This week I received an email update from Amanda Palmer where she wrote about the notion of being in and “indie power couple”. This was how she and Neil Gaiman (her partner) were described by a fan, who tagged her in a Twitter post where there were some pictures of her and Nail together.
Except in one of the pictures Neil was not there (top right), but a friend of Amanda, Blake who inspired her to write songs. And Blake was inspired from Amanda to be a living statue. Both inspired each other and acted as each other’s muses for some time.
This has happened to her also with Brian Viglione, with whom she started The Dresden Dolls before she went in her solo career. She said journalists always asked them “are you a couple? are you a couple?” and their stock answer was “yeah, a couple of freaks”.
She concluded with the notion of “indie power couple” as “someone who is in an artistic or otherwise-collaborative brain-soul-love-affair with An Other.”, and wished that “to all my artists out there – may you have thousands of indie-power-partnerships through your life …. and may it never be boring”.
TeYosh – Teodore and Sofija. Picture from http://teyosh.com/
Then the theme remained because this weekend I had the opportunity to meet and work with another “indie power couple”. Their names are Teodore and Sofija and together they are Teyosh, design thinkers and digital artists, whose work connects design with social topics, particularly contemporary relationships between technology and society.
For background, I am working in a collaborative project for SickLAB, an interdisciplinary research initiative in which we are investigating the notion of “modding realities“. We will present our work at the end of this month at The Overkill festival with an interactive installation, and I have enjoyed the process so much because I got to learn from people whose work inspires me, and they have impacted our process and final product, so to an extent it feels like a co-creation.
Teyosh work particularly resonated with me in terms of the topics they analyse and their design aesthetics. During their introduction talk they shared their working philosophy: work on projects you would like to be hired for. Basically work on projects that you like to do. All their clients have approached them because they like what they see and adhere to their philosophy. Which made me question my current processes and personal projects. Am I working in the things I would like to continue working? What should I invest more of my time and energy on?
They are also working on an interactive installation for the festival, and I, as a perceptive observer, learned how as designers they care a lot about the details: the way you present your work is as important as the work itself. The main elements of their installation are smartphones, but the way they will make it inviting for people to try the experience is where you get to understand the importance of design and art curation.
This is the second observation I also learned from marie, co-director and curator of the festival, who I currently think of as one of my power-partnerships, because she also asked us about the way we intend to present our work. Which made me reflect about my resourcefulness: I like to make things work without necessarily having to spend in things that might be not needed. And I think she would agree with me on this aspect, because this festival has a lot of a DIY elements, but if there is budget for caring about the details, hiding cables, buying gear, having the proper furniture, then why not use the budget for what it is needed to make the experience a remarkable one. Because it is not that we are cheap, it is just that sometimes we just think in terms of “making it work”. This is something that will stay with me and the way I work, learn where to make the sacrifices and where to actually invest in something because it adds value, because the details matter.
After the weekend I was feeling worried about not being able to integrate all the insights and what I have learned in our final product for the festival, but a core message of our installation is to remember that “this is not the true ending”. So I give myself the chance to think of my work as continuously changing and adapting, I am sure we will learn a lot from the experience at this festival, so maybe we can bring our installation to other festivals and it will be different. Thinking that I still have a lot of projects and things to do is relieving, so for sure there will be the opportunity to apply and continue learning in the process. Exciting!
Unrelated thought: talking about details, this post contained the word work many times that it feels like a Rihanna song. Anyhow, I must be tired.