‘NEW_SPEAK’ is our latest video offering, filmed between 2015-16 and showcasing skateboarding from an assortment of skaters across the two cities, with full sections featuring Jim Silver, James Griffiths, and me. The 22 minute video was filmed using Sony VX1000 cameras and invokes skateboarding’s earlier aesthetics. This is developed further through the use of VHS, Hi8 and analog glitch processes in post production.
The title and themes of the video derive from Orwell’s ‘1984’, playing with notions of an approaching urban dystopia and our method of escapism from an often overwhelming sense of disenfranchisement from the status quo.
In the novel, ’Newspeak’ is the controlled language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit freedom of thought and concepts that threaten the regime such as freedom, self-expression and individuality - qualities regularly attributed to skateboarding.
Managing to film the video on little to no budget, in between working clashing full-time job schedules was no easy task. The intrinsic unpredictability of skateboarding, old-school technology and the British weather didn't help either. Yet after exhausting 4 cameras, suffering countless injuries, numerous confrontations with security guards and hours spent editing on a tiny laptop, 'NEW_SPEAK' is now concluded.
The video has been released uniquely on limited edition 8GB USB drive, also containing 32 minutes of B-side footage, a 32-page accompanying digital zine and photos/video from the premiere event.
The USB release is also part of a drop alongside our A2 ‘MDCX’ screen-print by Bristol designer Chris Price; a print of the graphic used for our MDCX board series.
The drives and prints are available now from the OWL store, alongside selected boards and apparel.
MEET THE ARTIST: OWL SKATEBOARD
WATCH THE NEW_SPEAK TRAILER HERE: