Interviewed by Sherwin Altarez Mapanoo 

Currently based in Kuching, Malaysia, Swiss-born Ralph Klewitz defines his practice as “post-disciplinary” and sees himself not just a visual artist or an academician, but more importantly a “citizen” of the world who has the potency to effect positive changes and nurture spaces for artistic creation. In this interview, he imparts stimulating and discursive insights about art and life in general; analogue versus digital; and the juxtaposition of typography with photography.


Please introduce yourself. Tell us something about your artistic practice and research interests. 

Looking at my biographical markers: I grew up in Switzerland, studied typography, visual communication design, fine arts and worked as a designer, academician and artist in various parts of the world. My present live cocktail consists of working an academician, pursuing my artist practice and progressing my doctoral candidature in fine arts.

Because I don’t work systematically, I create whatever interests me at a time. Often, in hindsight, I recognise reoccurring themes, such described by Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle, which I read about 10 years ago. His and my own ideas seem to have some common denominators that might echo in a number of my pieces. Also, I sometimes recall theories negotiated by existentialism when contemplating my work. But these are only two of many frameworks, which I could consult to contextualise my art. Beside my own interpretations, I value the perceiver’s own readings of my artistic propositions. I think what my art speaks is more important than what I say about it.

I regard my artistic practice as post-disciplinary, meaning, that I neither focus on mastering a medium nor do I find a need or reason to differentiate between them. Instead, I choose media so that they assist me to initiate and progress my artistic process. In doing so, I regard it as irrelevant on how much I am able to control a medium or how much practice I have in a discipline. In being innocent, sometimes naïve and dilettante, I spark my own curiosity to discover new ideas and things during my artistic process.

My doctoral studies at Aalto University in Finland will lead towards a dissertation that will be comprised of a body of artwork and a written thesis. Depending on the theories, some scholars name the method to achieve this outcome a practice-led, others a practice-based PhD. For the final examination, I plan to curate an exhibition of artwork that I have produced during my doctoral studies. In addition, I reflect on my artistic process by translating it into language. The intention of my research is that I aim to contribute knowledge to members of the art world, such as artists, art historians and art critics as well as to academia, particularly to the discipline of Art Education.

Looking at the research and teaching section of your CV, I should say you are a nomadic person, moving from one place to another. To what extent this mobility affects your work? 

Moving from place to place is partially voluntary and sometimes a given condition, because my academic career is situated in a niche market. Often a position opening, asking for a background and experience like I have, indicates where my next home may be located. Also, most of my academic employment has been based on fixed term contracts, meaning, once a contracts ends, I need to move on.

Living and working in various parts of the world definitely influences my artistic practise to a certain extend. But when asked about how my nomadic lifestyle affects my work, I cannot pinpoint it because I don’t know how my artistic practice would have been had I lived somewhere else or had I a more stationary life. But each country, in which I have been living so far, has had its own aspects that I liked or disliked. In Malaysia, for instance, they are the living conditions controlled by the political system and my occasional ‘expeditions’ into the remains of the lush rainforest, which sometimes flow into my art. So, I guess it is more immersing myself into a nation, meeting its people and understanding their cultures, rather the change of locations per se, which impacts on my artistic practice. On the other side, the contrasts between the geographical locations and mind spaces inspire me to consciously or intuitively juxtapose those in my artwork.


What do you teach in Malaysia? Why did you decide to stay in Asia? 

My second stay in Asia – I was employed as a graphic designer in Hong Kong in 1993, is also temporary. I am employed on a contract basis as a senior lecturer in graphic design at Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus, in Kuching/Borneo since 2012. The reason to work here is because Swinburne is an Australian university, which is beneficial for my future academic career plans. My next goal is to find an academic position in Melbourne, so that I can stay closer to my 6-year-old son, who lives there.

What is the main source of inspiration in your work? 

Instead of a main source of inspiration, various aspects of my life’s experiences, observations and reflections inform my artistic practice. These may be relevant, irrelevant, conscious, subconscious, rational, fictional, factual, empirical, theoretical, imaginative, intuitive, etc. or a combination of thereof. It is the complexity of life, which inspires my work.


I read your conference paper ‘World Signs: Symbols without Meaning’ and I find it interesting that you incorporated typography with photography. Why? How did this idea come about? 

I initiated this project in 2005, worked on it for roughly five years and presented a reflection thereof at the conference Typography Day 2013 in India. This body of work was a phase in which I progressed my career transformation from working as a commercial graphic designer to becoming an academician and artist.

Typography is a discipline, which fascinates me since I was 16, because I keep experiencing the experimentation with visual representation of language as challenging and rewarding. The second medium that I incorporated was photography, which is also a medium that I deploy for almost 40 years. This medium fascinates me, because I can use the camera to represent the world naturalistic and abstract, depending on its settings. It was the energy, which I applied to both, control and neglect harmonies, as well as to juxtapose between typographic and photographic artefacts, which kept me working on this project.


You created this font called ‘World Signs’. Can you explain what this project is all about? What does it mean and what’s the inspiration behind it? Have you already made this font available online? 

When designing the font ‘World Signs’, my intention was to depart from traditional reading conventions of typography where each sign has a function, for instances in the Latin alphabet, letters functioning as building blocks to compose words, sentences and stories. I wanted to create signs that have an expression which suggests the possibility to be deciphered internationally; a fictions language that everyone could relate to but one which did not have a reading convention. As a result, I created a family of signs, which may evoke dingbats, icons and logotypes, and named it ‘World Signs’.

Your last question motivated me to publish my font: It can now be downloaded via a link that I have listed in my personal blog; please refer to the below link. Via my blog, I also provide a link to access the above mentioned conference paper.
I also see that you are still into analogue photography. Do you have a preference for film as a medium over digital? What do you like or dislike between these two photographic technologies? 

In pursuing my artistic interests, I decide what kind of tools and materials I need. For the ‘World Signs’ body of work I preferred my old manual viewfinder camera that I bought when I was a teenager. I can set the aperture opening and shutter speed as I wish and it even works without batteries. The pragmatic handling allowed me to produce the desired motion blur effect without first overwriting an automatic camera setting.

What still intrigues me about analogue photography is that I don’t get an instant gratification of what I’ve shot. I must wait until the film is processed and the contact sheet is produced before am able to see what I have photographed. This uncertainty and the limbo phase are exciting because I have often discovered qualities in photographs that I would have overlooked had I shot them digitally. Nowadays, this camera is in a warehouse in Brisbane together with other stuff that I needed to leave behind when I left Australia a few years ago. Since one year working with a digital compact camera that has setting options like a DSLR, I appreciate its small size and weight that encourages me to take it with me on most of my urban and rural journeys.


As a visual artist, what’s your discursive take on the performance and representation of the self in selfie photography? What does this phenomenon say about our times? 

When going out for dinner with friends, I am always intrigued watching younger guests taking pictures of themselves and by themselves. I often observe this ritual as a repetitive and time consuming act that makes me wonder, how these people spent their nights out before smartphones. It is not so much the activity of capturing memories but the multiple takes of the same pose and the same subject that I sometimes interpret as narcissism, exaggerated vanity with an addictive component.

On the other side, I observe how the rotating photographers and their subjects enjoy the task of taking and looking at their pictures. Selecting the best ones, uploading those on their social networks and waiting for the ‘likes’ just prolongs the entertainment. The fun these people have is sometimes contagious, not that I would become an excessive self- and friends photographer myself but their enjoyment sometimes sparks a positive feeling in me.

What do you think is the most pressing issue of today that should be talked out and represented? 

In a seminar at the Bern University of Arts, where I completed my MFA, I recall a comment from an academician during a discussion. He said, that if he wants to gain an insight of a topic within a particular discipline, such as politics or sociology, he studies the literature. This made a lot of sense to me because I don’t expect my art to substitute or compete with such discussions. Of course, some artwork pieces can be contextualised within certain paradigms like I sometimes do it myself as described above. But in my opinion, interpretations should always be made unbiased and independently from an artist’s or other art world professional’s voice. I thus advocate that my art should be open for the kinds of perceptions and interpretations, which the perceiver chooses to apply. Such a plurality demonstrates the democratic universality of the langue of art, which may also inspire thoughts and contribute to discussions within other academic disciplines. What intrigues me most is the potential of the language of art to speak about art itself. And as art is always contextualised within life, all sorts of insights may flow into and out of art discourses.

In a broader light, I do not exclusively define myself as an artist. In my role as a citizen, it is important to me to continuously promote human rights such as equality and freedom of expression; values that must be implemented globally, also in third world and developing countries. Such rights are on the forefront of my thinking and inform my artistic practise in one way or another. How, and if at all, these thoughts may be interpreted, is in the thoughts and emotions of the perceiver.

Whilst referring to my artistic process and its intrinsic rewards, I also advocate establishing, sustaining and nurturing spaces for creation that are as free as possible from bureaucratic red tapes. To achieve this goal in educational environments, I promote the valuable experiences of mentoring and peer critiquing sessions. Personally, this guidance model supported me to artistically strive. Another strategy to annihilate mechanical norms and deterministic learning goals is to encourage students to playfully explore their creativity rather than to instruct them in practicing and mastering skills. The former is motivating to express one’s own originality whist the latter is more like reproducing someone else’s ideas, concepts or dreams. Consequently, I emphasize to discover and nurture a seed that already lives in a student rather than to plant mine or someone else’s in him or her.

In summary, I argue that the empowerment of a student’s creative potentials is one of my core pedagogical values. In my opinion, this process should be combined with raising awareness and responsibility for the impacts and dangers of creative outcomes. I believe that this approach should be extended from arts to science education, covering kindergarten plays right up to doctoral studies. For me, this educational discourse has, and always will have, a pressing urgency, until its best possible conditions have been implemented. Its final destination will be the facilitation of intrinsically motivated, free creative enquiries.


Any future projects? 

Yes, of course. I keep my artistic production in flux. Looking at the past decades and predicting my future, it seems that I will produce art until the end of my days. Saying that, I don’t know today what I will create tomorrow.

To learn more about Ralph Klewitz, visit his official blog at http://ralphklewitz.blogspot.com/