On 20. August from 8PM-midnight my work will be displayed alongside that of Xavi Garcias, Masaki Miwa who both took part in the Super Duper Nova project I did with A secret club.

There'll be music, there'll probably be some drink, it'll be in Hackney (More specifically 445 Kingsland Road, E8 4AE)

More info on the event here.

In my previous post and on my flickr you can see a few WIP shots of my piece that was based on the awesome abilities of MacGuyver.

The reason I haven't shown you the finished piece isn't that I want to be overly secretive, it is simply because I forgot to document it...

Help Yourself
A few work in progress pictures from the creating of an A6 piece for an show in London.

It's all about MacGuyver, that thrifty guy with his swiss army knife. I learned a lot from MacGuyver, mainly that it's possible to bodge anything. I really wanted a knife like his, and when I finally was given one for a birthday, I was a happy camper - mostly because my Swiss army knife had the word "Camping" etched into it, I'm sure MacGuyver's didn't have that, but never mind, it did - and continues to do the job. (Although it's currently a bit lost somewhere in the flat.)

I'll show you the outcome another time.

As this deals with Childhood TV Characters, I figured I'd use a technique I hadn't used since childhood and I started making a lino cut version, but this turned out to be the wrong way to go, so in the end, I made a sort of collage with silver and red paper.

Calling all Animators!

A secret club is planning a Celebration of Animation at the amazing art cinema Øst for Paradis in Aarhus, Denmark and we're looking for interesting animation work to screen there.

Please go here for full information in English or here if you prefer Danish.

It'll be stellar.

A Sunday morning well spent I decided not to stop my son from drawing on my leg. Not a hard decision, here's the result.

This may all be happening in Aarhus, Denmark 2nd June. Sign up for newsmail at a secret club or go to our facebook page for more. It's soon time to play again. Sponsored by Hama Supported by Børnekulturhuset

Jenova Chen I just gave a short talk on collaborative play, torytelling and Jenova Chen's approach to computer game design. I might go into deeper detail in some future post, but for a bit of procrastination/research, have a go at Flow

New website for a secret club It's been a long way coming, but now it's finally here: The brand new schhh.org All that's missing is the English half, right now that bit is a disappointment that comes just as you want to press that little button. (For the defiant of you, something will happen if you do press the button, just goes to show that "Nothing here to see" isn't always true.) It's been a pleasure to get this all sorted, all our previous events have a home now, we have a nice little place for gifts, exhibitions and a Filmograf for showing you films whenever they come into existence. There's still lots to be done, but it's a home. At the same time, we've decided to get ourselves on the book of face and on Twitter Twitter will mostly be for things we've seen and like as well as updates. keep them peeled, more will come over the next centuries. Thank you.

Why Don't You?

Back in January I was asked to contribute a task to Digital Arts' "Why Don't You?" article. (Funny, it's not the first project named Why Don't You that we've taken part in.)

We made it a project for a secret club as that made sense, sadly it's credited to me solely and I am described as an illustrator and the brain behind a secret club, while I form part of the brain, I am not an illustrator, that describes the other part of the brain, Annabelle Nielsen, far better.

Our task was to send people on an adventure and coming up with this little micro-project reminded me of a student days dreams: To constantly travel the world, live out of hotel rooms and just design like hell with whatever was at hand. This was in 1998 and traveling the world, chatting to clients on your Iridium phone while surfing the net with the other hand sounded damn cool and totally possible.



Years down the line reality is - thank God - different, but this project was cooked up sitting on a hotel room floor, the photo taken in a photo booth, so this sending people off on an adventure was made while being off on an adventure.

The adventure is about halfway down the page. and if you scroll a few more people down, you get to good friend Chris Ratcliffe of Garudio Studiage who will prompt you to build a zoo.

There are a lot of good, little project there to pick from if you need a bit of inspiration, it's funny to see the ones that are overly self promotional, but aside from that, there's plenty to choose from.

Leaving the house for the train very early on Monday, I scared a cat that ran across the street, it made me think of some very early London mornings, the foxes I saw and how I insisted on being excited about seeing foxes. (Even when their screaming kept us awake at night.) I have watched a small group of them playing a fairly complex "chase the plastic bag" game.

I miss the London foxes, I've had some of the most interesting wildlife encounters in London, swarm of bees in Soho, bat in the flat, mouse hunting - that sort of thing. Foxes are a rare sight in Denmark, there are very few urban foxes, so the ones you see are shy and in the countryside/forests - I miss bumping into them.

Later, on the train I sleepily stared out the window only to see a real, healthy looking fox on the prowl, as if the cat from earlier had been a teaser for the real deal.

Robots, Aliens and Rocketships


Posterdesign by the fabulous Annabelle Nielsen


We're ramping up for a space and science fiction themed event at a 101-year old observatory in Aarhus, Denmark.


More info here

The Expedition

Last night, on that impossible date, I went to the cinema Øst for Paradis for a secret club to introduce the film Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud

We had been asked to set the mood for the film, but that would probably have been a tad depressing, so instead we did what we do: We tried to get the audience to play. Not then and there, but some time in the not to distant future, we sent them on an expedition. This idea was developed further from at microbrief we'd set for the current issue of Digital Arts



With the audience in their seats, I made them make a little booklet out of the sheet of paper we'd laid out on for them, this would be their log book for the expedition, now all we can do is wait for their log books to return to us.

the Schhhop is full to the brim
The shop of a secret club, also known as the Schhhop now features most of the amazing collages made for the Super Duper Nova collage challenge show, including my own contribution.



Every penny dropped in the shop will help a secret club produce more creative events, so even if you don' like the art, buy some and be a better person.

There are only about 25 zines left, they're all ready to go to a new home.

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

the streets of Aarhus
It's no secret that I miss the art, design and inspiration of London and that Aarhus is lacking edge. I've ranted about crap galleries before and it made me very happy that Art Snob has now shut. On Sunday, however, Aarhus showed itself from its good side and gave me this:



First is a page from a porn mag, made harmless with plasters. This made me smile, the porn is disarmed but in a slight off putting way.

Second is a couple of Lego 19s added to already too many, turning it into a Paul Hardcastle song. I read about the guy doing these and the article mentioned that he repaired buildings with Lego, i figured it was just another rip-off artist, ripping off Jan Vormann but his house numbers are good. Why do so many Danes think we don't google the same stuff they do or look in the same Die Gestalten books?

Anyway, last image is an ornamental Jack White, I do love this model kit urge to accurize your house's ornaments, crap as it may look.

Actually, that's not all we found, we found one of these little unmanned shops you usually only find in the countryside too, we bought a metal fish-mould and an old tin that used to be the home of some ice cream that went under the name Tripoli, but more about them later.