We recently connected with Todd Huber and have shared our conversation below.

Todd, appreciate you joining us today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

I think one of the most pressing and unexpected issues in the life of an artist is “the audience.” It’s very similar to the literature dealing with communication and language, so much of the focus is on the message and so little is put on the receiver of the message, while this is not truly how the world works. As a youth, we are taught to constantly think about our creations and our intentions. We are led to think that if we hone our craft, if we have solid ideas, and we create sound artistic products or messages, that we will succeed. The most surprising part of growing up is in realizing just how important the receiver of the message, the viewer, or the audience actually is to the creator. Without someone to receive a message, to view one’s artworks, to listen to one’s music, the work is rendered moot & mute. It becomes meaningless. I never would have imagined how little the strength and quality and merit of artistic works has to do with whether or not it is received by the world at large.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I believe all of us who get into creative fields, who make works of art, literature, music and so forth do so because the fireworks that went off inside of us, when we experienced other works of art, music, literature, etc were such that we could not keep ourselves from the desire to create our own works that could have this very same effect on others, as well. The security of a more economically dependable and predictable life would never measure up to the transcendent feeling that certain books, songs, paintings, drawings, collages, poems, albums gave us, and we couldn’t imagine rejecting this call. My work, whether I am making solo music as Ellipse Elkshow, Thothmoses, DJ Self Absorbed, or any other moniker I’ve used, or if I’m doing groupwork with Gitar, or if I’m working on a research project with a sociological and historical focus, or if I’m creating an image in any medium, has the unifying element of collage, montage, bricolage, or whatever you’d like to call it. Because this is what the Universe, the World, ourselves, and nearly anything else can be closely modeled on. There are no true islands or individuals, even with our own bodies, we have more bacterial cells in/on/of us than “human cells.” Meaning even “individual” people are more “other” than they are “self.” Everything is a collage, even history itself.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is what it has taught me about the fine line between self and other. Or, in other words, it has taught me the unwavering importance of empathy. Creativity includes the conception of how the “creature” (product) of the “creator” (artist) will be received and understood by others. A ‘good’ creative is one who can understand the depths and detours of human meaning, the fact that meaning is negotiated between the sender and the receiver of a message, and who can understand the multitude of possible needs and responses of the people in the world who will, in the end, be the ones who decide what the work means.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Regardless of whether or not the work I create is critical, satirical, crass, or blunt. The mission remains always the same. I am guided by the principles at the core of what I consider “good.” And this is unity through diversity. Anti-normalization. Freedom with cooperation. Multiplicity, diversity, and differences are to be celebrated and shared, never hidden or normalized. Competition is parasitic, and a burden … Cooperation and Communication are valuable, in and of themselves. And the interconnectedness of all things is the structural or architectonic topic beneath these topics.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ellipseelkshow.bandcamp.com/
• Youtube: A documentary about my work at PG, in Evansville, IN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rlYy7Vo9DE
• Other: https://thothmoses.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
Drawing of me, used by permission, by Jennifer Niswonger Digital collages are all created by myself