Vincenzo De Cotiis

Vincenzo De Cotiis: Navigating the Intersection of Analysis and Experimentation in Architecture and Art

Vincenzo De Cotiis, an architect and artist from Milan, Italy, has built a career that blends the past and future through his unique design philosophy. After studying at the Politecnico di Milano, he founded his studio in Milan, which serves as both his home and the center of his creative work. De Cotiis’ designs result from continuous analysis and experimentation, merging space and time, cultural layers, and unexpected leaps. His projects, though complex, are powerfully expressed through their materials.

Your architectural philosophy is deeply rooted in a continuous process of analysis and experimentation. Can you elaborate on how this approach shapes your work?

My work is an ongoing dialogue between analysis and experimentation, where each project is a journey through layers of cultural and temporal significance. This process allows me to create spaces that resonate with history while embracing future possibilities. By continuously challenging conventional boundaries, I strive to evoke emotional responses through the interplay of materials and forms.

How do you select the materials for your projects, and what role do they play in your creative process?

Materials are chosen for their ability to convey stories and emotions. Each project requires careful consideration of how each material can contribute to the overall experience. I do not limit myself to a fixed list of materials but allow the concept and context of each project to guide my choices. This flexible approach enables me to explore new possibilities and create unique designs.

Your studio in Milan is the heart of your creative endeavors. How does the city itself influence your work?

Milan’s rich cultural heritage and dynamic contemporary scene provide a constant source of inspiration. The city’s architecture, art, and vibrant design community encourage me to blend traditional craftsmanship with innovative techniques. This fusion of old and new is reflected in my work, creating pieces that are both rooted in history and forward-looking.

If I asked you to take me to a place in Milan that holds special significance for you, where would it be and why?

I would take you to the Brera district, which is a hub of artistic and cultural activity. The juxtaposition of historic buildings with modern galleries and studios embodies the essence of Milanese creativity. It’s a place where tradition and innovation coexist harmoniously, much like in my own work.

Your work often balances between the future and the past. How do you achieve this equilibrium in your designs?

Achieving balance involves a deep respect for the past while being open to future innovations. I draw inspiration from historical contexts and reinterpret them through a contemporary lens. This approach allows me to create designs that are timeless yet progressive, embodying a sense of continuity and evolution.

Can you give us an example of a project where materiality played a crucial role in shaping the design?

It is difficult to choose a single series, as all my projects hold deep importance for me, and each explores materiality in unique ways. Every project is an intellectual exploration of how materials can interact and transform each other. In every work, I seek to discover the intrinsic properties of the materials and bring out their expressive potential, creating a dialogue between material and form that transcends time and space.

Your work often involves unexpected interactions within spaces. How do you approach creating these unique experiences

Creating unique spatial experiences involves a meticulous process of layering different elements to provoke curiosity and engagement. I aim to disrupt conventional expectations by integrating unexpected materials, forms, and textures, encouraging viewers to explore and interact with the space in new and meaningful ways.

What are some of the intellectual and artistic challenges you face in your design process?

One of the primary challenges is maintaining a balance between artistic expression and functional design. While my work leans heavily towards sculptural and conceptual art, it must also serve practical purposes. Navigating this dichotomy requires continuous experimentation and refinement to ensure that both aspects coexist harmoniously.

Looking ahead, what directions or projects are you excited to explore in the future?

I have a profound appreciation and understanding of the history of art, which deeply influences my work. Each of my series is rich with references to the past, yet my aim is always to reinterpret these elements in a contemporary way. I am excited to continue this exploration, blending historical influences with contemporary art principles to create innovative and timeless pieces. I am particularly enthusiastic about projects that allow me to delve deeper into this fusion, bringing forth new and unique interpretations that resonate with today’s discerning audience.

In order of appearance

  1. Vincenzo De Cotiis Foundation. Photography Wichmann + Bendtsen. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.
  2. Vincenzo De Cotiis. Installation View, Archaeology of Consciousness Exhibition, Venice. 19 April – 24 November 2024. Photography Wichmann + Bendtsen. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.
  3. Vincenzo De Cotiis Foundation. Photography Wichmann + Bendtsen. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.
  4. Vincenzo De Cotiis Foundation. Photography Wichmann + Bendtsen. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.
  5. Vincenzo De Cotiis, DC2316 VENICE, 2023. Hand-painted recycled fiberglass, German silver, fabric. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.
  6. Vincenzo De Cotiis, DC2310 VENICE, 2023. Hand-painted recycled fiberglass, Murano cast glass, German silver. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.
  7. Vincenzo De Cotiis, DC2312 VENICE, 2023. Blown Murano glass, cast brass. Courtesy of Vincenzo de Cotiis Foundation.

Parker Ito

Expected Value and the Sublime:
A conversation with Parker Ito

Art and poker. If life’s a gamble, then the two must have more in common than it might appear at first glance; American artist Parker Ito is pretty sure of it. On one of the busy days leading to his show at Climate Control in San Francisco, NR conversed with him on the similarities between the career of a poker player and that of an artist, the notion of value, and markets vs communities to retrace his past production as an artist, and figure out his next moves. Expect also: A detour on sartorial matters and style, a crazy night out in San Francisco leading to a disappointing encounter with the giants of Impressionist painting, and an exploration of the Sublime, but make it Las Vegas Sphere.

Hi Parker! How’s it going?

Good, you? I’m running on a few hours of sleep because of poker, but other than that I’m great.

I’m great! You preceded me mentioning poker, that’s what I wanted to use as a conversation starter! How are you managing that with art and everything else?

Well, I’m getting ready for a bunch of shows and new projects. The building where my studio is stays only open ‘till midnight, and that creates some unfavorable timetables for me to work. I used to have a lot of assistants, so I had to be up when they were working. But now it’s just me, and I’m naturally more active at night. So right now my sleep schedule is really bad. I’m going to bed at, I would say, between 6am and 10am, some nights.

Really?

Yeah, you know..Poker just goes on all night.

Working in your studio, and playing poker, which, by the sound of it, it’s starting to become something that you are doing quite professionally. Seems like a packed schedule.

I don’t feel like I’m good enough to say that I’m a professional poker player. Had I been speaking to a real pro, I would feel embarrassed to call myself that. Poker is just something I’m super obsessed with right now, and I’ve had some success doing it; I want to be good at it, I love it. But art, of course, is always going to be my number one thing. I tend to work in my studio usually in bursts of intense periods –I don’t really make work outside of a planned exhibition, I’m not someone who just goes to their studio every day. So sometimes I won’t be there for like a month or something, and then, when I have a show, I’ll be there like every day. Lately, I’ve been there all the time because the building my studio is in closes at midnight. I’ve been basically spending the night there, something I had never done before until last year’s New York show.

The Lubov one with Jon Rafman?

Yeah. That show with Jon, even though it was a two person show, it’s probably the hardest I ever worked on a show. That was the first time I’d ever had to do any kind of overnight session in my studio —It’s really weird to say something like this because I’ve been working for over a decade now as a professional artist. But I just realized how much I like overnights. Lately I’ve been going to my studio, I get there between 2 to 5pm, and work all night, sleep a little bit, and then wake up and work all the next day. I’ve been doing these like 30 plus hour-days in my studio, sometimes it’s super productive, I get really high on Adderall and get so much done, other times I just play poker the whole time. Poker can definitely be distracting, but I’m good with deadlines, and I’m good at multitasking.

What parallels are you finding between poker and art, as practices, if any. For example, the Lubov show was titled “Poets, Gambler, and Fools,” so now I’m wondering if your experience as a poker player might have informed the show’s narrative in some capacity.

I thought of Jon as the poet, me as the gambler, and then we’re both sort of fools. I guess It could be that there’s a lot of gambling in art, a lot of parallels to the nature of poker. And I think the careers of artists are similar to those of professional poker players, something I explored in a text that I wrote in 2021, which talks about this idea of Expected Value. Expected Value is a concept that’s been around for a long time, it’s not a poker-specific notion, but it’s used in poker to think about decision making. And it’s not necessarily about making the right decision at the right moment, but understanding that if certain decisions are made, again, and again, and again, they will yield a +EV outcome. EV has to do with the nature of variance in poker, which makes it a really interesting game. Chess, for example, is a game of complete information, while poker is one of incomplete information –in chess, a really high level chess player would never lose to an inferior one; In poker, even the best poker player in the world could lose a hand to an amateur, because of variance, and unknown factors. I think there’s a parallel in art there, even though poker is a game that clearly has winners and losers, unlike art –Like I said in this text I wrote: “As an artist, you never really win, you just kind of hope to get to your next show.”

Also, the idea of who’s a better artist than who, is something very subjective. In poker, I think the results can tell who’s the better poker player in the long-run, but if you broke down individual hands, they might tell a different story, because of luck and other factors: It’s not always the best poker player that’s winning. I think there’s another parallel there to the way that artists are sometimes received. Poker is also very psychologically challenging in its swings. When you’re running good, you feel that everything comes naturally to you, but then you start running bad, and you feel like it’s the end of the world. As someone who’s had an art career and experienced the swings, I’d like to think I’m prepared for the ups and downs in poker a bit more.

Earlier you mentioned that you’re experiencing some novelty, working without assistants, doing overnights and extra studio sessions. What do you think is changing or has changed in your practice throughout the years, especially maybe in correlation with the movement that you’ve been associated with at the beginning of it, Post-Internet Art, which you recently felt the need to reconsider thematically for Poets, Gamblers, and Fools. 

I view “Post-Internet”  as a term with multiple meanings. In the art world, it’s often seen as a market term. To be honest, I wasn’t actually even in a lot of those post-Internet curated shows -maybe I was in only one of those?- As an aesthetic, I don’t see my work as closely related to what’s typically associated with it, even though my work happens to be the current main image on the post-internet Wikipedia page. In terms of Post-Internet as a scene -which I usually just refer to as “net art” I was definitely a part of that. It initially felt like that scene existed outside of the art world but was eventually consumed by it. And it really had felt at times, at least for me, once Post Internet became part of the mainstream artworld there hasn’t really been another unified art movement. Maybe some market movements, defined by shared formal qualities, but there hasn’t really been a group of artists working as a real community with shared interests, like what happened with Post Internet. Recently, I’ve been exploring the contemporary NFT scene. I never got into NFTs because I felt so turned off by the art world’s smash and grab motivated by profit, and I just didn’t want to do an NFT and turn it into that kind of thing, I wanted to do something that felt like it was specific to the medium, because it is an interesting technology. Also, a lot of the NFT aesthetic was really corny. Recently, I’ve just been looking at this new NFT stuff through Twitter, or X whatever you wanna call it, and the aesthetic I’m seeing is really different from what it was a couple years ago, and there’s also just a whole scene of people communicating with each other – they all work under pseudonyms and it feels exciting! It feels like when I was discovering the net-art stuff when I was in college, and I realized there’s this whole scene of people talking to each other on the internet, who have the same shared interest and communicate with one another to insure the evolution of this thing they care about. This new NFT somehow feels like a continuation of the net art scene I was a part of, in terms of just like other areas for artists to communicate and share,  and that’s really cool.

One could say that NFT art was almost doomed from the beginning, it really had an incredibly accelerated, almost meteoric rise, then that bubble quickly burst. Conversely, It almost seems that when market expectations were lifted from the NFT world, a scene proliferated and the medium felt fertile again. I’d be very curious to know a bit about that project you mentioned that never was. Are you going to experiment with the medium further in the future? 

I’m actually working on a new project right now, coincidentally, all of this stuff kind of just came together. Someone had asked me to do an NFT project, and I agreed to do it –that was at the end of last year. I spent a lot of time on Twitter and went down this wormhole of new NFT stuff; that was just kind of an accident, because I previously decided to just do the NFT project and not care about what was happening in the NFT space, but then I found myself in the midst of it all and had all these realizations. There are a lot of aesthetic similarities between these new NFTs and the kinds of photoshopped collaged paintings I was making in 2015. A lot of these NFT projects are made with generative programs and therefore can be easily made into large quantities. Sometimes a drop can be 10,000 images. I made this print for a show in 2013 –I can’t even remember what the print says– but it’s something along the lines of “when Picasso died, he had made 250,000 pieces,” whatever the number, it was an approximation of the amount of work Picasso had made over his entire lifetime, and I claimed that I could make that many JPEGs in five minutes. When I made that print NFTs were yet to exist, but now the premise of being able to make 250,000 images in 5 minutes is an actual reality. This new project I’m going back to an image I used for the first paintings that people recognized as my work- The Parked Domain Girl series which was these paintings based on a widely circulated stock photo that was everywhere on the Internet from 2006-2012. Primarily this image was used as a placeholder image on websites that were “parked”. I’m trying to create a high volume of NFTs constructed around that Parked Domain Girl image, loosely in the framework of a PFP project. This collection of NFTs will be presented in a website format that mimics the layout of the Parked Domain website template, which has a text component that will be constantly changing every time you visit the page, and then the image area of the template will have a newly generated NFT every time you reload the page as well. You can mint  any of the images as well as pay an additional fee to have an oil painting made of any of the images at various different sizes. The paintings will be produced in a Chinese painting factory just like the original Parked Domain Girl paintings. 

It all feels very much in line with some of the themes you’ve always dealt with throughout your career: The circulation of images, their production and reproduction. And maybe this has always been something present in your work, an almost fixation with certain themes and even symbols or tropes, the way of utilizing determined symbols, like in Clear Sushi, or even the Parked Domain Girl, the repetition of an image or visual patterns or through and through. What is it that draws you to certain things rather than others, in your work? What drives you?       

I really love being in my studio and I really love making things and that’s had a lot of different manifestations. When I was working with a big team of people that was a very different process. Now that it’s just me, it’s something new again, but at the end of the day, I think I’m just thinking about and making art. These things I make are just something that I feel should be in the world. If I made something it’s because I wanted to see that thing exist, and most of the things I make  are somehow about me, they’re just about my life. Sometimes I have these discussions with my artist friends, and they’re like “I want to release this project, but I could never do it under my name because it’s not my aesthetic or conceptually irrelevant. ”I’ve always been driven more by making things rather than trying to adhere to ideas about what my art should be or shouldn’t be. I never wanted to have a thesis to my art per se, but of course, because all these things are made by me, the same shit shows up all the time – there’s reoccurring themes and characters, mostly having to do with the fact that when I think about making things, there’s always a million different ways it could be done; So I always I try and do as many of those things as possible. I think the NFT format is a great way to explore this because it’s so easy to make multiple iterations of something at the push of a button.

It seems like you used to be, or wanted to be, more personally distant from your art than today. Now, at least during this conversation, you feel very present in it, even just in the way you speak of it –I’ve read that you never really liked too much to talk about your art, and for a time you even stopped doing interviews, while now you are even writing, maybe not about your art or practice per se, but about things that are still very much a part of what you do and the way you create. What changed?

My relationship with the art world has changed a lot, many times in the course of my career. Nonetheless, I don’t know if my relationship to art ever changed. It may have outwardly seemed so, maybe things I said in interviews may have indicated that it was different, but I think it’s always been the same for me. I didn’t get into art to be smart or intellectual, so for a long time I think I intentionally just acted like a dumbass; I just probably didn’t care at the time if I or my work was perceived as having any kind of depth. But time went on, and I got annexed to Zombie Formalism, a market movement, and for two years everyone that was looking at my work only talked about prices and nothing else.That frustrated me a lot, I was making all this stuff, and there were all these ideas embedded in it, but none of that has was being communicated because of the shadow of market speculation. And I mean, for me, art is about a lot of things, but one crucial thing in art is communication. And so I went the opposite route, stopped doing any interviews, I stopped having my photo taken for a long time, stopped having press releases, stopped having openings for certain shows, stopped exhibiting with my CV, which is still not publicly available. During the Zombie Formalist era there was too much stuff around the work being discussed, and I only really wanted people just to look and focus on the art solely, so I tried to remove an extraneous material. But it turns out when you remove a lot of that material it doesn’t mean people are actually going to look any harder, they are probably going to pay less attention to it because people are lazy and there is just too much art being made these days. So it got to a point where I realized there were so many ideas in the work that audiences were likely missing in this total absence of language. So I turned to writing, something I honestly never liked doing, but wanted to try it. These texts that I’ve written the last couple years are part of a book that I want to eventually publish about my art.

I’ve really only written two, one in 2020 and one in 2022 –I had so much to say, the second one is like 60 pages or something like that. Now I’m working on a new one that’ll probably come out in the falI- I want to look at the sublime through the lens of Thomas Kinkade, AI, and the Las Vegas Sphere. I’m really obsessed with the Sphere right now. I’ve also always wanted to write something on the subject of style, both personal and in its relation to art practices, maybe I’ll tie that into some of the discussions around Zombie Formalism.. Sorry but I digress a bit, I actually forgot what your original question was.

I forgot too, but I like where we are going with this so let’s keep it freestyle. Your interest towards a theory of style is not something entirely novel, in one of the texts you wrote I found quite a bit of fashion references, especially to particular archival items, you seem quite fond of maybe not fashion per se, but for sure clothing and its importance. Could you elaborate a bit on that?

I really like clothes! I traded a painting with my tailor a couple years ago, so I have this huge credit with him –I make clothes with him and get stuff altered. I’ve actually made a couple of custom things for myself. I don’t know, it’s just very similar to how I used to make things in my studio. My tailor essentially operates like one of my assistants, and I kind of just bring him something, an idea, or a source material, and we modify it and adapt and play with it –It’s creative and fun, something that is outside my job but still related to aesthetics. I guess there are some parallels between how I’m thinking about style in art and personal style, specifically related to my personal experience. What I mean by that is, when I was associated with Zombie Formalism, it actually had very little relationship to the  current work I was making at the time, it was all this work that was probably a year or two years older that was really present in the auctions etc. The main stuff showing up at auctions were these reflector paintings that I made on a Scotchlite material in 2012-2013, and those were going bonkers in 2014. In 2014 I was making what you could technically consider figurative paintings, these super dense Photoshop collages that I was turning into paintings, which is what I’ve returned to now. So I always felt there was this disconnect between the way my work was being thought of and what I was actually doing. I don’t know if this is clear in my work, but I’ve never really wanted to have a recognizable style as an artist. And I would say there are some parallels in my personal style to this concept because I never wanted to dress in a way that would be, how do i say it?

Expected maybe? 

Not necessarily expected. I just never wanted to be dressing so that I could be lumped into the Zombie Formalism equivalent of fashion, but it’s really fucking hard because brands have these associations, I think the associations are stronger in fashion than in the the formal qualities of a painting. It’s kind of dumb, you know? 

On one hand, It’s really fucking stupid to even care about this stuff. But then on the other hand, it says a lot about where culture is. One of the things that I often think about is that when I was growing up you couldn’t really wear a band shirt without actually listening to the band and being a fan of them, so there used to be really defined subcultures that were communicated through clothing, and we just don’t have that anymore. And I don’t actually think that’s a bad thing, but when Vetements is making a Marilyn Manson tee that anyone can buy, it’s a very different thing than being a middle schooler who gets made fun of for wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt. So the way that people dress now I think is not a reflection of their interests at all –It’s something that I find quite fascinating. But I guess there still are aesthetic groupings of stylings that people are a part of. For example, there’s certain brands that maybe I think something they are doing is interesting, but I would just never wear the clothes because I find the people who wear those clothing annoying, and I don’t want to be associated with them, and it’s really really stupid but I can’t help it.

It’s how human beings work. I think it’s a very, very basic yet important emotion: The unwillingness to be associated with something or someone we don’t fully embrace. Or maybe, more precisely, an antinomic feeling towards certain aesthetics, or certain things, elements in our style, or other people’s. It’s the Hipster Fashion Circle. But let’s back up a bit to another feeling, that of the sublime. You mentioned that it would be the overarching theme of the latest text you are working on. I want to know more!

There’s a lot of stuff happening in this text. One funny anecdote in there is about me during my college years going to see an Impressionist show at the de Young Museum that had traveled from the d’Orsay. I’d never been to Europe, never been to France, never seen any impressionist painting. My aunt loves impressionist painting so she really was pressuring me about going to check that. It was one of those things where you had to buy special tickets and they were all sold out by the time I actually tried to go see it. One night, I was out partying in San Francisco, and got really, really fucked up. I woke up the next day, and I had tickets to the exhibition in my pocket. I was like “What the fuck? Where did these come from?” I was so confused; Turns out, that during our night out one of my friends had found a leather jacket on the street with tickets to the impressionist show in its pockets, which is insane. And so I ended up going, and I think I just went by myself. It was a really disappointing experience.

How so?

All of those paintings need to be protected, because of conservation issues. The lighting was really low, they were under glass, so there’s this weird thing that you’re looking through to look at them. At the time, I was on my computer a lot you know, and I was a part of the net scene, so everything was being mediated by a screen to me. Looking at those paintings on the screen, I just thought they were so much more interesting on the screen  than when I saw them in person. I was actually let down. So that’s the story kinda opening the text and then leading into a digression of what it means to have a more visceral reaction to jpegs than actual paintings. I spent a lot of time in Las Vegas, and I had been visiting the Sphere regularly. That thing is fucking insane, arguably the best artwork created in the last 20 years. It’s sublime. I believe there will soon be one in every city, altering the urban landscape significantly. Despite not having been inside it yet, I’m constantly amazed by its impact. Moving on to Thomas Kinkade- I’ve always been a big fan of his. Whether it can be considered sublime is a big question of mine –some Europeans I’ve spoken to aren’t familiar with Kinkade, but in America, he’s a household name, despite not being embraced by the mainstream art world. There’s something intriguing about his popularity. This led me to contemplate AI and its potential poetic and visceral capabilities compared to human-made art. Some argue that AI will never match human creativity. Whatever, that’s sort of boring conversation but I think it’s a good way to think about what sublime actually means in this current moment. When considering how image-generating programs function with prompts, it parallels the process I used with my studio assistants in 2014-2015 –”paint this hand, but painted in the style of Philip Guston.” The best prompts are crafted by individuals with extensive references. All of this feels interconnected- Impressionism, the Sphere, Kinkade, AI – especially concerning style and how it’s conveyed.

There’s a connection with AI that harkens back to the importance of language and its utilization in prompts, which are inherently linguistic. I’ve been thinking a lot of the resurgence of writing as a crucial skill due to its role in guiding both people and AI. It’s similar to communicating with others to convey a desired outcome effectively. It’s paradoxical in a sense, considering our image-centric focus until now, even considering what was the rise of social media. But with evolving technologies, there’s a shift towards language and its incorporation of imagery and concepts, making for new intriguing possibilities; Perhaps we’re on the cusp of another significant shift, or maybe not. Regarding what you just said about the sublime, I’ve recently visited Venice during the Biennale’s opening weekend and visited the Guggenheim Collection. While traditional works by European masters are considered sublime, growing up with instant access to art through the web and installation views, I struggled to connect with that supposed sublime I had to feel. It makes me consider how our perception of it is evolving, especially with monumental new artworks like the sphere. All these topics are maybe what we should be thinking more about, especially in terms of asking ourselves where is art ahead, and what’s the value of it now? As for AI, the debate often revolves around its potential to either end or augment human existence. 

My friend once told me about a German philosopher who postulated that something is sublime when it has the potential to kill you, or something like that – He was commenting on the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. I guess the threat of AI destroying society is what makes it sublime, perhaps? For me AI is just like any other tool that an artist has access to, though its implications are a lot more; There’s a lot more going on with AI, and I hope it just means that we can all quit our jobs, eventually, and everyone can just be an artist or whatever. 

That for sure would be the good ending.

We’re at a point where I don’t really think art history exists anymore in the way that it used to. I think art is moving closer towards entertainment, something I honestly don’t have a problem with. This is a really obvious example, but think of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms – I had recently heard about a museum de-acquisitioning a Rothko to buy a Kusama Infinity Room. And I think that makes a pretty big statement of what museums’ agendas are. But at the same time, I have never been to a museum like the Broad. I think those are pretty annoying in some regards. The Broad is not even really a museum, it is one man’s private collection turned into a vanity project, it doesn’t represent societal interests as whole- not that any museum really does this, at least in America anyways where there is so much reliance on private funding to run museums. But on the other hand, the Broad has been really good at bringing non-art people into art –The Broad is like the number one selfie Museum, it’s very good at getting people excited about going to the Museum and taking photos of themselves in front of art. And I think it’s important that non-art people are brought into these spaces. I think it’s a positive that art can function as entertainment and have a more mass appeal. I’m not really sure how AI is going to impact that. But if you think about Web 2.0, and all the tools, and things that people all of a sudden had access to so that they could just make cool shit at home –that had a huge impact on visual culture, and I’m sure this trend it’s just going to be so much more extreme and exponentially growing in the next decade. Everything is so weird! The art world has gotten a lot bigger, but its impact on culture has shrunk, maybe. I mean, I still think it’s definitely, in the long game, super influential, but just in terms of visual culture there’s so many other things that it’s competing with now.

I think all these things are connected in a way. Had we been speaking 30 years ago, maybe we would be lamenting that not many people are going to museums, discussing an ideal state of things where everybody should be in museums, have access to culture, and be able to be present in the cultural movement that art produces. But art nowadays, I think, is carving its own territory in a fundamentally new world, and it moves towards entertainment and towards being more mediatic than ever. The question is how do we find the balance between surfing art’s unprecedented mediatic pull and mass appeal, without diluting too much its cultural impact, significance, and role. And what is that role, anyway, today? Because maybe I am thinking of a role that it used to have, and it simply does not possess anymore. And a similar discourse could be applied to cultural operators, curators, artists, and so on and so forth, especially in a future where everyone has potentially access to all the tools to be one. And don’t get me wrong, all of this is an amazing thing, an incredible possibility. But it’s something that can be exploited too, and it has already been, to a certain extent. I don’t know about you, but I’m actually quite hopeful for the future, even though the world from a societal and cultural standpoint might seem a little bit..bleak. I think we are right at the precipice of either a great leap into the future, or, if things don’t work out, something that’s more similar to a good old Orwellian dystopia. What’s your take on the future of culture? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? 

I think I’m just an artist that will just continue making stuff no matter what, I’m much more driven by the desire to make things than anything else; If art didn’t exist, I would just find another outlet or something. 

There’s this quote on your website: “The Power of Art.” What is that, for you?

I don’t know if I could articulate that, I think it’s something that I just feel. I do believe that there are people in the art world who believe in the power of art, while others may prioritize different powers like money, fame, or prestige. But the power of art, well, the best way I could sum it up is like the first time I saw Jeff Koons in person. Art is this weird, nonsensical place where we create things without utilitarian value, and because of that, it can really be anything. It’s a way to think about the world, a language of its own. Koons, controversial as he may be, has produced some mind-blowing work, like his polychrome sculptures. Seeing those, it dawned on me, when I visited the Louvre and saw medieval polychrome sculpture, it was like, “holy shit.” Koons is tapping into that, but in his own way, like with a woman holding a pink panther stuffed animal or something, you know what I mean? There’s something about art that’s uniquely experiential. While other things, like the Sphere, may serve specific functions, art is different. Even these JPEGs from old books of medieval sculpture that I’ve been using in my work lately, they evoke a particular feeling. I’m not sure if it’s an unconscious formal thing that works by association or something else entirely. I mean this is what I want to try and get to the bottom of in this text I’m writing. How does genre and style affect our relationship with art, because I think that has always been something that I have really tried to tap into in my work. I have always been, seeing images and then being like “why do I have a visceral, compelling reaction to this image versus this other image?” and then trying to apply those things as filters to my own work. The power of art..I still really believe in the power of art, and I think that means a lot of different things, things I am not sure I know how to articulate, really.

Maybe some things are better left untold, un-articulated.

That’s the other thing about art: It doesn’t need to rely on language to communicate effectively. And that’s a big part of its value, impact, and appeal sometimes.

Yeah, because you can develop your relationship with the artwork into something uniquely personal -Wow that was a very romantic on the verge of cheesy thing when said out loud- I guess the less you know, the less language you have pre-absorbed about a work, or an artist, the more you feel like you can develop a spontaneous connection to it without over-intellectualization. So maybe what we are really saying is that the power of art is something that resists articulation. And it’s just there. And maybe that’s what Sublime is: the impossibility of mediation.

Credits

All images courtesy of the artist

Yellow Nose Studio

From Architecture to Design: The Impact of Background on Yellow Nose Studio’s Approach

We recently met Hsin-Ying Ho and Kai-Ming Tung, the creative minds behind Yellow Nose Studio, a Berlin-based design venture founded in 2017. With backgrounds in architecture and a shared passion for handmade objects, this Taiwanese duo embarked on a journey to explore the intersection of space, materiality, and emotion. Inspired by a desire to infuse raw materials with new life, they craft organic forms from typically inorganic elements, guided by an intuitive logic rooted in emotional processes. Through their work, they seek to capture the essence of slow living, offering living tools that invite us to savour and appreciate the spaces we inhabit each day.

Hi Ying and Kai, it was really good to see you in the Milan scene during the last design week. Could you tell us about the journey that led to the founding of Yellow Nose Studio?

We were classmates when we were studying architecture in Taiwan. However, the idea to work together came only after we came to Berlin to study for our Master’s degrees. Ying studied Scenography, and Kai studied Product Design.

We wanted to do something that combined both of our professions but was also based on our backgrounds in architecture. That’s why we showed our first collection as a tryout then. We didn’t want to show them as products but as a holistic lifestyle vision.

Could you share the story behind the name “Yellow Nose” and what significance it holds for your studio?

After completing our architectural studies in Taiwan, we went to Berlin to pursue our master’s degrees in Product Design and Theater Design, respectively. Then we outlined our creative direction of “Surrounding Space and Objects” to establish Yellow Nose Studio. “Yellow” represents the color of light, which is the most important element in a space, while the “nose” reminds us that apart from vision, designers should be more sensitive to all senses. As an extension of this, the series of works on space starts with Y, and objects with N.

As a Taiwanese native, how does your cultural background influence your work and creative process?

In fact, Taiwan itself is a multicultural country, so the influence of multiple cultures creates how we constantly look at the same thing from different perspectives. It also creates a sense of collage that is unique to our design.

Your studio is known for its focus on finding balance within space through handmade objects. How do you approach this quest for balance, and what role do handmade objects play in achieving it?

We aim to create objects that have their own personality but can still fit into spaces with subtle emphasis.

Berlin serves as the backdrop for your studio. How does the city inspire and influence your creative process and the aesthetic of your designs?

Berlin is a really good place for us to be creative. It’s a big city, but not as busy as others. We both got highly inspired by it, which shows how we work. Sometimes, it’s a chair people left on the street to give away, and sometimes, it’s the texture of a tree that fascinates us. Also, the city has this gap (time and space) somehow in between the city that allows us to recharge.

Yellow Nose Studio has a distinctive approach to using raw materials in unforeseen ways. Can you share some insights into your creative process and how you transform these materials into unique pieces?

We define perfection by showing the character of the materials themselves. Our furniture is made of industrialized and simple forms. For our latest collection, INDERGARTEN, we picked up standard wood materials meant for architectural construction and played around with their original sizes and textures.

Still, with the ceramics, we wanted to emphasize the rawness of the clay, so we left the rough details instead of polishing them perfectly. It’s interesting to see how strong the contrast is between them, but it gives each piece its character when separated.

Your work often bridges the gap between organic and inorganic elements, displaying a logic rooted in emotional processes. Can you elaborate on this philosophy and how it manifests in your designs?

In life or in work, people try to pursue this ‘perfect circle.’ But it will never be a perfect circle naturally—if you do it by hand. This has become really symbolic in our work, so our logo is actually not perfectly round. This represents us.

In the same way that allowing for these imperfections opposes the uniform nature of mass production, we further imbue our pieces with individuality and warmth through the handmade nature of our process.

You emphasize the principle of embodying a slow life through living instruments. How does this concept resonate with you in today’s fast-paced modern world?

We really enjoy the process, no matter how long it takes. We try to stay as calm as possible and not be influenced by how fast the world goes. People can really see the connection from each object through our hands, even with a little finger mark on the clay or some imperfection from the wood. The slow process brings warmth to the home of the pieces.

Having transitioned from architecture to design, how does your background inform your approach, especially regarding spatial planning and user interaction?

The most important thing we learned from architecture was not the technical part. It’s how architecture naturally becomes the base of our lifestyle—how you look at things and how you focus on the details.

Architecture inspired us greatly during our studies in Taiwan. We were taught to be wild and to make mistakes. This really special education system definitely flipped both of our lives upside down. Architecture is no longer a simple academic topic that we need to learn but rather a lifelong philosophy that influences us daily.

So we don’t see ourselves looking away from architecture, but instead using it as a foundation to pursue our aesthetic. We keep trying to bring many different aspects into our projects and to accept the impact that our architectural studies have brought us.

Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for Yellow Nose Studio, and how do you envision the evolution of your craft in the years to come?

We are keen to expand into large-scale spatial design projects so we can combine our sculptural objects in a space.

Credits

All images courtesy of Yellow Nose Studio.
Photography · Daniel Farò

Bastien Dausse

A Journey into the World of Acrobatics

Bastien Dausse’s acrobatic journey began at the Bordeaux circus school, leading him to the Académie Fratellini in 2011, where he specialized in acro-dance. Under the guidance of directors like Jérôme Thomas and Yoann Bourgeois, Bastien honed his skills and explored new dimensions of performance. In 2014, he co-founded the Barks company, creating the acclaimed show “Les idées grises” and earning prestigious grants. His talent shone at the IN d’Avignon festival in 2016, solidifying his reputation as a dynamic force in acrobatics. 

Today, we caught Bastien Dausse in a moment of temporal and physical suspension, providing us with the perfect opportunity to delve deeper into his story and discover the essence of who he truly is.

Thank you for joining us, Bastien. Can you tell us about your journey into the world of acrobatics and how you discovered your passion for it?

Thank you very much for this invitation. I’ve always been fascinated by the acrobatic body and the body in motion. When I was very young, I was already trying to reproduce the stunts and impossible jumps I saw in martial arts films. I wanted to surpass myself, to be able to run up walls, jump from rooftop to rooftop – in other words, to play with gravity.

I then trained in circus arts, which was an extremely complete discipline for my taste. I could develop my passion for acrobatics, while discovering dance and theatre. Basically, an immense creative freedom.

The concept of equilibrium, derived from the Latin “aequilibrium,” holds different meanings for different individuals. What does it signify to you personally?

Equilibrium has always been a particularly concrete notion for me. When I was very young, I taught myself to walk on my hands; it was almost natural for me. Then there was the notion of perfect balance in my acrobatic practice. A little more height, a little less speed, a little more grip, a little less inclination: the success of an acrobatic figure was the result of the perfect equilibrium of a multitude of small actions.

It was only later that I realized that equilibrium could have a much broader meaning. The “equilibrium” I portray in my shows is open to interpretation and reverie. It’s a notion that speaks to everyone, and can mirror the world around us.

What drew you to specialize in acro-dance at the Académie Fratellini, and how did your experience there shape your artistic development?

The choice of discipline came very naturally. It wasn’t circus in particular that interested me, but rather the creative freedom I could find there.

Acro-dance was a discipline a little less full of history, less restrictive, and therefore, for my taste, offering me more narrative possibilities.

My discovery of dance, of the choreographic art form, came through acro-dance. I learned a form of acrobatics that could find its richness beyond the circus cliché of the most dangerous trick.

Your art frequently incorporates suspension from the ground. Could you elaborate on the significance of this recurring element in your work?

What fascinates me is the universality of suspension. The universality of the relationship with gravity. I like the idea that spectators can identify with what I present on stage. People often ask me if they can try out my devices, as if they were easy, as if they were just forms of gravitational escape. Unfortunately, I have to tell them the truth, explaining that it takes years of acrobatic work. But these reflections are very flattering, because that’s exactly what I’m aiming for, to convey a feeling of weightlessness, a lightness, always in a form of visual minimalism. I’m quite convinced that you can tell a lot with simplicity.

Can you share a memorable moment from presenting “Les idées grises” at the IN d’Avignon festival in 2016?

It was a quite crazy experience for me. The very beginning of my career, my first show, presented at the biggest theatre festival in the world. In fact, there are very few acrobatic forms presented at this festival.

The most beautiful memory was quite simply the evening of the premiere: we were playing outside, in a magnificent courtyard, the walls covered with ivy. Nightfall came right in the middle of our show, creating a completely timeless moment.

If you were to improvise a performance right now, what music or sound would you choose, and why?

For something so spontaneous, I think I’d choose Nils Frahm or Hania Rani. What I like about their music is obviously the lightness that can emanate from it, but also their evident mastery of their instruments.

The history of cinema has long depicted a conflicted and troubled relationship between man and machine, often portraying them at odds, as seen in Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” However, in this case, we are discussing love rather than struggle. How did this symbiotic relationship with the machine develop? It is intriguing how, philosophically speaking, your temporal and gravitational suspension is also facilitated by the “machine,” which assumes an artistic purpose in our lives because of your presence.

My relationship with the machine has always been one of fascination rather than fear. From the early days of my training, I was captivated by the possibilities that machinery offered in terms of extending human capabilities. The machine, in this context, becomes an enabler of artistic expression, allowing me to explore new dimensions of movement and suspension.

It is not just about overcoming physical limitations, but also the desire to create objects that will intrigue and question the curiosity of the audience.

What does the idea of “living human sculpture” signify to you?

I’ve always had a passion for the visual arts, and modern art in particular. 

When I was younger, when I saw certain works of art in museums, I regularly felt like climbing on them, playing with them, bringing them to life in a way other than by looking at them. This is one of the reasons why I now create performances with a dual purpose. The first is aesthetic, the second choreographic.

I like spectators to wonder what my devices are for, to appreciate them as sculpture, and to rediscover them when the dancers start working on them.

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian scientist, inventor, and artist—a true Renaissance polymath, renowned for blending science, technology, and pure art poetically. Similarly, I see a skilful integration of science, technology, and art in your performance process. What were the initial steps in testing the machinery? Where did the intuition to present it to the audience in this manner originate? And how do you envision its evolution in the future?

Thank you for seeing similarities with such a genius ! The integration of science, technology, and art in my performances began with a deep curiosity and a desire to go further with my practice.

The initial step begins with the idea of a movement. I imagine an action, or a sensation I’d like to achieve, such as simulating lunar gravity, or walking on walls. Then there are months, even years of experimentation and research. I work a lot on an empirical basis, to find the solution that best suits my idea. I carry out dozens, hundreds of trials, modifying and improving the structures I imagine, sometimes even starting from scratch if I have the intuition that it’s not the right track.

Only then, when the object has been created, do I start the choreographic work. This stage is usually fairly quick, because the basis of all my creation comes from the idea of a movement. 

I like the idea of building up a collection of objects, each of which in its own way allows gravity to be varied. In the future, I’d love to be able to develop the museal aspect even further, presenting real exhibitions with regular performances, where all the pieces are activated at the same time, for example.

Looking ahead, what are your aspirations and goals for your career as an acrobat and performer?

Obviously, I want to continue defying gravity. It’s a constant I think I need in my life. I want to continue and go even further in my work around the hybridisation of forms. I like to bring together circus, dance, sculpture and science.

And finally, I’d like to pursue my work as a choreographer, and not only as a performer. I take immense pleasure in orchestrating bodies, and I’d like to take things further, especially in my next show where I won’t be on stage.

Team Credits

Photography · Matias Alfonzo
Styling · Elisa Schenke
Grooming · Miwa Moroki
Styling Assistant · Sintia Blakaj
Location · Cirque Les Noctambules

Styling Credits

  1. Cardigan T/SEHNE, pants ANN DEMEULEMEESTER and shoes ASICS
  2. Suit ANN DEMEULEMEESTER and shoes ASICS

Bloody Clip

Through Clip’s looking glass

She loves music and making friends. Clip’s IG bio could very well encapsulate her attitude. But that would mean remaining on the surface level of what the NYC rapper and artist is all about. NR interviewed her back in (month) to learn more about her world. into her world —after all, what better guide could we ask for, if not herself?

I’ve seen a lot of media coverage, web exposure, and you just teased lots of big and very interesting collaborations. You came firing straight out the gate.

Oh, honestly, I’m really thankful for how fast things are evolving and how packed my year has been so far, but it’s kind of been weird to adjust because there’s been so many life changes. We kind of had to find the best way to navigate through all the madness. Luckily I have my team, and the people who are close to me –they really make it easier. But I still sometimes don’t really know how to navigate everything..I just try to make it work!

How’s all of this, a new team, more exposure, a bigger community, impacting you?

I still try to just do my thing, but at the same time I’m obviously trying to be more of an artist, really honing in on my craft without changing too much of myself. It’s the same energy I’m putting in, I guess only in a more professional way –less like a girl with just her phone doing whatever, and more structured.

Less DIY?

That’s the perfect word for it. I was so DIY for so long, and I still kind of am. Only now, I have amazing help around me!

It feels like your relationship with your fans and the people that your music speaks to is very important in what you do.

It’s everything.

Even the way that you interact with them, It makes you think that it somehow translates in your process. What sparks you?

Tying back to you mentioning communities, I always was longing to be a part of something growing up, and I found that through music. It makes me feel so privileged. I really just want to own that and make sure everyone that supports me feels as seen as I do right now. It’s something I hold close and try to remember everyday: making everyone feel like they’re accepted, because life is just crazy and we should try to make things better for everyone, in our small ways –But I’m getting a bit sidetracked. Back to my process; I like to say that I don’t really have one –It’s like the beauty behind the madness: Whatever comes to me, comes to me in the moment. I try not to overthink things, because overthinking is my biggest enemy, something I’ve always struggled with. Sometimes my friends will say that when I create, it’s like I’ve been possessed by a music entity or whatever. My old music really used to reflect a lot of emotions and situations that I was experiencing at the time because my life was just so crazy, changing so fast –I just used my music as a way of coping. Nowadays I’m trying to have more fun with everything. As I started going out more to parties I was like “okay, I would love to turn up to my shit in a club.” But I couldn’t! I only had sad songs out! [laughs] So lately, I have been trying to make more, let’s say, happier club bangers.

Things around you and what your experience is changing. The recipe might be seemingly changing, but it really isn’t, right?

Exactly! This is myself, and my music reflects that just, naturally, you know?

I read about how it’s very important for you to be a mirror for other people to see themselves in. However, your music is very personal and intimate. There’s this sort of contradiction, but you still manage to create something that feels open to the listener. They can project their own meanings onto it while still enjoying it. I wanted to ask you about this, but I think you’ve already answered it in a way.

It’s literally just like that. So yeah, that’s a cool and beautiful way of putting it!

You know, I was trying to find ways to pinpoint and define your sound, but somehow it eludes me. One word I would use to describe it is ‘cool.’ But ‘cool’ is a very elusive term. You’ve been associated with the fashion world, magazines, runways —all things that exude cool. So now, I wanted to ask you, since you describe things very personally, what would be your definition of what coolness is today?

That’s a good question. I think coolness is…owning it, your raw inner self. I like people that are vulnerable and are afraid to show the world who they are, but they still risk it and express themselves. The coolest people that I know are so real to the point where it might even be detrimental for them. But that’s what makes it cool, you can’t really replicate those things. And maybe that’s kind of a cliche, but I think not being an asshole is also very cool.

Do you have plans moving forward to further build on your personal brand of coolness, maybe reinforce your presence in different mediums other than music?

[Laughs] Anytime I used to get asked this, I would be like “Oh, you know, I’m just floating, I don’t know my plans.” But now I finally have a very precise idea about it! I want to be the face for people like me, that’s the masterplan. And, obviously, music is my priority. I love music, that’s my everything. I have this quote I always use “Music is why hearts have beats.” Music really is my life, and I never want to lose sight of that, but also I don’t want to box myself in it. I want to keep experimenting with different mediums, especially visual, and continue to show people like me that If I can do it, then you can too, because I’m literally the most normal person ever.

And what are some hidden references or elements that might have influenced your music, your overall artistic expression –something that we couldn’t pinpoint just by listening to your music, but that is there and embedded in what you do?

There’s a whole grunge era of me growing up in middle and high school that played a big part in shaping who I am. Everyone was kind of emo, but I really identify as a grunge girl. I am maybe still living in that era, you can feel it in my music. I loved alternative, experimental, sad boy music –Yung Lean, Lil Peep, Drain Gang. I was a little weirdo in class, listening to bands like The Neighborhood, Title Fight. Emotion is a big factor in everything I do. I think it’s cool to feel so intensely because a lot of people seem like walking zombies with no emotions, just going through the motions of life –I call them NPCs. I feel bad for those people who aren’t living life the way they want to. But getting back on track, the grunge era, rock, emo, and fashion all influence me. Growing up, my parents never really got me clothes because they believed school wasn’t a fashion show, going all the time like “all you need is like the essentials.” They were also conservative Jamaicans, so I wasn’t allowed to express myself the way I wanted. Once I was free from those restraints, it felt really good to be myself, and clothes played a big part in that. The whole fashion world is a big inspiration for me, and while it might not be directly felt in my music, it works hand in hand with it. And then again, now I’m walking runways and shit all over the world, you know?

How does that feel?

Pretty fucking cool! [laughs]

Being able to not only express yourself through clothes and music but also fully embrace your personality while being a professional adds a different dimension. The references you mentioned, such as Yung Lean or Drain Gang, are all artists who took subcultural and aesthetic elements and made them their own. They repurposed these elements, which is something you do as well; You are part of a new generation of artists that are both subcultural and have some mainstream elements in how they present themselves on the web. You have your own niche and audience, while rapidly moving up. This is something I think a lot about, and you are living it in a way —So, I wanted to ask you: Do you think that the way underground and mainstream used to be very separate entities is now changing? Are they colliding, or do you still think there’s a distinction between them?

People have their various opinions on this topic, mine is that the meaning of the term “underground” definitely has changed as a whole, especially after COVID, a period where a lot more people just started trying to make music, alone in their homes with nothing to do, just creating. I feel like that whole moment really shifted the underground as a whole and now it’s more saturated, but not necessarily in a bad way. On the internet, the underground is becoming the modern day mainstream, which is really cool. Maybe I’m biased because I’m so in the scene, but most of the people I know are not listening to the radio, they’re going on SoundCloud. They listen to their friends, they discover their favorite artists on Instagram, or Reddit. There’s a lot of artists that are maybe not having real commercial success, yet, but they’re getting a lot of streams, and they’re doing well, they have a proper fan base! Also, there used to be a lot of negativity in the underground, but everything now is just so broad, and so many people are just having fun with it. I’m meeting new friends because we’re doing shows together, going to parties together. Everything became really wholesome. We can breathe, relax.

Since there are now more platforms and more space for everyone, as you said, people are starting to let go of, perhaps, jealousy over a space they feel the need to protect.

Exactly. And it made everything less toxic because of that.

And how do you feel about collaboration? It seems like you are open to it, but also very selective. That’s what I’m getting from how you’re talking. Your music is very personal, and your relationship with your fans is personal too.

I think that my opinion is never gonna change on this, ever. And I’m satisfied with that. But, like you said, everything I do is extremely personal to me. So, it’s like, you can’t just give your baby to a random babysitter; you have to get to know them and find the right fit and vibe. That’s how I see it. If I do a collab, it’s because it was genuine. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t for money. Even if I was down to my last cent, I would never sell a feature like that. I feel like I’m selling myself short, giving away a part of me, selling out. Everything I do has to have meaning; it has to be personal and authentic. I tie that in with collaborations. I’m not opposed to them, obviously—I have some out, and some more on the way. It just has to make sense and be with the right people. Not that anyone is the wrong person or doesn’t make sense, but something has to really click.

Have you got a record coming out later this year? Give us some spoilers!

Definitely! I’m gonna drop a really good album. I can’t wait for that, I’m really happy with it because, honestly, all my sad stuff is cute, but I’m over it. I don’t really want to dwell on it. I’m really excited for my new stuff and looking forward to sharing it because it feels like a whole new phase for my sound. More mature. As I said earlier, I’ll never lose sight of who I am and what I represent, and everything I’ve built to get here. But I’m definitely treating this more as a job rather than just a fun hobby that’s getting me attention. I really want to keep pushing out things for people and keep creating, involving everyone in what it means to be in CLIP’s world.

Backing up a bit on the coolness stuff, I’ve read that you’ve been associated with the status of a new “it girl.” Sometimes defining someone, even with something very positive and cool, like ‘it girl,’ can feel cagey.

I don’t know. I love the term and everything about it. Growing up, I was so obsessed with what it meant to be an ‘it girl.’ But I realized that anyone can be that, It’s something you embody; it’s how you carry yourself as a person. I value my authenticity more than being boxed in as an ‘it girl’ because that label comes with so much behind it. It reminds me of people in school who tried to chase that status and play into someone they’re not. You know an ‘it girl’ when you see one, and that’s not something you should be labeled as. It’s about what you’re doing for the community, how your art is helping people. I think that’s what really matters: being a figure and a voice, using your platform to help people feel heard and feel good.

This really feels like a CLIP manifesto.

I’m so anti-labels.

Even regarding music genres?

Yeah, exactly. That’s why I don’t want to choose a genre for what I do. I hate being boxed in, it suffocates me. Like when I was living in Texas, I was suffocating. I hate that feeling, anything that makes me feel like that, I just tend to stay away from.

You lived in Texas, LA, and now New York, right?

Yeah.

How has each city influenced your experience? Is this journey and evolution through the places you’ve lived reflected in your sound? I feel like there’s maybe a New York phase in your music and another that feels more like Texas. Or maybe I’m just overcomplicating things and projecting.

No, honestly, that’s very real, even if perhaps it’s something that unintentionally reflects in my music and sound. You’re not the first person to tell me that. I’ve had personal friends say things like, ‘Oh, this vibe is really Texas,’ or ‘This reminds us of Texas underground music.’ I don’t do it intentionally. Despite how I feel about certain places or experiences, they define me, and my music is me. It just naturally reflects without me even thinking about it.

Team

Photography · Lea Winkler
Styling · Zoey Radford Scott
Hair and Makeup · Jeanette Williams

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