BITE Magazine Issue 06 | Noises

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Linus @ Elite Models

Photographed by Markus Rico Top by Karl by Karl Lagerfeld Mask by LTCH

Jorrit @ Republic Models

Photographed by Marco Van Rijt Top & Trousers by Astrid Anderson Beanie by American Apparel

Irina @ Elite Models

Photographed by Conan Thai Top by Daniella Kallmeyer Skirt by Beckett Fogg

Contributing Photographers

Nadirah Nazaraly Editor-in-Chief

Michael Brambila

Fashion & Art Director

Daniel Griffiths Features Editor

Brent Chua Conan Thai Grant Yoshino Jakob & Hannah Jay Schoen Lena C. Emery Marco Van Rijt Markus Rico Nicolas Coulomb Rafa Bodgar Robert Klebenow Sergio Mejia Zhi Wei

www.BITE-ZINE.com

Hanna @ Photogenics

Photographed by Grant Yoshino Dress by Thomas Wylde Necklace by Glynneth B

Contributing Artists Alexandre Plokhov Anthony Gerace Clemens Poloczek Steven Vainberg

Contributing Writers Ben Speak Deak Rostochil Erich Kessel Jr. Jason Judd Susan Walsh

Editors’ Letter The word NOISES is commonly associated with negative phenomena, be it disturbing sounds or unwelcoming transmissions, but we wanted to take a more receptive approach when naming the sixth issue of BITE Magazine.

Our main focus throughout the production of all issues is providing a platform for creatives and artists to interpret a given theme, thereby enabling them to articulate their aesthetic perspectives in different forms. From Alexandre Plokhov’s innovative menswear and Steven Vainberg’s exploration of ideology to Gonzalo Bénard’s intimate portraiture, this issue once again attests to the astonishing breadth of new ideas ingrained in our contemporary digitalculture.

We hope you enjoy it.

C o n t e n t s 8 Alexandre Plokhov Interview by Susan Walsh 14 Trace Photography by Jakob & Hannah 20 In The Absence of Light Photography by Conan Thai 28 Steven Vainberg Interview by Jason Judd 34 Heat Distraction Photography by Nicolas Coulomb 44 Still Light Photography by Robert Klebenow 50 A Thousand Tears Photography by Grant Yoshino 62 Clemens Polozcek Interview by Daniel Griffiths 66 Electric Bloom Photography Markus Rico 72 We Were Taught to Escape Photography by Brent Chua 84 100a Photography by Lena C. Emery

94 Gonzalo Bénard Profile by Deak Rostochil 100 Back on the Motorway Photography by Napolafar 108 Between Friends Photography by Ash Kingston 114 Breaking News Photography by Jay Schoen 122 10 Questions: Lescop Interview by Nadirah Nazaraly 124 Black/White Photography by Marco Van Rijt 132 Tritone Artwork by Anthony Gerace 136 Laughing Matter Text by Erich Kessel Jr. 140 Body Horror Text by Ben Speak 142 St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival Photography by Zhi Wei

Artwork by Anthony Gerace

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P l o k h o v

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Text by Susan Walsh

Alexandre Plokhov’s designs have a quiet power: austere, timeless, classic yet rebellious. The bespoke nature of his previous label Cloak (with fellow New York-based designer Robert Geller) endures with his own namesake, and matched with the business acumen acquired at the menswear division of Versace. Each stitch of Plokhov’s clothing is carefully considered and delivered in a nonchalant, effortless manner.

Throughout his varying label incarnations the Russian-born designer has been a cult figure, so I sat down with Alexandre in New York to speak with the man behind the following.

Photography by Sergio Mejia All Clothing by Alexandre Plokhov Model Nicola Wincenc @ Re:Quest

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After the closure of Cloak in 2007 you headed the menswear division of Versace, a label with a considerable different aesthetic to your own; how did your experience there affect your design aesthetic and outlook?

Versace is a more industrial set up [that] follows a rigid program. In a way, this really forced me to be more regimented and organized. It also brought me into contact with Italian factories as everything with Cloak was made in New York. It exposed me to über luxury where certain fabrics would normally only be available to custom suit-makers.

You returned independently at Paris Fashion Week during Fall 2011 to launch Alexandre Plokhov– Yes, we launched the label with a film directed by Douglas Keeve. I’ve known Dougie for a long time as he did the small movie Seamless [a CFDA-focused documentary] about the trials and tribulations of small designers working in New York. At that moment, I wasn’t ready to do a runway show so I that film was the perfect medium to re-launch the collection and show where I had moved since Cloak.

On the subject of film, what film would have loved to design for?

That’s a very unfair question! Gattaca [designed by renowned costume designer Colleen Atwood] was just done brilliantly with its Prada aesthetic.

The cliché answer would be Blade Runner but most of all I would have loved to have designed Le Samourai with Alain Delon and director JeanPierre Melville. It’s an iconic take on a trench coat [the trench in question was partly developed by Aquascutum]. It’s a good movie and a very stylish one – it’s from a time when men dressed correctly.

Does music hold a similar allure?

To what extent does music mark the

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backdrop of an Alexandre Plokhov collection?

Growing up music really influenced me. It is one of the few outlets where you can be alone and in your head, but I don’t approach clothing from direct musical influences. It’s subconscious. For AW13 we didn’t have a soundtrack; it’s usually always been [Siouxsie and] the Banshees and Sisters of Mercy but lately its been something different – more along the lines of Raime. I think it’s the industrial bleak electronic, dissonant stuff that I find myself drawn to. We usually have something that plays the entire season until Jo Jo [Asuncion, Director of Sales and PR] starts throwing shoes at me!

In the past you have mentioned a childhood fascination with staple items like jeans, and each collection seems to acknowledge the reinterpretation of classic garments. Do you feel that is a conscience decision?

Every season is a new take on a suit because I don’t want to make a normal suit, as it’s not something anybody needs. My take would be something different via fabric, cut or finish because there needs to be a reason beyond the need to clothe oneself. I would love to do a new take on jeans but it’s very difficult.

Menswear in New York is evolving with a lot of new labels emerging, but do you feel showing at New York Fashion Week can be a disadvantage considering the Eurocentric nature of menswear shows?

My life is here in New York; it is my homeland for better or worse. I don’t know about the state of New York menswear – there are interesting people but then there is the preppy aesthetic that never dies. I never understood the fascination, except when someone like Thom Browne did an amazing take on it. In Paris, menswear is not a dirty word so the thought isn’t making a plaid suit. There are people there who are trying to push the envelope and change the way men actually dress.

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A lot of menswear designers are creating womenswear collections consecutively; I know Alexandre Plokhov does select women’s’ pieces, do you ever see that growing beyond a capsule approach?

We’re a tiny company of three people, with me included. Yes definitely, in the future as long as the timing is right and I’ve found the right producer. I think I have some things to say in womenswear but not right now, so the label’s menswear will always have small sizes so girls can wear it.

Looking at SS13, the focus of this editorial highlights some explicit nods to feudal structures in the clothing – where does this fascination stem from?

Well, I’m Russian [laughs]. I like how [there] uniform defines your social strata, so I address the idea of the black/white clergy in this collection.

I have always been fascinated how people define themselves through clothes and religion is a more obvious example of that.

The jewellery also adds another dimension to the collection, can you tell me about your ongoing collaboration with Graham Tabor and Miguel Villalobos of 1-100?

Graham and Miguel are incredibly talented people. For the first collection we did together, they showed me images of rock formations and things like that, which I saw as very masculine. The challenge for men’s jewellery is that you don’t want it to look feminine, as that almost defeats the purpose. I go for the more tribal aspect of it as I don’t want it to look precious – and they really succeed in achieving that idea.

Finally, what is AP’s ethos as a design house?

I want to dress interesting people – that is the brand. People can make it their own, as I like to see how people interpret things, fuck it up and make it their own.

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T R A C E 14

Photography by Jakob And Hannah Styling by Christina Van Zon @ Nude Agency Hair & Make-Up by Aennikin Model Rosalie @ Izaio Models

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Jacket by Karlotta Wilde Overall by Ganni Shirt by 5 Preview Glasses by Mykita opposite page Shirt by Only T-Shirt by German Garments Cap by Vans

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Jacket by Vila

Blouse by Guess T-Shirt by Kuyichi

Earring by Maria Black

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Jacket by Tiger of Sweden Top by Karlotta Wilde Skirt by Kilian Kerner Panties by Issever Bahri Cap by Starstyling Necklace by Marina Melentieva Shoes by Cheap Monday

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Jacket by Mongrels in Common Leggings by Starstyling Blouse by Sack`s Bikini Top by Weekday Glasses by Mykita Jewelry by Vibe Harslof Shoes by Nelly

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Jacket by Karlotta Wilde Overall by Ganni Shirt by 5 Preview Glasses by Mykita opposite page Shirt by Only T-Shirt by German Garments Cap by Vans

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Photography by Conan Thai

Styling by Raul Guerrero Hair by Sean Mikel @ the Magnet Agency Makeup by Ingeborg @ Opus Beauty Model Irina Shipunova @ Elite Models Photography Assistant Chris Reade

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Shirts by Beckett Fogg Trousers by Mandy Coon

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Shirt by Beckett Fogg Trousers by Mandy Coon

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Dress by Priory of Ten

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Top by Daniella Kallmeyer Skirt by Beckett Fogg

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Vest by Lucia Cuba Shirt by Lucia Cuba Trousers by Mandy Coon Shoes by Alejandro Ingelmo

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Shirt by A.F. Vandevorst Dress by Mandy Coon Skirt (ground) by Siki Im

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Long Vest by Beckett Fogg Dress by Osklen

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S t e v e n Va i n b e r g Text by Jason Judd

‘Rock-and-roll, on the other hand, presumes that the four of us--as damaged and anti-social as we are--might possibly get it to-fucking-gether, man, and play this simple song. And play it right, okay? Just this once, in tune and on the beat. But we can’t. The song’s too simple, and we’re too complicated and too excited. We try like hell, but the guitars distort, the intonation bends, and the beat just moves, imperceptibly, against our formal expectations, whether we want it to or not. Just because we’re breathing, man. Thus, in the process of trying to play this very simple song together, we create this hurricane of noise, this infinitely complicated, fractal filigree of delicate distinctions.’

– Dave Hickey, Essays on Art and Democracy

Steven Vainberg was born and raised in Philadelphia, were he was heavily involved with the punk and hardcore scene. While performing as the front man for the hardcore band BRAINDEAD, Vainberg received his BFA in sculpture. After BRAINDEAD disbanded, Vainberg moved to Jerusalem, Israel, attending the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Learning.

He now resides in Chicago, IL, with an art practice that focuses on painting. Vainberg’s paintings dissect the relationships between personal identity, nationalism, and ideology through the use of abstraction, symbolism and visual lexicon.

Are you interested in painting through a methodology of language and semiotics?

Yes, to me art is language.

Everything has a code that needs to be decoded in order to gain any sort of information. Art has an effect, but after the initial reaction you are left with a kind of open wound that must be mended and reassembled. Directly exploring symbols and language through the creation of images has been a way to not only to understand the mechanics of making a symbol (which involves distilling and evolving shapes), but to also understand that process as being linguistic. To me, all painting flirts with ideas of transcendence but, in order to be able to achieve the

experience, one must be well versed in its lexicon. This information/ language today is readily available with access to the internet, and to not utilize this platform would be a negation of culture. Art is supposed to be a mirror/window to the world.

The mirror/window in 2013, at least in the developed world, is the screen—whether it is your TV, computer, or smartphone. There is a lateral spread of information delivered strictly as visual symbols because of Twitter, Tumblr, Wikipedia, and the like. Today reaching the sublime happens in an instant.

You say that the mirror/window in 2013 ‘is the screen, whether it is your TV, computer, or smartphone.’

This makes me think of Marshal McLuhan’s ‘The medium is the message’. If this is the case, why are you using painting instead of electronic or image-based media?

Good question. I am not just using painting, although I think its necessary to hold onto that element because a physical object’s presence. I want to remain grounded and exist physically with my work, yet I want to be present within the ethereal. I am currently thinking of other ways to deploy information especially with the use of the Internet. I keep a pretty consistent Tumblr page where I post pictures of my work, things that interest me (predominately art and writing), and the music I am listening to while I am in my

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studio and working. It becomes a kind of network of thoughts that form my ideas, the things that I believe in whether they are optimistic or cynical. Recently, as a little experiment, I made some GIF animations that I posted to my Tumblr page. I also believe its possible to disperse them via text message now with most smartphones and people can send and receive them. I have also been developing ideas for zines that are propagandistic in nature, kind of spreading all these stupid things that float around in my head. I am trying to kind of pair it down to appear less manic, but I want to make them available in a digital format as well as presenting the physical object of the zine itself.

Your paintings seem to create a type of ideology that is esoteric yet recognisable. Could you talk about this tension?

For the better part of 2010 I spent my time in a Jewish Studies program in Jerusalem, Israel. A lot of my time was spent studying

excerpts from the Talmud, and Chasidic Discourses, which led me to question contemporary theory. A number of esoteric conversations seemed to mirror one another, whether they were as lofty as discussing the idea of infinity, to the mundane aspects of ‘who pays the fine for the theft of an Ox while under the supervision of another’.

The most interesting idea to come of this study was the idea of releasing one’s ego. Transcending beyond human tendencies from ‘animalistic’ behavior, to overcoming ‘folly’, and to be able to truly care for someone without entitlement or expectation for a reward. In an interview with Mary Zournazi, titled ‘Joyful Revolt’, Julia Kristeva talks about ‘Esseulement’ or loosely translated as ‘At-onement,’ as in the ability to unify oneself, to constitute for oneself an autonomous space. This space is a form of solitude or an ability to be alone. If one is capable of achieving such a personal status, she then says one can truly care for another without expecting anything

Burden Over Triumph – opposite page BURDEN of HEIGHTS I

in return because they posses everything they already need. The act of making art also seems to be strictly a human behavior, and is a personal way for me to cultivate an autonomous space. With my work, I am aggressively striving towards pseudo political ideology, which tears itself apart within an aesthetic framework that mimics a type of totalitarian branding. This sort of reductive language of symbols is a way of arriving at something absolute and solitary that hints at something expansive.

What role does nationalism play in your paintings and does the idea of nationalism and ideology facilitate hanging the paintings as if they were flags?

Nationalism seems like a condition to me, one of time and space. It is a human need to feel affiliated with something. I was born to

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Russian-Jewish immigrants who were directly affected by a very aggressive nationalistic state. My parents weren’t proud Russians, but the idea of identity always seemed strong. Both of them emigrated from Russia in the 70s; my mother went to America and my father had moved to Israel. He had served in the Israeli Army and the sense of connection to Israel was of strong nationalism and affiliation to Israel. Then, the heightened sense of nationalism in America following 9/11 had its effect on me as well. Not just the rhetoric, but also the symbolic. How powerful everything looked post 9/11, all the flags and ephemera. Along with the previous question exploring this idea of nationalism I want to invoke a sensation of affiliation, whether it is to something or nothing. The colours, shapes and forms of are all tropes that I use to give an idea of power, much like nationalism.

I understand you spent some time studying in Jerusalem. How did that experience affect your work?

When I went to Israel I was in a bit of an existential crisis. I had recently quit a band that I had put a lot of time and energy into, and was ultimately left empty after that experience. I had been given an opportunity to study there. My parents’ Rabbi was able to get me a scholarship. I had nothing else going on, so I was able to go to Israel and spend a significant amount of time there with little to no cost. Previously, being a very secular individual and not keen on religion at all really, I had to tell myself to have an open mind and to kind of let myself go and

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embrace and try everything there.

It was ultimately one of the greatest and most humbling experiences of my life. My studies and experiences while there really shaped how I view a lot of things, and has subsequently leaked its way into a lot of the work I do. Also, at the time, like any good young artist I had bought ‘The Powers of Horror’, an essay by Julia Kristeva,

which discusses very Jewish ideas in relation to Christianity, along with her observations of [French author Louis-Ferdinand] Céline and his antiSemitism. These things made me ask a lot of questions about identity in relation to self, as far as personal ideas, beliefs, sense of spirituality, and the ‘other’.

The ‘other’ is an interesting idea— are you talking about a philosophical

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control of one’s own freedom through the awareness of another’s consciousness?

Exactly. Not just the grandiose idea that we are these infinitesimally small parts of a greater whole, but that we all kind of relate to each other on a sort of spiritual level. Not so much spiritual but on a wavelength that runs through everything consciously and subconsciously. That thing that is greater than our selves is the existence of others, and that we all have an equal part and ownership in the world. I don’t try to idealise this, but I believe it’s a concept of potential, which can be realised on some level.

Before you went to study in Jerusalem you were in a hardcore band call BRAINDEAD that toured extensively. Do these two different aspects of your life equally inform your work?

BRAINDEAD was something I started in undergrad, and when I graduated I pursued the band full-time. I was the front man and used the opportunity to write lyrics that expressed ideas that I always think about. Mind you, we were a hardcore/ punk band so it was very straightforward and all about having, and giving, a visceral experience—whether it was live or recorded. Going to a show or listening to a record is a type of religious ritual.

That being said my experience in Israel was an extension of my involvement in a ritualistic culture, much like punk rock, this was just another way of experiencing the world.

Your earlier work is influenced much more by punk/hardcore subculture.

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NO METAL / NO MEDAL

emotions. It signified a specific place in time.

You talk of the symbols that exist in subcultures like punk rock that use a similar aesthetic and visual lexicon.

How do these signifiers—such as Black Flag, The Germs, or Black Sabbath—exist when abstracted or recontextualised through painting?

When brought into the context of painting I was thinking a lot about Jasper Johns and how he was able to remove the subject of the paintings, reducing the symbols to almost nothing. The language becomes lost and is transformed into a formal investigation of a two-dimensional space. If one isn’t familiar with the meaning of these symbols they can only be seen as formal explorations.

If one is familiar with the visual language, what kind of life does this new image take on? In my painting BLACK/BLACK I took the font from BlackSabbath’s ‘Master of Reality’ record and the ever constant ‘BLACK’

from Black Flag’s logo and placed them together on a 6’ x 6’ ft unstretched canvas that I grommet and hung like a banner. The effect of the piece for someone who recognizes these symbols seemed to be instantaneous.

I posted the image on my Tumblr page, and it was reblogged hundreds of times and even reposted on Black Flags Facebook. Don’t ask me who runs their Facebook but it says it’s their official Facebook page, which I think is funny that a punk rock band even has a Facebook page, let alone a defunct band. I feel as if people not only recognized it but also understood the history of these images together and affiliated their own emotions with the relationship that I had created with the two. The word ‘Black’ in this case had nothing to do with what the word ‘Black’ actually means, as it is defined in a dictionary or its myriad ways of use in language to refer to objects or

Earlier you talked about the ‘lateral spread of information delivered strictly as visual symbols because of Twitter, Tumblr, Wikipedia, and the like’. Do you find some sort of ironic connection in your painting BLACK/BLACK being reblogged hundreds of times— now being experienced in the ‘mirror/window’ of the computer screen that you had described?

Absolutely. To be honest it was something that hadn’t crossed my mind much before I made the painting. I used the internet as a tool, but never thought it directly informed my work. After I decided to start my Tumblr and posted a photograph of the painting, it went ‘viral’ I guess in a matter of weeks, but only to people who understood the code, the language it seemed. So this kind of mirroring that happened where I returned information to the fold, and it spit it back out at me, was the moment I realised how important of a relationship that was for me, and has plagued my mind ever since.

Your No Metal / No Medal installation pushes the work towards a proposed ceremony. The installation seems to provide nationalistic posturing, acting as oppressive yet empty— could you expand on this, and are you interested in the work existing in a more relational manner, creating an atmosphere rather than singular objects?

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The Gesamtkunstwerk or ‘full work of art’ is all about the relational and relies on the spectacle. ThesSpectacle is a powerful emotional tool and has always been grounded in art.

Walter Benjamin said that ‘fascism is the aestheticizing of politics’, and nationalistic rhetoric is typically empty, grandiose, machismo gestures, and spectacles that combine all forms of visual and experiential stimulation.

The branding of a moment becomes easy when there is a sort of backdrop.

George W. Bush’s victory speech over Iraq aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln accompanied by a giant banner that said ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’ was such a spectacle and completely hollow. These spectacles are meant to avert the mind and display some sort power whether it is false or true; power is a state of mind. I want to make things that directly address the viewer in a space. I want to create things that appear to have meaning and beckon some sort of conversation between the work and the viewer. To peel back the veil and reveal the ‘real’ or the ‘trauma’ of these spectacles, and at the same time practice subverting or rather exploiting these tropes to deliver my own brand of rhetoric.

Since you have a background in hardcore music, do you see yourself ever introducing a sound or performative element in your work?

My work lately seems to be pointing me in that direction. Performance is sometimes problematic to me, as a lot of the substance in a performance ends up being completely lost with having spectators. The entertainment and viewers’ expectations can become distracting, becoming more about the

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audience’s reaction and not about the actual happening. When it comes to performance I am more interested in the ephemera or the documentation existing as the piece, like Carolee Schneeman in the early years of body art or Israeli-Polish artist Yael Bartana’s video works. Incorporating a sound element is something that is far more likely. I have had ideas recently to build my own speaker cabinets for videos and/or sound pieces to create an all-encompassing ethereal space. I want to achieve that ‘wall of sound’ effect. I want to give the audience a visceral experience by distorting the function of ‘the instrument’ and its mode of delivery to the degree that it becomes an abstracted and transcendent experience. I feel like the work needs to go in that fullfrontal direction, and that leads us back to having the works exist in a relational manner to one another.

Could you shed some light on your studio practice and environment?

Currently I am at SAIC [School of the Art Institute of Chicago] as a first-year painter. The community is diverse and, for a lack of a better word, awesome. It’s been an amazing opportunity to truly interact with artists working across the entire spectrum of ideas.

I’ve begun to explore collaborative projects and build an active community. Being in grad school forces me to work through ideas so quickly, that it

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almost ends up seeming like divine inspiration. I end up making a bunch of things I couldn’t care less about, but bits and pieces from these things bubble up to the surface and inform me in different and surprising ways.

Ultimately, I find those unintentional things that happen in the studio more interesting. At first, the ‘accidents’ are sources of frustration, but they bring me back to zero, the point of possibility.

What do you have planned for the year?

I have a show coming up on April 12th at Plaines Project for the ACRE Residency here in Chicago. As part of the residency, I am making collaborative work with Steven Frost, a recent graduate from SAIC who currently lives and works in Los Angeles. I plan on pushing some of the work towards more relational endeavors, starting with some zines and more performative modes of making work, where the studio becomes a sort of performance. It’s hard to pin down what to even expect from my self with it being my first year of graduate school. I just plan of moving forward and allowing each step to inform the next.

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H e a t Photography by Nicolas Coulomb

D i s t r a c t i o n Styling by Jean Paul Paula Hair by Chiao Shen Model Tom Middlehurst @ MGM Paris

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Jacket by Qasimi

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Jacket by Nike ­– opposite page Tank Top by Dsquared2

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Hoodie by Lacoste Trousers by From Britten – opposite page Shirt by From Britten

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Vest & Trousers by Acne ­– opposite page Shirt by From Britten

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Tank Top by Dsquared2 Trousers by Dirk Bikkemberg Shoes by Nike – opposite page Polo by Lacoste

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S t i l l L i g h t Photography by Robert Klebenow Styling by Masha Bolsakova Hair & Make-Up by Philipp Koch Verheyen Model Patrik Maisch @ Spin Assistance by Nele Deutsch & Judith Johns

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Sweater by Cheap Monday Trousers and Zip Hoody by Weekday – opposite page Shirt by Henrik Vibksov Fluffy bomber by Schuhtütehemd

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Total Look Stylist’s own – opposite page Hooded top Stylist’s own

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Fluffy bomber by Han Kjøbenhavn Straw cap by Henrik Vibskov Tee, Tank & Pants Stylist’s Own – opposite page Shirt by Henrik Vibksov

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T h o u s a n d T e a r s Photography by Grant Yoshino Styling by Todd Pearce Makeup by Anthony Nguyen Hair by Adriana Tesler Nails by Karsen Richardson Model Hanna @ Photogenics Assistance by Colin Bookout & Van Bedrosian

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Lace Coat by Rmine Bespoke White Leather Collar by Stockroom (feathers custom by Stylist)

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Broach by Glynneth B

Gown by Falguni & Shane Peacock

Headpiece by Steve David @ Exclusive Artist Management

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Gown by Victor Luna

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Collared Vest by Valerj Pobega

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Headpiece by Steve David @ Exclusive Artist Management

Gown by Falguni & Shane

Headpiece by Steve David @ Exclusive Artist Management

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Mask by Todd Pearce

Cape by Furne One

Top by Hernan Lander

Dress by Valerj Pobega

Ring by Chrome Hearts

Cape & Skirt by Michael Cinco Tiara by Glynneth B

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Mask by Todd Pearce

Necklace by Glynneth B

Dress by Ezra

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C l e m e n s P o l o c z e k Interview by Daniel Griffiths

Since its conception in 2010, iGNANT has become a must-read showcase for new photography, art, typography and design. The diverse works on the site share a considered approach to design and novel ex-

pression of ideas, which founder Clemens Poloczek and his small team find from the plethoric stream of internet information. We caught up with Clemens to discuss iGNANT’s beginning, development and future.

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Can you tell us a little bit about iGNANT and how it was conceived? What did you initially envision for the blog?

I always liked collecting different things like clothes, records and furniture but I didn’t know how to keep all the impressions that I found online. So I started a blog with my old DJ name iGNANT. The whole project was just for fun, but after two years I realised that a lot of people like what I like, so I started to work full-time on the blog. I had no vision at the beginning but today I want to establish iGNANT as a brand.

iGNANT has developed a distinctive aesthetic and branding; how have you kept true to this from an initial blog to a more multi-platform approach (on Tumblr, iGNANT app and so on)?

I get bored very quickly when I only work on one project that’s why I always try to develop new things for iGNANT like the app, a

clothing line or a book, which will come out in January 2014. I’m a big fan of minimal branding and I

really like the classic newspaper look with white background and serif fonts; that’s what I wanted to transfer to iGNANT.

By spanning the fields of photography, art, architecture and design, is there a particular impulse that leads to the selection of showcased works?

The visual aspect is very important

for me. So it’s mostly the first impulse - love at first sight. I always choose works that I personally like and I don’t care if artists, photographers and designers are famous or not.

Since July 2012 you have developed iGNANTravel which covers hotels, restaurants, stores and so on from across the globe; is this a new aspect of the blog to compliment the art features or a means of furthering how iGNANT engages with its diverse readership? iGNANT does not have a big editorial office where 10 people discuss what’s the next big move.

I was looking for possibilities to produce interesting stories for iGNANT and I like travelling – that’s all! We wrote a concept, sent it to some agencies, they liked it and iGNANTravel was born.

Your Instagram (@ignant) is one of our favourites as

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you manage to capture your everyday environment in such a characteristic way; how do you approach the notion of documenting and aestheticising your life?

There is no specific approach. I always capture what I like in my everyday environment. Maybe my feed is a little bit different because I don’t document my daily breakfast or self-portraits in front of the

mirror (with duck face of course)!

It is just the way I notice the things around me. Â Besides iGNANT you have been involved with a number of other creative web projects, how central of a role do you think online media will have in your future? Would you ever consider more traditional methods?

The spotlight is on online media

right now and it will be the centre of our lives in the future. The smartphone will be, or is already, the daily companion that manages everything for us: reading books and newspapers, booking flights, paying, watching movies...

Website: www.ignant.de Instagram: @ignant

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All by Christophe Lemaire

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UN SOIR PLACE DE LA BASTILLE

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the

It is a cold Sunday hide under my bed with future. If you are at peace, you are living in the torchlight and draw evening in Paris. The treethe present.” - Lao Tzu lined avenues and their from art history books, pavements are covered with snow.

Gonzalo Bénard sits in his modest flat, situated in a private courtyard atop a steep spiral of stairs in the ancient district of Le Marais.

He has just returned home and removes a worn, black skullcap from his head. He isn’t used to Parisian winters, and the current temperature is negative six degrees celsius. “Walking through boulevards for forty-five minutes in ten centimeters of snow,” he says, “is kind of a mix between skating and yoga just to keep my balance. I’m still in a defrost process.” The cold will take some getting used to. It is a far cry from his accustomed Mediterranean climate.

Gonzalo is from Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal and the oldest city in Western Europe.

He was born in 1969 into a conservative Catholic household.

Prophetically, his father took a passionate interest in all forms of art—he was the curator of Lisbon’s National Museum of Ancient Art and a part-time photographer, capturing on camera the most sacred artworks of churches throughout the region. Always at his side was a youthful Gonzalo, closely watching and constantly learning. His father was the earliest inspiration

for everything that happened since. “He was always proud to show me his work and his world,” says Gonzalo. “I remember being challenged by him; when taking walks through the forests, we would carve pieces of wood found along the way, or once at home we would draw everything in sight in a competitive game between the two of us. And when I was too proud of my work, he would say smiling, ‘Nah, you can do much better. Don’t be proud of that.’

Even if he was just as proud as I was, he reminded me that I could always do better.”

At the age of thirteen, Gonzalo obtained his first camera.

Photography was the route to selfexpression, he says, but became as pricy vocation for such an unemployed teenager.

Paints and pencils were less expensive than developing film, so he left photography for the time, but with no doubt that he would return to it in the future. “I was always drawing or writing. Both were very personal and intimate to me— they were my escape. I would spend all of the money I had on batteries for my torchlight, and at night after praying, when I was supposed to be sleeping, I would Text by Deak Rostochil All Photography by Gonzalo Bénard

practicing on Greek sculptures.

Painting, drawing and writing, I felt, were the fundamental base for me to become a creator.”

Gonzalo and I have decided to brave the cold. We walk a few blocks to Place de la Bastille, a giant roundabout straddling the fourth, eleventh, and twelfth arrondissements of Paris. A golden angel, August Dumont’s Génie de la Liberté, surveys the bustling square, spreading its wings at the top of the July Column. Along Rue de la Verrerie, we stop at a crowded brasserie with burgundy awnings, where Gonzalo tells me they make his favorite pizza. Seated half in, half out on the veranda warmed by heat lamps, we order two pints of Heineken and one pizza for each of us. Gonzalo reaches into his coat pocket and retrieves a small, antique tin decorated with an illustration of a dandy gentlemen smoking a cigarette. In it is a packet of fine-cut tobacco and rolling papers, and he assembles a cigarette for both of us. I ask him where he found himself after leaving home at the age of seventeen.

“At that time, and throughout my youth, I had deep existential doubts. I was studying at the best private

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school in Lisbon, ruled

by Jesuits, having a very conservative education from both the school and my parents. Nothing there made sense to me; the dogmas, God, the Bible, Heaven and Hell—were not for me at all. I read a book about a Jesuit who spent time in Tibet studying Buddhism and I felt that I understood it better than Catholicism, even if Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. I knew from a young age that I wanted to visit Tibet as the Jesuit in my book had done, but I had to continue studying and start working on my own.”

Once he finished school in Lisbon, Gonzalo worked for an auction house called Sotheby’s, restoring old photos, engravings and books. “I wanted to open a documentation center,” Gonzalo says, “so I proposed the idea to Lisbon’s main cultural center, Centro Cultural de Belém, and immediately they hired me to do it. I quickly became a workaholic, working eighteen hours and more a day. After three years of working as their editorial coordinator, I had a lot of money but no time to enjoy it. The president of the institution asked me to stay indefinitely, but I declined the offer. I wanted to enjoy life.”

The separation from Centro Cultural de Belém was the liberation Gonzalo had long

anticipated. With no real plan, he retreated at last to Tibet and found, perhaps by divinatory coincidence, a monastery school of art and philosophy hidden high in the mountains. He was accepted into the school and attended for three years, meanwhile preserving local temples and even teaching art and English classes. After returning to Portugal, Gonzalo knew that he couldn’t also return to the same way of living. “It took me much more time to adapt when I came back to Western civilization than it took me to adapt in Tibet.” He continued to work, and with so many of his exhibitions taking place in Spain, he made the decision to move to Barcelona.

As we sip soberly at our pale ale and eat our pizzas, mine topped with eggplant and his with a smathering of tuna,

Gonzalo is candid about his vicissitudes: his triumphs, his difficulties and at times, his suffering.

He speaks freely and honestly; unfiltered.

He tells me of the motorbike accident that left him with a spine hernia during his last year in Barcelona.

At the time he was painting large scale and exhibiting his work worldwide.

“I bought a camera before the accident in order to take photos of my paintings to send to art galleries and overseas clients. Once I had the hernia, I had to stop painting large scale for six months during physiotherapy, but I couldn’t spend six months without doing something creative.

I really enjoyed painting large scale, and to go back to small size would be like going back underneath my bed with the torchlight; doing small things, trying not to get caught. I couldn’t go back to that feeling—I needed big. So I returned to photography, starting with self-portraits, which I thought would be the best way to express what I was feeling.”

The photographs at that time emanated a much darker, ominous tone, derived from a state of deep depression, often involving smoke as a representation of the soul. “But they were honest,” Gonzalo says. “I was emotionally unbalanced. I felt very caged in and physically restricted.” The confines of his somatic imprisonment only

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made him weaker. “I was so distressed with everything that was happening; not being able to create or live my life as I wanted. I was so tired of fighting against everything that my body decided to give up. I think it was me kind of testing my body to its limits; selfchallenging. My body stopped circulating blood; my stomach went dry and my brain was deprived of oxygen—everything stopped. I managed to make it to the hospital before I went into a coma. The doctors told me later that I was in a pre-coma for ten hours, which I remember very well. It was the most amazing experience, although a hard experience, with no concept of body—only the subconscious fighting with consciousness. You are levitating above a cliff—if you move one finger, you will fly and therefore survive, but if you move a different finger you will fall down and die. It took me ten hours to decide which finger I would move and what would happen if I did. Then I realized that I didn’t even know where my fingers were, because I didn’t have any concept of body. Even if I wanted to move the finger, I didn’t know how. So it was a crazy battle for ten hours, deciding to survive or not. In the end I thought, ‘I guess I need another chance.’ I gave up fighting, and that’s when I went into the coma.”

Gonzalo woke some

days later having lost most of his chronological memory. “A clean mind,” he says. The process of restoring his memory was like building a puzzle. “When you find the right piece, suddenly you have everything.” But the chronology was something lost that Gonzalo had no desire to go looking for.

With new perspective, the when and where no longer mattered.

Time, the sequential relations of events in indefinite and continuous duration, is a concept considered by many to be nothing more than a theory; a concept that society as a whole has plainly accepted. Essentially, there is no clock ticking outside the cosmos.

There is the past supporting the present which helps build the future. All of these are simply a collection of moments; moments with no time creating one singular,

major moment: life. “I needed more than a moment,” Gonzalo says. “I needed time to reconnect with real life.” He found a wooden house in the middle of a forest near the sea to take a sabbatical year, knowing that selffulfillment would come only once he had withdrawn himself from everything familiar and pursued on his own a sense of oneness with nature.

Earlier in his apartment, Gonzalo retrieved a long storage tube and unrolled in front of me a large sheet of thick, glossy paper, revealing a black and white selfportrait: an image of a floating head obscured by a curved bull’s horn from his series entitled Oneness, the culmination of his convalescence. Photography was the most vital aid to his recovery, as the realization that painting would always connect him to his past became clear. “I became obsessed with putting an end to my past or to what was still affecting me from it. In revisiting photography, I was subconsciously expressing the ‘now’ instead of the past, as I had done in my painting and drawings. The last paintings I did were an attempt to rid myself of the trauma and everything I carried with me from my past, and suddenly, photography became my present. I felt closer to myself. I stopped everything to listen, to feel and to live. I listened to the sheep

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bleating in the woods and crawled among them on all fours. I broke those boundaries to be in oneness.

Then something happened: one of them began to give birth beside me. I helped the mother and the baby, giving life to a new life.

Participating in life. And finally living it again.”

It was then that Gonzalo

became an observer. He didn’t miss the everyday interactions with people, he tells me, but rather the ability to study them.

He started social networking and meeting new people. “I wanted to understand people and society in the world, but at the same time I didn’t want to be a part of it yet.

I was completing the process of

forced to cancel his plans for the evening, feeling lost facing his own loneliness. Gonzalo had a proposal for him, and the project B Shot by a Stranger commenced, a play on words of the term “plan B.” “I couldn’t spy on apartment windows without being intrusive, but I could photograph volunteers—anonymous and

took his final, cathartic step: to return to Lisbon and request an apostasy from the bishop, essentially deleting him from the baptismal register. He was the first person ever in Portugal to ask for it, he says, and once the cardinal excommunicated him, the story was in every newspaper and television channel. Now an apostate, Gonzalo has officially abandoned Catholicism, yes, but despite the term’s pejorative connotations, he has by no means experienced a withering of faith.

“I received the final letter from the cardinal on my birthday,” he says, “which I found to be a rather symbolic coincidence. It was my re-birth. As I read the letter I expected something very medieval, waiting for threats of burning me with fire or something.

But I was very relieved; all of the trauma was released. I was no longer baptized, I was no longer Catholic. It was a very, very important time for me.”

The resurrected Gonzalo

Oneness, still on defense towards the world and full of questions. I needed to see other people, to understand them, but as a voyeur, safe in my own space.” Late one night, Gonzalo stood at his balcony, fixed opposite another apartment building across the street, staring like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock’s Rear Window at the people in their windows—lonely, living separate lives but somehow all part of each other’s, linked together in the same concrete block. “It was like a theatre. I was watching a play in its different acts. I always wanted to represent that somehow. With Oneness I had shot all of the animals I could, I shot all of the plants, I shot all of the self-portraits. I missed shooting people. I had been connecting with new friends through Skype, and I realized that I could take a shot of the screen.” The computer screen was a window, bringing Gonzalo to his new digital world, a reminder of the captivating view from his balcony. His friend was

mostly long-distance—to express the same feeling of loneliness.

Loneliness has been described as the illness of this century and I wanted to explore that. I wanted to portray vulnerability, nakedness, the unprotected being.” A study of the fragility of humankind.

And what did Gonzalo learn about himself through this study?

“As observers, paying attention to details, to human nature, we always end up learning new things. And in facing new things we have new reactions, some unexpected, and all of these experiences help to build our own personality.”

At the end of our meeting, Gonzalo and I walk across La Seine toward Hotel de Ville. There is a smell of freshly baked bread in the air and the streets are full of people hurrying home with long, unwrapped loaves under their arms. In the distance, Notre Dame is illuminated and looks as light as a dream on its stone

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island. Enveloped in the city, the street lamps’ reflection glittering in the water, I ask the now blatant question: Why Paris?

“Barcelona, well, Spain in general - I didn’t like. It’s a very superficial society and culture.

It’s the energy that I didn’t like.

Paris is different. What I love is that Paris has a cultural energy that just doesn’t exist in Barcelona or anywhere else. It’s an energy that makes me more focused; on photography, on writing—all of my projects. It is the only city where

I truly feel at home. Everywhere else I have lived, I was taking refuge at home and never going out. To feel home, I had to literally be at home. But here in Paris, I feel at home everywhere. I feel at home in the streets or walking by the river or going to parties. I feel so good here, it doesn’t matter if I’m at a stupid party or wherever I am. It’s completely different to feel the cultural identity. And it’s funny that it’s here that I’ve begun writing again, and more publicly.

When before, writing was private

and intimate, now the intimacy is public, because I’m comfortable.

I’m at peace.”

Gonzalo Bénard is an internationally acclaimed visual artist and photographer, based in Paris, with over forty exhibitions worldwide.

His work is lectured globally at several renowned universities.

The collective work of the series Oneness and B Shot by a Stranger is published in book form, available through his website, gbenard.com

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Shirt, Tie & Jacket by Dior Homme Shorts by Emporio Armani _ opposite page Total Look by Burberry

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Photography by Ash Kingston Styling by Abdul Adama Makeup by Natalie Bennett Modles Kitty & Sasha Attwood @ SELECT

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B R E A K I N G N E W S Photography by Jay Schoen Styling by Demetrio Baffa Trasci Amalfitani Di Crucoli Models Joel @ 2morrow Gabi & Caroline Stockholm @ Next Milan Makeup by Sara Del Re @ MKS-Milano Hair by Daniela Magginetti @ MKS-Milano Fashion Collaborator Serena Remorgida

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Gabi is wearing Shirt by Missoni

Necklace by Vivienne Westwood

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Caroline wears Coat by Edward Archour Paris Top by Persy

Skirt by Neil Barrett

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Gabi wears Jacket by Giuliano Fujiwara Dress by Just Cavalli Belt by Roberto Cavalli Joel wears Suit by Andrea Pompilio Shirt by Brooks Brothers Bow-tie by Eton

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Caroline wears Leather dress by Dirk Bikkembergs Belt Stylist’s own Joel wears Coat by Emporio Armani Sweater by Roberto Cavalli Trousers by Calvin Klein Collection

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Caroline wears Dress by Normaluisa Joel wears Knit top by Dirk Bikkembergs Trousers by Emporio Armani

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Gabi wears Dress by Normaluisa

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Q u e s t i o n s

L E S C O P Text by Nadirah Nazaraly Photography by Antoine Carlier

Full Name: Mathieu Lescop, 34 How old were you when you first started playing music?

I started playing music when I was seventeen years old.

Have you ever considered singing in English?

No, I’m French, I think in French, I fall in love in French, I insult people in French... so I sing in French.

Who were your major influences and have they changed over time?

At the time, I was a punk rock fan, especially English bands like The Damned, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Lou Reed and David Bowie fan plus all that glam stuff like T Rex or Roxy Music!

In which environments are you most productive?

I take notes in active environments, and then I finish the songs alone at home, watching movies, reading books, and cooking good foods in the evening!

I first discovered rock n’ roll with Eddie Cochran when I was five years old, that guy was so cool, I wanted him to be my big brother! With Jim Morrison, I learned that you can be a singer in a cool band and also a poet, just like Ian Curtis was. This was a boost for me because if you ask me, poets were pretty boring guys at that time.

You have an extremely distinct sound amidst all the rising acts of today. Could you share with us your creative/artistic process?

Firstly, I work on lyrics and sound separately. Then I see which lyrics will match with any sounds I’ve found on my looping pedal. So you have lyrics, you have music, find a good chorus and then you have a song. Then I go to Johnny Hostile’s studio in London, he destroys everything, we rebuild the whole thing, and that’s it!

Have you always studied music professionally or have you been formally educated in other subjects?

No my parents were hippie music fans. People like Joan Baez or Simon and Garfunkel so I thought that every professional musician were all hairy and boring people! I wanted to be an actor, a gangster or a pilot, the idea of being a singer came after.

How much has living in France influence your musical perspective?

France is the country of Arthur Rimbaud, François Truffaud, Jean Genet, Théophile Gautier, Jean Pierre Melville, Georges Guynemer and Charles Nungesser, they ‘re all heroes to me. Growing up as an artist in the same country has massively influenced me!

What motivates you as an artist and as a musician?

Trying to be a hero in a story that I’ve written, building my own mythology.

Do you think the youth today have something new to bring to the music industry or is everything produced recently a complete rehash of sound from the past?

I don’t care about that, I just DO. Do you have any advice for young musicians?

Never follow any advice!

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B l a c k Photography by Marco Van Rijt @ Eric Elenbaas Styling by Jeanpaul Paula Hair & Make-Up by Yokaw @ Angelique Hoorn Model Jorrit @ Republic Models Styling Assistance by Marine Becker & Margaux Dupont

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Jacket, Polo & Trousers by Lacoste Sunglasses by Krisvanassche Socks by American Apparel Shoes by Y-3

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Jacket, Shirt & Shoes by Krisvanassche Socks by American Apparel Cap by New Era

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Vest & Trousers by Komakino Cap by New Era

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Jacket by Baartmans and Siegel Shirt by Juun J Shorts by Qasimi

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Suit & Shoes by Versace Socks by American Apparel

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Shirt & Trousers by Dsquared2 Leather harness by Zana Bayne Shoes by Krisvanassche Socks by American Apparel

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Trench coat by Juun J Trousers by Sogzio Sunglasses by Krisvanassche

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T R I T O N E A n t h o n y

G e r a c e

I began making these tritone abstracts as a way of forcing myself to work quickly and furthering my collage practice: at the time of beginning them I’d been making rigorous and mathematical work for so long that I felt I could no longer show things that were free of a broader idea; that were human and raw.

Testing the limits of abstraction and finding humanity within it is one of the harder things to do in art, and these works are a commitment to trying—I want to show some element of life, even if it’s only the traces.

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L a u g h i n g Text by Erich Kessel Jr.

At Karl Lagerfeld’s March 2010 presentation for Chanel, a large rectangular veil was lifted to reveal a stage of glacial Scandinavian icebergs. This had not been the first of Lagerfeld’s theatrical exploits, lest you forget the massive concrete jacket from an Haute-Couture show 2008 or the store façade from Spring 2009. But it was certainly his most daring. Removing an iceberg from its habitat and transporting it using a fuel-burning ship remains puzzling.

Both actions are a swirling cocktail of media attention for environmental unfriendliness. Ecological concerns aside, Lagerfeld’s taste for extravagance was most notable for its irony and the effect on the current state of trends.

The Spring 2013 was, in a way, the product of the seasons that preceded it. Lagerfeld’s gold-lion statue and monochromatic Versailles garden set a physical and metaphorical stage for irony to appear in last season’s runway offerings. But where previous designers played irony in large-scale production, many of the most recent creators have infused details and accessories with humour.

Returning to Chanel provides a good starting place for tracking the sartorial hu-

mor of last season (or, if we go by store merchandise, this season). Fitting the Lagerfeld tradition, the set was made of two rows of gargantuan wind generators.

The message is immediate: a conflict between light and heavy, played out with a bit of snark. The light elements were arguably the collections most important; Stella Tennant’s see through pants, for example, are the culmi-

nation of the sheer trend of seasons past. Yet, Lagerfeld explodes the trend to the brink of unfeasibility. A seethrough blouse is one thing, but pants that are presented as practical daywear are on a different level. Transparentbrimmed hats paired Tennant’s ensemble, yet another testament to Lagerfeld’s attempts to flip practicality on its head. The most memorable moment of the show

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a

was the hula-hoop bag. The bag was large enough to fit a troupe of models into its circumference. The Chanel show pushed the bounds of appropriate and practical, in a way that, when ironic, seemed dangerous. The irony of the collection tested how far the Chanel customer would go to indulge in luxury.

Luxury was also Joseph Al-

t

t

tuzarra’s predilection during the New York shows. Like Lagerfeld, Altuzarra conveyed his message through subtle contrast; this time, however, this effect was achieved through a play a quiet tension between opulent South Asian tapestry and railroad stripe canvas.

Altuzarra’s striped cotton played the largest role in the collection, appearing on jackets, skirts, and tops. The

e

r

first look was an authoritative, precisely tailored coat-cum-cape in light blue cotton. In this piece lies a tongue-in-cheek view of irony as it relates to the interplay between the masculine and the feminine.

Womenswear, in Altuzarra’s runway moment, appropriated menswear to serve its own tendencies, turning traditionally baggy worker’s garb into an alluring look for day. Also at play is a jocose shifting of socioeconomic roles: appropriating a recognizable middle-class signifier for the whims of fashion smacks of Marie Antoinetteesque, privileged irony.

Altuzarra’s humour was pointed in the accuracy of the message it conveyed.

The success of his subtle comedy was presentation of the collection’s luxurious velveteen and silken pieces, which were twisted and swathed in seemingly organic ways. The fabrics used in the collection’s last three looks were cloying in their degree of richness. All featured what appeared to be a layering of twists and knots of Altuzarra’s heavily embroidered material. On one model, the wrap of fabulous green fabric appeared to be neck brace-like in its intensity. The tops were cut tight to the body in a stringent way; the overbearing degree of luxury related directly to

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Altuzarra’s seasonal taste for ironic conflict. In testing the bounds of luxury by juxtaposing it on the backdrop of workers’ wear, Altuzarra situated himself in the practice of Lagerfeld. Altuzarra, however, was more a quiet comedian than a boastful one. While Lagerfeld’s joke was apparent with a quick glance at a wind turbine, Altuzarra’s was intoned with the designer’s sense of nuance.

While Lagerfeld and Altuzarra attempted the ironic pun, the tone at Prada was cartoonish in its silhouettes and motifs. The forms were as two-dimensional as the floral prints that decorated them. The consistent threefourths sleeve length and short hemlines provided a layer of youth that was important in setting the collection 1960s-meets-anime mood. One of the collection’s important pieces was the fur-look sweater shown on Natasha Remarchuk. The repetitiveness of the childish flower print contributed to a sense of comic strip flatness, an effect similar to that achieve by the International Style artists of the early-Renaissance. The color combinations also supported this visual effect: white flowers on black duchesse satin and red embroidery on white coats. Where last season was about a level of

uniform sterility, Miuccia Prada’s technique of ironic cartoonishness was refreshingly simple.

Simplicity may have also been the aim of Céline’s Phoebe Philo. The designer,

by Spring 2013, had already established a reputation for minimalism and directness.

But one shouldn’t allow Philo’s reputation precede her.

The Céline woman has al-

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ways been a clearly defined individual, with a consistent array of accessories and a taste for tailored pants.

Philo’s most recent collection, however, signaled the designer’s desire to sophisticate her vision for the brand. Philo’s definition of sophistication was, befitting the season, an intellectually comedic look at luxury that manifested itself in accessories and small details. The

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Perhaps fraying was a technical proxy through which Philo could communicate a both lighthearted and serious message: that the Céline woman was going to change, and perhaps begin to throw a few more jokes into her everyday conversations. footwear was Philo’s strongest vehicle in conveying her new look. There were a lot of varying associations that onlookers drew in seeing Philo’s peculiar forms: shower shoes, grandma sandals, and house slippers were chief among the many comparisons. Indeed, what stands out most about the slippers was their addition of jarringly dyed fur on the base of minimal leather.

The contrast was intended to be humorous. Similar to Lagerfeld, Philo sought to push the bounds what appeared to be desirable. On fabrics, many of Philo’s uses of silk were marked by a subtle fraying technique on hemlines, which subverted our traditional understandings of the fabric’s use. Fraying, here, also maintained a metaphorical connotation: when a hem is frayed,

the individual fibers spread about, and the solidity of the original material becomes abstracted. Perhaps fraying was a technical proxy through which Philo could communicate a both lighthearted and serious message: that the Céline woman was going to change, and perhaps begin to throw a few more jokes into her everyday conversations.

Groucho Marx, a master of comedy, said it best: ‘humour is reason gone mad’.

Indeed, a shade of madness can be seen in the most recent collections. To an extent, designer’s attempts to violate boundaries imbue their humour with a level of darkness, as the consumer is ultimately subjected to fashion’s ever-changing tendencies. Undoubtedly, someone will buy the Chanel hula-hoop bag and the Céline drop-crotch trouser.

To be victimized by fashion can sometimes mean to be the end of the joke. Indeed, the fashions of last season were compelling and convincing, but they were also a device in advance of comedy. If you’re mad about it, blame it on the glacier.

Photos via VOGUE

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B o d y H o r r o r Text by Ben Speak

“I’ve often thought there should be beauty contests for the insides of bodies. You know, best spleen, most perfectly developed kidneys. Why don’t we have standards of beauty for the entire human body, inside and out?”

At the centre of director David Cronenberg’s works lies a keen awareness of the human body. On one end of the spectrum sits Crash, through which he explores human mortality and the fragility of our bodies. At the other end, there is Videodrome, where the human body becomes indistinguishable from the mechanical—man mixing with man-made.

Nestled between is Dead

Ringers (1988), by turns more overt and more subtle in its exploration of body. More overt in that the film centres on twin gynaecologists (played by Jeremy Irons), people whose profession is the examination of bodies; more subtle in its execution, almost without gore—something of a surprise for a director who made his name with the exploding heads of Scanners.

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Dead Ringers opens on nine-year-old twins Beverly and Elliot Mantle as they discuss sex.

Beverly seems uncomfortable with the idea, preferring the noncontact reproduction of fish, while Elliot seems more keen on the human process—going so far as to ask a neighbour if she will have sex with the twins in their bathtub. Cut to 13 years later, as the twins unveil their new, self-made surgical tools in a university tutorial.

Despite the initial disdain of their professor, the twins graduate as the academy’s darlings, the Mantle retractor ‘now the standard of the industry’.

Cut another 11 years: Beverly and Elliot now run their own successful practice.

The differences hinted at in exposition are now manifest, Elliot examines the patients, while Beverly runs the tests and conducts research.

The nuance with which Irons plays both parts is staggering. Even in still shots, something about the energy he brings to each of the dual roles— the way Irons holds his body or slightly turns his mouth—makes the distinction immediately clear. That is, until the appearance of Claire Niveau (played by Geneviève Bujold).

Fearing for Beverly and his increasing introversion, Elliot

assumes his brother’s identity and seduces the famed actress, in town for a shoot, so that Beverly may have someone other than his brother in his life. Claire is initially unaware that Beverly even has a brother, much less the double-cross that has taken place, and she embarks on a darkly sexual affair with the, only marginally, younger of the Mantle brothers.

Cronenberg renders their tryst in a startlingly surgical manner. Claire may be wearing a silk negligée on her first night with the now uninhibited Beverly, but it’s the rubber surgical ties around her wrist and steely medical clamps attaching them to the bedposts that dominate the scene. Cronenberg’s body awareness returns here to the fore, with one particular shot dominated by an alarmingly sinewy Irons moving over the lithe Bujold.

When Beverly releases Claire from her restraints, she collapses into him; her petite, silk-clad figure a stark contrast to his muscularity, an almostparody of the masculine/ feminine division.

Initially, it was Claire who came to Beverly for help, though their roles do reverse as Claire becomes a dispensary of sorts for the troubled doctor. It starts with a pill to help with a little difficulty

sleeping, but soon spirals into a delusional and complete dependency, with serious knock on effects for both Beverly and Elliot. Their surgical licenses are revoked after Beverly practically assaults a patient, and Elliot is forced to quarantine his brother in their apartment to help him through a withdrawal in which Beverly becomes increasingly removed from reality.

the entirety of Crash— but never so eerily or forebodingly.

“Well, Doc,” as Claire asks, “what’s the prognosis?” A slow build to a horrifying end. A form of foreboding over fright. Perhaps that is Dead Ringers’ strength; rather than showing the horror, Cronenberg allows the viewer to imagine the possible devastation caused by the deranged machinations of the younger Mantle.

A conviction develops within him that everyone else is in some way wrong, confiding in Claire that he believes Elliot to be an addict. Meanwhile, he enlists the help of a local metalwork artist to create what becomes one of the most enduring images of the film. Convinced that an increasing number of patients are ‘mutants’, Beverly has designed a series of arcane-, monstrous-looking devices to examine non-human bodies.

Skeletal and imposing, biomorphic yet somehow surgically precise, the mind boggles at what medical use Beverly could possibly have for them. These horrifying tools are perhaps the most essentially Cronenbergian aspect of the entire film. The intersection of human and machine is an element which comes into play in many of his early films—the pistol in Videodrome, the weaponry in eXistenZ,

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the right leading-man to play the two opposing sides of the Mantle coin. As much as Cronenberg aids the film with his expert eye, Dead Ringers is in essence a humanist horror that is led by its powerful and human performances.

Seeing Jeremy Irons weave so deftly between the two characters— bringing the brothers together at points and driving them so violently apart at others—is a true spectacle. It is this weaving that propels both the film and the fear.

As Beverly himself says, “Separation can be a terrifying thing.”

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S T

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J E R O M E ’ S

L A N E W A Y F E S T I VA L Photography by zhi wei

The sweltering heat of tropical Singapore did not deter thousands of music fans from flocking the scenic Gardens by the Bay in January. Two stages were set up against a majestic view of Singapore’s renowned cityscape, a shift from more isolated locations in previous years. The 12-hour long festival featured international acts from Tame Impala, Alt-J, Nicolas Jaar to Bat for Lashes; ending on a momentous note with a performance by Gotye. The potent combination of an enthusiastic crowd with unmatched finesse from the performers mark Laneway Festival SG as the pinnacle music event in the region.

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