How Reuben Wu is pioneering a new artform with NFTs
Whilst touring the world as a musician, Reuben Wu found a new passion: photography. The multidisciplinary artist uses the concepts of time and space to tell compelling stories about the vast world we inhabit. He speaks to Nina Knaack about making art with drones and his search for ideas that have never been done before.
Originally published on Culture3.xyz
Reuben Wu has wanted to be an artist for as long as he can remember. Whilst at school, he felt like an outsider, which instilled a hunger in him for recognition and success. “It galvanised me,” he reflects. “I wanted to become so good that I could not be ignored by anyone.” This mindset has stuck with him ever since, but, before using it to push the limits of photography, he channelled his creative energy via a different medium: music. In 1999, he formed the band Ladytron with his friends and, what started as a fun side project, became a successful music career of ten years. “I quit my industrial designer job to focus on the band full time,” he explains.
“The music was extremely rewarding,” Reuben recalls. “Our intention was to make the music that we wanted to make, and that no one else was making.” Reuben finally felt like he belonged, within this small group of other indie and electronic music lovers. Awkward and quiet as a child, he had a few friends, but spent most of his time drawing or exploring; either getting lost in national parks or in his own imagination. Feeling most at home in nature, travelling with the band gave him the opportunity to discover some of the most beautiful places on earth. Whilst on tour, the urge to document the landscapes around him led him to his current craft.
Although he was accustomed to drawing scenery, Reuben noticed that it was too time consuming with his surroundings changing so quickly. “We were touring all over the world and I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss a single thing, so I picked up a camera as a way of making an image diary.” Starting out with just the camera attachment on a Palm Pilot, Reuben’s first photos were “really low-bit, low-resolution, horrible greyscale pictures.” He then upgraded to the first normal phone with a built-in camera, but felt that there was still something missing in the digital shots that they produced. As a result, he started experimenting with film photography. “I discovered this texture, this beautiful quality to the negatives that digital did not have,” he recalls.
An image from Reuben Wu's Last Hope collection, one of his earlier projects.
Enjoying the weird and ritualistic practices that accompany it, Reuben started to think about photography as a craft, more than simply just photos. “It involves setting up your camera, loading film, sending the film off, and then scanning the negatives,” he explains. “I realised that doing photography tapped into the visual art side of me that I had always connected with through drawing.” Feeling a sudden need to revisit this artistic outlet, Reuben set out to experiment with different cameras, and made it his mission to capture places in a way that had not been done before. “I really like this idea of the camera being able to reveal so much more about the landscape than the eye can see,” he says.
“I am always looking for elusive things that were not thought to be possible before.”
Travelling and seeing new places kindled a fierce passion in Reuben, and he realised that photography was ultimately what he wanted to do. So, when the band collectively decided to take a break, Reuben knew that he had to pursue it. The years that followed were not at all easy, and Reuben struggled to decide what kind of photographer he wanted to be. He experimented with film photography, which, although introducing him to a new aesthetic, became too limiting for him. “Photography, for me, should be about the picture itself and whether or not it moves you in some way. I wanted to create new, special art that people did not expect, and I realised that I needed to cross boundaries within the medium of photography in order to do that.”
'Fourteenth Century Sky (2022)', by Reuben Wu.
Reuben embraced digital photography once again, and started to experiment with the features that accompanied it, from video to time-lapse. But, having just moved to the States, his career was back at square one. Soon, he started to get jobs working as a commercial photographer, with the help of his friends. Although his commercial career was going well, he began to experiment with new technology, like drones and artificial lighting, venturing out to remote landscapes. “I tried to approach landscape photography in a way that felt new and original. Every day we are bombarded with beautiful photos of our world. I strongly felt that I needed to go beyond that and asked myself, ‘How can I change my own perception of our planet, and make it seem new and unexplored?’”
“Web3 has allowed me the freedom to create the work that I love.”
Having been drawn to wild places since early childhood, Reuben’s love for nature is rooted within him. “Being by myself in nature taught me about the value of solitude and the sublime landscape. I never felt more alive and free than being alone in the mountains.” This, combined with Reuben’s obsession with science fiction, explains his fascination for the natural and the supernatural, the known and the unknown.
To create the sense of ambiguity that he loves so much in his work, Reuben started to use a drone as a kind of flying light beam, with the navigation systems enabling him to create geometric shapes in the air. “I use the semi-automatic manoeuvre of the drone to paint a light source for, or frame around, my subject matter within a landscape,” he explains.
Reuben’s original photographic methods bless him with a unique sense of freedom. “The old adage of waiting for the right moment and the right light was not enough. I needed to create it, not wait for it. I really like the fact that this aesthetic and these images transcend their own medium. I am always looking for elusive things that were not thought to be possible before.”
'Zero Trace (LN0309)', from Reuben Wu's LuxNoctis collection.
In that light, the link with web3 is easily made. “I like jumping into things that other people are not doing.” At the beginning of 2021, there were not many photographers minting on the blockchain yet. “Maybe I also never really felt like a true photographer”, he muses. “In a way, my work looks like renderings and, perhaps because of that, easily fitted in with the NFTs of digital artists. In general, I just do not feel bound to the rules of a medium. I am keen to always explore what is new.”
“I really like this idea of the camera being able to reveal so much more about the landscape than the eye can see.”
Reuben wholeheartedly says that he looks back on his web3 journey so far with no regrets. “Minting NFTs has motivated me to spend more time on my personal work. I finally had an end goal for autonomous projects and it shortened the cycle of creation, because you finalise a piece by minting it. It forced me to be sure of my work before immortalising it on the blockchain forever.”
Web3 also gave Reuben a bigger financial reward for his personal photography. Before, he had gained a small income from his art through selling commissioned prints. Now, he can work more autonomously and profitably, and be selective about who he works with on a commercial level. “Web3 has allowed me the freedom to create the work that I love.” Reuben says. Now he can fully be himself, whilst simultaneously eternalising the beauty of the earth, which is what he likes to do most. He is trying to show our planet in a completely new way, to remind everyone — including himself — that this is our only home — and it is a pretty damn beautiful one at that.