Believing in the Long Shot
Lessons from filmmaking, friendships, and old collaborations
Dear friends,
my last day in New York is ticking away.
I’ve spent nearly three weeks in the US, and tonight I’ll fly back to Europe.
Some notes, thoughts, and moments.
Notes from the City
The first time in New York was 10 years ago. Back then I was doing my internship at Sagmeister & Walsh. I remember that the city was very intense for me.
Even though I was able to navigate around and do my thing, the amount of extremes was overwhelming. I was not able to see all the beauty and richness which the city had to offer.
So when I came this time, I felt more open minded. Less judgmental. Also it is summer now – which probably makes a big difference.
Another big difference is that now I have good friends here. Pedro Sanches offered me a place to stay and I had many quality moments with Santiago Carrasquilla. Both two super talented creatives who I still know from my Sagmeister times. I feel very grateful to be surrounded by such nice and talented people.
Visiting a best friends exhibition
Another reason for my trip was to see Milena Naef’s new piece at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
She was invited to create a large outdoor work for their Ground/work series. This is a program that brings contemporary sculpture into the surrounding landscape.
It was great to see how her work interacting with the place in such a quiet but powerful way. Also great was the free food, the golf-caddies and the accommodation.
It was very inspiring to meet the other artists from the show, the curator Glenn Adamson and all the other people from the Clark Institute.
Also Williamstown is such a nice cute town. It feels like a movie.
Another Orbit for Spacebirth 2
Last night we held a small screening of Spacebirth 2. We rented a small cinema-room and had such a great time. Watching it again, I realized how much I’ve learned from making it.
The biggest lesson for me was this: You can make almost anything happen if you really believe in it. I know that sounds cheesy, but I really mean it. If you believe in something fully, with your whole everything, others will feel it. They’ll want to be part of it. And with this right group of people and that kind of energy, anything becomes possible.
But you really need to believe it from the bottom of your heart. If you just believe it a little bit, then I suppose it won't work.
Now, after two years of writing my new feature film Ghostbirth 2, I’m feeling much more confident. Scenes are taking shape in my mind. The visuals are getting clearer. In October, I’ll meet with my DOP Jamie Touche in Bangkok for our first round of test shoots. I’m incredibly excited for this new journey.
Embracing the long shot
Another thing I am currently learning is to trust in the long shot. Obviously we want to have long lasting connections with the people we love. But the same counts also for people we work with or even projects we are starting.
We never know what will come out of a project which we did two years ago. It can be a call from a possible client, a collaboration with anther great person or a new technique or skill which we aquired.
Not everything needs to pay off immediately. Sometimes the real value shows up much later.
For example the experimental project Telfar Puff Remix with Santiago, turned out to turn into a wonderful ongoing collaboration.
Roda Com Robot
Also from another old friendship resulted a beautiful project. Roda Com Robots is an audio-visual collaboration between the musician Nadav Dagon and me.
Nadav created four tracks on which I jammed visually with Deforum. The result are four psychedelic videos which get published under the label Circle of Dreams.
Also we are selling 16 completely unique high-quality art-prints soon. So let us know if you are interested.
Studio Visit Andrew Herzog
Also today way a special day because I visited the studio of Andrew Herzog. Andrew is an artist and designer whose work blends public installations, interactive art, and design.
He creates large-scale, often collaborative projects that invite participation and play, exploring how people interact with space, each other, and the world.
He also runs a studio in New York, teaches at SVA and Parsons, and previously worked at Google Creative Lab and Sagmeister & Walsh.
The first work I saw from Andrew were his circular walking exercises. But I learned today that he uses paper in a very canvas-like way and paints big aquarelles on it. As well building sculptures from wood and other materials.
We lingered a bit on the thought that when working with real material, there is no undo key. Some things are permanent. Which feels important in a time where so much is already virtual.
That was quite a big update.
But I hope you were able to take something away from it.
Much love,
Marius
