Gothic Funk Triannual

amberImages Editor

Amber Staab is, among other things, a tumbleweed blowing in the Midwestern wind, frequently along I-65. Variously educated at the University of Chicago in the arts, and the art of picking the arts into tiny little pieces, she thrives on anxiety, collective effervescence, and the high fidelity of her internal compass, which has faithfully continued, to this day, to steer her away from the siren call of professionalization. Her greatest influences have been her acquaintances, such that she can claim only to have enjoyed consuming a thought salad including, but not limited to, stuff by Thomas Hirschhorn, Robert Morris, Emily Dickinson, Joss Whedon, Rem Koolhaas, Neil Gaiman, Salman Rushdie, The Smiths, and numerous academics she suspects prudence would have her refrain from trying to call out by name. As for Gothic Funk, she believes, as much as she believes anything, that its substance and performance define it better than the best of statements. So, there again, she declines comment--but eagerly, and impatiently.

connorWords Editor, Editor-in-Chief

Connor Coyne grew up in Flint, Michigan, and has lived in Chicago and New York City. He received his Bachelors from the University of Chicago and his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the New School. He has written plays, poetry, essays, short stories, and novels, and his work has been featured in the Saturnine Detractor and the Dick Pig Review.

He also directs performance art and theater and studies the history of Michigan and the midwest. He is fascinated by out-of-the-way places such as neighborhoods named "Sugar Hill" in various cities or the 9th century country of Muma. His heroes are Antonin Artaud, Ann Radcliffe and Andy Kaufman. He is fascinated by peoples' ability to acknowledge and struggle with paradox, which he sees as being one of the most intriguing elements of Gothic Funk.

He maintains a website at Here Is No Why.

elisabethSounds Editor

I am a vocalist and songwriter, both solo and as a duo with Ryan Gunzel (a Words editor, also). I am currently recording two albums – my first solo album and our first collaborative. I perform in various places throughout the midwest. I am kind of square. And I work often on slowly injecting environmentally friendly/fair trade practices one after the other into my life.

My past has included a degree in photography and a stint getting a few items of poetry/fiction published here and there.

music: www.myspace.com/elisabethblair
blog: http://eblair.blogspot.com

To me, Gothic Funk pushes toward two things.
1) Building community in every sense of the word. Connecting.
2) The following paragraph I edited but did not write.

“Gothic Funk seeks to identify elements representative of the growing globalcentric worldview. By collecting these elements and presenting them in an organized format, we aim not to define this worldview in its infancy, but to connect these fragments, and promote the dialogue surrounding the transition. Unlike postmodernist thought, this new globalcentric awareness does not accept that there is no certain truth. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that the truth can be known, but in limited form. Unlike empirical / modernist thought, this new worldview does not seek to eliminate the effects of the observer. Instead, the experience, or interior of the observer is held as equal but separate from the exterior world. This understanding eliminates the need for confirmation of an experience, because the experience speaks for itself.”

How does this somewhat difficult (I know) statement translate to how I will be judging music/sounds for the Triannual?

I'm interested in material that seeks to connect, rather than to deconstruct or confirm. Interpret that as you like. I don't hold a lot of stock in the practicality of lofty artistic statements, though sometimes they can hint at certain ideas in a useful way.

jamesSounds Editor

James Priniski is a student at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point pursuing a Communications degree with an emphasis in Audio and Video Production. James is also the Program Director for WWSP-90FM the UWSP campus radio station. James has been a singer-songwriter since the age of twelve, and inspired by years of music, film, and literature, he still strives to expand and evolve song writing as well as song production. After releasing his fifth self-produced album, James presses on toward a future that straddles the line between ragamuffin beatnik troubadour and record producing entrepreneur.

reinhardtWords Editor

Reinhardt Suarez was born in the hinterlands of Northwest Chicago and enjoyed a childhood almost totally unaware that he was in a city with "tall buildings" and a "lakefront." He was too busy reading comic books like "Watchmen" and "New Mutants" and "Sandman" to really care. There were non-graphic books somewhere in there, but Reinhardt doesn't remember those. Oh yes, Ivanhoe.

After high school, Reinhardt spent a brief stint among the wildly blonde and buxom natives of central Missouri before attending Loyola University Chicago. Upon graduating with a degree in English, he told himself, "Self, I think I should get a miserable corporate job where my soul gets slowly siphoned off and sent into tubes that burrow deep into the ground into a cesspit where the troglodytes frolic and play." So he did. And life was bad. So he quit and ran off to New York City where he obtained a MFA in Creative Writing at New School University (now called just The New School, prompting pseudo-witty older relatives to ask, "Where is the old school?" to which Reinhardt would reply, "In your pants...with Satan.")

In late 2006, Reinhardt returned to Chicago because he was paid a lot of money to do so. And money was good after having to live on the same pot of rice and beans for a week.

Currently, Reinhardt is writing his first book, a wacky young adult novel about a kid, another kid, a broken down van, another kid, and a rickshaw. He is a feelance editor at large in the world of Educational Publishing. He is very excited to be a part of the Gothic Funk Triannual staff as a Words Editor. He is also the coordinator for the Gothic Funk monthly literature reading, Tuesday Funk.

ryanWords Editor

Ryan graduated with degrees in creative writing and psychology, which have both turned out to be as useful as a set of teeth on his elbow. He is often under the influence of Tom Waits, William Carlos Williams, Milan Kundera, and, occasionally, alcohol. His current projects include songwriting, both solo and with fellow editor Elisabeth Blair, a first novel, and various poems and stories. He values the simple and has mastered the art of taciturn.

samDesigner

Sam has been freelance designing, building and coding the Interwebs since October of 2005. He prefers late nights to early mornings and does his best work while drinking mountain dew or sipping a hot tea.

Whenever he is able to pull himself away from teh computer, he can be found driving around Chicago looking for new places to eat, explore or visit. His computer has blacklights and he is thinking of owning a turtle.

sarahImages Editor

Sarah is a graphic designer in Pittsburgh, PA.

seanSounds Editor

Sean Conley was raised in Kansas: he is not in Kansas anymore. Sean graduated from the University of Chicago in 2003 and has lived and worked in the Windy City ever since. He has a background in theater, low-fi home recording, and cultural linguistics. Careful ladies, he's married. He enjoys The Mountain Goats, Biggie Smalls, and T.S. Eliot, but not F. Scott Fitzgerald, not since he wrote his B.A. on that lush and came to realize, not without some small disappointment, that mostly that guy's just a magazine hack. Which is not to pass any sort of judgment on magazines as a category, or to suggest that magazines invite or encourage hackery, it's just, you know, he's just saying.

Sean thinks that Gothic Funk is about the opportunity for growth through tension: its most salient feature is a sense of grasping, searching for lessons in the midst of gumdrops.

Gumdrops? Really?

skylarImages Editor, Designer

Skylar Moran is a product of Muskegon, MI, and is currently located in Chicago, IL. He has attended University of Detroit Mercy, and Northern Michigan University. His primary profession is architecture, with specific interest in New Urbanism, sustainable design, and Vaastu Shastra. Other interests include disc golf, macrobiotics, and brewing beer. Skylar's hero, living or otherwise, is R. Buckminster Fuller.

He holds the fundamental belief that all people are inherently good. For Skylar, Gothic Funk is when, through a series of events, any expectations one might have previously held are so thoroughly exceeded that one must consider adopting a new model on which to base future expectations.