Building Digital Worlds with MEYY and Romain Albers
The Air Max Scorpion represents pure innovation. From tooling to aesthetics, the unparalleled air bubble platform meets with a sock-like Flyknit upper, bringing new meaning to the term ‘walking on air’. This is Air Max for a new generation; Air Max with an edge.
Linking up with London-based, globally-placed youth community, The Basement, for the first issue of their print magazine, SNKRS wanted to celebrate the best of Europe’s new generation of creative innovators. Out-of-the-box thinkers, those breaking new ground when it comes to image-making and those who are pioneering new forms of communication to reimagine what’s possible in the metaverse era.
Enter: MEYY and Romain Albers. MEYY is a Belgian-born, London-based musician whose capacity to build an imagined universe which combines web 3.0 with her minimalist next-gen sound is unmatched. Romain is an Amsterdam-based 3D imaging artist and graphic designer who builds alternate realities on screen. Having met on the set of MEYY’s second music video for her track ‘Famous’, the pair quickly became creative conduits and have been collaborating on pioneering next-gen content ever since.
“What Romain can do to create a visual landscape that reflects my music is special,” MEYY says. “Phonetically, sonically, visually our aesthetics collide. I think it’s one thing to be skilled and determined, but he also has a very rare aesthetic eye.”
Gearing up to support Oscar and the Wolf on his European tour, MEYY’s visual language has never been more important to her as an artist. “When I first saw Romain’s work, I had never really seen anything like it. 3D imaging is definitely taking off across creative industries now, but In Belgium especially Romain was doing it long before. He was pioneering in that sense.”
“We’ve grown along the way, slowly digitising MEYY and bringing her fully into the digital realm,” Romain explains. “We are in constant conversation about how to portray her digital identity to the outside world and it’s a continuous work in progress."
Having cut his teeth at the Eidenhoven Design Academy, Romain’s graduation project ‘Altranet’ explores the comfort and chaos of lives lived online. A natural evolution from his first love of set design, Romain is building an audience by translating digital chaos into comfort in his work as he creates digital landscapes using 3D image capture to reflect stories, places, and tableaus that live only in his mind. “I started using 3D imaging as a way to sketch out spaces which would be built physically as installations, but I quickly became fascinated by what’s possible without being constrained by space and time. I was freed from the physical limitations of the real world and was able to control gravity with the click of my index finger,” Romain says.
A shoe for the future, with unrivalled air technology, is opened up to a new world of image creation which is limitless. “I’m excited as we move away from conventional ways of creating imagery as the global community dives deeper and merges more and more with the digital realm,” Romain finishes.
To see the final outcome of ‘Air Max Scorpion: MEYY captured by Romain Albers’ pick up a copy of the inaugural issue of Basement Magazine, out on October 21st.