I think, in the mass sense, in our
daily lives, we’re now so connected,
but at the same time we all feel
distanced from each other.
ANDREA: Do you feel your day work informs your artwork?
go back and work on something else. If you make the object
correct in a real world way, it will spit out a picture of it
SHAMUS: Not so much. The work I’m doing is very Pho-
that looks real with all of the correct shading and highlights.
toshop based; I do the Photoshop stuff with my eyes closed.
That magical process is what sucked me into it.
It comes very naturally to me now, because I’ve been doing
it for so long. It sets up the perfect scenario for me – I can
ANDREA: Have you ever experimented with physical
be doing the work without being emotionally invested in it.
sculpting media or have you ever considered it?
ANDREA: Do you think we’re failing or succeeding digi-
SHAMUS: I have considered it a lot. But, because of my core
tally? Where do you think we’re at with that?
concept of having something not physical, making it a lump
of plastic, or just another sculpture, kills the magic for me.
SHAMUS: I think we’re in a very weird place with all
of this technology. In the scientific world, it’s making
ANDREA: What about Marvel Comics? I can see your
amazing things happen, but on a daily basis there are
Fake Shamus in there.
things that we all hoped we would already have figured
out. We don’t have flying cars yet, but it’s getting there.
SHAMUS: Oh, for sure. It’s just something that has to
Having self-driving cars is going to be amazing. I think,
come out of the process naturally or play a specific role in
in the mass sense, in our daily lives, we’re now so con-
that process, but it hasn’t clicked for me there yet.
nected, but at the same time we all feel distanced from
each other. So there’s a weird two-edged element.
ANDREA: What are you working on at the moment?
What are you and Fake Shamus excited about working
ANDREA: Why would you feel distanced if you don’t talk?
on in the future?
SHAMUS: Right, exactly. So all of these tools that were meant
SHAMUS: I’m bringing my work back a notch to the
to bring everyone together are used to spy on everyone. Ev-
hyper-real, but working on compositions and scenarios
eryone’s got Facebook, Twitter and you get these little snippets
that have a glitch aesthetic. The way I’ve set it up has
of what’s going on, but you don’t have that real connection.
a sort of chaos structure to it. I think I want to explore
that a little bit more – taking elements of one picture
ANDREA: Your pieces are so detailed and complex that
and transposing them into different pictures. If you see
they take weeks to render. How does this lengthy finish-
the pictures side by side, you’ll make little connections.
ing process impact your creative process?
You’ll see things being moved, transformed into somet hing else, re-contextualized. Working in 3D means you
SHAMUS: It’s a natural part of the process and it doesn’t
have all these different things you can draw from. I like
actually hinder anything. All of the work goes into building
pictures that really play off of each other in that way. For
the scene and the objects, getting the materials and the lights
example, “Beeramid,” that big beer pyramid of mine, and
right. When I’ve decided it’s done, I just hit render and let
how it relates to a Christmas tree. Not just visually, but
my computer do it for a week or two. In the meantime, I can
also conceptually. That’s interesting to me.
Shamus Clisset. Fly Ghost (Raver Lambo). 2015.
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