AH

Okay, starting with Distributors [1] again. The piece that you show as part of your joint work Opens was Distributor – now it's something else. But other than the small ones in that series it was not a Distributor that attached itself to an electricity pipe or to the wall. It was self-standing, independent of the appliances of the space it would be shown in. So what kind of Distributor is it and what is it now? 

KvE

It is somewhat a part of a Distributor, the first Distributor I made that is not made for hanging on the wall, but for standing on its own. I felt that was a nice next step in the Distributor process. To have them be more like devices or things that can be in the room instead of on the wall. And also the size of it is different. 

AH

It's much bigger, no?

KvE

It's much bigger. With the small Distributors, it was more an intention that they would have a place on the wall, a tiny box that is somewhere at the end of the electricity pipe of which you wonder: "What does that do?" There are all these boxes around you. But then also on the street, you have these electricity boxes, for example, and sometimes you see someone working on them and there are a lot of cables in it and there are a lot of things going on and you never have any clue. So, I figured it was not necessarily bound to the wall in a way. And I really wanted to see how that works. But now in combination with the latex, now it being a joint work, it has some lines of connection again. It is connected to a network of lines again, which I really like.

MSD

I think it is interesting that, I don't know if it is AC or DC, you have electricity that goes back and forth the whole time, and not just one direction. I like that the work is connected to electricity in that way. That the piece itself is having these forces that go kind of back and forth too. 

AH

The joint piece or the... 

MSD

The joint piece. The one where you don't know, is it pushing something up more than it is pressing down? The back and forth, the equilibrium of forces that are maybe also there with the electricity.

KvE

The work that we made is a combination of materials that give a totally opposite feeling. It is really a flexible, very stretchable material, your latex, together with a block, my Distributor, that is super solid and super heavy in a way of gravity. And it has kind of sharp edges. A positive and a negative – very nice contrast I think.

MSD
I agree. It is also this conglomerate of materials pressed together. 

KvE

And then it is nice that together they are creating this empty space in between.

MSD

It is a rudimentary hint, creating a room for something. 

KvE

Yeah, a new space with air and shadows, and because of the height you can't really walk in there. You can only see certain half-hidden parts. But the floor is not hidden anymore, so it is this nice new space. 

MSD

And again, you don't know if one material is turning itself into space or if the other material is making space out of something else.

KvE

It is also a work where we decided early in the process that it was okay that the works could be touching each other. That they could collide or come together in a certain way. That is usually not happening so often. 

MSD

It kind of set the tone for how we wanted to look at the exhibition and to see what could happen.

AH

So Opens is a fitting title. As the opening piece, it is setting the tone: There is the tree motive and the roots and the water, the materials, the tensions. A spatial kind of discussion. Maybe a bit lacking time as a theme but that is elsewhere. 

MSD

But also making it possible at any other point outside of that piece that pieces could touch. 

KvE

And also, what that means then. It kind of happened and we later decided that we call it one work. So that is another step in the process. How do you deal with it afterwards? 

MSD

Yeah, I like that it has one title now. But after the show ends, we will still take our pieces with us. We will take the latex piece and theDistributor and they will have their own titles. It will only have been at this moment that they once worked together and became something they won't ever be again.

AH

Did you have an individual title already for the latex? 

MSD

No, I just started thinking about it. But then I thought it might make more sense to have a common title. It will get a title. It has to.

KvE

It's funny because I also make works that are more like: If I want to have a bigger work, I make a bigger work. Then I make it modular so it exists already out of some shapes. And then you just attach them on the spot and they become bigger. And now we did it in the same way basically. You made it on the spot, which also made a difference. I like that it's a work that exists out of parts and becomes something on the spot and then gets disassembled again. Even if these two sculptures meet up in another space ever again they could be something else.

MSD

I think they have to. Because the latex is painted onto the floor, it will never be as fully attached to something again.

AH

So it would never work again because it wouldn't stay where it is but would lift itself. 

MSD

It's bonded now with every nail on the floor of GAK, every drill hole. It's just flooded with everything.

AH

So what will they look like, the drill holes? 

MSD

Just craters, little holes that probably have a bit of thickened water.

AH

It’s a map, no? You'll have the most detailed record. There is something about forensics. Or can be. Creating this map of the floor, registering every detail. 

MSD

We actually talked about this because in forensics, they would use plaster to get holdings of footprints or fire traps. 

KvE

To get a physical object out of the hollow shape that they can study or see clearly and that doesn't blow away with the wind. Documentation material. 

That's also what happens when you put something in a mold. You take a hollow space and turn it into a block. That's what I really like. But I feel like with the Pillars, it's not. I work with plaster there too, but I use it differently. More to harden out something. More to build than to trace. 

MSD

I really liked today when you talked about the stucco runner that you initially got to protect the floor from the plaster. They were set out to protect one part from the other. But now they kind of became like friends. They bonded and created this new thing. 

KvE

They stuck together, the plaster and the stucco runner.

MSD

Completely changed their relationship. 

AH

That's nice.

KvE

I was really amazed by how strong this material was, the paper. Like "Oh, yeah, if you make certain shapes, you can put it really high up." And it's still just paper. But then it was not strong enough to make a pillar or something alike. That needed stronger materials. I also like the idea of textile because it is like paper, also a very soft material. 

AH

You have the textile, you put the plaster on, and then you lay it around?

KvE

Yeah, I dip the textile in the plaster. 

AH

Oh, so you have a big bucket where it goes in? 

KvE

It goes in and then I drape it over the paper, which is kind of hard. Sometimes it doesn't stand up on its own. I have to hold it up and it's a very stressful moment. I can't hold it because…

AH

You have to continue, no? 

KvE

Yeah, I have to empty the bucket of plaster as quickly as possible. It's very stressful. But I like it. It's also a way of working very quickly and not having time to overthink things. You just do it and then you find a solution in the process. Just like with the Scratched Sketches[2].  That's also a heat of the moment thing. And in some way, it feels good to be able to repeat that heat of the moment thing. To see how good I can get into the heat of the moment. How I can regulate stress in stressful situations. 

MSD

The same with the ink drawing[3]. It's very stressful with every line. But also not. I know that even if the line doesn't turn out the way I thought it would, the next line can fix all that. You just have to do it right. Every line is full of pressure but then also… I kind of know what I'm doing. There's a composition that can be made even if there's a line that I didn't expect. 

AH

So how much time is there between one stroke and the next? 

MSD

It can be a very long time. 

AH

Years?

MSD

Not that much, maybe a few days. Usually not, but sometimes a couple of days. And I'm thinking about how to continue. The drawing can be done within a day but it also can take longer.

KvE

And then, when you finally decide to continue the drawing, does the line always turn out the way you want it? 

MSD

It's also a very uncontrollable tool that I'm using. These funky, big bamboo brushes have a very broad tip as well. They sometimes run out of ink very fast. 

AH

Why do you use ink? 

MSD

I think it's so very direct somehow, thinking about how a drawing is just a pool of ink on a pile of fibers. And I guess it's going back to an early drawing instrument as well. And how to deal with that. It doesn't steer as smoothly. It isn't made to create the finest line or the longest line. It isn’t an optimized tool. And I do enjoy the challenge. 

AH

How did you arrive at that tool? Because it's not the easiest option, you also have to discover it, I suppose. 

MSD

I think it just came out of a big urge to draw again. I hadn't drawn in a long time before I started this series. Really drawing to create a drawing, not just drawing to sketch out ideas to just look at them myself. And then I went to the art supply store.

I got drawn to the bamboo pens. In the middle of all the selection they stuck out and I went and looked at them. It just made sense that I should draw with this because it would be the most "drawing", somehow. And then it was so awkward to draw with them but also interesting. I really enjoyed it.

AH

Because it also fits the motives then. Their awkwardness, because there is a certain awkwardness in the motives, no? 

MSD

Yes. And I think it's nice to just lay that out. Not hide it.

AH

Do you relate to awkwardness too, Klaartje? 

KvE

I think my Pillars can stand somehow a bit awkward. Maybe it is awkwardness, I'm not sure if I would call it awkwardness.

AH

What would you call it?

KvE

I think maybe more "uneasy". Or "fragile" or "imbalanced" somehow. But still, it works which is kind of miraculous. And that's also because they are squeezed from the ceiling to the floor. That also creates a certain awkwardness: to be in a space they have to squeeze into it somehow.

AH

I guess that's quite specific to awkward situations. Being unfit.

KvE

And then they squeeze themselves to be able to fit. But not with charm... Well, their own charm. But not with... easiness.

AH

I think they are very elegant somehow. These Pillars.

KvE

I feel pillars are a status thing. In buildings they hold structures together and the rest of the building rests on them. Usually, they are fundamental elements in architecture, and now they are different, they are more fragile in a way. From some perspectives you have on the pillars they look a bit crooked. Or some part seems to be floating. Or there are some threads with pieces of plaster that hang off. Or you still see the paper, the foundation of the pillars. They kind of contradict the idea of a pillar but they still are a pillar somehow. 

MSD 

But they don’t have to do what a pillar does.

KvE

No, they only have to hold themselves. But then the architecture is holding them now, which is kind of funny. Without the floor and the ceiling, these pillars wouldn't necessarily stand. 

AH

That's a bit similar to Opens. When you see them it’s not so clear how they stand, how it works. Looking at them today I had to think of the Kunsthalle in Rotterdam. Of the trees. 

KvE

Ah, yes. They have a nice tree-like presence. They are a size that you can hide behind. 

AH

And they also have the surface. I think that has a lot to do with it. Because the others – especially speaking of the front one – could be like the Gothic construction of a pillar in a church that also has these little rounded shapes. But that doesn't really come to my mind, and I think it has to do with the surface of your Pillars. [1] 

It's also a bit about resistance, how the paper and plaster resist each other, and how they need and depend upon each other, and it works. But also…

KvE

They contrast. 

AH

And maybe even repel each other partly because they behave so differently as material. 

MSD

There's tension within each element.

KvE

And then there are the vertical lines. I had to create the same shape with the same rounding, six times for each pillar. That was the hardest part of the process because you have to fold them in certain ways. You can measure it, but still, the fold, the curve are always slightly different. I took six rolls of paper that were the same length. I rolled them into shape and then marked all the points where they had to connect. Then I took them one by one and folded them quickly again the same way. But it was tricky. I tried different methods to create the shape but you still kind of see that they are not exactly the same, also in how much they weigh and how the colors are divided over the sculpture. 

What happens is that they are slightly off somewhere. And they're clearly stacked, they're not one piece, but they're balancing or they have to. They have to try to fit, but they're not perfect. And they're a bit like what I told you during the exhibition set-up: making pancakes and stacking them random on the side. You get this stack, which is not totally straight, it's going a bit to the left, a bit to the right. The stacking has a really nice carelessness almost. 

MSD

We used the same material for the radiator pieces and for the columns. And I was also kind of challenged with how to create five identical shapes using this material. I really enjoy this connection through material: After we met and looked at the space together, we went back to our studios and apparently wrangled with the same material trying to make pieces for this space. 

KvE
The stucco runner lends itself to a lot of different things. It's very non-sticky, so if you put something on it, like latex or plaster, it doesn't absorb or get attached to it. You can take it off again, and in that way it feels like a mold. 

In your radiator pieces, you also have some relief with the words. Did you also create that with the stucco runner? 

MSD

Yeah, I had to mirror the writing. That's where I usually screw up. I already printed it out the wrong way but then I caught myself. I mirrored the writing, cut it out of the stucco runner, and then got another piece of stucco runner to back it up again, so it just creates a little valley. The placement of writing is also mirrored, so if I wanted the text to be more veered to the right of the radiator piece, it would be on the left side while I was making it. That's part of the tension in the beginning of the latex pieces. "Am I getting it right? What else do I have to think about now? What do I forget?" Usually, it's the mirroring. 

AH

So many obstacles. You search obstacles and you search solutions. First the bamboo sticks, and now it's like “Okay, I can't really do that, I have to get it all backwards.” You could also do it an easier way. But I guess not. It does something specific. I wonder what the connection is between searching for these… Well, obstacles are also maybe kind of borders, where you can kind of go and cross something, or where you try to…

KvE

In my practice I like to think of decisions as practical decisions first, before they're aesthetic or more conceptual decisions. It's not so much that I think of the solution, I rather find the solution, and then I think "Oh, this could be interesting." Maybe I find a solution because I try to do something that doesn't really work. Like putting heavy fabric with plaster on top of paper, which is standing 60 centimeters high. But it's not so thick, it's not cardboard, it's paper. And of course you get all these weird shapes. I guess it's finding solutions for things that were in the first place not so thought through or planned. I feel like you have a way better way of planning, with the words, etc. 

MSD

I don’t know. I have a very different approach, a very different starting point. I am very much in my head, usually. And I know that there is something that I want to happen, some conceptual or material thing. I think about it a lot. And then I think "Yeah, that's great. I'll do that." But then I have to think about the reality of actually doing that and develop methods based on “Okay, what do I want there?” Some techniques have evolved because I have this end point in mind and a lot of uncertainties to get there, like what material, why, and how would you make them do these things. Then physics says "No" – and then we negotiate.

AH

How did you arrive at the Lawrence Weiner reference in the works? There was also a bit of research involved, no? 

MSD

Well, I did a lot of research before. I was interested in the building and the history, and I followed that thought quite a long time. But somehow… I think for this exhibition and for what we wanted to do, it didn't arrive at a point where I thought this was something to do. So, I looked at the building again, how it was today and couldn't oversee the Lawrence Weiner piece on the side.

AH

Had you seen it when you were here? 

MSD

Yeah. And of course, I've seen many Lawrence Weiner pieces throughout the world. I looked into it and found this photograph of… When I found it I didn't know it was a lyrics board, I just thought it's an art piece that also looked pretty good. It's cardboard with cutouts and Post-its and pieces of words. And there was this quote that is on the side of the building [4], but also all these other pieces of words that were relating to what we talked about for the exhibition.

And then I saw these lines. And I thought "Yeah, it kind of fits. And what does it mean? It seems like to make sense, but how does it make sense?" I just kept thinking about it. Later I found out that it was an art piece and the lyrics to a song. It was a time-based thing. which made sense with the river and the location of the radiators being back to back with the Lawrence Weiner piece. I just liked reuniting them for a short term. Also, thinking about how these words could be considered sculptures as well. 

AH

Sculpture in what sense? 

MSD

Sculpture in a sense that it makes you think about where you are in relation to the piece. That you think about yourself and the piece and the space around you. I really liked thinking about what a sculpture is and what it does. And I thought it could be a nice layer to have this very direct relationship to another art piece. I like to do that. Also with other pieces: I include other people's art pieces or references to them. And that's when I was sure about it. 
So, that's kind of how I got to the Lawrence Weiner quote.

AH

What is it again? 

MSD

"If erosion is in fact a marking of time, then is use a meaning, or again in fact is meaning a use."

AH
And this is taken out of the one song from the LP that has as its title what is also written outside on the building?

MSD

Yes, but what is also part of the cover. 

JK
This is about Opens again but I am still wondering: when you disassemble the two works will the latex remember the space that had been created underneath or would the space be gone? 

MSD

Well, it will be a bit looser but it will go down pretty much. It won’t have a big dent. Maybe after the end of the exhibition, it will.

AH

Because it's so long. 

MSD

Yeah, it will be dented.

AH

So, several imprints. The floor and the sculpture. 
I am also wondering about the different eye levels in the piece. For the sculpture it's very low. But not for the trees, so not for the latex piece.

MSD

I think that's why it's nice to have the bench in the room. It brings you down a little. 

KvE

With the bench it felt a bit like there was a stage or a performance going on. But what I also like about it – also about the other works in the space – is that if you want to see it in a certain way you have to participate, like lifting your head or looking down going around the works.

For a long time, I didn't know what to draw with the crayons. I knew I wanted to draw, but I didn't know what or how. And then, it was nice to include these things that I come by on the street while taking walks, seeing a certain construction taking place. I take photos of these things and I keep them in a certain archive to be an inspiration. And now people can pass by all these things that I passed by. And that's nice.

AH

So, who's the passer-by in the title then?

KvE

That's the question. It could be me, it could be the visitor, it could be even the drawing itself.

MSD

What do you do with all those photos? 

KvE

Well, I used them once in a different way during art academy. I printed them all out and hung them all around my wall. I had to sort them out by category, like tubes and then shadows and then clouds and then machines. I started that to see where my interest lies or what catches my eye every time and what stays with me and what I see over and over again. Just to learn what my interests are, basically. Then I cut out all the rumble, all the things that weren't important in the picture, and I made collages of them. I had a whole series of collages. Now, I don't print them all out anymore. I just keep them on my hard drive and then – once in a while – I look at them again. They're always nice to fall back on. 

AH

Do you have an image archive too? 

MSD

Yes, but not as well organized. Last year, I offloaded them all off my phone. I didn't sort them. I think there were a lot. But it's more just notes. And these could be all kinds of different things. It also goes together with the other painting series that I have with the more diary-like approach[5]. I take these photos when I realize "Okay, this is something that kind of summarizes this week and I will want to draw or sketch that out later for a painting." It's sometimes five photographs of the same thing just so I understand it. 

It's bad photos of moments, because it doesn't matter that they don't look good. I just have to remember what that moment was. It's important when it was taken too, so that when I go in and know what time span I want to paint, then I know where to look and find those images. It needs to have the pieces of information that tell me what happened, roughly. Just the things that spark the memory. Or the few things that I saw or things that catch my eye. I have to still do the sorting. I'm bad at deleting them.

KvE

Yeah, it's hard. I'm always a bit like "Yeah, you want to remember all those things that you have all these pictures of." But I also appreciate that I don't remember a lot of things. Because there's this filtration system that your head has of things that stick and the things that don't stick. I feel I can kind of rely on that system. All the things that are really important to me will come back to me in my memory. But on the other hand, it's nice to have these notes.

AH

I think quite often it needs a trigger of some sort. Be it the smell, a taste. A place. An image. An object. Or something that reminds. It doesn't have to be the exact same thing – just something that stirs the memory. Because the brain stores it quite well. So, things can also be forgotten. Like stacking things and then to get it out it takes quite some time, no? 

Interesting topic. Memorizing. Remembering. Forgetting. Discarding also actively as kind of a filtration response. 

MSD

I think that's what happens. It's interesting how nebulous it all is and just how much it's just notes until I actually decide what to put into the couple elements that I want to paint. Then it's heavy selection, because it's maybe just three, four, five elements – that's it. Everything else I throw away. I do prioritize somehow. Then I spend a lot of time with it while I'm painting, also re-living therefore, re-inscribing the highlights or the lowlights. The main things that I decided will go in there. It's not just the good things at all.

AH

Like a reflection. 

MSD

Kind of processing. Or maybe also rewriting, actively rewriting. It's really weird when I sell one of these paintings. Of course it's coded so that nobody knows what it is. Yet it's strange.

AH

And do you delete the images once you've painted them? 

MSD

They stay. I like to look at them and look at what they became in the end. Which shape they took because I really abstract and contort them. And somehow the new image is more real to me than the old image. 

AH

But then it's also like a bit of mnemonic practice, or exercise, of actively remembering. 

MSD

I'd say so. My memory isn’t the best in general. Or very selective. 

KvE

And transforming over time because your perspective is changing. But there's so much more that is going to happen. It would be kind of an overload of pictures. 

AH

If you remembered everything that would be quite unhealthy. It's good to be able to select in some ways.

MSD

And maybe using traces as a nice way to take a step back and still be connected to something that was in a way and that is not connected to your other senses. The things that you can touch and see are not that much in your brain. They maybe make you think about the source of the trace. Maybe it's more of a distanced way.

KvE

Or sometimes a physical shape that a trace can have. Like with the latex or with the plaster. It is not just an image, it became an object that you can then again view from all different sides instead of only from the one perspective you took a picture of. I feel we can reexperience the same kind of memory with an object. Like a collected stone. Something that you kept instead of a picture. But then, of course at one point, your house or your studio becomes full of stuff you collected. Instead of your hard drive or your USB stick. You just become the hoarder.

AH

How do you relate to digital space and real space? Is that of any importance in your work

KvE

It tickles different senses. We also talked about this when we had a beer at the apartment before we came here. What if you try to remember a smell? Can you smell it when you remember it? Or if you almost smell it but you don't really smell it? You can simulate the smell almost, but not quite. That is interesting with memory also. You almost know what things feels like. The memory is not in your head or in your eyes but, in a way, it's in your body. And for me that also relates to traces: The memory is somewhere else than in your head. It could be in a material, it could be in your fingertips. Or it could be in your left toe. And it is somehow a simulation of what was.

But then the digital space is also a simulation of what was. But a really visual one. And a lot of things are visually focused around how we communicate with each other, how and under which conditions we shape things.

Also, at one point during the set-up you said “Oh, does it smell like latex?” I smelled it at one point as well. 

JK

I thought it was going to be more extreme, though. Well, it was bad for one day and then after that it just went away. 

AH

Or we got used to it very quickly. 

KvE

We will know tomorrow when new people walk in.

MSD

When I showed the Gebanne first instance, two people did not stay. One of them entered the space and backed out again, too much for them. The smell of rubber is just… It has a wide array of memories attached for people. It can go in many directions.

But that's also what I found interesting: to work with smell in art. I once made these little dispensers of little latex works. It was a plexiglass frame, with bubble wrap inside filled with petrichor smell. The smell that you get when it rains after it's been dry for a long time in summer. So, one of those bubbles was filled with that smell and a little liquid. There was a latex barrier to close it, and you have to push through the latex to pop the smell. You could have it in your pocket. It was always this potential smell bomb. And people sometimes connected it to playing in the mud with friends as a kid. 

KvE

When I was making part of the Crayon Rocks, I used fermented red cabbage to give it color. I noticed that it went from purple to light blue-gray. And I thought "Oh that's a nice pigment." I picked it up during Covid when I tried to find pigments in the supermarket because the art store was closed. Then I soaked red cabbage pieces in water in some buckets for a long time and it got moldy at some point. At that time I got studio visits every week. Some people came over and were like “I can’t stand this. Okay bye.” It was kind of a way to avoid the talks, just leave it one more week. I didn't notice the smell anymore at one point. It was also a very big space. So at first, I didn't really smell it but later on it was terrible. And now sometimes these Crayon Rocks that are made with cabbage start smelling. 

I kind of like that there was a certain smell hanging around my studio. It was funny because there was also my neighbor in the other studio who was letting 10 liters of milk rot. And there was another studio where the person was busy with a lot of this epoxy-fiberglass kind of thing. And it smelled very chemical. So you had all these smells in the hallway that would go through the whole building, and people were like "Oh, no, another smell." 

MSD

Could you tell how active everyone was based on how much of which smell was in the air?  

KvE
I know that my neighbor who let the milk rot also put a vent behind it and put the smell in the building deliberately. So it was super clear. But because we were all there on Tuesday, that was the worst day. But it's really hard to catch a smell and make it stay the same. You really have to encapsulate it. 

AH

So do you have good noses then? 

KvE

I think so. Pretty much. But I also don't know how you would know if you had a good nose. Because you smell certain things and other people don't smell it, but then other people maybe relate that smell to... 

AH

They smell something else. 

KvE

Or it could be like colors: How I perceive purple is maybe different from how other people perceive purple. But you call it the same name anyway. So I don't know. But I feel like it's okay.

MSD

Now I feel better about my bad nose. There have been too many moments where somebody smelled something and I said "Well, I don't know what you're talking about." When I do smell something I sometimes lean into it and, for example, smell nothing but petrichor. So, I think maybe the threshold is sometimes higher. Maybe that's just a lack of focus or what I direct my attention to when I don't know what to pay attention to. 

AH

So then memory is also a sense in a way or works similar to a sense. In the sense of directing attention to something and then perceiving it differently. 

MSD

Maybe memory is a tool for your senses. Or the other way around.

AH

Could be either way, I suppose. But it's always about directing attention. It's always about how you align yourself with certain things or not.

I think I just wondered because I feel I could never work with smell because I have so little ability to smell somewhat accurately. 

MSD

Maybe it's like light – smell and light are similar to me. At least when creating a space. You notice when something's right or when something's off. But it's not the first thing that you check. 

[1] The Distributors (2023-ungoing) are a series of wall sculptures made by Klaartje van Essen. They are shaped by pouring fluid wax and plaster in discarded packaging materials, creating unforeseen details in the process. The Distributors have been installed on walls, connected to electricity pipes that run through the building, making them part of a bigger network.

[2] The series of Scratched Sketches by Klaartje van Essen are works that consist of glass dessert trays that Klaartje uses for mixing wax or latex with color pigments for other sculptures like the Crayon Rocks. Considering the brief moment of scraping out the trays as an opportunity to make a sketch.

[3] Referring to Desto’s Szenebild_ drawings which show ambiguous scenes constructed of relatively few, bold, black ink lines on paper.

[4] Lawrence Weiner published an album with Dickie Landry in 1979 where the phrase "Having been built on sand but on another base (basis)" features prominently as both album title and a recurring line in multiple songs. The phrase was painted on the GAK outside wall facing the river. It appears along the line that Monique S. Desto used in her radiator pieces.

[5] Referring to the Factor, Age & Means (F-A-M) series in which Monique S. Desto uses data as a reference frame for painting. The series is ongoing since 2018.