All posts filed under: Features

INSA: ‘GIF-ITI’ from Space

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Everybody seems to love them or hate them in equal measure. But what would the internet world be without its quickly tinkered, highly catchy and sometimes slightly silly GIF creations? Right, a tad bit poorer in hilarious stuff. For a good few years now, Shoreditch-based designer INSA takes this internet spirit to a whole new artistic level and became an illustrious name in street art circles, turning his graffiti pieces into hypnotising digital animations: Painting, photographing, painting over, photographing, and all over again. With these ‘GIF-ITI’s, how he calls them, the artist deliberately vaults the streets and façades of London, Miami or Shanghai onto our screens, conveniently playing into the hands of those who more and more turn to the countless tumblr sites and art blogs for inspiration. After generating a buzz in the media with his large-scale murals, such as Stanley Donwood’s animated ‘Atoms for Peace’ album artwork in L.A. or the ‘Make Your Own Way’ collaborative GIF-ITI during last year’s Art Basel in Miami, INSA dared to have a crack at his yet most ambitious project. Well, I wouldn’t …

© Julien Coquentin

‘Black Seasons’ by Julien Coquentin

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Sometimes it just happens without knowing and I find myself dwelling around a website longer than I would care for. Facebook, twitter, pinterest or vimeo. Oh, and let’s not forget adobe’s artistic brainchild behance. The nosy creative connoisseur inside me simply loves to browse the hell out of it. Just hit ‘Most Appreciated’, pick a creative category of your choice and you’ll probably get your mind blown pretty quickly. Sometimes I happen to find a heap of really outstanding projects in a matter of minutes that way, another day it’s only one or two decent ones in half an hour of skimming through a seemingly never ending list of visual overload. Anyhow, last night I made a strike. After just about 4 swift minutes and sifting through maybe 15 other (similarly promising) projects, my cursor bumped into Julien Coquentin’s intriguing work. To be honest, the fifth and most recent chapter of his ‘Black Seasons’ series tops off probably one of the most atmospheric photographic showcases I’ve seen for quite a while. Moving along snowy roads, …

‘Russian Roulette’ by Ben Aston

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For some of you short film folk out there it’s probably not a well-kept secret anymore, given all the praise it received recently. And when a friend dashed it into my social media orbit – thanks Martin for the fit occasion – I just thought it’s time I’d share it with everyone: ‘Russian Roulette’ by director Ben Ashton is a brilliant short that narrates a moment in the life of Lucy, a lonely Londoner who ventures on Chatroulette in search for a bit of decent human interaction. And what she least expects in the virtual universe of oddity and the bizarre is a worthwhile encounter. Until libidinous Russian Cosmonaut Yergey turns up on her screen, floating in space. Intrigued? The low-budget production is a cheeky, cute and concise piece of film that voices thoughts about today’s social media generation, internet phenomena, loneliness, distance and closeness, packed in 5 minutes of storytelling. No wonder why Russian Roulette won this year’s Sundance London Jury Prize and since has been nominated for 2015’s Official Sundance Selection. Major Tom, now …

Road Dawgs: Future Islands Short Documentary

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It’s certainly not wide off the mark to claim that there’s no other band quite like Future Islands at present. Besides releasing fabulous records year after year, including probably one of 2014’s foremost albums, the likeable synth-pop three-piece from Baltimore is particularly famed for Samuel T. Herring’s incredible stage presence. Every time I see him perform, I am genuinely wondering if that term has been created just for his own sake. Who’s been to one of their live shows before, probably knows what I’m talking about. If not, you’ll know soon enough. My first Future Islands taster must have been around 2010 in a tiny venue called ‘Sonic Ballroom’ crammed with maybe 149 other people. That place didn’t even have a proper stage. So we’d ended up face to face with an ecstatic frontman about to tick off any second. What is now a kind of known fact about Future Islands shows – at least since this epic performance – was not something I was particularly aware of back then: Screaming, roaring, awkwardly dancing like nobody’s watching, head banging, fists punching …

Converge: Mark Salmon x Column Arts Agency

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Normally I’d refrain from praising myself, and this is definitely not the time to challenge old habits. Though in this case, it was probably my humble self that played a tiny part in bringing both sides to the table for photography-design-fusion project ‘Converge’. A few months ago, a tweet from Will Astbury’s Column Arts Agency – who already mounted the incredible ‘Triple Hop’ exhibition together with Test Space & Honest Brew – turned up in my twitter feed, hunting for a Birmingham-based photographer. My first idea was Mark Salmon, who recently collaborated with me for a story in The Quarterly, so I gladly put down his name for the raffle. Apparently, it did work out quite well. For ‘Converge’, which has been commissioned for annual visual arts festival Eye Candy, Mark teamed up with Birmingham Royal Ballet dancers Celine Gittens, Kit Holder and Anna Monleon to produce some really sweet live-action shots. Column Arts in turn send off an ace selection of their represented artists, including Trou, Joshua Billingham, Sweaty Eskimo, Laura Tinald, Joel Millerchip or Guy McKinley, to run riot on Mark’s images and add their very …

Traces of the Past: ‘Shot at Dawn’ by Chloe Dewe Mathews

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The dawning of a new day. A forsaken, leafless tree stands guard before a field covered in thick fog. Silence. Not a soul to be seen. If you had no clue of the delicate topic that Chloe Dewe Mathews addresses with her most recent photographic series ‘Shot at Dawn’, you could easily mistake it for just a great selection of beautiful, gloomy landscape photography. In fact, there’s more to it behind the peaceful façade, best visualised by an ambiguous title choice that metaphorically addresses a covert truth: The unadorned presence of warfare. While the London-based photographer aims into the forlorn distance through her lense, waiting for the right moment and eventually releasing her trigger to take the shot, the perspective has probably been exactly the same a hundred years ago, yet facing a group of soldiers pointing their deadly rifles at a convicted brother-in-arms. ‘Shot at Dawn’ narrates the forgotten, repressed or long-lost stories of the hundreds of French, British and Belgian soldiers, who were shot for cowardice or desertion in the dark days of World …

Shilpa Gupta: ‘There is no Border here’

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Last time I hopped on a train to Glasgow, the extensive GENERATION project, celebrating 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland, was still in full swing at almost every art space downtown. To be honest, when I came over last weekend, I didn’t mean to pay the Gallery of Modern Art another visit yet again or even had the foggiest idea what was on. At the end of the day, when push comes to shove, there’s less pleasant places to seek shelter from the pouring rain than the halls of GoMA. So why not have a look around?, I wondered. Maybe I should do that more often, cause ‘Art from Elsewhere’ certainly was pretty much amazing. Curated by David Elliot, the show assembles a set of works recently purchased by six major UK museums, covering themes like life in conflict zones, oppressive government regimes, the advent of capitalism and post-colonial experiences. After I eagerly wandered through the exhibition space, passing by prominent pieces like Meschac Gaba’s socio-critical installation ‘Brazilian Bank’ or Józef Robakowski’s film chronicle ‘View from my window’, I particularly dwelled on …

Luminescent Neon Portraits by Hid Saib

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We’ve seen some remarkable portrait photography in almost every imaginable facet, form and variation. Brazilian photographer Hid Saib however treads a truly electrifying path far from the norm, delving into the medium of neon paint for his most recent project. Fusing the mysterious with the animally, the enticing with the svelte, ‘Neon’ (2013) and follow-up series ‘Neonzinhos’ (2014) create a bold showcase of glittering aesthetics that simply left me with a gaping mouth. Ace. ‘I wanted to figure out how to translate each emotion into an almost cosmic visual—an entire world in itself. There was an immediate need to see through the smokescreen we use to shield ourselves. You could say that seeing these unseasonal shades of neon set off a trigger. Colours and expressions, two unadulterated truths, became one in my head.’ (Hid Saib) Check out these links for more of his works. Hidsaib.com Facebook instagram

Acrylic Etchings by Takashi Yamamoto

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‘Well, Hello Sir. I like your style.’ That was probably the initial thought resting on the tip of my tongue when I came across Takashi Yamamoto’s cool portfolio and my eyes couldn’t help but cling to his acrylic etching works. Looking closely at everyday life objects and random sights of his native surroundings, the printmaker and illustrator from Saitama, Japan combines a dainty yet sharp technique with ambient shading and colouration.

The Cloud

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Thunder and Lightning. In a room. Yeah right! ‘The Cloud is an interactive lamp and speaker system, designed to mimic a thundercloud in both appearance and entertainment. Using motion sensors the cloud detects a user’s presence and creates a unique lightning and thunder show dictated by their movement. The system features a powerful speaker system from which the user can stream music via any Bluetooth compatible device. Using color-changing lights the cloud is able to adapt to the desired lighting color and brightness. The cloud also has alternative modes such as a nightlight and music reactive mode.’ That’s how experimental product, lighting and furniture designer Richard Clarkson describes his fluffy creation. Pretty damn clever, if you ask me. Richardclarkson.com Facebook twitter