Tag Archives: memory

Chun Hua Catherine Dong: “My body is a material for my art”

Pau Waelder

Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Meet Me Halfway – part 1, 2021

A performance and conceptual artist whose work spans different media, Chun Hua Catherine Dong successfully navigates the space between an artistic practice characterized by the physical, bodily presence of the artist in the same space and time as her audience, and another one based on the mediation of digital technologies and a distributed and almost immaterial existence. Dong has taken her performance artworks worldwide, combining action with documentation in the form of photographs and videos that often become artworks on their own. She is also exploring the creative possibilities of VR, AR, and Artificial Intelligence in a series of artworks that are still deeply rooted in her research on gender, memory, identity, body, and presence.

Dong has exhibited their works at The International Digital Art Biennial Montreal (BIAN),  The International Biennial of Digital Arts of the Île-de-France (Némo), MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image, Kaunas Biennial, The Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in France, Quebec City Biennial, Foundation PHI for Contemporary Art, Canadian Cultural Centre Paris, Museo de la Cancillería in Mexico City, The Rooms Museum, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, DongGong Museum of Photograph in South Korea, He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, Hubei Museum of Fine Art in Wuhan, The Aine Art Museum in Tornio, Bury Art Museum in Manchester, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Art Gallery of Hamilton, among others. She is represented by  Galerie Charlot in Paris.

The artist recently presented the artcast Meet Me Halfway, which collects four videos from her multi-channel VR video installation that explores the perception of time and space in virtual reality and the inability to return to the present from searching the inner world.

Experience Chun Hua Catherine Dong’s immersive VR spaces in Meet Me Halfway

Open artcast
Chun Hua Catherine Dong, The Lost Twelve Years (2015)

As a Chinese-born, Montreal-based artist, the issues of identity, culture, belonging, and distance are present in your life and your work as well. In our globalized world, these issues can sometimes be overlooked, or else exoticized and clichéd, even demanding of an artist with a mixed cultural background to address them. Would you say that there is still a dominant Western perspective on multiculturalism, and if so, how do you address it in your work? 

This is a very interesting question. I can’t speak for others, but it’s natural for me to explore these topics. Living in a different cultural context often prompts questions about one’s identity.  If I lived in China, I would probably never feel the need to deal with these difficult issues. But I immigrated to Canada a long time ago. I need to reconnect with my roots because I feel that something that nurtured me has faded and been forgotten. It is important for me to renew it from time to time. I addressed this issue in my earlier performances. For example, in my performance The Lost Twelve Years (2015) I use a Chinese teapot to pour ink over my head and a squirt gun to shoot ink to my heart and head, which are actions that force me to remember who I am.  

“After living as a «living sculpture» for a long time, I came to the conclusion that it is wise to keep life and art separate.  Now, I state that «I use my body as my material in my artwork» rather than «my body is my artwork.»”

Your body is a key element in your work, both as “the body of the artist”, representing you as an individual and your personal experiences, and as “a female body,” addressing issues of the representation of women in a patriarchal society. When you conceive your performances, how do you weigh these two possibilities?

As a performance artist, my “body as an Asian woman” and my “body as an artwork” frequently change. When I first started doing performance, I considered performance as an attitude, and that “life is a performance, performance is life.” The two were inseparable; thus, my life was always in a performance/artwork mode, or “living sculpture” mode. But I realized that I was quite weary of being my own artwork. It is also harmful to one’s mental health and sanity because the concept “life is art and art is life” could mess up your life. After living as a “living sculpture” for a long time, I came to the conclusion that “Life can be a performance, but performance is not life—at least, not my entire life.”  It is wise to keep the two separate.  Later, I use the statement that “I use my body as my material in my artwork” rather than “my body is my artwork.”

Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Skin Deep (2014-2020). Photographs with Augmented Reality

In your work, we can find on the one hand a direct approach to the body, naked, as a canvas or an object, and on the other hand the body veiled by masks and disguises. What do you find more interesting about playing with the different levels of displaying and hiding the body, maybe also seducing or unsettling the viewer’s gaze?

This is a very interesting question. Yes, there were naked bodies in my early performance work. For me, the body is a blank canvas, and any type of clothing or even makeup can give “identity” to it. Perhaps viewers perceive me as vulnerable when they see me naked, but I don’t feel that way. Being naked doesn’t challenge me but rather challenges the viewers. The power of the naked body in performance art lies in its rawness, it’s a pure form of art. Anyway, who isn’t born naked?

“For me, the body is a blank canvas: any type of clothing or even makeup can give “identity” to it. Being naked doesn’t challenge me but rather challenges the viewers.”

In the digital world, physical distance, the presence of the human body, and even identity tend to be blurred or seemingly erased. For instance, your work Meet Me Halfway is strikingly different from your performance work in both aesthetics and the presence of the body, yet you have incorporated your body in the form of camera movements. How do you navigate the differences between an immaterial digital environment and the materiality of your performances?

Meet Me Halfway (2021) was created during the pandemic. According to reports, many Asian people were attacked in public places during the pandemic. I was afraid of going out. If I had to go out, I wore a big hat and mask to cover myself because I didn’t want to be recognized. This situation subconsciously influenced my work Meet Me Halfway, which is why my body is absent in this work but just camera movements.  I became interested in VR during the pandemic as well because I discovered that VR can help me to escape from reality. VR space is less political, at least, you won’t get physically attacked. You can build your own virtual world in VR and visit it from time to time whenever you want. It is interesting that you mentioned immateriality in the digital environment. Actually, performance art is often regarded as an immaterial practice as well. Because of its immaterial nature, it is very easy for me to shift my practice from performance art to digital art.

Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Mulan (2022)

Following with the previous question, Mulan addresses gender identity through a folk heroine placed in an underwater landscape. What seems at first a scene of pure fantasy contains numerous symbolisms. How would say that a viewer immersed in this VR space can connect with the message you want to convey? 

Gender is an important component of my work. Mulan (2022) was inspired by Beijing Opera. You are right. “Mulan” depicts a pure fantasy scene because Beijing Opera is my fantasy. I used to dream of wearing the Beijing Opera costume and performing on stage when I was little. But Beijing Opera is a form of high art, not many people have a chance to access it. For me, art provides a space for asking questions and discovering; I’d be very happy to see that people have questions when they experience Mulan, such as, “Why Mulan? Why are there two Mulan? What outfit does Mulan wear? What are the names of the sea creatures surrounding Mulan?” If people ask questions, they will find answers.  Sometimes I realize that I am more interested in how viewers feel and think about my work rather than telling them what my work is about. Viewers’ different interpretations enrich and expand the artwork itself.

“I am more interested in how viewers feel and think about my work rather than telling them what my work is about. Viewers’ different interpretations enrich and expand the artwork itself.”

The mise en scène is an important element in a performance, which in your work translates to carefully set up photographs, installations, and VR environments. What is the role of space in your work across the many different media you use?

Mise en scene is a stage. Most of my works are staged. In performance, “mise en scene” can be in any place, including public, private, virtual, or imaginary spaces. Camera frame is a type of stage too because activities must occur within the frame in order for the camera to capture them. If we apply this concept to traditional art, a plinth is a stage for sculptures, and a wall serves as a stage for two-dimensional artworks.

Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Meet Me Halfway (2021). Four-channel VR video installation. Exhibition view at Foundation Phi.

You have stated that you initially wanted to become a painter, but found that performance was more expressive. Yet there is a painterly quality to much of your work, particularly in photography and digital art, besides the use of paint in some of your performances. Which would you say is your approach to painting nowadays? 

Yes, I wanted to be a painter before. But painting has its own limitations because you work in a two-dimensional space, and you must sometimes wait for it to dry before applying another layer. Performance is an expressive medium, I never wanted to go back to painting after I fell in love with performance. My work does have painterly quality, I guess it is because of my painting background. Regarding how I approach painting nowadays, I think it is VR drawing/ painting. It doesn’t limit you in a 2D space like traditional painting, but rather you work in a 3D space. When you draw a line in VR, it is a 3D line, and you can zoom in and out to see your drawing/painting in 3D perspective, which fascinates me.

“I approach painting through VR. It doesn’t limit you in a 2D space like traditional painting, but rather you work in a 3D space. When you draw a line in VR, it is a 3D line, and you can zoom in and out to see your drawing/painting in 3D perspective, which fascinates me.”

In your recent work Out of the Blue, you address your childhood and feature a teddy bear character that has been present in your work over the last three years. Can you tell us more about this character? You frequently use 3D printing techniques to create sculptures, why have you chosen this technique over more traditional forms of modeling and sculpting?

The teddy bear is a symbol of childhood.  With its eyes closed, the bear refuses to look at the world, rather prefers to dream. In my digital art practice, I began with AR and VR, and then 3D printing. It is very natural for me to use 3D printing to make sculptures because 3D printing is a type of digital fabrication. 3D printing is also a practical choice. Traditional sculpture requires a large studio space and special tools, which I don’t have. On the other hand, 3D printing doesn’t require much space; simply having a table or a desk at home is sufficient. Traditionally, 3D printing has been used to make molds or prototypes for further work. However, I embrace its rawness. I use 3D printing as the raw material for my finished artwork, with no additional touches such as sanding or painting. The unpolished raw nature of 3D printing fascinates me because it captures the essence of the technological and digital process, demystifying how artwork is made.

Chun Hua Catherine Don. Solo Exhibition: At the Edge of Two Worlds. TRUCK Contemporary Art, 2022

You have recently started experimenting with AI, first in the photographic series For You I Will Be an Island, and lately creating animations of what appear to be underwater creatures. Can you tell me about your experience with this technology? Which are your objectives when using AI programs? How does working with these programs differ from your VR and 3D animations?

I like AI. For me, AI is more than simply a tool; it’s like having an assistant. I understand that people have concerns about AI. I completely respect that. However, as an artist with limited resources and financial assistance, AI helps me save time and money when creating artwork.  For example, in For You I Will Be an Island (2023) I printed 23 pieces of 2.5 m x 2.5 m AI generated graphics; I can’t imagine how I would do this without AI. I could paint 23 pieces of 2.5 m × 2.5 m paintings, but how long would it take? Or I could use photographs, but where would I find such locations to photograph? I probably can find them if I have the financial freedom to travel around the world to look for them, but how long would it take?  Now AI is able to create animation and 3D objects, although it is not there yet, it is still very exciting. Animation and 3D modeling are often very time consuming and costly. If I have a budget, of course, I prefer to work with creative people, but if I don’t, AI is a good way to go.

Chun Hua Catherine Dong, For You I Will Be An Island (2023)

As we are starting the year (in the Gregorian calendar, and soon the Chinese New Year), it begs the question: what are you currently working on, and which projects do you have in store for the coming months?

Thanks! I am very excited that the Chinese New Year is coming soon. This is the year to celebrate the dragon. I am currently working on a public art project with 35 video displays at Place des Arts in Montreal. I am also working on an upcoming solo exhibition at Galerie Charlot in Paris in April. And I will participate in Montreal’s International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN) in May.

“If I have a budget, of course, I prefer to work with creative people, but if I don’t, AI is a good way to go.”

Aaron Higgins: The landscape has it all

Pau Waelder

Artist and researcher Aaron M. Higgins holds BFA and MFA degrees from The Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Art at Indiana University. Higgins delves into time-based media as an artistic medium, employing lens-oriented capture methods, digital layering processes, and interactivity. His artwork has been showcased both within the U.S., including cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York, and abroad, with features in Korea, Sweden, and the Netherlands among others.

Higgins recently presented the solo artcast Memory Palaces on Niio, featuring a series of artworks in which the artist draws inspiration from microscopic images of the human brain, as well as those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, to create alluring, surreal landscapes. In the following conversation, he reflects on the relationship between his digital media work and his background in painting, as well as his connection to landscape and nature.

Bring Aaron Higgins’ mnemonic landscapes to your screen

Open artcast
Aaron Higgins. Memoria, 2017

You have a background in painting prior to your digital media practice. How did you move from one medium to the other, and how does your knowledge about painting inform your digital work, which is at times deliberately painterly?

My undergraduate studies were in Painting, and my graduate studies focused on Digital Media. I found working with Digital Media somewhat intuitive and picked things up relatively quickly. I think my strengths lie in how I compose and composite imagery in my work. A lot of this is similar to how I think about composing a 2D rectangle, but with time-based media I am also considering how the composition moves and changes over its timeline. As with a drawing or painting, I consider how the eye might move around the image, or how space is constructed within the composition of the image. I also want something for the eye to sense, or feel, as it relates to the surface, so I think a lot about visual texture, and compositing methods that yield a ‘painterly’ quality. I guess in some ways I am trying to work against the sanitization of the screen-based image. In the same vein, I am also subverting the ‘digital’, or ‘machine’, and attempting to reimplement ‘the hand’.

“In some ways I am trying to work against the sanitization of the screen-based image and attempting to reimplement ‘the hand’.”

There is an interest in landscape in your work, from the documentary-style images of Tallgrass to the surreal environments of Mnemonic Passages. What do you find in landscapes that is interesting for your work?

The landscape has it all. I try to maintain a connection to the landscape, in my life and in my work, although it’s not necessarily front of mind. Most of my earlier work, painting, focused on painting in the landscape, as well as still-life, which I also think of as landscape. I’ve always been fascinated by nature, after all, we emerged from mother nature. To me, there is something spiritual in connecting with and observing nature, of being immersed in the landscape. The landscape can be so many things, a prairie, a memory, a body, a mind, etc. In my early interactive works, the Splitting Time series, I suppose that I am thinking of time, and the image itself (what the camera sees), as a landscape and reorganizing its pieces into abstract compositions. In a sense, everything is a landscape of sorts. 

Aaron Higgins. tmsplttr. Interactive video animation. Video still.

Since the landscape is a cultural construct, as Alain Roger has suggested, which roles do fiction and narrative play in your landscapes?

That’s an interesting question. As I mentioned in my previous answer, the landscape holds endless metaphoric possibilities. The landscape often serves as a placeholder for something else. In many ways we project our own values, ideals, and biases on the landscape before us. Artists do the same in their work, and the viewer does the same in experiencing the work. I try to leave room for this to occur. In the Tallgrass series, for example, the work is representative of my experience in the tallgrass prairie landscape. I want to share that dynamic, interactive experience with the viewer. In doing so, however, I am weaving a lot of fiction. The imagery is highly composited, creating something other than reality. Maybe a collage of reality… creating an ideal, but there is also a more universal narrative that is superimposed on the work transcending any information gathering, documentation, or individual experience.

“The landscape often serves as a placeholder for something else. In many ways we project our own values, ideals, and biases on the landscape before us.”

Tallgrass: An Osage Reverie: interactive HD video animation series (installation view)

In the Mnemonic Passages series, the imagery is completely invented, but I use actual video in my compositing process. In this series, particularly, I am using webcam footage of myself (working on things in front of my computer) as textures that wrap the 3D forms (memoryforms). This adds the hint of subjective imagery inside, or across the surface of these forms. It also helps to create a sense that these forms are flickering with information. In this way, as with other works of mine, there is an element of self-portraiture to my work as well as landscape.

Regardless, the process usually involves taking photo imagery and creating something ‘new’ with it. 

Aaron Higgins. MemoryForm (1), 2017

In the Mnemonic Passages series, you depict memory palaces as organic, and somewhat otherworldly spaces instead of the rational, neo classical buildings we are used to imagine. What drove you to choose this type of image? 

With the Mnemonic Passages series, I suppose I am really thinking of the memory palace as the mind. I was thinking of the biology of the brain, the intricate architecture of neurons and synapses, etc. But, also as a place, a landscape, where memories are stored. These memories take form and shape within our minds, building the landscape of our experience. Of course, as I say in my statement, I am inspired by imagery from the scientific research and study of the brain, but also imagery from the research and study of our cosmos. The cosmos might be a ‘superlandscape’, if you will, that I see as a metaphor for our mind, or accumulated experience and knowledge. As our experience and knowledge grows, so does our picture and understanding of our cosmos. 

“The cosmos might be a ‘superlandscape’ that I see as a metaphor for our mind, or accumulated experience and knowledge.”

 Aaron M. Higgins. Moonrise with Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, HD 1080p interactive video animation (video still)

Where does your interest in memory stem from?

I guess my interest in memory stems from ideas related to your previous question. Our memory and experience, our culture (a form of generational memory) forms our identity. Like culture, a memory is a living thing that can change, bits are added, bits are taken out, we fill in missing bits to keep the landscape (trying to be consistent with my metaphors, here) cohesive and making sense. Neuroscience is also very relevant these days with new groundbreaking discoveries in how our minds work seemingly happening all the time. The same could be said about the cosmos and what we are learning from the James Webb Space Telescope. We are literally looking back in time at the earliest galaxies that formed in our universe, amazing stuff. 

Aaron Higgins. MemoryForm (2), 2017

You speak of creating meditative experiences through works that you patiently build layer by layer. How important is that meditative aspect in the making of the artwork, as your own experience, and then in the final result, as the experience of the viewer?

I really believe the work and craft that goes into something adds to what is communicated to the viewer and their experience. Craftsmanship is an important part of the process, always. One of things I love about painting is how meditative the act of painting is. There’s a lot that I find similar in my creative process with Digital Media. For one thing, the work evolves over time, and you have to be open to those changes. An idea I start out with is not always the same as what I end up with. I, too, evolve and change throughout the process and find that my interests lead me in new directions. The work sometimes has a will of its own, too, it seems, whether it be the nature of the tools, or limitations of the software or hardware (or myself), it always seems to be a negotiated process. Beyond that, choices are made as things progress that depend on what has happened up until that point, until the work is resolved. I try not to labor too much on these choices and let the work tell me what to do, if that makes any sense, and being in an open, meditative state tends to help with this process. It can be a challenge, though, when your computer crashes, or render times get unbearably slow. 

Aaron M. Higgins. astrocyte, HD 1080p (32:9) video animation, 2:00 loop (installation view).

As far as the viewer experience, I guess I am sort of imposing my preferences and communicating what I want my work to be in how I present it. However, I do want the work to be disarming, calming, and perhaps to create a sense of wonder and awe. When I think of my time-based work, I often think of paintings, as we discussed. I think of viewing a painting as something that happens over time. The painting is always on, always there to be received. As it is experienced and one is immersed, the more that is discovered, it changes. The context within which a work is experienced also has an effect on the experience. Is it on a screen, a phone or a television, is it projected? In what space is it, a private or public space? I try to apply these ideas to the presentation and structure of my time-based work. All of my work seamlessly loops and is always on, there is no beginning or end. It is there to be experienced at viewer discretion, for 30 seconds, 10 minutes, or an hour, or more. It’s there when you want it, for as long as you want it. In that sense, I do not want the work to be annoying or overbearing. I want it to be tolerable, I guess, not seizure inducing. 

“I want to give viewers the space to experience the work on their own terms, as well as allow space for the viewer to discover new connections with the work the more they experience or interact with it.”

Yet, I also don’t want the viewer to ignore the work, I want them to be engaged. I don’t want to impose too many parameters on the viewer or make it a chore to experience the work. In this sense, I think a lot about control, and the relationship between artist and viewer, viewer and art, etc. 

Control then becomes a subject I explore as it relates to life, my experience, the creative process, etc. I try not to exert too much control, especially on things that are out of my control. I know I’m getting in the weeds here… But, I guess, this goes back to the landscape, haha… and the process having its own sort of evolution that involves the artist and the media and letting that process occur without too much interference. I want to afford the viewer the same opportunity in how they experience the work. 

To quote Caroline Lavoie, from an article titled, ‘Sketching the Landscape: Exploring a Sense of Place’, “An object or person does not exist in isolation, but through relationships with its context. These relationships support a necessary state of being…”. 

Tough question.

Aaron Higgins. Mnemonic Passage, 2017

You have expressed your interest in incorporating the viewer into your work, through interactive installations. How would you compare your interactive work with your films and animations in terms of their concept, production process, expectations, and outcome?

So, I think, picking up where we left off in the last question… I am interested in introducing more randomness and perhaps an element of surprise to my work and how others experience it. Something that is always on, and loops endlessly, runs the risk of becoming monotonous. Adding some randomness and unpredictability can thwart the monotony, and keep viewers engaged. This also speaks to the landscape, self-portrait concepts, as well as the viewer/art/artist relationship, and how things change over time. 

In the ‘Tallgrass’ series, for example, the viewer would trigger events in the landscape: lightning striking, the sun setting, moon rising, bird calls, different poses and movements, etc. For each scene, a clip from a library of audio clips with variations of bird calls could randomly be paired with a video sequence of a bird singing. Motion sensing cameras trigger events as viewers move through the space. This adds slight variation and randomness in experiencing the work, so that experiencing the work again would almost certainly be different in variation and sequence of events. To me, this more closely resembles my experience in the tallgrass prairie, where things are the same, but different each time I visit. 

“Adding some randomness and unpredictability can thwart the monotony, and keep viewers engaged.”

My life experience, my interrupted or failed plans, my unexpected successes and victories, all the predictable and unpredictable events… This sort of ‘passive interaction’, allowed in ideas of control vs chaos which made the work feel more alive and real to me. Back to the prairie, when I would hike in the prairie and see an animal, they didn’t act as though I wasn’t there, they responded to my presence. 

In turn, this extends to the viewer, who in some cases was literally incorporated into the work, i.e. Karmic_Lapse, and altered the work by viewing it. As it relates to the artist/viewer relationship, the work is completed upon experiencing. That is to say, work is meant to be shared with and received by a viewer, an audience. That is when a work comes alive, not in my mind, but the mind of the viewer. We can relate this back to the Lavoie quote, “an object (or person) does not exist in isolation, but through relationships with its context.”

Aaron Higgins, Karmic Lapse. Interactive video animation. Installation view.

In relation to your code-based work, you speak of a “collaboration” with the software. How do you balance control and randomness in these projects, and what would you say that you have learned from the machine?

I enjoy how these questions are threaded together, these are really good questions. First, I am not much of a coder, but I use After Effects java-based expressions, visual coding languages- connecting inputs to outputs, I used to use actionscript, that sort of thing. To answer your question, though, the machine, its operating system runs on code, the software runs on code, I implement code, etc. It’s all doing things for me, in a sense. I mean, I tell it what to do, but I don’t completely understand how it’s doing it. So, in that way it is a collaboration, I guess. But, as far as balancing control and randomness, there are serendipitous things that occur throughout the creative process. I try to let these things occur, even push the process, the machine, to catalyze their occurrence. These are moments where something unexpected, something random occurs that adds to the piece. There’s a lot of experimentation involved, trial and error, but it’s a sort of dance seeing where things go and knowing when you’ve gone too far. This applies to painting, as well, there are some tools, like the palette knife, that can offer great control, but also, if used in a certain way, can create randomness in the application of paint to the surface. It further removes ‘the hand’, so to speak. 

“I guess my background in more traditional media is keeping me grounded, and I am not quite ready to let the machine take over.”

Aaron M. Higgins. astrocyte, HD 1080p (32:9) video animation, 2:00 loop (video still)

I’m not sure what I’ve learned from the machine. It’s constantly changing. It’s a great tool and allows for infinite possibilities. But it can get old, too… Sometimes I feel that things have been homogenized to a degree, and things all start looking the same. I see a lot of that in AI art, especially. I guess my background in more traditional media is keeping me grounded, somewhat, and I am not quite ready to let the machine take over.

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.

Alexandra Crouwers: “I want to preserve things that cannot be preserved”

Interview by Pau Waelder & Roxanne Vardi

Alexandra Crouwers is a visual artist working in the digital realm, and currently a doctoral artistic researcher in animation at KU Leuven/LUCA School of Arts, Brussels. She lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Her works can be described as collages, assemblages or dioramas. Crouwers’ animation and images are constructed with 3D software and post production, and bring attention to the balance between landscape and architecture, silence and sound, materiality and immateriality, technology and a broad sense of art history.

Diorama. The Plot: a day/night sequence, (2021) is featured in our recent artcast Anticlimactic, a selection of works from the eco-friendly NFT art community a\terHEN. The video work, based on a photogrammetric model of three tree stumps now called ‘The Plot,’ is part of Crouwers’ investigation of ways to deal with eco-anxiety and ecological grief.

Before discussing your artwork The Plot, can you tell us about the appeal of the unreal, and what brought you to research the concept of the diorama, which has become intertwined in your artistic practice?

I only realized that a lot of my work was, in fact, part of this whole concept of the diorama around five or six years ago. The field of special effects and visual illusions, and this sort of idea of simulated nature, simulated scenes, simulated wilderness has been lingering in my work for quite a long time. I think it’s also a part of where I grew up, in the Dutch countryside in the south. Since then I have been living in cities for most of my life. But as they say, you can take the girl out of the countryside, but you cannot take the countryside out of the girl. I noticed that I often start working by building a view, which I am lacking in the city. So there is a kind of innate longing for landscapes that are not there. This is connected to the idea of escapism; to escape from where you are at. The word nature has become very problematic: what we refer to as nature is quickly deteriorating in all kinds of senses. To me, simulating this idea of wilderness is like a twisted sense of digital nature, of purpose preservation. It is a way to deal with the idea of loss. Those are the things that connect to the idea of the diorama as a way to preserve something. The diorama is twofold: It’s the visual illusion that transports you (the immersion of a scene) and it’s the habitat.

In a sense, I have a very desperate practice as I want to preserve things that cannot be preserved. I want to go back in time to prehistory and the origins of image making. Decorated caves, such as the very beautifully preserved Dordogne, are also immersive spaces. It’s a multimedia installation that uses light and sound where a lot of the paintings almost seem to move with the surface. Thus, there is this idea of visual illusions also being a part of our whole history with image and the experience of image. Transporting pieces of my grandfather’s forest or plot to the digital X, Y, and Z axis by using photogrammetric models is, in a sense, a ritualistic way of transporting something from one realm to another. But visually, it’s very interesting, because from a distance, I am carrying out a sort of healing as a performative action, which I am interested in further exploring. The idea that technology is something very rational is absolutely not true. It’s like the illusion that people are rational or that they grow up. They never do. So I read and own some fantastic literature on that, specifically about the relationship between technology and for instance, spiritualism, like radio waves for example. These things are also connected into this fantasy science fiction world, which gives us really a lot of freedom to stretch a practice.

“The word nature has become very problematic: what we refer to as nature is quickly deteriorating in all kinds of senses. In a sense, I have a very desperate practice as I want to preserve things that cannot be preserved.”

You discussed the connection with prehistoric culture which gave us the first multimedia environment. In works such as The White Hide, (2012), Last Voices, (2017), and Millenial.spike, (2018) one can clearly see your interest in Neolithic culture. You also worked on two emoji proposals which are fantastic. Can you elaborate on how you work around those references and what they mean to you?

I think that there are some practical reasons for this. For instance, if you want to say something about the way that our brains work you have to go back into history, because otherwise you would not understand it. Going back into this, we realize that we are all one. The fact that those hand stencil cave paintings are found all over the globe is just amazing. It’s so fantastic that I really don’t understand why the emoji proposal was declined by the Unicode Consortium. The hand stencil is the first emoji, really. I think that one of the most amazing things that we have is this ability for making up stuff. The wider field of the arts is the habitat for making stuff up. The whole idea of fiction being the base of everything we do really is just quite amazing. On a cinematic level, I have always been incredibly influenced by science fiction films and the slowness of Stanley Kubrick. I learned all this 3d software by myself, and very quickly was simulating what big studios were doing. I have moved away from that a bit because it’s very time consuming, and also not always feasible. I like the fact that the visual language of the digital image has also exploded, and one can more or less use so many more types of digital imagery such as, for instance, the photogrammetric models.

Alexandra Crouwers. The White Hide, (2012).

Diving a bit deeper into The Plot, you said that it relates to your family history. At first glance, the work brings up notions of nature and the idea of eco anxiety. By reading this aspect of your family history one realizes that it is more personal, sentimental and experiential than might appear at first.

I am not entirely sure if that was the meaning. In hindsight I have been suffering from eco anxiety for 20 years. When I graduated from art school, we had to write a paper and I wrote a nonlinear story. It was written in separate sheets of paper, so the reader could decide in which order to read them. Everything that I am doing now is in there. It is, in essence, a science fiction piece. There are even aliens mentioned in there. But there is also a deep concern already about the temperature rising. Back then, people were already saying things like ‘oh, this is an unusually warm January’ or ‘oh, spring is coming’. But, I was already really very worried. In the paper that I wrote, I already questioned why people are so happy about this. In hindsight, I am not entirely sure where that exactly came from. I had been reading about it at the time, and I always watched a lot of disaster movies. Just as a sideline, there is research that proves that people who watch a lot of horror and disaster movies are much better equipped to deal with things like a pandemic. So, maybe it was because of all the disaster movies that I had been seeing as a child growing up near the German border. This eco anxiety completely predates even the idea of this forest being a part of my work. The first time I saw it after it was cleared I realized that it wasn’t even a forest, but a small monoculture plantation. Even though my whole family still refers to it as the little forest.

There is a sentimental reason that my mom has it now, and a very sentimental reason that my grandfather bought it in the first place. In the 1950s and 60s my grandfather was a farmer, and his family was forced to trade lands to make bigger plots. Moreover, the state was building a highway. Because my grandfather lost so much land that was originally built from family bits and pieces and patches here and there, which was the custom before the 1950s, he wanted to buy something back that actually related to his family history.

Alexandra Crouwers. Last Voices, (2017).

So by making this diorama you are in a way recovering the family plot. I was wondering whether these three trunks were left there or whether this is something that you asked for?

When I came there I saw the devastation, but there were these very tall birch trees and some pine trees still standing. Because the forest used to be so dense they just grew really tall and thin. Every time there is a storm more trees just blow over, which makes it even more dramatic. I don’t know if the forester had an aesthetic motivation to do that. But they were just there like a perfect monument. Moreover, the distance between the tree trunks gives them their own personality, and especially the tallest one, which is very much in decay at the moment. Usually, when I create my works I use the computer. I take an idea, and put it in a computer, but in this case, the plot actually dictates the work. In a dynamic sense, you need not interfere but just look at it.

You once wrote that a diorama usually has a distinct educational purpose as it tries to show us something that we otherwise would not be able to see. Even though we know that climate change is worsening we retreat to digital spaces as escapism. How much of that educational quality or bringing into sight is there in working with the dioramas?

As I am doing my PhD in art, it’s art and not science. The models are also used, for instance, in archaeological sites as documentation. It’s just that they happen to be very artistic or that I make them artistic. So it is in that sense documentation, but then I turn it into art. So they are educational when I talk about them. I regularly get invited to talk to students about ecology and activism and art and how to connect the art and the digital. So in that sense they also function as illustrations of how these things all come together.

In your work there is also a connection with the Romantic idea of the landscape and the ruin. Was this a conscious decision?

It’s interesting because the landscape in the Romantic era was meant to be so impressive that one would feel very small. In that sense, the romantic landscape works really well as a reference to the sublime. That also helps communicate the landscape, which itself is already a complex concept, because it is actually a cultural construct. I barely like to situate humans in my work. There is already too much centered on us. What we need is to experience the outside.

Alexandra Crouwers. Millenial.spike, (2018).

Given that this work was originally presented at a\terHEN, could you further elaborate on what drove you to exhibit your work on this platform and on your experience with NFTs in general?

When the NFT entered my field of view, I didn’t really know much more than most people who were reading a newspaper. So I think I only consciously registered the idea when Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days was sold. I was also not really sure what it had to do with my work. But at the time, I was giving a class to students in Brussels titled Digital Dimensions, and I thought to myself ‘well, this is a digital dimension, this is quite new’. So I started reading about it, and I read for about two weeks straight. Around the same time I also reunited with Kelly Richardson. We have become each other’s mirrors to bounce ideas off each other. I was also very happy to have found a place without all the clutter around it. There is a gap in people’s knowledge of the digital arts which can be a bit frustrating and that is something that NFTs might help to explain.

Diane Drubay: Reconnecting with Nature

Interviewed by Roxanne Vardi & Pau Waelder

As Video Artist and Photographer, Diane Drubay investigates transcendental and psychoactive experiences exposed in representations of nature that expand the idea of the sublime. Drubay’s works draw attention to the climate emergency, extended realities, and community engagement. Ignis II, created in 2021, is featured in our recent artcast Anticlimactic, a selection of works from the eco-friendly NFT art community a\terHEN, in which four artists create a series of landscapes that depict the pressing reality and possible futures of our planet.

Explore Anticlimactic, a selection of NFT artworks from a\terHEN about climate change.

Open artcast

Your work is characterized by a very specific aesthetic in which the documentation of natural landscapes and atmospheric phenomena progressively give way to stylized, almost abstract compositions dominated by color fields and geometric shapes. What drove this progression and was it a conscious decision to evolve your work in this direction?

For years I have been using what I capture in nature, especially landscapes where the sun plays a central role in an emotional narrative. Whether through colors, geometric shapes or visual compositions, each scene is an emotion in progress or in motion. For example, the circle has harmonizing and soothing qualities, and the ocean, which can look like a gently moving rectangle, calls for benevolent transformation. Combining different colors creates a strong emotional story that is totally subconscious.

In each of my series, I use natural elements to write sensory stories that resonate through different emotions. This is also why I quickly moved on to video art, and now to gif. Each piece is a chapter in a book accompanying the viewer through a transcendental transformation.

Diane Drubay, Animae, (2018).


The concept of the Sublime is naturally present in your work; do you purposely introduce this notion as a deeper reading of what could superficially be understood as a soothing and contemplative scene?

The Sublime is indeed at the heart of my art. I am still as overwhelmed by the romantic artworks of the early 19th century, as by the spectacle that Nature offers us. Being able to embrace emotions and sensations, swaying between Ecstasy and Agony, is such a transformative experience.

Just as the Romantics appeared after the Enlightenment, I am part of this new movement of modern romantics committed to the environment and better futures. It is by valuing and reconnecting with Nature that we can respect it more and hope for a more harmonious future.

“For years I have been using what I capture in nature, especially landscapes where the sun plays a central role in an emotional narrative… It is by valuing and reconnecting with Nature that we can respect it more and hope for a more harmonious future.”

Some of your works have a painterly quality, in that sense, how much weight do you put on the artwork as a visual composition that stands on its own as such?

The composition is entirely part of the narration. You don’t tell the same story if each element is placed differently, or have another tonality. It could seem easy to (re)compose landscapes but it takes me such a long time to be able to express the right emotion.

Addressing climate change and the possible outcomes of our exploitation of natural resources can be a difficult and uncomfortable task. How do you think art can tackle this subject and possibly induce, if not action, at least reflection?

We need to reconnect with what surrounds us on a daily basis in order to better understand and respect it. Having grown up in the middle of nature but having lived in the city for the last 20 years, the only element that has allowed me to feel connected to the grandeur and sublime of nature is the sun. I, therefore, assumed that if everyone could reconnect with the sun in a subconscious and transcendental way, a new relationship between humans and nature could be sparked.

“Having grown up in the middle of nature but having lived in the city for the last 20 years, the only element that has allowed me to feel connected to the grandeur and sublime of nature is the sun.”

Scientific concepts play an important role in your work. How do you conceive of the relationship between art and science in your practice? Do you think that art can help in understanding scientific research, or should it be a way to build, as Roger Malina once stated, “a better science”?

No one can predict the future, but we can feel what a certain future story tells us. I use scientific stories to develop my emotional journeys so that emotion can be used as a lever for reflection. I am a huge fan of science-fiction from the 70s and the 80s, but I realized that only fact-based social science fiction literature created a lasting impact on me. Being able to base your art on science also provides a next step for the viewer after discovering the art, it is a door towards knowledge, and hopefully action.


How would you describe your experience in the NFT space? What drove you to become one of the founders of alterHEN?

I have been active in the NFT world for a year now and it has considerably changed my artistic practice. Hic et nunc appeared in March 2021, with all its values of disruption, openness, inclusion and commitment to the environment. Before that, I had already started to explore immersive works and 3D worlds to add a new narrative layer to my landscapes. But arriving in this community pushed me to explore even more and experiment with new formats. Since then, I have produced animated 3D objects and gifs and now find it hard to go back to 2D seeing how much the story is amplified. alterHEN was created very naturally. We followed our desire, without the pressure of time or ambitions. We wanted to experiment more, together. It is now a unique space where 20 artists invite other artists or cultural institutions to explore a new world.

Kelly Richardson: creating potential futures

Interview by Pau Waelder

Taking cues from 19th-century landscape painting, 20th-century cinema, and 21st-century planetary research, Kelly Richardson (b. 1972, Canada) crafts video installations and digital prints that offer imaginative glimpses of the future that prompt a careful consideration of the present. Her work HALO I (2021), part of a trilogy in which a pleasant summer moon becomes an unsettling reminder of the consequences of climate change, is featured in our recent artcast Anticlimactic, a selection of works from the eco-friendly NFT art community a\terHEN.

How can art address the climate emergency in a way that inspires, if not action, at least reflection?

It is not an easy subject, but it’s necessary to speak to it if we have any hope of addressing it. Until this point, on this precipice, we’ve allowed terrifying futures to be ushered in despite the predictions of so many. Perhaps we have allowed this in part because we couldn’t visualize or understand these futures from an experiential point of view. I try to offer this window of understanding through my work. I create potential futures for people to experience, to encourage reflection on current priorities and where those are leading us as a species. Hindsight is 20/20.

Art can help to connect the head and the heart. When emotions are triggered, change is possible. Most of us would react to ensure our survival if faced with an immediate threat. The response to climate change needs to mirror this. Reading a text for an exhibition that I’m in later this summer, curator Jessie Demers writes “artists and activists are both adept at [the] practice of observing the world, responding emotionally, forming a vision and expressing it through action, with no guaranteed outcome. This is how new worlds are built.” Great art allows us to see and understand the world differently. Through that shift in consciousness, hope lives.

You have described some of your works as “collapsed narratives in a singular landscape” that allow viewers to draw their own conclusions. How do you decide which elements to put forward, how to play with ambiguity?

I refer to this as “calculated ambiguity”. The works don’t offer a completely open narrative. Rather, they offer enough information that viewers can unpack and make sense of depending on their outlook. There are always multiple ways to read them. One reading or understanding of what you’re looking at might be quite terrifying in its implications, while other readings are less so. This is deliberate, to allow for viewers to personalize their experience with and understanding of the work to a point. 

When thinking through ideas, image construction, colors used (some of which act as indicators, the purple sky in Embers and the Giants, for instance), sound, etc… it’s always a juggling act of including enough information that leads interpretations towards this set of potential explanations. “How” I arrive at the right elements to juggle for each work is a little trickier to answer. Each work is a puzzle for me, in some sense. I consider every aspect of each work with regards to what it’s doing, or needs to do to support the narratives or push the overall feeling of it towards the unnerving end, or towards the beautiful.

Kelly Richardson, Embers and Giants (2019). Installation view.

The aesthetics and ideals of Romanticism seem to inspire some of your work, in terms of the notion of beauty and the Sublime, as well as a sense of “beautiful tragedy.” Which role do beauty and tragedy play in your work?

Yes, it’s apocalyptic sublime for the 21st century, at the other end/side of large-scale unchecked industry, and the initial fears expressed by painters and poets in the late 18th and early 19th centuries about the potential fallout of the Industrial Revolution. I use beauty as a vehicle for the delivery of deep concerns about where we’re heading as a species. Beauty invites viewers to engage with otherwise very difficult subject. Tragedy in the work is located in the truth of what we’ve wrought, the conditions within which we now find ourselves, and the urgent call for us to collectively face it in order to address it. After decades of scientific warnings riddled with predictions of what life might be like in the future, our path hasn’t changed course. We’re already experiencing extreme weather events associated with climate change. The future is now and the window to act, to avoid the worst of what will come, is quickly closing.

“Art can help to connect the head and the heart. When emotions are triggered, change is possible.”

We find several layers of reality and fiction, of video footage and digital animation in your work. For instance, in The Great Destroyer you have not altered the original footage, while in Leviathan you add digital effects to the video, and then in Mariner 9 you create a fully digital landscape, with real elements reproduced in painstaking detail. What determines this relationship between reality and fiction? 

This is such a great question, mainly because I’m still working through it myself. With The Great Destroyer, footage of the forest itself was enough. Any extra visual intervention on my end seemed unnecessary. For Leviathan, the location itself is important historically regarding our relationship to fossil fuels and its many associated environmental catastrophes. Using actual footage of the site, then, points to this truth directly. Caddo Lake, where it was filmed, is the site for the first through water oil exploration in human history. Simultaneously, the cypress forest is so stunning that I could never do it justice – particularly at that time in terms of software capability – if I attempted to recreate it in 3D. The effects, in this case, necessarily shifted viewers’ focus from the stunning landscape to questioning what was happening in the water. 

In other cases, as you’ve mentioned, creating everything in 3D was needed. For instance, in Mariner 9 I wasn’t able to film on Mars, but I could set out to create a realistic experience of Mars in 3D using topographical data from the planet, which is what I set out to do. Making that work, I also rather enjoyed not having to play by elements outside of my control, such as weather or sun location. A blend of physical limitation, the realization that I could offer a realistic experience of Mars on this planet and the value of that, and on a practical level, having complete control over the landscape. How I approach each work then is largely determined by the idea itself and what I feel best serves it.

Kelly Richardson, Mariner 9 (2012). Installation view. Photo: Paola Bernardelli.

Further, much earlier in my practice, I spoke of this more than in recent years, but I’ve always been concerned with our understanding and by extension, our appreciation of the natural world in relation to constructed environments where truth is often difficult to locate. For decades, we’ve “understood” the world through screens which offer a complete disconnect from our relationship to the natural systems which sustain us. I have serious concerns that over time, we’re diluting our appreciation through this rupture, further amplifying generational amnesia when we desperately need to be moving in the opposite direction. The situation globally is now so dire and yet, I’m not sure how much of the public truly understands how grave it is. 

Quoting Lyn Richards in a recent review of my work, “Richardson courts irony by turning the same digital media that potently enables our detachment from the natural world into a powerful tool for examining the myth of endless growth driving humanity’s misguided labors toward a catastrophic future.” I deliberately communicate these concerns through the digital hoping to redirect the focus of our detached gaze towards the physical planet. 

“I use beauty as a vehicle for the delivery of deep concerns about where we’re heading as a species.”

HALO is an updated version of one of your earlier works from 1998. Do you think that something has changed in the message behind this work, or the need to communicate it? Would you say that the tools you have now allowed you to create a more compelling image?

It’s a sequel to CAMP which was a work which presented a rather idyllic and clichéd summer moment in Canada: heat rising from a campfire, distorting a full moon overhead with the sound of popcorn popping on the fire. In just a couple of decades, it feels like everything has changed. Campfires are now banned during the summer in British Columbia, where I now live, due to extended droughts and the threat of wildfires. Last year we experienced our 3rd worst wildfire season on record, all 3 of which occurred in the last 5 years. 1,610 fires burned 868,203 hectares across the province. Within months, the fires were followed by unprecedented flooding.

The color of the moon in HALO will be familiar to many living out here, as the smoke from these fires often creates vibrant, stunning pink, orange or red moons. The sun too reflects similar colors and can be stared at easily with the smoke offering a sufficient hazy filter. Summers now bring a mix of joy for its promised, remaining riches and genuine fear associated with what else they will bring. I now look out my windows towards a tree-covered mountain and think, “that’s a lot of fuel”.

The image and sound quality of CAMP certainly reflects the time that the work was produced, along with the capabilities of consumer video cameras at the time. It was also one of my earliest moving image works where the moment seemed more important to capture than its fidelity. Now that I’m able to control images with a certain level of precision, I’m equipped to create works that are increasingly freed of the limitations of technological capabilities (and their associated impact). I can create with a more painterly lens, in a sense, which has clear benefits on the quality and overall construction of the image.

Your work draws inspiration from science fiction to portray potential futures. Which subjects do you expect to address in your work? Which potential futures would you like to explore?

The situation we’re in and the futures we now face result from all crises, really. They are all connected. One drives another, and so on. For us to evolve as a species in order to usher in a different future, we need to address the connections between all of these crises and what drives us towards them.

How would you describe your experience in the NFT space? Why did you choose to exhibit your work on alterHEN?

I originally entered the NFT space in opposition to the harmful emissions associated with the energy use of PoW. 30 artists, many of which are digital art pioneers, contributed to The FEN, a coordinated NFT drop on hic et nunc (the first NFT platform on PoS), initiated by Joanie Lemercier and curator Juliette Bibasse to encourage artists and collectors within the space to switch to using a significantly less harmful platform and blockchain which uses a tiny fraction of the energy of PoW. On PoS, minting an NFT requires energy use equivalent to a social media post such as a Tweet, for instance. Over the last year, I’ve maintained advocating for this harm reduction and will continue to for as long as I am part of this space.

Both founders of a\terHEN, Diane Drubay and Patrick Tresset were part of The FEN so we connected there. Additionally, at the time that a\terHEN was conceived, there was a frenzied pace of production within the space where artists were minting several times a week. Between the pace and the associated hype, it felt like the ability to slow down to appreciate the work itself was nonexistent. a\terHEN set out to offer a space to slow down consumption, to give work the time it often needs to be fully appreciated. This really appealed to me both from a production point of view (as I tend to labor over my work) and an experiential one. I want my work to have impact and for that, it requires my time and that of those that consider it.

“For decades, we’ve “understood” the world through screens which offer a complete disconnect from our relationship to the natural systems which sustain us”

Through a\terHEN and other platforms which focus on the artworks, such as TEIA and Versum, I’ve connected with an inspiring community of artists and collectors, many of whom are new to me. It has allowed me to expand on the reach of my work in a significant way, with new audiences, which is invaluable when I concern myself with affecting the consciousness of people (particularly, as previously mentioned, within a screen based space). Additionally, for the first time in 25+ years making moving image works, I have been able to acquire works from 250+ artists who I’ve admired for many years along with artists who I was previously unaware of. It’s groundbreaking in that sense and it’s a joy to be a part of.

Kelly Richardson, HALO I, II, III  (2021). Installation view.