On January 16th, 2025, Johannes Frick- aka Jon Darc, and Alejandro Spano won the Buggles Award for their music video “Blessing”.
The jury awarded the prize for their bold mix of AI visuals, surreal drag, and provocative themes.
The jury called Blessing “ingenious, kinky, and impudent in the best sense.” They praised its unapologetic queerness and bold challenge to norms.
CLASH: Alejandro Spano’s Platform for Creative Collaboration
Alejandro Spano founded CLASH, a Berlin-based project bringing together musicians, visual artists, and performers to create bold, multidisciplinary works. Through live performances, music videos, and installations, CLASH thrives on pushing artistic boundaries and blending mediums in unexpected ways.
CLASH embodies the same drive to challenge norms and spark fresh dialogue in contemporary art. Explore more about the project at CLASH’s website.
Below, Jon Darc and Alejandro Spano discuss their creative process, inspirations, and what this award means to them.
How did the two of you meet?
Alejandro: In 2020 I was living in Argentina at that time, about to move to Berlin, so I searched for Berlin artists on IG. One day I got to Jon’s profile and saw a 3D scan that he had and heard some of his music, which was interesting to me, so I followed him. Quickly we started speaking and soon our first collaboration.
Jon: I don’t know how Ale will tell this story, but I think in 2020 or 2021. He followed me on Instagram and I was mesmerized by his CG works. When I thought about making a video for “Blessing” it was obvious to ask him.
When did the collaboration between the two of you start?
Alejandro: Right after we started speaking, Jon asked me if I wanted to work on some projects, and I ended up making some VFX for some videos and we started working on Blessing, which was my first full-length 3D video and was a big challenge for me.
Jon: I think we started pretty early with different projects, where I asked Ale to make small CG works for videos. The first one that I released was The Womb. We also collaborated on my video for Virginity. Ale made these amazing butterfly animations for Hungry’s appearance in the video. I’m not sure what came first; if Ale came to Berlin and made the first CLASH, where I had the honor to compose a little bit of music for the video with the amazing Alexander Cameltoe and Selva himself. Then we released “Blessing”, which was produced by Mona Yim.
How did you work on the concept of this video?
Jon: I sent Ale a document with the storyline and some sketches for a storyboard, and Ale got to work. It was a bouncing back and forth as he was still living in Argentina.
What was the story behind the concept?
Jon: Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder wrote a really beautiful laudation for this video when he awarded it with the Buggles Award of Stuttgart Filmwinter.
“In “Blessing”, Jon Darc and Alejandro Spano take us into the innermost depths.
An AI-generated bionic double of Johannes Frick is placed in shackles and left at the mercy of marble angels who treat it with the indifference of a sphinx. But then a mouth opens and invites us to be present as an artist tells us a truth about himself. The poetry of “Blessing” is really sophisticated smut, kinky and outrageous in the best sense. But Jon Darc invites us, just as in his lyrics in the music video, to leave the fulfillment of concrete, shame-ridden longings and fantasies with the aura of the sublime. In the doubling between the disturbing computer-generated animation full of deliberately placed digital glitches and oddities and the hyper-realistic mermaid fantasy of Johannes Frick’s drag character, the viewer’s own body is removed from the constraints of conventional visual direction and conservative sexual morality.
Alejandro Spano and Jon Darc do so much more than illustrate a song lyric. They deliver a statement for a queer self-image that cannot be banished to invisibility or indistinguishability. “Blessing” confronts us with the truth – and invites us to dream.
Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder
Jon: I agree with it a lot and feel very seen. The song tells us a glorified sex story with metaphors out of the Christian realm because that is where I was brought up. For me, the duality between my queer very sexually open self and the repressed sexuality that lingers from my Christian upbringing are the two statues of Cupid and Psyche. The cyborg is a take on Donna Haraway’s modern feminist human being described in her Cyborg Manifesto, it speaks with the voice of a mermaid, an old queer symbol used already by Hans Christian Andersen in his Little Mermaid Story in 1837.
Jon Darc and Alejandro Spano continue to redefine art with their bold and boundary-pushing creations.
Catch Jon Darc performing live at KEYI Magazine’s Fashion Week 2025 event on February 3rd at OXI club, where he promises to deliver another unforgettable show.
Watch Blessing here
Follow Jon Arc / Alejandro Spano / CLASH
more music features here
Two steps to attend OXI x Berlin Fashion Week Event by KEYI Magazine on February 3rd at OXI (5PM till late) !
