Rory Gleeson
Rory Gleeson is a graphic designer and founding member of art collective Crystal Vision with a keen eye for lo-fi surrealism that can be dark and child-like at the same time. His work tends to reflect imagery of an obscure nature, referencing media artifacts from video clips of American local access channels to ideas surrounding self-sufficient hippy communes in the middle of nowhere. He has a blog called Eternal Truth Land. Sweet and Sound spoke to Rory to find out more about his journey to eternal truth and where or what he thinks this journey will eventually lead him to.
So what is Eternal Truth?
Eternal Truth is the name of the magazine project I am working on at the moment. Its my way of gathering together everything that inspires me into one big special document. People, art, songs, places, ways of life, its all in there. It will be available very soon too, the one thing that I now truly realize what sort of effort people put into making magazines, its a great deal of work.
Where did the name come from?
The name came from my girlfriend, she used to have a teacher called Eternal Truth. He believed he was a descendant from God and his aim in life was to teach Chemistry, Biology and Physics to as many kids as possible, so that one day he could afford to buy a farm in Kent and recruit all his old students to help him build a spaceship so that he could compete with NASA’s space program. He was totally paranoid and slept with his bed in the middle of his room because he thought people would come through the walls and kill him in the middle of the night. He didn’t eat for a few weeks once, because he was convinced someone was trying to poison his food, someone from NASA. He named his first child ‘One’ because he didn’t what her to be stereotyped to other people with the same name, he said that if he had another child he would name it ‘Two’ and so on.
Where did this journey begin?
I graduated from university about a year ago, and was determined to carry on doing work and keep creative, not just working a retail job everyday followed by the after work drinking. No thanks! I wanted to work on a project that would encompass all the ways I like to work, moving image, music, zines/pamphlets/magazines, posters, clothes, poems – everything… I came up with the idea for my new film first, and that opened up so many possibilities for other things. I needed a magazine for my film, a logo for the special group, some clothes and uniforms for the characters, music for them to dance to, posters to adorn their walls. I’m working on it all now, and having alot of fun.
Can you tell us more about your film?
The film project i’m working on is called “Peacing Together”, its about a graphic artist who is picked by an elite and mysterious group, to design a logo for them. Its full of clues, dancing and people. I don’t want to give too much away at the moment. William Rigby (fellow member of Crystal Vision) will be acting as the main character, as he did in my last film “Tech Noir”.
What other kind of work are you doing at the moment?
A bumper double zine that you read from either end, you reach the middle, flip it 180 and you have the other zine… This is something separate from Eternal Truth: a little investigation into making to do with what you have, whether it be a fake Ralph Lauren T shirt on your body, or a low quality stream of South Park on your screen. I am also doing a party with my friend Eleanor in the summer, Positive Vibes meets Break 4 Love, creating the most uplifting evening of music you could hope for, celebratory disco and hopeful house all night long! For me this party is promoting the ideas behind my projects and making them real, the thought that people have gathered together in groups to dance for thousands of years seems like a great excuse for our party.
Click the picture above to see more of Rory’s work
Are the ideas for your work generally from one particular time period or artistic movement or do they very in source? Please give some names and ideas etc. that have helped this idea move forward.
My inspirations and ideas come from all over the place. There are some common threads that help them relate to one another, for instance I am very interested in when things first start. Like musical genres, or counter cultures and movements, or breakthroughs. When it’s just the bare essentials and a rough idea, that’s what gets me excited. There are less clichés and predictability, and more hard work, outrageous ideals, things not going to plan and almost always some fantastic iconography. This can relate to lots of things, like the white panthers logo, the first Can recordings, personal home pages, early house trax on cassette, pre certificate VHS releases, expanded cinema.
Your mixtape is a mixture of obscure tracks by world-renowned artists to recordings you have done at home using a karaoke machine. Is this mixtape also representing a journey to the eternal truth? Will there be more to come, and if there is do you think the last one will be what you think is the feeling of the eternal truth for you?
The idea for Eternal Music was the journey to the Eternal Truth. That being a place, a settlement of like minded people who have been gathered together magically and unexpectedly. So I imagined being suddenly transported from my everyday life on planet Earth, to another place so distant I can’t even begin to fathom where or when it is. I could imagine what sort of music I would listen to on my way there though, and that’s what I have tried to achieve with the tape. A musical journey though time and space, allot of space! There is another mix in the works now too, this time our travelers have reached their destination and they want to relax in paradise together and listen to something blissful.
Download Rory’s Eternal Music mixtape here
Read Rory’s Zine Pressure Eyes here
Interview and Photos by Shane Connolly