Making Something Out of Nothing

MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING

FORWARD

IF YOU’VE GOT NOTHING, THERE’S NOTHING TO LOSE is the unofficial slogan for RED. Scrawled in black and white by members of Le Gun, high, on everchanging walls, it’s a holler for the vanguard; a modern day jab in the same vein as the legendary diagrams of three guitar chords in original punk fanzine (Sideburns), instructing readers to

“NOW FORM A BAND”.

Through numerous, diverse interviews, this book examines the reenergising of the East London cosmopolis and creation of Brand Shoreditch through subcultural commodification. Verbalising what the cachet-dripping street art commentary does for the area, the tone of these stories explores how a cultural legacy can be maintained within established and fluctuating communities, and how corporate social responsibility can, and does, enable doors to open inclusively and to the wider audiences of the world.

Since its inception, in 2010, RED has fizzed with the guilty pleasure of an experiment which could burn down the lab. Ernesto Leal and Yarda Jarring began on a three-month lease of the 30,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, largely as cultural guardians of Banksy’s donations to the walls. Leal

“

explains: The landlords said: You want it, for three months? Most people ran a mile because conventional businesses are built on five year models - we didn’t have anything, so it was easy; it’s that acid house mentality: Let’s do it, everything can be taken away. The landlords said: Make sure you reach the community - and that part is hugely rewarding; making a car park into a wellneeded public space, the locals bring over their kids to play in the sand. I love that they have somewhere to come. I could have put on a party for twelve months and closed it down, but peoples’ jaws drop when they see this place. It’s the real deal. We’re not saying no to anyone with ideas. We don’t tell anyone what to do. They get shocked by that. It is our policy to share the freedom we have in this space with anyone who wants to use it. Everything we’ve done has been collaboration. We’re getting the space very cheap and we want to share that

”

freedom to encourage creativity in an area where space is now at a premium.

The looming threat of RED becoming another Art Hotel, like Tacheles (the former-squat in Berlin’s Mitte), has added to the energy of every experimental exhibition, avant-garde symposium, fine art show and party; with people travelling internationally to attend, it is as if each event could be witness to the last tune ever played.

By default, RED is a viable model of ‘legal squatting’ for creative practitioners enabled by corporate patrons (ie. the building owners). Mutual support, advice and the housing of start-up indies in tech/food/art/music/film/ fashion enables radical, risk-taking freedom, covering only rates and basic costs rather than astronomical outlays to operate centrally and close to one another. Curatorially, in the gallery spaces, there are no bounds.

SHOREDITCH SOCIAL CLUB is written (in red capitals) across the window panes of several floors of Artists-In-Residence studios. Looking down the Old

‘

’

Street vista, towards Silicon Roundabout - the governmental title for an area where tech-export ideas are seen as the future economic life-force of this country - community is the keystone of RED.

“Working men’s clubs, where ” says Ernesto,

people would sit down over a pint to discuss ideas, have died,

“replaced with members clubs. You can go out anywhere and you’re there to have a ‘good time’. It’s always about having a good time. What’s wrong with having a

place to discuss ideas? When you walk into a place like this, of course you’re there to have a good time, but there’s also the space here, to talk. This could only exist in current economic times, ten years ago we would have been seen as too extreme, but now it’s perfect. Our audience sees culture in everything: adverts, mobiles, street art, light installations, everywhere, so are not jaded by so-called cultural or class-labels, and we have responded to this need.

People involved here are as instrumental in developing this place into a build-

”

ing of ideas as we are, but more importantly, they do it with their own ideas.

The property owners are the Forbes-listed Reuben Brothers. Leal says:

“We understand one another because they respected my work promoting cultural communities in the area, work I’d begun with Arthrob.” The motto with Arthrob events and the record label was to bring culture into nightclubs and nightclubs into culture, work the young beret wearer had begun in Edinburgh, promoting

‘

’

Scottish beat poets with Leftbank jazz. The legacy of this philosophy runs through all the events. His will to progress culture is unusually determined

‘a contemporary philanthropist’ in this book, his work is inspired by Alexander Trocchi’s ‘action university’ - a cultural ‘coup du monde’. His publishing company, {ourhistory} took its name from the last speech of the democratic leader of Chile, Salvador Allende: “History is ours, and the people make it”. Leal’s father and uncle were trade unionists, and visionary. Frequently named

fighting the army coup d’etat on the streets of Chile in the early 1970s before the family received shelter in Scotland through the National Union of Mineworkers. Ernesto’s younger brother, Juan, joined Arthrob’s partnership at Warner Brothers, significant releases being remixes of electronic pioneer, Steve Reich, and the pairing of Kylie Minogue with Japanese DJ, Towa Tei, of Deee-lite, to make German Bold Italic.

RED’s founders met while managing different galleries on Brick Lane, bonding as cultural migrants with revolt in their blood. Yarda Krampol, the towering Czech economist and CEO of RED, played his part in opening Prague’s

“The newly gained democracy gave me the hope that I can do freely what I want to do in my life,” he says, looking out from the Red Roof Terrace over the city, Hoxton and Shoreditch. He moved from Prague to London in 2006. “We were all lucky to be here when landlords Iron Curtain in 1989 by squatting his school,

with empty properties needed to start paying rates. We started with pop-up exhibitions and warehouse events and saw the building could be used in a wider spectrum - the location made it easy for us. We are part of something important

”

here. The rehabilitation of this building was required.

“MATERIAL

Ernesto continues:

[the art and bookshop] have grown with us. As long as everyone involved realises there’s a chance it’s not going to be here, we can start working from that, it’s exciting. Companies like the HIT ME UP app and SoundCloud are the kind of companies who don’t take a lease for twenty-five years because they are expanding so fast. They understand this post-modern Silicon Valley-concept - in the same way it began with hippies making computers, we’re

”

creating new distribution methods for information.

In January 2012, Leal and Krampol were joined by Giuseppe Percuoco, 36,

“

who was appointed company secretary, I was living in Rome. Yarda had booked my friend to DJ. We met for a beer on the Friday, then saw the sun come up on the Saturday, then spent that night talking. I’d worked in the Balkans: microsocial development, post-war construction, finding money, making something out of nothing in a rundown economy, emergency situations. I did a few parties with Yarda, developing with them for a year or so. There was no money, no future, but they asked if I wanted to be a shareholder of nothing, and in January 2012 I started. I look after all the finances and got rid of this debt and we’ve survived. I deal with banks, investors and sponsors; boring but crucial. I’m doing more programming. Ernesto calls me a diamond geezer now, which is great;

”

he is naturally suspicious, but it’s become family. It’s magical.

So RED is a child of neo-liberalism and socialism. Its semiotics scream street art and rave, both movements formed in the wake of Norman Tebbit’s On Your Bike cries, encouraging a Thatcherite seizing of the day, and night, under

‘

’

the banner that Society was Dead. Entrepreneurs detourned such suggestions, putting sound-systems into warehouses, taking cash on the door from a new generation of souls who were inspired by the hippy ideal. Unfortunately the government feared a revolt by the ecstasy generation, a mass loss of taxes, and the lifestyle of electronic music was outlawed under the Criminal Justice Act in 1994 with ravers labelled as drug-addled cop-outs who needed to be dispersed.

Drugs, as William Burroughs and JG Ballard agreed, represent the ultimate

‘the total dependency of addicts, while teasing us with the mirage of transgressive sex’. The symbolism of drugs overmerchandise, determined to reduce us to

powered the purer sentiments of rave culture, where everyone could be brought together in peace, love and unity. Yet these roots make RED the apotheosis of that acid-house vanguard, simply, a demand for freedom - to dance, or have free speech and free society. At the third birthday, the basement morphed into yellow and black, honouring Factory Record’s The Haçienda, which took its name

“

from Ivan Chtcheglov’s Formulary For A New Urbanism: The hacienda must be built... It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns,

”

casino mirrors.

RED speaks to many underground movements through its vast intersection of programming. Artists (and other subcultural operators) frequently idealise, aiming to improve our world through bringing society’s peripheral issues to the mainstream publics’ attention. Progress is through understanding, sharing knowledge and, often, rebellion to wider or parent cultures and their institu-

‘

’

tions, or amphitheatres of taste . Albert K. Cohen suggested subcultures act as society’s problem-solvers in 1955. This type of exploration into the cultural circuit was what intellectuals such as Stuart Hall, attained to corrupt. By the late-60s the Anti-University sat at 49 Rivington Street, encouraging social sciences and discursive processes to be taken seriously. RED takes this mantle from its former neighbours, offering a place to re-localise and live beyond the screen. As well as disconnection, there must be a time to connect, but not always virtually. Phones have been turned off at basement gigs for bands such as the Fat White Family. Driven by an uncommodifiable spirit to explore the oxymorons of our times, every generation needs new vocabularies, beyond communication tools, to freely assess underdogs and oppressors, in order to progress, particularly in a haven of unfertilised styles and concepts which can be sold en masse within weeks of being trend-spotted.

In 2014, Shoreditch nights have become host to many disenfranchised by a political system which defies the true meaning of democracy. It has become a playground of dreams, where RED MARKET fuses club and festival culture as a solace from the slavery of city survival. RED serves as a parliament, built by the children of rave with an avant-garde, raw power of punk.

Electronic music is the soundtrack to this modernity and landmark festivals like REDSONIC, the brainchild of Gergley Konrády, explore electronica in all forms, curating pioneers such as François Bayle, who began experimenting in musique concrète in the late 1950s with Karlheinz Stockhausen. The music sits perfectly with a contemporary perspective on art, everything from graphic shows to Matthew Hawtin’s aesthetic interpretations of the techno philosophy. The Gallery’s synergy with music is irrepressible. Largely supported by the nightlife economy in its infancy, with parties from Mulletover, Rough Trade, Wolf + Lamb, a twelve hour set by Berlin DJ, Anja Schneider, and many more, Leal

“

says: There’s a massive connection between music and art at RED, there’s a tribal need to let go en masse, so we mix art and music but understand DJs or

”

conceptual artists need the bright lights on them individually.

Such subjects are explored at talks and events. For example: Tresor twinned with Berlin Tourism to present a compelling series charting the importance of underground music in rebuilding post-wall East Berlin, showcasing the largest exhibition of GDR art outside of Germany. RED are now in consultancy with Dimitri Hegemann to implement similar projects to RED in the post-communist town of Schwedt, and later, across Germany. Parallels are made between Berlin and Shoreditch and at another programme of events, Detroit’s relationship with subculture was explored, again, tying in with the underlying themes which birthed RED; topics of communities and roots, explored in the inaugural shows of East End Promise. Pairings have also occurred with Prague, taking students from the Royal College of Art to Czechoslovakia and bringing those from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague to here. The Artists-In-Residency programmes are continually expanding. There have been shows from all inhabited continents.

“The international relations element is very organic, it’s not half a million quid of funding on ‘reaching out’...” says Leal.

In early 2011, the first floor of the building was transformed into RED QUARTERS, the home of many tech start-ups who could pack up their laptops at the first rumble of bulldozers. They prospered inside labyrinthine chambers of contacts and creativity. That summer, the outside yard transitioned into RED

“

”

MARKET, championed by Time Out as the birthplace of the New Food Revolution - where food trucks and independent stalls serve imaginative cuisine aside DJs. The outdoor space is circled by muralled, storytelling walls, a shape-shifting

‘

’

dialogue, akin to Dame Vivienne Westwood’s confrontation dressing . As one of the most concentrated spaces of non-commissioned street art in the world, the brick canvases articulate timely non-permanence. The gates to RED MARKET regularly change their appearance overnight and dialects of dissent sit comfortably with positivity from the community, such as artwork from the pupils of Hoxton Square’s St. Monica’s School.

Is there a programming policy for the Gallery?

“

“It’s

”

very organic,

says Yarda, We have a range of exhibitions. I don’t identify myself with specific arts, although my background is in fine arts - if we have projects on for a longer time, we will need to define it, but the programming is very fertile, which is due to the limitation we have on the building - we don’t know how long

”

we’ll be here - we have to work with flexible people.

“

Ernesto says: Le Gun did an installation here, they were sitting around for two weeks working out how to use the space, then worked all night putting an incredible piece together. It’s a genuine arts space. We don’t have a plan - and so are not restricted by it. There are rates, upkeep costs, once they’re paid back - then we talk about profit, and this would generally be straight splits after overheads initially. It’s not an institution of hierarchies - we provide the space for creative freedom so long as bills and insurance is covered and

”

the rates get paid. They are working as a co-operative of independents. These people may be Deborah Curtis and Gavin Turk’s House of Fairy Tales or the Three Faith Forum, not directly part of tech-city, but frequently sharing the rumbling undercurrent which couples with the ideology of OpenSource and cyber-democracy.

Old-style hegemony is challenged, yet the world’s current infrastructure, albeit tenuously, holds control, and enables the space.

Writer and philanthropist, Sir Walter Besant would not recognise Shoreditch as the international beacon it is today. In 1882 he wrote of East London:

“The strangest thing of all is this: in a city of two millions... there ”

are no hotels! That means, of course, that there are no visitors.

Besant’s protagonist in his later book, All Sorts And Conditions Of Men controversially suggested emancipation for East Enders would not occur through gaining power in Westminster, but by becoming more cut-off, more separate from the society which has no place for them. Althusser speaks of

‘

’

‘nostalgia’ and finding others with

similar problems of adjustment more comfortable than reality. At a recent panel in RED, entitled MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING, passionate people who were integral in evolving the area’s identity in the 80s and 90s, (thereby encouraging recent investment) expressed fear of being forced to move on because of economic apartheid and corporate colonialism. This is why RED

‘

’

remains a live gallery , documenting the now for the tribes of today. To maintain a pluralistic society, as John Irwin suggests, it is essential for

“

”

subculture to allow performers in various scenes . If there is a cultural future for Shoreditch, can the people who have created its legacy afford to stay, or is there an expectation that community roots become mobile? The encroaching city has the power to enable local communities within training programmes and business, not just for school-leavers but also their parents. Legislation can be made to enable this, and encourage a pluralist heritage to shepherd us from old to new. Progress must not be hung up to wilt on an ad hoarding. Even if that ad hoarding is by a really cool brand, helping out a really cool artist, it is still not expanding the scope of what can be considered by dynamic discussion and programmes within a purely artistic environment.

There is a blind belief that the principles of re-generating zones are to expect musicians and artists to live in squalid studios where there is little infrastructure, and for fashion, and everyone else to follow. And then what?

In the early days of Shoreditch’s renovation, people lived illegally, dividing warehouses up into studios with dodgy bathrooms and kitchens. Without such brave and wild fantasies, and a willingness to flout society’s expectations, no-one would have followed and the street art that proliferates today’s East End would not have its golden commercial glow. Even the Olympics may not have come here... So where does the next phase of support for genuine creativity come from in an increasingly monitored and consumption-coerced state? Living off-grid, and being totally DIY is impossible this close to the city - it is a place where vacuums cannot sustain; if something doesn’t work or influence, or feels inauthentic, it dies or fails to receive credibility with appropriate communities. RED has evolved in the dawn of our new millennium, it is a last bastion of skint originality, where MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING is at increasing odds with surrounding streets. Surely its continued existence demonstrates its importance. RED was founded against a brick wall of a recession.

Fortunately the wall wore a Banksy, and a rebel phoenix rose for the community, offering a place to rip up elements of our world beyond the endless vortexes of the internet, which sieves through the past, cataloguing representational fragments of underground music, subversive philosophies, using art as nothing more than pop culture, creating a shallow, totemic identity of the past for the future.

Dynamic dialogue offers more. It’s been said that every town should have a RED. But is that possible?

Yarda Krampol’s velvet smile is aware of the magic that is required around the awakening of conscience and consciousness, and signs off with words

“

of his former president, the poet, Václav Havel: Hope is not a feeling of certainty that everything ends well. Hope is just a feeling that life and work

”

have a meaning.

KIRSTY ALLISON, 2014

ARCHIVE

“It started because I was putting together a project called EAST END PROMISE and needed an office,” says Ernesto Leal, co-founder of RED. “I wanted

a place where people could bring in their photos, memories and artifacts which document the regeneration of this area. I wanted to explain how all the cultural migrants - the artists, designers, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, fashion people - found themselves here and why. The contributions came

” Photographer Nick Waplington ran “Shoreditch is better now than it was in the 90s.” Leal continues: “RED is built on people’s flowing once we set-up. It was RED’s trigger.

the Live Studio for EAST END PROMISE in November 2013. He says:

ideas. The Artists-In-Residence, the people who do shows and put on nights.

The graphic designers: Rogan Jeans did the design for EAST END PROMISE. Emily Rudd designed everything for RED MARKET. Jason Kedgley from the Tomato design group, and designer of this book did the RED logo and graphics for the TRESOR project. I asked Jason not to use the colour red nor the word

”

‘RED’ – so he

based it upon the Sir Thomas Moore Utopian alphabet of 1516, an influence to many sci-fi enlighteners, Voltaire to Francis Bacon. RED is made by the people for the people.

S

EA

P R

E

ND

ST E

O M I

EAST END PROMISE 2010,

PHOTOS BY ERNESTO LEAL

VANYA BALOGH (HAHA! VS BOMBASTIC 2010

IMANTAS SELENIS

JOHN BENTLY BOOKARTBOOKSHOP 2011

MARIA TERESA GAVAZZI 2011

BEN WESTWOOD 2010,

PHOTOS BY ERNESTO LEAL

GOODMOODZ REDAKTION 2011

ANDREW GRAINGER ALEKSI’S BIRTHDAY 2013

^ FETE WORSE THAN DEATH,

PHOTOS BY RACHEL MEGAWHAT

BUILDING

“

The landlords said: You want it, for three months? Most people ran a mile because conventional businesses are built on five year models - we didn’t have anything, so it was easy, that acid house mentality: Let’s do it, everything

”

can be taken away… and we’re still here, three and half years later.

“

We were all lucky to be here when landlords with empty properties needed to start paying rates. We started with pop-up exhibitions and warehouse events and saw the building could be used in a wider spectrum - the location made it easy for us. We are part of something important here. The rehabilitation of this building was required. As long as everyone involved realises there’s a

”

chance it’s not going to be here, we can start working from that, it’s exciting.

SVETLANA FIALOVA

POSSESSES A MYTHICAL MORAVIAN BEAUTY, CAPABLE OF LURING THE MOST HARDENED TO FIGHT FOR HER HEART. UNABLE TO CATCH HER SOUL, THEY’D FIND THEMSELVES SPELLBOUND AND FROZEN FOREVER IN ONE OF HER POSTMODERN, FAIRY-TALE KINGDOM DRAWINGS. BATTLING AMID HER BLACK, WHITE AND LIMITED COLOUR PAPER-FANTASIES, AND FEARS; THEY’D BE TRAPPED IN A PERFECT BALANCE OF DREAMWORLDS, BOUNCING BETWEEN POST-MODERN POP AND PSYCH-OCCULT DARKNESS. ONE SUCH DRAWING, APOCALYPSE, MY BOYFRIEND DOESN’T CARE, FUSES POP-HAWAIIAN TREES WITH ANCIENT HORSES RIDING FROM THE GATES OF HELL, WITH JAKUB MASKER IN THE CENTRE, NONCHALANTLY SMOKING AMID IMPENDING DOOM:

“[He’s] probably my biggest inspiration, he is a talented painter and a lovely guy. We met at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague almost 7 yearsago.”

THE PICTURE WON THE JERWOOD DRAWING PRIZE 2013. NOW A RECOGNISED ARTIST, LIVING IN LONDON, THE SUBCULTURE OF EAST LONDON DANCES LIKE CONTEMPORARY FOLK THROUGH HER WORK,

“I

usually start with a clear idea or a story, which could be the central character or the mood of the piece. I prefer a rather spontaneous or intuitive process afterwards, adding the layers of the scene. It takes me about two or three weeks to finish a drawing, I like to include many details

”

which complete some kind of inner logic of the artwork that I follow.

COMING TO LONDON TO BE AT THE

“centre of art life, get a chance to see ” HERE: “Many of my friends have visited

some good exhibitions, meet new people, hang in the famous bars , I ASK HOW IT COMPARES WITH HER PREVIOUS STAYS IN PRAGUE AND BRATISLAVA AND WHAT THE PERCEPTION OF LONDON WAS, BEFORE ARRIVING London before and they loved the vibe of the city. We usually think of London as a cool but very expensive place to hang out. Some of my friends were surprised by how everyone takes his or her career so seriously in London. I guess we still put our families and relationships first and are not so confident and straight BORN IN 1985, IN THE SECOND LARGEST CITY OF SLOVAKIA - KONICE, WITH A POPULATION OF A QUARTER OF A MILLION, THE COUNTRY BECAME INDEPENDENT FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC IN 1993 AND JOINED EUROPE IN 2004.

“Right after Slovakia joined

the EU, I travelled to Ireland with my now ex-boyfriend (also an artist currently living in London) to earn some euros and experience life abroad... we worked at McDonald’s and I improved my Polish! I always felt a need to live in different places.

London is so diverse, it’s like a mash up of every culture I can imagine, so I’m going to stick around for a while. I didn’t encounter a big change in my life when Czechoslovakia split, I was a young kid then... I guess the relationship between the countries is better now, there are no hard feelings about sponsoring the less developed Slovakia from the Czech side and Slovaks can no longer blame the centralisa-

”

tion of Prague.

”

forward like Western people.

THROUGH JAKUB, SHE MET YARDA KRAMPOL WHOM SHE THANKS FOR A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF SUPPORT IN LONDON, AND PROVIDING THE PAIR OF THEM WITH THE SPACE AT RED WHICH THEY ARE BOTH APPRECIATING AS THE AUTUMN 2013 ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE. FIALOVA IS USING THE STUDIO TO PREPARE FOR A SOLO SHOW IN PARIS, PARTICIPATION IN COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS IN SLOVAKIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC AND

”

collaboration with a commercial gallery. http://www.svetlanafialova.com/

“hopefully a

PEOPLE COME FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF LONDON TO EAT HIS ANGRY, GRIZZLY AND GREEDY BEAR BURGERS, WITH OR WITHOUT ‘BACON JAM’, WHICH HE COOKS WHILST PLAYING LIVE ON HOXTON RADIO.

“

It’s a a real mixed bag, in the day, it’s the office workers, digital crowd, coders, designers etc... they have supported me and the Market through rain, snow, wind, you name it. And in the evenings, we have a strong local crowd who just love to eat, drink and party! It’s truly a great space for entertaining. I work with traders who have a great attitude towards their work, food is important obviously but if the attitude of the trader isn’t right then, they can go somewhere else.

Music, food, good times! This is what trading at RED is all about. Selling out at 9pm and staying around to dance the night away with friends, customers

TOM REANEY

IS AS NEAR TO A PERMANENT FEATURE AS IT GETS IN THE RED MARKET. HE WAS WORKING IN DUBAI WHEN HE FIRST HEARD MATES GETTING HYPED ABOUT PRIVATE PARTIES OCCURRING IN THE GALLERY BASEMENT (ROUGH TRADE, MULLETOVER, SECRET SUNDAZE). LYING TO HIS GIRLFRIEND (NOW WIFE AND MOTHER OF HIS CHILD) THAT HE WAS GETTING A LATER PLANE INTO LONDON FROM DUBAI, BY TWO DAYS, HE ARRIVED AT RED WITH LUGGAGE, DESPERATE TO HEAR DENIZ KURTEL WITH WOLF + LAMB: and locals... That is RED.

”

“

You’re shitting me, I thought, on arrival in a little white room. Then I heard music pumping from downstairs, I followed graffiti down dark, red lights, and it was the best night of my life - two years later it came full circle, I

”

started serving food here.

ORIGINALLY FROM ROYAL LEAMINGTON SPA, HE LIVED IN NEWCASTLE AS A TEENAGER, AND HAS MAINLY BEEN IN LONDON FOR THE PAST DECADE.

“

Leamington is a pretty multi-cultural place with loads of things going on there, it’s a place where the RED Market concept would work really well.

Mixing the art, music and food like we do at RED would bring all the different

”

people together for a bloody good knees-up.

HIS THOUGHTS ON WHAT TIME OUT! DUBBED THE NEW FOOD REVOLUTION ARE THAT IT IS EXPLODING:

“

Right now, it’s crazy! Everywhere you look there is another street food event with music, booze and good times happening. I’m glad I got into it when I did, because it’s almost getting to saturation point. At RED a small few of us have managed to be independent and create our own little foodie hub. It can only get bigger. I think it’s a mix of people wanting great fresh food, cooked in front of them at a fraction of the price of its restaurant counterpart and knowing that they are supporting a growing local business who in turn are using

”

locally sourced produce and managing to survive with their own businesses.

AS ONE OF THE LONGEST STANDING CHEFS AT THE CENTRE OF RED, TOM’S MAVERICK GRASP OF SERVING UP BEATS AND BURGERS LEAVES HIM CHANTING,

http://burgerbear.co.uk

“Long live RED!”

LIAM O’HARE

BECAME A HACKNEY RESIDENT IN 1999. NOW 45, HE WAS OPERATIONS DIRECTOR FOR THE END NIGHTCLUB AND AKA BAR IN COVENT GARDEN FOR ITS THIRTEEN YEAR DURATION. SINCE THEN, HE HAS OPERATED SHAKE IT! - A BRAND WHICH PROVIDES INFRASTRUCTURE IN VENUES AND FESTIVALS AROUND THE WORLD. LIAM IS A LICENSING CONSULTANT AND HAS SERVED FOR FIFTEEN YEARS ON THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE OF THE BARS, ENTERTAINMENT AND DANCING ASSOCIATION, THE TRADE BODY FOR THE LATE NIGHT INDUSTRY (AVAILABLE FOR ENQUIRIES ON LEEMOHAIR@ME.COM). HE IS ALSO ON THE ACCREDITATION PANEL OF THE PURPLE FLAG SCHEME, RUN BY THE ASSOCIATION OF TOWN CENTRE MANAGEMENT, EUROPE’S LARGEST MEMBERSHIP ORGANISATION DEDICATED TO HELPING TOWN AND CITY CENTRES REALISE THEIR NATURAL ROLES BOTH AS PROSPEROUS LOCATIONS FOR BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT, AND AS FOCAL POINTS FOR VIBRANT, INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES.

“ the End.” “I was brought in as the police closed the market the year before for

I got involved in RED via Yarda [Krampol] although I had known Ernesto [Leal] for over twenty years having worked on various club nights hosted at

licensing breaches. It was clear Red had a great and original idea to host a night market but maybe not the right partners to run such a large scale event in a built up town centre. We needed to convince the authorities that we had identified and eradicated previous mistakes and got in a credible operator with sufficient experience to deal with large volumes coming through the doors at all times of the day. It was my role to ensure the business model was sound as well as programming the food traders, DJs, and one-off events such as Hackney

” “Rather than work in TENs (Temporary Event Notices) which can be with-

Wicked.

drawn at a moment notice I thought RED needed a time limited license to operate and any time over the summer of 2012. A full license would allow better planning, better systems and flexibility to programme whatever we wanted. No one knew what the summer was going to deliver so we thought it best to ask for everything. Everyone said we would not get the license which is the type of licenses I like to apply for. I was confident as we are able to demonstrate we were knitted into the fabric of the area, had the best interests of the area as well as our own aspirations and most importantly we were delivering a free public space in the town centre during the Olympics when every hotel around us was charging extortionate prices, we managed to give something free and use the 22 000 square feet to promote street food, music, art

”

as well as celebrate the summer.

“The End was a thirteen year

project delivering world-class events week-in, week-out and I was looking for something a little less intense.

Red was a very interesting project and I was keen to help them develop their original idea of a night market, bringing along the best elements of all I had learned running the End from opening in ‘95 to closing ‘07.

The passion for delivering something original and entertaining and real

”

was very, very similar.

“

RED SETS THE AGENDA FOR MIXED-USE SPACES AND HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF A SPACE PREVIOUSLY LEFT TO SLIP INTO SQUALOR OR SOCIAL DEGRADATION. WHAT IS BEING DONE HERE SHOULD BE A CASE STUDY FOR HOW TO DEVELOP AREAS AROUND THE COUNTRY IN A SIMILAR POSITION. THE FACT THIS IS ALL DONE WITHOUT FUNDING IS ASTONISHING AND IS THE REAL ACHIEVEMENT OF THIS PROJECT IN MY OPINION. THIS IS

”

DRIVEN BY IMAGINATION, PASSION AND PURE FORCE OF WILL.

“Red should continue as long as there are spaces available to carry out

cultural guardianship, there are enlightened landlords who can see the benefit of hosting such pursuits and town centre managers who share our vision and appreciate our efforts as heartfelt and beneficial to the wider community. I am currently mentoring several small businesses in East London and I will always

”

be around to support the Red project.

DAVID ADAMS

, YOU’RE A BIT OF A SHOREDITCH SUCCESS STORY - YOU HAD ONE INTERNSHIP BEFORE SOUNDCLOUD AND NOW YOU’VE PROGRESSED TO BECOME THE MUSIC CONTENT MANAGER AT THE CENTRE OF UNDERGROUND MUSIC. HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INVOLVED WITH THE AREA? I first was involved with Shoreditch about seven or eight years ago with an internship I had back at school for an independent label, which was located a couple of doors down from where XOYO is now. It was a really intriguing space to go in to at that age, as they co-shared with a couple of management companies and a PR agency. I still bump into those people at shows now and again. I personally feel the growth of the technology scene in the area today can be put down at least in part to the successes of the other artistic and creative communities that blew up in the neighbourhood over the last couple of decades.

The internship opportunity actually came from my science teacher at school, whose brother owned the label. I gave her a pretty hard time when I was a kid in class, but she was kind enough to put in a good word for me.

Looking back on it, you could say it was my first break that allowed me to get my foot in the door. Key life lesson - be nice to your science teacher, you never know where it could lead.

WHAT DOES YOUR WORK ENTAIL?

My day-to-day is primarily focused on building and maintaining relationships within the music industry ecosystem; labels, managers, artists, editorial sites, PR companies, etc. My role is to be a resource to educate these stakeholders about our platform, bring their feedback to the company to help inform product decisions, and then explore creative opportunities with partners to push the boundaries of

SOUNDCLOUD ARE A FLAGPOLE IN SILICON ROUNDABOUT - WITH INVESTMENT our ever-evolving product.

COMING IN FROM COMPANIES SUCH AS ASHTON KUTCHER’S A-GRADE FIRM. DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE PART OF THE TECH COMMUNITY, OR MUSIC, OR SOMETHING ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT? AND HOW DO YOU THINK THE PHYSICAL COMMUNITIES OF AN AREA INTERPOLATE WITH DIGITAL COMMUNITIES - USING SHOREDITCH AS AN EXAMPLE? Our London office currently co-shares a floor with two other startups, Shuffler.fm and Urturn. They are in the same room, but in the building (what used to be the Foundry) there are a number of startups in the space. This close knit environment of companies sharing the same spaces has brought much of the community vibe to the area.

Our first office in Shoreditch was with moo.com where we, like a number of other startups, co-shared on one floor. Since this time, there has been a real growth in the number of co-share spaces available, but my advice to any startup of a certain size and with extra space is to have an open door policy toward other startups looking to take a spare desk. You never know where it could lead.

Personally, I also find the area has great connections within the music industry. Since 2010, we have been running occasional meetups in the area with fellow startups as they come and go, but always maintaining a real focus on having the majority of guests from the music industry to help spread awareness.

Building relationships with local venues, such as places like Strongroom, has worked so well for us to run events. Having venues like this giving us the opportunity to access spaces at early stages has been a great enabler to help build these communities.

WHY ARE YOU BASED IN REDQUARTERS, YOU’RE AWARE THE PLACE COULD GET TURNED INTO A HOTEL, RIGHT?

It has an awesome rooftop.

The building has a great history, with its ever changing exterior and list of artists who have collaborated within these walls. If the hotel redevelopment ever happened, I’d like to think the last pieces of work created would find good homes rather than just be destroyed.

IF HIPSTERS DON’T KILL EAST LONDON FIRST, WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WILL PREVENT THE TECH COMMUNITY FROM CLOSING THEIR LAPTOPS AND MOVING ON?

I believe that the latent creative energy in the Shoreditch area helped to gain the interest of other industries to set up shop here. If the costs of the area can’t support creatives and they are forced to look for more affordable spaces, others may follow.

I am already seeing smaller tech and creative startups move out towards Hackney Wick, which has a strong community of underground creatives. It will be interesting to see where startups decide to place themselves in the future depending on where they land between the cross-section of arts and technology.

FINALLY, WHERE ARE YOU FROM, AND WOULD RED WORK IN YOUR HOMETOWN? I’m originally from Essex. RED would have to try it out!

https://soundcloud.com

CULTURE

CONTRASTS AND MIGRANCY. SHAKESPEARE PREMIERED PLAYS ON CURTAIN ROAD. FRENCH PROTESTANT SILK-WEAVING HUGUENOTS SHELTERED IN C17 SPITALFIELDS, ESCAPING CATHOLIC KING LOUIS XIV. HOXTON WELCOMED IRISH DREAMERS AND BELIEVERS TO WORK ROADS, RAILWAYS AND DOCKS IN THE SWELL OF VICTORIAN INDUSTRY. THEN JEWS, RUNNING FROM THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE’S EXTERMINATION POGROMS, LACED BETHNAL GREEN WITH FASHION MERCANTILISM AND BEIGEL BAKERIES. THE POOR LAW SERVED PARISH LOAVES IN MAD-HOUSES TO PAUPER LUNATICS. WORKHOUSE VILLAINS PUT THEIR OWN BROKEN MINDS IN THE EAST’S PRIVATE ASYLUMS. FETID YARDS OF WASTED DONKEYS AND CURED FISH SURROUNDED THE PUTRID LABYRINTHS OF LUCIFER-BOX MAKERS IN THE OLD NICHOL SLUMS AND THE SPITALFIELDS ROOKERY. JACK THE RIPPER AND MOBS OF VAGABOND KIDS SLIPPED AROUND HAUNTS OF VICE. SOCIAL REFORM KNOCKED DOWN SLUMS AND BUILT 3 SHILLING A WEEK ROOMS FOR FAMILIES: ARNOLD CIRCUS’ BOUNDARY ESTATE. BEER WAS HEAVILY TAXED AND SPIRITS CHEAP - WORKERS AND MUNITIONETTES DRANK WHISKY AND GIN BAWDILY, UNTIL ALCOHOL WAS BANISHED FROM THE AUDITORIUMS OF MUSIC HALLS AND AN ADJUNCT TO THE DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT 1914 ORDERED ASSISTANCE TO THE WAR EFFORT, RESTRICTING LICENSING HOURS TO LUNCHEON, 12:00-14:40 AND SUPPER, 18:30-21:30. WW1 KILLED THE NIGHTLIFE AND DEBAUCHERY OF THE OLD EAST END. IT MOVED TO THE WEST END IN THE TWENTIES, LEAVING THE EAST INDUSTRIAL AND LARGELY WORKING CLASS. THE KRAYS AND BARBARA WINDSOR THEN CHARACTERISED THE CRIMINAL ASPECT OF POVERTY. THERE WERE ALWAYS INNOVATORS IN SHOREDITCH SUCH AS THE ANTI-UNIVERSITY, JOHN FOXX (ULTRAVOX) AND THE WHIRL-Y-GIG, BUT ACID-HOUSE WAREHOUSE PARTIES AND CLUBS SUCH AS THE BLUE NOTE ATTRACTED 90S CREATIVES SUCH AS ALEXANDER MCQUEEN AND THE YBAS TO ABUSE THE TENANCY AGREEMENTS OF LIVE/WORK SPACES, AND ADD CONVERSIONS WITH BATHROOMS AND KITCHENS FOR FULL-TIME LOFT-LIVING. THE NEW MILLENNIUM SAW CREATIVE OFFICES EMERGE, IN 2007 SHOREDITCH HOUSE OPENED TO CATER FOR THE RISING INFLUX OF MEDIA-YOUTH. THE NIGHTLIFE OF SHOREDITCH NOW ATTRACTS DROVES OF TOURISTS AND ARMIES OF WEEKEND HIPSTERS.

ALICE

HERRICK

I CAN TELL IS BECOMING MORE COMFORTABLE. HER ONOMATOPOEIC EXTRAPOLATIONS ARE INCREASING: KERCHINGS, AND SWASHES, AND KACHOWS, ALL COUPLED WITH SINCERE GESTICULATIONS, CURRENTLY DEMONSTRATING THE TAUTNESS OF CEDRIC CHRISTIE’S CHARCOAL-DUSTED ROPE IMPRINTS ON PAPERS NAILED AROUND HER GREY-WALLED GALLERY IN SHOREDITCH’S FRENCH PLACE:

“I’m

drawn to work which is more about contemplativeness - and stillness, and form, and slow. The city is so intense, it’s great, like going straight into a thrash metal gig, it’s like paw - thraw. This work, it’s very

”

prsh, kre cher...

BY WAY OF EXPLANATION OF HER VOCAL SOUNDSCAPES AND ALL-ENCOMPASSING COMMUNICATION SKILLS SHE PROFFERS HER FATHER, A MUSICIAN, AND HER TRAINING IN PERFORMANCE ART.

“

I used to come around here as a student to Brick Lane, go to the Blue Note, for Talvin Singh and Goldie at the Blue Note, drum n bass nights.

I’d come to the Whitechapel Gallery, The Bricklayers, The Barley Mow and Atlantis [art supplies]. I left Chelsea Art School in ‘93 and more people were coming over here, Jake Miller was opening The Approach by Victoria Park, and people started to have more studios here - and then in ‘96, I needed a new studio. I’d been in Deptford. A friend, Rebecca Earley, told me about the Truman Brewery, but it was mostly empty - I went in, they asked: where do you wanna be - it was an enormous building with windows, so I was on the fourth floor, and they built me a plot for 25 quid a week.

I ended up living in the studio, surviving on bagels and curries. In ‘99 I met someone in film who wanted to move to London, and we found this place. It was still a one-way system

”

around here.

“

They’re verydifferent, RED is rough and tough and edgy, and Friends of Arnold Circus is

”

soft.

GROWING UP IN KEW, AND LATER LIVING IN BRIXTON, HAVING A GALLERY HAD ALWAYS BEEN A FANTASY, BUT IT WASN’T UNTIL SHE’D ESTABLISHED HERSELF THAT IT BECAME A PROSPECT. WHILE WORKING IN FILM AND RUNNING WORKSHOPS, SHE MET DEBORAH CURTIS AND GAVIN TURK WHO WERE JUST STARTING HOUSE OF FAIRY TALES, DOING KIDS SHOPS AND ART WORKSHOPS AT FESTIVALS. SHE RAN PROGRAMMES WITH THEM AND CURATED THEIR EXHIBITIONS. BY 2010 IT HAD EXPANDED, AND IN THE RUN UP FOR FESTIVAL SEASON, HER PAL, PAUL SAKOILSKY, TOLD HER ABOUT THE EMPTY BUILDING HE WAS WORK-

“

ING IN WITH ERNESTO LEAL, We had loads of people in Gavin and Deb’s basement, and RED said: Just pay electricity. We ended up being in there for six months, and then another couple of months. They were always saying: We may have to move out in May. No, it’s going to be July... and Ernesto and I got to know one another, and when I left House of Fairy Tales, he said: I’ve got some ideas it would be great to get you onboard curating. So we developed East Pop! which came out of London Newcastle’s space in West London - near Golbourne Road - the industrial bit - no pubs, just a huge space sitting there empty. We’d always thought it would be great if we could get some of East London to West London - and West wouldn’t come East, so we decided to take everything there- so I went to curate it. And around that time a lot of people were forming collectives, either artists sharing studios, or loose groups with some people good at organising, some better at DJing... there were people like Le Gun, who had been established for a while, so rather than doing an art fair, my idea was to get the collectives, and they’ll organise their own bit and promote to their own networks, and some even formed collectives for that show and have continued them- and that was the beginning of October 2011, tonnes of people were at the opening. We had all these billboards, it was successful, but we did it on a smaller scale here and it almost worked better back in East London at RED, we had all these Frieze week people around. It was really exciting, and Ernesto has great energy and drive. We would like to take the show to different places, but had to postpone

”

it indefinitely because of funding.

HERRICK WENT ON TO CO-ORDINATE AN OLYMPIC TIE-IN WITH RED AND THE HACKNEY WICKED FESTIVAL BEFORE OPENING HER OWN GALLERY IN THE SPACE SHE’D BEEN LIVING IN AND USING AS A STUDIO SINCE 1999. AFTER BUILDING A GALLERY WALL WITH FRIENDS, TO SEPARATE HER LIVING SPACE FROM THE PUBLIC SPACE, THE FIRST SHOW LAUNCHED IN 2012 WITH EIGHTY PLATES BY VARIOUS ARTISTS, INCLUDING WELL-KNOWN PALS SUCH AS GAVIN TURK, AND BOB AND

“

ROBERTA SMITH. I did another project through RED with Yarda [Krampol], inviting artists such as David Cerny, Tessa Farmer and Darren Coffield to design model train carriages for the Prague

”

charity auction.

ALICE IS SOCIAL, SHE LIKES OPENINGS, EVENTS, AND AFTER 14 YEARS IN THE

“

AREA JOINED THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR ARNOLD CIRCUS, They’re very different: RED is rough and tough and edgy, and Friends of Arnold Circus is soft and community and they’re both very much part of me, like wings over Shoreditch, swoosh swoosh, I’m in the centre. It’s activated me politically and it’s great to have some say affecting change for the better. I also joined the East End Trades Guild [which Rossana Leal speaks of]. All of these things need money, time needs to be dedicated, I’m doing what I can do: inviting artists to make prints to sell, for example, because it’s a natural extension, I like working with artists. We are in this place that everyone wants to put their mittens on, and if we don’t stand up and unite, those of us who have built it will be bulldozed

”

and it’ll become bland, like any other place, just next to the city.

http://www.herrickgallery.com

CHRIS BIANCHI

ROLLS ALONG RIVINGTON STREET WITH AN UPALL-NIGHT GLIDE. HE’S TALL WITH HUMBLE SHOULDERS. HIS EYES CATCH ME LIKE THE WELLS OF INK THAT CREATE THE TRIBAL, POST-PSYCHEDELIC STORIES OF HIS ART. AROUND IN THE BRICKLAYERS’ OUTDOOR YARD, THE SUMMER 2012 ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE OF RED TELLS ME HE SEES THE WORLD IN CARTOONS, AND A ‘LIL MORE:

WHERE ARE YOU FROM, ORIGINALLY?

CB: Malta, born and bred - 1977 - there was no art school there, I had to come here. I started off in a basement in my parents’ house and used that as a studio, making paintings, I had a darkroom, made music, had friends there, and it got to point where I was 18 or 19 and came here and went to Chelsea, then Camberwell, then finished at the Royal College. I tried to stay in art college for 8 years - I’m an art college whore! But at the Royal College I met the Le Gun - it was good to find like-minded people because I didn’t have an art college education at a young age. It took me a while to find myself; here in secondary school you have art classes, but not in Malta, so it came from me. My old folks helped me out because I built myself an easel, and they saw it as a sign of commitment, and they were serious, wish I still had it, probably still in the garage. My dad’s a lawyer. Mum did a bit of social work but has loads of grandchildren, she plays cards and they’re all Maltese. The education’s in English over there, it’s like a suburb of England, everyone speaks English, although they’re trying to change that... it’s got a population of 250 000.

There’s an island off Malta called Gozo, there are weird things and weird people there, I’m half from there, there’s an isolation to it. They take a roundabout, and a guy will start drawing on this public place, makes it nicer, they do a lot of that. In Malta there’s a lot of rural strangeness, decorating farmhouses with old dolls and wind chimes made out of old toys, there used to be a lot more. That’s getting lost, in the fields they have machines that set-off to scare the birds. It does take over, technology. I was in Sri Lanka, and there were all these amazing scarecrows, handmade, they look like people, scary.

SO FROM MALTA YOU CAME TO A BIGGER ISLAND?

Robert [Rubbish, from Jersey] and I always used to say: two boys, two islands, two reprobates, two drunks it carried on like that, we’re both from small islands and wanted to escape, Jersey is about the same size as Malta, everyone knows you, we were both trying to escape that. In London you can be whoever.

WHERE IN LONDON DID YOU LIVE TO START OFF?

I lived in a flat in Fulham and every time you took a bath it leaked into the kitchen, really crazy flat, crazy people. And I knew some people from Malta, who knew all these rich people in penthouses in Chelsea, with billiard rooms and coke, and thought: this is great! This is London! Then moved into Camberwell and my vision was shattered, ha. But five of us were living in a flat down in Camberwell, with two hundred people coming to parties, and our landlord was an E dealer, and there’d be a pile of pills outside his door upstairs where he’d pulled his keys out.

I was cagey about being at art school and the change of being here as an immigrant, so met some guys who I’m still very close with, Harry [Malt] and I stayed in touch, we got a studio together in 2008 and started Bare Bones, and did shows with RED. With Bare Bones, I wanted to do something that was more immediate. Le Gun had a formula - we did ten issues of Bare Bones, then Harry wanted to move to the country. He lives in Walsingham in Norfolk where there’s a shrine to Mary.

He grew up around there, in Hoe. When you’re here and on your own, you start new families: your friends become your family, if you need any help, you have them, my real family are three thousand miles away and I’ve been with Steph [Von Reiswitz, also an illustrator and part of Le Gun] for 13 years. She’s pregnant: it’ll be a new chapter, inspire new thoughts, ideas, feelings, as a human, good to experience.

SO ROBERT [RUBBISH] CAME THROUGH SOHO, DID IT HAVE THAT MUCH OF AN IMPACT ON YOU?

Soho was more Robert and Neil [Fox]. I used to like walking around Soho alone, and when there was stuff to discover, then Robert and Neil showed us around, it lost its mystery. It’s changed, it used to be rougher, there were more dives and social clubs - nudie dancers for a quid. The charm of it is meeting it, and Robert and Neil had a B-line of hangouts, where famous people drank.

Neil’s work’s about that, and Robert did the Rubbishmen of Soho [a band].

It’s fun but not the beginning and end for me. They like olde worlde stuff.

SO THE MAX NOG SHOP, THE FIRST INSTALLATION...

We wanted to make a drawing you could walk into. It took about two months, we were papering the walls, everything. I think we called it International Festival Le Gun. It was all about making then, y’know, we’ll work out what it is and what it means later, and have fun with it. Nog shop became a club where bands would play, take a few cans, he called it the Cave.

THAT’S WHAT FARIS’ CLUB (FROM THE HORRORS) WAS CALLED...

Maybe he came down, saw it.

Nog stood for something stupid, NUCLEAR ORGANIC GRAPHICS or something.

I think [Max Nog’s] mum was married to a Visconti, so every time he got broke, he’d just go and sell a house in Rome. He had a skate park in his house, he pissed off a lot of people, he was in New York in the 80s, friends of Madonna, William Burroughs.

I’m not really into the fame thing, if you become notorious, people are taking photos, Pete or Amy Winehouse, it’s not very nice looking at someone coming out of a club off their head. Yet, you need to be part of it - I haven’t got a Facebook account, but do have one for BareBones. And you need to tweet or you get left behind - but I think you can rebel against it - someone like Robert, he didn’t do it until a year ago and now he’s all over it. I’d rather stay away from social media and see what happens, but you need people to know about it and you get to 3000 people at the hit of button.

I found the best way: I did a show at RED and I was there from eleven in the morning to eleven at night and talking to the people buying your work, I don’t think it gets better than that. You can go global on the internet - if someone buys my art I like to talk to someone. Most collectors like to know the artist, it’s important.

I’ve been listening to Grayson Perry, the Reith Lectures. You get your art, your handbag, and your car. Sol Campbell was at Frieze.

IS IT A STRENGTH THAT YOU CAME FROM ILLUSTRATION?

Street art, boundaries, high art, low art, whatever. Banksy setting up a kiosk, selling it for forty quid, it’s challenging, he’s playing with that, he’s concerned that he doesn’t get that freedom, he’s the papa of street art, it’s stencil art, but he’s social commentary, he’s like a Hogarth of our time.

I’d rather go to the National Gallery and go see old paintings, I see the world in pictures, that’s how I see the world, in cartoons, that’s why I did illustration. I like the primal instinctive - if you look at my paintings they’re coming from that old school - the iconography. Symbols and metaphors and making your own symbols...

I met a woman the other day, at a private view, Gaynor O’Flynn performance artist - she said: What do you do? , I said: A bit of an illustrator/artist, she made me think I’m just gonna say: I’m an artist. I make money as a commercial illustrator, but do my own art. Andy Warhol did commercial art, it’s all about adapting to your environment. I’m not an accountant, I quite like Visual Artist - I quite like the constraints of commercial work, coming up with solutions for things that aren’t your own ideas. Sometimes, as an artist, you can do anything, so it can get narcissistic. I like to make interesting images that make people think and get a reaction.

I’ve been writing for the last few years, I’m a closet writer and poet, and I was going to burn them and thought these are quite good, that’s something new, but I was dyslexic and scared of words and reading, I’d rather listen to an audiobook, because if I read, I’d jump massive sections.

WOULD YOU PERFORM?

Performance would be too much about me, the drawings are performance.

Would I do it though? If I came up with an idea I liked...

LE GUN - ARE YOU DOING MUCH NOW?

I took a break for the V&A show because I wanted to find myself a bit more, thought I was getting a bit lost, so wanted to do the [solo] show at RED.

And I was doing Bare Bones and Le Gun together for a while, so was doing a lot on others, not myself.

I feel I can go back now, reinvigorated, and with an understanding of how I fit in the gang.

WILL HIPSTERS KILL EAST LONDON?

They have. It doesn’t mean that East London’s dead - the truth will always be stronger, and there’s always going to be people doing strong stuff, but that’s not the end, just got to learn how to live with them, it’s a bit annoying that rent’s getting more expensive because artists wages haven’t gone up. Maybe more support would be good. We should get the corporations to pay for studio spaces and be given more of a helping hand, stop it being so elitist: ten people making loads of money and then thousands I THINK THERE’S AN ATTITUDE OF: YOU’VE CHOSEN TO DO IT, LIVE WITH IT... struggling.

Yeah, deal with it. I used to do a bit of teaching but there’s no parttime and the colleges are a bit broke. With Le Gun we set up a shop and have had to turn it into a business but should we, as artists, be the businessmen?

DO YOU THINK THERE’S SPACE FOR COUNTERCULTURES IN LONDON?

It’s suppressed, they look at people who protest terrorists.

and

they’re

...I SPOKE WITH ROBERT ABOUT THE POVERTY/ORGANIC DIVIDE...

It’s always been split, what can you do? I feel privileged, I’ve never come from a poor background, middle-class norm, I’ve never experienced it - but I struggle to pay my rent and my brother became a lawyer. He’s got the Volvo, the pool, but I do have a richer life. I dunno, when he can do what he wants I hope it won’t be like this forever. I’ve never paid NI, I think I pay enough, you pay tax on everything you buy, on council tax, on and on. I don’t make that much so why should I pay more, and then big corporations skimming...

CONSUME OR BE CONSUMED. Yeah, and all they’re doing is making money.

Yarda [Krampol] and Giuseppe [Percuoco], they take me out for lunch, when I’m doing a bit of art for them, and they’re starting it from scratch there has to be money if you’re spending money...

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE WAY RED RUNS, AS A VAGUE CO-OPERATIVE OF IDEAS?

I think RED, if you explain an idea, they give you space and don’t ask too many questions. They’re supportive, and financially - they’re there for you - I did all the work in a week, for the show and they liked it - so they did the catalogue, I gave them a bit of artwork, they gave me a space. I’ve been speaking to Yarda about spreading a residency programme over Napoli, Prague, and London. Rather than an application process, I hate those people. It would be nice to approach [artists], make it more exciting.

And then speaking to Yarda about pop-up galleries, there are spaces for it - you have business rates, so if you do pop-ups, it avoids it, and the landlords, that’s in the pipeline.

So projects with me and Yarda and Giuseppe, they’re not paid jobs but there are some artists, like a Turkish guy who I really want to do a show with, I really like his paintings, and he’s sort of trying London out, it’s not easy to just come here in two years, a lot of people have to leave - it would be good to support people who are here.

I think RED do goody-goody causes, sometimes a bit too many and the graff art, it’s getting worse and worse, I think it should be controlled - it can be quite rash - it could be really important. I don’t know that scene but if that was curated better - and spend some money on getting really good people, it could be a lot better.

I live near Toynbee Street, people have moved up to Stamford Hill. I have this thing where I really like London and social problems, I don’t know if we are getting pushed out or if it’s because we’re getting older, I don’t want to move to the countryside, I think maybe it’s time for another city - I can make it in new cities, my wife likes comfort.

It’s massive we spent money from our ownI pockets on I like the South, somewhere in the Mediterranean, or a maybe as anundertaking, artist, go and look at the world more. was in Madrid recently and you go two stops on ait, train and it’s gypsies, and it’s wild, and no one works, I was there for this says Greg, pulling up the sleeves on his work overall. As far as my resifestival, San Juan, 25th June - it’s a dency different scene. I went there twice in a row, gypsies singing for a week. I’d like to do some work about that: belonging, where fit. I two don’tprojects think I whilst could live anywhere and one fit in. goes and here, I’m we running looking after but the London building: is Maybe San Francisco rather than LA. Inmore LA people buy [art] out there, it’s a bit older we need a gallery who could experimental electronic, using sound synthesis and field recordings, creatdo that, maybe organise doing something.

Wesonic did China, Istanbul, Berlin and it’s fun to take what you do to ing symbols with poems, likeand theParis, work performed at RedSonic, collaborating new places, we spend a lot of time working with the space and working it out.

It’s good fun.

It’s that thing of with spoken word artist Elinrós Henriksdotter. Those pieces work as livetalking compoto people, living and breathing the space.

I feel like a traveller - I in don’t my back home on yeta -multi-channel I don’t want sition, changing their voices realthink time,I’ve andfound played it stop here. But y’know, I leave my house - I can have Chinese, sushi, Thai, whatever in a very close period of time. diffusion I like the city. sound system, so people hear different sounds from different directions. The

”

“

“

other project is called Kontratone, I don’t use computers when I’m performing, BUT YOU HAVE TO BLEND WITH YOUR so ENVIRONMENT, TOXIC CITY. I have a lotINofTHIS hardware, old skool drum machines and crazy Russian syntheThat’s a good name for a show, Toxic City. sisers customised by crazy Hungarians. My main thing is to play live. I don’t

”

yet have a Soundcloud, I want people to see it live, that is an art product. http://www.chrisbianchi.co.uk http://www.legun.co.uk

redsonic.co.uk

ROBERT RUBBISH’S

FACIAL HEDGING SWIRLS IN PUFFS OF DANDY, TWEEDY SMOKE AROUND US. HIS EBULLIENT STATURE LUMBERS THROUGH THE GATES OF RED MARKET, LIKE A CHURCHILL OF YORE. A CONFIDENT STATESMAN FOR LE GUN, HE PAINTED THE MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING MURAL BEHIND THE SANDPITS FOR THE SHOOT WE DID FOR FREESTYLE MAGAZINE OVER THE SUMMER OF 2012.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM, ORIGINALLY? I’m from Jersey.

AND HOW DID YOU END UP HERE?

I came first off to Bristol to do a BA in Illustration in the mid-90s, although I’d lived in London in the early 90s, living with a mate, but progressively slipped into mundanity and went back to Jersey, did a course that got me to Bristol because I’d left school with an art GCSE because I’m dyslexic, eventually moved back to Jersey for a couple of years, then in 2003 I moved back to London to go to the Royal College of Art to do a master’s in visual communication...

WHAT DID YOU GET OUT OF THAT?

I got in a lot of debt but good friendships. I met Le Gun guys and we started a magazine. I went there to expand my work but ended up collaborating a lot, and it was a meeting place for all these new people, and I’ve been here since.

WHERE DID YOU LIVE TO START OFF?

I lived in Hammersmith and moved East in 2005, we were going to Soho a lot...

THAT’S WHERE I GOT A LOT OF MY EDUCATION...

Yeah, us too, and there was stuff going on East and after college we got a collective studio space where we It’sFields a massive spenthave money from there. our ownItpockets on worked together on Le Gun, it was near the London pub onundertaking, Mare Street.we We’d parties was probably better around there then: it was it, a bit says crap, and pulling I couldn’t afford a space, when we had aAsbig we’d Greg, up the sleeves on hisbut work overall. farproject as my resiwork there together, so it was a hub of where we were hanging out, and it carried on after college, some of Le Gun dency are still there. There was six and now goes therehere, are seven.

Stephtwo [von Reiswitz] , Chris’ [Bianchi] girlfriend didn’t I’m running projects whilst looking after the building: one go is to the Royal College so she got involved later, she’d been doing other stuff... it was and around 2006, that we more experimental electronic, using sound and synthesis fieldthen, recordings, creatmet Yarda [Krampol]. We did that thing in in the Max Nog gallery Brick Lane, where Yarda was working - a ingBrick sonicLane symbols with poems, like theonwork performed at RedSonic, collaborating black and white cave of drawings, and we a back room.

ThatElinrós was good for us, he was a bit of weird slippery guy, withdid spoken word artist Henriksdotter.

Those pieces work as live compothough, Max. He gave us free reign which we couldn’t quite believe, we thought he’dplayed come back alongon and say he didn’t sition, changing their voices and in real time, and a multi-channel want this or that. We covered the ceiling in chequered paint, glossed the floor. We were building a world and we thought diffusion it would last a month, but it was theresound for longer, it was hear a nice place tosounds hang out, made us directions. think we could system, and so people different fromand different The actually build stuff. It was quite immersive, you could it Kontratone, was our sortI of thing it was better than a sterile other project is tell called don’t useand computers when I’m performing, gallery. so I have a lot of hardware, old skool drum machines and crazy Russian synthesisers customised by crazy Hungarians. My main thing is to play live. I don’t

IS IT A STRENGTH THAT YOU CAME FROM ILLUSTRATION? yetonhave a Soundcloud, I want peoplewetowere see putting it live,on that is an to artfund product.

I think individually we’d worked separate things, but together parties the [Le Gun] magazine, so we’d do a six-foot drawing to sell in the Royal College bar, then we’d hone it, and realise we could do a better by drawing and embellishingredsonic.co.uk it for each other, and we sold it, and that would fund the magazine.

”

“

“

”

HOW DOES THE PHYSICAL PROCESS OF BUILDING AN INSTALLATION, SUCH AS THE ONE AT RED, OCCUR?

First off, an idea, whether it’s Le Gun, or a commercial project, we think of the idea, and then see how feasible it is, if there’s a budget we’d cost it - say here, we did a twenty-five metre room in there, which has now toured everywhere, but we need a set builder or carpenter, price up the wood, and that starts a story. With the RED one, we did a drawing of a story and the drawings turn from 2D into 3D, there’s not one person that’s good at this, people don’t go over each other’s work, but someone might shadow it, add to it.

It’s very instinctive. When it’s taken back down to a commission or a drawing it gets tighter and more annoying because they say: Can you move that?

But it’s a free-for-all if it’s just us...

We did a Bare Bones show here first, then Le Gun and Bare Bones. Both times we had parties in the basement, but it all comes from parties. We got to know Yarda better because after the Nog shop, we did a Le Gun party in a block in Cambridge Heath where we had a studio, Yarda did the door for us, and he started doing stuff here, and introduced us to Ernesto [Leal].

WILL HIPSTERS KILL EAST LONDON? Yeah - they have already. In my view.

I think all of London, there’s a bit of a problem. Without sounding very, very negative, the hipster thing is causing problems because it’s areas that people went to because they were cheap because other areas in centralised areas were too expensive, so cheaper areas create artist colonies out of economic reasons and it results in the trendification of East London.

I LIKE THAT WORD: TRENDIFICATION. It’s making out something is creative when it’s just capitalism.

CONSUMERISM.

Yeah, and it’s just all they’re doing is making money and pushing people out of areas, not just artists, I don’t understand where people go to. It might be doing some people a favour! But price wise, my experience in London: I now live in Stamford Hill which is South Tottenham which is nothing, and it’s never going to be.

Shoreditch is obviously too expensive to rent. Dalston, Hackney, wherever, they get regenerated, revived, whatever, but where’s the choice, like you get organic or nothing. On Mare St, we used to have a caff there, where you could just buy a meal but now there’s a burger place that’s dressed up, it’s got writing saying THIS IS AN EXPERIENCE or whatever but it’s just a burger place, instead of where you could get a meal, there’s either really shit fast food, or that.

POVERTY OR ORGANIC.

These two cultures living together, one is survival, the other is affluence dressed up as something else. You’ve got to have a certain amount to buy into that kind of lifestyle, and it’s just money driven. I don’t think it’s creative, I’d like to see artists making money from it, but it’s entrepreneurs opening up Things. Central London will become everything up to Tottenham and parts of the South and it will be unaffordable to most people.

Y’know Shoreditch Box Park, it’s not temporary but it’s sold as a pop-up experience, but it’s just the high-street dressed up to be something else.

Somewhere else, it’s just like: this is a shop. I think people are being made to buy into the mythology of recent past history.

People in London buy into areas that become a product of their success and then the real people can’t afford to be there.

I THINK EAST LONDON WAS BOMBED CATASTROPHICALLY, AND IT’S BEEN USED AS A TOILET FOR IMMIGRATION. THE EAST LONDON THING IS NOT THE SAME AS REGENTRIFYING NOTTING HILL OR CHELSEA. THERE WASN’T A CASH MACHINE HERE WHEN I FIRST MOVED IN THE 90S, AND THE CONTRASTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HYPERBOLIC.

This band I used to manage in South London have a thing called Yuppies Out, in Brixton, which is a bit misguided but they are scumlords fighting back, half of it is funny, but half of it ridiculous, that there are fromage and champagne street parties now in Brixton. The band are Fat White Family - they’re unruly, but I was managing them for a while but got my fingers burnt. The lead singer I’d been working with was in my film and we’d been working for a while, but the band had drug problems and I had this first-hand insight, everyone’s on heroin, on crack, none of them had train fare to get to the studio - and I made them a video and artwork and it got somewhere but I was giving myself to them, and I loved what they were doing but they’re so like that, they don’t give a shit about themselves or anyone else, but there was a hostile takeover from another guy and I love what they’re doing, but had to depart, and you see what you see, and you know if you go into the lions den, that’s what it is...

IS THAT LIKE LONDON?

The things that are dangerous and scary would attract me when I was younger, and London’s got a lot of it. The band were the last bastion, I found it exciting, and all the older people behind them were in Brixton holding banners around Thatcher’s funeral... London creates those people.

THERE ARE A LOT OF PRICKS TO KICK AGAINST HERE.

It’s attractive in some ways but it’s good to look at it from a distance, unless you’re bulletproof.

(We run in from the rain, resettling in the RED Market marquee.)

We’ve changed sides... so yes, inside here, the RED Gallery are willing to give people a chance, to do an exhibition, a crazy night, when I was doing that mural there, talking to Yarda and Greg [Konready], they both grew up in Communist countries and Ernesto was going on about doing a hammer and sickle but what they were saying was critical, yet they’re all doing a...

CO-OPERATIVE.

You are drawn to what you like, even though you don’t even know what that is, Greg’s view on Communism and the west, he’s harsh about communism. What’s nice about Le Gun is we share money and we work as one, and that’s the same as here, they use a bit of business...

THEY GIVE THIS SPACE AWAY FOR FREE.

And they’re in the centre, I enjoy what they’re doing, and it’ll take groups of people like this...

I’M READING A BOOK AT THE MOMENT ABOUT REBEL CITIES, AND CITY CENTRES NEEDING AUTONOMOUS PLACES TO FORM IDEAS. CHATTING TO GARY MEANS, FROM ALTERNATIVE LONDON, HE’S LIKE, YOU COULDN’T REPLICATE THIS WHERE HE’S FROM, IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT, BECAUSE THERE AREN’T ENOUGH PEOPLE TO MAKE IT DIVERSE.

I think I was growing up in extreme capitalism, in Jersey, but in the late 80s, early 90s, they had free parties, and we’d go there to smoke weed, take acid, but all the nutters, all the druggies and no-one was fighting. Like skinheads or rockers. So it was interesting for a while. The police didn’t know what to do, but they banned it - Jersey can pass their own laws in about three weeks, so they made one where you’d get imprisoned.

The background I come from, it’s only drugs that allowed us to crossover into that world of rich people, but they can’t keep their kids away from hooligans, in the same way. We ran this club, through a grammar school, and it had a private members club, where you could sign people in, so I’ve always been interested in, I guess, collectives.

COLLECTIVES SOUND LIKE A BAD JAZZ FUNK BAND.

Yeah! It does.

It can be horrible working with people and their moods but it can be amazing, and you eat, party and work together...

I think if we tried to label what we do, it gets complicated and money has never been our driving force, so if you’re excited about something, you can worry about the money later. Money taints it. But that’s how people make money, and some will leave.

I’VE BEEN LIVING HAND TO MOUTH FOR SO LONG... NOT EVERYONE CAN COPE WITH THAT...

I want to live a life that’s interesting. It’s more important than amassing fortune, but maybe some more balance would be good.

HA!

It’s exciting and it’s shit. The agony and the ecstasy. Throughout history I like the balance of you’re broke but partying with whoever, where the world is blurred. I used to be friends with, did you know Sebastian Horsley?

I MET HIM IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS OF HIS LIFE. An interesting three weeks...

I WAS QUITE RESERVED IN THE FRIENDSHIP BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE ONE THAT LASTED...

I knew him for quite a while, and someone I considered a good friend for a while and, of course, there was bravado but genuine compassion, he was fascinated and fascinating.

“

He introduced me to this filmmaker once and he was like: The reason I love him is because he’s got nothing. He’s got nothing! And I was like, what do you mean? What he was saying was that broke isn’t a badge of honour but this guy was doing what he wanted to do, whatever the consequences, and couldn’t get on in whatever world. I think if you look at the old dandy thing, of two amazing

”

looking guys smoking in poverty...

LIKE RIMBAUD AND VERLAINE, OR WITHNAIL AND I...

Yes... it’s all about those ideas. London’s got a big history of that.

And that is the best quality, where genuinely good ideas get attracted to it, from toffs to the people on the street, they all gravitated towards Sebastian.

OUR BRITISH ATTITUDE TOWARDS CULTURE IS NOT EMBRACING LIKE FRANCE, HERE WE DON’T PUT CREATIVES ON A PLINTH. WE GET SHAT ON, IT ENCOURAGES IMPERIALISM...

I think England is a very interesting place because of our working classness. Deep down, I think they want to be ruled and oppressed.

They’ll never have a revolution, certain things will happen but they won’t connect, or think they’re the same because there’s so much suppression - my theory’s not watertight, but the British get really into football, not getting rid of poverty, not getting rid of the Tories. When Margaret Thatcher died people were saying you can’t say this or that, but she ruined whole communities and those communities are being victimised by the new Conservatives for not having jobs. She destroyed lives, industry.

Now they’re supposed to feel bad about what was done to them, and media maybe works really well here, but there is not a mass uniting to save the NHS, and I think in British culture there’s an affluence issue.

AFFLUENZA - ERNESTO CAME UP FOR A WORD FOR IT: ARRIVISTA - IN FRENCH/SPANISH, IT’S A CUSS IN SPANISH, MEANS YOU THINK YOU’VE ARRIVED AND LOOK DOWN ON OTHERS. ALWAYS LOOKING UP, HEGEMONIC CULTURE...

Always being ruled and being oppressed. Coming from a small island, London always feels like there’s an immense amount of freedom, some people say you’re on CCTV, the police etc. but I feel very free. I’ve walked across the city, at 5am, coming down from whatever, and I’m the only person here. I like walking across the city in Paris too but here, you’ll meet someone you know but also have the anonymity to drift across it and that feels better than walking in the hills and country. I find it has a lot of spirit. I think maybe I’m out of touch, but there will be a way for the young, as long as they aren’t victimised for being poor or living somewhere.

COULD RED BE REPLICATED IN JERSEY?

No. Architecturally, no, you couldn’t do it - there was a funny incident when Le Gun were invited to go and do a show in an old magistrates court and the police cells, it was part of the Branchage Film Festival, my friend was organising it and I found it weird that I’d been there before with friends who had been sent to prison and we did a

“

”

show in the old cells, and took this guy, Lord Bath [aka Paul Vincent Lawford, not thee real Lord Bath ] to DJ, after the Mayor of Jersey had done his speech, playing Fuck Da Police, and it was going really nuts, like Chris was getting kids to skateboard along the parquet, and it was proper nuts, and it brought a little bit of something but then we’d probably be arrested, so for one night, maybe...

If you tried to recreate this in Jersey, they’d find something to really hate, and be negative about, and you’d get ten people and a dog there. I think this is unique but if you took these characters and gave them an opportunity there, they’d make something, but something else. I think they’ve made a lot just out of the building, from the Bare Bones show in November with no heating, freezing hands, thinking why are we doing this, then when they started to get electrics it grew, but that non-permanence...

DO YOU THINK THAT’S PART OF ITS APPEAL?

I think because it’s not going to be here, it would have to be run established as an arts space where we had charitable studios, which kinda happens. It’s like Berlin-past, a bit rough and ready. I think what they’ve done is allow people to curate their own space, and that works when you have good people involved. I think it’s an interesting thing. Out the back of my mind I always think it’s going to be turned into a hotel with a Banksy in perspex, and they’ve done so well, for what it was, it was all a bit shit. So when it changes into a hotel, you’ll think, wow, that was a good space, but London is layers upon layers upon layers. Every room in Soho has layers and things reoccur, like this was something in the 60s, it’s been everything and now it’s something similar - I mean could this work somewhere else in London?

BLUE IN WEST LONDON, MY HUSBAND’S JOKE. THEY DID A SUCCESSFUL POP-UP IN LADBROKE GROVE...

In this space, when it began, with all the agro with The Foundry, the squat, they were looking at these guys in one way, and I think the whole of London is becoming more friendly to consumers, so Soho is like Covent Garden...

THE WORLD IS LIKE THAT, YOU’LL WALK DOWN STREETS IN MADRID, BARCELONA, TOKYO, AND ALL THE SAME BRANDS’LL BE ON THE SAME STREETS...

In Soho there are going to be some major architectural changes. City Road is changing really quick, with canalside developments. I think progress is good but having something of the past is good as well, that’s when London works, I don’t know how new flats culturally improve something. My vision of the future is that there’s a circle being drawn around London, and you won’t be able to live in it. In Paris all the estates are out of the city, it’ll be reversed here.

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE TECH FRIENDLY, OR A LUDDITE? WHERE DO YOU FIT WITH TECHCITY?

50% luddite, 50% technology. The problem I have with technology is the same problem I have with my dyslexia, like if you showed me how to do something on Photoshop, I couldn’t remember it. I find Social Media fine, but technology to aid my art is frustrating, and I have no logic in that area, but we’re in interesting times with technology, you can do films and stuff you couldn’t have done 5 years ago, it’s bringing an affordability to making things, but the gatekeepers and distribution problems still exist. I think technology is good and empowering but frustrating and I don’t think it’s going to make anyone more creative than they are, it’s a tool. You could get the best camera ever, and call yourself a photographer...

SOME PEOPLE WOULD SAY THE DEMOCRACY OF THE INTERNET ALLOWS EVERYONE TO HEAR IT, BUT I THINK IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO RECORD THE BEST ALBUM EVER AND REMAIN OBSCURE. IT MAY BE THAT RISING POPULATION COMBINED WITH A WIDER ACCESS TO CHEAPENED TECHNOLOGY MEANS THERE IS MORE CONTENT, BUT INDIE STUFF IS ALWAYS BATTLING MAINSTREAM DISTRIBUTION...

You can make a print but may spend ten years getting that money back. Or you could ask someone else to sell it, make half the money, and have more time.

I made a film, a seventy-minute psychogeographical detective story, purely narrated because I didn’t have any sound equipment, I don’t give a shit what happens with it. I went to see festival doctors, it’s not my world, but I’m fascinated with having it exist.

YOU HAVE TO BE CERTIFIABLE TO WORK IN FILM...

I agree, it is the nuttiest world, and there’s development money flying around, and technology has enabled it.

It’s very emotionally draining.

IT’S LIKE LAURA MULVEY, IT GETS A LOT BIGGER THAN YOU. AND £100K MINIMUM PUBLICITY AND ADVERTISING BUDGET IS ESSENTIAL TO EVEN REMOTELY PLAY IN THE ARTS CINEMAS. SO WHY BOTHER MAKING SOMETHING IN THAT FORMAT IF IT’S NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT. EVEN THE NETFLIX/HBO/AMAZON SERIES - IT’S ALL GETTING SEWN UP BY THE SAME GATEKEEPERS, SO AS INDIES WE HAVE TO FIND OUR OWN WAY.

I was like: I’m going to make this film, and I’d have meetings with people trying to do it the right way, and they’d say, you need a crew of fifteen people. And in the end I was like, right, I can make something but it’s not the same way they’d make it. I’m with you that you can’t expect mass cinema release. There is interesting stuff, but you have to be a Social Media fanatic, it’s something I feel I should be doing more than I want to. You can get people to do that.

Technology is not going to improve creativity. It does enable it, you can make a film that looks alright that is digital, but you can make a film on a video camera and make it look good, I think if you can get a good balance with it, it’s good. I think it’s more useful to have the internet in the country than in the city.

YEAH, JOHN REITH SAW COMMUNICATION AS A WAY TO EDUCATE AND INFORM FARMERS.

It’s all regional, but linked. The human race will survive and adapt but technology may not be used for entertainment - Social Media was used in the Arab Spring for something amazing, and in the West it’s used for privileged entertainment to make sense of our stupid lives. Taking pictures of food. People call themselves foodies, like, we’ve all gotta eat...

I DID TEN YEARS WITHOUT FOOD!

We’ve all eaten tissue paper, for our time in the catwalk, ha, but it’s fascinating I was only on Facebook this year, to promote my film, but I got suckered in, and it’s funny, that’s exactly what they’d do if you were sitting with them, so people do connect in the same way, in social entertainment, it could be used for good to help isolated people, it would have blown my mind on Jersey as a boy.

I GOT THAT THROUGH MAGAZINES, THE FACE, READING I-D.

I don’t know if we knew what we looking for - you’d get a record, read the sleeve notes, it was manual. I think digital is interesting but it’s like anything [is available], I’m not going to listen to stuff on a valve amp ‘cos it’s authentic, or Modern is Bad. Because we live in the modern, some of it is shit, but computers have helped me personally in some respects but can be a bit annoying if I’m there with my girlfriend, and I’m on Facebook.

I’M TIME OBSESSIVE AND IT KILLS ME HOW MUCH TIME IT LEAKS. We do like to kill time though, boredom, we have to be entertained...

http://www.robertrubbish.co.uk http://www.legun.co.uk

MATTHEW HAWTIN,

BROTHER OF RESPECTED TECHNO PRODUCER RITCHIE HAWTIN, EXHIBITED AT RED IN FEBRUARY 2012.

“RED knew about my brother, and myself - we have similar backgrounds

in club culture and electronic music - the artwork that I’d been doing for my brother’s early releases was our informal introduction, and then that idea of putting that musical and visual journey came together in an exhibition. It was a retrospective of my work that had been used in conjunction with Plus 8 and M-nus recordings with paintings that had been used as covers, prints as artwork,

”

drawings as art - the sleeves as canvases, the fibreglasses pieces as art.

YOUR WORKS ARE LIKE THE VISUAL ARTICULATION OF THE SONIC PURITY AND EMANCIPATION STRIVED FOR IN THE PURE WHITE NOISE OF TECHNO. THE TORQUED SERIES ARE ALMOST LIKE WHAT FRACTALS AND GRIDS WERE TO EARLY ELECTRONICA.

“

My main creative output is visual art, paintings, some design work, so I was working visually and my brother was working on music. We’re from Ontario, Windsor, it’s right across from Detroit, you can be there in fifteen minutes.

Shoreditch and Detroit have a similar aesthetic and history. We started putting on clubs in Detroit, where my brother started doing his sonic thing. I was DJing when we did early parties in Detroit, he’d do the techno room and I’d do the ambient room - DJing is a secondary career for me, but together with my visual life they’ve always gone side by side, and the basis of the exhibition at RED was to bring both worlds together, to show the journey, with the visual design of my brother’s record labels and the changes in electronic music, a real broad type of music to all these sub-genres of techno: chillout, minimal, trance, dubstep - all the splinters. I’m working on some new pieces at the moment - fibreglass

”

pieces, just finished a commission.

HOW DID THE SHOW SYNC WITH YOUR WORLD?

“

It went with the whole ethos of RED, bringing together music, design, visual arts, different cultures and scenes - they have a real knack at bringing people together. There are a lot of hipsters in Detroit now, and people moving from Brooklyn, and people looking for places for creative freedom, and clean slates, and I guess that’s what RED does with each project. It would work well over here. Detroit, London and Berlin have a vibrant subculture and that’s what RED taps into, they like to highlight that as a community - their attempt is to show what a community is, and to celebrate that, to bring together different spheres together, visual, dance, design. RED and electronic music comes from counterculture, so club culture and the history of this is a valid history and it needs to be recognised and archived for what it is.”

http://www.mhawtin.com

RACHAEL ROBB

IS A PAINTER AND ONE OF THE CO-FOUNDERS OF STOLEN RECORDINGS, HOME OF BO NINGEN, SERAFINA SISTER, EAST INDIA YOUTH AND OTHERS.

“My ex-boyfriend, Paul [Jones] and Merida [Sussex] were in a band

together [The Paradise Motel] and we started putting nights together at Catch in 2003. We were seeing great bands, and nobody was putting out their records, so we started doing the label from that. Because I was doing art, I started doing flyers and record sleeves, and it just sort of evolved. It’s one of those things.

From a young age I’ve been taking pictures of friends in bands, but my painting is quite traditional. It’s very different to the work with the label. Paul is in Berlin now, and Merida and I are both directors, I handle the art direction and stuff - we really work with the bands, we manage Bo Ningen too, which is a full time job in itself, going to the States and Australia. They’re enjoyable to work with. It was never that we planned it, the label is very organic. It always seems that one band comes from another band that comes from another, we were doing gigs at the Spitz on the last Sunday of every month, and we put on Pete and the Pirates and they were the first band we signed and from them came others

”

through friends. We get sent a lot of demos now.

THE DADA SOUNDCLASH GIG AT RED WITH BO NINGEN AND THE SAVAGES WAS AMAZING, TWO DRUM KITS, THE BANDS STANDING OPPOSITE ONE ANOTHER...

“

I love the space, the venue it’s bare, it’s raw - I hate places that impose their aesthetic and architecture upon you - I love big empty spaces. We’ll be doing more shows at RED for sure. My friend Geraldine [Swayne] had a studio upstairs and I met Ernesto [Leal] through that, Bo Ningen did a Rough Trade gig and shortly after that we had to do a video.

Ernesto offered the basement which was great. It was perfect. Everyone seems to know the same people - but Yarda and I know each other from living in Prague, from my past, I was working there as an artist and we were both involved in parties, I went over there for two weeks and stayed three years - it was like I couldn’t leave and something new would happen, I got there at the beginning

”

in ‘93.

I LOVED THAT UNDER CHARLES BRIDGE.

LENNON

WALL

“

Yeah, I’ve not been back for years. I’m from just outside of Melbourne but first came over here in ‘92 - travelled a bit, and have been living here since the beginning of ‘97, we’re based in Tottenham, in a nice stables’ mews. The Quietus are around the corner, but weirdly I’ve found out my family are originally from here. We did a gig at Shoreditch Church with Bo Ningen so I know Robin [Hatton-Gore] and the vicar [Rev. Paul Turp] and a year later I found out that my out my great, great, great grandmother got babtised there. It’s quite nice. We do all our shows around here.

I used to live on Dalston Junction, the squat in Ashwin Street, nobody was on the streets at night - every time I go to Dalston I’m not used to how many people are on the streets now, it would have been too scary for them ten or fifteen years ago. It’s getting like West London, a tense SO DALSTON HAS BECOME MORE POLISHED THAN THE MARBLE STEPS OF THE ness about not having enough money, VATICAN, WHAT ELSE HAS CHANGED? people swanning around more. The Everything is so digital - I like a balance of the physical things and disparity between people living the digital, but technology is good for bands, for press it’s a lot easier and close together is increasing, there’s there are more places for exposure, but there’s so much, because of Soundcloud, it’s so great, for sending private links, and for artists and labels, you don’t more aggression. need to see the pictures of the artists, it’s just about the music, it’s more open but there’s no filter, so there’s probably more out there - but whether you

“

”

”

have time to listen...

http://www.stolenrecordings.co.uk

ROGGYKEI

ARE A JAPANESE FASHION DESIGN DUO WHO TOOK OVER RED KANTINE TO PREMIERE THEIR LABEL IN LONDON WITH THE SPRING/SUMMER 2014 IRON DUALISM COLLECTION.

“It is about the appearance of hardness, essential to life,” EXPLAINS HITOSHI KOROGI, FROM BEHIND HIS POINTED, ASYMETRIC FRINGE. “This collection looks heavy but is not. In fact, for example, I made this shoe with aluminium, and it’s much lighter than it looks.” HE GENTLY PASSES ME A TRADITIONAL LOOKING JAPANESE SLIPPER WITH SILVER, HOLOGRAPHIC FAUX-LEATHER STRAPS. “This is a bracelet made from stainless steel, again, it is light.” AND SCULPTURAL, AND HAS THE HYPERBOLIC, 70S SCI-FI-NESS OF TOKYO. IT IS WORN BY KEIKO MIYAKOSHI, HIS DESIGN PARTNER, WHOSE PIXIE EYES ARE PAINTED WITH GEOMETRIC LINER, AND HER EARS HANG WITH LONG, ANGULAR STRIPS OF BLACK FAUX-FUR. SHE WEARS SOME OF THE COLLECTION - WITH TUDOR CHIFFON SLEEVES, GREY PRINT PANELS AND A SUPEREXTENDED, SOOT-METALLIC BELT WHICH KNOTS LIKE CARTOON PIPING.

“ �

It is about the appearance of hardness, essential to life.

Collaborating with artist and animator Noriko Okaku, who has previously exhibited at RED, they began with two characters: Tetsuo (meaning: I am boy of Iron, in Japanese) and Tetsuko (I am girl of Iron). The single characters appear on hand-cut T-shirts in squishy, tech fabrics, and a print on the silver-grey base for contrasting cotton panels which the characters dance across on the rails.

There are post c-punk pieces which suit performance and the fantasy of anime characters.

“

I asked Ernesto [Leal] for the opportunity and he was very kind and said: Use this place. I don’t know where this big table came from but it’s perfect

”

for us showcasing, explains Okaku. In the corner of the RED KANTINE, there are two rooms facing out to the branching of Old Street and Great Eastern Street, the Royal College of Art postgraduate placed a dummy in the corner of the room with a white T-shirt and projected her animation of Tetsuo and Tetsuko which can be seen from the street. The decor and architecture of the space is perfect for conceptual fashion.

“RED would work very well in Japan,” SAYS KEIKO. “Pop-up stores

inside designer stores are common but this situation is rare. We are unknown here but we have have attracted many people because the aspect is wide, and

”

the location is on the main street.

AVAILABLE IN XANADU, AND MIDWEST IN TOKYO, AND OTHER SHOPS IN OSAKA, NAGOYA, FUKUOKA AND NAGANO, ROGGYKEI WILL BE RETURNING TO RED.

http://roggykei.com

“

”

PAUL SAKOILSKY,

Red is a colour, SAYS A WELL-KNOWN BALD HEAD ON THE EAST END ART SCENE. BORN IN 1964 AND BROUGHT UP IN THE FAR EAST AND EAST ANGLIA, HE ENTERED LONDON IN 1982 AND WORKED ACROSS MUSIC, PERFORMANCE, POETRY AND FILM. FROM THE DAYS OF A FÊTE WORSE THAN DEATH THROUGH SOHO TO TAKING RESIDENCY AT 30 UNDERWOOD STREET GALLERY FROM 1994-2002, SAKOILSKY’S SOUL THREADS THROUGH THE HEART OF SUBCULTURE. HIS PUNK

‘DARK

’

TIMES WORKS HAVE RISEN HIGH ON CAMBRIDGE HEATH ROAD, AND HE HAS CURATED AND EXHIBITED INTERNATIONALLY. CURRENTLY PAINTING IN A, SLIGHTLY-TWISTED, TRADITIONAL MANNER, WITHOUT PAUL SAKOILSKY, RED MAY NEVER HAVE GOT OFF THE GROUND.

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH RED, PAUL SAKOILSKY?

PS: A rather complex tale, but to put it simply, I got involved through Ernesto Leal, whom I had spent a year working with on the landmark East End Promise: A Story of Cultural Migrants exhibition, which I ended up curating in LondonNewcastle project space on Redchurch Street in October 2010. The collating of archive material and work for the latter was well underway when Ernesto was given the keys for the building that would soon be named RED Gallery. Both he and I were around in the early days of Shoreditch in the late 80s & early 90s, and had seen so many changes. It was incredibly exciting in the beginning to suddenly have use of such a huge building in an area that had by then almost been entirely taken over by commerce, leaving little or no room (due to the impossible rents) for creativity. Here we suddenly were with this huge space to play around with. I was offered a studio, as Artist-In-Residence, and asked to curate some exhibitions to get it started, these included the inaugural exhibition Object-Culture: Art as Viral-Commodity, Press (opening on election day), Big Society, Felicities, the press preview/taster version of East End Promise, and Mollyland: An evening with Molly Parker.

One of the great things about RED, at least in its early incarnation, as far as I (and not I alone) was concerned, was the interesting and vibrant mix of different people, generations, cultures and disciplines, as also the great party atmosphere we almost always managed to create.

THE DREAM?

For me, personally, at first, I was very excited about the thought of all of us, as a loose collective, pooling all of our creative and business talents, to create something new, something that we all felt had been lacking in London for sometime. This was something Ernesto and I discussed often at the beginning. We wanted to create something that certainly had died a death in Shoreditch some years ago: the re-creation of a vibrant engaged community of creative people, working individually to make the world, in however small a way, a better, more interesting place to be, through art and dialogue, and yes, partying, which one can see, when at its best, as a necessary form of communion.

“

the interesting and vibrant

mix of different people, generations, cultures and disciplines, as also the great party atmosphere we almost

�

always managed to create.

THE REALITY?

The reality came down pretty fast into what ever so briefly had a utopian edge, in the form of a god almighty, phenomenally expensive business rates bill courtesy of an unbending council, who wanted the money immediately, or else! etc., etc. This unfortunately put a brake to a good many projects that we would no doubt have managed to pull off, and which might have possibly created something of lasting cultural significance. I had a great studio there for two years, which served as a wonderful rallying point for friends and colleagues, and I made a substantial body of important new art works whilst in the building. Then the piper came round, RED had to rent off my studio for office space in order to help pay off the business rates. Thus, in August 2012, after a 5 week residency with Fondazione Morra/Museo Nitsch in Napoli, I had to pack up the studio and leave, feeling somewhat like the exit of the last painter in Shoreditch. Still I made some great work there, curated some great shows, and had some absolutely amazing times, though of course, it was never plain sailing. And who knows what islands, works, buildings, parties, people, lie ahead?

http://paulsakoilsky.com

REDSONIC

IS A TEN-DAY FESTIVAL WHICH HAS ATTRACTED OVER 100 INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS, COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS FROM THE UNIVERSE OF ELECTRONIC COMPOSITION. IN ITS SECOND YEAR, 2013, REDSONIC WELCOMED FRANÇOIS BAYLE, CONSIDERED ONE OF THE FIRST ELECTRONIC COMPOSERS, WHO TRAINED WITH KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN AND COINED THE NOTION OF ACOUSMATIC MUSIC, WHERE SPEAKERS ARE PLACED NON-TRADITIONALLY FOR ULTRA-CONSUMPTION FREQUENTLY IN CIRCLES WITH THE LISTENER IN THE CENTRE. WHICH OF COURSE, RED IS A GOOD SPACE FOR. REDSONIC IS CURATED BY RED’S SOUND-ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE, GERGELY KONRÁDY, COMMONLY KNOWN AS GREG THE CARETAKER - DUE TO HIS ABILITY TO FIX ANYTHING, WIRE ANYTHING, PLUMB ANYTHING, PAINT ANYTHING AND UNLOCK DOORS WHILST CLIMBING A COUPLE OF LADDERS. HE EXPLAINS HOW HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH RED BEGAN:

“

I got a maintenance job here, in the days when water was falling from the ceiling, and we didn’t know how any of the wires worked. We only found a basement a year ago - but they knew I had a studio in Leyton, and that I did music, so gave me the chance to perform at the REDAKTION event. Ernesto [Leal] liked what I do and suggested we did it bigger and better, and Yarda [Krampol] decided to help me shoot a video in the basement. I have a studio-space here and can develop my work as an artist with creative freedom, and they help me by giving me deadlines for

”

live performance

GREG, ORIGINALLY FROM HUNGARY, INVITED HIS BRAZILIAN TUTOR FROM THE LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATIONS, AQUILES PANTALEÃO, TO CO-CURATE A FESTIVAL. INVENTING A TRUE GEEKFEST OF ELECTRONICA, WITH A PERFORMANCE SPACE AND ROOMS FOR DISCUSSION, REDSONIC IS A WILDLY AVANT-GARDE PLATFORM FOR THE PROGRESSION OF SOUND. OTHER INVOLVEMENT HAS COME FROM DAVID TOOP (MUSICIAN, CURATOR, WRITER), MICHEL CHION (MUSIQUE CONCRETE), A GUY CALLED GERALD (VOODOO RAY), JONTY HARRISON AND BEAST (EXPERIMENTALISTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM), PETER CUSACK (SOUND ECOLOGY AND THE EVOLUTION OF SOUND THROUGH MIGRATION) AND FIONA CURRAN (TECHNOLOGY AND AUDIO-SEMIOLOGY).

“

I got a maintenance job here, in the days when water was falling from the ceiling, and we didn’t know how any

”

of the wires worked.

“ it,” SAYS

It’s a massive undertaking, we spent money from our own pockets on

GREG, PULLING UP THE

“

SLEEVES ON HIS WORK OVERALL. As far as my residency goes here, I’m running two projects whilst looking after the building. One project is more experimental electronic, using sound synthesis and field recordings, creating sonic symbols with poems, like the work performed at RedSonic, collaborating with spoken word artist Elinrós Henriksdotter. Those pieces work as live composition, changing their voices in real time, and are played back on a multi-channel diffusion sound-system, so people hear different sounds from different directions. The other project is called Kontratone, I don’t use computers when I’m performing, so I have a lot of hardware, old skool drum machines and crazy Russian synthesisers customised by crazy Hungarians.

My main thing is to play live. I don’t yet have a Soundcloud, I want people to

”

see it live, that is an art product.

http://www.kontratoneproduction.com http://redsonic.co.uk

“

I don’t yet have a Soundcloud, I want people to see it live, that is an

”

art product.

STREET ART

SINCE 2010, THE RED GALLERY BUILDING AND RED MARKET WALLS HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE MOST CONCENTRATED COLLECTIONS OF QUALITY, UNCOMMISSIONED STREET ART IN THE WORLD.

THE EVER-CHANGING CANVAS FEATURES SOME OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN STREET ART AND ACTS AS A PLATFORM FOR UP-AND-COMING LOCAL ARTISTS TO ENGAGE WITH A WIDE, CAPTIVE AUDIENCE.

THE TAKEOVER OF THE FORMERLY-DERELICT WALLS HAS BEEN ORGANIC. BANKSY CAME WITH JAMES NICHOLAS FALLON’S SHOREDITCH CARNIVAL IN 2003, AND THE RED STOCKADE HAS HOSTED: ROA, STIK, MILO TCHAIS, RUN, ZEZAO, MASKER, JO PEEL AND PHLEGM. DR. D PAINTED AND PASTED LARGE SCALE PIECES ALONGSIDE LONG-STANDING ILLEGAL PIECES BY 10FOOT, ATG, ELMO AND INVADER.

THE FIRST COMMISSION BY RED’S FOUNDERS, ERNESTO LEAL AND YARDA KRAMPOL, WAS TO BEN EINE. HE SHARED SOME OF HIS SINGLE LETTERS, WHICH WERE ADORNING SHOP SHUTTERS ACROSS EAST LONDON, WITH THE ENTRANCE TO RED. A FEW MONTHS LATER, EINE’S WORK WAS GIFTED FROM THE CAMERONS TO THE OBAMAS – MAKING BEN EINE THE FIRST BRITISH STREET ARTIST TO HAVE HIS WORK HUNG IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

JAMES NICHOLAS FALLON ON BANKSY, THE SHOREDITCH

CARNIVAL AND THE DRAGON BAR:

I started work at The Dragon in 2001, as Assistant Manager, taking over from my friend, Hugo Farmer. The Dragon’s owner, Justin Pigott, curated art shows. They now read like a Who’s Who of Street Art: BANKSY’S FIRST SHOW (AND SUBSEQUENT ONES), MODE 2, INKIE, INSA, PURE EVIL, FAILE & BAST, D*FACE and more. There were solo and group shows which attracted waves of artists to move away from tagging graffiti culture and into ‘street art’ - a more creative form which was becoming more popular and more financially viable as a way to pay the bills. There were always incredibly creative people in and around the bar who were looking to take their art from the street and give it a proper showcase and forum.

Facing onto OLD STREET ROUNDABOUT (REFERRED TO ON THE MIGHTY BOOSH

“THE WASTELAND ROUND THE BACK OF THE DRAGON BAR”), it was a fantastic AS:

hub not just for the world of art, music was key. Bands like Schwab & The Egg played and there were all manner of collaborations with DJs. At jazz nights, around the DJ, a fourpiece band would improvise over the records being played: three or four deck and two-mic sessions happened with the formidable Decknology crew.

The legendary Sunday Cipher night offered an open-mic policy over a crew of turntabalists like Matman and Captain Crunch. The list of musical artists that graced the decks (or mic) is as impressive as the list of artists – Stanton Warriors, Blue (from Lyricist Lounge NY) and Scratch Perverts being personal favourites.

Hip-hop culture has rarely been better represented in the UK than by the early Dragon Bar and with the car park at the rear of the building, there was a chance to run yard/block parties. Skate ramps were built, art walls were made for street artists to paint, grills were fired up for food and stages for music were built. Good (and safe) times were had by all. The only problems were the limited amount of space and the complications with licensing and the landlords.

THE SHOREDITCH FESTIVAL:

In 2002 I came up with the idea of organising our own festival in our own part of London. I’d been working on various festivals outside of the Dragon with Hugo Farmer (who was now working in festival production). I have always loved Notting Hill Carnival and the idea of using streets instead of fields (or parks) but that is for West London and it’s vibrant West Indian cultures. What we needed was something that represented our part of town and our creative community. Looking at the road infrastructure and the buildings in use around Shoreditch it was quite apparent (especially back then) that there was huge scope for a considerably large event. What we needed next was some funding and some support from the local governing bodies.

Having written a proposal about our intended event, a rep from SAB Miller came to the bar with regards to trying to sell Pilsner Urquell to the Dragon. I mentioned my idea for a festival and how I was seeking sponsorship.

She produced a document for one of her bosses. It was a proposal using my words, suggesting a festival in Shoreditch to feature some of the local creative community. This led to Pilsner being the main sponsor for the two years that we were able to run the event.

Another of our group, Yeshen Venema, then made contact with Trevor Parsons, the London Cycling Campaign’s champion for Hackney. He had run several car-free day events locally. As part of European Mobility Week, Transport for London and Hackney Council had awarded Trevor some funding to run a low-key event on Curtain Road to promote the streets being used for something other than motor vehicles, in that case pedestrians and cyclists. With Trevor’s contacts at the Council and with Transport For London we now also had funding and support from the local governing bodies. On Sunday 21st September 2003, we realised my dream. All roads within the Shoreditch triangle (Old Street, Shoreditch High Street & Great Eastern Street) were closed to traffic. The Shoreditch Carnival had main stages where Red Market is currently positioned and where Rivington Place now stands. Hackney Play Bus provided kids and family entertainment. We encouraged and worked with local businesses to develop their business both inside and outside of their venues with sound systems or other activities (the now closed Pool Bar had pool tables positioned on Curtain Road, for example). Pitches were also granted for traders, encouraging the market/festival feel. We set-up areas dedicated to the team of artists we knew. The success of the event in 2003 saw it return in 2004. This time it had grown larger and we were able to record 20 000 people on site during the day. There were multiple stages, generally more activities for people of all ages and persuasions but most importantly of all, for free. Both years’ work was done with local community groups to integrate or showcase work they were doing.

BANKSY:

Our friends BANKSY AND EINE did various pieces across site for both years of the Shoreditch Carnival but I will never forget arriving on site at 7am for the event in 2004. A VEHICLE WAS JUST PULLING OFF FROM THE END OF RIVINGTON STREET WHICH HAD LADDERS ON THE TOP OF IT. IT WAS BANKSY WHO HAD JUST COMPLETED ONE OF THE BIGGEST PIECES HE HAS EVER PRODUCED. As I entered the old Foundry car park (now Red Market), which was to be our main stage for the day, I saw the huge rat and a window with a TV being thrown out of it on the back of the building. Banksy had blessed us again and had put these pieces up for the Shoreditch Carnival.

“

Part2ism rejects these terms attributed to his work and defines himself as more of a liminal

�

contemporary

KEITH HOPEWELL

, YOU’RE OTHERWISE KNOWN AS PART2ISM, ONE OF THE MOST ESTABLISHED SPRAYCAN ARTISTS IN THE UK. I KNOW YOU NOW REJECT AFFILIATION TO STREET ART AND GRAFFITI, REFERING TO YOURSELF AS A

’

‘LIMINAL

CONTEMPORARY , BUT CAN YOU PLEASE TELL US HOW YOU BEGAN WORKING AS AN ARTIST?

“

I started painting and writing in 1984, age 12, influenced by the hip-hop scene in New York, the mass transit art on the trains, all the work appearing on moving vehicles all around the city. It used to be mind-blowing, it was like a code, a network on a transport network. I was inspired, then mimicking, I lived up North, doing it on walls, and it matured, and I got more conscious about why I was painting...it was about identity and self-empowerment, saying: I exist; making a character, and seeing how far it can go. From identity it became a multitude: spraycan art is about the instance of the medium, you can apply it in omniversal ways... I see myself as a fine-artist, the use of a spraycan is a contemporary art, some people are good with paintbrushes, children use them. I am self-taught but went back to art school, I enjoy the academic side.

I think it’s one of the best places you can go, Malcolm McLaren’s strategies come from art school, the auto-destructive side of art. The most interesting part of

” ”I come up from the writing culture - they never called it graffiti in

cultural theory is exploring how the virus is being rejected.

New York, no one in those communities, they’d say: I’m gonna go do a wild style.

It was easy to impose, they took out the transit system, it took them till ‘89 to clean it - the city was bankrupt, and the chemicals made it look bad - and then they painted the trains white, like fresh canvas, and now aluminium, there was

”

a point when they were running ads on them and they looked like the pieces.

THERE’S AN UNDERCLASS ISSUE HERE, RIGHT?

“

It was truly underground and some of the scene remains that way. The Bronx was about gang culture, where there was no money. You can throw money at it and it loses meaning - the kids weren’t educated so it got co-opted into mass media culture, and was damaged in a media lock:

”

“No, that’s not fine art

it’s graffiti. It’s public, alternative art - the stuff John Fekner is doing or Barbara Kruger, it’s all running adjacent to mass transit art, like Basquiat, he never painted a train, he was more situationist, with oil sticks - and Haring

”

chalked on subway ad boards, he was inspired but set aside.

AND THE PAST IS UNWRITTEN:

[The fine art/street art divide] should be addressed academically, [street art] can do a lot more than mainstream media. NO ONE’S PUT THIS MASS TRANSIT ART HISTORY INTO ART INSTITUTES, IT’S STILL INVISIBLE AND SEEN AS BEING MAINSTREAM. There’s no literature on forty years of this, it’s longer than minimalists, constructivists...

Mulletover, 14.09.12

GIVE US SOME CONTEXT:

“

I’ve never seen my stuff as street art, that was the separation from graffiti, we were more illustrators, spray art has different routes and pathways - I remember this New York Street Art exhibition in Birmingham Central Library (in 1987), it featured Bio, T Kid, Vulcan from NYC, Goldie and 3D were the two UK artists, that was way before the Street Art term became used like it is today. The whole fine art world is backed up by academe, but King Mob in the seventies, and Futura with the Clash, coming over from downtown NYC to West London, Ladbroke Grove, it was called the

”

Laylow, for people hiding from the police, there was a squatter scene, to what that area’s become.

SO ARE YOU STILL A WILD-STYLIST OF DISSENT?

“

I’m still using the culture and medium, but playing with it in a different way, trying to transform it into something that is now different, natural evolution. There is an element of war in my work, but it’s more about a medium war, I felt a bit cheated by everything that’s going on with these reductive stencils, because I can paint, a lot of my work was like making it look like a paste up, but it’s not, it’s about seeing it in a different way, a parallax. It’s about the charging of the physical, and creating an effect in the middle, the myth, if you look at a steel fence, but then look at a steel fence over the painting, you’ve got light, and you get a dense distortion, what I’m about right now is this threshold. I’M NOT STREET ART, I’M LIMINAL. I’M TWILIGHT ZONE - it’s always on the threshold of transform-

”

ing, like Hamlet, living in a permanence.

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH RED?

“

I was working with a project, stripping walls down to the bare minimum, pulling it back to the white, and then painting it with the printing DNA - CMYK - pure saturation, post-modernism, everything has been done, I was just playing with the pieces, I didn’t feel like painting at that point, I was doing big areas of space in colour blocks, and I was doing a piece in Shoreditch rooftops and heard someone shout my name, it was Ernesto: Do you wanna do the shutters? I’m just in the middle of something right now, so he asked me to do the rooftop,

”

before ROA, and all that lot.

AND THE SHOW AT RED, IT TIED IN WITH MUSIC?

“

A lot of the stuff I’m doing now is abstract - New Horizons - the idea behind that, the show I had in the RED Gallery, sculptures, they’re all about synesthesia, like Logic audio, different blocks and strands of colours for string patterns, another for drums, another for pianos, I wrote it as a sculpture - I see it as a natural way that sound and the visual relate, wildstyle song patterns, visual song structures, and I was quite obsessed with getting away from flat mediums, walls and canvases - some of the canvases in that show, they’re a representation of noise, flaring on the side. The show attracted musicians like Trevor Jackson, Strictly Kev - it made sense that I was trying to join the dots between sound and sculpture, pull it all into one... You

”

can spray paint it all and get a smooth finish, it’s better than a paintbrush.

http://part2ism.wordpress.com/

ALTERNATIVE LONDON’S STREET ART TOURS AND STENCIL WORKSHOPS ARE RUN FROM RED, AND AT ANY TIME OF NIGHT OR DAY, PEOPLE ARE TAKING PHOTOS AND ASKING

GARY MEANS, THE FOUNDER: WHERE’S THE BANKSY?

MEANS SET UP ALTERNATIVE LONDON AND NEEDED AN OFFICE:

“

1.

In 2012 we bought an old, 1976 double-decker school bus, moved it into the Market and converted it here, into our workshop for spray paint workshops, bike storage, office and shop. [It was done] out of necessity, could have

”

been a boat, or containers.

THE SURROUNDING WALLS WERE A MISH-MASH OF WORKS BY VARIOUS ARTISTS, SO ALTERNATIVE LONDON DECIDED TO FUND AN ARTIST TO FORM ONE COHESIVE PIECE; CREATING THE LARGEST STREET ART WALL IN THE UK.

“

2.

Several artists came around to check out our new home but Jo Peel was particularly taken by the space. She decided to ditch plans for her new animation in sunny Portugal and instead use the huge Red Market wall, the bus

”

and a shipping container...

AT THE END OF SUMMER 2013, FINTAN MAGEE FROM BRISBANE PAINTED A LARGE SCALE PIECE RISING FOUR FLOORS, WITH OTHER WALLS HOME TO: ALEX SENNA, CRANIO, MAGRELLA STINKFISH AND A 3D PIECE FROM JIMMY C. THE GATE CHANGES MOST FREQUENTLY WITH WORKS FROM BEASTMAN, MACAY, HIN AND EDWIN.

“

3. Street art has got like pop music - there are companies like Global Street Art and Street Art London who are trying to curate walls - there are artists who’ll sell out, and punks who are fighting back and rebelling, like:

”

fuck you, we’ll paint wherever we want.

AND THE BANKSYS?

“

4.

99% of people taking over a building with two large Banksys on the side would’ve stuck Perspex on them and cashed in. As much as we all love Banksy, I also love the fact that the guys running RED can see past it and realise that there are other artists out there who are equally as important, talented and just as deserving of that platform. Street art is ephemeral, as are the walls of the Red space. Every time I walk into work I feel privileged

”

to be surrounded by such incredible talent.

WORKING IN THE RED MARKET - WHAT’S IT LIKE?

“

5.

The RED Market over the summer was full every night, loads of bars and restaurants, but it has an amazing feel and unique, it won’t be as good as somewhere else. I’m from the Isle of Wight - it wouldn’t work there - it would

”

be the same people every week.

AND FOR THE FUTURE?

“

6.

I think the financial district will kill East London, the hipsters want to come to an area which is cool and unique and this is fast becoming a hotel district but this place has history and culture which can’t be replaced.

We’re creative-based, not technology-based - when they said this place was the new tech-valley, I thought it was the last nail in the coffin, but we shared an office with [tech start-ups] and if we needed stuff done they’d do it, and we

”

could do stuff for them - they are outsiders too. http://www.alternativeldn.com

SOCIAL

RED MARKET PROVIDES A RARE OUTDOOR SPACE IN THE CENTRE OF SHOREDITCH. THE GALLERY’S DNA OF CULTURAL ARCHIVING AND LIVE ART HAS SEEDED: OUR CULTURAL HISTORY (CHARTING NIGHTCLUB ARTWORK AND GRAPHIC DESIGN), OBJECT - CULTURE (THE ECONOMY OF ART), EAST POP (CONTEMPORARY POP ART) AND COMMUNITY SHOWS SUCH AS MAKING FACES - WHERE A SCHOOL APPROACHED RED ABOUT PUTTING ON AN EXHIBITION FOR A FRIEND WHO’D TAKEN HIS OWN LIFE, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM LOCAL DOCTORS, NURSES, TEACHERS - ALL DRAWING FACES WITH SMILES FOR NOTHING BUT RAISING AWARENESS FOR SUICIDE IN YOUNG PEOPLE. EXHIBITIONS SUCH AS INTERFAITH, ASIA CREATIVE CULTURE, URBAN DIALOGUES AND THE CAPTURE COLLECTIVE’S PHOTOGRAPHIC SHOWCASE BACKED BY TREVOR NELSON MBE OPEN THE OFT-ELITIST GALLERY SPACES OF SHOREDITCH TO SCHOOL-CHILDREN AND RESIDENTS OF ALL FAITHS IN A CROSS-DISCIPLINE SPECTACLE OF THEATRE, WORDS AND INTERACTIVITY. THESE TYPE OF EVENTS PREVENT UNDERCLASS ANGER. GRAFFITI SHOWS BY TEAM ROBBO GIVE SPACE AND BEAUTY TO THE TRUE ANARCHISM OF WALL-ART. I-D MAGAZINE CHOSE RED AS THE PLACE TO CELEBRATE THIRTY YEARS OF COVER ART IN CONJUNCTION WITH TASCHEN. DEGREE SHOWS GET A TASTE OF THE UNDERGROUND BY BEING SHOWCASED IN THE SAME SPACE USED BY GRAPHIC DESIGNER MATTHEW HAWTIN WITH EVENTS FOR THE LABEL, MINUS. FINE ART SHOWS ARE BUILDING BRIDGES INTERNATIONALLY, AND IT’S ALL UNDERPINNED BY GENUINE LOCAL OUTREACH PROVIDING A DIALOGUE FOR THE FUTURE AND PREVENTING DIVIDES BETWEEN NEW INHABITANTS AND THE OLD SCHOOL OF THE AREA.

“

At the front of the school, I’ve got the cool East End but the pupils are being drawn from the poor

” SAYS VIOLET RICHARDSON, HEADMISTRESS OF East End at the back,

ST MONICA’S SCHOOL FROM HER LOOKING OVER HOXTON SQUARE.

“

OFFICE,

RED Gallery came to our attention by the founder, Ernesto Leal and his wife, Colette. Their children being at the school - he came in and spoke to all the children about what Hackney meant and he brought in paper, pens and the children made beautiful work that RED enlarged and exhibited along their outer wall onto Old Street. The kids improve aspects of the community and work together on improving it. That tied-in with the Olympics. It was brilliant to see the children being so proud of the area, seeing their art in such a central place, and integrating. The following year, Ernesto brought people to do a stencil workshop at the fête, with parents, children and teachers getting involved, again, it was exhibited along RED’s walls

”

on Old Street for the summer.

“ ”

There are galleries all over the country that should be doing what RED

are doing.

HOW DOES IT COMPARE WITH OTHER COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS IN THE AREA?

“We

have linked with other galleries locally, but the difference is Ernesto’s personal commitment because it feels very genuine and he really wants the best for the 235 pupils at this lovely, family, community school. There are galleries all over the country that should be doing what RED are doing: Ernesto is a modern day philanthropist and he pushes and finds people, and he’ll make his space - you need someone at the centre. It has to be individuals that do it, there aren’t the budgets in local government - and we need people like him: he is an expert in what he does, I am an expert at what I do, which is running a school. You have to be an expert, we aren’t artists, we haven’t the ways that he does. We get Barclays and UBS, being so close to the city, who are all willing to do their Corporate Social Responsibility bit, but it’s not much money and the banks, in particular, use those funds for graduates to do painting projects, and they are always short term. Local authorities are also so short term, grants

”

are diminishing. Ernesto has put his hand in own pocket

IS THERE A DIVIDE IN THE AREA?

“

I came here seven years ago, but this was an area you wouldn’t have visited twenty years ago. It’s a good place now, and our young people want to be part of it, and they talk about the boom in Hackney, there’s an educational

”

boom because young people now have aspirations.

“There is an issue in trying to get middle class parents to think there

is not a divide, I won’t deny it, unless they join me, it’s not going to change.

There used to be mainly Maltese, Irish and Spanish speakers here, but now the

” “In the future I’d want to encourage ICT skills in the community, for school is mainly children from an African background.

parents and pupils - because I know technology is at the forefront of this area and it would be great to get these people involved with the school in a voluntary manner. We could be used to bridge the gaps between the newcomers and

”

the established communities.

http://www.stmonicasprimaryhackney.co.uk

STEPHEN SHASHOUA

KNOWS THAT RELIGION AND POLITICS ARE NOT THE SUBJECTS OF POLITE SOCIETY, WHICH IS WHY HE IS AT HOME IN SHOREDITCH. POINTING AT A WALL IN THE BASEMENT OF RED, HE EXPLAINS IT IS CONSTRUCTED BY TWO ARTISTS, ONE BRIT, WHO WAS FORMERLY ANTI-ISRAEL, THE OTHER, A NATIVE ISRAELIAND-PROUD:

“

These artists started off hating one another, building separate artworks, making their own walls, then, as they started to speak about one another’s perspectives, they built a piece which combines both their walls.

To me, it explains the true meaning of the nickname for Israelis, sabras: hard on the outside, soft on the inside, and also the work we do at my organisation, 3 FAITHS. We see artists as social change makers and push them to become heroes and leaders of integration, peace, love and understanding.

People build lifelong friendships through this cultural programme - Urban Dialogues, which we’re running for the third year at RED. This year we’re hosting

”

a Talkeoke, which invites everyone to come and speak about any issue they wish.

YOU’RE LIKE THE FATEPHUR SIKRI BUILDING NEAR DELHI, RIGHT, SET UP BY A ZANY MAHARAJA TO UNITE ALL RELIGIONS?

“We

“

I’m a Londoner, I’m not British. We have multi-identities, many affiliations, yet our generational tribes are more ideological than

”

heritage-based.

create opportunities for people of all different faiths and nonreligious backgrounds to integrate and learn from one another. We run school programmes which link faith schools, introducing Muslim school girls to art galleries, or Jewish schools to Catholic schools, trying to humanise perceptions and build relations beyond triviality, where identity and belief create stimulus and compassion, kind of like Shoreditch, where I moved to ten years ago, and finding this job so right for me. We’ve all been to clubs, and understand Shoreditch, if the revolution’s going to happen, it needs to have an inclusive space like this. We could not run this without RED. This is our third year of working together, we’re close, we’re growing together, you see how far they’ve come from club nights only to a lot of local depth, hosting your wedding, it’s not just electronica. I’ve always been into

”

peace.

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH RED?

“

I met the team, we’re a diverse bunch of people trying to bring a diverse philosophy to an inclusive audience.

On the side, I go to Burning Man, it’s similar to what happens at RED, creating an experiential city. The motto there is: Welcome Home, and you feel: this is where I’m from, but it always feels exclusive and doesn’t have the diversity of the world, so we’re trying to find those spaces that are fully inclusive with our cultural programmes. RED is a genuine home: it’s very much ‘our house is your house’ - these guys give us the space for free for two weeks... when the whole world is about money and around us, decisions are being made by old, white, stale narratives that don’t apply to us, it’s a

”

priceless opportunity.

WOULD HOMETOWN?

RED

WORK

IN

YOUR

“It would really work in work

in Montreal. It’s sad that Shoreditch House is increasing because it should be things like RED. My father is Iraqi. I’m Iraqi-Jewish, which has a far different meaning to my parents’ generation than my own. I’m a Londoner, I’m not British. We have multi-identities, many affiliations, yet our generational tribes are more ideological than heritage-based. The movement has no name, TED, RED, it’s all part of that tuned in global citizenship, a new form of socialist freedom. The twentieth century was all about nations, now it’s cities

”

that are powerful.

HOW DOES TECHNOLOGY WORK FOR YOU?

“

We’re still at this beginning stage of exploring technologies as an organisation, we have an interactive map, but how group game and our next generation of Google Glass or Oculus Rift [head gear, goggles, virtual games] will spin us in a new direction. We’re going to deal with a whole different reality, and anonymity, and a new world, we have to find new ways that people don’t separate. Soon there’ll be games on ad hoardings at bus stops that people can

”

play together, but now it’s pretty basic.

DO YOU THINK HIPSTERS WILL KILL EAST LONDON?

“TOM’S

SHOES AREN’T GONNA SAVE THE WORLD - BUT HOPEFULLY THOSE FEET WILL WALK US INTO A BETTER PLANET. The fringe moves in, then it moves on. This place is governed by materialism, from Hix, to this place becoming a hotel.

Where do the children play? It’s like Mayor Giuliani in New York getting rid of crime, but where does the crime go? It still exists. The current attitude

”

is going to push communities into the sea...

AFTER OUR INTERVIEW, I PASS THE TALKEOKE, HOSTED BY A BROADCAST PROFESSIONAL, SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A CIRCLE OF DISCO-LIT SEATS, EACH WITH A MIC. THE FIRST GIRL TO JOIN IS A LOCAL FROM HACKNEY WHO

”

“HAD

ALWAYS PASSED RED,

AND TODAY DECIDED TO STOP BY . THE OTHER MICS ARE TAKEN BY TWO LOCAL YOUTHS WHO START THE CONVERSATION SPEAKING ABOUT LEGALISATION OF DRUGS. PEOPLE JOIN IN FROM SPAIN AND HUNGARY, QUEUING TO SHARE THEIR OPINIONS, LEARNING FROM ONE ANOTHER: AN URBAN CAMPFIRE OF REFRESHING, INTELLIGENT TRUTHS. http://www.3ff.org.uk

DR. LIDA HUJIC

, AUTHOR OF The First to Know: How Hipsters and Mavericks Shape The Zeitgeist TELLS ME SHE’LL BE WEARING A TARTAN SKIRT AND BLUE BLAZER WHEN WE MEET. EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD EXPECT FROM THE WOMAN WHO

“

”

WROTE: My name is Lida, and I am a Hoxtonite IN THE GUARDIAN. BUT FIRST WE HAVE TO AGREE EXACTLY WHERE THE INTERVIEW WILL TAKE PLACE BECAUSE DESPITE RED’S VISION TO UNITE CREATIVES AND THE COMMUNITY OF EAST LONDON, AT THE TIME OF COMPILING THIS BOOK, EVENTS AT RED WERE STILL RUN ON OCCASIONAL, TEMPORARY EVENT LICENSES, RATHER THAN THE ONGOING ENTERTAINMENT LICENSE WHICH WILL SOON ENABLE A BAR AND MEETING PLACE TO FUND ACTIVITIES AND CONVERSATION. BEYOND THE RED MARKET, MANY OF THESE INTERVIEWS OCCURRED OFF-SITE. WHEN I DO MEET DR. HUJIC, SHE WALKS INTO CONRAN’S ALBION CAFÉ ON THE CORNER OF REDCHURCH STREET WEARING A GATHERED, BELOW-THE-KNEE, PRINTED SILK SKIRT AND A WESTWOOD/MCQUEEN/MUGLER JACKET - IT HAS PUFFED SHOULDERS. COMPLEMENTING ONE ANOTHER ON EACH OTHER’S WORK, HUJIC ASSURES ME I’M IN HER FILES. SHE IS MORE FINELY-TUNED THAN HER OWN SELF-LABELLING LED ME TO EXPECT. ORDERING AN ORGANIC PEAR JUICE, TO MY DECAF AMERICANO, THE NUANCES OF SHOREDITCH NOUVEAU SWIM AROUND US. I THROW IDEAS AT LIDA THAT HAVE EVOLVED THROUGH MY OWN WORK AND THIS BOOK. THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSCRIPT OF DR. HUJIC’S RESPONSES TO MY STEERED MOAN OF DYSTOPIAN MALCONTENT WHICH I HAVE EDITED, LARGELY REPLACING MY CONVERSATION WITH THE FOLLOWING THEMATIC SUB-SECTIONS::

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

ART IS THE MESSAGE COUNTERCULTURE IS NOT A LABEL IRONY IS DEAD THE EVOLUTION OF MONOCULTURE CORPORATE APARTHEID COMMODIFICATION & CO-OPTING OF SUBCULTURES MAKE CA$H HISTORY: SHARING ECONOMIES CONSUMER OFFENSIVE: CONSUME OR DIE: CONSUMERS AS GUILTY AS PRIMARK ART & COMMERCE

1. ART IS THE MESSAGE

LH: Blogging has reduced journalism into toilet paper. People have no knowledge and call themselves journalists.

I’m quite involved with fashion, but why are these people who shouldn’t be in the vicinity of fashion be on the front row? I don’t understand. Last season, I was at Pam Hogg’s show, and she has her crew, who I’m sure you know, Bobby Gillespie, Nick C ave, Nick Rhodes, and I know their work, and had fanhood admiration - and I was next to someone tweeting, and she had no idea, asking me how to spell their names but these people have no interest, no respect and it makes it really difficult on real journalists.

MEDIA HAS DEVALUED THE POTENCY OF THE PRESS. ART ALMOST ALLOWS MORE TRUTH.

LH: The mainstream media doesn’t represent anything anymore. With too much focus on advertorial, they have nothing to say.

‘celebrity’ and

THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PR BARONS, AND NOW, BRAND BARONS. DO YOU DO FACEBOOK? LH: I have a [Facebook] page for my book but I don’t have the time to invest to grow it properly, nor do I like

‘

’

the Facebook way of communicating. I am not comfortable with self-promotion but social media is a requirement. So I put observations and probably take more time to write posts than some magazine would allocate for features. Or, you will find out if I am doing a talk at Colette or Shoreditch House.

2. COUNTERCULTURE IS NOT A LABEL:

LH: I think you can be young and critical but up until about ten years ago it happened more. The last chapter of my book is all about Bling Bling and the Culture of Voyeurism Vs. the Culture of Curiosity. I think the celebrity syndrome and the banking world, or Bling Bling culture and the banking crisis, have created a new generation who don’t understand the concept of counterculture because it is a label, it is like Absolut Vodka, whereas before you would understand the principle of hipness and reinvent it, the expression and issue would be different.

LIKE DETOURNEMENT IN A CORPORATE FRAMEWORK...

LH: [Counterculture] was about challenging the status quo and reducing it, so if you’re reducing that art which is sponsored by Absolut, there’s only so much you can do because art, as you say as an artist, it is there to speak an unknown voice, whether that is a civil rights movement or anti-war, but anti-war wasn’t Wear A Wristband - singers used to go and fight. Now it is a label and it doesn’t go any deeper, and that is good for shareholders but not for society and at some point there will be a saturation of Rhiannas and collaborations and it will not be good for shareholders. Unique designs of Becks or Absolut, how many collaborations with artists can you do as limited edition bottles?

I WROTE ABOUT LIMITED EDITIONS IN 1995 IN ELLE. BORING. CULTURE IS ABOUT PROGRESSING SOCIETY...

LH: You have loads of signs of new movements, but that’s not in Shoreditch. The so-called ‘Shoreditch Hipster’ today is, in fact, the wannabe. The wannabe is a follower unlike the hipster, who reinvents himself in different ways, and it’s more than a look. The future is looking into sharing economies or upcycling - these things are very real, you can’t do it artificially because ultimately there’s not going to be any food. The way that it matters is using an ecological bag not because it is a cool fashion but because you really care, like: Shit, I’ve forgotten my bag - I have to use a plastic one now. As long as you throw away paper on the street, that’s no good. It has to come from the individual. Before, it was rock n roll to be what you believed, and your idols, until they sold out, represented something. But now that world is something you can purchase, so there’s no merit there. With all these young people out of work, they may realise they have to start their own enterprises and say: Right, if I’m going to make clothes, I can upcycle. I know Nike, of all people who got slated in No Logo days, they collect old unwanted trainers, and they have a processing plant that turns them into balls and some kind of tarmac-covering for playing tennis. Now that’s real.

Imagine the whole society was doing that. There are bits and pieces of that happening: food makers, fashion people, new fabrics, fusion between science and technology. It’s still in embryo, it’s experimental, but it’s there.

3. IRONY IS DEAD:

LH: You know I come from the former Yugoslavia, I’ve been writing about it. Before the 90s conflict, there was a wave of innovation across the cultural industries (film, music, theatre). As part of that wave, there was a group of comics called Hit list of Surrealists/Top Lista Nadrealista – all from Sarajevo like myself (we were and still are friends). They were like Monty Python, their humour was as sharp. They were like irony impersonate, but today in that region, they are the first to say they say that irony is lost because the caricatures have become the real people. We have become X Factor, because there is no alternative. All the genre has been reduced to one, all the sub-genre, like Eurovision - this idea in Yugoslavia is that the culture of X Factor and Eurovision and Big Brother has become the only culture. It’s become so silly and dumb, because people only know that single reference. How are you going to communicate with the world with one reference?

4. THE EVOLUTION OF MONOCULTURE:

LH: When it is the Eurovision culture, when that is all you have, it is depressing, it’s becoming that way here, we are heading to monoculture. Lots of rich people, lots of poor people, nothing in the middle.

I AM CALLING IT ECONOMIC APARTHEID TODAY.

5. CORPORATE APARTHEID:

LH: And cultural [apartheid]. You can have a footballer earning millions and spitting at someone, it is absurd.

Luckily there are little movements.

6. COMMODIFICATION AND CO-OPTING OF SUBCULTURES:

CAN YOU EXPLAIN COMMODIFICATION OF SUBCULTURES WITHIN EAST LONDON? I DISCUSSED THE IDEA OF TRENDIFICATION WITH ROBERT RUBBISH. CORPORATIONS ENABLE MESSAGES TO BE SHARED FASTER AND ON A LARGER PLATFORM THAN ANY INDIVIDUAL, IS IT DANGEROUS THAT UNDERGROUND CONCEPTS ARE RECYCLED BY MARKETEERS SO FAST? WHAT EFFECT DOES THAT HAVE ON CULTURE?

LH: We have two things here, talking about corporations, there’s the innovation side that challenges the status quo, which is longer-term, then the communication side, which is more immediate and is more reliant on fads. So if you look at the first generation of Shoreditch, as described in my book, the YBAs acted as the advanced troops of gentrification but it is the second generation of settlers, of which I was part, who inadvertently commercialised the hood, ie brought in the industry. This is where the impact is visible in the corporate world, when what used to be underground tactics become commercial tactics: collaborations, limited editions,

‘

’

‘curated’ events and pop ups. What

I dub the third generation of Shoreditch hipsters is a direct product of the second (for example in fashion Gareth Pugh or Henry Holland but there are many more). They crossed over from underground into the mainstream but the fourth generation, they’re just perpetuating that, and I think the corporations are savvy and they know what they are doing, so Shoreditch is a convenient place for them. It’s now food trends, but it’s served to the people around here on a

‘

’

plate. This is the communication side that relies on fads and many so-called hipsters are actively looking for those commercial opportunities. It’s calculated, if this cupcake party is not the next thing, we’ll do jelly, with a VIP list, and talk about it on Social Media. But, this is inevitable, a product of hipness. When we did the knitting circles, as part of the second generation, it was cool to begin with, then everyone started doing it (but the difference was the knitting parties or other events before the commercialization of the hood were places to be creative and exchanged ideas, not to be cool or to get noticed by brands). The real, long-term innovation is elsewhere.

I THINK IT’S THE SENSE OF OWNERSHIP THAT CREATES A FALSE ENTITLEMENT TO A DEFINITIVE NARRATIVE OF TRUTH. THE OUTCOME IS CONFLICTING INFORMATION. THE VALUE OF DATA HAS BECOME A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE POWER OF MEMORY.

LH: Your sense of ownership has to interest someone else, and it’ll bubble and inspire. But the difference is, it’s very short-lived around here, one night: a limited edition guest list, one event on social media, it’s always the same. The reality is people are in debt, there is no work, old people need to work, we are getting older for longer, you can’t have someone earning the wage of fifty people when they are doing bad jobs. I am not a Marxist, but we need people to question these things.

I CANNOT BE A MARXIST EITHER BUT THE ISSUE WITH DEMOCRACY, THERE’S SUCH AN UNDERCLASS, AND IT’S NOT WORKING. POLITICS IS A VENEER OF ENTERTAINMENT. IT’S ECONOMY THAT RULES THE WORLD. THAT’S WHY I READ THE FINANCIAL TIMES.

LH: I agree. But small movements do begin and it’s a shame that corporates are not more agile at picking these things up than politicians, who could [implement] new enterprise much more efficiently.

AND DOES THE CORPORATE ADOPTION OF SUBCULTURE FOR MARKETING PURPOSES HOMOGENISE CONCEPTS BEFORE THEY’VE FERTILISED?

LH: But politics is homogenised also. When I started doing my thesis twenty years ago, citizens and consumers were very separate. In 2000 you still sympathised with No Logo, but MTV told us to vote - it is a matter of fact, unless governments take control, corporations are there to homogenise and they listen to consumers, it’s just the politicians are lagging behind. I’m putting the blame on politics not corporates.

I DON’T THINK POLITICIANS HAVE ANY POWER, THEY ARE USELESS, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN CHANGE THE WORLD ARE THE RICH AND THE BOARD MEMBERS, BEYOND CONSUMERS. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IS AN INTEGRAL PART, AND IT SHOULD BE INTERNATIONALLY REGULATED SO THAT IT WORKS FOR EVERYONE, THAT WOULD DEAL WITH INTERNATIONAL TAX ISSUES.

LH: But the politicians aren’t doing anything about that.

BECAUSE THEY ARE POWERLESS AND THEY ARE ANSWERABLE TO THE BOARD MEMBERS. I WANTED TO ASK YOU HOW YOU THINK SUBCULTURES EXIST NOW?

LH: I have a model in my book that explores a paradigm shift taking seven to ten years - there is something in the seventh year, and if my theory is right, and it has been substantiated since Elvis, it works in Bosnia too...

YOU ARE SUCH A STRUCTURALIST!

LH: It means that we are in a period of incubation - and something new will start maturing next year...

7. SHARING ECONOMIES:

LH: I do believe that this new movement will involve those in the sharing economy. With the sharing economy you will share cars, but that will take a long time to implement, but we are consumers, so we want convenience, you need to be available - all this connectivity, brands are working on that - BMWi for example. Another movement is around waste, especially food waste. I am part of The People’s Supermarket, it may not last, because it is one of the first, but it’s the idea that one member equals one vote. One of its main missions is to encourage individuals to produce local food and prevent food wastage. There was a lot of buzz about The People’s Supermarket, even a 4-part documentary series on Channel 4 and the message emotionally connected with the public – and the corporates. Unilever did a study along those lines, looking at how families could reduce food bills and household waste, the finding of which would feed their future marketing plans. Sainsbury’s have done a campaign

’

‘make your roast

go further , with recipes for the week based on Sunday roast left-overs. ReJoué – a small, independent initiative in France, employ staff to wash, clean and repair toys which get reused and repackaged by homeless and out of work people, and sold really nicely to children, and it’s cheaper and healthier, apparently the toys in China come with some kind of chemical. They are ideas, imagine if other shops start picking this up - it’s a small idea with a big potential. ReJoué revolves around up-cycling. But then, take the example of Coopaname, this is a Paris-based co-op currently boasting some six hundred members, all freelancers, from 22 to 78 years old, who all invest 10% of their earnings in into the co-op in return for many professional advantages, resulting in each having a regular salary whilst also remaining independent. A lot of small movements with real agendas are bubbling up. Subcultures don’t exist unless you have ideas, a subculture is not the next food restaurant, even if that restaurant serves bugs [bugs to eat, with legs, wings rather than computer bugs]. One such restaurant would be a fad. If you manage to create a movement out of that fad (in this case bugs being on people’s dinner tables in the UK like they are, say, in Thailand), then you’re talking (bugs being a potential answer to food shortages). There are loads of ideas, but only few will make money. A subculture needs to reflect an alternative voice for collective good so businesses need to be based upon ideas that help society progress. Hipsters and mavericks - you need the creative and the entrepreneur, without the entrepreneur it is difficult. Entrepreneurs help the ideas develop into viable models. The corporates make them mass market.

I THINK THAT’S WHAT’S INTERESTING ABOUT PLEDGE AND KICKSTARTER ETC. AND NEW CURRENCIES SUCH AS THE INVISIBLE CYBER-CASH, BITCOIN WHICH ENABLES TRADE WITHOUT TAX.

LH: Yes, these are new ways of getting funding. And you also have a whole world of new emerging digital currencies we’re yet to adopt. The commodification of cool, is what interests me and that’s what the book is about. You can see how precise I am, but these examples are seeds (and happened since after the book was published but hip moves on!). If it’s about being alternative, what is the model you can replicate, that’s when it matters, the grassroots organisations offer a universe, if you don’t like going to Sainsbury’s, people find a shop or organisation that appeals, they may not go to a start-up at premium price... then you start putting your value on something for real. Places like RED are important. The haphazardness of hip has always been like that. And how do I know that, because I have somehow been right for twenty years now. And that is me. It is a way of seeing it, and some people have eyes that see it. I am not confident but I have the nose for the zeitgeist. For example, with The People’s Supermarket, I think I spotted a tiny advert in The Islington Gazette (I am very nosy, there is nothing that I don’t read!). So, I joined when it just started.

One day you’re stocking the veg stalls with potatoes that Tesco’s rejected (‘coz they’re the wrong size and shape), next thing you know there will be a series on Ch4 and the Prime Minister will be launching his ‘Big Society’ in situ at The People’s Supermarket. (And on that day we’ll have sold 10 times more), and Mary Portas will look into it for her

‘future of highstreet’ study.

8. THE CONSUMERS ARE AS GUILTY AS PRIMARK:

LH: And then we have 1000 Bangladeshis dead. Primark have been there. Benetton too. And the next day, supercool handsome hipsters on the tube with Primark bags. I was thinking this is so soon. I am almost certain something in your bag has been produced by someone who is dead. And you, idiot, you have the look of the hipster, all of you with big shopping bags, but no sense. The consumers are as guilty as Primark. How do you fight this inertia and carelessness?

PEOPLE DO IT BECAUSE THEY WANT TO WEAR NEW THINGS. THEY DRESS THEIR KIDS IN IT. PERHAPS THEY’RE BREATHING SURVIVAL RATHER THAN SEEING THE OCEAN COVERED IN NYLON SEAWEED...

LH: In past generations there have been rules of decency, morality, non-materialistic values.

9.

ART AND COMMERCE:

LH: What do you think about art and commerce being completely merged in the next ten years?

ART INDEXES EXIST. IF A HIRST IS WORTH THIS AND A DA VINCI THAT - AS CHINA BECOMES MORE OF A CAPITAL PLAYER, OF COURSE. IT’LL BECOME WAY MORE EXPENSIVE. IT IS OFTEN THOSE WITH THE LOUDEST VOICES THAT HISTORY HEARS.

LH: Is there going to be an art as we’ve known it. If every gallery is sponsored?

THERE ARE STILL AUTONOMOUS ORGANISATIONS AND JEREMY DELLER STILL GETS EXHIBITED. AND WE HAVE TO TRUST THE 1% FOR PHILANTHROPY AND DECENCY BECAUSE OTHERWISE WE ARE HEADING FOR CAPITAL EXPLOSION OR COMPLETE STUPIDITY. TRUE ART QUESTIONS EXACTLY THESE IDEAS. THE ANONYMOUS ORGANISATION HAS A FACE OF GUY FAWKES, WE NEED BRAND DEITIES, ART ROCK STARS. STREET ART AND TECHNO BEGAN CLOAKED IN MYSTERY, BUT NOW, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, WE HAVE ICONS TO REPRESENT THESE MOVEMENTS - IT’S PART OF OUR ECONOMIC SUPERSTRUCTURE.

LH: The reason I’m saying this: are the good schools churning out people who want to become rich and famous, looking immediately for that?

It’s not moved on since the Young British Artists, there hasn’t been something that challenges that. Art is so co-opted now, it is so hard to be a artist. We need more Dellers!

AND ON THIS THOUGHT, I LEAVE YOU.

HTTP://WWW.THEFIRSTTOKNOW.INFO

“Red Gallery is the story of people taking over a derelict space and ” EXPLAINS ROSSANA LEAL, THE YOUNGER SISTER OF ERNESTO, FOUNDER OF RED. WE’RE DRINKING TEA IN WHITECHAPEL’S GENESIS CINEMA, JUST OVER THE ROAD FROM HER FLAT.

“I’ve always helped my brothers out, ever since I remember: either

turning it into a creative space with no money at all,

being on the door, doing cloakrooms, but when Ernesto had the 20 Years of Acid House/Our History graphic-art show [at LondonNewcastle], he had all these posters and we wanted to sell them, someone gave us a basement, in the bottom of Redchurch Street, but we were worried some of it was going to be damaged because in December it was damp.

Someone came in and said,

”

“Isn’t this a bit

small? Would you like a bigger space? and we met him the next week, and he took us to this building in the middle of Shoreditch, full of furniture, old school papers, kids desks, the third floor was wrecked with wires pulled out,

”

but we thought it was a palace.

AND EAST END PROMISE WAS BORN, THE FIRST MAJOR EXHIBITION AT RED?

“

Yeah, that was Ernesto’s main idea at the time. We were going to meet people at cafes, compiling their memories on the cultural innovators of the East End [from 1985-2000]. Until we got the RED site; then we had a space for people to drop into, to tell their stories, to meet, to develop this, and other concepts. People came down to show photographs of parties and warehouse parties, mementos, what Shoreditch had meant to them - without feeling

”

restricted. It’s a project of passion and ambition.

AND YOU HAD A FEW PARTIES, AS EVER, RIGHT?

IT STILL RUNS ON A LOT OF BELIEF THAT IT IS A PALACE.

““All I remember about our first party is Andrew (my boyfriend) unblocking a toilet at 6am and Yarda taking money out of his pocket to thank him for doing the job no one else wanted to do…”

“I’ve lived in this area coming up for 20 years - longer than anywhere

else, it was horrible here, I hated it the first day I came - so when the Genesis opened I loved it - I come for a coffee, quick drink. I’ve seen the changes, most are positive, like I think now the second generation asian kids, who are from this country, are making this a really rich cultural rich place. You couldn’t walk down Bethnal Green or Brick Lane in ‘88, ‘89 - I never experienced it but witnessed the violence several times in Whitechapel, at Lord Rodney’s I saw a massive fight, and it was racial - and I was worried - the heritage of some of the work in the late 80s, early 90s - people had to fight really hard to change it, it was the anti-fascists who ran the racists out, we’re reaping the rewards of that now. Being involved on the Spitalfields City Farm, I see grassroots community organisations: there’s some fantastic fusion Bangla and electronic music, and it’s being born around here. As I’ve got older, I realise I belong to a Chilean community, a Chilean-Scot community, a Scottish community and a clubbing community, and an art community and they’re all different circles. The Asian community is not one big community. The Asian community is not one big community.

It is made up a many different circles and communities with different interests.

Then there’s the local middle-class interests, the white working class, with an interest of growing food, if these open access spaces didn’t exist, these people

”

wouldn’t be able to develop their ideas and understandings.

HOW DOES SILICON ROUNDABOUT AFFECT THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES?

“There’s a food bank on Vallance Road.”

SOME OF THE FACES AROUND HERE LOOK MORE DICKENSIAN THAN THEY DID TEN YEARS AGO.

“It’s

not young people who are involved with the revolution around here, it’s all bright young minds from elsewhere - and if local schools were involved it would be more exciting. There is an elitism being created around access to innovation – the question is, how does any of this actually make a difference to your life, make your life better? It all sounds very exciting but when you still can’t find a job or afford to leave home, none of this is relevant.

There is an attack on the poor in this country today. People work hard but can’t afford to feed their children. Whitechapel Road is full of betting shops and chicken shops, the quality of the food on the market has gone down, there’s a separation between rich and poor. Men are only just holding it together, and

”

there aren’t enough beds in the shelters.

AND WHERE DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF THIS AREA?

“To make sense of what’s happening, I became part of the East End Trade

Skills Guild, set up by Krissie Nicolson, to represent all the small, local, independent traders and creative businesses who have built the East End - the

“

”

people who are getting pushed out. The slogan is together we are stronger , and we are, for example, all the works with Crossrail, all the independent traders on Cambridge Heath Road were suffering as the road was closed and they were given no indication when it would open again and no compensation for loss of business, but Sainsbury’s had been given all kinds of inconvenience compensation - so Chrissie gets the meetings with the mayor and officials, and achieved compensations. What was interesting was we launched it at Christchurch with about 1000 people and it reached out to a wider communities by doing it from a

”

church, it is big and lush and gives it status.

“

The new Whitechapel that is going to be born here from 2016 onwards, I don’t see myself here beyond five years because I don’t think they represent me, as an energetic creative person, maybe we’ll go back to Scotland in the next five years - people like me are going to move out - rent’s going up, we’re at a

”

cusp of what’s going to happen in this area.

AND CAN RED BE REPLICATED?

“I’ve just been at the Science Museum to see the 3D printing exhibition which will be able to reproduce medicine, artifacts, the gun, but you can’t replicate everything, like RED, it should be that there are organisations that exist to enable the process of generating ideas and discussion, but these have to run by passionate, hard working people at the centre of it all – or you’ll just be setting up a twee shop full of shite, as Ernesto calls it!

RED’s full of creative people, Yarda’s fantastic, Ernesto has loads of brilliant creative people involved - they can turn a messy derelict room into an amazing

”

show space - and fill it in an hour - that’s a talent. http://www.spitalfieldscityfarm.org http://www.mercadito.co.uk

“it was the antifascists who ran the racists out, we’re reaping the rewards of that now.

”

EVENTS

THE ONLY CERTAINTY IS THE EXPERIENCE.

“Berlin is dreamy,” WHISPERS DIMITRI HEGEMANN, THE CITY’S ‘MINISTER OF TECHNO’ WHO BROUGHT JEFF MILLS TO EUROPE FOR THE FIRST

TIME SHORTLY AFTER THE WALL FELL IN 1989 AND FOUNDED TRESOR, THE NIGHTCLUB IN THE BANK VAULTS OF WERTHEIM, A FORMER JEWISH-DEPARTMENT STORE ON LEIPZIGER STRASSE IN EAST BERLIN. A SOUNDSYSTEM WAS INSTALLED, A SIGN WAS ERECTED, NO POSTERS WERE PRINTED, ONLY A MENTION OF A PARTY ON THE RADIO. THE CLUB REUNIFIED EAST AND WEST BERLINERS TO AN INDUSTRIAL, ELECTRONIC SOUNDTRACK IN

“

”

WHAT DIMITRI DESCRIBES AS A EUPHORIC ERA WHEN THE WORLD WAS WATCHING BERLIN .

RED GALLERY HOSTED THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT EXHIBITION OF GDR ART FROM THIS PERIOD. THIS IS WHEN WE FIRST MET. I WAS CHAIRING A DISCUSSION AT RED ABOUT TRESOR’S PART IN SUBCULTURAL BERLIN. THIS TIME WE ARE ON SKYPE. BOUNCING BETWEEN SCREEN AND FRIDGE, DIMITRI’S PEELING-PLASTER KITCHEN LOOKS LIKE IT’S IN THE OLD POWERSTATION HE NOW OWNS ON KÖPENICKER STRASSE IN MITTE, ALTHOUGH, IT’S BECAUSE THE DECORATORS ARE IN. THE ICONOCLAST’S WALL-CLOCK PASSES MIDNIGHT:

“I

Detroit

and

understood more about the music,

woke

up

in

HE

“

”

SAYS OF ONE 80S VISIT, I was staying in Underground Resistance’s studio; they lived in there with their practice rooms, and I was sleeping in Juan [Atkin]’s studio with some keyboards, mixing desk, no bathroom, and at three in the morning - I woke up and there was a gun shot, I was like: What is that? What is that? The

“Eddie,” I heard this voice, “I kill you!” This guy, I don’t know who it was, talking and screaming, and then knocking, trying to get in, “Eddie [“Flashin” Fowlkes], I kill you, Eddie!” second one,

I thought this is going to end badly, so I took a keyboard [as my weapon], and he was coming and then I hear these bangs,

“Dimitri,

” It [“Mad”]

is something going on?

was a different voice, from

“

Mike [Banks] saying, Don’t worry, he’s cuckoo, he comes every week looking to

”

kill us.

HEGEMANN WAS A YOUNG HIPPY WHEN HE ARRIVED IN WEST BERLIN IN 1978 FROM WERL, NORTHWEST BY THREE HUNDRED MILES. SURROUNDED BY OPEN-MINDS LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVE WAYS OF LIVING, HE OPENED A DADA CLUB, AND IN 1982 FOUNDED BERLIN ATONAL, A FESTIVAL WHICH FEATURED THE EXPERIMENTAL SOUNDS OF PSYCHIC TV, EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN, AND TEST DEPT.

“

West Berlin offered the framework to change the world from, we wanted to improve it - and we developed a new consciousness. We were full of new ideas, very creative and a bit crazy but we all had one problem - the missing space, and rooms for experiments - we hadn’t got RED Galleries, then the wall came down [on 9 November 1989] and we all had a laboratory overnight. There was no police control, we could do whatever we wanted to do for four or five years. There was one telephone box in East Berlin, no handies [mobiles], no internet. We didn’t

”

have a digital sound file in the 90s.

“

Hegemann We had Ufo [a club] in an old basement and we were already in touch with Jeff Mills and his band, The Final Cut... I’d met him in 1986 or ‘87, I was in Chicago, to license a Clock DVA to Wax Trax! I was in Jim Nash’s record shop, and I picked up one record on a white label and it had the 313 area code for Detroit written on it. In a few minutes I was in touch with Jeff Mills - and I said, I run a small company [Interfisch Records], and later I released their album and a few months later the wall came down - and I organised the guys from Detroit to come over to play. [The Detroit sound] was so new - Marshall Jefferson and the Chicago [sound] was good too, but I hadn’t had this access - and I preferred the industrial sound of Wax records they had Ministry, Front 242, KMFDM, Minor Threat and so they licensed this record. Jeff was maybe 24 or 25, they called him The Wizard and they came and played the Love Parade. We had the first Love Parade in ‘89, there were maybe 200 people. The afterparty

”

was at Ufo.

“Don’t

worry, he’s cuckoo, he comes every week looking

”

to kill us.

IN MARCH ‘91 HE TOOK OVER AN OLD VAULT WHICH HAD BEEN IN A DEEP SLEEP FOR FORTY YEARS. [TRESOR IS GERMAN FOR VAULT].

“

Many Berliners started their careers [like this], people wanted to move into something, they didn’t ask, they didn’t have to because there was no

”

one there to give answers, you found this room and you just took it.

THE CLUB BECAME VERY POPULAR. LOVE-CHILDREN WERE MADE BY VISITING AMERICANS. TRESOR DECIDED TO SET-UP A RECORD LABEL AND THE FIRST RELEASE WAS IN SEPTEMBER 1991: X-101’S SONIC DESTROYER. X-101 WAS A MONIKER FOR UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE’S JEFF

“ ”

“

MILLS, MAD MIKE BANKS AND ROBIN HOOD. Mute records also wanted to put it out, and [Daniel] Miller said he’d put it out worldwide. We put out another release, 3 Phase feat. Dr. Motte which Derrick May put out on Transmat. The label was done in Berlin and it promoted Tresor - and it made the brand more popular. We had no idea how to run a club, the place was always in ruins - we just bought a soundsystem. We made all the mistakes, and more! Years later, the tax investigators wanted to investigate all the free drinks we’d given away... at the beginning of the 90s, everything was like a dream come true, we are different and the world likes it, and now it has reached a level where it is pop - it becomes cult and an entertainment business... [The dividing wall] was a tough wall, protecting the East from the West, but now it is too pop and painted.

”

Paint it white, it used to be white. I don’t like it as it is now.

DIMITRI EXPLAINS THE LAYERING OF CULTURE IN BERLIN, SUCH AS THE BADEWANNE [BATHTUB] CLUB WHERE DUKE ELLINGTON AND ELLA FITZGERALD ONCE BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN. WHICH THEN BECAME DSCHUNGEL [JUNGLE], THE 70S HANGOUT OF DAVID BOWIE, LOU REED AND ROMY HAAG. NOW IT IS A HOTEL.

In the same way that LOVE PARADE GREW TO ATTRACT OVER A MILLION, HE

“

ESTIMATES THE TECHNO LEGACY LEAVES 50 000 DJS LIVING IN BERLIN. [The movement] has changed the city and influenced. It inspired and encouraged people from fashion, art, [all disciplines]... young people dancing in the street - this new style - Berlin then became a brand. The new euphoria was about breaking the old

”

and doing something out of nothing.

BUT CAN THE SUBCULTURE CONTINUE OVER TWENTY YEARS LATER IN THE BRANDED CITADEL?

“My

father was always warning me, better to care than not, so we also changed our system, our team at Tresor, we decided to give everyone a working contract, so that people were insured and got unemployment money and all of that, we made it solid - I think we need more time, but we are very strong at the moment at Tresor: treat your team like it is a car, change the gas if you need to - these kids have seen the world at 24, they know who is playing what at what time, and where to eat at a special time it’s not a big deal for them going to New York for a weekend, they are

”

very mobile.

HEGEMANN BELIEVES THERE IS A NEW ATTITUDE HE SEES IN KREUZBERG WHERE IT’S NOT ABOUT MAKING MONEY BUT ABOUT LIVING IN A GOOD ENVIRONMENT WITH COOL PEOPLE. BUT THERE’S A SENSE OF RESENTMENT TO THIS LIFE ONLY BEING POSSIBLE IN BERLIN. DIMITRI CAME FROM OUT OF TOWN AND I SENSE THAT HAD THERE BEEN OPPORTU-

‘

’

NITES IN WERL, HE WOULD HAVE LIKE TO HAVE USED HIS CULTURAL SCIENCE SKILLS FOR ITS PROSPERITY:

DIMITRI HAS BEEN EXPERIMENTING IN OFFERING CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES TO THE YOUTH OF GERMANY. IN SCHWEDT, A FORMER COMMUNIST CITY WHICH SITS ON THE BORDER OF POLAND, HE HAS BEEN BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MAYOR TO GIVE A BUILDING TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE TO MANAGE. THEY WILL BECOME SHAREHOLDERS OF THE PROJECT WHILE THEY ARE 18-22 AND GIVEN FREE REIGNS WITH MENTORSHIP AVAILABLE FROM BERLIN. MUCH IN LINE WITH RED, HE BELIEVES ART CAN CHANGE ANY CITY. HEGEMANN WOULD LIKE TO ROLL THE OPPORTUNITY OUT ACROSS GERMANY, GIVING YOUNG PEOPLE BUILDINGS TO CURATE, AND CREATE A TRAINING ACADEMY AND CULTURAL ARCHIVE

“The young rebels will always be ” SEEING THESE HUBS AS PLAYGROUNDS TO CREATE FLOWERS IN DESERT RUINS. EXACTLY AS HE HAS ACHIEVED IN THE REMAINS OF EAST BERLIN, “It’s a good example IN HIS POWER STATION, A NEW KIND OF ENERGY.

the way.

of peace working. We have 25m visitors who register in hotels every year but the city needs to be controlled, it shouldn’t be more and more, stupid

” “Bitter

development.

IN HEGEMANN’S EXPERIENCE, HE TELLS ME THERE IS A SAYING IN GERMAN: MAN KANN NICHT AUF DREW HOCHEZEITEN TANZEN - YOU CANNOT DANCE AT THREE WEDDINGS.

experience is real. The big and the bad fight to survive,

”

and you come up again.

http://www.kraftwerkberlin.de

PORTRAITS

ERNESTO LEAL

Growing up in Edinburgh in the 1970s, and his family began running Chile solidarity social nights with Scottish poets like Sorley MacLean and Norman MacCaigh together with musicians like Dick Gaughan. Taking inspiration from the beat generation, Ernesto began working in Edinburgh to bring together theatre, performance arts, and DJs in an effort to offer innovative events in Scotland’s capital city.

Aspiring to further his career, Ernesto Leal moved to London to further specialise in club culture – participating in the creation and delivery of some of East London’s innovative and exhilarating warehouse parties. Although Ernesto Leal is the co-founder and current director of Red Gallery, he first began work in London having been impassioned by the Criminal Justice Act in of 1994. Ernesto consequently set up Arthrob in 1994 as a collective focused on bringing together theatre, book readings, bands and fine arts together with DJs and dancing for bespoke and creative events. In reaction to the growing negativity associated with club-culture, Arthrob offered exciting and pioneering

“

”

experiences guided by the slogan: Bringing culture into clubs and clubs into culture . In 1995 Arthrob further expanded, gaining support from Warner Bros. Records Inc., to create a record label and publishing company. While offering innovative and exciting book launches for Irvine Welsh, Hanif Kureishi, and other writers. Arthrob also successfully organised a 10-track remix album of classical composer Steve Reich’s back catalogue into club-based songs [1999].

Drawing upon his successes, in 2002 Ernesto organised Banksy’s first Tokyo exhibition, further establishing and promoting a network of progressive creatives with domestic and international relevance. Consequently, Leal began curating and creating archives documenting sub-cultures, such as East End Promise and Acid House Archive that exhibited in the UK as well as in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Beijing. Together with Mary McCarthy of Dreweatts Auction House, Ernesto Leal created the first-ever visual documentation of Acid House and the rave movement, featuring graphic design and films that were shown during the Art Core Exhibition in Selfridges in 2009.

With over twenty year experience in events focused on the intersection of art, culture, and politics, Ernesto Leal has worked with clubs such as The End, Ministry of Sound, Fabric, The Blue Note, Back to Basics (Leeds), Womb (Tokyo), Pin Ups and Ibiza Underground (Ibiza). In Britsh institutions such as the ICA, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Whitechapel Gallery and The British Library he has collaborated with artists such as the Tomato Design Group, Designers Republic, Kylie Minogue, Towie Tei, Michael Gordon, and Bill Drummond. He has also consulted with corporate brands including: Red Bull and Levi’s with BBH. While continuing his work at Red Gallery and Red Market, London’s first night-time street food market, he is also currently setting up Berlin’s Museum of Sub-cultural History with Dimitri Hegemann of Tresor, the ground-breaking underground techno nightclub and record label.

GIUSEPPE PERCUOCO

Currently director at Red Gallery, , a Hackney resident since 2010, has over 12 years of international experience working with the creation and management of local economic development plans.

Having completed his MA in Development Economics at the ILO (International Labour Organisation), he first began his professional journey in Berlin, working for post-war reconstruction projects and territorial development and innovation schemes across Europe, namely the Balkans. With a career that includes A&R, publishing, marketing, sales, and events management, Giuseppe has worked with companies and enterprises such as Qype, Goodvibe Records, and Guru Music, as well as founding the music publishing and artist management company

“Pitch&Folks� in 2012.

Living in the former Czechoslovakia, the Velvet Revolution was a

YARDA KRAMPOL’S

formative point in life. From a young age, change has played an important part in his personal and professional life. Yarda

‘

’

started off managing punk bands and organising new wave student parties, becoming one of the first young promoters to bring acid house culture to the CzechRepublic in the early 1990s. Growing professionally, he spent the next few yearsworking on various cultural and artistic events in his home country, namely

‘

’

the World Cup Skateboarding event — Mystic Sk8 C up and legendary club nights ’Shake’ at Roxy, both in Prague. A man of interdisciplinary palates, Yarda spent nearly a decade seamlessly working on a multitude of side projects, such as

‘

’

collaborating with the contemporary art magazine Umelec , running radio shows, and managing several small music and art related pop-up projects.

Having lived for a few months in San Francisco in the late 1990s, he was impelled to focus his energy on projects that catered to social and political responsibilities. Although steadily growing professionally, the 2000s brought Yarda his greatest success – in 2004 he moved to London and became the co-founder of Red Gallery. At Red, he focuses his energy on curating art exhibitions and helping artists develop their own careers. Thus with over 23 years of professional experience in events and project management Yarda has developed a career trajectory that has spanned disciplines, boundaries, and mediums. Yarda has worked with Divus Publishing House, People in Need NGO, visual artist Jakub Matuska aka Masker, filmmaker David Ondricek, and the Czech Culture Centre London, to name a few.

JUAN LEAL

“

RED PARTNER. The highs are way too many, some of the best DJs in the world have been here, the atmosphere has been second to none. Chilling on the Roof Terrace with close friends has been amazing... the art, the talks, the summer markets, the arguments. My daughters cuddle to thank me for her thirteenth birthday party - priceless. Most hilarious? Me getting the

”

sack from Ernesto countless times, with Yarda trying to keep a straight face.

“The lows?

Choosing the right people to work with. You don’t expect a friend to nearly sink the whole project, that was a testing time but the way Ernesto

”

& Yarda pulled it through made Red Gallery stronger and made it what it is today.

“We’ve taken the ethos of Making Something Out Of Nothing to a whole new level. We have had countless discussions with corporate entities that just want dilute the essence of Red Gallery to fit their corporate image and have swiftly been dispatched back to their West End offices, it hasn’t been easy. You can’t say that we didn’t need the money, everything at Red Gallery has been self-financed, no money

”

from the Arts C ouncil, no rich trust fund mate to lend us a few hundred grand…

JAMES GOFF

BUYS THE COFFEE AT APOSTRÒPHE ON GREAT EASTERN STREET, AS WE MEET TO DISCUSS HIS ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHOREDITCH OVER THE LAST THREE DECADES. HE SUPPORTS THE ARTS AND THEY’VE SUPPORTED HIM. JAMES GIVES ME A COPY OF FACTUAL NONSENSE, A BEAUTIFUL, HARDBACK ABOUT JOSHUA COMPSTON, THE ARTIST WHO ORGANISED THE INFAMOUS FÊTE WORSE THAN DEATH EVENTS, WHICH TOOK PLACE ON THE STREETS OF SHOREDITCH IN 1993 & 1994.

“

It was an event I was proud to sponsor. There were several characters joining in with the spirit of the day. Tracey Emin was in charge of the kissing

“

”

tent and was charging 50p a kiss. This jokingly turned into 50p a shag by the end of the day. The tent was a pink bedspread with a stick in it! It was that kind of day. My property development partner and I decided: we’re not artists, so went down to Billingsgate, got a load of tuna, that reeked the car out for a year - we did a tuna steak BBQ and to the right was Damien Hirst, doing his spin

”

paintings for a quid a piece.

FOR.

I ASK HIM HOW MUCH HE SOLD THE TUNA SANDWICHES

“Five times the price of a Damien Hirst - what would you expect from an ”

estate agent?

THE INSCRIPTION IN THE FRONT OF FACTUAL NONSENSE, BY DARREN COFFIELD, READS: IN MEMORY OF JAMES GOFF. I’VE NEVER INTERVIEWED A DEAD MAN BEFORE. ALTHOUGH WORSE THINGS HAVE BEEN WISHED FOR PROPERTY DEVELOPERS, THERE’S NOT MUCH EVIDENCE OF HATE FOR THIS SUBSTANTIAL GUY AS A CONVEYOR BELT OF PEOPLE FROM CLEANERS TO CITY BOYS PASS OUR OUTSIDE TABLE IN THE MANOR THAT HE HAS LARGELY CREATED AND OWNS, CARINGLY ASKING HOW HE IS. SMOKING A CIGAR, A RECENT HABIT, HIS VOICE ADAPTS TO HIS COMPANY, SCALING FROM HIS POSH PREP SCHOOL IN EAST DEVON TO HIS GANGSTER ENCOUNTERS IN EAST LONDON.

“Life’s

” HE SAYS, WITH THE SMILE YOU CAN TRUST. EXPLAINING IN A QUIETER MOMENT “IN HELL!” I JOKE, ABOUT THE CANCER HE’S BEEN FIGHTING. JAMES GOFF, THE FOUNDER OF great,

THAT IT’S THE CHEMO THAT MAKES HIM LOOK LIKE HE’S JUST BACK FROM HOLIDAY -

STIRLING ACKROYD, IS LESS THE DEVIL, MORE THE VISIONARY OR PROPHET, BUT HE’S STILL PLAYED IN THE FIREPIT BELOW.

“

GOFF ENTERED THE EAST END IN 1983, FRESH FROM COLLEGE, One of my first jobs was to sell the Wickhams department store on Mile End Road [by the Genesis cinema]. It was known as Harrods of the east. Top specification: beautiful staircases, big windows, high ceilings, and it was just what you need for loft space, it was vacant, and I ran around the London property investment market. It comprised 180 000 square feet, and all I could get for it was £280K. I thought: Christ, this is cheap, so came over here, met one of the local agents, Jeremy Scott, and came over and started working

”

for him. He was a good bloke but liked a drink or five, so after a while we decided to go alone.

“

The name Stirling Ackroyd comes from Stirling (Moss, the racing driver) and Ackroyd (old brokers). By chance I met Stirling Moss on Rivington Street years later and I said: I named my company after you! He said he was flattered

”

and off his own back kindly came in and met everyone. What a good guy.

“

This area was furniture, textiles, furs and printing, mainly, and there were still cabinet makers making cabinets in shop windows when I first arrived. There was one big company, a furriers, Lemurs, who owned a large building on Charlotte Road, which they were looking to rent and were approached by The Prince’s Trust. The Lemurs were old style landlords and they would only rent it to them with a personal guarantee from Prince Charles, which when asked, Prince Charles’s right hand man declared he was not in the habit of doing. They ended up buying it and paying a good price. Incidentally, on the day of the opening of the building we have a wonderful photo of the Queen driving past the

”

Barley Mow pub, sizing up the area with a look of sheer bemusement.

JAMES HAS SEEN PRICES RISE IN SHOREDITCH FROM £20 A SQUARE FOOT FREEHOLD TO OVER £1000. HE PRAISES HACKNEY COUNCIL FOR BEING VERY RETICENT ON GRANTING PLANNING PERMISSION IN THE EARLY DAYS ALLOWING MANY OF THE CLASSICAL WAREHOUSES AND BUILDINGS TO BE THANKFULLY RETAINED. HE LOOKS LOVINGLY TOWARDS THE FLAT IRON-ESQUE BUILDING ON THE CORNER OF SCRUTTON STREET AND GREAT EASTERN, FONDLY TELLING HIS PART IN MANY OF THE BUILDINGS AROUND US. I SAY THIS PART OF SHOREDITCH NOW LOOKS LIKE A CONTEMPORARY VERSION OF EARLY TRIBECA, WHICH HE VISITED MANY YEARS AGO.

“

My first office was in a small first floor studio on Curtain Road. I wanted to design a logo, and we’ve got one of the best ones. I went to see some printing mates, and three of them recommended the same designer. He liked his drink, but I was reassured he was a genius. He said he would create a logo for us for £800 up front, which was a lot of money in 1986, but he said: I’ll only do one design and if you don’t like it the money is still mine. I went back to my printer friends who said: Do it regardless. I asked the designer to create the logo, I told him to use British Airways’ colours, because they stand out even in the sky. Hopefully you’ve seen the Stirling Ackroyd logo he created on

”

his first effort. I’m pleased to say it’s not bad at all.

JAMES’ FATHER (WHO WAS OFFERED A SCHOLARSHIP TO OXFORD BUT HAD TO TURN IT DOWN DUE TO HIS PARENTS BEING ON A STIPEND) ASKED HIM WHAT THE HELL HE WAS DOING IN A DUMP LIKE SHOREDITCH WHEN HE FIRST VISITED HIS OFFICE. NEVERTHELESS HE KINDLY OFFERED TO HELP AS COMPANY SECRETARY.

“

On starting the company I ran around getting instructions and for maximum impact waited until I could put up sixty-five For Sale/To Let boards overnight. The next day the phones went mad, ringing non-stop. However, one estate agent competitor ripped down over twenty of these boards, piled them outside my office with a note stating: This is my manor, fuck off. I was, understandably, bloody upset, and decided to speak to somebody, a certain type, who told me to leave it to him. The relevant agency responsible for the removal had six offices in East London, and come the next day, he found the locks glued and windows painted blue with a red line through. I subsequently heard that his reaction was, that under no circumstances whatsoever, should they touch another Stirling Ackroyd board.

“In

the early days I’d been forced to argue with a lot of gangsters who wanted to knock down the price of a property I was selling on behalf of a client, which I refused to do. One day, a very busy Friday, my secretary failed to turn up so I went to the Hampshire Secretary Bureau at 9am, who said they would send someone over immediately. At about 11.30am, which was certainly not immediately, a lady who was sixty, if a day, with half-moon glasses arrived and apologised for being late saying she had got lost as she had never been that far east in her life. About fifteen minutes later, two guys came in and asked the secretary - which one was Mr. Goff. She pointed out my desk and they sat opposite me and put a large denim bag on my desk. I was on the phone and they promptly unzipped the bag and took out a sawn-off shotgun. I quickly finished my phone call saying I’d better call the person back and they held a gun to my head. Thankfully I was over confident, but now I’d be somewhat scared, and I stood up at my desk and asked my colleagues, including the temporary secretary, to leave. I walked surely out of the office myself so these two guys were just left there in the office. We got out into the corridor and then quickly legged it! But I’ve always wondered what the old lady said, when she got home to her

”

husband, about her day in East London!

“

We started pushing the market, industrial users were moving out due to the change in scale and places being better around the M25. So the B1 boom started for the creative sector, artists and designers. Now it’s moved on into the residential-era, taking over from the B1 studios and taking advantage of the good light, and interesting design

”

of the many well-built buildings in the area. Interestingly you can see where the bomb-sites were, they’re obvious.

“

In between ’88 and ’90, prices went up 100%, but there were six months in ‘91, during the recession, where prices went down by a massive 50%. We’ve been involved in the market and trying to help with the impact of Shoreditch.

There have been many good deals done by property developers and investors, and inevitably some bad; there were big winners and big losers. We always looked to the upside, and always believed that one day Shoreditch could improve like this and more.

“

We had the raves too – I’d recommend clients to let out certain parts of their warehouses in the early ‘90s and I remember there was one landlord whose space was completely graffitied. So raves were quite exciting, but became

”

a bit of a nuisance.

IN THE LATE ‘90S JAMES WAS ALSO THE EXPERT PRESENTER ON CHANNEL 5’S HOT PROPERTY WITH ALICE BEER. BUT AFTER SEVERAL SERIES, AFTER ONE SHOW IN SPAIN WHEN ASKED FOR ADVICE ON AN OLD FINCA, AND REPLYING, A LITTLE CHEESILY:

“I FINCK THIS FINCA NEEDS A LITTLE REFINCKING”, JAMES WAS PROMPTED TO DECIDE HE’D HAD ENOUGH OF ENOUGH OF BEING ON TV.

“We’ve tried to be philanthropic and constructive, and I’m proud of that. We’ve sponsored artists, and donated to the homeless, amongst other things. Progress isn’t always a good thing, the place has lost its village feel a bit.

I helped to set up a rugby club, from The Bricklayers, called The Old Street Onions. I’ve very much enjoyed working in the area; one of the big campaigns I did was to ‘Save the Light’ and we got a huge following on that. Madness even named an album after it, calling it The Liberty of Norton Folgate, in which the Light bar was located.

“

One day I was even approached by the owners of the strip bars in Shoreditch, whose license was being challenged by a Hackney Councillor, and unfortunately they had missed their date of applying to be heard by the committee, and they asked for my help. I told them I couldn’t guarantee anything but I read through the rules and found out that if a committee member speaks to you, you can then speak to them. I sat in the front row when the matter was being heard, with a rose in my mouth, and eventually a member asked me why I had a rose in my mouth, which thankfully allowed me to reply. I stated to the committee to leave the strip bars alone as they had been here for 150 years, they were

”

well run, and they were part of the Shoreditchness of Shoreditch, and we won the day.

WE FINISH SPEAKING WHERE WE BEGAN - JOSHUA COMPSTON, AN OLD ETONIAN, THE SON OF A JUDGE.

“

Joshua was a wonderful guy and he represented a lot of upcoming artists, but he was not commercial enough and lost out to the successful marketing of Jay Jopling, owner of the White Cube. When Joshua died of an overdose, Gavin Turk and Gary Hume beautifully painted his coffin, there was a huge funeral, which Gilbert and George attended,

”

and Gordon Faulds in top hat and tails lead its procession. I was honoured to be a pall-bearer.

NICK WINTER

, PRINTER & PATRON, WORKING IN COVENT GARDEN IN THE MID-80S, FREQUENTING THE LOCAL PUBS AND CLUBS SUCH AS BLITZ AND PARKER STREET, WINTER MET WITH MANY OF THE ERA’S

“DIVAS” - GEORGE O’DOWD, STEVE STRANGE, RUSTY EGAN, PHIL SALON AND MIDGE URE.

I was part of the team (Peter Waite, Adrian Mites, The Brain Club, Tim Fielding - Journey by Djs, Colin James and Linda Jameson) who turned the old tramshed in Grays Inn Road into a working studio, which we took over from London Transport. It was such a nice big ol’ space. We started around 1990. We had an art studio and set up a recording studio.

There were bands such as Sheep On Drugs, Eskimos In Egypt, The Shaman - it was a mix-mash of underground people who were creating music and art, and now all these years down the road, it’s the cultural body of the whole world now, it all runs around clubs, art, music, and it comes from that time.

We worked within the old club scene, places like The Brain with Sean McClusky, Music Machine Camden with Rusty Egan. It was a time of experimental dance and it was underground. A lot of lost nights and lost weeks…

I started working with Rogan Jeans and Paul White at ME Company, top designers pushing the image of recorded media to different platforms (the old way, not using Macs). We were hanging around Soho pubs meeting people such as Phil Dirtbox, Ollie Max and Ernesto Leal and so many more.

Mid-nineties, I followed the vibe and relocated to Wenlock Road N1. We worked with many different organisations and cultures that were making their mark on the scene, people like Simon Hedges and Charles Saatchi in the world of art.

I met Ernesto Leal many years ago when we were in our early 20s, we sat in bars in Soho, Smithfields and Shoreditch and we’d talk about shit and look for the next party. He would always collect club flyers and his passion of art culture had been born. He took the area he was in and around and would turn the whole place into an art piece through his vehicle Arthrob for years. The idea of having a place like RED has driven him, it’s been in his head for a minimum of twenty years. It’s now out.

We’ve created many exhibitions together and we’ve done shows with Arthrob that cost a lot of money. If only we could charge out the time invested!

But it’s not about that, it’s a passion and done for the right reasons.

I’m the kind of guy who’s always in the background but you’ll find me at the front end if the need is there. I’m not a fan of electronic media and will never go on Facebook... it’s there to help us, not enable everything.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THANKYOU

RED GALLERY WOULD LIKE TO THANK (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER) AND ACKNOWLEDGE FOR ALLOWING THEIR PHOTOGRAPHS OR THEIR WORK TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS BOOK THE FOLLOWING PHOTOGRAPHERS, ARTISTS, FRIENDS AND INDIVIDUALS.

Krista Dixon, Noriko Okaku & Asako Saito, Henna Parimoo, Andrew Stanney, Bibi Todaro, Kate Kotcheff, Billa Baldwin, Alana Harkin, Root 5, Fred Butler, Flo K, Emily Rudd, Maria Teresa Gavazzi, Alana Lake, Sarah Jane Peake, Lenka Majerovska, Johnny Finch, 3FF archives, Andy Bird, Myriam JC Preston, Prank Sky Media, Adam Curse, Katie Palmer, Brighton University, Imantas Selenis, Owen Richards, Nick Van Gelder, Nick Ensing, Pure Evil, ICN Gallery (Hexa Project), Vickie Parker, Rogan Jeans, Stepan Tuma, Hackney Wicked, Vicky Fergusson, Phil Maxwell, Velvet Exhibition, Simon Sarin, Chris Bianchi, Terrible Twins, Gerda Le Fou, Jules Annan, Rachel Megawhat, Gabriela Miranda Rodriguez & Gino Silano, Victor Castejón & The Quick Brown Fox, Alexander Snelling, Kirsten Telfer-Beith & Marie Staggat.

Red Gallery would also like to thank Kedge @ Tomato, Kirsty Allison, James Goff and all the staff at Stirling Ackroyd, Jason McGlade & Ann-Cathrin Saure @ Freestyle Magazine, James Horrocks and Matt Learmouth @ Alchemy lifestyle PR, Nick Winter and Caroline O’Connor @ Ronco printing, Alice Herrick @ Herrick Galley, Dr. Lida Hujic, Le Gun (arts collective), Anne McCloy, Kirsten Telfer-Beith, Mark and Magda @ Red Quaters, Lucy Payne and Joe Gimlick @ Material Bookshop, Claire Griffin, Greg Konrady, Marta Rocamora, Liam O’Hare, Attila Kolmann, Tera Pechmannova, Stuart Langley, Jamie Rule, Louis Hyams, Samir Eskanda, Lisa Loud & the London Mothers club.

Ernesto would like to give my gorgeous wife and my beautiful kids a massive thank you for putting up with me these last four years, without their support Red Gallery would not have happened, Yarda for putting up with me, Giuseppe for keeping me on the level and my Brother Juan for keeping me on the line, a massive hug to Greg for somehow keeping Red together and of course for their masive energy and support marta and tera, and for the visionaire el kedge for sticking with me.

Yarda would like to send a thank you out to all his soul mates.

Giuseppe would like to thank you to Claudia Mozzillo, Ugo Basile and the Percuoco’s family.

Kirsty Allison thanks everyone involved with this book, and RED, for their ever-inspiring input. Shoreditch would be dead without Ernesto Leal, Yarda Krampol and Giuseppe Percuoco. Great job, Kedge and Jason McGlade for making these streets look so beautiful, and kinda i-D-when-it-had-cardboard-covers...

Plus, big love to Colette Bowens-Leal, Marta Rocamora, Richard Whittam, AnnCathrin Saure and Claire Griffin. Mainly though, thanks to Alexander Snelling for marrying me at RED (well, Vegas, and the Genesis and then RED) - and the friends who visit, survive and find happiness and success here...

A special thanks goes to James Goff and all the team at Stirling Ackroyd for their genuine support of the Red Gallery project, without this support all of the various projects & exhibitions would not have been able to take place.

3ff.org.uk alternativeldn.com burgerbear.co.uk chrisbianchi.co.uk herrickgallery.com kirstyallison.com kontratoneproduction.com kraftwerkberlin.de legun.co.uk mercadito.co.uk mhawtin.com part2ism.wordpress.com robertrubbish.co.uk redsonic.co.uk roggykei.com spitalfieldscityfarm.org stmonicasprimaryhackney.co.uk stolenrecordings.co.uk svetlanafialova.com thefirsttoknow.info tomato.co.uk twitter.com/kirstyallison

AUTHORS: Red Gallery & Kirsty Alison CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Jason McGlade DESIGN: Jason Kedgley at TOMATO EDITORIAL COORDINATION: Claire Griffin PRINTING & BINDING: WDP Ronco PUBLISHED BY: Red Gallery & Ourhistory ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC,MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF RED GALLERY. ISSN 10204067