Adult.'s Nicola Kuperus will eat your face!

She came home early that afternoon, hoping to surprise her husband.

They'd built the perfect life together; suburban home, two car garage, the perfect city to raise some kids.  Lately he'd become distant, but her mother always taught her that a woman has to work to keep her husband happy.

Walking through the open garage she absently notices that the leaves have gone unswept, something that her husband had promised that he would do on his one day off this week.  Marching into the house the faint sounds of love making emanate from the bedroom.

She turns the corner only to find her husband and her best friend in the throes of passion.  A blood curdling yell passes her lips as she turns and runs toward the garage to run out to the cool fall air.

Her husband pulls himself off her best friend then chases the woman down the hallway calling out his empty apologies.  Running past the kitchen he pushes the button of the garage door opener and the small engine warms up and twists its screws slowly lowering the door.

The woman, now simultaneously crying and screaming obscenities back at her husband, doesn't notice the slow crawl of the garage door before it's too late.  She slams her head and collapses to the floor as the garage door comes down on her.  The last thought passing through her head, "boy am I glad I wore my khaki long sleeve dress today."

Or something like that.

I love Nicola Kuperus' photography because each photo tells a unique tale of murder, death, incest, love, desperation, or any other dark theme that is neatly presented like the pages of a Sears Catalog.

During Art Basel week I went to Downtown's White Room to see Kuperus' Detroit-based band Adult. (that she is in with husband Adam Lee Miller) play courtesy of Andrews Lorenzana and Spiderpussy.

On stage Kuperus commands the attention of the crowd with Dominatrix like intensity.  She literally blows out her voice while delivering Adult.'s unique form of dance-punk, like a Drill Sergeant putting a group of new recruits in their place.

The day after seeing Adult. play, I went to the Art Basel exhibit in the Miami Beach Convention Center and somewhere between the post-modern and Asian themed contemporary pieces I spot Nicola and Adam.  Nicola was amazingly humble, inviting, and comes off as a very nice person.

She handed me a flier to an exhibition in the Wynwood Art District that had several of her pieces of Photography on display.

Thankfully, through Nicola's personal website, www.nicolakuperus.com, I was able to send her some questions about her music, photography, and her experience down in Miami as part of Art Basel.  She really came through, her answers are amazingly frank and honest, a rarity among veterans of the music industry.

Also, for those unfamiliar with Adult.'s music, check out their myspace page, www.myspace.com/adultadult.

How did you get your start in art/music? (which came first?)

I went to college for Biology. After 1 semester, I dropped out. I hated it. I thought I would go to art school for medical illustration, but that wasn't panning out. I went to a smaller university in Michigan and took a bunch of classes, photography being one of them. I fell in love with it immediately. A year later I went to an art school here in Detroit, CCS, and I received my BFA in photography in 1998. I started Adult.(then called Plasma Co.) with Adam in 1997 for fun. As a retaliation to vapid techno music. Who would have known that anything would have ever come out of us making some songs.

This is the second time (that I know of) that you played down in Miami for Art Basel. What do you think of the Magic City?

I love Miami. I think it's one of the strangest cities. It's very surreal. Very poor yet super wealthy. Lush and beautiful and destroyed (like Detroit). There are such harsh lines to it. Great things never come out of normal circumstances, or niceness. That's why I think there's such a strong music and art scene in Miami, because people have passion. I like that type of energy.

Describe the Art Basel experience- as a visual artist? as a musician?

Have you ever had a cup of coffee and then had a glass of champagne?  That's how I feel when I'm at Art Basel. Sort-of nauseated and super excited all at once.

What/who inspires you?

I'm inspired by how ridiculous life is sometimes. I can also be inspired by a great film, painting, or record, equally as much as by something really dreadful.  AFV.

Adult. is great. Your photography is great. I know no parent could ever choose  which child they love more, but can you at least explain how each one fulfills you differently?

Thanks that's very nice of you to say. I don't know. Music has been a roller coaster for me. It was exciting in the beginning when no one payed attention to our band. Then attention came and it became like a job. There was alot of annoying press surrounding our band. I felt really hateful towards the way the music scene operated. Now that many years have passed and the journalist are no longer interested in us, I find it fulfilling again. It's strange.

As for my photography.  It always fulfills me because I love making things. I guess that's why I have continued also to make music for 11 years now, because I do love making things. I think in music one thing that is nice is that you can cause a person to feel an emotion though tone. It's a completely different reaction than how you feel from looking at something. You can get inspiration from both, but the experience is different. I like having these options.

What is your creative process? Obviously your photography is conceptual, even called Hitchcock-esque, how do you come about with your pieces?

Alot of ideas come while driving. I tend to zone out and think of stories. Sometimes an interesting location may spark a story. I think one thing that is strange about the creative process or where an idea originates from is that it is never consistent and it generally comes when you least expect it.

Do you have any grand schemes with your art (be it music or photography) or do you enjoy the creative process and sharing with others?

No grand scheme. I just like to keep busy. It would be a pleasure to continue to live from what I make, but I'm not big on catering to what people want, and that can sometimes get in the way. As for sharing, I suppose I must enjoy it somehow, otherwise I wouldn't create websites for both the music and the photography.

Do you have any other projects going on? If you do how can we find them? If you don't how what can we bribe you with to do more?

One thing that Adam and I did recently was make a film. It's a 40 min. long silent, art/horror film, that when it is screened we play the soundtrack live too. It's not online for viewing. It's very special. I think that many people don't really understand what exactly it is and it's hard for us to find venues to show it in because it requires the theatre to have a good sound system. I hope that in the future we will continue to do more films. I feel like it really connects everything about us and sort-of makes better sense of our band. We are so much more than just music.

What band do you love playing with the most?

I can't pick favorites.  Erase Errata - Magas - Yip-Yip - Viki - Dan Deacon are a few highlights.

Are you coming down South again anytime soon?

No.

If You Enjoyed This Post, You May Also Like:

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• DWNTWN Concert Series, Jan 9 2009: Rachel Goodrich & Jacob Jeffries
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Tags: Nicola Kuperus

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm and is filed under Art, Counter-Culture, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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