Editorial proposal by Cassandra Joseph: Inside the Technomadic Vampire Community. Photographer Bolade Banjo meets Rain: a self-styled "technomadic vampire who eats raw steak and bone marrow, and drinks a glass of blood every morning. You can read more in the Winter 2021 issue of THE FACE.
From the article:
It’s not every day that someone comes in the office with the news that they met a vampire at the weekend. Although that’s what Cassandra Joseph – THE FACE Junior Creative – brought to the table a few months back. As Cassandra tells it: “On an abnormally cold evening in May, my housemates and I were settling down when we received a call from [photographer and FACE family] Bolade Banjo.” From there, a house party invitation led to a chance meeting with a group of people who, it would transpire, were drinking a cocktail of rum and pig’s blood (not something we’d recommend, reader, but a notable drink, nonetheless). At the centre of it all was a young man named Rain. A self-styled “technomadic vampire” – a way of living he describes as “nomadic enhanced with certain technologies” (although probably not a garlic press) – he eats raw steak and bone marrow, and drinks a glass of blood every morning, a daily constitutional he claims has seen him grow an inch in height and has “a similar effect to coffee. Basically, it gives me a kick. A smooth kick throughout the day.” Rain’s ideology, as he puts it, stems from a reverence for nature (not to mention the occasional banging techno rave). He’s not a vampire in the “I vant to suck your blood” sense. Rather, “I think you can call yourself a vampire when you feel what blood does”. He’s recently started a course in biodesign at Central Saint Martins, where he hopes to further understand “the intelligence of natural design”. For Cassandra. “as intriguing as it sounds to be a self-identified vampire, I thought we would be hanging out with a theatre kid going through one of those teenage phases – having their main-character Twilight moment or something. Instead, we met a bright young man that has found a way of unapologetically living in his truth. Together we explored his reconnection to nature and return to primality through the many areas in his life – with London's rebirthed dancefloors setting the backdrop.” Or as Rain himself puts it: “[You’re a vampire] when you recognise your place in nature as an animal, and an inherently predatory animal. When you connect to nature and realise that there’s nothing wrong with consuming [something’s] lifeforce and it is, in fact, your prerogative. It’s what you’re supposed to be doing. In that sense I’m a vampire.”
