Pick of the Week #76
This week’s Pick is the upcoming documentary by Alex Winter, ‘Downloaded’. Premiering at SXSW 2013, this documentary focusing on Napster and the advent of digital file sharing investigates the digital revolution; “the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.” Napster, founded in 1999, was originally a file sharing service and has more recently become an online music store. The introduction of peer-to-peer sharing and illegal downloads created a technology paradigm shift, upended the music business and changed the world. Described in the trailer as “building a business by facilitating the stealing of artist’s music”, the creators in contrast explain that they wanted to “share emotion over the internet” and “create a way to meet people through music”. The film sets out to assess the issue from all points in the chain from musician to downloader, featuring interviews with musicians such as Noel Gallagher, DJ Spooky, Mike D from the Beastie Boys and Henry Hollins, to label heads, Government Officials and leaders in the world of civil and digital rights. “When Napster launched the peer-to-peer phenomemon,” Winter explains, “a new frontier was birthed out of the ether. We’re still reeling from the arrival of this new landscape. And while there has certainly been evolution in the world of social media and networks, nothing currently exists that embodies the full functionality that Napster had twelve years ago. I think it has something to do with the youthful naïveté of launching a new technology without either concern or full understanding of its disruptive nature.” This documentary has a timely release in light of recent events with HMV. Rather than an issue of the 00’s, the topic of creative content downloads is ongoing and not set to go away any time soon as we see that “the record companies are not adjusting to technology.” HMV went into administration this week, 5 months after one of its own employees wrote a scathing blog post on the companies reluctance to embrace Internet based revenue, to their demise. In his prophetic article Phillip Beeching writes, “HMV’s single biggest mistake has been a lack of investment in their online offering”. Where were they when Play.com were getting into their stride? What about Spotify? Beeching points out that with HMVs established brand and audience, they could have capitalised on the online retail and music downloads market easily. 2012 also saw the court case for Megavideo founder Kim Dotcom sparking controversy over not only how we use file sharing, but what the laws should be. ‘Downloaded’ arrives at a time when moral and economic questions as to how we are to proceed are yet to be answered. “Downloaded is a documentary that has allowed each participant to tell this tale,” Winter concludes. “Not just Napster’s extraordinary rise and fall, but the wider story of how we got from Winamp to Wikileaks. And the great disruptions caused by new technologies that are far from being resolved.” http://vimeo.com/55214958 ‘Downloaded’ will premiere at SXSW 2013. Alex Winter’s website VH1 Rock Docs
DIGITAL DRAWINGS BY SHANTELL MARTIN
Pick of the week #89
This week we introduce you to the work of Shantell Martin, an illustrator and pioneer of digital drawing. “Artist Shantell Martin collaborates with her surroundings, translating into glyphs, lines, recurring characters, and words the newspaper someone is reading across the way, say, or a pair of shoes walking by, a thought she had, the sky, something overheard. Her universe is flexible, multi-dimensional, surreal, a constellation of small observations that spill from one medium to the next.” Martin studied at Central St Martins in London and went on to live in Japan and New York. Her Drawing style comes from a mixture of nature and nurture as she used her illustrations to capture her feelings about her surroundings. While they began as graffiti and small paper doodles, they went on to cover entire walls, shoes, jeans and jumpers. Martin also uses the medium of live drawing using open frameworks and projection. “If you were to look back on my older works the style if still very similar, but you can definitely see that over the past years my style and lines have grown in their confidence and recently also in size.” In regards to using digital as a medium, Martin explains “After graduating from Central Saint Martin in 2003, I moved to Japan where there is technology and visuals everywhere. In a way I kind of fell in to it. First the very inderground/avant guard Japanese music scene and then the minimal techno scene where I became a VJ, creating live drawn visuals to DJ’s and musicians.” “I teach a class at NYU called Drawing On Everything and I feel like that about sums it up for me. I’ll draw on everything and with everything be it code, drawing software, with pens on wall, cars people and so on. Let the canvas be limitless.” Martin recently gave a talk at PSFK and has completed a wall drawing for them in their offices. “Back in late 2008, early 2009 PSFK started giving me a lot of blog love. They wrote about some of the digital projects I was working on in Japan and also the drawing on people stuff too. So when I finally visited New York for the first time I got in touch with them and asked to pop by the office to say hi. It’s been a nice creative friendship since.” Martin also has plenty planned for 2013. “I’ll be working with the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, drawing a mural in the new global head quarters of Y&R advertising, doing an artist residency at Clack Collage in Vancouver Washington State, collaborating with women’s wear brand SUNO, working with the hip product design company Aruliden on their award wining Glasscape fishbowl… I could go on but I leave it there for now.” Martin’s talk at Eyeo Festival 2012 http://vimeo.com/47602696 http://vimeo.com/13858937 http://vimeo.com/45145500 Shantell’s website can be found here Full Interview Below ————————————————————————————————————— 1. How did you reach your drawing style? If you were to look back on my older works the style if still very similar, but you can defiantly see that over the past years my style and lines have grown in their confidence and recently also in size. 2. What led you to the digital side of your work – mainly your light drawings? After graduating from Central Saint Martin in 2003, I moved to Japan where there is technology and visuals everywhere. In a way I kind of fell in to it. First the very inderground/avant guard Japanese music scene and then the minimal techno scene where I became a VJ, creating live drawn visuals to DJ’s and musicians. 3. Your work is made in lots of different mediums, I notice you have some coding experiments. Do you try to explore every possible medium with your drawing? I teach a class at NYU called Drawing On Everything and I feel like that about sums it up for me. I’ll draw on everything and with everything be it code, drawing software, with pens on wall, cars people and so on. Let the canvas be limitless. 4. How did you get involved with PSFK? Back in late 2008, early 2009 PSFK started giving me a lot of blog love. They wrote about some of the digital projects I was working on in japan and also the drawing on people stuff too. So when I finally visited New York for the first time I got in touch with them and asked to pop by the office to say hi. It’s been a nice creative friendship since. 5. What future projects do you have planned? Have a bunch of really nice projects coming up this year. I’ll be working with the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, drawing a mural in the new global head quarters of Y&R advertising, doing an artist residency at Clack Collage in Vancouver Washington State, collaborating with women’s wear brand SUNO, working with the hip product design company Aruliden on their award wining Glasscape fishbowl… I could go on but I leave it there for now.