Kunel speaks to Blur The Border :

Blur : From advertising to running a creative agency and now a tech startup—how have these experiences shaped both your approach to work and your personal art practice?

Kunel : “You can just do things” -To quote Sam Altman’s tweet above, I feel it may be the other way around. Because I am inquisitive, I am naturally inclined to continue exploring new things. When I was working at a design agency, I was also illustrating for clients, and being the in-house photographer for print and outdoor campaigns. When I was in advertising a little later, I curated my first-ever collaboration with 54 artists from around the world, launched my first company–a streetwear brand based in Delhi–and directed a film to promote it. I have had a love-hate relationship with being a generalist–as I missed being a specialist at one thing. But it eventually started to grow on me. We started Animal in 2014 as a design studio–that adapted this same philosophy and evolved into a full-service creative agency pretty quickly. We got people in from interesting backgrounds because we just liked the idea of doing things beyond our regular scope. At one point, just before COVID we hired developers in the team and made tech products in-house. We did some $40,000 worth of business and shut it down because the pandemic made it impossible to sustain it. When AI started to become mainstream I thought how about we solve the one problem we have faced at Animal constantly–presentation distribution and delivery? Voice-enabled AI made it possible for us to construct a framework (called “Deck”) that can help you build a story, and a narrative for your presentations and assist you in delivering it in your voice. Building a company with AI has its challenges but you can’t complain about it cos you very well asked for it. 🙂 This way of creating, failing, iterating, and re-creating has followed me into my personal practice. During the lockdowns, I started working more seriously on my ideas. From purely digital explorations I moved to working with material. I built collages from found printed items collected over the years, shot them, and started building a repository. I replicated some of those in a large size, in wood for my first solo show at the end of 2020 and continued to build with wood for my next show with Method in Mumbai. Not wanting to stop there I started working with Plexiglas/Polycarbonate, then LEDs and hardware, neons, and so on. Currently, I am working with Stainless Steel and Aluminum to build mecha-inspired artworks. It has been such a satisfying journey thus far.

Blur : With a rise in AI platforms, how do you see the creative economy evolving?

Kunel : AI is not going to replace your job–but the person using AI effectively will. AI is a great tool, and for people and organizations recognizing that–it will greatly improve their chances of winning. I think AI will have a very positive impact on the creative economy. Sure, there will be an ebb and flow before the dust settles, but in time we will realize how greatly efficient it made us as creatives. From iterating faster to executing more precisely, there will be little room for error. That small Delta is what we will call the human experience, for that is where experimentation and expression will exist and continue to creatively control the outcome. To one extreme there will be brands and creators who throw caution to the wind and rely fully on AI-generated content simply because it's fast and efficient (to a certain point). And to the other end we will see the rise of creative companies and individuals that have agentic workflows for mundane parts of the business so they can solely focus on the creative process and fostering the authentic human connection they have with their community. Whether we will see a vast behavioral change in how content is consumed online and on social media when everyone can create content just by keying in a few words, is yet to be seen. If yes, we will see an emergence of new kinds of social media platforms that solve for authenticity. 

Social media over the past decade thrived on capturing time and attention. Moving forward, I believe authenticity will be its true currency.

Blur : How is digital and interactive design transforming the way we experience art?

Kunel : Over the last few years we have seen the digital medium take center stage when it comes to art. Digital art existed before as a loose term to describe digital graphics whether in 3D, 2D or animation as raw material for greater use. The NFT boom exploded a plethora of perceptions around digital art across the world. The medium became the message. A message you could read, but also write, play with, or immerse in. Interactive tech like AR and VR took it a step further by making the viewer a participant in the ‘performance’ of experiencing the art. The various generative AI platforms have transformed ‘art’ into a household concept. What was once mere decoration is now a revolutionary portal into the unimaginable corners of the universe, unlocked by just typing a few words. Although I see these platforms as something to enhance your workflow, make your processes more efficient and speed up your iterations as a creative–instead of being the sort of ‘generator’ of the final work.

Blur : Having worked with both tangible art forms and digital mediums—how do you see brands merging these in today’s world? How can this relationship continue to grow and evolve?

Kunel : Two years back I collaborated with Nike to create a collection based on my experience living and working in Delhi. Other than the prints that were available in-store, we did an extension of the collaboration in AR through an app called AR.IVAL that I co-founded a year prior in Toronto. We have since done collaborations with Levi’s, LVMH, and Kanye West’s Netflix documentary Jeen-yuhs. I think as digital experiences continue to bleed into the real world, and as the conversation around AI continues to point toward an imminent singularity moment–it's natural for brands with solid communities to show interest in digital-meets-physical mediums. My most recent collaboration with Absolut and Andy Warhol Foundation merges digital and physical into one installation that features 27 beverage cans rotating and glitching at different intervals, each representing a personal obsession of mine from my time growing up during the Y2K to now–all displayed on a low density LED display–to convey that grit we see in Warhol’s work. We’re entering an interesting phase of our technological evolution, where the physical and digital worlds will be more intertwined than ever. Think “Internet Of Things” but intelligent and self-reliant–driven by Agentic AI, machine learning, and robotics seamlessly integrating into daily life. This shift will inevitably extend to art, with a section of contemporary artists already working on ideas that align with this new direction. However, the extent of its impact will depend a lot on the market and adaptability—because, ultimately, everything brands create must be rooted in culture.

Blur : As an entrepreneur and artist, how do you balance the creative and managerial aspects of your work? What keeps you inspired?

Kunel : That's a great question. And one that I have been trying to find answers to, myself. Balancing the two seemingly opposite aspects of my work comes down to seeing both as part of the same approach—building. Whether I am working with stainless steel, aluminum, and neon in my studio to construct complex structures or brainstorming with the tech team for Deck—which is a Voice AI-driven SAAS platform, it all comes down to problem-solving and shaping a simple idea into something tangible. Macro level—both require strategy, sourcing, execution, and constraint management. One informs the other. And this overlap is what keeps me going. 

Blur : Do you have a definitive process while creating? Are there any habits or rituals that help you get into a creative mindset?

Kunel : I don’t follow a process simply because the organic way works wonderfully in my case. For my personal work, I am not a method-driven person. And rightly so because a definitive process will come with less failure and less learning all the more. I’d take iterating over reading the manual any day. 

I like to finish what I start before moving on to the next piece, project, or aesthetic. I want to take it out of my system so I can be free of it. This helps me take all the learnings and start with that cache. Working on my own, getting my hands dirty and being continuously on the edge is a big part of it. I am an electrician, a machinist, and a carpenter rolled into one and the kind of leverage this adaptability has given me is priceless in understanding the process of the work I produce in my studio.

Blur : What role does the environment play in your work or in fueling your creativity?

Kunel : My work is a derivative of the environment. I borrow sensibilities from my surroundings, the shops and markets I visit, the books that I read, the people I meet, the places I travel to, the movies and shows I binge-watch, and the mail I receive at the studio—all form parts of my inspiration that I then use to create the work. Construction has become my way of understanding and assimilating what I observe every day. It wasn’t as intentional as it seems—I arrived at it slowly and gradually, through experimentation that mostly meant breaking things and rendering them useless. 

Each piece created in the studio is an attempt to capture the essence of a moment of observation. I am continuously trying to join the dots and go the full circle. 

Blur : What's a project you wished you had worked on? It could be a contemporary one or one from history.

Kunel : It would have to be Olafur Eliasson’s famous work at Tate Modern that is called “The Weather Project” (2003).

It was an immersive installation in the Turbine Hall, featuring a giant artificial sun made of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The space was filled with mist, and a mirrored ceiling reflected visitors below, creating an illusion of an infinite, glowing environment. The artwork explored themes of perception, climate, and collective experience, becoming one of Tate’s most iconic installations.

I remember seeing (pictures of it) and reading about it online in the early days of my career and how I felt connected and disconnected with Earth at the same time. It left me with a feeling of awe for what a piece of artwork can mean for someone experiencing it live. I wish I was there to experience it in person.

Blur : If you were to collaborate with another artist, within or outside of your discipline, what is one collaboration you would love to do?

Kunel : I would love to collaborate with Daniel Arsham to produce a body of work that brings together our two sensibilities in a unique way. His work stands on the intersection of time and space and resonates a lot with my understanding of art.