STUDIO DIARY #3
Hi there,
It has been a while since the second issue of my STUDIO DIARY. Summer came, and with it the heat. As much as I love my studio space with all its natural light from the big windows, it gets unbearable above a certain temperature – let alone during a heatwave like the one we are experiencing these days.
When the first heatwave hit a couple of weeks ago, with temperatures between 30 and 37 degrees inside the studio, I decided to move some of my music gear, a monitor and a fan home and focus on tasks I could do on my computer at my tiny desk in our bedroom.
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BLUE FRIDAY
In between the heatwaves, I spent some time in the studio working on this new painting.
The title BLUE FRIDAY seems rather mundane: I started the painting on a Friday and was testing a new blue tone. When I started working with visuals in early 2025, I sometimes used what I call the “RGB BLUE” instead of my usual blue. I am obsessed with its vibrancy on screen and have been looking for an analogue counterpart in the form of an acrylic paint.
A few weeks ago I met with Pipa, who runs the Siebdruckwerkstatt, and she told me about Lascaux’s Ultramarine Blue. I got myself a bottle from the art supply store and stretched a sheet of 400gsm paper onto a wooden panel.
I was excited when I opened the bottle because the blue did have a strong vibrancy. I applied the first layer and realized that it didn't have quite the same opacity as the blue I usually mix myself, even though the packaging said otherwise. In the end, it needed four layers to achieve the smooth, even look I was aiming for.
With every new layer, the tone got darker, eventually becoming closer to the dark blue of my palette. It still looked exceptional and reminded me of the deep blue sea, so I decided to continue translating my sketch.
Instead of painting the final layer in my dark blue, as I had planned in the sketch, I spontaneously decided to apply a mixture of white and pink with my knife, giving each element a unique texture.
When I first started working on the AV side of my DISPLACEMENT system earlier this year, I wanted to have a moving image instead of still frames of the rubber band I use for the painting part. My idea was to rotoscope a video of a swinging rubber band I had recorded.
Back then I used an app I already had installed on my iPad for sketching, but doing frame-by-frame animation with it was very cumbersome. In July I found an affordable animation app called ToonSquid and fell in love with its workflow.
Instead of animating a rubber band again, I animated the harness of one of our cats – not only because I find its shape interesting, but also because over the past few weeks we have established a new routine.
Every night, with a few exceptions, between 10pm and 1am, Creamzy sits in front of the door meowing. That's when we know she wants to go outside. No matter how tired Z and I are, we put on her harness and take her to the big courtyard down the street. Sometimes her sister Coffee joins us.
We spend up to an hour letting her run around while staying connected to her through a leash. She loves exploring and getting some fresh air, and we love being part of this little adventure.
A few weeks ago I also started working on the live performance side of DISPLACEMENT, linking sounds to parameters. After drawing the harness 157 times from different angles and turning it into a rotating animation, I put it into the system and let sound dictate its movement speed.
I liked it so much that I took a frame, painted it, and that's how BLUE FRIDAY was born.
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PERFECTIONISM & THE FLOW STATE
In my last STUDIO DIARY I wrote about my friend Jeff filming a portrait movie about my work. By now, we're done filming.
We agreed that it would make sense for me to do the sound part. I can see myself getting into film scoring at some point, and you gotta start somewhere.
Instead of getting a raw cut from Jeff, he suggested that I compose a 20–30 minute track with a number of different parts that he can then choose from.
Right after our last meeting I started recording some conceptual ideas, but got torn out of my flow because I wanted to attend a concert that evening. Getting into, being in, and being torn out of a creative flow state is a whole topic for another diary entry, I guess.
The days after that, I had to deal with a lot of admin work, and whenever I thought about the scoring I pushed it away.
From experience I know that, to get at least the foundation of a composition down, I need a calm mind and an open-ended day. No distractions, no appointments, just me and my instruments.
If I squeeze an hour in on a busy day and come back to it another time, chances are high that I start questioning everything and eventually delete it because the feeling and flow are gone.
Also, whenever something is important to me – which happens a lot, as you might have guessed – the perfectionist part of me grows and takes away space from my playful and explorative side. This creates a feeling of pressure and anxiety that can put me into a freeze state.
It's not my first rodeo, so I know I just have to get through this phase.
Usually it helps me to come up with an idea, a system, or maybe some rules to limit my approach and keep myself from feeling overwhelmed by the sheer endless possibilities.
A couple of days ago, while letting my body wake up, I had the idea of placing a recorder in my studio and recording my morning routine: getting upstairs, making myself a cup of coffee, and slowly starting whatever is on my TODO list that day.
It's about half an hour of letting my mind drift as much as possible while enjoying every sip.
I did the recording this morning and can't wait to go through all the sounds I naturally produced while following my morning studio ritual.
SOUND DIARY #3
Speaking of sound: like I mentioned above, I've also been working on the live performance side of DISPLACEMENT.
While my previous work NIGHTRIDE was done in two steps, first I composed the sound using a variety of layers and instruments. Only when this part was finished did I link parameters of each track to elements and/or parameters on the visual side.
I've used this approach before, for example with my AV installation SAMESAME in October 2025, which was projected and seamlessly looped throughout the entire exhibition.
When performing live, I'm much more limited – especially when I'm mostly improvising.
So the first step was asking myself a few questions:
How much gear do I want to use?
Do I want to carry a huge synth with me because it sounds amazing, or is a smaller one enough?
Do I want to work with samples, synthesis, or both?
And most importantly: What sounds are responsible for which parameter changes on the visual side?
The latter question was the most difficult, since there are so many options. Some of them make sense on paper, but once I tested them, they didn't.
There is a lot of trial and error and fine-tuning involved.
I want percussive elements like the kick and snare to trigger the grid element layer in the visual. But what if I have parts that don't involve these elements?
At some point I recorded a video of a section without them, just to see how the visual feels. I put it on my YouTube channel as a form of documentation.
Fun BTS fact:
I called the work SUMMER STORM because there is an element that reminds me of an approaching thunderstorm cutting through thick air in the middle of one of these tropical nights.
Few people will probably guess the source of the sound.
We had some walnuts lying around in the kitchen, and I like the clicky sound they make when you hit them against each other. So I recorded them and loaded the sound onto my sampler. While rehearsing, I played around with bit reduction, delays and reverb while cutting off certain frequencies of the sample. And that's how I got the “thunderstorm” sound.
This is exactly why I love working with sound.
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ONE LAST THING
Firstly: thank you for taking the time to read all the way to here!
I started this STUDIO DIARY earlier this year as a platform where I can give deeper, longer insights into my practice. This is the third issue, and you can find the first two in my archive here [archive link].
I'm curious what you think.
You don't have to write me a whole review or sit down and formulate a thoughtful response. But if something in this issue sparked a thought, made you curious, reminded you of something, or simply made you want to tell me something – hit reply and say hi.
Maybe you want to know more about how I work, what my days in the studio look like, how I balance art and life, the music side of things, or something completely different.
I've only subscribed to a handful of newsletters myself and rarely reply to them. Social platforms like Instagram make giving feedback easy – you can like something with one click or leave a quick comment. Replying to a newsletter takes a little more effort.
But at the same time, I'd really love for this newsletter to become a place for a bit more dialogue. So if you ever feel like replying, even if it's just a sentence or a random thought, I'd be very happy to hear from you.
That’s it for now.
Stay hydrated!
XOXO
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