INTERVIEW FOR IDN MAGAZINE

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It was a pleasure for us to give an interview to Yeoh from famous international graphic design magazine IdN - international design network / we really enjoyed this session here in our prague office and it was a lot of fun with this guy. thanks again!

more info is here: http://www.idnworld.com and if you want, click "display all" to see some pictures also.

1. What is MIMO?

Platform. Opinion. Visual world, which stands next to (mimo = outside in english) main stream.

2. Who is MIMO?

Alien Broadcasting Central flight crew:
daniel spacek embryo /academy of fine art/, milan malik 000333 /architect/and friends: jan seycek archi_tech /architect/ barka mottlova /nanophysicist/, 1onyo /architect/ and others.

3. What makes MIMO unique?

Milan Malík: Its more question to the audience, than for us, however i think that we are distinguishable. We try to be original,find inspiration in ourselves, in spacious realms of our minds ... rather than in galleries and design magazines ;]
In my opinion, i try to bring into this reality things i sometimes meet in my head. In the very beginning there is a sketch on a paper with pencil than i create in 2D and finaly in 3D using a computer. And finally to animate it in time and combine it with a music which inspires me. It is a long distance run.

Daniel Špaček: Fusion of many thoughts, brains and feelings which as the time goes on have bigger and bigger common factor. It's about spendig time together, to work together and to have fun together.

4. There are many layers in your visual expression/illustration, would you like to explain your exploration and direction that you are moving to?

Milan Malík: We are going in several ways, each of them has its pro and con. As i mentioned, we try to bring things from our minds into real world. Quickiest way from the recording point of view is a classic pencil drawing. It works as dictaphone.
It's just two dimensional sketch, sometimes highlighted with color. Advantage is that sometimes you can express very actual inspiration which can contain some other dimension in it. Color, smell, sound or music or anything you want to imagine later in your mind. It helps you to bring this complex memory back including situation around, like environment with sounds, smell of the sea and sunset above horison.

Another world are our blackligh painting sessions with friends. It works as a develop laboratory for finding new accidence, also it works as a group therapy and also it is a test of personal tolerance and communication. Specially when there are more people working on one canvas at the same time. In my personal opinion, each of participants learns colors and opinion blending sensitivity. Often we invite people from the wider range of mimo-tv friends. Its interesting to see solitaire-artists, who are used to work alone, how they work ine a team.
Our work closely relates to the music we listen. We are used to listen huge amount of music, for example i listen to the music around 18 hours per a day almost in any situation, i am used to fall asleep with a music and woke up with it. I can't sleep when there is a silence.

More than a seven years we are doing live videoprojections for music sets, where music is impulsive engine for our visuals. Its another laboratory for us, where style is developed. Its interesting to see how visuals react to the music, to the changing rythm, mood and atmosphere. Most of it is electronic music which is like constant flow of music and sounds. Videoprojection is like a flow of visuals, which react and change in time. Mimo-TV can be mostly found on goa&psytrance, chillout, d'n'b and techno events. In last years we have started to work with live bands. There is a difference that those sets are more prepared and they relate to the exact tracks and its more like background for the band.From VJing is not far to the music videos...

5. Do you see any differences in between your experimentation work compare to your commercial work?

Milan Malík: Of course. In noncommercial projects we are the clients, so everythings is defined according to our concepts, so we can afford to be experimental and we don't need to care about what audience is going to say about it. Commercial work is allways more polished and there is allways strong client opinion influence (and at least the budget ;])
However lately we are lucky to work on projects where visual part is almost all in our directing, sometimes we also work on our own creative core idea. So the future is as we hope in our own author's style which will be visible in commercial and in noncommercial work.

Daniel Špaček: Commercial work has its own input data and clearly visible targets (Or at least it should have ;]). Everything than works in a simple algorythm "setting > creative + resources > goal". Usualy we are pretty sure what we want to gain and result of such a work submits to such expectation. It's a space to show and applicate craft skills and experiences.
Anyway we prefere projects which include some area for playfulness. Such work is much more fun and its allways visible on the result.
Noncommercial work is allways based on our own messages. We are the ones who are setting goals and targets, so its allways more personal. And allways more entertainment ;] And also its relaxation, so we can afford to just create and play without any presetted goal. Its a game without rules ...

7. What you tried to achieve in the "More than a friend" music video?

Daniel Špaček: music video for -123min. band is example of ideal cooperation with a client. Guys from the band had an absolute faith in us so they left everything on us. We listened to the track, we talked with a frontman about his feelings he had when he sang that song. He told us that for him its about feeling that life is neverending fight, and its good to woke up every day and look with a smile on the world around you. So we came up with an idea of a sisyfos like creature rolling his rock around the world. Even after some sort of mystical experience, when he sees things from above, he continues with his everyday lot.

8. "Alenka" Fairytale animation, will this going to be a long series of animation?

Daniel Špaček: Alenka was born under strange circumstances, on the beginning it was not supposed to be a movie, it should be just an live audiovisual set with a theme of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It was created in few weeks by me, 000333 and barka mottlova. Character of Alice and her environment started to grow up under our hands so quickly that we couldnt resist it. Finaly we have realised that we have so much material that we can simply edit it into 40min movie, so we did it ;] Whole script was build on the run, there was no specific timeline. When I look back on it i thing that this is very visible on it ;]
Nevertheless i like it a lot, with its atmosphere it very closely describes our view on world around. We plan to do some new long lenght animated movie, but we are on the very beginning now.

9. What inspired you most?

Milan Malík:Life, music, nature, travelling, sun, universe, stories and fairytales of our childhood, dreams and other wonderfull things ;]

10. What next for MIMO?

Daniel Špaček: Besides that we will continue on everything we do now, i have started to do some music. Music in connection with visuals allways fascinated me. Evertime i hear some sound or mellody i imagine some picture. For a long time i was exploring it from the side of visuals. At some point i have decidet that i can try the other side of it. Despite of different initial craft phase, i have realised that in both ways you can use same creative procedures. And when i connect some of our music with our visuals it usualy fits very well because it cames from the same source. I think that if some work is well done, audiovisual thing is not just music and some visual, but together connected they create some bigger and wide dimension. 1+1=3.
I expect that audiovisual creating will occupy me for a while and it will hold my attention for it, because there are many things to discover. According to my temperament i think that after some time i will discover for me some other area of learning. I live with a sense and belief that universe offers neverending possibilities of creativity and i would like to explore them ;]

Milan Malík:I think we will continue in similar trend as until now. We are attracted to the world of fairytales, so we would
like to dive into this world. Another area of our interest are audiovisual projects, music videos, illustrations. We would like to create more complex experience than just visual. I would like to continue elaborating my own visual style.
I have many sketches and ideas so i now need time to create them in computer. Lately i was surprised with some of my sketches and i realise that i am definetively moving from the ufo world to the world of fairytales ;]

2007-10-10 | [ MIMO-TV ]