I spent a year in Stockholm and I took a lot of photos, the majority of which will probably rot on my hard drive until the eventual end of the universe due to the undeniable reality of heat dissapation or the withdrawal of the locomotive force of God’s will, allowing him to take some time learn from his mistakes and start again afresh. In no particular order, these are some of the ones that remind me of special things about my time there.
The trees around Stora Essingen look like they’re made out of ice around Christmas. I spent hours just staring at them out my window. They looked like they might break at any time. I loved imagining the sound they’d make if they did.
For the majority of my time there, the headquarters for Ericsson were just next door to us in school, and then towards the end they moved somewhere else. It was weird having all these amenities that were designed on the premise that thousands of office workers would be in the area every day, suddenly to ourselves. It was kind of lonely oddly. The place seemed kind of sad, deserted.
In the Summer, crossing a road is a doubly perilous because you also have to keep an eye out for hundreds of cyclists, one of the better things about Winter in Stockholm was that all you had to worry about was cars. And tons of ice and snow. Obviously.
Whatever else happened with the course, the people and the job, I can say with absolute and complete certainty that because it gave me the opportunity to get to know someone like Sougwen, it was worth the price of the course. Even if it has meant I have to spend a further three hours a day on ichat for the rest of my life to pay for it.
It’s kind of sad that I can’t produce a real version of my resume where I state that my main occupation this year was SOUGWEN BEFRIENDER
This was the front of my apartment in Stora Essingen, I loved that building. It was lofty, awesome and opening the front door was like walking into a furnace. Your face felt like it was the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Oskar is what I think about when I think of the awesome Swedes I hoped to meet when I went to Hyper Island. A consummate gentleman, apparent hunter and continuous wearer of the skinniest jeans I’ve ever seen on a human being. He’s also the only person I’ve ever seen wearing a bow tie on a casual day. A designer turned project manager, I think out of all the people I met in Hyper he pretty much personifies a successful Hyper Island student, one who genuinely took it for what it was and made the most out of it. Although I still think he was lying about the hunting. He doesn’t seem like the sport killing type and I never saw any trophies.
Stora Essingen is a small island in the middle of Stockholm, although it doesn’t feel like it. Initially when I moved there I was worried that it was too remote and had no amenities. As time went on I realised that beauty, stillness and silence are two amenities you shouldn’t do without, although too much of it can have a lasting effect on how you view the necessities of life. I loved it, but it did feel a bit old for me.
Skanstull at night always seemed kind of like some post apocalyptic cavern. The strange thing is that when it starts getting really cold, you can literally go outside late at night and walk for twenty minutes and you won’t see another living person. Swedes are like bears that way, hibernation seems to be their natural response to the Winter. For them, Winter’s a time for box sets and indoor cuddles.
This church loomed large over the Skanstull area and when I was first getting to know the city, it was one of my major ways of telling where the Hell I was. As such, it’s one of the few times that I can genuinely feel that I personally really got something out of church.
Oskar, Johan and Erik occasionally leave their individual bodies behind, and by using a mystically magical set of Viking Rings from times longpast, by their powers they combine into one Super-Swede called Magnus Absolutesonn. Magnus can run through brick walls, design you a complete brand identity that will transform your business in microseconds and make you a moose-stuffed herring sandwich out of a piece of wood and a picture of the Swedish Crown Princess. FACT.
This picture literally sums up the entire relationship of Hyper DM11′s favorite couple, Christian and Anna.
Daniel Lauding is the gent amongst gents who created this site for me. He’s a gifted web designer who’s dedication to Friday class drinks and the Hyper community was first amongst less than equals. He’s currently working like a dog in NYC and I look forward to being harassed by him for Friday drinks in a whole different city.
If you’re looking to see the quintessential members of the Hyper Island Stockholm Swedish Massive, look no further than this picture. These were the hardcore, the central pillar, the learning experience, the cautionary tale.
Linnea and Hannah. Young ladies of grace and breeding both. Capable, understandable, presentable, delectable, intelligible, drunkable, enthusable, predatable. You’ve heard of the “digital” generation, here it is. In the flesh.
My Stora Essingen pad really was something special. I miss it.
The Frozen Sea respects no man.
It’s heart is made of icy Brine.
Blizzards in Stockholm were always a complicated proposition. Half of you was so cold that all you could feel were your muscles clenching into dry agonizing oblivion, while the other half was completely blown away by how beautiful snow can make ugly things seem.
I went past this sign every single night on my way home to Stora Essingen and never found out what it was for. I like to think it was an apartment where the dude from Perfume lived.
“Gaten” is Swedish for street. Although it seems like it should mean “Gate”. Pesky Swedes and their insistence on having a language that seems to make no bloody sense at all.
This was some graffiti underneath a bridge near my house. All I could think of at the time was how cool it would be to have a club under a bridge. Then in the Summer I went to Tradgarden and all made sense.
I can’t even tell you how much time I spent waiting for that train. It may have been 3 minutes then, but over the year I probably spent at least a bloody day doing it. I wonder, if I’d had the option to do it all at once if I would have taken it?
In the year and a bit that I was there, we as a school probably put Mr Post-It’s many, many kids through college as well as a postgraduate degree in gluemaking. And like, you know, a good one, not one of these crappy no-hoper Swedish Internet Schools with ridiculous names, claims to be the source of the “digital generation” and a suspiciously amazing reputation.
Weirdly, one of the main things that freaked me out about Stockholm was how insanely bright and glarey it was. The whiteness of the snow combined with the thinner atmosphere* made it so that forgetting sunglasses was a day ruiner.
*I have no idea if this is true.
This is basically what the majority of Swedish houses in the Suburbs looked like. I could never stop thinking that they looked like something out of the industrial revolution, or like something out of a Richard Scarry book.
One thing I never managed was to look quite as sleek and cool as most Swedes did in their Winter gear. I think it takes a lifetime of training. I did rock though. I rocked hard.
The occasion of going Ice Walking for the first time is something that requires a ridiculous pose to mark it as special amongst the oppressive business of the busy, busy day.
Close up, ice makes things look like it’s covered in crystals. Admittedly this isn’t exactly a revolutionary statement, but I stand by it.
Frost = Lovely Maker.
Martin Schwartzman. I hear he once killed five rabid cyborg tigers by ignoring them. That he has a retreat somewhere in the Antarctic where Elvis is his butler. That he is actually from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Barthelona as he said. That he is entirely made of a compound of crushed rose petals, Veuve Clicquot and the sighs of satisfied virgins. I also hear that those are his glasses, and he is Pulling. Them. Off.
Jesus. Ragsvard. If there was ever a place that’s only positive point was the fact that you could leave it if you tried hard enough and waited for a seeming eternity that was it. I should have moved out as soon as I moved in. I lived there for four lonely, depressing months. It was where I learned what happens when your brain goes cannibal. Although it did have an okay burger place, so maybe it wasn’t all bad.
Ignacio from IHaveAnIdea.Com. In another time he would have emerged silently from deep in the jungles of Latin America and lead an entirely different type of revolution. One with more beers and intense honesty about the relationship between men and women.
If I ever have a daughter I hope she’s exactly like Elin. Well, maybe slightly taller.
Mattias Hansen. CEO of Hyper Island, fiscal shyster and constant affectionado of Munch’s “The Scream”. He’s second only to Oskar in the tight pants category. And then only just.
Even on a nice sunny day, Ragsvard always looked like it was made out of the old, discoloured Lego that had been your dad’s in the 60′s and you inherited even though it looked and smelled like it had been through someone’s digestive system and had loads of pieces that weren’t being made any more because kids kept choking to death on them.
On nice days you would see these hot air balloons making a lazy circuit of Stockholm’s airspace. They always made me want to buy a pellet rifle and get on the news.
Robin and Sebastian. Better proof of Sweden’s ultimately superior genetic stock I think you’ll be hard up to find.
This girl was actually the most beautiful I saw in my entire time in Sweden. She was perfect. And tragically this was the best photo I got of her because I assumed there were snipers watching from the trees, state-mandated bodyguards protecting her perfection from inevitably psychotic men driven suddenly mad by her complete and utter beauty. I didn’t want to make any sudden moves that might be misconstrued.
The name tags from my project with SJ, Swedish National Rail. It was the end of probably one of the most intense periods of my life. Or the beginning, depending on your point of view.
Watching pure class like Elin drink cheap cans of warm beer was like being on safari and seeing a sheep attacking a lion, slightly unsettling and ultimately leaving you with a lot of questions..
Right next to Hyper was Stockholm’s premier art school, Konstfack. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed in the ArtFuck kids, they always looked like they were in the background of a bad New Order video.
Tim Widgar. He’s basically a Swedish version of Arnold Schwarzenegger with better musical taste and a mysterious penchant for supporting English football. Literally one of the most chilled out, awesome people I met in the year I was there. A real Wench.
Luke Forrester, an fella with a five year mission, to seek out new Swedish women, to boldly go where no Aussie has gone before. He’s top of top of top.
It’s weird, Autumn the second time was sad, because I knew it was a precursor to my leaving Sweden forever and also, I had an idea what the Winter was going to be like. It was also unbelievably beautiful because the trees looked like the leaves were having a colour fight.
Julia Julia Julia. Try and find a nicer, cooler more lovely and positive person in the entire world. Go on. I double dog dare you. I triple tremendous threat you. I quadruple querulous quest you.
Joacim and Robin. Many people who are trying to fluff it in the digital industry talk about talent as if it’s some kind of given, like as if the very act of being a young creative designer is enough to classify you as “talented”. These guys are the real deal. I can absolutely say with genuine belief that they’re gonna be big. If they don’t get arrested for public nudity first.
I miss Jonas. He always kind of seemed a bit too good for the bitching and moaning of Hyper. Even if he did wear glasses that made him look like The Jackal.
Nick Campbell, AKA GreyScaleGorilla. Cool, capable, affable, interesting, laid back. I want his life. And am in the process of taking it.
DM11 Stockholm. Bye guys.
