Three… is the magic number. And when it comes to making art and music Tommy, Ziggy and Kev are a trio–de–force. Lesley Hart got Ziggy with Tommy and Kev to hear all three sides of the story.
Since meeting in their final year at Gray’s School of Art two years ago, the Aberdeen based threesome have collaborated on a number of innovative projects. Their latest audio experiment will be released on vinyl soon and they have big plans to mount an interactive, multimedia exhibition in the near future.
Tommy Perman, Ziggy Campbell and Kev Sim were in the same year at art school but studied different subjects. The three had never officially met until their final year when they came together through a shared interest in making music. Each had been composing independently and incorporating music into their artwork. Sculptor Ziggy even built his own instruments and teamed up with Kev in the second year to compose and perform experimental music.
In the remix
Soon after, Kev got involved in one of Tommy’s projects called Chinese Whispers, which has influenced much of the work the trio have created. According to Tommy it was child’s play. “I had an idea to play a musical game of Chinese whispers. So I wrote a track, a kind of hip–hop instrumental jazz influenced thing, then sent it off to someone in Edinburgh and they remixed that track. They sent their remix off to someone in Glasgow who remixed that without the third person ever hearing the first version, so each person only heard the tune before them and each time it was different.”
Three of a kind
When Tommy realised Ziggy and Kev had been doing similar work together he introduced himself to Ziggy and the three of them began bouncing ideas off each other. One music project they have collaborated on from the start is the Random Audio Therapy Unit (RATU). Ziggy explains its genesis, “We just got chatting about how we could create a piece of music in a way that was quite unusual and we developed this project. So we put it in the RSA exhibition in Glasgow’s Mclelland Galleries.”
They set up four minidisk players inside a medicine cabinet. Each of the players had a disc with sounds compiled by them. Ziggy adds, “Each of the players were playing in random mode simultaneously and creating this indeterminate musical composition. It was a real success – people really liked it in Glasgow and we had it in our degree show as well.”
Funding Found
Following the success of the first phases of the RATU project, the boys have secured funding to release a sample of their latest version on vinyl. They have also begun to promote their work under the group name Found. Tommy says, “We’re hoping to expand Found in the following year to be a collective name for all the work we do, whether it’s solo or group projects and hopefully we can get more people involved. The plan is for it to be the home of a bunch of different people’s work so that we’ve got the ability to sell stuff out there.”
Art attack
Tommy studied Painting at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and continues to produce artwork that he exhibits on his own website, Surface Pressure, which will soon become the online home of Found. He also runs a t–shirt company, Climate Culture and is always juggling hundreds of ideas and projects. Kev studied printmaking and is currently applying his expertise to the design and creation of the sleeve for the RATU EP. As well as pursuing musical interests of his own, Kev teaches various art-based subjects to young people at Aberdeen’s Peacock Visual Arts. And Ziggy gets busy with building instruments, composing music and raising funds for Found.
Mob rule
So are three heads better than one? Tommy says, “It’s great because we can feed off each other for ideas.” Ziggy agrees, “Yeah, and I always feel much more comfortable in a mob. I’d just shit myself if I had to perform on my own.” Kev also thinks it’s more practical, “The logistics, organisation of events or anything that needs to be done as far as publicity – you know simple things like that would mean we’d have to spread ourselves quite thinly if there wasn’t three of us.”
New found success
The boys all hold down bread and butter jobs as well, but hope to be able to set up Found as a small business that will fund itself and raise money to invest in more work. Recently, Ziggy successfully applied for a grant from Limousine Bull, a subsidised funding body for the arts based in Aberdeen, and with the money they received they have been able to make the RATU vinyl EP.
As a team they can pool their creative talents to produce all aspects of their work in–house. In that sense, between them they have their bases covered. Who says three’s a crowd?
