I’ve been sitting here trying to write an introduction for PLAYLAB, INC. but can’t seem to do the studio justice in the amount of words appropriate for an intro. As I attempt to briefly describe the studio’s practice I realize that its work laughs at traditional modes of design categorization. From publications to performances to pools (lots of P words), PLAYLAB, INC.’s work seems more connected by an underlying personality than any consistent stylistic approach. The work makes the esoteric approachable and serves as a reminder that things can be smart without always being so serious. Oh, and amidst the studio’s steady stream of wonderfully diverse output, it is planning a water-filtering pool to float in New York City. So rather than try and explain PLAYLAB, INC.—currently consisting of Archie Lee Coates IV, Jeff Franklin, Ryan J. Simons, Luiza Dale, Anya Shcherbakova and Davis Scherer—perhaps it would be best to talk through a range of their projects…
PROJECT I: CLOG
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CLOG: APPLE (2012)
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CLOG: DATA SPACE (2012)
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CLOG: RENDERING (2012)
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CLOG: NATIONAL MALL (2012)
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CLOG: BRUTALISM (2013)
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CLOG: SCI-FI (2013)
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CLOG: UNPUBLISHED (2013)
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CLOG: MIAMI (2013)
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CLOG: PRISONS (2014)
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CLOG: Rem (2014)
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CLOG: World Trade Center (2014)
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CLOG: Guggenheim (2014)
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CLOG: LANDMARK (2015)
Ben Schwartz (BS)
CLOG was my first exposure to the work of PLAYLAB, INC. Tell me a bit about how it got its start?
PLAYLAB, INC. (PL)
Like all of our projects, CLOG started with a conversation in 2011 with our friends Kyle May, Julia van den Hout, Jacob Reidel, and Human Wu. We were young and had no idea how much work went into creating a publication. All we knew was we wanted to make one. We all love architecture. Archie and Jeff met in architecture school, Jeff worked with Kyle and Jacob at REX Architects (also where he met Dong and Oana, who founded Family New York and are co-founders of + POOL), and Julia worked at Steven Holl Architects. We wanted to look at a singular topic from a variety of perspectives that was super relevant at that specific time. We looked around and didn’t see anyone doing that. At first we were just going to print some copies at Kinko’s, saddle-stitch it, and give it to our friends. But after putting all the content together for our first issue, BJARKE INGELS GROUP, we had so many pages of content that it had to be perfect bound. We pooled together our own money, printed it, and it sold out immediately after we released it. We used the money from that first one do to the next one, and so on, and so on. It all sort of worked out. We just put out the fifteenth issue on guns, titled CLOG x GUNS, and now we’re working on CLOG 16.
BS
I quite enjoy the concept of a deep-dive into one particular subject. Today it feels particularly needed amidst news in the form of sound-bites and tweets. Was this a reaction to what you were reading/experiencing at the time? How do you feel this concept has aged?
PL
It was 100 percent reactionary to the time and quickly changing media landscape, but wildly, not much has changed since we started. Information has become faster, and with that, harder and harder to listen to and discern what’s real from what’s fake. Everything is heightened and accelerating across all platforms. You never get a chance to look at all of something at once. CLOG offers real, honest opinions from as many sides as possible in one package.
BS
The most recent issue of CLOG is the first one to focus outside of architecture? Why the decision to make the change?
PL
After fourteen issues of diving deep into topics in architecture, we realized we had created a process for taking a closer look at something relevant now—usually a topic maintaining its own resonance outside of CLOG’s own discussion—and build a strong and solid audience that spends the time to look into those topics. We also wanted to test our process outside of the built environment and into areas that were influencing a large amount of people. CLOG x GUNS took us well over a year to produce. Talk about slowing things down. There are so many perspectives to look at carefully. This issue is nearly twice as thick as any other issue we’ve put out—it weighs a whole pound! It takes talking with people, visiting places, and publishing succinct pieces that capture all that and simultaneously keep the audience engaged in that discussion. It was new territory for us, so producing GUNS felt like going back to school. We all feel extremely educated about guns now, and I think a lot other people will, too.
BS
CLOG seems to be a through-line to the studio. Can you talk about the project’s importance to the studio’s practice?
PL
In a way it is. If anything, CLOG is a testament to our approach to collaboration. The best thing about CLOG is the team. It’s not PLAYLAB, INC.’s alone, it’s not the editor-in-chief’s, it’s not the distribution manager’s, or the research assistant’s. It’s a combined effort from everyone involved. PLAYLAB, INC. exists to make things no one has seen before—things that take diverse disciplines and abilities and thoughts to get them to exist out in the world. That’s why there’s no separation between initiatives and client projects: it’s all the same.
The defining factor is an idea, its needs to exist, and, ultimately, how it exists both in and out of the studio. We say “FREE IDEAS” not because we believe they shouldn’t cost something or have no value, but because we want them out of our minds, out of the studio, and into the public realm.
PROJECT II: STATIONARY PAPERBOY
BS
Stationary Paperboy is a performance piece for the 2017 show The Times put on by The FLAG Art Foundation. In the work, a performer rides a stationary bike and throws newspapers at attendees. To me, there is a relationship between this piece and CLOG as a commentary on how we receive and digest information. Could you talk about your thought process behind the piece?
PL
Stationary Paperboy is a great example of there being no border between types of projects in the studio. We could say how much we want to make art, or how much we want to make works to be displayed in galleries—which we do—but that’s not why that piece was created. We knew the curator from another project, and he asked us if we wanted to be a part of the exhibition. It just seemed like there was an opportunity to contribute an idea about the New York Times, and the best form for it was a performance and a sculpture.
The simple idea was that news is being launched at us every day, in many forms, and we have to either dodge it or catch it. The analogy of the obsolete paperboy was funny, but also made a lot of sense as a filter. Not all delivery people work hard to get the news to you like they used to. In New York City, there aren’t a ton of kids biking all over town, sweating, racing through traffic, to toss a paper that hopefully lands in your driveway. There’s someone throwing the news at you, but they’re most likely flinging it from a chair behind a firewall somewhere. Regardless, some sort of news is going to get to you someway. That’s scary. So we threw a physical copy of the New York Times at every person that walked off the elevator into the gallery, while avoiding knocking Ellsworth Kelly’s Ground Zero or an On Kawara piece off of the wall.
BS
Despite its urgent message, there is an an underlying sense of humor to the piece. How important is humor in your practice?
PL
Humor is a crucial part of our studio, but it’s never a filter that all projects have to go through. It’s more natural, not forced. Things can be fun without being jokey or clever for the sake of being clever. For the most part, we’re always asking ourselves what we’d want to see, and then make or propose that. They’re mostly just simple observations that give someone a brief moment of pause or exhilaration or happiness. We have fun with that. We can’t take everything too seriously or we’d lose our minds.
BS
How is the approach from the studio different when dealing with a print piece versus a performance piece?
PL
Whether it’s a book, a performance, an event, a website, an exhibition, or a building, the process is going to be different, but the approach usually stems from a conversation that leads to an idea, then blows out to a hundred or so ways to make that idea come to life, and then finally gets simplified through a few sessions where all of us (we say ALL DOGS) are present.
Every project in the studio usually involves some or all of these: an observation, a conversation, a simple move, and a thoughtful effort to make it look and feel good, then we deal with the technicalities with each different medium when we get there.
BS
Was anyone upset by being hit by a newspaper?
PL
A couple people were a little upset. Mostly, just caught off guard. One woman said, “Whoa, that’s aggressive!” at the first performance. Another man said to his friend, “I’m not sure if I should pick this up,” which led to a bunch of different conversations around the piece. It was funny in the context of a gallery in Chelsea. The security guard, though—he couldn’t get enough of it. He literally had an ear-to-ear grin as soon as we stepped out of the elevator. Think about it: there we were, flinging rolled-up newspapers at gallery-goers, within range of a Richard Prince painting, and it was allowed. We’re pretty sure he doesn’t see things like that often, especially not for 30 minutes on a Thursday afternoon. When we proposed the piece, the only real conversation we kept having was about insuring other pieces didn’t get damaged. That’s pretty amazing.
PROJECT III: CHRISTOPHER WOOL
BS
Christopher Wool is an artist so imbued in the printing process that I’m curious about working with him on a web project. Could you talk a bit about the process?
PL
Christopher approached the entire idea of having his own website so carefully, so thoughtfully. The things designers pay a lot of attention to—the grid, the kerning, the interactions—he wasn’t focused on any of those. He cared about the idea, what everything meant. For instance, the blue color we used was the result of a very specific back and forth. He wanted it to look almost like nothing, like a Craigslist post, but even more nondescript.
Beyond that, the project was more about the monumental exercise of looking at and archiving every single piece, which you can imagine was both daunting and cathartic for him. As artists, getting to have slow and thoughtful conversations with an artist whose work we really respect was an incredible experience. It resulted in something so simple and necessary, and hopefully timeless.
BS
Of the many projects I’ve seen from your studio, this one seems like the most straightforward in the realm of “graphic design.” How do you know when to inject PLAYLAB, INC. personality and when to pull back?
PL
The website is straightforward. When we started PLAYLAB, INC. in 2009, graphic design was the absolute center of the studio. Ideas need vehicles and those vehicles need to get to people. As playful as the studio can seem, we take the design of those vehicles seriously.
www.wool735.com didn’t need to be more than it is. It’s not an e-comm site. He doesn’t need to market himself. Apocalypse Now sold for $26.5 million in 2013. People know. When we first met with Christopher, the first thing we told him was that he didn’t really need a website, but what he needs is to say that Apocalypse Now is one of many works, all of which are a part of a larger body of work, which is very much still being added to today.
PROJECT IV: COMMON SENSE
BS
Common Sense was an exhibition that you curated/designed at A/D/O that dealt with identity and point of view through a series of experiments. Was there a particular inspiration behind the concept?
PL
For their summer season, A/D/O wanted to explore the theme “Common Sense.” We just kept thinking about how common sense doesn’t really exist, not even within our small studio. What’s true for one person is not true for another. We thought that in order to have common sense, you need a shared perspective—you need to see multiple sides of the same thing all at once.
We referenced “Earthrise,” the photograph that William Anders took from Apollo 8, looking back at Earth from the moon. He’s one of a few people in the history of the world that will ever have that perspective of a global existence, while on Earth everybody is looking at existence in varying different ways. We used the exhibition to explore multiple views of the same subject, presented through seven different “experiments” that each highlighted themes that are frequently considered in design—color, branding, value, language, identity, and sound. We then asked 18 collaborators to explore those themes. The experiments were kind of cryptic and weird. We loved it.
BS
What was the process like in creating and collaborating on the experiments?
PL
It was the best. We worked with people we admire and whose work we respect—artists, designers, poets, songwriters, and more—but who are also our friends. They riffed off of simple prompts that we gave them, and when displayed in the exhibition, they took on a whole different context. Jack Tatum from Wild Nothing wrote about sound. Ben Warfield made a movie soundtrack for the bathrooms. Ashley D’Arcy interpreted symbols designed by Thierry Blancpain from GrilliType. Mike Perry wrote about his perception of color. Maggie Shannon and Wash and Fold visualized identity, while Joel Evey wrote about it. Joel Speasmaker wrote about value. Haik Avanian rendered a trade show style Hamburger, while Zutalors! described it. It was wild.
BS
Alongside the experiments is the exhibition catalogue, which the visitor creates as they participate in each of the stations. Can you talk about the importance of this aspect of the show?
PL
We got excited about the idea that the visitor would create their own exhibition catalogue. So just like the experiments talked about many ways of seeing things, there were many ways of making the exhibition program. It was definitely meta in a way we didn’t immediately plan on it being. You got a folder at the entry kiosk we designed, and chose from multiple sheets from each of the six experiments. “Manual manual-making.”
PROJECT V: + POOL
BS
+ POOL, “a floating plus-shaped pull in the inner harbor of the NYC waterfront, designed to filter the very river it floats in”, was conceived of in 2010. The idea, initially a hypothetical, has developed over the years to become closer and closer to a reality. Can you update us on the current status of + POOL, where it’s at and where it’s going in the near future?
PL
Creating a piece of public infrastructure, especially one that has so many firsts baked into it, is way more complicated than any of us ever thought it would be. It started as a complete lark, an idea we were wildly excited about pursuing with Family, but somehow in the past seven years, it became very real.
It’s been an adventure. We raised money from 5,000 people through Kickstarter in 2011 and 2013, we created a piece of water filtration technology, received a patent pending on that technology, created a nonprofit, built a board of directors (including Joshua David, co-founder of The High Line, Karen Wong, the deputy director of the New Museum, and eight other incredible people), launched a free swim program with the New York City Housing Authority, won a federal National Endowment of the Arts grant, and are now finally working alongside the Mayor’s Office at The City of New York on announcing the pool’s actual location, which we should have very soon.
BS
+ POOL involves partners beyond PLAYLAB, INC. including the incredible architecture firm Family New York. Can you talk about what that collaboration is like?
PL
Family is family. We’ve shared a studio in some form for the better part of five years. We’ve done half a dozen projects together, and we’re currently working on a few more in addition to + POOL. We think similarly and have a mutual respect for how each studio works. The conversations are easy and fun, but led to some serious projects that neither studio could get out on their own. They have an incredible approach towards building environments that make the human experience more enjoyable and productive, and it’s exciting to be around that energy on a daily basis. With + POOL in particular, we’ve been able to bulldoze nearly every challenge we’ve had while having fun and remaining positive.
BS
What sort of design challenges are you facing with the + POOL on a day-to-day basis?
PL
The largest challenge is the fact that there are currently no specific permitting classifications that + POOL fits into. We’re literally creating new regulations with a team of lawyers, engineers, scientists, designers, the City of New York, and the State of New York. Once those pass, we’ll have to validate our technology with the National Science Foundation and prove its performance with New York City’s Department of Health. Once the filtration technology is verified, we’ll have permission to build.
It’s been a long, multi-step process, that has taken seven years. PLAYLAB, INC. has worked on this project nearly every day of those seven years. It’s not easy. We’re raising money, hosting events, building partnerships, asking advice, managing people, paying bills, teaching kids how to swim and about water quality, launching programs, designing materials, and taking meetings—hundreds and hundreds of meetings.
BS
How do you keep the momentum going on such a long-term project amidst everything else PLAYLAB, INC. is doing? How do you continue to stay motivated throughout the process?
PL
It’s just what we’ve set out to do. We want to see what’s possible and we want to know how to get there. + POOL is the epitome of that work. At the end of this process, we’ll have physical piece of permanent infrastructure in one of the largest cities in the world that nine million people will enjoy. Until then, there’s a whole world surrounding + POOL that we get to build. It’s a privilege and an honor to be able to have that kind of reach with a single project.
BS
You’ve been working on the project for nearly 10 years. Do you have any favorite memories or stories from the process?
PL
Too many to count, but here’s three:
1) In 2014, after raising $273,000 on Kickstarter, we had built and launched a scaled version of + POOL’s filtration system, a 30-foot experiment floating in the Hudson River. It was long, grueling, and fairly unsuccessful for the first few months. Finally, after five months of testing, the system was removing every bit of bacteria from the water. It was like magic. So we grabbed some beers, or friend Matt Rubin brought his camera, and we jumped in clean river water for the first time in 100 years.
2) A couple years ago, Archie’s dad called him at midnight and said David Letterman was doing his monologue on + POOL. Letterman got all the facts wrong, but it was one of the first times it felt like people were thinking that the pool is really possible.
3) Kanye West showing up to our first fundraising event, taking photos of Olympian Conor Dwyer’s gold medal. That shit was just insane, and it was the moment we realized this project was on some weird other level.
BS
What’s next for PLAYLAB, INC.?
PL
Tons. Identities. Campaigns. A couple of books. Performances. Experiences. Merch for a MUSEUM. We’ve been getting into retail environments. A few NDA-heavy things that’ll be worth it. We recently won a commission to do five public sculptures in midtown Manhattan—you’ll see those in the Spring 2018. We’re sending mini dog figurines out to friends for the holidays. We’ll do it all if we can get it.
PLAYLAB, INC. is a New York–based creative studio founded in 2009. With no particular focus, we explore themes using art, architecture, and graphic design to initiate ideas. Past projects include: giant worm tents for the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Storefront For Art & Architecture, a rebrand of America for SFMOMA, and a compilation of all the times Joaquin Phoenix has walked in his films, titled Walking Phoenix. In 2011, the studio co-founded the quarterly publication CLOG, and in 2010, co-founded + POOL with Family New York, an initiative to build the world’s first water-filtering floating pool in New York. PLAYLAB, INC., INC. is: Archie Lee Coates IV, Jeff Franklin, Ryan J. Simons, Luiza Dale, Anya Shcherbakova and Davis Scherer.
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