Jason Ebeyer is Making Cyberspace Slick and Chic

In an era where virtual reality is more appealing than the actual one, artist Jason Ebeyer populates the cyberscape universe with waxy doll-like creatures. The Australian artist is quickly gaining recognition in the blooming field of digital art as his 3D creations begin to appear in magazines, videos and art installations. Watch his glossy animation and you will be mesmerized by their slick erotic style.

A version of this exclusive interview first appeared in the pages of the 13th issue of ODDA Magazine.

Define your art or yourself as an artist in three to five words.

Surreal boundary pushing plastic erotica.

What is the process to make one of your animated videos? What is the most challenging or time consuming part of it?

The processes I go through for my work vary from piece to piece.

Sometimes I’ll start with a physical sketch or storyboard and build from there, other times I’ll just create the scenes directly from what I’m picturing in my head.

Once I have the idea, I create my models and then build up my scenes. After the scenes are rendered and I have the raw video files, I edit them in Premiere Pro, add music and then share. The most time consuming and frustrating part is the actual render times. When I was working on my short film “Ultra.” for example, I had one 14 second segment of animation which took my computer 4 full days of non-stop rendering to complete.

From work to entertainment, from social relationships to art, it seems everything in the world is now being expressed, experienced, LIVED through the medium of a computer or a cellphone. Why is the digital world so much more attractive than the actual one?

For me, the digital world is so attractive because it’s an illusion we can manipulate and experience with other people. On the internet you can literally be and become whomever or whatever you want. You’re able to fabricate this window for others to peer into the life you want them to see – and then in that same sense, you’re creating a window for yourself to see everyone else. People are much more interesting online than in real life because they’re projecting what they perceive as the best version of themselves, and it’s really engaging to discover what each person thinks that version of themselves is.

As represented in some movies, do you think we are destined to live in a 100% virtual reality?

As exciting as it sounds at first, I don’t think it would be such a great idea if we lived in VR fully. But in saying that – VR is rapidly growing at such a fast rate as well as the capabilities and availability of the technology, so who knows? Perhaps in within the next few years interviews like this will be conducted in a virtual office with avatars having a conversation.

A 3D Digital image created by the artist.

What is the most major innovation/invention in the digital world that you expect to see in the next five years?

Something I’m REALLY curious about is Augmented Reality technology. This is something which I’d be more interested in seeing pushed to be 100% integrated into the world as opposed to Virtual Reality. AR is technology which superimposes computer generated elements into your view of the physical world. I really hope to see advancements in things like AR contact lenses or something similar – just not the Google Glass, the technology would need to be subtle and discrete I think.

Your animated, humanoid, plastic-made-like characters are quite peculiar. Can you tell us their story?

Yeah of course. When I first started out working with 3D software I had no idea what I was doing. At the time I was studying graphic design in Melbourne, but I didn’t feel like I was able to be as creative as I needed to be, so I started to read and watch tutorials and videos to teach myself the 3D programs. Flash forward a few months and I had started to get a pretty solid understanding of the models and software, but I’m wasn’t really vibing with anything I was seeing from the 3D community. A lot of the biggest artists in the scene were creating pieces which I would say bordered on the territory of memes and vaporwave tumblr gifs. So at that point I just started to ignore what everyone else was doing, and began to really develop my style and the look of my work.

What are the feelings or reactions you try to elicit in the viewers of your animations? Does that change in each video or project you realize or is there a common motive that associates all your works?

There is certainly meaning behind the work I produce. When I first began creating in this medium it was more of just experimenting and trying to mimic or reinterpret other 3D artists work, but now I create work that I want to create and to explore ideas and messages which mean something to me. In all of my images and animations there are little elements hidden through out – Easter eggs I guess you would call them. I hide things in the scenes to create a sense of mystery with each time you see it, almost like when you watch a film for a second time and you pick up on little things you missed the first time you saw it. The common thing which ties all my personal work together is that I’m creating each piece as a way for myself to explore and express ideas and current digital and physical world we live in.

What has been the most exciting project you worked on? Anything special in the future?

Each project I work on for clients is such an exciting experience, it’s really cool to be able to help bring someone else’s vision to life. I recently finished a music video for “How To Dress Well” which was really fun to create. Right now I’m working on a few projects, one is a series of 6 short films for a New York/Paris based fashion designer, and that’s really all I can say about that until it’s released.

There is certainly a lustful dark twist in many of your animations, can you tell us more about it?

This is kind of difficult to answer because I don’t really create my work with a dark idea or concept in mind, but I can definitely understand how it can be perceived like that. I draw inspiration from places like classic religious paintings and occult illustrations. I try to pair the ideas and concepts I get from those with a highly stylized, fashion campaign aesthetic. I guess the best way to describe my visual style would be looking at the way movement was captured in paintings by Bouguereau or Botticelli, and then to combine that with the lighting and set up of photographers such as Steven Klein or David LaChapelle.

If you were able to approach anyone, which artist would you love to do a collaboration with?

Being that my work is mainly digitally based, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to collaborate with artists from around the world. But I’d love to do a collaboration with Camille Rose Garcia.  She is an amazing illustrator from the US who has such unique whimsical style and I’ve been inspired by her for such a long time. Her work really captures the innocence of a children’s book illustration and then fuses it with the dark realities of today’s world. I think it would be interesting to see how my digital pieces interact with her traditional style of art.

Federica Pantana

Federica Pantana is a lawyer, freelance writer and poet based in New York City. She has been writing poetry since the age of eight. Her first collection of poems (in Italian and English) is available on Amazon Kindle. Another collection of her most recent poetry is in the making. In the past few years, she has been contributing to ODDA Magazine and other fashion magazines. In light of her interest for fashion writing and photography, she is currently working on a fashion & art photography magazine that will be released in early 2018.