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Alexandra Von Fuerst

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 484

Feature · Alexandra Von Fuerst
Words · Ellie Brown

“whenever there is a human, I approach them as if they were a sculpture. And whenever there is an object, I approach it as if it was living.”

For Alexandra Von Fuerst, photography is a way to explore the relationships between the human body and nature, and how the two are more inextricably bound than we may think. As she explains to NR, her work celebrates the ways in which nature communicates with us. And as the title of her series, Dialogue with Nature (2021) suggests, Von Fuerst uses her practice to share these conversations with her audience. But how does she define this voice that the natural world uses? It is fundamentally feminine, in the sense that it simultaneously conveys empathy and strength. The idea of femininity is another recurring theme in Von Fuerst’s work, but the ‘feminine’, it should be stated, does not necessarily imply gender. In Godification of Intimacy (2021) – Von Fuerst’s first foray into shooting male nudity – the photographer investigates how the body can be elevated beyond what we see anatomically. Von Fuerst explores this idea through the form of a triptych, where the same image is reproduced in different colours – the ‘real’ image positioned alongside two inverted interpretations. In this way, Von Fuerst shows the viewer the ethereal, otherworldly side of her subjects – literally, the ‘Godification’ of the body. 

In her work, the photographer’s vivid use of colour is not just an artistic device; it is a crucial element in her investigation into the human form and nature. Explaining below how she came to develop her practice, Von Fuerst speaks of the emotional qualities that colour can have. The photographer is interested in how colours can make her feel, and how the colours themselves feel; and this is a question that she extends to the viewer. Just as Von Fuerst’s work is a conversation with nature, colour, and form, it’s also about creating a dialogue with her audience.

Across her art series, personal and commissioned editorial work, Von Fuerst is not afraid to shy away from subjects and images that some might find difficult. The ‘taboo’, as she calls it, is another of Von Fuerst’s interests; crucially, how can we make the taboo beautiful, and will that allow us to confront and overcome unspoken fears? The photographer handles this with extreme delicacy (even if, as she says, she can be full-on), creating work that is gorgeously rich, without exploiting the difficult conversations that she hopes we can have. 

NR: First of all, how does the idea of ‘celebration’ tie into your work?

AVF: Honestly, all my work is about celebration because it’s about elevating everything that I shoot, that I see, and that I’m trying to empower. In particular, I want to celebrate the things that we don’t want to look at, like imperfections. Not only skin imperfections, but things that are much more deeply hidden that we don’t really want to look at because it’s a little bit uncomfortable. For example, this could be blood, or waste, or death. And I think, for me, this is very important, because celebrating and elevating something that feels taboo, or that you don’t feel comfortable about, is giving more meaning to live itself. At least, that’s how I see it. I think that, for me, this is my celebration: a celebration of the imperfections, of everything that is a little bit hidden, and it’s also a celebration of life.

“I think that’s what I care about, making the uncomfortable beautiful, so that it really elevates it to the same as everything else.”

NR: What really strikes me about your work is your distinctive use of colour, and the way you compose your work. How did you go about honing that style? 

AVF: I think in terms of the visual style, I knew I couldn’t do it any different. It’s funny, because when I started, I felt differently – I was trying to emulate the photographers I really liked. For example, I always had big respect for Mapplethorpe and his study of the body, or Guy Bourdin’s use of colour.  And the photographer duo, Hart Lëshkina, were working a lot while I was at university, so I was looking at them too. And I was trying to [recreate that] but it didn’t happen, and I was like, “goddammit, it doesn’t come out that way – it always comes out bright, pop, a lot of shapes.” So, I was like, “why isn’t it working out? Why isn’t it working that way? Why does it come out completely different from what I want?” And so, at that point, I wanted something else, but I decided to go with the things that actually came out which was very colourful and very bright. So, I learned how to convey that and dived more into shape and colour and tried to dig deeper into how to make it more honest to myself. From something that was initially very pop at the beginning, it became more grounded. Instead of being just colours, it became more about what colour could represent. If you use colour in a certain way, you can really feel it. And I like the idea that people can feel the colour and feel the image. Rather than just the form, I was really trying to feel that emotion, you know; colour for me is this emotional response about how I see reality, in a sense. So, it became a very instinctual, finding the emotional side of myself, which I would also say is a more feminine side.

“Instead of trying to give it a shape, I allowed the shape to show itself.”

NR: That’s really fascinating to hear. Actually, one of the series that I wanted to ask you about is Godification of Intimacy and the striking use of colour there. When you talk about how colour can capture emotion, is that what you’re talking about when you look at this series?

AVF: Yes. I think in general, I don’t say “this is going to be pink.” I really go with if it feels pink, or it feels another way. Godification of Intimacy was my first time shooting male nudity. It was just me and two models in an empty space, and I really wanted them to just interact and to move and to have that sensation of dancing and comfort. And it was something very new for me because it wasn’t how I would usually work, and so it was really about allowing it to grow and to move and it was such a beautiful experience; it was such an intense experience as well. There was a connection between the three of us and there was nothing else – it was just that moment and that sharing. So, I think the colours somehow are very elevated because that moment was also very elevating, which is what I wanted, in the sense that ‘Godification’ is about the higher state of ourselves, rather than just seeing the body. I’m not talking about the body, I’m talking what is behind the body, what is beyond the body. So, the colours are almost as if I’m diving into a spiritual expression of the body, depicting the energy around it, rather than just what I see. And the triptych, for example, is an evolution from how seeing it plainly to an expanded point of view where it’s not about the body anymore. It’s not about the nudity, it’s really about whatever comes beyond that.

NR: That’s really interesting, especially your point about moving beyond the body. Again, something I’d like to ask is that, as well as the body, objects with an anthropomorphic quality often feature in your work. Do you approach the body and objects differently as your subjects? 

AVF: Not really. I mean, whenever there is a human, I approach them as if they were a sculpture. And whenever there is an object, I approach it as if it was living. So, for me it’s kind of the same. It’s different in that you enter differently because you’re trying to give more movement to one and less to the other, right? And you want to bring them to being on the same level; I don’t want to give more, or less, life to one of them, I’m just trying to make them equal.

NR: Your work explores the notion of femininity in different ways. How does your use of the natural world allow you to convey a sense of femininity?

AVF: I’ve always felt that there was such a feminine voice within every aspect of reality; it’s the organic, nature, and the body. Even shooting male nudity, for more it’s about this female voice, or softer side. It’s not necessarily soft because being a woman can mean very strong and empowering. But it’s much more fluid, more empathic and understanding – but it’s also direct, too. A big part of what I’m trying to get into is really giving a voice to the organic because I feel like there is so much depth there. It’s just a different sort of communication in a way – that’s why A Dialogue with Nature (2021) was born. Because for me, it’s the natural, organic aspects of the everyday. Nature talks to us – it is trying to communicate something to us. It’s just that the way they do it is very different – but I find it very feminine. You can stand in front of a tree, a plant, a rock or a mineral and see how complex it is. When you look at how many shapes it has – you could stay there for a day just looking at it. And I think all of these aspects of this organic material, they are actually talking even though they’re not speaking; they don’t have a voice as we would perceive it. 

NR: In our correspondence, you mentioned that you prefer doing interviews over Zoom rather than email because it feels more personal. I read that during the [2020] lockdown you made yourself available for people, strangers, to call you. Why was that important for you? 

AVF: When lockdown came – I’m a person who is happy being alone, but I realised how even for me at that point, it was stressful. All of a sudden, nobody wanted to communicate with anybody else because there was so much fear. I think it became so important to just try to go the other way like, let’s keep it open, let’s keep a dialogue. I thought to do the best with what we have and stay in a more positive space. I said to myself, I have time I don’t have like any rush, and I can consecrate some time to someone who was having a bad day or is having a good day.

“I think communication enables you to let go of fear because all of a sudden, [you realise that] I’m not alone or, it wasn’t that hard to talk or, it wasn’t that scary. And it also brings a human perspective.”

NR: You mention there about how communication can allow you to let go of fear, and I wanted to tie that back in with what you said earlier about celebrating the taboo. Do you see your work as shining a light on things that people might fear in a beautiful way, so that we can breakdown the fear of the taboo?

AVF: I really hope so – that’s the sense of it, which is that I’d like people to try to look at fear and not reject it. To actually look at it with more love and more joy. I know that, sometimes, it’s very direct; as my mother would say, you need to be a little bit more delicate in the way you’re dealing with things. Sometimes, I’m being direct, but my intentions are to make [the taboo] more accessible and more discussed. I mean, my work is not just about the picture; it’s about being able to start a discussion or create dialogue, to create accessibility. I think, for now, I’m really just at the beginning of this process, but I’d really like it to become a window for people to really have a discussion to start seeing things with more acceptance. And I think the moment that discussions are open, the moment communication is open, ignorance [towards the taboo and fear] disappear because all of a sudden, you’re facing it. You’re talking about it, you’re solving it. So, I think communication is very, very important.

Credits

Images · Alexandra Von Fuerst
https://www.alexandravonfuerst.com/

Superflux

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Superflux

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 472

Feature · Superflux
Words · Matthew Burgos

Speculating about reality while adding a dose of folklore and mythology

The skeletal remains of black pine trees stand like soldiers in command. Their charcoaled bodies remain rigid, stuck into the damaged soil, decomposing but not entirely disappearing. The installation looks as if a wildfire gorged its craftsmanship before the viewing, but every bit of it speaks intentionality. Every part of it defines the ethos of Superflux.

Founded by Anab Jain and Jon Ardern in 2009, Superflux calls itself a boundary-defying design and experiential futures company whose research and art practice range from climate change to algorithmic autonomy, from future of work to more-than-human politics. The installation above testifies to this statement. Its title, Invocation for Hope, overviews a slice of the bigger picture the practice paints. “How do we move forward in this shattered landscape?” they ask. Rather than just posing questions, they turn to art and philosophy to fuel the minds of their viewers, pulling them into their works to start acting.

Speculative realism has catered to the well of influences the practice draws from, but lately, they have been tapping into the mysticism of fantasy and folklore, the parallel universes that deflect the reflection of the present world. From here, the practice toys with less grounded ideas, but always instilling the plurality of futures – in the plural form to signal the abundance of what the future may be – and presenting the depth of the symbiosis of the beings, both living and non-living.

Invocation for Hope only identifies one of the myriads of thought-provoking works sculpted by Superflux. With NR, the practice opens up that while this piece may be an introduction to how they work, it only scratches the surface of what runs in the creative minds behind the project and the urgent calls towards the public to do something – more than nothing – to the present climate crisis.

NR: Part of your ethos lies in translating future uncertainty into present-day choices. Is it intentional to choose ‘choices’ over solid responses, answers, and actions towards the global questions and demands?

S: Yes, absolutely. The future is plural – there are many possible futures, and they are all unfolding right now, as we respond to your question. Each and every decision we make today affects our futures, and therefore we see them as choices we have today. For instance, politicians and big businesses can choose to stop coal mines but by choosing not to, they are directly affecting our collective futures and those of all of our future generations.

In our work, we scan large trends as well as weak signals to present the sheer breadth of the complex, interconnected uncertainties that lie ahead of us. By taking time to consider these complex uncertainties and how they might be, we invite decision-makers to consider the choices they have today. 

I would love to learn more about your first-ever solo exhibition, Subject to Change. The show “invites viewers to remain open to multiple possibilities and navigate the uncertainty caused by imminent climate catastrophe with active hope.” What multiple possibilities concerning the climate catastrophe are there for the viewers to pick up and use to take action?

Subject To Changeis a collection of Superflux’s four recent works – addressing a range of present-day challenges – from climate crisis to ambient technologies, political unrest, and culture wars. 

In Trigger Warning we attempt to surface the widespread civic unrest caused by algorithmically mediated networks, clashing culture wars, and warring ideologies. The fast-paced journey through a city of memes is a critical commentary on where our networked culture has brought us to.

Building on this, our more recent film The Intersection and its accompanying artifacts take us to the end where the seductive power of the metaverse, algorithmic journalism and greed lead to destruction. This time, we wanted to give a glimpse of the way forward, a future where we craft new, hopeful, and enduring relationships with our planet, with technology, with our land, and with one another. 

With our more immersive installation works Refuge for Resurgence and Invocation for Hope, we challenge long-standing histories of human exploitation and greed by reframing the human in direct interdependence with other species. In one room, visitors will encounter a majestic oak table inviting different species to dine together, thus acknowledging our shared purpose, our shared fates, a mythopoetic of our unison. 

In the film of our installation Invocation For Hope, visitors will journey across wildfire-destroyed monoculture forests to a space of multispecies hope, a chance to reflect on our ecological, economic, and emotional entanglement with all species on the planet. When we love our earth, rivers, rocks, mountains, birds, animals, plants, and fungi, we care for them. And what we care for, we protect. We believe this is a simple but powerful message for action, framed through a poignant, mythical story, folklore, and sensory immersion. 

We hope Subject to Change is timely and prescient.

“Our works are not solutions to our crisis, but perhaps more importantly, are beacons of hope, of reimagination, renewal, and precarious flourishing.”

How does poetic and immersive storytelling help you underline the urgent concerns to shift the way we live in the present for the future? 

As we mentioned earlier in our earlier works, we have adopted this approach of speculative realism. Recently, though, we have been inspired by other genres like mythology and fantasy to explore possible worlds that are not direct representations of our current world. We want to open up poetic aspects of other worlds that might feel enigmatic, exciting, or magical. We are reaching into a more archetypal space where there are less grounded ideas about the ways we might transform ourselves. We are tapping into deep history and a more primal space in our exploration of the ways we relate to what we perceive as ‘nature’.

Our two recent works have very different manifestations of such poetic and immersive mechanisms to explore more-than-human futures, ecological interdependence, and multispecies cohabitation. Both installations are exploring mythopoetic expressions that celebrate our reciprocal relationship with other species and entities living on the planet, as opposed to a hierarchical or extractive relationship.

With our Venice project Refuge for Resurgence, multiple species enjoy a banquet around a large oak table alongside humans. With Invocation for Hope in Vienna, we are looking at a resurgent forest to show that a truly biodiverse ecosystem will be one that celebrates ecological reciprocity. Two similar themes are explored in very different spatial and aesthetic forms, at very different scales.

Referring to your centerpiece for the show, Refuge for Resurgence, it shows the stories of 14 species who represent life on an ecologically just planet. Do you think human exploitation and extraction are wired psychologically? With that in mind, how can we rework our lifestyles?

Who we are, how we act, what we gather around, our collective agency, our hopeful futures are all deeply entangled with messy histories of mindless extraction, oppressive colonialism, social injustices, and climate apathy. The roots of today’s surveillance technologies, algorithmic culture wars, fractured post-truth narratives, climate crisis, and the pandemic are part of this continuous narrative. 

If we want to find hope amidst crisis, we must force a reckoning with such interconnected complexities, and imagine alternatives beyond our present limitations of reality. This is at the heart of our practice –  whether it is an immersive installation, a speculation object, or a film,

“we are interested in confronting some of the most complex challenges of our times, and exploring different worlds of possibility, care, and hope.”

Let us move on to Invocation for Hope. How did the research come about? What was the premise before materializing the installation?

We have done a lot of work in the last few years around the ecological and social aspects of climate change. Our project Mitigation of Shock has had different iterations in London, Singapore, and Germany.

For the project, we invited audiences into an apartment where we are living in a climate of the future. Inside, it becomes easy for people to suspend their disbelief because they see familiar settings and familiar objects, but the longer they spend here they begin to realize that they are actually in quite a different world, with unfamiliar and strange elements such as a radio playing a show called ‘Pets as Protein’, a newspaper that has been opened on a disturbing article, or a recipe book next to some foraging notes.

There are many stories about climate change and our responses in the public domain.  There is this ‘dig for victory’ narrative which argues that we can just grow food in new ways or create new technologies.  In Mitigation of Shock we said: “Okay, what would that future actually look like?”

We invited people to explore that world. With Invocation for Hope, we are reaching into a more archetypal space where there are less grounded ideas about the ways we might transform ourselves, a tap into deep history and a more primal space in our exploration of the ways we connect to what we have grown to learn and recognize as ‘nature’.

Through our projects around the climate crisis, we have become increasingly drawn to a more-than-human approach. Whilst working on Mitigation of Shock, we had the chance to closely observe and learn about our capricious food and agricultural systems. Through hands-on experiments in growing different prototypes of food computers, we became increasingly drawn to the importance of multispecies cohabitation.

Our work has begun to focus more on these conditions that we are generating in collaboration with other species.  A more-than-human perspective allows us to see how we are ecologically, economically, and emotionally entangled with all species on the planet.

That gives us a certain kind of humility, to be able to see our role not as individuals who harvest nature for what we call ‘natural resources’, but to take care of those who take care of us.  

That is at the heart of a lot of our recent work. 

“We want to foreground how we are a part of a larger ecology rather than the masters of nature. Within this complex ecosystem, we all play a part in mutual survival and evolution. Without it, we cease to exist.”

For this issue, we’re focusing on Celebration. How would you like to celebrate your boundary-defying studio and the themes and philosophies the team believes in?

There is no more discussion around the fact that we are causing a climate crisis. We are. Human beings are responsible for what is likely the Sixth Extinction. There is so much work around the climate crisis, real action-oriented work, but we feel that alongside that, we also need to nurture the public imagination with alternative narratives.

It is only when people, from within themselves, start to feel a sense of love and connection with the species around them, a love for the planet, that this action-oriented work will take off because everyone will truly feel the same sense of urgency.

If we believe other worlds are possible, we will want to do something about it. That is what we want to celebrate: the power of our collective imagination in making other worlds possible. 

Credits

Images · Superflux
https://superflux.in/

Georgina Starr

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 450

Feature · Georgina Starr
Words · Ellie Brown

“I rebought forty of my favourite destroyed singles and had them played simultaneously on forty record players.”

It’s difficult to summarise the art of Georgina Starr. Since the early 1990s, the artist has made use of the array of tools (video, sound, written word and live performance) at her disposal to create a rich and varied body of work. In early works, Starr engaged a cast of miniature paper figures as stand-ins for real life conversations the artist would covertly record in public spaces. Later, Starr appears in her work – though the extent to which she was performing as herself is itself part of her practice. In The Party (1995), a 25-minute video installation, Starr takes on the role of Liz (a character whose advances are rejected by another character in a previous film). As Starr tells NR below, though the role was fictional, the process of making the film instils it with autobiographic elements. Characters, motifs and themes recur throughout Starr’s work, which enable the artist to rework and reimagine earlier ideas. But it isn’t just Starr’s own oeuvre that she recreates, with much of her work taking inspiration from existing film and literature. The breadth of reference points throughout Starr’s work are demonstrative of the extent to which the artist employs a process of meticulous researching to inform her practice. 

Aspects of Starr’s work recall a childhood spent watching tv; the object in the corner of the living room which, she explains in The Voices of Quarantaine (2021), became her “gateway to another world”. Indeed, the blurring of reality and imagination, autobiography and fiction are common features of her work. Starr’s film, Quarantaine (2020), is not, as you might think, a response to the pandemic. Rather, the artist began working on Quarantaine before COVID; the film’s title referring to the French word for forty, historically also the term for a period of enforced isolation over forty days. The film tells the story of strangers who are transported to an alternative universe which the two women must navigate their way through. Across the breadth of Starr’s work, the body – the female body and feminine identity in particular – are (re)investigated. In her later works, including Quarantaine, Starr is no longer in front of the camera, with a cast of performers enabling the artist to realise her practice on a larger scale. Most recently, the artist orchestrated a live performance in collaboration with French fashion house, Hermès, which in true Starr style, is a dazzling display of colour – flawlessly synchronised and splendidly surreal. 

NR: What have you been working on recently?

GS: I have been working on a new performance artwork in collaboration with Hermès to showcase their SS22 collection designed by the brilliant Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski. We performed it on 3rd February at a one-off special event titled ‘Gelato!’ at Old Sessions House in Clerkenwell. It incorporates a large set—a huge pastel coloured mountain sculpture, a new musical score for percussion which I developed together with composer, Thomas Haines, and is performed by four female percussionists, nine dancers and eight models all wearing Nadège’s designs. It was quite epic—a cross between a theatre play, a sculptural installation, opera, dance and fashion show. The collection is really joyful and screams summer, so I began by thinking about what ‘gelato’ would sound like. I imagined metallic sounds and warmer sounds of fabric on wood—glockenspiels, triangles, drums, wooden percussion, vibraphones, and I had a vision of a magic mountain which the performers, wearing these amazing clothes, would emerge from moving in synchronization with the sounds—this was my starting point.

NR: What does the process of rehearsing or being in workshops involve? 

GS: With live performance works, the rehearsal period is more intense. I always script and storyboard, and it was the same for Gelato! There are spoken word poems in this piece as well as the music and choreography. By the time we went into workshopping in mid-December we were at a really good stage with the musical composition, and I had choreography ready to show to the dancers. We were working with four incredible percussionists who were able to immediately play the working score so that the dancers could start to interpret the live instrumentation and we could adjust the score as went, which was a brilliant way to work. The music starts out very minimally and gradually builds up as the percussive mallets are handed to the musicians. Some instructional elements were built into the score, so everyone’s movement was highly choreographed, and I had constructed my own mallets using coloured threads from the collection – so these were woven into the piece. The workshopping days were crucial to figure out if the movement and vocals I had imagined alone in my studio could even work on a grander scale! I had props too, as I wanted the performers to all begin from inside a ‘mountain’ and emerge with large circles like musical notes transforming the whole picture into a giant score. There were twenty performers to direct, so it was pretty intense. We went into full-on rehearsals for six days at the end of January and had the first dress rehearsals at the venue the day before the show. I loved this collaboration with Hermès, it was wild.

NR: How does working with performers compare to playing the role of other performers (alongside) yourself? 

GS: The casting process is always really complex as I have a very clear idea of how I want the performers to look and what voices they bring. For both the Hermès piece and my last film Quarantaine (2020), it took a long time to find the right people, months of searching and meeting people. When I perform inside my work it’s a very insular and personal process, often just me and the camera. For my film THEDA (2007), I built all the sets in my studio and worked for a year filming myself in the various Theda Bara inspired roles, so became totally absorbed into the character. The way I work with a bigger cast definitely has some connection to this, I feel the need to demonstrate rather than just describe, it’s quite mediumistic, transferring my movement and voice into them. I like to work with a mix of professional and non-professional performers as the non-pros bring something magical and otherworldly. It often feels like the less experienced person is a stand-in for me in some way—I relate to them more strongly as they are working things out on their feet and negotiating this strange environment they find themselves in. 

NR: There are characters, themes and motifs – the brain, the bubble – that reoccur in your work; did you always attend to develop your practice in this way? Or did it just occur over time? 

GS: All the pieces I’ve made from the very beginning are completely interlinked. It happens naturally that one work leads to the next, so the themes and motifs overlap and merge. Sometimes an element in a work I made twenty-five years ago might suddenly appear in something new. A performance work I made at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1995 called The Hungry Brain suddenly started to inform a work I was developing in 2013 which eventually became Before Le Cerveau Affamé a new performance and installation piece. In this work I created an illustrated set of predictive cards (Le Cerveau Affamé), the suits were the bubble, the hand, the brain and the cat. These cards found their way into my film Quarantaine. The cards appear in a critical scene in ‘The Grey Room’ where a group of waiting women are chosen for a card reading—the cards selected guide them to the next level of the journey in the film’s narrative. Sometimes it seems like one big Gesamtkunstwerk!

NR: As an extension of that, in The Voices of Quarantaine you make reference to De Quincey’s The Palimpsest of the Human Brain which seemed to be an apt description of your work. Would you say that your work is palimpsestic?

GS: I think my last answer definitely describes a very palimpsestic way of working. I enjoyed making the performance lecture, The Voices of Quarantaine (2021), as I got to reveal some hidden details at the heart of my film Quarantaine. There are so many layers of meaning in my work it can baffle some people, so it’s useful to be able to unpeel these for the viewer. Although the lecture itself was something of a palimpsest too. While I was reading De Quincey, I realised that his essays had directly inspired Dario Argento’s 1977 masterwork Suspiria which in turn had inspired the forest wall-mural I had painted in a scene in Quarantaine. At the very beginning of Quarantaine we follow two women through an arboreal portal in a city park which leads them into a school of instruction—the first room they encounter has the eerie wall painting. The mural in Suspiria had always haunted me so it became an ominous character within my film—it holds another portal to take the initiates onto the next stage of the voyage.

NR: How much of your work is grounded in the idea of autobiography, and to what extent does the notion of autobiography become a way to introduce (fictional) narrative?

GS: There is quite an even mix of the fictional and factual, but it’s so integrated that I often lose track of which is which. I made fictional works in the past which I performed in and people presumed they were autobiographical. An early video The Party (1995), for example, was a piece about a lonely female character who throws the perfect party for one. It began as a fictional narrative, but I did spend two days alone having a party in my studio—constructing a bar, making food, dancing, drinking elaborate cocktails. When I look back at this work it’s part of my history and feels almost autobiographical, it’s a perfect merging of the two. There are personal stories within Quarantaine, which I discuss in the lecture, these stories begin from a ‘real’ place or at least a memory of something real and gradually become so entwinned within the world I’m creating that they drift away from reality and become something totally new. 

NR: How do different mediums lend themselves to a particular work? What informs whether you use audio, film or a live performance?

GS: The idea usually informs what the piece will be.

“A memory I had about my parents burning all my records when I left home for example ended up transforming into a live sound performance piece called Top 40 on Fire (2010).”

I rebought forty of my favourite destroyed singles and had them played simultaneously on forty record players. It created a cacophonous sound at first that sounded like fire, but as each track petered out you started to hear the voices of the singers coming through and the final vocal lyric was quite profound. If I’m commissioned to make a work then it’s slightly different, although sound always plays a huge part of every work. Live works are the most difficult for me as it’s impossible to control exactly what will happen on the night. I’m pretty controlling about all the details so this can drive me insane; the uncertainty—at some point you have to let a performance live without you. When I made Androgynous Egg (2017), a live piece for Frieze a few years ago, it took me ages to let the performers just own the piece. It was performed four times a day for the whole of Frieze and it was only on day two when I realized that I didn’t need to sit in all the performances—they had it, it belonged to them now and I had to set it free, like releasing a child into the world. Quarantaine was really borne out of Androgynous Egg. I knew that I wasn’t finished with some of the subjects—the eggs, the Pink Ursula Material, the instructional poetry, even the choreography, and that I needed to make a film. Writing and making the film was my way of taking back the control I had relinquished with the performance. It meant I could close-in on the action and focus on the important details. Filmmaking is more my natural medium. I love editing with image and sound, it’s where the magic happens.

NR: In relationship to the magazine’s theme – celebration – how does your work celebrate, and explore, womanhood?

GS: I would say that it does this in every sense. I began in the early ‘90s by working with my own body and voice to create video and sound works. These works gave me an actual voice. I was suddenly able to articulate something within the work in a way that I felt I couldn’t in real life. It was a celebration of my inner world. Over the years I’ve gained the experience and confidence to transfer this and to share the ideas with performers, musicians, singers and composers so that the world becomes bigger, more complex and intense. THEDA was the last work I performed in front of the camera. It was a very physical work where I was on screen the whole time for forty minutes. Each time I screened the work at a cinema I invited different musicians to accompany it and perform a live soundtrack. I had done it a few times in London and New York when I realised that it was predominantly men that were playing the music; by some strange fluke it had worked out this way. I was invited to screen it in Berlin at an old silent movie theatre and decided that this time it should be a woman accompanying it. I tracked down this amazing soprano Sigune von Osten—diva der neuen musik, who had worked with John Cage and Luigi Nono, and she agreed to compose a new soundtrack and perform live to the film. There was something incredible about the combination of a woman (me) attempting to dissect and enact the lost films of another woman (silent movie star Theda Bara) while being interpreted and accompanied by the extraordinary vocals of a third woman (Sigune von Osten), it was a metaphysical experience—a total celebration and exploration of the female body and voice.

Credits

Images · Georgina Starr
http://www.georginastarr.com/

Sho Shibuya

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 442

Feature · Sho Shibuya
Words · Ellie Brown

“I just so happened to want to capture the contrast of the beautiful sky against the ominous news.”

Sho Shibuya is a graphic designer who has lived in New York for the past ten years – the last five of those years spent painting every day. Originally from Tokyo, Shibuya’s move to the Big Apple gave rise to a fascination with the city and the elements of design that are distinctively “New York”. In fact, something the designer was quickly struck by was the number of plastic bags that littered the city’s streets – is there anything more “New York” iconic than the “Thank You” plastic bag? Shibuya began collecting abandoned bags which were the subject of a book from 2019, Plastic Paper. If the project was a celebration of the city’s rich visual identity, as captured in plastic bags, it was also designed as to provoke a necessary conversation about the environmental hazards caused by single-use plastic. The bags were banned state-wide on 1st March 2020, though a loophole meant that retailers serving food can still these bags. Nonetheless, Shibuya’s bag collection was featured in a New York Times article the day before the ban. 

Fast forward to late May that year – with the city slowly emerging from lockdown following the first COVID wave – and Shibuya’s work appeared on the pages of the New York Times once more. This time, however, it was the designer sharing a photograph of a full-page painting over the newspaper’s cover on Instagram. Shibuya depicted a sunrise gradating from white to deep blue on the day that the Times paid tribute to the almost-100,000 deaths to COVID in the United States at that moment in time. This was Shibuya’s first full-page painting on (or over?) the cover of the New York Times, and it captures the way in which the designer (and painter) strives to “really understand [an] event and show respect to any cause.” There was some criticism to that initial post – that in painting over the names, it was glossing over the scale of pandemic’s impact – but as the subsequent paintings reveal, Shibuya’s creative interpretations of that day’s news, whether poignant or funny, emotional or thought-provoking, have come to attract an appreciative, warm response from a growing Instagram audience.

By using the daily New York Times as his canvas, Shibuya paintings move between reportage of local, American and international affairs – from painting the giant Snoopy inflatable from the 1988 Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving, the diagonal lines synonymous with OFF WHITE in honour of Virgil Abloh’s death, a collaboration with Patti Smith urging Americans to vote in the 2020 election, to painting scenes from the floods and forest fires that gripped the world last summer. If Shibuya began by painting the sunrise each day from his window during the lockdown, his paintings have become an entryway into a wider celebration of the little things we can be hopeful about. Each day, no matter what, the sun rises – and the news, no matter how difficult it may be, continues. And amongst that, Shibuya’s paintings give us a moment of pause and reflection. 

NR: You started sharing Sunrise Through a Small Window on Instagram during the first American lockdown in 2020; were you expecting the kind of response you have had since then?

SS: Not at all. Painting has been part of my daily ritual for over five years. It just so happened that this series seemed to strike a chord in people. I appreciate the response; it makes me feel connected to the world through my work.

NR: What was it like being commissioned to paint two new sunrise scenes and exhibit a further 53 of your newspaper paintings in collaboration with Saint Laurent at last year’s Art Basel Miami for the 55 Sunrises show? 

SS: I visited the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakesh, Morocco, back in 2018. I was fascinated by the whole experience there. Three years later, the collaboration started, and I am grateful for the opportunity. It was my first time in Miami. The idea for the location came from [Saint Laurent creative director] Anthony Vaccarello; I never expected the show to be held on the beach. I thought, it’s a wild idea that you will be able to look back and experience the sunrises and the turmoil of 2020 and 2021. Then, after you are finished looking at the painted sunrises, you can see the real sunrise on the ocean outside.

“It’s like a time capsule, or like a pathway from past to present, and perhaps a future, because I believe the sunrise carries with it some bit of hope or optimism for the future.”

NR: The New York Times paintings are quite different to your book Plastic Paper and the creative platform associated with it. How, in different ways, do both relate to the experience of living in New York?

SS: The objects at the centre of each work, the designs on the plastic bags and the New York Times newspaper, are both everyday objects in New York. From a foreigner’s view, I treat them differently. For instance, if someone took a trip to Japan, they would probably notice cultural significance in mundane objects, like Japanese typography on a sign or Pachinko store, etc. The everyday objects feel fresh to me. That emotion made me use it as a canvas.

NR: Do you have an idea of which painted New York Times covers, news or events might resonate with your audience?

SS: Each piece has different reactions. For instance, the inflation piece that visually explains “no more 99 cent pizza” might resonate with people in New York. In another article, I depicted the tragedy of the wildfires in Greece, and I received a lot of comments from Greece. If the events somehow relate to how people feel or what they’re thinking about, they respond. It’s a natural reaction.

NR: Some of your newspaper paintings (like Rudy Giuliani’s melting hair dye) are quite playful, whilst others are more poignant, how do you decide what kind of approach you’ll take with the paintings?

SS: I never plan what to paint. It is always spontaneous.

“I always start after reading an article, and if something lingers in my mind afterward, I paint that feeling or thought so I can speak up in a visual way.”

NR: What was it about the cover of the New York Times that lent itself to being the canvas for your sunrise paintings in the first place?

SS: I think it was a bit of chance. I always read the New York Times every morning, and when I made the very first painting, I just so happened to want to capture the contrast of the beautiful sky against the ominous news.

NR: Of all the New York Times paintings you’ve shared on Instagram, which one means the most to you? And which have people most engaged with?

SS: The first full-page painting: May 24, 2020. The New York Times cover paid homage to the 100,000 people who had died from COVID. I was really emotional painting that one and still remember every moment of when I was painting it. The most engaged one was when I painted the Palestinian flag on the cover. I agree when Haruki Murakami said, “between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.”

Credits

Images · Sho Shibuya
https://www.instagram.com/shoshibuya/

Carmine Romano

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NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 428

Feature · Carmine Romano
Words · Matthew Burgos

Staying behind the camera to capture the rawness of emotions

A man of few words, photographer Carmine Romano prefers to hold the camera and point the lens to his subjects rather than be the subject himself. In doing so, he captures the rawness of the Italian lifestyle and living, often becoming an observer of a scene rather than the participant. His images overflow with the nuances of serendipity and home, charged with liberation and a promise of self-expression. With NR, the photographer displays the exclusive space he has carved for himself, a realm where his clipped sentences weigh a thousand ideas.

NR: There is a documentative sense in your photography. Do you view your style the same way – a documentary? Whenever you capture the images of people, it feels as if you are photographing their real selves. Is the rawness of people the emotion you want to capture?

CR: Yes. I feel that my style leans more towards a documentary-like photography than fashion photography. My goal is to capture people the way they are at the moment, trying to seal their authenticity.

Going back to your roots in photography, what was the first photograph you captured? Do you still have this image with you? Do you keep tabs on the development of your photography?

The first image that I always keep in mind is a picture that I took when I was ten. I took a photograph of the oldest man in my neighborhood in Napoli, who was an artisan that repaired old shoes. I do not know if it was the first pics I ever captured, but of course, it is that one that I  have always treasured with me.

The influence of family seems alive in your photographs. How essential is family to you? Do you believe in the phrase blood is thicker than water?

In my photography, the influence of my family and the good values that my parents taught to me are always essential to me, so yes –

“I think we should never forget where we came from.”

Carmine Romano

Aside from family, the essence of community comes through your images. From gatherings to sharing stories over meals, you seem to have a penchant for togetherness. What lessons in life have you learned from your community? Is it important for you to belong in a community? 

Nowadays, it is important to me to interact. In a society where everyone is behind a digital screen, meeting people, sharing moments and emotions with them, and having conversations with them are important. I think that we do not have to forget that we are humans, and we need to keep our contact solid, perhaps doing it over lunch or dinner for instance.

For you to capture portraits, I can imagine that you have to form a bond with the person you are photographing. What do you tell them before, during, and after the shoot? Who has been the most memorable subject so far? Also, do you believe you chance upon the emotions, settings, and looks of your photographs, or do you instruct and arrange them before the shoot?

Exactly. Before shooting a person, I always try to learn and understand them; to be with them in order to comprehend who they are. I try to establish a relationship with them, and I love listening to them and trying to understand how they feel.

I prefer to do it before, without a camera, and then come back to shoot. The most memorable subject to me was Rita, an old woman in my neighborhood who, after few meetings, she showed me her best, meaning who she is, in the picture.

From here,

“I think there is always a scene to capture for those who know where to seek and how to find it.”

Whenever you feel like taking a break from photography, how do you recharge? How do you celebrate your life outside the camera? Then, how do you celebrate la dolce vita through photography? Is there a place in Italy that you have not yet been to before but would love to visit soon?

To recharge, I travel to different cities and often go to the sea to watch the horizon and the waves. La dolce vita through photography has to be celebrated from a vision – a personal interpretation even. In Italy, I love going back to Sicily. 

Would you say that you are a private person? I am only asking because I wonder if you will allow another photographer to capture what your everyday life looks like.

Yes, I am a very private person. Usually, I only post overviews of my private life, not its entirety. I do not like the idea of being on the other side of the camera.

Credits

Images · Carmine Romano
https://www.carmineromano.com/

Andrés Reisinger

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NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 414

Feature · Andrés Reisinger
Words · Matthew Burgos

Experimenting with boundaries until the intangible becomes tangible

Testing the limits of the boundaries communities and self impose shapes the utopia Andrés Reisinger aspires to manifest. His visual artistry intersects art, design, music, architecture, fashion, and beyond, always moving along the waves of culture and never settling for anything marked as conventional. The results give birth to the manifestation of a hybrid reality, one where the intangible becomes tangible. The duality of the physical and digital realms, the fruition and transition from a blueprint to reality, the faces of strangeness and their unearthly appeal, and the celebration of a newborn: everything moves in and out of Reisinger’s creative ethos.

NR: The first thing that caught my attention was your title on Instagram: Unclassifiable Artist. Does this indicate the millions of ideas you want to test and of creative endeavors you want to venture to?

AR: I would agree with that. I have been inspired by the Argentine writer Borges, who was also Unclassifiable. I am focused on constant self-improvement, constant experimentation, constant development; wherever it takes me.

My task is to keep discovering and introducing new mediums of work and ways of experiencing art and design. So, my practice cannot be easily classified, because it is not something that I can fully classify yet, and I probably never will.

As an artist, how essential is it to be multidisciplinary? Do you think a creative should focus on a single discipline in art?

My work is based on pushing the boundaries between the digital and the physical realms to achieve hybridity. In this sense, I consider and love visual culture as a whole, essential in all of its  declinations. There are incredibly interesting intersections that we are seeing and can be further developed between art, design, music, architecture, fashion and so on, and my work is heavily focused on context rather than by piece. Only by mixing different ideas and connecting them will we create new ones.

From Argentina to Barcelona, how do the cultures and communities in these countries – and the others you have been to – influence the way you conceive your works? Can your viewers see the nuances of these cultures in what you create?

Most of the places I have lived in are in South Europe, so my works are heavily influenced by culture from the countries here. These places, for many reasons, have been central social territories, which is something that has influenced my approach to creation and the way I have been sharing my journey on the internet since the very beginning of my career (approximately 15 years ago when I started with digital art and design). I have always felt the need to share the way I see the world.

Let us talk about your works. I want to start with An Essay Before Meeting my Daughter. Congratulations, first of all! How do you feel about being a father? How did you celebrate it? Did you feel worried or excited?

I felt all sorts of emotions. It is an experience that cannot be truthfully described or translated. It feels like I am flourishing. It is a novel way of looking at the world. It is an excellent way to cultivate perspective. The way you manage your time, your ideas, and your instincts: they all grow. It is a great challenge in life. It is amazing, and I love it.

Continuing this, you wrote: Anxiety, nervousness, happiness, fears, beloved moments, all that are absorbed and expressed through my artistic lens. Could you guide us on the metaphors of this piece, from the rolling apples to the flipping pages of the books?

The piece was the result of a long reflective process. I wanted to gather and somehow express all the feelings and thoughts that guided these moments of my life, and the piece came very spontaneously as the emotions naturally channeled themselves into form.

With The Shipping, it is the manifestation of a new hybrid reality concerning furniture. How do you envision the future of design in furniture? Would technology replace manual labor?

“I see it as a hybrid of digital and physical; the encounter between the two is already offering an overwhelming amount of possibilities.”

And although it might seem a very futuristic scenario to some, we already spend a third of our days connected to any device screen. We are undoubtedly living in a time where our physical lives are and will continue to be more and more integrated with the digital realm. And as we get more comfortable living in these different spaces, we will get more and more used to owning things and living there.

There are of course differences between the two realities that will never compensate each other. Technology will make things earlier in production, that is for sure, although I cannot say which mode is easier. One thing I can say is that creating a digital chair – such as Hortensia, Tangled, Complicated Sofa, or Crowded Elevator – was the most difficult thing I have ever attempted. Technology can help us do more creative work and less mechanical procedures. Artisans will always exist, and they will benefit from new technologies.

I love the backstory behind The Hortensia Armchair, from having been a concept to a real seat! What made this project challenging? How did you take on the challenge? Did you learn anything from this experience life- and design-wise?

Because it was such a complex design to realize, I was doubting whether to invest time and money to bring the chair to life, so I guess the challenge was against myself. I am incredibly glad that I decided to go for it.

What I am most proud of is that the Hortensia Chair created digital demand before the supply, which is a total disruption within the design industry. We were able to build an interest around a digital object that seemed almost impossible to realize and gave life to it first through a limited edition and then with Moooi in a more affordable version.

It was an interesting phenomenon to witness, with regards to sustainability, most especially. We did not launch another project, hoping for the market to accept it. We created the need first digitally. It showed to design and other companies that this is definitely a possibility.

Continuing the previous question, what do you do when you want to make the impossible possible? Have you ever felt like dropping a project halfway? What made you continue it?

I work with context and try to, in part, deform reality to achieve a surreal atmosphere. That uncanniness between reality and fiction, digital and physical is to make the impossible possible. I do not want my work to be too explicit, or it would defeat its purpose. If it is too blatantly strange, it is instantly dismissed, but if it is not so strange but just enough, it is instantly absorbed into everyday reality. I strive for a slight strangeness leaving the viewers disoriented.

Generally, challenges inspire me, so I have rarely thought about dropping a project halfway.

“If I recognize the possibility of discovering a new production methodology, a pioneering approach within the physical and digital, I will strive to see it through as I know I will learn a lot during the process.”

As we focus on Celebration for this issue, how do you feel about what you have achieved so far in this lifetime?

I am proud, I am humbled, and I am projected into my practice.

Is there anything that we should be celebrating with you in the upcoming weeks?

In mid-January, I presented Winter House, a residential project in the metaverse inspired by the frosty season. It is an important one I would  like to celebrate as it represents the preliminary project of an architecture studio for the metaverse I am establishing with other partners. There will be more – a lot more – but 2022 has just started.

Credits

Images · Andrés Reisinger
https://reisinger.studio/

Nina Raasch – Fabiana Vardaro

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 396

Credits

Model · STAN at FORD MODELS PARIS
Photography · NINA RAASCH
Fashion · FABIANA VARDARO at COLLECTIVE INTEREST
Casting · ELI SCHERER
Makeup · SABINA PINSONE
Hair · DIEGO FRAILE
Fashion Assistant · FILOMENA IANNICIELLO

Nicholas Préaud

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NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 380

Feature · Nicholas Préaud
Words · Matthew Burgos

“I celebrate humility and simplicity in design, that which feels obvious, which looks like it should be rather than not.”

Nicholas Préaud’s fondness for furniture and product design brings him satisfaction on different scales in different timelines. The liberty and authority these designs lend him feed his creativity to break through the boundaries between what exists in the digital and physical world. In fact, some of his projects touch upon abstraction, works that only serve the digital altar. As he investigates, researches, and develops plans and methods to bring these digital works to life – together with Kei Atsumi – Préaud finds himself invested and knee-deep in his design and work principles, an indication of a positive intensification in his design, architecture, and construction research and development.

NR: A focus on design, architecture, and construction research and development: what made you pursue a creative studio on these themes? Where did this strong affinity for these themes come from?

NP: I am a Paris-based architect and designer. I pursued architecture studies in Paris and subsequently worked in several architecture firms such as DGT Architects, Lina Ghotmeh Architecture, Nicolas Laisné Architectes, and more recently Sou Fujimoto Architects in Paris. My background is purely architectural and bridges several practices such as smaller-scale furniture or product design, and construction R&D. My practice spans today from furniture design, interior design, architecture, and R&D (all designed to be built and used in real life) to more abstract and digital works of design meant to exist only digitally. Some projects such as Casa Atibaia are ways of bridging the gap between the digital and the physical world. Initiated as a digital architectural project, we are now working on bringing it to life in the years to come. 

Furniture and product design has always been a go-to theme for me to work on as it brings satisfaction on a different scale as well as a different timeline. As architects, we often get lost in never-ending processes due to political or financial parameters that are out of our control. Furniture design gives me more liberty and control over the creative process, and ultimately the finished product. Although my practice aims at a certain form of humility in the creative process, it is also progress-driven, which naturally leads me to invest time and resources in research and development. In the past two years, together with my friend and partner in this adventure, Kei Atsumi, I have designed and put together a manufacturing process for a joining system of architectural elements. We subsequently patented the design and process to bring it to life in the years to come. The joint system aims to allow for any architectural elements such as beams, pillars, or panels to be assembled to one another without any tools or a particular skill, a seemingly interesting subject for disaster relief construction for instance.

How essential is construction research and development in creating design and architecture?  Do they go hand-in-hand?

They most often don’t go hand in hand at all in my experience working in Parisian firms. In France at least, these practices are very compartmentalized. Architects work on design and engineers work on R&D. I would say that focusing on R&D applied to architecture makes sense when you want to go beyond the existing techniques and processes which exist and have been normalized. It isn’t essential, but it contributes to broader progress and helps create new techniques and expertise ultimately making the construction process more efficient and sustainable.

I want to learn more about your design process. Do you start with a single concept then go from there, or an already-envisioned product? Is it challenging to lay out the design plans? How many revisions do you go through?

I usually neither iterate so much during the design process nor do I start with an already envisioned product or project. A concept often emerges early on because it makes sense, and is then pushed further until completion.

“I believe there are as many valid concepts as there are approaches to the same project.”

It’s just a matter of it making sense to the final users of the space or product, and of course to you the designer. Depending on the scale and complexity of the project, iterations and revisions are nevertheless bound to happen. This is where engineering and construction knowledge proves useful in the design process. Accurate engineering can be taken into consideration early on in the creative process to avoid painful iterations. My architectural work has been and is for now on a scale not exceeding that of a private home. In this sense, once the wants and needs of the client and the natural context of the construction have been well understood, the design plans follow easily.

Do you prioritize functionality over design in your products? Also, would you say you practice the less is more philosophy? 

To a certain extent, I would say I do try to practice the less is more philosophy. I truly believe excellent functionality can be achieved without compromising on design. True utility often suffices to bring beauty out of any given design. In my work, I enjoy emphasizing the simple technicalities of how a given object, space, or building is assembled by revealing the sheer power of the forces at play. Functionality in some cases can also become overly complicated and fussy. Design that doesn’t seek to fulfill a specific given functionality sometimes brings out so much more, as theorized by James J. Gibson with the concept of affordance and perceived action possibilities of an object.

Noting the titles of your design products, there is a touch of East Asian culture in them. What lifestyle or philosophy do you practice that roots from East Asia? Is there a difference between the way East-Asian culture works and that of European and Western one?

My work is impregnated with many references to East Asian culture, specifically Japanese culture. Having been very passionate about the Japanese culture and architecture in my entire life, and having worked at internationally renowned studios led by Japanese architects such as Tsuyoshi Tane or Sou Fujimoto, I have learned a lot about, and continue to seek to learn about, how architectural design can entertain an essential relationship with its foundational natural counterpart. A simple relationship between the artifact and the untouched, and layouts intentionally designed to encompass empty space where anything can happen are essential to me, as opposed to Western architecture and its spaces impose a function on the user. The concept of ‘Ma’ in Japanese culture and architecture exactly points to this.

“The invisible aesthetic of Ma is portrayed by this energy filled with possibilities emerging from the design, an emptiness that reveals unforeseen functions.”

Let us talk about your architecture repertoire. There is a sense of calm in your designs, from the light hues of the interior to the arrangement of the fixtures and furniture.
How do you decide what color and style to use? Do you compromise with your clients’ briefs?

I tend to iterate much more on textures, colors, and furniture than actual sheer architectural geometry which comes more naturally to me. The sense of calm you are referring to probably comes from the essentialness of uncluttered spaces, once again not imposing function but revealing it. In terms of color and style, I would say I try to adapt as much as I can to the context of the design rather than imposing my own. I feel an architectural design is well rolled-out specifically when you cannot recognize its author through the style, but rather through the creative pro- cess which led to its materialization. In this sense, the creative process can lead you in so many different directions.
That is what is interesting to me; each design exists in its own context and with its own referential universe tied to it, not so much its author’s aesthetics.

“That is what is interesting to me; each design exists in its own context and with its own referential universe tied to it, not so much its author’s aesthetics.”

What has been your most challenging project so far? What and how did you learn from it? Also, how would you describe your work ethic through your projects? What architectural elements do you pay attention to?

My most challenging project has been and continues to be Casa Atibaia which I designed in collaboration with Char- lotte Taylor. This project encapsulates so much of what I try to push towards in my practice. Architecture that does not wish to disappear in its surroundings, nor shows off extravagantly either; architecture that exists through the multiplication of natural forces. Started in early 2020, the project was first rolled out as a way of putting forward ideas and our interpretation of Brazilian modernism. Having lived and studied architecture in Brazil, this project resonates so much with me. Phase one of this project which we rolled out in 2020 was met with great enthusiasm and gave us extra incentive to continue pushing for it to materialize. Phase two which will be released soon brings us even closer to this imagined dream-house and consists of a short film and VR experience allowing the viewer to immerse themselves completely in the design in a way the still shots didn’t let you. Phase three which we are very optimistic about will be rolled out in the coming years and will materialize through the construction of the house. We have been in discussion over the past year with clients who are also guiding us through the process.

A question on a title: is there a difference between an architectural designer and solely an architect or a designer?

There is no difference I know of or intended other than this title is the most broad-reaching one I could find on Instagram to define what I do, which is a broad scope going from object and furniture design, to architecture, to digital works, and research and development.

It seems that we have to look forward to your research and development content. What can we expect from you in the upcoming months?

Speaking of which, I have yet to update my website as I am waiting on legal deadlines to communicate more broadly on the R&D aspect of my practice. For the past two years, my partner in this adventure, Kei Atsumi, and I have been developing a joint system that allows anyone to assemble and disassemble architectural elements without the use of tools and without any particular skill set. This joint system is sturdy over time and can be manufactured for panel or framework structures. No tools and no skills prove useful for certain types of constructions including but not limited to emergency architecture and lower-scale wooden homes. Two years of research and development have led to the successful patenting of the system in Japan, which we are now working on marketing and developing more seriously. As this is a slow process, I do not have a date for release but we are working to get it manufactured and on the market as fast as possible.

Our issue touches on the concept of Celebration. Some people seem to only revere design and architecture for their face value. For you, why and what should celebrate (in) design and architecture? For instance, in Casa Atibaia, you seem to celebrate the force of nature. Does nature drive your philosophy in design?

As mentioned above, and also just now by you in the clearest way, my work explores the relationship each design entertains with its surroundings and founding natural elements. As our culture and humanity tend to distance themselves more and more from the most basic and essential connections we still have with the natural elements, I feel the urge to explore and question how this can still happen on a very basic level. I celebrate humility and simplicity in design, that which feels obvious, which looks like it should be rather than not. A lot actually looks like it should not.

“I celebrate the designs whose creative process and formal results are more relevant than their authors.”

Continuing the theme of celebrating nature, you also collaborated with Charlotte Taylor for Coral Arena. How did this collaboration unfold? How can your collaboration fuel the discussion on climate change?

Charlotte and I were approached by the team at Aorist, which is a next-generation cultural institution supporting a climate-forward NFT marketplace for artists creating at the edge of art and technology. Together with the team at Aorist and OMA New York which is one of, if not the, leading architectural firms in the world, we produced a film that portrays the life of a physical artwork that will be installed in the future as a part of the ReefLine masterplan—it is a digital twin to a sculpture that will live and grow over time, depicting the sculpture as a piece of resilient infrastructure. Proceeds from the sale of this release will be donated to The ReefLine, an artificial reef, marine habitat, and sculpture park in Miami Beach. This project was our first meaningful jump into the NFT format and made sense to us creatively and of course, because of the cause it is supporting. We hope the film is viewed and appreciated by many, and that it helped educate the public about what is unfolding and what has yet to unfold in the years to come on the Miami coastline.

Credits

Images · Nicholas Préaud
https://nicholaspreaud.com/

Bettina Pittaluga

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NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 358

Feature · Bettina Pittaluga
Words · Ellie Brown

“I find my inspiration in reality, so usually everything is already there.”

When photographer Bettina Pittaluga talks about developing film, she describes it as painting a picture – retrieving the details within the image, matching the exact skin tone of her subject. If the photographer finds joy in the technical processes of her work, it’s equally joyous to look at the final result. It is evident in Pittaluga’s photography that she approaches the development of each photograph in the context of its individual circumstance, ‘painting’ colour as it is most appropriate. In the broadest sense, her photography evokes a warmness, which Pittaluga communicates in different ways. Sometimes, her images are so dark that it’s only in the contrast of illuminated features that we see the subject, as in Pittaluga’s portrait of Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri for Le Monde’s M magazine. Elsewhere, her work highlights barely the curves of an upper arm, the contours of a profile, or the soft glow of a pregnant stomach. But other images can feel like an explosion of colour – a vivid red, or a minty green. It just depends on the natural lighting that the photographer finds herself working with. 

Pittaluga’s photography is defined by the moment that it captures; natural lighting plays a part in that, but so does the emotional bond that the photographer forges with her subject. Regardless of whether she is working on commercial and personal projects, Pittaluga maintains that having a connection to her subject is essential. “My way of communicating does not change,” she tells NR, “I will always be looking for what the person wants to give me.” In a way, Pittaluga is sharing with the viewer what the person, or people, she photographs wanted her to see in the first place. The issue’s theme of celebration is an apt opportunity to contemplate Pittaluga’s work (or, rather, celebrate it) because every image is a celebration of some kind. Whether photographing a milestone – birth, love, and so on – or just capturing a moment that becomes immortalised by her camera, Pittaluga’s work is always a celebration of being human. 

NR: There’s a warmth and intimacy to your work and the way you photograph people; is this an approach that you’ve always had in your work, or something that you’ve adapted over time?

BP: I don’t think I could take a photograph in another way. I think the way I photograph is intrinsically linked to the way I communicate; I need to communicate with the other person in order to capture them, in every sense of the word.

NR: You’ve previously mentioned the importance of forging a relationship with the person you’re photographing, whether that’s over a couple of minutes or much more established over time. But besides that, are there any other fundamentals that are important to a good photograph?

BP: I would say that the fundamental thing in a good photograph is to convey a truth; the reality of the moment. Of course, I need intimacy too, but I am always looking for truth. That’s the thing that want me to take a photo.

NR: When it comes to a composition, how much of the staging is a collaboration with the subject?

BP: I find my inspiration in reality, so usually everything is already there. I don’t prepare the set; it’s much more about lighting – natural light – which give me an idea of what I want. I also look for the shape and the form that I see with the light; the colours; the way the person is sitting or looking. Suddenly, it’s like I see something – I don’t know how to describe it because it’s very instinctive.

“When I am looking at the picture [afterwards], I can recognize the composition, but I would not be able to explain it when I am taking them.”

NR: What’s so compelling about your work is the fact that it doesn’t, as you say, look staged. It looks very natural. 

BP: I love to shoot people in their own home because of that. I know that I will find something very intimate, not because of the intimacy, but because you can really learn about the person. Usually, I don’t know where I’m going to [shoot], so the only thing that I will ask is whether there is natural light that I can play with. But then it’s also a conversation. Sometimes people are like, “what should I wear?” and I always respond by asking, “how do you want to be represented?” I really want the person to feel comfortable and to be represented like this. And then it’s just about materials and colours – because the lighting is not the same with silver, or it’s not the same with pink or green. But again, it’s about the moment – it’s a feeling actually.

“The detail is the most important thing, it’s the emotion, which I cannot prepare in advance.”

It depends on the person in front of me. I’m following [them] in a way, I’m following what they want to give.

NR: You mention how different colours can affect the photo. Over the course of your time as a photographer, have you learned different techniques for using colour and how it will affect a photograph? 

BP: I started photographing in black and white at first because I wanted to develop the film myself. I wanted to know how it works, so it was very important for me to oversee the whole process from beginning to end, when you have the pictures actually in your hand. People [had] said that it was very complicated to develop colour. And it’s really not the same process, it’s very long. But I learned how to develop colour two years ago. I think it’s true that I can see the evolution in my work [when] colour suddenly had more importance. Developing colour is like painting, it’s amazing. You have something neutral, and you can add the colours that you saw. At first, I spent, I don’t know, like seven hours on the same picture, just playing with colours, getting the exact colour of the person’s skin. By developing yourself, you can get great reds, or a really great yellow – so it’s true I am more obsessed by colours now than before. And it’s also about seeing colours with light – it’s a completely different world. Before, maybe I was seeing in black and white without knowing it, and now I can see colour. 

NR: When you do the whole process yourself, it changes the way you feel about it – you don’t just press the button and wait, it’s the whole thing.

BP: I don’t take that many pictures because, with analogue, I only have ten pictures per roll.

“That’s why I love this process because it’s about taking time, I’m not in a hurry. “

Well, sometimes I only have one minute to take a photograph, but sometimes you can be really in the present and one minute feel long, so it’s how you take the time. That’s why I really love it also, it’s about taking time. 

NR: It’s interesting that you describe developing colour film as being almost like a painting and it made me think, do you see your work as more being about reportage? Or is it more art? 

BP: I don’t like labels and I don’t see my work as just one thing, but maybe I’m a portraitist? It’s more this way that I see my work, but it can be a lot of different things. It can be a portrait for press [work], or it can be more artistic. But I always feel poetic. No matter what the project, at the end of the day, it’s about human beings so, that’s why I think I identify more as a portraitist because most of my work is about human beings. 

NR: The theme of this issue is celebration and I guess what’s lovely about your work is the way that it celebrates people, it celebrates the human form and the diversity of what it means to be a person. How do you feel celebration comes across in your work?

BP: Actually, I’m so glad you asked that. I think it’s one of my favourite questions ever and this is the first time that someone has asked. To be asked as a photographer to photograph a celebration of any kind – celebrating a child, love between two people, a transition: any kind of celebration. To me, it’s truly an honour. I think it’s the most beautiful thing about my job to be given this extraordinary trust and to be there together, to celebrate, because in a way, I am also celebrating that moment, you know? 

NR: I think that ties in with something I wanted to ask you, which is that you’ve spoken previously about the concept of beauty and authenticity, whether that’s a relationship, or of a moment. How much of your role as a photographer is about being there, in that moment, and how much of it is just about pressing the button and waiting for that one shot?

BP: I don’t think you can separate one from the other. And maybe that’s what’s magical in the end – to be able to share the present together and look at it later in pictures. Usually now, with social media, we can take pictures all the time. [So as a photographer], it’s also about the fact that you cannot look at [the photographs] because it’s analogue.

“I cannot look at it straight after, so in a way, I continue to be in the moment.”

NR: As an analogue photographer, does having access to instant photography, with a phone and on social media, does it make you appreciate film more?

BP: I feel lucky to live in a moment of time when it’s so easy to take pictures. My cameras are very big and heavy, so I cannot have them [on me] all the time. To be able to take pictures anytime – and I film a lot because I like that an instant can last more than just a second, it can be longer. I love being able to record a long moment of softness or a long moment that I found beautiful. So, I’m always recording with my phone, and I love it so much, it’s amazing to be able to record so many things that inspire me in the day. No kidding, I think I have 30,000 videos [on my phone] and I buy a lot of memory. As a human being, it’s my way to express myself, to take 100 pictures of a flower in front of me if I want. It’s freedom. But with analogue, like I said, I really draw a portrait of someone, so it takes time and I love that. 

Credits

Images · Bettina Pittaluga
https://www.instagram.com/bettinapittaluga/

Photographer Hal

Posted on by nr

NR Vol. 15 Celebration · Spring Summer 2022
Published · Print Page 352

Feature · Photographer Hal
Words · Ellie Brown

“My photography is not possible without a relationship of trust with the subject.”

Though Photographer Hal takes his moniker from the artificial intelligence character of the same name in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, there are not too many similarities between them. Whereas the sentient HAL 9000 becomes wholly untrusting of his human peers, ‘trust’ is a fundamental component of Hal, the photographer’s, work. Over the course of his career, Hal has dedicated his time to photographing couples – couples he often approaches in bars in his hometown, Tokyo – with the aim of capturing a sense of their love for one another. In his early series, Pinky & Killer DX, Hal invited couples to pose as if they’re inside a purikura (a Japanese photo booth in which the photos are printed onto stickers with effects added over the top). Later, Hal moved his couples to the bathtub and captured the ways in which his (often clothed) subjects arranged themselves in such a contained, small space. Naturally, Hal has also photographed couples pressed against the transparent plastic door of washing machines, but it is his various Flesh Love series that take the idea of capturing a couple’s intimacy to another level. 

In Flesh Love, Hal vacuum packs couples in custom-sized plastic bags; their shrink-wrapped bodies carefully positioned in a way that captures the unique bond that defines that couple’s love (no vacuum-packed couple will be the same). It’s here that trust really comes into being in Photographer Hal’s work. Approaching strangers – again, often in bars – to invite them to be photographed in an oxygen-free environment is a big ask. Working with assistants who help arrange a couple into position, Hal has mere seconds to take one or two shots after the vacuumed subjects have been sealed up before reopening the bag. I ask Hal where the concept for vacuum packing couples comes from, to which he replies that new ideas always come from previous work. “It may be close to the process by which manufacturers improve their industrial products,” he suggests. And indeed, over time Hal has updated his own formula; in Zatsuran, couples are photographed in and amongst their possessions. It’s interesting to see the extent to which ‘stuff’ can shape the personality of a particular couple’s bond – a love of music could be characterised by a collection of vinyl records or, say, guitars.

In Flesh Love Return, Photographer Hal places his sealed couples amongst other settings, whilst in Flesh Love All, his subjects’ possessions are also wrapped in plastic. The result is a series of beautiful images that raise questions (namely – “how?” which is answered below), but also of what the material and built environments around can say about love. At its most intimate, Hal’s work shows how love can exist in the absence of anything else, but as humans, we instinctively build stories and connections with one another amongst the objects and environments that surround us. That’s something that, no matter how sentient he may have been, HAL 9000 could never understand. 

NR: How do you capture a sense of the personality and the style of the couple in your photos?

PH: I used to choose models and the clothes or props they wear, but these days I do not have [that] much control. I thought that would bring out the individuality of the subject. I recently held my retrospective exhibition [at the Gallery Tosei in Tokyo last year] and noticed that the age, clothes, and shooting method of the subjects were linked to my age at that time. So even if you shoot a work ten years ago, it won’t be the same.

How does your work celebrate the idea (and the power) of love?

“The basis idea of my work is ‘to shape love’.”

In order to realize that, I mainly focus on couples a subject and shoot an image of two people using different methods (such as the vacuum-sealed bag or bathtub). With regards to the Flesh Love All series, I location scout first; in that time, I decide on an angle, the lens etc. Then I measure everything in the range of the camera. Based on this, I make a [big enough] plastic bag with staff over ten to fourteen days. I take it to the scene on the day of shooting, and then pack and shoot everything.

There’s an intimacy to your work – whether capturing couples in a bathtub or in a vacuum pack, do you ever feel like you are intruding on this intimacy?

My photography is not possible without a relationship of trust with the subject. We have enough meetings before shooting to [build up] communication.

What has your work, and meeting so many couples, taught you as an individual and as a photographer?

At first, I was shooting love as ‘sexual love’, but as I continued shooting, the types of love expanded to love as devotion and philanthropy towards the outside world. My on-going series,

“Flesh Love All contains a message that we can connect with, not only to ourselves, but also with outside society and we can shape the direction of love.”

You only have one or two chances to release the shutter for your photographs; are you always happy with the outcome? 

I have never been, and will never be, satisfied with the pictures I take. Because there is no limit to the quality of the work.

Credits

Images · Photographer Hal
http://www.photographerhal.com/

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