Issue 24 of one small seed asks you to ‘Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound’. Music, motion, words and colour – looking beyond the obvious, our latest issue brings a union of the senses. To follow is an all-inclusive preview of the new issue: a full breakdown of content that resonates with inspiration. Hold on tight…

The human story is told in the language of pop culture. Coca Cola designed Santa Claus and Hugo Boss the uniforms for the Order of the Death’s Head. Jimi played The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock and the Devil went down to Georgia. David Byrne wore a big suit and Princess Leia that bikini. We couldn’t handle the truth, needed a bigger boat and loved the smell of napalm in the morning. Assorted male models shot JFK, RFK and JR, then Biggy Smalls, Tupac and the Sheriff. And something made Andy Warhol’s Marilyns smile. Maybe it was the hand up the Mona Lisa’s skirt. (Gustav Swart)

This issue’s theme of ‘Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound’ led us to some odd doors as we sought artists that bridged the divide between the visual and the aural.  An interview with legendary album artist Storm Thorgerson – referred to some as the 6^th member of Pink Floyd – allowed us to revisit the aesthetics of the ’70s, while 21^st Century poster designer Dan Khulken tells us about making posters for bands like Black Keys and The National. Issue 24 is a 30 000-plus words visual explosion, and one such visually exploding artist we spoke to is the infamous Gonzo illustrator and Hunter S Thompson’s partner-in-grime, Ralph Steadman. Another artist that tore through the ’70s and still doing what he does best is Horace Panter – the bass player of The Specials. In this issue, Panter gives us a candid account of his life in music and his life as an artist, from playing with The Clash to his time working as a white van man, he shares memories of his life on a road less traveled.

Our fashion spread this issue comes direct from Tokyo, Japan. Creating a 3D-like effect, reminiscent of Nintendo games and early Star Wars films, Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga created his Low Resolution collection around the 8-bit inspired colorful square blocks. Mari Sarai’s lewd black and white nudes feature as this issue’s photography section, her subjects including celebs like Gavin Rossdale’s daughter Daisy Lowe and model Janice Dickinson. We have a feast for the ears in the form of interviews with Kenya’s globe conquering Just a Band and the revolutionary American poet Abiodun Oyewole – the man who robbed the KKK and worked with legendary Jazz musician Gil Scott-Heron on his famous song ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’.

Ever tasted the letter ‘f’? Or smelled the colour blue? Well, some people have! One of our main features this issue is on Synesthesia – the condition that lets people see sound as colour – and trace its path through the methods and madness of some of the brightest stars in the human firmament. Click HERE for a preview of the feature. On the local frontier, we sit down with singer/song writer/actress Sannie Fox, electronic trio Digital Rockit and all four members from Cape Town band iScreamStix. Olmeca Editión Black Tequila joins us in showcasing electronic DJs/Producers, with this issue bringing Blush n Bass and Felix Laband to the party.  We watched architecture dance slowly to visible music in our architecture feature, looking at structures like The Sum of Days, NY; Stillspotting, NY; the Jewish Museum, Berlin; Jetty Square and more.

Ending with the beginning, our cover for Issue 24 is devoted to one of the street artist/videographer Mr Brainwash’s tongue-in-cheek creations. This issue features a six-page interview with the artist, who talked to us from his L.A. home about money, art and Andy Warhol. Showcasing at 34FineArt Gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town is an exclusive selection of Mr Brainwash’s latest artwork, including issue 24’s ‘Madonna’ silk screen on paper with spray paint.

Right, without further ado… Here’s the breakdown for Issue 24 “Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound”.

FEATURES

American Civil Rights Icon

Abiodun Oyewole: Grand, High Wizard

Founder member of The Last Poets talks about verse, Gil Scott-Heron and robbing the KKK. Click HERE to read our blog ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’ and find out more about the legendary Gil Scott-Heron: a spoken word poet, jazz genius and close friend to Abiodun Oyewole.

Defiant Photographer

Mari Sarai’s Girls on Film

Black-and-white nudes that stare right back and you and challenge the Gaze. Check out a video interview we found with Mari Sarai by visiting onesmallseed.tv HERE.

Aural architecture

Echo Chamber: The Sound of Space

Our investigation of sound and concrete spans the globe and classic art movies. First we took Manhattan, then we took Berlin. Click HERE and visit onesmallseed.tv to watch the video titled Berlin: Die Sinfonie der GroBstadt, which showcases a selection of abstract visual content that portrays the ‘life’ of a city.

Cape Town-based breakout band

iScreamStix: It ain’t Sorbet

A big scoop of local talent

Kenyan Globetrotters

Just an Interview with Just a Band

Meet the voice of East Africa’s ‘superhero’ Makmande. He may not exist but he sure kicks ass

Cross-sensory Exploration

Neuromagic: The Harmony of Synesthesia

We dive into the magical world inhabited by synesthetes: individuals who see, hear, feel, smell and even taste colour. Such people include legends of our time, like Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Marilyn Monroe and Vladimir Nabokov to name a few. Click HERE for a preview of the feature and then visit one small seed TV to see a video about this unique condition

Genre-busting rocker

Sannie Fox: Rage with the Machine

This star of stage and screen proves that you don’t have to be a fatbottomed girl to make the rocking world go round.

Gonzo illustrator

Ralph Steadman: Another Freak in the Freak Kingdom

We can’t stop here. It’s bat country

Controversial Pop Artist

Mr Brainwash: Laughing all the Way to the Banksy

We got a call from the man who calls himself ‘Banksy’s biggest piece of art’. We’ve uploaded a snippet of the interview featured in the magazine, simply click HERE and see if you can make out who Mr Brainwash really is…

Jozi Beats

Digital Rockit: The Neon Gods they Made

Local veterans of the electronic scene look forward and back

Classic Album Art

Storm Thorgerson: Dark Side of the Tunes

We get under the covers with the man who designed for bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Muse and machineri.

Troubadour’s Poster Boy

Dan Kuhlken: Dreaming of Electric Sheep

The National, The Black Keys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers… just some of the bands that LA-based design team DKNG have worked for

Musical contrasts

eleKTRONIK Dialogues

A new department brought to you in conjunction with Olmeca Editión Black Tequila dedicated to showcasing the best and brightest musical talent.

Ska rocker and painter

Horace Panter: If Music is your Special Thing

The bass player of The Specials went from fame to obscurity and back again

Avant-garde Fashion

Kunihiko Morinaga: Pretty in Pixels

Chic couture meets the chunky pixels of 8-bit arcade games on the catwalk. Check out our interview with Morinaga in the latest issue, and if you’re thirsty for more information on pixel fashion then check out our blog HERE.

DEPARTMENTS

IN STORE

Products for your eyes, hands, and mind…

BOOK REVIEWS

Get the critique on books that will read you.

SELECTED CREATIVES

We reveal the winners for Selected Creatives 06, a showcase of the very best uploaded to onesmallseed.net. Click HERE to check out who made the cut, voted by you on the one small seed network.

FILM REVIEWS

This issue we check out Mike Cahill’s Another Earth; Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Tarsem Singh’s Immortals, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and Paula Van der Oest’s Black Butterflies.

MUSIC REVIEWS

We dissect the beats that are supposed to move your feet.

NOW SHOWING

Issue 24 showcases some of the most gripping videos we found in 2011, including Influencers; Jeff Staple; Earth time-lapse view from Space; Press Pause Play; Morpho Towers: Two Standing Spirals; Brain Eno’s Imaginary Landscapes and Berlin Die Sinfonie Der Grosstadt, a fascinating video that sheds light on the discourse of aural architecture. Click HERE to watch these awesome videos.

THE LAST WORD

We leave this to South African writer duo Headline Payoff and illustration by Mark Venter.

Laura Mulvey the well known feminist film theorist first developed the notion of ‘the gaze’. A feminist theory developed to highlight the imbalance of power between the genders, and an analysis of the way men view women and how women view other women.  What Mulvey argued was that the way women are portrayed in film and media denied them human agency and relegated them to status of objects through the male gaze, which dominates the view of women in mainstream media. Women in media are fetishized and the stereotypes of women as sexual objects are reinforced. one small seed will take a closer look at the role of women in media, as shown by Mari Sarai,  in the next issue ‘Listen to my Colour & Look at my Sound” – out in stores beginning of January . Here we look at some roles current media have placed women in.

The woman as a secret late-night snack.

Mavericks new add campaign conceptualized and developed by Porky Hefer, markets suggestive fragrances as an alibi for men when they arrive home late after a night at the well known gentlemen’s club. The campaign has gained media focus with the tongue in cheek suggestion that men have an alibi for the night and the suggestion that the fragrance condones and promotes cheating. The advertisements themselves reinforce the fetishized sexual objectification of women, they are scantily clad and in erotic positions, they are sex symbols. The women in the billboards gaze down seductively inviting their objectification. The director of the Family Policy Institute, Errol Naidoo, has his own opinion about this: “Men are raised by the media on a steady diet of sexuality, making it okay to use women as sexual objects. Mavericks’s ads advocate adultery, which leads to divorce, the breakdown of the family, and then the social ills that plague our society: domestic abuse and drug use.”

Women, natural, nude and neutral.

The Great Wall of Vagina, a wall sculpture by Jamie McCartney, features over 400 women’s vagina’s in plaster cast’s. The 9 metro-long polyptych consists of ten large panels of labia’s ranging in ages from 18 – 76. All the women featured are volunteers from different countries and walks of life. The language of the sculpture and the visual language of gridlike rows with plain white casts desexualize the content and render it neutral. Instead the focus shifts to one of an educational nature, as McCartney explains, ‘ For many women their genital appearance is a source of great anxiety and I was in a unique position toy do something about that.’ The sculpture aims to empower women, and combat the worrying trend of designer vagina’s, by showing women a subject that is normally highly sexualized, and taking it out of that context and instead simply saying that no one is the same but different is normal.

Caged and on a leash – a life of Fetish.

Recently the photographic work of Dr Benway, a Cape Town based photographer, was exhibited by one small seed as album of the week. The series of photos entitled Fetish/ BDSM Studies in black and white feature encapsulate the gaze, inviting your gaze into the world of bondage and S and M. How does the camera position it’s female study? In the same way it positions the men in the photographs, as sexual objects. But rather than just being mere objects, their very actions invite a sexual view and you are left a willing voyeur to the tasteful art of bondage and S and M. The black, white and grey tones turn what could be considered light pornography into tasteful but risque’ art.

The Dominatrix.

Ah yes, the dominatrix, a figure which appears to turn the ‘ gaze ‘ stereotype on it’s head. Men who pay women in order to be submissive to them, who like being whipped, beaten and put in the naughty corner. Yes women hold the power but it must be asked is that not only because men have handed them the reigns while they get their rocks off? Can it be seen as women in power when they’re being paid for it? Much like Sasha Grey, the american born former pornographic actress who has since tried to turn that image into porn as performance art. With the release of her book, NEU SEX,  a photo essay of sorts interspersed with essays, Grey has tried to rework her image. But how many people will buy the book only because it features the famous porn stars name? Women who are paid to be sex symbols cannot be considered to have subverted the ‘gaze’ of the male, their power lies only in their own objectification.

The art of entertainment.

Geisha’s have existed since the late 600’s and have encompassed many forms, some trading sex for money but the more traditional form is based on strict moral codes and entertain with the art of music and dance. Far from being subservient or submissive, Geisha’s are trained from a young age to entrance their male guest’s through music, dance and conversation. The lifestyle of a Geisha is strictly matriarchal, women dominate, run, rule and teach in the Geisha houses, men exist as guest’s only, Founded on the principle of promoting independence and economic self- sufficiency, the Geisha figure is a celebration of traditional femininity and feminism. Mari Sarai while born in Japan, takes the female form to a new level with her celebration of the naked form in issue 24 of one small seed.