STRP Festival 2011-teaser from bart hess on Vimeo.

Bart Hess is known for his fascinating, but sometimes slightly horrifying designs. According to Bart himself he was seen as ‘shy’ and ‘introvert’.
Bart graduated in 2007 with his project ‘Hunting the Hightech’, which showed images of mutant skins, breathing shoes, living furs, and metallic gloves.

HeyHeyHey’s Elske and Erik make it easy to look at deformed objects and like to create magical mixed media machines in their free time, hence ‘Melvin the Machine’. These creatives decided to pair and work together on visuals that reach beyond the customized human being. Bart and HeyHeyHey both started at the Design Academy—and reside—in Eindhoven.

Written by Cindy Iseli

Bart Hess is exploring several fields that straddle material, animation and photography, these fall within the commercial and art world. Bart works with his instinct and starts by using a material on the body, exploring volumes and ways of re-shaping the human silhouette. He creates imagery that captures future human shapes and new body form’s. Bart is discovering a low-tech prosthetic way for human enhancement.

photography: Nick Knight/SHOWstudio

Bart: “I think I’m not so good at storytelling with words, but rather expressing myself with stories through images and visuals.”

Others, and not just anybody discovered him: fashion icon and pop star Lady Gaga asked him to create an outfit for her upcoming new album ‘Born this way’. Who could wear a ‘slime dress’ better than Lady Gaga? He created a specific type of ‘slime’ and poured it over her body, which resulted in fantastic imagery from director and photographer Nick Night.

HeyHeyHey (picture above) invited Bart to work on a new project for STRP Festival. Together they started investigating new archetypes of their new human, which could result in a happy mutant version or a more stylish one. With lighting, a super flexible type of rubber skin, and extra parts underneath it —can you hold your breath for 30 seconds?— six different types of moods were photographed and filmed.


Although it looks like the photograph is ‘shopped’ with effects, this was hardly the case. The fabrics and particles on the model did most of the works, resulting in people dissolving into another world. A film is in the making, but not yet ready to showcase (stay tuned to STRP’s Facebook page for updates)

visit the websites:
barthess.nl
heyheyhey.nl
melvinthemachine.com
we-make-money-not-art.com
strp.nl

The STRP Festival will be held November 18 – 27, 2011 in the Klokgebouw in Eindhoven (NL). In the upcoming weeks Cindy Iseli and Myrthe Velter from STRP will keep us up-to-date about Art & Technology!