PARTNYC AND A BRAVE NEW WORLD
PARTNYC MAKES US QUESTION, ARE WE USING TECHNOLOGY OR IS IT USING US?
Once again we have my dearest Nash and Filip Radonjik who joined the PARTNYC team as art director, graphic & motion design on our platform today.
They have an amazing event production crew made up of Mauro - script writer + actor, Silvana - actress, Rene - videographer, Matej - audio engineer, Polo x Polo - VJ, Slava - lights, Drey - tech/streaming, Alvise - who does the installations, Marketing/Branding consultant Lilly, and some extra hands in Operations with JC, so they have really grown into a full production firm since we spoke to them first almost 10 years ago!
How’s the PARTNYC concept developed over the years?
Nash: We've been putting on conceptual art performances at our parties since Day 1 . Going digital has helped us evolve the concept further. Watch the 1-hour show in the comfort of your home, I am sure no one realized that at our launch the letters on the screen were a Martin Heidegger poem over which Filip overlayed a floating human with a Mickey Mouse head….
Another important aspect of the digital show is scale! We've always tried to trigger the audience's senses and pique their intellect with themes like "1984", "Metropolis", "Liberty", etc. and in digital format we can share the message much further than at a 300-person event. We thought it important to start these types of conversations (about the nature of our liberty, the condition of workers in these metropolitan cities we live in, surveillance, pscyhological-warfare in the media, etc. even before the latest crisis. It is crystal-clear that these topics need be addressed. Of course we officially stay apolitical and communicate with aesthetics, as we thoroughly believe in what Friedrich Schiller once said: "we must indeed, if we are to solve that political problem in practice, follow the path of aesthetics, since it is through Beauty that we arrive at Freedom".
What are some of the challenges your facing currently and how are you adapting to them?
Nash: The event was originally scheduled for March 14th, then we moved it to 4/4 the date Winston the protagonist of 1984 starts his journal. Of course we had to postpone due to the pandemic, but then I looked at the rules;
10 people limit, 6 feet apart, masks, gloves, bikes for transport,
digital stream (but oh Lord not another bedroom-DJ stream),
we decided instead of tickets- donate to charity,
participants can play/perform via projectors/screens,
All venues were closed but our amazing friend, Julio Mora, owns restaurant Cantina Royal with a high-ceiling room in the back with projectors on all 3 walls!
Duddha (who plays the guitar in the all-green "Utopia" part of "1984") was not allowed to leave the house where he was quarantine-ing so he filmed himself in the garden and had birds chirping in the background, we couldn't have scripted it better. It's important to go with the flow, follow the path of least resistance, and this has been the biggest learning lesson for us.
Right now we are getting organized on the back end, and we will be ready as soon as we can have at least 100 people together.
Filip: The best part is being able to do wtf we want. Oh yeah and the marriage of art and technology. I look at PARTNYC as a pioneering group in this new global movement. Uniting art and tech is paramount towards creating a world of free individuals. #supernecessary
So whats the next gig all about?
Nash: Its secret Leila! But you will be the first to know, I will just say it has elements of Noah's Ark. Follow us on the gram to hear about it in time. @PARTNYC
Tell us about 1984 event
Nash:
The show was digital and for charity so our friends Daniel Brandt and Anna F graciously donated their musical magic. Brandt Brauer Frick have played outside the Lincoln Center with an entire orchestra, and Lenny Kravitz took Anna F on tour to open for him, she has since started the band Friedberg and gave us the freshest unreleased material, while Daniel has a second band "Daniel Brandt & Eternal Something" that also contributed fire.
1984 the play was written by our own Mauro Bossi as an adaptation to George Orwell's 1984 book: it was called The last Man. Yes, there will be a sequel to 1984 and it will be the Brave New World. 1984 was easier for people to relate to particularly with what’s currently going on regarding police brutality and violence in general. The Western World and especially America seems to only be aware of 1984 and the Big Brother, associating it with Communism and Fascism. So we hear, “ hey we are not like those bad guys (communists & fascists), we are free"! But wait a second, we omit the fact that you can control a society in a way diametrically opposed to 1984, In Brave New World there is what's called 'Information Glut', i.e. the problem is not lack of information but that there is so much one can no longer decipher what is meaningful.
Sound familiar? Of course it goes without saying, we are constantly bombarded with information. So the real question is are we using this technology or is it using us? Big Brother has morphed from a big scary control-screen to a cute little phone whose color you can choose.This is not to say that we should abandon technology, to the contrary, we should and can use it to turn the weapon against itself and use it to form a community, a critical mass of people worldwide who will literally change the world together.
This is our dream.
Since we last spoke what greatly inspires you guys?
Nash:
The Criterion Collection and the Met Opera! My dream is for us to curate on that level. If you blindly pick any film from Criterion, you know that it is an aesthetic masterpiece that "triggers your senses and piques your intellect", a motto we just arrived to- and decided it is at the core of why we do what we do... And the Met Opera, I love going to see their productions: everything from set design to the stories to costumes is as good as it gets. It's super-inspiring.
Filip:
Most of my inspiration comes from music and poetry. I don’t like to use the words punk rock mainly because I don’t identify as a punk but I would begin there. Its dark and charged with an anti-authoritarian frequency. Much like the poetry of Charles Bukowski. "There is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day” -The Genius of the Crowd. Bands like Warsaw and Joy Division insisted on having a strong visual presence that followed their music. The album cover for Unknown Pleasures says volumes visually.
The metaphysical art of Antoine Tapies plays a big part in my work as well as the philosophy of Kazemir Maljevic and cinematic style of Andrei Tarkovsky. Basquiat was the unsung hero of the art world for a while. I feel he shaped graphic design tremendously with his use of text and lay-out. He played a big role in my love of type.
So who the fuck is Nash and where the fuck is FIlip?
Nash: I ask myself that every day. I am getting closer to finding out. Kundalini meditations help. I recommend them to all.
Filip: Thats a question I keep asking myself. #OMW
