Within the frame of the exhibition drop The Conflict of Being by the artist Milton Sanz and curated by Nanhair, the need arose to deepen some questions about his works.
The digital naturalism, the expressive organicity of his images, and the psychological concerns generated by the personality disorders reflected in them, are some of the determining factors of his poetics. That’s why we share part of a conversation we had with him, which also had the goodness to offer some reflections on the degrees of autonomy that technology and computing have in the intrinsic relationship of the artist and his creative processes.
There is a protagonist in your works, does she have a name?
No, she doesn’t have a name. She is a protagonist who, although she can be identified with a woman’s body, for me she has no gender. That is not what interests me about the character.
However, this character is beautiful, Afro… and is often naked. I would like to ask you what powers you find in his body, in the virtuality of his soul, that link him in an organic way to (digital) nature?
What I highlight most about the character… let’s see. I am next to the work, I try to accompany it as an artist, I do not think I own what I do because inside me there are certain experiences, multiple external factors that are housed in the unconscious, and then sprout naturally at the time of making a creative work. But it’s not something controlled, that’s why I don’t feel I’m the owner of what I do, it’s more of an accompaniment.
Also, on the other hand, there is the computer, which dominates us in some way, even if it is the one who indicates the commands, sometimes it imposes itself. Perhaps this happens because deep down it ignores my desires, but also because it is the tool with which I work: in some way it proposes the material possibilities of the piece to be produced, and of course the material suggests and suggests, so that I let the work appear?
In this sense, what I emphasize most about the character is not the character itself so much as the poetic postures it can assume. It will always have organic curves, typical of naturalism.
What you say about the poetic postures, could you go a little deeper into this idea?
Let’s see, this last year, and part of the previous one, I’ve been experimenting with the same character. And throughout the different works I’ve developed, I’m interested in not making him look stiff, as sometimes happens with certain cyberpunk aesthetics and futuristic poses. In his hands, in his body, in his hips, I try to achieve recognizably natural postures. Poetic postures would be specific body positions that convey different emotions or moods: aggressiveness, lightness, love, detachment, anguish, softness. To give you an example: I have another work, “Ego take care of me”, which does not belong to this series, in which the character is levitating, literally, and the posture, the movements of his neck, the gestures, reveal a certain egocentrism, superficiality, and consciousness of power. In the case of the triptych I am presenting with Aura, except in “Utopia of the Impossible”, where there are only heads and a neck, you can see in the bodies eloquent gestures, that is what interests me, the expressive capacity of the form.
In the two works you present for Aura the character appears in states of crisis, but particularly in “Hide from the light”, already from the title, there is a repressive element. What is it that forces her to remain in the dark?
They are ties… and there is not only one character in that work, if you look at it, there are three. I was interested, from the technical point of view, that there should be a certain diagonal that would break the image, and that in the center of that line a tension should be concentrated, that’s why these enveloping canvases come out of the pure background: ties.
The main difference I see between one piece and the other is the reduction of characters. They work as a triptych. All three speak of the multiplicity of personalities in one person. And the reductionist solution of those personalities, which is not a solution, implies a crisis. When there is multiplicity there is at least a space for happiness. In the first (“Utopia of the Impossible”), there is a joyful facet, but as the number of personalities is reduced, the works approach a more tragic point. The last one, (“Untitled”) ends up being the most disturbing, I’m told, perhaps because a supposed unity becomes unbearable, and the character ends up piercing his own eyes with his own hands: he thus deprives himself of vision.
You reminded me of the tragedy of Oedipus, the relationship between shame and self-flagellation. And on the other hand, if we imagine the triptych in an inverse progression, I rescue what you said that “When there is multiplicity there is at least a space for happiness”. What could you tell us about this?
In all my works there is always contrariness, that is to say, I don’t want to make exclusively happy or sad references, there is a constant transit between opposites. The multiplicity offers this range of emotions.
In this specific work (“Untitled”), I think I wanted to specify an ending for the series, that’s why I don’t know if there is a possibility of an inverse reading beyond an imaginative fantasy, because I conceived it as an ending, and I suppose it does, it coincides with Oedipus, but in an unconscious way, not premeditated. That proves what I’ve been telling you, that I don’t own what I do…
Taking advantage of the fact that you take up again the autonomy of the works in your creative process, I would like us to go deeper into the autonomy of the machines, this domination of the computers you talked about before.
Let’s see, I think it’s good to know in depth the different aspects of software, talking about technical issues, because it allows you to get rid of the banalities and the easy ways out that it offers, I’m talking exclusively about my creative processes. But allowing the machine to dominate you at times is not something negative either, many times it takes you in unsuspected directions and after just one click, you say: “Ah, this is good”. We make digital art, for me it is hypocritical to believe that one controls everything. Besides, sometimes the computer goes faster than our head and I don’t see it as a bad thing that it advances at a faster speed than ours, I like to let myself be carried away by that.
With the particular case of the works I am presenting in Aura, for example, it was the first time I used an Artificial Intelligence treatment for the images, and I honestly believe that the quality improved, it allowed me to reach a level of hyperrealism that I did not know before, in terms of image sharpness, avoiding pixelation, mainly. But I don’t want it to be understood that I promote the abuse of the tools, there are those who find it works for them, not for me. At the moment of making “my works” I like to consider the possibility of playing and experimenting, “What if I press this button, what if I let it do this?”, and I surprise myself, regardless of whether I then undo or continue the path that the computer came up with, that decision comes later. It’s a constant negotiation the creative process in digital art.
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