We came up a few months ago with the idea to talk about our teenage years and share some insights into our inner worlds at that time.
We also wanted to discuss about boredom and the lost sensations associated with the transition from the analogue to the digital world. In fact, this series is structured as a poetic and sensory exploration of the end of an era — that of the last generation of teenagers to grow up in a predominantly analogue world on the brink of the digital revolution. Rather than providing a historical reconstruction, we wanted to present this unique period of transition (roughly from 2000 to 2005) as an archaeology of our gestures, sounds, and lost sensations. Rather than focusing on the 'pop' culture of the 2000s, the series explores the divide between the tangible world of yesterday and the connected world of today.
Our gaze focuses on the details, on the infra-ordinary.
While others may see a mere collection of retro objects, we perceive a lost body language and sensory experience: the sensation of sliding a mobile phone cover with your thumb, the frustration of a skipping CD and the patience required for rewinding a cassette tape.
The main emotion we want to evoke is bittersweet nostalgia. Not joyful, idealised nostalgia, but a more complex emotion tinged with awareness of what has been lost. We aim to generate a sense of tangibility, evoking the warmth of a PlayStation, the grainy texture of a VHS tape, the sticky feel of lip gloss and the reassuring 'click' of a CD player. It is an emotion of anticipation; of chosen solitude in one's room; of the mystery of an internet connection that takes three minutes to establish.
We wanted to approach this project with authenticity by building a real set in the studio based on our own memories.
Of course, the question of using AI arose in 2025. For this project, however, we wanted to have fun and create something tangible that reflected our thoughts on the relationship between time and technology. We wanted to question the value of waiting and pay tribute to a world of physical constraints that forced a different kind of creativity and imagination. Because that's where we come from.
