Cevin Soling
Cevin Soling is a writer, filmmaker, musician, academic, and artist. His creative vision emerged fully formed at the age of eight when he discovered that his resentment for abusive authority could be expressed through his artwork. Parents and teachers who were conflicted about stifling creative voices were uncomfortably compelled to stomach the disturbing and sometimes gruesome spectacles of Cevin’s imagination. This impulse for subversion was cultivated and fueled by the discovery of Tom Lehrer, whose songs irreverently skewered sacred cows and rank hypocrisy.
A polymath and autodidact, Cevin taught himself how to play various musical instruments, music production and engineering, filmmaking, electronics design, philosophy, and various other disciplines. His creations span a broad spectrum of mediums, but they all reflect his penchant for producing works that challenge his audience.
Cevin’s artistic and academic work is ultimately about transcendence. His debut film, “A Hole in the Head,” documented a sub-culture that drilled holes in their heads to expand their state of consciousness. The troubling aspect was not so much these people’s willingness to violate their bodies in a dramatic manner. Rather, it is that the procedure might work and the subsequent questions this raises about potentially improving brain function and how far one should go.
Limitations on our protentional are not only physical. Cevin laments and targets unneeded social constraints and absurd conventions. Cultural criticism abounds in the albums he composed with his bands The Neanderthal Spongecake and The Love Kills Theory and is a dominant theme in his Rumpleville Chronicles book series. One reviewer of Cevin’s work was struck with the revelation: “We’ve become what we parody.”