9k8poIIRNiSXtQiYJA1V2heEs5eKtrrwkOdPjsoFb8TaEfFGjxet4PhQBLF84kjZXzh4xhiivuDmELbkq5Wym7ydMjIPR5ignjkphJurcNoev5LRT9VGL93DdQvzYIhVLIhe5IM/s1600/mfotw.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_AnU9k8poIIRNiSXtQiYJA1V2heEs5eKtrrwkOdPjsoFb8TaEfFGjxet4PhQBLF84kjZXzh4xhiivuDmELbkq5Wym7ydMjIPR5ignjkphJurcNoev5LRT9VGL93DdQvzYIhVLIhe5IM/s400/mfotw.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493009545583782978" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > Well I like to go thrift store shopping a lot and I found a book simply called "Furniture of the World" that had all these really amazing photographs of furniture (from around the world of course) and I really wanted to scan them all just to have a permanent (relative term) picture of them. Deciding to melt them all was sort of just for fun, lots of the images had really great colors and shapes and in my mind that just screamed "Melt me".</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(wait! change of wording)</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />(and in my mind the images just screamed "Melt me")</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />(that's all).</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >With your videos you shape a lot of found footage as well, do you create the videos in the same, the source material influencing you or did the music make you want to go out and find something to fit it?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >the same way*</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><object width="970" height="643"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11893576&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11893576&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="970" height="643"></embed></object><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Well, I think I'm really inspired by the music for the Stellar OM Source video it was pretty easy for me because I knew Christelle (Gualdi)'s music pretty well beforehand and I knew that it had a very feminine feel to all of it with the video I wanted it to be a complementing piece to the music, matching it thematically Same with the Oneohtrix Point Never videos I've been familiar with Daniel (Lopatin)'s music since 2008 so I've sort of seen his evolution and when I heard Returnal I was really amazed by how far he had transformed and what I heard was really inspiring</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Sometimes I look for material ahead of time but it sits in a folder for a while until I think it's the right time for it to be used, usually it will be something that pleases me visually and can reflect some sort of mood</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah Lopatin's amazing, I'm really just enjoying his work with Games and some of his recent mixes such good taste, everything's executed so perfecetly</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Oh yeah Daniel is a great tastemaker, he's really specific in everything he makes, very detail oriented, something needs to be 100% before it gets his seal of approval</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxNXvIzdaQtlVGpM7V-CRgY3vrS8AyuRblYW-3yk2g1G4VhjQNrPj-f-6w4SdesC5QJJOytmWyIfBevzGBP-UJYj_MubTDZDF7QOf2vW10v8DEHDMCQn7NUUtvI6bwvz_PcVq21SX35cU/s1600/games7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxNXvIzdaQtlVGpM7V-CRgY3vrS8AyuRblYW-3yk2g1G4VhjQNrPj-f-6w4SdesC5QJJOytmWyIfBevzGBP-UJYj_MubTDZDF7QOf2vW10v8DEHDMCQn7NUUtvI6bwvz_PcVq21SX35cU/s400/games7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493010836794458546" border="0" /></a>Design for Games 7" 'Everything Is Working'<br /></span></div><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I'm surprised he got you to make a video (right?) just because he makes his own stuff quite a lot</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />I actually made the videos myself without any asking of Daniel, we've been in contact ever since he released "A Pact Between Strangers. And we are both fans of each others work at the time the video worked two ways it gave me some of the experience I lacked and also it provided a video for some of my favorite parts of Returnal.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(oh wait)</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I thought that Returnal was a really powerful album and needed a visual counterpart that would reflect the sounds.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(oh wait again)</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" > </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Daniel's own video work is very static and repetitive (not a bad thing at all and something I'm a fan of) but since I felt Returnal was by far his most complex and "far-out" album, I felt like the visuals needed to reflect that and morph alongside the song.</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><object width="970" height="728"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12008850&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12008850&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="970" height="728"></embed></object><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >What do you think you'll be working on over the summer?</span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Right now I'm working with Daniel and Joel on a lot of stuff for Games, I'm also curating a section in a publication called The Report, which is put out by Chocolate Bobka a sort of gallery pre-se (per-se_). I also just finished a video for Zach Hill and I'm also working a lot with Adam Forkner of White Rainbow on miscellaneous artwork for multiple projects. </span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >(Adam Forkner *of White Rainbow and Rob Walmart)<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://megazord.tumblr.com/">megazord.tumblr.com</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/megazord/">flickr.com/photos/megazord</a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/megazordlovesyou">myspace.com/megazordlovesyou</a></span><br /></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-2586526436049533382010-06-01T19:09:00.008+01:002010-06-02T01:46:28.567+01:00Oneohtrix Point Never<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKNW5zov1ri_2ELqc2vZHIbofkEkim4mUtUlqf_IiG9c2r4OPetfhLrtxQ5PIva2Ra75RohOjrgMtB16Xdbznj4Zzns3LOtWKPGNtN_Lzpqq78TwkS02-v8odRLHX4tNzGSKLswWDWfsE/s1600/oneohtrix1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKNW5zov1ri_2ELqc2vZHIbofkEkim4mUtUlqf_IiG9c2r4OPetfhLrtxQ5PIva2Ra75RohOjrgMtB16Xdbznj4Zzns3LOtWKPGNtN_Lzpqq78TwkS02-v8odRLHX4tNzGSKLswWDWfsE/s400/oneohtrix1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477937632463909730" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/pointnever%20">Daniel Lopatin</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> is much more than 6ft tall, long hair, long beard, built like a block of flats, used to play in Noise bands and is totally silent and stern on stage. Yet despite this usually adding up to someone who hates talking, hates you and more specifically hates talking to you, he was completely lovely and easy going, with this infectious exuberance and passion for finding beauty in the simplest of things and how unforced art can pervade into everyday life. I spoke to him after his bank holiday Monday show at Cargo, the prince of Brixton </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.myspace.com/felixleeartist">Felix Lee</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> also took an impromptu turn in the interview as well.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How’s the tour going?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s great, the UK is the best really, I enjoy playing here probably more than anywhere in the states at this point, people are more attentive, more receptive I guess. I don't know if they like it any more or less but it feels like people have invested more in the experience. In New York there's a lot of standing around and cynicism or whatever, but here it seems people are really into it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">When you initially started playing live what was your approach, do you feel like there's been a progression to where you are now?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah, well I came up in the US Noise scene, so a lot of the time we were playing through shitty amps on the floor, we used to call it floorcore, it's still going on for sure, and at this point it's a little weird just because of the setup but I still think about structurally a set as an improvised noise performance although it's more progomatic now and samples are kinda used as buckets to improvise it in. it's sort of more thought out I guess, I used to be pretty sloppy and just a party zone. and now I feel I have to put on a good show, kinda of a proper show, and I don't think that's weird there's more people checking it out, I have a sound system that can actually handle detail and that makes me work harder, but it's still very new to me I still consider myself a veteran producer and playing live is really fun I never know what people expect or if they are ready for cause that kind of experience I’m used to playing with Noise kids.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is fidelity important to you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not really, not compared to some nerds I know, I’m not like an audiophile really. I’m pretty simple guy I don't know that much; I just like sounds, I like textures.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I’ve got friends who are DJs and stuff and they refuse to touch anything that isn't either purest vinyl or flac files.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah there's the DJ standard which is 256kbps or whatever, and I get it, I definitely get it. I sample from wav files and realise that I should be doing that, but at the end of the day I’m not a maniac about that stuff at all.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">With your samples, the little vocal loops, taking them from pop songs, would you say you're influenced by that?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Totally, this is corny or whatever, but I’m just influenced by reality. What that means for me is that one vocal sample you're talking about is Paul van dyke and that's a trance anthem right, to me the interesting part is repurposing that and making it totally fucked pretty much. I think what's there, the providence of the track is this amazing amazing texture and beautiful vocal melody, divorced from the narrative of the whole song it's really interesting and it appeals to me. I don't think music has to be so horizontal all the time that it has to build and get more crazy. I don't even have really the attention span for pop music, I’m kinda like to slow it down I guess.</span><br /><br />Felix Lee: Yeah just taking little phrases, slow it down and loop it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah and interesting things start emerging when you slow things down and really focus, it's like magic eye if you stare at one thing long enough it starts changing, so that's like a purely psychedelic experience for me.</span><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TOK8Po8h5o4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TOK8Po8h5o4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I just feel like that with the internet, there's just so much music, you can take from any genre, any kind of music and do whatever you want with it, all these different bands and producers, like yourself, just working with the past and trying to redefine it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah totally, and it can be the immediate past or whatever, the whole argument about music is nostalgic, to me, is kinda bullshit. I’m not necessceserily nostalgic, I approach things kinda like an anthropologist, I’m not sitting in my room crying because I missed a fucking Paul Van Dyk hit from 1998.</span><br /><br />It’s just history really.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Everything is though! Once you go to that level wouldn't you say everyone's nostalgic?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It's the same with your </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.youtube.com/user/sunsetcorp">Sunsetcorp</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> stuff as well, that's taking pop songs and putting them in a totally redefined state of mind and what I thought was interesting was the videos you put with them, and to me those are so associated with the music, was that your approach to have that visual side with it as well?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah, it's a little riddle, I set up little riddles so for instance nobody here it worked out really well because I grabbed that Chris De Burg sample, divorcing it from the rest of that phrase suddenly it's a frightening concept. And I found this really amazing footage that made absolutely no sense.</span><br /><br />It’s sort of like a video game, isn’t it?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It was just early vector graphics, it was just a test really, it wasn't really finished it doesn’t really do anything or resolve. It was just this rainbow road that's...</span><br /><br />Kind of organic.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah! Totally, you have the city on the horizon and you never really get there, and I made it and looked and it was a complete allegory, you know this is city life.</span><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-RFunvF0mDw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-RFunvF0mDw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">You would you call Sunset Corp a finished project I think for me what's there, it's in its purest form.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I think it's done, I feel like I’m participating in it just as much as everyone else, there's probably 14 year old kids that are slowing down footage that they think is worth staring at for 3 minutes in a row.</span><br /><br />There’s a whole culture.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s pretty rad, when I setup the YouTube account, I didn’t associate it with anything at all. In fact I disassociated it completely because I thought it'd be fun to have this ubiquitous thing. Since then that's changed or whatever but I really just wanted to throw it out there.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">That's the thing, me and Felix were discussing this last year and I was a bit wondering about the anonymity but then Felix said considering everything you've taken is essentially 'stolen', you can't put you're own name and call it your own.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I do and I don't I guess, I’m definitely not hiding anything I know exactly where I got all that stuff from and if they have a problem with it then that's cool. but generally speaking we live in a society where everything's up for grabs and I don't think there's anything wrong with jackin' stuff, I mean it gets a little sketchy if you don't credit people or try and make money from it, but it was never really about that. seriously I just was stuck in my parents house that summer and I was super bored and it just made sense to do it, I’m sure you guys you do the same thing.</span><br /><br />When I’ve got a few hours spare I just download loads of stuff and just loop it<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lose a few hours on Ableton</span><br /><br />Or Audacity<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I use Audacity too, I don't use Protools or anything like that I just use whatever's free, I’m don't know whether you guys grew up with the PC, but the flying toaster screen saver, I think that was really influential actually, cause you're just staring a toasters going across the fucking screen for a while.</span><br /><br />The repetition makes you more receptive.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah those shitty games, the Atari games, or even Mario 2 where you go off on the left hand side of the screen and come back on the right, isn't that a really beautiful poetic thing, it like a ouroboros, it's Buddhist.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It’s same thing with those old driving games, it'd feel like you've been driving for ages, driving for miles when it's just the same looped screen.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Completely, everybody has that memory of driving around in cards for hours as a kid and you're just staring out the window and blocked everything else out and you've got this repetition of lines or power lines or the trees, I’m really fascinated by that stuff, way more fascinated than just having something really spelled out. And it's all around you, it's free! Free drugs!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Were you trying to get projections working earlier?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It didn't work out, it's odd because it was working, I was gonna do a bunch of Sunsetcorp style stuff.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">So what did we miss out on then?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Mostly like Japanese car commercial footage, but you know, no cars just women touching surfaces.</span><br /><br />Like that video of that Japanese Rush fan?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah exactly, she's like this virtuosic pianist and she loves Rush so she just performed the whole of that.</span><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bf3ObvUd5QA&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bf3ObvUd5QA&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Everyone loves Rush</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s hit or miss</span><br /><br />Pretty sure I’ve never made it through a song<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Exactly right, but yeah that one hook, its Susanne Vega singing on it too or Amy Van, one of those late 80's early 90's folk, but that one hook from Time Stands Still, it's beautiful, sounds like Kate Bush or something. The rest of the songs are garbage.</span><br /><br />Did you take a meaning from these little tiny phrases when isolated?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah it's like anathemas to me, little bits of wisdom and if you really consider it, you'll get something out it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">You also made that video for <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkwk">oOoOO</a>, I don't know how to pronounce, not sure if anyone knows how to pronounce it, but what was your inspiration behind that?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He's tricky, because he's super enigmatic, his label set it up, a Swedish label Emotion, but he didn’t give me any directives, usually it's an e-mail and I’ll be 'hi give me some vibes' and if they know what that means they just write down a bunch of random ideas and that didn’t happen with oOoOO at all.</span><br /><br />It’s hard to be left cold with a video project, because they're just... want you do it and don't give you anything else<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I totally just did it, I felt like there was a super dark vibe to his music that was clear and I found some 80's infomercial, a what's it called, a public service announcement, an Australian PSA about aids. It was like 'don't get aids or else grim reapers will bowl you down, literally humans were getting bowled down like candle pins at the end of the alley. and I was like this is too good, and there was this strange red line, this red right angle that happened just because I was using shit house video editing software, it was an overlay and it was slightly at different percentages are co-ordinates on the map. And then Emotion were like 'we really like the video, we think you should get rid of the red the line'... I was like either we're keeping the red line or say goodbye to the project; you don't have to pay me. The red line stays!</span><br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/J0zYmPKAP18&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/J0zYmPKAP18&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So just stuff like that chance, operations, indeterminacy and having an eye for stuff.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do you feel like that's the same with improv?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah! You opportune or get fucked. Whenever I’m not doing that much up there, you know it's good because I’m just listening and that's because everything just works out the engine's moving the turbines are working. And when I’m really struggling for an answer and working hard a lot it might be because it's not quite there yet. You know I think the expectation for a performer is to get up there and do a fucking jig, and I’ll never be like that, again I’m just kinda creating a situation for sound and if it works it works if it doesn’t then people can fuck off.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do you have bad shows then?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Of course, I totally have bad shows, yeah of course, because there is that chance element because there is that chance element. If I didn't sleep that well or things are a little off with my brain, there's such a precision thing with loops that if it's not right on it could easily go super sour. it's commonly accepted in the sort of shows I’m used to playing that kinda shit happens, big shows like this it's probably a little weird if something goes wrong or whatever but so be it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">But with that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWap6HL_WOI">TOMUTONTTU</a> guy (support for tonights show, along with Faroe Island Thief <a href="http://www.myspace.com/goodiepal">Goodiepal</a>), I was listening and some of it felt a little bit off, and I kinda liked that.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah well that's why I like TOMUTONTTU so much, we have this asymmetrical melodycyism, it's clearly pitched, it can be beautiful because of the melody, but there's always that asymmetry to it. some of the more, pinpoint accuracy acts that use loopers don't really interest me, that kinda Ash Ra Tempel rehash or something, it's a like a lot of delay or fancy or whatever, I dunno what is it that?</span><br /><br />With loops it's very temperamental, you just hit something and it rephrases itself and you're fucked, maybe before with improvised music you didn't put it into something it's just out there and it's there.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah and I’ve never hit an undo button during a live set, there's a few rules and that's one of them! It’s sort of punishment for fucking up but there you go.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Speaking of Ash Ra Tempel are you excited about this week? (Oneohtrix Point Never support Manuel Göttsching in Paris on 02/06)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah Wednesday, it should be cool, Göttsching's a guy I’ve only started getting my head round lately, because of the show. but honestly I’m not a huge 80's Krautrock fan or whatever, I like the sentiment more than I like the music or whatever, I think they were really brilliant in terms of breaking convention but a lot of the music seems redundant to me. But I love E2-E4.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yeah, I have a similar kind of opinion, I saw a couple of guys, or just one, from Neu play Primavera and I was like wow, this is really cool, this music is 30/40 years old or whatever but then again E2-E4 is just so much more than any Krautrock band could offer me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Super futuristic for it's time, when the guitar solo kicks in I can kinda abort mission but</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I love that guitar solo</span><br /><br />You really? It’s strange some people really love it, others don't<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I’m into that whole Balearic vibe and the sinewy guitar lines</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I think My Bloody valentine are the masters of the pitch bender though, they're the most lushest, melismatic, curved music I’ve ever heard in my life and that's more of an influence to me than some of the more jammy can kinda stuff. And super ambient, I don't know how they do it!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I guess that they've come back and stuff as well, the thing about Primavera and ATP, they have all these old bands coming back and reforming, it's a little bit like do I really want to see this or am I just going to tick a box, cause Wire played and they were shit.</span><br /><br />Really? Matt from Wire's here, he's around.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3soucm9emO4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3soucm9emO4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I interviewed <a href="http://thelepantoleague.blogspot.com/2010/04/mark-mcguire.html">Mark McGuire</a> a few months ago, he was so into your Skyramps project, and I thought it was quite interesting how two people half way across a country can have such a connection.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh yeah, we did everything with e-mails, with files, and there was absolutely no conversation ever. You hear stories about jazz guys doing that in the same room, but files? To me that blew me away, we didn’t ever have to talk about it in depth. So that's a really mysterious collab for me, I can't even remember how that happened to be honest, it was amazing mark and I are definitely kindred spirits for sure.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I was just looking at your </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/sound/synth/002/juno_1.jpg">Roland Juno</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> earlier, where I work we have one of those in an exhibition in a glass case, and there you are with those stickers all over and I heard you're dad was an early Synth musician back in the day?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He wasn't really, he was a rocker, he was in a nuggets band from Leningrad they sound like a garage band basically, like The Doors. That keyboard that I play is his and he bought in 1982, 83 for his Russian restaurant band and at some point I just took the Synth and started wallowing out.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It was quite lucky that you had that basis as a child growing up with all this music around you.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I’m really lucky, it's totally evolution, its makes me cry when I think I about it, my parents are such a big part of this, they really are. And my mother taught me some basic piano, she taught me harmony and circle of fifths and I use that stuff all the time. It was hard at the beginning because this was totally alien to them as it is probably to most people, but they're really super supportive and my dad is really proud that he's been able to pass on this keyboard.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It’s interesting, because even though it's the same instrument he had, he must have played in a completely different way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I know what you mean, because that's the beautiful part of the whole thing, my dad had all these beautiful accordion sounds, he did exactly what I do with it, he had a vision, he wanted to emulate an accordion, an organ and electronic piano all these things he needed, and then I wiped all the presets and made fucked up sounds of whatever, but the beauty of Synths is that it's a whiteboard, and it's all about what you want to get out of it I guess.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.pointnever.com/">pointnever.com/</a><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/pointnever">myspace.com/pointnever</a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-50059644505988404762010-05-26T03:29:00.009+01:002010-05-31T17:27:47.460+01:00Universalis<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF8ROnGygbQtciWDkIZ7TubXlk3fUBlOK0nzNNJEahANjVsJteZx-HMNo_xYtHHLQeoyTzM74b6NbtHdNiVEBG95FCC70UEKwlQfiPJET3zwlj-o7__wY4EzgKk698h_Rbz8m_Ue0AhQE/s1600/CNV00023.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF8ROnGygbQtciWDkIZ7TubXlk3fUBlOK0nzNNJEahANjVsJteZx-HMNo_xYtHHLQeoyTzM74b6NbtHdNiVEBG95FCC70UEKwlQfiPJET3zwlj-o7__wY4EzgKk698h_Rbz8m_Ue0AhQE/s400/CNV00023.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477442500005822786" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">It's all well and good to talk to an artist on top of their game, another thing entirely to talk to one who's on the verge of creating something truly amazing. An early contributor to Sweet and Sound's Best of Vimeo submissions group, </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/universalismusica">Universalis</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> is a one man project that spans media and genres all in that attempt to express creativity in it's purest form. Featuring videos, photography, dub tracks and droney future loops, the otherwise anonymous creator and sampler comes from the Forest of Dean.</span><br /><br /></span><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >What is the Universalis project, what does it mean to you? What was your basis for it?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Well I was making music for ages, under a different name it wasn't really a proper name, I never used to show it to anyone. But when I started the Universalis stuff it was supposed to be really kinda mysterious and space age, the name comes from Latin, Universalis Musica, the music of the spheres. I'm still not there with what I want it to sound like, I it want to just be like music that no one's ever heard.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Is that meant to be reflective in the other work that you do, your videos, or is it mainly music?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >It's mainly an audio thing but yeah just the images is part of it, I just wanna start doing crazy things.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I know said you want to make music that doesn't sound like anyone else but are there any influences you could pinpoint?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Well round the time I came up with that name, the whole concept of what I wanted to do, I was into quite a lot of Techno, this guy Jeff Mills and he was in this group with his other guy, I can't remember their name, (</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y1Xv_06-kM">X-102</a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >) The Rings of Saturn the album was called. Some of it's got no drums and it's just really pulsing and that's the kinda vibe I wanted to get. And the whole early Techno stuff of disregarding conventional music as in verse chorus verse style and having words, just making music, that's what inspired me.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >What do you create music on?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >All the stuff on Internet and all the stuff I've shown people so far is on an MPC 2000 and on a record player.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I've noticed you use a lot of found footage, are you trying to reinvent or reuse sounds, how do you approach using samples?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I've just always done that, from Hip Hop, that's where I started to want to make music that way. Because they just sample from older records and I was really interested in that because you could just get a piece like a drum break or something and keep looping it and looping it and looping it. And it's a similar thing to like if you say one word over and over again it completely loses its meaning and becomes something else, and that's what inspired me from that.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >With your video work as well, you use found footage from other film projects, do you approach it in the same way?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah I just get a piece of film I like, and cut it in a different way and try and make it become something else.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Like with that 10David guy?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, with his one, he just gave me a stack of Mp3's he'd made on his MPC, one of them was called Chin V, that's not the actual name for it but that was one of the records he sampled from maybe. And I just loved the track and it had that oriental vibe to it, it just made me think of this film that I've got on video called Ugetsu Monogatari, it's a Japanese film from the 50's. That was one of my favourite films and the way I did the video was just look it up on youtube and just download the bits that I could, but I was really limited with what I could use. But they had my favourite scenes in there, I had to cut around subtitles, I left a few in that I felt were pretty poignant.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="558" height="419"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9335105&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9335105&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="558" height="419"></embed></object><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I suppose that's quite interesting, that you only had that footage, it constricts you but you also work around that, do you try and work with the mistakes</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">?</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, it's the same way I make music, I like the limitations that are put on me. That's why I carried on using MPC, because a lot of times I'm listening to a track and think 'oh that would sound great with echo' or 'oh I could do something different with that' but because I can't it kinda makes me work harder.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >One of your more striking tracks is Skylarks, what was the story behind that, where did you take that from?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >That's actually taken from a 1952 recording of Under Milt Wood by Dylan Thomas, just the intro to it. I was making another track and just put records on and sampling them and I came across that and it's just the way the guy said Skylark is was just so raspy and it had this sort of click or something half way through it, and I just thought that sounded crazy and it just had a whole list of birds after it. I just started pressing buttons, the skylark, the skylark, the skylark and again I just thought with the saying the same word over and over again, it became something else. And when I came to sequence it, it became a sort of psycho acoustic thing where it's sort of hypnotic and you don't know what's going on after a while.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Are you a fan of Dylan Thomas?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I've never read any of Dylan Thomas' books or anything else he's done but I've had that record since I was like 17 and I really like the sleeve but listening to the record just doesn't make much sense to me.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >With sample culture it's really interesting because even though sampling's been around for 30 years I feel with people like yourself and others you're still able to take something you love and try and make it your own rather than try and emulate it</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >It's about putting your stamp on it, there's a thing William Burroughs said, like a concept, he used to take books and cut out page 100 and page 1 and cut them down the middle then slice them together, then retype it. It comes out like a loads of shit but he says something will crop up that'll refer to a future event or something like that. and that's another concept for Unversalis where you're creating all this stuff, pieces of time, that someone's recorded then put it in a new order. It becomes futuristic to me, music that hasn't been made yet.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Do you feel you ever might make something of your own?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I've done a lot of that, borrowing synthesizers and drum machines, but it's not what I'm feeling, it doesn't have the same grit to it, the same depth I suppose. I just really like sampling.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><object width="558" height="419"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8738290&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1"><embed style="font-family: courier new;" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8738290&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="558" height="419"></embed><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >It's a very personal thing, it's something you do by yourself and it's really reflective of your tastes</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">When I started I only wanted to sample things I loved, if I like a track from start to finish. more recently I've been digging around for sounds that just flash out from a track and be like yeah I want that. And I'll manipulate more, I used to not time-stretch anything really, just have a loop from start to finish then find another loop to fit with it. I used to be a lot more purest.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >That's one of the most interesting things you can do with it, even the phrase itself, time-stretch describes what you can do.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Stretching time, yeah I'm definitely into the time thing of it, like someone recording a Saxophone in the Sixties and that was just a section of that time recorded onto a tape. and now I'm sampling it, yeah definitely, making the future out the past is a big thing for me.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I've noticed that on SoundCloud your music has quite a different vibe to it, I'm not sure if you do that on purpose because it's more of a dance based website, and this might sound facile but it was a lot more dubby. Is that an influence?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah definitely, well I'm always buying records, old records from anywhere I get. And I'm really into old music, but the new records that I get... I'm really into Future Garage sounds, and Bassline things. And with SoundCloud, I just put my new stuff up there and don't tend to put the wierd stuff on.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Funiversalis%2F6-figure-income"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Funiversalis%2F6-figure-income" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object></span> <span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://soundcloud.com/universalis/6-figure-income">6 figure income</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/universalis">universalis</a></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Even though it's still under the same name are you concerned about who's listening to what or does that not matter to you?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Not really, I've thought about doing stuff under different names but I couldn't see the point really. It's just the same person making music the same way, might as well call it the same thing.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >You said the closest city to you is Bristol, do you go out there much?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >No to be honest I don't really like Bristol, but that's generally from personal experience. I generally come to London to listen to music, or just buy the records. I think London's more of a central thing, but in my area in the early nineties there was a lot of ravin' going on. Especially in the Forest of Dean they still do it, now they do it with Gabba and stuff.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Oh man, Gabba's awful</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah? I like it, I like the speed and confusion.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Do you reckon you'll ever have a physical release to what you're doing?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I've been speaking to a guy on the Internet who's interested in getting unknown sort of producers with my sort of sound to get releases in future and there's a few friends of mine s in London who'll be starting a record label and they want to release my stuff. but i just want the tracks to be perfect and at the moment they're sketches</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I quite like that about it, even if you see them as sketches a lot of people like that whole rough around the edges if you try and perfect it too much it might take away from its original appeal.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah well I've definitely done that with a lot of tracks, I've had an alright demo and then just gone too far with it and scrapped it. But I think some of my tunes are finished, maybe a bit of tweaking on EQs and things but I'm pretty raw and I haven't got a problem with it.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.soundcloud.com/universalis"><br />soundcloud.com/universalis</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.vimeo.com/user2073752">vimeo.com/user2073752</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.myspace.com/universalismusica">myspace.com/universalismusica</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.majoranticlimax.tumblr.com">majoranticlimax.tumblr.com</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.majoranticlimax.tumblr.com">flickr.com/photos/georgefielding</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.flickr.com/photos/50399662@N03/">flickr.com/photos/50399662@N03/</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.flickr.com/photos/50399662@N03/">youtube.com/majoranticlimax</a></span><br /></object></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-59504214616288374342010-05-25T19:47:00.014+01:002010-05-26T00:32:12.514+01:00Ferry Gouw<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-TfuEBYBkoLFJc7f_NB2ue0O7q-eKzfA8ISBdeCHtpMk2_TxzanMS4ArN0HU9jFO828xen6VjuSFuTpgZH4F8ET0p_zU0IBOMmQ_02ftEmwDpy2FA3UdQGwsAFsEdxoU5WUQRwy-USg/s1600/CNV00017.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-TfuEBYBkoLFJc7f_NB2ue0O7q-eKzfA8ISBdeCHtpMk2_TxzanMS4ArN0HU9jFO828xen6VjuSFuTpgZH4F8ET0p_zU0IBOMmQ_02ftEmwDpy2FA3UdQGwsAFsEdxoU5WUQRwy-USg/s400/CNV00017.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475345566434457138" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">Ferry Guow is an illustrator and visual artist from London famous for </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26v9c_tom-vek-i-aint-saying-my-goodbyes_music">directing music videos</a><span style="font-family: courier new;"> and playing in </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/celestialbodiess">good bands</a><span style="font-family: courier new;">. I was fortunate enough to grab an interview with him in his adopted Kensington about tie ins with T-Shirt-Party, the state of the music industry and his recent (MTV video award nominated) work with Major Lazer that's now expanded into a television pilot for Cartoon Network.</span><br /></span><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >You've just completed a tee for T-Shirt Party, how did you get involved in the project?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />I have a feeling that Stan (Still creator of T-Shirt Party) is quite a stalker, laughs, I think if anyoneeven clicks like on the t-shirts, on Facebook, he's just immediately on them, like I said, I was already a fan from the get go, I thought it was a great idea, a great concept. You know surprisingly unpretentious and cheap I was really into that whole side of it. And I had been following it and following it, and finally cause I'd been watching all the t-shirts and all the designs. and finally they got they're website together and had that release party and jaguar shoes and I always thought that it was Daniel Freeman’s thing, a lot of people have been saying that so I turned up to the release party at Jaguar Shoes and Daniel was djing and I was like 'Oh man I’m a huge fan of your t-shirts' and I thought if I buy it hear straight from the guy then not only can I say hi personally but I'll save on postage and packaging. So I turned up and was like‘I love your t-shirts, can I get one?’ and he goes 'oh no this is not my thing' I'm like 'oh really, who's it?' he says 'actually I’ve never met him, I don't even know who this guy is'. In fact there was meant to be a projection today but the DVD broke and this morning I get a knock on my door and there's a DVD on the floor and some guy running down the street! So yeah from then I just said fuck it I’ll buy it online. And yeah I got it in the post and started wearing it, and a friend of mine took a photo of me wearing it on facebook and as soon as I did that...</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >He liked it?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah! I think he got a sense that I was for real, and then out of the blue he just asked me if I wanted to do it, and you know I think I was telling my friend when I was taking the photo that it was my dream to design for this guy.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />So it's a dream come true?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah it's a dream come true, it's amazing. Literally the whole of last week, I gave up all these important deadlines and projects and actually did my t-shirt party design I stayed up till 5 in the morning, I was so excited.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKtFgd3ZBrW6Sb41Mzo9VD71uOsjtzIKrVOfDc-ScOV9OcUlLH24ZvXQAl-cnOfUk_xPhZ0Ko32DCoi0bq8Bkh1xp-2Z3C18nZCYpTbrzsRJckx7DqLmob84fZL8NRsABa_DkHltB85jk/s1600/4623503769_4b415b5db3_o.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKtFgd3ZBrW6Sb41Mzo9VD71uOsjtzIKrVOfDc-ScOV9OcUlLH24ZvXQAl-cnOfUk_xPhZ0Ko32DCoi0bq8Bkh1xp-2Z3C18nZCYpTbrzsRJckx7DqLmob84fZL8NRsABa_DkHltB85jk/s400/4623503769_4b415b5db3_o.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475316123217603554" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/n6W6BMIomL8&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/n6W6BMIomL8&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Elgin Marbles Design for <a href="http://t-shirt-party.co.uk/">T-Shirt Party</a></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >So what was your inspiration behind the whole Elgin marbles thing?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I had an idea for a week, week and a half and was thinking about it. I dunno I was trying to get down with the whole urban wit and street whatever and I just had no authority over it, I just could carry it off as well as he could. I thought I shouldn't even try and compete with that world, I should try and see what London is to me. I was just looking up stuff online and I felt the Elgin marbles represented what 'London' is, especially for me coming abroad. it's part of the London history to go the British Museum and check it out, but this beautiful thing is also part of what you feel about London and Britain in general and there's this whole imperialism and this whole history of political rambling and all this darkness in its past.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >It’s a little naughty</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, and that is now embedded in what is actually beautiful and amazing about London, that fact that we can just go there and look at this thing but there's always that tinge of guilt and awkwardness and weirdness about it. But also that image in particular of this guy, almost kind of wrestling in a really sexual, gay kind of way with this half-horse, it’s also what is surreal about London as well. The whole thing just felt like a closer sentiment to what London is to me, rather than trying to compete with some kinda urban wit thing which I can't compete.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />How did you get in art? How would you describe the art that you make?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I don't really have any agenda apart from what I’m interested in at that particular moment, like the Elgin marbles, that's just what I had in mind at that particular moment. I think that art is always an extension of who you are as a person, and where you are, your development as a person is reflective in what you do. So in that way I don't have an agenda or a concept outside of what I’m interested in at any particular moment of my life. I got into art also because that was a natural thing; I was going to go to business studies school or something, I didn’t want to stay in office and work every day.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />I'd say one of the more striking influences with your work would be music, as you said before in that what you create is based on what's in front of you, are you quite inspired to create from the sounds around you?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, well I was always interested in music, but only started making music when I was at art school, started getting into bands and forming bands and making music that way. And then only recently I started recorded at home, so my grasp of that whole world has only slightly started becoming slightly more sophisticated in the past few years. But it's always an extension of some kind of bigger 'art', which is just another side of how I can express myself and express my interests, if I have interests that translate well to music I’ll do it that way or if it was a mixture of music and visuals I’d try to do it that way. It’s just a pocket of expression, you know what I mean? In the general spectrum of what I’m interested in. But it's in of itself, it's hard to explain but its part of the bigger thing. It also relates to other things, when I was doing this t-shirt, it was not just the t-shirt but also through the video. so in that way a lot of my projects relate to each other like with the Major Lazer stuff it has the print stuff, it has the cartoons, the whatever little toys. Some projects are more extended in that way, some are more just in of them self in that way.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/j4SNtFQZF0A&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/j4SNtFQZF0A&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Mazor Lazer - Hold The Line<br /></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >It’s good how Mazor Lazer has kicked off, even though people do like Diplo, it's taken it to the next level, and part of the attraction of that is the visual aesthetic. Are you happy with what you did there, how did that come about?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Again it's almost as random as the TSP thing, I was hanging with my friends of mine at XL and Diplo was there recording the XX at that time and I was chatting to his manager and my friend was like 'oh yeah ferry is an illustrator' and I just did some drawings for them and they got it and they liked it. From the first few things I did for Major Lazer it seems like our relationship was working out really well, then they started trusting me with more Mad Decent projects, it kinda grew organically from there and now Cartoon Network has picked up Major Lazer as a TV show.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >That’s amazing.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I’m working on the pilot now.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Cartoon Network in the USA or UK? That’s amazing.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah USA! The Adult Swim side</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Can you talk about the pilot?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Not in its details, I can talk about my role I’ll be creative director, I’m the main designer of all the characters and how it will look. thankfully I won't be sitting at home drawing it frame by frame the way I was doing before, I think they're going to give everything to an animation studio and then I’ll have minions of workers. It’s going to be so amazing, I cannot wait.<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Is it going to be a full twenty minute show?<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I think so, it's gonna be a series, it'll be a series, if it works out It'll be a series kinda like what I did with the video, a G.I. Joe type you know 80's. I can't wait for the toys, hopefully they'll be merch and all that side of things.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="558" height="307"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6793510&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6793510&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="558" height="307"></embed></object><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center; font-family: courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Mazor Lazer - Keep It Going Louder, collab between Gouw and Jason Miller<br /></span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Are they gonna fly you out there?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >No no, that would be more difficult it's actually easier they way it's work they set up this base camp thing, you can set up an online work flow thing, you can post designs and files and it get's e-mailed to everyone</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Are you gonna do research for it?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I think it's gonna be mostly cartoons and comics based, just channel my inner 10 year old. Which is the most amazing thing about Major Lazer, I would draw this stuff when I was 12 on school notebooks and her I am getting paid for it.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Are you quite influenced by cartoons and comics then?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah I was always a comic book fan ever since I was kid, never stopped reading comics. In fact, you know when people doodle and most people doodle nothing or penises, every time I doodle Spiderman or Wolverine or Venom.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >That’s what comes out naturally?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, if I was to doodle and not think about anything it would just be dudes with muscles. and to do that and get paid and think of character designs and guns all that crap is so amazing. And Mad Decent and Diplo are the best people to do that stuff for because it's never crazy enough. If you started to draw, you know whatever a kid jumping off a cliff or something, it always end up with 'oh put that thing on a lion' or 'add a snake on it' shit like that. So the whole thing has been the most fun.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNEl3de1PRZpmdlvkvyYnQNHypC_xPqzUpUt9kmu7iEYu04MP67MePSzKhHjlIfv63nyeETxW8L7HuMCHmRaW2PVj4kidL9-yLplzulptqtIInWaADQuOq9N1K3OZJhFv6GgPM0EPgKGQ/s1600/CNV00014.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNEl3de1PRZpmdlvkvyYnQNHypC_xPqzUpUt9kmu7iEYu04MP67MePSzKhHjlIfv63nyeETxW8L7HuMCHmRaW2PVj4kidL9-yLplzulptqtIInWaADQuOq9N1K3OZJhFv6GgPM0EPgKGQ/s400/CNV00014.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475348325356672610" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >With your work for Major Lazer and with other bands, how are you influenced? Do you have an idea that you think would work well, you said Major Lazer give you ideas but how do you work that out?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />That’s what's good about it, we seem to have an understanding on a very substantial level, where there can show me one thing and I’ll know exactly what they mean, and the missing element is just like a snake or something.<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Is that the same for other bands and artist?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >No, to varying degrees obviously; sometimes if things don't work out I’ll stop working with them. I don't want to do shit that I don't like or things that I’m not proud of. So things that don't work out, don't work out, things that do work out usually work out really well and I stay really close friends with them and I trust myself to do more with them, so In that way I've been really lucky.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Who else would you want to work with?, but you're working with Cartoon Network now, that would be enough for most people</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >It feels like working Roxy Music is pretty awesome, again that just feels totally out the of the blue, Bryan (Ferry)'s son just called me up when I was hanging out in the park, I didn’t know him he just found me and he was all 'do you want to come in and talk about the projections for Roxy Music' I was like 'err... okay!' and they trust me enough to slowly involved me in other things and hopefully it'll be a relationship that'll continue and I got a friend of mine involved and working on his album cover and layout. Everything just comes about organically, through relationships which always is the nicest way to go about it.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Might be a bit of dour note to end on but I feel for there's been a bit decline in the importance of music videos recently, have you been affected by that, do you feel that as well?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />My relationship with music and the music industry is a weird one. I’m really happy that people trust me to do music videos and stuff, but with music especially the work I’m doing I have this weird idea that doing art and making money are two different and it's almost by miracle that people have been able to sell music. And in that way that with the advent of the internet is the true nature of music exposed which is, you know, if music is transference of ideas then ideas have no economic value. the economic value comes from withholding the ideas as opposed to the idea itself, but it's just that us as humans beings have to eat and that requires money and the withholding of ideas and become products and then the withholding of these products become currency. So I can see why the music industry is in trouble by trying to sell this product that has no inherent value, inherent economic value. It seems like with changes in anything you just adapt to it, if people don’t' have money to do big budget videos anymore there's always digital cameras. There’s all this technology to still do it on a much smaller scale and still achieve what previously needed tonnes of money to achieve. So in that way creatively I’m not that worried about that, because as long as there's creative people out there work will always be turned out. But whether or not people can eat or whether after the music videos made it'll make any money that's the real concern but that's not a concern for me. if you're actually interested in art or making anything that's artistic that should be just be a sideline thing, once your stomach starts grumbling, apart from that you just wanna be doing good shit. You can start worrying later.<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://ferrygouw.com/">ferrygouw.com</a></span><br /></div></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-79005738446392618872010-05-16T17:54:00.024+01:002010-05-18T04:30:44.422+01:00Fernando Sanchez<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJ32JshlDl72K8fIF1UgWv4yaHzgEV22Lr0sLNBwpdVTUj-eDsyYm85q1MSwkoTVa3bKQqL6VgF9RZ6yqFuaG9EDdiUipaVYphVCAyCXDVMMGLqGkeI9C0qp_Aj5T86xH9AgKtimSxhA/s1600/IMG_7542.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJ32JshlDl72K8fIF1UgWv4yaHzgEV22Lr0sLNBwpdVTUj-eDsyYm85q1MSwkoTVa3bKQqL6VgF9RZ6yqFuaG9EDdiUipaVYphVCAyCXDVMMGLqGkeI9C0qp_Aj5T86xH9AgKtimSxhA/s400/IMG_7542.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472214279494574450" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">The internet's an amazing place to explore, to hide in and to thrive on, due it's ease of use and lack of central authority it's become a place for hundreds of different subcultures, perverse or innocent, to spread in their own way devoid of the usual social boundries. Los Angeles artist </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/">Fernando Sanchez</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> is an observer of these niche groups, drawing a lens towards hip hop culture, the Wapanese, sports fans and keggers of yore in inventive ways, presenting them using mixed media and interactive approachs including film montages, photography collages, fake profiles and vlogger-esque monologue videos.</span><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Normally I'd ask people what their background is, but looking at your website your education's all up there (incl a M.F.A in Design and Media Arts from the University of California) what did your art degree teach you?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Erm... I got very familiar with the internet, so you can see I came from Design Media Arts, which is an art specific field. While I took classes in the great art department, doing conceptual work with them, our department kinda pushed new media down our throats, and while I was there I didn’t really wanna do that kinda work, I rebelled a lot against that style of work. But once I graduated it stayed with me, I didn’t realise I was so involved in new media. Upon graduating I can see it more loosely, I see it more relevant to my life, not really attached to any kind of entities, not really attached to the agendas of the school. So it was just being present and being aware of what's happening in arts and colleagues and peers. That’s what I gained from art school, just being aware.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How would you describe your work?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I always tend to tell people it's very interdisciplinary, my whole approach to art has always been I do what I want. And the actual execution of how I do things or what medium I go to has never really concerned me. I usually try to do work that's slightly immediate, meaning that I don't have to necessarily learn a specific skill, my own work I would just consider it a hybrid interdisciplinary between pop culture, low brow or high brow.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-dSb4Wxh5vsIsR6rkPA_GqjUVt_w53v2OZOJsWno2Sd1sH0cdTwFAPi1HbpL6SdBSSY4Vzuu6eWBKtkvsggFM236uUDnILi0OAvL0MKiRQBEHtBhNR6sICXVoZ1Ki45uFHwJvLkH08VE/s1600/10_1-1-minute-of-ass-installation-view-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-dSb4Wxh5vsIsR6rkPA_GqjUVt_w53v2OZOJsWno2Sd1sH0cdTwFAPi1HbpL6SdBSSY4Vzuu6eWBKtkvsggFM236uUDnILi0OAvL0MKiRQBEHtBhNR6sICXVoZ1Ki45uFHwJvLkH08VE/s400/10_1-1-minute-of-ass-installation-view-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472212639846510114" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNbFA1eNMGVsfSvpEwJ8MjAZr5JPjUNe5M15mzxsMyN1VdPI80URwyKg1y-V_Ww1rN7MatgAq2MsjrNblxv9UjO-4djy4mamq_PM1tki9ejPep3dolIit4F1ien7iA1_JB_GNg7WBpcvU/s1600/10_58.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 285px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNbFA1eNMGVsfSvpEwJ8MjAZr5JPjUNe5M15mzxsMyN1VdPI80URwyKg1y-V_Ww1rN7MatgAq2MsjrNblxv9UjO-4djy4mamq_PM1tki9ejPep3dolIit4F1ien7iA1_JB_GNg7WBpcvU/s400/10_58.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472214485024141602" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHBj2KOc0FcbIfn38n-drIE8_1wXldquy2iNKRkwBlDTjdWEyK7ONDvfo2tSVZ2gpxIgS-ErnUI-js5xXlm90-pUoeEpTpb1Zj1VfaJT1JV4WESiAuty0CIzb-zo27-XTwBGc31PmXveI/s1600/10_25.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 285px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHBj2KOc0FcbIfn38n-drIE8_1wXldquy2iNKRkwBlDTjdWEyK7ONDvfo2tSVZ2gpxIgS-ErnUI-js5xXlm90-pUoeEpTpb1Zj1VfaJT1JV4WESiAuty0CIzb-zo27-XTwBGc31PmXveI/s400/10_25.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472227097065264738" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">1 Minute of Ass, 2007-2008<br />Composed from user-generated dance video. 60 Glicee prints, one for each second broken down by 25 frames</div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Looking at your work a lot of it feeds off user-generated content, with youtube or flickr, would things work without the internet?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-It would be really difficult, obviously there's a history of found art, you would consider it, but it's such a different ball game now that it's so available and apparent, it's just so in your face. It's such a common thing that most people do is to carry the information that they encounter on the internet it's become a sensibility. So as an artist I’m just trying to follow that sensibility and just isolate certain things.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A lot of looking at people who lead double lives and you yourself creating fake personas (for example the Myspace dream girl in <a href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/index.php?/ongoing/looking-for-michelle/">Looking For Michelle</a> and even the name Fernando Sanchez seeming like a Pornstar Pseudonym) do you find it easy to delve into this other world, of a different version of you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Of course, it starts between where I am as a normal user and where I am as an artist. I’ve created a lot of fake identities for several reasons, it's actually through work that I began to really experiment with the idea, you guys can see a certain train of thought between certain marketing tactics and how I started experimenting with all my personas. I think most of us could say that it's really easy for us to put on a persona online, if it doesn’t involve actually visualizing yourself when it stays to the written word. I think that's why so people talk shit on the internet as well. That level of consequence isn’t there.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">That ties in with another part of your work, looking at different subcultures and looking how they've managed to breed and exist totally on the internet, because there's that lack of consequence. Do you look at these different subcultures due to curiousity, are you trying to critique it, break it down, what are you trying to do when you observe these little niche groups?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I think like most artists, we start off with a general curiosity towards something, an inclination perhaps, and it probably just stems from my personality. For example with </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/index.php?/projects/bob-1-5/">Bob, I was looking at Yellow Fever</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, and I was trying to find that specific niche and how to visualize that, and I came across Bob and I thought he was an amazing character so I didn’t know exactly what I wanted from him. I even went to meet him, I still have a video that I've yet to publish and I have vidoes and tape recordings of our conversations and so with that specifically I tried to be careful, especially if it's a central subject and one person, I try not to criticise them. I try to present the subject with a little sense of sensitivity. I'm not gonna be completely objective of course.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUxhqhEkqP1_YKlk1iDBmzuZblo3Krfv-W7qYmPIIPcZuNIt6j0TstEC7gTzPMeaVHNK-OlPahDHssQSmdHl8Ki4JmoHp882k3XYxRMSsaXG0fLW4lY47M7V-azEY7bQXOjZO9fWA39w/s1600/4_mebunny.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUxhqhEkqP1_YKlk1iDBmzuZblo3Krfv-W7qYmPIIPcZuNIt6j0TstEC7gTzPMeaVHNK-OlPahDHssQSmdHl8Ki4JmoHp882k3XYxRMSsaXG0fLW4lY47M7V-azEY7bQXOjZO9fWA39w/s400/4_mebunny.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472211765813678098" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Fernando and Bob</div><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">With the <a href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/index.php?/projects/niggas/">Niggas</a> project, I guess you could see it as a subcultural thing but for me it was interest of language, and the comedy behind it when you see all the people that use the word and in the third person to describe themselves. So you know it tickled me, I started gathering them and then it made other people laughed and then you added something.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkxEl3lHlSacLnY7pC5EuQw_t487ZuaAj9OUm0A8hnpjBY1sDl8HxSONi9xoQT-FV5F-3bov-g2JJNU_R4xofLxPPuMtjLs2xy0b_SM-jplgQScHgEDRbCex2lRwGts7-TI3pBdtSUXo/s1600/niggas1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkxEl3lHlSacLnY7pC5EuQw_t487ZuaAj9OUm0A8hnpjBY1sDl8HxSONi9xoQT-FV5F-3bov-g2JJNU_R4xofLxPPuMtjLs2xy0b_SM-jplgQScHgEDRbCex2lRwGts7-TI3pBdtSUXo/s400/niggas1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472211017617723906" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgevK4OD1XZ8Q8clrPdnYEFEw28ydRIMu-bCAtWHt7pPyvuyqyJVJnFSfGR3xQf6rYfgmVB9dHnTIj3Rpv3z1WFlLAoXVIEQyQxhaQQMcQwvI4vBzOm3F_T44PTEqfSMRMOtR8UPgQvhw/s1600/niggas2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgevK4OD1XZ8Q8clrPdnYEFEw28ydRIMu-bCAtWHt7pPyvuyqyJVJnFSfGR3xQf6rYfgmVB9dHnTIj3Rpv3z1WFlLAoXVIEQyQxhaQQMcQwvI4vBzOm3F_T44PTEqfSMRMOtR8UPgQvhw/s400/niggas2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472211025088969442" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">With </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/index.php?/projects/9-fans/">9 Fans</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, I was specifically looking for an event that happens at the same time, so with each project I might have an idea an interest in a certain culture to find how that idea is executed or how I can gather that idea and execute it in consequence of culture. You know whether it niche groups, cultures, a song... so that's kinda how I work.</span><br /><br /><embed src="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/08/ALLFLVFILES/mediaplayer.swf" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="height=372&width=558&file=http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/08/ALLFLVFILES/9fans.flv&showicons=false&shownavigation=false&showdigits=false&autostart=false&repeat=true" width="558" height="372"></embed><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">9 Fans (Super Bowl XLI Kickoff)<br />Nine video tape recordings of the same American football game by different people in different context, collected via YouTube</div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rap music and culture always seems to be there with your work, especially on your music and writing, has it always been an influence?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Most definitely, I grew up with rap music when I was a younger teen, and then I navigated away into other music, we took a 10 year separation. I think when I was 23/4, I listened to a range of music, but rap kept my ambition going, that whole bravado that it carries, I just didn’t want to hear Bob Dylan, I didn’t wanna hear softness I wanted to hear just barks and rants. I burned a lot of bridges while at school, I had all this bulldog anger right after graduating. I think it kinda matched my personality that whole bravado, trying to see if that energy in itself could be useful in someways. I’m not into it so much anymore but I still have a place for it.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />As one of his more meta projects that worked off Fernando's love of hip-hop, the <a href="http://songkwaili.typepad.com/laartsucks/">LA ART SUCKS blog</a> saw Fernando assuming the role of a Chinese artist Los Angeles called Song Kwai Li, who spent most of him time either 'attending' gallery openings or complaining about the art and people behind them online. Unsuprisingly the blog attracted considerable attention, notably due to Song's calling out of several contentious and inherent aspects of the Califronian art scene and his half texted half rhymed delivery described by one commentor as an 'Asian Bukowski'... though that was just <a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/414806/charles_bukowski_poet_laureate_of_skid.html">Fernando</a> talking about himself.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DELLzYSL9TU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DELLzYSL9TU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;">Fernando on Song Kwai Li</span></div></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />The blog, started in 2007 and ended in 2008, may have died a death since then (and is now <a href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/index.php?/projects/persona-1-song-kwai-li/">available as a limited edition book</a>) I asked him about the current state of the art scene in LA, had anything changed?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-It’s most likely not gonna be different, it's something you can tune into or tune out, like the news, you can be aware of it or not. I mean it was for complaining, it more just to make it aware, just to get it out there. I presented that project in front of a crowd in LA, and someone who had been reading the blog said 'you know you basically just say the things that we all think'.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And the writing style, it had to be effective in that kinda grunt-like broken English. It's funny because I almost write like that now. Because our thoughts and our attention spans are so short.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Is it strange for me to ask you about this work, considering it's sometimes 3/4 years old, do you still connect with what you did?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-To tell you the truth, the personas with the rap and Song Kwai Li, I was slightly... yeah I wasn't satisfied with my work. You know I started seeing a lot of people doing similar things, especially with the internet, collections and groupings and just kinda gathering moments. I kinda told myself ‘it's gonna be the same thing why don’t I do something different'. And every time I would see my work I didn’t have the balls, the heart that I have inside me. It was really prickly intellectual, I was still thinking too much. And so with the rap and the writing I started really developing organically and currently for the last year I’ve been pursuing video monologue work and acting.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Actual acting?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Yeah I’m in an actors studio, and it's given me a lot of ideas for different performative works. I’m gonna be doing a commissioned piece for </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUzBCl6iVoc">Bas Jan Ader</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, he's a Dutch conceptual performance artist, so I’m gonna be doing some works for an opening, as a retrospective of his work.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I wanna work more organically, and when I look at the past, I like the ideas and I'm proud of them but at the same time it's an intellectual me, I’m just not trying to be as much.</span><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/08/ALLFLVFILES/mediaplayer.swf" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="height=380&width=460&file=http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/08/ALLFLVFILES/FernandoSanchez-MeandMygirlfriend.flv&showicons=false&shownavigation=false&showdigits=false&autostart=false&repeat=true" width="460" height="380"></embed><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Me and My Girlfriend, 2007<br /><br />A compilation of scenes when people turn and look at the camera during their homemade porn videos - narcissexuals</div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />So with acting and with one of your new projects <a href="http://www.sanchezjr.com/?p=57">where you've been editing yourself in pirated movies</a>, what other work are you doing in 2010?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Yeah I have about three of those that I haven't uploaded or published, I've got a residency, and then I've been rapping or rap/singing. I have a few new songs that I’ve been coming out with and a couple of new music videos, so I’ve mainly been doing that. First it started out as a project, but now I just like it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do you make music as well?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-No I can't make music, I just like writing the lyrics, and doing my thing</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And are the music videos just for yourself?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Yeah, just for myself, it's actually a really cool process because I get to write, I get to perform and I get to come up with an idea for a video. And I do some intro acting scenes, I like the whole packaging. I’m writing a screenplay at the moment, eventually I wanna do a movie.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />I guess in LA that's the best place to do it...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-You know I've been ignoring it for a long time, because I've been living in this space and I've always ignored the acting, you know oh 'acting’s just a bunch of douchebags'.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It is quite cliché in Los Angeles though</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Yeah it is quite cliche, I've been offered a couple of supporting roles, just in graduate MFA thesis films and really small indie, part of the whole mumble core movement, not sure If you’ve heard of that...</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Yeah, I remember hearing quite a lot about it, isn't it quite old now mumblecore? Is it a turn of last decade kinda thing or am I making that up?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-It probably started last decade but it's still straggling, it's still alive I guess.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />It's still mumblin’</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-It’s still mumblin’.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bNuPYGsLP2w&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bNuPYGsLP2w&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />Dumb Dick Danglas Directors Cut</div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Born in Ciduad Juarez, Mexico in 1980, Fernando doesn't shy away from his immigrant heritage, descrbring the 'illegal' in him as a motivation for most of his artistic methodology.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Am I right to say you're an illegal immigrant or is that wrong information?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Illegal? No... I'm legal now, it's just something I like telling people. I'm not really sure, I have all the documents, but if they were to put me into a room, I wouldn't say I got smuggled into the states, there's no reason for them to know how I got into the United States the fact is now I have all the documents.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I thought it was interesting, because I heard in the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8653132.stm">news recently about Arizona</a> and how they've had a curb on illegal immigrants, how does it feel having a person like yourself not being allowed into your country?</span><br /><br />The thing with Arizona, I think it's just more blank out prejudice, which is just wrong. Just going after people that you suspect. It's good that I don't live in Arizona cause I dress like a cowboy sometimes, I look pretty authentic Mexican. It doesn't affect the way I feel, sometimes I worry for my Dad perhaps, I sympathise with people more I feel, but with myself I'm more stable. I feel like an American, so I don't really associate that much with it.<br /><br />A lot of Mexican Americans have an interesting identity here in the states, like for myself the longest time I didn’t wanna speak Spanish when people spoke Spanish to me, I had this pride issue, like 'I'm American', but now I’m in charge of everything.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://thankgodforconceptualart.com/">thankgodforconceptualart.com/</a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-58171786082448956962010-04-29T15:29:00.008+01:002010-05-17T16:42:42.312+01:00Mark Mcguire<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgTPJZSdg8PyAB3w6NpJo6AqVp9WHNanOt5x5Gvpywx9VtT7PKTKk7TKTx2-J2SKM6fJouhoWybVK5Tp74CFyFr2qeM9lFniEsebFFv1Pzz05hByUVWehrsVSubJ7uKxRZSM-w36o-TQc/s1600/mcguire.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgTPJZSdg8PyAB3w6NpJo6AqVp9WHNanOt5x5Gvpywx9VtT7PKTKk7TKTx2-J2SKM6fJouhoWybVK5Tp74CFyFr2qeM9lFniEsebFFv1Pzz05hByUVWehrsVSubJ7uKxRZSM-w36o-TQc/s400/mcguire.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465627771199533826" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">Whether making up a third of ambient psych band Emeralds, collaborating with Oneohtrix Point Never, recording under his own name or several other guises Mark Mcguire is a guitarist characterised by his prolific output and Krautrock inspired drones; creating music that can equally veer off into the shimmering and epic or the sedate and sublime. I caught up with the Cleveland, Ohio native over a series of e-mails to talk about instruments, the creative process and bromances.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">You’ve always been pretty prolific with your output, like you’re always creating, what’s changed in the way you perform and record in the 5 years since you started with Emeralds?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I play music either with Emeralds or by myself almost everyday and am constantly recording, playing, and practicing. There’s so many jams to be made and things to be done I feel like I just have to keep working constantly, there’s no time to waste! All that has really changed since we started is that I’m able to focus a lot more, and I feel like our recordings are a lot more relaxed and becoming more ambitious. I think we’re realizing our potential more and more each year and trying to go for it even harder. I still feel like we’re just getting started.<br /><br /></span><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KyRRGU3R4Gk&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KyRRGU3R4Gk&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What equipment, guitars/effects do you use to record</span>?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-For the past five years, I’ve been playing a Gibson Les Paul Studio. I recently bought a new Fender Lonestar Stratocaster, and I’ve really been digging it, such a different feel and sound than the Les Paul. I run it through a cheap distortion, a cheap phaser, an even cheaper chorus and a couple delay pedals. I also use two different guitar-synthesizers.<br /><br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How much of your work is improvised? Do you spend a lot of time honing sounds and tones or do you work more on melodies?<br /><br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-A lot of times I’ll just get a riff or a rhythm or a concept or something in my head, and then next time I play I try to get that idea out. It usually ends up sounding way different than planned because once I start going it’s about 90% improvised. Sometimes I’ll have an idea so deep in my head that it comes out just the way I thought, which is nice too! I like to try lots of different methods of writing and composing. Some of my new stuff is a lot more composed and put together than usual, and I’m definitely gonna keep trying out different styles and structures in the future.</span><br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dkGTnAwdSIg&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dkGTnAwdSIg&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Your music seems to lend itself towards the more Berlin side of things, who are some of your favourite Krautrock bands?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I think more obviously some of my favourites are the early and mid-period Popol Vuh records, and all the Manuel Gottsching and Ash Ra Tempel records, and Kraftwerk is definitely one of the best bands of all time, and TD and Schulze and all the classic greats. That is a really important time and place for music that I respect and admire very much, but to be honest I don’t really sit around listening to that stuff all of the time or anything. Like if I’m driving and I’m listening to something really far-out I get way too zoned and that can get dark! I’m always looking for new music to get into from all different areas of the spectrum.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />You collaborate with Daniel Lopatin from Oneohtrix Point Never for your Skyramps project, how do you two influence each other?<br /></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Dan is one of the people we’ve met through our band that we had an immediate connection with as far as musical kinship, and just in general as a dude. We get along really well and I think that’s one of the most important things when collaborating with someone artistically. Being comfortable enough to create something as naturally as if you were doing it alone, and it’s definitely like that with him. Sometimes I think he’s the reincarnation of my estranged first best friend from childhood, it’s cool like that.</span><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/s39joCPL9Nc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/s39joCPL9Nc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">You’re from Cleveland Ohio, how has the city influenced you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Cleveland is a very unique place to grow up. The Midwest in general is a really specific vibe but Cleveland is totally its own world. There’s a lot to be inspired by here. There’s a really beautiful parks system in Ohio, were right on Lake Erie, and we get a full dose of each season. So in that way there’s a positive charge. Cleveland is also a really poor city, with a lot of people out of work. Major companies have moved out, the Ford plant is hanging on by a string, East Cleveland is really violent and scary. The Cleveland crime rates are double the national average in pretty much every category, and the winters are eternally harsh. People are really depressed here and most of them don’t even know it. They think it’s how everyone feels but it’s really just dark! That’s the negative charge, but it’s also inspiring to want to escape the bleak reality you grew up in. I love Cleveland and it’s always going to be where I call home. But with that said, I can’t wait to get out of here and see the whole world.<br /><br /><br /></span><br />Mark can be found online at <a href="http://mcguiremusic.blogspot.com/">mcguiremusic.blogspot.com</a> and <a href="http://clevelandwagon.blogspot.com/">clevelandwagon.blogspot.com</a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-27541281644985840552010-04-20T22:13:00.010+01:002010-04-21T01:41:08.234+01:00Disaro<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOx4CXin4f3uR9jiUkQ0Lw1nXthH9hklGHwCe_eAtPe27ecUD0PjvQuYglk-z-AwvKhcx4ZLAjEaXsLzCffLOJ47ANd_plc51g2dmWQLn7pMfFbMkW2NIGiXJ6gvY149tEiXhqm7VzhAE/s1600/disaroed.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 346px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOx4CXin4f3uR9jiUkQ0Lw1nXthH9hklGHwCe_eAtPe27ecUD0PjvQuYglk-z-AwvKhcx4ZLAjEaXsLzCffLOJ47ANd_plc51g2dmWQLn7pMfFbMkW2NIGiXJ6gvY149tEiXhqm7VzhAE/s400/disaroed.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462363423701134946" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">Disaro Records is a music label from Houston at the heart of the recent 'Witch House' movement. Acting as a Texan umbrella for the current batch of dark, electronic goth acts that mask themselves in pitch-shifted vocals and gloomy synths they've released CDRs, vinyl and cassettes by the likes of <a href="http://www.myspace.com/s4lem">Salem</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkwk">o0o00</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/whytering">White Ring</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dickcavettsmodernwitch">Modern Witch</a> and <a href="http://www.myspace.com/matersuspiriavision">Mater Suspiria Vision</a> amongst others.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Interview with label founders Robert Disaro and Jim Owleyes</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What were you influenced by when starting Disaro, did other labels inspire you, or was it more about wanting to get music out there?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Robert Disaro did do some work with another Texas CDR label, only he started branching off into a sound that did not fit with the old label, and what he would eventually turn into Disaro.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-With Disaro, there's a certain visual aesthetic associated with the label, was this always the intention?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Of course, the image plays such an important part of how the music is initially catalogued in the cerebral cortex. We started off at first with Robert collecting the sound while I started creating images that we wanted associated with the label. A lot of the artsists on the label make their own art as well, which we like a lot.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-How was your SXSW this year, was it interesting seeing Disaro related acts play, did you discover any new music or is it not really like that?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Texas is the place! We both are from there so we get screwed and chopped. It was a family reunion of sorts. The gathering storm is in full swing there.</span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="fullpost"><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/J0zYmPKAP18&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/J0zYmPKAP18&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></span><br /></div><span class="fullpost"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">o0o00 - Seaww. Video by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFunvF0mDw&feature=related">Daniel Lopatin</a> (Oneohtrix Point Never)<br /><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What new releases can we expect from Disaro for the rest of the year?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We are actually doing a lot of new projects in LA at the moment.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What's your take on all the different buzz words that are thrown at some of your acts, genre names like Witchhouse and Drag?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Witchhouse is a great name, we love it. Only once a name comes about to define a vibration, it becomes a solid, the word takes form and shapes reality, for better or worse.</span><br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="fullpost"><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N-xQKR39Wjw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N-xQKR39Wjw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></span><br /></div><span class="fullpost"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">White Ring - Roses (Fan Video)<br /><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Apart from Disaro, are they any other projects that you're involved in, you do artwork for the label but do you create outside of that context?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.myspace.com/jimdiamonds">owleyes</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> is a working graphic artist in LA, also we have been working with the Showcave night gallery in LA, developing it as an alternative space to explore ritual in art and music:</span><br /><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://immortalmortal.com/">http://immortalmortal.com</a><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://immortalmortal.com/">http://www.showcave.org</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We are only agents for the unseen forces that carry the charge of the spirits of the air.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Storm the Reality Studio. And retake the universe." -Burroughs</span><br /><br />Disaro Records can be found online at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/ffdisaro">myspace.com/ffdisaro</a></span></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-77631862057308116262010-04-14T14:04:00.014+01:002010-04-18T15:32:21.486+01:00Bicep<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicV4rcNqEAvC4ddAN87HQx3bjEsj79nrdBOCqs6J-PPhvGFMe5SE1ByA1e5ePc2VpPewwlTXCDAtngpxvJI8Q2xAeLtIwFTqq_2nxFJfGico9KE4L8lJ40kD-WD6IGzb33tF-t8lVkdfM/s1600/31370007.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicV4rcNqEAvC4ddAN87HQx3bjEsj79nrdBOCqs6J-PPhvGFMe5SE1ByA1e5ePc2VpPewwlTXCDAtngpxvJI8Q2xAeLtIwFTqq_2nxFJfGico9KE4L8lJ40kD-WD6IGzb33tF-t8lVkdfM/s400/31370007.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460573944928258210" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Feel My Bicep is one of the fastest emerging music blogs on the internet. Formed by 5 old school friends from Belfast last year as a way of sharing their love for anything with a danceable beat; their posts range from classic and obscure Disco and Detroit techno to yacht rock gems and current house sensations.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">With a Diaspora spread across the globe, I met up with London based contributor Drew who along with fellow member Matt, currently in Dubai, makes up the musical wing of the outfit.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">When asked about the origins of the Feel My Bicep (the name itself a playful homage to the continued influence of gay culture on Disco) Drew, 22, explained how he had been enamoured with the sounds of Detroit and Berlin from an early age, being conditioned by Tim Sweeney’s <a href="http://www.beatsinspace.net/">Beats In Space</a> and years of weekend attendances at a small Belfast clubnight called </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.shine.net/">The Shine</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-We’re five friends who all went to school in Belfast, and when we were 15 we went to this club called The Shine. We’d go see people Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawton, Green Velvet, Underground Resistance. The guys who run that club night have got a real Detroit influence, they loved the harder side of techno, I think we grew up with the harder side of Detroit techno . Like when Tiga was playing back there, he used to play pretty hard tunes, I used to love that back then.<br /><br />It was a really good club night in a city that didn’t have much else. And they used to put on people like Josh Wink, we didn’t have a clue who he was at the time. I look back at some of the flyers and some of the line ups and you’ll see Richie Hawton in one room, then upstairs you’ve Green Velvet and Tiga back to back. It’s like shit, that kinda line up, you’ll never get that again. They kinda mixed up the fundamental guys, not a lot of clubs do that anymore. The Shine’s moved away from that, it’s a bit different now to get more of an audience inside. Back then it was really quit, they didn’t get big turnouts, but all my friends were really into it.<br /><br />It’s really quite strange actually everyone in Bicep likes different music: there's Rory and James in Glascow, David in San Francisco at the minute and Matt who’s in Dubai, so we’re getting all this weird influenced music out there at the minute. With James he’s really into punk and post-punk and David he’s perhaps more band influenced and with me I like lots of proto-house and proto techno so it’s quite a good mix of things.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It is interesting, and it’s always being updated...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Yeah it’s not a thing of just trying to update it, with other blogs the quality control wasn’t good, I don’t want to name names but it’s a couple that we know. But they don’t keep to it, and we listen to so much music, you know with a DJ, you’ll listen to this new set and pick out the songs you love, that essentially what we do constantly. If you look at my music and my influences it’s all singles.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Not a single album?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I don’t download albums. I do have a few albums but not very many: <a href="http://www.discogs.com/Andr%C3%A9s-II/release/1738132">Andres II</a>, a couple of Moodyman albums, couple of Theo Parrish, couple of Stevie Wonder's. I don’t really listen to albums that much cause I get bored half way through. I can’t really remember the last album I enjoyed throughout. That album by Andres II is a pretty cool album, it’s very hip hop.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do you spend a lot of money on Vinyl; do you use it to DJ with?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I play on Serrato, but yeah I buy all the music I love on vinyl. I work just two minutes away from <a href="http://www.phonicarecords.com/">Phonica</a> and <a href="http://www.bm-soho.com/">BM</a> in Soho that’s where I get most of my records from. Same with <a href="http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/">Piccadilly Records</a> in Manchester I used to go there all the time, they‘ve got a really good selection. I got some really good Italo records quite cheaply the other day, it’s like Bicep’s guilty pleasure, Italo.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">You say it's a guilty pleasure but it’s still a pleasure</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Oh no I love it, some songs are amazing, Italo’s hard to do well, and it’s really hard to replicate so that’s why you don’t here a lot of it now, but yeah I do love it, some people just can’t stand it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s a really cool genre, we always say Minimal Techno is 99% shite, but that other 1% is amazing, and it’s true, same with Italo Disco. That 1% is outstanding.</span><br /><br /><object width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Ffeelmybicep%2F313-1"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Ffeelmybicep%2F313-1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object> <span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://soundcloud.com/feelmybicep/313-1">313</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/feelmybicep">bicep</a></div></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Now receiving over 70,000 hits a month, Bicep have attracted a considerable international audience, ranging from label attention from around the globe, having their records mastered in New York to DJ sets on the continent and a two week tour of China at the end of April</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Yeah that’s the coolest thing about it, we didn’t realise what it would do when we started it last October. It wasn’t a published thing and we built up the archives. We had a really slow start.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> It’s really amazing though I remember when it started, you’d get people commenting from Lisbon and Sweden. Now it’s got to a point where you can make a real connection with people.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">With DJing, do you have to go see a DJ to be inspired by them or can you hear bits in mixes or is it a mixture of things?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I keep thinking about that myself recently, because I don’t understand this whole culture, at the minute of, of booking producers to. Like they’ll book Aeroplane off the fact that they’re good producers, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to them being good live.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">There’s some natural born DJs, like Erol Alkan is a natural born DJ, he was mixing House and Indie records when he was 18. There’s a big difference between a DJ and a good producer.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Who would you say are your favourite DJs?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.omarsdetroit.us/">Omar S</a> definitely, I spent £40 on one of his records ‘Do Me Right’</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Man, it’s not even a good cover</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-I like it, that 90’s cheesy house style, I checked the record prices today and it’s going for £25.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In terms of producers Gavin Russom from Black Meteoric Star, Theo Parrish is a really cool DJ, cause he’s got amazing taste and again DJ wise it’s Moodyman, it’s odd I like songs by some guys but not all. Omar S is one that I like most of his stuff</span><br /><br /><br /><object width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Ffeelmybicep%2Fstrawberry-letter-32"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Ffeelmybicep%2Fstrawberry-letter-32" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object> <span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://soundcloud.com/feelmybicep/strawberry-letter-32">Strawberry</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/feelmybicep">bicep</a></div></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The other component of Bicep is their original output as musicians and producers. With 12” releases on labels Ghost Town and Traveller, Andy and Matt make tracks as a creative output for their diverse influences, much like the blog they can come out with driving techno inspired tracks or take on a James Brown sample just as easily. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What’s your approach to making music, what do you use, what are you inspired by?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Most of our stuff we want to edit to play live, we don’t necessarily want to release everything we edit, because the edit culture at the minute overwhelmed with people putting out shit edits. And there’s so much debate on it, I’m just open to any edit that takes a different turn on things. There’s so many good editors people Mark E, The Revenge, Floating Points. These people are good at twisting tunes and turning them into something completely different, almost like daft punk did back in the day. It’s a new wave of good stuff, but the other stuff is shit. So we’re at the stage where we wanna be doing something different, we’ve got 35 tunes that we edited, because we want to have our own take on it. But we’ve got this style, that’s really rigid, be want to make it more funky and stuff.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To explain our production first we’ll draw up an idea on things like Ableton, and then we’ll record everything live on analogue, we use analogue equipment for everything, we redo everything in analogue, most of the drums we’ll start off on MPC where we’ve got drum machines like Roland 909’s, just standard drum machines.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s a slow process because Matt, my main production partner is in Dubai. He’s really talented at making things blend and putting them together. He’s very meticulous; he’s a graphic designer by nature so the tiniest minutest parts are important to him.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s quite hard because we’re associated with the blog but we want to also create our own music, not specifically be taken serious for it but we want to makes tunes and spend time with them and think about the approach to them because we want everything on vinyl. We’ve got like 4 tunes for one EP (a vinyl <a href="http://www.fineartrecordings.co.uk/">Fine Art Records</a> to be confirmed) and an edits EP (a commissioned vinyl by <a href="http://www.untrackedrecordings.com/">Untracked</a>), it’s just such a slow process with Matt in Dubai, slight tweaks are just endless.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">With the dance side of things covered, Drew mentioned he might have leave the Bicep name behind, a least for a while, for a more band influenced project</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-In terms of influences it's pretty much Gavin Russom from the production side of things, kinda laid back, really simple. I'd love to get something going like that.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I think we’re gonna go under a different name for the Housier stuff we’re doing and keep Bicep more fun, because I think the last EP was a bit too serious. It was more to get the name out there I think, it’s gonna be more streamlined now. So we’ll have a name for the Housier stuff and edits, because we’ve got lots of Italo Disco and stuff that we want to put out and lots of really heavy arpeggiated stuff.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">We’ve got so many tunes it's tough to know which ones are good, you’ll think you're good then you’ll listen to something like an amazing funk and think this is so weird and mine is just a straight up 4/4 Techno tune this is terrible. It’s trying to get that balance right</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And that’s the thing about Feel My Bicep, and the impression I got from talking to Drew in general; the music they make and post isn’t done so in a pretentious way to impress or mark territory but for their love of dance music, any dance music and for others to discover and enjoy. Similarly to when DJing he says ‘it’s all about trying to educate and entertain... it’s more about getting their attention, I think that's the hardest thing about it’.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.feelmybicep.com/">feelmybicep.com</a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-25880457299871205942010-04-14T00:20:00.001+01:002010-04-14T01:46:16.907+01:00Fluffy Lumbers<span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipU3VITAC4VOT7YWljrryFAAT6a2rq4WsSGal_jTJxUYkb9eP4HklruQtuoxHZzO8Dh3ZxrH4-4pMtMDkTlZxvfcCLSyhQcX8wddN19q-K1MpYFEO3JbukuxDQtqFF004NiP_-Ohz1Xpo/s1600/dollands.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipU3VITAC4VOT7YWljrryFAAT6a2rq4WsSGal_jTJxUYkb9eP4HklruQtuoxHZzO8Dh3ZxrH4-4pMtMDkTlZxvfcCLSyhQcX8wddN19q-K1MpYFEO3JbukuxDQtqFF004NiP_-Ohz1Xpo/s400/dollands.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459746842016450162" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">It's wierd, think I e-mailed Sam Franklin from </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://myspace.com/fluffylumbers">Fluffy Lumbers</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> around last December asking about an interview. Though that never came about initially, we re-arranged things to fit in for February with </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.sweetandsound.co.uk/">Sweet and Sound</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> magazine. I'd pretty much forgot about it until last night when an e-mail popped up in my inbox with all these lovely answers in them, pretty much been to listening to Todd Rundgren since. </span></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />-You always have a rifle to hand in your press shots, are you into all that kinda stuff or is it just a look you're going for?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That's actually a BB gun. I wouldn't say I'm "into" that kindof stuff per se, it just turned out that this set of photos are the only I have of myself which were taken with the intent of representing this music. Do they represent it well? Eh. The label (<a href="http://www.weirdhugrecords.bigcartel.com/">Weird Hug Records</a>) that put out the first 7" was asking me for a cover photo so I decided to base it loosely on the backyard photos of Lee Harvey Oswald taken by his sister. I was living in Massachusetts at the time and couldn't get my hands on any gun, BB or otherwise, so my friend Travis and I drove to a Wal-Mart in Salem that was authorized to sell guns of all kinds. I bought the cheapest BB gun I could find and Travis bought a machete. On the way home we passed a huge carnival that I told myself I would attend the next weekend I had some free time. Unfortunately, it disassembled and moved on within the next few days so I never got to do that. Anyway, a week or so later I put on a collared shirt and my friend Katie took a bunch of photos where I was <a href="http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/fluffylumbers452.jpg">standing on the neighbor's roof with the gun and a newspaper</a>. If I could do it all again, I wouldn't be on the cover and the photos of me that circulated would be a bit more straightforward but what can you do! One of the upcoming 7" covers features a drunk cameraphone picture of my friend Luka so you can tell that I take my image very seriously.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />-Your music really has a happy and carefree feel to it - what songs do you listen to yourself when you're in a similarly energetic mood?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">What's strange is that most people seem to be under the impression that these are happy songs written during happy times, which is never the case. All of the songs have almost exclusively been written during/about uncomfortable, nervous, confused or just plain unhappy emotional situations. The lyrics are usually buried or obscured in some way though so I guess it is my fault that everyone thinks they're happy and carefree. In truth, I am a bundle of nerves. As far as pop songs I've been listening to recently while feeling good, here's a few I'd recommend...<br /><br />-"She's Just My Style" by Gary Lewis & The Playboys<br />-"Under The Light" by R. Stevie Moore<br />-"That's How Much I Love You" by The Manhattans<br />-"Two Steps" by Home Blitz<br />-"Move" by The Plugz<br />-"I Am Free" by The Kinks as well as the cover by Hospitals<br />-"Break The Ice" by The Scruffs<br />-"No More Tigers" by Martin Phillipps<br />-"Wild Weekend" by The German Measles<br />-"I'm In A Different World" by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-You list Todd Rundgren as a influence; Unlike in the US he's relatively unknown in the UK, his songs and persona have always been pretty baffling to me - what do you like about him?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Todd Rundgren is relatively unknown in the UK? Wow! The UK is missing out! I should start by saying that I have only listened to his discography up to <span style="font-style: normal;">A Cappella</span> (which is pretty unbelievable by the way). Reviews that I've read of the successive album (<span style="font-style: normal;">Nearly Human</span>) make it sound pretty interesting but I'm just not there yet. I haven't really left my comfort zone of writing rock and roll songs yet but I hope to someday branch out to a musical palette as broad as Todd's. Whether through my Dad playing his records when I was growing up or actively listening to him on my own after getting into "Can We Still Be Friends" in middle school I've been a Todd Rundgren fan for a while now and am still consistently surprised by the versatility of his body of work. Compare, if you will, these two performances (both from the 80s, no less):</span><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bqEdgUhX2xY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bqEdgUhX2xY&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/C1Z355eR0Bw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/C1Z355eR0Bw&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Unbelievable that one man can do such disparate styles so well! Nilsson is the same way. I've been really into his <span style="font-style: normal;">A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night</span> record recently and had a bit of a nerd heart attack upon finding out that Frank Sinatra downer-arranger Gordon Jenkins had arranged it. One day I'd love to have dabbled in half the genres they dabbled in.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What equipment do you use to record?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So far I've used various Tascam 4 and 8 tracks (except for the "Cruisers" song which was recorded on my computer). For the eventual full-length record I plan to use some better equipment but we'll see if I can pull that together. Instrument wise, I use any number of guitars, drums, keyboards, etc.</span><br /><br /><b>-Pop Punk or Indie Rock?</b><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I guess Indie Rock? Those are two very broad genre classifications but I would say that I listen to more '80s and '90s indie rock than '80s and '90s pop-punk so I suppose I'll lean towards the latter.</span><br /><br /><b>-How long has the F.L project been going, how does it fit into the grand scheme of things?</b><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I've been making recordings under the Fluffy Lumbers name since my freshman year of collegiate education but only really settled on somewhat of a consistent sound in the winter of my sophomore year (December '08/January '09) after having learned to play guitar that summer. I'm in and involved with a handful of other bands but Fluffy Lumbers is the project which is most important to me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Are there plans for some further 7" releases?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Following the sorting-out of some unforeseen setbacks, the Harry Dolland's 7" should be released by </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.myspace.com/grouptightener" mce_href="http://www.myspace.com/grouptightener">Group Tightener</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> relatively shortly and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.transparentblog.com/" mce_href="http://www.transparentblog.com/">Transparent Records</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> will be releasing a Fluffy Lumbers/Big Troubles split soon after that. There may be some more 7" releases in the works but I plan to dedicate my time to recording a full-length record once this semester is over.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/fluffylumbers" mce_href="http://www.myspace.com/fluffylumbers">http://www.myspace.com/fluffylumbers</a><br /><br />Photo by Aubrey Stallard<br /></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-13693359089089204752010-03-15T02:36:00.011+00:002010-03-15T12:28:01.305+00:00Giulio Ghirardi<span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwn5m22llGhyphenhyphenMEui8NLSPOsUn5pWCOP1YN6W1kuvroSx1CFx6pI5ya8Spr56MwgHJaJgkWZ7nZbfANrIlPV0hEdVcs-AEjOgcBmn5mm0LCUZX8zGLhBD6ZFl-H9PRMEsfRkF_4pksNhio/s1600-h/5195_93069287869_583747869_1816892_7706113_n(2).jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwn5m22llGhyphenhyphenMEui8NLSPOsUn5pWCOP1YN6W1kuvroSx1CFx6pI5ya8Spr56MwgHJaJgkWZ7nZbfANrIlPV0hEdVcs-AEjOgcBmn5mm0LCUZX8zGLhBD6ZFl-H9PRMEsfRkF_4pksNhio/s400/5195_93069287869_583747869_1816892_7706113_n(2).jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448702628872348882" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Twenty something Giulio Ghirardi is a student at The University of Parma who currently divides his time between studying for a degree in Architecture and being an amateur photographer. Having been commissioned by magazines such as Pig, Magnificent, Italian Vice and Iris Giulio also documents his own life through an ongoing series of sun-drenched portraits of friends, buildings and the wonders of natural selection. Interview here and at <a href="http://www.sweetandsound.co.uk/2010/03/features/interview-giulio-ghirardi/">Sweet and Sound</a>.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-How were you introduced to photography, what kept you interested in it?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I was introduced by my father to photography. Since he was young he liked to take photos, in particular architectural photography and portraits. I like them very much! He left me a lot of cameras (best one is a full accessorized <a href="http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/pentaxlx/Pentax_LX_Gold/PentaxLX_gold_Xa.jpg">pentax lx</a> that he re-bought after having lost the first one on the stepway of montmartre in paris and tought me the importance of having an artistic vein to feel lucky in my life and to appreciate its beauty. My first film I did was in 2002, I was 15 while I was travelling around the state of N.Y. with my family. I consider it my first approach to photography. I kept the camera with me all journey long and I shot a lot. One of those photos was taken in Niagara Falls photo and me and lot of people consider it my greatest pic.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-P1KGEwpzRCP5JznzxM5ozq3nPq25mGv9PDrUQunXQy6jYN6HegGKzY2d_9q2x7HMuXIS3oi75IA8ugn7wrYQhJmPabFxb06d9z-JS13MjBx8XNEM1j2uXaED5DPxG37JGYST-V1k5NQ/s1600-h/2251789461_e13069b8cd_o.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 262px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-P1KGEwpzRCP5JznzxM5ozq3nPq25mGv9PDrUQunXQy6jYN6HegGKzY2d_9q2x7HMuXIS3oi75IA8ugn7wrYQhJmPabFxb06d9z-JS13MjBx8XNEM1j2uXaED5DPxG37JGYST-V1k5NQ/s400/2251789461_e13069b8cd_o.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448650023193493330" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACMm_Jo6oN66wx6fc6R1mzSy0s6UQbxPDnyEUdERCXbNM3jVmgLICrl7PReeRpvrGIBWAeTBFYDKiOHL9UZ3gZVKcZW2bNKJLCRAP6cdElVvTqGB_n348-teVShmaW352ccWkxlfjsGA/s1600-h/tumblr_kunu2eRz3H1qzko8l.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 305px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACMm_Jo6oN66wx6fc6R1mzSy0s6UQbxPDnyEUdERCXbNM3jVmgLICrl7PReeRpvrGIBWAeTBFYDKiOHL9UZ3gZVKcZW2bNKJLCRAP6cdElVvTqGB_n348-teVShmaW352ccWkxlfjsGA/s400/tumblr_kunu2eRz3H1qzko8l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448689824533075394" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivN0bfRWYeni9_n9E52m5EtNS_Tz9EU0g52a8qwyaA-RxE-9BuTw5wZhlqMXvuEbgfKE4RSRyfMiJYtogfYfcvhzK2OLQCh6yEb5i-nNbcgiKWPdnOILeuVf0OWnHyiE97M-OnfM1ujtM/s1600-h/A07.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivN0bfRWYeni9_n9E52m5EtNS_Tz9EU0g52a8qwyaA-RxE-9BuTw5wZhlqMXvuEbgfKE4RSRyfMiJYtogfYfcvhzK2OLQCh6yEb5i-nNbcgiKWPdnOILeuVf0OWnHyiE97M-OnfM1ujtM/s400/A07.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448650027855627538" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Do you have a background in fashion, what do you prefer about that style of photography?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I really like fashion but in particular the art connected with it. All the people surrounding fashion for me are more interesting than fashion itself.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I like that glamorous and hype atmosphere, the scenographic scenarios, that only a fashion shooting can create but for me is very important also that fashion "stories" seem very natural, like a personal project. I prefer natural light and poses, everyday situations mashed with a touch of nice styling instead of a studio shooting with calibrate lights and unnatural poses. I find it very repetitive and even if you can add some external element in the background and simulate something, the result for me is every time boring.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I like photographers like </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.nachoalegre.com/">Nacho Alegre</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.jonathanleder.com/">Jonathan Leder</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.skyeparrott.com/">Skye Parrot</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and for extension </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.trackosaurusrex.com/pblog/images/mcginley_yellow_nudes_bicycles_20.jpg">Ryan McGinley</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.designboom.com/portrait/teller/3.jpg">Teller</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. They can develop a fashion story or advertising very well but they don't suffocate the client of their picture with something too exaggerated and even if they use some escamotages, they seem to remain quite natural and they emanate this sense of tranquillity, beauty and ingenuity that I'm searching for in my projects.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA1CiEp1fF6T1Ju_v3SOg1r9GLBylFloLHFEESarLUGhOzCtvJfpbeJhR4lvoOymdUCKCdkttT3GIcY8obtAsdf7hoh0tpfRWEhuf4vdvMswdDVFiKOH7MxiZ26NORgMTlBE0Q61eOO6M/s1600-h/r001-019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA1CiEp1fF6T1Ju_v3SOg1r9GLBylFloLHFEESarLUGhOzCtvJfpbeJhR4lvoOymdUCKCdkttT3GIcY8obtAsdf7hoh0tpfRWEhuf4vdvMswdDVFiKOH7MxiZ26NORgMTlBE0Q61eOO6M/s400/r001-019.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448700482958628354" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyyDRsxqdxyvaOJUl90jfDgS9Sz4y5M-tNo8lXY5D5gKx0cVXKDPuWyFAX1rBdf5_lW5cCrduvEPGkQzIn0whQuEfM_wSJVZJj8TYGmyvgfOHGghhqWGuzc3AuBmyskilhvCpqBn0Vl04/s1600-h/F1000014.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyyDRsxqdxyvaOJUl90jfDgS9Sz4y5M-tNo8lXY5D5gKx0cVXKDPuWyFAX1rBdf5_lW5cCrduvEPGkQzIn0whQuEfM_wSJVZJj8TYGmyvgfOHGghhqWGuzc3AuBmyskilhvCpqBn0Vl04/s400/F1000014.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448651524529732642" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-You often get commissions from magazines, are you given quite a lot of artistic freedom with these or is it more predetermined?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yes, sometimes they pick me up for a fashion shoots like they did for Vice Italy and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://giuliorojerghirardi.carbonmade.com/projects/2507979">Pig Magazine</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. They inform me just about the general theme of the issue I have to work with, but I felt lucky cause they gave me liberty of expression without any predetermined scheme.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I like working with magazines ‘cause I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to photography. I'm studying architecture and it’s very useful when someone asks you to work, organizing all the logistics that waste a lot of time. I need just to work on an already chosen time and place and models. Then I put my personal interpretation of the situation with my choices of the camera, light and gestures.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP8BjqBrD7_CazryMYtGOuRZLPYgHO9mL-T2ODg6RXYACNYHNtcMASXbcq2VDiX7qwrlgIx_4OU5F1BYcASp_LMCs1BpRnhH-5EyxfWJ1ePjzJZ9L0GtKAWu9gna8cvpTR6g0uqMCxMNI/s1600-h/PIG-magazine-78-Natale-2009-102.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP8BjqBrD7_CazryMYtGOuRZLPYgHO9mL-T2ODg6RXYACNYHNtcMASXbcq2VDiX7qwrlgIx_4OU5F1BYcASp_LMCs1BpRnhH-5EyxfWJ1ePjzJZ9L0GtKAWu9gna8cvpTR6g0uqMCxMNI/s400/PIG-magazine-78-Natale-2009-102.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448652320011448082" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_LoESjQcSKrARkAQoGTHIH8iy_WPu-BXdUDKELjnE2_AC-R9IcCHWvqgvdswOU41T0gMGNcsazYZwwua069qBOe9engIkN9a6WCnIK0RX-Dn_vG_9XhxjJbOmDSlZ6yyzH7Ex8XyiRI/s1600-h/P5246089.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 312px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_LoESjQcSKrARkAQoGTHIH8iy_WPu-BXdUDKELjnE2_AC-R9IcCHWvqgvdswOU41T0gMGNcsazYZwwua069qBOe9engIkN9a6WCnIK0RX-Dn_vG_9XhxjJbOmDSlZ6yyzH7Ex8XyiRI/s400/P5246089.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448651545045760642" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAzCiiPrXYENH1qSbqg3Fj8U7ay_ZuinvfawV4ZfLK6OSnCwXglUed4BSEjDIkbDCfuXwiIo2RWtZL_r_RSw5OQbE4raGNlybewErguEsFNG-vaEyJ3xRdSj6Zf2NGD1F_F5qtrviDRmI/s1600-h/P1027531.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAzCiiPrXYENH1qSbqg3Fj8U7ay_ZuinvfawV4ZfLK6OSnCwXglUed4BSEjDIkbDCfuXwiIo2RWtZL_r_RSw5OQbE4raGNlybewErguEsFNG-vaEyJ3xRdSj6Zf2NGD1F_F5qtrviDRmI/s400/P1027531.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448651541250985442" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Female figures are a recurring theme of your work; would you say the human shape is an influence for you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yes, it is. I started my "photographic approach" shooting landscapes, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj05b2m12Ge7vDOjmxTbQ3_bK2ZVuoVqtIYmsvkLxdAOkbSIhIYkZ0Q3K1m7P0B4uJ52k2BmWHG4u8GXAxaDS7kJWWs34nEoTaQHwAJ4_x0fiq1wSETgE7Z29cNEoo3UnKxbV8ZjXId1q0/s1600-h/B0b020.jpg">buildings</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and little and particular things in everyday life but I suddenly recognized that they seem like </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8MzhOOSG-MT8B0zqUcM71tbgXxGbqW6tVWRR-8_3gmhH8mhgc8MNrQDNjQIGh3C4ffYUvrHXIixzqk15iLlm0jFdmQ-4jRqP5_1ImLyD8o0gMer_IyoWS7OBvzqHiDBNk5YHp_IlD8A/s1600-h/r001-020.jpg">dead photos</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. I started to appreciate the human figure while I was taking photos and I had the fortune to find very nice friends to portrait when I started to take that type of pic. I like to take portraits of female subjects ‘cause I find them more attractive then common people chosen "from the street". I think models or nice people in general can improve a photo very much.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkeAyW24OeAtStBCCanUg8yi39Y4XJ_fQgzihXGKnFjB8wE4dpLRqJ-Qs8ToCtWWy2XJCwVuv33oh3RXWvPvOFjKY0uij6hUr1xMTbtDQPH7MqrB_PEOB_jW8wKxl8nkfW0hIHuC5w29M/s1600-h/r001-0200.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkeAyW24OeAtStBCCanUg8yi39Y4XJ_fQgzihXGKnFjB8wE4dpLRqJ-Qs8ToCtWWy2XJCwVuv33oh3RXWvPvOFjKY0uij6hUr1xMTbtDQPH7MqrB_PEOB_jW8wKxl8nkfW0hIHuC5w29M/s400/r001-0200.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448652338173735106" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFM0KBngi_A6t3Kivn-LOKc-rBkAi4-SHJZbwIBEK8lhgYn5K-DQLD-4h_k7BfSUEZyQDZ2fRPbI8x9aTBouF6FbgEZC3p2Ik7LWxkayw_nPeaiwdSxacfq885Bg_Dg17Rn8MGL27ooLg/s1600-h/r001-004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFM0KBngi_A6t3Kivn-LOKc-rBkAi4-SHJZbwIBEK8lhgYn5K-DQLD-4h_k7BfSUEZyQDZ2fRPbI8x9aTBouF6FbgEZC3p2Ik7LWxkayw_nPeaiwdSxacfq885Bg_Dg17Rn8MGL27ooLg/s400/r001-004.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448652326266028898" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mqHz8XuEEl78Ofss9IXPFmjxn4p2vjytZT4XVBT-1dXZDMLQogeAQRC87UDDo8A5z3mExaVzJd-0fP5nEyxzgrwKYTIJ4dk6rTnhpQIr3RGgJmefX1iEvVhNwFFwrfDhLCZ3WZ7PEsI/s1600-h/20100102-r001-016.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mqHz8XuEEl78Ofss9IXPFmjxn4p2vjytZT4XVBT-1dXZDMLQogeAQRC87UDDo8A5z3mExaVzJd-0fP5nEyxzgrwKYTIJ4dk6rTnhpQIr3RGgJmefX1iEvVhNwFFwrfDhLCZ3WZ7PEsI/s400/20100102-r001-016.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448701017214932914" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Your holiday pictures and commissioned pieces seem to go hand in hand, giving the impression that you're constantly taking photos - do you always have a camera with you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It depends, there were weeks when I used to have my compact camera with me everyday and others when I don't. But now I want to plan my projects better so I feel having my camera with me everyday isn’t useful cause I risk to take an excess of unfocused and unthoughtful photos.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheN6EPdz1WWNbSp5EAC18NnLQkMnay4rh8Q57m3zUlA-xfV3_BdeokmFkhFrvc6Aq-6KPO7OevPnr_3a5pwmE65HvkQaeEN9PVpEKFwvZ1-6GRnz_XoSi1_vN4xaXfRCuInYz1awq3JMg/s1600-h/r004-006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheN6EPdz1WWNbSp5EAC18NnLQkMnay4rh8Q57m3zUlA-xfV3_BdeokmFkhFrvc6Aq-6KPO7OevPnr_3a5pwmE65HvkQaeEN9PVpEKFwvZ1-6GRnz_XoSi1_vN4xaXfRCuInYz1awq3JMg/s400/r004-006.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448689833010637026" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijaDX-betbacHDlEYws1GnDp3B08NjAxVXl7LdZHtZyz5lueZtnou4BlAFawln8wsLseb3dH7wWpKYTdbG6-8ZnZEXEjOAd1RpaOjRpXXO5EUi8obrlfrNRbhDZwquOgkaFnZhsgJPFKM/s1600-h/000011.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijaDX-betbacHDlEYws1GnDp3B08NjAxVXl7LdZHtZyz5lueZtnou4BlAFawln8wsLseb3dH7wWpKYTdbG6-8ZnZEXEjOAd1RpaOjRpXXO5EUi8obrlfrNRbhDZwquOgkaFnZhsgJPFKM/s400/000011.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448689836375478898" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAaUaZwGPlx3sE6Qc5lG09X_YJTy2hCk_nozIUVtCmDiWg5jUt3LBwF4QriMfHJ-h7te5NRHrrMh-JT5j9MvD0JuWr4pMjhbJKfeoyAIhhBD8rRFNan9UJp2iV5fq3ikiYVLSJLOM0L24/s1600-h/scansionemore.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAaUaZwGPlx3sE6Qc5lG09X_YJTy2hCk_nozIUVtCmDiWg5jUt3LBwF4QriMfHJ-h7te5NRHrrMh-JT5j9MvD0JuWr4pMjhbJKfeoyAIhhBD8rRFNan9UJp2iV5fq3ikiYVLSJLOM0L24/s400/scansionemore.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448689847871331090" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-You also experiment with collages and drawings as well, do you turn to these mediums when photography can't get across what you want or is it something that you go with when the mood takes you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I make collages and drawing cause it's a way to create an imaginary world that in nature doesn't exist. Usually I create when my inspiration for taking photos comes less or when I'm at home and I'm inspired. It’s one of the two artistic expressions that I like and remain to me.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMOebNUs7N0Ji65eb1m9YqFUn-k2rsw-jclGN9xu7OE4B7YENGZmOl5cvAVpWt-2kMo7yykpOMY6WKonq52yzbjGhJLIQZJjYxbu6fuGOYL3zHuULf6ENvZh5UM70d3O8nkUL_znX4NrA/s1600-h/scansione0001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 273px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMOebNUs7N0Ji65eb1m9YqFUn-k2rsw-jclGN9xu7OE4B7YENGZmOl5cvAVpWt-2kMo7yykpOMY6WKonq52yzbjGhJLIQZJjYxbu6fuGOYL3zHuULf6ENvZh5UM70d3O8nkUL_znX4NrA/s400/scansione0001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448653312421368322" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghqU9gn_pmhzou-2OOHNkRaFrgba_jg7BB1MqA7JlOh344JV6xV_TWYBFai_LHOr-yb0x5_81q2-NNzjAO8DtaLaozpROQk6NAPgAmt9SC-JkdpkdXHezuQOkGO7DGqHMj4M-wdAANbCY/s1600-h/tt.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 246px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghqU9gn_pmhzou-2OOHNkRaFrgba_jg7BB1MqA7JlOh344JV6xV_TWYBFai_LHOr-yb0x5_81q2-NNzjAO8DtaLaozpROQk6NAPgAmt9SC-JkdpkdXHezuQOkGO7DGqHMj4M-wdAANbCY/s400/tt.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448653304789277874" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What are you planning to do with rest of the year, is it easy to find work in Italy?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">First of all I'd like to finish university ‘cause photography, for me, can be just a passionate hobby for the moment. When I finish university I'll have much more time to plan and concretize my projects that for the moment remain just virtual ideas. As a second step I'd like to enter in a photographic agency ‘cause I hate planning shoots and public relations. I need to candidate myself in every time: sending emails with my cv and portfolios and I'd like to have someone to do that. I live for the moment in a small city and it’s difficult for me to meet people interested in my work and real artists. I'd like to live in a big city and meet real artistic scenes, curious figures that can improve you with their knowledge and to give you the incentive to work more. I think an artistic surrounding can influence you very much and I hope to move one day in a big city for that reason.</span><br /><br />Giulio Ghiradi can be found online at <a href="http://giuliorojerghirardi.blogspot.com/">giuliorojerghirardi.blogspot.com</a>, <a href="http://giuliorojerghirardi.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>, <a href="http://giuliorojerghirardi.carbonmade.com/">carbonmade</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/land_tomo/">flickr</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXOE-V70YpK5HAPcPrvMcb3NMGAGgdoLH8lVGAhHxjtEWZYQHTx0X2T8KvQlJJYd3sltwOsQsDKTqwPL9tm6o97ZyYmqzEzg0Tmhxgs5G3ULNw41WtOVJEAcwb24093skE3uuePTpqoI/s1600-h/1800589092_59e4641530_b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXOE-V70YpK5HAPcPrvMcb3NMGAGgdoLH8lVGAhHxjtEWZYQHTx0X2T8KvQlJJYd3sltwOsQsDKTqwPL9tm6o97ZyYmqzEzg0Tmhxgs5G3ULNw41WtOVJEAcwb24093skE3uuePTpqoI/s400/1800589092_59e4641530_b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448650023102145106" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfBkkkMOevqbsODyTzJSGWOdBQXVu_XOQndQNvO6DhBdhyphenhyphen6VqAfIr_ooWVPZzgwoJAS2NR5jffAS9QkKGz-2AqU2mDuwsO5KTZzdou1WEVR1-A_MuhYWzyPDUr_3siaTgJzqRILyzr5s/s1600-h/r005-019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfBkkkMOevqbsODyTzJSGWOdBQXVu_XOQndQNvO6DhBdhyphenhyphen6VqAfIr_ooWVPZzgwoJAS2NR5jffAS9QkKGz-2AqU2mDuwsO5KTZzdou1WEVR1-A_MuhYWzyPDUr_3siaTgJzqRILyzr5s/s400/r005-019.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448652343222388546" border="0" /></a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-80979642705586150222010-03-03T15:48:00.009+00:002010-03-04T17:20:02.911+00:00Balam Acab<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9im4BWYpt-lVSInIjrnwp5jXYzJrXkKqMaRzON7eHPotL0KnVYnWv1yM1QJNvlA6Okso0kih_IQzKRUT2v0YpQ0bg8olOUUlTGu0WhFe9il37NQbjQGCG72pU28ysPK934TYFpTGWzBY/s1600-h/balamacab1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9im4BWYpt-lVSInIjrnwp5jXYzJrXkKqMaRzON7eHPotL0KnVYnWv1yM1QJNvlA6Okso0kih_IQzKRUT2v0YpQ0bg8olOUUlTGu0WhFe9il37NQbjQGCG72pU28ysPK934TYFpTGWzBY/s400/balamacab1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444445310197045090" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/thebalamacab">Balam Acab</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> is the moniker of Ithaca University Student and Pennsylvania resident Alec Koone. With BA he creates haunting and frozen downtempto drones that seem to almost cough up melodies onto a sludge of looped synths and echoed drums.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">A recent signing to the XXFG affliate, </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/triangledreams">Tri Angle Records</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> (</span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkwk">o0o00</a><span style="font-family:courier new;">, </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/wearecreep">Creep</a><span style="font-family:courier new;">) - Alec granted me his first ever interview about Balam Acab for both here and UK Arts and Music Magazine <a href="http://www.sweetandsound.co.uk/">Sweet & Sound</a>.</span><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-You started BA almost two years ago, has it undergone a kind of reboot lately?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah Balam Acab started out two years ago when I was really into drone and back then I was making pretty noisy drone music under the name. I tried reviving it again once in between now and then as a less noisy and more spacey type of drone project but then that fell through too. Now I have "rebooted" the project, so to speak, after creating a few songs and needing to put the songs under some project. So I decided to use this one because I like the name.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Were you in other bands before or is this your first?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I've been in all sorts of bands and I've made a bunch solo music before the reincarnated Balam Acab. Lots of ambient and post-rock music, some noise, some folk, some rock (in the vein of bands like Pavement). Currently I have another active project called </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://myspace.com/blackicewaterblocks">Etherea</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> that I'm pretty into as well. It's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKhYoeC-X-Q">hip-hop</a>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-All your songs use pitchshifted vocals in a really hypnotic way, who does the vocal parts for BA?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">My dream girl. She's quite the diva.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-How do you approach recording? Do you work with samples and computers or is it a mix between that & home recordings?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I work with samples and computers. Just cuttin' stuff up and whatnot.</span><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VNvrOiQZP-0&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VNvrOiQZP-0&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Do you have any intentions of ever playing live with BA?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'd like playing live with Balam Acab, just as of right now I'm not really sure how I'd play a good set that was fun for me and the audience. If I can figure that out then I'd love to. But I don't wanna just play mp3's through a PA system, ya know?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-I'm always interested in the environment and surroundings that artists live in, how does Pennsylvania suit you?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">My immediate response would be that the PA (more specifically Harrisburg area) music scene is awful, but being away from it (I go to school in Ithaca, NY) has made me realize that although it was small there was a pretty decent and tight-knit music scene from around the area. And this is because I feel like I haven't experienced or been made aware of anything similar in Ithaca. The music scene in Harrisburg is mostly centralized around a non-profit organization called </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.moviate.org/">Moviate</a> that hosts killer shows, be it music, film, or whatever else. I feel like there are a lot of good people and bands involved with the Harrisburg-area scene that work diligently together to create a nice little music scene in an environment that, in general, isn't very receptive to arts and especially more experimental and independent art.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Now in regards to PA physically, I'd say its pretty nice in the area I live. Of course, the suburban sprawl and whatnot isn't, but once you can get outside that, there's lots of nice outdoor places that are good to be in.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What are your plans for the rest of 2010? Any physical releases/other projects?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I've got some plans for 2010. The most important thing is getting a live set together, I think. I really want and need to start playing shows as soon as possible. I'm also planning to release an EP through Tri Angle Records sometime in 2010. I'm currently working on brand new songs for that release. I have another project called </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.myspace.com/blackicewaterblocks">ETHEREA</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> but that is sort of on the back burner now compared to Balam.</span><br /><br />Balam Acab can be found online at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/thebalamacab">myspace.com/thebalamacab</a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-6799289632661642232010-02-10T20:36:00.024+00:002010-03-10T14:38:06.036+00:00Tania Leshkina<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRtzdPKfdAlc2UL_gVZHdXuuLqjbv-P_yjlKqPOOAqi8lu8CKY1le34F7dI-6KcI9YX5qvEJCUQY1BxxR6zmIJMlzGafNf-l1Z0Zhz_dP1aWiU_hg0SOxifaqjUv7zz0HZVWWLcTUGUho/s1600-h/nottocut.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRtzdPKfdAlc2UL_gVZHdXuuLqjbv-P_yjlKqPOOAqi8lu8CKY1le34F7dI-6KcI9YX5qvEJCUQY1BxxR6zmIJMlzGafNf-l1Z0Zhz_dP1aWiU_hg0SOxifaqjUv7zz0HZVWWLcTUGUho/s400/nottocut.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446337382525364930" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">Artist Tania Leshkina was born into The Soviet Union in 1990 and was raised in its aftermath until moving to London. She's exhibited at group shows in Malaga, Groningen, London, Milan and Venice as well as solo exhibitions in Hermosillo and Paris.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Her photos have a minimalist, almost-improvised quality to them that show off a natural eye for capturing moments and letting subjects and colours blend into each other. I interviewed her recently about her work, projects and whereabouts.</span></span><br /><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-When did you first know you wanted to pursue being a photographer?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />I don't consider myself a photographer. I make work and use photography as a medium now but it doesn't mean I will in future.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What equipment do you use? Do find yourself using one camera predominately?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I don't own any cameras. When I'm working on a project or a job I borrow all the equipment from colleagues.<br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJg53ae7GJ4qNabMn5ox4M2QFi5Ft36zaygruFqfAOXKlgvExEYvHU1SRE-f6L8CIGTBkZhTkwM5wFvO0X8t6z5qsqzoXYW1auvVWaER9qsN62uGyY7Tx4vxi4WedOYL2AomVQRmdSQsA/s1600-h/inl.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJg53ae7GJ4qNabMn5ox4M2QFi5Ft36zaygruFqfAOXKlgvExEYvHU1SRE-f6L8CIGTBkZhTkwM5wFvO0X8t6z5qsqzoXYW1auvVWaER9qsN62uGyY7Tx4vxi4WedOYL2AomVQRmdSQsA/s400/inl.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445945411879046802" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://leshkina.com/nothing/voidentity.html">Voidentity</a></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFWEZ9yF3hefLZjEXorL7k-ASwG1S4SjR5pYKVAMshfK1SJu_QgX9GqZJMz_6Byo3UQfOTHu0xgFDX8y8TSGetJEt3sMhwSqyB07oSwjWEOuUJz7hqDo1WSCAdTDpPpjqmcTLpr-Z54A/s1600-h/IMG_8141s.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 297px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFWEZ9yF3hefLZjEXorL7k-ASwG1S4SjR5pYKVAMshfK1SJu_QgX9GqZJMz_6Byo3UQfOTHu0xgFDX8y8TSGetJEt3sMhwSqyB07oSwjWEOuUJz7hqDo1WSCAdTDpPpjqmcTLpr-Z54A/s400/IMG_8141s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445956658301811074" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.takecourage.co.uk/front/front.php">Take Courage</a> Gallery Exhibition</div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-How has your move from Moscow to the UK changed your photography?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I've changed and keep changing which means my work changed as well. It's only partly because of geographiс location.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTnL3LmblQa5cBU5HZSYrwqp5XRm3HlpX32xh9SbCg1qvWV10HKOJJAcsvNP2-ydcPhJitTM_l7PGrJRVYbuApoMVG_zZtIJ9UtyNOcXz-pagwFeFD4jcr3Xuhwiw4BTh6iZP6Nndpb9Q/s1600-h/iws11.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTnL3LmblQa5cBU5HZSYrwqp5XRm3HlpX32xh9SbCg1qvWV10HKOJJAcsvNP2-ydcPhJitTM_l7PGrJRVYbuApoMVG_zZtIJ9UtyNOcXz-pagwFeFD4jcr3Xuhwiw4BTh6iZP6Nndpb9Q/s400/iws11.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445956935471589762" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPA397ksO_2f0riWN2w-xOvwRGkPJqDDtR2zDaTKWo1hyphenhyphengrdeBtWDSKMgF3VqrDjCK3dAFPtHuS2phRxPoB30v-LqEYaz95ik0sc8AQ9Zh81xwVqKAhOh8OLJVaSMkXZRjUzDdHAfkZ7s/s1600-h/iws19.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 302px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPA397ksO_2f0riWN2w-xOvwRGkPJqDDtR2zDaTKWo1hyphenhyphengrdeBtWDSKMgF3VqrDjCK3dAFPtHuS2phRxPoB30v-LqEYaz95ik0sc8AQ9Zh81xwVqKAhOh8OLJVaSMkXZRjUzDdHAfkZ7s/s400/iws19.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445945422646638018" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Self-Portraits</div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-I think on flickr someone compared your Voidentity series to Erwin Wurm's One Minute Sculptures, has he been influence on you is it more just a coincidence?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He was among others. Couple years ago there was a big show of his work in Moscow and I guess I was really impressed by it.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLO5NaUwp8QWgBTyU2bTJphI3LeW_On_Ye0mPSHiH6FoYMR8h-f8XglfLL9vhkk5VkjtRPCfZrUJUzaCzka06Hnhvv_zAgDuvHAwACA_DY9-4QO8Ko2mhHqiEbnWgGgSPsQLIoadE_dc/s1600-h/01550011s.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkLO5NaUwp8QWgBTyU2bTJphI3LeW_On_Ye0mPSHiH6FoYMR8h-f8XglfLL9vhkk5VkjtRPCfZrUJUzaCzka06Hnhvv_zAgDuvHAwACA_DY9-4QO8Ko2mhHqiEbnWgGgSPsQLIoadE_dc/s400/01550011s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445945159111433538" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://leshkina.com/nothing/balance.html">Balance</a></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyDLcdP-BLqkfzwoJwRPHm04aVAQ8BBvhhWhtQJNLagUfBXxKRgjpDCFNc5N-J7ADgqR0LxNuahtXFne_hfG1bf5I6gUvse2sGB3ieiklazxlyp58fR1o1I6RtAgkd-0-7kjuOwnbChyw/s1600-h/3056019057_54271c2874.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyDLcdP-BLqkfzwoJwRPHm04aVAQ8BBvhhWhtQJNLagUfBXxKRgjpDCFNc5N-J7ADgqR0LxNuahtXFne_hfG1bf5I6gUvse2sGB3ieiklazxlyp58fR1o1I6RtAgkd-0-7kjuOwnbChyw/s400/3056019057_54271c2874.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445955705792815266" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-You've started creating film and videos as well, is this a natural progression for you?</span><br /><br /><span style="">Absolutely. I actually went to a film school for three years and always wanted to create my own videos.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gGsK4b0kCTn2rD5lL8K-_xr_Wh3EGsnqmnpwcgVfs7kr-ekvGPm_UtI4T-2QlvQTh-63ewpmjIWP28piOE8VU7K0ohyphenhyphenQd1oz6cphZyk-YM7Mud8gTPTX3gO5Hv8MrFzdVykHxrQncDQ/s1600-h/3781875063_554bf6b882.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 366px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gGsK4b0kCTn2rD5lL8K-_xr_Wh3EGsnqmnpwcgVfs7kr-ekvGPm_UtI4T-2QlvQTh-63ewpmjIWP28piOE8VU7K0ohyphenhyphenQd1oz6cphZyk-YM7Mud8gTPTX3gO5Hv8MrFzdVykHxrQncDQ/s400/3781875063_554bf6b882.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445945172925978274" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9x2FHI5XSmdIhx4mC9LM0DT2zDKzo74fqaSkA84-dA9xUrdkQT10eEhFTobrrp00wo-YYE3Vkk7zoCMdcy4BJWqJy6sndoeHM3yHhp1cvFGLBVHkV-WyfgYxRqIDwpAAnLKe6CtMbXKA/s1600-h/4268213729_fc0fc560c1_o.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9x2FHI5XSmdIhx4mC9LM0DT2zDKzo74fqaSkA84-dA9xUrdkQT10eEhFTobrrp00wo-YYE3Vkk7zoCMdcy4BJWqJy6sndoeHM3yHhp1cvFGLBVHkV-WyfgYxRqIDwpAAnLKe6CtMbXKA/s400/4268213729_fc0fc560c1_o.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445947087248545730" border="0" /></a><br />Stills from two separate video projects</div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What are you doing with the rest of 2010, any more exhibitions/zines?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I just did a video for Maaike Mekking's AW10 show on LFW. More to come, check updates on my flickr or website.</span><br /><br />Tania Leshkina can be found online on her <a href="http://leshkina.com/">website</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/unmadebeds/">flickr</a></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-2144876294361289682010-01-26T03:04:00.005+00:002010-01-26T10:07:25.831+00:00Burrrghlin'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA2cJAFqRQvDzqMgfZrg0EDmvc0hLjP18tmhLKWERREpm3AdcmBKUG_Pbm4IccTuYX5FddesAhW3HFaLRvXuQInyQ98CBf2_g7m02R-0kbHetAAZwvonMHrXYKkJIKjBmkK0CPfdx7Kk/s1600-h/hunee1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 312px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA2cJAFqRQvDzqMgfZrg0EDmvc0hLjP18tmhLKWERREpm3AdcmBKUG_Pbm4IccTuYX5FddesAhW3HFaLRvXuQInyQ98CBf2_g7m02R-0kbHetAAZwvonMHrXYKkJIKjBmkK0CPfdx7Kk/s400/hunee1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430875559859693890" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Hunee is a DJ and songsmith from Berlin. He makes House tracks that end up in places that you don't expect and mixes that have you browsing rapidshare for hours to absolutely no avail. He also runs a great blog called </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://hunchmusic.wordpress.com/">Hunch Music</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> that puts up loads of great jazz and disco records. I asked him some questions about music and life in the city; answers and tracks when you follow the link:</span><br /></span><span class="fullpost"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />-What equipment do you use to make and play music?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />my dj obsession is the <a href="http://www.deepattitude.com/images/DJR400new.jpg">electronic spectacle djr 400 rotary mixer</a> (that i still have to pay off, haha). so this and my 2 old (painted white in a very short moment of questionable taste) <a href="http://xn--kxadlcse5csl.com/wp-content/themes/Sitemile_ClassifiedTheme/uploads/168_image_med_Technics_SL1200MK2.jpg">technics mk2</a> decks. pretty simple.<br /><br />the music making happens between my noisy pc equipped with ableton, some plugs and the juno106, super bass station, my friends' atc-1, a shitty guitar, a leaking shaker egg, plus some more borrowed things for drums and noises...</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-brother-dub&"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-brother-dub&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee/hunee-brother-dub">Hunee - Brother (Dub)</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> by </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee">hunee</a><br /><br /></span> <span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Where does djing/recording sit on your scale of profession to hobby? what do you do with the rest of your time?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >hmm, it's a quite dynamic relationship. it's seems to be a hobby that requires more time than everything else i do, but somehow i always maintained to work for my living, so, yeah i guess that makes it a hobby. rent, food and the rest gets paid by my tutor work at university. also, still a student - i stretched my university existence to the furthest limit, which put me in the situation to finish my studies now, if i dont want to leave without a degree.<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><br /><object width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-cannonball&"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-cannonball&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object> <span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee/hunee-cannonball">Hunee - Cannonball (Demo)</a></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" > by </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee">hunee</a></span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-What recent purchases are you enjoying to spin?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >some killer records in my bag come from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrdbWMC8CsM">miles sagnia</a> with some deeeep basslines (<a href="http://www.residentadvisor.net/record-label.aspx?id=1436">aesthetic audio</a>), <a href="http://www.phonicarecords.com/product/view/59423">big strick</a> on <a href="http://www.omarsdetroit.us/">fxhe</a> (a label that i adore), the <a href="http://www.myspace.com/napoletanomarcello">marcello napoletano</a> stuff that's takin all the good things about the 90ies and makin it work in '10, the latest mathematics releases and aaaall the second hand records that kill my budget and keep my love alive.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-babel-part-1&"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-babel-part-1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object></span> <span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee/hunee-babel-part-1">Hunee - Babel (part 1)</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee">hunee</a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Everyone always tells me berlin's an amazing city, what are your favourite haunts?<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >first of all - berlin is a summer city - a lot of beauty is covered in the cold, but i always love my crib on top of nk, my bike on the streets and the best feeding is happening at the falafel king (the nutpaste!!!), the realest döner u can get - waits at imren to be cut, record shops are always fun (with money in ur pockets). the clubs in berlin - well there are lots, they go looong, u can have a magic and a horrible night pretty much in any of 'em, berlin really lives by the vibe, the open-ness, the possibility to experience and explore whatever u might look for...</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-mix-for-jazzanova-radio-show&"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-mix-for-jazzanova-radio-show&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object></span> <span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee/hunee-mix-for-jazzanova-radio-show">Hunee - Mix for Jazzanova Radio Show</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee">hunee</a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Mixes are pretty good way djs can get across what dance music they enjoy, do you see your blog as an outlet for the rest of your musical tastes?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >actually i never saw mixes as something exclusive to dance music, i enjoy making mixes with lots of other ideas away from the dance floor. in fact, to make dance music mixes is often even tougher for me, since i have to imagine being in a club situation to make it work for me, to generate a certain energy.<br /><br />hunch music was in my mind for some time, maybe just as a box where i kept my ideas, dreams, criticisms, recepies and plans without any concrete definition what kind of materialization it might have one day. to put out the hunch record was a starting point to do more with the name. the hunch music blog came to life, because i wanted to create a place to share music and information, completely free of any restriction, maybe also to feel out where the hunch music box could go to... and well, deleting <a href="http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/?full=yes&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter">facebook</a> and starting the blog the same day might be a bit more than pure coincedence, haha...</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><object style="font-family: courier new;" width="100%" height="81"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-standin-high&"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fhunee%2Fhunee-standin-high&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="81"></embed> </object></span> <span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee/hunee-standin-high">Hunee - Standin' High</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee">hunee</a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Hunee can be found online at</span><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.myspace.com/huneeswings">Myspace</a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://soundcloud.com/hunee">SoundCloud</a><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">and</span><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.hunchmusic.wordpress.com/">Hunch Music</a></span></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-37875326488360105312010-01-09T14:22:00.014+00:002010-01-10T23:26:54.184+00:00Li Hui<span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTA_2BfrvFWmucgGVv_HZLhh34DUDVKINtohXHlXwPv2VgWHlA0RovZuMUbsJnfxY-mxDzS-hJ2iruN4JJvMdeSTZPvuH4ZDCshQqyS5y375vSLwneM1omKagV45XldkaYQQeBtE7t9FA/s1600-h/forest.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTA_2BfrvFWmucgGVv_HZLhh34DUDVKINtohXHlXwPv2VgWHlA0RovZuMUbsJnfxY-mxDzS-hJ2iruN4JJvMdeSTZPvuH4ZDCshQqyS5y375vSLwneM1omKagV45XldkaYQQeBtE7t9FA/s400/forest.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424753390176029106" border="0" /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://huiuh.com/">Li Hui</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> takes blurred pictures and clear photographs of herself and others. I recently asked her some questions about her work, filling in the gaps, personality traits and privacy. Follow the link below for words and pictures. </span><br /></span><span class="fullpost"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-One of the obvious traits about your pictures is how you never show peoples faces. Is this for the audience to make up the rest of the person or to take away that element of focus from the viewer?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >My pictures never shows faces because I think this is a way of communicating with the viewer. The pictures remind us of our common feelings, secrets, past memories or magical dreams. The people in my pictures are not supposed to be unknown faces, but the viewer him- or herself.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilonRtoGxRm1g46gDNoOrf4Lb-kyEZRWf0VZ5i3HvqQe9N-OPRBuSWxbngLbCZiIlCMt3HO7thm2MRkzmr6d3-PRXiSoEqflIQi-sHs-folJoZ6FNDEyA0Rob1QjcevFJ6gj7UQohL88w/s1600-h/morning.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilonRtoGxRm1g46gDNoOrf4Lb-kyEZRWf0VZ5i3HvqQe9N-OPRBuSWxbngLbCZiIlCMt3HO7thm2MRkzmr6d3-PRXiSoEqflIQi-sHs-folJoZ6FNDEyA0Rob1QjcevFJ6gj7UQohL88w/s400/morning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424746711409385826" border="0" /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPdKSw1Dyt_xiqRcOk-0z5imAAzFvcBv_Vv14Ar8HZ-guAgiMTLM-TtlVuNbGzOf4iaw7qHaPfko3evgVMaiLQuJpdQEDe8a4zqAWEyeZIcpQgrd0eXhHuoj_I4CCVVVFjUdrlbZSu97Y/s1600-h/m.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPdKSw1Dyt_xiqRcOk-0z5imAAzFvcBv_Vv14Ar8HZ-guAgiMTLM-TtlVuNbGzOf4iaw7qHaPfko3evgVMaiLQuJpdQEDe8a4zqAWEyeZIcpQgrd0eXhHuoj_I4CCVVVFjUdrlbZSu97Y/s400/m.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424746712725575122" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-You said on your website that since 2009 you've started taking photography 'seriously' - what has that entailed so far?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >In the past I spent too much time at home watching movies or listening to records or just sleeping all the time, so obviously I didn't really have enough time to go outside, take pictures and actually be serious about it. I think that changed in February 2009, as I started to really focus on photography.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_-5DnG2bwmkM5Bp6857kCwuc_5Du-HHQDG9mfdwi4VHKty2zdi7NvGB5PumLirEZSnTh-fbOeEtwU6V1AlBToi3PIEVlZzy5FGQIxcuLyRXYAsgj_WdgYNSBgDCJ0NygOBy2So4jiF8/s1600-h/li_hui_03.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_-5DnG2bwmkM5Bp6857kCwuc_5Du-HHQDG9mfdwi4VHKty2zdi7NvGB5PumLirEZSnTh-fbOeEtwU6V1AlBToi3PIEVlZzy5FGQIxcuLyRXYAsgj_WdgYNSBgDCJ0NygOBy2So4jiF8/s400/li_hui_03.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424745858463971746" border="0" /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnomxpqrawqYZYeOt7Gcb6qbrApYM6Om6w7n0Jlhbx69ifvEZ5BMc1Njf2l952vUKVy20x8gYjvzXdYEfkGeKZv5MSKjzaN5GD0TIi1y6QpaYIr9f7-TgKJILOjTCnInp1DRp1NzHWJos/s1600-h/kaleidoscope.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnomxpqrawqYZYeOt7Gcb6qbrApYM6Om6w7n0Jlhbx69ifvEZ5BMc1Njf2l952vUKVy20x8gYjvzXdYEfkGeKZv5MSKjzaN5GD0TIi1y6QpaYIr9f7-TgKJILOjTCnInp1DRp1NzHWJos/s400/kaleidoscope.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424745854001922290" border="0" /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEize_DGvS01Q4bqcPelY_PQ2zO0xVhJ8tHx5_7Xwh-g6T4Jp-y3KchsmFSwcnGRdkF74XDXjnQBAip-VFz9MFmS8NVNkksvjejb9x77oTRHU59y7nS8J-GysBfjhhtKxW3_b_kXgfp4ElY/s1600-h/fur.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEize_DGvS01Q4bqcPelY_PQ2zO0xVhJ8tHx5_7Xwh-g6T4Jp-y3KchsmFSwcnGRdkF74XDXjnQBAip-VFz9MFmS8NVNkksvjejb9x77oTRHU59y7nS8J-GysBfjhhtKxW3_b_kXgfp4ElY/s400/fur.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424745846179499058" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />-You've talked in interviews about how you're quite a shy/solitary person, do you feel this comes across in your photography?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I think shy people take pictures in a different way and approach subjects differently.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLNp0yaVbEBPrU4_IhxBIhS5gVYsMaZ-y3DQObUM4t0deq0KFoIaeSBp9Jz5KUukn7I1Ahqud8pSFfWw5rn1lJI1GnQ_R3ipUGxG0Bdj9_odz82iatz6DA9mcShugr1jC2VNAHzB8Z1w/s1600-h/red.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLNp0yaVbEBPrU4_IhxBIhS5gVYsMaZ-y3DQObUM4t0deq0KFoIaeSBp9Jz5KUukn7I1Ahqud8pSFfWw5rn1lJI1GnQ_R3ipUGxG0Bdj9_odz82iatz6DA9mcShugr1jC2VNAHzB8Z1w/s400/red.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424746717651488882" border="0" /></a><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Do other photographers influence your work or does inspiration come from closer to home?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />I don't even know that many photographers, I'm pretty sure you know a whole lot more than I do. That's not really important to me, I draw most of my inspiration from movies. If I'm not taking pictures, I have to watch movies. This is a habit I've kept ever since I was a little girl. I lived with my grandfather and he was a big movie fan.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eZGRJYEiK53-NO__QXyYZ0D345tohvcwv7oEJ_bk21DTkA4aH6P1B4_lbPUI8uJhLYnuPMkh6xKk6v0SxES1UtfuppYOsYdR4FOLNU26M0y0GbI_3DtaEjAkY3w4agmyo_7mAdPS4g8/s1600-h/thelepantoleague.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eZGRJYEiK53-NO__QXyYZ0D345tohvcwv7oEJ_bk21DTkA4aH6P1B4_lbPUI8uJhLYnuPMkh6xKk6v0SxES1UtfuppYOsYdR4FOLNU26M0y0GbI_3DtaEjAkY3w4agmyo_7mAdPS4g8/s400/thelepantoleague.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424746725929533570" border="0" /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5RsHje-NZMc6FYgSqKB2akPj9CmFSVaaRS6ZZfsAGwNHT8r_CcwcuPB8-rXp5SxvAi8AUXJxUVL2kWUjO4S50AdLW-R1ZEOJ15hUakWqYa6Okm59tYLRdWek6VxcUO9zmGPi_wMBNQUM/s1600-h/watch.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5RsHje-NZMc6FYgSqKB2akPj9CmFSVaaRS6ZZfsAGwNHT8r_CcwcuPB8-rXp5SxvAi8AUXJxUVL2kWUjO4S50AdLW-R1ZEOJ15hUakWqYa6Okm59tYLRdWek6VxcUO9zmGPi_wMBNQUM/s400/watch.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424746719547822738" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />-You're pretty reserved about the information you give out to the internet, do you think that people give away too much online?</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Yeah, I'm into photography because it's my hobby. I think that information is not necessary. Giving away such details doesn't help me in any way and it doesn't improve my photos.<br />Recently I got a mail from an ezine and they said they prefer people to focus on photographs instead of the person behind the camera. I totally agree with that.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgayKnToagbvtSJ8tnqbCtAzGRK2Lwz2XuFEmc2KZoiwD9M8SFDoYoRDXpjGdNAnwXe2TnWkKI4m8nXZZ0gnHDqEX7Iy-VJLyptuabwh4TUairb9Vj94HdfQWntDs0fYyKDxwBI80TTd8A/s1600-h/egg.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgayKnToagbvtSJ8tnqbCtAzGRK2Lwz2XuFEmc2KZoiwD9M8SFDoYoRDXpjGdNAnwXe2TnWkKI4m8nXZZ0gnHDqEX7Iy-VJLyptuabwh4TUairb9Vj94HdfQWntDs0fYyKDxwBI80TTd8A/s400/egg.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424745845077697394" border="0" /></a><br /><a style="font-family: courier new;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSf2dCQb9ArHNo5c9VI0ke8n__Dm4LYzlIs_lKtmhY2L-rEjjx1MpVA7Xm9o8A-KBv__oOh6I-2rG0oV5QxSjf-pCvoHfBwTFH1QaSJ9Mk9AZbZKEURcpFFx4AvFF7JRorHVa3Tv_Ajw0/s1600-h/deepsea.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSf2dCQb9ArHNo5c9VI0ke8n__Dm4LYzlIs_lKtmhY2L-rEjjx1MpVA7Xm9o8A-KBv__oOh6I-2rG0oV5QxSjf-pCvoHfBwTFH1QaSJ9Mk9AZbZKEURcpFFx4AvFF7JRorHVa3Tv_Ajw0/s400/deepsea.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424745837622340546" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:courier new;">Li can be found online at </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/34881092@N03/">flickr</a><span style="font-family:courier new;"> and </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://huiuh.com/">huiuh.com</a></span></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-3491254245583728042009-11-23T23:51:00.014+00:002009-11-29T13:32:28.824+00:00Red Hot Entertainment<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8jRbDIwkESc2UUXOW_pmgMUSRf2_8FPIHke3kctSl9gjGPSWVYx-ZanHKNOkWVYZ4sX0si4kRjufJ93RDK2YB4yC1ibbGVgTiFrxWLDYKtzjeEfE8Xd6uzwhseuQS4kHPHcKYHkjpew/s1600/specialreports_2edb.london-canary-wharf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm8jRbDIwkESc2UUXOW_pmgMUSRf2_8FPIHke3kctSl9gjGPSWVYx-ZanHKNOkWVYZ4sX0si4kRjufJ93RDK2YB4yC1ibbGVgTiFrxWLDYKtzjeEfE8Xd6uzwhseuQS4kHPHcKYHkjpew/s400/specialreports_2edb.london-canary-wharf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409508182981485986" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Dan Hancox is a journalist currently living in London. He's published articles in Fact, Dazed And Confused, <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/dan_hancox">The New Statesman</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/danhancox">The Guardian</a> as well as being a contributor to several rather good blogs, <a href="http://www.dot-alt.blogspot.com/">like this one</a>. Last year saw 'My Fellow Americans' released, a collaboration between Hancox and comic artist <a href="http://www.ventedspleen.com/">Tom Humberstone</a> detailing their journey across the US following the presidential election of 2008. He's one of the good guys basically - interview after the jump.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" class="fullpost" ><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What's your background in the music industry - was it always intentional to become a writer?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I don’t have a background in music or the music industry, I can’t play any instruments or DJ – I’m just a fan. There was a guy at my university who only owned three CDs, because, he said, “I don’t really like music”. I always found that pretty extraordinary. That’s like saying “I don’t really like food”, isn’t it?<br /><br />As for writing, I won a competition at school when I was 13 where we all had to write a 400-word review of Dragonheart, this god-awful kids film featuring a CGI dragon voiced by Sean Connery. I won a Down Periscope hat and a Nutty Professor long-sleeve t-shirt. So obviously with incentives like that I knew I was onto a winner.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What journalists inspire the way you write?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So many of my friends and peers, too numerous to mention... most of them are linked on my blog. As for journalists I don’t actually know in person, people like <a href="http://www.heritageandidentity.co.uk/images/e_gary_younge.jpg">Gary Younge</a> and <a href="http://www.tcnj.edu/%7Esa/clday/images/Ehrenreich-fromCreativeWell2.jpg">Barbara Ehrenreich</a> I like a great deal in terms of their subject matter. <a href="http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/site_imagery/jason_burke_140x140.jpg">Jason Burke</a> and Jon Boone I find fascinating because they write about things I would know nothing about otherwise... but for style my main inspiration is <a href="http://www.spikemagazine.com/pjorourke/pjcigar.jpg">PJ O’Rourke</a>, whose libertarian politics I cannot stand, but he’s so brilliantly witty that I can’t help but read and re-read his stuff. I’ve just noticed that not one of those are music journalists. There might be a reason for that.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-As a music journalist do you still think bands see you in the old stereotype of the enemy?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">They’re generally just a bit sceptical (understandably so, really), rather than oppositional or defensive. But then the people I interview have never been sitting in a hotel room all day doing 300 interviews in 15 minute slots – they’re musicians who are grateful for any sort of media interest, usually. So my job often means chasing grime MCs whose mobile numbers seem to change every week, waiting at Leytonstone tube station in the rain for two hours, going on wild-goose chases through the Isle of Dogs... but better that than dealing with handlers, minders, PRs and managers – and bored, boring ‘artists’ who’ve nothing to talk about but the quality of the room service.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Your articles often focus on sometimes overlooked but nevertheless, important parts of urban youth, like food and music, are you trying to embrace the culture in London around you or is more tongue in cheek than that?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Er, there’s nothing arch or condescending about it – well, the <a href="http://juniorspesh.blogspot.com/">Junior Spesh blog</a> is very tongue-in-cheek (and also deadly serious, sort of), but that’s quite obvious – not least because it’s inspired by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6pbZLiLt30">a brilliant novelty grime song</a>. If you’re asking whether it’s patronising or condescending for me to write about ‘urban youth’ culture, well then no, it’s not. In census terms I’m a 28 year-old middle-class white male… but this is London. I’m not ‘road’, but – for example – I went to school with Neutrino from So Solid Crew, who among other achievements shot himself in the leg “cos I’m fucking crazy like that”, as he once spat. My point is that compared to most megalopolises, London doesn’t discriminate or segregate – it throws everyone together. Apart from <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=27312809352&ref=ts">the bits that voted for Boris Johnson</a> – they can fuck off.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-What's the most exciting thing in British music right now?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />First, the fuzzy, inchoate areas in the middle of the Venn diagrams of UK dance music. These grey areas between and beyond existing genres are larger and harder to define than ever before. We’re at a stage where grime, house, dubstep, and funky are bleeding into one another – what do we call it? I don’t know. But search for mixes and tracks by the likes of Bok Bok, Jam City, Untold, Roska, Scratcha, Mosca, Ikonika, Brackles, LVis1990, Cooly G and the Hessle Audio label.<br /><br />Secondly, the much more clearly-defined world of funky bashment, which has been created, curated and nurtured by Gabriel Heatwave, with the help of a lot of great producers and MCs – it self-consciously connects the dots between Jamaican MCs and London electronic music culture – in this case, funky. There are a couple of great ‘primer’ mixes out there by Gabriel I’d really recommend downloading.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVTeexOkKB7LW6UIGxmFXwbbhv70zQ48SybUr3aP4hp8OwTS5Oh06VWb-KhyphenhyphenZ4kft_dE8dBpJZPTrp9tgNBQfI6PX5eOPR2C4jxdzBOBCPVLf63ah9OpmoF6e_ghcyFIZVwdA5pFy5m0/s1600/2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 209px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVTeexOkKB7LW6UIGxmFXwbbhv70zQ48SybUr3aP4hp8OwTS5Oh06VWb-KhyphenhyphenZ4kft_dE8dBpJZPTrp9tgNBQfI6PX5eOPR2C4jxdzBOBCPVLf63ah9OpmoF6e_ghcyFIZVwdA5pFy5m0/s400/2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409509757888369746" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Tom Humberstone (left) and Dan Hancox by Humberstone</div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-In <a href="http://dan-hancox.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-fellow-americans-at-sheffields-off.html">a recent blog post</a> you mention how its very easy for the extraordinary to become normalized. Looking back at the US election it's pretty obvious why Obama won, but at the start did it feel like you were making a book about his journey to the Whitehouse?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not at the beginning, not at all. His role in the story in January 2008 was clearly defined: he would be a noteworthy supporting cast member to the central narrative of Hillary Vs The Republicans. For the Democrats, he would motivate those few young Americans whose political spirit had not been entirely crushed by eight years of President Bush, revive the black vote a bit, teach the Washington mafia some new tricks in terms of online fundraising, and recede into the background like Howard Dean in 2004. Or possibly be Hillary’s VP candidate. Tom Humberstone (my illustrator/travel buddy/Ralph Steadman) and I bought this logic too – until the epiphanic moment when we saw him speak, in a snow-caked school gym outside Iowa City in early January. He was really that good.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-'My Fellow Americans' sold out of copies in UK, what do you think captures British peoples attention about the American political system?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bigger fireworks, louder shouting, and shinier suits. This sounds glib – and it is – but it’s also true. Irrespective of your political views on the two of them, who would you rather watch a news item about: Sarah Palin, or Nick Clegg?</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_83Au7ZDSAXEVliY3X0ZlzD9PEH4xRQFx3H9roe9XZh-ic8GQWauBHHOh3aXWF8gQaDXRemrivloD1Yfht26vXHFIIKYi0i2oCqfydanA8seCSxZzf0ty-mprAd6L7oH0wixjJzAt9o/s1600/mfa_book_cover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 321px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_83Au7ZDSAXEVliY3X0ZlzD9PEH4xRQFx3H9roe9XZh-ic8GQWauBHHOh3aXWF8gQaDXRemrivloD1Yfht26vXHFIIKYi0i2oCqfydanA8seCSxZzf0ty-mprAd6L7oH0wixjJzAt9o/s400/mfa_book_cover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5409508188991390610" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">'The Cover'</div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-You released MFA last year and started it the year before that, do you ever think you'll be doing something like it again? What would be the next step from here?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Tempted though I was by the idea of writing My Fellow Kashmiris, I’m not really that kind of journalist. But the ideas that motivated My Fellow Americans are more pressing than ever: as the old media continues to die off, genuine grass-roots reportage is suffering. Time-challenged staff reporters are increasingly tethered to their desks, regurgitating press releases and doing phone interviews with official spokesmen – and editors half-heartedly temper this by sending their hacks on brief, surgical strikes to somewhere outside of Westminster for an afternoon. I’m not sure what the next step is exactly, except that I want to see more journalists doing genuine grass-roots reporting, and I’d like to be one of those journalists.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-I may have focused unfairly on you being a music journalist here, but you also write a lot for the New Statesman (amongst others) - are their any similarities in the types of people you meet and write about?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I suppose so. The musicians I interview very very rarely have publicists, agents, managers, or eyebrow technicians – and the people I talk to for political pieces in the New Statesman, Prospect, etc don’t either; in the sense that they’re not politicians, but normal people.</span><br /><br />Dan Hancox can be found online via <a href="http://twitter.com/Danhancox">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.dan-hancox.blogspot.com/">Blogspot</a>.</span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-54394174730404275032009-11-23T01:11:00.009+00:002009-11-23T02:13:39.910+00:00Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-ryV5tD2-qrVzJ2dkAXtos7oDm9kqaJ5WbXOYw3bcsKZ9zH2_7BgYfOCxLHcemm5KkM_DUHw3TjDO33po2rJdz7YVrS_adc-c4EEp0FvjUqDbydVF1KRG2JSUZd-N57oPaLOm8-y-wo/s1600/felt4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-ryV5tD2-qrVzJ2dkAXtos7oDm9kqaJ5WbXOYw3bcsKZ9zH2_7BgYfOCxLHcemm5KkM_DUHw3TjDO33po2rJdz7YVrS_adc-c4EEp0FvjUqDbydVF1KRG2JSUZd-N57oPaLOm8-y-wo/s400/felt4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407112844831263586" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Really really brilliant video of Girls meeting Lawrence Hayward in London last month. Highlights including but not limited to:<br /><br />-Girls genuinely being massive fans of Felt/Denim<br />-Girls opening up about the difficulties of simply being in a band<br />-Lawrence explaining how he refused to give autographs for a small period of time<br />-Lawrence ripping on the guy from Red Krayola<br />-Lawrence loving the Iggy Pop Insurance ads<br />-Lawrence in general<br />-Lawrence still caring about getting popular and having fans above everything else<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Parts <a href="http://www.magicrpm.com/videos/interview/girls/girls-meet-lawrence-premier-episode">1</a>,<a href="http://www.magicrpm.com/videos/interview/girls/girls-meet-lawrence-deuxieme-episode">2</a> and <a href="http://www.magicrpm.com/videos/interview/girls/girls-meet-lawrence-troisieme-episode">3</a> - with thanks to Magic RPM</span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-20589162538371928922009-11-02T02:29:00.024+00:002009-11-06T00:56:42.211+00:00Sterling Crispin<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifcxTgeSIkoM1VfunLpBMKdjaH77HuTG7hKdd0-vkrqeXk-LPm6Ifg0UEUWx9gcn8HG4tz6eiTF8h3jENW9aN4GmaDF8gg5-m43aBL0V2ePCnN0MnjP9Stjy0hBjeNsP2s0fVwc7V1TZA/s1600-h/sterling3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 301px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifcxTgeSIkoM1VfunLpBMKdjaH77HuTG7hKdd0-vkrqeXk-LPm6Ifg0UEUWx9gcn8HG4tz6eiTF8h3jENW9aN4GmaDF8gg5-m43aBL0V2ePCnN0MnjP9Stjy0hBjeNsP2s0fVwc7V1TZA/s400/sterling3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399340894048184450" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Sterling Crispin is an artist living in Denver, Colorado. Using the Buddhist belief of the Sunyata as a common base for his output he creates installations, video loops and illustrations that focus on the infinite and unknown. Crispin also recently worked with musician <a href="http://www.myspace.com/pictureplane">Picture Plane</a> to create the music video 'Gothic Star'. Interview after the jump<br /></span><span class="fullpost"><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Circles and symmetrical shapes seem to be key elements in you work, what fascinates you about these forms?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I'm interested in the ancient, primal and infinite feeling of geometry. It exists outside of time and space. It's an underlying invisible force making itself visible through interaction with matter.<br /><br />I think that when you encounter a highly symmetrical form like a seashell or a crystal it can be a profound because it's this underlying force that's way beyond you suddenly saying "Hello". It's like pulling the wrapping paper off of a box that contains the infinite. You only get to see a very small slice of it, and you'll never unwrap it all, but what you do see allows you to infer what you cannot see.<br /><br />And so I've been imagining a lot of the art that I've been making recently as tools for prodding into the void.<br /><br />I also tend to imagine geometric forms as living entities or figures. When say "sphere" to someone they visualize a beach ball or spherical object, or they imagine just the idea of a sphere without any particular form. The thought of a shape just floating out in space somewhere that doesn't consist of anything is funny and interesting to me. That somewhere in some universe or dimension there is a realm of perfectly formed triangles or spheres sort of loitering about or doing whatever spheres do.<br /><br />I like the idea that if a circle had a life / soul / consciousness, each time you drew a circle on a sheet of paper, you would be channelling the spirit of the ancient "one true circle" out there somewhere rather than creating a new life for each circle. And to clarify I'm more interested in the idea that a perfect shape could be a living or maybe conscious thing than in the idea of a perfect shape in general.<br /><br />I'm also really interested in the idea of visible and invisible things, making the invisible visible and vice versa, perception really.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5159077&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5159077&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Crystal Field</div><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Digital images and videos seem to be another prominent medium that you work with, do you find yourself being able to do more on a computer or is it more aesthetic than that?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Well there's an appropriate time and place for everything, and I'm interested in all of it. Honestly If I had a bigger budget I know my work would look very different. I generally dream very big and then have to compromise. I consider all of the work I've done so far to be a maquette or sketch for something else I'm trying to get at.<br /><br />So right now I'm driven to working digitally because I can execute my ideas quickly and its relatively cheap. There's an upfront cost obviously but pressing File > New is next to free.<br /><br />Although that's not to say I'm not interested in computing. I'm very interested in emerging technology and theories of what the future will bring. Computers are really powerful tools, I think society as a whole is just slowly waking up to the potential of the technology we are developing. We are accelerating very quickly up the curve. I was born ten years after the release of the first home computer and I think that in another 50 years we may be faced with a computer based intelligence that surpasses every human mind on the planet combined. Or entirely synthetic or laboratory produced humans. How can anyone not be interested in that?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVWJXmlJQ7kf_dPwewQ-GkZjsneMvZI5on01jV73s_SnN5Z7dubCWTaNMD-Ye7JDAFSDBdB_MkkJ_rgpvRgaDCukfM-iLwK5Yu5QNJ4ZYT-MaoEzNb7LzMQmWuenR3lOsAY36x5KPRbs/s1600-h/Sterling1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVWJXmlJQ7kf_dPwewQ-GkZjsneMvZI5on01jV73s_SnN5Z7dubCWTaNMD-Ye7JDAFSDBdB_MkkJ_rgpvRgaDCukfM-iLwK5Yu5QNJ4ZYT-MaoEzNb7LzMQmWuenR3lOsAY36x5KPRbs/s400/Sterling1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399870587849969202" border="0" /></a></span><div style="text-align: center;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Prehistory Series</span></div><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-Your illustrations, especially the Emergent Organic Form series (top of page) has some amazing detail to them, what are the processes like for creating such images and what influenced you in making them?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I draw them with fine point pens into a sketchbook, usually while traveling on the public transportation system in Denver. I've been using 005 Microns but I have been thinking of trying other pens, the tips are too fragile.<br /><br />After they are drawn I photograph them and digitally edit them to become bilaterally symmetrical. I want to print them out in a limited series at a 16x20 inches with some high quality digital printer and mount them somehow but I'm too financially challenged to realize the series in any meaningful way right now.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6244659&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6244659&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Picture Plane Gothstar</div><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-You've also directed a music video for <a href="http://www.myspace.com/pictureplane">Picture Plane</a>, how did that collaboration come about and what do you think to the outcome?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >Well Travis and I went to art school together and after graduating were both accepted into RedLine where we shared a studio in Denver for a while. We've been friends for a while and have a few shared interests and influences.<br /><br />He asked me to produce a video for an album he was going to release, we threw a few ideas around and I put together a sort of video sketch. We had the video shoot afterward that was intentionally free form and sort of haphazard. I wanted it to feel like recovered footage from some sort of Stevie Nicks cult in the near past that had tried to capture or summon her spirit. Yet at the same time feel fun and light hearted and keep the ethereal and textural things going on in the song.<br /><br />Overall it was a lot of fun and I think I'll probably be doing more projects like that in the future.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />-Do you think you'll be doing more work with video?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />It's hard for me to imagine losing an interest in video, maybe if I live long enough to see true virtual reality or the technological singularity I won't care much for video anymore. But its hard to say, who knows.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5041277&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5041277&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Water Particle</div><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-I'm always in interested in different cities and the people who live in them, what's Denver like as hometown? I read an interview with Picture Plane and the interviewers perception of Denver seemed to be you spend all day Skiing, only stopping to watch The Denver Broncos occasionally, are things really that great?<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I'm sure that there are people out there doing just that, but that's not the average lifestyle here. Actually I had to check and Coloradans mean income is among the highest in the country and the poverty rate isn't too bad, so maybe I'm wrong. There's a decent public transportation system here and there's a lot of good art in town. Denver is really supportive of the arts, I wish there was more support but it's pretty good. And of course the sky, mountains and land is just beautiful here. I just wish there wasn't so much suburban sprawl.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaZ3MNhGcluwbMICRth7KD_XsYHofGcX-kgBnqEuRXuChAK8PbmoWCcN2Q64af9E_X15-pLZp5nQLjqrR9Y4vCgqaD_eAWJ4enIr7le9k4u6OXU_z0D6-zlLfRu0bDE7mLuTYfrCkCUE/s1600-h/sterling4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaZ3MNhGcluwbMICRth7KD_XsYHofGcX-kgBnqEuRXuChAK8PbmoWCcN2Q64af9E_X15-pLZp5nQLjqrR9Y4vCgqaD_eAWJ4enIr7le9k4u6OXU_z0D6-zlLfRu0bDE7mLuTYfrCkCUE/s400/sterling4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399340890211068754" border="0" /></a></span><div style="text-align: center;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Gateway - 2009 Installation</span></div><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >What do people think of when they think of Denver? I think people perceive Denver as a cow town, they think of John Denver, the Denver Omelet, skiing and mountain men?<br /><br />I actually grew up in Maui, then spent a few years in Pittsburgh and moved to Denver in 2005. I'm still acclimating to seasonal weather and I may never get used to it.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >-You also do graphic design work as well, is it hard to make a living solely as an artist then?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />Well I think graphic design is art, but yeah the term "starving artist" didn't come out of the blue, its tough.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHJoaYL3WyFEcL1Ao-umzVnj8darA1XfEYhnNKR6kUlVJGz4Wrk6ulaFdpGiySyz4PgadbtVZEe0qjr-LLkR3BghVSR2XflmHGRa1J3IUdj7gzRHQR_81eUXBCrIWSXUQFABQ_Tc8dcJo/s1600-h/sterling2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 331px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHJoaYL3WyFEcL1Ao-umzVnj8darA1XfEYhnNKR6kUlVJGz4Wrk6ulaFdpGiySyz4PgadbtVZEe0qjr-LLkR3BghVSR2XflmHGRa1J3IUdj7gzRHQR_81eUXBCrIWSXUQFABQ_Tc8dcJo/s400/sterling2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399340889416253138" border="0" /></a></span><div style="text-align: center;font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Primordial Figure Series</span></div><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br />-What projects do you have planned for the rest of the year and 2010?</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" >I'm currently working with the Gates Planetarium here in Denver developing content for their full immersion dome as part of an arts and science collaboration between some local colleges and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I'm really excited about that project right now.<br /><br />I'd really like to get my hands on some rapid prototyping machines, or get into industrial fabrication, injection moulded plastics, large scale digital photographs and make a few more light boxes<br /><br />Also I want to break into public art, and do whatever I can to avoid a 'day job'.</span><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Sterling Crispin can be found online at <a href="http://www.sterlingcrisping.com/">sterlingcrispin.com</a></span><br /></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-32591193166282443622009-10-29T21:15:00.002+00:002009-10-29T21:26:20.598+00:00<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4qJzoAjed1M&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4qJzoAjed1M&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >I'm off to see Fleetwood Mac tomorrow night at Wembley, and it's gonna be amazing. Recent interview in the Independant with Mick Fleetwood <a href="http://www.independent.ie/national-news/mick-fleetwood-puts-rumours-of-the-bands-hedonism-to-bed-1924044.html">here</a>, talking about the European Tour and a possible new album.<br /><br />Plus anyone heard the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvPsliXeXOk">Cheryl Cole</a> album?<br /></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-58304318857266286522009-10-18T23:48:00.005+01:002009-10-19T00:23:33.724+01:001968<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nYymnxoQnf8&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nYymnxoQnf8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-66295551173357322622009-10-18T23:45:00.007+01:002009-10-19T00:20:36.260+01:00198?<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0R2Z-QmRqrg&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0R2Z-QmRqrg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">Cringe Vision</span></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-13088433165643902072009-09-22T11:09:00.001+01:002009-09-22T11:11:07.711+01:00...<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tGb1htR-N9s&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tGb1htR-N9s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;font-size:85%;" >Not so intense</span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-54236214903242361442009-09-22T00:26:00.002+01:002009-09-22T11:11:32.177+01:00'With my art I just want to survive'<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ef_THJ_XH-E&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ef_THJ_XH-E&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">Intense</span></span>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670550829179040355.post-51436318128280967822009-08-27T22:39:00.001+01:002009-08-27T22:39:47.636+01:00The Mask<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BgO0-fD7GuM&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BgO0-fD7GuM&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>clocktowerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18201605316955768574noreply@blogger.com0