Tough Crowd by Tough Crowd

TOUGH CROWD

NUMBER 1. SUMMER 2009. THE HAUNTOLOGY ISSUE MATTHEW STONE. K-PUNK. BRUCE LA BRUCE. BURIAL & FOUR TET. ROBERTO BOLAﾃ前. GLAMCANYON. HOUSMANNS BOOKSHOP.

TOUGH CROWD EDITOR

David Dawkins DEPUTY EDITOR

Alistair McDonald ART DIRECTOR

Jed Tallo DESIGNER

Laura Pitchford EDITORIAL ASSITANT

Karen Orton

CONTRIBUTORS

ADAM FREEMAN Photographer and filmmaker Adam Freeman captured the spectre of Derek Jarman in Dungeness, for the first of Tough Crowd’s collaborative Genius Loci series. A student of filmmaking at the London College of Communication, Adam is currently working on a film about cleptomaniacs. Adam lives on the Kingsland Road and often watches Gilbert and George eat kebabs from his living room window.

CONTRIBUTORS

TOUGHCROWD MAGAZINE.COM FRONT AND BACK COVER

Art Direction Jed Tallo. Photography Michal Martychowiec. Styling Claudia Behnke. Make-up Ken Nakano. Hair Perry Patraszewski. Models Alex Jermy and Lee Bridgman @ Premier Models. Hat by Louis Marriette. Clothing from Beyond Retro TOUGH CROWD IS SEEKING CONTRIBUTORS FOR ITS NEXT ISSUE. EMAIL HELLO@TOUGHCROWD MAGAZINE.COM WITH EXAMPLES OF YOUR WORK, IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE.

ANATOLIY KURMANAEV Reviewing Sonic Youth and Isis, Anatoliy Kurmanaev, diverted from his primary profession as an expert in social economics, to focus his critical lens upon contemporary sonics. CLAUDIA BEHNKE Responsible for styling the cover and fashion shoots, Claudia Behnke, is a German émigré and autodidactic stylist, having graduated in Psychology, before switching to fashion. Claudia resides in East London. MICHAL MARTYCHOWIEC Having previously worked as a photographer for Metal and A4 magazines, Michal Martychowiec’s practice also expands across video and installation. Michal is presently working on his cross-national project Cygnus Constellation. For Tough Crowd Michal shot both the cover and fashion articles. Michal divides his time between Poland and Hampstead.

ILLUSTRATION BY TOBY PENNINGTON

Adam Freeman, Anatoliy Kurmanaev, Claudia Behnke, Chelsea Green, Francesca Abram, Francesca Brazzo, Jo Frost, Ken Nakano, Michal Martychowiec, Natasha Mygdal, Nicky Sim, Perry Patraszewski, Toby Pennington.

NUMBER 0NE SPRING 2009 HAUNTOLOGY ISSUE

CONTENTS INTERVIEWS 4 ––––Bruce la Bruce 6 ––––Housmanns Bookshop 8 ––––Matthew Stone 23 ––––K-Punk 29 ––––Glamcanyon

FASHION 12 ––––Artemis’ Garden

PHOTOGRAPHY 18 ––––Genius Loci

REVIEWS 26 ––––Book 28 ––––Music

INTERVIEW

BRUCE LA BRUCE –––– WORDS David Dawkins

BRUCE LABRUCE is an artist who challenges the very idea of ‘taste’. Often described inconsistently as different things in different circles, LaBruce is known as a filmmaker, pornographer, photographer, ‘queerzine’ editor and father of the Homocore movement. Confronting controversy and deliberately disregarding the clichéd and perpetuating ’art/porn?’ debate, LaBruce unpacks western associations of homosexuality and extends the conflicts of isolation, confusion and sexual frustration beyond sexual preference and into the universal difficulty of growing-up. Moving between filmmaking as an artistic process, and merging the rich texture and aesthetic of independent cinema with the ‘rough trade’ of the gay pornography industry, works such as Hustler White, The Raspberry Reich and No Skin off my Ass have captivated small audiences and loyal fans but never extended beyond the niche banner of ‘gay interest’. Otto; Or, Up With Dead People is Bruce LaBruce’s latest and most ambitious project. Taking on the Zombie genre, and intertwining his ideas of inequality, isolation, conflict and outsiderdom, LaBruce has re-appropriated the zombie and added depth by evaluating the role of this unwashed, unfortunate underclass and the relationship between the haves and have-nots in western society. Tough Crowd contacted Bruce LaBruce to talk about his career and to discuss the themes within his work so far.

WHY THE ZOMBIE GENRE? ––––The zombie genre has exploded in the last several years. I had no idea how huge the genre ﬁlm had become, speciﬁcally horror, and the zombie movie in particular, until I made one myself. The response you get from people when you tell them you’re going to be making a zombie movie is either pure excitement or 4 TOUGH CROWD

ennui. Some people think the concept is played out, but I think that’s largely because so many zombie movies are surprisingly reactionary and unimaginative. I’m so tired of movies that treat zombies like an exploited underclass whose only purpose is to be annihilated in the most brutal way possible. Zombies are basically coded as homeless and underprivileged, the unwashed masses who become either a danger or a mere irritation to the living, ruling class. It’s not much of a stretch to read this as a political metaphor for the rise of corporate power and its contempt for passive consumers. George A. Romero, the zombie maestro, has of course always had a political message behind his zombie films, grafting the genre onto such issues as racial prejudice, a critique of the bourgeois family, and the uprising of the exploited underclass against powerful corporate or military superstructures. Another great zombie film, Les Revenants, directed by Robin Campillo, dispenses with the usual rotting flesh and has the dead return as a kind of lumpen proletariat, a kind of shadowy underclass who dress uniformly in workers’ clothes and appear more like classic somnambulists. With Otto; or, Up with Dead People I wanted to shift the pardigm by making the zombie a marginalized loner with an eating disorder as opposed to the usual conformist consumer. Gay zombies in my movie want not only to eat human flesh but to fuck it. So there are obviously many different options in the genre that have yet to be explored. Super 8 to Sundance. What are the creative advantages and disadvantages of short and long mediums? ––––I started out as a filmmaker making short experimental Super 8 films. My first feature length film, No Skin Off My Ass, was shot on Super 8 and blown up to 16mm, but it was essentially still in

the same spirit as my experimental shorts: combining random footage I had already shot with new footage to construct a narrative in the editing. Working this way is more free form and it forces you to come up with inventive ways to tell stories and create meaning through unexpected juxtapositions. Super 8 1/2 was my ﬁrst ﬁlm shot entirely on 16mm, but the script was still only about 16 pages long. I improvised quite a bit during shooting. Since then I’ve worked with more developed scripts, but I still like to combine different media and use sound and music as a kind of parallel narrative which is sometimes at odds with the visual narrative. I still try to be experimental in my approach. Otto has a very elaborate soundtrack which creates a universe of its own inside the head of the main zombie character.

THIS ISSUE ALSO FEATURES MATTHEW STONE, AN ARTIST WHO WORKS WITH THE IDEA OF SELF-MYTHOLOGY AND SHAMANISM. IN A SIMILAR VEIN, WHAT WAS YOUR INVOLVEMENT LAST YEAR IN AA BRONSON’S SCHOOL FOR YOUNG SHAMANS? ––––AA Bronson, who is, like me, from Toronto, has always been a big influence. I was always intrigued by General Idea and the way they transcended traditional art conventions, playing with Situationist notions of spectacle and direct political intervention. When I was doing my homopunk fanzine J.D.s in the 80’s, he was doing similar interventions in the art world with the General Idea magazine File. They had their Miss General Idea pageant; we were crowning a new Prince of the Homosexuals with each issue. So there were lots of parallels. So as I knew many of the newer generation of artists that AA included in his show School For Young Shamans, and have worked particularly closely with the French artist Christophe Chemin, who also appears in my movie Otto, AA asked if he could include my portrait of Christophe from the movie. PORNOGRAPHY AND AESTHETICS. IS THE PORN VS ART ARGUMENT OVER? IS PORN NO LONGER TABOO? ––––Increasingly, I don’t care where pornography ends and art and aesthetics begin. Porn is an extremely conventional medium, and so when we see explicit sex on video or film that is shot or lit or acted in a particular style, we are programmed to see it as pornography. But you can shoot sexually explicit material, including even penetration, that doesn’t fit these porn conventions and thereby doesn’t necessarily read as pornography. Sometimes it comes down merely to issues of intent or emphasis. Certainly for me cinema always comes first, and I try to be very aware of the aesthetic dimension at all times. So even if I’m working fairly strictly within the conventions of porn, as I was when I made a full-on hardcore porn movie called Skin Gang for Cazzo Film, I tried to work consciously within that framework by either commenting ironically upon the conventions, or bending them, or even completely contradicting them in certain ways. I tried to add both a political and an emotional dimension to the film, which runs contrary to the usual conventions of porn. Again I shot in various media, and in colour and black and white, so as per my usual style I tried to add as much distance as I could between the viewer and the subject(s), to make people aware of their spectatorship and thereby form a different kind of relation to the idea of porn. (Flashart International once called me a Pornographic Brecht!). Porn will always remain taboo to a certain extent; its inclusion in the mainstream seems to come and go in cycles. /TC Otto is now available on DVD. TOUGH CROWD 5

INTERVIEW

MEET ALBERT AND MALCOLM... “If there won’t be dancing at the revolution I won’t be coming” –––– WORDS David Dawkins

I’M NOT SURE when it happened, but bookshops, at

a point during my lifetime, became incorporated into the depressing number of non-spaces within which we seem to move absently between. It seems strange to even ask, but why are high-street bookshops now part of the similar cold territory of airports, supermarkets, hotels and Milton Keynes? Why, with shelf upon shelf of literary tradition, ideas and imagination, are our eyes drawn to the prominently perched celebrity, justifying their existence through a third biography or ghost written novel? London’s bookshops are a transient route through supermodernity, atomized, ordinary and coloured solely by the glamour of celebrity. Housmans Radical Booksellers, a few minutes from King’s Cross Station, is an alternative you can believe in, a place for discussion, ideas and creativity - not cook books and celebrity. Albert and Malcolm are two of the most overly educated, charming and intriguing retailers you would ever hope to meet. Rather than trying to explain why Housmans is so important, we thought we’d go meet with them for a chat about libertarianism, King’s Cross, and the importance of fun in all things anarchic and creative. LET’S START AT THE BEGINNING, TELL ME ABOUT THE BUILDING, THE HISTORY OF THE SHOP AND THE KINGS CROSS AREA AS A WHOLE? HOW OLD IS HOUSMANS? Albert: Well we’ve been here since 1959, it’s the 50th anniversary next year. Though the shop launched elsewhere in 1945. TELL ME ABOUT KING’S CROSS, WHAT DOES THE AREA MEAN TO HOUSMANS AND VICE-VERSA? WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS AREA

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THAT CONTINUES TO INTRIGUE PEOPLE? WHY IS IT SO WEIRD? Malcolm: ‘Center of the Universe’, according to Blake. Albert: Yeah this corner of London is a strange paradox because on the one hand, by the nature of it being a communication centre with two of the

mainline stations, it’s been a focal point on the edge of the very core of London for centuries. In some ways this makes it very transient, but in other it means that certain features remain with it. Malcolm: I can’t remember exactly my favorite Arthur Mason quote, ‘if you can’t find mystery within a stone’s throw of King’s Cross you won’t find it anywhere. Albert: There is a community here difficult to find elsewhere in central London that has that underlying spirit. Property developers see it as this peculiar blank canvas ready for redevelopment, but it’s not. Just because it’s next to two mainline stations and the streets are ‘supposedly’ filled with all the horrible things people imagine they might find by night... Malcolm: Like us. Albert: ...There is still a community of people that have been here for years and will continue to be for years to come. WHEN YOU FIRST OPENED WHAT WAS THE CLIMATE, SOCIO-POLITICAL CONDITIONS, IDEAS OF THE TIME? Albert: Well the particular political movement that this shop came out of in 1945 was the pacifist end of the peace movement - the total-war-resistance-end and conscientious-objector-movement. But we were never a shop intended to push one particular ideology, part of that ‘world view’ is that if you don’t want people to go around fighting wars then you say ‘tut tut - don’t fight them’ you seek to undermine the injustices of the world that caused people to fight.Housmans was set up as a shop that would explore, promote and find a place for radical and progressive ideas, humanitarian ideas, human rights and environmental, social justice and so on - that was always the intention of it. AWAY FROM POLITICS, HOUSMANS SEEMS TO HAVE A SPECIAL RESONANCE WITH A VERY SPECIFIC COLLECTION OF LONDON WRITERS. HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT AND WHY HOUSMANS? Malcolm: Yes we’re very lucky with people like Iain Sinclair, Stewart Home, Aiden Dunn and Merlin Coverley, these people come in and really push the place, we’re very lucky that they like to do their events here. These guys will always support us, it’s a reciprocal sort of thing. Albert: We are reliant on people that are committed to alternative progressive ideas are prepared to go out of their way to support places like us. Like when Naomi Klein was in London to do the launch of her latest book Shock Doctrine, she had a

massive public meeting with all the press then she did one bookshop signing and that was here. And she’s someone who, despite being glamorous, charismatic and big-time famous, will come here, rather than Waterstones, to do her one signing. Housmans has this appeal but there is no PR budget and we need visibility. YOU’RE KNOWN FOR CATERING FOR THE DELUGE OF MATERIAL THAT FALLS UNDER - ANTI-MILITARISM, ENVIRONMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS, CIVIL LIBERTIES, GAY RIGHTS... Albert: Ah well yes, in terms of the philosophy and logic of the founders of the shop, their approach would have been to say - ‘it’s 1945 the world has just come through the 2nd World War - vast numbers of people had suffered, more civilians that military, as usual in the 20th century, and it hadn’t solved anything. The ‘thinking’ people had no expectation that after the war justice had been achieved and Fascism had been eliminated from people’s minds, racism had gone away, or that totalitarianism had suddenly dematerialized. I mean, a particular political or military victory at a particular point in time has never abolished the ideas and problems that caused it. So, I think that the founders felt that in order to look at the causes and work backwards. Not just say ‘that fighting was nasty’ but why did that happen and run the logic backwards to see what causes people to get to a state where we feel the need to fight one another and kill one another. Having a radical bookshop was a way of looking at the economic and social injustices of the world and trying to find a way to encourage people to overcome those problems. So, yes all these treads are linked in a way. All these ‘isms’ do come together. Often discussion and resolution of one problem can have a positive effect on another. It’s about a multi-faceted approach to a single struggle. Malcolm: Housmans is a shop where a lot of ideas clash together, to try to get people out of a one track vision of these sort of things, we want to get dialogues going with different groups of people and because we’ve got this space and this shop we like to see the bookshelves reflecting this dialogue, Marxist next to Environmental, Anarchist next to Anti-Militarism, it sounds pretentious but this is what we want to see on the shelves and hear from the customers in our shop. It’s also more interesting for us - we’ll probably learn something. Albert: Well yes, and it’s important that whatever my own particular politics are that I don’t feel that they are so inevitably perfect that I am beyond having a debate with someone and becoming conscious of other ideas. We may have very different ideas as to how we go about improving things, what the priorities are and what methods of struggle we use - but we are all agreed that we need to do something. /TC You can find Housmans at 5 Caledonian Road Kings Cross. TOUGH CROWD 7

INTERVIEW

MATTHEW STONE –––– WORDS Alistair McDonald –––– PORTRAIT Todd Hart

IT HAS BEEN over a year since Tough Crowd met with Matthew Stone to discuss his role in visual art and club culture in London. Operating out of the culturally ascendant, yet liminal area of Dalston, his art practice has continued to expand in the interim, with his work being shown internationally on an increasingly frequent basis. Noted for djing at the infamous Boombox and Ponystep parties, and acting as a central member in the !WOWOW! collective, his rise in stature has so far been irrepressible. Yet his ﬂedging artistic practice, featuring large format photographs of his acquaintances arranged in sumptuous poses, there composition often alluding to Baroque paintings, has only just started to beﬁt the attention of a media drawn to the hedonistic glamour of his djing schedule. An aesthetic of luxury pervades Stone’s work, with dramatic use of chiaroscuro and the visceral, ritualistic sight of forlorn club kids raved out. Collaboration is integral to his practice as he draws on a close network of associates for his subjects. This ethos of participation can be interpreted as having radical intent, the creation of a zone of potentiality. A zone invigorated and routed in Stone’s personal driving ideology - optimism. Presented here is a momentary record of Stone’s achievements, and aspirations for the future.

SO MATTHEW, WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN? ––––When I was 18 I got into Camberwell 8 TOUGH CROWD

(College of Arts) on the graphics course. But then in the second year of my graphics course I realised it was completely the wrong context for what I wanted to achieve. I think that basically I realised that I was having to work in a specifically commercial context - something I didn’t want to do. I think they kind of goaded me a bit as well, “we think you ought to be doing this in the fine art department,” which I had been, so I then changed to painting. YOU’RE OFTEN MENTIONED AS BEING PART OF THE SOUTHEAST LONDON SQUAT SCENE. WERE YOU SQUATTING WHILST YOU WERE AT UNIVERSITY? –––– I didn’t, there was one place that we used as a brief gallery space, as a kind of a studio space, for maybe a month or six weeks or so. But it wasn’t until I left, a few weeks after we left (University); that I couldn’t afford to pay rent and have a studio without having a job basically. And that was something I wanted to avoid at all costs. BUT YOU WORKED AFTER UNIVERSITY? –––– I supplemented a lot of stuff by djing, and so and that brought in money that meant I could go off for a couple of hours a week, and earn something, not a huge amount, but enough to get by. And also you find ways, particularly when you’re squatting, incredibly cheap ways to live. Existing in a framework where you’re living for free, you realise there’s a lot of waste in London, a lot of waste whether it’s food in super

market bins, that went out of date an hour before, or furniture being chucked out; clothes, wood - all kinds of things. So that’s kind of how I survived. I don’t squat purely because of some romantic ideal. I didn’t enforce upon myself, if anything the way we lived when we squatting was decadent, we had so much. We had so much space, and all those things to me are intensely valuable. So it’s not political in that I will always squat to prove a point, but I will always do what is necessary to achieve what I want to do. But I don’t see that as an apolitical stance. The problem with using art solely as a source of income, is that you don’t really get paid for it until... and it’s

true of all the creative industries I think, there’s a real intern culture where people are working for free because it’s kind of something on the CV. It’s really difficult, that’s why I went to look at squatting because it’s a way out of that. And I think it was just, that thing of continuing working, and of having the time and space to, and also a deadline, “we’ve got a show we have to make work,” just to keep working, not loosing sight of what we’re doing, not seeing it as the end of the chapter There’s this idea that one day that if you’re at college, or even if you’re not at college, somehow there comes a day when you’re a real artist, and that’s erm... bullshit. HOW DOES YOUR DJING RELATE TO THE OTHER WORK THAT YOU DO? –––– In my head I separate it slightly because I feel that with DJing I can kind of compromise myself creatively, because I know it’s a job and I’m getting paid. And what has been good about that is that I’ve been able to separate my work, and keep that as a kind of space that I feel is less compromised than, you know, in a club or something where, you have to keep the punters happy. I don’t think that should be an artists objectives. COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR WORK WITH !WOWOW! AND THE IMPORTANCE OF COLLABORATION IN YOUR PRACTICE? –––– Collaborations are really difficult things; there’s actually a piece that’s meant to be in this show (Gothic at Fieldgate Gallery) that was a collaborative piece, that in the end, the other artist involved refused for it to be shown - so they are really difficult things to do, particularly because people’s work is so personal to them and letting go of that is so difficult. But maybe when we talked about us as a collective, is was kind of like, it was more of a joke than it was ever a serious thing. But, I think in hindsight, I think it was highly collaborative; the reason it worked was because it was quite light hearted and also it wasn’t kind of collaborative in a utopian sense, where it was like we’ve made one painting, everybody has done an equal amount of marks, and everybody’s really happy with the outcome. Because, you know, in an ideal situation we wouldn’t have egos, and we wouldn’t to stamp our own personal creative identity and things. We’d ultimately be interested in some sort of creative good, that only good art should exist. WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE FUTURE FOR !WOWOW!? –––– It comes down to definition really, and people are so desperate to define things, and say “oh, this is this and it will only ever be that; and now I know what it is, I don’t have to think about it anymore.” And that’s kind of why I don’t really like definitions,

because when you define something, it’s a death wish for all other possibilities. And everybody that was involved to begin with was in no way cool. They were just like anybody else. But the thing is that those things, because they have an authenticity at their root - which is wanting to be creative, support each other, that kind of thing - it resonates in a way that advertising and the corporate world doesn’t. Because it (advertising) comes from a very different place, which is to turn around a profit. And that wasn’t our objective, it was like we wanted to have fun, we wanted to do stuff. And I think that people try to capitalise on that, they try and define it. Because once you can define something, you can sell something. YOU’VE DESCRIBED YOURSELF AS AN ART SHAMAN, CAN YOU EXPAND ON THE ROLE OF MYTH AND MAGIC IN YOUR WORK? –––– For me, the role of the shaman is the same as the role of the artist in quite a Beuysian sense. Shamans subject themselves intentionally to intense emotional, subjective experiences for the purpose of gathering certain types of knowledge. I don’t know how much it would fit into a rationalist scheme of things, but basically that knowledge, I see it as being very similar to the kinds of things that artists discover through the ways that they work. In terms of myth, I’m really interested in story telling. For me stories are a way not just to comprehend situations, but to actually understand them - because people empathise with the characters involved, so in a sense they can vicariously experience things without actually having to fight dragons! They can actually understand ideas that I see as transcending history or society or a socio-political context. So I think there are some things that are, I guess, eternal. It’s really difficult to define those things, but I think we can engage with them through story telling and a mythological way of thinking. AND RELATING THAT TO YOUR TRIP TO NEW YORK, HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH TERENCE KOH? –––– He wasn’t in New York when I was there. He was away. I saw Terance last night actually... but my experience with Terence, in what sense? TC: WELL I WAS THINKING IMMEDIATELY, THAT I ASSOCIATE HIM WITH THE IDEA OF THE SHAMAN... –––– Yeah, definitely. I mean he’s definitely part of that tradition of artists who are building their own personal mythology. The idea of artists being a character within their own stories, and that’s something which I definitely associate with. When I talk to Terence I understand; I feel like when we talk to each other there’s a...I don’t need to say certain things

SELECTED VIEWS FROM BOLD TENDENCIES 2008

I might need to say to other people - we’re on a similar tract in the way that we’re thinking. WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING IN THE FUTURE, WHAT ARE YOU’RE GOALS? –––– I deﬁnitely want to get to a point where I have the freedom to do whatever I want, and be uncompromised. But I guess that’s striving for freedom probably. Something that all artists want. I want my work to be successful, because I want it to achieve real things, rather than... in the sense that I believe that artists, well I mean that we all changing the world all of the time, and I kind of believe that I want to share my vision. And I want to continue what I’m doing. /TC

ARTEMIS’ GARDEN –––– PHOTOGRAPHY Michal Martychowiec –––– STYLING Claudia Behnke

METALLIC SKIRT WORN AS TOP AND TROUSERS VIVIENNE WESTWOOD SHOES WITH FLOWER DETAIL MANISH ARORA

LEATHER COAT JEAN-PIERRE BRAGANZA TOP WITH WOODEN PEGS ADA ZANDITON TIGHTS WOLFORD KNEEHIGH SUEDE BOOTS VIVIENNE WESTWOOD. OPPOSITE: BOLERO VIVIENNE WESTWOOD GOATFUR GILLET WORN AS TOP TODD LYNN WOLLEN SKIRT DERYCK WALKER SHOES MANISH ARORA

COAT ON TOP AND WORN UNDERNEATH BOTH DERYCK WALKER

MAKE UP JO FROST USING MAC PRO. HAIR NATASHA MYGDAL USING LOREAL. STYLING ASSISTANCE FRANCESCA ABRAM. MAKE UP ASSISTANCE FRANCESCA BRAZZO. HAIR ASSISTANCE CHELSEA GREEN MODELS SIAN @ PREMIER AND SAVANNAH @ SELECT.

RIGHT PUFFBALL DRESS ADA ZANDITON LEFT COAT BASSO & BROOKE COAT WORN UNDERNEATH PAUL SMITH LEATHER KNEE HIGH BOOTS STEVE J YONI P

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positive, came to Dungeness to die. His house and garden have become a tourist spectacle, attracting photographers and curious walkers to an area formerly undisturbed along the Kent coastline. But in the surrounding area of Dungeness, along the beach and between the blank sea and sky, it becomes possible to map the person through the physical environment - the industrial debris abandoned on the shore-line in the sea’s quick retreat, the buzz of power plant and pylon puncturing silence and horizon

- malaise haunts, sometimes personiﬁed in physical spectre. Dungeness is a place to walk, a place to re-imagine solitude and erosion through a landscape now synonymous with the absence of a particular person. There are no pictures, plaques or plinths in Dungeness but rather a consuming sense of memorial. Each object delivered by the sea, each peel of paint, stone shingle or rusted screw perpetuating the link and tangling the physical characteristics of Dungeness with the silent mythology of a dead ﬁlmmaker’s last years of life.

K-PUNK HAUNTOLOGICAL HAPPENINGS –––– WORDS Alistair McDonald MARK FISHER MATERIALISES from the crowd for his interview in Spitalﬁelds Market. He’s an unassuming man dressed in the manner of a schoolteacher; an incongruous appearance given that Fisher is also the provocational writer behind the pseudonym of K-Punk. It is Fisher’s position as a prominent theorist of the nascent musical genre of Hauntology, alongside music writing luminary Simon Reynolds, that has lead Tough Crowd to take this opportunity to make his views manifest. Fisher’s enthusiastic fusion of theory with popular culture, frequently incorporating indictments of contemporary politics, has seen him produce a body of work that can perhaps best be understood as outsider criticism – entailing a perpetual engagement with popular music, ﬁlm, visual art and the political machinations of Neo-liberalism. Of course, this approach was not always so marginalised. As Fisher himself states, “I got interested in theory because of people like Ian Penman and the old days of the NME when it was highly theoretical; scarcely believable now when we look at the state of it at the moment.” It is a stance which he has only recently come to inhabit, as he acknowledges “I didn’t make that much money initially from writing...I occupied a liminal space really, between the academy and journalism” As a self-proclaimed occupant of this liminal space, it is necessary

to ask, why did Fisher choose to assume the radicalised alias of Kpunk? “Because of things that I’d done at Warwick [University] with the CCRL [Cybnernetic Cultures Research Lab]” he begins, “we didn’t really like the Cyber prefix, because already back then in the 90’s it was clear that it had that tedious ubiquity. So, you know the letter K was used to stand in for Cyber, partly because of the Greek origins of the word cyber...and it’s also got lots of other nice associations, if you want to signify something being modern you replace a “C” with a “K” etc. Plus other associations like Kafka.” Later he qualifies this, remarking, “I think it was in the mid 90’s that it got used as a phrase – K-Punk. I don’t think I’d have adopted it now if I was using it, but it’s kind of stuck really so I’m not going to change it.” However, it is with his advocation of Hauntology, that Fisher has produced a label with a truly viral appeal. As he admits, “Hauntology started off as a fairly loose thing I think. It was a range of different records that sounded a bit ghostly.” Hauntology encapsulates a longing for a recently lost moment when culture was politically productive. Without reverting to a simplistic dialectic, it can perhaps best be viewed as a strand of self-reflexivity, within Postmodernism’s otherwise nostalgic stasis. Fisher affirms this, summarising the concept as “the spectral presence of something that is not actually there, a particular marked time

period when there was a definite forward motion in popular culture. And a series of material signs for that kind of loss – most obvious, the sound of vinyl crackle.” The concept of Hauntology has its philosophical roots in Jacques Derrida’s 1993 book, Specters of Marx; in which Derrida attempts to integrate the spectral presence of a spirit of Marxism into contemporary political debate during the wake of the fall of Communism. Fisher admits, “I didn’t have much interest in it [Specters of Marx] when it came out in the 90’s, partly because in the 90’s there was still a forward motion in culture” – during our conversation he repeatedly cites the example of Jungle as illustrative of the forward motion for that particular epoch. “It’s assumed that we’ve reached the end of history. There’s no longer really any expectation that there would be novelty or change in culture... We’re onto second or third order pastiche now, not even first order appropriation, but a copy of something that’s already pastiched.” Fisher proceeds to expand his argument with some potentially antagonistic examples - “Something like Franz Ferdinand which is blatantly hacked together out of cultural fragments, none of which date any later than about 1983, and if you’d heard any of their records in about 1980 it wouldn’t have perturbed you. This is my test. The Arctic Monkeys, when I first saw that video, Look Good TOUGH CROWD 23

On The Danceﬂoor, I genuinely believed this was some lost [Old Grey] Whistle Test footage from 1980 – and that’s genuine. That’s past-shock as I call it. The idea that in 2008 you’d be hearing things like this is bafﬂing.” This concept is pertinent to a younger generation, who Fisher believes, have suffered from the lack of exposure to cultural innovation. Instead, it is proposed, that this has led to a scenario where cultural engagement is pushed back, from the wasteland of the end of history, and into nostalgia - “I have found that quite a lot of culturally attuned people in their twenties often have a strange memory for - in some cases almost as detailed a memory for - the 70’s and 80’s, as I have got having lived through it” Fisher observes. Yet how does the concept of Hauntology, given the precarious situation it occupies, avoid slipping into the nostalgic mode, that Fisher so avidly criticises? Is it a symptom of the current cultural climate, rather than a cure? “Nostalgia is the problem which culture faces in general,” states Fisher, “and Hauntology is dealing with that problem. We can’t have cultures dedicated to Modernist reinvention anymore. Instead of just succumbing to the creeping necrosis of generalised nostalgia, there’s Hauntology, which is at least drawing attention to that problem. It is expressing a longing or pang for something that is not there - for that forward motion.” “So I think that nostalgia is certainly a danger with Hauntology. A lot of what gets called Hauntology is about nostalgia, but the problem doesn’t start with Hauntology. Hauntology is symptom and also a way of trying to address the broader problem of nostalgia – at least as I see it. Because there is a difference between something being about nostalgia and something being formally nostalgic. And so much of the rest of culture is formally nostalgic I would say, without being 24 TOUGH CROWD

about nostalgia, without interrogatmy blog why it started to become ing nostalgia.” more well known really.” As is frequently the case in Another significant figure Fisher’s writing, a political current within Fisher’s universe is Savage surreptitiously enters into his Messiah, producer of agit-prop work. In the case of Hauntolagainst the processes of gentrificaogy, the dialogue quickly shifts tion - “ I just happened to meet to the problems of mental health, her at Tom Vague (punk fanzine particularly in the young. He ideneditor) at Chelsea College of Art tifies “a kind of discontent with the and she was there in the audience existing order has always been the with her signs. And there was an problem of the young, but that disaffinity there. A lot of the cultural content is no longer articulated in / political struggles, which she’s foterms of any new form or political cussed upon, are, I think, the right subjectivity and instead becomes a ones to focus on – like 2012. As matter of private pathology.” we’ve seen with the London 2012 Perhaps this could be interpreted games, as we’ve seen over the past as being indicative of the current week or so, the Olympic moveclimate of political apathy; however, ment is now completely synergised Fisher immediately retorts, “I don’t with global Capitalism....the only think it’s apathy though, there’s iminterest of which was it being subpotence. They don’t verted, otherwise it have any memory of would be completely SOUNDS OF anything else. When boring like a lot of HAUNTOLOGY there are sights of the products of global 1. BURIAL historical precedent, Capitalism really.” Bural’s eponymous debut, marked the then they can convert As the spectre commencement of a this disconsolate, disof 2012 comes ever longing for the lost opengaged impotence closer to incarnating timism of Rave culture, into anger. But that itself as global media modulated through the needs to happen, spectacle, Fisher concrackle of pirate radio. it can be done, but tends that the games people have to do it. reflect “an image in 2. GHOSTBOX I’m quite unapoloculture in general The output of the Ghostbox label is getic about making – CGI and mission bound by the legacy of those connections statements amidst pre-Thatcher, Socialist between politics and conditions of rot.” government in Britain, mental health.” Consequently, the library music, TV Furthermore, labour required in his for schools, and whilst Fisher may project to propose a lounge music. not have engaged in haunting alternative, direct partnership, to the continuing 3. MORDANT MUSIC Mordant has released a his network of acencroachment of the series of “dank meanquaintances appears façade of nostalgia, derings” from another to be influential in exhibits no threat of forgotten England, the formation of his subsiding. /TC including the work intellectual endeaBesides his promiof Dubstep protégé vour. The dialogue nent blog (k-punk. Shackeleton. commences with Siabstractdynamics.org), mon Reynolds - “He Mark Fisher’s criticism 4. PHILIP JECK Manipulating multiple was like a mentor appears in a number of record players through and also someone London based publicaeffects, Jeck’s layered who encouraged the tions such as Frieze, and looped esoteric sort of writing I was Sight & Sound and Fact sound sources, conjure doing and probably Magazine, alongside his up otherwise supthe main reason, post as Acting Deputy pressed spirits of the in the early days of Editor of The Wire. 20th Century

BOOK

2666 ROBERTO BOLAÑO (PICADOR)

STARING INTO THE ABYSS

–––– WORDS David Dawkins –––– ILLUSTRATION Toby Pennington THE DIAGRAM OVERLEAF represents the published literature of the late Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. Sadly in 2003 Bolaño died of liver failure, at the peak of his powers, aged only 50. 2666 is the novel he had dreamed of writing. It would be his last and represent the ﬁnal framing piece of his oeuvre. His career is something on an incomplete puzzle. With 2666 in place it is a puzzle with its corners intact and its boarders complete, allowing us to trace an outline around the ideas of a writer who moved from poetry to prose, who had channeled his years with the Infrarre-

alismo poetry collective into what is now being hailed as the first ‘masterpiece’ of the century. Although Bolaño would surely have written more novels had he not died so early, he long maintained that 2666 would be his last. As we see from Javier Moreno’s diagram, Bolaño’s published works are now in a state of flux. The magnetism of 2666 contorts the fixed critical position of his earlier works - pushing, pulling and casting new light in the dark and empty spaces between each text. Because of these voids within his oeuvre, gaps are starting to appear

that create an opacity, a cinematic distance between two points. In effect, an invitation to speculate. 2666 is inspiring the hyperbole that will cement it in place amongst the likes of Labyrinths and One Hundred Years of Solitude as a timeless work of Latin American ﬁction. However, Bolaño knew he was dying, he also knew that he had to write something that would provide for his family after his death. 2666 is not perfect or polished and it holds all the unfashionable and transparent malice aforethought of a novel knowingly written to be TOUGH CROWD 25

26 TOUGH CROWD

in the race, as Bolaño states, to produce the companion text to swim alongside this new literary Leviathan, guiding Archimboldi’s oeuvre like a pilot fish through the oceanic abyss. This abyss crops up again and again, taking many forms and meaning different things within the larger movement of 2666. Archimboldi himself is at this point mysterious in his absence, unknowingly working his way towards immortality through the written word. The section ends with the critics responding to a tip, a sighting of the elusive author. They head to Mexico, specifically to the industrial and transient border town of Santa Teresa. The section - spare and simmering - feels like dipping a tentative toe into a swimming pool of lava, as we watch Bolaño’s academics skirt around the corners in the heat and humidity of the madness to come. The second and third novellas, The Part About Amalfitano and The Part About Fate are very much the subsidiary novellas of the five. They serve to chronicle insanity and to disentangle the lives of people from the drama of the place. Described through a languid palette, Santa Teresa is cast as a transient, dilapidated, industrial town - its inhabitants treading water between poverty and comfort. Amalfitano, who has a cameo in the previous novella, is

a new Literature professor at the University of Santa Teresa. As a single father he spends his days hanging a book from a clothesline, struggling with the well-meaning attention of a female peer and attempting to ignore the homophobic voices in his head. He is either going mad or someone is trying to contact him. We’re never quite sure, but in the company of such a rich ensemble of unstable characters one assumes insanity. Fate is a black journalist sent to Santa Teresa to cover a boxing match between an American and a Mexican fighter. Despite being dull and passive to the world around him, he becomes integrated in the nightlife of Santa Teresa and the spectacle of the prizefight. Bolaño has littered 2666 with deliberate and often confusing digressions. Sometimes they resonate, sometimes they require a re-read and yet still they seem indulgent. This third novella, ‘The Part About Fate’ is littered with long pontifications from former Black Panthers writing cookbooks and Mexican playboys who attempt to tell Fate that Robert Rodriguez’s cinematic debut was actually a violent and pornographic snuff movie. Never entirely sure why these digressions occur, they collectively assemble themselves within a larger whole. A huge room filled with obscure symbol-

A GEOMETRY OF BOLAÑO’S FICTION DIAGRAM BY JAVIER MORENO ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN COLOMBIAN LIT-MAGAZINE PIEDEPÁGINA.

a masterpiece. Having said this, within its own negative capability, its own mystery, opacity and ambition Bolaño has achieved in 2666 a lyrical and melancholic exploration of violence and misogyny. It is a novel that captures Latin America as Bolaño saw it, an idea that collects the sum of the parts of the 20th century to arrive at a time and a place teetering on the edge of a chasm, a vast and dark unknown. 2666 is a 900-hundred-page epic that spans the lives of literary intelligentsia, journalists, soldiers, aristocrats and policemen - weaving through the academy and war, spectacle and industry - from the beginning of the 20th century to its turn. Published in 2004, but only in 2009 receiving its English translation, 2666 is told through five novellas. Although Bolaño intended these self-sufficient novellas to be published independently in order to provide more money for his daughters after his death, his literary executor decided otherwise and published 2666 as a gargantuan whole. A good decision one feels, even if it was against the author’s will. It’s not that the five parts are consecutive, or that they interlink intricately. Each part could survive on its own. However, as a whole the five novellas operate as moths tirelessly courting a light bulb, fluttering randomly but ultimately on the same path. 2666 begins with the novella, ‘The Part About the Critics’. Sharp, succinct and effortlessly paced, the section details four academics who discover the work of a German author - Benno von Archimboldi. Their bourgeois lives become devoted to this reclusive and unknown German writer as they gallivant around Europe - ruminating, pontificating, eating in fancy restaurants, giving lectures and sleeping with each other. The scholars elevate Archimboldi to considerable notoriety, gaining him Nobel nominations

ism and translucent metaphor that places the reader slapping the wall, searching for a light-switch in the dark, yet - when the lights come on - holding a banana. The fourth and penultimate novella The Part About The Crimes, a section one assumes will operate as a great crescendo, is a homage to Bolaño’s love of detective stories and his personal interest and deep research into the unsolved (real-life) anomaly of the hundreds of women killed in Ciudad Juarez since 1993. The novella is hauntingly spare, a neutral and melancholic report of dates and brutal acts of violence. Bolaño Interweaves this dérive with the lives of a litany of ineffectual characters, completely unable to change or influence what’s going on around them. In many ways it is a ‘genius loci’ of evil - a bleak and singular take on humanity at its most carnal, told through the spirit of Santa Teresa. This huge and intimidating fourth section is the core of the novel. As we read murder after murder, becoming familiar with Bolaño’s restrained and deliberately repetitive aesthetic palette for gruesome detail, we become desensitized to the violence. Forced to assume the role of passenger on Bolaño’s emotionless journey through the characters of Santa Teresa, the fourth novella feels like staring through blacked-out windows in a speeding car observing at a distance the anonymous deaths of factory workers, prostitutes, bindippers and peasant girls en route. The haunting familiarity of the phrase, ‘the case was soon closed’ signifies the bludgeoning effect of Bolaño’s descriptions desensitizing the reader. With no sharp or emotive adjective use on which to get a handle, and no humane literary flourishes to inspire identification with the victims, Bolaño rattles through the countless murders with the prosaic efficiency of a well-run abattoir. Bolaño’s idea of violence is,

interestingly, in tune with that of Slavoj Zizek (via Lacan) - the idea of The Emperor’s Bloody Robe. Violence is equally an expression of physical force - rape and murder in this case - as it is a symptom of the ‘Systemic’ passivity of the State. Something latent within Latin America is at the root of the potentially infinite misogyny and murder in Santa Teresa - it is not specifically the murderers committing the crimes or the authorities turning a blind eye but something simmering beneath the surface on which both sets of people stand. To illustrate - The Part About The Crimes details the movements of a top U.S criminologist brought over to solve the crimes but who merely spends his time treading the territory of Santa Teresa, enjoying the hospitality and educated conversation of the state - the supposed pillars of ‘civilization’ personified by judges, politicians and police chiefs. The Reality in 2666 is the murders and the similarity of the social circumstance of each victim - poor, transient, anonymous, outsiders. The Real is the limpness, the melancholic and lackluster reaction of the State and media to the violence over which they preside. Moving around this axis of violence and Reality we find ourselves in the center of Bolaño’s ‘void’. The ‘Normalization of Barbarism’ is the huge empty space between crime and reaction. In short, if 2666 is the year of the forecasted ‘storm’ then the murder and melancholia in Santa Teresa is the calm before it. Santa Teresa simmers, the occasional bubble rises to the surface, but nothing boils over. This fourth novella, The Part About The Crimes, ends with the imprisonment of a scapegoat in the form of a huge German, an intimidating Aryan described as a ‘small businessman’. Despite his imprisonment the murders continue. The fifth and final novella, The

Part About Archimboldi makes the reader look for a much-needed respite after the bludgeoning effect of the section before. But little relief is offered as Hans Reiter (soon to be Benno von Archimboldi) takes us on a surprisingly short, but intensely brutal journey through the 20th century. Archimboldi’s journey begins as a child with his parents in Germany. His mother missing an eye, his father a leg, his upbringing unsurprisingly under-privileged. He finds work as a cleaner and falls into the favor of Hugo Halder, a decadent scoundrel, the relative of a duke who Hans Reiter had worked for. Archimboldi spends his time learning under Halder’s influence before joining the military of the Third Reich. Bolaño, perhaps once or twice too often, captures the lanky yet fearless author staring into the sea, looking intently into the darkness below, desperately wanting to dive in, or later during the war, walking slowly into bullets, magnetically drawn towards the abyss. This encapsulates Bolaño’s idea: As we follow Archimboldi through Europe in the 20th century towards Santa Teresa, we stare down into an abyss of the collected and disassembled parts of history’s most violent century. The energy of such a century bubbling beneath the surface in Santa Teresa. Bolaño leaves us with what we started with. A date. A date that could feasibly be followed by a question mark - 2666? The ending is in the title, but the title is more of a question than a statement. The book finishes with Archimboldi, now an old man, en route to Mexico. The narrative finishes abruptly at a time close to the present. Bolaño leaves us on the edge and looking down - not forward - into the future. Looming below we are left with the title, the ominous year and the terrifying void of uncertainty between what we know now, and the reality of what 2666 will be. /TC TOUGH CROWD 27

MUSIC

ISIS WAVERING RADIANT (IPECAC) Wavering Radiant, the sixth full-length album from LA-based post-metal pioneers Isis, sees them pick-up where previous offering In the Absence of Truth left off. Moving into prog-metal territory, but without sacrificing heaviness, Isis’s songs are growing ever more complex and varied. Throughout each composition the tempo is constantly fluctuating, with heart-wrenching groans followed by periods of melody and layers of sound gradually building up on top of each other. Execution is immaculate; the Isis monolith is as solid as ever. All of the band’s signature marks are here: the loud-quiet shifts, the crushing drone-like riffs, the rich sonic canvases. Yet something seems missing. The poignancy and eeriness of Oceanic and Panopticon that had separated Isis from the throng of instrumental metallers is gone. Wavering Radiant’s structural complexity has come at a price of atmosphere, build-up, and suspense. What Isis’s sound has gained in texture and richness, it has lost in the emotive value. While ambitious, the songs often sound more like well-executed jamming sessions rather than the rich atmospheric canvases that invoked the vastness of the sea in Oceanic. Aaron Turner’s growls are as loud as ever, yet rather than sounding challenging, his screams’ constant contrast with softly-sang choruses appears formulaic and largely ineffective. The standout track is the Threshold of Transformation, the final ten-minute composition that manages to convincingly unite the diverse threads of Isis’s sound. Overall, the album has enough in the mix to be 28 TOUGH CROWD

of interest to both the adherents of Isis’s sludge roots as well as the fans of the experimental forays of its Ipecap releases. Despite Wavering Radiant being perhaps the band’s most accessible album to date, a newcomer would be better served by starting his introduction elsewhere. ––– Anatoliy Kurmanaev SONIC YOUTH THE ETERNAL (MATADOR) Being on a major label has never constrained Sonic Youth’s sound, but their first independently released album in 19 years was always bound to be special. Ironically however, the return to the indies has resulted not in the expansion of the subdued, introspective feel of the band’s last two offerings, but in one of the most accessible and balanced albums of their vast catalogue. Ditching elaborate song structures and sound layers of Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped, Sonic Youth turns up the volume and hit the overdrive pedal with The Eternal. Put simply, the album rocks, and hard. The most obvious comparison is Dirty, the 1993 seminal release that combined relatively conventional song structures with heavy chords, departing from the band’s signature free noise experimentalism. The first half of the album finds Sonic Youth churning out 3-minute rockers, full of fast and scuzzy riffs, playful vocals, and distorted solos. The influence of Moore’s 2007 full-length Trees Outside the Academy is heavily felt throughout Eternal’s last third. Pick-style guitars alternate with background distortion and clear vocals to create a more mature feel to these songs. The album culminates with Massage the History, a ten minute grand finale where Kim Gordon’s hazy voice is layered on top lush sprawling soundscapes. Eternal proves that despite having 15 main full-lengths under their name, Sonic Youth are far

from running out of ideas. The album’s sound is fresh and exciting, albeit much more polished in comparison with the noisy 1980s. In fact, Eternal could be the band’s most balanced offering, combining melody, experimentalism and heavy punk riffs into a highly listenable package. The album’s quality comes close to the Youth’s golden 1986-1992 period and is not a bad place to start for those few who remain unfamiliar to the sound of America’s greatest alternative rock band. ––– AK BURIAL & FOUR TET MOTH / WOLF CLUB (TEXT) A black sleeve, black label, vinyl only release with no accompanying information or publicity. This is how a remarkable collaboration between two of the most interesting producers working today - enigmatic Dubstep pioneer Burial, and Folktronica originator Four Tet - has been unveiled. The 12” commences with Moth. Led by a mufﬂed House synth line, it’s dubby and claustrophobic, with a female vocal allowing a hint of optimism to permeate the soundscape. The B-side, entitled Wolf Cub, features Gamelan percussion alongside a two-step rhythm. Instead of the urban bleakness of the A-side, this arrangement bubbles with a kaleidoscopic character. The trademark textures of both producers are evident, with Burial’s woodblock rhythms percolating amongst Four Tet’s bell heavy shimmer. Speculation over the inﬂuence of authorship has, perhaps fruitlessly, abounded across the blogosphere. Irrespective of this, Moth / Wolf Cub is a beguiling gesture from two of the only producers capable of collaborating on an atmospheric and utopic release of such unequivocal ambition. Which bodes the question – will there be more material, or even an album? ––– Alistair McDonald

INTERVIEW

GLAM CANYON –––– WORDS Karen Orton

EVERYONE HAS A blog these days, but not everyone’s

blog gets them 2000 average daily views, license to host monthly parties and steady offers to contribute blog photography to a string of publications and websites. With her street-style and nightlife photography blog, Glamcanyon, Katja Hentschel has elevated the act of taking pictures of her friends and contemporaries at play. She helps us imagine a generation and a culture ﬁrmly entrenched in the streets and parties of London. Fiercely driven, Hentschel, 27, plans to take the Glamcanyon brand as far as it will go. She’s quick to reveal herself, “I’m very ambitious and I always have lots of plans. But I never just talk. I act on what I say, and I always work on realizing my plans.” With that attitude, it’s no surprise that in the two years since Hentschel started her blog, her own reputation and Glamcanyon’s audience have grown incrementally. Hentschel contributes photography to Vice’s party photo and fashion blogs, as well as writing for their fashion blog. Street style and party images from her blog have been in Nylon, The Sunday Times Magazine and online magazines Toro and Borderline, amongst others. In October 2008, Hentschel appealed to her online following by starting to host monthly Glamcanyon parties. And if this wasn’t enough, she’s now building off her experience and connections to begin a burgeoning fashion photography career. Photography wasn’t Hentschel’s ambition from the start. Originating from a small town in East Germany, Hentschel went on to complete her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology in Paris and traveled around the world, living in Barcelona, San Francisco and in several cities in South America. But it wasn’t until Hentschel was 25 and living in New York City that she got serious about photography, when she discovered nightlife website lastnightsparty.com. Hentschel wanted to be the one to document all the parties in Berlin. She moved back to Germany, bought her ﬁrst digital SLR and launched her Glamcanyon blog in 2007.

Two years later, and Glamcanyon is beginning to enter the ranks of online street style and nightlife photography favorites like Facehunter and Dirty Dirty Dancing. The blog is now London-based, with occasional Berlin content, as Hentschel moved to London in 2008 to complete her Master’s in Psychology. The popularity of her blog and others like it, speaks to the fact that party photographers are becoming as integral to a night out as decent music and a good crowd. Hentschel captures the carefully cultivated pouts and poses, spontaneous playful moments and hints of hedonistic excess at clubs and parties in and around East London. By the morning after, Hentschel posts pictures of her latest catch for the blogosphere, bridging the distance between partygoers in Dalston and the next aspirational generation lost in suburbia. But party photography is as much about the photo subject as the online observer, and although you might not catch anyone admitting to going to a party purely to be photographed, there’s no doubt that an element of ﬂattery is at play. So is it fair to say there’s a great deal of vanity involved? “Absolutely,” Katja nods ﬁrmly, “people here want to get their picture taken, and I much prefer those people to those who turn their heads away, which is a Berlin phenomenon.” Hentschel continues, “London and New York are one scene - Paris and Berlin are another. In Berlin people can actually get aggressive sometimes and they really TOUGH CROWD 29

take time to get used to it. Paris is worse, people won’t even let you take your camera out.” Underlying Hentschel’s photographic practice is her desire to seduce Glamcanyon audience by bringing them into the experience. “I think that if people who are looking at your photos get that feeling of, ‘Aww, I wish I could have been there!’ then that’s part of the magic.” Consequently it’s inevitable, considering Hentschel’s vision and ambition, that she’s taken the next step by allowing her audience to step beyond virtual voyeurism, into the Glamcanyon experience. After holding her first successful Glamcanyon party in London in December 2008, Hentschel has since held four more parties, two of which were in conjunction with fashion week. Hentschel urges people to come “as glam as you can”, epitomizing the Glamcanyon aesthetic of frayed luxury and whimsical eccentricity; amalgamating the decades and re-appropriating the glamour of yesteryear with bows, fur, lipstick, sequins and shoulder pads. At these nights the audience mixes high fashion mixed with caravan couture; vintage furs and canvas shoes, dicky-bows and wife-beaters. Hentschel’s Glamcanyon parties are a natural extension of her blog and of her expanding brand. “It’s such a personal thing to have a blog, and it attracts a certain eye, of someone who shares your view of the world. So if I invite a bunch of people to a party who like Glamcanyon, you can be sure that everyone’s going to get along just fine!” At its most basic, Glamcanyon is Hentschel’s show and tell, where she can share the parties, faces and well-dressed people that catch her eye. But at another level it’s an online archive of contemporary culture, cataloguing the self-expression of the moment. A collective effort, belonging as much to the people who fill her blog, as to Hentschel herself. YOU’VE SAID THAT NIGHTLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY IS CLOSER TO YOUR HEART THAN YOUR STREET-STYLE WORK. WHAT’S YOUR MOTIVATION IN CAPTURING IMAGES FROM CLUBS AND PARTIES? –––– I like the fact that with parties, it’s pure emotions and it’s just really wild and in the moment. I think what sets my blog and my party photographs apart, is that it’s not staged and that you really get a feel of what the party was like in that moment. It was important to me to have a blog that everyone would want to look at, that I would like to look at. The thing is, when I first discovered lastnightsparty.com, I was like, “Oh my God, I want to be at that party so bad!” and that’s always something I strive to bring across. 30 TOUGH CROWD

HOW IMPORTANT IS PERSONAL STYLE TO YOU, IN TERMS OF YOUR DECISION TO TAKE SOMEONE’S PICTURE FOR GLAMCANYON? –––– I just think that clothes are very important, they’re part of who you are. Style is someone’s way of expressing themselves. Obviously if you just dress in jeans and t-shirts everyday, yes, that says something about you too, but to me it’s probably less interesting then if your clothes are slightly more extreme. Especially in London, I feel like people are taking this to the next level where it’s become an art form. It’s so much more interesting and exciting here. It’s less about just putting on a nice piece of clothing and more about really creating an outfit that you haven’t seen before. These people exist in New York and in Berlin as well, but definitely more so in London. People here don’t have money so they have to be extra creative in the way they dress, and what comes out of that is worth documenting. YOU’VE EXTENDED YOUR GLAMCANYON BRAND BEYOND THE BLOG FORMAT, TO YOUR REGULAR GLAMCANYON PARTIES AND TO YOUR CANDID PHOTOGRAPHY FOR MAGAZINES SUCH AS VICE. WHAT KIND OF ADVICE CAN YOU OFFER PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR? –––– Actually a massive part of your own success is self-promotion, networking and writing people, which people like Face Hunter and The Sartorialist are very good at. This is all probably a bigger part of what you do than just uploading photos everyday. I think that part of my talent is not only being a decent photographer, but also having some PR skills, speaking a few languages, and having people skills with everything that plays into that. But you know, people who have made it say, ‘it’s all about hard work.’ And I think it is. WHAT UNDERLIES YOUR DESIRE TO CONTINUE TO GO OUT EVERY DAY AND NIGHT TO PHOTOGRAPH THE FACES IN YOUR BLOG? –––– I think that this whole street fashion and party photography thing is a way we capture our current reality. I’m really interested in people, which is where I think my psychology background comes in. I’m a quiet studier of people and my work is actually one big people study. Maybe in 10 years I’ll write a book about my impressions. /TC Katja Hentschel has now moved to Berlin and you can find her work at glamcanyon.blogspot.com.

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