Tag: lifestyle

They'd hate me for saying it, but Danish four-piece Iceage are the sexiest thing to happen to punk in forever. The band play loud and fast, with the violent, trance-like body-flinging of frontman Elias Bender Rnnenfelt seeming the all the more vital when backed with the understated stage presence anddeft musicianshipof Johan Surrballe Wieth, Dan Kjr Nielsen and Jakob Tvilling Pless. Iceage's new albumYou're Nothingis a wildly diverse and unexpectedly catchy ride through post-punk, hardcore and experimental noise with strikingly imagistic lyrics that hit like a bullet. In the remarkable new track 'Awake', Elias launches from throbbing riffs into an unsettling deeply-intoned monologue:"The walls began to crack/ They launched the guns at their sons heads."

Much has been made of the supposedly fascist undertones the of the band's work:Wieth has a tattoo of equally controversial80s neofolk bandDeath In June's Whip-Handlogotheinterlocking letters of their ownband symbol form a cultish geometry.At Iceage gigs, collected fans pump their fists atRnnenfelt – as attendees of punk gigs have done at every show since1978.If Iceage's first albumNew Brigadewas their statement of intent in 2-minute throttling blasts, thenYou're Nothingis the sound of the band widening their view and finding just as much fear, hope, and lust. And while theirvision is often unpretty - even sinister - it's far from the F-word.

A lot of the time anger is directed inwards. But onYou're Nothing,for every lyric like"If I could/ leave my body then I would/ Bleed into a lake/Dashing away/ Disappear"there's an optimistic payoff, like in 'Ecstasy', where Rnnenfelt sings of being"adorned in carnal ecstasy… A mere blow of wind could turn me into light."There's an urgent and ever-quickening pulse beneath the bloody knuckles as they self-assuredly articulate their message. Iceage are a band to believe in - you can even buy the pinbadgeto declare it.

DD: Your new album's calledYou're Nothing. Who's that sentiment directed at?

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: Both the way you see other people sometimes, but also how things can feel like nothing in a certain light. It's written from a personal point of view. It's not pointed at a specific person, it's more of an emotion.

DD: My favourite track on the album is 'Morals'. The use of piano is new for the band.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: I don't know how conscious it was. There's not really any boundaries when you write, and sometimes it goes in unexpected places. That song is inspired by an old Italian singer called Mina. I can't remember how I found out about her, but I was listening to a lot of old Italian music, and I found a song of hers, and 'Morals' is kind of based on the piano that song.I think she might be singing "someone like you", which is a lyric in the song.

DD: Do you think there's a lack of morals in society, or in people you observe?

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: Yeah, just in surroundings. It's not necessarily written from a political view, but more of human view. It's more about self-respect, when people are insincere and stuff like that. I write most of the lyrics but we all contribute.

DD: I love the monologue in 'Awake' -"The fire broke out, we were running the night" -and then there's the sound of glass breaking.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: It's partly about society, but also that lyric is also very much about imagery. Those lyrics are quite theatrical. We were trying rock opera. [laughs] I guess it's our 'Bohemian Rapsody'.

DD: Is it tongue-in-cheek?

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: No.

Dan Kjr Nielsen: I guess the lyrics are a bit about the walls of society, however that may sound.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: Just the boundaries and stuff. Not actual walls. The state, and institutions in general.

Dan Kjr Nielsen: If we need to smash a glass to have a revolution…? It's a big question to answer. We're not really a political band.

DD: I read that you refer to your fans as victims. How come?

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: That's a thing that keeps getting misinterpreted again and again. We get asked about it a lot, but people don't really seem to get it. On a blog ages ago, there was a friend of ours who got pushed into a pit, and got seven stitches or something, and he had a picture there that said "Victim". It's not anything that we thought that much about. Obviously we don't see our fans as victims.

DD: Do you feel differently about this new album to your first,New Brigade(2011)?

Dan Kjr Nielsen: Yeah. I think there's more going on. We've tried to do more things, and not to be restricting ourselves.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: I think it's much better.

DD: Is it true that you took your name from the Warsaw song 'Living In The Ice Age'?

Dan Kjr Nielsen: No. We were brainstorming words.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: It sounded like a band name. We thought it was kind of stupid to call ourselves Ice Age, 'cause we don't wanna be associated with the Ice Age! So we spelled it in one word.

DD: Elias, your presence onstage seems quite trance-like. Does it feel that way to you?

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: Sometimes. If it's a good show, I guess I sometimes forget about what I'm doing.

DD: There was a lot of body contact too, it seemed like an intimate experience

Dan Kjr Nielsen: We're working together. We have a brotherly relationship.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: We've known each other for a really long time. I started hanging out with these guys since I was 11 or 12 or something. We just grew up in the same neighbourhood.

Dan Kjr Nielsen: Johan was in my class since we were six years old.

DD: What were you listening to at six years old?

Dan Kjr Nielsen: Kids' music. Michael Jackson. Me and my mother shared a Spice Girls CD, but I would only listen to it when she put it on.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: I don't think I cared that much for music back then.

Dan Kjr Nielsen: My father taught me to like KISS, but I mostly just looked at them.

DD: Well, KISS put on a great show. Is it important to you to put on a great live experience?

Dan Kjr Nielsen: Well, if itisa great live experience! Sometimes it is pretty shit. We're not a band you can rely on. Sometimes everything falls apart and it's nothing, and sometimes it's like we're the greatest band in the world.

DD: Who's your dream band to play with.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: Ah, we like to play with our friends.

Dan Kjr Nielsen: (deadpans) KISS!

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: We decided one time to do support shows for Fucked Up, but we weren't really into it. We'd rather do our own thing and maybe play for less people, but at least we're playing forourpeople.

DD: Elias, what your influences in terms of literature?

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: I like writers like George Bataille, The Story of the Eye. There are a couple of references to that in our lyrics. I think I was reading it around these guys - we all took turns to read it.

Dan Kjr Nielsen: (grins) It's a pretty dirty book.

Elias Bender Rnnenfelt: Yukio Mishima, and Jean Genet is awesome. I've read The Thief's Journal and now I'm reading The Miracle of the Rose.

Christopher Kane recently sold 51% of his company to PPR, the group with Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney in its brand portfolio. Yes, we're talking the highest fashion echelon, but take a minute to pay attention to those last two names: Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. At the turn of the millennium, they too were brands, like Kane, held in place by a glass ceiling of funding and resources. Until PPR came along, did the 51%, and voila----a decade later there were two British supers battling Italian and French houses.

This is what, excitingly, lies ahead for Kane, who will be able to develop his label, and place an all-encompassing context around his clothes, culminating in own-brand stores.

If you're wondering how he addressed that through his collection, it was by employing a thumping, relentless soundtrack, and opening with major SAGA fur pieces that could rival any European house. If that got people talking about a 'change, then sending out mini kilts – a nod to his Scottish roots – was Kane telling us he's doing it his way.

The entrance was underscored by a collection that made use of Kane's archive, with dresses that ghosted the silhouettes of his earliest lace/leather/velvet collections, made even further luxe. One motif on a sweater and dress appeared to show a lightning bolt breaking through a skull, and touching the brain: literally mind-blowing.

It all happened in a shiny, glass City venue. First, we took an escalator, and then, a lift god-knows-how-many floors up. We were literally sky-high. Soon Kane will be too.

Hair: Guido Palau

Makeup: Lucia Pieroni

Models pictured: Katlin Aas (@AasKatlin), Marine Deleeuw (@DeleeuwMarine), Elinor Weedon (@ElinorWeedon), Anika Torsing (@anikatorsing), Sam Rollinson (@SamRollinson), Catherine McNeil (@MeowcatMccat), Julia Frauche (@Juliafrauche), Juliana Schurig (@juliana_schurig), Nadja Bender (@NadjaBender), Manon Leloup (@ManonLeLoup), Kirsi Pyrhonen (@KirsiPyrhonen), Jourdan Dunn (@misshourdandunn), Senait Gidey (@Senaitgidey)

Under theVienna Convention on Diplomatic RelationsArticle 9, ahoststate may at any time and without having to explain its decision declare any member of a diplomatic staffpersona non grata.It's a mystery whyArte Povera -the political art movement from Italy which was myguestofhonour during Paris Mens' shows - was sent to the United States, yet, progressively putrescent by nature, the lettucestructure that's cropped upatCreatures of Comfortwill soon lose its diplomaticimmunity and bedeclarednongratalike any inedible lettuce in microwaved hamburgers. Consequently, in the States, organics will be replaced with mechanics:

Costello TagliapietraandDouglas HannantsetHenry Moorein motion."Undoubtedly the source of my stringed figures was the Science Museum. Whilst a student at the Royal College of Art, I became involved in machine art, which in those days had its place in modern art. Although I was interested in the work of Lger, and the Futurists, who exploited mechanical forms, I was never directly influenced by machinery as such. Its interest for me lies in its capacity for movement, which after all, is its function." tellsHenry Moore in the bookHenry Spencer Moore, New York 1968, p.105 .

AtLacoste, movement continues skywards withPanamarenko's Aeromodeller. A close-up of its nacelle can be seen atEdun,whileTimo Weilandshowcases its would-beIBMflight log."My projects are not exactly ideas, nor dreams.It isn't a question of making a plane but of exactly producing something that is an ideal. It's enjoyable, even if I never actually fly it. For me, its success lies in the realization of the dream, and it's strangely tied to failure",tellsPanamarenko.Indeed,Aeromodeller never managed to make it to the skies, but Roman Ondakhassuccessfully landed atDonna Karanwith his'After Return from the Orbit'. And as for that Arte Povera lettuce...Along with aBand of Outsiders,it's currentlybeing driven back to JFK International airportonNam June Paik's Electronic Super Highway.

Creatures of The Wind's Shane Gabier and Chris Peters, Chicago's finest, are big on the mood and feeling, their story not about one garment but how it all segues together to create a bigger picture. Styled by Dazed & Confused's fashion editor Emma Wyman, enjoy this beauty transformation during prep for the show as a taster, and come back tomorrow for the collection report.

TRIBUTE, the series of short films about youth selected and produced by cult rising film directors AG Rojas and Vince Haycock's firm MAINLINE, has been debuting on Dazed for the last two months. Featured so far have been the films of Matt Lambert and Focus Creeps, and debuting this morning is the work of AG himself.

Shot in Taft, California, AG's Cody continues his vein of lyrical, poetic and complex narratives about youth outsiders. This time, though, it's an all too real tale of youth and reticence he documents, and you can watch it exclusivelyabove, and let us know what you think on Youtube.

Interview taken from the February issue of Dazed & Confused:

A mathematician’s son, Ivan Poupyrev left his homeland following the collapse of the Soviet Union and divided his time between Washington and Japan, where he earned a doctorate from Hiroshima University. After an eight-year stint with Sony’s Tokyo labs he moved to Pittsburgh to take up a senior post with Disney Research, where he dreams up the interfaces of the future. Poupyrev works in physical computing, making responsive interfaces out of unexpected objects. His Botanicus Interacticus transforms ordinary house plants into touch-sensitive musical instruments through the magic of Touché sensing technology. Mathematical wizardry enables Touché to add gesture control to any object that conducts electricity – so secret gestures can unlock doorknobs too. Revel was a similarly lo-fi stroke of genius; by manipulating our bodies’ electrostatic fields, it lets our hands feel computer-generated textures. An image of a ball can feel rubbery, sand gritty and pebbles smooth.

What drew you to touch-based technology?

We can completely control data and conjure any image or sound we want from it; there are no limitations to what we can create visually. But the sense of touch is really lacking from these creations. You can’t really feel it, touch its texture, wrap your hands around it. That’s a huge lack – touch is an important part of how we experience life. So my idea is to bring the virtual into the palpable realm. Maybe you can shape soundwaves with your hands, feel light falling on your hands, or grasp objects you can’t normally see with your eyes.

What’s the difference between physical computing and ‘the internet of things’?

They all refer to the same vision of the future but come at it from different angles. The internet of things is focused on objects talking to each other over wi-fi, for example. Whereas I approach this vision of the future by making the world an interface. I did my PhD in virtual reality – I was fascinated by creating completely artificial environments you become immersed in, where anything is possible. Physical computing brings qualities of the computer into physical reality.

If you could only use storytelling or technology to enhance reality, which would you choose?

The original storytelling pretty much used narrative alone. A narrator takes you through the story step-by-step and you are essentially passive. But computer games opened storytelling right up. With video games you are an actor in the story unfolding in front of you. A compelling story will remain really important but technology gives you a greater sense of immersion. Your actions have consequences, and that fosters a far stronger emotional connection.

What other things extend the technology of storytelling?

If you imagine what the ultimate game could be – with no limitations on your imagination – then it would be your own life. If you could live your life, then load it from level one (i.e. your birth), that would be awesome! We can approximate elements of this ultimate game with wearable technology: as you go through your day, it changes your experiences according to a certain narrative, and this narrative becomes part of your real life. This idea of thinking about the ultimate experience first, then stepping back and approximating it with what we have to hand, is how I work.

So what’s the future of entertainment?

Entertainment used to be a confined experience, one-on-one with a book or sat in front of a TV. It was bound to one particular place: the theatre or cinema. Mobile devices changed the game, so the next step is to connect to the real-world environment, and the next step after that is to enhance your real-world environment. I think the next technological revolution will be in merging the physical and the digital. Simplicity is key to this. Back in the 60s, if you wanted to own a car you needed to be a part-time mechanic to maintain it. Now cars just work, they’re simple. I think that same transition needs to happen with the technologies that connect the real world to the digital.

Augmented reality is technology that merges the digital with the physical. Kevin Slavin famously criticised its visual bias and said ‘reality is augmented when it feels different’. Do you agree?

I can see both sides of the argument. Realism, by itself, is boring. When the artist can inject their very personal view of the world, morph the world and objects within it in a way that reflects how they feel about the world, that’s when things become interesting. That’s why cartoons are compelling. The resurgence of 8-bit graphics is also related to this. Bitmapped graphics enable a purity of expression: when you’ve got a limited palette, every pixel matters. Things become interesting when you can create experiences you cannot experience in the real world. That’s what fascinates me.

Brian Eno famously complained about the imprisoning nature of computer interaction. he said, ‘how does one Africanise, or Brazilianise, or otherwise liberate a computer?’

I’m with Brian Eno 100 per cent on that! Liberating yourself from the screen was exactly why I got into virtual reality in the first place. But computers themselves are a culture. For the original supercomputer designers, the idea that you would use a machine of that power to play games on would be outrageous! That way of thinking about computing as a serious tool to do serious business is still very strong. It’s less about west vs east, but it’s a historical legacy of how computers came to be.

Where do you look for inspiration?

I’m always looking at trends. I want to see the seeds of what is happening, not the results. Printed electronics really interest me at the moment. Printing is a very old technology but it’s seeing a reinvention right now. We’re printing things which were not supposed to be printed. The big shift is we’re printing things that can do things themselves. We printed an optical sensor that senses input, using LEDs and light pipes printed inside the object! These technologies will let us create previously impossible things. It’s going to be hugely significant.

Where will the next tech revolution happen?

Well, the revolution happens from all quarters. I think that the enthusiasts are the ones on the forefront but it’s when there’s big business to be had that things accelerate fast. Even with lots of stupid money being wasted on projects during the first dotcom boom, it was that swell that made the big companies wake up to the internet. But the maker community around (open-source tools for creating interactive environments) Arduino and Processing was eye- opening for me. They are tools that lower the entry bar, and the community that’s emerged bucks the trend of passive consumers. When entry barriers are lowered, people get involved. Curiosity is wired into us: the excitement of making and creating something new.

“Every German is obliged to ensure that the Holocaust is not forgotten” a pokerfaced Uwe Boll said, around the same time he was crowned The World’s Worst Filmmaker in the wake of his 2011 film, “Auschwitz”. His own contribution to the collective memory of the Shoah was memorable for all the wrong reasons; an upshot of the fact that Boll had already made a name for himself as the mastermind behind such video game film adaptations as, BloodRayne, House of the Dead (HoTD) and Alone in the Dark.

But subtler minds than Boll have shared his sentiment about speaking the unspeakable through art. This month, on a romp through the European lit scene, I happened upon two.

German writer, Timur Vermes, is a professional ghostwriter who has harnessed his ventriloquistic skills in his first novel to tackle one of the most brutal subjects imaginable –Adolf Hitler. The title– He’s Back – says something about the novel’s jocular tone, and something, too, about how the passing of time loosens tongues on even “unmentionable” topics. It’s 2011, and Hitler’s woken up with a raw headache having spent the night in the bunker with Eva Braun. He stumbles through Berlin, scratching his heavy head over where all the Russian soldiers went, like someone crawling home at 6am who swore they took their denim jacket to the party. Hitler paranoid as hell; he’s sure people are staring and laughing at him. They are, of course, because they think he’s a regular guy doing a Prince Harry – only funny. Hitler turns into a YouTube phenomenon. He’s filmed on a visit to the headquarters of a German fascist party, where he’s appalled by the lack of commitment to the cause that he sees amongst the young neo-Nazis. When they realise Hitler’s won a prestigious journalism award for exposing them, they jump him. Yes, Hitler gets jumped by Neo-Nazis. It’s Ali G meets Heil Honey I'm Home meetsFawlty Towers. (Or, in fact, just Fawlty Towers.)

The other German tackling the subject of Nazi Germany is graphic novelist, Reinhard Kleist. Since the publication of Cash and Castro, Kleist’s been steadily building a name for himself as the fore figure of a new wave of German author-illustrators. He has a studio with three other artists in Prenzlauer Berg. Der Boxer tells the life story of Hertzko Haft, who survives the Holocaust through a combination of physical resilience and devotion his sweetheart, Leah. Having been introduced to boxing for the amusement of the Nazi officers, after he escapes Hertzko decides to fight for a living in America, where he hopes he might also track down his girl. Kleist’s novel is a modern-day Maus in the most obvious sense. Kleist pays deference to the game-changing novel, but also explains his own deviations from Spiegleman’s Pulitzer prize-winner. As he explained over email: “Maus is still a very important book... I am not a fan of his idea to use animals as persons in the story. But this is part of the thinking process he did at that time … dealing with the thought “Can I do this?” Now we are able to deal with the subject more openly, which is not always good. I hate books (or movies) where the victims of the Holocaust are just sad looking puppets. They are human beings and … sometimes they are not good ones. That is something I want to provoke in the reader: Do I still identify with Hertzko after he … knowingly beat people to death?” Kleist cuts to the chase in that his characters are humans –pain is pain in this novel and some of the boxing scenes are beyond graphic; they’re brutal. Offsetting this are the text-less pages where images cross the frontier that language, according to Kleist, can’t. “My favourite scene from Der Boxer is when Hertzko has to work in a factory and comes home. There are no words, nothing much happens, but for him a whole world collapses.”

For me, the text never destroys the impact of Kleist’s drawings; he has a gift as deft as a fine short-story writer for delivering a line like a slap in the face (see, “I have no fear” and you’ll know what I mean). Luckily for the non-German readers, you can still relish the still movie that is Der Boxer. But this graphic novel is crying out for an English translation. For Boll’s sake, at least, somebody translate these silences.

Cover Image: Roger Wollstadt