The Office of Int.\Est.\Ext. was founded 1/1/16 by Matt Olson to work on a wide array of projects involving contemporary art and design. From furniture and objects to landscape architecture related work, environments, and spaces… research, publishing, performance, writing, teaching, video, and more. It is a cross-disciplinary, open practice, based on the belief that the world makes us as much as we make it and thus, trusting the work that emerges, whether commissioned or self-initiated, is an act of poetic surrender that gives life to something that is easy to care about. This manifests as a desire to follow and lead at the same time. A sense that, in the moment, everything is always collaborative in its essence. Attempting to stay in-between all things makes it hard to discuss, but seems to make it easier to distinguish between what is real and what is true in the way Herzog spoke of the difference between the accountant’s truth and the poet’s truth.
It seems almost silly in a way to want to work on everything and love it all equally but here we are, enthusiastic and open. Like the ocean and the internet. Our friend Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa) says: “Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.” and English ceramicist Rupert Spira says “Awareness is not something we do, it’s what we are.” We want to locate what we honestly love, then move towards it, participate in it and share. We don’t want to separate life and work.
In the spirit of our practice, the name of the studio is “open” too, so there are lots of different ways to refer to it. The acronym OOIEE is nice. It’s pronounced “WE” in English and “OUI” in French and accordingly, it means “us” and “yes,” two very important words and ideas in our world. We like “IE” too because Interior/Exterior is really at the basis of everything, and when you look up “IE” in the dictionary you learn that it is derived from the Latin word “EST” which is a fun little serendipitous loop back. Those funny little loops happen a lot if you like to notice them. We do. This young girl pronounces it in a great way too! Let us know what you decide.
And it’s hard to name a project. Screenwriters use Int.\Est.\Ext. in a script to express the spirit of a scene in a film. It stands for “Interior Establishing Exterior” which means something specific in filmmaking but alludes to an attitude OOIEE wants to cultivate in our work. The idea that a rich life within oneself creates a rich realm outside and with others… even though, if we were going to get really specific, which isn’t the point, we’d say that there is no separation between the inside and the outside :-)
A good definition of love might be the temporary dissolving at the edge of the self. This dissolve creates a moment of connectivity that allows us to become the things and ideas and people in the world who seem to be calling us forward.