This is human generated
This is an interpretation of VESA’s appearance on Omid Honari’s Human Generated podcast. The two met during a day of keynote speeches at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library, where, as it turned out, both their topics related not only to art and its implications, but also to spirituality.
It was no wonder that when VESA and Omid sat down to record this podcast, the deeper topics were quickly explored.
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Why read on (or return)?
Breakdown, links and illustrations:
The conversation took place at the end of May, as temperatures plunged into Dubai. Vesa said that as a 44-year-old, the passing winter was the first in which he had enjoyed consistently warm weather, as he was originally from Finland and had lived in Britain for a number of years.
“There’s still a lot of cold trauma to work through,” he said.
Omid passed on a piece of advice he heard as a boy: Dealing with cold is much easier than dealing with heat, because you always have the option to add a layer of clothing, but there’s only so much you can remove. This advice also speaks to how personal our relationship with the weather and our immediate environment is. We rationalize our emotions about it through stories and these pieces of advice that we tell each other.
VESA and Omid met at the Mohammed bin Rashid Library early 2023, where they both spoke.
New horizons
To dive straight into the mouth of the beast, Omid makes an interesting thesis that the constellation of new technologies, NFTs, metaverse and the entire Web3 is at odds with the creative arts as we know them.
‘With all due respect, I disagree with that,’ VESA begins.
VESA explains that one of the concepts that determine how he views art and life itself is Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory. This theory helps to see yourself, your contributions, philosophies and beliefs as functional parts of the comprehensive whole. This way of approaching art is not taught in colleges and universities, where most art history begins or at least emphasizes the postmodern period without studying the roots of why people started making art in the first place, namely cave paintings and body paintings.
With a fractional view of art, new technologies can feel like a jarring, disjointed note in the tune of human creativity, while from the integral point of view, these are tools that, if maximized, will remove the old gatekeeping systems for art. more creativity to flourish in society.
‘My LUXOR-inspired art gallery is a good example of this. It uses new technologies, breaks access barriers and actually studies the origins of art, says VESA.
“It will take some time, and whether the traditional art institutions will adopt this remains to be seen, because their interest is so much in identity politics, but for people this means total freedom,” he explains.
The Luxor Metaverse Temple is live with Superworld
Opportunities or threats
Omid agrees that the limitation of current art education seems to be that it is taught from the perspective of the current ideological climate, and that it has to move with the era of our time, and what that does is hide the vast possibilities that are currently available. .
Intrigued by VESA’s mention of original art, Omid then wonders how an Artist with a capital A can bridge the gap from something as physical, as essential as body paint with something as cerebral and intangible as the digital world.
“When I saw my first model with full body paint in my studio, I knew this was it, it was like a superhero appeared in front of me,” says VESA.
“But when it comes to embarking on the digital journey, I had no other choice. My method dictated that my originals had been digital since 2008, and this was a major problem for art institutions before the advent of NFTs. They asked for an original oil which I didn’t have’.
“Escapist” was the first collage work based on bopy painting and photography that VESA made in 2008.
“The technology that makes Bitcoin possible is the turning point in digital scarcity and digital ownership because it enables digital assets, such as works of art, that are as rare as the physical Mona Lisa.”
Omid then points out that not one of the most valuable digital works of art verified on the blockchain is an image of a monkey, addressing his original point of new technologies diluting actual artistic efforts.
‘There is brilliant marketing behind that project, and it also gets its value because it is an access pass. What it is not is art,” VESA explains.
“How is the average consumer going to understand the difference between these two categories?” asks Omid.
VESA explains that this is a deeper issue than what meets the eye: how, in the words of cultural critic Camille Paglia, we are on the cusp of a new cultural renaissance; we need to take the steps to get there, but our institutions are not paving the way for how our collective consciousness can get there. He also reiterates the difference between collectible digital art and digitized fine art, where the only common factor is the underlying technology. That said, VESA expresses how positive it is that the gatekeeper function of the old system is in decline due to technological advances.
His native Finland is a good example of this, where many government subsidies are only given to art that maintains a certain story. This stifles true creativity and is more like a high school student studying what he knows the teacher cares about most, and not what is relevant.
The Camille Paglia Lecture “Art belongs to everyone‘ has been one of the themes that inspired this school of thought.
The origin
As VESA mentioned Finland and the general art climate there, Omid would like to know how art and VESA came about.
“What was the origin story?” he asks.
“It’s always been about connection, and the two moments that come to mind are my connection with music, and especially African drums that lit something up in me, and my connection with something spiritual that I experienced, when I almost drowned as a six-year-old.” , says VESA.
“At best, it doesn’t even feel like I’m the one doing it. And skill plays a role so that it takes a form that others can enjoy, but it’s always about that connection that drives everything I do creatively.”
The Knight Rider theme was the first song that got VESA to play a rock star, both with his plastic toy ax and a guitar, as he glided around the room on his knees as a 5-year-old.
‘Then where is the divine for you?’ Omid asks.
‘One of the books that talks about this is called Flower of Life, and it explains that this pattern, which is at the core of everything that comes into being, all comes from the One, but the multitude of expressions that the One takes on is our experience of the world’,
The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life was an important book to read while making a documentary in Egypt and Mexico in 2012.
“In human terms, I see the brain much more as a receiver than a generator,” says VESA, alluding to his understanding of the divine.
“My traumatic near-drowning experience was so crucial to my creative growth because it brought me violently close to that point of origin, the point of ultimate connection with God. Maybe I remembered something, maybe I’ve been here before – it’s a possibility,” VESA expands.
Omid beautifully illustrates our longing for our origins through a famous opening of a poem by Rumi, which describes the haunting sound of the reed flute, longing to return to the whole from which it was carved. Perhaps we are like the reed flute, the divine breath that moves through us, but always longs to return to unity with our origins.
The Pink Floyd ‘Back catalogue’ poster that hung on the wall of VESA as a teenager likely had a significant impact on his life choices later on.
Different bodies
Omid draws a parallel between VESA’s method of body painting and seeing inanimate objects as bodies, such as the body of a car that Omid had recently seen at an event. Does VESA see its Art Cars and other painted objects as a continuation of its body painting methodology?
“In a way, it’s still human-centered, because these different bodies are still painted for people to admire,” VESA begins.
From the art-covered Dr. Marwan Tesla in Dubai has also been made a digital double Zoan.
‘I also want to be incredibly respectful of Islam, and not portray a human being as an idol, so I still have a lot of studying to do on how to bring out my purpose of showing the divine spark in the human form, how He us so beautiful,” says VESA.
“In that spirit of further conversation and discussion, we could go on for much longer, but I would like to invite you for the opportunity to have a second episode with you,
“Inshallah,” says VESA.
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Until next time,
VESA & Lotta
Crypto and NFT artist
Below you will find all the links to physicals, NFTs and more
http://linktr.ee/ArtByVesa
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