North-Netherlands Emo

A long exposure shot of a bunch of trees at night. Right in the center far away is an electrical pole and you see red lights from windmills in the distance. The trees look very very soft because when they move in the wind they become blurred out in the long exposure recording.

Red light dots of windmills in the distance.

It is Autumn. I have taken many photographs where I sense a thematic and visual throughline, lately. Makes me think about how I would phrase my style. I joked to a friend that what I make is North-Netherlands Emo. The joke is sticking around my mind now.

Rain on panes of glass suspended on grey painted metal beams spanning the ceiling.

Rain on the sloped skylights that form part of the Linnaeusborg roof.

As I write this, I feel like the visual and emotional sense of this style sits with and around me. I know it is there. Articulating and phrasing exactly what I mean remains hard, but I have a strong sense that I am referring to something. Words and interpretation will come. Trust the process.

Slight hazy fog covers the campus and we see some sun striking the North-Groningen land in the distance.

Fog is part of it. We are in a cloud sometimes.

The name is an obvious nod to the Midwest Emo subgenre. This is intentional, it sits as the underpinning of the original joke. I really like Midwest Emo, and its aesthetic characteristics inform and inspire some aspects of what I consider my own sense of style. However, while in Midwest Emo the musical genre underpins any aesthetic context I enjoy so much, I am not very clear what the musical and sonic nature of the notion I describe is. I have played with the idea of North-Netherlands Emo mostly as a visual, social, and emotional concept.

If I sit with the question of music that comes to mind for me for North-Netherlands Emo, I would argue it involves something with Low, Sebadoh,1 Superchunk, and ambient music. Something like that.

Perhaps my Linnaeusborg playlist can be considered North-Netherlands Emo. Writing this, I do think so.

A corridor with a pastel green floor and a staircase with wooden steps. All walls are light grey. A steel beam stands vertically in the middle of the frame and in the background we see a skylight in the sloped roof of the building. In the foreground are a blue cart and a whiteboard.

Whiteboards in the corridors.

Anecdotes

There was a night where we were dancing at our favorite club. It was one of the last nights there. We knew they would close down within a few weeks. Two of my best friends kissed. This made another one of my best friends very sad. The kiss represented something that made her sad. She would move to the US soon. I took care of my friend who was sad. We talked. She left early. I was there. From then on, I was able to dissolve into the crowd. I had a great night, my friends did too.

You can see me wearing a knit white wool sweater with a beautiful yoke in red yarn reflected in the window of a very warmly lit living room. My friend is walking just behind me and she is motion-blurred.

My friend has a very orange living room.

Not a manifesto

An inverted photo of a computer screen with a text editor opened in a tty. The colors of the monitor rim and wall behind it are a pleasant powder blue, and the text is black on white.

This is a poem, I realized.

1

Both of which have played at Vera in Groningen so I do not feel I am grasping at straws here entirely.