i just remembered this series that falls somewhere between still-life & fashion, which i spotted earlier this year from local photographer eva roovers, nice
me news
challenging/updown dance
i’ve posted this exhibition before but felt it was worth a second mention, dutch dance company NDT celebrated their past with a series of specially comissioned posters and a website also showing all of their old poster designs… interesting to see which have dated the most…
a hard to find (but i managed somehow) book designed by barlock was also released in conjunction with an exhibition in the hague, almost a year ago
room for panic
on wednesday evening i met and chatted to a few interesting people like london-based french director trio les bifs and british graphic designer si scott who came over to amsterdam for one night to share their work and the things that inspire them… i’m a big fan of si’s work but ‘les bifs’ in particular had some really interesting stuff with them…
originally trained as graphic designers all three of them have spent (in their own words) way too much time playing with 3D software and are doing some very original stuff with it, they are also currently moving into live-action directing work and i will definitely be keeping an eye on them (i’ll post more on them next week)
the first piece they showed is this amusing 5 minute animation short (from ‘arthur des pins’ 2003) on a genetically-challenged species of crabs…
the real highlight, however, for me was the following animation short ‘orgesticulanismus’ made by belgian ‘mathieu labaye’ as an homage to his father who suffered from multiple sclerosis for much of his adult life and who opens the film with a short voice-over reflecting on what it means to lose your mobility…
it’s quite long and starts very subdued but i really do recommend taking the time (& watching it full-screen) the real jaw-dropping animation kicks in around the 3:40 mark… enjoy, i did
…sure, the stillness, the handicap, brings you to the conclusion and to the gradual acceptance that there’s a certain number of things that you can’t do. But conversely I think it opens a whole bunch of new possibilities, notably with inner freedom, inner space, but also with the way you can come in contact, in relation with others.
…The human being is inexhaustible at the level of desire, of energy, of inner strength. And it’s something you discover with maybe more urge, more intensity, when you’re deprived of movement…
if you understand french or have an ‘MTV attention-span’ and just want to see the pictures without the context, a version without subtitles can be seen here
icons of the post
i had another nostalgic look through my old postage stamp sketches this week as TNT Post contacted me because they want to add my stamp (dating back to 2008) to their online interactive exhibition iconen van de post in the near future, also including the preliminary design stuff…
it takes a while to figure out how the site works but there’s plenty of interesting old stuff to be found in there, if you are patient enough: like this funky one from the 70’s
the image in the middle is a quote from spanish writer & poet ‘cervantes’ which says: ‘the pen is the soul’s tongue’ which i liked because my pen drawing reminded me of a tongue somehow, which if i remember correctly is precisely why the client rejected it!