A THE STIMULEYE PRODUCTION
directed by Antoine Asseraf
filmed & edited by Thibault Della Gaspera
interviews Filep Motwary
coordination Clementine Colson
sound design Ça Va Chéri

Winning the Hyères award in 2002, then the ANDAM Award, “FOB”, as he is nicknamed, made himself a name showing in Paris over the last 10 years, and is now also the creative director of Lacoste.

As he prepares his return to Hyères, this time as Jury President, he faces the inquiries of our team of bloggers…

Felipe Oliveira Baptista by René Habermacher.

Everything has speeded up a lot, more collections, pre-collections, collaborations & capsules. Internet gave way to a whole new way of spreeding new talent, ideas and concepts. it is a very different landscape from the beginning of the century. On the other end, we seem to live in an era where there is too much of everything and by the time something new is found, it is already finished.

Hyères 2012 jury member, Olivier Saillard, Director of the Galliera Fashion Museum. Photo by René Habermacher.

Why should a garment be considered as important?

At the risk of appearing a bit primal, because we’d be a bit cold if we had to live naked, unless we all moved to warmer pastures !

Now more than ever, presentation interests me less than the garment itself. I skip fashion shows and rather appreciate presentations in show rooms.

Olivier Saillard at "18th Century Up to Date", by Antoine Asseraf, part of "Vogue à Versailles".

You have seen up close so many historical costumes and clothing that were at the forefront of fashion techniques and technology of their era.

On the flipside, what do you think the is the most advanced or intriguing technique or aspect in fashion that is available now that wasn’t in the past?

It seems to me that only Azzedine Alaia is technically a virtuoso.

TOUT CE QU'IL FAUT SAVOIR SUR HYÈRES 2012 by The Stimuleye, Hyères 2012 teaser.

Lizard photo: Whitney Lewis-Smith.

Legs with severed head (Guy's head, btw) Peter Shmelzer.

Men wrestling: Matthew Dayler / Photo of man laughing: Tony Fouhse.

Creepy baby head: Robert Farmer.

Guy's taxidermy collection.

USA, 1963, Washington, John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy receive the Moroccan king Hassan II
© Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

I remember Max Scheler with one of his beloved Davidoff cigarillos smoldering away nearby. He was an impressive character, with an elegant dryness that one would be tempted to account being Hamburgian, yet he was born a boy from Cologne. In his later years Max had dedicated his time entirely to taking care of the Herbert List estate – the iconic work of the photographer who shaped and mentored him. On one of my visits to the archives we went through folders and boxes of photographs and came so across prints of Max’ work for the first time, almost by accident. I had not been aware of his photography then, though i knew he had worked at Merian and founded the magazine GEO at Gruner & Jahr, introducing colour reportage to the wider audience.

I’ve talked with co-curator Olaf Richter, head of the estates of both Herbert List and Max Scheler about Max, his background and the relationship to Herbert List and the current exhibition

RENÉ HABERMACHER: How did this exhibition come together- and why right now?
PEER-OLAF RICHTER: The idea of this show was born in February 2003 – the month Max Scheler died.  It took us about 6 years to finish this project.  Why did it take so long?  Max Scheler was humble if not neglecting his own work. He stopped working as a photographer in 1975 and since then had turned the tables. He rather worked to publish other photographers work, than his own.

I took quite a bit of effort to rediscover what was going on in his life as a photographer. The negatives from the late 50s until the mid 70s were in a rough chronological order, but before that, the first 8 years, were all over the place.  For us the first period was especially interesting, because it told us something of where he was coming from. He learnt photography from another photographer: Herbert List.

Herbert List printed the images that he considered important. The Estate had a rich base of vintage prints that covered all the projects he worked on in his life time. These prints were frequently titled on the back. The main books on List that had been on the market had all been made with these prints as a basis.

For Max Scheler things are very different. There is not that much vintage material, and it is hard to say if these old images reflect his personal choice or some editors preference. So we went back to the negative and contacts and researched there. Unfortunately the negative have only a rough labelling, and therefore it took a lot longer to make a selection, research locations and titles.

Max would always put Herbert’s work ahead of his own – which was something that I never understood. Why this hesitation?
I guess he felt that his work of that period, was the work of a pupil, while the work of his teacher, was really what was worth remembering. It is interesting how close the two worked together. After an initial year or two as an assistant on the road and in the darkroom, Scheler started getting his own assignments, gained some respect, moved from Munich to Paris, met Robert Capa and  even became a junior member of Magnum.

How did the relationship of the two evolve after the first meeting during war in Munich: personally and professionally? I am also asking that as I have a special interest in the idea of the “stimulating” mentor.
I guess stimulation needs at least to prerequisites. At first the receiver of the stimulus needs to be in a situation of wanting to open up, receive a certain change in her/his perception and possibly even her/his life. And the stimulus must also be desireable and fit the pattern of interest of the receiver. If the stimulus is too foreign or threatening it might be rejected. I think these things fell in place when Max Scheler met Herbert List.

He was very young then- it must have been the shaping experience…

Max and his mother left Cologne in 1941, when Max was 13 or 14 years of age. Around the same time List left Athens, because Germany invaded Greece. He had tried to immigrate to the USA but failed and had to return to Germany. Max was raised without a father, since he died the year Max was born.  The sudden presence of a male person of authority in the life of Max and his mother was quite welcome. Not to be misunderstood all three of them were very liberal, unconventional and forward thinking persons. None of them wanted to construct a classical family. It was more the realisation of his mother that this very sophisticated photographer in his forties did spark some certain interest and outlook in the young max’ life, that she possibly could not, because the was too close. She of course realized that he was gay and therefore no husband material. But she might have also understood that the conventional reaction of a mother to not allow her son to have contact to a 25 years-older gay man, would have been rather short-sighted.

So through the turmoil of the war they kept close contact.

The stimulation we talked about earlier, that caused Max Scheler to learn a craft, languages and a certain ‘savoir vivre’ from Herbert List, developed through that time.

And I think that it was manyfold. I am not sure if photography was really the most potent influence here. And I am not sure what was going on between the two of them emotionally. Did they fall in love? That is speculation, but I guess it safe to say that a certain amount of love and trust is necessary to allow oneself to be stimulated.

In that context – I am wondering what kind of surrounding Max was born into?
Max family background is rather interesting and must have been very intellectually stimulating. The father was next to Heidegger the most prominent German philosopher of his time. And I dare say with regards to his several marriages and scandalous affairs his outlook on life must have also been rather liberal. Also his mother was a very autonomous person. Raising a boy by yourself during the war was a destiny she shared with many women at that time, but to be the publisher of her husbands writings and lectures after his death, surely required some intellectual capacity and stamina.

So little Max already came with some added ballast weight, preparing him in a way for this relationship…
Well… I would not call it a burden, but it is interesting that he would choose an opposite lifestyle from his father. Being a straight man with several marriages, that opened his mind from a desk or auditorium in German midsize towns like Jena or Cologne, he would rather take after List, and go out and explore the world visually.

But then again his relentless work for the estate of his mentor in later year of his life is quite similar to the position his mother took with the writings of her husband.

USA, 1961, Los Angeles, All around the country private fall out shelters are available, in case the A-bomb will be dropped.
Part of an extensive reportage on the defense of the USA in cold war times. © Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

In regards to that highly academic family background, one perhaps would consider Max’s path to see the world as a photographer as rather flamboyant….
To be honest I think Max was everything else but flamboyant… that adjective better describes Capote or Liberace. Max was almost conservative, classical italian in his choice of clothes, his furniture, slightly sportive with his cars — he owned several Porsche. And not least the motorcycle he was riding until his 70th birthday.

To what you said before regarding mentoring : I would say that tradition is being carried on in your “house” in one way or another  – Herbert – Max – Michael – and now you.
Yes…we are diverting.

So they had a concept of partnership or family in a very unconventional way. Max clearly passed this tradition on.  He invited us, Michael and me, to share a very open life with him. He enabled Michael and to a certain extent also me to study, and not least to travel, see the world, and get to know interesting people.

So let’s talk about carrying on the torch. Herbert List enabled Max to leave postwar germany and go and explore the world. Max lived in Paris and then Rome in his twenties – Rome was clearly the place to be in the mid-fifties. And he met a tons of interesting and important people.  So all this he kind of owes to List. The man who gave him a camera. And they were a family at times, and then at other time they did not see each other for a few months, since Max was in Africa or Asia on assignment, or Herbert made a book in the caribbean.

Herberts maintained many relationships to artists and celebrities of the time, which is evident in his work. What was the social surrounding of Max like?

Max had quite a few artist friends himself, some of them rather being pop culture – singer, actors. But he was not the one that the magazine sent to do in depth portraits of an artist with a difficult or complex attitude.

Politicians, Industrialists, Monarchy, — such things would be his beat. He had very good manners, was fluent in 5 languages and sophisticated and charming. That opened many doors.

USA, 1964, Atlanta, Martin Luther King and his family on a sunday walk. © Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Germany

To me it felt Herbert’s view was very driven by “sehnsucht”, a certain longing, while Max’s work stood as rather pragmatic, living through “zwischentoene” [nuances], maybe in that way recalling the metaphysic approach of his “mentor”?
It is very difficult to talk about their work from a biographical, psychological background. There is lots of room for speculation there.

I think the justified comparison between the two leads to the difference on how Herbert saw photography as a young man looking for an outlet of his creative energy and how Max might have seen it.

Herbert saw himself an amateur – not meaning dilletant with little knowledge of technique and such, but rather, that he refused to work on commercial assignments. After the war the situations changed for him, but at least that were his roots.

For Max photography was always a profession and he was a “gun for hire”. In terms of composition and atmosphere a lot of the early images of Max still relate to the style of List. He thinks in single shots, not in whole photo essays. After the initial 5 years in the business that changed. Like List in the mid 50s,  he switched from the Rolleiflex to the Leica, from single shots to story telling through a series of images.

List actually took his first 35mm pictures with Max’s camera. Max had a Leica first, List followed.

It is interesting to see how Herbert went into a different approach later on with work that goes more in the direction of reportage. As the special issues on Naples for DU magazine for example…
Herbert saw himself clearly as an artist. Even in his years he worked as a photographer for money, he always tried to maintain complete control over what he was doing. It was his vision and his idea and the camera was his tool. He therefore related to all artist on and eye to eye level.

I think the war and the horror surrounding it, really initiated a shift in Lists work and also gave a base to Max’ interest with the Camera. List was very much interested in photographing objects, architecture, still-lifes and landscapes in the 1930 and 40s. But he changed and started focussing on the human being. This shift to “human interest” was not a singular incident for the work of List, but happened all over. A rougher style of photography – out on the streets, in peoples life, focussing on their emotions – became popular. For List this was something that he added to his vocabulary, but for Max Scheler, this was always the main focus. He was a “died in the wool” human interest photographer.

What is the last thing that stimulated you?
I saw the movie IMPORT/EXPORT last night on Arte. That really moved but also disturbed me. It reminded me of photos of Antoine d’Agata. His book STIGMA is one of the best.

The exhibition “From Konrad A. to Jackie O.” runs to 31.07.2011 at the Willy-Brandt Haus in Berlin
Tuesday to Sunday 12.00-18.00, Willy-Brandt-Haus, Wilhelmstraße 140 / Stresemannstraße 28, 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg

Mareunrol: Mārīte Mastiņa and Rolands Pēterkops at the garden of the villa Noailles.

RENÉ HABERMACHER: what was the point of departure for this installation and the inspiration behind it?
ROLANDS PETERKOPS & MARITE MASTINA: When we start to work on a new collection, we always make the designs first to fit on miniature mannequins. And each time we both have discussed the idea of beautiful dolls as models so we could our ideas of garments to shoot as small style photos and to show them as the newest collection. That is why this idea came naturally.

The advantage of the small scale is that we have the freedom of implement anything, all our ideas without leaving out any of those costing an absolute fortune to make. Visual inspiration came in recent years moving from one apartment to another. That’s why our project is called TENANTS. As any of our works, this work also reflects our experience.

The inspiration for the installation came from artists’ constant moving from one apartment to another, from one neighbors to others, from one room to next and due to moving to new environment always makes you get used to new mystical noises, strange objects, loud or too quiet neighbors and other peculiarities connected with the apartment. But of course, with time you get used to all that. However, that all provoked thinking of how space influences those living in it and vice versa, and whether all these things in one way or another influence people and whether one imperceptibly starts to change, and whether this oddity is just in one’s mind, not reality. This is how emerged the idea for the installation with people/ tenants who dwell in their apartments and become as one with it. All their belongings are like a huge enormous shell/ attire which tell all their peculiarities, interests, specific hobbies and many other things.

These stories are made as small installations which show short sketches from character’s daily life. They communicate through costumes, scenography, sound and light. It is important that not only costumes and puppets are made for the installation, but also environment/ scenography, where they can express themselves and show the intended story, by forming a figurative composition which is combined with a surreal fantasy, mystique and a pinch of wit.

Mārīte Mastiņa and Rolands Pēterkops: Tableau from the exhibition TENANTS.
The dolls character is inspired and modeled after Keith Richards.

Can you explain me the process of planning and making the installations?
First we had a few visions of the project,  then we started working on sketches slowly crystallyzing the characters. At the same time we started looking for people who could make the puppets we had envisaged. It was really important for us to find a puppet master who could make the dolls with movable head and arms. It is really important for our Prague project.

I suppose we just got really excited about it. As we had decided to show our new collection in miniature, we wanted the puppets to have very realistic features (fashion model), with just a slight touch of surreality. The creation process was a collaboration with two puppet masters Kristians Aglonietis and Dita Benina.
At the same time we made all the outfits and made the interior of the boxes. We also invited lights and sound artists. Parallel on the basis of our sketches and instructions in e-mails there was the house construction in Villa Noailles garden. We really appreciate the work of Villa’s team which was excellent.

Mārīte Mastiņa and Rolands Pēterkops: Tableau from the exhibition.

Can you estimate how long have you been working on it?
We’ve been working on this idea for more than a year, as we first proposed it to be shown at the Prague Quadrennial in June 2011. This project had taken our minds over to such an extent that we saw we had no other choice but to present something similar in a different way at the Hyères festival.  We started working on the installation for Hyères in January 2011.

It’s evident that your approach is much broader than mere fashion: the film for your collection presented in Hyères, the birds details the following year, now this installation. how would you describe your universe and approach?
We engage in what we find inspiring, interesting and  eye catching at a given moment. At the same time it is important to us to find a way how to tell the story so our created things have the basis and meaning.

What are your references and sources? there is something seemingly dark in your work, if you agree, what fascinates you about that?
I wouldn’t describe our works as dark. They are rather bright coming through the darkness. They are likely to reflect the environment from which we come.

You have made another installation last summer in Riga. Can you tell me more about this story and the idea behind it?
We created the installation EDEN parallel to our last year’s collection of birds EPISODE 1. The idea began with the fact that we liked one old house, the most appropriate word would be ‘the slum’, in which had grown trees and grass. Then there was the offer from the Latvian Contemporary Art Museum to create something especially for the Museum Night. After the project EDEN we had had many other projects, so we are emotionally away from it already.

The installation is about the road leading to the forest/garden of Eden. The object is located in the centre of Riga in old collapsed building block, which is going to be reconstructed in a couple of years for Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art. During many years inside these remains of the building have grown trees, which actually looks like a forest in the house.

Mārīte Mastiņa and Rolands Pēterkops: Tableau from the exhibition.

So our idea was to build the object that imitates man’s way back to garden of Eden. The inspiration came from uncountable low-cost hotels of big cities, their features, uncomfortableness, tasteless or tasteful arrangement of rooms.

At the beginning a visitor gets the keys from the hotel owner and walks into the installation through five rooms, which are like small corridors. In perspective they are getting smaller. Each room has its own feature and there is a special light and sound installed in them, the noises, sounds and the voice of opera singer was specially recorded for this project.

While moving forward the rooms are getting smaller and smaller until there is the final room with a small door, which is locked with uncountable keys and it’s impossible to unlock it. Some people get confused when they can’t find their way out. All doors closed automatically and they can be opened only from the other side. The exit is hidden somewhere else – a small secret door in the wall. While looking for the exit a person notices a hole in the ceiling and when one sticks his head out of it, he can look into the forest of Eden, which is lighted up and fitted with the sound.

The object is built very carefully not to touch the nature and to protect visitors from the collapsing building, where the  forest has grown and it gives people the opportunity to get into the middle of the forest by walking through small rooms of the hotel.

What means collaboration to you?
Collaborations is a new experience for us. There are two types of collaboration we usually have. One, where we invite people to help us to set up what we have conceived such as TENANTS or any other of our   projects or collections. Then everything is created by our sketches, drawings and notes as it is important to us to have the work done professionally.

And  then there is another form of collaboration where several people try to negotiate their opinions and visions to create a final result, such as project EDEN, opera or collaboration with the photographers for the pictures of our collections.

Mārīte Mastiņa and Rolands Pēterkops: Tableau from the exhibition.

How was it to win in Hyères and to be back for this project?
That was fantastic, especially for us because we are form relatively remote corner of Europe, where you can’t feel the real taste of the fashion world.

Our victory was a huge honor to receive an assessment form the jury. And it is always fantastic to return to the Villa Noailles. We were really happy about the offer to make a special project for the festival. The Villa Noailles team and the festival will always be remembered by us with good emotions.

You came by car all the way from Riga — tell me more about this adventure.
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France… going by car it is possible to see much more than flying by plane. We like driving cars, we can always speak out and ponder about many things. We left Latvia in our winter boots, coats and scarves, when the nature was still gray but at Hyères there were flowers in blossom. The same flowers blossom here in Latvia only in June.

What is up next?
We create the same story for Prague, about tenants. But this will include a performance with movements and certain plot/story with the beginning and the end.

Where can we buy your collection?
Currently it is possible only in Riga by ordering individually. Somehow so far we haven’t been sufficiently interested in business. But that does not mean we don’t want it. It is coming.

Poster of SAVE TOKYO CREATION by ENLIGHTMENT. Photography by Yasuyuki Takaki

The 18 designers produced special pieces for the project to be auctioned for donation. Among the designers showing, is much beloved Jun Takahashi for UNDERCOVER, YOSHIKO CREATION, famous for her unique pieces to Lady Gaga, TOGA, N.HOOLYWOOD and emerging designer JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN, among others as ANREALAGE, G.V.G.V., KEITA MARUYAMA TOKYO PARIS, MAME, MINTDESIGNS, SACAI, SOMARTA, KOLOR, PHENOMENON, TAKAHIROMIYASHITATHESOLOIST, ISVIM, WHITE MOUNTAINEERING and YOSHIO KUBO.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Keiichi Nitta

The designers AW 2010 designs were picked up by Photographers and lensed especially for that show: Akira Kitajima, Chikashi Kasai, Tajima Kazunali, Keiichi Nitta, Leslie Kee & Ryan Chan, Masahiro Shoda, By P.M. Ken, Yasumasa Yonehara and Yasuyuki Takaki.

The Stimuleye spoke with Takafumi Kawasaki

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Leslie Kee & Ryan Chan

RENÉ HABERMACHER: What was your intention with this exhibit?
TAKAFUMI KAWASAKI: SAVE TOKYO CREATION supported by NARS is a big feature of Japanese fashion designers, most of whom lost a chance to exhibit their 2011AW collection because of the earthquake impact.
It’s a charity but not a money-donated oriented.
I wanted to provide Japanese fashion designers a chance to show their 2011AW collection that could not be shown on catwalk because of the earthquake.
As a fashion director & stylist, I believe it is a form of charity that only I can produce to provide those designers with the opportunity to present their creation in public.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Left: Photography by Kazunali Tajima. Right: Akira Kitajimat

How did the earthquake and its aftermath affect you personally?
The earthquake made me find the huge scepticism about Japanese government and the power of citizens. I would say I feel my approach to fashion and my styling works became more clearer and straight forward.
It may sound a little funny but I became more optimistic about the life. What already happened, happened, even if it’s a massive tragedy, there is no way to change or dismiss it. I feel there is no point to keep crying over that. But what we should do now, is to step forward.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Yasumasa Yonehara

Do you feel there is a different mood now among japanese society? I am asking as Japanese people expressing in the past to feeling alienated to their fellow countrymen…
Yes, “alienation” is a serious issue after the quake. Japanese people appear to be longing for the tightly-bound feeling.
Not only real communication and society, but also they are keen to make bonds with others in virtual community, such as Facebook, Twitter and other numerous social media networks. Some people are obsessed about that too much.

Generally speaking, however, I think the Japanese people have found what is important and what is less in life. I believe this is a great chance to reform the typical Japanese convenience-oriented life.They appear to have started making their lives a little slower and calmer, too.
It’s really a big shift of the country.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Chikashi Kasai

What is the last thing that stimulated you?
I would say THE EARTHQUAKE in Japan.

The exhibition is held from May 27th to 29th at EYE OF GYRE, Omotesando, Tokyo.

SAVE TOKYO CREATION Photography by Masahiro Shoda

The Stimuleye talked with Sandra about here recent work. The conversation was shortly interrupted by yet another request from the international glitteratti circuit: Sandra is truly knitting to the top!

Sandra Backlund's installation CUPRUM 2010 at the Villa Noailles' pigeonnier. Photography by René Habermacher

RENÉ HABERMACHER: What was the point of departure for this installation and the inspiration behind it?
SANDRA BACKLUND: Everything took off from the position they gave me for my exhibition, the Pigeon House in the north garden of Villa Noailles. I think it’s a very beautiful space, so I wanted to use it as a frame, rather then just a location. Because the house is partly open and the exhibition would run for one month outside, I had to carefully consider what material to work with. Already for my current S/S 2011 collection I had been working with a metal yarn made from 100% copper, so in a way it came natural to me to continue exploring that material. With a history of use that is at least 10 000 years old, copper is an important part of both our history and the future. It’s one of the world’s most useful natural resources, 100% recyclable without any loss of quality and it’s estimated that 80% of the copper ever mined, is still in use today. In a way I feel like the story of copper as a material and the way I try to approach fashion go very well together.

Can you explain me the process of planning, and the making of the dress?
As always, the handicraft techniques and the human body is the main starting point for me. I never sketch, instead I work with a three dimensional collage method where I develop some basic bricks that I multiply and attach to each other in different ways to discover the silhouette. The only thing I decided already from the beginning was that I wanted some kind of link between the signature piece (the paper origami top) of my winning collection from the 22nd edition of the festival in 2007. Because of the different techniques, materials and colours and because of the process, I guess in the end the link is not so obvious, but there is a few things that is still noticeable, like the silhouette and the size gradings for example.

I’ve witnessed you working day and night on this piece – do you have a clue how many hours went into the making?
To be honest, I think that this is the longest piece I have ever worked on. First of all, crochet is always extremely time consuming, especially when it’s layered like this. The copper tape is also very fragile and ones it’s used it, it’s impossible to change, so I had let go of the control and in a way let faith guide me to the end result. If we are talking hours, my estimation is around 500-600 hours.

Pieces of copper yarn in the the making, and Sandra at the exhibition space. Photography by René Habermacher

Your pieces are often very sculptural, with the artisan work involved, i wonder wether you consider to put your work in a different context than fashion?
Of course I have consider this and many times questioned if fashion is really the right context for my work. As you said, my clothes are always quite sculptural and I also use methods when working that is more close to a sculptor’s, then a tailor’s. But somehow I always come back to the human body. I like to consciously dress and undress different parts of the body and I am very fascinated by all the ways highlight, distort and transform the natural silhouette with clothes and accessories. For me fashion is also one of the most democratic art forms, something that we are all related to. You don’t have to be a designer or a stylist to use clothes as a creative statement, but people in general could of course be more self-governed when t comes to fashion.

To me it seems difficult to render your unique approach into industrial production. How are your experiences with that?
About two years ago I was introduced to the long tradition of Italian top knitwear and apparel production. The challenge was to add to my collections something inspired by my hand made pieces that could require only a limited amount of manual work. It was of course a big step for me to go from working alone in my studio, inventing pieces while doing them myself by hand, to suddenly be working in a team of experts within a field of fashion that I never before have had the chance to get to know. I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities I saw and even though I will never give up doing my hand knitted signature pieces, these production tests really made me understand that there is ways to develop my collections that I never thought was possible.

What is this festival of Hyères to you? How was it to win – and to be back for this project?
The whole event is really an experience for life when you’re a young designer, all the people you meet and the rush from showing your work in a context like that. I didn’t know about the festival before I met Diane Pernet and she suggested that I should apply. I was crazy happy already when I was selected for the finale and then the wind up… It’s really an important moment in my career so far and to be back again this year and meet everyone was kind of a flash back. When I think about it, I’m still a bit shocked that I was the winner.

What’s up next?
F/W 2011-2012 production, S/S 2012 collection and some up coming exhibitions.

The dress weights over 6kg, made from an archaic material that was the first to be 100% recyclable

Further information on Sandra Backlund: sandrabacklund.com
The Exhibition at the Villa Noailles in Hyeres runs throughout May until the 29th

That’s the impression you get from Matt Pyke’s new show at Gaîté Lyrique, Paris’ brand new digital creation center. Mutating monsters, illuminated silences, evolving creatures, disintegrating dancers, glowing trees… Pyke and his friends from the studio Universal Everything use every corner of new-old parisian theater to make your head swirl. Literally.

Meet Matt Pyke. Photo by René Habermacher

ANTOINE ASSERAF: I noticed everything is looping, there is no beginning and no end. What as your intention with that?

MATT PYKE: One of the reasons for the looping is we’re really interested in the idea of infinity and how it creates video artworks which don’t really have a narrative story to them.

We’re creating almost a video sculpture, a state of mind or a trance-like situation: for example where dancers that are continually struggling up the wall to get to the sound or the giant walking monster in TRANSFIGURATION which is walking forever and nobody knows where he is going.

It’s that idea of foreverness and how you can use video to do that as an artwork that never stops: everything is almost like a machine that is going and going…

Matt Pyke & Friends : Super-Computer-Romantics

Sometimes you have some very un-digital elements like drawing.

I studied drawing and painting at art school and still find it very important to have a pencil as well as a computer. All of the artworks were based on drawings originally. The archive of the Gaîté Lyrique has a collection with all the working drawings from all the artpieces.

In the exhibition, the one called SEVENTY SIX SEEDS was entirely created through drawing but influenced by the more recent years where i’ve been working with people who use codes. The drawings are very much influenced by digital processes and the shapes that code make.

We’ve made an iPhone application that gave me kind of genetic instructions of what type of seed what type of plant to draw every morning- so it’s a way of using technology to control me, control my pencil.

Works in Progress: left Matt Pykes drawings for SEVENTY SIX SEEDS inspired after an iPhone application.
Images Courtesy of Matt Pyke

Do you code and program yourself or are you trying to bring that kind of “old school” thinking into that?

I intentionally do not code and program myself. I tried to learn and found it did not suit me, so I focus on the conceptual side of things and the visual side of things in terms of art direction and creative direction and come up with the initial seed idea and then work with programmers who are genuinely experts or super talent in their field.

I think one important thing is, by me not understanding code, that my ideas are not restricted to what is possible.

How did you first started playing around with this digital universe?

One of my first influences was partly due to my brother learning to write electronic music when he was very young, so we got interested in music technology. It was just before the Mac really arrived in the 80’s – he got his first sampler when he was around 10 and twas trying to make beats.

I’ve always been interested in the forefront of something: the forefront of music or the one of science. Technology is always been ahead in terms of CGI in Hollywood films and using the power of a laptop to create digital music or animation. I think I just get excited by these new tools emerging. Every year there seems to be a new, more powerful tool that Steven Spielberg or James Cameron work with and we can use a few days later. (laughs)

Matt Pyke by Matt Pyke.

I feel like in the 90’s the people were very excited about the future and the digital arts and things like this, but then it had kind of taken a back seat in the last decade were people were more looking backwards.It seems now people are looking more ahead again and say: what can we do that has not been done?

That is something we’ve talked about a lot recently is how there is obviously a lot of negativity in the world at the moment about with what is happening in Libya or Syria or the economy and the environments. Naturally bad news is what sells papers but I think on the other side of that we see technology as something very playful and something you can use to create very positive, utopian experiences and it’s really something that can save mankind. That is something I really wanted to explore in our work is how you can create this super positive energy and use it to hopefully influence the people who visit the exhibition. Because it’s kind of celebrating how technology can enhance your life.

Going back to the vote against technology: there is a big movement of paper-craft design and all these — because I studied painting and drawing originally, my heart still lies in handmade and analogue processes. My studio is in the nature in the North of England, is very much part of me and what I see — I don’t live in a big design city kind of environment.

But I think there is always action and reaction. At the moment we see it as “let’s try and do something which is in reaction to this kind of organic and analogue approach and try to do something with technology that excites people and does not feel it’s about closed-circuit TV and surveillance and all this kind of negative things.”

Poster for "Matt Pyke and Friends" exhibition.

Do you know the work of Nick Cave- not the singer but the other Nick Cave- the artist?

Yeah I saw it recently — it’s amazing! really really nice!

What is its called? SOUNDSUITS! I tell you where I got the idea from for TRANSFIGURATION:

Originally it was used for MTV, but the idea came from searching on Google images for “fur”, CGI-fur, and I found one image which is some random test from some crazy tech-forum image of a guy who got a stick man and wrapped some fur around him. Just this really tiny CGI test and we thought lets take that small experiment or test and turn it into this kind of bold living thing for MTV. From that we took the part which is the most popular across the web and turn that into more a story of evolution for the gallery. But recently I saw on twitter someone mentioning Nick Caves SOUNDSUITS- and I was like: Ahhh interesting parallel! What I really like about that is the fact that two people have come to a similar direction, his is analog and ours is digital. But it’s very very hard to make something completely original and unique these days;

It’s great because they are almost the same thing but because they are in a different medium they don’t give out the same vibe at all.

Yeah i’d love to see them- I know he is based in Chicago. I’ve seen the films and images on the web. It’s just nice to see these parallels…

CHANEL invited Universal Everything to create a series of video artworks in response to the 5 codes of Mademoiselle Chanel.

Do you actually have things that actually function interactive? I mean there is some interaction in the sound room system…

That is a good question the interactive one, because people have asked us a lot is, as we’re in a digital gallery, if we’re making interactive works, and I think I would not really call myself an interactive artist or a designer. There are certain things we’ve done with real time video mirrors and things like that but generally I prefer the word “participation” where you can involve the audience in some way even if that is them just standing there in a trance watching it or dancing to it in the Petite Salle or the Chambre Sonore…

I actually started posing…

Yeah — it’s great! That is what we predicted what people would do. It’s a subtle way of creating some interactions.

But I would prefer to leave the interactive design to the super talented interactive designers out there and us to focus more  on the video-sculpture and audio-reactive kind of world that we live in.

There always seems to be a big expectation for digital things to be interactive and I quite like the idea, personally as a member of the audience, that you don’t have too work hard.

Some of your pieces have an intelligence to them, they do react but they react with each other…

They interact with themselves! Yeah they are more self absorbed! (laughs)

MATT PYKE & FRIENDS
Until May 27, 2011
La Gaîté Lyrique
3 rue Papin, 75003 Paris
Curated by Charlotte Léouzon

Matt Pyke / Universal Everything / Everyone Forever

Abdel Bounane at AMUSEMENT gallery, by René Habermacher.

Antoine Asseraf : So where are we, there’s a store downstairs, but this is something else…

Abdel Bounane: This is the space where soon we will offer services and events linked to the store, and to the magazine.
The service part is probably the most interesting, because this is going to be the most original part.
For the store we try to have some original products, but for services, starting in May, you’ll be able to order a tailor-made video game.

You make an appointment, meet with one of our consultants, and give your craziest ideas regarding what you want from a video game, and we’ll be able to materialize it. It can take a few days, a few weeks, or sometimes a few months, it can cost a few hundred or a few thousand euros.

It’s a world first.
It answers the question “if you want to make a space linked to the digital world, how do you offer something original and human ?”

Something that doesn’t lag behind the virtual world.

Exactly. What is the use of being in the real world when you’re talking about the virtual ?
So for me, it is the meeting with people, the ability to explain face to face your ideas, a human and interactive touch, it’s fundamentally linked to a physical place. It wouldn’t be the same thing by Skype.

That’s one part of the services we will offer.
We will also offer a gallery side.
People have been trying to sell digital art for decades now, and they haven’t really been able to, except for installations which hard to sustain. But now tablets are here, and I feel that tablets are a good media for that art, like a canvas.

The ressource center of the Gaïté Lyrique. By René Habermacher.

That makes me think of that bloom application for iPhone, by Brian Eno…

Well, Brian Eno’s been here !
What we’re developing is the sell of pieces on tablets, offline, and also an online store of limited edition digital content, with a certificate of authenticity on our servers.

How do you co-exist with the Gaïté Lyrique proper?

Well with the digital art we’re going to be working a lot with artists from the Gaïté, such as Matt Pyke/Universal Everything,
They do a lot of cool particle effects, very pop, very colorful, and they’re don’t want something that is all over the internet, just something that is visible physically at the Gaïté, because it’s a site-specific installation, and potentially sold digitally.

That’s where the logic of the Gaïté comes in, it’s not a museum, it’s a creation center.
So it’s perfect for us, we become the distributors of content that cannot be found elsewhere, and digital limited edition fits the Gaïté perfectly.

We’re not only the commercial arm of the Gaïté, we’re here to play with new ways of crossing art and digital, video games and one-to-one distribution, or take a mass media like video games and make it personalized, how do me make something pop more haute ?
How to legitimize a physical location, with launches, workshops, etc.

Gaïté Lyrique communication.

I think it’s perfect that this place was launched now, in 2011, because today there is a mix of the digital and the physical worlds.
We’ve experienced a very de-materialized digital world for the last 15-20 years, through computers only, but as the intelligence of the network become more miniature, we’re going to unperceivably go back into the physical, with walls that give information. Tablets, smartphones, nano-technologies, that’s what they’re all about.

From the 60’s mainframe, to the 80’s Personal Computer, to the connected personal computer with a more diffuse intelligence, to the smart phone and the tablet which are more disseminated… I think think there’s already twice as many smartphones as desktop and laptops combined.
This year is the first where more smartphones are being sold than computers.

All this means that intelligence is more diffused into the real physical world, so if you look forward, it means this place will become even more pertinent.
More experiental, more subjective, about participating in a world that was created for you.
So if you combine that with the more diffuse intelligence, you get a place where you can live unique experiences.

Matt Pyke / Universal Everything for MTV.

Was AMUSEMENT magazine influenced by the 1990’s French mag univers >interactif ?

It’s funny because a blogger asked me that, “do you know >interactif, what do think about it” ?
but in fact I only knew it by name, it knew Ariel Wizmann had made it, and I had seen maybe 2 covers.
But people have told me that Amusement seemed like the >interactif of the 2010’s.

So since then I went back into >interactif, and I can see the connection, editorially, visually…

I remember especially the cover with a chick wearing a Nintendo Power Glove.
Almost all the covers had chicks on them as much as I remember.

Left: W< by Jean-Baptiste Mondino for >interactif magazine, 1995?. Right: Excerpts from >interactif magazine.

Actually there was one memorable cover by Mondino with a guy in a W&LT latex suit with some phallic balloons…
The connection between the fashion editorials and the content was sometime a bit forced (laughs).
The funny thing with >interactif is that when it came out, in 1995, no one had internet. Something like 3 people in France.
But did you know WIRED then ?

Yes, Wired I read since the beginning, since 1993/94.

How old were you ?

12 or 13 years old. I used to go to Brentano’s [American bookstore] to get it.
I was also reading EDGE, a UK video game magazine, which back then was a world reference.

Once as a high schooler I bought EDGE and sold the translation to French magazines (laughs).

You’re not the only one, some real journalists got into trouble for ripping off articles from THE FACE.

So WIRED, EDGE… It was complicated, I didn’t really get all of it, but it was like a film addict, you go see it even if it’s in Chinese.
I was fascinated by these magazines even though I didn’t speak English.
The UK press is sophisticated.

The content and the visual as well…

Those magazines had a completely different artistic direction.

How does the AMUSEMENT store affect AMUSEMENT as a magazine ?
By the way I went to your website and I loved that there was no blog, just the best of past issues.

It’s a real question (laughs).
I always wanted to ensure the legitimacy of the paper magazine as a format.
But now, in this post-tablet world, AMUSEMENT will become a bi-annual, because the tablet has further de-legitimized paper.
So we want to make it more high-end, more of an object, a book, 400 pages.
Less of a magazine.

We’re going to create connections between the AMUSEMENT store and the web, in July.
And everything I was telling you about online digital art stores is something we’re also working on, maybe not for 2011, but it’s in the works.

Amusement magazine.

I think it’s also interesting to go for a book/object format, because it voids the question of the iPad format … you really can’t compare an iPad magazine to a book/object.

I’m very open to the idea of iPad/tablet publication – once it becomes a real business, once there’s a 100 million of them out there.
Right now it’s only something that CondéNast can do, for image.
But how many GQ do they sell on iPad ?? 5000.

So right now, either you’re a huge publisher and you want to show that’s you got it, so you do an iPad version at a loss,
either you’re independent and it doesn’t work.

What about something like Flipboard ?

You become a moderator, aggregator, art-director – you’re creating a moderation platform.
I would love for Amusement to go in that direction as well.
We try to be high-end in the design, but I’m interested in the idea of the opposite, of letting people appropriate the content.
That’s a challenge that I would like to tackle with AMUSEMENT.

Because the richness of internet is not the platform as much as the humans.

In AMUSEMENT, there is one side which is very “we’re speaking to you, you have to listen, it’s our art-direction, our pictures,” there is no feedback, a bit like a dictatorship — that’s actually attractive because it’s megalomaniac.

Then there’s the opposite, which is create a platform and let people move it forward…

Yet I feel that today a lot of the internet, with the advent of blogs/Facebook/Twitter, has become only about discussion, and that very few people have the time to do a megalomaniac project of creation.
With a magazine you make it, you step back, improve it, you don’t have to constantly ask everyone if they “like” it or not.
T his applies especially in fashion.
Every month you were waiting for some new images coming from new issues of magazines.
Now the blogs bring a constant flow of magazine articles from all over the world, self-styling pics, etc – it’s like a deluge of images from which nothing can stand out.
How many articles per day can you stomach on “what to wear” ?

Do you think that nothing stands out, or that different things stand out ? That’s what’s interesting.
What is true is that there is less in-depth reporting, because there are less producers who invest.

But I think there are still people out there who create and innovate, without necessarily a lot of means.

Yes, there is an ocean of repetition – but only because someone created something in the first place.

Left: detail of the Gaïté Lyrique entrance. Right: Amusement shop entrance.

AMUSEMENT creative shop
3 bis rue Papin
75003 Paris
Metro: Réaumur-Sebastopol

Matt Pyke & Friends @ Gaïté Lyrique
April 21 – May 27, 2011

AMUSEMENT magazine

Efi Spyrou’s artistic reflection is interdisciplinary, her art on the conjunction of corporality and art theory. Often her approach, as manifested through her pieces and installations, seems cold and industrial. Yet it is charged with personal memories associating emotional moments. Remarkably enough, Efi operates with inhibiting elements of isolation, institutionalisation and discipline to achieve her purpose: ignite an emotional spark.

Efi Spyrou: Swing (1), 2010 marble, latex; 285 x 30 x 15cm.
Photo by René Habermacher for PoP magazine SS 2011.
Model: Ymre Stimkema.

This Issue of Pop magazine features a group of 5 contemporary artists: Gillian Wearing, Meredith Sparks, Linda Sterling, Clunie Reid and Efi Spyrou, Juxtaposing pieces of her SWING series with fashion by Antonio Marras, her work for this collaboration oscillates around the idea of “lost innocence”.
At this Chapter of her Life, Efi Spyrou contemplates inwards, both on personal and collective memory – after being in the spotlight as a fashion model, presenter and public figure that stood for the right cause:
She was involved in Campaigns of public interest as against eating disorders, “Fashion Targets Breast Cancer” and the UNHCR-the UN refugee Agencies ‘Against Women Trafficking’ and was subsequently awarded with the Cyprus “Leader of the Year in Advertisement”.
THE STIMULEYE finds Efi Spyrou in Athens, her hometown of choice for a conversation on her most recent projects,
including her first solo exhibition at Six D.O.G.S in Athens. The exhibition will run from May 6 2011.

Efi Spyrou: Untitled, 2010, latex, iron, plexiglas, wood; 85 x 65 x 120

EFI SPYROU: Hi Rene! Here I am!

RENE HABERMACHER: hey hey- just saw you! welcome!!!!!

I think now it’s a good time for our conversation! Shall we?

In your work we find often references to childhood, as in your most recent SWING series, but as well for example in “Untitled” 2010 (incubator). What is the relation to yourself?

Each detail, each piece reflected on my work is connected to my memories, my experiences especially in my early ages. Sometimes I feel I was literally thrown from childhood to adulthood in an instant moment… There is an inner need to go back again and start from scratch, with a different pace.

How did you grow up?

In a very disciplined way…
I grew up in a very small, conservative, strict, disciplined community where freedom of speech was not something really known… After my 18th birthday, when I decided to leave my homeland Cyprus, I was catapulted into the wild world of which I knew nothing about! And first of all, I knew nothing about rapacity…

I was 18 years but I had the feeling to be in fact much, much younger and very scared.

Following your journey had taken you quite somewhere else- in terms of location and orientation. You returned only much later to your point of departure, with your art and the themes your current work embraces.

After 17 years I am in the position to say that this journey was difficult but full of colours, aromas and sounds, the voices of different cultures, people, moments. You see, I have entered the fashion world as a model and subsequently public figure, which gave me the chance to travel a lot all over the world. Although I had great moments, and I do feel lucky about it – I had to test my limits, my values and myself in many ways: In this race the cost was not insignificant. That is why there was a turning point, of explosion, – I had to slow down – and turn the time back, back to my roots and see which were the remains! This is where art gave me the tools to deal with all this material I had in my hands…

Efi Spyrou: Swing (2), 2010, silicone, latex; 75 x 30 x 15cm.
Photo by René Habermacher for PoP magazine SS 2011.
Model: Ymre Stimkema.

When we met last time in London to do our project for POP, we were focusing on your most recent work, the SWING. In fact it was a juxtaposition of your art with the fashion by Antonio Marras, under the helm of Isabelle Kountoure. It seemed like another circle had closed: with this new pieces that reflect on lost innocence and the interweaving with fashion that had marked another phase of your life.

This was a liberating experience for me. Every time I find the medium to make a conclusion of my contradicting “memory voices”… is an exciting moment. With the series of my works SWING, I had the chance to cooperate with a great team, working on the upside of fashion. And in parallel I had the chance to give light to a darker “space” as you say, “our lost innocence”. This is the only way for me to survive- to accept my bipolarity…

You started with the first piece of your “swing”series in marble. For this project you took cooperations with other people in account – thus creating more facets around the actual object…

The first piece was more an inner conversation. The development of the piece[s] through this cooperation was a conversation with others! This is really important for me, because I do believe that our personal “spaces” from a different perspective are collective “spaces”. The former is the reflection of the latter and vice versa!
In art, the material plays a significant role in the interpretation of the piece.
During our collaborative working process i’ve developed other variants of the original swing: wax, silicone, plaster and mirror. Doing so, I leave an open interpretation of my recent Swings”. What matters to me, is not to give a solution to a problem, but to actually “spark off” something…

Swing (3), 2010 by Efi Spyrou: paraffin wax, latex; 335 x 30 x 15cm.
Photo by René Habermacher for PoP magazine SS 2011.

As you operate not only plenty with personal memories, but integrate the collective as well – in this context, how important is Athens, or Greece as a background for your work?

For my own work I incorporate a universal, collective memory in my pieces – at least this is what I am trying to do. Sometimes it could be characterised more “western”… but not surely Greek or Cypriot. I can assure you though that my life in Athens and especially the “new” way I look at the city and its everyday life here, gives birth to a lot of new ideas + questions + art pieces!
Spring, especially these days, is so refreshing! I cannot think of economic crisis – I keep my worries silent for the moment.
As far as concerning the emerging art scene over here: I think there is a lot to be done, in order to consider Athens as part of the greater art map. But I see a young art generation which is very promising…

What are you working on right now and next?

I am preparing a solo exhibition in May. The show will be running from May 6th at the Six D.O.G.S exhibition space in Athens. Included on display are among new works some ready pieces that are already known.
For the moment I am studying the relationship of memory with the game of lights and shades in space. I am working on sketches right now, may be for an installation, we will see…
I would love to have the chance for more collective dialogues in the future.

Efi Spyrou: Swing (2), 2010, silicone, latex; 75 x 30 x 15cm.
Photo by René Habermacher for PoP magazine SS 2011.

Thank you so much for this insightful talk!

Shall I say sweet dreams?

Efi Spirou’s solo exhibition at Six D.O.G.S, 6-8 Avramiotou Street, 10551, Athens, Greece
The exhibition will run from May 6 2011.

www.sefispyrou.com

a collaboration EFI SPYROU | ANTONIO MARRAS pop Magazine SS 2011

Hair Panos Papandrianos at CLM using Bumble and bumble
Make-up Yannis Siskos at Effex using Giorgio Armani Cosmetics
Model Ymre Stiekema at Viva London
Casting Angus Munro at AM Casting, Streeters NY
Set Design Emily Pugh
Photography Assistance & Digital Technician Laurent Dubin
Fashion Assistance Tui Lin
Hair Assistance Angel Sayers
Digital Remastering Dimitri Rigas at Dimitri.jp
Shot at The Russian Club Studios