The Soul Wearing bodies

Magnus Moon

Interview by L. Valena
November 5, 2023

What was the prompt that you responded to? Can you describe it for me?

I received a beautiful text titled, “We Have Never Been Allowed The Light”. It's dark; as I understand it, it's basically about the emotions of being captured. It describes a little action and a bit of a poetic feeling about being captured. It was a very beautiful text to start with. It’s two characters in a setting wherever you can imagine that is dark and very damp, though there is a light going on there. It was just a very nice text to imagine.

Yeah, I think you told me right away that you really enjoyed it. I’m glad you were so into it.

I received this prompt I received the text at a time when we were being bombarded with images of conflicts and wars, where the situation of captivity and innocent captives was shocking, so I was really drawn to these words about someone being held captive and the way that people must be feeling. Regardless of sides and reasons the way people feel is universal. It’s fear. You don’t know what to do. So this piece was well timed and really moving. But it was difficult for me not to go into that concept because we were being bombarded with it. I wanted to move away from it and not get into any political ideology. This wasn’t about that. It’s about emotion and the relationship between fear and power. That was my main point to start creating.

How did you begin?

First, I had to figure out how I wanted to respond to the piece. I didn't want to just create a visual depiction of the text. I wanted to create a story set by the emotion of it. I didn't use the actual interior from the piece. It’s vast in the dark valley, the floor is cracked and dirty. I wanted to get away [from the prompt], but still create two characters there. I started moving toward the power imbalance to try to set up my piece. I work in collage, so I started looking to fashion, expression, and position, while deciding what type of colors to use. Should I use bright colors like I use in other pieces, or should this piece be darker? I decided it must be dark, all dark. And I’d establish two characters in different colors. Not too different, though; they’d both have red in common. The one with the flowers is suffering and oppressed, and the other is the king with the bloody crown. I used the same color for different types of feelings.

From there, I had to decide how to depict the oppressor. We always feel more empathy for the victim, which is logical. Throughout human history, our civilizations oppose the abuse of power. Basically, I tried to create the captor as a kind of monster, but also sad. This captor does it because he likes it, but he’s lonely. I tried to give him a sad, lonely face looking into the emptiness. It’s like this prisoner is his favorite, but this will end. I wanted to create this kind of relationship between the two characters.

I didn’t give a face to the victim because, well, it’s dark. It’s hard to see, and I wanted to directly reference the text itself: “We have never been allowed the light.” Then I played around with the symbols and images.

So much of what you put into this piece you got from the prompt, but you also tell your own narrative, which is really cool. Do you usually put such a story into your collages?

That’s my starting point. Storytelling is the base of your structure to start doing anything you want to do. And from there, we must be very focused on our objective. When I start a piece, I try to tell a story with it and not just cut up pictures and figures for visual appeal. I don’t like that. I prefer to be comfortable with the story first and then make it visually appealing. That’s my purpose to start building something.

That's great. Is this piece digital?

Yes. All my pieces for the last two years are totally digital. I try to cut the pictures as crudely as possible to not be perfect. I don't like perfection in these works. It’s like I use scissors. I'm left-handed, so I have a lot of problems cutting with regular scissors. So every piece I do is imperfect, like a left-handed person using scissors. I like that look. I work digitally and I use lots of different programs. In Photoshop, I try to just assemble layers. That’s it. All the rest I create myself. But mainly they are digital or converted to digital.

How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

It has lot of texture. I love texture. I particularly love to work with different textures that don't fit where they are. For instance, the crown is metal, but I love to put metal on a shirt also. This is my style in doing these pieces. I think the crown is from a ship, the face is from a working man, the figure is like the stroke of a pencil or something. I think the only thing I created is the body of the oppressor. I drew that. All the rest is just pieces I picked out and put onto the artwork.

Did you enjoy working from a prompt? Is that something that you do sometimes?

Yes, most of the time my subjects are very superficial things. It could be an object that looks like a sad face, or asking for a coffee could have a story there. With this prompt, the narrative and the ambiance were already there, so this was almost easy. The goal here was to not create a visual copy of the text, but to be inspired by it and move it forward. And to give the next creator something to work with. But yes, I usually work from something that catches my attention, which could be a gesture, a simple phrase, sometimes even music.

You mentioned the color red, which I think is so important because it's so versatile. Red means stop, warning, love, blood, and so much more. Do you put a lot of thought into color in your work?

Yes, mainly because my pieces are just one single image. Every single piece must open the story to the audience trying to understand and get an emotion from my picture. So the use of color/ambiance/light is very important. I work digitally, but I don’t want my pieces to look too digital. Right now, it’s easier for me, but something I try to avoid is a ready-made template I would just add images to. I try to keep it as simple as possible, but with the message built into it.

And if you’re working digitally, you have so many more options. You can find exactly the texture you want instead of being limited to the magazines on your desk.

Actually, there are too many options! My textures are mostly from the same pieces, and what I do is mix them. Same ingredients, same textures from the same photos, and I try to mix them in different ways to create something new. Otherwise I’d lose too much time and all the different textures would start to be a mess.

This is all very good advice for people interested in collage! Keep it simple, have a story in mind, focus on selling your message to the audience… And your work is so cohesive. It makes me want to be a more mindful collage artist.

You know, from the beginning I was doing storyboards. I’m awful at drawing and I don’t do it at all. So to do the storyboards, I had to cut pieces out and do it like this. That’s why there’s always a strong narrative. I wound up bringing collages to the set to show them to the crew, the director, the lighting guys, to explain what I wanted.

That’s smart. You didn't have to actually draw it, but you could still represent it to the right people.

Yes. This is the fifth variation of this piece. The first one had the girl from the original text, there was a guy that was seated in a chair in an interior, and the monster was looking to an empty chair and there was a guy outside… There were too many characters and the story was getting lost. That’s what’s good about making digital collage: we can create them and then move the pieces around without having to peel up the glue and put it down again.

Right! And you can change the size.

Yes.

When I saw the animation, I thought, “Oh this is such a special, extra gift! You went the extra mile to create an animation of a still piece.” I didn't realize that that was your day job. It’s not extra work for you; it’s second nature.

Well, my day job now has nothing to do with this. So right now I'm very bureaucratic. I already left that part of my life far behind. I do it for fun. Actually, doing the animation was a request from you because you asked me to show my process. I thought, “How can I show the process, just me in front of the computer? How can I do it?” But I decided to do it this way because there are so many ready-made AI projects out there, and this is not that. So I showed the layers and played a little bit with them.

I love it. Now that you are on this side of this process, what is your advice to a new person coming to their prompt?

Look at it. Absorb the concept. Then rip it up and built something from scratch. Do it better and make it prettier and with more message. Like the game itself, always be adding something extra.

Call Number: Y114PP | Y116VA.mooSo

Magnus Moon is a digital artist with a background rooted in storytelling and fictional narrative. His collages depart from the traditional cut-and-paste approach, utilizing textures and bold colors as the visual foundation. He tackles trivial yet profound themes in human behavior and relationships. He is still alive.