A little more than a week ago, the always innovative Cooper Union played host to Tokion’s 5th annual Creativity Now Conference, a yearly culling of what’s cutting-edge in art, music, film, fashion and comedy. The impressive line up boasted big names such as David Cross as well as indie darlings Harrell Fletcher and David Shrigley. However, one of the most anticipated events of the conference was an appearance by wunderkind filmmaker and screenwriter Harmony Korine (”Gummo”, “Kids”) joined by longtime friend and collaborator Mark Gonzalez, who is often credited as being the man who brought street skateboarding culture into the mainstream. As soon as they took the stage, they proceeded to bring the crowd into a somewhat befuddling verbal punning game playing on famous people’s names (for example : “Fred was dying of Durst” and the less tactful “Heath was hanging off a Ledger”). While this exercise seemed a bit irrelevant, Korine and Gonzalez went on to explain that in their early days as skate punks on the Lower East Side their creativity tended to come from a place of spontaneity, blind passion, and enthusiastic collaboration- often springing from something as mundane as a word exercise.
When asked what provided the inspiration behind Mister Lonely, Korine’s latest off kilter gem, the director responded- “Everything. What we just did here, what we were just doing, developing characters from nothing… I’ve always been much more interested in making characters than plots…I don’t like traditional plots in movies, or even in peoples lives.” (And Korine is certainly familiar with the unscripted life- After shooting to cinematic stardom in the mid nineties Korine left Hollywood behind to travel the world and paint eggs.)
On hand moderating was Paper magazine’s gregarious Senior Editor Carlo McCormick who had a unique take on Korine and Gonzalez’s early influences. “…Seeing the world from a skateboard, being above the pavement like that, with the topography flying past… didn’t it change the way you viewed things artistically?” McCormick then alluded to how the disjointed and adrenaline-pumping qualities of Korine and Gonzalez’s works might be a product of their skate lifestyle.
To cap off the discussion, and on a truly bizarre and unexpected note, Korine and Gonzalez invited infamous magician David Blaine (an audience member and Korine collaborator) to procure a card trick. This trick mostly consisted of Blaine throwing his entire deck at a bemused Gonzalez and slightly exasperated McCormick. The conversation ended up playing out like one of Korine’s films- surreal, exiting and completely unpredictable.
