(keep scrolling down for random stuff)

<Wednesday, 14th January 2009>
i need a studio or deskspace to lay my head upon.



<Monday, 12th January 2009>


<Sunday, 11th January 2009>
When i was a little kid i was given a toy remote controlled submarine.
As soon as i got it i rushed out to the local park to test it out in the pond.
I never saw it again.


<Friday, 9th January 2009>

This website is best viewed on an old battered Mac PowerBook G4 15" LCD screen at 1280x854 resolution. Anything better than this will result in degraded quality.

Most people only listen to other peoples favorites.
Most people only look at what everyone else looks at, or edited selections of what is cool.
So what are you allowing yourself to do today?

The brief is just the starting point.
The bare minimum requirements to scrape by beneath the radar, to pass the test or make the grade.
A brief should always be subverted, extended & surpassed.

<Wednesday, 7th January 2009>


<Tuesday, 6th January 2009>



<Sunday, 4th January 2009> who cares what designers in New York/ London/ Milan/ Paris are showing this or next season?!!
Set your own style by learning a new creative skill : Cut & Make your own clothes............... hire me or barter skills/opportunities............. or visit my online school for free.

Julian Roberts Subtraction Cutting Tour of USA and Mexico 2008, in association with The Center For Pattern Design CA, and Código 06140 Magazine

<Thursday, 1st January 2009> goodbye Facebook, MySpace & Iqons. The following visual conversations were salvaged for your enjoyment :
[MySpace Blog begins]
Christmas Cracker Cutting :

plan build revise :



The Royal Institution of Great Britain, and Basso & Brooke Subtraction Cutting demos :

alone, unarmed and unafraid :

Northampton, Bath Spa and Brighton University Subtraction Cutting demos :

Liverpool Subtraction Cutting demo :

attract & repel :

one thing lead to another :

Subtraction Cutting at TEKO University in Denmark :

Creative Director of the SuperSuper Shows, London Fashion Week 2007/8 :

APPARATUS:

I'm in London Fields in bed.
I'm always to be found either in bed or on MySpace,
one or the other,
but never both.
Cos the internet cable isn't long enough to reach the bed,
and my laptops wi-fi's fucked.
It's a saviour i guess,
as otherwise the only thing happening in life would be
MySpace.
I'm saved that fate by the Grace of God.

METHOD:

Ok,
There's this bloke,
hero of the story.
All the characters revolve around him, they are his friends, his loves, his family, the situations he creates and sets in motion.
His influence is everywhere,
you immediately warm to him,
feel the familiarity of his presence,
the smell of warm Gucci aftershave on his clothes,
and in the corridors & rooms he enters & vacates.
He has presence seeping out of every pore,
all over the place.
He stands for something,
he sets balls rolling,
he inspires & changes the way people think,
their style, technique & approach.

Secondary characters then sharpen into focus,
more & more clearly.
Pretty & young & bright & hilarious,
as our hero sidesteps from view,
softly & unheard into the background,
into a supporting role,
into someone people now just talk about,
mention, quote, reference,
and slowly softly forget in all the excitement of the new characters arrival.
Lively, crazy, exciting, inspired,
the ones who succeed, get the attention, smoulder & burn,
who fulfil all our forgotten heroes expectations,
standing on the shoulders of giants,
becoming the ones who make all the hard work, dreams & theory
matter & count.

The party certainly shows no signs of ever ending.

But then everyone is suddenly & abruptly thrown into absolute silence,
by a new character appearing from nowhere,
flying out of the blue, stepping out of the shadows,
casting so deep a shadow as to throw the entire story into darkness:
our anti-hero, the antithesis, the exact opposite of where the story flows,
the flipside view, unmasked.

And this strange character is convincing as hell.
A real spanner in the works,
precise, exact, mindful, rendering everything previously written meaningless.
And this person,
this party-pooper,
just happens to also be the first character we were introduced to, our original hero.
He just went away & changed.
The focus came off him,
it span off some place we all very much enjoyed being,
we assumed he was with us all,
in spirit if not in body,
but no.
Instead he'd gone AWOL, gone underground.
He'd regrouped, had second thoughts, been gripped by despair, torn himself to pieces, questioned his own mortality, his reason for being, then found that reason & come out the other side smiling,
resolute,
having found the antidote,
sought out his own weaknesses,
and returned to stop his disciples & followers from completing his lifes work.
And nobody saw it coming or expected it,
not MacDonalds Happy Meals,
not Hollywood,
not Channel 4 or HBO,
not Diane Pernet or Super Super Magazine.
Least of all our beautiful & fabulous secondary characters,
they never saw a thing,
but who within a few lines,
paragraphs,
pages,
are blown completely out of the storyline,
like sherbet
for ever.

CONCLUSION:

Technology is painfully slow.
Computers limit my design work & potential.
The internet wastes my time with its vagueness.
The software never does exactly what i need it too, i have to work within its capabilities, it does not adapt to my needs.
I have loved computers with an addicts passion,
i have used them to create magazines, brochures, posters, graphics, illustrations, artwork, photographic trickery, websites, databases, networks, press releases, essays, speeches, projects, briefs, presentations, soundtracks, films, projections, installations, adverts, music videos,,,,
i have been a geek, a tech-head, a mac-boy,
i have done my time thinking & dreaming in code,
learning HTML & JavaScript when i could have been learning French or Mandarin Chinese,
communicating with machines rather than people,
mastering keyboard shortcuts, automated processes, multiple windows, leaps between applications,
hacking the system, pondering keystrokes, exploring the strengths, weaknesses & loopholes.
But now i'm reaching the end of this relationship and it's become tense.
No matter how 'Blisteringly Fast' the broadband connection or processor speed, or how vast the hard-drive,
i will always ALWAYS reach its limit & need MORE,
it's just a matter of time,
technology cannot quench my thirst, will never be fast enough, capable enough, big enough for everything i wish it to do.
Computers are made to become obsolete, to be taken to their limits, thrashed about, further developed, advanced, subverted, upgraded & eventually dispatched with .
Yes, it is amazing that computers can open & convert 500 JPEG's to GIF's automatically in the background while i rip code from some webpage uploaded the other side of the world in the foreground, whilst simultaneously burning music to disc, receive bulletins telling me what clubnights/DJs i'll be missing tonight, sending&receiving email, and trying as best i can not to be fooled into accidently clicking on all the distracting advertisments:
Mindfield,
but ONLY if i care & need this functionality in my life, or give a shit about JPEG's, GIF's &their use/purpose,
and need these sorts of distractions.
If i simply want to cut a coat it's not much fucking use to me.
In fact, it greatly hinders me.
Tries to stop me.
It gets in the way.
It makes my eyes sore by burning screen shapes into my iris, it twists my spine out joint, makes my muscles waste away, gives me repetitive strain injury from all the clicking, dragging & dropping, fries my nuts by overheating on my lap, and generally stresses me out/ does my fucking head in by being so painfully slow at every task i set in motion.
In the long run it might actually succeed in killing me.
At best i'll be left bruised, scarred, mad and deformed.

I get so tired of hearing technology sales people say: "But computers can make everything easier. They can give you ten pairs of hands, whereas, you only have one pair."
or, "Anything you can achieve with one pair of hands & two eyes, a computer can do with a thousand hands & a million eyes."

Everything is NOT replicable / duplicable.
Everything CANNOT be simulated or is already in simulation.
It's a cosy & half-brained modern myth spun out by Baudrillard & a world of copycat editors, mediators, stylists & artists with no imagination or courage.
Computers go as far as they are pushed, and no further.
Not one single step.
They are a huge limitation to the creative project or venture.

Just look how fast the computer works when i DISCONNECT IT FROM THE INTERNET.
Just see how everything works so much better when i QUIT ALL OPEN APPLICATIONS.
Just imagine how much richer, deeper, wider, more intricate & sensuous life might be if i TURN MY COMPUTER OFF COMPLETELY, FOR EVER.

[MySpace Blog ends]


<Wednesday, 24th December 2008> You start by running short distances, and then running back home. Then as you become conditioned to running, you start extending the distances, which take much longer getting to & back from. After a while, it just makes more sense to run to places you don't need to return from. It becomes an escapist dream and a physical challenge.


<Wednesday, 24th December 2008> Colourful lives are written about by people who live their own lives in black and white.

<Friday, 24th December 2008> "In the future, we will all be anonymous for 15 minutes" - anonymous.

<Saturday, 9th November 2008> The Geometry does not create static shape, it creates a ROUTE through the garment that helps resolve the shape. There are tensions at play between the body & cloth, and between the cloth & gravity. The pattern is a journey, a map that creates/expands space, rather than represents/limits it.

<Friday, 15th August 2008> MODERN ROMANCE = A BOY & A GIRL, PHOTOSHOPPED TOGETHER.

<Thursday, 14th August 2008>




All garments, video, graphics, websites and text are copyrighted to Julian Roberts (c) 2009. A lot of the images assembled above came from Google or somewhere, and are the copyright of their original owner. But their assembly together is very much my own doing, it's difficult to say really where creative ownership begins & ends, i'm certainly not averse to creative trespass. So no reproduction without permission, unless you're feeling subversive, punk.