NOVAK Interview

Prepping Questions:

What's your role as studio director within the collective?

What are some of the other roles within the studio and how does this impact the studio dynamic?

- Do you require people outside of your studio team to aid the production of any projects?

What's the rough process of development for your projects, from initial ideas to final outcome?

Your works always have a very strong story line, how are these usually developed?

- Does this process change when you collaborate with other designers (such as Hazel Dunn in the 'Pleasance' works).

When designing your works are you wanting to convey a particular emotion for the audience to latch onto. Personally when viewing pleasance it was very calm and serene, was this intentional? If so how do you design works in such a way?

Avenue - Parliament Street, Hull

Harlequinn - Queens Hotel, Leeds

Dr Blightly - Royal Pavilion, Brighton 

Interview:

Small scale scenario which was this piece called Printworks which was presented in a park in the south of Glasow called XXX park and that was a piece called Printsworks as for the kind of genesis of this piece we’re actually working on the 4th so it's a lively project, I guess the best thing is to talk about how it came about and how it’s evolved form that. So a good friend of ours, who’s the creative director at a  small scale light and projection event at this place in glasgow, electric glen, approached and said would you be interested in creating a piece that project along this pathway and we said yeah sure that some grand. And as part that he came with us to the location of the park and told of the history of printmaking Basically at that site there used to be a place called Thornybank print works, Which was a company that experimented with different materials, calicos and like, so that became a point of reference. And partly it was due to some funding they were able to sourceThe funding allowed us to work in collaboration with a recent graduate from our local University. 

Because of the location in its history run and sort out a recent graduate from textile design and print design, and from that we became aware of a designer called Hazel Dunn. Who at that time was a recent graduate from school Glasgow, we were kind of put together in a way so we collaborated with her and she had expertise in the area of textile design. That’s kind of how it came about if you look at the website there is documentation about the first iteration.

Looking at the location as are the processes of textile design kind of drive the idea of creating something inspired by textile design and that is what kind of formed the process of the design to a degree of creating the work.

Inaudible working in collaboration with Hazel and in the case of Hull there was a few different there was multiple designers obviously we are the Novak are contributing to designs in the case of Hull there was designed to multiple people. In the case of Leeds and the Pleasance that was just us and Hazel.

You mentioned you do a lot of collaboration with other designers and creators how does that work within your studio space getting a design is finalised?

These are probably a few projects where we do do that the majority of our work are pieces designed and created by ourselves here. We just fine we do the bulk of it ourselves. Inaudible. In terms of collaborations we trust her there is a lot of kind of pre-work in terms of developing themes, the style, considering the setting, and that type of thing. Normally it’s just ourselvesDeveloping storyboards to help ourselves as well as show clients the kind of things we do. That’s a little insight into the process before any designer actually made and the subsequent animations are carried out.

What are some of the roles within the studio? So you are a studio director..

So I’m a co-director there are three of us full time here, we are codirectors of the studio. We sort of overlap of the in terms of people who create stuff ,you know, the creative director. So there is graphic design and illustration who create the pieces of art. A second co-director who is I’m pointing at him but you can’t see him here, who is our animator. There’s obviously myself I do most of the three sided things and stuff like that but also I liaise with clients and technical staff as well. As a small studio is necessary for us, if you go to a bigger studio and there are 40/50 people You have more people who are skilled in a very very specific job. Whereas there just being three of us you’ll get stuck in with each other’s jobs.

I get to keep it interesting, keeps it fresh.

Yeah.

You said you handle the business side of the studio, so how do you go about finding places to leave these projections?

We kind of got to the place where we’re quite lucky in the sensory get approached to do that. And we kind of, especially since were not so much a commercial studio in a sense that we don’t, we have done in the past, create designs and animations for TV adverts banks and things like that. We are very much primarily arts and cultural, we create artworks as we like to see them. So I guess we kind of built up a profile over the years, now we are fortunate to have people come and approach us.

If you take the lead nightlight for example that’s the second time we’ve produced a piece for light night. The first time we did something was two years prior to this year onto the Queens Hotel, a piece called Harlequin, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the building. Prior to that we actually pitched, because they had an open call, an open call out for the projection at millennium Square. So we pitch that you got to interview stage and they didn’t select us that year, but said we’d really like to work with you, and I remember I kind of followed them up on that. And that’s what led to, so we do from time to time pitch on pieces that become available, so what we try to do is keep good documentation of our past work, up-to-date and things.

Basically it’s through that and just trying to get yourself out there, I guess in our case when most events are things like leaves like night or lumiere London and that sort of curated event having the creators as the producers they seek out work. In the case of Pleasance what we had done is Abbie, who is one of the primary directors of light night, had got in touch with us and said hey, Look we doing this thing if you’re interested it be great if you wanted to come through, or come see it, There’s nothing like actually seeing the work in the space.

In regards to Harlequin piece, because it was very, it was like on a massive building that was he got a lot of architecture do you come up with a concept first and then figure out how it will work within within the space or do you start the process by thinking what the spaces and how to incorporate that into the works?

It’s very much I think, it’s something like in a way it’s a mixture of both in that you need to consider your canvas, it’s a key part of projection mapping, on the floor in the case of pleasant or on a building like Harlequin is it’s very much considering where the canvases and how tell a story and make reference to historical things. It’s like how can you use the design, because some buildings and structures that we project onto don’t lend themselves well for presenting that figurative content and you need to be more abstract. Is it possible to tell that kind of historical narrative piece onto something that is like, something that’s like the Queens Hotel it’s an easier building than some of the other ones so lends itself very well, it’s very much about creating work that works with that building and as you can see the design is very much created around the architecture of that building. And that’s kind of the premise of it if you don’t use your canvas in an interesting way you might as well just create additional firm presented on a regular screen. At least that’s our thoughts on it.

No I totally agree, because your piece which was the one in Brighton and the Royal Pavilion that was obviously very very detailed architectural space to project onto, I feel like if we didn’t hatch into that you might like you say you might as all presented on film.

That’s an interesting one because the story of that, what we were trying to do was tell the story of Indian soldiers that had fallen or gotten injured during the First World War and ended up in, because in that building there used to be a temporary hospital for soldiers from India. So it’s actually telling the journey, but because of the design of the building it didn’t lend itself well to having figurative content, so it’s about trying to create something that evokes emotion using the visual language as well as sound.

You mentioned a storyline how having a storyline is very much a consistent thing throughout all of your works in all of the pieces, and I know when I went to see the Pleasance piece it was very, it was more than just telling a story it was creating emotion and a feeling, I felt very serene and calming space obviously because of the music pieces done by, was it Ed Carter?

Yes so Ed is one of our frequent collaboratives.

Did you consider not only the storyline but sort of the way you wanted the audience to feel whilst walking through the space, is that a key element or something that comes along, organically as you create the storyline?

I think it’s part of the inaudible really you’re trying to create a storyline that tells some sort of narrative some sort of way people, doing that successfully is how people emotionally feel about their emotional responses to that so. When you’re reading a book or seeing a film, you’re creating an emotional response, so that I think that it’s part of it. So is in Pleasance this was commissioned in response to the forthcoming development of the Airpark that’s happening in the area around Tetley. And the idea being that it was making reference to both the history of the location so there’s obviously quite a significant reference to beer making it’s been there amongst other things and it was also like making reference to different areas of the park and the development of people who worked in collaboration With X the company that are developing the park who shared information with other parts of the park with us. We tried in a way to kind of create a sense of how people feel in these locations and actually travel through the park and the different areas, albit quite abstract, so unusual in a sort of sense but very much so.

I was just wondering as well do you personally, what is your average daylight within the studio what’s the same stuff you get up to, is anything that’s consisting is there anything that is very different?

In my case it’s very often I’m dealing with ITU or clients, different projects trying to keep them. I’ve also been re-rendering some animations that were wrong, for our colourant project. It’s does very quite a bit and obviously there’s a lot of on-site work as most of our work is site specific. So this weekend and going down to Durham we showing a piece from our archives. 

16 mins in

https://youtu.be/E_dTDgPCZgk
^interview audio