KUALA LUMPUR, 05 JUNE 2013 – On June 15, we’ll be opening the doors of KL Live to Heineken Green Room to exhibit a supercharged showcase of music and creative artists. Look forward to a live line up that runs from top New York indie surf-poppers The Drums to Malaysian hipster pin-up Darren Ashley, DJ action from disco and psych-infused electronica experts Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED), Deer Society and Twilight Actiongirl (TAG).
This roll call of international and local talent is complemented by a visual arts line up tasked with transforming the interior of KL Live into a futuristically themed arts space. Starting the night early in one of our newly created art spaces, curated by visual artist themancalleduncle, will be a special Green Room edition of Pecha Kucha, the global design networking and social event Pecha Kucha founded in Tokyo. Presented in collaboration with British Council, this special music-themed edition will bring together Malaysian creatives from all walks of life to deliver fast moving presentations explaining their passion for music.
Hosted by Twilight Actiongirl’s Bunga, we’ve got an amazing line up of Heineken alumni and stylish scenesters delivering their 20 slides at 20 seconds each. You can expect to get to the stories behind the music with Heineken Thirst winners like DJ Blink, outspoken fashion photographer Vincent Paul Yong, radio DJ Mmmeng, style and music journalist Miranda Yeoh, Green Room collaborator Irman Hilmi (The Off-Day).
“Design elements surround us in the everyday world. With Heineken Green Room we have the ideal space to explore the areas where music, design and creative passion collide,” comments Jessie Chuah, Heineken Marketing Manager. “Mixing together music, design and visual arts icons from Malaysia and across the world allows us to both challenge and inspire our fans and create an experience that is unique to Heineken Green Room. We call it Social Design.”
Helping to create that unique experience will be architectural design collective Kontak! Turning the idea of indoor and outdoor spaces back to front, Kontak! will be using futuristic and floating materials to transform the bar into an industrially themed aerial park that floats suspended above the heads of Heineken’s music fans to create an uplifting and relaxed drinking space.
We’ll also be unveiling a series of exclusive commissions from some of Malaysia’s leading emerging visual artists. Lecturer and gallery owner James Ly combines striking graphic design with freehand collaging work. His work for Heineken Green Room, titled Reciprocal Phantasmagoria, explores how pop culture remixes and re-consumes itself and imagines how we can break out of cycles of behaviour to push our societies forwards.
The Off-Day, a new retail and design space by Irman Hilmi, will be premiering Malaysian Rock History. The work is a series of gig posters that reimagines Malaysia’s music history through a new filter, and asks, what would the local music landscape have been like in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s if platforms like Heineken Green Room had existed then?
Of course, at the heart of this experiment in social design is a core of pure music. Making their Malaysian debut for Heineken Green Room, Brooklyn-based four-piece The Drums. The band makes a music that is hard to classify, pulling in references as wide as dream pop, classic British indie, vintage surf rock all wedded to the kind of harmonies that are straight out of classic 1960’s girl group harmonisers like The Shangri-Las.
A Social Design
Design elements surround us in the everyday world. At Heineken Green Room we like to explore the areas where music, design and creative passion collide, bringing together new and uncompromising music and creative art forms in Malaysia. Throughout its history Heineken Green Room has actively pushed the boundaries between music and art, mixing up live acts and DJs, video mapping, installation art and creating some unforgettable nights in the process.
For the Social Design project we asked a group of Malaysia’s most creative fine artists, graphic designers and product designers to explore their passion for music and the influence it has on their work. This is their story.
Title: Back On A Sunday Afternoon in 1968
Artist: Stephen Lau
Synopsis: Technology whirls around us but some things always stay the same. Stephen Lau’s work imagines a Heineken Green Room on a timeless Sunday afternoon. A musician and an acoustic guitar. It could be 1968 or 2013. Stylistically it references The Beatles in their Yellow Submarine-era, updating it for today’s music environment, with a nod to the return of the singer-songwriter to the top of the music scene.
Title: Reciprocal Phantasmagoria
Artist: James Ly
Synopsis: One of the key elements in retro futurism and the concept of social design is the way that pop culture – music, art, fashion, design – remixes and re-consumes itself.
Technology puts more power in the hands of the user, but the ideas behind them have been visible across our history. Reciprocal Phantasmagoria is a collage piece that examines the way these patterns repeat themselves. By identifying and understanding these patterns we can break the cycles and pursue a new, more progressive path to the future.
Title: Malaysian Rock History
Artist: The Off-Day (Irman Hilmi)
Synopsis: Malaysian Rock History is a series of imaginary gig flyers and posters that reimagines Malaysia’s music history through a new filter. It asks the question: What would the local music landscape look like today if platforms like Heineken Green Room had existed in the 1970s? Would shows by iconic artists like Joy Division, The Doors, David Bowie and The Velvet Underground have pushed our music scene in new directions?
Title: Juxtaposed
Artist: Ajim Juxta
Synopsis: Juxtaposed puts artist Ajim Juxta at the centre of his own exploration of retro futurism at Heineken Green Room. Culture, society and especially music juxtapose hundreds of influences and ideas every time they create something new. Some of these elements are connected and others seemingly random. Yet it is the collision of these ideas, both planned and unplanned, that helps to define our creative lives as artists, musicians and designers.
Keep up to date with Heineken Green Room on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Heineken) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/Heineken_MY). Our music fans can also catch up with our everevolving Heineken Green Room playlist on Spotify (http://spoti.fi/15heWOT), crowd-sourced by Heineken and some of our musical friends in Malaysia.
We’re opening a window on the future at Heineken Green Room. With The Drums, TEED, Twilight Actiongirl, The Deer Society, Darren Ashley, juxtaArt, James Ly, the Off-Day, Kontak!, hemancalleduncle and Pecha Kucha, welcome to social design Heineken Green Room style. June 15 at KL Live.
To be part of Heineken’s exciting calendar of events, stay tuned at our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Heineken) or Twitter (www.twitter.com/Heineken_MY).
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