Today we've got the awesome opportunity to bring you all an interview with Austrian-born artist and creative director Berit Gilma. Berit earned Fulbright Scholarship and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an MFA at the UCLA Design Media Arts, eventually moving on to work with the legendary musician and composer Danny Elfman sometime after a chance meeting in 2016. Using her expertise in digital art and new technologies Berit joined Elfman as her creative director in preparation to re-launch his solo career after a long hiatus. Berit worked on Elfman’s 2021 album "Big Mess", introducing him to contemporary digital artists and new technologies such as 3D scanning and artificial intelligence to produce cutting-edge visuals that were used throughout the album art and music videos. Her latest project with Elfman is the remix album Bigger. Messier., for which she co-curated a lineup of legendary collaborators including Iggy Pop, Trent Reznor, Blixa Bargeld, and exciting young talents like Ghostemane, HEALTH, Boy Harsher, and many others.
Right now you’re working as a Creative Director for the living legend and cult-status figure Danny Elfman. That seems like a crazy position for anyone to find themselves in. How did the two of you meet and how did he come to decide that you're the right person to work with for this triumphant return, as we saw at Coachella? Danny really is a true artistic soul and a living legend. It’s really an honor to work so closely with him. We met through a mutual friend when I was traveling in California for the first time back in 2016. I saw his studio, his collection of art and oddities, and we clicked over our mutual taste. I only knew him from his work with Tim Burton at the time, and I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, this is really his world!“ I was fascinated. We became good friends over the years, and I would send him art and music from my world in Berlin. I was navigating through some subcultures there, and he was always curious to get a glimpse of them. I can’t speak for him, but he knew that I have a rich cultural and artistic background and it seemed that he trusted my taste. Once I moved to LA and Coachella was confirmed, he asked me for help on art direction, but due to the pandemic, everything happened a little differently.
What are your duties as Creative Director? It's obviously much more than just handling the visual aspects of a given project, and that certainly must be the case with your work with Danny. I had to escape LA due to COVID and Coachella had been canceled. Due to these very specific circumstances, Danny decided to make an album, the first one of his own music in almost 40 years. He asked me to creative direct it, all remotely from Berlin at first. I wore many hats in the project that became Big Mess. I was trying to think of it as a conceptual work, where music and visual art go hand in hand with the challenges facing the music industry at the moment, the role of the digital world, and the pandemic. I was bringing directors on board for music videos, I was in charge of all visual elements from the album cover to the deluxe box set to digital imagery, and I made strategic decisions on the campaign. I also took on the role of co-curator and co-producer for the remix record Bigger. Messier. In a practical sense, how would you describe your creative process when tackling an idea or piece of work? Do you ritualistically sit down and write down thoughts that come in? Do you mull ideas over a meal or during walks? What does that all look like for you? Many smart people have discussed what creativity is - I particularly like David Lynch's perspectives. Ideas float in the aether and they come to you unprepared. I write down all that comes to mind, take some distance, and then have ideas that come to me in random moments. You're an artist, but there's a layer of complexity to the work that you're doing that puts you in a spot that's a lot like an "artist-auxiliary," enhancing and elaborating upon what others are doing and helping them navigate other spaces. How do you see yourself in that regard? Do you treat your own work as complementary? Do you see it from a technical or utilitarian perspective? I believe that, without my artistic background, I would not be able to do the work I do for Danny. I have educated myself, my thinking, and my skills over the past 10 years. I studied at four different universities. I definitely see my own artistic background as complimentary. And the other way around, working with other artists, benefits my development. I see it all inspiring each other. As long as the work is creative, I think all of these approaches can complement each other. It’s similar to other activities I do – I write, I curate, I produce art myself. It’s all about the same interests, and therefore it helps me to think about art, perhaps more holistically and in-depth. I believe it is also related to my generation, the time we live in, and the digital world – my mind was almost trained to parallel compute and think about everything at the same time.
I read something very interesting in your bio that said your MFA degree “examined the intersection of art and science." Why is that a topic of interest to you, and in what ways can we appreciate that as well? I’m interested in new technologies and how they are being used as a catalyst to create art or a new way of seeing. For example, blockchain technology, or artificial intelligence and its uses in the art world in the past years. Obviously, this is coming from computer science. I think art and science are closely intertwined. In my specific case, I became interested in using technology to engage with remote places, particularly with the planet Mars. I’ve been following NASA’s explorations of Mars, and it’s fascinating to observe how it changes how we think of ourselves as humanity, our future on planet Earth, and our understanding of distance. I used NASA 360-degree imagery to place art on Mars in an immersive way, speculating about humanity's future. My artistic curiosity also led me to work with a psychic spy to remotely view Mars in the future, and he translated the psychic information into a sculpture using clay. I believe in science, but I’m also exploring concepts that are pseudoscientific from an artistic curiosity. I like moments when they overlap or meet because it challenges the mind, and that can be poetic. You of course studied under the famous Ai Weiwei, who undoubtedly left an impact on you, but I’d like to know about other artists, movements, scenes, and media that have also left a lasting impact on you and that you feel informed your work to this day. Since I was 19 years old, I’ve been involved in a festival for electronic music, political discourse, and the arts in my hometown of Graz, Austria called Elevate. Being exposed early on to challenging music, art, and political thought definitely formed my artistic views and helped me branch out into the world. Once I went to Berlin, the various subcultures around music and art, from the hacktivist scene to techno, left an impact on me. I was lucky to study under and work for Ai Weiwei, who definitely became a sort of mentor. Other than that, the contemporary media artists that I admire for their art and writing are Hito Steyerl, James Bridle, and Trevor Paglen, among others. I do call myself a goth sometimes – I just tend to like darker art, music, and aesthetics.
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