The Changes

"The idea of harmony is telling, as it is a makebelieve band, an art band project without music. Yet 'music' becomes the central concept, albeit an untruth about the group. It is an underlying current in that this work is about the expression of musical ideas through visual aesthetics. In taking on the persona of a band, there are four people that come together to make noise. There are pieces that everybody brings in the same way that the bass guitar brings bass and the drums bring the beat, and somebody on keyboard brings the melody. It's so massive and overwhelming that it comes together as a full song. And it isn't about the solo, it's about 'the band'. There is actual rhythm, and there is sampling, which is the last twenty or thirty years of music. Most of the music that is important now comes from sampling, all with that repetitive beat. There are no actual musical instruments being used in that at all, even though what's coming out is music. The aesthetic and mode of production is dischordant. It's like really bad singing. And it's four people singing really badly at the same time, which makes it even more bad. But there is a harmony in the disparity. It is not possible to distinguish between the food and the clothes, and the music, and the art, and the books, and the films, they're all really similar. When it's said that The Changes are a band making music, it does actually feel that way. The silence doesn't matter, it is the idea of music."

The Changes started in 2002. All of them being in Tokyo, Misha and Shauna introduced Fergus and Shin (Sk8thing) to eachother. Misha wanted a band and walking the streets of Tokyo, he asked Fergus and the others to start one. Fergus started laughing and said yes and from there it all evolved.

There's not a distinction between The Changes and the other work they create; it goes hand in hand. It's not like 'Today I'm going to make art' and it's not about being an artist. It comes from the heart. It's a personal process about being who you are, being true to yourself. It's an honest process and personally related to their lives; to the records they listen to, the food they eat, the stuff they see etc. It presents where they're going through. Being influenced by the visuals of the 80's and 90's and listening to rave, metal, acid, punk, gangster rap, krautrock and disco, all the pictures they create and the music they make could be strange to others but are normal to them. It's their life.
The Changes is an outcome of how they see the world. The Changes is a splonge, an outlet. The vomit of shit that goes into their heads. Then it becomes relevant again and then it becomes art. Naturally.

"It is a documentation and expression of a lifestyle that is really strongly connected with appropriation and being aware of all things around you and taking and filtering it. A lot of it doesn't start with an idea. A lot of it starts with an action and then it is transformed into an idea. Aestheticism is the guiding light. The processes are similar to photography in that it's seeing something and taking it, in the same way that you take a photo. It was asked recently: 'Did you take that photo?' - 'Yes, I took it from the internet'. It is chaos and disjunction but unity can come out of that. So spastic and colourful and gaudy, irreverent and sometimes 'nasty', and there are so many references, but at the same time, there is real harmony. It is a perfect world to live in."

This is their 4th show, after Milan, Tokyo and Los Angeles. In Tokyo they've done a show in Jun Takahashi's basement gallery and in Milan in the Slam Jam store last year.
The 7th of November they'll open their first The Changes show in Australia at Utopian Slumps in Melbourne and more plans are made for shows in Copenhagen and London for 2009. Now Eindhoven... It's not the first time Shauna and Misha are in Eindhoven; In 2001 they were in Amsterdam and saw Kim Gordon was exhibiting in the MU, and they've visited the gallery. A lot of great exhibitions were shown in MU. Now they've been given the opportunity to expose here themselves with The Changes. All pieces and images are new and made for this exhibition; They've made all the screenprints in a printing studio on the Technical University in Eindhoven the week before the opening and all lightboxes are also made locally for the show. They've only been working towards the opening and didn't really have time to see anything from the city. For the opening party they've invited one of their friends from New York to DJ: Thomas Bullock from Rub-n-Tug. The day after the party they immediately need to leave the country...towards the next show.

"The idea of coming together is important. The gathering transcends the ego, a communal spirit. Coming from different parts of the globe, and utilising a shared language and knowledge to communicate to thers in different places. A universal gathered understanding and sharing. A glimpse of Utopia. A glitter (ball) of hope."

The boundaries of medium are not set and they don't care. It can be anything. Image, film, sound, there can be shadow dance, meditation or a drum workshop. The initial idea for the lightboxes was to use screens with moving images. Even though the images are not moving now, together they still have this big visual impact. It's an elemental piece, monolithic, but at the same time consists of hundreds little pieces and thoughts, scattered around the space. It sucks you in and you keep looking, discovering the different layers and stories within each image.

"Their work is based on the premises of affirmation and disengagement; release and liberty filtered through a barrage of references, some overt, some fanatically obscure, some entirely fabricated. But this aura of disorder becomes, in itself, remarkably engaging. It is impossible not to want to know, to make the links, to understand where it is from, why it is there, and where it is taking us."

"Thus The Changes evoke dual desires simultaneously; desires perhaps at odds with one another. At once, there is an impetus to think voraciously about the source, the mental paths and conceptual direction of the work. As a catalyst for investigation, it warrants intense study. Yet at the same time, the supreme intensity of the encounter almost negates critical engagement, if simply for the pleasure gained by letting yourself go with it."