Neasden Control Centre: Stephen Smith Lloyd

August 2nd, 2008

Stephen Smith Lloyd is the mastermind behind the controls at the Neasden Control Centre (www.neasdencontrolcentre.com) a place hidden in an unknown location, not unlike our very own secret submarine hidout. Neasden Control Centre is also a place where intriguing visuals and installations come from. Here’s a chat with the ultimate responsible for it all.

First of all: Why, where, how… did you become an artist?

It is hard to recall when that decision was made, if ever. As far as I can remember this was the only thing I wanted to or could do, a love of drawing and making things, that and not grinding down the 9-5 stone smooth.

You’ve published 3 books already and there is no text in them about you or your work. Also, in one interview I’ve been able to find you ask the interviewer not to ask about influences and a bunch of other subjects. Like many other artists, are you the kind that hate to talk about your work because you expect everything it has to say to say it for itself?

I don’t expect anything or to inform an opinion through words about my work, that’s why you won’t find any text in the NCC books. Visuals have refractions deep inside the core. I ‘m therefore not that keen telling people what to think as they are quite capable of doing it themselves. I’ve met a few walking talking art critics along the way though.

Then I guess you don’t you like to cultivate the star system approach to your PR and marketing strategy ;) ?

Nope.

It seems like much of your personal visual universe has much to do with imagery from the second half of the 20th century. For instance, you have images on your website about a project called The sixties and although it’s clearly composed of sixties iconography it doesn’t look too different from the rest of your work. Are you a nostalgic… maybe of times you didn’t even experience yourself?

This example you refer to is client work. Things look better with time. I’m motivated to turn soil on the past. Being able to finger pick and dig through a decades output with some kind of eye piece, shaped like a revolving discerning eye in soft focus. I admire the work of previous generations, a fondness for the handmade, especially fantastical utopian dreamland soaked with acid drowned in melodic fuzz guitar deleted concept album.

One thing that I find probably one of the most admirable of your work is the way you mix the analogic with the digital making it all part of a same proposal and in a similar way how you can do projects both more design-oriented and personal work making all looking part of a same discourse too. Do you see all your work part of one single body of work and you do it intentionally or does it just happens naturally?

It’s all part of the same soup to me. I didn’t define the boundaries so I don’t have to stick to them, if there were any rules anyway? it’s good to mix things up, play, experiment with different materials and ways of working and that’s what keeps it interesting. The body of work … It happens organically but pushing current ways of working happens most of the time through both client and commercial work . I take on only a few clients per year and try to balance out the work overall: exhibitions with film with print / installations etc… and always to try and keep things fresh.

Going back to the analog vs. digital I would say that the overall feel of your art tends over the first, with the digital being a mere tool but at the same time I don’t think your work would be the same if you had been born 30 years ago when all the technology we have nowadays didn’t exist (other factors to the time period difference aside). Would you agree on this?

Hhhmmm the analog vs digital question. But for me it’s just about using the tools available to you at that time in order to create. To forget the analog / digital as this never comes into the equation. Coming back to your point though maybe the work would look similar 30 years ago (who knows) then it was commonplace to use tons of media: blueprint copiers, different letrasets, photocopies, pmt machines, letter press, screen print… I could go on…and everything has already been done before (in this or a previous life).

And now back to the design vs. art, one question is maybe obvious: How do you manage to do both things: the commercial and the “purely artistic” stuff?

It just tends to work out that way: pretty naturally. The rest of the time is split between shows and producing other work; prints, personal work, walking the preverbal dog…

Doesn’t the clients you do design work for condition your creativity to obtain whatever communication or otherwise goals they have? Do you find this a challenge or a nuisance?

No, I’m lucky that I do many different things. The briefs are usually pretty open and flexible, even vague sometimes. Moreover, people expect something new, work of an experimental nature.

Maybe your work is very well known and precisely what clients ask you to do is the same type of art they see in your personal work. Is this the case and maybe that’s precisely the nuisance?

It’s good to surprise people to keeps things looking forward.

I would like you tell us about your creative process and particularly how’s the balance between the process and the result. Anything is good as long as it takes you to the desired objective or precisely is the process what makes it worthwhile and the result is just an expression of that process? Can you elaborate on this, please?

Most things start in the sketchbook or on paper somewhere, these are worked on and built up, photocopied, stood on and digested a while until the point when it needs to be executed into something else or dies. This process can be very quick or take a lot longer. I really don’t have an usual daily working practice but like the floor to paint, working at night and early morning. I think you have your own kind of temperature barometer inside that tells when something is right or finished or not (it’s sometimes hard not to overcook a good dish) a directional way map if you like or GPS in the inner zone. In the studio things may get left aside and re-appear when your not looking or trying to find something else covered in dust. Disorder ugly beautiful The mighty Thelonius Monk was right.

There’s a generation of artists worldwide that I think that share at least a somehow similar attitude and sometimes some aesthetics coordinates. Some of them come from the street art, some other, like yourself, are making the line between a designer and an artist very blurry… what do you think you share with other artists from that same “scene”?

For me it’s always for a DIY attitude. Creating something different and new whilst being part of something larger is part of it by nature, humor, connecting, hunger, fighting for what you believe in, staying clear of the wider system.

There’s a question that intrigues me from all artists in general and wanted to ask you about: How much of your personal visual universe comes from your childhood? Is the kid inside of you a big percentage of who you are as an artist?

Probably more than I think. I used to get these dreams in black and white, all animated and extremely fast adventure moving images, almost manga style but different, they came from who knows where one day. As a kid I was always pretty much into drawing, space suits, constructing, the usual stuff but always in a daydreamer mode.

What have you been working on recently?

A music video for Cineplexx, Helium cowboy 5year show and developing new work for a forthcoming solo show at the Calm and Punk gallery Tokyo later in the year plus other stuff to be realized over the next few months.

And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?

To free up headspace and confusion between NCC print, motion and other projects from my own installation / exhibition artworks. I ll be pushing all my personal work through www.stephensmithlloyd.com from now on.

Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?

A freestyle sound vision festival traveling geo disc tent on wheels

Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?

If I start this list I’ll miss people out… too much good stuff at the moment. Mebike in Amsterdam in september is looking good.

Entry Filed under: Artists