Katy Gunn - My new found superhero!

31.10.10


Upon returning from Quebec, Canada I spend 24 hours in NY without being caught up in the Youtube Play exhibition before returning to Europe. In this layover I hung out with a bunch of cool people counting Monica Cook & Sean Metelerkamp amongst others.

But my favorite encounter of the 24 hrs was undoubtedly the amazing Katy Gunn with whom I spend the entire night debating men as predators and women as prey, superpowers, what makes a good cocktail & how hats smell. She is one of those few people I feel like I have known for years even though my only previous encounter with her was a brief conversation after one of her concerts in Copenhagen about a month ago...

Apart from being my newest old friend she is also a stellar musician and a wonder of a girl radiating a strange magnetic mix of PJ Harvey & Jesca Hoop. Her new album will be out shortly, and I cant emphasize enough how good she is live. So if you have the chance forget about anniversaries, life threatening  illness, heartbreak & favorite tv. Go see her!

This is a poor substitute for reality but nevertheless

Monica Cook and Lindsay Scoggins both send me a link to this blog post from Hrag Vartanian on hyperallergic.com treating the event - featuring me as: "people whom I didn’t recognize" - There is video footage prior to the event and a series of beautiful snapshots from the evening: HERE!

And of course my good friend and allied mr Wolfgang Reimers has been so nice as to make a little something on the wuoau blog, where there is a great picture where I look positively drunk. HERE!

Me entertaining the press (from Hyperallergic.com):



 

And here a further list of blogs and news feeds talking Guggenheim, Bear Untitled & Youtube Play:

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/artattack/2010/10/the_youtubeguggenheim_play_bie.php?page=2


http://archiv.mopo.de/archiv/2010/20101022/deutschland-welt/kultur/youtube_videos_aus_berlin_im_guggenheim_museum.html

http://niger1.com/?p=3514

http://blog.analogsoul.de/?p=2029

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=359398

http://www.globe-m.de/de/boulevard/hund-auf-skateboard-jetzt-offiziell-kunst

http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/youtube-takes-over-the-guggenheim

http://www.rp-online.de/digitale/internet/Das-sind-die-besten-Clips-auf-Youtube_aid_921550.html


http://www.pnn.de/kultur/342651/

Basically they all say the same thing, so it gets old pretty quickly. But now I have them in my archive here on the blog, so I can dwell in my 10 seconds of mentioning on the internet when I'm gray and lonely years from now...

Guggenheim extravaganza - Youtube Play

27.10.10


Last week was such a crazy ride. This post might seem quite chaotic, but even now 5 days further the dust in my brain really havent settled yet - and I am not convinced it will before I get back to Berlin and sit down with my girl and my gang for a beer or two.

What all this fuzz is about is YouTube Play - the first Biennial of creative video arranged by YouTube & the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in cooperation with HP & Intel.

Henrik Sjoerslev`s and my video Bear Untitled appeared on the shortlist about a month ago and last thursday it was revealed as one of the final 25 at a big event at the Guggenheim museum in NY. And what a trip. All 25 of us were flewn in from around the world, picked up at the airport and installed in grandeur at the St Giles Hotel in Manhattan to take part of the event. And everyone stretched to the limit to make us feel welcome.

There is a story from the hotel that summs up the entire experience:
I was standing in the lobby and everything around me was a chaos. Everyone were on the phone, asking me questions replying to the phone to figure out when I had to be where. And I had to go up to my room to fetch a bag. As I got into the elevator this little old lady got in next to me: gray hair and half my hight. And as we started going up she looked at me and with a driven english accent she said: "Excuse me... But are you a rockstar?"

That was basically how it felt. A ton of interviews, good people telling me where to go and what to do, drivers driving me around. I had the pleasure of meeting Stefan Sagmeister and Marilyn Minter, OK GO and a ton of other awesome really cool cats (You know who you are!)

Basically I have so much gratitude towards all the people behind this. I simply cannot thank everybody idividually, but you all know who you are: Youtube, Guggenhein, HP, Intell, the other directors and the David All Group - basically everybody I met on the trip exelled in being so nice to me. (Exept the Curator at the Guggenheim that tackled me for drinking a cola too close to a priceless Picasso, but then again she was only doing her job)

Ill do a post when I get back to Berlin that treats the show a bit more in detail. But for now I just wanted to get the initial gratitude off my chest...

Here is a bit of press from the evening. I havent been able to find it all, but if you stumble across something Id love to get word on it - Apparently Im a press hore:

First of all the emission from youtube that was broadcasted live on the evening worldwide. I havent seen it yet, but I am in there somewhere waving like the queen. CLICK!

The amazing exterieur of the Guggenheim on the evening + an explanation what it is all about:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6987266n

Review from the New York Times: Click here
(Not friendly towards the exhibition, but very positive towards my piece)

I had the pleasure of meeting Van from killahbeez.com. We had a chat about creativity and creation and upon returning he wrote THIS article where he even highlights the Animation Tag Attack.

And a great little spot from N-joy Highlighting Henrik Sjoerslevs amazing sounddesign on the clip: http://www.ndr.de/n-joy/audio47921_podcast-podcast2950.html

Une reportage de la Soiree de Arte:

Go vote!

12.10.10


This is a shoutout to EVERYBODY. Those of you that follows my blog have gotten to know Christina Maria a little bit, and as some of you may know she is one of the last men standing in a big Canadian music competition called the Peak Performance Project.

She is up for winning 105.000,00 Canadian $ - Which would mean a big kick to her career. But she cant do it alone - It would mean 20 seconds of your life, but the world to her if you would go to http://peakperformanceproject.com/vote/ and vote for her.

If you are yet unfamiliar with CM you can check out her page:

http://christinamaria.ca/

Or one of the videos I made for her:

-This is a live clip of her playing "Travel back in time" last spring.

-And here she explains what the PPP is all about.

On top of supporting CM in her quest for fame and fortune (which is much deserved, I don't know many artists that are working so hard for their goals as her) There is also an added bonus for me. Ill let CM tell her by herself: Go here and check 6:10 - 6:25!

Just VOTE!

Croquis

11.10.10


About a month and a half ago I got both my hands infected from too much work, and I haven't really been able to sit in front of a computer since then. They are almost 100% back thank god, but I am passing my time sketching and doodeling and doing some good old 2d animations as well. As part of this retro wave of mine I hooked up with one of my buddies, Peter Ruschel, to go do some croquis. I am quite rusty I must admit, but it is great exercise, and its a nice crowd to hang with...

 Here are a few of my doodles from last weeks sessions...



My girlfriend gave me a black eye...


Just another day with an abusive make-up artist girlfriend...