Roundtable 6 // Founders: Five Years Later

Welcome! My name is Michael Pierre Price I'm an artist out of Phoenix, Arizona, and I am moderating today's roundtable number 6, which deals with the Origins of Techspressionism, the first meeting that existed and occurred 5 years ago, where it's gone in the last 5 years, and maybe where we're headed. And I'm really pleased today that those 5 original members who got together five years ago are here today to share their recollections. And before we get them talking about that very first meeting.

Michael Pierre Price

I want to read and share just a little biographical information about each of them. Colin Goldberg coined the term Techspressionism in 2011 to describe his hybrid practice combining painting, digital media, and technology. In September 2020, he initiated the first Techspressionism meetup. Which set the goal of building an artist community around the term, one that now spans over 45 countries. A Pollock-Krasner grant recipient. Goldberg's work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, NPR, and PBS, and his Metagraphs series of augmented reality works will be presented in a solo exhibition at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in the summer of 2027.

Michael Pierre Price

Helen A. Harrison is an art historian, journalist, author, and retired director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, New York. She is currently president of Arts Center at Duck Creek, also in East Hampton. She has been an advisor to the Expressionism Project since 2020. Patrick Lichty is a multifaceted media artist, writer, curator, designer, and educator whose career spans more than three decades. His work engages with augmented and virtual reality, generative and telecommunications art, and machine drawing, critically examining how media and technology shape human perception.

Michael Pierre Price

A CalArts Herb Alpert Fellow and Whitney Biennial Exhibitor, Litke has established himself as a significant voice in exploring the cultural impact of emerging technologies. Steve Miller has worked at the intersection of art, science, and technology since 1980. His projects include collaborations with Nobel laureate Rod McKinnon on human protein research, work at Brookhaven National Lab, and lectures at CERN in Geneva. For over a decade, he developed Health of the Planet, a photographic project examining Brazil's Amazon through X-rays of its flora and fauna.

Michael Pierre Price

Published in three monographs by G Editions. Miller's work has been exhibited internationally in cities including Paris, Rio, Hong Kong, London, and New York, and most recently at the Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. He also designs custom surfboards, skate decks, and fashion, teaches at the School of Visual Arts, and is co-founder of art software platform Arternal. Oz Van Rosen. Art has always been a passion, initially painting, then photography. One day, I accidentally destroyed my images to their most basic pixels and took them in all sorts of random directions. I played around with digital techniques and transformed my images to something I didn't recognize, but quite liked.

Michael Pierre Price

I thought to expressionism would be a good way to describe it. Colin, who coined the term, called me and said, what about a movement? Is that warranted? I said, hell yes, and here we are today, 5 years later. So here's the… here's the cast who started this all, and I'm so pleased that all of you are here. And I'm gonna turn over the first set of comments and, Recollections from that first meeting to Colin Goldberg, and we'll go in order from there. So, Colin?

Michael Pierre Price

Welcome.

Thanks, Michael, and I'm really glad that you came up with this idea, you know, to get us all together in the first place, and I'm happy that everyone was able to make it today. So, you know, like, I came up with this term as a title for a solo show, which was pretty much… A DIY effort at a little pop-up rental gallery in Southampton, and you know, I really… don't even remember exactly when the idea for this term popped into my head. I was just trying to come up with a way to describe my work, and I think that it was sort of a response to the idea that A lot of people were talking about my work as digital art, which really didn't sit comfortably with me, especially because I studied painting as an undergraduate. A lot of my work involves physical media with paint, and, you know, I like to think of A lot of my work is painting, not digital art, and so the term made sense to me in terms of encompassing a variety of different media, and also my interest in abstract expressionism, which I kind of got turned on to, as an undergrad, at SUNY Binghamton, studying under an artist named Angelo Ippolito, who is a second-generation New York school abstract expressionist painter.

Colin Goldberg

And he opened my eyes up to abstraction in general, and kind of got me interested in that idea, which I didn't, you know, incorporate into my own work until later, when I started working with technology. So fast forward to pandemic, like the… I think it was the summer of 2020, I did a Google search for Techspressionism, and I had used the term in between 2011 and 2020 as a way to describe my work, and I did a couple different shows that were just my own work using that term, and including a show down in Key West.

Colin Goldberg

Where I happened to be there at an artist residency that coincided with the opening of a new building at the Studios of Key West, so PBS Miami happened to be down there covering the event, and I got to be interviewed, so I got to use the term on television at that time, which was 2014, I believe. And then actually in the year prior to that, 2013, Wired picked up, the term in an article that was in conjunction with an exhibition At a gallery called Glenn Horowitz in East Hampton, and the gallery was able to get this article together, and so the term got out there, and they were actually the first ones to describe it as a movement. Although, at that point, you know, it was just me, so I came up with this manifesto, which was sort of tongue-in-cheek, because it was just me, but I thought it sort of sounds like it could be a movement, so it needs a manifest.

Colin Goldberg

So, and that was all about, you know, how I felt, you know, that work involving technology, specifically computer technology, was legitimate, and also that computer technology was not Distinct from other technologies in the sense that. The technologies that came before computers also got a lot of pushback, like photography and other things like that, even printmaking, I think, you know, back when that was new, in terms of it really not being as much art as being, say, painting or sculpture, traditional arts like that. So, Anyhow, in 2020, I did a Google search for the term and saw that, there was another artist named Oz Van Rosen who was using the term in a magazine article, which I thought was really interesting.

Colin Goldberg

And, I thought, you know, I'll reach out to her and see, you know, what she thinks about putting a group together around the idea, since she was the only other person that was using the group… they're using the term at the time that I knew of. And, in fact, my now ex-wife had said that she stole my idea and I should sue her, which I thought was not a good idea. I said, you know, like, I'm gonna actually reach out to her and see what she thinks about putting a group together around the idea, which I did. And we chatted a little bit, I think, over Instagram first, and talked about you know, how to, you know, how to go about doing this, that maybe Instagram itself was a good platform to get the word out, and she and I also sort of share a background in having day jobs in marketing. So, that's kind of like how I cut my chops on a lot of software back when I graduated with a painting degree, I moved to the city and learned a lot of stuff.

Colin Goldberg

In agencies, and I know Oz worked in marketing as well, so we kind of, like, looked at it from that standpoint, like, so if you want to develop this into something, what would be the most effective and efficient way to do this? And then, sort of the conversation went from there, so… with that, you know, I guess I'll pass it on to Oz, and, you know, she could talk a little bit about it from her standpoint and memory.

So, you know, as Colin was saying, most of my life, I was in the corporate world, and art was just a hobby and a passion, and I didn't have the privilege of being able to do it full-time, and then in 2017, my dad passed away, and that makes you look at life in a very different lens, and I thought, oh. You know, you better pursue your dreams, because you might not have another opportunity to do it. So, I decided to retire and pursue art, and my whole life, you know, when I did make art, it was very analog, painting and drawing, and then it turned into photography, but, you know, I'm dating myself here, but carrying, you know, giant boxes of lenses everywhere I went, you know. I mean, really big boxes, right? And the lenses rolling all over the place, you know, when you opened it up, and then eventually it went to a digital camera.

Oz Van Rosen

And then eventually went to a handheld camera. But I think it was… even when it was digital photography, for me, it was still just, like, recording a moment in time. And for a very long time, you know, that was the art, it was just a moment in time. And then, in 2017, I was on vacation with my husband, and we walked by an Apple store, and they did an iPad Pro demonstration, and I thought, oh my god, there's, like, an entire studio in that thing! A whole studio in there!

Oz Van Rosen

So, you know, got that, started experimenting with it. I went back to art school and, you know, went back to drawing and painting, and couldn't really do it because of my back. And then at that point, I think that's when kind of all these apps started coming out, right? iPhone apps, and… and then I started exploiting all these apps, and I'm like, wow, okay, for me, that was, like, the moment. That was the moment when I thought, alright, this has taken a giant leap forward.

Oz Van Rosen

Going from an image, or what you can do with an image, to completely destroying it and changing it to something Infinitely and endlessly changing it to all kinds of things, all kinds of different images. And using all kinds of techniques, and we were on vacation in Florida, and I remember saying to my husband, I think this needs some kind of category. In marketing, you know, we do a lot of positioning and branding, and I think that's where me and Colin kind of came at it. We needed to categorize.

Oz Van Rosen

And I felt like, this is totally different than anything that's been ever done before. Not necessarily what I was doing, but the ability to do what I was doing. And I knew, I'm sure others are probably going through the same thing, realizing, like, wow, they could absolutely change what they're doing, you know? From… I don't know, analog or even digital, from photography to so many of the other things, and I remember just thinking about, okay, so, well, there was abstract expressionism. Well, what if I called it abstract Techspressionism? And I said to my husband, what do you think of abstract Techspressionism? Kind of like… I had to explain, he's not an art person at all, so I tried to explain to him what expressionism was, and Techspressionism, because, you know, technology is just so part and parcel of everything that we do, and it's like a giant leap forward, and look at how it's… it's woven itself into our lives and into the process of art, and he looked at me and he said, Tech, what? That's terrible. Horrible! You know, that's a horrible description. And I thought, okay, whatever, I'm just gonna use it, and just not really doing any research or anything like that, just sort of started using it, and then I remember getting the call from Colin.

Oz Van Rosen

And he said, you know, I've been using this since 2011, do you think that we should do movement? And I said. I think it definitely warrants a movement, you know, you've got my blessing, go! You know, Godspeed! And He has single-handedly turned this into a massive movement, and it's… I'm really… my mind is blown at what it was 5 years ago to what it is today. I still remember my husband's expression when I said Techspressionism. He's like, no one's ever going to use that word.

Oz Van Rosen

So, that's my recollection.

Thanks, Oz. Patrick or Steve, who would like to go next?

Aurora. Okay.

Either or.

I'll jump in then. Patrick just kept his mouth closed for…

Too long. Which is shocking.

It's, you know, my recollection is Techspressionism started way before the idea and the word, way before 5 years ago, and, I'd been working with Colin in the studio together. It was… I think it was, like, 1993 or 1994. And, was getting ready for an exhibition in Paris. And also, like Colin, I had grown up near a fantastic museum in Buffalo, New York. Called the Albright-Knox Museum, now called the AKG, and they had an incredible collection of abstract expressionist art.

Steve Miller

And kind of one of the… Premier moments of, you know, transition and astonishment was when they purchased a Jackson Pollock painting called Convergence. And they hung this thing on a stairwell. It… I was a kid, so it felt like it was gigantic. And the idea of that much paint flying through space just, like, knocked me out. So… that really became the source of, you know, expressionism in my life. And of course, they had The Cooning's Gotham News, great Fras Klein, a whole room of… of Clifford Still, and that became kind of my lodestone.

Steve Miller

But at the same time, I was also doing a lot of reading of philosophy, and, you know, and the philosophy was, really mostly post-Frankfurt School French you know, deconstructuralist theory, and looking at language, and how language signifies something. And of course, it made me think about visual language. And the visual language, I thought, that was going to be the next Breakthrough was technology, working with computers. So, before the personal computer, I was working with TV graphic computers, and tried to combine those two languages, because the one thing about expressionism especially, you know, abstract Expressionism got very diluted. It became kind of a cliche. The sort of, you know, the psychic meaning of the gesture gets diluted over time, so it really felt like there was a need to combine this with something, to put it in contrast, and maybe to create a dialectic between something very personal and expressionist, and something kind of very technical and, you know, theoretically, you know, non-expressionistic. So, you know, Colin and I were working together, and I remember sitting on our front porch having lunch, which we did Frequently, and he came up with the concept, and he said, well, what do you think of this? And, you know, I thought, like, wow, that's, you know, I was so tied to the notion of abstract expressionism, especially like Oz was saying, you know, this abstract thing in front of it, which was Awkward, because it wasn't abstract, but it was this idea Of combining a notion that you could use… well, from my point of view, you could use the structure of technology and still have a kind of human touch that related it to something more meaningful or deeper as the abstract expressionists you know, sometimes they call it the psychic gesture, you know, the automatic gesture came from something that was, you know, subliminal and pre-conscious in some way, and at the same time, Pollock said, I am nature, and of course.

Steve Miller

I'm very interested in the environment in my work, so when Colin came up with this idea, I was kind of like, you know, not sure about this, Colin, but the more we thought about it, and then, you know, Colin's my, you know, tech guru. And, you know, we get to this idea of marketing, and… while it's not a market maker, but it was a collective word that aggregated, you know, a lot of people doing the same thing. He really, I mean, ran with it, and we talked about it a lot.

Steve Miller

And… and brought together the first meeting. Is that the meeting that we did 5 years ago on Zoom? Was that the initial meeting with Helen? That's the one we're talking about. Okay. So that, you know, I came to that meeting, and I realized that it was a great way to aggregate information, and it was a great way to… Collect eyeballs and interest, and, you know, it's grown so beyond what that table conversation was. I'll, you know, I'm… Hats off to all of you for making this happen.

I guess, I guess I need to jump in then, and so anyway, I wanna… I want to thank, you know, Colin, Michael, everybody for having me, here, and well, let's see here. My roots in art are very old. My mom was an artist, a fairly well-known regional artist in Akron, Ohio, studied with, painters like Jack Richards. And that sort of thing. We were, you know, again, you know, very well-known rec… you know, regionals, and… you know, my interest in art was, you know, just baked into me from an early age, and, you know, she taught me you know, painting, textiles, ceramic, whatever, and then I remember I was either 5 or 7, I can't remember. I was at the Akron Institute of Art, which, by the way, was a great museum. I think the idea that most of us have been near great museums.

Patrick Lichty

And there was a show of neon art that was called 186,000 miles per second, and it was just all this neon art, and I… it's… and, even a, you know, a little record, you know, of, you know, the, the, you know, the sound of the light coming out of the, out of the tubes, and it, you know, and then also, I grew up on… Science fiction, like Star Trek, which, you know, at one point I wanted to be in special effects, but, you know, I was still always, you know, drawing through high school and such, and, Yeah, I, you know, I said one of, you know, one of the four things I wanted to… I mean, two of the four things I wanted to do, I either wanted to be an electrical engineer, or I wanted to be an artist, and we'll go into the other two things. But, you know, they… my parents got me to go through engineering school, but during the whole thing, I was always goofing off and drawing, but, you know, I got through okay, and about… 1989 or so, I just said, 1989, 1990. You know, when I was doing my engineering job, I just, I just, you know, I just… engineers aren't as fun as parties as, as, as artists, and I'm saying that very offhand.

Patrick Lichty

But, I said, this is, I actually have retinitis pigmentosa, and, which is a degenerative, Retinal disease, and, which is actually fairly advanced at the moment. But, back then, you know, my, my doctors at the Cleveland Clinic said, you know, Patrick, you know, you're… you know, you're… you might just have a few more years' worth of vision. And, people would say, well, you know, forget that, you know, goofy art stuff, you know, that you want to do. It's like, you can do that when you retire. And I said, not according to the doctors.

Patrick Lichty

So, I, I left engineering, for a couple years. I was, Art history and… undeclared art history and, glass major at Kent State University, but then I was also painting and doing graphic design. And I started my own graphic design firm. And, you know. Kept that going for about 15 years. And at the same time, you know, there was, I was actually doing art on the CompuServe, let's see here, Computer Art and Multimedia GIF, Lists, like. 1989 or so, but I just remember about 1994. You know, I was living up here in Minneapolis before, and I had just pretty much left a job I'd had as a, as an art director for a label company, which I would not recommend to anybody.

Patrick Lichty

And I was up in Minneapolis, and I said, you know, I had been reading a lot of, art history. And, you know, germane to this is I read, I was reading, Point, Line to Plane and Concerning the Spiritual Art by Kandinsky, and, I said, okay. Next 3 months, I'm going to lock myself away with no other art books other than these two. Look at these as sort of almost like a Sol Witt-like, you know, instruction set. And I just sat down with, you know. Pencil, ink, watercolor, and just used that as an instruction set.

Patrick Lichty

And, you know, and, you know, Kandinsky, you know, they consider us one of the fathers of, abstract expressionism. And so, you know, it looked like… it looked at Kandinsky, yes, but there was a part of me in it and, but… That's, you know, where kind of my… you know, serious ambitions as an artist, and actually, at that time, an expressionist, had begun, and but however, in 1978, my parents got me my first Atari 800 computer, and this is something where they said, well, you know, you should be in engineering and that, but they didn't see I was drawing with it.

Patrick Lichty

I wasn't seeing I was making music with it. And, you know, so… apparently, people kind of convinced me that this is something that you definitely can't do as a career. But, you know, as I said, in the 90s, I'd started this whole… thing with the, you know, with a design firm, and, you know, I'd, you know, really had gotten involved with, The Thing and Rhizome in New York, and what kind of became kind of a… Virtual New Yorker, and, you know, I'd go there, and there'd be a party, etc. And, I'll just say that, you know, let's just say things went well.

Patrick Lichty

But… fast forward, what, 20 years? I mean, Colin and I went to grad school together at Bowling Green State 15 years after that, and about 5 years after I'd been in the Whitney Biennial, which was just strange. But I needed a degree to teach. And so, but he, bought… you know, 10 years after that, he goes and says, Patrick, guess what, I'm, you know, starting this thing. I'm calling Techspressionism, and I just said, well, you know, I said, you know, a movement… well, a movement had an ideology. Well, but, you know, do you think it could be a community? I said.

Patrick Lichty

I've been part of many communities. I've been part of, you know, things like, you know, Rhizome thing, let's see here, Upgrade International, DorkBot, all these things. And, you know, the, you know, I've always found that collectivism is always a fantastic thing. So I said, yeah, why don't we do that? And also, at the time. I had married this amazing you know, other half of my life, Negin Ehtesabian, who's, you know, just an amazing Iranian artist who, you know, we were looking to come back to the United States. I said, you know what, a community of American international artists would be just a perfect thing for us to settle down in, and, you know, get used to coming back over to the west, because we were living in Abu Dhabi at the time.

Patrick Lichty

And so, you know, so that kind of started that. I didn't really have any ideas or grand ambitions. I thought, you know, that, you know, communities, I've been in a lot of communities that have, you know, that have, come and gone, some still exist. And I said, they're all really pretty fertile places to… Fertile places to go. And, you know, in the beginning, I, you know, I… I think, like Steve, I wasn't… you know, I said, okay, this is… this is kind of a brand. I said, this is, you know, movement community, whatever, let's see what happens. But I think what's interesting is that over the 5 years, you know, there was, you know, that show at the Southampton, and, you know, things were still growing, calling said, you know, is this… you know, is this turning into… is this turning into something? And I said, you know, or, you know, is this gonna keep going? And I said, I, you know, I think it's… I think so. And, you know, 3 years later.

Patrick Lichty

Yeah, it just seems very, very solid. So, you know, I think… you know, movements are often based around, you know, kind of, you know, kind of, you know, central notions, but I think that, in many ways, to expressionism, and I think this idea that, you know, I popped through my head, I think also Helen's, of this being kind of like a fourth iteration of, of, of, you know, expressionist thought. You know, it's, I think it also reflects the culture in that of… of being… of distributed culture of networks. In other words, like, the… you know, there isn't really a set Ideology, but the thing is, there's an impulse, and I think that there's, a people wanting to be together and wanting to have these… share these emotional experiences and that sort of thing through technology, which, you know, is kind of endemic to art, but on the other hand, it's… I think that there's something… Shared and, you know, and I think that's what keeps, you know, Techspressionism running, and, you know, whatever that is, it seems to have it, so that's great.

Patrick Lichty

So, that's my… that's my spiel.

Thanks, Patrick. Okay, Helen, what are your thoughts?

Well, Patrick raises a very important point, which is that it… The technology aspect of it is actually a double whammy. You have the technology as a way of creating, as a way of enabling artists to create things that they couldn't create otherwise, but also the distribution element, where you can get your word out to so much broader audience, not only the people who are working in the genre, in the movement. Or using that as their impulse. But also reaching people who would never know about it otherwise, through the internet.

Helen A. Harrison

And through the electronic media that are so prevalent today. So, it's building on two different aspects of technology that… both of which contribute to the richness of the movement itself. I think Colin invited me on because, well, I had known him for years through his father, who was a teacher at Southampton College, where my husband also was teaching, so through his… through the faculty, that's how we met. But when he approached me in 2011 and asked me if I would write a little intro to the catalog for the show that he mentioned, he was talking then about how technology, or how… how a movement, or how an impulse like Techspressionism Where did it fit?

Helen A. Harrison

You know, if you're thinking of something in terms of, like, for example, surrealism, which was a defined movement, it had a guy who was in charge, Andre Breton, it had a manifesto, it had membership. In fact, Breton said who was in and who was out. I said, let's not do that. We don't want to have the Pope of Techspressionism, like, Breton was the Pope of Surrealism, because that's A too hierarchical, and B, who cares what this guy thinks? You know, this is really reaching out to a much broader and much more diverse group of practitioners.

Helen A. Harrison

So, what he really wanted me to do, I think, was to relate the impulse to other impulses that had kind of a similar, origin story. And being the head of the Pollock-Krasner House, and knowing a few things about abstract expressionism, that was a way of making the connection, because the whole point, to me is that it's expressionistic. That the technology is the means to an end. And this was Pollock's famous statement, it doesn't matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is being said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

Helen A. Harrison

And there are, you know, other examples of people thinking about this concept and elucidating it in terms of contemporary art. One of them I quoted in the catalog. This is the catalog. You see that, my bookmark. This is the catalog for the Expressionism exhibition from Southampton Cultural Center… sorry, Southampton Arts Center. And I quoted Paul Valerie, who said, we must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic intervention… invention itself, and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.

Helen A. Harrison

That was written in 1928. Now, by that time, I think the photography debate had been pretty much settled. But, you know, there were other technologies 20th century technologies that were revolutionizing thought. And they were not universally accepted, they were controversial. But at the same time, they helped to move Creative endeavor forward by bringing new potential, new possibilities. And certainly the abstract expressionists, who didn't like the term, in fact, but it was actually invented in Germany.

Helen A. Harrison

In post-war Germany in 1919 was when it was coined. By, an artist called Oswald Herzog. And the… idea was that it was supposed to be something in the way that surrealism is more about dreams. It was supposed to be more about spirit. Which I think is why Kandinsky was one of their avatars, that Kandinsky represented this so strongly, that it was an art that was above reality, beyond reality, but in the spiritual realm, rather than in the dream world.

Helen A. Harrison

And he articulated this quite clearly, and it was never really picked up on until Alfred Barr used it in 1929 in conjunction with Kandinsky, talking about Kandinsky. And then in 1946, an American critic used it, thinking that he was coining it, sort of like going back to Cohen and Oz, you know, bringing up these things at the same time. And yet they flow from one another. So there was a kind of continuity there, because ironically, the critic was talking about Hans Hofmann.

Helen A. Harrison

Who used the term back in 1915. So, you know, it was like… it came full circle. But the technology side is… that's the means, and then the expressionism is the end. So this was a nice, I thought, a very congenial marriage of terms. I don't care what your husband or wife thought about it at the time. I think it works great.

Thank you, Helen. That's a great perspective. This is so fascinating to me, because… The five of you got together. None of you could really say where you really thought this was going to go, and obviously we now have a 5-year history. That initial get-together, where we are today, and so much, in my opinion, has transpired in that timeframe. Have you been surprised, and anybody can chime in here, have you been surprised at how things have Evolved without necessarily as you mentioned, Helen, without having an Andre Breton saying, this is where we're going and this is how we're heading. My opinion has been that the decentralized nature, although Colin has been, obviously, a very central figure in this, he has been reluctant to be the Andre Breton of the community.

Michael Pierre Price

And he is basically… asked everybody who's interested, if you have a cool idea, run with it. And I think… I think that sense of community has been really, really powerful, but from where you all started 5 years ago, and kind of coming together like you've talked about here from each of your vantage points. How did we get here, and what surprises, and how do you… how do you… how do you read the history right now of this 5-year period that we've gone through? Because there's so much that's happened.

What's the problem?

For me, it was the, the exhibition. When we started talking about doing a physical show, because up till that point, it had just been online. And the community was building, and people were sharing ideas. But then you say, well, who's going to see this? Only the people who are online. But if it's a real art movement, a real, an international impulse, it would be great to be able to manifest this in physical terms, so that you can see the variety all in one place.

Helen A. Harrison

Instead of having to go online and going into the different forums. And once the exhibition idea started to gel. I was just absolutely stupefied by the number of people, the number of different approaches, the number of… I mean, you know, think about people all over the world doing this without realizing that there was a community, and then suddenly becoming part of that community. And it just… it just seemed to me you know, being a museum person myself, and I like to look at art on walls or on a pedestal, I like the physical stuff.

Helen A. Harrison

And even when it's electronic, if it's on a monitor or something like that, just to be able to sit in front of it and contemplate it, rather than having to go on Zoom, off Zoom, whatever. And I felt that the show and, you know, and it has had a couple of afterlives, that really helped to make the movement solidify.

I would agree with that. I remember thinking, wow, it's real, you know? And yeah, it was so amazing to see all the different artists, and I agree with you, I like seeing… we're just so inundated with digital images now, and our eyes are always on some screen, big or small. And it almost… I hate to use the word cheapens it, but, you know, just the sheer volume of images that… that flow through us, you know, we just see them for, like, a few seconds, that to see them in their physical forms.

Oz Van Rosen

Especially the installations. It was so… such a wonderful feeling to see that.

One thing I think is interesting is I think that one thing we forget, even digital art is material culture, you know? So, I mean, on one hand is that, I mean, there's… you know, even computers, hard drives, etc, screens, and so on, but I think, really, I think the suppleness of the, you know, of what this is. You know, it's engaged, you know, material, you know, physical art, digital art, VR… you know, and so on. And actually, Negin and I, before, the, you know, the Southampton show, we had put a, put together about, maybe about a third of the exhibition at the International Digital Media and Arts Association, conference.

Patrick Lichty

In Winona, with about 20, 30 artists, Yeah, that… out of a whole set of 90 here at Winona State University, so I think that's a little, you know, a little… Preamble to, you know, things like that, and I think having those artists, you know, like Colin and Tommy and Cynthia and that sort of thing, you know, in that space. You know, was, you know, a really, was a, you know, I mean, just a really good proof of concept. Yeah, but I think on one hand, you know, you've got, you know, you've got this, this set of practices that, you know, this particular set, you know, this, this entire kind of, I'd say, philosophy.

Patrick Lichty

You know, runs itself to. You know, and then on the other hand, it's the fact that it's, you know, while Colin and I have conversations about terms like social sculpture, you know, the one thing is, is that, I think, you know, the social component, you know, is extremely strong. In other words, in different models, you've got the co-worker, you've got the… you know, you've got the salons, you've got, you know, you know, people meeting up, you have, you know, so… you know, I think there are different… Opinions, you know, to… you know, that make this, you know, such a… such a solid endeavor, and, and I think this is, you know, the one thing there have been thoughts about having, you know, having a, what, a journal or an almanac, which, you know, kind of get tossed around once in a while.

Patrick Lichty

You know, I think there's just enough people with enough, enthusiasm, you know, that… you know, that, you know, enough gets thrown on the wall, you know, something, you know, something sticks. And maybe at another one point or another, there might be a journal, but, you know, the, you know. You know, the… just so many, you know, so many salons, the exhibitions are going strong, you know, it's like we're doing the project in, Uzbekistan, and, you know, and then going out… people are going out to LA.

Patrick Lichty

Yeah, I just think it's really, you know, this idea of this, of this… you know, Hydra in terms of practice, and also from… of social engagement, you know, that has its face forward out into the public. And this is, you know, why, you know, people know it so well, and, you know, that it's had such traction.

Michael, just to answer the first part of your question, the David Byrne question, how did we get here? Letting the days go by. And, you know, really, how we got here is that we did have an organizer, and someone, you know, that Helen mentioned, you know, part of this is there was a means of distribution, and, you know, Colin set up a structure, right? He created the website, he got us all to meet the first meeting, right, 5 years ago. And then, building out, you know, it doesn't… you know, the community can't exist unless there's a place for them all to meet. Patrick mentioned ThingNet, which I was a part of, you know, you create these sort of communities and a structure, and with the website, the meetups, there was, you know, several years' worth of energy that brought in… and then, you know, Colin's determination to make it international, and make it very open, and to use the hashtag, which was, you know, one of the key ways that he used the internet to sort of, disseminate the meme.

Steve Miller

So I think that how we got here, how did we get here, really has to do with the ability of Colin to match concept with the structure of the internet. So that got us all here to this place. And now, as everyone else has said, you know, there's… it's… anyone can plug into the structure, create a group within the group, set up an exhibition. I mean, it's really awesome. There was also an exhibition in New York City this year. There's one in Brooklyn, earlier.

Steve Miller

I think it's Uzbekistan, and, there's gonna be Colin's solo show. So… Clearly. There is currently momentum, and I… and that momentum will continue, because there's going to be an exhibition in 2027. I guess the next thing is, is, you know. How… how will this… can it grow more? Will it survive? Is there new energy that's gonna come in? Will there be other forms of validation that have to happen, you know, within the curatorial community? And, and as… technology becomes, you know, obviously AI as technology becomes the prevalent language of culture, and forget about art. I mean, it's intersected every aspect of our lives already, and it'll be really interesting to see if we are going to be… Emotionally.

Steve Miller

Vulnerable and accessible in this sort of non-human structure. To keep it alive with our part of the conversation. So there's the technology that arrives, and then it's how we use that technology. And, you know, in my opinion, to humanize it, make it accessible, to translate it, to, perhaps even make it beautiful.

Oh, I think it's beautiful already, but the beauty is created by the people who use it. It's not inherent in the system. The system is limited by human imagination, but the human imagination is not limited at all. So, I mean, first of all, hats off to Colin for taking on this whole project, but I remember when we first talked about the exhibition, I said. Be careful what you wish for. Because it's a lot of work! And just, I mean, what a herd of cats, you know, they're all over the world, and corralling that, all that energy, and getting it into a physical space was a big endeavor, and, you know, on that level.

Helen A. Harrison

As well as just the holding together the group online is really a major production, and I have to say, I think he pulled it off brilliantly.

Well, thanks, Helen.

Quick thing about the exhibition, you know, Colin did that, you know, a drone within the exhibition that flew through, and I think that's just such a marvelous way for anyone who's not able to see the exhibition to get another kind of as much as you could have a tactile experience, to really get a feeling of what it was like.

Hmm?

Yeah, so the drone, was actually… it was piloted by a high school classmate of mine named Joanna Steidle. Who went to Southampton High School with me. We graduated in the same year. She actually lived on the same road as I grew up on, which was a dirt road at the time. And you know, I just thought this would be a really cool way to document the show. You know, I feel like as far as the surprises go, it was… it's just been an ongoing sequence of surprises. I think an early one was… when, Davonte Bradley, Davo, who… he moderated a lot of the early salons.

Colin Goldberg

And he was one of the first people that I kind of actually called up, because I tagged his work with hashtag to expressionism, and then he reminded me, and then there were 3 fire emojis after it. And he's like. Like, I like that term, you know, and then once he started getting involved with the group and the salons and everything like that, he said, you know, I feel like I've found my tribe. And I thought, like, wow, like, that's… that's pretty powerful, like, that's a reason to keep doing this, for people to feel like this is their place to be, and they're like-minded people. I mean, as far as, like, the ideology behind it, you know, the manifesto, like, the first version of the manifesto really was about that I feel like this is legitimate. That, you know, there's a number of points in it. I was just looking back on it, but that the first point, and I think the first three points are the important ones for me, the most important ones.

Colin Goldberg

Are that the computer and technology in general is… are not separate from humankind, but a natural extension of us. The second one would be that technology is a continuum, which is as old as humanity, not a novelty or fad. And then the third one is that the computer is one of a long string of tools which have enabled human expression, including the typewriter, the camera, the printing press. The pen, the pencil, and paint. So, going all the way back, you know, when these things were invented, they were the high technology of the time. So I feel like, when people talk about technology nowadays.

Colin Goldberg

It's just assumed that's about computers and digital technology, whereas looking back. You know, I always think about Cindy Sherman as somebody who, you know, broke ground in defining herself as an artist who uses a camera to make her her statements, her pictures, not a photographer. And I think that opened it up, and, you know, that opened up a lot of work that is photographic in nature to, to mainstream galleries, not segregated photography galleries.

Colin Goldberg

You know, other… I mean, just the fact that Southampton Arts Center bit on this idea and agreed to it was a big, huge surprise. Actually, it was Helen that suggested a show to begin with, because I was like, well, what do you think about this idea? She said, well, maybe put an exhibition together and see who sticks around. You know, and here we are, although Patrick seems to have lost his connection. But, you know, see who sticks around. And I think that, you know, it's gone way beyond what I ever could have anticipated. And, I remember at the time, Amy Kirwan was the director of Southampton Arts Center, and I pitched the idea to her, and I was like, well, the show could just be called Techspressionism, and she said, you know, it needs something else.

Colin Goldberg

How about Techspressionism beyond, you know, beyond the digital? And I thought, well… some of it is inherently digital, you know? Like, some of it is screen-based work, or animation, NFTs. To me, like, that constitutes what I would consider digital art. And you know, so we ended up just, you know, agreeing on this Techspressionism, digital and beyond, so it's digital as a jumping-off point, but then, you know. Sort of extrapolating into all these other areas, like painting, and printmaking, sculpture, and so on and so forth. Well, the common denominator, the common denominator is the expressionism part of it.

Technology is varied, and widely varied. You had printmaking, you had sculpture, you had all kinds of other things, but the idea is to have a subjective element that you are expressing something, it's not just graphic design, it's not just imagery, it's not branding or pop culture or whatever. It has to come from inside the artist, and then you find the technological way to express it, to get it out.

Yeah, no, that's a very good point, and I think at the first salon… well, there were two… two things that happened in the first salon that stick out of my mind, because the original definition when I first came up with this term was. An artistic style in which technology is utilized as a means to express emotional experience rather than impressions of outside reality. And that was me pretty much just taking the, you know, very long-winded, definition, taking the Oxford definition of expressionism and of technology and, like, sticking them together. And I remember Oz said, you know, why don't you just get rid of, like, that whole end part about rather than impressions of the outside world, especially because she was starting as… with photographic imagery, I assume that might have been part of the rationale behind it, so some of it was actually based in impressions of the outside world. It was just… taking these things and working with them in a way that's, you know, expressive, personally expressive. And then Helen said, you know, why don't we just get rid of this word style altogether and replace it with the word approach?

Colin Goldberg

And, you know, at that time, I couldn't really wrap my head around how important that has been, in terms of the group… being so, or just, you know, the term being so applicable to so many different types of artists. Whether they're abstract or figurative artists, whatever the way they're using technology is. And this idea that it's expressionism, the expressionist aspect of it, you know, is what differentiates itself from Digital art, to me, which, you know, is applicable to things like video game design, or, mainstream media like Pixar movies. And when you, you know, look at digital art programs in college.

Colin Goldberg

This is sort of, like, that's the end game, is that students graduate with a degree in digital art, and they go out into industry. So, this is, you know, for me, Techspressionism. The term is a differentiator, that it's individual artists using it to express themselves. You know, and with that, you know, and then just… yeah, I made a point out of it being, you know, self… based on self-identification, that is, like, you're a Techspressionist when you say you are. So the idea that if you like the term, then you're free to use it, no one has to approve you being part of the group or not part of the group, or whatever, you know? Like, and this idea of it being brought into common usage was a personal goal of mine in terms of getting people together and seeing who, you know, who likes this as a term. So, a lot of people over the years, over the last 5 years, have said, you know.

Colin Goldberg

Are you gonna trademark this? Are you gonna make it into a not-for-profit organization? Are you gonna make merch and sell t-shirts? And it's just like, no. You know, and this flies in the face of all marketing, but marketing generally The goal isn't to make something open source or, you know, universally applicable, and to bring something into common usage. It's to make it proprietary. You know, so the whole process has been really sort of like. You know, a little bit of an unraveling of, like, that part of my brain, but… and then seeing the way people take it and run with it. I mean, that's, to me, the most gratifying part of this, is seeing people like Tommy Mintz just say, hey, you know, like.

Colin Goldberg

I'm teaching at this college in Brooklyn, and I have access to, you know, the Kingsborough Art Museum space. What do you think about putting a show together? And I was like, yeah. Go for it, you know? And I think the biggest surprise, actually, for me, is the way that the hashtag has propagated itself on its own. I mean… I have always been a fan of Richard Dawkins, who invented the term meme way before funny internet cat memes were a thing. It was to describe a field of study called memetics, which is based on genetics, and it's the idea of how, cultural content propagates.

Colin Goldberg

Through hosts, which is a little spooky, but we are the hosts, and the memes propagate themselves through us. And this is something that, you know, through pop culture, meme turned into something else, the mainstream Definition of it, but I thought, you know, there's definitely validity to the theory, and that the internet is a really, you know, it's the most potent way that information is disseminated. And the hashtag really has… is the way that it's reached the most people, and it's… it's been adopted.

Colin Goldberg

On its own. You know, it's the closest thing to anything viral that I've been a part of, because honestly, like, in the beginning, I was tagging people with a hashtag that I thought their work exemplified what I felt was Techspressionism. And I found a whole bunch of different artists that way, and consciously tried to find artists in different countries and different states, tagging them with this work, and then I'd send them a message, like. Hey, if you want, use the hashtag, and by the way, come to our salons. You know, and then it just started… it started spreading on its own, and now we're up to something like 82,000 posts on Instagram using the hashtag, and Renata Janiszewska is the Instagram curator, and she's done an amazing job of Picking, you know, picking artists, working with them, highlighting them, and so forth, so it's been a big community effort. So, anyway, that's my…

Kind of…

Input on that. What's been surprising is, like, everything, so…

Well, as… well, as somebody who wasn't in the first meeting, although I did make it to the third salon, I have to say that there are two… two things that I've found have been so significant. One is that sense of finding your tribe. I cannot say… to… I just… it's really, you know, I found my peeps, and it's just the sense that… there's such a deep history with so many of the people here in this community who have used technology to create art for decades, and there's a wealth of history there. They've seen the technology change in advance.

Michael Pierre Price

And there's a real sense of community, of generosity, of support. And… and the other thing for me, the term Techspressionism. Has been a way in to talk about what I do, because it is so confounding for people who don't understand how art can be created using technology. That there's very little common lexicon that you can use for people to get it. And having a word that's sort of out there, that they're not quite sure, it's… it starts a conversation, and I really love that about… about that. And so I think those have been, for me.

Michael Pierre Price

Really, really, wonderful parts of being part of this community, this movement, this social sculpture, whatever. I think we should wrap up, so I'd like to leave each one of you with, you know, a couple minutes to share any… Ending thoughts that you might have about maybe where we're headed, or what you're hoping for, or just any, any thoughts about, what we've talked about today.

I have a random question for Helen. Okay, obviously, Andy Warhol was pop art, but wasn't he really the first Techspressionist? I remember a retrospective at the Whitney, and the curator was describing his work, and he said, well, at one point, he held this massive party at his, you know, space, and the party was end of painting party. When he officially decided he was no longer going to be painting anymore, and he was only going to be using digital techniques.

Oz Van Rosen

Technically, in my mind, I think he's the first expressionist.

Well, I can't say I agree with you, because I think Warhol… if you take him at his word, which, of course, many people did not, because they didn't take him very seriously, he said he just wanted to be famous. And so whatever… it wasn't about expression. Remember, this is Techspressionism, where expression is paramount. It is actually about making images that sell well. And, of course, he really… most of his work, the work that was at the Whitney, the really important work was down in the gallery by the entrance, sort of off to the side where most people missed it, was his portraits.

He made a fortune!

Doing portraits of celebrities. That was his bread and butter. The rest of the stuff was icing on the cake, because it didn't really sell that well. Even Castelli couldn't move it. He never got a good review in his entire career. And people considered him just, you know, jumped-up fashion illustrator. But it was… it was his brilliance at… at marketing and promotion. He even had a television show at one point. If you ever get a chance to go to the museum in Pittsburgh, it is brilliant. It really is. I am not a Warhol fan, but if anybody's career was going to be explicated, that would be the way to do it.

Helen A. Harrison

But I think that, really. If you think about technology as a means of expression, you'd have to maybe go back to the early photo manipulations of people like Duchamp and Elazitsky and people who were playing with photography as a… as a vehicle for, abstract thought and abstract imagery. I would probably put them in a more senior position.

Thank you.

Oz Van Rosen

My last thought is, can we have another show at the Southampton Arts?

Well, you're still in Southampton, Oz, so I'm out here in Vermont, you know, you're perfectly poised to approach them and curate.

I just gotta guess.

Oscar!

Later.

You are the curator, Oz. Thanks for stepping up to the plate.

I would love to, if you guys would want to do it, I would love to do it.

Well, usually people are nominated for these jobs when they're not present, so maybe Patrick should do it.

Next…

Interesting to check in, like, a year from now. And, you know, we've got this sort of 5-year plan, and the reason why I say a year and not 5 more years is because of the acceleration of technology and how fast it moves. But I think, you know, it's clearly been established, you know, we didn't even need this to establish that this thing is out there in the world. And is documented, and has been proven to have legs, and has a community. And it'll be really curious to see you know, one part of what we discussed is, where are we going? Well, I don't think we know that, actually, and there's gonna be a kind of momentum that carries us along in spite of ourselves, and maybe a check-in, you know, in a year, and just see, like, well, what happened?

That's a good idea.

I mean, for me, you know, there was, A roundtable, I don't know if it was… it might have been the first roundtable, with, Helen and, Christiane Paul from the Whitney, talking about Techspressionism, and when that was going on, I couldn't even believe it was happening, to be honest. I was just like, how is this actually happening? And it was sort of like, almost like… I wouldn't say it was an argument, but it was… it was kind of like two very opposing viewpoints, in terms of… you know, Christiane Paul wrote the book on digital art. Literally, her book is called Digital Art, and there's been multiple iterations of it. And it's sort of like a history of digital art. And I remember talking to her about this, before the recording started.

Colin Goldberg

And I said, well, you know, like, if there's, say a sculpture that's 3D printed using technology, would you consider that digital art? And she said, absolutely. And I said, well, what about, like, my painting, involves digital drawing and inkjet. Is that digital art? And she said, yes, it is. And… I said, well, I disagree on both points. It's a sculpture, and it's a painting. That's how I would define those things. And that's, you know, that's a big piece of why this is important to me.

Colin Goldberg

And why I've pushed forward with this is because, the term digital art, it's gonna become meaningless. I mean, my kid draws on her iPad, she doesn't think about digital art, she's drawing. It's just… it's like, you know, Steve was saying, it's beyond art. Technology's just embedded in our existence at this point. It's part of everything that we do. So to, you know. To segment it off, I think it's… at this point, you know, it's a done deal. And, you know, I think about where we were 5 years ago, and then there were NFTs. There was Beeple who sold his NFT, you know, the Everyday's NFT, for, I think, more than anything had ever sold by a contemporary living artist at Sotheby's or Christie's or wherever it was. It was hundreds of millions of dollars, something insane. And what that did was it got people talking, like.

Colin Goldberg

Can you believe this sold for this much money? That's ridiculous. And all of a sudden, people are like, what the heck is an NFT? What is this stuff? And it was people, you know, it was just like when the web started, and I got involved in that in 1994, doing CD-ROMs, and the guy at the shop I was working in the East Village said. Hey, there's this new way to distribute multimedia globally, you know, it's called the World Wide Web. We've got to get in on this thing, you know? Nobody was using it, no one even knew what it was.

Colin Goldberg

And then, all of a sudden, you know, my dad is like, I gotta get an email account, you know? I'm like, what? You know, he's like, oh, the website! I'm just thinking, like, this is insane, like, everyone is using this thing now. And the same thing with the way that technology is, you know. Sort of… the technology sector of the art world has become, to some degree, mainstreamed. You know, even sort of bleeding over into, like, blue-chip galleries now, where you'll see you know, artists that weren't even using technology deciding to mint NFTs, like, I don't know, Damien Hirst or these other people.

Colin Goldberg

And, I don't know. It's… it's… it's interesting how it sort of has, you know, like. We've sort of, as a community, sort of paralleled this. But I still feel like I was talking to someone about this, yesterday, actually. I met with this guy, Gary Lichtenstein, who does… he's a silkscreen publisher at, Mass Mocha, and I said, you know, he was asked… we were talking about Techspressionism. And I said, you know, it still really just feels like it's an outsider art movement. You know, we're all sort of like… on the outside of the art world, like, kind of looking in, like, hey, you know, what's up? And, you know, it's like Steve had said, you know, where does it go from here? Like, do there need… does there need to be more involvement from curatorial, you know, outside curatorial sort of… viewpoints. And I think that is the next logical The next logical step in this path, you know? And I don't think… you know, it's moved into museums. Like, the Kingsborough Art Museum was the first real museum show, even though the Southampton Arts Center essentially was a site of the Parish Art Museum, where Helen was the curator, at some point, and I actually had my very first exhibition there when I was a high school student in the East End, student show, in… in that… in that space, which I thought was also very… Serendipitous, and… You know, and then now, in about… 10 days, there's gonna be a show called Techspressionism opening up in the Contemporary Art Museum of Uzbekistan, which Cynthia Beth Rubin organized, and apparently, the American Embassy in Uzbekistan is somehow now involved in this.

Colin Goldberg

So, I just think that, you know, it's pretty remarkable, and you know, unfortunately, Patrick seems to have lost his internet connection, but, you know, to see this thing you know, coming together in a way that's very organic, makes… makes me happy, and I… and… and, you know, that… Andre Breton aspect that Helen brought up, you know, I would like nothing more than to just Fade away into the background, and like. Other people just take the reins and start curating, which has happened, actually. You know, Tommy's curated the show in Brooklyn and in Chelsea, and Cynthia has put together… Cynthia Beth Rubin has put together the show in Uzbekistan, Randi Matushevitz has organized Techspressionism LA, which I think there's gonna be multiple iterations of. So I think, you know, in that regard, now.

Colin Goldberg

I like to think of my role as helping facilitate the salons, encouraging people to, you know, be proactive and take the idea, because I think it is a springboard for people to be able to make an approach to curators or institutions that is novel, and it, you know, it gets people's attention. And just, you know, sort of… see where it goes from here, you know? But, finding some balance… in my own life, being able to get back to my own studio practice, making art, and let this sort of community just, you know, exist and gel, that's, you know, that's my personal goal with it all, so… Yeah.

Awesome. Well, I… I… I still think Helen's point is really, really huge, that technology is a vehicle for expressing our thoughts as artists, our feelings as artists, and I… and I think that's really borne out in this community, in the artists that are part of this community. And, yeah.

We did actually… I just had one other closing thought. That you, you know, you made me think of, which is that, you know, Patrick, he mentioned sort of offhand about this idea of Techspressionism, you know, potentially being contextualized as, like, a fourth wave within Expressionism. And, you know, the first being, I guess, would be the figurative expressionists, like Dubruca or Dub Blau Reiter, these groups, you know. I'm not sure exactly when they were, the 20s or 30s, Helen would know better than I do, and then the American abstract expressionists.

Colin Goldberg

Like Pollock and de Kooning. Franz Kline is, you know, a personal favorite of mine. And then moving into the neo-Expressionists, which is sort of like a more amorphous Grouping, you know, people have said, I know Anselm Kiefer is pretty commonly thought of as a neo-expressionist, but also people like maybe Basquiat or, Keith Haring, you know, so I wanted… and then that would be the third wave, so… you know, Figurative Expressionism, abbex, Neo-Expressionism, and then Techspressionism.

Colin Goldberg

And I just wanted to ask Helen, what she thinks about this idea, and if there's, you know, sort of a validity to it. Is there going to be a post-Techspressionism? If there is, then…

Post-impressionism. Oh, God, I hope not. But if we could have sat here 5 years ago and said where we were going to be in 5 years, I don't think any of us would have come up with where we are now, just because we had no idea how it was going to catch on, and how… what kind of amazing international response there was going to be. I mean, again, thanks to you, Colin, for reaching out to those people and making them aware, but they were already doing this stuff.

Helen A. Harrison

It wasn't like they said, oh, that's a good idea, maybe I'll try that. They were already there. They just didn't know that there was a tribe out there that they could sign up for. But I think that once the, once the word got out, this thing does have a life of its own. And if it has any juice at all, it will survive, because the… as long as the internet survives, and as long as there is that network. People will want to be part of it. But I do think that these exhibitions are helpful, that you know, coming from a curatorial background, I could see more narrowly focused themed shows, more localized exhibitions, or just people in certain areas, but the international flavor, I think, is really what makes it come alive.

So, thanks.

Wow.

Come on.

Well, I just want to thank all of you for being here. Sorry we lost Patrick, but Colin, Steve, Helen, Oz, I'm really, really grateful that you could make time today. Yeah, this has been a great discussion, and I just wanted to get all of your inputs as to, like, how this all came together, and I appreciate you sharing some of your thoughts on all of this.

Our pleasure.

Alright, thank you, Michael. Thanks for hosting.

Thanks for inviting us. Thanks so much, Michael, for moderating.

Alright, my pleasure.

Alright, so with that, I will stop… stop the recording in 3, 2, 1, and… Cut.