Monthly Archives: March 2020

Phosphorescent Beasts 荧光色的野兽

March 30, 2020 2020年3月30日

Creating art can often be a private affair, with an artist dedicating themselves to their work in the solitude of their own home or studio. Mural art, on the other hand, forces them into the public eye, where they need to interact with others face to face. This social element of street art was conflicting for ANHZ, the pseudonym of Chinese-Australian artist Anny Chong. It posed a hurdle when she first started, but as she’s grown more accomplished in the scene, it has motivated her to continue.

“When I was still studying in Melbourne, I met a lot of street artists and my friends asked me to go paint murals with them,” ANHZ says. “But I was too shy. It wasn’t until a few years later, after I moved to Hong Kong, that I made the jump. You can’t really hide while painting in public, so it forces you to open yourself up.”

大多数情况下，艺术创作是一件私人的事情，艺术家独自在家中或工作室里，专注投入到作品的创作中。但墙绘创作却截然相反。艺术家要进入公众的视野，与他人面对面互动。街头艺术的这一种社交元素对于澳籍华裔艺术家 Anny Chong（又名 ANHZ）是一种挑战，尤其是刚开始的时候。但是，随着她在墙绘创作方面越来越成熟，这反倒成为了激发她不断前进的动力。

“我在墨尔本上学的时候，遇到了很多街头艺术家，一些朋友会邀请我和他们一起去创作墙画。”ANHZ  说道，“但是我比较害羞，直到几年后，我移居香港，才鼓足了勇气。在公共场合画画没办法躲躲藏藏，所以就会逼着自己放开去画。”

ANHZ was born and partially raised in Macau, where she lived until she was 13. At the time, Australia was making an attempt to draw immigrants to the country in order to grow their workforce, so her mother moved them to Melbourne. “I’ve been drawing since I was little,” she recalls of her early years. “My mom used to take me to a lot of museums and art galleries and has a lot of artist friends. She used to dream of becoming an artist, so I’m living her dream!” 

ANHZ 在澳门出生和成长，直到 13 岁移居澳大利亚。当时澳大利亚正试图吸引更多的移民，增加当地的劳动力，于是她的母亲带着他们搬到了墨尔本。 回忆起早年的生活，ANHZ 说：“我从小就开始画画。我妈以前常带我去博物馆和美术馆，还认识很多艺术家朋友。她以前梦想成为一名艺术家，现在我替她做到了！”

With the encouragement of her friends in Hong Kong, she and her partner Few started experimenting with street art in 2014, but they wouldn’t begin taking it seriously until 2016. The learning curve was a challenge: “Murals were tough at first because it’s a totally different thing,” she says. “You’re not in an air-conditioned room. You’re outside working in the Hong Kong heat. Learning to use the spray can took patience to reach a level where I felt comfortable. There were many times I got frustrated. My goal was to get half as good as the artists I looked up to.”

In the beginning, she sought out abandoned spots where she wouldn’t be disturbed by authorities or random stragglers and painted on a small scale. Now she prefers highly visible spots, goes big as possible, and is very deliberate with the walls she picks, seeking out interesting textures.

在香港的朋友鼓励下，她和搭档 Few 在 2014 年开始尝试街头艺术，但直到 2016 年，他们才开始认真投入到街头艺术创作中去。学习创作的过程是一个挑战：“刚开始墙上作画都很难，因为那是完全不同的领域——不是呆在空调房里创作，而要在香港炎热的户外画画。学习使用喷漆也花了我很长的时间，才有了游刃有余的感觉。有很多次我都感到很沮丧。我的目标是自己的作品能达到我敬佩的艺术家水平的一半就好了。”

一开始，她会特意找一些偏僻的角落，避开警察或路人，画的作品也比较小幅。而现在，她更喜欢在显眼的位置创作，画幅越大越好，也会精心挑选墙壁，寻找一些有趣的纹理。

Phosphorescent-colored animals, whose features are folded into layers of texture like crumpled pieces of paper, have become a signature element of her murals. These works are a way for her to reflect on our relationship with the natural world.  “I paint a lot of animals because I’m drawn to their forms; I’m attracted to curves which human subjects sometimes lack,” ANHZ says. “It’s also about a connection to nature. We’re living in a very urban setting and we tend to forget about the natural world. ”

萤光色动物图案，像是用摺皱的纸折叠而成，这是她作品的标志性元素。这些作品体现了她对人类与自然关系的思考。“我喜欢画动物，因为我喜欢它们的轮廓曲线，尤其是一些人类所没有的轮廓。另外也想表达人与自然的联系。我们生活在城市中，往往会忘记还有自然世界。”

Aside from this fascination with animals and the natural world, her artistic growth has also been influenced by her cross-cultural experiences. Growing up in so many places was a challenge for AHNZ. “I went through an identity crisis. To put it bluntly, Australia isn’t the most tolerant country when it comes to minorities,” she explains. “I went through a phase where I wished I wasn’t Chinese or Asian. Like when I ate lunch at school I wanted a sandwich, not a rice dish. Even in Macau they gave preference to the Portuguese. So I wanted to be as Western as possible. But when I went to university, I finally learned to appreciate my roots.”

In Hong Kong, AHNZ met many others with cross-cultural backgrounds like herself, something she had never experienced before. While there’s a lot to identify with there, she sometimes still struggles to feel at home. “There’s always a clash going on, where some of the values from one side of my experiences are in conflict with the other,” she says. “Part of me feels separate from the culture here. Then I go to the West and I feel out of place in the other way.”

在她作为艺术家的成长过程中，除了对动物和自然界的着迷，她的跨文化经历也扮演了重要的角色。对于 AHNZ 来说，在不同城市生活和成长是一种挑战。“我经历过身份认同的问题。坦白讲，澳大利亚的社会对少数族裔并不是那么包容。”她解释说，“我曾经有一段时间希望自己不是中国人或亚洲人。譬如在学校吃午餐的时候，我会点三明治，而不是米饭。即使在澳门，葡萄牙裔也有着各种优待，所以我一直都想成为外国人。直到我上了大学，我才终于学会了接受自己的血脉。”

在香港，AHNZ 遇到了许多像她这样具有跨文化背景的人，这是她以前从未经历过的。虽然在这里有很多她所熟悉的生活，但她有时仍会有一种局外者的感觉。她说：“常常会有一些观念上的冲突，我遇到的一些价值观会与我曾经遇到的经历相互抵触。我感觉有一部分的自己与这里的文化格格不入，但是当我去到欧美国家，又会有另一种格格不入的感觉。”

In both AHNZ’s solo works and her collaborative murals with Few (whose parents are from Hong Kong and Costa Rica), they often give nod to their multicultural backgrounds, though it’s done in subtle ways: “We’re trying to turn our artwork into a melting pot like we are ourselves,” says AHNZ. “We’ll introduce something like a Chinese story but told with our own style, which isn’t really Asian. And then we’ll also incorporate techniques that we’ve learned from our friends here, which adds another localized touch.”

无论是 AHNZ 的个人作品，或是她与 Few（他的父母分别来自香港和哥斯达黎加）的合作墙绘壁画，经常会运用到多元化的文化背景，但却是以一种微妙的方式出现。“我们尝试将自己的作品变成一个文化的大熔炉，正如我们自己一样。” AHNZ说，“我们想介绍一些关于中国的故事，不过是以我们这些不地道的亚洲人的角度来讲述。除此之外，我们还会结合从朋友那里学到的技巧，从而融入一些本地的元素。”

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Instagram: @anhz.why

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @anhz.why

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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No Commercial Value 帮我把艺术打包带走!

March 27, 2020 2020年3月27日
I'm Not a Low Brow but I Rock a Little Know-How 《I'm Not a Low Brow but I Rock a Little Know-How》

In modern times, the distinction between a product and a work of art can be blurry. The commodification of art and its increase in accessibility in recent years have played a large part in this shift. With the proliferation of terms like “wearable art” and “art collectibles”, how should art be treated as a product? In Hilmy Pratama Soepadmo’s works, the two are one and the same.

“Why do you like to shop? Why do we like to buy things?” Soepadmo asks. These are the questions foundational to the Indonesian artist’s works, which often feature logos, markings, and products from renowned fashion labels, positioned to be just barely noticeable. These elements give nod to Soepadmo’s own tastes while inviting reflection on today’s consumerist culture. “The visual markers in my works act as an entry point,” he explains. “Once the viewer perceives something they recognize, they will be more receptive towards the entirety of the work.”

在当代，商品和艺术品之间的界限变得很模糊，这种转变在很大程度上可以归咎于近年来艺术的商品化和普及化。随着 “穿戴式艺术” 和 “艺术收藏品” 这些词语的频繁出现，人们开始思考应该如何将艺术转化为商品。在印尼艺术家 Hilmy Pratama Soepadmo 的作品中，艺术与商品被视为一物。

“你为什么喜欢购物？人们为什么不停地买买买？”Hilmy 问道。这些问题为他提供了创作根基，品牌标志、标签以及知名时尚品牌商品都是他作品中常见的元素，并且毫无保留地出现在作品中。既体现了 Hilmy 自己的味口，同时也引发人们对现今消费文化的反思。“视觉和包装是我的切入点。”他解释说。“一旦观众认出作品中有自己熟悉的元素，他们会更容易接受整个作品。”

Comprehensive Arrangement B 《Comprehensive Arrangement B》
Comprehensive Arrangement A 《Comprehensive Arrangement A》

Asked whether his works are a critique of consumerism, he insists they’re not, and he’s well aware of his position as a consumer. “Our relationship with capitalism is much more complex than just saying ‘Buying things is bad. Abstaining from consumerism is good,’” he says. “It’s not that black and white. Yet at the same time, I want to raise some questions about our pattern of consumption. Why do we buy so much stuff? Are we informed enough about the things we are consuming?” Rather than simply criticizing or celebrating consumerism, he offers a nuanced take on being a conscious consumer. He questions whether we buy things out of necessity or if other factors are at play. Furthermore, he revealed that he has no idea whether people bother to understand the products they have—as simple as washing clothes according to its instructions—or if they buy things just for the sake of consuming. His works express what it means to be an artist in the midst of commerce and commodification.

当被问及他的作品是否是对消费主义的批判时，他坚决地否认了，并清楚地表明自己也是一名普通的消费者。“我们与资本主义的关系其实很复杂，不能单纯地否认购物，亦不能认为杜绝消费就是好事。”他说，“这不是非黑即白的问题。但同时，我也会对人们的消费方式提出一些质疑。我们为什么要买这么多东西？我们是否真正了解我们所消费的事物？”

没有一味地批评或鼓励消费主义，Hilmy 通过巧妙的方式提醒人们做一个有意识的消费者。他希望通过作品能让人们思考，我们究竟是出于必要而购物，还是由其他因素引起。此外，他还好奇，人们在购物时，会不会花心思去了解所购买的产品（最简单的例子就是按照衣服标签的洗涤说明来洗衣服），抑或是纯粹为了消费而购物。他的作品体现了一位艺术家身处商业社会和商品化时代的思辨。

Detail of Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification 《Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification》细节图
Detail of Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification 《Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification》细节图
Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification 《Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification》
Detail of Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification 《Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification》细节图
Detail of Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification 《Its Neither Artwork, Nor Commodification》细节图

The consumption of fashion is of particular interest to Soepadmo. While clothing is a basic need, it serves more purpose than acting as a barrier between our skin and surroundings. Beyond its aesthetic value, clothing has a social meaning: people showcase their identity, value, and tastes through what they wear. This duality between practical and decorative is akin to how art is being perceived by its audience: does art exist solely for artistic appreciation or should it have derivative functions with greater societal values? 

In the conception of his works, Soepadmo positioned himself as a consumer first, questioning what he expected from a product. His approach in fulfilling those expectations comes from another side of his professional work; graphic design. His works are as much of a product as it is an artwork to him since he incorporated the same treatments to his projects the same way a designer would to a product.

时尚领域消费也是 Hilmy 特别关注的主题。虽然衣服是一项人们基本的需求，其除了为皮肤提供与外界环境隔离的屏障之外，衣服还有更多其他的用途。超越美学价值，服装更具有一定的社会意义：人们通过服装展示身份、价值和品味，因而同时兼备了实用性与装饰性。这种双重性也映射着人们对艺术的看法：艺术品除了供人们欣赏之外，是不是还应该具有一些衍生的社会价值？

在构思作品时，Hilmy 首先将自己定位为消费者，思考对一件产品的期望；然后，运用自己的平面设计专业，将这些 “期望” 兑现。他按照设计师打造商品的方式来创作自己的作品。对他而言，他的作品既是艺术品，也是商品。

No Commercial Value 《No Commercial Value》
No Commercial Value 《No Commercial Value》
No Commercial Value 《No Commercial Value》

For an artist who views his works as both a product and an artwork, he’s careful to not fully veer into commercial territory. “Merchandising is in a whole different level of commodification,” he says. “Today in Indonesia, art exists on so many different levels, from high art to low-brow, and they’re all valid in their own right—but directly slapping a photo of an artwork to a tote bag or a t-shirt is just derivative. Merchandise does provide accessibility, and that’s great, but for me it needs to be clear that it serves a distinct purpose from the work itself.” His sentiment comes from the phenomenon of people displaying art merchandise as if it’s the actual art piece. To him, merchandise with precise functions, such as wearables, should be used as it’s intended, not be placed in lieu of the original piece. This stance reflects Soepadmo’s appreciation for everyday products.

虽然将自己的作品视为商品和艺术的融合，但 Hilmy 并不想让自己的作品完全被商业侵蚀。他说：“商品化与商业化是完全不同的。现在的印度尼西亚，艺术存在于不同的层面，从高雅到低俗，这些艺术本身都有各自的意义。但是直接将艺术品的照片简单粗暴地印到手袋或 T 恤上，这种衍生品的做法实在太缺乏创意了。商品化拉近了人们与艺术的距离，这很好，但对我来说，需要明确的是，商品与艺术品有着截然不同的目的。” 而之所以有这样的想法，是因为他发现，人们正逐渐将艺术商品当作真正的艺术品来展示。在他看来，那些有着明确功能性的商品，比如衣服，本来就是用来穿戴的，其并不能代替原创的艺术品。这样的观点也反映出 Hilmy 对日常商品的重视。

Detail of Counterfeit 《Counterfeit》细节图
Detail of Counterfeit 《Counterfeit》细节图
Counterfeit 《Counterfeit》
Detail of Counterfeit 《Counterfeit》细节图

Packaging design can elevate a product’s value. In Soepadmo’s works, the packaging is an inseparable part of the art. “To take the product analogy further, galleries function as a storefront for artworks,” he says. It’s only appropriate to utilize the concept of packaging in this perspective.” Through the use of packaging, Soepadmo presented his artworks just like a product. The packaging fulfills its fundamental function—it presents factual specifications of the artwork along with its handling and displaying instructions. This unusual element impacts the viewers’ perception of the artwork as a whole, as they convey that art is also a commodity. Rather than being supplementary to its “product”, the packaging in Soepadmo’s works is of equal, if not greater,  importance as the paintings inside them

Sealed within vacuum bags or encased in perspex, he intentionally separates his paintings from the viewer Typographic elements detail the specifications of the piece: materials, dimensions, and handling directions, among other details. His choice of materials also factors in durability, a key criterion of a high-quality product. “I wanted to subvert the notion that works of contemporary art are fragile and delicate,” he remarks..

包装设计可以提升产品价值。在 Hilmy 的作品中，包装也作为艺术品不可分割的一部分。他说：“如果把艺术品归类为商品，那画廊就是艺术品的店面。”从这种角度来看，为艺术品加上包装再合理不过。他将自己的艺术作品加上包装，像商品一样被陈列出来。和普通商品包装的处理方式一样，艺术作品的包装上都注明了每件艺术品的基本信息，包括实际规格、创作和陈列说明。这种不同寻常的设计会影响观众对艺术品的整体看法，并传达出一个直接的信息：艺术品也是商品。

对于普通商品而言，包装只作为产品的补充。而 Hilmy 却将包装与内容放在同等重要的位置。他会有意地将画作与观看者分开，作品往往被密封的真空袋或有机玻璃包装，上面用别出心裁的排版描述着作品的规格、材料和尺寸等等说明。同时，他在创作材料的选择上也考虑到耐用性，因为这也是衡量商品品质高低的重要标准之一。Hilmy 说：“人们认为当代艺术作品都是精致脆弱的，我想用我的作品挑战这种观念。”

Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object 《Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object》
Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object 《Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object》
Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object 《Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object》
Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object 《Exessive Yet Overwhelming Methods to Present Art Object》

Soepadmo’s works also come in a proper bundle, complete with a certificate of authenticity, a manual book, and small instruments to display the artwork—specially selected screws, nylon plugs, and nylon strings being some of them. Through comprehensive information and tools, Soepadmo makes it easier for galleries and collectors to display the pieces as he envisioned.

He is aware that his approach is very much informed by his perspective as a designer, and even more so as a consumer. “I feel it’s confining to approach your work by only one perspective,” he says. “The barriers between what we do is disappearing, and to embrace all its shift and duality is much more interesting.”

有时，Hilmy 的作品还会被打包在一起，里面附带着正品证明、实用手册和一些用于展示艺术品的小工具，包括螺钉、尼龙塞和尼龙绳。有了这些全面的信息和工具，画廊和收藏家可以按照 Hilmy 的设想更轻松地将作品展示而出。

Hilmy 认识到，自己的作品是需要同时站在设计师和消费者的角度来进行创作的。他说：“如果单从一个角度来构思作品太有局限性，商品和艺术品之间的界限正在逐渐消失，接受这种转变和双重性也许会更有意思。”

Compressed Object of Commodification 《Compressed Object of Commodification》
Compressed Object of Commodification 《Compressed Object of Commodification》

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Website: hpsoepadmo.pb.studio
Instagram: @hpsoepadmo

 

Contributor: Almer Mikhail
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

网站: hpsoepadmo.pb.studio
Instagram: @hpsoepadmo

 

供稿人: Almer Mikhail
英译中: Olivia Li

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Urban Collages “拼”出城市精彩

March 25, 2020 2020年3月25日
Killer 《Killer》

In vast and crowded cities, we all walk alone. Everywhere we look, hard concrete seems to magnify the distance between one individual and the next. Human cities are emotional deserts.

Andiry Tan, a designer from Malaysia, creates colorful, digital collages from urban imagery, bringing feeling to the cold walls by adorning them with silhouettes of life. Tan first explored collages over a decade ago at Kuala Lumpur’s Dasein Academy of Art. He discovered a form that relies less on carefully planned composition than on letting the imagination roam free, a form where starting with a simple theme can yield unimagined results. Today Tan works as an associate creative director at an advertising agency in Shanghai, yet he still retains his passion for this art form. “Collage just means combining different elements into something new and interesting. It’s all about the possibilities of trying to piece something together.”

偌大的城市，我们都是孤独的行者。摩天高楼上那些空洞的窗，是留给孤独凝望，还是锁住了梦想的翅膀？环顾四壁，心与心的距离仿佛因为坚硬的混凝土而变得遥远。这里是人间的城市，却又是情感的荒漠。马来西亚设计师 Andiry Tan 将斑驳陆离的城市用数字的方式拼贴而出，冰冷的墙壁却因为 “生命剪影” 的点缀而变的饶有情绪。

Andiry 初次接触拼贴艺术已是十多年前，当时的他就读于达尔尚艺术学院（Dasein Academy of Art），他发现拼贴艺术需要充分发挥想像力，不太需要过于认真的具体构图，从主题出发的创作才衍生出意想不到的结果。 多年过去，Andiry 已在上海一家广告公司担任创意副总监，但他依然坚持对拼贴艺术的热爱，他说：“拼贴其实就是在不同的元素中，搭配出新的乐趣。一切都是尝试拼出的可能。”

Crow try to Beat the Hawk 《Crow Try to Beat the Hawk》
Goodbye 《Goodbye》
Explore 《Explore》
Alien Workshop 《Alien Workshop》
Get Out 《Get Out》

City Collages, Tan’s sixth series, combines images of buildings from Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Cannes, Kuala Lumpur, and other cities he’s visited. Despite the bright colors, a closer look reveals a darker note, like the silhouettes of children flying out of a window, or a figure in a business park staring moodily at the ground, as if he were making an ironic statement. “My style has always veered toward dark humor,” he says. “The thoughts behind it are actually all pretty grim.”

Tan tries to load his works with negative, hard-to-express emotions. Each piece is steeped in his mood or mental state at the time he made it. While working on Freedom, Tan was attending the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and was told he had to finish his submission within three days. “Despite my comfortable surroundings, I felt like my freedom had been snatched away by the competition,” he says. “I wanted to leap from the window, like the people in the collage.”

Negative feelings notwithstanding, Tan admits he’s an optimist at heart. The circular shapes in each piece allude to people facing problems with a steady mind. “Real-world feelings are tough, but things eventually pass, and everything works out in the end.”

《城市拼贴》是 Andiry 的第六个拼贴系列。在作品中，他拼贴出北京、上海、东京、首尔、戛纳、吉隆坡等不同城市的建筑剪影，这些都是 Andiry 曾造访的地方。虽然呈现的颜色鲜艳，但仔细看看，你会发现这些建筑背后承载着一些黑暗的思考，例如飞出窗外的孩子、办公区垂头走过的青年等等，都好像在讽刺着什么，他说：“我的作品风格一向偏于黑色幽默，背后的思考其实都是沉重的。”

Andiry 希望将内心难以抒发负面情绪融入在作品中，每一幅作品其实都渗透着他当时的心情和状态。在创作《Freedom》期间，Andiry 在法国戛纳参加广告节，并被告知要在三天之内完成参赛作品。他说：“与戛纳舒适的环境相比，我觉得自由被比赛绑架，才有了作品中人物从窗内一跃而出的渴望。”

不过，虽然带有一点内心的负面情绪，但 Andiry 承认自己依然是一个乐观主义者，每幅作品中的圆形图案，其实指人面对困难时平衡心态，“即使现实世界的情绪不会一直美好，但事情总就会过去，一切皆可圆满。”

Freedom 《Freedom》
《Peace Out》
《Fly》
Secret Lover 《Secret Lover》

Is frenetic urban life overwhelming or dazzling? This is the question posed by Tan’s City Collages series. Like a collage, our lives are stories made up of different people and objects. “The more a person experiences, the more the life they piece together upends their expectations. You’ve got to believe you can piece together a different kind of life,” says Tan. “Anything’s possible. It all depends on how much material you’ve got in your hands.”

面对城市压力，是不断低迷，还是拼出多彩？这是 Andiry 的《城市拼贴》系列作品带我们思考的问题。其实拼贴艺术和我们人生很相似，生活就是由不同的人和事物拼凑出的故事，“当一个人见识越多，拼贴出来的生活越颠覆原来的想象。要相信自己可以拼贴不一样的人生作品，一切皆有可能，一切都原由你手上的材料有多少。” Andiry 说。

Solo Ballet 《Solo Ballet》
Jump
Bridge 《Bridge》

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Instagram: @atyc.21

 

Contributor: Pete Zhang

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Instagram: @atyc.21

 

供稿人: Pete Zhang

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Dahlia‘s Virtual World 大丽花游戏杀

March 23, 2020 2020年3月23日

In the dead of night, empty streets glow under magenta street lights while secrets hide within cyan-tinged shadows. The paintings of Keb Cerda‘s Dahlia resemble little of Metro Manila, where the Filpino artist calls home and where the streets are always filled with activity, regardless of the late hour. But the quiet depicted in these acrylic paintings is deceptive—viewed through an augmented reality app, the works come to life, overrun by digital characters running amok.

夜深人静，紫红色的路灯照亮空荡荡的街道，而暗绿色的阴影中，像是藏着不为人知的秘密。菲律宾艺术家 Keb Cerda 的《Dahlia》系列绘画作品和现实中的马尼拉大都会区并不太相似，因为这里的街道即便到了深夜也依旧热闹非凡。但是，这些丙烯画实际上却并非像其画面所描绘的那样平静 – 透过一个增强现实应用程序观看，这些作品突然生动起来，虚拟的人群来来往往，川流不息。

Keb’s father, Toti Cerda, is an accomplished painter, but the traditional medium was of little interest to Keb while growing up. He was far more interested in video games and puzzles. “I only went inside my father’s studio for stuff like tape and pencils so I could create mazes and games for my friends,” he recalls with a laugh. “That was all I thought about. I remember not showing up to soccer tryouts because my father bought me a PS1.”

Keb 的父亲 Toti Cerda 是一位颇负盛名的画家，但 Keb 小的时候对画画这种传统的艺术创作并不感兴趣，相反，他对电子游戏和拼图更感兴趣。“我小时候进父亲的工作室里也只是为了拿胶带和铅笔这些东西，因为我要用来和朋友玩迷宫和做游戏。”他笑着回忆说，“我当时满脑子都想着这些东西。我记得有一次要参加足球选拔赛，我都没有去，就是因为我父亲给我买了一台 PS1。”

He jokes that his dad “tricked” him into taking fine arts in college, but that’s where he fell in love with painting. Despite this newfound passion, his love for video games and technology never left him. In 2015, Cerda began experimenting with ways of combining augmented reality and traditional painting. Alongside his fiancee and a developer named Alvin Uy, Cerda created an app to alter artworks without damaging them, which he called the Omniscope. “Without committing a crime, I could collaborate with Da Vinci, Chuck Close, and Banksy.” Every painting series he’s created since then has used Omniscope in some form.

他开玩笑说自己是在父亲“诱骗”下才进了大学的美术专业，但在大学期间，他爱上了绘画，但他对视频游戏和科技的热爱也不会因此减少。2015 年，Keb 开始尝试将增强现实与传统绘画相结合。他的未婚妻 Alvin Uy 是一名程序开发员，两人一起开发了一个 App，在不破坏艺术品的情况下改造作品，他将这个 App 取名为 Omniscope（直译为：全息镜）。“我不用去盗画或做其它犯法的事情，也可以和达芬奇、查克·克罗斯（Chuck Close）和班克西合作了。”从那以后，他创作的每幅绘画作品或多或少都会用到 Omniscope。

Dahlia, Cerda’s most recent project, is split into two parts: a series of silent nightscapes and a collection painted in a graphic-novel style.  The series’ titular main character, Dahlia, lives in a world secretly ruled by alien robots. They distract their human subjects through VR headsets that project illusions of a bright, happy world. A glitch in Dahlia’s headset exposes her to reality.

Opening Omniscope transforms these empty scenes into platform games. Each level is populated with 8-bit characters equipped with laser cannons; the controllable character, Dahlia, runs around blowing shit up and fights off the invaders.

While the project is playful and fun, it contains veiled social commentary: “It’s about our dependence on technology,” Cerda says. “But clearly I’m just as dependent—I’m using AR technology to prove my point.”

Keb 的最新作品《Dahlia》分为两个部分：宁静的夜景和绘画故事作品。该系列的同名主人公 Dahlia 生活在一个被外星机器人秘密统治的世界中。他们通过 VR 耳机，投射出一个明亮、快乐的世界，让人类活在这个幻象之中，直至某一天 Dahlia 的耳机出现故障后，她才恍然醒悟。

打开 Omniscope 后，空空如也的场景转换为平台游戏，每个关卡都有装备激光炮的 8-bit 人物；而可控主角 Dahlia 四处奔走射击，击爆入侵者。

在充满趣味的表面之下，这个项目也隐晦地传递着对社会的批判——“这个项目旨在揭示人们对科技的依赖。” Keb 说，“显然我自己也有这种依赖性，但我现在不正是用 AR 技术来证明这个观点吗？”

Download Omniscope and scroll back up to experience Keb Cerda’s paintings in full. For iOS devices, please visit the Apple App Store. For Android users, visit the Google Play Store.

快来下载 Omniscope 全方位体验 Keb Cerda 绘画中的场景吧！iOS 设备请访问苹果应用商店；Android 用户，请访问谷歌 Play 商店。

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Website: www.kebcerda.com
Instagram: @kebcerda

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

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网站: www.kebcerda.com
Instagram: @kebcerda

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
英译中: Olivia Li

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Rise of the Vietnamese Robots 藏宝地始于垃圾堆

March 20, 2020 2020年3月20日

Saigon-based art studio Design by Reborn believes in the reanimating powers of art. The studio, founded by Kumkum Fernando (whom we’ve featured in the past), creates conceptual works that breathe new life into objects and stories that have been forgotten. Using only materials destined for landfills, Fernando and his team have produced an impressive œuvre of upcycled art since the studio launched in 2017.

来自越南西贡的艺术工作室 Design by Reborn 认为，艺术拥有复活再生的力量。该工作室由Kumkum Fernando（我们过去曾报道过）创立，通过创作的概念作品，让将被人们遗忘的物体和故事焕发新的生命。工作室以人们抛弃的废料为原材，打造出令人印象深刻的再生艺术作品。自 2017年工作室成立以来，Kumkum 和他的团队仅用哪些被埋葬的废弃物，就创造了令人印象深刻的艺术品。

In Toys with History, the studio built functional toy cars out of discarded furniture. Pieces of the salvaged wood were used as vehicle bodies. Outfitted with new axles and wheels, the toys retained their worn coats of paint and jagged corners, a nod to the object’s original form.  A similar creative philosophy prevailed in Knock Knock, a line of stationery products—including notebooks, rulers, and even fridge magnets—made from old door panels.

在《Toys with History》中，工作室的艺术家们将废弃家具改造成可以开的玩具车。车身装有新的车轴和车轮，但保留了原本斑驳的油漆与参差不齐的边角，以此致敬所用材料的“前生”。这一创作理念在《Knock Knock》上得到了延续，这个文具产品系列包括了笔记本、尺子，甚至还有冰箱磁铁，全部都是用旧门板制成的。

Rise of the Vietnamese Robots, the studio’s latest creation, is a collection of limited-edition robots that celebrates an unlikely visual detail of Saigon’s past: its windows.

For this project, the team at Design by Reborn began by photographing window grills around the city. They then brought this archive of images to life in the form of 22 figurines. Each sculpture is made up of wood blocks silkscreened with colors and patterns from their favorite windows. By presenting these traditional designs in a new context, they bring a modern sensibility to the overlooked architecture of old Saigon.

工作室的最新创意之作《越南机器人的崛起》（Rise of the Vietnamese Robots），通过一系列限量版“机器人”，展现令人意想不到的西贡元素：窗户。

在这个项目中，Design by Reborn 的团队记录了这座城市各地的窗户，并制成了 22 个木偶机器人。每个木偶都由单独的木块制成。通过丝网印刷，在木块上印刻他们喜欢的窗户颜色和图案。以新的形式，展示传统设计，让已被人们忘记的西贡旧建筑，重现现代气息。

The project is also meant to be interactive: each robot comes with assembly instructions and a list of addresses that detail the location of each window design, encouraging people to explore the city and discover the origins of their robot companions.

此外，这个项目也充满了互动理念：每个机器人都附带组装说明，以及启发其设计的每个窗户的地址，鼓励人们去探索这座城市，寻找这些木偶机器人的起源。

Through these conceptual works, Design by Reborn aims to demonstrate that objects that seem to have outlived their usefulness can still hold value. These creations also suggest that we shouldn’t stay complacent with the status quo of our wasteful consumption habits. If we live a little more mindfully and apply some ingenuity in our everyday lives, even junkyards and dilapidated buildings can be treasure-troves of beauty and inspiration.

通过这些概念作品，Design by Reborn 旨在证明那些看似无用的物品仍有价值。这些作品也是在提醒人们，不要将浪费的消费习惯视为理所当然。如果我们在平日生活多多留意，加以一些创新，那么即使垃圾废墟也能成为变身为奇妙的藏宝地。

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Website: reborn.design
Facebook: ~/designbyreborn
Instagram: @designbyreborn

 

Contributor: David Yen
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Images Courtesy of Design by Reborn

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网站: reborn.design
脸书: ~/designbyreborn
Instagram: @designbyreborn

 

供稿人: David Yen
英译中: Olivia Li
图片由 Design by Reborn 提供

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Everyday Love Stories “你就是我的风景”

March 18, 2020 2020年3月18日

In the drawings of Sundae Kids, a couple chats, flirts, teases and comforts each other, getting into the occasional spat and then making up again. All the seasons of love appear in their comics, and practically everyone can find a familiar scene from their own dating life.

The people behind Sundae Kids are themselves a couple. Kavin Thienvutichai and Pratchaya Mahapauraya met in college, where they both studied graphic design. In their final year, Thienvutichai came up with the idea for the comics. They worked on them together while they each had a job on the side. After two years, Sundae Kids officially became their full-time job.

“看！我是你的礼物呢！”
“……这……你也是我的未来。”

“不喜欢和人打交道吗？”
“不，我只是不喜欢和人说话。”
“……”
“但，你不一样。”

在 Sundae Kids 笔下，平日的甜蜜、斗嘴、相依相偎，也包括偶尔的争吵和无奈的分分合合，情侣之间的温暖日常被悉数画下，甜甜的漫画里，仿佛每个人都能够找到恋爱中的自己。

殊不知，Sundae Kids 是一对组合：由长居泰国曼谷的 Kavin 和 Pratchaya 情侣二人共同经营。两人在大学里学习平面设计时相识，大四那年，Kavin 提出了创建“Sundae Kids”的共同帐号，由当时还在兼职的二人自己打理。成立第二年，这个账号正式成为他们的主业。

As a couple, they get material from their own relationship and turn it into a sugary-sweet comic. “We express our love through the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the books we read, even the food we eat,” they say. Details like these may not seem that important, but they make up the majority of a relationship. “Readers sometimes write to say that a comic resonated with a story from their own lives. Many people like our work because they’ve experienced something similar.” The couple hopes that readers will feel something from reading their comics—in particular, love.

作为一对插画家组合，他们有时就撷取发生自己身上的片刻，来成就一副副温馨的漫画。“大多数时候，电影、音乐、书籍，甚至我们吃的东西，都在表达着爱。” 这些琐碎的小事看似不重要，事实上却占据了感情生活的绝大部分。“有些读者来信说这很符合他的生活故事。许多在页面上喜欢我们的人，也可能是因为他们有类似的故事。”两位主创希望每一个浏览他们插画的读者能通过画去感受到更多东西，至少，去感受爱。

The couple spends nearly all their time together, inside and outside of work. But they rarely run into significant creative differences or get into heated fights. “The most important thing is that we trust each other,” says Mahapauraya. “Each of us will think of three to four ideas, and then we’ll discuss them and choose the best one. Then Kavin will do sketch the thumbnails and think about the layout best suited for this situation.” Next, Mahapauraya refines each frame, Kavin then handles the coloring, and she will put on the finishing touches. “It’s really hard to find someone who understands you in both work and life, but we can make it work, and we feel comfortable working together.”

很难想象，Sundae Kids 每天都一起工作和生活。但这对朝夕相处的艺术家，在创作过程中却很少出现巨大的分歧和激烈的争吵。“最重要的是我们彼此信任。” Pratchaya 坦然说道。在一幅画的创作过程中，两个人会先商量主题、对话和喜欢的场景。“我们每个人都会想三四个点子，然后再讨论，选出最佳的一个。然后 Kavin 承担绘制草图的角色，例如每个分镜中的故事、最适合的角度，诸如此类。之后再由我将绘制最终的艺术品并发送回 Kavin 进行着色，最后，我将处理最终的细节。” Pratchaya 说，“我们觉得通常来说，很难找到既能在工作上也能在生活上能理解彼此的人，但是我们却可以，而且相处得很自如。”

Maybe what’s allowed them to build such a loving relationship and draw such heartwarming comics is their mutual respect. Lovey-dovey stories aren’t all they do, though. “We don’t want to overthink what we’ll become in the future or where we’ll end up tomorrow. Being a full-time illustrator is not easy in Thailand, but we’ve made it, and we’re really grateful.” Aside from their gratitude, they hope to help give the Thai illustration community a boost. “It’s an online world with no geographical boundaries. We want people to check out our work, no matter who they are or where they come from.”

也或许正是这份对彼此的尊重，让他们一路走来都充满爱意，连带笔下的故事都温馨洋溢。他们用 Sundae Kids 的笔名画下了想讲述的一切，并不仅仅是情侣故事。“我们不想将自己局限于将来会变成什么样。在泰国，作为从事全职的插画家来从来不容易，但 Sundae Kids 做到了，我们很感激。”除了深感荣幸之外，他们也希望这成为改善泰国插画社区的一部分。“这是个线上的世界，没有地理的分界。我们希望让人们自由浏览，不管他是谁，又来自哪里。”

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Website: sundaekids.com
Instagram: @sundaekids
Facebook: ~/sundaekidsillustration

 

Contributor: Chen Yuan

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网站: sundaekids.com
Instagram: @sundaekids
脸书: ~/sundaekidsillustration

 

供稿人: Chen Yuan

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Memory Lane 旧梦重圆

March 16, 2020 2020年3月16日

Memories are like rocks on the shore, their rough edges smoothed against the waves of time.

Viewing Kenneth Tong‘s photography is like looking directly at the past. Everything is natural and familiar. Nothing is posed. His shots are like a palette where he patiently mixes the colors of life. “My work embodies distant memories, so hazy and afar in the past that it’s hard to revisit in its entirety,” he says.

Though Tong has never received formal training for photography, he’s always been a visual person, and discovering photography has helped him break out of his shell. “I’m an introvert so I always kept my feelings to myself,” he says. “Ever since I got my first camera, photography has been my main form of self-expression. It’s allowed me to harness my creativity and construct a universe without boundaries.”

美好的回忆是海边石头，在经历过时间浪花的淘洗后，当初的棱角被圆润和斑斓代替。看汤璟恒（Kenneth Tong）的照片，像是回首曾经的往事，没有刻意的痕迹，一切看起来自然又熟悉。那些照片成了画板，缓缓地调配着生活的颜色。“我的作品镶嵌着记忆，那些画面停留在过去难以挽回，朦胧又遥远。”

出生并成长在香港的汤璟恒并不是摄影专业出身，自称不善言谈的他从小时候起，便钟情于美好的画面。他说：“我是一个内向的人，总是将感情隐藏在自己心底。自从获得第一台相机之后，摄影成为自我表达的主要渠道。这种方式带来的满足感，使我想要打造另一个没有边界的世界。”

In his photography, Tong presents an untroubled world. The washed-out colors of his images aren’t tinged with melancholy, carrying instead a sense of tenderness and tranquility. Each snapshot feels like a movie still, evoking a poetic loneliness that calls to mind scenes from Wong Kar-wai’s films.

放眼望去，汤璟恒所打造的世界即梦幻又美好，即使在昏暗的色调下也并不会让人觉得悲伤，照片上一切事物温文尔雅，宠辱不惊。把它们连在一起，则像是一部赞美记忆的电影，带一点王家卫式的文艺与孤廖。

Having moved alone to the US for his studies, Tong learned to enjoy his own company, and it felt liberating. A sense of freedom and solitude are recurrent themes in his photography, which depict different slices of American life: neon-lit diners, pier-side amusement parks, small-town youths loitering on curbsides. “I don’t consciously focus on certain themes or topics because I don’t like to limit myself,” he notes. “Going with the flow of my thoughts and emotions keeps me creatively motivated.”

他的大部分作品在美国一个人拍摄完成，你会在他的相册里发现很多美国怀旧元素，比如沙滩上的游乐场、快餐店霓虹招牌、报废汽车、以及坐在马路牙子上的小镇青年等。独自一人游学在海外的经历也让汤璟恒的作品带着个人情绪，带给观众留白、孤独甚至是自由的感受。他说：“我的拍照没有特定的主题，因为我不喜欢被限定在某个特定的领域。思想与情绪为我的摄影提供着动力与创造力。”

In recent years, Tong has traveled extensively, shooting cities all over Europe and Asia. On these trips, he doesn’t shoot with specific agendas, preferring to capture moments spontaneously. “Being in an unfamiliar place can spark an excitement to explore new things,” he says. “Every new location is a new scene for me to shoot. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe.”

过去几年时间，汤璟恒还曾去过欧洲和亚洲的数座城市旅行，但他并不喜欢带有目的性的拍摄，他认为照片只为保存片刻珍贵的记忆，他说：“陌生环境可以激发探索新事物的热情。对我来说，每一个新的地方就是新的拍摄场地，那种感受很难形容。”

The best fantasies often stem from our fondest memories, but living in the moment doesn’t mean we can’t still appreciate the past. It’s an ethos that Tong captures perfectly in his work.”People sometimes miss out on the beauty around them,” he says, “whereas I often pick out those moments. The things that escape notice are what I’m most drawn to.”

也许真正的梦幻是由美好的回忆所造，我们活在当下，但那并不意味着过去的美好会被人遗忘。“人们有时会忽略身边的美好，而我却时常把它们拾起。对于我来说，那些不惹人注意的事物，却是最吸引我的。” 

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Instagram: @kennethtongphotography

 

Contributor: Pete Zhang

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Instagram: @kennethtongphotography

 

供稿人: Pete Zhang

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A Delicate Touch 一种精美的罪行：文身

March 13, 2020 2020年3月13日

Dressed in a comfortable sweater with cartoon animal prints, Yeaji Lim sets to work tattooing her first customer of the day, inking tiny mermaid scales into her arm. The Korean tattooist sees customers by appointment only in a cozy studio filled with cheery collectibles that she shares with her sister and a friend. Lim’s tattoos feature thin black linework with restrained splashes of bright color and a revolving cast of cats and manga-style schoolgirls.

韩国文身师 Yeaji Lim 穿着舒适的卡通动物图案毛衣，准备给今天的第一位顾客文身，在她的手臂上文上精致的美人鱼图案。Yeaji 只在工作室里与预约好的顾客碰面，这间工作室是她和姐姐、朋友一起开的，里面摆满了各种有趣的收藏品。她的文身是黑色细线勾勒的图案，偶尔点缀几抹明亮色彩，猫和漫画风格的女学生都是会经常出现的角色。

Lim was raised in a creative household—one parent was an art teacher and the other a comic book store manager—so she’s been drawing for most of her life and as a child read manga every day. Tattoos were an unexpected passion. After a friend of hers started inking, Lim was drawn into the world, eventually tattooing her first piece onto a stranger in 2017. Despite the stigma that tattoos have with older generations in Korea, her family is supportive. “My parents trust me because I’ve got a job that I really like.” She’s even inspired her older sister to follow in her footsteps.

Yeaji 自小在充满创意的家庭长大，她的父母分别是艺术老师和漫画书店经理，所以她很早就开始画画，小时候每天都会看漫画。喜欢上文身也是出于偶然。她的一个朋友开始文身后，Yeaji 也对此开始产生了兴趣，2017 年，她第一次为陌生人文身。尽管大多数老一辈的韩国人对文身还持有偏见，但她的家人却很支持。“我父母信任我，因为我做着自己真正喜欢的工作。”如此影响下，她姐姐也加入了文身的工作。

Lim’s tattoos are all custom-made. When customers approach her, she asks them what type of design they’re looking for, and together they discuss options. She sets about drawing, and three days before their booking, she shows them a sketch for their approval and adjusts the design as necessary.

Yeaji 的文身都是自己定制设计的，当客户找上门，她会先了解他们想要哪种风格的设计，然后一起讨论各种方案。之后就开始画设计草图，在预约文身的前三天，给客户看设计草图，在必要时调整设计。

Like many of her peers in the country, Lim specializes in smaller tattoos, something that Korea is globally renowned for. “Most Korean tattoo artists have delicate hands,” she laughs, trying to explain why they’re so popular. She adds that the style is fitting for female tattooists, who are very prominent in the scene. “Korean women have talented fairy hands, so they’re suitable for tattooing!” she says.“I also think female emotions are very strong and complicated. When I work, I’m always inspired by my feelings.” Her delicate lines and cute style appeal mainly to women, who make up 90 percent of her clients. Fellow artists like Zihwa think these effeminate pieces can help break the stigma against tattoos.

和许多当地同行一样，Yeaji 比较擅长精致小巧的文身，这也是韩国最受欢迎的文身风格。在解释为什么这种风格的文身这么红时，她笑着说：“大多数韩国文身师都有一双细腻的手。”她补充道，这种风格比较适合女性文身师，而她们是当地文身行业很重要的一个群体。“韩国女性双手比较灵巧，所以很适合文身！” 她说，“除此之外，女性的情感一般比较强烈而复杂。譬如我在工作时，总是会受到内心情感的触动。”她细腻的线条和可爱的风格比较吸引女性客户，她 90% 的客户也都是女性。另一名韩国文身师 Zihwa 就认为，这些充满活力的作品可以帮助打破人们对文身的偏见。

Despite Korea’s growing reputation for talented tattoo artists, tattooing is still illegal there. Many of the country’s top celebrities have plenty of tattoos but still cover them when appearing on television. Song Gang-seop, head of the Korea Tattoo Association, says that enforcement is arbitrary, and you can never tell when police will crackdown. After his shop was shuttered by authorities last year, he started the Instagram campaign “Does this look illegal?” to advocate changing the law. Hundreds of Korean tattoo artists joined in.

尽管韩国有越来越多才华横溢的文身艺术家，但文身在当地仍然是非法的。许多韩国名人都有文身，但一上电视就要将其遮掉。韩国文身协会的负责人 Song Gang-seop 表示这方面的执法也很随意，你永远无法知道警方什么时候会进行严厉打击。去年，他的工作室被警察关闭后，他发起了一场 Instagram 活动 “Does this look illegal?”（“这看上去像犯罪吗？”），倡导修改有关法律，数百名的韩国文身师也加入了这场运动。

Luckily, neither Lim nor any of her friends have encountered any legal troubles yet, but they keep their guard up just in case. “I’m always worried I might be arrested,” Lim says. “It’s a big problem in my life, because it’s constant. Every tattoo artist is treated as a potential criminal. It’s sad.”

幸运的是，Yeaji 和她的朋友目前还没有遇到过法律上的问题，但他们也要时刻保持警惕，以防万一。她说：“我总是担心自己会被逮捕。这是我生活中的一个大问题，因为这个问题是一直存在的。每个文身艺术家都被当成潜在的罪犯看待。这是很可悲的事实。”

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Instagram: @yeagee_tattoo

‘

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Photographer: Chris da Canha
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
Additional Images Courtesy of Yeaji Lim

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Instagram: @yeagee_tattoo

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
摄影师: Chris da Canha
英译中: Olivia Li
附加图片由 Yeaji Lim 提供

 

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Men in Pixel 旋转的性幻想

March 11, 2020 2020年3月11日

Ever wish you could step inside a drawing, or see a flat picture from all sides?

Hong Kong-based artist Tea’s MENinPIXEL allows viewers to do just that. The project, which began as his experimental foray into voxel art, tells a series of salacious stories. Each scene features a slightly different set of brawny, bearded men engaged in a variety of titillating acts and putting their innermost desires on display in literal 360-degree fashion. In his pixelated world, the lewd is transformed into something comical.

你想过进到那些喜爱的图像的每个角落里一探究竟吗？《MENinPIXEL》系列绝对可以满足你全方位的窥探。

《MENinPIXEL》是现居香港的艺术家Tea偶然尝试的一个创作系列，起始于对像素的迷恋。作品中每个场景都仿佛在讲述一个引人遐思的故事，内里的人物形色各异，却大多性感撩人，他们被360度毫无保留的展示着，而这些大尺度的肢体动作经过像素这层滤镜，却反而显得新鲜幽默起来。

Most of Tea’s art features BDSM props, like whips, leather bodysuits, or suspended bondage ropes. This isn’t by chance: Tea works as a designer of adult toys, and this unusual occupation helps get his creative juices flowing. He says his limited free time is actually a boon.  “Since I have so little time to work on my art, I’m training myself to set priorities. Most of my ideas are flashes of inspiration, and I jot them down and think later about which ones are worth developing. At the production stage, too, you have to make choices and refine your work.”

Tea 的作品中包含的 BDSM 的元素，比如挥动的皮鞭、全身的皮革装备，或者半空中精致的捆绑，究其原因。他笑称自己是搭乘着工作之便，因为作为一名职业设计师，他设计的并不是普通产品，而是成人用具，工作环境中也就顺理成章充满了他需要的创作素材。工作之余的闲暇不多，却也恰恰提升了Tea的作品，“个人创作时间的挤压，在训练我做舍弃，因为大部分都是一闪而过的念头，但我会记下来再考虑哪些值得深化，包括制作时也要取舍，以求精炼。”

For inspiration, Tea asks friends and acquaintances about their wildest sexual fantasies, but most of the scenes spring from his imagination. Ideas come naturally to him, a result of his profession and personal interests. “Maybe it’s the experience accumulated from years of being so into manga and theater,” he shrugs. “For really specific scenes, though, like pole dancing or tango, I have to look up the proper movements. I’m not much of a dancer.”

为了创作《MENinPIXEL》，Tea 也会试着了解相熟好友们最疯狂的性幻想，但大多数时候，他画下的都是自己凭空想象出来的场景，因为以往的阅历，他可以像打印机一样直接把这些画面从大脑里摘取出来，“可能是我一直对漫画和戏剧有很大兴趣，从而积累了意识，除非是像钢管舞或探戈这样专业度更高的画面，我会需要找素材参考标准动作，毕竟我不会跳。”

As a child, Tea wanted to be a comics artist, and that’s still his dream today. He was inspired by Tsukasa Hojo’s mangas in his younger years, and later by cartoonist Milo Manara and illustrator Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri. For a while, he was obsessed with drawing in a realistic style. Gradually, he realized that the streamlined forms of cartoons posed an even greater design challenge, and that’s when he really began to learn. For Tea, MENinPIXEL is still something new, an experiment that’s given him a 360-degree view of himself—images are flat, but people are multi-dimensional, and perhaps with a new perspective, we’d see a different side of ourselves.

Tea 从小就想成为一个漫画家，至今他也保留着这个梦想。北条司是他幼年的启蒙，至今对他影响最大的是 Milo Manara 和 Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri 这两位情色漫画大师，Tea也有一段仅迷恋写实风格的时期，但慢慢地他发现卡通的精简形象其实更难设计，于是开始兼收并蓄。《MENinPIXEL》对于 Tea 而言更像一次全新的尝试，也让他以 360 度的方式去了解自己。画面虽是 2D 每个人却是 3D、4D 或者 5D，也许转到另一个维度，我们都有不一样的风景。

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Website: www.meninpixel.com
Instagram: @meninpixels

Contributor: Shou Xing
English Translation: David Yen

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

网站: www.meninpixel.com
Instagram: @meninpixels

供稿人: Shou Xing
中译英: David Yen

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Botanic Records 你的唱片该有一个“植物”的封面

March 9, 2020 2020年3月9日

There’s a crispness to the Botanic Records sound. Every element is distinct, and even songs with aggressive noise and distortion come through clearly. A healthy dose of bass keeps everything grounded, while up in the higher registers, tiny percussive elements ricochet around in intricate patterns. Melodies resolve themselves in satisfying waves.

Botanic’s sound is optimistic, even as it ranges from pummeling noise to relaxing downtempo beats to soaring heights. They’re not in denial or afraid to acknowledge the depths of rock bottom, they just don’t dwell long in those pits. And unlike other labels, they don’t fetishize audio quality; they just care enough to ensure everything is heard properly. Sometimes they even welcome mistakes as flaws that make the tracks more human.

Botanic Records 所发行的音乐都有一种清脆的质感。歌曲的每一种元素都清晰鲜明，即便夹杂了强烈的噪声和失真也显得清楚俐落。丰满的贝斯低音掷地有声；高音部分的细碎节拍，弹跳在歌曲精妙的结构。所有旋律恰到好处，自然地融汇成舒服的乐曲。

从连续掷出的噪音、令人放松的慢拍律动 (downtempo) 再到飙升的高潮，Botanic 的音乐囊括了各种音乐元素，透露出面朝乐观的氛围和情绪。他们并不否认音乐的深度，但不会在当中沉迷太久。不同于其他音乐厂牌，Botanic 并不在乎音频质量，只要声音对了就行。有时他们甚至故意保留一些瑕疵，让音乐听起来更人性化。

Listen to some of our favorite tracks from Botanic Records below:

点击即可试听 Botanic Records 的几首精选歌曲:

Botanic Records is the brainchild of Tim Sharp and Zulamran Hilmi. Sharp, who’s originally from Auckland and now lives in Singapore, has worked across the Asia Pacific, DJing radio shows along the way on weekends. Hilmi is a former punk guitarist and club DJ turned creative director from the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The pair originally teamed up when Sharp was seeking visual artwork for a radio show. They got along so well that the project eventually unfurled into a record label. 

Botanic Records 由 Tim Sharp 和 Zulamran Hilmi 共同创立。Tim 来自奥克兰，现在在新加坡生活，他曾在亚太各有过工作经历，也在周末时担任电台节目的 DJ。吉隆坡郊区的 Zulamran 曾以朋克乐手和 DJ 的身份混迹于地下音乐圈，后来转为创意总监。在一次电台节目中，Tim 找到了 Zulamran 制作节目视觉，那是两人首次合作。随后，他们一拍即合，最终决定一起创立音乐厂牌。

Zulamran Hilmi
Tim Sharp

The label deals exclusively in electronic music, but they define it broadly and release records from across the spectrum. “There’s amazing depth, and the amount of sounds to be explored in electronic music is vast to say the least,” Hilmi says. “I’m discovering new things on a daily basis.” 

Some tracks touch on established styles, while others fit loosely in the miscellaneous category known as leftfield or experimental, with no clear bin to put them in. Botanic cares more about whether an artist or a release is bringing to their surroundings at that point in time. “Does this push the envelope stylistically? Are we contributing to the zeitgeist, rather than simply adding noise?” Sharp asks himself. “All important questions.”

Botanic Records 音乐厂牌专注于电子音乐，他们对电子音乐的定义非常包容，厂牌下发行的唱片也会涉及不同的领域。 Zulamran 说：“电子音乐拥有非常惊人的深度和分门别类值得挖掘，我几乎每天都会有新的发现。”

有些曲目沿用既定的流派风格，而另一些难以归类的，则大致可归为“实验类别”（leftfield 或 experimental)。Botanic 更关注的是艺术家否能为音乐带来自身文化环境的特点。“在风格上有突破性吗？是否对时代的文化有所裨益，而不是单纯增加嗨点？这些都是很重要的问题。” Tim 这样反问自己。

The artists they work with are as varied as their sounds, coming from across Southeast Asia. Often they can only be found on Botanic Records, and no further information is available anywhere. The label is happy to provide a platform for artists trying out something new under a pseudonym. Mysterious aliases abound in the Botanic catalog.   

Rooted in Southeast Asia, Botanic shines a light on musicians from the region, cultivating a space for them to grow alongside listeners and amplifying connections. But the label mainly lives in the digital ether, adrift on seas of data. They rarely throw parties, and their physical releases are limited. With the region scattered across islands and languages, bringing everyone together under a single roof can be difficult.

厂牌合作的艺术家来自东南亚各地，和他们的音乐一样拥有丰富多元的背景。关于这些艺术家的资料，通常除了 Botanic Records 网页，在其他平台上几乎很难再找到更多信息。其中有很多艺术家更换佚名，不断在音乐上进行新的尝试，这些正是 Botanic Records 乐意去做的事。

扎根于东南亚，Botanic Records 为不同地区的艺术家们创造了一个共同的空间，吸引来更多听众根基，并彼此发生联系。但是，音乐厂牌主要活跃于数字世界，沉浸在数据的海洋中，很少举办线下的活动，发行的实体唱片也数量有限。毕竟他们合作的艺术家分布在各个岛国，有着不同的语言背景，要将每个人聚集在一起并非易事。

Despite their digital-first mentality, they do produce limited-edition cassettes for each release. There’s a logic to bringing them to life, Sharp believes. Cassettes are “relatively easy to produce in Malaysia and a great way to make a release feel more real.” But he acknowledges it can be wasteful fodder for the landfill. “We’re doing as much as possible to keep the physical footprint low. Artifacts like records and tapes are to be treasured and spark a lot of joy, but to what end, if we end up with a pile of unwanted jewel cases? It’s a tough equation to balance.” On cassette or online, Botanic is making its sound heard across Southeast Asia.

虽然专注于数字世界，但每次音乐发行时他们都会推出限量磁带。Tim 认为，让音乐以实体的形式呈现很有必要，“在马来西亚制作音像制品相对容易，同时也可以让音乐更具有实体性。”但他承认，从环保的角度考虑，这种做法也会增加物料的负担。“我们一直在努力减少对环境的破坏。黑胶唱片和录音带可以为人们带来欢乐，甚至也有收藏价值。但是，如果最后变成了一堆没人要塑料盒，那还有什么意义呢？这是很难平衡的问题。” 而无论是录音带还是数字形式，Botanic 的声音正在东南亚各地传递。

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Bandcamp: botanic.bandcamp.com
Instagram:
@botanicrecords

 

Contributor: Mike Steyels
Photographer: Amani Azlin
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li

喜欢我们的故事？欢迎关注我们 Neocha 的微博与微信。

 

Bandcamp: botanic.bandcamp.com
Instagram:
@botanicrecords

 

供稿人: Mike Steyels
摄影师: Amani Azlin
英译中: Olivia Li

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