BE NOT AFRAID
The Sarah Show
Future Art x NiftyGateway
Drops Jan 15th 7pm EST on NiftyGateway.com
BE NOT AFRAID is my first full collection and open edition dropping on NiftyGateway as part of the epic Future Art event happening IRL in Sydney and all over the Metaverse.
The inspiration for the four works is wide-reaching, from Angels in America, to Biblically Accurate Angel memes to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. As is often the case, I let the art channel as it wanted to come through me, and then saw the narrative threads start tying together as I began editing and finalizing the work.
As you’ll see, the pricing of these editions is tied to the theme of the collection. 137 is a highly potent number in both science and mysticism – considered the central number of the grand unified theory of physics, as well as the numerical equivalent of the letters of Kabbalah.
Keep reading to learn more about each of the available editions. I also highly recommend reading the essay Techgnosis and Apocalypse: The Crypto Art of Sarah Zucker by Dr. Allan Kilner-Johnson if you’d like to get another perspective on the collection.
Open Edition. $137 – Available for 7 minutes (7pm-7:07pm EST)
The Messengers of the Future appear in strange forms and see in many directions – they command us to be not afraid!
I’ve been quite tickled by Biblically Accurate Angel memes as of late – the somewhat terrifying description of Angels in the Bible juxtaposed with their propensity to declare “Be Not Afraid!” is inherently funny.
Angels have been on my mind in general for the past year. The lockdowns of the Covid era evoke a visceral memory for me of reading the play Angels in America for the first time when I was about 17. For those unfamiliar with the play – a “gay fantasia” that takes a camp mystical lens to the AIDS epidemic – it contains an Angel appearing to the protagonist to beseech humankind to “Stop Moving.” To which, of course, the protagonist protests, as movement is the essential nature of humankind.
It can be easy to be afraid in these times of plague and mind-boggling progress. But we MUST keep moving – even if it means protesting the heavens to do so.
Edition of 7. $333
I I I am the Great Eye-Eye-Eye. Gaze into me + we shall become one!
More inspiration from Angels in America here. The Angels, when they appear, speak in grand pronouncements of “I I I,” not unlike to chorus of Greek tragedy. A linguistic conceit that has tickled me since the day I first encountered it.
This abstract work, like my other works in this vein, is meant to evoke a sensory response. The great eye in the sky, which calls us all into it – the medium through which the messengers emerge.
Be Not Afraid (High Weirdness Edition)
Edition of 3. $1370
The sister piece to the open edition. Sometimes, when I’m creating at my analog video station, something really weird and unexpected occurs, and I manage to get it on tape. This was one of those instances.
The extra-levels of glitch strangeness felt appropriate given the theme of divine messages coming in confusing packages. This is a much smaller edition, geared towards the collectors who are really picking up what I’m laying down.
Single Edition. Auction.
Rendered speechless, bald and shiny by the glow of the oncoming future – all one can do is dance and laugh at the edge of the abyss!
And here we have the counterpart to the divine messenger – the transcending human.
I absolutely love Metropolis (my preferred version being the 1984 Moroder-scored cut. The soundtrack is killer, and the 1980s electronic music really elevates the themes of the 1927 original).
The crux of Metropolis is the notion that the Heart must be the mediator between the Head and the Hands. This feels all too pressing in these days of social upheaval, and I think about it a lot.
With this piece, I wanted to evoke the deliciously devious dance of the evil robot Maria from Metropolis as she works to seduce and destroy the elite of the city. As you may guess from the title, I’m also gently poking fun at the trope of the bald, shiny, female humanoid seen so frequently in the 3D render art that makes up a large portion of the crypto art scene.
We are all rendered into physical bodies, as the case may be. In what or whose images is up to us to determine.