Lose yourself in the intricate and abstract photography of Oliver Barnett in his article featured in the magazine, entitled ‘Organic Surrealism’
 
 
 

CLICK HERE to check out the full one small seed magazine 26 | digital 01, in partnership PUMA..
 
 

Tell us how and when you started photography?
I started photographing after doing a hand developing photography course at Photofusion in Brixton, London about 13 years ago.

Are mannequins easy models to work with?
Mannequins are great models, very adaptable and never have bad hair days.

Do they eat?
Mannequins only eat at night, when humans are sleeping. Should they be fed during the day, they may bite.

Please tell us how?
After hours, I shoot within the depths of my studio flat in Green Point – also known as the Squirrel’s Nest. The Mannequins now call this nest their home too – The Mannequin Masquerade Headquarters. On our travels this week we tracked down a supplier of traffic beacons for a future photo-shoot and spent the day masquerading at West Coast National Park in celebration of Women’s Day. The mannequins caused quite a stir in the serenity & tranquillity of the park. I recorded comments overheard by curious by-passers when they spot the mannequins:
“I wonder who did this?!”
“Is this for real?”
“How many of these do you have?”
“Is dit ‘n dame? Dit lyk soos a forken mermaid!”
“Is this some sort of experiment or competition or something? Would you like to bring them for a drink at my place – I stay in a house not far from here.”

How did your phone drown?
My phone drowned a very sorrowful death due to being accidentally dropped in a pot of water, whilst speaking to my Fox (my boyfriend).

Some of the work can be seen as rather trippy… How do you feel about hallucinogenics and the creative doors it can open?
Many people have said this to me – ironically no hallucinogenics or even a single drop of alcohol have been involved during the past two months of photographing these mannequins – I decided to pursue a period of alcohol-free existence for two months and BAM! this happened! This is thus proof that creativity can explode via many channels, including the understated and underrated doors of sobriety.

What inspired you behind your album Mannequin Masquerades?
There was no specific inspiration behind the Masquerades – one Monday I woke up wanting a mannequin then the search began – I was quoted between R800 – R3000 for various mannequins. Madame Manique Win (the female) belonged to me when I did a year of Fashion Design at Natal Technikon in 1996, so my mother kindly sent her down from Durban to me. Madame Manique Win then begged me to find her a playmate, so we found Monsieur Tranny Quin shortly after her arrival in the Mothership at Milnerton Market – the rest has been total improvisation and organic spontaneity.

I have an assortment of fabrics, clothing & accessories that we play with. It starts with the prop of a hat or a wig & the rest unfolds. There is no law & order where these punks are concerned, that’s for the humans.

What can the kaleidoscopic escape be seen to represent in your story.
Kaleidoscopic escape refers to the visual escape I hope that viewers get when they see these photos & in particular the kaleidoscope-like collages that I have created from the photographs.

‘Fantasy is the new reality ‘ – can you tell me a little more about this.
The mannequins get themselves into such astounding outfits & lighting situations, that they may appear to be in & from another dimension. Some people have mistaken the mannequins in some photographs for humans. This fantastical illusion is reality to the mannequins.

You went to AfrikaBurn this year right… ? What was your most bizarre memory you came back with?
Yes, this year was my first burn – what an incredible experience. Highlighting the most bizarre memory is quite a tricky one because there were so many! First thing that comes to mind was a surprise meeting and improvised story-telling session by MAfrica – the intriguing green forest fairy with the voice and expressions of a 6-year old child. She appeared one morning at our camp, with an intricate head piece of trees & dangling butterflies, treated us to a few tales and then moved magically forth into the mirage!

title: Cyborg2

Title: TechnoPunkManiqueWin3

Title: PsyRenaissanceTranny2

Title: TechnicolourManique1

Title: LEDRibbon4

Title: LEDCandles3

Title: FuturisticHippieManique1

Title: FineFeatheredTranny3

Interview by: David Plenderleith

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Syd Barrett, Wassily Kandinsky, Duke Ellington, Vladimir Nabokov, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jimi Hendrix, Richard Feynman, Lady Gaga, Pharell Williams… all geniuses who helped shape their world. And all synesthetes. Synesthetes ‘suffer’ from the extraordinary neurological condition Synesthesia and experience automatic involuntary cross-sensory stimulation. They read numbers and letters in colour, hear sounds in colour, taste in colour and even touch in colour. The crossed wires in their heads leave them just sane enough to survive outside asylums and just mad enough to lead lives of invention, art and profanity. Words

The ’60s saw an explosion of pop culture as advances in communication technology brought art to larger and larger audiences. This also made the interconnections between media more important as people’s cultural vocabularies grew richer and more demanding. Painters traced the lines of mass-produced palimpsests and literary references littered music and cinema… two media that were now inextricably interlinked. Jefferson Airplane advised, ‘Feed your head’ and Norman Bates assured us that, ‘We all go a little mad sometimes.’

Grapheme Synesthesia - seeing letters and numbers in colour

The term ‘color organ’ was coined in the eighteenth century and referred to a tradition of mechanical (and then) electro-mechanical devices built to represent sound or accompany music in a visual medium. One hundred years later, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe proposed in his 1810 book Theory of Colours that musical and colour tones shared common frequencies, echoing Sir Isaac Newton’s observations. In the 1980s, Steve Mann regarded the Internet as a ‘Sixth Sense’, which could be mapped to the other five senses by way of such synthetic Synesthesia. Lady Gaga said in a 2011 interview that, ‘When I write songs, I hear melodies and I hear lyrics… but I also see colour.’

Stroop Interference

The word ‘Synesthesia’ has been used for 300 years to describe very different things, from poetry and metaphor to deliberately contrived mixed-media applications such as Son et Lumière shows (‘Lightshow’), which is also a song title by American progressive rock band The Mars Volta from their 2003 album De-Loused in the Comatorium. There are over 60 reported types of Synesthesia, but these are the five most frequently encountered… (continued)

“An LSD experience without the LSD” -that was a laugh. In fact, the heads are pouring in by the hundreds, bombed out of their gourds, hundreds of heads coming out into the absolute open for the first time. It is like the time the Pranksters went to the Beatles concert in full costume, looking so bizarre and so totally smoked that no one could believe they were. Nobody would risk it in public like that. Well the kids are just having an LSD experience without the LSD, that’s all, and this is what it looks like. A hulking crazed whirlpool. That’s nice.
Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

… To read the full feature, pick up a copy of the latest issue of one small seed magazine and click HERE to read the full breakdown of issue 24!

An example of a synesthete who sees the months of the year in colour

Check out this video that illustrates the magnificent realm the Synesthete (n) lives in and for a more informative breakdown down video, simply click HERE.

words: sarah claire picton, illustration: mark venter