Art:Tech Summons Digital Daemons

By JUICE Malaysia • 18 Mar 2014 in Design

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Text The New Forward

If we’re talking design, you can’t explore the relationship between art and technology without looking into Art:Tech. Hell, it’s in his name. Citing his best friends as pens and pencils, Malaysian artist Art:Tech (aka Najib) draws much of his influence from retro-futurism, the aesthetics of cultures and religions of the world, renaissance paintings, and cult films (which he interestingly singles out the Back to the Future trilogy).

Regularly creating works on a whim, his illustrations start off unplanned, and the results are often a surprise even to himself.

His openness to experimenting shines through in his illustrations, as you can see, he conjures up a pretty wild mishmash of imaginary technological realms. But to leave it at that would be oversimplifying the context of Art:Tech’s works. On a superficial level, it can be appreciated as imaginative doodles, but the depth of his exploration aligns spirituality with mathematics like an acid trip revelation.

His approach is much like a conscious dream, materialising his subconscious and mixing it with real life experience. While most of us sleep at night dreaming of bizarre scenarios of public speaking without our pants on, Art:Tech dreams of digital daemons.