Roy Was Here and The PUBLIC are now accepting submissions for the Animation Party! short films up to six minutes maximum. Send us your amazing shorts to help send a kid to camp!!!! Partial proceeds from the event will be going to the Gordon Neighborhood House

check out our facebook page here

Labels: animation party, animation shorts, Gordon Neighborhood House, Roy Was Here, the PUBLIC, vancouver

So long 112 W Hastings St! It was a good time while it lasted at the Perel Gallery Building.
We're on to new projects at W2 Storyeum. Come say hello! We are still setting up, but will be functional very shortly.

cleaning up after moving out

Labels: fairwell, moving, roy was here creative studio, vancouver, W2 Perel

Members of Roy Was Here attended an event called "Vancouver's Most Wanted: Chin up, Chest Out, Give 'em Hell" at the Media Club. The money from the event went to Vancouver Battered Women’s Shelter . There were models, drinks and music!

our lovely friends from Ready Set Die headlined. Here are some of the photos. We will be working alongside ready set die creating some merch with them, so check back for more updates!

Labels: battered women's shelter, ready set die, Roy Was Here, the media club, vancouver

Roy Was Here is moved into Storyeum now all we have left to do is unpack! We are excited to start our new projects in the new digs. Thanks to our helpers from Summerland Hazel and Katrina!
taking flash drier apart for the move.

all packed up!

Photos of the new space coming soon.

Last but not least. Tonight (Sunday, April 18th) W2 will be screening Copyright Criminals at 7-10 in the new Storyeum space at 151 Cordova St. $10 dolla's at the door will gain you access as well as will also buy you one complimentary drink. Check it out! There will be a remix meetup at 9-10 pm - show off yer remixed works.

copyright criminals

Labels: Copyright Criminals, Gillian Cole, Hazel Sullivan, jeff wong, josh conrad, Katrina Fitzpatrick, moving, new space, perel building, Roy Was Here, W2 media

If we didn't work on Thursday night we would be at this event. A Rocker For Street Soccer hosted by the Portland Hotel Society at the Rickshaw Theatre on Hastings. Thursday April 15th, 2010 doors open 6pm

with Boogie Monster, Mezamazing and Special guests.
there will also be Silent Auction with very cool stuff. Meet the team and come out and have a fantastic time while supporting a good cause.

RICKSHAW THEATRE 254 East Hastings
tickets are $25.00 call 778 997 3930 to get your hands on some.

Labels: boogie monster, DTES, event, hastings, mezamazing, phs, portland hotel society, Rickshaw, silent auction, street soccer, vancouver

Roy Was Here Creative Studio will be moving from the W2 Perel Gallery building at 112 West Hastings into the old Storyeum building site located at 151 West Cordova Street in Gastown with W2 Community Media Arts. We will begin our move between this weekend and next weekend.

Check back for more info!


inside buildingold storyeum site front of building

We are gearing up to have a brand spanking new website, we have a few minor adjustments to make but keep checking back.

We have a new member of joining us her name is Vanessa and she likes kittens, check out her out on twitter @vanixx.

@vanixx

Labels: 151 west cordova, moving, Roy Was Here, roy was here creative studio, storyeum, vanessa, vanixx, W2 media arts

Besides from T-shirt's Roy Was Here also other things like animation and design.
Check out some of our videos on vimeo

Otherwise we're all keeping busy with a lot of side projects. Stay tuned for news, outings and events! Happy easter!!

Labels: animated, animation, bluetooth animation, design, easter, Roy Was Here, vimeo

Roy Was Here wants to thank everyone who came out to the DIY event. We specially want to thank the artists and designers, band and dj's, and of course our gracious host W2.

The artists selected for the DIY event were (in no particular order)

Reva Diana
Tony Insua
Caitlin Russell
Lydia Fu
Alexander Cho

Reva Diana
I’m not an artist. At least that is what I used to say. I was a graphic designer, a web geek or simply – a creative. An artist? No. Art is scary and only for the brave. But as time passed I found reasons to be brave. It feels good to be inspired and it feels damned good to paint. It’s been a long journey to this moment. So go ahead. Ask me if I’m an artist.

Labels: alexander cho, caitlin russell, design, DIY, Eunoia, event, Jabberwock, lydia fu, Matthew Johnson, new t-shirts, reva diana, Roy Was Here, tee, tony insua, W2 media

Now accepting submissions for D.I.Y. T-shirt Competition hosted by Roy Was Here and W2 Media arts.

Winners of the T-shirt competition will have their work shown in the gallery space on March 26th printed on t-shirts. There will be prizes to be won, musical entertainment all night long and t-shirts for the winners!! This is a great way to get your designs shown in a gallery and meet other artists and designers.

musical guests include: Matthew Johnson, Eunoia and Jabberwock

The theme is: from plain white to awesome (t-shirts will be plain white)

Please submit work to josh.roywashere@gmail.com. Please use the template provided below - (right click, save as) design away! and then (save as pdf) please also make a high res version so if and when your design is picked we can easily print a nice crispy version. Please limit your designs to four colors or less!



winners will be contacted after the deadline (Friday March 19th). Winners will be asked to supply a high res version of the design, good scan or vector image for printing after being contacted.
D.I.Y event on March 26th. If you have any questions please contact us at josh.roywashere.ca

GOOD LUCK!

Labels: competition, Roy Was Here, t-shirt design, W2 media

this clip was made by our Legal observer friends. we would like to share it with you. please feel free to check out their posts and video uploads on www.vimeo.com

Legal Observers in Action! from Legal Observers on Vimeo.

Labels: legal observers, olympics, Roy Was Here, screen printing

It's been a while since we've posted anything mostly because we're really busy in the month of February do to the Uh-Oh-lympics.

Here is a recent job we've completed for the Legal Observer team.



Other print production jobs this month include DTES CAN, Red Tent Campaign, W2 Media and Kulus Designs. Other non-screen printing jobs include designing the self-titled CD by Piper Davis and creating an animated advertisement for Surf Spot Media.

Labels: kulus designs, legal observers, olympics, piper davis, red tent, Roy Was Here, surfspot, W2 media

This is an article written by a writer for Athabasca University's Student Voice magazine which covers issues regarding collectives and more specifically Roy Was Here.

Collective activity has always been integral to human production and creativity. In precivilized times firewood was gathered for ceremonial and cooking fires. In agricultural settings harvest was a massive collective effort. During the Medieval era pottery guilds built their kilns and communities wherever clay seams could be found. Throughout the Modern epoch artist collectives have based themselves around common ideas and methods. Artists have always expressed the basic human desire for freedom to express feelings on subjects which transcend the bounds of language. The Roy Was Here collective manifests this desire for freedom to express, create and communicate and to reach as wide an audience as possible.

The urge to become fully human by expressing oneself is suggested by the Marxian term “species being”. The collective itself as a natural method of social creation is elucidated by the Deleuzian term “multiplicity”. Yet what collectives actually produce is perhaps most important of all.

In the ancient world collective action often involved forced labour or slavery. The Egyptian pyramids and sphinx are examples of this rigid, unyielding and authoritative collective form. Yet no one can deny the mystery of these creations. They seem to harbour something transcendental and otherworldly. Perhaps the pyramids and sphinx simply represent what people can do when they exert their will towards a common goal. In today's competitive and individualist environment what could seem more alien than collective expression?

Today's social environment is in many ways still controlled by authoritative people who squelch humanity's creative desires. Yet within this oppressive realm there remains room for resistance. As the postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard stated “Reality is not so much a bitch as it is a sphinx!” Dogmatic rigidity can give way to catlike reflexivity. The mystery and awe inspired by the sphinx of Egypt would surely pale in comparison to the creativity produced by collectives directly only by the impulses of participating individuals. The Roy Was Here collective represents a possibility such as this.


Just as the Egyptian sphinx was created by slave labour, many T Shirts people wear today are produced using minimal creativity and in mass quantities by underpaid workers. Expression becomes a slave to profits. Yet without profits economic reality hits hard. So, as in any production-based realm, ownership or control of the means of production is key. By owning their own equipment and making T-Shirts out of fair-wage source materials, Roy Was Here avoids oppressing workers while remaining economically sound.

T Shirts are relatively inexpensive. They are a proletariat canvas, a “medium for the masses”. As Marx noted during his lifetime, when Capitalist globalization was just beginning to ravage non-Western cultures, “the cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery...which batters down all Chinese walls” (Sayer, 1991, p. 53). The Roy Was Here collective is in a unique position to invert this destructive process by producing what Capitalism has the most difficulty in providing: the opportunity for authentic self-expression. Artists who might not otherwise be exposed can have their works sold in T Shirt form and reach a huge audience of eyes. This will pummel our society's barriers to expression which take the form of funding cuts by governments and monopolization of market access by corporations.

It is hard to think of anything more liberating than self-expression. This is the idea behind modern collectives. They enable the true desires of participants to take shape and become literally or metaphorically animated. This 'life of its own' persona is, according to the two-man social theory collective of Gilles Deleuze and Felixe Guattari, a function of how we are as human individuals. For Deleuze and Guattari we each embody a multiplicity of selves. “There is always a collectivity, even when you are alone”. (D and G 1000 Plateus, p. 152) What they mean by this is that we each have many versions of ourselves depending on the social situation. Each time a person creates or expresses something they are producing another aspect of themselves. In this way a collective is a natural outcropping of human nature. When functioning best, a collective overcomes the dyad of “one/many” and becomes a “shared identity, shared but separate”. (Gillian) Humming like power lines in an electrical storm, a collective represents creative capacity exceeding its component parts. It becomes an action, a “funnelling together of ideas from different sources/people/places to create something bigger and exciting”. (Gillian)

Human social activity naturally takes collective form. Outcomes may be practical or impractical, edible or aesthetic. Whereas many artifacts of human society, such as the Egyptian sphinx, are the product of forced collective action, the greatest possibility for liberatory expression lies in collectives controlled by participants and working towards inclusive goals. The Roy Was Here collective combines these two aspects by being non-hierarchical and making affordable products that can be consumed by anyone.

Jason Hazel-rah Sullivan

Labels: Athabasca, baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, Hazel Sullivan, Jason Hazel-rah Sullivan, Marx, medium for the masses, post modern, proletariat, reflexivity, Roy Was Here, sphinx, t-shirts

It's SUNDAY!

The Roy Was Here team has been busy this weekend. We have printed three more designs and are looking to do some more shortly.





We have a lot of orders in February coinciding with the "O" word (Olympics that is) as well we are going to be doing some artistic collaborations and design.

Here are some photos from PUBLIC Launch Party at 112 W Hastings (W2 Perel Gallery) which was the launch of Kwan's online magazine called Public, and last but certainly not least of our other outing to 221A Pact: Even

Labels: 221a, design, illustration, kwan, new t-shirts, public launch party, roy was here creative studio, roywashere.ca, sunday, t-shirts, W2 media

Check out the new Led Sculpture at 6th and Clarke by artist Ken Lum. The artist won over $250,000 to complete the piece.

He's heard the debates over the decades that the East Side always gets "the short end of the stick" when it comes to parks and political power.

But Lum doesn't see his sculpture as a piece of art that will necessarily make people feel better about living on the East Side.

"I've had questions about it, but once people understand the story behind it, I think they'll realize it doesn't really have a religious connotation," Newirth said. "There are going to be those people who love it immediately and people who will take time to warm up to it."

If the sculpture has any religious overtones, it's that many East Side residents, including Italian and Irish immigrants, are Catholics, said Lum, noting the long histories of Notre Dame and St. Patrick's schools.

Labels: east side, East Van, East Van Cross, Ken Lum, Vancouver artist, Vancouverite

So tonight we were given the opportunity to tell the world who we are and what we do...thanks to Jay Peachy of Sound Therapy Radio. We were featured on a segment called ‘The Artist Lounge” on CJSF 90.1 FM which brings together artists of all genres to talk about their creative expressions.

Getting ready in the studio...

Local Vancouver band, A Grey Medium was also featured on this segment...check out their music here.

A prize pack (movie tickets to The Book of Eli) is still available for entering the best Roy story to jay.peachy@yahoo.com so send in your stories now! We will post it on our blog.

Just in cased you missed us tonight, you can listen to a recording of our interview here. It was a first time for all of us so please excuse the awkwardness... but we had a lot of fun so that's all that matters!

Here is a group picture of Roy Was Here Creative Studio, A Grey Medium and radio host Jay Peachy.

Labels: A grey medium, animation, art, cjsf, design, interview, J Peachy, local, music, radio, Roy Was Here, sfu, Sound Therapy

Roy Was Here will be on CJSF 90.1 FM (SFU radio) on Tuesday January 12th at 7pm with radio host J Peachy. If you want to listen and tune in from your personal computers you can listen to us live at cjsf.ca.

We will be talking along side of a band called "A Grey Medium" check out Sound Therapy Radio!

Happy Holidays from Roy Was Here and a Happy New Year (that didn't intentionally rhyme, but we're going to go with it)

Labels: christmas, Gillian Cole, happy holidays, holidays, jeff wong, josh conrad, roy collective, Roy Was Here

We were at Gallery Gachet last week celebrating the launch of their new arts and literary journal - The Ear.

The Ear is published three times a year by Gachet Publications, an arm of Gallery Gachet. Its mandate is to provide a space for marginalized, professional artists to publish their work. Each journal will feature literary and visual contributions; stories, poems, essays, photography, drawings and paintings. This issue’s theme is “atypical perspectives”, a celebration of work that looks at reality through diverse perceptions. Read the bios of contributing artists here.

It was a night of good music and amazing talent! The line-up included a sing-a-long by Vanessa Richards, performances by DB Buxton, Misha-Q, The Shottas and a special guest appearance by C.R Avery.


The Motion Sickness Animation Collective also contributed that night with projected visuals which accompanied the performance of Misha-Q and The Shottas. Here is a short clip:

Visuals at Gallery Gachet from The Motion Sickness Collective on Vimeo.

And of course, what is a party without Cheese Photobooths? Here's a shout-out to Cameron! We love your photobooth. Next time we will attempt to break your record again, we only managed 10 in the end.



Peace out!

On the weekend members of Roy Collective participated and attended "12 hour vigil" a project curated by Stephanie Ellis which speaks to the arts funding cuts.

The project was setup so an artist would show their work every hour. Their was a tent setup outside of the art gallery on Robson St. Josh showed his work at 11 am on Saturday, and Gillian showed hers at noon to one pm.

Labels: arts cuts, arts funding, creativity counts, Gillian Cole, josh conrad, stephanie ellis