Lamp, poster and sign for Interfest

I used to work in a bar called Internasjonalen. Sometimes, if I am in Oslo and have the time, I still like to take an occasional shift there. To brush up the bartending skills, but also to stay in touch with the nice people that work there. These bartenders have a special vibe. They are all friends and hang out a lot. They are also a bunch of creative people and we have always talked about collabourating on some project. Sigrid Roholdt Tveiten finally decided to do something about it. She organised a small festival consisting exclusively of contributions from the people working in the bar. We called it Interfest. It lasted from the 28’th to the 30’th of september. There were seven bands playing, several DJ acts, two short film screenings, sculptural installation, video installations, photography, textile works, drawings, a sausage stand and a crossover between a pychologists office and cocktail bar called “Freudian Slips”. I contributed with drawing the poster and also with a special piece of lighting consisting of a broken mirror and a video beamer. I also made the sign for the Freudian Slips.

The special piece of lighting, let´s call it Crystal Dream Lamp was fun to make. I wanted something that would give a distinct atmosphere to the festival. Something fresh. I taped the entire back side of the mirror and broke it on the street. Then I suspended it from the ceiling. I then shone a beamer on it and it created about a hundred small lights in the room. More or less by chance. I then hooked the beamer to my laptop so that I could make variations on what video image I wanted to show. For the most part I showed footage of nuclear explosions. It made a warm light the color of a manhattan. That was my favourite, but I also acted as a VJ during some of the concerts. The music was quite hard and noisy, so I used lightning, blood, strobe and footage from star wars. It is actually one of the favourite things that I have made. Too bad I forgot to take good pictures of it. Here is at least something.

The Crystal Dream Lamp

Here is me breaking the mirror.

And now for something completely different:

My favourite thing in the festival was the Freudian Sips bar. Silje is a real psychologist and Jana is a really good cocktail bartender.

The concept was that as a customer, you first laid down on a couch and talked to the therapist. She asked you a bunch of questions and filled out a formula. She then was able to prescribe a drink that would help to stabilize your mental balance. I was diagnosed as having a sanguine personality, so I needed a melancholic drink, which she gave me a prescription for. I took this prescription to the bar, I mean pharmacy, and had a special melancholic cocktail made for me. Quite an experience! I loved it so much that I made the spinning sign to enhance the setting.

I also made the poster. I am happy with the drawing, but not the colours or the font. I had to do it so fast and did not have time to redo it. Damn!