Visual artist Kenaim Al-Shatti's work has been on stage with Bad Bunny, Drake: Made in Arizona

Kenaim Al-Shatti is a visual artist whose work is far from what you might see hanging on the wall on a gallery wall. In fact, it’s often not even the kind of work that is meant to be the center of attention: concert visuals.

These graphics are in constant motion behind performers at live concerts — moving with the music, bringing the audience into an immersive experience. And Al-Shatti has done graphic art for some big concerts: from Drake to Alicia Keys to Bad Bunny.

He also makes music videos for artists like Kid Cudi, collaborates with visual artists and makes large-scale public art installations and more.

But it wasn’t what he set out to do as a community college student years ago. In fact, he started his career working in construction. But, as he told The Show, he knew it wasn’t meant to be.

KENAIM AL-SHATTI: And it was a great job. And despite the fact that it was a great job, I understood in the back of my head, I'm like, this is not gonna work out.

LAUGEN GILGER: This is not my long term.

AL-SHATTI: This is not gonna work out. Every day I'm stressing out, you know, I'm like, what am I gonna, you know? And eventually I just needed them to fire me, to push me.

GILGER: So did they fire you?

AL-SHATTI: They fired me, yeah. But, you know, it was one of those things where it was like, I have to, you know, you keep screwing up. You keep screwing up little thing after little thing after little thing. And finally the guy was just like, you know, And I worked for years, but it was finally like, and they, you could tell my heart was not in this thing, you know?

GILGER: Yeah.

It gave him the push he needed to get out of construction and go back to school. He studied graphic design, and he started focusing on motion work.

Kenaim Al-Shatti

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Full conversation

AL-SHATTI: I'm making videos, right? I'm posting this stuff on YouTube. No one cares. I'm also like, just starting to make GIFs and I'm starting to make really short form, almost like motion paintings, you know what I mean? Like something that can just exist. And it's like there's no start. And there's no stop. It just kind of is there.

So, so that's the stuff I started posting on Tumblr. That's the stuff that I start really getting into. Really obsessed about making a whole lot of work.

GILGER: So you build a little bit of a following, you're kind of building up a career in this realm. When was the moment when you said, I don't need a regular job. I'm gonna dive into this?

AL-SHATTI: It was way before that. Yeah. I'm just, you know, I, like. I never gave myself much of an out as far as that stuff went. I think, you know, I say this to other people, and I almost have to, like, just understand that this is true for me. If it's in you to do the thing, then you should do the thing.

But really, it's just, can you be at it long enough to be one of the last people? Kind of.

GILGER: You're in a competition with yourself.

With yourself. You know what I mean? You know, can you, can you have the longevity to do this a year from now, two years from now, three years from now? And then figure out a way to make it into something?

You know, for a long time, I just didn't worry about money, really. You know, I just didn't worry. I just, like, look, I know that I can make enough to pay, like, the meager bills that I have, and this is fine. It's fine having no savings.

It's fine because I'm on a path for a thing. And, you know, I'm just. More than anything, I'm, like, grateful that I didn't turn out to be just crazy, you know?

Kenaim Al-Shatti

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GILGER: So let's talk about the moment you realized you weren't crazy and that this was something you could really do.

AL-SHATTI: This is an ongoing thing.

GILGER: You have become successful, though, on some very basic levels, obvious to everyone levels. Even if you feel like you're still kind of striving for that. You've shown at SMOCA, you've done public art for cities in the Valley, and then you've done some massive concerts, big music videos. We're talking art artists. We've all heard of Drake, Bad Bunny. What's that felt like?

AL-SHATTI: I don't know. It's surreal. Like, those aren't the moments where I go like, oh, I've made it. Because those are the moments that are just like, what is this? This is crazy.

It's so funny to, like, you know, you have, like, a pop star, let's just say, yeah, pop star standing there, and they're doing their pop star thing. And there's all these people there, they're just like going wild. And I've been a person in that crowd doing that for people that I love, right?

GILGER: Yeah.

AL-SHATTI: But then seeing a person stand right in front of your own work is such a trip because it's just. I look at that work and it's, you know, I'm sitting in my space by myself making this thing, you know, slowly animating stuff like either drive myself crazy or not.

And then, you know, it's very much like a fingerprint. So it's just, I might as well just have my, for me, from my perspective, might as well just have my big face, you know, in the background of this person, just kind of going, "hey, everybody." Doing that kind of. So it's super surreal.

And also, this whole thing is such a new medium. Whether it's, I mean, I understand that people have been making visuals for tours for a very long time, but the scale at which you can do it now and how bright. Just the amount of lumens available to push out onto the audience and the crazy contraptions that we can make on stage and stuff.

GILGER: It's more vivid.

AL-SHATTI: Super vivid optical illusions. Same thing with the public art stuff. You can just take projection mapping, like a building or something. OK, you could have something where the building's melting this and that, but it's like the building is a canvas, is like a very new idea.

GILGER: Yeah.

AL-SHATTI: Where does that edge even lie? You know, how do we go way beyond that? Because this is like early days of film almost.

It's thought to be like, oh, this is what this thing is. But people haven't been doing it that long at a high level. You know, it's wide open for people to just be indulging. It's beautiful.

GILGER: The possibilities are endless.

AL-SHATTI: Yeah, I feel like really lucky to just be right time and right place, you know, for stuff.

Athena Ankrah

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KJZZ

GILGER: OK. So let's talk about your process a little bit. Because this is multi-dimensional, right? Like literally. But also you've got a song, right? Or a concert that you're gonna do some visuals for. So there's sound, there's motion in the work. There's, I'm sure, actual drawings. How do you start?

AL-SHATTI: So for something that would be like a music video that I would make, really, I just start sketching things out in the book. Whether it's almost, think of them as like thumbnails, right. Like thumbnail sketches.

Whether it's random scenes that I want to see have nothing to do with each other. And I think of, like, interesting ways to connect these things, or do they connect or what are the similar things here, or what are dissimilar things here.

But really what I do with all clients, regardless of whether I'm the only one involved or not, I say, like, give me some verbiage, like, let me put myself in a little prison of words that you gave me and then I can figure myself out of that. Because if we both agree that the words are right, then I just got to do the feeling. And I know how to do the feeling of whatever it is we're talking about, but we have to talk about it.

GILGER: You're creating the feeling.

AL-SHATTI: Creating the feeling. So it's like, you know, I don't have like a pre-prescribed idea of like, this is what this thing needs to be. I kind of like need the thing to speak to me.

GILGER: Sure. Give us an example. You have the book here, right? Like you can sketch something for us or show us something you sketched.

Like, where does that begin? When you talk about fitting things together, looking at contrast, what does that mean?

AL-SHATTI: So, so let's say [DRAWING] this is just off the top of my head, but let's say that I want a scene right here. And let's say that there is some kind of crazy, surreal background. And there's like, I don't know, there's like a door or something right here, right? OK. Then I need to make something like that.

Then it's like, what is my next scene right here? Maybe I want to go through the door and I want to go on to some kind of surreal landscape kind of thing. And it's just constantly making camera directions to myself of like, OK, here's the camera. And I need this thing to scoop.

GILGER: So you're drawing them like squares, like you're looking in the scene each time. It's almost like drawing out a film reel.

AL-SHATTI: Exactly. And it's just like super loose little blueprints. And then I can start just implementing those in any number of ways. It's so funny. It's like the tools we have to make things move, to make a dot, to make a pixel move on a screen. You do that in a million one ways.

And at this point of kind of like, I've taken up a lot of those ways. So more or less it's like, what do I feel like working in? Do I feel like working in After Effects? Like, that's cool. I can set up a scene like that in After Effects.

Do I feel like sketching things out and transferring them over into Photoshop? Do I feel like taking them into Blender or Houdini? Which is, like, 3D programs. Like, do I feel like adding some kind of simulation aspect to this so I don't have to animate water? Do I feel like simulating the entire thing as a bunch of nodes within something like TouchDesigner?

So making things more interactive. The sky's the limit in terms of how you put these things together. In my mind is very much about just, I draw this. Now I have to make this.

GILGER: Yeah. Let me ask you lastly, about the way that you treat this as a practice almost. It sounds like you do this and have for a very long time done it, like, every day, right. Like, this is something you just do, whether it's for something really big or just for you.

AL-SHATTI: Yeah. Well, it's like, how do you take your job seriously? You know. Another way to phrase it really is, like, if I'm always exercising, it doesn't matter if I have to run, like, a 3K or whatever, 5K.

You know what I mean? Like, if I'm always doing the thing, it's not that big of a deal if something big comes up, there's a nice balance to everything being the same weight.

GILGER: You sound very much like a practical person for an artist.

AL-SHATTI: Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's just, like, the mask that I try to wear when I'm, like, trying to articulate anything to anyone else.

But you know, for sure, when I'm in it, I think I feel a little crazy. I feel a little antenna. Like, I feel a little, like, disassociated. And I think a lot of the time when people are talking to me, I can go off into, like, work mode.

So when I'm not actively in those things, I try to. I try my best to yeah.