#FFF8E7
a conversation with Kirsten Spruit
Kirsten Spruit in her studio
Kirsten Spruit is a designer and artist, living and working in Pension Almonde, a temporary home for modern city nomads and neighborhood initiatives in Rotterdam-Noord. Kirsten is also co-host of the radio show Good Times Bad Times, and releases ambient music as Personae and Naybur. We met her at home, talking about breaking walls, working collectively and the most average color of the universe.
What would you consider to be the entrance of Pension Almonde?
Ultimately, I’d consider the sidewalk along the front facade to be our entrance, although one could also argue it to be our communal living room, where we used to have weekly soup gatherings. Then there is Flip's bookshop called the KIOSK, which is arguably ‘the reception’ of Pension Almonde, while Keju Kitchen might be the social heart of the street.
We are kind of an extended household, trying to stay connected despite the pandemic and its ongoing measures. Over the less-restrictive summer, we were still able to organize an event as the Slopera, as part of the Opera Days. Those are the moments when everyone at Pension Almonde gathers and collaborates.
Can you tell us more about the Good Times Bad Times radio show you co-host?
Jack, Ben and I started the project as a communal radio station for everyone of Pension Almonde to use. We have a dedicated room downstairs, but mostly broadcasted our show directly from our combined apartments over the last months due to Covid-19.
We just stepped over the remnants of a wall while entering.
Yes, we used to be neighbours until we decided to tear down the wall between our apartments last June, eliminating the need to knock on each other's doors.
You mention Brian Eno’s notion of ‘communal genius’ or ‘scenius’* in one of the episodes. Has the way you work changed since you moved to Pension Almonde?
Since I’ve been living here, I have definitely become more collaborative in my work, especially with my roommates Jack and Ben. We share a lot of interests, and there’s a great deal of overlap in our work. Although I used to be more of a solitary worker, it’s fascinating to think about collaboration, and when the exchange of ideas results in something bigger than the sum of its parts.
How do you usually start things?
Very slowly. I usually read, study and ponder for a long time before anything tangible happens, and seem to dwell a great deal in their in-between. Maybe that’s why your theme of the entrance as a transitory space suits me quite well. Nonetheless, I’d still consider beginning to be my favorite part of the creative process, and a vital one at that.
Can you tell us about your dot drawings?
Creating drawings with this technique is a way of doing nothing, doing something. While it has its own small hurdles of aesthetic choices, the next step is always just another dot. It’s quite meditative, arguably boring, but often helps to calm my mind.
The work we are including here was completed in 100 minutes. Do you always add the time it takes to finish?
Yes, I like doing that. In this case I set out to draw for exactly 100 minutes. Adding the amount of minutes also reflects upon how we value time. If a drawing takes this long to make, does that give it more value?
Is there a meditative parallel to be drawn to your musical work?
With a certain kind of ambient music, there is. For my graduation project I made a set-up that fed the sound of a room through my computer, turning it into an abstract pool of sound by adding effects to that feed. Within these fixed parameters, I start tweaking and reacting to the feed. Rather than composing or creating, I’d consider it more as a form of active listening, which is in a lot of ways similar to how I feel making dot drawings.
Could this ‘active listening’ be a way to be more forgiving to your own work, considering yourself almost more of a spectator?
Introducing an external factor that helps determining an outcome definitely helps in that regard.
You played football for a long time. Do you miss it now and then?
I recently got into a nice queer futsal team again, but unfortunately we aren’t able to play at the moment because of the pandemic. We don’t play competitions, but I’ve always liked training more than competitions, even back when I was younger. I guess that’s why I quit when I was seventeen; I mainly wanted to play for fun, whereas the element of competition got more and more important in higher divisions.
Are you competitive at all?
I don't think so, I don't have to be the best, but I do want to do my best.
What would you like to be working on in the near future?
I would like to focus more on my own research, building on my graduate thesis about lingering and understanding boredom in times of information overload. I also want to continue exploring radio, currently setting up a radio station for the students at the Design Academy Eindhoven, which I’m really excited about. Regarding my own music, I would like to find a way of working that I'd feel more comfortable with, learning more about what I’m actually doing, maybe even combining it with a study in sonology. On the communal side of things, I found a nice studio space with Jack, Ben and some other friends, to start organizing events whenever the world allows us to.
Finding that balance between your individual and collective projects.
Indeed, I sometimes see my practice as three-split, each part having its own color. With commissioned graphic design being RGB blue, communal work being RGB green, and my autonomous work being ‘Cosmic latte’. Although the latter sounds like something you’d order at Starbucks, it’s actually the name of the most average color in the universe: # FFF8E7.
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According to Brian Eno, scenius is like genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes. He suggested the word to convey the creativity that groups, places or scenes are able to generate. "Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius." His idea is that when people are immersed in a productive scenius with like-minded peers, people often produce their best work.
