“Don’t follow your dreamsfollow us.”
German designers Philipp Ries and Thomas Mayer just want what’s best for you. As Looping Lovers (@loopinglovers), the duo leverages the immediacy and shareability of the loop to satirize digital culture and help us better see ourselves.
The irony of using technology to critique people’s digital habits isn’t lost on them, thoughthey’re quick to admit they’re as addicted to their phones as the rest of their generation. Check out our interview below for more on their process, fascination with bad habits, and commitment to progress before perfection.
Tell us a bit about who you are and how you got to where you are?
Looping Lovers is a two man GIF army. Our names are Philipp Ries and Thomas Mayer, we are both 26 years old, born and raised in the south of Germany. Our paths crossed with the beginning of our studies at the University of Applied Sciences in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany.
Last year we completed our bachelor’s degrees in Industrial Design (Philipp) and Interaction Design (Thomas). At the moment we are both working as freelancers in our disciplines and Philipp is doing his masters in strategic design.
We started this project in september 2015. The main idea was to learn more about cinema4D, animations, and social media. Philipp set up the appearance, designed a logo, and managed the social media in the beginning, while Thomas shared his little knowledge about cinema4d and animation.
How would you describe your art?
That’s a difficult question. Looping Lovers is still a fun project with nice extras. It was never meant to become art nor classified. But i guess it is more like a condition for art making and critical thinking. Since the internet is no longer an option but a necessity in our society, one must also be critically aware of the internet’s impact on society when making things.
With our background we believe in purity and simplicity. You could sum it up with Dieter Ram’s perspective – less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects. So the Looping Lovers project gives us a great experimental balance besides our rational and long-lasting claim. Getting lost in those surreal worlds is a lot of fun. The loop is an easy and fast consumable medium to express ourselves, so we just fill it up with a mix of bright colors, inhuman movements, and confusing and funny morphing forms in aesthetic everyday moods.
How has your style evolved over the years?
We try to focus on Beeple’s quote “progress before perfection.” So in total nothing big changed for us since we started, it just got more defined.
Do changes in technology influence your work or have you found a technique?
For the Looping Lovers project it is important to explore new styles, techniques, and software. It is necessary to learn something new with each loop. We become faster in loop development and different techniques and face problems we didn’t know before. It is a good project to figure out the boundaries of animations and upcoming plugins.
Where has your work taken you and what opportunities has it given you? Any special collabs with brands in the past?
So far it has become bigger than we ever could have wished. We’ve grown a lovely interacting community of looping lovers and had a lot of chats with inspiring people around the world. There were also a lot of commissions, exhibitions, and collabs so far and still more to come in the near future. One of the biggest opportunities we had so far was to work together with the German rapper “Cro“ for his new music video “Unendlichkeit,“ which already hit around 8 million views on youtube.
What are you working on now?
At the moment we’re working on different collabs and sticking our heads together with digital artists we’ve had a crush on for a while. We are also planning to do some limited prints and a giveaway soon. So don’t follow your dreams – follow us.
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