Project: SneakerFace | Client: Promotional for IABM! | Media: Digital and Generative AI, Art Film, 3D Fabrications
Awards: MVVO Art Competition and Clio Art finalist
Just Tlingit - 17x17” limited print
Welcome to the World of SneakerFace
Where New Media Meets Ancient Practice.
Personal expression and cultural identity collide in this dynamic exploration of disappearing cultures.
SneakerFace uses new media to explore the destructive force of consumer culture at the cost of peoples and environments. By representing the ancient art of masks, this transmedia artist articulates the cost of consumer culture versus individual human identities.
WTF is SneakerFace?
SneakerFace is an alter-ego created by FutureMe. This alter ego honors ancestors and a uniquely individual tribal background by researching and exploring the histories of first peoples and forgotten cultures. The work extends across the identities of remaining free peoples as a calling to interrogate current values with hopes of elevating the greater consciousness.
The Film
By melding authentic mask-making with sneakers, the artist juxtaposes these two symbols of personal expression and cultural identity– begging the question: is current culture worth cultivating if cultural consumption means the destruction and erosion of our valuable heritage?
The artist hopes to usher in greater consideration around creation and consumerism by highlighting cultural consumption at the expense of our last remaining first peoples and natural environments.
The Response
The film and masks were recognized at the Clio Art Awards and MVVO Art Show December ‘24.
The project has evolved to a DNFTree. This DNFT is energy efficient and plants a tree to be energy positive. Every evolution of each mask is tied to environmental markers that correspond to the extinction of related traditions and destructtion of environments. The mechanics of this work provide the art buyer with an ongoing 1:1 dialogue with the artist. And leave behing a deep catalogue for future art historians.
