Issue 2
Transcription
Issue 2
&RQWHQW About Founder 2 3RHWU\ Obama; The poet once 4 ,QWHUYLHZ all to promote work from ,OOXVWUDWLRQ Cankaya: ,OOXVWUDWLRQ Adam, Eve and the Apple of Knowledge Issue 2 by Dragos Platon -DQ)HE0DU Contact Us 11 'LDU\)ULGD Queue este 12 0HGLD3DUWQHUVKLS)XWXULVWLND#&RORSKRQ Be a part 17 $UW 3URMHFW Mag Art Attack! 24 of ,QWHUYLHZ Post 5RFN Gaserata Welcome to the land of songs! The of rock; the the letter by James Joyce 1234Photo/Art/ 123- -relat ten work, please send the g: 3RS$UWLVW Guy Peellaert the outrage, the tenderness 32 /HWWHUA love 2 Poetry Obama; The poet once said… Old Man I saw an old forgotten man On an old, forgotten road staggering and numb pulls out forgotten dignity from under his flaking coat, And walks a straight line along the crooked world. Underground Under water grottos, caverns Filled with apes That eat figs. Stepping on the figs That the apes Eat, they crunch. The apes howl, bare Their fangs, dance, Tumble in the Rushing water, Musty, wet pelts Glistening in the blue. Pop Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken In, sprinkled with ashes, Pop switches channels, takes another Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks What to do with me, a green young man Who fails to consider the Flim and flam of the world, since Things have been easy for me; I stare hard at his face, a stare That deflects off his brow; I’m sure he’s unaware of his Dark, watery eyes, that Glance in different directions, And his slow, unwelcome twitches, Fail to pass. I listen, nod, Listen, open, till I cling to his pale, Beige T-shirt, yelling, Yelling in his ears, that hang With heavy lobes, but he’s still telling His joke, so I ask why He’s so unhappy, to which he replies... But I don’t care anymore, cause * ** He took too damn long, and from Under my seat, I pull out the Mirror I’ve been saving; I’m laughing, Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face To mine, as he grows small, A spot in my brain, something That may be squeezed out, like a Watermelon seed between Two fingers. Pop takes another shot, neat, Points out the same amber Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and Makes me smell his smell, coming From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem He wrote before his mother died, Stands, shouts, and asks For a hug, as I shink*, my Arms barely reaching around His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ‘cause I see my face, framed within Pop’s black-framed glasses And know he’s laughing too. "Shink" may be a typo. Barack Obama wrote the “Old Man” in the high school. The other two were published in the student literature magazine in 1982 while he was studying at Occidental College. 3 4 Interview / Illustration You may not have heard his name yet but Futuristika suggests you note it down somewhere. Cagri Cankaya is a young illustrator, with small but stable steps on his way to be a world wide known artist with his brilliant ideas and talents. Working as a junior art director at the Young&Rubicam marketing and communications company, Turkish advertisement arena is fed with his latest works for Danone, Iveco, Alfa Romeo, Burger King and the list goes on, all an ease for the eye. Cagri Cankaya: Girls fight all night! “The idea of torn clothing and damaged accessories of fighting women projects the idea that this game would intensively attract many, even the ladies!” Here are a few questions to get to know him and it is time to introduce his latest project “Catfight Worldwide” to Futuristika readers: Futuristika: Do you remember the very first drawing you have ever made? Favorite book(s) of childhood? Cagri Cankaya: My mother sometimes takes down from the dusty shelves and shows me my very first drawings. Then I remember them, even the moments I was drawing. It is an awkward feeling. I look at them and smile, become emotional; I can not decide whether to cry or laugh, I get confused. I had kind of a comic book when I was a kid. It was a foreign publishing. I was obsessed with it. I would read it over and over again, study the drawings to the smallest detail and I would loose myself in them. Unfortunately I can not find it. More over, I can not recall the name. I would never loose it again if I ever find it one day. Futuristika team fell deeply for your characters :) Arabia, England and Thailand makes the top 3 it seems. Also as I know the Turkish representative - with her powerful Ottoman Slap- Gokcen will be among the best digital characters around the world in the 4th book of Exotique series by Balistic Publishing. Could you tell us your Catfight story in detail? I always wanted to use my graphic design and illustration talent for computer games since I started at the age of 5 to play games and spent all my childhood in Atari saloons investing all my money to rusty coins. When I was playing, I would wonder the process of creating games and I would research. So I started to modify my favorite games rewriting their files. Additional chapters, characters... And one day I decided to send a pdf portfolio containing these works, my school projects and other personal works to GSC Game World Company located in Kiev, Ukraine. I started to work there as a 2D Concept Artist. GSC Game World is a computer game developing company; Cossacks, Stalker, Heroes of Annihilated Empires are some of their wellknown works. The designer team was of a group of 100 artists. I have learned a lot about the computer game circles during the days I spent in Kiev. “I like to illustrate women. The idea of a gigantic project related to women lessens the exaggeration of work in my mind.” 5 6 7 8 But I didn’t want to prolong my education; I had a graduation project waiting to be done. So as I was pondering what to do, I decided to make my own fighting game project; “Catfight World Wide”. It is of course impossible to generate the whole game but I could at least create the visual realm and the characters. Even this would be enough presenting my project to game companies. A fighting game solely with female characters is based on two main ideas: Firstly, I like to illustrate women. The idea of a gigantic project related to women lessens the exaggeration of work in my mind. Secondly, game players world wide are mainly man and the idea of torn clothing and damaged accessories of fighting women projects the idea that this game would intensively attract many, even the ladies! There are 16 characters from 16 different countries in Catfight, the number could increase. All have goals of their own. Character moves are based on “women fight” than the typical martial arts; pulling hair, scratching, pinching, biting and many more that the long combos of which would be one of the most pleasurable parts of this game. Another detail is that the characters have special moves reflecting their home country. The Ottoman Slap of Gökçen, as you mentioned, is a proper example. 9 Being an art director working consistently and creating completely according to your wishes as an illustrator... What are the distinctive differences between these two courses in the way you are thinking? What are your goals in these two different fields? To manage both at the same time doesn’t seem possible working in my agency since there is only 24 hours a day. I guess I will need to make some decisions evaluating my goals. To be honest, after working and learning here I realize that my thoughts on being an art director were pretty different. Pros&cons of your job? The hardest side of the profession varies working in different agencies. Different companies, different difficulties, different countries, different problems. For me they are; incomplete briefs, customers who don’t know what they want or they want an advertisement in half a day and we are obliged to design advertisements in half a day to those customers. Projects with never ending revisions, day passing by with those revisions, because of those revisions having to work till the mornings for the other brands’ projects, almost every project having a very short deadline are the things I would say as the hardest parts of my job. The enjoyable parts though are; nice food at noon at the agency, fairly sincere people around, encouragement of the agency to prepare works for contests and festivals, not working on Saturdays, free tea, coffee and a belly dancer coming for a show to honor you when quitting the agency :) The essential things your bag should never be missing? Let’s have look at it now… I always carry the same stuff: Macbook Pro, Wacom, screen cleaning kit, 500 gb hard disc, a notebook, a lousy mouse, adapters, cables... And sometimes my camera. Cagri Cankaya: http://www.cagricankaya.com/ 10 Illustration Adam, Eve and the Apple of Knowledge by Dragos Platon This is a story about Adam and Eve and their attempt to reach the apple of knowledge. 12 fictional situations in which the first man and the first woman are dealing with a strange future. (A4 size - Ink on paper) Born in 1980 in Bistrita, Romania, Dragos Platon lives and works in Iasi. He studied at the University of Arts “George Enescu” Iasi where he obtained his degree in 2005. He has been joining group exhibitions even starting from 2000. “Fronteria 2” - Iasi 2000, “Lirysm, Anxitey and Other Stories” - Bucharest - 2003, “Revolution Reloaded” - Milan - 2004, “Back to the Future” Bucharest, 2007 are a few examples. Some other innovative works of this young artist representing the contemporary art in Romania can be viewed on his website: http://www.debarcader.ro Diary 11 Frida: Queue is este idiota? *We kindly thank Mehmet Gureli, the Turkish poet, musician, artist, for sharing his book with us. 12 “Futuristika recently became a Media Partner and is proud to be one of 150 international magazines supporting Colophon.” Media Partnership Colophon2009 Be a part of it! Colophon is a biennial symposium for magazine makers, experts, advertisers, readers and all creative talents involved in the world of the independent magazine. The on-going project aims to build a database of magazines and a network of organizations and people from all over the world. In short, it is the place to be for every single person involved in magazines. A journey into the magazine world, a gathering of magazine lovers, Colophon2009 offers a promising experience with the ultimate goal of positioning Luxembourg as an essential destination for creative industries. This international event celebrates excellence and innovation, and promotes exchanges between key players within independent magazine industry. Futuristika, the magazine of extraordinary topics, joined Colophon in September 2009. Our magazine recently became a Media Partner and is proud to be one of 150 international magazines supporting Colophon. We will present our magazine in Colophon2009 - International Magazine Symposium, March 2009 in Luxembourg. Launched in 2007, Colophon - International Magazine Symposium will be held for the second time in Luxembourg in 2009. Hosting exhibitions, talks, workshops, parties, events and one-off publications, with a far more expansive program, with more magazines and more attendees the second event will be far bigger and more ambitious than the first, Colophon2007. During Colophon2009, the expanded events will take over the entire capital city. The highlight of the program will be the Colophon2009 Symposium, held 13-15th March 2009, and based at Casino Luxembourg - Forum for Contemporary Art. 13 14 Around 3,000 magazine lovers are expected, looking forward to have a chance to discover innovative insights from world wide known names; illustrators, photographers, art directors, publishers, writers, editors, consultants, journalists, academics, during conferences, panel discussions, unique interviews. Exhibitions, talks, events, experimental workshops and one-off publications will create an inspiring space for exchange and creativity. Ten additional exhibitions will create a magazine trail through the City of Luxembourg, with routes featuring special installations by ten specially selected independent magazines. Museums, cinema, art galleries, shops, restaurants and cafés will join the trail and participate in hosting the event’s attendees, stimulating the city’s economy, tourism and culture. Colophon2009 is produced by Mike Koedinger in collaboration with Casino Luxembourg - Forum for Contemporary Art. Jeremy Leslie and Andrew Losowsky are the other curators. Mike Koedinger is the founder and co-curator of Colophon, as well as the publisher of the book We Love Magazines. Luxembourg’s leading independent publisher runs a publishing media group dedicated to producing high quality magazines, corporate publications, guides and events for Luxembourg. With seven publications to his name, an advertising management company, a studio for editorial design and numerous events and websites, his group monitors the pulse of popular culture and society in the greater Luxembourg region. Jeremy Leslie, the co-founder of Colophon, is Executive Creative Director at the John Brown Group, the UKs leading customer publishing agency. Previously he ran his own studio working for clients including Blitz magazine and The Guardian newspaper, and spent three years as group art director at Time Out. Leslie is a passionate advocate of editorial design, regularly contributing to the creative press and design conferences on the subject. He has written two books about magazine design: Issues (2000) and magCulture (2003), and designed the book We Love Magazines. He is deputy chairman of the newly formed Editorial Design Organisation in London, and a member of the executive committee of D&AD. He also maintains an outstanding blog about magazine design called magculture. Andrew Losowsky, for four years, was editorial director of Le Cool publishing, based in Barcelona, overseeing the creation of their Weird and Wonderful Guidebooks to Barcelona, Amsterdam, London, Lisbon and Madrid, as well as the remarkable, award-winning in-flight magazine Ling. A passionate commentator on magazines, design and unusual ways of telling stories, Losowsky has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Times of London and Grafik among many other publications. He edited the book We Love Magazines, and his collection of short stories, ‘The Doorbells of Florence’, will be published in Spring 2009 by Chronicle Books. He currently lives in the USA, and writes about magazine issues at losowsky/ magtastic. Publications There are 2 wonderful publications by Colophon, both essential additions for any magazine collection. We Love Magazines: As an accompaniment to the Colophon2007 magazine symposium, the book We Love Magazines was created. In keeping with the independent spirit of the magazines featured in the book, the book was published with ten slightly different covers; all having the same title graphic and background photo but featuring ten different drawings in blue foil block by Mio Matsumoto. The drawings portrayed ten different readers, each representing one of the ten contributing magazines. These were ten pioneering, independent magazines and they have created their own chapters for the book. The magazines were: Carl*s Cars (Norway), Coupe (Canada), Frame (The Netherlands), Omagiu (Romania), Rojo (Spain), S-magazine (Denmark), Shift! (Germany), Streets/ Fruits/Tune (Japan), thisisamagazine.com (Italy) and Yummy (France). The book had sections such as; amazing moments in magazine history, the stories behind successful covers, insider hints from advertising specialists, magazines we miss, new magazines, etc. More over, it also had the most comprehensive directory ever compiled of 1,100 titles and contact details of independent magazines ever printed. We are looking forward to the 2009 issue. We Love Magazines is an essential read for anyone with a passion for print. When you buy your Flash Pass to Colophon2009, a copy of We Love Magazines 2 is included in the price. Colophound: Colophound is also an essential addition to every magazine collection. The Colophon magazine, edited by Andrew Losowsky, designed by Luis Mendo and Suzanne Hertogs, is filled with contributions from attendees of the symposiums, thoughts about the future of magazines, and objects left over from the event that have found a new home. 15 16 Art Project “Thanks ıs a small word that has a bıg meanıng” Marc Mascort, Rojo, Barcelona “The faır ıs amazıng and gıves us a lot of ınspıratıon” FRAME magazıne, Amsterdam “Colophon changed my lıfe…” Stéphanıe Dumont, Carl*s Cars, Oslo “We really enjoyed the frıendly atmosphere of the symposıum and the beautıful cıty of Luxembourg” B EAST magazıne, Tallınn “The culture of resıstance ıs alıve ın magazınes…” Boz Temple - Morrıs, London “The whole event has been a great success and I have met so many lovely and ınterestıng people” Malın Persson, Desıgner, London “Good work – you guys rocked our hearts” Lars Harmsen, Slanted magazıne and blog, Karlsruhe “THE ONLY BAD THING ABOUT COLOPHON WAS THAT MY BAG WAS TOO HEAVY” LUIS MENDO, ART DIRECTOR, AMSTERDAM “ONE OF THE BEST SUMMITS I’VE EVER ATTENDED” SAMIR “MR MAGAZINE” HUSNI, MISSISIPPI “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING” YUMMY MAGAZINE, PARIS “I HAD A BEAUTIFUL TIME IN LUXEMBOURG, COLOPHON WAS TRULY GREAT” MIHA, DESIGNER, BUCHAREST COLOPHON2009: HTTP://WWW.COLOPHON2009.COM/ FUTURISTIKA MAGAZINE - COLOPHON2009: HTTP://WWW.FUTURISTIKAMAG.COM/COLOPHON2009/ Art Attack! The Th he 1st 1 t Internatio 1s International iona n l Roaming Roam min i g Biennial Bien nni n al of Tehran, Te Berlin B rlin Be in 20 Nov Nov.2008 ov.2 . 008 - 7 De D Dec. c. 200 2008 08 Urban U rban Jealousy Jea alousy in in Berlin n http://www.biennialtehran.com/ http:/ ://w / ww.bienn nia ialtehran.co com/ 17 18 19 context. Of all the huge urban areas around the world, A great number of these events are governmentsponsored projects whose outlook and also 20 21 endless. Although the legendary “TEHRAN BIENNIAL” the open call process and a “jury” they deemed unacceptable. Tehran, as one may suppose, does not seem 22 So, to jump start the process, and after a long Photographs taken by Lawrence Roberts after . 23 24 25 Interview / Post Rock Gaserata: Welcome to the land of “neverending” songs! With their first (and yet the only) album “I have a Lyubovnik”, our latest favorite post rock band Gaserata is a group of young musicians from beautiful Latvia. If you would like to find your way back to sanity again. 26 Futuristika: Thanks to the internet, we have found and deeply fallen in love with your album “I have a Lyubovnik”. So we can begin with your views about the online music promotion. Is this an evolution to a better musical and social height or is just a quick revolution that may eat its own children; musicians and listeners? Yap, internet is really nice. You can find anything there, even wife or husband or both at the same time… If we speak about music promotion through internet, especially music which we create, then we see it as 100% natural thing to do, because playing music for is purely hobby and has nothing to do with business, neither we “dream, hope, believe, etc.” that one day we’ll be such big band or rock stars that we will earn lot of money with music. “For us it’s more about sounds and music rather than words.” Maybe it’s evolution of music promotion and maybe this evolution means that those times are gone when with music records you can earn lots of money. But probably we don’t care about that much -we all work full time jobs which are no way connected to music. About “eating its own children”, I believe that there will be always people for whom music is hobby and they will create a lot of seconds and minutes and hours of really beautiful music and there will be listeners for that music. We believe that this situation redistributes power between music companies and musicians in decision making about what music people should listen. Actually it’s not about some imaginary POWER but about chance to reach people by ourselves without someone’s help and about sharing. That’s why we decided to offer our album for download through our website. Also -really who uses CD players these days anyway? In some way we believe that CD format is dying specie. But I still buy sometimes some -if they’re funny or special, because our guitar player’s (Martins... He is only one with the car, hahaha!) car music player doesn’t support mp3 ;D 27 Regarding “I have a Lyubovnik”, please pardon my ignorance, as far as I know we can translate that as “I have a lover”, which reminds me the movie of Valery Todorovsky’s drama Lyubovnik (2002). A great piece it was. Is this name related to that movie? If not, how did you come up with it? Woouh, didn’t even knew that there is such movie and that Russian language word really is written that way in English ;D So, it isn’t connected with the movie. We came up with such album name (Net m). We’re sitting all in an airport, waiting for plane. And then suddenly, with no logical reason Aija (base guitar) looked at some small boy (who was also waiting for that plane) and said: “I have a Lyubovnik”... And when we recorded the album, then we understood that this “I have a Lyubovnik” perfectly fits for it in all ways. Since we are on to names, what does Gaserata mean? How many of you are there? -4 according to the Myspace page. Could you please introduce us these musicians who create that cinematic, oceanic atmosphere? Gaserata has no explanation or meaning. It happened when band name was “Saare”. Exdrummer was leaving the band and wanted to keep band’s name for his new band because it was his idea. So we were forced to get new band’s name. Some time ago our drummer read out loud one word; “GASERATA” on mineral water’s label. That word in Estonian means “Still water”. After first concert base player Aija came to him with bottle of water and showed: “You misread the word, actually it is GASSERIMATA, not GASERATA”. But we played one concert already so we decided to leave this title. That’s right; we’re four people in the band. Our girl Aija plays base guitar, Maris loves to play drums and then there’s two guitarists; Nauris and Martins. Four people with quite different characters and musical histories somehow managed to get together and made something out there… You have very interesting song names in the album (i.e How Are YOUUU Doin’?! , La Pission Impossible, Incidental Sex (With Feelings)). Maybe we should look more carefully into your musical views as a general sadness embraced with groove and humor. How do you make decisions for the name of the songs? As we have no lyrics, then song names always has been hardest part of song “composing” : ) That’s why we have unusual song names. Those names come from some small situations or moments which sometimes has no connection to songs at all. But when we speak out those phrases, then it’s clear for us that this specific phrase perfectly fits our song. Anyway, for us it’s more about sounds and music rather than words. Somehow it happened that through instrumental music we can express lot more feelings and emotions and understanding of ourselves than through words. And, yes, you put it that way, althought our music is sad or serious and deep, we do that with smile on our faces with groove and humor. 28 According to me -as an ordinary but hardcore instrumental and progressive listener- your sound is carrying funky tunes as well as some eastern melodies. I can put your CD along with Grails, German Krautgods CAN and Grobschnitt. What are the band’s general music influences? Funky tunes come from earlier periods of Gaserata, when we had little bit different lineup. Then there were more sounds from funk and jazz and as one of guitarists is from those times, he still has those influences somewhere inside of him. Hard to explain eastern melodies; I didn’t know we have them : ) General music influences… Hmm, I would say that there are no “general” influences, because music which we played before Gaserata was very different. Martins played in post hardcoreemocore band, Nauris and Aija played in funky-jazzy band and Maris played in modernindie rock band. We got a good mix of all kind of influences. Maybe that’s way that sound is sometimes eastern type ;D The album’s artwork by Jancis and Emilija Liela is lovely. Who are they? I have heard that they are from space. Emilija is a lovely girl who does arts stuff -paints, draws, makes some d.i.y. arts stuff and speaks very loud. She made those creatures which are on album’s artwork. And Jancis -I even don’t know what isn’t he ;D. In this case he’s the guy who took drawings of those creatures and scanned them, did the digital design part of artwork. Besides sitting at computer and making albums artwork, he also plays drums in magnificent band TESA and is a tattoo master. He has made five for Martins and two for Maris. Being in a studio and being on the stage? What are the differences for Gaserata? Do you play the songs as they have been recorded or is the band open to perform freely, improvising? We’re 100 % stage band. Gaserata has been to studio only once to record those songs which we play on our live performance set. We didn’t get any special preparation for recording, only when we’re recording we changed some guitar parts to make them sound more “full”. Also, our songs are never “finished”. We do some small changes all the time, doing some kind of improvisation stuff. Any bedside books/magazines nowadays? Marins: Hm, bedside books and magazines… I would say that I have none because I don’t have much free time, especially when in bed. Maris: I have some pile of decent books of English, American and Russian writers near the bed but i didn’t finish any yet. Nauris is the one who read lots of books. Aija’s books are in music school. I hope one day we will be able to see you in a concert in Istanbul or to just to have a beer. If you’ll invite us to play there, then we’re going to Istanbul : ) Thank you for sharing your music with us. Good luck from Khalkedonia. And thank you for your interest in Gaserata. Gaserata: http://www.myspace.com/gaserata/ http://www.gaserata.lv/ Pop Artist Guy Peellaert: The spirit of rock; the irreverence, the outrage, the gaudiness, the occasional tenderness 29 30 “Bowie and Jagger fought for custody of Peellaert’s time and genius like jealous parents.” Peellaert was born in Brussels into an aristocratic family. After he completed his studies on fine art, he became interested in jazz, pop culture and movies. That period he volunteered to fight in the Korean War. Later on, while he was drawing comics in Belgium, he took a job for a movie and moved to Paris. His fantastical collages can be seen also in books like “The Big Room” –a gloomy homage to Las Vegas published in 1986, “20th Century Dreams” –an alternative history of 20th century published in 1999. Guy Peellaert: http://www.guypeellaert.com/ Taxi Driver, Paris-Texas, Short Cuts and Wings of Desire or the Rolling Stones (It’s Only Rock’ N Roll), David Bowie (Diamond Dogs)… If these movies or albums meant something for you in the course of your life, then you should feel the heartache to know that the Belgian pop artist Guy Peellaert is not with us any more. Peellaert; the cover designer of many movies and albums died of cancer in Paris on the 17th of November 2008 at the age of 74. He was known mostly for his portraits of rock stars in the 70’s. The 1972 cult book “Rock Dreams” with 116 surreal pictures brought him worldwide attention selling more than one million copies worldwide. This work led him to design album covers for musicians like the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, etc. His best known movie poster is Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver; an unforgettable piece of art. “I’m not bothered about death. Not having any passion while you’re alive, that’s the terrible thing. That’s why Rock Dreams still works today. Emotions keep you alive. Rock will always represent the extravagant, the flashy, and the fantasy. These pictures are a memento to that dream.” 31 32 Letter A love letter by James Joyce 15 August, 1904 My dear Nora, Since f past elleven. Si me in at half c me. I cam It has just struck ld do ould l ke a fool. I cou sy chair li e sittingg in an eas then I have been ikee a fool hearing am lik thing. I hear nothing butt your voice. I n th no y by leavingg them c ll me ‘Dear.’ I offended two men toda u ca you s theirs. coolly. I wanted to hear your voice, not e pttuous, d my contem side When I am with you I leave asi ulder.. oul ur head on my sho suspicious nature. I wish I felt you d. i k I will go to bed I thin r te u wri w iting this thing. Will you o r wr hou ve been a half-h I have f? elf? ysel gn mys sign u will. How am I to si mething to me? I hope you som n ign ow whatt to sig know n’tt kn b causee I don’ s gn anything at all, be w n’t si I wo lf. s lf myyse 33 futuristikamag.com