A Man's Tall Tee: The Origins of the State of Mokum Print

The Mokum print is pretty unusual. The print has an interesting back story. It was produced by a friend of the Navas brand named Kir Mokum a Vancouver Drum and Bass DJ and VFX compositor who has worked on numerous video game projects as well as the new Dark Crystal movie, Hobbes&Shaw and innumerable TV shows. 

Kir Mokum has a fascination with pushing software to do things it wasn't exactly intended to do in an attempt to achieve some fun unintended consequences.

In his own words:

"I’ve been doing a lot of experiments with non-linear, generative image creation by using software in unintended ways. I use these to create digital art, music videos and event posters using this process. In the software images can have editable parameters like position, scale, colour, shape, rotation, blur, etc. Inserting random (or not so random) values into these parameters can distort the images by pushing and pulling it in novel ways.

I'm intrigued by the complex aesthetics that result. For the Navas design I needed to recognize the limits of the screenprinting process as well as the material itself so I had to keep it simple but still interesting. Maintaining this balance is tricky. An effective result can easily be diminished by subtle changes.

My process is flexible and we were able to review iterations and make changes as we went. Eventually we pinned down a look that was visually engaging and still printable."

Here is another example of Kir Mokum's work. This one a video for local Vancouver dub producer Knautic. 

The track is High Tree Dub by Knautic, Vancouver dub producer. 

Kir Mokum Soundcloud