Chess Is Back
And so is sexy, what
Tucked away in the corner of a bar, and occasionally spilling out into the street, you might find there’s a new club emerging in NYC. As you slide between tables looking for an open seat, you’ll overhear snippets of conversation:
“I was born to disco but I was also born 20 years too late.”
“You actually like Ernest Hemingway?”
“When did the New-York-to-Paris migration pattern become New-York-to-Miami?”
“Chess is what trained AI and made it smart to begin with…”
This intimate scene is Club Chess although its creator, A. L. Bahta aka Quiet Luke, says it’s never really been about chess. A. L. Bahta is a Florida-bred, NYC-based artist, musician, creative director, and the true embodiment of a Designhead. I had a chance to sit down with him for a virtual game on chess.com, where, in true club chess fashion, we engaged in a wandering conversation and quickly became new friends.
1. b3 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3.e3 d5 4. Bb5 Bc5 5. Bxc6+ bxc6 6. Ne2 Bg4 7. O-O d4 8. exd4 exd4 9. d3 Bxe2 10. Qxe2+ Ne7 11. Nd2 O-O 12. Ne4 Bb6 13. Rfe1 c5 14. Ng3 Re8 15. Qg4 Ng6 16. Rxe8+ Qxe8 17. Ne4 Qe7 18. Re1 Re8 19. c3 Ba5 20. Qd1 dxc3 21. Nf6+ Qxf6 22. Rxe8+ Nf8 23. Ba3 “this is a weird game.” Qc6 24. Re5 Bb4 25. Bc1 h6 26. Qg4 Ng6 27.Re4 Qf6 28. Qc8+ Kh7 29. Re8 Qd4 30. Qh3 Nf4 31. Qf5+ Ng6 32. Re4 Qxd3 33. Qf3 Qb1 34. Re1 Qxa2 35. Bxh6 c2 36. Bd2 Bxd2 37. Qh5+ Bh6 38. Rc1 Qb1 (time) 0-1
Ok, probably the most obvious question to start off with, but one that I think makes sense to get out of the way nonetheless… chess was never cool – well, that’s until it was cool. From your perspective, what changed to create this moment? Do you think it’s as simple as Queen’s Gambit or what do you contribute to all the “cool kids” playing chess?
Now there’s so much theory involved in chess, but it used to signify style, class, and also I think, a touch of (non-derogatory) degeneracy. It's not a new thing for it to be played in bars or cafés. During the belle epoch, people played chess and drank absinthe, and it was normal. The Queen's Gambit definitely took chess out of the cultural subconscious and made people have to face it as a cultural fixture, but I think that’s only one of many factors in chess's rising popularity. It is kind of the perfect game to go along with techno-feudalism. It's an ancient form of modernism, an esoteric grid system, yet it’s still romantic. As far as "cool kids" playing chess, it’s quite fun—and it’s a very good photo op!
Part of why I say it’s an obvious question is because you started Club Chess in this moment. How did you come to start Club Chess, btw? I was at the second event you ran (I think) but I have no idea about the story. What was the initial goal and do you feel like you’re still reaching for that or you’ve surpassed that?
Club Chess was a response to chess becoming an online game during the pandemic and the culture and aesthetics that used to surround chess being diluted into what essentially makes it an e-sport. When you play in person in a space it's different. I call it 3d chess. The pieces are more like talismans than simulacra when you have to pick them up and move them with your hand. The initial goal was simply to create community or perhaps, to consolidate community... and of course to play chess drunk. I have a huge advantage when I’m drunk now due to experience in that format. I think it surpassed its initial goal, which was just for it to happen.
The thing I love about Club Chess too is that it doesn’t feel like it was ever really about chess – stealing from a quote I've seen you use before. What is it about then?
It's about the secret third thing that happens when you put a chess board in a space with interesting people and stimuli. It attracts a compelling Venn diagram. Chess is a conductive material, or the keystone for a social sculpture. It's about fantasy at the end of the day. Once you've put chess in the club, you can then do anything.
I love that chess, and honestly games in general, can bring people together in such a genuine way. I remember going to Club Chess and it didn’t even matter if you knew how to play or how good you were – it didn’t matter if you won. It was really just about connecting with other people and sharing in communion. I hung out with some of my best friends at Club Chess events while I was in the city – my friend, who’s in Toronto now, still talks about it. What do you think it is about games, and about chess in particular, that creates this intimate setting? (Maybe it’s also the drinks and music, but…)
It is about breaking the 3rd wall, bending the medium rather than engaging in the stale p*stmodern task of speaking directly to the audience. It attracts people through symbolism and aesthetics. You're acknowledging that sometimes there needs to be a neutral zone too, or as some might say, “an icebreaker,” to social situations. Do you want to talk to someone? You ask them to play a game. Simple. People seem to be drained after COVID but also yearning for an in person connection more than ever. Curating the music, the "vibe" and of course helps as well. A party that is defined by being outside of one’s comfort zone, actually puts people at ease and allows them a space to have real conversations. It's an oxymoron, but a practical one.
I'm sad I wasn't able to make the Marketplace show (put on by @all.egedlyreal) where it seems you presented some Club Chess artworks. How was that and what did you show?
We weren't able to go in person, but it looked like a great show. We showed a video collage that was shown on a monitor turned vertical—kind of representing a big iPhone or monolith. It was mostly a black screen with white text in times new roman, relaying some of the aphorisms and bits that we've coined or claimed. The "it was never about chess," line was in there. We also added screenshots from our Instagram story, ways that we've communicated with or duped our audience or just photos from the parties in order to give people more context. I've always seen Instagram stories as a sort of hyper-niche gallery of sorts, so it was fun to blow that up into a physical space and watch people sit in front of a “big iPhone.”
How would you describe the chess aesthetic? And is that aesthetic different from the Club Chess aesthetic, which I see as very sexy, very suave, very cool – I mean, I think I've always seen you dripping in a suit of some sort. I saw the Collaboration Cookbook recipe recently too, “How To Make Chess Sexy”, which I love btw. But talk to me.
Sadly today, I think chess's aesthetic is an online game played by men that is sometimes played in an IRL tournament format. The streamer aesthetic. Full stop. My co-founder Corrine is one of the progenitors of the Club Chess aesthetic. I'd say that Angel Emoji from Frost Children is as well. And I am too. It is related to dark academia and goth-corp-core but it’s not as serious. It's pirate-coded a la Vivienne Westwood, Alexander Mcqueen, etc.—I've referred to Club Chess as "physical pirate radio" because we do it at so many different spots that you sometimes have to look for it and then tune in with your body. It's a conceptual social club that is not beholden to a physical “club.”
Corrine wrote the Collaboration Cookbook recipe by the way. She's instrumental in maintaining the "club" part, the overall aesthetic, and making the online messaging and IRL spaces appeal to femme identifying or adjacent persons. It's nice to have someone with impeccable taste who does not care so much about the nitty-gritty details of an actual chess game to enhance the entire experience.
I'm working on a couple chess sets right now and was looking for inspiration. Of course, the first thing to come up were the Man Ray and Hartwig chess sets that you see everywhere, but I dug a little deeper and ended up finding a set that Marcel Duchamp made. I also found an old show that he put together with Max Ernst in 1944, called The Imagery of Chess. Generally, while it’s a popular subject in art, it led me to thinking why we haven’t seen a lot of designers give chess sets much attention. It seems like the perfect design object but it’s not one that has been revisited a lot since that era 100 years ago where a lot of these popular sets were made. What's your take on this? (Maybe we need to recreate the show.)
It is the perfect design project. I think one of the reasons a lot of designers haven’t been interested in making a chess set is because it became an online game. Also, a lot of the designs by the legendary 20th century artists are hard to beat. Obviously, I'm working on a chess set as well.
People may be upset if I don’t ask this so, riffing on our staple Designheads questions, can you describe your personality in chess terms: What opening are you? What chess piece? What chess board?
I am Larsen's opening as white and the Sicilian as black. I am a knight. My personality is described by the chess set that I am designing.
Last question: If you could play chess against one person, who would it be?
I would play a game with Daniil Dubov, or Hans Niemann.