The HJGHER Journal

“★★★★”

We’re giving it 4 out of 5 stars, only because we wish it was longer. Well worth all 93 minutes of sacrifice, even with your eyes closed. Watch it now.

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ABSOLUT + Spike Jonze = I’m Here

The latest ABSOLUT creative collaboration serves us Spike Jonze’s latest short film, I’m Here, a half hour robomantic tale of the binary kind.

Given the impressive cast, the well executed website, the stellar reviews, the clever ensemble of musicians for the ethereal soundtrack and the fact that Mr Jonze was delighted with the absolut freedom to reassure us with his award winning direction, I’m still inclined to withhold any judgment till I get through all 31 minutes, unlike Where The Wild Things Are, where sadly, its super-sized roar outdid its locked jaw bite.

To watch the worldwide online premiere  tomorrow, 19th March, all you have to do is register online for free tickets, remove all memory of Björk’s, All Is Full Of Love (which incidentally was directed by Mr Jonze’s Directors Label partner, Chris Cunningham) and expect it to be nothing remotely similar to Hirokazu Koreeda’s, Air Doll.

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“And she melts in visions of eternal day”

At a HJGHER party, we introduced a short story installation, “And she melts in visions of eternal day”, written and produced by us here at HJGHER.

Taking our cue from the cinematic experience of the 1940s, we wanted our audience to experience a live performance instead of simply watching a movie on screen. We had a narrator read the entire script while a live cellist accompanied her on set as she read along. The audience was treated to a projection of still images shot by Jovian Lim (Oats & Sparkle).

Jovian was given free reign to interpret the story as he envisioned it should be in his head, but what made this all the more interesting was that we did this in collaboration with Club21’s BLACKJACK. We picked out clothes from the BLACKJACK store that we felt would bring represent different acts of the story and Jovian shot it in his signature style.

“And she melts in visions of eternal day” will be published for the first time in conjunction with the launch of UNDERSCORE N°1: THE ___ ISSUE magazine.

All images shot by Jovian will be made ready for viewing on the Underscore website soon. Stay tuned.

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N.Hoolywood - Skyscraper

Daisuke Obana aka Mister Hollywood’s N.Hoolywood 09-10 A/W collection aptly titled “Skyscraper”, once again reinforces his vision of fashion forward with his customary reinventions of fashion’s past.

Inspired by Ayn Rand’s, “The Fountainhead”, the set in Yebisu Garden Hall had his metropolis men stride past each other alongside a massive three tier monochorme backdrop of skyscrapers recalling New York in the 20’s. High collar coats and higher waist straight pants in tight bandwidths of grey and dark muted palettes, finished with gloves to match. Pullovers in art deco (think “Chrysler building”) patterns or simple grids of lines cast strong structured silhouettes almost as though the skyscrapers themselves were in motion. And all this while Gary Cooper spews Howard Roark’s right to reclaim his own individualism amidst an aural transition of classical and post rock tunes.

We wonder if Rand would be pleased with Obana’s selfishness, against the collective, against the dishonesty, against the machine. We’re not condoning Objectivism, but we do believe that an ingenious insanity, mindful of its perceived madness, is often necessary to make the world a better place. And it may be rightly so, perhaps in our current time when faith has left America and baggy pants are a joke, Obana may just be the best advocate of interesting changes to come.

The video above was sent to us in a tight little package from the team at N.Hoolywood. If only they sent us some Under Summit Wear samples too.

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No Man’s Land Drive-thru

This road trip in Malaysia reminds us of how we tend to forget the small things in life. When stopping our car off-road in no-man’s-land in the dead of the night, it is so quiet we can hear the leaves breathing. And the night sky presents us with what us city-dwellers don’t see in a very long time: stars.

Meteors fade across the sky in abundance as we walk across a vast field, with bugs orchestrating a prelude to the approaching springtime. Getting lost has never been this fascinating. We then recall a time-lapse video we watched some time back, The Sky in Motion by Till Credner, composed from a series from 7,000 images illustrating wonders of the sky above us.

Please, do watch the HD version on a fullscreen, and remember to pick up all the little things that you’ve lost along your way; and now, we shall try to find our way home.

Watch The Sky in Motion here.

“Sun, moon and stars show up with their daily rise and set. The beauty of our celestial phenomena is increased by the accelerated time lapse technique showing the apparent motion of the sky due to earth’s rotation.”

- posted using a HP Mini 1000, in the middle of nowhere.

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Godt Nytår!

Hey folks, is it 2009 already? I guess all those partying had really gotten to our heads. We hope that this year is looking good for you as it is for us.

Meanwhile, try to keep it down as you enter this dreamy, yet ghostly world captured by Danish photographer Kim Høltermand.

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The Orchestrated Cinema

We’ve imagined probably 125 different scenarios with heartbreaking moments and romantic imagery since we heard The Cinematic Orchestra’s To Build A Home, but the folks over at Up The Resolution had just filled in the blanks for us with an absolutely breathtaking short film. Approaching this take with a refreshing idea, they’ve created this double-length music video to encompass both To Build A Home and Breathe, another track by The Cinematic Orchestra.

Watch To Build A Home here.

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Silent World

This is solitude in the most poetic way. Welcome, to the silent world of Michael Kenna.Hillside Fence, Study 5, Teshikaga, Hokkaido, Japan. 2004

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Hedi Slimane Rock Diary

It’s going to cause us pain so bad.

This beautifully designed three-volume boxed set presents new photographic work by Hedi Slimane, the iconic fashion designer who, during tenures at Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, has infused men’s fashion with an androgynous, rock n’ roll verve.
The first volume is an album of Slimane’s photographs of the Lollapalooza-esque three-day Festival Internacional de Benicássim on the east coast of Spain, the second is devoted to images of the new British and American rock scenes, and the third contains essays on Slimane’s work by art critic Vince Aletti, and music critic Jon Savage.
In a 2003 conversation with Interview’s Ingrid Sischy, Slimane discussed his beginnings as a photographer: ”I started taking pictures before I even began in fashion. I didn’t start with clothes until I was 16, but I had my first camera when I was 11. I’ve always taken pictures, almost like some people take notes or write down their thoughts.”
As this collection reveals, Slimane’s photographs of the international music scene are as fresh as his paradigm-shifting work in fashion. Published with MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon, Leon (Spain).—cornerhouse

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Where did the summer go?

Seems like only Ryan McGinley knows. And seems like only he knows how to capture the golden days of youth. The lost, the confused, the audacious, the insane, the ardent youth.

I Know Where the Summer Goes, Ryan McGinley’s latest exhibition, is running from the 3rd of April through the 3rd of May in NYC. Last summer, he took a beautiful and mesmerizing photographic journey with sixteen models and three assistants. Among the resulting 4000 rolls of film, or 150,000 photographs, fifty were chosen for the exhibit. The amateurish images were inspired by those in nudist magazines in the 60s and early 70s, and McGinley once again shows us what he’s best at. Emotional young adults frolicking in the middle of nowhere, against vast and surreal landscape, like how one’s youth was seemingly endless and dreamlike, and one morning when you wake up, it’s gone.

Go run wild in the golden field till your heart aches and never look back, and while you’re at it, go listen to I Know Where the Summer Goes by Belle and Sebastian, and be remembered that the youth is still with us as long as the summer comes back.

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Leo’s Song

Impactist is Kelly Meador and Daniel Elwing, and they produce pretty amazing motion and audio work.
One day, a geometric visitor from another planet came to them.

Watch the beautiful video here.

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Are You At Home?

We’ve lost count of the number of times watching Heima since we bought it, erm, yesterday.

The graciously flowing streams, the slowly melting ice, the abandoned aircraft on a forsaken land, the deserted herring factory at Djúpavík, the 25000-year-old Ásbyrgi canyon; Sigur Rós’ ethereal soundscape is beautifully blended in with the vast and surreal Iceland-scape.

Every frame of this film is picturesque, every sound haunting, but we figured no words could/would justify this whole aural-visual experience that we’re so overwhelmed with, so please, watch it.

And watch it again. And again. And again.

Visit Heima.

And again.

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Idolise Me

The hugely anticipated (by us and for certain many others) READINGS movie, spawned from the zeitgeist collaboration of Nick Knight, Hussein Chalayan and Anthony Hegarty is finally out today!

The showcase movie premiered this evening in Paris at Hussein’s show and was launched simultaneously on the site at 7pm (GMT+1). What was truly intriguing about this project was the invitation to the general public audience of SHOWstudio’s blog, to submit their treatments for READINGS, based on a brief provided by Hussein Chalayan himself. Dare we say we had a part to play in the result? Watch it and find out.

Be forewarned, it’s already been 79mins, and I’m still waiting for the full movie to finish loading. This better be worth it.

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