RABIT

Music is a spell.

Music is a spell. Halcyon Veil‘s co-founder Rabit channels André Breton, but make it Houston. Ahead of the summer, NR spoke with the producer, dj, and label head -but don’t call him that- about Halcyon Veil’s foundation, its curatorial stances, and upcoming projects. Detours to be expected: a reflection on the early 2010s avant-club scene, perspectives on the art market, and a critique of identitarian fixations.

Okay, let’s dive in. You’ve got a pretty busy day, so why don’t we start by talking about these two releases, and we can use them to explore your work with the label and your own artistry?

Sure, it’s two albums—our summer releases. One is by Lol k from London, and the other is from Nudo, a duo based on the Texas-Mexico border. A bit of background: we released Low K’s first album. They’re part of the Curl collective, which is tied to the London scene, with artists like Mica Levi. What makes Lol K interesting is that they’re instrumentalists—they usually play in bands, and this project is a duo, kind of straddling the line between electronic and band music. Our approach is to support whatever they want to create without trying to push them in any particular direction. And that’s the general ethos of the label. We’re not trying to guide anyone into being a Taylor Swift, or over-curate anyone. We’re open to producing if an artist comes to us with questions, but overall, we see the music side of Halcyon Veil more like a publishing house—almost like a book or zine publishing. When we find someone or a group doing their thing, we just want to support it. We’re also open to helping artists build their creative world, connecting them with other visual artists, fashion designers, and people in our network, but beyond that, we’re just here to facilitate the release. Whatever they want to make of it, we’re just happy to be part of that process, like enablers or supporters in a sense.

Sort of like a platform?

Exactly. We’re open to producing or offering advice if artists come to us with specific questions, but we really just want to be part of the process—more like a mechanism that helps facilitate their release. We’re not interested in tying anyone down or forcing them to stay with the label. My co-founder, Lane Stewart, and I both agree this works best for us. The Nudo album is particularly interesting. My first experience seeing them live was when they performed a live score for an art film here in Houston. A friend of ours curated both the film and the performance. They use a variety of old instruments and sounds, often sourcing items from flea markets. Their approach is all about utilizing the tools available in their native environment, which really drew me to the project. Their sound sources reflect both their geographical roots and their mental landscapes, creating a fascinating world that we felt compelled to support, especially since it originates from Texas. To be honest, we’re one of the few labels in the area that has been doing this for almost a decade.

Really?

While there are indie labels and a significant DIY scene in Texas, much of it tends to stay local, focusing on genres like dark wave and punk. However, when it comes to identifying music that ventures into the electronic realm, we don’t really know of anyone else releasing it here. I felt a responsibility to help support Nudo, as I kept seeing them on flyers and thought they were doing something unique. So, I told Lane, ‘We should help these guys get their music out there.’.

Scrolling through the Halcyon Veil catalog I thought you guys have a very open “editorial” line. I’m curious about the process behind how you and Lane curate it. From the way you speak, it’s evident that both of you are artists and musicians first, and then label heads. Could you elaborate on how that background influences your approach to curation?

I can for sure tell you that the way we do things doesn’t always make sense for us from a business perspective; it’s not necessarily profitable and might even be losing money. The way we curate Halcyon Veil runs parallel to our creative process as artists. For me, it’s just a different expression of my creativity. I’ve been making zines since I was 16—cutting things out, xeroxing them, all without a specific scene to belong to, just following my instincts, you know? This feels like a more organized version of that. We’re happy to be doing it, and at the same time, we’re transitioning into other areas, like events and objects. We’re currently working on the second issue of our magazine. So, we take things organically, and it really feels more like a lifestyle and an ethos for us, than a label.

When and how did you guys start Halcyon Veil?

I’d say the idea came about around 2013-2014. Lane and I actually met on Twitter because he was doing creative direction and music videos for a group called BC Kingdom, which was releasing music on Solange’s label. I saw one of their videos, followed him, and we started chatting. He mentioned that his mom is from Houston while he was living in LA at the time. I thought it was crazy because there wasn’t really anyone else in our area doing similar work.From there, we became friends. Our mutual friends began sending me music, including Mistress from New Orleans, a producer named Myth from London, and Angel Ho from Cape Town. It felt like a no-brainer to start something, especially since we had support from Boomcat based in Manchester. They were essentially fronting us everything we needed to produce vinyl—just sending them the music with no upfront costs. We were quite new to the scene, learning as we went along, and we continued to evolve from that initial spark. We noticed other labels making waves, like Hyperdub, we recognized there wasn’t anything similar here, in Houston, so we decided to create it ourselves.

Labels like Hyperdub over the years have come to signify more than just music—they almost are a whole aesthetic of their own, which I guess it’s also what you’re doing with Halcyon Veil. This brings up an interesting point I’d love to discuss with you: the changing nature of labels and their roles today. With the increasing number of media platforms, the way we circulate and experience music is evolving. More artists are self-publishing and distributing their work through platforms like SoundCloud or MySpace, similar to how seminal bands like Salem emerged. Maybe we don’t need, as much as we used to, traditional labels anymore? Labels like yours seem to function more as collaborative curatorial platforms. You collaborate closely with artists to help shape and amplify their vision.

That’s why we lean toward being a label and a collective. A good example of how we operate is House of Kenzo from San Antonio, Texas. Their work, which is ballroom-inspired, is very DIY and self-driven. They don’t necessarily seek popularity, and that’s what makes them interesting. When they release something—a mix or a track—we post it on the label, but being part of the collective doesn’t mean everything they create has to be released through us. There are no corporate rules to follow. For me, personally, it’s important to adopt a lifestyle where you don’t always expect something in return. We’ve identified that many other labels operate differently, often driven by a desire to appear cool or to attract attention, which is unfortunately prevalent in this scene. We’re not trying to manipulate people for personal gain—no shade, but it’s a reality we’ve seen. We recognize that some people run legitimate businesses, and it makes sense for them to have artists sign contracts for future releases to ensure their investment pays off. But for us, we’re not looking to profit from random artists or lock anyone into a deal. It’s about being selfless and allowing for genuine expression. As you mentioned, many artists today are independent and don’t need a label to succeed, and we see plenty of examples of that. Our collaborations with musicians tend to work well because they might be new and have a small following, but they want to elevate their visibility. If they have their visuals, album, and artwork ready, we’re happy to announce the release and help them move forward. Whatever they choose to do with it after that is up to them, and we support it.

It’s interesting how you’ve built this multimedia approach, which is very “contemporary” as music today feels increasingly multidisciplinary, where visuals and sound are more intertwined than ever. You and Lane also have different backgrounds, how do you run things?

The way it works, and to revisit your previous question about our end game or goals, is that for us, this is really a vehicle. For example, Lane has been focused on producing magazines that are more fashion-oriented. We’ve come to realize that we are influencers in the truest sense, though we’re not necessarily being approached to create content for specific brands. We see our network as reminiscent of what Been Trill represented—think Virgil and Matthew. Yet, for various reasons, including political and geographic factors, we aren’t landing those types of gigs. There’s a long history of erasure in the South; genres like rock and roll, country, and many others were deeply influenced by Southern Black culture. However, if you ask a random person in Europe, they might not recognize where these genres originated. We acknowledge that certain sections may ignore us no matter what we do. If we want to experiment in this space, we need to invest our own resources and do it ourselves. Lane’s main commercial work is with Fear of God, the fashion label, but he also freelances for various fashion and internet companies. He’s eager to explore ideas that others might be too hesitant to pursue, and that’s where the magazine comes in. We aim to express the things we believe fashion should be doing, reflecting the excitement we see in that world. Fashion and music are both forms of self-expression, and we want to highlight that. For instance, Lane lived in London for two years and discovered Rat Section. He texted me right away, saying, ‘We have to release these artists; this is something new.’ Similarly, when I saw what Nudo was doing in Texas, I approached him and said we had to release their work. Our collaboration is quite organic; when we see something exciting, we inform each other, and then we just go from there.

What’s the differential you use to “select” people you collaborate with?

We’re very much online. I’m not sure how old you are, but when we first started networking, I’d say it was about 10 years ago or more. It’s interesting how everything comes back around, and you end up knowing the same people or crossing paths later on. I just noticed on Twitter today that two people I’ve interacted with before—one who interviewed me for a previous magazine and another who worked with Boiler Room—are now the new editor of a magazine. It’s fascinating to see the same faces reappear over time. There’s definitely an online network, and, for better or worse, we approach things with a sense of realism. While we have hopes and dreams for the label, we won’t work with people who don’t vibe with us. You know how it is; friendships aren’t usually made by saying, “Hey, you’re going to be my friend.” It’s more of an intuitive connection based on shared tastes and experiences. Many of these online networks have developed over the years. For example, Vipra was part of our original compilation years ago, which included various artists—Yves Tumor even contributed under a different name. We recognize these existing networks and aim to be conscious of them as we move forward.

Is there a particular conceptual framework Halcyon Veil operates within? I’m thinking of the statement on your website’s landing page, where you reference André Breton and the idea of forming a “doorway to a voice.”

I think one of the main connections between Lane and me, especially coming from the South, is the strong narrative element in electronic music. For instance, and there is absolutely no shade here, quite the contrary, if PC Music had simply launched as an internet label releasing tracks without a compelling concept, it probably wouldn’t have garnered much attention. The overarching idea is what initially drew people in, and then, ten years later, mainstream pop started to adopt what they had accumulated as their aesthetic. We recognize how crucial narrative is, and we like to play with that idea—both its significance and its lack of significance, as well as the capitalism inherent in it. What we are sick of is the identitarian game. There’s a..Pokémon, if you’d like, phenomenon going on in electronic music, and perhaps not only there; Let’s make a parallelism: You know, when suddenly institutions in Europe become interested in an artist discovered in a so-called “third-world” country. If that artist were from a different background, they might not even get booked. This happens also in the electronic world, and it’s even more pronounced in the fine art world. I’ve heard stories of collectors who are drawn to artists because of their backstories—like someone from a poor village in Colombia who goes barefoot. We’re aware that these systems exist, and we’ve become frustrated with how identity has dominated conversations in recent years; it often feels like it has overshadowed the art itself. That’s why we operate at the speed we do. For us, it’s about whether the music resonates. You can have any identity or backstory, but if we believe in what you’re doing and see your passion, we want to support and work with you.

I completely agree with this. The over-fixation of identity as the sole indicator of quality must stop.

I’ve been having some interesting conversations on this topic, and more generally on the concept of “quality.” The past few years have sparked worthwhile discussions, especially in matters of social advancements and inequality, and we have to consider that many in the general population remain unaware of these issues, still. On the other side of the coin, there’s a correction that needs to occur, otherwise identity will be just marketing lingo. For example, there’s a museum in Houston showcasing an artist who has worked in New York for a while, focusing on identity and its perception. This exhibition is valuable because it exposes visitors to alternative perspectives, which is the true purpose of art. There are positives and negatives to every social evolution, and we’re simply observing it all while doing what feels right to us.

Yeah, I think we’re all navigating new predicaments, both in artistic expression and in the ways we interact with various systems.

It makes you question your own biases because, literally, every human on Earth has them. What interests me is that we’re trying to push the conversation forward without being constrained by any rules. We aim to show people what else exists and share our perspective.

One thing I’ve been reflecting on, in relation also to the discussion we are having, is how the internet has changed our understanding of geography. In a way, traditional scenes as we knew them—think of the golden era of subcultures—no longer exist. We went through a phase of intense globalisation that also coincided with the paradoxical binome of identity fixation and boundary dissolution, where scenes seemed to disappear, but maybe we’re starting to move beyond that. It feels like new ways of forming dislocated scenes that transcend geography are surfacing, based on artistic, not identitarian premises.

It’s interesting that you mentioned that because it’s so true. When I first started releasing music, everything was categorized—like you were either a grime artist or a dubstep DJ, or maybe a DJ in the style of Diplo who was blending different genres. One of the main inspirations for us came from the Fade to Mind and Ghetto Goth eras, where artists were merging everything together. That really inspired us, as we see ourselves as part of that legacy of breaking down boundaries. Now, it’s fascinating to see how that approach has become established. When you watch a new DJ on Boiler Room, for example, they might play drill, club music, amapiano, or a mix of styles.

Damn, I loved Fade to Mind.. Bok Bok, Kelela’s first album, NGUZUNGUZU. Makes me think also of projects like Future Brown, they were so ahead of their time. I remember when Vernaculo came out: A blend of reggaeton and experimental sounds, and it was released on Warp, a notoriously avant-garde, often considered niche, label, at least at the time. Intellectual electronic music’s premiere label. “Reggaeton” and “Niche” in the same sentence was not considered possible back then. The Youtube comments.. It was 2014, ten years ago. Remarkably forward-thinking, almost predictive of how genres would evolve and intersect. Nowadays, we see genres and scenes coexisting almost instantaneously, to the point where everything is blended together. As listeners, I think we are moving beyond the traditional trend cycles in music. Instead of clear distinctions—like dubstep, grime, Berlin techno, IDM and all that—there’s a fascinating moment where diverse genres intermingle, even in mainstream-mainstream music.

To me, that’s part of the joy of music. I’m grateful to have come up in the era I did, even if my tracks weren’t that great. I immersed myself in and studied every genre, embracing total freedom in my approach. Hessel Audio and Pearson Sound were among the first DJs I supported, and I appreciated the wide array of electronic music. As a producer, it always felt intuitive to blend all these different influences together.

It makes perfect sense, especially considering you’re from Houston. Chopped n Screwed. 

Yeah, if you listen to an original DJ Screw mix, you might come across tracks like Phil Collins in the lineup.

It’s also interesting to consider Ghetto House. While it’s more closely associated with Detroit, both genres emphasize the art of taking something out of context and making it new. Taking the art of sampling to the extreme.

I’m really getting back into that now. I’ve noticed that I love when club producers express their appreciation for music in general. For example, Byrell the Great has a track on one of their projects that incorporates samples from funk or soul. They chop them up in a way reminiscent of DJ Premier, and I really admire when artists highlight their influences instead of sticking to a standard electronic palette. Soul music, in particular, has played a crucial role in the development of electronic music—you can trace the influences back to pioneers like Kraftwerk. As I get older, I’m developing a deeper appreciation for what initially drew me to music. DJing breaks were a significant part of that, as the original breaks laid the foundation for so many artists today. Even though it might seem distant from something like Surgeon’s work, none of this music would exist without those drum breaks. What fascinates me now is the interconnectedness of all these sounds.

Yes! Back in 2014 I was around 13 or 14 years old, just starting my career as a music nerd. I was fortunate to have a father who instilled in me an almost obsessive passion for it. He is deeply into Northern Soul, even though he has a quite impressive range, and back then I was all about techno. So he was trying to make me see the connection between the Mod club scene in England, particularly the Hacienda in Manchester, the Wigan Club, and what I was listening to. I couldn’t quite get it right away, but now I see all the connections and that is what makes things truly exciting. We already spoke about PC Music’s adoption, for example. Looking back to 2015 and 2016, the Houston underground played a crucial role in the rise of major rap successes like A$AP Rocky and Travis Scott. I still think it makes sense to discuss mainstream versus underground, even though the lines are increasingly blurred.

It’s all about the shifts that online life brought with itself. There’s this Kelly Rowland edit I did –It’s kind of a funny story– it was one of the first edits I made during that culture’s peak online and in the club scene. Someone told me they were in a limousine with Kelly Rowland and played her my edit. I thought that was hilarious! Apparently, she loved it. I’ve had a few people mention that they played my edit for various artists, and some think it’s better than the original track. I’ve also noticed that almost all my mixtapes feature this edit of Lana Del Rey, specifically a remix of “Venice Bitch.” That was one of the more popular tracks I remixed. Interestingly, they kind of remade my edit on her latest album, which annoyed me a bit. I know someone who’s friends with her, and I think they showed it to her or her producer. But it’s one of those things that comes with the territory; after all, making these edits is technically illegal. It’s wild to see how the internet connects everything, especially regarding the underground versus mainstream conversation. Now, all the pop and rap artists want to build their visual worlds to be very edgy, pulling from a lot of our friends. Ideas that start with small groups can quickly blow up; for instance, someone from that group might become a stylist and get hired by a pop artist, and suddenly everything merges. There’s always going to be a capitalist debate around this. For years, I’ve had friends who get excited about selling beats, but they’d sell one for $10,000 or $20,000, and it wouldn’t even be used. However, I feel like the issue of pop stars coming in and taking credit for an entire scene isn’t as problematic as it once was. Maybe I’m just viewing things more positively now, or I’m more mature about it. When you’re younger, you think, “Oh my god, they stole our idea.” But as you grow older, you realize that no one owns ideas and that you’re not the only one doing something. I appreciate the pop artists who approach it creatively. I don’t listen to her much, but I think Rosalia’s MOTOMAMI album is a very poignant example of what I’m trying to say. I genuinely believe that whenever someone comes from a sincere place, you can really hear it in their work. I think it’s cool when artists demonstrate a wide appreciation for music, using beats that go beyond the usual. It’s a positive thing because it helps the music expand and connect with more people.

When Rosalía started blowing up, she initially faced backlash from her OG fan base because they felt kind of betrayed. They felt she was turning her back on her background as a flamenco singer. It was interesting to observe this reaction. As you mentioned, those of us in niche fields—whether as artists, writers, or consultants—are becoming more accustomed to operating within the capitalist machine. We’re also becoming more business savvy in the process.

I think what I’m learning in life and in these creative industries is that while there are many people who toil away in the background—often low-key geniuses who don’t get the credit they deserve—you ultimately hold the responsibility for what happens in your career. For example, if you’re an electronic producer complaining about opportunities, you have the power to create something if you really want to. With some investment, you could turn a track into a pop song, and you never know what might come of it. To me, it’s more of a challenge than anything. While I’m not particularly interested in going that route, I believe anything is possible. I hope this perspective opens up a world of possibilities for others as well.

I think it’s a great reflection of how things are right now. It’s an optimistic view, and I can share that to a certain extent, although the question of class mobility and “Making It” in creative industries is a complex and problematic one inherently. You can exist in niche markets and still move into mainstream pop; you can consult, collaborate, and explore various avenues. This freedom allows you to operate as an artist, a label head, or part of a collective, which can be incredibly liberating. However, it can also complicate things since the landscape is quite murky at times.

If you have an idea, you need to act on it right away. I believe there’s a collective consciousness and a collective unconscious. When you get an idea, chances are others are receiving it too, so you might as well execute it now. If you hold onto it, you may see someone else bring it to life in a couple of months.

Yeah, it’s almost crazy how two people can release the same thing almost simultaneously nowadays. It really comes down to acting quickly and trusting your instincts. I think having the right environment is essential. With your label, you create a space where artists can trust their gut feelings. You mentioned that you don’t curate, but perhaps your role is more about providing that type of “service.” That could be a valuable definition of what a label’s role is today, at least in a niche sense. Speaking of consulting, could you tell me a bit about the curation process for Matthew Williams and Alyx’s Mark Flood show music?

I think the collaboration with Matthew came about because he was working with some people who showed him my mixtapes, and they connected us. Like anything in fashion, it was super last minute—pretty much the day before the event. We jumped on a phone call and decided that I would create a new mix file based on the top songs from all my mixtapes that he liked, tailored to how I envisioned the runway experience. It was an easy process since Matthew comes from a music background, and he had specific songs in mind. I think it’s a cool way to bridge different worlds. While everything exists within a capitalist system, this project felt more like a passion endeavor than many realize. People often assume that someone well-known is just getting rich from these collaborations, but they don’t understand that it can take years for something to become truly profitable. Of course, working with a brand like Dior or Chanel would be different since they could easily drop $5,000 for a 30-second track. This collaboration felt more grassroots because I had some familiarity with Matthew’s history, especially his work in New York. I was willing to jump in because I believed in what he was doing. If it had been a complete stranger, I might not have been as inclined to participate.

Where are you looking to take your audience next? What projects do you have lined up or ready to go?

I do have some projects in the works! Personally, I’m preparing for a release this fall. I always aim to focus on what I want to express while creating music. It may not be as directly apparent as some of my older projects, which were more politically charged. For example, I released “The Great Game” with Chino Amobi in 2015, which was a clear socio-political statement. Now, my approach is more nuanced. Currently, I’m honing in on what’s sonically interesting to me, while also considering what might resonate with someone who hears it and thinks, “Wow, I thought I was the only one who noticed that.” With more experience, I’ve come to appreciate the reactions I get when I play overseas. In the past, I’d often feel uncomfortable or just want to go home, even if people were praising my music. Now, when someone tells me that a particular piece meant a lot to them, it hits differently. As adults, we can reflect on those moments more meaningfully. When I create music, I ask myself what I need to say right now. If I’m genuine about it, I believe the person who needs to hear it will find it. This is especially relevant during Pride Month, which has become quite commodified. Yet, there are positive aspects to it. For instance, with the alarming rates of suicide among trans youth who face negativity, creating art can be life-saving. These realizations have shaped my perspective as an artist, especially at this mid-career stage. Making music now feels different than it did when I released my first album. As I refine what I want to communicate with my upcoming release, it’s much more fine-tuned than before. That’s where I’m at right now.

I can really feel that growth in a record like What Dreams May Come. It’s fascinating to see how your work reflects that. And also how different worlds can coexist. A record like that almost clashes with what one can find in your Mixtapes. Two sides of a coin, two very different ones, but perhaps just as complementary.

Yeah, part of that comes from my involvement in different club scenes. Everyone wants the ballroom dancers to show up for their set because the more people react, the safer the crowd feels. That’s what I learned. From doing so many live collaborations, I realized that when people see others expressing themselves, it gives them the freedom to do the same. So, the album itself delves deeper into that idea. It’s not just about referencing RuPaul’s Drag Race or whatever is currently trending; it’s about recognizing that everyone is human. I wanted to explore that and uncover the stories people have to share.

Yeah, I think what makes certain experiences so particular is how you can generalize them without losing their meaning. By doing this, people from totally different paths, life courses, and identities can find something relatable. When done right, this is what draws me to explore cultures and subcultures, like the ballroom scene, which is very different from who I am: An heterosexual white male from Italy. That connection is what fosters sympathy and unity among people, allowing them to come together and perhaps transcend identity-based fixations, for better or worse.

That’s the power of music. Music can be like spells, you know what I mean?

It’s very similar to what Andre Breton described in his notion of music as a spell. Surrealists intended music precisely as a spell—a systematization of the unconscious through notes and melody, creating a unique language. I think this could be a great point to close on.

urika’s bedroom

During a torrid LA day, NR spoke with urika’s bedroom about Big Smile, Black Mire, urika’s debut album. A conversation whose range was as eclectic as the influences behind UB’s debut record: From architectural youtube rabbit holes, to how tech changed the way we listen and the playlistification or albums, passing by his midwestern-emo background, shooting commercial fashion ads in LA, and what makes music an entirely unique artistic medium.

Three’s the charm, we finally manage to get on call together! 

Yes, at last! I heard of the crazy thunderstorm you had in Milan..

Cut my place’s power off completely for 24 hours, it was absurd. How’s it going in LA? 

Yeah, it’s been crazy hot, and the power’s gone out a few times because of the heat. I think everyone was using so much energy with air conditioning that it caused a power surge on the grid.

You’ve got some big weeks ahead, right? The record is almost out. How are you feeling?

I’m feeling okay. Honestly, I haven’t really thought too much about it. My mind’s been on other life stuff and working on new music.

There’s a lot of layers to urika’s bedroom. Let’s start from the project’s visual identity. It feels very important. You are personally curating the art and creative direction yourself, right? 

It’s a bit of both. We just shot a music video directed by my friend Rich Smith, where I took a more hands-off approach. But I’m also planning another video that I’ll shoot entirely myself.

How long have you been working on Big Smile, Black Mire? I’m asking this because your bio mentions 2019, so I’m especially curious about the project’s genesis and how it has evolved.

It all started after playing in my friend’s band, 2070, for a few years. I was playing drums, then bass, and we played a lot around LA. Around 2021, I decided to focus on my own stuff again. I committed to recording a song every day for a month, and if it was good, I’d put it straight on Bandcamp. That’s how a few people started to notice what I was doing.

So it’s been about three years in the making?

Yeah, the oldest song on the record is probably three years old, early 2021. Earlier this year, I started reworking them with my friend Silas, who has a project called Tracy. It was fun to deconstruct and rebuild them without feeling like anything was too precious.

So it was almost like a collage, or patchwork approach to composing?

Exactly. We didn’t want to give every song the same treatment. It’s kind of like cutting a hole in something and patching it up in a new way.

The record feels very cohesive, but there’s definitely a shift in sonic landscapes, especially on tracks like bsbm, Post War, and Circle Games. Were you consciously trying to explore different palettes for the record, or did that come together in post-production?

I tend to finish most of a song in one or two days, and I’m not great at continuing to work on it after that. But with this project, I sat on a lot of the songs and reworked them later. Silas and I didn’t approach it with a strict plan. We’d just play around with deconstructing and reconstructing the tracks, keeping it open to experimentation.

Yeah, now that you mention it, I can definitely feel that and track it in certain parts of the record. You’ve managed to blend a wide range of sonic influences, which ties back to what you said about working with so many other people. I read that you’ve also produced, mixed, and mastered tracks for other artists. That experience and know-how, being able to move between different sounds and styles, definitely comes through. Would you say there’s an underlying theme behind the record? I know you mentioned having a more natural, unstructured approach to making music, but was there a certain feeling or concept you wanted to convey with this album?

The main thing I wanted to explore was conflict—internal versus external. If the instrumentation felt dark, I’d lean toward brighter lyrics or vice versa. It was about finding tension between different elements, like referencing artists from opposite ends of the spectrum. I’d listen to Arca but also to Smashing Pumpkins. I didn’t want to shy away from any influence, no matter how different they seemed.

I peeped a little bit at your Spotify profile, listening to a lot of what’s on there to get a sense of where your influences come from. It’s such a wide range—from bossanova to post-club sounds, with some shoegaze in between. You can really feel that heterogeneity in your music. While listening to the record, I made a note about ‘free association’ because it feels like you blend elements in a way that flows naturally, almost unconsciously. It reminds me of surrealism in poetry, with that same fluid, unstructured creativity. I see that reflected not only in the music but also in the visuals and overall aesthetic of Eureka Bedroom. So, I’m curious—what are some of your other visual and musical influences? Where do you see the project heading?

I think a lot of my visual inspiration comes from late-night YouTube rabbit holes. I’ve been really into mid-to-late 20th-century contemporary ballet and dance films, as well as architecture, like the work of Ensemble Studios. It’s Anton and Deborah Mesa, and they create some really amazing, earthwork-inspired architecture. It feels similar to music for me in some ways. Visually, it’s very powerful, and I’m always trying to figure out what could serve as a kind of visual monument, you know?

That’s fascinating. What would you say is the connection you see between Ensemble Studios’ architecture and your music?

I can’t always explain it, but I think the way physical spaces look, their design and form, really inspire me. It’s almost unknowable, even to me sometimes, but it definitely has an impact.

Are there pieces of music you feel serve as sonic equivalents of monuments? What would you say are some “monuments” in music for you, and what does monumentality in music mean to you today?

I think everyone has a few musical pieces that leave a lasting impression, like monuments. For me, one of those is Demon Days by Gorillaz. It’s not necessarily where I’m at musically today, but as a kid, that album was huge for me. I only had one CD for a long time, so I’d just cycle through Demon Days over and over. That album became a monument in my mind—not necessarily because of what it is, but because of how it imprinted on me at that time.

Totally. I remember listening to entire albums as a kid too: You get the cd out of its case, you’ve got your little stereo. There’s a rituality to it –Something about that full-album experience we don’t get as much today.

There’s a deeper connection when you listen to an album front to back. Even the songs you don’t like as much give context to the ones you do love, you know?

It’s true. Today, we consume music so differently with playlists, grabbing moments here and there instead of immersing ourselves in the full journey of an album.

Yeah, that’s exactly it. Playlists can feel like you’re watching scenes from different movies, disconnected. Everything’s song-based now, and it kind of flattens the experience.

I completely agree. We’re in this Instagram highlights culture where everything’s a snapshot. That even seeps into how music is produced, right? Some artists might focus more on single tracks rather than how they’ll fit into the larger picture of an album.

For sure. I think some musicians—though not all—create with playlists in mind, knowing their songs will likely end up separated from the album context.

On your record, I noticed you feature a female voice in a few tracks. Was that a way of adding contrast to your own vocals, or was there another intention behind it?

It was both, I think. The voice definitely breaks up what I’m doing vocally, adding a new texture. But more than that, the person I worked with is someone I’m very close to, and we developed those parts together through a lot of free association. We’d bounce ideas off each other and build meaning that way. It brought a sense of release between the more intense songs, like a palette cleanser before diving back.

That makes sense. Did you consider how this would translate to a live performance, with those interludes providing moments of contrast in a live setting?

The first one we made was specifically for a live show intro. It was before our first tour, and I didn’t have enough material yet. I wanted a strong way to start the show, so we recorded that voice for that. I thought it would really capture the room if we played it loud, and it became this presence that commanded attention.

I love that. It reminds me of the resurgence of spoken word and audiobooks lately. There’s something powerful about placing emphasis on the voice and the word, especially in music as layered as yours. Speaking of writing, what inspires you when you’re writing lyrics? Are there certain themes you find yourself returning to?

It’s coming from a place of relatability. I always try to channel something meaningful. That might be the Midwest emo influence. I remember when I was younger, listening to these records where people were saying some pretty messed-up stuff. But as a kid, all I heard was the pain, and it felt protective somehow, like it was helping me through whatever teenage drama I was dealing with at the time.

It’s amazing how we can reinterpret songs or lyrics as we grow, and they take on new meanings based on where we are in life.

Yeah, that’s the beauty of it. The listener’s perspective is almost more important than the lyrics themselves.

There’s something about music that really gets to me, even now. I can’t fully explain what it is, but it reaches me in a way that no other medium does. I love reading, and writing is my bread and butter—that’s how I make a living. Words are my craft, but there’s a certain power in instrumentals, in sound, in the way a voice carries a note. It’s not always about the meaning of the words, but the tone, the texture of the voice, that can hit so deeply. Music has a kind of emotional weight that I don’t think any other medium can match. It’s something I’ve always felt, and maybe one day I’ll be able to articulate it more clearly, but for now, it’s just this indescribable force that stays with me.

Music has this unique ability to hit your nervous system immediately, without any barriers. With something like reading, you have to think about it, process it. But music? It bypasses all of that. You feel it right away.

There are barriers with most forms of expression, but not with music. It’s true. Maybe that’s why classical and instrumental music can move me so deeply. Certain instruments, like the piano—when I hear those first few notes, I’m instantly hooked and mesmerized. It touches me right away, without any defenses, which is incredible. I think that’s why music is something I’ll never tire of. I’m always curious and a good listener; I consume a lot of different sounds. Writing music, though—that’s something I could never do. That’s why I love talking to musicians, to try to understand their process from a closer perspective.

It’s like, the moment you hear it, you feel it.

I’m always fascinated by that. As someone who writes about music, I can never fully explain what makes it so special. 

Even for those of us creating it, we don’t always fully understand what’s happening in the moment. We just follow where it leads.

It sounds like you tap into a flow state when you’re creating—like you’re functioning at your best when you’re not overthinking it.

I’m not even aware of the process. It just happens.

That’s amazing. It’s like tapping into something deeper, letting go of control.

Exactly. That’s where real creativity happens.

The skills required of independent musicians has changed over the years. Today, you have to be multifaceted—composing, writing, being your own art director, press guy etc. It’s exciting, but do you find it tiring? Would you prefer to focus solely on music and leave the rest to trusted collaborators, or are you okay with handling everything yourself?

Honestly, I’m such a control freak that the more I collaborate, the more I think, “I should just do this myself.” I know it would be nice to let go a bit and work with others, but I tend to be too neurotic for that. I’d rather handle it myself than send someone 50 revisions just to get it done my way.

Collaboration can be beautiful but also challenging. It’s very personal, especially with a project that means so much to you. I feel more relaxed working on other people’s projects, but with my own, it can feel too personal to hand it off to others.

Exactly. I’m still learning how to navigate that. I feel that the project’s coherence and unity are essential, and that’s part of what drew me to it in the first place.

Speaking of your project, you mentioned a big tour. Where are you headed next?

We’re touring Europe, hitting places like Brussels and Germany. I don’t think we’re doing Italy, though.

Last but not least. Why urika’s bedroom?

Honestly, I don’t think there’s a deep story behind it. I liked the sound of it. I can’t even remember how I came up with it, but I don’t think there’s much meaning behind it.

Photography · Donovan Novotny

DJ LOSER

One must imagine Sisyphus happy with DJ LOSER

Everyone is a loser, according to Magdalena’s Apathy label head Pantelis Terzoglou, and that might actually be something quite liberating. For Terzoglou ego is not in the picture, only music. You might know him as the experimental ambient project Angel’s Corpse, or underground club legend DJ LOSER. NR spoke with him about creative needs, the importance of isolation in creation, and how to remain true to yourself without sacrificing your career, whatever that term means, today, for an artist.

As we were speaking off the record, you mentioned curating a soundtrack for a brand? Could you tell me more about that?

Yeah, it’s for a brand from Oslo, run by EriK Spanne, Duy Ngo and Tomas Silva. They’ve got this emerging brand called 1313 Selah, and their fashion show happened in late August. Me and Erik have been collaborating since before the brand officially started, mainly through music. They’ve connected with one of my sub-projects, Angel’s Corpse, which is more ambient, with elements of gabber and hardcore. It fits perfectly with their vision for their current collection.

Is this something that you’re really interested in, given that it’s a bit different from your usual, more club-oriented work?

Definitely. My initial drive was just to produce music and create audiovisual art, which is why I also started my label. My approach isn’t limited to club music, though that’s the most recognizable project of mine. My creativity spans different genres and styles, depending on where my inspiration takes me. Like, five or six years ago, I was into slower BPMs and more industrial soundscapes inspired by the late 80s.

So, while DJ Loser is club-oriented, my broader artistic vision goes beyond that. Projects like Angel’s Corpse let me explore those other sides. I’m not actively chasing career opportunities for this ambient direction, but if opportunities like this come my way, and I feel inspired, I’ll follow them.

Would you say that’s the same philosophy behind how you run your label?

Exactly, it’s a natural flow. When I started the label, it was just an outlet for a noise-industrial sub-project of mine called Magdalena’s Apathy. I was doing a few tape releases and eventually decided I wanted more control over everything — not just the music, but also the visuals and narrative around the releases.

I’m very much into world-building, so creating an all-encompassing aesthetic for my projects became essential. I even brought back CDs, because they fit my generation’s vibe and aesthetic. The label was initially just a personal project, but it’s expanded as more people connected with it. Now, I treat it like a platform for friends and people who resonate with what I’m doing.

So it’s more of an artistic platform than a business operation?

Exactly. I’m focused on being an artist first, rather than a ‘label owner’. Of course, I know how to handle the distribution and promotion side, but I don’t want to force anything or break the natural flow of the project. That’s how I’ve managed to make a living through music, by following what truly inspires me, rather than chasing trends or commercial success.Feels more fitting to my ways.

Where do you start when building a world around your music?

Most of the time, it starts with an emotional or aesthetic vision. I maintain focus for music that is about conveying feelings, not genres or styles. I aim to translate the way I feel & see things into sound, and then build the visuals around that. When I curate releases from others, I give them total creative freedom and then try to match their music with a fitting visual narrative. It’s about giving people an emotional and aesthetic experience, not just music.At least that’s my opinion on what a release should be doing. I think emotions and aesthetics connected in a personal direction lead to an impactful experience. A trance track can evoke the same feelings as an ambient track, a trap track or whatever. For me, it’s all about conveying those emotions, and that’s why my label and platform are not limited to a single genre. I want to capture the raw human experience in its many forms, whether it’s through club music, experimental sounds, or something more ambient.

What emotions would you say drive your music?

The need to express oneself is the biggest one. I’ve always felt a need to, and connect with people and society afterwards on a deeper level, beyond just words. Music allows me to express emotions and experiences that are hard to put into words. It’s not about social commentary for me; it’s more about creating a shared emotional space through sound. It’s my way of overcoming isolation and finding companionship too I suppose.

That resonates with me too. There’s an Italian saying that translates to “every translation is a form of treason,” meaning words can never fully capture the original meaning. Music, especially instrumental pieces, often conveys emotion more directly, without the barriers of language. How do you feel about talking about music — your own or in general?

Talking about music can be difficult. I can do it, but it’s tricky. It almost feels like betraying the core of what I’m trying to express or what music exists for. If I wanted to say what I mean in words, I’d probably be a writer, not a musician. Music is my language for things that can’t be fully expressed with words,or words distort the point.

I get that, I guess it’s also why even though I am an avid listener, I could never write music. Switching gears a bit, how do you view DJing in comparison to producing? Is that also a form of communication?

DJing is definitely different from producing, but it’s still a form of communication. It’s less introspective and more about connecting with people in the moment. When I DJ, I’m responding to the crowd and creating a shared experience. It’s like setting the vibe and guiding people through a moment together. I love the challenge of reading the crowd and helping them lose themselves in the music. It’s a great way to feel connected to others, in a more social way than producing music alone in the studio.

How’s the electronic music scene in Greece, particularly in your city? I visit Greece often—my aunt married a Greek guy and lives in Patras, so part of my family is there. But Patras is very different. I’m curious about Thessaloniki and whether growing up there influenced your approach to music, or did you feel more inspired by what was happening elsewhere? I grew up in Bari, which had a somewhat decent music scene, especially for Techno, but I was still more attracted to what was happening outside. So I was always online, searching and nerding out, and maybe that’s why I ended up doing what I do today.

Yeah, so I’m in Thessaloniki, not Athens, and there are definitely differences in both the quality and quantity of what’s happening culturally in the two cities. Thessaloniki has always had some presence of electronic music during my years here. It used to be bigger when I was a kid, based on what people told me, but from my experience, it was more about one big commercial event—your typical stereotypical, generic tech sound. At the same time, there’s always been an underground culture, which happens mostly in university spaces, raves, or small basement parties. I used to attend those places before I became a producer, and they definitely inspired me in terms of the nightlife. But when it came to the identity of the sound, I didn’t always connect with what was going on in the city. For example, when I was into more industrial and desolate sounds, Thessaloniki wasn’t offering that, so I had to go online to find what I needed. Now, the city is growing faster, especially because younger generations are more open and online, bringing new ideas. I’ve been to some gigs recently, and compared to 8 or 10 years ago, people are more open and much more up-to-date. But the biggest problem in Thessaloniki is the lack of good venues, and that’s what holds me back from being more active or bringing in artists. We just don’t have proper clubs with decent sound systems that can support creative ideas. So you either do something in a small bar that occasionally acts like a club, or you take the risk of throwing an underground rave—renting equipment and doing it illegally. But in Greece, it’s easy to get caught, and i’m not in the mood or age to jerk around honestly. Thessaloniki is a beautiful city, though. Honestly, Andrea, I’ve thought about moving to bigger cities like Berlin, London, or Copenhagen. But whenever I visit those places and stay for a few days, I find myself pulled into the social scene more than I might need to. My creative needs are fed in terms of input—there’s so much going on and lots of inspiration from people. But the downside is, I lose that time for myself, that alone time where I can focus on my own production and rhythm. My creativity thrives more when I’m isolated. I’ve come to realize that, as a producer, I work best as a hermit. When I’m in an environment that doesn’t necessarily feed my creativity, it forces me to search for inspiration from within more naturally. That isolation allows me to produce more original ideas. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. Living in Milan and working in Paris, I get it. I’m constantly moving between these two big cities, working with artists, musicians, and fashion brands. So I’m always in social contexts, bringing people together, meeting new people—but it’s not always real or deeply felt. Our conversation now feels more open and honest than many social interactions I have. My job requires a lot of writing and thinking, and I always feel this sense of fatigue, like I’m being pulled in different directions. It’s something I’m learning to embrace as part of maturing, while for you, it’s more about finding your own spaces. I think we’re both figuring it out, in different ways. How do you navigate the online world? On one hand, we have all these platforms where we can research and get inspired, but it’s easy to get lost because there’s so much content. How do you keep your identity online, especially as a label head or someone who curates for others?

For me, I’m very comfortable with the online lifestyle. I’ve always been into it. I grew up in internet cafes and was part of online communities from a young age, whether it was for video games or music. So navigating the online world for inspiration—whether it’s music, art, films, or games—doesn’t feel disorienting to me. I know how to find what I need and how to navigate it all. But social media is different. It’s much more distracting, and it creates this spiral of ego battles, comparing yourself to others. When I’m online in general, I feel fine, but after spending 5 or 10 minutes on Instagram or Twitter, I’m like, “What am I doing here?” It’s not about content; it’s about ego. So I don’t spend much time on social media anymore. I post what I need to post, read my messages, and then get off. Instagram, in particular, feels like a necessary evil—it’s important for people in our line of work, but it’s also incredibly distracting and can kill your creative flow. It feeds ego more than ideas, so I try to stay away as much as possible. People know they can reach me through other platforms, and I communicate more through email than social media regarding music and art. I find that’s a much better way to protect my creative energy and avoid distractions.

You’ve always tried to control your ego, right? How has that been, especially with the surprising success you’ve had?

Yeah, it’s been a journey. In the beginning, I didn’t get any ego boost from it—I was genuinely shocked that people were even interested in my music. I’m self-taught, no formal music education, just learning by ear and experimenting with software on my own. My first setup was literally in the same kitchen I live in now, with these basic Logitech speakers. So when my first tapes and vinyl releases came out, I was like, “What the hell is happening?” It felt like the endgame dream, but I never expected it. The tricky part nowadays is social media. When I’m out, meeting people, or navigating social circles, I don’t have any sense or thoughts of comparison. Whether I’m interacting with someone less known than me, someone much more famous, or a fan, there’s no ego clash. That’s just how I am in person. But social media, man—it makes you behave differently. Its made up this way that everyone ,even for a few moments, end up subconsciously judging people’s work based on their follower count, like giving more attention to someone’s work with 15k followers over someone’s with 500. It’s messed up. That’s why I actively try not to get caught up in it. I don’t want to let my ego be influenced by this false narrative.

Speaking of ego, what’s the story behind the ‘DJ Loser’ moniker?

Because I think that everyone is a loser! [laughs]

What do you mean by that?

Yeah, in my philosophical view, everyone is a loser because people spend their whole lives running, trying to create a life and memories centered around themselves—their experiences, emotions, all of it. But in the end, we die, and we forget everything. Nothing matters because of this absence of personal remembrance , but not in a nihilistic way. It’s more like, if you live with yourself consciously,, there’s a kind of inherent futility to it.

That reminds me of the Sisyphus myth.

Exactly. Both the actual ancient Greek myth was a lesson, and the Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus’ was one of my favorite books when I was younger. It helped me deal with my thanatophobia—my intense fear of death. Camus talks about ‘philosophical suicide’ and that idea really helped me navigate my fears.

Thanatophobia? That’s fascinating. How does that impact your life?

It’s the root of all anxieties, honestly. Fear of death is the mother of all anxieties. It’s the only absolute truth, you know? Everything else—stress, worry or even ambitions—is just masking that fear.
And when you actually grasp it, it’s mind-blowing. You reach this point where you’re like, “What the fuck?” I get what the Stoics were saying, like “Death is where you aren’t, so why care about it?” But for me, that’s the literal problem. It’s about the absence of consciousness and memory. It can feel like torture technique, honestly, to live, enjoy life, then have it all erased. That’s the crux of my fear—not death itself, but the idea that I will cease to think,feel, everything, even the things I value most.

So your fear of death is more about losing memory than losing life?

Exactly. I’m pretty much convinced that death is like a dreamless sleep—there’s just nothing after. So what’s the point of experiencing life if I won’t remember any of it? It’s not about it being pointless, it feels almost cruel. We’re biologically wired to keep living, to pass on our genes, but in the end, none of it matters because we won’t even remember.

Does this outlook inform your creative process? Does art help you deal with that fear?

It definitely does. Trauma and personal experiences shaped me into who I am, and they’ve pushed me toward art as a form of expression. Music was never a conscious career choice—Doing music was a need and I’m lucky enough to be able to live the life I’m living. Music was Something I had to do to boost the need of trying to make sense out of everything. And it helps. I try to live as authentically as possible, even in this capitalist system. I know what I have to do to push my career faster, how to market myself better, but that’s not true to who I am. I want to live my life in a way that’s honest to me, without selling out or losing my identity in the process.

Let’s forget death for a moment. I think we might get into a downward spiral that, albeit extremely interesting, I would avoid for our readers. What’s next for you? Any projects or upcoming gigs you’re focused on?

Right now, my focus is on my side project, Angel’s Corpse. It’s less club-oriented,based on the traditional sense, and more esoteric, diving deeper into themes like thanatophobia. It makes me feel more comfortable with those heavy ideas. As for gigs, I had my second label night in Berlin in August with a lineup that’s pretty hot—Brodinski, Evit Manji, Van Boom, and 0111001101110100. Berlin’s nightlife scene gives me the chance to curate a night with my vision in mind, and that’s a big deal for me.There are more gigs coming in Europe this fall both under DJ LOSER & Angel’s Corpse projects.

On the label side, we’ve got releases lined up—some from U.S. and European artists, ranging from experimental ambient to what I call “emo trance.” I don’t force a strict release schedule though. Creativity needs space, so things will drop when they’re ready. My main goal is just to keep doing what I love and help others express themselves too.

For your label nights, do you aim to create a fully immersive experience? Like curating thewhole aesthetic?

That’s definitely the goal—to create a 360-degree experience from the venue design to the sound. Right now, I’m focusing on curating the lineup and sound, but eventually, I want to control every aspect of the night. I could see that happening easier somewhere outside of Greece,but it’s one of my goals to be able to hold a night like that here though.

Looking forward to seeing how it evolves. And perhaps meeting you over drinks so we can spiral a little bit more. [laughs]

Sounds like a plan!

All artworks courtesy of DJ LOSER.

CS + KREME

Sonic Sceneries

It is an almost safe assumption to say that backgrounds are important while tracking down an artist’s output. When it comes to Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel’s –the duo behind CS+Kreme– such taxonomies are as interesting to perform as they feel superfluous. During the summer leading to their upcoming New LP ‘The Butterfly Drinks the Tears of the Tortoise,’ NR spoke with the Melbourne/Naarm based duo to retrace an incredibly rich history of sonic experimentation in and out of different scenes, resulting in an almost chameleonic approach to their signature interplay between registers and sounds.

I wanted to begin perhaps in a bit of a classic fashion with this one –I’ve been digging a bit about you, and there’s not much information out there, which seems intentional. 

Conrad Standish: It’s not really intentional, yeah. I think people might see us as more mysterious than we are. The truth is, people don’t usually ask us for interviews, so we don’t do them. But when we’re asked, we’re happy to.

Mmmh. I guess it’s their loss. I’m all the more excited to dig in and uncover a bit of unwilling mysteries. How did this project come about? Conrad, we were chatting a little bit off the record while waiting for Sam to join, and you mentioned Melbourne and the challenges of building something culturally there. Was CS+Creme born out of you guys being part of the same scene?

CS Yeah, Sam and I knew each other a little from the Melbourne scene. One good thing about Melbourne is that different groups mix. The techno scene overlaps with other scenes, probably because it’s a smaller city. We knew each other from parties, and at the time, the band I was in had just ended. Sam emailed me, asked if I wanted to jam, and that’s how it started. We jammed in his bedroom— I brought my 808 over, and we had surprisingly strong chemistry. That’s how it all began, and over the years, we just got deeper into it.

Going through your releases, I had the impression of being confronted with a very heterogeneous mix of elements and influences, which seems to evolve from record to record – A pronounced sense of experimentation, if you like. Could you talk about your process? How do you approach composing?

Sam Karmel Sure. We usually start with sketches, often born from jams. If we like something in a sketch, we play with it until we’re happy. There’s a lot of experimenting—adding, removing elements, and trying unexpected things. We push ourselves but keep it natural. Sometimes new equipment helps us explore new areas, but it’s a playful and fearless approach, where we throw ideas around until we get somewhere that feels right.

CS Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. In the early days, everything came from improvisation or jamming, and we’d zero in on the good parts to refine them. But now, we’ve expanded. Sometimes we work individually, bring ideas together, and refine them. There’s no fixed process, but the end result is always quite different from the initial idea.

That unpredictability is fascinating. It’s like the process takes you somewhere unexpected, which brings to mind how sometimes writing starts with a concept but ends up in a completely different place. But your output still feels very coherent. When I listen to one of your records I can really tell it’s a collection of songs that belong together, you know what I mean? Do you consciously aim for that level of cohesion when you create an album?

CS No, not consciously. We don’t start with a clear idea or feeling in mind. It evolves naturally. As we’re halfway through, we start to see a pattern or shape in the record. We just let things unfold and guide them later when we start to understand what the album is becoming.

It reminds me of discussions about surrealist music—how it emerges from spontaneous juxtapositions that form a coherent aesthetic in the end. You seem to have a broad range of influences. Could you talk about your musical backgrounds and how they come together in your sound?

SK Yeah, over the years, we’ve traversed different areas of music. I grew up with classical music, then got into metal, and later Detroit techno and electronic music. Conrad has a different story.

CS Yeah, for me, it was hip hop when I was younger, being part of the graffiti scene in Melbourne. Then I played in rock and punk bands. We have broad tastes but share a lot of common ground. Our different backgrounds come together naturally.

I’ve got to say I am very curious about the Melbourne scene. You’ve mentioned also how much they usually overlap. Did growing up in such an environment influenced the experimental quality of your processes as musicians?

CS Well, I wasn’t as involved in the Melbourne scene as Sam was. I moved to Berlin and London for a while, so I can’t say I’ve been deeply embedded here. But Melbourne is cool; it has its own scene, though I’m not sure how amazing it is compared to other places.

SK Yeah, when I moved to Melbourne in the early 2000s, there was an underground experimental band scene that I was part of. The scene has changed a lot since then. Right now, it’s very dance-music-oriented, especially with a focus on psychedelic techno.

CS Exactly. It’s gone through different phases, and it’s hard to pin down what it’s like right now.

You come from such different backgrounds and scenes, and you’ve both performed in various settings— from the Bourse de Commerce to festivals, passing from proper clubs, and concerts. Does the setting where you perform influences how you compose or alter your live sets?

SK More and more, we’re thinking about how the music will translate in different environments. The sound system has become something we’re particular about now. As we’ve played on some amazing sound systems around the world, we’ve realized that when the system is good, our ideas translate the way we want them to. So, to some extent, this does affect how we write music, even for things that haven’t been released yet. And when it comes to live sets, we’re treating them as a unique entity, separate from the records.

CS Yeah, I agree. I’d love to treat the live experience as something completely separate from the records. It doesn’t have to just be us playing songs from our albums. I almost want to create something that’s 100% for the live experience and never recorded. But the setting can change things every night—sometimes you have a great sound system, sometimes a small room. In the past, we might have just pushed through, but now we’re trying to be more flexible and adapt to different situations. We both want the live set to be treated very differently from our recorded material.

CS Our upcoming record, for example, is quite gentle, but for live shows, I personally don’t want to be that gentle. We’re working on a new live set for our tour, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it evolves.

Why do you feel the live performances need to differ from the record’s nature?

CS I think it’s important to have a dynamic range in live performances. Sure, there’ll be gentle moments, but I don’t want to just play songs from the record. It’s a different experience being in the room, where the energy can change based on how we feel or the space we’re in.

SK Yeah, emotions always come into play during live performances. There’s room for improvisation, so how we perform can vary depending on our mood that night. It’s part of what keeps things fresh and exciting for us.

Could you tell me a little bit about the new material you’re working on? You mentioned a new record coming in September.

CS Yeah, we’ve written a new full-length record coming out in September on The Trilogy Tapes. It’s our most concise work so far, with some very gentle, minimal moments. But we don’t want to talk too much about it—it’s better to listen when it’s out.

SK We’re still pushing into different areas, but it feels like a natural progression. It’s very different from our previous records, yet it still sounds like us.

I understand it can be hard to describe music in words. Sometimes you just have to listen to it to understand.

CS Exactly. Describing music is difficult, especially for us, but there’s a chemistry between us when we know we’re getting it right. I think this record has a lot of those moments.

Speaking of live shows, do you ever think about incorporating visual elements into your performances?

SK We’ve thought about it recently. Sometimes visual elements can be overdone and come off as corny, but when done right, they’re amazing. We’re open to exploring it but haven’t found the right person to collaborate with yet. For now, our shows are minimal—just us playing in the dark with minimal lighting, no big showbiz elements.

Final question—when composing, is there something specific that inspires you, like a particular sound or image, or is it more of an organic process?

SK It changes. Sometimes it comes from an emotional place, other times from an interest in abstract sonic ideas. So the writing process depends on where we’re at emotionally or sonically at the time.

Listen to CS + KREME mix here.

Credits

Photography · Louis Horne

Simone Bodmer-Turner – Emma Scully

The Fusion of Art and Design: A Discussion with Simone Bodmer-Turner and Emma Scully

Renowned American artist and designer Simone Bodmer-Turner, known primarily for her work in ceramics, has embarked on an innovative exploration into new mediums, showcasing collectible design objects crafted from bronze, wood, lacquer, and silk at the Emma Scully Gallery in New York. In a captivating discussion, Bodmer-Turner and Gallerist Emma Scully delve into the intricate interplay between design and art, reflecting on the evolving landscape of creativity. At the heart of their conversation lies the focal point of their recent collaboration—the exhibition “A Year Without a Kiln.” running until June 22, 2024.

Simone, Emma thanks for joining us. Simone, you recently moved from New York City to rural Massachusetts. What motivated this change, and how has it impacted your life and work?

SBT: Before I was able to do my work full time, I spent a period of time working at a food/farming-centred start up, then working in restaurants and farming to support my studio practice. Being close to food, growing it myself, and being very intertwined with nature has been something I’ve been trying to re-incorporate into my life, but I had to be patient through the initial years of solidifying my work becoming my business in New York before I could do that. It’s been freeing to be able to expand into the spaciousness of the countryside.

Your solo exhibition at Emma Scully Gallery, “A Year Without a Kiln,” features pieces created during this transitional period. Can you tell us more about this project and what inspired it?

SBT: The work in the show was created both in a moment of transition, but also in a moment when I didn’t yet have a studio or access to my usual materials and tools I had used to make my work up until this point. I had had the privilege of collaborative work before, but finding myself in this place with the invitation of a solo show, made collaboration key to the conceptualisation of the work. It was an opportunity to design in materials that I was not personally a master in – wood, bronze, iron, lacquer – but that resonated with me for their rootedness in traditional craftsmanship and the unadulterated materials of the natural world.

Emma Scully described this exhibition as a tactile encapsulation of your work and perspective. What do you hope viewers take away from “A Year Without a Kiln”?

SBT: I hope that viewers and clients begin to understand what work I do as diversely as I dream it up in my imagination – covering all manner of materials and ways of working. I want viewers to recognise my language of form and see it transposed onto unexpected and sometimes more traditional shapes. I want to remove preconceptions and categorisations – both in my work and in all these overlapping worlds of art/design/craft – of “high” vs “low”, “functional” vs “sculptural”, “craft” vs “art”. I want the work to serve as a small part of a movement towards a different way of designing and fabricating, with craftsmanship and human relationships at the center. Collectively we need to recover from the hangover we have from the 70s when the idea of craft erroneously came to equate to craftsy, rather than multi-generational, learned craftsmanship – an error that has birthed multiple generations who turn a blind eye, often unknowingly, to how the things we bring into our homes are made and by whom.

Where do you see your practice going from here?

SBT: I’ve dabbled in many materials and ways of working over the last few years, and plan to spend the next bit solidifying and clarifying the arms of the studio and our offerings. We’ll be growing our site-specific interior installations, continuing to partner with craftspeople to develop furniture and sculpture in other materials, and building out our new ceramic studio in the countryside to have a ceramic offering again.

What challenges have you faced in transitioning from ceramics to working with materials like wood, bronze, and lacquer?

SBT: Every material is so different. Wood requires precision whereas clay does not. It’s challenging to make progress with bronze in the summer when it’s too hot to have the furnace going. Bronze also brings weight into the equation as a potential issue, though luckily it has much more capacity to bear weight that clay does and there’s the ability to create finer, thinner areas within a piece, unlike clay. True urushi lacquer takes an immense amount of time (4 months per piece) and the right moisture conditions to cure, unlike any material I’ve encountered before.

Speaking of the Tadpole Bowl, its polished bronze silhouette reflects the titular creature. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind this piece?

SBT: I had to come up with a name that quickly reframed for the viewer what they initially thought, might just possibly be a sperm. It was early springtime when I finished the model, and all the tadpoles were out in the ponds, and hence…

Calder and Giacometti are muses for you. How do their influences manifest in your new work?

SBT: Calder was the first creator of objects that I understood, as a child, to be “an artist”. My parents really loved the whimsy, balance, and lightness of his work and took me to his exhibitions when they came to town. A lot of the playfulness, interactivity, and tension I bring into my work stems from a lifetime looking at his. Diego Giacometti was a later discovery, only finding out about him from underneath the shadow of his brother when my work was moving more distinctly into the design realm. His adornment and twists on traditional structures of lighting, chairs and tables, has been influential in this most recent body of work.

Now, I’d like to shift our focus to Emma Scully Gallery, where your latest work is being showcased. Hi Emma, how did you approach curating this exhibition, and what was your vision for presenting Simone’s work?

ES: A solo show is a wonderful opportunity to show the world of the designer. Simone took the lead on the exhibition design of her show and thoughtfully created a space where her work could be presented in the context of her larger design ethos.

How do you choose the artists and designers you collaborate with for your gallery? And how do you envision the future of galleries in promoting hybrid forms of design and art?

ES: First and foremost, my responsibility to my clients is to show them the best of contemporary collectible design. Beyond this, a lot has to align to show an artist or designer at the gallery. It has to be the right time in someone’s career to be supporting their work, and we have to want to embark on this intensive journey of working together! One of the things I am most proud of in my work at the gallery is supporting the fabrication of work. What this means looks different for each artist and designer I work with. But I hope it is something other galleries continue to do – and find ways of supporting the work and the artists we work with beyond sales.

Emma, what advice would you give to emerging artists looking to find their unique voice?

ES: Experiment, work and look at a lot!

Credits

Photography ·  William Jess Laird
All images courtesy of Simone Bodmer-Turner and Emma Scully Gallery

Christopher Puttins – Arkadiusz Swieton

Team Credits

Photography · Christopher Puttins
Styling · Arkadiusz Swieton
Hair and Makeup · Mariana Colemenares
Model · Tory (Modelwerk)


Designers

  1. Tie and shirt SOJI SOLARIN and tights WOLFORD
  2. Shirt and shorts SOJI SOLARIN, tights FALKE and shoes Stylist’s archive
  3. Top DOMINIK BITTMANN, shorts MAISON MARGIELA and shoes Stylist’s archive
  4. Dress and bra SARA SPENNER, skirt COMME DES GARCONS and shoes Stylist’s archive
  5. Headpiece SARA SPENNER

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

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