For this week’s episode, I have another appreciator of multidisciplinary art, Tazzista! He was nice enough to do a podcast session with me while he was on vacation, with his dog, in the sun.
There are a lot of intersections we explore in this episode, because he engages with multiple mediums of art while also maintaining a professional life as a sociologist. It’s pretty cool that as he was making music, painting, and working both with collaborators and those seeking commissioned art from him, he discovered the fun and beauty of mashing different mediums together.
Tazz and I met through NFTs, and I find it appropriate that it was also through the world of crypto art that he found a way to start bringing his different creative works together in one place. This has been the case for so many people, but especially for those of us that have backgrounds in fine arts, and originally analog creative models.
One thing that I think must be noted early on, is that Tazz is also professionally a Sociologist. Bringing his art to the crypto sphere is inevitably a social and cultural experience for him, and I think his story is very reflective of the potentials of this new digital economy we are interacting with.
Tazz’s creative journey started when his mother noticed that he was drawing a lot as a kid. She brought him charcoal to draw with, and this forced him to learn to do things without color, much to his frustration. Of course, he now sees how beneficial this was for him (lol). This coupled with joining a conservatory where he learned to understand and appreciate music, led to a multi faceted art experience in later years.
He did leave music school though, because it wasn’t the social environment he was interested in - much like many other artists I have interviewed. What we think is right, and what we feel is right changes so much over time. Funnily enough it was when he later went to school for sociology, that he picked up the bass, then the piano, and one thing led to another and he started learning how to record music, and work with a studio. How ironic. In general, his journey seems multidisciplinary from the very beginning.
I was pleased to hear him say that he believes language is a form of synesthesia; this resonates with me deeply. Everything is metaphor to me, and it appears Tazz thinks that everybody experiences this to some degree as well. He said something really interesting about his focus with these languages: that music is an altered state, but visual art is different because it’s less intense, since he can multitask while doing it.
Floating around in this esoteric topic of flow, we shoot the shit a little about finding our cadence, getting into the mood, and what it means to be comfortable within different mediums. Painting is obviously very different from music, and I had more than a few major takeaways about how Tazz approaches both types of art.
This naturally brings me to the topic of art as therapy, because flow is therapy in my mind. I could tell Tazz has a very deep connection with this topic, in that he could remember how far back the therapeutic qualities of creating something had for him.
For him, it appears that the therapeutic impact comes towards the end of the creative process. The way he puts it, it’s like when one is done doing something involved, the body can finally “take a rest,” or “release the tension,” which is where the catharsis occurs. I cannot agree more with this, in regards to almost any form of cathartic healing I am familiar with. The added bonus with being an artist is that you have a product (for lack of a better term) at the end of it to represent the experience.
We get pretty fucking deep with this topic. I love the dualities we explore, and ultimately how Tazz breaks down what the intentions behind his work are. Being a sociologist gives a massive amount of direction to his creations, primarily with the need to express things via aesthetic means that are free of restrictions. Which is the opposite of what most social structures engrain on folks outside of the creative realm.
Tazz is very deep and thoughtful. He is exploring a lot of philosophical and sociological topics in his art, and I enjoyed hearing how he crosses his academic background into his creative processes very much. I urge you to really tune into what he’s saying around 25 minutes and onwards. In fact, after hearing his views on these topics, it got me pretty stoked to hear how he views the insanity that is the world of NFTs and crypto.
The missing piece in my opinion, has always been having qualified voices share their perspectives, in this incredibly young digital culture. Tazz is the opposite of a bunch of excited degens yelling about “the culture.” He is, in fact, a rarity in the space because of his background with both art, and event organization - all in addition to his academic background. These are the kinds of folks that have perspectives that we can learn a lot from, because they are sharing opinions and interpretations of social behavior, without prioritizing their need to make profit with it all. He is genuinely into what the hell all of this madness means.
Walking around the JPEG zoo as a tourist is pretty fucking weird. But being a part of the zoo, and having a background that allows you to interpret what it all means … well that’s something else. This qualified folks to start considering, and forming functional opinions about the social pathways onto the Blockchain.
So where is web3 going? Are folks heading towards more authentic paradigms, or are we heading towards a re-structured corporate future instead? We can’t predict the future, but we might be able to look back and learn some lessons about how culture develops over time, and how as social creatures, we create groups that reflect current interests.
We’re literally part of an ongoing history, and everybody is so short sighted. Being able to step back and look at this world as a whole was so refreshing with Tazz, and I can’t wait to reconnect with him. If you’re into what all of this crypto and art stuff means, really listen closely to what Tazz is saying, because I think it’s an incredibly intelligent and common sensical approach to how communities define culture, both traditionally, and online in digital groupings.
And I have to admit, Tazz might have motivated me to reconsider putting a small documentary together about the crypto art space. Maybe. Sheesh, how does one even crowdfund something like that? Maybe with more subscriptions to this podcast? Spread the word!
Don’t forget to check Tazz out on Instagram, Twitter, and all the marketplaces he has listed on his Linktree!
Next week, we’ll be getting into something completely different, with the freaking awesome Missy Munster! Go check out her shit on Instagram!
Transmission #31 - Tazzista