With the mists clearing from our jetlagged eyes here’s three of the three thousand pictures we took on our 2010 expedition to Thailand. There’s a few more ove at the Facebook fanpage.
As much as we love the feel of magazines in our hands, the smell of freshly printed ink daubed on the lavish material, there is something immediate and exciting about seeing other blogs sharing and reinterpreting our projects. Which is why we are so pleased that a few blogs have been writing about Studio Kinglux recently.
Created In Birmingham has written about our first photobook, 1000 Words Per Second, Game Art has shared our Gameface book. Over at the fabulous Things magazine, we are mentioned in a heavyweight discussion about the study of ‘post-post modernity’… Hmmm, now thats the kind of dinner party topic we like to be invited to!
The new issue of Inspire should be out about now! Its theme is ‘The Sense of Wonder’.
This is the final issue we will be producing and editting, before we move onto a brand new project due out in Spring 2010. We hope you enjoy it.
There are Studio Kinglux photos from Tokyo, Brick Lane Street style and our long running project on places where illegal raves were in the early nineties.
We’re always pleased when we see the finished magazine and hope its 15000 Slovak readers are too!
Click here to join the 2500+ Facebook group for Inspire magazine
‘Gameface’ - A brand new Studio Kinglux photobook just in time for Xmas!
Its a collection of portraits that Studio Kinglux had been gathering for some time. Up until that point we had been inspecting the vague, blank, expressions of gamers in a kind of narcissistic feedback loop. We had been staring at a computer screen, looking at people, staring at computer screens… that we had been observing in the first place.
These then, are the portraits of electronic decision making and digital vacancy. Binary boredom meets crucial concentration. The look is always Gameface. A description found on an internet chat forum that describes the look of intense concentration on a person playing a video game.
If you would like a copy please email tony {at} kinglux {dot} co {dot} uk for more details.
Trash – we love it.
Italian zombie films, The Cramps, vintage bric-a-brac stalls, all good examples of good, if not great, trash. In fact, there’s a special place reserved for golden trash in the rose-scented dustbins of our hearts.
However, sometimes a shop or picture or idea falls a little short of this rather low bar and comes up smelling of rotten fish. Then, that piece of garbage-trash is reserved for the bargain bin, left alone, forgotten and unwanted after the January sales have turned a bulging shop into a desolate ghost town.
Right now we’re feeling the latter about this particular design from the inimitable Peacocks ‘fashion’ chain.
Clearly inspired by our photo and Lucinda Tunnicliffe-Squirrell’s design for Miss Selfridge we felt there was something a little… déjà vu about this particular print.
Maybe it was the close-eyed girl rocking the Lili Kinglux fringe, the grimy border pattern, the polka dot shoulder detail or perhaps the fools gold sub print?
It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and since the original Miss S top sold out in two and a half weeks, and was one of the best sellers of November 2009, who can blame them?
Here’s the link to the Peacock’s site if you feel the need to see it there.
SOMA is one of the longest running, independent, avant-guard, arts and culture magazine in America… and that’s why we’re so pleased to be featured in the current Christmas holiday edition.
Our streetstyle portraits were taken in between horrendous rain storms on Brick Lane and feature seven ‘impossibly charming personalities’. Thanks to everyone who agreed to be snapped and for all those that assisted the making of this article possible whether it be through holding an umbrella, clipboard or keeping the spirits up.
The article is available as a PDF or a nice digital version over at www.somamagazine.com and you can download a larger version from here
Back in August we were did an interview for French clubbing magazine Trax about our book ‘Smile. You’re nightclubbing’.
If you can translate from French, we’d love to know what we said…
Download a bigger version here
To celebrate the Freestyle exhibition this week at the Hare & Hounds pub in Kings Heath, Birmingham, we have created a limited edition swatchbook of cars and their owners. Available from the show at £3 a piece.
Here’s the introduction…
Drive-By-Shootings
by Studio Kinglux
“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
— J.G. Ballard
If a man’s home is his castle, what then of the second most expensive purchase he is likely to make?
His car – the silver placed and aluminium plated consumer item, has been marketed to transcend its four wheels and become an aspirational status symbol, a marker of wordly success.
Ford Zetecs line suburbia, silver Mondeos parked next door. Blacked out Range Rovers reserved for the faux-elite.
And what of the in-betweeners and outsiders?
The ones who want to display something else using their vehicle as the medium? The ones who want to express their patriotism? Devotion? Fanaticism? Education? What too of the ones who love their cars enough to allow them to be destroyed in the name of entertainment?
This book contains portraits of a few of those people.
May they charm motorways and remake their own metallic worlds one vinyl sticker at a time.
Coming up from December 8th is an exhibition of Birmingham artists including ourselves at Studio Kinglux.
Organised by Jade Sukiya and to be held at The Hare & Hounds boozer in Kings Heath, we hope you can make it to see our portraits of men and their customised cars. We’re making a special limited edition book to accompany our pictures, which can be purchased through the event.
Other artists on display include Alis Pelleschi, Luke Halliley, Holly Nind, Helen Flanagan, Lucy Pryor, Mark Wilkinson, Mia Maher, Leon Sparkes, Daisy Whitehouse, N4T4 and Phill Blake.
If that’s not enough for your eyes, the launch party has The Other Womans Club DJs and a spoken word performance from Jodi Ann Bickley to satisfy your aural needs.
Studio Kinglux have a brand new photobook out now!
Here’s a brief introduction…
Welcome to the wonderful world of Cosplay!
Cosplay - or Costume Play - is the longstanding Japanese geek tradition of dressing like a favourite superhero or cartoon character.
Its far removed from any childhood games of dressing in a sisters leotard and pretending to be Spiderman. Instead, a cottage industry of clothes designers, makeup artists and weapon hobbyists collaborate to make ruthlessly detailed real-life versions of animated idols.
Studio Kinglux went to New York to photograph the American Anime Convention and discover more about the movement that inspires children, teenagers and grown men to indulge in play swordfighting and participate in seminars that offer tips for surviving a zombie apocalypse.
Whilst debate raged over who was the most super superhero, New York cosplayers were agreed that the most likely candidate was none other than President Barack Obama.
