From the Matrix, members of the creative economy reach around the planet.
Network Node
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Name:
Eric Coleman
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City/Place:
Highland Park, California
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Country:
United States
CURATION
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from this node by:
Matrix
Life & Work
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Bio:
L.A. born artist Eric Coleman began taking pictures at the age of twelve. His youthful hobby led to a career as a professional photographer in which, over a 10-year period, Coleman has grown to be an innovator with a unique style of photography. Coleman deepened his appreciation and enthusiasm for photography while attending The Royal College of Art in London. There he was able to cultivate his distinctive style of visual communication while honing his craft with top level professionals.
He gained his first editorial commissions while working as a freelance photo assistant for some of the most acclaimed photographers of our time such as Peter Lindhberg, Melodie Mcdaniel, Steve Heitt, Robert Erdman and Rankin. Coleman has honed his skills in a diverse range of fields such as fine art, photo journalism, fashion, landscape and music photography.
Eric Coleman partnered with L.A. based photographer B+ to form Mochilla, a production company that has grown to produce several films, music videos and music albums. As an Executive Producer and Cinematographer, Coleman spent the last three years working on “Brasilintime: Batucada com Discos” a film that explores the shared relationship between hip-hop and Brasilian music.
Coleman has exhibited his photographic work at the Transport Gallery in Los Angeles, Commonwealth Gallery in Virginia and the Royal Academy of Art Gallery in London. His photographs have graced the pages of numerous publications including InStyle, ReUp, Fader, Teen Vogue and many others. He shoots for record labels such as Stones Throw, Warner Brothers Music, JazzySport Japan, etc.
He has photographed actors and artists such Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Terrence Howard, Fergie (Black Eyed Peas), Madlib, Hill Harper, Christina Milian, DJ Shadow, Ernie Barnes, Faith Evans and MF Doom. Eric Coleman has produced popular photographic campaigns for many apparel manufacturers such as Vans, Elements, Elwood, Aesthetics, Alphanumeric, Live Mechanics and many more.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Mochilla is a production company formed by photographers Eric Coleman and B+ in 1997. The pair were working on a music video for DJ Shadow (High Noon) near the Teotichucan pyramids outside Mexico City. During a conversation with the Mexican producer in an attempt to explain their philosphy of shooting they stumbled on the Spanish word for backpack - Mochila.
In 1997 backpack was an almost derogatory term for independent hip-hop. Backpackers kept their rhyme books or spray cans with them at all times and this required a bag. The bag would be slung across their backs so that they would be mobile. “If the equipment doesn’t fit in the backpack we wont shoot it” became the defining rule in the formation of Mochilla.
It was part practical adage (both photographers being committed to a practice that prioritizes engagement over production scale) — part nod to the group of film makers called Dogma started by Lars Van Triers. Twenty years later Mochilla has produced multiple music videos, many music documentaries, several ad campaigns, twenty mix cds, two remix albums and more than one hundred album covers and it continues to grow.
The pair were instrumental in Banksy's Oscar nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Both Coleman and B+ have taken their respective fields to new heights selling films to the Sundance Channel, being distributed by Ninja Tune, touring Europe several times, executing campaigns for Levis, Adidas, Dickies and Vans. They have shown their work as Mochilla on five continents. They both have successful solo careers but their continuing collaboration is housed at Mochilla.
Clips (more may be added)
What's Been Happening?
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I. IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS BRAZIL: "The time has come for these bronzed people to show their worth..." (Assis Valente)
Quincy Jones>Alfredo Rodriguez>Munir Hossn>Roberto Mendes>Alumínio & João Saturno
II. AND THE MISSION (THE OPEN WORLD)
III. AND THE MIT ECONOMIST BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE BRAZIL-BORN Integrated Global Creative Economy
Matrix team-member Darius Mans, Economist (PhD, MIT), president of Africare (largest aid organization in Africa), presents Africare award to Lula (2012). From 2000 to 2004 Darius served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola, leading a team which generated $150 million in annual lending, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment. Darius lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador, Bahia.
IV. LET THERE BE PATHWAYS!
"I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
— Susan Rogers, Personal recording engineer for Prince at Paisley Park Recording Studio; Director, Music Perception & Cognition Laboratory, Berklee College of Music
"Many thanks for this - I am touched!" — Julian Lloyd Webber
"I'm truly thankful... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)" — Nduduzo Makhathini, Blue Note Records
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!" — Alicia Svigals, Klezmer violin, Founder of The Klezmatics
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))" — Clarice Assad
"Thank you" — Banch Abegaze, manager, Kamasi Washington
The Matrix uncoils from the Recôncavo of Bahia, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history and from where some of the most physically and spiritually uplifting music ever made evolved...
...all essentially cut off from the world at large. But after 40,000 years of artistic creation by mankind, it's finally now possible to create bridges closely interconnecting all artists everywhere (having begun with the Saturno brothers above).
Curate anybody in here. You appear on their page. Anybody in here curates you, they appear on your page...
...plugged into a superpower: the small world phenomenon.
By the same mathematics positioning some 8 billion human beings within some 6 or so steps of each other, people in the Matrix tend to within close, accessible steps of everybody else inside the Matrix.
And by extension, to within discoverable reach of everybody everywhere on the planet.
Small world curation is the Matrix's unprecedented innovation.
Because 40,000 years is a long time to wait.
And if all art is discoverable from everywhere, then Brazil's is too.
"The time has come for these bronzed people to show their worth..."
(Music by Assis Valente. Clip by Betão Aguiar. The Matrix was built in Salvador's Centro Histórico above, incorporating these marvelous people.)
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil's national music — the pandeiro — the hand drum in the opening scene above — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil's culturally fecund nordeste/northeast, where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoe) and raised in Olho d'Águia (Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil's aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
Nowhere else but here. Brazil itself is a matrix.
