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Random International

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Random International
Words · Nicola Barrett

“Don’t think about doing something too long; do it, and think with your hands while doing it”

Have you ever stood in the rain and not gotten wet? If you ever visit Rain Room created by Random International, a collaborative studio founded by Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass, then this is something you can experience for yourself. Rain Room is an interactive art work that uses motion sensors to allow visitors to walk through an artificial downpour without getting wet and is the work that thrust the art collective into the public eye in 2005. Since then Random International has continued to create work that invites the viewer to actively participate and questions “aspects of identity and autonomy in the post-digital age.” The collaboratives studio’s aim to “explore the human condition in an increasingly mechanised world through emotional yet physically intense experiences,” and they “aim to prototype possible behavioural environments by experimenting with different notions of consciousness, perception, and instinct.” NR Magazine joins Random International in conversation.

Rain Room is perhaps your most well-known work, but which of your other works was the most exciting to work on? 

Audience (2008) was certainly a game-changer for us; it integrated several research directions that had been previously isolated: it looks at our emotional reaction to simulated life forms, it recognises body-in-space, and it starts to animate a more architectural sphere.

On the other end of the spectrum, we are enjoying working on Body / Light (2021), which is bringing an augmented and time-based elements into an immersive form of engagement.

Lastly, we’re in the pre-production stage/creation phase for a number of new bodies of work; while the pandemic has certainly been a huge challenge, it did allow space for deepening our experimentation with ideas, processes and technologies.

Are there any new technologies are you particularly interested in incorporating into your art practice?

Any technology that supports us in expressing ourselves in a language that everybody can understand is of interest to us…so we don’t really have any preferences. There are however various (diverse) areas of science that we’re paying a lot of attention to, such as different areas of decision making research, developments in machine learning, some obscure branches of behavioural science, cognitive neuroscience (focus on distributed forms of cognition), Kinaesthetic learning et al.

What do you think it is about interactive and immersive art that makes it so universally popular? Do you think peoples’ shortening attention spans due to the influx of information they receive each day from their phones will necessitate even more engaging works in the future? 

There’s an analogue, physical component to engaging with a sculpture in a space that cannot (yet) be met by screen-based forms of engagement. Maybe humans are still designed to feel safe in a real, physical space where the known rules apply or at least most of them. So that’s why we continue to seek out and share real, physical experiences.

You have stated you are interested in examining our ‘automated future’, how do you think technology, particularly AI, will influence your lives in the future, specifically in the art world? 

It looks like we’re increasingly surrounding ourselves with machines and processes that are designed to ‘read’ us, draw their own conclusions and then respond to us accordingly. All – as with most advancements in the past – to make our lives easier (predictive text actually suggested ‘easier’ after I typed ‘lives’ just now!) and safer.

The issue is that we’re not entirely compatible with those kinds of transactions; we are not wired to fully grasp the consequences of our actions and thus one could see us getting into all sorts of trouble, existential & comical alike. Questions re the transfer of agency (i.e. can an algorithm be an artist?), distributed creation processes and algorithmically curated experiences are probably some of the topics that we’ll see flaring up some more soon in the art world. Not to speak of entire macroeconomic ecosystems that are emerging (NFT’s) and likely here to stay.

Has the pandemic affected you and your approach to your art practice and if so how?

Yes. While we were already working very zoom based and in several countries/time zones already, we took the time to refocus our practice on some core themes and allowed ourselves the luxury to dive deeper into some of the topics that previously often dried up once a show was up or a commissioned work opened. Going for depth rather than breadth is something that was incredibly energising and something that we definitely continue to cherish and honour now that the pace is picking up again.

What do you want people to take away from your work?

A different perspective on the world and their own place in it.

In contrast to your use of technology, a lot of your work seems to be influenced by forms and phenomenons found in nature. Is this the case and if so why?

We’re obsessed with the ingenuity of our human species and the bandwidth of our perception, just how far and how deep it goes. So at the core of most of our work is the human form, the human condition and our emotional reaction to an increasingly automated and dematerialised world. Nature and natural phenomena connect us: to ourselves, to others and to the world around us. So they make brilliant material for art making!

How do you approach working collaboratively and what are some of the pros and cons of working as a collective?

We can’t not work collaboratively, it’s as simple as that. As a studio, we are a machine that is at its best when we generate knowledge and meaning in the creation process. Flo and I and the group that works with us do have a thing for communication; the complexity of the work dictates that we look at it from a lot of different angles. And our team, through brilliance and diversity, enables the studio to take on large, international projects in an efficient manner.

What advice do you have for young creatives who are interested in working with art and technology?

Don’t think about doing something too long; do it, and think with your hands while doing it.

Technology is a tool, not the aim.

Are you working on any projects at the moment and what plans do you have for the future?

We were commissioned by the BMW Arts Group to develop our work No One Is An Island in partnership with Studio Wayne McGregor and a score by chihei hatakeyama. Due to the pandemic, we had the opportunity to do an intimate rehearsal in London in October last year, and are planning to bring performances of that work to Frieze London in October 2021. We’re also working on several; different exhibitions and group shows to present a new body of work on Swarm Algorithms later this year, and we’ve celebrated three years since opening our Rain Room at the Sharjah Art Foundation this year. With Pace Gallery’s new spin-off Superblue, we’re working on several exciting outings so do stay tuned!

For more information, please visit random-international.com

Dhillon Shukla

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Dhillon Shukla
Words · Nicola Barrett

“I need to know the mood of a space before I can start to imagine who occupies it”

In the yellowy November gloom, a young Londoner tries to scrape together enough money to take his crush on a date. Money Up, named after the schoolyard game, is a film that captures the “spirit, grit, and resilience of young Londoners in a lighthearted and poetic tone.”  The film has been garnering attention for Dhillon Shukla, whose previous works range from photographing young Sri Lankans who have adopted Californian surfer culture to collaborating with music artists such as Jessie Ware, Disclosure and Gorillaz. NR Magazine joined Shukla in conversation.

As both a filmmaker and a photographer how do you think your previous experience with photography projects informs your filmmaking process.

I think it’s changed over time. When I started taking pictures I was a teenager, I used to walk around and shoot locations I thought would be interesting to set a film in. I had this massive archive and I used to look through it and try to imagine a story. Then a couple of years later I started to work with musicians who were quite established, a lot of them had really creative personalities and sometimes our visions wouldn’t aline so I had to learn how to navigate that. After a few of those experiences, it began to feel natural to work with talent and for sure that’s fed into directing and working with actors.

You have stated that you predominantly worked with music and documentary. Do you find that you include those elements in your fictional works and if so how?

I take a lot of influence from music when starting a film, for me, it’s one of the best ways to find an emotion or feeling and put yourself in the headspace of a character. Then recently I completed a documentary which was shot over 4 year period and in a really observational style when I started it I only planned to shoot for 3 months, I had quite a rigid idea of what it would be but then there were a lot of surprises and the story told me it wanted to be something else. I had to listen to that. Looking back that was probably one of the best projects I could have done as it taught me to really think about an edit while shooting, I was always reacting to a moment and simultaneously trying to capture it whilst thinking of questions to ask and how I would build that into an edit. Creatively I became a lot sharper and able to generate ideas a lot quicker than I used to which helps with fiction work and to not be too attached to the script as it’s always evolving.

What was the most exciting filmmaking project you worked on?

I’d probably say Run Outs – the short film I’m making with the BFI at the moment. Like Money Up, it’s set in London but it’s darker, more ambitious and also quite impressionistic. I’m excited by how it’s developing, it feels quite fresh and more in line with the direction I want to go in.

You stated that you wanted to show the lighter side of London in your film Money Up. Do you find that people tend to have a negative stereotyped view of London and do you think your film works to change those perspectives?

I just felt that a lot of youth-orientated stories in London revolved around drugs and violence and while that’s obviously a reality for some people they’re also a lot of peoples experience that doesn’t reflect that. The intention of the film was to reframe that for sure and also show multicultural London kids in an innocent way.

You mentioned you are working on a script for a large scale work set in the future. Can you tell me more about this project?

Not really at the moment, just that it’s finished and the plan is to make it my first feature film.

What filmmakers and directors do you draw inspiration from and how do you apply that inspiration to your work?

I think when I’m writing I’m more inspired by music or locations. I need to know the mood of a space before I can start to imagine who occupies it. That’s where most ideas come from for me. They’re not many films I would say are perfect but the ones below are and I find it hard to not think about them from time to time.

Chungking Express

A Prophet

The Tree of Life

Barry Lyndon

Apocalypse Now

You shot Money Up on a small budget. What was the process you had to go through to see the film to fruition?

I wrote the script for an open call for the BBC and got selected. My exec producer connected me with an amazing casting director. They’d worked with people like Nicholas Winding Refn, Lars Von Trier and Gaspar Noe but they’d also cast all the seasons of Top Boy which made me feel they’d be perfect for the film. They were great and found all the actors in about 3 or 4 weeks. We shot in November during a lockdown so it complicated things a bit, we weren’t able to rehearse or even meet each other before we shot it. Then for all of the post-production, we had to work via Zoom as well. It was quite a different way to work but I think in the end everyone who was in it and worked on it was pretty happy with the result.

How do you think Covid will affect the indie film scene in the future?

I’m not sure but it’s been a shame all the film festivals have moved online because they’re really important for indie filmmakers to connect with people and continue to keep making work so I hope they’ll come back soon.

What advice do you have for young creatives looking to work with film and documentaries? 

Start by making something independently where you can have creative control. It’ll allow you to develop your style and attract the right collaborators for you.

What are your plans for the future?

As I mentioned before I’ve recently completed a 40-minute documentary called The Prodigy which follows 23-year-old Muay Thai world champion Greg Wootton and his 9-year-old prodigy Jimmy Clarke, they both fight out of the KO Gym in Bethnal Green which has produced over 25 world champions. It’s about two young Londoners’ pursuit for greatness in the sport which leads them to find a deeper meaning in their lives. It’s been quite an epic project so I’m really excited about releasing that later this year and also completing Run Outs. Then beyond that, I’ve got another short I’m going to make before doing my feature film.

 

Credits

Images · DHILLON SHUKLA
https://www.dhillonshukla.com/#1

Tobi Shinobi

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Tobi Shinobi
Words · Nicola Barrett

“Shoot what you love and love what you shoot”

Self-taught and award-winning photographer Tobi Shinobi has worked in many major cities around the world. He is known for his distinctive images of architecture and symmetry for which he gained recognition on social media. Born in East London, Shinobi worked as a litigator before his hobby of snapping pictures on his camera phone became his full-time job. Now, when he’s not jetting off around the world and working on commissions for companies like Apple, Audi and Coach, he haunts the streets of Chicago, capturing the city with his unique style of street photography. NR Magazine joined the photographer in conversation.

What is it that makes a good photograph stand out from the rest, particularly with the over-saturation of photography that we see on social media every day? 

I really appreciate great composition, something that catches you almost immediately. Though the photo doesn’t need to be technically perfect to be great, it helps if the photographer takes the time to nail the focus and avoid distracting features which can detract from the ‘illusion’ that the picture aims to create. When I take a picture I’m trying to get you to see what I see and bring you into my world, distractions destroy the seamless transition from someone’s reality to my surreality. With that being said, a good photo can be portraiture, street, architecture, or a great shot of an event: it doesn’t matter – a good photo just catches you.

Does your approach to your photography change depending on which city you are working in and if so how?

My approach doesn’t change particularly unless I have to be particularly mindful of my surroundings. Some places that I have been aren’t the most visitor-friendly tourist spots, so sometimes I have to be aware. With that being said the usual respect and appreciation for the locals and their customs and some good old fashioned street smarts has kept me in good graces. There are many times when I capture street photography and locals don’t necessarily appreciate their photo being taken and I respect that entirely.

What was the most exciting project you worked on and why?

Honestly, I don’t have a single project that I can point to that has been the most exciting one. I have been blessed with a lot of cool experiences, I guess I can say working with Sony last year, I was in front of the camera for a shoot for the launch of their long-awaited A7s3. It was a secret so I couldn’t tell anyone and one or two of my shots actually made it into the final video. I was also featured in front of the camera for Lightroom, as one of their ambassadors, showcasing my architectural photography around Chicago. Both great experiences during a challenging year.

You were a lawyer before you became a freelance photographer. Does your background in law ever influence your photography work and if so how? 

Up until very recently, the vast majority of my work has focused on balance and perspectives. In a literal sense, this has presented itself as a heavy focus on symmetry and geometry. My fascination with these themes forms the basis for my first solo photography book Equilibrium. The metaphor of balance in my work shows up in a number of ways. One example is one is that there have been occasions when it would seem that my work appeared to be too “urban” to be mainstream and too mainstream to be “urban”. To bring it back to the question, the theme of perspectives comes from my legal background where I learned to always consider the other side’s ‘arguments’. I had to consider other people’s points of view, so as to be armed with the best argument. Similarly, symmetry can be seen as me trying to get my visual message across, in as straightforward a way as possible. 

“These themes have also been a subtle nod to me seeking to address the imbalances I come across in life. Namely my own personal challenge of feeling that I don’t quite fit in, no matter where I am.”

With photo-sharing apps like Instagram getting your photography out there has become easier and easier. However, do you think there are negative sides to apps like these and if so what? 

Apps like Instagram have great upsides, it’s important for me to say as much, given how much it has changed my life for the better but there are also some challenges that come with it. The mental strain that comes from the pressure to always produce quality work is a lot. The algorithm rewards consistency. Artists aren’t factories that can just churn out work. We need time to live life, learn, laugh, loathe and then live some more. Consistency is only sustainable for so long. I hope app and platform developers start to realize the strain that they are putting on artists and act accordingly.

Are there any photographers and artists that you draw inspiration from or are particularly interested in? 

One of my favourites in recent years is Carlos Serrao, he is a photographer’s photographer and I am a big fan. I have also been blessed to be able to make a friend and mentor out of the legend that is Sandro Miller. A great human being and an awesome source of inspiration. I take inspiration from all over really. It could be music, religion, sport, film, comics, anime, art you name it. I just consume and then feel that creative spark to create my own and then share. I also take inspiration from the people around me which is why I think it is of the utmost importance to make sure that you surround yourself with positive, creative and inspirational people. I came across a quote the other day that said ‘show me your friends and I will show you your future,’ and I think there is some truth to this notion that the people you surround yourself with will have a profound effect on your outcomes.

You use drones for a lot of your shots. Do you find that the tightening restrictions around drone use, particularly in cities have hindered your work? 

To be honest yes it has slowed things down but I understand why the authorities have had to take some of the steps that they have taken. Some people have little regard for others and have endangered some folk so the authorities were bound to clamp down on it.

What are some of the best spots in London for street photography? 

I’d have to say that Shoreditch and Soho are the best spots in London for the best street photography. You can get some cool stuff in the Square mile too. An 85mm or a 50mm and you can capture some gold at the right time of day.

What advice would you give to young creatives who are interested in photography? 

Keep shooting. Shoot what you love and love what you shoot. Spend more money on travel than you do on equipment. Chase the dream, not the competition. And by this I mean it is easy to just do what everyone else is doing in terms of your style and there is an element to which we learn from imitating others but at some point, you will need to discover and nurture your own style and not rely too heavily on the influences of all those if you want to stand out.

Are you working on any projects at the moment and what plans do you have for the future? 

I’m always thinking about some project or another. I am going to keep on being the best Tobi that I can be. Continuing to evolve, marinating in my creative process. Really trying to sit on it and not force or rush it. That’s going to include video, music in some form, maybe collaborating with musicians. I have agency experience and I have the freelance experience. I do dig down and bury into the artist route or the employed route? I work in the Creative Lab at TikTok as a Creative Strategist, teaching big brands how to make. better TikToks. I want to collaborate with cool people around the world and enjoy all the opportunities that come with that. With everything opening back up I am in the process of planning what the next chapter looks like.

Credits

Images · Tobi Shinobi
http://www.tobishinobi.com/

Dinu Li

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Dinu Li
Words · Nicola Barrett

“Sometimes the not knowing can be the work itself”

Have you ever looked at an old photo of a family member and wondered at the moment captured in the image? Did you flip through stuffed albums and make up stories in your head about the pictures you saw there? If so, you might have something in common with multimedia artist Dinu Li. Born in Hong Kong, his family emigrated to the UK in the early ‘70s. Li draws inspiration from archival material, incorporating history, memory, and invention in his work whilst emphasising appropriation and reconfiguration. Examples of his work range from a fictional documentary inspired by his cousin’s experiences in a Cultural Revolution labour camp, ‘portraits’ of the bedrooms and possessions of illegal immigrants working in London’s Chinese restaurant trade, and a re-tracing of his mother’s life travels from China to Hong Kong and then England. “In his practice, Li examines the manifestation of culture in the everyday, finding new meaning to the familiar, making visible the seemingly invisible” and his work “is often characterised by problematising the document as part of the modus operandi.”

You have spoken about how you were drawn to the photograph of your cousin holding what looks to be a radio but is instead a painted brick. Is this camouflaged reality something that inspired you to incorporate an element of fiction into your archival works?

I’ve had this old photograph of my cousin since I was a kid, showing him as a young man in a labour camp. It is interesting how easily we are fooled into believing photographs as a representation of truth when in fact, it is so unreliable. For so long I was convinced he was listening to a radio, until decades later, when he told me it was a brick painted to look like a radio. The aerial was simply a bamboo shoot, stuck on the side and the brick was painted with nobs and buttons. Even more surprising was when I asked if he heard anything from the make-believe radio and he said he heard the love theme from the film Doctor Zhivago.

You spoke of uncertainties of memory when working with your mother on The Mother of all Journeys. Do you find it frustrating that certain personal histories are lost due to lack of documentation or the fallacy of memory?

It is not so much about it being frustrating, rather it is perhaps inevitable that we humans will get our own histories mixed up by confusion and inaccuracies or imbue our own past with figments of our own imagination. There are also the complexities of someone telling you their past, and for you to retell it back to them, as they had long-forgotten aspects of their life journeys. So, there are lots of opportunities to slip up and our abilities to recount something precisely may well be unreliable.

Do you think that activism in art can be a way to inform positive social change? And do you feel that in recent years, particularly in western media, that activist art has become a social trend that is more performative than helpful? 

As always, art influences real life and vice-versa. Life is full of dualities constantly rubbing against each other. For example, how the global is connected to the local, and how the private is related to the public. There is also one’s personal life interconnected by politics. Whether we embrace politics or not is not the point. The point is that politics comes to us whether we like it or not. I recently went to see the Artes Mundi prize in Cardiff and all the works shortlisted were fully loaded by political points of view, often quite upfront. One of the exhibiting artists Meiro Koizumi made a video work about the legacy of the Second Sino-Japanese War. I found him very brave in using art to confront a very difficult and often taboo subject for many Japanese people. He had collaborated with a group of young Japanese people and got them to recite passages from a diary written by an ex-army officer about what he had witnessed during the massacre of thousands of Chinese people at the hands of the invading forces.

“There was something extremely compelling about these young people, not only reading out loud something they’d rather not think about but doing so in the high streets of urban Japan, where passers can’t avoid overhearing atrocities from a dark moment in their history.”

The work was confrontational, but it needed to be.

I think the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was a positive thing. There was a lot of media coverage at the time, as the pulling down coincided with several similar dismantling. Obviously, there is always the danger that some people are more pro-active when there is media attention, as they may join in for a bit of fun, or simply interested in standing in front of a camera. But that does not mean the original impetus should be curtailed by people exploiting the situation for self-gain. The whole point of Colston’s statue being dumped into the sea is the absurdity of the statue in the first instance as well as the rude awakening of what he represented. So, the more noise the better.

You have stated you are working on something autobiographical, “delving into your youth when you were immersed in black culture”. Can you tell me more about this project? And what is your opinion on artists and creatives making work about cultures outside of their own. 

In my case, I feel it appropriate to make this work. It feels urgent and necessary, even if it’s just for my own benefit. I went to a school in inner-city Manchester that was quite diverse and was immediately drawn to a group of Jamaican youths. We hung out and went to blues parties together in Hulme and Moss Side, and very quickly I became a massive fan of dub. I loved the echo, the reverb and the repetition of a vibe, emphasised and heightened by the sound systems.

The genesis that led me to develop my new work was a recent rediscovery of a song on YouTube that I had heard as a young child growing up in Hong Kong where I was born. The song is called Always Together sung by Stephen Cheng who flew to Jamaica in the mid 1960s to record the song. The first time I heard it as a six-year-old, I took it for granted it must have been yet another traditional Chinese folk song. On hearing it again all these years later, I now realise it is in fact an early day rocksteady tune, which became a cult classic that helped shape the sound of reggae years later.

Thinking back to the triggers that allowed those Jamaican youths and me to instantly form a connection, I would say had a lot to do with cultural phenomenon’s that we valued. For example, what Bruce Lee stood for both in his movies and perhaps more significantly in his off-screen life. Besides him kicking ass, there was something about his dress sense, the way he walked, his mannerism that somehow brought people together. And of course, many artists find inspiration from other cultures. When we think about break dancing and body-popping, we see a mish-mash of inspiration from moves the dancers would have witnessed in a kung fu movie by a cartoon character. The 1990’s hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan is another example of artists finding inspiration from cultures outside their own.

In addition to being involved in Afro-Caribbean culture in your youth, you were also involved in your school’s Anti-Nazi League. You said that ” I think mainstream society at the time was not ready to see a Chinese punk rocker walking around in the suburbs of Yorkshire.” How do you think alternative scene culture has influenced your artwork? 

It goes hand-in-hand. My life is my work and my work reflect my life. I am as interested in pop culture as I am in embracing sub-cultures. In my artwork, I avoid easy classification. I resist clear demarcations and I would not box myself in. I don’t want to make work that is easy to interpret. I like to subvert, to delineate, to contest the status quo. I am not interested in things easily understood.

“I prefer complexities, making works that are multi-layered and generous to being interpreted in many ways. I am looking for possibilities.”

What is the most interesting history/story you have come across during your work? 

I was dropped off once inside a dense bamboo forest in southern China, roughly the size of England, and stayed there making a film for a month. It felt as if I was the only human being there for about ten days before an old guy walked by. He stood there momentarily watching me filming the forest and then said bamboo made China before he disappeared. He is not wrong when you consider what one can make out of bamboo. For example, hats, chairs, ladders, chopsticks, tables, raincoats, shoes, window blinds, houses, baskets, toothbrushes and so on.

You have spoken about experiencing racism as a young boy when you first moved to the UK. Is this something that you have explored, or would consider exploring in the future, in your work, especially considering the recent rise in hate crimes against Asian people? 

I’m thinking a lot about the soil beneath our feet as we walk the earth. I have a vivid memory of being seven years old, having moved from Hong Kong to Sheffield and being pinned against a brick wall outside my house by two boys who lived a few doors away.

“After they had dished out their beatings, they finished off by scooping handfuls of soil before stuffing it in my pants and shouting get back to where I came from.”

From a conceptual point of view, there is something really interesting about some sort of walking performance, retracing one’s journey backwards, to one’s former home. It is no longer there to be found, yet quite ubiquitous is a trail of soil connecting the start of the backward walk to somewhere without an endpoint.

A lot of your work revolves around your family and their personal experiences. What are their reactions when they see your final artworks and how do they feel about being involved in your work?

I think the reaction varies depending on the project and who it’s about, or who it’s not about. It can be a very intense experience for whoever I am focusing on. We all have pasts we rather leave behind. And so, it can sometimes feel uncomfortable when I ask too many questions about a particular moment in time that someone does not want to revisit.

I have collaborated with my mum more than once. The first time on a monograph that involved many trips down her memory lane. I think my dad was a bit jealous the project was not about him, even though he features fleetingly in the project. In the end, the work was about my mum.

“I wanted to give her a voice so that the work acted as some sort of redress for herself and countless women of my mother’s generation, who mostly spent their lives serving the interest of their husbands.”

That project premiered at the Victoria and Albert Museum as a slide projection installation inside the Raphael cartoon court. It is a massive room, so the projection had to be huge to avoid being lost in the space. Naturally, the museum draws massive visitor numbers, which my mother and I was not prepared for. So on the opening, it was quite daunting having so many people filling the room, staring at the slide show, then staring at my mum. I don’t think she felt comfortable being famous for five minutes.

What advice would you give to young creatives who are interested in archival works and exploring their own culture? 

Be open-minded about what is on the surface and what one might discover beneath by digging deeper. Be equally open-minded that whatever is revealed, whether from a photograph or one’s own culture could well be staged, manufactured or mediated. Also, be mindful one may never find all the facts or all the truths behind something. And bear in mind having all the facts and truths does not mean one will make interesting work.

“It can be useful learning when to stop one’s investigation or research. Sometimes the not knowing can be the work itself.”

What projects are you working on at the moment and what plans do you have for the future? 

I have just completed a new video piece, again in collaboration with my mum, called The Ghost Orchid Gesture. The film unfolds in several typical English landscaped gardens during spring at the cusp of blossoming exuberance. My mum plays the sole protagonist, a masked old woman whose movements embody different creatures and plants. I was interested in using ancient wisdom, folklore and shamanist dancing rituals to explore the epoch of the Anthropocene we are currently living through, where our actions are causing the near extinction of a rare plant species called the ghost orchid. The orchid is not seen in the film, except for the movement of its life cycle as represented by the old woman’s hand gestures, as she mimics the manner in which it may twist and turn against the breeze.

 

Credits

Images · Dinu Li

Kensuke Koike

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Kensuke Koike
Words · Nicola Barrett

“Single Image Processing”

Born in Japan and now based in Venice, Kensuke Koike works with a surrealist playfulness to challenge the possibility of creating images. In deconstructing and re-forming vintage and archival photographs into carefully distorted pieces, Koike breathes a new life into found photography. There is a sculptural quality to Koike’s work, and his reconfigured photographs and postcards have a humorous, yet perplexing energy instilled in them. 

Koike’s practice focusses on the possibility of reinvention within an image and involves using analogue collage techniques and working solely with the existing elements of an image. The result is an impressive body of work with unique and contemporary visual narratives that the artist has defined as ‘single image processing’. In using found objects and reviving vintage photographs in this way, Koike creates a dynamic way of working, with each piece exposing different facets of the culture and truth of image making.

Koike seeks to create meaning from an existing object, and his use of found images in combination with the handmade formation of each piece feels incredibly nostalgic and gives a surrealist twist to a vintage era. Koike is more than a just a collage artist – he is as much a videographer, a sculptor, and a puzzle maker – and the videos he makes and shares digitally show his interest in contemporary creative methods. Koike also includes performative elements in his work. It is in this variation of his practice that and understanding of both the humour and reverence with which Koike creates his vision can be found.

Credits

Images · KENSUKE KOIKE
and THE PHOTOGRAPHERS GALLERY

Discover more here thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Kensuke Koike’s work can be found here kensukekoike.com

The Photographers’ Gallery in London presents ‘Re-composed’ until 27th June, where a unique selection of Koike’s work is available to purchase.

Logan Rice

Posted on by nr

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Logan Rice
Words · Izzy Bilkus

“It has to feel right, otherwise it’ll drive me crazy”

Logan Rice is a photographer, filmmaker and cinematographer based in Los Angeles, California. The young artist has established himself in the creative industry as one to watch, with an impressive body of work that includes cinematic and light-hearted collaborations with high profile clients, alongside more impassioned and personal projects.

Growing up filming skateboarding, it is only natural that the artist would make the move to Los Angeles, where his inspiration from day-to-day culture, music and fashion has now come to inform his eclectic and ever-growing practice.

Largely focused on fashion campaigns and editorials, Logan has also worked on a variety of music videos, documentaries, and exclusive content for the likes of Nordstrom, Pull&Bear, Fender, Columbia Records, L’Officiel, Adidas, Flaunt Magazine and more, as well as filming artists including Grimes, Lykke Li, Alice Glass and many others.

NR Magazine speaks with Logan to discuss the versatility of his work and how he has come to develop his style over the years.

A lot of your personal work channels feelings of nostalgia in your depictions of youth culture – is this something you consciously aim to create or is it something that just comes through naturally as part of your creative process? 

That’s definitely something people have mentioned to me before. I would say that it comes naturally. I aim to capture moments that just are and that feel real. The nostalgia element isn’t something I intentionally seek out, it just kind of happens that way.

How have you come to develop your style? 

I grew up filming skateboarding and I think that style of shooting and editing transitioned over heavily when I started creating a lot of content in the music world and eventually into all the fashion projects I’ve done over the past few years. I never noticed until fairly recently when people would point it out and be like, “You used to film skateboarding right? I can see it in your work.”

I definitely use some of the same shooting techniques that I used as a 14/15-year-old filming skateboarding. It has obviously improved over the years but it’s the same method. The same goes for editing – I’ve always edited skate videos to the mood and beat of the song and I let that dictate how a project comes together. I never understood how people could make a rough edit with no music behind it. The music dictates the entire flow and feeling of the project, and I just let the feeling take over rather than looking at something for what technically makes sense. It has to feel right, otherwise it’ll drive me crazy.

How do you juggle your more commercial work alongside personal projects? Do the two influence each other at all or do you have clear separations between your personal and commissioned pieces? 

It gets hard to balance both, honestly, but commercial work always comes first. That’s the work that allows me to be a freelance artist living in Los Angeles and it funds my personal projects and editorials.

Personal work is very important, so whenever I get an idea or have free time, I definitely try to push myself to do something that’s meaningful to me. Those projects take a long time to complete though. I always overthink it or get busy with something else but eventually they’ll all get done.

The personal projects I’ve done are still some of my favourite things I’ve created. Even if they are 2, 3, 4, 5 years old, they still hold up in my opinion. Whenever I watch them now, I’m like, “Yeah, this is it. This is the kind of work that really keeps me going.”

Commercial work shows me what I’m capable of with a bigger team, budget, and resources and pushes me on a production scale. But with that being said, personal work shows me I don’t need a huge team or budget to make something that I really love or that I think is great.

What’s important for you when directing? What sort of things inspire a narrative and help you tell a story? 

The most important thing to me is capturing moments that are real and that feel real. Pre-visualized shots are great, and you always need to have a game plan, but I think I’ve always created the best content from just trying random things to see what works. Also, a lot of the time I roll a bit before and after the main take and those little off moments can sometimes be the most beautiful and unique.

“Storytelling is much less important to me than having a project that makes you feel a certain way.”

What aspects of your own life influence your work? 

I think just living in the moment and going with the flow of things. I really try not to overthink and not do anything that doesn’t feel right. That’s how I’ve always been as a person and it’s how I tend to approach projects. I just have to trust my instincts and usually the outcome is better than anything I try to force.

How have you managed creatively during the pandemic? 

The first few months were absolutely brutal, but over time I started doing shoots for brands my friends owned or worked at and I started doing music videos a lot because it seemed like the majority of the fashion industry was on hold. That kept me busy for a while until everything came back full swing August 2020, and it’s been pretty steady since then. Some months are slower than others, but I always have different things to work on.

I do wish I had picked up new creative hobbies during my time off but to be honest with you,

“I just ate pasta, drank wine, played a lot of video games, and binged a ridiculous amount of TV shows… and I’m ok with that.”

Are you working on any projects at the moment? 

I’m in post-production on about 3 or 4 projects right now and I just did a shoot over the weekend that I’m really excited about. I have a few really cool editorial projects coming out in July and I’m always making content with my really good friend and artist Hudi, so we’ve got some music videos and other things in the works.

 

Credits

Images · LOGAN RICE
www.logan-rice.com

Alec Soth

Posted on by nr

NR · World
Published · Online

Feature · Alec Soth
Words · Nicola Barrett

“Alec Soth does wander but he does it in a territory that he knows best”

When you think of an exhibition from a world-famous photographer, it would not be unusual to assume it would be located in a big city known for its rich cultural heritage such as London, Tokyo or New York. Certainly, your mind would not immediately go to a tiny green island between England and France. But Guernsey, which is part of the Channel Islands, is where you can find photographer Alec Soth’s exhibition Looking For Love.

Of course, this is not the first time a big name has been associated with the island, it was the home of exiled Victor Hugo and inspiration for his book The Toilers of the Sea. There are several paintings by Renoir of the rocky coves and caves of the southern cliffs. In addition to this, the Channel Islands were the only part of Great Britain that was occupied by German forces during World War II and this history inspired the best selling novel and subsequent film adaptation The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. 

In recent years the island has also become known for its photography festival involving well-known photographers such as Martin Parr CBE and Mark Power. Now the Guernsey Photography Festival welcomes Alec Soth to that list for its ten year (plus one due to delays caused by the pandemic) anniversary.

Alec Soth is an American photographer who was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He gained fame for his colour photographs which he takes on a large-format camera. His work has been described as being based in the ‘documentary style’ and much of it consists of the people and landscapes in the rural and suburban American Midwest and South.

This particular exhibition of Soth’s work ‘Looking for Love’ consists of earlier works of his, taken before the projects which propelled him into the spotlight of the art world. NR Magazine was joined by Jean-Christophe Godet who is the Artistic Director of the Guernsey Photography Festival and the curator of ‘Looking for Love’ at Guernsey Museum at Candie.

Upon entering the gallery one is greeted by a sea of black and white photographs of people with a few landscapes dotted in here and there. The introduction on the wall tells us, in Soth’s own words, about the time in his life that the pictures were taken. Jean-Christophe Godet expands on that text. “People think this exhibition is one project but it isn’t, it’s a collection of projects. This was a time when he was quite young and feeling miserable, as we all do when we are young. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his future but was still interested in photography. His job at that time was to work in a photo lab where he processed all the films. In the evening he would go to bars, and meet people and take their photographs. At this stage, he was in a learning process. That’s why we were interested in this exhibition because we wanted people to know where Alec Soth came from.”

The photographs in this exhibition were not taken on a large-format camera like much of Soth’s work, Godet explains, but on medium-format. “The next projects he did, which is what he became famous for, that’s when he started shooting on large-format with the big camera. He likes taking his time when he shoots people, so setting up the camera gives him a chance to meet and talk with the people. It helps him relax as well because he’s an introverted person. He’s the type of guy, if you sit next to him on a plane, he won’t talk to you. He learned how to be more social from doing this exhibition.”

Godet walks over to a pair of photographs, “There’s no story in this exhibition. Soth liked that, it’s up to you to decide the story of the characters you are going to meet. From a curatorial aspect, I wanted people to be able to infer their own meaning onto each picture, but also at the same time some pictures work together to tell a story.”

He points at the duologly, “For example, I decided as a curator to put these two pictures together. The two middle-aged men in one picture appear to be looking at the young girl in the other, who seems to be flirting with a boy. You question who the girl is and if that’s her boyfriend? Then when you put the two pictures together you question if the two old guys are at the same party? Are they perverts or are they nostalgic about the time when they are younger?”

Godet gestures to the rest of the exhibition enthusiastically “There’s no information about these images because Soth is more interested in human nature. He’s not a documentary photographer, he’s not telling the story of the people in a town in Midwest America, it’s more about understanding feelings and emotions. He wants you to decide the story behind them. He wants you to imply your own experiences onto them.”

He leads me to another image, this one of a young man in a suit, easily missed in the sea of photographs. “This is Alex Soth’s self-portrait. He took it the night before he was getting married. He looks quite relaxed, maybe half drunk and he looks like he is feeling quite satisfied with himself. There is something there that he is trying to tell us because his work is always about him as well, it’s about the way he feels and relates to the world. At the beginning of the exhibition, we are told that he is miserable and alone but now we discover that at some point during this project, looking at people looking for love, he found his love, in some way, by getting married. But it’s up to us to decide how we think he is feeling about this.”

Godet beckons me to the centre of the room. “In this central part of the exhibition, we changed the tone so it looks like it could be the inside of a bar or a club. In this section I was able to put three generations of three different women telling their own story. The young teenager clinging to her lover, the middle-aged women on her own in a bar looking strong but also a bit lonely, and finally the glamorous old lady with her cocktail. I love how, with Alec Soth, you can connect these together. This exhibition is about loneliness and searching, about feeling disappointed and neglected but also hope. Overall it’s kind of dark and lonely because that’s how he felt at the time, but there are plenty of layers. For me, I think that’s how he became famous because he reaches us with his human emotions which is universal.”

He continues walking around the exhibition. “He’s not trying to impose anything on us, by saying ‘oh look how beautiful that is’ or ‘I’m going to show you what love is’, it’s up to us to integrate the raw human emotions he has. You need to take your time to absorb the photos, it’s not like the Wildlife Photography of the Year exhibition. It’s not like ‘oh that shot is spectacular’, and then you forget it when you move onto the next one. With Soth’s work, it’s like you suddenly slow down and you really appreciate how much is in each photo. The images are so strong they stay in your mind for a very long time.”

Back near the start of the entrance, he points at one image which has been blown up to cover an entire section of the wall. Against a snowy backdrop is a billboard upon which is a personal ad titled ‘Looking for Love’. It’s one of the few texts to be found in the exhibition, a deliberate choice Godet explains. “Soth is a massive reader of poetry, but he doesn’t like associating the two because he says poetry and photography tend to reject each other and I understand why he says that, because there’s already so much poetry in his photo he doesn’t need more.”

“But what is the difference between Soth’s work and the images of everyday life you can find on social media?” I ponder.

Godet tells me that, “I would say Fine Art photography makes you think. That’s why the Guernsey Photography Festival focuses on contemporary photography and fine art photography because you reach a different level. Everybody says it’s quite easy to take a photo and that’s true. We have the technology to take a good photo readily at hand, but for example, if you take a photo of the sunset on one of Guernsey’s popular beaches like Cobo.” He gestures dismissively, “‘Wow great photo’. The problem is those photos will be distributed on the net and there will be a million photos of Cobo and the sunset and they all look the same. They all look pretty in terms of colour and they have the wow factor but then you forget them. Because we have been oversaturated by them. It’s like reading a good book, when you read a good book it stays with you for a very long time and the reason it stays is because it triggers emotions within you and makes you think about life, your own and others, and that’s where the difference lies.”

Curious, I ask Godet how Soth came to be a part of the Guernsey Photography Festival. He is only happy to tell us the story and talk more about both Soth’s art practice and personality.

“I met him in Paris seven years ago when I introduced him to the idea of coming to Guernsey. At the time I remember he said, “What?” and I said, “Guernsey…”,  “Where is that?” And I said “Oh it’s a small rock in the middle between France and England’ and he started laughing about it. I think he didn’t take me seriously because at the time we were just starting the Guernsey Photography Festival and we were not well established like we are now.

But then word started spreading internationally that there was something quite interesting developing in Guernsey for photography and also we had Martin Parkin and Mark Power come over. Mark Power is a good friend of Alec Soth and all those people were our best ambassadors and they were saying “Oh yeah I’ve been to Guernsey, I’ve met Chris and the team there and it’s been a fantastic experience, it’s a great festival” so slowly we gained a good reputation.

So I met him in Paris again for another big photography festival, and he recognised me and I told him that we were going to celebrate our ten year anniversary. And he said, “Oh yes I’ve heard about your festival now and I’ve been told good things.” He was supposed to come last year but unfortunately, because of the pandemic, he couldn’t make it.

In my opinion, he is one of the biggest names you can get in the world of contemporary fine art photography so the moral of the story is never give up. But he’s a really nice guy, intelligent and modest as well. There’s nothing pretentious about his work. Everything is coherent with Alec Soth. When he takes a landscape, every single detail in that photo has some kind of significance. And it’s all about what he know’s best, which is America. Soth has never been a travel photographer, there is this myth about being a photographer that you travel a lot that you travel the world, the lifestyle of freedom and wandering the world. Alec Soth does wander but he does it in a territory that he knows best. All his personal work has been related to the midwest of America. I love that about him because what’s the point of sending a photographer to say the Middle East when they don’t know anything about the culture. It’s much better to ask someone local to take the photos and give us the reality of things.”

Speaking of keeping things local, “Do you think Guernsey has the potential to become a big cultural hub of photography and Fine Art?” I ask him.

He laughs, “I’ve been working on that for the last ten years. I do believe there is potential there, but I think to reach that there is a necessity for a political drive for cultural development. I think unless we reach an agreement on a political level there will always be a bit of a struggle. Because if you want to be a cultural hub you need to invest in it. You can’t just rely on a small amount of public funding and donation and sponsorship. I’ve worked on lots of different major projects in major cities and you need funding for it. With the Guernsey Photography Festival, we have tried our best and we have proven it is possible, but I think a political position is necessary. I think there is a tendency in Guernsey to be satisfied with what we have, and while I don’t criticise that, there is so much more in the world to discover in terms of the profile you can create. It’s important to help and support local artists, but I think if we want to attract people to come to Guernsey as a hub local artist won’t be sufficient. You need to have big names like Alec Soth. Then people hear about it and think ‘oh wow this is pretty cool place to visit and live, not only can you enjoy the beaches and wildlife and historical culture but you have names like Alec Soth as well.’”

Before he leaves I ask a final question, “What are the plans for the future of the photography festival.”

“This is just the starting exhibition for this years festival,” Godet tells me, “because on the 23rd of September we are having a big open night for the Guernsey Photography Festival with the Guernsey symphony orchestra and we will have a multitude of international artists. I think in total we have 25 exhibitions planned in celebration of our ten year (plus one) anniversary. We have some really exciting artists but I’m not going to mention any names, you will have to wait for the press release, but it’s going to be big!”

Later, as I walk away from the museum I think over Soth’s work exploring the beauty and complexity of the mundane and Godet’s thoughts on the need for local governments involvement in local culture. Lost in thought I stumble on another small outdoor exhibition of different photographers work, about ten minutes walk from the gallery. It’s concise and wonderfully accessible to the public. It reminds me that Soth’s most famous work was created in the region he was born. With the pandemic making us rethink travel, perhaps it’s time to look away from larger cities and instead demand for art and culture to also be brought to, and created in, our own tiny pockets of the world. Something the Guernsey Photography Festival has already been doing for ten (plus one) years.

 

Credits

Find out more about the exhibition on www.museums.gov.gg
Images · ALEC SOTH
www.alecsoth.com/

Claudia Andujar

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NR · WORLD
Online

Feature · Claudia Andujar
Words · Izzy Bilkus

Andujar often applied Vaseline to her camera lens, used flash devices, infrared film, and oil lamps to create visual distortions

The Barbican’s latest exhibition explores the work of Claudia Andujar, a Swiss-born Brazilian photographer and activist who has spent her life documenting and defending the Yanomami, one of Brazil’s largest indigenous peoples. Through a collection of over 200 photographs, an audio-visual installation, and a series of drawings by the Yanomami, the exhibition explores Andujar’s relationship with the Yanomami that spanned five decades, and details periods of direct activism amongst the indigenous communities.  

The exhibition is housed in The Curve, featuring powerful photographs from Andujar’s first six years living with the Yanomami and explores how the photographer used her camera as a tool to drive political change. At a time when the Yanomami’s territory and way of life is being threatened from continued illegal mining and the spread of Covid-19, the exhibition holds particular significance: it shows how Andujar dealt with visually interpreting a complex culture, and how her art serves to amplify the voices and struggles of the Yanomami.  

From the start of her career documenting the Yanomami in the 1970s, Andujar’s photographic approach differed greatly from the traditional documentary style of her contemporaries. The photographs she took during this period experiment with a range of techniques to visually translate the shamanic and ritualistic culture of the Yanomami. Andujar often applied Vaseline to her camera lens, used flash devices, infrared film, and oil lamps to create visual distortions of light streaks and saturated colours that imbue her work with an ethereal quality. The exhibition also features a series of more sober black-and-white portraits of the Yanomami that focus closely on their faces and bodies, using an intense chiaroscuro to create a strong sense of intimacy. 

By the late 1970s, Andujar had reached a pivotal point in her career. With the Amazon region opened to deforestation and invasive agricultural programs, entire Yanomami communities were destroyed. Andujar deepened her commitment to the Yanomami struggle, and in 1978 she helped found the ‘Commissão Pro-Yanomani’ and began a campaign to protect their homeland. Andujar’s artistic career at this point was abandoned in favour of using photography solely to raise awareness for the cause.

As a photojournalist and a European, Andujar’s project is still a complex one: it cannot be wholly separated from the history of the colonial gaze on indigenous people. Yet it is clear that she has been welcomed by the Yanomami – films, drawings and texts by the community leader Davi Kopenawa throughout the exhibition demonstrate. It is without a doubt that Andujar’s work powerfully captures the struggles of the indigenous peoples and delivers both a unique peek into the lives and worldview of the Yanomami and a potent condemnation of the violence enacted on them.

‘Claudia Andujar: The Yanomami Struggle’ is on at the Barbican Centre until 29th August. Discover more here barbican.org.uk  

Kliwadenko Novas

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NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Kliwadenko Novas
Words · Nicola Barrett

“innovation is not coming from technology but by having the chance of approaching the building process with more freedom”

Sweeping shots of golden arid landscapes, wild salty Pacific bays, and the rise of the rocky Andean mountains serve to juxtapose the modern architecture nestled in the wilderness. This is one of the documentaries by Kliwadenko Novas,  an audiovisual production company formed by Katerina Kliwadenko, a Chilean journalist, and Mario Novas, a Spanish architect. Since 2015 the duo has been developing an investigation into architecture and urbanism in Latin America, a region they have a special interest in due to its state of “constant crisis that forces it to reinvent itself.” In addition to this, they also focus their projects on “people capable of redrawing the limits of their disciplines and questioning what they do”. NR Magazine joined them in conversation about their work.

What was it specifically that inspired you to create these documentaries about architecture and urbanism in Latin America?

In 2014 we did a one year trip crossing the region starting from Guatemala to Southern Chile. This is a part of the world we really tried to get to know better. Having a common language that allows us to interact properly with everybody is a huge advantage in order to film and interview. This led us to develop a two-year-long research project on its contemporary architecture scene as an editorial work. This kind of matched with the 2016 Venice Biennial when the director has been Alejandro Aravena. There was this momentum of Latin America that attracted lots of views and we thought that the right format for portraying this project would be a documentary. The documentaries format enables a collective experience for viewers when they are screened and this helps to diversify the type of public it reaches. Otherwise, the traditional forms of publications are just consumed by architects.

You describe Latin America as a region in constant crisis. How do you think that affects architecture in these countries?

This means the future is somehow uncertain. Facing this, architects try to develop their profession in different ways, some of them really disruptive and radical. What we’ve found, when we discover some of the new lines of work like one from Al Borde in Ecuador, Solano Benitez in Paraguay or David Torres in Mexico, is that they enjoy architecture in a wider sense. On one hand, they are involved closely in the management of the construction which is an aspect that makes the profession really exciting, and on the other hand, they have to deal with such hard budget restrictions that the solutions have to be innovative. We see it as a change of the architects’ role which enables them to make architecture not only behind a computer screen, but by being on the construction site and related to their clients more closely.

You come from quite different backgrounds as an architect and a journalist respectively. How does that affect your collaborative process when creating these documentaries?

Us architects are often trained in school to express ourselves in quite a strange way. When you read the explanations of a project in the architectural media it sounds over intellectualised or over sophisticated and without any need. So having a journalistic approach means that the way we portray projects can reach the wider public.

I would say now, reading the question again, we are not as aware that we come from different backgrounds anymore. In our daily routine, we switch continuously from our role as a couple, to our role of teammates, and to the role of parents. And we are always trying to keep every sphere safe from the other-one.

Regarding the films, our creative process is really organic. We both carry out all the different phases, from the script to the editing, together.

Are there any new technologies that you are aware of which you think will change how architecture will be approached in Latin America in the future? 

In terms of new construction technology, you have to realise there are not the same as in Europe or in North America for the high budget buildings. Having such a high percentage of inhabitants who can not afford those kinds of constructions, I would say innovation is not coming from technology but by having the chance of approaching the building process with more freedom. Not having so many rules creates a really good environment to try to solve problems in an original way.

Your documentaries also focus on social issues in Latin America. Do you consider them as a form of activism that will help to shed light on, and bring attention to these issues?

We try to create documentaries with a positive approach that show how people solved certain aspects of their personal and local environments. We like to use those examples to show the public the act of taking care of local problems, no matter where you live. Because surely there are many things to solve and improve in our environment. Portraying architects who do it in their areas within their conditions and expertise is a way of saying that if they can, so can you, regardless of whether you live in Miami, Zürich or Melbourne. Ultimately it is about showing ways of coping with life.

In your documentary Do More with Less you explore housing issues for those living under the poverty line. By 2030 two billion people are expected to be living in slums, so you think that indigenous practices of building homes can be used to tackle issues like these in Latin America?

We think solutions have to come from local knowledge. Every part of the world is so different that in certain aspects indigenous practices could be part of a solution. If they did it over 500 years and it is still working, why not? But as I said, every case is different, so a way of facing these issues could be by creating structures to allow collaborative processes, where everyone can bring in their knowledge.

Which architectural project/work stood out to you the most in your work? 

I would say the SESC Pompéia, a project built in 1977 by Lina Bo Bardi in Sao Paulo. Everything you Google about this project, or from the work of Lina Bo Bardi will blow your mind.

What difficulties have you faced while creating your documentaries and how did you overcome those challenges? 

Acquiring funds is our biggest problem. So one way to solve this is to keep production and post-production budgets really low by doing most of the work ourselves. We are still looking for the right partners who can see the opportunity in joining in with these movies.

In a broad sense, how do you think architecture in Latin America differs from its North American and European counterparts?

As I said before, there are fewer rules especially in rural areas that affect the construction process. And, in general, Latin American governments do not provide an equal distribution of wealth. This creates a large economic gap in society that has to be effectively resolved in another way. In our opinion, these two factors are the origin of the architectural examples that interest us in this region.

What advice would you give to young creatives who are looking to get into the fields of documentaries/filmmaking and architecture?

The advice to learn by doing. Focusing on some local issues means they don’t need big production budgets to travel for the opportunity to start filming and editing. This is a way to find your own point of view and voice as creators, to develop an original and outstanding film. In the end, it is not specific advice for the field of architecture. We believe that it is a subject that can be portrayed from many angles so there is still much to discover.

Do you have any projects you are working on at the moment and what are your plans for the future? 

We released this year a six-episode series called Architecture On The Edge. Commissioned by Shelter, which is the only streaming platform focused just on architecture and design content, it is about six constructions located in remote scenarios of the Chilean landscape.

Now we are completing two interactive documentaries which are to be released by the end of this year. One, called Raw Land, portrays an education model capable of renewing the profession of the architect and the rural context in which it is held. A building process of an architecture student’s degree project settled down in Southern Chile, on a waste territory far away from the world. And Making Meaningful Things Happen on the Fuerte El Tiuna Project in Caracas, Venezuela. Portraying politics of the everyday through this 15 years old project as a form of resistance by proposing in such a polarised country.

Credits

Images · KLIWADENKO NOVAS

Nina Doll

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NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Nina Doll
Words · Nicolò Pablo Venerdì Bettiol

“it offers people the opportunity to sustainably express themselves”

Nina, 24, Berlin-based digital fashion designer and CGI Artist is switching the way we think of fashion.

With a manual approach to design on her back, the German artist has marked her name within the group of creatives which are trying to revolutionise our industry one step at a time. Talking through her development as a designer, Nina spoke with NR about the perks and countless possibilities of expanding fashion production onto the digital world.

Sustainability, visibility, inclusivity, these are just some of the many points that could affirm CGI creative production as the new chapter for contemporary consumerism.

Exploring emotions and how a new era of digitalised humanity would feel and look like, Nina’s work is the ultimate undermining proof that ‘a whole new culture is emerging’. Take a journey into Nina’s boundless digital world: a reality where oneself could be anything.

How has your approach to fashion design developed from manual to digital? 

During my Master Degree in Fashion design I attended a course covering digital Fashion. While at first I was sure I would have stuck with classic Fashion design, I later on got caught with the digital aspects of it and began to teach myself CLO3D.

It really was quite a natural process learning and experimenting with digital Fashion and other 3D Tools like sculpting. Over time, I started to share some of my work on Instagram, and got into it even more. After realising the huge market, and the amazing Feedback over my art and work, I simply stuck to it. For my final MA graduation Project I combined digital Fashion, Abstract sculpting, CGI visualization and real tailoring.

Talk us through your latest projects and collaborations.

One of the latest projects I took part in was an editorial story for Vogue Portugal. Although they were shooting with actual clothes on a model, Baby G – taking care of post production – and I embedded CGI Elements onto the real Image afterwards. Glass flowers, abstract swirls around the model… We also recreated the model’s face in 3D and added more elements onto it: the point was to create a mixture of her real self, with her digital identity. This is the kind of photo compositing I love the most. It demonstrates the incisive ambivalence between real and virtual. Another project I have recently been working on was a collaboration with the fashion brand A BETTER MISTAKE. Being commissioned to make a video, I redesigned their real pieces in 3D, created an Avatar model for them and placed the product in a fully digital landscape.

What are the perks of digital design? And the cons?

The ultimate perks of digital design is the absence of waste. It is also a whole new creative world. There is nothing you can’t actually do: you are completely free when it comes to your choice of material, setting, environment, model, movement… It is also an amazing opportunity for young aspiring – fashion – designers: the digital realm allows you to showcase your work without the economical effort one would face when producing a collection in real life.
On the other hand, new challenges regarding the environment such as electricity consumption, are coming up. Also think about NFTs, and the usage for the end customer: it is still very limited, as ‘body tracking’ is still evolving.

Taking into consideration the advent of NFTs and the marketing aspects related to it, where do you portray fashion within such instances?

I believe NFTs are enabling digital fashion pieces to be an art piece on their own. NFTs in general give artists the opportunity to make money out of their practice without having to depend on clients or commission work. Through such a marketplace, customers are able to own something special, a unique garment, just like it is in real life with couture pieces or limited editions.

How does technology affect the value of design?

Personally, it adds value and sets designers free from real life restrictions. Creating digital art or digital fashion is a real craftsmanship: the hours of work, the challenges and the design that goes into a digital dress should not be underestimated.
Furthermore, through the world of NFTs, technology is now able to really display the monetary value of digital art and, eventually, make it tradeable.

Can CGI technology determine the way people look at tangible products? What do you believe to be its impact in culture?

When it comes to marketing campaigns, CGI technology can transport a lot of emotional storytelling. It gives you the opportunity to showcase anything you feel could fit within a specific story, it allows you to enhance the tangible product at its best.
CGI can also create products that don’t even need, nor can, tangibly exist: when it comes to face filters, or digital makeup, the asset of possibilities is countless. A great example is the work by the amazing 3D makeup creator Ines Alpha.

When it comes to face filters, especially those not intended with artistic value, the idea of ‘optimizing’ the face remains. This has definitely an impact on our culture: it manipulates how we look at ourselves, how we think of beauty.

On another note, it is clear that reality, and the virtual world with its identities, are fusing unstoppably. Our digital identity is part of ourselves, and vice versa. With the rise of our digital being and identity, there is a whole new culture emerging.

Could digital design contribute to sustainability in fashion?

Definitely! There are plenty of aspects that can contribute to sustainability in fashion. Think of production for example:

“sampling & fitting can be done digitally, design choices can be tried and decided digitally, the whole, before producing the final garment.”

Campaigns or editorials can be done digitally. Alternatively, travel could also be avoided by shooting the story in a studio, to later add a CGI background to it.

Thinking of social media presence, it offers people the opportunity to sustainably express themselves: ’the digital’ in fact reduces consumption and the impact of fast fashion.

Finally, where will your practice lead you next?

A new chapter is starting for me at the moment. I just finished my Master thesis and I can now fully focus on working and creating. I am currently working on a project with The Fabricant, which is really exciting to me. I have always dreamt of being able to join their vision and create something together with their team.

Credits

Images · Nina Doll

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