Interview with Eva Rucki (Troika)

London – How did you end up studying and working there and which advantages does it offer a graphic designer?

For my BA I studied in the Netherlands and came to London completely by chance, started a two month summer course and decided to stay. I then started an internship with an animation company and continued working for them for a year. It was an interesting experience, but not interesting enough for me to stay, the film directors who worked there and produced work that was interesting and challenging to me, went to the Royal College of Art. I realised then that this was where I should be headed. Soon after starting at the Royal College of Art, I met Conny Freyer and Sebastien Noel. We graduated two years later and together we set up Troika. London is a great place for people who are just starting out and I think the biggest difference in comparison with Germany and France is that clients are more likely to give young people a chance. I think this is quite different in other countries, unless you already have a proven track record and worked for years you are unlikely to be given an opportunity to prove yourself. We were really lucky and soon got some interesting requests for different kinds of work and everything just continued from there on.

How would you describe British Design?

To be quite honest, it’s not really the main focus of our work. Conny Freyer and I both come from a graphic design background, Sebastien is an engineer and studied product design, but the actual output of our practice is more to be found at the intersection of contemporary installations, architecture and sculpture. There is a graphic dimension to some of our work. For example “All the Time in the World”, one of the earlier installations, that is installed in Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport. But it’s not really the starting point, it’s just one of the skills we have and sometimes it comes to pass. In general I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a recognisable graphic design style in England. The work of Emma Thomas and Kirsty Carter from “A Practice for Everday Life” reminds me more of a an attitude to graphic design that I used to think of as Dutch. However, some of my friends who run their own studios in the Netherlands have adopted a more multi-layered and playful approach instead, something I would associate with British Design. I assume the fact that we get less of a recognisable style for each country now is part of a normal development. Graphic Designers tend be curious people who travel a lot and work internationally and especially in a city like London you are subjected to a variety of influences from all around the world.

You’re coming from graphic-design background – in which way are you contributing as a graphic designer in the realisation of your projects? Meaning: what is your actual part in the realisation of your projects?

That completely depends on the project. We first start with the concept, which is carried by the three of us. We bring different initial ideas to the table, these are then picked up by the next person and this will then be developed even further by yet another. I quite often work on the kinetic elements such as the animation for the “Cloud” or the graphic elements of “Whether Yesterday”, “All The Time In The World and “Zoetrope” There are also pieces like the “Small Bang” series and the “Light Drawings”. We most often build teams to take projects further and, for example, collaborate with software programmers and structural engineers or, at on earlier point in the process, with scientists and writers. There are always different roles involved, in some projects there is a can be a huge mechanical structure and others don’t involve mechanical elements at all. It really differs greatly for each project.

Troika has a very significant and extraordinary style – were there some tendencies for that during your studies, or did the idea of a style just happen when you met your partners?

We are not very interested in style. For us it’s more finding the form that is already embedded in the material that we’re working with. A practical example might be the “Whether Yesterday” which is An LED-sign consisting of LED-strips and the module is five LEDs long. Everything is based on that module, the font as well as the graphics. It’s not a retro-style we have chosen, but a consequence of the material. For us, it is more about an attitude to designing; to strip everything away and work with the essence rather than to add things that are unrelated.

Do you sometimes feel the need to work as a graphic designer in the classical way again? Meaning in print or typography etc.?

I still use a lot of my graphic skills regularly, the context is just different, rather than communicating someone else’s ideas, you communicate your own. I don’t really miss the context and the discussions about colour you have as part of you client relationship as a graphic designer. I work in the same area I would have chosen to work in, as a graphic designer meaning the cultural, public and institutional sector. I find the way we work very rewarding.

How much freedom do you get in commissioned work?

It depends really. The brief for the “Cloud” installation for the airport was completely open, we looked at the semantics of the space and our starting point for the idea was that we compared the journey people make up the escalator to take-off. For us the most magical moment is when you break through the layer of clouds. For our site specific installation we spend a lot of time researching the context by visiting spaces and carefully observing its surroundings.

How do you achieve having people pay you for doing the stuff you enjoy doing? How does one establish oneself?

I think it just boils down to the fact that you get asked for the work you are doing, meaning for the work you have previously done. We have been working on projects we really wanted to realise for years, for very little money, we then, after some time, started to be commissioned to make exactly the work that we wanted to do. You just need to invest yourself in what you want to do, and ultimately clients will appreciate that and will be prepared to pay for it. I figured at some point that I would probably spend a big part of my life working, and I just wanted to make sure that that time would be spent on something that is worthwhile and meaningful to me.

As far as we know, none of your installations is interactive. Why is that? Is there a reason for this?

Most interactive art is in some ways a mirror, it reacts to the actions of the spectator. The parameters of the kind of response you can derive, as well as what is being responded to, is clearly defined by just one party, the maker of the installation. This renders most so-called interactivity an illusion. We use modified forms of interactivity sometimes. For example on our project “Shoal”, a ceiling installation in Toronto consisting of 450 small moving, fish like sculptures. For the movement of the installation we worked flocking behaviour. We collaborated with Karsten Schmidt to develop a program in processing and then took these initial animations and combined them with other animations. So it’s not a responsive program but rather an interpretation of our perception of natural movements.

The realisation of your projects is really intensive and time consuming. You invested 9 months in working on the “Clouds”-Installation for example. How do you compensate and find the time to get new inspiration, new creativity?

We typically work on several projects at any one time. Each project has different phases. It starts from a concept phase, research and development, prototyping, the final design, fabrication and installation as well as deinstallation for some projects. We are trying to offset the different phases between the different projects that are running in parallel. So rather than having to develop five ideas at once, we prefer to work on one new idea whilst another project is in fabrication and yet another one is in its final design phase.

How does it feel, when a project this large is finished?

It’s an interesting question. When does a project start to be finished? – when the fabrication is finished; when it’s installed; when people start to respond to it; when you have had some distance to reflect on it?
A project to us is more than it’s physical manifestation, it’s everything you have learned in its context and that stays with you and changes with you, it’s never really finished.

You and Emma are good friends – How would you describe “A Practice f or Everyday Life”s Style? And: Do you think a collaboration between Troika and APFEL could be possible?

(laughs) I think it’s less a style and more of an attitude that defines their work. I admire the dedication and research that they put into their projects to consistently find a way which is every time different and true to the artist, exhibition or whatever they have taken on. I also think their sense for tactility and materiality characterises their work.
Of course, I could imagine a collaboration.