Lately I’ve been feeling nothing less than colorful & vibrant. The world is opening it’s doors down all the paths that I’m curious to explore, and I’m happily skipping down each one with wide eyes. I had some time today between edits to remind myself how much I love layering in photoshop, and how much I love doing work that is purely for the art of enjoyment. For the last many years I’ve been working insanely long hours, and insanely hard for other people. Finally I have time to make art again, for myself.
This piece is inspired by one of my all time favorite design heros, Scott Hansen. It reminds me that as a designer, sometimes we don’t have to over-think our work down to every last detail. Sometimes if we just start having fun and doing what attracts us, you get the best results and are happier for it.
San Francisco in a four day glance:
Sunny, brisk, energetic, bellowing light, ocean, colored, gritty city hills, homeless, bold coffee, honey-fruit plates & tea lounges, wine & dinner talking to bartenders and travelers, solo wandering, cameras, old friends, dukatis in the street after ethiopian food, scooters in soma, fantastic fashion & tattoos, geekgasms at multimedia mezzanine show, amoeba, celebrity sightings, architecture, trolleys, parks, love, haight and art gallery hostels with barefoot patrons..
My trip recently fueled a new little video piece, and I wanted to share it here:
The Haight was breathing with gritty, hot, fantasies that day. It’s a nostalgic place full of history, fashion, and subtle unmentionables. Along the outskirts of dirty memories and coastlines that linger, someone is always willing to tell you stories over scotch in the evening, and put a flower in your hair as you undress the sunlight.
Mostly found footage collected from very many obscure locations, mixed with my textures & experiments.
The song is called Lust, by the Raveonettes.
Last Wednesday I attended and projected for the first time at an event called the Warper Party. It’s a group of people who aim to build a community connecting visual artists with electronic musicians and give everyone a fair chance at expressing and exploring that in a public space.
I started getting email from Warper after signing up on their mailing list at Burning Man’s NY Decompression party last year. They were announcing their monthly shows and looking for volunteers to help out, project, play music, give workshops, etc. I signed up to project visuals and got a time slot within a couple days. It all turned out to be such a great night, at a perfectly lounge-worthy venue. I had a super fun entourage of friends who came out to support, drink and help in case of disasters, and I met a whole crew of great folks, musicians that were interested in what I was doing, future collaborations and just a general good vibe overall which made the night so wonderful.
I was so inspired by the night that I strung together a bunch of my latest designs and put it to a piece of music. I’ll probably end up doing this regularly after my projection nights. Each are different, and I add new work each time I play. I’m already looking forward to projecting again because of how excellent my experience was last week. I never knew what a rush it could be for me. The next show is this Friday night at Seaside Tavern (formerly Jimmy Seaside) in Stamford. It will be my first time collaborating with my brother, who is the drummer of the band, Manyhose, who I’ll be visualizing for. Please come out if you’re a Stamford local! Should be a fun night. We go on late, 11:30pm. Hope to see you!
I love, love, love this graphic!! Having grown up with the idea of originality and uniqueness as a strong core value, I had a lot of trouble borrowing images to use in visual work, even though I’m a collage artist. I knew for VJing, the only way to get my start, was to develop a visual library. This is where I began collecting old movies and video clips that had elements of interest to me, whether it be in color, texture, or action. I’m slowly starting to realize what is stated in the graphic above makes a lot of sense to me, and that it does not negate the originality of the intended idea or the uniqueness of the person creating the work. While I do enjoy taking my own footage & photography, I also really love collecting elements from other sources and remixing them to new heights, almost as much..
Tonight I’m performing some live visual action at the Delancey in NY, Upstairs, 9-10PM for the 3rd Year Anniversary of the Warper Party! This will be my first experience with Warper, and I’m excited to say that I’m slowly starting to move from using just collected imagery, into using more of my own pieces.
My goal is to strike a more cinematic experience, with a designerly approach. I’m sick of all the techno typographic explosions, epileptic color choices and digital noise that hurts your eyes. The work has been flowing nonstop, and I’m really feeling more and more how this will become a permanent part of my future.
Nov 19, 2008 |
Design,
Experiments,
vj
This is a result of an experimental night spent with my mac pro. I cut the vocals out of the song and strung together a quick rough cut of all the designs that came out of me last night. The elements used are a combination of print work that I’ve done, footage I’ve shot, as well as found footage to add texture.
Song is by the Knife called Silent Shout.
