DigitalFruit is an interview series from Adafruit showcasing some of our favorite digital fine artists from around the world. As we begin this new decade with its rapidly changing landscape, we must envision our path through a different lens. Over the next few weeks we’ll feature many innovative perspectives and techniques that will inspire our maker community to construct a bold creative frontier. The only way is forward.
1. Where are you based?
AK☉KA is an internet-based project. Currently, AK☉KA himself is staying at home due to the situation with COVID-19.
I have lived in a few countries and traveled around the world. In the last 5 years, I have worked on a few projects: images, board games, games apps and writing a book.
I believe that the world is changing and soon there will be no need for big offices. COVID-19 has shown us that there will be a significant change in the structure of places were people live and work.
2. Tell us about your background?
AK☉KA’s background is a life long story. As I remember myself, I was always trying to create and draw images. I studied and worked in different places, all of the time, working with people. About 25 years ago, I became a fan of fractal/generative/digital art. Since then, this art has become my hobby.
3. What inspires your work?
FAMILY, LOVE, LIFE, JOY.
4. What are you currently working on?
Currently, I am learning how to create images on the smartphone using different apps.
5. Describe your process and what tools you like to use.
How to describe the process of tree or a flower is growing? It is so simple and so complicated at the same moment. I just can’t stop creating images. I like to try new tools all of the time.
6. What does your workplace or studio look like? Do you work in silence or listen to music while you work?
My work space is everywhere- home, bed, park, cafe, airport, airplane, beach…. With music and without… The environment, sounds, smells, mood- everything affects the creation of the image. There are no constant attributes. I like to discover new things-
BUT with absolutely NO alcohol, drugs or any other stimulators. The strongest stimulator for me is tea.
7. How has technology shaped your creative vision?
It is great that I am living in such an interesting period, were so many new technologies are discovered.
When I was a kid/teenager there were NO computers. It was a pencil-paper age for me. I liked it, but all my dreams came true only when computers appeared.
8. Any tips for someone interested in getting started in the digital art form? Where do you see generative and digital art heading in the future?
When discussing generative art and digital art, we are talking about fractal art, FRACTALS!
What are fractals? They are complex features that are not described by classical geometry. Complex mathematical formulas are used to describe them.
Why are they interesting? Because such an arrangement has almost everything to do with what is natural and social. In nature, you will hardly find any cubes, pyramids or cones, with rare exceptions. Everything created by nature/God is much more complicated. There are many fractals, they are very different, but all complex. They are trees, plants, the starry sky, clouds, landscapes, riverbeds, road networks, coastlines, urban structures, neural networks, structures, crystals, and musical and pictorial works. It is difficult to say what it is not a fractal.
Fractals are fascinatingly beautiful. The flame of fire, waves, the flow of the river, waterfalls, sparks, the starry sky, flowers, plants, clouds- it is impossible to come off. I just want to absorb this beauty as long as possible! Fractals are the world around us. Fractals are the beauty of the world, complex beauty.
Art is an excellent example of how to study fractals. Works of art are all fractal, one way or another. There is an opinion that the more fractal a work is, the greater impression it can make on a person. Classical music is more fractal than pop music. Gothic architecture is more fractal than social housing developments. The paintings of renaissance masters are more fractal than pictures from popular magazines. Any masterpiece of spiritual or fictional literature is more fractal than any chatting in social networks.
There is also a mental fractal- the most sinuous, the most complex in the world – human thinking. Now we can schematically imagine how a personality is formed.
The thinking of a small child is very primitive- it is not yet fractal, it is like a blank sheet of paper. What if we begin to influence him/her with pop music, social housing, pictures from magazines and simple texts. Or what happens if we introduce the child to classical music, views of the famous cathedrals of Paris, London, Prague, the masterpieces of spiritual or fictional literature… Do you feel the difference? Imagine the results of this influence.
It is never too late to develop your own thinking, consciousness.
The choice is yours, how you will affect your thinking, your brain and your consciousness.
If you want your own complex beautiful thinking and consciousness to grow, you will need to consume fractals- then you can create fractals.
Fred «AK☉KA»
Links:
http://www.instagram.com/akoka.art
https://ilmazu.com/?page_id=25642
DigitaFruit is curated by Adafruit lead photographer- Andrew Tingle
