Image via Never Say Cool
Jamaican beer company Red Stripe has collaborated with Scottish artist Spaceboy (né Mike Inglis) and Blac Ionica to create a stop motion animation video for its Make Art on the Street campaign. The artist also teaches at Edinburgh College of Art, the School of Design.
“Using spray paints and pasted-up drawings, Spaceboy and his group of Edinburgh College of Art Graphics students took inspiration from the Jamaican studio culture of the 1970s and paid homage to some of the great Jamaican reggae artists,” the company wrote. “The work features many images of old school tape decks and references to Lee Scratch Perry’s Black Ark Studios.”
The video mixes genres – stop motion animation, guerilla art installation and dub music. It’s part industrial, but still relaxing. Either way it brings the positivity to the next level. It’s a tribute to Jamaican culture and music. When you watch it, be sure to listen to the words. It’ll inspire you to shift your world by getting up, out and making something. Anything.
“With the installation ‘Black Ark’, he has taken over the shutters of the old Edinburgh’s Newhaven fish market and attempted to transform the space into something else, a new shrine to the buzz and energy of the Jamaican way of life,” Never Say Cool wrote about the project.
“With the help of paint, paper and a (few) red stripe(s), the artist formed the narrative backbone (frame-by-frame i.e. shutter-by-shutter) for the stop-motion animation to come, providing a direct link between the site and the studio culture he wants to celebrate.”
Image via Never Say Cool
What’s also so cool about this piece of work is that it’s outside in the public. It brings art to the people when they’re going about their daily activities. What do you do when you pass a piece of art on the street? Do you stop and look? Do you ignore it and walk right by? The way that public installations (whether commercial or not) interact with the people who live in cities adds to the piece itself. Of course, watching the video or clicking through images doesn’t give it the same effect but those living in Edinburgh can check it out.
Past installations for this campaign have included an LED street art by Filthy Luker in Manchester. All in all, Red Stripe shows how businesses are commissioning more “underground” artists to build on their brand personality.