Haywire Festival 2017 (TM/RO) - full project

stoner rock band artwork festival mihai manescu ink Sci Fi artwork rabbit ILLUSTRATION poster art

HAYWIRE FESTIVAL 2017 (TM / RO) - full project

Back in March this year I was contacted by the Haywire Booking crew members and asked if I would be interested to create a poster and merch illustration for their Haywire Festival 2017 event at the end of August. I was overwhelmed with joy because to create imagery for a festival within this niche from the rock domain(doom/stoner/sludge/psychedelic), was one of my biggest dreams. I accepted without knowing what bands will be playing, but as we met and shared ideas, they mentioned the headliners and I was really blown away. My process when it comes to create an artwork mostly depends on the music I listen while working. Somehow inside I tend to evolve a deeper connection between the music and the work process, most times the end result being influenced by it. So wether it sounds crazy or not, over time I've learned that my art highly depends on the music I listen and as a process one couldn't exist without the other.

The idea of using the rabbit as a main theme came as a click connection with one of my past artworks „Acidland”, and despite the rabbits as main motifs it has nothing to do with Alice's Wonderland like many people had imagined. During that period of time while working on „Acidland” I was listening obsessivly to Belzebong, which is also one of the bands playing at the festival.

At first I saw the large image inside my head, with lots and lots of rabbits cycling down a spiral which ended at the footsteps of a spatial, cosmic large totem. Things evolved while working on reaching deeper meanings, and after two weeks of sketching ideas and writing down symbols as well, I've decided to try and shape a bigger story than the inital one, and for that I've decided to split the concept into four different illustrations, somehow represented as chapters. Due to that came the idea with the teaser poster, where the viewer would have his first contact with this universe which is defined by the cosmic space and its void. I wanted to create an image simple and catchy at the same time, in which the high color contrasts would capture the eye from distance and would raise questions regarding its meaning.

The second illustration is represented by the main festival poster. It guides the viewer into a cosmic universe with lots and lots of rabbits, whom are all navigating inside bubbles down a smoky hazed spiral and at its end lays a large rabbit head shaped island.

The third illustration represents the end road of the spiral and puts the viewer in front row of the reality surrounding the mystic island from the previous image but also explains its real nature. Here is the point where things are defined, and the story gets a twisted violent representation of another alienated species who’s main mechanism of survival consists of hunting down rabbits and consume them by any means necessary.

The fourth and last illustration represents the alien machinery in a technical exploded view for a better interpretation of what it is and how it works. This artwork will also be printed on the festival tshirts.

Although the story might seem cruel at first glance, I tried to capture some real existing motifs and symbols that surrounds mankind on a regular basics. Asimilating this idea we can find connections with both ilustrated cases. One being the rabbits, trapped within a bubble, mesmerized by some fake shity dreams and who freely choose to take this lost long path to oblivion in hope of reaching out the idolatrized salvation. On the other hand we can also connect with the alien hunter species, who's main goal is survival and because of that the necessity of consumption beats the ways of achieving it no mather how brutal or cruel the procedures are. It represents many of today's industries and processes where we choose to live without any remorse and in denial of what they suppose to mean from a processing point of view, so that in the end we get the products we are accomodated with and defined as lifestyle. What this type of music offers us, is the posibility to disconnect and to reflect in a way or another inside ourselves or the surrounding bubble each one of us chooses to live in.

In the end it is up to us to say which part do we prefer when looking at this illustrated concept, if we choose to see some rabbits going down a rabbit hole to Wonderland, or a more deeper and dark meaning which tends to connect with the present, involving us in it as well.

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HAYWIRE FESTIVAL 2017

- duration: 20 March – 27 July

- official posters:

Teaser Poster - 84.1cm x 30m

Main Poster - 84.1cm x 60cm

Merch Poster - 84.1cm x 30cm

Here are the albums listened while doting the Haywire Festival 2017 concept:

Methadone Skies - Enter The Void, Colosseus || Mars Red Sky – Mars red Sky, Apex III, Stranded In Acadia || Monkey3 – Beyond The Black Sky, 39Laps, Icarus || Belzebong – Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves, Greenferno || Telepathy – Fracture E.P. || The Thirteenth Sun – Genesis E.P. || Cardinal – Noisehead E.P. || Gozu – Revival || Manthra Dei – Manthra Dei ||

Lothorian – Beyond The Astral Mind || Samsara Blues Experiment – One With The Universe || Attalla – Glacial Rule ||

Forming The Void – Relic || Monobrow – The Nacaret || Mephistofeles – Devotional Doom || 35007 – Liquid, 35007 ||

Liquid Sound Company – Acid Music For Acid People || Earthless – From The Ages, Lost In The Cold Sun, Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky, Harsh Toke || Ulver – Perdition City || Archive – The False Foundation || Isis – Oceanic, Panopticon, Wavering Radiant, In The Absence Of Truth || Ozbow – Gal || Inter Arma – Westward || Wo Fat – The Black Code || Neurosis – The Eye Of Every Storm, A Sun That Never Sets, Souls At Zero, Fire Within Fires, LIVE@ Union Transfer, Aug. 11Th, 2015 ||

Massive Stone – Cosmic Visions || Onesegen Ensemble – Awalai || The Sword – Gods Of The Earth || Morphinis – Follow The Grain || Salems Pot – Pronounce This!, Lurer Ut Dig Pa Prarien || Monolord – Empress Rising, Vaenir || Witchfinder – Witchfinder || Buzzov*en – Welcome To Violence, At A Loss || Weedeater – ...and Justice For Y'all, Sixteen Tons, Good Luck And Good Speed, Jason And The Dragon, Goliathan || Kairon Irse – Ujubasajuba || Half Gramma Of Soma || Vespero – Lique Mekwas || Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – Noeth Ac Anoeth, Y Proffwyd Dwyll || Stone From The Sky – Fuck The Sun || Hawkwind – Warrior On The Edge Of Time, Space Ritual, Maters Of The Universe, Doremi Fasol Latido || Sonic Black Holes – Disclosure || Alderean – Infinite Paths || 3Rd Ear Experience – Peacock Black || Iah – Iah || Monomyth – Further, Exo, Monomyth || Slo Burn – Amusing The Amazed || Elder – Reflections Of A Floating World || Stonerror – Stonerror ||

Band In The Pit – Band In The Pit || Tuber – Out Of The Blue, Desert Overcrowded || King Weed – Smoking Land || Kalamata – You, Disruption || Tang – Namek Space Program || Black Voodoo Train – Cosmic Sessions || Magnetoscop – Une Fleur Dans Le Goudron || Kyuss – Welcome To Sky Valley, Blues For The Red Sun, Wretch || Unida – El Coyote ||

Queens Of The Stone Age – QOTSA, Rated R || High Brian – Hi Brian || Verstarker – Aktivitat || Mad Dog – Tales Of A Sightless City || Dope Smoker – Legalize It, Marijuana, III || Druid – Odysseus || Sunnata – Zorya || Nibiru – Caosgon || Barrows – Obsidion || Six Sigma – The Spirit is Gone