My little book of buisness.

Before my trip to New york I ran out of business cards (Or at least nice ones). I didn't have time to get new ones printed, so upon leaving I borrowed a saw from one of my friends and sawed up a small sketchbook in 3 parts - So all along the trip I basically produced business cards on the fly every time I had a moment to spare. Most of them were just silly random stuff that came to mind, but everyone took such a pleasure in picking out the exact right one for them. And I've never felt so much gratitude from giving out business cards as with this little booklet. Each card is a small personal piece of art, I guess.

My sister is part of an amazing store called Højkant back in Denmark (Århus), where they sell amazing handmade art & design. I have had a few prints for sale there over the times, but with inspiration in the business card book I recently sat down and created a series of aquarells based on my favorite motives on the cards... Here are a few. If you are interested in purchasing one of the original drawings, please get in contact with either me or one of the good girls in Højkant. Christmas is around the corner, and there are some nice motives amongst them for your loved ones.

Barcelona - Untitled BCN - round #1

I am currently cleaning up my desktop and fell over a folder with my photographs from the collective exhibition I participated in at the Untitled BCN gallery in Barcelona about a year ago. For all you good souls (Probably most of you) who doesn't have any clue; I exhibited a series of UV-sensitive paintings. You can see my pre-Barcelona presentation of the paintings HERE. Following are a series of snapshots from the trip - mostly from the opening night:

Here I'm hanging with Sebastien Mansfield a good friend of mine and an amazing artist. Unfortunately He doesn't have a homepage, but he turns out strange, surreal, Joe Sorren'esque paintings by the hour.

And finally a snapshot of Jess & Xavi, the two gallery owners, behind the legendary courtyard bar. (They make epic Mojitos). Every time I leave those cats in Barcelona I feel like flipping around and straight up returning there. It is a pleasure every time I'm back.

Doing Layouts by day - Paintings by night

Once again I am insomniac, So I'm killing my late nights and early mornings with painting.

Croquis

Space rocket poster design - Making of

After we left the Copenhagen Suborbitals building site (see previous post here), I was so fired up with inspiration by the ingenuity of Peter and Kristian that I promptly started doodling in my sketchbook; hell bound on making a small poster as a tribute to the grandeur of the project. During a trip to my girlfriends parents in Holland we went to see the famed stained glass windows in the Sint-Janskerk in Gouda - and there in the church I got an epiphany inspired by one of the gorgeous led framed windows: Instead of only illustrate it. I could build the poster motif in cotton and wood...

These are some of the poster doodles in my sketchbook. I was about to base my design on the ones encircled in red.On the way back from the church I doodled the part marked: "After Gouda I drew this"

And this is the window that inspired the final design:

A few weeks later I went to my parents place. They have an amazing farm in the northern part of Denmark, with a lot of space, tools and excess wood (& love). Ideal conditions to embark on projects like this. And I got busy on building the skeleton, and rolling the cotton balls. Yes, I spend 2 days rolling cotton balls and sewing them together. This is the top of the rocket while assembling:

 Please notice the holes in the top board. In order to create the lighting conditions in the cotton smoke, I borrowed one of my fathers Christmas light chains and used it to set a skylight.

 Heres a quick and dirty turnaround of the finished rocket (Before i prolonged its height for the finished shot):



And then it was basically just to play around with the lights in order to find the most dramatic lighting for the project. I ended up using my old Nokia 3200 Cellphone as an additional lightsource to create the cool blue light in contrast to the glowing yellow. Here are some lighting examples:

 And here is my dear mother supervising the project (I use her for scale). She is wearing the obligatory make-belief safety goggles:

And here it is once more; The finished bi-product of my endeavors:

The space race poster child.

My very own handmade Copenhagen Suborbitals poster (Click picture for larger scale).

It sounds like the ramblings of a crazy man, but 2 guys in Copenhagen are currently building a non-profit spacecraft in a shed at the outskirts of the city. Their plan is to send a manned vessel into space within the next couple of years. 

I know one of the guys, Kristian Von Bengtson, very superficially through Copenhagen Bombay and his wife, director Karla von Bengtson, with whom I had the pleasure of working this summer. Through that link I had the great pleasure of stopping by their work site where Kristian showed us around and told us about this crazy project in detail. I must admit that it has been a long time ago I was this fascinated by a project. It was like being 9 years old again and taken through one of your favorite Donald Duck stories.

Everything in that shed just blew my mind. First of all 2 guys decide that they want to send a human being into space, and just get started building a rocket. To be fair to this story I should mention that  & Kristian is a spacial engineer and used to work for NASA where he amongst other things build lunar landers and helped create their design manuals & Peter Madsen previously build his own submarine (3 actually).

Kristian told about the process of building a rocket out of things from your local hardware store. Yes the rocket is build out of old washing machine parts and pieces of blow driers etc. The heat shield for instance consists of super glue, some cork floor tiles and plastic wrap.

The nature, scale and ingenuity of the project makes it quite cheap compared to traditional space projects (the initial test launch is calculated to cost around 50.000 €). The project is funded by private donations and companies + art funds.


But don't take my word for it. Got to their homepage, check it out, donate, get exited and share it with your friends. Initiatives like this are so worth sharing:

http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/index.php

After my visit to the work site, I was so on fire with enthusiasm that I was ready to pull on a jumpsuit and get busy welding for those guys. Soon realizing that that probably would end in disaster for the Astronaut to be and his family, I decided to make them a poster instead.

It took me all and all about 4 days to create the poster. The motif is build out of wood, cotton and one of my fathers traditional Christmas light chains. Ill post a little making of segment elaborating further on the process behind building a jet stream in my parents garage a little later.

Interview with Canal+

Here's a link to a very early morning interview I made with L'Oeil de Links on french Canal+ about the Guggenheim experience, the cooperation of the Animation Tag Attack, and how to create things in a hurry. Go HERE and check out from 11:00!

Animation Tag Attack - Episode 10

We reached episode 10 on our strange little epic. Made by Mikey Please in Paper. If you are unfamiliar with the project please go to the project blog and read all about it and see all the episodes. Hosted by me and created by cool cats from all around the world... But for now dwindle on Mikey Please and the energy Bear/Duck:



ATA- Episode 10 from Animation Tag Attack on Vimeo.

Test #3: Il Tempo Gigante - Woven Wings

Rolf is one of the most amazing musicians I know, and it doesn't matter if he's alone on stage or together with his full 10 - 15 person setup. He never seizes to amaze me. A part from being one of the sweetest persons I know, he excels in his musical expression and he lives every tone of the music he delivers.

We shot his video in his rehearsal room in Copenhagen a late afternoon a few months back. As with the other videos we shot both picture & sound live on the spot, unfortunately we couldn't get the output from the mixer so the sound on the video is the room recorded with my little Zoom H2N. So I apologize that the mix and levels aren't 100% on the sound - But it adds to the live presence of the clip and thanks to the grandeur of Il Tempo Gigante, I think it catches every bit of nerve in the performance.

The song is the opening tune from his latest album, "Lost something good". If you like the music on this video I cannot emphasize enough how amazing the studio version is. It is one of my favorite albums of 2010 - so go peak a listen and enrich your music collection. It is worth every penny:

itunes.apple.com/​dk/​album/​lost-something-good/​id375642109
And of course the Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/iltempogigantes

8 minutes in the presence of Rolf & Il Tempo Gigante; Blow it up full screen and put on your headphones. It doesn't get better than this:



Il Tempo Gigante - Woven Wings from Christen Bach on Vimeo.