{"id":835,"date":"2025-11-13T21:33:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/?page_id=835"},"modified":"2025-11-13T21:36:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:36:46","slug":"experimental-jetset","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/endorsements\/experimental-jetset\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimental Jetset"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"835\" class=\"elementor elementor-835\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-28ff6cf e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"28ff6cf\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-544bfb6 elementor-widget elementor-widget-shortcode\" data-id=\"544bfb6\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"shortcode.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div 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class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-91388da elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"91388da\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"p1\">1. We still remember the\u00a0 first time we met Christoffer and Kaisa. This was in 2012 \u2013 or perhaps even earlier. We were staying in New York City for some project or commission (it might\u00a0 have been the graphic identity for\u00a0 the Whitney), and each night we went\u00a0 to a different\u00a0 vegetarian restaurant. This is fairly normal for vegans such as ourselves, when\u00a0 traveling\u00a0 abroad\u00a0 \u2013 guided by specific apps and websites (HappyCow, etc.), you will just do the rounds, ending up at unexpected places every night.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">One of these nights, we were sitting in a particular vegetarian restaurant, when a couple entered the space. We couldn\u2019t help but stare as they moved (floated,\u00a0 rather than\u00a0 walked) into the place: they looked radiant,\u00a0 otherworldly\u00a0 \u2013 angelic and\u00a0 angular at the same time.\u00a0 They seemed to have been beamed into the restaurant straight from another\u00a0 galaxy,\u00a0 visiting planet earth from another dimension. We didn\u2019t talk to them (we didn\u2019t dare to make eye contact) \u2013 and silently continued our meal.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">The next night, we were sitting in yet another vegetarian nyc\u00a0 restaurant \u2013 when, much to our surprise, the same\u00a0 couple walked in. They were seated next\u00a0 to our table, and we looked at each other with a sense of recognition. One of them started to talk to us:\u00a0 \u201cSay, didn\u2019t we see you\u00a0 earlier, at\u2026\u201d &#8230;Before he\u00a0 finished his sentence, we\u00a0 enthusiastically\u00a0 interrupted him:\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u00a0 that\u2019s right! We saw you yesterday,\u00a0 at this other\u00a0 restaurant\u201d. To which he responded:\u00a0 \u201cNo, that\u2019s not what I meant\u2026\u00a0 Didn\u2019t we see you in the Helvetica\u00a0 documentary, back in 2007?\u201d\u2026\u00a0 That\u2019s when we\u00a0 realized the couple were actually graphic designers as well. More precisely, they turned out to be\u00a0 Christoffer and Kaisa, who happened to be in New York for a comic convention.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">We kept in touch after that \u2013 although in a very\u00a0 unfair,\u00a0 asymmetric\u00a0 way. While they keep\u00a0 sending us beautiful books and zines, we respond by sending them some lousy postcards (mostly invitations for exhibitions and book\u00a0 launches) once in a while. We know, it\u2019s not very nice of us \u2013 but hey, they are the angelic ones,\u00a0 not us.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">2. Through Christoffer and Kaisa\u2019s publications, we certainly recognize the circles they are coming from. The hardcore\u00a0 punk\u00a0 scene of the\u00a0 \u201980s\u00a0 and\u00a0 \u201990s\u00a0 \u2013 a subculture we belonged to as well. In particular,\u00a0 Christoffer and Kaisa seem to be rooted in the Hare Krishna branch of the\u00a0 straight edge movement \u2013 a scene we\u00a0 experienced from nearby.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">For the uninitiated \u2013 straight edge was a splinter movement that came into existence in the early\u00a0 \u201980s, as a reaction against the death drive of punk rock. Coined by seminal Washington DC-based teenage hardcore band Minor Threat (who later critically distanced themselves from the term straight edge, and eventually transformed into Fugazi), the straight edge movement promoted a\u00a0 disciplined, healthy lifestyle \u2013 a life free of drugs, free of alcohol, and free of one-night stands. This message spread like wildfire through the hardcore\u00a0 punk scene \u2013 and created many other variations and sub-sub-genres.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">With each\u00a0 subsequent wave, new rules and\u00a0 perspectives\u00a0 were added. Right after the\u00a0 original \u2018three-rule\u2019 (\u2018don\u2019t drink \/ don\u2019t smoke \/ don\u2019t fuck\u2019) model of the early bands (Minor Threat, ssd, etc.), there was a whole wave of straight edge bands that added vegetarianism to the mix (\u2018youth crew\u2019 bands like Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Bold, etc.). After that, Hare Krishna\u00a0 appeared on the scene, through bands like Shelter and 108 (and labels like Equal Vision). Then\u00a0 came radical veganism (bands like Vegan Reich), deep ecology (Earth Crisis), anarchist straight edge, pacifist straight edge, christian straight edge, satanic straight edge, pagan straight edge, and even islamist straight edge (Vegan Jihad). And sure enough,\u00a0 there was a strong atheist straight edge tendency as well (we\u2019re thinking here of the band Seven Generations, who started their live sets with a Christopher Hitchens sample). There were\u00a0 parody straight edge bands (Crucial Youth, Grudge, etc.),\u00a0 post-straight edge bands (Quicksand, Texas is the Reason, etc.), revival straight edge bands \u2013 the list goes on and on. These scenes were sometimes quite\u00a0 regional \u2013 for example, in The Netherlands, there was a substantial communist straight edge community (with bands like\u00a0 Seein\u2019 Red, Manlifting Banner, Colt Turkey, etc.).\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">In other words, straight edge was an explosive cocktail of militant ideas, occupying the whole political range (from one extreme to another), as well as the spiritual spectrum (from agnostic to fundamentalist) \u2013 and as such, the perfect spot for a curious Gen-X teenager. \u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">For people outside the hardcore\u00a0 punk scene, this emphasis on rigid rules might be hard to\u00a0 understand.\u00a0 \u201cIsn\u2019t punk, like, all about freedom and\u00a0 individuality?\u201d. Well, no \u2013 it\u2019s not. The point of hardcore punk is\u00a0 exactly the overlap between uniformity and\u00a0 individuality \u2013 a balancing act on the fine line between standardization and self-expression (in that sense, it\u2019s actually\u00a0 very similar to the notion of graphic design).\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Hardcore punk is about finding freedom within self-chosen rules \u2013 and that\u2019s also how we read the\u00a0 first sentence of\u00a0 Christoffer and Kaisa\u2019s manuscript:\u00a0 \u201cJoining a cult was the best thing I ever did\u201d. Indeed \u2013 joining a cult (and thus\u00a0 choosing to subject yourself to\u00a0 certain\u00a0 rules) might be the ultimate expression of freedom. \u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">3. Our own origin story is\u00a0 somewhat different. Punk didn\u2019t deliver us to Hare Krishna (as it did with Christoffer and Kaisa) \u2013 it actually brought\u00a0 us to a very different\u00a0 \u2018belief\u2019 system, (if you can call it a belief, or even a system). In short, our general outlook is shaped by modernism, materialism and marxism \u2013 the three golden M\u2019s, so to speak.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">o briefly explain our whole shtick \u2013 the way we see it, humans are shaped by their\u00a0 material\u00a0 surroundings. So the only way to bring about change, to cause progress, is to shape these\u00a0 material surroundings ourselves. To speak with good old Marx \u2013\u00a0 \u201cIf humans are made by their\u00a0 environment, this\u00a0 environment has to be made human\u201d. This is where modernism, materialism and marxism overlap \u2013 or so we like to belief.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">o, from our\u00a0 perspective \u2013 culture (and thus language, knowledge, meaning, etc.) is\u00a0 created through this ongoing dialogue between humans and their\u00a0 material environment. It\u2019s a model that\u00a0 doesn\u2019t allow for supreme beings, or all-knowing spirits, or\u00a0 almighty gods. The idea that these\u00a0 immaterial (and thus\u00a0 untouchable) forces could somehow govern (or overrule) this ongoing (and ever-changing) dialectic between humans and their\u00a0 material\u00a0 environment\u00a0 would be unbearable for us. It would mean that there is no hope for progress, for\u00a0 change. To us, things have to be material, in order to be touchable, and thus\u00a0 changeable. After all, we based our whole graphic design\u00a0 practice on that\u00a0 principle. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">At the same time, we fully grasp that our stubborn rejection of spirituality\/religion creates a certain form of\u00a0 personal dread as well. When faced with great losses, with sickness, with death, there is simply no\u00a0 comfort or relief for us. There\u2019s no hope for an afterlife, no reincarnation, no sense of belonging to a higher order. We just have to swallow our misfortune, and carry it with some sort of Sartrean existentialist chic. In fact, you could say that we added, to our three M\u2019s (modernism, materialism and marxism), a fourth M:\u00a0 miserablism. But hey \u2013\u00a0 c\u2019est la vie.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">4. So how do we (as self-confessed materialists) read Christoffer and Kaisa\u2019s\u00a0 defense of spirituality? Well,\u00a0 first of\u00a0 all \u2013 we think they make a very logical argument. From the first sentence (\u201cJoining a cult was the best thing I ever did\u201d) to\u00a0 the last one (\u201cThank\u00a0 you!\u201d), it\u2019s a train-of-thought that almost reads like Wittgenstein\u2019s famous Tractatus. We are being taken on a well-reasoned, well-informed, well-articulated journey \u2013 we travel from one philosopher to another, and from one refutation to another, until we eventually arrive at a point of no return. It\u2019s\u00a0 impossible\u00a0 to argue with this duck \u2013 he outsmarts us all.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">And yet, and yet \u2013 being\u00a0 confronted with this\u00a0 intellectual\u00a0 tour-de-force, we suddenly\u00a0 realize the sheer paradoxicality of it all.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">On the one side, there\u2019s us \u2013 people\u00a0 who\u00a0 experience our own\u00a0 \u2018atheism\u2019\u00a0 in an intuitive, almost irrational way. We have no\u00a0 scientific foundation, no rational argument to support our lack of faith \u2013\u00a0 ultimately, it\u2019s just something that we feel (rather than know). We just stumble through life, like the schlemiels that we are, not expecting any redemption, and without any light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">On the other side, there\u2019s the almost scientific defense of spirituality, as put forward by\u00a0 Christoffer and Kaisa \u2013 eloquently expressed in an 800-page philosophical treatise. A logical case for the illogical.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Our positions are thus almost mirror-images of each other \u2013 irrational rationalism versus rational\u00a0 irrationalism. It\u2019s an\u00a0 interesting contradiction \u2013 or\u00a0 better said, a whole cluster of\u00a0 contradictions. And yet, these\u00a0 are exactly the sort of contradictions and paradoxes that make culture (and life in\u00a0 general) so interesting, we guess.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">5. Let\u2019s move on, and add one final note. Reading the book (and considering\u00a0 Christoffer and Kaisa\u2019s earlier output), we\u00a0 might also add two other M\u2019s to this (admittedly rather patchy) essay: Mickey\u00a0 Mouse.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">And while we\u2019re at it, let\u2019s throw in two D\u2019s as well: Donald Duck.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">One of the things that makes\u00a0 Christoffer and Kaisa\u2019s publications (zines, comics, books) so interesting is the way in which they refer to certain archetypical comic characters. In particular,\u00a0 their alter-egos seem to be modelled after Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse \u2013 quite possibly the most famous \u00a0 anti-heroes in comic history.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Obviously, the use of animals as\u00a0 protagonists goes back a long, long way \u2013 think of fairy tales, folk stories, fables, myths, and (indeed) religious tracts. At\u00a0 the same time, the use of Mickey Mouse\u00a0 and<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Donald Duck as archetypes is a well-known motif in modernism, in art, and in pop-culture as well (wasn\u2019t Roy Lichtenstein\u2019s\u00a0 first Pop-Art painting a panel depicting both Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck?).<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Somehow, Christoffer\u2019s duck and Kaisa\u2019s mouse are part of this ongoing tradition \u2013 using these well-known tropes to inject their specific mixture of Nordic Krishna spirituality into pop-culture. It\u2019s a unique, ongoing project \u2013 and for this, we applaud them.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">But no, the duck\u00a0 sadly did not convert us. We didn\u2019t take the route to\u00a0 Damascus, and we certainly didn\u2019t switch from Saul to Paul \u2013 we are sorry about that.\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\">We guess religion is like water. Some ducks swim in it, and let themselves surround by it. Other ducks just shake it off their feathers (as the saying goes: \u201clike water off a ducks\u2019 back\u201d).\u00a0 But one thing we can all agree on: the duck should never be boiled in the water (because eating an animal is always wrong, no\u00a0 matter what side of the fence you are standing on).\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"p1\"><em>Experimental Jetset<\/em><br \/><em>Amsterdam<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. We still remember the\u00a0 first time we met Christoffer and Kaisa. This was in 2012 \u2013 or perhaps even earlier. We were staying in New York City for some project or commission (it might\u00a0 have been the graphic identity for\u00a0 the Whitney), and each night we went\u00a0 to a different\u00a0 vegetarian restaurant. This is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-835","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/835\/revisions\/839"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.absolutetruthpress.com\/gloves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}