mcville: Vaclav Vancura Interview

mcville is a community website where you can find smashing interviews
and articles with some recognized people, as well as discussions on
other topics like design,web development, lifestyle, music.

Vaclav Vancura Interview

Jun 26, 11:12 AM by Marko

Interivew with Vaclav Vancura at vancura.org

Marko: Heya Vaclav !

Vaclav : Hi Marko,
first of all let me apologize for such late answers, but we have a three weeks old baby called Vojta and as you probably know, there is a lot of work with him and almost no time for other things. Anyway, here it goes!

Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)

Vaclav : I am 27 years old, come from Liberec, a district town in the north of Czech Republic. Nowadays me and my wife live in Prague, but we would like to move somewhere next year. Let’s say Portugal sounds quite good. We will see, it doesn’t depend on us only, but also on our small son. Anyway I think that now the travelling is easier than it will be in a few years because of kindergarten and so on.

And if you wanna know what a freak I really am, what do I do beyond clattering on my keyboard, so: I’m a wack, I like playing theatre, I used to visit a ballet-dance chorus, I studied three high schools (I gave up gymnasium because drawing took preference over learning, first of art schools was closed during my first year there and I finally finished the second art school). Of the same reason I already studied two universities without finishing any (this time because of disagreements with diverse persons with clear views on creation – „art must be shocking, must break taboos“).

But I’m still living, creating and having joy of life. And I don’t know what will follow, I am not so old, am I? :]

Marko: How are you doing these days?

Vaclav : It’s fine, although our baby employs us a lot. But the spring begins, we walk a lot, drink beer outside… we are healthy, I have a good job and it looks that the summer will be great. What else should I wish?

Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?

Vaclav : It’s a long time ago. Czech Republic was one of the countries behind the iron curtain, one of the soviet satellites. And that’s why the computers here were a bit later than in the west. Although „later“ is not the exact term. We just had different technologies. We had 8bit computers IQ 151, on which you could roast eggs, we used 99% ZX Spectrum „compatible“ computers and so on. You can get a clear vision thanks to my experience when I came with my mum to an state-owned IT company, I was about ten, I gaped at those big machines with circular tapes, punch cards everywhere and on one of the machines was instead of „on-line“ writen „na liniji“ with russian alphabet.

Anyway first computer I got into touch with was PMD-85. It had no colours, could only Basic a I enjoyed my first ecstasy with programs transcribed line by line from the „Elektronika“ journal. After that Didaktik Gama came, Didaktik M, friends also had Atari, C64, Sharp… And one day my parents bought me a 386, more for programming than for graphics, no one could do much graphics on this machine. But I copied somewhere Autodesk Animator, tried to do some bits in assembler (I was simply fascinated by growing PC demoscene)... And my career has started (by the way my first web was designed just in Animator, it was in 95-96).

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?

Vaclav : I have many booked feeds, so much that I can not write what all do I visit. But I can point out one server: www.drawn.ca. It’s the main source of getting upset. Oh my god, the internet is full of such a good artists!!! It’s not even worth trying to do anything :]

Marko: When you launched vancura.org are you happy with the result of the site?

Vaclav : www.vancura.org is not my first web, first it was www.xycht.cz, (now there is a redirect only) then www.motion-blur.net (it’s not live anymore), then some other projects together with my friends (www.mimo.cz and www.jsem.cz) – I had no personal web that time, so I used these. After that neurobion.com came, which died just a month ago. None of the above-cited webs is working anymore (except mimo.cz, which is nowadays web of my multi-artist friends). But that’s life, I don’t wanna carry on galeries which are more residues. Everything has time for coming and also time for the death.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (We realize that spare time, in this context)

Vaclav : I help with the baby and with the housework.

Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?

Vaclav : I drink almost everything (except ladies glues), mainly beer and vodka. And almost every evening we have wine and some good cheese, hey Marko, come and visit us :]

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?

Vaclav : I have never been looking for work, I was lucky that the work has always found me. But nowadays I also choose what I want to do. My blacklist is full of individuals, companies and branches, for which I will never work. It’s pharmaceutical industry, political parties, advertising agencies and so on.

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?

Vaclav : Definitely my father, a painter, then MC Escher, Victor Vasarely, simply certainly op-art artists.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like?

Vaclav : As I marked in the last answer, my father is a painter – and my mother was an architect. All my childhood I was influenced by different views on creation. And to be honest I still have problem with this: I don’t feel either like an artist or like a technology geek. I like connecting these things, but it may happen that I don’t make a proper graphic for a whole year (like this year), but then I get upset of that and turn it over: and stop programming for a year and put my mind on drawing. This regeneration is just happening – I finished a long term project, an encyclopedia of literature – and now I feel that I should attend to something else than to numbers, conditions and data fields.

Marko: If you where not a designer/programmer what would you be?

Vaclav : I would probably make ceramics, vitrails and jewellery, taking it all – I studied this.

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?

Vaclav : Ambient, every psychedelic music (i. e. psytrance but also sixties and seventies), blues, breakbeat…

Marko: What’s your favorite food?

Vaclav : I eat everything except some things that were disgusted to me in the school dining-hall. So I will answer other way round: I don’t eat beetroot, fatty meat and sweet poppy noodles.

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?

Vaclav : We don’t have this crap.

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?

Vaclav : Take a look at http://del.icio.us/shimray

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.

Vaclav : Dreams and nature!

Marko: Thank you for having this interview Vaclav,cheers.

mcville header showoff Kev Adamson Interview

Events:

Promotion:

Links

powered by

Monitored by

Support

Vaclav Vancura Interview

Jun 26, 11:12 AM by Marko