MURAL FOR OGILVY AND AMTHER TOKYO - ART PROJECT FOR THEIR OFFICE SPACE
Interview with REMO about the Ogilvy Smart Graffiti project for the Tokyo Office:
Tell us how the idea for ‘Leave it Behind’ came about. Was it the first idea you had or did you have other initial thoughts?
!To be completely honest, it was the first idea that came to me. I did however present 10 ideas, but they loved the first one. How do ideas come about? For me when someone gives me a brief or word in this case, something usually pops into my head immediately. I could see it straight away. Chopsticks holding a brain, suggesting to leave it behind or eat it , thus using your intuition to think.
!But I wanted to take it further using sound as another element to make the environment inspiring. I had just acquired this new technology in the form of electric paint and a tiny Arduino computer that connects to the paint allowing one to play sound by touching it. so I started thinking of how I could incorporate this into the art piece.
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Tell us a bit about the artwork – how it was created, what materials were used etc...
!Once I had the design down in illustrator and we got it approved I then created huge stencils to paint the separate elements on the wall. The stencils were about 2 meters by 3 meters each in some cases. Really large and hard to handle. I prepared this in Los angeles before going to Tokyo. From here I tested the sound elements on a small scale and noted that I could use this electric paint and then paint over it , thus hiding the sound sources.
!I then decided to correlate the color by numbers idea into play by numbers and began designing the sound to accompany the art work.
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Tell us a bit about the musical aspect of the artwork...
!Having a musical background from being in a few bands and creating sound for video installations, I was familiar with the notion of creating art work that speaks. And this was the first time that I could create something that sang without knowing where the sound was
coming from or where to touch the image to trigger the sound. So Basically I wanted the spectator to use intuition to find the 12 sound tracks, by feeling around the image for the hot spots that would trigger the sound.
The creation of the sound also was done intuitively, keeping in the theme that was given to me. I am heavily inspired by the likes of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, The Fuck Buttons and other ambient instrumentalists so I knew that I wanted to make the soundtrack electronic, slow and contemplative. And I approached the making of the sound intuitively. In other words all of the 12 tracks were created from scratch and played live while I added instrument after instrument, intuitively, letting the machines evolve the sounds on their own. I am a collector of vintage synthesizers, so all of the music was composed on these. I would begin with an arpeggio or a beat and move on from there. Playing by ear and adding through evolution and intuition. None of the tracks are edited, they just are as they were played once over.
The 12 tracks add up to about 2 hours of music that can be played by touching the image in various places. The numbers on the image are a decoy, meaning to say that only a couple of numbers play a track. The numbers only correspond to how many tracks there are.
So in essence i made a giant mp3 player. One that doesn't fit in your pocket and only has 12 tracks.
Fully analogue from beginning to end.
Fully analogue from beginning to end.
