OK Talk is a platform for bringing people together to discuss and develop the societal role and practices of the creative field. It combines different skills and approaches in events and publications with the aim to generate critical discourse, including asking relevant questions, raising insight and bringing forth tools for designers and artists to put to use.

OK Talk WDC discussion in June 2011 with Carson Chan, Kaarina Gould, Tommi Laitio and us. Photo courtesy of Bernhard Ludewig.

The OK Talk session at DMY opened up a discussion around alternative models of creative practice in Helsinki and Berlin, while reflecting on their value and support structures. The hour-long talk was accompanied by short presentations on different aspects to the topic by each of the participants.

Participants

Carson Chan, Architecture Writer and Curator / PROGRAM

Carson Chan presented PROGRAM, an initiative for art and architecture collaborations that tests the disciplinary boundaries of architecture through exhibitions, events and a residency programme in Mitte, Berlin and online.

Kaarina Gould, Programme Director / World Design Capital Helsinki 2012

Kaarina Gould presented Helsinki’s agenda for the World Design Capital 2012 project, which uses design to support cultural, social, and economic development in the city. The year of events under the theme ‘Open Helsinki’ aims to set a global standard, while serving as a meeting place for the world’s design community.

Tommi Laitio, Researcher / Demos Helsinki

Tommi Laitio presented his work on cultural politics and citizen participation with Demos Helsinki, a think tank for developing democracy to suit the needs and capabilities of the 21st century and the Dutch platform Premsela’s Republic of Design programme, striving to stimulate the development of design into an open cultural field.

Anni Puolakka & Jenna Sutela, Writers and Curators / OK Do

Anni Puolakka and Jenna Sutela presented a residency project that turns empty spaces in different cities into arenas of site-specific collaboration as well as temporary homes for OK Do, their peripatetic creative practice and online journal for bridging design, art and society.

Carson Chan, Kaarina Gould and Tommi Laitio. Photo courtesy of Bernhard Ludewig.

The event also saw the launch of ‘OK Talk Helsinki/London’, a book drawing from a series of earlier OK Talk discussions between twenty Finland- and UK-based designers, artists and theorists in autumn 2010. In addition to the best parts of the talks, the publication widens the discourse, offering new perspectives to design through essays, interviews and visual material. It is edited by OK Do and designed by Åh, including contributions by Åbäke, Bryan Boyer, Martti Kalliala, Zak Kyes, Markus Miessen, Karen Mirza, Anni Puolakka, Jenna Sutela, Teemu Suviala and Finn Williams.

The project has been supported by World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, The Finnish Institute in London and British Council Finland.

Photos courtesy of Petri Henriksson.

Instead of presenting the Science Poems book from A to Z, we decided to do it through chemical substances and compounds from NH to OH in respect to NH4Cl + C2H5OH, the drink recipe of the evening.

NH4Cl + C2H5OH is a mix of Ammonium Chloride (NH4Cl), the building material of carbon black coloured Finnish candy called salmiakki [something most Finnish people remember making in their chemistry classes at school] and Hydroxyl-Carbon compound (C2H5OH) also known as alcohol.

Following this pattern, here’s a summary of the evening:

NH (Nitrogen + Hydrogen = Ammonium) stands for National Herbarium such as The Komarov Botanical Institute Herbarium in Russia, which hosts a collection of over seven million specimens of plants and fungi, many of them digitised in the institute’s virtual library from which Anna presented her selection.

Photo courtesy of Petri Henriksson.

Cl (Chloride) is for Celestial, or Céleste. Accordingly, Anni, in Paris at the moment, read mnemonics for remembering planet names on Skype. One of them went like this: Mon Vieux Tu M’as Jeté Sur Une Nouvelle Planète. However, as it was announced, the mnemonic was perhaps a little old-fashioned since Pluto was recently deemed not a planet at all. In 2006, The International Astronomical Union expelled it from the planetary club, calling it a dwarf planet not big enough to clear smaller bodies close to it.

Photo courtesy of Petri Henriksson.

C (Carbon) stands for Cargo cult science, a term coined by physicist Richard Feynman in the 1970s to negatively characterise research in the soft sciences (e.g. psychology and psychiatry) which he deemed pseudo-scientific. In addition to his science critique, Feynman is known for popularising the field of physics with accessible explanations. Inspired by his stories about a teeming nano-world for a 1983 BBC interview ‘Physics is Fun to Imagine’ as well as Yoko Ono’s proposal pieces for the artist’s book Grapefruit, Jenna presented her interpretations on Feynman’s thoughts as event scores to create an experience of science.

H (Hydrogen) is for Hollow sphere – particularly one composed entirely of carbon. We read about this sphere, buckminsterfullerene, from the glossary of the Science Poems book:

Buckminsterfullerene or buckyball (C60) is the smallest carbon molecule, fullerene, in which no two pentagons share an edge. It is also the most common in terms of natural occurrence, as it can often be found in soot. The structure of C60 is a truncated icosahedron, which resembles a soccer ball. The molecule was named by scientists after Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), an American architect, author and futurist. He developed numerous inventions, the best known of which is the geodesic dome shaped like a fullerene. The American sci-fi author Bruce Sterling (b. 1954) later coined the neologism buckyjunk, referring to future, difficult-to-recycle consumer waste made of buckminsterfullerenes.

OH (Oxygen + Hydrogen = Hydroxyl) stands for Laurie Anderson’s track ‘Let X=X’, starting from its third sentence, “Oh boy. Right again…”, marking the end of our presentation.

Photo courtesy of Petri Henriksson.

Finally, we made NH4Cl + C2H5OH and listened to Martti Kalliala’s ‘DNA Junk’ (download by right clicking), a base pair sequence of non-genomic DNA translated into notes through MIDI and played by a Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser.

A hill with a hole. "Paper architecture" by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin from the book Brodsky & Utkin: The Complete Works (Princeton Architectural Press, 2003).

The backward world

Recently in Shanghai, I saw many people walking backwards on the street and in the parks. As it turns out, they were following the footsteps of a mythic Chinese immortal, who could do it faster than the eye could see. In China, in addition to healthy exercise, walking backwards is also considered akin to a karmic reverse, allowing the walker to correct mistakes and sins of the past. But what is the world like in reverse?

All the time in the world

The weekend never ends in Berlin. There is no financial or social pressure to practice the everyday, so the outgoing Berliners work together to make the city more enjoyable, distorting time and typical etiquettes. In Berlin, a night out can stretch over days, weeks, and even years. As quantum physicists would say, probability is all we ever know about when it will come to an end.

Dream world

Last year, I read The Book of Scotlands, in which Nick Currie aka Momus uses negative space, or Ma in Japanese culture, to discover what his native country of Scotland could  become through writing about everything except the place itself. Like the surrealists – or Soviet “Paper Architects” ignoring the boundaries of possibility and gravity in their 1980s designs – Momus recognises the omnipotence of the imagined. “Every lie creates a parallel world; the world in which it is true,” he says.

The text was published as part of physics studies for the Science Poems book.

Ines Kaag + Desiree Heiss = BLESS. Illustration by Manuel Raeder.

Dear Ines and Desiree,

We see your work as something in between art and fashion design. What do you think about this description and how do you see your position in the fields of fashion and art?

I & D: Honestly, we don’t think in categories. We simply do what we do and everybody is free to interpret and categorise it. In general, we see our work as creation of everyday products that are made to be used. However, art projects are welcome since they allow a certain freedom, budget and time to create new products that we wouldn’t have been able to develop otherwise.

BLESS seems to us as something very unconditional, and something genuinely based on personal interest. What is the motivation behind your work?

I & D: To earn our living in doing something we like to do and that makes us advance continuously on another, human level.

How did you get together in the first place?

I & D: We met in Paris in 1993 through a fashion competition and later started a penfriendship. After having visited each other for our graduation shows, we became close friends and started to discuss each other’s work as well as work on small projects together. We slowly slided into a more serious ground when Martin Margiela discovered our fur wig advertisement in i-D magazine and hired us to make wigs for his show.

How big is the company altogether and how do you share the tasks between the two of you? How does it work to do creative things together?

I & D: We have worked in two different cities, Berlin and Paris from the very beginning. In both cities, we have one fixed and one freelance employee, plus in Berlin a person that takes care of the shop. We share all the tasks between the two of us. Our creative work is like a hobby somewhere between the lines of hundreds of administrative emails.

“Our creative work is like a hobby somewhere between the lines of hundreds of administrative emails.”

Could you tell us more about your design process?

I & D: There are no fixed rules or schemes in terms of how we work. Everything is imaginable – it just occurs. Sometimes we develop the ideas 100% together, sometimes 100% separate. At times, one person starts and the other one ends, one person comes up with an idea and the other one makes the prototype, or one person makes something and the other person destroys it. Our tools are mainly words and hands. We never draw.

What are your studios in Paris and Berlin like?

I & D: Both are quite special, somehow like private houses, quite green and charming.

BLESS shop Paris, 14 Rue Portefoin. Photo by BLESS.

BLESS shop Berlin, Mulackstraße 38. Photo by BLESS.

What do you feel are the differences in working in Paris vs. Berlin? Is it difficult to work from two cities?

I & D: The secret is that it´s not Berlin “vs.” Paris, but “together with”. We never actually ended up working in different places but the other way around: we started working like this and haven’t stopped so far. It’s like a long distance romance – it has its pros and cons like any other form of being together. The main advantage is that we remain our own bosses, free to work in our own personal way in each city. The cons are the additional costs and loss of time through internal administration and communication. However, we do meet up at least every ten days in Berlin, Paris or elsewhere.

“Working in two different cities is like a long distance romance.”

Are there any special charateristics of Paris and Berlin that affect your thinking and doing? And how?

D: Living in a capital means that you can get really everything you need. I like that, as well as the light in Paris.
I: I have no reason to move. The sensation of comfort keeps me in Berlin. I have no idea whether it’s the city itself or its trees – and it wouldn’t make any difference.

Despite the fact that you work far from each other you are one as BLESS, always presenting your work together in public. Is this something you make a point of because you are dispersed in different places – taking care of your public presence together?

I & D: You guessed it right. Since we are often apart, it is important that BLESS is clearly a unit. It wouldn’t exist without the both of us: the products, the structure and the vision are a dialogue rather than a master plan.

You’re very mysterious when it comes to your identity and keep your private lives, and even working life, to yourself. We feel that it’s very interesting, especially now that people are sharing more and more in public in general. Why did you decide to do this?

I & D: We are not at all interested in sharing our personal life with the public. Instead, we are very happy to share our products that are made to be shared.

Like your working habits your work itself is also very futuristic. How do you see the future?

I & D: Playful.

Thanks!

I & D: Thank you!

It's Momus.

The Book of Scotlands begins with the statement: “Every lie creates a parallel world. The world in which it is true.” Does this idea refer to using fiction as a means to tell the truth or is it more about the importance of imagining alternatives, not settling for something that’s already there?

First of all, it describes a certain approach. One of my working methods over the years has been to pose as a bastard while doing virtuous things. For instance, I was over-educated for pop music. While actually being a moralistic Calvinist, I pretended to be a sinner just because it made the songs more interesting for everybody. In writing, the same manner appears in a milder form – I pretend to be a liar. By proposing that everything in The Book of Scotlands is a lie, I can tell various truths in an oblique way. To explain this a bit further, I use two strategies in writing. One of them is the Rorschach where I’m treating Scotland as a random blot of ink, playing with its different perceptions. Another one is the Japanese technique called Ma, or negative space, which is based on the idea of making a composition out of not objects themselves but the space between the objects. I write about everything except Scotland. And by looking at everything that’s not Scotland, I’m hoping to discover the true essence of the country. It’s like a child with a colouring book – instead of colouring the map of Scotland you colour the sea around it and finally Scotland appears as a blank space. I like to call it dancing around the subject.

“By looking at everything that’s not Scotland, I’m hoping to discover the true essence of the country.”

In the spirit of these working techniques, your book includes many visual and symbolic ideas. I particularly enjoy this one, Scotland number seventy-eight: “The Scotland in which all maps of the country are displayed upside-down and back-to-front to make everything fresh.” You also touch the future in e.g. Scotland fifteen: “The tremendously powerful Scotland which nanotechnology has made, by and large, too small to see.” In my view, your work with the book is very close to design. How do you feel about this interpretation?

As a matter of fact I was rather influenced by a design group called REDESIGNDEUTCHLAND. Ingo Niermann, the editor who commissioned The Book of Scotlands was actually part of this group. He had previously written Umbauland, a book on ten ideas for a better Germany applying design principles to the nation itself. Although generally considered more a writer than a designer, he managed to come up with a plan including a new grammar, a new political party as well as a system of assigning allotment gardens to unemployed people and retirees. So yes, I guess you might as well call my book Redesign Scotland. I find design interesting because it can be very utopian. Yet, when talking about design, people often pay attention to change more than continuity. And I think it’s very important to think about continuity.

Scotland as Rorschach. The Book of Scotlands, pp. 80-81.

The book also contains many musical and sonic references – sentences like “They were busy looking at each other with clicking metal eyes.” or stories about a band called Sonic Flower Groove after an album by the Scottish group Primal Scream. Would you say that you experience places through their sonic environment?

Being a musician I obviously have to pay a lot of attention to that. One reason behind the Sonic Flower Groove episode is that the first time I discovered Berlin was when I came here on tour with Primal Scream in 1987. So I was thinking what if it was reversed, that I was actually coming from Berlin and experiencing Scotland in the same way. And I guess that happened with many places, I discovered them as a musician. Music was a way to get my travel expenses paid.

How would you describe Berlin, your current home city by these attributes?

Berlin is a very quiet town. It has made me lose interest in pop music. The main sound on the streets is the birds singing. Germans like to see their cities as extensions of the forest and there are trees everywhere. And that’s very different from e.g. London where there is a lot of pollution and most of the sounds come from traffic or small speakers in every corner in every sandwich bar… And time is money. In that sense, Berlin is much less capitalist, much less toxic. And you can hear it. It’s a very avant-garde, experimental city. Even when you go to concerts you often end up listening to field recordings or the sound of a contact microphone being scraped up and down, sounds of ping pong balls or balloons. All this could be seen as utterly pretentious in many other cities but here you don’t have to have an aim or a commercial purpose in what you do. One can escape all sorts of obligations and necessities. That’s probably one reason why I have stayed here for so long.

Scotland number one hundred and three reads: “A computer makes a Scotland seem almost unnecessary.” Could this thought be applied to all distant places with internet access – like Finland, my home country, which you even refer to in the book (Scotland 136) – or is it rather a comment on a lack of identity?

Well, I think we’re seeing a crisis in national identity. I was quoted in a magazine saying that my true motherland is the internet. I feel like wherever I travel I’m always in this country called the internet. Or maybe it’s the operating system that counts – and I do almost feel a certain patriotism towards Apple computers. However, there’s another part of my identity that’s very Scottish. Whatever that is.

“I feel like wherever I travel I’m always in this country called the internet.”

Furthermore, Scotland number eighty-eight states: “I want Scottish people, rather than tourists, to be the curators of this culture…” Next to the developing “Scottish way of being”, how would you characterize living and working in Berlin?

I guess a Berlin way of being is collaboration between the Berliners and the immigrants – either the Turkish immigrants or the creative immigrants – who all work together to make the city enjoyable. Someone for example built this relaxed patio where we’re sitting here in Prenzlauer Berg. And like Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin obviously has different villages. My particular village is Neukölln where there’s a lot more immigrants than here. I really enjoy the Turkish markets and the exoticism in Neukölln. People are also a bit more economically motivated, though it’s pretty easy to live in Berlin not thinking commercially at all. Compared to Neukölln, Prenzlauer Berg almost feels like a white bourgeois paradise. And that makes me a bit uneasy. I feel a need to rebel against monoculture, yet paradoxically, when I’m in Neukölln I can embody the values of Prenzlauer Berg without feeling like it’s a cliché.

Momus at home in Neukölln, Berlin.

You have lived in major cities around the world. What makes you move, and what made you leave Scotland in the first place?

It’s just a pattern I established very early because of moving with my father’s work when I was a child. After studying in Scotland I left for London to make it in music – a thing that all the Scottish musicians do. London felt like a bigger version of Scotland where more things were possible. Since then, my whole life has been motivated by appetite for certain things in certain cities. I’ve been lucky not having to work and being free to go wherever, even if it has made me very poor sometimes. Tokyo is my favourite city in the whole world. If my books are successful, that’s exactly where I’m going to go next.

How does the change of living environment affect your work?

When I was in Japan I felt quite isolated because I was a foreigner and I couldn’t speak too much Japanese. I found that my Scottish identity was becoming more important there. The album I made in Tokyo even has these rather strange Scottish songs on it. Berlin has brought up the need to experiment with sound because that’s just what people do here. I can spend my mornings at home writing something and the rest of the day is free for discovering something new. Then again London was a very commercial city so I tried to be successful and make lots of money. Living and working abroad makes you realize how only half of your personality is your own to control and the rest is really open to influence. I mean, we’re all chameleons in some way and the environment does change you. There’s a dialectical process going on between the environment and your personality.

“There’s a dialectical process going on between the environment and your personality.”

Your blog, Click Opera blurs the boundaries between work and personal life as well as between different disciplines from design to music and social enquiry. I think it captures the essence of now. Do you have a working philosophy?

The current theme in a lot of my work is Scheherazade, the wife of the king in One Thousand and One Nights. Scheherazade was the only one of the king’s wives who he didn’t kill. And that was because she told stories. Everyday she told him a new story and left it in a very interesting place where she stopped so that he had to keep her alive to hear what happened next. I really like this idea of challenging yourself by pulling something out everyday, telling a story in public to stop people from killing you.