The Open Mind Series is a selection of interviews with artists, designers and other ‘creators’ from around the world giving us an insight into how they see the world now and tomorrow. No qualifications required. No taboo. No right or wrong. Just openness. And artworks.
How do you imagine the world in 20 years?
Seeing how the growth of technology is exponential and experiencing its rapid development in the last ten years, even predicting what comes in the next five years is incredibly difficult. I generally believe the connection of technology and ourselves, the environment and our society as a whole is going to get deeper and more intimate in the following years. There will be more and more automation as we can already see happening – algorithms dictate most of our digital life and much of our non-digital life as well. And this will, I think, just increase.
Looking at our political and natural environment, it doesn’t seem to go in a very positive direction, as there seems to be a worldwide step back into the direction of conservative and right-wing ideas as well as a rising of phenomena such as climate change.
But from my very personal experience and surroundings, I feel like there’s a huge shift happening, old problems being brought to the surface (like racism, sexism, homophobia or destructive belief systems) and a greater openness to new ideas in spirituality and social norms.
My hope for the next 20 years is that we won’t stop looking at these problems and that there’ll be more openness to all cultures and all peoples and people. Because as our planet becomes so obviously interconnected – through the internet, international trade and migration – cultures will mingle more and more and traditions and beliefs will keep clashing. I see this as a great opportunity to question what we’ve been taught and see that our way of living isn’t the only one, nor is it necessarily the right one.
So basically, my hope is that in 20 years the positive ideas I see all around me will have gained momentum and that the openness and courage looking at the crisis we are facing will outweigh the fear and hatred. At least slightly.
How do you imagine the world in 1000 years?
I think we’ll either be dead, in space or we will have found a way to live a life as humanity that doesn’t exploit our environment but work with it in a harmonic way, to be able to sustain life here. Or maybe we’ll be both in space and on earth. Maybe all three.
I really hope that the drastic change that will definitely have happened until then will not only be a technological and ecological but also a humane and spiritual change. I hope we’ll have realized as a humanity, as more individual people are realizing now, that we’re not so different and that we’re really just one awareness experiencing itself in this human form for short periods of time. I really hope that our development will include a deeper understanding of ourselves and how we can live our lives in accord with this planet. I pretty much think this is the only way to move forward.
What is the plant, animal or object that most inspires you and how?
Fungi and trees and especially the combination of both. Also anything that lives in the ocean like algae, corals and jellyfish. They mostly inspire me visually and aesthetically, I absolutely love the patterns and structures on wood, the way fungi and corals can spread and find ways to grow and expand.
Something that’s also incredibly pleasing for me to look at and something that makes me want to create generative art immediately upon seeing them are satellite images from our planet as well as microscopic recordings of bacteria. I love how we can find similar patterns in huge and tiny scales, I love the fractality of our universe.
What is the emotion that drives you in your work?
Curiosity and an emotion I don’t know a word for. Curiosity in the sense that I’m simply interested in how this logical machine (the PC) can create organic and natural looking art, how it’s able to process incredible amounts of data in an extremely short time, how I can use it to connect music and imagery and to express myself and externalise the images I see in my mind.
I can only describe the other emotion as the urge to create something, an inner, almost childlike wish to make stuff, to simply form or develop something, basically to play. As soon as something inspires me, I immediately want to realize my vision, which is sometimes more, sometimes less clear.
What does community mean to you personally?
A feeling or sense of home, of care and bonding. A knowing that I can share my struggles, ideas and basically my life with other beings and that I can learn from them, and that they can learn from me.
How do you connect with the Earth today?
I generally like to connect with nature and the earth simply by taking walks in the forest and in the summer by swimming. Now in winter and COVID time, living in the city, I find it quite difficult to connect with the natural world. But meditation really helps me to stay grounded and to connect with myself, which, in the end, is part of the earth and something natural as well.
What is your dream for the arts world?
What I see in the community of generative artists – that I am part of – is a great direction of what I wish the general art world would be like. In my experience, artists in this field tend to be very open-minded, helpful and gladly share their experiments and tricks. So far, I’ve seen very little judgment and negativity and more of an appreciation and constructive criticism of what other artists around the world do and create.
In the more “classical” art world, I see some rather big problems and I really don’t wish to be part of that scene. I don’t think art should be something only for a few, but something anyone can and should do, in whatever form and to whatever extent. And I wish every artist to be able to express themselves freely, without having to worry too much about how they’re going to pay the rent and whether people approve of what they create.
What’s the best thing on earth?
Sleep. And dogs.
Bileam Tschepe (Elekktronaut) is an interdisciplinary artist and designer from Berlin. He started with graphic software and web design and development in his teens, working with the music software Ableton and coding with Processing. Later Bileam discovered and learned TouchDesigner, which helped him to deepen his explorations of audiovisual and generative art. He works as an online teacher for this programming environment and a freelancer.