Interview with Vinca Kruk (Metahaven)

Vinca, first of all, i would like to thank you for coming to our Stilvorlagen anniversary! We hope you will have a good time today with us. Now we would like to start with our interview questions, which we developed for you.What does a typical Metahaven workday look like?

Vinca: Well, it starts somewhere in the middle of the night and ends somewhere in the middle of the night, so I don’t think there is a moment, when it really stops. As a designer, you don’t consider having a 9 to 5 job. You should always be inspired by everything around you. The greatest thing about our studio is that we are independent and are only five people at the moment. And because we do a lot of film, we work with big crews as well. We deal with different tasks everyday, like organizing, traveling, being at the studio, emailing – even though we try not to email that much, because it keeps you from getting work done. So I don’t think there is a typical Metahaven workday.

How would you describe the motivation behind Metahaven?

Vinca: Metahaven was founded in 2007. Daniel and I had already been working together since 2004. Our first project was the Sealand Identity Project. And this project came up, because we wanted to work for a type of client that didn’t exist, so we just made it up. And during the whole project we were confronted with the fact that we didn’t want it to stop. Everyone kept asking ”Is it finally over?“  It is going to go on forever. As it was a self-defined project, it was important to us that it wasn’t concluded in any way. So we were very …

… experimental?

Vinca: No. We wanted to work in a way that wasn’t based on a point of optimization in design: “Okay, now you finalize your idea, work on it and then move on to the next project.“

We were very interested and inspired by paper architecture. So architecture has this very rich history of theory but also of unbuilt architecture. And we liked the idea of proposals being more than just sketches that you hide in your sketchbook after a project is over. That is kind of how we started.

Meaning you had one project that you just worked on all the time and didn’t really have a deadline.

Vinca: Yes, exactly. When you come up with your own project, you also make the rules. So there is no client who says, there’s no money left. We didn’t really have to let go. We could stick to this topic and make new versions and develop new ideas that didn’t contradict what we had done before, but rather complemented that.

Are you also talking about ideas that don’t have to be realized but that you just want to put out in the world so that someone realizes them someday?

Vinca: In our case, it was not just about articulating ideas, but also about visualizing them. But how you then visualize them can happen in very different forms. Sealand was 2005; there was no social media of any kind, besides maybe myspace. So we just created a set of JPEG’s and said that this is our identity proposal for a new state, instead of just creating one logo or one sign.

Meaning you are somehow your own client in the end?

Vinca: Yes, but we don’t really use the word client. It’s something that we never really identified with. We just created our ideal working environment on our own and just kept working from there. For us, the Sealand project involved so many topics that we were interested in but couldn’t fit into one project. Topics like globalization, representation of state, the aesthetics of the internet, network culture…

Vinca: There are other ways to define what is important. And that doesn’t mean that economic reasons aren’t important, but maybe other things are equally important. We don’t live in a vacuum. We also buy food at the same places you do, etc. But I am more interested in talking about what you want to invest your energy in, what you are interested in. And as soon as you define that for yourselves, the economic aspects will follow automatically.

And how do you keep the flow going? Do you just keep doing or is there a specific structure?

Vinca: Yes, exactly. There is no kind of system. We are not a classic graphic design studio. Metahaven is rather like a band. We just go somewhere and play and see what happens; we improvise intuitively.

Do you act with a personal motivation behind your political projects, e.g. Wikileaks? Where do your political interests comes from?

Vinca: Yes, but it’s like anything you are interested in: you have to educate yourself. I don’t have a clear answer, but personal interest is a very important motor for me because of the idea of changing something by doing it yourself. “The personal is political” is a slogan from the 1970s feminist movement, where the domestic environment for women was an one that they lived in: anything they did there was affected. But we change it to “personal is geopolitical” in a world in which everything is networked… and also has become super abstract. Still, there is a possibility to do something personal within the geopolitical. And a good example is Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower who leaked all the documents to Wikileaks. Because that was something he wanted to change and do something about. It had a huge geopolitical impact.

In that context: do you speak about critical design or political design in Metahaven’s work?

Vinca: I would not choose any of these terms, but our work has been described with both; I’m fine with both. But what is important to us in our work is that we very strongly believe that progressive politics need progressive design. This idea that progressive thinking, or a progressive theoretical thought movement, has to be accompanied by an aesthetic that is downplayed or careful. This is something that we very much do not believe in: the extreme right had very strong visual strategies to compliment their politics, and we believe that on the other hand of this spectrum the left could do the same. Extreme politics can also have an extreme maximalist aesthetic. Not only visual identity, but also an aesthetic of language, the style of speaking, a choice of words.

It’s easy for the right because they simply use the language of power, a language of battle.

Vinca: Yes, that is something that we don’t say: “we have the answer”. But it’s something we are trying to explore. How can I be maximalist with over-the-top aesthetics, how can it be used for progressive politics? We invite everyone to explore this as well.

Is there any kind of way you develop your style? So if you see work by Metahaven, you can identify that it was made by you?

Vinca: A particular style is hard to describe, but we do believe in a very „over-the-top“ hyperbolic visual strategy, and that comes very much from the idea that different political ideas can also have that. So we are trying to explore that in the internet age. A way of adding a lot of effect. Not only adding effect, but using a lot of different references. This is something that wasn’t always appreciated.

Is there a coded message in the film The Sprawl?

Vinca: The film about propaganda tries to show the way propaganda exists on the internet. Disinformation and confusion is visualized in many visual strategies, which include the same confusion rather than a standard propagandistic path to a kind of ideology. We could not speak about something without showing the way it works. Maybe it’s not so much the fact that we try to hide things; maybe we do and it is a lot of fun, but not everybody has to understand it. If we make a film, we are not interested in doing a classic documentation. We are interested in doing it as graphic designers.

Do you want to change society with graphic design?

Vinca: There is an overlapping way of interpretation and in different places you have different information. I don’t think it is one big society. We like to be inspired by all the different corners and feelings.

What do you think about the influential role of the internet in our society today?

Vinca: We could use it freely and find inspiration – it is designed for that. It could give you a little freedom. But, for example, it also works as a very active propagandistic platform for states. We were really ”inspired“ by the way they could hire people like they do in Russia, for example. On the one hand, it is terrifying for the people; on the other hand, it is very fascinating. I can’t say if it’s good or bad.

What does «Step Across the Border» …

Vinca: We don’t think really in borders. Graphic design has changed from the way the term was used 20 years ago. For the last two years, we have been interested in moving images. We did our first documentary, feature films; we are writing the scripts, scenarios, are working with actors, etc. Doing what I do really excites me. What graphic design defines for me today is that it has no borders. It’s very much about reaching out and working collectively. I do not believe graphic design alone can move things, but I do believe it could be a great tool in a system of change. It can be a important factor.

Thank you