KERE: Right at the beginning we would like to talk about your pseudonym How did you come up with the idea to present yourself under this underground name?
soc_ke: It's hard to say, I didn't think much about it. The connection came naturally, soc as in socialist and ke as in Košice. For a long time I've been following various sites dealing with architecture of this period, one of them was SOVMOD, Soviet Modernism, so I attribute the origin of the name for my project to the influence of this site.
KERE: Maroš, when did your story as an independent artist begin? Tell us about your artistic firsts.
soc_ke: It's honestly a bit hard for me to call myself an artist. If someone perceives my work in this way, I am of course very grateful and happy about it. As for those early works, I've been drawing pretty much thematically similar things since I was a kid. Somewhere in there started a desire to depict the environment that surrounds me.
KERE: The impression you leave in your prints is breathtaking. You're reaching an older audience because it touches on their childhood/past, but you're also reaching out to the younger generation, which is very positive. You can see that young people are interested in times recently past and enjoy looking at places where discos, cultural and political events, and the regional youth library - the Ural (Lake) Shopping Centre - used to be, for example. Was it your intention from the beginning - to create things from the period of the most rapid growth of Košice?
soc_ke: I've been fascinated by the city and its history all my life, and it was the legacy of the period of its greatest growth that I was most confronted with as a child born in the 90s. I spent my childhood on the lake and in Furč, where the aesthetics of socialist construction were instilled in me. I also, for some reason, needed answers to questions about the workings of the city and its history. I came to a point where I felt it was a topic I knew more about than the average mortal, and Instagram seemed like a fine platform for sharing knowledge combined with illustration.
KERE: You're a very versatile artist with your work. We know that you don't “just” draw them, but you have also studied historical facts about them or know the stories behind the different architectures. Where do you get your information about such (in)ancient themes and buildings?
soc_ke: I got my first information through my grandparents, the generation that lived through it. They gratefully answered me and fed my interest. In their libraries I found anniversary books that the companies that provided the construction of the city had published for various anniversaries. In elementary school it was forums on Skyscrapercity; today, a variety of professional literature that I didn't know about when I was younger, or hadn't yet been published, is grateful for information. I also like to read the comments from memorials on a fb page dedicated to historical photos of the city. The illustration of the Baghdad Cultural Center, for example, was born out of a need to create a visual reconstruction of the place that was Tabačka or Smile of the 60s. In addition to the black and white photograph of Bagdad, several memorials began to reveal details of the building's life in the comments, even the color scheme was described, which helped me in the illustration.
KERE: We'd like to go a little more in-depth and ask you how long it took you, for example, to make this particular selected graphic. What processes did you use to create it? What was the storyline of the creation of this visual like?
soc_ke: The process of creating an illustration is not conditioned by anything other than whether I come into contact with a historical photograph of a given building, something catches my eye as I move through the city, or I feel the need to share information that I consider valuable, and the illustration is just a way to attract the attention of the viewer. Beyond that, all I need is photo documentation, desire, time and patience. Most illustrations take half a day to a day to create, I probably haven't done anything longer than that. When designing for KERE, it was essential for me to show the attributes characteristic of the post-war period of the city, I chose a composition of 9 circles. Each one represents a significant Košice scene. The composition of the circles is characteristic of the corridor windows on the first series of prefabricated houses built in Košice. Before the reconstruction, a Koscian could perceive them most intensely on South Avenue. The second proposal consists of a compilation of neon advertisements, a beautiful creator of urban identity. Unfortunately, it disappeared from our streets rather quickly and was replaced by new, insensitive and unconceptual forms fighting for the viewer's attention.
KERE: What work took the most effort? Your artistic creation, where you went to great lengths and embellished it as much as possible?
soc_ke: As I said, the illustration process usually takes that one day, a day and a half max. I've been playing around longer with a Priore like that, where that characteristic bossing on the facade isn't as regular as it seems at first glance when you study it more closely. So, out of an inner detailer's conviction, I tried to depict Prior as close to reality as possible. As a rule, I devote great attention and effort to places that I know in detail and to which I have an emotional memory.
KERE: Did you know our brand before? Did you ever envision yourself designing for this local brand that would become part of the Artist Collection?
soc_ke: Of course, I've known KERE's work and output for some time, and I appreciate it and am grateful for it, as I am for any activity that strengthens the level of local patriotism and contributes to the building of our identity. I did not expect to work with you, but I am all the more pleased about it, as well as about the result of our work together.
