Who are you?
I’m just any internet personality bored of living within borders and identities. I’m actually writer and observer, lately multimedia artist. I’ve been using Mazin persona on the internet for about 10 years. I add extensions to the my nickname Mazin according to my mood and environment (for example endlessmazin, virtualmazin). Today I am Mazin, tomorrow I can be someone else, and my persona will be completely changed. Why stay within the limits of reality when the internet gives you this freedom? Finally, I chose the Mazinflow nickname in the Tezos community that I came across when I was in the flow. I am someone who tries to find the balance in the ever-changing situations and chaos, tries not to go crazy in this balance war, so being ‘in the flow’ is the best term for my mental health.
When did you start making art?
Art for me started with writing and designing my own universe. Since my childhood, I have an unending passion to ‘create my own universe’. Can’t stop to create the depths, layers and bonds of a story. -and it made me quite a detailer-. I guess at some point the writing wasn’t enough and I started to apply to the visual arts. I love anonymous, free, underrated, cult and untagged art that stays deep in the internet. (Like meme and gif culture). As a person who delves into the depths of the internet, I started to contribute to the internet art over time. In the 2010s, the vaporwave movement woke me up. It was as if, for the first time, the internet had assumed an identity, a soul, and began to understand my language. At this point, I decided to produce something based on the idea that the internet is a ‘collective consciousness’. It was at this point that I started producing music videos and GIFs expressing my emotions.
What would you call your style?
I describe my style as someone who ‘creates new realities by destroying and twisting things’. Even though I don’t have a stable style, you can see this logic in everything I do. By bending, twisting and smashing an object, I give a new meaning and my art emerges. The concept of destroying and recreating, well describes my soul running between two sharp edges.
For example, you catch a strange expression on the face of a man walking on the street, it doesn’t mean anything to you in the current situation. But if you place that facial expression in your own reality, give it a suitable body and give it meaning, a new meaning emerges. Maybe I like to do that. Don’t all memes come out like this anyway?
In my works, you can see nostalgic elements, especially elements of my love for nostalgic games. But I’m not just a nostalgia guy. I just like to use texture, structure and build on it, like how dreams creating themselves.
I don’t have a specific art style because I consider myself an ‘experimenter’. I’m excited to experience and living an adventure in digital world. There are thousands of art styles, methods that I haven’t tried. I want to experience them all.
I always start from an idea or a message in my head – I guess because I’m a writer too. I choose the artistic orientation closest to what I want to convey.
How did you learn about Tezos?
As an internet observer, I heard about artists I follow and love getting into the NFTs. Comprehensive and more organized platform has been presented for what we have done so far. Of course I had to look. I was disappointed to see gas prices in ETH, at which point Tezos embraced me. Fortunately, I admire the creativity, diversity and complexity of the Tezos community. Even if I enter other blockchains, I do not think I will leave Tezos.
What is your creative process in making an artwork?
I use the formula I used when I was writing: Music and freeroaming. I listen to my music, I try to convey what I feel at that moment to my work, then I share it on the internet. If I get them to perceive the emotion I’m feeling, it will be satisfying for me. I would do the same in the stage of constructing an universe. I loop the music that makes me feel a specific emotion and listen to it over and over again, mantra style, and that moment becomes meditative for me.
What do you take the most inspiration from?
Science fiction literature, the concept of collective consciousness and hive-mind, the internet, telepathy and the world of frequencies, spiritualism, and of course dreams. My interest in dreams is a big part of my life, because I experience dreams differently than most people. Especially between the ages of 18-26, I found myself in some spiritual UFO cults due to my interest in spiritual matters. I was like spiritual detective in the years when a normal teenager should have lived her/his youth.
The experiences I gained helped me a lot in terms of creating fictions and universes. I think the chaotic environments that I see in dreams, are reflected in my art because of the fact that I live the dream openly, and I like the contrasting concepts such as calmness in chaos.
Why do you create art?
I generally have a depressed mood. I rarely hear excitement about life. And art is one or two things that make me feel alive. Don’t think of it as ‘ego’; art is like worship to me. If I never shared it, I would do it for myself, even if no one saw it. And art is also not just an act for me. You can even make art while peeling potatoes. That otherworldly spirit I feel in the act of thinking of your creation, the light that I feel burning inside of me, that moment when I realize that ‘the engine is running’; is a tremendous thing for me. So I make art to know my own dimension and to feel alive. I think that the art of those who use art like this, cannot be criticized.
You also create AI works. What do you enjoy about using AI in your creations?
As a writer, I worked with people who drew what I wrote in past. I was a person who knew very well the satisfaction of putting something you wrote or imagined into a visual. AI is also a new partner for me; is a new friend, like a comic-book artist with whom I can communicate and adapt well. I think it will be in every part of my life from now on. In an image of my book, at the beginning of my article, in an experimental artwork…
My first experience with AI was the project called TELERGENETIX. It was a collaborative job, I did not stay with what AI produced, I tried to add a different atmosphere with my video editing skills. A thematic study based on ‘those who live genetically mutated by exposure to frequencies and energies from the outside world’ idea. (Maybe like me in my daily life).
My other fun element with AI is the creations of actions based on my ‘inner fantasy’ and answers to the ‘What if?’ question. For example, I realized the enthusiasm of ‘making my own games’, which has been in me since my childhood, in the collection called PSXNATION. We made and ‘released’ a lot of imaginary games with AI. Maybe a next point will be a ‘remake’ of games that never existed on new consoles, who knows.
In my AI collection named EXOWAVES, it is a collection based on “witnesses of a wave scientist observing extraordinary waves in outer worlds”. Another fantasy collection. So AI is an indispensable thing for those who do not stop dreaming all the time.
Are there any works you’d like to highlight for us?
I first stepped into Tezos with the Telezawa collection. I want to tell you what this collection means.
TV-headed guys, of course, is nothing new, you can see it in a lot of places. Telezawa describes a “soul-body” relationship. On top of dull bodies you will see heads that are quite mobile and often ‘suffering’. My slogan for this collection was ‘Their souls trapped inside’. In other words, passionate souls stuck in bodies, out of shape, wanting to get out. The entire collection was based on this theme.
After Telezawa, I started to produce Zawa Machine. This was a collection with the theme of ‘crafting the soul through a machine’ before souls enter the body.’ In the description sections of this collection, you will see log entries where the creator expresses his thoughts before crafting the soul.
Finally, I started the ‘Zawa Network’ series. Here, however, the Telezawas are now freed from bodies, their souls in a vast ocean, namely consciousness. So now I’m telling you something about the world of consciousness that souls are connected to.
So in summary; it’s all about, Telezawa=Body, Zawa Machine=Soul, Zawa Network= Consciousness…As you see, they all connected (or i’m just a freak who tends to make meaningless bonds…)
And I want to tell you about my latest collection ‘Corrupted Souls’. This is a rom corruption collection that I made by directly corrupting the codes of Playstation 1 games with the raw glitch method. More than just rom corrupting, I put a meaning on it; It also has a meaning such as ‘sleeping codes being awakened by corrupting them, reaching consciousness and opposing their creators’.
Because literally, the coded characters act outside the codes, as if they have free will.
For example, in my work called ‘Break Up Story’, there was no extraordinary situation in the scene I took from, the two characters were just talking to each other. When I broke the codes, a character tried to get out of the scene. It literally wanted to leave the stage, leave everything, but something was keeping him there by force (which reminds me Telezawas). I created ‘Break Up Story’ by giving a new meaning to this narrative:
“A character who has not yet awakened wants her ‘waked up’ lover not to leave. The awakened one – the corrupted one – realizes that the love he lives in consists of an artificial code and just wants to leave.”
Whole thing is horrible to experience, and I think those who are trying to understand, appreciate it. I’m trying to do unusual things in rom corrupting.
From time to time, I make references to this meaning with narrative works (For example: A four pieced series that starts with the mint named GM/GN POPS). In this work, the character officially turned into a ‘higher being’ by absorbing the glitch from the whole environment into his body, understanding the codes better than its creators, and a narrative about it was born.
To talk about rom corruption in general, I know that there are many people corrupting NES, SEGA games. Rom corrupting has an important place in internet culture and history. But corrupting a PSX game can be a rare thing. When I did a little research, I saw comments like ‘It is impossible to corrupt PSX’, and those who did could not achieve remarkable results.
Of course, I had to follow my fantasies and give it a try. As they said at first, it’s very difficult to corrupt a PSX game. But I didn’t give up, I wanted so badly to do it, and I finally found a way to break the games. Interesting and unique results are obtained by the corrupting of low poly-3D graphics. The results I achieved were very satisfying, the games were officially going to a whole new dimension, they were being ‘recreated by being destroyed’. Somehow the codes managed to ‘communicate with me’. Now I’m working on corrupting along with some experimental works.
Before ROM corrupting, there is another collection I built on ‘imaginary games’. In fact, we can say that they are related to each other: MAZINCO DREAMSTORE. Yet another fantasy collection.
In this collection, I crafted imaginary fantasy consoles and placed intros of imaginary games into it.
I even corrupted a games that never existed in this collection.
What do you have planned coming up?
I have too many ideas, I can’t give my full energy because I have a shift in my daily life yet. In fact, every work I do gives a signal of what will come next.
I will continue the Zawa Network series. I also stepped into the 3D world a while ago, but I didn’t do much mint since it was in the experimental stage. I will continue my TEIA mints with new styles.
I will continue the mints on my 3rd account where I publish my ‘Corrupted Souls’ collection and focus only on glitches. In addition to PSX, I will also make Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Gamecube, Playstation 2, Gameboy Advance corruptions.
From time to time, as good ideas come to my mind and when I find the appropriate time, I will also publish AI collections – again on realizing fantasies -.
If one day I get the opportunity, I want to start glitching PSX, PS2 games with analog hardware.
Is there anyone you want to shoutout?
Of course. The reason I like the Tezos community is because it has unique people.
One of them is PHOSPHOR OPERATOR (@666JeffTezos666), and everyone in Signal Pitfall with full of analog glitch freaks with their inspiring works. 666JeffTezos666 is someone who both inspires with his art, does important work for the community, and brings together those who do similar work.
Another is LIMBO (@Limbouniverse) the magical&aesthetical world they created and the Treehouse community they founded.
JNK (@JNK101) and their gang, Kurt Hustle Collective (@KurtHustle97), cult works and world that serves internet culture. It may be remarkable in internet history and we may witnessing the new meme form of post-internet.
Mari Migraine (@MariMigraine) and the Healing Center community, who created an art world on mental illness, which is very unique to experience, is one of my favorite works to follow.
One of the inspiring elements of Alteredgenie (@alteredgenie) is the visual world they create by placing their emotions; and way of their communication with people and community.
Xponential’s (@xponential) inspiring world of seemless loops, and provides to us important tutorials.
Kaspar’s (@KasparHen) persistence about telling stories about their own world, and doing so with their unique art styles is quite inspiring.
Passionate works created by Zacurowave (@zacurowave) in her dark world, and the Wicked City Crews project, of which I contribute to its community from time to time.
Anything else?
Finally, I would like to add: I see many good artists leaving the scene. I guess when they don’t get the results they want, they get discouraged and stop producing. Not giving up on continuous production and trying new things gives good results. Especially when you return to your inner world and do something, you establish good bonds with people who perceive that frequency. So never stop trying.