ISSUE 21 founder ¦ editor-in-chief giuseppe russo
advertising & sales michael littlefield
editor sarah jayne fell
traffic manager hailey jade koch
designer katrien scott
interns caitlin bracken, lucy owen
music editor jon monsoon
south african distribution ezweni distribution
copy editor gustav swart
distribution assistant (durban) rachel basckin
assistant copy editor sarah claire picton
international distribution pineapple media ¦ www.pineapple-media.com
cover 01
photography tomaas www.tomaas.com @ robert bacall reps styling carla engler @ bryant bantry reps makeup fiona thatcher @ make up for ever hair seiji uehara post production elena levenets model lisette @ ford models
inside cover
photography stan kaplan styling justin jurd photography assistant stefan roets styling assistant bella hommel @ infidels makeup nikkila mann @ infidels hair caroline godfrey @ infidels models yrsa w @ 20 management, sean lester kovenc @ one small seed tv, mayra g @ 20 management location studio one 190 bree street
editorial contributors sarah jayne fell, jon monsoon, yusuf laher, sarah claire picton, batandwa alperstein, henda scott, rudi cronje & paul white as headline payoff, thomas okes, gary hartley, gustav swart, chryss joannou, naomi du plessis, girl banned, hailey jade koch photographers tomaas, michael meyersfeld, brian mccarty, leah hawker, stan kaplan, kope|figgins, max mogale, alison tu, chris stamatiou, allister charles christie, gerard de kock, jacobus lambrechts, renee frouws, guy standley, henk steyn special thanks shaun blompkamp @ one small seed productions, pietro russo, jimmy strats, howard simms @ hammer live, bruce wright @ mnemonic, rowan larkin, chris shelvey, mike walsh, jean scott @ publicist issue 20 corrections the cd review for the otherwise on p. 104 was written by yusuf laher editorial address: wembley square north, 3rd floor, mckenzie street, gardens, cape town tel: +27 (0) 21 461 6973 ¦ fax: +27 (0) 86 545 0371 email: contact@onesmallseed.com advertising sales mike@onesmallseed.com subscription I back issue enquiries sarah@onesmallseed.com ¦ www.onesmallseed/subscriptions2.htm publisher designed04 ©2010–11 ¦ december/january/february issue
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EDITOR’S letter Welcome to our future-retro issue! The theme has special importance as everything around us is designed to have a foot in the future and a heartbeat in the past – as is the case with one small seed. In addition to our traditional print format, one small seed is now available on iPod, iPhone and Android phones. Our magazine is now distributed from the smallest town in Namibia to the world’s biggest cities. one small seed has become a holistic brand that embraces the realm of pop culture through multiple platforms. Two in particular have grown exponentially in 2010 – onesmallseed.tv (online television) and onesmallseed.net (our creative networking site where you can share work with other creatives). As a brand, we believe in choice. Choice and quality. Communication and media is a process that evolves with incredible speed. Never has the media – or the individual – had so much choice or ease in reaching a global audience. More and more people are continually reading and writing – from blogs, reviews and comments to status updates and tweets. People share knowledge. And knowledge can only be acquired through study, research and experience. If we look at how many of us spend our lives behind computers surfing the internet, we will see that nowadays most knowledge increasingly comes from one place: online.
original from the copy and the genuine opinion-sharer from the storyteller. As in the past, it will be even trickier to split the real from the fake in the future. The driving force behind this is simply the increasing speed at which we swallow increasing volumes of information. So, dear reader, if a friend of yours sends you a YouTube video, perhaps of a band singing in a language you don’t understand, think twice before you habitually click that alltoo-familiar ‘Like’ button… to avoid adding to the trend towards popularity of utter mediocrity. From our side, we continually strive to deliver the quality you are looking for. To ensure we continue doing so in the future, please send us your feedback to contact@onesmallseed.com Giuseppe Russo founder | editor-in-chief
The World Wide Web gives you choices. Choices of what to read, how to read it, and how many different opinions to read on the same subject. We all know that creating your own opinion, enriched with several others, is the best thing that could happen to human beings (apart from sex). Unluckily it not always happens so. Sadly, we are a society of instant communication, instant decision-making and instant, well, everything. In many ways, we have lost the ability to appreciate the beauty in taking the time to read, listen or have a discussion that doesn’t involve commenting under an anonymous pseudonym. Very often if one blog, one site or one person shares particular content – interesting or not – it spreads across the internet at an incredible speed. Young bloggers, tweeters, video-makers and Facebookers with hundreds of followers ‘research’ their content by visiting a few bookmarked sites (that in turn do the same thing). What is really original anymore? I guess creating original, well-researched content just takes too much time. You can see how quickly this behaviour can lead to unilateral views on subjects, and how quickly something can become popular without any real reason. Sure, it is empowering and liberating that everybody can be, say and show what they feel as they please. But maybe, as readers and consumers, we should try a little harder to filter the ‘real’ from the ‘unreal’, the
hand-delivered one small seed merchandise nationwide via sms From this edition of one small seed, we’re offering our South African readers a fantastically convenient new service. Wherever you see the logo for Beep-to-Me, in this magazine or on any of our online platforms, it means that you can purchase the relevant item by SMSing a simple code to 39622, and have the item hand-delivered to you during office hours anywhere in South Africa.
This year, we embarked on a new decade. We had the nineties, then the ‘noughties’... but what do we call this one? This uncertainty is reminiscent of the debates at the start of the previous decade. Remember Y2K? It seems like forever ago. Looking to the future, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with uncertainty. Or wonder. Or excitement. After the anticlimax of the millennium, the subsequent decade seemed to take off like... a tractor. But the last few years have grown wings and it seems, finally, that we’re switching up a gear to take off into the future. The future is now – or so says Mike Walsh, author of my personal book-of-the-year for 2010, Futuretainment. Its subtitle, “Yesterday the world changed – now it’s your turn”, is an apt description of where we find ourselves today. (Look out for the fascinating interview with Mike on p. 53.) If you take this thought as the premise for this edition, The FutureRetro Issue, you’ll get an idea of what we’re trying to put a finger on here.
original as the one before (if not more so), without losing sight of where we’ve come from. So you’ll find all your favourite regulars (revived by the latest gems in the cornucopia of pop culture) augmented by features on the topics you’ve come to expect from one small seed – from art, design and music to fashion, architecture, lifestyle and more. There’s also plenty that’s new to these pages – just to keep things interesting. So there you have it: a veritable future-retro delight. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have and keep coming back to these pages for more. Our current designer, Katrien Scott, will be leaving us at the end of 2010. With this magazine, enjoy Kat’s last foray into one small seed designer madness! She’s been a huge part of the magazine you hold in your hands today, and will be missed. Look out for our next edition in March 2011, the Joburg issue. Signing off and getting to work on the next one! Sarah Jayne Fell editor
Literary theorists have long emphasised the importance of creating original forward-thinking work that also takes a page out of history’s book. It’s important to learn from what’s come before us in order to implement positive change in future work. So even if history allegedly repeats itself, when it does, something ought to have changed. We don’t keep regurgitating the same old thing; we create, we innovate and we remodel our own futures (and histories) in doing so. The people and work we feature in this edition do just that. From upcoming new artists on the block to veterans of their industries, each one is doing something pioneering through their chosen creative discourse. They are the epitome of the future-retro. We also take a step backwards to look at the innumerable influences behind the phenomenon of the future-retro, a concept that we’ve tried to define indirectly through this magazine’s content. Technology is a large aspect but it goes far beyond that, ultimately to people, the driving force behind our changing realities. Why do we do what we do? Why do we create the things we create? While difficult to answer, identifying the questions themselves is pertinent in garnering an understanding of this crazy thing called life. Running the risk of taking ourselves too seriously and getting weighed down with the gravity of the topic at hand, we’ve also kept a grasp on our sense of humour and had a little fun (while contemplating life, the universe and everything). This is my tenth magazine with one small seed but, as with each edition, we have striven to keep this one as interesting and
The process is simple: just complete your payment and personal details from your mobile phone the first time you make a purchase. Any subsequent purchase made from your phone will have your details stored. From December 2010 we have made the following available via Beep-to-Me: Our CDs reviewed (pp. 102–104), Picture This Print Edition 01 (p. 60) and a one small seed subscription package (p. 109). Details are on the respective pages. We hope to make even more available in future issues of one small seed.
26 FEATURE: MICHAEL MEYERSFELD
38 FEATURE: STARCHITECTURE
32 PROFILE: KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE
36 PROFILE: COARSE
43
66 PROFILE: C-MAX ROLLER DERBY LEAGUE
81 FASHION: RETRO ROGUE
74 MUSIC: HELLO (AGAIN) TECHNO
78 FEATURE: ARE YOU THE NEW BANKSY?
PROFILE: BRIAN MCCARTY
68 FASHION: CONVERSE: OPTIMISTIC REBELS
58 FEATURE: OLD SKOOL vs NU SKOOL
76 MUSIC: CORTINA WHIPLASH
90 FASHION: TOMAAS
98 MUSIC: DURAN DURAN
100 MUSIC: SPOEK MATHAMBO & MSHINI WAM
CONTENTS FEATURES:
PROFILES:
PHOTOGRAPHY
MICHAEL MEYERSFELD
MUSIC:
FUTURE-RETRO PORTRAITURE
26
KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE: ORDA
ELECTRONIC MUSIC
32
HELLO (AGAIN) TECHNO
74
The Johannesburg photographer’s trilogy Life Staged explores the intricate storytelling of life. GERMAN TOY DESIGNERS
COARSE: FUTURISTIC FRENEMIES
ARCHITECTURE
STARCHITECTURE
RETRO ROCK ‘N ROLL
36
CORTINA WHIPLASH
43
BATELEUR
76
38
We investigate the concept of the ‘Starchitect’ and its relation to iconic architecture around the world.
POST-TRIASSIC INSTRUMENTAL
AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER
BRIAN MCCARTY’S PLAYFUL THERAPY
EDITORIAL
97
EIGHTIES POP SURVIVALISTS
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE-RETRO 49 Introducing the Future-Retro issue. Plus all you need to know about the future and the retro.
LIFESTYLE: SPORT OR WAR?
C-MAX ROLLER DERBY LEAGUE
66
DURAN DURAN
98
AFRO-FUTURIST NEW MUSIC LIFESTYLE: THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MEDIA
TOMORROWLAND
53
one small seed interviews media guru and futurist Mike Walsh about how changes in media and technology are shaping our future.
SPOEK MATHAMBO & MSHINI WAM
FASHION:
100
‘SNEAKERBRAND’ CAMPAIGN
CONVERSE: OPTIMISTIC REBELS
68
LIFESTYLE: THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MEDIA
THE TELEVISION WILL BE REVOLUTIONISED. EVEN MORE.
54
URBAN LADIES’ WEAR
RETRO ROGUE
81
We suit up to bring you the lowdown of television, now and then. COVER FEATURE & INTERVIEW LIFESTYLE: THE CHANGING FACE OF THE MEDIA
MUSIC AND THE FUTURE
56
NY FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER TOMAAS: PLASTIC IS THE NEW BLACK
90
Music is less about the who than the how – for at least the next five minutes.
BAND FACE-OFF
OLD SKOOL vs NU SKOOL
58
Two South African bands: One from the future, the other the retro. Both right here in 2010.
DEPARTMENTS:
DID YOU KNOW?
POP FACTS: FUTURE vs RETRO
62
Our regular treat of byte-sized facts, looking into the future and back again.
STUDENT ART COMPETITION
ARE YOU THE NEW BANKSY?
78
one small seed and Learning Curve announce the winners of this creative challenge to South African art and design students.
IN STORE BOOK REVIEWS SELECTED CREATIVES CD REVIEWS DVD REVIEWS NOW SHOWING SUBSCRIPTIONS DIRECTORY THE LAST WORD
PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE
12 16 18 102 106 108 109 110 112
DEPARTMENTS: WORDS BY sarah jayne fell
IN STORE
SELL SOLAR COOLING CAP While far from being designer-chic, this one’s perfect for those long, lazy summer days lying on the beach, when all you wished for was... a cocktail? No, this is not Miami Beach. Perhaps just a solar-powered hat with built-in fan, to stop your mascara going emo-kid on you. www.tradekey.com
PERRIER 2010 DITA VON TEESE RANGE available from selected outlets and restaurants in Johannesburg and Cape Town www.perrierbydita.com
BUTAN WEAR SUMMER RANGE Born on the streets of Cape Town, Butan Wear is deeply entrenched in South African underground culture and urban lifestyle. It aims to promote MCs, producers, B-boys, turntablists, graff writers and skateboarders from all corners of Mzansi, and it’s now shifting up a gear to present its unique South African street style to a global audience. Check out their website for retail outlets throughout SA and online. www.butanwear.com
RVCA HENDRICKS FEDORA For those who love a good hat, this one’s custom designed by tattoo artist Tim Hendricks of Saltwater Tattoo in California. www.rvca.com
ZEF LEOPARD We love this t-shirt range by Cape Town kids Zef Leopard. Straight from the cool cats’ mouths: “Zef Leopard is not a Fiat, it’s a Ford. It’s not a bourbon, it’s a brandy. It’s not a GHD, it’s a curler. It’s not sushi or Juicy Lucy, it’s boerewors and PT-shorts. Created in the finest chop shops in South Africa by real spanner-swinging grease monkeys, Zef Leopard is slicker than Brylcreem and darker than Brian Mitchell’s snor.” Available from Baseline Studio, zefshop.com and Poppa Trunks. www.zefleopard.com
NIXON WATCH Nixon and Barneys’ 25th anniversary edition of ‘The Duke’ www.nixonnow.com
RAY-BAN SUNGLASSES John Lennon’s iconic round frames relaunched Luxottica (Ray-Ban) 021 486 6100
HTC DESIRE The HTC Desire is currently the best phone of its kind on the South African market. Quite a bold statement, but this one far outranks its fruitier competitors almost entirely based on software. See, running the Android operating system, version 2.2 ‘Froyo’ means this phone’s software capabilities are unlimited. It’s even bundled with Adobe Flash Lite 4. See what we mean? With built-in WiFi, this is the next best thing to a pocket PC. Hardware-wise, the phone has a speedy 1-GHz processer, a 5-MP auto-focus camera, and an impressive 3.7-inch screen boasting a Sony ‘Super LCD’ panel. It even has HD video recording and playback. This truly is the first real smartphone. Did we mention it’s sexy too? www.htc.com
DEPARTMENTS: WORDS BY sarah jayne fell
IN STORE
GRASSY LAWN CHARGING STATION This patch of potted grass is a clever little hiding place for all your cables when you’re charging your cellphone, digicam or any other portable device. A compartment conceals all the power adapters and cables, which plug into one standard extension cable below. Although the grass looks real, it’s not... so ensure you warn others around the house not to water it or they might get a nasty little shock! www.thinkgeek.com
FEIYUE ‘FE LO PETROL’ SNEAKERS available from A Store www.astoreisgood.com
PRADA POSTCARDS These perfect-for-summer cat-eye shades are available in colourways from Milan green and Los Angeles pink to London grey with orange lenses. Pictured here is the Lisbon matte black. Luxottica (Prada) 021 486 6100
PUMA ‘LE COOL CATS VÉLO’ BIKE Puma has collaborated with So Me (art director; designer of Ed Banger records) and Biomega to produce a super limited-edition (as in 50 in the world) bicycle for Colett. With 8-gear technology, easy-folding mechanism, built-in locking system and original graphics, this is your best ecofriendly travel option. The prototype is part of the permanent collection at the MoMA in New York City – so it has major hipster-cred too. www.astoreisgood.com
LIQUID IMAGE UNDERWATER DIGITAL CAMERA MASK One of the few swim masks to have a waterproof digital camera built in, this has the added benefit over other underwater cameras of keeping your hands free – to snorkel, swim, wade and explore while getting great shots or videos on its 5-MP camera. An LED inside the mask allows you to see mode information, and when you’re home just plug it into any USB port to download and edit. It has 16 MB of built-in memory, plus a microSD card slot for longer trips. www.liquidimageco.com
Nike Air Jordan Flight 9 Olympic Edition available from Shelflife www.shelflife.co.za
MINGO LAMBERTI SCI-FI RANGE “From a galaxy far, far away, Mingo Lamberti brings you the sci-fi range. Only 200 shirts throughout the universe there are. Look good in one you will.” We love the designs by Jordan Metcalf, Wes van Eeden and Dustin Slabber. www.mingolamberti.com
28 BLACK Energy drink 28 Black is the first on the market made from the açaí berry, a fruit whose global demand has accelerated over recent years due to its antioxidising properties. Other mythical factoids associated with the berry are its ability to reverse diabetes, enhance penis size, and improve men’s virility and attractiveness to women. The truth is that it’s the natural answer to taurine, and without that or synthetic flavourants, it’s the best-tasting buzz-in-a-can to date. Try 28 White for sugar-free. www.28drinks.com
DEPARTMENTS: WORDS BY SARAH JAYNE FELL
BOOK REVIEWS
Poem of the Pillow and Other Stories by Utamaro, Hokusai, Kuniyoshi and Other Artists of the Floating World by Gian Carlo Calza Phaidon
‘Pictures of the floating world’, or ukiyo-e, is a genre of Japanese woodcuts and paintings produced from the mid-17th century to the end of the 19th century. Poem of the Pillow is a beautifully illustrated collection of erotic art, or shunga, from this period, a genre that constitutes at least half of all ukiyo-e art, and boasts most of its masterpieces. Featuring such celebrated artists as Utamaro, Hokusai, Harunobu, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi and many others, over 350 vibrant artworks have been compiled in this large, hard-covered book by one of the world’s most respected specialists and scholars of Japanese art and culture. Organised chronologically with a detailed list of works, artist biographies and an extensive glossary, this is a comprehensive overview of traditional Japanese erotica – a captivating body of artwork and cultural artefacts well worth investigating.
Boarding House by Roger Ballen Phaidon
New York-born photographer Roger Ballen has lived in Johannesburg since his 20s in the 1970s, when he started off photographing small dorps of rural South Africa. His globally renowned work has since traversed the fields of documentary photography and fiction, presenting “a form of radical, disquieting subjectivism, a psychology of the world itself”. Boarding House is his eighth published book and the third by Phaidon. It features 75 dreamlike photographs, many devoid of a subject but all highly evocative of a story, always implicating a subject in their emotiveness. Each black-andwhite photograph reverberates with a degree of abstraction and ambiguity, and you’re left with a sense that you’ve just witnessed something rather dark, but can’t put your finger on what. Something tells me that this is exactly what Ballen is after. An intriguing collection, to say the least.
Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture: 10 Curators, 100 Contemporary Artists, 10 Sources curated by Elena Filipovic et al. Phaidon
The fifth addition to the Cream series, this one’s captioned “The most up-to-date global survey of today’s most significant emerging artists.” Its intriguing newspaper-style format (albeit with thicker paper and in full colour) makes for a wonderfully engaging experience and it’s hard not to pore over and physically touch each one of the 700odd images. The format is also a constant reminder of art’s potential ephemerality – making the news one minute and lining a bin the next. The ten artists extensively showcased here, from a variety of media, are ones deemed by these curators (harking from ten major cities) to show promise of standing the test of time, and also, in fact, of changing the future of contemporary art. Whether or not they accomplish this, Creamier is undeniably a vital art-lover’s resource.
books courtesy of phaidon | www.phaidon.com
Decade edited by Eamonn McCabe, with text by Terence McNamee Phaidon
A sequel to Phaidon’s award-winning Century (1999), this hefty hardcover is another trenchant collection of imagery, this time documenting the most momentous events of the last ten years in 500 photographs. Its scope falls into the ‘newsworthy’ and ranges from war, politics, science and religion to sport, celebrity, arts and culture. More than just a photography book, Decade serves as a memoir and chronological historical archive of our launch into the new millennium. It simultaneously evokes the forever-changed nature of photography, from an elitist artform to an activity engaged in by millions. Here, the first decade of the ‘citizen journalist’ and its profound implications are revealed, as incidents of unrivalled significance are witnessed over and again by the camera. Thought-provoking essays on the major categories covered, summaries of each decade, and explanations of each event serve as rich accompaniments to this fascinating volume.
Pop (abridged edition) edited by Mark Francis Phaidon
This large-scale paperback examines the rise of pop from the Beat era of the 1950s through to the swinging sixties’ counterculture movement. It features the artwork of the most important artists of the time, like Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and that of photographers, avant-garde filmmakers and architects whose influence was equally pervasive at the time, and as crucial in breaking the commercial-vs-fine art divide. Covering both American and European sides of the coin, logically subdivided into key time segments, and accompanied by a 24-page overarching writeup by the London-based curator, writer and director of Gagosian Gallery, Mark Francis, the extent of this book is broader than most overviews of the roots of pop, and a useful resource for art fundis and pop culturists alike.
Land and Environmental Art edited by Jeffrey Kastner Phaidon
Land and environmental artists are famed for having made the move from representing the land (e.g. in landscape painting) to making their mark directly on the environment. Famous examples include Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty’ of 1970 and Christo’s ‘Surrounded Islands’ (in which he surrounded 11 Miami islands with kilometres of pink fabric in 1983). Artworks like these and lesser-known ones, all particularly emblematic of the movement that emerged in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, are featured in this large softcover by Phaidon, in the same series as Pop. Other featured artists include Nancy Holt, Andy Goldsworthy, Dennis Oppenheim and Richard Long. Examples are illustrated with colour photographs, sketches and project notes, and the book is prefaced by New York art curator Brian Wallis.
www.onesmallseed.net
Selected Creatives
featuring the top creative members of one small seed network After the overwhelming feedback and success of the first two editions of Selected Creatives, one small seed is thrilled to introduce the third instalment of our nowregular feature. Selected Creatives is a true accomplishment for the one small seed brand in the symbiotic link it creates between our online network and our print magazine, something that is emblematic of the holistic nature of one small seed’s vision. Each day, the members of one small seed network enrich the site with beautiful, daring, engaging and eccentric aesthetic wonders. Paying tribute to this, Selected Creatives is a onesmallseed.net initiative showcasing the work of our top selected creative members – as determined by you. Each quarter we select ten of our creative contributors and collate a beautiful repertoire of images for each contender. Next, we run a voting poll online for you to select your favourite creative. Finally, the winners are featured right here in one small seed magazine.
With almost 5 000 members on one small seed network (and growing daily), the work being uploaded to our creative networking site is extraordinary. Because the platform would not be what it is today without the creative contributions of its members, we dedicate these pages to each active member of the site. For now, however, the limelight belongs to our newest league of Selected Creatives. Without further ado, we present our top four creative network members for the final quarter of 2010.
Gerhard de Kock
Gerhard de Kock is a 22-year-old student in his final year of photography at Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography. Gerhard aspires to move into the realm of editorial and non-commercial portraiture, remaining true to his distinct style of rich contrasts. His focus rests in portrait photography, where he is always in search of creating a new sense to his work. “This allows me to refrain from feeling as if I’m looking at the same image over and over again,” he explains. Showcased here,
Characters is the result of a year-long project based on the study of individual character. “Individual character is depicted through what object they carry or how the subject operates in front of the lens,” he elaborates. A crucial aspect of this collection is that not one portrait was planned or constructed. Each image was captured spontaneously during the subjects’ few minutes in front of the camera.
www.onesmallseed.net
Monde Patrick Goniwe is a 26-year-old illustrator who has lived in Port Elizabeth his entire life. Monde has loved drawing since he could hold a crayon, and art has since been his constant and the thing he loves most in life. Monde is currently finishing up his degree in printmaking and illustration at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and he hopes to complete by the end of 2010. Monde is a huge admirer of comics,
with manga and anime having the strongest influence in his art. He is a founding member of a group called The Four Blind Mice, which occasionally does mural work in PE. Along with plans to turn it into a company that deals in all forms of art, Monde’s long-term goal is to become an illustrator, animator and comicbook artist. A chaser of an endless dream, Monde is on a path to great things.
Monde Patrick Goniwe
www.onesmallseed.net
Meet Allister Christie: a videographer and photographer from South Africa’s ‘Sunshine City’, Durban. Allister has a certain Portuguese school friend to thank for starting his journey in photography, stealing him spool and sneaking him into the darkroom at breaktime. Allister studied videography from 2006 to 2008, hoping to get involved in advertising but finding it difficult to pursue anything creative during the recession. After sitting at home
without a job for six months, Allister broke his piggybank and decided to start taking pictures again, enrolling his friends as models and relocating all his household lamps. At this time, the world of DSLR cameras was alien to him. Allister tells us: “I guess my dream is to be a fashion photographer shooting editorials for magazines and to use my camera to travel the earth… Until then I will continue working freelance in videography and photography.”
Allister Charles Christie
www.onesmallseed.net
Born in Cape Town in 1987 and raised in Komga – a small town in the Eastern Cape – Andy Higgins has always been fascinated by popular culture. He is especially interested in fashion, changing trends and the perceived superficiality surrounding the industry. His illustration ‘Fall’ deals with these elements of transformation and, “almost like dying and being reborn, the artwork focuses on fashion’s death”. Andy believes that fashion reveals much about an individual’s personality and can create a variety of perceptions that attract or repel the viewer. His artwork ‘Mini Skirt’ pays tribute to this notion. Currently studying printmaking at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, he has thus far exhibited at The Basement Project, an initiative for emerging artists, and also forms part of an illustration group named The Four Blind Mice. On the subject of his creative love, Andy says: “I love drawing because my state of mind is so clearly captured in its action.”
andy higgins
FEATURE:
PHOTOGRAPHY 26
MICHAEL MEYERSFELD:
Life Staged explores the intricate storytelling of life and its stages as examined by Johannesburg photographer Michael Meyersfeld.
SARAH CLAIRE PICTON
From childhood escapes to faraway lands where pirates roam and princesses wait to be rescued to drug-fuelled, bat-infested rampages into the heart of the American dream – stories are part of who we are... stirring our insides, invoking intrigue and revisiting us at times we least expect. Stories are all around us – in a stranger’s eyes, a child’s laugh or stretching awkwardly along an abandoned wall. Perhaps some of the greatest stories are waiting to be discovered. We all have a story to tell; one that is unfinished... a story of a life in its stages. Meet Michael Meyersfeld: artist, photographer and storyteller. Born and raised in South Africa, Michael is internationally renowned for his commercial photography, recently receiving a Gold Award at the 2010 AOP Photographers’ Awards in the UK. With a reservoir of technical knowledge and life experience, this self-taught photographer has also become a highly respected and influential figure in the advertising industry. Michael’s roots in photography trace back to when he was six. A brown-haired boy, with magic eyes and a heart obtuse with endless possibilities… It all started with a Brownie camera and a cupboard under the stairs in his Joburg home. Behind those doors, Michael’s passion for light, composition, objects, perspectives and questions of truth was born. As if gazing through a prism, he observed the world from all angles, discovering beauty and flamboyance, tragedy and humour, in life’s many simplicities. Michael’s journey into the realm of photography began with a typical childlike honesty – an attribute that has remained with him and significantly influence his work. Michael reminisces: “At the start of my photographic career, for nearly 15 years, I only used a 35-mm camera (always on a tripod), black-andwhite film, and available light. The result was that I learnt to see. Maybe we need to go back to this.”
Michael Meyersfeld on ‘Woman Undone: Pissoir’ (2007-08)
“I found this location by accident whilst on another shoot and, when I began working on ‘Woman Undone’, realised it would be perfect for what became ‘Pissoir’. The overwhelming confidence of a Barbarella-type hyper-sexy woman pissing on a man’s turf was too good to miss. The model, under direction, exploited the male’s discomfort and the stylist exaggerated her aggressive sexuality. Add to that a somewhat puzzled, somewhat frightened janitor, with the space between them tense with empty urinals, and the story is taken into a surreal space; it all comes together.”
OPPOSITE PAGE (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): (2007-08) (2007-08) (2007-08) (2007-08) (2007-08) (2007-08)
‘Woman Undone: Pole Dancer’ ‘Woman Undone: Dance’ ‘Woman Undone: My Body’ ‘Woman Undone: Enough’ ‘Woman Undone: Board Member’ ‘Woman Undone: Permitted’
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‘12 Naked Men: Repentance’ (2005-06) ‘12 Naked Men: Mute’ (2005-06) ‘Guests at the Troyeville Hotel: Man Putting on Tefellin’ (2009-10) ‘Guests at the Troyeville Hotel: In the Pool Room’ (2009-10) ‘Guests at the Troyeville Hotel: Potchefstroom Family’ (2009-10)
Attributing an acute human element to his work, Michael’s life-long questioning is explicitly addressed in his latest exhibition, Life Staged. A trilogy that has been six years in the making, Life Staged is made up of three individual series: ‘12 Naked Men’, ‘Woman Undone’, and ‘Guests at the Troyeville Hotel’ respectively. All three series comprise 12 carefully structured black-and-white portraits, all provocative, hyperreal sculptured glimpses. “Intentionally ambiguous and inviting interpretation, each image forms part of a collective story,” explains Michael. Silently piercing long-standing stereotypes and ideologies that have become truths, Life Staged forces us to confront specific socio-cultural themes. Michael gives insight to some of the primary questions raised: “Firstly, what is the role of custom in conditioning? Secondly, does a woman in a male environment challenge, and, if so, why? And, is a multi-ethnic relationship a reason for contravening tradition?” Forming the first part of the trilogy, ‘12 Naked Men’ was first exhibited in November 2006 at Johannesburg’s new David Brown Fine Art Gallery and consists, as the title suggests, of 12 portraits of naked men. Dealing with “the conditioning of man”, they were shot in locations selected to most aptly tell Michael’s carefully conceived tale. ‘Woman Undone’ – Meyersfeld’s second part of the trilogy – deals with the changing role of women over the decades. Discourses of perception, stereotypes, repression and reinvention are addressed, creating an almost tangible tension. ‘Guests at the Troyeville Hotel’ is set around the theme of judgement and society’s attempt to make sense of it throughout history. Here, Michael simply highlights emblematic situations to raise questions on the topic without imposing any judgement of his own. In the past, present and future, humanity will remain the essence of a great story. Nothing is certain in this labyrinth of the unexpected filled with stories yet to be told and storytellers finding new ways to tell them. And perhaps that’s what life is all about… ambiguous and seemingly fictitious: a series of snapshots and chapters, and finding ourselves in those rare moments hidden between the lines. “I don’t think it ever stops,” muses Michael. “As much as one can learn about life each day… I like to think I learn through photography how to tell the stories that I still want to tell.”
What’s next for Michael Meyersfeld? “My upcoming project is entitled Urban Disquiet. This project will comprise a series of images of Johannesburg, the urban landscape, from mining town to modern-day metropolis. We glimpse love, danger, fun and nihilism that weave the tapestry of this society. Sometimes playground, sometimes battleground, there is a constant blurring between what is real, and what is perceived.”
‘Woman Undone: Girl with Baby on Bike’ (2007-08)
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Hoodra
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future-retro portraiture WORDS:
sarah jayne fell
Kilmany-Jo Liversage is part of the band of diverse young Cape Town artists working from the old Bijou Theatre art studios in Observatory, alongside names like Christopher Slack, Norman O’Flynn, Liza Grobler, Barbara Wildenboer and Chris Swift. Her latest series, Orda, is a collection of oversized, brightly coloured portraits symptomatic of the ‘traditional fine art-meets-contemporary street art’ approach of those who possess rigorous technical training liberated by exposure to the flair of urban street.
Kilmany-Jo Liversage was born and raised in Bloemfontein, South Africa’s ‘City of Roses’. Completing her Fine Art degree at the Free State Technikon, she moved to Cape Town in 1995 to pursue her career. She worked at a gallery and then taught high school art for eight years – an experience that inspired Orda. “I was fascinated with the messages that kids scratched onto desks, and my inner rebel returned. I also became interested in graffiti and how it spoke to the public in such an authentic way. I received a bursary to complete an artist residency in Colombia, South America. I was fascinated by the powerful images and messages the street artists were conveying in such a volatile country. I did a lot of largescale street art with aerosol sprays and fell in love with this spontaneous medium. I started using sprays on my canvases and it gave the touch of ‘urbanism’ that I was searching for in my art.” Kilmany’s street artist moniker in South America was ‘Orda’ – the name she would later adopt as the title of her first solo exhibition at Erdmann Contemporary in Cape Town in September 2010. She explains the name’s relevance: “I have always been drawn to an ‘ordered’ element in my art… be it in my mark-making in my paintings or my ribbon-constructed pieces. Orda was created as an association to this element. My inspiration for this show was using the style of graffiti-tagging to create large-scale portraits.” Kilmany’s subject matter draws on the millennialong tradition of portraiture, but is selected because it complements her preference for large-scale work – and because she feels her ‘tag’ style “connects with urban
identity”. Social networking also inspires her paintings; these portraits are the images of people’s Skype and Facebook profiles: the faces that they choose to show the world. No longer commissioning artists to memorialise their wealth and beauty in ornately framed oil-on-canvas, the rich and powerful of today require little more than a cellphone camera to immortalise their existence. Smiling, serene, poised or pouting headshots – these are the portraits of the new millennium. The difference in today’s age is that portraiture has become available to everyone. And Kilmany captures the essence of this fact in her ability to render the expression and emotion of her subjects so well. Her vivid use of colour, the energetic mark of the sprawling spraycan offset by precise underlying brushmarks and the massive scale of her canvas all contribute towards an image that is as iconic and constructed as advertising but as defiantly free and unhindered as an inner-city graffiti mural on an old wall. Kilmany also uses the innovative medium of ribbon on canvas, where individual streams are folded and pinned like pointillist brushstrokes or Ben Day dots. Largely sociopolitical in nature, these artworks focus on particularly South African social crises: the AIDS pandemic, child and woman abuse, drug addiction and crime. The ribbons evoke the coloured silk of awareness ribbons. Kilmany’s technique stems from her pragmatic approach to art and its ability to influence. She creates far more than social-awareness campaigns; her mastery of the ancient art of portraiture and her single-minded passion for what she does elevates her work to its own level of visual compulsion. Combining retro urban art styles with future-driven concepts, Kilmany captures a quality in her creations that she likes to call ‘visual funk’... and which we think fits perfectly into the future-retro. Kilmany-Jo Liversage is represented by Erdmann Contemporary www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za
PROFILE:
KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE 32
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Translia OPPOSITE PAGE (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT):
Infectalicious Orda Sugar Girl Spectra
PROFILE:
COARSE TOYS 36
WORDS:
gary hartley
Taking their cue from pop culture’s greatest rivalries: Batman vs The Joker, James Bond vs Goldfinger, Harry Potter vs You-Know-Who and the like, Coarse Toys have introduced another worthy of a Comic-Con dress-up: Noop vs Paw! German artists Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk form the company’s creative force and their astute formula has inhabited toy stores and art galleries around the world with their figurines. began in 2003 with founding artists Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk creating two characters to personify their ‘fiction brand’ of toys: Paw! – a futuristic rabbit/monkey hybrid who could be the bastard love child of a Predator and Bugs Bunny – and humanoid Noop – who disguises himself in a bunny suit to live unnoticed in the land of Paw! Their streamlined sculptures range from palm- to life-sized figurines, made from resin and/or fibreglass, and are hand-crafted and finished at the Coarse workshops located in Hamburg and Hong Kong. The figurines’ bi-continental birthplace is a meme also present in their design, as Coarse Toys’ characters incorporate a blend of Western and Eastern aesthetics. As Landwehr elaborates: “Eastern and Western character cultures are different in many ways. Characters and heroes in Asia are often the cutest, weakest links who manage to succeed by accident, luck or intuition. People in Asia like twisted characters, so even weird psychos can become really popular. The Western approach is classically more straightforward.” Particularly intriguing about Coarse Toys is the use of narrative throughout: fans witness the journey of Noop and Paw! from sworn enemies into futuristic ‘frenemies’ in a tale wrought with conflict and heightened emotion. “The narrative came naturally,” explains Landweher. “I’ve never been a fan of purely visual art; to me, art becomes art once a visual creation has depth. Maybe it's comparable to writing a book where sculptures illustrate the storyline, except the other way around.”
A 2010 example of their toy-story series, Glimpse of Truth solo exhibition at the Rotofugi Gallery in Chicago, for the first time saw the design duo showcase the full lifecycles of their protagonists – not only featuring their popular toys but also other art mediums including large-scale paintings and prints. Another of the more popular series is the aptly titled False Friends range where, according to the exhibition rationale, “the young Noop begins to mimic the appearance of his natural enemy, Paw!, a tactic to secure his own survival.” The series would later include the Blackout version where Noop “faces a strangely familiar being who bestows him with a deadly mission to rescue his own kind… He becomes a dark prophet bearing a heavy burden.” This ominous undercurrent gives the toys’ borderline-cute appearance an immediate charm, and bridges the divide between child’s play and designer toy. Half sculptures, half pop-culture icons, Landwehr and Waschk's creations blur the boundaries of high and low art: limitededition art toys that display comfortably in well-lit gallery vitrines or equally happily next to a Hannah Montana sticker book. But, of course, you can’t just pop into the nearest Toys‘R’Us to choose between team Noop and Paw! – the figurines are only available in select outlets in Europe, North America and Asia. For the rest of the world, there’s also the option of an online purchase at coarsehkg. com, but you’ll have to wait for the next instalment as the current Eyes of Fear range is already sold out. www.coarselife.com
FEATURE:
ARCHITECTURE 38
STARchitecture CHRYSS JOANNOU investigates the concept of the ‘Starchitect’ and its relation to iconic architecture over the last decade.
It used to be the case that public architecture allowed the inhabitants of a city to understand the context within which they found themselves. Well-known conventions defined the status and nature of a structure. The last few years, however, have seen the emergence of a new kind of architecture: one that is global, provocative and infamous. `Starchitects’, with their celebrity architecture, have been catapulted into the public eye by the media, resulting in iconic buildings that express the power of the image.
Architects in the past generally utilised a style that provided people with the information required to decode multiple meanings onto buildings that related not only to the programme of the building, but to a hierarchy of public worth. In religion-based societies, the church or temple was often the tallest and most ornate building in the most prominent setting, as seen in Gothic cathedrals and the pyramids of ancient Egypt. In the current age of the global village, public buildings no longer have the need to reference any particular ideology. Instead, in the words of Charles Jencks, American architectural theorist, landscape architect and designer: “The iconic building, when successful, puts architecture on a par with the best contemporary art to explore freely the possibilities of open-ended creativity.�
While iconic buildings may not necessarily reference a functional programme explicitly, they do acknowledge a social paradigm – the new religions of commerce and fame. Frank Gehry, architect of the New Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (1993-7), considers Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building (1978) the forerunner of the movement. It made the front pages of The New York Times, Time magazine and The Times, and Gehry credits it as the turning point in bringing public attention to a new kind of expressive architecture. Gehry’s own Guggenheim was designed to fulfil a monumental brief: he was asked to produce a ‘hit’ building that “would do for Bilbao what the Sydney Opera House did for Australia”. Considering that the Sydney Opera House attracted millions of visitors and that an entire country had to apologise to the architect for questioning his vision, this was no mean feat. The New Guggenheim easily fulfilled this target and has become the source of economic revival in the city. While the price tag of the building was $100 million dollars (according to Jencks, a lot of money for a museum), it’s a price worth paying for a rustbelt city setting out to reinvent itself. With three million visitors in three years travelling specifically to see the building, additional tax revenue for Bilboa amounted to more than $70 million dollars.
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Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain (1997) PAGE 39 (ANTICLOCKWISE FROM TOP):
Interior view of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain (1997) Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić’s Nationale-Nederlanden building, aka The Dancing House, in Prague, Czech Republic (1996) Philip Johnson and John Burgee’s AT&T Building (now the Sony Building) in Manhattan, New York THIS PAGE:
Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California (2003)
Technology, specifically the new techniques of visual representation, has compounded the issue of anaesthesia of imagery. The image has become so important in culture that society itself has become a spectacle. We have been reduced to observers seduced by the glamorous representation of our own lives as illustrated in the mediations of images, signs and commodities. As an ocularcentric society, photography, magazines and advertising have increased the power of the image, and thus a building seeking the acclaim of being an icon must be visually spectacular. More than that, it needs to get the public talking; and not necessarily in a positive light. In many cases, the more controversy the better: no publicity is bad publicity. Rem Koolhaus, the seemingly ever-angry architect, has become so recognisable from features on covers of high-profile publications that he’s received an offer from Hollywood to star as a killerfigure from the underworld. The reason for his anger? The pressures placed on a famous architect who has to design increasingly important buildings but must first be an icon in order to do so. As he says: “The idolatry of the market has drastically changed our legitimacy and status even though our status has never been higher... It is unbelievable what the market demands [from architecture]. It demands recognition, it demands difference and it demands iconographic qualities.”
There are those who view architecture as a tool for social reform, for expressing the condition of present society, and there are those who think of architecture as something comforting that protects. The public usually stands behind the traditionalists. However, for some, architecture is not necessarily about comfort but also about advancing society and its development. As French-Swiss–born, Paris and New York-based architect Bernard Tschumi says, the device of ‘shock’ may be an indispensable tool in this case. Architecture in the megalopolis may be more about finding unfamiliar solutions to problems than about the quieting, comforting solutions of the established community. To compete in a society in which everything is commodified and competing for attention, architects must not only create a functioning building but must extend the brand of the company within. Architects must forever bear in mind their tenuous appointment: “Etonnez-moi ou vamoose!” (Amaze me or you’re fired!). Part of the amazement is that, while the architect had better have an ingenious concept behind the work, it must remain openended enough so that every member of the public can individually interpret it. Design has progressed from the `explicit signs’ of post-modernism where a hot-dog stand was built as an oversized hot-dog: the hot-dog is a oneliner by comparison. Jencks’ enigmatic signifiers instead support a deeper meaning of the building. The signifier is a compressed striking shape similar to something and open to completion in the viewer’s mind. Iconic architecture is either venerated or vehemently opposed. As with any style, good examples showcase best qualities. T hese buildings are not two-dimensional images. They are realised projects that challenge dated notions of what a public building ought to be. Perhaps Jencks says it best: “The iconic building is simply better, more interesting, cooler, more convincingly built, more ecological, more inventive, more optical, and more iconic.”
ADVERTORIAL
MINI CONNECTED
Overnight the world of entertainment has changed. Forget prime time – media consumption has become a perpetual experience. What makes something authentic in the new world is not how it looks, but rather how connected it is to the underlying social fabric. In a word, ‘connect’ sums up the experience of modern living. It’s the payoff line for the new millennium. MINI has always been a forerunner in design trends. In 1999, the Mini was voted the second-most influential car of the 20th century. If that wasn’t good enough, MINI’s reinvention in 2001, under the expert hand of the BMW Group, opened the world’s eyes to just how iconic the brand really is, repositioning itself from the everyman’s minicar market and entering the realm of trend and aspiration while staying true to its strong racing heritage. Now, as we launch into the new decade, MINI once again takes the wheel to come head-to-head with the latest technology. Fully aware that connectivity is now an integral part of daily life, with MINI Connected, they’ve integrated the best of social media into their innovative car design. Using new technology specially developed for MINI, they’re bringing entertainment and online functions of your iPhone right into your car.
CONNECTING YOU WITH THE WORLD – AND YOU’RE IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT.
MINI Connected now allows you to access your favourite social media sites, infinite Web Radio stations and keeps you up-to-date with the latest online news straight from your car, opening the doors to a unique form of in-car entertainment.
The MINI Connected app is available for download free of charge straight from your iPhone’s App Store. To download the app, simply search directly for ‘MINI Connected’. The iPhone is easily connected to the MINI via the standard iPhone cable or the optional cradle situated in the centre armrest. The MINI joystick is used as the control, and content is displayed on the 6.5-inch LCD screen, integrated into the centre speedometer. MINI Connected has multidimensional functionality and is constantly developing new apps. Its current functions are as follows. Web radio enables you to receive countless radio stations from all over the world via the iPhone and to transfer them to your MINI. Search capabilities help you find your favourite station, music genre and more. By the end of 2010, expect additional apps such as Dynamic Music, in which music is modified by your driving dynamics to underline the dynamic driving impression in a positive way. MINI Connected’s news feature connects you to any desired RSS feed, displaying your selected news items on your car’s display, or being read out to you via the option of Voice Control through the speaker system. Finally, Faceboook and Twitter applications display the latest messages of all the people in your network. You can even send your own predefined Tweets from your car, directly to your followers. MINI Connected is your new best friend – ensuring that you’ll never be left out of the loop. With MINI Connected, MINI has geared up to face the future. Now it’s your turn. www2.mini.com/connectivity
PROFILE: INTERNATIONAL ARTIST
BRIAN McCARTY 43
When Brian McCarty sees a toy, he imagines the world it comes from and the story it has to tell. THOMAS OKES peeps behind the lens of this American artist and uncovers what his photographs can tell us about our own worlds and stories.
They’re Late (2005) - toy by Vinnie Fiorello
here’s something about toys – something urgently unreal, almost magically material – that puts us outside ourselves. Comfortingly absurd, familiarly out-of-place, they force our eyes inside out; watching them exist is an exercise in looking at ourselves, seeing past the plastic parody to a pricklier, poignant heart. Brian McCarty’s characters are spokespeople of this energy: eerie, affected aliens cast into real, representative roles, their pixels expose a world of truth told with such imaginative immediacy and their stories strike the psyche while we can’t look away.
Appropriately, telling the tales of his toys is a performance of experience, a muscle memorised from naïve ingenuity: as Brian says, learning to listen to the language of a plaything was “originally just another element of my play as a kid. It all started with a Kodak 110 camera and the desire to see my toys as I imagined them. The images were pretty unspectacular at first, but I knew what I wanted them to look like, and it motivated me to learn the craft behind photography. My style has evolved over a few decades. As I taught myself the basics through a lot of trial and error, my photos started looking more like I envisioned, and it became easier to bring the toys to life through the viewfinder. As I entered the awkward teen years, the role of toys changed in my life, from playthings to rigid subjects and on to purposeful surrogates. I acted out my teenage angst on a tabletop set, gaining perspective through plastic totems. In retrospect, I incorporated elements of play therapy into that early work. It was an evolution of what children universally and organically do through play: recreate the world in easier-to-swallow bites. It’s a mechanism for growth; how we as a species sort out who we are and how we fit into the world.”
The toy itself is its own individual, a personality to position with empathy and precision. Citing the documentary work of Bruce Davidson, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank and Charles Harbutt as primary influences, McCarty says he’s driven to recreate the stories he sees with the “vision and presence” that befits them. For instance, “an Art-Toy’s core character is defined by the artist who created it – it’s an expression of personal vision. I build on those intentions while letting the creations come to life, beginning with a story concept based upon observed or imagined character traits. For other work, the process changes to suit my conceptual goals. A good example is a new series that’s in the works: I’m using off-the-shelf, store-bought objects – whose only inherent identity is cultural, not artistic – as tools for expressing and coping with the horrors of war. For this project, the images will come about through interaction with traumatised children receiving psycho-social support from humanitarian organisations in the Middle East.”
It’s through this sort of vision that toys are allowed to furnish the eye’s mind with outlandish, honest originality – in giving them a stage, Brian has set them free to play their parts and act in their own stories: “The hardest part is resolving the shot I envision with what can actually be made. It often means using the shot idea as nothing more than a basis for exploration, and shift from building a scene in my mind to seeing what’s there. I’m not averse to using a computer to enhance or augment, but I want the photo grounded squarely in reality. It’s important to me that it remains a document of an actual moment imagined as it may be. My images are created through a personal process. It takes a lot to keep my frustrations in check, stay connected to the characters and live in the world I’ve manufactured in front of the lens. There is so much happening at one time that it’s impossible to work on a totally conscious level, so the goal is to reach a moment where I can simply let go and observe.”
Petit Lapin (2008) - toy by Mr Clement
FROM TOP LEFT, CLOCKWISE: YHWH (2009) - toy by Mark Ryden Koibito (2008) - toy by Yoskay Yamamoto Moon Wanderers (2009) - toy by Sergey Safonov Violet (2006) - toy by Kathy Olivas Lost Face (2009) - toy by Andrew Bell
The Meeting (2005) - toy by Vinnie Fiorello
Welcome to the Future-Retro! Fasten your seatbelts and polish your binoculars because we’re taking you on a whirlwind tour of all that’s future, retro and sometimes just plain future-retro in the world of popular culture. Derived from the word retrograde, implying a movement toward the past, and retrospective, referring to a nostalgic or critical eye backwards, ‘retro’ refers to the outdated and the aged – varying in connotation from ‘old-fashioned’ to ‘classic’ to ‘timeless’. The futuristic, on the other hand, naturally refers to a vision of days to come. Again, these range from positive to very negative – from speculation of man’s great technological advancements to our impending doom (often brought about by man’s great advance, and often in the form of an apocalypse). Our precise location on a timeline also changes the concepts of both ‘future’ and ‘retro’ quite dramatically because they are so time-dependant. As French poet and philosopher Paul Valéry famously said, “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.” What was considered futuristic in the sixties is now known as retro-futurism for that very reason – because that era’s concept of the future has since developed a glaringly vintage tarnish to our eyes. After the first moonlanding in 1969, people thought we would be holidaying on the moon in our spare time, perhaps even living on Mars with Martian neighbours, at least by the year 2000. But things past generations could not have predicted, like our move towards an increasingly ecologically aware mindset, have changed the direction of our priorities. We’re not as bent on conquering nature and covering every remaining patch of grass with concrete as past generations were, and other technological advancements like the internet and mobile communication have affected our everyday realities in ways that no-one ever expected.
A love of retro objects (things from the past) is called Retro art is a genre of pop art developed in the 1940s and retrophilia. ‘50s in response to a need for bold, eye-catching graphics that were easy to reproduce on simple presses available at Futurology is the study of postulating possible, probable the time in major centres. and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. Futurism is an early 20th-century movement predominantly based in Italy but also Russia, England and elsewhere. It Retro-futurism (adjective retro-futuristic or retro-future) is a covered all facets of art and involved an obsession with trend in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions speed, machinery, violence and the triumph of humanity of the future produced prior to about 1960. over nature. Post-WWII futurism toned itself down and redefined itself in the context of Space Age trends, the car Future Retro is the name of an electronic indie band based culture and a fascination with plastic. in the UK, a music blog series by one ‘DJ Dan’ and a company that builds analogue synthesisers. It’s also the Futurist meals, advocated by members of the Futurist virtual headspace your mind is occupying right now. movement, were based on the premise that ‘men think, dream and act according to what they eat and drink’. Afrofuturism is ‘an emergent literary and cultural aesthetic Regulations included no more pasta, absolute originality in that combines elements of sci-fi, historical fiction, fantasy, the food and harmony in table-setting, and use of perfume Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western to enhance the tasting experience. Some food on the table cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day would not be eaten but only experienced by the eyes and dilemmas of people of colour, but also to revise, interrogate, nose, and politics, poetry and music were forbidden. and re-examine the historical events of the past.’ Retro food includes classic (slash hackneyed) 1960s and ‘70s recipes like Chicken Supreme and Prawn Cocktail. TV dinners are also incredibly retro.
Futurist music of the early 20th century rejected tradition and introduced experimental sounds inspired by machinery. They were the first to synchronise machines with human players and to exploit the difference between what machines and humans can play.
Futuristic fashion, emerging on the runway as early as 1995 but becoming popular by 2008, plays on the nowhackneyed stereotypes of retro-futurism, and recycles them as elements into the creation of real-world clothing fashions.
Retro metal refers to bands like Wolfmother, The Sword, Jet and Buckcherry becoming very successful using methods of past bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Beatles and Pink Floyd.
Retrogaming is a pastime where individuals play video games on vintage computers or vintage game consoles.
Googie architecture, a subdivision of futurist architecture in Southern California from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, was characterised by Space Age designs that depict motion, such as boomerangs, flying saucers, atoms and parabolas, and free-form designs such as ‘soft’ parallelograms and the ubiquitous artist's palette motif. Retro style and ‘camp’ are closely related, both finding irony in relegating objects from the past in a kitsch manner. Camp was an anti-academic defence of popular culture in the 1960s and gained popularity in the 1980s with the widespread adoption of postmodern views. Typical of camp style is that of RuPaul, Bette Midler and drag queens.
Retro fashion typically includes items like ‘50s leather handbags, bell-bottom jeans, big sunglasses, fedoras, funky jackets (often Adidas Classics) and shoes, small neckties and chiffon scarves. Makeup includes heavily lined eyes and red lipstick and hairstyles were often up-styles like pompadours, ponytails and ducktails. Futurism influenced many other 20th-century art movements, including Art Deco and Surrealism. Futurism as a coherent, organised artistic movement is now extinct, having died out in 1944 with the death of its leader, Marinetti. Futurism was, like science fiction, overtaken by 'the future'. *Though to this day, Bill denies ever having said such a thing...
It’s funny looking back in time and seeing how very wrong – or right – people were about the future. And it will be interesting in decades to come to see how much – or little – has changed from now. Will we still be using petrol? Wires? Coal? Will we print on paper? Will post offices still exist? Record stores? Actual televisions? How much will be mobile, transferrable, disposable, instant, pirated, recycled or better yet... free? As they say (with good reason), only time will tell. So watch this space! In the meantime, here are some words of wisdom from those who got it wrong.
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927 “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962 “I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” Gary Cooper turning down role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939) “This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” Western Union internal memo, 1876 “I see little commercial potential for the internet for the next 10 years.” Bill Gates, 1994 “The concept is interesting… but to earn better than a ‘C’ the idea must be feasible.” Yale professor on conceptual paper that became FedEx “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Michael Dell on Apple, 1997 “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899
INSIDE SECTION SHOOT CREDITS: photography stan kaplan styling justin jurd photography assistant stefan roets styling assistant bella hommel @ infidels makeup nikkila mann @ infidels hair caroline godfrey @ infidels models yrsa w @ 20 management, sean lester kovenc @ one small seed tv, mayra g @ 20 management, hailey jade koch @ 20 managment location studio one 190 bree street
TOMORROWLAND
FEATURE:
COVER STORY 53
Hong Kong-based media guru, futurist, keynote speaker on the digital revolution and highly regarded author of Futuretainment, Mike Walsh talks to ONE SMALL SEED about the changing face of the media and its implications for the future. INTERVIEW:
ONE SMALL SEED: What for you is the biggest change that media has seen in the last few years? MIKE WALSH: The shift in power from producers to consumers. Distribution was once the domain of media moguls – you bought and sold newspapers, TV networks and radio stations in order to corner supply. But now there are two problems. Firstly, with the Web – mass media has become highly fragmented, allowing you now to access an infinite supply of content choices. Secondly, and more importantly – you can no longer buy people's attention. Audiences are in control of distribution. Media only becomes mass if it’s good enough for people to forward it on. And over the last 30 years? Without a doubt – digitisation. Once media went digital, it opened up the way for it to be liberated from its 'mediums'. What do you think is the biggest benefit technology has had on society? Networks have shaped our awareness of our interdependencies. At the heart of deeply evil societies is profound selfishness of a handful of people. The internet, mobile phones, and other communication devices make it obvious how connected we all are – as well as making it a lot harder for people to exert power based on the control of information. And the worst? Paradoxically, the same technologies that connect us can also alienate us. I think we are still at the early days of understanding the social consequences of technology-led withdrawal. We could develop as a society into social media sociopaths. Highly connected, but highly isolated. What implications do you think digital media has for print media? If digital media made one thing clear it is this: media companies need to stop thinking they are in the medium business. A newspaper is not a bundle of dead trees, a TV is not a broadcast receiver, a radio is not an iTunes playlist you can't control. Print will survive, but not in print. The future of the newspaper is as a content brand that lives in whatever format audiences desire – now and in the future. If they don't, they won't.
sarah jayne fell & jon monsoon
How has social media changed the game of advertising? To be a great marketer today you need to think like a virologist. Because, just like a virus, brand discovery and marketing content now only effectively spreads through people's own networks. If you were starting a media company today, what would you focus on? I think one of the most interesting media companies today is Demand Media – a company whose 'editor' is an algorithm that selects content based on the results of a supercomputer that scans the world for what people are searching for, and works out the content niches where there is money to be paid from advertising. How is a country like South Africa affected differently in terms of technological advances that impact directly on everyday life? I think for Africa, the key to understanding how the media revolution will play out is to focus on the emerging consumer trends around mobile. What are your thoughts on the trend of music as a loss leader, something purely used to sell other things (e.g. washing machines, hamburgers), not necessarily related? As a creative person, I don't like the idea of any piece of creative content being a loss leader to sell anything – especially not hamburgers! In the case of music, what we are seeing in the West is something that has been the case for many years in countries like China. Music is not the end product – it is the promotional platform. Musicians today cut deals with events companies (like Live Nation) because the economics of the music industry are shifting away from recorded media to merchandise, concerts and commercial endorsements. That's not necessarily a bad thing for tomorrow's new stars, but it may be for yesterday's acts trying to live off dwindling back catalogue sales. They should have securitised their earnings years ago like many of the smarter rock stars did! What are your thoughts on the format of vinyl versus CD versus mp3? I'm an analogue fan – in everything from music to photography. Digital is not an improvement of analogue – it’s just a different state of being. I think we will see a resurgence of all things analogue when people realise that it isn't a case of digital being better quality, but rather a different qualitative experience altogether.
The Television Will Be Revolutionised. Frank Lloyd Wright called television “chewing gum for the eyes”, and throughout the twentieth century, it remained the dumb younger sibling of theatre, film and literature – like an extra Baldwin who went into real estate. Hardly the source of epic moments of artistic grandeur or insights into the human condition, the ‘idiot box’ gave us easy laughs, simple solutions and conflicting feelings about toothpaste. GUSTAV SWART suits up to bring you the lowdown of television, now and then, and discovers that it is legend-ary.
Television was trapped in the dunce’s corner – by low expectations, format and context. Media is normally defined by how we approach it. You sit in respectful silence in a darkened room and endure any challenges a movie provides. In contrast, television competes with domestic cacophony and the ability to switch channels. This means each programme has to give you a happy pill every two minutes or risk losing your interest – followed swiftly by its Nielson ratings and, even more swiftly, advertising revenue. It’s unreasonable to expect ballet from a stripper, or deep characterisation and nuanced themes from 42-minute chunks of footage that appear on a public screen every seven days at set times. So we get the manic optimism and saccharine sentimentality of sitcom or the lurid sensationalism and vapid caricatures of scripted drama. Instead of Art, the networks gave us sophistry, catchphrases and pithy morality tales. Years of cars ramping over San Francisco’s hills and Mister Furley misreading Jack’s sexuality. To canned laughter. And then, just as the century was dying, Home Box Office released Oz and The Sopranos. These milestone series, the Iliad and the Odyssey of a medium whose time had come, demonstrated HBO’s commitment to bringing cinematic production values to the small screen –
values they sustained in classic dramas like The Wire, Six Feet Under, Deadwood and Rome or mini-series like Band of Brothers and Angels in America. Other networks adapted and critics’ favourites like Mad Men, Friday Night Lights and Arrested Development followed, while Showtime offered dissonance and perverse beauty in Weeds, Dexter and Californication. Even genres like sci-fi and horror got smart, as seen in cult hits like Firefly, Battlestar Gallactica, Supernatural and True Blood. Once you’ve followed the fevered twists of a Tony Soprano nightmare, a balcony conversation between Alan Shore and Denny Crane, or a Gregory House stratagem, you know that the new century’s television feels more like Art than the last’s. Matching theatre in terms of scripting and wit, it is also more cinematic in form – with evocative camerawork, iconic soundtracks and longer scenes. But the real shift is more profound, and kinda retro: the content is more literary. People once trumpeted the intellectual value of books over television because text had a monopoly on multi-dimensional characters, ambiguous themes or social comment. The generation that stopped reading looked around for a medium to think and feel about, and some networks filled the literature-shaped hole with shows that you can curl up with.
Even More. So the viewers changed and the shows changed, but explaining why blurs the lines between cause and effect. This new medium is driven by a revolution in the way we access it – and the technology that fuels it. The idea of watching a show at a predesignated time on an immobile object is so September tenth. We now choose what, when and where to watch – be it in the form of boxed DVD sets or digital formats. A tiny memory stick can carry the Collected Works of Aaron Sorkin to any platform, and you actually can curl up with a laptop or iPad. So we watch series in massive doses, immersing ourselves in the story as we used to be able to only with novels. This means writers can pursue complex narrative arcs that span entire seasons instead of wrapping proceedings up neatly into advert-laced pulp fiction. Characters develop past caricature, ethical questions are probed not prodded... the writers have the confidence to know that they can withhold that happy pill without losing their livelihoods. In the same way that a great movie can be rewatched or a fine novel reread in order to savour the deftness of its construction, this new television transcends the simple dynamics of ‘what happens next’ that made old television so disposable. P.J. O’Rourke said: “The only thing I like about television is its ephemerality.” But modern data storage encourages the hoarding, distribution and recycling of absurd volumes of material (often of dubious legality).
A project like Lost, for example, would not have been realistic under the archaic technological regime of the last century. The show represents a commitment to sustaining a six-year narrative of meticulous craftsmanship, a vast machine of tiny spinning parts that operate in perfect unison both on the screen and in the viewer’s mind. It needs the new tools to be read as much as watched: the ability to pause, rewind, Google things, refer backwards, confer with colleagues or play the Michael Drinking Game where you drink a shot every time Michael yells “Walt!” Marvin Minsky mused: “Imagine what it would be like if TV were actually good. It would be the end of everything we know.” Well the radical improvement in the artistic standards of home entertainment hasn’t been quite as cataclysmic as he suggests; in fact, it has gone largely unnoticed by those who still sneer at the shows they claim not to watch. Held back by luddite neuroses or a lack of familiarity with the new software, these snobs witness a barrage of old-school broadcasting, from game shows to reality TV to whatever the hell you call Laguna Beach... and think that television is still confined to the object in the corner of the living room. They’re missing out on a silent revolution in media that is ten years in the making and barely getting started: the integration of bleeding-edge communication technology with the creative maturity of the established artforms. The internet avenged the Radio Star and killed the television. Long live Television.
Music and The Future Music used to be simple. You form a band, write some songs, rehearse, play a few shows, get some fans, get some press... stardom and fortune one hit song away. Not so today. The music business (and the business of music) has evolved – changing more often in the last few years than Gaga has been Googled. JON MONSOON finds that music is less about the who than the how, and we can expect it to continue to be so. For at least the next five minutes.
Music is everywhere. It’s 24/7. You don’t leave home without it. But it’s not just music that’s changed – society has. More people are listening to more music than ever before. But maybe what they’re really looking for is not music but an experience, something to tell their friends about. And in order to do so, they are tuning in online and on the go. Mike Walsh, guru of consumer innovation and the digital future, tells us that “anyone born after 1994 has essentially grown up only knowing a world with the Web. For them, going online to find everything they need is as natural to them as what was, for the older generation, turning on a radio to hear music. It’s this generation (what Walsh calls ‘The Naturals’) that is largely driving the way music is made, distributed, sold and enjoyed. Technology is being developed by them and for them. What this also means is that people have more choices, and mainstream media – long the limiter of choice – is pissed. All signs will indicate that the ‘old guard’ (things like terrestrial radio or any of the so-called established media, including the major record labels themselves) has lost control and no longer holds any power over the hearts and minds of music lovers. And this is a very good thing.
Music fans are taking back the power, listening less to marketing messages and making up their own minds more. Everyone’s bullshit detectors are set to extra-sensitive. We increasingly hear the endless hype surrounding every new pop ‘band’ as nothing more than the raspy death rattle of a media market beyond help. By looking out, we are looking in, preferring to get our information from one another – from people in our circle, people like us, people we can trust – not some media channel with an agenda to push sales and inflate the bottom line. We have become our own social networks, filtering out anything that isn’t sent to us by our close and trusted friends, because anything else is just hype. So it's about word of mouth, and no amount spent on a publicity campaign will manufacture the kind of attention that will reward a band with a long-term career – all we require of them is that they be good at what they do: that they move us. Or we move on. In a world that allows us to reach each other instantly, it takes longer to reach everybody. Because we are so inured to hype, we simply don’t have the time to waste on anything that doesn’t pass our set of filters or those of the people close to us. Life is little more than a pileup on the highway: we slow down to stare, look ahead and drive on, instantly forgetting what we've seen. Contrary to mainstream advertising, it’s not about your skinny jeans and looking good. It's rather all about your message. And how you choose to deliver it is what we will remember. For bands trying to make it in the new era of music, it is harder than ever to be heard. It comes down to a question of quality. Being good is the best way to being famous, and the best new bands use the best new technology to help spread their gospel. Which is what the new technology is designed to do. See what Arcade Fire did with their new single and mashable music video? (No? Go to thewildernessdowntown.com.) Using HTML 5 and Google Chrome, they created a music video that’s geo-personalised to the address of where you grew up as a kid (you just enter the address to make it work). Not
the best song in the world, but memorable to everyone. Creating a unique, moving and personalised experience, will make you remember this music video and probably tell your friends –even if you don’t like the music. Everybody’s looking for an edge. It’s where we find it that matters most. In other words: fans are desperate for something better. But so few of us can find it. That is what music in the future is about: when we do find it, wherever it is, we are sure to tell everybody we know about it. We don’t do it because we feel entitled (unlike media – we’re not being paid to promote anything), but because it makes us feel good, because we want our opinions to matter. As humans, we find inspiring others imparts a sense of belonging in an era of anonymity (mainstream advertising favours a homogenous market that buys in bulk: if we all look the same, talk the same and like the same things, more of them can be sold). If we find a piece of music life-changing, we want to share the experience of joy with our closest friends. This way of thinking is making mainstream, onesize-fits-all marketing seem outdated – and endangered. So, whither music? It’s about renting. And streaming. And subscription. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently revealed the new Apple TV, he showed the world a glimpse of the future. The new device merely streams rented content from digital content providers (iTunes) or other computers. All content is drawn from online or locally connected sources in the understanding that people are less keen to store music than they are to access it immediately, so streaming is the way forward. A small monthly subscription gives you access to a world of content. Not so much about the music but about the means to experience it: the technology. In an era where mainstream radio is rubbish, MTV has dropped the ‘Music’ part of their name, and hype is just that... it looks like we're back to square one. We have more choices and better access to those choices than ever before. It’s a great time to fall in love with music.
What does a glam-sleaze hair band from Pretoria have in common with the latest Jozi/Cape Town electro-hop/glitch rap band? Not much. One is decidedly retro, turning out an oil-slick of rock ’n roll fresh out of the good ol’ eighties. The other cuts the creative edge, flaunting a sound that’s as much electro as it is hip-hop as it is rap as it is kwaito so phresh that it is phuture!
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PICTURE THIS PRINT EDITION 01
Picture This is the first publication created entirely by content of a social networking site. Starting as an online photography magazine in April 2009, each edition is made up of original photography by members of onesmallseed.net. To date, 12 online editions have been published. In September 2010, the first print edition was published in a limited printrun of 2 000 copies, making each one a highly sought-after collector’s item.
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By 2013, a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain. Predictions are that by 2049 a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species.
The term ‘weblog’ was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, ‘blog’, was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word ‘weblog’ into the phrase ‘we blog’ in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in 1999. By end 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 000 000 blogs. The world population is currently estimated to be 6 880 100 000 people. Current projections show the population expected to reach between 8 and 10.5 billion by the year 2050. The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist using technologies that haven’t been invented in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. On 7 March 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the first female to win Best Director at the Academy Awards, for her film The Hurt Locker. As of July 2010 Facebook has more than 500 million active users, about a 14th of the world’s population. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated in the world (between India and the United States) and have 10 times as many people as South Africa. The 2010 Coca-Cola Village in Israel brought Facebook’s ‘like’ function to life. With RFID bracelets (Radio Frequency Identification) containing their Facebook username and password, teens were able to put a digital ‘like’ on their choice of forty facilities in the camp, from the pool to the extreme activities and sport section, by connecting the bracelet on their arm with the object. It was automatically added to their Facebook profiles online. We are living in exponential times. There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, this number was 2.7 Billion. Who did we ask all these questions B.G.? (Before Google) In May 2001, US businessman and former aerospace engineer Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist, at a cost of $20 million. 5 more during the decade made the mission, but civilian space travel still remains prohibitively expensive.
The first commercial text message was sent in December of 1992. The number of SMSes sent and received every day now exceeds the total population of the planet. It’s estimated that 4 exabytes (one quintillion bytes, or 1018) of unique information will be generated this year. That’s more than the previous 5 000 years. The cult neo-noir film Blade Runner (1982) was voted by New Scientist readers as their all-time favourite science fiction film in October 2008. Kogi Korean BBQ is a fleet of fusion food trucks in Los Angeles, renowned for their use of internet technology. Never stationed at the same place, the 5 trucks tweet their upcoming location to their followers. By the time they arrive, people are waiting on the chosen street corner queuing up to buy their takeaway meal. The Los Angeles Times has explained the phenomenon: "The food at Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go, the taco vendor that has overtaken Los Angeles, does not fit into any known culinary category." The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years. For students starting a 4-year technical degree this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. On 27 September 2008, China made history by becoming the third nation (after the US and Russia) to independently complete a spacewalk. NTT Japan has successfully tested a fibre-optic cable that pushes 14 trillion bits per second down a single strand of fibre. That’s 2 660 CDs or 210 million phonecalls every second. It’s currently tripling every 6 months and is expected to continue to do so for the next 20 years. 1 in 8 couples married in the US in 2008 met online. In 2005, the world’s first internet addiction clinic was opened in Beijing to treat the malady of the new millennium: Web Addiction. In 2001, surgeons implanted the world’s first artificial human heart at Jewish Hospital in Kentucky. The heart is electrically powered and fully implantable, relying on no wires piercing the skin that raise the risk of infection. According to Internet World Stats, China is the
#1 internet-using country, with 425 million internet users out of the world total of almost 2 billion users. Second is the United States with 240 million. The continent of Asia is home to 42% of the world’s internet users, while Africa is home to only 5.6%. 3D TV has been a glimmer in the eye of television and movie studios since House of Wax and other 3D features first popped out at audiences in the 1950s. Finally, due for release in spring 2011, the Nintendo 3DS is bringing 3D technology into our homes. This next-gen upgrade to the popular DS handheld will sport sophisticated dual touchscreens, motion control, and – what you’ve been waiting for – autostereoscopic 3D. The word Google comes from the number googol – the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes, or 10100. So capable were the special affects team in Gladiator (2000) that a scene featuring actor Oliver Reed was completed after he died of a heart attack. During the last 5 minutes, 67 babies were born in the US, 274 babies were born in China, 395 babies were born in India and 694 000 songs were downloaded illegally. The US Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10 to 14 jobs by the age of 38. 2012 marks the legendary dawning of the Age of Aquarius, a term in popular culture that usually refers to the heyday of the hippie and New Age movements of the 1960s and ’70s. The Mayan calendar ends on 21 December 2012 and many believe this date marks the end of the world. On this day, the Sun will sit precisely on the heavenly crossroads between the Milky Way and the galactic equinox, forming a perfect alignment with the centre of the galaxy. Many predict that the Earth will collide with a passing planet or black hole on this day, while a New Age translation of the ‘2012 phenomenon’ is that this date marks a spiritual transformation into a new era. Astronomers and other scientists, however, have rejected the apocalyptic forecasts as pseudoscience. On 23 January 2009, Japan launched the first satellite dedicated to monitoring climate change. Nicknamed Ibuki, it’s observing the emissions of greenhouse gases over a 5-year period. In January 2006, Taiwanese scientists announced the birth of the world’s first glow-in-the-dark pigs. Adding DNA from fluorescent jellyfish to swine embryos, the research helped stem-cell research by allowing scientists to trace the transference of genetic material.
In 1939, Gone with the Wind broke the record for highest-grossing film of all time, bringing in $400 million worldwide. It held the record for 26 years. In January 2010, James Cameron broke the record with Avatar becoming the first film to gross more than $2 billion. The film finally settled at $2.7 billion in box-office sales. However, when adjusted for inflation (accounting for increased ticket prices), Guinness World Records and Entertainment Weekly both claim that Gone with the Wind is still the highest-grossing film of all time. From 1942 until the end of World War II, Oscars were made out of plaster to conserve metal. After the war, the winners received 'real' replacement statues. Many sailors used to wear gold earrings so that they could afford a proper burial when they died. First available for retail on 1 July 1979, the Walkman is an icon within global popular, emblematic of the freedom that portable music has allowed for the last 3 decades. Despite the obsolescence of the cassette tape, Sony continued to make the cassette-based Walkman until 23 October 2010. This finally saw the end of an era as the Walkman was officially taken off the market on 25 October 2010. The first hard drive available for the Apple II had a capacity of 5 megabytes. It's estimated that a week's worth of The New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century. The original Woodstock festival, billed as 'An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music', was held in the town of Bethel, New York, from 1518 August 1969. 32 acts, including Santana, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and Janis
Joplin, performed outdoors in front of 500 000 concertgoers. Listed among those who declined to play are The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Doors and Led Zeppelin - probably still kicking themselves to this day (or rolling in the grave) for missing this pivotal moment in pop culture history. In the 1990s more than 30 people were axed, hanged, burned and mobbed to death in the United States for practising witchcraft. Queen Victoria used marijuana to soothe menstrual pains.
An icon of retro, the Cadillac was made famous by Elvis Presley. The King of Pop's first Cadillac was a 1954 model that he resprayed pink. The car was destroyed in a roadside fire, and in July 1955 Elvis bought a second model in blue with a black roof. As a homage to the song 'Baby, Let's Play House' (in which Elvis mentions a pink Cadillac), he had this second car repainted a customised pink named Elvis Rose. The original pink Cadillac remains on permanent display at Graceland. The Chinese used marijuana as a remedy for dysentery.
Released in 1989, Tetris is the # 1 selling Game Boy video game of all time, selling 35 million copies. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best-selling PS2 game in history, selling 17.3 million copies. The top-selling Xbox 360 game is 2007's Halo 3, at only 1.8 million. 1982's Thriller by Michael Jackson still holds the record for best-selling album of all time, at 110 million copies. It's the only album to have broken the 50-million mark, followed by AC/DC's Back in Black (1980) at 49 million copies, and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973) at 45 million. The Beatles hold the record for best-selling artist, with a total certified sales of 246 million and a total claimed sales of 1 billion (in 'Paul at Fifty: Paul McCartney' in Time magazine). Elvis Presley is second highest at 191.6 million and Michael Jackson ranks third at 150.8 million. When Saigon fell, the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' being played on the radio. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a card-playing company. They made their first video game in 1978. In Queen Victoria's time, it was a crime to be a male homosexual. It was not a crime for women because (Queen Victoria said) "women would never do such a thing". Doors in London in the 18th century had up to 10 keyholes to confuse burglars.
PROFILE:
C-MAX ROLLER DERBY 66
AKE MILKSH DID D N A DAYS WHEN MMER R RINK. SO BANNED U S F SO LLE RL IMAGE H AT THE RO SPORT? GI P U E Y S HIRST ONJUR L CRU ATES C HIGH SCHOO E A BLOODT K S R ROLLE ITH YOUR IME BECOM ES... T W T DATES NOCENT PAS D INVESTIGA N N THIS I ER HELMET A H S DON
The 21st-century incarnation of Roller Derby is an American invention with leagues in more than 20 countries. This predominantly femalefronted sport is combination ode and ‘up-yours’ to textbook feminism, promoting camaraderie among women without an obnoxious pop song or smouldering C-cup in sight. In South Africa, two pioneering warmongers have spawned a fervently growing faction of followers baying for Derby blood. Melinda Lotz, aka Lucy-Ferr, and comrade-in-arms-on-wheels Ling found common ground on an American Roller Derby website and, shortly after, the Johannesburg C-Max Roller Derby League was born. “The league is perfect for girls who liked ripping the heads off their Barbie dolls!” Mel explains. Or, put another way, “C-Max offers women bored shitless and frustrated with an average existence the opportunity to let the Princess Valhala Hawkwind out and poes some bitches in the jaw (figuratively speaking, that is),” adds Ling.
The greatest challenge is introducing a predominantly unknown sport into a country notorious for its opposition to change. The fearless fighters describe their approach: “Because Roller Derby didn't exist in South Africa previously, we needed to create a foundation and a structure to guide the establishment of the teams. This allows everyone to play the same kind of Roller Derby and compete against each other and allows us to create stats on players and teams.” Through trial and (mostly) error, things have started taking shape and we are well on our way to having a bona fide SA league. “The mother of all leagues, the Texas Roller Derby League has taken an interest in us and has offered their support and advice to help us become vokken poes amazing!” breathes Mel excitedly. “We have a lot of interest in Cape Town and as soon as we're up and running, we’ll expand there and to KwaZulu-Natal. We’re in the process of finding a venue where Roller Derby bouts can be hosted and teams can practise. We plan to host our first official one around February 2011. For now, girls can just sign up by joining our Facebook page.” A series of two-minute bouts witnesses a display of brutal physical prowess with the aim of outscoring the opposition. Just because it’s rough doesn’t mean that a strict set of rules aren’t followed; the local Derby adopts the WFTDA (the Women's Flat Track Derby Association) rules. There are five members per team, consisting of the jammer (point-scorer), three blockers (defence/offence) and one pivot (last line of defence) with helmet-markings denoting each player’s position. As far as a ‘uniform’ goes, punk and rockabilly influences appear in the attire of the various leagues, with tattoos and piercings as essential as helmets and mouthguards. Derby names are adopted as alter-egos and often laced with provocative innuendos playing on recognisable celebrity or fictitious character names. “We have our own three cardinal rules,” Mel clarifies. “All skaters have to wear fishnet stockings; you have to have a bitchin' alter-ego, and you should have tattoos and/or piercings (excluding earrings and bellyrings).” Never going down without a fight, skaters wear their scars with pride. The audience will experience adrenalin rushes and macabre fascination, a lot like the irresistible urge to stare at nasty car-crash scenes. The ultimate thrill is the opportunity to sit in the Suicide Seats, mere metres from the track, where the chances of being part of an altercation are almost inevitable. If you seek an escape from the mundane or the means to let your primal urges reign terror, strap on some wheels and join the league. The ’90s boys had Fight Club and now the girls have C-Max Roller Derby League... And the first rule of Roller Derby is: Tell Everyone! Find their group and page on Facebook as ‘C-Max Roller Derby League’.
CONVERSE
OPTIMISTIC REBELS Celebration of the good, the bad and the rebellious Converse, the iconic sneakerbrand that adorns the feet of musicians, actors, and celebrities alike, pulled out all the stops with their innovative Optimistic Rebels campaign, aimed at discovering and showcasing the creative talents of young South Africans. The campaign is part of a global drive by Converse to engender and support creativity, which stems from the brand’s heritage of seeing things differently, loving people who want to change the world and celebrating the spirit of rebellion and originality. A rebellious spirit was instilled in the Converse brand from the very beginning, with founder Marquis Mills Converse defying convention and bypassing a rubber trust, which allowed him to bring his unique rubber shoes directly to retailers. Throughout the 20th century, Converse’s popularity continued to grow within a number of influential countercultures, including greasers in the ’50s, hippies in the ’60s and punk-rockers in the
’70s. By the ’80s, these legendary sneakers proved irresistible to a whole generation of rockers, skaters and rebellious souls, cementing Converse’s status as the brand for those who question the status quo and refuses to blindly follow the mainstream. Currently in its second century of production, Converse’s classic shoes continue to be a hit. In order to keep up with the trends of the times, these classic sneakers are available in their original form as well as a variety of new materials, prints, and special features. Although the original All Star remains the star of Converse, nowadays there is a vast selection of other styles, including the Chuck Taylor All Star, the Jack Purcell, the One Star and the Star Chevron. Whether you call them Cons, Connies, Convics, Convos or Verses, the fact remains that Converse is, and always will be, more than a shoe. It’s a statement of individuality, originality and rebellion.
ADVERTORIAL
MEET OUR CAMPAIGN AMBASSADORS In August, Converse introduced six talented ambassadors to grow and expand the Optimistic Rebels Campaign. Representing the different categories in which the Campaign aims to identify creative individuals (Art, Music and Dance, Comedy, Life and Learn) these inspiring individuals were tasked with engaging the youth and creating interest in the campaign, while showcasing their own talents in their respective fields. FABULOUS POETESS Thato Nhlapo
Thato started writing poetry at 14 and has grown significantly over the past seven years. Inspired by life in general, she applies her gift and love for words in a number of arenas, describing the challenges people face every day as individuals and as a country. MASTER GRAFFITI WRITER Dave Coxall
Dave, aka Curio One, does not consider himself a graffiti artist, preferring the term graffiti writer, which better describes his original use of lettering and colour combinations to make conscious statements in derelict places. BEATBOX KING Sipho Ludonga
Sipho is a singing, rapping, beat-boxing machine who brings a fresh, vocal percussionist twist to a set whether he performs solo or in a group. PARKOUR STUNTMAN Jacky Kwan Tai Ho
Named after the legendary Jackie Chan, Jacky is a professional stunt coordinator, who also uses his agility, body coordination and mindover-matter mentality to practise parkour, the art of movement that involves fluidly jumping, vaulting or climbing over obstacles without any external help. FUNNY MAN Phaswane ‘Pass’ Motshana
At only 22 years old, Phaswane is making waves as an up-and-coming comedic performer and actor. He developed his love for comedy from an early age, attending gigs with his comedian older brother. DANCER EXTRAORDINAIRE Thabiso Lekuba
Also known as ‘Mzansi’s Lord of the Dance’, Thabiso’s career flourished in 2008 after being named the 1st runner-up in South Africa’s very first season of So You Think You Can Dance. INSPIRED ARTIST Bonolo Ratshidi
After customising a friend’s pair of old Converse All Stars, the passionate Bonolo now paints whatever she likes, whenever she likes, on anything from sneakers and skateboards to walls and canvases. She starts out by sketching and creating designs to reflect a desired mood and then uses characters, fonts and colours to bring them to life.
MAGNIFICENT MUSOS Spitmunky
This three-man ‘electro-rap’ gang is a South African calypso of sounds, combining the unique talents of Liam Magner (DJ Veranda-Panda) on machines, beats and vocals; Jacobus Van Heerden (Benson 3000) on guitar, keys, vocals and percussion; and word artist DJ Ewok (Iain Robinson, aka Creamy Ewok Baggends) on lead vox. Incorporating genres from hip-hop and kwaito to drum ‘n bass they're turning heads all over the country. The talents of these amazing and inspiring Ambassadors were showcased through their awesome in-action videos on the website optmisticrebels.co.za and South African television stations throughout September and October 2010.
THREE CITIES, THREE PARTIES, ONE NIGHT Building on the success of the launch parties, and in order to give everyone the chance to experience the world of an Optimistic Rebel, on Saturday 18 September Converse hosted a three-city exclusive ‘underground’ party in partnership with 5FM, Channel O and Vuzu. The events were held in Johannesburg at Arts on Main, in Durban at The Wavehouse and in Cape Town at the old Bijou Theatre. The parties were by invitation only and guests (that included celebrities from the entertainment industry) were treated to topnotch performances by a jam-packed lineup of popular South
African disc jockeys. The Cape Town leg of the event hosted the acclaimed DJs Roger Goode, Shaun Duvet, Dean Fuel and DJ Lloyd; DJs Kent, Milkshake, Household Funk, Romz and Lloyd brought the house down in Johannesburg; and the Durban party featured DJs C-Live, Funky G, Coco-Loco and Cndo. In the spirit of Optimistic Rebellion, Converse took real-time partying to a whole new level. A live link enabled one DJ to play for three different crowds simultaneously at three different venues (in three different cities!) – creating an experience like no other.
ADVERTORIAL
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR PAINTING The Campaign continued to grow throughout the month of October, as Converse and Optimistic Rebels hosted a series of ‘Art Parties’. They offered participants the opportunity to share their iconoclastic ideas by leaving their positively disruptive mark on larger-than-life Converse Chuck Taylor replicas. Positioning the giant shoes at traditional youth hangouts such as carwashes, shisa nyama, cafés and restaurants over weekends, patrons were invited to engage with the Chuck Taylors by tagging them with their signatures. Participants stood to win great Converse prizes at the events and had an opportunity to be part of a team to create an artwork that would be converted into a mobile billboard.
CONVERSE COMEDY SESSIONS November 2010 saw the Comedy pillar of the Converse Optimistic Rebels campaign commence. Hosted by Converse Optimistic Rebel Ambassador ‘Pass’ Motshana, stand-up comedy sessions were held around Johannesburg. Once again, Converse prizes were up for grabs. Converse also sponsored the popular Comedy Minute on The Fresh Drive show on 5FM radio station, hosted by the much-loved DJ Fresh.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE In September 2010, Converse got students from all over the country involved with Optimistic Rebels through a series of Campus Activations, which included flash mobs, graffiti boards and campus radio stations encouraging students to participate. Converse placed Gigantic Converse Chuck Taylors at university campuses all across South Africa, with the aim of getting the Optimistic Rebels to express themselves creatively while creating a better place of the world. Converse asked young South Africans to express their views on social change and tag the shoes with causes that they were passionate about. The most commonly recurring would be chosen for activation.
The response was overwhelming, with over 2 500 students penning their thoughts on a wide range of issues. It surfaced that the cause closest to the hearts of these young South Africans is education. Consequently, the next leg of the Converse Optimistic Rebels Campaign for Social Change (Life and Learn) focussed on improving education in our country. In order to execute this cause, Converse enlisted the help of student volunteers who, together with media and social influencers, helped to improve conditions at various crèches and high schools in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.
ADVERTORIAL
The Converse Optimistic Rebels Campaign was launched with the goal of igniting a conversation among our country’s youth and discovering gifted young artists who epitomise the spirit of an optimistic rebel. The success of the Campaign’s parties, together with extensive coverage across all mainstream and social media platforms, has enabled Converse to unearth and celebrate some incredibly gifted young rebels, who have the potential to make South Africa one of the greatest countries in the world. www.optimisticrebels.co.za | www.converse.com
HELLO (AGAIN) TECHNO! Karl Marx said tha t history repeats itself, first as tra as farce. And it se gedy, second ems that humans ha ve an innate desir from the past - no e to recreate t to let sleeping be ats lie! What's happ now, and tomorrow, ening right will be retro and pa sse by the time yo reading this article. u've finished But don't be surpris ed if we write abou five years' time! Fo t it again in r now, however, joi n Jon Monsoon back... techno! as he welcomes Six Afrikaans white boy s in middle-class Bellville, Cape Town acc identally birthed a movement that popularised Afrikaans white boys sporting guitars and skinny jeans yelling about how much it sucks to be white and Afrikaans. In a parallel universe, 32 years ago and a mill ion miles away in another Belleville (this one in rural Detroit, Michigan), three black kids accidentally birthed a movement tha t popularised using synthesisers to make music to get fucked up and dance to. That schoolmates Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson would go on to transform what rock kids were dissing as mere 'dis co' into one of the biggest global mus ic industries ever seen, is a fact now bur ied deep in musical legend. Or, more specifi cally, beneath a gazillion DJ-mix compila tions, remix efforts, fashion casualties, nigh tclubs, raves, energy tonics, ephedrine overdoses and the fried synapses of an entire generation of techno day-glo party animals. "Techno is a mindset," believes Cape Town techno DJ Ivan Turanja nin, a major playa in the South African und erground music scene, erstwhile DJ and techno purist. "To understand the essenc e of techno, you have to have a respec t for the history of all music," he adds. "It allows for a conceptual understanding of all forms of music." But while party-p unters will while away the comedown deb ating whether or not we're ready for a return to techno, some might point out tha t electronic dance music has run out of goo d ideas... and as far as 'good ideas' in dance music go, the invention of techno was one of the best. So why not dig it up, dus t it off and dance to it?"Even your oldest music can be reinterpreted and upd ated, which is great because as much as we push things forward, everything in the past will remain relevant," adds Ivan. One other person punting the recrudescence of the genre is techno DJ/producer and originat or of the Hello Techno brand Brendon Geary (aka B Type) who marks the evolution of techno from its raw, '90s rave sound to something more
club-friendly these day s. "If you take a look at some of the wor ld's current top dance producers and DJs , they include a host of techno-specif ic artists," he says, pointing out that names like Umek, Sebastien Leger and Ada m Beyer have totally dethroned the Euro-trance and house acts that have hogged the world's DJ box for most of the past decade. "By definition - techno is abo ut technology. It's about being at the forefront of what's sonically capable." In the same way that techno made ten years ago sounds very different to the techno of today, it's just the technology that's improved. We're still up for a party. Others might claim tha t techno never really went away, it just went elsewhere, shuffling off to the upli fting psytrance scene or stripping off its weighty mainstream sheen to lan guish awhile in the minimalist fad (most pop ular in the cokefuelled, chic nu-club sce nes in places like Chicago, post-9/11 New York City and Berlin). Others still see the imminent return to techno as a sympto m of our age, a booming voice of univers al angst, nu-punk for the apocalypse. If the Mayans are right and the clock to our extinction is ticking down to 2012, we don't want to go out dancing to disco! In the meantime, where will South Africa feature on the techno map? Will we invent a techno-terrific offshoo t (zef-no, anyone?) or merely be content to spin the discs of others in our pursuit of dancefloor nirvana? "The SA techno scene is small but rapidly gaining pop ularity and growth," claims Brendon. "Thank s to a core group of artists pushing the scene, guys like the Killer Robot collec tive and DJs such as Craig Shacid, Dan Sco tt and veteran Warren Lissack, the tec hno scene here will play a huge part in the ongoing story of the electronic dance mov ement in SA.
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S L L A B h t i w c i s mu Small towns have a nasty habit of breeding larger-than-life characters. Perhaps it's their volatile combination of religion and rebellion. The unholy divide between church choirs and rock ’n roll. YUSUF LAHER discovered such a wild animal, holed up in Danville, Pretoria. Its name is Cortina Whiplash!
What car do you drive? was my aunty’s. Tessa: A Volkswagen Fox. It I found a burnt orange But era. Alm an Niss Loandi: A 000. I’d love to drive R10 for ille reyv Cortina in Dela a Cortina. so few women in the Why do you think there are local music scene? . As a kid, I always wanted Tessa: I honestly don't know so cool. And for the life of was it ght thou I r. guita to play e girls don't feel that way. mor why nd ersta me I can't und lot of women, especially A . thing de attitu Loandi: It’s an s… Flat tyre – phone and husb their to in SA, tend to look tever. You need a bit wha or dad your boyfriend or your rock ’n roll and not play and of balls and guts to go out be scared. kick? Any vices you’re trying to Tessa: Drinking. Loandi: Smoking. drummer feel left out? Last question: won’t your shy. Tessa: Not at all, she’s very Loandi: She doesn’t drive.
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ARE YOU THE NEW
BANKSY? ‘Are You the New Banksy?’ is the first creative collaboration between Learning Curve (Adobe Gold Partner in Education) and one small seed. This competition challenged students to create an iconic artwork that is fresh and relevant to contemporary South African popular culture. Like the work of Banksy, part of the competition brief required that entries include a message significant to today’s cultural, socio-political or economic climate.
Grafmom
‘Are You the New Banksy?’ was launched on onesmallseed.net in August 2010 and ran until 25 October 2010. The competition was open to South African students from the disciplines of illustration, design, photography, fashion and architecture, and aimed to identify emerging creative talent and create exposure for young South African artists. Drawing on connotations of Britain’s most wanted street artist, Bansky, whose work is synonymous with subversion, political activism, rebellion and freedom of speech, the competition’s goal was to challenge the way people think and to promote self-confidence and free thought – part of the founding ethos of both Learning Curve and one small seed. Learning Curve is Adobe’s Gold Partner in Education. It is their mission to simplify technology, empower educators and inspire students. Almost all career choices in the 21st century demand digital knowledge – from feature films to rocket science – which is why Learning Curve integrates technology into universities and colleges creatively, so that acquiring IT skills becomes a truly engaging experience. “Adobe has always put a premium on creativity and innovation, so getting involved with this competition makes perfect sense for us,” explains Tim Smith, Learning Curve’s Business Development Manager. Part of the prizes for winners of ‘Are You the New Banksy?’ are Adobe Design Premium packs, internships at renowned advertising and design agencies, exposure in one small seed magazine and magazine subscriptions – all of which are aimed to inspire and uplift young creative minds.
COMPETITION
WINNERS
For the first time, right here in one small seed issue 21, we are pleased to announce the winners of ‘Are You the New Banksy?’ competition. The top ten will all receive two-year subscriptions to one small seed magazine. The ten finalists are: Grafmom (UNISA, Johannesburg), Shaun Francis (University of Pretoria), Bergen Nielson (home-schooled), Inus Smuts (CPUT), Aimee Sawyer (CPUT), Inus Soutschka (CPUT), Anthony Chute (CPUT), Carlo Milandri (Stellenbosch University), Prashant Jivan (Greenside Design Centre) and Mia Hohls (AAA, Cape Town). Recognised here for their unique creative voice and first-class artistic execution, the top three winners’ work is showcased here, along with their prize of three Adobe Design Premium packs valued at R2 800 each. And the winners are: Bergen Nielsen | Grafmom | Inus Smuts The winners of the internships will be announced in the near future on onesmallseed.net. We would like to take this opportunity in thanking Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town, Joe Public and Draftfcb Durban’s design unit OCD for their sponsorship and support. Lastly, the education institution with the most students was Cape Peninsula University of Technology. CPUT will receive an ‘Are You the New Banksy’ competition plaque marking this achievement. www.onesmallseed.net | www.learningcurve.co.za
Bergen Nielsen
Inus Smuts
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
Shaun Francis Inus Soutschka Mia Hohls Anthony Chute Aimee Sawyer
West
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earrings, Black Coffee dress, Black Coffee coat, Black Coffee latex Gloves, passionfruit.co.za bangle, Woolworths sunglasses, Costume Hire earrings, Black Coffee coat, Black Coffee leather gloves, Black Coffee
latex crotchless panties, passionfruit.co.za leather blindfold, passionfruit.co.za faux-fur jacket, Costume Hire Pants, Triumph thigh-highs, stylists own (s/o) shoes, Woolworths
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jacket & skirt, David West handbag, Gliteratti stockings, s/o shoes, Luella dress, David West socks, s/o shoes, Luella blouse & skirt, David West gloves, s/o shoes, Luella
LEFT TO RIGHT
bra, s/o latex skirt, passionfruit.co.za earrings, model’s own bra, s/o suspender pants, s/o thigh-highs, s/o top, s/o pants, Triumph earrings, model’s own earrings, Glitterati shirt, Costume Hire bra, Elle Macpherson skirt, David West
blouse, Christopher Strong necklace, Glitterati bangle, Woolworths Belt, s/o bag, African Gameskin trousers, Costume Hire peak hat, Woolworths earrings, Glitterati blouse, Costume Hire bag, African Gameskin skirt, s/o
Plastic is the Our cover artist this edition is a fashion photographer who goes simply by the name Tomaas. Tomaas hails from Germany but has lived in New York for most of his career. Led there by a passion for travel photography, he now specialises in fashion and beauty. ONE SMALL SEED chats to the high-flying visionary about his photographic career and his latest series Plastic Fantastic. INTERVIEW BY:
sarah jayne fell
How did you end up in photography?
When I was a kid I was with an agency and did some work in front of the camera. I always enjoyed the energy on set, and the fast, distinct sound of the old Hasselblad cameras was magic to me. I got my first camera at 15, and I’d photograph zoo animals or walk the streets of Hamburg and take pictures of people and architecture. Photography was my passion, but I never thought I’d make it a career. At university in Germany and Austria I majored in Political and Communication Sciences and then did a master’s degree in Public Relations. Right after that, in 1995, I moved to New York. I continued to take pictures and travelled extensively. During a breathtaking trip to Vietnam, I captured the land and its people on film, and only then considered photography full-time. I returned to New York to attend the International Center of Photography, where I started building a portfolio and introduced myself to model agencies. From there, it went from testing to shooting editorials to commercial work. Eventually Robert Bacall Representatives became aware of my work and started representing me. How is your work evolving?
When I started my career, my two-year goal was to be published internationally, have an agency represent me, collaborate with top model agencies in NYC, exhibit in a gallery, and get into advertising. I’ve now accomplished all this, but I feel the train has just started speeding up. I have a studio now and shoot more beauty photography – a big step, considering all my first work was done on location. My early work was moody. Recently I’ve shot much brighter stories. What drives you?
The journey. Looking back, many things I’ve done are absolutely unconnected to my present career. But the journey itself is the best part because we can imagine how things will be once we’ve arrived. It's like the anticipation of a kid before Christmas – sometimes more exciting than the actual event.
What was your motivation for Plastic Fantastic?
I love location photography. For me, the stories are richer and more visually interesting, and that’s connected to my passion for photojournalism. Because of this, a beauty story must have a strong conceptual element to get me excited. Prior to Plastic Fantastic, in January 2010, I’d shot a story called Eco-Beauty, using everyday materials. It was published in several international magazines and exhibited at the Icon Gallery in NYC. The team I worked with had such fun that we decided to do a similar shoot but focus on one material alone. The more we researched, the more we became aware of plastic. It’s everywhere and it’s so versatile. You could almost say that among materials plastic is the ‘new black’. The story’s an ode to this material. What draws you to fashion and beauty photography?
I love to create, how a simple idea blossoms into a full-blown photoshoot. I also love being part of a team, and fashion photography’s very much a team effort. Only if everybody understands the concept and pulls together in the same direction can one execute it successfully. And the field is always changing so that keeps me on my toes. Where would you like to be in ten years’ time?
I love travelling and I’m curious to see the outcome once I’ve had a chance to incorporate the globe’s visual treats into my work. I’d also like to focus on advertising. There are bigger budgets and, compared to editorial, everything is incredibly mapped out. Editorial is more convoluted. You have a concept and idea but not the structure. The execution process is far more precise in advertising. But ultimately, both have the same purpose: you’re selling a product. www.tomaasphoto.com
Who inspires you?
Fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh for his theatrical sets, Vogue photographer Steven Meisel for reinvention, Miles Aldridge for use of colour, and Paolo Roversi for mood. I also admire war photographer James Nachtwey for true representation of time, space and character.
photography tomaas www.tomaas.com @ robert bacall reps styling carla engler @ bryant bantry reps makeup fiona thatcher @ make up for ever hair seiji uehara post production elena levenets model lisette @ ford models
MUSIC:
INSTRUMENTAL 97
being
Bateleur IMAGE:
kope | figgins
Bateleur – a Cape Town band like a spoilt kid having fun with his new Lego, and ignoring his friends who came over for the afternoon to play soccer. JON MONSOON steps clear.
B
eing a band: that’s kind of retro. Being a band that doesn’t sing: that’s kind of future. Meet Bateleur, the world’s first ‘postTriassic’ instrumental band. Whatever the hell that means. “We like to think other people struggle to classify us as much as we do,” chuckles Bateleur (the band speaks as one for the duration of this description). The singular, planet mono, is an important plane of existence for this band of six, although the stereo is a place they’d like to be. But they’re committed to the notion that “nothing happens twice” (in their words). A condition of short attention spans. “But why?” the curious reader wonders. “Why is a horse?” the band replies. While having a band where the singer shuts the hell up is novel, it’s not the most original concept. It harks back to the days of prepop, when performance was more important than having a penis (it’s a guy thing). “Originality is only skin deep,” quotes the band, with wisdom beyond its sage. “We think we've found a fortunate balance of rather diverse musicians to create something that even we can't quite wrap our heads around. We're certainly not a band who'll ever segue between songs with an ‘Are you guys having a good time?!’ No, we don’t prompt the crowd to wave their hands in the air, or sing along.” Bateleur is a type of eagle. It means ‘tight-rope walker’ in French. Both are generally silent – particularly in the singing department. The Bateleur at hand comprises members Adam Bertscher and
Nicolaas van Reenen on guitar, Dean Berger on drums, Odon Human on the trumpet, Paul Mesarcik on bass and Louis Pienaar on piano. They’re occasionally joined by Jeanette Claassen on singing viola, Ludwig Gericke on violin, and some tracks feature eerie vocals, but nothing of the frontman type. Does it take more effort being ‘future’ than it does ‘retro’ since you (surely) have to think harder to come up with the goods time and again? “We find ourselves confused by the current state of things,” opines the band. “We constantly ask ourselves why so many new bands make hardly any effort to set themselves apart stylistically from whatever their peers or predecessors are or were doing. On the other hand, where would we be if The Beatles didn't pick up where Buddy Holly left off?” Sure, consistent attempts at fleshing out a genre are essential for music to develop, but Bateleur will tell you that reiteration and innovation should run hand in hand. “Our ideal musical climate would be one wherein musicians and artists alike can have more creative discourse. Eradicating ego, and becoming a community that's interested in being interesting, now that's something we'd like to work towards,” says the band. Being so far ‘future’ – so painstakingly avant-garde, if you will – one surely runs the risk of being misunderstood by the masses? “It seems we've found ourselves in a comfortable little nook where we're quite content with not being entirely accessible,” smiles Bateleur. “Mostly, we try as hard as we can not to bore ourselves with our own music.” www.myspace.com/bateleurr
your last album.” “You’re only as good as
DURAN
AN DUR TS P S U R V I VA L I S
EIGHTIES PO
Duran Duran have survive d three decades and cou ntless (questionable) lineup cha nges and hairdos. Today, the band from Birmingham remain s an enigma – flourishing while their counterparts check into rehab or fade into obs cur ity. GIRL BANNED finds the m girlie-like excitable on the eve of their return tour to South Africa ...
In 1993, Duran Duran became one of the first international bands to break the silence and come down to play for post-Apartheid South Africa. The day they arrived, SA’s Communist Party leader Chris Hani was shot dead by Polish right-wing immigrant Janusz Walus. 17 years later, on the line from his UK home, frontman Simon Le Bon recalls that day well: “There were demonstrations everywhere on the streets but the people refused to slip back into violence.” As a sign of respect, his band dedicated that tour to the New South Africa. In 2010, the fair-headed pop prince's smouldering passion for South Africa has been re-stoked by the World Cup’s success and our increasing presence in international affairs. He claims that South Africa is the “leading African country south of the Sahara” and that we “hold the lynchpin of the continent”. Ever bashful about Duran Duran’s popularity outside their home country, he’s excited at the prospect of playing two shows per city here. He has a vuvuzela on his shopping list and hopes for an audience with Nelson Mandela – after Mrs Le Bon and daughter had the opportunity on a recent visit (“It should have been me!” he wails). But it’s not just our eternal mascot he’s after: he reveals his fascination with Maskanda music and tells of his solo project underway that incorporates it. “You can’t help but be influenced by the traditional music of the places you go,” he confesses.
In an era of manufactured stardom, teeny-bopper pop culture and wanton consumerism, Duran Duran, once billed as “the prettiest boys in rock”, strive to maintain relevance. When thrown into the spotlight, you become a pawn of “the Ultra-Commercial Genre” as Le Bon puts it: “You're at the whim of the public and fashion.” Le Bon has more respect for hardworking underground bands than for instant famers – for those who invest time in developing their own music, style and following, and transcending the fashionable tide. “It’s important to remember that, whether manufactured or self-made, you’re only as good as your last album.” While defining trends or simply evolving with the times, Duran Duran aims to sound different with every album, and their fans have come to expect this progressive sound. A case in point is their collaboration with award-winning DJ and producer Mark Ronson on their 13th studio album, All You Need Is Now. Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John and Roger Taylor return to tour South Africa in December. With an album due for release in early 2011 and new material written especially for the tour, there is no clear end in sight. www. duranduran.com
spoek mathambo & mshini wam
TAKING OVER THE WORLD THROUGH
NEW MUSIC
BATANDWA ALPERSTEIN speaks to Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam the night before their launch and finds out what’s firing up the storm. PHOTOGRAPHY:
max mogale
S
poek Mathambo is an enigmatic artist whose name has become synonymous with boundary-pushing collaborations in and around South Africa’s musical underground. His latest project is a fusion of electronic and acoustic elements in the form of a supergroup of illustrious local musos not unfamiliar to these pages. Going by the name Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam, they’re armed to the teeth with creative talent and are storming the path to world domination. While Spoek dubs himself “a rapper with small obsessions in metal and grime at the same time” (eclectic, to say the least), he’s best known for his electro-rap mashups, first as Sweat.X with the infamous Markus Wormstorm and later as part of Playdoe with DJ Sibot. Never satisfied to remain the same for too long, his motivation for the new musical mix arose from the desire “to make an album that sounds like South Africa in 2010”. This daunting task meant the band would have to break through the confines of genre-specific music and venture into an unchartered realm, one that they’ve since coined ‘New Music’. Creatively, the challenge for Spoek was to find a team of equally curious and capable musicians who could synergistically help bring his vision to life. Of the team that has come together as Mshini Wam, each has a wealth of industry experience and the drive to plunder their creative depths in order to achieve a sound as pure and unique as their vision. Luckily, South Africa’s burgeoning music scene could make such rich offerings, allowing us now to introduce the men who make up this pioneering creative brainchild. Beatmaker Richard Rumney (top right) brings the lion’s share of electronic music expertise to Mshini Wam. Going as Richard the Third, he’s earned respect at home and abroad for being a worldclass producer and a DJ of the highest calibre. He is currently one-half of dubstep duo Biscope alongside his brother, Twelv; he’s been involved in the Red Bull Studio Sessions in South Africa since its inception; and he’s produced beats in the past for the likes of hip-hop acts and MCs Waddy Jones (Max Normal, Die Antwoord) and Tumi Molekane (Tumi and the Volume). JakobSnake (top left) is next in the lineup and, as their drummer, brings a particularly infectious energy to the band. Jack-of-many-trades, he also DJs alongside Plaigarhythm in electro act BTEAM and is a rapper, beatboxer and singer for ‘electronic tongue jazz’ act Voicetag.
Nicolaas Van Reenen (bottom right) is the most recent member to join Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam. Nic is the guitarist and his masterful abilities have brought the band to new heights. Nic is also part of the six-piece instrumental group, Bateleur (who you can read more about on p. 97). Spoek’s current act differs from his previous projects in the very ‘now’ kinda way that’s refreshingly novel and yet completely and utterly done-before. Like a traditional rock band, they mix their beats right up onstage. For their genre, this is still surprisingly uncommon and this live-band element gives Mshini Wam its edge. According to Spoek, the synergy in his crew allows its members to find “an organic way to create New Music all the time”, and the guys are persistently pushing themselves into unexplored territories. Spoek is playing with his vocals using an electronic filter. JakobSnake is drumming for the first time in years. Nic is collaborating with electronic musicians. Fascinating strides are being taking by Richard, whom JakobSnake describes as “playing machines with Mshini Wam, but playing them like an instrument”. Creativity is fuelled by the clashing of different forces, the exchange at the intersection, and this is what makes Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam so diverse and good at what they do. They challenge themselves as artists on as many levels as they can. And the outcome is mind-blowing. Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam are forcing us to question the norms, causing confusion and making us rethink our basic conception of what music is and should be. As Spoek explains, “The future is a void because all we know of it is based on information we already have.” With Mshini Wam, he is actively inventing his own future – and that of the South African music scene. After launching in September 2010, Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam has already toured Argentina and the USA. On 17 December 2010, they bring the experience to The Assembly in Cape Town. Spoek Mathambo & Mshini Wam are evidently amped and geared up for phenomenal things. Their mission? “To take over the world in a big and real way,” declares Spoek. Having witnessed the launch of this extraordinary act, I for one would not rule out their chances. For details, find their page on Facebook. Their debut album Mshini Wam is out now. Get it on iTunes, Beatport, Amazon or email spoekwon@gmail.com
DEPARTMENTS: WORDS BY Girl Banned (GB), Jon Monsoon (JM), Naomi du Plessis (NDP), Yusuf Laher (YL)
CD REVIEWS
*
Gary Thomas
Contraption Distoria www.garythomas.co.za
Gary Thomas is not for the fainthearted. His music is introverted and hard to decipher – he’s not dumbing down for anybody. Constantly working, constantly releasing his own music, the young Durban guitarist has grown into quite the brooding ‘anti-folk’ protégée. This time, with this 13-track album recorded over two sessions in The Cabin in Kalk Bay, Cape Town, Thomas has cooked up a laidback concoction of oddly unsettling jams and hypnotic rhythms to grow on you. Blending influences and “drifting through the stratosphere”, he’s developed an inimitable sound – from his odd lyrics and vocal style to the way he beats his guitar like a drum with rolling fretboards, and the dominating heavy-metal acoustic guitar on tracks like ‘AWDFH’. Look out for guest artistry by other guitar master Guy Buttery on ‘The Assassin Sat and Pondered’, and Thomas’ standout track ‘The Cave’ that sounds like one of his best yet. (YL)
photo: renee frouws
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Boo!
The Three of Us www.booband.com
At first I thought it was a jab at original drummer Princess Leonie. Now, watching the music video for the title track, I know. “The three of us” exist in Chris Chameleon’s head: “And now you’re gone, and you are free, and I am still trapped here in I, myself and me,” Chameleon sings. Post-Boo!, Chameleon conquered the middle-of-the-road Afrikaans market (and the Netherlands), while Ampie Omo kept himself busy with The Death Valley Blues Band and Fuzigish. And it’s great to see them back together (and witness the rebirth of Miss Chameleon). Despite the fact that ‘Dance’ borders on Mango Groove, overall The Three of Us ages the original ‘monki punk’ sound with dignity – with that added air of reflection that comes with second chances. (YL)
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Arcade Fire The Suburbs
www.arcadefire.com
photo: chris stamatiou
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Cortina Whiplash Queen Hyena
www.cortinawhiplash.com
Queen Hyena, Cortina Whiplash’s first offering to the gods of rock ’n roll, is an intoxicating collection of stories, starring (among others) a pissed-off psycho with a dead boyfriend in the boot and a queen hyena that grows a pair of balls because “they’re so hard to find”. Sound-wise, the seven-song, 26-minute debut is a whiskey-soaked blend of bluesy rock ’n roll and fresh, modern production. On bass and vox, Loandi Boersma’s vocals switch from siren to praying mantis, working perfectly with the understated backups. Last song ‘Cardinal Sin’ sounds like one rock ’n roll parable too many, but Queen Hyena is nonetheless a tight debut. (YL)
The reconnection was instant. The mood. The dull, existential dreams of escape. Oh, the folded arms… It’s Red Bull for arty rock bands. But unlike previous album Neon Bible, The Suburbs never sounds caught up in the weight of its own self-importance. This time, the Canadian-based indie band’s swapped lofty, baroque art projects in favour of something much more personal, tense and recognisable. On ‘Month of May’, Win Butler kicks out an urgent, suburban-blues, punk-rock jam. On ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’, his wife Régine Chassagne floats off an over-the-top electro-pop ode to shopping malls, nine-to-fivers and the never-ending sprawl. And ‘Ready to Start’ is an instant classic; this album’s ‘Keep the Car Running’. It’s dark. It’s long. There were no house parties at the Butlers’. (YL)
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M.I.A. Maya
www.miauk.com
photo: guy standley
*
Die Antwoord $O$
www.dieantwoord.com | www.watkykjy.co.za
Die Antwoord’s success sums up the modern music industry. It’s an opportunist’s game. Finally, Ninja (the artist formally known as Max Normal) saw a chance, reached out and decapitated it. And $O$ v2.0 is the full-length, major label manifestation of Die Antwoord’s internet-distributed, phenomenon-spawning debut – with a few added extras. “Damn! I don’t know where I am! What must I do wif all this fuckin’ money in my hand?” raps Ninja like a lost Beastie Boy on new opener ‘In Your Face’, “Used to be a no-one, now I’m the fuckin’ man!” And new single ‘Evil Boy’, featuring Diplo and 18-year-old Xhosa rapper Wanga, has more flavours than Simba. Written off as one-hit wonders, Die Antwoord’s still here, tearing around the globe, raging with satirical creativity, worldwide. $O$ is entertaining, provocative and dysfunctionally ‘In Your Face’. (YL)
First there was the pre-release: free downloads off the Interwebs using unsearchable symbols. Next, the graphically violent, anti-ginger music video that caused a riot. Then came the deluxe edition with fancy holographic cover and bonus tracks. Finally, followed the sound of longtime fans scratching their heads asking: “WTF?” Through all of it, British recording sensation/new mom M.I.A.(real name Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam) got serious by going underground, releasing her third album on her own label, recorded in her own home, with Blaqstarr and new kid on the dubstep block Rusko on songwriting and production credits. From opening industrial buzz-saw solo on ‘Steppin Up’ to closing 8-bit glitch stabs on ‘Space’, it’s fair to say she’s succeeded in her stated aim of producing a ‘digital ruckus’ for a digital moshpit; and it’s bleeding lovely. (JM)
Flash Republic Killer Moves
www.theflashrepublic.com
Joburg electro hip-cats Flash Republic have seemingly gone all futuretro on our asses, having shaken their chartsingle-baiting, disposable pop-tart image and seemingly immersed themselves in the music they were born to make. This is evidenced in their latest collection of rock-edged, cheese-free electro grooves, the most notable of which is a Sisters of Mercy (gasp!) cover of ‘Lucretia’ that really shakes the bats from the belfry! Perhaps it’s the addition of Martin Rocka to the lineup that’s seen the FR step out in the right direction – finally! From sounding like carbonwaste copycats of every other pop-trash band, this band have suddenly stepped out of the mould. And for that we say ‘Yay!’ Forgive them for that other kak song they did and get this album. (JM)
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Back to the Eighties Various
Eighties compilations – could there ever be enough? Okay now look – there were a finite number of truly good songs recorded in that decade. Perhaps about 40. Everything else was rubbish. So is it enough to keep slapping these same 40 great tunes (a-ha, Billy Idol, Depeche Mode, Alphaville, Erasure, OMD, Ultravox, etc) onto compilations named things like ‘Back to The Eighties?’ forever and ever, Amen? Apparently so! And here we have… “40 of The Greatest 80’s & Euro Beat Hits!” (Aah, Euro Beat!). Rather get this double-disc affair for the 20 retro-electro songs appearing on disc two that you probably don’t already have on another compilation. (JM) photo: guy standley
DEPARTMENTS:
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CD REVIEWS *
Rusko
O.M.G.! www.ruskoonfire.com
*
Bob Sinclar [with] Sly & Robbie Made in Jamaica
www.bobsinclar.com | www.myspace.com/slyandrobbie
One would imagine that being a French house DJproducer can become a tad tiresome after a while. And what better way for a tired French house DJ-producer to recharge ze batereez zen to tek ze leetle holiday een Jameka! Presumably this was how we came to have this album currently rotating its way through the ether at a Cool Runnings bar near you. “So what is?” I hear you ponder as you mull a bud of high grade onto the highquality paper of this here magazine while waiting for your suntan lotion to dry. Or something. Cheese house-meister Bob Sinclar skins up in the studio of reggae legends Sly & Robbie and mistakes his last name for Marley as he gets colonial with a bunch of Jemeka’s finest reggae riddimmakers. Piss off white bwoi! (JM)
Ask anyone and they’ll tell you dubstep is the new house music. It’s like so futureretro, maan. It’s in those wobbly basslines and, like, the punishing brutal drumbeats, yeah... and, like, it’s British, so yeah... So is UK beatblasta Rusko, so it’s all full-on and maad-for-iit and ‘Hey yo! Let’s go!’ as he brings us his latest collection of spinedamaging ditties released on Diplo’s Mad Decent label. At 14 big tunes long, it manages to offer enough variety between tracks to avoid binding to the conventions of a sound and instead stands as a showcase of past, now and future electronic dance music styles. As we said earlier: it’s the new house music. Without the annoying crappy bits and repetitive beats. Sexy, almost. O.M.G.! (JM)
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Cyndi Lauper Memphis Blues
www.cyndilauper.com
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Brandon Flowers Flamingo
www.brandonflowersmusic.com
The problem with a distinct singing voice is the subsequent difficulty in disassociating it from anything done in the original box. This is the case with Brandon Flowers (The Killers frontman) on his debut solo album, Flamingo. Flowers’ lyrics are too intimate to be anything like The Killers – issues of faith and devotion and his childhood in Las Vegas (‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’) are all openly discussed – and a few tracks stand out as unique, such as ‘Only the Young’ and ‘Hard Enough’ (where he is joined by Jenny Lewis). While Killers fans will undoubtedly enjoy the confessional mellow rock, casual ears will struggle to tell the difference between band and solo artist. (NdP)
*buy
A homage to blues legends long-gone, Cyndi Lauper’s 11th studio album is nothing groundbreaking. Lauper’s crooning is soulful and mature, thankfully shelving any notions of a pop/rock comeback. What this album lacks in originality is made up for in the sheer quality of content and its collaborations. It features songs penned by the likes of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, with guest appearances from New Orleans R&B great Allen Toussaint, Memphis Soul legend Ann Peebles, the incomparable BB King, and gospel/blues Wunderkind Jonny Lang. With Memphis Blues, Cyndi Lauper discovers new relevance in an old genre, escaping the inevitable failure of washed-up pop stardom. Best accompanied by a shot of bourbon and a cigar. (GB)
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DEPARTMENTS: WORDS BY YUSUF LAHER
DVD REVIEWS Nowhere Boy (2009)
Directed by: Sam Taylor-Wood Starring: Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne-Marie Duff Category: Imagine John Lennon’s Childhood
To most people, John Lennon’s a scruffy Jesus figure with National Health specs and a big imagination. Nowhere Boy is a striking reminder of John Lennon the flawed human being... before he became a colourful doodle and sin-free martyr for world peace. Directed by English conceptual artist (and first-timer) Sam TaylorWood, the story’s a dramatised account of Lennon’s troubled teenage years growing up in Liverpool in the ’50s. Raised by Aunt Mimi, Lennon discovers that his estranged Aunt Julia is actually his biological mother. Then he doesn’t know where he fits in – until he sees women screaming their heads off for Elvis Presley. “You’re going nowhere!” says a pissed-off headmaster. “Is nowhere full of geniuses, sir?” Lennon replies. “Because then I probably do belong there.”
Leaves of Grass (2010)
Directed by: Tim Blake Nelson Starring: Edward Norton, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss Category: Doomed-To-Fail Black Comedy
Kick-Ass (2010)
Directed by: Matthew Vaughan Starring: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloë Moretz Category: Anti-Superhero Superhero Flick
“He should call himself Ass-Kick,” jokes Damon Macready (Cage), aka Big Daddy. And the number of times Kick-Ass (Johnson) gets his ass kicked, you tend to agree. Fed up with being ordinary, New York teenager Dave Lizewski orders a wetsuit online, throws on a pair of Timberlands and heads out to fight crime as Kick-Ass. After numerous setbacks (and nearfatal beatings), Lizewski gets caught up in the real fight when he meets professional superheroes Big Daddy and Hit Girl (Moretz). Overall, KickAss is surprisingly dark and funny. As soon as the mood gets all Hollywood crime-fighter, someone stabs Kick-Ass in the gut, knocks his teeth out or runs him over. What’s even more unusual is watching 11-year-old Hit Girl beaten senseless by middle-aged kingpin Frank D’Amico, cut a drug dealer’s leg off and drive the getaway car. Epic.
Edward Norton stars as identical twins Bill and Brady Kincaid in this autobiographically tinged black comedy written and directed by actor Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?). Bill’s a Classics lecturer at Brown University on his way up. Brady’s a small-town scientistcum-hydroponic weed-grower with a plan. When Brady’s murdered, Bill heads home to Little Dixie, Oklahoma and the family he disowned. But when he gets there, Brady isn’t dead at all. It was all a ruse. Brady wants Bill to pretend to be him, establishing an alibi when he goes off to cut ties with big-time weed dealer and Tulsa-based financer Pug Rothbaum (Dreyfuss). Alternating from stoner comedy to violent crime drama, Leaves of Grass is a funny, dark and thoughtful exploration of philosophy, literature and growing up Jewish in Oklahoma.
Led Zeppelin’s Music Masters Collection (2010)
Produced by: Anvil Media Starring: Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Michael Francis Category: Reexamining Goliath
Back when giants walked the earth, Led Zeppelin provided the soundtrack. Entertaining the ladies with mud sharks and flying around the world on their own private plane, it was a life of intoxicating excess. Until punk-rock came along with a sling and five shards of glass and took that giant down. These days, Golden God Robert Plant’s making a respectable (and critically acclaimed) living with Band of Joy. And Jimmy Page is probably still harbouring plans for another big Zeppelin reunion, one day… Led Zeppelin’s Music Masters Collection is a four-DVD critical analysis of Zeppelin’s music. The film uses rare gig footage, interviews with all four band members and entourage crewmembers like bodyguard Michael ‘Star Man’ Francis. Featured songs include ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’, ‘When the Levee Breaks’ and ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (of course). One for Zeppelin fanatics.
Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy (1985-1990)
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson Category: Sci-Fi Family Comedy
The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! (2010)
Directed by: Greg Franklin Starring (voices of): Cree Summer, James Arnold Taylor, Tara Strong Category: Bad-Taste Animated Extravaganza
Hero’s shacked up with a dead girl, Toot’s pregnant and I.S.R.A.E.L.’s evicting Jews. Just like Futurama and Family Guy before them, the Drawn Together gang’s hoping that DVD sales and high syndication ratings can reboot their shattered dreams. And if you thought the series was outrageous, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The story picks up after Season 3. Foxxy Love discovers the show’s been cancelled and demands answers from The Jew Producer. Meanwhile, when he discovers the housemates are alive, the network head sends I.S.R.A.E.L. (a cartoon-erasing female robot, voiced by Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane) after them. Still, the gang struggles to get to Make-A-Point-Land, led by the preachy Suck My Taint Girl (star of the South Park spoof of the same name). The film’s light on jokes and proudly offensive without a point in sight, but worth checking out if you’ve always wanted to see Foxxy topless.
Jealous of the attention re-heaped on fellow ’80s buddies Freddy Krueger, B.A. Baracus and the Karate Kid, Back to the Future’s getting a makeover. To celebrate 25 years since the original, Universal Pictures has remastered and reissued everyone’s favourite time-travelling trilogy on Blu-ray on 26 October 2010. And that’s no coincidence. The release date’s a fictional anniversary of the day Marty McFly first tore a DeLorean-shaped hole in the space-time continuum. To promote the box set, Back to the Future 1 even got a limited-edition cinematic re-release in some countries. The Blu-ray trilogy includes two hours of new content, including a retrospective documentary featuring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Robert Zemeckis, producers Bob Gale and Neil Canton, and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Blu-ray extras include BD-Live, pocket BLU and Universal’s exclusive U-Control feature.
DEPARTMENTS: WORDS BY SARAH JAYNE FELL
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An exciting development for one small seed happened late September as part of Creative Week Cape Town. In collaboration with Grolsch and African Dope Records, one small seed proudly launched the first print edition of Picture This at a two-night event held at the Grand Daddy Hotel in Long Street. As always, one small seed’s TV crew caught all the action, now showing exclusively on onesmallseed.tv. Only 2 000 copies of Picture This print edition volume 01 were printed, and are available to order only. Go to p. 60 for details.
MUSIC SPOEK MATHAMBO & MSHINI WAM – ‘WAR ON WORDS‘ Lovesick dubstep at its best, ghostly and syrupy through the koppies and quarries of Cape Town, ‘War on Words’ features the story of a heartbroken widow performing pagan ceremonies to bring her dead husbands back to life... if only for a night. Her lovers are maggot-ridden corpses, struggling through the dark passages of purgatory. Read about this wacky afro-futurist project by Spoek Mathambo on p. 100 then go to onesmallseed.tv to watch the video.
CAPTAIN STU – ‘THE DAY’ MUSIC VIDEO Despite the promising growth in the fashion market, Captain Stu decided to direct their efforts towards a new EP instead of releasing their intended line of men’s risqué lingerie. ‘The Day’ is the first video of this 5-track EP, Free Music, launched at Zula Sound Bar in November 2010. Produced by Captain Stu bassist Ryan McArthur, and directed and coproduced by Richard Bolland, the video was shot in 17 locations around their hometown of Cape Town over one intense weekend. The album is available free at their gigs and from their website, captainstu.co.za.
FAShION RETRO ROGUE FASHION FEATURE For this issue of one small seed, our Future Retro edition, Cape Town photographer Leah Hawker collaborated with highly regarded stylist Alexia Kondylis to put together a surreal, retro-inspired fashion story drawing on rogue elements of futuristic funk. Go to p. 81 to see the meticulously crafted shoot and then head to onesmallseed.tv to sneak behind-thescenes of this exclusive fashion feature.
THE FUTURE RETRO SHOOT
Inspired by our magazine’s theme ‘The Future/Retro Issue’, one small seed held a noends-barred wacky photoshoot to liven up the pages of our special inside section, filled with all the most futuretro features in this edition. Starring Sean Lester Konvenc, our flamboyant one small seed TV presenter, the day was a whirlwind of outrageous makeup, fabulous hair and over-the-top attire. Get behind the scenes with Giuseppe and the creative team to see just what went on behind closed doors in Bree Street’s Studio One.
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physical address longkloof studios 2a darters road suite 002 gardens cape town 8001 postal address longkloof studios 2a darters road suite 002 gardens cape town 8001 www.hybridmedia-solutions.com tel: +27 (0) 21 425 1214 fax: +27 (0) 86 513 5398 info@hybridmedia-solutions.com
productions
one small seed productions filming and editing. 3rd floor, wembley square north mckenzie street gardens cape town 8001 tel: +27 (0) 21 461 6973 fax: +27 (0) 86 545 0371 contact@onesmallseed.com
ad space advertise here To advertise in the one small seed directory, contact us directly on tel.+27 (0) 21 461 6973 mike@onesmallseed.com contact@onesmallseed.com www.onesmallseed.com
TAILORED, WORLDCLASS PRODUCTION OF SLICK, ORIGINAL VIDEO CLIPS & PHOTO SHOOTS music videos | interviews | events | viral campaigns | behind-scenes exclusives
www.onesmallseedproductions.com
DEPARTMENTS: THE LAST WORD
TRENDS OF THE FUTURE-RETRO Hearken unto us! What blight through yonder window breaks? ’Tis the trend and it smells like hipster. Lay down your man-bags and wayfarers, weary travellers and take our savoury-scented hands (we just ate some prego rolls; don’t worry – it’s a little place you probably haven’t heard of). Let us proceed to this stage we have so conveniently set up, with our patented HEADLINE payoff BestBit-Of-Trend-Chopper-Offer (we call it the Guillo for short. With this machine, we can serve you up the most delectable morsels of trend, like the head of John the Baptist, handed to Salome on a silver platter. Indeed, while you may think we will hand you the whole head, we will pluck the very salami from his mouth, put there as if he were a suckling pig – so that you get only the hardest, longest piece of the trend you need. Trend One: ‘Vibey’ Coffee Shops
Trend Three: High-Tech Phones
We see you there with your little iSlice, your little BerryBabyJuicyWuicy, chatting it up like you’re Peter Popular. You can check your emails on the go; you let people find you even when you’re on Table Mountain. Some of you even like to tweet when standing right next to your friends: @Myself: Just saw the totes cutest pair of sunnies ever!!1 @Myself’s_friend: Totes agrees – cutest pair of sunnies ever!!111one @Myself: Olololol! We’re so cute! The future is all about letting people know what you’re doing in the most conspicuous way possible, so why would you want a tiny piece of tech when you can have a full-size tickey box strapped to your back? It comes with a fully functional printer
You know the place. Jazz in the background to make you feel you’re somewhere sophisticated. Sophisticated people don’t listen to jazz; they listen to the screams of the oppressed. And they've got all those names for the coffees, the ones designed to make you feel worldly: Flat White, Cappuccino, the mocha-choca-half-triple-caffwith-wings-on-the-side-and-a-couple-of-naanbreads-in-the-shape-of-amusing-adult-bits-ofanatomy, Fred. And then you get the Americano. It’s not a black coffee, oh no, it’s ever-so-slightly different. But forget the Americano like it's the feelings you have for the ex, the one that had sex with your best friend. We’re moving to the next coolest place: Sweden. Prediction: The Svensk. It's the skinny, seawater beverage with a blonde wig and a dried herring for a spoon. Trend Two: Lumo
What are you? Blind and deaf? I can hear your shirt humming from over here, you Helen Kellerish bastard! Isn’t the house/trance music you listen to loud enough already? Or are you trying to make my eyes go deaf? Yes, your clothes may make it easy to find your way if Eskom is buggering around again, and you might be easier to find if you fall off the rocks at Clifton, but the future is all about danger. And let’s be honest: we’re all going to die. So you might as well peel off that day-glo orange shirt and put on a nice grey mélange and go swimming in the ocean. At dusk. With a brick tied to your foot. Prediction: The future is dull. We’re all going to die.
for all your emails, a fax machine strapped to the top (retro is so future), a live twitter feed and a foursquare monitor so people can know where you are, where you are! Prediction: The iCrate. Suck on that Chion Dang! Paul White and Rudi Cronje HEADLINE payoff
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
You’d be forgiven for thinking these discs are identical. To the untrained eye, it’s hard to tell the difference between replication and duplication. The difference lies in the data. 2-5 % of duplicated discs won’t work at all, and the rest will drop data with time. The replicated disc won’t.
cd & dvd replication specialists info@hybridmedia-solutions.com | www.hybridmedia-solutions.com | 021 422 0050
AVAILABLE FREE ON
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www.onesmallseed.com/issueX* *replace X with the issue number | available from issue 16 to 20