Wily Guys is the alias of Johnny Dean Mann, a British creative writer and digital sculptor and painter.Their visual work investigates the tension between looseness and exactitude as a parallel to quantum computing, treating error and uncertainty as inherent to the creative process.,They are also the creator and editor of The Tickle, a monthly digital art and creative writing magazine, with Jess Britton.
Their series Translating William Blake reimagines William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job as 21 digital sculptures and paintings, channeling the strange content of Blake's life, ego and beliefs into a modern visual language that explores how belief evolves in the digital age. The William Blake series belongs to a wider collection, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, which treats error and uncertainty in digital sculpture and painting as a way of mirroring the counter-intuitive aspects of the quantum world, and each work donates 25% of proceeds to charitable causes.
Mann has also co-edited a literary offshoot, The Tickle Lit, with Joanne Rush, publishing literary works from within the NFT and digital art community.They contributed to the AI Creative Writing Art Anthology edited by Geoff Davis, alongside Sasha Stiles and Kevin Abosch.In 2023, they spoke on the panel “The Future of Poetry is NFTs” at NFT NYC, alongside Sasha Stiles, Timothy Green, and Katie Dozier.
