As you know, we consider ourselves to be experts in the field of geek culture. In the taxonomy of geekdom, the coolest order would have to include type geeks, graffiti geeks, remix geeks and, of course, Flash geeks.

Evan Roth (aka fi5e) is all these kinds of geek, which makes him much cooler than us. But he agreed to present at Flashforward 2005 New York anyway.

Maybe it’s because we’re old friends: Roth has been a speaker, film festival judge, finalist, and winner at previous Flashforward conferences and is also a Typography judge again this year. (A selection of his current and past work can be seen at ni9e.com.) At the New York conference he’ll be showcasing his most recent work, “Geek Graffiti” (Graffiti Analysis), the subject of his just-completed MFA thesis at Parsons.

The project is on display through June 10 in the Parsons Gallery along with the work of Roth’s colleagues (see his blog post for details.) Wired just published an article about the exhibition which describes Roth’s piece, and more articles are due to appear in the New York press in the coming days.

You can read more about this work and others on Roth’s blog and projects page.

Some specific items of interest:

• Roth won last year’s San Francisco Flash Film Festival in the Typography category with his piece, Typographic Illustration. He has updated that project with four new pieces including a self-portrait which references his Graffiti Analysis work. He also has an illustration in the same style published in the current Typography issue of issue of Digital Creative Arts magazine.
• As a parallel to the Graffiti Analysis work, Roth has also undertaken a Graffiti Taxonomy project. (By the way, this is the coolest photograph we’ve ever seen.)
• We already told you about Roth’s “explicit content only” version of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton but if you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s still available for a listen.

That’s enough fi5e-stalking for one morning — check out those links and come see Roth in person at Flashforward next month. And look for his work and the work of his writer collaborators city-wide while you’re in town…

(We just realized: you could say Evan Roth’s pseudonym is fi5e of ni9e… kinda Borg-y, isn’t it?)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 at 9:10 am and is filed under Culture, Flashforward News, Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.