Stykker af Stumper - Pieces of Bits

The first Denmark-based workshop for a secret club of the year is a mere week and two days away and I'm very, very proud of this one. We are presenting a miniature programme of films at a cinema to fuel imagination before playing. The programme consists of a surprise short by the Quay Brothers, followed by Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - links to trailer, tickets and info on a secret club's website.


Image from schhh.org

When the house lights go up, our Automatic Collage Material Vending Machine will be purring like a kitten and ready to provide the punters with everything they need to make a collage of unimaginable beauty and cleverness.

If you're in Aarhus, and want to spend a Sunday morning like it's meant to be spent, buy your tickets here.

This one is more for the grown-ups as the films are, but if any kids want to drop in at around 12.30-1.00PM when the film is over, we're not known to stop you.

Super Duper Zine

The Super Duper Nova zine is now finished and shipping.


The cover


Elkeland


Xavi Garcia


Anna Walsh of Garudio Studiage


You can still pre order to be sure that you get your copy.

Happy Super Duper Nova New Year

This morning I finished my collage for a secret club's upcoming collage show Super Duper Nova using the materials sent to me by Garudio Youth. Garudio Youth is the intern "wing" of Garudio Studiage so what they sent was a collection of Peckham placemats, plasters and plastic coated stuff - all hideous, but good fun to try to turn it around.



The Super Duper Nova show opens on 18th January at the cinema Øst for Paradis in Aarhus, Denmark and runs until 29th January. We got more than 25 artists and designers to send random bits of paper to each other and then create a collage from what they received. For the show we're publishing a limited edition catalogue/zine (32 pages) which can be pre-ordered from the new schhhop of a secret club.

Here's a mock-up preview, not at all final layout:

offline online advent calender

Last year around this time a secret club created a little online experience or activity every day for our advent calender playing with the idea of taking an online activity and method of delivery out of the computer, there were paper kits, collage challenges and so on.



This year, our advent calendar is running on the four Sundays leading up to Christmas - this is major thing in continental Northern Europe and this time, it's even more removed from the internet that hosts it: It's a geographical game (we love geographical games) and by following the instructions posted on the website, you will find a creation of ours in the landscape in and around Aarhus.


This was the first one, now taken offline, so the directions to it are gone, but the little house is still out there for passers by to see.

on the bus with the drunks
A cool thing about having moved to Denmark is that the drunks often are harmless and genuinely kind people, so on the bus yesterday, we needed a space for Mio's now Danish ship like pram. (if you're not familiar with Danish perambulator design: They are huge beasts.) The following exhange took place:

Very drunk drunk whispering woman: "What's his name."
Me, sober: "Mio."
Woman: "Mio, eh. Sometimes people give their children strange names. My eldest granddaughter is called Naninja."
Me: "Oh." I fought hard not to speak of deathly silent killers.

Long pause

Woman, staring at the green buttons on Mr Mio's jacket: "Little amphibians jumping around."
Me, thinking she's halucinating: "Sorry, where?"
Woman, still staring: "Aren't Naninjas little green amphibiams jumping around the sewer and a giant rat is their boss?"
Me: "Oh! No, they're Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I see what you're getting at."

Pause

Me: "That could be a cool, modern name."
Woman: "Yes, the name of the child is...da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da"
And then we came to the place where the drunks hang out and she got off.

I Am Legion - For We Are Many

Quick and dirty post to let you Son Franciscans (Daughters too) to get yourself over to 1AM gallery on 4th November as the A3 custom show I Am Legion - For We Are Many opens.

As mentioned before, my last custom toy will be on display, seeing the mad skills of the other artists, quitting seems a good idea, some of this work is astounding.



My little scene, showing the museum of dismantled warheads is called "Lemonade" for a number of reason that you no doubt will have figured out before reading this.

Huge thanks to J Brown/Anubis2night for making me do this.

The Last Job

you, know. The one that goes wrong in movies, the one were people get hurt. All of this might still happen, but so far it hasn't been too bad.

in 2004 I entered a design competition to design the graphics for a designer toy, so did my wife - whom I hadn't met then. We both won and we didn't meet until years later, but that's another story. In this story, entering that competition was just another way to use graphic design, but through it I discovered the world of designer toys, I quickly decided to produce my own toy, this became the Antlor paper kits but that's also another story, because the real story is that it got me started making "customs" - existing toys you cut up, subtracted from, added to, painted and exhibited. I had a blast, I worked with techniques of my childhood, but better, wiser, faster. I learned a lot about materials and methods through this. I met many a good guy or girl and some not quite so good, as you do no matter what you do.

a few years on, I started to tire of the whole thing, during a talk with Matthias Hübner we discussed how narrow the scope of these toys is, how they're all based on cartoons, how it's a stagnant art form. I decided to quit - every now and again I'd make a custom because a friend asked. Once you quit the scene, you're fast forgotten.

I wasn't aware of it, but my creations lived a quiet, but appreciated, life on an online discussion board. Through this, I was invited to create work for the exhibition "I Am Legion - For We Are Many" and I lurked the board and the stuff people wrote put a smile of my face. "They like you." My wife said. "I think you need to do this." she said. I knew. I had to do it, but it also had to be the last job and doing a last job feels very good. The aerosols are empty, the old model kit parts are all gone and this is what's left.



There's a very pleasant interview up on Spanky Stokes