Contributors
Each magazine has its own personality, voice and style.
Trebuchet is an intelligent magazine that couples critical insight with excitement and vigour. It is important to note that we view quality writing as more than academic summation of facts or a recitation of buzz words aimed at tickling the media heightened senses of passive readers.
Essentially the only thing that any Trebuchet editor asks their writers is ’So What?’ Aren’t we covering important topics? Yes, but unless the article actively engages the reader it’s useless. A trebuchet is a tool of contact, recognition and active engagement, used equally to attack and defend; the magazine should be the same.
Kailas Elmer (Founder/Publisher)
Kailas Elmer has been a journalist for over 16 years writing on subjects as diverse as 1999/2000 NYE at Ken Kesey’s Farm to the Spice Girls. His first piece was published when he was fourteen for Oyster International Fashion magazine based in Sydney and since then he has written for Rip It Up, Zavtone, Esquire, Blowback, Onion, Substance, Buzz and more. Over the past three years he has been a freelance editor for print and online publications in Europe. Educated at the London School of Economics he wrote his Masters thesis on the globalisation of labour and the effect of International trade on small communities.
Sean Keenan (Editor)
Sean Keenan writes. It just always ends up that way. Probably just as well, as he's useless at picking up the phone. When he was a barman, punters learned to avoid him in the slow moments, fearing a buttonholing of rapid monologue on the relative merits of synchronic and diachronic narrative structure, or alternatively on the crucial differences between genuine espresso crema and artificially-enhanced froth. They also avoided him because he was a mopey sod.
He gave up teaching because his students developed nervous tics, gained an overwhelming knowledge of critical theory, but had no clue how to describe what they did over the summer holidays. Steel-lathe operation was the only job he ever got sacked from, but to be fair, most of his other employers were pretty relieved when he quit. As an academic researcher, he ended up writing. As a stock-photograph re-toucher, he ended up writing. In his present role as label manager at BlancoMusic, he spends as much time writing the label's blog as he does taking sobbing vocalists out to cafes and telling them 'No pet, your voice was spectacular on that, seriously. Enchanting, ethereal. Must just be something wrong with the mic. Let's do it again though, yeah?'
He's got a PhD certificate with his name on it somewhere in in an attic somewhere, and another one proclaiming him as Downhill Skateboarding Champion of the Basque Country 2009. He knows exactly where that one is. Divides his time between mid-Spain and South-West France, like one of those bucktoothed, fur-clad minor-aristocracy ogresses you see in Hello magazine, only without the naff chandeliers.
Read more of his scribbles at http://blancomusic.wordpress.com
Rebecca Collins
Becks has spent many years elbowing her way into any cultural industry that gave in. During her BA in Classics with Film she worked as a Press officer for Tacit Theatre in Surrey and also moaned about the London classical art scene in various college publications. After tiring of the thespians and the ancients, and having had a dalliance with the world of fashion, she decided to focus on contemporary art. This has so far proved rewarding, especially where free booze is concerned. She is currently general assistant at NL- The Dutch Cultural Pop-Up Space in London and guest curator for Trajector Art Fair 2011, Brussels, and is also studying Cultural Industries as an MA.
Louise O’Hare
Louise O’Hare is currently undertaking research for Afterall. Her writing has been published in TANK magazine and will be included in a catalogue on Marcel Dinahet due to be published by Liénart editions in November 2010. She has worked for Damien Hirst and Domobaal and is a graduate of the Royal College of Art Curating Contemporary Art MA. She lives and works for George Polke, London.
Douglas Bulloch
Douglas Bulloch began his adult life by studying for a degree in Middle Eastern History and Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. This was followed by six years working in the International Oil Industry and an MA in International Relations and Contemporary Political Theory at Westminster University. He is currently completing his PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics, during which time he spent a year editing Millennium: Journal of International Studies. He has written widely on topics as diverse as nihilism, piracy, 'the partisan' and is now nursing an obsession with existential dilemmas. He prefers questions over answers, has little time for dogs, believing that they lean by nature towards fascism, and enjoys absurdity over irony about 80% of the time.
"I am interested in explanations that reveal the prejudice hidden in convention. I tend to assume that the majority opinion is always wrong, except when it is right for the wrong reasons. Writing is difficult because it demands originality of thought and expression, but this also makes it important and worthwhile. Powers of description cannot improve a bad idea but they can enoble an unformed thought and turn it into a provocation and, maybe once in while, a revolution. Good writing is about surprise, disorientation and discomfort, before envigoration and elation. It is the joy of revelation and realisation and the means by which we see the world anew. Words matter because they are prior to truth. Writing matters because it continually remakes our world. Good writing matters because our world matters, to all of us.".
Birgitte Lund
Birgitte completed her Master Degree in illustration in 2002 going on to work as a freelance designer for 2 years before she decided to study a Master degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. Birgitte Lund has participated in group shows in the UK, Denmark and Italy and her art and illustrations have appeared in journals and magazines internationally. She is currently living and working on the Isle of Wight UK, where she is doing an Arts Council based artist residency.
Alex May
Alex May is a programmer of wonderful things, web monkey, journalist,
author, real-time digital video artist, consultant, and musician
working relentlessly from his den of wires and fury in Lewes.
He can be contacted at Bigfug.com
Jamie Huxley
Jamie Huxley was born 1978 and understands you have a limited interest in his biography. He is currently writing corporate poetry for big companies. He also writes other stuff under the personal brand of copy without cans. He understands language started watching Big Brother and began using the word random as a noun. One of the plays is named after his favourite album. He hopes you’re sitting comfortably.
Clifton Evans
Clifton Evans is an Interaction Designer and Information Architect. He was an active member of the communities that helped to form the field of IA and has a masters degree in interaction design with westminster university in london. His current personal work is involved in furthering his masters work, community tools for exchange, immersion and learning.
His role as an Information Architect has taken him from Vancouver to New York, San Francisco, Singapore, London, Barcelona, Rotterdam and Dublin to work on designs ranging from installations and community-scale works to enterprise-level systems. He has co-written a book on design within ecommerce development, taught and given seminars on the design of interactive systems and also works as an artist both outside and within the field. He looks at the world of interactive design as a playground for new opportunities, a place to be constantly creating new approaches and creating new systems of interaction.
He currently works from Berkeley, California, where he has continued to work on both media arts research and international interactive systems. He can be contacted via cd (at) nicer.ca
Dave Graham
David Learnt composition (harmony, counterpoint and orchestration) to degree level through studying Schoenbergs Fundamentals of Musical Composition, the classic text on twentieth century harmony by Vincent Persichetti, Henry Mancini's Sounds and Scores, Rimsky-Korsakov's excellent books on orchestration as well as studying any scores that intrigued me. He is a founder member of two bands, avant pop duo Cnut, and orchestral doombience outfit Regolith, and have performed across Europe with them.
Make Better Music is updated every Tuesday.
Blog
Matthew Devereux
I was born in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1978. I currently live in Woking in Surrey. Without anybody much noticing, I recently unilaterally awarded myself the Noble prize for literature and also the Turner art prize. On reflection, and in particular by applying the Groucho Marx club principle, I decided that I deserved neither and therefore if I should ever receive both, I would give the former away to 724 women (which would, in gender terms, even up the number of awards given since 1901) and the latter away to 83 women (which would even up the number of nominations since 1984). I am open to suggestions for who those 807 hypothetical women should be. I recently changed my middle name to Amadeus in homage to Wolfgang. I cannot rule out adding an extra middle name at some point in my life which would probably be 'Sphere' in homage to Thelonious Monk's middle name. That way, the next time I write a bio it could become a biosphere.
Matthew Coleman
"I am an observational photographer, searching for the beauty in what appears, to some, as the mundane; looking for colour, for exceptional scenes in the everyday that burst forth before me. I strive to discover beautiful things; to unearth, capture and document them. It is the romantic within me, seduced by life as it unfolds before my eyes."
http://matthew-coleman.co.uk/
For 'Lost in New Jersey' his work was edited into a series of success triptychs by Peter Venner
Phil Rockstroh
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City.
Yet a bio amounts to dharma for dimwits: It defines a human being in the same manner and degree of veracity as a restaurant menu describes the various slabs of meat offered … commodified things that were once living beings.
A bio can never speak the native tongue of the breathing moment. Rilke taught us: The language of soul is a terrifying angel: it does not comfort – it decimates our daily concerns because its vocabulary consists of the eternal; it’s grammar and syntax connects the narrative of all things. It speaks: Star, Ocean, Storm. It does not say: “Good Boy: You’ve been so well behaved, so filled with dignity and decorum, so utterly appropriate for your age and era. Good boy. Now, here’s your reward: a life free of doubt and uncertainty. Are you feeling better now? Good – Now back to work.”
http://philrockstroh.com/
Our Bartlett
Our Bartlett is Dalston-based Ruth Bartlett. She has been described as someone who "basically does nice things". She is usually to be found en studio, working hard like a good little bunny.
Ruth studied Illustration at Brighton University, but mostly made photographic work. She says: "I've worked in publishing, hospitality, styling, special effects, design, illustration; I've been an event photographer, portrait photographer, party thrower, biscuit icer, the whole spectrum. But man do I like taking photos!"
Read her interview about photography here.
Andrew Maitland Southern
There are too many Andrew Southerns in the world. I've checked. There's a whole bunch of us. It's kind of annoying. In an over-populated world it's humbling to realise there are multiple versions of you. Maitland, on the other hand, is a name you don't see. It's my dad's first name, though everyone calls him Mac. Apparently, it's easier that way.
Like any writer, I need to make my mark. So I can sink into the Andrew Southern soup or go the Maitland way. It's a name my ego loves and humility shies away from. I can't sink into the soup. It's not my style. So grandiosity it is. You can call me Andrew, though. Not Andy. There are too many of those too.
Maitland aside, I'm a screenwriter and newbie novelist by trade. The former I studied at uni, while the latter has crept upon me, much like the meditation groups I teach. The most unusual is laughing meditation. In a world as crazy as this, it puts me in good stead and stops me asking, “Why am I here?”, “Does any of this make sense?” and gives me bellyache sometimes. I do my best though, and hope somehow, I'll be remembered.
Sofia Ilyas
Sofia Ilyas is the classic slave to the groove - spending all her pocket money at clubs and gigs. Glitch, breakcore, dark electronica - she gets to the gigs, then she writes about them for Trebuchet. Beats, breaks and basslines - the holy trinity of electronica and dance.
Dark, syncopated, mutated and glitched; the more warped and twisted - the better. What she doesn't publish on Trebuchet, she posts to her own blog at www.oneyemusic.com and what she wants to hear but can't find - she records herself. She's currently working on vocals and songwriting for her own dark electronica album, produced by the keyboard wizard behind Nightmares on Wax - Robin Taylor-Firth.
Nicola Anthony
Nicola Anthony is an artist living & working in London, seeking to discover things which make her mind crackle with creative thought. She sees the world as a series of interconnected subject matters, fragile moments & things from which ‘stuff’ can be made. A lady of many hats, she also gives lectures, writes an artist’s blog, freelances on creative projects, & works for some of London’s producing theatres, (including Young Vic, BAC, Almeida, & Royal Court).
With this multiple hat complex things can get quite kaleidoscopic, but through her artwork & her writing she tries to capture some of this erratically shifting multicoloured world. With a fascination in language, her art explores the way we read meaning into words & artworks: Text, stories & voices are used as sculptural materials, whilst forms & lines are created with sentences.
Her point of view on the world can be bizarre at times, but she hopes to help you discover new things & a new way of looking.
Catch @Nicola_Anthony on twitter or her artist’s blog
Ruth Carlisle
Studying anthropology at the University of Kent, Ruth Carlisle hosted a cultural review show on CSR fm and got her kicks exploring Canterbury theatre and live music events. Moving back to London, Ruth studied her masters in Cultural Industries at King’s College,
“which was basically a fluffy course intended for possible employer’s to pick my brain about the Vivien Westwood graduation gowns”.
She currently works as a creative administrator within the arts sector and writes an interactive e-novel called Beyond Pages. Her illicit and dangerous affair with London involves white cubes, free bars, site specific cabaret and experimental performance art. Ruth’s main academic and journalistic interest is festivals, having worked at Glastonbury, Reading, Latitude and Canterbury Fringe. She wrote her masters dissertation on the ‘Mega Art of Festivals: Communal Commodification of Counterculture’ which utilised her research in Glastonbury and Burning Man, comparing their use of large art structures to create sites of consumerism and communality. A burner with an eclectic taste in music, Ruth Carlisle was recruited to write music reviews for Trebuchet based on her grudging respect for doom metal and deep love for progressive art punk.
Follow her on twitter - @ruthieless_c
http://dustandmud.blogspot.com
Naila Scargill
Naila is a viola-playing, motorbike-riding mathematician who somehow ended up in publishing, via a bit of modelling. A good few years of playing with the written word in counterculture, crossed rather bizarrely with news analysis, and it's fair to say she's a bit of a chameleon. Currently resident film hack at RiDE and staff writer for movieScope, her pet project is an extremely self-indulgent horror journal that goes by the equally pretentious title of Exquisite Terror, but film of any ilk—bar the dreaded romcom—will generally make her happy. www.exquisiteterror.com
