SARA DIBIZA | coeval magazine interview by me

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Synthesizing the “darkest primary emotions” into celestial light and virtual realms: 3D Artist Sara Dibiza gives insight into her meditative visualizers, collaborative design, and creating her own video game.

Paris-based artist and designer Sara Dibiza (@saradibiza) has been operating in quantum realities since finding the infinite bounds of 3D art. For what is a blurred line between the real and unreal, Sigmund Freud’s reality principle explained human impulses in how we react to demands or reality, and how to be appropriate. Sara Dibiza’s works come from somewhere raw and primal, as “mental projections” of interpersonal conflicts and trauma, captured in short clips blending sound, allegorical imagery, and movement.

The rudiments of her works are found in light. Divinely moonlit mountains or drifting remains of luminescent matter, all the energy and strength seem to surround light’s power to unveil darker, more inexplicable human emotions. Being well-versed in CGI, 3D, and real time rendering allows her to be involved in an array of projects.

In a recent development, Sara alongside her team produced her video game ‘TSVF’ released at the Charity Chapel of Arles as part of Faire Monde Festival. The game follows the narrative of inanimate objects and animals as a parable of deep relational and personal crises.

The same aesthetics are used in her collaborations with musicians such as Oklou (@aavril_alvarez ) in the ‘galore ⁿⁱᵍʰᵗᵈʳⁱᶠᵗ’ immersive live experience for Boiler Room SS21 and Casey MQ’s (@caseymq) music video, ‘Celebrity Crush’.

We had the good fortune of talking to her about her artistic upbringing, the intentions behind visual elements, and what it takes to build such sensory experiences on purely digital terms.

What led you to 3D art? Is this what you’ve always practiced?

It's been 2 years since I started to learn 3D, before that I was more into fine art practice, drawing, painting, and photography. I think I started 3D because I couldn't understand anything about it. It created a fascination and a desire to learn. As an artist, I had been looking for my tool for several years, got bored quickly and needed to develop some hard skills to feel legitimate and anchored. This is how I decided to learn 3D, cgi, and real time. Luckily it became a true passion and I discovered a deep world, which evolves very quickly, where everything looks possible, and every problem has a solution. I especially met a great community, so supportive and sharing, without which i couldn't have learned so much.

Such enchanting sentiments of hope, desire, and transcendence are exuded by the visualizers you produce. How do you transcribe an idea into both sensory and textural stories?

It's hard to say because I don't really intellectualize my process. I would say that it's a choice for me to work with emotions more than ideas. I have a fairly naive way of working, with very few references, lots of mental projections, tool experiments and limits. I feel like a little scared kid playing a giant and infinite game.

Technically speaking, please take me through your own process of creation and how it’s changed.

To get my hands into 3D, I started by learning basics like modeling, animation, texturing, lighting, and rendering thanks to Youtube and Google. Then i get really quickly interested in realtime rendering and Game Engines. The first reason was because as a video artist, I was spending half of my life rendering frame by frame sequences with Octane, it was too long and frustrating. Realtime was so handy and relieving for my workflow! Then I fell in love with Unreal Engine and its community. At the beginning, I was just using it as a render engine, thinking that all the game development part wasn't for me. But I had a lil secret dream... Making a game one day! Unreal Engine is now my main tool, but I still love to do a bit of classic rendering. I juggle between the two and it's very pleasant. To complete my workflow, I'm playing around a bit with the following softwares to meet my goals: C4D, Octane, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Embergen, Houdini, Zbrush, Mixer, After Effects, and Premiere Pro. I still have so much to learn and that makes me happy!

It’s foggy terrain, meditative sound, and celestial bodies of light trapped in a synthesis of sound, movement, imagery. In the end, what do you think to evoke in your productions?

I think I'm trying to extract some beauty from the darkest inner primary emotions. It's a bit dramatic but those are genuinely driving me as an artist. Even as a spectator, this is what stimulates me the most. Fear, pain, sadness, reveal some light and power in a way. Light exists to expose what's hidden in gloom, both technically and ideologically. This nuance seems to be the base structure of my work and aesthetic.

You’ve merged the real and digital in these quasi-realistic entrancing realms as we experience in your video game, ‘TSVF’. Are there more profound themes of spirituality or metaphysical allegories in your works?

I would say it's almost the opposite. What I mean is that I often use magical and fantasy visual tools and aesthetics inside realistic environments to talk about reality grounded stories and feelings. In my game, I make animals, cars, angels, magic plants, dead bodies, and have funny interactions together. They all have very intense human personalities, with issues like addiction, depression, trickery, and vague intentions. A rather silly and toxic daddy fox looking for his baby more for bravery than love. His interlocutors will try to send him deep messages that he will never really understand because he's too selfish. At the end, this is more an allegory of a certain vision of family and childhood traumas, with a touch of absurdity.

Collaboration seems to be vital for the plethora of components to build such full fledged visual tales: from your partnerships with artists such as Oklou and Berko & Titan, how do you ensure synergy between collaborators? Is there anybody you hope to work with in the future?

Indeed! First, I want to say that the trust of my friends and collaborators is at the origin of my technical and artistic evolution the past two years. Without Oklou, Krampf, Casey MQ, Berko & Titan, and many more artists and producers, I would still be stressing out alone in my room, disconnected from reality. And I'm extremely grateful! Working in a team is the best way to get impactful and quality projects done. Accepting that you can't do everything by yourself is so important. This is why i decided to build up a team for my first personal project, ‘TVSF’, with amazing artists in writing, music, sound design, voice actors, 3D art, 2D design, and set designers (Oklou, Krampf, Amal Guichard, Sébastien Rabaste, Naia Combary, Anna Majdison, Gil Gharbi, Alex Kont, Juliette Gelli, EXTRAMENTALE, Casey MQ). The synergy was super natural and each of them were really efficient and involved. I had the best luck ever on this one! Now, I intend to keep and extend this dynamic, working and learning more and more alongside talented artists!

Part 2 Reflections

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