Eric Coleman
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Eric Coleman globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Eric Coleman
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City/Place:
Highland Park, California
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Country:
United States
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)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (and here; the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet, and in the past it extended into what is now urban Salvador), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
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 — 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.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Ex Terra Brasilis
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX