CELESTIAL/VISUAL

Ferry Gouw raises the jealousy level in our office to an unfathomable level. Creative to the power of rad, he draws stuff, he plays stuff, he films stuff and he edits stuff. Above is his latest video for his band, Celestial Bodies, which he has just put out.

You might remember we covered him in Vol. 1 in our piece about bedroom projects? Well, we're doing it again.

Hey man, we're really into your video, could you tell us a little about the inspiration behind it?

I think the emptiness of the landscapes originated from ideas about being the only person in the world left, etc, but that sucks. I think it morphed into something else, a lot of it was instinctive. I've been playing with the idea of a simple action elevated to a metaphorical level. There's something about a person walking that fascinates me, being the only moving element in a still world, but also in an environment that overwhelms you, either natural or manmade. Ultimately, there's something deeply moving about the mirroring of the two lives. I felt there was something in there, n I wanted to just pursue it.

What other video directors do you rate at the moment?

There are great video directors, like Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, all the usual, and newer people like Patrick Daughters, or Marcus Soderlund. But I don't watch music videos, really. I love watching films. and the kinda films I like don't translate well to videos, generally. I dig Ozu, Cassavetes, Victor Erice, and Jacques Tourneur.

Celestial Bodies has a really strong aesthetic to it, is that your input?

How we operate as a band just reflect the kind of people in the band, we all do other things, and have concerns beyond music. We've decided to make Celestial Bodies a viable environment to explore them. On my side of things, Celestial Bodies is where I make stuff that I wouldnt be able to get away with if I proposed it for other people. Hopefully we can expand on this aspect, make more things, start more projects.

What other projects would you like the opportunity to explore?

We wanna do more web-based projects, prints, risograph posters, more design and video stuff, as well as releasing more music. The inner sleeve of our last 7" was a crude but interesting experiment. On one side we have a youtube link which shows a video of an instruction video to make an origami heart, and if you unfold the paper it forms a pattern which I've used to cut up the crying face of Ingrid Bergman on the other side of the paper.

It'll be interesting to extend the music into tangible forms.

C E L E S T I A L B O D I E S