Detonate: Fairuz Sulaiman
For those who complain about a dearth of eye candy, you need to meet Fairuz Sulaiman. As easy on the eye and ‘eccentric’ as his video work, which he describes as “home made with a tint of tackiness,” the Klang boy has already attracted the interest of bands like Butterfingers and Bittersweet, theatre directors and even artists.
“Most of my videos are experimentations, concerning style or a certain technique” he explains sagely. “There isn’t a predetermined path, the videos turn out the way its ‘meant’ to turn out”. Those videos have appeared at Motion Picture Soundtrack, a regular mixed media event that featured 3 bands and a visual artist each month and group exhibition Rock Kaka with fellow visual artist Callen Tham, both of which he lists as among his favourite projects to date.
Informing his unique vision are designers like Hussein Chalayan, London design group Troika, John Maeda, Apple deisgners and the Intructables.com crew. Fairuz is also a fan of hand-made videos, preferring to focus on ideas and concepts rather than CGI effects. Little wonder that he should name check Michel Gondry and Nam June Paik as his heroes and dig Scandinavian music by Abba and Sigur Ros.
He does lament however that, “There’s not much of a video scene, if you’re talking about non-commercial content. The visual scene is much more exciting. Video is mostly used to compliment an existing medium, in theatre backdrops or DJ events, rather than as a stand alone performance. We’ve yet to reach that stage, but it’s definitely on its way.”
Fairuz’s certainly looks set to change that or lead the charge. He describes his dream video as “a performance of a selection of Rumi’s poems, done in the style of Yellow Submarine, Tron and Cirque du Soleil, with Radiohead and Bjork scoring. And people would have to watch the performance from above facing down, like on hot air balloons or a building.” Far out.
Watch out for more of Fairuz Sulaiman’s work.