Playing Arts
Proud Magazine Cover & Feature
"Amrei Hofstätter lives in Berlin, works as a freelance graphic designer, illustrates and writes for the spanish art and design magazine Belio. Her last exhibition held place at Gallery Box32 this Oktober, which has also included a clothing collection with her designs. Her digitally created works are abstract and geometric hallucinations of a world in which mostly female characters merge with shapes and objects inspired by classic origami. This results in the creation of surreal hybrids, who’s existential sense seems to consist of nothing other than their entire and absolute unfolding and abstraction. Far Eastern aesthetics, ritual, magic and quasi esoteric-religious symbolism and iconography confront the viewer with a complex and not always easily decipherable theme. At first glance one enters an idyllic, almost childlike scenario, only to encounter topics such as pain, trauma and self-mutilation, which ultimately always converge into a unique existential problem: the desire for transformation in comparison with the fear of failure, the total disappearance and extinction. Thereby Amrei sees herself heavily influenced by the Freudian psychoanalysis and the existence of the "uncanny", a concept that nowadays finds its use in Cybernetics as the "Uncanny Valley Effect". This condition describes the extremely rejecting reaction of a human towards an artificial creature, exactly the moment when the line between artificial and human has been crossed. "I want to deliver my audience to a similar feeling," she says, “when my works stop just being “me” and starts being “them”, when suddenly a very interesting moment begins in which they find something hitherto suppressed in themselves. This may be a memory, the hint of a feeling, an instinctive desire. In any case, viewers should not think about me, but about themselves. Roles of gender should become blurred, the stereotypical use of "feminine" colors is nothing other than a red herring. I do not like cliches. I like to surprise the viewer, to show him that things are not always what they seem to be at first glance. "
Young Smoke: Space Zone
"After releasing the debut of one of Footwork’s most esteemed veterans earlier this year with Traxman's LP, now we’ve decided to highlight the work of one of Footwork’s youngest and most promising producers.
120 Megabytes
Poster design for The 120 Megabytes Audio/Visual event curated by Marija Bozinovska Jones and Network Awesome in collaboration with FEED Soundspace.
"120 Megabytes is an immersive visual-sonic environment featuring 5 video projectors and an unparalleled sound system designed by FEED Soundspace.
Presenting the first ever live show from Machine Drum's new project Tstewart and paired with a rare beatless DJ set by Jamie Vex'd, this back to back showcase by the internationally acclaimed musicians is unusual in any city, let alone Berlin. Phoebe Kiddo and Marija Bozinovska Jones compliment the pair with an audiovisual set, Create Digital Media's Peter Kirn provides additional video and Network Awesome's own DJ Donna Summer (AKA Jason Forrest) brings the party.
120 Megabytes brings together musicians and visual artists in a space between sound and image. Featured weekly on Network Awesome and curated by Mark Brown, the show explores contemporary video artists and music videos with an unexpected link to the avant-garde."
FEED Soundspace
Network Awesome
Julien-K SDS Sessions V.1 Vinyl
"While we were in the EU on tour this summer, we started playing the remixed versions of some of our favorite songs LIVE. After about 15 shows, the song began to change and become something entirely different - almost a "Night Version" - or a completely new song based on the original. After many requests, we decided to record these new versions in Hamburg, at Clouds Hill Studios (thanks to our good friend Johann).
To give it a really live feel – to really capture what we were doing onstage – we decided to offer a very limited amount of tickets to our core group of fans. We thought this would give us a bit of the "nervousness" that comes with playing live, and would be a cool way to include and thank our SDS members.
We recorded the songs in a few takes, playing all the way through, with our SDS members in the room. Really fun. Recorded on vintage gear, straight to tape. Old school recording for a modern electro band. We really wanted to see if we could pull it off. Mistakes and all – we left everything in.
We decided to make this release a special VERY limited edition EP on vinyl, intended mainly for our core fans. The EP will of course come with a digital download code w purchase. We are mixing the record as I type, and we are looking forward to more experiments like this one – record and release within a matter of months, direct to our fans.
To make the EP extra special, we decided to record and include our fan favorite new song Dregs of the World, which has only been heard live thus far."
Ryan Shuck
