Meet Elroy, too kinky! // People // Added 2008/09/24 at 05:52
> Hello Elroy, can you describe yourself in 3 lines?
My name is Damien Vignaux, I’m 26 years old and I am a freelance artistic director in print media, web and motion--so I’m pretty much an illustrator and a director. I’m also a DJ and VJ in the Bisou GTi Turboclub collective!
> What was your career leading up to your present job like?
I had a fairly long academic career which allowed me to think about what I wanted to do professionally while still being able to experiment on the side.
I left high school with an “S” specialization in Mathematics and I went into a prepa (ed note: preparatory school) for Ecole Normale Supérieure Cachan (basically a design school but with a multi disciplinary commun core). The school was very rigorous and it demanded discipline and organizational skills, I really think that this was when I began to really think about all of the practical aspects of what I wanted to do. After Cachan, I went on to have a licence (ed note: equivalent to a Bachelor’s of Arts) and then a Master’s in applied arts and then another Master’s in “Communication et audio-visual aesthetics” (yes, it was really called that!)
> Any favorite media? (mix / drawing / video / custom toyz)
My media can be anything, I test things and if I like one idea, then I do a series before moving on to something else. I use digital and traditional technology, I use canvases rarely, even if I like canvas I think that it takes too long (it’s just not for me even if I know that the media has an enormous cultural value that’s hard to gloss over, certainly in light of my interests!).
One day if I really want to do fire-engraving or Spiro graph art, I’ll do it, the media is never a problem. With software, I try and use just what I need that will allow me to avoid as many all-nighters as possible. One thing I like is that each media makes you ”exist” in a different way. People see you differently in a club on a mixtape, in an exhibition, in the press, in motion... as a “communicator” I have a privilege to be able to play with the mix. |  |
"One thing I like is that each media makes you
”exist” in a different way. People see you
differently in a club on a mixtape,
in an exhibition, in the press, in motion..."
We and Neopen have just finished the first music video for DatA, completely animated, it’s a real piece of work! The clip is called Rapture and it’s some gorgeous carnage, a great bass line, an electro groove. Other than that, in sound and image we’re really working on our collective Bisou GTi, a mix of live, dj and vj sets, an electro show with my friends Humanleft, DLid, Neopen and Fouffie. I directed a teaser to promote the project and I release mixes a lot to add to the project. But everyone gets involved because we love to work together! |
I also work with a fantastic sculptor in Paris named Maikuru, for the release of my cat-boy artoy and for a custo, exhibition project and for a limited edition release. Also a series of 4 or 5 tee shirts produces by artschoolvets, a cool German blog/brand that I am contribute to. I called the line “The midnight dancers”, this uses more of my graphic designs then my illustration. In any event, it’s the effervescence of the project that I like, that and being able to say “we’re also working on some huge projects right now but we can mention them for the moment!” ;)
> What are your sources of inspiration? Everything, everywhere, all the time, everyone, people I like, people I don’t. Certainly though music and movies and trips and meeting people as well (especially because we now get to travel for DJ and VJ bookings!) My referential artists come from all over, young ones and less young, from Herb Lubalin all the way to Alex Trochut.
What I like the most right now is typography, when the letter becomes an image again and is no longer just a symbol, then you’re between pure graphics and the constraints of legibility, meaning and composition. I love the graphic designers who understand all this and I am close to a few studios like Psyop, Buck, Shilo, Dvein who mix so many medias and methods that it creates inexhaustible sources of inspiration. | "What I like the most right now is typography, when the letter becomes an image again and is no longer just a symbol, then you’re between pure graphics and the constraints of legibility, meaning and composition." |
| > You’ve participated as a VJ at the electronic music festival “Les nuits sonores”. How do you get ready for such an important event (do you prepare a loop)? What have you learned? How do you stay up all night?
This was a lot of pressure that forced us to be highly productive during the upcoming months. I kept on working with my colleague Neopen, we have a good dynamic and very complementary styles and we tried to produce as many loops and graphic ambiances as we could. We then put these into tiny samples that we could play rhythmically with our controllers MIDI. What I retained from the event was how much I loved playing and being on stage, making people laugh, creating a dialogue. This allowed us to create other side projects. As far as staying awake all night is concerned, we’ve become a bit freakish with our schedules as we often work until we’re exhausted and we rarely go to bed before 7AM, so parties aren’t such a problem for us! > Do you think that in the upcoming years, with all the new software that is coming out, that the image/music combination will grow stronger and be more present in clubs?
Everything points to it: one of the leaders in image software, Resolume, comes out this September and this version will manage sound and the leader in sound software, Serato is coming out with a version that manages video. |
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"What’s going to be exciting will be to see how producers will deal with image and how graphic designers will play with sound!"
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> Where does your mascot, a little boy in a cat costume, come from? Your illustrations of the cat and his friends, do you do them all on the computer or by hand?
Who said they were friends? The costumes are partly hooded so you can’t see their mouths when they insult you or make fun of you! It’s my funny little ghetto world! I could not tell you how these characters were born, I am someone who doodles a bit especially in a train station or an airport, between a book and a movie. I think that everything is constantly mixing in my head and that one day, these characters were created. They made me smile so I kept on drawing.
I certainly didn’t create a style though, I would say that these things are characteristic of the moment we’re in right now, the cultures that I like, my influences between soto, supakitchou and others. I always draw by hand as I only draw when I am not on the computer! I ink everything by hand and then I scan, and then vector and color using a graphing table.
>Do you think that MySpace and other community sites change the way people work and meet? Yes, definitely. I am very much on MS, I don’t know how different sites work or if they really have changed certain industries, but I can say that with MySpace I’ve gotten lots of great works and I’ve met great people. What’s great is the immediateness of it all. On MySpace I can put up a new mix, a poster, photos of our sets, it’s all so open and the number of visits makes it a fantastic showcase!
>What’s up next for you?
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We have to finish some bumpers (opening and closing animation for a new TV show that comes out in September) for VH1 Latin America, la chaîne musicale (like MTV but still a bit different) and hopefully we’ll work again with them because we had a lot of fun and everyone got along great. We also have two or three serious offers to direct music videos of some of our favorite artists, so we have to get on that. In September and October we’ll have some gigs in Austria, Switzerland, Poland and France (in Paris we’ll be at la flèche d’or on August 30th!). Starting in October I am hoping to spend more time putting together new exhibitions around ideas that are import to me. One of them being the custom of my first artoy.
Elroy's room/living/office and much more:
> Ok, just one fashion question: according to you, what purpose does fashion serve?
This would be like if you ask me what purpose graphic design serves. If I tell you that fashion is here to make the world a bit more beautiful I would look stupid, right? Personally, I live a better life when the head of my bank understands that it’s cooler to have his logo in Avant-Garde then in Cooper STD (graphic designer joke!) What I like, whatever the means of expression (clothes, painting, mixes) is to create works and objects that communicate and that show a part of who you are. I like to throw myself into the lions mouth, just go for it and wait and see what people say when they try to understand, to get into your world. So, I don’t know, it’s purpose is everything and nothing...it makes people talk to one another, live more beautifully, get together and it feeds the artists!
> What question would you like us to ask you ?
> Favorite tipple?
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> Congratulations, you’ve just won a 3 year vacation on the Lost island! What three CDs are yougoing to bring?
Am I being punished? There is really no room on Temptation Island? Is there a wifi hotspot? okay..
Silent shout by The Knife
Thriller by you-know-who
And the album by Humanleft, that’s not out yet but that I love with all my little heart!
> What’s your idea of a successful party?
As a DJ, I would say it’s a party where there’s a huge mixing table on the dance floor. Your intro should be a bit military, slightly Wagnerian, because well “you kinda have an ego” (this is what my friend Pierre Vanni says); everyone wonders what will happen next, then for 15 minutes, you play a killer line up that everyone loves, obviously, and it this point you’ll have them eating out of your hand. Now, the audience will go crazy for songs like Easy Love by Phil Collins or the New Romantics, when everyone is loving your guilty pleasures, you know it can’t get any better!
 | > Your last concert?
I always see my friends play if they come to my neighborhood because they’re all great, Tepr, Don Rimini, Léonard de léonard, Danger, all the Electroluxe Family, Humanleft, DatA. Humanleft and Electroluxe are from Toulouse, DatA, Danger and Léo are all signed to ekler’o’shock, a label that I’ve been collaborating with regularly. Tepr does keyboards, machines and is a co-produces of Yelle, who releases songs and remixes that are cooler than anyone else’s. Don Rimi is an official member of the Bisou GTi collective because each year he throws the biggest parties!
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> Last exhibition?
Double exhibition: the former PLAY collective at the GHP gallery in Toulouse and a personal exhibition with some friends from the magazine Rice and Beans. This was also in Toulouse but much more street with skates, paintings, girls, vodka...the good life.
It was in April and may of last year. I would like to start exporting this.
> The latest fantastic thing you’ve seen, read, heard or done?
The last best thing I heard was Léonard de léonard; the first time we met it was for a concert at the Transmédiale in Berlin. The first thing he told me was “You’re Elroy!? I was convinced you’d be a big black guy!” We’ve barely done better than that initial meeting (aside from our machu pichu joke told by Ease, but that’s a different category).
> Motto?
The US dollar!
Or “Elroy is too kinky, the Americans envy him” if you don’t like the first!
> Final words?
See you soon on stage or in your favorite magazine, or in your car speakers, or wherever you want!
> Thanks Elroy!!
More about Elroy:
www.myspace.com/elroy_vj / www.elroy.fr / www.incog.fr
Listen to Elroy Mix:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/762238069c0f8c/
http://www.zshare.net/audio/8744075442f53e/
Artwork:
Elroy at work:
Videos:
elr°y + neopen showreel n°2
Casino - Arman Melies directed by elr°y and neopen
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