Paul Waak

PAUL

WA AK SPOT ON

Paul Waak is a Berlin-based illustrator, and graduated from the well renowned Universität der Künste (UdK) in 2014. Paul’s creations are bizarre and dark-sided, not really children-friendly. He isn’t in denial about the complexity and diversity of our reality and wants to show us the counterpart of our perfect beauty, perfect body saturated world. Dark tones, deformed bodies, these alternative humanoids are not what we would want to see on a daily basis, nevertheless they are important to our maturing, awareness and open-mindness. “VERTEX MAXIMUS”, his upcoming book, is a constructed like a children’s ABC-book. Each letter represent a word, and each word illustrated by a dark humor comic book style story composition, directly out of Paul’s unique and twisted mind. Do not miss it! Keep up with Paul’s work at www.paulwaak.de 42

46

ARI VERSLUIS Interview by Michelle Hèlena Janssen

Always when I encounter Ari it is as though he pierces through a person’s very existence just by looking at them. Simply by seeing their clothing, or behaviour. How they talk or walk. He’s always watching. The Rotterdam based photographer is famous for his work on Exactitudes, documenting the “codes” of different groups. For 20 years he’s been recording individuals as they are and therefore creating an anthropological record of humanity. He knows all about subcultures, and their history. We talked about youth culture, Berlin, punk and a new generation of refugees.

At first I wanted to talk about Exactitudes, but you’re involved in so much more than that. Like Encounters, what’s that about?

Encounters is another concept series which depicts makeshift studio interventions which changes perspective and widens the lens for a broader chronology next to Exactitudes.

It has to do with the fact that I see a lot of people who are worth portraying because I think it’s of general historical interest to do so, but not with the perspective of Exactitudes. Exactitudes is about uniformed identities, an anthropological record of people’s attempt to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. But it’s only for 10 to 15 percent of people who will fit into this concept of group identity. The Encounters series are more personal and instinctive, where Exactitudes is more a real collaboration and ongoing discussion on style and identity with Ellie Uyttenbroek, the profiler of the series. Over the years I photographed and archived lots of good and interesting appearances, who never really got the right exposure. With Encounters I am expanding this method by building some pop-up studio’s in divergent cities to purely look at individuals and their narrative. This happens literally on the streets, instead of the internet. Because It’s all about information beyond revolution and globalization nowadays, youngsters from different cities like Stockholm, Milan or St. Petersburg all act the same; differences in style are fairly marginal. Apparently we live in such a controversial individualistic time now that the quest of a group belonging has changed.

On the internet, people are connecting with people with the same interests and ideas. Do you see any subcultures starting on the internet?

It definitely happens on the internet. But I’m someone who wants to see and experience in reality how someone looks, smells, speaks or how his/her posture is. It’s about realness. I’m very convinced and analogue about that – “it’s not what you wear, it’s how you wear it”, the whole attitude. I’m looking for that presence and shifting attitudes in Encounters, and of course with Exactitudes as well, but on a different level. In the end, anyone can wear an outfit, and Instagram hiss ass off but if you don’t feel what you wear and don’t know how to rock, it makes no sense at all.

Like trends?

A trend can evolve into a subculture if it runs for a longer time but it really has to do with attitude. In that manner it’s about a certain boldness and discipline, you should for example have the guts to become a real vegan or really party for 36 hours non-stop.

48

is so at odds with this world, where everything up to every minute of your life is arranged. Your smartphone keeps you on track, people keep looking you up. It’s the chronos time and kairos time. If you suddenly disappear for 40 hours, that’s pretty intense nowadays.

Yeah you’re always connected except for that “time” of going out. It’s what I experience aswell; the only time I’m not connected is when I go out, especially in Berlin. KALTBLUT is situated in Berlin, but I hear people say it’s not the same as it used to be. Maybe the expats, like me, have a lot to do with it, do you experience it differently than before?

What I notice is that all these internationals come to Berlin to reinvent it. They want to recreate a sort of party atmosphere and that actually makes it even a little boring, because the same old tune is being repeated and mono-cultured over and over again, so to speak. Fashion and trends are all very cyclical, but the rotating time is faster now. Accelerated returns. Every 5 or 6 years everything is reinvented again, and then the current young generation thinks it’s completely new. If you look at it from a distance, it’s rooted in a much longer tradition. It’s really nice to go in- and out [berlin] because then you can see it better, you keep a certain distance. “See the drama, don’t wanna live it - constantly”.

What characterizes Berlin though, is that it’s a city of freedom. Youth doesn’t have to rebel so much anymore, you can manifest what you want to be, feel and believe in. Those are absolute characteristics of subcultures. It has a certain element, which yields culture, music, appearances and all sorts of magnificent transitions which are important to let a subculture live. That’s what I always perceive in Berlin, unlike many other cities that all have other problems. It’s pretty amazing and unique that it goes on even the reinvented mode of the expats. If you look at the former youth cultures it was always about rebelling and I think in Berlin that’s not the case anymore, it’s more about celebrating now.

What I often see, like the kids trying to reinvent Berlin, is that we romanticize a certain subculture from the past, and that it’ll become a [FASHION]trend rather than a redefined subculture. Like Gabbers, a large subculture that started in the Netherlands. The higher “educated” culture takes inspiration from lower cultures, but for what, rebelling?

We used to think that intelligentsia originated counterculture. At a certain point it turned around, it did not come from intelligence, but was powered by lower classes. I always felt that the

real noteworthy youth cultures are by definition working class. You don’t have to think about it. “I just want to shave my head and listen 200 BPM’S, period!” It’s not an intellectual process at all, it’s an urge. Other people will try to intellectualise it, and that was the problem with Gabber, they couldn’t. They didn’t know what to do with it and that’s why it took so long. They didn’t even dare to go to those parties so everything they wrote about it came from 2nd or 3rd hand.

The reason why the Gabber worked so well in the intellectual environment with Exactitudes, and not only in the Netherlands but over the whole world, is because we didn’t have a story. We just portrayed them to show that they’re just dudes full of adrenaline, nothing more than that. I just think that youth cultures are not that relevant anymore. Generational branding or thinking in a specific group from 18 to 22, it makes no sense. 5-YEAR-OLD kids are going to yoga classes in LA and there are 60 year old longboarders in Berlin, so what the hell are we talking about. It’s the revolution of our time, everything is possible.

Why do you think this happens?

We’re living in a fast lane. If you think you’re on to something then there’s already a new group who think the exact the opposite. That’s the tragedy of being young. When you’re part of a youth culture you think you’re a king, but you will fastly realize other kings are waiting to take your throne.

If you think you’re unique and you see there are 7 million other people doing just the same, you strive for something else or you go totally normcore. And now we have a whole additional layer of gender on top, which is very political. You can see it in for example skinhead culture. It’s a very tough look, but now that ultra macho masculine thing can be combined with a dress.

A lot of interesting things are happening with gender, some people even strive to be gender-neutral.

And they all have their own sets of behavior and rules. In Amsterdam androgyny will have another look then in London. The thing about this time is that we have a huge generalisation, you can be aware of everything through the internet, but this also results in very diversified upcoming micro-communities instead of oldschool subcultures.

Well, your last Exactitudes series are from 2014 though, are you working on a new one?

Not really, we are more in a reflective mode.

These times don’t really feel like punk though.

It’s a whole different era now. I always think it’s so fascinating that kids look back with nostalgia to what other generations did. Punk, however, was so strong in appearances that it’s very logical that new generations continue to play with it, and that’s what’s happening. If you’re sensitive to style and youth culture and all those aspects, you now have an enormous map of fashion theories. That was not the case years ago, you just bought your i-D magazine at the kiosk and that was it.

Now, you can trace back all the codes of every youth culture there ever was. Those codes are being decoded, altered, cut and reassembled into a new language now. That’s the punk of today. It can have the appearance but is completely different.

It might be more substantive than appearance.

Yeah there is certainly a kind of intellectual layer.

Punk never dies indeed.

But it was very intense. When I first saw punk in London, I think I was 18 or 19, it scared the hell out of me.

Were you punk?

Half a year after.

With a mohawk?

Yeah everything, I went to the Sex Pistols in Paradiso and I was sold. Destroy everything, moshpits, it really was a revolution, I didn’t give a shit, spraying graffiti everywhere, lovely. No future.

This generation might not be so radical. Our generation doesn’t really go against the grain; we post things on Facebook and share, but not in real time. We don’t agree with a lot of things but at the same time we don’t have riots.

True, but you should change your perspective; you speak from the perspective of a white “privileged” girl. That’s becoming a problem because what’s really happening in the Paris banlieues, radicalisation or anything to do with radical islam is really something different. You can see a lot of cross-cultural shifts, for example in fashion.

We are poorly informed of all those codes in terms of clothing. You can tell whether an African woman is Muslim or not, or whether she comes from a Parisian or Brussels enclave by what bag she’s wearing. In Berlin this is very much ignored, these cross-pollinations of subcultures. Clothes work as a wonderful indicator and as a language. It’s the ‘coolness’ of the muslim guy in streets that we respect him. The fact that the lengths for guys go over the knees as long as a djellaba, those are the centimeters of importance in fashion. That’s what fashion has always been about but it has changed to the guy. There’s more of a revolution in men’s fashion in where you can notice cultural transition. Women have gone from midi to maxi to mini and now you can walk around in your naked butt.

Not on Instagram though. The guidelines of Instagram work as a new kind of Bible. They prohibit to express yourselves.

What is it with Instagram, do they have some sort of holy jury? So don’t hide behind your fucking Instagram but use your tits as machine-guns, as Lydia Lunch said. Freedom is very relative.

Keep up with Ari’s work at www.ariversluis.com

50