During a visit to The Future Laboratory's trend briefing I met Gabriel Shalom, film maker/producer/writer/blogger/graphic designer/DJ. Originally from the States now based in the Berlin, his multi-disciplinarian approach to video work moves from leftfield documentaries to more commercial, but equally interesting ad based work.
I thought it would be great to interview him on his trip to London, life in Berlin, being a creative and brands and businesses.
Simply unedited read below, and visit here to find out more about him and take a sneak peak at his work.
(Image above, cover to 'Get to Know Your Music' featuring Gabe's documentary - House, one my faves)
a) We met in London a few weeks ago, what did you think about the City of London?
When we met in London it was only the second time I'd ever been. After living in Germany for several years now, London seems dirty and dense. I had forgotten how narrow the Tube is; at least compared to the S-bahn in Berlin. But I enjoyed the bustle and the energy; the city definitely feels very alive and busy.
b) London is seen as one of the leading creative hubs of the world especially amongst young people. What do you think are the biggest factors effecting the creativity of young people today and how do you think it will change in future years?
Access to the internet and a fast computer with creative software are the primary factors affecting young people's creativity today. The internet presents an immense, interconnected cloud of information, allowing bright and curious young people to access many different influences and teachers. I think we live in an era which supports autodidactic thought more than ever before in history. In the future the main difference may be that the computer is no longer personal. The network infrastructure will grow and strengthen, and large-scale creative collaboration will be more and more commonplace. As computers become smaller and more ubiquitous we will also see the virtual and real world merge more and more, with a layer of metadata permeating much of our day-to-day lives. One aspect which needs improvement is the hardware user interface; the mouse and keyboard are obsolete and cause numerous health problems. There are exciting possibilities in the future of digital creation if interfacing with the computer evolves to become more effortless. In other words, cyborgs may make the best digital art.
c) As a young creative what inspires your work the most and how important is is that you work across so many disciplines?
I am greatly inspired by other artists and their projects, which I mostly watch and read about online. I admit that little of what I see in galleries and museums interests me at all. An exception was a piece I saw by Omer Fast last year at Art Basel called "The Casting" – a four channel video installation that told a hypernarrative about a US soldier's experiences in Iraq and Germany. I respond really intensely to music, and songs often create narrative sequences in my head. As far as working across multiple disciplines, I have come to expect that my work will continue to become more and more rhizomatic in nature. Perhaps its the clash of having studied film and video alongside having graphic design training, or maybe its just because I have always had a hard time picking only one way to express myself.
d) We talked about film and music hybrid genres, what role do you think film and music will play as genres in either art or entertainment in future years?
Live music groups have already begun to feel the necessity of having a stunning visual component to their shows. I see this primarily as a backlash against the overpolished nature of MTV music videos. Genres, at least in regard to the way they are traditionally used to carve our market segments, are fossils from the 20th century. It is far more relevant to think of vectors of influence, planes of consistency, or memes. We can ask ourselves: what characteristics do this film, that band and this t-shirt share? – how do experiences, people and objects relate beyond the lines of arboreal stratification? At least with online content, questions like these can be answered easily enough by seeing what tags people have used.
e) Do you have any favorite brands or businesses? What makes them so special?
When I lived in the US, I always appreciated the way that Kinko's affected my workflow as a graphic designer. It was neat how I could send a project to print near where my client meeting was and go pick up the documents en route. I really like the video editing software Vegas. It is the only tool out there that makes it a little bit easier to create microcinema without resorting to programming your own patches. And I guess have brand loyalty when it comes to beer. Czech Budweiser Budvar, German Franzikaner and Chinese Tsing Tao are my favorites.
f) Have you noticed any youth trends or tribes lately?
There are teenagers on the S-bahn in Berlin that can talk on the phone, send a text message, listen to thier mp3s and shriek at the person sitting across from them – all at the same time. Multi-tasking isn't just for computer work.
g) Berlin is now home, tell us what you love about Berlin and how it compares to other cities you have lived in for a young creative?
Berlin is my favorite city. There is a great restaurant and cafe scene here, with abundant healthy food and street vegetable markets. There is lots of green public space and the transit is very efficient when the workers are not on strike. It's more laid-back here than New York or London. It's cosmopolitan and young, but luckily only a couple neighborhoods radiate that too-cool-for-school feeling you get in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's interesting the way that the international gallery scene is one of the factors which revitalized the center of Berlin. I like how I can walk around in Berlin and always find new surprises, often of a very underground, non-commercial nature. And Berlin is so vast that even when one neighborhood gets too hip, there are plenty of other areas worth exploring. Just recently the people of Berlin voted to close the Tempelhof airport in the city's center and there are rumours going around that the empty space will be used for culture and parks.
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