Hasta La Ideas

News: in this movie interview filmed for a documentary about Rem Koolhaas, rapper Kanye West talks about working with the architect’s firm OMA on a seven-screen cinema to show his first film and reveals that he’s working on a second movie.

In the interview conducted by Koolhaas’ son Tomas, director of the documentary, West also talks about ambitions for his design company DONDA and says that “music has really been a Trojan Horse to create art again”.

“I love Rem’s work,” said West while talking about how much he enjoyed working with the architect’s company OMA in 2012. “I just like that fact that I was able to take my position as a musician, as a rapper and as a celebrity, and be able to invest in a project with a company of that level.”

OMA’s pavilion design for West was a shaped like a pyramid and erected for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and during the interview the rapper revealed that he has been producing a new film that builds on the immersive experience for the past year and a half: “I’m working on a film and I’ve created a seamless version. There were seven screens and they were separated, and the new one is seamless.”

“When it happens and people see it, I think people will understand a bit better what I’m talking about or why I’m so frustrated,” he added.

West also discussed his creative company DONDA, which he set up last year. At the moment he initiates and funds all the projects himself, but the 36-year-old hopes that this will shift so his company is commissioned to create for others within the next four years.

“I’m paying for a lot of the projects that I wanna work on, but it’s like my own home [designed by Claudio Silvestrin], or a store design, or [the] pavilion I did with OMA,” he said. “I believe, just to will this into fruition, that when I’m 40 [DONDA] will have to turn down projects.”

“I’ve done basically everything I can do with the amount of finances I have,” West continued. “If I go and think about a new form of film making and I go through the entire process, I end up funding the entire thing myself because it’s too abstract of a concept for people to put a finger on.”

During the interview filmed in October he repeated the declaration of his design ambitions, which he first expressed during a rant about the subject while speaking on BBC Radio 1 in September.

“I went to college on an arts scholarship, I was the number one you know so music has really been a Trojan Horse to really create art again,” he declared. “What do you think I spend the most time on when I’m creating a tour? The visuals. I am more of a visual artist and a product person.”

“DONDA, with my company, we like to collaborate with firms,” West added. “We like to go and ask questions and say ‘for this job, who would be great to work on this?'” In addition to his collaboration with OMA, he is also working on a visual identity for his brand with graphic designer Peter Saville.

Since this interview took place, West addressed students at Harvard University about architecture and design last month. The negative response to the rapper’s design ambitions was declared “racist” by an African-American student activist from the institution.

Tomas Koolhaas is currently aiming to raise funds to complete his REM documentary on Kickstarter. The feature-length documentary will focus on how the architect’s buildings are used by people and will “comprehensively explore the human conditions in and around Rem Koolhaas’ buildings from a ground level perspective”. Watch the trailer below:

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