Gilded Youth Studio Collaborations
Gilded Youth, is a term originally mouthed by Oscar Wilde to describe visionaries who used the decorative arts to assault the conventions of middle-class milieu and to advance in the social and business worlds of the Gilded Age. Many of his works describe that the aestheticism was a wide-ranging popular movement, implemented by an array of tastemakers, resisted by the moral guardians of Victorianism.
Re-appropriated here to describe not only the affect of using aesthetic choices to raise ones social status but the use of art and design to raise ones perspective. Both as a view and creator, the pieces made and displayed under this studio collective is meant to have an identity correction effect or cause contemplation, at the vary least.
Purgatory of Transition
Gilded Youth + Lu De Lopez
Photo by Tom Gavin
"Purgatory of Transition" | Paris, February 2017
Art and the creation of it, has long been democratic to some and highly codified to others. Beauty, as the base of creation is available everywhere and to everyone, therefore it can be injected into things that may not viewed as inherently beautiful. Discarded personal objects are a social aspect of planned obsolescence; a phenomena that contributes to waste one that perpetuates that cultures are “buying to buy” instead of a paradigm shift of owning and maintaining.
The physical manifestation of this is unwanted items in the streets, trash and in resale shops- the social aspect. Why are the items of the historical past held at a higher value? Why are antiques highly sought after? With this project, we are aiming to create a consciousness around our personal things, why some have applied meaning and others are “worthless.”
The transitional period each object stands in, is in waiting its final assignment of worth. The adaptation given was a means to a second chance to the things that have been discarded. They are abandoned because the function of that furniture is no longer useful, but many don’t consider the history acquired by that object, over time, that has lived with them. The idea that each thing we own has an heirloom quality to it, even if we don’t recognize that.
Programmed obsolescence is a phenomena that comes incorporated in everything man-manufactured and has caused us to feel distant to the things we surround ourselves with. By repairing the lost furniture, and changing its context we are giving it new artistic life. The intended effect is to cause the spectator more conscience with the real life of the objects and their second life. To make them know that everything can be recuperated and restored but with a new point of view from the design based in Arte Povera, Situationist International Dérive whose origins and intent try to make people more aware that their carelessness has consequence.
Nostalgia meets purpose
Growing up there were necklaces in the shape of a heart, broken in half with the words “Best Friends” written in halves. When the two friends wearing each piece of the necklace are together, the message is complete. Similar to this, this project has two creators, who have the same intentional result but two different points of view. And when combined these two pieces becomes a new whole, with a greater meaning. The final work is a product of reciprocal trust and avant garde creation. Lu trusts me to find inspirational piece that needs our repair. Leah trusts Lu to complete it with a beautiful addition that seemed it was always there.
Intention
Art and the creation of it, has long been democratic to some and highly codified to others. Beauty, as the base of creation is available everywhere and to everyone therefore can be injected to things that may not viewed as inherently beautiful. Discarded personal objects are a social aspect of planned obsolescence that contributes to waste and contributing to a paradigm shift that cultures are “buying to buy” instead of owning and maintaining. The physical manifestation of this is unwanted items in the streets, trash and in resale shops. Why are the items of the historical past held at a higher value? Why are antiques highly sought after? With this project, we are aiming to create a conscious around our personal things, why some have applied meaning and others are “worthless.”
Nuit Blanche 2017
Gilded Youth + IFNO Team
Nuit Blanche Installation | Paris, October 2017
To work collectively you need to share information. Information has a content and a message; the relationship between the significant and the signified is reversible, however. Looking for information pavilions during Nuit Blanche, you may seek for a standardised, normal, neutral shelter. But our idea is to question those norms, those common relationships which inform us as much as we inform them. There is no motion without information, and reciprocally there is no information without motion. We want to embody this relationship by creating a mobile spatial device which could work as an ongoing trajectory.
The device is a closed circuit, visually operating in the transition between concealed data and open, accessible and circulating information. Booklets come from a private and secluded place, whose production process is invisible, yet its circulation and accessibility is continuous and fluid. It is made public.
IDENTIFIABLE. As the device has no antecedent in public space, it works as an unidentified object, a significant whose signified has been altered, whose primary function has been transformed. The IFNOMOTION box acts as a distinctive object in the city, while the lighted and working conveyors give a visual and sound notice to the public.
INSTALLATION. Conveyers of various sizes, and their specific polycarbonate coverage, work as singular and detachable modules; combination and layout depends on every situation. The conveyors are rented, simple to use and don’t exceed 6 meters in length. They are easily transportable, reusable and do not need to be stored.
Miroir Brisé
Gilded Youth + Kalina Lukanova
Miroirs Brisés, Broken Mirrors is an exploration of the images that belong to us through our experiences. Those that have shaped our Paris. The Paris that we share but yet belongs only to our memories individually. Once departed from the city itself we only have these memories; a dichotomy that brings us freedom and solitude.
Kalina makes films and I'm a designer. With these two skills we will be making a joint installation that presents as somewhat of an event, an ephemeral space that exists only for the purpose of us to invite people to experience and view what we've created. The physical surrounds will be like an apartment or studio space that Leah designed, hopefully yielding a further extension of the essence of the film which will discuss more of the narrative we are exploring.
The film with narrate interwoven experiences of others, the individual experiences will be delivered as a singular story with multiple authors. The physical space will extend these experiences through the senses as humans create with emotions through those sensory abilities. The elements of light, scent, touch, and sound will bleed into the deeper senses of balance, direction and time.
As an inspirational reference, there is a photo book called Tokyo 35 N by Ami Sioux, the photographer traveled to Japan and asked people on the street to hand-draw her a map form where the currently were to a place that held a value, memory or feeling for them. She then followed that map and took a photo of the place. This will be somewhat of a film adaptation of this idea, but covers more area given that it is film and not photo. It has the opportunity for more depth.
The narrative is meant to address the transient nature of inhabiting Paris- the feeling of being there and not aware, and conversely being gone and noticing an unnamed absence. We both left Paris about 8 months ago and have this intangible hole that we are trying to fill in our respective satellite locations. In realizing this void independently, we decided we wanted to address this seemingly universal affect, and in order to show it we decided to make a film.
The city is a mirror to our inner world, fragmented in a collage of images, sounds and language. Much as this is a multi/authored narrative, we invited others to share their Paris in a series of narratives that intertwine into one story. Based on the collected stories, we’ll create an ephemeral video installation, that extends this multi-authored film into a multi-layered, collective experience. This narrative was created through personal interviews with Parisian étrangers who have lived in Paris for some time, left and returned-- really all capacities, but more substantial than a holiday. This non-native status creates a special permanence of Paris specific memories that forever changes they way you function as an artist or citizen. The aim was to discuss their unwritten relationship to Paris and try to capture some of these intimate moments that make up this seemingly universal void we now have, now that we've left. This is an invitation not only to observe but also to co-create and discuss the role of the city within and beyond.