Phil
So Jan, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Jan
Well the basics then:
- Jan Willem Wennekes
- I live in Groningen, The Netherlands
- My education: MA in Philosophy and MA in Artificial Intelligence
- Just finished university and am about to either get a job or try the
freelance life.
Phil
Cool, so how did you get into art?
Jan
How did I get into art, wow. Hard to remember. I think I have been
drawing as long as I can remember, and I've done art in high school too
for a while. But I was quite interested in the sciences and dropped
that subject to take on other courses. When I went to uni I started to
do designs for the first time digitally - one of the first things I
made was actually a logo meant for clothing company. When I finally got into
illustrator I really got hooked on the program and probably that's
when things started rolling for real. Before that I used my computer
for other stuff like gaming and whatnot, but after that, I haven't
touched a game since!
Phil
Yeah its funny, quite a few designers choose to take other routes before deciding on design, Oliver Moss, I think is taking a BA in English, nothing to do with art, so how did you end up doing Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence?
Jan
Yeah I heard that from Olly himself - he has no idea what to do with
it, but obviously doesn't need his degree either, haha!
My interest for AI has been an ongoing thing from high school, I've
always been interested in cognition, the brain, intelligence, human
beings and animals, language and those kind of things. Of course the
question rises as to what intelligence exactly is, and if you can
fake/build it. I was lucky enough to have Philosophy as a subject in
high school which introduced me to these type of topics. When I was
doing AI I had to do a fair amount of Philosophical courses too, and
those got me interested in Philosophy for its own sake. So when I
finished AI, I still really had a thing going for Philosophy
(especially for the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein). I did, however, get
a job offer as a consultant/web designer and followed up on that first.
But after a while, I started to feel a vibe again for Philosophy and decided to quite my job and go back to uni. Quite a heavy decision, but I haven't regretted it a single day. It's kind of hard to describe Wittgenstein's philosophy, but I really think that he was a brilliant philosopher and with his philosophy it was like it was with designing: once I got into it I couldn't let go of it anymore.
Phil
Wow, I mean going to uni for a first time is a daunting task (I'm off to uni in September) but going for a second time, well you're a braver man than me, I think dunno havent done the whole uni thing yet so who knows. So do you think AI and Philosophy have had an influence on you're art work? and what are you're other influences I mean you've got a really distinct style.
Jan
Yes, I think that both subjects have had -
and still have - influence over my work. If not directly by their
content, then maybe in a contrasting kind of way: maybe I sometimes
try to counter the complexity of things in my studies with simplicity
in artwork? But at the same time problems in AI or Philosophy have a
way of ending up to be fairly simple and can often be solved with very limited means, so to say. Also, in AI I really like the combination of different subjects (such as psychology, math, linguistics, biology, robotics, etc) - it's kind of refreshing and multi-facetted. And in Philosophy I really like the way of thinking, of analysing problems and finding the deeper idea behind them. I think I can say that in some way my artwork and my studies are all sort of clean and analytical, at least to me it feels as if they are all connected somehow. Another thing is that attending lectures and reading books can be a great time to do some doodling, ha-ha :)
Other influences include a lot of artists, I’m actually daily inspired by looking at shirts people are wearing, and I somehow just love t-shirt graphics and the (often) limited use of colours. Limitations can be a great pushing factor in creativity. I also have a thing for street art and stencilling, and a lot of famous street artists do graphic design as well (for example, 123klan, flying fortress, Buffmonster, Dave the chimp, Bansky, Dave Warnke, the London police, and many many more). It's very refreshing!
Phil
Yeah I mean one of the distinct aspects of you're art work is that its so simple and yet there always seems to be a sort of story behind it, instead of a simple this looks pretty factor (though that’s always nice), so before you mentioned you're design company, zeptonn could you tell us a little bit about that? How it came about?
Jan
Thanks man! I really do try to make things simple in some way, but it
can be quite a process to actually get that right. I think it's all in the details really: a slight change in a line, or the position of e.g. an eye can make a big difference in the end. So i'm fiddling with those things a lot when I make a piece.
About Zeptonn: this started out as a small project in the beginning aimed at doing some graphic design work, but it went towards shirt-graphics pretty soon. I started it in 2001 and around 2 years later I had a skateboarding team (with 5 members) that I sponsored with clothing and Zeptonn Clothing was available throughout the Netherlands, in around 25 different shops. While that was very nice and cool, the distribution, sales, administration and industry seasons got in the way a bit: in the end I was doing mostly those kind of things, and not so much designing. It took me a while to realise but in the end I figured that I started the clothing business out of a need to design, so I decided to turn the whole thing around and stick to the designing only. A hard decision, but definitely the right one for me. I'm very happy with it now! So from a(skate)boarding clothing brand Zeptonn, has become a one-man design army!
Phil
So what are you’re plans for the future?
Jan
Plans for the future? Well, I'm currently working hard to start a freelance career and I'm trying to obtain some nice commissions that allow me to really do the stuff I like best, illustrations, monsters, stuff like that. But of course you never know what the future holds for you, so I'll have to see what happens and go along with what the world offers me! Also, with a couple of designers we're currently making a book with t-shirt designs, which is very exciting. This book is planned to come out at the end of this year so stay posted!
Phil
Well I look forward to the book mate, so what have you been listening to lately?
The stuff in my player right now is the following: Snow Patrol, Anthony Rother, Basement Jaxx, Morcheeba, Gorillaz, Jack Johnson, Moloko, C-Mon & Kypsi, Hooverphonic, Paris Derniere, Nouvelle Vague, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Les Rythmes Digitales... phew yeah I know, that's a lot, but generally I like to switch over to different types of music during the day. Anyway, there's more for sure but this is my current list
Phil
Cant beat a bit of Jack Johnson every now and again, right now I'm obsessed with a Japanese band called the Polysics, its a sort of crazy mix between techno and new wave, its difficult to describe because I've never heard anything quite like it, but its so damn addictive.
So what’s the population of Netherlands?
Jan
16,299,000 (we're pretty densely populated, I believe somewhere in the top 25 of most densely populated countries).
Phil
And finally is there anything you'd really like to say?
Jan
I don't think there's much left to say other than: keep up the good work and keep up the good spirit!
Phil
Cheers mate and thanks for the chance to interview you, you can see more of Jans stuff over at:zeptonn
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