You Tube sensation James Houston from the Visual Communications department at The Glasgow School of Art has wowed Radiohead and thousands of music, technology and design fans with his Degree Show film ‘Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any)’.

The band featured in the 21-year-old student’s four-minute film, which is a video and track remix of Radiohead’s single Nude from their album In Rainbows, has rather an unusual setup. This rock n’ roll outfit is no standard covers band but obsolete 1980s hardware including a dot matrix printer, ZX spectrum, old hard drives and a scanner.

James, from Airdrie, made the short clip in a Glasgow studio by carefully programming each piece of equipment. Once completed, he uploaded it to You Tube and Vimeo then logged in the following day to find the viewing counters on both websites spiralling. Colin Greenwood, bassist with Radiohead, had seen the video and called it ‘brilliant’ and it is currently featured as a link on the band’s website.

David Smith, a close personal friend of the band and a lecturer in Media and Technology in London, thought the film was fantastic and was the one who informed the band about James’s film. He has approached James to see if they can work together as well as lecture his students on ‘intelligent remixing’.

James has been approached with offers of record contracts and jobs, the film is rated as the No. 3 music videos of the week (globally) on You Tube as well as the No. 3 top favourite video. He has also been interviewed on US radio and the film will also be showing at an open air film festival in Amsterdam as well as a host of UK music festivals.

James Houston said: “I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the huge response to the film.

This was a small video for the GSA which was edited in my bedroom with my dog at my feet and now it’s grown out of control. I’ve had over 3,000 really lovely emails from people all around the world, been offered a record deal although I’m not a musician and been asked to get involved in lots of other amazing projects.

“It all came to a climax when I noticed that Colin Greenwood had posted the video on radiohead.com. I’ve been a huge fan for years, and seeing the blog post really blew me away. I spent a lot of time working on nostalgic colour timing and treating the video, although I think that quite a lot of people can empathise with the machines themselves.”

Paul Stickley, Head of Visual Communication, said: “With grit and determination, James has managed to carve a place for himself at The Glasgow School of Art. He has always had an enormous amount of talent and typifies the spirit of the Visual Communications department which centres on embracing the learning environment and rejecting traditional teaching so that students become experts and learning is shared.”

“James’s film plays with musical conventions and structure and opens up a set of discussions regarding the nature of Visual Communication, Graphic Design and music. His film focuses on cultural identity and way we adopt an emotional relationship with obsolete technologies. For example the Sinclair ZX Spectrum has attracted an audience that has a nostalgic affection for this hardware. The film, with its subtlety of composition and sophistication of colour, synchronisation of audio and musicianship, deserves the recognition that it has attracted across the world. All of this from a young man who is still in his early twenties.”

Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any) is on show in the Visual Communications department at The Glasgow School of Art until June 21 as part of the 2008 Degree Show.

To view Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any) click here: http://www.vimeo.com/1109226. To view James Houston’s portfolio of work (which also includes two other films shortlisted for awards) click here http://www.1030.co.uk/

Rate this:
3.2