Super rough/raw footage here, but I think it still manages to showcase how much Erika M Anderson rocks!!!

Her previous project Gowns produced my soundtrack to early 2010 with Red State (thanks to Vince for the tip back then), especially the song Cherylee, a portion of which’s lyrics went into the last Fugue.

I was lucky enough to see EMA perform a couple of weeks back when they passed through Montreal at Quai des Brumes. It was, without a doubt, the second best show I’ve seen all year (the Godspeed shows still win out). Powerful, heart-wrenching stuff. Much to my delight, she even performed a solo version of Cherylee as an encore.

We went through hundreds of zines today from the Expozine archives in preparation for the next issue of Four Minutes to Midnight (details coming soon). Amongst many things, I was struck by the beautiful illustrations of Shawn Kuruneru and wanted to give him a little shout out.

I was interviewed earlier today by Stefan Christoff on Radio is Dead over at CKUT FM. We spoke at length about the role of art and cultural resistance in the face of the conservative politics of Canada.

I feel like I rambled on a bit, but hopefully there’s some interesting/inspiring stuff in there. The interview starts about 19 minutes in.

Radio Is Dead, July 25, on CKUT FM

Below, you’ll find a quick overview of some recent identity and web projects completed by the studio prior to my adventure in Europe. Quality clients and collaborators led to some great projects, and there’s many more coming down the pipeline.

Cinema Politica

Cinema Politica is an amazing international organisation run by Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton out of Montreal that screens independent political documentaries. Over the years they’ve built the largest archive in the world of these films and created an expansive alternative distribution and exhibition network. In updating the site and visual identity, we’ve facilitated access to this archive and created a platform for participants in the network to have a strong, unified voice.

Drupal development by Shane Bill.

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Fuck Death from plasti75 on Vimeo.

I’d been meaning to post this for a while, but I’m only now getting my tech set up back in order after a little computer mishap in Berlin. But it’s really not such a big deal, because Berlin brought me so many good things, among them the chance to meet the wonderful Lotti Thiessen. Her and her partner (aka Cow Heart) produced this beautiful little experiment for us, with Charlotte reading Nettelbeck’s poem Fuck Death, from our last issue Happy Hour.

I’m currently computerless in London right now (my apologies for the lack of images and brevity of this post), but I thought it would be worthwhile to share the news of the BA & FDA Roundabout show at my Alma mater, the London College of Communication. I was at the private view last night, and it was truly overwhelming (as is London in general, I’m finding) with the sheer scale, diversity and spectacle of the event. Not to mention the incredible talent involved!

If you’re in London over the next week, be sure to check it out. I was particularly impressed by the Design for Graphic Communication cohort and the work from the Graphic and Media Design Typo/Graphics course.

Sandbergh Wednesday Lectures poster by Anja Groten

Eurovision 3000 report spread by Anja Groten and Janneke de Rooij

It was such a pleasure to meet these brilliant ladies from the Sandbergh Institute last week in Nijmegen. Check out Anja and Janneke’s work and prepare to be amazed by Dutch design goodness!

If you’re in Amsterdam next month, their diploma show The Future’s so Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades promises to be something special.

The Oddstream festival in Nijmegen brought together an eclectic mix of music, art and education under the loose theme of love and conflict. I’m honoured to have been invited to participate in the festival, helping out with the Memefest workshop and the International Media Training. I met many people during a very intensive week, and have made many new friends. So, first off, many thanks to all those that helped to bring me there, specifically Oliver Vodeb, Doeko Pinxt, and Carola Stahl.

Taking off the rose-tinted glasses for a bit (which is not an easy thing to do considering how much fun I had), it was very unfortunate that more people didn’t turn out. Over the course of the weekend, in front of the stages and on the festival grounds, there was a palpable sense of emptiness. In part this can be attributed to the massive scale of the site, or the electronic music festival that was happening at the same time in Arnhem. As a first festival, this is to be expected I suppose, but it also raises some critical questions, as Sandy Kaltenborn brought up during the Inspiration day. What does this area of “cultural transformation” mean to the city, and what is the festival’s relationship to city marketing and gentrification more generally. Who stays and who goes? It will be an interesting question to ask a few years down the line, if the bills get payed.

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Produced by the international media crew here at Oddstream, including remixes of my work. I’m very honoured. Paulo and I pushed the idea of abstract documentary and holding the shot too long, and I think the end result works really well!