OOXXOO Launch

OOXXOO Launch

10 September, 2008
by: Tom Jeffreys

Are the Red Bull London headquarters an odd place to host the launch of a new magazine about synaesthesia? Well they say 'Red Bull gives you wings', but that's not wholly relevant. Synaesthesia is a fascinating neurological condition in which the senses of those affected get crossed over. So, they might taste colours, or see music, or associate certain numbers or days of the week with specific sounds, emotions or even personalities.

The magazine is called OOXXOO and the spiel I got sent sounded cool so, intrigued, I headed to the Red Bull headquarters on Friday eve to see what the whole thing was about. And it was fun! The pages of the magazine were hung around the walls, there were a variety of interactive installation pieces, some super-slow-mo video art and a performance-rap-reading by 'Vocal Pugilist' David Jay. Obviously there was a free bar too – I'm nothing if not a freeloader...

The magazine itself is a little patchy in terms of content, but some of it's great. I particularly like Samuel Riviere's poem and two short stories. The longer piece, Shelves, or Margins, consists of two short narratives describing alternative possibilities for a series of events involving a librarian. In one, nothing much happens; in the other, it seems, she is raped. One is encouraged to read a sentence from each story alternately: it's akin structurally to Black Holes, or Boustrophedonic Reading by J Hillis Miller and Manuel Asensi in that it questions established modes of reading and ideas about causality. But it has more charm thanks to Riviere's refreshing lightness of touch.

Some of the other writing is less successful: there's JA Calleja's Sixth Form musings on the artificiality of online identity and a worried Sam Gambier on commuter drudgery and the futility of contemporary urban existence: 'The City has acquired a dreadful disharmony,' he writes. 'An imbalance between our material and spiritual development.' This is rubbish for two reasons: 1) it's simply not the case. 2) it's always been the case.

There's some interesting stuff by Patrick Hughes (who's got a solo show coming up at Flowers East by the way). He writes, 'on the whole, artists are pretentious fools, without the grasp of language that poets have'. I couldn't agree more Patrick. Except that a lot of poets can be rubbish too... Hughes also contributes one of his cool 3D paintings of bookshelves to the launch party and for the magazine some fun pictures of retro typewriters spewing forth rainbows.

I had a couple of initial problems with OOXXOO, so, being a fair and scrupulous sort, I contacted one of the brains behind the whole thing to find out more. James Bulley graduated from Goldsmiths in June 2007 and met co-organiser Joseph James Hales in and around the New Cross area. Having done music production for Pete Greenwood and bits of animation for Battlejam, the two decided to try something a little more ambitious. OOXXOO is what happened, the result of a shared fascination with synaesthesia and (this is important) one step on the way to producing 'the best, most exciting and most inventive book that anybody has ever made'.

My initial thought was that there had been insufficient effort to integrate form with content. In fact, it turns it out there had simply been insufficient funds. The magazine I've seen is best-described as a kind of promo or demo for what promises to be an incredible book/art object. Assuming they get funding that is. And here's hoping. I thought it'd be cool if there had been more of an attempt at sensory cross-over in the production of the magazine itself: perfumed pages perhaps, or paper with different textures. Turns out, they're way ahead of me with this, but I've promised not to reveal too much. By way of titillation, let's just mention a 'smell artist', an inbuilt speaker system and heat-reactant pages. Cool huh?

The prototype of OOXXOO has its failings but then that's the point of a prototype. With the kind of drive, imagination and passion for their subject that James and Joe clearly have, OOXXOO could be something really special. 'We want it to be perfect,' James says, 'and we'd be happy to spend years on it.' Red Bull might have lent a pair of wings, but it's cold hard cash that'll make OOXXOO fly.

Click here to read more about OOXXOO.

Keen for more? See more about:

London Art
London Exhibitions
London Events

Tom Jeffreys