Robert Carrithers

Ash Wednesday

I took this photo of Ash Wednesday backstage after the concert of Einsturzende Neubauten at Divadlo Archa in Prague November 2010. Ash Wednesday is known as a synth pioneer. He has broken new ground worldwide with his innovative synth sounds that varied with electronica to punk to industrial and to new approaches to digital sampling. Ash was one of the first to combine experimental analog synesizer textures with punk/rock rhythms. It all began in 1976 with the Australian band JAB and then he carried on with Australian band The Models in 1979. He joined with Al Webb and Andrew Picouleau to do experimental recording projects called "The Metronomes". He worked on many projects and collaborations, too many to mention. One important collaboration: the band Crashland! Ash pursued new directions with this band and developed his approach to digital sampling.

Ash moved to Berlin in 1992 and lived there for 5 years. He worked with Nina Hagen with preproduction and programming for her 1995 album ReuD euch (Bee Happy). He began working with Einsturzende Neubauten in 1997 and went on tours and recorded a number of albums with them. He continues working with them, but he is also based in Melbourne. He reunited with ex-Crashland! Vocalist Lyn Gordon to form “The Tingler” and released a CD in 2000. He continues to divide his time between Melbourne and Berlin creating his special sounds. I met Ash awhile ago in Berlin. I never know where I might run into him. I do not see myself going to Australia any time soon, but I am sure that I will turn a corner or walk into a room and meet him on these shores some time soon.

"a priori tempo" at the Meet Factory/May 12th 2011

 
Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke presented an amazing audio/visual installation entitled "a priori tempo" at the Meet Factory in Prague on May 12th. This installation was supported by the Goethe Institute. The installation is an examination of time. They started their Prague artist residency in February 2011 and slowly built their intricate tower of time. They want to express through this tower, time which is presented in a subjective, personalized form with a new measuring rhythm in spite of accepting measuring units and mathematical precision.

 "The fascinating thing about time is that it is simultaneously a personal and subjective measuring unit although it is a neutral and objective sequence matter. Depending on which perspective one chooses to treat time with, it results in either being dominant and restrictive or impressionable and susceptible. Our modern lives are usually dominated by its strict rule. How to escape this dogma on which industrialism formed our contemporary life style “Time is Money” and to find out and examine the ambiguity of this threatening pressure was our incentive. We want to free ourselves and give time a new shape and rhythm." Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke

I documented/filmed and took photographs at the opening. The opening was a success and the party afterwards was fun. At one point I escaped the party and went into the exhibit room on my own. I stood in the room alone with the booming industrial sounds of Alexander Hacke's composition for the piece and I read Danielle's words on her paintings, which were placed around on the tower. I looked at this tower and with it's huge video eye and moving mouth. The tower looked at me. I experienced a Dr. Who experience, for a moment I was in the past, present and future. I recommend you do the same if you can. The exhibit runs from May 12th to June 5th at the Meet Factory in Prague. After the exhibit I was compelled to watch several seasons of Dr. Who and lost time. 

Berlin Cabaret 2011

Forgot this one... and I have to add it... 

Berlin Cabaret 2011

From Prague to Berlin... Monika Pokorna has been a performer since she was 17 in Prague and is now known as Monique La Fleur in Berlin and is in the Berlin cabaret show Modern Cabaret Noir Soriee. The emcee and singer Count Koroptieff takes us into into another world with his singing and monologue and Monika... I mean Monique takes us into other dimensions. Berlin infamous Steve Morell DJs throughout the show and Berlin once again is recreated into the cabaret of the twenties into the new century. Look at these photos and it speaks for itself.... I could not or would not want to do anything with photoshop with this. It is too good for me. You tell me: [email protected]  It is all in the hands.... New Cabaret is alive and well in Berlin!

New York Portraits 2010: M. Henry Jones, The Mad Art Scientist of the East Village

M. Henry Jones has been the resident mad art scientist of the East Village in New York City for over three decades now. He goes into his laboratory called SnakeMonkey Studios and creates and gives new life to his creations with the help of his fellow snake monkey mad art scientists. He scientifically and artistically creates amazing 3D image artwork, animation, innovative TV commercials, short films, web animation and a host of experimental 3D work. Henry lives out the dreams of a twelve year old. He is the founder and director of SnakeMonkey Studios located in the East Village of New York City. Henry has been working with 3D since the 1970s way before it became popular. They also sell limited edition art work and handmade T-shirts out of the studio. They do sculpture with 3D photography that he calls fly eye photography. It is a combination studio and friendly store-front shop on Avenue A, NYC. 

Henry grew up in a little town north of Buffalo New York. He got involved in making experimental puppet films and from that point on he was making animation in an extremely obsessive way. Henry has exhibited at international museums and many galleries. He loves film to an extreme extreme. Henry thinks of film as a moving painting. He likes to capture moments and freeze them like in a dream. Henry was heavily influenced by underground filmmaker Harry Smith who later became his mentor. Henry made films with bands starting all the way back in 1979. He worked with the New York band The Fleshtones and made the ground-breaking film called Soul City. This inspired many bands to start making music videos way before the existence of MTV. Henry and his team have been creating various freak characters that they put in animated films, photos and t-shirts. Sometimes it is a family affair where Henry's son gets involved with creating some of these freak characters and Henry's wife Rachel Amodeo who also contributes fairy creatures with her art work. Henry's does unique work with what is called a Stroboscopic Zolo. He creates or uses figures that are animated with strobe lights firing on them. The strobe freezes the moments. He made a series of 3D manifestations of artist Kyle Jenkin's Killer Baby painting and continues this work with his or other artists creations.  

I went into his shop last October to look around. Henry was working on one of his experiments, but stopped when he saw me. He looked at me with a strange look and I found myself in some kind of time warp. I left his studio two days after. I discovered that I had bought a 3D Killer Baby, a 3D Woman Alien and lots of T-shirts. Henry talks to one and all who visit his shop studio... except if he is involved in one of his mad art scientist experiments, but be careful when he has that mad gleam in his eyes, you might become one of his experiments. Visit his shop for the experience in New York City at 202 Avenue A. Please click on the highlighted words above for further information.