Nendie's Magic Lantern Performance at The Sartorial Gallery

This was performed at The Sartorial Gallery on Thursday 22nd May in Preparation for our show at the ICA in October. The story is based on my great grandother Frances Berman with photos staged with young people from our newspaper project.

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HIMTM headline Nought to Sixty Exhibition at The ICA

Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky and Nina Manandhar have collaborated on a series of varied and hybrid collaborative activities since 2002.

Hardcore Is More Than Music is a banner under which artists Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky (born Oxford, 1980, lives in London) and Nina Manandhar (born London, 1981, lives in London) have grouped a series of varied and hybrid collaborative activities since 2002. Founded whilst the pair were students at Chelsea College of Art and Design, the project began with the production of an eponymous fanzine and has developed into what Manandhar and Pinto-Duschinsky describe as a 'social enterprise'.
The initial self-publication of three fanzines sought parallels between a personalised experience of art and the sub-cultures of musical genres such as hardcore punk, techno and grime. HIMTM used interviews, treatise and photography to explicitly develop a 'fan's' response to the creative energy associated with the social spaces of both art and music.

The production of these zines enabled Manandhar and Pinto-Duschinsky to draw connections between established cultural practioners and groups of teenagers whose opinions and activities HIMTM tapped into. Simultaneous to these publications they toured a series of participatory projects around schools and youth groups in London, culminating in an set of workshops at Stowe Youth Centre in Westbourne Green (Best Body, 2004), in which influential musicians and producers including Graham Massey (808 State) Jon E Cash (Black Ops) and Alasdair Roberts (Rough Trade) shared expertise with groups of local teenagers.
The subsequent incarnations of HIMTM as an increasingly professional magazine (including a supplement produced for The Guardian, and a publication produced with several youth groups over a day-long workshop at Tate Britain) have highlighted a fusion of artistic concerns with the principles of social enterprise. The twin tools of marketing and fundraising have enabled Manandhar and Pinto-Duschinsky not only to pursue and promote their own interests, but also to engage in collaborative activities outside of a traditional cultural framework. The language of 'social exclusion' and urban demographics is at once the territory they manipulate and the site for a mode of creativity.

As part of Nought to Sixty, Hardcore is More Than Music is developing a relationship between the ICA and a new newspaper project based at Stowe Youth Centre. This project is focussed on providing training opportunities for unemployed and excluded young people in the Borough of Westminster, through the production of The Cut, a quarterly newspaper featuring the views and interests of this group. The first issue was launched in March at the ICA, and between May and November an issue of The Cut will be produced that focuses on the ICA and the community built around the Nought to Sixty programme.

Richard Birkett

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Mediabox Premiere

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Teaching at The Stephen Lawrence Centre today

Today Nina and I were extremely honored to tutor at the Ignite! Easter Workshop at The Stephen Lawrence Centre.



The Centre opened in February and is an incredible building with beautiful light and architecture throughout. A really amazing way to remember Stephen who was planning to be an architect and whose murder at a bus stop in 1993 shocked the whole nation. There were some really interesting people there and I can tell form the response form the young people that the Centre is already making a huge difference and providing amazing resources for creative talent. I will post pictures of our workshop when we get permission and in the meantime find out more about the centre and the Trust behind it here: http://www.stephenlawrence.org.uk. The Trust is directed by Stephen's mum Doreen Lawrence OBE.

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Press on The Cut Launch

Thanks to Meg Jorsh at the Ham and High and Wood and Vale!

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HIMTM INTERVIEWS SLASH

Check out Shamz Le Roc interview with Slash from Guns N' Roses @ www.thecutnewspaper.com. Nendie says, 'he was an extremely nice guy!"



Slash is arguably a contemporary guitar legend. There have been very few that have successfully adapted to the change in music. From ‘Guns N Roses’ to his more recent band ‘Velvet Revolver’, he’s had undeniable longevity. When I told a hard core rock fan I was interviewing him the first thing he said was, ‘Oh my God! Make sure you ask him about his conflict Axel Rose.’ But I thought, why bother? That so predictable, so I went for more a colloquial chit chat.

SLR: You’ve lived in the U.K before, do you visit London frequently?

Slash: Well I just have a thing for London, a thing for the UK in general. I guess because I was born there I feel a really strong relationship and I feel very proud to be from there, you know? It’s one of my favourite places.

SLR: Do you have a favourite hang out when you come out to London?

Slash: I just love Soho, it’s just been pretty consistent for me, it’s a colourful place to hang out.

SLR: Being from the U.K, London to be precise, I’m prone to stereotypes from all over the world. Such as, I drink tea and eat crumpets. What’s the biggest stereotype you’ve heard about yourself?

Slash: That I’m just a wasted, drug addict, alcoholic, who has a hard time putting two words together [laughs] And I’m crazy and out of control British person.

SLR: So you’re married with two sons?

Slash: Yes, I have two sons, one name London and one name Cash.

SLR: Have your sons shown any interest in music so far?

Slash: Thery’re young but they’re showing signs of some musicality. My oldest one loves the drums but every so often he likes to strike the rock guitar and the other one seems to like singing, which is good because we need more singers.

SLR: Do you listen to the younger generation of rock music?

Slash: I do but I don’t necessarily agree with them. Most of the rock bands out right noware a genre of music that I would necessarily call rock and roll.

SLR: Are you a fan of electronic music?

Slash: I don’t think I’ve ever really got into electronic music. Most of it’s pop or a technokind of thing. It’s not that appealing, I mean I can tolerate anything, except for country music but there no electronic musicians out there that are my cup of tea.

SLR: Recently we had the revival of other genres in mainstream music like Amy Winehouse, she’s always being connected with alcohol and drugs, how do you feel about musicians constantly being slaughtered in the media?

Slash: This whole new wave of awareness and watching every move that people aredoing is just really redundant and boring. I don’t know what it is with the fascination of everyone’s breathing moment but I think it’s always blown way out of proportion.

SLR: Definitely. So you feel that people like Britney Spears, the media are intruding on her rather that letting her live her life?

Slash: No, I think that they are torturing her. Yea it’s a form of torture. They keep commenting on her activities and her state of mind and then they keep rubbing her face in it. It’ gotta be uncomfortable to be on the cover of every tabloid globally when you’re obviously under a lot of stress, you know? And those things only add to it so basically they’re preying on her. It’s not that she doesn’t want it though. [laughs] Its hard to tell with her or any of them for that matter.

SLR: So have you ever had a problem with the paparazzi?

Slash: I’ve never had that kind of a problem; I think as a guitar player I’m a bit more low key, I don’t draw that much attention. I’ve also made sure that for everything unsavory that I’ve ever done, nobody’s knows about it. [laughs] In other words I don’t go parading around looking to cause trouble and to be caught doing it, or to be seen. Nowadays I’m a little bit less careless than I used to be if but if I was as crazy now as I was a few years back, in this current climate of the media I might be getting more exposure that I would want.

SLR: Do you have any hobbies besides music? i.e Do you bake, do you sew?

Slash: Yea I’m baker. [laughs] Na, I like cars, I like to go to the track every so often, I race if possible. I like to play poker. Hrmm I’m just thinking what I do for fun. You know I hang out with the kids. I have hobbies but they’re just little past time things.

SLR: You’ve collaborated with Michael Jackson in the past, he’s said to be having a new album out. Do you think you two will be doing a track together again for this new album?

Slash: It all depends if he calls me and asks if I wanted to play on something then I’d be honored to listen to it and see what the track sounds like to see if I could add something to it but that’s basically how that works. I don’t really go, ‘Hey Michael! You got a new song I can play on?’ [laughs] It doesn’t really work like that.

SLR: You’ve done a track with the late James Brown. Has he influenced your music at all?

Slash: James Brown, I think he’s influenced everybody in rock and roll. He brought ina certain kind of funk/soul thing that is undeniably his and that influenced all of us. I‘ve played with him couple of times and it was always been a great experience, everything’s always so tight and perfect.

SLR: Do you dance like him at all? Have you been influenced by his steps?

Slash: Oh no, I’ve never really been influenced by the dance. I admire it but I’m not much of a dancer.

SLR: I understand you have a liking for snakes?

Slash: Yea, I’m known for collecting snakes. I’ve been a wildlife animal fan every sinceI was little. The London Zoo and Natural History museum was my big hang out when I was a kid at Crystal Palace so dinosaurs and animals have always been my big thing but I really love snakes.

SLR: Are you computer savvy?

Slash: Yes as in send and receive emails. [laughs]

SLR: How about fan mail to you respond to it?

Slash: Yea but I’m pretty old school. I don’t blog or anything, I can’t even be bothered to get my laptop out but I respond to letters and sign stuff for fans and stuff like that.

SLR: You’ve previously recorded a song called, ‘Welcome to the jungle’. If someone said to you, “Slash, were going to the jungle right now!” What 3 things would you take?

Slash: A guitar, a pack of cigarettes and my BlackBerry.

SLR: Are you sure you BlackBerry would work in the jungle?

Slash: Ohh, I’d bring batteries. [laughs]

SLR: So how many cheetos do you reckon you could fit in your mouth?

Slash: Did you just make that up?

SLR: Yea I did

Slash: [laughs] Hmm I dunno, I’m not really a Cheetos guy, I’d have to experiment and get back to you.

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HIMTM launch The Cut website

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