Wish You Were Here

December 10, 2019

On November 20th, I was flown to Miami to cover the Borscht Film Festival, a celebration devoted to short films. Borscht is a non-profit, artist-run production company founded in 2010. I appreciated being flown to a film festival by artists, because I know I couldn’t fly artists to my own exhibitions.

I knew I was in Miami when I saw mustached young men in brightly colored shirts, then felt old and Northeastern which bummed me out. Borscht isn’t like other festivals, in part because there aren't any awards. There’s no sense of competition. The reason it doesn’t occur yearly is because each film in the festival, for the most part, is funded or commissioned by Borscht. It is truly collective. Directors act in actor’s films and writers lend editors Juuls. I was there as a "journalist" to document it all.

I put the word "journalist" in quotes because I’m not one, but here we go.

Text and photos courtesy of Brad Phillips

I have many friends and loved ones in or from Miami, and part of my pitch to office was that I wanted to write about my experience hanging out with the filmmakers, going to their parties and riding with 18 young people while smoking weed and dancing in the stretch pink Hummer that transported us to the main screening. I’m doing it now. When we poured out of the hotboxed outrageousness of our ride, instead of impressing the people we thought would be standing outside, we instead bewildered some security cards. Everyone was already in the theater. I brought in a box of calamari from Garcia’s, and some fried chicken.

On the day of a different screening, my Hummer companions—now joined by what felt like a gaggle of foreign correspondents—were driven in a deluxe black minibus to Bayside Marketplace, to be loaded onto three boats operated by Thriller Miami Speedboat Adventures. Each boat was brightly painted with the words “Thriller Miami”. These murderously fast cigarette boats chased each other around the ocean, jumped over wakes, and delivered on their promise, which was to thrill. Our driver was named Brian and looked exactly how someone who did his job should. Brian was bursting with charisma, ravenous for speed, and told us he enjoyed woodworking. Music played very loudly, most of it in Spanish and terribly danceable. Despite the intense wind people managed to use lighters, and as we disembarked, Brian thanked us for leaving behind that "sweet smell".

Just as with the Hummer, the Thriller was a first for me. It was extraordinarily fun. It felt like artists helping each other relax during what could potentially be a nerve-wracking time. These photographs of my Hummer and Thriller experiences show what I cannot tell. “Show don’t tell” is a maxim in filmmaking.

A major part of Borscht’s mission is the documentation of a "real Miami". Funding is almost entirely allocated for local filmmakers, specifically people of color, members of the LGBTQ community and first generation Americans (children of immigrants). Miami is one of the most overly depicted cities in film and television yet has some the highest disparities in wealth per capita in the United States. The Miami of Scarface and CSI is not the Miami I've seen. It’s a city in perpetual flux, forever craning its head above the water of hyper-gentrification. But it’s also a city with chill beaches and local spots and dead malls, leant to the arts community by MANA real estate properties as artist studios that serve as dance clubs. It’s a city that supports local artists and the arts generally in a way that seems rare. The films made by these Miamians (which I will discuss soon), are not stories about running drugs, gunfights and pastel eroto-topias. They are personal, geographically realist, funny and poignant.

Part of what made many of these films so beautiful was the sincere motivation to tell a true story about a mostly fictionalized city and it’s often miscast citizens. The morning after my late arrival, I ate breakfast and showed up late to the first screening at, bizarrely to me, a Scottish FreeMason temple. When we arrived all the seats were taken, so I sat on the floor and pulled out a small notebook and pen I’d bought to take notes. Scribbling on the paper in the dark, I felt like a sort of "performative journalist". The highlight of the night was a film called JOKER GANG, by Billy Linker and Ben Carey. This film is about a man who tattooed his face to look like the Joker from Batman. Although he claims (inexplicably) to have undergone this mutilation to ameliorate the intense sadness he felt when his ex-girlfriend aborted their baby, it quickly becomes clear that Joker305 is just another person trapped in the obsessive delusion that Instagram fame equals money.

The Joker is obviously unwell. He remains steadfast in the wake of unrelenting harassment during his live Instagram videos, which are prominently featured in the film. An Instagram Batman is shown arriving at the Joker’s home to fight him, only to be sucker-punched before he’s able to exit his Acura. The Joker meets a stripper who also wants to be famous on Instagram. They do a photo shoot. He stalks her. He posts a video toting an AK-47 while wearing only diapers. The narrative slow dives into the Joker’s broken heart. Towards the end, he appears to try taking his life using antibiotics. His live video ‘haters’ goad him on. He stops recording.

The films screened on the following day were all done by members of Bisque Corp, a younger iteration of Borscht that sprung from their fellowship program, coordinated by Trevor Bazile, a filmmaker and saxophonist whose own short film, Art Blakey Self Portrait, was good, eliciting laughs in tears in just a minute. Before the films were screened, Lucas Leyvas, one of Borscht’s founders, explained that when the non-profit was established in 2010, they vowed to never work with anyone over thirty. Since most of the original gang are now in their thirties, Bisque Corp was created to prevent the scene from becoming geriatric.

Most of Bisque’s members are fellows or interns. They in some way help Borscht, who in return helps them back. There were a few noticeable differences in the films made by those in their twenties and those in their thirties. Besides the preponderance of social media images and techniques seen in the Bisque Corp films—things like emojis, memes, and entire shorts that depict only what transpires on a laptop screen—there was an unusual number of films shot using GoPro cameras.

I wondered what this meant ontologically for those born in the nineties who’ve never known a world undocumented, clicked, liked and shared. The GoPro as a camera technique seemed to imply one of two things. It could either be solipsistic, in that nothing exists for these filmmakers unless it can be verified by their field of vision, or it could be wholly self-negating as if these same people can only qualify their existence by verifying they live in the landscape they capture.

Here are some working cuts from the Bisque screening that stood out.

The Five-Year-Old Teacher (Kiki's Class) by Luis Fernando Medellin. This very short film simply depicts a young girl teaching stuffed animals "sight words", or prepositions. The girl is adorable as are the dolls are seen absorbing knowledge in close-ups. Out of context, it could look like an excerpt from Sesame Street. There is no subtextual irony, or really anything out of the ordinary, except its own unordinariness. I enjoyed the confusion.

In A Lesson About Love, Harley Shaw documents seven minutes inside of a spy store, which she films wearing hidden cameras on her body. It’s a good one-liner of a film, and one-liners are important. The protagonist is never seen, only seen being seen. On her first visit, she asks the salesperson mundane questions while capturing him unawares on tape. On her second visit, she gets busted by a different guy at the counter who threatens to press charges against her. The rest of the film takes place on iMessage, where Shaw tries to talk her way out of being charged.

Dear Maria, Lena Redford, 2019

In Dear Maria, Lena Redford manages to successfully convey sadness, comedy, appealing visuals and some heartbreak in under four minutes. Tragedy and comedy are best friends in good art, and Redford is at home with both. Almost the entire film shows what’s transpiring on Redford’s laptop screen. There are other shots of her lazily preparing to move out of her apartment recorded with either an iPhone or GoPro. Redford is writing a letter to her landlady, Maria, using a template, to inform her that she’ll be decamping from Los Angeles for Miami. She is giving notice. While she talks aloud, she modifies the text, until she’s writing Maria a personal letter describing what’s been going on with her, and why she’s moving to Florida. Redford speaks in a satisfyingly blase voice about her life. Redford tells Maria out loud that she’ll be “moving out tomorrow, which is cool, cause that is soon.”

Her one-sided conversation with Maria is sweet, and also reads like Redford is trying to encourage herself about how easily she can clean up the apartment and move out. She tells Maria she’s moving to Miami because that’s where her brother lives, and not Scottsdale, where her father lives, apparently so he can receive treatment for what seems to be a serious illness that’s never revealed.

Redford is very funny, her voice is funny, what she documents and how she does it is funny. The offhand remarks about her father add a nice undertone of sadness that doesn’t feel sappy, just real. In one brief shot, she’s shown putting a fidget spinner into her pocket, and this somehow feels important.

Hoy!, Pedro Bello, 2019

Hoy! is a very confusing film in a way that feels positive. Bello, playing himself, appears at the beginning as a man who keeps falling up and getting down. The style of the film is obscure videogamesque. Bello is harassed and encouraged by a strange purple man who looks like a genie and calls him both a jerk and a friend. At some point, Bello is ordered by a second-rate X-men/Transformers type character to take part in a production of King Arthur, where he’s meant to play a tree. As in Redford’s film, a lot of things are described as ‘cool’, even when they aren’t. Bello’s character is cute, has Band-Aids on his face, and seems both chill and confused. I can’t say I understood the story I watched, or that there even was one, but Bello has a great slapstick style, and many times while watching his film I laughed, which is positive.

It was the night we poured our pink Hummer spectacle onto the empty red carpet of the Adrienne Arsht Centre that I saw the films I liked most. Happily, to me, there is a store in Miami called Sib-Bling Jewellers. I wanted to mention this but had no reason until I saw Emergency Action Plan by Dylan Redford, brother to Lena.

Emergency Action Plan, Dylan Redford, 2019

Emergency Action Plan is bookended by two segments where Redford is being interviewed about childhood memories. In the first, he’s in Grade 5 and has been chosen to by his principal to be a victim in a school-wide earthquake drill. Redford has an unrequited crush on a girl in his class named MacKenzie. He describes how a bell goes off at 11 A.M., at which point he is taken to the library, covered in fake blood, and told that he’s been crushed to death by a fallen bookcase. He tells his interviewer that he fantasized about his death would garner MacKenzie’s attention. In the second childhood flashback, Redford describes a fantasy where, after having been killed by the bookshelf, he walks back to class to find a note on his desk from MacKenzie which reads, “I’m glad you’re alive”.

After reminiscing about MacKenzie, Redford, sitting at a table in an unremarkable shirt is asked about an email he received on September 10, 2017. He describes having gotten an email at work asking him to prepare an Emergency Action Plan for an Active Shooter scenario. The young boy killed by a bookshelf is now spurred by memory to prepare as best as he can to be shot in his office, because as says, “I have zero confidence I would survive an active shooter attack. If anything I would be the first person nailed.”

Redford is a very good actor (appearing in other films), and while watching his film, I realized I was witnessing for the first time the creative aftermath born by a generation of kids drilled daily to prepare for a bloodbath. Redford’s character is very enthusiastic about taking up his company’s directive to prepare for violence. He watches ‘hundreds’ of active shooter drill videos on YouTube. He googles “what kind of guns do active shooters use”, then purchases those guns (for self-defense). He buys striking dummies, bulletproof vests, and hidden cameras. Through his enthusiastic effort to remain safe and do what his company asks of him, Redford unwittingly becomes flagged as a potential active shooter due to his search and purchase history. In the end, Redford envisions himself shot to death by a SWAT team, who’ve now thwarted one active shooter attack by eliminating an overly enthusiastic, highly neurotic office employee. Emergency Action Plan is very funny, but is also an intelligent satirical analysis of American gun frenzy and perpetual surveillance.

I Cannot State my Position, Kayla Delacerda, 2019

I Cannot State My Position is a surgical gem of a film that autopsies mansplaining. Delacerda’s film is atypical in that it’s shot on a Sony HandyCam, and consists of an irritating young man explaining to Delacerda why she cannot and will not be able to make good art using a Sony HandyCam. Interspersed between beautiful low-fi shots of sunsets and approaching trains, an obnoxious, teenaged seeming white boy interrupts Delacerda constantly, telling her that what she’s recording just can’t be art. His unbearable admonitions are the soundtrack to mournful images of birds and sky. While being discouraged unrelentingly, Delacerda attempts to defend herself, only to be told by her friend, with a finger pointed, to "let me finish my thought". His thoughts about what Delacerda can’t do, never finish. “Ok, Kayla, it’s not like 1929—anybody can record anything, anything can be recorded, Twitter exists....” Sage words about Twitter (?).

Delacerda’s friend insists that to make art, she needs to capture the moment. She says she is. He says she’s not doing it the right way. His issue seems to be that her equipment is too ‘basic’, which she explains is all she can afford. That it’s a white boy telling her she’s ‘capturing the moment’ with the wrong equipment is telling. I felt a palpable sense of discomfort listening to and watching Delacerda be talked down to. Ironically, her ‘advisor’ asks her to turn the camera away from him, as it makes him uncomfortable. Towards the end, he says that he better not end up being in the video. In making that conversation her film, Delacerda eviscerates her mansplainer, and captures the moment perfectly, creating a beautiful piece of art that is simple (not because the camera is simple) in its exposition of what women have to put up with if they want to talk to men about their artwork.

Why Did You Look Back, Cristine Brache, 2019

Why Did You Look Back is, like many other films I saw, autobiographical. This is normal. Brache’s film felt different, in that it also felt very film-ic (in part because it was shot on film), in a way that implied the beginning of a larger story, while still managing to function perfectly as a short film. From the striking title card to the soundtrack and color and cinematography, Brache’s film felt confident from frame to frame. As you hope for with good writing, there wasn’t a shot or line that felt expendable. All of the cast are actors.

In the first shot, a sad teenage girl exits her home to the sound of dramatic Latin music that felt reminiscent of a showdown scene from a Western film. Once she gets into her aunt’s car, the high drama subsides, and melancholy sets in. The film tells the story of a young girl named Soledad, who’s appropriately bummed out, and the attempts by her maternal family members to help her feel better by way of a Santeria ritual. In the car with her aunt, Soledad, who knows she’s being taken to participate in a ritual and seems ambivalent about it, is harangued by her aunt for not wearing lipstick, is reminded that her youth is fleeting and that she needs to dress more like a woman. Her depression seems more practically local than existential, and there is a sad irony in being driven to a place meant to heal you while being actively belittled by your healer.

Arriving at her grandmother’s house to begin the ritual, Soledad is immediately asked if she’s gained weight. The actor who plays Soledad is an expert at conveying the most discouragingly withered blank face. A pigeon is the crux of the ceremony. Soledad is meant to hold it in her hands then let it go. With all three women dressed in white and heading towards the beach, Soledad’s grandmother reminds her how important it is that she doesn’t look back at the pigeon once she’s let it go.

On the beach the aunt and grandmother begin the ceremony, drinking alcohol and talking though as possessed. The conversation is about expelling bad energy, and only allowing good energy to enter. When Soledad lets go of the bird, it lands just a few feet away. As her aunt and grandmother walk ahead of her, Soledad does what she was warned against, and looks back at the bird. As soon as the three women arrive back at the house, the phone rings. It’s her grandmother’s medium calling from Puerto Rico for Soledad. She asks one question, “Why did you look back?” For a minute and a half, Soledad stares at the camera while being comforted by her grandmother’s medium. Played by a great actor, Soledad listens and stares, her face withstanding an avalanche of tears. Why Did You Look Back elicited many feelings in me, and I like feelings in art. And beauty.

In my last night in Miami, we were all taken to Santa’s Enchanted Forest. I’d never considered what Christmas would be like in a place without snow. Everyone was relaxed and throwing money at rigged games. This last image could stand-in for what my experience in Miami felt like, and maybe looks like a still from a movie I’ll never make.

Culture

Noomi Rapace and Johan Renck Navigate Colliding Constellations

April 20, 2024

Johan Renck, the director of the new hit Netflix sci-fi movie, Spaceman, believes that especially today, you can do whatever the fuck you want and nobody will give a shit. "There are no rules." Fellow Swede Noomi Rapace, who stars in the new Apple TV sci-fi series, Constellation, echoes a familiar sentiment. So what is the point of art? Typically an antagonism towards the machinaions of culture, the role of art today is especially to make us feel more than it is to make us think.

In light of their concurrent releases, office Editor-in-Chief Simon Rasmussen (who has more in common with Noomi and Johan than their Scandinavian heritage) called them up to discuss life, love, isolation, reality, gargantuan spiders, creativity, and the role of traditional storytelling and a slower pace in a present driven by hysterical consumption. In this conversation, there are no rules to break.

Introduction by Sarah Hersom
Interview by Simon Rasmussen
Polaroid courtesy of Noomi Rapace

Noomi Rapace — I'm so excited to do this. I've been such a big fan of your work ever since I saw Downloading Nancy on a plane. I was completely destroyed. I watched it again straight away.

Johan Renck — That's funny. I just got an email from one of the producers. They're planning a restored re-release in LA. But same, I'm a huge fan of yours. You’re one of those Swedes who gets it. Always moving and shaking it all over the place in all sorts of ways. Relentless energy. You're like a Svengali; you bring people together, find connections, you know everybody on this planet, and you are a formidable actress.

Simon Rasmussen — Noomi, thank you so much for always being curious and wanting more and never settling for less. That energy is what we need.

NR — Before this call, I was thinking about the three of us. It’s crazy: one Dane and two Swedes who broke out and started something else. Your magazine is one of my favorites. It really digs into all my favorite art fields. I feel like a lot of things today slide into something where that becomes either too pleasing or too vulgar.

JR — I so agree with that. I used to just devour various publications and magazines, always in the world of fashion, culture, and music. It's amazing that you hold that banner up. I fucking miss the days of magazines when you’d go out once a month, buy a bunch, and spend the whole weekend reading, getting inspired and discovering shit. There's been a "death of publications" in a way that has forced almost all of them to become so ridiculously polished and policing and polite. I'm not interested in that at all.

Thank you. Sometimes young people approach me like, oh, Simon, I want to start a magazine, and I'm like, don't. It's not worth it. It's messed up [laughs]. It's a weird time for media. I used to buy at least five or six magazines a month, and that was how I got inspiration and knew what was going on. Honesty, in a sense, we don't need that anymore. It's like this weird thing where, yes, we go to magazines for photography, fashion, and culture, but it's so accessible now. We're caught up in our own speed of entertainment and media.

JR — I get it. What a magazine does is curate cultural output and write about it in depth. My sense is that we don't need them as much because many of the things that are covered in these types of publications are slowly dying. Music is no longer as relevant a carrier of youth culture, same with fashion and so on. Music is bigger now than ever, but it doesn't have that kick that it used to. It's not like people are dressing like their idols or writing their lyrics on walls in the city or anything. The same with fashion. It's like expressing yourself is no longer about fashion to some extent, it's gone past that. There are no rules to break. You can wear whatever the fuck you want, nobody gives a shit.

NR — When you screened Spaceman for me in New York, I was running around doing all these bits and pieces. Then I finally got to sit for two hours in the screening room that you set up and I just got to be in your world for a solid chapter. Those moments when you sit down and read an article, dive into a book or watch a film, become diamonds in me today, more than ever. I've watched your film three times now because it's such a beautiful piece. It feels like it's rooted in a love for traditional cinematic filmmaking, but also is a flirtation with the now. It doesn't rest, it never gets boring. It's not slow cinema, but it kind of feels like slow cinema.

Print magazines remind me of movies. Slow although they might not always be. Not to be nostalgic, but there’s that depth to it that grounds you and you can't help but get emotionally involved.

JR — To me, you're a product of the time you're working in. Any kind of expression you do is always going to be a bit of a protest. I'm very much an antagonist. I don’t follow formulas. If everybody's doing that, I'm doing this. In these days of being overfed with very trite content, the film has gone down in quality so drastically over the past 10-15 years. If you watch a dumb comedy from 2001, you go, Fuck, this is a proper film. Then you watch a serious drama today and you go, What the fuck is this shit? Bad writing, bad directing, bad everything.

NR — Because it's rushed!

JR — It's rushed, but it's also done for the wrong reasons. To me, any art form is ultimately about making people feel things, not think things.

NR — And it's not about being liked either. When everything is done to get as many likes as possible and make the loudest noise, it's akin to shooting ourselves to death because there's just more and more noise and little room to hear. That's one of the strengths of your film; there's a simplicity to it.

JR — Even subconsciously as a creator, you tend to draw from things that are meaningful to you. It's funny that Spaceman and Constellation premiered on the same day. Both films deal with loneliness and fractured relationships. In Spaceman, somebody asked our guy, "Are you the loneliest guy in the universe?" And in Constellation, somebody says, "And right now, this woman is the loneliest person in the universe." You can't help thinking about the fact that there is this increased sense of loneliness in general terms; we're all becoming more and more lonely. The reason both Constellation and Spaceman happened is that there's an identification with these types of sentiments and feelings.

NR — Also, who are we today? Many people don't take the time to reflect and actually look at their lives. The movies are the perfect setup for introspection. Am I living my life?

JR — But in Constellation, there's this profound moment that was much bigger than it's perceived. There's a scene where you're talking to yourself, saying something like, "It's weird how much pleasure I find in hearing when I can't hear any other voices. I'm so happy to just hear my own fucking voice." Do you remember that line?

NR — Yes. Something like talking to myself gives me a sense of comfort, even if it's just my own voice. It's like, "My voice makes me human. It lets me know that I'm still here."

JR — But I wouldn't be surprised if someone did a global poll and found that people are talking to themselves more than they were 15 to 20 years ago. I find myself talking to myself when I'm roaming around.

When everything is done to get as many likes as possible and make the loudest noise. That, to me, is like shooting ourselves to death because everyone is just making more and more noise, and I can't hear anything at the end of the day.

NR — Simon, do you talk to yourself?

I talk to Siri!

NR — [Laughs] With life it's like, what is success? Like an astronaut that worked so hard for a mission, prepping for years to go up there, and then they're up there. Then it's like, now what? I'm here, and I'm not sharing it with anyone. You can be the most successful star in any kind of field and still find yourself lonely.

JR — You can't share it with anyone. Every time you're away shooting something and you come home, part of you is bubbling with so many new experiences and things you learned, but it's impossible to share that. You know what I mean?

I love that part of what you shared, Noomi. It's a human condition where we're searching for this thing. Being able to make art is beautiful, but it also comes from a place of searching for this thing already there. I don't have to reach the outer galaxies to find out that the one I love was always right next to me. It's the same thing when we're creating things, existentially, it’s not going to make a difference.

JR — I agree with that.

NR — Hanus [in Spaceman] is almost like a modern Yoda because he speaks with thousands of years of wisdom, but almost with a childish belief in something more. Like Alice, in Constellation. Alice and Hanus are the two truth-tellers in our two different projects, reflecting without judgment, being a sobering and innocent eye on something that has gone seriously wrong.

JR — I agree, but the fact is that we're all only here for one reason, and we’ve been programmed for it. To consume. We've been duped into believing that when we're having a great dinner with friends at a restaurant, we're having a meaningful meeting. But what we're really doing is overpaying for a bunch of fucking food — spending money. Over the last 200 years, we've slowly turned into nothing but consumers. There are millions of micro actions in daily life that, if you flip over, you'll see like, yeah, man, it's part of the consumer pattern. That's all it is.

Unfortunately I think it’s just going to get worse. We've only been around for about 50,000 years compared to the 4 billion years of Earth's existence. There's a high chance that we won't exist in 50 years based on our hysterical consumption, and ideological ideas of “progress” and “success”. I sound like some old boomer communist now, but it's just facts.

You don't believe in a second chance? Or a resurrection?

JR — Of humanity? No, I don't. I believe in nature, and we have turned our back on the idea of evolutionary thoughts and on being a species interacting with our environment. I mean, a second chance, we're already past that.

There's a high chance that we won't exist in 50 years based on our hysterical consumption, and ideas of 'progress' and 'success'. I sound like some old boomer, communist now, but it's just facts.

NR — But what is the second chance? I mean, I've gotten so many second chances in life.

JR — Yeah, as an individual, but not as a species.

NR — So if we look at ourselves and the beauty of art… when an artist I love drops an album, I'm like, Whoa, I'm going to stay in this universe. I listen on Spotify, read the lyrics, and I stay there. Sometimes I feel like I've had multiple life chapters, like I can have a second chance and a third. We had this conversation after Lamb in New York. When something is new, I look at myself with fresh eyes. The beauty of life is that it’s constantly changing. Even dark and horrible things can lead you to something.

JR — I don't disagree with any of that on a personal level. But it's about the fact that there's nothing in the bigger scheme that drives towards the betterment of humanity. There are financial interests only. Everybody just wants more, faster, cheaper. I'm sounding bitter, but it's just a stern and factual look on things. All we can do is keep on doing the best we can, find beauty where we can, and find love where we can.

I agree. I'm seeing, feeling, and hearing a shift amongst the generation born after 2000. A punk resistance almost. Now punk is being offline, not having an Instagram account, not giving a fuck about likes.

NR — Totally. I had a conversation with my son about that actually, who's 20. He hates Instagram and he's totally anti-celebrities. That is punk, as you say. There's a lot of hope in that.

JR — I mean, punk in all honor, I love. I grew up in the seventies. I had my own fucking punk band. I would still die on the hill for the Clash.

NR — What was the band called?

JR — I don't even fucking remember, I was 14. But punk unfortunately hasn't had a lasting impact beyond pop culture circles. The ‘70s punk scene didn't change the machinations of the bigger scheme. It didn't change governments, it didn't change laws. It's just a reaction or antithesis to cultural movements. But, punk will always exist in some way or another, and I love it.

I know for sure that a lot of kids have a completely different outlook on being online or offline, which is great. These kids are probably going to be smarter than others and they're probably going to grow up and become something good. But ultimately, it doesn't fucking matter because the bigger machine is going to quench all those kinds of things in order for everybody to get more and cheaper stuff.

The beauty of life is that it’s constantly changing. Even dark and horrible things can lead you to something.

NR — But all the responses to Spaceman and Constellation — the strong reactions and the love — suggests that these projects hit some kind of sweet spot in people because they question identity and reflect on life without cynicism. It's interesting because a lot of things are cynical today and still work really well.

Yet, there' are previous generations who have already gone through the circle of cynicism, dealing with mental health issues when it was taboo to say, 'I'm really fucking unhappy.” I feel like it's less taboo to say that now. And as you say Simon, there's this emerging subculture of youth that refuses to be online.

JR — I also see that in artistic expressions, we've built a lot of cynicism over the last couple of years. Even films like Barbie or Poor Things have a cynical aspect to them. I like that there's a movement against that because I'm not so interested in cynicism, and like you say, both Spaceman and Constellation are completely devoid of it.

NR — I feel that your films, whether Downloading Nancy or Chernobyl or Spaceman, have a love for humans that shines through, even in the darkest scenes or moments. I walk away from watching and engaging with your art feeling less lonely. The Chernobyl [disaster] is such a horrible event in human history, yet your masterpiece carries the simple message that we're just humans at the end of the day.

JR — Despite my somewhat gloomy view of the world, I wouldn’t say I’m cynical at all. I'm a humanist. I believe in love and beauty. As an artist, I'm just trying to express myself and be understood. It's a continuous process — sometimes people get it, sometimes they don't. But that's what we're all doing, trying to connect through our expressions. I believe in the human condition, in love, and for the most part, see the good in people.

But we have to remember how weirdly primitive we are. We're a very new species. If it takes an ant 200 million years to learn to live in a colony, just imagine. It's ridiculous. We're still bickering with neighbors, still trying to figure shit out. It's fascinating to think of how we're figuring it out as we go, rather than instinctively or the normal sort of means of any other species figuring things out in a balanced way.

To me, the beauty of life there, in exploring the unknown.

JR — Parenting is a prime example of that. You spend years in school learning about the Battle of Hastings and whatnot, and then suddenly you come home with a baby from the hospital, and it's like, “I don't know one fucking thing about what I'm supposed to do now.” The journey of learning how to deal with it is beautiful.

For me, it's finding out that everything is really simple. Like what Jakub finds out in Spaceman when he's like, “Fuck, it was there all along.” It's the same with parenting and anything else. We don't need all these things. Just be, and you'll be fine.

JR — There's something very simple and sort of pure with that outlook. It is what it is, just be in the now.

Culture

Alain Levitt’s Time Capsule of Early Aughts NYC (2000-2005)

Amanda Lepore, Alain Levitt

Beyond the exhibition, Alain’s book of the same name, available May 1st, acts as a time capsule, a snapshot of what he and his friends were getting into back then — figuring their lives out, meeting people, making memories and now, reminiscing on what was. Today, walking through Dimes Square where his and his wife’s restaurant, Bacaro, has become a premiere meeting hub for the neighborhood's youth, Alain recognizes that while “it’s such a different world,” youth is still the same.

“Young people are young people, man. It’s different being older and not really understanding what’s going on. I don’t fully feel like I’m part of it in the same way… but I love it and it seems the same, but one thing I see is it’s more colorful, it’s animated, and everything seems kind of to an extreme that I really love.”

When Bacaro first opened in 2007, there was no Dimes Square. He likens the emergence of the neighborhood to “the beginning of Williamsburg when that kind of popped off and all of a sudden, if you went down Bedford, it was just young people everywhere and everybody was dressing outrageous.” Back then, congregating in Bedford symbolized a communal rejection of Manhattan. What Levitt witnesses in Dimes, a neighborhood that’s become a bit polarizing amongst New Yorkers, is “more or less the same thing” — though the object of its rejection seems yet to be defined.

Perhaps it’s more of an acceptance — of indulgence, of being part of something, of embracing the past, keeping alive this idealized perception of NYC.

left to right - Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen, Kenji Ukigaya, Dash Snow

When Alain moved out here in the ‘90s, his older sister Danielle gave him a camera. At that time, he didn’t consider himself a photographer. He was just a younger brother emulating his older sister, who was shooting street photography and fashion parties for the Post. Alain recalls “showing up to Max Fish and being gently made fun of for his oversized paparazzi rig.” For his second job, Alain was working as a bar-back at The Cock and The Fat Cock (now known as The Hole), giving him “a front row seat to a wild NY that was quickly being choked out by Mayor Giuliani.”

On one of his first nights, he was assigned to the back room at The Cock, where patrons would do whatever drunk people do in the dark. As a kid “brand new to New York” flashing a light on people, he realized that suddenly, his life was completely different. And it was exciting. “I made more money than I could have ever imagined. I was working minimum wage jobs coming from LA, at movie theaters and all this other shit. In NY, I was able to live off two days a week which gave me room to do everything.”

Eventually, Alain started shooting for Nylon, PAPER, V Magazine, and other publications on his days off. Though they didn’t fully feel like a part of that world, he and his friends (skaters, graffiti artists, ravers, the trifecta of '90s subcultures) disrupted the fabric of the fashion scene. Reminiscing on some of those moments, he tells us, “Our group would show up at the fashion parties and make our presence known, even though they probably didn’t think we belonged there, that maybe we hadn’t earned it yet.”

left to right - Ryan McGinley, Chloë Sevigny

Then, Alain found his community on the Lower East Side, “Alife by day, Max Fish at night,” and “after starting a bi-weekly party, with Spencer Sweeny, at The Hole, planted his seed in the downtown scene.” The world that Levitt found himself navigating in his early years in New York City wasn’t new, it was itself a continuation of the pseudo-renaissance that emerged downtown in the ‘60s and again in the '70s and again in the subsequent decades. “It’s almost like a 10-year cycle and one good thing about New York is that it lets you be young a little longer. We were coming out here thinking about the CBGB’s era.”

And when looking through Alain’s photos, while humming with an inherent sense of nostalgia, it feels as if these images could’ve been taken yesterday. Skateboarding, bands playing one-off shows in dingy music venues, gallery openings that pour out onto the block, it’s all still here, just slightly different. While the internet has made us more connected, and distractions more frequent, much of what was, still is. And for Alain, there’s an innate resilience to this culture of “youth”, a culture somehow driven by a shared dysfunction. “Living in New York is so hard, rents are high, the weather is hard. It can be amazing but you have to put up with all this other bullshit to get the best out of it. You have to be willing to suffer. The people that I knew and the people that I connected to and was around — there was always a certain amount of fucked-up-ness we all shared.”

The people that I knew and the people that I connected to and was around — there was always a certain amount of fucked-up-ness we all shared.

left to right, Dash Snow, Kunle Martins (Earsnot)

Whether seeking self-discovery in New York City, escaping a toxic family, or generally curious to explore the city’s burgeoning underbelly, people here find their own, often forming surrogate families along the way. Levitt’s book, and the photographs on display at WHAAM! exemplify that family isn’t always clean-cut and you might bond with a person you’d least expect to: on the train, at a bar, laying on the grass at Seward Park, skating at Tompkins, or having a plate of squid ink pasta at Bacaro before heading to Le Dive for some overpriced house wine.

In the most ordinary moments, the greatest ideas and connections can spring to life and this was true even then. “I imagine creativity drives a lot of this,” Levitt says. “There’s a thread that we saw and maybe even idealized New York City to be.” It’s a thread that this generation hasn’t seemed to let go of: “I feel like my book shows our moment of coming into ourselves and now the kids today are doing it themselves. In 20 years, there’ll be a record of their time that the next group of kids will be looking at. It might not be the same, but the roots are.”

From Tim Barber, a former photo editor at Vice who edited the book, to Jesse Pearson, former EIC at Vice, Su Barber (Tim’s sister), Mike Piscitelli from Fucking Awesome and skateboarder Jason Dill, everyone involved in the book “from the editors down to the publisher was there in our circle, and pretty much all in the book too.” To Alain, everyone in the book was of equal significance, whether celebrity Chloe Sevigny or Marc Razo of Max Fish, who Alain recognizes as “a loving, wonderful person who’s been in the downtown scene forever.”

“Some of those people have definitely become legendary, which is awesome,” says Levitt. “But with them, it’s like me, I felt special to be there. I wanted to be with these people and we all had all of these lofty ideas of ourselves that were shattered over time. I think it’s good to break through those delusions of grandeur and get a real sense of what the world is. But at that moment, it was pure. We all thought we were special.” And maybe we still do.

NYC 2000-2005 is on view April 18 - May 25, 2024 at WHAAM! at 15 Elizabeth St # 113, New York, NY 10013.

Culture

At Planned Parenthood's Annual Gala, Megan Thee Stallion Shines Bright

April 18, 2024

Under one of the first truly warm evenings of New York’s spring season, guests, organizational supporters, and a grab-bag of celebrities (who saw Molly Ringwald?) gathered at Cipriani’s South Street outpost to ring in another year of action and advocacy.

In a regressive landscape that has recently seen the rollback of the right to protest in three states, as well as the upholding of arcane abortion legislation in Arizona, Planned Parenthood’s call to action is eerily more apt than ever.

At an interactive exhibit during the cocktail hour, Judy Chicago’s interactive work, produced in partnership with DMINTI, invited guests to share their voices during an urgent time in the fight for free bodies. Participants in the videos will become a permanent piece of the historic artwork as it travels worldwide on tour.

By Sam Falb
Photography by Nikki Burnett

After guests settled into their seats, the night’s honorees Patricia Arquette and Megan Thee Stallion lauded the organization’s work and the manifold ways it has affected their lives for the better. Overcome with emotion, Megan accepted the Catalyst for Change Award, in recognition of her choice to advocate for bodily freedom and sexual liberation through her platform, and inimitable tracks like Plan B.

“Planned Parenthood has been a leader while abortion rights are under attack. Y’all are the true heroes,” Megan shared in her acceptance speech. “I’ve always known that I have a bigger purpose than just being a musician, and to speak up when people need our help.”

The second of its kind, the gala celebrates the work of the organization while honoring particularly devoted advocates, hosting an auction to raise funds for annual operating costs, and rounding out with an afterparty featuring host Patia of Patia’s Fantasy World, and DJs including Boston Chery and river moon.

“They’ve been there for me and a lot of my friends, especially when I first came to this country and needed healthcare,” Moon said. When the lights went down and guests trickled out onto the street, the event’s urgent appeal was in clear and energizing focus, primed for a productive year ahead.