We are happy to share our newest limited edition covers by Sruli Recht. They are made in Recht’s studio in Iceland from shark skin in edition of ten. All text and logos are etched by laser. Each one is individually numbered. You can purchase them from our website.

Buy Here

Official Article by Editors

Date: Saturday June 30
Time: 5 00 pm
Address: Palais Brongniart, 28, place de la Bourse 75002

By Invitation

PRIVATE SHOWROOM
21 rue Rambuteau, 75004 PARIS
June 27 – July 03
10:00-18:00

Photograph by Marino Thorlacius

Photography by Samuel Willett

See Field Dressing Collection

See Runway and Performance Images

Photography by Samuel Willet

See Cast By Shadows Collection

See Runway Show Images

Dear Internet,

With shipping imminent for the Autumn Winter 2011 line When Gravity Fails, we publicly answer some of your private questions:

Regarding on-line sales, shortly you will be able to order the A/W collection in its entirety, along with all previously released non-products, directly from our new site.

Until the new webstore is launched, you may submit pre-order enquiries for all products and collections via email. [contact at srulirecht dot com]

Please note that online orders for A/W 2011 and S/S 2012 can only be made to cities where the item will not be stocked in stores. If the item you desire will be available at a store in your city, your enquiry will be redirected to the relevant store for sales enquiries.

Be well.

See When Gravity Fails Collection

See Runway Show Images

Our store is now two years old.

Happy birthday us.

Is a semi-annual print publication on fashion and culture, coming this fall.

The following special editions of StyleZeitgeist Magazine Volume 1 will be available:

1. Black leather dust jacket embossed with SZ Magazine logo by Guidi – GUIDI – 1O COPIES.

2. Sharkskin cover binding by Sruli Recht – 10 COPIES.

3. Exclusive photo print scarf by Lost and Found – 10 COPIES.

You can pre-order the magazine here.

…Let your eyes take it in.

The following special editions of StyleZeitgeist Magazine Volume 1 will be available:

1. Black leather dust jacket embossed with SZ Magazine logo by Guidi – GUIDI – 1O COPIES.

2. Sharkskin cover binding by Sruli Recht – 10 COPIES.

3. Exclusive photo print scarf by Lost and Found – 10 COPIES.

You can pre-order the magazine here.

…Let your eyes take it in.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It is a chair set, designed for our showrooms.  To sit on.
This chair was designed with Snorri Már Snorrason and made from cardboard and Ink.
As usual, it was shot by Marinó Thorlacius.

many hours and days and years have rolled whilst nimrod weis and i have discussed our works together. On the 30th day of June 2006, it occurred to us that we had disproportionate amount of creations that just weren’t products… just weren’t exactly producible in large quantities due to costs… and that it just wouldn’t be right if there were too many of them.

so we came to the conclusion that we needed a forum to show the fragile, the moulded, the electronic, the cut and the painted and the fabricated
a forum for our relevant contemporary relatively producible grotesque

and thus… what makes a non product?

she falls and flails in the categories:

a specially made low run piece
either hand tooled or machine made
that would lose its context as a mass produced item
and is not viable to produce in large quantities

an item that is in concept stage as a by-product of the previous

www.i-donline.com

http://www.i-donline.com/i-spy/i-ntroducing-sruli-recht

Creating experimental couture clothing from his studio in Reykjavik, Sruli began to study fashion deign at RMIT University, Australia. Heavily influenced by futurism, the award-winning designer then progressed on to projects more centred around custom-tailoring, illustration and industrial design. Unconcerned by the relevance of trend and disposability seasonal collections are usually subjected to, Sruli’s work is inspired by the process. Trusting only his mind’s eye, as opposed to adhering to the restraints inflicted by measurements and proportions, Sruli’s clothing feels free and moves beautifully. Working with lasers, light emitting projections and virtual illustrators, each garment Sruli creates is, in part, accidental. Sruli’s simple design ethos is: “Pressing a button is ok, as long as the robots are not designing for you, it’s just helping you do it faster”.

i-D Online caught up with the menswear designer whilst at work to find out more.

Video Edit Pete Ohs
Text Milly McMahon

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By the tides, by the waves

~

Photographer – Marinó Thorlacius
Models – Emil Þór Guðmundsson, Helgi Hjörvar
Stylist – Megan Herbert
Lookbook Layout – wearenotyou

STORY – This is the second complete menswear line from Sruli Recht.

“This collection is based on the view from my window: water, mountains, mist.”   – Sruli Recht, June, 2011

The collection in three words – draped, refined, digital

MATERIALS

This season employs a global selection of cottons, linens, silks and timber, complimented by Icelandic reindeer skin and horse skin.

All the buttons are made from metal alloy rods, drop-cast in the studio, and blackened.

Shark skin from the Icelandic basking shark is the highlight material invented for this collection.

One day outside my studio I saw a flatbed truck driving past, and on that truck a pile of wet glistening somethings. My brain said it was fishing nets… but that sharp little voice at the back of my neck disagreed: “That there pile was once alive.  Chase it.  Chase it down.”

And into my car I got, and followed that truck till it stopped.  And on it?  Five, reaking collosal beasts, brown, wet and far beyond dead.  “To where will these sharks go?” I asked.  “West,” said the driver, “to the plants where they become oil and meat.”  Procuring the recipient’s number, I dialed and requested slithers of its mic-rose thorn skin to be sent to the Tanner in the North, for whom the impossible is but a days work.  Twelve days later, in a relatively anonimous white cardboard box we received from his skilled blades a new first – basking shark (or shark skin, or whatever name you want to give it), and by far not the last first, from his skilled blades, baths and alchemical knowhow.

See it, smell it, but recoil from its iron maiden touch… for the skin of the shark is more dangerous than its bite.

GARMENTS

The collection consists of a total look – from coats, jackets and cardigans, to trousers, shorts and leggings, complimented by sandals, eye-frames, bags, hats, gloves and silver jewellery – 42 styles, approximately 100 with material variations.

All garments and product samples are produced in-house unless otherwise stated.

Jewellery is beaten by Sign.

Frames and cane hand-carved by Muggi.

The majority of the garments are constructed from one pattern piece and one piece of material, where the width of the material allows. I.e. In the case of the shirts, the cuff and placket come from the same piece of fabric as the sleeve, which is also part of the body and collar.  The jacket Fourteen Years, is constructed with a side seam, and one positioned dart that flows from the bottom of the scapula, up over the shoulder and through to the neck, creating an elegantly tailored revere collar.  This jacket is named so as its construction represents the culmination of 14 years of patternmaking experience.

Everything in the collection is made in Iceland.

Self – Italian Felted Wool
Lining – Silk Floral Jacquard, Black Silk, Dove Pocket Bag Cotton
Buttons – Frosted Grey Resin
Label – Hand Made Stencil

Except for this new website you are looking at with your face.

Be welcomed to it with these words.  And take a look around, for over time it will grow and grow.

This website is designed and coded by WEARENOTYOU

Almost all photography on this website, unless otherwise noted, is by Marinó Thorlacius.

Installation of five sad marionettes, still dance before trees.

The hollow formless figures are shrouded by the hard cape forms shaped by the arrangement of the mountain Esjan that sits heavily over the smoky bays of Reykjavík

As she shadows the waters, like the hooded heads of the lonely; muddy eyes, in this disguise

“I have walked,
blindfolded on the splintered plank to death in your sea.
Commanded the infantry of the Qualities war through rivers of blood to tired slow victory.
Climbed the balcony to my Egyptians lair of blurred fantasy and stole her heart, infinitely.
Each footsteps of fortune as we march under this sun into Venus’s orbit and deep deep intimate dusk.
Sons of Eros and Brothers of Mercury, follow your heart and walk with me.”

These Wears for the Feet are the Icelandic Conceived Designs for the Gentlemen and Womenfolk’s Coming Season. Hand-lasted, moulded, fixed and numbered one by one.

entirely leather, entirely deadly.

By Process of Elimination we have Assembled a Variation of Button Up Ankle Boots, Slippers, Shin High Structured- Boots and Heeled Shoes -

In Qualities Of:
Bovine, Swine, goats, sheep, minke dork [whale foreskin], kangaroo, pine, lamb, buffalo.

Alongside the Colourations, Tones and Tints:
Kelp Green, Caramel Sandstone, midnight brown, oxblood, stripped plaster, rust, gunmetal, burnt-umber

This grave embrace

Take a breath, take a breath
It is your last before death
For on your neck I lace these jewels and erase

GARROTE is a film performed by Heba Eir Jónasdóttir Kjeld and River Carmalt

Director – Heimir Sverrisson
Creative Director – Sruli Recht
Editor – Steffi Thors
Choreographer – Erna Ómarsdottir
Sound – Ben Frost
Director Of Photography – Tómas Tómasson
Assistant Director – Bui Baldvinsson
Special Effects – Aron Bergmann Magnússon
Costume Design – Sruli Recht Studio
Storyboard Artist – B. Börkur Eiríksson
Wardrobe assistant – Andrea Sisson
Dolly – Friðrik Grétarsson

Stills Photography – Marino Thorlacius

With special thanks to Megan Herbert, Lise Capet, Filmus, Addi Knutsson Kristján Kristjánsson and Hannes Björgvinsson.

Filmed at Lazytown Studio on the Red One camera
Recorded at the Greenhouse

-

Garrote is also necklace – Icelandic volcanic lava moulded into black scarab beetles,magnetized and sealed on a spun-copper middle E piano wire.

The GARROTE film will be premiered during the Reykjavík Design Days and at the Reykjavík Fashion Festival in conjunction with Hönnunarmiðstöð Íslands – The Icelandic Design Centre.
Premeir Screening time: Friday March 19 as part of the catwalk presentations begining at 20 00. The RFF is located at O.J.Kaaber house, Sætún 8 Reykjavík.
The film will then be showing in The Armoury during the rest of the festival.

-

SRULI RECHT F/W 2011

A diagonal line for men

~

“born out of this
and trying to get back in

worn out from bliss
and floating in sin

falling back through this future
and from where I’ve been

sky-born, deliberate
draped raw from within”

Photographer – Marinó Thorlacius
Model – Emil Þór Guðmundsson
Stylist – Arash Arfazadeh

STORY – This is the first complete menswear line from Sruli Recht.

“This collection happened in my hands instead of on paper… I just listened to the fabric and the forms and they told me what to do. To do this I came up with a technique to develop the collection; in the studio we made a half-scale mannequin [see i-D online video] and 3D sketched with fabrics straight onto the form.  Making garments in half scale really reduced the amount of detail that you would otherwise put in because you have only so much space to work with.  While doing this, we set up a technique I call a Macroscope, which is a camera trained on the form, connected to a projector, that throws the image of the half-scale mannequin and garment in progress up on the wall full-scale.  The shaped fabric was then transferred to paper, scanned with a large format scanner, digitized to vector, scaled up, and then cut directly in fabric by the laser cutter.  We re-draped in full size, corrected, rescanned, re-edited, re-cut, etc.  This process dramatically reduced the amount of work time, while increasing the accuracy and detail of the whole process.  Every aspect of the collection is laser cut, from the patterns to the materials and final garments.
What you have as an end result is very little wastage of raw materials, much less time spent tracing and cutting, and much more time to work and think with your hands on the actual garment.  The whole thing is completely intuitive and free, but very dimensional and formed.  The collection is entirely draped mostly from single pieces, and there was absolutely no design sketching. The result is a collection with a balance between construction and freedom.”   – Sruli Recht, December 2010

The collection in three words – draped, raw, digital

MATERIALS

“The studio worked very closely with Atlantic Leather, a tannery in the north of Iceland run by the native Icelanders, working with the raw skins to make new materials… basically designing new leathers.  I spent a lot of time up there playing with’ better these skins, and designing their treatments and finishes.  So that is where all the leathers in this collection come from – horse, hunted wild reindeer, birds, fish and lamb.
Similarly we are using Icelandic wool and working with a local knit producer here to make our own knit constructions.  All this means that about 98% of the collection is made from Icelandic materials, and material that we have in some way developed in our studio.  The other 2% is the jersey we have to import because it isn’t made here.
We have spent the last year taming these wild and fantastic natural Icelandic materials for an international market.”

GARMENTS

The collection consists of a total look – from coats, jackets and cardigans, to trousers, shorts and leggings, complimented by shoes, boots, bags, gloves and silver jewellery – 55 styles, approximately 130 with material variations.

Our shoe/ boot samples are produced by Guðrún Edda Einarsdóttir.

Show Piece One – “Icarus, post-crash”: 21 Svartfugl [blackbirds] on a hunted wild reindeer base.
After meeting a group of hunters, hunting birds and beasts, we struck up a deal: all the birds they could bring me, in exchange for a pound of breath.  And birds they brought, bags and bags of them.  Hands soaked in feathers and flesh, they were sorted through, sent on ice to my tanner (a craftsman so brilliant I heard he once tanned air). What returned to our studio was not a pile of feathers and feet but rather the full-bodied, beaked husks of those once soft flying blackbirds.  And out of their box they were pulled, put onto the stand, and the garment quite literally designed itself. All we had to do was sew it together… by hand and heart, on a reindeer base, body to body to back to wing, to have our Icarus, post crash, sombre and in between.

Show Piece Two – “Born out of this”:  27 still born lambs, 3 regular lambs, military deadstock lining.
And it was said, during a conversation in the cold, cavernous walls of the tannery, chromium sulphate hanging low in the air, and not a piece of natural light leaking in, “what is that heap over there?”
Looking vaguely at the iridescent white pile to his left, said he “That…? They were not meant to be.”
And so it was agreed, I would take those lost souls, and from him to me they came.
Shaken, preferred, and pieced together, these almost once vessels, together now one, and draped as a single square, and a sleeve, and a pleated set/raglan hybrid, with darted shaping. A coat to end all, and begin again.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

~

This piece incorporated the use of double pleating to create a corner on a pleat. The hood joins only at the bust and back neckline. The pleats at the sides undo to let the wearer in. the fox fur is split down the centre of the tail to remove the bone, and that is where the seam originates. the graphic front of the lower half came from having to piece it together so there was enough.

5 Seals
2 Foxes
7 Wooden Toggles

-

“I sure am dying a lot”
Death1000000BC is Dual channel video loop by Rebecca Moran. Rebecca engaged me to create for her past life self a costume.

“….You are 13? And a predator gets you?”
Yah
“What kind of animal comes to mind?”
A bear. Here.
“it hits you there and that is fatale?”
Yah.
“Where you running away from that bear?”
No
“Did you face it when it happens?”
Yah
“With other people you were hunting that bear?”
Yah.
“And that hunt, was it your first hunt? This girl you were, did you realize the bear killed you?”
Yes.
“Did you have peace with that?”
Yah…(pause) It’s cold
“Is that the coldness of death?”
No.
“It was cold before the bear?”
Yes.

“And do you still have a spiritual connection to this bear?”
Uh-huh
“Whenever people are killed by an animal there is a special spiritual connection that bonds. And does your mind or part of you go to that bear when it kills you?”
Yah
“And was the bear killed?”
Uh-huh
“Do you experience that? And do you realize it is not you that is killed?”
Yes.

“Is it the claw in your chest that you feel still?”
Yes. The ijs bear is here.

Excerpt from statement by Rebecca:

My current project developed from an investigation into the concept of dream realities, ideas of parallel existence, and theories of reincarnation. It is a query into our perception of what constitutes being and death, and how we might participate in creating our own idea of self in time. ‘Death Sequence’ (Death200ad, Death1937, Death100,000bc) is a series of video’s based on memories of past lives retrieved using hypnosis and trance with the supervision of a professional regression guide. And what is revealed through all the re-experience collapsed in one moment? Something as complex as questioning where we are situated in time, and as simple as the realization: “I sure am dying a lot.”

For this piece Rebecca needed a costume for a 12 year old girl she once was in Greenland somewhere around 1,000,000 BC.
I told her that she was going to need some old-school.
In the installation film the girl wanders out into the ice fields to hunt a bear herself. She is surprisingly unsuccessful.

Rebecca is not a 12 year old girl. she is a bit more than that. so to make Rebecca very simply much younger I suggested the use of pinafore symbolics and strapping.
And to make it as contextual as possible we hunted and killed five adolescent seals, and severed the tails of two snow foxes. They were unimpressed.

We made the costume [see process], Rebecca went to Greenland, lived with dogs dried fish and snow, filmed as much as she wanted and is on the way back to Reykjavik to edit.

I took my horse and I took my house
and dragged four stones along that road
to wipe the dust
from mortar, cold steel and flesh

I took the cement powder
claimed rusted steel nails from the forgotten grounds of hope
the horse’s hide, beaten now by time and toil, I tanned
and left with my gaze and sweat
to bend that steel and harden that stone.

and with what was shed I am left to atone
sit,
stare
and postpone.

~

Concrete Buckle is a set of 4 hand cast belt buckles with bar and hook bent from sealed reclaimed steel, boxed with a horse-skin Black Sable, Rose Grey and Bay Red belt.

Available in several boxed combinations of belt and buckle: one, or all four buckles, and one, or two belts.

Buckle Weights in Grams [g] and Ounces [oz]

Pyramid – 23 g / 0.8 oz
Cross – 34 g / 1.2 oz
Monolith – 100 g / 3.5 oz
Dome – 78 g / 2.75 oz
Belt – 30 g / 1 oz

Photography – Marino Thorlacius

To Protect The Hearts of Men
a non-product
sr106
~

The Damned is a Bullet-Proof* Gentlemen’s Pocket Square measuring 270 mm x 270, made from lemon Military Grade Ballistic Strength Aramid Fibre – to protect the hearts of men.

Originally made in a limited issue of ten in 2007, The Damned now has been released as an open edition.

This ‘pocket-protector’ of the Modern Ages is bound in Citric French Cotton and in light of its chamfered corners we developed a Unique and New Fold to the Gentlemen’s Square, to which we have afforded the name: The Damned

Shot Point Blank – Marinó Thorlacius

* If a gun is aimed at you, fired, and the slug hits you, you will be hurt despite the properties of the square; The impact of the projectile itself is likely to fracture, crack or break your bones bones and bruise you.  According to the specifications of the textile, a ballistic projectile such as a bullet will not pass through thirty two layers of this material.  We take NO responsibility for those who feel compelled to test the endurance or resistance of the textile in any way.

and he heard me fall
before I heard it myself
a Shaper, Mechanist

Icelandic horse skin, dredge-dyed canvas, drop-cast button, bleeding fingers.

Show Piece Two – Seal My Vest
seal my vest
on my heavy chest
where the heaving rests
and the rhythm lets

Icelandic wild seal, drop-cast button, dead-stock lining.

The Armoury offers the complete collection of Sruli Recht non-products, which are caught somewhere between product design, weapons manufacturing, corroded tailoring and shoe making. The non-products – including umbrellas, bulletproof scarves, tables, bags, belts and boots – incorporate such materials as concrete, diamonds, skin and wool.

Megan Herbert’s work encompasses detailed hand-illustrations and intricate paper cuts, brought together by a carefully considered narrative thread. Her wrapping paper collection, printed on Icelandic deadstock, represents elements we all as human beings share – the blood coursing through our veins, the bones helping us to stand strong, the food that nourishes us, the air filling our lungs, and the traditions that shape our history.

Photographs of The Armoury – Marino Thorlacius

The Armoury / Vopnabúríð
Hólmaslóð 4
Reykjavík 101 – Fishpacking District
Iceland

General Opening Hours: Mon-Sat
[+354] 5344238

~

We opened the store to create an uncompromising space to show both Sruli and Megan’s work. In a sense it is a flagship store, a place to present the collections exactly as we see them, and also to serve as a forum to experiment with new ideas. I have been selling in stores for some years, and a lot on-line, but it really came time to bring it all together in one space in the town we live in. So really it is part store, part showroom and part control group.

The store is in an area called Grandi which used to be the area that the fish were dragged up from the boats. There are very few companies out here still operating directly in the fish catching industry… it is mostly large companies selling or fixing boat parts and nets, or processing fish into oil. Recently some small businesses have moved out here [Kria Cycles, Marino Thorlacius] and a younger creative feel has been growing. So we called it the Fishpacking District, which is what the Grandi area is known as in Icelandic.

We put it out here a little way from the main shopping strip downtown as a way to slow down the visitation to some degree so that a client is given all the time and information they need, making the experience more personal.

Currently the store sells Sruli Recht Non-Products – umbrellas, wallets, belts, shoes, typefaces, scarves, and the rest of the non-product collection. Right now we are beginning to release the early prototypes of the upcoming bag collection – men’s and women’s bags made from concrete, horse-skin, lava stone. A men’s wear collection is also on the horizon. All of the items in the store carry a subtly dark subtext, layered with added meaning from the the function of the object or the material used in its construction. The store also serves as the platform to present each of our upcoming product releases and as a gallery space for Megan’s illustrative work.

~

Everything used in putting The Armoury [Vopnabúrið] together was reclaimed from the now abandoned construction sites around Reykjavík – from the dried and weather-worn shipping palettes to the long wood scaffolding, old metal frames, steps and wheeled bases.

The Vopnabúrið sign was made from discarded rusted roofing sheets and cut to shape with a water jet. To create the colour of the floor we mixed a hue somewhere between blood and rust – an overall theme and tone for the store.

As we stripped away the former layers of the room its beautiful structure and colossal concrete beams emerged and became the grand highlights that now define the space.

The high walls are lined with a patterned corrugated cardboard, and the industrial castors were bestowed by the custodial facility from their inoperative waste containers. Hidden above a floating ceiling were old crucifix-shaped timber girders that supported the structure from which we now suspend the lighting.

When walking into the store, we aimed for a feel that was like entering a warehouse storeroom where all the secrets are hidden. The textures of the fittings and walls are rough, matte, and light, which highlight the strong forms and colours of the products and offsets the deep tones of the floor. All of the fittings in The Armoury are mounted on casters for the purpose of altering the layout for new projects, products and performance. The shelves, built from snow bleached construction site timber and weather beaten shipping palettes, reach to the ceiling.

The interior of The Armoury is a filtered reflection of its surrounding environment.

WORN is a typeface

Worn began first as a way to hack a typeface to look like the SRULI RECHT logo.  Initially it was a goudy typeface with a bumped up stroke to match the similar original attack that created the logo in 2001.

The letters here are used in the stamps made that are made for the products by this studio to push the aged and awkwardly applied stamp look further.  Here the principles of the Syrillic font reduction are taken by Jarred Ebehardtof WeAreNotYou and developed into a dedicated typeface purely for the purpose of stamp making and branding.

This typeface is named WORN after its appearance – worn out and low on ink.  It’s feel was leans toward mid 19C ammunition boxes.

21 03 2002
29 05 2002
24 11 2002
Name says it all really.

Collaborative Garment Design & Construction projects between Sruli Recht & Timothy Tropp.

…a means of translating the environment surrounding individuals, into a portable/ transferable design extraction.

ST Collaborate, simply, was a made-to-measure clothing duo. In 2003 the business was supporting itself from providing its wide customer base with a wider selection of Male and Female attire to suit.

The studio itself was a beautiful light filled room in the old Barnes
& Co toy warehouse that was converted into the Langridge Design Centre

Many machines adorned the walls, some over 100 years old, and was set with a full workshop of building tools.. for beating cutting grinding hammering and riveting, for we liked to build clothing as much as sew them… the leggo generation. Over the years we collected more and more fabric and machines and lost track of the amount of hours we worked, clothes we made and nights we didn’t sleep.

ST Collaborate was effectively a vehicle for us to develop and think… and then make beautiful, structured, designed and resolved pieces at our own speed. Single pieces, formed to a single person – a forum for ideas and techniques opinions and hard analysis.

And as importantly, it was our first business that supported us by doing what we loved. We were blessed, and the success of word of mouth and true appreciation of design and fine clothing created a demand so large that we were inundated.

But we had our strengths and our weaknesses and an arsenal of ideas, fabric and machines

type: boot

composition: all cow Leather
heel: 2″ raw leather cuban
colour ways: kelp green
gender: homme

Ocean filtered light flickering over my eyes, steps that cut, and a very distant headache. Low button up leaden boots, one piece of leather pleated into shape and soft leaning heel. Just one tired sleek shark swimming through tomorrow.

Preferred Use: Espionage and straight out traditional Mexican stand-off. Nothing more to say.

Take a breath, take a breath
It is your last before death
For on your neck I lace these jewels and erase

The GARROTE film will be premiered during the Reykjavík Design Days and at the Reykjavík Fashion Festival in conjunction with Hönnunarmiðstöð Íslands – The Icelandic Design Centre.
Premeir Screening time: Friday March 19 as part of the catwalk presentations begining at 20 00. The RFF is located at O.J.Kaaber house, Sætún 8 Reykjavík.
The film will then be showing in The Armoury during the rest of the festival.

-

GARROTE is a film performed by Heba Eir Jónasdóttir Kjeld and River Carmalt

Director – Heimir Sverrisson
Creative Director – Sruli Recht
Editor – Steffi Thors
Choreographer – Erna Ómarsdottir
Sound – Ben Frost
Director Of Photography – Tómas Tómasson
Assistant Director – Bui Baldvinsson
Special Effects – Aron Bergmann Magnússon
Costume Design – Sruli Recht Studio
Storyboard Artist – B. Börkur Eiríksson
Wardrobe assistant – Andrea Sisson
Dolly – Friðrik Grétarsson

Stills Photography – Marino Thorlacius

With special thanks to Megan Herbert, Lise Capet, Filmus, Addi Knutsson Kristján Kristjánsson and Hannes Björgvinsson.

Filmed at Lazytown Studio on the Red One camera
Recorded at the Greenhouse

type: boot
composition: minke dork
heel: 2″ raw leather cuban
colour ways: caramel sandstone
gender: homme

Hunter and hunted, charred end cycles of left over limits.  Holes in these things less for the breathing,chasing that whale, too late in the evening,”its the new dolphin – a stand in for the ozone,and that hole itself? is just the next blackman”

Preferred Aplication: Caritas

An Upcoming Non-Product
For Sleeping and Breathing

~

A set of four travel masks from folded laser cut parchment.
Mask A. Functional air-purifying grill format respirator with replaceable-cartridge white N95 filters.

Mask B. Functional full face piece combination twin air-purifying respirators with replaceable-cartridge white N95 filters, light filtering sleep mask, and sound reduction ear covers. Secondary inner eye piece prevents pressure on eyes.

Mask C. Functional full face piece combination single grill air-purifying respirator with replaceable-cartridge white N95 filters and light filtering sleep mask.

Mask D. Functional full face piece combination single grill air-purifying respirator with replaceable-cartridge white N95 filters and light filtering sleep mask. Faceted hinged eye mask lifts for viewing and nasal rest prevents pressure on eyes.

A dedicated photo shoot with Marino Thorlacius for Vision Magazine China March 2010 Edition

Modelled by Guðrún Heiður Ísaksdóttir

PRESENTING
sr107

ONE
“Leather ~Elt”
Precision Water-Jet Cut
BELT

Installing another moment in states of decay -

The first Buckless Belt is a completely Icelandic product, from the skin to the hand-made vertical-feed boxes, in colours flesh, bone, ash and rust and in widths of 3, 4 and 5 centimetres.

Utilising a Unique Feed-Teeth method of fastening, and cut using a needle fine jet of water, this is Metal Detector Invisible.

~Elt is an exploration in removing the function from the function. When the clasp or buckle is removed from the belt itself, it loses its place, and becomes a strip of hard skin, not even long enough to knot. In this result the skin is incised to give the same ability as clasped and interlocked fingers.

In designing belts the challenge came that there must be a way to do away with the buckle, and create a symmetric flat strong tie, without any additions.

Looking at the woven fingers of my locked hand pent in thought, the idea was found.

Similarly, watching the rocks erode on a waterfall, the power of the waters persistence was remarkable.  In researching perfect cut methods of lazer or die, the water cut method explores new and natural applications.

~Elt aims to step backward away from the modern decorative whilst utilising the modern rococo in a robo-coco application.

The future is the machined.

The Seagull
Anton Chekov
Written by Jasmine Chan
Costume by Sruli Recht
Directed by Kate Davis

Review Nicholas Pickard
Review Man in Berlin

TUESDAY 29TH MAY 2007
REVIEW BY NICHOLAS PICKARD

HTTP://ARTSJOURNALIST.BLOGSPOT.COM

Finally, finally, finally I have found a group of young Australian theatre makers who are pushing the boundaries of theatrical exploration. And I use the term ‘theatre makers’ quite deliberately to differentiate them from the more usual theatre collaborations.

It was through Alison Croggon’s Theatre Notes that I first heard of this group, saying ‘Sydneyites interested in bold new writing’ should get to this production. But it is quite clear that it isn’t just new bold writing that is on display.

Essentially this production is a monologue of poetic rantings from the self baptised character of Corvus – a name that originates from the Latin meaning ‘crow’. It is the mythology that surrounds this symbol that provides the basis for this production and springs into a theatrical exploration of space, time, imagery and ritual. Think Greek Mythology, Apollo, Volpone, The Alphonso, Ted Hughes, John Fowles.

Entering the large and cathedral like theatre in Carriageworks, it is clear that this show is the first time that a company has created something specifically for the Carriageworks space. The balance and decoration of the stage, the lighting and the depth of movement make this a unique event that should be experienced within this theatre. From the moment you walk in, there is a manipulation of the eye and you quickly become aware of how vast the space is through the exposure of its industrial skeleton.

Like a wind-chime frame over the stage hangs a collection of gates, grills, metallic frames, window frames, prison beds. The immense size of it creates a cocoon for the audience, or more specifically, a kind of cage, from which we view the travellings and emotions of the raconteuse.

The writing is some of the most robust I have heard in a performance in this city. It is provocative and poetic and provides a stunning platform for the collaborators to create visual images that are so striking that you almost forget where you are, so dizzying is the look and feel of this piece.

At times the writing does envelop itself and loses certain ideas by being occasionally self-conscious. But as a text, it is throwing the gauntlet down. It is experimenting with the form of words through metaphor and ancient symbol and slamming them down upon a character’s shoulders and allowing that character to breath a rhythm that can be at times shocking.

This theatrical rhythm is explored through one performer who makes her way from one station of the space to another. At each station, Corvus will deliver a piece of her monologue

and will be accompanied by a subtle yet striking theatrical image through the use of the space, lighting and sound. She carries us on this raw emotional journey, at times talking to herself, talking to us, talking to her mother, talking to a priest and moving through the space in the most painstaking way.

I want to fly, full of lightness. To be a sparrow, a bluebird, a blackbird, a wren. Small and buoyant. Easy in the air. I want to move through stories, through the ages. I want to glide across the years. I want to peel the moments away from me like skins. To haunt the wings of the poet. I want to pepper the prayer book with whispers of love and dreams of love. I want to be a sparrow, a bluebird, a blackbird, a wren.

It is at its simplest a production that blends performance art with text. It is, at its most complex an exploration of individuality, sexuality, love, feminist identity, responsibility and expectation with the backdrop of man-made devastation and the original sin of Adam and Eve.

Dancing in the afterglow of the mushroom cloud. The crow moves with an unbearable weight—fashioned from all the world’s night—inside herself. The crow flies from nightmare to nightmare, infecting mythologies, polluting the transparent drop of rain, of flame. The crow flies sickly though black wave after black wave, the ocean floor concealed by oil.

But what stays with me the most from last night is the photographic type imagery that was created within the space. From the far reaches of the back wall and the experimentation of side and foot lighting, to the use of shadow, silhouette and the use of sound that at one moment is emotionally frightening. This production is pure theatre that has brought together the talents of some exciting individuals that are at the forefront of a theatrical exploration. It is brave, honest and passionate and a desperately needed influence in Sydney.

This production is on till Saturday. Go and see it.

WEDNESDAY 30TH MAY 2007
REVIEW BY JAYNE TUTTLE

While The Rabble’s inaugural production of Dennis Kelly’s Osama the Hero clearly demonstrated their dedication to the creation of challenging new Australian theatre, their second production, Jasmin Chan’s Corvus, takes exploration of theatrical forms to new dimensions.

Using Carriageworks’ vast Bay 17 as backdrop, director Kate Davis takes Chan’s sparse poetic text and creates a rich visual and auditory world of wonder, desolation, hope and despair.

The overwhelming enormity of the space is highlighted by a stunning lighting design by Emma Valente and intriguingly subtle sound design by Matt Davis.

But these elements play a supporting role to Dana Miltins’ brave portrayal of Corvus (“Crow”) as she interacts with the mesmerising set designed by the director.

Miltins throws herself into the role of Corvus, literally limping around the stage, embodying bird, woman, child. Aching cries and confronting physicality are balanced with moments of absurd comedy and light. Her dance with a belt and a bluebird provoke the best kind of awkward laughter. Davis is not afraid to tackle head-on the realm of the ugly, often revealing a rare and unexpected beauty. Miltins explores these territories fearlessly, playing in the worlds Davis has constructed like a delighted child.

There are some extraordinary images, sometimes so strong the piece becomes almost a visual art installation. This is theatre though, theatre at its most exciting and daring. The costume design, by Iceland-based Sruli Recht – a haute-couture deconstructionist mix of bird, schoolgirl, woman – is sublime.

Not to be missed.

WEDNESDAY 5TH JUNE 2007
REVIEW BY ELIZABETH BENTLEY
DRUM MEDIA

Corvus is a very grown-up work. Which is to say, if you’re looking for entertainment-style theatre where the beginning, middle and end fall into a predictable sequence, then you’ll be disappointed. To call it performance poetry would fall short of its grandeur and scope, but Corvus does have something in common with both performance poetry and physical theatre. It was much like a series of performance poems connected by the theme of exile and abandonment.

While actor Dana Miltins played “Corvus” the crow/woman trapped in the surreal landscape of the play, the design was almost the real star. Director Kate Davis also acted as designer, ably assisted by lighting and sound designers Emma Valente and Matt Davis, with costumes dreamed up by Sruli Recht. The effect superbly eerie. As Miltins moved about the vast stage from one poetic moment to another, new vistas appeared before our eyes almost by magic. A pile of white snow. A gilded birdcage. A velvet doorway. A tumble of plastic coated books. A hospital trolley crowned with antlers. It was a fabulously successful exercise in staging the surreal and well worth a look for that aspect alone.

Miltins is a magnetic performer and was always in control of her material. She writhed, dragged, screamed, sang and wept like a woman gone mad – in fact, the underlying horror of the script appeared to be the terrible suffering of a person trapped inside her own skull. She embodied eons of feminine “exiles”, from Eve to the Greek goddess Hecate.

Corvus is not for everyone. But for those who like to touch the void, it’s a sublime and courageous theatrical adventure.

SR116 is a single piece leather wallet, laser cut from Minke Dork* skin, folded into shape and hand tethered with black oxidized rivets. Packaged in a pop-up box, it lays in the mouth of a Leviathan rising from the waves. Minke Dork Whalet is offered with a personalized 23kt gold foil name hot branded into the skin in Syrillic Font from a magnesium block.

*

As with a fingerprint, each Minke Dork has a unique hue, pattern and texture, ranging from a smooth sheen to a coarse cracked hide.

Our collaboration with Joey Roth is complete. We were asked to redesign his ceramic speakers and aluminium amplifier for an exhibition to be presented during ICFF 2010 NY Design Week. Joey curated the designers to alter his speakers, and the designers each selected a musician to draw into the process.

Our choice – Ben Frost.

The Brief – Do what ever you like.

Thus, we took Joey’s speakers and amplifier, completely stripped them, and built them back up into our cardboard speaker boxes and amplifier.

Our additions include Cardboard, Ink, PVA, Orange LED.

~

Also featured work in the show is work of the late artist Tobias Wong, director David Lynch, designer Stanley Ruiz, and illustrator Sougwen Chung

DDCLAB, May 14-18, 2010

427 W 14th Street @ Washington St. New York, NY 10014

Our addition to the exhibition was made possible by the support of Oddi, who provided cardboard, machine time, and Snorri Már Snorrason.

Photographs – Marino Thorlacius

type: shoe
compositions: a. goat  b. sheep
heel: hidden wedge heel and small leather outer
colour ways: 1. midnight brown/ white sole 2. stripped plaster white/ oxeblood sole
gender: femme

Deep black nights and sharp white mornings, this slipper formed to reveal the foots gentle face and hug together the sides. The inner wedge heel provides the structure, leaving only a small hidden crescent heel outside.

Advisable Conditions: Silent stalking of bounty in heavy gravity atmosphere. Cat burglary of reclaimed Nazi heisted artwork. General languid lazy mornings involving small cats.

Foald is a laser-cut Icelandic Horse* skin clutch with porous black lava stone button.

Darted and foalded into shape, it is hand and machine stitched for you [xy] and you [xx] in Black Sable, dark as deitic humour, and a Rose Grey natural undyed skin – a colour somewhere between white, grey and dove blue.

Height -13cm
Width -23cm
Depth -7cm

Photographed by Marino Thorlacius

~

*As with a fingerprint, the hide of each horse has a unique pattern and texture, ranging from a smooth to a wrinkled, stiff or soft hide…  No two horses and no two Foalds are the same.

SR108
is
ÍSBJÖRN / ICE BEAR
is a full size 3m Polar bear rug, made from 15 Icelandic sheep skins.
in an edition of 10

Originally commissioned for Valgeir Sigurðsson Greenhouse/ Gróðurhús studios in Reykjavík,
home of the Bedroom Community Label -
to really tie the room together.  a big room.

The bear is produced in a numbered series of 10 arctic winter whites,
with special variations in black, brown and albino.

The ÍSBJÖRN / ICEBEAR is made from 15 Icelandic sheepskins
cut up and sewn to resemble the old butchers diagrammatic posters
that visualy informed you of which part of the animal’s carcass
you were buying to eat.

Similarly  when you look inside a fur jacket and between the lining,
the first thing you notice is this luxurious high priced garment
is made up of hundreds of tiny scraps of skin sewn together.
Though it looks like one pelt on the outside,
a fur garment is made of scrap and waste.

This here product plays with this exact idea of waste products sold as luxury products
modules of death / componentry of flesh / diet of consumerism / objectification of life
And of course branding the concept of life and animals into a consumers resource, where the teddy bear appearance wipes it all away with the
characterisation and naive comical portrayal of a polar-bear rug, the decorative paragon of man over beast.

Yes, here we dispel the myth for you
the luxurious fur industry is based on off-cuts and rubbish.
Packed and ready to ship around the world, 15 Metric Kilos

The Binding of Isaac is a four-cornered shawl of German flannel, dyed twice with the blood of a ram and left to cure for ten months.  The hand-sewn binding is resurrected golden military dead-stock satin, and has twined and knotted tzitzit [tassels] attached to its four corners with 613 tight knots.

Shot at will by Marino Thorlacius in Iceland.  Isaac in this image is portrayed by Arash Afrazadeh.

Notes from a longer file: [creating an organic dye compound or technique from blood, a by-product of the meat industry]

Experiment Five – Pure and Undiluted Ram Blood in a Bowl of Steel. To the Music of Sam Amidon.
It is 11 45, Sunday November 1.  Experiment in dying fabric with blood continues in its fifth incarnation.

Lengths of fabric [300 cm long/50 cm width, incurved at centre] are again soaked in water and sodium bicarbonate to further soften the already soft Icelandic water and increase the absorption of the blood to the cotton.  Fabric removed from solution after five minutes and wrung.  Fabric hand kneaded directly into large container of rams’ blood and weighted down.  Sodium Chloride added.

Tuesday 3 November 18 30 – Removed from putrefied blood and rolled out on black plastic to dry flat.  I am wearing a full zip up suit with mask.  It is hard to breathe.  My body reacts in a way I have never experienced before – this smell… has awakened an ancient reflex action of fear primaeval. I jerk at a hot instinct to turn and run.  But this brief white panic subsides as I remember it is a container of blood put there by my own hand… not the remains of some other soul.  An intense and unique moment.

On another note Paula E. Burch, Ph.D. has replied. I wrote of the success from cooking the blood into the fabric. She had thought that heat would denature the proteins in the blood and as they lost their shape they would tangle around the other molecules of denatured protein already in the fabric.
It is Thursday at 20 00 and the lengths are still not dry enough… The moisture in the blood won’t evaporate in these close quarters. So I proceed to drape them over a water oven.  note: Air drying is the best solution still as laying it on the ground inhibits drying and affects the blood stain on the downside of the material.
With the fabric ready to be heat-cured I am preheating the oven to 50°C and placing the dried and rolled material therein. It is 16 50, Friday 7th.  Now increasing the heat to 70°C at 18 00.  Removing material at 19 00 to test, then returning to heat.  Left till 20 00.
It is 08 11 08 – 10 30, a Saturday, but no day of rest.  Numerous days of test.  The first lengths are quoined and washed by hand to the music of Françoiz Breut. A solution of ice water is prepared with the previous units of sodium bicarbonate. The fabric is weighted down and soaking occurs for 10 minutes, with little movement of textile in process.  Slight kneading to remove excess protein.  It is very cold.  The lengths are taken to the basement drying room to dry flat.

Experiment Five Continuation – Second Dying with Blood
It is Monday 15th December.  There is snow.  I repeat the same process of pre-soaking the lengths in the sodium bicarbonate and water solution.  Placing them in the blood, weighting, and leaving.

17 12 08 - It has been two days. After removing the scarves from the blood they are taken to dry flat in cold room for the day.  The blood has putrefied.  It is a titanic and powerful funk. The five floors of the building have evacuated while it airs out. Apologies are presented.

20 12 08 - Again the material is not drying completely in the cold. The fabric is moved to dry in a warmer room for two days.  I have to tread lightly after disrupting the lives of the other tenants.   It has been days and the communal doors are still open.  The women and children have returned.  The men are not angry, just disappointed.

22 12 08 - The material is rolled up and taken up to the ovens to be re-baked for three hours at 90°C.  I am tired.

29 12 08 - Solution prepared: A. one tub of water. B. added soda ashe [sodium bicarbonate], sodium chloride, and quaternary ammonium compound for antibacterial and softening.  The lengths are left for 25 minutes to soak and clean.  At the 15 minute interval the fabric is unravelled, turned and slightly kneaded and left again for 10 minutes.  At this time a good softness and handle are achieved with no trace of odour.  Material once more left in dry room on black plastic to dry.  It appears I am coming to the end of my experiment.

31 12 08 - The colour has remained in the textile, now dry, though it has adopted a greenish hue vastly different to the deep orange tone of the fresh blood.  It seems almost tie-dyed in its variation.  It is very unique.  Visceral.
Success.
Having dried fully, the lengths of fabric are now measured at 253 cm x 45 cm
It has been two and a half months.  Today is February 15.  The lengths of fabric, now scarves, have cured for some time and are ready to be finished.  The lengths of fabric are taken to the studio to be bound by hand with the golden satin that we bought from the quartermaster.  This is old fabric, dead-stock left from the 2nd world war when it was used for the lining of the soldiers jackets.  Beautiful.  The mitred corners are special.  The fringes, having undergone the same process as the fabric, are now tied to each of the four corners and knotted 613 times.
The completed scarves are set aside to cure for a total of 10 and half months.
~

type: shoe
compositions: a. kangaroo b. goat c. cow
heel: boat hull shaped pine
colour ways 3: a. rust b. midnight brown c.gunmetal
gender: homme

compounded moments, rolling last hour memories and that single remaining breath: a division of quilted motorcycle boots, rowing boats, and football tongues… this shoe has no place.

Best Environment: None. This is not a shoe.

…On my knees, against the wall
the fabric crept accross the floor…

Sruli Recht and FormFast present the first in a series – for the year 2008

SR109
is
CUTTING TABLE No. 1
a transportable aeroplane-friendly modular cutting-table
for designers and students alike.

this, is a cardboard table:
The core of many design projects is the design table, without such proper costumes are limited to being cut on low desks or floors.

The last few years of constant travel and guerilla studio set-ups were impeded by this one lacking thing – no good clean surface on which to stand by and cut it up.  Back aching, fabric soiled and head swelling… productivity was continually slowed.

Similarly, during university, fellow students were oft discussing the limitations of cutting on bedroom carpet floors, tiled kitchen surfaces and low tables.

Thus, this light and sturdy corrugated structure was developed to meet the requirements of both the travelling designer and space limited student…  or the travelling student and space limited designer, needing an ergonomic sturdy plane on which to cut, fold, draft, design or dine.  The affordable biodegradable alternative is easily packed down at the end of your day to regain precious real estate.

Cutting Table No. 1 – 1500mm x 1200mm x 930mm

Has thus far been employed as a cutting table, meeting table, dinner table, baby changing table, RPG table, and a bed.

She comes with 3 collapsable drawers, Jute strap moving/storing box, laminated white surface top, and all replaceable parts.

This 100% Icelandic made product is packed and ready to ship around the world at 14 Metric Kilos

This table is dedicated to the good memory of Phineas Hepworth
- dear close friend, brother in arms, and maker of the Original hard wood mobile Cutting-Table, pride of the Sruli Recht studio, on which all things are done.

rest in peace.

No Rhyme
Little Reason
But where I’m at’s
a pocket full of treason.

SR202 is a single piece leather wallet, laser cut from Icelandic Horse* skin, folded into shape and hand tethered with black oxidized rivets.Horse Skin Whalet is offered in Black Sable, dark as Icelandic winter, and a Rose Grey natural undyed skin – a colour somewhere between white, grey and dove blue.  Personalised hot name branding is optional and inclusive.

~

*As with a fingerprint, the hide of each horse has a unique pattern and texture, ranging from a smooth to a wrinkled, stiff or soft hide.  No two horses and no to Whalets are the same.

r¿ng
is
SR118
~

r¿ng is a 10 carat white gold Möbius band with a hand tapped 16 gauge internal [female] thread to receive three uncut rough diamonds set individually into screw-in external thread-form propeller claws.

Housed in a 215-piece hand-painted box with threaded lid for safekeeping the 6.86 carat total weight over three different diamonds*. [Black 3.53ct / White 1.88ct / Yellow 1.44ct]

-

My love it came, my love it went…
So I plied and so I played
with brevity and breadth, I gauged with breath
and depth
and mined and moulded, and with my arms I then held it.
Three stones.

A big black rock. An average to large white rock. And a smaller yellow rock… The economy of desire was measurable but not immutable
And with all that was left, bent gold around each cleft,
was shaped band and claws from a propeller lent.
Till threaded and golden gleamed this ring thrice revolving.
[Threaded, that is, to keep her mindful of the stone and of me.]
boxed and placed and presented and requested…

“..?”

So now, she chooses which stone to wear – one for work and one for stares. One for evenings and one for mournings. One for what ever she cares.

And now I too play this game of choice… to add another to the compliment of raw precious diamonds; rough to remind my nights before her, and rare as the days now empty.

Or, to take one away.

~
r¿ng
- is made on request to individual size with the option to select stone shapes with a four to six week lead time to shipping

- is produced in cooperation with the steady hand and mindful mind of This Charming Man’s Edward Janssen

- has been shot in the macro world by Marnio Thorlacius

- is housed in a box made with Snorri Már Snorrason

*Note:
The rough diamonds in this ring have been handled in accordance with the provisions of the Kimberly Process International Certification Scheme for Rough Diamonds. They are accompanied by a Kimberley Process Certificate with Relevant Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System.

The diamonds herein presented have been sourced from legitimate sources not involved in funding conflict, and in compliance with United Nations resolutions. These diamonds are guaranteed conflict free based on personal knowledge and written guarantees provided by the supplier of these diamonds, and that they are treatment free in any way or form.

Due to the unique nature of each diamond set, the claws may vary slightly. The thread are made with a precise watchmaker thread cutter which fix the setting to the ring so that it must be undone by hand and can´t unscrew itself.

type: shin high boot
compositions: a.kangaroo b. cow and canvas
heel: angled raw leather cubancolour ways 2: a. entirely rust b. yellow canvas and gunmetal leather
gender: homme

Having taken a wrong turn I found myself entirely surrounded by nothing at all. Thus, I kicked the dirt shooting dust across a crooked bleak horizon… It was then that my head was shot with blood filled light and I fell forward… through the cloud of dried mud I´d just created, and onto that hard cracked ground. The quilted upper leg of the shoe is turned to the outside and dropped over the foot, reshaping the standard ranch familiarity for smoother conflict and harder derailment.

Preferred Conditions: Dirt

septembers child is
a non-product in two parts
for your inconvenience
sr110a/b
~

There once was a small fabric length of such beauty though compared to its brethren, it was small “too small”, it was told by others, “to become something” yet, of heart and thought it was with credence
ipso facto this fabric rose
bound its ends in cloth
and wrapped itself around the neck of people
gently suffocating them till the soft warmth took their untimely last breath
thus marked the mid half of 2003
this skarf of rebellion and dissidence inspired a new generation of  guerrilla throat protection
and over the years many skarves in its image have been made
from silks through to wools and velvets, in a kaleidoscope of colours and lengths

though it was a wintry afternoon in the black depths of Icelandic winter 2006
that saw the renaissance, and new form of the skarf
from a reflection on the long black days of the years end
it was reborn, a renaissance for the ice hard snow fields of Reykjavik proper
~

Its new form, over three metres long,
black wool and pleated to wrap hooded over the head
bound in ivory cotton, light and breathable.
few remember how many were came out here during that endless seasonal storm
in consequence it comes now again by request as a non-product
in two lengths 310x52cm 120eu & 155×35 70eu
made here in the studio, boxed
and in preparation for your oncoming winter.
for ladies and the gentle of men

…wear it in health.

~

mugshots shot with care by the raw light shaper – Bjarni Grímsson

Two Sizes
A 100 page Leather Bound Notebook. Page size 9 cm x 11 cm
and
A 160 page Leather Bound Notebook. Page size 14.8 cm x 21 cm [A5]

Pleated Horse-skin, Dead-stock 100gsm paper, hand-bound with square horseshoe nails.

Available in colours Black Sable, Rose Grey and Bay Red, Thy Will Be Done is offered as individual books or as a set of three.

A re-shoeing service is offered for filled notebooks – The nails are removed from the book and the paper notes are replaced, while the leather cover is kept.

Photographs – Marino Thorlacius

The hyphen is excellent.

SR302 – Qanah – Beam of Balance: is an aerodynamic hand-carved bleached white cane for the visually impaired, shaped in reference to the wing struts of the early aircrafts.  Made from Larch, the cane is sun-bleached, rubbed down with black horse hide, and tipped with rubber.

In a Limited Edition of 5

SR303 – Stone Blind: is a pair of frames for the visually impaired, hand-carved and bent from Cherry wood with hand-cut Carrara marble lenses.

In a Limited Edition of 5

The man who heard it all, everything… when it happened

He knew the sound of anything hitting the floor

He could tell you exactly what had fallen

from anywhere, and to the ground.

With his ears, he could hear the specific sound of every object in the world, and the impact it made, in its terminal dance with gravity and the Earth

A pen, a quoin, or your heart.  if it could fall, he could tell you what it was.

And he would always find something in that exact moment it was lost… but never in the minutes thereafter, nor the second before.

For everyone has lost something they once had.

Once held in regard, and now supported by a surface

He swore:

“what I hear, is what I heard.

Always after, and never before.

Evermore.

Evermore.”

An architect, photographer and a graf writer walk into a bar…
Oh by night, Oh by night…My three guised men, ill advised once again.
From the acts of construction, observation and destruction this product of defacement did form.

Carbon Dater is a black diamond-tipped carbon pen for writing and illustrating directly into glass… for carbon dating.

Specifically – A .30 carat black diamond set in milled brass claw, fixed to a hand-tooled lazer-engraved inanimate carbon rod, presented in an inked 247-piece hinged cardboard box.

~

Shot too close by Marino Thorlacius in Iceland.
Glass Illustration etched by the hand of Jón Páll Halldórsson.
Box made with Snorri Már Snorrason.

type: shin high boot
composition: buffalo
heel: 2″ raw leather cuban
colour ways 1: burnt umber
gender: homme

Disoriented… Somewhere, one way through the Sahara, 50 years from now… Sweet creaking leather, stained with days of dark slow loss and broken yellow  eyes. no cactus juice left… but a pocket full of black ice.

The whole boot is formed from displacement… The heel slid back off the foot, leg pushed out to reshape the silhouette, the cuff angled and weary.  This is a heavy boot, for solid emotional men and throat cutting thieves.  You either buy these with hijacked platinum, or take them from the man you just held up.

Preferred Use: rapid duelling with advanced lazer based weaponry or kicking the flanks of elephants. Hard.

and it’s me
it is more
and all before
against the wood
and bit by grain
this evening fell
just the same

late by night
and broke by morn
the minutes between
I´d sweat and sworn
hung up
and left to dry
by my cables
I am tied

~

Self tying Horse-skin Cable tie and keyfob boxed as a set of three colours – Black Sable, Rose Grey, Bay Red.

Photographs – Marino Thorlacius

~

“A famine, it descended ‘pon the minions of this land’s people.

Twere a life of hardship, farming of rocks and fishing in black rough waters for ice to chill the peoples potato and cumin schnapps and christmas oranges.

Icelanders themselves were with but naught to eat until late in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty six.

Lo, any or all of God’s creatures fair and fortunate unfortunately or unfairly caught in the paths of marine floatory aniticpant vehicles whom bore the nets of the Hungry and Needy were processed by the bodies system digestive.”

~

And, just to make sure you don’t have the wrong impressions of the piece in question – the whales hunted were not harmed in any way during filming.

These Minke whale dorks are the by-product of the indigenous Icelandic communities tribal hunting for daily food sources.

In other words, each whale here was hunted by ‘Icelanders’ purely as a necessity for food.

The skins presented here are equally kosher – meaning when each whale is hunted from the waters of Iceland there are parts that are unfortunately ´thrown out´.

In this case, the only part of the whale usable for tanning, and also thrown out, is the foreskin.

So I guess you could call them ‘Organic’.

October avails sr111

Corrective Medical Support Brace

for Hyper Mobile Dislocated Ribs

~

…and now the ailments of “Patient T.C.”
a Symptomatic Related Design Brief:

This brace is to be worn for the attention of hyper mobile dislocated ribs.  When unbraced the ribs shift freely and will pop from socket during ordinary daily activities – coughing, sneezing, jumping, sitting incorrectly and even sleeping.

Further Notations:

When “Patient T.C.” began Professional Curative Treatment above 75% of his earthly ribs were incorrectly located [dislocated] and consequently had begun calcification.

In most cases this concatenates toward severe arthritic complications and eventual bone fusion.

“Patient T.C.” similarly presented an acute case of pancreatitis and a further possibly related dermal allergy – all present metals are found to cause an irritation inciting a T-lymphocyte cluster [rash] upon extended contact.

~

That being so, sr111 is a custom fit medical brace for hyper mobile dislocated ribs.  It is available on request, and sized to fit for Individuals seeking relief.

Each handle is individually CNC cut in a 5 hour process by the enduring Mr Liu.  The umbrella itself is provided by the good Guy de Jean of France.
And finally packaged in the boxes designed with the good Snorri Már Snorrason here in Reykjavik Proper.

And it is said: sr112 is The Umbuster.
The origin of the umbrella is slightly hazy though probably interesting, and can be read in four parts below

The Saga of The Umbuster is as follows.

~

Chapter 1
During the second year of this millennium 3 cheap and rough plaster-moulded aluminium knuckle dusters were smuggled into Australia by post inside a hastily wrapped box.  The sender [herein referred to as “illegal weapons trafficker”] advised of caution in the moving of such contraband through international waters. Though we got lucky.  That time.

The dusters were retrofitted and custom bolted to the tube of a second-rate Indonesian manufactured Rain Umbrella.

Presented as part of the the second year University collection, the ‘accessory’ was prematurely dismissed as simply a weapon.  The good and upright men of the Victorian Police briskly agreed.

Chapter B
In the early years of friendship with Asaf and Nimrod Weis of Eness , the handle was further developed into an ergonomic unit inside the virtual world of a Nonuniform rational B-Spline program known as 3D Studio Max.  This new Umbuster was to be for use in the Rainbow Transmission Holograms of Unfurl , an installation with Martina Mrongovius .  The handle was exported to a CNC machine and subsequently routed.
From that point the Umbuster has travelled oceans and flight paths in its attempt at non-product realisation.

And Thirdly
The Umbuster is introduced to the house of  Guy de Jean who agrees to option an umbrella.

The .obj files are presented to Mr Liu whose talents provide the handle remade.  The handle and umbrella make acquaintance and are in good spirits.  A meeting with Snorri Már Snorrason ensues and the packaging is prepared.

And so our product currently known as Umbuster is on its last leg.
Cut to Tokyo city, dawn of November 2008.
The now tired first modeled Umbuster is on show to the Japanese at design fairs.

And there, in Aoyama these two weeks back, the runner gave out – The long held protector of rain and wind is laid to rest. This information was made known by the Dane that carried it back to the economically torn Iceland.

epi-prologue

It was Nimrod, son of Cush and Great-grandson of Noah, founder and King of the first empire after The Flood, who we remember for Babel Tower One.

Nimrod was the first King to wear a crown, one which he had made by Sasan the Weaver after a vision.

We could consider the Great Hunter almost the original life coach – He pushed his people to believe that it was by their own means that they were to achieve happiness and that this emanated from their courage within, not from the fear of G-D.
Why this first Nimrod do we discuss?  For the Mesopotamian Monarch and Man of Stone is the  disputed founder of Nineveh נינוה.  Mentioned early as 2900 B.C It was the strongest of several fortress-cities which were built in the triangular territory between the Tigris and the upper Zab. Laying on the eastern bank of said Tigris in ancient Assyria, her remains sit across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, Iraq.

And there, in the sculptures found at the excavation site of Nineveh the earliest representation of the parasol appears frequently in depiction’s of the King in his chariot.

~

Martina Mrongovious & Sruli Recht, Unfurl::Project Beequence, 2004-2005 [holographic film, wool, steel, cotton, pixels and light]
&
Martina Mrongovious & Sruli Recht, Unfurl::Project Stairquence, 2004-2005 [holographic film, wool, silk, cellulose, steel, cotton, pixels and light]

“Two moments, an encounter with an optical world :: two large format holograms, presenting a derailed segment carved from a minute of figures in solitary.

These old-world yet almost post-human characters are like memories of another time. As you approach they beckon you into their enchanting world, yet remain forever elusive, suspended in light.

The holograms are rainbow transmission images which are then colour mixed with LEDs. Each hologram measures 38 ” x 52 ” with the figure appearing 45 ” in front of the film.”

Presented as two large format holograms, unfurl::project is the collaborative construction of Martina Mrongovius and Sruli Recht.
Unfurl was made for the Experimenta New Visions Commision interactive media art exhibition VANISHING POINT

These two holographic images are captured from a minute of time along with peculiarly beautiful digital habitats are sculpted into optical dimensions. Presenting a derailed segment carved from a minute of figures in solitary… This collaborative work is an expressive stance, exploring the techniques that superseded the archaic approach to photographic documentation, capturing a few moments of interaction between light, human and clothing as they move into a new dimension of art. The holography captures the beauty of dynamic geometry playing like a graceful craftsman with space light. The garments displayed and worn in these pieces will be created solely for the models and for the purpose choreographed in the holograms. The clothing will show an architecturally constructed touch, dancing off the body to play with the shade, contrast, depth and repetition necessary for this composition.

The Unfurl::Project holograms were part of the
Experimenta Vanishing Point Exhibition
1- 24 September 2005
Margaret Lawrence Galleries at VCA
40 Dodds Street
Southbank VIC 3006

so, unfurl is holograms… pretty much.
two of them.
and they are big.

This project was an experiment with the assistance of Mark Ruff, Ged Wright, Paul Allister, Eness/Everlab and produced at Holographics North with Dr John Perry.

Production Story
~

Unfurl::Project, began when our two protagonist (Martina Mrongovius + Sruli Recht) were stranded by a heavy English shower and left to ponder their collaborative worlds. Created from this situation the holograms, each captured in a moment, unfurl the light with a subtle animation of form.

The figures, enveloped by Sruli Recht’s  fabrications, were surrounded by Mark Ruff’s array of cameras. The information, altered to memory, evolved into digital environments when handled by Ged Wright. Then, in the lab of Holographics North, the information was geometrical transformed and recorded by lasers.

At Experimenta::Illusions 2006 these two holograms were be exhibited

: project, began when our two protagonist (Martina Mrongovius + Sruli Recht) were stranded by a heavy English shower and left to ponder collaborative worlds. The creation that began resultued with themselves in holograms, each captured in a moment, directing the light to unfurl:

Industry Partners
~

MARK RUFFY – time splice/camerra arrary photography www.ruffy.com
HOLOGRAPHICS NORTH large format studio www.holonorth.com
Digital post production GED WRIGHT
Documentary photography by PAUL ALLISTER
Shot in BOURGIE, Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne
ENESS/EVERLAB rapid prototyping www.eness.com.au
Lenticulars technology BART KELSEY
BYTECRAFT – LED lights, www.bytcraftentertainment.com,au

With a big thank you for the marvellous assistance of Rebecca Elkington, Katherine Hanton, Taryn McClean, Kim, Mickey Yu and the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

How?
~

How the holograms are animated – The process used to animate these holograms is generally known as multiplexing.

Multiplexing encodes multiple images so that can they be revealed in a meaningful order. In the Unfurl holograms it is the position of the observer that determines what images within the hologram are seen.

The Unfurl images are constructed by two methods.

The foreground/figures were captured with a camera array of 50 cameras around 120∞. To create the animation we used a digital trigger that fired each camera in sequence. These images are currently being interpolated to create a smooth animation of 200 images.

The background is a 3D digital environment built from collected pictures and programmed structures. This will be rendered into 200 images and combined with the photographed images.

These images are then created into a holographic master strip for each colour of the final hologram. A master strip can be though of as a sequence of image windows.

The master strips are then transferred into a large hologram so that the centre of rotation lies on the film plane. When the hologram is replayed it then projects these image windows into space so that the viewer moves through a sequence of perspectives as they walk past.

One way of considering this is an arc of windows floating in space.

This optical structure can occur because a hologram controls the direction as well as image that is projected.

When a viewer is standing in front of the hologram two separate images reach each of their eyes. This gives the stereo or 3D effect.

Production Schedule
~

Planning began July 2002

Creation of garments April – July 2004

Camera array shoot July 28 and 29

Interpolation and digital construction July – September 2004

Holographic transfer October 2004

Mounting and creating a number of installation plans to suit different environments November and December 2004

Delivery June 2005

Promotion and Publicity March – August 2005

UNFURL IMAGE SPECIFICATIONS

For each hologram a sequence of 200 still images is constructed. The Unfurl holograms will use a two colour process in Blue 492 nm and Yellow 594 nm, which can be mixed for white. Each colour sequence is made into a holographic master. These are then combined with offset geometry into a rainbow hologram. Viewable with a standard spotlight the rainbow is stretched out so the image is composed of the two pure spectral hues.

∑ The Holographics North system uses 200 frames.

This sequence of images not only gives a stereo (3D) view but allows the figure to be subtly animated from frame to frame.

∑ Mr Ruffy’s camera array captures 50 frames

There are two methods we are looked at to create the in-between images

1. Interpolation – via computer software

2. Physical rotation (ie 4 positions recorded with each camera)

∑ For undistorted 3-D the subject should rotate approximately 0.3 degree per frame around a vertical axis, we will be working with exaggerated depth with rotation of 0.6 degrees per frame.

∑ This puts the 50 cameras at 2.4 degree intervals.

∑ A long camera distance is recommended; with the proper lens/cropping to frame the image tightly.

∑ The vertical axis of will lie in the plane of the final hologram film. We will be putting this axis on the rear arm (and umbrella in sruli’s case). The figure then protrudes out from the image plane.

∑ Rendering should be in grayscale, and a resolution of 1200×1600 is preferred for large format work. The image tones should range from white to medium gray, against a black background. Dark gray tones may be lost in the initial transfer steps.

∑ There must also be a white square placed at the top or bottom of each frame, as shown. The sides of this square must be vertical and sharply focused, and it should be 10 or 20mm in size on the screen. This should not rotate or move, and is used for image registration in our system. To the left and right of this square must be all black.

For the TRANOÏ X Showroom we were asked to make a film about the studio and the products that will be in their show.
So we made one – Addition and Distraction.  And then we made another one… a brief look behind the scenes of Garrote.

Behind The Seams – A few minutes on the curtain’s other side

Edited with the other more swifter hand of Steffi Thors.
Shot in Vopnabúrið Studio Iceland and Lazy Town Studio. 

In this text we begin with regard to the Swiss-based Texan Light-Anthropologist Jonathan Roquemore, of Burtonian fascination with textiles, who concerned his self with attaining knowledge regarding the traditional dress of the Laotian hill-tribes.

Of particular interest was one, the Laantan tribe in North-Western Laos near China and Burma, whom he heard would endure a travel of 11 days in constant motion sans sleep.

Post haste set he on this trek – travelling up the River Mekong against the current to some lost place named Xiengkok betwixt Laos and Burma almost to the Border of The People’s Republic of China. After one day straight up the currents he turned his sole to travel overland eastward for 10 more days, during which time he occupied transport modes Omnibus, Modified Pickup Truck and his own feet.

Master Roquemore hiked his self up to the village to meet the hill tribe during the Ceremonial Festival of Melody, Changing and  Feasting for the Elderly and Sickly. Here it had been 8 solar months since this community had seen a man of white pigments. With an average 3 to 4 foreigners visiting per year, the next town of any proximity is an environment where there is still daily Agitprop broadcast over crude loudspeakers previously used for air-raid warning systems. Now roughly wired together, from 0600 and periodically through the day, a community news bulletin service led by the controlling party is broadcast.

It was his knowledge of a certain cloth that led this man there, for the Lantaan produce a distinct weave for their traditional dress from locally grown cotton, woven in narrow lengths and twice hand dyed in indigo found in the Indigofera plants of Asia.

There is very little trade of this material, and the tribesmen in fact found it absurd that the lean white Swiss-Texan wanted their textiles, for there it is considered of no value outside the tribe.  Jonathan Roquemore then carried these rolls with him over various geographies, waters and altitudes here to Reykjavik where he presented this studio with a new fascination.  Thoroughly aware of our fetish and intrigue with the xeno-wefan, Jonathan considered the possibilities of the allotment.  Then he left.  Without the indigo scrolls.  Which we now have.

~

Here we cut to exactly one year later and in steps the remains of the Bound Skarves; small almost useless slivers of fabric left laying on the table’s surface, their shape recalling a memory of one dear friend, nose broken from a particularly raucous gig, with two spots of blood on his trademarked performance bow tie.  For on that day holding his nasal fracture together was the most excellent shape of a dedicated nose plaster.  The two shapes in the mind collide, bow tie and broken nose bandage, and reaching for the shelf one hand rests first upon the indigo cotton of the Lan Tan Tribe.  Averting gaze from both eyes one remarked: this form is of no good use but for that of the Bow Tie.  Post minor surgery, to the machine these residuum were marched.

And here with the endorsement of JR they are combined with a barely yellow Brettisc Cotton bind to bring you these Bow Ties.

The rest is photographed the morning after on a roughed up FM Belfast, stage right, by the raw light shaper – Bjarni Grímsson

~

*During the Prussian wars of the 17th century Croatian mercenaries held together the openings of their shirts around their necks with a scarf. Then adopted by the French upper class the “Cravat” was derived from the French for “Croat” to become highly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.  It was this Croatian scarf of combat and bloodshed that led to the Bow Tie.  Here we salute its dark origins.

For the TRANOÏ X Showroom we were asked to make a film about the studio and the products that will be in their show.
So we made one.

Addition and Distraction – An unbalanced equation

Edited with the swift hand of Steffi Thors.
Shot in Vopnabúrið Studio Iceland by William Lloyd Edward Thomas.

And then we made another one… Behind The Seams, a brief look behind the scenes of Garrote.

A Spider-Silk Organ.za Glove for the Heart
Surgically Fitted, for the Incapable of Love

“My heart, it broke.
Shot through the middle and left to spill.

I will wrap it in spider silk.
Nothing better.”

For it was diagnosed and prescribed – One Bullet Proof Heart.

~

Window Installation in Aurum , Bankastræti 4, Reykjavík.

Heart Glove is exhibited as two suspended frames and one floating colossal heart.
- Frame one holds small fragile cardboard heart and pattern for cutting a glove to fit around the heart pinned to a lost letter.
- In frame two is suspended a heart enveloped in a spider silk valve-glove for the inside of a chest.
- In window two levitates a giant heart modelled on texts of the old-Gods, 1.5 metres in length with a titanic 180 cm girth.

~

Shot too close by Marino Thorlacius in Iceland.
With thanks to Oddi for providing cardboard and machine time.

SR116 is a single piece leather wallet, laser cut from Nile perch* skin, folded into shape and hand tethered with black oxidized rivets, re-issued in Battle Green for Ghostly International.  Packaged in a pop-up box, it lays in the mouth of a Leviathan rising from the waves. To order this whalet begin at the Ghostly Store website – here. To see more of there engaging world go here -Ghostly International Photographs -  Marino Thorlacius