Thana Seangsorn refers to himself as a “visionary artist”. Not a visual artist or video artist, but visionary. The play on words is an apt description of the Thai artist’s work, which spans motion design, graphic design, mixed media, and more. His work is larger than life, visual art for the 21st century. It’s maximalist, huge, and mind-altering. Full of sharp, angular shapes and kaleidoscopic colors fluttering and spiraling at warp speeds, it tests the boundaries of human experience. His work has found a place on festival and mega-club LED screens, creative project-mapped sculptures, immersive physical installations, and digital NFTs.
不是视觉或是视频艺术家，来自泰国的 Thana Seangsorn（Pai Lactobacillus）喜欢称自己是“狂想艺术家”。用“狂想”来形容或十分贴切，其作品涵盖动态设计、平面设计、混合媒体等不同领域，追求极繁与磅礴力气，是令人目眩神迷的二十一世纪风格。各种尖锐线条、棱角分明的形状配合万花筒色彩，以扭曲、飘浮的姿态旋转，挑战肉眼感官界限。他的作品常出现在节日活动和大型俱乐部的 LED 屏幕、创意投射雕塑、沉浸式艺术装置和 NFT 领域当中。
Seangsorn, who goes by the alias Pai Lactobacillus, was born and raised in Bangkok. He originally studied ceramic design at university, creating miniature sculptures with similarly bold shapes and colors. But a news story his wife saw changed the trajectory of his life. It was about Indian craftsmen who made ivory sculptures of tiny Russian dolls losing their eyesight at 40. Fearing that staring a such small details would damage his health as well, she urged him to change careers. So he decided to enroll in graphic design classes advertised on bus stops and television across the city. “I hated computers back then,” he laughs. Not long after completing the class, he found opportunities with major record labels, who eventually asked him to do some commercial motion design work.
Thana 出生并成长于曼谷，大学时期学习了陶瓷工艺，曾创作过很各式各样色彩大胆醒目的微型雕塑。直到某日，他的妻子看到一则新闻，改变了他的艺术轨迹。据那则新闻报道，一位象牙迷你俄罗斯娃娃雕塑工匠在 40 岁时突然视力丧失。妻子担心如果他一直从事这种微型雕塑创作，可能会影响视力健康，希望他可以换个职业。听了妻子的劝告，Thana 报名参加了公交车站和电视上宣传的平面设计课程，他笑着说：“那时候我其实我很讨厌电脑。”不过在完成课程后不久，他就获得了与大型唱片公司合作的机会，应公司要求开始创作一些商业动态设计作品。
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The medium captivated him and he started experimenting with basic content, usually in support of electronic DJs. “There’s been a small audio-visual community in Bangkok for about 15 years,” Seangsorn says. “It was very low tech back then, with just one low-power projector and one screen at underground venues where everyone knew each other.”
These days, Seangsorn creates visuals for massive spaces, with screens that scale the walls of three-story clubs, bending onto the ceiling. He’s also recently made projection mapping work for four-meter-tall sculptures at festivals. Opportunities for this type of work began popping up in Thailand about eight year ago.
很快，他开始沉迷于这种媒介，尝试大量简单的创作，早期通常是与电子音乐制作人或是 DJ（唱片骑师）合作。他聊到：“曼谷的视觉、声音艺术社区很小，大概发展了十五年时间。以前用的装置技术含量很低，只一台低功率投影仪和一台笔记本，就是一个地下圈子，大家互相都认识。”
如今，Thana 与大型场所合作，有时屏幕大到覆盖三层楼高的舞台墙壁，有时甚至将视觉延伸到天花板。最近，他还在一次活动上为四米高的雕塑制作了投影。而大概在八年前，泰国才渐渐开始出现此类型的工作机会。
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Big events like these take a team and Seangsorn’s role is to create the graphic assets and motion design—which take two weeks of non-stop work. He then hands them over to video and light jockeys who manipulate and play them during the live performances. When designing these visuals, Seangsorn considers what type of genre and BPM range the DJs will be playing. Then he coordinates with the VJ and LJ, explaining what type of mood and tone he’s looking for. For LEDs, he says it’s important to tone the colors and brightness down because they can damage people’s eyes. But projection mapped lights travel away from people’s eyes, so his options are limitless with those tools.
大型活动往往需要团队。Thana 在团队中的角色负责平面素材和动态设计，通常一次创作需要他两周时间不间断工作。完成后，他会把作品交给 VJ（影像骑师）和灯光师，由他们在现场表演时进行操作。创作时，Thana 需要考虑 DJ 播放的音乐类型和节奏速度范围，然后与 VJ 和灯光师沟通希望营造的氛围和色调。他表示，使用 LED 灯时要调低颜色和亮度，否则会伤害眼睛。但投影的灯光不会直射眼睛，因而摆脱了许多限制。
For smaller, less commercialized events, Seangsorn himself performs with a MIDI controller and Resolume software. He was recently booked for The Visual Abstract City event in Vietnam alongside other international, regional, and local artists. There, he was the one on stage for a change, standing in front of a two-story projection, making his designs warp and dive for a live audience. “The audio-visual community is small there, but they started before us and have a more experimental bent,” he says. “We’re getting there in Thailand now though, there’s a whole new generation of artists.”
A few years ago, Seangsorn started bringing his work to life, giving it physical form in the real world. His first attempt was at a group show of mixed-media artists blending prints and sculptures with new media. One of his pieces was a multi-level, circular design with steps that led down the center like a stadium. At the bottom was an embedded screen with looped visuals to make the stairs decsend infinitely. His most recent installation was an immersive show called Lucid Dreamers, which featured inkjet-printed vinyl stickers covering every surface of the space, including the ceiling and floor. It felt like stepping into his trademark digital world of polychromatic colors and rigid shapes.
对于不那么商业化的小型活动，Thana 会亲自用 MIDI 控制器和 Resolume 软件进行表演。最近，他被邀请参加在越南举行的The Visual Abstract City （抽象视觉城市）活动，与世界各地和本地艺术家一起演出。这是他第一次站上舞台，在两层楼高的投影前，于现场观众面前操纵着自己的设备。他说：“越南在这方面起步比我们早，也有更多实验性倾向。现在泰国也慢慢赶上来了，涌现新一批艺术家。”
几年前，Thana 开始尝试将作品带入生活，在现实世界中赋予其物理形式。他的第一次尝试是在一个混合媒体艺术群展上，将版画、雕塑与新媒体相融。其中的一件作品是多维度环形设计，中间是向下的台阶至场馆中心，底部是嵌入式屏幕，循环播放视觉图像，让台阶在视觉上无限延伸。他最近的艺术装置更带来沉浸式体验，名为“Lucid Dreamers”，喷墨打印的乙烯基贴纸覆盖空间的每个表面，包括天花板和地板。置身其中，仿佛踏入他一贯的数字缤纷世界。
Seangsorn is far from abandoning the digital realm though. In addition to the digital art he’s creating for clubs and festivals, he’s also delving into the Thai NFT scene. There, he’s pushed his details even further with increasingly intricate designs and more active animations—everything unfolding in seemingly endless patterns.
His work is often dependent on deep-pocketed sponsors. Giant LED screens, HD projectors, and meters of vinyl printouts cost a lot of money. Oftentimes, Seangsorn’s art ends up at expensive venues where patrons are more interested girls and booze than appreciating the creativity and ingenuity on display. And some of his festival designs wouldn’t look out of place in a white cube gallery. But he’s still breaking boundaries, whether they realize it or not. One day the cost will drop to the point where smaller, art-driven spaces will be able to embrace immersive designs like these, and he’ll be there, waiting and ready.
Thana 决定将数字艺术一直继续下去。除了为俱乐部和节日活动创作数字艺术作品外，他还投身于泰国的 NFT 场景，并进一步打造更精细的作品，设计细节越来越复杂，动画效果也越来越出彩，一切似乎以无穷无尽的图案在无限延展。
Thana 的作品往往需要有财力雄厚的赞助商，毕竟大型的 LED 屏幕、高清投影仪和数米的乙烯基印刷品都需要大笔的资金。他的作品通常都是出现在昂贵的场所，比起欣赏作品的创意与独创性，那里的顾客往往对美女和酒水更感兴趣。而他为一些活动设计的作品即使放在画廊中也绝不会显得格格不入，他一直在不断打破界限。伴随成本的下降，总有一天，小型的艺术空间也将能够接纳这样的沉浸式艺术。而在这之前，Thana 会一直做好准备，等待时机的出现。
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Behance: ~/lactobacillus
Contributor: Mike Steyels
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
