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one small seed #30: Levalet’s Parisian Affair

giu — Fri, 15 May 2015 12:11:55 +0000

When we saw this street artist’s work, we just knew he was going to go places! Check out how Levalet brings the streets of Paris alive:

Calling Mr Brainwash

one small seed — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 07:09:42 +0000

From his California home, LA street artist Mr Brainwash – born in Paris under the name Thierry Guetta – gave one small seed an exclusive phone interview. Originally published in issue 24 and now featured in our ‘Best Of’ Ten Years one small seed, in partnership with PUMA.

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Completely Naked Woman Attends Art Basel in High Heels

one small seed — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 13:48:34 +0000

German performance artist and psychologist Milo Moiré tried to attend Art Basel — which happens every year where the borders of Switzerland, Germany, and France meet — completely naked. With just the words of clothing items written on the appropriate body parts, she walks down a residential street, gets on a train and then queues for a ticket until a security guard tells her to put her clothes on. What was she thinking?

According to Moiré’s blog, the naked performance is called ‘The Script System’ and is inspired by the script theory of cognitive psychology. It deals with the stereotypical course of events we live by everyday that are ever-recurring. She wanted to challenge this blindness to our surroundings because she says that — especially when we’re on our daily trip to work — we often function without actively perceiving our surroundings. So, the idea was to make the invisible visible to create freedom of thought.

What do you think? Is this art? Similar to Deborah de Robertis flashing her vagina under the ‘The Origin of the World’ at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, the question of provocation arises. Is this a loud scream for attention or conceptual art? Feel free to comment below or tweet us at @onesmallseedSA.

For more provocative performance art, click here for Deborah de Robertis’ Vagina Activism on one small seed.

Vagina activism | Shameless provocation or conceptual art?

one small seed — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 12:53:47 +0000

Deborah de Robertis sits silently as museum-goers stop to contemplate the Luxembourg-based artist’s spread legs until a French police man arrests her for indecent exposure. On 29 May 2014, she walked into Paris’s famous Musée D’Orsay dressed in a gold sequin dress, and posed below the controversial 19th century painting titled ‘The Origin of the World’, which shows a woman’s vagina and abdomen. What was de Robertis trying to say with her 21st century live replication of the original?

Deborah de Robertis beneath Gustave Courbet’s famous ‘Origin of the World’

one small seed was unable to get hold of de Robertis at this stage, but in an interview with wort.lu, she explains that it was only exhibitionist in nature if the context is ignored. ‘What I did is not an impulsive act. It is very thought-through.’ She further clarified that she is challenging the role that confidence plays in connection with the naked female body, or the representation of it. When we look at a picture of a naked female, we’re in a safe place, we’re voyeurs and often happy that our gaze is not being returned. Once the portrayal comes to life, however, we’re dealing with a hell of a lot more. We become awkward, embarrassed and nervous — stripped of the confidence we boasted when we were merely peeping. What is de Robertis saying about the way society looks at women?

What do you think? Is provocation a way to put across a point? Is provocation necessary to make art? Is it art? Feel free to comment below or tweet us at @onesmallseedSA.

A similar performance just happened at Art Basel 2014. Click here for a woman who attends the event naked with just the words of clothing items written on the appropriate parts of her body.

Or, for more provocative art click here to read our interview with Jamie McCartney, the ‘Plastercaster’ who created ‘The Great Wall of Vagina‘.

Une artiste expose son sexe sous «L'origine du… by quoi2news

Little Dragon Release New Track ‘Paris’

one small seed — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:22:41 +0000

After releasing ‘Klap Klap’ earlier in 2014, Little Dragon have now shared a second track called ‘Paris’ off their upcoming fourth album Nabuma Rubberband out on 12 May in the UK and 13 May in the US. The beat-y track is fit for the club and Yukimi Nagano’s melody-mastering voice is, of course, as dazzling as ever. You can pre-order their LP here and, if you’re keen to see the Swedish music whizz kids live, Little Dragon have a bunch of shows lined up. Click here for tour dates. For more about Little Dragon on one small seed, you can click here for our album of Little Dragon live in Cape Town (2012), here for the review or here for our interview prior to the show.

Image: brooklynvegan.com

Image: consequenceofsound.net

Image: pitchfork.com

Image: www.sweet-headache.net

ABSA L’ATELIER ART COMPETITION 2013

one small seed — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 07:38:57 +0000

Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced.
― John Keats

The submission time for the 2013 Absa L’Atelier art competition being between 4 – 8 March 2013, means it’s fast approaching and artists should be planning to complete their work by the beginning of March. Being one of the oldest and most acclaimed art efforts in South Africa, it’s a can’t-miss for aspiring creatives who want their foot firmly in the door of the art world.

Image by absalatelier.co.za

Being the custodian of the largest South African corporate art collection, Absa aka ‘the bank inside an art gallery’ believes in supporting the arts to contribute to the creative and intellectual prosperity of South Africa as a whole. Therefore they have run the annual Absa L’Aterlier competition in partnership with SANAVA (South African National Association for the Visual Arts) for 28 years. It’s considered the country’s most prestigious art competition and has launched the careers of many South African artists, including Penny Siopis, Karel Nel, Dianne Victor and Colbert Mashile. This year, the first prize is a coveted residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in the heart of Paris, where the lucky winner will be able to develop their talent surrounded by leading artists from across the world. Read on to find out more…

Image by absalatelier.co.za

The Competition

If you’re age 21 to 35 and a permanent resident of South Africa, you can submit up to three artworks that you completed in the 24 months prior to the closing date of 8 March 2013. As long as it’s not performance art, any medium is accepted, but you need to make sure it’s an original and that it’s not larger than 2m x 2m x 2m so that it can be easily packed. If you get stuck, need some guidelines or inspiration refer to the Absa l’Atelier website.

The Prizes

Image by absalatelier.co.za

First Prize: Six Months in Paris

The creator of the most promising submission will receive R 125 000 residency for three to six months at the Cité Internationale des Arts among the inspirational bustle of Paris’ city streets. After soaking up as much European creativity as possible, you’ll be asked to showcase what you learnt, back home at a solo exhibition in the Absa Gallery within a year of your return.

Image by absalatelier.co.za

First Merit Award: Two Months in Sylt (Germany)

The prize consists of a two month residency at the Sylt Foundation on the dreamy island. Intended as a place of beginnings, the foundation is suitably located on the site of a natural water reservoir and bottling plant called the Sylt-Quelle – ‘Quelle’ being German for ‘source’. It includes return flights as well as R5000 per month stipend and R2000 for trips to museums and travel costs in Hamburg. You’ll also be asked to showcase your creative gatherings at a solo exhibition in the Absa Gallery within a year of your return.

Image by absalatelier.co.za

Second Merit Award: One Month in New York City

The second merit award encompasses a one-month stay in one of the most exciting purveyors of metropolitan life: the fast and colossal New York City. If you win, you’ll receive $35 per day stipend and R2000, return flights and you’ll be a Fellow of the Ampersand Foundation, which grants access to the American Association of Museums (AAM) card that allows free entry to most museums in NYC. You’ll also be asked to showcase the output of your new inspirations at a solo exhibition in the Absa Gallery within one year of your return.

Image by absalatelier.co.za

Gerard Sekoto Award: Three Months in Paris

A fourth prize is sponsored by the Alliance Française, the French Institute and the French Embassy. If you’re a promising artist with an income of less than R60 000 per annum, you’ll stand the chance of winning the Gerard Sekoto Award consisting of a return air ticket to Paris, a three month stay in the Cité Internationale des Arts, nationwide touring exhibitions, training in French and a commission for a poster for the exhibition – total value +- R80 000.

2012’s Top Ten Entries

Although you might have witnessed the likes of Paris, Sylt and New York in books, films and fine art, the experience of actually being in a place and living its vivacity is something that cannot be replaced by any art form existent on this earth – no matter how skilled its creator may be. This may be your chance to breath the air, smell the scent and reuse the vibrant energy of the ‘real thing’. Here’s a video of an experiment in which Absa hypnotized young artists and told them they were in Paris, New York and the island of Sylt. They realized, however, that even mental manipulation is nothing like the real thing…

Images by absalatelier.co.za

Through rose glasses: Paris caught in coloured past

one small seed — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:50:36 +0000

The city of love has been frozen in time. Seen only before in black and white and imagination, these photos taken by accomplished brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière show a Paris of the past. By using Autochrome Lumière technology, people, places, streets, architecture and fanfare from early 20th century life are illuminated.

Don’t let the quality fool you into thinking these are paintings or present day photos. Void of doctoring, these are the real deal and seen in vibrant authentic colour. Born in the 1860s the Lumière brothers were both inclined towards the technical and invented technologies in their teens that would later attribute to their success as the first filmmakers in history. Being pessimistic about the future of cinema however, the brothers channeled their energy to coloured photography. A movie has its merits I grant you, but I’ll take this view of Paris over a box office hit any day.

curiouseggs.com

Images via curiouseggs.com

In Rainbows with Michael Elion

one small seed — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:47:45 +0000

A glimpse of spring hit Cape Town last week on Friday 7th September, and dancing on a rainbow seemed the perfect way to celebrate! one small seed caught up with Michael Elion artist / architect who mainly works on large scale public artworks. On behalf of Creative Week Cape Town he created a man-made rainbow, which will appear in front of Commune1 Gallery (64 Wale Street, Cape Town (map) every sunny day from 2:45pm, for around 45 minutes, until October 14th.

Image: Guto Bussab

Iris was the Greek goddess of the Rainbow. Is she here today?

(Laughs) We’ll see if the wind doesn’t blow her away! A rainbow at this small a scale is really sensitive to the wind… you need to find the right balance between the amount and size of particles relative to the size of rainbow you’d want to make, and how brightly it’ll appear.

What inspired you to do this?

Well let me tell you the process of how it all started… I was surfing, and when the wind is blowing strongly in the surf you get a stinging mist that showers over you, and every now and again you get to see a perfectly circular rainbow. So, I thought let me try and see if I can put a rainbow in a frame and I began to play with a rainbow like that. After doing different tests I realized that in order for you to see a perfect circle, you need to be completely inside the mist and the sun needs to be at a certain point. That began the process of testing how to make the rainbow bigger; I actually wanted to make a clock like a sundial except using a rainbow as the dial. As I experimented more I realised what a difficult thing it is to get right. It took almost six months to figure out how but it eventually came together at some point in 2010 after I’d sourced the right sort of pump and got special nozzles from the US.

What did you find most challenging?
Tweaking it. It was only when I realized how the arc of the rainbow is constantly moving that I could control how to engineer it to appear in the correct place at the right time. I wanted it to appear in broad daylight in the middle of the street like an apparition, and to have the arc of the rainbow leading you into the gallery door – at this time of year that can only happen between 2:45 and 3:45pm.

Do you believe there is a pot of gold to be found at the end of every rainbow?

Well the interesting thing about the rainbow is that as you get closer it keeps moving farther away…
as a life philosophy, you never really want to have the pot of gold, you should just keep chasing it. My life philosophy is to keep producing and keep learning. That’s what I’m chasing…

Image: Bart Fouche

What is your ‘pot of gold’?
To be able to keep producing bigger, more amazing, fantastic artworks and the only thing that slows you down is money. For example I know how to do a really big rainbow – like one you’d see in the landscape – but in broad daylight but it would literally cost millions orchestrate.

What’s your favorite way that people react to this project?
I think it’s the awe and inspiration it gives… Because of my architectural training most of my urban projects are done on quite a grand scale, and so I suppose I’m trying to elicit that feeling of the sublime. A project I did in the courtyard of the National Archives in Paris, called “Halo” was a giant internally-illuminated helium-inflated ring… It was 22 meters in diameter, the size of a seven story building, and Pink! It looked a giant UFO, and when it rose up into the air everyone went silent. It’s that sense of awe and amazement where you give something back to the observer that I think is what I try and do with my artwork.

Your website tells me you got your masters in philosophy of art and aesthetics in Paris. How was life then?
Paris was very tough the first three years; I lived in a room on the outskirts of Paris that was 2×2 metres with no mattress, sleeping on the floor, studying philosophy and also trying to get a job. I could barely speak French and it was a huge challenge. Eventually I got a job through my architectural training with Xavier Veilhan, a well-known artist in Paris who scans people with lasers and then makes sculptures from the scans. Then suddenly the city opened itself up to me and became accessible. The first three years were tough; the next three years were amazing. Then the financial crash happened and there was a great deal of pressure on everyone and that had a trickle down effect on me, and so I had to make a decision: move to Cape Town, or go back to London, or start afresh in New York. So I made a list of benefits for each city and Cape Town’s won, hands down… Believe it or not, the fact that I could surf again was a huge draw card, so the rainbow happened because of my having gone back to surfing!

Why do you think some people never question or challenge their views of beauty?
I think people get preoccupied with their choices in art and they follow that route. I’ve always been interested in the concept of beauty and what it is and so I try and explore it. I think sometimes provocation is necessary… That’s what I’m trying to do with the big red hand grenade. When people see it, it looks like a Jeff Koons lollipop type of thing, but when you learn it’s actually full of explosives and it could actually kill you and blow the building down, all of a sudden it sets up a dynamic between you appreciating something aesthetically and actually being afraid of it, and then you start to ask yourself, “Do I actually find the object beautiful?”

How many explosives are in there?
Could it actually blow the building? Technically it could but it won’t. The idea with the show is not to create a Brett Murray-type scandal and have the police come and close the show but rather for people to experience that sense of ambivalence where geometrically and sculpturally it’s a beautiful object but if it was live it could rip you to bits. I think most people may have missed that.

What helps you change your perception of beauty?
I am constantly trying to look for things where your perception of what is beautiful is questioned, and I am greatly inspired by the natural world. So I am working on another project, some giant chrome-silver ants that will be crawling all over the buildings in town. Sculpturally they’re very beautiful creatures but generally people don’t really like ants. I also want to make an enormous fly because they’re visually fascinating things, especially if you make them enormous. They become monsters, but beautiful monsters.

What would you like people to leave here with?
I’d like them to have a sense firstly of two beautiful things that are diametrically opposed. A rainbow and a hand grenade… These completely different elements in our lives that are very evocative visually but elicit very different feelings. A beautiful benevolent natural phenomenon and then this potentially dangerous object – and yet you can find them both beautiful.

Rainbows are the universal symbol of peace and harmony and the bridge between heaven and earth – do you believe that?
There is something universal in the way rainbows appeal to all of us similarly as sentient beings – that there is this universal language in the world around us , an economy of commonly understood effects, that is mostly universally understood.

Jacrot’s musing cities

one small seed — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:34:15 +0000

Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur – that of ’a person who walks the city in order to experience it.’ Frenchman Christophe Jacrot is one such chap. He scours cityscapes looking for the finest moments that a city can offer an observer and captures these timeless moments with astounding photographic skill.

He continuously plunges into New York, Paris, London, or Hong Kong to photograph and bring to light the hidden, fleeting moments of the everyday in their full poetic density and romantic charisma – which he only does in rain or snow (lumas.com).

Jacrot endeavours only in the wettest or stormiest weather to seize the full atmospheric effect of a city or rain or snow-sleeted street. ‘In my opinion, there are two ways of capturing the world for a photographer; on the one hand grasping its horror, and on the other sublimating it. I have chosen the second. More specifically, I like the way rain, snow and ‘bad weather’ awakens a feeling of romantic fiction within me (climatic excesses are another topic)’(christophejacrot.com)

Jacrot’s most recent work titled Hong Kong in the Rain was done in the busy metropolis of Hong Kong. He has the special talent to capture a city’s unique ambiance, as these cities moods and impressions are all different he depicts that expertly. There is a clear difference between eclectic cluttered streets of Hong Kong in contrast with the chic framed Paris. Though Jacrot depicts these cities unto their own there is still a unity in his concept and work, giving it a distinct flow of continuity and diversity. Jacrot romanticizes these moments of pouring rain, people huddled under umbrellas, women in elegant heels glistening almost ornament-like on the wet asphalt.

The play on light and reflection is core to his work, creating an underlying sense of warmth. Fleeting instants, these images flow like impressions – streams of consciousness created pictorially. ‘I see these elements as a fabulous ground for photography, an under-used visual universe with a strong evocative power, and with a richness of subtle lights. This universe escapes most of us, since we are too occupied getting undercover.

Man becomes a ghostly silhouette wandering and obeying the hazards of rain or of snow.

My approach is deliberately pictorial and emotional. (christophejacrot.com)

Haunting and almost cinematic, Christophe Jacrot takes cities’ moody characteristics and giving its people a hazy, dreamlike aesthetic.

Words : Bianca Budricks

Source: christophejacrot.com, uk.lumas.com,

Red Bull – Maximum Signal Control

one small seed — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 09:13:17 +0000

In much the same way Da Vinci’s inventions were ahead of their time, Red Bull is creating a sound system so advanced it makes current sound rigs look like tapedecks. The Red Bull Music Academy World Tour kicks off in Cape Town with a three day event that we don’t want you to miss. Read on to find out how you can win a double ticket to the three-day event courtesy of one small seed and Red Bull.

Between August 29 and September 1st Cape Town will host the visionaries behind the world-famous Valve Sound System (UK), Dillinja and K-aze along with SIAN, DJ and founder of Octopus recordings (UK) and some of South Africa’s most prolific crews, DJs, promoters, producers and creative collectives. What is being done is the construction of a massive sound system that will travel to some of South Africa’s largest musical events as a tribute to the nucleus of club culture. When completed, the collaborative construction of the world-class system will be capped off by a three-day festival of sound. Taking place at The Assembly in Cape Town, September 1-3, it will feature a full spectrum of electronic music where all participating local crews will have the opportunity to perform on the newly built system alongside world-renowned selectors.

Dillinja – hard noize

Having pioneered the first filtering drum system and creating unique Amen breakbeats, Dillinja and K-aze are versatile producers and mix masters who, since the 1990s, have been lauded as versatile producers and mix masters. Fellow Briton SIAN throws down his own hypnotic take on techno with his avant-garde approach and trademark experimental DJ-ing style. With a list of 26 talented and respected DJs throwing their hats into the ring, it’s almost guaranteed the event will blow everything else out the water.

Lemon D vs Aphex Twin – Manhattanannou

With the Red Bull Music Academy World Tour hitting over ten major cities all over the world including Berlin, Paris, Detroit, Melbourne, Rome, San Paulo and London kicking it off from Cape Town is a great hour we’re sure the city is happy to accept. Each stop will delve into unique elements of the Red Bull Music Academy experience, bringing together influential musicians from various corners of the world across different eras of music to pay tribute to the pioneering sounds that paved the way for today’s deepest funk and hip hop.

So be at The Assembly from the 1st to the 3rd of September to show your support and pride in Cape Town’s own vibrant and definitely celebrated club culture. For your chance to win a double ticket to the THREE-day event courtesy of one small seed and Red Bull rack your brain a bit, do a bit of research HERE, leave a comment below answering the following questions and tell us why you want to go. Winners will be announced on Tuesday 30th August.

1. What is the name of the Soundsystem that Dillinja and Lemon D built?
2. Name one of the famous Soundsystems owned by eccentric DJs during the early days of Jamaican Soundsystem culture.
3. Where would you like to hear the Red Bull Studio Signal Control Soundsystem aside from the Assembly next week? (Choose any party / venue. Who knows the Soundsystem might make its way there one day).