- Sometimes I think about an image I want to create,
and then I'm like, how would I be able to depict that
for someone who didn't have 20/20 vision?
Sometimes in terms of like senses and textures,
I kind of like to think almost like someone
who doesn't have their sight.
You know, how would you
touch an image if you were blind?
I'm really interested in people's relationships
with touch, I think, and texture
and like how we choose to experience things.
Smooth curved shapes and beautiful lighting,
kind of out of this world textures,
like textures that look almost too perfect.
That's something else that I think is
a running theme in my work, is kind of like
looking at perfection,
and then deconstructing it.
Really nice like that.
For the Fifth Sense, I'm creating
a digital interactive experience.
It's kind of going to be similar to a video game
in terms of there's going to be different spaces
that you enter and experience.
It's browser based, and it's not just a flat image.
It's something much more physical.
I feel like I'm very much known for my digital work
and kind of rendered imagery
and using 3D rendering software.
I've been working with developers and animators
who've kind of helped me bring everything to life.
I brought some fabrics to the studio
and was just like, feel this.
This is so beautiful.
How can we make this into
something digital and something moving?
Like how can you communicate that?
For me, Nº5 L’Eau really meant a reimagining
of a classic fragrance, which is exactly
what we're doing with this project
in terms of reimagining fragrance as a digital art form.
I feel like this whole project
has kind of been going back to
a childlike sense of play and like
creating an experience that still has
an element of surprise to it, you know,
like when we're thinking in a digital sense,
it's like, oh let's make some bubbles,
but let's not make them pop like normal bubbles.
You know?
So everything feels like new and exciting for once.
The internet is like the biggest gallery, literally,
in the world because everyone's there.
It was like the mid-90s, and it was new and fresh
and it was kind of this like Wild West thing,
so in my teens I started using the Web,
and I've kind of learned how to code,
and then I dove into this community
and the scene of people that
aren't afraid to break things
or appropriate things or question things.
When you have a certain fluency in code,
it allows you to create things
in a way that you can't without,
but it's also a medium,
and now we're looking at artists
who are utilizing the Net and utilizing code
because it's like cheap and free and everywhere.
Now it's not just this single kind of relationship of
it creates a program, but now people are using it in ways
that create really beautiful pieces of work
or can create and kind of encapsulate culture,
I think in ways that more traditional art couldn't before.
I did really like GTA and Halo and stuff in college.
I really used to like Mario Brothers and stuff.
When you have a show in a institution
or museum or a gallery, the majority of people
that will view it, view it online,
so you always have to think about
how your work is viewed or how you'll contextualize it,
or if it makes to the online community.
We're at a point with programming and coding
that it's becoming a tool where things are possible,
like machines are outlearning the intelligence of people.
That moment right now is such a great place to be.
The Chinese internet is very special because there's limits.
There's certain stuff that you cannot access,
but because of the limit, people get really creative.
I feel very privileged to experience the develop of internet
you know when there's online, offline, and now it's just
you're always online.
There's no way you can really be offline.
At this point, internet gave access to everybody,
so it's an icon of our age.
For us, it's the internet age.
I don't have a special interest in high technology
or low technology.
In a way, I think I'm more interested in coding.
Coding to me is like logic and rules,
and if you know the right coding,
you can break the logic and break the boundaries.
I think I could spend a lifetime just learning about
people's relationships with anything digital.
The fact that I would try and go to bed,
I would try and meditate,
and it felt like there was a wifi hotspot in my brain,
and I would never not be connected,
and it was just like, this is it.
It's never not going to be like this.
Music is such an important element
because without it, nothing will feel interactive.
You know you'll have these objects that you can play with,
but without the sound, it's like, is it really there?
We worked with the music producer, Fatima Al Quidiri,
and the singer Chris Lee.
We're all working separately and remotely,
but there's this global connection to the project.
The music element is all about telling a story,
and I knew that it had to be
kind of soft, you know.
That it was inhabiting this kind of like
soft, textural space.
I wanted to have a counter point of moods
so that when you're making something that is soft,
there is a little gruff underneath it.
That's the reality of life.
We are not all just this one solid mood.
I don't think that exists.
When I first saw Lucy's art,
I was very surprised.
Her collection delivers a feeling that allows
people to immerse themselves in it.
Her use of colour is very outrageous.
It exists between realism and surrealism.
A lot of my early memories definitely revolve around colour.
I think it kind of started with fabric and the fact that
fabric kind of has this 3D flexibility
that you can't really compare to anything else.
Like, I feel like I have lots of dreams
just about the texture of suede or something like that.
The reason that I use dyes to find colours
is because it's very much an organic process
where you're kind of always going to get
a different outcome each time.
It like brings a colour to life
instead of being flat on a screen.
One of the key elements I've really been thinking about
a lot throughout the whole project
is this idea of making the invisible visible.
Myth is about the evaporation of perfume
from when it kind of leaves the perfume bottle
and kind of lands on the skin
and how everyone has a different interaction to it.
So it's very much about molecules and bubbling.
Scent is super personal, and it can take you
to somewhere else instantaneously,
and it's something that's very much just
connected to how your brain works.
You don't really have any control over it.
In terms of human senses, we can hear and we can see,
but also it goes to our brain,
so our brain reacts to light and sound,
but depending how much exposure to light we have,
but also depending how much darkness we're exposed to before,
our senses have contrast.
You enter a space, it's open but it can also come alive.
I don't try to generally think,
oh, I want to create something beautiful.
It's something that can lead towards that.
It's more about the feeling that it is beautiful
rather than seeing it's beautiful.
With any software or technology you use,
you're using your intuitive craft and insights
to work with that technology.
Everyone has a different way of working technology.
It really is how you use it.
I don't even know what I'm doing,
I just get in the zone,
and I just keep at it.
So say you got a software,
and you're using the parameters of that software.
There's someone that's written it, like you're using.
But say you write your own parameters.
That's your parameters.
It's your limits.
You get to do what you want with it.
It's never an idea really where you're like,
I can't do that.
I definitely feel that technology can heighten your senses,
and that's something that I've probably been exploring
for a while but haven't really realized it.
We're making something that is browser based,
it's computer based, it's digital.
We really want to make things that feel like
each user has a unique journey and experience.
I don't really think that fragrance has been
kind of visualized and physicalized
in a way like this before.
I'm probably more sensitive to things than normal people.
Maybe that's what it is.
I mean, I love touching everything.
I feel like my fingertips are almost as important
as my eyes, in a lot of ways.
I think in texture,
shapes,
colour,
big swathes of fabric flowing
and almost having a liquidus texture to them.
Molecules that are burstable,
kind of mutate and turn into their own chemical reaction,
and then I go on the computer and I make them.