10 Questions with Alex Staley
Alex Staley
-written by Nat Richmond
When were you all introduced to Art? And, what impression did it leave on you?
What's a work that has left a lasting impression on you?
One work of art that has left a lasting impression on me is this piece by artist Morehshin Allahyari that was featured at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NewYork. I cannot put in my own words the impact that this piece had on me so i have included the official description of the piece:
"These translucent, ghostly sculptures are reproductions of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts that were destroyed by ISIS at Iraq’s Mosul Museum in 2015. Each began as a digital model that was then 3-D printed using plastic. Because plastic is made from crude oil, the sculptures point to the complicated politics of oil in the region, which were shaped by the West’s colonial extraction of its natural and cultural resources, including the looting of artifacts.
After the destruction of the original objects by ISIS, Western tech companies promoted the idea of using 3-D modeling to recreate them. Morehshin Allahyari (she/her/hers) grew up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, when the United States sold arms to Iraq, and lived through the ensuing decades of US intervention in the region. In her eyes, this transformation of Middle Eastern heritage into Western intellectual property amounts to what she calls digital colonialism. By embedding her sculptures with memory cards that contain their source files and other archival materials but are inaccessible to us, she emphasizes that the politics of digital tools are not transparent and that access to them is not universal. For colonial subjects in particular, being visible is not the same thing as being free."
What's one word you would use to describe your Art? And Why?
How do you feel that your work affects others?
What is your opinion on the rise of A.I. generated Art?
Should Art have a limit or boundary? Why?
Art has no limits or boundaries in its own nature.
How would you like to evolve over the next 10 years?
Over the next 10 years I would like to continue to learn about and expand on all of the creative things I'm doing.
How does your Art contribute to the human experience?
I think my art contributes to the human experience by creating otherworldly spaces that take the viewer out of the real world for a period of time.
Are there any songs that inspire the creator in you?
I don’t have any specific songs that inspire me but the artists Beyonce and Donald Glover are a huge inspiration to me in the way that they juggle multiple talents at once.
Any Final Thoughts?
I’m just happy to be able to create everyday and to share that with other people.
