☁️✨The Nexialist #0066
Tropikali | Fun vs Fake Fun | Funambulism | The Andy Warhol Diaries | The Moodboard Effect | Pareidolia | Kakee | Follow Me | Fade to Grey | Influenceur
Welcome to yet another neural trip in the tunnels of the internet, The Nexialist
For some reason, last week Substack sent the newsletter twice by mistake. Not sure what happened, but I won’t apologize for it, because it brought new people in. Welcome, everyone!
You know, the theme is not usually decided with a clear vision in mind. I make myself available to the algorithmic gods, and let I let my brain and fingers flow with whatever connects. This week served as a personal reminder to keep having fun doing what I do. Get ready for a good mix of inspiration, imagination, and art, and please go until the end because there are some great music videos to get you started on the weekend. Brainjoy! 🧠✨(Maybe I’ll lose subscribers after this portmanteaus lol 😬 but I stand by it)
Last thing before we start: do you have 5-10 minutes to answer a quick survey about The Nexialist? It would be super valuable to get some feedback from you as a move forward. ❤️
🎧Tropikali
Before we start, I want to share something I’m really excited about: In a couple of months (12/June), I’ll be playing one hour of Brazilian music at Tropikali, a cultural celebration and the cutest LGBTQIA+ festival in Amsterdam. Join me if you’re in Amsterdam!
🪁Fun vs Fake Fun
If you follow The Nexialist for a while, you know that playfulness is a common theme around here. I just read Catherine Price’s interview for McKinsey and I’m in love with her work. She wrote How to Break Up With Your Phone a couple of years ago, teaching us how to have a healthy relationship with our smartphones. Then she had a bit of a crisis trying to understand what to do with the free time that she suddenly had.
I like how she first finds a definition of True Fun, as opposed to the Fake Fun, and calls us to analyze if what we do is actually fun, or is are we made to believe something is fun because marketers told us so.
I refer to this as True Fun, and it occurs when we experience the confluence of three psychological states: playfulness, connection, and flow.
By “playfulness,” I mean a spirit of lightheartedness and freedom—of doing something just for the pleasure of it, and not caring too much about the outcome. By “connection,” I’m referring to the feeling of having a special, shared experience with someone (or something) else. And “flow” is a term used in psychology to describe the state of being fully engaged and focused, often to the point that you lose track of time—not to be confused with “junk” flow: the hypnotized state we fall into when we binge-watch Netflix and look up to find that five hours have passed.
As I’m writing this I’m thinking: wow, we became so boring that someone had to create a framework for us to learn to have fun again. It reminded me of the Drops of Joy documentary I shared a while ago, which connects the moment we are in society with the lack of playfulness and imagination, and invites us to connect with our inner child to come out and play. Here’s Catherine’s framework:
I created this framework I called SPARK, which is short for “making space, pursuing passions, attracting fun, rebelling”—which is very fun—and keeping at it. I give suggestions for each of these elements, so that people can put that into practice and try to generate more opportunities for fun in their everyday lives. If you’re doing something exotic and traditionally fun, like going on vacation, that’s great, but I want you to be able to have more fun when you’re stuck at home as well.
Read: The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again | Next Big Idea Club
Read: Author Talks: Don’t spoil the fun | McKinsey&Company
🎪Funambulism
This week, one of the words of the day from Merriam-Webster's newsletter was Funambulism and immediately I thought it had to do with Fun. It actually means tightrope walking or when someone shows mental agility. A new word for me, which got me into a bit of a rabbit hole.
Funambulism dates back at least to Ancient Greece — that’s where the name comes from: funis means “rope” and ambulare means “to walk.” In both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, tightrope walkers were revered, but their work was not considered “sporting” enough to be part of the Olympic Games. Instead it often became the providence of jesters and other entertainers.
I was thinking how sometimes the present feels like Funambulism, and we have to balance ourselves and find focus. Without realizing it, I clicked on a link to this beautiful short film shared by NOWNESS, which brings us words from an expert high-wire walker who also holds a Ph.D. in philosophy.
Andrea—the subject of directorial duo Yuri Pirondi and Ines von Bonhorst's latest film—is a high-wire walker. Treading far above the ground through a mixture of caution and sure-footed confidence, the expert performer (who also holds a PhD in philosophy) struck the filmmakers not only because of his artistry, but for his patient and insightful view on life. The resulting film is not simply a dare-devil profile, but a symbolic and dreamlike journey where the wire represents the "timeline of our lives," as Pirondi and von Bonhorst explain. "As we walk forward along the wire, we encounter risks but we also face the infinite. "In Andrea's dream, reality and the subconscious merge through his stream of consciousness" as he makes his way along the wire. This also influenced the choice of location—Bagnoregio, where Italian auteur Federico Fellini filmed "his ciruqesque masterpiece La Strada, whose landscapes feel suspended and create a perfect environment for a dream-like imaginary."
Read: An Abridged History of Funambulists | Atlas Obscura
🤖The Andy Warhol Diaries
In the past couple of weeks, I was watching The Warhol Diaries with Juan, and let me tell you: it is a masterpiece. It made me feel and think so many things. Sometimes I felt like I was watching a music video, with its impeccable soundtrack. At other moments, I was watching the saddest movie ever.
I was impressed at how they managed to show more complex sides of Andy, which completely breaks the one-dimensional idea most of us might have had of him. They don’t try to portray him as this flawless icon but show us so many layers, even the problematic ones. It is also so powerful to see it through a queer lens of today, how he chose to hide (or omit) his sexuality at the time, and even the shock and pain of the AIDS pandemic and how many people around him were lost. And the most important: at moments, it seems Andy was making fun of himself and of everyone “buying into” this brand he created.
Something that came to mind is how he used social structures, fame, and media as a sort of canvas for his art, even before there were social media. Also, the genius in using AI to recreate his voice gives a whole new layer to Andy’s “I want to be a machine” quote. It made the whole experience so immersive and intimate. By the end, I felt like I had lived some of Andy’s life.
(One last thing that occurred to me right now, Andy mentioned in his diaries the shocking televised death of Karl Wallenda, a famous funambulist—a high-wire walker— at the time.)
📺Moodboard Effect
Thank you Danilo for sharing this article. Elizabeth Goodspeed is on point with ther diagnosis:
This kind of visual homogeneity is a common occurrence in the art direction world, where ubiquitous styles operate less like trends and more like memes; remixed and diluted until they become a single visual mass. In today’s extremely-online world, the vast availability of reference imagery has, perhaps counterintuitively, led to narrower thinking and shallower visual ideation. It’s a product of what I like to call the “moodboard effect.”
This conclusion spoke so closely to me because this is exactly the type of work I love to do as a Nexialist: looking for references outside of the sector of my partners and clients. I truly believe that this is where innovation happens, and this is how I can help teams that are on the daily grind.
So where do we go from here? Avoiding repetition may be as simple as looking outside of the world of contemporary graphic design and art direction for inspiration, and certainly outside the client industry you’re working in, whether that be by referencing the past, or other creative fields like architecture or fine art. If you’re excited by the idea of reflection as seen in the cloud-mirror photos, why not see how Ekkehard Altenburger or Yayoi Kusama have played with mirrors in their work?
The internet can be an asset to research, but intentionality in sourcing shows wisdom and intellect; a solid concept with fewer examples is always better than an oft-trodden one with a plethora of precedents. Even more simply: trust your intuition. Chances are you’ve absorbed enough of the current visual climate by osmosis alone; what happens when you let what you’ve seen filter through the lens of your own memory, rather than working directly from a reference on a page? Ultimately, reference imagery should be used as a tool, not a product—leading to visual iteration, not limiting it.
Read: All Advertising Looks the Same These Days. Blame the Moodboard by Elizabeth Goodspeed | Eye on Design
☁️Pareidolia
I feel like I’m seeing a lot of clouds on this week’s Nexialist and it reminded me of this term.
Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. (Wikipedia)
🍑Kakee
Sofi Tukker’s concert was one of the most fun concerts I’ve been to and I love when they release new things. Of course, I love their songs in Portuguese, even though they are American. Here you can learn some fruit names, including my favorite: Abacaxi.
Não quero pêra, uva, maçã, abacaxi - I don’t want pear, grape, apple, pineapple
Quero caqui - I want Kaki (or persimmon)
🦁Follow Me
If there’s one thing drag queens can show us is how the power of fun and creativity can be applied to bring us confidence and thrivingness. Pabllo is running the world and we love her.
🌚Fade to Grey
I think this is one of my favorite recently released songs/music videos. Violet Chachki (RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7 Winner) is killing it: the outfits, the attitude, the pure 80s vibe, the switching between her male/drag persona. It’s right up my alley. Below is the original, from 1982, forty years ago. 😱
🐶Influenceur
This video format is something I don’t think I have seen before, with so many face-filters. Super cool!
❤️If anything made your brain tingle, click like and don't hesitate to share it with the world. It helps The Nexialist to reach more curious minds. See you next week!🦦
🫀If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with your friends. If someone amazing sent it to you, tell them you love them, and you can subscribe at thenexialist.substack.com. If you want to know what a Nexialist is, click here.
🤙Call me…
If you like what you see here and your project, brand or business needs some ideas or inspiration from outside your bubble, maybe you need a Nexialist to help you out 🙋🏻♂️ I can participate in brainstorms and workshops, guide inspiration sessions, or provide you with creative desk research. You can always send me an e-mail to figure something out together.