DAOmadness — Pixel artist Zennyan
All great innovation and social progress are born of madness. — DAOmadness
This is an interview focused on DAO, Peter Pan named DAOmadness for it, DAO is really a super madness, however, all the great innovation and social progress are born from madness, to all mad guys!
This interview at April. Meet Zennyan was a fortuitous opportunity, and I saw her pixel artwork, which immediately fascinated me. Each of her paintings contains a story or stories, and I even stare at it for a long time and let the story play out in my mind. In this interview, we talked about her artworks, her work, and I even gave him a sneak peek at the crypto art. This also strengthened my NFT plan, helps more artists to join crypto, enjoys crypto to bring the pleasure and the value!
Typto: Would you like to introduce yourself briefly?
Zennyan: My name is Zennyan, a pixel artist from Japan.
Typto: Under what circumstances did you know pixel art? Why does it fascinate you?
Zennyan: I used to study Japanese traditional crafts and contemporary art.
I wasn’t good at digital work, but I thought pixel art was so simple that it was good for me.
Typto: I studied the page displaying your artworks, they are so cool! Among which there is one impressed me most. It’s a quite cute robot (I noticed your twitter profile pic is the same robot image 🤖）. What is his/her name? Is this a series of robots with any topic?
Zennyan：Thank you for loving my robot! I don’t know his name, but he seems to be traveling. I draw a record of his journey.
Typto: I think you should give him a name! I look forward to seeing more of his journey stories!
Zennyan：I got it! I will think about his name. He is mysterious, and I don’t know exactly whether he is traveling or not. So, please imagine what he is doing.
Typto: Let’s talk more about this robot series! What inspired you to create this series?
Zennyan: After creating this character, I wanted to give him a lot of experience. Because I liked his existence.
Typto: I love his experiences, and I feel like there’s a lot of stories in there! How did you come up with that? For example, he climbed on top of a lion statue, as if he had been chased by some cats. Is His experience inspired by the scenes you’ve seen in real life?
Zennyan: I’m not sure what the story will be there until I finish the work. There are a fragment of the images that is like when I’m dreaming inside my mind, and I take pictures as I collect those images.
Typto: I can feel that it seems like this robot is exploring a brand new world, maybe he/she comes from a totally different planet. He/She has experienced a lot during the journey. As a creator, can you share more of your thoughts about his/her story?
Zennyan：Yes, it’s very difficult to explain, but I’ll try. I like that this character exists as an image. It is important that it exists as a real pixel image, not a fantasy world. And what he travels and sees is not the fantasy world, but the image world made of real pixels.
I use glitches to keep viewers out of the fantasy world. To recognize him as a real being.
Typto: So that’s the beauty of your pixel art, which is often counter-realistic, by allowing us to go into an unreal space to build content, mood, and ideology that are often tonally cold. And your use pixel art to create authenticity, the tone is warm, so they will convey more emotion to us, looking at this little robot guy, I will be moved by his cuteness, will be amused by his little mistakes, to worry about the danger he’s in, to even think about what he’s doing right now, which is great!
Zennyan：Thank you! I am glad you feel so.
Typto: Have you ever thought of making a world of stories about him/her? Maybe like Doraemon? 🥳
Zennyan：I would like to create a story with a different creative method than Doraemon.
Typto: I can already see the signs! This little robot is so funny and cute, I can’t wait to see more of his stories! But I know can’t rush creation
Zennyan：Thank you! Maybe, by thinking about the story without this robot, I will be able to give him another story.
Typto: Do you consider presenting the robot series in other forms? such as a comic book? As far as I know, the current comic book is filled with static images while the dynamic robot series is more attractive and meaningful to people, which is the coolest in my opinion!
Zennyan：Yes, I would like to make one if I have the opportunity. Oh, there is already another story storybook in which he appears.
Typto: I saw this series, and he gave me another emotion, and unlike the robot, he felt like a different personality, experience a different life, very good! Plus, I’ve seen him in the little robot’s world, and I love the combination, it gives me more imagination, especially when two people meet, i would judge what would happen if they met based on their own experiences, it’s great! I feel that story is a big part of your artistic expression, isn’t it?
Zennyan: Yes, After the ghost encountered the robot, he had been able to have a different feeling to the world ever. That scene is the turning point of the story.
Typto: Oh, this guy’s name is ghost, It’s cool!
Typto: Also, I feel like you’re really good at building stories. Would you try to write some stories?
Zennyan: Yea, I will try to write another story.
Typto: Let’s talk about technology. How did you create these pixel arts? Did you use totally different tools, software, methods, etc. when you created these arts? We will be happy to hear more about the processes in making the pixel arts!
Zennyan: As I said, this series is characterized by using glitches.
Typto: Could you tell me a little more specific about glitches?
Zennyan：For example, Photoshop has a function to degrade images, so I use it a lot.
Other than that, I’m experimenting with various techniques, such as degrading some other images and arranging them in a way that makes a collage of the data. But my interest is less in glitches that happen digitally and more in glitches that I unconsciously cause. For example, I accidentally manipulated a tool. Yes, It’s human-caused glitches. This production method is an attempt to take a positive view of my foolish act as a beautiful thing.
Typto: Seem there are two ways to create glitches:
Rational
Sensual
Rationality means that you already have goals and ways to create them. Sensibility is even better. It has no limitations and appears randomly. This is the same as inspiration. Tech inspiration! This is great!
Typto: In addition to pixel art, what other styles of arts do you like to create?
Zennyan: I want to experiment with new expressions based on traditional pixel art.
Typto: Super cool! I can’t wait to see artwork like this. Have you created this kind of artwork now? Can we see it?
Zennyan：This and other works of art are expressions not possible with traditional pixel art.
Typto: I saw that! seem named “ape mountain”? He is very cute, he is also experiencing his own story, looking forward to seeing more of his stories!
Typto: I have read some briefs about you. In addition to painting, you also specialize in designing. What are the specific areas? UI design? Please share with us more details!
Zennyan：I work with so many different disciplines that it is difficult to identify a discipline.
Well, I work according to the request at that time.
Typto: HaHa, it looks like you will also encounter some little trouble! What do you usually do in these jobs when your employer conflicts with your aesthetic views? Stick to your point and persuade them, or compromise?
Zennyan：Yeah, I used to get into conflict with clients a lot when I was younger, but not so much now. I understand that there are so many different ways of thinking in the world. Now I’m enjoying the depth of each culture and the language of the art, just like I do when I travel abroad. There are different art languages within the same country, even just within Japan. Besides, it’s more contradictory to be in a particular field all the time. It’s more natural to go back and forth between the various fields.
Typto: Yeah, everyone actually has his advantages in thinking. In many cases, we may not agree with them because their thinking points are outside our cognitive boundaries. Taking advantage of these conflicts of thinking and culture will help us grow! You did this, so your work is amazing!
Typto: I know many people will ask you to help create some art works after they have studied your works, if i want the same help, what shall i do next? How can we proceed with the cooperation?
Zennyan: Thank you! I would be grateful if you could introduce me to someone who needs my art.
Typto: I will definitely help. I will tell the world that I love your work and tell them to contact Zennyan!
Zennyan: Thank you!
Typto: What’s your idea of the popular crypto art today?
Zennyan: Well, I don’t know much about it.
Typto: In short, traditional art is traded, like when you sell me your painting, and I get it, and I own it. But in digital art, which can be copied indefinitely, we can not determine the right of ownership by traditional means, and crypto art is to determine the right of ownership of a work of art through a blockchain, the transaction of crypto artwork is the transfer of ownership.
Here’s how it works:
You created a painting. Record your paintings on the blockchain via a dedicated platform and keep them on your blockchain account via something called NFT
Sell your work on a trading platform. The buyer buys your work, pays you in digital currency (usually ETH), and then the NFT of the painting stored in your blockchain account is transferred to the buyer’s account, and the transaction is recorded on the blockchain, anyone can see the transfer of ownership.
Both real works (paintings) and digital works can be bought and sold as crypto art. For example, Trevor Jones recently sold his real work as NFT for 99.55 Eth.
Zennyan：Thank you. That’s very interesting.
Typto: Have you ever thought of selling your artworks in the form of NFT?
Zennyan: I have no experience selling digital art yet. Please let me know if you have a good idea.
Typto: You can try to put your artwork on some NFT trading platform, but there will be a few operations to learn, I will write a detailed tutorial for you in the next few days!
Zennyan: Thank you!
The moment the review is complete, I suddenly found before the commitment to Zennyan (detailed tutorial), I have to start…
Here are a few ways you can contact Zennyan:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/in_the_RGB
Website: https://zennyan.wixsite.com/zennyan
DAOmadness is open, if you are interested in sharing the story of you or your DAO, please contact us!
DAOmadness is open source, so if you’re interested in becoming a planner, please contact us!