Ezekiel Aquino → FIELD.SYSTEMS (AMS) chatting with Amelie Dinh
The Blur and Ooze of Identity, On and Offline
I knew about Eze long before I met him. It’s hard not to be captured by his work — the way he seems to bend the tools, forms and conventions of both design and development to his will, his use of colour, the wink that always feels inherent in his work. A creative developer at FIELD.Systems, I was curious to see how a unicorn brain like his connects his work and identity. We talked about coming of age online, how his upbringing plays out at work, and the connections he sees between identity and the creative process.
— Amelie
hey Ez 👋
Hi!
i was thinking about it, and i realized — i don’t know your “back story” at all
how did you end up here? in this field.. in Amsterdam..
I left the Philippines on my own, to pursue “something”..
I applied to school, got accepted, and went. Thank you mom and dad!
But yeah, I moved to Sweden to go to Hyper Island in 2011, to study Digital Media.
After Hyper Island, I moved to Berlin for a quick bit, and then did my Masters in the Netherlands.. and I’ve been in Amsterdam since.
how did that initial move feel? that move to Sweden?
I mean, back home, before I left, people were asking lots of questions, like “oh, isn’t that going to be really hard? Isn’t it scary?”
And I mean, I guess it was, thinking about it now.
I remember arriving in the train station in Stockholm, I had these two massive bags, and that was my entire life.
I didn’t have a place to stay. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have a phone. 👽
I remember I bought my first Swedish thing, it was a Coca Cola. It was the most expensive Coke I’ve ever had in my life!!
haha I basically had the same experience moving to Oslo. the first thing I spent money on was a taxi that cost 10 euros just to get in 💀
but yeah, I mean, it IS a big thing to do, moving to another continent to go to school.
Yeah, I’m very lucky to be able to do it. It’s a really deliberate choice.
I mean, who wants to just emerge from the underground with bags bigger than yourself?
💀
But I also felt empowered and liberated.
I had just flown 9000km. Everything was fresh! Unknown! It felt like… there were such great possibilities.
I keep going back to that moment.
when do you think of it?
When it’s a sunny day out (it was Swedish summer when I arrived so it looked amazing).
yeah. i can still remember how the air smelled when i arrived.
Yeah! And sometimes, when I appreciate where I am now, I remember that moment
✨
so having been in all of these different contexts, how do you think about yourself day to day, when you’re walking around? like, how do think about who you are.. and how has this evolved over time?
casual question 🫠
On a day to day and just walking around, honestly I think my brain is mostly busy playing an internal infinite mp3 playlist.
But this question about identity suddenly transported me back to high school, when I was exploring my identity and figuring out what I liked.
To a large extent, the word that comes to mind is the INTERNET. I feel like I grew up in and out of the internet and I love it.. and now it’s the industry I’m in.
Growing up, we had this 56kbps modem, and it really was the mode of how my mind has travelled, you know what I mean?
for sure. the world, and who we were in it, expanded far beyond our physical boundaries.
Yeah, like, what’s that cliche – if you want to find yourself, you need to travel? The internet was and is a way of travelling.
It’s how I shaped myself.. and it’s also become a tool for knowing myself
Because the browser is also where I do most of my creative shenanigans, and that process reveals a lot about me that I am still coming to understand.
yeah! it’s its own form of reflection.
Yeah. But it’s a really layered thing, because along with shaping and reflecting my identity, there was also a certain level of shedding or occluding parts of myself while online.
in what way?
I mean, I remember times when I kind of hid my race away - like, sometimes I just didn’t want to be perceived as Asian, or from Asia… which is something you can do on the internet.
yeah. the internet gives us the freedom to construct ourselves differently.. and when you’re younger, and processing how you are perceived in the world, it can be easier to leave some parts out.
Yeah. You just want to fit in.
totally. how do you think this translated into your career, when you started working?
I mean in general, part of my whole “Asianness” and how I was brought up in my culture, was that you just have to blend in.
You don’t really put attention on yourself, you don’t inflate. You just have to be part of the group.
yeah..
And at least from the Philippines, we pride ourselves on being very“resilient”. We can take anything. We show up. We work hard. We show it. And that’s when you gain respect.
If there’s a problem, you take it, and figure it out.
there’s something about being raised to blend in, and taught to power through challenges and difficulties that is interesting when it comes to race in the workplace
you become not only internally driven to blend in, but to also wilfully move past what’s happening around you… there’s an internal blending and an external blending
Totally.
it’s almost like… if I were to take the blur tool on Photoshop, I can blur what’s happening in my head, as well as what’s happening around me sometimes.
I love that you mentioned the blur tool - because now that you’ve articulated that, I completely relate to that feeling.
yeah, like - “oh that felt a little weird, I don’t know how I feel about that. BLUR” 🫣
Yeah! Like when something is a little questionable.. you don’t quite let it pass.. you know it’s there.. but you just kind of…
You don’t want to confront it, but it’s there.
I mean, people say “look at the world through rose-coloured lenses” but this is more like looking through blurry lenses.
yes.
i mean, the blurring can make things easier.. at least in the short term
Sometimes things with the blurry lenses look better than in 4k!
haha for sure.
for better or worse, it’s sort of a byproduct of being raised not to make a fuss, or draw attention to yourself 😬
and of course, there are lots of moments that you can’t blur, that cut thru.
how do you relate to workplace D&I efforts - where the idea, I guess, is that you shouldn’t have to be doing this kind of blurring?
“subscribe” is the word that I would use. I think these efforts benefit marginalised people; they’re important because there *is* bias and there *is* discrimination.
I’m Asian, I’m also gay. Workplace D&I makes it so it’s not on me to have to explain everything to people who are not like me/us.
They also make it so that there’s diversity around the table..
Which is really important, you know? I mean not just a diversity of identities, also a diversity of experiences.
yeah. I was thinking about that when you were talking about coming out of the underground with the two bags..
about how our identities are also these collections of moments and experiences.. memories, references..
Yeah. I mean, we’re in this realm of building things and creating things; if I think about the idea that “nothing is original”, then it’s really the people and compositions of people that are unique.
And it’s not that people’s identities always translate literally, or are expressed literally - but it just kind of oozes out of their pores.. 🍯
I think it’s super crucial to have this diversity of oozing matter if we want to make something that has a unique point of view, or just a different flavour.
ha “diversity of oozing matter”! perfect 💥
i really appreciate this idea of the ooze. it’s helpful when navigating this “how does your identity impact your work” question.
sometimes, depending on the project or the subject matter, the impact is explicit. but most of the time, the way i might bring my identity to a project is not as clear as that. it is more in ooze, or wisps.
in references, or associations, or experiences of space.
Or even - what different people find “ugly”.
What’s “bad”.
What someone brings into a conversation.
There’s also “grit”. Like, you and I have different ideas of grit.
And that’s what I think, in terms of making things that don’t exist yet, gives it that “oomph” 👄
You know what I mean?
yeah, I do.
Like this ooze is like how the body digested who I am; personal experiences, heartbreaks. Moments of discrimination. It’s part of me.
And then there’s a confidence that comes with wearing that identity in public.
yeah, like you can just let ‘em see
Yeah. Some kind of trust that you can be present with your lived experiences.
do you have that trust?
I’m still working on it
But I think this relationship between craft and identity is interesting to explore
I’m going to think on it more.
me too.
we can talk about it more next time ✨