23.09.18 42 @heraldscotland facebook.com/heraldscotland heraldscotland.com

THE Rachel Maclean 31, artist

Why? She makes our social COOL media hell into fabulous art LIST TOP THREE

Weird and wonderful, surreal and silly, meet the face of modern art

THERE’S no artist quite like Rachel art can do, that journalism or a TV the world of the film quite extensively Maclean. She has created a mad, filmic documentary can’t. for the few years it takes to make it. The vision of her own, through a process all She nails the nightmare that is our time you’re in costume is maybe a day, of her own. social media and fake news age. but then there’s just all the living and Aldo Most of the strange and grotesque Spite Your Face, the film she thinking about the characters.” Kane characters in her films are her in presented last year at the Venice But with Maclean, what makes her all disguise, transformed with thick layers Biennale, turned the Pinocchio tale into the more cool is that she is now taking 40, adventurer of garish make-up and digital effects. I live inside a satire on the Trump era, and, over a her vision to a wider audience. She is the one lip-syncing to found the world of year on, seems more relevant than ever. This autumn will see her much- Why? He keeps his audio tracks. She is the figure She demonstrates, too, the extremes hyped first feature film broadcast on cool in extremes transported via green screen into a the film quite an artist may go to for their art. Maclean the BBC. bizarre universe – and it’s all spent a month eating and sleeping in Filmed in the derelict spaces of St magnificently out there. extensively Birmingham’s Bullring shopping centre, Peter’s Seminary, it’s a feminist Maclean is as brilliantly surreal as dressed as a giant, grotesque bunny. response to Kenneth Clark’s landmark Bjork, but she is also a reminder of what For her films, she says: “I live inside cultural series Civilisation. Drugs, guns and

Gerry Cinnamon scary adventures 32, singer

Why? He’s a belter ALMOST everything Aldo Kane does is obsessed Guy Martin, done a survival so extreme or terrifying it would make race in Borneo with Ed Stafford, and most of us melt into a puddle. been on countless trips with Steve He is the kind of cool, in other words, Backshall with whom he is filming the that is good at keeping calm in a hairy groundbreaking BBC primetime situation – whether when working with Expedition series. gun-toting South American narcotics In July, he emerged, blinking, into the Have your say dealers for the documentary The Real light after 10 days’ solitary confinement Narcos or filming inside a volcano that in a nuclear bunker, and was about to What do you think of our unfortunately happens to start erupting. fly to the two- hour daylight of list? Is there anybody you He also has a beard that looks more Greenland for an expedition with would have left out – or coiffed for climbing mountains than Backshall. put in? pulling pints in a trendy pub. When we emailed him last week he Get in touch and let us A belter of a showman Anywhere you imagine you might be was in Suriname in South America, know what you think. nervous of going, he’s been there: an I’ve been about to head down the river into and a musician, Gerry Ebola treatment centre, water-flooded unexplored jungle. Somehow, in the write caves, rowing a boat across the Atlantic charged middle of this, he was also managing to sold out in minutes on a world-record breaking trip. hold down a relationship with a Sunday Herald “Everything,” says Kane, “has been in by a rhino producer of nature documentaries. Letters an extreme or remote or hostile but it is not The Kilwinning-raised son of two 200 Renfield Street WHEN earlier this month Gerry What he did at TRNSMT earlier this “He’s gone from playing to 50 people environment. It can be benign, in a cave paramedics’ route to exploration came G2 3QB Cinnamon added a few extra dates to year said everything about him. to a point where he could easily sell out or a bunker, or it can be full-on being as scary via the Scouts. From 12, he and twin his tour, they sold out in three minutes. Taking the main stage after the Hydro. We had to bring him back.” chased by Mexican drug rings.” as dealing Ross would camp on their own in places email Last week, footage of Irish dancers pulled out, he turned the audience into What makes him all the cooler is that For years Kane was the safety and like Glencoe. At 16, his eyes set on performing to his hit She’s A Belter a great, huge belting choir who even success didn’t come early. ropes guy behind many of TV’s extreme with a adventure, he joined the Royal Marines, sunday-letters@ went viral. chanted out his name. Cinnamon was told along the way adventure or nature shows, taking coked-up where he became a sniper. theherald.co.uk There are plenty of big names out “See when the crowd’s with you,” he that he shouldn’t sing with a Scottish presenters to breathtaking and risky Narco What was his most petrifying there in Scottish music, but right now It’s a mad said, “singing every word it’s a mad accent and had to crowdsource the locations, but not appearing much on moment? “Being inside the volcano it’s Gerry Cinnamon’s moment. feeling. Beautiful mayhem.” money for his first album which came screen. This year he has broken through with a gun when it was erupting wasn’t cool. Then comment It’s his very Scottish version of cool – feeling. Geoff Ellis, director of TRNSMT, out last year. as a star himself, with all of his work on with the cartel in The Real Narcos. I Go to HeraldScotland. just a man on a stage with his guitar, recognised how big he was. “Not since He remains an independent musician, screen and a hectic schedule of trips for was charged by a black rhino, but that com and join the debate singing out some great tunes – that has Beautiful Oasis have I seen someone go on such a unattached to any record company. many of the major television channels. wasn’t nearly as scary as dealing with a got Scotland absolutely buzzing. mayhem rapid trajectory around here,” he said. He’s a belter, in other words, with He has been in Russia with speed- coked-up Narco who is carrying a gun.” attitude.