The week of June 11-17 was a rainy mess in NYC. My flight from LA took over 18 hours and involved me renting and driving a car from Philly to NY. Together with Heroic, 3RingCircus, Wondermint, and Network I threw a party for the good people who attended the BDA/Promax event. All I can say is prayersdo get answered as the rain forecast miraculously went from 80% chance to 0% on the day of our party.This only matters because the Buildestroy parties usually involve live music and live art. To do these thingsproperly we needed to be outside, on a rooftop, in the middle of Times Square! Check the results:
My crew in NY is strong, so there was a good presence of artists and musicians. Not to mention the industry folks who showed up and had a great time. Open bar usually leads to a good time by all. Thanks to CES, DOZE, CYCLE, and BOUNCE for painting my wall, and MED for illegal Times Square billboard throw ups!
Yeah all this being chained to the computer shit sucks! I prefer to burn the crap out of my hand and breathe molten lead fumes! Here’s my latest stained glass creation: 300 pieces and 400 watts! My good friend Alex Dervin of Network invited me to do my version of the Bus project for the Group show “blood, sweat, and tires.” I wanted to get my major shine on…
My good friend Alain “KET” Mariduena (who happens to be the creator of the best magazine hip hop ever had: STRESS) was brought up on charges related to graffiti in NY. This dude is a NY original subway painter and went on to become very influential as a voice and consultant for the culture. He launched Complex magazine for Ecko as well as helping to keep Ecko “Getting Up” video game on point. He established a publishing company and put out some amazing books on the culture. http://www.fromheretofame.com
He’s a great dad and strong positive Latino figure encouraging youth. He’s facing serious time for aesthetic crimes on circumstantial evidence. Major hard time for graffiti that he was not seen committing…
There’s a major crime going on in your city within 10 blocks of you right now, graffiti is the least of our worries…Most often “graffiti cleanup” is used as a fake ass way for politicians and law enforcement to SEEM as thoughthey are cleaning up CRIME.
To make it worse the politicians in NY have it in for Ecko because of their graffiti video game. So halfof this battle is simply because Ket acted as a consultant to Ecko on a few projects:
This section is all about what Tunes are playing played out in my truck as I sit in LA traffic. This week it’s been a bigDubstep week in the whip. Mostly because I’m still waiting to get the newest Project Groundationmixtape with Pressure which my driving staple. I’m doing the newPGM clothing line this week too. So big tings a gwan!
So Dubstep is the latest mashup music form from the UK. It’s basically Dub music, classic reggae progressions and riddims but with spaced out echoes and tweaking. It takes some of the sound library of Grime and Drum and Bass music and adds that to Dub, which makes for crazy bass and glitchy sounds on top of classic riddims. The DJ’s I like the most are the more Roots Reggae influenced ones like Mrk1 and Juju, who use dub plates of Roots singers like Sizzla over the ill beats. I’ll put up some links and more about Dubstep. People in LA, my boys (SMOG) & (TempleofBoom) throw secret weekly dubstep parties and bigger monthly parties, I’ll link the info soon. In NYC check DUBWAR
First entries into this catagory of motion sickness, really define what I have initially intended this blog for. Inspiration.
Guilherme Marcondes The first piece is by the new Motion Theory Art Director. A Brazilian with a good sense of creating other worlds. Please watch this piece:
…so this is such an emotional and amazing piece. It really captures what I’m after with BUILDESTROY in that it mixes all mediums and creates an amazing new world. The puppet is amazing, photography beautiful, the glowing vegetation, the illustrated characters turning into animals. It’s brilliant, the music, the angles ,the tempo. Masterpiece visually and storywise, turning the city back to the jungle, all things become wild! This piece exudes power. He is one of my top 10 favorite in mograph.
90 Degrees This piece is by 3 french cats. Jules Janaud, Raphael Martinez-Bachel, Francois Roisin. No idea if they have a company together. But just watch this amazing animation. Sound design is equally as stunning in this one. To get to the film you must interact a bit with the blue square, which will make sense after viewing.
….this piece is a very hard thing to do. To show the creation of man and the world in a very cubist and geometric way, is both very difficult and very fitting. They accomplished something so hard to illustrate and did it with so much drama and meaning. When he finally gets connected with his head and he becomes whole it’s triumphant, only to try to exist in an ever changing and complicating world. Brilliant in message, technique, and style. These 2 pieces blew me away.
Big up to my boy John Robson of Late Lunchfor showing me last week.
In the last post I linked to some of David’s sites. He has been a huge inspiration to me over the years ever since Doze introduced me to him. The technique that he developed known as “motion painting”, I have used in a recent network rebrand forLATV. It’s a time lapse technique that I first became involved with in a prior Sesame Street project the year before the one in my last post. I wanted to take the technique even further this time filming all of the painting on green screen so we could isolate the layers and create 3D space. Painting was done by me (STAT7), BOUNCE, TRIXTER, ARIEL, and Marcos Vaz.
David Ellis (SKWerm) also used the technique most recently in the KnowAids PSA (VISFX done by Mass Market):This spot also features long time BUILDESTROY collaborator Doze Green.
I’ve always said that if I was modeling BUILDESTROY after anyone it would be Motion Theory. Simply for the fact that they reinvent themselves and their aesthetic each time and work with fine artists in such an amazing collaborative way. I had a chance to be one of those collaborating artists with them in 2003 and it was great. They mix live action and 3Danimation in a way that shows so much attention and invention. Here’s a new one from them for Modest Mouse with both Guilherme Marcondes and David Ellis involved how could it go wrong? Big shouts to Matthew Cullen!
My good friend David Ellis aka SKWERM of the Barnstormers is a long time collaborative partner of mine. The recreation of his artwork in the video was amazing as is his paitnings, films, and sculptures. Here’s links to his work:
Currently putting the finishing touches on The Grouch’s “Artsy” music video. Should be a youtube favorite, wedecided to remake the most “artsy” commercials and videos. The song is really clownin’ on the hipster sceneso we wanted the visuals to take it even further. It’s been alot of work but coming out real funny. Should be ready to be on the new reel in June.
Also trying to put the finishing touches on the “Ghetto Defender” project with Doze Green’s paintings turned into a 15 minute animation exploration. Easily the best project I’ve ever been able to work on. It took funding it myself to make it happen, but such is art. Lots of super talented audio and visual collaborators, making it happen as well. Look on buildestroy.com for the project to be released sometime in the future..
