Artist
From Brussels, Belgium and Cape Town, South Africa
Based in London, UK
Joëlle is an audiovisual artist fascinated by the combination of sound and visuals, sensory immersion, and the collective experience of people sharing the moment. She told us about her sources of inspiration, shared reading tips for beginning audiovisual artists, and offered a fascinating sneak peek into the discipline!
A: Please, tell us a bit more about yourself. What brought you into art?
J: I can’t remember how it began but I was working in advertising when I started my design career, doing a lot of mind numbing work. Spending my evenings and weekends learning software and making music videos to my favourite tracks became a creative outlet and a way of escaping the monotony of my day job at the time.
Since a young age, I’ve always connected to the collective experience that you have when you’re part of a crowd and you’re all moving and dancing to the same beat. I started creating visuals for my partner who ran a monthly drum'n'bass event. I love connecting audio with visuals and creating an atmosphere where it feels like they belong together. I’m very attracted to the synchronization of sound to movement and the idea of responding to the music while performing visuals live, in order to take the audience on a journey and enhance their experience of listening to the music by amplifying the details in the frequencies.
In a lot of ways my audiovisual work started as a form of escapism but it also formed the path to combining my love of music and design.
A: What inspires you the most?
J: Music.
A: Do you have any specific rituals while working(creating)?
J: Probably my most important ritual is putting on my headphones and listening to music. Usually this is electronic music without words as I find words distracting when I’m trying to think. I also like noise canceling headphones to block out any external noise so I’m completely immersed in what I’m listening to. Music is super important in helping me get into the zone, into that creative flow state where time disappears.
A: What would you recommend to someone who's new to art (whether artist or just an admirer), what to begin with?
J: Find something you enjoy doing, something that makes you happy. Don’t look to what others are doing. Challenge yourself, try new things, break things, fail, start again.
A: What are your three favourite adjectives related to art?
J: Minimal. Restrained. Emotional.
A: The best angle to look at art is from ...?
J: It depends what the art is, and where you are :0
A: The perfect phrase to start any conversation about art is: ...?
J: "Are you here for the art?"
A: Must-read books to help us talk about art (or do we even need them)?
J: Tricky question for me as “art” is such a wide statement. I’m a grid and data nerd so will share a couple of books that influenced or inspired me and sparked interesting dialogues in my mind: The Age of Data: Embracing Algorithms in Art & Design by Christoph Grünberger, Analog Algorithm: Source-Related Grid Systems by Christoph Grünberger, and Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists by Casey Reas and Ben Fry.
A: If you could change one thing in the art world - what would it be?
J: Gatekeeping.
A: Please, share your favorite quote (not necessarily related to art).
J: "...If you don't let that darkness go, it won't let go of you." - Brother Sam in Dexter
Thank you!
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