10 Questions with Jiang Geping

Al-Tiba9 Art Magazine ISSUE13 | Featured Artist

Jiang Geping is a senior concept designer, illustrator, comic artist, and lecturer based in China. He is a member of the China Film Art Direction Academy and has collaborated on multiple projects with WETA Workshop, a studio that has won six Oscar Awards.

Jiang was involved in the art direction for <OFF THE GRID>, a game developed by Neil Blomkamp, the director of the Oscar-nominated movie District 9. He also contributed to the art style design for Blomkamp's Netflix film project.

Jiang has designed new heroes for the 5th and 6th seasons of the best-selling game in the US, <Call of Duty: Cold War>. He has worked on many other popular game titles, including <Call of Duty: Black Ops 4>, <PUBG mobile>, <Battlefield 2042>, <Destiny 2>, <Anthem>, <Dragon Age 4>, <Apex Legends Mobile>, <Project Eve>, and more. He has collaborated with renowned studios and companies such as WETA Workshop, EA, Activision Blizzard, Gunzilla, Treyarch, The Mill, Platige Image, Aaron Sims Creative, Volta, Bungie, Tencent, NetEase, and Shift Up.

Jiang has also worked in comics and collaborated with Dan Fogler, the actor who played Jacob Kowalski in the <Fantastic Beasts> film series. He has taught for Wacom in different cities across China, including Beijing, Jinan, and Chengdu. He also provided teaching videos for the masterclass of XYZ SCHOOL, a CG education institution in Russia, and also provided teaching videos for John Park's education institution, Foundation, who is the main designer for the movie <Avatar 2>.

Jiang has participated in various art exhibitions, such as the New York Cyberpunk Vol.4 digital art exhibition and the Asiagraph 2022 CG art exhibition in Japan. His works were also exhibited in the city centers of Beijing, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and Zhengzhou for several days in the DREAM LANGFANG - FXTOON DIGITAL ART SHOW exhibition in 2022.

Jiang's works have been featured in ImagineFX, a world-renowned digital art magazine, and he has been interviewed by the publication. He continues to inspire and educate others with his talent and experience in the art industry.

artstation.com/yintion | @yintion_jianggeping

ARTIST STATEMENT

The artist questions whether robots should have the same rights as humans and what that would mean for our society. The series depicts robots with human-like features, raising the question of how we define humanity and where we draw the line between humans and machines.

The artworks in this series explore the complex and evolving relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI). As technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, the line between what is human and what is machine becomes increasingly blurred. These works delve into the implications of this merging and seek to challenge our assumptions about the nature of consciousness, emotion, and agency.

These artworks seek to engage us in a dialogue about the role that technology plays in our lives and to challenge us to confront the ethical and philosophical questions that arise as we continue to integrate machines into our daily existence. By prompting us to reflect on our relationship with AI, this series aims to encourage us to think more deeply about the ways in which we shape and are shaped by the technology we create.

INTERVIEW

As stated in your biography, your background lies in video games. How did you get involved with art, and what influenced you to follow this path? 

I started my art career as a concept artist and have been doing that for years, and it is still one of the main eras I'm working on, mostly focusing on sci-fi, cyberpunk, and character design, and also illustration around this topic. This is kind of what I'm always interested in. Even though I also did many medieval fantasy projects, most of my work is in these categories. I think one of the main influences is that my father is a computer engineer, and I've seen him do electric repair and other hardware repairing things throughout my entire childhood. Half of my toys when I was a kid were computer hardware like some module from a printer or stuff like that. I pretend it's a spaceship or something else, and I guess that's the very first thing that inspired me.

How much does your background influence your current work?  

I guess a lot. I think the background or the life experience always influences artist and their creations. And you can always find the clue of their inspiration from even their very early works, even their childhood doodling. And when they grow older, you can see more clear influence from their life experience. The motivation for my personal work is just from my daily life, my relationship with my family, my relationship with my partner, or what I've faced in my life. 

Where do you find inspiration for your artworks? Do you have any artist or movement you admire, or is your inspiration more organic, coming from everyday life? 

Yes, there are a lot of good artists that inspired my work in a technical way. Like Egon Schiele, Ilya Efimovich Repin, William Bouguereau, and even Henry Spencer Moore. They were basically my art hero when I was young. And when I was older and getting into the entertainment design industry started to do designs for movies and video games. Some concept designers inspired me, such as Wesley Burt, Jana Schirmer, and Maciej Kuciara. But the topic or the motivation for creating a piece of work just mostly comes from my daily life. 

We are witnessing major changes in our approach to digital technologies. Some things that were mere dreams are coming into reality, like the Metaverse and AI. What do you think of these changes? And how do you think they will influence the art world? 

I think the recent change in "AI Art" is very interesting for sure, and very hard to predict where it's heading. AI platforms like Midjourney have generated many pictures and looks we have never considered. So many of them look very interesting, weird, or fresh. I guess, overall, AI is just like any other technology in history, that will give artists more possibilities to create their work. And also the topic of our work. Since AI engines can easily generate pictures or "art", many of them just look very well. So, it will give us a chance to rethink the meaning and value of art, design, creativity, and artist again.

As we can read in your statement, your work "questions whether robots should have the same rights as humans." What is your stance in this regard? 

I guess robots are just more like machines. And they may not have inherent motivation for survival and reproductive or other deep needs for themself. Even if they've been programmed to survive or reproduce, it just programmed and planted by others. It's not something for themselves. But if humans start to have relationships and emotional attachments with a robot, it can be something interesting for sure. Could that be real love or a real relationship? Or just someone who has a fake self-gratification. And if someone's been loved by a robot, even the robot is just programmed to behave like it's loving the person. Is the person been loved, or just a fake feeling? Does being loved by a machine mean something to our lives? It may behave very well, better than any human beings are able to do. It knows what we want. It's good-looking. It can look like whatever we want it to look like. I guess lots of people will choose it in the future. Does it mean something to us? Or it's just something purely fake, and the person is still alone. The "relationship" is just like masturbation.

On the same note, what do you think of AI-generated art? There is a huge debate regarding authorship and copyright; what are your thoughts? 

I was amazed by what AI was able to generate for sure. And I believe the artist has the right to know their work is being used. Putting the artist's work into their deep learning engine is definitely not a good thing. But I believe AI will become a very common tool for artists and designers, just like Photoshop or 3D software. 

New technologies and innovations are essential for your work. How do you keep up to date with the latest developments? 

Keep learning and keep studying new things. I think my technique is still traditional in the digital art field. Many of them are using 3D software or unreal engine. But most of my stuff just finished with the 2D tool, in Photoshop.
But keep creating new workflow and approaches is important for sure. You don't have to be restrained by the normal approach. Anything that makes your work look better can just be your tool, once it doesn't violate any law.

What are you working on right now? Do you have any new projects or series you are currently developing? 

Learning stable diffusion and experimenting with Midjourney. I'll do some new projects with it and see how it goes. And I also have some other stuff in my plan. Hope I have enough time to finish all of it.

As we begin 2023, what do you hope to accomplish this year regarding career goals and personal life? 

Finish more work. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to do more interesting projects and learn new stuff.

Finally, where do you see yourself five years from now?

I don't know. I think I'm more focused on what I'm doing, what is in my hand, and what has to be done. Life is something hard to predict, even if you want to be somewhere, but the outside world always has another rule. Life is a progression of learning the rule of the world, we become more mature during this process, and I believe smarter people basically mean having a better understanding of the world. What you can do is just try your best, hope you have the opportunity, and get yourself to where you want.