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Kevin is joined by Alida Sun, a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist and intersectional futurist who integrates generative art, large-scale installation, blockchain technology, and live performance. Her current studio practice focuses on assemblage, fluid dynamics, time crystals, and experimental humanities.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

SHOW NOTES

  • Who is Alida Sun? [00:38]
  • How comics and projection mapping got Alida interested in coding and creating her own art. [01:18]
  • Why Alida considers comics among the highest art form. [03:30]
  • What comics does Alida read these days, and what kind of media has stimulated her imagination? [04:09]
  • What prompted Alida's desire to learn how to code, and how did she teach herself? [05:38]
  • How Alida's background in industrial design led her to experiment with mixed media and generative art. [07:30]
  • The leap of faith Alida takes in trusting the algorithm to convey her expression without cherry-picking results before showing them to the world. [10:22]
  • Alida walks us through her Birth, Death, and Other Vital Records piece. [12:03]
  • Alida shares her thoughts on Glitch Crystal Monsters at Art Blocks and why she's based in Berlin. [14:03]
  • You don't need extraordinary tools to make extraordinary art. [16:37]
  • Currently, NFTs and digital art only comprise a portion of Alida's artistic output. Does she see this changing? [19:33]
  • What inspired Alida's Sentient Sun + Steel pieces? [20:51]
  • How are artists being increasingly limited by big data, and what happens when algorithms deem art -- even abstract generative art -- as inappropriate? [22:20]
  • Alida's preferences for displaying her work, and how she envisions bringing animated digital pieces into the physical world. [26:23]
  • How can we better diversify the pool of artists who get noticed in the digital art space? [29:39]
  • What channels are optimal for artists who want to broadcast their message to the world without getting lost among the clutter? [34:45]
  • Why does Alida feel she's learned more about human nature by creating generative art than in any other arena of her life? [39:28]
  • Where can people check out Alida's work in the real world right now? [40:51]
  • Other artists Alida recommends checking out. [41:33]
  • Advice for traditional artists who don't code but want to dip their toes in the digital art space. [45:03]
  • What projects are next for Alida? [46:05]
  • Thoughts on how decentralization can empower communities as well as protect artists and other thinkers whose ideas threaten the status quo -- and the potential downsides of how this technology can be abused for nefarious purposes. [49:11]
  • Contemplating art and its role in the blockchain. [54:34]
  • How belief and belonging come together in the NFT/DeFi/DAO space, and allow unlikely worlds to collide in exciting (and sometimes creepy) new ways. [56:28]
  • From clubbing to installation art (and where the twain meet), Berlin ist Wunderbar. [1:04:04]
  • Parting thoughts. [1:07:48]

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