Art Social: 06/12/13

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A mix of art and music

(From left) British Council arts & programmes manager Grey Yeoh; artist James Ly; Irman Hilmi of The Off-Day; Callen Tham (aka themancalleduncle) and DJ Bunga from Twilight Actiongirl. G2PR

THE Heineken Green Room returns to Kuala Lumpur on June 15 for a supercharged showcase of music and cutting-edge arts collaborations.

The one-night party at KL Live will feature performances by New York-cased surf-pop hipster rockers The Drums, as well as one of the most celebrated DJ-producer-artistes in the new house and chill wave scene, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED).

And like previous Green Room events, this year will see installations by a collective of local artists decorating the performance space, adding a new artistic dimension to the event.

Among the artistes taking part in the Green Room event are Donald Abraham, juxtaArt, James Ly, the Off-Day, Kontak! and themancalleduncle.

Ly, a lecturer with a background in multimedia design who runs the Minut Init Studio Galleria in Petaling Jaya spoke to theSun on his work. He will be designing a piece based on the theme for the event – Social Design.

“[Heineken] gave me the theme, but there was still a lot of freedom to do what I wanted,” Ly explained.

Artist and gallery owner James Ly will be creating a special art project that will be on display during the Heineken Green Room event, based on the theme 'Social Design'. G2PR

“I do appreciate what [music] brings to the environment. A lot of my work has a close relationship to music. Most of the inspiration comes from different sorts, like world music, house music, any music, really.”

He described the project that he was creating for the Green Room as a ‘collage of citations from our environment’.

“I will be using [images of] pop culture references conjoining in one area,” he said. “This came to me when I was thinking about my days partying as a student. We always have lots of conversations, and a lot of pop cultural references get thrown around. A lot of what I learnt about pop culture came from conversations like this, so I wanted to create something and show that immense, chaotic sharing of information.”

British Council arts & programmes manager Grey Yeoh is in charge of the Pecha Kucha presentations that will take place during the Heineken Green Room on June 15. G2PR

To add another artistic twist to the Green Room event, there will also be a special edition of the popular global design networking and social event Pecha Kucha, a collaboration with the British Council.

Pecha Kucha is a series of six-minute and 40 second-long presentations by speakers from various walks of life, expertise and interests. Each presentation consists of 20 slides timed for 20 seconds, challenging each speaker to make their points concisely and creatively.

This invite-only music themed Pecha Kucha will see presentations made by various individuals, including Heineken alumni DJ Blink, photographer Vincent Paul Yong, visual artist Melor Hidyah and writer-actor Bernice Chauly.

According to British Council arts & programmes manager Grey Yeoh, Pecha Kucha events have been held regularly in Malaysia for the past few years. “[They] have been a way to get creative people in Malaysia to share their presentations, ideas and passions with each other,” he added.

“There’s no specific limitation to Pecha Kucha, and the presentation format itself is interesting.”

With such a visible platform for the local art scene, as well as a music line-up that includes local acts like Twilight Actiongirl, The Deer Society and Darren Ashley performing alongside The Drums and TEED, it looks like this year’s Heineken Green Room will truly be a smorgasboard of eclectic music and social design.

Heineken Green Room will take place at KL Live on June 15 from 9pm. Tickets are RM88 (early bird) and RM108 (at the door). For more, go to www facebook.com/Heineken.