Cuts on Ice

Promoting their most recent release, Sound Mirrors, Coldcut are coming to town for a screening of their videos (Sep 15, 3pm at Siam Paragon Cineplex), a demonstration of the video mixing software they authored, VJamm, (Sep 16, 2pm, School of Audio Engineering) as well for one of their trademark live performances (Sep 16, at Astra). We got a chance to have a chat.

Why did you develop the video editing/mixing software, VJamm?
We developed VJamm because we wanted to be able to jam with visual samples in the same way we jam with audio. Pure and simple. We needed an instrument; it didn’t exist, so we built it ourselves.

How do you see music and image merging in the future?
Sound and image…they’ve always been merged, humans are audiovisual animals. Sound and vision naturally go together, and there are lots of examples of that in the past. We’re just coming at that with a different set of techniques and a different aesthetic—more drawn from hip hop than from Hollywood.

What was the impetus behind the name of your most recent album, "Sound Mirrors"?
“Sound Mirrors” refers to the idea that sound and music are intimately connected to human feeling and memory, and I think that’s a big part of the appeal of music and why it’s an import part of the human experience. You could almost say music is software for manipulating your moods.

Tell us about the performance at Astra.
We’ll be doing the full Coldcut live audio/visual meltdown spectacular with our MC. We’ll be performing some old and new stuff, as well as the audio/visual scratch-tastical widescreen show, which I don’t think you’ve seen before.

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Ohm Too Sexy

Ohm Phanphiroj is a fine art and fashion photographer that pushes the envelope with his sexy style. Having degrees in law, photography, theater arts and gallery management, his career spans artistic fields as well as continents. He now splits his time between Bangkok, New York, Atlanta and Australia. He has two books of photography out—Rough Stuff and his more recently released Rare Views. Photos from Rare Views were just on show at an exhibition at Eat Me Art Restaurant—provocotive and erotic images of male subjects. Coming up for this prolific artist is a book of images that incorporates another of his passions—writing.

Your photos suggest a certain intimacy with your subjects. As a photographer, how important is it to establish a relationship with the people you are shooting?
For me, emotions and feelings are the key to good photographs. It moves you (as a photographer) and your images (vision) to the next level. If an image does not communicate, provoke, and make you wonder, then it is simply another picture. Images must be a result of your thoughts and must communicate to the wide audience, whether or not they understand it. It is always important to establish somewhat of a relationship with your subjects, make them trust you, and make them be a part of it.
 
The filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was fiercely close with the actors and technicians he worked with while making a film, but after the filmmaking was over, he often would never speak to the people he worked with again. Do you feel the need to distance yourself from your subjects after shooting them?
I think people in the art fields are good at manipulating people and surroundings to get what we want. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we really have to continue our relationship with them afterwards, but at the moment of creation, we must make them believe that they are everything and without them, the result would not occur.

Who are more beautiful to you—men or women?
That’s like comparing salmon and steak—both are equally healthy and delicious. Depends what you are craving at the moment...
 

Do you manipulate your images—either digitally or in the processing of the film—to achieve the look you are after? 
I never manipulate my images. I am known for capturing the raw moment and people’s real moods. I think digital manipulation is over abused and people use it to compensate their inability to photograph good subjects at the right moment. Personally, I think digital manipulation disservices traditional fine art photography.

Was it difficult getting your book Rare Views published?
Not really. I have been working and shooting in America for quite a long time and people know me. Getting a book published just came naturally. It is just another step in the process—after stock images and greeting cards, what was left to do but a book?

You have had some of your poetry published here in Thailand. Have you ever thought about incorporating text or poetry—either Thai or English—into your photographs?
I am actually doing it now. I am publishing a book with RS promotion. It is a photo book with poetry and short pieces (in both Thai and English) incorporated with my images. It should be out in the fall.
 
Are men traditionally your subject matter or is that just the theme for this book?
Well, yes and no. I photograph both men and women, but I feel the need of promoting men because book of women are practically everywhere. I want to share my vision that men can be beautiful and intimate, too.