My guest today is Gaël Corboz, a French artist that I met a couple years ago through the world of digital art. While he has a background in photography, I actually met him through his 3D renders of what he calls “Hyper Landscapes.”
We connected through NFT communities almost 2 years ago and even met in person in NYC. In the time that I have known him, I have always been impressed with his ability to maintain his style in his creations, and somehow navigate the crypto art space without relying too heavily on any one service, like Twitter.
Note: because the majority of Gaël’s work is an audio-visual experience, I encourage you to »click through his work on Foundation«, as I cannot embed videos directly from their sources on NFT marketplaces.
Talking a bit about software and his background with art, he shares insight into his technical process, as well as his general approach to his work. While he clearly has a very pragmatic attitude in his work, there is also a very fluid aspect to his process. He is not afraid to explore new tools, and he takes inspiration from various sources, from traditional artists, to an appreciation of nature.
I appreciate that his goal is not just to create his own reality with his work, but that he essentially aims to provide a form of escape for those viewing his work. I think this is a great example of an artist’s process, intentions, and final output all mirroring each other; a general need to escape. In Gaël’s case, it’s a peaceful place.
I found that he drew an interesting connection between depression and sleep. Sleeping to escape is a very real facet of depression (if your anxiety will allow you to), and to be able to escape into dreamlike environments are very alluring. This was an unexpected way to touch on the topic of mental health, but also a really subtle way of expressing that art can be healing for the creator as well. As I always say, art is therapy.
When talking ab out the perceived importance of describing one’s art, as opposed to letting the art present its narrative with less explanation, Gaël leans in favor of letting folks do their own explorations. I still find it really amusing that there are no psychedelics involved in his process, because his work is so fascinatingly trippy, and my takeaway from his art, without any other context, is always that these are psychedelic explorations.
More importantly, his intent to heal with his work is really pertinent to me, especially because we share the same goals, but have very different aesthetics and approaches in our bodies of work. His take on social media provides some insight into this; repetitive exposure loses impact, but being able to provide a fresh perspective in art has significantly more positive effect on folks’s mental states.
It stood out to me that while he finds some folks may be highly skilled, that there is a predictability to their work. This resonates, especially since we see a lot of quantity over quality from the majority of artists who engage with digital art spaces. Visibility doesn’t always require increased output, even though society tends to believe this is the case.
Gaël’s adoption and application of a “work smarter not harder” philosophy in his work is very healthy, and also explains in part why he is big on being adaptable to different environments and technologies. His journey into NFTs is a great example of this.
He expresses something creatives are often exhausted from dealing with, when it comes to working in traditional industries: late payments and stifled creative processes are just a few of the problems. Crypto art has some great potential for resolving these issues, and he has clearly had some success that has shown him a better world as an artist, when it comes to these topics.
Mostly, I found that Gael’s pragmatism shows up in many ways again and again. He gets involved in things that serve his best interests, and not because they are products of hype. I appreciate his take that all technology is a tool, and that is inclusive of things like social media and chat networks, which come with things like FOMO and hype. The trick is to not lose sight of your goals, right?
We eventually into what the culture of NFTs is like, and how we have connected with some amazing folks there. He makes a great point that there are many different ways to build community, make money, and grow as an artist. It is frustrating to see people being maximalists about any one single way of doing things; we can’t just depend on NFTs. Especially as artists, it is important not to get shuttered into one mode of operation. It’s good to diversify in all things, yes?
The next podcast episode will be with the super fun and talented photographer, Mat Rabbit! Check him out on Twitter, he’s got his paws in a lot of different pies!
Transmission 15 - Gaël Corboz