Monthly archives:September 2017

  • Artist Interview: Big Sweater

  • 7 years ago
  • We recently caught up with the guys from the band Big Sweater to discuss their music, inspiration and their exciting new album they're currently recording. In one way or another, members of the band have all been part of AFP's music education programs over the years. So, we're very proud and excited to see how they've progressed and evolved as artists.  Check out "Platform Stare," a single from the new album. Platform Stare by Big Sweater 1) What inspired you guys to become musicians, writers? Collectively what inspired us to be musicians is that of which was instilled in us by our parents and their taste for the most part. Being shown things that would be considered "old school". Those things later becoming memories and what is now sense of nostalgia of car rides and long trips throughout the years subconsciously planting a seedling in a driving force that is creating sound as well as putting words together that sum up how we feel. 2) How would you describe your sound? Our sound is derivative of multiple things that boil down for the most part to blues. Our upcoming album has a combination of really somber and light tunes and also some really upbeat ones but overall our sound is very mellow. 3) Have you been playing the songs off the new album live, and if so how has the crowd responded to the new songs? We've played most of the upcoming album in a rotation for about a year now, the crowd now sings along and its one of the most gratifying feelings[...]

  • Wearable Art: Meet Matty Bovan London Fashion Week's Rising Star

  • 7 years ago
  • The 66th annual London Fashion Week kicks off on September 21, and the star to watch at the fashion event of the season is Matty Bovan — fearless designer known for creating 'clashes of textures' that are often spray painted, knitted, and or crocheted. https://www.instagram.com/p/BYipeGXnVVg/?hl=en&taken-by=babbym The York, England based upstart has worked with Marc Jacobs, and Miu Miu. Bovan is also a former junior designer at Louis Vuitton who won the L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award and the LVMH Graduate Prize after graduating Central Saint Martins (CSM) in 2015. Image Credit: The Guardian And it's at Central Saint Martins where Bovan delved into the world of Knitwear: “Being able to create your own fabrics gives you more scope, he tells Artefact about his attraction to knitwear. He adds, "[knitwear] is the foundation of a lot of textiles, "[it] also gives more creative room to the design process.” Image Credit: NIKLAS HALLE'N/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Since CSM, the designer has ignited the fashion world with vibrant, color- and-texture-rich looks. The Guardian aptly connects Bovan's aesthetic with 'great tradition of wonderfully original English eccentrics that includes Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood and Bodymap.' Image Credit: The Guardian We can't wait to see what you have in store next week, Matty!  

  • Love Under Lockdown

  • 7 years ago
  • The first Dominican film to screen at Sundance (and recently announced as the Dominican Republic’s Academy Award submission for Best Foreign Language Film), Woodpeckers (Carpinteros) is not your typical prison drama. Sure, writer/director José Maria Cabral includes some familiar elements: the new guy initiated into the brutal, dehumanizing ways of the institution; an uneasy alliance formed with the cell block’s bully/fixer. But Woodpeckers, which was filmed on location in the notorious Najayo prison outside of Santo Domingo, is also a love story with a spectacular ending that is Shakespearean in its resolution. With its raw, authentic setting, which includes throngs of actual Najayo inmates, the film has a gritty, documentary feel that really gets under the skin. It’s easy to get caught up in its slowly intensifying narrative. When petty thief Julián (Haitian actor/director Jean Jean, quietly riveting) is incarcerated, he notices his fellow inmates crowded around the prison windows, executing elaborate hand signals. Turns out they’re communicating with inhabitants of the neighboring women’s penitentiary, who signal back from their yard. Through this detailed language, known as “woodpecking,” romantic relationships are formed, as are jealousies and resentments as rivals fight over love interests. (The practice is completely true to life; Cabral spent ninth months visiting Najayo and other prisons, where he got to know the inmates.) When the volatile Manaury (Ramón Emilio[...]

  • Wearable Art: Could this robot startup be the future of fashion?

  • 7 years ago
  • The future is certainly terrifying. From climate change to our political climate, there is a lot of uncertainty. But one thing is for certain —  robots will take over the world's workforce —  especially in the world of footwear. Talk about a walk-up call!  And possibly leading the robotic revolution is the company Grabit, Inc., a materials handling solutions company. The California-based (Nike-backed) robotics startup employs 'electroadhesion' in order to automate the handling of any material. To be exact, the company, applies  'electroadhesion' via 'flat pads of electrodes that, when charged correctly, create an electric field that adheres to nearly any surface,' Bloomberg reports. Grabit’s shoemaking robot at the company’s headquarters in Sunnyvale Photo Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Unlike using human hands or pliable materials, electroadhesion can offer manufacturers the ability to work around such pesky issues like gripping materials by channeling the same sort of static cling that also makes a balloon stick to your head. Sounds simply genius? That's because it is! 'Electroadhesion has the finesse to handle something as fragile as an egg, as flimsy as soft fabric and as unwieldy as a 50-lb box,' the company says on their website. They also assert that their line of equipment provides a cheaper, faster solutions that uses less power.     And the static electricity that Grabit can yield has the ability to 'make machines work at[...]