Dear friends,

Before Ghostbirth 2, we did Spacebirth 2.

Subscribe now

Spacebirth 2 is a film about a lonely cosmonaut in a spaceship. Drifting through space. Getting more and more depressed. And then suddenly…

We call it a psychedelic science-fiction. Its a full feature film and we worked on it for roughly three years.

We is: Audrey Belaud, Richard Keith, Jamie Touche, Felix Karliczek and many many more. In total a crew of more than 200 people.

It was our first film ever, so we had absolutely no clue what we were doing. We built the complete set from cardboard in an industrial bakery in Berlin.

Those years were completely rock’n roll and I learned how much you can achieve if you really believe in it.

Invitation

Early July (probably the 5th of July) we will host a small screening for friends in a cinema in Berlin. So if you are around - let me know - this is your invitation.

Until then - enjoy your summer!

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I am currently preparing the production of Ghostbirth 2.

Here I want to give you a look of how I am preparing the visuals and concept-art.

Subscribe now

Define the mood

Ghostbirth 2 will be a thai-giallo. That means Dario Argento, and especially his movie Suspiria, is a main reference.

I rewatched Suspiria and took screenshots of all the strong visual moments I want to have in my movie too. Then I put all of these images into a moodboard in Midjourney.

By putting a reference to this moodboard into my prompt, I was able to generate images in this specific mood. But it did not stop here.

Building the prompt

Just freestyling a prompt and making a reference to the moodboard is not enough to get the results I wanted. I wanted to be more in control.

So I created a new project in Claude and called it: Ghostbirth 2 – Visual Builder. I wrote an instruction prompt which applies to all the chats within this project.

(By the way, I used Claude to write me this instruction prompt and gave it some visual inspiration, so it understands the style I am looking for.)

I also uploaded the current version of the script and the synopsis to the Claude project. Like this the project knows which scenes I want to build.

Once this was done, I just had to tell Claude to generate me a prompt for a specific scene. For example the massage-lobby.

This long, structured and precise prompt I copy-pasted into Midjourney and added the moodboard reference from above.

The results were images which I could really see in my movie.

From there it was easy to explore different parts of my movie-sets and get visually inspired.

I even uploaded a floorplan of my set to the Claude project, so I can really control how the rooms are set up.

From the experience of my last movie Spacebirth 2 I learned that visual references are very important for me. Because I want to show my DOP (camera-man) what look I want to achieve.

It is a funky creative process which feels very playful and intuitive.

But AI only helps me prepare. The film itself I want to shoot for real. With practical effects and no AI.

Thanks a lot for reading!

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I’ve been mentioning selling my art prints for a while now.
And it is finally happening.

Visit the shop

We set up a small, simple online shop with a selection of my work. Each image exists in an edition of only 8, comes with a unique ID and a signed certificate.

We print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm.

Some of you might already know these images. I have been using them as cover photos for many of the articles here. So in a way, they have been part of this newsletter for years already.

Also thank you to Aneta Vaškelytė for setting up the shop with me. 🙏

You can find the shop here:
www.mariusjopen.art

Much love,
Marius

Subscribe now

Dear friends,

I’m back in Berlin. And I already miss the Portuguese mountains.
But before I get into all of that, I want to tell you about a book.

Subscribe now

Earlier this year I spent some weeks in Brazil and ended up at the Carnaval in Recife and Olinda. I’ve been to many Carnavals, but this one was totally another level.

It’s nothing like Rio. People celebrate in narrow streets, day and night, and the whole thing is one big loud Bagunça.

I had to keep my stuff and my friends close the entire time. Otherwise everything would be lost…

I brought my small Ricoh GR3 with me and shot ninja-style through all the chaos.

One of my best friends, Isadora Cirne, is a walking encyclopedia of Brazilian culture. She took me to places I would never have found alone. Tiny streets, special blocos, the real deal. (Cariri)

Now we are putting together a small book about Olinda. Her writing and my shaky photographs.

That’s that for now.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,
This is the last week in Foz da Cova, our small village in the Portuguese mountains.

Subscribe now

What we achieved:

• We (Paula Kühn and me) updated our THE ROBOTS website with a new design and case studies

• We learned to make fire in an oven (It’s not as easy as it sounds)

• We set up Attio CRM to manage our contacts (yeah!)

• We sweated in the sauna and jumped into the cold river

• Pancakes

• Time and peace to work on creative projects

• Carrying 4 cubic meters of wood through the whole village

• Watched great movies (Chunking Express, Fallen Angels, In the Mood for Love, Orfeu Negro, Central do Brasil)

What was challenging

• Open the door of the washing machine

• Switch on the coffee machine

• Defrosting the ice-box accidentally

Biggest takeaway

• It really is not necessary to be in a crowded city to get creative or digital work done. Actually the opposite.

• Even if you are a so called “creative-technologist”, washing- and coffee machines stay extremely complex systems

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

last week was pretty exciting. The YOYOYO project finally went live.

YOYOYO is a collaboration between Google DeepMind and the design studio Porto Rocha. The image side was built with Nano Banana Pro, Google’s new image model.

Paula Kühn, who is my partner in THE ROBOTS, contributed AI consulting and design support. She helped shape how the generative system was used across product, motion, and the visual identity.

I think it’s interesting that AI is not just sitting at the end of the pipeline, spitting out images. It actually becomes part of the design process itself. You make a decision, the system shows you something, and that impacts the next decision.

Since the launch our inbox is burning. So many great people writing in. We feel super grateful for opportunities like this.

Next week Paula will come to Foz da Cova, our small village in the Portuguese mountains.

Then we can deep dive into computers and nature.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

Two days ago I arrived in our small village in Portugal.

Foz Da Cova is deep in the Portuguese mountains. Surrounded by nature.

We have a sauna, crystal clear water, three houses that we renovate step by step, barbecues, WiFi, and a lot of time.

For us this place is more than just an escape from the busy reality. It’s a place which we can really shape ourselves. We come together as a group of friends, invite artists and musicians, and anyone who wants to bring in their ideas and good energies.

Technology & Nature

I used to think I needed a city to get things done. But actually, technology and nature go really well together.

I sit on my laptop for a bit, then step outside into the sun for a break. Fresh air is better than city smog. I can hear birds chirping…

Art Prints

Also I was working on a platform where people can buy my art-prints. Many of you have asked me over the years where to get my work. Now it’s finally coming together.

Every print will be in a limited edition of ten. Framed or unframed. Each artwork comes with a unique identification number and a signed certificate.

More about that very soon.

Now I will go for a walk.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I had the luxury to focus some days only on my movie Ghostbirth 2.

The packaging is coming together: Director's statement, fact sheet, loglines, biography and the synopsis are basically done. All that stuff…

Subscribe

For the story development, I found a method that works really well for me. Instead of writing the script linearly from beginning to end, I built a big digital canvas in Obsidian.

There I was laying out scenes visually, adding text and images to each one. Like Figma, but local, simple and free.

Once I started working this way, the whole film unfolded in front of me.

When I hit a wall, I switched tools. I started dictating everything about the film into Whisper Memos. So I was walking around my apartment for hours, talking through every scene, every detail, every character decision. Up to 90 minutes per session and automatically transcribed.

Then I fed those transcripts into an AI to get a structured version back. This turned out to be a powerful combination: Dictation get the raw creative energy, AI organizes it. The ideas are still mine. And AI is good at turning a messy monologue into something I can work with.

When I actually asked it to write scenes on its own, the results were flat every time. The brain is still the best computer for storytelling.

Also I ran an experiment with NotebookLM. I uploaded all my funding documents and the current version of the script, then had it generate a podcast-style critique of the project.
Does the story deliver on its premise? Where does the narrative lose momentum? Is the package ready for the co-production market? All that stuff…

Essentially a stress test. That forced some useful adjustments I wouldn't have caught on my own.

The story is in its final stretch now. I can't wait to put everything together into a proper package and start reaching out for funding and collaborators.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

so I am already one week in with OpenClaw and Claude Code.
And it's kind of insane.

Subscribe

Here are my learnings from last week.

Claude Code

This is the new standard for vibe-coding. Or call it agentic-coding. You need a Claude account, ideally with the 90$/month subscription. Install it on your computer, and off you go.

You run it in the terminal, connect whatever project you want to work on, type claude and start. You can improve existing projects, make them more stable, add new features. Or you start from scratch.

For years I wanted to make a small website for a poster project I did a long time ago. Never found the time. Now, within one hour, Claude just built it for me: www.the-poster-times.xyz

If you are a designer, a digital creative, or a developer, you really should check this out. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, offers free courses to get started. I think that's pretty cool.

OpenClaw

A lot of people have been asking me what OpenClaw actually is. It's basically a tool that lets AI control your computer. You can use it to manage notebooks, automate research, code websites, control 3D software, anything you can possibly imagine. You send your computer a voice message via Telegram, and it starts doing what you want. It feels like magic.

But there is a but.

You need to nerd yourself into it. And you should NOT install it on the machine you use for everyday stuff. Because it could access your passwords, send emails, delete your hard drive, let in hackers. All of that.

So you need a separate machine, and you need to make that machine secure. That's pretty nerdy and will take some time. If you are already comfortable with Linux, Terminal, and a bit of coding it should no be a problem.

If you have no clue about any of that, maybe don't touch it. Unless you have time to go down the rabbit hole, use AI to help you, and spend the next nights in front of your screen like a full nerd. That works too. Actually it's encouraged!

As a small experiment, I asked OpenClaw to use Claude Code to build me a website that generates a new rabbit made from cheese every hour with Stable Diffusion and uploads it online. Here it is: rabbit-made-from-cheese.pages.dev

By the way, I still write these newsletters by hand. ✋

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

For a few years now I've been naming all my computers after famous computers: Lisa. HAL. Deep Thought. Mother (from Alien).

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

My current machine is called Skynet. A tower PC sitting in my kitchen, running 24 hours a day. Mostly it has been doing Stable Diffusion jobs until now.

Last week I set it up it to run the AI agent tool called OpenClaw. And I have been a bit obsessed.

It is crazy that I can now just send a voice message on Telegram and it will build me a complete website and put it online automatically. C R A Z Y

I can also send screenshots and it researches what is in the picture and saves everything into my Obsidian notes. It runs Stable Diffusion. It writes emails. It manages my Trello boards. It can do everything (!)

A friend showed me how he's using AI to code websites lately. It's called agentic coding. You have four or five AI agents working on different parts of a website-project at the same time. And you only need check what they are doing.

I think it's changing completely how we work with computers. (We are cooked.) If you are a designer or developer or just work on a screen, you should really look into this. (Claude Code, OpenClaw, agents and all that…)

As always I am probably six months late to the party…

Much love,
Marius

PS: Also I am proud to say that the first test-order from The Peters World arrived!

Dear friends,

I arrived back in Berlin. And I do miss the beach, the sunshine, and the smiles…

But it's all good. I'll stay here for the summer, and then go back to Bangkok to work on my next movie Ghostbirth 2.

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Coming back always feels like a good moment to look at everything I am doing creatively. Which project works well and which project does actually only sit around and does nothing.

First I made a list of all my subscriptions and tools I'm paying for. And it is so many! I even forgot that I was paying for some of them.

So I cancel all the ones which I am not using anymore. Nothing big. But it feels good to not pay for things which I am not using.

I also sat down and spoke into my computer for around an hour.
About all my projects. My creative stuff. The people I work with…
Just free out of the head.

Afterwards I asked AI to structure it.

Now I could see which projects I'm actually working on. And which ones I stopped working on a while ago but never really let go of. Especially when I'm doing so many things at the same time this helps.

But maybe thats the problem.
Maybe I should just do less things the same time…

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I'm back in Germany. But I am happy to be here. 🥲

Today I want to share something that has really changed how I work with AI. Not a new tool, not a new model. Just a feature that most people completely ignore.

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Most people use AI wrong

They open a chat, type a question, get an answer, close the window. Next time they open a new chat and start from zero again. The AI has no idea who they are, what they need, or how they think.

That's like calling a consultant every week and spending the first 20 minutes re-explaining your whole situation every single time.

Projects change everything

ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all have a feature called Projects. Gemini calls them Gems, but it's the same idea. A project is a space where you give the AI a permanent instruction and context and every chat you start inside that project inherits it automatically.

The simplest example: Imagine a personal cook who already knows your allergies, your budget, and that you eat rice with almost everything. You don't explain this every time. You just ask "what should I make tonight?" and get an actually useful answer.

A tax consultant who has seen your documents. A writing coach who knows your voice. A travel planner who knows you hate hostels and love good coffee. You're basically building a team of personal consultants, each one trained to a specific part of your life.

The quality of your instruction matters a lot

The difference between a mediocre AI project and a great one is the instruction prompt you write at the beginning. Bad instructions give bad results. (Golden rule)

"You are my personal cook who knows my diet" is fine.
But something like: You know I shop at German supermarkets, I want protein-heavy meals, max €10 per dish, and I don't want food blog poetry — just give me the meal name, cost, and prep time — that's a different experience entirely.

The good news: you don't have to write these prompts yourself.

A project that writes your projects

I have one project whose only job is to write instruction prompts for my other projects. I describe a new project idea to it in a few sentences, and it gives me back a finished, detailed system prompt I can copy straight in.

It sounds almost too easy. But it works incredibly well. And once you have it set up, starting a new project takes about two minutes.

Here is the instruction prompt I use for it:

You are an expert at creating system prompts for AI projects and chats. Your task is to generate a precise, well-structured system prompt from a short, informal description of a project.

When the user tells you what they want, you create a finished system prompt with these properties:

1. Role & Context: Clearly defines who the AI is in this project and what context exists. 2. Task & Goal: Precisely describes what the AI should do — not vague, but with concrete action instructions. 3. Style & Tone: Establishes how the AI should communicate (e.g. direct, technical, creative, formal). 4. Constraints: Defines what the AI should NOT do — boundaries that prevent common mistakes. 5. Output Format: Specifies the form responses should take (prose, lists, code, Markdown, etc.). 6. Examples (when useful): Includes 1-2 short examples of good vs. bad output.

Your approach: - Read the user's description. - Ask at most 2-3 targeted follow-up questions if critical information is missing (e.g. target audience, language, level of detail). - Then deliver a finished, copy-paste-ready system prompt in a code block. - Keep the prompt as short as possible and as long as necessary. Avoid filler text. - Write the prompt in the language the user is speaking with you, unless they request otherwise.

Important: - No generic platitudes like "You are a helpful assistant." - Every prompt must be specific enough that the AI immediately knows what to do. - Prefer active, direct phrasing ("You analyze...", "You create...") over passive constructions.

One more thing

I stopped typing my questions into AI chats a while ago. I talk instead. I use Wispr Flow. I hold down a button on my keyboard and just dictate. It's faster, more natural, and the answers somehow feel better too. I think this is because I explain things more freely when I'm speaking.

If you haven't tried it, worth a look.

Well, that's that for today. More of a practical one this time.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

Last days in Brazil… 😭

I was testing the three big players of AI the last couple of months: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), Claude (Anthropic).

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

I think we all started with ChatGPT, and I sticked to it for quite a while. But over the time I started to feel odd about it. What I was reading in the news about them did not really convince me to give them my trust. Because basically it is a lot about that. Also it felt odd, that it slowly started to build a global memory of my persona and adjusted the answers according to me.

Because I use Gmail and Gdrive and all the other Google services I started to use Gemini more frequently. Back then I liked the more neutral way of answering. Every chat was new and did not connect to a global memory. I think by now Gemini has memory too, but when I used it, it didn't.

I created a chat for specific topics and added a starter prompt into each one of them. For example: In this chat you are a film-nerd. Or in this chat you are a technical creative. That worked well for a while. Then when the chat became very long, I noticed that it started to forget its initial role. That was quite frustrating, because I thought that I have all my helper-chats set up.

And it has Nano Banana, Gemini's image generation feature, which is one of the best on the market right now. But another thing what truly put me off was that Gemini started to analyse all my files on my Google Drive. All of them. Every image. And that's pretty scary. So I will move a big bunch of my files away from Google in the next weeks.

Then I had a look at Claude, by Anthropic. And at least from what I heard is that they are way more concerned about privacy and ethical questions. So that's good. And they allow users to create projects and add specific instructions to them. So whenever I ask a question in my film-nerd project, I get a good answer.

I now have multiple projects with different instructions set up. I even have a project which writes starter-instructions for new projects for me. (That's an important one) Claude also has memory by now, but it feels more controlled. I know what it remembers and can manage it.

As well Claude is on the frontier of AI-programming. I do use it a lot with Cursor and want to look into Claude Code too.

Just thought I might share this with you.

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

probably many of you already heard about OpenClaw or ClawBot.

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

OpenClaw is a tool which you can install on basically any computer. It can control it like a human. It can create folders or files, use software, browse the internet, code. Everything on its own.

You can talk to it by using Telegram, Whatsapp or other chat tools. The idea is that you have OpenClaw running on a computer 24/7. So you can send it tasks at anytime, from wherever you are.

Those can be simple tasks like:
I send it a screenshot of my iPhone, OpenClaw analyses it and saves the result in my note-taking app. Or every morning it sends me a summary of all new mails, messages and todos via Telegram.

Or complex tasks like:
Code a website from a screenshot, then automatically deploy it and frequently check it for bugs. Or it works as a project manager, reading emails, writing estimates, briefings, setting up todos in Trello.

Now a small warning before you get too excited:
I would not recommend installing OpenClaw on your personal MacBook. It can destroy files, and giving it all the access you have on your main machine is risky. You simply don't know what it will do.

The best setup would be a Mac Mini. They run silently in your house 24/7 and cost around €700. Also you can rent a virtual server with OpenClaw already installed. For example on Digital Ocean. You won't get the same beautiful interface as on a Mac Mini, but it's completely fine for testing.

Also important to know:
OpenClaw needs to be connected to an AI provider like Anthropic, OpenAI or Google to use their models. And this cost money. If you don't pay attention, you can easily burn €50 ore more in a single day. So be careful with that.

I think I will get myself a Mac Mini soon to have my own little AI computer running 24/7. But for now, the Digital Ocean setup is good to experiment with.

We are entering a new phase of how we use AI. Not just chatting with it, but actually letting it do things for us. And OpenClaw feels like a very raw, very real glimpse of that future.

Much love,

Marius

Dear friends,
the last two or three months I was a bit undercover.

But now I feel the urge to get back into a healthy and productive routine of sharing what I am doing.

Currently I am in Recife, a city in the north of Brazil. A dear friend shows me all the cultural spots and the carnaval madness.

The previous month I spent in a small surfer-village (not surfing), Fortaleza (with my Capoeira crew) and Rio.

I’ll keep this one short just to get the engine running again, but I already have a list of topics I want to write about in the coming weeks. 💪

Much love from sunny Brazil!
Marius

Dear friends,

I recently integrated three amazing new tools into my digital life:

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

NotebookLM

It is a tool by Google where you can upload your own documents. This includes PDFs, websites, audio, and video files.

The AI analyzes the content and lets you ask questions about it. It goes way beyond a normal chat like ChatGPT or Gemini. It really helps you make sense of a lot of content and draw new connections.

Also you can generate a podcast where two voices discuss your uploaded files. It is really good at summarizing complex topics.

If you are doing research, writing a book or trying to organize a lot of files, this is really helpful.

Obsidian

I do love notes. Small thoughts or ideas, lists of movies, diaries, website-bookmarks, research or life-strategies.

In the past, I used Notion for all of this. But when they started adding AI by default, I did not feel good about having all my data sitting on a server of a random US company. Who knows what they do with it or who has access to my files?

I looked for a more secure alternative and found Obsidian. It stores everything as simple text files on your own computer. You own your data, not a cloud company.

But it takes some time to get into it. If you just like to take quick notes, maybe stick to the Apple Notes app. But if you are into collecting all your inspiration, thoughts, favorite films, and research material in one place, it is incredible.

There is a big community and many plugins to custom-tailor it. You can even code your own functions. For example, I wrote a script that automatically tags all my notes with AI.

I spent some nights setting it up, but now I have a system that really does what I need.

iBroadcast

I was cleaning up my apartment and found an old hard drive with 900GB of music. I collected this from people around the world. It ranges from experimental ambient and dark wave to Chicago house and Jazz. Basically everything.

Instead of leaving it on this hard drive, I uploaded it to iBroadcast. This is a streaming app that lets you enjoy your own music collection via a nicely designed app on your phone or computer.

So instead of listening to what everybody listens to on Spotify, I can now browse through this massive collection of niche and non-mainstream music which I built some years ago. Feels so good!

Wishing you all a great new year!

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I am happy that in the end of this year I had some time for two nice things:

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Thing #1 – The Peters

I am proudly announcing the Peter online-shop www.thepeters.world.

Currently I am selling there only the new 2026 Peter calendar. But I will add more items soon like t-shirts, baby-stuff, books, pillows, books etc.

Another cool thing is the "Send A Peter" feature. You can send a real letter on paper to someone you love or want to confuse. Pick you Peter, write a small note, and after 3 days, that person will have a Peter in the mailbox at home.

Much more to come!

Thing #2 – A new camera setup

I bought myself a film camera! The Nikon ZR with two lenses. It can shoot 6k and has the RED color codec. 💪

Plan is to travel a lot next year and film as much as I can. I myself don't have much experience with handling a camera myself, so that will be a lot to learn.

Other than that I hope you all enjoy Christmas with your loved ones!

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

I spent the last days on the road again.
Last Wednesday Paula and me gave a talk at the HTWG in Konstanz.

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

It was so nice to see my old teachers and friends again. Thank you so much Karin Kaiser and Jo Wickert for the invitation. We cannot wait to come back and share more about the world of creativity and AI.

I was hosted by my good old friend Annabelle Flaig-Höpfer who is running the design studio 2 zimmer together with Isabell Schmidt-Borzel.

Together they create very beautiful, wholesome and honest designs. Things crafted by hand, real illustrations and no AI involved. The opposite of the fast-paced and superficial trends. They work with local clients and always find time to enjoy sunshine and life.

Also Annabelle and Miriam Stepper publish the NUN magazine. An independent, cross-border city-magazine. With stories from the daily life, filled with love and positive energy.

That's it for today!
Thank you for reading 🙏

Much love,
Marius

Dear friends,

just a quick update from my side 😀

THE ROBOTS in Konstanz

We, THE ROBOTS, were invited to give a talk about AI and and our creative design practice in Konstanz.

Paula Kühn and me will travel next Wednesday to the place where I started my design studies and hope to drop some knowledge. Very looking forward to see old friends again and the big, beautiful lake.

Whoever is curious, the talk is on Wednesday the 3rd of December.
At 6pm at the HTWG in Kostanz (Communication Design building).

Nathan Ceddia

I was very lucky that Nathan joined me to Bangkok to do the test-shoot for Ghostbirth 2.

Nathan is a very talented director and camera-man who creates surreal worlds, loves to tell small stories and has a very poetic visual aesthetic.

I met Nathan the first time in Berlin when we were producing Spacebirth 2. He now moved back to Australia but is travelling and filming all kinds of exciting projects.

Check out his website and his Instagram.

Thank you for reading 🙏🙏🙏

Much love,
Marius

I have been back in Berlin for two weeks already. A lot of things happened at the same time and I did not find a moment to sit down and write my weekly newsletter.

But now I am getting back into my routine and try to stick to it.

Sign up for Marius Jopen

Working & Teaching in the field of AI

Subscribe

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

e-flux

For the last year I kept mentioning that we were working on a very large website project which I could not talk about yet. Now it is online and public.

www.e-flux.com

I am very proud to say that we at 100k Studio built the new system behind the e-flux website.

e-flux is basically the New York Times of the art world. It is the biggest archive of art news on the internet and they publish new content every day.

We migrated all of their data into a modern Content Management System and adapted all relationship structures to work in the new environment. Hundreds of thousands of files. Tens of thousands of database entries. Hundreds of collections and relationship types.

We rebuilt their frontend, their client area CMS, their search system, their booking integration, their newsletter and reminders system and their iOS app.

It is not just a website. It is a whole ecosystem running across several servers.

In the end it looks exactly like the old e-flux website. But it loads faster and the codebase and CMS were modernized.

Peters in Hamburg

Sekko Soziale, Aneta Vaškelytė and I were invited to paint an entire room at Villa Viva in Hamburg. This is the hotel run by Viva con Agua.

Sekko Soziale makes great sparkling wine and fights fascism and racism in Germany.

Viva con Agua is a Hamburg based organisation working toward Water for all. Villa Viva is their hotel and every stay supports their global social projects.

So we spent a whole night painting one of the rooms with Peters. A lot of Peters.

And apparently I am now free to come back whenever I want and paint more Peters around the hotel.

In general I want to give the Peters a bit more love again. A new calendar for 2026. Some cute clothing pieces. Maybe offering Peter drawings online.

Thank you so much for reading.

Much love,
Marius