004. Stefanie Koscher
Transmedia artist based in Vienna and NY
I did some research into your work. I tried to find some fitting label, title or profession to categorize better. You work with a lot of different media, is it possible to narrow down what you do into one specific art form?
No! And I‘m not trying to. But I realized in the last years that what’s connecting most of the things I do in all these different media is the performative element. What I am basically trying to do is to figure out a new definition of performance by using all the media I have available, especially web related media of the virtual age. The majority of my online presence is kind of an online personality, it comes from a performative place. Of course it’s me, it comes directly from me, which is by definition performative, but it is also an artificial exeggerated persona. So I use all these social media tools to create this partly real partly virtual existence.
With video, I do the same thing but I get inspired by more specific “internet aesthetics”, just trying to explore more artificial concepts you can create with that. There are so many performative things going on online, like vlogs on youtube, selfies, building an audience on twitter, et cetera. My interest lies in these online phenomenas. I’m just trying to figure out new ways to deal with emotional, psychological and human problems on a 2.0 related note. And sometimes it‘s just Dada. And so far it has taken the form of DIY because in my definition of „the Internet“ it’s the most prominent form. It makes sense for me so far. For all this, I need something that defines my work, something that holds all of it together, and that is somehow the performative element. Also with music, for example.
So it’s always about exploring my psyche… and therefore also trying to explore other peoples’ psyches. That’s the phase I’m in right now.
And this online persona is Steffko?
I call it Steffko — Die Kunst #1, because the persona itself is an artificial object, it’s not real, it comes from myself you know, but I built a distance to it. It is not Stefanie Koscher — „The Artist“, it‘s Steffko — Die Kunst #1, which is an alienated self, and therefore a piece of art. At least in my eyes. That’s what I wanna communicate. If you interpret the name in english it has a funny twist to it, since you can read „die“ as a verb and not an article. This is a good reminder for me, to stay critical towards myself and my art. So that sums up why I call it that, basically.
Is Steffko then a kind of an “art platform” for you?
Yeah, kind of… platform might be the wrong word, but a mirror, maybe. I like to catch all the things, all the input that I get and especially on the web. I just try to compress it to something that is still human, you know, but on this screen or stage of life you have. It’s not real, but you can give people what they want to see, like a mirror.
It’s the same with the internet; you type in some website you want to see, you click on it and then it’s there, it’s you. You can see yourself in there if you look for it. So I’m trying to build this concept into a real person, that is not real, because it’s virtual (laughs).
With „Steffko- Die Kunst #1“ I’m somehow trying to ovelay all these elements of virtual personality, how much of this virtual personality is real, how much is a mirror, how much you want people to see you and how much you don’t want people to see you. So I’m playing with these problems, because it’s problems for me and I guess for a lot of people in a “2.0 society“.
So you try to separare the two personas?
Steffko — Die Kunst #1 is my performative web related online persona. It’s just like an artist name, or rather a project name. Steffko is more like a performative platform, as you mentioned before. A brand maybe. Like „Steffko — performing life since 1984“ (laughs). Some people started calling me Steffko in my teenage years, it has stuck with me since. I use it because it’s catchy, and it references a specific part of my personality, you know?
Probably the part that was always looking for a stage in some form. I used it as my DJ name for example. I‘m in this performance artrockband-project or something in NYC called „Steffko And The Facebookbraggerz“. These days I‘m spending a lot of time with my solo music project which is called Steffko and the Steffkos. You see where this is going. Steffko and the Steffkos is very emotional, very deep down, very dark. You can come very close to me if you want to, but when I’m on stage I‘m trying to create this multiple persona with a shield around me. The name of the project is supposed to communicate this multiple persona theme.
With this project I try to express a lot of different sides of myself, so you can’t pinpoint me in one way like “oh, she’s a depressed person”, because then it’s Steffko and the Steffkos with all the different sides there, layers really. Again a very exaggerated and alienated self I build when I have a stage. I do a lot of silly stuff on stage too when I‘m performing solo. So it‘s contradictory, maybe even hypocritical and therefore irritating, but you know, that‘s humanity. The internet is another, a different stage for me. So I use the name Steffko for different projects. I‘m trying to create different artificial exeggerated selves.
How do you approach music making with “Steffko and the Steffkos”?
This particular project is about solo songs. I am trying to look for the essense of a song basically. How can I communicate the perfect emotion for somebody for example. The form doesn’t matter that much really.
I have this little guitar with four strings, and I wouldn’t even call myself a guitar player, I have a tuning that does the work for me (laughs). I try to find what is essential to a song. How can I find this one thing that is catchy, the one thing that communicates something, that makes people think, speak about it, experience something. Every song was kind of trying to reach a certain point, a certain feeling, minimalizing the tools to get there quicker and not get distracted by formal aesthetics, or better by production tools.
I restricted myself very much and built a little system to find this one essential point, what people would call “magic” maybe. Like the thing you see when you are looking at art and say “I get a feeling”, something unique that tells you something. A more objective “something” maybe. I was trying to explore how I can come closer to that feeling and just forget about the form. Do it on a more analytical rather than intuitive level.
Do you have the same approach to your video work?
My videos in general have less to do with my ego. With music I can come closer to emotions. My performative videos are more about abstract problems, I would say. Like “how does society change, how does humanity change, how does the image of a woman change?” … a lot more feministic ideas. I try to figure out how to communicate something as a woman using my body and mind as a tool. Playing with the different images of “being a woman”. How do women and teenagers present themselves online? What are the things you look for when you look at a woman online? I‘m more like asking questions than giving answers.
I did some DIY-style music videos too, where I was focusing on manipulating documented footage I‘m not in myself, somehow trying to explore this fine line of reality and fiction. That was more of like a formal exercise for me.
With the video work I’m basically an autodidact. Most of the editing and computer tools I use I tought myself. With music it’s different, I have a musical education. I started playing the piano as a kid, I took dancing lessons and stuff. Everything that has to do with performing and physicality I have education for, but everything that has to do with technology, if I have an interest in it I just go for it as much as I can from what resources I have, to get further. I mean, there’s a tutorial for everything online. It‘s amazing how much is possible in this day and age and how easy it is to access all of this knowledge.
When you make a video piece, is it directly filmed when you get the idea or do you plan it out before filming?
It’s a little bit of everything. Sometimes I rehearse, if it’s related to something else. For example I did this video… there is a Youtube video of this little girl in front of a mirror and she’s giving herself kind of a motivational speech.
She probably saw something online, and thought “I wanna be that person, and I’m gonna copy that person” in front of a mirror, but “it’s still me”. That was really fascinating for me. So I rehearsed her exact movements, how she spoke and yelled at herself in front of this bathroom mirror. She was like “I’m on top of the world now!”. I thought then that I have to rehearse this. This is art for me, when I watch this girl. She‘s creating a strong powerful but artificial self, that is of course not a permanent part of her personality and can‘t always be present. But it‘s there. It‘s her. I wanted to use it in it’s form.
So I rehearse some videos and some just happen. I document a lot of things, myself sitting in front of the computer a lot, what I surf through on the internet. This is probably my main way of doing things; documenting, analyzing, using different parts of it and putting it into an artificial level by manipulating it. It’s a bit like pop art, a little bit. Take the everyday and the popular and raise it to a higher level.
This documentative way of working is also inspired by one of the most fascinating theater people I‘ve ever had the — honour really — to work with. Like documenting the everyday. This theater company called Nature Theater of Oklahoma. This is basically what they are doing with theater: they take everyday language, everyday stories and try to build a code system that takes it to a different level.
I saw them in Vienna! Very funny and very exhausting to watch.
Yes it is very exhausting (laughs). But you know. It‘s challenging and I think challenging is good. And that‘s exactly what they are going for in their work. Constantly challenging themselves. It‘s insane. They are doing something that hasn’t been done before. Really fascinating how they work, and I learned a lot from how they work with theater, avantgard-ish stuff in this regard. They are really hardcore, they’ve figured out their own system on how to do things.
How did you meet them?
I worked in the Burgtheater with a different production, so the Burg, which collaborated with them asked me again if I wanted to be part of the production since they needed somebody with musical background. They asked me if I could do some director’s assisting amongst other things! It was very interesting, the most intense learning time in theater for me, I think. Like a directing school.
Was this before or after your stay in New York?
Before. I decided to go to NY before I even knew I’d be meeting them. I just wanted to go abroad, go somewhere and have experiences. The idea was to hang out for three months, see what’s going on there and if I would like it or not. Just to take a look at the city because I find it fascinating.
After that decision — I was still in school then and was trying to finish my diploma and thought theater work was too time consuming — then the Burgtheater asked me if I would like to work with a project. First I was indesisive, because I really wanted to work on finishing my diploma full time. But then they said “it’s people from New York!”. So it would have been silly to not do it. I was lucky. I met them and they were all great people and helped me to get involved in NYC.
Life and Times is the name of this big, epic project they are doing for years now, and it’s different “episodes”, that’s what they call it. They basically documented the life of one of their friends who’s also a company member. They just taped phone conversations with her telling her life story to them in great detail. This is the material they are building these episodes out of. I think they are at episode 7 now. Episode 6 is a pornographic self-illustrated book, episode 7 will be a movie… they are crazy (laughs). Episode 1-4 was theater.
Are you planning to go back to the US again?
I do, but I don’t know when and under which circumstances. When I was there the last couple of years I was always having enough financial freedom to not have to desperately make money there. I went back to Vienna, earned money, went to the US to have experiences and work on my own stuff but didn’t really earn money there.
Now I feel like I have come to this switch, it’s a change. Everything was very fast, very superficial. You can see that in my work from all the input I got there. It’s how my art looked at this period of time, it‘s also how a big part of the artworld and culture works there. It was a timeframe with a lot of input. And it has to be filtered. When you have such a life that is so fast you don’t have time to go deep into things. I wasn’t really that interested in going deeper either, I wanted to see and experience everything, that’s how I like to work (laughs). But now I feel it has to come to an end, I want to go to different depths instead.
Do you know which direction you will take from now on?
The plan for now is to finish up all the music and video stuff, it has to be released in a form, I have to archive it and make some sense out of it. The next bigger project will definitely be about performance and theater, I’m playing around with a lot with theater concepts right now.
You were doing a performance last year and Valie Export was somehow involved in it?
Unfortunately she was not, she just designed the cube which is called Kubus EXPORT. This was a performance art festival with great people here in Vienna, it was called Living Picture. I did a long-duration, web-related performance that was called iSolation 3.0. The whole idea about it was to build a living picture of a current feeling in my generation. A feeling of isolation and at the same time you can access and see the whole world. The cube was really the perfect setting for this, because you’re isolated in glass walls, like with a computer screen where you isolate yourself but have everything around you. It’s really close to reality, but it’s not real, there is still the glass wall, you know?
It was basically a future vision, how could it be, in which direction will the human psyche go. The trend is so crazy right now… everybody is kinda spiritual. I like to call it the New New Age, it‘s a Renaissance. Everybody is doing yoga, meditation, it’s like a spiritual crisis people are having. “I don’t believe in anything anymore, but I believe in the internet and I believe in technology and that’s it!” (laughs). But that can not be it, you know? It’s scary, because it’s just machines, technical, not human, not emotional. So people just step in this other extreme of spirituality… new agey stuff, stones, psychics and what the hell. In NY it’s kinda crazy.
I am a semi-esoteric person, I’m not saying all of it is bullshit. I can be open to it, I love yoga for example because it’s good for my body and my mind. I do some meditating. But I’m not going to a psychic to ask about my “energies” or so, although I do believe in an energy-system. It’s just a trend that I have seen so many people experience; having difficulties with the fast development of technology or the speed of their lives and the world, so they need a counterpart to it and they choose spiritual things. I‘m not judging it. But it is an interesting combination for me that I wanted to show.
In the installation I was working with very defined symbols, straight symbolism, really simple. Like Buddha statues, two computers where I showed web related videowork, took selfies and so on, hipster iconography, t-shirts and lion stuff… to feel like a fragment of what is going on right now.
In the end it came to a more theatrical momentum, more dramatic, and to finish the whole thing up I painted myself.
Would you say the installation was part of your plan to “wrap up” things and move on to the next step?
Definitely. It was really funny how that came out of me. It was all the stuff that was building up in me for years, all the work I felt like I had done that didn’t find an outlet. I just pooped out this product in a couple of weeks, it was just there. It combined a lot of what I had experienced and learned for years, basically. For me, it was a real big thing, a catharsis. Like making the switch in my life, and everything calmed down.
Where is all this energy coming from?
That’s a good question! (laughs). You know the funny thing with energy is that I personally have a crisis with not having energy like all the time, so I have to look for ways to get more energy. And that only works by resting and treating yourself well, I think. When I have a crisis and I’m not doing anything, no creative output, then I talk to people and they’re like “this is good, don’t worry about it!”, and I relearn how to get patient with myself again, treating my myself well, like just being in the moment and so.
It’s not easy…
No, it’s not easy, it’s the hardest work of all. Because ideas come to you in a dozen, but treating yourself in a way that you can go after the things you actually want to do, is really hard. I mean I‘m a driven person in general, so it’s not this enormous issue really, but a very important obstacle that I have to overcome like all the time. But you know, I do yoga (laughs).
You have very strong ideas and concepts that you’re working on in your solo projects. Do you also collaborate creatively with others?
Yeah, with theater I definitely want to continue to go into that direction. I’m trying to find a group of people that can benefit from each other, figuring out new ways of doing things. But that’s in the long run, it can happen probably in five years or so. This is a serious goal that I definitely want to pursue. I do music and art collaborations and so, I like to paint, draw, jam with people, just inspiring each other and experimenting.
It‘s very essential to me at times. I love collaborations and to work with people, when you just come together and build something new with a collective thought. But I try to not force it, I did that in the past, trying to find people and work with them because I thought they were great, but it was the wrong approach a lot of times, so I started to let things come more naturally and now I try a more organic way of collaborating.
I’m generally an easy person to collaborate with I think, I’m just like “yeah whatever, let’s do it”. I’m not thinking too much about it at first. I don‘t think about the product too much, more about the process. I come from a theater background where everything comes from collaboration, everybody has to work together to make things work out.
Theaters also have authorities and hierarchies, directors with their fixed visions.
Yeah but that’s something dangerous, I think. With most of these people, the product is suffering too. It becomes something different than art, something boring. A craft.
I’ve assisted Andrea Breth, for example. She’s like the female director of German theater. I would say she would be categorized, by people who don’t know her too well, as a very strict and dominant director, a challenge to work with. Still you learn a tremendous amount of profound directing skills from her. Very specific, very detail oriented and still she‘s a pure artist. So it’s not that “black and white”. But that dictator-thing is more of a generational problem I think, especially in theaters. I don‘t feel like it‘s the future, probably not even the present anymore. People go for different ways of interacting. It’s not a weird, patriarchic, dick-measuring contest anymore. It’s more human now (laughs).
Maybe it depends on which type of play it is.
I don’t think it’s even about the play, it doesn‘t matter if it‘s traditional, classic or modern. It’s about how a director likes to work. Some people just don’t know or like different ways of working. They think things don’t work out if they don’t tell people what to do, because every actor is stupid and doesn’t know shit.
Or they don‘t take the time to make their vision clear. You can see where that comes from, it comes from an insecurity from somebody who should be helping people do their best, but in fact is doing the opposite. I guess it‘s still a lot like this in classic theater. Especially in old, traditional houses. Opera is the worst. I had my experiences there, too (laughs).
These traditional Viennese institutions are having self-esteem issues in one way or another. Being megalomaniac is also a self-esteem issue in my understanding.
Anyway, I think you can still give direction in a more subtle way, through looking at things and people closely and making decisions that everybody involved as well as the theatrical product itself can benefit from. I mean that is the beautiful thing about an “ensemble-system” in theater. If people are in harmony they will push the whole thing to an even higher, better, more magical level. Theater is a human clockwork. And I think it’s the responsibility of a director to lead the whole team into this direction. To built this homogenous group and to recognize and work through these interpersonal blockades that might slow down the creative process.
Tell me more about your Open Mic project.
That is something that is more of an idealistic project for me. I don’t do it for the artistic output. I just want to get people together in a place, where they can play and experiment and just show their stuff to others. Not having to be in a judgmental environment.
It’s standard in so many cities but in Vienna these open stages are very single-oriented. There’s singer-songwriter evenings and such, and they’re all legit and important but I want to build something that is more diverse. Where people can meet each other who maybe wouldn’t see each other in the “real world”. I want people to discover something they normally wouldn’t in normal life. We’re trying to build an evening where anything can happen. People can experiment or just show their art, you know? Share their emotions/creations.
How has the turnout been so far? You have done the show two times, I think.
Yeah, we do it once a moth. It turned out great so far! I was really surprised, I get really sentimental about it. For me, it’s this cool concept of an open space where you’re not under any pressure to perform in the sense of “perform well”. You can just practice and train yourself in front of an audience. It was important for me and my development as a musician. I was afraid that Vienna would not be open for it, that it would be hard to bring so many different people together. But I wasn’t afraid of the turnout. I thought, I’m gonna do this even if takes a year for people to pick it up, I’m not gonna rush anything or so.
I didn’t do it with success or something like that in mind, I just wanted to built a platform, a community. And that takes time. But it was great! Amazing acts, amazing people, the atmosphere; everybody was happy and gentle. It was like a big hippie party! (laughs)
Was it hard to find all the people to come and perform?
Yeah… it was a bit tough to pick up on all my contacts here in Vienna again because I was away for so long. I felt a little bit insecure about that, but I just went for it and started writing emails. I went to some shows and talked to people, asked if they wanted to come and perform at our stage, and they thought it was cool. Sometimes you just make things more complicated than they actually are, especially with human interactions. It’s not such a big deal.
It’s also easier now with the social media explosion, right?
Yeah, although with social media presence… I’m a social media whore, I learned to love it, I use it as a tool and it’s fun for me. I like to “like” pages, I don‘t really care what people think about it when they see me liking this or that on facebook. And oh my god, I certainly don‘t give a shit about the NSA or something, I mean I really don‘t have anything to hide.
I like supporting my friends through social media, I like sharing stuff, I try to use it in a positive way. And I still feel like I‘m having enough privacy, I mean I don‘t share my lunch pictures or hardly anything I am doing in my private time. But it’s not so easy in Vienna, I don’t know. I don’t know why people are having a hard time with it, maybe people are scared of others knowing who they are, what they like or so. I know that feeling, I had it myself.
I went through all those stages, also with social media self-esteem-issues… “how do I present myself on the web”, how to communicate with people. It’s hard to get people to like your facebookpage, you have to be really pushy, and I don’t like to force my stuff on people. In Vienna it feels like you have to beg for social media “likes”. When people start to use the internet in a more positive way, maybe they will not be afraid of it anymore, but we’re not in that stage yet. I guess it’s natural that people are a little bit reserved now, since it‘s still a fairly new thing we have to learn how to handle.
Everybody is just so concerned about “being cool”. I’m just sick of all that insecurity bullshit to be honest.
With your outgoing art persona and online presence, do you receive any typical reactions from people watching it?
Sometimes I feel like nobody cares what I’m doing. But I guess that’s just an “artist problem” in general (laughs). I mean, my friends know who I am and what I’m doing. What I basically do is playing with an image, with my appearance. So people can never be really sure what’s going on. I can do this really superficial art, somebody asks me about it and I try to explain the concept, they react surprised and say they didn’t realize it was art. I normally answer then that if they don’t think it’s art for them, that’s cool too. I cannot change that, that’s not my point. I’m just trying to get reactions.
You need a recipient to define the things you make, without any recipient I could just hang a picture I painted in my livingroom and that would be it. Art is certainly not my hobby. But that’s a whole different philosophical problem though (laughs). Like what is art, what defines art? But yeah, I got to a more comfortable place with my work over the years.
I never had any real negative responses. I can feel negative energy sometimes, like I annoy people or so, but I’m playing with that. I’m aware that I might make people uncomfortable, I’m even going for that sometimes. I think we should challenge ourselves to be better.
Internet is full of crap and crazy people, it can be hard to tell the difference from what is purposely done art, and people who just don’t know better.
Right, but that‘s OK, I think. There doesn’t need to be a category for everything. I’m also working with these “amateur” aesthetics, that might lead people into thinking that what I do is “not professional”, or something. I’m using what I have, I don’t want to buy the latest technology, I mean I want to, but I don‘t think it’s necessary and I like to get the most out of the options I have. Too much options are distracting for me and I loose focus. I sometimes go for a look that is very DIY because I think it’s a very nice way of doing things. It‘s a statement. People need to realize they can do a lot by themselves. It’s an idea I am trying to pursue amongst a lot of other beautiful individuals on the internet. I’m not going to wait for somebody to offer me something if I have all these options. Which doesn‘t mean that I wouldn’t gladly accept offers.
I give people a grayzone and people can pick out the colours.
Could it be a problem that people don’t understand what you’re doing?
Yeah, it might be a problem, and then I’m not reaching out. That’s how it is (laughs). The one thing I don’t want to do, is to go against my principles. This is the most important thing for me, it’s why I’m making art. Doing what you want is work like anything else. I‘m doing the things that feel right. I could go and try to be a popsinger, be a band being played on FM4… if it happens, it’s great, give it to me. But this is not my goal. My goal is to build an authentic universe of myself that people can get inspired by, or not.
Do you have any work of art or an artist or such that made you realize that “this is what I’m going to do”?
Hm, not really a specific one. As I‘ve already said, for me things happen more during the process. I do have existential moments and such, mostly when I read. But they are not really turning everything around. I don‘t believe that this is how life works.
I was reading a lot about performance art during a specific time in my life and I realized it was overlapping with a lot of the theater stuff I was doing. My urge to have an output for my art became more about my ego. With performance art you just use yourself, your body and your mind to get results. Then I was looking a lot on works by others, and I even tried to copy it. I referenced this one work by Bas Jan Ader, a Dutch performance artist for example. This video called I’m too sad to tell you, where he’s filming himself crying.
Nobody knows what’s going on, and I didn’t research it further. I felt like I didn‘t need to since it got to me by just watching it. It’s real emotions and it’s happening right in this moment of filming it, and he’s making art out of it. He’s putting emotions to another level and it’s not himself anymore. It comes from himself, but it’s a performance.
It’s one of the most essential performance art pieces for me. And I just tried to copy it. I was like “I’m feeling down now, start filming yourself”. I started filming myself over and over again, and at some point I had it. A way of experimenting, trying to understand what this person means. I will never get there, obviously, because it’s his original piece. But it’s practising, how to build a repertoir and getting stronger at it. It might even be therapeutic.
It’s said that all great artists steal or copy from each other.
In my opinion everything is a collage. It’s funny, I was just talking about this today with an art teacher who told me that he tells his students to copy things. He’s an art & graphics guy and he gives people a graphic art piece and tells them to do the excact same thing. He tries to make the students go into the artist’s brain. See how he got there and try to understand, get closer to the thoughts, one-on-one. You need to play around with that, I think. Otherwise you cannot build your own artist personality.
Generally my input doesn’t make any sense. I’m trying to “live the internet”, to have an internet lifestyle. I have filters in my brain that filter out the information I need, I’m trying to push my brain to some insane level, but then it just stops and I have to take a break. I want to push it into this fast direction you know? Like the future. Giving it a lot of input and see what’s coming out.
I wouldn’t try that…
(laughs) I’m failing all the time, obviously. I sometimes have to get off the facebook for half a year or so because I cannot absorb anything anymore. It’s too much, so I decided to take a step back. Now I’m more going with the flow in conversations with people, if somebody mentions an article, an author or so, then I look into that more. It really trains your intuition, when you know that you want to know more about something, it’s a nice feeling. I live from that feeling, that I really want to know and experience things.
And there are so many things, I want to see them all, but of course it’s not possible. It’s worth a try, at least (laughs). It’s utopia-land.
There’s this new movie with Johnny Depp, where he kind of becomes the AI, Transcendence…”
Ah, I know, I was freaking out when I saw that poster. I thought immediately I have to see it. It was a similar experience for me like when I first heard of the movie Black Swan, it‘s this ballet movie and it looked really beautiful. And I love ballet. And I love Darren Aronofsky who directed it. And I was like “This is gonna be the best movie of my life.” So I had the same feeling of momentum when I saw the poster for Transcendence and thought “Oh my god, there is this person who is becoming the internet!”, or something (laughs) “I need to see that!”. I can’t wait, but I don’t know much about it yet.
It’s based on the concept of singularity, where artificial intelligence will become conscious at some point in the future and therefore “change everything”.
Of course it will… oh my god, I can’t wait! It’s gonna be exciting.
Interview by Anders Khan Bolin, @strayl1ght
