WLDWLVS T-Shirt Launch

Aberdeen website/zine/culture hub WLDWLVS appear to be moving from strength to strength. Not content with providing one of the most snappy, inspiring and internationally relevant portals for modern culture from the North East of Scotland, they recently decided to increase their enterprise into garments - high quality tees using designs from local talent to be more precise. The T-shirts are limited produced and needless to say have been selling fast. To ensure you get ahold of one before it is too late, jump over to the Wild Wolves Big Cartel shop.

T-shirts (1) Craig Barrowman design, (2)WLDWLVS original, (3) Mike Chang design, all from 2012

ROJO affiliated film: Nova

On the rare occasion when I had more than 20 crumpled Euro notes nestling in my pockets while living in Barcelona, the lure of ROJO magazine was often too hard to sway from. From the reassuring Mook (magazine/book) weight of the publication to the inviting documentation of journeys, processes and finished works from artists synonymous to the streets of cities like Barcelona, Buenos Aires or Berlin. Alongside other Spanish publications such as Serie B, Neo 2 and Pasajes Diseno - ROJO played a formative part to my years in Barcelona, inspiring and introducing artists who did not define themselves as solely a product designer, a graphic designer or an architect. Some great news then that they are about to release a film introducing some of these artists. Check the Nova trailer above, directed by Isaac Niemand and featuring music by the excellent Bradien.

Above: Vimeo trailer of Nova. Film directed by Isaac Niemand 2010.

1INA100

1INA100 is a fresh label with Edinburgh roots. Freddie Webb and Aldo Kahane came up with the idea to showcase work from artists through limited edition t-shirt designs. Each garment is silk screen printed by hand, numbered then signed by the contributing artist - giving each item a unique touch and a personal intro to the artists work. The label garnered a healthy wee amount of press at the tail end of 2010 on sites like Dezeen and the online shop/blog/zine Holy Ghost. My better half picked up on the buzz and out-gifted me, as usual, with a delivery of the above design by Nina Lilliebjerg-Heder. Check out Nina's blog for some ethereal snaps. 

images of 1ina100 products: t-shirt design by Nina Lilliebjerg-Heder 2010

Breaking the ice

Street culture, urban expressionism, creative jams - these exist to a minor extent in Oslo but, it's just there does not seem to be any visible showcase or cross field collaboration going on with them. If a tiny paint shop at the back of a night club and one store dedicated to street-affiliated threds and pleasures, Hunting Lodge, is pretty much all there is to show - it cannot be a healthy thing! Or is it going to change.....just recently Oslo based trio Ole, Lars and Martin brought some life and well needed urbaine vigour to the cities artscape with their 'All Bottled Up' exhibition, held in the cavernous confines of a student bar with free beers (near impossible in Norway!) and a live show by synthy new wave Bergen talent Leif. It was a welcome addition to whats (not) going on here and thankfully like the kind of event you would find in cities such as Barcelona or San Francisco. Check out some pics from the exhibition below or read the write up they got on Superfuture.

'All Bottled Up' photos by Alexander Horne, 2010

Scratch It!

Having provided a platform for collaboration between Finnish VJs the Vixen VJs and myself, DJ Uraki Riddim, for the first Transplant Session we decided to go for a similar music and visual combination for Session # 2. Instead of a typical VJ and DJ set-up however, we took influence from an era of hip-hop that produced movements of not only music but dance, art and fashion. Our second session explored the history of the 'Scratch' and intended to reinterpret it's raw essence in a new format. Scratching in a musical sense, is the expression and manipulation of records to make new sounds and rhythms. It is an aspect of turntabilsm, performance DJing, and one of hip-hop's art forms. Other hip-hop art forms include break dancing, street art and MCing. Regular jam sessions brought these four art forms together and it is in this spirit that designer, artist and my work colleague Jan Brauer and I came together to create the 'Scratch' themed night that included an exclusive showing of Doug Pray's excellent documentary film 'Scratch' and first public showcase of Jan Brauer utilizing his scratch board technique live while I spun some classic and new hip-hop, electronica and dub beats.

Hailing originally from near Leipzig and following a working period in New York, Brauer moved to Dale I Sunnfjord on the west coast of Norway to work with Ralston&Bau design studio and Trasnplant's innovation and design center. For the duration of his stay he has attentively developed a unique scratch board technique to further communicate his deep, twisted and occasionally wicked humorous illustrative style. You can check out some images of the stunning final scratch board piece from this night and some of his other work's here. Brauer is also part of a mobile, playful and provocative graphic collective named Gono Gono and you can check out some of their works here.
Photo: Jan Brauer at work during Transplant Sessions #2 by Leon Vaarheim.