Interview With
Cross-Species Empathy: Pareidolia (the habit of seeing faces in things) and Anthropomorphic Design in Art
2/22/24
FILE: 0028
Jeremy Olson
Archive00
Hi Jeremy. This might be an odd question to start the interview with, but do you believe in aliens?
Jeremy Olson
I neither believe in them nor disbelieve, I just don't know. I think it's fairly likely there are aliens out there somewhere. I haven't gone too far down that rabbit hole, but I do find it fairly interesting.
It's also possible that UFO sightings and abduction stories have an explanation that would be even stranger, even harder for most people to swallow than extraterrestrial visitors. I am interested in the topic but I'm not a partisan, I try to approach even the wildest theories with some openness.
Archive00
What could be stranger than extraterrestrial visitors?
Jeremy Olson
There are theories about aliens being inter-dimensional visitors, or time-traveling humans from the distant future, or from the deep ocean or even a hollow earth. Again, I don't particularly believe any of this stuff, but occasionally find it quite interesting to travel down these little rabbit holes.
Archive00
I see. I heard that as a child you were particularly fond of Godzilla. What is it about Godzilla that fascinated or continues to fascinate you?
Jeremy Olson
When I was young in the 80's there was a monster movie matinee on every Saturday, and I would watch them as much as I could. My parents were very strict about what we were allowed to watch but apparently felt that giant rubber monsters were acceptable. The Godzilla movies and various spin-offs were definitely my favorite as a kid, they were just so magical and strange. And there was something about Godzilla specifically that was appealing, the sad eyes maybe? My favorite monster movie of all time is still John Carpenter's The Thing, which I saw way too young and was definitely formative.
Archive00
It’s fascinating that you capture ‘sadness’ in Godzilla’s monstrosity. Where do you find it?
Jeremy Olson
I may be mis-remembering as I haven't watched any of the old Godzilla movies from the 50's and 60's since I was a kid, but I think at some point he became something of a protagonist/defender of humans? In any case, many monsters in fiction and cinema are at least tragic if not actually relatable. They are often isolated, alienated.
Archive00
You sound rather empathetic towards monsters, which are usually depicted as villains in films. Can you tell us a bit more about how you relate to them?
Jeremy Olson
I can't make a blanket statement that would make any sense. Obviously there are some monsters or villains in films that are relatable, they have some kind of interiority that's explored, and that can be interesting. My monsters are meant to be more relatable than scary, they have more to do with Maurice Sendak's "wild things" than, say, Jason Vorhees.
Archive00
Let’s go back a bit in time. Have you always loved painting?
Jeremy Olson
Yes! I was always drawing, coloring and painting from a very young age. My paternal Grandmother specifically was very encouraging and bought me my first good watercolor set at a young age, later my first oil paints, etc. There's an immediacy and tactility that just feels like home to me, at least when it's going well. I'm interested in trying things in almost every medium, but I always come back to painting.
Archive00
How does the experience seem to differ when you are working with other mediums?
Jeremy Olson
In some ways not very much, there's always an attempt to create something I was picturing in my head, and the result is always very different. But there can be a lot of friction when I'm working in a medium I've been away from. Particularly with different software I will forget how to do things and constantly have to look everything up on YouTube. The flow state that is the best part of making artwork can be really difficult to get to.
Archive00
I’m curious about the environment you create in. What’s the most important thing that makes a good studio for you?
Jeremy Olson
Well that could be a long list, it's hard to narrow down. I've been in my current studio for almost a year, and it's the best space I've had to consistently work in. It's fully private and most importantly I can actually control the temperature, which has been huge. It's so much easier to focus when I'm not either freezing or melting. It's also very nice to have my good computer in the space instead of at home. I do a lot of work digitally, and now I can quickly transition from working on a painting to rendering something on the computer to checking on a 3d print, etc. But there are a lot of things I value in a good studio. Good lighting is really important as well.
Archive00
Good Lighting...100%. To what extent does work and life overlap for you? Is it important to maintain an independent creative space or does some of the creative process take place at home too?
Jeremy Olson
I'm pretty much always thinking about what I'm working on, or the logistics of a show. There isn't a lot of mental separation. But at least at the moment all of my physical art making and most of the digital work I do is confined to the studio.
Archive00
You are based in Brooklyn, New York. Are there any parallels between the culture in the metropolis and the apocalyptic world of amalgams you create? How does the city inspire your work?
Jeremy Olson
I moved here in mid-2000, so I've seen the city go through some changes, but the character mostly remains. This city inspires ambivalence in a lot of ways. I've always been inspired by the energy, the diversity and the chaos of it. I've traveled a little bit and there are certainly more functional and well-managed places, but they can start to feel a little sterile after a while. New York can be incredibly alienating and lonely at times. The highs are high and the lows are really pronounced. It's a brutal place to be broke, and at times just trying to keep your head above water can be very stressful.
Archive00
Indeed. I’ve heard about there pressure of trying to keep up with everyone else living in New York. The general anxiousness, does it naturally find its way into your work when you show the little creatures looking lonely or perplexed? Or is it an emotion that you try to combat through painting?
Jeremy Olson
I think a little more it's the latter. I don't worry much about keeping up with other people at this point, it's more just trying to cover the basic expenses and hoping we can afford to stay here at all. I think that's increasingly the case for most people here and a lot of other places as well, just keeping the lights on.
Archive00
Are there spots in the city that are revitalising for you to visit? i.e. any museums/galleries/parks?
Jeremy Olson
Especially right now because it's winter and I have multiple deadlines; I hardly make it out of my little part of Brooklyn. Sometimes I won't make it to Manhattan or even ride the subway for weeks on end. But when I can make the time, one of my favorite things to do is just spend a day going to galleries and try to see as much as I can. I try to keep abreast of what's going on, I love to see work fresh out of the studio. I'm less on top of the museums lately, which is a shame. Of course I love the Met, Moma, the Whitney, the New Museum, PS1 etc. I also rarely make it to the big parks, but am always glad when I do.
Archive00
What would be your advice to a new New Yorker?
Jeremy Olson
Hmmm I guess just once you've found a place to live, really try to settle in and get to know it. The city is like a collection of hundreds of small towns, and you're never going to know what's going on in all of them. This is fine.
Archive00
What helps you get your day started?
Jeremy Olson
I've never been a morning person. My wife and I are currently caring for a 5-year old foster daughter, so my mornings are a bit frantic with helping to get her ready and taking her to kindergarten before I can worry about my own stuff. When I can finally get to the studio I like to have a cup of coffee and check emails, skim the news, sort of reset for 30 minutes to an hour before I actually start working. If I'm close to a deadline I may have to skip this part.
Archive00
Has your daughter come across your little creatures yet? How did she respond?
Jeremy Olson
Yeah of course, she is usually really into them. I try to bring her to the studio to paint with me every so often, and to see everything before a show ships out. Her interpretations are some of my favourites.
Archive00
Would you like to share with us some of her interpretations?
Jeremy Olson
Well, she’s 5, so they are more like narrations of what the characters are doing or thinking. Like “those two are friends and that one’s going to the store and is sad” or something along those lines.
Archive00
That’s really wholesome :) Speaking of your little creatures, one of the earliest Instagram post featuring them dates back to 2017. When did you start painting them? And Where did the idea come from?
Jeremy Olson
I've been drawing weird creatures, cute monsters, bird-people, etc. basically since childhood, I can't say a starting point. The turning point in 2017 was almost an acquiescence, after years of working from more conceptual photo-reference, I just hit a wall. I had been making still life and collages to work from, and felt like I had taken it as far as I could. I was feeling very stuck and thought, why don't I just go back to my drawings? I had worried previously that my weird little creatures were too goofy, too self-indulgent to be taken seriously. Ironically, of course this was the work people actually responded to. Don't overthink it kids!
Archive00
The catharsis people are finding in your little creatures made me sense a collective anxiety towards an imploding society, where individuals are increasingly isolated from each other. I imagine its really thought provoking to see so many people resonate with an odd thought you have kept to yourself for years. In general, how do they react to your works at the exhibitions?
Jeremy Olson
Responses to the work vary a lot, which I think is a good thing. Sometimes people will share their interpretation of a scene or even a "plot" to find out if it's correct, and my response is usually Yes or Maybe? Sometimes the interpretations are a bit surprising but that's great. I'm always interested in what the viewer is bringing to the work. In terms of an imploding society where people are isolated from each other, I think we may already be there.
Archive00
What are some question you often get asked about your works?
Jeremy Olson
Who are the characters? What are they doing? That sort of thing. It's often the questions I'm least interested in answering, because the indeterminacy is the point.
Archive00
So, before diving deeper into this topic, what would be your own definition of what the creatures are?
Jeremy Olson
At the simplest definition they are just people. Stand-ins, or maybe avatars. I'm interested in how much emotion or personality I can get out of a character or even an object that feels like a character. Many of the paintings are about trying to capture something quotidian in an otherwise alien landscape.
Archive00
There are some recognisable figures that always return in your works. Is there a worldview that runs through them?
Jeremy Olson
I suppose they all live in a sort of fantasy dream-space that is partially utopian and partially apocalyptic. It's a sort of mash-up world blending all of my various interests, both my desires and my anxieties. I don't have an interest in narrativizing the world or the characters, they are intuited but slowly adding up to a whole.
Archive00
“Many of the paintings are about trying to capture something quotidian in an otherwise alien landscape.” I understand that though you are working with subjects that are unfamiliar, it is the human aspects in them that you are really interested in. What about the human condition fascinates you?
Jeremy Olson
That's a big question. I think the human condition is endlessly fascinating and basically unchanging at the core. We like to think we are very different from everyone that came before us, but the entire corpus of literature says otherwise.
Archive00
Your stand-ins/avatars do not have distinguishable gender nor ethnicity, and can hardly be identified as any specific organism. There is a fuzziness around their identity - both exciting and slightly unsettling. This kind of reminds me of the identity crisis happening real-time in our world…
Jeremy Olson
There are several ways I could answer this that would be equally true. On one hand I'm interested in animals and our relationships with them, cross-species empathy, etc. Interiority. And I'm interested in the recognition of "the other" more broadly. Who or what do we recognize as worth engaging with? I'm very interested in pareidolia (the habit of seeing faces in things) and anthropomorphic design, and what it does both for and to us.
As far as identity crises go, I think identity is more slippery and diffuse than most people would like to accept. I'm both the same person I was when I was 15, and completely different in almost every way. I'm certainly a product of my environment and upbringing, but might have more in common with someone from radically different circumstances than something who is nearly identical on paper.
I do feel like the contemporary obsession with identity is a product of our current stage of late-capitalism, the hyper-individualism of the US specifically, and the breakdown of any social contract or safety net. I don't see how people self-sorting into increasingly narrow affinity groups will lead to anything good. My politics were formed in an earlier version of the left that at least attempted to celebrate heterogeneity, looked for forms of solidarity in spite of significant differences, and was overtly materialist. I'm acutely aware of how this has been "problematised" but it still seems better than where we are now.
So maybe my figures are a celebration of the heterogeneous, an argument for the work of trying to coexist with the other? I always say "maybe", because I am always in the process of discovering them in a way, I try to let them arrive or occur rather than forcing them into existence.
Archive00
You touched on several topics there. I would like to expand on the discussion of anthropomorphic design. Would you be able to elaborate on what you think it “does to and for us”?
Jeremy Olson
This feeling of mis-recognition is something I'm always trying to capture, or pin down. I think it gets at a core element of the particular time we are living in, this extremely uncanny relation to not only images but also to the built environment and the objects we interact with. Semi-organic product design can suggest a kind of projection or overlaying, and our tools clearly become extensions of our bodies. It's so difficult to articulate in language.
Archive00
That sounds like a really sophisticated idea to break down. It seems like you are saying that by projecting more of ourselves into our environment, our tools and appliances, our identities become both more expansive and diluted? Is there something perhaps fundamentally narcissistic in the way that we interact with the world around us?
Jeremy Olson
We're certainly in a narcissistic era. But this narcissism is I think symptomatic of a deep crisis of confidence or lack of meaning. I think that weirdly the obsession with identity, at least in terms of categorisation, is actually de-individuating. I tend to think that someone's inclusion in a particular group is probably the least interesting thing about them. In any case the true narcissist lacks a stable sense of self, which is only found in relation to others.
Archive00
In terms of anthropomorphic designs, how do you feel about our endeavours to bring AIs closer to real human beings in recent years?
Jeremy Olson
I'm ambivalent about the AI conversation. I've been playing with it for over a year as a tool, and it can do technically amazing and occasionally surprising things. It's definitely not truly "intelligent", if you want to be pedantic about it, but it's not just a parlor trick either. It's something either in between or off to the side. I'm not worried about AI replacing artists at the conceptual level, but it will probably be able to automate a lot of gigs that artists have relied on to get by. So that part will be bad.
Archive00
The ‘monsters’ that you are painting nowadays are perhaps reminiscent but clearly very different in the emotions they communicate to the viewers compared to Godzilla. Would you say that your idea of ‘The Monster’ has changed growing up?
Jeremy Olson
A common trope in monster stories is that the worst monsters are often the people responding to the "actual" monster. We should always be curious when monsters are pointed out to us. My monsters are usually friendly, if a bit perplexed by their circumstances.
Archive00
Some people would say that modern individuals feel pretty disoriented in their own realities too. To what extent do your ‘monsters’ reflect on that?
Jeremy Olson
Yes I feel disoriented most of the time, too. My creatures are mirrors more than anything else. I'm not trying to create metaphors where x clearly stands in for y, it's never that contained. If there are allegorical elements they emerge organically.
Archive00
I see. You are an expert at amalgamating familiar settings with unfamiliar details to create a sense of casual everydayness followed by uncanny humour. A trope that I’ve noticed in some of your works is the depiction of creatures in indoor spaces - bedrooms, living rooms, and studies - that are personal and intimate. It is interesting that while landscapes in the future have changed so much the interior spaces in your works remain recognisable, intimate, and even inviting.
How you think the relationship between us and our living spaces will change in the future? You seem to be suggesting that there is something quintessential there that will remain the same even as the outside world changes rapidly.
Jeremy Olson
That's mostly because I'm not trying to create something totally new or totally alien. My work is really about people, and people now, at this particular point in history. But I'm also pulling elements from surrealism and genres like science fiction and horror. And I definitely have an interest in design and architecture, I love the inviting interiors of high modernism and the alienating imposition of brutalism. Of course there's also a connection to my own low consumerist desires as well. As someone who rents a small apartment in Brooklyn, I can definitely fantasize about real estate, the sunken living room and designer furniture I covet. There's an element of escapist fantasy in the work.
I also recently was reading something (somewhere?) about convergent evolution, how animals will develop similar features completely independent of each other just because they are so useful. So for instance two eyes for binocular vision evolve over and over; or the octopus brain is somehow similar to the human brain, even though the last common ancestor is so far back that this should be impossible. So it's also possible that entirely alien worlds could end up looking like ours for similar reasons.
Archive00
It’s interesting that you accentuate your focus on “people now”, because most people automatically associate stylised images of brutalist designs, deforested landscapes, and pervasion of high-technology with ‘the future’. However, it slips our mind that these are things that are totally happening and surrounding us right now…
Jeremy Olson
I think most art is generally about the present in some way, or the directionality of the present. Forward looking things like science fiction try to tease out the potentials or dangers of new technologies or political tendencies, whereas more backwards looking nostalgic modes may suggest that we’ve somehow lost our way, and indicate a kind of preservationism or conservatism.
Archive00
On a side note - what got you into design and architecture?
Jeremy Olson
I wouldn’t say that I’m very knowledgeable about either field, I haven’t really studied them and I don’t keep up with what’s going on. So that’s my caveat. But, I am an extremely visual person and have strong responses to formal aesthetics, both architecture and even everyday objects. I feel like the ideologies of an era or place can almost be read on the surfaces of its products and buildings.
Archive00
What would your dream house look like?
Jeremy Olson
Probably cast concrete and very brutalist with some organic forms to soften the effect. It would definitely have a sunken living room/conversation pit. This isn’t the healthiest train of thought since I’ll probably never own a home.
Archive00
Expanding on your conversation on evolution - what do you think will happen when humans become extinct? Will we become extinct - ever?
Jeremy Olson
I'm sure we will eventually, but I don't know if it will be in a matter of decades or in many thousands of years. The answer depends entirely on how, I guess. I'm still worried about the possibility of thermonuclear war, though I try not to think too much about it. I think that, at a species level, humanity will eventually find a way to survive and adapt to climate change, but it probably won't go well for most of us. In the very long run we may evolve into something else. And while I don't think "true" artificial intelligence is here yet, it certainly seems possible.
I don't think I believe in an afterlife, and I try not to worry too much about posterity. But at least some kind of ongoingness is important for me to believe in, I need to know that something will come after. To me the most depressing possibility is just the total erasure of everything, like at the end of Melancholia.
Archive00
Here is a more personal question. But a friend of mine once told me that she became more concerned about the environment’s future after having her child, as it made her acutely aware that somebody she loves will be living in that world. Has becoming a parent changed your feelings about the future at all? Perhaps made you more anxious or hopeful?
Jeremy Olson
Weirdly I think it's made me slightly more hopeful. Parenting forces you to live in the present at least part of the time, and this can be helpful. You kind of have to put blinders on to get through the days, and it helps to realize how limited your reach is so you can focus on what you can actually affect. We are encouraged to exist in a state of almost constant alarm about an ever-shifting slate of emergencies, usually things that we as individuals have zero chance of affecting in any way. Certainly bad things are on the horizon in terms of our warming planet. But that said, obsessively fixating on particular terrible things that may or may not happen in the future doesn't help. Terrible things will certainly happen, just as terrible things are happening right now across the globe.
Archive00
Thank you for the honest answer. I think it’s definitely something for us all to think about. For a change of mood, since you brought up The Thing earlier, what are three movies you would recommend people to watch at least once in their lifetime?
Jeremy Olson
I won't say these are the three best movies, or that necessarily everyone should watch them. But here are 3 that I can watch over and over. They each left a lasting impression and I will relentlessly try to convince certain people (whom I think would appreciate them) to check them out:
1. Mulholland Drive by David Lynch; possibly the best film from my favorite director. This movie has everything I love about Lynch, the idiosyncratic humor, a confusing and circular plot, exploration of the dangers of obsession and fantasy, portals between worlds, dopplegangers, and on and on.
2. Possession by Andrzej Żuławski; the most batshit movie I think I've ever seen. It's a bit of a mess, but it's so good that I don't care if it makes sense. Isabelle Adjani's performance is unparalleled. A disintegrating marriage collapses into existential surrealist horror, what could be better?
3. Existenz by David Cronenberg; virtual reality bio-pods that plug into spinal ports, the bleeding through of a game-world into the real world, a gun made of frog parts that shoots human teeth; this movie has it all! And it's also just a lot of fun. Cronenberg saw things coming in ways few others did. Also explores the uncanniness of the NPC, more than 20 years before it became a meme.
Archive00
Thank you! And finally, tell us a secret.
Jeremy Olson
I can't think of anything good for this one! Maybe later...
