intra

0:00 Hi everyone. Thank you to It's nice that for having me here tonight. I'm really excited and I love all the publication work you guys do. It's amazing. Big fan. Um, I'm Ina. I'm a multiformat artist. Um, primarily working with 3D animation, motion graphics, and other digital mediums.

0:23 Um, with my work, I tend to explore uh mundanity. That's where I draw most of my inspiration from. Um, the overlooked and discarded moments of our day. Whether it's our weekly shop shop, sorry, or taking out the bins. I have a lot of fun bringing these discarded moments and experiences into the 3D world um, and abstractifying them into a visual piece.

0:54 Um, over the years I've had the pleasure to collaborate super closely with NIA archives and we've built out this super rich uh visual tapestry of artworks and graphic elements that articulate the NA world and her music. And more recently, I've produced some work for nothing. Again, an opportunity to amplify the mundane.

1:20 And occasionally I also dip into directing um but not too much because as we all know shoot days have a lot of unknown variables and I'm a lot more comfortable behind the screen uh as it's a lot more controlled environment. Um, but in all my work, I always try and inject a little bit of V effects and motion graphics um, into the piece at some point cuz that is my love language like 3D. Um, but it's also super useful being the director and the VFX supervisor on set. So, if anything goes wrong, um, I can also blame myself. So, it's that's super um, useful. But um yeah, a few years ago I made a bunch of

2:09 YouTube videos. It was a whole thing. I didn't think anyone would see them. Uh turns out quite a few people did, which is sort of like why I'm here today, cuz it's the interchain emotion of events that mean I can make a living off what I love doing the most. So, I'm so grateful. [snorts] Um, and a couple days ago, in case you can't tell from my matted hair, I came back from a 3-week trip in Simba, an island in the east of Indonesia. Um, now I was politely asked by a member in the audience, or rather implicitly instructed not to commit the cardinal sin that many of us soul practitioners do. I was asked

2:56 not to bring my laptop on the trip. This would turn out to be the most the longest time I've spent untethered to my obligations in the form of a 13-in aluminum rectangle. Um, and if you're anything like me, you understand that logging off elicits this feeling of dread. Oh, I literally didn't know what I'd do to pass the time. It feels as though I'm uncoupling from my mothership of purpose, and that surely can't be healthy. So, as I wrangled with this idea that I could not be made whole without keeping myself busy to some degree, it occurred to me that this would make the perfect subject matter

3:43 for this talk. And so this phenomenon, this chasing feeling that I've observed within myself and perhaps you have too, I refer to as the urgency to become. Um, so I've split this talk into three acts. I'm not really sure why. I've never presented a talk before, but it's too late now. So I'm so jetlagged. I literally can't change it now.

4:08 So act one is the artist fallacy. As you know, we are all living through the most peculiar times. I think we can't ignore that. Um, the modern age that nobody in the 2000s could have anticipated. A modern age characterized by artificial intelligence, Teeu, Wingstop, and so many other marvelous, amazing, like indispensable technologies that modern times have brought us. And as artists and makers, we're still practicing the same ancient forms of expression, but under vastly different circumstances.

4:51 And with these bizarre circumstances, come some rather precarious observations. Um, when your work, what was your playground, becomes how you earn your keep, you might find yourself caught in the artist fallacy, a feedback loop that I foundelves in many more times than I can count. So, it all starts with dissatisfaction, which leads to lines of reasoning such as, "If I make more work, I'll feel more satisfied." It's easy as that, right? Oh no, the excuses roll in. Oh, it's not finished yet. I don't have enough time.

5:31 Oh, I need to work on paid projects so I can make a living so that I can make the work I really want to make. Oh, what will people think? And this leads to the work never getting made. Looping back to where we started. Dissatisfied. Now, if you feel discouraged because you relate to this predicament, um I'm sure at one point all of us that work in this sort of field must have experienced this. And if you haven't, find me at the end and tell me what your secret is. But if you think that this line of reasoning is antitheical to any kind of productive, creative, artistic development, then I'd urge you to

6:15 reconsider. As Steven Presfield said much more pointantly than I could, self-doubt can be an ally. It serves as an indicator of aspiration. It's reflects love of doing something that we dream of doing and the desire to do it. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death. And in other words, difficult things are always worth pursuing.

6:47 So, on to act two. Super short acts. Um, I only have a 10-minute slot and I'm already over. [laughter] So, what comes next goes hand in hand with the former because it seems to me that a huge threat we're all privately wrangling behind closed doors is the double-edged sword that is social media. And I think the study of the impact of modern technology on the human experience is always an interesting discussion and I can literally never get bored of it. But as attention spans dwindle, so do our resistance to committing to difficult tasks. Um, as you know, long-term projects require a patience. A patience

7:33 that the instantaneous nature of internet and the modern life is stripping away from us. And day after day, we glance at our phones and we're presented with other people's incredible work. The finished article hardly aware of the labor that went into it. And so this feeling of restlessness, this incompletion continues to stir. And this is an unfortunate byproduct of our doomscrolling times.

8:03 So to counteract this, we might end up inadvertently feeding into the instantaneous mindset, rushing the process to yield faster results. We might overcompensate by making work that will do well on the algorithm as opposed to telling the stories that really matter to us. You can't fast forward diligence.

8:30 And I've noticed this urgency to become presents itself in other instances in other disciplines in life. So sound tech here are some reflections from paradise. I'm sat here on the beach in some show you what we're working with. So beautiful. I've got some shade going on here and I've had to humbly admit that today is too chaotic and too complex for me to go out and get in the water. This is another application of patience and me trying to urgently rush process of becoming a competent surfer. I think it's especially difficult for me as I'm someone that struggles with finding things tricky and challenging.

9:29 I'm exercising that patience, the delayed gratification of constantly giving it a go and putting yourself out there and challenging yourself even when the results don't yield maybe what you're after. It is commitment day in day out improving 1% every single day. And if things were easy, they wouldn't be worth doing. So I think the urgency to become is phenomenal and you can observe in so many other instances not just in your work but in so many aspects of life or becoming better at something that you truly care about. You just want it now. You want it quickly. You want it ASAP.

10:19 But fast foods isn't necessarily good for you. Sorry. I thought it would be a bit louder. Um, [snorts] that was a truly disparaged intro as I attempt to become better at surfing. Something I literally haven't even been doing for under a year. And it is truly an exercise of patience and kindness to yourself to allow yourself to learn and try new things. And it's difficult seeing again like the finished article like these pro surfers doing crazy snaps and stuff and you literally like are at the start of your journey. But like I said, difficult things are worth doing. So my surf clips will be on Instagram in maybe like 10

11:03 years time. They'll be coming coming soon. Um but yeah, the process of learning something, of being a beginner, that journey that you embark upon where you acquire more knowledge in your little toolkit, that [snorts] is literally the foundation of building your style. Because we aren't machines, the human process requires trial and error. It invites you to follow a peculiar line of inquiry without without knowing where it will lead. And the human process is spontaneous and cannot be rushed. And in my case, the incessant need to have my work at arms reach at all time. I've struggled to step back

11:48 from the work and gain perspective on what it is that I love about what I do. And so to be an artist is a lifelong commitment. It develops a maturity the longer that it goes on for. And the challenge we face now in this modern age is how can I or continue to make art in an emotionally sustainable, spontaneous and challenging way? And where on earth in this fastm moving AI generated dichotomy do we t find the time?

12:27 And so on to the final act. This is what happens to be a possible alternative. Art as play. I urge you to en engage and refocus your sights by engaging in art as play because somewhere along the line this all got so serious. And in my case, a hobby became my profession. contracts, invoices, and purchase orders. They start to obiscate your vision, and you forget how rewarding this journey can really be if you surrender yourself to it. Because art as play, it's an act of resistance and it opens up a direct line to the imaginative child within us who is responsible for all of our greatest ideas.

13:21 And so as I muddle through writing this talk on a remote island attempting to format my ideas without the help of word processing, which is actually so hard. Um, I look around and I'm reminded that the answer is always right in front of you. As I take in the playful, carefree, practical nature of the graphic design on Indonesian shop fronts and road signs, I'm reminded that every piece of art is an unintentional map of the author's journey.

13:58 Your work, my work, it looks the way it does because of every decision, every consequence, every curiosity, every mistake, every delight, and every sorrow in our past influences why our work looks the way that it does. And so, why on earth are we rushing our life's work? Literally, what is the rush? Because it might feel like time is running out, but beyond the hypers speed of digital trends and metrics, the clock ticks the same as it always has. And I indulge I urge you to indulge yourself in taking your time. Give yourself the grace to enjoy this long, tedious, challenging, but rewarding process of finding your

14:51 style, saying what you have to say, and of becoming. Thank you very much. [applause]