In Conversation With 🎬 X New Worlds

Hi and welcome to Decadent!  In a world where the output generated by AI already seems predictable, we think your work stands out as truly fresh and surprising.

Thank you so much for the kind words! 

 

To paraphrase the words of David Byrne, well, how did you get here?

Creativity is my biggest drive. I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with various tools – whether that be the more traditional such as a paint brush and pencil or in the digital space. I’m a Designer by trade so I spend a lot of time designing in the digital space – anything from making animations, UI, collage to messing about with 3d renders in Blender. I first started playing about with AI in lockdown when my friends and I would send each other messed-up monstrosities and weird concepts we had created using AI – from people with nine fingers and mangled faces to Gandalf winning Wimbledon – the weirder the better. I then stopped using it for quite some time and only took it up again (more seriously this time) in June 2023 as a way of learning new tools and for a bit of fun experimentation. I’ve been hooked ever since. 

 

There’s a startling visual range to your work. What artists have influenced you, and what artists continue to do so?

I’m deeply inspired by Absurdism and Surrealism. Absurdism is a philosophy that explores the inherent meaninglessness of life in the face of an indifferent universe, while Surrealism is an artistic movement that delves into the unconscious mind to express the imaginative and dream-like realms beyond logical reality. I studied Philosophy at university and have always been fascinated by the nature of consciousness and philosophy of mind – I’ve always found it interesting how people can have such intense visceral experiences in altered mind-states such as NDEs, lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. I believe that your subconscious permeates most of our reality in some way. I also find the AI community in general to be super inspiring – especially my fellow Daily.xyz (part of Fellowship Trust) artists. Some amazing things coming out of that group that truly inspires me every day. It feels like we are in such a new and exciting time. 

 

Tell us a little bit about your creative process.

I often start with some kind of concept I’d like to explore. For example, recently I created a series based on different sleep disorders people experience – e.g. sleep paralysis and insomnia.  I then create a moodboard, followed by a storyboard. I try to lean into the idiosyncrasies of the technology to get more abstracted results; drawing out surreal and absurd peculiarities and moving away from anything that looks overly perfect or homogenous. I then animate the imagery in RunwayML – again trying to extract the jarring and intriguing before amalgamating it all together in Adobe After Effects. Here, I like to experiment with different effects, collected sounds and SFX. 

 

What do you think of AI in general? Is it the end or the beginning?

The beginning of the end! Nah, just kidding (at least I hope all the Black Mirror predictions don’t come true!). 

I think AI has a huge potential to solve some of the world’s biggest problems (if utilised for the right reasons) – things such as climate change and finding a cure to all the horrible illnesses and disease that still prevails, ending world hunger and giving everyone some kind of UBI (maybe I’m being quixotic though). I also have this vague dream of the future being a bit like “the Culture” in Iain M Banks’ books – that we live in this super advanced utopian society that’s mainly run by non-biased AI – that aren’t susceptible to corruption like us humans. So perhaps you can call me an AI ally.

 

Audio plays a major part in your video work. Tell us a little about it – do you have something in mind as you create a video piece, or do you wait to see what you’re creating and then experiment over picture?

I normally always start with audio. At the moment I’m working on a collaboration with a composer and I find his music super inspiring – I listened to one of his songs on repeat until a story and thread started coming to me and started moodboarding from there. I’ve also had quite a lot of fun recently experimenting with AI sound – it can sound so creepy and idiosyncratic which fits with what I love. I also like to record as much as I can when I’m out and about and overlay those, sometimes with my voice – and play around with various distortion effects and modulators. 

 

What is happening in the world that you find inspiring?

I feel so energised by all these new technologies coming out and the AI art community in general. It feels like we are on the precipice of a new movement – a bit like the advent of photography. A brand new tool and medium to endlessly express, push and explore.   

 

Do you think the future is utopian or dystopian? And what part does AI play in that?

I really pray and hope Utopian but I also don’t have a huge amount of faith in the human race and the way capitalism as a system is going. It feels like we are moving towards a post-capitalism era with the emphasis on the individual and forgetting our communities and Mother Earth herself. If AI can somehow break this and help us fix climate change and put all the corrupt leaders out of power – then I have hope for the future. 

 

We’re called decadent because amongst many definitions it means art free of constraints (which your art certainly is!). 

What does decadent mean to you?

I think it means just being able to endlessly create whatever comes to you using whatever tools you want. Akin to a spiritual practice. I think every person has creativity within them and it’s important for us to be able to express ourselves. Creativity allows us to re-engage with our inner child. 

Thanks so much for your time today. We can’t wait to see what happens next!

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