Suddenly, I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
You heard me rapping, right?
This past Saturday at Ace Comic Con I decided to finally bring out Eric Draven.
The Crow is one of my favorite Halloween movies, and I’m so glad to have finally done a proper Crow cosplay, and I think I can say I did it justice.
The makeup for the Crow was done exclusively with Kryolan products, primarily the TV Paint Stick in “00” as a base with Supracolor in “070” as a highlight, with contour and eye makeup done with a black eyeshadow, and lipstick in “LF415”.
Nine Inch Nails’ most prominent visual theme evolved from decay into glitch during the With Teeth (2005) and Year Zero (2007) eras though the work of Rob Sheridan (Tumblr), a Los Angeles-based artist, designer and photographer. Sheridan started working with Trent Reznor in the late ’90s at a time when he was a budding artist with a well-run NIN fansite and Reznor was looking to expand his digital presence. As their partnership grew more and more collaborative, Sheridan’s role evolved from designer and photographer to Art Director. He also went on to create glitched visuals for Reznor’s work on The Social Network soundtrack in 2010 and with How to destroy angels_ this year in addition to becoming Reznor’s bandmate in the latter project. Despite being just as swamped as Reznor with NIN’s comeback, Sheridan was kind enough to speak with me over email about how he matches visuals to Reznor’s music.
Jill Krajewski (One Week One Band):What interests you about glitch art?
Rob Sheridan: I’ve always been fascinated with things that feel off, things that break formality or break the expected in interesting ways. When I started working with Nine Inch Nails and found myself tasked with visually representing the themes and emotions and sounds of the music, visual glitching was a natural fit. Trent has always played with things that sound slightly “wrong” in his music, and seeking the same visual metaphors often leads me to trying to use visual tools in “wrong” ways. Over time that’s meant dragging paper through broken printers, pouring liquids onto scanners, intentionally breaking cameras, corrupting code, disrupting signals, and on and on. But it depends entirely on the project and the themes and emotions behind it - you won’t find a trace of glitching on some of the albums I’ve done with NIN, because it wasn’t appropriate thematically.
OWOB: Your use of glitch art forThe Social NetworkandYear Zero seems to reflect the backdrop of corruption in both works. Why do you feel glitch art suits this theme?
RS: Well glitch art is, by its nature, corruption. For Year Zero it was a really natural fit, and the use of glitching came initially out of the story. The idea in the mythology was that everything visual in the Year Zero campaign - album art, websites, video footage - had been sent here from the future. So the glitching was a way of visually showing that story element, showing that the data had been corrupted to varying degrees during the transmission back through time. Corruption being a thematic tie-in with Year Zero’s story made it that much more perfect.
ForThe Social Network, the look of corrupted images played perfectly into not only the themes of corruption in the film, but of the way we portray ourselves digitally on Facebook. The look of it hinted at a darker side to what would be otherwise benign photos.
OWOB:Is there a theme behind your use of glitch art with How to destroy angels_?
RS: I came to the world of analog glitch while seeking out visual inspiration for the new HTDA record [Welcome Oblivion]. Wanting to move away from databending and try something different, I found that the analog equipment I was starting to experiment with created a process that interestingly mirrored what was being done on this album with audio equipment in the studio. And the way the process distorted imagery tied in really well with the themes I wanted to explore. There are themes of singularity, of a sort of end to mankind in an apocalyptic yet distinctly non-apocalyptic sort of way. There are themes of information overload, an increasing inability to process the amount of data that’s coming in. None of that probably makes any sense, but I don’t want to go into it in too much detail. The themes are closely connected to the themes of the HTDA album, and I’d rather people be able to experience it themselves and have their own takeaway on what it’s about.
Did I just talk to Trent Reznor on Reddit?! Life. Made. Nine Inch Nails is my bucket list interview!
I’m glad to hear Trent’s just as invigorated by The Fragile 14 years on as fans are. Experiencing the bass grooves of “Into The Void” live - my favorite - was phenomenal.
I decided to stick with the logo obscured to the right, as it didn’t interfere with the image but also gave it an interesting dynamic.
I’m happy with this image as I feel like it accurately depicts what is being expressed in the song, and not a million miles away from something Nine Inch Nails might use as a graphic today. However it plays into my own sensibilities and feels like something I would have produced myself, maybe more so than any of the previous songs I created work for on this album.
I had settled on this image as I felt like it accurately depicted a split between the mechanical and human sides, expressing a sense of conflict.
I was having trouble deciding where the logo and title should be placed, so these are the options I left myself to choose from. I feel drawn to the options with the logo placed centre, however the option with the logo obscured on the very right-hand centre of the page was very appealing as well.
By the time ‘I Do Not Want This’ begins, our protagonist has succumbed to the mechanical voice inside him, and there is an exchange between the two through-out the song. The mechanical voice mocks him as he tries to bargain for his humanity.
I wanted to merge the human and mechanical through collage for this song, creating a sense of conflict between the two, as if one side is trying to out do the other.
I wanted to do a “clean” and “dirty” version, as it brought me back to buying CD’s as a kid. The Parental Advisory sticker was something of a badge of honour back in the 90′s.
At this point in the album our protagonist has successfully overthrown God and regained his control and identity, only to find all meaning lost as there is now nothing to believe in:
Once I had hung the piece on the wall to take pictures, I knew it was missing something. Thankfully I had a bunch of dried up flowers lying around since my first semester biophilia project, so I decided to decorate it a bit and was happy with the way it had turned out.
Once I had brought the computer screen home, I decided that instead of cleaning it up, I would leave the dried up mud, as I loved the textures and the contrast with the wires and circuits.
I used the stencil to paint the NIN logo on the back of it to see how it would look. I liked the way that part of the logo was obscured, however the stencil was sloppy enough around the edges, so I decided to carve off the faded edges with a nail.
This ended up giving the logo way more depths as a white outline appeared, which made the whole thing pop.
Amongst the garbage thrown into the field behind my house I found this piece of electronic equipment. I believe it used to be a computer screen. It was completely covered in mud and had plants growing though it.
I’m very happy with the textures of these pieces. If I could find a way to create like this without burning highly toxic fumes then this is all I would ever do. There is nothing I like more than a happy accident, and waiting to see what results from such a chaotic event as burning a painting is quite thrilling.
I also love the colours of these pieces. They are pretty evenly distributed over the bread boards, and the contrast of red, black and silver seem appropriate for this track somehow.
Following the self-hatred and obsession of ‘Closer’, our protagonist finds themselves doubling down on God and he is now determined to destroy him. They have reached a boiling point and now that everything that gave them a sense of security and control has been taken, they turn to God, not to ask why, but to point the finger of blame and tear him from his throne.
I decided to use fire on a painting that I have had a few ugly run-ins with over the course of the last month. Using white spirits and a bit of spray paint over the stencil of the logo, I achieved some incredibly beautiful textures and colours as well as got some incredible pictures of the NIN logo on fire, not unlike Russell Mills own treatment of the logo for The Downward Spiral.
