Who are you?
Hi! I’m Sky Goodman. I’m a multimedia artist, poet, and educator living in Chicago, IL. My roots began in NYC and the surrounding suburbs where I grew up during the Golden Age era of Hip Hop as well as Punk, Goth and Grunge music. In my youth I spent a lot of time going to shows in NY and was very influenced by the fashion that came out of that time period (baggy ripped jeans piercings, colorful hair, big chains, sneakers). In addition to being informed by 90’s subcultures, I was an avid reader and particularly drawn to cyberpunk and science fiction literature. I devoured the worlds of Philip K Dick, Ursula K LeGuin, William Gibson, Asimov and so on.
When did you start making art?
I began writing poems when I was 10 years old and I was drawing and painting from as early as I can remember. For many years I didn’t work with technology in my art practice at all. My medium was drawing and painting and writing poems on the back of grocery receipts or whatever I could find. Then in 2010 I began collecting audio hardware and became interested in sample based music. I formed a few psychedelic noise duos (Nyhos, Perfect Villain, Screen + Projector) and performed in small clubs in Chicago).
In 2014 while I was watching the World Cup, my Mac desktop glitched out and I became really curious about learning how to recreate that style. This led me to the Glitch Artist’s Collective where I met Letsglitchit, Tuukz, Chepertom, Sabato Visconti, Drain and so many other incredible artists that are now also in the Tezos community.
For many years I also was a VJ for underground raves and live music in Chicago. Using a mix of software and analog hardware in my set up.
Why did you choose Sky Goodman as your name?
Sky Goodman is just my real name. It is not a moniker. I suppose I just wanted that to represent me and who I am as an artist.
What would you call your style?
Techno-romantic, post-glitch, dreams. The place where form becomes abstraction and landscape becomes portrait. The merging of worlds. Psychedelic rust intersections, bodies of intelligence, and objects of sentience.
What do you love the most about making art?
Making art is a way of being for me but if I had to think about something I most love about it, I would say two things: 1, the way it has led me to community and to find like minded humans and other artists who inspire me greatly and 2, the feeling of accomplishment when working on a piece that stretches your technical abilities. Every time I complete a long form work, such as a book or a music video, or a full length album, I feel as if I have given something to the world and to others.
Do you find yourself planning or improvising more on your pieces?
I am more of an improviser. I read once that some people tend to be more like architects or gardeners in their creative processes. I definitely fall more on the side of the gardener. I like to explore with different tools, get messy, and see what is revealed to me through the act of creation. I often think that a piece of work is a collaboration always, even when created by myself. There is me and there is the collective consciousness. One is never alone during the act of creation.
What is the process for creating a piece?
This is a tough one. I have different modes that I work in. And I use source material in my work that may go through several iterations over the course of many years. The final output that someone might see could be the result of a decade of experimenting.
But here is one example of a process:
I use my video hardware to play around and find different beautiful glitches. I use a Canon 70D digital camera to capture the bends and delicious wavey scan lines off my CRT TV. I have to wait until nightfall so that I don’t get any glare off the TV and I like that I can only hunt for glitches at night. Sometimes I use the source right away and sometimes it sits for years on an external HD to be resurrected later on. I may use it to map glitch on 3D objs in Blender. I also use tools in virtual reality to sculpt and sometimes map glitch source onto those as well. I rotate the scene around because in Blender it is as if you have an entire team of cinematographers and the highest level drones. You can fly around the world snapping photographs of your universe which is super magical.
But this is just one process. Sometimes I feel like writing, other times painting or making soundscapes.
Have any artistic tips or tricks you could share?
Don’t be afraid to try anything and never think you’re not allowed to try out a certain art form. Build community and have friends who will honestly critique your work, pushing you to be a better version of yourself.
What adds value to your art?
I think my work being curated, telling a story over the years and having friends who understand the narrative arch of my body of work— adds a great deal of meaning to my art. It already means something to me but it is special when my work means something to somebody else.
Anybody you want to shoutout?
I would like to shoutout
@rodellwarner for taking the time to onboard me to HEN back in May of 2021. He was so patient with me and without his help, I think It would have taken me a lot longer before joining. He is also an amazing artist, whose work I adore and admire.
I need to give my Glitch crew some major love:
@letsglitchit,
They give me so much love and support.
My tezos fam #1’s
@sabatobox again,
@_noumenal, and
I also want to say thank you to
@zak_krevitt and
@RefractionDAO for being beacons of support.