“Unrecognized Emotions” by Rizacan Kumas raises over $30,000 for children in need

“Unrecognized Emotions” by Rizacan Kumas raises over $30,000 for children in need

Iran

“Unrecognized Emotions” by Rizacan Kumas raises over $30,000 for children in need

Virginia Valenzuela
3 years ago

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you are not close enough.”

Robert Capa

The concept of what is ‘normal’ is informed by where people come from, the history they learned, the foods they ate, the sounds that lulled them or awoke them from sleep. For children across the world who live amid chaos, that idea of ‘normal’ changes with each day. But as documentary photographer Rizacan Kumas shows us, there is still so much to love about life, even when that life is constantly disrupted. As Mr. Kumas told SuperRare:

“When you grow up [in a first world country], you go to school, you have friends, and the biggest sin you might see is cigarette smoke that your parents are trying to hide from you. The biggest thing in your life is trying to learn something. They don’t know about the other side of the coin.” 

The people Mr. Kumas documents live in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, places where the sun is blinding, and the reality is too. War, violence, political unrest, displacement, and loss make up the backdrop for so many of his images. But the thing that shines through is not sadness; it is hope, happiness, and childhood wonder. The children featured in his latest drop, “Unrecognized Emotions,” followed him around as he documented the refugee camp in Pakistan where they lived. It was 2018, and they had left their homes in Afghanistan for a chance to live more peaceful life.

“When I was talking to the grown-ups I saw those children following me and giggling with each other. We understood each other, not with the same language, but in an emotional way. I turned to them, smiled at them, and showed with my hand that I wanted to take their picture, and they smiled. They posed like that, in such a natural way. Every child [in the picture] shows a completely different emotion.”

Not fear, not resentment, not envy. The children look into the camera without direction, without care of how they looked or how they would be perceived. These are children who don’t have playgrounds or daycare or even organized schooling. They find adventure, and friendship, in curious places.

“Normal children don’t play in the sewers,” Mr. Kumas told us. “Kids in these areas play in sewers, surrounded by filth, but these kids play in there, live in there, they have fun in there. In the end, they are children. They want to play, they want to learn, they are innocent. When they see someone who comes from another world, they see you with curious eyes.”

Mr. Kumas came to documentary photography because he wanted to share these parts of the world, these untold stories, with other people, so that they would be pushed to do something about it. He wanted to share images of an unfiltered existence so that those of us who live privileged lives might see the world anew. “Other types of photography allow you to reproduce everything,” he told SuperRare. “You can hire the same model, build the same lights, the same set. It’s not 100% reproduced, but you can get very close. But in documentary photography, when that moment is gone, it’s gone. It’s a super unique moment in time. You cannot touch it, you cannot change it. Every element in your frame tells that story.”

And what story is that exactly? So often we see privilege and poverty living almost hand in hand. We see city streets where modern apartment buildings overshadow dilapidated homes. We see suburbs that change from white picket fences to broken windows in the blink of an eye. In places like Pakistan, we see just how close the two sides of the same coin can be.

“We are living in the same world, but we are not living in the same world, Mr. Kumas said. “When I was there, I was staying in a really luxurious place, in the middle of Islamabad in Pakistan. The refugee camps are just 20 minutes away from the city center. Everything is so amazing, and after a short drive you arrive in another world. I spent hours and hours there and I listened to their stories, and after that I came back to that luxury place, and I asked myself: why is it that I can live in luxury here, and they can’t?”

Documentary photography brings you to dangerous places, but it challenges you to find beauty, to make art. It helps to connect people all across the world, those of us who are lucky enough to have the means to travel, as well as those of us who do not. 

Whoever comes in with the highest bid for “Unrecognized Emotions” will not only own a piece of history, but they will also help shape the future. “He or she will donate money to the Malala Fund,” said Mr. Kumas, who is donating all proceeds of the sale to charity. “And I say, if you are generous enough, I will send you a 1 of 1 edition in the real world, a signed art print.”

For someone like Mr. Kumas who has learned so much about what people, especially women and children, go through in the darkest parts of the world, giving it all back came naturally. “I’m earning money from their backstories. If you are not changed by those stories, you are a selfish person. Selfish people don’t have a place in the art world because artists, [especially those in documentary photography], should have a responsibility to the world, and to help people who are suffering.”

“As the famous documentary photographer Robert Capa said, ‘If your pictures aren’t good enough, you are not close enough.’ I have modeled my career after that quote,” said Rizacan Kumas.

Unrecognized Emotions” sold this morning for 9 ETH, or $30,690. To join Mr. Kumas in giving back, you can visit the Malala Fund’s donation page below.

32

Virginia Valenzuela

Vinny is a writer from New York City whose work has been published in Wired, The Independent, High Times, Right Click Save, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and in 2022 she received the Future Art Writers Award from MOZAIK Philanthropy. She is SuperRare's Managing Editor.

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You are now entering the FVCKRENDERVERSE

You are now entering the FVCKRENDERVERSE

FVCK_CRYSTALS

You are now entering the FVCKRENDERVERSE

Virginia Valenzuela
3 years ago

Frederic Duquette is one of the most successful and well-known artists to step into the NFT space, and he has created some of the most exciting 3D artworks and collections available. From intricate and futuristic one-of-ones to crystalline collectables to an entire virtual universe, Duquette’s work has pushed the boundaries of what is possible with digital art.

Some of you may have guessed by now that Duquette is the artist known as FVCKRENDER. Based in Vancouver, he has premiered digital work on Nifty Gateway, Open Sea, and SuperRare, collaborated with fashion brands Dior and Supreme, and he’s even made visuals for Lil Nas X.

But before all the fame, the fortune, and the fvck, Duquette was just a skater boy who never finished high school.

Duquette applied to art school in Montreal at the age of 20 to study 3D design and animation, “and they didn’t care [for my application] at all,” he told SuperRare, “which made sense because I didn’t finish high school.” So he began creating artworks on his own, and once Instagram launched and, at the time, became the ideal platform for artists to display and market their work, his career really took off.

“I was fortunate enough before NFTs to have so many amazing clients. I was able to build a community on my Instagram where I reached about maybe 300,000 followers? Which really helped me get in contact with different artists. And most of the time the artists contacted me on Instagram, saying, ‘I need visuals for my shows or for a music video, or anything.’ So I was just sending them to my manager or my agent to help me filter everything out.”

Then at age 25, Duquette revisited 3D art and animation. The NFT market, which just happened to be booming, was a natural next step.

Fvckrender’s artwork is super detailed. His subjects are life-like and yet alien, often inspired by the tension between nature and technology. The human subjects, which he uses sparingly, appear glossy, chalky, or ephemeral. Sometimes we see only faces; sometimes we see only hands. The natural subjects, like flowers, dragons, scorpions, and gems, tiptoe around reality, and are oftentimes injected with a dose of the unexpected: a strange texture or an out-of-place color scheme. 

Some of his artworks, including “GEODE” and “THORNED” look and feel like they could be 3D snapshots of a dystopian future without humanity, a future where only relics of the past remain. In pieces like “VIVID_DREAMS” and “SUBMERGED” we see subterranean, statuesque human beings who are unable to open their eyes. We asked him, where does humanity live, or how does humanity function, in the world he has created?

“To me it’s more like a sense of reconciliation–that’s not exactly the word–but yeah, I think the work is more about being attached to something, rather than pondering what humanity will be like in the next generation, if that makes sense.”

Which is an interesting concept, considering so much of Fvckrender’s work extends beyond the modern world of NFTs and into the future of the metaverse.

In addition to frequent drops of digital art in both NFT galleries and on Instagram, Fvckrender has launched FVCK_CRYSTAL, a series of 4169 3D collectables that allow the buyer to attend events, participate in raffles, and explore specific areas of the FVCKRENDERVERSE

What the fvck is the FVCKRENDERVERSE, you ask?

It’s a computer-generated virtual experience that goes far beyond the 2-dimensional axes that are characteristic of the internet and social media. Yes, you can see the depth in the piece as it moves before your eyes, but you still see it flatly, usually in a grid on a screen. The FVCKRENDERVERSE is immersive and multidimensional. Not only are users able to view the artworks as if they were walking through their favorite section of the Met or the Louvre, but they are also able to participate in scavenger hunts that reward them for looking at the art, and the world, more closely.

Like so many artistic projects, the idea for FVCK_CRYSTALS spawned from an act of rebellion.

“Honestly I felt like a lot of people in the NFT space were always asking for utility in my art, and I found it annoying at first. I’m not a game designer, or whatever, and it was kind of starting to bother me that people needed to feel like my art had utility. So I decided to separate them. [I sort of put] my art on one side, and [put] my focus onto the collectables. So if you’re a collectable junkie, you can go collect FVCK_CRYSTALS now, and if you’re an art junkie, you’ll go collect my art on SuperRare or OpenSea or wherever. So, it was mainly to disassociate my art from utility and it was a way to allow people to enjoy both at different times.”

Some collectors might not care whether an artwork has utility, but for others who are interested in spending more time in virtual or augmented reality, this project sets the stage for many more to come.

For someone who didn’t vibe with school and who taught himself both how to market himself on social media and how to make 3D creations, Frederic Duquette, aka Fvckrender, is a force to be reckoned with. His vision, creativity, and drive have pushed his art into new dimensions, and indeed, into new worlds. What unexpected turn will his career take next? You’ll have to step into the FVCKRENDERVERSE to find out.

32

Virginia Valenzuela

Vinny is a writer from New York City whose work has been published in Wired, The Independent, High Times, Right Click Save, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and in 2022 she received the Future Art Writers Award from MOZAIK Philanthropy. She is SuperRare's Managing Editor.

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Very excited, pumped, excellent: Marco Brambilla and the Winklevii

Very excited, pumped, excellent: Marco Brambilla and the Winklevii

Entropy

Very excited, pumped, excellent: Marco Brambilla and the Winklevii

Virginia Valenzuela
3 years ago

Film director, digital artist, and installation creator Marco Brambilla has just released a new NFT that is taking aim at celebrities of the crypto-world. “Winklevii: Bigger Than Both of Us” is a computer-generated art piece featuring the Winklevoss twins that utilizes sound samples, collage, and the uncanny. It was released this past Saturday, on the twins’ 40th birthday.

“I wanted it to look like a kinetic statue. So the idea was a Roman bust that takes on life, and is fed by currency,” Brambilla said.

Using actual quotes from the brothers, “Winklevii” opens with a medium close-up of one of the Winklevoss twins speaking directly to the camera. He begins with a few simple phrases that capture the energy of the burgeoning crypto space: “Very excited, pumped, excellent, mission that we all believe in…” And soon enough the head turns to reveal the other Winklevoss twin in the same medium close-up, this time saying, “Very excited, large global consciousness, opportunity fund…” These phrases among others spin like speech bubbles above the heads of the rotating twins, quickening their pace as the dialogue, and the faces of the twins themselves, begin to take on a life of their own.

Marco Brambilla has worked with collage before, using video files that tie in with sound, but this is the first time he has created a piece inspired by sampled audio alone. The sound bytes came from various appearances on financial news services and interviews with the Winklevoss twins where they were talking about the future of Bitcoin. According to Brambilla, the phrases included were those that came up over and over again.

“The financial world has this terminology, a lexicon, that’s its own language, and the way they speak is in that language. So words like ‘pumped,’ ‘global consciousness,’ ‘opportunity fund,’ ‘micro payments,’ these buzz words came up in so many of the interviews,” Brambilla said. “It becomes a mantra, and when you repeat and you loop it and you cycle it, it becomes almost hypnotic.”

The hypnotic nature of “Winklevii” is intensified by the steady drumbeat that accompanies the dialogue. It begins subtle enough, like a heartbeat you hear as you lay your head on someone’s chest, but as the brothers begin to speak frantically – their speech overlapping, their two heads blossoming into many – the heartbeat becomes a drumbeat, ominous if not exhilarating. 

“The idea is that the heartbeat becomes a war chant, like a marching call to action.” Brambilla told SuperRare. “Because all of these words, when you think about it, the language that they use, is all call to action, it’s all aspirational.”

So much of the language, culture, and business of crypto has been driven by hype: which coins to buy, what functions one blockchain has over another, the possibilities of a truly decentralized financial system, and the list goes on. But the ecosystem doesn’t survive on talk alone. Cryptocurrency can only work when enough individuals, businesses, and governments decide to use it, which is why this element of mantra fits so perfectly with the image of the Winkelvoss twins. They were two of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin, and have since made almost $3 billion in crypto.

The Winklevii founded Gemini (lol), a crypto exchange, in 2015, and acquired Nifty Gateway, an NFT trading platform, in 2018. When it was announced in The New York Times that the pair had become the first well-known Bitcoin billionaires, their mythology was transformed. They were no longer the Harvard jocks who were betrayed by the nerd who founded Facebook; they were the triumphant colossus in the Bitcoin revolution. 

Brambilla’s twins are based on Roman busts, which is why they appear from the shoulders up, pale-skinned and unclothed. “I wanted it to look like a kinetic statue. So the idea was a Roman bust that takes on life, and is fed by currency,” Brambilla said. “The currency feeds the energy, and it takes the concept of neo-classical art, and it takes sophisticated computer graphics–because it was made using models that are very sophisticated, like the way you would do it in a Marvel action movie–and yet its energy becomes more and more about entropy.”

Entropy can be defined as a lack of predictability, which is a perfect way to describe the highs and lows of the volatile crypto market. But it can also be defined as a decline into disorder, a theme which permeates throughout Brambilla’s “Winklevii” as the twins’ faces twist and turn, disrupting their normal layout: their eyeballs popping out of their sockets and their teeth dislodging from their jaws like a horror-themed Looney Tune before they reset. But in addition to the Roman bust aesthetic, which according to Brambilla, taps into the twins’ “iconic, larger-than-life expressions,” we see the marks of a more modern artist who found inspiration in unsettling imagery: human forms rewritten in the abstract.

“The animation was inspired by Francis Bacon’s paintings, which I’ve always loved from the very beginning, so by deconstructing their face, and by creating this sort of cyclone of information, visually, [it fit in with the theme of the familiar becoming alien]. Francis Bacon has this idea of creating a metahuman, a portrait of a human that doesn’t look human, but when you look at it you recognize the emotion behind it. So that was the idea for the piece: recognizing this emotion of energy and enthusiasm, and obsession.”

Obsession, revolution, opportunity, synergy, words that themselves decompose into the abstract as they become overused and oversaturated, the perfect vehicle for satire. Brambilla’s piece may be poking fun at the Romulus and Remus of the crypto age, but it also aims to get people to think critically about what exactly is happening with crypto, to ask the questions about benefits, vulnerabilities, applications, and threats. Seeing the twins bare, and repeating their own most-used words and phrases, opens a window into the naked subconscious of not only two of the biggest names (and faces) of crypto, but the industry itself.

“The real concept here is that everything becomes interchangeable. Once you reduce ideas to buzzwords, they become interchangeable, and I think the same thing is going to happen with the crypto artworld and NFT world, where there’s one part of the market that’s interested in speculation, and then there’s another part of the market that’s interested in longevity and building a better creative ecosystem.”

And while we wait for economists, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists and collectors to come to meaningful conclusions to these questions, we can at least sit back and enjoy watching the Winklevoss twins spin in and out of chaos.

32

Virginia Valenzuela

Vinny is a writer from New York City whose work has been published in Wired, The Independent, High Times, Right Click Save, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and in 2022 she received the Future Art Writers Award from MOZAIK Philanthropy. She is SuperRare's Managing Editor.

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CryptoPhunks: CryptoPunks parody or copycat?

CryptoPhunks: CryptoPunks parody or copycat?

“Phunk is Punk”

CryptoPhunks: CryptoPunks parody or copycat?

Virginia Valenzuela
3 years ago

On July 13th of this year, CryptoPunks parody project CryptoPhunks posted a tweet announcing they had received a takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright ACT. Almost immediately, people on Twitter took sides. Some called CryptoPhunks “unoriginal thieves,” “shameless copy paste artists,” “low effort,” and “asking for trouble.” Others rallied behind them, defending the vague concepts of “art” and “parody” that originally inspired the project, and accusing Larva Labs of trying to apply web2 regulations to the brave new world of web3 . One user commented:

“This had to happen sooner or later, the wild west is over.”

But is it? Or is this just an opportunity for the crypto community to spearhead meaningful regulations in NFTs and web3?

***

Just about anyone even slightly aware of NFTs knows about CryptoPunks, the computer-generated collectables that are selling at a minimum of 45 ETH ($138,053.25) at the time of this publication. 10,000 of these randomized avatar faces exist, and their popularity among collectors mixed with the scarcity factor (there is only 1 of each) has catapulted their value during this particularly exciting time in the NFT market.

And just as with any other industry boom, where there is profit, there are people trying to drop in on the same wave.

CryptoPhunks are CryptoPunks that have been “hand-flipped,” but are otherwise minimally altered. They are aesthetically identical to the Punks in every way except that 1. they face left instead of right, and 2. they have a 1-pixel-thick color border denoting the rarity of each set. Larva Labs claimed under the DMCA that multiple images had been copied onto the NFT trading platform OpenSea without their permission, and demanded that they be taken down.

But CryptoPhunks are not the only Punk spinoff to catch the eye of new collectors. Crown Punks, AltPunks, LowResPunks, and MidiPinks are just a few variations on the same theme. However, Phunks are one of the few to have been hit with a potential lawsuit, which echoes the ways in which corporate entities could use copyright laws as a way to take down little guys that they saw as a threat to business.

While the original question around the controversy was “what’s the big deal about another wannabe Punk in the market,” the conversation quickly shifted to whether or not a slightly-altered version of an original artwork could be minted and sold as a separate NFT, and whether or not one could apply established copyright laws to the web3 world.

NFTs represent a piece of art and give the buyer assurance that what they own is a unique, original work, which is important in a landscape like the internet where images can be reproduced and altered ad infinitum. But what about the mutations, mash-ups, and information saturation that make up so much of the digital world? Should we consider them to have their own artistic merit, and should we be rethinking how copyright law is interpreted, particularly in this new world of digital provenance?

The decentralized nature of NFTs and the blockchain networks that house them certainly aims to fight big government and kleptocracy, but we are still in the developing stages of both decentralization and public governance. Lack of oversight is not the answer, because we know that humans are inclined to benefit themselves even at the expense of others (see Hobbes’ Leviathan). But couldn’t adding lawyers and brokers to the ecosystem topple the democratic utopia that blockchain technology is attempting to create?

Part of the issue is that buying an NFT does not mean said buyer owns the copyright. That remains with the creator, unless of course it is bundled, which is not currently the norm (but it might be! See Alibaba’s new marketplace). Though the owner of a Punk can share their NFT with anyone and even use that image as, say, a profile pic (read: half of the NFT enthusiasts on Twitter), they cannot legally sell merchandise that has the artwork on it. 

It’s the same concept in traditional art: Just because you bought an original Basquiat doesn’t mean you can then sell a copy of the image to Hallmark to put on a get-well-soon card. The value of the work lies, not in how much money one could make if they commercialized the image, but in how much someone is willing to pay for it at auction.

But the other part of the issue is that there are currently no specific laws or regulations to stop people from selling near-copies or even straight up plagiarized works as NFTs to unsuspecting collectors in the marketplace, which is a huge threat to the marketplace considering how trading copyrighted work, even unknowingly, can result in huge fines.

According to the CryptoPhunks website, “Phunks poked fun at those who were applying the ‘old-school’ rules of art into this new frontier of NFTs.” 

Perhaps they were referring to “whales” from the art world of old who could buy lots of art and become powerful enough to manipulate the value of a specific piece or pieces. Perhaps they were referring to the way digital artworks were becoming assets; the rich were getting richer; etc. etc. Or, perhaps, they were referring to copyright, censorship, or anything else that got in the way of artistic expression (and profit).

Though their intentions might not have been entirely obvious, what is clear is that the creators of Phunks were as interested in getting their punks into the hands of new collectors as they were in pushing boundaries. According to their manifesto:

“CryptoPhunks wanted to test these limits of ‘parody’ and bias against centralized marketplaces, of provenance on the blockchain, [and] censorship, while also setting out to unite strangers and collectors from around the space.”

When the Phunks were delisted, OpenSea’s Head of Product Nate Chastain tweeted: “We’ve always been permissive at OpenSea towards homages/derivatives, but where things get especially tricky is when the item in question is 1 pixel different, a flipped image, one color off, etc.” So then, how different does the homage or parody have to be to be considered an original piece of art?

According to Brian McQuillen, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property law, “it’s not a black and white answer as to when a parody is ‘fair use’ – a defense to copyright infringement under the law. A parody allows you to escape copyright laws because you are commenting on the original art.” If Larva Labs was to take the Phunks to court, they would look at a variety of factors, including “whether or not you are trying to make money off of it, how transformative the new work is, and whether or not it is clear that there is social commentary going on.”

CryptoPunks had not only become mainstream, but they had also turned into a sort of status symbol for the lucky ones who got in early and the ultra wealthy who have millions to spend on a less-than-impressive pixel artwork, and neither of these things vibe with the true spirit of “punk.” The whole idea of “flipping” the punks related to how they wanted to “flip off” the establishment and “punk” the Punks. But when the Phunks got delisted, the creators of Phunks began to market themselves as “Punks that Larva Labs does not want you to own,” which complicated their claims of being a different product altogether.

In fact, their very first tweet reads: “What the flip is a CryptoPhunk? A Punk looks into the mirror…” which seems to be less of a social commentary and more of an explanation as to why the Punks (notice the capital P in the tweet) are facing the “wrong” way. But even if the Phunks did not intend to sell NFTs by faking people out, they were clearly piggybacking off of the popular iconography of the OG Punks, just as all of the other spin-offs were. This produced a separate potential legal issue. 

Trademark law protects a company’s name and branding. For example, as Mr. McQuillen told me, if someone made a soda with branding that was similar to the Coca-Cola trademark and consumers were not sure if it was Coke or not, Coca-Cola would go after them. Not only was there intentional deception, but Coca-Cola could lose money and suffer damage to their reputation due to this act of trademark infringement. 

The Phunks were making money, but it was unclear if buyers mistook them for Punks, or if they felt the Phunks had artistic merit all their own. In this case, we would ask, what is the source of the work? Are they making it seem like they are the same people? Did they have a disclaimer on their website that clarified that they were different from Punks? Was the choice to name the project “Phunks” an attempt to confuse buyers or was it also part of the parody? Does Larva Labs even have a protected trademark?’

At this point, all we can be sure of is, even with all of these spinoffs, the OG Punks continue to increase in popularity and value. We also know that when conceptual artist Ryder Ripps sold a high-definition copy of a CryptoPunk as his own in late June, he was also hit with a cease and desist notice from Larva Labs. Hours later, Ripps submitted a counterclaim to Foundation, the site where the piece was minted, stating that his work fell under “fair use,” and on July 1st he minted the takedown notice and letter as NFTs.

“This work is a critique of NFT and Larva Labs,” Ripps said. “The glimmer of what was once ‘punk’ about Cryptopunks is gone.”

His piece has since been relisted on Foundation, and Phunks can be purchased on Rarible for as little as 0.05 ETH.

32

Virginia Valenzuela

Vinny is a writer from New York City whose work has been published in Wired, The Independent, High Times, Right Click Save, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and in 2022 she received the Future Art Writers Award from MOZAIK Philanthropy. She is SuperRare's Managing Editor.

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“Against All Odds:” Michelle von Kalben on art, travel, and finding inspiration

“Against All Odds:” Michelle von Kalben on art, travel, and finding inspiration

Volcano

“Against All Odds:” Michelle von Kalben on art, travel, and finding inspiration

Virginia Valenzuela
3 years ago

Hiking mountains, following trails, treading through snow and sand and hail, reaching the moment where you finally feel like yourself, that moment when you take out your camera, adjust the focus and the shutter speed, and snap the first shot of the day. 

Michelle von Kalben is a photographer and digital artist who dropped out of college to follow her dreams of traveling the world and making art. After a few years of struggling, and pushing back against friends and family who wanted her to settle down into something safer, she finally broke through. With almost 50k followers on Instagram, a thriving social media consulting business, and multiple NFT drops resulting in impressive sales, it is safe to say that Michelle von Kalben took a huge risk that paid off.

She uses her work to explore themes of growth and change, showing us that all perception is just a matter of perspective. From still photos of cities lodged into the mountainside, to photo collages of the northern lights, to moving, computer-generated artworks, Michelle finds a way to embed a touch of the unexpected into the calm serenity of nature. During lockdown her traveling came to a stop, but she found new ways of expressing herself that fit right in with the sense of wonder that traveling had given her before the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Here’s what she had to say to SuperRare about art, process, NFTs, and her plans for the future.

Virginia Valenzuela: I’ve gathered that storytelling is a big part of your artistic process. Do you usually come up with a concept and see how the story unfolds, or do you have a fully thought-out storyboard before you dive into a project?

Michelle von Kalben: Storytelling has become a key factor in my work. I love being able to communicate the lessons I learned in life through my art. Most of the stories are related to mindset and personal growth because that’s what helped me most to grow into the person I am today.

When creating art I often know what message I want to convey, and then I create a visual based around that story. Sometimes, a concept for an art piece suddenly appears in my mind and I try to think about what I could communicate with it. Usually it takes even longer because I want to optimize my visuals to convey my message in the best way possible.

For me, art is not only about the visuals; I want to be touched by it and I want to be able to resonate with it. That’s when I feel truly inspired and I hope that I am able to give this feeling to others as well.

VV: How does your photography background influence your digital art?

MvK: I started my creative journey with landscape photography after I fell in love with traveling and exploring new places. When I would wake up in the middle of the night to hike up a mountain to see the sunrise, it gave me this feeling of pure excitement that I couldn’t get from anywhere else. With my camera, I’ve always loved to capture this feeling which at some point also involved combining different images and moving more towards composite photography.

But during the pandemic, I lost my creative flow because I wasn’t able to get the pure excitement [that I got from traveling]. 

That’s when I pushed myself to create something totally different. I created completely imaginary worlds with my own images and that’s when I finally felt excited again. I learned about the power of storytelling and jumped straight into 3D animation because moving elements support my message.

Throughout my creative journey, my love for nature was always present in the visuals and that’s something photography helped me to understand better. The play of light and shadows is something you need to learn out in the field, and understanding that has given me a big advantage to achieve the most realistic results [with my digital art].

Some people might say I should stick to one niche, and while I consider my niche to be nature, I never liked limiting myself when it comes to the medium. As an artist, I love learning new skills and using them to make my visions come to life – and sometimes it requires traveling somewhere to take an image, and sometimes it requires me spending 200+ hours on my computer to create 3D art. All of these experiences are part of me.

VV: You have an extensive social media background. Do you feel like having an online presence influenced your style or your brand as an artist in any way?

MvK: While having a social media presence didn’t affect my art or style in any kind of way, seeing other photographers and 3D artists out there definitely did. We all look for inspiration and while we create original art, my initial inspiration might have started just by seeing an art piece on social media.

When it comes to my brand as an artist I would say that my social media presence definitely influenced it in a positive way. It is a lot of work and I knew if I wanted to make it happen (and it is a big passion of mine, so YES) I had to get out of my comfort zone and learn to be more confident. I started talking in front of the camera, which used to be the scariest thought back then, but nowadays I find it fun. It’s the most authentic way to share who I truly am and connect with my audience. 

I slowly started caring less about what people think of me. I was freeing myself from all this pressure and I realized that getting out of your comfort zone is rewarding. That’s when I started even searching for situations to push myself a little without of course crossing my own limits. If I was still the person I was two years ago, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

VV: In an interview with Ricky O’Donnell, you talked about not looking too far into your future, especially if the driving feeling is worry. But you also mention on your Instagram that making a bucket list and keeping it nearby is a great way to achieve your long- and short-term goals. How do you strike that happy balance between enjoying the present and planning for the future?

MvK: I love all the research you did. I do think talking about the future is a complex topic. I usually tend to overthink and worry a lot. Taking the leap into quitting college and becoming a full-time artist was totally worth it, but it was frightening. It felt like someone cut the ground from under me. No financial security whatsoever. That’s when I fell into the cycle of worrying about the far future – will I still be an artist in 40 years? How can I pay my bills when I retire? What if something happens to me? – I had so many dreams and I was so afraid of something going wrong. 

If you want to go further in life it’s okay to keep your far future in mind, but instead, it’s way more important to focus on your short-term and maybe even long-term goals. If I set the goal that I want to travel to 100 countries by the time I’m 70, I’m thinking far into the future as well, but it’s something exciting instead of frightening. A bucket list or even a vision board helps to remind me of what I want to achieve in life. It’s something to look back to when you actually achieve something and think “damn, I’m proud of myself!”

VV: What projects are you excited to work on in the coming year?

MvK: I have a lot of plans in the crypto and NFT space but aside from that, I would like to build a passive income stream with my partner through Airbnb. It’s the first time I’m talking about it, so this interview will be a manifestation, haha! We both are passionate about interior design and thanks to our photography backgrounds, I‘m sure we can create rentals and listings that are exciting to look at. Nowadays there are so many opportunities in the (online) world & understanding this helped me to worry less and do more.

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Michelle von Kalben’s genesis series, “Against All Odds” can be found right here on SuperRare.

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Virginia Valenzuela

Vinny is a writer from New York City whose work has been published in Wired, The Independent, High Times, Right Click Save, and the Best American Poetry Blog, and in 2022 she received the Future Art Writers Award from MOZAIK Philanthropy. She is SuperRare's Managing Editor.

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