Steve Sacks founded bitforms in New York in November 2001, at a time when digital art was getting attention among the contemporary art institutions in the USA as well as Europe. Major exhibitions held that same year, such as Bitstreams and Data Dynamics at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and 010101: Art in Technological Times at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art were particularly inspirational for him.
Photo: Joanna Holloway
The name of the gallery (always spelled in lowercase) merges the words “bit”, understood as a basic unit of information, and “forms”, referring to any art form, as a statement of its commitment to art and technology. At 529 West 20th Street, the gallery was initially located in the heart of Chelsea, the epicenter of New York’s art scene. In 2005, bitforms opened a second gallery in Seoul, but the market for new media art was still far from consolidated, and this space closed its doors in 2007. In 2014, after thirteen years on a first-floor space in Chelsea, bitforms relocated to a ground-floor property on the Lower East Side.
Over two decades, bitforms has achieved an influential position in the contemporary art market as a gallery devoted to digital art, participating in major art fairs and representing some of the most recognized artists in this field, such as Manfred Mohr, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Casey Reas, Quayola, Auriea Harvey, Refik Anadol, Gary Hill, Claudia Hart, Beryl Korot, Marina Zurkow, Daniel Canogar, Daniel Rozin, Siebren Versteeg and many others. On the occasion of the third series of Niio Commissions, which was curated by Sacks, we sat down with the gallerist to discuss his views on the development of the contemporary art market and the role that digital art is now playing in it.
Installation view: Manfred Mohr: A Formal Language. bitforms gallery, New York, 2019.
How would you compare the general awareness of digital art when you opened your gallery in 2001, and today?
In 2001 there were things happening in the art world and underground scenes, but media art was not accessible or exposed as it is today. There is no comparison. Today it is now mainstream, thanks to three letters, NFT.
Installation view: Claudia Hart, When A Rose is Not a Rose. bitforms gallery, New York, 2011
The initial statement of the gallery read: “bitforms will position digital art as an influential and innovative art form that is evolving and warrants recognition.” Would you say that you have achieved this goal?
The goal of the gallery from the beginning was to present artworks from all generations of artists that were experimenting with media. It took a few years, but we were able to build a diverse stable of artists, each having a voice and a vision tied to their generation. History was essential. We purposefully worked with artists of historical significance to enhance the credibility of the younger generation of artists and the genre itself.
“The introduction of software art through our program was one of the more significant moments at the gallery. Generative, interactive and immersive art opened up innovative ways of creating, experiencing and appreciating art.”
In your gallery, and in collaboration with your artists, you have developed methods for selling digital art, and particularly software art. What was your experience with these formats?
The introduction of software art through our program was one of the more significant moments at the gallery. Generative, interactive and immersive art opened up innovative ways of creating, experiencing and appreciating art. As with video and photography before, there was apprehension and doubt about the validity and credibility of using technological media to create works of art. Today, software or generative art is among the most popular art being purchased today. The use of software in the creation of art has expanded conceptually and revealed many new art forms using digital technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI), to name a few. None of these artistic practices would be possible without the mastery of code.
Installation view: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Voice Array. bitforms gallery, New York, 2012.
Twenty years ago, you envisioned the possibility of collectors having a dedicated screen for digital art and experiencing a rotating collection of artworks. Do you see our present moment as the right time for this vision?
Very early on I felt people would have screens in their homes devoted to media art. The idea of having a single location with a curated selection of works was necessary in order for the medium to thrive. Of course NIIO has a similar vision which is why I chose to work with them from the start. There were no tools at the time that allowed for the collection and management of media art, and my collectors were demanding it. Today, with the massive popularity of NFTs, millions of people are now aware of media art and many are looking for elegant ways to present their works. Screens have also come down in price, gotten larger and have greatly improved their resolution. It’s a very good moment for media art to enter the “art” dialogue for the masses.
Installation view: Casey Reas + Jan St. Werner. Alchemical. bitforms gallery, New York, 2021
Over the last two decades, bitforms has become a beacon of digital art in the contemporary art market. In your experience, has the position of galleries devoted to digital art changed in the contemporary art market?
I would say over the past 10 years we have seen the integration of media artists into mainstream galleries, and in the past few years there have been others more devoted to media art. Also, museums began to witness the popularity of media art installations drawing large crowds across many generations. Again, when the NFT explosion occurred there was a much broader audience that became very curious about how they could purchase and live with non-traditional art forms.
Installation view: Refik Anadol. Quantum. bitforms gallery, New York, 2021
In 2021, you launched bit.art to showcase NFT drops by your artists in an online platform. Did you create this space as a reaction to the endless thumbnail grids offered by NFT marketplaces? What is your opinion about how NFTs are commonly displayed and curated?
When NFTs started to show up everywhere, the gallery needed to take a stance. We were unhappy with how people were defining quality media art and how little was known about its context and history. The majority of NFT platforms gave no context, they were just marketplaces, primarily focused on buying and flipping. No emotional attachments. No conceptual rigor. It was all about the money. Which is fine to a degree, but not when the entire basis of NFT/digital art was to define a new type of commodity to be traded, not appreciated or intellectually challenging.
“Niio gives my artists more exposure and it’s much easier for collectors to view and manage their artworks”
bit.art tried to connect with how artists conceived the presentation of their work, both on a cultural and market level. The site never really succeeded financially, but we needed to make a stance and present our views of this nascent marketplace. Things are changing. More artists are creating serious work and thinking about presentation, and more collectors are excited about the art instead of just looking to flip artworks quickly and make a profit.
Installation view: Beryl Korot, Selected Video Works: 1977 to Present. bitforms gallery, New York, 2012
Niio has recently launched its third series of commissioned artworks with artists represented by bitforms. Can you tell us briefly what you find interesting about the platform?
I have very much enjoyed curating on the NIIO platform. It gives my artists more exposure and it’s much easier for collectors to view and manage their artworks. As I said earlier, there is no other platform in the market that gives artists and collectors this type of control and freedom.
Katie Torn’s work explores the female figure in a world shaped by digital technology and obsession with self-image boosted by social media and consumer culture. She uses 3D graphics and video to build assemblages of natural and artificial elements that question the boundaries between beauty and decay, body and prosthesis, organic and synthetic, and between a person’s own self and the image she creates of herself.
In the series Dream Flower, composed of two artworks commissioned by Niio, the artist draws inspiration from Victorian-era botanical drawings and the work of Mary Blair in the animated fantasy film Alice in Wonderland, produced by Walt Disney in 1951, to create the portraits of two exotic flowers with female-like features. In this interview, she elaborates on the connections between these characters and the ways women have had their bodies shaped by aesthetic stereotypes, as well as the contradictory beauty of decaying matter.
Most of your artworks, including Dream Flower I and Dream Flower II, exhibit female figures. Could you please elaborate on your interest and explorations of representing women through your works?
Like many digital artists my background is in painting. I studied classical figure painting as a teenager and spent many hours in museums studying the “Old Masters”, male painters whose subject was often the female form. I was taught that light falls on the female body the same way light falls on a still life of a bowl of fruit. How I create my animations and digital paintings is informed by my study of the history of painting. I compose my works much like a 20th century painter who is responding to classical painting, starting with a figure as a central subject in relation to a picture plane and then fragmenting the form to create an abstraction. In my work I use virtual space and digital tools to break down the figure. I wouldn’t say the figures in my work are women. They are creatures that have attributes that are female-like, but they also have attributes of plants, animals and inanimate objects.
Katie Torn, Dream Flower I, 2022.
“I was taught that light falls on the female body the same way light falls on a still life of a bowl of fruit.”
In your artworks we find references to Victorian drawings, as well as dolls and children’s toys. Which connections would you draw between that time and our present consumer culture?
My animations Dream Flower I and Dream Flower II were specifically inspired by Victorian botanical drawings of flower arrangements. I came across a few prints in my Great-grandmother’s apartment and noticed how they were composed almost like portraits of flowers with a large bulb situated in the middle of the arrangement like a human head. Many of the toys I use are virtual models either scavenged online or physical objects found at thrift stores and not tied to any specific era. What I do find interesting from the Victorian era is the way the fashion from the time distorted the female body almost like a physical filter. At that time corsets and bustles were used to sculpt the female form to fit an imagined ideal, in present consumer culture we use photoshop, filters and now AI to create imagined versions of ourselves.
“What I do find interesting from the Victorian era is the way the fashion from the time distorted the female body almost like a physical filter”
In your work, there is an interplay between the apparent desire to please and the eerie quality of the scene. Would you relate this to our exposure to mass media and advertising?
In my work I like to use the tools of advertising such as slick 3D renderings, photoshop and liquid simulations to entice viewers and pull them into my world. The story I am telling is about a human trying to adapt to an environment that is in decay where the physical and virtual world are colliding and creating a hybrid like a newborn cyborg trying to function.
Can we interpret in these works a reference to the submissive roles given to women in conservative societies, from the Victorian era to Post-War America and up to the present?
I wouldn’t say that, no. The female-like creatures in my work are like goddesses. They are in control of their own ecosystems.
“The female-like creatures in my work are like goddesses. They are in control of their own ecosystems”
Katie Torn, Dream Flower II, 2022.
You have mentioned that in some of your artworks there is a strong influence of the work of Mary Blair. What inspiration do you take from Blair’s work and life?
I love Mary Blair’s unexpected color combinations on the work she did for Disney in the 1950’s. Specifically in Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella, her art direction added a moody quality and sophistication to the animation.Since I was making creatures that were botanical for Dream Flower I and Dream Flower II I decided to rewatch the flower scene in Alice in Wonderland for inspiration.
An interesting concept in your work is the use of waste, both by incorporating disused objects, elements that are constantly dripping or falling apart, and by depicting wastelands. What do you find interesting in this concept?
Destruction and decay is fighting but it can also be beautiful on a purely aesthetic level. Like watching a forest fire from your computer screen. It is awful and heart breaking but can be watched slightly removed like an explosion in an action film. My work stems from the ironies we see in industrial disasters in nature like the most beautiful pink sunset that is caused by pollution or being awestruck by the colorful beauty in an oil spill.
Lately, you have been involved in the NFT space. Can you please share some of your insights of this new context of creation, dissemination, and commercialization of digital artworks?
I have been making short format looping video animations for years and have always struggled to find a place for them in the art and film world. They aren’t long enough to play at a festival and the lack of physicality made it impossible to really sell them at art fairs. NFTs legitimized the format. Physical objects like painting and sculpture have always been tied to money. It makes sense that digital currency would have its own digital art version. It’s been great to see digital artists who’ve careers I’ve followed for years finally being able to make a living off their works.
“My work stems from the ironies we see in industrial disasters in nature like the most beautiful pink sunset that is caused by pollution or being awestruck by the colorful beauty in an oil spill”
The boom of the NFT market has decisively impacted the contemporary art market since, in 2021, Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses launched successful sales of digital artworks minted as NFT and offered in cryptocurrencies. A year later, despite the ups and downs of cryptocurrencies, the market for art in digital format with NFT certification continues to consolidate and progressively enters the scope of the most recognized galleries on the international contemporary art scene. In this context, it is worth asking: what do NFTs bring to art collecting? What trends can be traced in the future of the contemporary art market?
Invited by Art Palma Contemporani, the contemporary art galleries association in Palma, I curated a panel talk on September 16th, in which several experts presented their analysis of the current situation of the art market and NFTs and outlined future perspectives.
Panel participants. Left to right: Pau Waelder, Valérie Hasson-Benillouche, Wolf Lieser, Anna Carreras, and Mario Klingemann. Photo: Grimalt de Blanc, 2022.
Valérie Hasson-Benillouche: “NFTs have brought a different kind of collector”
Valérie Hasson-Benillouche is the owner of Galerie Charlot. She opened the gallery in Paris in 2010 and then a second gallery in Tel Aviv in 2017. The gallery represents a wide range of artists working with digital art, such as Antoine Schmitt, Eduardo Kac, Lauren Moffatt, Laurent Mignonneau & Christa Sommerer, Louis-Paul Caron, Manfred Mohr, Nicolas Sassoon, Quayola, and Sabrina Ratté.
2022 is a key moment for your gallery entering the NFT market with the participation in the Unvirtual Art Fair in February and then the launch of your own NFT platform. What is the reception you are getting from your collectors regarding NFTs? Are NFTs helping you reach out to new collectors?
I opened the gallery about 10 years ago, so at this point my clients have already 10 years of experiences with digital art. NFT is one part of digital art, so they became very curious and came to me and said: “what is this new art?” I have to say that it took me a while to understand it, because it is not easy, and it was a new way of collecting. So it was important to me that the curiosity of clients could be a challenge to understand what is going on, and as artists always use new technology and create new artworks with all these different systems, we really had to get into it. My clients were curious but also worried: they had read the news about NFTs, and also some bad experiences, so their curiosity was balanced with some skepticism.
I decided to mix the groups of my collectors, because you always have different kinds of collectors: the ones who are buying because they really love art, the ones who buy art to challenge themselves and show their collection to other people, and some people who just want to please themselves, sometimes. All these people are wondering what is going on around this new NFT system, so I try to explain it to them and I take the time to organize talks with artists and curators, and different people who can explain to them what is a wallet, how to open it, something very simple. I think collectors really need to be guided through these basic steps.
“It is a different approach of living with the collection: you can see it anywhere, you can share it with your friends easily. This brings a different way of buying art.”
Valérie Hasson-Benillouche
NFTs have lighten up the field of digital art. I have been in this field for years, and I find it very interesting to see that who has started creating NFTs among the artists. Eduardo Kac, who is a very classical artist working with science, technology, and art, he got into NFT. Then many people got into NFTs without understanding everything, but they just loved it. The idea was to do something different, to jump into something different. So what we decided at the gallery was to get all these people informed about what are NFTs exactly.
NFTs have brought a different kind of collector. It’s a challenge, because it is a different currency, it’s immaterial, so it is a different philosophy of collecting, and it is also connected to the way that people are living. Certain people are moving a lot, traveling everywhere, but they like to have their collection with them. They like to share the collection, they like to show the collection. So it is a different approach of living with the collection: you can see it anywhere, you can share it with your friends easily. This brings a different way of buying art.
You have collaborated with luxury brands such as Hermés in several artistic projects. Do you see an interest from these brands in art NFTs?
I’ve been working with luxury brands for a couple of years, especially with Hermés, as well as Audemars Piguet, Shiseido, and many others. Luxury brands really love to work with art and artists, this has been so for a long time. Digital art is part of the way they work with artists. So the challenge is always for any kind of artworks to find in these luxury brands the right place between marketing and art. The balance is very difficult to find, and it is not easy for an artist to work with a luxury brand, so digital art was the place to be because these brands have to be on the edge of super top technology and new things happening, because clients always ask for new experiences. So digital art was something very normal to get into. Artists try to find their place, in an artistic way.
Luxury brands are very interested and they have already dived into NFT, but for the moment it is more in the marketing and publicity side than in the art side. I am sure it will change, but they have to find the right moment and the right artists.
Screenshot of Galerie Charlot’s new NFT marketplace, to be opened in October 2022.
What type of work will we find in the new Galerie Charlot NFT marketplace?
We are still working on the marketplace, it will open on the 29th of October with several auctions. But the main thing is to curate digital art in NFT, because when you go to these different NFT marketplaces, you can find so many different kinds of images, I don’t say art, but image and video. It is not easy for a collector to go to these huge marketplaces because there is so much content which is not art. Other marketplaces like Feral File are very professional. The marketplace of the gallery will be a curation of the artists I’m working with, with special artworks that can be bought through auction or through the marketplace in Tezos.
We are not having a specific target on a specific art, but just to present art. I think artists love that: to be in small team, a very specific area of digital art, and it’s a big challenge because you have to bring a community: NFT is also a community of people and it is very important to be part of that community. I’m just listening to what is happening around and following the artists, who are adopting new technologies really fast and expressing their creativity in different ways. We are living in an incredible era, and we must be up to date, all the time.
Wolf Lieser: “what I really like about NFTs is the attention to generative art”
One of the most veteran gallerists in this field, Wolf Lieser opened in 1998 his first gallery devoted to digital art, Colville Place Gallery in London. That same year he created with Mike King the Digital Art Museum (DAM), one of the first online spaces devoted to the history of digital art. In 2003, he opened the DAM Gallery in Berlin, followed by spaces in Cologne (2010) and Frankfurt (2013).
In 2005 he created the DAM Digital Art Award to celebrate the work of digital art pioneers, and since 2006 he runs a public art program in a large screen at Postdamerplatz in Berlin. Recently rebranded DAM Projects, his gallery continues to support digital art. DAM represents some of the most celebrated digital artists, from pioneers to young creators such as Arno Beck, Eelco Brand, Vuk Cosic, Driessens & Verstappen, Herbert W. Franke, Carla Gannis, Jean-Pierre Hèbert, Eduardo Kac, Mario Klingemann, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnar, Frieder Nake, Casey Reas, Anna Ridler, Sommerer & Mignonneau, Tamiko Thiel, Roman Verostko, and Addie Wagenknecht
Your decision to leave NFT sales directly to artists is quite unusual. What led you to it?
That was the result of many considerations. Of course, I got involved right away, because I’m working in this field since 30 years, so when this whole NFT thing happened, I was approached by different agencies which came up, and there was so much money around, and they wanted to sell and consult on NFTs, but I’m still a rather small gallery, so I have many activities going on. For me it was not a priority to get involved. It is important to understand that NFTs is a technology that certifies the ownership of digital art, but digital art I’m selling since 30 years. That has not changed: what we are selling here, which are NFTs, has been sold in a different way before. I sell software pieces since more than 25 years. So, I felt that it was not such an urge to get involved. I saw how Casey Reas made a fantastic career in this field, also Mario [Klingemann], and some of the artists have been extremely successful getting directly involved with NFTs because they are professionals in this field, they know enough about coding, they know enough about the technology, so they actually didn’t need me at all! There was no reason for me that I felt I needed to step in.
DAM Project’s Website announcing the gallery’s position on NFTs.
My position now, and that’s why I made a statement on the website, that I won’t be directly involved… of course I will make shows with artists who produce NFTs and we will sell the NFTs as well. But an aspect which I really like about this whole development, and it has affected my activity as well, is the attention to generative art. Generative art is an artwork which is software based and continuously changes on the screen, so it is an artwork that never repeats. That was a challenge to some people when they started to realize that. People are realizing now in a broader scale, especially younger people, what a fantastic field it is, how much it has to do with our culture of the 21st Century. This technology is affecting us every day, and there are very interesting and clever artists, like Mario and Casey, and others, who are picking that up and creating art with it, that makes us realize what kind of potential is in there.
“We need a world with much less material art, and much more generative”
Wolf Lieser
This whole NFT boom has brought about young collectors which have approached me because I represent the history of digital art since the 1960s, and I know all of the pioneers. The young collectors have realized there is a history of 60-70 years, and they have gotten into it. It is another approach, and as Valérie has said, and I love this approach, you have your collection with you, and you take it out and you put it on a screen. This kind of non-materiality is very important. We need a world with much less material art, and much more generative.
You have worked with the pioneers of digital art. Now that the NFT scene is looking for “OGs,” auction houses include artworks by these artists in their NFT sales, is this attention to the history of digital art misdirected, or do you see positive signs in it?
That is not so easy to answer, because in the last two years this field was so broad, and anybody who looked into digital art as form as NFT saw a lot of bad art. It was ridiculous. Specially, if you have experience, there were easy effects in JPEGs sold for enormous amounts, which if you were familiar with art you could say “how could you spend money on this?” But people did. And of course these people were not that much informed.
That is now getting to a normal level, and people are now starting to understand what other people have done before. If someone has created a concept, 30 years before and created it over a longer period, and suddenly a young artist comes around and does the same thing with a new technology, this is not very creative. You should know your history, you should know where it is all coming from. So it is helping to make history more broadly available, but it is like everything: you start to drink wine, you have to learn about wine. If you drink your first glass of wine you don’t understand the differences, and similarly in art you have to see a lot to understand what you are seeing. Then you develop your own taste and what you really love about it. Of course, the first painting I bought, I don’t want to look at it again.
In many of your exhibitions you have presented plotter drawings by pioneers and younger artists. Is it possible that now that we have so much digital, there is also a renewed value in having a physical artwork?
Just to clarify, pen plotters are drawing machines, they are not printers. The code is very different, they actually draw a line. At the beginning they were the only medium to present something on paper, but they faded out after 2000. They were not built anymore because inkjet printers were much cheaper. But in recent years, artists have become interested in plotter drawings again because of its tactile quality, the sensation of a real drawing on paper. And they have constructed their own pen plotters, so there is quite a scene that has developed around plotter drawings, which I address in the show that I have recently curated at DAM Projects, Remote Control. But these artists do NFTs as well, so it is one medium besides others. I think we will always have both.
DAM Digital Art Award recognizes the lifetime achievements of pioneering artists with a monetary prize and a retrospective exhibition in a museum.
In your long career, you have seen several moments in which digital seemed to be “coming of age.” Do you think this is the right time for digital art to finally be recognized as contemporary art?
It is happening, definitely. The early pioneers, such as Vera Molnar, an old lady of 98 years now, she is in the collections of MoMA, TATE, Pompidou, Victoria and Albert, many many institutions. So it is happening on this institutional level as well, although on a rather small scale. There are not very big collections yet. It’s a bit of a pity, because many of the good pieces are disappearing in private collections. But there is definitely much more attention to digital art than ever before.
Anna Carreras: “I create artworks that do not exist until someone buys them”
Anna Carreras is a creative coder and digital artist with two degrees in Engineering and Media Studies. She teaches coding in several design schools and has been awarded with the Cannes Golden Lion for Interactive Projects (2010) and Google DevArt (2014), among others. She has created interactive installations at Cosmocaixa, Expo Zaragoza, Forum Barcelona 2004, Sónar Innovation Challenge 2016, MIRA Visual Arts Festival, and the Mobile Art Week.
You have presented and sold your work in two very influential NFT platforms, Feral File and ArtBlocks. Can you explain the process of creation and sale in each of them?
I’m the one doing generative art, the kind of art where we use the algorithms to ask the computer to draw what we want to create. The images are generated the moment you are seeing them, so it’s not a video, it’s not an animation, it’s not something that goes in a loop. The computer is running the algorithm and drawing something for you in that precise moment. As we are introducing some randomness in that algorithm, you are seeing something with the aesthetic that we want to create, but it is something unique: I cannot reproduce that moment of my art piece, it’s gone and it will never come again. It is like a video that is running but it will never be repeated.
Anna Carreras, Arrels (2021). Generative artwork.
There are two types of generative art: as artists we can choose what to sell. Arrels is a moving image that is constantly changing, and will never repeat, I think in some 6 billion years, so we can say never. This was a series of 75 pieces which are the same, so you can run the piece at your home, but another collector will have the same piece, with the same aesthetics, but looking slightly different because it is running in another unique way. In Trossets, I chose for the collectors to have a snapshot, so the series is 1,000 different Trossets which are all unique, but they are static, they do not move, change or evolve. You have a snapshot, which you can print if you like.
Flyer announcing the drop of Trossets (2021)
Trossets is long form generative art: an algorithm that generates the artwork is uploaded to the blockchain and returns a different visual composition every time it is run. As an artist, I created the algorithm but I don’t know which compositions it will create. When you buy the artwork, you run the program and get something that is generated in that particular moment and that is unique. So we just upload the code, and instead of running infinitely, you get a snapshot of a moment of that generative art piece, but that snapshot will be unique. In this case I was inspired by the Mediterranean landscape, by the white façades of houses covered in crimson buganvillea, the seaside, the olive trees, and even paella. I wanted to bring aspects of my environment and culture to a series of abstract generative drawings. Inspiration is everywhere!
“Artists were not used to talking to collectors, and it is something that I am enjoying a lot, because it is part of building this community that has emerged around digital art and NFTs.”
Anna Carreras
You know the aesthetics that are behind the collection, so you have a flavor of what it will be about, but you collect the artwork blindly, because it is in the moment that you collect that the algorithm creates that unique piece for you. My mother was a little bit skeptic, she said: “how can people buy something without knowing what they are buying?” Maybe that’s the part that you have to deal with, with some collectors, but if you trust the artist and you like her work and the concept behind the collection, then it can be even more special, because actually by buying an artwork you are contributing to create the series: the artworks do not exist until someone buys them. Trossets consists of a total of 1,000 artworks that were generated as collectors bought them, in a span of forty-five minutes.
I have a connection with some collectors, because we are asked to share our work for some exhibitions, and I ask the collectors their permission to do so. I consider that the artworks are no longer mine, they belong to the collectors who bought them. We have a nice relationship, they have a lot of feedback, they have ideas, it’s worth sharing that with them. I think that artists were not used to talking to collectors, and it is something that I am enjoying a lot, because it is part of building this community that has emerged around digital art and NFTs.
Snapshot of an article published in the Spanish newspaper El País. The headline reads: “Digital artist Anna Carreras and the NFT bubble: «OMG, I never thought I would make millions with this.»”
Articles like this one from El País (photo above) focus on the narrative of big sales in the NFT boom. can you comment on this narrative?
For me, this experience was awful. Many journalists, not all of them, are looking to make headlines that attract attention, and in particular in Spain we like soap operas, we like drama, and also to be envious of others. This was part of how things evolved last year, there were constantly news about spectacular sales, and I was getting calls asking me about finance and investments, which I know nothing about, because I’m an artist! After this article came out, I felt overwhelmed by the attention and I disappeared for a while.
Mario Klingemann: “the economy created on the Tezos community can support a lot more artists than just twenty superstars”
Mario Klingemann is an artist and researcher who taught himself coding in the 1980s and soon started creating his first artworks. He is known for his work with Artificial Intelligence programs, and particularly for Memories of Passersby I (2018) an AI artwork that was famously sold in March 2019 at an auction in Sotheby’s, the second to be ever sold at auction.
In 2021 he became involved in the development of the NFT community around the platform Hic et Nunc on the Tezos blockchain and has been an leading figure in this field. He has been awarded an Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2020 and the British Library LabsLumen Prize Gold 2018, among others.
You describe yourself as an artist and skeptic. What was you first reaction to the NFT boom? How did you become involved in Hic et Nunc?
The first time I encountered NFTs I was very skeptical. It was when I got ripped off! Somebody had taken one of my works and made a very bad remix and minted that on SuperRare, and that was how I saw there was something developing. But that was in 2019, and I had a closer look and found it difficult. At that time I had made my mark by selling the second artwork made with AI to go to auction at Sotheby’s, I got exhibitions and I made myself a name in the contemporary art world. And then came this field were initially there were only outsider artists, rebels who did not care about the art world, and actually most of the work looked that way, like something you must get used to. I saw blinking pictures and horrible kitsch and thought: “nah, this is not for me.”
So I let it rest for a while, and in early 2020, coincidentally when the pandemic started, I went to look at it again. But this time instead of trying to avoid people ripping off my work, I decided to try it myself. So I started minting under the radar, on Rarible, because it felt risky, you didn’t want your name associated with blinking gifs. But I was curious, I started minting stuff and fortunately at that time there were people in that field collecting, who knew what I was doing, so my initial mints sold very quickly. This got me more curious, because that direct experience of putting something up there and having it bought a minute later, and seeing the transaction in your wallet, that feels very good as an artist. It is undeniable that it is nice to be appreciated and actually get paid for your work.
“I started minting under the radar, on Rarible, because it felt risky, you didn’t want your name associated with blinking gifs.”
Mario Klingemann
Another issue that I always had as a digital artist, prior to NFTs, was that for me the native format of digital art is in your computer, and you had to find ways to package your art or transform it into another medium, like prints or build a whole system around it that makes it almost like an installation. The idea of just selling a digital file always felt a bit strange. I have done it: I’ve sold videos on a USB stick or so, but it felt that it was not the native way of selling digital art. Now NFTs suddenly allow that, and they allow to sell works in small resolutions, experimental stuff which was pretty much meant for the screen. After my initial skepticism, I got really curious and started doing what one is supposed to do, to become your marketer, to build your brand in this space. This is a bit alien to me, and in a way I feel that I am still doing it wrong. If you want to really be successful in the NFT space you have to swamp your followers with announcements and specials, love your collectors… I’m not doing that. This whole thing never felt natural to me.
Marketplaces like Rarible or SuperRare were not build by people who had an art background, but by coders and entrepreneurs, and in one way that was good because it was innovative and moved quick, but the whole focus was so much on selling and ranking that the art was not important. It was all about volume of sales. This didn’t feel right to me. There were also many discussions, by the end of 2020, about the ecological impact of minting NFTs in the Ethereum blockchain.
So I started looking for alternatives: there was the alternative of Proof of Stake blockchains, but there was simply no market there. Then in early 2021, Tezos added NFTs to their smart contracts, and by accident I stumbled upon a tweet where someone told about Hic et Nunc, an experimental site where you could mint your NFTs on Tezos. At that time, it was not even a marketplace, just a site that you could try out. You could upload an image and mint it for almost no money, a few cents. The whole Tezos thing was like a blank canvas at the time, it had been around for nearly as long as Ethereum, but it wasn’t as popular. It felt like a new continent, where you could start something new, with different rules.
“I think that because we started from a blank canvas, the whole community could develop in a different way than in Ethereum.”
Mario Klingemann
I tweeted about the work I had minted on Hic et Nunc, and since I had some followers, people asked to buy it, and I told them: “well, if you send me some Tezos I will mint the NFT and send it to your wallet.” So in one hour the whole edition was sold, and the fact that it was environmentally sustainable, and that Hic et Nunc was not hyped like other marketplaces, was attractive to a lot of people in my inner circle, particularly artists who had not wanted to touch NFTs, so in a few days a lot of artists with a good reputation started minting there as well. Another advantage of the Tezos cryptocurrency is that is accessible to everyone price wise. Even someone who only made, say $50 a week, could mint on Tezos. So the community developed very quickly and the beauty was that it was also experimental, and it grew organically, collecting from each other, with a very different spirit from what you could see on Ethereum. Around September 2021, the founder of Hic et Nunc, Rafael Lima, pulled the plug and erased the site, but the magical thing about NFTs is that they do not exist on that site, they exist on the blockchain, so within one or two days people built mirrors of the site, and the community moved on.
I think that because we started from a blank canvas, the whole community could develop in a different way than in Ethereum. But it is not about one being good and the other one bad. Right now, artists start in Tezos, and then if they want to make it big, they go to Ethereum. And since yesterday, Ethereum is even environmentally sustainable, too. So, we’ll see how things develop.
Screenshot of Mario Klingemann’s profile on Objkt.com
You have had a continuous collaboration with Tezos over the last year. Do you feel that the community around Tezos is becoming less “renegade” and more “conventional”, or is there still space for experimentation and a bit of a rogue spirit?
There is space for both. Right now, there is a platform in which you can mint text, so there is still breathing ground for new ideas. And at the same time, the Tezos Foundation, which has a DAO structure, seems to be doing things for the right reasons. So far, I’ve had good experiences with them, and they do not seem to try to push things in a certain direction, they just provide possibilities to people. Anyone can apply to the Tezos Foundation with a project and get a grant if it is approved by a majority. They are also present at Art Basel, spreading this idea that on Tezos you can find real art. How they present the art, it seems closer to how it is displayed in the contemporary art world.
Also, it is not true that everything is cheap, so I think it can be a space for artists to build a reputation and also make money. FxHash has become the de facto platform for generative art and whilst the single pieces might be affordable, if you sum it up, there is a decent amount to be made. Also, I feel like focusing on mega sales is not the way to go, because if one artist takes, let’s say a million dollars, that money is gone out of the cycle, while on Tezos you have this circular economy where artists earn money from their NFTs but are also very active in collecting from other artists. This can support a lot more people than just twenty superstars.
A multifaceted artist, Yoshi Sodeoka creates a wide range of audiovisual artistic works that include video art, animated gifs, music videos, and editorial illustrations. Influenced from an early stage in his career in noise music and glitch art, as well as avant garde movements such as Op Art, his work is characterized by breaking down the structure of the musical score and visual integrity of the image to find new forms of artistic expression.
A multifaceted artist, Yoshi Sodeoka creates a wide range of audiovisual artistic works that include video art, animated gifs, music videos, and editorial illustrations. Influenced from an early stage in his career in noise music and glitch art, as well as avant garde movements such as Op Art, his work is characterized by breaking down the structure of the musical score and visual integrity of the image to find new forms of artistic expression. His projects, developed individually or in close collaboration with other artists, materialize in fields as diverse as music(Psychic TV, Tame Impala, Oneohtrix Point Never, Beck, The Presets, Max Cooper), illustration (New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic, M.I.T Technology Review) fashion (Adidas, Nike), and advertising (Apple, Samsung). His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Centre Pompidou, Tate Britain, the Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Deitch Projects, La Gaîté Lyrique, the Museum of Moving Image, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Laforet Museum Harajuku.
In the following conversation, Sodeoka discusses his work and influences, focusing on the two artworks from the series Synthetic Liquidrecently commissioned by Niio.
Could you elaborate on how your background in music influences your artistic practice when creating new media artworks?
At the beginning of my abstract video art projects, music and sounds usually come first. I guess in a way, I’m trying to be a human audio visualizer. I usually start by picking up some interesting sounds that I want to work with. That could either come from a friend or from myself. It really depends on how I feel. I’ve been a long time user of Logic (a MIDI sequencer software) so I usually cook up something quick in that. I’ve always played electric guitar since a young age, and I still have a collection of synthesizers and instruments. I’ve been a big fan of experimental noise and ambient music. I am lucky to have some really talented music friends that provide me with the exact sounds I’m looking for if I’m not in the mood to do my own. Anyhow, then I would try to come up with the idea of what sort of visuals go well with that sound. Experimental/Noise music is just a perfect fit with the videos I make.
Yoshi Sodeoka, Synthetic Liquid 7, 2022.
Why are you interested in glitch and noise?
I feel that everything is broken anyway, nothing is complete. In computer glitches, something interesting happens, in terms of color and composition. I am mainly interested in these colors and shapes. For me it comes from an aesthetic reason, I am not a conceptual glitch artist. I use it for everything.
However, these particular artworks I created for the commission look more organized, with more neutral colors. It relates to how I feel about the project or what influences me at a particular time, but I really can’t tell why.
“If you depend on the programs and machines you are using, then your creative process becomes shaped by the vision of the person who made that software or those machines.”
The neo-psychedelic style of both commissioned works from your Synthetic Liquid series with its kaleidoscope of colors resembles the aesthetic used by Futurist artists in the early twentieth century, and you have also mentioned your interest in Op Art. Would you say your work relates to these avant garde movements?
Yes, to some certain extent. I like Futurism, particularly in its more abstract manifestations. And in this particular work that I’m presenting in Niio, I should say I’ve been more influenced by Op art. I like the work of Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, among others. I just like the idea of making video versions of Op art. I enjoy seeing those visual triggers: Op Art makes you question what you are seeing. The arrangement of colors and shapes make your brain think. I like the idea of trying to make animated Op Art, because when you see it your mind goes someplace else, and this is fascinating to me. When you look at a landscape, for instance, you feel calm, whereas with Op Art there is a different feeling.
Yoshi Sodeoka, Synthetic Liquid 8, 2022.
Can you tell us about your artistic process and about the different digital softwares that you use in the creation of your video works and the process of moving from analog practices to digital practices?
Sound and visuals are strongly connected. My interest in experimental noise is that it does not have a structure, which goes well with abstract videos. I have been playing music since I was 12 years old, and at the same time I studied painting. Doing both at the same time from a very young age, when I discovered video art there was no question that I wanted to do that.
I’ve used a lot of analog setups in the past. But I use less of it now. I still like a pure analog setup, but I’m just in a different phase. I like to keep it simple with fewer gears in my studio at the moment. I incorporate the ideas that I have learned from working on analog videos into the digital video-making process. One of the things that are fascinating about what I can do with analog video is video feedback. I try to simulate that in the digital setting. The exact process might be different. But the concept is the same either in analog or digital.
“I imagine that the future of computing will be more organic and fluid.”
I still have a video analog setup in my studio. For me it started to get kind of boring, and to break out of it one of the solutions was to buy more gears. I feel that the parameter is very limited because if you buy gear, then your creative process becomes shaped by the vision of the person who made that gear. I don’t like that, so I use my own video feedback technique with After Effects, which not many people do, and therefore it feels like it is my own tool and my own technique.
I also randomize a lot of elements in my audio production, working with a set of parameters. I set a tone, add notes from here to here, and allow a bit of randomness. But that’s as far as I go. I don’t use a coding environment such as PureDate to make audio compositions, but I use audio production software and randomize it, which is similar in a way.
“I like the idea of creating Op Art, because it makes you question what you are seeing”
When experiencing your works, one cannot help but think of the beginning of the creation of everything with the representation of fluids and water.
Ha, I’m not sure. When people think of computers and technologies, they don’t really think of liquids and water. Machines are always dry and hard things. But I imagine that the future of computing will be more organic and fluid. People are using liquid elements in computing and I am fascinated by it. My videos feel very organic, particularly because they have an analog component, so it is not only about zeros and ones. I want to make everything organic as much as possible. It’s not easy, but I take it as my challenge to make things look more organic.
You have recently also been active in the NFT space, could you please share your experience with us on these projects and how you imagine NFTs becoming part of the more traditional art industry as a whole?
It’s been such a crazy ride with NFTs! I’ve sold plenty of work as I’ve never had before. And I’ve made a lot of new friends, and I discovered a lot of great artists I’ve heard of before. Overall it’s been a good experience for me. But I’m not a big fanatic of it either. I’m staying pretty low-key about it. Things come and go and I have no idea where this is going, honestly. I just focus on making good art, which has always been my thing.
Quick Dive is a series of articles that offer a brief overview of a certain topic in a clear and concise manner. This article can be read in 6 minutes.
Image generated with OpenAI’s DALL-E 2
When Beeple’s famous artwork EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYSwas sold as anNFT at Christie’s on 11 March 2021 for $69.3 million, the collector Vignesh Sundaresan (a.k.a. MetaKovan) received a 21,069 x 21,069 pixels image in JPEG format. Soon after, links to download Beeple’s image began appearing on Twitter. Anyone could get a copy of the artwork and see it on their computer, but no one, except Sundaresan, could say they own it.
So, what does it mean to own an NFT?
As this example shows, the non-fungible token (NFT) is not the artwork: Beeple’s artwork (the large JPEG file) was circulating online because it is stored in a file sharing network called IPFS, which is public and accessible to anyone. The NFT is a register on the Ethereum blockchain (in this case) that points to the artwork and to the wallet of its owner. The contents of the collector’s wallet are also publicly available, and therefore anyone can check the wallet and see the artwork there.
Owning an NFT means having a proof of ownership of a digital artwork that is secured by the structure of the blockchain (it cannot be forged) and is also publicly certifiable. In a way, it can be described as a certificate of ownership chiseled in stone in a public monument. It is actually more complicated than that, but let’s stay with the idea that you own the NFT (as long as it stays in your wallet) and that the NFT is a unique register that refers to an artwork that you bought.
Larva Labs, Autoglyph (2019). Generative drawing minted as an on-chain NFT
And why isn’t the artwork inside the NFT?
It would probably be simpler if the NFT, instead of being a proof of purchase, would actually contain the artwork. In some cases, it does: these are called on-chain NFTs:
– Certain artworks are made of a few lines of code that produce a visual composition. These lines of code are added to the data that constitutes the non-fungible token, and therefore are also secured by the blockchain: the artwork (or rather the code that makes the artwork) is in this way stored permanently.
– However, not all artworks can be on-chain: the blockchain was designed to record cryptocurrency transactions, with a limited amount of information. Each register on the blockchain costs money (gas fees) and to create an NFT with the information contained in a high resolution image or video is the equivalent of numerous transactions, which entail much higher costs.
For this reason, most NFTs are off-chain, which means that, as in the case of Beeple’s JPEG, the image is stored somewhere online, and the NFT points to it.
Auriea Harvey, The Mystery [v5-dv1] (2021). Digital sculpture and downloadable files.
What you get when you buy an NFT is not always the same
Since Beeple’s NFT made the headlines, the market for NFTs has moved fast and creators have come up with increasingly diverse and imaginative ways of selling their artworks as digital images or videos, software, prints and sculptures, and even performance pieces.
To name a few, these are some of the things you can get when you buy an NFT:
(1) An image or a video stored on the IPFS network that you and anyone can download.
(2) The same as above, only the file on the IPFS network is in low resolution and you get access to a high resolution version that only you can download.
(3) A code-based artwork stored on the IPFS network that runs on its own data or takes data from somewhere else. Sometimes you cannot download the artwork, just run it on your browser, and it may stop working at some point.
(4) A virtual sculpture in the form of an image or video, alongside the file that you can download in order to 3D print a physical version of the sculpture.
(5) A code-based artwork that changes according to certain rules embedded in the NFT’s smart contract. These rules can include, for instance, that the artwork changes over time, or that it changes if another artwork is bought, or that it ceases to exist if the NFT is not transferred to another wallet after a certain amount of time.
(6) An artwork that was generated the moment you bought it by a program set to run a pre-defined number of times (e.g. 50-1,000 times). Your artwork is then unique but part of a limited series of similar artworks. The image you bought may be available in a similar way as (1) or (2).
(7) An artwork that grants access to other things, such as downloadable files, a Discord server, a club membership, or anything the creators have come up with.
With so many different possibilities, it is advisable to find out what you will get with that NFT you are willing to buy. The information that is made available to collectors varies from marketplace to marketplace, and even from one artist and project to another in the same marketplace.
Most simply assume that what you see is what you get: the image or video that caught your eye is what you will own, plain and simple. Even then, you should check whether the artwork is unique or part of a limited edition. When there is something more than what you see, read the description carefully and find out what else is there, maybe some downloadable content or conditions attached to the ownership of the artwork.
The platform Feral File offers detailed information about the what the artwork is and what the collector will receive.
What to do once you bought the NFT
If you really like the artwork you bought, there are two main concerns you should take into account: how to view the artwork, and how to preserve it.
– Preserving a copy of the artwork is more important than you may think. Resources such as IPFS may always be there, or they may not, and the file could get lost. Preservation is a concern to NFT creators, and this is why solutions such as on-chain NFTs are being developed. Until there is a better way to preserve artworks minted as NFTs, the best option is to go to the IPFS link and download the file, and also download any files made available by the marketplace or the creator. Where you store those files is up to you: you can put them in a USB stick inside a sock under your mattress, or use a cloud-based storage.
– If you love the artwork, you will want to see it. The marketplace grid is not a proper place for an artwork, nor is it the web browser (unless it was created for this space). The artwork needs a screen, certainly, but a dedicated screen. Currently marketplaces do not offer tools to view your NFTs outside of the browser, so it is up to each collector to find a way to properly display the artworks they own.
Niio offers a solution for both of these issues. You can sync your wallet to your account and automatically access the artworks you have bought, which you can copy to your personal space in a cloud-based storage system. Once the artworks are added to your account, you can easily display them on any screen using the Niio app.
The NFT market has experienced a fast-paced development in just a year and a half and still needs to consolidate practices, formats, and standards. In the meantime, collecting NFTs will continue to require finding out exactly what one is buying, and using smart tools to preserve and display the art.
This interview is part of a series of three editorial articles that dive deeper into the different software, technicalities, and processes that go into creating digital artworks, in order to offer our readers a deeper understanding of digital art as a medium.
We speak to Eric Lerner as part of a collaboration with Render Studio, a collective creative experimentation for a digital reality. Render Studio is inspired by art, design, nature and technology and aims to explore dimensions of virtuality, interactivity and motion. Eric Lerner’s series Tokonomais featured on Niio this month.
Eric Lerner is a new media artist, animation director and professor at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design where he teaches art and animation for video games.
Part of your artistic practice deals with 3D animation. Could you give us an in-depth analysis of this digital art technique? Where do you see 3D animation going in the next five years?
3D animation or CGI animation refers to many different techniques and values but often will have similarity within the use of virtual “polygons” to calculate and produce an image. This constantly evolving technical practice has seen use in practically every modern art form; from film to games, graphic design to art. It is an extremely wide and flexible field of techniques that can produce a limitless variety of different styles, therefore It is difficult to lay clear borders or boundaries to 3D as an art form.
For me, the ability to create realistic looking imagery of physically impossible scenarios is where the true power and interest lays. This has of course been in use for cinema and VFX for many years but the types of narrative popular cinema usually portrays very often lacks the type of deep meaning and context that art makes possible; through more complex forms of expression, new fantastical realities can be created and used to invoke and provoke thought and experience, and with the democratization and wide availability of 3D tools, artists anywhere are free to explore their style and visual expression in new and exciting ways. However, as the benchmark for quality rises, the entry level for artists to find their initial steps within these techniques rapidly becomes less achievable, requiring extensive study and practice; this might distance newcomers to the media. I would suggest to them that exploration of unique, even unconventional style, would be more important than technical prowess.
Eric Lerner, RedBrickWall1, 2022.
We are currently seeing a huge advancement in real time 3D rendering which allows for interactive media. To achieve the visual fidelity of what recently was only available to highly resourceful creation agents through pre-rendered processes only. This is already providing the gaming industry with hollywood style visuals for video games, but also has huge potential for art installations and exhibitions to create extremely immersive experiences that engulf viewers in an alternative reality.
Looking even further, I believe we’ll see these tools become available in more mobile setups such as smartphones and small headgear combinations. Furthermore, the interactive possibilities and AI generated content will be able to provide real time creation of completely unique experiences; entire detailed worlds created by direction of artists and then explored by viewers and users, possibly even as a one of a kind, single use experience – quite similar to our own reality.
Eric Lerner, TokonomaI, 2022.
“For me, the ability to create realistic looking imagery of physically impossible scenarios is where the true power and interest lays.”
Towards the creation of many of your artworks you create 3D animations which you then turn into live action videos? Could you elaborate on some of the complexities of this practice and your use of a handheld camera technique?
A process I’ve been researching and expanding on involves first shooting a live action clip, usually of empty (of people) urban or forest areas. Later I will “track” the footage (this is a process that follows hundreds of points of movement in a video in order to mimic the original movement of the camera, through a mathematical process of figuring out the parallax strength in the scene, thus producing a sort of “depth map” of the film scene). With a digital copy of the original camera movement, I can “film” 3D objects within CGI creation environments using the same exact movement of the original, often handheld footage. This eventually produces the illusion of the 3D object being present during the original shoot, even if the object itself doesn’t appear realistic in its own nature.
While this technique has been long used in film VFX, I find that it can bring to life many different types of narrative (with my favorite being surreal imagery) and its magic is quite captivating. While a relatively high end technique, it can still be produced by a single artist, and its creative possibilities are extremely interesting; it brings to life impossible objects and affects the mind very effectively, producing a magical realism that can turn everyday scenes into dreamscapes.
Eric Lerner, Pools of ReflectionI, 2022.
Could you share some of your early experiences working in the NFT space, and provide us with your anticipations of NFTs as an accepted traditional art medium?
When NFT first started getting attention in the art world, I was very excited by the prospect that it promised a new form of livelihood for artists, specifically for more left-field, alternative arenas of art (alternative to fine arts, mostly). Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that a lot of people were entering the field as a quick cash grab and a lot of artists were being exploited, had their work stolen or just became obsessed with the financial aspect of this new “business” as a “get rich quick” scheme. While the technology itself was interesting, it was being used in poor taste and the original promise was mostly lost.
I feel the technology can eventually be used in decent (morally) ways but i’m not sure we are there yet. As more and more companies jump on the NFT bandwagon to use in their services, products and promotions, it’s unclear where the public’s view of NFTs will end up, but for art, either fine arts or more broad, alternative fields of art, there is still a hopeful promise for creators and collectors but more importantly, experiences of art that are yet to come to be.
Eric Lerner, Pools of ReflectionII, 2022.
In Modernist Painting, Clement Greenberg suggests that the role of the Modern Artist is to bring attention to the flatness of the surface because the essence of visual arts is the optical experience. Today, through advanced technologies and softwares artists are able to create three dimensional pictorial spaces. Is it your opinion that contemporary artists working in the digital space should create experiences of visual worlds within themselves pushing our everyday reality into new realms introduced by web3 and the metaverse?
Yes, as I previously stated, the advancement of technology and its ability to create believable and emotional 3D experiences, for example, might be the starting point for a new breed of artwork where the experience is far from a single image or even a single interactive experience but rather a unique and personal experience each time it is activated, with a much broader scope than previously imagined.
That said, and pardon the controversial statement, but I find currently web3 promises to be extremely familiar, reminding me of grandiose promises made when web 2.0 was “introduced”. The main difference being the actual possibility of these ideas to come to life with technology reaching a point where they become possible. But to be truly interesting, I find these ideas need to go deeper into realms of data that might not be completely acceptable by the masses meant to enjoy them – either because they are built upon personal data or because they expose hidden truths; either way i believe these experiences have got to be personalize to be effective, otherwise they remain very 2.0 or just end up as good storytelling, which isn’t new but always very, very effective.
“I will often learn a new technique, and my immediate thought would be: How can I use this in a surprising way?.”
Eric Lerner, Gabriel in the Dreamscape, 2022.
You have stated that in the creation of your artworks you wish to explore the craft of art making in itself, and that through this investigation you are able to push the boundaries of what is possible. Could you elaborate further on this process in which your subject matter comes from technical ideas and your aims when creating new artworks?
When looking at this process in its truthful form, it is mostly a process of using the technical boundaries as limitations in order to create a “fenced” playground, which counterintuitively very often brings creative freedom. I will often learn a new technique, and my immediate thought would be: “How can I use this in a surprising way?”. For me, this usually directs into areas of magical realism where impossible events are plainly portrayed; So I will often use a technique to create unexpected yet [hopefully] intriguing moments, a tiny bit of awe for the viewer.
Unfortunately, this will often not do much in terms of context or narrative, areas which I find only inspiration derived from other narrative sources or life experiences can bring any meaningful context. This is where having your head stuck in a technical realm does little to help, or maybe even bring damage to the process. I aim to grow in these areas and I push my students to emphasize their efforts on these areas as I find them the most meaningful in a visual experience.
