(Vid tiden för intervjuen hade jag fortfarande inte bytt till Ushiri)
Min första intervju jag gjort var med Dorateatern. När jag gick till MAF så såg jag att de skulle köra en kort bit ur deras kommande föreställning som var en musikaltolkning av det feministiska proggbandet Röda bönor som jag i flera år tyckt var fantastiska med sin sånger och texter. .
Dessvärre är det lika aktuellt nu som då. Jag såg det och häpnade och kände mig tvungen att göra en intervju med dem via Fontänhuset på 89,2 mhz Malmökanalen på grund av deras fantastiska humor och energi. Mitt livs första intervju och det till råka på med en grupp på 5 personer. Jag är konstnär och kreatör och min konst är bitvis inspirerad av feminism och jämställdhet eftersom det är oerhört viktigt i en tid när konservativa krafter vill dela upp oss igen så det var
Å när jag väl sett Dorateatern spela så frågade jag om jag fick intervjua dem för Malmö lokalradio och de tackade ja. Så då var det bara å sätta sig o skriva frågor å komma på hur man gör en intervju. Jag bara kände att faeen denna ascoola grupp måste fler höra talas om och deras budskap.
Dorateatern bestod/består av från vänster räknat: Frida Gällblad, Mikaela Eriksson,Johanna Sjölinm, Linn Mattsson Tillberg,Agnes Malteson
Först när jag mötte dem på Fontänhuset på väg till studion kändes det som en grupp med tre meter långa kvinnor och jag insåg att jag var starstruck å var så hypad kring intervjuen.
Sen var det en utmaning att inte prata själv för mycket eftersom jag är en babbelkvarn å hade jag råkat göra det så hade det ju underminerat hela poängen med intervjuen.
Alla frågar till intervjuen placerades i asken “Pan…Doras box”, en svenglishfiering av Pandoras box/Pandoras ask
Vår Studiokvinna Jenny här ovan
Baksidan på bokmärkena med deras sjukt coola logo
Bokmärken ovan som jag gjorde till intervjuen som det starstruck faen jag blev av deras oerhört starka humor som gjorde att jag ville göra en intervjuen i första hand med dem.
När pjäsen väl hade release på “Far i hatten” i folkets park Malmö blev jag glatt överraskad att en av originalmedlemmarna Kaya Ålander från Röda bönor kom. Fick hennes autograf 😀 och bad samtliga i Dorateatern signa en poster med.
About an article that sheepowners are worried that a wolfcouple is their new neighbours and will kill the sheep they prefer to kill themselfs. It´s harsh world, kill or be killed. Speechbubble text ” The wolf kill our sheep, those are we supposed to kill, who should we kill now then?”. From an article in the newspaper Skånska dagbladet 13 juli (The daily Scanish if translated, The region is named Skåne and translated internationally to Scania and also a global Swedish sexy truck company).
So we got this man that horribly has been forced to be a dad. If you put uré dick in someone that has a vagina u gotta take that risk aswell. I would also feelt it was fucked up shit to become a dad if I was´nt interested in it but it´s your own fault but it´s shit that can happen. (RED:Hmm…if u wanna have kids write me instead I would love to grow more artists with my genetics if possible…I can post them with express)
Inside of the magazine it´s written as a headline”Men are involuntarily tricked into fatherhood”
In the article he also explains that he wants to push forward a debate where the goal is to discuss “involuntary paternity” which could be an interesting case to follow. But the funny part is what it says in the end of the article at the red cube ” Fredriks name is in reality something completely different”. So if you want to take a stand for what you want, then put youré name to go with the article so it can be taken seriously.
If u got any comments on this please feel to write me and if u wanna do podprogram with this subject with people on both sides…it seems fun and odd.
I wanted to dwell deeper into the musicians that play music created with garbage and asked the project leader Kristin Warfvinge if she could further explain the idea behind it all
Kristin Warfvinge:
” So. Transformera, komponera musicera is a project lead by Kristin Warfvinge (composer), Josef Söreke (composer) and Viktor Auregård (musician). From the beginning it was a series of workshops with building, composing and playing but it has taken many forms. For example we’ve also had exhibitions at gallery molekyl and Malmöfestivalen. At Malmöfestivalen we had a 3 day workshop where we provided a pile of garbage for people passing by to build from. Both adults and children joined in and it all finished with a exhibition in a big glass container and a concert with invited musicians.
Some instruments.
Chaussurine:
This “cello” is made from a shoestand and a kitchen drawer. The stick functions as a lever. The harder you push the lever the tighter the string get and the higher the pitch. The best sound you get from playing with a bow..
Helium-tank-drum
This is a helium tank with tongues sawed out. The different tounges have different pitches.
And here we have a guitar of some sort. It has a. Very practical handle..
Does Transformera Musicera Komponera more concerts planned this year or any happenings ?
They will happen. But they are not yet planned 🙂 just like life it self. There will probably be a concert in collab with gallery molekyl soon.
Ushiri: Transformera Komponera Musicera performed at @molekylgallery in Malmö and I recorded a part of it and also made some lifedrawings when they performed.
USHiRimagazine was there and had the chance to speak with some of the performers namely Viktor Auregård and Kristin Warfvinge. I was told that there been a problem with one of the instruments leaking oil when they tried to rehearse with it so it couldnt be a part of the performance. I also got a special close look by one of the performers with a very cool improvised cello where you could adjust/tune the strings with your foot instead of the bow.
Doing life drawings of other people creating themselfs and also hear their creations is really something. To join them in the same sort of trance when the are on with doing what they love the most, that feeling is really what life is all about. Just existing here and now.
I wrongly wrote Galleri Kalkyl in the artwork, I blame beer for this 🙂
Guests at the Coffee Square in Malmö Möllevångstorget Sweden can expect the very extra if going to the loo (or should we say the loovre?) during their visit. This “rest room” (no, no rest), referred to by many as “the cave toilet”, offers a mix of musketeer romance, high renaissance art and stuffed birds.
We meet up over a couple of beers in a park in central Ängelholm in south Sweden and discussed important things like death, puke and angst..
How does it feel to have left Avocadocat behind you ?
– It feels very very very good because then you can get rid of the unserious ideas which has been hanging around which means I now can focus on the serious.
( Det känns väldigt, väldigt, väldigt bra eftersom nu slipper man ha det oseriösa idéerna hängande efter sig vilket betyder att jag kan fokusera på det seriösa. )
Ushiri & Jonte “Thedöd” Nilssson ( Thanks to randomgirl in park for photo)
Do you think you will make a guestappareance sometime with them? – Ajjemän! ( Sure as hell! ( roughly translated)
You got any new fun musicproject in the works ? / Har du något nytt kul musikprojekt på G?
– The serious stuff I´m referring to is my new project Vomit Hell, which should be a very quick anti-humanity blacks peed metal band, but let´s see how ot goes.
Det seriösa jag syftar på e ju mitt nya projekt Vomit Hell vilket ska bli ett väldigtt fort anti-humanistiskt black speed metal band. Så vi får se hur det blir.
Is there any other bandmembers in it? / Någon annan annan bandmedlem man känner till i det
– Noo, Axel is there nobody that knows about / – Nää axel e det ingen som känner till
Any good Blackmetal band for the uninitiated that you should start listen to? / Finns det några bra Blackmetal band för din oinvigde som man bör lyssna på i första hand?
-My carrot? An orange tall, shaved man, / Min morot? En orange lång, rakad man
(There is also another interview with the sexy Thedöd representing Avocadocat in USHiRimagazine #2 that can be bought at Malmökonsthalls bokhandel. )
We also visited a cool relaxed vinyl record store in Ängelholm, Vinylpågarna. A bit hidden away from the main street were we got a sexy psychadelic bag the have youré records in. But we didn´nt. Big thanks!
Vi besökte även en skön vinylbutik namnad Vinylpågarna som var lite undanskymd där vi fick varsin cool tygpåse som va mega psykedelisk. Stort tack!. We will get back to Vinylpågarna in another article later on that will be written by Anna Karlsson.
Here below is a track he wrote when he was performing in Avocadocat:
A tribute song to Ushiri when they herd about Carrottribe and the strange art he makes.
The new exhibition at the CARROTTRiBE Gallery is all about abstract and expressive colors. The two exhibiting artists, Linus Strömdahl and Julie Blumenberg, tell us a little about their work.
Art by Julie Blumenberg and Linus Strömdahl. Photo: Anna Karlsson
“The visitors can expect amoroso and joyous paintings. If the paintings reflect my inner carrot I guess I have a very varicolored carrot; none with just plain orange, but all of the colors. I have worked very spontaneously, not very thought-through, just gone by feeling. Most of the paintings are made in 2012, 2015 and 2020, some in art classes I attended and some at home. For me painting is a way of expressing myself and canalize energy. It’s very therapeutic; when I paint I see patterns and the contexture of everything.”
Julie:
“I love to exhibit my art and meet people. I’ve had lots of exhibitions planned the last year that have been cancelled due to Covid-19, but here we go, finally! Some four years ago I started painting more abstract instead of doing portraits, which I’d done a lot before. This way I feel I’ve had it easier to find my own style and rhythm. Now I use a lot of colors, including gold, silver and coppar – that unfortunately don’t come out that good here as in the original paintings – , but anyhow… My paintings reflect my inner world, they are really an expression of that. I think we all need to put our conscious thoughts aside sometimes, at least that is something that makes me feel good. And people need colors too, especially in these times. I’ve put titles on my paintings, in Spanish, like “Otoño en fuego”, and some in English too, but I would also like the beholder to come up with their own interpretations.”
The exhibition lasts from July 15th up until August 15th. Opening hours are the same as those of The Vegan Bar.
Meet Andrew Lamb (CAN), the artist and puppet-maker behind the Neighbourhood Watch Project in Toronto, numerous cardboard creatures and lots of other cool stuff
One day in November last year I learned that the top part on your feet are in Spanish not “toes”, but “fingers of foot” (“dedos del pie”). Later in the evening, when lying in bed, trying to name actually all the parts of my body (as was the homework of the Spanish course I attended), I came to think about the anatomy of horses that I studied when making drawings back in the days of my early adolescense. I remembered that the horses’ hocks up on their back legs are sort of their heals. In the same way their front knees are what we would refer to as wrists. In their “splint boon” are degenerated “fingers”. Their hoofs are more or less the tip of the nails.
Calling up professional puppet-maker, puppeteer and artist Andrew Lamb (CAN) for a video conversation on Zoom one Saturday in April, I ask if the echoes of traits usually strike him when making a cardboard Wendiceratops for the visitors of the Royal Ontario Museum, or a roaming beaver puppet for Canada Day celebrators in the City of Mississauga, or a zoot-suit wearing praying mantis stomping the streets during the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2015 Massive fundraiser and other events in Toronto.
I love cardboard because it is cheap, easy to work with, strong for its weight and is fairly environmentally friendly. It also burns, which is a fun thing to do once the puppet has lived its life.
Andrew Lamb (CAN)
Not really, it turns out, although he is very aware of for example the function of joints, the concepts of balance and sympathetic movement, combined with different kinds of hardware. But in the end, he’s rather unsentimental about his creations.
“I prefer my work to be cheap to make, free to see and furthermore to be seen unintentionally. I love cardboard because it is cheap (often free), easy to work with, strong for its weight and is fairly environmentally friendly. It also burns, which is a fun thing to do with some friends a night at the beach, once the puppet has lived its life”.
“Really?”
“Yeah, haha. One thing you discover when working with these things is that they take up a lot of space, and space is at a premium in cities. It becomes a pain to find new homes for them, as I am only working out of a two car garage.”
The echoes of traits I was talking about earlier is probably the concept of genetic coherence, he says. Which, true, is the case, at least to some extent.
Genetic coherence, which is the evolutionary principle involved in the linear evolution of anagenesis, where you have a gradual evolution of a species and the species continue to make babies with each other, as in opposition to cladogenesis, where you have a split and eventually end up with new species.
Once you produce it, it goes out and does its own thing, interacts with the world and people, is interpreted and loved or hated.
Even if humans and horses, along with for example cats, beavers and even dinosaurs, share the notion of a “hand”, used for whatever purpose: walking, gripping or creating art, they are of course seen as different species (although horse brothels were running in Denmark up until not so long ago. But that is a different story, I believe).
Researchers used to debate whether present day humans originate from Africa or from Afro-Eurasia, with respects taken to the afore-mentioned aspects.
In our current technology-infused reality, it could – if one is free to muse – perhaps be interesting to discuss how much “artificial” influence is possible before humans turn into a new species? An artificial cardiac pacemaker is ok. Micro-robots swimming through blood vessels delivering drugs. Electrical limbs in contact with finger stumps. Microchip implants. Interacting with Siris or Liza and Hannah.
Andrew Lamb says he is kind of interested in Theo Jansen (NLD), who in 1990 began building large skeletons out of yellow plastic tubes from Dutch electricity pipes, and named them strandbeesten(“beach animals”). The animals are able to move on their own with the help of energy from the wind. Theo Jansen is cited on his homepage, saying: “By developing this evolution, I hope to become wiser in the understanding of existing nature by encountering myself the problems of the real Creator.”
(Editor’s note: This is perhaps a more humble form of juxtaposing yourself with a higher power. Another standpoint, the one in the old notion that artists can be directly influenced or even steered by a higher power will be discussed in a coming review of Lars Krantz’s (SWE) comic fanzine Dark Chocolat. Check the page in the coming weeks if you’re interested in that!)
Theo Jansen’s way of seeing his strandbeesten as a new life form is kind of fun, thinks Andrew Lamb.
“At least as much as it applies to the idea of artwork as much as animals. Once you produce it, it goes out and does its own thing, interacts with the world and people, is interpreted and loved or hated, and so on.”
His interest in making puppets came when he, as a teenager fighting with his parents and don’t wanting to go to school, ended up volunteering at a small theatre, by which he could get school credits without having to go to class.
“I met a woman there who built props for a living, and I remember one morning while making a bow and arrows for “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”, deciding this would be a career that would be the least like actually work I could find. Which was foolish, because working in entertainment is often, really long hours and can be demanding. It is a case study on creating meaning in life I guess, because for the first time I was focusing and trying to get better at something. The ideal of quality and craftsmanship started to grow in my mind. In a round about way, I found meaning in my life through a trade by trying to avoid finding a “real job.”
Today, about ninety percent of his professional life is making puppets for musicals, touring shows and cruise ships. This job pays most of his bills. Beside this he also does a little of puppetteering, and various art projects.
Making a puppet for a musical requires or building a cardboard mantis for a street event is pretty much the same thing if speaking of skills and techniques. In terms of content, or meaning,though, they are two different things.
“Most of the puppets I’ve built don’t have much meaning behind them, they are just pleasing and entertaining to watch, which is totally fine and great on it’s own. Other projects of mine though, none of which have really been puppet based, tend to carry more meaning or have some reason behind them, even if it is a simple one.”
One of his most interesting and unique projects, if choosing himself, was the project that made him break through as an artist back in 2012; the Neighbourhood Watch Project. This was an installation in which he refaced “This Community Protected” municipal signs in Toronto with Mulder and Scully, Baby Yoda, My Little Pony, He-man and other cartoons’ and cult television series’ heroes from his 80’s and 90’s childhood. The project spread well through the, at the time, rather new phenomenom Instagram.
“It lent itself well to people sharing images and hash tagging them. The whole thing had a scavenger hunt aspect to it” he says.
Growing up in Toronto, Andrew Lamb had no formal training in art and he wasn’t, according to himself, raised in a very artistic household. He became kind of absorbed in the mashed up surfer, skateboard, biker and comic book aesthetics of the lowbrow style, an underground art movement that emerged in the Los Angeles area of California in the late 1960’s.
“As a younger person I was intimidated by conceptual art or “high” art, I felt like I needed a university degree to understand artistic statements I was reading, or to even talk about art. The lowbrow style seemed kind of approachable, something I could do.”
He saw a lot of other art as devoid of humour, while finding it in spades in lowbrow.
“Also I guess the aesthetic is kind of childish and easy to get; it’s very direct.
Beside lowbrow he was also interested in culture jamming; ideological based manipulations of massmedia and advertising for example, transformations of public messages or well-known logotypes, to “expose the methods of domination” of a mass society.
The appeal to him with the Neighbourhood Watch Project wasn’t perhaps primarly to expose methods of domination, but rather just to make people happy, which he said to a reporter in Vice in 2014.
“Haha yeah, that sounds really corny to me now too, but yes, give the people bread and circus. Maybe not to be happy, but to be entertained is important.”
And people became entertained; Lamb received lots of love and appreciation from everywhere for his work.
“The media attention really caught me off guard, I didn’t even have a website at the time, or really any explanation for why I was doing it. But I think that’s what people liked about it, the anonymity of it coupled with the superhero theme. The fact that these signs seemed like a relic of another generation but the connectedness of the entire thing across a city.”
He worked with the Neighbourhood Watch Project for approxiamately six years. Some of the signs looked decent for years, he says, others peeled off in a few months.
“I’m not sure if any of them are still visible, as I have moved from Toronto. It eventually became creatively uninteresting and then, unfulfilling for me. I am prone to living in the past in my own mind, and that the project deals with nostalgia started to wear on me. The larger idea was always primary in my mind: the project as a city wide installation of unique signs, each neighbourhood or street having its own protector. Although I enjoyed the ritual of putting the signs up and curating the individual images, once the original idea was widely understood, which probably happened in the first couple years, it became more maintenance than a creative outlet.”
If anything ties all my work together, it is trying to break the rigid structure of life with some sort of intervention.
The past year has been a lot about renovating his new house in Hamilton, outside of Toronto. A few months before the pandemic and a subsequent insane inflation in housing prices all over the country, he managed to get a hold of a rough but beautiful piece for a reasonable cost. He now knows how to fix plaster walls and has also started thinking of a mural painting on the back of his garage. But apart from that, and the production of some stickers, he hasn’t done very much of creative or artistic work over the last couple of months, he says.
“I am still not sure about what kind of artist I am or how to define myself. Puppet maker? Artist? If anything ties all my work together though, regardless of meaning or form, it is trying to break the rigid and planned structure of life and work with some sort of intervention. I realize that might sound like a vapid Peter Pan type goal, but it still rings true to me. I’ve always loved stickers, especially ones that are unique. Like the kind you would find in a truck stop vending machine, that you would probably never see again. I like graffiti and stickers and the idea of competition for public and mental space.”
If speaking generally, he thinks it’s easier to get out with the things you want to say today.
“Even if some of the channels like Instagram or Facebook are kind of mediated and have their way of how you communicate and what the algorithm prioritizes. It’s no longer like it was in the beginning when anyone would make just a random website which looked like nothing else. I think artists often prioritize social media over having your own website now, which is unfortunate. The internet was supposed to be an open space, and was like the wild west for a while, anything goes. It seems we have given ourselves over to being organized and sorted by tech companies, I get it, there are really positive aspects of them, it’s much easier to find new artists or have them suggested to you, no coding, no hosting fees, but there is something in the constant hustle and visible follower metrics for comparison that is certainly unhealthy for peoples mental well-being.”
The current COVID-19 pandemic has had different implications for art professionals around the world. Some haven’t been able to work much at all, others have found completely new venues, and some have expanded their online presence, in an attempt to reach the audience. What the pandemic will do for artists, or for art itself, in the long run, Andrew Lamb isn’t sure of.
“Obviously this is a strange time with the pandemic, but I suppose that will return to normal eventually. I think the bigger long term change is with social media and the decentralization of media and information and that has been happening for the last 10 years or longer. I’m not sure what this means for art collectors or art institutions, but it has certainly has changed things for pop art and commercial, small scale producer art, easier exposure, marketing and easier to sell your own art. Especially now with NFT’s apparently for digital art. But I suppose its still difficult to stand out in this large social media jungle, everyone wants your attention.” 🥕
Andrew Lamb with the Running Rabbit puppet. Photo: @dcmism
More on dinosaurs on ushiri.com
USHiRi Magazine got a drawing of a Tricarrotops recently, made by the artist Harenheit. This veggie-horned reptile must have some sort of relation to the Wendiceratops that Lamb interpreted for the Royal Ontario Museum (see top of article), we believe. There is no current research on it (at least what we’ve found), but after having examined its features we think there is a possibility at least for a matter of maybe second cousins?
Anyway, next week we’ll try to get under its skin to see if we can reveal some of its secrets. Look out for that!
USHiRi art 