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Journeys of discovery

  • 2 min read

Archetype: Explorer

Rasa: Kāruṇyam


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Explorer stories tend to emphasize personal freedom and the breaking of conventional boundaries. In this month’s list listen to Forest Swords's song "Crow," where haunting soundscapes evoke the thrill of the unknown. Look at Aaron Siskind’s "Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation," capturing the emotional duality of exploration through powerful imagery. Think about Ian Bremmer's inspiring speech, "Don't Drink the Poison," urging graduates to embrace uncertainty with courage and curiosity. Discover Satisfy's "Equipment for our World" campaign, showcasing gear designed for adventurous spirits. Finally, be inspired by Van Neistat’s series "The Spirited Man," celebrating creative living and the relentless quest for new experiences.


Listen to…

  • Forest Swords's song "Crow" parallels the explorer archetype through its atmospheric and haunting soundscape that evokes a sense of mystery and discovery. The song's evolving layers and experimental structure reflect the explorer’s journey into the unknown, embracing uncertainty and seeking new experiences. The music creates a mood that evokes mystery and introspection, often associated with the journey of an explorer.


Look at…

  • Aaron Siskind, an influential American photographer known for his abstract expressionist images, captures the essence of the explorer archetype in his series "Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation." The tension between pleasure and terror in the images reflects the emotional duality faced by explorers as they navigate uncharted territories, experiencing both the thrill of discovery and the anxiety of uncertainty. 


Think about…

  • In his commencement speech to the 2024 graduating class at Columbia University; titled "Don't Drink the Poison," Ian Bremmer emphasizes the importance of resilience, adaptability, and the courage to navigate an unpredictable world—qualities central to the explorer archetype. Bremmer urges them to approach challenges with curiosity and an open mind, akin to an explorer's adventurous spirit. He highlights the necessity of forging one's path and embracing the unknown, paralleling the explorer's journey of self-discovery and transformation. 


Products and services

  • The "Equipment for our World" campaign by Satisfy, a business known for its lifestyle and high-performance running gear, is an example of a commercial story channelling the explorer archetype. This campaign emphasizes the idea of venturing into the great outdoors equipped with gear designed for resilience and adaptability. The campaign's imagery and messaging reflect a spirit of curiosity and adventure. By highlighting the balance between performance and the unknown, Satisfy captures the emotional duality of the explorer's experience. The transformative nature of exploration is often leveraged to signify personal growth and self-discovery.


Lifestyle and inspiration

  • Van Neistat, an acclaimed filmmaker and storyteller, embodies the explorer archetype in his series "The Spirited Man." Through this series, Neistat delves into the art of living with creativity, resilience, and a relentless curiosity for the world. The episodes highlight his journey of self-discovery and the pursuit of unconventional paths, mirroring the explorer's quest for new experiences and knowledge. Neistat’s storytelling captures the essence of independence and the courage to challenge the status quo, encouraging viewers to embrace the unknown and transform their lives. The series resonates with the explorer's spirit of adventure and growth, showcasing how confronting and navigating life's uncertainties can lead to profound personal transformation and a deeper understanding of oneself.

Reading List, June 2023

  • 5 min read

Updated: Jun 29, 2023

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We create supplementary reading lists as a way to give you an insight into the inspirations and thinking behind our monthly stories. These reading lists take you behind the story, revealing the process of its making.



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Archetype → Magician


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June 2023


  • We’ve decided to dig into our collection of archetype playlists. We use these to help us rapidly “get into” a brand persona. Over the years we’ve slowly accumulated and collected these sounds to help us work effectively. Here are a few selections from the Magician playlist.

    1. The evocative emotional power of music is magical. London-based Caribbean-Belgian composer, producer, and musician Nala Sinephro described the making of the album: “I became more focused on the inner workings of the body and created a sonic world that helped me heal.” This kind of music seems to be a sort of soundtrack to memories. It evokes a sense of wonder. 2021, Space 1.8. Nala Sinephro, Warp Records

    2. Another way of looking at narratives found in music, particularly in terms of rhythm and time. In the trance-like state of a repetitive track, someone can be swept away into a fantastical realm. Terry Riley. American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition is an ideal example of this altered state of mind. 1964, Composition In C. Terry Riley, A Rainbow in Curved Air

    3. The ability to conjure a narrative through space is another interesting aspect of sound, particularly in terms of vibrations and echo. Hiroshi Yoshimura was a Japanese musician and composer whose music lies mostly in the He is considered a pioneer of ambient music in Japan. His music lies mostly in the genre of Japanese environmental music characterized by soft electronic melodies infused with the sounds of nature. He is considered a pioneer of ambient music in Japan. 1986, Time after time. Hiroshi Yoshimura, Soundscape 1: Surround, MISAWA Home


  • Christopher Nolan’s 2006 award-winning film The Prestige, makes a good point of positioning the wonder of magic as an obsession with deception. It also seems appropriate to us for this MS. As the movie starts with the three steps to a magic trick; also a preface to the structure of the story told in the movie



  • The Magician’s connection to experiences of synchronicity, flow and oneness, with a curiosity about the hidden workings of the universe can also be illustrated through body language or body movement. The dance performance can be another aspect of the magician's personality which is interesting to investigate.

    1. Weaving dreams, walking on air, trying to fly… Gratte Ciel performances are known to be enchantingly beautiful, astonishing and breathtaking spectacles. Part dance, but mostly acrobatics these performing artists move through the air, magically suspended above the crowd below. The Gratte Ciel company’s work tends to live within the relationship between the infinitely large and the deeply intimate; they are masters of the rope, its nature, possibilities, and limits. Like the magician archetype whose state of mind and expertise are vectors of innovation at the service of major aerial projects and the artistic teams that it accompanies in surpassing themselves.


  • In Ben Mendelsohn’s 2012 documentary, Stephen Graham (Professor of Cities and Societies at Newcastle University says “Contrary to the rhetoric that the “Cyber Space” suggests that the internet is some non-physical realm that exists “out there” on its own; it is in fact, very much physical.” This short documentary peeks inside one of the world’s most concentrated hubs of Internet connectivity; illustrating the physicality and scale of the internet. The narration takes on the role of the magician offering us a glimpse of the massive material infrastructure that makes the Internet possible. Hundreds of telecommunications companies interconnect their respective internet networks (known as peering) as well as conventional TDM traffic through numerous meet-me rooms and optical and electrical lines placed throughout the building.


  • Tom Sachs and Van Neistat cor wrote The Paradox Bullets, a film that attempts to help people come to terms with the irrational and to realize that things don't always make sense. The film narrative is mysterious and wondrous; it demonstrates strong perceptional strength, awe-inspiring intuition, charisma and cleverness. In an interview with Cultured Magazine, Tome Sachs said “In school, we learn one plus one equals two, but in the Studio we learn one plus one equals a million. And you can only get that equation of equaling a million when you put the right two wrong elements that combine to make an exponential expansion of energy.”


  • Magician film directors have the ability to frame the world and show us a different side to a story.

    1. Feist’s 2023 music video for Hiding Out in the Open, is clever. What at first seems like just a little fun with a green screen ultimately forces the viewer to ask, which one is the real Feist and which ones are overlays? And that’s what the song is about. Who’s the real you? Which version of yourself are you putting out into the world vs. what are you trying to hide?

    2. Art and film come together easily in the vividly imaginative mind of Michel Gondry. His sets become sculptures—melding art forms to accommodate the vast world of his dreams. Michel Gondry's films, from his music videos to his feature films, employ technical wizardry involving various kinds of special effects, animation and intricate narrative set-ups. He leaves plenty of room for his playfulness and irreverent satire. In this 120min interview at the Walker Art Center; Michel Gondry: unpacks his 2006 film, The Science of Dreams

    3. Dead Man is a 1995 American acid western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. The movie, set in the late 1800s, follows William Blake, a meek accountant on the run after murdering a man. He has a chance encounter with the enigmatic Native American spirit guide "Nobody", who believes Blake is the reincarnation of the visionary English poet William Blake.

    4. Tim Burton; Big Fish. The film tells the story of a frustrated son who tries to distinguish fact from fiction in the life of his father, a teller of tall tales. Big Fish was shot on location in Alabama in a series of fairy tale vignettes evoking the tone of a Southern Gothic fantasy.


  • In My Collected Silences, Doron Solomons combine’s excerpts featuring dozens of interviewees in the pause before the beginning of a television broadcast, from which he edits four intense minutes. The video excerpts are the redundant raw materials cut from the broadcast, which usually remain unavailable for viewing. Solomons choose to focus on those idle, marginal moments contrary to common practice – to put them in the limelight and at the work’s very core. Observation of the changing photographed subjects, some familiar and others unfamiliar, introduces a new gaze which had heretofore been absent. Surprisingly, they appear silent and uneasy. Some take a breath in anticipation of the broadcast; others await their turn indifferently and impatiently. Solomons render’s chaff into wheat, refining a new meaning. It is precisely in these moments of wait that the more human aspects of the interviewees seem to be revealed, eliciting identification. These are, in fact, the true moments, the reality behind the pretense and other games underlying the interview situation.




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