The gig takes place on Tuesday the 23^rd at Hangout in Sai Wan Ho, Hong Kong Island, and New York-dwelling, Japanese-fronted Asobi Seksu are the bee’s knees. Here are five audio-visual reasons why. (If you’d like to skip the music and just find out where to get tickets then head to the bottom of the page.)

My first…

Latecomers occasionally have the best deal; when they hear a band there is sometimes already an exciting body of work to delve into and explore. This is how I was with Asobi Seksu. A good friend of mine sent me a link to this video just this summer and I was instantly hooked.

‘Transparence’ is almost archetypal Asobi Seksu – blissful dreampop, shoegaze undertones and a pretty girl up front. All winning elements. This track appears re-recorded on the album Hush and renamed ‘Sunshower’.

The deal sealer

‘Transparence’ hooked me in and ‘Me & Mary’ sealed the deal. This track shows the band have a bite, with the layers of distortion and urgent drumming in the chorus underpinning the sweet vocals.

The pure pop moment

Every band has their roots and gladly Asobi Seksu visited theirs for a b-side. This charged take on The Crystals’ Phil Spector-produced classic ‘Then He Kissed Me’ is bliss.

The hit

‘Thursday’ is the song they seem to be most well known for so remember to memorise the intro to look ‘with it’ at the gig.

The Japanese!

Opening their excellent self-titled album is “I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me” – a beautiful, twee Japanese language pop song with some explosive guitars that pop up every so often. It’s just so right.

So it’s settled, we’ll see you there.

If you want to get tickets in advance you can do just that and in doing so you boast a saving of $40 ($40 better spent at the bar). Tickets are $280 (advance) and $320 on the door, if you must.

Advance tickets are available from White Noise Records, Zoo Records and Dama Boutique (Staunton Street).

You can also get them online here.

Support comes from Milkteeth and A Roller Control’s Alok.

Date: 23/11, 7.30pm
Location: Hangout 蒲吧 (3/F, 2 Holy Cross Path, Sai Wan Ho// 香港西灣河聖十字徑二號) – Sai Wan Ho MTR Exit B

Check in at the Facebook site.

Wayne, what are you expecting from Hong Kong?

Once we’re there we can live in the moment and will be sure to enjoy the sights, food, meeting new friends and all the experiences.  It’s one of the benefits of being able to travel around the world and experience these things.

For those who’ve not experienced a Lips show, how would you describe it?

What we do is overwhelm you with stuff.  Whether we use balloons, volume, our emotion or whatever – we get your full attention.  When everyone is engaged like that then we can all create something special together.

You want any group to command people’s attention.  The worst thing I’ve seen happen to a lot of bands I love is that the audience gets distracted.  That energy and power of the crowd is part of the experience and when a band loses the attention then the whole show suffers.

You’ve embraced Twitter (@waynecoyne) – what got you into that and kept you doing it?

What I like about it for myself is that it forces me to, five or six times a day, pause and question what am I doing? What’s interesting right now.  It gives me a good reason to do something. Even if it’s a waste of time or the greatest thing ever, I can tell people about it and am no longer compelled by just my own interest.

We need a flourishing music and art scene – what is the first step to take?

I think you already have made the first step through the frustration and felt the need to take that step.  People are often so complacent that they don’t feel the need to participate in their own culture.  I live in a place here in Oklahoma that is often so empty of culture.  But you have to remember – art isn’t made in a place and not made by collaborations or encouragement.  It’s made by weirdos who just have to make it.  You do what you must do.  And if you don’t feel like you must create art/music/film/skyscrapers or whatever, then you probably shouldn’t.  I don’t wait for permission. I’m so stupid and insane that I wake up every day and just do it, whether people care or not.

What makes you really, really, really bored?

I try to remember that boredom is really nothing.  It’s a state of mind, and if I’m bored that’s my own fault.  There’s always something to explore – to read, to draw, to listen to.  When people say they’re bored, I think there’s so much you can do.  I can always do yoga and get my mind thinking.

What’s a surefire way to combat it?

A good way is to not be around boring people, and preferably ones with money to spend.

What’s next for the Lips?

We’re playing around with the idea of releasing a track a month – record something, mix it and get it out and have that schedule for a year.  We’re thinking about that.  I like the panic and the immediacy of having to put something out. It would be absurd but could be great fun and fantastic.

After Asia we have our annual Halloween and NYE shows in Oklahoma to look forward to. This is when we can get our most freaky with 10,000 people all sharing an evening together.

Flaming Lips tickets cost $620 and are an ESSENTIAL PURCHASE from www.hkticketing.com or HMV, with two fantastic support acts thrown in, in the form of The Raveonettes and local heroes The Merriweather Deer.

Take yourself, your friends, your family and anyone else you’ve ever met to have your minds blown and lives affirmed by the spectacle that is The Flaming Lips live.

Stay tuned for the Brouhaha guide to The Flaming Lips – coming soon.

In the meantime…

‘TEENAGERS DO NOTHING’; the message glowers out at me from the thinly written report in the paper. ‘TEENAGERS HAVE NO GOALS’; a lefty feint. ‘TEENAGERS HAVE NO INTERESTS’; there’s the right hook square on the jaw.

Upon first reading it’s hard not to take aim at the apparently aimless. The recent survey organised by the Caritas Jockey Club Integrated Service for Young People (whew) suggested that teenagers in Hong Kong sport a hea attitude, a Cantonese slang term used by youths to describe an aimless outlook, meaningless meandering, laziness and apathy. The survey found that 7 percent of local teenagers spend, at minimum, six hours a day either doing nothing or doing something they’d classify as meaningless. The survey found that nearly half of teenagers rate themselves as more hea than not. It certainly is easy, when looking at the raw data, to get in a huff and a puff and blast the sorry suckers. But we all know there is much more to it than that.

Social workers suggested that this is down to teenagers either lacking specific goals or interests or having yet to discover them. When reading that, sometimes you can’t help but indulge in some quick-trigger agreement. We’ve all seen these groups of teenagers, secondary schoolers who wander around the street or sit in parks or at Internet cafes, whiling away the hours until it’s time to go home to dinner or bed. For most of my teenage life here in Hong Kong I did the same thing. But that did not mean I didn’t have interests or goals, even if they were submerged in my subconscious, just vague murmurings that would now and again surface when I was feeling particularly philosophical.

I don’t believe that today’s youth have no interests or goals either. It seems that the beast that is popular opinion in Hong Kong is always willing to throw young people under the bus, is always willing to wag its finger and say that young people don’t push themselves enough or exercise their imaginations. I say that isn’t the problem here, only a symptom.

Hong Kong has an abundance of creative, funny and imaginative youth – they’re all just hidden, peppered amidst the throngs of shuffling feet that garnish (or pollute) our pavements. The proliferation of this hea attitude, of this almost intense apathy and carelessness, has got to do with so much more than the average teenager’s mindset alone. Hong Kong has changed so rapidly for so long that those of the previous generation are never really in touch with those of the current. I’m in my early 20s and I’m already hopelessly lost as teenage fads come and go at speeds that would embarrass a photon.

When I read a report telling me that teenagers do nothing, that they lack interests or goals, I wonder at the ability of the city of Hong Kong to provide openings to those sedatedbut- definitely-present interests. There are the tired arguments like the rote-learning education system; the hovering parents who insist on piano, violin, and mathematics tutoring. Or what about the pseudo-latchkey kid who’s more in tune with his domestic helper than his mother? Labelling is a problem that forces teenagers to shy away from youth centres and other such agencies. These all contribute, to be sure, but isn’t there something else about the nature of the city? The nature of its people?

Hong Kong is densely packed. We’re all like sardines in a can most of the time. The live-and-let-live attitude which most seem to operate on exists because we’re all in such close proximity. Do anything out of the ordinary and you’re instantly labelled, categorised, judged and filed away for future reference. Does this not greatly inhibit the exploration of interests in young people? Has standing out become so terrifying that teenagers would rather spend their days doing nothing?

Does Hong Kong even really allow for the exploration of interests that lie outside the realm of computers, television, the occasional band and window shopping?

I find it highly doubtful that the young mind in Hong Kong is absent of these urges to be creative, to nurture a hobby or flex its imagination. What I find more probable is that the intense stereotyping the people of Hong Kong engage in is helping to foster this aimlessness in the young. Teenagers are incredibly astute (even if they don’t know it) and rapidly pick up on the signals that the city sends them. Being teenagers, those signals are likely then magnified which in turn heightens their receptivity to it. The CJCISFYP (whew) study may be suggestive of a problem but we can’t go charging youngsters as the culprit, as having no interest or ambition.

Perhaps it is the people of Hong Kong who need to look at the youth with a more open eye and create opportunities – real and lasting opportunities, not the summer camp type – for teenagers to explore their interests. Perhaps in a city where the slightest idiosyncrasy is often regarded as a massively weird oddity, the youth need a gentle kickstart to their imagination engines, a slight push just to gain that initial momentum.

Interests often bloom late in this city. It’s not a symptom of a problem in the youth. It’s a symptom of a problem surrounding them.

Words: Hugo Stanford

Persistence in the face of recurring failure characterises both the history of handheld computing and the desire to realise it. Handheld computing has made repeated appearances in so much of our popular media, from the original Star Trek television series in 1966 to contemporary spy thrillers and science-fiction books and films. It is now undergoing a reboot, leaping hurdles where before it would trip and fall flat on its face, its four chunky AA batteries spilling out onto the floor.

The fascination behind handheld computing is not difficult to understand. Though its record has been turbulent, marked primarily by disappointments, momentum has been rekindled primarily by the Apple iPad and, to a lesser extent, e-readers (such as the Amazon Kindle) and large smartphones that blur the sharp distinction that used to exist between mobile telephone and mobile computer. A renewed focus on both the hardware and software fronts is whetting the appetite of gadgeteers and the casual consumer alike. The iPad made quite a splash, but the computer trade show Computex 2010, which ran through the month of June, has made greater waves.

Computex, held annually in Taipei, has not failed to make an impression on anybody looking out for progress in the mobile computing marathon, with devices falling firmly into three categories: Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), pads and tablet computers . MIDs tend to be smaller (with screens under 10 inches) and usually have a stylus for handwritten input. While Computex is usually associated with the unveiling of new desktop technology, this year’s show turned that expectation on its head and became the vehicle for a renewed mobile computing craze, with big name companies’ prize showcase items being the portable systems due to hit shelves shortly.

It has been said that the vast array of tablets and MIDs on display at Computex merely constituted as catch-up and that wouldn’t be far off the mark. Handheld computing stalled horribly until Apple announced their iPad. It seems that this road has been worn in before with MP3 and MP4 (video capable) players. MP3 players existed for half a decade before the iPod trotted onto the scene and hoisted its victory flag, but only since then have we seen real innovation in portable media players, with many now being able to play full HD video on tiny 4-inch screens (these are predominantly popular in China). The iPad might have done the very same to the handheld computing industry: giving it that sense of competitive urgency which is so often the cause of innovation and advancement.

So, it all seems swell and soon we’ll be ditching our desktops for good, right? Well, not quite. While the general outlook is undoubtedly positive there still remain obstacles that need to be hurdled, the most vital being battery life. While portable computing, from notebooks to netbooks and now tablets, pads and MIDs have charged ahead, packing in greater levels of power into increasingly cramped spaces, battery technology has fallen miserably behind. Most devices will use lithium-ion polymer technology, which first appeared in consumer electronics in 1996. While efficiency has increased, it’s still dismally limited. We’re waiting for the next big battery breakthrough. The price hurdle has been all but cleared, but less can be said about performance. While tablets and MIDs today are usually good for simple tasks like web browsing, emailing and reading e-books, multitasking will almost certainly bring your handheld computer to its knees. Software also poses another challenge, with desktop computing simply having all the important and necessary software. Tablets – and especially MIDs – are dragging their feet in that department. While legions of enthusiastic people have coded applications for the iPad iOS and Google’s Android mobile OS, we have yet to see the kind of professional expertise comparable to desktop software giants enter the fray with quality programs written primarily for mobile computing needs.

But at least now we are able to hold a functional tablet computer and not feel so distant from the future technology envisioned by Star Trek. At least now we can hold a handheld computer, do stuff on it and feel like Captain Kirk, or some high-tech spec-ops spy or any other tablet-wielding character out of the vast archives of popular fiction.

What’s even better is that it’s only going to get better.

Words: Hugo Stanford

Brouhaha spoke to Richard Boardman, the synthman from dance-electro outfit Delphic about their upcoming show in Hong Kong as well as their stage sharing friends, Two Door Cinema Club and we even told him how boring Singapore is! Hooray! Over the phone, it sounded like Richard was sat comfortably in a leather chair at home in Manchester, face brushed gently with the aroma of a fresh cup of tea whilst a light fall of rain tap-taps at his window. I’m not sure if this was the case but for Richard, I hope it was.

Have any of you been to Hong Kong before?

No, we haven’t. We’ve spent the last year seeing pretty much the whole globe, but I guess we’ve not seen everywhere so we’re looking forward!

What are your preconceptions?

All I know is that it’s quite a place of culture but I’m not aware of much else. China’s a place I’ve always been interested in going to but bands don’t really get to go there. Hong Kong, however, is a place that bands can actually go to. I’ve always said to our manager, how can we play in China as it’s rare for European bands to go there but it’s great that we get to play with the chance of an audience from China.

Are you excited to be playing with Two Doors Cinema Club?

We are, yup! We’ve played with them quite a lot before. We really like them as a band and we get along really well. There’s quite a good revelry going on but we really admire each other and the banter is always good between us. We play a lot of festivals together as well. Being on the road all the time is such an odd lifestyle and when you tell people back home about it, they don’t really understand, but with a band you’re traveling with, you can share that and they understand.

Are you looking forward to the authentic Chinese food you can get here in HK?

Yeah, absolutely! I remember being young, you would have Chinese takeaways and you would think that that was authentic. I had a friend who was from Taiwan, and when I want to his house, I remember saying, “that’s not what you get at the restaurants”, and it sure was delicious!
We judge our tours gastronomically so if we do get the chance to eat there we’d be very happy.

Did you know that your next stop, Singapore, is actually a bore?

Really? Is it?

No, not really.  There is a bit of a rivalry between us folks in HK and them lot in Singapore as to which city is better but it’s just good-natured bitching.

We have a similar rivalry between the north and south of England. We always try to do our press in Manchester. We’d never consider going down to London!

Who are you listening to right now?

I’ve just downloaded an album by a band called Bath. It’s interesting. It’s somewhere in-between Dance Dance Dance and Hudson Mohawk. We’ve been through a funny old time actually. We’re in the process of writing a new album and we’ve been listening to a lot of old music like David Bowie and The Beatles. We’re really immersing ourselves in the songs and we’ve been learning from the best I guess.

What’s the best lie you can make up about Delphic for us here in HK?

Well… It’s kind of close to the truth, but we all fight a lot and sometimes we can take it to a physical level. One night, I went out with James and he ended up with a black eye. The thing is, we were so drunk we couldn’t remember what happened. We like to say the live version is I clocked him in the face. We are the best of friends and we do all live together but it’s all insular and can be intense at times. But we need those violent outbursts to be creative! With all this violent creative tension, we use it to be better!

To music fans, Manchester is a spiritual mecca. Is it actually shit or does it live up to its heritage?

What inspired us as a band was that we knew about it but we were too young to have experienced it. We grew up in Manchester when nothing much was going on; post-Oasis. It’s a great place and students dominate the city but with music, we were quite dissatisfied, which is kind of why we started the band – to make it inspiring again. Bands like Everything Everything and Egyptian Hip Hop are all doing the same kind of thing.

You seem to be touring forever! Have you invented games to pass the time?

To be honest, we’ve just decided to bring a football. We’ve been touring since 2009 so it’s been two and a half years and just now we’ve decided to bring a football, which is ludicrous. We’ve started Delphic versus crew games and Delphic is five up now. We do have a little studio on the bus so we actually try to write as often as possible.

Would you illegally download your music if you weren’t in Delphic?

Yes I would to be honest. I used to download music illegally quite a bit. You get kind of caught up with it. It’s how the world goes – you can moan about it but there’s no way round it. I do use iTunes and I’m about to buy Spotify for ten pounds as you do want to put money towards it and get the best quality. People do put too much thought into stopping illegal downloads instead of focusing on how to better other aspects. I think Apple completely control and Sony and Universal are trying to prevent downloading. I personally would download music but I do like to own best quality music myself. It is difficult for musicians cause it means no money but I have grown up with it – there was downloading when I was sixteen so there’s no other side to it. It’s all I really know.

What’s the best part of your job?

The best part of my job is… I don’t know, I don’t want to sound all mushy and sentimental. You kind of moan about it but if I sit back and think about it – I get to be creative every day of my life. I get to express myself through music. Going round all over the world seeing places like Japan and Australia and seeing all the places I would never get to see before is great. Also, not having to wake up early in the morning.

Hear hear. Many thanks, Rick.

Manchester’s alternative dance act Delphic on the 10th of this fine month. It’s all happening at Rotunda 3, HITEC and it starts at 20:00. Tickets cost $410 from hkticketing.com

Words: Alex Lendrum

Brouhaha spoke to Sam, guitarist and vocals from Irish indie-pop-rockers Two Door Cinema Club as he waits to board on one of many planes at Geneva Airport. Sam has been on many planes recently due to touring. Watch Sam and the gang here in Hong Kong on the 10^th of August at HITEC. There are no planes at HITEC. Poor Sam.

Do you like hot tropical cities like Hong Kong?

Yeah I don’t think I’ve been to many hot tropical cities. L.A. is probably the hottest one but it’s not tropical. Hong Kong it will be great though. I’m sure it will!

Do you have any preconceptions about Hong Kong?

Good food! Tall buildings! Lots of people and very crowded.

What’s the Chinese food like in Ireland?

Probably not good in terms of being healthy and lovely but yeah we like eating Chinese food. There are a lot of Chinese places there though.

Are you looking forward to eating authentic Chinese food when you’re here?

We won’t be there for very long but yeah it would be great.

Your music video for ‘Undercover Martyn” is played on one of Hong Kong’s popular English entertainment channels. What are your thoughts on being exposed to a more local Chinese audience?

I think it’s a bit more obvious for our music video to be played on English channels because of the language thing but I think our music is up-beat and down-tempo and therefore very accessible to international people. The people that do see us live quite often don’t speak very good English. It would be ideal if it would move to a more local audience actually. We don’t want to go to Hong Kong just to play to English speakers!

In the video, you all seem to be moving very fast. Is that something that can be taught?

We’re just really, really good at moving fast. Also, we had a lot of Red Bull because we were tired at the time.

Are you excited about playing with Delphic here in Hong Kong?

Yeah. We’ve played quite a lot with those guys around the world like in Berlin. We’re good friends and it’s good to be able play somewhere totally different with them.

What’s the best lie you can make up about Two Door Cinema Club for us here in Hong Kong?

We sold out Wembley Arena last week!

Have you seen Toy Story 3 yet?

No I haven’t! Is it even out yet? I haven’t been to the cinema in a while. It’s one of my favourite things to do.

Brouhaha loves cats and it would seem that you do as well. How did you manage to get the cat used on your album cover to sit comfortably with a paper crown on?

That’s a good question. We didn’t actually take the photos ourselves. Another company took it so we don’t know.

Whose cat is it and what’s its name?

Not sure but it belongs to a French man. A friend of a friend.

If Two Door Cinema Club could mold together to be one animal, what animal would that be?

We would be a giraffe. I think they get on with their big necks and grab leaves from trees, which is just great! They’re just a head above the rest. It would be great if we were doing that.

Would you illegally download your music if you weren’t in Two Door Cinema Club?

Not now. I probably would of five years ago.

What’s the best part of your job?

I guess travelling and getting to see all the different places and seeing all the different people.

Thank you Sam, says Alex Lendrum.

The Northern Irish indie pop group will be playing with Manchester’s alternative dance act Delphic on the 10th of this fine month. It’s all happening at Rotunda 3, HITEC and it starts at 20:00. Tickets cost $410 from hkticketing.com

Tell us about that pivotal moment in your life when you decided film was your goal.

When I was 12 I decided that film making is what I wanted to do. Two movies really changed my life – Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Those two films were the best I had ever seen. Afterwards I read an article in the paper on Spielberg and Lucas, about how they went to film school and studied films together and that was when it dawned on me that film making is a legitimate subject that can be studied in a university. I went to Canada after Form 3 to finish high school and then to Los Angeles for university.

What were your biggest influences whilst in Hong Kong?

This has to be Jackie Chan and Japanese pop culture. Growing up in Hong Kong, you just can’t help it. All of their sci-fi children’s shows like Ultraman and Karmen Rider, in fact to this day I still watch the new Karmen Rider. It inspires me. Most people only see a superhero. For me, it takes me to my childhood and helps keep my juices going.

What about Hong Kong films?

I grew up with HK films. I have always found them to be inspiring, to have a type of energy that films from other countries just don’t have. That’s why I always enjoy watching films here, especially John Woo films.

You are the Director of Photography – what exactly is your role?

My team and I are responsible for photographing and staging each shot. Beyond that, I help the director make correct artistic and technical decisions to realise their vision.

What does it take to be good at what you do?

It is about knowing your story and character, about using your camera to support the story. The story is always in mind when you are framing your shots. You also have to be a fan of the film. You have to care enough to actually make good work. If you are not a fan, I don’t think you can create good work.

Was your path to becoming DP at Pixar a direct one?

I graduated in 1989. I’ve had so many jobs not related to film; I’ve worked in theatres, I’ve worked making coffee, I’ve worked making copies…the road to what you want to do is never straight.

The local animation community is both budding and youthful. Do you see promise?

I’ve seen animation studios in HK that are up to international standards. You have to invest in local talents and train them when they are young, give them an opportunity to thrive, and it’ll have a great future.

What would you tell those young hopefuls, in light of you chasing down your dream?

Though the road is never straight, you have to keep the faith. The first thing, though, is to know that it is what you really want to do. Then don’t be afraid to fail because I can guarantee you that on your first project, you will fail. Failing is part of success. That is actually part of Pixar’s philosophy. Trust the creative process. If you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never evolve. Lastly, never give up.

Ok, one last question: what have been your best and worse film experiences?

Let’s start with the worst. James and the Giant Peach. Creatively, it was hard because I was the Camera Assistant. Creatively, you want to feel a part of the process. Unfortunately, the way that system worked, you don’t get to really interact with the director. He basically directed from the editing room. He seldom talked to us. The best was Up. It had a lot of heart and everyone got along so well working on that film from the producer to the director to my team. It was really a very, very great working experience.

Words: Henry Mullins

POSITIVE POSTERS HAVE STARTED something global. Their first endeavour – a free poster art competition – took root in Melbourne, but the vines of viral hype rapidly spread across the globe and inspired submissions from some fifty two countries. The strategy behind the endeavour: who knows what’s going to happen, let’s just do it! The philosophy: give young artists and designers an outlet to spread a social message through art created to affect change.

Brouhaha sat down with two key members of the Positive Projects group which encompasses Positive Posters in its wide array of semi-experimental creative expeditions. Vice Chairman Nathan Welch and Simon Roberts, who sits on the board, took the time to tell us of their success in Melbourne, not financially but creatively. Not in terms of business, but in terms of art.

As romantic as that sounds, Nathan and Simon fuelled the project by embracing risk, by adopting a ‘well why not?’ outlook that ultimately resulted in a success but so easily could have fallen into failure. Their reasoning behind the decision to pool momentum and then roll it forward without looking back? To take a financial risk that could so easily spiral out of control? Faith and belief in designers, artists and regular people, that they would contribute in one form or another. It sounds dreamy, maybe even naïve. But despite all that, the at times careless trust and distinctly Australian enthusiasm that Nathan and Simon placed in the project, which they seemed to exude from their body language alone, has paid off.

That careless trust, haphazard faith, is what is carrying them to expand Positive Posters into Hong Kong. The poster art competition will be launched this month and both are excited at the prospect of bringing Hong Kong artists and designers a creative outlet to channel their energy and truly spread their creative wings.

The duo’s focus is always on creativity, inspiration and giving something back. You could say that story behind Nathan and Simon is that they are contemporary project-hunting hippies with a focus largely on the design community. Positive Posters is not the only pool of risk they’ve dipped their feet in (both are involved in at least four ventures at the moment), and the reward seems far greater than numbers appending a dollar sign could ever truly represent.

Simon, who spent a portion of his childhood in Hong Kong, met Nathan at RMIT University in Melbourne where they were both enrolled in an entrepreneurship program. Nathan had worked before in marketing but continually found that his passions lay in concepts like social justice, social enterprise, doing good things for people through commercial vehicles. “Business for people,” as he puts it. Before attending RMIT, Simon spent four weeks in the middle of the Kalahari Desert to help rebuild a primary school on an aid trip to Africa. There he found himself attracted to the idea of making a long-lasting impactful change, and began to look toward social enterprise and business as a vehicle to a social cause. Both remain enthusiastic and driven, committed to business ideas that might make a businessman reel.

But they put it so much better than we do. So let’s let them do the talking.

Tell us about the philosophy that drives Positive Posters and your other ventures.

Simon: It’s not about giving up the values to make a quick buck or to return to your shareholders, which is kind of counterintuitive to what we’re taught at university: ‘the whole purpose of business is to provide value for your shareholders.’ We like to think of it as to provide value for your shareholders but your shareholders are anyone from yourself, to the people you work with internally, and the greater community.

Nathan: We say, have designers at the centre of your business and then shape it so it has a commercial value. So we’ve been working with design studios, we’ve launched Positive Posters; we’ve had a business with two of our former professors where we’ve researched the impact of design on business.

Simon: It’s allowed us to look at design in a much more holistic way, from both a visual perspective and business to see how design can impact business.

Nathan: We’ve been working with Design Victoria for the last year, and the bipolar expedition charity that promotes better mental health. Before this I was in marketing and I guess now I’m applying it to do positive things for people.

Simon: Design seems to be increasingly more central to what we’re doing and as something that can come across all elements of a business and have a really great impact. How did Positive Posters come about?

Nathan: The Chairman and founder, Nick Hallem, came to us with this idea of ‘I’m a graphic designer and an industrial designer really pissed me off the other day’. The guy said to him, ‘I’m an industrial designer and if I wanted to create a positive change then I can make a product and have it made and sold and it will put a smile on someone’s face and it will do well for the environment and whatever, but you’re a graphic designer, what can you do?’’ And Nick’s a pretty lively guy, he took it pretty personally so he set about thinking what he could do as a graphicartist to have that same impact. We really whittled it down to a very simple, manageable idea that can just grow organically and eventually we came up with this thing called Positive Posters. What kick-started Positive Posters?

Nathan: It was a really grass roots building experience. After we had a general idea we pulled up some mates and got about 50 people to help us, and we just said ‘this is was we want to do, tell us what you think. All the business dudes go over there and all the creative go over there and let’s talk about how this can work and let’s do it in half an hour.’ I think that night was kind of a pinnacle moment…

Simon: We felt, we’ve got something here, let’s roll with it…

Who helps out?

Nathan: We’ve got a group of about eight guys that pretty much get up and go to university and straight after university, they come to our office and work in setting up the competition or looking at sponsors, finding prizes, finding an event space or exhibition space or judges. We’ve just opened it up to these kids who are just looking for an outlet, looking for a way to contribute because they’re not empowered to do so in their work because they work in a café or whatever and they just go to university and learn, learn, learn but they can’t do.

Simon: From our perspective it’s really about designing it properly the first time and then letting these kids run with it so each generation is different. It kind of moves with university kids and the way they think and particularly around this theme of positivity. It’s the kind of project that attracts the right talent and the right people.

What defines the attitude of Positive Posters?

Simon: We’re not selling a particular cause, we’re not selling a particular product, we’re just putting it out there and again I think that’s why young people are engaging in it so much. They’ve been brought up at such an early age being sold so many things; everywhere they look there’s noise and buy this, buy that, look this way, look that way, go here, don’t go there and this doesn’t have any religious, political or any other connotations attached to it, just simply positivity and like Nathan mentioned before, everyone needs a bit of positivity in their lives.
Nathan: Actually yeah, I think you coined a term for it, ‘Un-advertising’. I think it’s just spot on, it’s a company backwards. It’s just about people first. And the Hong Kong launch? How did that come about? Was it because you happened to be here so thought why not?

Simon: Yeah, that was pretty much it, but we’re also looking at cities around the world that have the potential to be a really good design hub. Hong Kong has got great potential but people don’t seem to be connecting the dots here. There are a lot of similarities to Melbourne because in Australia, Sydney is predominantly the creative central space because that’s where the big production houses and creative agencies are. But Melbourne’s got a lot of young designers coming through and making their own run on things.

Nathan: At the end of the day every city needs positivity. I mean, who the hell doesn’t right?

Simon: And really it’s about doing it in such a public way.

Nathan: We’d love to do that here in Hong Kong. In terms of contributing to the social fabric, there’s nothing really better than through some sort of art form, and if we can empower them to do that, just give them a vehicle, I think it would be fantastic.

Simon: We’ve found that there have been very few opportunities for designers to engage the public on such an open platform. It’s not behind a corporate brand, it’s not hidden in an art gallery in some kind of corner of the city. It’s something that we promote actively out there in the marketplace. In Melbourne, we put up thousands of street posters around Design Week in May.

Nathan: We pretty much covered Melbourne from top to toe in smiles. It was just brilliant because we just got so many responses from people who saw it and took photos of it and then wanted to be involved somehow.

Simon: Even on the street we have people contributing to the posters. They’re up there on the wall and people are drawing on them and adding things to them. The winning poster in particular certainly left it open to do that.

Will you be doing street level promotion here in Hong Kong too?

Simon: Absolutely. We’re talking with a couple of the street artists here about getting them involved. We’re actually hoping to do two campaigns, the first with this winner over the period that the competition runs for, so you’ll start seeing some smiles around the town from mid-July onwards.

Nathan: Yeah and it has to be street level. It has to be in the public domain because that’s where the whole thing’s different. You know, there’s heaps of design competitions where you can enter and the stuff is exhibited in a gallery or online or whatever but what makes us different is that we take it to people and it’s not just for the people who created it and their mates, it’s for everyone.

Simon: Yeah, we really separate Positive Posters into two elements; there’s the of two months that‘s the very design specific competition aspect of the project and then there’s the general public widespread promotion side of it. One of the underlying core elements of this project was engaging designers with the general public because we felt that as a skill set they have such an ability to speak their mind and present it in such a visual way that people are missing out on because its hidden behind corporate brands or a product or religious or political views and again this is void of all that. If we end up doing local exhibitions we’ll get local artists and their submissions because obviously that’s most relevant to this market.

Nathan: I’d love to see this stuff as really unique, collectable art. I think that would be so cool because there are no outlets for these guys. I’d love to see that become a vehicle for some of them.

Are you approaching Hong Kong any differently, with regard to the insecurity of doing something outside of academia or commercial work?

Simon: To be honest with you we’re taking a similar approach to what we did in Australia: just doing it. Again it’s going through the universities, the design associations and the influences. The response has been very, very, pardon my pun, positive and it’s very encouraging in a place like Hong Kong. Nathan: I think you just do it and people get inspired along the way. Things have a funny way of just falling into place if you’ve got some kick to it.

Basically, you want to give artists and designers here a chance to do something they want to, rather than what they have to?

Simon: That’s why they originally became designers right? And I guess that’s kind of the global value of this, that each designer started off in their industry with these values and they just haven’t had the opportunity yet to express it in this kind of a way.

Nathan: Yeah, but it would be awesome to have anyone, absolutely anyone and we want to keep on encouraging that. We’re still not charging for entries and we’ll try and keep it that way for as long as we can so as many people can come and get involved.

How did you spread the word to get overseas entries?

Nathan: We don’t know, actually.

Simon: We have no idea.

Nathan: It’s a mystery.

Simon: I’d love to say ‘we had a well thought out structured social-media campaign that had these…’ but no, it just wasn’t like that at all, it was just viral. It was such an authentic message that young people seem to engage with so easily and in particular designers because it’s that outlet for them. The little bit of promotion that we did was predominantly Facebook and through universities and networks. We got it out on a few of their newsletters and it just spread from there. We were just shocked that we got just under 350 entries but from 52 countries around the world. The highest entering country was Australia, then it was the US, then it was Iran. It’s a global message.

Nathan: Our partners did some promotion and Nick went out with a couple of guys and visited every design institution in Melbourne with a presentation. He went and interrupted classes and said ‘this is my slide show, this is why you should enter, get involved, we’ve got some prizes and we’re going to have a party at the end of it.’ That was pretty much it and now Positive Posters is actually adopted as a curriculum in one of the universities that we visited, so that might be something we can do over here too.

How are you going to organise international entries in the future?

Nathan: We’ve decided on going through an ambassador system where pretty much anyone can apply from around the world and be the Positive Ambassador for their country. As part of that they’ll be helping out in getting entries, so visiting their universities and talking to local designers who can contribute to the competition, but

also having a look at some collaboration opportunities again to actually create some really good outcomes for people. Last year’s winner, Peter Chmela’s design is striking and simple.

Is that why it won?

Simon: Yeah, I think it just pretty much sums up what we’re about. We had to consider: this thing is going to be on the streets, it’s designed not for a gallery, it’s design to be for the public level for everyday people, not just for designers but anyone so it had to be a universal message. It had to be accessible, it had to be non-cultural language specific, it had to look good as well in repetition, it had to stand out. So there were a few things we had to check off and make sure of, then we short-listed thirty finalist and we engaged designers though ICOGRADA (The International Council of Graphic
Design Associations).

Was Peter pleased when he won?

Nathan: Peter was wrapped, he’s from Slovakia and went mental in a different language when he found out. Nick was Skyping him going “mate, you’ve won!” and he was losing his shit! He was just blown away after because all the time on Facebook he was seeing his poster being taken to the North Pole or wherever. It’s pretty amazing for him and inspiring for other people to get involved and go ‘that could be my design’.

The North Pole? How did that come about?

Simon: We promote as far and as wide as possible and an element of that is getting great photo opportunities. The North Pole was another project that we were working on at the time for bipolar, an expedition to raise awareness and some funds for research. It was a great crossover.

Nathan: Antarctica was a little weird, a guy rocked up to the exhibition launch at a rooftop bar in Melbourne, and he was like, “I love what you guys are doing. I’m going to Antarctica tomorrow, I’ll take your posters”. We gave it to him and he chucked it on an easel on a Sea Shepherd helipad and took some snaps of it there.

Your first theme was ‘Change’ – how did you pick it?

Simon: It certainly seemed to be a word that was thrown around quite readily last year. It was great timing with the US elections and what was happening in the world at that stage and each iteration of the competition has got to reflect where certain aspects of society is heading.

What about this year’s theme?

Simon: The 12th is when it’s released online. We’re having our event here in mid-July. What will be the prize for this year’s competition winner?

Nathan: This year I think it is Adobe CS5 and a Wacom tablet.

Simon: With more prizes to be confirmed.

Nathan: Yeah we’ve started to work with Apple back in Melbourne so something could pop up there, but in the meantime we’re working with them on some in-store events and hopefully that will push this along in the right direction. We’re not making a trophy this time, last time it was a glass rabbit. Do you know how much of a nightmare it was to mail a glass rabbit!

You said before that the winner’s piece must be non-cultural language specific and bear a universal message with no particular agenda. What do you do with controversial entries?

Nathan: We had a couple last year. We had a white Obama! But, we give them as much exposure as the next poster because it’s all contributing to this dialogue that’s going on, we just let it fly. Obviously there’s some screening going on but as long as it’s not too profane, we just post it.If a piece of art comes in that was really good but it had a clear agenda, how do you weigh those two against each other? Simon: Well again that’s up to the judges to really define. They’re from different corners of the world and essentially it’s up to them to put their heads together and go ‘what is going to be most impactful visually on the streets?’

Nathan: In terms of the winner, it does have to be a fairly universal message, so last year we got heaps of stuff on saving water or whatever, having some clear agendas but part of the brief was that it has to be – plain and simple – a positive message.

What part does the rabbit play?

Simon: That is the Positive Posters logo. That is PP, so that’s what is printed on the t-shirts and is something that we want to be the universal brand of positivity.

Nathan: The whole idea is that the rabbit breeds and it breeds positivity. It’s a universal sign and we’re trying as much as we can to take the name Positive Posters out of it and put the rabbit on things so hopefully that will tell people what we’re about.

Simon: And on the Positive Projects, having the rabbit stamped on these things lets you know that if you come across something down the line with the rabbit on it, it’s attached to this whole value system that we’re building at the moment.

The future – tells us your plans and aims.

Nathan: We would definitely like to be the world’s most recognised poster competition or graphic design competition. We’ve kind of recently, after that two month period of ‘what the fuck?’, had a look around and just gone, ‘OK, why has this all happened?’ and we’ve found that there’s not really a global graphic design competition at all that is free and that encourages people to do that kind of thing. So we’d like to be known as the place where if you’re a graphic designer or illustrator or someone who just wants to enter, Positive Posters is the one. We’d also like to see a lot of outcomes in terms of actually creating positive change and I think that’s where Positive Projects come into play, so it’s starting to leverage this kind of ground swell of support and people who have this idea of social justice and work with organisations to actually create some change and I think the first one will be the Salvation Army. After the ‘what the hell just happened?’ period it was ‘where to now?’ and I think we all agree that this has great potential to further engage on a global scale, so Positive Projects is a collaboration hub for Positive Posters and open to any company or any organization that wants to share in our message. We’ve teamed up with Apple and with the Salvation Army back home. They’re looking at giving us a permanent gallery space in one of their street laneways, which is known for helping the homeless. It’s got a walk-in centre where the homeless come in and get hot food and a shower. That laneway is going to be turned into a permanent gallery. We’re also looking to some work where the homeless can actually create designs and we’re collaborating with a few of Melbourne’s top design studios, so it’s connecting the design studios and the homeless and creating the posters as well.

Simon: So again, we’re leveraging all of this wonderful exposure that we’re getting into stuff that’s again contributing to the social fabric and we’ll be looking to replicate that in Hong Kong once that exposure starts to roll out later on in the year. Also on a more personal level we’ve had some great stories of guys presenting their Positive Posters entry and people just realising that those are the values that they hold as a designer and that that’s OK, you don’t necessarily have to always adhere to this whole corporate design code.

Nathan: Yeah it’s kind of like, and I don’t mean to get too philosophical, but it’s like these old dudes who finish their career and they go, ‘I’ve done my career and I’m 60 years old and I’ve worked my balls off, now I want to give something back.’

Simon: Why can’t you do that for your whole career?

Nathan: Yeah, why can’t you make that your career?

Simon: Exactly.

Nathan: I mean, why are people waiting until the end of their career to start trying to make an impact? I can feel it, I can see it. Everywhere I look, people want to give back.

The burning question: is it worth it?

Nathan: Without a question, mate.

Simon: Absolutely. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. The bank accounts don’t really reflect it but that’s not why we’re in it. It’s never why we have been in it.

Nathan: Yeah, Absolutely, I think it’s something I live by, I mean we’re all heading to the same destination, right? How you choose to spend your time here is your choice and it’s an important one, and I couldn’t think of any other way I’d spend my time other than doing good things for other people.

Keep up to date on the competition and to find out how to enter at www.positive-posters.com

Words: Alex Lendrum and Hugo Stanford

]]> http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/features/positive-people/feed/ 1 http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/features/would-you-like-some-pork-2/ http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/features/would-you-like-some-pork-2/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:32 +0000 admin http://www.brouhaha.com.hk/?p=2347 A vegetarian breaks his silence. For nearly 15 years, “would you like some pork” has been the hilarious follow-up question to “Why are you vegetarian?”

Then I get asked if I’d like some beef. Every time. Brilliant. That’s why I just smile and shrug. All you other vegetarians probably know this situation well too. But, for the first time, dear reader, I’m answering that burning question, the one that gets everyone I meet for the first time riled up and provides comedy gold every time we eat out, or hell, at the mention of any food at all! Here’s the definitive answer to all your questions, meat-lovers.

I am vegetarian because I don’t see the point in eating animals. That’s it, really. I’ve lasted this long eating nothing that once was alive, I’m sure I can last a little while longer. Before you get your knickers in a twist, meatys, I’m onto you already. “Vegetables were alive!” you were thinking (and often say). Yes, smartarse, I suppose they were. They were as alive as a blade of grass or a shrub. I’d say that those things don’t live life to the full though. They exist, they look wonderful and do a job, but in terms of life, they’re pretty low down. If you hack off the head of an animal, it hurts it; if you hack off the head of a cabbage, it doesn’t. Let’s agree on that one. So I’d be happy to cut up all the vegetables in the world but if you asked me to cut up a dog, I’d not be so into it. The same goes for cows, sheep and pigs – all the wonderful staples of the meat spectrum.

I’m not religious in any way, so I don’t hold stock in the belief that man was created above all animals. I think man’s amazing – as amazing as anything else that’s happened to turn up on this world (apart from mosquitoes and their ilk – they’re dreadful).

The American author Kurt Vonnegut wrote of how his sister ruined fishing for his father by describing the act as ‘like smashing up tiny pocket watches.’ There’s stock in that. These things may be tiny but my word they’re wonderful. They work so well! If that veers into hippy country then so be it. I still hate bongos. Like going fishing, everyone has the choice between eating dead animals and not. What’s nicer? There’s only one answer.

As for the social stigma, abstaining from anything inevitably garners the same unwanted attention. If you don’t drink you not only have to spend the night out fielding questions about why you don’t drink but you also have to spend hours supping on orange juice and Coke while your companions get drunker and louder and ask why you don’t drink, this time with a jabbing finger and a gang mentality steeped in bravado. I can imagine it’s very dull, as dull as defending not eating meat.

Vegetarians are apparently always in the wrong though, based on this senseless logic: ‘Oh, but then there’d be too many animals!’ ‘We’d have to hunt them or they’d overrun us!’ They wouldn’t, and if they did? A city full of sheep and chickens would be delightful. We’ve got rats everywhere, why not let the cuddlier creatures have a go? Because they wouldn’t, that’s why. None of the better-offdead battery farmed animals would be able to stand the sunlight or hobble out of the sheds on their nubs of twisted feet anyway. If you need to kill things, kill them and have done with it.

Rape them too, if you fancy. Whatever makes you feel manly. Once you’re done killing them in inventive ways we can stop hunting. If you need to get an erection over ending the life of a defenseless being then go and punch a baby in the face. Same thing, just the baby will probably survive. You can smear any blood that comes out of it onto your face and indulge in some mirror onanism. You’ll love it and nothing need die. Surely we’re above that now, big guy.

This tongue-in-cheek diatribe may sound preachy, but don’t worry – I know I’m only speaking to fellow vegetarians. So no complaints, I just don’t fancy some pork, thanks.

Words: Tom Cassidy

The iPad tablet computer is all the rage – it’s rocketed past the one million units sold mark and has a legion of dedicated supporters frothing at the mouth in giddy excitement. The Amazon Kindle e-reader debuted earlier, made more modest waves but a splash nonetheless, has updates and upgraded iterations cemented on a schedule and has a loyal fanbase of its own of users that, for the first time, can claim to be both technologically cool and literarily rad.

These two devices do seem different: different functions, different features, different prices and the need for differently sized pockets in which to stow them. But they also do share a common thread which will be the converging of their two roads in the future. They’re basically handheld screens and you’re expected to have your eyes glued to them, as well as a finger or two, to use them. The feature set from both will soon expand to encompass the other and then all you have left really is the different styling and the different screens.

These screens and the technology behind them, unfortunately, occupy two different areas of functionality. The Amazon Kindle, using a kind of electrophoretic technology developed by E Ink Corp. has great readability and low power consumption. The LCD screen staring at you from the iPad brings you brilliant colours and full video motion. But neither one provides what the other can, which has been one of the reasons behind the huge investment into emerging screen technologies that can, ideally, give you the full monty of features at the cost of extremely conservative battery use.

The Amazon Kindle excels in the battery life department, with its E-Ink technology rendering black, white or shades of gray extremely efficiently by way of pigment particle capsules. Each pixel on the screen is a capsule which contains two pigments – black and white. Black is usually formed by particles of carbon, white by particles of titanium dioxide. These two pigments are oppositely charged, so when you run a voltage through the capsule, you attract or repel the pigments. Manipulating the voltages correctly allows you to display mixes of both particles – black and white to give you shades of gray. Since it is simply either black, white or a mix of both being displayed on the screen at any given time, the screen relies on reflected light, meaning it’s easy to read under the sun. Once the capsules are in a certain state – say, a page from your e-book – it requires no extra power to keep them in that state. That’s the technology behind the energy efficiency.

The technology is simple and easy to produce. But it also suffers from a persistent darkness. Consider the pigment capsule – at any point, half of it contains dark particles and half of it contains bright particles – black and white. But the white never truly hides the black. It’s kind of like painting your wall black, and then painting over it in white – one coat just won’t do, but only one coat of white is all these pigment capsules can contain. That means white is never really white as the black beneath it is still partially visible. Relying on reflected light and having dark pixels means you also need light in order to read it, so you won’t be reading your e-book in the back seat of a car at night. In this way, it’s like a real book. There’s just not enough light. You can have colour on an E-Ink display, but that involves adding a red green blue filter on top which just results in more darkening. That’s why colours will always appear dull on this kind of technology, even white.

Dull, though, is not what the Apple iPad boasts in its LCD screen, a power hungry energy hog that gives you vibrant colours and full-motion video at the cost of battery life… an extreme cost. The efficiency rate of conversion of electricity to light on an LCD screen hovers somewhere between 2-3%. Abysmal. Be prepared to get used to a battery metre flashing a dangerous red while a note incessantly pops up telling you it’s going to turn off so why don’t you go climb a tree or nip off for a nap. We already know what LCD screens can do – most of us look into one every day, whether it be the monitor at work or the monitor at home or –if you’re an early adopter – the iPad you are now inseparable from.

Now, if you’re one of those people who has already queued up, paid up, and cheered up with the acquisition of your new iPad, all gleaming in aesthetic glory, you may have also realised the major downfall of the portable LCD screen: an aversion to sunlight. So the sky’s blue, you spot an empty bench and think about having a quiet lunchtime padsurf, except you can’t see the screen because it goes all wonky and dark. Even the merest reflection of sunlight is still significantly brighter than your LCD screen, and renders your iPad unreadable. You try turning the brightness up and your battery goes into cardiac arrest. Resigned, you go back to your office or home and do stuff on your Macbook.

Right now, the screen technology just doesn’t exist to combine energy efficiency, full motion and colour capability and readability during both day and night, dark and light. The tech race is already steaming ahead, with emerging technologies such as the brute force approach of 3Qi, whereby you manually switch your device between LCD and e-paper modes (similar to E-Ink) depending on whether you are in dark or light. Nature has become an inspiration for the development of a technology called Mirasol which follows the same principles as the iridescence of a butterfly wing for generating intense reflected and therefore low-power colour, but this is economically unfeasible right now. Even chameleons and cuttlefish, with their age old biological pigment switching, have been under renewed scrutiny, leading to the emergence of the still-developing electrofluidic technology which still suffers from brightness issues.

Don’t get me wrong. We are moving forward, just not as fast as the marketers would have you believe.

Words: Hugo Stanford