Event10 are a couple of guys from Paris who do really nice things with images and photos.
It’s hard to describe their work, but it all has a stark, almost gritty realness with a sparing
use of colour that we like very much. They do a bunch of interesting projects, and are in the process
of creating something very nice for us, the results of which you will see sometime in the near future.
Because they are from France and we only ever stumbled upon them in Atmosphere magazine,
we emailed them some questions to find out more.

• 1. For the uninitiated, who are Event10, and when did this Event 10 begin ?
It started in 1997, with our friend Gilles Frappier, during our Applied Art studies in Paris.
The "french touch" teaching was unbearable! We were spending our nights drawing regularly on
sketchbooks (no computer), the atmosphere was more "dark & trash", graphical violence with glue
for wallpaper, cut magazines, chewed papers and cutter with Sonic Youh and Joy Division sounds.
In 1999, the meeting with the label Evenement gave birth to the event number 10* : Event10.
At this period we were two spotty graphic designers : Benoit and Gilles. After a few years,
Event10 was rebuilt as Benoit Robert (Graphic Design/ Art Direction), and Thomas Toque
(wide open to Multimedia/ Audiovisual applications).

• 2. Where does the name come from ?
Event10’s name comes from the collective Evenement (CD-R label, music of un-copyright)
created by Damien Poncet (My Jazzy Child artist) and Julien Rohel (Clapping Music label)
in the late 1999. Each CD (99 copies/ limited edition) were done one by one, by hand. Each "action"
(album, concert, installations, performances...) was classified with numbers, for example : Event1 :
My Jazzy Child album, Event11 : performance at the Batofar. We were involved at that time
in the Graphic Design Section of the label. We’ve chosen the number 10, not for the classification,
but for its graphical presence... for its omnipresence in the urban horizon. It was really important
for us that our signature was not just a simple identification of graphic designers.

• 3. From what kind of background do you both come ?
The "province" for both of us, a mix of Loire’s wine and goat cheese,
through Applied Arts, Multimedia, and Audiovisual.

• 4. Do you only do print design or other types of projects ?
We are a duet because each of us has a particular technic, led by only one thing : any creation
on print (CD) has to be declinable (poster, stickers...) and evolving (scenography/ installation...)
on any kind of medium (website, video clip...). Unfortunately, these kind of projects are rare.

• 5. What would be the ultimate Event 10 project ?
?... time will say.

• 6. Do you only work in black & white ? Why so much monotone ?
No, no... this dominance of black&white is tied to two things :
 - Lack of budget : we were used to work with low technical material : collage, photocopy...
Our first clients were small foundations or particular people with no budget for print on CMYK.
 - Work method : at the research point, we are making all our projects in grey value
to enable us to remain concentrating on the essential : the readability degree, the pertinence
of the graphic charter... the black, as neutral value. The color is an artifice which can trouble during
the creative processing.It’s only at the final point where we decide if we will use color or not.
Nevertheless, the color remains the "cherry on the cake"...

• 7. How does music inspire your art ?
Nevermind the project, the music is necessary for us, it is our creative source :
For example : For an album’s sleeve, it’s before all the artists personality which inspires us,
the music "recadre". For others projects, the music enable the concentration, to dive into
an "hibernation" state: alone for hours, headphones on in front of it Post-It.

• 8. What type of music are you inspired by ?
It’s really wide... Thurston Moore "Psychic Hearts", Darmstadt "Drei Leben", dDamage
"Liquid Words", The Cure "10.15 Saturday Night" and "Lullaby", The Smiths "Meat is Murder",
Nerd "Things Are Getting Better", Joy Division "She’s Lost Control", Fog "Hitting a Wall",
Hymie’s Basement "Ghost dream", The World After 4/02 (Vikings and Waffles),
L’armée des 12 "Helium Liquide", Boulder dDash "My Little Sunshine", Hypo "Destino",
Height "Catonsville", Bilal "Fast Lane", Nephlim Modulation Systems "Fendi Shoe Bomber",
P.J. Harvey "Dry", Pavement "Stop Breathin", Kelis "Caught Out There", Simon Wess "Hu-Ho!",
dDamage/ Tekilatex "Boyz Wanna Have Fun", Sonic Youth "Wish Fulfillment",
The Stranglers "Midnight Summer Dream"...

• 9. What exactly is Tsunami-Addiction and what do they do ?
It’s an experimental office of artistic research and development tied to music.
By experimental, we mean, non-established, experience, creation, destruction, renewal,
ephemeral. Tsunami-Addiction is born in 2001. There is no restrictions in Tsunami-Addiction’s
interests but artistic. It develops and changes itself into an intrinsic life to an identity which
only exists throughout the people involved in it. In reality Tsunami-Addiction doesn’t belong
to anyone and belongs to everyone.
The action is the motor. The theory follows. Tsunami-Addiction is in charge of artists,
their visibility, their communication. It aims to find & gather new talents on a same platform
mixing musical genres and other. Tsunami-Addiction is directed by Gloria Pedemonte
aka Reiko Underwater. Gloria is more than our artistic agent, she’s our guardian angel.
In some way she is part of Event10. We’re working together on most of the projects :
Toxic Girls!, Boyz revenge! Compilations, Famous Magazine, dDamage (Planet-Mu UK)/
Hypo (Active Suspension FR)...
http://www.tsunami-addiction.com

• 10. How did you come into contact with the Evenement record label ?
Born from coincidence...
Damien Poncet was doing training in a small independent label,
where I was a graphic designer. He talked to me about his associate Julien Rohel,
and his artists/ performers clan (Erich Zahn, KingQ4, Noak Katoï, Organ, My Jazzy Child,
Lab°, O.Lamm...) and his label projects : Clapping Music & Evenement (music of un-copyright).

All was born from the first album of Bertrand Groussard aka KingQ4,
the first signing to the Clapping Music label, first Event10 sleeve. Then, we’ve integrated
Evenement collective (E0) such as the cell of visual experimentation (E10).

• 11. Are there any particular labels and/ or artists you would like to work on cover art for ?
In fact, in our minds, we don’t work for labels but for artists. What is interesting for us
is the human contact with the author/ producer and not the Art Director/label Marketing.
We are working mostly for independent labels, we could work for a major such as EMI,
but only if the artist remains accessible to us, with no intermediary.
And we will talk about his life, the rain, the sun, everything except his sleeve !

Oh and, to answer to the question, we would love to work with
Martin Rev and Alan Vega of Suicide and on the sleeve of the first album of Darmstadt.

• 12. Whose art and design do you admire ?
Public Image Ltd "First Edition", conceived in the way of a "trademark"
(Too many covers are just a "visual illustration", flat, without personality : the creation is absent).
We also admire the designer Raymond Loewy, the typographer Paul Renner,
the Bauhaus movement, the graphic designer Sanghon Kim, the artist Simon Bernheim...

• 13. What does an average day for the Event 10 gents encompass ?
Benoit : What is our ideal day ? Even if it sounds weird, to wake up in a world
without advertisement! In France, finally a foundation called "Anti-pub"
(a kind of collective against visual pollution) appears, denouncing the publicity invasion.
They intervene in a clandestine way inside the Parisian subway, painting on others posters.
Unfortunately, the RATP (parisian society for the subway) attempts to end those interventions !
Thomas : To wake up, smoke a cigarette thinking the day will already be too short !

http://www.modularpeople.com
http://www.modularpeople.com/03/04/archive_pics/archive.htm