TOTXRES (Barcelona, 2019) is the result of the creative crush between Pablo Fernández (Montgat, 1999) and Marc Escudero (Caldes de Montbui, 1995). Apparently, their projects are illustration and graphic design, but if you ask them to define themselves, they resort to their motto “Just kids”. Two children having a good time but with a more adult ambition: to be able to live from this.
TOTXRES
2021 / 06 / 15
“TOTXRES [everything for nothing] could be the motto of people our age, people doing things that go nowhere”
You always use irony and humor in your pieces. Hence the name TOTXRES [Everything for nothing]?
Marc: The origin of the name is quite a joke.
Pablo: In fact, the story of how the name came about is not very splendid. The day we decided on the name we were at my house and we were looking for names that we liked and in the end we said: “we have spent most of our lives doing things that don’t go anywhere, creating things that stay between us and our colleagues. Everything for nothing” (“Tot per res”). It could be the motto of people our age, people doing things that go nowhere.
And what things do you do in TOTXRES that don’t get you anywhere?
Marc: We currently do many illustration and graphic design projects.
Pablo: I think the definition of our “Insta” which is two words explains it very well: “Just kids”. In the end we are two children trying to have fun, but with the ambition of people much older than our age. We are playing, but at the same time we are camouflaging our desire to live from this.
Like the video you have on Instagram, in which you appear with your face covered saying things like: “We don’t want to bother anyone, we’re just kids playing in the park… we’re looking for a flat and a stable job…” To end by saying: “call us”. Hence the “Just kids”.
Pablo: Exactly. We want to be children but we want to make a living too.
Playing also involves trying new things to see what happens, and seeing what you do, you can see that you are constantly experimenting…
Marc: I don’t have anything concrete to do either. Between music references and what we have, we’re getting by… Sometimes we make a video, other times we make posters… We’re playing a bit of everything.
“The goal is very clear, but life puts us in many traps and then we end up doing everything”
Do you never get bored?
Marc: No… we don’t have a goal to reach, we play different instruments.
Pablo: Yes, it’s an orchestra. That’s why the latest T-shirt “Tot x res orquestra” (“Everything x nothing orchestra”). In the end, ours is like being in a fucking orchestra. One week we are doing a drawing, another a painting, another a music theme. Perhaps, in the end, the objective is clear but we get dizzy, we are a bit scattered. We have a clear objective, which is to make a living from this, but along the way we come across many traps, which are entertainment that we have right now in the 21st century, which is how to make a one-minute song at home or how to make a sculpture in the countryside… The objective is very clear, but life puts many traps in our way and then we end up doing everything.
And the style? It’s carefree and thug, but what’s behind it?
Marc: We make ourselves like stories and from there we make t-shirts and such. It’s like a joke, a meme… We had a good time and that’s it.
Pablo: Yes, there is criticism but we are not very aware of it. That’s what Marc says. We started by giving ourselves a mental jerk as an excuse to be able to create something, but really this mental jerk does come out of a background that we have been thinking about lately or that we live.
I also see a lot of chaos in your drawings. Is this how you see the world?
Pablo: In the end, the thing is that we don’t lie. What we do is what we live, what we feel. In other words, it is nothing that what we do and the way we do it is not happening to us.
Marc: Being two, what’s cool is that each one has their own internal movement and then this also makes it look chaotic.
How did you meet?
Marc: Because of mutual friends.
Pablo: At a Comic and Desktop Publishing Festival at Fabra i Coats. The two of us brought our things to sell and there we met and we were cool and threw ourselves forward.
Marc: We had a crush.
And what is the next thing you have in mind? You make album covers, t-shirts, hoddies, videos, merchandising…
Pablo: We’ll make a couple of posters for some expos. Also with Mantelería we are preparing a move tocha in Holy Week, which you will see. For the summer we are preparing a somewhat more serious collection. We want to upgrade. It is that, we want to stop being children and upgrade. Make things of higher quality, much more thought out and that make everything much more sense and that is what we are in. With a thousand moves at once.
Marc: It’s just that these two years we’ve been playing to see how the scene was going, how to fly a little.
Yes, like children who eventually mature. Maybe the “Just kids” thing will disappear?
Pablo: Yes, or maybe TOTXRES (“Everything for nothing”) will disappear. Grace, in fact, is to become everything x everything. Continue being “just kids” but doing everything for everything.
Marc: Our goal is to have fun but get to do brick things.
And what are your references?
Marc: From graphic design Braulio Amado…
Pablo: We have many design and drawing references such as Braulio, Horfee, a Parisian graffiti artist and painter, Saeio, Robert Crumb, the one who invented the underground comic. These are the most obvious references, but we also move a lot through music. On our t-shirts there are always music phrases. And in the end we always have many references to movies, music or series. Twin Peaks is very cool to us. I want to think that this universe is seen in everything we do. Not so much because of the theme, but in the way of drawing. Yung Lean is a great reference for our generation.
What does each one do?
Pablo: I do more the drawing part and Marc the graphic part. The types and such are done by him and me plus the drawings.
You also constantly do collaborations with other artists. What do these collaborations bring you?
Marc: The heaviest has been with Mantelería.
Pablo: Yes, it has been the one with which the most things have happened. It started as a client and has become one more. We owe him a lot of things. And that, we also like it because we choose collaborations sparingly, because we want them to fit in with us a lot and it has happened with Mantelería and with Aula 46 as well. And above all, we also collaborate with colleagues and people from Barcelona that we like.
I have a question that has nothing to do, but I am very curious. What’s the story of the bloody hand photo you have on Instagram?
Pablo: It’s my hand. I’m a bit of a geek … Let’s see, I don’t live in Barna, I live in Montgat and with the rock from here we go up the mountain and make huts and start drawing and doing everything. And one day we were doing one and I cut a flange with a razor and the razor was closed on my finger and instead of going to the hospital, I took a picture for TOTXRES.
But then you went to the hospital?
Pablo: Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like BT aint for me either. For example, Marc is a geek of this …
Marc: Yes, with this world of beheadings, murders, I’m freaking out …
Pablo: But explain it well, that sounds so bad dude …
So you’re a typical fan of the tv show “Crims”?
Marc: No, not from “Crimes” but I’m very geeky about all this bloody stuff, the dead, the murders and I want to find the cool part of it, you know? Death is more than anything …
Death inspires you …
Pablo: Yes, I don’t know, more visceral things, more underground. We are obsessed with drawing crosses. The tattoos we do, everything is very dark and is reflected. What you see in our drawings looks the opposite but what’s inside is something like a psychopath. It’s like being a psychopath and drawing a little boy. I sometimes think we’re out of our minds teaching this part of a little boy … Marc is more interested in death than I am …
Marc: In the end we are two different people each with their own story and then later in the world of design we do connect a lot.
Pablo: This is very much seen on the “Let me be now famous” t-shirt, there is a very heavy mix …
Marc: Yes, the photo of the girl is of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla who was murdered by the founder of her fan club and this story freaked out to me.
Pablo: Yes, there’s this murdered aunt and then the lyrics to a punk song by Minor Threat and then there’s the phrase “Let me be …” Here’s a clear mix between her universe and mine .
Universes in which a thousand things happen, it seems …
Pablo: Yeah. We are in the process of getting to know ourselves.
Marc: The truth is, yes.
Book, music, series or movie.
Marc: From the movie, I recently saw “La piel que habito” by Almodóvar, which seemed like a freak. From a book, a colleague told me about one called Chantal Maillard’s “Difficult Compassion”. A very disturbing book that talks about things in life, but especially about death and how it explains everything is very heavy. “Twin peaks” is the series that struck me the most. And on record, “Black metal” by Dean Blunt.
Pablo: From a book, a comic called “Tummy Bugs” by Leomi Sadler in which our flow is quite reflected. I’m really fond of King Krule‘s music. Series, “The Virtues” and “This is England”. Wong Kar Wai’s “Fallen angels” I really liked because of the aesthetics and the soundtrack. We pay close attention to the soundtracks of the movies and, for example, my favorite movie is “Lost in translation” by the fucking soundtrack, which is a pot-go, it’s amazing with My Bloody Valentine, Squarepusher … it’s crazy.
INTERVIEW: MARTA LUQUE
FEBRUARY 2022
MAUS®
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