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Photos by Daniela León 

”The concept of only being able to pick one fig, I think that’s very limiting and it doesn’t always have to be the case”, says New York based, multi-hyphenate artist julip. 

If Sylvia Plath's fig tree taught us anything, it's that the fear of choosing wrong can paralyze us into choosing nothing at all. But julip — who went from grinding in "the Dungeon" at the computer science department at the University of Florida, to landing her dream tech job, to leaving it all behind for music and creative technology — is not particularly interested in that lesson. She's skipping the fig entirely and taking the whole tree. 

When I sat down with her in the midst of her EU tour supporting Oxis, the theme of allowing yourself to be more than one thing quickly became the center of our conversation. A creative technologist, musician, producer, computer scientist and now even voice actor, julip didn’t always know how she could blend her lifelong passion for music and math/computer science. That is, until a few years ago when she had what she calls her “hatch”, aka the moment she decided to be positive and action oriented from that moment forward. 

What followed was julip++, a computer vision software that lets her manipulate music and vocals through hand gestures — the most literal possible meeting point of her two worlds. "Your unique voice is formed by the intersection of all these things," she tells me. "Leaning into what makes you unique rather than pulling away from it is important."

That philosophy runs through her music too. Moving away from her earlier indie rock sound toward something more producer-heavy and alt-pop, julip is an artist in the middle of becoming. Although she may be known for her producer side and eyecatching videos featuring julip++, she doesn't want to understate the importance of songwriting for her. "I think my whole life has been a quest to get back to who I was when I was 16, when I just loved writing poetry and I felt so creatively and artistically empowered."

julip may still be in the midst of figuring out some of the fine details of her project, like its Pinterest moodboard, as well as securing a patent for her technology, but what is clear is that she is going with the flow, feeling 16 again and building a world that is uniquely hers. As she puts it: “There is a large gap between where my taste is and where my talent is. And it's going to be a continuous process of learning how to close that over time”. I for one, can´t wait to see her slowly close that gap.

*Interview has been modified for length and clarity

OnesToWatch: Hey julip. Are you ready?

Julip: Here we go, baby!

I hear you’ve been travelling a lot lately, including a spontaneous trip to Japan, and now tour! How has it been?

I have! I forget that with the Internet you can just know that about me (laughs). I'm honestly always just a bit sad because the second that I get in the taxi to go to the airport I'm homesick. I love living in New York so much and right now everything is especially exciting because of the Knicks and because it's summer. The Knicks especially are such a cultural moment, bringing us all together. I just wish I could be here and there, and five other places at the same time. But I love Oxis so I'm also really excited to be on tour. 

Yeah, I even know "Knicks in five,” even though I’m clueless about basketball (laughs). So, I wanted to start with one of your lyrics. Do you believe in divine intervention?

I was just writing about this the other day because I obviously write music, but I love writing essays as well. A realization that I've had about my life is that I'm a girl who believes in flowing with the current of the universe. I don't believe that it's productive to try to swim upstream.

As neurotic and hardworking as I am with all of my different investments. At the end of the day, I don't try to push up against what's fated, if that makes sense. I just think that I optimize my life around serendipity and I think that's part of why I love traveling so much. I think traveling is something that puts you back into a mode where you're focusing on being and you're not forcing things.

In this topic of flowing, in order to follow a certain career or a certain dream, do you feel like you've had to give up on a lot of things or kind of stop yourself from the flow and be like, "I have to do this?” 

Yeah. For example, I studied computer science in college and that required me to give up a lot. I spent all my time studying in this place called “The Dungeon” at the University of Florida. It's just a room with no windows, and nerds over time have printed out torches and put them on the wall. It's very silly, and it's this awesome little cultural thing that computer science has. Back then, my ambition was to go to one of the most competitive and prestigious companies for software engineers and I was very calculated about figuring out how I could get that job. Once I was there, there was a very high demand and I was constantly stressed out. At the same time I was also trying to figure out how to make music work, so it was a lot. 

I can only imagine.

And my dad was like “everybody who has something pays a price for it”. But there's also a price you pay by not going after your goals. So right now I’m very lucky to be doing music, and a couple other things, full-time. I think that now I'm in this era where I feel like I'm writing better things than I ever have and I feel more inspired than ever. I think my whole life has been a quest to get back to who I was when I was 16, when I just loved writing poetry and I felt so creatively and artistically empowered. Even though I hadn't quite found the language or had all the tools, spiritually, I've come back around to this level of mental freedom and curiosity and romantic and artistic way of looking at the world that you can only have when you're that naive.

How are you making this kind of balance between hard work, discipline and determination but also creating some serendipity and chaos in a good way? 

I think the thing about being creative is, of course, there is discipline involved, but ideas flow best when you're feeling most yourself. I think that luckily through the various investments that I have in my career, some of what my productivity is, is just dependent on me feeling good and feeling like myself, or feeling open enough to share with Josh who is my closest collaborator.

There is discipline because I do wake up and do this every day, but I'm at a point right now where it doesn't always feel like working. My association with working in the past was so strenuous, but now it’s just about being alive and observing. As a writer, as I'm sure you also know, what makes the best writing is how good you are at watching and how good you are at observing. 

That's some big wisdom. In many of your videos you mention julipcore. Am I pronouncing it right? Like tulip?

Yeah, like tulip. My name is Jewel Posniak, and so it's like Jewel P. enunciated. I think my friend Troy, who plays guitar in my band, came up with it.

That’s quite clever, a way to still be you, but also not you. So, what is julipcore?

No one's ever asked me this before. Currently there's no mood board. It's just something I see in my head, but some recurring themes are a little spiral or a star, the color pink. I think a lot of it I associate with femininity in some way.

But this is also just starting for me, so I have lots to figure out.

How does that feel for you? Especially as you’re already touring with some cool names.

I think I just feel like a lot of people who are artistic and who have a vision want it to be perfect out the gate. And I think I accepted pretty early that it was going to have to be something that evolves over time, not only on the budget side, but to be able to execute things artistically. 

As an actual artist I was aware when I put out my very first song, that there is a large gap between where my taste is and where my talent is. And it's going to be a continuous process of learning how to close that over time. I think that the fact that there's any music out at all for julip is a really great thing because my manager, Corey, has to push me a lot to keep going and releasing. I’m super lucky to have him as my teammate. 

What makes you really eyecatching is this technology you've created called julip++. It lets you change the effect of your voice using just your hands. You mentioned that you literally conceived it and in two days you had something that you could show. What were those 2 days like?

I think I had this era of my life where I was aware that I contained this unique intersection of skill sets and I had something to say and offer, but I couldn't quite figure out what the physical manifestation of all of these things swirling around in my head was. I had this thing that I call my hatch where I decided to be happy every day and be action oriented when the right thing comes up. I actually had plans the night that I had come up with the idea for julip++ and I cancelled them, I didn’t waste a second. 

I think what it started with was that I knew I was going to need. So, either to train or find a model that could recognize hands and gestures. 

Like computer vision?

Yes! There are a lot of open source things - I really do love the community that computer science is, it's really special. Then, I had to figure out a way to trigger MIDI, so I made the gestures of the hand into landmarks or coordinates that would trigger it. For example, when this finger's above this one, then that’s this gesture. There's definitely smarter ways to do gesture recognition other than sheer landmark comparison, but this is how I started it!

Do you have to recode it every time you want to do a new cover or song? 

Yeah, so, I actually do change the code quite a lot and I also have a few different versions of it. Sometimes holding a gesture will do something different than just changing a gesture. It's good to be able to tailor it a little bit, but yeah, the code is quite straightforward. 

Do you sometimes forget what gesture you have to do? 

Yeah, usually I like to practice a few times to be sure. I like to mark down little reminders on my Ableton to help me.

You will also open julip++ up to the world so that others can use it.

I've always wanted to be a founder. I think I know my core desires and what my trunk and branches are, as far as the fig tree analogy goes. I grew up in a very supportive environment so, I hope I can bring light to those that don't necessarily have that because I know there's a lot of people that don't. 

Especially, maybe if you can't play an instrument or you're not either physically or just mentally there yet.

Yeah. I feel like it's my dream to be able to adapt this for accessibility as an accessibility tool. I'm working on securing a patent for it as well. I think that it will likely start very bare bones and hopefully be able to grow over the course of time. I definitely am very busy with working on a lot of new Julip music and a few other investments so, I think it's going to take time.

As a creative technologist, producer, musician, voiceover, actress and computer scientist, do you have any advice for other multi-hyphenates?

I started off with a music and math/coding interest, and I felt like it was something that I had to avoid. Your unique voice is formed by the intersection of all these things, you know? And so,it's kind of cliche, but leaning into what makes you unique rather than pulling away from it is important. I think in the beginning, I was almost a little bit cowardice with how I was trying to approach the project because I just wanted to fit into a certain spot rather than forge something new. It can require a lot of bravery to like to lean into that, but the reward is that you never have to fake anything.

Again with the fig tree analogy and the concept of only being able to pick one fig, I think that’s very limiting and it doesn’t always have to be the case.

As you said earlier, how you know your trunk. So it's like, you're not the fig, you're the tree. 

Exactly. Be a tree girl! Don't be a fig, don’t pick a fig, just be a tree! 

New mantra! Sonically, what’s kind of the difference between you making music at home vs touring it? 

I think that the four-piece, rock vibe live set that I've been doing for the past few years was birthed out of the kind of music I was making at the very beginning. The first show I remember, we played underneath a parking garage in Bushwick many moons ago. There's only two of those songs on Spotify, there's a ton of my Google Drive, which has more indie rock kind of vibes. The Florida environment and the crush I had at the time really influenced me. 

I remember one time that as a diss, this guy said to me “If you want to make commercial pop, like, just make commercial pop." And I was like, You know what? I actually would love to make commercial pop, I love pop. We had a show last month with Susanna Joffe and that was kind of the retiring of the four piece rock band.

So, now it's going to change to be more electronic and producer heavy. A lot of it is me in bed with my laptop on my chest, pushing buttons. So when I'm touring, I typically just take my laptop with me because right now it’s easier to tour this way. But I think my ideal setup will be more ambitious in the future. Doing more hands, doing live looping, live producing,etc.

I love that! How about singing?

I have this female producer thing going, but I'm also really honed in on songwriting. The last little run that I did with Carol Ades was really special because I got to bring my guitar and I could just play something acoustic. I think that's a special way for people to really hear the songwriting, not just the producing, which is really important to me.

Who are your OnesToWatch?

My friend Ryann Ross. She's really underground, but she works on some julip stuff as well. And I just think her solo work is so compelling and she has an incredible voice. I'm so lucky to get to collaborate with her. I think every once in a while in the music industry, you meet people and you hear their work, and you just immediately know that they have it, and they're gonna make it. And I feel that way about Ryann.

That’s beautiful! Thank you so much for a lovely interview and have a lot of fun on the rest of the tour.

Thank you so much, this was really nice!

Listen to julip here: