(Read our other exclusive interviews with artists here.)

In our series Behind the Scenes, artists answer questions about their creative process, philosophy, and more. This installment features LIA, an Austrian artist considered one of the pioneers of software and net art. You can see an exclusive, commissioned video work here.

If you could own the exclusive rights to any specific color, which would you choose (and why)? (i.e. Anish Kapoor owns Vantablack)

The true red of fresh blood.

How much of your work is accidental?

If I only try something once, the chances that I will find something special by accident are rather slim. But if I am obsessed with a work, and if I constantly try out new things that I haven’t tried before, then by doing so I create a lot of space for something to happen by accident. Maybe 5–10% of my work is derived from accidents. Certainly I never create whole pieces by accident, and I don’t really seek out accidents on purpose, but there are definitely unexpected turns that appear sometimes as part of my process, and sometimes I follow them to see where the lead.

What do you feel when you look at your past work?

Sometimes when I look at code that I wrote about 20 years ago, I have trouble understanding what I did. I find it fascinating how the style of code can reflect the way a person thinks, so I guess I must have been more confused about a lot of things back then.

What’s an image that makes you want to work for hours on end?

Is it better for an artist to take herself too seriously or not seriously enough?

In general I don’t think anyone should take anything too seriously, unless their wellbeing or the wellbeing of others depend on it. We have such a short period of time on this planet, so we should enjoy it as much as we can, and try to make others as happy as possible.

All art is theft—true or false?

In general I subscribe to the idea that an artist does not “create” art, but rather discovers and reproduces what surrounds her. I believe that, in some ways, everything is already out there, it just needs to be discovered. And as we know from the multiple times in history that a new thing was invented by several people independently within days or weeks of each other, I like to believe that some things just have a certain time, and when that time arrives, they are bound to appear somehow.

How influential is your personal history and/or politics in your work?

I think my work is very much influenced by my own particular understanding of the world, of how I see it, hear it, and feel it, and also how I choose to translate it into abstract shapes and forms. I’ve always tried to avoid politics, but of course at some point one cannot escape it anymore—for a while a working title for one of my new pieces was “Invisible forces will prevent you from building that wall.”

What’s an image that represents creative flow to you?

In all honesty, what were the last 5 songs you listened to?

You And Your Sister by This Mortal Coil

High on A Rocky Ledge by Moondog

I’m a Victim of This Song by Pipilotti Rist

Abale Ndikum Gem Remix by Gasper Nali

Naturalist Notes by Mombus

If you could have any artist, living or dead, paint a portrait of you, who would you choose?

Marianne Stokes.

How do you know when a work is finished?

I usually call a work finished when I like it, and feel that I have nothing to add to it at the current moment. This does not mean that the work is (in any absolute way) finished, it just means it is finished for now. Because I work with code, I can always come back to a piece, even years later, and start working on it again. There’s no paint to get old or change color over time, and there’s no limit to the remaining space on a canvas. A piece of software art is made up of multiple smaller blocks of code, and plays a specific role, so sometimes I can even reuse a small block that does a very specific thing in another work, and recombine it with other blocks in a different way, to create something completely different—so even when a piece is finished, parts of it will sometimes go on to form a new piece.

What’s one of your favorite works of art?

What do you consume (art, music, books, film) to help fuel your work?

I like to let myself be inspired by colors and forms from anywhere and everywhere around me. When you think for instance about the principle of growth and decline in nature, this can already be an endless field of inspiration. The arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, the intricate architecture of a spider web, the unique way that a plant grows, for example—all of these follow invisible laws of nature. Or in a city, there are so many interesting things to look at—reflections in a window, patterns in ice that forms on the sidewalk, a spontaneous accumulation of cars of the same color, rhythmically blinking lights, etc.