vhcle
ISSUE 09 JUNE 2012 VHCLE MAGAZINE
CONTENTS Vhcle Magazine Issue 9
024-035 Vau de Vire and the Edwardian Ball by Tim Sunderman
art music film photography
036-043 VHCLE MAN Recommendations by Jason Sweitzer
Design fashion life/politics
044-055 Illustrator – Q&A with Tom Haugomat
reviews
056-069 Artist – Q&A with Nick Gentry 070-085 Designers – Q&A with Sonnenzimmer 002 CONTENTS 003 MASTHEAD 004-005 Contributors 006-009 Inspiration vs. Perspiration: A Foray into the Creative Process by Marc Ingber 010-013 Why We Can’t All Just Get Along by Jamie Thunder 014-017 A Fond Farewell (Until Next Year) by Jen Wade 018-023 Launch: An Interview with Michael Hargis by Cassie Lee
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Vhcle Magazine Issue 09
Charlie Lee / Founding Director charlie@vhcle.com Editorial Cassie Lee / Founding Editor cassie@vhcle.com Jamie Thunder / Sub-Editor jamie@vhcle.com
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DESIGNERS
Vhcle Magazine Tel: USA +1 415.364.8568 contact@vhcle.com
Raoul Ortega / Visual Director raoul@vhcle.com Bruce Mai / Visual Designer bruce@vhcle.com Thomas Adcock / Assistant Designer thomas@vhcle.com CONTRIBUTORS Nick Gentry / Artist Tom Haugomat / Illustrator Marc Ingber / Writer
Facebook: Vhcle Mag Twitter: @vhcle
-Published by Charlie Lee: Vhcle Magazine, www.vhcle.com Vhcle.com designed by Charlie Lee All content copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
Cassie Lee / Writer Sonnenzimmer / Designers Tim Sunderman / Writer Jason Sweitzer / Vhcle Man Jamie Thunder / Writer Jen Wade / Writer Cover: Sonnenzimmer Photos by Raoul Ortega: Launch p18, Vhcle Man pp34-37.
Without limiting rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission from both the copyright owner and the publisher of this magazine. Vhcle Magazine is not responsible for the return or loss of, or for any damage or injury to, any unsolicited manuscripts
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CONTRIBUTORS
a lph a betic a l ly by l a st na m e
Vhcle — LONDON
Nick gentry / ARTIST Nicholas James Gentry is a British artist from London. Much of his artistic output has been generated with the use of contributed artifacts and materials. He states that through this process “contributor, artist and viewer come closer together”. He is best known for his floppy disk paintings, placing an emphasis on recycling and the reuse of personal objects as a central theme. Such artistic works of social commentary have been featured in galleries in the UK, USA and in cities throughout the world. Gentry is a graduate of Central St. Matins. Notable exhibition venues include Art Paris, Robert Fontaine Gallery, SCOPE (Miami) and appearances at Bonham’s and Dreweatt’s Urban Art Auctions in London. International press for Gentry has included The Daily Telegraph, The Mirror, The Huffington Post, La Repubblia, Juxtapoz Magazine, Shortlist, Wired Magazine and the Wooster Collective. Vhcle — PARIS
tom haugomat / illustrator Tom Haugomat was born in Paris in 1985. He quickly became interested in drawing and in its narrative potential. After one year of studying the history of art and archaeology, he began his artistic path. It is at the school of Gobelins that he realized a passion for image in movement. There he met Bruno Mangyoku, a talented cartoonist with whom the conception of the short film Jean-François (Arte, on 2009) was made. He hopes to continue to develop a career in illustration and direct cartoon movies by mixing techniques. Vhcle — MINNEAPOLIS
marc ingber / WRITER Marc Ingber is a communications specialist and writer for a nonprofit based in Minneapolis, MN. He was born and raised in the Twin Cities and attended journalism school at the University of Kansas. His primary interests include rock n’ roll, movies, food and drink, the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins - probably in that order. Vhcle — CHICAGO
Sonnenzimmer / designers Sonnenzimmer is a Chicago-based art and screen printing studio run by Nadine Nakanishi and Nick Butcher. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with a recent exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and an upcoming exhibit in Thessaloniki, Greece. Their work has been published in books by Gestalten, Princeton Architectural Press, Gingko Press, The Pepin Press, and Rockport Publishers.
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Vhcle — SAN FRANCISCO
TIM SUNDERMAN / WRITER Tim Sunderman is a Graphic Designer in the San Francisco Bay Area whose first love is drawing and painting, tries to avoid computers until there is no other recourse, and because there is no other recourse, yearns for the open spaces. Tim is a graduate from the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and majored in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a college art and design instructor and freelance artist. Vhcle — SAN FRANCISCO
JASON SWEITZER / VHCLE MAN Jason Sweitzer currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is a renowned cat lover. His wife considers him to have high functioning autism, due in part to his aloof demeanor and obsessive interests in 1960’s garage music, ashtanga yoga, and black widow spiders. Yet, he has a sense of irony and is pleased to appear in this issue of Vhcle. Vhcle — LONDON
JAMIE THUNDER / WRITER Jamie Thunder is a freelance journalist and PhD student at City University, London, studying investigative journalism. He blogs at www.thethunderer.org.uk and is @jdthndr on Twitter Vhcle — SACRAMENTO
jen wade / WRITER Jen Wade lives in Sacramento, CA where she works as an environmental specialist.
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INSPIRATION VS. PERSPIRATION: A FORAY INTO THE CREATIVE PROCESS
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M a rc I ngbe r -June 2012 V hcle Maga zine Issue 9, pp 6 -9
WHEN I WAS IN in high school, I was obsessed with VH1’s Behind
the Music. This worked out well, because it frequently seemed like it was the only show the network played at the time. For someone who spent far too much time analyzing the story behind rock songs, it was a wonderful resource for informing what was happening with bands while they created their tunes – what drugs they were on, who they were sleeping with, who was fighting over money, etc.
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/ INSPIRAT ION VS. PERSPIRAT ION : A FORAY INTO T HE CREAT I V E PROCESS
But one thing that always annoyed me about Behind the Music, was the show didn’t delve very far into the “music” part of an artist’s career. As interesting as it was to learn about Billy Joel’s fledgling boxing career before hitting it big as a singer, the show always spent way more time on these types of details than say, Joel’s choices for the chord progression on “Movin’ Out.” While I understand this to an extent, as the songwriting process would probably make for boring television, I’ve always been curious about the method of creating music. In fact, almost any creative process has been a curiosity to me. Whether it’s Michelangelo’s painting at the Sistine Chapel, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or maybe just Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” it’s interesting to learn what went into the making of iconic works of art. It’s also amusing to me how much the creative process can differ. Whereas the average classic novel typically takes years for an author to write, many of rock’s most famous songs were thrown together on the fly in one day. Rock ‘n’ roll, which doesn’t require pre-written scripts or word processing, lends itself well to spontaneity and random fits of creativity. Most modern bands take a few years between releasing albums, but
history shows this pace isn’t necessarily the way to stronger results. In the 60s and 70s, artists like the Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin were churning out classic albums within months of their previous ones. This pace was the norm at the time - artists got into a creative zone (perhaps with the help of chemicals) and simply struck while the iron was hot. It’s impressive that the Beatles were able to churn out albums like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, The White Album and Abbey Road pretty much one after another in just a few years, but their songwriting process allowed for this to happen. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were preternaturally creative types and their songs often just popped into their heads close to fully formed. They didn’t need years to work out the bridge to “A Hard Day’s Night.” On the other side of the coin, there are some musicians who seem to think nothing great can be accomplished in less than five years. The best example may be Guns N’ Roses, who took more than a decade to finish their Chinese Democracy album. But they aren’t the only ones. Neo-soul R&B singer D’Angelo has been working on
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2000 album, Voodoo, for close to 10 years. He is reportedly finally in the home stretch and the album will be released this year (though I wouldn’t hold your breath). What does an album that took more than 10 years to create sound like? In Guns n’ Roses’ case, popular opinion suggests the long gestation period didn’t lead to better results. Chinese Democracy was a commercial bust and several critics said it sounded like a bloated mess that was recorded piecemeal over the course of many years. D’Angelo, who has a history of taking his time on music, might fare better with his album. It took him five years from his first album and dozens of hours in the studio to complete his second disc, Voodoo, a touchstone of the neosoul movement. The irony is that the effort he put into it doesn’t really show. Heavy on extended grooves, it sounds like the type of album that was casually recorded over the course of a long weekend in between Hookah sessions. It’s interesting to compare the creative process of musicians to that of filmmakers. Though it’s a completely different art form, there are similarly some directors who prefer to work quickly and others who take the opposite approach.
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John Hughes is associated with some of the most successful comedies of the 1980s. Perhaps just as impressive as his output was the pace at which he completed it. He worked at a ridiculously fast pace by normal screenwriting standards, writing some of his movies in just a few days each. In just a seven-year period from 1983 to 1990, he wrote and/or directed Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck and Home Alone, among others. While none may be the cinematic equivalent of War and Peace, they are almost all considered comedy classics. Quentin Tarantino is an example of the auteur writer-director who works at a far more methodical pace. He has directed only seven movies in a career that has now spanned 20 years. In interviews, he has stated that part of the reason for this is his writing process is slow in a literal sense. He writes all his scripts by hand prior to typing them. But since he’s not a good typist, he only uses one finger to hack out an entire script, thus resulting in an extremely lengthy process. Nevertheless, he stated it makes for a good editing system because any lines he decides aren’t up to par get cut or condensed so he can avoid
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typing them. Though most of his movies tend to be on the “talky” side, they rarely have boring parts. If anything, the contrast between artists’ working styles proves there is no formula for ending up with a quality result. No mathematical process exists for creating a masterpiece and spending more time on something doesn’t necessarily translate into a greater product. I suppose Axl Rose just never got that memo. It’s ironic though, considering his previous band reportedly wrote “Sweet Child O’ Mine” in just a few minutes.
“NO MATHEMATICAL PROCESS EXISTS FOR CREATING A MASTERPIECE AND SPENDING MORE TIME ON SOMETHING DOESN’T NECESSARILY TRANSLATE INTO A GREATER PRODUCT”
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Why we can’t all just get along
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Jamie T hunde r -June 2012 V hcle Maga zine Issue 9, pp10 -13
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WHERE DO YOU STAND on the economy? Are you for austerity? Or would you prefer a larger fiscal stimulus? Do cuts risk plunging the country back into recession, or is solving a crisis created through spending by spending sheer madness?
The chances are you immediately knew your view on those questions. As soon as you read them, your mind locked onto the answer. But take a moment to ask yourself why you gave the answers you did. Whatever the reason, it’s unlikely to have been the result of a clear-headed analysis of the relative economic merits of the respective positions. Maybe you can quote Krugman, or rely on a high-profile businessman to support you – but even that choice of expert is largely predetermined.
Ninety years ago, Walter Lippman published Public Opinion. In it, he took on the myth that we can – or should be able to – achieve a considered view on all aspects of public life. He wrote that “for the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see”. In other words, on most issues our view isn’t formed based on the facts as they exist in the world. We don’t have the time or expertise to do that. Instead our opinions are based on what he called our pseudoenvironment: the sum of our existing beliefs and knowledge, built up over our lives from childhood. For some people on some questions these pseudo-environments relate closely to the real world. But even if they don’t,
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their actions – based on their pseudoenvironment – have an impact on that world, and so form part of other people’s pseudo-environments. You can see the influence of pseudoenvironments in the current debate over Europe’s economy. It’s not a coincidence that right-wingers support austerity while the left argue for greater spending. Their prescriptions for the current state of the economy support their general outlook. It’s not contradictory for a conservative to call for stimulus or a socialist to support austerity to get the economy out of its rut – but it’s certainly unlikely. These beliefs (and they’re not at all confined to economics) are necessary shortcuts most of the time. It’s not realistic to think we could come to a sound conclusion on all matters, so we use our pre-existing views. Yet these shortcuts are so ingrained that very few realise they use them. It takes immense
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effort to overcome them, even if you’re aware that much of what you think is based on what you already think. But the danger of not recognising how your and others’ opinions are generally formed can be severe. Firstly, it raises expectations of our politicians to absurd levels. We expect every elected public official to have coherent, well-formed views on every question put to them, and we judge their responses in part based on the information in our pseudo-environment. Then when they (understandably) fail to meet them, it fuels apathy and cynicism. Secondly, if you believe that what you think is obviously and definitely true, it’s only too easy to attribute idiocy or malice to your opponents: they’re either lying or stupid. This leads to increasingly bitter and fractious politics, and gives you little incentive to truly engage with those
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opponents – and even less to genuinely consider their views. They, of course, think the same of you, resulting in a downward spiral of mistrust and cynicism.
changed. Even if we somehow all could agree to be more reasonable, it only takes one ambitious person with ironclad beliefs to upset that delicate balance.
The third outcome is that the more certain succeed. In an environment where any change of mind is labelled a ‘U-turn’ and nuanced views are transformed into evasion, those who shout loudest will get ahead. This is bad news for politics, and just perpetuates that environment. If we – and by that I mean the voting public, the media, and politicians themselves – could accept that sometimes there are honest disagreements and that a change of heart doesn’t have to be embarrassing, we’d do our politics a great service.
But next time someone asks you for your view on the latest political issue, try to cast aside your preconceptions and look at it afresh. Your conclusion might be the same as your original belief. But what matters isn’t the opinion you reach; it’s how you got there.
That will never happen, of course. It’s been almost a century since Lippman pointed this out to us, and little has
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A Fond Farewell (Until Next Year) w r ite r
Jen Wade -June 2012 V hcle Maga zine Issue 9, pp14-17
This piece was originally posted in 2009 on a now defunct Vhcle blog.
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AT A CERTAIN POINT in the spring, there is
a day - a seemingly normal pollen-filled day - when you realize there are certain winter items that should be tucked away. Parkas, wool skirts and cable knit sweaters are just not appropriate in 70 degree weather. Unless your new hobby is something like breaking out into a Bikram sweat midday. Today was that day in sunny Sacramento. Sadly, I reflected on the many items which will be stored with cedar balls and love until a cool fall day. It also came to my attention that I developed a fashion addiction this winter, without even knowing it. I may have
missed the intervention, or possibly my secret remained hidden from my dearest friends and family. Today I step out and proclaim to the world that I was in fact addicted to cheap vintage furry coats (some real, some faux). It started innocently enough and I’ll describe the quick descent chronologically. As a side note, my ethical stance on wearing fur depends on the year it was made and the terms of purchase. All of these items were owned by someone who purchased and wore the garment many years ago. Additionally, no item cost over $35 (with tax).
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A couple years back my friend’s mother gave me a coat from her younger days. A suede furtrimmed dan di modes in perfect condition. The coat always seemed a little large but I got used to the style of the collar and it made the rounds at several dinner parties since college.
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on eBay for $10. I love wearing it over and under everything, but especially over a red turtleneck. I’ll spare you the picture of the bohemian faux fur wet seal vest that I also got on eBay for $1.99, which was another steal.
Then there was the fur-collared long lilac coat by Lassie. My friend would always snuggle up against his mother as a child when she wore the coat. It was part of a clothing swap last fall where everyone walked away with new free clothes.
Continuing an unhealthy eBay relationship, I found a perfectly-sized suede beauty in an eBay store run by a wonderful artist, photographer, designer, renaissance woman, Laetitia Hussain. This was the most expensive purchase at $35, but the coat also has a cozy shearling lining.
This was shortly followed by a fascination with fur vests, after seeing an episode of the Rachel Zoe project. I snagged one by June
About a month ago I was thrifting when I came upon a faux-fur coat by Lilli Ann. I would have overlooked it except for the
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suede trim. Plus at $10, using the double negative property of logic, I couldn’t afford NOT to buy it.
is a beautiful shade of orange with some bling on the cuffs. Each cost $22. I also managed to find a $6 faux stole in the mix.
Just a week later while shopping at the used clothing store near my laundromat, I found a lightweight fur trim jacket by Napoli while my clothes were in the rinse cycle. The leather buckles are my favorite part. Since it has been a staple piece for me these past three weeks, I’ll say it was worth the $15.
Now I feel a sense of relief from being honest with the world about this obsession. I am even looking forward to opening a couple Rubbermaid tubs of shorts and tank tops – possibly coming to more earth-shattering conclusions about my own style. So until the next confessional blog, I bid you and my coats a fond farewell.
It was just last weekend that I hit rock bottom while perusing a yard sale held by Jen Ayres, owner of Thunderhorse Vintage boutique. One coat has amazingly angular fur trim at the end of the sleeves. The other
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LAUNCH w r ite r
C assie L ee
Photo by Raoul ortega
-June 2012 V hcle Maga zine Issue 9, pp18-23
LAUNCH IS the annual music, art, design, fashion and architecture festival that takes place every summer in Sacramento, California. They’re ditching their usual one evening’s festivities to expand this year’s event to include eight events over six days in various venues throughout midtown and downtown. This will occur on July 23-28. If you live in town and are involved in the design or arts community, it’s highly likely you’ve attended at least one or more years of this wellcultivated event. Or at least heard much buzz.
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Michael Hargis is founder and curator of Launch, and was one of the key individuals during the developmental stages for Vhcle. While prepping for this year’s event, he is also laboring to open his new restaurant business, LowBrau, which he describes as “a fun, festive spin in the traditional German Biergarten. We will have gourmet sausages, craft beers and one of the coolest bar programs in the state. We will be a design-centric business embracing the communal aspects of a beer hall but adding our own quirky touches, like rustic materials laid out in a modern context. The concept is lowbrow, but our execution is highbrow”. Those who know Michael will all agree he has a sharp knack for bringing all the right people together to accomplish all that he dreams. And dreaming is definitely embedded into his personality. He’s a visionary, and it’s almost impossible to spend a day with him without feeling inspired to some degree (even for a stubborn realist like me). It’s important that I add he’s not a dreamer with his head continually in the clouds, but also has both feet grounded in reality. He won’t hesitate to tell you when he thinks something is bullshit, or won’t work. We met Michael at a park on a surprising non-body-melting day, then proceeded to walk around midtown, where he showed us the location for LowBrau, and spoke to us about this year’s expansion and how this might affect Sacramento, a city he’s lived in for many years and loves. Vhcle: So, you and your team have gone all out and expanded this year’s event to six days?
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Michael: Yes, eight events over six days. This really gave us a way to showcase the different areas of design. It was cool having everything under one roof in one night, but I think breaking it into a week really gives us a chance to pay homage to the different respective design principles. I’ll do a quick walk-through: Monday is our kick-off party at Hot Italian. We’re doing a pop-up shop for the week and potentially a month afterwards. Micah from Model Citizens NYC will be bringing her designers in and we’ll be pairing them with sort of our dream team designers, which will consist of blankblank and Matthew Lechowick – those guys with that collective. Model Citizens NYC is an industrial independent design collective that shows at the Chelsea Museum every year, and they’ve expanded more into a city-wide event this year. This will be a private invite for the first night. I mean, it’ll be open to the public during the week, but we’re going to want it to be more like friends and family and buyers the first night. It’s just going be a smaller and more intimate event, with cocktails and things like that. Tuesday, we’re working with Bows and Arrows and we’re doing a film-centric event, a film night. We’re working with three filmmakers that Capital Indie Collective is curating. They’re going to do 30-minute short films, and then we have local musicians that are going to create the score. So, we’ll have a silent film with the musicians creating the score. It’s at another intimate venue.
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Wednesday, we’re working with MARRS Building, so we’re blocking off 20th Street from J to K, and we’re having different architect firms create architectural installations out of recycled cardboard. We’re also doing Exquisite Corps’ album release party that day. We’ll have a craft beer garden, which hopefully by that time we’ll be able to brand it as our LowBrau beer garden. Later on that night, King Tuff will be in town, and so we’re hosting a show at Harlow’s and he’ll be playing there. He’s kind of like this psychedelic rock guy. He had a really good write-up on Pitchfork recently. Thursday – that’s our Cut & Paste show, the live digital art battle. We’re still trying to figure out what this will look like, because we can either get submissions and have people compete against each other, or we can bring in some heavy hitter designers and have them compete against each other. I think we’re leaning more towards bringing in the heavy hitters. It’s more just display, like live art in action, not like, “hey, eff you, we’re gonna kick your ass”. It’s friendly competition. It’s more just bringing exposure to the digital art community. A band oOoOO from San Francisco, which is like dark indie pop, will play that night. And then we’re having Dusty Brown do an all-star set – a power set with Little Foxes, Young Aundee and all of them together. Friday will be our Project Runway fashion show that will include a designer from Alexander McQueen, a runway show featuring Michael
Costello, and an amazing designer, Furne One. Saturday is the big music festival at Cesar Chavez Park, that will go from 11am to 11pm. We have a building we’re going to use that’s not attached to the park. We’re going to have a remote retail location that will be kind of a destination with all the clothing and art. And we’re going to have a remote bar, and all the DJs in that. And the park will be retailers and cool food and badass music. V: Tell us a little about what Launch is for those who might be hearing about it for the first time. M: It’s a yearly music/art/design/fashion festival, a platform for artists to express themselves. But I think it’s larger than that – it’s a rallying point for the city of Sacramento. It’s something for the young creative class, or the creative class in general, to rally behind. I remember my friend Ryder tell me several years ago, maybe five or six years ago, about the Tennessee music scene, that there was such a sense of community. At the point he was telling me that, I was thinking of Sacramento and how disjointed we were. I was thinking why can’t we have something here that rallies everybody together, and I think that was the first thought process of bringing all my passions together. And now Launch is sort of a rallying point for us to come together to support something that’s bigger than ourselves, to build something that’s beyond ourselves. The more you do things beyond the norm, the more it gives other people the opportunity to dream.
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It’s weird when I think about Launch. Like I think about it as so much bigger than it really is. So it’s almost odd to talk about it because where I see it, I see it 20 years from now. The fact that we only had 2500 people last year, and I’m kind of talking about it in these amazing terms, but I think it really is. I think something amazing can happen with 20 people, really. It’s the thought and vision behind it. I might be off and I know sometimes I drink my own kool-aid, but it really feels like we’re starting something special. I’ve lost a shitload of money. I lose money every year. You never make money. Maybe once you hit critical mass, then you start making real money. It’s taken Coachella how long to make any sort of profit? You do it because you believe in something, and sometimes you just want people to understand and when people do get it, it makes it all worthwhile. I’ve been approached by people at numerous events I’ve attended who do get it, and they have thanked me for what we’re doing.
So, I don’t know... it’s just growing up in Texas and seeing with what happened with Austin and SXSW and how this sleepy little college town became known as the music capital of the world. I’ve just been asking myself over this last year: why not Sacramento? We’re basically similar in size. We almost have the same topography. It’s a college town. Why can’t we do something like that? I think that’s really been the push for me this year. First off, dream big. Don’t limit yourself. I’ve been kind of joking around and saying the definition of mediocrity is biting off what you can chew. And every year we keep biting off more than we can chew. Why not dream big? Why are we playing to the demographic or playing to what we think is this dumbed-down society? Why aren’t we doing something relevant in Sacramento that would be super exciting and relevant to New York? And I think that’s what we’ve embraced this year is doing that.
V: So Launch doesn’t exist just for itself but as a bigger picture for the city of Sacramento?
Our goal, I think is: this year; Sacramento. Next year; it’s Northern California. The year after that; all of West Coast. And then; national. That’s what we’re shooting for. And maybe it’s not just a week, maybe it turns into a multiple of weeks. Again looking at SXSW’s platform, we wanted to create something that... have you seen that Sigur Rós video, Glósóli, where the kids go and gather all the other kids, and they run and jump off the mountain and they start to fly? I watched that video again last night. It kind of reminds me of Launch. What we want Launch to be is a platform for, if you have a creative expression, here’s a platform for you to express yourself, whether it’s
M: At first, I was pumped on my team. But I’ve realized this is about Sacramento, what we could do for this city. About branding Sacramento. The thing is, we’re overshadowed by other cities, and we’re amusingly sort of viewed as Stockton’s older brother or something like that. It’s like we don’t have our own identity yet. I think what’s challenging for me from a design perspective is, how do we create an identity for this city because, really, we do have a pool of creatives – we have designers and architects – but we’re never really viewed as a design-centric city. 022
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architecture, design, art, music, and let’s all kind of jump off this thing together. So, I don’t like to micromanage a lot of it. I mean I want the aesthetic to be right, of course. V: There’s always the good and the fun, but there’s always the challenges, too. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced with Launch? M: As is the case in any group effort, some have been too selfish with wanting to showcase their own brand. Their brand has superseded the thought of the event and it’s become selfish and myopic. But genuineness always prevails. People’s true colors eventually show up. Sooner or later people’s true nature reveals itself and weed themselves out. V: How many people are you anticipating this year?
V: Any last words? M: It’s kind of cheesy, but dream beyond the impossible. There’s no way in any stretch of the imagination that we should pull off what we’re doing. We have no money. I haven’t had a consistent income in a year. There’s no way other than dream and passion that’s fueling me. Somehow along the way we’ve raised $80,000 this year. We still have more to raise. If you always set your mark low for what you could achieve, that’s what you’re going to do. You have to stretch yourself. You have to believe beyond what’s possible. For more information and the latest updates visit Launch’s website at: www.launchsacramento.com
M: Anticipation or want? It’s hard to know because we’re making such a huge leap with the caliber of talent, with the marketing strategy and all those things. My gut feeling – 5000. But if we continue to push, maybe we can hit the 7500 to 8000 mark. V: Would you like to mention the names of those who are helping make Launch happen? M: Clay Nutting, Ian Ingalls, Lisa Kennedy, Jason Silva, Matthew Lechowick, ground(ctrl), Jen Wade, Sandra Yan, Chris Lange, Kelly McAllister, Angela McDonald, Brady Tuazon, and Jason Jong.
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Vau de Vire and the Edwardian Ball An Interview with Shannon Gaines
w r ite r
T im Sunder man -June 2012 V hcle Maga zine Issue 9, pp24-35
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IT HAS BECOME COMMON in contemporary media to refer to San Francisco as the living symbol of the out of step, eccentric, and weird. But there is a subculture in the San Francisco scene that even the locals would raise an eyebrow toward and consider strange. That subculture is the one from which the Edwardian Ball has emerged. The Edwardian Ball, named after the Era of British King Edward VII of the early twentieth century and its fashions and technology, is an event where nearly every attendee is dressed in full Edwardian regalia, though with a 21st century postapocalyptic twist. Performances, art installations and absinthe are set throughout the four floors of the Regency Ballroom, itself built in 1911 at the height of Edwardian style. The art and atmosphere is one of an old dark Victorian museum hall or medicine cabinet adapted to a new millennium and playfully themed around the morbid cartoons of Edward Gorey. The main performance each year is an adaptation of one of Gorey’s works presented by the band Rosin Coven and stage show by Vau de Vire Society. Wandering through the dim corridors and stairways of the Regency, one may discover Kinetic Steam Works, the Museum of Wonders, or Malvoye the Mentalist complete in his glassencased arcade box and waiting to foretell your future without being overly constrained by the demanding intricacies of clarvoyance, yet brilliant
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nonetheless. Other turns and explorations may lead to postmodern period musicians or performers of odd dramas. A special gem this year was the presentation of the Evil Garden of living statues as a side project by Vau de Vire. White paper-clothed characters with dark, sunken eyes derived from Edward Gorey drawings held impossibly long poses that periodically, upon the ringing of a bell, shifted to poses of vomitous nausea and despair, held for equally long stretches. A stairwell leading to a basement of vendors of curiosities, corsets and cravats is punctuated by a display case of posthumous rodent and mink skeletons in rococo dress and re-enacting the court of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. The growing popularity of the “steampunk” style in no way estimates the wonderful creativity of these merchants who make almost all of their own wares by hand, and one can find some real treasures to supplement their ball costumes. But the central performance hall is where the Ball truly shines. The audience are participants. It is not unusual to see members of the crowd waltzing to techno beats. On stage there is an eclectic mix of entertainment from musicians, to knife-throwing comedians, acrobats, and even a sexy corseted gothic Victorian fashion show by Dark Garden. Between stage shows a full cancan troupe burst into dance in the middle of the floor
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with the crowd congenially and readily stepping back to form a large circle to create space for them. And such is the spirit of the evening where the boundary between performer and audience is dismissed. To be around so many creative people with such a developed and bizarre sense of humor, often self-effacing, intensifies this camaraderie and sense of community. For many, myself included, this is the best part of the event. However, the main attraction is the joint creation between Rosin Coven, founders of the Edwardian Ball, and Vau de Vire Society, performing one of Edward Gorey’s books. Rosin Coven is an avant garde band sometimes described as orchestral dark cabaret, complete with cellos, trombone, and xylophone. They write compositions specifically for this as a score for the stage show. Vau de Vire is the pinnacle of the visual expression of the Ball. They are a disciplined collection of dancers, aerial artists, fire performers, contortionists and actors, not to mention all the production hands it takes to build the sets, secure the rigging, platforms and lighting.
seductive number with the classically-trained Kelsy Hiyakumoto performing an exotic serpent dance with an emerald tree python along with her fellow dancers draped in snakes. The verse “A venturesome but wounded bird is making an unwelcome third” unleashed a trio of aerial artists in raven costumes swinging in threateningly elegant choreography. And finally, the climax of the show featured the sparklingly campy and talented Kara Nova beaming and even pole dancing to a rousing version of It’s a Hard Knock Life. The entire performance was both a hilarious romp and a mesmerizing exhibition of stage craft. The energy and audience response was akin to a victory celebration. From front to back, the cavernous ballroom erupted into cheers and unsuppressible smiles. The troupe eventually joined in the festivities of the evening together with the crowd just as they like it.
This year they are performing Edward Gorey’s The Iron Tonic, a book of 14 short verses with the beginning verse: “The people at the grey hotel, are either aged or unwell.” And it only plunges deeper into the humorous, dismal abyss from there. The line “It’s known the skating pond conceals a family of enormous eels” began a lusciously
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Having seen the Vau de Vire Society on a number of occasions, I contacted them to interview Shannon Gaines, the co-founder of the group along with her husband Mike. Their name derives from the origins of the term vaudeville. However, their performances would quickly dissolve any notion of what traditional vaudeville is. It could be said that Vau de Vire is to vaudeville as Burningman is to summer camp. And their gorgeous go-go girl routines would send the likes of the Rat Pack running to the doors in horror. Allow me to start by saying
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that, in spite of contacting them during their busiest week of the year preparing for the Ball, they openly made time for me and provided a very warm and welcoming environment. I met Shannon in the Vau de Vire practice space in an industrial art section of San Francisco. She had just arrived to begin the day’s training and rehearsal, but she was already glowing with energy. Her ebullience did not belie the genuine excitement that she held for the art of her creations and collaborations, and so it was quite easy to begin the conversation.
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Interview with Shannon Gaines founder/ choreographer Vau de Vire Society
T - How would you describe Vau de Vire Society to someone who has never seen your shows? We come from the San Francisco underground, the festival circuit, community spaces like CELLspace, local non-profit circus organizations. I feel that we are like the San Francisco underground in that we are still a treat that a lot of people who live here don’t know about yet.
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T - Seeing a lot of the San Francisco underground club scene over the years, it seems to have its own identity apart from every other city. It definitely feels like it comes from a lifestyle. We are all here where we all have the same interests. We are all artists, musicians, actors, fundraisers, producers, all sorts of people that are here for the lifestyle. It just flows from that. We are a group of people living, making art together. Let’s take it to the next level, and maybe even tour it around. Getting back to your question, “What are we?” Really a mash up of dancers and circus artists, actors and actresses. I’d say those are the major portions of it. But we are always keeping our minds open to add in other types of performers. And then it doesn’t stop with the performers on stage, it also extends to our media artists. For instance, every year we have a video projectionist who will join us, and that is a whole artistic process in itself. And this year, we are really going to be heavy on showcasing some of the exactly replicated sketches that Edward Gorey did in Iron Tonic.
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T - You and Mike are the ones who created Vau de Vire Society? Yes, this started way back in Colorado where Mike and I lived before this. We are from Southern California, but we lived in Colorado and we had a venue there for a short period of time and that’s where Vau de Vire was actually spawned. All of our friends, we were in this space and we were working to raise funds to turn it into community space, and we threw together the Vau de Vire Society just as some entertainment for our events. And it just became so popular. People loved it. And so that’s really when we thought we have something here. We thought that we were going to be more offering classes and workshops and gallery space. And then this theatre dance company really took off. And so, when we moved to San Francisco, we waited a couple years, got to know the city a little bit, raised our funds and then drew upon the people we met in those couple years, dancers and circus artists, and taken it way further than we did in Colorado, for sure.
T - So, in previous years at the Edwardian Ball, those things on the screen behind the stage were part of your crew?
T - Back in that formative stage, did you specifically sit down and talk about what aesthetic you wanted to create, or did that just kind of organically grow out of what you were doing?
Yes, they were done live. Mike (Shannon’s husband and co-founder) will always work with our video crew and they make it happen. It always turns out just beautiful.
Back then, I would say a lot of our stuff was really fantasy based, and more about the theme of the event we were throwing, and so if the theme that month was “New Planet”, we would have some
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aliens appear throughout the night and the music would be very electronic. The art we showed would be tuned to that theme. And so back then I think it was a lot more, “What do we want to do this month? What do people want to come dressed up as?” We explored all these themes. The one that really stuck with us was our Bohemian Carnival theme which we’ve actually turned into a kind of party now. Back then it was a little more Commedia dell’arte based. Here it’s pretty much anything goes. It’s pretty much a party that we throw every other month at DNA with Kingfish. He’s our MC and that is a really fun party and we’ll be producing another six of those this year. T- You’ve created an art form that I have never seen before and you are taking it to a wholly different level of expression, like the Edwardian Ball. For instance, the Edward Gorey theme - who came up with that? Well, Rosin Coven (the band), and Justin Katz had been doing this party for about four years before we became involved. And so this was their brilliant idea. But they hadn’t quite put the whole full stage show with it at that point. In the beginning it was held at the Kat Klub, which was a very small venue and our first time joining them was at the Kat Klub. Then it moved to the Great American Music Hall, and it got bigger since then. From there, as we became collaborative partners, we decide
which story we are going to do. We have all these books, all of Edward Gorey’s books, and we all sift through and will throw out five ideas. All of them, when you first read them, I always raise my eyebrows and say, “Oh my, what in the world would we do to that?” They leave so much open to the imagination which is how we make our shows then. We’ll all agree upon one, and then we just start bringing out ideas - “Well this sounds like it could be the raven, sounds like it could be some trapeze artist flying through the air,” or, “These gas lanterns feel like they should be hand balancers that are holding lanterns in hand stand,” which we are going to do this year. Ideas are just thrown out. It’s super-collaborative and at the same time there are definitely leaders who help that flow go faster. T- Working with Rosin Coven, everything fits so well. I understand it is a collaboration, but do they come to you with the music and you choreograph to that? That’s a very interesting question. Normally, I am a choreographer that loves to work off of music. The music has always inspired me to move. Well, we all are working musicians, and performers, and we have families, and we have all these other things going on, so we don’t really have that luxury of rehearsing that often together. We know each other so well now,
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that once Mike and I and them have sat down and talked about some ideas running around, they’ll go and work on the music, we’ll go work on the act, which is very interesting to work on acts without the music. But they are so good, such great musicians, that we can choose some music we like — a tempo and feel, and give it to them and they’ll produce something just like it. That’s where we were this week, just one week before the show. We’ll all get together and have... it’s actually not even all of us... it’ll be Mike and I again sitting down with the band. We listen to what they came up with, tell them how our acts went, show them video if necessary, and then it just goes together. They shave it down to our timing. T - You both know each other so well that you are both shooting for the same target, yes? They are so wonderful. They also watch us and I just feel that when they play live, they are so attuned to us that we’ll do a pratfall and there’s a “ba-boom-boom” (imitating a drum effect) right there to go with us that we never asked for, they just know what to do. They are just amazing. And our first formal rehearsal with them will be our dress rehearsal which is tomorrow night, which you’ll be there taking photos. That will be the first time that the performers and the band have met together for this.
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T - That’s extraordinary. But we’ve been listening to their music from the rehearsals. I know it will come together. It always does (laughing). T - I would never have had a clue that it was cut that close. It wasn’t in the beginning, but now we kind of have flow… we’re approaching ten years here, so… T - When I first heard of you I thought, “OK here are some club kids performing burlesque,” but when I saw you, my jaw hit the floor so fast. You have been able to pull together some great talent. Was that just through making contacts in the San Francisco scene? Yes, I am also a coach, a gymnastics coach (Shannon humbly did not mention that she was training at the U.S. Olympic facility in rhythmic gymnastics). And so upon moving to the city I got a job at a local gym, and from then on I just got introduced to the circus scene and made a lot of my acquaintances through my own performing, through dance companies, circus companies, people scout them and bring them in. A lot of people find us too now, which is nice. And anybody that wants to audition at
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anytime is welcome to make an appointment and bring in anything to show us. And it’s the warmest crowd — the members are so warm and receiving to everybody. It’s a nice experience when people come on to audition. One thing I’d also like to say about the description of what we do, one of our goals is to really drop the barriers between performers and the audience and pull it together and make it this all-encompassing, all-participating event. People can get as much as they want out of it. The Edwardian Ball is a perfect example how people come dressed to the T. It’s so beautiful how they arrive. T - Being in the audience I have felt that too, and then being able to meet the performers after the show and before really helps bring that together. That’s our favorite part too — play time! When the show’s over and we get to go out and play with everyone. T - Hopefully you get to. You’ve worked so hard in preparing for this. Just looking at the performers, how do you get such individualistic personalities, such nonconformists who would be attracted to the kinds of art you perform to come together.
You do get strong personalities. I’m not going to say that it is always easy. Through the years you encounter every kind of working relationship and they’re all really necessary. I am open to criticism because there is probably some truth to it and probably need to hear it, and so we are real open for people to come and let us know how they are feeling. We do however, when we bring someone in to audition, we are looking at how they interact with the crowd, with our members. And we can tell a lot of times whether there’s a match or not. There’s just a spark about, and you have it as well, I can tell, there’s just a spark and you know that things are going to be alright. We kind of go on our intuition. T- How many people are part of the regular crew. Some are closer to the center of the troupe and some are more like add-ons? There are. We have members that come twice a week to train and rehearse. It’s not mandatory. It’s mandatory to come once a week. Some come three times a week and I’d say we have about fifteen people that are rehearsing with us now that come every week and we call them the core. Five or six of those are dancers. And then there is an extended family who come around at show time and they’re people that we collaborate with like
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Klown Korps and Gooferman, and all sorts of outside groups that we will collaborate with depending on what we need. We’ll collaborate with people with piercings and being suspended by the skin. They are called Displayed Labors, the name of the group we work with. They’ll be at the Edwardian Ball too. While I wouldn’t say that’s a Vau de Vire skill (laughing), I would say they are definitely part of the family, not to mention all the musicians and bands we work with. The three biggest ones we work together with are Angelo Moore — “Dr. Mad Vibe”, who has the Mad Vibe Orchestra. He is also the lead singer for Fishbone and he is also our orchestra leader when he is here in town. So we are very excited to have him be part. Also we work with Rosin Coven alot and Gooferman. And Trip Trap, who is here right now. Our VJs at the ball will be Sean Cooper in San Francisco, and then Grant Davis for our LA performance. T - The whole Edwardian Ball is such a ton of work. When do you start preparing for the event? As soon as one’s done, you starting to work on the one for the next year? I’m sure in the production facet, yes. It’s already starting for the next year. As far as what I do, basically I receive the cost of living for the
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shows, and choreography. My job starts later in the year. But if you consider the rehearsal, directing, and the training of people, and getting the dancers in tip top shape through out the year, I would say that we are preparing all year for it. Because it is put together so fast, we pull from whatever acts are ready that we’ve been doing through the year that are new. We try to do new acts every year. So, that’s hard to top yourself — to display the aerial in a new way, or whatever. T - Even the humor of your stuff, I guess that’s a collective thing, but that’s its own whole dimension too, to keep the fun there. I imagine with all the effort that goes into this, you can start to lose the fun. Being in the moment helps, and we all love being campy with one another, campiness and the wit behind it. And that calms a lot of just running things, and we’ll find something funny that works and all of us will laugh and say, “Ah, we know everyone will get a kick out of that, we’ll keep it.” T - Yeah, sometimes I wonder if this humor would play well in middle America.
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That’s interesting because I come from middle America. This kind of art that I produce now, I really didn’t talk much about my ideas growing up (laughing). Now it’s so nice to come here and be free, and who cares. As soon as I was old enough, San Francisco was calling. T - What would you like the future of Vau de Vire Society to be? Well, I would like a lot more travel in our future. We love San Francisco, we love performing locally, we love having homes, but we also like to visit other places. We were on a U.S. tour a couple years ago. We did 11 cities and New York. We’d like to continue to tour, especially with the Edwardian Ball. We’ve toured L.A. but we’d like to go further. We plan to do that. And of course, travel to Europe and anywhere else we can go. Anywhere and everywhere. I love traveling as a performer. People are very welcoming and gracious. When we were out New York, downtown, we were in our costumes to go to our event outside our hotel waiting, and we were stopped by a reporter with the New York Times, he just had to stop and ask, “Where are you going? What are you doing?” and we told him. And he said, “You
know, we don’t see enough of this anymore in New York.” We said, “Wow, you don’t see enough of this in New York? Fabulous! Let’s bring it back.” This is about three years ago. Hopefully it’s still wide open. T - I think it would be. I can’t imagine there’s anyone else out there doing quite what you guys are doing. Is there any last thing you would like to end with? I guess as a last thought, the successes we’ve enjoyed right here is really a reflection of the wonderful audiences we’ve had. I don’t think we would have anything if we didn’t have that audience. So, I’m just really grateful for the wonderful people that have open-armed us here in the city. Yeah.
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Raoul ortega -June 2012 Vhcle Magazine Issue 9, pp36-43
PART OF THE FUN of living in San Francisco is the way one’s style sense tends to be influenced as much by geography as by the trends of New York, Europe, or Asia. The excitable expanses of land and sea, the perpetual shifts of dense fog and sparkling sunlight, and the cool mystique of being surrounded by Victorian architecture on the furthermost edge of the West leaves one free to develop a style that can be both practical and smart. One of my favorite poets, Charles Olson, wrote that “an American is a complex of occasions, themselves a geometry of spatial nature,” and nowhere is this truer than here in California. When I think of summer, I think of fresh flowers, cool breezes and al fresco dining, and a time to reawaken to the richness of life. The following are some of my top recommendations for summer.
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A / Aldous by Mykita: Mykita makes some of the most stylish sunglasses on the planet and the new Decades Sun line, released this April, includes these favorites of mine. Mykita.com A
B / Zebra Motif Yellow Classic Swim Shorts by Paul Smith: The perfect cut and fit for swimming, yoga, or a quick match of tennis. Paulsmith.co.uk
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C / Armani Jeans: I like denim dark, narrow and fitted to the ankle. I’ve been buying Armani jeans for years and could very well live in them. Wear them with a tight vintage t-shirt and you’re set. Armani.com 040
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E / adiSTAR Racer by Adidas: For outdoor concerts, jogs on the beach, or just hanging out in the park—sometimes a flip flop is not the thing. Try these instead. Buy several pairs and be happy! Adidas.com
D / L’Air du Désert Marocain by Tauer Perfumes: An olfactory marvel that sets me dreaming equally of Rimbaud’s illuminations and the limitless soft blue horizons of the West, L’Air du Désert Marocain is the perfect fragrance for sky gazing on a late summer afternoon. Andy Tauer describes this masterpiece as powerful, sensual and pure, and I can’t agree more. Tauerperfumes.com
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F F / Crystal Syphon “Family Evil”: No summer gathering is complete without good music. “Family Evil” is the much anticipated release by Merced’s Crystal Syphon, a popular sonic fixture in northern California’s psychedelic ballrooms of the late 1960s. Despite several record labels having expressed interest in the band during their heyday, they never got around to releasing an album until now. Limited to a pressing of 500 copies, “Family Evil” is a rare offering of vintage original mayhem! Roaratorio.com
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Look out for VHCLE WOMAN in Issue 10
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Tom haugomat -June 2012 Vhcle Magazine Issue 9, pp44-55
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“My personal work often comes up from memories and I try to give a true and faithful restitution” --
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How would you define your style? We could say the style of my illustration is quite minimalist in the sense I avoid overwhelming my viewers, so that they are able to keep an open mind towards my images. As a matter of fact, I hate suffocating, and rather choose to give room enough for interpretation.
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Faces fade away and the background at times disappears, such as that of an overexposed photograph. I also enjoy using a small range of colors to structure the building up of my work. The combination of being both minimalist in my drawings, and using so few colors, gives way to poetry through my images.
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I am very sensitive to the illustrations of Margaret Kilgallen, Blexbolex, Eyvind Earle, John McNaught; and to the photographs of Shoji Ueda and Roger Eberhard. Tell us about the creative process. I Like to paint with Gouache, but I work most of the time on the computer using
Photoshop. I’d like to start learning screen process printing. It would adapt very well to my work. Describing your illustration work as “overexposed photographs,” is a great way to put it. The minimalism that is portrayed in your illustration work definitely caught our attention. Your approach to using a
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small range of colors in creating your work is an approach that we really appreciate. Could you tell us a little bit more about your thoughts on this? Revealing this style actually took me quite a long time. One day I bought some Posca brushes - a tool that is impossible to mix colors with, and I began to compose images with the primary colors. Trying to compose a scene with so few colors was kind of a playful approach. I kept on working in that direction. What’s the inspiration behind the subject matters? Are they Illustrations of real life situations, or are they more conceptual? My personal work often comes up from memories and I try to give a true and faithful restitution. This, mixed with the influence of books or parts of books that drew my attention, requires more time than it needs for telling it. But this time is necessary, for it has to mature in my brain and give birth to something between what I felt and what I feel now. A question we like to ask: what is you favorite drink? It’s the Ti’Punch - a cocktail with rum, lime and sugarcane syrup!
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Q&A with nick gentry
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How would you define your style? I would say that it is an unusual mixture. The main ingredients are: cyberart, reuse, technojunkie with a light dusting of good oldfashioned painting. Your floppy disk art is absolutely brilliant and unique. Why did you choose this material? I’m part of that unique generation that grew up in a very different world without the internet. Now, of course, we are increasingly immersed in it, with no end to that in sight. By looking at the obsolescence of media from our very present past, we start to get a sense of how big that change really is. Tell us about the creative process. A unique identity is created through the assemblage of data and memories within the canvas. The paint on the surface serves simply as a way to give this mechanical data a human face. The position of the subject matter is switched away from the surface, into the fabric of the canvas itself. This reverse process creates an alternative approach to traditional portraiture.
technology to the artist. Contributor, artist and viewer are merged together as these personal artifacts are embedded in the artworks, like digital fossils. This process makes personal data exhibitable, but forever hidden. You mentioned that people from all over the world contribute to your social art project by sending in obsolete technology. How did this begin? People saw the paintings on my website and so started to send me their obsolete technology. Everything has come full circle as we use the new technology of the internet to find new ways to reuse the outdated technology of the past. A question we like to end with: what is your favorite drink? Has to be green tea. I drink it all the time when I am working.
People from all over the world contribute to this social art project by sending obsolete
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Nicholas James Gentry is a British artist from London. Much of his artistic output has been generated with the use of contributed artifacts and materials. He states that through this process “contributor, artist and viewer come closer together”. His art is influenced by the development of consumerism, technology and cyberculture in society, with a distinctive focus on obsolete media. He is best known for his floppy disk paintings, placing an emphasis on recycling and the reuse of personal objects as a central theme. Such artistic works of social commentary have been featured in galleries in the UK, USA and in cities throughout the world. His work has been exhibited alongside established street artists and as such has been linked to the urban art scene in London. Gentry is a graduate of Central St. Martins. Notable exhibition venues include Art Paris, Robert Fontaine Gallery, SCOPE (Miami) and appearances at Bonham’s and Dreweatt’s Urban Art Auctions in London. International press for Gentry has included The Daily Telegraph, The Mirror, The Huffington Post, La Repubblica, Juxtapoz Magazine, Shortlist, Wired Magazine and the Wooster Collective.
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Sonnenzimmer -June 2012 Vhcle Magazine Issue 9, pp70-85
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Q&A with Sonnenzimmer Sonnenzimmer is a beautiful crosspollination combining both your talents into a unified aesthetic. In terms of the work you produce, I imagine the process being very organic. Do you work on each project together, or are there times when just one person tackles a project? Nick Butcher: We’ve tried just about every version of collaboration that exists, but as a general rule, Nadine and I have been happiest with the projects that we’ve started and finished together. She’s more of an idea person, and I tend to find solutions through working, so that can be a struggle sometimes. We try to talk about projects first, maybe discuss a technique we would like to try out, and then go from there. I enjoy diving into the small details of the image and she really likes to consider all aspects of the typography. So, in that sense it really works out.
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Nadine Nakanishi: In the past, when we were not both full-time at the studio, things were more divided. We usually work together for commercial projects. Recently we’ve made someone the head of a project - that means that person has to carry quality assurance, quality implementation of the thing we are producing. In other words, we ask ourselves, if this is the last image you see before you go, are you happy with it? Did you challenge yourself enough? This came about because in time it’s really hard to always carry yourself to the next threshold and surprise. How did you come up with your name and what does it mean? NB: Sonnenzimmer is German for Sun Room. In the beginning, it was just the name of our shared painting/screen print studio. But as poster projects started rolling in, we started to use it as our business name. Tell us about a typical day in the Sonnenzimmer studio. NB: Just about every day is different. But they all start with a giant 40oz iced coffee that we share. We’ve stayed in business
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by making hundreds and hundreds of small projects, not the two or three big paying gigs that keep a lot of small studios alive. Because of that, our days are jam-packed with invoicing, drawing, scanning, printing, emailing, trips to the post office, and sometimes another 40oz of coffee. The best days are when we can concentrate on a single project, like a poster or an album cover; but those are few and far between. Intricate color palettes, abstract shapes and rhythmic elements clearly signify the signature style of Sonnenzimmer. How do you keep things fresh and keep the creativity flowing? NB: This is quite challenging. We’ve created something like 350 posters and prints, not to mention the loads of CD and LP packages, book design, paintings, drawings, etc. So keeping up with a creative demand of this job is a big issue for us. Luckily there are two of us, so we help push each other in that way, picking up slack when we can. Reading is a big part of the creative process, therefore we try to keep interesting reading material around. We are also very active in the art/design/music communities
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here in Chicago, so we go to a lot of events. Knowing that you are part of a community is a huge boost, seeing great work, seeing not so great work - it all fuels into wanting to make good stuff. Plus there is no better push than seeing your friends making amazing things and wanting to keep up. NN: When we first started, it was so easy. This drive, this motivation. We also were super naive. We believed in this certain art world we wanted to be a part of and wanted to be approved of. We wanted to make the best work possible because we wanted our peers in the poster community to respect us, to look at us as peers, so we can be part of that journey together. Now, flash forward seven years, we have seen the mechanics of the industry, of the gallery world, of the institutions, of being dependent on the choices you make. What has stayed the same though is our deep notion of staying independent. Independence is important, because our images exist just because of that. Not because someone’s authority allows us to do it. Not because a summer semester allows you to work on it. Not because we smack a logo on it. It’s crucial for us to stay connected to believing
in smallness, the freedom of smallness. What keeps me going is all the amazing individuals that constantly believe in us, that constantly go to bat for us. Chicago is such a fertile ground. Everyone lives it so hard because that is what we have here. What keeps us going? When artists, musicians, writers, performers, scientists are real and generous in their pursuit. It keeps you grounded to want to always hold your own. We have so many of those people here. I want to mean it, so all the young people behind me see that it’s not about leaving, it’s not about the coasts, it’s about creating that freedom of independence to push forward with one’s own voice. When we see the work that comes from your studio, we immediately want to label it as design. Although there is a clear artistic approach, there is a substantial presence of design elements being used in all of the work you produce. Do you two consider yourselves designers? NB: Nadine and I like to call ourselves “graphic artists” as we both love the creating function that goes out into the world outside of the scrutiny and text
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that folks have easy access to. That said, we both love to paint and draw, and we have an interest in theory and conceptual thinking, so all those sides find their way into our work, too. We feel quite lucky to be able to mix and match such diverse interests into a single field. All that said, we don’t necessarily consider ourselves designers either; more like carpenters!
boring ideas, so I’m usually only happy with the things that I discover along the way that were not planned. Because of that, I learned early on that I just need to start and trust that I will arrive at something that I find interesting. That has been crucial for me. It doesn’t always work, but that’s what I’ve got to work with!
NN: I look at design as authored form. So, designer, artist - the labels don’t matter to me. What we do is, sculpting images by using our hands. But I realized that we do come from graphic art and not from communication design as a major. Design now, usually implies a communications major.
NN: My mother is a folk-art lover and took us on so many travels and events that were always exciting because there would be an object involved that I had never seen before; one that I could touch and ask questions about. They held a magical world of possibilities to me. I get my ideas from reading and seeing such objects. Then I’ll discover some truths in what I read - in a real life situation. That situation will have a huge discrepancy to what I thought I had. I then discover how usually an object opens that door to really just letting go. That’s when I make something that resonates with those connections. It becomes a transporter for me.
Can you describe how your approach to art was developed? NB: My approach to making art and music was based on developing a sense of confidence about how my brain works. Basically being comfortable with my decision making process and finding a sense of trust in those decisions. Not that they were right or good, but they led to things. As I stated before, Nadine is more of an idea person. She’ll have an amazing idea and then execute it. I have very
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In addition to being artists, Sonnenzimmer has taken part in a few music projects. Can you describe the music you create? NB: The musical side of Sonnenzimmer is an extension of my love for making electronic music. I’ve released a couple of albums of music previously through the Hometapes label, and Nadine and I have published two process-based artist books through Sonnenzimmer. Releasing a process-based music project seemed like a natural extension of both of our activities. Free Jazz Bitmaps Vol. 1 is the result that was co-released by Sonnenzimmer and Hometapes. The idea behind the project was that I would produce original electronic music using very specific source material that has strong ties to Chicago. In this case, jazz and house music. From there, my songs were passed on to Chicago based free jazz/improv musicians Jason Stein, Mike Reed, Jason Adasiewicz, Tim Daisy, Jason Roebke, and Keefe Jackson. Those musicians then reinterpreted each of the songs as single take solo improvisations. The results were paired on an LP, with my tracks on side
one and the reinterpretations on side two. The end result is an exploration of the nuances of collaboration and genre and is the beginning of a chain of releases that will continue the exploration of this source material. Free Jazz Bitmaps Vol. 2 will begin with new music made from the improvisations created for Vol 1. Are there similarities in the way you make music and the way you create your artwork? NB: Music and art have always gone hand in hand with me. Many times I have similar ideas and influences for both. For each, I like to create things that are accessible on some level, but offer different entry points or have more challenging aspects for those who wish to return to it for closer inspection. In each I like to explore established forms and push and pull the expectations and limitations of each. NN: While I learned an instrument, I don’t make recorded music. I just play it for myself. A hobbyist, I am.
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Can you tell us a bit about your new book project? NB: Yes! We are currently using the awesome website Kickstarter.com to raise funds for a book project called Warp and Weft: Poster Construction by Sonnenzimmer. In the book, we’ll showcase 30 of our most successful posters. Rather than simple portfolio of past work, we’ll be pairing each poster with a “wire frame” breakdown of the poster’s composition. This will act as a springboard to dissect our compositional and conceptual approach to the poster in question through writing. We want the book to be functional and perhaps educational. We feel it should offer something more than just a collection of images. We are extremely excited about the project. Our day-to-day studio practice moves so fast, we are very much looking forward to ruminating on this work and sharing the ideas that we’ve come to through working.
Favorite drink? NB: Iced coffee NN: Iced coffee with horchata
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art music film photography design fashion life global notes --
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vhcle.com -June 2011 Vhcle Magazine Issue 9