3_ANNI_DOPO_L'ADDIO
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Today I'm a contemporary artist,
thanks in part to that day,
the day I announced I was leaving
entertainment, on that stage,
at the IAB Forum I think,
an event attended by all
the business community,
ready to invest in influencers,
I was on the stage
together with two others
and I said goodbye,
goodbye to entertainment
which I had cultivated for years
to grow my fanbase, to build
an influential
position on social media.
I said goodbye
to turn everything involved in
my work, all the people
who had followed me, to convert
them to my real occupation,
which I had kept
hidden for years, my work in art.
So, Federico Clapis Strategy,
I don't know if this operation can be
catalogued, if it's
catalogable, because there's no rule,
there's no rule that you
have to do things a certain way and
that I had to do
things this way. This was
my way of
responding to a need, the need
to be an artist and
not knowing how the hell
to divulge it one day.
At the time when
I very clearly felt this need,
the YouTube phenomenon
was exploding, social media in general,
but at the beginning mainly YouTube.
I studied it, I worked hard,
I learned to produce,
I learn to produce
videos, to shoot and edit.
I made mistakes
for years, for a couple of years
no one paid me any attention,
then the time came when
I found a strategy
to break out, to succeed in
achieving my first important numbers,
at first it was
with music video clips, a genre
I created at the time. From there,
I had my first media
explosion thanks to YouTube
and then it was up and down
as I used the social media
and grew my position
in social media with content
that differed completely
from one channel to another
but it was always
entertainment, where usually
you tried to look at social issues
in an entertaining way,
a way that could be
successful, because
my goal was to reach
as many followers
as possible over the years,
to achieve a fairly high profile
which I could
then convert to leave that world,
to convert my
fanbase and do the only thing
I was interested in,
which is art, today
I'm a visual artist, I paint,
I sculpt and make art videos.
"Did you have this strategy
in mind right from the start?"
Yes, yes. it was a strategy I had.
Well, you could say
I had it in mind right from the start,
the point is that I couldn't imagine
when and how
it would happen. So it was
like surfing on the wings of life
and understanding when
the moment came was simply
a question of touch,
of rhythm. I think it coincided
perhaps with a peak I had reached,
but who knows what that peak was.
It also coincided with a sense
of saturation, of no longer wanting
to produce that type
of content, not so much because
the content was a problem,
but because that positioning
was beginning to
constrict me. So I said to myself,
you've got nothing
to lose. A lot of people think that
I gave up who knows
what, but that's simply ignorance,
because Italians in
particular don't know the world of art
and don't understand
that making a name in art
is more important
than making a name as an actor
or in any other form of entertainment,
so they thought
I was giving up some sort of
multi-million dollar business
to go and be a portrait painter
in Piazza del Duomo,
and they had this idea
which, as I said, is
more romantic than the reality.
When this farewell
video came up, it was
very interesting to watch
people's reactions, because
there was a tidal wave of ignorance
both positive and negative,
but the most enjoyable was positive,
in other words everyone
saw it as a sacrifice, which it was,
but I was perfectly aware of where
I was going and it wasn't,
it would have been a sacrifice
to stay. Whereas
the people who said: "Oh, great,
he's chucked
it all in, he's dead", meaning
"Okay, he's lost it, he must be high,
so now he's
heading in that direction":
But in fact it was
all much more lucid,
aand going in a
direction where those people
are no longer around and
no longer follow what you do
is in itself a small achievement,
especially when
you say it, but that's how it is.
"A lot of followers
means a lot of money."
No, it's not like that.
It's not like that, at least,
well, while I was creating
content to build up a following,
a lot of followers means
a lot of money no, it wasn't like that,
because in any case
I was opening a market.
I was part of that generation
of content creators,
the term influencer makes me feel
like a fashion model,
a Neapolitan fashion blogger,
it makes me feel ill,
I still hadn't opened a market
of business relations, etcetera, etcetera.
So I was strapped
for cash, even there
the myth of what
I could have. But now certainly
the market is much stronger,
but what are we talking about?
What sort of
numbers, of volumes? Yes, okay,
I may be helping a couple of runaways
who would otherwise
end up on the streets.
The world of numbers
and influencers has its place.
But even so it's always a tip.
I can't explain, it's
always a tip the world gives you
for the extreme
compromise you're making.
"From a financial
viewpoint, compare how
it used to be, when you were".
- Who, me?
But don't you like the fact
that you can tell that you're a little
like that too, that
there's a human being?
"No, I don't like my voice."
Because, particularly
on economic questions,
it's much more interesting
if someone else asks me,
otherwise it's as
though I'm saying to you
now I'm filthy rich,
you see?
"Having followers doesn't
necessarily mean having to
have money, I'm asking you to explain
that now you've
created a market for yourself,
which, perhaps, before...
Another misperception,
and I'm saying it here
to answer the question
you've just asked me,
I don't like talking brazenly
about money but
I know it's always a hot topic
so it's much more
interesting perhaps than
anything else, because
it's the energy that carries us
along on this strange
road of life. There too,
people often get
the idea when someone wants
to subtly disarm me
to make a comment, something like that,
they say: "Well, the money's
finished". While I was working in
entertainment, I didn't earn a bean.
Hardly anything, because
I was opening a market.
The only micro money, micro money
that I earned
came perhaps from the film
and then I left straight
after that. The money I had
I invested in art, in production,
in the studio, and from there
I started working.
Many followers have turned away,
they've gone
away, others have arrived.
The numbers
I make on content are lower,
obviously. But they're very high for art,
and even so,
if you want a direct form of
productivity, they
produce much more money,
because they generate
a higher profile, collaboration
with brands which
collaborate with an influencer
who, oh dear, works in art,
who produces art and for collectors,
for public works,
for lots of things. So, yes,
what you earn
is not all directly proportional
to the number
of followers, absolutely not.
There are loads
of content creators
with low numbers
but very high financial profitability.
Simply because they address
specific niches.
Giuseppe Gatti, SpecchioDinamica,
a property entrepreneur,
has, I don't know,
a group of 1,000 followers
who bring in upwards of X
thousand euro a month. I'm just saying.
Or lots of other micro
businesses that make millions.
"Would it have been more difficult
to succeed in the art world
without having made
a name first in entertainment?"
I don't know.
I don't know.
I can't predict that, I can't go back
in time and find out
whether it would have been easier
to go directly into art
without all this business
or not. Perhaps the original reason
why I did all that,
all that entertainment,
was probably the
fear of finding myself
in the stereotypical
adventure of the artist,
which seems impossible. That fear
was what drove me along that road.
So whether it is true or not that
fear is always negative, I don't know.
So far, it's all been
going fairly well, so it's okay.
Perhaps if I'd
tried in a different way,
I'd have made it anyhow, or perhaps not.
And in any case, talking about success
is always relative,
for everyone, with anything.
(Today, what sort of relationship
do you have with social media?)
I work mainly with Instagram,
on Facebook
there are only my key works,
I post very little.
But on Instagram
I post a lot, I have
a good relationship with users.
Let's say that with
Instagram, over this last year,
Instagram has
generated a great relationship
with users that
previously had never been so
continuous and deep.
Almost every day,
users employ the works
I make available,
encouraging them,
inviting them to
take action on this specific thing,
as a tool for introspection,
a tool for self-analysis.
So it has a
useful purpose for the user
and it's an interesting
conversation, much more affection
between the user and
me now. Perhaps because I'm
more in tune too, I do myself
less harm by giving in to fewer
compromises and fears, perhaps.
"So what was one
of the fundamental reasons
why you left
the entertainment world?"
I think both from
a numerical point of view,
although I don't have
a way of knowing if that's true,
and from an emotional
point of view. I felt
the time had
come to leave, I simply felt
it was time. I can spin you
a story. Even though I'm a strategist,
unfortunately, because in life it doesn't
let you have a really easy time of it,
I'm lucky in that I follow my instinct a lot.
A lot, so much so
that often my strategies
then change dramatically
and they're just
background. So when I left
entertainment, it was
because I felt the time had come
to leave entertainment.
I can't unpack it for you
in terms of inner motives,
but that time had come,
I felt the time was ripe,
that I was maturing as an artist
that I could no longer repress it.
So, that's the reason.
(Since you've left your old life,
what exactly has changed?)
Everytime someone
says to me when you abandoned
your old life, it sounds like
the story of a homeless person,
someone who's left a bossy rich wife
and gone to live in a railway station.
I have to do an interview
with a longer beard, if only I'd known,
and beer cans.
What's changed, really
everything has changed,
everything has changed.
Over time everything has changed.
I used to live in a state of anxiety,
a state of anxiety.
I lived in a state of
performance anxiety,
of relationship anxiety
with management who perhaps
hadn't understood me completely.
The anxiety of
lowering the cost of something
for which the market wasn't ready yet,
and I had to make a living.
"How long have you been working
in the art field?"
Well, my grandfather, who
is a great enthusiast, a lover of art,
has one of my first sculptures,
which I will show one day.
Apart from
anything else I really like it,
I did it when I was 10
and honestly,
it's much better than
many of the sculptures
I do now, with little tricks,
with marble I'd
found who knows where,
and when I was small
I made a lot of small sculptures.
Then I lost my way for a while
and expressed
my creativity in other ways.
Then when I was about 20 or 21,
after a series of pretty intense
personal experiences, I
had a surge
of creativity and
a powerful desire to express it
with my hands
on canvas, with objects.
And from there
I began my new exploration.
My first pieces were "matter eaters",
I worked with these teaspoons,
which liquified matter,
I'm embarrassed
when I look at them now,
unlike the sculpture
I created at the age of 8
which is a great
piece, when I was 20
my pieces were
rubbish in my opinion.
After that I matured until
the Actors on
canvas, which I think were
a turning point in my life.
I think the desire
to create I'd had
since I was a child,
also, not only, but it has
an almost meditative purpose,
for a mind
that even as a child tended
to go off the rails. And
when I create something physical,
I'm really focused,
I don't allow my mind
to take over.
Then, if a sense of composition,
of aesthetics, helps
to take the thing forward,
sometimes, as with that sculpture
when I was a child,
then it's an added bonus,
and perhaps a sense of visual poetry,
so that it's not just a meditative act
in order not to think
and not to go mad,
it's also for the purpose
of transcending the negative
and creating something beautiful,
I think this was
already true at that time.
Have you ever thought
of going back to your old life?
No, well,
in the early years, the
first year and a half, two years,
after I left entertainment,
every so often I wanted to create
some content, for the fun of doing it.
But the sake of consistency,
I had an editorial line,
I thought, well,
why not? I didn't do it.
And I can tell
you I'm glad I didn't.
Also because it's great
when you have an idea,
but developing it is a real pain.
If ideas could be transmitted
with a VR and my brain
could go to the users,
it would be great,
I'd go on producing content
but producing
content means producing
content, not thinking up content.
So I've often thought
about being a writer,
I've often done that
for things you don't know about,
for fun, for YouTube and artists
where you don't
even know if there is a tie,
because I enjoy
it, but without putting
my name on it
and having all the hassle
But every so often I still do it,
like a child sticking
their finger into the jampot
and no one ever catches me.
Because creativity
moves in countless
directions, for example,
sometimes I miss producing,
creativity in musical terms.
And with some people sometimes
I've let myself
go, behind the scenes.
That's what I miss,
people say about the brain,
for example, if you play music
you activate a particular area,
if you write
you activate a different area,
in terms of creativity.
And sometimes
I have areas
of my brain that are hungry
and sometimes I give
them something to eat
anonymously.
"What's a typical day for you?
Tell me about it, explain it."
That's difficult,
I don't have a typical day.
Anyway, inside, schematically
I'm divided in two,
completely divided in two.
The artistic, poetic,
introspective part,
the exorcising part,
which is expressed
through my pieces,
and the pragmatic and
managerial part,
which simply makes me
an entrepreneur
and manager of myself.
Which is almost a political activity,
for the positioning of an artist.
I don't know why,
but it doesn't bother me,
this thing doesn't
bother me, everyone thinks
it's a sacrifice for me,
but there are days
when I wake up
and I'm glued to my emails,
phone calls, things
that seem to be boring
but it doesn't bother me.
I don't get huge
pleasure out of email,
I think I'd have
to reach a state of beatitude
to get huge pleasure out of email,
but I don't disklike it and
then there are times when
I get huge pleasure,
which is when I create.
But in fact I know that
one complements the other,
and, for goodness
sake, this is what artists
have to realise,
that you have no choice
but to come to terms
with the earth, given that
you were born on the earth.
"Tell me about
your creative process.
Describe it to
me. As if we were
showing it to
someone. Show it to me."
My creative process?
(Your creative process.)
Well, my creative process
is like joining up dots, in my head.
It's difficult, because you think:
"Ah, I've seen a
lamp-post, I've seen a butterfly",
and then you
understand. No, it's as if,
both conceptually and
in the use of materials,
and in a specific image
you might have in your head,
it's as if, today I think of a dot,
okay, I leave it there. I carry on
doing other things,
the things I do every day.
Pak, another dot. Another dot,
another dot. Perhaps it's 99%
complete, the drawing of that idea,
and then perhaps 3 years later,
there are pieces coming out now,
which I'm finishing now,
where a dot might
have come to me now,
but the entire
composition of the other dots
began 3 years ago,
4, 5 years ago.
So, when
this one is completed,
in the meantime there are
the others and there are infinite
drawings, like an immense
Settimana Enigmistica puzzle,
with that join-the-dots game
I used to do on the loo
at my grandmother's,
which you continue composing in blocks.
Each one is the creation of a piece.
With others, I prepare all the material
convinced I've got all my dots,
I put them there,
then, vrooom, they turn
completely upside down
and something else happens.
There are so many different scenarios,
but I think this dot metaphor
is the best way of describing it.
(What school did you go to?)
What school did I go to?
No, I didn't carry on with school.
I began working at 14,
I left school at 16
and I began
working as an organiser
for kids' events.
Discos and clubs,
events on Saturday afternoon,
in discotheques,
with kids. I had a monopoly
for an entire movement, for years,
thousands of PR, things like that.
So I left school, then
there was this stream,
a single stream
of consciousness until
I got to where I am now.
The best time of my life
was when I left school, every time
it's difficult to beat.
It's really difficult to beat,
I ought to be a footballer and win
the World Cup, what
other sort of intense orgasm
could I reach,
what other sort of liberation
Do you know
when I feel the sense of liberation
I felt when I left school?
When for a time
I have a companion
and then sometimes
I somehow manage,
with some fantastic excuse,
to let go,
I experience that liberation
I felt when I left school.
That thing when you say:
"I can conquer the world."
That feeling. So no, my education
was private, I studied
in my own way, life, history, art.
What I needed,
I studied what I needed,
by myself, it was one of the events
that changed my life.
Then I discovered
an introspection into matter,
so there was a period when
I faced a fear I'd had
for many years, sleep paralysis,
that whole world, and I discovered
that it was a gateway to introspection,
to enter a more subtle dimension.
And I began travelling
in that dimension.
From there I made some videos
years later,
and now lots of people ask me
for advice, even
though I've already said
everything and no
longer want to talk about it.
But that was what
brought the radical change
that led me to start
doing art physically,
at the age of 21.
Whereas at the social level,
leaving entertainment was simply
a thing that objectively
changed my life. Leaving school,
all the goodbyes.
The hello afterwards
is always a bit more worrying
than the goodbye. A great liberation
with a pinch of fear,
more than a pinch, of not knowing
what will happen.
But I continually have
lots of little
goodbyes, from a few months
and hours ago,
and all those little goodbyes
generate small fears,
micro leaps into the void,
that's only a metaphor
micro leaps into the
void which I do all the time.
Even just by
pushing myself to the limit,
often pushing myself
to the financial limit, too.
What I do is expensive
and you have production costs.
The machine works,
but it works in a strange way,
it's not as if I've set up
a company. It's something else,
so I put myself
on the line, I jump into the void,
I put myself on the line, I jump
into the void, and so far
life has always rewarded me, but
always with an
underlying sense of anxiety,
I can't deny it.
Although it's concealed,
because I'm distracted,
because I'm always on the move,
underlying it all is a certain
anxiety-inducing element.
Almost imperceptible,
but enough that I know it's there.
How do you mean,
what type of art do I do?
"What type of art,
there are various types of art."
Let's say that a
common factor in all my pieces
is that they express inner feelings
both my own and
feelings channeled from other people
around me or from society itself.
Technology is a recurring theme,
both in its use, as a tool
in terms of its
creation, and sometimes
as a metaphor,
to illustrate our present times.
So, especially as regards
sculpture, all these pieces have this
ultimate fil rouge of technology,
but they also talk about other things.
Motherhood,
for example. Motherhood
is a theme I work on a lot. Because
it fascinates me, because I feel
an ancestral and direct connection
with my being in
one way rather than in another,
with its traumas, its advantages,
everything to do
with the prenatal state
and the natal state,
partly of the father, but mainly
the mother is something
that is fairly decisive,
so I often examine it.
People think I want to leave
a message,
but I want to give them a tool,
not a message. I don't claim
to have a message
I believe is an absolute truth.
I would have a very
limited vision if that were the case.
I want to give people a tool so that
they can see their
own life, which any case
takes everyone
to the same root,
basically, we all
share the same stories.