Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Phoenix Williamson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Phoenix, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Even though my skills can apply to other industries, I associate the most with Game Development. In some ways, this industry encourages you to dedicate energy towards one specific skill (mastering it) in order to be successful. To me, these arbitrary rules discourage artists from exploring other mediums. This is a kick in the gut to the innate curiosity that even allows someone to be creative. I tend to stray away from this standard because of my enthusiasm to delve into multiple creative avenues. Instead of adhering to one focus indefinitely, I split my attention developing my skills in programming, visual art, and music.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Phoenix and I am a Programmer, Visual Artist, and Musician. As far as I could remember, I have held a deep interest in both the arts and mathematics. I always try to find a way to incorporate my analytical ways of thinking with my creativity and the result can be in the form of music, an illustration, a plugin, etc. I founded WAVALENCE LLC in 2022 as a single-member company to encapsulate the diversity of what I produce.
I graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in June 2023 with a B.F.A. in Interactive Design and Game Development. Originally, I entered college with the intention to study Animation but throughout my time at SCAD, I started to miss the programming side of me which I found absent in the Animation course study. I sought out a major that integrated the parts of Animation I appreciated with the parts of Programming I was missing and made the switch to study Game Development. In my time there, I had the privilege of working on three different PC games as a programmer: Quacktown Smackdown, Warren Warriors, and Kart Attack!. During my freshman year, I also composed the music and animated for the short film, Carried Away.
My love for visual art and music has always felt like an innate trait. Many of my early memories involve drawing or playing instruments. However, that wasn’t the case regarding my love for math. I actually used to “hate” it because of the concepts I found challenging to understand. This changed when I began to realize how much the world around me revolves around it – in both natural and societal ways. I have a distinct memory from when I was at least 8 years old of the rear-projection TV my family had in our living room. I noticed the TV’s speaker system had a small tear in the front and I used it as a window to look inside the massive box, feeding my curiosity. I remember seeing the three projection lights that created the images on the screen and feeling like I encountered a well of magic. That moment sparked a desire to learn about how and why the TV worked and led to my discovery of programming. I started off with Scratch and Roblox Studio which developed my appreciation for math.
I provide services for plugins & tools, music production, animation, illustration, graphic design, and 3D modeling. I often hear the phrase, “I wish there was an easier way to do this,” when someone (including me) encounters a tedious task in a given software. Whenever I hear this, it gives me the inspiration to find ways to solve that problem. For example, a tool I recently developed is an Unreal Engine plugin that helps 3D artists manipulate a specific part of their 3D models in a more efficient manner. I was inspired to create this tool after noticing some of the frustrations 3D artists faced during game development projects.
I take pride in my drive to challenge myself, jumping into the deep end when I’m learning something new. I will always be a student in some way, shape, or form. This pride is what manifested WAVALENCE, which holds its place as a way to self-identify my approach to creating art. WAVALENCE gets its name from the contraction of the words “Wavelength” and “Valence”; the word “valence” directly references its use in chemistry. I hold a deep passion for the art I create under this name, so by extension, that is reflected in the work I create for others. I take each project as a learning experience to diversify my abilities, enabling me to discover more about my capabilities while helping others.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
In middle school, I created a motto: “Perceive the possible. Believe the impossible.” I started living by it because growing up, I regularly heard the concept of “Right Brain” vs “Left Brain,” being used as a way to define the limits of what people can do. Not only is this not true, the art I create refutes it. I believe that art and math are perfect complements for one another. To me, the two disciplines are equally fascinating to explore and challenging in their own ways. Being both a visual artist and a programmer, I find myself caught in the middle of this spectrum. Among programmers, I notice an aversion towards creating art and sometimes a dismissal of the effort that goes into it; among visual artists, I notice an aversion towards math and an apathy for understanding it. It is also important for me to note that this isn’t the case with every visual artist and every programmer. The support of S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) in learning environments is something I have come to deeply appreciate and personally advocate for.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice
To get straight to the point, I do not like NFTs.
I had an earlier introduction to NFTs – which were previously called Crypto Art – due to my interest in technology and programming. I had previously educated myself on the production and use of cryptocurrency, so learning about NFTs wasn’t too difficult given that background. Cryptocurrency, in the form most recognize it as today, originally developed as a way to secure individuals’ finances without the involvement of government/bank interference through means of decentralization.
On paper, the idea of instilling perceived ownership of digital media via NFTs could make sense; if one produces digital assets, each with immutable and unique token identifiers, they can secure the value of their digital items within the ever growing virtual landscape. In application, however, I felt this intention has been long lost and my feelings towards NFTs shifted from indifference to being absolutely opposed to them.
In my opinion, the existence of NFTs, and the mining farms that exist solely for their purpose, are such unnecessarily taxing “solutions” to a problem this abstract. NFTs, as a standalone thing, do not directly disrupt the environment. The environmental impacts are due to the methods in which NFTs are developed and transferred. The hashing process involved with many NFTs – and blockchains in general – requires immense levels of energy that leave a disturbing carbon footprint, as I find it to be; energy consumption that rivals the actions of individual people. I saw that conservation efforts only began when developers were pressured by climate researchers to implement more climate conscious ways of production.
Though, even after I fully digested the “why” behind NFTs, it is still so arbitrary to me. Digital art is commonly shared by downloading its file to another device. If the means that dictate who has the “real” copy (note: not the rights to the artwork itself) is nothing more than what I see as a digital social-security number that can only be created by gradually destroying the Earth, I couldn’t imagine supporting that. Granted, I’d still remain indifferent without the environmental/harmful factors involved because I find the idea behind it so convoluted. I understand it to be based on the assumption that the lack of digital scarcity is a problem and that proof of ownership in digital spaces is still a largely undefined principle. However, the nature of digital media allows for it to be copied without noticeable discrepancies. Regardless of the copies made of a given digital work, artists would still hold the rights to their art. There are numerous other ways to support digital artists that reaffirm NFTs as the superfluous, volatile, and harmful “solution” I see them as.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.phoenixwilliamson.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wavalence/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoenix-will/