NFT Creator, Sarah Zucker – Cointelegraph Magazine
As a Millennial who remembers the world before digital devices and the Internet were everywhere, Sarah Zucker – aka The Sarah Show – is fascinated by the accelerated transition society at large is undergoing.
“I feel like I’m a Millennial that I’m part of this generational cohort that’s in this very unusual experience of having an analog childhood and now living a digital future,” Zucker says.
“I specifically use recent tools like analog televisions to take people out of our present moment and create this different experience of time and reason. I would say that my work is really about time more than anything else.”
The Los Angeles artist is considered an OG in the NFT art scene, having started way back in 2019 (her first coin was on April 4th of that year) compared to most artists who arrived on the scene in the last 12-24 months.
Her art seems like nothing you’ve seen before, all while feeling like something completely new, telling stories with a dose of humor while utilizing cutting edge and outdated technologies.
Having been shown at Sotheby’s and more recently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Zucker’s love of art began with film photography.
“I have always expressed myself visually. As a teenager, I became very interested in photography and especially film photography. We are talking about the early 2000s when everything went digital, she says.
“Vintage technology has always been interesting to me. It’s not necessarily about nostalgia, it’s more that I find the physical nature of vintage technology very interesting.”
An early convert to uploading photos to Tumblr and Instagram, she spent about a decade in photography before her master’s degree in screenwriting saw her embrace narrative filmmaking on video.
Influences:
The Sarah Show draws inspiration from German Expressionist art, which emerged in a similar tumultuous period to today around the end of the First World War.
“It had just been this world war that made everyone feel like the world was suddenly a little more global than it felt comfortable. It was a pandemic. There were all these things in society, and yet the artists of that time were so expansive, emotional and free, she says.
“They broke molds and created things in a way that said, ‘We don’t care how we’re going to do this; we must do this in the way that this expression must come out of us. I can’t get enough, says Zucker.
also read
Characteristics
Monero-Mining Death Metal Band From 2077 Warns Humans About Lizard Extinction Plan
Characteristics
Insider’s Guide to Real Crypto-And-Is: Part 1
Personal Style:
“I’ve always been something of an outsider in my artwork. I would say that it is not easy to define. You can call it glitch art, you can call it video art, you can call it GIF art, or, more recently, NFT art as it’s called now. I don’t think these terms are wrong, but they miss the big picture.”
“I describe it more as a multiverse that I channel through. I am channeling through myself and through these old broadcasting devices into a work referred to as The Sarah Show.”
With technological advances like AI happening at a breakneck pace, Zucker says she’s trying to address the “big universal existential questions” about the fact that we’re on “the brink of a whole new way of living as humans.”
“I see my work as a way of portraying what it’s like to be this stupid, scared, happy, manic, horrible little creature attached to this rocket ship going into the future and trying to understand what this life has been and what it will continue to be.”
Notable sales to date:
“Space Loaf” sold for $44,062 at Bonhams, 21-30 June 2021
New NFT artists to watch
Zucker is a big fan of performance art and has two specific artists to put on your radar.
Edgar Fabian Frias — 2022 MFA Art Practice at UC Berkeley.
“Edgar works regularly in the contemporary art world and is a bit of a shape-shifter, bringing such a unique perspective from their background. It’s a weird approach to art-making that I certainly connect with. Admittedly, I showed them at NFTs in mid-2020.”
David Henry Nobody Jnr – New York performance artist, reality hacker, NFT artist.
“David is someone I have followed for years. I have always found his work irresistible. He has a huge following on Instagram; he has a lot of visibility there.”
also read
Characteristics
Banking The Unbanked? How I taught a complete stranger in Kenya about Bitcoin
Characteristics
Ethereum is eating the world – ‘You only need one internet’
Process:
Zucker creates his distinctive style using a mix of old analog devices and new digital tools, such as Adobe After Effects.
“I start by sketching or writing things out, basically conceptualizing things. From there I usually start in some kind of digital way, either by animating in After Effects or Photoshop. I often shoot live video in my studio.”
“I also have this analog video rig I’ve built out of my studio, which is made from old broadcast units. I’ve customized hardware to a fault, with different devices and capabilities that allow me to use all sorts of different analog effects. Additionally, I have a variety of different TVs and cameras to create feedback loops for texture creation.”
“With some of my work, you often see screens on screens because that experience of the screen is a big part of what I aim to convey through my work.”
Creating work in an analog system can often mean creating multiple versions because there is no easy way to save the work.
“There are no savings in the analogue system. It must all be done with immediacy. An example would be putting everything down on VHS tape, and then I bring it back out to digital and essentially have two ways of converting it into the digital realm.”
“One is to shoot it in 4K, essentially like shooting it in high definition digital video off the vintage screen, because often the look I want is the screen in the picture itself. The other option is to use a transmission system that basically digitizes the analog signal. It brings it back to a digital signal where I can record it digitally,” says Zucker.
Artnome’s influence which brings together:
Zucker has been collected by many people during her four years in NFT land, but singles out Jason Bailey – aka Artnome – as someone who has played a central role in her journey.
“I have a good relationship with many of my collectors. I think collectors and artists do this great dance of symbiosis, she says.
“I think Artnome had checked out my work and discovered that I had a number of pieces just sitting there on the market, and he swept them all. More importantly, it’s not just that he bought my work—it’s that he wrote a very thoughtful thread on Twitter about my work.”
“In the thread he drew attention to my work and video art in general. He really did me this favor by contextualizing my work for people. Additionally, Jason is an art writer; he is very knowledgeable and told everyone about what my work was.”
“This was January, in 2020, when he showcased my work and from that day it has snowballed into an increasing amount of visibility and appreciation. I can always point to that one moment of that one person that brings me some spotlight, and it has continued to echo through my life for the past three years, says Zucker.
Links:
Linkfire: linktr.ee/thesarahshow
Twitter: twitter.com/thesarahshow
Instagram: instagram.com/thesarahshow/
Subscribe
The most engaging read in blockchain. Delivered once a week.
