Responsive Dreams: Santiago
written by responsivedream...
This coincidence of biography and cultural evolution led to his fascination with technologically derived aesthetics. Santiago’s work utilizes code as a creative driver, employing mathematical principles, physic simulations, genetic algorithms, and AI to manipulate machine-interpretable routines.
Santiago regards coding as a form of transhumanistic poetry, a common ground between humans and machines, and his creative work centers around questions of technology’s synthetic nature, relation to society, and role in the evolution of the human species.
For the TGAM's Responsive Dreams exhibition he will be exploring how the canvas can become an infinite region, being the screen or display, an arbitrary frame that captures a limited part of that region. Each of these regions will have the capacity of being framed at any resolution or aspect ratio which, along with its deterministic randomness, has the potential for the artwork to grow indefinitely.
The Generative Art Museum (TGAM): Hello Santiago! Thank you very much for joining us today. How are you?
Santiago (S): Very good! just landed in Barcelona, really happy to be back home and excited about our event at TGAM 😛
TGAM: Let’s make some proper introductions? Who is Santiago?
S: Hi! I am Santiago and I am a digital artisan. I code programs in machine language that eventually become visual matter.
TGAM: You define yourself as a digital artisan, does every technological achievement get us closer to that?
S: I treat code as a craft, a mutable matter that can be molded or shaped to become visual structures. I try to honor this craft through my work, in the same way an artisan works. In essence very similar to how a painter or a sculpturist works, with the only caveat that I inform what I intend to obtain via an intermediate agent represented, in this case, by a machine that reads and interprets my instructions, and ultimately executes them.
TGAM: Can you tell us about your journey into generative art and how your recent years working for the tech industry affected that?
S: During my years working in the tech and robotics industry, I was lucky to work close to amazing technologists from who I learned a lot. Most of my roles were heavily R+D oriented so my main focus was on how to exploit and use cutting-edge technology for experiential purposes. It was about challenging, researching, and repurposing technologies in unconventional ways to solve a wide spectrum of problems and company needs. This added a lot of depth to my craft which is very helpful in my day-to-day practice when it comes to rationalizing and converting ideas into tangible artwork.
TGAM: What inspired you to pursue generative art as your chosen medium? Are there any specific artists or movements that have influenced your work?
S: In my early years of design college, I realized that my capacity to design was quite limited. I was not achieving the results that I envisioned and was not capable of formalizing my intent using ‘conventional’ tools. After all, tools are designed with a purpose and it feels quite unnatural to use a tool for any other purpose than the one it was intended for. I realized at that point that I needed to build my own tools and that lead me to start writing pieces of code that would produce the results that I was looking for. In essence, it was a natural transition motivated by the pursuit of an experimental approach to visual making. I do not follow many contemporary artists and have always felt more passionate about classical art movements/periods, such as Romanticism and surrealism. The first is due to their dedication to conveying human emotion via tangible symbolism and the latter because of their countercultural and avant-garde approach to art.
TGAM: How did you meet NFT’s?
S: As mentioned before, I regard code as a rationalization of an idea or concept. Very similar to how Sol Lewitt approached his work. The purest form of art resides, in my opinion, within the code, its syntax, and its structure. Every process added on top ( execution on medium and human perception ) feels like a slight perversion of meaning which results due to the addition of layers of interpretation. I was seeking a form to express the idea that ‘the code is the art’ and found within the NFT nature a perfect combination of storage/runtime/medium that pointed toward this direction. Despite the NFT culture not being the best ally of fine arts, I still believe that these will progressively become a way forward and play an essential role in the development of digital art.
TGAM: Many people perceive generative art as being inaccessible or difficult to understand. How do you approach communicating your artwork to a wider audience? What strategies or techniques do you employ to make your creations more relatable and engaging?
S: My goal is mainly to communicate and relate to an audience via visually-driven concepts. These are very personal and intimate in nature and might engage some people or be completely unrelatable for others. I always try to let work speak for itself and do not expect any grandiloquence or great revelations from it. It is as simple as capturing thought and putting it out there for whoever might find any resonance. I use diverse techniques and these are mainly consequences of the subject that I am treating for each specific work.
TGAM: 3:19 is a sensational project that symbolizes the unavoidable progress of time. What was your inspiration for this theme?
S: 3:19 is one of my favorite projects. At the moment of working on it, I was seriously concerned about how art was being treated in the NFT space. This happened during the 2022’s boom of NFTs, where art was being produced ( IMO ) too quickly, with very little regard for sustainability, long-term consideration, or rigor. In response to this, 3:19 depicts a simple rock, materialized through millions and millions of years, expressing how I view the transcendence of art, more as an expression that is meant to live forever rather than a token, that has to be bought and sold as quickly as possible. 3:19, the title, references a famous quote from The Book of Genesis ( For you are dust, and to dust, you shall return ), calling for consideration of how insignificant the present is, and how we should have more regard for sustainability and long-term implication of our actions. Since in the end, we will all end up becoming the same: Dust.
TGAM: Do you ever translate your digital artworks into physical installations?
S: This year I have certainly been more focused on installation art and live coding. Physical installations allow for a more immersive experience, greater magnitude, and capacity to communicate in more dimensions. Although I am still exploring how ( and if ) my work fits this medium, there’s the generative and real-time aspect that I always maintain. I mostly regard physicality as a new research playground in which I can experiment and play around outside of the screen.
TGAM: How does the change in medium impact the viewer's experience?
S: It certainly does, there is a magic within the physical medium that leads to question the relationship between software, hardware, and spectator. We often give for granted that when we look at our phone or our computer we are gonna receive the content that we expect. Software becomes the center of the experience and the medium is disregarded. While experimenting with hardware, the medium becomes part of the experience, almost an integral part of the art piece. Within my practice I tend to abuse hardware as much as possible, taking it to its limit, exposing hardware, and making it part of the story is something that I enjoy in physical art or installations.
TGAM: Another aspect of your work is live coding performances. Can you please explain what live coding is and how it intersects with your artistic practice?
S: I started live coding a couple of years ago, having my first show at Off-Kilter, a festival that takes place in Basel, where I was invited to perform. Since then, I started getting involved with the AVClub from San Francisco. Live coding often involves a duet of performers, one produces music and the other produces visuals. Both are produced algorithmically, live, using a myriad of software. The code is exposed, giving access to the spectator to the exact code that is producing the visual and music that they’re experiencing. As mentioned before, I believe code is the richest expression of generative art. Exposing it in the way that live coding does provides an opportunity to emphasize that fact. Similarly, I am very interested in education and promoting art+code culture. I believe that seeing that coding is not that hard and that is capable of producing immediate results is a very welcoming approach to some people that are intrigued but still afraid of experimenting with it as an expression medium or tool.
TGAM: Live coding often involves improvisation and real-time decision-making. How do you balance the technical aspects of coding with the artistic aspects of creating a visually and sonically engaging experience?
S: Despite my first experience with live coding being a while ago, I am still very new to it which means I am still experimenting with formulas, content, and setups. This is something I really love about live coding, the fact that there is really no formal way to do it, rules, or right/wrong approaches. Lately, I am starting my sets with a couple of patches that I have prepped beforehand, containing a 3d mesh and a texture. I use those elements to improvize, introducing small changes over time, and trying to develop a slow-evolving story that matches the music and mood of the set. It is a very magical thing to start parametrizing those elements and binding them to different sound frequencies or tempos, evolving from a ‘dead’ set of vertices in space to a living and dancing structure that syncs perfectly with the music.
TGAM: Let’s jump into your Responsive Dreams project, “Un-structured”, can you explain a bit more about the project and the concept behind it?
S: Un-structured runs through a complete dream cycle. It starts with a vision, depicting a geometric structure, made out of small particles that progressively make it clearer as time passes. Similar to how a camera does at low shutter speeds. At a certain point, particles are “perturbed” and start to deviate from the shape, producing a cloud that blurs and makes the image chaotic and difficult to decipher. Similar to when we wake up and our dreams quickly fade away.
TGAM: Could you describe the process you follow when creating a responsive artwork? How do you incorporate interactivity and adaptability into your pieces?
S: Each piece is different, and the way in which they materialize is almost unique in every situation. Sometimes it will just start with a strong image that has been haunting me for days, a poem, a thought...I will take that as a starting point and keep molding it until the visual expression is just right. Sometimes other times I will work backward from a visual expression that I just like and try to find in retrospect the meaning of it. I feel combining both ways of working is very nurturing, one captures the rational, the other the most irrational or subconscious aspect of me and helps me a lot understand and order my thoughts.
TGAM: How do you see the future of responsive art evolving? Are there any emerging technologies or trends that you're excited about incorporating into your work?
S: Although I was skeptical of AI at first, I’ve lately been doing a lot of research on the potential, capacities, and implications of integrating a layer of this technology into my work using Stable Diffusion and CPPNs. I am mostly looking into ways that AI could potentially be run in real-time and become part of the storytelling aspect that happens in my work. As always, any new tech comes with a myriad of potential applications, and is up to us to evaluate and decide how and if we should be using them. After that, who knows? That’s the beauty of the tech world, it evolves with us and by us, is constantly changing and providing opportunities to take art to dimensions that we could never have imagined.
Santiago is part of TGAM's Responsive Dreams Festival, the first generative art exhibition in Barcelona dedicated entirely to showcasing art created by code.
"Un-structured" will be minted live during 14/15th June at Nau Bostik, Barcelona. Holders of TGAM's brochures are elegible to mint preferentially.
The Generative Art Museum (TGAM) is a non-profit organization based in Barcelona dedicated to explore, promote, and advance the understanding and appreciation of generative art as a unique form of artistic expression.