For the past two years I have been working on developing an art and film project called APPETITE. I was motivated by observing the insatiable desire that motivates human beings from the start to the end of life and the effect this is having on our planet, and inspired by the metaphor of eating and cannibalism.  I wanted to make a project that incorporates all my artistic skills and interests into a complete world and story and film seemed like the logical medium. Thus the idea for “APPETITE” was born. It is a film and art project, consisting of a short film, an art exhibition, and a live cinema piece. The project incorporates animation and film into a multi-narrative story of a funny, grotesque and philosophical journey through the belly of the beast and it’s inhabitants. 

I have not posted anything about it here because it was - and still is - in preparation and development. I am happy to announce that the first Appetite exhibition is coming up and there will be an exciting opening event featuring performances by artists in the project.

APPETITE exhibition OPENING on May 3rd 2013, starting at 19.00 at Porcelaingres, Mehringdamm 55 / Sarotti Höfe, 10961 Berlin
with performances by artists taking part in the film:
- "Appetite" improvisational performance with the cast of the film: Ada Kowalewski, Dita Scholl, Lynn Femme, Stephen Patrick Hannah, Tomer Dotan  in the roles of the Journalist, the Queen, the Servant, the General and the Banker, respectively. Set by Michi Ukawa and Eva Garland,  costumes by Odile Hautemulle,
-  Grapeshade  - improvisational music and dance performance group with the film's violinist Biliana Voutchkova, Katharina Meves (dance), Ingo Reulecke (dance), Klaus Janek  (double bass and electronics) 
- Vataff Project - deep ambient set - music by our sound designer Viktor Marinov.
This is a fundraising exhibition towards to production of the actual film. 
It is on May 3rd -June 7th 2013
appetiteproject.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/appetiteproject
And here is the lovely flyer/poster by Nad Graphics.

"Treasure" : Last video for "Exquisite What?" project

Last year I was invited to participate in the the collaborative web based project "Exquisite What?" I have already created 2 videos for it in the past year. Here is the last video for the project, once more featuring gorgeous Milka Ivanova and created entirely by me. Shot on one of the last sunny November 2012 days, edited at the end of December 2012.

Video by Yagama featuring Milka Ivanova
Music by Alessio Ballerini

Happy new year! :)

Happy new year! May love bloom in the world!
A video from a Fire Connection performance at a wedding with  Milka Ivanova and me.

Nomads @ Zebra Poetry Film Fest

Between 18 and 21 October, 2012, the biggest poetry film festival, called "Zebra," took place in Berlin. Apparently they had many hundresds of application, and my video "Nomads" was selected to be shown as part of the "Excursions" Program, screened on the 19th and 20th in Kino Babylon-Mitte. It was a honor for me to have my work screened alongside some really good films, especially considering this video poem is only a "sketch" for my future live a/v poetry project. 
http://www.zebra-award.org/

FreeRotation Tenerife!!!

In the beginning of October 2012, I had the honor of being invited to perform at the first FreeRotation Tenerife festival in... well, warm and sunny Tenerife :)) It was a bit rainy as a matter of fact, but this volcanic island gave me and my FR friends a wealth of nice warm memories. It was an awesome party despite the inevitable difficulties that come with doing it for the first time. Thanks you dear Fernando, Em, Suzybee and Steevio and everyone else! I love you!
Below some photos and videos from my 2 quite different sets - with awesome Tom Ellis and my personal brain-twisting favourite, Shackleton. Thanks to Suzybee for the photos!

Tom Ellis in action

Nice dancer

Yours truly - Yagama in action

Sam Shackleton doing his thing

Shakleton

And some videos from my set with Tom Ellis below:

 

For a while, I have been a great admirer of sand art and wanted to experiment with sand myself. Creating the music video for the track "Liquid Meditations" by Dubdiver gave me just that opportunity! 
Special thanks to my friends for helping me in the process. 
Track released on Blue Flame records, 2012

The Journey

"The Journey", oil on canvas c. 30 x 20 cm., 2011

Usually, I don't paint landscapes nor do I frame my paintings. But this painting is different, because it is inspired by a place on the island of Thassos, which me and my family love. Another thing that makes this painting special is that it was a present for a special person - my father. The boat is sort of between journeys, the end of one is the beginning of another.

New video for the Exquisite What! web based project

My new video for the Exquisite What! web project, called "The Letter." With Milka Ivanova.
sound chapter by Enrico Coniglio. Camera, direction and edit by me.

Exquisite What! is a growing collective web project, where different sound and video artists compose a puzzle of music and images. The mozaic will be mixed and released on DVD and perhaps presented as an installation.

exquisitewhat.tumblr.com/

vimeo.com/exquisitewhat
exquisitewhat.tumblr.com/

In the steps of the he-goat...

This is a crop of the "In the Steps of the He-goat," which I painted in spring 2009. It's based on one of a series of collages from a a children's book which I remixed and renamed into "Life after death with our country friends" and revolves around animal and sexuality themes. The plan is to turn all the collages into paintings. 
The idea of this painting is that the male goat has passed through the fields, and in his steps those purple penisoid mushrooms have grown... so our protagonist is looking for him ... The full painting photo is in the painting section, but details from the background are better visible here.

Spring!

A stylised bloom I painted in 2007, owned by a couple in Bulgaria. I love the bloomtime!

Baba Marta

March has come and spring is on its way. According to Bulgarian traditions, this is the "woman's month." It is also the month when the popular tradition of the martenitsa is carried out - interwoven red and white adornments that people give to each other for good luck and health. When one sees a stork or a tree in bloom, one takes the martenitsa off and hangs it on a tree. It is one of my favorite rituals.

This is a 2001 sketch for a painting entitled "March" (in the painting section). You can see the martenitsa in the head of the tree-like figure, and she is holding a small blooming tree in her hands.

More info on the martenitsa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martenitsa

Black is Black, White is White?

The world is not black and white ... or is it?
Recently I finished the "Black is Black, White is White?" music video, set to the track by the same name by Elbee Bad on Voodo Trax records.
It took me a while to complete, but here it is!

Stills below...

Exquisite What! New video...

Exquisite What is a group of people assembling a series of evolving music/visual pieces via the web: each artist adding to a composition (audio/video) in sequence__E.W. means to be a sort of semi-open source project in progress that follows the surrealist method of “Exquisite Corpse”. We borrow this method we borrow to create something together, substituting words with music and images. Each artist involved produces a part, in turn, and passes it to the next artist who will continue the piece sewing his contribution to the end of the previous idea. A sort of unpredictable "non-zone" whose open ended nature makes it flexible and open to proposals...
vimeo.com/exquisitewhat
exquisitewhat.tumblr.com/
I created the opening chapter 1° for VI ° Scene "BENNI" with Jasmina Cholakova and my feet, camera Ilina Perianova and Yagama sound chapter by Andrea ICS Ferraris, I love it! Video and stills below...

Fire Connection in Space

In time for the holidays I collaborated on some very special photos with Fire Connection, the performance duo with Milka Ivanova of which I am happy to be a part. The photo session is part of our ongoing project. It seems the long time dream of creating a show that combines fire or glowpoi with projections is gradually coming true!Rosa Teixidor, a wonderful artist and friend, played the role of the photographer for the shooting, with great success. Special thanks to her!
Happy holidays and enjoy!

From my sketchbook...

I found some ideas for future projects in my old sketchbooks and I decided to share them with the world. Since I've gotten into digital art, I've been sketching much less, at least on paper. Looking at those drawings, I realize how useful it is for my practice. Most of them have a story to go with, the rest are mandalas and patterns. I will post them here one at a time, depending on my mood...

This is the 5 element mandala - a suiting beginning to this series of posts.

Mermaid drawing

Today I discovered this mermaid drawing while ordering the files on my computer. I no longer have the original. I drew this in January 2011, and it's called "Mermaid enchants." It's actually a return to a theme of mermaids and cosmic eggs. I did some similar etchings back in school. If I find images of the etchings, I'll post them up here...

Hachenburg Lichterloch

I had the pleasure of being invited to perform at Hachenburg Lichterloch, set in a fairy tale small town in Westerwald, Rheinland-Pfalz, during the last weekend of September. What I really liked about the event is that it was addressed to the general public of this small town area, rather than the usual artist-oriented goings on. The organiser, Kristin, was fantastic. Big cheers to her!

Me and Jasmina Cholakova performed KaroL:LoraK twice, to an audience of enchanted children (that was a first!) and their pet adults. (see photo above, by Matthias Ketz).I also enjoyed vj-ing with Zion Train, who performed a very lively set on the Saturday night. Very nice people! Unfortunately, the schedule was quite tight, so we missed most of the other acts we wanted to see...and they missed us ;) There were a lot of great fire performers, sculptures, lights, a candle maze and things that some people in this region have never seen before...I hope for them it was Wonderland.
Below are some photos Jasmina took during my set with Zion Train.
www.hachenburger-kulturzeit.de

Some more pics here

Back from Freerotation 2011:)

Back from Freerotation 2011:) It was great! Thanks to everyone involved, and I hope to come back!
I got to play with live video with great musicians, and met wonderful artists and great people of all sorts.
Above and below are a few stills from my set with J-Lab on 22.07. This set forms the basis of our evolving A/V piece, which he have for now called "Desires." More stills from this set here.

Below some stills from my set on 23.07 in Room 1 with Chicago Skyway.

More pics from my Freerotation sets here
And below, photos from nature in an abandoned mine in Northamptonshire...