The term ‘multi-hyphenate’ can feel like a nondescript buzz word, thrown around to evoke a layer of complexity to a person’s ability. Yet, when searching for an adjective rich or functional enough to introduce Alexander Alien, suddenly the term took shape in its rightful place – Alexander Alien, formerly known as Gourmet Spaghetti Boy, is a multi-hyphenate in the truest sense of the word. As an art director and musician specialising in sonic and visual languaging, Alex’s work fosters an emphasis on how the auditory art informs the creation and visibility of world-building, and as one of the foremost alumni of the Cape Town to Berlin pathway, he has carved out beautiful successes working across varying industries, all the while introducing himself as an artist unconstrained by genre or technique. In his first iteration as Gourmet (Spaghetti Boy), the wave forms lent by a mastery over synths run as threads across his discography, and since the early 2010s, a Gourmet video proved to be one of the preeminent examples of experimental-videography-meets-performance-art, forming the underground, electrico-indie scene that has come to define independent music in Cape Town and Berlin. Now, in the last few months, a change to his moniker (something he had felt he needed to do for a long time) was plucked from a dream he had, and signifies a new chapter for the artist. 

“I think the starting point for me was 1991, a label that I ran with two other people, for about 3 or 4 years. We didn’t have any money, and we didn’t really know what we were doing, but we had huge ambition. We couldn’t afford lights to make films, so we were making lights out of cut-up property signs, and going to Eagle Lighting to figure out how we could pay the least amount of money for the highest wattage. I had started studying advertising, but I ended up dropping out because I was super unwell at the time, and so I actually stopped both my studies and the record label because I was so unwell, just before I went to Berlin for the first time. I feel like I learnt everything doing 1991 – that was my university.” Alex explains, expanding on how his sonic and visual disciplines came to form, “there was so much emphasis at the time on creating these worlds in which to place one’s music. I think we sometimes forget that the last two decades have really been the testing ground for the internet, and so suddenly musicians and artists had all these mediums at their disposal. I was in this liminal space with my illness, and at that point was really encouraged by Thor Rixon and Alice Phoebe Lou to come to Berlin, and when that chapter of my life started, I started doing a lot more art direction and design alongside music. I arrived in Berlin with, like, a month of rent, so I had to try and make it work – and I think I cold-emailed like 200 clubs, introducing myself and asking if I could make posters for them. I got one reply, but really that’s sometimes all you need.”

“Before, if someone asked what I do, I would say well, I design album covers so I guess I’m a designer, but I also do a bit of animation, but I really want to be making more music and music videos – it was kind of a bit all over the place. I’ve been doing all those things for like six or seven years, and now I feel like I’ve managed to build all these obsessions and skills into a unified vision. Now, I would call myself a freelance creative director.” As I see or experience Alexander Alien, it is evident that his visual and musical work are totally inclusive and interdependent on one another. Alex’s style is strongly dosed with an identity, and while the core emanates from his personal vision as an artist – he has offered his skill sets to a variety of incredible clients. I think of the music he lent to Fendi’s Baguette Bag commercial featuring Amanda Seyfriend and Emma Roberts, or the myriad of posters he has designed that need no definition; with a client list that includes Lenny Kravitz, Alexander McQueen, Carhartt and so on – Alex’s work is distinct, precise and saturated in the kind of colours and complexity that I link back to our days running riot in Kirstenbosch Gardens, bodies full of fungi and eyes widened by the dancing light across flowers and foliage. 

Recently, Alexander shed his ‘Gourmet Spaghetti Boy’ skin, finding himself disconnected to his former moniker. For any artist, this is a hard task – there is a sense of exposure that comes with transmuting a former iteration of self. I ask Alex about the shift, and how it has felt, to which he says “I had the name for a very long time, and for a long time it didn’t feel quite right, but I didn’t know why. At the time I was trying to put things under different names, but I’m very bad at being consistent with things like Instagram – and I was like, if I can’t even do one account, why am I trying to do multiple? I had this dream one night, and the name ‘Alexander Alien’ came into my head. The problem had been that I was doing brand identities for like, venture capital companies, but they’re speaking to me under the Gourmet Spaghetti Boy name – and it was hilarious, but at the same time, I want to be able put out music, but also booked to do a brand, or buy a painting, but to have it under all one banner. I feel like ‘Alexander Alien’ fits well, because it’s my first name, but it has that Hollywood-sounding name like ‘Rob Zombie’ – that sense of obscurity in it, too.” The name changing is also fitting for a new era in Alex’s creative individuation; and it releases him from any confines previously projected onto Gourmet. Now, dance-music is Alex’s focus; and under Alexander Alien, there is room to build worlds within worlds. This year of 2023 experienced by those of us born in 1993, 1995 and 1996, is astrologically marked as our Saturn return – in a zodiacal sense, it is an initiation from our childhood, teenage years and early twenties, into a bigger space of maturity, wisdom and expression. I can’t think of a more apt moment for an alien to jump planets, and explore new dimensions of his internal cosmos. During this evolution, Alex describes his latest work and the feeling of the name change, “I’ve got this 14 song album called Volcano Brain and a 7 minute film with long time collaborator, Kent Andreasen, that we made to go with it. I was actually saying to someone the other day, though, that when I was younger and I felt like this – heartache and pain – I was chasing myself, and grabbing at ropes. Now, though, I can recognise that I have built this foundation and resilience as an artist, and that things don’t have to fall apart. I feel like I’ve spent the last six or seven years sharpening tools, and I’ve had such a good time sharpening tools, and making a life out of doing that. Now, I have this really sick toolbox, but I haven’t really been building anything, and now I can get going on that – that’s what Alexander Alien is, it’s the thing I am going to focus my tools on building.”

Artwork for Alexander’s upcoming single ‘Soapy’.

We are in the midst of digital and analogue hybridization insofar as creative manifestation is concerned. While artists like Alexander seem to be experienced in cyberspace, the potential for exhibitions, zines and paintings only seek to ground the experimental ability of a world like Alexander Alien’s. On this digital/physical fusion for artists in the 21st century, Alex says “I think it’s quite confusing being a person, but specifically confusing being an artist because everything before the 21st century – it was about focusing on one thing. I think we are going into a world where it is non-negotiable to have a handle on various mediums. I mean, if you can make your album covers, and make your videos, and do your own website – and mix and master your music – you can save so much money, but more interestingly you can have a total command of your own body of work, and then you can apply those skills for others; so I think the idea of being an independent or DIY artist becomes so much deeper and more useful in that way. At the same time, you need so much discipline to learn to do more than one thing with a certain level of proficiency – and these possibilities are contrasted by the fact that concentration is really syphoned by apps, and the way we receive and process information and creativity online. When we did 1991, our biggest focus was trying to create a tangible reality in a digital space – so a lot of our work was translating physical objects online, like album covers with stamps and so on. Now, the kind of scanning, or creating textures that you can do are incredible. You know, I think today we have to treat our art like actual jobs – no matter how weird or strange it may be. There is no road map, but there is a way to be successful.” Something Alex points out, is that the promise of cyberspace has come with its perils; the idea, for example, that a changing algorithm on Instagram could be the difference between a creative being seen, or having their work requested – this governance by technology is contentious, and a continual conversation among creatives, artists and writers. The antidote, though, Alex assesses as “relationships are the thing that are really what it’s about, so I think if we can utilise these things for what they are; tools of communication; but that we maintain the essence of creating relationships, then I think we will figure out these contrasts.” Alex is about to head back to Berlin, a place he finds deeply invigorating as an artist. With a new era well underway, we are excited to see Alexander Alien’s planetary worlds unfold.

Written by: Holly Beaton

Tatenda Chidora’s biographical epitaph on Instagram reads, ‘I believe in AFRICANISM’. This conviction is palpable in Tatenda’s many bodies of work; landscapes, sceneries and the poetics of people materialise through his photography in the way that one would imagine from a visual doctrine, descriptive of this precise time on the continent. If someone were to ask me, what does Africa look like right now, ontologically or sartorially? I would point them to Tatenda’s work, and I would tell them that I believe he is one of the eminent visual architects in Southern Africa. 

Tatenda’s path to image-making is one steeped in alignment of both space and time. The medium of photography wasn’t always so clear, until it crystallised itself front and centre through his love of magazine collecting. As Tatenda explains,  “I’m Zimbabwean, and so I was born and bred there. I moved to South Africa in 2008, due to economic situations, and I was trying to find a place where I could study. Initially, I was supposed to go to culinary school – but I ended up working instead. I’ve loved magazines all my life, and I’ve collected them for a long time. My favourite was one small seed, which was such a beautiful, independent zine. I think that habit, of pouring over images in magazines, prompted me to pursue photography. I thought, if I could buy a camera, perhaps I could give this a try? So, when the opportunity came for me to study, I decided it had to be photography. I feel like I was pulled into visual arts in that way; I had to realise it was meant to be photography, and everything happened from there.” One of the most ineffable aspects to Tatenda’s work is his technical mastery over light. In a layman’s sense, some may not realise quite the potency that the refractional or tonal nature of light is the greatest companion of any photographer. Hence, the practice is founded on the ability to weave light almost as its own characters in images; Tatenda achieves this with dizzying effect. I learned that as a long-distance marathon runner, it is quite literally the light of our earth, of the dawn and dusk, that Tatenda has employed as his teacher, “I am always in spaces where I see a sunrise, or a see a sunset – and sometimes I even find myself running in the peak of the day, especially when I’m training for marathons. It is a beautiful analysis of light, and most of my subjects are Black – and depending on the type of day, the skin has the most incredible reaction. Black skin and the quality of light interact together. I find there is a temperature that can be translated onto skin depending on the time of day, and that is light’s domain. It really helps me to create my images in a deeper, more textured way. Observing light is one of my most important tools, so much so that I will take mental notes on a run about the light, the time that it was and the conditions of the weather. Then, when I have an idea, I can seek out those conditions, and experiment. One of my favourite things is how the sky, or clouds, bounces in the foregrounds and brings illumination to the skin or bodies of the people that I photograph.” Tatenda’s work is a synergy of light, texture, skin and colour; this alchemy is definitive of Africanism, and the accentuation of that inarticulable magic that governs the continent.

Tatenda Chidora, Un Ordinary.

Regarding Black photographic portraiture and African photography, Tatenda has felt a responsibility to communicate what he knows best and most intimately, “I always say, if you stay in New York as a New Yorker, you have the best perspective and most authentic point of view, so you can translate New York stories the most accurately and the most honestly, because you inhabit the space day and night. For me, it’s the same thing as an African photographer. I have a responsibility to tell African stories accurately. I know how it is, and how to interact and interpret scenes and people. Also, to change the narrative that has been placed over African photography is critical. Whenever I photograph, I am in a space of celebration; I am celebrating Blackness, and the beauty that lies in being Black and in being African. I remember how difficult it was in university to find full archives or works by African photographers, and that was awful – I wanted to bring out a more conceptual, artistic viewpoint of Africa. Even in the grungy-ness, or the textures of everyday life, within the changing tides of the continent- there is so much beauty and so much richness to capture.” Almost everyone I speak to with the creative space is affirming this sense of an African renaissance; it’s happening, and it’s wildly energising. Even against the backdrops of uncertainty, of socio-economic difficulties, the sentiment sweeping across varying artistic disciplines is one of immense hope and foresight for the future. I ask Tatenda his thoughts on this, to which he says “it’s really quite exciting. Before, there was this narrative that people had to come to Africa, and ‘see for themselves’, consuming or making assumptions – and then they go back home and describe their stories or narratives. What gets lost, even not just distorted, is those stories and experiences of Africa that are not available to everyone. Now, the world is listening to African human beings. We are being asked to tell our stories, while refusing to have our stories told on our behalf. We are seeing this across fashion, art, music and so on – and we are showing them. It is the greatest time to be alive as an African artist, because everywhere you go; people want to know, they are curious about what it means to be African. This is a time where Africa is being represented on the world stage directly from the source, from African people themselves.”

Tatenda Chidora, METAMORPHOSIS III.

Last year, I picked up a copy of Dazed Magazine at Exclusive Books – a moment that comes around spontaneously, whenever we seem to get a shipment of publications other than the usual suspects of Vogue and Vanity Fair. In it, a feature spread with musician, artist and healer Desire Marea contained an essay interview by Nkgopoleng Moloi, and images by Tatenda with incredible styling by Nao Serati. Shot in KwaZulu Natal, Tatenda reflects on this experience, “that was quite a magical and challenging experience. The first day we were supposed to shoot, the floods in KZN started. So, we had imagined what we would do, we had understood our approach and came with all these beautiful garments. We couldn’t get to Desire’s hometown due to the floods. It was such a beautiful experience in the end though, and I don’t know anyone who could have embraced the forces of nature the way he did – I believe between his creativity and his spirituality, things came to be aligned, and in the midst of the powerful rains, we ended up capturing exactly the kind of mood and depth that you see in those images.” There, in the heart of KZN, the images revealed storm clouds in the background with Desire’s portrait centrally focused – or Desire finding stillness among a thick meadow, recently effulgent from the heaven’s rain. Tatenda speaks to the power of this collective story-telling across the continent, saying “As Africans, we have embraced our own identity. We are healing the idea of being either African American, or completely westernised and colonised. I have so much respect for artists, designers and so on – and they are on the stage in Europe, and they point back at the continent, and they are coming back home. There is this understanding that, well, if the world wants me – they can love me from my home, from my continent or country, you know? That’s so powerful, to be who we are, and to allow ourselves to do so.”

Desire x Dazed.

In the week of our conversation, it has been revealed that Tatenda’s work ‘If Covid was a Colour’ has been announced as a winning series for the British Journal of Photography’s ‘Portrait of Humanity, Volume 5’. The colour, to Tatenda, is a cobalt blue captured across varying models, with one in particular featuring stylised surgical gloves, replicating the spiked characteristic of the virus – but more interestingly, it reads as an avant garde head-piece. Tatenda says, “I remember reading the British Journal of Photography when I was in university. The curation is really beautiful, and they really try to broaden out across the world, and every Sunday they bring out ‘Sunday’s Inspiration’. I submitted my body of work last year, and I wanted to communicate a different point of view of the pandemic. There are many documentary images of that time, which are very real, harsh and factual of what we went through – and so this series was a way to celebrate humanity. We really stood up and above the pandemic as humankind. It’s such an honour to see my work recognised in this way.” With the thoughtfulness and tenderness of a visionary, I know that we will continue to see Tatenda’s work take shape in the world; his future is saturated by all the illumination of light, and beyond.

Tatenda Chidora, Self Isolation I & II.

Written by: Holly Beaton