Openmind designs

Items created by by design alter-ego, Openmind

Jonny Trunk / DJ Food hook ups

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Two dates for your diaries: June 25th I’ll be DJing with Jonny Trunk at Camberwell’s finest used record emporium, Rat Records. They recently bought in a really good selection of soundtrack, electronic, library and weird records which we’ll be playing selections from before adding them to the racks for punters to buy. Let US try, before YOU buy.

But before that  – this Saturday to be precise – I’ll be sitting in for Jonny on his OST radio show on Resonance 104.4 FM from 4.30-6.40pm. There’ll be a theme to the show and I’ll have special guest Jonny Cuba from Soundsci talking about library digs and soundtrack finds. Listen here this weekend

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Kosmischer Debris x9.14

KDx9.14Things have been a bit quiet on here recently due to various changes happening in my life right now, 2016 is turning out to be quite a rollercoaster. I’ve been a little more active over on Instagram though, with almost daily postings of personal miscellania, record finds and the Kosmischer Debris series, but even that’s taken a hit this month.

Above – top row, some experiments that date back a fair few years now with manipulated audio waves put through a spectral visualiser. Middle row – left: collage detail, middle: ‘Circult Skull 1′ test, right: ‘weird jazz thing’ that was the unexpected result of an old Freehand file where I held down the wrong key. Bottom row – experiments with a flexible material and light reflections – more to come with that…

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Kosmischer Debris x9.13

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Another nine examples of the Kosmischer Debris floating around my computer: off cuts, try-outs, archive work, experiments and the like. Top left and right are distorted barcodes, middle top and bottom is a typeface called ‘Attention!’ that I created from a Soviet postmark I found. Middle left and right are two unused pieces from a recent project and the middle is a photo collage I did of a building in Osaka, Japan back in the late 90s. More, daily, on my Instagram.

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Kosmischer Debris x 9.9

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Been a bit quiet on here of late, sorry for the lack of activity but there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, making some big changes this year. Just finished a fantastic graphic design project that I can show in full soon. Also I’ve been more active on Instagram this year than last so you can find quite a few things cropping up there daily.

The pieces above are some circular experiments with circuit boards (Circuit Mandalas), colour shift try-outs with recent collages and some digital trickery with an old photo collage I made in the late 90s of a 180 degree shot of a Tokyo street. In April I’m going to do a month’s worth of B&W Op Art designs I made one afternoon recently before launching into something a little different…

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Kosmischer Debris x 9.7

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You know the deal by now, the latest 9 daily experimental designs from my Instagram – these were made from miscellaneous photos of analogue kit I’ve had kicking about for years: a Russian reel to reel machine, Abbey Road desks, Sarm Studios patch bays and the like. I started with the central image, photos divided up and decreasing in size on themselves and then started putting mirror images together. Sometimes it’s amazing what forms itself when you place to edges together.

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Kosmischer Debris x9.6: Circuit Mandalas

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Here’s the last selection of the daily Kosmischer Debris image experiments from my Instagram. These were all made using various sections of different circuit boards and I’d like to return to them at some point but I’m working on multiples of nine for now before moving on so as not to get stuck on one thing. They point the way towards something I’m trying to develop that updates the original psychedelic practices and brings them into the electronic present without slavishly copying what went before.

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Kosmischer Debris – Op Art edition

KDx9.5Another round of Kosmischer Debris entries – these were from a series of experiments and tests I did for a Ninja Tune thing last summer that didn’t get used. A couple work for me and elements of them have since led down a different path – I recently created 60 different images from them in one day, yet to find a home. You see my daily postings from the hard drive on my Instagram along with other images shot whilst out and about, record finds, art and more.

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The return of the Ninja Tune slipmat

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The slipmat has long been a part of Ninja Tune‘s merch lines, alongside the T-shirt, record bag and Ninja Skinz. The last one I designed for them was back in 2007 for mine and DK‘s ‘Now, Listen Again’ Solid Steel comp. At the time sales of vinyl were seriously in freefall, Serato and Tractor were taking over and people were looking at digital as the way forward, slipmats weren’t exactly flying out the door.
By the end of the decade I don’t think the label even considered making any for their 20th anniversary, they just weren’t on the radar anymore. But things have a habit of coming back again and, nearly a decade on, here’s a new twist on an old design – available now from the Ninjashop.

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Kosmischer Debris x9.4

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Some of the recent Kosmischer Debris experiments from my Instagram – not sure about these, there are a couple of interesting ones but nothing I’m super happy with. These images are all generated from one piece, collaged elements of the Musée des Confluences that I took in Lyon last year. I want to see how far I can push them before they look like visual soup. The lower right one is pretty much there I’d say.

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Resonance FM fundraiser and radio show

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I’m doing / have done a couple of things for Resonance FM – London’s great station of the weird, wonderful and avant garde. Last week Robin The Fog, aka Howlround, came errrr… round and we spent a hugely enjoyable three hours going through the odder ends of my collection. It rapidly descended into, ‘have you heard this? you haven’t? oh my god, check this out’ etc. etc. We’ve all been there but Robin’s and my tastes are quite acutely tuned to a specific end of the musical spectrum marked ‘miscellaneous’. This is all for a new series on his and station cohort, Hannah Brown‘s ‘Near Mint’ show about ‘excessive record collecting’.

He left with over an hour of audio and a lot more of me wittering on about German concept albums about the body, a children’s alphabet in space LP, one-off record booth finds and cut up psychoanalysis experiments. We touched on old favourites like Ken Nordine, John Rydgren and Marshall McLuhan too but our shared love of Sesame Street‘s more experimental side wasn’t discussed. Below are some examples of some of the delights we explored and you can hear the show next Tuesday, February 9th at 6pm. NOW! (Well, part 1 anyway)

The week after that I’ll be joining both of them. as well as host of the station’s Luck Cat show, Zoe Baxter, at the West Norwood Book & Record Bar to help raise money for the station as part of their annual funding drive. There will be a raffle with prizes, some from my own collection, but most of all, there will be great music (see flyer above for details).

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Updated Openmindesign site

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I’ve been spending a bit of time updating my Openmindesign portfolio website this week as well as making art for the new daily ‘Kosmischer Debris’ series on Instagram, hence the minimal activity on here. The portfolio is now way easier to get around, I’ve taken a lot out and stripped it back to the bare essentials, although there’s still 20+ years of work on there.

There’s a new format series that I’ve been meaning to start on here but I’ve been too busy to implement it and also, The Vinyl Factory made a return visit this week for a second round of the ‘Freaky Formats’ series which should be up shortly. I’m editing a huge 28,000 word interview I did with Mr Scruff for Dust & Grooves and have finished a 45s mix for the 45/7 Vinyl Club which will debut in March. There’s more but I don’t want to shout about it right now…

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Kosmischer Debris

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For 2016 I have a vague idea to post a graphic image a day under the title of Kosmischer Debris with the intention of forcing me to explore ideas and avenues I don’t usually have time to. I don’t want to formulate any rules aside from that the images must be self-generated pieces of art or design, maybe some works in progress, some variations of an idea, work with no specific home. I don’t know, let’s see how it goes anyway. I don’t intend to post it all here but to put it on my Instagram account where it’ll be more suitable so follow me there if this interests you.

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