Frenetik Void: Artist Spotlight

Frenetik Void's art caught our eye because of its sheer uniqueness and surrealist touch. Amorphous body parts, distant landscapes, and a deep look into what it means to be human is what you'll receive when gazing at a Frenetik Void.

As far as we can tell, you’ve been one of the most OG cryptoartists. You’ve minted 100s of works across all the most popular platforms (SuperRare, MakersPlace, KnownOrigin, NiftyGateway). How’d you discover cryptoart in the first place?

It came naturally, out of necessity. Before getting into cryptoart, I had made a couple prints of my works to sell, but it didn’t feel right: pixels needed to stay pixels.

I was literally thinking how digital artworks could gain value. So, maybe in an abstract way, I thought about linking cryptocurrencies (of which I knew almost nothing back then) with digital art. Then, around June ‘19, I came to find that many people had already thought about it and had created portals in which digital art and cryptos flourished together. So I tokenized a few of my works and forgot about it. Couple months later I woke up to several bids of @Moderats and that's how it all started.

You mentioned that you “work with strong emotions driven by emptiness, your ‘frenetic void’” and that creating for you is therapeutic. Turning your emotions into works of art brings a sense of relief. If you don’t create work for a while, does your inner space become way more chaotic? What have been the most difficult emotions that you’ve put onto your art?

Definitely. I started creating also out of necessity, to keep me sane. I need to create to get through periods in my life. I somehow get overwhelmed by my own mind. My best way of letting go is to channel my emotions & pain and put it somewhere, exteriorize it.

If I don't create for a while my inner space certainly becomes more chaotic, but also in a way I start closing up. There’s a very strong dispute between rationality and emotions. The good thing about having some time away from creative work is that every time I finally return it feels like an explosion, but in a good way... You’ll see ;)

I poured a lot into my work, especially when fighting through tough times. There have been periods where I focused on human relationships and their consequences. I get very attached and love deeply, so the departures I have experienced have turned my world around. There have been ramifications of those feelings as well, such as explorations on loneliness and the  feeling of being trapped inside oneself.

I’ll never stop creating.

How would you describe your artistic style?

I’d say it's digital art, well, obviously. More specifically, perhaps surrealism or post-surrealism, but I don’t really like labeling my stuff. I can proudly say it's honest work and that's what matters most to me.

We see common themes within your pieces like corporeal human limbs and empty virtual bodies that you then fill with your own emotions. Oftentimes, your creative process starts by deconstructing a previous file and building it into something new. When do you know it’s time to start with a completely brand new file?

I get tired of myself so quickly. It's really very spontaneous, when repetition becomes inescapable I just wipe everything out and start again, experimenting with new ways of getting somewhere close to what I want to express. By repetition I don’t refer to visual patterns, because sometimes through repetition you are able to build narrative structures and depth of meaning, adding ultimately to the essence of the piece.

As a follow up, “The Unique” and “トポロジーの呪い” are two recent pieces that you created that are distinctly different than your normal works of art. Not only are they black and white renditions of ethereal masses, they don’t contain any body parts. What did the creative process look like for these two pieces?

The bodies are there, you just can’t see them.

As for the process, I had this idea of wanting to take out liquid from the “hollow” inside of the humanoids and solidifying it. Imagine taking every liquid you have inside you in a sort of weird sweat-pores-explosion and being able to capture, through solidification, that first moment when everything comes out. That's technically what I did, haha.

Speaking of your artworks, your naming convention feels completely random and absurd. How does your mind come to achieve these names for your pieces?

Oh they are definitely not random. Absurd perhaps, haha. They are part of the story I want to tell. Sometimes they just get you deeper into the void, so most people might get confused. I like that feeling. But they all fit pretty nicely together, at least for me.

Recently it looks like you’ve been trying to level up your social media game on Twitter. What brought about this shift in wanting to grow a larger audience?

It's a show-take advantage of performance.

Not really, I’ve done it on Instagram for a long time already, and it's very tiresome work to be honest. I just know that those numbers pay off (a bit too much), so just trying to have fun doing it again on Twitter, started from scratch a few months ago. It seems to be the predetermined platform for what I’m doing right now. It's weird, it somehow validates you in a wide & very superficial social way, but becoming too obsessed about getting followers is dangerous. Looks like there are lots of ego-driven maniacs out in the twitter jungle. I can't say it isn't fun.

On Twitter you mentioned that you’re “tokenizing your soul soon”. Can you share with the audience any further details?

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We’ve communicated briefly over direct messages on Twitter and it seems like you have a good handle on taking care of your mental state. What activities do you do to make sure you're in a good mental space? How do you know when you should take a break?

I push myself too hard sometimes, it seems I'm very ambitious and when I have an objective ahead I don't stop till I get it, sometimes I end up paying too much energy for it. I guess I see now that the ultimate objective will be the search of mental peace, and that might last until the end of my days. It's been about 9 years since I started psychoanalysis and that really changed my way of thinking about life. I'm extremely conscious, maybe excessively.

When I plug myself onto the computer I enter a frenetic state. My mind has adapted to the digital medium. But one thing I'm grateful for is that I always find surprising relief in having the capacity of letting go. When I travel and disconnect I adapt really fast to this natural-earthy Franco. I'm a very sensitive person with an overthinking-overachiever-egoistic mind that has to create in order to stay sane, but who is able (and needs) to get away from it all from time to time.

You mentioned on “10 questions in 10 minutes” that you’re working on video games. What are the concept of these games?

They are closer to virtual experiences than to videogames. In the ones I made until now there is no clear way to completion, it's like you’re dealing with a world that’s alive, which you can explore and eventually find things. It's full of hidden easter eggs. My work is very personal, just like my still renders and everything I do, so I don’t mean to rush. My idea is to eventually let them out, when I find the right way.

What excites you most about your future with art? Where do you see yourself going?

I want to push myself more into what I'm doing right now, but learning new tools and playing / experimenting with ‘em. Maybe in the near future, a team would need to be put together to create higher complexity stuff that has been on my mind for some time. But obviously, I don't really have the slightest clue of where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in the future. I tend to surprise myself, If I knew everything in advance it’d be boring.

Any shout outs?

To all my friends & colleagues from CryptoArg.

Notable past exhibitions / praise / press:

I don’t like to keep a clear record of this sort of thing. To me what matters is my work and not where it has been shown or by whom it has been praised. Never felt extremely close to art bureaucracy, with its prizes, institutions and prestige.

However, in the last couple of years my work was shown in many virtual exhibitions and won  a couple of prizes and I am very grateful for that.

Support the artist:

• Website: https://www.frenetikvoid.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/frenetikvoid
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frenetikvoid/
• SuperRare: https://superrare.co/frenetikvoid
• MakersPlace: https://makersplace.com/frenetikvoid/
• KnownOrigin: https://knownorigin.io/frenetik-void