A bone-white can named LOPE, a black hare cut as a wood engraving on its label, its ears up and its coat raised, standing in a charcoal-grey studio under one long soft light; the label reads LOPE, SMOOTH ENERGY, YUZU, 355 ML · 12 FL OZ

Lope

A hare that notices you.

Work — Drinks in cans

One second. It has noticed you.

Everything on this page happens inside that second. I made Lope in 2026 to show what I do — it’s on no shelf, and nobody’s client.

A hare sits still all day.

The fastest animal in the field spends the day awake in a shallow dip in the grass, and runs only when something comes too near. Bewick cut one running, in wood, in 1790; Lope is cut the same way, a white line out of black.

Thomas Bewick’s hare, a wood engraving of 1790 printed on a page of A General History of Quadrupeds: a hare at full stretch along a grassy bank, cut as white lines out of black

The Hare Thomas Bewick, wood engraving, 1790. This impression 1824, Wellcome Collection

Lope’s hare at rest as printed on the can: a dark green hare sitting upright, its coat cut in fine bone-white lines

Lope, at rest the can’s own print, 2026

Four drinks. One lamp.

I lit all four the same way and watched. Three put on a show. One looked back.

The screen test: four cans filmed one after another in the same dark studio, each on the same tape mark under the same light, one camera, each take slated in chalk on a board reading SCREEN TEST, MOS, ROLL 1, SCENE 1, TAKE 1 and the drink’s name. LOPE, SMOOTH ENERGY, YUZU: its hare with both ears up. MATINEE, THE SECOND WIND, BLOOD ORANGE: a paper showman taking his bow inside a sun of cut rays. EARLY, GREEN TEA ENERGY, FOR THE FIRST HOUR, BERGAMOT: a riso valley with a small sun just over the ridge. STARLING, STEADY ENERGY, IN NUMBERS, BLACKCURRANT: a halftone flock lifting off the can

The screen test Lope, Matinee, Early, Starling. One mark, one lamp, one camera, 2026

What it says on its side.

SMOOTH ENERGY

L-THEANINE · NO CRASH

Printed on the can Lope, 2026

Its coat, that second.

Up fast when it notices you. Held. Then down, slowly.

The coat, recorded: one white line scratched through soot, flat while the lamp comes on, then up fast when the hare notices, with a small shoulder as the front of the coat rises first, held a moment, then down in a long slow curve to rest; under it the lamp’s signal steps once beside the word LAMP, and the time is pricked every fifth of a second, 1/5 SEC; scratched by hand along the top: LOPE, THE COAT and 4.X.26

The coat, recorded smoked paper on a turning drum, from the lamp to the settle; the time in fifths of a second, 2026

Lope at rest again in its studio, the coat lain down, its ears still up

Yours next.

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