dojo: Joel Regular, Alan Regular, Jason Gouveia, Rob McNeil, Michelle Pesce, Rina Espiritu, Karen Paras, Marlon Arroyo, Michael Lopez, Noel Callalang, Lisa Lopez, Gerard Mendoza
June 06, 2002
dojo magazine covers
dojo: Joel Regular, Alan Regular, Jason Gouveia, Rob McNeil, Michelle Pesce, Rina Espiritu, Karen Paras, Marlon Arroyo, Michael Lopez, Noel Callalang, Lisa Lopez, Gerard Mendoza
dojo - Rising Suns
Artists featured from top to bottom right:
Jaret Vadera, painter /
Derrick Hodgson, illustrator / Stacy Tyrell, photographer
Matthew Beckerle, graphic designer / Dennis Lin, industrial designer
Stacy Tyrell
Her style is rooted in an appreciation of the nostalgic. Right down to her vintage clothing and her preference for the music of yesteryear. “I don’t know why, maybe I just don’t want to deal with the present,” she laughs after explaining her theme. Stacey’s pictures-of-pictures explore memory - on the notion that every memory is an interpretation of what really happened. They’re inconsistent and they change and evolve with us. “Sometimes when looking at a picture you’ll remember things that never even happened in the first place”. Through her oddly cropped compositions, Stacey offers a glimpse at parts of families we wouldn’t really know about, allowing our personal meaning to be imparted into the anonymity. I think Stacey explains her work’s aesthetic best when she tells me “I like things that have been broken in and that are a little worn. It adds some character.” Jaret Vadera
Ecstasy and despair share an unexpected common thread. Both are emotions that can accompany a personal revelation on mortality, as portrayed in Jaret’s series, After a glimpse over the top, where he isolates that moment of truth at its most disconcerting, but also, as Jaret would have me add, at its most necessary and even liberating. “You can never really begin until you know you’re going to end. Knowledge of the end can be a very freeing thing; all the bullshit gets put into perspective so quickly. When you have a sense of the big picture you’re not going to spend your time doing shit.”
Jaret’s layered emotions on wood panels delve into very separate individual reactions to that ultimate insight of the inevitability, the complete realization of the one-way conveyor belt we’re all aboard. Each work represents an approach to receiving this knowledge, but where the reactions differ, Jaret’s consistent aesthetic unites. The surface of each is withered, worn and headache grey, with figures composed of layers upon layers of society intake; anonymous pieces of posters, ads and newspapers; which are repeatedly torn away revealing a roughened core figure. This peeling process suggests such profound revelations breaking through our society’s constructed distractions to give it to us raw.
“I’m dealing with the aging process, friends coming and going, people passing away…in a sense, my childhood has passed away. Everybody goes through it, but a lot of people suppress it. A lot of people don’t want to deal with it or they bury their heads into other avenues like high morality or religion, or they get obsessed with their careers or the accumulation of goods. But all that is adding to a problem in a way because it’s not dealing with the fundamental issue, which is dealing with your own mortality…it’s a burden and a liberator.”
dojo - "No...You're Crazy" article and design
Illustration by Mat Brown
Nietzsche, Van Gogh, Tesla, Dali, and the fictional Dr. Frankenstein.We have been so inundated with examples of ‘mad geniuses’ that we’ve practically adopted an intuitive adage: creativity is a by-product of mental turmoil. Centuries of inspired mania give credence to this notion, lending creative professions their own set of stereotypes we know so well. At some level, you’ve met the emotionally unstable artist, the tortured writer and the nutty professor. And to some degree, we almost expect a little craziness from the creative and can be disappointed by, and maybe even doubt the authenticity of a ‘straight’ creator.
It must be understood before this dips into propaganda, conspiracy theories, or general misinformation that most scientists and artists do not exhibit excessively bizarre behaviour and, conversely, most madmen do not contribute creative milestones. Just because Van Gogh and Nietzsche eventually went mad doesn’t mean all artists are doomed to mental illness as a price to be paid for their creative genius. “However,” Dr. Clifford A. Pickover, author of Strange Brains and Genius (which inspired this article) finds that “a significantly large number of established artists have mood disorders such as bipolar disorder. In fact, it appears that both major depression and bipolar disorder can sometimes enhance the creativity of some people. So while we cannot say that the neurotic behaviour of some great scientists causes their greatness, it likely plays a role.”
Dr. Pickover cites Professor Kay Redfield Jamison’s article Manic-Depressive Illness and Creativity(February 1995, Scientific American), where she clearly demonstrates that established artists have a significantly high incidence of bipolar disorder (manic depression) or major depression. Bipolar disorder is a genetic disease where patients oscillate between depression and hyperactive euphoria. Established artists and writers experience up to 18 times the rate of suicide seen in the general population, 10 times the rate of depression, and 10-20 times the rate of bipolar disorder. During periods of mania, patients have sharpened and unusually creative thinking, increased productivity, original thinking, expansive thoughts, and grandiose moods. They can overcome writing blocks, generate new ideas, and have better performances. People with bipolar disorder rhyme more often and use alliteration more often than unaffected individuals. They also use idiosyncratic words three times as often as control subjects and can list synonyms more rapidly than normal. As with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) some patients with bipolar disorder stop taking their medications because the drugs can dampen their emotional and perceptual range as well as their general intellect.
Which brings us to a pointed question; do such mental imbalances actually convey creative advantages? Does mania sort of kickstart certain nether regions of the mind, making it race feverishly through worlds of possibility usually restricted during sobriety? If so, then perhaps the pharmaceuticals that are being administered in particularly massive quantities today are preventing potential creative breakthroughs. Though it must be noted that severe mental illness could only serve to interfere with creativity, it is a wonder on how our present culture’s increased streamline for ‘compulsory normalcy’ would approach necessary past eccentrics. Would treatments for Nikola Tesla’s visual and auditory hallucinations also have alleviated civilization of alternating current (AC) power transmission, effectively idling the wheels of industry? Would Salvador Dali be recommended for hospitalization for some of his artworld pranks? “Victorian age people almost showed an affection towards eccentrics,” says Pickover, “On the other hand, today, people who behave like those I discuss in Strange Brains and Geniusare homeless derelicts.”
And today a full list of psychological diagnoses are ready to label any presentation of such strange behaviours. What is most ironic is that these disorders could be conceived as advantageous. For instance, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder could be attributed to many great thinkers throughout history. Obsession is mind possession - one thought dictating full attention, and it is unforgiving. To be bombarded by one set of thoughts constantly could certainly create enough drive to get to the bottom of the obsession. So one could easily see how a scientist might use their OCD to follow a hypothesis through relentlessly. Those who are truly obsessed will relate everything that comes their way back to their obsession, which could conceivably be the path to making some brilliant associations, or to note some relevant patterns.
Over-compensation usually stems from the eccentric perceiving themselves as a slightly different breed that does not quite fit in with ‘ordinary’ society. So they are forced to constantly struggle with a sense of ‘otherness,’ and often devote their time and energy to constant creative activity. Their work often bears a personal mark and it is through their work they seek to prove themselves. Such personalities are often found to have excessively self-referential writing and tend to possess an urge to dominate their chosen field. Their longed-for sense of self-importance is perhaps needed to balance feelings of social awkwardness.
A psychological ‘unease’ is also reputed to accompany many a great thinker. This trait keeps them constantly on edge, away from stagnant comfort zones, and serves as a source of creative tension. It is like a spur in the side, or a nagging mental check ensuring constant creative production. This may be directly derived from an overall sense of urgency that is associated with many prolific creators. They exhibit an increased sensibility to their physical vulnerability and become bent on creating works of greatness as an approach to immortality.
It really could just come down to the idea that the creative arts attract people with manic tendencies due to its overall ambiguity and flexibility which could certainly be assumed to tolerate wanton minds. Or maybe these geniuses are nothing more than magnificent marketing wizards who know that, more than anything, the public longs for the remarkable, so cultivating eccentricity may be a profitable path to some desired attention.
A psychological ‘unease’ is also reputed to accompany many a great thinker. This trait keeps them constantly on edge, away from stagnant comfort zones, and serves as a source of creative tension. It is like a spur in the side, or a nagging mental check ensuring constant creative production. This may be directly derived from an overall sense of urgency that is associated with many prolific creators. They exhibit an increased sensibility to their physical vulnerability and become bent on creating works of greatness as an approach to immortality.
It really could just come down to the idea that the creative arts attract people with manic tendencies due to its overall ambiguity and flexibility which could certainly be assumed to tolerate wanton minds. Or maybe these geniuses are nothing more than magnificent marketing wizards who know that, more than anything, the public longs for the remarkable, so cultivating eccentricity may be a profitable path to some desired attention.
As with everything, madness and its relation to genius is a matter of perspective. Sorry for the cop-out, but it’s true. If past centuries were to hear us speak, they would surely think us mad (our own parents probably already do). And I may stand alone in my perception of Ol’ Dirty Bastard as a genius. So I’d have to class madness and genius as imprecise perspectives. We may think Nikola Tesla’s love of a pigeon as a clear case of lunacy until one day walking along you suddenly fall deeply in love with some random aspect of nature and truly sympathize.
_Rob McNeil
dojo - xthoughts - The Blend
The Blend
Soon enough there will be people who can claim that one of their parents is, let’s say, Chinese-Venezuelan-English-Zambian-Icelandic, while the other is French-Korean-Jamaican-Indian. If our integration into a global community continues and cultures keep mixing, the races we distinguish today may eventually lose themselves in a mix of bloods. Within each individual there could exist a representation of all races. Future civilizations may look back upon our era as the genesis of the blend. We are affecting our evolution.
dojo - xthoughts
Top: Illustrates nations as notions (rather than physical reality).
Bottom: The horror of thinking too deeply and the bliss of ignorance...in a Jack Handy stylee. Photo by Rosemary Shaheed.
There's nothing like a hearty panic attack. A few seconds of the stark realization of finality and its infinite repercussion. Displaced in distant outer space, suspended in the centre of 360 degrees of nothing. A demon whispers that I am bracketed within eternity, restricted from the infinity that lies on either side of my existence.
If truth is an affliction, then let it be treated. Return my head to this world and its blessed distractions. Bring me back with the comforting solace of sitcoms.
dojo - Himilayan Drug Company layouts
dojo - world seen - a walk with you in paris
A creative travelogue I wrote and designed for our World Seen section that walks the reader through strange nuances and observations found in the streets of Paris.
travelling without arriving
“National monuments are sponsored by Kodak,” I mutter as I snap a third Eiffel shot. You hook shot your crumpled Heineken into the park’s waste basket. “They don’t got no recycling here,” I tell you, but you’re not hearing me. Your demanding bladder now blinds you from our sightseeing. Your impatience grows as I refuse to let pay-toilets tax you seeing as there’s a free McDonalds restroom located within every three blocks. The arches beckon like a triumphant lighthouse. I wait in line for you, reciting to myself “J’ai une Royale with Cheese, s’il vous plait.” (Don’t worry, I’ll get you something.)
Relieved and replenished, we navigate through a narrow labyrinth of countless weave shops on our way to the Louvre. We walk steadily with determination, only side-stepping the homeless man swimming atop the concrete sidewalk. Parallel parkers bump the sh.t out of eachother’s cars trying to squeeze into impossibly tight spaces. We watch with admiring disbelief.
Outside the Louvre scam artists try to convince us of their works’ authenticity. We hear them out, telling them “I don’t know man, I think some people around here are bootlegging prints of your originals.” We pick up some expired museum tickets and lull the attendant from inspecting them by asking for directions to the Mona Lisa just like expected tourists. We briskly walk by the centuries of masterpieces, spreading tabloid rumours about the celebrity artists. The Kodaks surrounding us blatantly ignore the no flash signs as Mona Lisa poses with her smug smile, stealing all the attention from the forsaken Rosas and Benedettos hanging beside her.
Museum exhaustion threatens. We walk aimlessly with a park in mind, hoping to score. As soon as we happen into one, our man arrives.
“Ganja?”
“Oui.”
“Coke?”
“Non.”
“National monuments are sponsored by Kodak,” I mutter as I snap a third Eiffel shot. You hook shot your crumpled Heineken into the park’s waste basket. “They don’t got no recycling here,” I tell you, but you’re not hearing me. Your demanding bladder now blinds you from our sightseeing. Your impatience grows as I refuse to let pay-toilets tax you seeing as there’s a free McDonalds restroom located within every three blocks. The arches beckon like a triumphant lighthouse. I wait in line for you, reciting to myself “J’ai une Royale with Cheese, s’il vous plait.” (Don’t worry, I’ll get you something.)
Relieved and replenished, we navigate through a narrow labyrinth of countless weave shops on our way to the Louvre. We walk steadily with determination, only side-stepping the homeless man swimming atop the concrete sidewalk. Parallel parkers bump the sh.t out of eachother’s cars trying to squeeze into impossibly tight spaces. We watch with admiring disbelief.
Outside the Louvre scam artists try to convince us of their works’ authenticity. We hear them out, telling them “I don’t know man, I think some people around here are bootlegging prints of your originals.” We pick up some expired museum tickets and lull the attendant from inspecting them by asking for directions to the Mona Lisa just like expected tourists. We briskly walk by the centuries of masterpieces, spreading tabloid rumours about the celebrity artists. The Kodaks surrounding us blatantly ignore the no flash signs as Mona Lisa poses with her smug smile, stealing all the attention from the forsaken Rosas and Benedettos hanging beside her.
Museum exhaustion threatens. We walk aimlessly with a park in mind, hoping to score. As soon as we happen into one, our man arrives.
“Ganja?”
“Oui.”
“Coke?”
“Non.”
I hesitate as I place the crumpled francs in his hand, wondering if he was expecting a tip. I pass you the dime bag to hold on to.
Wine is cheaper than water at the trendy Montmarte bar and we budget accordingly. We even get complimentary couscous and entertainment’s provided by an un-smooth player trying to pick up girls with his terrible sketchbook. Midnight approaches as we prepare to leave. The dj remains motionless, letting the Van Helden cd mix naturally through its sequenced tracks. We’re surrounded by hundreds of sex shops now. You look at the Moulin Rouge like you want to go inside, but flashing lights, pounding music and rival sex shop owners pull us from every direction, progressively offering harder bodies and wetter women.
The sun starts to rise through the haze as we walk back, bunning the native Rizzla’d cess. We’re probably lost. The groomed beauty of the park is all laid out in front of us – tranquility almost eerie to me. I either don’t believe this or I don’t deserve it. Overwhelming déjà vu rushes in, placing me in a nineteenth century painting exhibited in the Salon de Refusées. For a second I’ve got it – it all makes sense – laid out to me like a documentary revealing time and civilization, narrative by God. I can’t share this, it’s in the smell maybe – and I start to believe in reincarnation. I know I’ve been here before. Faint memories of my past Parisian life are proving this.
I look at you and wonder what’s going through your head. I ask, “How do you act in the presence of beauty?”
Wine is cheaper than water at the trendy Montmarte bar and we budget accordingly. We even get complimentary couscous and entertainment’s provided by an un-smooth player trying to pick up girls with his terrible sketchbook. Midnight approaches as we prepare to leave. The dj remains motionless, letting the Van Helden cd mix naturally through its sequenced tracks. We’re surrounded by hundreds of sex shops now. You look at the Moulin Rouge like you want to go inside, but flashing lights, pounding music and rival sex shop owners pull us from every direction, progressively offering harder bodies and wetter women.
The sun starts to rise through the haze as we walk back, bunning the native Rizzla’d cess. We’re probably lost. The groomed beauty of the park is all laid out in front of us – tranquility almost eerie to me. I either don’t believe this or I don’t deserve it. Overwhelming déjà vu rushes in, placing me in a nineteenth century painting exhibited in the Salon de Refusées. For a second I’ve got it – it all makes sense – laid out to me like a documentary revealing time and civilization, narrative by God. I can’t share this, it’s in the smell maybe – and I start to believe in reincarnation. I know I’ve been here before. Faint memories of my past Parisian life are proving this.
I look at you and wonder what’s going through your head. I ask, “How do you act in the presence of beauty?”
“Like this park you mean? We passed through here yesterday.”
dojo - magazine 'soundtrack' playlist
Dojo - 'Battle Star Dementia' Poster/Flyer
A poster and flyer I created for a dojo party based on 80's 'battle' jams featuring competing graf crews, breakers versus capoeira, and a mighty dj lineup.
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