Eric Millikin is an American artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan, and Richmond, Virginia. His work includes political, romantic, occult, horror and black comedy themes, on topics like animal rights, endangered species, economic inequality, and racial and gender politics. His work often referencing his ancestors executed for witchcraft and his work dissecting human cadavers.
He began creating internet art and artificial intelligence art in the 1980s, and also creates augmented and virtual reality art, conceptual art, performance art, poetry, video art, and webcomics.(April 15, 2012). "Eric Millikin". Parade Magazine
Early life and education Millikin is a descendant of Mary Eastey, who was executed for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.
He began drawing horror art by age one-and-a-half, and by second grade, he was making teachers profane birthday cards showing his school burning down.Breithaupt, Christy (July 26, 2006). "Dark visions: MSU grad's 'Fetus-X' comic earns national recognition ". Lansing State Journal Millikin has been creating animated horror films using artificial intelligence animation since the 1980s, began posting art on the internet using CompuServe in the early 1980s, and began publishing on the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.Garrity, Shaenon (July 15, 2011) "The History of Webcomics" The Comics JournalXerexes, Xaviar (January, 2009). "Eric Monster Millikin Talks Fetuses, Zombies and Monkeys". Comixtalk
Millikin attended art school at Michigan State University in their Honors College. He paid his way through school by working in the school's human anatomy lab as an embalmer and dissectionist of human cadavers.Zabel, Joe (June 14, 2004). "Cutting Up The Dead: An interview with Eric Millikin ". The Webcomics ExaminerFingeroth, Danny (August 2008). "The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels". p. 276. While at art school, Millikin was homeless and lived in a car. He earned a Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in 2021. Millikin teaches in the Department of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.
Notable artworks
Millikin's art often includes self-portraits as well as portraits of celebrities and political figures. His work often incorporates mixed media and found objects, such as packages of candy, paper currency, and spiders. Millikin's works range from those made almost completely of text (including calligraphy, typography, anagrams, ambigrams, free verse, and cut-up technique poetry) to those that are optical illusions or completely abstract. Monkey Day, an international animal rights holiday. Monkey Day (celebrated December 14) was created and popularized by Millikin and Casey Sorrow in 2000 as an opportunity to educate the public about monkeys, as a holiday that supports evolution rather than religious themes, and an excuse to throw monkey-themed art shows and costume parties.McKenzie, Charlie "Holiday monkey business ". (December 8, 2005). Hour (Montreal, Quebec)"A toast to Bubbles ". (December 8, 2005). Los Angeles City Beat Millikin and Sorrow were art students at Michigan State University at the time. For Monkey Day 2012, USA Weekend published Millikin's The 12 Stars of Monkey Day, a series of paintings that were "in part inspired by the many pioneering space monkeys who rode into the stars on rockets, leading the way for human space flight."Millikin, Eric (December 12, 2012). "". USA Weekend For Monkey Day 2013, Millikin created a mail art series where he mailed Monkey Day cards to strangers, including Koko the sign-language gorilla and President Barack Obama.Millikin, Eric (Dec. 12, 2013). "Eric Millikin sends Monkey Day cards to strangers". Detroit Free Press In 2014, Millikin debuted a series of monkey portraits using 3D film techniques. Danger Beasts: Since 2016, Millikin has created the Danger Beast series of street art portraits of endangered animals created out of endangered plants, including a portrait of Harambe the gorilla made from Venus flytraps. Made of Money, a series of portraits of historical figures who died in poverty, created from cut up paper currency woven together. Portraits in the series have included Nikola Tesla, Hedy Lamarr, Joe Louis, Vincent Van Gogh, and Edgar Allan Poe. Millikin created the portraits as a statement on economic inequality, as a reminder "that our best people aren't always rewarded with wealth, and that our wealthiest people aren't always our best." As part of the ArtPrize festival in 2017, Millikin created an artist's book of the series and installed it inside one of the small PO Boxes at the local Post Office, as a critique of the large scale pieces that typically dominate the festival. Since the ArtPrize festival was created by the wealthy family of then President Donald Trump's first Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the installation was widely seen as an attack on the greed and unearned wealth of DeVos and Trump. The Birth of a Vampire Nation: A 2019 artificial intelligence horror film created with AI trained on the films The Birth of a Nation and Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, and videos of human blood cells and stars. The soundtrack is composed with AI trained on human heartbeats and radio waves from outer space. The film "explores the use of fear in racial and gender politics as well as in popular media." CHARYBDIS-3: A spiraling video of infinite duration, created with artificial intelligence and facial recognition trained on endangered plants and animals, and projected on to a waterfall in Richmond, Virginia, in 2021. The project's name comes from the sea monster Charybdis from Greek mythology. The endangered species referenced in the video are species whose fates have been profoundly impacted by global climate change. Cyborgs for Rebellion: A 2022 art installation of outdoor video projections in the woods, projecting on the trees of Bryan Park in Richmond, Virginia, where the slave uprising Gabriel’s Rebellion was planned in 1800. The video system projects “an infinitely rotating series of poetry reading, three dimensional portraits” created with artificial intelligence and 3D modeling. The portraits were created with an AI system Millikin created based on "slave rebellion instigators" like Gabriel (“Prosser”), Nat Turner, and John Brown, along with "robots from America’s most critically acclaimed and top-grossing science fiction films" including Metropolis, Blade Runner, and The Terminator. The Dance of the Nain Rouge: A 2023 documentary film about the Detroit folklore legend of the Nain Rouge (French for "red dwarf"). The film is described by film festivals as "an experimental decolonial Detroit demonology deepfake dream dance documentary." Millikin created custom AI systems for the film's visuals, audio, and script. The visuals are based on historical photos including factory workers and spiritualists, microscope photos of red blood cells, and telescope photos of red dwarf stars. The audio is based on sounds including recordings of human organs and outer space radio waves. The script is based on folk tales of the Nain Rouge and other "red" themed books like the gothic horror The Masque of the Red Death, the grimoire Le Dragon Rouge, and the Marxist Das Kapital. The film has been exhibited by Boston Cyber Arts, the Peale Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, the Redford Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and in other exhibitions including in Germany, India, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Serbia, and Spain. It was awarded the "Best Innovative Technologies Award" ("Premio Migliori Tecnologie Innovative") at the 2024 Pisa Robot Film Festival in Italy and "Best Animation Film" at the 2024 Absurd Film Festival in Italy. Millikin has been creating work based on the Nain Rouge since the early 2000s. Totally Sweet, a series of pop art, large-scale portraits of monsters, each created from thousands of packages of Halloween candy and a single spider. Millikin uses over 40 different kinds of candy, and a single portrait can take between 5,000 and 10,000 candies. Included in the series are portraits of such monsters as Freddy Krueger, Lily Munster, Gort, Godzilla and the Bride of Frankenstein. Millikin compares his artistic technique of building large monsters from many smaller parts to the similar techniques Victor Frankenstein used to create his monster. Hollywood Witch Trials, a series of painted portraits of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan based on their crime mug shots, stylized to look like witches, and combined with excerpts from transcripts of the Salem Witch Trials. The portraits are characterized by brilliantly colored paint brushed and smeared into expressionist swirls and spirals.Vincent, Pheroze L. (September 24, 2009). "Spinning a dark web of fun". The HinduWalters, Maria (March 2009). "What's up with Webcomics? Visual and Technological Advances in Comics ". Interface: The Journal for Education, Community, and ValuesHarvey, R. C. (February 16, 2009). "Rants & Raves On A Mission". GoComics American Mayhem, a series that uses optical illusions to transform the flag of the United States into cityscapes filled with monsters, and incorporates ambigram calligraphy that reads when the paintings are hung upside down.Sjoberg, Lore (March 4, 2011). "Alt Text: Going Undercover at an Unregulated Content Farm", Wired. Inverting a national flag in such a way is a commonly used distress signal.36 U.S. Code §176(a) provides: "The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property." , a series of early digital comics, from the 1980s, which were the first webcomics ever published. This unauthorized Wizard of Oz parody comic was published in print by Millikin before moving to CompuServe as early as 1985 when he was in elementary school. Publishing on CompuServe allowed Millikin to self-publish, avoiding censorship. Witches and Stitches is an early example of viral phenomenon, quickly becoming popular with audiences around the world and Millikin's success inspired many artists to create their own webcomics. Copies of Witches and Stitches are now often difficult to find because Millikin was threatened with a lawsuit over the comic.Garrity, Shaenon K. (April 10, 2011). "History of Webcomics" Comicdom Con, Athens, Greece. Millikin's outspoken autobiographical style paved the way for other artists to express their thoughts and opinions on the web.Sreejita Biswas. (August 07, 2013 ). "Stick 'Em Up! " Bangalore Mirror. Literally Impossible, a series of Op art paintings created as answers to questions from a literacy test used to deny voting rights to African Americans in the American south before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The paintings feature illusionary impossible objects, ambigrams and palindromes.