FLORIAN FUSCO

Nostalgia on paper

Text: Poncho Paradela

Florian Fusco, 28, graphic and textile designer from Berlin and fan of several vintage gadgets. From a cassette tape to a Casio watch or a Game Boy. All are part of his series Pretty Things, or what is the same: paper replicas of those machines that not so long ago shared our lives.

When did you start working on this series and what led you to this,
how did you get the idea?
In 2008 I wanted to do a project about life in my hometown, Berlin. The city has become really popular in the last years but I doubt that any of those tourists know what it means to grow up in Berlin or what life here is really about. I wanted to focus on a space in Berlin where  people like me really feel at home. I started taking pictures in a friend’s apartment. He is one of those guys who records music on old four track machines and buys cheap instruments on ebay, like plastic keyboards or toy instruments for kids. He still uses an old Amiga to program beats on and -of course - has some old video games, like the old NES (including the zapper), Game Boy classic or Sega master system. I soon realised that this passion for obsolete cheap machines is not a specific Berlin phenomenon. There is a worldwide interest. I was just attracted by the shapes of those objects and began building paper replicas in original size.

Tells us a bit about what’s the creative process?
I research the object and start designing the replica directly in a 2D vector based software. The small parts are directly being printed out and ready to be cut out and glued together, the big shapes are being printed out on paper, glued on cardboard and then being processed. Arrived at that point, I created an unbelievable mess in my flat. I photograph the finished object in the photostudio, always using a similar background and lighting.

All objects that are recreated are from the 80s, is there any gadget at this moment that you think has the importance and charm of these to be immortalized in the future as well?
My latest finding is the fisherprice pxl 2000 from 1989. It’s a videocamera recording black and white video and sound on a regular audiocassette! Today our lifes are surrounded by incredibely flat, compact, multifunctional and boring machines. There is a basic human need for real, analog and touchable things…just look at the huge success of that lomo plastic crap!

The pretty things at the moment are only for exhibitions but have you thought about putting them on sale?
Those objects are all prototypes, cut and glued by hand. With the vector data it shouldn’t be difficult to reproduce a limited number of each object and get them sold through a galery. But I don’t want to invest time to do that before I finished and documented the whole series. Exhibitions are planned for 2011 in Germany and England.

Can you anticipate what are going to be the next gadgets?
The Amiga guitar of my favourite 8bit artist Ender Error and a drum set. Maybe the fisherprice pxl 2000.

Are you workin in other projects besides pretty things?
Yes, I just won the nokia push contest with my Solderin Skaters team, being responsable for the screen design and the design of the skateboards we used. I am still waiting for my pxl 2000 to arrive, I will use it to do a music video for Mary Ocher from the band Mary and The Baby Cheeses. It will be presented at a festival in april and on my website of course.