Making Of An Artist: Satanic Paranoia & Galactic Conquest With Kolbeinn Hugi

Kolbeinn Hugi Höskuldsson is a visual artist whose multimedia work has been exhibited widely in Iceland and internationally. Here, he talks us through some of his formative influences.

Book: The Dungeon Master
‘The Dungeon Master’ is written by private investigator William Dear. In the book he tells the story of his most intriguing case, the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, an avid roleplaying nerd. The case happened in 1979, at the height of the “Dungeons & Dragons is Satanic” paranoia. Mr. Dear is somewhat of a Method detective, so he gets deep into roleplaying an Elf Ranger. Reading Mr. Dear describe a D&D adventure in the words of a hard-boiled private investigator might be the most inspiring thing I have read. I’m pretty convinced Paul Auster nicked his style from this book.

Board Game: Twilight Imperium
There are few things as thrilling as playing board games with people who don’t have ADHD. Twilight Imperium is a game of galactic conquest, politics and backstabbing. Each game takes around ten to twelve hours to play, so the stakes are high. When a friend betrays your alliance after you have spent the last four hours upgrading your army’s metabolism so you could betray first, you learn the true meaning of sorrow.

Video game: Doom
While my friends in school were busy losing their virginity, I was knee-deep in the Doom level editor’s .WAD files trying to figure out what makes interior architecture look evil, and what kind of feng shui a Cyberdemon would find appealing. Making levels in the game were my first attempts to think of spaces as experiences. Doom has been one of my obsessions in life and I can think of few things that have had as big an impact on me. The story behind the creation of the game is also fascinating.

GIF: Pelican
The pelican in this gif is my spirit animal. Any time I am unsure of what path to take in my life I, take a look at this pelican and the answer presents itself.

Museum: Einar Jónsson
Einar Jónson’s sculptures have been with me since I was a child. A mixture of New Age spiritualism and Nordic mythology, the sculptures have never been as visually relevant as today, as they look like straight out of a blockbuster superhero movie. Einar’s aesthetics were far into the future at the time of their creation. There is a thick aura of Einar’s spirit in his museum as it is located at his old haunted house, Hnitbjörg.

Childhood Movie: Ghost Car
My grandparents ran a tiny video rental store that was connected to their house. Me and my aunt would sneak into the store at night in our pyjamas and pick out age-restricted movies. I got absolutely possessed by this movie that I called ‘Draugabíllinn’ (“Ghost Car”). I watched it over and over, but I could only watch it in the daytime as I was terrified of it. I now know that the movie is called ‘The Wraith’ and that it predicted the future by picturing an evil sentient car.

Read more Making of an Artist articles here.