Name: Max Ellis

Company & position: freelance digital artist

Location:Teddington, West London, England

What sort of work do you usually do? I do a lot of magazine work mainly, but the club stuff is the most fun.

Which hardware and software do you use? Photoshop 4, everything Kai Krause produces, Infini D

>When and why did you first become interested in sci-fi/ futurism?

I've always loved anything to do with the future/sci-fi. My Grandfather was a massive sci-fi fan and I grew up with Philip K Dick books as bedtime reading.

>What is it you like about futuristic images?

I've been working as a proffesional Illustrator for over 12 years painting mainly twisted portraits for newspapers and magazines, and it's only in the last year and a bit (With my transition into digital artwork.) that I've been allowed to vent my futuristic spleen, and it's great!

>Why do you think people are so interested in creating visions of the

future?

I guess it's itch you just have to scratch.

>Some artists see the future as full of cute little aliens, others see

bleak landscapes and others see slick hi-tech images. How would you

describe your vision of the future?

I think I lean towards the Snowcrash, Neil Stevenson type future, lots of drugs, skateboards, computers and not to many aliens.

>Do you have any particular influences, either inside or outside the

artworld?

I don't really have any artistic influences, I've come to producing futuristic imagery via a very convoluted route, having said that, maybe a nod to H.R Giger. Any real influence would be literary, William Gibson, Philp K Dick, Frank Herbert and of course Neil Stevenson

>Can you describe one or two projects or images you've worked on recently

which had a futuristic theme? What was the project/image about? How did

you come up with the concept? How did you execute it? Were you happy

with the final result?

At the moment I'm really into Future Bitch. I constucted a face for a record cover a year ago which was seen by my designer friend Will Harvey, he loved it and asked me to come up with some imagery for a project he was working on for the Ministry of Sound. The brief was basically just the title, 'Future Bitch' and I spent about 4 months in complete isolation on a farm coming up with some pretty wild stuff. We had to hone it down a bit to get slightly more commercial but eventually it looked pretty much bolted down. The first event happened on the 9th November 97. It cost £48,000 to put together and was fronted by a 35 ft facade of the Future bitch figure, definately the biggest job I'd done till then. This year things could get interesting with sister clubs starting up in Paris, Brussels and hopefully New York. I plan to go off in more bio-mechanical direction thats going to be pretty hard to take. I figure you just have to keep pushing the boundries.

Contact info for readers

Web site; www.junkyard.co.uk

e-mail; [email protected]