East Village Boys / WLTF launches

WLTF launches

19-Feb-08 by Richard Welch

Hailing from one of our favorite cities, the steamy and chaotic São Paulo multi-talented artist Rodrigo Novaes last week launched his new project, WLTF. For all two of you not familiar with online dating, the cheeky little acronym WLTF puts it STR8 out there. WLTF is a publication (currently online only), which brings together photographers from across the sexual, geographical and creative spectrum to express what they WLTF, or about what WLTF means to them. Its that simple.

Rodrigo Novaes moved from Sao Paulo in the 90’s to study visual arts in Gloucestershire, England before heading to London where he apprenticed for Sir Philip Sommervile, the world famous milliner. After graduating from The University of The Arts, London, in 2001 with an MA in Enterprise and Management for the Creative Arts he moved back to São Paulo. His work has been exhibited in Brazil, England, Spain and Greece.

We caught up with Rodrigo via IM!

Richard: What have I just interrupted?

Rodrigo Novaes: Oh c’mon, use your imagination… do I have to spell it out? lol ;)

R: WOW, you love your acronyms don’t you!!

RN: LOL I guess I do!

R: When did you come up with the idea of WLTF, you mention on your site it was a series of serendipitous events, what were they?

RN: It was a big mixture of lots of things, I worked as the Assistant Curator for a videoart festival here in São Paulo last year, called Videobrasil but at the same time I was making some homemade little books on my domestic printer using my own photographs as I had decided at the time that self-publishing was the future.
During the festival I went round handing out my books. Everyone seemed to like them! At the same time, my boyfriend, who is an internet kid, made me a profile on flickr.com where I started to post images without thinking too much about it. Then as the festival ended, I decided to learn some HTML and CSS on my own in order to make a little site to sell these little books online as artist’s books.

My idea was really just to get the work seen, nothing much beyond that. But I kept getting enquiries about the books, and friends said they wanted to get involved. This got me thinking and one day I had I guess what I would call an epiphany – why not use exactly the same format, images without words, but lots of other people’s work together and not just a vanity publishing project?! So I sat down and wrote the first editorial which became the “about” section on the WLTF site, which is a reflection on the nature of my own photography that is all about very intimate moments with lovers and friends and always very sexual, but quietly sexual, not in-yer-face sexual if you know what I mean. After this I made a very simple site with what I had already learned of HTML and put it online not expecting much from it. This was the first right move, because my friends started putting it about to their friends (the URL that is! -ed), and all of a sudden, the site started to get two to three thousand hits a week and the first images started coming in. This really surprised me and made me think more seriously about the project.

Following this positive interest, I started to further explore the Flickr network and found that there are some really good images out there, although one has to look hard! I created the WLTF group and went around Flickr inviting images into the group and members too. From that point WLTF started to grow and gather momentum. More images started to come in and I expanded the network.

R: How did you find and select the photographers?

RN: Well Flickr obiously was a great starting point. A kind soul, although I don’t know who, put the link to the site on a few Brazilian photography blogs and boom lots of work came in, and some good ones, for example Pedro David, who sent in those images of prostitutes from a very impoverished area of central Brazil. This kind of thing is what I call serendipity, it just happens, you can’t plan it.Some photographers I already knew and went looking for them to see if they would have any interest in taking part like Alex Rose and Stuart Sandford who were great and very responsive to the idea.The very first plan was to choose four or five photographers and start with a very small but perfectly formed project, in order to keep it cheap to print and to administer, but I was bitten on the head with that. So many good images came in that I couldn’t let it pass, I had to allow the project to take its own shape. The selection of the work came naturally, I work instinctively, I can’t say to you that I chose this or that image for any specific reason, it was organic, the images started to fall together naturally, that’s all I can say.

R: How come you’re currently only an online publication?

RN: The main problem is always the same one, money. The objective of the project is to exist in print, four times a year, and one needs cash to make that happen, So that is why I decided to make WLTF #0 an online edition, to show everyone how many people are already involved, how many good work there is out there, and what my concept of WLTF really is. Just talking about it wasn’t doing it anymore, it was time to show the goods and so far the feedback has been amazing. We’ve had 18k hits in just two days!

R: You mention that you ‘just want a bit of fun’ Which images excite you the most and how much is a ‘bit’ of fun?

RN: Well Sir, how long is a piece of string!? lol. I think I could safely say that all of the images excite me in some way, and I am not just saying this to be diplomatic, but if you’re asking me which ones excite me in the sense that it makes me hard, then… these are just a few, take a look and let me know what you think:

R: Future plans?

RN: If it all works out and we get to go to print and get the project properly funded etc etc, I’d like to have future editions of WLTF edited by guest editors. I think that would be a great way of involving even more interesting people and of expanding the WLTF vision, you know, to make it more exciting, that would be great.

R: Where do you hang out in São Paulo, any secret hottie spots we should know about?

RN: Oh I tend to hang out in places that area bit off the beaten track, where angels fear to tread… if you want I can write something for EVB about that.

R: We’d love for you to write something about being off the beaten track in São Paulo. Thanks, and we look forward to WLTF #1 and getting its physical manifestation in our hands.