Rufus Ketting, and the art of defining graphic design

Rufus Ketting (35) doesn't call himself Homey Universalis for nothing. He’s active in a wide variety of fields: the visual arts, conceptual stuff, creative writing, music, movies... you name it. Check out a video presentation of his work here. As you can see, he is even a rapper. Above all though, he is a graphic designer. Or is he?

One of Rufus' creations for the exhibition. Photo: Pim Top

Then what is it?
“I think it most definitely is graphic design, I’m just not afraid to call all kinds of things graphic design. I don’t mind to give my work an autonomous aspect, or let it be influenced by advertising or photography. When I think a picture of a farm should be a record cover, it’s graphic design to me. I don’t necessarily have to put a letter on it only because that’s customary.”

When does it become... art?
“Hard to say. The difficult thing is: if you put that record cover in an exhibition, then what is it? And when you say something about it, then what? It’s just too difficult, and I actually don’t want to think about it anymore. I just like to put all influences, emotions, experiences and all in a blender and see what comes out.”

How did you become what you are?
“I’m pretty much self-taught. I just think in a very visual manner, so this is the most easy thing to do for me.”

 
Rufus in The Bijenkorf, he has a visual eye.

Is Rotterdam a good place to be for a designer?
“It’s okay, but Rotterdam is not exactly the city of unlimited possibilities. We have a quite big ‘just be normal’ attitude over here, and Rotterdam has the ability to throw away things very easily: ideas, buildings... everything. But I have the feeling that things are getting better. Have you seen the Lonely Planet? We're back in the 'must visit' category. With a vengeance, haha.”

What does Rotterdam look like trough designer eyes, ugly?
“Not ugly, there’s surely something about this city. Rotterdam is just so… not right, it doesn’t make any sense, one big interweaving of ideas. My colleague Gyz La Rivière wrote a book about it in which he blames modernism for everything that went wrong in Rotterdam, and I can agree with that. It would’ve been interesting to see Rotterdam if Hitler was in power and Albert Speer had designed the whole city. It would’ve looked beautiful.”

What’s the audience in Rotterdam like?
“I have a soft spot for people from Rotterdam. All this yackety-yack and grousing about everything, it kind of belongs to us. But I think you should never underestimate an audience, and I think appreciation comes out of unexpected corners. I’d rather have appreciation from Feyenoord hooligans for the right reasons, than from a group of designers for the wrong reasons. I have a feeling they just form their opinion on what the next person says. But sometimes I’m one of them,  therefore I can say this.”

What's your opinion about art in the public domain?
“I like art in public spaces a hundred times better than art that’s not. The word says it all, this has been made for people. Other art is for people too, but it’s also made - I feel - for Martians. So that they by means of analyzing that art can ascertain who we are. I think it’ll be very easy for them: ‘This species doesn’t know what’s important anymore.’”


A ragged towel bearing the Dutch flag. Graphic design?
Title: In deze staat. Photo: Pim Top

What's happening on design territory?
“People are struggling with optimism; what it is and whether they can be sardonic in it or not. Also: designers have the feeling they have to be optimistic. I don’t. A big influence on my work as an artist/designer is artificial intelligence. I like everything about robots that want to be human, for in a way, we all are. It’s scary to admit maybe, but in order to become a better species we could be a little more robotic. Al those opinions! Very inconvenient... This reflects in my work in that it is very clean, almost clinical. If I want to get a message across I do it with content, not form.”

Is there a message in your work?
“Not really. There's this line in the movie Hotel New Hampshire: ‘Life is serious, art is fun’. That pretty much sums it up.”

Any themes going on?
“Empathy is one of my favorite themes. To be able to place oneself in someone else’s position. A quality I don’t come across very often. A friend of mine said: ‘If you want to be a great artist, you can never have empathy.’ I think he’s right and therefore I’ll probably never be a well known artist. But I don’t really have that urge anymore. Our whole society is based on the worship of heroes and role models, and it took me a while to find out that is just one way of living. You can also just make a peanut butter sandwich and cycle through the rain to your studio, completely unnoticed.”

(Rufus is one half of an artistic duo called HuMobisten, the other half being Gyz La Rivière.Together, they run this blog.) 

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