[Artists News]Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja on a Life of Art and Activism: ‘There Has to Be a Sense of Duty’

[Maheso]

Robert Del Naja, aka 3D, a member of the groundbreaking Bristol-based band Massive Attack, has long been pushing creative, social and political boundaries, both with his band members and a collective of creatives he calls “the independent artists of Bristol.”

Since pioneering the genre known as trip hop, Massive Attack and Del Naja have collaborated with artists including celebrated documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis and an international lineup of some of the most talented musicians and artists of our time, including Blur, Radiohead, and the late Sinéad O’Connor.

Activism has always been important to Del Naja and his fellow member Grant Marshall, aka Daddy G, and they have used their fame as a platform since hitting the mainstream with the success of their 1991 debut album, Blue Lines. The band have long experimented with how they could lend their fame to the causes they support, using their platform to raise money and their stages and huge audience to raise awareness. Most recently, in the Fire Sale project, artists contributed work to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontiers.

Del Naja has been making art longer than he has been making music; he also created the album art for Massive Attack. He has been collaborating with Matt Clark from the London-based group artistic practice United Visual Artists (UVA) since the early 2000s, when UVA did the scenography for Massive Attack’s 100 Windows tour, and they have worked together many times since. Collaboration is at the core of his work as a musician and an artist, and he has worked with a plethora of makers, thinkers, and creatives.

Del Naja and Clark’s collaborative work with programmer Robert Thomas, Present Shock II (2023), is an immersive work incorporating installation and technology including artificial intelligence that explores information overload, misinformation, and context collapse. It was shown at UVA’s anniversary exhibition “Synchronicity” at London’s 180 The Strand in 2023; a second iteration of the work, Present Shock II (2024) was shown at ACT 1.5 in Liverpool in November 2024. The work shows numbers and statistical clocks racing across a screen alongside A.I.-generated news headlines.

This year the band has staged a series of huge concerts and festival performances under the banner of the nonprofit ACT 1.5 that have showcased how live music can be less polluting. The nonprofit stages concerts and festivals with performers including Nile Rogers & Chic, Idles, and Killer Mike; figures such as Jeremy Deller and Motaz Azaiza have participated in panels discussions. In collaboration with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, ACT 1.5 is creating a blueprint for incrementally lower-carbon live events.

We spoke to the artist about his work to date, the relationship between making music and making art, and how visual art and activism have come into the band’s performances. He also announced upcoming new music and addressed the impact of those pesky rumors that he is Banksy (which he has denied).

 

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/massive-attack-robert-del-naja-art-music-activism-2596014