I write, design, and sometimes make music. In 2001, I co-founded Red Antenna, an award-winning creative studio. I’ve also taught several courses in design at the Pratt Insitute and Parsons School of Design. Currently, I’m working on a book about the American landscape called The Awful Making of an Optimist. I also write about techno music, take photographs of old factories, and try my best to be chivalrous.

Before studying film and graphic design at the University of Michigan, James switched his major no less than six times (including the ever-popular Japanese Literature in Translation) and held 23 part-time jobs (selling oriental rugs, developing photographs, gas station clerk, and delivering pizzas).

In 2001, James moved to the big city, where he worked as a freelance designer for a few Madison Avenue companies before realizing that he did not care if another chocolate bar or cellphone was ever sold again. At this point, he was ripe for discovering the manifestos of the Constructivists, Ken Garland’s “First Things First” declaration, and the ranting of Adbusters and Émigré. None of this was mentioned to him during his schooling, so he enrolled in the Art & Design Education department at Pratt, where he received his Master’s degree in 2004.

Also in 2001, he founded a creative studio and record label called Red Antenna with Candy Chang, Stephen Baker, and Dan Parham. Launching a traditional record label in the same year that the mp3 achieved popular currency proved to be a challenging (some might say ‘dim’) business decision. Nonetheless, several well-received techno records were pressed and even sold to people, and the Red Antenna experiment continues to produce intriguing design projects today.

James also taught several undergraduate and graduate couses in design at the Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design. He also taught first grade, middle school, and a few months of high school. Middle school was by far the scariest, followed by undergraduate. The best students to teach are first graders and graduate students, because they want to be in the classrom (really, they’re just excited to be out in public).

After eight years in New York City, he moved to Helsinki to get some perspective. Now he’s beginning to dream of living off the land in New Mexico or Utah.

KINO means ‘Camera’ or ‘Mechanical Image’ in Russian and the phrase Kino-Glaz (“Camera Eye”) was coined by Dziga Vertov in 1922 to describe his new, freewheeling approach to the burgeoning art of filmmaking. Throughout a series of excited manifestos, Vertov exalts the use of technology as a means of freedom and describes Kino-Glaz as the “conclusive result of a complete observation refined and deepened by means of all available devices .” Vertov’s writing is energetic and grand, but the real proof is in his 1924 film, Man with a Movie Camera.

SPORT: The most popular definition is that of an active pastime or recreation (football, bowling, possibly typography or writing). In the early 1900s, the term was commonly applied to a person who lives a jolly, extravagant life as well as a pleasant companion (a definition ought to come back into circulation) and was best used by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ill-fated Gatsby, who called everybody “sport” when he wanted to boost morale. “Sport” also means to have fun with something or possess a playful attitude — and there should be more of this in design, writing, and techno.

Thus, Kino + Sport has been adopted as the catchall name for the writing, image-making, and musical endeavors of James A. Reeves. The term was chosen not only for its terrific cadence, but also as a nod to the proactive philosophies of the Modernists and a touch of nostalgia for a time in which I have not lived.