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Hera: Yeah. You know, so we've been on this trip for a while now, and we're super tired.
Maybe that's why right now we're not really ourselves.
I think if you come and see us paint we'll be whirlwinds, so inspiring.
But right now it just feels like we should probably move on to the Q&A part so that --
Akut: Then we can say something what you're maybe interested in.
Hera: Yeah, and tell you about, I don't know, like German chocolate or whatever you're interested in. Just ask us. So ...
Akut: So any questions?
Questioner: Maybe you can first tell us about what you said yesterday about the interaction between the two of you,
how it starts and how you got involved in the medium.
Akut: It started first in a dialogue.
Mostly Jasmin came up with ideas which we discuss together, and I'm more like reflector or something like this.
If we see a way for this topic then we came up with the first lines. They are made by Jasmin. This is usually the --
yeah, here you can see how the first scribbles doesn't matter on what the canvas looks like.
We use the spray paint because it's the fastest way.
It's 3.5 bar pressure so it means you need to hurry up with this. You need to come on point in a fast way.
Here you see the next step.
Then we usually after the outline's done, we shoot photographs of us. And here I think here it's my eyes.
Hera: Your eyes.
Akut: My eyes? Usually our characters, it's funny,
they are close to our child's because we use the facial features, nose, mouth, ears from Jasmin and we use the eyes from myself
because Jasmin's eyes are a little too dark for this.
There's not enough effect of that.
Hera: Yeah, they're dead.
Akut: So but, in this way our work has got facial features from both of us.
Hera: My eyes are dead. No, I mean this --
Akut: After this photo shoot, I take the photograph of - and fill - the realism part in it.
Hera: Right. So we love animals.
So one of the things you'll always find in our work is those crazy eyes.
So at home we have a zoo. No, a circus. We have a circus.
Akut: Yeah.
Hera: Or worst because we just really -- it's probably one of those things.
We probably paint animals because there aren't enough out there anymore. Right?
Akut: So but back to the process.
Hera: Sorry. I got carried away.
Akut: It's actually a back and forward between work and this.
And if we were out on canvases, then it's sometimes also the opposite way that I start on the canvas and Jasmin take over.
In Germany we live in two different cities, which actually is a four-hour car drive between.
So it means we don't spend our whole life together. We paint separately.
And we meet to exchange canvases and work together and find new ideas. And then we go off back in our places.
Hera: Yup. I'll show you something else.
So sometimes we invite the whole circus over and have dinner parties like this.
And there are always dogs in there because they're just your best friend, well, our best friends.
Or, crazy people with tomato hats.
So any more questions? About tomatoes maybe?
Akut: Nobody want to know something.
Hera: That's okay.
Akut: I think we have said everything.
Hera: I think we have said everything.
Moderator: If you have questions, you just raise your hand.
Questioner: What kind of materials do you use?
Akut: We work in a mixed media way. And our main tool is the spray paint here.
And actually to paint in a realistic way, you know, acrylic and oil, you can mix it.
But this is a fixed spray paint. And you got what you got.
And that's the reason why I use for this realistic stuff a set from 30 to 45 different colors.
And yeah. And Jasmin she use acrylic, charcoal, and actually --
Hera: And shoelaces also.
Akut: Actually, she uses everything what she can get in her hands.
Hera: Because there were real shoelaces.
Akut: Actually from my shoes.
Hera: Yes
Akut: Not on this.
Hera: Yeah. No, but I mean there's no limit to what you can use. And it's always good.
Akut: This is actually one double page from our --
Hera: -- book
Akut: -- last book. And it's also a collage. So actually most of the pages are still in your living room.
Hera: What?
Akut: In one to one size. You build it by -
Hera: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. Oh, that's a good point.
Akut: Yeah
Hera: So you're all graphic designers and artists.
Akut: But it wasn't also good for free layout. That's the reason why we found our own way to layout something.
Hera: Yeah, my in-design skills are really crappy.
So I just build all the pages in the book with photos and I did the writing, either by hand or with a typewriter.
And that way we created a very, I think, a --
Akut: -- playful layout.
Hera: -- a very playful layout. You should check out the book. It's the bigger one.
Here is another sample for what Falk said earlier, what Akut said earlier, about our features in the painting.
So we take photos of ourselves and then work the realistic stuff from photos.
But sometimes our reference material is also what we find in art books, really, as you can tell.
Everyone probably knows the Wharholian Soup Can.
So there's really no limit to where the ideas come from so with material, it just -- you find things everywhere, and you find cardboard everywhere.
Oh, yeah. This is a good example, too. So this is just all cardboard on cardboard on cardboard.
And by that we could build this huge installation in a room in New York.
Akut: It's a nice material. It's easy to bend. You don't need to spend much money in the materials.
Hera: Right. Or, you just use whatever is there. For example, this page, it's also from the book.
So okay, this looks -- this thing up here, right -- it looks like we painted a whole room or we painted inside a room where everything sort of looked like this with the sink and all that.
So we just installed something right on the wall that was in a time where we felt really empty headed.
So that's why the symbol, the empty head, you know.
Akut: Yeah, you can look full.
Hera: Right. But then also sometimes if you like chicken, so that's -- we painted in -- that was also in New York where we painted some chicken.
So funny because I think our style is so weird that later, I don't have a photo of this right now, but later someone came and painted over our work.
And a photographer --
Akut: Actually he added something.
Hera: Yeah, he added something. I think he added like glasses to the chicken.
And then someone else like a photographer who was making a book on street art in New York,
took a photo of it and published it in a book and totally thought we'd done the glasses.
Akut: So our way is so messy that if --
Hera: Yeah.
Akut: -- somebody adds something to it and it doesn't matter so it looks still Herakut.
Hera: Right. And we don't want to bore you or hold you up. But just maybe this is a good page for how we see ourselves.
So the one with the bird head, that's me. And the one looking all shiny in armor, that's him.
And this was from right after the what they call the economy crash. That was 2008 when we painted this huge thing.
And you can see the writing in the back. It's actually a quote from REM. "We came to disappear."
So maybe that's something about us. We want to be there and do something, leave a mark, and then, you know, just --
we just want to leave a little bit of "I was here" thing in the world. So that's probably it.
Akut: But I still have the catsuit in my closet.
Hera: Yeah, he wears it every night. Right.
Questioner: Question. Can you talk about the benefits of collaboration and how do you select a good partner and how do you know versus working solo?
Akut: So the nice thing in our collaboration is that we are so opposite when it comes to mentality, and that's the reason why our way to work is very opposite.
Jasmin is very loud and fast and her way to paint, she make this strong, expressive outline thing, and she got a beautiful handwriting.
And I'm actually the opposite. I got awful handwriting. That's not the point.
But I'm such a quiet, slow boy -- not anymore -- so I have the patience to spend just hours, which is necessary to paint this realistic stuff.
And I think this dynamic between us and also the dynamic in the painting of us and it's something unique for this kind of dual work.
Hera: Yeah, it helps to have more than two hands.
So to team up with someone just means, you know, you share so everything's faster once you have, once you got a routine there. Everything's faster.
You have double the brain, you know, twice number of eyes, et cetera. But sometimes we think we have only three eyes or something.
Akut: Yeah, 1-1/2 brains.
Hera: One and a half brains, but it's so important to reflect something from two sides at least. So if you only look at it from your own point of view, it might not be enough
And you can commercially actually only reach a little audience, a small audience, that has been through the same stuff you've been through so they can relate.
But if you have two people, then even more people you talk about the stuff, then you actually find a message that will appeal to more, like to more people. It's just that. Bye.
Person: Thank you.
Hera: Yeah, you're welcome.
Moderator: Any other questions?
Questioner: I have a question. In your creative process, do you ever --
Hera: Just stand up.
Questioner: -- have any argument or let's just say differences when it comes to approaching certain styles?
Like for example, when you probably would like to paint on this canvass a certain - did that come into mind the other one accepts it?
Akut: If we don't find a common --
Hera: -- ground
Akut: -- common ground, then we don't --
Hera: -- paint.
Akut: -- don't paint this topic.
Questioner: Oh
Akut: So we need something where we're both on the same page.
Hera: Right.
Akut: And we develop this common page together.
Hera: Right because that's, I mean, then the topic might not be strong enough, maybe, you know.
Akut: Yeah, or not clear enough. That's the good thing is if you're by yourself, then maybe you think it's --
Hera: -- important.
Akut: -- good enough or strong enough, but if you are more than one people, you can talk about it.
Hera: Oh, by the way, like talk about people, I don't know if you -- well, I'm half Pakistani so sometimes topics matter to me that don't really appeal to him,
but then again he's open enough to follow the news.
Akut: If it sounds logic for me, maybe.
Hera: "So right. But this was a piece we did.
Actually this was personal but also obviously political one where Malala,
the girl who got shot by the Taliban and now became some sort of little, you know, little hero in Pakistan against Taliban movement, she lost her eye while riding the bus to school.
So we actually did a portrait of her and painted an eagle as a symbol for freedom, which we really hope she will have and stay free like this.
So this was sometimes a little comment from us to things that happen so it's not just our private life but also a little bit of the outside world. Or, a lot actually.
Questioner: I have a question please.
Hera: Yeah, yeah. Just talk.
Questioner: Which is more, do you look for clients or the clients go to you? Which is more?
Hera: Well, at this point it's usually they come to us. But actually it's always really been like this.
But I told you we do a lot of things that are non-commercial.
So I can tell you as a colleague now, it's a tip, as a sort of tip, do as much charity work as possible because that's the way to get out there.
That's the way to show your work. If you always --
Akut: You can do something positive, for sure.
Hera: Both at the same time. It's absolute win-win. It's always good for people. We painted a lot of schools, a lot of community buildings a lot of kindergartens.
Mainly, they would just pay for the paint, but what happened was it's the best business card you can hand.
They will always remember, there will always be one person passing by thinking, "Hey, that might be exactly the project. I have project I'm working on. I could use exactly those."
Remember the one I showed you where we painted that girl with the bird's head the woman wanted to get a tattoo of?
So while we were painting this, someone approached us. He's actually from the U.N., like what's it called?
He's arranging an international children's meeting in -- I want to say Sri Lanka, but it's not, right?
Akut: It was Sri Lanka.
Hera: Maybe yeah. It was Sri Lanka next year. So he asked us. He saw us painting.
And he asked us, "Hey, do you want to travel to Sri Lanka next year and have a workshop with kids at the international meeting?"
inter-nation children's conference, that's what it's called. I'm like, "Yeah, sure."
Akut: I think it's all about to be visible, to be --
Hera: Visible.
Akut: Yeah, that the people can see your stuff and read your stuff. And if it's honest enough and you say it enough, then the people maybe appreciate us.
And that's the, I think, main problem today that we live in an era of copying.
And a lot of people, for a lot of people it's such a problem to find their own way because it's so much information around us, all with the internet.
Then yesterday, I said, "It's important if you want to make art, have a funnel view if it comes to art, but you need to have a 360 view if it comes the life around you.
Hera: Right. And then also I pulled this one out because you really definitely have to dare to make up your own language.
So for example, the stories of the street are mine, and then set the squirrel and did a mysterious gang sign.
So what I'm saying is no one really knows what it means except for the kid.
And that's actually one of our qualities. We have our own stupid language. But that actually makes us interesting to people who want to know.
"So they will be like, "Hey, can I -- do you want to wear my sneakers?"
And then all of a sudden, we have all of these sneakers at home, and we are in touch with the international sneaker company.
Akut: I think that's insider story. Nobody understands it.
Hera: Oh, okay. Nobody understands.
Akut: So let's switch to the next question.
Hera: No, but I'm sorry. It's just that when you have your own style, that's like your own language.
So brands will approach you to be adding to their image as a brand like the mysterious or the urban or the underground or whatever. So be your own little brand.
I saw one other hand. I think I think it was the turquoise shirt. Yeah.
Questioner: I see a lot of different elements in your art. What inspires those specific details?
Hera: Good question. It's like he said. It's the 360-degree view, which also means Googling a lot. Yeah.
Akut: Skip the first five pages.
Hera: Yeah. Skip the first five pages in Google. And then find images.
Go to the website. Go deeper, read the story, find an author, buy the book. It's really just kind of getting side-tracked on purpose.
And then just following it, you know.
I talked about music before. You watch a great movie, and then you get the soundtrack.
And on a soundtrack you find a band you would have never known about. And then you go on, you go on, you go on.
So all the information you see in our work, it's like a jukebox with all the stuff we've seen, with all the stuff we've listened to.
And then someone randomly presses a button and something pops up, and it'll be like, "Yes." That's it.
So we never really question a thought when it comes to our mind.
I mean, we always everything. But when there is a thought, we'll just roll with it and let it out instead of thinking,
, "Is this worthy enough of this environment?" It's like, "Yes. If we're thinking right now, it is."
If it's a bad thought we'll just write like in brackets underneath, "It wasn't a good day today."
Questioner: Well, you also connect things locally when you're working all over the world like here in Manila, do you find things that you connect with in this way?
Hera: Right. Well, as I said I really honestly meant that you should go and check out our new work today
because we're so exhausted now because we've been working so *** processing everything that we've been seeing since we got here.
So we went to Quiapo on the first day. Yeah. We're still trying to recover.
No, but it's so amazing. You guys have such an interesting culture, and it's so lively. It's so alive. And people are so creative without trying to be.
They're just trying to fix their house, and it looks like a museum installation.
Or you know those, the pedibikes, no, pedicabs. Everything.
All the tape they use, all these material is just so wonderful collage work.
And it's really just keeping things, not just throwing it away when it doesn't work anymore. It's like, I don't know, just being very smart and clever.
And then we found a guy, Jose Rizal. Well, we didn't find him. We just found about -- we really actually compare him to -- he'd be the Filipino Mahatma Gandhi, I think.
And you should definitely make a movie, an international movie with international stars, to tell his story to the world because I think he's pretty good.
So we used his quotes a lot in our work. And we're going to take his work back with us to Germany.
So it's in the jukebox. So you guys are in there, too, now. I remember all of you.
Moderator: Any other questions?
Questioner: Hi.
Akut: Hi.
Questioner: Hey. So like you said, the street art, you can see really everything in the pedicabs here.
But locally here street art isn't really that big. So a lot of street artists I think are struggling here.
So I was just wondering what advice would you give them for their art to be taken more seriously?
Hera: Do you want to answer?
Akut: [German]
Questioner: Unlike in other countries, street art is really respected or it's a growing art form. Here it's not so.
Akut: What do you think is the reason?
Questioner: I don't know. Maybe because one, it's illegal.
Akut: Like everywhere.
Questioner: And even if it is legal, a lot of people, when they pass by street art, they just think it's vandalism.
They don't really see it as what you do in a museum. If one of your artworks were here, a lot of people would still appreciate it.
But a lot would just think someone just drew over it because they hated the government or something.
So yeah, I think for street artists who want to be known locally, because I don't know what street artists here that has really been as successful as you guys.
So I was just wondering what can you tell them that make their work be taken more seriously?
Hera: Well, first, if you want to be taken serious, you have to take others serious.
So there is always a reason why some building owners don't want their buildings to be painted.
And you just have to find the ones that will appreciate you. So you have to stop with the legal stuff, illegal stuff, if you want to be respected that way.
So you cannot paint and expect it to stay is you paint it where you weren't supposed to. So it's kind of, you know, like make sense.
The other stuff would be graffiti. Graffiti is about something else. That's like *** on the wall like the dogs do. So it's kind of they don't care.
But street art, like in this case that I pulled up, we did this in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire has no real street art scene, I mean, no street art scene at all.
And what happened there was some people thought, "Let's get street artists out here."
And of course, the town was full of people who've never seen it. They don't even know it's accepted anywhere. They just think, "I don't think I like this message on my wall."
So if you want people to, you know, get your permits for the wall, you need to talk to them, you need to find out about what makes the situation better.
You can even, you know, make a sketch like I showed you earlier, approach building owner, say, "I have an idea for this neighborhood. I want it to be more beautiful."
So that means they understand you don't approach them for money. You don't say, "Hey, you know, give me so and so much money so I can make your store nice."
Then they're going to want you to paint their logo.
But if you just say, "My ideal is to beautify, to show a message that is not about selling toothpaste, that is not about advertisement commercial smiles,"
you have to come up with something that will move them.
In this case, in Portsmouth, we found out who is the most influential writer in Portsmouth, which was a girl, a lady named Cecilia Thaxter.
And she was working 1860, you know, when they had the North-South war, the enslavement abolishment.
Questioner: Civil war.
Akut: Civil war.
Hera: Civil war thing and then you know. So we actually quoted her and used it in our painting, which is a connection between the city and the street,
which is a connection to the old guys who lived there because they had to study her biography. They young ones don't even know her anymore.
And I think if you approach it that way, just be very diplomatic. Go do people. Ask them for permission. Go to your school. Ask -- yesterday, we're in a pretty good school.
They had abandoned -- not abandoned buildings -- but they had buildings they didn't use so much anymore.
And I told them, "This is the right playground for the street artists." They need legal walls so they can practice.
Akut: And one other thing is if you want to lift up the image of the local street art scene and give them a better ground to grow,
then the city should, you guys should, arrange street art events or something like this or happenings
where you invite people from any other places and let them paint here because I know how it is in Germany.
If you start in your own country, they give a *** about you. In my hometown, nobody takes care of me. Nobody is interested in my stuff.
But the thing is sometimes it's better to bring people over who are already established that you open the minds from the locals and it's, "Ah, okay. It's something else."
In your own town you will be, for a while, only the kid who start graffiti or something like this.
But if you show them other samples, then you open a playground for your own people to make something.
Hera: Yeah.
Akut: It's so much easier if they saw this great work from an artist from another place who makes great things or big things in a good way. It opens doors for yourself.
Hera: Right. Yup, everything correctly answered I thought so. So next year, we'll see your work up everywhere. But you will help the culture to develop, right?
Audience: Yeah! Yeah, yeah.
Hera: Right.
What impact we wished for?
Questioner: -- that they would get through your impact?
Akut: What's he asking about?
Hera: [German]
Akut: [German]
Hera:He was like, "Well, I would like to know, too.
So basically, I think it's a very, very basic thought. We were born with some sort of energy, like a talent.
And all of you guys have it, too. And we want to make sense of our lives.
So in the end, we will want to think, "Yes, we used our talent to actually do something that touched somebody in a positive way"
and not just being here and consuming and consuming and consuming. We actually want to create some output.
And you never know where it lands, you know.
Maybe there would be that one kid who will pass by a wall in the bus and would be like, "Damn, that's a really good thing that I just read", like food for thought.
And maybe that kid will take it further, become president of the world and build a huge Herakut monument.
No, no. It's really not about -- it's just like I said, it's leaving a little bit of a mark. And maybe someone else will do something on top of that.
So that's why we don't mind too much when people say, "Oh, this -- " like some people would send us email saying, "I've discovered an artist who paints exactly like you do."
And they would be like, "Oh, what copycats" and all. But it's really the first thing you do. It's such a natural thing. If you see something, then you're going to try to copy it.
It's just nowadays, with internet and everything, everything's out there already. I mean I copied so many things. I just didn't put them on Instagram.
So you just have to, you know, it's good. We are all here to learn from each other. Put yourself out there.
Try to make the message positive so that people can take that the next step.
And then this case right here, okay, someone can read it, right? Like I think I don't want to be embarrassed. It means the past can be a gift to your future.
So the past can be a gift to your future. This was a message that we put on the wall in Mexico City, in the middle, like downtown Mexico,
which almost looks like somewhere in the United States. So basically, it looks so international and so little Mexican that we talked about that with people.
And basically, everything they told us was always, "Yeah, Mexicans, they have their identity, but they don't really think they can really build onto that."
But one of the messages that we like to say is, "These are your roots so carve something nice out of them"
because that's actually what's going to, you know, this is what you can sell to the world really, not only financially, but what you have to share is your roots.
So don't try to be someone else.
Moderator: We'll accept one last question. Anyone? No more? Okay, let's please give a round of applause for Herakut.
Hera: Thank you.
Akut: Thank you.