As a millennial reminiscing about the world before digital devices and the internet were ubiquitous, Sarah Zucker, aka The Sarah Show, is fascinated by the fast-paced transition society at large is going through.
“I feel as a Millennial that I am part of this generational cohort that is in this very unusual experience of having had an analog childhood and now living a digital future,” says Zucker.
“I specifically use tools from the recent past, like analog TVs, to take people out of our present moment and create this different experience of time and meaning. I would say my work is really more about time than anything else.”
The Los Angeles-based artist is considered an OG of the NFT art scene, having started in 2019 (her first minting was on April 4 of that year) compared to most artists to hit the scene in recent years. 12 to 24 months.
His art seems to resemble something you’ve seen before, all while feeling like something entirely new, telling stories with a dose of humor while leveraging outdated and cutting-edge technologies.
Having appeared at Sotheby’s and, more recently, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Zucker’s love of art began with film photography.
“I have always expressed myself visually. As a teenager, I got really into photography and specifically working with film photography. We’re talking about the early 2000s, when everything was going digital,” she says.
“Vintage technology has always interested me. It’s not necessarily about nostalgia, it’s more that I find the physicality of vintage technology really interesting.”
She was one of the first to upload photos to Tumblr and Instagram and spent roughly a decade pursuing photography before her master’s degree in screenwriting saw her embrace narrative video filmmaking.
Influences:
The Sarah Show draws its inspiration from German Expressionist art, which emerged in a tumultuous period similar to the present one, around the end of the First World War.
“This World War had just happened that made everyone feel like the world was suddenly becoming a little more global than it was comfortable with. There was a pandemic. There were all these things in society, and yet the artists of that time were very expansive, emotional and free,” he says.
“They were breaking shapes and creating things in a way that said, ‘We don’t care how we’re supposed to do this; we are going to do this in the way that this expression has to come out of us’. I can’t get enough of it,” Zucker says.
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Personal style:
“I have always been somewhat of an outlier in my artwork. I would say that it is not easy to define. You could call it glitch art, you could call it video art, you could call it GIF art, or more recently NFT art as it’s now called. I don’t think those terms are wrong, but they miss the big picture.”
“I describe it more as a multiverse that I’m channeling through. I am channeling through myself and through these ancient streaming devices in a body of work that is known as The Sarah Show.”
With technological advances like AI at a breakneck pace, Zucker says he’s trying to address the “big universal existential questions” about the fact that we are “on the brink of a whole new way of living as human beings.”
“I see my work as a way of representing what it’s like to be a silly, scared, happy, manic, scary little creature strapped to this rocket ship going into the future and trying to make sense of what this life has been and what it will be. it will continue to be.”
Notable sales to date:
“space bread” sold for $44,062 at Bonhams, June 21-30, 2021
Emerging NFT Artists to Watch
Zucker is a huge fan of the performing arts and has two specific artists to put on your radar.
Edgar Fabian Frias — 2022 MFA Art Practice at UC Berkeley.
“Edgar works regularly in the contemporary art world and is a bit of a moody person, which brings such a unique perspective to his background. There’s a very weird approach to creating art that I certainly connect with. It’s true that I turned them on to NFT in the middle of 2020.”
David Henry Nobody Jr. — New York performance artist, reality hacker, NFT artist.
“David is someone I have followed for years and years. I have always found his work simply irresistible. He has a large following on Instagram; he has a lot of visibility there.”
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Process:
Zucker creates his distinctive style using a combination of old analog devices and new digital tools, like Adobe After Effects.
“I start by drawing or writing things, essentially conceptualizing things. From there I usually start in some digital way, either by animating in After Effects or Photoshop. I often record live video in my studio.”
“I also have this analog video equipment that I built in my studio that is made from old broadcast devices. I have custom glitch hardware, with different devices and capabilities that allow me to apply all sorts of different analog effects. Also, I have several different TVs and cameras to create feedback loops to create textures.”
“With some of my work, you often see screens within screens because that screen experience is a big part of what I aim to convey through my work.”
Getting it to work on an analog system can often mean doing multiple versions because there is no easy way to save your work.
“There are no savings in the analog system. Everything has to be done immediately. An example would be to put it all on a VHS tape, and then I put it back in digital format and basically have two ways to convert it to the digital realm.
“One is to shoot it in 4K, essentially like shooting it in high definition digital video outside of the old screen because often that’s the look I want, the screen within the image itself. The other option is to use a transfer system that basically digitizes the analog signal. It returns it to the digital signal where I can record it digitally,” says Zucker.
Artnome’s influence as a collector:
Many people have collected Zucker over his four years in NFT land, but he singles out Jason Bailey aka artnomer – as someone who played a pivotal role in his journey.
“I have a great relationship with many of my collectors. I think collectors and artists do this great dance of symbiosis,” she says.
“I think Artnome had been going through my work and recognized that I had several pieces on the market, and they ripped them all off. More importantly, it’s not just that he bought my work, it’s that he wrote a very thoughtful thread on Twitter about my work.”
“In the thread, he drew attention to my work and video art in general. It really did me this service by contextualizing my work for people. Also, Jason is an art writer; he is very knowledgeable and he told everyone about what my job was.”
“This was in January 2020, when he showed my work and since that day, it has skyrocketed in an increasing amount of visibility and recognition. I can always pinpoint that moment when that person paid me a bit of attention and it has continued to resonate in my life for the last three years,” says Zucker.
Links:
lynkfire: linktr.ee/thesarahshow
Twitter: twitter.com/thesarahshow
Instagram: instagram.com/thesarahshow/
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