Interview 7 // Michael Pierre Price

We are recording.

Hello, everybody. Today is February 24th, 2021. I'm here with the Techspressionism interview series, where artists record artists, sort of in the spirit of the Warholian magazine back in the 90s. And I want to say a few words about myself first and then introduce who I'm recording today and interviewing, Michael Pierre Price.

Roz Dimon

I've been in digital media for about 30 years, all accidentally. And just briefly, my whole content and world is about a mix up of digital, secular, sacred, and all about Americana, one big mashup. And I do find that I have a lot of crossover. I have a lot of crossover here with Michael, and I'm very excited about interviewing him today. He actually interviewed me a couple of weeks ago for this same Techspressionist interview series. And we had a lot of fun, so I'm really looking forward to it. Before we begin, I just want to introduce Michael Pierre Price. I'm going to read a few paragraphs about him. Really fascinating man. Michael Pierre Price was born in 1954 and grew up in northwest Indiana. Amid the towering presence of oil refineries and steel mills. He earned a degree in physics, did three years graduate work in theoretical astrophysics, and has been published in the American Journal of Physics.

Roz Dimon

He left academia to pursue a 30-year career in game design. Michael has worked on more than 75 games and entertainment products, including a number of high-profile titles like Dungeons & Dragons. Wow. While in his 30s, Michael began an exploration of his Native American roots. This led him on a spiritual path that eventually took him into Canada, where he was able to spend considerable time learning from indigenous elders. His spiritual practices and beliefs are a major influence on his work today, as is his related interests in neuroscience, psychology, and Buddhism. In 2010, Michael left the game industry to start a completely new creative journey. He was a digital artist. Since then, he has developed and refined a unique artistic perspective.

Roz Dimon

Michael creates his original fine art prints based on his own specialized mathematical and algorithmic digital processes, combining his inspirations from mathematics, physics, psychology, and spirituality. It is an engaging blend of human creativity mixed with mathematical inspiration. Michael is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and he is a professor of science at the University of Michigan. Hello, Michael. Hi, Roz.

Good to see you again.

Oh, it's great to see you too. Wow, what an intro. That's really something. And I share with you the whole science-spiritual cross. That's so fascinating. Michael, before we get into your work and some other things, can you tell our audience a little about your background, you know, like where you were born, where you live and practice, some of the things you already said? Cultural influences. Maybe just add a few things. Sure.

I was born in northwest Indiana, Hammond, Indiana. It's situated right between Gary and Chicago. And it's a highly, highly industrial area. At nighttime, it felt like the skyscape was more like a view of Mordor from Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Because you'd have these tiny little windows. Yeah. And you'd have these towering flames shooting up orange into the sky from the oil refineries, heavy smoke from the steel mills. So it was heavily influenced by the Chicago area, by the Great Lakes, because Lake Michigan, you know, I could walk to Lake Michigan from where I grew up. Yeah. So it was. Wow. Yeah. So it was.

Michael Pierre Price

It was someplace that I knew that I didn't want to like stay there for the rest of my life. But yeah, that's so that's kind of where I grew up. I currently live in Phoenix, Arizona, which is a very different landscape. Sure.

Yeah.

So I've been here for about six years now. My wife and I moved out here because of a home. And I've always wanted to do a job opportunity for her. And I've always.

I'm going to close my door.

I'm going to interrupt you because. Yeah, sure.

Technology. They're cars, even though I'm kind of.

Oh, okay. All right. Close the. No problem. One sec.

Yeah. So you and your wife moved out there and you've been there. How long?

About six years now. And. The desert landscape is just gorgeous. Yeah. It's just gorgeous. You know, until we moved out here, the desert always felt like a forbidden place. And what you realize is that the life around here. Survives and thrives in spite of the harsh landscape. It's so different than the lush Midwest where I grew up.

Michael Pierre Price

Outside of Northwest Indiana. That is. Yeah.

And.

So, yeah, so that's where I am right now. In terms of influences. I would say my grandmother was one of the probably primary influences when I was pretty young. My mom and my grandmother raised my younger brother. And I. And so we had a very strong female. Influence, but. Very independent minded females, which. For the late fifties, early sixties was an anomaly.

Michael Pierre Price

It's not like today. Definitely very different. And they. She was very, very French because she was born in the south of France. So is my mom. And so I grew up, I grew up bilingual. So I grew up learning French and English. Oh, maybe. Yeah.

We, we.

So.

So for me, that was another thing. That was a strong influence on me. I've always been very creative and imagine. From a very, very early, early, early time. I just remember. Being fascinated by my inner thoughts by the world around me and, and the fact that my grandmother loved. Gardening and nature. I got to see things up close and. And realize that strong connection there. Oh, how wonderful.

Yeah.

Interesting.

The contrast. I mean, Arizona, the desert. The French, the American. Yeah. Midwest industrial background in my mind too. Yeah. Interesting.

And. So. That sense of creativity and imagination. I think. That's what led me to want to understand fundamentally the grand scheme of things. I never. As a little kid. And especially as a, as a teenager, which I'm sure. Challenge my mom at times, but. I never wanted to just take surface statements from supposed.

Michael Pierre Price

Authority figures. And it wasn't that I was rebellious is I wanted to. Not only was I rebellious. Know the principles of time, which people were telling me the world is like this. You know, God is like this. Science is like this. It's like I needed. To make it my own reality. And that led me, that led me into the path of science and physics primarily.

Michael Pierre Price

Because. In order to understand the nature of the world. And, and our current understanding. And looking forward. You need to. Understand the language. And the language is mathematics and. And. The concepts around those mathematics. Is the basis of physics. And you. I can talk about these things and I can say, well, this is what relativity means. And this is what you're talking about. Or this is how we understand quantum mechanics today and where things are going. But if I didn't have the mathematical underpinnings to be able to say those things. It would be. It would be sort of. There would be a curtain between my staying those things and need really truly understanding it. By going to the root source of all.

Wow.

And so for me, that was my early educational higher educational reason for that it what I

Think take courses in that I don't want to interrupt you yes

So I got a degree from Purdue in physics and then I went on to do three years of graduate work in theoretical astrophysics at the University of Toledo something

About that you're sure you're such a creative person and you get into the math of things because you also you know I guess I don't know if it has anything to do with logic or why things work or why I

Get operate

Did you were you totally entranced as a creative person taking going through your I mean there's always drudgery and anything we do even in our classes you know you have to do things and do things

Over

And over but I wonder were you were you creatively involved in this in a way that really occupied

You

Yes

Well and that came about it and it took me a few years after I left academia to get the perspective that I needed but I was all I was always interested in this I thought as a career you know I thought the idea of doing pure research and you know I thought the idea of doing pure research and sort of bringing forward more knowledge about areas of physics or astronomy was going to be sort of my life's purpose but the third year when I was in grad school and I the advisor that I had left and I got the chairman of the astronomy department which I did not mesh well with it was a blessing in disguise but it was a very special time for me and I think that's what I'm sort of going to call it my dark period but it was it was a very painful period I started realizing that the reason for me to delve into this whole thing so deeply to really start to understand the fundamentals of the universe the cosmos both small and large was for a larger purpose or a grander purpose than just research there was a part that helped fill a spiritual quest for me that I didn't that I didn't necessarily put a name to at that point in time that's

Why I said it took me a few years to know about that spiritual quest because it seems like astrophysics I mean we go oh the heavens the stars you know and the physics of how things work but you really it wasn't really a spiritual thing at that point it was still very science it

It wasn't it wasn't it what it was underneath the surface and that's why it took me a lot of introspection to start to put all of the pieces together and that's where that's where my interest in psychology and spirituality sort of followed parallel tracks almost immediately after I left and started my game design career I mean I did a complete switch I mean like I probably I probably you know made some people's head spin when they found out I went from pure science to working on role-playing games and then video games and computer games and such but there is an action it there is a natural progression and it's circuitous yeah it's linear it's not linear but it makes sense as I'm sitting here talking to you today well

You know the world of games which you know I'm not I'm not really I was always so obsessed with my own work you get into a tunnel sometime and I did you know but I heard about mist and all the and all these different games that certain artists were working in the bigger games too but I didn't really play them so much but I was always fascinated by them because it is like you said you're out there in this world studying the cosmos and the and how things work in the world and with a real quest and then you get into this other it's a whole it's another world where those things are kind of similar in a way aren't they in a bit well figuring things out or not and the thing is as a kid my

Younger brother Patrick and I loved to play games and we ended up having more fun creating our own game was very beneficial to me I'm not you know I think the benefits of technology today are great but I also see a downside at times like I remember when in the in the 60s when the space race was on, my brother and I, we had walkie talkies and we had a large moving box in the basement that we cut out a hole and we pretended that each one of us, we took turns being in the capsule going to the moon and the other person, the other walkie talkie was mission control.

How great.

It's like how cats play with boxes and you try to buy them toys and they end up playing with the wrapping instead. I think that all children have an imaginative spirit and how they harness and marshal it and how it gets beat down. And I think that the way we're trying to get kids down on kids oftentimes is I think not only the challenging of parenting but society as well.

Totally agree.

And especially in our modern world, we tend to ridicule what we call failure. And you know as an artist and I know as an artist, if you don't experiment and you don't try something that you don't know how it's going to turn out, failures end up being what we call failure. And so I think that's one of the ways that we learn.

Oh, totally. Yes.

I know I'm getting off track here a bit.

Well, you and I could talk about just about anything. One thing I do want to think about is at what point you might want to, because it's so interesting to listen to you, would it make sense to maybe go on the screen to talk more about your work and your process or is it too early?

Do you want to talk a little more about games before that?

I want to talk a little bit about the foundation, then we can go right into it. That would be great.

That's good. That's good. I just look forward to seeing it. Yeah.

Oh, thanks. So for me, the game industry, I began in low tech games with role playing games, the paper and pencil games. And I love that because there was a very open ended quality to it. People would get together and it's like you're creating your own mythologies. You're creating your own adventure.

Michael Pierre Price

And it's the inputs that the players have amongst each other that creates this ongoing never ending story. And it was really wild when I was at TSR working on Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games. This was at a time, this was in the early 80s from...

Where were you then? Where were you?

I was... I had left Toledo and went to work directly. I actually answered an ad. TSR was looking for game designers. And because of my heavy science background and I could write coherent and good sentences and I could write well, they hired me on the spot because they were looking to branch out their role playing games from just strict mythology, kind of Tolkien based.

Michael Pierre Price

Games they were looking to do science fiction and science fantasy and other things like that.

And are we in digital games yet or we are...

No, this is paper and pencil games. This is 1980. They were still a pretty small company at that point.

And were they in Toledo or did you go somewhere else?

No, they were in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Just a little bit north of Chicago. About an hour or so north of Chicago. Their claim to fame, other than being where all the wealthy Chicagoans would have summer homes, there was a Playboy club up in Lake Geneva as well. Oh, geez. So, yeah, during the winter, it was a population of about 6,000. During the summer, it would double or more because all the people that had lake homes on Lake Geneva would come and, you know...

Oh, yeah, that's a beautiful area.

It is. It's gorgeous. It's

A beautiful area. So, you were doing paper and pencil. How interesting.

Yes. Yes. And so, I learned a lot about publishing. I learned a lot about editing and about what it takes to make games.

And what's... You know, I, of course, love paper and pencil, but I'm speaking about something else. But when you say a paper and pencil game, what is that? Well,

It's basically a set of rule books or a rule book that... The role-playing games are structured so you have one person running the game. And for D&D, they're called Dungeon Masters. For non-D&D games, they're usually, like, called the Game Master. And this is, like, the person who knows the background of what's going on. They set up the... It's like... If you were creating a stage play, this is the stage manager. Gotcha. And the players are like the actors in the play, except they haven't read... They don't have a script. They kind of know the setting of where it's starting. And then they're told to act. And so, there are a set of rules in which you follow that you create a character based on certain properties. Like their strength, their intelligence, charisma, and things like that. And the Game Master says, okay, this is the beginning plot and the beginning backstory for where you start.

Michael Pierre Price

What do you want to do? And part of that may be you've met somebody and they've asked you to start a quest. Like in Myths. You're given a puzzle.

I mean, it's self-challenging, right? As well as collaborative. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Unfortunately, conservative Christianity thought because of role-playing that... And because there were demons and there was fantasy involved that the Bible said that you're letting in Satan and all these others. So, there was big conflict. Really? Yes. There was big controversy at this time. Wow. And I'm not trying to ridicule anybody's belief system. Believe me.

Oh, that's all right. I've got the radical Jesus right over there in my corner. He's the biggest rat ever. He would not go for this.

No. And a lot of the people who worked there were Christians of one form or another. And so, it was very interesting to see the blue ha-ha that built over time. Yeah. Well, anyway, the company grew very rapidly. And computer games were still in the very early infancy. I mean, this was at a time where, if you remember the great Apple Mac ad where the woman throws the... Oh, of course. Yeah, the 1984...

I'm trying to think of the filmmaker who did that. I know his name, but whatever. That's such a powerful thing.

Yes. So, home computers were going from very DOS-based, text-based hobbyists to now this radical thing called graphic computing and this thing called a mouse. And it's a very powerful thing. So, it was in that timeframe.

I think Ridley Scott. Is that right? Ridley Scott? Didn't he do that? Yeah. I think he did that ad.

Maybe I'm wrong.

You know, you might be right. I don't remember now. No big deal.

I'd have to look it up. Let's keep going on the theories. This is fascinating.

Yeah. But TSR saw the possibility of using computers as an adjunct to help do a lot of the bookkeeping. And ancillary visuals that could potentially enhance the paper and pencil aspect of their game. So, because of my background, I had learned Fortran and basic programming. So, I knew programming where none of the other game designers on staff at that point. So, they wanted me to start a computer game. And I started working with the games division at TSR, which I started. It was very rudimentary.

Michael Pierre Price

And I quickly realized that to do anything.

Are we still in the 80s?

Are we still in the 80s? This was 1980. Late 82 into 83.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah.

That's when we all started seeing. I was working on a TR. That always became the graphics.

A trash 80. You know? That's the computer I was working on. It was all DOS based.

It's still the programming. It's just becoming more into the new language of visuals.

Yeah.

So, that was my first real introduction to working with computers other than as a word processing mechanism. But actually looking at. Yeah. What computers could do. In a gaming as a game setting. Unfortunately. The rapid growth that TSR could not be sustained. The people running the company, they ran into some really big financial problems.

So they unload.

They unloaded in 1983. There were like three big waves of layoffs. I got caught in I think the third wave. I left there. A couple people I knew. Who had left on their own. Had gone to work. For Coleco. And they were working on video games. And at that point, my only introduction to video games. Was in the arcade craze. You know, all the arcades that were around the country where you'd go. Either to stand up my computer or to play games. Or you'd sit down and sit down. The sit down machines or the sit down.

Exactly.

You'd play. You know, space invaders or Pac-Man or whatever. That's what I knew about them. I. And this was a very emerging thing. As a whole market. And I. I wasn't really interested in that. At that moment, but. A few months. I was doing my job. So basically in late 1983. I finally got my arm twisted enough.

Michael Pierre Price

By. One person that I had worked with that I re you know, that. That was the supervisor at TSR. That I really respected. And he said, you really need. We need your talent out here. You'd really like it. And so I had to get my arm twisted. And I had to get my arm twisted. So I relented and I moved out to west Hartford, Connecticut. Where Coleco. Was located. Yeah. And began my career in the. In the video game industry at that point. And that was late 83. I worked there all of 84. Into first half of 1985.

Michael Pierre Price

Worked on lots and lots of. Computer games at that. Well, video games, I should say. At that point. A lot different than the video game and computer game industry has evolved into over time. And unfortunately there was a big crash in 85. And. Coleco went from a huge. Advanced research and development. Wing of the company.

Michael Pierre Price

Because this was a novel thing for them. They had. Coleco stands for Connecticut leather company. That was. You know, the shortening. Of the company name. Up until. When they. Delved into video games. They had been doing like those tabletop hockey games, you know, with the rod, you know?

Yeah, that they were. Yeah, exactly.

I love those. You know, I was a big. Big tabletop hockey fan. So. So that's what. So they were, they were in toys and games, you know, traditional toys. And games of that nature. So this whole video game thing was something they. Came into. And it was a novelty. And the thing was in 80. 84, 85. They had the license to the cabbage patch doll. They were, it was insane. How much money they were making with that. And they were riding that way. And they saw that video games.

Michael Pierre Price

Tapered off. We were still making the company money. But it wasn't the media or growth. That it had been. From about 81, 82, 83 and 84. Well, 84, it started really coming down. So. I went from. From probably a maximum of about 150 people. It came down to about. I was working with a company. And I was one of the last dozen people that closed the. The close that part of the company. Since then.

Michael Pierre Price

I was. I was an independent designer for the rest of my career. Other than a short stint. Starting my own small game development company. And. And so. I know this is taking a while, but, and I didn't want to get bogged down. I didn't want to get bogged down too much in the games because. I really. I really.

Michael Pierre Price

Get. You know, I've kind of left that, but it explains. It explains a lot of where I, where I am today. Sure. So I will compress. I'll compress this. So. I. In my time. I have spent time. Designing. Interactive. Games based on laser technology. That. This was in the late eighties. Into the early nineties.

Michael Pierre Price

Where. I was involved. I was hired on involved with. A company that had laser technology. That sent out encoded messages. And I was creating. Technology based on that laser. Technology that they had acquired. And creating. Rides. That would be in an amusement park setting. So I did that for about five or six years or so. That got me. Into the mid. Early mid nineties.

Michael Pierre Price

Where, when I was at one of the trade shows. There was this startup company. That. Was. A. A company that had acquired technology. Virtual reality tech. This is 94. I mean, 25. You know, more than 25 years ago. I. Love what they were doing. But I didn't go want to go work for them. I wanted to be just an independent designer. Cause at that time. I was back in Wisconsin, which I love. I was in Appleton, Wisconsin. Because they East coast. That East coast was lovely.

Michael Pierre Price

But I'm a Medwin Midwestern era at heart. And I love the slower pace of the Midwestern vibe than I liked. East coast.

Well, It doesn't seem like your mind needs much of a fast pace around it. Doubt it.

They wrote. They said no. No, we're not going to hire you as an independent. So it, I held them off for almost a year. But I was, I really love, and they had acquired this brand new technology called Pixel Planes technology that was coming out of the Research Triangle in North Carolina.

Oh, sure. Yeah.

At that time, there was one leading company in the world that was trying to do virtual reality entertainment. And they were in England. They were called Virtuality. You stood in this ring. You had the helmet on. You had a shooter that you would point. But the tracking device, in terms of your arm, orientation was a combination that was being monitored by that ring for your placement and orientation in the virtual world. So you had to stay inside this ring.

Michael Pierre Price

They were developing a very similar technology. But so I was completely fascinated by this whole notion of virtual reality. So I finally relented. I moved down to Louisville, Kentucky, where they were based. Joined them. Worked on a number of things there. Created a game called Xenomorph, which was based loosely on Alien and Aliens.

Michael Pierre Price

It was way cool. It was really, really neat. They were licensing games from id Software, the people that made Doom.

Yes.

And Wolfenstein. So we created a virtual Wolfenstein game. And we were in the midst of finishing up the license to do a virtual reality Doom. But that fell through. But unfortunately, the two people running the company were like oil and water. And it was just crazy. It was just crazy time. But they had hired some brilliant programmers.

Michael Pierre Price

One guy from Princeton. Another guy from McDonald's. Douglas, who were really, really cutting edge visualization folks in 3D. We said, let's leave this craziness and start our own company. So we started in 1980, 1995, excuse me, in 1995, we started our own small computer game development company called Indigo Moon Productions. And that lasted for about six years. And I have to say, I think that was the pinnacle for me of my game design career, because I got to run a company with a couple of brilliant people and a really, really savvy money guy and business guy that helped launch us.

Michael Pierre Price

And we did games. And the biggest thing that I got to do, was a game called Fierce Harmony. It was my own design. It was a massively multiplayer game, which at the time was cutting edge. Because in the late 90s, AOL was your like avenue for getting online and meeting other people. It was 28.8k modems were sort of the high end, the 56k modem was, you know, sort of on the horizon. I mean, you know, 50,000 people were on the horizon. And I think that was the beginning of the game. And I think that was the beginning of the game. And I think that was the beginning of the game. And I think that was the beginning of the game. And I think about it, Roz, I mean, I was right with you, baby, trying to make graphics, you know. I mean, it's crazy to think about what we were trying to pull off at that time.

And yet it was fascinating. It reflected the digital world that was coming. I mean, for all of us in that, you knew you were going somewhere, but we're making it happen.

Yeah. But the dot com crash killed our company.

Because we were in Louisville, Kentucky, and not in California.

We did not have the close relationships that we needed to survive. We had a deal with Mattel, Mattel broke their whole games division and decided they just wanted to be a licensing company. We had a deal with Hasbro Interactive. They got bought off by a French company called Infogrames. Our deal with Hasbro International went down the tubes. And we just didn't have the financial enterpatings to keep the company afloat for the length of time to chase the money that we needed to chase. So that was the hardest part of my life, was trying to make a company still solvent.

Michael Pierre Price

For a year, myself, the two other programmers who started the company, we did not take a salary so we could pay the people in our company. Yeah. It wasn't, it just wasn't enough. Yeah. So we had to close shop in 2001. And that was devastating. For me, that was really devastating, because I, you know, other people were really- I'm going to say something.

Considering how much it affected, I mean, I felt in New York City, you know, working at the World Trade Center for off and on in commercial and fine art, you know, it was the towers, but it was also for those of us who were in the vanguard of this emerging, fascinating, almost exhaustingly exhilarating point. Yeah. You know, to have it crash because of financial reasons, Yeah. Business, we weren't, we didn't- Right. It got ahead of itself. Yeah. But to crash in the middle while you're on the way to orbit is, it's tough, you know? Yeah. But it's coming back, but I'm sorry, I just wanted to interject that it obviously- No, no, I- It affected way beyond New York City.

Oh yeah, it affected so many- I knew it did. And the creative people- Yeah. Were the ones that got and ended up getting affected. Yeah. Really, really, you know, rather dramatically. And it's taken a while to, you know, sort of get things back. But anyway, so I tried looking at other avenues to dovetail what I had learned and the experience that I had in gaming and seeing whether there were ways to merge with business and taking the internet in new ways. And I think that's the thing that I've learned is that there are ways where gaming could be part of that. Mm-hmm. I was ahead of my time, unfortunately, because it's taken a while for those sorts of inroads to legitimately be made.

Michael Pierre Price

Yes. And I just got tired. I got tired of not having the creative control that I wanted.

Right.

Because I don't like doing the same thing over and over again. I want to break new ground. I always want to break. And that's for me personally. Once I've done something and I feel like, oh, I've really explored this really deeply now, it's time to go on and do something else. I might take what I've learned from that, but I don't want to keep doing the same thing. Think oh you know I don't want to be a one-trick pony I find that what the lessons learned I need to move on and so finally in 2010 I said goodbye to active you know my active career in trying to you know either do game development or look for those sorts of avenues and I ended my consulting business and said I'll die if I'm not a creative person so that's where my art career began.

I love it there's a price for everything isn't there? Yeah. It really is everything has a price. Yeah. And you have to decide which price you want to pay you know.

And I never you know so mid 50s so I never I never thought that I would.

An artist other than in the I love it I mean the definition to me of an artist is someone who doesn't who can't stay in a box you

Know and

It's become a business and of course we all like to eat I mean

Yeah I

Love it so I'm not anti-business but I hear you do have to make decisions at a point of like it to go outside the box you know there's

A price

For it but yes

In

A box is the is the death of us I mean even though we're always in this box but this box is moving yeah

Yeah all right so I realize there's a there's a lot and I covered more on the techno well I guess I wanted to cover more on the technology side because of expression people to understand that this is a diverse group of artists that's worldwide and we've each come to this point of being part of this larger community in very diverse ways in very different ways but there's a thread that's connecting us all and I find that fascinating

Yeah it's exciting and we don't really and like the other things we've been a part of it's defined. Loosely enough so we keep you know as colin said Colin Goldberg who started this whole thing with Patrick Lichty and others that you know it seems to have a certain openness to see where it goes you know and that's right it's

Not it's not been defined by technique it's by an approach it's by sort of that mindset of how you use technology and how technology is part of your test artistic expression yeah your expression and your emotions and yeah and so for me there's not an orthodoxy you know I think we're all we're all finding a resonance here from our own perspectives it's very fractal to me it's

And there's a lot of the stories and how even spiritual or digital at least that part interests me a lot and that's only one sector of expressionism but that is emerging as a part of it yes

You know where we try to seek meaning in this digital ether and in the and in the in the cosmos as a human being yeah so nicely shall we look at you okay no it's been great it's been great to hear all about all this yeah it's a great all right so let me let

Me delve into this here all right are you seeing yes I am successfully here okay yes I am so I'm trying to think. So, one of my very earliest influences getting back to that for me is really important. I was about 11 years old. Growing up near Chicago, I finally got to go to the Art Institute in Chicago.

Michael Pierre Price

And my grandmother being French, she loved the impression. So the art institute has a great area of impressionist art so I loved going to there and but we as we walked around I saw this

Jackson pollock I knew that was jackson pollock wait that's not an impressionist no

It I did at 11 years old I didn't know who jackson pollock was I had never seen a jackson pollock painting for that point yeah we walked into I forget exactly which room it was at that time this was like the mid mid 60s probably about 66 or so I was captivated there was something about this piece that spoke to me I didn't understand why and it's taken me you know I at the time but there was something about it that completely drew me in and enveloped me at the same time so I wanted this I just wanted to share this now it's wonderful tying with expressionism and yes exactly yes yeah so for me this was a really defining moment for me even though artists and all of that seemed magical in one level and never thought that I would have any connection to it other than the sense of reflection I felt I felt I felt something inside me I felt something outside my soul I felt beauty.

Michael Pierre Price

But I saw this beautiful bike. But I couldn't, I couldn't elucidate why that was. And then I came across another piece. This Mark Rothko hit me like a wall. It's like, why is this a piece of art? I didn't understand it at all. This had a completely different effect on me. But I remember it. This is the thing that's so fascinating. I, from that time, other than the Impressionists, that Jackson Pollock and this Mark Rothko stayed with me for very different reasons.

Well, it's interesting listening to you from the very beginning. You were imaginative, you were creative, and yet you also had this mind that liked how things work. So it's really, in astrophysics, it's interesting that these pieces, which Yeah. Have a huge kind of aura of mystery, you know.

Yes, yes, yes.

Unexplainable. It's interesting. Yeah.

So here's an area that, I'm not getting to the art yet, but this is an area that will get us there. Yeah. This whole notion of fractal mathematics. This whole notion of fractal mathematics. Is an area I've dealt very deeply into. Mandelblad? It's very part of my work. But it's part of nature. So, So, when I was, we lived in North Carolina for it, for, well South Carolina for a year because of my wife's graduate work.

Michael Pierre Price

And there was this bridge. And there was this bridge. Where it was like the other side of, I think it was a levee or something like that where the water was at a lower level and it's rushing by. And I decided, there was this area that I decided to take photographs of. So I'm going to just step through these are each about 30 seconds apart from one another.

Michael Pierre Price

But it's the same, it's the same spot that I photographed.

Hmm.

And you see these formations happening over time. And you see this area. Down in here in this lower left hand it's almost like a wave coming forward. And in this area there are these like bubble areas happening. And you can still see this wave coming in. And then it starts to recede. And, and the bubble the areas sort of take over.

Michael Pierre Price

This is the whole air, this whole thing of turbulence is an area of mathematics, called chaos theory. Well, and to me this is very fascinating. And fractals. Are a subset of chaos theory. And there's a famous. Where did it go. There's a, there's a famous. Oh no, that's okay. I'll get back to it.

A famous sneaker called Nike. No.

Yeah, no there, there's a. Benoit Mandelbrot it was the originator of this and he took

My take your time.

Oh here it is. So. Oh yeah. This is this is the famous Badil broad steps. Set this is one I mean I think it's gotten into pulp popular culture by now it's been around this area of mathematics emerged in the 60s and the 70s it was not accepted very early on this was seen as sort of not real mathematics it took a while for it to become integrated so science and math has its foibles as any human endeavor new areas that break new ground take a while to get accepted in into the into the culture no matter you know even if we think science is pure no it's done by human beings so yeah but anyway I just I just needed to talk very quickly about why this is important it

Is important I remember the mandelbrot thing I guess from the 90s I was fascinated by it

Yes so the these areas of black the mathematics of this is a is a recursive mathematics what that means is you have a formula you plug numbers into the formula you take that answer and plug it back into one side of the formula you get an answer you take that answer and plug it back into the original formula you crunch the numbers you get a new answer you take that new answer and you keep doing it over and over and over until either you settle down into a final answer that doesn't change over time or you may get something that oscillates back and forth like between zero and one zero and one zero and one and no matter how many times you do you keep getting the same answer so that's what these black areas of this mandelbrot set indicate the formula settles down into something that doesn't change so that's what this sort of beam-like shape thing is and all these little circles that go off now you can go to a very these are the what the B1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 getting a larger and larger number until some point it just keeps going on it doesn't matter it's not going to settle down nothing new is going to happen so you go to infinity now the quickness at which you approach infinity dictates the color of the gradations

So

Basically out here in this outside area outside the bean and the circles and all the little squigglies you've got basically noise that goes to infinity nothing interesting happens this is beyond and here you've got perfect solidity or perfect you've got the two ends of the scale basically something is completely rigid in the center nothing interesting happened or something goes to complete noise and there's you can't make out any anything informational here because it just blows up to infinity and you can't like the macro micro a little bit to me it's like if you paint something you've defined so this is pure definition on the inside and then if you look at a television screen and all you've got is the noise and no information coming through it's pure k I don't want to say pure chaos it's pure noise there's not nothing there's nothing informational out here now you've got squiggly bits along the pure chaos and then you've got the whole perimeter between the complete definition and the complete noise out here this is the squiggly bits that people concentrate on and I'm gonna zoom in

I'm fascinated see I get the big concepts but you know I'm not the scientist like you're the one who really understands how it works behind it so

We zoom in and now we're in the middle of a now I'm zoomed in I'm looking at my screen here we zoomed in nearly 400 magnification levels from where we were and here you know here's what we're seeing oh wow so we're in we're in the narrow region Let me start to zoom out here. So we're in, we focused in on the narrow region right around the periphery, right around the periphery of this area right in here. Let me go back out.

Now Michael, I'm trying to translate from your brain to the audience a little and

I and

You just correct me if I'm wrong and but I think this is very important. I mean, to me, I always understood something about that when you look in deeply that it's replicating the same, you know, I don't know if people are understanding, but it's. Making the same thing over and over and over it's not the same thing it isn't it's similar

Oh there's a there's a notion here of self-similarity

Oh interesting okay self-similarity

Says that you see similar structures reappearing at different levels of existence so think of tree branches you have a main trunk then you have larger branches coming off smaller branches they're not completely identical but you can look and see that v structure that branches off to another branching off to another branching off that's a fractal quality of nature so for me conceptually as an artist these squiggly border areas that are considered the boundaries of the fractal that is where life exists literally where our lives exist

Where our lives I thought you said said light our lives lives it's nature it's where nature exists because

Think of it if you think of evolution and the truth of evolution life is experimenting at a genetic and at a practical level testing out new modes of being if it's successful those genes get passed on if it if they don't they either wither and die into this black area or they are not successful at all and basically go out into the into the noise of something that was tested but gets thrown off

But you wonder how humans where are we in there teeny dot on the edge of one of those things and how are we doing I don't know so anyway that

That's my that's my thing about fractals so where does that where does that bring me then to the art that I wanted to share and here's one example so this is this is I took some screenshots just to kind of move through this rather quickly this is from a 3d fractal program called mandelbot mandel bulb 3d I know a number of Techspressionist artists use this program because I've seen their work but for me again I like using this as a metaphor to let to help people think about other than the abstract quality or the coolness of the shape is think of this as an eyeball this sphere is an eyeball and these are nerve bundles or muscles around the eye so if you think about the anatomical drawings that we've seen of eyes and what eyes look like and over here might be where the iris is or the front part of the eye and this is the back part where the retina is so as I as I look to look closer and get more detail of this what happens is I'm now getting my camera in this 3d simulated cyber environment of the fractal world these bundles now that you see that are sort of arching away they're actually enveloping and going behind my camera and I'm seeing craters of them closer in to bundles inside of buttons so as I go as I go in another step closer now I'm seeing that there's a hollow a double spherical hollow core to this to this fractal and if you can see there's sort of like a center column here yeah and you see like these fibrous things coming off of this center core if I get closer and I'm going to zoom in a little bit more now you now you can see the center core better yes see kind of what I'm saying look at this very center piece here it looks like there's some horizontal striations can you see that on screen yes I can I can see it okay I'm going to zoom in a lot closer now that's what that center part is now here's what's cool all of this detail is in the mathematics of creating this fractal and well that exists natively as a text file and it's only when I go and say the mathematics is telling me it's kind of have you seen the movie the matrix yes so like when they're looking at the streaming data in the matrix and they said oh you know they could kind of tell what it's what the 3d world is actually telling them by just looking at the stream of data it's a similar sense of when programmers look at their code and they can tell kind of what they should see from that code wow so to me when I start looking at this now I'm looking at what looks like nodes that could be like a neural network yeah totally you see what I'm saying oh yeah I look a little closer now and it looks like if you look at simulated neural nodes of our own brain system you know as models for our deep learning our AI of simulating a human brain we're starting to get something that looks on a very crude level that type of that type of system so I'm going to go in a lot deeper now raz and here I'm looking at just a few of those inside bundles I'm going to look a little closer get a little more detail and I'm going to zoom into my lowest level I took the capture

And is this whole thing created by you yes mathematical programs

Or well

Just I would I wouldn't say it is created but it's discovered so It's like, no, this is the man machine interface that you've talked about, that you've tried to indicate on some of your pieces that you showed me when I interviewed you in the interactive qualities.

So- Yeah, I'm trying to paint the pixels.

No, no, no. This is the challenging part, but this is the part that I love. This is the scientist in me. So this is the artist-scientist interface. So there are certain aspects that if you look at the math, you know you're gonna get certain sorts of structures appearing, but as you delve in deeper, you can discover things that nobody else has seen before.

Oh, wow.

And as an artist that doesn't want to be a scientist, I don't want to create tech demos. I don't want, it took me a while just to explore fractals 2D and 3D to start to understand it innately. And I didn't want to leave it there. So I want these to be inspirations for larger pieces that are conceptual in nature and not to say, there is a gee wow factor in these things. And I'm not satisfying, I'm not satisfying, leaving it at the gee wow factor level for me as an artist. I want this to be a source of inspiration. So what do I mean by that?

Michael Pierre Price

A couple of years ago, I know we're running out of time, but I don't- I'm sorry, I don't mean to be distracted.

I just have to keep an eye on it.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on it, but it's very, very interesting.

Well, if we need the Raptor, I'm going to have to get this around, I will.

But I wanted to show- No, we have a little time.

Okay. I wanted to show a few distinct pieces of my actual art based on all this. So I'm getting around to it. So in 2018, I applied for an artist call for a show that was called The Art of the Cosmos. It was an international show that was tied to or it was going to be tied to the 30 year anniversary of the launch of the Hubble telescope.

Michael Pierre Price

So I did a very abstract piece as my, one of the things that I wanted to submit to them, very abstract in nature, but to me tied in very well. So these are three different fractal pieces in an overall triptych that I call, The Enigma of the Cosmos.

It's beautiful.

The piece on the left here is The Enigma of the Cosmos,

The physical panel,

Or, and this is the center panel for the mind and the right panel here is the panel for time. So there's the physical, the temporal, and then the mind aspect. They love this work. I got accepted into the show. This is a huge triptych.

And is it meant to be together as one? Yes.

Wow, that's interesting.

So this is the actual piece for the physical plane. It has an equation down here that deals with the amount of matter in the universe based on some very, you know, deep physics here. But I love the spiral nature here for the spiral galaxies, but it's also the spiral in the shells that we see.

Of course, yeah.

In the nautilus. It's also the spirals that we see at the subatomic level. So this is the practical quality. That's why I was telling you this is, it's not identical, but it's similar. So as human beings that like to see things on a symbolic level, it's easy for me to talk about this and say, I wanted this to stand in for the enormity of the galaxy, but at the same time, the enormity on the subatomic level as well as nature.

Now, what, can you tell us, like, what's the difference between the two? Can you tell us a little about your process going from the fractal discovery mode and then into a painting like this? Okay. You know?

That's a very, that's a very good question. And so

I

Knew conceptually before I had the, what I wanted to be the representative elements in here, I knew that I wanted this to be dealing with the mind, the psychology and spiritual quality of this, along with the hard science part. And along with the artistic element that ended up being this time element. So let me start here because this was an interesting, this was an interesting piece.

Michael Pierre Price

It has kind of a Dalai quality to it. But it's a fractal. It's a fractal based on believe it or not this two degree scale image. This is the timepiece that I entered into the 3D fractal program.

Really? Really?

Yeah, this is helpful.

That created this. So if you look at it, I'm zooming in on the piece here. So we're only looking at a small piece, but you can see the warp, you can see the warping this of it, but you can also see the time pieces being scaled down and morphed into smaller and smaller pieces. They're interwoven with one another.

Oh my goodness. This is so important to see this part.

Yes.

Wow. I do say wow a lot, but it is very well.

So what I had to do is I had to take the raw fractal and make it artistic. I had to get the colors that I really liked.

Okay. So color, the color is your own kind of subjective, what you want, what color, you want.

No.

Yes.

But at a macroscopic level, it's so this is the thing. This is kind of like, I told people working with fractals is like trying to, to rein in a bunch of wild horse, you know, like if you're, if you're a stage coach driver and your, your stage coach is running, you know, or if you're a chariot driver, you know, you're trying to maintain the horses, So the level the colors are stored up built in on one level that you can play around with it. But it's not the same as if I went in and brushed in the colors I can do some brushing yeah which I do but it's on a very small scale so you learn to do these things over time it's like if you're an airbrush artists and You learn How you do different techniques of how the nozzle works and what kind of you know you block part

Of

It you know any artist for any medium you're using you get tricks of the trade so this piece is actually 30 34 inches across 55 inches tall and then it's got a three inch border around the three inch black borders built in the what

Is that material out on the physical world what is that this is this is

A print that I that I printed yes okay so like so like how you know like what colin does with his printer I don't have a 44 inch printer in my home studio so I have a studio that I go to where I use their epson 44 inch printer so this what this was printed on a kansan infinity photographic rag paper then I took it to took it to my framer who then adheres it to dibond does a match finish over it and then the frame which could the pieces could be either unframed or framed through this for this show they were framed do

You do editions even if you don't want to get into this no I

I either do singular editions that I call my signature editions or I do limited editions of ten yeah So it's either or for me. I don't do multiple sizes unless somebody requests something and then I'll do a specific thing for them. For me, because prints are my native medium, I don't want these to be commoditized, excuse me, where like you could get them like 10 different sizes.

Michael Pierre Price

So I like the intimacy of me printing all my work, which I do.

Great. This has been really, seeing this part of it, like there were times when you were interviewing me, you went, oh, that explains what you mean in your diamond scapes when you go inside the painting, you know, and the little girl goes inside with her iPad. That process right there, it meant so much because you know, when we see each other's work on these little things on Instagram,

Yes.

That's the thing. That's where a lot of this is lost. And that's why I think having an interview series for Techspressionism is so important. Yes. Now I will say there's a three o'clock thing going on with Colin today at the- That's right.

I'm attending.

So that's the only reason I'm even watching the clock cause I could sit and talk to you forever.

No, that's fine.

Well, I just want us to be aware of that, but we still have some time and yeah.

Yeah. So I had a show, a solo show last year. I belong to an artist collective here in Phoenix. And I had my show in August of last year, heavily impacted by COVID unfortunately. So not too many people got to come. We had, you know, limited access to the gallery space, but the show still went on and it was, the name of the show was the square root of negative one.

Michael Pierre Price

Again, my math, science practical background. And it was a really neat show. A lot of what I talked about today was the basis for the show and it was highly interactive. There were QR codes. I mean, you know, so, but I just wanted to say thank you. I wanted to show a couple of pieces from here that, that kind of illustrates some of the work that I have been doing. Yeah. Let's see it. More recently.

Michael Pierre Price

So I don't know how.

Are they all done in this, this process overall that you've been talking about? Is that how most of your work is made?

It, there, I have two distinct pro, well, three distinct processes. If it's one of the highly mathematical algorithmic based, based processes, it'll start either in a practical program or it'll start with a deep learning process, which is another process. And again, I don't want it. That's fine. It's interesting, but I don't want to get too deep into that. Yeah.

Okay.

Sometimes some of my pieces start as very abstract ideas that I pull from other areas. And then my third piece that my third methodology, which is, which I do want to sort of highlight are, are my surrealist works. And they typically, this is a very different avenue of thinking and working, but it's so similar to the abstract qualities because for me, surrealism, all, all of my work, ask people to look at it outside of normal reality. And so I like the dreamlike qualities. I like the taking objects and putting them in different ways or looking at the world differently, because in, in the spiritual work that I've done in the, in the, the times that I have been taught by elders, I, I've been taught that you have to step outside of your sleepy everyday notion of what the word is. And you step into sacred time.

Michael Pierre Price

You step into spiritual time. It's not divorced from it, but like with the, like with a lot of the Buddhist teachings is your mind is your, your mind is your, your avenue or letting go. But it's also your biggest trap. And so it's

True.

And so for me, the abstract art is a way for people to look at things non objectively. And then for me, the surrealist art is a way for people to look at things in a non-real sort of way or a non-ordinary sort of way. And this piece, which was one of my three large surreal pieces from the show, from the Square of the Negative One show, this is called, excuse me, this piece, which I really, really like, is a very dreams, dreams like landscape.

Michael Pierre Price

And this is called the puzzling realm of the not possible. So the puzzling realm of the not possible. And this is about us as human beings. Looking to the future. Where we speculate on what's been, what is, and oftentimes we create elaborate scenarios of where we think our lives are going, the world is going. And we create these constructs in our mind that more times than not, turn out somewhat differently, radically differently or completely differently than what we imagine. So the elements in here are a lot of illusionary elements like the cube that's an impossible cube there that's spinning on top of the cone.

Michael Pierre Price

There's a couple of ants down here that are both on the underside or on the top side of the block. The two adjacent blocks, depending on how your mind looks at what's really going on there. The ants are a very big part of a lot of my imagery. The ant is a very powerful symbol in a lot of Native American traditions, especially with the Hopi.

Michael Pierre Price

The ants are the creatures that led the Hopi from previous incarnations of the world in the

World. How interesting.

Yeah. It's a reminder to look at the small thing. See, a lot of people look for the burning bush or the great revelation from God about, you know, we go to people that are going to tell us our future. We want to be hit over the head with, this is too hard. You know, life is really hard. So tell me where things are going.

Yeah.

And so we look for the big signs. We want the lightning strike. We want the eagle flying over the head that brings the big revelation. And a lot of times we miss the subtle signs right in front of us. And I think... Absolutely. So for me, that's a very humbling lesson and one that I always try to remind myself about.

Michael Pierre Price

So this was one of those things. I took a lot of references from previous artists and things that tie into science and our human nature and psychology. And so I created this piece. So let me finish up with one more and we can wrap things up the way you would like to, Roz. We can, like I said, tie things up. So one more surrealist...

Maybe we should end with an ant today, probably. We should have a little ant. Yes.

Well, there are ants in this piece. So I'm working on my September solo show for this year. And I'm creating 13 pieces that are going to be in this show. Three surrealist pieces are going to be, again, anchoring the show. But in this show, you're going to get to experience how the show evolves and unfolds for you, depending on whether or not you start by traversing the show in a clockwise or a counterclockwise way.

And do you take... Is this something you'll observe? Are you going to set this out like a game?

It's going to be the layout in the gallery. It's going to be the layout in the gallery. It's going to be laid out so that you have to start either walking around in a circular or counterclockwise way.

This feels a little like game storytelling.

Yes, it is. And so there's a mystery involved here. The story unfolds either from a microscopic to a macroscopic level or from looking at the big picture down to the microscopic level. So if you start big picture and start looking at the big picture, you're going to get to experience how the story unfolds. So if you start making smaller and smaller smaller, how do you view the work that way? What does it tell you? If you look at the very small piece and then as you go around larger and larger and larger, how do you experience the exhibit in that fashion?

Wonderful. Yeah.

So this is challenging for me as an artist to make that work.

It's

Experiential. Yeah. But that's... So this is one of the pieces. It's called The Gathering. It's very symbolic. It's not finished yet. This black bird up here is going to be in the show and throughout the gallery pieces that are in the exhibition. You can see there are some ants down here. Oh, yeah. Come crawling out of the ground. There are two ants over here. The snake is another one that's very symbolic. Oops, sorry about that. In my work.

Michael Pierre Price

Dali is the burning giraffes that Dali had in a number of his works. I had to pay homage to Dali since Dali is a big influence on my surrealist work. Or a number of others artists like as well. Right. So that's it. So this is going to be one where you're going to try to figure out some of the elements of this by walking in the exhibit to make some more sense of it. And there are going to be QR codes that will help you. I'll be there hopefully.

Michael Pierre Price

I don't know if it's going to work or not. I really have no idea. But to me that's the challenge for this. Right. I want the work for people just to look at and say, oh, wow. This is very interesting. So I want the integrity of the work for each piece to stand on its own. But there are going to be threads that tie them all together. And for me, I love that. As an artist, I love.

That's a wonderful challenge for you. Yeah.

And for others to experience.

Yeah. So like I said, I don't know if I'm going to pull it off well or not. So we'll see. So how would you like to. I mean, how would you think that's going to work? You know, I think it's going to be a challenge. That's the closest.

Well, you know what? Maybe we go back to non-sharing screen. Unless there's one more. We'll go back to non-share and let's just talk for a minute about. Well, you know. My mind. This has been really wonderful. You know, let's just go back and talk a little bit about how. What interests you about Techspressionism? And then maybe we'll talk about what interests you about art. And then maybe we'll talk about what interests you about expressionism. We've already sort of answered. One of the questions is what you're working on now. We just experienced that with your new solo show.

Roz Dimon

You know, maybe say a little bit more about expressionism. And then finally, really. How do you see the future of art?

Okay.

The future of art.

Okay. So. We're on the Vanguard. Of. Artistic expression. Merging with technology. I don't know that we. Really understand. Maybe all of where it's going.

Get a little closer to the screen. It's hard to hear.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Oh, I apologize. So I think, I think we're really on the Vanguard. Of art. With. Merging technology. With artistic expression. So. And. We're on the Vanguard. To me, expressionism has given us, even though it's still very new and it's emerging. It gives us. That Colonel. Of. A conceptual framework to work around. Like the little. Nugget that starts a snowflake. You know, that little piece of dirt or whatever. That is snow. Like.

Michael Pierre Price

You know, I think. Accumulates around to create something beautiful. And magical. I think. Artists who have been working. Either deeply in technology or exploring technology. Have lacked. A language. In which to speak about their work. That's. Accepted. By non-technology working artists. They're real. They're real. They're real. And it's been really, really challenging because. You end up trying to talk about your work in ways.

Michael Pierre Price

That are similar, you know, similarities to other things. But not on point. And I think it's true for any emerging. Movements is that when you look at ways of making art. In novel. Modes of creation. That there isn't a built-in language for that. Where do I see art going? I'm excited by, well, see, I.

Michael Pierre Price

A lot of what people are, are wowed about, like the. 3d environments to look at, you know, to. You know, like walk around in a, a, a. You know, like a, a. Artists. To me, that's old hat. I, you know, I'm, I'm not trying to be a slobber. Or, or, or, or, you know, a snob about it. A snob about it. But.

Michael Pierre Price

For me. Those kinds of interests. I've explored quite a lot from the gaming side. And. So where I'm really interested is in. This. Area of deep learning and AI. Love that. And. Here's where I think things could go. What if we create. Smart. Paint. So. Down the road, we are going to have nano technology.

Michael Pierre Price

That becomes more and more. Easily utilized. Instead of. You know, we're using. It now. Very cutting edge. Scientific kinds of things and medical. But let's say we have. Nanobots. That are immersed in pigments. And you. Creating a physical art. Instead of relying on. Drip painters rely on gravity, but let's say. You can create, you can program your paint. To.

Michael Pierre Price

Do things in weird ways that you don't know how it's going to turn out. And all of a sudden. Your paint is acting in ways under your direction. But in a limited way. And you learn. Oh my God, look what I'm creating with. You know, I splashed some paint on my canvas. And it didn't drip down because gravity is pulling it. To the, you know, to a lower level. It's.

Michael Pierre Price

Being driven by nanobots. That are acting on flocking algorithms. And, and accumulating. In little clumps. That. I couldn't have ever done as a physical human being because I don't have. The physical capability of. That level of structure. That's where I see art going. I see, I see. Music being created. We are looking.

Michael Pierre Price

For instance. No, I know this because of my connections in the gaming industry. Some. Some advanced companies like Nintendo and others. Are looking at direct retinal projection. Of virtual worlds. Now that's.

That's where you make it by thinking about it.

There. No, there's an app. The projection has. Just like that. What happens physically. Not on a scrape, not on a head piece in front of you. But actually projecting to the back of your eyeball onto your retina.

Yeah.

So artificial reality. Augmented. I think augmented reality is a really current thing that has a lot of applications that we haven't played around with enough yet. So yeah, I mean, I, so I think the computer physical, the human machine interface, I mean, we're, this could pose some real challenging questions to us in terms of, you know, what's machine, what's human, what, what is our consciousness?

Michael Pierre Price

I mean, some people really just our brain.

I once said to somebody, look, I just took my brain. I put it out in front of me on this desk. And now I'm trying to teach it. I don't know. It's teaching me. I'm not sure.

Physicists and some scientists have are already saying that the universe behaves like a very advanced computer simulation. So rods, think about this. 1000 years. From now, we keep we don't kill ourselves, we keep advancing, we keep advancing, we get to the point where we can create a universe that is so real.

Michael Pierre Price

We can put beings into that universe that can act autonomously independently, they can live there. At that point, how much do those beings think they're real? So is it?

Is it too much?

It's been talking about this too much? Yeah, is it too much to think that some advanced civil is, you know, that we're some, you know, part of some simul I mean, I'm not saying that I believe that. But if you think you know, if you project out far enough, you know, where, where does that end result?

Michael Pierre Price

So I, I love that this movement, this being made out of musicians, of scientists, of programmers of, you know, traditional artists, multimedia artists, videographers, I mean, I love because we are creative beings, to me, when the Bible says we're created in the image of God, it's not that God looks like a human being. It's that we're creators. We're creators.

Michael Pierre Price

That's, you know, that's the God in you that I see in you, Roz, that I would hope people see in me. Beyond, beyond a religion. I'm not talking about a religion specific thing. But the divinity in you, the divinity in me, the divinity in a tiny little ant is that we're here. Oh, my gosh, like, creation is.

I love what you're saying. We'll have more conversation. We'll have more conversations. But going back to the ant and the indigenous, is that we also have to remember and brings it kind of back to tech Techspressionism, the community that you know, the ant as brilliant as each one of us can be, there is a collective humanity, and how we work together and treat each other and, and how we share what we're learning. And it's not just the great and mighty Creator, but it's also those ants, they survived all these years, because they worked. They worked together somehow in some incredible way.

No, that is such a good point. And it's backed up by the indigenous languages, speak of other beings in relationship, familial relationships. Yeah, those things that we see as things they see as connected. And I think that hits your point, right on the head.

I love it. We've gone through math and science and spirit and possibility and what seems impossible, but possible. And it has been just such a pleasure to interview you today. And I thank you so much. I think we, we better wrap it up.

But I know I have it up. So long winded. I can't speak short sentences. Sorry about that.

Absolutely. It's been really a wonderful time. Wonderful experience.

I appreciate you, Roz. I love our connection. And I think it speaks to the bigger one. So yeah. I do too. Thank you so much. Thanks, Roz.