17 Apr 2025/length unknown/Photon Tide with Andres Del Vecchio
MLow X Photon Tide with Andres Del Vecchio
A co-hosted interview with masked psychedelic artist Photon Tide on music as the root of his images, dream journals, losing control on purpose, and AI as a tool.
MLow and painter Andres Del Vecchio co-host this one, interviewing Photon Tide, a masked Hispanic artist born in Mexico and now living in the US. Photon spent roughly fifteen years making things, starting with music (piano his best instrument, then guitar), and came to art six or seven years ago when he tried gouache with no training, failed, and switched to digital art so he could make his own album covers. Del Vecchio opens with the observation that anchors the episode: he had always sensed music in Photon's images, rhythm and a beat, before knowing the backstory. Photon confirms the lineage: Tool, Alex Grey, and Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon era, absorbed subconsciously rather than copied.
The middle of the conversation digs into how the work gets made. Photon describes a chaotic mixed media process (illustration, collage, glitch, printing, scanning, physical touches) built on deliberately losing control, and says his ego gets left behind when he hits the flow state. He traces his conceptual turn to Recurring Dreams, the first work he minted, on Foundation around late 2020 or early 2021, drawn from a dream journal he still keeps. His lucid dreams mostly arrive as nightmares that cut like film into vast open landscapes, which is where the tiny solitary figures in enormous fields in his work come from. His fine art roots run from a Dali print of The Persistence of Memory he bought at an antique shop at age ten, before he knew who Dali was, to Francis Bacon's raw, formless emotion.
The back third turns practical and current. Photon gives advice for artists entering the digital art space (consistency on your own terms, an honest community, permission to experiment even when experiments underperform), then all three land on AI. Photon calls AI on its own pretty boring but defends it as a tool for silhouettes, poses, and color studies, and flips the collage artist's fear on its head: AI gives you infinite source images. MLow closes by describing his year-plus collaboration with Del Vecchio, Transmutational AI Paintings, which trained a model on Del Vecchio's paintings and poetry and is now cycling AI outputs back into new paintings. The episode was never published.
What this episode teaches
- Lose control on purpose
Photon Tide works in mixed media and glitch precisely because he cannot control everything. Just when you think you have mastered a tool, something breaks in a good way and takes the piece somewhere new. He frames this as chaos theory applied to art making.
- The process is the product
Photon says his favorite part is almost never the finished piece; it is being engulfed in the work, ego left behind, not noticing the playlist stopped thirty minutes ago. Sometimes he cannot title a piece until a month later, when he finally understands what he was feeling.
- Define consistency by your own medium
His first piece of advice for new artists: consistency matters, but it means different things for different mediums. Some artists ship daily, a piece takes him days, others need a month. Set the cadence your work allows and hold it.
- Expect experiments to underperform
When you deviate from your established style, the work will usually be received worse, because your community expects a certain look. Photon argues that is not a reason to stop experimenting; it just takes time for an audience to shift with you.
- Stay honest or get caught wearing a mask
Photon (who literally wears one) says people engage with his posts because he is not afraid of being cringe and says what he actually thinks. Force a persona you are not and eventually you get caught.
- Use AI as a study tool, not a generator
Photon uses AI for silhouettes, poses, color choices, and working out whether an idea holds, but says he will never post a fully generated piece because it misses the human touch. Now that AI output is too perfect, the artist's job is adding imperfection back.
- AI is infinite source material for collage
Against the fear that AI does what collage artists do at a thousand percent speed, Photon flips it: he started in collage and glitch, and AI hands that practice infinite source images for mixed media.
- Each platform is a different door
Photon treats Twitter as the NFT hub, Instagram as the traditional business channel where musicians like Cage the Elephant found him for commissions, and TikTok as a minute more of effort that reaches a completely different audience for his video work.
- Mine your own records for concepts
His conceptual turn came from translating his dream journal into the Recurring Dreams collection. Personal archives, dreams written down over years with the same ones repeating, gave him something deeper than making a nice image.
The conversation, topic by topic
From music to failed gouache to digital art
Photon Tide, born in Mexico and now in the US, has been making things for about fifteen years. He started with guitar, piano, and drums, tried gouache painting with no prior knowledge (his word for himself: idiot, which Del Vecchio rejects), then found digital art six or seven years ago as a way to make his own album covers for music he planned to release.
Rhythm in the images
Del Vecchio says he always sensed music behind the work: rhythm in the images, a beat coming off the pieces. Photon names the influences: early rock and metal, Tool, Alex Grey (still visible in his psychedelic work), and hip hop, specifically Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon era, absorbed subconsciously rather than imitated. The weirdest thing he has had on while working: a background video of nighttime World War trench sounds.
Mythology, tattoos, and the happy warrior
Photon has a Berserk sword tattoo and Icarus on his arm, out of love for Greek mythology. Del Vecchio reads the recurring solitary figure in an abstracted field as an archetypal story and asks if the happy warrior archetype fits. Photon answers that he chooses optimism, a realist who leans positive, and that when he takes on an existing story like Icarus he has to see himself in the character. Del Vecchio identifies as an Orpheus kind of girl.
Digital Decay
Photon's recent commissioned piece, showing in New York until Monday April 21, about three weeks total. The brief gave him a format (16 by 9 or 9 by 16) and the loose idea of media getting lost on the internet: dead links, dead websites, a scratched CD from a loved one. He rendered it as dead monitors and a silhouette walking toward an opening. Del Vecchio connects it to how quickly devices like an iPad will look like artifacts from the abyss.
Dali at ten, Bacon now
At about age ten Photon bought a print of The Persistence of Memory at an antique shop without knowing who Dali was; he reads that as roots planted early. He lives near a local museum holding over a hundred Dali pieces, mostly sketches. His biggest recent influence is Francis Bacon, for work that is raw, formless yet formed, and full of emotion. Del Vecchio contrasts the two: Dali is illustrative, the symbol legible, while Bacon packs violence into small space and chases spontaneity while keeping the figure recognizable.
Chaos, glitch, and the flow state
Answering MLow on the illusion of control, Photon describes a chaotic mixed media process spanning illustration, digital collage, printing, scanning, and physical touches. Glitch looks like random signals until you learn the tools, then breaks your control again. In flow he loses track of self entirely: not human, not Photon, just working, good day or bad day forgotten.
Recurring Dreams, the first mint
Asked for the work that best represents his journey, Photon picks his Recurring Dreams collection, the first thing he minted, on Foundation around late 2020 or early 2021, built from his dream journal. It marked the shift from pure skill building to introspective, conceptual work, and he wants to make a part two from the old journals where the same dreams repeat months or years apart.
Lucid dreams as nightmares
Photon's lucid dreams usually tip into sleep paralysis, a shadow in the corner of the room watching him. When he does realize he is dreaming, the scene cuts like a movie into an open field or desert, and his vast landscapes try to capture that mix of insignificance and serenity. Del Vecchio shares being yanked awake by Master Hand from Super Smash Bros and compares Photon's spaces to the unparseable gap in Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World.
Horror and the inner voice
Photon is a huge fan of horror and analog horror and liminal places; a few of his pieces run darker and he wants to push that way eventually, but only when his inner voice calls for it. Art is a lifetime thing, so the style holds while the ideas change. Del Vecchio compresses it: when the spontaneity calls for teeth, it is time for teeth.
Advice for artists entering the space
Photon hedges that every journey differs, then gives it: consistency as your medium defines it, an honest community built by not being afraid of cringe, making what you actually want to make, and experimenting despite the algorithm and despite experiments underperforming. To friends losing motivation he suggests mixing mediums and finding new tools to keep the spark.
AI as a tool
Photon likes AI more the more he uses it but calls it pretty boring on its own now that anyone can make a beautiful image. He and Del Vecchio share affection for early AI's sloppy hands, which Photon compares to Bacon's inhuman energy. He uses it for silhouettes, poses, color, and understanding concepts, but will not post a full AI piece. He notes resistance comes mostly from people who never tried it, and points out he already works with an undo button while Del Vecchio, painting, gets three days of undo at most.
The threatened painter
Del Vecchio recounts an article by painter David Salle about trying to teach AI something abstract about painting, and reads the jargon as a sense of threat, part of his healthy folder of professionals getting mad about new technology, from portraitists meeting the photograph to tempera giving way to canvas. Photon counters that earlier tools arrived over decades while AI came too fast to absorb, and argues collage artists should see infinite source images, not a rival.
Platforms and audiences
Photon runs Twitter as the NFT hub, Instagram as the traditional business channel that brought commissions from musicians including Cage the Elephant for concert visuals, and recently added TikTok on a friend's advice: a minute more work per post, a completely different audience that treats his video pieces like a puzzle to decode. He is not eyeing any newer platform.
Pseudonymity and Transmutational AI Paintings
MLow contrasts Photon's mask with his own path: pseudonymous in crypto art while doxxed for over a decade in his traditional practice, and grateful crypto let him monetize collage and prints instead of only event photography. He describes Transmutational AI Paintings, his year-plus collaboration with Del Vecchio: a model trained on Del Vecchio's paintings and poetry generating new works, now entering a phase where the AI outputs feed back into new physical paintings. Del Vecchio says this round is Orpheus, and it is going to get very weird.
In their words
“My ego gets left behind for a second there. And there's something really blissful about that.”
Photon Tide“When I'm working and when I'm engulfed in the process and there's nothing else really, that's really my favorite part.”
Photon Tide“Six years in, I still look forward to doing this every single day.”
Photon Tide“When the spontaneity calls for teeth, it's time for teeth. When spontaneity calls for flowers, it calls for flowers.”
Andres Del Vecchio“I do think AI on its own is pretty boring.”
Photon Tide“You have infinite source images now. You could do with AI, you have infinite source images for mixed media.”
Photon TideCite this conversation
Photon Tide with Andres Del Vecchio in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Photon Tide with Andres Del Vecchio," The MLow Show, unaired recording, 17 Apr 2025. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2025-04-17-mlow-x-photon-tide-with-andres-del-vecchio.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.