Xeni Jardin interview with "Radiohead artist" Stanley Donwood

[paisley]

I enjoyed this... came up on a boing boing post announcing that signed Donwood prints are now available for sale

Xeni Jardin interviews Stanley Donwood for The Silicon Alley Reporter (2000):

XJ: Where are you based?

SD: hidden away in the oxfordshire countryside i also work in london and bath

XJ: How did you meet and begin working with Radiohead?

SD: met thom at college. began working with radiohead in er um 1994 i think my first thing was the cover for my iron lung then the bends etc etc

XJ: Can you give us an idea of how you and Thom typically collaborate or exchange ideas with regard to your visual work? And with regard to his songwriting?

SD: we drink a lot and then argue. thom stares with a mystified expression while i attempt to explain my debauched notions eventually we go out to the pub and glare morosely out of the window at the rising floodwaters

XJ: What are some of the sources and inspirations for the iconography in your work?

SD: kid a is a very agoraphobic record. everything is far away. so landscapes. the music makes shapes and colors that i tried to use i like old paintings of battles where the aries look like jewels scattered on mud but close up are performing a ballet of atrocity the paintings were started during that horror in bosnia so my feelings about that found their way in. fire. fields. i had an idea of an empty battlefield when everyone had gone. sort of metaphorical, if thats not too annoying kid a was the constant soundtrack/inspiration though.

red pools -- an idea stolen from a book by alan moore and bill sincowitz [not correct spelling] called brought to light they used swimming pools filled with blood to count those killed directly/indirectly by the CIA since WW2. average body holds a gallon. biggish swimming pool holds 50,000. lots of pools. i used them as swimming pools for pyramid hotels

XJ: I read somewhere that before their scheduled release date, a number of the "blip" videos you guys did for Kid A were "hacked out of a server at EMI." How did you feel about that?

SD: i fucking love it. emi reckoned they had a secure server - theres no such thing. they wanted to do some kind of pokemon style blip collecting thing but it didnt work as far as im concerned once we finished the blips they were free to gentically reproduce wherever they liked

XJ: How would you feel if a Radiohead fan created a new, totally unauthorized short video out of the "blips" you created with Radiohead for Kid A?

SD: id be very happy. there should be no copyright on the net. its our last/latest free place. steal what you like and use it to make great things.

[SmoothedShredder]

Down with Intellectual Property Right!!! Neat article.