Nostalgic retro futurism
“IT’S THE VISION AND LIMITATIONS THAT CAN FUEL THE REAL CREATIVITY INSIDE.
THAT'S A VERY POLISH APPROACH TO ME.”
WITH VFX ARTIST ADAM AFTANAS ON HIS INSPIRATIONS AND HIS SIGNATURE FUTURISTIC - RETRO - NOSTALGIC GRAPHICS
Adam Aftanas
When in March 2020, the world fizzled with cancellations of in-person events, everyone re-realised that technology holds the key to the future of fashion. The race to find exciting, intelligent ways of keeping audiences connected through technology acquired a new urgency for brands. It offered designers blank canvases for experimentation, and on many levels, the forced distance made fashion more accessible. Virtual shows became a more inclusive spectacle for a global audience with a democratic view, and everyone was all of a sudden able to feel like they were sitting in the front row.
With hopeful outlooks for the pandemic getting under control, cultural events offline with physical audiences are coming back. Nevertheless, newly adapted digital solutions and new habits developed by brands and customers are undoubtedly here to stay.
Hence, it is a golden age for creatives like Adam Aftanas, who make the on-screen, virtual experiences equally or even more powerful and exciting than those in real life. The Polish London based visual artist has an impressive portfolio with over ten years of experience contributing his skill and expertise to digital campaigns for luxury brands like Dior, Givenchy, Alexander McQueen, Paul Smith and Ermenegildo Zegna. He has already managed to establish his very own recognisable aesthetic throughout his work, characterised by spanning animation, colour grading, and (recently highly present in fashion campaigns) CGI.
Adam recounts a visit to a Polish art festival back in his teenage years, where he stumbled upon a VJ workshop that propelled his interest in the discipline. It seemed to work on a synapse of his broad interests; putting together music, the club scene, games, and creative technology uses. Rave culture played a big part in his youth, and during a stint as a resident in club Sfinks in Sopot, he began creating visuals for techno parties. Memories from that period still feed ideas for his work to this day. "While PRL times had some incredible graphic designers and animators working on them, the early '90s were completely unconstrained and honest, while sometimes naive. Even the iconic cover and editorial of the first polish issue of Vogue pays homage to this," says Adam.
Poland transforming politically and economically in the 90s was a hotbed to rave. Underground parties responded to those transformations expressing both the excitement and anxiety of the youth towards the new system. As much fun as those parties were, they also acted as a collaboration ground where music, dance and visual arts were equally essential components and where artists built their creative communities. Clubs turned into eclectic art galleries, a safe haven for all things edgy and experimental.
Upon moving to London, Adam earned a degree in Economics, but only to pivot back to the creative path soon after. Meeting a friend at a rave party in East London's warehouse ultimately resulted in his long-lasting connection with renowned agency Spring Studios. "I came for a day... and stayed for five years," he recalls. Time spent there proved fruitful in experience, professional connections and friendships he keeps to this day. He got to be shown the ropes around the industry by the most skilled creative directors and was able to work on exciting briefs for luxury brands, websites and video channels.
Asked about sources of inspiration for his work, he recalls, "There are quite a few things that get me going that come from Poland. First of all, Polish Film Chronicles and archives of polish TV hauntology. You can find plenty of that on YouTube, especially now - many are very well curated. I absolutely adore old Polish commercials, tv idents and magazines."
Aesthetic-wise he is drawn to the vintage, film archives, VHS tapes constantly circling around terms like hauntology - retro - future. "I am very interested in the feeling of nostalgia itself and what brings nostalgia to us. (...) While working on my visuals, based mostly on archival footage, I dug through archive.org and other places where you can find incredible, completely forgotten and obscure imagery from the past, bringing this specific nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, which was always interesting to me."
Fashion is no doubt in constant flux, but even more so is the VFX industry. Adam explains that eagerness, flexibility as well as expertise in various areas of design are the key. Adam gets to play different roles with each project requiring a range of skills "(...) you have to be a bit like a digital seamstress, or understand pattern cutting, for instance, to do things like simulate textile physics, which I do quite a lot these days." His extensive portfolio represents this multi-faceted approach very well. There are photoshoot edits, motion graphics for runways, package design, a vast number of CGI projects, beauty retouch etc... Adam steps in on different stages of projects: from concept to post-production. Be it animation design for a Dior x Stussy campaign or compositing and adding a retro feel to HBO's recent documentary series The Lady and The Dale.
Digital collages for the 50th Anniversary Campaign for Paul Smith; concept, CGI, animation etc. by Adam Aftanas
Adam recalls his project for Paul Smith as a remarkably fulfilling and fun opportunity giving his creativity, vision and sensitivity a full reign there. Considering his fascination with archival footage, having access to all the brand's runway recordings since the early 90s was a thrill for him. "It was a dream. In this project, I could show my true colours and what I am really interested in". In celebration of the brand's 50th Anniversary Campaign, he turned years of the brand's heritage into a hypnotic digital collage. The video got musically complemented with entrancing sounds from Piotr Kalinski - Hatti Vatti, privately Adam's hometown friend. Same as in the recent campaign of Danish textile company Kvadrat, where his composition accompanied an animation designed by Aftanas.
Music as an inseparable element of his work guides his process, feeding his ideas, often determining the final outcome. Adam listens to a broad spectrum of genres and likes to discover niche gems. On one day, it can be east European Neofolk, on another ambient or hard techno. He likes to experiment and often gets involved in side projects and collaborations. For polish hip hop Probl3m's track "Strumien", he created immersive graphics verging on hallucination and video game vibe. More surprising music collaboration is his growling performance in the intro to an animation from Sophie Koko Gate.
LUMIERE LONDON @ 18MONTROSE art installation, Adam Aftanas in collaboration with George Harvey
His VJ background echoes in his work through installations and projections he does for fashion projects. During 2018's edition of the Lumiere festival, Adam and photographer George Harvey created a captivating art installation inside the 18 Montrose Kings Cross store. Monochromatic film projected over 132 video screens was an exploration of visual qualities of light refraction. Minimalistic, rhythmically sequenced to the strains of Rival Console's track filled the retail space with a highly satisfying synergy of rhythm, sound and light. His fantastic flair for capturing and translating mood and atmosphere into immersive graphics is shown perfectly in his work for Ermenegildo Zegna. For already four seasons now, Adam delivered visuals for the brand's fashion show.
Ermenegildo Zegna Winter 2019 Fashion Show content, design and execution by Adam Aftanas
In the wake of the covid-19 outbreak, a large proportion of his work was hitherto shoot based and got immediately cancelled. Adam approached the situation calmly and ultimately found it equally challenging as reinvigorating for his work and career.
Projects which did go ahead were revamped for the new situation. Apart from the most apparent changes like work from home, Adam mentions, it allowed individuals to have more impact on projects they worked on. Ultimately, novel ideas were listened to and appreciated more, as creative directors were trying to perform the best despite globally difficult and uncertain conditions. "Clients were forced to let you do your thing. Less control, more individual impact ...You were enabled to make more personal touch, leave your own mark on the project. You were kind of forced and kind of enabled to work on your own." says Adam.
With the introduction of remote work, the industry realised that projects can be done from pretty much anywhere, so it opened up for talented people worldwide. According to Adam, this, in turn, lets in a lot of fresh air and highlights how much can be done nowadays within smaller teams and independent studios. He says that the covid situation exposed how in current progressive technology, a lot of work can be professionally executed even by one person with good equipment. "It shows how there's no need for huge studios or insane budgets to create mind-blowing and touching CGI work. It's the vision and limitations that can fuel the real creativity inside. That's a very polish approach to me. It also gives me a lot of confidence, especially in the current times where direct in-person collaboration can be difficult." Adam mentions the Polish documentary film "Photon" as one of his recent favourites. "I'm completely in love with the CGI work done there by the seemingly talented yet small team. "
As of the future, Adam hopes to formalise his community of multi-disciplinary, talented friends and collaborators into a creative collective to produce innovative, fresh and independent work within a “family” environment. “I am happy I’m able to keep close ties with many creative peers from Poland, who I can proudly call my friends. After all, I think the friendships I keep back home and here are the foundation of everything keeping me alive. “
If you got inspired like we did and wish to see more of his work visit his website here.
and keep up with his latest projects shared on his Instagram.
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All visual materials courtesy of Adam Aftanas