The Publics

Freelance Aristocrat: a decently educated, cultured individual who skips from metropole to metropole but rides the subway in every city he (or she) inhabits. These types are similar to the Monocle demographic, but stripped of their overpriced attachés, tailored shirts and contrived obsession with all things “design”. Magazines, marketers and brand engineers have sought to define and capitalize upon the traffic patterns of this overachieving global underclass, but those who fit the bill remain unaffected and unaffiliated.

Aran Darling, a Paris (via London, NYC & Vancouver)-based illustrator is about as close as one can get to achieving this vision of a free and easy sophisto-tramp lifestyle. He has a website, and it details his trans-continental adventures in a way that reads like a long lost sketchbook from a Grub Street poet. The following is a communiqué he sent me a few weeks back.

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Way back in 2005, I was living in Tokyo working as a menu translator slash photographer’s assistant and I launched a film project that tragically never ended up seeing the light of day. The storyline followed a despondent romance between a depressed ramen waitress and an insomniac deliveryman, both of whom worked the late shift in a near-future megalopolis that was subject to ongoing street-level terrorist attacks. Jeff Priest, a highly talented animator turned urban studies academic, was kind enough to help me out with the project and produced a series of conceptual imagery for the press kit.

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Sayaka is a twenty-something female artist from Japan who depicts Japanese females in subtly fantastic erotic situations. Much like her contemporaries who practice the neo-nihonga deconstructional style , Sayaka juxtoposes traditional techniques to creat entirely original representations of modern Japanese aesthetics.

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Paul Robertson has finished his 8-bit cinematic masterpiece Kings of Power 4 Billion %. But it probably won’t end up in theatres or the video store any time soon, so if you’re interested in watching 12 and a half minutes of intensely ultraviolent pixel-fueled J-pop-apocalyptic psychodrama - check it out.

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Peter Kennard, a London-based artist best known for his photomontage work, has been engineering iconic anti-war imagery since the late ’60s. Along with contemporaries like Steve Bell and Banksy, Kennard’s work has come to define the aesthetic of Britain’s Blair/Bush-era neo-resistance art movement. His most recent efforts include an ongoing collaboration between Cat Picton-Phillipps, which is available for purchase on the To Die For DVD.

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Big ups to everyone who came out to The Cheaper Show on Saturday, it was a massive success and a damn good party. Here are some samples from the series of prints I produced for the show, entitled Vandal City. This series sold out, but I’ll definitely be doing a sequel in the near future, which will be the product of what I think will be a very hype collaboration between myself and two other Vancouver-based artists, so stay peeled.

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One of the most celebrated American illustrators of the 20th century, Robert McGinnis is best known for his era-defining film posters of the ’60s - the 007 films, Barbarella and Breakfast at Tiffany’s just to name a few. Before becoming involved in film, McGinnis spent the bulk of his career designing jackets for pulp crime novels, wherein he became renown for crafting images of sexy, intelligent and dangerous women - a fresh representation that helped reform the sexual politics of his time.

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Vancouverites often lament the social malaise caused by their city’s distinct lack of culture (whether perceived or real), but once in a while a handful of inspired individuals come together to actually make something exceptional happen. In this case, that something is The Cheaper Show, a one night only exhibition of work from 150 local and international artists and photographers, with all pieces selling for 200 bones a pop. The show takes place on June 21st, from 7pm to Midnight at 142 Waterstreet (the old Storyeum building).

I don’t know whether this is a case of subconscious biting or willing something into existence through sheer mental force, but ever since I changed The Publics logo to that pyramid eye thing, I’ve been seeing this tag (shown above) pop up all over the streets of Vancouver. In all honesty, I can say that I did not consciously recognize the existence of this dude (Egypt) or dudette or whatever, before I threw up the new banner, but the phenomenon has last left me intrigued and puzzled. To further the mysterious-ness of “Egypt” I was talking to a Japanese friend of mine who just returned from Tokyo and she claims to have seen something similar in the back alleys of Shibuya, a world-famous locale for up and coming writers. And so, I propose a contest.

To whom ever can send me documentation of “Egypt” pre-dating its existence to a period of time before I changed my header will go this amazing device shown in the photograph above: An Apex television set. Yes, it is colour, and you can watch movies or play video games on it provided you have the required peripheral devices for such activities. Alternatively, for my international readers - if you’ve seen the “Egypt” tag in your country, take a photo of it and email it to me, that could also possibly win you the set, but only if you are willing to pay shipping and handling.

Send your submissions to: publics.info@gmail.com

Tokyo, December of 2004: Vice correspondant David Choe knocks out an undercover cop and is subsequently arrested and imprisoned. He spends the next four months in solitary confinement. Through his unrelenting resourcefulness and need for self-expression, he sources some materials from his severely limited social environment (a tiny prison cell) and creates the following work.

mediums used: envelope, napkin, tea, urine, soy sauce.

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