Nathan Shafer New media and making art before the world is ready for it
July 2024
Nathan Shafer is a new media artist from Alaska specializing in augmented reality and digital humanities. He is one of the founding members of both the Meme-Rider Media Team, an art collective founded in 2000 designing early form internet memes, and Manifest.AR, the first International art collective making augmented reality works. He was profiled by PBS听Digital Studios听as part of an online collaboration called听The Future听in 2014.
Shafer鈥檚 geobased AR works have been displayed on every continent. His work has been shown at Noxious Sector Projects, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Rhizome, ISEA, the Pratt Museum, Virtuale Switzerland, Out North Contemporary Art House and the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. He also contributed chapters to the first anthology of AR-based art making,听Augmented Reality Art, published by Springer in 2014;听Augmented Reality Games II, published in 2019; and听Augmented Reality in Education, forthcoming in 2020.
Images are from Wintermoot, one of Shafer's comic projects.
果冻传煤 Museum: What is your background with comics? When and how did you start?
Nathan Shafer: I have been a new media artist for over 20 years. I started making comic books in 2019.听
AM: What was the first comic you remember reading? What was the first one that had a significant impact and/or made you want to become a comic artist? Major influences? NS: I don鈥檛 remember the first comic I ever read. I had a pull box as a middle schooler. I read X-Men and all the Image titles.听听听
AM: What would you cite as your major influences?
At this point in what I am doing as an artist, my influences are who I am currently collaborating with: artists in 艁uk鈥檃e Tse鈥� Taas and the folks I am currently building videogames with. Alaskan storytelling traditions inform what and how I work.听
Comic book artists I like: Moebius, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Farel Dalrymple, and Simon Roy.听听听
AM: What are the major themes or issues you address in your art and storytelling?
NS: There are too many to really list. Right now, I am dealing with the issue of the Hyperborean Speculative Imagination and absurdo-fascism, that is in the new issue of Wintermoot.听 Altogether, Wintermoot is about Alaska and the infinite worlds within it.
AM: What makes a great comic/comic artist?
NS: I don鈥檛 have a good answer for that.听 Someone else saying you are great to other people is the real answer.听 It is not something you decide for yourself.听
AM: Which is better (and why), a comic with fantastic art but a lousy story, or a comic with a great story but sub-par artwork?
NS: Both work for me, not everything is great, and creativity is hard.听
AM: What piece of advice would you give to any aspiring young comic artist? What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
NS: Center yourself outside of an artistic practice. There are no places, spaces, or people in this world that are on a quest to find new exceptional artists.听 Stay making things before the rest of the world is ready for it. Have a group of good friends and family who you can constantly share with and who you want to share with you.听
