Miyuki is a Japanese photographer. Her inspiration comes from the mundane scenes, which often relates to nostalgia and obsolescence.

She explores the themes of existence, death, time, constancy and family through her work.

Her project THE LINE is a collection of photographs about a road markings, about a documentation of visual landscapes, about infinite and inspiring graphic resources, about the way of looking at world. What we all see is the same, but how we understand it is various and that is the way of making your visual journey in daily life different.

Other work includes LONDON JOURNEY which is a project about capturing mundane scenes in a London suburb while exploring stimulating findings in details. In LIGHT TOUR memory is explored as something that is slipping out of our hands easily.

www.m-y-pics.com

Launching her first solo exhibition at Portobello’s trendy ‘The Convenience Store’ earlier this year, prints are available online.

http://www.beatthepulp.blogspot.com/

Generations today leaving significant marks for future generations; this is the concept chosen by NUfactory, curator of the exhibition. NUfactory’s goal is to develop dynamic networks of artists in order to enhance and support the contemporary artistic scene in Rome and their relationship with the city. Every artist creates a permanent artwork in the area along the Tevere River, in the former industrial centre of Rome, an area subject to extensive urban redevelopment.

OUTDOOR wants to revive this space creating an open air museum for more accessible and playful art. The artists represented are: Herbert Baglione in collaboration with the greatest European Urban Art Festival Cityleaks (Germany) and Nuart (Norway), Zedz, Kid Acne, Chiara Fazi, Maria Carmela Milano with Federica Terracina and Agostino Iacurci.

http://www.out-door.it/

Why do people like Gerhard Richter?
Wow…strange question man! Well, i really dunno why people like Gerhard Richter. I mean there has to be some quality in there, but i really think that the public in the end has no real choice. You know , there are some people in the art market who are deciding who goes upfront, and who is staying in the back. So i guess these guys decided that Richter has to go in front. Another reason may be, the diversity of his works. From photo realism to abstract…he is hitting a lot of targets and styles there. Personally i don’t really like his work. I don’t really like photo realism, and also i am not very found of abstract works. It is just not my area. I need stories behind a painting, i need subjects…
I also had the occasion to have a teacher at the art university in Munich, which was and ex student of Richter. I must say that i was pretty disappointed. These people are working with a projector. Actually more than half of my class was working like this. They were taking photos of various objects or persons, then they were projecting the photos on a canvas, copying the drawing, and then for days and days and weeks and months, just sitting quietly on a chair and painting realistic, brush after brush, after brush…. dunno looked for me as a whole place filled with monkeys. There was sort of no brain involved…no explosion, no joy…fuck it, i am not really the ZEN type of guy. I mean what can you say in front of such a painting? Only that it is well done… copied… maybe it’s a german thing…i mean it fits them somehow, knowing already that they are very correct as a nation, correct and living in order. I prefer the old style mad guys like Ensor for example. This photo realism looks to me very fabricated, very cold, it frightens me, there is a lack of life and humanity inside. So it makes my eyes sad. But fuck it man, who cares what i have to say about Richter in the end? :))

Gypsies are…
Humans. I guess this is the first thing that one should learn about the Gipsies. That they are Human. So next time you see one, try a little exercise. Before the word Gipsy comes on your tongue , try to think of him as a person, a human being.
Gipsies are very special people. They are very similar to artists, and most of them are artists. Artists of survival in harsh conditions, and very good artists when they play their music. I mean they are artists even when they pickpocket you. It takes a lot of practice you know?
Gipsies are usually very poor. It is a situation that has to do also with their way of not adapting to our society. And to be honest, i wonder if they should really adapt!? They are a sort of quiet protesters. Why should one adapt to this world we are living into? Why would any normal human being want to go to work, break his ass, so that the state takes half of what you earn through taxes, so that a couple of ass-holes up there throw some cocaine parties on a yacht with multiple luxury bimbos? Gipsies where slaves until the middle of the 19th century in Romania.
Gipsies are a very big inspiration for me. They are very interesting for me, their whole story is very interesting to me, the way they kept their life on the road and traditions is very special.
Of course, some of the Gipsies are criminals. But, why should i care if a criminal is Gipsy or not Gipsy. The law has no skin color. On the other hand, what would you do if you were born a gipsy in a poor favela, and even if you would want to work, nobody would hire you because you are…Gipsy! Would you do better then them? Would i do better then them?
If you get to know them and get to be friends with them, gain their trust, gipsies are wonderful persons. Very pure in a savage way, they are coming from the past. I mean, i can see more or less how people are today, and even more how will they be in the near future… and it looks pretty scary…so it is very nice to have people like the gipsies, just being totally different.
There is another thing i like about the Gipsies. Probably it has to do with them not having a country. So by not having a country, gipsies newer started a war.

When I’m drunk..
When i am drunk…depends. But when i am drunk there is always music. No matter if i am happy drunk or worried drunk…there is always music. When i am drunk i never paint. I take my work seriously, so i would never paint when i am drunk. Also i take my drunkenness seriously so i would never paint when i drink. Alcohol is a powerful thing, and i have respect for it. It can ease your life or it can turn your life into a nightmare.
When i am drunk i like to wonder around town and get even more drunk. I like to hear live gipsy music, dance, laugh and cry, make new friends… When i am drunk i love to have immigrant friends around me, talk about interesting things, share life stories, cultures are clashing, music is getting louder and louder, neighbors knocking at the door at 4 o clock in the morning, and usually getting very very surprised when you open the door and they see inside a guy or two playing live music for you…
The problem is that when i am drunk, i tend to be more honest. And when you get to be really honest to somebody, usually it ends in tears of rage. It’s kind of harsh to look at a guy, and tell him, hey buzz off fucker , you’re a stupid idiot!

Politics…
Politics…hmm..i guess politics is a human of every human being actually. Maybe this has a lot to do with my background. We cannot trust politicians in Romania. I mean fuck it man…they wanted to overthrow our dictator. So they did. It was all orchestrated. You know, 20 years after the shit happened, and innocent people died on the streets, you hear that actually CIA and KGB worked together and made this happen. And of course couple of thousand dead bodies behind…yeah fuck it, who cares, one more or one less…we are anyway 6 billions right?
Politics is not dirty, politics, i mean the way it is done nowadays…it’s a crime man. Media being bought, news are censored and things are shown in a different way that they really are…it’s all sick. Politics looks always good on paper…only on paper. Politics is like this: 2 or 3 years ago Gaddafi was friends with Tony Blair, and with Berlusconi, doing business together, and everybody in the west ignored the fact that he was ruining his own people. Well suddenly, they decided that Gaddafi has to disappear… And that was it. What politics?? At the conference after the second world war, they divided the world. Russia gets this, Western world gets this…Romania was left to the communists. So, what opinion should i have on politics?
Look at Former Yugoslavia! Now everybody knows that the whole war was orchestrated! People died, they killed each-other like flies…and what happened? Milosevic the former Serbian president die in Hague, just a couple of days after calling Bill Clinton as a witness in the trial. Ha ha! Very fucking funny!
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The University is renown for its ridiculously high standard of output and the show doesn’t let down, featuring diverse work in a variety of formats, from insanely detailed model-making such as Emily Frances Barrett’s to insightful film experiments such as Mark Prendergast’s, through to innovative award winning book design such as Kate Jones‘. Not missing the element of shock (Many Artists Who Do One Thing‘s exploration of kinky sexuality) and an impressive array of guest speakers which include Jasper Goodall and Kyle Bean

(free on Saturday evening from 6-9PM) the show is a must see and will run until 6PM on Sunday.

Location : Red Gallery, 3 Rivington street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3DT

Dr. Noki’s NHS was spaced in the center left of the exhibition room in the lower exhibition space. Surrounded by an array of color emanating from his collection, he was wearing his infamous Noki-SOB (Suffocation of Branding) mask, a Yankee fitted and a World Trade Center tee. Hailing from Aberdeen, Scotland, this designer has something to say and how fortunate that CD was there to listen:

Who’s the Dr. Noki girl? What is your inspiration? Who have you designed for?

One-off special purchase superstars; The distance between Romeo and Juliette; Beth Ditto, Ke$ha and Lady Gaga.

Dr. Noki has commissioned pieces for the V&A, commissioned exclusive T-shirts for Massive Attack, framed art work and customized furniture for the Luella shop, and most recently a film presentation for the Barbican ‘Japanese Future of Fashion’ exhibition. With a sustainability platform at the helm of his design thinking, CD looks forward to seeing more work from this designer in the future.

Christina Jean
photos by: Pierreluigi Mulas

Press Contact
Ashley Smith at Ella Dror PR
ash@elladrorpr.com
Tel:(+)44 (0) 78 9994 4140

“The woman who wears our designs is simply fun, said the two designers after the show.  We experiment with textiles and fabrics, while continuously knitting and playing off each others talents.” 

Christina Jean

Photos by: Pierluigi Mulas
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The Viral Factory did it again!

This film is a 100 years countdown to the grand opening of Westfield Stratford City on September 13th 2011, and celebrates a century of East London fashion, dance and music.

Directed by Jake Lunt with The Viral Factory, the film was shot over 4 days in east London locations with hundreds of costume changes. The music was commissioned from Oscar nominated genius Tristin Norwell who took a simple tune and interpreted it for each decade over 100 years.

Client: Westfield Stratford City
Art Director: The Viral Factory
Media Agency: The Viral Factory
Production: The Viral Factory
Seeding : The Viral Factory
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Aindri Chakraborty is an animation graduate from National Institute of Design, India and she completed MA in illustration at Central Saint Martins in 2011. Based in London, she collaborates with film makers and animation directors on various independent projects. As her practice leads her to explore image making through experimental animation and illustration, with her penchant for storytelling she produces content and sound for television idents and animation shorts.

One can never be completely empty of stories to tell.

I am interested in the narrative structure of mythologies and of stories within a story.

Most of my work probably stems from those long drawn powercuts during the evenings in Calcutta. The elders in our family would gather the kids and narrate surreal tales that often masked grim historical moments. In the dark, these stories would take incandescent shapes in my head.

I like writing my own content and realizing them through animation.

I am going to work with Spanish animator Isabel Herguera on an upcoming animation film this September.This is our second collaboration. Her previous film, AMAR was an abstract travelogue of India.

My first inspirations were Misha, a children’s magazine published from the erstwhile Soviet Union and the tales of Feluda, detective stories written and illustrated by Satyajit Ray.

Film school introduced me to the works of Jan Svankmajer, Paul Drissen, and animation films produced by Zagreb Film during the 60s. I am drawn to the experimental side of animation, no more mere “cartoons” to me and am always inspired by films that are hand crafted by the storyteller.

“Spectactle” is assembled from 1000 pairs of discarded prescription glasses and “Optical” is assembled from over 4500 prescription spectacle lenses.  Haygarth believes that “an interesting analogous line is drawn between their old and new purposes.”

To find more of his work go to www.StuartHaygarth.com

In particular it evolves around 9/11 and the moment of impact, when the two Boeing 767 passenger planes struck into the Towers until not only the buildings but also all the people inside them disintegrated together into dust, rubble and smoke. At 10:28:25 sec both Towers were gone and the city that never sleeps was almost silent.

“The videos and images of the planes colliding with the Towers were broad-casted over and over again because of their unreal quality, everybody needed reassurance of what they were actually seeing, trying to make sense of it. My imagery removes everything that happened before and after that day but relies mostly on repetitive elements.

In the future I would like to get to know more about the conflicts that include employing suicide as a strategy and ultimately understand more about visual communication and the images that are generated in response to these events.”

“These works are a part of the Inverted Portraits series, inspired by the idea of portraiture. The portrait is seen as a ‘space’ where individual identities are expressed and exposed. By nature, a portrait establishes a presence. For a work of art to be considered as such, the artist must have the intent to portray a specific, actual person. Traditionally, it is aimed at being a medium to communicate social roles and power, status and assets. It manifests how the depicted person wants to be seen and perceived. My work attempts to challenge this condition.

Rather than depicting particular individuals, the Inverted portraits are about common human traits; each work is based on an element of what we call self-identity and is supposed to be either hidden or absent from a portrait. The idea of the persona and the mask that both hides and reveals, the Jungian shadow, the distance between public and self image, were some of the main themes for the Inverted portraits.

The figures are treated as visual symbols positing human identity mainly as a psychological compound. Defaced figures are striped off their individualities whilst body parts are treated as being an outward projection and a representative fragment of the self, a metaphor for the persona. Found imagery is assembled in a way that highlights the multifaceted and always in flux postmodern identity. The latter is a product of a process of mimicking without an original. Yet, the very act of mimicking produces ‘the original’ (Butler). It is grounded on an absence.

It is this absence that serves as a starting point but also as the backbone of my work.”

I am masterminding a scheme with my local council to support small creative start ups and promote pop up shop culture within the local community.

I quit living in London to live by the seaside.

You need to have love.

Wise words from Gerard Saunders, the mastermind behind Seans Brothers Designs, a bespoke upcycled furniture venture that makes use of disposable items.  You can purchase his unique designs or request for him to revamp your own.  He has taken items found in the road, restored, painted and fitted them with reclaimed handles to create ‘Drawers Noir’ (pictured top right), the backs of old chairs to create a chair shelf (pictured left middle) and a 1930′s low chair that he restored, painted and upholstered with 1960′s tweed suit trousers to create a tweed and black low-rider chair (pictured lower left).

Christina Jean

“My taxidermy project is a trial of what happens when the form is changed, so that the skin is placed over a different kind of shape…An animal’s skin is excised from its body, and a plastic body is formed in the same shape and covered with its skin.

This project mixes a hyper-realistic approach with the mythological, and the objects – which used to be live animals – find themselves in absurd situations, causing them pain while being human toys.

Objects and sculptures are there with you in three dimensions while you look at them. However strange or contradictory they might be, they exist and you have to accept their existence.

Two of my most important inspirations are Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang and the cult film of Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Holy Mountain (1973).

My work has always been too much. My life has always been imprinted with finding myself between extremes. If I started serving the needs of mainstream, that wouldn’t be me.

I also don’t want everyone to like what I’m doing. I’m ok with people reacting differently. I remember the table soccer I made for Taxidermia, where I used hamsters and squirrels instead of plastic figures. When the movie came out it was exhibited in a movie theater in a shopping mall. Parents were horrified so it had to be put away. There was also an exhibition abroad that featured my work, where a middle-aged woman turned up from nowhere and started shouting angrily. My friends translated what she said. I guess she was not a fan of my work either.”

Opium, a film featured at the 38th Hungarian Film Festival, is his second motion picture—following Taxidermia—where he worked under a unique title: special art designer.

“Inspired by personal experiences, my images are my diaries, yet more about the spiritual challenges rather than the events. I began my printmaking project with the series ‘Heart Stories’ which contains both abstract and narrative images, illustrating the emotional challenges of a feminine spirit confronting with unpleasant realities of life and seeking stability. ‘Heart Stories’ question the present situation and connect to more fundamental issues of existence.

Influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy, that existence is typified by unrest, I continued my project in the series ‘Bone Stories’ by fantasising a life before birth. I wondered what if by being born and commencing life in this world one’s soul is actually detached from its true love, peace and everlasting stability. I looked at pelvis as a gate and the main entrance to this world.

The story of an individual soul through this journey is etched on the bones; this is an archaeological analysis of the human soul. In my most recent project ‘Prayers to the ancient goddess’, inspired by Persian Mythology and poetry, I wanted to reflect on everything I’ve been through in the past two years of studying, living and being in London. My journey in life and art, which are inseparable have not come to an end yet but I did feel the necessity to call the ancient goddesses merely to have a friendly conversation and let them know how fascinating it was what I gained and experienced in the past two years. Maybe I didn’t find what I thought I was looking for, yet what I found was indeed very unique.”

Can you imagine a world without any form of creativity?

I am afraid of spiders! Although I can often sense their presence, I’m still almost shocked out of my skin when the creepy crawlies finally scurry into view.

I need to keep a record of my thoughts and ideas in notebooks and sketchbooks, otherwise they become overwhelming.

They say:  ‘It may also be that a woman’s creative process is misunderstood or disrespected by those around her. It is up to her to inform them that when she has ‘that look’ in her eyes, it does not mean she is a vacant lot waiting to be filled. It means she is balancing a big card house of ideas on a single fingertip, and she is carefully connecting all the cards using tiny crystalline bones and a little spit, and if she can just get it all to the table without it falling down or flying apart, she can bring an image from the unseen world into being.’
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes from ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves’

While riding on the bus, I always sit upstairs and people watch. I’m fascinated by other people and often construct imaginary lives for them from fleeting visual clues, both real and imaginary.

Getting hungry for new experiences is what keeps me going.  Being inquisitive leads me to creativity and adventures!

Christina Jean

“Every piece is 100% Australian designed, every thread is Australian sewn and every We Are Handsome suit is loved. We hope that you are too” – WAH

You can check all their work here: We Are Handsome

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“The first comic hero was created in 1938, so what if superpowers were in fact real and comic books were imitating real life? Who was the creator of such powers?”

“When I look in the mirror, I start to re-enact scenes from films or pretend that I am a rockstar. I also like to pretend I am a zombie. I’m pretty good at that. Can’t you see that I don’t want to grow up!”

Zeitgeist: The Superpower from Antonia Jade Heslop

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JMF Casey as an artist makes a return to the traditional craftsmanship of art, as he labours for hours in his bedroom over minutely thought-out, technically and thematically complex pieces. Working on scratchboard and canvas, but also in performance, installation and bookmaking, he has been producing art for over 10 years.

He delights in the esoteric and the strange, wrestling with subject matters that are often neglected in contemporary art. JMF Casey’s inner torments somehow unravel into something quite beautiful as he works.

His work has appeared in Le Gun and Bare Bones, Blood and Rain (a novella by Tom-Paul Smith). His “eerie chapel installation” (Dazed Digital) The Church was recently exhibited at 20 Hoxton gallery. He has also produced DVD recordings of performances, collaborating with other artists, musicians and filmakers.

yeah@no-way.org.uk
no-way.org.uk

“Placing my interest in such a hostile scenario, my series develops exploring how artificial environments work as a key element in teenager’s identity construction.

Studio conventional photography is then taken out of context, invading such a complex scenario. The calm and inspiration of a studio is here substituted by the hostile and noisy nightclub as a background, in which the characters will be casted at the very end of the night, just when the club is about to close.

Just like the many other elements of a night out, being exposed to the camera will offer portraiture and portrayed another twist of the game, in which to invent a way to project their selves according to whatever narrative they may want to contract. Putting the individuals in front of a camera and lights, allows capturing the projection of whatever they want to show.

Good Night London freezes real scenes, turning the noisy and the wild into an atmosphere of calm and
serenity.”