Artist Interview: Tom Atkins

Interview with Digital Artist Tom Atkins (Toronto, Canada)

Hi Tom. It's great to have you here today.

Q: Your work spans generative art, digital collage, and interactive media. How do you describe your artistic process?

A: It usually begins with a constraint rather than an idea. I might limit myself to a dataset, a color system, or a piece of code with specific rules. From there, I iterate quickly—sometimes hundreds of variations in a day. The process is less about executing a vision and more about discovering one through structured experimentation. I think of it as a dialogue between intention and emergence.

Q: That sounds almost like a financial model—inputs, constraints, outputs. Do you see parallels between art and systems thinking?

A: Absolutely. Digital art is inherently systems-based. You’re designing behaviors, not just images. The output is a function of logic, parameters, and randomness. It’s closer to building a model than painting a canvas. That’s part of what attracts me—the ability to embed complexity and let it unfold.

Q: What themes tend to recur in your work?

A: Memory, fragmentation, and the idea of synthetic identity. Living in Canada as someone with a mixed cultural background, I’m interested in how identity is constructed across digital and physical spaces. A lot of my work explores how images degrade, recombine, or get reinterpreted—almost like cultural memory itself.

Q: How has being based in Canada influenced your work?

A: Canada has a unique tension between vast physical space and relatively small cultural centers. That creates both isolation and freedom. Toronto, in particular, is very diverse, which feeds into my work conceptually. At the same time, the digital medium removes geographic constraints—I collaborate as much with people in Berlin or Tokyo as I do locally.

Q: What role does artificial intelligence play in your practice?

A: It’s a tool, but also a subject. I use machine learning models to generate textures, forms, and sometimes entire compositions. But I’m equally interested in questioning authorship. When a model trained on millions of images produces something new, where does authorship sit? My role becomes more curatorial—I’m selecting, refining, and framing outputs rather than creating everything from scratch.

Q: Do you see AI as a threat or an expansion for artists?

A: Both, depending on how it’s approached. If you define art purely as technical execution, then yes, AI is disruptive. But if you see art as a process of meaning-making, then AI expands the toolkit. It shifts the value from execution to intention and interpretation.

Q: Your work often incorporates interactivity. Why is that important to you?

A: I’m interested in collapsing the boundary between viewer and artwork. Interactivity introduces unpredictability—the viewer becomes part of the system. That aligns with my broader interest in emergence and systems thinking. The artwork isn’t static; it’s a living process.

Q: How do you think about the commercial side of digital art—NFTs, commissions, institutional work?

A: I try to keep a portfolio approach. Some projects are more experimental and not immediately monetizable. Others are designed for collectors or institutions. NFTs opened up new possibilities, but they also introduced a lot of noise. I focus on long-term value—building a body of work that can exist across formats and markets.

Q: What does a typical day look like for you?

A: It’s split between coding, visual experimentation, and research. Mornings are usually for deep work—writing code or building systems. Afternoons are more exploratory—reviewing outputs, iterating, and sometimes discarding everything. Evenings tend to be for reading or looking at other artists’ work.

Q: Which artists or disciplines influence you outside of digital art?

A: Film has been a big influence—particularly directors like Tarkovsky and Villeneuve, who use pacing and atmosphere in very deliberate ways. I’m also inspired by architecture and urban design. There’s something compelling about how physical spaces shape behavior, which parallels how digital environments influence interaction.

Q: What advice would you give to someone entering digital art today?

A: Focus on developing a point of view rather than mastering every tool. The tools change quickly. What endures is how you think—your conceptual framework, your taste, your ability to edit. And don’t underestimate the importance of constraints. They’re often where originality comes from.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I’m exploring real-time generative environments that respond to external data—weather, financial markets, even social sentiment. The idea is to create artworks that are continuously evolving and tied to the world in subtle ways. It’s still early, but that intersection between data and aesthetics feels rich with possibilities.

Thanks for joining us today!