One of these shapes is Kiki. The other is Bouba.
You already know which is which.
Some decisions take half a second to feel and half an hour to justify.
Do you feel more than you dare to paint?
Kiki & Bouba is a seven-week online experiment for visual artists in perception and creativity.
Art school taught you how to solve problems. Here, we have some better problems.
The head always shows up with good reasons
Your painting is asking for something…
You fix the drawing. Try another color. Adjust the composition. Hunt down another reference. You get hooked on a tutorial, a book, somebody's advice.
Perfectly reasonable solutions. Something that tells you what to fix and, while it's at it, makes the decision for you.
Maybe the painting gets better. Technically.
But it keeps asking for something none of those solutions seems to touch.
Kiki & Bouba comes in right there: when suspiciously reasonable solutions start piling up, for problems your painting never had.
Seven problems you don't know how to solve yet
You've spent years piling up solutions. Now come the better problems. Over seven weeks you'll find your own answers to these seven questions:
- What happens when you stop painting things?
- What does your enemy know that you don't know yet?
- How do you turn up your work without learning more technique?
- What happens when you mix ideas that don't get along?
- How do you hunt down ideas you may never have had?
- What happens when reality doesn't follow the plan?
- Why do some paintings survive their own explanation?
First you do it. Then you understand it. Not the other way around.
The full mechanics of a week are down in the FAQ.
We're coming for your judgment.
We tested this on more than 500 artists first
Quarantine is our in-person program: seven days of work on an old 18th-century quarantine island in Menorca.
Since 2023 we've run six editions and put these experiments to the test with more than 500 artists.
On the island there's isolation, close quarters, private mentoring, and seven full days of brutally intense work. Colossal called it a "purgatory for artists."
The in-person program costs €3,700. And we won't lie to you: things happen on that island that no online program can give you.
Kiki & Bouba condenses the part that can leave the island and fit into your studio.
The experiments.
€3,700 buys the complete Quarantine experience.
€333 buys the seven experiments we managed to get off the island.
And for that price, you will get some of the good shit.
It's not for you…
…if you want instructions for producing one specific result.
…if you want technical tricks and step-by-step recipes.
…if you have a formula that works and your priority is protecting it.
…if you're a purist who plans on staying as such.
Kiki & Bouba is made for open-minded artists, willing to try something they'd have thrown out a week earlier.
€333. Once
7 experiments · 14 audios · reflections · community · bonuses · lifetime access
GUARANTEE: If after finishing all seven experiments and posting them in the community you're still right where you started, we'll refund your €333 and grant you the dubious honor of being our first lost cause.
FAQ
OK, but what the hell is Kiki & Bouba? Kiki & Bouba is a seven-week experiment for training your judgment when you make art.
Technique gives your ideas form. But over the years, it also starts filtering them.
This , yes. This , no. Too clumsy. Too weird. Doesn't look like me. Can't defend that one.
Permission is issued and pulled so fast you barely notice.
How many ideas does your technique throw out before you ever try them?
Kiki & Bouba won't hand you an artistic identity. You've already got one.
For seven weeks you'll work under conditions different from your usual ones. Each experiment changes some of the rules, such that your usual solutions can't solve everything.
Nobody's asking you to unlearn anything. You'll keep using everything you know.
Technique takes care of how to make something.
Your judgment decides what's worth trying.
We're coming for your judgment.
How does a week actually work? First you listen to an audio. It puts one idea about how you look and how you make art into context, and hands you an experiment to test it.
Then you do the experiment in your studio, with your usual materials, making your own decisions.
When you finish, you post the result and the process in the community. There you can see what solutions other artists found for the exact same problem.
Then the second audio arrives. That's where the mechanism shows up, once there's something in front of you that you made, and your own experience to check it against.
First you do it.
Then you understand it.
Is this a painting course? Kiki & Bouba is an experimental program about perception and creativity for visual artists.
We work on how you look, choose, discard, and make decisions.
Deep down, it's a program about building your own judgment.
It's built for visual artists: painting, drawing, illustration, tattoo, concept art, and so on.
In general, any practice that runs on visual thinking.
If you can hold a pencil and you've already got some practice in art, you can do it, even if you're still a student.
Kiki & Bouba demands a lot more from your decisions than from your technique.
How much time does it take? Figure about two hours a week.
Some experiments can take a lot more, if they get out of hand and you decide to take them all the way ;-)
Usually a good sign.
Do I have to do it in exactly seven weeks?
Seven weeks is the recommended pace: one experiment a week, always in order.
Each module uses things that showed up in the ones before it.
Access is lifetime, so you can stop and pick it back up whenever you need.
You can start today.
Everything is pre-produced. The minute you're in, you can start the first experiment: painting forces, not things.
Two audios, one hands-on experiment, and a final reflection.
Bonuses and extra material also show up along the way.
The main content is audio because we want you picturing things while you listen, instead of handing your attention to a screen.
Are there teachers, mentors, corrections? Hell no.
If we hand you our solution, you just lost yours.
We can design the problem. But solving it for you would break the experiment.
Nobody grades your result or decides for you.
The authority on your decisions is yours.
What happens in the community?
You post the result, your decisions, and the process.
Then you see how other artists solved the exact same problem, their way.
Same experiment. As many solutions as artists.
The community is for comparing decisions, not correcting them.
Are there step-by-step instructions? You get precise instructions for doing each experiment.
The road to the result stays open.
There's no set result you have to reproduce step by step, thank god.
Is there theory?
Some, but it comes after you've put it into practice.
The first audio sets up the experiment.
Then you think with your hands, without knowing yet why the things that work, work.
In the second audio you get the mechanisms you just used, and how to push them further. Then you can look at what you made, think it over, and draw your own conclusions.
What materials do I need? Mostly the ones you already use in your practice.
Some experiments add simple stuff like paper, prints, scissors, or tape.
Nothing fancy.
Where does the program live? On Skool, an online platform you can use from your browser or the phone app.
How long do I get access?
Forever.
You pay once and it's yours, like ol’times.
This isn't another damn subscription.
How does the guarantee work? Finish all seven experiments and post all seven in the community.
If at the end you're still stuck right where you were, we'll refund your €333 and grant you the dubious honor of being our first lost cause.
Look, wanting to understand it all before you start is exactly the kind of problem Kiki & Bouba solves.
If you feel more than you dare to paint…
P.S. What you call doubt, in seven weeks you'll call style. The door's on 🔝
