Last year while on tour in Germany I played this cool show that was actually a science show. Eight scientists all gathered in Berlin to present their work to a general audience, in one of Berlin's coolest and sweetest sounding clubs, Lido. I just so happened to be the musical guest that evening and met some really cool scientists and regular people alike. . . and I also met Gesine Born. Gesine is a photographer with a very serious interest in science in general and chemistry in particular. So, we chatted and eventually arrived at the conclusions that it'd be cool to do a photo shoot together. With only a few more days in Berlin, we ended up planning something very quickly, at, get this, a coal power plant. Over the last 20 or 30 years, it's production's been increasingly phased out, and well, like most German things, it's still going strong, even with a reduced personnel. That being said, these folks were great and let us on site to shoot some cool photos on a day that wasn't too busy. One of them even made it into the album artwork for Bandit Queen.
Fast forward to this Winter, me and Gesine are back at it, talking across the ocean and hatching plans for when I'm in Berlin. This time however, we had some Breaking Bad style help from a local high school teacher and a colluding chemistry department. A little bit of makeup helps and voila! See...Gesine does this cool thing where she creates worlds that don't quite exist, and with a little bit of ingenuity, puts together these Alice in Wonderland kind of scene-scapes....all made at a kitchen table and a photo studio! Thanks to BRG 16, Schuh,eierplatz in Vienna for letting us use your lab glass and for helping to generate a truly international science project.
