reviews
when saints go machine - parix (jazzhouse session)
To me, lately, one of the most brilliant, innovative, inspired post-pop bands is When Saints Go Machine. I highly recommend buying their recent album Konkylie as digipack, the artwork is beautifully made and transforms the whole sphere of music and fine arts, past and present, out of which When Saints Go Machine obviously generate their original sound, into magical pictures, too.That to me, seems the greatest and most modern quality of musicians like them, in our time: passing the boundaries of medium, using everything that's out there (no matter which medium it was created in) and, through recombination and interpretation, giving it a richness it never had before. I believe what drives them is a way of looking at things, that is rooted deeply into the way digital natives use technology and how they share their knowledge - something I for one can also relate to in my life and work. It's made possible by a process of atomization of information, I think, especially in music, where albums and single songs have become ever-available creative quarries, where you can browse through everything anywhere all the time and connect and collect information in realtime.
What seems to derive from such open source creativity is (musically speaking) something much more transparent, lucid, alive and breathing, than what the single pieces hewn out of massive bricks by musical giants were before. The resulting utterly refined, soulful, fragile (maybe sometimes even decadent) musical style is like an openly weaved fabric to me, that breathes its history while incorporating everything that's new and exciting to me, and that I look forwards to seeing develop even further. I truely think it's avantgarde pop because it is profoundly future-oriented musical creating by its methods: re-formation and integration. It's digitally spirited music and I love how beautiful it sounds!
Video contribution to SOMA by Carsten Höller - 0:48 min
What I really liked about this complex installation at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin today, was the idea of creating a connection between the spectator, his imagination and a modernized form of a tableau vivant inside the museum context. The clean, stylish look of the testing field inside the museum halls to me was both relating to the concept of objectiveness and technicality, and at the same time, through it's thoroughly designed elements, seemed like a look into an exotic "come-to-live" iPod. This short clip is my small contribution to the test. I could witness the heavy breathing of the reindeer on both sides of the field and had the impression their grouping habits, the way they lay together, didn't take the fence into account. The birds to me seemed to have a certain cycle to their chirping activities and tonal variation. I really didn't see the mice and the flies to me weren't actually performing any specific activities that could have been connected to Soma influences. Go see it, and make your own observations and assumptions, it's fun!Cio D'or is my recent absolute favourit electronic music artist, which I stumbled upon via iTunes' Resident Advisor Podcast (also a must-load!). She's smart, she's sexy and her sound is breathtakingly well composed, being light, massively propulsive and always meandering somewhere between brainwreckingly complex and foolishly simple - some of my favourit properties in music, generally speaking. Which makes it one of my great pastimes to take her music for a car-ride through the autumn woods of Germany and let those brilliantly sparkling impressions of visuals and sounds bewitch me. Some tracks, like Aquamarin 22 remind me a lot of Pantha du Prince or some stuff by Aphex (Druqks), which is also great. So go download 'RA-Panorama 33 Extended' via Mrs. D'Or's website -> mixes for starters!
I haven't yet mentioned any findings from my photokina 2010 weekend here, even though I stumbled upon a very interesting like-minded artist and student at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach . His name is Jan Nelles and this is his website . When walking through the halls of the photokina I came across these pictures of strange constructions (A.K.F.). They seemed to be made to generate a certain tension, made up of strangely posed pieces of furniture, tools and devices that are capable of shooting or exploding. Luckyly,I found Jan there, and we talked about these constructions. Jan understands the process of viewing images as a certain form of interaction between the viewer and the image. To his understanding a picture is pure potential, the viewer is the party that brings this potential out (or not) by viewing, understanding, interpreting, the respective potential image qualities. The installations Jan has photographed are representations of these potentials, frozen in the blink of an eye between wonder, fascination and surprise - feelings, that a picture might evoke in a viewer. On small video displays under each picture, Jan reflects the concept of image-reception and photographic storytelling in an interview-like situation. The whole concept was very impressive to me because it's such an intelligent way of thinking through the image-reception-issue, that comes up in discussions time and again. I'm really looking forward to seeing Jan's next great project.
To whomever it is possible: go visit the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf! I've seen what this young lady is capable of putting together at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg - Haus der Photographie and can say I was deeply impressed. The variation width of her new media, especially video art, collection ranges from early feminist positions by Marina Abramovic (from which the exhibition title "I want to see how you see" was lent, to music video art by Bjørk. From contemporary sculpture (Terence Koh - The camel was god, the camel was shot) through some fascinating photographic art pieces from Germany (Thomas Demand). What I liked a lot were the pieces by Christof Schlingensief, in which he places a bunch of chimps in Nazi uniforms in what looks like a Nazi bureaucrat's office and lets them take the place apart.
But my absolute favourit was a 3-screen projection by Isaac Julien called "True North". So contemplative, so peaceful, so fragile and deeply rooted in this feeling of absolute presence in a harsh environment was this installation, that I actually couldn't move until I had seen the whole cycle 3 times in a row. Now you know why I can only say: go see this extraordinary collection, whenever it's open with whatever there is to see - I'm sure you'll like it.
At this site you will find a wonderfully illustrative article about Walton Ford , an artist I got to know through an exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, a while ago. It was fabulous! The way Ford paints these huge animal sujets, so rich in detail, coloring and narrative is fantastic. What fascinated me the most was his ironic, partly sarcastic undertone, not only in the pictures themselves - the way his animals are placed in different colonial-style settings, doing slightly awkward things - but also in the way Ford combines his works with quotes from adventurers from the 19th century, which gives the painting an extra tweak into a darker narration.
Look at this black panther for example, placed - almost life-size - in front of an alpine village. Strange enough, finding this animal in such an environment. But when you look more closely, you will find people from the village coming after the beast with horns and torches. This situation, combined with an anecdotal newspaper article from 1933, describing an escape of a black panther from the Zurich zoo, brings a whole new level of understanding to the picture. It suddenly also becomes a modern reference to the pogroms of that time, to xenophobia and strict traditionalism in the alpine regions in a broader sense. All pictures of the Berlin exhibition had a tweak of this kind, mostly not with such a political dimension, though. I'm really looking forward to seeing the next great exhibition or book edition of this intelligent, modern and yet so exceptional artist.
Gestalten.tv is my first recommendation, because it has been a deep well of inspiration to me for quite some time now. Not only is their podcast (coming through the iTunes-Store for free in HD quality) very well made in technical terms. What really stands out is the passion and understanding that reflects in the selection of contemporary illustrationists, graphics-designers, photographers and other artist breeds, that are presented in those podcasts. If you want to know what's up an coming in the design and contemporary arts business, this will be one of the sources you'll have to visit.
The website itself offers a great variety of interesting book editions, e.g. on lovingly made typography. Next to these you will find high quality art editions and further great stuff – find out for yourself! It is straight forward love of design, it is urban lifestyle, it is curious and thoughtful – what else could a design-website be?