A BIT OF CULTURE
February 8th, 2006 by rui
Yeast have been creating evocative and emotive films and stage visuals for several years, and have performed at The Big Chill since the days of The Enchanted Garden at Larmer Tree. Inspired by their recent publication of a book (and the subsequent unusual step of giving it away for free!), Linda Spence throws some questions at them…
What are your real names?
The directors of the company are Nick Hillel and Marc Silver, and there are about 8 other people who work closely with us on live shows, animation, camera-work and workshops.
What projects are you working on at the moment?
Current projects are …
Next music video for Jamie Cullum.
Visuals for a Steven Sondheim musical called ‘Assassins’ about the history of assassination attempts on American presidents.
A community film for the ‘Black Police Association’.
Barbican concert with Hugh Masekela.
Series of workshops for ‘Creative Partnerships’.
Michael Nyman for an AV festival in Gateshead.
Politics in music, politics in film/VJ ing… Are we still in a post Thatcher ‘it’s bad to be leftwing or have politics in art’ culture?
Not sure we would say ‘post Thatcher’, rather ‘post 9/11′. Whilst this event and what followed inspired a huge amount of ‘political content’, it also increased sensitivities towards artistic political expressions. There seems to be an acceptance that these topics are too ‘important’ to be remixed, not things to ‘mess with’.
How do you think you get away with overtly political content in your work?
We look at it in 2 ways – sometimes the work is justified because of the event, the musician, the track or the subject of the film, while sometimes we take the opportunity to ‘squat’ whatever situation we find ourselves in.
Have you needed to compromise your ideals in order to get work?
Not really – for the Jamie Cullum tour we even managed to fit an animation of Blair wearing a hoodie with the words ASBO on it, with the war going on behind him. A little piss-take on who defines ‘anti social behaviour’ to an audience who would appreciate that kind of politic / humour!
The nearest we got to ‘compromising’ was with the BBC, when we were making a documentary about the anti-globalisation movement. But that’s a long story!
Would you appear on Big Brother?
Nope! No interest in appearing on reality TV … only interested in remixing it!
What’s the best ever gig you’ve done and why?
Don’t know if there’s a best gig, rather best moments.
Trafalgar Square when Bush came to town … images of screens broadcast around the world … images included Bush arriving at Buckingham Palace with a sniper target superimposed over him.
Nitin Sawhney in Bristol on the night we started bombing Afghanistan. We took a live feed from the news and mixed it into the opening of the show and people were crying
Omar Sosa in Paris on the night we started bombing Iraq, AV samples of Bush and Blair on democracy.
‘Soil and Pimp’ sessions at Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards in December 2005, for just the sheer energy of it!
Do you think ‘the left’ are gaining any ground in this country?
No. They are louder and more prevalent because of the war, but not necessarily ‘gaining ground’.
Who inspires you on the film-making/VJ front?
Films we’re loving at the moment:
‘Yes’ by Sally Potter
‘Life in the Undergrowth’ by David Attenborough
‘Punishment Park’ by Peter Watkins
‘Hidden’ by Michael Haneke
‘The Beat That My heart Skipped’ – by Jacques Audiard
Haven’t been to an event with a VJ for about a year!
What’s your view on the current ‘state’ of the film/VJ business/industry?
In a strange way, not sure we have one. Whilst we’re busy all the time on something or other, we don’t really feel attached to an ‘industry’, or even a medium for that matter. The way we work is in a kind of ‘following our noses’ way, continuously evolving. There are better placed people in the ‘industry’ than us.
Tell us about your spangly new website at www.yeastculture.org
We wanted to design a site that appeared minimal, simple and solid in its design, yet if the user delved deeper, they could discover intense and challenging stuff.
We made a show reel (with a Parisian animator friend of ours) that didn’t reveal any images of our work. We didn’t like the idea of show reels that edit the ‘best bits’ of lots of different works that have been painstakingly constructed to be viewed in their entirety!
We worked (with artist Kelly Sandall) on the illustrations on each page, as they speak louder than any words we wanted to write!
We’re currently developing the front page, so it can act as a space to video podcast whole films of ours on a bi-monthly basis.
Do you have any good gig/tour anecdotes to tell us about Jamie Cullum? Gwan!!
Mmm … actually Jamie ain’t as rosie clean, as people like to imagine. Ended up with him spontaneously performing at a Liverpool squat party with a bottle of rum, balaclava and electric guitar … er … and then there were 3 nights of gigs and no sleep wandering Amsterdam!
Questions from The Big Chill Forum, as selected by Yeast…
You come from traditional ‘film school’ backgrounds. You still make films and work closely with filmmakers. How did you make that transition from film to vj’ing and why? (from Simon Green)
We actually came from a directing documentary/politics background. Don’t think we made a transition from film to vjing … we do both and/or see it as one really. We started VJing with the rushes from our films. Usually we edit our films to a soundtrack rather than the other way round, so most of our work is reactive to the audio side of things.
What’s with the sunglasses? (from The Svelte One)
er … hangovers and / or so i can sleep behind them when VJing on stage during boring political rallies!
Did any good come of George Galloway joining the Celebrity Big Brother circus and has this assisted the anti-war movement? (from Simon Green)
No idea! Didn’t have any time to watch it!
[b]How on earth did you manage (and why) to produce a great book ‘Random’ – and give it away for free? Big respect to you for it mind! (from Digits Mcfee)
And what did you hope to achieve by it? (from mach v)[/b]
When thinking about the site design it meant having to look back over 6 years of work and photos. We realised there was a lot of inspiring stuff that didn’t have a ‘place’ on the site. We decided we didn’t want to give out DVD’s anymore, as all the work would be made available on the site. We also disliked giving out DVD’s because they can’t be appreciated immediately – you have to go home and at best, choose a time to view them … more likely, they sit unwatched in a pile for a few months!
So instead, we decided to make a book that wasn’t selling us, but offered up some of those momentary inspiring poetic moments we all have, but rarely get to share … to kind of celebrate this in a physical way. We wanted something we could give to anyone, anywhere in the world, that wouldn’t require technology to experience it.
But to do this it felt uncomfortable to try and sell it.
So we decided to make it available for free and print 1500 copies. We’re leaving them all around the world in bookshops, art galleries etc with a kind of remixed bar code sticker on the back. (‘Random’ in its title and its distribution!) When you look close, you see the numbers have been replaced by the words ‘please take for free’.
The cover (which comes off as a poster) thanks all the people we’ve worked with, who’ve been part of our journey in a big or small way, over the last 6 years.
Also, we don’t really see ourselves as just VJs or filmmakers. Last year we made some t-shirts, this year a book. Like the idea that you can apply creativity to any medium if you collaborate with the right people.
Why ‘Yeast’? (from Mach V)
‘Yeast’ because years ago we were sitting around trying to come up with a name and we didn’t like anything that was too definitive! ‘Yeast’ evoked both culture and evolution at the same time … although it makes women cringe sometimes!
What’s next? (from Mach V)
Outside of actual paid work coming up…
We’re going to make another book and sell it, but this one’s gonna be about the whale that visited London in a ‘Murakami’ – esque kinda way!
In the very long term we’d like to start developing spaces in various beautiful spots around the world for like-minded people to work on projects and holiday at.
You’ve taken some very progressive steps with the boundaries between audio and visual performances. Do you regard audio and visual as equal in a social space? (from Simon Green)
Indeed – like the way you regard your eyes and ears as equal!
How do you see multimedia in social spaces progressing over the next five years? (from Simon Green)
Depends on who controls the social space! Multimedia will obviously become more and more prolific in social spaces. Whether we need that, or whether it’s a positive or negative thing, depends on whether you like how it’s used or what the content is. It’s the message that is of more interest to us rather than the medium.
What are your ten favourite films? (from Simon Green)
Not sure about a top ten film chart but excited to see anything by:
Darren Aronofsky
Coen Brothers
Tim Burton
Emir Kusturica
David Cronenberg
Martin Scorsese
David lean
Powell and Presburger
Wong Kar-Wai
Pedro Almodovar
Juenet & Caro
What are your ten favourite albums? (from Simon Green)
Again hard pushed to choose a top ten, here are some inspirational artists:
Radiohead
Bjork
Pink Floyd
Squarepusher
Aphex Twin
Matthew Herbert
Photek
Jill Scott
Me’shell NdegeOcello
Mos Def
Miles Davis (Sketches of Spain)
Pulp
