an oDD CouPle - SARAH SHEARMAN

34 Insight | USA focus
an odd couple
W
hen Vice and Intel embarked on their
art and technology initiative The Creators Project
four years ago, the team behind it drew up a wish
list of artists they wanted to work with. Topping
that list was Daft Punk. So when the French
electronic music duo approached The Creators
Project at the start of this year about somehow
becoming involved with their forthcoming
album, this vision was realised.
“It was a huge moment for The Creators
Project,” says creative director Ciel Hunter,
over a freshly made lemonade in a café next to
Vice’s New York office in the hipster mecca of
Williamsburg. She explains that Vice’s partnership
with Intel came about through the hardware
brand’s desire to speak to the youth and create
a emotional connection with them. “Everyone
realised if we are going to work together we
should do something new,” says Hunter, who
was involved with the project from the start.
A strategic decision was taken to form a
partnership and create a team dedicated to the
project. Hunter, who joined Vice Records fresh
out of university in 2005, was named creative
director of The Creators Project in 2010, and is
responsible for overall direction and curation
of the content, artworks, and the artists.
The power of the processor
On the face of it, a collaboration between an
irreverent youth media outlet and publisher of
Vice – the self-styled ‘coolest magazine in the
world’ – and a computer chip manufacturer may
seem like an odd coupling, but Hunter says the
commitment and hands-on involvement that
Intel’s marketing team has given to the
collaboration has enabled it to flourish. “We
couldn’t do this [The Creators Project] with anyone
else. Other brands are associated with creativity,
but because Intel is the ingredient, they are behind
so much of it – this whole era of the arts is due
to the power of the processor,” she says.
“[Intel] is so courageous as a brand in many
ways, as it set a new model that other brands
You’d think getting a sensible
computer chip company such as
Intel together with an über-cool,
youth-chasing media entity like
Vice would be an awkward date.
But in fact it was a fruitful union
that spawned The Creators
Project. Sarah Shearman meets
Ciel Hunter, the CD of the arts
and tech collaboration that has
made dreams come true
are trying to replicate. And if it can start a bit of
a revolution in how brands work with creativity
and the arts, that’s really exciting,” she says.
After establishing the partnership, the idea for
the new channel came from Vice co-founder and
chief executive Shane Smith, who’s dream it was
to recreate Paris in the 20s – a place where artists
came together, shared ideas, collaborated and
got their work out. And so the team set about
creating a moveable feast for the digital age, to
unite innovators in music, art, film, design and
architecture, with the aim of connecting young
people through a common passion for creativity
and technology and to inspire the next generation
of innovators to realise their artistic visions.
Björk, Anish Kapoor, Spike Jonze and Richie
Hawtin are among the many artists involved with
The Creators Project, in the same way Hemingway,
Dali, Fitzgerald and Picasso were part of the Paris
scene. thecreatorsproject.com houses interviews
and videos with artists, while a community has
been built through events. More recently Vice
rolled out The Creators Project YouTube channel.
“Technology is not just a thing for our audience,
“The idea came from Vice co-founder Shane
Smith, who dreamt of recreating Paris in the
20s, a place where artists came together, shared
ideas, collaborated and got their work out.”
SH145_P34-36_US_profile_hunter.indd 34
it is a passion point,” says Hunter. “So we created
a platform with technology as a facilitator and
a distribution mechanism, but also as the core
theme throughout all of the discussions,” she
explains. “Arts are the filter through which we
look at technology.”
Hunter explains that The Creators Project
aims to be “artist first” rather than editorial first,
and the look and feel of its video content changes
and evolves to suit the artists featured. “It’s more
about creating a platform to support art, and to
tell stories around art, rather than co-opting art,
or trying to steal something from it,” she says.
The colour of collaboration
An example of the artist-first mentality is the work
for Daft Punk – a series of videos for their album
Random Access Memories, shot on 16mm film,
that Hunter co-directed with Vice’s chief creative
officer Eddy Moretti alongside cinematographer
Ed Lachman. “We turned the videos into mini
art films. Each [of the featuring artists were]
represented so much in the songs, each song
felt like a personality. For example the Pharrell
Williams-starring video had a ‘spacey’ feel, while
Chilly Gonzales’ was ‘classical’. They also picked
out colour schemes too – for the Nile Rodgers
video it was red, while Giorgio Moroder’s was blue.
While Daft Punk’s Get Lucky is undoubtedly
the catchiest song of the year, Hunter listened to
it months before its release in May, keeping it
top secret. While she tends to do less content
8/30/13 3:47 PM
| Insight 35
ciel hunter
PHOTOGRAPH: gerhard stochl
“Arts are the filter
through which we
look at technology.”
SH145_P34-36_US_profile_hunter.indd 35
8/30/13 3:48 PM
36 Insight | USA focus
production, she took on the Daft Punk project,
working long hours on a tight production
schedule and getting “totally sucked in” in the
process. “It was a labour of love and a reminder
of how content is better if you put yourself into it.
I really do care about every single frame,” she says.
While working with Daft Punk was a highlight,
Hunter says her favourite work for The Creators
Project was her work with UK band Spiritualized.
In 2011 The Creators Project, Spiritualized’s
J. Spaceman and director Jonathan Glazer teamed
up to create an audio-visual installation at music
festival Coachella in California.
In a cathedral-like space, they created a
physical manifestation of the Spiritualized track
Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space,
using isolated pools of light that contained
different parts of the song. “It was absolutely
beautiful and it was really special because it was
cutting-edge and it brought to life an idea that
had been bouncing around [Glazer’s] head for
years,” she explains.
Hunter speaks at the rate of knots, rapidly
reeling off names and ideas, expounding on the
vast scope of the project. The excitement and
passion with which she talks about her work
seems boundless, and mirrors the ambition of
the company she works for.
From Vice to Virtue
Having cut her teeth at Vice as a graduate intern in
2005, Hunter got a permanent job at the company
a year later. She was attracted to the business’s
record label early on, having written an essay about
it while she was studying at New York University.
During her eight years at the company, she has
been privy to its transformation as it gradually
moved away from its roots as a free punk ’zine
and started to grow into what has become a global
youth media powerhouse of some note. In 2011 it
caught the attention of marketing and advertising
giant WPP who last year decided to invest in it.
Hunter explains that it was when she was
working at Vice’s advertising arm Virtue that
The Creators Project: installation
for Spiritualized at Coachella
things started to shift for her. As she was “getting
her feet wet” working with major clients including,
NBC Sports, Nike and Gatorade, her ambitions
started to formulate. “It was a small team at first
and I was trying everything out, until I realised
production and creative strategy is what I really
love,” she says.
While Vice has worked with brands from
the start, over the years it has moved beyond
selling advertising space and developed a closer
relationship with its partners, exploring the
branded content space, which more publishers
have now entered into. This has led naysayers
to question whether having big corporates
lining the coffers makes Vice a sell-out.
Hunter disagrees, and explains that Vice’s
readers understand the value exchange, “because
we have so much integrity in how we work with
brands, putting storytelling and editorial first and
foremost, we see that our audience has not had
a problem with it. We would never want to do
branded content that doesn’t feel genuine”.
She says that branded content should be
thought of as “a means and way to make
something really great”. “When you buy into
“Because we have so much integrity in how
we work with brands, putting storytelling
and editorial first and foremost, we see that
our audience has not had a problem with it.”
SH145_P34-36_US_profile_hunter.indd 36
Vice you know you’ll get an all-in experience and
have a good time – and our audience accepts who’s
helping to facilitate that.” Hunter is keenly aware
that branded content must be of a high calibre or
risk turning audiences off. “In the golden age of
advertising there was insane creativity coming
out of ad agencies and if we can have that same
creativity and excitement for this content then
yes, hopefully our audiences will continue to be
accepting of brands,” she says.
Modern-day Medicis
The relationship between money and art is
always complex. When it comes to getting artists
to collaborate with The Creators Project, Hunter
says there will always be some artists that
question the involvement of the brand, but those
are not the ones they would try and work with.
And after all, corporate brands regularly sponsor
art exhibitions. “The landscape has changed so
much in the past five years, and many artists are
excited to work with brands, it can be a way for
modern-day Medicis to provide funding and for
artists to realise an idea,” she says.
As an ongoing partnership, The Creators
Project shows no signs of slowing down, nor does
Hunter. While this year will involve less travelling
for her, as the team will be focusing on building
up the content channels, she says that she expects
Vice to embark on other ambitious brand
partnerships in the future. “Our ambition is to do
more, and dream as big as we can, find the right
partners to do really big things.” S
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