Eleven days without interference

...you must bring your whole self, and you must be willing to sacrifice something, to risk a piece of yourself in order to connect, capture, and ultimately create.

Still from Le mystère Picasso, 1956, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot

Introduction: London

I’m in London. It’s rainy and dark today, and I have some personal time on this last day in Europe. I’ve learned a lot in the past eleven days. Usually when I write, I have a specific idea I want to get across, but today I do not. I have an essence, a set of fragments that are reaching for something… that I want to try and share.

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Chapter 1: Rosalía

First off, the new Rosalía album is incredible. I have not been so moved by an artist’s full album release in a long time. I saw an interview discussing her process where she said: “Having doubt is proof that you’re alive — that what you’re doing is truly alive...They say that you know that [faith] is alive because there’s doubt in it.” I felt that. I’ve listened to Lux three times this week. I keep returning to it because there’s a certain sense of courage in it that feels familiar yet as if it was somehow from the past. Like she is reminding me that ‘Hey, we used to be big, remember? We used to be loud, less careful, and it was us who would shape the world, not the other way around’.

I am so not sick of it yet. Or at least the feeling it pushes through my guts and out into the wild.

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Chapter 2: Mozilla

Last Friday I stopped by Mozilla Fest in Barcelona and sat in on a panel. These four women were discussing the narrative on AI, and how in many ways, it calls for surrender. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before: that this constant discourse that tells us we better be prepared for the machines to take our jobs, become our therapists, our friends, and even romantic partners, doesn’t have to be real. The argument for so many builders and those who fund them is that ‘well, we have to do it because if not us, then them’. I get it, but also no, wtf, that’s so weak…

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Chapter 3: Oner

I made a three minute short film last weekend. It was one of the best experiences of my life. It was my second time directing. Bruno and I collaborated on the script, and we shot in Barcelona with a small but incredibly talented cast and crew. Because I’m new to filmmaking, I haven’t yet gotten the memo on technical feasibility. I think this actually works to my advantage. My naïveté forces great challenges that are both a risk and opportunity, and in this case the risk seemed to pay off. We shot the film as a oner, but had limitations in budget and therefore location. A oner does not allow for any mistakes, so I’ll leave it up to your imagination to conjure the lengths one must go to get a successful shot from a within a building through the public streets and into a restaurant when none of those locations are shut down or properly crowd controlled!

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Chapter 4: Josephine

I’ve been meaning to write about changing the name of my company. I launched is as ‘The Agency’ two months ago, but changed my mind about it almost immediately after. I felt slightly embarrassed that I was compelled to rebrand so soon, but then also realized that it would be insane not to do what I know is right, purely out of fear or shame. A big theme for me this year has been unlearning. I’ve been shedding layers and getting closer to who I am and the work I am truly compelled to do. I wanted to call the company ‘The Agency’ because I liked the play on words of it being an agency of some kind (albeit what kind of agency wasn’t entirely clear yet either), and that it existed to drive agency through artistic acts. John said that it reminds him of some kind of front for selling illegal organs, and I liked that imagery.

But, as it turns out, I am not building an agency. I consider my work to be somewhere between a creative studio and an artistic practice, where we specialize in two things: writing manifestos and making commercial short films for companies shaping culture. For me personally, it’s about the act of engaging with such depth and specificity with a subject, that I am able to capture their essence. And only then, finding the words or moving images to represent it.

With that said, please meet Josephine & Company, proudly named after my alter ego. More soon on the matter of alter egos, too.

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Chapter 5: Picasso

Yesterday I went to the Tate Modern with Sophia to see the Theatre Picasso exhibition. The contemporary artist Wu Tsang and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca transformed the exhibition space into a theatre to show his work in the light of performance and spectacle. Picasso always had a performative side to him that I find fascinating. They showed the 1956 film The Mystery of Picassco by Henri-Georges Cluzot in which Picasso makes works of art on film, under strict and very short time constraints. My interpretation was that there is almost no human interference in between his imagination and what shows up on the canvas. He works, and there is little to no hesitation in his strokes. As an artist, Picasso is able to channel something near supernatural, and not let the rational complexity of the world get in his way. This takes so much courage.

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Chapter 6: Immersion

I think what is so frightening about creative work is that you are always at the edge of something. It’s uncomfortable because it’s so immersive. You can’t rationalize your way into creative output. What I mean by that is you must bring your whole self, and you must be willing to sacrifice something, to risk a piece of yourself in order to connect, capture, and ultimately create. It’s an imperfect process, but to me ~ increasingly every day ~ worth absolutely everything.

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Conclusion: Courage

As I started writing this piece, I said I didn’t have a specific idea I am trying to communicate. I was wrong! This piece is about courage. Rosalía moved me so much because her album oozes of risk, of the willingness to stay on the edge and be fully immersed. On my side, I feel as though the veil is being lifted. I am gathering the courage to continue doing the work that the very human me may be afraid of.