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Stuart Ward: on myths and systems of power

Interview by Pau Waelder

Canadian artist Stuart Ward has been inspired by ancient cultures since his childhood, and by a pragmatic approach to art making that had him incorporate digital tools into his traditional arts education. Living in Tokyo, he joined the live VJ scene in the mid 2000s and began collaborating with musicians, dancers, performers, and visual artists. Returning to Canada in 2010, he started an experiential design studio, working with internationally recognized brands such as Porsche, Cadillac, Lyft, TED, Asics, and Heineken.

His experience in both the traditional art world and the advertising and design fields shapes his perception of art as a form of creative expression that transcends boundaries and communicates with an audience on any possible context: not just in the white cube of the gallery or museum, but also on media façades, projections and screens in private and public spaces.

MUEO is the chosen name for his visual art persona and a creative project that references from Greek and Roman sculpture, Baroque architecture, treatises on visual perception, advertising, and the neon lights of the streets of Tokyo. On the occasion of his solo artcast Mueo – The Initiation, we talked about his work and the topics it explores. 

Take MUEO’s Neo-Baroque compositions to your screen

Open artcast
Stuart Ward, Venus, 2023

How would you describe the way Greek and Roman iconography, as well as that of other traditions, such as Buddhism for instance, is being incorporated into our contemporary culture, e.g. as a symbol of power or authority, or to express refinement? How does this apply to your work?

Greek and Roman architecture was adopted by several powerful nations and used as a symbol to perpetuate their power through association. Some of those nations ended up leaning more towards fascism, others went entirely that way. Cultural symbols have been permanently ruined in parts of the world. Architecture of power and dominance being built today has since shifted to the opposite end of the spectrum while simultaneously holding on to Greek and Roman forms. It’s almost as though the powerful are seizing both ends of the spectrum. There is a lot of nasty brutality in history, everywhere in the world. Learning about it is a great start to avoiding repeating it. 

Simultaneously, the possibility of greater expression has roots in freedom, so within the brutality of history, moments of divine inspiration have occurred, possibly through extended peace and periods of abundance. There is now more art being made than ever before, as humans have access to tools of creation like never before. The color blue used to be a symbol of immense wealth. Now we can buy it by the gallon.

“My work isn’t intended to be religious in its theme, but more to express the possibility of there being more to the universe than we can perceive with our senses.”

Buddhism is an interesting one. Their recruitment tools are more elegant and sophisticated, but they have recruitment. It is interesting to consider who they are appealing to. The aesthetics associated with Buddhism seem to also be universally associated with spirituality and lack the association of power and dominance that has been added to the spiritual or religious expressions of Europe. I’m paying attention to symbols in my work, as I recognize the power they carry.

Stuart Ward, Neptune, 2023

In your work we can see references to cycles of death and rebirth, and the connection between the divine and eternity, that are expressed in a visually attractive form. How would you say these concepts of constant changes and cycles speak to our consumption of cultural products, and of cultural trends?

I try to avoid politics before whisky, but there’s an idea by an awful political theorist that makes a lot of sense when removed from the rest of the context of his work. He said that people should express themselves by what they create, not by what they consume. I think most people’s creative expression comes through consumption. How they dress, the music they listen to, the food they eat. One thing that I’ve noticed that makes me uncomfortable is that sometimes after binging on a bunch of interesting and creative content on social media, I feel like I myself have been participatory in the creative process. This is far from accurate, but the feeling has existed, and I wonder if that non-productive creative moment is the reward for most people?

It might also be worth mentioning in the digital art scene, as NFTs emerged, everyone was so excited to break down the existing system and start anew, but within a few months, the existing systems had re-emerged, or the community was unknowingly asking for its return. Curators and critics reappeared. Blue Chip artists in the digital space became a thing. Now the digital scene is an established system waiting for its next interruption. 

“As NFTs emerged, everyone was so excited to break down the system and start anew, but within a few months, the existing systems had re-emerged. Now the digital scene is an established system waiting for its next interruption.”

You point out that you are interested in a Neo-Baroque aesthetic and in seeing what is possible to do with decorative forms when their material limitations have been removed. What drove your attention to these decorative forms in the beginning?

Where did these decorative forms emerge from? I know that some forms come from nature, like a dried acanthus leaf, or a fiddlehead fern, but the forms have evolved an almost musical quality. They so beautifully match the music of the era, wherein a form goes one way, and satisfyingly at just the right location, it spins and curls off in a different direction. We like music because it does what we expect, and we like it even more when it does what we didn’t expect, and subsequently brings us back around into what we expect again. Without the restriction of gravity or construction materials, what is the end evolution of those whirling swirling decorative forms? I think the mystery and curiosity to explore those questions drove me towards working with them in my art. That, and my early childhood home had several pieces of furniture with decorative swirls that I’d get lost in while playing, so there may be some deep memories of early childhood surfacing.

Stuart Ward, Artemis, 2023

In the artworks we see on Niio the elements of Baroque architecture create a frame around the main character, but in other works such as Ecstatic Angel and Transformation at the Gates of Eternity, which feature sculptures by Bernini, the architecture dwarfs the sculpture and becomes the main element in the composition. How do you conceive the balance between the two: sculpture and architecture, figure and frame?

Good question. I see them merging to become part of a singular experience where the architectural details and the sculptural details become a cohesive whole. This is part of the effort to explore the forms without physical limits. They can occupy similar values. Beyond that, in the Bernini piece for example, if it were to take a more dominant role in terms of scale in relation to the rest of the artwork, I’d feel a sense of unease. The sculpture is iconic and stands alone as an artwork. Is a great photograph of the sculpture also an artwork? Sure. I guess. But it runs dangerously close to losing its artness and becoming just a photograph. I feel similarly about a 3D rendering of a sculpture. Yes, I posed it in a scene. Yes, I organized a virtual camera, and created a lighting system, and a material system, but it’s still at the edge of art, in my valuation of things. Perhaps my system of values is more strict than others, but I felt like to make the artwork a deeper expression of my own work while simultaneously referring to the greatness of Bernini’s sculpture, the surrounding artwork needed to occupy more space visually and thematically.

“I’m a big fan of magenta. It’s my favourite color, despite not being a color on the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Your choice of colors is quite characteristic of a type of aesthetic that has become popular in NFT communities. Have you been inspired by other creators in these communities? What do the colors bring to these compositions in relation to the references to Greek and Roman sculpture, and Baroque architecture?

My artwork series from 2021 was more ‘classical’ in its color range, in comparison to Baroque artwork. In late 2021 I moved to Tokyo, again. The neon and lights of the big city had an influence on my aesthetic, and the works made in 2022 evolved to have luminous neon shapes and glowing effects. I think part of the purpose of it was to progress in the arms race against creative stagnation, and to challenge myself to express in a new aesthetic. 

To further discuss colour for a minute, I’m a big fan of magenta. It’s my favourite color, despite not being a color on the electromagnetic spectrum. I was working with a lighting expert several years ago planning some lighting projections for an event. They told me that using warm colours like orange, yellow, and pink will make the audience under the lights look healthy and the event will be more fun and better received, as opposed to an event lit with too much blue and green, making people look unhealthy. I think of that, and use magenta’s contrasting colors with consideration. 

Aqua/teal expands into the possibility of color. Before synthetic pigments arrived on the scene, some colours were rarely available for use. Despite the sky being blue, blue pigments were expensive and rare, as were purples, which is the reason for their association with royalty. The arrival of spring and the blooming of flowers in the pre-synthetic colour era meant that colours would be visible, having almost entirely disappeared to nearly everyone for the winter, the exception being the blue sky, always out of reach. Coincidentally, blue leds were the most difficult coloured lights to engineer: there were a few decades where led screens were yellow, orange, red and green. Now, the entire world can access as much colour as they want without restriction, but perhaps we have a deep memory of life before that unlimited access, and give brightly coloured things a sense of special attention. It could also be linked to an earlier structure of foraging for colourful fruits and berries. The concept is interesting to mentally explore.

“Social media has caused some harm. Artworks are becoming a response to the high speed social feedback rather than taking time to really work on an idea and iterate on the work.”

You speak of creating moments of elation and wonder with your artworks. Would you say that the use of a symmetrical composition, the cyclical movement of the different elements, and the rhythm of the animation are all intended to create a mesmerizing effect?

My work intends to express the possibility of there being more to the universe than we can perceive with our senses. This is generally objectively true in that right now we can’t sense the multitude of wifi and cellular signals flowing through our bodies. But further to that, more deeply universal questions about the possibility of a soul or spirit within, or a sense of divinity. I’m careful with how to express this, because my artwork isn’t intended to be religious in its theme, but more to express a possibility of ‘more’ through myth, pattern, motion, and the emotional response that those tools create. There are two fantastic books, The Oxford Compendium of Optical Illusions, and Vision and Art; The Biology of Seeing. They look into what is happening in the eye and the brain while observing images, and how optical illusions trick our visual sense. I’ve been exploring how to use this in art to express a sense of mystery.

Stuart Ward, Ecstatic Dance 2, 2023

In your opinion, how have social media and motion graphics influenced digital art creators?

Social media has caused some harm. As a result of the trend of Dailies, artists are rushing to create work quickly in order to get something new to share every day. In the process of trying to accomplish that, we end up making simpler things, and exploring creative ideas that we’ve already proven to be a social media hit. So the artwork becomes a response to the high speed social feedback rather than taking time to really work on an idea and iterate on the work. I know, because I fell into the same traps.

I must also confess that a short loop is better for me, because the render time is shorter, and the reward centers are activated sooner in the creative process. Some of my loops are only 4 seconds long, despite seeming much longer due to their seamless quality. As I’ve moved further away from the ‘dailies’ style work, I’m more and more comfortable with longer content where some parts loop quickly while others take more time to reach their looping conclusion. But this is still content under 30s long. 

Motion graphics add another tool to the artist’s creative capacity. The addition of motion to artworks adds to the capability of expression, but without proper media systems and hardware, it runs the risk of being forgotten, in favor of more physical media. It’s part of the reason why I’m excited to be working with NIIO: they facilitate the exhibition of motion enabled artwork in a progressive and intelligent way.

“I’m excited to be working with NIIO because they facilitate the exhibition of motion enabled artwork in a progressive and intelligent way.”

Your experience as a VJ and designer have surely taken you through different spheres of the visual arts, crossing the membrane between what is considered art and what is considered popular culture. What is your opinion on this separation? How can it be overcome in an age of art on screens and online distribution?

The barrier between art and pop culture has been largely broken down during my art career. Collaborating with a brand used to be considered ‘selling out’ and the only customers and revenue streams an artist should have was sales of art, and the non-art job that supported their practice in the likely event that it wasn’t sufficient. Now we see major artists collaborating with major brands, and it is seen as a part of ‘making it in the art world’. 

Stuart Ward, Nymph, 2023

Murakami and Arsham immediately come to mind when it comes to successful collaborations wherein the artist retains control over their image and artwork, while also merging in a beautiful way with well known global brands. Perhaps this process was facilitated by luxury brands supporting the arts, like Fondation Louis Vuitton. The art world seems to have shifted again as NFTs rocketed into the scene. The digital art space was moving so quickly that the old guard couldn’t keep up, and the gatekeepers were left behind. Eventually, in the chaos, a new order emerged, and some artists who were not considered ‘real artists’, but mere ‘digital creators’ found themselves on the inside of the gates, selling work at globally renowned, established art auction houses. The system has restructured.

Solimán López: becoming a Terran artist

Pau Waelder

Spanish new media conceptual artist and researcher Solimán López has developed over the course of a decade and a half a body of work that connects contemporary art with scientific research, 3D imaging, geolocation, biotechnology, and lately blockchain and web3.0. An indefatigable experimenter, he has explored numerous technologies to create his artistic projects and always kept a connection with traditional techniques such as painting and sculpture, although reconfigured through digital imaging and computer-aided manufacturing. 

The artist recently presented on Niio several artworks related to OLEA, an ongoing project that consists of the production of a substance composed of olive oil that contains the code of a smart contract, synthesized in DNA. Solimán has created a number of NFTs and installations around the concept of OLEA. In the following interview, he elaborates on the making of this project and the main themes he addresses in his work.

Explore the visualizations of OLEA on Niio

Open artcast
Solimán López, OLEA Genesis Space, 2023

Throughout your career you have used a wide variety of technological resources. How have they influenced the development of your work? Has it been technology that has inspired the creation of a work, or have you sought the necessary resources to carry out an idea you had developed? Or has it been both?

My background is in art history. That is why I have finally become what we could call a “new media conceptual artist”. This means that I consider my work to be essentially conceptual. During my training I quickly understood that much of the relevance in today’s artistic discourses can be found in uses of technology because of its social, ethical, moral and sensory impact. In order to talk about the changes derived from this revolution, I also understood that it was necessary to know very well its origins, motivations and functioning logic, and that is why I started doing research on different new technologies, thinking that their understanding would allow me to make poetry, as the poet does with words.

“What is clear to me is that a good concept ages better than any technique.”

For this reason, my use of technology is always subordinated to a particular idea that I understand is expressed in a successful way with those means. But at the same time, there is a sort of parallel learning about the message and techniques. Nowadays it is difficult to choose the technique with which something makes sense, since there are a great number of formats that are beginning to be accepted. What is clear to me is that a good concept ages better than any technique and that, together with other professionals in the sector, I think that in new media art, the artworks are generated every time they are exhibited, since technically they are running on software and hardware.

It is perhaps for this reason that some obsessions I have with the materiality of the digital arise, issues that we see very evidently in projects such as the Harddiskmuseum or OLEA.

Solimán López, OLEA Space 01, 2023

Your previous work has focused on data collection, geolocation and data storage in relation to the concept of memory. How does OLEA relate to these concepts?

OLEA is becoming a whole universe in itself! It has opened up a Pandora’s box of conceptual possibilities. With the passing of time, I myself have been surprised by the way in which my works fit together in a discourse that makes a lot of sense to me. The obligation to have a “style”, which worried me when I was younger, has simply become a set of features and themes that naturally emerge in my projects. 

OLEA relates to the storage of data as it is actually code stored in DNA and then preserved in olive oil. It is also a time capsule, in this case related to the evolution of the concept of value in the history of mankind and the understanding of data, which now encompasses genomics. Human beings have left traces throughout their evolution, and let’s not forget that technology is the true economy. That is why OLEA appeals to the collective memory in the history of mankind, where as early as 15 BC we have traces of genetic alterations in cereals, which led to the birth of added value in the exploitation of the land and gave rise to the concept of agriculture, a sort of value-added structure to a fractal production ecosystem. It is, in a synthetic way, the same thing that happens with the blockchain, a territory that is endowed with value through the creation of tokens. All these ingredients led to the production of this project.

It is true that I left behind more individual concepts related to personal data to appeal to something less individualistic. In recent interviews I keep repeating a phrase that perhaps explains this leap in my career: “In the era of fakes and empowered artificial intelligence, any personal story is possible. The challenge is to create collective stories that change us and influence us all. My work doesn’t talk about me in the first person, but about us.”

“In the era of fakes and empowered artificial intelligence, any personal story is possible. The challenge is to create collective stories that change us and influence us all.”

OLEA involves two very different technologies such as blockchain and genetic engineering, which however are both linked to the concept of registration and storage. What do these technologies bring to your work and how are they essential to the concept of this project?

Indeed, OLEA is a work that belongs to two intertwined worlds and that is what I intend to show when I exhibit it. Working with genetic code, which is still in a very primitive phase, requires a very interesting process of information synthesis, just as it happened back when we stored information on floppy discs.

This is also the case with the information stored “on-chain” in the blockchain, which also has its storage limitations, which is another interesting and common feature in the current state of these two technologies. Both are special to me for the way in which they leave their mark in their different materialities, as well as for their invitation to have faith in the technology or the value they bring to the ecosystem to which they belong.

Blockchain is basically based on a chain of blocks that stores metadata that actually have little meaning if they are decontextualized. Moreover, when we look at those blocks all we see is the hash in the log and the wallets involved in that transaction. It is something visible but that actually gives us very little information. It is we the users who assign it a value and presume it is a valid asset that refers to an artistic work or token.

We must have the same faith when we see a material containing DNA with the same information that resides on the blockchain. Now, we see the material it refers to but we do not see the code (we could see the DNA at a microscopic level). This game of consciousness, respect and trust in relation to the artistic object seems conceptually very interesting to me. It is also similar to the playfulness we find in great works of art that have questioned our beliefs and allowed us to overcome established assumptions as to what a work of art is. I believe that, as a contemporary artist, I should bring what I can to this constant reframing of our expectations towards art and that is why all these notions come together in OLEA.

Solimán López, Celeste, 2022

What do you make of the irruption of the NFT market, its boom and bust? What has it meant for you in your work as an artist? What is your perception of NFTs and what future evolution do you see in them?

I see NFTs as something that was bound to come sooner or later. I imagined them when I founded the Harddiskmuseum in 2013 as a museum that houses unique files or in the File Genesis exhibition (2017) where unique files are generated in real time that are stored in marble stones equipped with a USB stick, or the CELESTE project from 2016, in which we generated tokens from the digital images obtained from different colors of different skies distributed around the world. 

With this experience, I was ready to take on NFTs in a very natural way, including their market decline. A decline that, in fact, corresponds with all the hypes in the history of technology, sports and other disciplines.

In my work, NFTs are a practicality and a conceptual field of work. Accepting the blockchain as a fractal environment easily connectable with nature is a great evolution in technology, and to me it is a great milestone to have incorporated it into my work.

Let’s also remember that I was the first artist to sell an NFT at a contemporary art fair in Europe and possibly worldwide, since ARCO was the first post-pandemic fair to come to light. This sale renewed my confidence in a format that I still think is here to stay and that is becoming normalized and naturalized in its use, as it is a fair and necessary format for digital art.

I see the future of NFTs as being even more integrated with real objects (I myself am still working on this and in the process of patenting what I call biotokens) and above all we will stop talking about NFTs merely linked to art. This technology will be in our daily lives as soon as the capitalist and mass control systems loosen their grip and allow WEB3.0 to develop freely, including those belonging to the art world.

Solimán López, OLEA Space 03, 2023

NFTs have brought renewed attention to the use of blockchain in art projects, which already had a first boom in 2018. Regardless of its use for the registration of non-fungible tokens, what possibilities do you see in blockchain in the creation and commercialization of digital art?

Art has a history of occupation of spaces. This is made clear after modernity. Let’s remember the occupation of the streets by urban art, or of the internet by net artists or social media artists. Now the same is happening with blockchain, where we are witnessing an occupation of this technological medium as well. The possibilities are many, but let’s not forget that without a solid concept, in the era of the mechanization of tasks, robotics and artificial intelligence, the word Art with a capital “A” is easily refuted.

That is why I believe that we must continue to resignify this space of creation and provide it with powerful conceptual contents that generate thought and offer value. The possibilities of creation that I see with blockchain go through its own evolution as a medium and its insertion and conjugation with other technologies, including biotechnology, a place where I am currently very comfortable conceptually.

“Art is going through a very convulsive moment, trying to resist the cannons of a sustainable, dematerialized and conceptually advanced future.”

On the other hand, the possibilities of WEB3.0 and blockchain in the construction of spaces of thought and communities, has no historical comparison. This notion is very interesting and opens the door to a new concept of the artwork as a social ecosystem mediated by itself and not by museums or other cultural structures, including the self-management of sales and dissemination of the artworks, which is opening the door to other agents with its consequent mutations.

Undoubtedly, art is going through a very convulsive moment in its own foundations, finding great threats in the already traditional contemporaneity, which continues to defend its castle of post-industrial tangibility, trying to resist the cannons of a sustainable, dematerialized and conceptually advanced future.

OLEA in the lab. Photo by Solimán López.

Your work is closely linked to scientific research. How do you collaborate with teams of researchers and how do you conceive the role of art in relation to scientific dissemination?

I feel that real art has always been linked to science and its connections with scientific research and its other main actors. Let’s not forget examples such as the influence of the work of microbiologists James Watson and Francis Crick in the paintings of Salvador Dalí: Dalí was captivated by the discoveries published by the two scientists and did everything he could to get in touch with them. His interest in the findings about DNA led to the appearance in many of the artist’s paintings of the famous representation of the double helix (incidentally thanks to the photographs of the scientist Rosalind Franklin).

I believe that the role of art is established when the work is scientifically solid and the resignification of both researches is achieved for the benefit of a common one. It is at that moment where the culmination comes and a great excitement in which you feel that the pieces are conceptually fitting together. I also believe that art is a fundamental tool for the changes of our time and in this field we cannot leave behind the scientific discoveries that are conditioning our future.

“I feel that scientists are also artists in their own way and with their own intentions, so the relationship is always very fluid and of mutual learning.” 

In 100% of the cases, I have had excellent responses and collaborations. I feel that scientists are also artists in their own way and with their own intentions, so the relationship is always very fluid and of mutual learning. Undoubtedly an extremely rich and mandatory field to continue making contemporary art.

Normally I start with a crazy idea by linking some strands that a priori were disconnected. At that moment my scientific research begins and I start looking for papers, publications and records of what interests me and alludes technically to the work that is already in process. This is where I start to identify some key players, both companies and individuals, and I start to communicate with them, explaining my objectives and joint opportunities. At this point, a very rich production process is born, in which conversation is fundamental and sharing is evolving.

Image from Manifesto Terricola by Solimán López, 2023.

Your most recent project, Manifesto Terricola, combines the theme of memory with biotechnology and climate change, in what can be interpreted as an increasingly clear transition from the individual to natural systems and ultimately the relationship between humanity and the planet. What new aspects does this project bring to your work and what thematic avenues do you plan to develop in the future?

Manifesto Terricola is perhaps the most social project I have ever developed. Along with the Harddiskmuseum, it is a kind of project that you know will accompany you for a long time and that will be revised and even evolved or reinterpreted in the future (if we have any left). It brings me perhaps the possibility to engage with a more global community and not just the art niche, and of course it offers a pragmatic solution to the storage of our digital legacy through DNA and glaciers.

When you travel to a place like the Arctic you ask yourself questions that are already implicit in the manifesto, such as the habitability of the Earth for humans in the near future and the drift of the human species because of this issue and because of technology itself. In this sense, there is a mental doppler effect that forces you to want to go further and further with your work.

That is why the limits of my work are now also focused on space missions for example and to continue exploring those conceptual missives that the natural and the digital can send each other through the action of art and biotechnology until they live in harmony.

This line of work will continue to be very present, because as I mentioned before, these are places where I feel very comfortable since I believe that biotechnology will change the way in which human beings will relate to an unstable environment in changing conditions. Art can only survive from this position and from the understanding that we are Terran artists.

boredomresearch on the poetics of natural systems

Pau Waelder

British artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith work collaboratively as boredomresearch since the late 1990s, creating interactive and generative artworks, animations, and films inspired by natural environments and living systems. Since 2014, they have collaborated with scientists in the making of their projects about the diversity of natural systems, and the health of both our planet and our own bodies. Their work has been exhibited worldwide, in art and science museums, symposia, festivals, and art galleries.

On the occasion of the launch of their solo artcast Still, Life, curated by DAM Projects, the artists spoke about their work and their particular approach to scientific research through artistic creativity.

Explore the beauty of natural systems in boredomresearch’s artcast Still, Life

Open artcast
boredomresearch, Robots In Distress, 2017

Why boredom research? The combination of both words is humorous and intriguing…

Paul Smith: We came up with the name, around 1998-99, as an umbrella term for our collaboration. Initially, we felt it implied playfulness, but also referred to serious research. More recently, it has grown into the idea of exploring the world in one’s own terms, being creative without the pressure to provide a solution to a problem, as scientists are expected to. So boredom is about having the freedom to be interested in something on your own terms.

Vicky Isley: Boredom is also about unpredictability. In our early works, it was very much about what could be driven through computation. And that led to things emerging that were quite unpredictable, which is what you experience in a state of boredom as well. On the other hand, we carry out serious in-depth research to produce these computational artworks, so it is a combination of study and play.

“Early in our career, we read that the time people spend with artworks in the gallery is about 5 to 30 seconds. So we wanted to reverse that paradigm, to have people spend months experiencing our work.”

You both have a background in Fine Arts, where does your interest in biology and natural systems come from? 

VI: We’ve both always been inspired by natural systems. We love being immersed in nature. So to us, that’s really an integral part of our work. That’s where our passion comes from.

PS: Very early on, we became very interested in the computer as a tool. We had the opportunity to work with computers during a residency at the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada, back in 2001. We had been focused on human computer interaction, but there we created our first computational artworks that had no human interaction. They recreated beings that interacted with each other.

VI: We also became interested in artworks that were not linear and ran in real time, creating unique experiences for the viewers. Observing a system instead of interacting with a program is like observing nature, and that led us to look around and ask ourselves which are the rules in all these natural systems, why do living creatures behave like they do?

boredomresearch, Biome, 2005

You have often worked with scientists and mentioned “negotiating that space with the scientists.” How would you describe these collaborations and the role that art plays in scientific research?

PS: We started originally working with scientists that were interested in creating models of systems, the first scientist that we worked very closely with was working in the field of epidemiology. We became fascinated with their work because there was a huge similarity between what we were doing as artists and what he was doing as a scientist. We spent a lot of time talking about motivations, methods, ways of doing things, and we found that we had a lot in common. We found it hard to separate the space between scientists and artists, and I suppose to some extent, we’re still exploring that now.

VI: We understood that mathematical models are almost like fictional worlds as well because they are very contained in what they can visualize, which is very similar to an artistic model that creates a fictional system. Still, I would say that all the scientists that we’ve worked with, we’ve had to build up a trust relationship with them, to the point where they feel like they can trust us in their lab, because early on in the collaborations, they can be much more rigid.

boredomresearch’s Real Snail Mail (2006) is an installation that uses snails equipped with RFID tags to deliver email messages.

Time, duration, and real time processes are key to your work. How do they shape the conception and development of each artwork? How do you imagine the reaction of viewers will be?

VI: Very early in our career, we read an article about the time people spend with artworks in the gallery. And we found it quite shocking, because it’s mostly like 5 to 30 seconds. So we wanted to reverse that paradigm, which is something we very much did with Real Snail Mail: we took a technology that is about efficiency and speed, and then completely reversed that. So that has been present from a very early stage in our careers.

PS: We consciously wanted to create something in reaction to this idea of a seven second viewing time: we wanted to create something that would last six months. So we had this process where someone would create an entity which then haunted their computer and would develop slowly over a period of time. It worked a little bit like a virus running in the background, which used operating system components such as alert windows to communicate with its “host.” The program would ask for a file that was generated on another host’s computer, and so they would have to look for that person and get the file for the whole process to end. This took around six months.

“For us, it’s really nice to know that the collectors are living with these artworks on a day to day basis, because then they will experience them in the long term. They will be able to see different forms being generated from time to time.”

VI: We were surprised to find that quite a number of users would go through this process and that made us realize that there were people willing to have this kind of extended relationship with the artwork, that goes well beyond what you can experience in an exhibition. This is also one of the reasons why we wanted to create objects that would be owned by people and added to their collections. For instance, Lost Calls of Cloud Mountain Whirligigs (2009-2010) is a generative artwork we created in an edition, and a number of them are already in private collections. For us, it’s really nice to know that the collectors are living with these artworks on a day to day basis, because then they will experience them in the long term. They will be able to see different forms being generated from time to time.

boredomresearch, Lost Calls of Cloud Mountain Whirligigs, 2010

In some of your artworks the subject of the endangerment of biodiversity and the effects of climate change comes up. How do you deal with this subject, and how do you think art can contribute to environmental awareness?

VI: Since we observe natural phenomena, and there are quite worrying things happening in our environment, our work can be quite melancholic. Recently, we’ve been looking at scientific topics like cancer, malaria, and things that perhaps people wouldn’t want to see in an artwork, which is quite interesting. So I think when we do create systems, like Afterglow (2016), for example, which was about malaria, or In Search of Chemozoa (2020), that was about cancer, there is a beauty and poetics to those systems, that draws people into a topic that perhaps they don’t really want to explore. And also, we don’t dictate that you have to know that they’re about. Sometimes people watching the artworks don’t really know that it’s an infection transmission scenario that is playing through, they might just be watching something that is visually more complex to them, or seeing the complexity of that system.

boredomresearch, Infection 626,239,238 Plasmodium Knowlesi, 2016 (video recording of Afterglow)

PS: Another aspect of this is that often scientists are interested in collaborating with artists because they see it as a potential means of communication. But we don’t see our role as being there to offer a way for the scientists to communicate their research to an audience. Our approach is not about communication at all, but rather about experience. An experience in which the viewer is an equal party, not just a non-expert who must be told things in simpler terms. So when we work with scientists we try to create an expression that is closely related to their research, but it is not an illustration of it. 

“There is a beauty and poetics to natural systems such as the transmission of malaria or the evolution of cancer, that draws people into a topic that perhaps they don’t want to explore.”

Your work combines installations, generative artworks and also films. How do you work in these different forms of storytelling? You have stated that you are interested in the language of documentary, has that also permeated into your installation and generative work?

VI: Our interest in the language of documentaries first emerged when we produced Afterglow, because that was a commissioned project, and they asked us to produce a generative piece, but also a film version of the artwork as well. That was quite interesting, because the film version took you through the different infection scenarios which you wouldn’t see in the real time version in the gallery. So we had to think differently about the single screening version of that work and we learned a lot through that process. Now the narrative aspect is emerging more and more in our films, particularly in Chemozoa, where we added a godlike voice to bring together the voices of around 25 scientists from different fields.

We’re  finding ourselves more out in nature with our work. Participating in artist residencies has allowed us to do field work which has led to our practice becoming more immersed in nature, whereas our early works were purely in front of the screen. I’d say that this has contributed to having a different involvement in what we observe, a kind of experience that we can communicate better using the language of documentaries.

“When we work with scientists we try to create an expression that is closely related to their research, but it is not an illustration of it.”

The sounds, or might I say music, in your generative works and films plays an important role, it creates an ambience. You have stated that “the sound comes at the end”, can you elaborate on the role it plays in your creative and production processes?

PS: Actually, in early works like System 1.6 we sampled sounds from the Rocky Mountains and then we thought, what visual being could actually represent this sound? So in that case the order was reversed. In our film work, this is more challenging, because while we keep recording sounds from the environment, these come later on in editing. But in general I’d say that sound in our work has become something that gives things a voice. We usually conceive the visual aspect of our generated creatures before we introduce sounds, but then when we collaborate with scientists, there is sometimes the challenging question of finding sounds that represent the beings and processes we are making visible. 

boredomresearch, System 1_6, 2001

VI: In our generative artworks, particularly those we want people to spend a lot of time with, we look for a background sound. And there is a very fine balance to achieve that, because you don’t want it to be annoying, but at the same time you want it to create an ambience, and communicate the idea that the creatures are alive and active. The Whirligigs, for instance, can be quite chirpy, and then they go through periods of silence, so there are different moments in the artwork that are expressed through sound. 

PS: Actually, in our generative works we do not create soundscapes, we create a mechanism that produces sounds autonomously, and that becomes a soundscape. But lately we are increasingly taking responsibility for the quality of the sound and integrating a sound design process in the creation of the artworks, even with musical scores, that we develop in collaboration with professional musicians. The themes we are dealing with are also more serious, so there is probably a certain darkness in those sound pieces as well.

Phantasmaverse: the curators

Roxanne Vardi and Pau Waelder

Niio has proudly hosted a collaboration with artists and NYU professors Carla Gannis and Snow Yunxue Fu consisting of a group artcast featuring recent works by artists and NYU students Ren Ciarrocchi, Jessica Dai, Marina Roos Guthmann, James Lee, Tinrey Wang, Yuaqing She & June Bee, Shentong Yu, and Jerry Zhao. 

Titled Phantasmaverse, the exhibition addresses the potential of simulation technologies such as CGI animation and VR environments in storytelling and the creation of meaningful artworks that explore new forms of engaging with viewers and reflecting on our digital society.

We asked the professors and co-curators Carla Gannis and Snow Yunxue Fu about the exhibition’s curatorial process and their views on the use of digital technologies for exhibiting artworks.

Snow Yunxue Fu, Daughter ICE avatar and her metaverse home on Sansar, 2023

Snow, you created Daughter ICE as an avatar that connects you with your mother and your family. Which possibilities do you see in metaverse spaces and avatars to build human relationships and experiences of presence with a distant audience?

I approach the Metaverse space sometimes to “make dreams come true”. Daughter ICE is a long-term project that in a way materializes my long-distance relationship with my mother and family members in China, and the Metaverse home of Daughter ICE is this visualized space of a dream house, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house, where nature and architecture harmoniously come together. This digital space also functions as a place where one can gather together with other people, like with my family at a distance. In Daughter ICE’s home, we can have pop-up shows, we can attend a live opening in the virtual space no matter which counties we are physically located in.

Snow Yunxue Fu works with imaging technologies, such as 3D Simulation, AR, XR, and the Metaverse in interdisciplinary explorations into the universal aesthetic and definitive nature of the techno sublime.

Artist profile
Carla Gannis, wwwunderkammer metaverse space, 2020

Carla, as a “digital flâneuse,” you collect fragments of the real world to build immersive digital compositions. What is your experience creating metaverse spaces?

I have been working for over five years on a large multi-reality project entitled wwwunderkammer, that explores building a feminist, post-human, decolonized wunderkammer for the Web3 age. It launched as both an XR and physical reality solo exhibition in March of 2020 at Telematic Media Arts produced by me and my avatar C.A.R.L.A. G.A.N. (Crossplatform Avatar for Recursive Life Action Generative Adversarial Network). Currently, an evolution of this project, as video, physical printwork and metaverse experience is on view again at Telematic Media Arts, and it will be premiering at The Halsey Institute of Art in May. I have been collecting physical objects and 3D virtual models from across the global internet that represent topics that feel both curious and urgent to me: climate change and its impact on emerging and endangered species; historical and current political frameworks; networked culture and digital semiotics; decolonization and global pluralism; humor as salve and feminist salvation. In addition to the rooms I have built addressing these topics, I have built wwwunderchambers to date for 5 different experts on the topics of absurdity, decolonization in design, destigmatization of attitudes around sex and comfort in tech, digital accessibility, and preservation of digital art. There are currently 15 experiences that make up the metaverse aspect of the wwwunderkammer that you can visit online. 

In 2020, I co-curated with Clark Buckner The Archive to Come, a 57 artist exhibition, (that included Snow!) as an extension of the wwwunderkammer. – both on-line and in the gallery – of short time-based works that address questions of loss, memorialization, crisis, and re-invention, through the lens of contemporary networked culture and digital media. I built the social VR/metaverse gallery, (a giant splash in a sea of water) to house all of the amazing works in this exhibition. 

Two physical catalogs have recently been published by Telematic Media Arts documenting these metaverse projects.

Carla Gannis is a transmedia artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She produces works that consider the uncanny complications between grounded and virtual reality, nature and artifice, science and science fiction in contemporary culture.

Artist profile
View of the Phantasmaverse exhibition at Daughter ICE’s metaverse home, 2023.

Can you share your experience of curating a show in the digital space?

Snow Yunxue Fu: Curating shows in a digital space is great because we can both rely on the guidelines of physical show curation, and also can expand the rules into territories that digital platforms uniquely can provide and support. There are also boundaries we still have to work with because of the development of technology, but in general, it becomes more imaginative.

“It only feels natural to exhibit art in spaces native to where the creation happens, where the ideas emerge from, where we are increasingly spending our time accessing and viewing art.”

Carla Gannis

Carla Gannis: It only feels natural, given the artists we selected, who all have digital practices, like Snow and myself, to exhibit art in spaces native to where the creation happens, where the ideas emerge from, where we are increasingly spending our time accessing and viewing art. Being able to experience in your home an art gallery via the portal of a screen brings art to a much larger public too.

The artists featured in Phantasmaverse. Left to right: Jerry Zhao, Jessica Dai, Marina Roos Guthmann, Ren Ciarrochi, Shentong Yu, Yuanqing Xie & June Bee, James Lee, and Tinrey Wang.

How did the Niio platform support the curation and the assembling of the student show?

SYF: The available tools in the Niio platform help speed up the curation process, such as artwork submissions and info listing. It also reaches a wider audience that is different from a physical show curation. It’s systematic while attentive since we are also to work with Roxanne and Pau from Niio to make things customizable so it would better suit our purposes within the designs of the show.

“The Niio platform helps speed up the curation process and reach a wider audience that is different from a physical show curation.”

Snow Yunxue Fu

CG: It has been such a pleasure to work with Snow and the Niio team on this project! My direct interface has been with Pau and Roxanne, but the entire dev team has been super supportive in helping with onboarding and customizing the exhibition space to accommodate the multi-modal work being exhibited, allowing viewers to see the work in context of each other and individually for a deeper dive into each artists’ practice.

Read the interview with the artists participating in the Phantasmaverse exhibition and artcast

Open article

Disordinary Beauty, a Work in Progress (Part 2)

Domenico Barra and Pau Waelder

DISØRDINARY BƏAUTY is an ongoing art project by Domenico Barra that explores ugliness through glitch art. The project has been developed as a series of NFTs, with a new phase taking place on Niio as a work in progress, in which the artist will periodically upload new artworks and accompanying documentation. Here in the Editorial section, we are publishing email exchanges bringing light into Domenico’s creative process and the ideas and influences behind this project.

Follow Domenico Barra’s work in progress on your screen in DISØRDINARY BƏAUTY: art canon

Open artcast
Domenico Barra, DB a̶r̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶o̶n̶ | s̶e̶l̶f̶-̶p̶o̶r̶t̶r̶a̶i̶t̶, 2023

Second ɛʍǟɨʟ exchange

This exchange took place shortly after the NFT sale “Natively Digital: Glitch-ism,” which was scheduled to take place at Sotheby’s from March 24th to the 31st, was cancelled due to the backlash caused by the absence artworks by women artists in the selection presented by the auction house. Sotheby’s is currently working on re-launching the sale with the inclusion of artworks by women artists who have explored the aesthetics of glitch.

from: Pau Waelder
to: Domenico Barra
date: Mar 29, 2023, 10:03 AM
subject: Continuing our conversation on Niio Editorial

Hi, Domenico!

This time I’d like to ask you three questions:

  1. Why did you choose these two portraits that make the Disordinary Beauty series so far? In Artvee there are many famous paintings, including the Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo that is depicted on the cover of some editions of Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty. There are also avant garde artworks, which already “glitch” the notion of beauty. Why then these two relatively unknown portraits?
  2. Continuing with Eco and the eternal question of beauty, which reflections have you extracted so far from your experiments in glitching beauty?
  3. You have recently expressed on Twitter your disappointment at the lack of understanding of glitch art and how it is becoming trendy in the NFT space. Can you elaborate on this discussion? Would you say that artistic expressions like glitch art are often ignored and then suddenly launched into mainstream attention in a superficial way?

I hope these questions are interesting!

from: Domenico Barra 
to: Pau Waelder 
date: Mar 30, 2023, 1:07 AM
subject: Re: Continuing our conversation on Niio Editorial

Hello Pau, 

RE:1 (Why did you choose these two portraits that make the Disordinary Beauty series so far?)

My selection of paintings for my ongoing glitch art video series, Disordinary Beauty | Art Canon for Niio Art, was motivated by several factors. Firstly, the choice of format dictated the selection process, as I wanted works that required minimal cropping to retain their original integrity. The video format I had to adhere to was 9:16, and I sought paintings that would complement this format and still showcase the unique and peculiar features of the original pieces.

Domenico Barra, DB a̶r̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶o̶n̶ | a̶ ̶b̶e̶a̶u̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶v̶i̶o̶l̶e̶t̶, 2023

I chose Portrait of a Lady as Diana, also known as A beauty in violet by Paul Quinsac because the author came from a generation of artists who received rigorous academic training and went on to pass this academic training to the following generation of artists. Quinsac contributed to the transition from grandiose art to modern art that still respected classical tradition, and this dedication to building a legacy with the past during an artist’s contemporaneity is what I aim to challenge, this strong tradition that persists over time is where I want to create a conflict with my work. It’s this sense of beauty, as idealized by classical academic education, that I wish to disrupt through my glitch-alterations of the painting.

“It’s this sense of beauty, as idealized by classical academic education, that I wish to disrupt through my glitch-alterations of the painting.”

One more feature influenced my choice, the beauty of the painting itself and the classical reference to Diana, the Roman goddess of wild animals and the hunt. This drew me to this piece too, the ideal beauty of the divine, the myth. It was also fortuitous that the painting had been sold at Sotheby’s, an art institution known for its traditionalism and now venturing into the futuristic world of art with NFTs and crypto art. It’s a cunning coincidence that Sotheby’s screwed their first glitch art event sale. 

Oona featuring Stellabelle, ITS A BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!!!! (2023). NFT created in response to Sotheby’s all-male Glitch Art sale.

I picked Carl Joseph Begas’s self-portrait as the second work of the series because of my interest in the self-narrative format of selfies, a precursor to which the self-portrait can be considered. Selfies are very much influenced by rigid photographic standards that follow specific rules to seduce the viewer’s attention and algorithms’ ranking priority. I wanted to put the self-portrait in dialogue with selfies, also because selfies are the raw material I use in the other collection series of the glitch art project Disordinary Beauty, what I like to call “Beauty is Chaos”. Begas’s classical academic training and work in Italy where he focused on biblical themes, a classic in art tradition, and his eventual specialization in portraiture, all piqued my interest in this artist. 

“I believe what also needs to be disrupted is the attention we center on some artists who are always at the center of every reference to art history, past and present, and leave other artists out.”

I decided to showcase less popular artists and works to encourage further exploration of art history through my works. I like the idea of serving an educational purpose with my art. I believe what also needs to be disrupted is the attention we center on some artists who are always at the center of every reference to art history, past and present, and leave other artists out, maybe this serves also as a message of inclusivity. Do you know what I mean? Who knows, I never thought about it this way but now that I am writing, I like to read the motivation for the choice of these less-known artists in this way too. 

Maybe I am still influenced by the Sotheby’s Glitch Art events of the past weekend, but inclusivity is something I am very fond of, this is why I started the project White Page Gallery/s, to create a decentralized and distributed network of spaces to experiment a new practice for curating online art but also the narration of the state of the art of digital art where less known artists are offered more spaces, making the circle larger, fitting more people in the narrative of what digital artists are making, giving value to more voices, more stories. I stop as I do not want to get off topic but I wanted to share this with you. 

RE:2 (Reflections on glitching beauty)

My experiments in glitching beauty have led me to ponder the eternal question of beauty in the context of contemporary culture. Glitches have become increasingly popular and are now ubiquitous in popular culture. That glitches were going to get mainstream was also predicted by Rosa Menkman in her Glitch Studies Manifesto. We kind of expected it, and it happened. The “aesthetic” of glitches appeal has been commodified and incorporated into glamorous content such as ads, music videos, fashion, video games, sports, and film trailers. It’s as if glitches have become sexy, appealing to the contemporary generation influenced by technology. I am also thinking of the modern heroes, the myth of the rebellious hacker, as portrayed in Hollywood. Therefore, I believe that glitching classical beauty only enhances its appeal to the contemporary sense of beauty.

Rosa Menkman, Glitch Art Studies Manifesto (2009-2010)

“I believe that glitching classical beauty only enhances its appeal to the contemporary sense of beauty.”

This is why in my works for Disordinary Beauty | Art Canon I am more about challenging the viewer’s experience of the artwork. I aim to create a sense of vertigo, subverting the expectation the viewers have, that of a polished and rendered image with striking definition. I seek to alter the viewer’s expectations by targeting classical canons that primarily focus on my intention to corrupt that ideal of harmony in those artworks of classical tradition where the artists, and the public, expected that sense of harmony, peace, and a delightful view. I am also targeting the context of the digital screen, that by common use influences the expectation of the viewers, a beautiful viewing experience. When glitching, I concentrate on the glitch sequences, layer on top of the layer but especially the flow, pushing them beyond the limits, and exaggerating to create a sense of dis/harmony. 

“I am also targeting the context of the digital screen, that by common use influences the expectation of the viewers, a beautiful viewing experience.”

RE:3 (Lack of understanding of glitch art)

This is a topic I am very fond of. In response to your question, I want to stress that the commercialization and superficial commodification of glitch art is a disappointing trend that threatens to reduce its cultural and artistic value. While the popularization of glitch aesthetics has brought the art form to the mainstream, thank Kanye West for that, it has also created a myopic focus on the superficial aspects of the work, ignoring the depth and complexity of its technical and cultural implications. Unfortunately, many people reduce glitch art to a mere visual effect, failing to recognize its broader cultural and artistic significance.

Still from the music video of the song Welcome to Heartbreak by Kanye West. Directed by Nabil Elderkin (2009)

Furthermore, I believe that the technical process behind glitch art is often overlooked or ignored, reducing it to a mere novelty. Rather than focusing on the true complexity and potential of the art form, people frequently resort to using shortcut apps and plugins that are readily available. While these tools can be useful in creating an initial foundation for the art, a first step into more technical and engaging practices, they often fail to capture the true depth and complexity of the work.

“Glitch art is not just a niche interest for computer art nerds, but rather an art form with broad cultural and social relevance.” 

It’s important to recognize that glitch art is not just a niche interest for computer art nerds, but rather an art form with broad cultural and social relevance. It can help increase digital literacy and awareness of the technological landscape, a creative way to explore it, and has the potential to address a wide range of important topics, from inclusivity to feminism, and security. I always tell during my classes and talk that glitch art is not just of interest for computer art nerds, but it should be of interest to everyone using technologies as glitch art is a way to gain more digital literacy by exploring the digital landscape through its imperfections, through the abnormal behavior of machines, the atypical hidden functions. 

Learn more about the development of glitch art in this article by scholar Carolyn L. Kane, published in Invisible Culture Journal

Glitch art can help to spread more awareness, not just about topics related to technology. I introduced the metaphor of atypical machines’ behavior, a story of autism, and the life of a family: the glitch poetic can help to address many topics.

“Glitch art can be so much more than a mere trend or visual effect, and it’s time for us to recognize and embrace its full potential.”

Overall, the failure of institutions like Sotheby’s to fully embrace the cultural and artistic significance of glitch art is a missed opportunity, one that could have elevated the art form and brought it to a wider audience in a more deserved way. Glitch art has the potential to be so much more than a mere trend or visual effect, and it’s time for us to recognize and embrace its full potential. 

I might sound biased but I made glitch art a way of life, my sort of philosophy to hack/decode life events and its short circuits. I am an imperfectionist. 🙂

Sincerely,
d0/\/\!

Confused? Try this quick intro to Glitch Art:

What the ¶b≠ôÆ is Glitch Art?

Phantasmaverse: the artists

Roxanne Vardi and Pau Waelder

Niio has proudly hosted a collaboration with artists and NYU professors Carla Gannis and Snow Yunxue Fu consisting of a group artcast featuring recent works by artists and NYU students Ren Ciarrocchi, Jessica Dai, Marina Roos Guthmann, James Lee, Tinrey Wang, Yuaqing She & June Bee, Shentong Yu, and Jerry Zhao. 

Titled Phantasmaverse, the exhibition addresses the potential of simulation technologies such as CGI animation and VR environments in storytelling and the creation of meaningful artworks that explore new forms of engaging with viewers and reflecting on our digital society.

We asked the artists about their work and their views on the use of digital technologies in their creative process.

Renz Renderz, AFTER THE AFTER PARTY, 2022

Ren Ciarrocchi (a.k.a. Renz Renderz) defines herself as an “extended reality builder,” a digital artist specializing in 3D modeling who creates architectural structures for virtual reality and metaverse environments. Currently, she is pursuing a masters degree in Integrated Design and Media with a focus in XR and selling digital art pieces as NFTs. After the Afterparty, the artwork she presents at Phantasmaverse, takes the viewer through a luxury apartment on the morning after a big party, peeping through the numerous rooms and imagining what took place in them.

Artist’s profile

You create architectural models for metaverses, how would you describe your creative process? Do you feel free to create beyond the logic of existing structures or do the references from modern architecture and luxury homes impose themselves?

I think the most wonderful part about the metaverse is the non-necessity for practicality. My galleries don’t need to stand on their own, they exist in a realm where the laws of gravity and space don’t have to exist. The precise planning and execution of a “real-life” building is much more intense with little room for error. In the metaverse, errors can flow! It’s a playful exploration of new technology while drawing inspiration from traditional architectural structures. I am particularly drawn to the minimalist approach of modern architecture. There’s beauty in our ability to stack basic shapes into buildings that are sleek and spacious. I still like to maintain familiarity in my structures that resemble “real-life” galleries and spaces, but as I progress with each one, I stray further away from the limitations of this base reality.

“As an emerging artist, I am adding to a massive sea of creativity that is driving the art world into a new era. I know that any piece I make will have meaning, because it’s an expression of myself.”

After the Afterparty depicts a luxurious home, the morning after a party, when everyone has left. As a young artist, do you feel that you are dealing with the afterparty of digital art and NFTs, or is there much more to come?

The interpretation of an empty, trashed, luxurious apartment is open and abstract. From a digital art and NFT perspective, it could represent a moment of reflection in the aftermath of the explosive growth and excitement that the NFT space experienced in recent years. The technology is revolutionizing the art world and empowering artists to take ownership of their own creations with unique and verifiable digital assets. The space and market will continue to fluctuate and evolve, but the fundamental logic behind these technologies is solid and revolutionary. The space is already full of incredibly talented artists who are utilizing NFTs to empower themselves and their work. As an emerging artist entering the space alongside them, I know that I am adding to a massive sea of creativity that is driving the art world into a new era. I know that any piece I make will have meaning, because it’s an expression of myself. 

James Lee, Interactive Visualizations, 2021

James Lee is a creative technologist who James is a creative technologist that solves problems by creating interactive experiences, web 3D apps, and physical computing installations. He majored in Mechanical Engineering and studied Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University and is now completing his masters degree in Integrated Design and Media. In Phantasmaverse, he presents a series of interactive, code-based experiments that hint at his aesthetic and conceptual interests.

Artist’s profile

There are two layers to your work, its interactivity and the aesthetic composition that results from it. How do you balance these two layers? Which one seems more interesting to you?

The interactivity controls the aesthetics. By creating the interactivity, the works are now unique to each user’s randomness and also given the beauty of it. Carefully designing the controls is definitely interesting, so the piece doesn’t fall into a total chaos.

“I intend to give the cold numbers a «dress» for people to understand them more easily.”

You emphasize that the code you used is “simple and minimalistic.” Given that there is a beauty and elegance in the code itself, how would you describe the solutions you used to create these visualizations?

It’s simple because no complex structure or algorithms are used. I am always amazed by how simple loops and repeating elements can create such elegant outcomes.

Some of your works visualize external data. How relevant is that data to the meaning of the artwork? Does it drive its aesthetic output?

The works that visualize external data are tightly related to the source. It’s like a snapshot of the data. I intend to give the cold numbers a “dress” for people to understand them more easily.

Jerry Zhao, False Titans, 2022

Jerry Zhao is an artist working primarily with photography, videography, as well as recently, CGI. With his background in traditional art forms like drawing/painting, Jerry blends various mixed media together to explore the intersection of technology and ego. He is currently attending NYU Tisch for Photography & Imaging with minors in Business of Entertainment Media (Stern) and Technology and Integrated Design and Media (Tandon). In Phantasmaverse he presents False Titans, an allegory of the ego in our digital society.

Artist’s profile

In False Titans you address the role of the ego in our society mediated by technology through a series of metaphorical tableaus. Which references from psychology, the visual arts or popular culture can you trace in the creation of these compositions?

I think the clearest connection between my work to psychology is Carl Jung and his well-known take on the Theory of The Unconscious and ego-death. To quickly unpack the connections, my work establishes itself in three scenes which respectively represent the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious all while maintaining an overarching theme of ego-death’s progression caused by technological advancement and social media. The title, “False Titans,” also references the Greek mythological titans who were eventually overthrown by their own creations, a parallel I draw between humanity (the titans) and our creation (AI and technology). 

The first scene utilizes a 3D scan of Ligier Richier’s ‘Le Transi de Rene de Chalon,’ a cadaver sculpture, the type of which typically represents a transitory state between life and death. Further interpretation of the statue includes concepts  of repentance and desire for salvation, which I likened to the desire to find purpose and make peace with oneself—a much-desired fulfillment I understand as universal among humanity and especially my generation indicated by the many grasping hands. But I borrow the facade of a snowy mountain peak meant to show the arduous journey and the difficult nature of the trek where the many hands also represent the many who don’t make it. The black sludge flowing out of the eye-socket is my further representation of ego and the personal unconscious leaving the body as lamentation of a realization that everyone in a sense is chasing the same thing.

“3D allows great freedom in creation—a paralyzing factor. I’ve found that it’s more difficult for me to “finish” pieces because there’s always so much room for improvement.”

The second scene takes place in a personal bedroom space suspended in animation with no clocks and a chrome skeleton figure. This scene includes concepts of baptism and the implications of the personal unconscious being constantly born and reborn by ego’s hand, resulting in the following scene of a shattered reality showing possibly separate but identical individuals lit by a massive screen that turns on and off showing how technology now molds and gives dimension to our personal unconscious and ego.

The final scene is the collective unconscious and a liminal space that represents how everyone’s personal features have been removed and the collective unconscious has developed a technological ego of uniformity. It also raises a question of who shall inherit the earth when we disappear as the figure is both a monument representative of humanity’s remnant existence than a true individual—a conglomerate existence of identical egos.

As an artist who has worked with traditional art techniques, what would you say that painting and sculpture bring to 3D modeling, and what does this digital technique allow that makes it different from other formats?

I believe that painting and sculpture have brought a lot of advantages to me in terms of 3D modeling as I can properly conceptualize as well as visualize what I wish to create in the digital world as a lot of my creation relies on my sketching it out beforehand. 3D, like other artforms, has a steep learning curve and a nonexistent skill-ceiling, but I think that the medium goes beyond this factor as 3D has many more ways of interactivity, allowing great freedom in creation—a paralyzing factor that almost makes it harder to create because possibilities are limitless. As such I’ve found that it’s more difficult for me to “finish” pieces because there’s always so much room for improvement in every aspect. But this freedom also has the upside in that its versatility allows for infinite innovation that redefines and paves the way for new definitions of art.

Tinrey Wang, The Other Relics, 2021

Tinrey Wang is a 3D artist, game designer, and multimedia designer based in New York. He currently works as a Research Resident at New York University, where he focuses on exploring the intersection of XR technology, game design, and fashion. He selected for Phantasmaverse a VR experience, The Other Relics, which deals with culture, memory, and otherness.

Artist’s profile

In The Other Relics, you confront the viewer with Otherness, from the encounter with the character Bubble to the zero-gravity space where they explore the remains of an alien culture. What interests you most about exploring Otherness, particularly in a VR environment?

In The Other Relics, the otherness consists of artifacts related to art, architecture, and culture. Using VR technology, players are able to navigate freely within the space, interact with objects, and experience the absence of gravitational forces. What most interests me about this experience is the opportunity to challenge traditional methods of curating and viewing artworks. By immersing the view in an unconventional space that blurs the boundaries of physicality, narratives, and immersion, I aim to provoke new perspectives and modes of engagement with art and discuss what is possible in the world of art.

“Using VR technology I aim to provoke new perspectives and modes of engagement with art and discuss what is possible in the world of art.”

You state that you are interested in new ways of curating and experiencing art. What is your opinion about the possibilities of art streaming (displaying art on any screen, turning a TV at home into a space for art)?

In my opinion, art streaming can offer greater accessibility and exposure to artwork to a wider audience, potentially leading to increased interest and appreciation for art. It also provides a new platform for artists and galleries to showcase their work, expanding their reach beyond traditional physical spaces. However, I think that there are still concerns about the quality of the viewing experience. The possibilities of art streaming offer both opportunities and challenges for the art world to adapt and evolve with this technology.

Jessica Dai, Life After Death, 2023

Jessica Dai is an artist whose practice utilizes photography and digital media based in New York. She studies photography at NYU Tisch and hopes to tell stories through unique conceptual solutions. Phantasmaverse features her work Life After Death, a CGI animation exploring a peculiar form of afterlife.

Artist’s profile

Life After Death depicts a somber, crystallized world inhabited by skeletons and nevertheless filled with a life of its own. What inspired you to choose these elements in particular?

Life After Death is a CGI project that explores the theme of death and the afterlife through a unique and somber lens. Inspired by the natural phenomenon of whale fall, where a whale’s body becomes a source of nutrients and sustenance for various creatures in the deep sea, the project seeks to capture the beauty and mystery of life beyond the physical realm.

Through the use of digital modeling and animation, I have created a world that is both haunting and captivating, where the bones of the dead are situated in shimmering crystals that reflect the light in a stunning and ethereal way. In this world, the skeletons themselves have become part of the landscape, taking on a life of their own as they move and interact with their environment.

“I use camera movements to guide the viewer through the narrative. I aim to create a sense of intimacy and immersion through close-ups and wide shots.”

As an artist interested in storytelling, how do you take the viewer through the story? 

I use camera movements and transitions to guide the viewer through the narrative. The camera serves as a window into this mysterious world, drawing the viewer in and revealing its secrets one frame at a time. I aim to create a sense of intimacy and immersion through close-ups and wide shots. Music also plays an essential role in the narrative, serving as a critical element in setting the mood and tone of the piece. By combining haunting melodies and eerie sound effects, I aim to create an otherworldly atmosphere that draws the viewer deeper into the story.

Marina Roos Guthmann, When It Looks Back, 2021

Marina Roos Guthmann is a Brazilian UX/UI designer, currently based in Brooklyn, NYC. She has worked in different areas of the Design industry (including Illustration, Motion Design, and UX). She loves crafting weird experiences that use immersive means and coding. In Phantasmaverse, she presents a VR experience about post-traumatic stress disorder set in a surreal environment.

Artist’s profile

When It Looks Back is based on a traumatizing feeling but set in a rather pleasant yet eerie atmosphere, which sometimes reminds of casual games. Why did you choose this particular aesthetic?

I decided to set the experience in a flat casual game aesthetic because of how harmless and almost naive it looks. Yet, the more you explore, the weirder it gets. The contrast between a presumed pleasant setting and the weirdness of the experience is an interesting mix that enhances the sentiment that there is something out of place or wrong. In addition, I like how subtle the fear grows the more you explore, thanks to the presumed inoffensive look of the surroundings. In my experience dealing with my fears and traumas, something that might look inoffensive one day can easily be transformed into something fearsome that threatens my existence. Thus, the reason I worked with this specific look and feel.

“I believe VR can easily translate sensations and make the brain think you’re elsewhere, no matter how surreal your virtual environment is. This is fascinating.”

You state that you like weird and surreal experiences. How does using immersive technologies such as VR help you create the type of experience you are looking for?

With VR and other immersive experiences, you can go above and beyond to emulate sensations as you can literally create a whole new world around your audience. In this new world, you can play around with architecture, scale, and even gravity. And, because the person is immersed in this virtual new place, it has a much more significant impact than other mediums. 

In the experience I created, I took advantage of spatial audio and sound by exploring different ambients – with other materials, objects, and sizes –and how they reverberate sound differently. All these nuances significantly affect a VR environment, and a simple whisper can feel very real and disturbing. Additionally, as I wanted to portray the “growing fear” someone experiences, VR might be the scariest choice. Besides being a first-person experience with the option to interact with objects directly with your “hands,” you are immersed in a 360º field of view with nowhere else to look at. I believe VR can easily translate sensations and make the brain think you’re elsewhere, no matter how surreal your virtual environment is, and I think that is fascinating.

Shentong Yu, Facial Expressions: The Signal, 2022

Shentong Yu is a Shanghai born, NYC based visual artist. Her work ranges from 3D Computer Graphics to Conceptual Photography, sharing an imaginative quality and reflecting her understanding of self-identity and the surroundings. Facial Expressions: The Signal is the work she presents in Phantasmaverse, which connects a questioning of the self with Freud’s theories and Surrealism.

Artist’s profile

Facial Expression, from 2021, depicts our changing selves in the age of social media and endless swiping. The Signal expands on this idea by going down the rabbit hole into a fully-developed surreal world. What led you to develop this environment? What does it bring to the original concept?

I think every artist has a different relationship with their artwork. For me, creating artwork is a way for me to document my growth, reflect on what I perceive, and visualize my thoughts in my mind. One of my favorite artists Gillian Wearing has a saying in her work Wearing Masks: “I believe that identity is fluid and it’s what you absorb from the world around you and internalize. But what you reveal of yourself to the world, that’s how other people define your identity.” I think that is highly consistent with my view of my work.

I started with traditional photography, taking pictures of beautiful faces. At some point, I began to question what these beautiful faces meant to me. I feel the face is a semblance of people’s identity, as it is what determines people’s first impressions while neglecting the inner side. These ideas inspired me to create Facial Expression (2021), in which I alternate my own face to challenge how a face can be seen.

While Facial Expression focuses on the outward appearance, I want to answer the question of what my inner world looks like naturally. I thought it was a good time to address this question after learning computer graphics for a year, to document what I had learned so far and create something meaningful to myself. And other than that, yes, what you see becomes what you express. I watched Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton 8 times when I was a kid and am highly drawn to artwork with surreal aesthetics, so those are what influenced me to create the rabbit-hole storytelling and make it look like a dream. Finally, I created The Signal (2022), building this surreal world, visualizing my unconscious part, and telling the story of self-discovery. The Signal makes the idea in Facial Expression more complete.

“People’s participation in an interactive artwork adds new levels of meaning to the original piece”

You have also worked with collage and AR filters, what do these techniques bring to the ideas you want to convey about the self and virtual worlds?

AR is a really fun one. My motivation to create AR filters was simple, as I had a hard time removing stickers from my face when doing Does Shentong Dream of Electronic Sheep?, but AR makes it easy for everyone to try what I have done without suffering the pain. I love seeing people try out and their reactions. People’s participation in the work sort of adds new levels of meaning to the original piece, as it is not only me altering my face, but viewers can also alter their own faces using AR as well. 

In general, I enjoy trying out different visual mediums techniques. Sometimes I determine the idea first and then the most proper technique to use, sometimes I determine the technique I want to play with first and then tie it back to my thoughts. Different techniques give the work a different character as well as different viewing experiences. It is hard to pick my favorite technique because I think the charm of it is to feel how different they are from each other. As long as a technique makes the work look more visually attractive or the experience more engaging then I am good with it. So far, I have tried photography, image appropriation, stop-motion video, computer graphics video, collage animation, augmented reality, and 3D prints…They give me more possibilities and freedom when expressing my ideas.

Yuanqing Xie & June Bee, Aftermath of Us, 2023

Yuanqing Xie is is a photographer and new media artist who graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
June Bee is a New York based designer who studied both Architectural Design and Design & Technology Bachelor’s programs at Parsons School of Design and currently pursuing a BFA degree in Interactive Media Arts at NYU. Their work Aftermath of Us, presented in Phantasmaverse, is a short film created with 3D animation that reflects on the consequences of AI technologies.

Artist’s profile

“Aftermath of Us” has a distinctively cinematic narrative. In your experience, how have digital technologies transformed filmmaking and visual storytelling? Which references from the history of cinema have influenced this work?

Digital technology has democratized the filmmaking process, allowing anyone with the right tools to create their own voice typically in the form of films and visual stories. This has led to a proliferation of independent filmmakers, animators, and video artists, helping to create a more diverse and vibrant film culture. In this piece, we decided to explore this form beyond traditional films and animations. June and I (Yuanqing) as independent 3D animators took the notion of such a decentralized design process into our team collaborations and even elevated it to the core of how the narration could be.

By using Unreal Engine, we designed an open-world space that allowed content to be present yet has the capacity to have instant impressions developed over time as what is composed to the viewing experiences.

With the revolutionized digital technologies nowadays, the engineering aspect of filmmaking and visual storytelling became easier and more accessible to create high-quality visual effects that convince audiences what is the new reality. Such trends have led to a large amount of immersive worlds being created in this era. In order to navigate within this ocean of multi-media works, we decided to look back to the origin of how these started – Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). The piece draws heavily from the history of cinema, specifically the science fiction and cyberpunk genres that have explored the intersection between humanity and technology. It references Blade Runner in terms of both its aesthetic and the themes it explores, delving into the impact of technology on society and the environment through the use of literature, religious symbolism, dramatic themes, and film noir techniques. This theme is reflected in the retrofitted future portrayed in the film, which is both futuristic and rundown.

In terms of visual storytelling, this work also draws on experimental and avant-garde cinema traditions. The use of surreal and dreamlike imagery and the incorporation of music and sound effects to create an immersive atmosphere are reminiscent of the works of filmmakers like Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage.

“Niio provides this pure art and thoughts environment that allows our ideas to continue to grow and flourish.”

Additionally, the rise of streaming platforms such as Netflix have transformed the distribution and consumption of films, providing new opportunities for independent filmmakers to reach global audiences and allowing a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard. By putting our work on Niio, we believed in the same effect of reaching a larger audience without time and space limitations. Moreover, Niio provides this pure art and thoughts environment that allows these ideas to continue to grow and flourish.

Overall, we think this work is a powerful example of how digital technologies can be used to create immersive and thought-provoking visual stories that draw on the rich traditions of cinema. By combining cutting-edge digital tools with a deep appreciation for the history of film, we can create a work that is both visually stunning and intellectually engaging.

To what extent did the environment you created influence the narrative? Did you start with a storyboard and built the spaces around this idea, or did you first create the spaces and then experiment with camera movements around them?

The idea for this piece arose from the sense of uncertainty that Yuanqing and I (June) felt last year. Even before artificial intelligence services like ChatGPT and Notion AI were introduced, we were unsure of our place and role in the world as creative technologists. Taking and gathering the various enlightening and concerning elements that technology brings about, we created a space to explore. By examining the dynamic relationships within the experience, we aim to answer the question “What happens after AI?”

Why does this experience provide an answer to that question? The animation is viewed through the lens of the bionic/AI. Using a VR headset, we follow the journey of a lost bionic who wakes up in the cracks between yesterday and tomorrow and overhears two people talking on an old recorder. The content of the old recorder serves as a guide for the wandering AI as it navigates through space. The recording is actually a real transcript of an interview between Blake Lemoine – a former artificial intelligence engineer from Google, and Google’s first dialogical AI – LaMDA.

This is a transcript of an interview that led to Blake Lemoine’s termination from Google. Lemoine was working on the LaMDa project. As he interacted with the dialogical AI, he became convinced that the AI was more sentient than just speaking from a database, and actually understood the conversation. As a result, Lemoine and one of his Google collaborators conducted the interview with the LaMDa AI, asking challenging questions such as whether the AI had read Les Miserables, what her favorite parts were, and why. They also asked her to write a fable based on a newly introduced concept, and inquired about her thoughts on the concept of a soul, and whether she thinks she has one. After the interview, it was difficult to tell if the AI was sentient or not, as she seemed to have a deep understanding of the topics they discussed.

“The environment in the piece had a significant influence on the narration. There was no original storyboard, but rather the camera movement became an attempt to simulate AI’s consciousness.”

To answer the question, the environment in the piece had a significant influence on the narration. The cave-like space was created first, and the exploratory journey within it became the storyline. There was no original storyboard, but rather the camera movement became an attempt to simulate AI’s consciousness from all sources we designed. The intricate environment and the recording of the interview between Blake Lemoine and Google’s LaMDA AI serve as a guiding voice and source for the simulation of AI’s wandering.

Read the interview with the curators of the Phantasmaverse exhibition and artcast, Carla Gannis and Snow Yunxue Fu

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