Inspired by mythology and folklore, digital artist, and sculptor Ida Lissner, gives us an insight into the philosophy and creative process behind the creation of new worlds that intertwine nature and nonhuman elements, exploring the paradoxical relationship of humans with the natural world through technology.

Greetings Ida, can you please introduce yourself? Where are you from? How long have you been designing? How did you start?

My name is Ida Lissner, I am from Denmark and live in Copenhagen. I work with world-building and image-making via CGI, animation and more recently sculpture. I have studied visual communication, but never really felt very connected to graphic design, but it gave me the opportunity to learn some tools and methods that became the foundation for my work today.

Your art is characterized by crystalized shapes in the natural world, reflecting sort of fairy world. What is the inspiration behind your aesthetic and style?

I draw on many references from mythology, folklore and other stories embedded in the way we see, relate, and understand ourselves in nature and in the more-than-human world. I think it is about creating this world where some parts are perceived as familiar and some as foreign, because it creates this in-between world where you can open your mind towards new ways of seeing the world or understanding nature. Our understanding of our relation to nature is shaped by so many things from science, art, consciousness, memories, myths, and dreams.
Lately I see myself moving more and more away from digital media and into physical sculpture which I am very excited about.

Can you explain how your creative process works?

I like to describe my work as storytelling through world-building, so naturally my process almost always begins with a story I want to tell. It can also be a feeling, an atmosphere, a memory, or an experience, often something connected to nature, that I try to compress or condense or encapsulate in some way. It could be how the light hits the forest ground or the combination of plants growing around a fallen tree, or someplace where rot/decay and vitality/life are co-existing in a beautiful or interesting way.
It is a very intuitive process, in the best cases I don’t even think about what I do, it just happens.

Which tools do you use to produce your work?

For my digital works, I use 3D software and render engines, sometimes also AI and game software. For the physical sculptures I’ve recently got into 3D printing and some ceramics, that I hope to explore more and find interesting ways to combine with my digital works.

What is the message that you are trying to send with your art?

On a more general level, I try to create new stories, metaphors and narratives for ecological thinking and explore how we can thrive/survive on a damaged planet that hopefully make people reflect upon their relation to the natural world and their more-than-human surroundings.

What do you think about the transformation going on in the art world with the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence image generation? Is this something that you would be interested in trying out? What impact do you think it will have?

I have worked a little bit with AI image generation and in the beginning I found it very interesting and scary at the same time, and I was drawn to it. But something happened, being so overexposed to it, seeing so many images on social media especially, being produced so fast, it is very overwhelming, and it doesn’t feel very special or emotional to me.
I think I am a little old-fashioned when it comes to digital tools, I like the craft of it - sometimes when I am texturing my digital sculptures, I think of it as painting porcelain with small details and not using automation tools… This overexposure to AI images discouraged me a bit which led me to work less with digital media and more on physical objects.

What do you think the future holds in the relationship between technology and nature, with the constant transformation and destruction of it. Do you think art can fulfill a role helping heal this relationship?

I am interested in exploring the contradictory aspect of portraying and experiencing “nature” using technology, and how we as image makers in a digital age can navigate the intersection of two phenomena that are happening simultaneously — the destruction of nature and the growth of technology — and what this means for how we create with digital tools; Does experiencing nature through the lens of technology reinforce the alienation towards it? Or can we use it as a portal for reconnecting with it?
I don’t think I can answer these questions now, maybe I never will…
It may seem a bit paradoxical, but I somehow hope that my work will inspire people to spend less time in front of the screen. The dream is that my images invoke some kind of re-enchantment with nature, that they work as a reminder of what we sometimes take for granted.

What is in store for the future? What is your goal with 3D art?

I want to develop new methods for dissolving the boundaries between the digital and physical aspects of my work by exploring how projections of digital images/video can work together with sculpture/object/physical space and create more sensuous and extensive experiences of my worlds.

What would you like to say to aspiring artists inspired by your work?

Get out of Instagram, Pinterest, Arena (even though I LOVE arena) and stop looking too much art through the phone and the computer. Go for a hike, visit a museum, write a journal, and remember or realize or connect to what is important to you, what you are interested in and what stories you want to tell. It is so easy to forget this, in this day and age where so much of the art we consume is through small screens and measured by likes and follows.