Hello fam, it’s once again time to doxx another key member of the Civitas development team. Allow me to introduce you to Art Producer Aldís Dagmar.
As you will find out, Aldís’ career spans across multiple creative industries, making her one of the most multi-talented members of our bunch.
Enjoy the read!
— Giorgio ‘Error 404’ Crosali
Hello Aldís! Can you introduce yourself to our community?
Hello community! I’m the art producer of Civitas, and if I could step dance my way into this interview, I would.
I started out producing events and festivals during my college years, which shaped my interest and career in production and later led me to study project management. I studied textile design in college and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer for a hot minute until I realised my dreams were, and still are, a lot bigger than that, though fashion and costume design still remain an avid hobby. At university I studied graphic design, partly to keep busy when there were not many options available to me in my hometown, partly to aid in executing my vision of my then realised dream of creating worlds.
Between producing and directing various creative projects, working as an editor and leading indie publishing collectives, I found myself in the film industry designing and fabricating props, sets and costumes. After I had gone through various roles within the film industry, climbing up the ladder working for companies ranging from Vesturport to Netflix and Gucci, I moved to independent film production and assistant directing. My broad experience of various roles within the creative industry and my cross-disciplinary studies have helped me understand the many aspects and department needs of creative production, making me a stronger producer and leading me to where I am now.
In my free time I like to watch obscure horror films and vintage MGM’s, spend time in the kitchen or go see (and sometimes take part in) a cheeky vaudeville show. I think I can safely say that every single one of my hobbies, interests and work-experiences touch upon the complex and creative dream of my life in one form or another; To create worlds, to create an immersive experience that takes you out of this one and inserts you into another.
How lucky I feel to have landed at Directive Games where I get to take part in literally creating a whole new world!
What does the role of the Art Producer entail, and what are your responsibilities at Civitas?
The role of the art producer entails servant leadership; a servant leader exists to serve the people and helps them develop and perform as highly as possible. Among other things, my responsibilities include managing the art team’s workload and aligning their tasks and priorities to the high-level goal of each release, eliminating roadblocks they may encounter, and ensuring deadlines are met. I make sure my team has the tools, information, and support they need to carry out their tasks and communicate needs between departments and individuals on all levels.
In simpler terms, I first and foremost act as a liaison and cheerleader, ensuring the team does well and the project is on track.
Civitas travels across different eras and, consequently, the styles of its characters & buildings vary greatly. What’s the secret to keeping a coherent visual identity in a game offering such diversity?
Keeping clear and coherent art direction in every step and a lot of communication is key. Even though the architectural style of buildings varies greatly between eras, how we represent them in the visual style of Civitas remains the same throughout ages and elements. Our art director Ásgeir sets the tone of Civitas, which our entire art team then works towards realising and representing in every element of the world.
Your career spans several industries — fashion, publishing, music, film, and now gaming. As the youngest among those, how do you feel gaming could learn from the others?
Good and tricky question! These industries share many similarities and processes. All of them are based on innovation which either relies upon or creates technological advances, revolving around creating experiences, building worlds and daring to dream.
Film production and fashion houses are similar to a games studio in many ways. In summary they build on the collaboration of creative and technical departments who must support each other in a way where one would be nothing without the other. The whole thing is fueled by vision holders, producers and other stakeholders who steer the project towards a published product for a defined market.
Personally I don’t feel much of a difference between working in games and film, other than the comfort of more regular hours and less time spent on glaciers, and if anything I think the film industry could learn from gaming. The fashion industry more often dares to take chances, change direction and take big and bold swings by pushing unlikely combinations, breaking the mould and piecing it back together. What’s ‘in’ today might be ‘out’ tomorrow, there are no rules and there’s a market for every product. Perhaps I could pose the question of whether the gaming industry might adhere more to the boldness and confidence of fashion.
Art is arguably one of the most popular uses of NFT technology. Do you feel the NFT market has broadened the reach for emerging artists?
It’s an interesting topic that yields multi-faceted thoughts and answers, one of which may even argue that statement to a point…
We are witnessing a new era of art in its infancy still taking its shape, and a lot of eyes are on it, and for various reasons. The internet is vast and at many times weird to add, and a lot of the things happening within the virtual space are greatly different from those of the physical one. For example I’ve noted a massive rise in naivism on the NFT market, and might even argue the value of naive NFT artwork as a whole may be generally higher than that of physical naive art, due to its inherent context to web-culture; in a sense they are concept pieces, and the value may be brought up by context rather than content. In many ways it’s breaking the mould of contemporary -and concept art, making way for the masses to enter the art scene and birthing a new way of artistic thinking. Digital art is predominant and the dawn of procedurally generated art is definitely rocking the boat of the traditional, leaving many to wonder to what effect of traditional and modern art it may come, and whether this might even mark the emergence of a new style period.
I recognise the NFT market as a massive public gallery open for anyone willing to put in the work to hang their pieces, which currently holds a larger audience at any given moment than any physical gallery or exhibition space does, and possibly ever has. But it also holds a much greater amount of content than any physical art space, and it’s easy to get lost in that crowd.
The horizon is widening and it seems that not only are the artists and content getting seen and making money within the virtual space of a broad variety, but the virtual demographic is also larger than the traditional one. Art has been treated as a commodity for centuries, but juxtaposing the value of NFTs to that of physical art yields a sharp contrast. To me the mentality around NFTs seems more driven by a financial aspect and in that sense I might say the virtual market has broadened the financial possibilities for many artists. However, breaking into and getting seen on any market has its unique hurdles at every stage of the way, and a different skill set is needed for each one. Perhaps this is a question you should also pose to marketing, if you catch my drift!
Lastly, we heard you have a passion for poetry — do you have a short poem to share with us?
Ah yes, poetry, the paintings that speak! As all my writing is inherently Icelandic, I have chosen to Google translate one that is just absolutely brimming with Icelandic cultural references. Written in defiance to the Icelandic Nobel novelist Halldór Kiljan Laxness.
Icelandic masterpiece
On the mountain of Olympus
become the Discobulus
the Great weaver of Kashmir
Halldór fucking Laxness.
Icelandic defiance and weather
a brief summary
and compassion intact.
An Icelandic masterpiece in three volumes
