INTERVIEW
In Conversation with Shvemblder
by Jeff Davis
Shvembldr is an artist from Latvia who is passionate about generative art and also works in web development and music creation. We talked about his creative background in anticipation of his upcoming Art Blocks project The Blocks of Art.
Jeff Davis: Hi there! Let us know how you first got into making art?
Shvembldr: I've been fascinated by creativity since childhood, I've always drawn, sculpted, designed something. My nickname is the name of one of the creatures I drew as a child. My friend and I had a rule to name them in a way that the name had as few vowels and as many consonants as possible. That's how Shvembldr came to be.
JD: When did you start pursuing generative art?
SHV: I remember that moment very clearly. My job at the time was to make mini-games for the media company I was working for. I was doing the visuals of the game, drawing some lines, and suddenly I thought that I could set them randomly and they would be positioned differently each time. So that's what I did. Then I increased their number and clicked for a while, looking at the resulting chaos. The phrase generative art came to my mind, so I opened up Google and dove into an incredible and very beautiful world, of which I had no idea. I am a thorough person, so I decided to start with courses. The first was a course from Joshua Davis. He is a great teacher and person with a great sense of humor, and I want to thank him very much for this contribution to the community. He and Manoloide were my first inspirations. After that, I started my first attempts at doing something of my own. And after a while I joined the Generative Artists Club. I have to say, it's the best community I've ever been in. We have our own Slack where we discuss everything related to generative art and it gave me a huge boost going forward. The amount of knowledge that this community has combined is just invaluable.
JD: How has your creative practice changed over time?
SHV: I started with fairly simple shapes and colors and experimented a lot. I don't have a distinctive single style, but you can trace techniques from work to work. At first, I worked more with form, but now I concentrate more on color and composition. I really like working with transparency and getting unusual effects through it. It may be of interest to someone, but I am actually not inspired by the work of other generative artists. Because I try not to repeat something that is already there. I look at the work of artists who create with their hands. I want generative art to be more alive, I want to bring something new to it. I'm experimenting a lot with gradients right now, and I think this will be used in my future works.
JD: And then how did you discover NFTs/crypto art?
SHV: This phenomenon was hard not to notice. Even my barber was aware of it when I came to him for a haircut. But I really don't like it when something is so heavily imposed, and I had a pretty negative attitude at first. Especially when I read how someone did a mint of some meme and got half a million richer. It was weird. That all changed after I found out about Art Blocks and hic et nunc. Art Blocks is the perfect platform for generative art, displaying its very essence, so I applied right away. And hic et nunc after a while introduced the ability to do mint interactive art. This prompted me to buy 5 XTZ and start publishing my work. It wasn't generative art; it was just an interactive thing.
JD: Alright, let’s talk more about The Blocks of Art! What was the inspiration for your project?
SHV: I always put some ideas in the work. Sometimes it is explicit; sometimes only I know about it and no one else knows. The Blocks of Art is the first case. I had two ideas in my head at the same time. One is generative art, which is in constant motion and can have an infinite number of copies, keeping the basic concept, but is also a finished work, stopped at any moment, or printed. The second idea is the concept of blocks of art—small fragments of art in harmony with each other. These ideas are implemented in my project at Art Blocks. A lot of generative art is very geometric because there are numbers and algorithms behind it, so I decided to make something bright and associated with generative art. I used a hexagonal grid, which using isometrics turns into blocks, each side of which is a small generative art. I tried to use smooth animations, so that this work placed for example on the wall (now that there are special displays for NFTs) was not something distracting, but on the contrary something to look at and calm down or meditate
JD: Anything special collectors should look for in your project as the series is generated?
SHV: Each copy of my project has one panel with a letter in it. These are the letters from the word ARTBLOCKS. Therefore, collectors will have the opportunity to collect nine works with each of these letters. I don't know how many of these complete sets will turn out—after all, generative art is based on chance. But I prepared a surprise for the first three collectors who make it!
JD: What else should people know to better understand your art?
SHV: I'm not sure I want my art to be understood. I want my art to be imaginative and inspiring. I want everyone to interpret it in their own way when they look at it. I allow the collector to “сlick” to the art they like or choose from a variety of options, and it will still be my art. I'm excited about the reality that I have the possibility to express myself without regard to anyone's opinion, and those who like what I do can just come and buy my work. There's something real about that.
