Category Archives: Petervan’s Artwork

Parallel Grooves

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Picture generated by DALL-E

It all started with Vankatesh Rao’s “Future Tables” post last week, with the subtitle “We don’t want future visions, we want future tables”. Venkat introduced the concept of “temporal potential groove”.

I added the following comment to his post:

“I enjoyed this one very much. You have written so much about time that my feedback may sound trivial. Anyway. I felt attracted to “temporal potential groove”. It made me think about grooves in vinyl records. About remastering to improve the dynamics of output. Music in general as a scheme of bars, tempo, etc. About the grid and snapping to the grid in music and other software. Also about furrows on land, and riverbeds. And how we could learn to unsnap from the grid, groove, riverbed, etc to find new paths that are not defined by the “table”.”

I wrote about unsnapping from grids before. 

Image credits: Microscopic Things/Youtube

Just a couple of days later, I had my monthly catch-up call with Josie Gibson, and we started a lovely conversation about vinyl records. 

Yes, for those who remember, vinyl records “sound” different. It is an analog sound. It has a warmer, more human touch to it. We are so used to listening to compressed, streamed, digital music that listening to really high quality sound/music is an experience that many of us don’t have any real experience with. Neil Young wrote a whole book about it and the lack of HD sound was the reason for him starting the Neil Young Archives. 

But besides the sound quality, there is also quite a difference in the experience of consuming music.

Sometimes, the pickup stylus jumped out of the groove, jumping to an unexpected part of the song or even the album. There was some sort of enjoyable unpredictability. 

You were also supposed to listen to the whole album (or at least one “side” of the vinyl disc) in one non-interrupted session. 

Also, we lost the patience to wait, to be comfortable with the in-betweens, the no-groove areas between the songs.

There was at some time the notion of a “concept album”, where all the songs of the album belong to a coherent concept/narrative, instead of a compilation or sequence of greatest hits or unrelated “singles” 

As we discussed, we made parallels to the way I curate learning experiences, where the value is in the coherence of the narrative and associated speakers, and not just a list of individuals taking the stage for their standard pre-canned talk. My ambition is to take people out of the groove, to discover parallel worlds and options. 

Josie coined the term “Parallel Grooves”, obviously T-shirt material! I should seriously consider hiring Josie as my copywriter 😉

Mock-up T-Shirt with image from DALL-E

The vinyl groove is one metaphor. 

We could also consider the riverbed: by putting obstacles in the riverbed, we can change the flow of the water, we can divert the flow.

Or waterfalls. Josie spoke about “the language of waterfalls” and what happens when you put a big rock at the top of the waterfall and how the language of the waterfall changes.

Image generated by DALL-E

Serendipity is my companion these days, and as I was writing this post, I bumped into this image of Cameron Falls in Alberta, Canada:

Cameron Falls in Alberta, Canada has crystal clear water on normal days, but when abnormally heavy rainfall hits the region, a phenomenon happens. Sediments called agrolites are released into the water and make the river look pink or red when light hits it. Seen on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/auckee 

Or the metaphor of furrows in a field. 

Here is my uncle Hubert plowing a fresh field with his tractor. Ask him how difficult it is to steer the tractor out of the furrow.

But what if he could plow not only the land but also a river or a waterfall or all of them? You would get a very nice metaphorical representation of my idea of curation.

Image generated by DALL-E

People think they are in the groove, but they aren’t. Or they don’t know what else exists out of the groove.

“They don’t know what they need, but they know what they yearn for”

(another copy by Josie)

What seems more interesting to me is to surf that yearning and go to a place in a different dimension you don’t even know existed.

“You were looking for “X” and but I let you discover “Y”

(Josie)

Parallel Grooves in other words.

Guess what? 

Parallel Grooves will be part of “Studio Interventions”, one of the three studios I am launching after the summer together with a brand new Petervan Studios website

Stay tuned

Warmest,

Petervan’s Delicacies – 5 June 2022

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delicacies

As usual, an incoherent, irregular, unpredictable collection of interesting sparks. Handpicked, no robots. Minimalism in curation. Enjoy!

If you can’t get enough of these and want more, you can hang on to the firehose, the extended version of Petervan’s Delicacies in REVUE with loads of videos. Subscribe here: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/petervan

Petervan Studios – Update Feb 2022 – The Scaffold

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Here is the latest update on Petervan Studios. The previous update already goes back to June 2021.

The family is good. Somehow, we managed not to get infected by the virus. We all got boostered and respected safety measures to the max. Most of my time, I spent home in my studio and only came out for some grocery shopping, some visits to art exhibitions, and delivering the taxi service to my daughter’s school and horse stables. Zero travel since October 2019, but I cannot say I miss it.

At this moment, it looks like we are getting out of the woods of the 5th Covid wave, and measures in Belgium are getting relaxed. Partying is allowed again as of 18 Feb 2022.

More importantly: my father is still alive and kicking, and he celebrated his 90th birthday in Sep 2022!

What else?

The Bricks Project

For those who remember, this is my “zen” project. Drawing bricks in silence. Many bricks. 8,255 Bricks at the time of writing this post:

Exhibitions

Since the last update, I visited the following art exhibitions:

Luc Deleu, De Singel, Antwerp, Aug 2021

Drawing Art, BOZAR, Brussels, Sep 2021

ING Laughing Art, ING Gallery, Brussels, Sep 2021

David Hockney, BOZAR, Brussels, Oct 2021

Masculinities, FOMU, Antwerp, Nov 2021

Re-Collect, FOMU, Antwerp, Nov 2021

Rinus Van de Velde, Tim Van Laer Gallery, Antwerp, Nov 2021

Train Modernity, KMSK, Brussels, Nov 2021

Fabrice Samyn, KMSK, Brussels, Nov 2021

Pop-Art, SMAK, Ghent, Feb 2022

Chaos, Alex Vervoordt, Wijnegem, Feb 2022

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Zeno X, Antwerp, Feb 2022

David Claerbout – The Close, Brugge, Feb 2022

Luc Deleu inspired by Buckminster Fuller

Detail of painting by Rinus Van de Velde – 2021

Hippie Elias (Self portret) by Etienne Elias – 1970

Fabrice Samyn – Detail from Eve&Adam – 2018

Still from The Close – David Claerbout – 2022

Outdoors

Weather did not treat us well. My recollection is one of all shades of grey and lots of rain from August 2021 till Feb 2022. Only the beginning of Sep 2021 was decent. But I have some nice winter fog pictures from my strolls and bicycle rides:

Horses

Astrid made a lot of progress in horse-riding. She won the 2nd price at a local dressage competition, and she also enjoys jumping a lot.

Talking about Astrid, in Dec 2021 she celebrated her 16th birthday. Where has the time gone?

Traveling Without Moving project

Travelling without Moving (TWM) is a series of essays documenting my mental and philosophical journey in 2020-2022.

The main outline was published in November 2020, and in the meantime, several episodes have been released. Since the last Petervan Studios update, I published one more essay on “Studios”.

There are a couple more in the pipeline, but I have a hunch that these will morph into The Scaffold project (see later in this post).

Books

Check out my GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3085594-peter-auwera

Some highlights

Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine by Geoff Manaugh, Nicola Twilley

Where Is My Flying Car? by J. Storrs Hall

Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action by J.F. Martel

Lichamen by Peter Verhelst

Petervan Rides

Since July 2019, I publish every month a Spotify List with new releases combined with some oldies from the 60ies, 70ies, and beyond. Search for “Petervan Ride” and select “playlists”. Subjective selection of course, as driven only by my personal taste (or lack thereof).

Here is the latest Ride from Feb 2022, still being populated as we publish this post.

I suggest you play it in shuffle mode, it enhances the surprise experience.

My Art Practice

I did not produce much artwork. I was very focused on a work-project that required all my attention and focus. I shared most of my recent art work via my Facebook page, or on this blog under the heading “Sine Parole”. Some “highlights” if I can say that about my own work:

Petervan Artworks © 2022 – Digital scribble on iPad

Petervan Artworks © 2022 – Digital scribble on iPad

Professionalisation of Petervan Studios Art Practice

As from March 2022, I will focus on the professionalization of my art practice. I have hired a coach to help me with that. We are working with a digital archiving platform with an API that is steering the show & tell of my analogue and digital artworks. There will also be an integration with a shopping environment, and an online VR exhibition environment. There is also a brand-new website for Petervan Studios in the making. This new online environment will also become the home for a new project, working title “The Scaffold”, see below

Freelance Projects

I have been deeply involved and committed as architect and head of design of an 100% on-line learning expedition running from Sep 2021 till Feb 2022. We just landed the closing session. We still want to produce a “scrapbook” that documents the journey by end Feb 2022. The experience came in two chapters. The first chapter was a technology refresh on digital identity, infrastructure, VR, Robotics, Web3, and UX. The second chapter was about developing a practice of innovation for wicked problems, and how to design for emergence in complex adaptive systems.

I had the chance to collaborate with professional facilitation and innovation partners, and a collective of “guides” – some really smart people – that helped us shape and deliver the content.

The Scaffold

The learning expedition mentioned above had a great impact on me and the way I look at “events”. I believe I am onto something that may be the start of a new “genre” of learning studios. And I have started talking and pitching to potential partners and investors. Here is the high-level pitch:

The Scaffold is a 100% online learning studio for creating new knowledge based on the passion of the explorer. 

The Scaffold can be seen as a form of Pop-Up school and/or an experimentation-based learning playground.

The Scaffold is planned as a three-year research cycle, with cohorts joining an online virtual playground for six-month intensive high-impact expeditions where together with the faculty they will create new knowledge in collaboration. 

The curriculum of the expeditions is composed of several interventions, interruptions, and provocations anchored in the reality of a client’s project. The project serves as a vehicle to trigger new and imaginative thinking. 

The Scaffold is a “scaffold” for something much bigger, something that could lead to a movement and foundation for better futures.

More about that later, probably in the second half of 2022. I hope to have a first client cohort signed-up by then.

So, in summary, what’s next?

The plan for the coming months is to work/play on:

Professionalizing my art practice

Pitch and realize my project “The Scaffold”

So, that’s it for this edition. If there is something worth reporting, next update is for Sep 2022.

Warmest,

Inspiration – David Claerbout

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Last week, I went to the Foto Museum (FOMU) in Antwerp to see the expo Masculanities – Liberation through Photography. This expo was already at The Barbican in London in the summer of 2020. I had some time left, and a slipped into the adjacent expo Re-Collect, an overview of a decade of acquisitions of FOMU.

Very similar to my first encounter with the work of Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten – see my post “Confused by Beauty” from 2015 – I was touched and moved by the video installation “KING” (2015-2016) by Belgian artist David Claerbout.

“David Claerbout (b. 1969) is a Belgian artist, whose work combines elements of still photography and moving images. Using photography, video, and digital-editing tools, Claerbout creates large-scale video installations that provoke questions of time, memory, and truth. Solo exhibitions include Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, and SFMoMA in San Francisco.”

From the FOMU site:

The viewer sees a digital 3D environment based on a private photograph of Elvis Presley. The photograph was taken in 1956, when Presley was on the cusp of world fame. This was a time when the photographer, Alfred Wertheimer, could still get close to the man—before the transition from ordinary human to icon, from normal life to an era of superstardom and spectacle. David Claerbout modelled Elvis’ body using hundreds of photographic fragments of his skin and facial features. He challenges the two-dimensional nature of the photograph by adding virtual time and space. Photography is both the launching pad and the subject of KING. Claerbout confronts the viewer with the transition from looking through a lens to looking by means of a scanner. This radical reversal of normal observation means that you seem to creep into the image. Claerbout uses the artistic, conceptual and technical perspectives to question our way of looking.

FOMU has a short 5 min artist video on their site, with Dutch and English subtitles.

That was enough to get me really interested, and I found another great 30 min interview video with David Claerbout at Louisiana Channel. He explains how the whole project was made: they even used a stand-in model and stitched together thousands of pictures of Elvis’ skin on the 3D scan of the model. Amazing!

Showing us around in his “studio” – actually many different rooms in an old Flemisch house in Antwerp – Claerbout is very articulate about his work and practice and I found this super inspiring, as I am preparing next year 2022 as my year to professionalize my own art practice.

He opens with:

“I am an artist, and I do not know exactly what it is what I am doing, it seems I am changing my ways all of the time, but I am a self-taught very hungry autodidact in the domain of the moving image animation film video and what we could call virtual image making.”

As we walk through his studio, we see his drawing-room, how he started building an archive of images, how his team is usually working on one project at the time, having all equipment inhouse, two recording studios, including a small server farm in the basement to render image/video in the most optimal way.

Throughout the whole interview, there transpires a mood of silence, integrity, dedication, focus, discipline, professionalism. His origins are in painting, and drawing, and lithography.

The interview/walkthrough is full of inspiring insights, provocations,

WHAT IS IT THAT I CAN CONTRIBUTE?

MY WORK DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING SHOCKING

I WANT TO DEVELOP A LANGUAGE

SPEAKING/WORKING WITH PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE CONFIDENT WITH, THAT YOU CAN TRUST

WHAT IS IT THAT BINDS EVERYTHING TOGETHER?

CHRONOS – KAIROS – HETEROCHRONY – THE PLURALITY OF DURATION

PRIVILEGED MOMENTS

BEING NOT AT THE CENTER OF THE COMPOSITION

THE CAMERA AS A VAMPIRE

THE RELATION BETWEEN OUR THINKING AND OUR PERCEPTION

YOU DON’T WAIT FOR BUDGETS, YOU DON’T WAIT FOR PEOPLE, YOU JUST DO IT

THE DELICATE CENTER

HOW DO WE LIVE WITH VIRTUAL MATTER?

WE HUMAN BEINGS ARE PROGRAMMED TO TRUST

WE ARE NOT PROGRAMMED TO PUT OUR SENSES INTO QUESTION

WE FIRST WILL BE SPONTANEOUS BELIEVERS AND THEN WE WILL BE ANALYTICAL

I WRITE A LOT, I DON’T PUBLISH A LOT BECAUSE IT IS SO TIME-CONSUMING

LIFE IS NOT LONGER A TAPE THAT RUNS FROM BEGINNING TO END

THE TRINITY OF PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE IN THE VIRTUAL REALM

EVERYTHING IS BUILT OUT OF TWO

A BUILT-IN REDUNDANCY

LAZINESS AND ENERGY

SHARING DIRECTLY BY SITTING TOGETHER

WE PERFORM AND AT THE END OF THE EXHIBITION THE PERFORMANCE IS OVER

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THIS INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE VALUABLE SINGULAR ARTWORK SITUATED SOMEWHERE IN TIME NOT IN PARTICULAR MATTER

SOMEWHERE IN THE SMALL FOLDS OF TIME, THERE ARE ENCOUNTERS

WHAT IS THE LIMIT? WHERE IS IT?

THE PRIVILEGE OF THE ARTIST OF HAVING TIME TO WASTE

THE ARTIST DOES NOT HAVE TO BE EFFICIENT

IT IS QUITE LOUD WHEN THERE IS NO SOUND

It is clear that Claerbout is full of poetry. As Norman Foster used to say “I can write you a letter, but a poem?”

No wonder the “KING” and some others I discovered in the meantime are so well resonating with where I am now and where I would like to be the next years. I may post some other inspiring stories in the weeks and months ahead as part of my transition to and professionalization of my art practice.

Warmest,

Petervan Studios – Update June 2021 – The Right Balance

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Here is the latest update on Petervan Studios. The previous update already goes back to November 2020, that’s more than six months ago, and a lot can happen in half a year.

It looks like we are getting out of the COVID woods. At least in Belgium infection and hospitalization numbers are down, and I got my second Pfizer jab on 5 June 2021, so I think I am good to come out of my cave.

Family is good, Astrid does well at school, Mieke loves the garden now that the summer is back, and I continue my art practice and some freelance projects.

What else?

My Art Practice

Due to COVID regulations, 2021 was a terrible year for doing artwork at the academy. I just can’t work with a mask on. I retreated to my own studio at home, but I miss the coaches, and the discipline/routine of going twice a week to the academy in Ghent.

Most of the specialisation courses of the academy were online via Zoom calls, and nothing beats the dynamic of face-to-face contact, and on-the-floor experimentation.

Not sure yet what I will do next year: back to academy or being super disciplined in my daily routine in my home studio.

I shared most of my recent work via my Facebook page, or on this blog under the heading “Sine Parole”. Some “highlights” if I can say that about my own work:

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Big Blue – Acryl on Canvas – 100x120cm

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Shape on blue – Acryl on Canvas – 60x50cm

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Wild Black & White – Acryl on Canvas – 120x100cm

The Bricks Project

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Drawing – Chinese Ink on Steinbach Paper – A1

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Video – Brickonomics – Own soundscape

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Video – Bricks City Animation

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Video – Zen and the Art of Bricks Drawing

The Cow Project

Introduced as a plan in the Nov 2020 update, I got hooked on cows, if that makes sense. Whatever.

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Cow-Vid-19 – Acryl on Canvas – 120x150cm

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Cowonomics – Stop Motion Film

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – Digital CollageCow on chimney on grass with milk tetra packs.

Part of an assignment for the academy specialisation class

Exhibitions

Since last update, I visited following art exhibitions:

C-Mine, Tim Walker, Genk, Jan 2021

Z33, Palms, Hasselt, Jan 2021

Be Modern, Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels, Jan 2021

Danser Brut, BOZAR, Brussels, Jan 2021

Lynne Cohen, FOMU, Antwerp, Jan 2021

Adrian Ghenie, Tim Van Laer, Antwerp, Jan 2021

Kunstuur, Mechelen, March 2021

Alechinsky and Aboriginals, RMFA, Brussels, April 2021

Silence, Axel Vervoordt, Wijnegem, April 2021

Luc Tuymans and AI, BOZAR, Brussels, April 2021

Superstudio Migrazioni, CIVA, Brussels, April 2021

Inge Decuypere, A Joly Boring Thing To Do, Oudenaarde, April 2021

Vincent Geyskens, M-Museum, Leuven, May 2021

Detail of a Karel Appel’s painting “Liggend Naakt” 1957 – Oil on Canvas

The founders of SuperStudio – Painting in Expo Migrazioni

Vincent Geyskens – in M-Museum – Leuven

Outdoors

We had a lousy winter in Flanders. I did some walks and bike tours, but not as much as I would love to do. Winter lasted till deep in spring with a super cold and rainy month of May. When June started, the sun was back in full force, up to a point where I started already longing for shadow.

Horses

My daughter Astrid loves horses, and that is an understatement. I have become her private taxi driver to/from the stables, and I spend quite some time watching her at the riding school. She needs it very much in this COVID year, and she can really disconnect from school. And on and with the horses, she is in flow. Look at her smile: it makes a father happy too!

Freelance

I am on a new interesting gig for a very respected client. With a small team, we are doing research on what is next-next in financial services, and the research will be followed by several workshops and a private experiential event/tour later in 2021.

This and the previous project in Shenzhen also helped me reflect on different types of workshops: sharing, teaching, mentoring, and inquiry-based workshops, some online, others in real life. I have some concrete ideas on how to bring these to market, together with a supporting team of facilitators, provocateurs, artists, and producers. Contact me privately if interested.

BANI

Already in 2018, Jamais Cascio coined the term BANI. See my post from Aug 2019 and Jamais’ update from April 2020. As mentioned before, I am working with some partners on a virtual multimedia workshop based on this framework, with a specific focus on possible responses to a BANI world. One of our partners got locked in another client project, so we put the project temporarily on hold.

Design Unbound

I am continuing my immersion in the work of Ann Pendleton and her insights in Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World. We have found a way to convey this complex material into a matrix-form, with video vignettes, so that the customer can pick and choose where they enter the learning journey.

To give you a sense of the intensity of this work: I have now weekly calls with Ann Pendleton to go through the scripts that will form the foundation of the video vignettes.

We have put together a team to design and deliver a corporate curriculum on this topic. Stay tuned on the “we” and the “curriculum”.

Pirate TV

I released the first episode of Pirate TV – Art Tribe Edition, with my friend Frank Poncelet from the Art Academy in Ghent

There is a very nice queue of artists who have agreed to be the guest in the subsequent episodes: some painters, video artist, and photographers. Initially, the plan was to have an episode every month as from March 2021 onwards. Working with artists and original content authors, I have learned to be patient and more careful in setting expectations on the when and what of the final deliverable, although the pressure of a deadline sometimes – but only sometimes – helps to get to a high-quality experience. We are getting there.

There are now two Pirate TV channels in the pipeline: the Art Tribe edition and the Business edition.

Traveling Without Moving project

Travelling without Moving (TWM) is a series of essays documenting my mental and philosophical journey in 2020-2021.

The main outline was published in November 2020, and in the meantime, several episodes have been released. So far, I have posted seven essays:

Silence

Pause

Play

Anxious

Unbound

Foam

(In)appropriate

The next one will be about “Studios”, studios as a proven way of failing and recovering together, a repurposing of the architecture studio practice of practices. Hope you stay on board.

Books

Check out my GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3085594-peter-auwera

Some highlights:

The Stack, by Benjamin Bratton

Crossover, by Cecil Ballmond

Making Art Work, by Patrick McCray

Ways of Seeing, by John Berger

Petervan Rides

Since July 2019, I publish every month a Spotify List with new releases combined with some oldies from the 60ies, 70ies, and beyond. Search for “Petervan Ride” and select “playlists”. Subjective selection of course, as driven only by my personal taste (or lack thereof). Next month, we’ll celebrate the second anniversary of these Rides. Time flies!

Here is the latest Ride from May 2021

I suggest you play it in shuffle mode, it enhances the surprise experience.

So, what’s next?

Since I officially retired from corporate life on 1 Dec 2020, I am completely free to do what I want, what gigs I accept, what clients I choose and reject, what I say and what I write. And if nobody cares, that is fine as well, as then I can really do what I want.

This “interesting” work still leaves me enough room and headspace for my art-practice.  I wrote a post before on what I consider “interesting”. The keywords are: not done before, risky, and sensemaking through sense-breaking. I feel I have found a good balance and feel happy.

The plan for the coming months is to work/play on (random order):

The Fintech Next-Next Project

“Interesting” Freelance Work

Continuing my Art Practice

Release some Pirate TV Episodes

So, that’s it for this edition. If there is something worth reporting, next update is for Dec 2021.

Warmest,

Travelling without Moving – Inappropriateness

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This post is part of a series of essays bundled under “Travelling without moving”.

Intro of that series can be found here.

Petervan Pictures © 2021 – Travelling Without Moving

After the Foam-post of begin April 2021, we continue with “Inappropriateness”, an ambiguous feedback from a client on a rejected project.

In her post “The Change Refusal” https://weneedsocial.com/blog/2021/4/8/the-change-refusal, Céline Schillinger describes the weird situations where she submitted an idea, it was accepted, and then… was not given the permission, the support, or the means to carry it forward.

I had a similar experience not so long ago.

With a small team, we were contracted for a corporate experiment with Pirate-TV, a novel crossover video production.

Depending on whose point of view, it went well to not-so-well.

The production team was and still is super-proud of and committed to the deliverable. But at the very end of the project, the client believed our work was “inappropriate” and banned us from replay.

My good friend Peter Hinssen (Founding Partner of nexxworks) warned me early in the project “Boy, you are in for some fights if you want to pull this one off!”. I shrugged; I had crossed many other bridges over troubled water before.

The project started promising. The client accepted our proposal and briefing to do something radically different. Different in content, mixing, rhythm, visual collision and poetry, that sort of thing. Different, but relevant. Relevant to the ambiguity and uncertainty of the white-water world we are drowning in.

Not a Zoom style webinar with a speaker and a slide deck, or worse, a “fireside-chat” of two boring executives and a CNBC style of journalist, 2 meters apart from each other in white leather seats in front of a green screen that is then filled in with some fake backdrop to look cool.

So off we went. Everything went quite smooth. Too smooth in hindsight.

There was one hick-up in the process. A senior director who did not understand “why the heck we were doing this” almost stopped us. We scheduled a meeting to explain and understand her feedback. “All right, I get it now, make sure you integrate my feedback and questions, but without mentioning my name”, she said.

We incorporated the feedback and answered the questions. We delivered what we believed was a professional end-product, 100% in line with the brief.

But at the very last minute another senior person in the client’s organization intervened from the top, we got banned, and that was end of story.

The explanation? The work was considered “completely inappropriate”.

A request from our side to have a conversation was not honored.

Was it the format that felt too heretic to the executive leadership? Was it something else? We can only guess.

And what does that mean “inappropriate”?

As I was writing this post, I bumped into a presentation about contextual integrity. The talk was in the context of privacy, but I liked the breakdown to be very “appropriate” for my argument.

I believe the rejection had indeed to do with contextual integrities not being well aligned.

If inappropriateness is the opposite of appropriateness, then that would mean that inappropriateness is about not conforming, not meeting the expectations. That the result is illegitimate, not worth defending, morally not justifiable.

So, in other words, we did not conform. Thank God! What a compliment! The brief was to be radically different, no?

We requested if we could release the production under our own brand, “appropriately” edited not to reveal the name and the business of the client. But unfortunately, the client decided we were not allowed to re-use the raw footage. Hour and hours, days and days of brainstorming, recording, editing, soundscaping, video production down the drain.

No worries. We’ll be back.  We decided to re-do the whole bloody thing on our own budget, our own tastes, our own reclaimed freedom.

Since then, we have redacted the scripts for the new recordings, did extra research on the content material, and developed a virtual mosaic leaving the audience the choice where the enter the show, and how to complete the narrative journey. It will be the first episode of Pirate TV – Business Edition.

When will it be ready? Shall we say in a couple of weeks? Working with artists and original content authors, I have learned to be patient and more careful in setting expectations on the when and what of the final deliverable, although the pressure of a deadline sometimes – but only sometimes – helps to get to a high-quality experience.

Looking back at Celine’s themes for dealing with rejected work, I believe we went through the full loop. Asking to understand and reframe together with the first senior director, getting banned, avoided, and then picking up the pieces and creating the context for success in our upcoming re-do of the project on our own terms and conditions.

Courtesy Céline Schillinger

As creators, we must take risks, break sense, practice free play imagination.

Sometimes, we must be on the err side of things to know how it tastes.

In that sense, this experience was very rewarding.

Being banned even felt a bit heretic, and almost a badge of honour.

Next time in Travelling Without Moving, we’ll talk about “Studios”, as a proven way of failing and recovering together, a repurposing of the architecture studio practice of practices.

Hope you stay on board.

Warmest,