DAP Artist Spotlight — Issue #2
A: My Studio name is RC3 Studios, although I feel as if my work is a deep reflection of who I am as a person. So I would rather people know my proper name, Ronald Conn III.
Q: Where are you from? Tell us who you are, Now!!!!!
A: I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I have spent most of my life here! I am an artist, I am also a curious person interested in learning and growing in life!
Q: When did you start creating art?
A: I have been drawing since I was a child and have always been active in a creative sense my whole life. I only really considered myself a “serious” artist in high school, there I decided I wanted to attend an art’s school.
Q: Why do you Create? What drives you?
A: There are so many reasons, but the main reason is that I feel alive when I can be creative. The few times in my life I stopped making art, I would always wither as a person. I feel art-making is a dep part of who I am as a person.
Q: Do you have any Formal training or are you self taught?
A: I have ton’s of formal training! I have attended the STAMPS School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan and attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
Q: Is there anything else you would like us to know about you that will help collectors understand YOU as an artist better?
A: My work tends to come from a deep intuitive space. I am very drawn to symbolic languages and the mystical. I often read ancient sacred text and mythologies for inspiration. I feel there is a more profound universal human language that cannot be expressed in words alone. I am also very engaged with the bleeding edges of technology. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, and space engineering are all hobby interest of mine. They often inspire my art pieces. I think Art is a powerful way to express ideas and feelings, I see it as the bedrock to culture it’s self.
Q:How would you describe your Medium of Art? What makes you unique?
A: I fall back upon multimedia collage as a term for my work, as it combines many disciplines. I utilize computer-based tools as well as analog ones. The most unique part of my works would probably be the use of style-transfer and other learning algorithms-based software. I utilize an iterative and collaborative process with artificial intelligence to create new and exciting images that I collage together. I also have recently begun experimenting with film/animation and 3D modeling to further my capabilities as an artist. I aspire to create more immersive, animated environments and experiences. To truly bring my art work to life.
Q: What interest you about NFT’s?
A:NFT’s , to me, are the fairest method of properly returning value to creators of artwork. Digital work is often undervalued because it is infinitely copiable, and I feel NFT’s are a rather elegant solution to that problem.
Q: How long have you been creating NFT’s?
A: Back in January of this year I discovered an NFT community known as “Terra Virtua”, which mints NFT’s into a gallery type environment. I had heard about NFT’s in the news and finally decided to make my own after conducting research. After my initial success selling a few, I saw their future potential.
Q: How long have you been creating art in general?
A: I have been a kid doodling on anything I could get my hands on, but I would say I have been making Serious, intentional artworks for about 12 years now.
Q: If you had to close you eyes and imagine where you would be in the NFT scene in 1, 3, 5 years from now, what would that look like?
A: In the following year, I am to be represented on more platforms, and have an appreciable footprint on larger markets like Open-sea. I am interested in joining communities and creating collaborative works at this time.
Three Years I aim to have migrated my practices into VR compatible spaces and create more extensive experiences unique to the digital landscape. I think the potential of NFT’s is still broadly untapped. I hope the technology is more mature at this point. Five Years, I see myself as greatly fluent with emerging VR, block-chain, and AI-powered tools able to create profoundly influential works of art that would be hard to pull off today. I hope to be at the forefront of the evolving cultural shift towards decentralized internet platforms and digital environments. Q: What does your Road Map look like? Do you have any plans for more projects once your current one is complete? A: I am learning how to use 3D modeling and VR techniques currently. I plan to start doing more dynamic interactive works here soon. From there, I would either aim to build or join a collaborative group of creatives and start doing larger-scale projects. I see interactive VR experiences as the next big revolution in media and would like to be a part of the evolving space. Q: Wrapping up, tell us about your Current Project that you are working on.
A: I have a handful of ongoing series currently, but I have 3 main ones now.
Q: Where can we find these projects? Q: Describe your Project and where the inspiration came from.
A: All of the projects combine my own collaging with GAN’s (generative adversarial networks) to create pieces that blend photos with my paintings and other sources images.
- Animus- I’ve had a deep fascination with mystical symbolism for some time. These pieces are meant to be part of a “modern mythos” as the digital landscape evolves.
- Dream ciphers: Artworks based on writings from my dream journals, and meditation.
- Universal Dynamism- I studied futurism a great deal in college, and the manifestos have some interesting parallels to today’s time; Futurist had deep love and fascination with technology, and how it was changing the world, the movement paradoxically inspired a radical fascist movement and a radical leftist/Marxist art scene which curiously echoes current political polarization.
The technology I use is still relatively young and not widely adopted. Gan’s allow you to combine art pieces and essentially breed “children” that share a blend of the two input images. This allows for rapid iteration and evolution of a piece of art over multiple generations. I personally think it is going to re-shape how art is made in the coming decades!
Originally published at https://www.getrevue.co on June 15, 2021.
