Speakers and Events
Persiflage: An Exhibition by Lee Jensen
"Ornament, like dust, is what remains, a reminder of past fancies forgotten; and not just ill-remembered, but abandoned, like a child at a fair, youthful cupidity, print ephemera, old pornography in a cupboard. My work starts in this place, a site of some friction and chafing between worlds. I want to pick up these fragments, bring this "grammar of ornament" into a contemporary context with all its baggage - vapidity, kitsch, the sweet rot of bathos..."
So writes Lee Jensen of his work, an exploration of ornament that tests the tensions between design and fine art. BLOW 09 is proud to exhibit Lee's latest exhibition, Persiflage, a series of five panel drops inspired by "the debris of the day, informed by both 19th century decorative models and Italian early modernist design".
Lee Jensen lectures in typography, graphic design and contextual studies at the College of Creative Arts. In 2006 Lee participated in SATELLITE, an exhibition in Shanghai featuring artists from Asia, Australasia and the Pacific. Other recent exhibits include Walk the Line (2006) at the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery (with Kate Woods), and an installation in The New Dowse in 2007/2008.
Lightbox: An installation by Antony Nevin & Karen Curley
Lightbox is an installation that takes imagery and sound from the Antarctic and presents it to an audience using a room converted into a Camera Obscura. The creation of Antony Nevin and Karen Curley from Massey’s Institute of Communication Design, Lightbox was developed with help from Antarctica New Zealand, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), scientist Anthony Powell and sound artist Servando Barreiro.
They wanted to recreate the effects of the Aurora Australis, which occurs naturally when charged particles riding on solar winds hit the earth’s magnetic field. Inside the Lightbox people are surrounded by imagery that is inverted, refracted and combined through the use of multiple apertures.
A starry field of holes projects the pattern of constellations from the southern sky. As the Aurora Australis glows, the sun rises and sets and the moon races behind Mt Erebus. Lightbox fluxes and moves with a thousand tiny upside-down images of the Antarctic environment.
Lightbox made its debut at the Lightwave Festival in Dublin, Ireland in early 2009, amongst some of the world’s most inspirational scientists, designers and artists working with illumination and light. The Lightbox creates a space for contemplation that encourages any audience to engage with science, the Aurora phenomenon and optics.
Type Talk : Type Walk - The Role of Typography in our Culture
BLOW 09 is proud to host a celebration and exploration of the roles that typography plays in contemporary design, through the eyes of two provocative guest practitioners - Stephen Banham (AU), and Sarah Maxey (NZ). Type Talk is an evening of short, sharp addresses where each designer gives their unique vision of the traditional and emerging roles of typography. Stephen and Sarah will share their views and preoccupations, followed by a casual and compelling panel Q&A. The next day join our tour guides for Type Walk, a stroll through Wellington City’s typographical history and the stories behind the facades. Type Talk - Type Walk will appeal to anyone with an interest in design, typography and their impacts on our culture and surroundings. All welcome to both events.
Type Talk: Stephen Banham (AUS)
Once upon a Times: Typographic Storytelling Stripped to its core, graphic design is the telling of stories.
Through a series of typographic design projects and research, this idea will be playfully explored. Stephen Banham is founder of Letterbox, a typographic studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Rather than writing about how to kern Clarendon Bold at 144 point, Banham’s typographic explorations centre on the social and cultural significance of letterforms.
His 15 publications on typography include the Qwerty series (1991-96), the Ampersand series (1997-2003), Fancy (2004) and the Oblique series (2008–). In 2005 he began a very successful public forum series on typography known as Character. In 2007 Character hosted the Australian premiere screening of “Helvetica”, bringing its director from New York. For the fifth Character (2009) Banham produced the comprehensively researched project Characters and Spaces in partnership with the State of Design Festival. Banham’s design work and writings have appeared in countless international type publications. He has spoken at international design events from Barcelona to Beirut, Qatar to Singapore, New Zealand to New York.
A lecturer in typography since 1991, Banham holds a Masters in Design Research. Banham’s compelling storytelling and energetic stage performance will kick off the Type Talk of this festival.
Type Talk: Sarah Maxey
Sarah Maxey has a degree majoring in textile design, and has worked as a bookseller and graphic designer. She was Design Manager at Bloomsbury Publishing in the UK in the mid-nineties before returning to New Zealand to establish her own studio, Sarah Maxey Design, providing thoughtful design and print solutions for the publishing industry and arts-related projects. She is most known for her award-winning work on literary book covers, often using her own illustration and hand-lettering.
Lately Sarah has been focussing on personal hand-lettering projects, and is represented in Wellington by Bowen Galleries, where she has had two solo shows. She has also exhibited at Lopdell House Gallery in Auckland and in a show of New Zealand book design at Objectspace, curated by Jonty Valentine of The National Grid. In Wellington Sarah has been commissioned by the City Gallery to contribute work to a lightbox installation on Courtenay Place. She is also a Director in Nice Work, a small publishing company producing fine stationery.
Game design, play and sustainability; Aukje Thomassen & Erik Champion
Aukje Thomassen:
Play - as a means for social innovation through design actualization. Design is often the generator for newer means such as exploration, transformation and actualization. We can also see that design provides governance through actualization by opening-up existing networks and transforming them into new structures.
The last years such an empowerment has come through serious games and virtual worlds (Second Life) as well as communication tools (such as chat, wiki, text, youtube). Access and usage of these new tools driven by design have increased profound changes in how content and context are processed by society in their non-linear manner. Combined with Play design is taking the lead in social innovation and sustainability. This presentation will show some examples and will discuss these transitions.
Dr Aukje Thomassen is a Associate Professor and Research Director at Massey university’s Institute of Communication Design in Wellington. Her research focuses on Social Innovation through Design Research with an emphasis on enabling knowledge creation (in particular for Interaction Design/Game Design) within a theoretical framework of Cybernetics.
She also supervises Master and PhD candidates in these areas. Before moving to the Southern Hemisphere she was appointed to direct the PSAU (Professional School of the Arts), a collaborative institute with the University of Utrecht commissioned with external design research projects and leading their Research-Master program on Creative Development. This work extended towards being a direct research advisor for the Dutch Prime Minister on the Creative industries. Within Europe she has set up and run the Interaction Design consortium which resulted in an EU-funded Interaction Design summer course annually held in Istanbul.
Erik Champion:
Erik Champion is an Associate Professor and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies at the Auckland School of Design, Massey University. His most recent supervising and research involved Mac OS-based game design, intermedia/hybrid tactile panorama tables, biofeedback for immersive gameplay, evaluation critique of Virtual Heritage, thematic interfaces, history-based game environments, and warping for projection onto 3D surfaces.
He is a Fulbright scholar, and has won Swedish Institute, Apple WWDC and Australian Research Council scholarships, national and institutional grants, best paper awards, and has been invited to speak in Australia, the United States, Spain, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
A member of ICOMOS ICIP, he is also on the editorial boards of Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting, Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, Gaming and Virtual Worlds, International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (Book Review Co-editor), and Loading. He has or is editing or co-editing special issues of Techné, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Leonardo and the International Journal of Architectural Computing.
Photo credit: Erik Champion.
TYPE WALK: A Stroll Through Wellington City's Typographical History
Join the Type Talk guests of BLOW 09 in an evening stroll through Wellington and see the city like never before.
Residential typographic designers and type connoisseurs will tell the unknown stories behind the facades of the capital streets. Scattered along Wellington's waterfront are concrete slabs with quotes from writers and poets. Corporate names emerge from Art Deco office buildings. History is felt everywhere, sliced with contemporary advertising and street art.
Starting from Massey University the participants will walk down town and enjoy about two hours with their highly competent tour guides.
Type Walk will be recorded and an online view of all interesting spots and their stories will be made available. It’s the first session in a series of workshops to unravel the typographic significance of New Zealand’s capital city. Walk this way!
Jason Munn (USA): Small Stakes, Revisiting the rock poster
Munn’s work exudes a Zen-like serenity, a love of negative space and an almost religious reverence for typeface. Scott Timberg - Los Angeles Times Jason Munn started his career with a love of independent music and design. After studying fine arts at the University of Wisconsin, Menasha, and earning an Associates Degree in Applied Arts from Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Munn packed his bags and moved out west in time to catch the full blast of the dotcom crash. As a result he began designing posters for gigs at a now defunct venue in Berkeley, California, called the Ramp.
By working free of charge and selling the leftover prints he was able to recoup his costs and as the small local bands that played there gathered acclaim, so to did his posters. In 2003 he founded his studio, The Small Stakes, in Oakland, California, where he produces designs for a range of products, including book covers, album packaging, T-shirts, and custom gig posters. BLOW 09 is privileged to present the man behind the posters. Join Jason Munn as he discusses his thoughts on design, music and the influences that have taken him to this point.
Jason Munn (USA): Revisiting The Rock Poster; An Exhibition
In a visually cluttered world - from roadside billboards to the overheated Internet - Munn’s work is cool, detached, almost soothing in its gentle melancholy. Scott Timberg - Los Angeles Times.
Jason Munn, originally hailing from Wisconsin but now based in Oakland, has carved out a following in both the art and indie music scenes. Stemming from these twin loves, his strong concept-driven posters soon became a fixture in the local independent music scene.
With the establishment of The Small Stakes studio in 2003 Munn has gone on to reaffirm himself on the international design stage. Munn’s poster designs place the artist’s unique musical and cultural personality front and centre. Rock poster conventions and cliches become all the more obvious when considered alongside his quiet, fresh (yet strangely canonical) approach.
His works have appeared in numerous books, magazines and exhibitions, and is part of the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
This is a must see opportunity for those who are drawn to the seductive trinity of design, music and popular culture.
Welcome to the Ideas Economy: Giep Hagoort and Jan van Mol
How open source creativity is flipping the script on creative industries.
A quiet assault is being waged on the monopoly that ‘creative industries’ have traditionally held over the generation and commercialisation of creativity. What was recently the domain of the specialised ‘agency’ – the ‘creative partner’ or ‘commissioned artist’ producing creative products – has been opened up to an infinitely wider, more social and less rigidly structured ecology of creativity and innovation.
The key drivers? The internet, economic turmoil and a changing cultural zeitgeist which prizes fluid and non-hierarchical creative dialogue between individuals with common goals and interests.
So how are global industries and creative educators responding to this emerging picture? The College of Creative Arts is proud to present two expert commentators and practitioners in the area of creative entrepreneurship.
Welcome to the Ideas Economy is an evening of expert opinion and discussion pitched at providing practical insights for anyone interested in the emerging creative paradigm, including art and design practitioners, students, managers and public administrators. The evening will consist of two 40 minute seminars, followed by a discussion panel chaired by Associate Professors Chris Bennewith and Aukje Thomassen from Massey’s Institute of Communication Design.
Jan van Mol: Turning Open Source Creativity Into Bottom Line Value
How can global brands and social organisations harness the power of open source creativity to create value in troubled times?
Jan van Mol, founder of Addictlab, presents valuable insights from providing innovation consultancy to some of the world’s leading brands and social marketers. Using case studies from his work with clients as diverse as Lancome, Nike, Diesel, BMW, The City of Rotterdam and the Brussels and Flemish governments, Jan will discuss the ways that transparency, intellectual property and ethical considerations can be managed within the open source creative process.
Addictlab is a creative laboratory uniting thousands of creatives from all over the world and over 30 disciplines (amongst others: fashion, photography, architecture, cooking, design, materials, music, advertising and branding). Jan Van Mol was recently selected by I.D. magazine New York as one of the top 40 undersung heroes influencing the creative industry.
www.addictlab.com
One Night Out: An exhibition by Gerbrand van Melle
A one night exhibition of selected posters designed by Gerbrand for the Dutch pop venue Tivoli over a 20 year period. This rare Dutch design event offers an extensive overview of Gerbrand’s work, from his very first disco poster in 1989 to his last concert poster in 2009.
Tivoli provided a playground to experiment with typographic and visual language and the opportunity to delve into experimental printing techniques. Gerbrand was responsible for the execution of their corporate identity, keeping the venue fresh and vital over two decades of changing musical styles. This working relationship is best viewed in his book ‘18+’, which he published in 2007.
Gerbrand van Melle is a senior lecturer in typography and graphic design at the College of Creative Arts Wellington. His research domain is defined by information design and online music experience. This is a visual journey into sound! Catch you there.
Giep Hagoort: Real World cultural entrepreneurship
Cultural entrepreneurship can be seen as philosophy bringing together ‘discovery’ and ‘exploitation’ within the creative processes. Two freedoms are fundamental to cultural entrepreneurship: artistic freedom and entrepreneurial freedom.
Giep’s engaging talk will explore how artists, designers and other creative professionals are dealing with dilemmas related to the interplay of these two freedoms. He concludes that economic growth, development of creative firms, strategic management and artistic leadership are important priorities in the new creative economy.
Giep Hagoort is professor of Art and Economics at the Utrecht University and the Utrecht School of the Arts. His book Art Management Entrepreneurial Style has been translated in several languages. He is currently leading a EU research project on the entrepreneurial dimension of the cultural and creative industries.
www.hku.nl www.asom.org
Pete Rive: Second Life, A Virtual Workshop
The Gartner Technology Group has predicted that by 2011 80% of all Internet users will have a presence in a virtual world, like Second Life, and already we are seeing a massive take up in social media and 3D virtual environments.
Over the two weeks of the Blow Festival we will introduce you to the inner workings of one of the most exciting, and creative online virtual worlds on the Internet, Second Life. In a series of 3 x 2 hour workshops you will learn the basics of communicating, 3D designing and building and the power of Linden Scripting Language.
You will then complete the workshop by taking part in a focus group that discusses your experience, identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and what further things you can do to improve your creative experience. This focus group will contribute to a unique piece of international research into creative collaboration and innovation in Second Life and will prepare you for an exciting game we are launching following the workshop. Participation is open to any individuals, no experience of Second Life is necessary.
Pete Rive is Founder / CEO of LaunchSite. Pete is a futurist who has been researching and consulting in innovation, knowledge management, and collaboration since 1999. He has over 20 years experience in film and TV production and post-production, and has worked in new media, including virtual reality for the last ten years. He is currently enrolled as a PhD candidate, researching innovation and knowledge collaboration in Second Life.
Pete is a PhD candidate at Victoria University School of Design, his primary supervisor is Associate Professor, Dr. Lalita Rajasingham, from Victoria University's School of Information of Management, and secondary supervisor Associate Professor, Dr. Aukje Thomassen, of Massey University's College of Creative Arts.