(This bio was produced for the Prow:esse exhibition. The process of writing about onesself is hard, so I am grateful to Shana Marintsch for extracting the words out of me and giving it a sensible meaning.)
Humans naturally start out as artists. I can't remember a time where I did not create art one way or the other, and having the support and safety to grow up in that way. It is a privilege that I am keenly grateful about. I have a strong urge to pass it on - making people feel welcome, safe, to express themselves better, according to their own standards and goals. Starting a creative journey can be intimidating, but it is never too late. Good creative communities will take the time to welcome newcomers, and help them on their path.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and it felt like the future was coming towards us at warp speed. One day, my father brought home a BBC microcomputer, which seized my imagination with its ability to learn. I gave it instructions, and it created new outcomes. I was very young and my programs were simple things that drew a line or wrote a word, but at the time I felt like it was almost alive. Fractals, generative art, animation, and, in time, livecoding music and graphics fascinated me, and I've always wanted to be the hand behind the programs that made them. But with writing, music, dance, art, and programming, I always stayed somewhat superficial with a craft - I was like a squirrel that had broken into a buffet, I nibbled one experience and moved on to the next. Life is too short to not try everything!
The 1990s was also a period when computer music became accessible, and armed with another computer, a Commodore Amiga, I started making music. I was a slow learner, reluctant to ask for help, and it was a period of largely unlistenable noises, but I did at least learn rhythm, arrangement, and harmony, the "beginning, middle and end" structure that fits so much art and narrative. Also on that computer I would watch demos, a fusion of computer music and digital animations. It was a product of that ever-approaching digital future, it was a combination of computation and expression, and it was a scene that belonged to the artists.
During university, I got a lot into Flash animation and photoshopping, and a community called B3ta, laying the dubious foundations of internet meme culture. Promoting "shit is good," a punk attitude for expressing your ideas quickly and intuitively. The output was mostly shameful puns and superficial pop culture references if I'm honest, but cool stuff emerged too, because it was a place that made creativity safe and supported each other enthusiastically. Producing something is easy if you hush your inner critic.
I drifted from that community as I'm not naturally inclined to keep up with pop culture. The hungry squirrel in my soul grew curious about dance and movement. Capoeira, breakdance, ballet, contemporary. And of course, how to combine this with digital worlds, bridging expressive movement with data, motion capture, immersion, biometrics. It helped me relate to my own body, and to physicality in general, and start to appreciate the ethics around data.
A decade or so later (prompted by the squirrel) I decided to investigate the demoscene, the makers of those demos that had inspired me as a teen. Suddenly, I was confronted with people in my own age group who have been honing and perfecting their skills for decades. I felt regret for not having seized the opportunity back then. These artists and musicians are incredible, but I had treated my creative practice as a series of nibbles for the squirrel in my soul, trying one thing after another and never eating an entire bowl of nuts, as it were.
The best time to plant a nut tree is 20 years ago - the second-best time is now. I started diving in, and found that yes, watching my own skills develop, having part in other peoples' progress and most importantly the feedback you receive from group members or the audience felt extremely rewarding, and finally gave me the ability to work on art projects that, given time and effort, have a chance to become great. Collaboration has become more important to me, and I have overcome that fear of asking for help. Working on bigger productions with a team feels incredible, and different from the past. The love I felt for the creative process didn't go away after the production was done. It stuck with me, formed me, became a part of my heart. Hopefully for a long time.
There's a demoscene tradition called a Shader Showdown. It's a time-limited competition between two digital artists creating visual effects, and the audience votes for a winner. The effects can be detailed and realistic, with lights and shadows or reality-bending stylisations. I was in love. And when covid happened, folks worked to make it possible to play these online. An online party called Lovebyte took it another direction, porting showdowns to TIC-80, a programming environment less glossy, more like my old BBC computer, with a simple programming interface and blocky graphics.
With an online group of friends we took this as an inspiration, and I started hosting monday night livecoding battles on Twitch, where two people would compete to make digital art with a time and file size limit. I quickly learnt that everyone was really more interested in the creativity than the competition, so it evolved into a jam, borrowing the idea from the jazz and other music communities. No competition, just live coding visuals with each other, listening to music and having a good time.
I have seen whole communities burn out when their main driving personalities drop out, when there's only one person organising meetups then the energy is dependent on them. And so over time I wanted to step back to create space for new hosts and organisers to organise events. Less altruistically, I love starting things but I can become resentful if they become an expectation on myself. Luckily, people were really excited about what we've built, keen to share. Strong communities require a shared foundation, and investing early in building and expanding a dedicated core of facilitators builds resilience in the community.
The demoscene arrived in my life at about the same time that I started figuring out my gender. When I discovered that the gender binary was not a construct that I needed to adhere to, a discomfort I had always felt and assumed was natural suddenly resolved itself. Some people refer to this process as "questioning," but I never doubted who I was, so much as my relationship to everything and everyone else. The younger generation have been my educators in that regard, both inside and outside of creative communities. It took some time to accept that this wasn't just the squirrel trying something new, but I am nonbinary. I always was, but nobody told me the words for it until maybe 2015.
Identity and presentation are very distinct for me- I don't feel like anyone should feel obliged to "perform" their gender. (Although decorating yourself can be a validating form of self expression!) However, because my presentation is not foremost in my identity, it sometimes seems safest to fade into a masculine-default appearance, especially trying to blend in with clients and employers. Then they unknowingly misgender me. Then I get annoyed. It can be exhausting, but I can't really blame anyone other than myself for not speaking up. Places that ask "how would you like to be addressed?" or "what are your pronouns?" up front are wonderful, because it takes all those initial barriers out of the equation.