Synth Eastwood are a submission based music, art and technology collective who put on art exhibitions that are more like a gig or nightclub than a gallery show. Since forming in 2006 the shows have gained a great reputation for quality. Along with the exhibited artwork, bands are invited to play alongside the Synth Eastwood band who perform a set based on the shows theme.

They have been asked to put on shows at festivals around the country and Europe including Offset, Electric picnic, The Fringe Festival and The Darklight Film Festival. At Darklight they were invited to curate an animation show in which animators like Chris Judge held talks. They have put on successful shows in Berlin, Prague and are currently planning a big show in Birmingham and a three day festival in Dublin next year.

Al Kennington talks to Scruff Daddy about the collective.

Where did the idea for Synth Eastwood come from?

All the members met through similar musical tastes firstly. Some of us had been in college together studying design, others video and others making or playing music. All of us enjoyed music and visual art. I think these two interests go hand in hand for most people. Those involved in music usually have a good awareness of visual arts and vice versa. I personally had set up club nights previously, and at the time of Synth Eastwood it seemed like a lot of new nights of similar styles had started. For us maybe the model had reached saturation point. We sat down with the idea of making something new and all encompassing of our combined skills and interests.

Chris Judge

Was it a reaction to gallery shows or was it just something that seemed natural to combine music, technology, visuals and art?

Charlie Doran and I were in the group that set up Monster Truck Gallery on Francis street. This gave us a direct insight into the running of a Gallery from the inside. It is interesting in many ways to see how people react to coming to a venue to view art specifically. For those directly involved in the creative world it is a wonderful thing, they feel more than comfortable to engage, but for those that aren’t it can be quite an intimidating atmosphere, one that’s alien to a large percentage of friends and family. This is an atmosphere that is completely different when viewing music in a live environment. Virtually every single social event anyone will attend from a young age, there will be music involved. When you combine the two there is something for everyone which works well to help new comers to engage in visual art. Much more so than if they were to go see it on its own.

Was it difficult to go from the initial idea to actually putting on the shows?

Not really, the group that we formed have a wide range of specialities in all the areas we need. So none of us are too far away from our comfort zone. The Group started with Jon Averill, Karl Toomey, Dave Darcy, Charlie Doran, Simon Cullen, Davey Ahern and myself. Jon was a DJ / Promoter and Designer. Karl was a Designer with AAD Angry Associates. Dave was a designer with Form in Stonerybatter. Charlie was a VJ and Videographer. Simon was a Musician / Composer and Sound Engineer. And I was a Designer and Promoter. So we all had enough professional experience to know what to do and enough confidence to wing it where we didn’t. We got amazing help from friends, family and associates not only with support, but advice, contacts, equipment loans. All sorts.

How important is the business side of it?

Its very important. You can have all the best ideas in the world but if you can’t make them work economically you wont be able to exist past a few projects. We all have different experience in the running of events, managment of bands, live production, curation, marketing and promotions, working in proffessional studios. None are direct business training but all of these help us be organised with tasks and planning as best we can. So far we have been surviving on tiny budgets. Our DIY nature means we can get a lot of return for a small investment. Synth Eastwood has been a labour of love. We haven’t made and money and haven’t lost any money and any time spent has been a pleasure because we are interested in it. As we move forward and shows get bigger we need larger money to bring them to the next level.

Family

Have ye gotten sponsorship or do ye find this difficult to come across?

All the sponsorship has come privately from companies and supporters. Heineken, Becks, G-star, Form Design, Micromedia, Nightflight and Extrabrite have helped. Larger Sponsorship has been difficult to nail down. It is a constant struggle in the current economic climate. But we’ll keep trying.

The website seems to allow experimentation in different mediums like animation, GIF’s and video, it must be good to be able to express to express yoursleves creatively like this?

Yeah the website is our base at the moment. We have the internet to thank for all our success so far. We have received huge support and submissions from all over the world. The website and various blogs have made word travel in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without expensive advertising. It's amazing how you can float an idea and attract a response from every corner of the world for free. We are currently developing our site into more of a web 2.0 setup. Its a big job but very exciting.

Do ye have to put aside your own creativity when ye are organising the shows?

No not at all. We really consider the themes so they are applicable to as many different areasand mediums. Like sounds, motion, print and also that they are relevant to the time the show is on. We picked Flags and anthems because the show fell on the same day as the Euro vote. We picked Homemade to parallel the feeling of DIY that was growing post economic crisis. We constantly try and think of submissions for the themes as we organising them. Picking the music, content, building the Synth Eastwood band set, designing the promotional material, curating the show all these things help us get our stamp on the events.

A Synth Eastwood show

How did the link ups with festivals abroad come about?

We were asked to do a visual set at electric Picnic by a friend, John Mahon from Bodytonic. After the the success of that we put music to the show and another friend of ours, Dee Quinlan suggested us to the Czech Arts Council. She was showing a collection of Irish Short films as part of an Arts festival and we were asked to take part too. From the video of that we were asked to perform at Hop Farm festival in London. Its great how things naturally evolve and carry on from each other. I would advise taking great time to heavily document any project done. You never know who might see it.

What are the plans for the future for Synth Eastwood?

For the next year we are doing one large show in Birmingham in February as Part of the Flatpack film festival. In Ireland we are planning a 3 day city festival, dates havent been picked yet. We are in talks with funders at the moment but details shall be posted as soon as confirmed.

Check it: www.syntheastwood.com