Artificial Imagination: Dancevatar
brutal 08
Dancevatar
brutal 08
In a world where the present is uncertain & the future even more so 'brutal', it explores what it means to be a young person in today's world… problematising the nowness, the vagueness of the near future... feeling stripped down to nothing but a broken reality…
The works depict youth mostly staring out at the viewer with a sense of distance & disconnection that echoes the feeling of being adrift in a world that is changing rapidly & without warning.
“dancevatar (Suzana Phialas) is an artist who blurs the lines between the digital and physical worlds through her cross-media Art, Digital PerformanceNFTs and Performance Art. Her latest projects delve into hot-button issues of our times, including contemporary society, digital culture, emerging technologies, open source protocols, and the exciting new realms of Artificial Intelligence, NFTs and the metaverse.
Suzana is constantly pushing the boundaries of performance in the digital art space, and her work has been showcased internationally at Physical and Digital art exhibitions, Dance and Performance Events, Screendance Events and Virtual Metaverse Shows. Her projects have been supported by the Cyprus Ministry of Culture and the Cyprus State Gallery, and avid Digital Art Collectors have collected her art.
In her arsenal of skills and experiences, Suzana has a versatile educational background, with BA, BFA, and MFA degrees in dance and fine arts earned in the vibrant city of New York and a course in Blockchain Technology and digital currencies from UNIC in Cyprus.
She has led Web3 Digital PerformanceNFT Art since 2021 and AI Art since 2022.”
What was your path to doing what you’re doing now?
I was born on the Island of Cyprus in the sunny Mediterranean Sea area and moved to New York City after high school to study dance and choreography. At some point, I chose the wrong course code and ended up in the Art Department, where I fell inspired and in love with other artists and professors' freedom of expression and openness. Right away, I declared a double major in Dance and Fine Arts, and my journey began experimenting with performance, video, photography, printmaking, installation, and so post-processible major BA, and I continued in the arts with BFA and MFA degrees. I later continued enrolling at various Universities to experiment with any art form and genre possible. I lived in New York for 14 years, which will remain unforgettable, and then returned to Cyprus, now my base.
In 2017 I wanted to create a performance piece about algorithms, and my research led me to subjects of privacy, Edward Snowden, Wikileaks, and finally to Andreas Antonopoulos, decentralisation and the crypto world. This project’s research opened my eyes as it was after the Cypriot banking system had collapsed in 2013, where severe haircuts were posed on people who owned more than €100,000. The banks closed, and people could not withdraw their savings until the haircut ended. This was horrible; so many people who worked for so many years lost their life savings! This was my journey in becoming involved with Web3, decentralisation and later in NFTs.
Did you have an “Aha!” moment when you knew that working with AI was what you wanted to do?
IRL Performance art demands the viewer to engage and to be physically present. Now, we have this very different online digital environment where we do not have direct engagement; the viewer sees the work from digital screens.
This made me constantly ask questions. What are ways to create engagement with the online spectator? I am working with pixels and presenting pixels as digital art. Because of such questions, I kept exploring various mediums and ways of creating and presenting my work.
When I discovered AI tools in early 2021, I became captivated and began a new journey of imagining what I like to call "Imaginary Meta-Performances." I could now create synthetic dancers and generate synthetic performances, light them as I imagine, situate them in various environments and explore countless possibilities.
As a creative person, do you ever have those moments where you feel like everything you create is just shit?
All the time! I have worked on my projects for quite a long time, and I mostly create Collections based on what I want to say through the work. So there are concept development and research stages in addition to the rest of the process. I am always fascinated during Artistic research, and this feeling elevates further when that “Aha!” moment happens during the creation process when I finally find a way to express the ideas through the medium I use. With AI, there are endless hours of generating images, curating and post-processing selected works, and that’s usually where moments of doubt arise. I mostly think this is a burnout stage, so when I realise that, I let the project breathe and come back later to question, reconsider and examine
What advice would you give to someone starting in AI art and NFT?
I learned that patience, hard work and building relationships are most valuable in Web3. I still take IRL commissions as I need the income, but I seriously consider my digital Art a full-time job and spend 5-10 hours each day working on it.
It is essential to dedicate the time needed to create, see others’ art, support others, promote your work, learn about the technology you are using and the safety of your digital assets and your wallet and be aware of hacks. Many people are willing to help and advise you on all the above, so don’t be afraid to ask.
Do you have any unrealised or unfinished projects?
My new collection CHAOS is a continuation of BRUTAL, and it continues to raise important issues that I feel are relevant to many young people today.
Now, CHAOS takes this a step further. It portrays the chaos that follows ‘Brutal’. It portrays a simultaneous, interconnected global happening that situates the viewer as if witnessing the situation life, making them “an invisible passive participant” and spectator simultaneously.
This project is still in the early to mid stages, so I will not say more for the moment other than it should be out around July this summer.