An exhibition of new works responding to innovations in early music technology.

Monday 1 – Sunday 14 June | open 10:00 – 17:00 daily | admission free

Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XE
www.millenniumpoint.org.uk

The mechanisation of sound creation began as soon as technology allowed it. In the 19th century, mechanical musical instruments such as barrel organs, symphonions, orchestrions, euterpeons and miniature music boxes proliferated. Equally marvelled at and loathed for their tinny, repetitive reproductions of classical pieces and show-tunes, these programmable machines can be seen as the ancestors of today’s electronic and digital instruments. Birmingham Museums’ collection of ornately decorated mechanical instruments, on display in the All Ears exhibition, reflects on the transition of music from real-time, human generated sound to the myriad ways in which technology shapes how we produce and consume music today.

Optikit  – Owl Project
www.owlproject.com/

Owl Project are combining ideas from the Symphonium music boxes in the museum collection, with more experimental techniques of optical sound developed in Russia during the early 20th century, such as the Variaphone and the ANS Synthesiser.

The Symphonium was very fixed in its musical remit. The notes were set to a Western scale and the sequences on metal disks, which were hard to change. In response, we are developing an unfolding music box that can be reconfigured in a multitude of ways. Assembled from a bespoke kit of paper discs, synth modules, motors and fixings, the Optikit will generate endlessly changing beats and rhythms throughout Supersonic Festival.

Owl Project is a collaborative group of artists, Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons. Drawing on influences such as 70’s synthesiser culture, DIY woodworking and current digital crafts, they work with wood and electronics to create music making machines, interfaces and objects.

New Automatic Party Organ
Sarah Angliss Colin Uttley + Eve Warren
www.sarahangliss.com

This five-octave pipe organ has been designed as an automatic party instrument. People can call up tunes by placing RFID-tagged request cards on the lid. The pipes come from two scrapped Welsh chapel organs. They’ve been stripped, rewaxed and regilded, then arranged in an asymmetric sweep that’s reflected in the shape of the new windchest (the box of air under the pipes). The paintwork is inspired by an 18th century harpsichord cabinet but uses soundwaves as a decorative motif. The air inlet, for example, is cut in the shape of a wavefront.

Sarah Angliss is an award winning composer, roboticist and historian of sound whose music reflects her fascination with European folklore and long-forgotten machines. In performance, Sarah mixes theremin, saw and ancient instruments with live electronics, with an ensemble of musical automata of her own design and construction.

Amplification
MortonUnderwood
www.mortonunderwood.co.uk

Amplification is a stereo acoustic amplification system, developed to encourage deep listening to environmental sounds within a space. Users of the system can augment their listening through two large ear trumpets. They will also be able to adjust the stereo field of what they can hear by swivelling each horn.

MortonUnderwood were struck by the developers’ efforts to amplify the sound output of the music machines on display in the museum collection. In a world where we can easily dial in more electronic amplification, many of the innovative approaches seen in the collection are now obsolete. Through Amplification, MortonUnderwood hope to highlight the beauty of passive, acoustic amplification systems.

MortonUnderwood is a musical instrument design and sound art duo made up of equal parts David Morton and Sam Underwood. to amplify the sound output Their work mainly explores acoustic systems and sub-bass.

Oak Apple Orchestra
Paul Gittins
www.modernshadows.com/oak-apple-orchestra.html

A collection of instruments and objects played by clock motors. Oak apples, attached to the secondhand, hit the strings at two second intervals and then strike and fall back. Each instrument has several clock motors, positioned to select specific notes. This selection then repeats to create an endless rhythm. The structure of intervals between the notes is essentially random, producing an infinite number of variations, and the clock motors can be switched on and off using a bluetooth control, changing the shape of the rhythm. The instruments produce a continual stream of minimal music with a two second beat.

Paul Gittins works with a variety of media, producing interactive shadow shows with screens of paper pixels, in theatres and outdoor festivals. He is currently developing an orchestra of self playing instruments that will be attached to trees in woodland locations.

All Ears is a Millennium Point Trust commission, curated by Capsule and delivered in partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust. The exhibition is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

www.millenniumpoint.org.uk

Bunny is an artist, illustrator and obsessive fanatic, raised in Birmingham and currently based in Tokyo, Japan. Her work is heavily inspired by popular culture and fanaticism, with recurring themes including music, teen angst, pro wrestling, animals and idols. Previous collaborations with Capsule include exhibitions, t-shirt designs and infamous trading card sales at Supersonic 2009, 2010 & 2012, as well as creating the ‘Home of Metal’ project family tree. Bunny returns to the festival selling prints, zines, badges and stickers in addition to vintage trading cards, cult memorabilia and treasures from Japan.

www.bunnybissouxart.com

Celebrating Supersonic’s occupancy of South & City College Birmingham, local historian Ben imagines what would feature on the syllabus and what would be created in the workshops were Capsule to become permanent vocational fixture here. This visionary academy excels in Fine and Applied Skulpture, intricately crafted by students under the tutelage of Digbeth’s skilled precision engineers, to striking effect. Even with a skeleton staff, the course promises to transform even the least promising bonehead to fully qualified artisan. That is, if students are prepared to bone up: dead heads need not apply.

‘The florid filigree reanimates the skulls from grotesque to elegant and the results are showcased in display cabinets to attract trade and inspire commissions. The college is keen to boast the ancient traditions of Digbeth: the skills, customs, rituals and bone-lore unique to the area. From here, they are exported around the world to collectors of anthropological oddities and industrial wonders. This perpetuates the legacy of the craft and ensures that it never dies out.…’ Skulls Out Forever!

Dissenters and Dreamers at Centrala, a new multifunctional space in Minerva Works run by PEA, it’s a gallery, café and venue with a particular focus on Central and Eastern European culture. Centrala Space presents an Exhibition of Anti Authoritarian Protest Art and Music from the East and West.  This particular exhibition is a selection of Punk protest art  and documents produced before the fall of the Iron Curtain from the East and West, including works by Gee Vaucher and Oscar Kasperek. Gee Vaucher’s iconic imagery made with Anarcho-punk band Crass was inspirational to the ‘protest art’ of the 1980s and still resonates today. From the same period but on the other side of Europe Oscar Kasperek’s work was equally provocative.

Gee will be in conversation with Nic Bullen, founding member of Napalm Death as part of Digbeth Delights on Sunday 14 June.

The first commission to come out of the Capsule Lab series in collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre Descent, meaning a flock of woodpeckers, a new sound based installation created by artist duo MortonUnderwood. A series of electronic woodpeckers will be positioned within the public realm. You spot a colourful button. You press it and a note resonates across the space. You press it again and realise that a bird is perched overhead, which percusses the surface of a post as you press the button. You spot other buttons, each triggering a bird that percusses a surface. You get it; someone has exposed the musical potential of this space. You play. The work will be shown as part of Sonic Gorilla at Warwick Arts Centre and then at Millennium Point from 30 May – 14 June

Photo by Tracey Moberley

Legendary musician and artist Bill Drummond will begin a twelve year ‘World Tour’ under Spaghetti Junction marking this momentous event with an exhibition at Eastside Projects.
The exhibition focuses on ‘The 25 Paintings’, a series of artworks that signpost actions Drummond will perform across Birmingham during his three month stay in the city including, but by no means limited to, giving away bunches of daffodils, discovering Dead Oak Rings, building rafts, hiding in cafes, making beds, sweeping the streets clean and brewing tea. Also on show will be The SIXTY Posters, The 25 Sixty Second Films, an evolving selection of photographs, a globe of the world and a large map of the city.
www.eastsideprojects.org

Birthday thumps, bumps, pinches, etc., were said to bring luck and send away evil spirits. Party snappers, horns and other noisemakers were also intended to scare off bad-luck spirits.

Bunny Bissoux

Artist,illustrator and “obsessive fanatic”.  Recurring themes include music, teenage angst, animals and idols. Previous collaborations with Capsule include a solo exhibition at Supersonic 2009, the official t-shirt design for Supersonic 2010 and the creation of the ‘Home of Metal’ project family tree.

bunnybissouxart.com

Daniel Margetts

A Worcester based illustrator, who would like to welcome you into his world of worm-infested lands. He is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, 80’s prosthetic horror films, lowbrow art, Alejandro Jodorowsky, J.G Thirlwell and Roky Erickson.

behance.net/margetts

Idiot’s Pasture

A “strictly lowbrow” illustrator, printmaker, drawer and youth worker from Halifax (everybody’s favourtie industrial town). Idiot is a proud conveyor of nonsense and failed his art GCSE due to missing out the letter “R” on a Jimi Hendrix poster.

idiotspasture.co.uk

Joe Stephen Taylor

Deep down in the depths of the jungle they call Birmingham, Joe Stephen Taylor AKA LumberJackJoe planted his roots into studying illustration Let Joe lure you into the dark forest of his limitless imagination. You never know what quirky creatures you will encounter.
lumberjackjoe.com

Sam Wiehl

Having co-run Burneverything art and design studio Sam continues to work as an illustrator, designer and artist. Part of the music/art collectives Behind The Wall of Sleep and The Hive Collective, Sam also regularly creates light shows for the band Mugstar.

samwiehl.co.uk

William Daw

Illustrator creating prints, gig posters, comics and zines as well as doing drawings and designing stuff and coming up with stupid jokes all day.
willdaw.com

Noise Box designed by Simon Fowler

To celebrate 10 years of Supersonic Festival, musical instrument designers MortonUnderwood have created ten unique noise box synths as a gift for Capsule. Each one is hand-painted by a talented designer in the Supersonic 2012 colours. The result is a beautiful set of bespoke synthesisers which capture both the visual and sonic aesthetic of the festival.

Contributing artists:

An Endless Supply

Ben Javens

Ben Sadler

Conny Prantera

David Hand

Richard Sayer

Sarah Coleman

Simon Fowler

Stephen O’Malley

Tom Hughes

MortonUnderwood will be bringing  more boxes and merchandise along to the Supersonic stand in the Market Place. Come and try them out or just pop along to meet Sam and David.

www.mortonunderwood.co.uk

Scratch ‘n’ Phase is an interactive audiovisual installation that will make DJs and audiophiles wince in pain. Come and destroy some CDs and needles in the name of noise in this sound work where you control the volume.

This piece is created by Sarah Farmer,  a Birmingham based artist exploring various sound techniques and home made instrumentation.

http://sarahmfarmer.co.uk

“Four years ago the Outcrowd stumbled upon some curious and bizarre old traditions based around the area of Birmingham’s birth place, the crossing of the River Rea, now known as Digbeth. Intrigued we delved further, eventually leading us to discover the lost Festival of the Rea, with roots in Pagan and traditional religions, echoed in similar festivals still celebrated throughout Europe.

For Supersonic we will  re-create elements from the Festival of the Rea and build a shrine known as the “house of Beorn”, the first to be built in the area for over a century. A selection of artists with mythical potential will be invited to create offerings to this shrine and members of the public will also be invited to contribute their own offering to this ramshackle, weathered and sacred cabin during the festivities.

As the sun goes down on the last night of the festival, past and present will come together in a climax of channeled energy and sound where the magic of the event and the natural powers of the river will awaken and release the long lost spirits of the city we call home.”

http://www.outcrowdcollective.blogspot.co.uk/

Artists confirmed for the exhibition are:

Marcus Oakley

Jake Blanchard

Rob Flowers

Holly Wales

Stewart Easton

Steven Smith

Rue Five

Adam Higton

French

Arran Gregory

Simon Peplow

Lawrence Roper

Stef Grindley

Tsz Ludford

Lucy McLauchlan

Ben Javens

Image: Marcus Leith

Reverse Karaoke is a collaborative installation by Kim Gordon and Jutta Koether. It consists of a painted Yurt style tent housing a lo-fi rehearsal set-up with guitar, microphone, bass, and drums and a basic PA system. The visitor is invited to play the instruments and record their own music along with a pre-recorded vocal track of Kim Gordon’s voice. The track is recorded live by a sound engineer who burns two CD copies of the track, while the visitor(s) decorate two CD sleeves using materials in the gallery. One copy of the CD becomes part of the piece itself on display in a record box, and the other the visitor takes home.

Reverse Karaoke was commissioned by Electra for ‘Her Noise’, South London Gallery, 2005, and was complemented by a series of evening performances in which artists were invited to use the piece’s set. These events featured Jenny Hoyston (Erase Errata), Heather Leigh Murray, Christina Carter, Ana Da Silva (The Raincoats), Partyline and Spider and the Webs. Since 2005 the work has toured Europe extensively and been exhibited at Magasin-CNAC, Grenoble, France; MAK, Vienna, Austria and Wysing Arts Centre, Camrbidge, as well as being included in the major touring exhibition ‘Sonic Youth Etc.: Sensational Fix’

Electra is a London based contemporary art organisation which curates, commissions and produces projects by artists working across sound, moving image, performance and the visual arts. http://www.electra-productions.com/

Reverse Karaoke will be open over the Supersonic Festival weekend at Eastside Projects.

Eastside Projects

86 Heath Mill Lane, Digbeth, B9 4AR

Opening hours during Supersonic Festival:

FRI: 12-8pm

SAT: 12-9pm

SUN – 2pm-8pm

http://www.eastsideprojects.org/

FREE

The Vinyl Rally is an large-scale installation combining sound art, video art and kinetic sculpture into every kid and kidult’s dream-hybrid; an immersive participatory play-set playing off vinyl fetishism, video arcade mystique and the machismo of motor sports in a video game played within a real world setting!

Classic first person video racing is simulated as remote control cars with styli attached, race across a track constructed from a mass of disused vinyl records. Transmitting sound (produced as the styli skim along the vinyl surface) and vision (from wireless spy cameras mounted to the front of each car) to reengineered old school racing consoles with immersive 50” flat screens. Here players navigate the course from the vehicles point of view, not only controlling the cars movements, but also the parameters of the resulting sounds they create via a series of unique audio effects mounted onto the dashboard giving each car its own distinct aural flavour. These sounds are emitted from speakers built into the seats causing them to vibrate in correspondence with the movements on screen, producing a personally immersive experience aurally, visually and physically that can only be truly appreciated seated at the controls.

Vinyl Rally is the project of Australian artist Lucas Abela, AKA Justice Yeldham

http://dualplover.com/vinylrally/

Spectacle at Supersonic

Supersonic invited six artists to create illustrations in response to this year’s theme of ‘Spectacle’. The term was borrowed from the Roman practice of staging circuses, in the famous “Bread and Circuses” philosophy of the Roman elite to maintain civil order without solving underlying social and economic problems.

Like the festival itself, ‘Spectacle’ operates in two contexts simultaneously. On the one hand, it refers to high culture performances where the draw for an audience is the impressive visual accomplishment. On the other hand, it refers to low cultural shows operating in a folk environment.

The artists are:

Chris Bourke
An artist and printmaker from Worcester, he spent over a quarter of his life owning and running a skateboard shop. He now makes art full time. His work is influenced by music, politics, nature, skateboarding, tattoos, life and death.

Craig Earp
Earp likes drawing strange bony twisted shapes with teeth, an obsession of his since watching John Carpenter’s The Thing and Alien when he was a schoolboy.  His digital art mostly combines photo montage and illustrations together into what he calls ‘Organic Disturbances’; scenes of nature in its decay, its death, brought together to form an outlandish beauty.

Harriet ‘Alana’ Shephard
As a teenager, Harriet frequently trekked into Birmingham to see various Capsule shows; droning guitars, sirening feedback and enough bass to make your jeans shake, always left her feeling spellbound; a euphoria that has continually fed into her work. Since moving to the Big Smoke, embarking on the epic quest of doing an illustration degree at Camberwell, Harriet began skateboarding; now an important aspect of her practice as an illustrator. In between drawing Heavy Metal legends and comics about mis-adventures with famous skateboarders. Harriet also runs Brash, a skate zine, which features the combination of artwork, interviews, reviews and comic strips, now in its third issue.

Jake Blanchard
A freelance illustrator born and raised in the Peak District, the countryside is a huge influence on Blanchard’s work today. He has worked on a variety of different projects including record sleeves, gig posters, skateboards, t-shirts and newspapers and has exhibited throughout the UK as well as in Paris, Copenhagen, Boston and Waiheke Island (New Zealand). He also runs his own record label and publishing company, Tor Press.

Sophia Alda
Since graduating from Brighton University in 2009, Sophia Alda has undertaken a variety of jobs, large and small, and exhibited widely, most recently in Leeds, Edinburgh and London. She works primarily in gouache, with a vibrant, acerbic style, and produces apparel, books and prints. She also works as a restorative decorator, where her most exciting project to date involved gilding a lion’s face.

Thomas J Hughes
Horror films of the 1970s, Marvel comic books, traditional doom metal, twentieth century science fiction television serials and Yes album covers are just a few of the things that inspire Thomas in the making of his work. His work is created using a variety of materials, with an emphasis on hand-drawn illustration and typography.

If you think the Capsule ladies sit around twiddling their thumbs between Supersonics, think again! 2011 has been an incredible year for our most ambitious project to date with exhibitions, live events and a conference all celebrating Birmingham and the Black Country as the birthplace of Heavy Metal. The project is ongoing and you can contribute to the Home of Metal digital archive and learn more here www.homeofmetal.com

Impassioned by the social conditions of the time and inspired by anarcho-punk bands who were taking an anti-capitalist stance through their music, Nicholas Bullen and Miles ‘Rat’ Ratledge formed Napalm Death. At only 14 years old, they were motivated to play gigs, create fanzines, and swap music via cassette tapes with the wider punk community. This exhibition will give you an exciting insight into this period of music history – the formation of Grindcore.

No strangers to Supersonic, here are Napalm Death performing at the fest in 2010:

Photographing Supersonic for the past 2 years, James Robinson has been able to not only shoot live performances , but also develop an on going set of portraits of the artists off stage.

It can be difficult to think of musicians as people, popular culture elevates artists to such inaccessible places, it is often easy to forget that they are real.  Photographers rarely get the opportunity to interact with musicians, restricted to press pits and passes, blocked by security and reduced to paparazzi.

The beauty of the ‘alternative’ music scene is that it’s about creating, doing and making music that is to be thought about, enjoyed, sometimes maybe even not enjoyed. These are the people who are making without a shadow of a doubt, the most interesting, challenging music anywhere in the world. These artists maintain integrity. These people are real.

www.jwrobinson.co.uk

For Supersonic 2011, the festival organisers have invited some of their favourite small press publishers to sell  their books, comics and zines, including:

Conny Prantera is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in London. Here at Supersonic she will be showing a new piece titled Kore Kosmou, a video installation consisting of photomontage and drawings, meticolously put together frame by frame, animated and synced to a series of purposely created audio loops and drones. The subject of the installation is the 4 Elements of the Natural World: Air, Water, Earth and Fire. Through her intricately detailed drawings, she reveals an imagery of disquieting visions: a collection of relics from a world of wonder, which appears disturbing and suspiciously sardonic at the same time. But while with one eye she winks, to reassure us all is well, with the other she threatens with a baleful presage.

connyprantera.blogspot.com

DRAWING OBSESSIVE from conny.withloveandsqualor on Vimeo.

“From straunge and dampe woodlands is borne Herman Inclusus, a plagve ridden scholar, chronicler and adept of an unheralded preisthood whoth sanctifies the Despondent. He has brought fourthe his collections of unholy relics and exhvmed icons to illuminate your pervertd souls. Blesseth the sicke. Hail Herman Inclusus. ”

Herman Inclusus is the pseudonym of Stuart Kolakovich. Here he will present new works inside a shed that has been converted to an Orthodox style church.

Stuart Kolakovic was born in the Midlands, UK – home to Black Sabbath and industrial pollution. Graduating from the Illustration course at Kingston University in 2007, his final major project, Milorad, an 80 page comic about his Serbian Grandfather, won a D&AD New Blood Award and came runner up in The Observer / Jonathan Cape, Graphic Short Story Prize.

Since graduating Stuart has worked consistently, consolidating his drawing, inspired and influenced by his Eastern European heritage and it’s folk art aesthetic. Whilst the visual impetus behind his work may be apparent, for Stuart, the need to communicate and to tell a story, is the most important aspect of folk art.

http://www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk/hermaninclusus.html

Seeing Sound Curated by Laura Coult
12PM – 7PM Fri – Sun
VIVID I 40 HEATH MILL LANE I BIRMINGHAM B9 4AR www.vivid.org.uk

Seeing Sound is an exhibition exploring the ways in which we experience sound as light, movement, noise, and colour. Spanning 70 years the programme draws together historical and contemporary moving image works including Ben Russell’s Black & White Trypps No. 3 (2007) which documents an audience’s collective freak-out during a performance by Rhode Island noise band Lightning Bolt; and Tony Conrad’s seminal work The Flicker (1966) a 30-minute film exploring the possibilities for harmonic expression using a sensory mode other than sound; audience reactions to the film ranged from disorientation, temporary hypnosis, and intense experiences of colours and patterns, to headaches and violent bouts of nausea, all seemingly caused by the pulsating light’s interaction with the brain’s alpha waves. Other artists include Stefan and Franciszka Themerson and Benedict Drew.

Live performances
Classical percussionist Joe Snape performs: Lärmlicht #1, for percussionist, 4-channel tape and 8 lightbulbs.

Mr.Underwood will stage a rare performance of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music. Originally scored for “For Microphones, Amplifiers Speakers and Performers” this specially adapted version will be performed using four Noise Boxes / Optical Theremins, similar to those made in the workshop, and four torches.

The Outcrowd are a group of like-minded image-makers. There work can be seen as an expression of these artists compulsion to create. Fundamentally, the artists all share an essential motivation to explore the possibilities of enhancing everyday life by making magic from the mundane. There work utilises modest and direct means including works in pencil, paint and ink along with photographic works, which record and celebrate everyday happenstances.

Specifically, what comes to the fore are common concerns and a positive interest with dipping into the past and championing seemingly long-forgotten notions such as thriftiness and a delight in the ordinary everyday detritus of life.

This year their process is applied to exhibiting in sheds, modifying and re-claiming these gentle relics over the duration of the festival.  Come join them as they attempt to cheekily subvert the traditional gallery setting.

www.outcrowdcollective.blogspot.com

Bunny Bissoux – Petting Corner
Located in the Market Place

Keen to have a petting corner at the festival but not able to have a real life one, we’ve gone for the next best thing by inviting artist Bunny Bissoux to create an exhibition incorporating this years ‘Best In Show’ theme. Bunny is an artist, illustrator, collector, fanatic, musician and aspiring wresting valet. Bunny continues to follow her interests and obsessions as inspiration for her work which generally features 80s metal, wrestling, pop idols, imaginary friends and small dogs, she makes fanzines, costumes, plush toys and cupcakes and created last year ‘Creatures of Corpse Paint’ illustration as well as the ‘Home of Metal’ map illustration. Look out for her Wonderleague stall full of vintage treasures & trinkets.
www.wonderleague.co.uk/

Capsule invited the following six artists to create illustrations in response to this years festival headliners Italian legends GOBLIN. The group become the aural signifier of the Italian horror film movement of the seventies and the eighties, creating sound tracks to such cult classics as “Suspiria” (1977) and “Dawn of the Dead” (“Zombi”, 1978). As such this years theme was to create an illustration for Supersonic Festival in the style of a horror film poster! These works will be exhibited within the Custard Factory.

Drew Millward
Born in Coventry grew up in Bolton, and now lives in Leeds. Drew draws pictures the old fashioned way, with pens and pencils. If you like his drawings, please feel free to let him know. He is a friendly sort. Drew runs Birdwar Records with his good buddy Mr Luke Drozd, and plays drums in White Fang.
www.drewmillward.com

Emma Duggan
Born and bred in Birmingham, Emma has been drawing and making things for as long as she can remember.  Her work incorporates elements of both textiles and illustration.  While studied for her degree in textiles, she specialised in embroidery, with a parallel interest in drawn and print work.  This crossover is evident in pen and needle creations that are hard to categorise and has seen her create fashion, illustration work, jewellery as well as private commissions.
www.myspace.com/eilithrose

Gemma Correll
A Norwich-based freelance illustrator. She has worked for clients including Virgin Holidays and Hallmark cards and is represented in the UK by NB Illustration agency. She enjoys watching videos of pugs on Youtube and drinking coffee as well as being quite keen on Chihuahuas.
www.gemmacorrell.com

Karoline Rerrie
Along time ago Karoline worked for Matthew Herbert and illustrated most of his ‘Doctor Rockit’ album covers with rockets and assorted paraphernalia This helped develop her style and in particular the use of quirky characters, humour and hand drawn text. These have remained important elements of Karoline’s work and she now uses them in the small artist’s books she makes and exhibits. The most recent of these is ‘Half Baked’, a tale of cakes, baking and cannibalism. Karoline sees her illustration as a craft and prefers to work by hand as much as possible. In keeping with this aspect of her work Karoline uses a Japanese print gocco machine to hand print book covers and images to accompany them.
www.nursepussy.co.uk

Stuart Kolakovic
An illustrator represented by Heart Artists’ Agency, currently working on a comic book in his spare time, entitled “Lichen”, which will be published in 2010 by Blankslate Books.
www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk

Tommy Niemeyer
Guitarist of legendary splatter rock band The Accused & responsible for creating the wild, zombie mascot Martha Splatterhead which has adorned most of their albums and many of their promo items. It was only fitting to invite Tommy to create an illustration for this years festival.
www.splatterrock.com

Capsule invited the following six artists to create illustrations in response to this years festival theme ‘Creatures Of The Night’ the title of the 1982 album from U.S. band Kiss and continuing our exploration of Birmingham and the Black Country as ‘Home of Metal’. These works will be exhibited within the Custard Factory.

Justin Bartlett

www.wearetherobots.com
Black ink warlock from the grim and frostbitten raven realm of Southern California. He enjoys thee grimm riffs, vberkvlt metals, and other dark musick, times of solitude, skulls, and scotch. Inspired by religious and theological conflicts, environmental decay, and man’s inhumanity, the pen-wielder spends hours and hours obsessing on every last detail. He has worked with many including SUNN O))), Gravetemple and Norway’s Gorgoroth, Apoptygma Berzerk, tons of underground bands.

Karen Constance

www.myspace.com/smackmusic7
Born in Scotland’s hellhole central belt & escaped down south to Brighton in 1997, she is influenced by encyclopedias, diagrams and schoolgirls.

Steve Ingram

www.forhumourandhope.com
Aka Forhumourandhope is just 24 years old and hails from Birmingham, UK. He designed the artwork and packaging for the Capsule Beestung Lips release amongst other things.

Conny Prantera

www.myspace.com/connywithloveandsqualor
A painter and illustrator and one of the artists promoted by street-ware label Silas and Maria. Conny’s work reaches back from her training as a portrait artist in the torn political background of the Italian “anni di piombo” to today’s London underground culture, mixing the mirage of aesthetic beauty with a morbid obsession with decay.

James Quigley

www.gunsho.com
Gunsho is an art moniker for James Quigley. Somewhere between nursing on goat’s milk as a baby and his teenage summers spent sifting through flea market arcana, James began to find fascination in the strange and magical vastness of the marginal fringe. A regard for the toxic forces that transform humans into monsters shaped his early drawings and set him on a path into a surreal artistic thicket of beasts, demons, and mutants. He sees the scores of odd creatures he creates today not as being pulled from thin air or simple imagination, but from a continuum of mythology, or of ancient currents that have persisted into modernity.

Francesca “Bunny” Williams

www.wonderleague.co.uk
Also known as Bunny Bissoux, is an artist, illustrator, collector, fanatic, musician and aspiring wrestling valet. Bunny makes fanzines, costumes, plush toys and cupcakes and runs an online store and weekly market stall. She has previously produced CONQUISTADOR fanzine and a poster size “Map of Hair Metal” painstakingly charting the movement of band members between groups across the genre. Bunny enjoys drawing naked ladies, rock stars, wrestlers and her never-ending supply of imaginary friends.

The Outcrowd Collective have become a regular fixture at the Supersonic Festival, contributing some kind of strange scribbled visual backdrop to compliment the delightfull noises drifting through the air.

Their shambolic visual network continues to evolve and this year they spread their tentacles a little further by inviting some other arty friends via Studio4 Gallery to come and do a bit of colouring in.

So look out for our Studio4 stall, a skate ramp installation with Ideal as well as some live painting going on over the weekend all based around this years theme, ‘Creatures Of The Night!’. So do come and give us a painty fingered high five if you the taste of our eye candy.
www.studio4gallery.blogspot.com
www.outcrowdcollective.com