 to welcome you to Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum to celebrate Experimental Jet Set and how posters work We have an exhibition upstairs that features their work And it's been an opportunity for us to build our collection and to draw some of the most rare and Fascinating pieces from our collection and put them together How posters work is made possible by major support from Adobe Foundation Additional funding is provided by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York And this program in particular is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program By the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York So thank you very much We're so glad to have these great Dutch people here and many great Dutch people in the audience as well And a special thanks to everyone here at Cooper Hewitt who made this program possible including our Director and the next generation of design that just entered the room. So very cool And our new adult programs coordinator Susanna Brown who makes it also Fabulous so so really cool Doing this exhibition was an opportunity not only for us to draw pieces from our Collection which includes over 4,000 posters alone, but also to build our collection And Caitlin Condell who's our assistant curator of drawings prints and graphic design reached out to amazing Contemporary practitioners from around the world including experimental jet set who donated some wonderful pieces Including some of their earliest work To our collection or designers like sulky and men from Korea Or Mark going from Australia who's in the audience tonight And we had a chance to Interview him and talk to him about his work for the record, which is what we're all about here Tonight we're here to celebrate These guys who are sort of rock stars of graphic design In fact, I wanted to have them be dropped down from the ceiling on a burning pile of brochures But they're very down to earth. I didn't want to do that But we do know that they are our star material here They're here in New York partly to launch their new book Which is right here Their only book their new and only book Which is available tonight in our shop after the lecture and you can get it signed We're really excited about that. We don't have enough for everybody I was tempted to do little numbers like at the deli where you line up and get your pastrami sandwich But they have generously brought this fantastic bespoke brochure Which they're giving away free to anyone that goes upstairs and checks out our Shop and want to come up and talk with them after the talk These are remarkable people. They are some of the most introspective Graphic designers. I know I think the term in the art world might be self-reflexive So in fact when you send them an email You automatically get this amazing response which goes on for Many paragraphs and you can learn in essence the entire philosophy of experimental jet set Including their employment policies and their latest Interviews and and what they're up to it's really quite exciting and in fact any email Correspondents with them will surprise and amaze you the depth with which they explore everything Which really I think is very appropriate to graphic design and what we do And I'm very excited To have all of you here because if there's one thing that graphic designers all love It's graphic design Okay, so welcome experimental jet set. We're so happy to have you here and we look forward to the conversation Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here and thank you Alan for the wonderful introduction and of course a big thank you to everybody at Cooper you it for Inviting us and giving us this opportunity To show some of our work Um Actually, we wanted to talk about posters Today to coincide with the couple of posters that are on display upstairs But we have this book out and we were kind of Glad with the fact that it came out finally we've been working on it for quite some time And we decided that We wanted to show you some of our work through the lens of the book Yeah, actually we were quite reluctant to talk about the book because we were afraid that if you were gonna talk about the book It would be become some kind of Sales pitch talk or something And we didn't want to do that So don't buy the book that is I mean just to make sure that you don't have the idea that we are trying to Sell you the book yet. Just don't buy it. You probably already have a book It's good that the publisher is not in the audience though. It's isn't roger here yet That's actually yeah, I mean one of the fact I mean one of the things why we decided to talk about the book here After all was also that for some reason it turned out that a lot of people connected to the book Would be here in the audience tonight There's mark mark Owen who have an essay in the book Linda van der Zee has actually three texts in the book Roger the publisher also was supposed to be here, but he didn't arrive yet. Is that that's what you said? I'm not sure. I don't think so. Are you here, roger? It's quite dark. I don't It's not that and we were actually thinking of making doing the presentation first in Amsterdam because that's the city Where I was born and they came to study and But where we met and which is a great inspiration for us Our favorite spot in Amsterdam is San Serif, but we did not manage to have the book in time So this is in fact the first Well, we have it in our hands only since a few days and You know when you have something your hands for only for a few days. It's very hard to already give it away, but Yeah, we cannot look at it Yeah, one more small note about the presentation as you can see it's we numbered this slide so that you know Where in the presentation you are it's not gonna take that long I mean, it's a hundred slides, but we'll flip through them quite fast Yeah, this is the book Yeah, I mean the question is this is not actual size though. This is not exercise. No, no The the I think the title of the lecture actual size later. It will sort of be explained It's funny because this whole talk was built as a conversation So we thought well, maybe we should have more like a conversation with the three of us also that whole Talk show set up with the chairs, but it's actually quite new for us because we actually don't really talk to each other We don't need to anymore So such a long time Yeah, but yet I mean the the question is why a book of course our work is already archived in quite an extensive way on our website and It's quite comfortable to have it on your website because it's not fixed in a way every time we go to our website And you see something we don't like we can just change it and so we had almost some kind of strange Problem to commit ourselves to print which is quite ironic because we are I mean in our work And but also in a writing we are always sort of reflecting on printed matter So it's quite a strange Thing that we weren't ready to take that jump ourselves to actually come out with a book of our work We just thought it was too scary in a way This is an example actually of Our website printed out there's a graphic designer called Jeremy answer from the Netherlands He studied at the at the workplace, and he came up with this quite wonderful system He he yet it is a piece of software basically it sucks out a Website and then you can print it out through Lulu So we were sort of looking At at this for a while Jeremy made this for us. It is basically a Sort of printed out version of our website and we Ordered a couple through Lulu which he sometimes gave her way to people But he still felt that if you really wanted to make like a proper monograph if if you could call it a proper Monograph that thing that we now made That we had to I don't know sort of relay to printed matter in a more precise way. I guess you could call it like that and then there's Roger Williams of Roma publisher and he just came in I saw My publications and he he asked us Throughout the years for several times If we didn't want to make a book with him about our work and We've been thinking about doing just that for quite some time What was really helpful is that he said some dates So he said so do you need a deadline and then we said yes, yes give us a deadline So he said okay. There's this book fair in in New York Maybe it maybe you can make the book for this book fair that was last year So now we're one actually we're only one year late But so he asked us again and this time we really already sort of found the things we wanted to talk about and found a way to Through other people actually I think yeah, one of the main reasons we we wanted to do that book was Roegers idea of well first of all he said to us just do the book and It's there's there's not a lot of weight on it if you if it doesn't work out well We can just do another book. So that's also why we just put volume one on it It has his promise of that you know it Otherwise, it would be just too to scary to just come out with this one single thing So we just see it as one in a series and on the other other hand, which is also quite interesting. We talked with Roger a couple of times and he seems to have this quite interesting Feeling that I Mean we also talked with some publishers. We were sometimes contacted by other publishers and they had this idea of Bringing out the book and getting it To the to the reader as quickly as possible through internet or something But roger has quite an interesting idea of the whole infrastructure between the book and the reader So he's quite interested in these book fairs little bookstores Exhibitions in this case and which is something that you also find quite interesting this Journey in a wave that the book makes from the publisher to the reader for us It can be as indirect as possible. It would be great if the book would end up in second-hand bookstores in South America or Libraries in Eastern Europe or actually it would be great if the people who bought it actually didn't like it and they Sell it to some of those bookstores that you see outside in New York and so actually Those were in a way the main motivations for for bringing out the book and we're now gonna sort of walk you through the book chapter by chapter or Yeah Yes starting with a cover in this case Thinking about what should be on the cover We we thought it was quite hard to come up with an image because there's so much weight on Put on a cover. I mean a book after all is judged by its cover and we thought that We we wanted to somehow make whatever was on there an arbitrary image something that wasn't Really designed by us, but just something that we found or otherwise stumbled upon and that's When we started experimenting With software That would make this design choices for the cover for us. So we came across this piece of software that's used mostly in the steel cutting industry and also wood cutting and What it does is calculate the most efficient way to put different shapes up on a field So it it's called nesting software. There's there's dozens of programs that do this but We decided to Try what try out what happens when we feed the alphabet through it and maybe if we would Stumble it up on something that we could use for the cover and that's What we did and this is this is part of the result Every time we fed another letter through the program it would calculate Another composition that was supposedly the most efficient use of space So that was the whole alphabet We used it on the cover mirrored maybe yeah Also, of course who emphasized this idea of of Statement and counterstatement so you get this two different arguments in a way mirroring each other There's also a sort of hidden reference in it with the the mirrored a that you see on the front cover It's a sort of reference to a poster that we always find quite Inspiring and it's a sort of poster we Think about a lot and we in a lot of lectures that we do we reflect on that poster is a poster designed in 1966 by Bernard Willem Holtrop. He's actually more like an illustrator. He's better known as an illustrator than an then than a designer he He became more like a comic artist later actually, but We always like this poster. It says March 10 day of anarchy. It's a it's supposed to connect it to the pro for movement Which is also a movement that we find quite inspiring It's basically an announcement of a protest march that would take place the 10th of March in 1966 The mirrored a of course representing the idea of of anarchy of anarchism for us. I mean when we reflect on the poster It also is a poster that has a lot to do with the idea of printing in general to print something often means that you Put something in negative something is either in negative or Mirrored or upside down and you print it and then it comes out in a positive way. So for us it sort of Refers also a little bit to the contrarian element of printing the idea that you Have to go through something negative to come up with something positive So this sort of that mirrored a for us was quite important to include on the cover of our book and then we Yeah, we showed the Book a couple of days ago or actually you showed it to your mother Sunday, I went to my mother's house Sunday. I went to my mother's house. I don't know I gave her the book and the first thing she says, oh that looks really nice. It looks just like the cover of Burst, which is a magazine my father published before He started the proof with his friends the Provo movement And this magazine called Provo, but this was actually a magazine he He published before and it has some I think some written pieces by my mother and It was only 19 or something. I don't even younger. I think even younger. Yeah and And the cover says says Burst. It means crack or drop that Depends on how you translate it. I think but um, and what is funny is that my uncle who is a graphic designer made the cover and so all of a sudden of course you see the Resemblance but before that it never even occurred to me Occurred to me So, yeah, yeah, that was last Sunday, so It's it's Yeah, this reluctancy to decide on a cover is something that we had More than once even when designing other people's books. We came across that and We're now going to show some examples of what we did with some of those books Oh, yeah, I mean the the point is that we often find covers I mean, I think in this lecture a lot of time I mean we were we were going through it this afternoon and We noticed that a lot of the problems we talk about and there are problems We never think in challenges or possibilities. We always think these are problems and a Lot of them have to do with always our sort of Well, we find the whole idea of representation always quite difficult while we're in a in of course in a in a discipline where the main goal might be exactly that representation reproduction and A lot of the books that we designed we always try to afford Indeed to make an actual cover. We always try to see the cover almost like a like a chapter in itself or some kind of zone or So we noticed that a lot of the books that we make have actually multiple covers or some kind of covers that are spread out over a lot of different Pages and this is an example of a recent book that we designed which actually published by Roma For a photographer named you Hannah Swartz tear garden, which means sue and we start the book with a sort of almost cinematic Yeah, but is it yeah a sort of chapter or We see it almost as a sort of architectural thing instead of a facade, which is more like the image or the surface It becomes in more like an like a corridor. Maybe that's that's a good Yeah, or a revolving door with the spiral binding it becomes a revolving door The rest of the book is actually quite Good, but we're not gonna show it today because we have to hurry up. Yeah, we have to hurry up This is where the what a jet lag kicks in We start slowing down But so this is a book that we designed in 2000 and we also here We start with a 20-page cover basically and we even repeat the the barcodes on each page it's it's just a sort of Reluctancy to choose the one final cover and this way you pretend that it could be this cup It could also be that cover could be that cover a sort of To also try to stay away from the iconic image in a way and to sort of de-iconize. It's a little bit The work that you that we used for this series of covers was I Forgot his name a Japanese photographer who Yeah, who only reproduces exactly only shows his photographs in printed reproductions in publications So that's why we found it interesting to Use this as the only colored images in this particular book which was about dreams and the rest of the book is We're only we're also not gonna show it but the rest of the book Only features images, but in monochrome combinations color combinations and another Example of a multi-cover book or in this case a magazine was issue 57 of emigre which was also in 2000 and We basically gave every format. I mean we were guest editors of this this magazine And it was about obsolete formats basically and we gave every format its own cover in a way There's also some kind of loading thing going on in the sense that the the little text get more and more Blue in a sense until you reach in a way the final cover and then the actual magazine starts So actually there. Yeah, there are a lot of different books that we made that always Feature did this idea of the the multiple cover This is an catalogue from 2001 the people's art a group exhibition that took place in in Rotterdam and here we actually Gave every artist its own dust cover So there were 20 artists and we printed 10 dust covers printed on both sides They were folded around it so you can put in a way choose your own cover These were also the only images in the in the book basically I mean we Book itself only contained texts and now we're going to show you front and back of each of those dust covers No, but the point is that this idea of the multiple cover we didn't do it with our own monograph but At the same time we sort of did I mean we tried to put this whole alphabet in there that Automatically arrange alphabet that we showed earlier somehow we couldn't make it fit But for us it's it's still very much connected to the book So we actually took it out of the book and turn it into a separate scene which is the booklet that of Course and I talked about Earlier and that We will hand out to those interested if they want it for free and we see that scene almost as a sort of Extended version of the cover or some kind of making off of the cover No, you used the word appendix It's almost like a pen something we took out and we took it out in a quite literal way because it was on the same printing plate as The book it was literally, you know, so it was extra free space to be used in a way Half section of there was half a section left for us to use for this appendix So then going through the book even further you get to the opening quote We only on the on the third page of the book basically This is a quote that means quite a lot to us. We I mean it's a it's a quote by Walter Bayman we first came across it in 2007 then for an assignment we were working on it on the graphic identity of an French cultural Institute called a song Katra a hundred and four and that Institute was basically housed in a roofed street so pretty much like a passage or an arcade and Around that time we sort of are looking into French arcades passages Yeah, these sort of cast iron galleries and We naturally came across the arcade's project this book by by Walter Bayman and we sort of Studied the book and we used in our sketches that we made for the sound Katra We use a lot of his quotes for some reason we Because we quite like the idea how we describe the role of language in the city in in Paris in the case of that of that particular book and because we wanted to design the Graphic identity and assign it in the form of almost street furniture We thought it would make sense to incorporate all these quotes from the arcade's project In the graphic identity, which eventually never really happened But in the sketching project you cannot really read it here, but there are all these quotes by Walter Bayman Incorporated in the signage and that quote about the statement and counter statement and all the letters Getting faces that really spoke to us Because we thought it was quite a nice metaphor for the role of printed matter in the city this idea that all these Linguistic signs are sort of talking to each other in a way. So that same year in 2007. We were also Doing a poster exhibition in an in a gallery in Melbourne the narrows and Then we first use that quote outside of that lasang Katra assignment and this is usually how we Handle theory in a sense. We're not really theoretical People and we don't really have a theoretical background or philosophical Background or we didn't I mean the read felt where we studied is sort of famous for its Non theoretical approach, I think I mean we I mean not non theoretical, but maybe more I don't know. It's more integrated in the doing. You know, there's not a big divide between the thinking and the doing But it's it's sort of integrated in it. So we every time we Come across theories or ideas or like in this case Walter Benjamin's Sort of language It's always through an assignment. It's always through a project that we pick it up and then we also automatically use it In in other projects and it also becomes part of our way of thinking in a way and with Walter Benjamin this really happened in a sort of quite a sort of Well profound way and this quote always keeps popping up throughout her work Yeah, and that's why it's all also featured in a book in more than one Way This is another example of where we used the same quote It might be familiar to some people here It was in an exhibition where Ellen was the co-curator. I mean Ellen and Andrew Blaufeld they co-curated this show called Graphic design now in production it started in a walker and then it went into some kind of Endless touring schedule. It was almost like the the grateful the grateful death of touring graphic design Exhibitions it just went on and I think it's a touring probably somewhere in some part of that But anyway, it ended up at a certain point here in at the At the Govnes Island at the Govnes Island thing so And this is how it was installed at the walker and how it ended up Those light boxes were never really our idea Originally we designed those posters or how Andrew Presented us or made us the proposal he asked us if you wanted to make posters that would be hung hanged Displaced this plate and now one of them you use only for people that are centers to death and yet I want for pose a hang and hang they would be displayed in bus shelters and so a light boxes anyway, but That didn't happen, but they were featured as light boxes in the exhibition And I think the the best thing I like about it that quote is I mean when we explain it We often say to people that it's sort of refers to the flanneur walking through this sort of 19th century Paris looking at all the posters and the Signs and but it's actually a quote that is about it wasn't a chapter in the in the arcades Projects about reading under the influence of hushies. So it's actually a sort of stoner quote So we thought it was quite funny to start a book with this complete sort of Stoner quote looks kind of marijuana reference Okay, so this is the surprise part of the No, we live first first. I mean First maybe we have to talk about the fact that the first person we asked to write a piece was actually Linda She knows us the best ways She was our teacher when we were studying at the Rietveld and she remained a really good friend And I think Mariko already knew her before studying Right Yeah, and she's She's a good friend and she's always Encouraged us in a huge way and when when we asked her to Come up with a piece she actually came up with three and None of those pieces pieces were About us, which we also very like because they they were about us of course in a very indirect way But more important is that we want to ask her if she could read it for you So I'm gonna make way now, and I hope that Linda Is up for it She's a really good reader, so Also gives me time to take a nap Here's the microphone. Thank you Have you enough light? So basically Linda wrote three different pieces that are about three specific locations Actually reflecting on three different photographs, and this is the first photograph Out of the book. Yes I had collected three pictures, and I was always trying to force my one of my students to turn it into a project but no one ever wanted to and then I was sort of I Was always thinking I really want to do something with it, and when this question came up I thought okay, maybe I have to try myself But since these pictures were rather loaded they were all like Let's say modernist pieces of architecture or moments of modernism in photography I Chickened out I was thinking I can't do this. This is just too heavy this this subject matter, and then I I did something else. I wrote an entire different piece for them, and then I told them that it was done, and I Wanted to keep it for a while to just think about it and Then I thought it was really bad, and I I didn't really think it suited them at all I thought it was pretentious and so I went back to these pictures and then and I wrote these things and quite fast And I think that that kind of anyway, let's not make too long I mean I hope this is not too long anyway I'm just gonna read the first one, and I didn't time it, but I'm I assume it's a rather Let's just see how long it is Okay Okay 26 Rudi de Paris Pete Mondrian's studio at 26 Rudi de Paris doesn't exist anymore But a life-size replica of it functions as a tabling as a traveling time capsule Perhaps it was Mondrian's intention that the studio would survive and travel Because in 1926 he invited a photographer to capture the space He had worked for four years on this three-dimensional elaboration of his ideas on form and color From this session we know of three pictures the replica built in 1994 was included in the 2011 exhibition Mondrian de Stel at Santa Pompidou in Paris. I Can't recall what if visitors were actually allowed to enter. I believe so What I do remember about the studio were the bad copies of Mondrian's paintings The originals were shown outside the space and the differences and the difference was obvious What were the criteria for this one-on-one model? Isn't the life-size model always just a stage set with props? Only the stove looked authentic to me Also, the way the black and white pictures were rendered into color seemed arbitrary. I Read that the actual paintings were used to determine the colors But also that there was something strange about the black and white film in the prints Yellow became black and blue paler than yellow. What's more the exposure wasn't even Looking at the pictures of the studio. I'm again struck by the antique iron stove The fields of color the geometry the immateriality of Mondrian's light Interventions are in sharp contrasts with the cast iron form which is dark heavy and decorated to boot The photographer could not capture the space without having the stove in the picture It's placed almost at the center of the studio Probably to heat the small room as effectively as possible Yet, I can't imagine Mondrian was happening with the shape of the stove If this stove was contemporary then Mondrian's work was outright spectacular futuristic even In an outdated press release. I read that Mondrian will get his own website The site has since been realized and there I read about the importance of the studio to Mondrian's work. I Continue my search and end up on astro arts pseudo scientific website that attempts to explain Mondrian's artistic development in us in astrological terms Here I find several citations from artist friends who knew the studio says our Domela Mondrian always cursed that round stove, but he had to stay warm, too. I Also found various websites Dedicated to the history of the iron stove It turns out to be a salamander a Multifuel stove that only needs to be filled once a day To the France she's chouffre affect the salamander. I Read that almost 25,000 stove of stoves of this type were manufactured between 1800 18 1883 and 1953 and that they're still being produced One of the best known and larger largest manufacturers of these stoves was go down Maybe the one in Mondrian's studio was a go down. I Can't make out the brand and I can't find a match for this exact model It could be in a way. I wanted to be a go down Jean-Baptiste André Godin the producer of the stove was a socially engaged engaged industrialist His progressive ideas were derived from the work of Charles Fourier the utopian socialist thinker In the mid 19th century Godin built a social palace for his employees in Guise in France in France in This utopian community his employees lived as a collective with vegetable gardens a shop a school compulsory for children Medical services a theater a chapel and the pool at their disposal Godin involved his employees in the well-being of the community and the company and the company to such an extent That he gradually placed the entire business in their hands This cooperative lasted from 1880 until 1968 Once again, I look at the pictures of the studio For all those years this stove was standing in the studio and now an identical model stands in the replica of the studio The stove as tangible evidence of the socialist ideals of a successful businessman who was progressive in a truly unique way Perhaps just as radical and driven as Mondrian The picture now functions as an optical illusion similar to Rubens vase forcing my mind to choose I See an antique stove misplaced in sharp contrast with its experimental surroundings I see a joyous decor framing the stately mass-produced stove Thank you Linda Yeah, thank you. So this was the the one fun element in the in the lecture the the surprise guest But I mean the the other articles are really nice as well They function almost as some kind of little route through the book or three locations sort of Forming some kind of Root right kind of geographical triangle. Yeah so the next Chapter in the book would be written by Mark Owen who also happens to be in the audience, but we won't ask him to To ask his essay also because it's quite long actually But the reason why we ask mark to write an essay for us had a lot to do with an essay that he wrote in 2003 That's our publish in dot dot dot soft modernist in which I Mark sort of conjured up the image of that whole Landscape of paperback publishing in the 60s and 70s in in in the States this sort of almost Pop scientific Infrastructure of books that were pushing all these radical political ideas and subversive ideas into the American mainstream and and the way mark wrote about that Was quite a sort of inspiring Yeah was was quite inspiring to us and we thought well if you ever make a book then We wanted to be a paperback. I will ask him to write in it and we asked him to write in it So that's a going full circle in a way Yeah, I mean paperbacks What's interesting about paperbacks is also the fact that they Seem to gravitate towards each other through their size when you go to a secondhand book market And you see the crates and all the paperbacks Sort of standing next to each other and you you can see Lovecraft horror stories next to Books about Freud next to I mean you got all this whole universe of different ideas These are just random examples that we put from our Bookshelf, but for us it I mean all these books hang together while they're wildly different in subject But it's almost as if the different size The standardized size Sort of make them relate to each other almost in a way number think about it that the tall statement and Counter-stainment thing or something they they sort of seem to have some kind of dialogue with each other and So yeah, that's why we always thought if you ever make a paperback or if you ever make a book It has to be a paperback because this is then the infrastructure that we're most interested in that sort of strange Twilight zone of different Ideas that have seemed to contradict each other, but at the same time seem connected to each other Actually the piece that mark wrote for us is not about paperbacks at all. It's actually about a really interesting subject the format of the power trio the three-piece band in particular bands that exist of To two guys and one girl or two male and one female person so That is Yeah, it's it's it's but like I said we want as mark to come up to read the whole thing because it's quite a long long essay Then the next essay This is actually the sort of image section and Yeah, we've we've always had difficulties with I Representing our work through other media so whenever Magazines or books asked us to send in photos of our work. We were always quite reluctant Not in the first place because we were really bad photographers But all the way also because we found it difficult to take graphic design out of its context most of the work that we make is is Designed for a specific context and we thought for a long time that it could only function within that context And when you take it out of it, then you would be left with something that's I Don't know empty or dead. It's quite a pure as we had kind of sort of pure is quite dogmatic few and we were quite Conscious of that whole Context thing and it felt false to sort of take it out of that context and show it in a different way But more and more we noticed that we were becoming Actually quite interested in a couple of cases that somehow magazines reproduced our work. We were actually quite interested in a sort of Decontextualizing of the work So more and more we began to understand that it's actually quite an interesting thing how all this work is translated from From one medium to another medium Yeah, and this image is actually an image of Lecture that we did in Barcelona in 2003 or it's 2003 absolutely. Yeah, it was one of the first Chances we had to show our work in an international Yeah, it was a conference. Yeah and we decided to To show the way that magazines Portrayed our work because up until that time Whenever magazines asked us to share to send in work we would actually send in the work and not images of the work and Sometimes when we like the way that they use the Material we asked them if we could use the images for other magazines or our publications and sometimes that would result in interesting Details For example here on the left you see a Photo that was made a detail of a photo that was made of Elysian fields So the book we showed before in idea magazine. I think it was And we liked the the slides and it was somebody that flipped through the book and we asked if we could use them And then on the right you see and these are actual slides by the way This was a time that that we yeah, we got the actual slides and we sent them into another publication that requested work and they They put the images on a black background, but what was even more intriguing was that they photo Shipped the text out of the book So actually that that whole lecture that we did in Barcelona 2003 was only about this kind of Things but what I do remember was also that all the publishers were in the audience so That made it quite it was like Institutional yeah institutional critique. Yeah. Yeah, I hope to learn something from it If there's a publisher in this room So but what we're actually doing now is sort of sketching the evolution of the way we sort of Represent our work so in the beginning we were sort of reluctant or we didn't do it at all And then we became more interested in it also to do something with vanity I think we also were afraid that we would never we would disappear from From history or something in the moment that we decided to to when magazines requested it do send him work because yeah Before that we said no no we won't do it and then we did it because we said yeah, maybe it just we would just disappear and Yeah, but maybe it's not only venting. Maybe it's also the fact that you think that there is something as a design history so And you're you're you're you're you're also working in in that so maybe it's good to be more conscious about how you Contribute to it. So actually it was kind of a positive thing absolutely true and this is exactly when this came in I mean This was a next phase where we actually sort of Over-represented our work on our website and we photographed it in quite a sort of analytical way and Wide background and quite long extensive stories about the work Yeah, the first iterations of our own website were Works in itself we thought that a Website site should function as a as a work but later on we we Got more interested at as in the internet as an archive as an ever-expanding Archive and we thought that we We found it interesting to show our work in a more elaborate way and more detailed way And also keep Contributing to this whole archive. So so in the beginning of our studio we kept on working for our Physical archive we had a bookcase in which we had all our work and we Kept on saying to each other that we should feed the Feed the archive, but now we work more for our own website So that was also a particular step So for the book we wanted to find a diff yet another way to represent our work And that is basically in this chapter. We tried scanning in all our work Or not all our work and selection of work in actual size skill one-on-one and There were a couple of reasons first of all We quite I mean we did some experiments with different ways of showing our work But we thought that was quite a sort of tactile and quite direct way of showing work also a nice Complementary thing with the website in a way here you could actually see the work and and zoom in on specific details Also the scanning sort of brought a different aesthetic to it Maybe a bit more harder and it's almost the objective eye of the scanner with the the lens you can still manipulate Innovated distance and but when you really want to do this skill one-on-one thing this actual size thing You really have to do it with a scanner even the black background add something different to it It suddenly becomes a different sort of emptiness the why I mean white space is empty in a way with I mean With the white cube and but black also has a another emptiness in a way maybe more cinematic or something I don't know but It's yes, maybe we're negative against the positive of the white of in a way we were thinking about it in this way and and So we basically scan in our work on the next wall size It was hard. I mean we also wanted to get some some Tech technology in it have physicalness in it. So we also Didn't want to push the work completely flat To the glass in a way we really wanted to bring out the wrinkles and for example here on the on the left You see a t-shirt so you can see the wrinkles of the shirt But maybe we can go to the I'm pretty sure we get Very quickly to the image of the con the sort of little construction that we build the high tech technical device that we used Actually now look at it it it's almost connected to the Mondrian studio It's like a little read felt Pavilion Yeah I'm also looking at the time here. Maybe we could we should do this Chapter and then flipped through the chapters after this quite quickly. I don't know But I don't know how we're with time. I understood after a there's a fire drill thing going on here Yeah, so The Okay, so we actually one of the things that we Wanted to do with this book was not include any of our own writing in it because We thought that would be such a liberating thing We always get a bit tired of our writing not only the writing itself, but also well, especially the reading of it It's so yeah, but that's true every time we look at our own website Which we don't even do that often but when we read our own writing you get so Tired of it and it's almost this background like your own voice Like like you have here in a way so we So we actually thought we're not gonna do any writing did this will be you know if people want to to see the the sort of The explanation of the context of the work they can go to the website this will be completely Defoyed of any any of her writing, but we sort of changed our mind and it is because at that time We were rereading some of the old issues of research Research this sort of post punk publication from San Francisco From the 80s it grew out of search and destroy this sort of legendary fencing and Research was this amazing series of books with all these interviews with bands and especially the more industrial bands like throbbing Gristle and board rise All but also burrows ballards Yeah, all those that that whole sort of Industrial scene that came up after after punk I think in California and we quite like that sort of heavy dance Interview format you got this very long interviews and sometimes the interviews just ended and it just said Tape stops here or stuff like that. It was but also the share Quantity of it and we thought okay, maybe maybe we should add some of our own writing and then especially the interviews and we were especially Glad with the idea that all these interviews would sort of even each other out So when we say something dumb and we say quite a lot of dumb stuff sometimes We look back at our own writing and we said oh god. Why did we said that? but it gets immediately even out by something else so you get this sort of Development of thinking sometimes you can see how we are sort of Well really making a journey from one position to another position through these interviews in that sense John John Sveta by the way, he was the person who who was so Brave to take of the job because we sent them hundreds of different interviews and questionnaires and and He had to go through all it and he was you know, so so brave to actually take on this job and Structure and put some kind of structure in it But in a way, it's also critical anthology he quite shows that we just keep on repeating ourselves repeating ourselves Changing very subtle things until in the end. We're saying exactly the opposite of where we began with so we're always making this Circles in a way, but sort of fits with that idea of statement and counter statement still so it's all It still fits together in a way It's almost 50,000 words that that section, which I just I was reading something and I just noticed that it's a size of a small novel So it's actually like a small novel of all this of all this stuff The next section may yeah, we just go through this very quickly the next section exist mostly of us more spatial work Yes that and Also a lot of the work that you see in the scant section, but then in context because we still have this Trouble with taking things out of the context and we tried to come up with ways to show More of the context in this section actually but Whereas the first the At a scant section is is kind of claustrophobic because you're so up close to the work here. We just collected and Almost randomly combined work from different projects In an associative way or We try to show things that you saw in the earlier in the book But now you recognize them for for for what they are And I mean we we named those two chapters in situ and exit to but actually one of the first site as we were thinking of us Indeed claustrophobia and agoraphobia, which is the fear of open spaces. We thought well that gives a nice sort of psychological Spin to it, but in situ and exit you was also quite Quite good because we felt like cheating I mean one of the first things we tried to do with that more spatial work was to I mean first we were thinking how can we could we get that into the scanning section we Were thinking about scanning in photographs of it and presenting it next to the printed matter But it felt like cheating because we were actually printing out Images only to scan it in and we thought it sort of messed up that whole actual size story that was happening in the In the in the first section then after that Ian Svanonius is another person that has been quite an influence on us So we also asked him to write a piece for the book in 92 We first saw him perform in this Amsterdam club called Cossack off really great club But it doesn't exist anymore. It is a band nation of Ulysses. That was a 92. Yeah, these are just some Records that we found we have a lot more of his records, but these are just some records from our own collection basically Oh, yeah, that's no, it's not some of them are but but in in In 2000 we actually already asked him to write a piece for us for that issue of emigrate that we showed earlier and He was so nice to write a piece for us, which was also about the band As a format in a way although a different angle than mark is doing in the paper back right now, but I mean his way of thinking is always is quite good Sort of mixing all this pop cultural elements with with political elements around that same time We also wrote that he also sent a text to us That we found really good and we wanted to hang on to it because we wanted to do something with it But he never managed to do it and a steward Bailey came into the studio and he sold a text And he said oh, this is great. Can I use it and we were kind of Protective of it, but in the end we didn't know what to do with it So we said to suit it. Okay, you can use it and he he published it in dot dot dot and we wrote the Forward for it the introduction for it actually, but anyway, he also wrote a great Piece and yeah, glad that we that we yeah that he did it and Then we actually asked him to write horoscopes. We actually asked him to write a horoscope Yeah, and he didn't do that which is too bad because actually Linda mentions horoscopes She just heard hers talking about the horoscopical website that she was looking at In a Mondrian piece and we thought wow if yeah, I mean it would Hang even better together all the essays if if Ian would have written horoscopes because we asked him specifically to write horoscopes because he Did that also for this magazine called Arthur magazine he wrote he wrote horoscopes, so we thought well, that's a nice little It's also it's also nice people always think of us as some kind of functionalist Positivist reductionist Systematic people and we think yeah, we're just gonna do something really occult with a horoscope thing But he didn't he wrote something completely different quite a nice piece about this the destruction of language in a way So yeah, this the destruction of the alphabet And we end the book with this quote by Wim Crowell He was actually I mean we asked him to write a blurb for us a blurb It's always such a funny worthy thing blurb, but yeah, we asked him to write a blurb But it was almost too positive or to flattering what he wrote to Congratulatory which is of course whole purpose of a blur, but it we felt really awkward about it So we didn't use it and we asked him if he could use an old quote And we we quite like this quote because it there's something ambiguous about it people always see Crowell as the systematic person and here he sort of Refuse or admits that his systematic way of working only comes out a more sloppy way of thinking and then he He suggests that actually people who work in a more sloppy way that these are actually the systematic thinkers so there's also this sort of statement and counter statement coming on here and we thought it's nice to end the the book in this way Because maybe people are then thinking well, but did we just see was it a sort of something that is quite systematic, but then Something that came out out of sloppy thinking or is it actually something sloppy that came out of systematic thinking But we can review it just something sloppy that came out of sloppy thinking So that is sort of the way how we how we end the book here and As you see on the slides here in 98 We're kind of short selling you. I'm sorry. Yeah, because 99 is empty and then we With hundred we just show the the actual book and the scene and actually like we said after the I guess there will be some kind of Q&A or conversation but after that we make sure that the the scenes are Somewhere there and you can now but we'll do that upstairs because we're gonna do that upstairs Oh, sorry every living room early, so we're gonna give you that scenes upstairs. Sorry. Yeah, and that was it basically So that that was amazing and it was so fun to have surprise Talent I felt like we were on the Colbert report or something and some somebody So I have a few questions and I know the audience are very distinguished audience will have questions, too I was very intrigued by how you end with this idea of the sloppy and the regular And I was you know curious because I think often you are associated with this highly Pristine and systematic point of view But in some of our emails in fact you pointed out how you don't really want to be considered that way and and so maybe just to talk briefly about this idea of rationality and system and Your resistance of that despite the appearance of it in your work Well, I mean that The language I mean we are very Conscious that we refer to a certain language that people refer to as a sort of functionalist design language But we we refer to it. We think in quite a sort of subjective way and we are in a way a Referring to a language in which we grew up Basically, I mean we Said at a couple of time before so people who heard this before bear witness But we did go up in this sort of visual landscape They were sort of made by these designers like them Crowell and did those studios like total design and we those That language sort of shaped us and we now Yeah, I mean we cannot really Deny that but after that, I mean this was in the 70s. I think that sort of last moment of what they then refer to as late modernism or or functionalism That was in the 70s when we were pre-teens then we in our teen-age years in the 80s We were then quite interested in Post punk, I think you can refer to it as post punk too young to actually be involved in the real punk explosion of 77 and but Involved in all these subcultures like psychobilly and Yeah, that those kind of the scar thing to tone and That whole world in a way and that also made a huge impact on us And then in the 90s when we were in art Academy that whole grunge thing actually started Which also had a huge impact on us. I mean we are named after a Sonic youth album, of course so so in a way we feel that we sort of synthesized all those different influences and That functionalist language is sort of filtered through a much more Subjective and much more personal Yeah, much more personal reference frame in a way and I'm pretty sure that the way we regard Crow or the or the reason why we really like them crow and that language is not the reason why they like it We actually like it because it has this sort of almost tragic quality in it or poetic quality it is in a way about How a lot of those ideals were ultimately not realized So there's also a sort of bittersweet bittersweet quality in it Which is actually one of the reason why we like it in the in the first place that sort of more You have set quality of it in a way Yeah, even a bit retro active or something. So are there questions or comments from the audience? I'd love to hear your point of view and we have a microphone going around so that our Internet audience can also Hear what you're saying. Thanks Sure Thank you very very much for the talk and for all the work is very inspiring and Well, my question had to do with actually one of your systems probably being transgressed So I wanted to get your opinion on that and I was surprised a few months ago by seeing the latest and advertising campaign of the Whitney Museum and And actually the W Seating partially on top of images instead of occupying the white space of the given context, so I Wanted to hear from you to what extent and you will consider that being a transgression of the system And what will be the implications of the identity actually now pointing to specific Things on the content rather than emphasizing the the context and of the of the printer piece See, these are the kinds of questions that only happen at a graphic design event is fantastic This is cool. Yeah, yeah Actually the the graphic system that we came up with for the Whitney Museum of American art is Maybe the first time that we made something Where we knew from the start of we wouldn't be the ones working with it So we made it as free as possible and at the same time as restricted as possible I think But we like we like seeing what what happens with it because it's it's a living thing But it's still every time we see something that comes out. We still feel like we we are the ones that made it which is a really strange feeling and Yeah, I don't know about the specific Iterations of it, but you're not furious not at all. I'm really I'm really glad seeing I Just want to say something that we're not just saying it because actually Hillary Greenbaum the head of the graphic design department of the Whitney is here as well Welcome together with Jeff Levine from the marketing department So but welcome Jeff But it is but it is true that we actually I mean whether you court transgressive or I mean We we quite like to see the way that it is translated and it's almost one of the most interesting Parts of it and you sometimes don't know what's scary or when you see a piece of the Whitney if you I mean If it if it looks like something that we have made it's it's scary And if it looks like something we haven't made it scary, but it's always exciting at the same time like having children Yeah, a few more minutes for questions, and then we have to participate in the fire drill But not really now. We'll be going upstairs and you can see the book and get a beautiful free shiny type filled artifact of Incredible value Only you only you Questions I Can't believe graphic designers who don't have something to say I Have another question then um, you know, I think there's so much intellectual thought in your work and so much that brings it in my mind to the level of art and yet a Commitment to utility and a commitment to the idea of use and pragmatics and things Existing in the world and I wonder if you could just speak to And maybe Marika could talk about this, but how you feel in relation to art and Because you bring your the discourse of your work to such a high level and yet I also feel a kind of commitment to the graphic design as being enough in a way Is it enough graphic design? Okay The microphone works Well, actually we we are brought up in a country that Had a social democratic system, which we are very proud of were very proud of because it's changing quite rapidly and There was never a distinction between art and and and design in our opinion and I have to say that I Think that the level of design in Holland was at such a great interesting level Because of that fact So it's not that I don't think that's necessarily us. It's the way we are taught. It's the way we are brought up and Yeah, it's really certain it really saddens me that I think that this is going down the drain quite rapidly in a way because the Distinction is getting wider and wider Yeah, so that the fact that graphic design was very much integrated in society and not just Yeah, I'm not sure where this is going But but not every designer lavishes the The the the level of inquiry that you bring to your work is why all these people are here, right? Because you have brought a level of inquiry to the thing we love While still letting it be what it is which is it also has to do with education. I think I mean Linda always I don't mean she's here, but she also always brought Books of artists to school. I mean, I don't think We discussed graphic designs so much but more Like all the other stuff that were was going on Yeah, we were trained at an art academy. So we we see ourselves really as graphic designers everything that we do We we always regarded as graphic design even if you wouldn't say it from the outside or so but We we really value art, but we see ourselves as graphic designers Well, I think maybe maybe one one more thing to add. I think that there there's something because Marieke brought up Dutch society in general, of course We also worked in the in the in the States here, of course, and you can see it Still, you know in a way a difference in the way indeed art and design is perceived and also the difference between art and design in the Netherlands Or maybe in Europe in general. They're having all these movements like the stelle like Bauhaus or Russian constructivism, which isn't of course Europe, but it's still you know influential in Europe So there was always this idea of a sort of unified Energy or unified language in a way you went to the museum and you saw the the the Mondrian painting next to the Rietveld chair and Maybe some piece of beats right design next to it and it made sense to see them together We noticed that Well, for for example at in the in the Whitney Museum it It's very clear that there aren't a design museum, but an art museum and There maybe the artist is more seen as a sort of gifted Privileged almost this sort of them. I got you know, you got this more Pollock like idea of the singular the gesture the more the heroic American figure or something against a more collective Yeah, the more collective way in which design and art are integrated in Europe ideally Of course, it has been changing and but still there's still this sort of Sense I think in a in a way, I mean in a lot of the some of the critique level at us if you if I mean Sometimes I mean sometimes you come across people who said well They're sort of mining art movements and then using it for design. We don't see it