Our Season II Selectee Ascendent Morphologies proposes a digital-to-physical design studio exploring the post-binary digital-to-physical objects. We got to ask more about their process and plans around this project with their physical designer Charis Xero.
Your work moves works from digital to physical. What excites you about this pipeline? How do you think it will differ from what you have created before?
This is a realm I have worked in before, however, this time I am sharing a specific vision with a dear friend and a talented digital artist, Renderfruit. Such as the most fulfilling experiences of my life go, it was a spark of synchronicity that within the first hour of meeting them we realized we had this same vision with very complementary skill sets. More importantly, we share this specific vision of expressing the abstract domain of our interior queer realities within the digital to be extended into the physical as an experiment of not only expression of our inner worlds but also the inner worlds of other queer humans and of sharing this space with others with physical objects and immersive experiences.
It is both a challenge and an adventure that I have been enraptured by and something which inspires both a sort of panic in the need for imminent creation and equal determination to materialize the vision. It’s this sort of purpose and passion that I find constantly holding my flow toward finding new ways to express and create relational value toward objects. It will differ because not only am I sharing this vision and work, but also the work itself will be an experience in building bridges between digital and physical realms to share with others.
Do you see this work coming through in wearables or larger installations as the Project Image might suggest?
Our vision is for both and perhaps more. Primarily we will be creating physical works from digital art, both sculptural and wearables. To present our work we plan to create an immersive multimedia experience to fully express and present our work as it's meant.
Do you ever see a situation in which there is a potential to mix both digital and physical mediums in the presentation of your work?
Yes, provided we secure funding we have several plans on how this would be realized. Upon the launch of our work, we will have an immersive multimedia exhibition. Additionally, we hope to secure enough funding to allow us to also extend our work into XR spaces. I truly desire to continue to experiment in creating bridges between digital and physical that have a movement going both ways.
There is a gendered element to your collection how do you see this manifesting in the designs?
It is funny that it is stated this way. In fact, the work is actually about exploring ungendered, genderless, or specifically the most inner human realities of queerness. These spaces often are spectral in what is defined as gender, and our work aims to reflect this. Meaning that the designs could be enjoyed and worn by any human.
About the Artists
Renderfruit is a Creative Director and Visual Artist with a focus on 3D animation in Web3.
Eerie, multi-layered, and surreal, her art explores the body functions and its dark mysteries, the flows and constraints of water, and the contemplation of post-physical elements: a perfume, a word, the shape of a shoulder, a plan.. the elements we curate in our minds after every interaction generate meaning that she intuitively translates into shapes, compositions, and animations.
With more than 10 years of experience in the motion graphics industry, she created visuals for commercial brands like Nike, Facebook, and Apple, video content for live performances for Young Thug, Kodak Black, Miley Cirus, Kehlani, and Skrillex, and collaborated in music videos for Rihanna, Kanye West, Will.I.AM and Jai Wolf.
Her art has been exhibited on the screens of Times Square, SoHo, Art Basel, SXSX, Sundance Festival, the Venice Biennale, Frieze Gallery London, projected on The Clock Tower in Denver and has a permanent collection in the Museum of Moving Image (MoMI) in Brooklyn.
Charis Xero holds a dynamic set of experiences in the design of the physical, conceptual, and abstract, resulting in the design and creation of businesses, nonprofit social enterprises, and programs that create new formations in the disjointed mutations of modern specialization. Artifacts and experiments of this social design work can be found in objects including jewelry, clothing, audio, film, graphics, sculpture, and experiences such as installations and workshops. Charis’ current works are a continuation of exploration and experimentation in understanding complexities and connectedness from the self to the world while developing a lexicon of both word and creation to communicate and explore this abstract terrain by creating works, experiences, and conditions that lend to the possibility of the emergence of new understandings and of bridges of perceptions within ourselves and towards each other. Charis’ focus is placed on contributing to the history and future building of a genderless future of equity with a new reality of meaning and relational value towards physical objects and the material.