[Antichambre (lat./ital./french): antechamber, audience, waiting room in a castle]


Antichambre, the anteroom of Design Duo Jutta Wacht and René Poell, aka Say Say Say, Inc., acts as Space for Poetical Matters with temporary installations that come forward from between pop-culture, philosophy, sensuality, aesthetics, and technology.

Profile: Jutta Wacht and René Poell

Who are you?

The Twins at St Clare's, Rocky and Rambo, Laurel and Hardy, Columbo and Clouseau, Knight and Rider.

Since when have you been at Q21?

We moved into the ‘oval office’ ten years ago. Shortly after, we transferred to (then called) Electric Avenue. We’ve been running our anteroom, ‚Antichambre‘, since last year. Just in time for the first lockdown, we hosted our first exhibition opening.

What are your fields of activity?

In our Studio for Imagination, we use the pseudonym Say Say Say, Inc. to work on all kinds of design projects for national and international clients. On the side, we publish our biennial Periodikum magazine and create exhibitions for our MQ showroom Antichambre.

Furthermore, we run Digitale Kultur OG, where our small teams develop digital wizards assisting self-employed people just like us in their everyday work.


What are poetical matters?

To us, they are ‘matters’ which create a synthesis between the conscious and the unconscious, between subject and object, between nature and mind. We are incurable fans of romanticism. (We are referring to the literary genre!)

How do you reach your goals?

It depends on how you define a goal. Sometimes the path leading to your goal is already extraordinary and rewarding (even if sometimes we reach this insight a bit late). But in terms of concrete work projects, it’s probably a combination of passion, curiosity and the search of knowledge, paired with nerdiness and a willingness for ‘creative destruction’. Schumpeter’s definition of creativity comes pretty close as well: ’the process of destroying one’s gestalt in favour of a better one’.


What challenges do you face?

Professionally, it’s difficult for us to deal with the current developments in cloud computing. Otherwise, we’re doing relatively fine – here in Central European paradise.


So what is PERIODIKUM magazine all about?

It’s our beloved ‘brainchild‘.

Periodikum is a biennial publication that presents a new reality by exploring wondrous visions of our outer and inner worlds. Because we believe, what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. (We didn’t say this . . . Plutarch did.)

Periodikum creates a pop-cultural kind of universal poetry. Inspired by the literary early Romantics and Symbolists, this universal poetry deals with the infinite, the limitless realms of human yearning, with the unconscious, with dreams and mysticism. It suspends the boundary between belief and knowledge, knowledge and art, art and religion. At the same time, it represents a romantic irony—as a self-preserving distancing from the tragedy of existing.

The first Issue Six Poetical and Dialogical Strategies acts as an invitation to introspection. In the form of "thought images," it takes readers on a pop-cultural journey into our most hidden spaces. Those images are composed as concealed worlds in different layers that deal with the unconscious and the enigmatic. Even if we have pushed aside magical, visual "thinking" in favor of a rational approach to the world, it is still effective.

Periodikum magazine is available at Verlag für Moderne Kunst in Wien.

Design can…?

The ‘sanctuary‘ of art compares to a space of human expressiveness. The entire motivation of existence lies in finding a way of expression.