This week’s podcast is with one of the most prolific surrealist digital artists I have met through NFTs: DAMNENGINE. I’ve always found his work to be extremely detailed, satisfyingly dark, and profoundly emotive. Furthermore, I think I am attracted to it because of my love for physical visual arts, and how much his work presents as sculpture.
As it turns out, he’s also interested in exploring his work in physical mediums. Tune in and hang in there for a ride into some really fascinating insights into his process and technique, and his experience and background with digital art. Plus, he is an incredibly mindful, and thoughtful person that has some very relatable insights into the challenges of being a creative.
As a graphic and motion designer, Dennis has had some extensive experience with commercial work. We talked a bunch about the upsides and downsides of working in a creative industry where you are doing work for others, and I found it fascinating how he has different systems between paid work, and his personal creations.
Getting into some technical talk about his process, his experience shows as he talks about how comfortable he is across different software. For personal work, he continues to use software he is proficient in, but the model has evolved in that it’s now more about plugins and extensions, and less about hopping environments. I also think it’s pretty cool that he’s also been able to healthily mesh his work experience in with personal projects.
I find it pertinent that while he has an academic background with design, it appears that the majority of what he has learned has been on his own. This is pretty classic for anybody that works with digital media I think. That being said, he had some physical hands on experience with design in school, and he sees the value in that.
And as always, I found it really funny to have my views about software interfaces vs their usability affirmed. The recurring hilarity of how these programs are so cool, and capable of so much, but the UX/UI design is completely fucked up never gets old.
Looking back again, Dennis brings up that he was reading books about how to do things before an age of readily accessible tutorials. This is also fucking hilarious, considering if you give somebody a book about software nowadays, they would probably stare at you like you’ve got toes growing out of your eye sockets.
He also makes an important point on discipline, and how he has to manage his time well, especially because he has ADHD. This is such a common topic with so many creatives I have connected with; many of us thrive in the chaos of art, but there still needs to be some structure to our time and approach to creative work.
Getting past most of the technical stuff, I pivoting to the big question: where the fuck do Dennis’ ideas come from? He breaks down the core of the topic first: he does not fit the normal molds of most folks in society, and he has a lot of personal things he is working in the context of with his work.
To me it feels like his art may be a journal of what he’s dealing with, and how he’s processing things. There’s a pretty funny statement in there from Dennis as well about how maybe if we ran out of problems, the art wouldn’t be so good or meaningful. I drew a parallel here between Dennis and Nihil; the idea that we have to suffer a bit to get the good art out is not uncommon.
So as it turns out, a couple of the core tenets in his work are about heartache and his personal insecurities. Self doubt is a monster. He says that his art can be like looking at a reflection of himself in the mirror. This is such a beautiful and powerful admission in my opinion, and one that I often seek to hear a form of from artists I interview.
Art is therapy, and in Dennis’ case, the work is being done during the creation of the piece. The final output is secondary to this process. He says that while the art is coming out faster than he is able to actually transform his actual self, it’s still working towards a better version of his self. The idiom, “getting ahead of ourselves,” comes to mind - except in this case, the artist is managing to avoid doing that.
[27 mins - changing / art / better version of self]
On the topic of intention in art, and what makes something “good art,” it is clear that we have some strong opinions. More importantly, in relation to Dennis’ art, his intention with his art on a public level, is for people to get whatever they want out of it, but he does have some interesting views on what happens when folks take art, and proceed to attach another context to it without crediting the original artist(s). And while Dennis seeks authenticity in his work, he also says he wants to make it less “sterile.”
When he expresses the sentiment that physicality changes the context of work, I think this is fascinating, considering he quite literally makes his own textures. While stock content is find for his commercial work, it is not something he uses for his personal creation. It’s wild because for his own textures he’s gone and taken photos IRL, and that if that isn’t a context shifter, I don’t know what is. Finding out that some of his inputs start at an analog level absolutely made my day. I had no idea.
On the other end of the spectrum from the physical, Dennis’s experience with NFTs and the culture surrounding it are very relatable to any artist that was making art before they engaged with that world. Talking about both the positives and the negatives of it, I think what’s most important is that we acknowledge the mental impact the space has on folks. It’s always important to avoid getting caught up in the hype, and to maintain a healthy relationship with art in general.
We riff a bit about stuff like Bezos’s penis shaped space rocket, and Musk’s disconnectedness from reality, though ultimately I find we are just talking about how money is a problematic thing inherently. My greatest hope is that artists like Dennis can find a way to sustain their own art 24/7.
My biggest takeaway from our discussion is that proficiency and thoughtfulness go a very long way in art, regardless of the artist’s preferred medium. Please be sure to check DAMNENGINE out on Twitter, and take a dive into his works both on and off-chain. I’m certain you’ll have an emotional response.
It’s NFT NYC this week, so I’ll be connecting with some lovely folks I’ve met through the crypto art world, in person. I love the connections I’ve made, and I’m ready for round 2; the last NFT NYC was absolutely some of the most memorable times I’ve had in my own city, after all these years.
As for next week, I’ll be sharing my discussion with the incredibly talented, Dani Leoni!
Twitter is dumb.
Art will outlast social media.
Support some artists, you’ll feel great, I promise you!
Transmission #26 - DAMNENGINE