#laurence stephens

[companypants-blog]

Simian Mobile Disco: "Your Love Ain't Fair" (directed by Laurence Stephens)

Matching the singular phrase that repeats itself amongst the music, the video for "Your Love Ain't Fair" revolves around the singular idea of repeating images of lights flickering to life. It's a concept that would only work with a certain type of song and Laurence Stephens and his cohorts nail it, creating something simple, yet mesmerizing.

[Unpatterns is available now on Witchita]

[musicdrivethru-blog-blog]

Simian Mobile Disco “Your Love Ain't Fair"

[aluminium-aluminium]

Si Simian Mobile Disco hace bailar a todo el mundo, ¿por qué a las luces no? Laurence Stephens, director del video decidió que los focos y lámparas de todos lados se movieran al ritmo de Your Love Ain’t Fair.  Este sencillo es parte de Unpatterns LP, el cual puedes escucharlo completo aquí.  

[qclubderby-blog]

Review of FORMAT "Right Here, Right Now" Pictures.

Format Festival

Hi,

I’m Tom. I’m taking part in Q-Club which is hosted at Quad in Derby. I’m looking at the Format Festival which is starting from the 4th of March to the 3rd of April 2011 in Derby, UK. 

  The Format Festival runs every two years and this years theme is “Right Here, Right Now” it’s exposures from the public realm. Right Now I’m doing the first blog post from Q-Club. Oliver’s on his mobile phone, Jenny’s being interviewed by Emily and Ben and Bradley is just pushing chairs about. God help us...

I had a look at the Format website and I saw a strange picture from Hannah- Pierce- Carlson. it depicts a small dog (I believe a Jack Russell) on a chair. I have a cat so I don’t know if this applies to dogs as well. My cats, when they’re scared usually jump and get scared. This Jack Russell looks as if he’s scared. From the design and colour of the chair he’s on, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s scared of the chair. The background of the picture is a bit bleak, as if there’s a single lamp\light right on top of the chair and so other lights anywhere else. There also is some writing in the back. Now I don’t know any East Asian languages or writing but that does look as if it’s Japanese, Cantonese, Korean, Taiwanese, Malaysian etc: The rest of the picture is a bit dark and grim with some hints of light (but that’s only the writing) The dog is looking scared, there’s only one light and there’s random flying writing that I don’t understand behind him\her.

  Another picture caught my eye today. It’s a picture taken by Laurence Stephens in South Wales. It depicts a man, with his back turned, holding a mobile phone to his ear. He is standing in front of a shelf on crisps, chocolate and (I believe is) cereal. Judging by the logos and the prices of the food, it’s probably Iceland. I read the description and this picture is about the economy of Britain and the history of the town that this photo was taken in. The town of Newport in South Wales used to be mining town many a moon ago, and the economy now is on a downfall. The prices in the picture show a £1, £2 and a £3 sign above the shelves. From my knowledge of mining towns, the people who had to work night and day in these grimy, dangerous mines were really poor. Especially in the mid 19th Century in England. Irish immigrants where emigrating to England due to the Potato famine in Ireland. They didn’t have any money and no work so they moved to where the work is which was in England. The government wasn’t used to this in crease in population so they had to make cheap, small, cramped houses that were difficult to pay leaving many residents no choice but to work many, many hours in cruel, hard-working jobs just to pay for home insurance.

Sorry for the history lesson but it was probably vital to get to the point of my view of the picture. This town of Newport by the time of the potato famine, there was revolution going on, the Industrial Revolution. This means, faster, quicker, easier (in some cases bigger) machines to make the job for humans easier. But who kept the machines running? The mines used machines to pick coal and recourses out of the ground but for the machines to get these recourses, the humans have to crawl in, make a hole and come out again. That was very dangerous. I don’t know everything about the Industrial Revolution but I think the investment on the machines to make life easier probably drained Britain’s economy making it very poor. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was right because there was a Great Depression around 50 years later where the economy just went down... The signs with the £1, £2 and £3 probably represent how cheap everything was in order for businesses and enterprises to get customers to buy there food and still make money. This picture is probably a historical reference to the history of the town. The guy with the mobile phone may be a reference to technology. Back then, they just discovered that technology can make everything so much easier. The guy with the phone is probably representing that we still use technology for our everyday lifes such as communicating with another.

Keep in mind that this is my personal view of what the picture means and represents. This is probably not the exact view of the creator of the photo. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope you have a nice time looking at the somewhat odd but amazing photos in the gallery.    Tom :)