For the 2nd year in a row PILOT has been announced as a finalist in New Zealand’s Best Design Awards. Last year we went on to win the coveted Gold Medal for excellence in Editorial Design and we’re hoping to make it two in a row at this year’s awards in October. Either way, it is a huge thrill to make it through to the finals, we’re told that the BeST Awards received a record number of entries this year. At PILOT we work very hard on the design of the magazine and take a lot of pride in the way we present ourselves. The fact that people notice is a brilliant feeling. A big shout-out to Arch and the team at Inhouse for their ongoing design excellence. HI-5!
New Zealand Mint Jewellery introduces the new me Black Onyx collection of sterling silver jewellery. Black Onyx is a rarer cryptocrystalline form of quartz. It is said that black onyx can help you to find / focus your dharma, your ‘true path’ and help you to walk that path. The New Zealand Mint Jewellery me Black Onyx collection designs embody ancient mythological and religious cross, circle and tear drop symbolism.
Anya Whitlock: In Hot Pursuit of a Tale
31st August- 2nd October Preview 5:30pm August 31, Pierre Peeters Gallery, Parnell, Auckland
Following whiffs of nostalgia to rediscover what she was instinctually drawn to in childhood, Anya Whitlock’s first solo painting show sees her delve into childhood fairy tales to understand the various stages and psychological traps that a woman can become damaged and broken by. “Fairytales are often cautionary tales and it is possible if attentive to avoid many booby traps and also deeply heal present hurts,” she explains. The artist works from a leafy studio north of Auckland, where she creates her arresting large-scale paintings; their Utopian and seductive depiction of the female form underlined by something darker and slightly sinister.
From Rolling Stone: The idea of celibate vampires is ridiculous, True Blood creator Alan Ball says. “To me, vampires are sex,” he says. “I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.” On his show, every available orifice is used for intercourse: gay, straight, between humans and supernatural beings, and supernatural being on supernatural being, whether he be werewolf, dog or an enormous Minotaur-looking being called a maenad. None of the sex is quite as good as vampire sex, though, which can happen at the astonishing rhythm of 120 bpm while simultaneously devouring one’s neck and making your eyes roll back into your head. Says Stephen Moyer — who plays Bill Compton, the undead Southern Civil War Veteran — “If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn’t one before. It’s a de-virginization — breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there’s something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that’s pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive.” He laughs a little. “Plus, Robert Pattinson is just hot, right?”
The New York Times reports that, “An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country…”
Kanye West’s video for new single ‘Power’ is directed by artist Marco Brambilla. Kanye is quite serious when he says, “It’s not a video, it’s a painting” as you’ll see when you watch the clip. Describing the video, Brambilla said, “This is a highly constructed, highly mannered, somewhat religious tabla that communicates the end of an empire,” adding that his “work often deals with the seduction and the alienation present in contemporary culture.”
For now the clip is only 90 seconds long, one can only presume the full edit is on the way, but so far, this thing is. . . AMAZING!
A week or so ago PILOT Editor Andy Pickering chatted with Charlotte Ryan, the host of 95bFM’s Morning Glory radio show. You can listen to an MP3 here, and it’s quite the nice wee listen too…
Sydney and Melbourne readers, please be advised that Pilot is now available in all Australian Mag Nation stores. We really can’t speak highly enough of the nice people at Mag Nation. Their 3 Auckland stores are just fantastic, they stock every magazine you can think of, and crucially, the staff are magazine people. They get it. And so far, it seems that the Aussie Mag Nation stores are just as good. Mag Nation Aussie told us earlier today that Pilot has landed and gone straight on to their “our favourites” wall, and is already selling fast. Aussie readers, go get it…
Here is the opening page and a few spreads from another of our new issue’s fashion editorials. This is one is super fun, it stars the next big thing from Clyne Models – Jessica Clarke, in a very cute story shot by Charles Howells at 90 Mile Beach. See the full editorial in our new issue…
The feature presentation in our new issue consists of a 32-page art & text driven narrative on the concept of The Singularity. This is a complex and controversial subject, dear reader, but essentially, The Singularity refers to a transformative event predicted to take place in the year 2045, after which a form of immortality becomes possible. A quick overview would go something like this:
Ten years into the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most exciting and transformative period in our history. We are at the dawn of a new era that will be defined by an emerging biotech / nanotechnology / artificial-intelligence revolution with the potential to change the very nature of what it means to be human. In the coming decades our species will transcend our genetic and biological limitations to achieve unimaginable new heights of intelligence and longevity. This is The Singularity, the theme of this issue’s feature presentation. A new generation – born from 2010 onwards – is about to create the next paradigm shift in the evolution of the human race. We’re calling this new generation The Immortals, as in The Immortal Generation, because if you are alive to read this magazine today, there’s every chance that you, or a version of you, might just live forever…
We put a lot of work into this feature, and what can we say, it’s intense (in a good way). To read the full 32-page feature, grab a copy of the new Pilot Magazine, out now…
This issue’s Grand Visual Narrative is an in-depth interview with American artist Josh Keyes. We’re fans of Josh, and the feature is spread across 10 pages to really showcase his superb work. The first 3 spreads are above. As well as being an accomplished artist, Josh is an arts lecturer and tutor, and a deep thinker about his own art and its place within art history. It is always a joy to interview an artist with something to say, and Josh is one of the more articulate people we have ever interviewed. Josh really put a lot of thought into this interview, and the result is a dense and compelling insight into the artist’s art and worldview. As a small preview, here is one of Josh’s responses.
PILOT: We like how in some of your works, you present a very dystopian post-apocalyptic point of view, while other works express the utopian ideals of people like Buckminster Fuller…
Josh: I read an article recently which explained the cultural phenomenon of fixating on apocalyptic ideas and imagery. It’s called eschatology, which is a belief, or psychology, that we are approaching the End Time. To me this is a clear signal that an understanding and acceptance of change, transformation, and death is missing from our western mindset. They exist in film and literature but have not been integrated in our culture, our rites of passage of old age and dying. This fear of the end of time relates both to religious and spiritual beliefs and to our own individual relationship to mortality and to the unknown. Dealing with age, dying and how to let go are very difficult issues to deal with and accept. I don’t know if there is a contemporary global mythology or view that incorporates this. There are seasons of death and rebirth of trees and plants; can the earth itself have a cycle of decay and rebirth? Is human activity helping to speed up a naturally occurring cycle? I agree with Fuller’s conception of “spaceship earth” and that we are stewards and astronauts riding on a great spaceship. This idea he proposed so many years ago makes perfect sense. To see us, the world population as one people, one people who hopefully are tolerant and can celebrate each other’s individuality and differences. This to me is the vision we need to embrace, and Bucky, had it years ago. Religion, money, ownership and property will always be a source of trouble and I don’t see any of these disappearing any time soon. The best we can do and hope for is to work at becoming a tolerant, compassionate, yet somewhat dysfunctional global family.
Told you he was articulate. To read the full interview, pick up the new issue of Pilot Magazine…
Here are a few spreads from one of this issue’s seven fashion editorials. This is fast-rising Australian model Julia Nobis photographed by Derek Henderson. Julia has only been modeling for a couple of years, but she has really captured the moment and gone straight to the top of the international model lists, walking in fashion weeks around the world, and shooting for British Vogue and Italian Vogue this year. When Derek Henderson told us he wanted to shoot Julia Nobis for Pilot, we were thrilled. Derek and stylist Tamila Purvis did a fantastic job of capturing Julia’s charming goofy-ness. See the full editorial in our new issue…
Here is a very lo-res sneak preview of one of our favourite features in the new issue of PILOT. We’ve brought back The Cabinet of Curiosities, an ongoing regular feature in PILOT. This issue’s Cabinet is the best yet, we’ve remixed some of German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s incredible botanical illustrations from the turn of the century. The images here don’t come close to doing justice to the actual printed magazine. In the mag, this section is printed on different paper stock to the rest of the magazine. Delicious uncoated matte paper. As well as smelling fantastic, this paper is much more sympathetic to this style of illustration, giving the artwork the gravitas they deserve. See the full extended feature in our new issue…
On another note, we have a few new stockists with this issue. From Monday, you’ll find PILOT in newsagents, supermarkets, Borders, Whitcoulls and airports etc nationwide, but in Auckland, you’ll find PILOT in the following specialist independent retailers now! (They’re also our friends which is nice).
How hot is the Pilot issue #4 poster?! Haha. We like it anyway.
As said below, Pilot issue #4 is available now in Auckland from Mag Nation stores. It will be available everywhere else, nationwide, from Monday 12 July (next week). Yes, we agree that it is annoying that the mags take another week to get out and about around the country but these things are not in our control. Look for the posters to start going up after next week…
