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Graffiti, Underground Music, Branding Campaigns - Tactical Artwork.
The projects included above began when I was asked to create artwork for a drum and bass music video by a director. I have always seen a connection between drum and bass /Old school rave and camouflage. Since I can remember party goers wore camouflage, and surplus military clothes. I began a study of camouflage and its appearances across the whole spectrum. An interesting form and use to me was in graffiti. I also looked in modest depth at the range of camouflage patterns used by varrying national armies across many countries. It is interesting to think how the military influences so many aspects of civilian society. An obvious one is tecnology then systems of production or management, but who would have guessed clothes worn by youth culture.
I developed some of my own camouflage patterns
(examples in the movie above and in the background on this page & on right).
It is important to mention that the music
video was cancelled earlier in the project but I continued to
develop the work I was producing as part of my BA & MA degrees at art college (2004-6, London).
Through college I mimiced the branding behaviour (learnt from books such as "No Logo" by Naomi Klein).
I saw the connection between graffiti, viral marketing, and
advertising and branding practices by major companies. This is waht inspired the Sticker Project in the menu above.
The 'tag' or 'brandname' I used is ASSA. Among other reasons the 2 As & 2 Ss made for fun play with symmetry etc.
I came to understand that my basic interest and use in camouflage and
graffiti has a potential for depth to it. For instance the contrast in the ideas they hold to eachother.
Camouflage is meant to conceal and is also worn as an official uniform, but graffiti is meant to stand out and acts in a subversive manner within its own country. A lot of my work investigates contrast, for info see - about,
for more examples of artwork see portfolio.
Left is a stencil I made of the Indian godess shiva on my "Tiger Stripe" camo pants, which studies this contrast idea, this kind of thing could and can be seen on people at festivals etc. Why exactly is camouflage so popular with civilians?. For my MA Thesis I wrote an essay on this - it is online -
canouflage and civilians.
assa-net.