Oliver Jeffers, Yuri Suzuki, Anna Ginsburg and Jimmy Turrell at Nicer Tuesdays

Incredible sound installations, hilarious animations and inspiring storytelling — June’s Nicer Tuesdays had it all.

Jimmy Turrell kicked off the night by showing his lyric video for Beck’s latest single Wow, a surreal and at times psychedelic collage of retro, psychedelic imagery and custom typography. Jimmy let us into some secrets behind the making of the single artwork, “a combination of a 90s rave vibe and 80s soft porn,” which required the artist to order a load of vintage porn off the internet for research. “Of course that’s when my mum popped round to visit the studio and I got busted.”

The video follows the track in style and content, Jimmy explained, “starting like an 80s children’s illustration of a science fiction-meets-western story,” and becoming more modern and bizarre as the song goes on. Jimmy also showed clips of footage that never made it to the final video, a result of him mishearing certain lyrics. “The line is “Girl in a bikini with the Lamborghini shih tzu” and everyone obviously knows that a shih tzu is a dog, but I didn’t know that.” He then proceeded to show several mock-ups of “turd cars.”

Next up to speak was sound designer Yuri Suzuki, who treated us to a live demonstration of his new AR Music Kit with Google. Beforehand, he explained his love of music despite the shaky start to his musical career. “I was in a trashy ska band when I was younger but I got fired because I couldn’t read the score, because I’m dyslexic. So that made me want to create a musical notation that I could use.” That lead him to create Colour Chaser, a little car that plays different notes or sounds when it drives over certain hand-drawn coloured lines.

He then set up the AR Music kit — a set of markers that sync to an app and allow any object to become an instrument — and played a mini-gig on a cardboard tube, which caused the audience to erupt into spontaneous applause. To top it off the app is open source and totally free.

After the break, Anna Ginsburg took us on a journey of sexual exploration that lead to the creation of her brilliantly refreshing and genuinely hilarious film, Private Parts, commissioned by It’s Nice That for Channel 4’s Random Acts series. “When I was 14 I was off school with the flu and I watched Cruel Intentions. Then I went on a crusade to achieve my first orgasm,” Anna began. “When I told my friends at school, the reaction was one of communal disgust. We all knew boys had been wanking since year six, so what was the problem?” The short animated film features talking genitals voiced by young people discussing taboo subjects, aiming to get the subject out in the open. “We’re sold this idea of femininity as passive, weak, and waiting for something to happen. This film is meant to be accessible and easily shared by everyone.”

Last up was artist Oliver Jeffers, one of the biggest names in children’s book illustration. He talked about ideas, where they come from and the beauty in happenstance. “I was bored in an airport when I first drew the idea for The Incredible Book Eating Boy. I think it’s the same reason why you get ideas in the shower, because you’re not really thinking about it.”

Oliver told the story of when he exhibited Portrait With Jesus and Hidden Variables, a controversial work tackling the relationship between religion and science. “Someone took the piece off the wall and ripped it in half, and took the top half,” he said. So he redrew the top half and exhibited it again, calling it Portrait With Jesus and Hidden Variables Take Two.

This was partly the inspiration for his ongoing Dipped Paintings series, where he paints a portrait of someone then dips the entire thing, frame and all, into a single colour of paint to half obscure the original picture. “Is this destroying them or completing them?” he asked. Oliver has now done 12 live “dipping” performances, where no one in attendance is allowed to take photos of the artwork pre-dip, but instead is asked to remember it for an interview a year later.

Event partner: Revue

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Supported by Park Communications

Nicer Tuesdays is also supported by Park Communications one of London’s eminent, most friendly and approachable printers.

Nicer Tuesdays is a monthly event curated by It’s Nice That held at Protein Studios in London. Tickets for the event sell out quickly, to buy tickets ahead of general sale please sign up to our newsletter.