An Interview with PHONO
Cartoonist, Illustrator, Deco Artist & DJ from LEIPZIG, GERMANY
Tell us a little bit about your background !
I was born in the former GDR, been working graphically since my early childhood - more or less - making stuff for friends and drawing the worlds out of my head, then I started with own party organisation which caused club advertising, in- and outdoor paintings, posters, later then record sleeves for hardcore techno labels like Lenny Dee’s Industrial Strength Records (Bklyn, NY), flyer artworks and artist portraits for a number of German DJs, party crews and festivals, but most of all I love building wooden club deco and deejaying. In my home district Thuringia
I’ve learned most of the things I am doing now as I am almost a complete autodidact. I also make party concepts from advertising and booking to deco and scenography, and I’ve played as a drum&bass DJ for about ten years now - starting back in 1994 with acid and techno.
What inspires your idea ?
My art is inspired by daily life with all its ups and downs, my friends, the women, my handicapped cat, books, my family, all kinds of music, my hometown and its nature, all the people surrounding me, a number of other artists which are too many to name them all - but some of the most inspiring to me have been Jim Avignon and Mark Ryden, Dave Cooper, Robert Crumb and Wilhelm Busch. My aim has always been to mirror reality and keep it dark and massive - but at the moment I try keeping my art more funny than dark because it became more and more important to me to feel the good moods myself which I want to keep alive. Gandhi said once that the most valuable good a man has is his self-confidence. So no problem should be worth losing your trust in you. Keep your heart the boss and change the world with a smile.
Do you have any new projects coming up that you can tell us about ?
I am always promoting my free sarcastic cartoons at my homebase PHONOGRAFIE.COM, I am supporting graphically a party series in Leipzig called KNAGGE. I am building new deco stuff frequently for the Muna club which is one of Germany’s best techno clubs (voted place 7 by the readers of Germany’s leading techno mag GROOVE). This club has always been my castle to whom I could always go back and relax and make stuff without a concrete purpose - it always used to be my private playground - respect to this special place where everybody is welcome indeed!
I will take part in some of this year’s German festivals with deco and DJing as well, and I am planning a shirt collection for spring 2007... I will support some satiric german magazines with cartoons - as well as deejaying wherever I can - just for getting the energy back directly from the people I spent it for because I love making people dance - and I am going to make a new special event series that nobody has heard of up to now, so hush, hush....
Thanks a lot for the support and the interview !
From issue 8 (2/2007) of Hong Kong's NewWebPick design magazine
http://www.newwebpick.com
http://www.knagge.net
http://www.groove.de
http://www.muna.de
