Studio Job creates "travelling circus" stage set for Mika tour using giant illustrations
For its first music project, Studio Job designed a stage set featuring oversized illustrations and a giant disco ball for British musician Mika's No Place In Heaven tour (+ slideshow).
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_6.jpg)
The set's huge "fantastical" drawings depict everything from smoking chimneys, to the Titanic sinking and a giant shark emerging from the sea.
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_2.jpg)
"I drew the No Place in Heaven illustrations specially for the set design, on tiny pieces of paper at Mika's kitchen table in London," said studio founder Job Smeets – who apparently met Mika while playing triangle during a recording session.
"After that they were scanned and blown up to gigantic proportions, and positioned together to get a classic 2D/3D composition with weird perspectives," he told Dezeen. "We were inspired by the set designs of David Hockney and other artists. It needed to be straight from the heart."
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_1.jpg)
A caravan on the right-hand side of Mika's set is labelled Paradise in light-up signage, and has hidden sliding doors that open to reveal more illustrations, a niche that holds a keyboard, and a set of pipes that extend up and out of its roof.
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_3.jpg)
Smeets also showed illustrations at the studio's recent Banana Show in Belgium – a solo exhibition of art and design which also included lights shaped like peeled bananas.
"We wanted a dull caravan that would explode into a bizarre carnivalesque mishmash," said Smeets, who told Dezeen that the set was designed in just 24 hours, and produced in two weeks.
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_8.jpg)
For the grand finale of the show, a giant world globe covered in 500,000 crystals – all applied by hand – descends from the ceiling like a disco ball.
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_7.jpg)
The entire stage set was designed to be easily transportable and, in the words of Smeets, "idiot-proof".
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_4.jpg)
"Set design is so different from our normal, sculptural work," he added. "It's decor that needs to set up and put down many times. Basically it's a travelling circus."
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_9.jpg)
Although this is its first foray into music, Studio Job is no stranger to designing scenography. The Belgium-based studio has created many catwalks for Dutch fashion house Viktor & Rolf.
![Mika by Studio Job](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/Mika_Studio-Job_dezeen_936_0.jpg)
Other recent projects include whimsical crystal-encrusted installation for Swarovski, and "rock and roll" garden furniture for Seletti.
Photography is by Set Vexy and Loek Blonk.