Salon 8 // Pons, Sun, Andrew, Pointer, Boyd-Wilson, LaFleur

Okay, it says connect to the cloud server.

I mean, if not, we'll just all explode or something will happen.

Okay. All right. So now it says it's recording.

And let's just hope that it is. Oh, so apparently in the Zoom meeting, like settings in the manage participants, that's where you select who can record and who can't.

Yeah, but I think maybe do

You think two can record? Maybe it should be. But it's going to record the same thing.

It's allowed to record.

Okay. Yeah. You want to give it a try now?

Yeah. So I will do that. Okay. Well, it's recording now, I guess. All right.

So I have it in gallery view. It says in the top left, I see the button, the recording button is going. So it's working. And I'm happy to record sometime too if you need it. Gotcha.

Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Cool. All right. So, you know, like at some point, I will, I see a bunch of other people in the waiting room here. And since it's in speaker view now, I definitely will need anybody who is going to be sharing to put yourselves in the chat because I can't see everyone in the grid anymore. Like it's, you know, only showing five people up top or four or five people up top. So

I'm going to put myself in the chat. Oh, wow. We have 23 participants

Now. I guess I could switch between the gallery and speaker view. I don't know if it's going to do that in the recording, though.

Right. It'll only show your view, you know, so.

Okay. Gotcha. But it'll switch in the recording from gallery.

Yeah, it's just going to record whatever is going on the screen.

You can be kind of casual about it.

Okay, cool. Gotcha. Okay. Okay, cool. So, so it's a little after two. And I guess the way that it's going to be recorded, it's going to be a little bit later. So I'm going to put myself in the chat. Okay. So the way that we'll run it is as we have in the past. Anybody who would like to share your work and that also includes sharing your screen. Put yourself list, put your name into the chat window. And then we'll just go in the order of people in the chat window. And then once all the artists that haven't yet presented their work to the group have shared will open it up and, you know, any, any previously previous attendees can share their work or we can have sort of an open discussion.

Colin Goldberg

So, chat is open. Any, any victims want to step up to the plate. Victims.

You're looking for new people right?

New people.

Yeah, new people. New people to start out with. Frederick, you want to, you want to, you want to go.

Yes. Okay. Can you hear me clearly.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Are we still keeping this in three minutes or no.

Yeah, I guess. What do you guys think that's enough time or should we extend it to four. Yeah.

Sorry, that's my dog.

Okay, it's like for me it's I'm seeing like the gallery. Since it's Speaker View whoever's saying anything is popping up but I guess that's okay but could everyone other

Than

Frederick mute yourselves for the time being and I guess we'll go with four minutes. So, yeah.

Okay, so I can share my screen right? Yeah. Yep. Okay but they have to navigate between different windows. Those. So I will start by speaking a little bit. So I've been actively working on art things, I would say, for like a year and a half. But since I'm a motion designer, as a profession, I always practice art, but it was mostly for clients or my bosses.

Unattributed

I wanted to start by making video. And that's what I did. So my intention was to create a YouTube channel, but sorry, I'm a bit... I'm a bit stressed out. So I will just, I will start by sharing an example of a video I made that I like.

I just pasted Frederick's Instagram into the chat window. If any of you guys want, you can click that link too, to get a quick look at this one.

Okay. Okay, so I have my QuickTime window. Okay, I can share it. Now. Okay, so that's a video I made. Okay, so I done with it from YouTube, so the quality is not very good. But there's a it demands a I'm sorry, but visually, I was on something quite radical, I would say. As a child, it's only on my phone. So I'm just doing it on my phone. So I'm just doing it on my phone. Only green and blue and took me quite and it's made also with fragments of a movie that I downloaded and mashed up all together to make a video to illustrate a kind of text I wrote that but it's in French so I'm not sure that it could be very easy for you to understand so that was a lot of fun to do but also a lot of work I think I worked for at least two months on the video but I'm not working full time because I have I have my job and so YouTube was too time-consuming from what I what I wanted to do because if you want to grow an audience on YouTube from what I understand you have to have to have a precise brand and the to post content regularly which wasn't my case because I work so much on the video so I don't know I was like I still I still have a lot of work to do but I'm not sure that it could be very easy for you to understand so that was a lot of fun to do but I still love making videos but I'm not so much on the YouTube part for now and in the meantime I wanted to also to promote those videos on YouTube so on Instagram that's how I discovered Instagram which I absolutely didn't know before last year and Instagram which I absolutely didn't know before last year and it was it was really a discovery because I had no idea that Instagram was so packed with talent it was a really I discovered a lot of really amazing artists Instagram so it made me reconsider what I wanted to do because I also realized that even if I thought bi graphic abilities and such were good in Instagram I realized that I had much much to learn because I saw things that I knew never knew that people could do and I was really eager eager to learn a lot because yeah I honestly discovered some types of images in Instagram that I never saw anywhere else before.

To do that. It's not an easy start. It's not an easy start. So I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show.

And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. And I'm very excited to have you on the show. For sure. Awesome.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And yeah, moving forward, you know, if whoever is sharing, please paste in any links to your Instagram or any websites, you know, that you want into the chat. And that way, you know, the other members in the meeting can check out your work. I saw a couple other people joined in. So, Jonesy, you want to take it away?

Colin Goldberg

You might need to unmute yourself. Or do you want to share? I see you're in the meeting, Jonesy. Or we could skip until the next one. Let's see who's in the chat. Giovanna Sun do you want to jump in? I don't know if Jonesy might have stepped away from her computer. You just need to unmute yourself.

Okay. Let me find my Instagram. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. ity.

Just let the other members know where you're calling in from and stuff.

Yeah, sure. I'm from New York. I'm an artist curator. Also I found ARPOD. ARPOD is a mobile app you can download to showcase your art. We produce AR and VR gallery. I also like to let all of you know that our office. We have a lot of work to do. We can actually do physical art shows. As a member of a tech prescient that you're welcome to join that we have a lot of art fair this year.

Giovanna Sun

I go into send my contact to the chat. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. If you can just

Use the middle

Of the screen. So you can see and be all of the different stuff. The name of the video is out in the bottom of the screen. So you can see and be all of the different things. So you can see and be all of the different things. So you can see and be all of the different things. So you can see and be all of the different things.

So you can see and be all of the different things. All right, did you have any more that you wanted to add or?

Oh, yeah, I wish I can. Well, if I can share my screen a little bit, but I have to find my video. Okay. Let me find my video first. So what is it? What is your guys doing right now? Doing the pandemic? Anybody want to say anything? Do you have a like a YouTube channel or anything like to talk about it?

Well, we have we're gonna start a YouTube channel. And kind of like we're so the way that the meeting is sort of structured is initially the artists who haven't presented their work to the group before, we'll each get like a certain amount of time to show their work and share their screen. And then we'll kind of open it up to general discussion.

Colin Goldberg

Okay, we do have a couple different social media channels on the expressionism.com site footer, probably the discord server that Devante set up is the most active at this point.

Okay, so am I able to share my screen right now? Yep.

Yeah. Okay.

So I actually, I made this video and also with my original painting, and also the music as well. I'm a songwriter and the DJ when I was in Taiwan, I start my art career about 10 years ago. I'm really fascinated about art. I'm really fascinated about trans music and take house. So I just combine these together.

Giovanna Sun

I also have my IG that's actually my IG is an Instagram is very easy to find you can just you just find my name Giovanna Sun and no space. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

So my artwork is a kind of, is my artwork is actually really changed a lot because the one the one I showed to you this is really not my style I always change is always transform forming myself and I try to be because I'm in the tech industry leaving the technology world so I feel like every day even every second every moment is change is change.

Giovanna Sun

So leaving the fast-paced world, I try to be always transforming myself into different type of a form. Okay, I guess that's about my presentation. So I'm going to put my IG, my Twitter account, and my email in the chat. I like to coordinate, you know, So think about how can we help each other right now.

I would encourage you guys, if you want to download, if you look for ArtPot, A-R-T-P-O-T, I know it's in the iOS app store and I believe on Google Play, is it on Google Play as well? Yep, it is.

We also have an Android, but Android version we haven't update for a while due to the budget. But we most likely, our iOS app is more, we have a lot of upgrade versions.

Gotcha, cool. All right, so I don't know, Jonesy, did you want to present? I don't think you have before to the group, or have you? I saw you in the chat. So I think we'll see if we can get you in the chat. If not.

Have a question, Colin. Yeah. I didn't really understand what you said about ArtPot. I didn't quite understand what it is. Could you explain it?

It is an app that I believe allows artists and galleries to publish their work to, you know, other users of the application. I did download it, but I haven't really played too much with it. But probably this group would be a good set of beta testers for it for Giovanna. And also, you know, we could probably find a way to sort of, you know, mutually work with her startup, you know, as a way to get some exposure for member artists and stuff like that. But I would recommend just downloading it and trying it out.

Yeah, you can actually. I can't wait. Yeah. Just play around. We try to create an ecosystem for all the artists in our communities. We're also marketplace because I'm curators. For more than 10 years, we have our inner circles about dirty art collectors in our circle. Besides selling art, that we also just encourage all the art lovers and all the artists just try our app.

Giovanna Sun

And the good thing about our app is I know as many artists these days, they only can show their art on Instagram and they not even can have their own website. But our app is free. That if you want to showcase the app that you can just, if you have a mobile phone, you can just show to the people whenever and wherever.

Giovanna Sun

Maybe.

Is it like Saatchi or distinguished from that? Is it different?

Yeah, similar like Saatchi but we also, the good thing about our app is that we also can showcase the locations of your studio and also if you have a video, we also can showcase video and even like a 360 tour. Saatchi Art is more simply just a 40 case like Marketplace to buy cell art. But we are like combine with AR VR in...

Giovanna Sun

Actually where they closed off functions because we were kind of thinking about too broad and then we tried to just limit some functions and focus on showcase in the virtual gallery thing.

Okay. So I'd like to just move on and get through the artists first. And then we can maybe open it up to discussion for the sake of time. But I think maybe talking about these different marketplace applications might be a good general topic of discussion once the floor is open. I do see Malavika sent me a direct message. I don't know if she posted to the group, but if you want to share, I see you as the next person in my chat.

Colin Goldberg

You just need to unmute yourself.

Am I audible?

Hi there.

Yeah, hi. Hello, everyone. I'm Malavika. Is my PPD, you will be giving me the share, right?

You should be. You should be able to share your screen just by hitting the share screen button. If you just want to tell the group where you're dialing in from also, that would be great.

Okay. One second.

You're coming in from India, right?

Yes. Is it visible?

Yeah. I see your screen.

Great. I have written a lot of matters. I thought if my pronunciation is not very clear, at least you can read a little bit. So that's the thing I thought of.

Sorry. I'll do this.

I just posted your Instagram in the chat also so the other users can take a look while you're presenting.

All right. Thank you.

All right. All right. Thank you. I don't know why it's not functioning. Because it's not visible.

Sorry.

It's okay. If you want to pull up your Instagram maybe and just tell us a little bit more about your images that way, that would be great.

Okay.

I wanted to show some new work also. But... Okay. I'll just take two minutes and then again I'll come back. I'll just share you the... By the time somebody else can take it.

Sure. Does someone else want to present? Sorry. I'm trying to see who in the chat. Lucy, do you want to present? Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I'm always doing

It. This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm doing. You can have the phone. This is what I'm doing. You can have the phone. This is what I'm doing. You can have the phone. This is what I'm doing. You can have the phone. This is what I'm doing. You can have the phone.

You can have the phone. Michael.

Yeah, hello. Hi there. Can you hear me? You got it? Am I unmuted? Yep. Oh, good. All right. Well, I've been working on a series that I've called In Signal Noise, based on the broken signals that arrive on my television screen. And I photograph them. They're wonderfully abstract. But they're also a lot of old black and white.

Michael Pointer

Sitcoms from the 50s and 60s. And, and I have Let's see here I'll share my screen. Okay. So, I photograph them with my iPhone, because I like the lack of detail. And, and then I make a digital negative and I print these on at 45 inches by 60 inches and then I apply acrylic paint. This is F troop.

Michael Pointer

The Adams family. Colors of the American flag done in reverse. The Lone Ranger. Father Knows Best. Bewitched. Eventually this is going to be a, an exhibit of 15 to 20 pieces. It's, it's, it's the American facade of, of what, of what the right in our country thinks they're defending that, that these, these images of sitcoms.

Michael Pointer

And those are the halcyon days for, for the people who are resisting change. And the things that they refer back to and think about our, our evidence in, in the popularity of old sitcoms. And, in, and I, I just sort of brought them up. And worked on them to show them as, as they were just a facade that were, that.

Michael Pointer

Were not a, an accurate. Depiction. Of what real life in America was or, or has been ever. That it's an ideal that has never really existed. So the, the Techspressionism is part of it is, you know, it begins with my iPhone. And a digital TV screen. And, and then I, I make it larger. Combining a contemporary process with an analog., component.

Michael Pointer

So I'm, I'm, I'm literally addressing. Old ideas of the past with new technology. And, that's, that's what I've been doing the most of lately. Rogers and Dale Evans. This is as far as I've gotten so far, but I have, I have. Plenty more negatives to make and. It's all done on metallic paper. So it, it, the images read like a.

Michael Pointer

You read like a, like an old television screen. Anyway. That's what I've been doing. Thank you.

That's really beautiful. Interesting work, Michael.

Thank you.

Yes.

Very cool. Very cool.

Nice work. Yeah, I like it too. It's really nice.

I hope I can. I'm also going to be a. An artist, the artist in residence in Todi, Italy and. In the fall. And I'm going to be teaching two classes that I. I want to include Techspressionism as part of my curriculum. So. So if anybody has any presentation ideas. Or formats that, that they found conducive in their own teaching or I'd be, I'd love to know about them.

I think that's really cool. I mean, I would say there's so little. Actual. Concrete. You know, material about. The ideas behind it at this point that, you know, I would encourage your students to. You know, Come up with their own interpretations of how the idea could relate to. Their work and their ideas in conjunction with technology, you know, there isn't really much. To be taught about it other than it's something. New to be explored. And I think, you know, like the foundation of it is really how it relates to. Past. Ideas of the. Expressionism. Per se that, you know, Are about really sort of an internal emotional experience or.

Colin Goldberg

Some sort of a, you know, the, an internal expression versus, Say rendering or depiction. Or, you know, in terms of an illustrative, approach. I mean, other than that, I think, you know, it's something that everyone's going to have their own kind of ideas about.

Sure. Well, I, you know, it's something that's been. We've been doing for several years years now we've just never had it had a way to say what it was and now we do and that's wonderful because now I can I can really start exploring this and that the interesting thing to me is that now when I create a piece I think in terms of expressionism you know what am I saying about it and how important is the tech to what I'm working on currently and would this be better? I mean, my work always explores the relationship between painting and photography. So one of the questions I always ask myself is, would this be more effective as a painting than as a photograph or in an analog form?

Michael Pointer

And I don't have an answer to that yet. I wish I did. But it's an ongoing exploration for me and I hope to foster some of that while I'm while I'm in italy I'm going to make a little stop in barcelona with anna eric calde and her husband anyway it's going to be a little a little tour with a Techspressionist message and see what we can get out of that very

Cool very cool I know that there's at least one other artist that's from barcelona and you know before you go on your trip you could always look through the artist in the decks on the site and see if there's anybody that you could actually you know connect with on your travels at least it's like a point of commonality you know it's starting to be a pretty nice international group of artists so I'm just looking through the chat window I don't know if anyone else wants to hop in or if malavika you want to give it another shot

I will try one more time to share my screen if it doesn't happen I'm sharing the Instagram also otherwise because Instagram is having little hapus at images so I don't know that's the reason I want it okay

So I'll try one more time thank you so yeah okay!

So my name is as I said as malavika I'm an artist and my main education is in textile designing I did my bachelor's and master's degree in textile design from vishwati shantiniketan at west bengal india it is founded by great poet and writer artist gurudev ravinara to go I've received polo kisner upon graduation grant and national scholarship of government of india which has helped me lots in my developing my experimental work and also digital collage because digital collage to print is very expensive so that's how it helped me a lot I participated in different national and international group art shows also I had four solo art shows also in india Now during my college time I didn't learn CAD design because that was not part of our education. Our institute was totally into the traditional technique, like you can see brush and paint.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Even if I was doing it in 1988, the textile designing I finished, but that time also I didn't learn the CAD. So my CAD learning is thanks to my textile industry work and teaching experience because of which I learned CAD. And lots of textile other techniques which helped me in developing my digital medium and mixed media art. Now I'll start showing my work. Actually, it is the first time showing you some of the few textile based work so that I can make you understand that from textile how I went to digital.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

So this is basically, you see, its inspiration is life, nature. And these are tapestries, then prints, leather batik, mixing with weaving, normal batik. So I'm mixing all the techniques here also during my starting. This is, I think, 2003 exhibition I had. And which I'm even using in the garment. I mean, so my for me, the space is not a very important factor. I'm just experimenting different art objects. I'm just trying to make it on different surface. Now I shifted to slowly digital. Now it happened because of I when I am from a very small town. So when I shifted to Mumbai, it's a business hub. So here, because of my learning in textile industries, I will say learning because I was working and learning this CAD, as I said. So I started using the medium as per the requirement. I was not mixing.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

I mean, like converting after after changing the digital effect. I'm not converting. So here my inspirations goes this way that along with the six five elements of our life, the sixth element that is called technology got involved. And we, the human being, have unlimited desire. So that's for my identity and how I shifted from a small town to big town. So that identity is like now I want more like now how I got connected to you. So it's an unlimited desire. So that's the thing I'm showing in my these digital collage.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

In this, some of them on the red colors like these are all digital and these are all mixed medium work. I showing because the impact. How I it is affecting to me when I'm going to the digital and how it is changing when I'm working on the mixed medium. Even though I'm using your mixed medium, but the base I created by digital collage.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

Now, this is 2015. I was, I mean, in from 2007 to 2015. I was having some personal problems. Plus, there was a time problem. So what I have done, I started doing in a very small notebook. I can say it's artist book. Where each page is a little bit different. But if you look at this one. So each page will connected to the next one. Like these are actually from the 30 pages. This is some, I think five, 10 pages of that. So each page when I'm doing it, like how our life is connected to the next day. Same way. Also connected to the next day. Next pages. Pages. And from this, I have picked up like this on the left side, this is one of my page. And then I started again experimenting with that. Now, if I say how it is getting help, so your technoism, or I say the technique of zooming, then scanning, so I'm getting a lot of perforated, a lot of uneven textures, grains, which is helping me in developing my next artwork.

Malavika Mandal Andrew

These are not possible for me to do it without the technical development, I mean the CAD. So I love and enjoy this technique. And I think that this has given me a new direction also. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you for presenting. Very nice. Very cool. So, I'm losing track in the chat of like who is new and who hasn't presented yet but anybody that wants to Lucy, would you like to present. Sure.

Hello everybody. I'm very excited to discover this group and Colin accepted me into the group this morning literally an hour before the zoom call and, and this is very cool, very interesting is exactly what, what

I need, you know, community, let us know where you're calling in from to you know my.

Yeah, I'm, I live in San Diego in California, and I'm an ex animation and video game programmer and now I'm creating my own interactive art. Of different types. I will share my screen. Alright, so, fortunately the zoom controls are hiding my, my animation controls. Okay. So, this is a piece from a. Okay. So, this is a piece from a. Collection that I'm calling energetic expressions and they're each based on a photograph which I then animate and can make it interactive.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

So this is right now it's just you know randomly surging and changing and the sort of energy is randomly changing throughout. Making something interactive it very much depends on the display system, the context, the event. One idea for one way in which I would make it interactive is you know as you approach the monitor it may you know surge and fizzles and if you back off it sort of becomes stiller or if you wave in front of it maybe it'll energize it more. So that's one collection, one type of work that I do.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

If there's an extra minute you can show one other. I use a Unity game engine. So this one is a bit more of a VR piece. So this is a different kind of experience. Takes a moment to get going. This would become a VR piece. It needs a bit of optimizing first but this gives the general idea and again it's so what I like to express is a bit of a VR piece. It's all about energy and in particular interacting.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

How do I allow people to interact with my work? To be able to reach out and touch or energize or to have that sense of responsiveness is really what I find exciting and what I'm always trying to go for. The subject matter is always natural processes and flows and trees and water and fish and swarming, flocking, growing, seaweed, whatever. That's what I love.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

So that gives just a little glimpse of two types of things that I've been working on most recently. Lovely work.

Awesome.

Very cool.

And thank you everybody. I'm happy to be here.

Nice. I just got my first headset. I got an Oculus for the holidays. So you said VR and I got interested immediately. I'd never played with that before and it seems like a whole new world. So it's exciting.

It is. It's very cool. It's like you can see something on a screen and you think you know what to expect but then you see it in the headset and it really is a different experience. Yeah, it completely is.

It was something that I couldn't appreciate in the videos and documentations about the experience until I was actually in it. So that's awesome. Let's see who else is in here. Emily, would you like to present?

Hi everybody. I'm Emily Bruton Schilling and I'm here from New York City and very excited to be here. I am a loser at sharing my screen but I did post my Instagram in earlier. I've been working kind of mostly with stitching together expressionistic sort of paintings that I've done with photographs and I started with a lot of my work. I started in on that path with just confronting aging, confronting groups and isolation during the pandemic. So those are some of the themes I've been playing with. But one of the things like being very new to this group, like I just stumbled across it maybe a week ago, is how fascinatingly related to the history of art expressionism really is.

Unattributed

And I'm thinking about things like early prints that were made by feeding sounds into fax machines. Like this stuff goes back to the 60s and 70s and it's really, I think as Lucy said, that it's so exciting to, I think it was Lucy who said that having a name for this helps me to kind of direct my thinking and feel. And I think that's kind of validated that I'm not just messing around on the computer and playing all day. This is actually creating. So I'm very excited to be here and just be learning from all of you. Thank you.

Awesome. If you want, paste in some of your links into the chat and then people can see what you're working on. And another thing that what you brought up. You know. Like I posted something to our Facebook page and our group and I wanted to put it out there. There's another artist who's part of the group. He hasn't been at the salons yet, but he's someone that I sort of had always looked to as, you know, a pioneer in this area. And his name is Joseph Nechvatal.

Colin Goldberg

And he, I lived kind of not too far from him in the Lower East Side in New York City and he introduced me to this idea of social art, which I guess was developed by this artist, Joseph Beuys, B-E-U-Y-S, as how like, you know, social actions, groups, organizations could be a medium in which, you know, multiple participants could create art essentially. And it really resonated with me and he brought this up in the context of another group project that we were involved in. You know, and it recently kind of came to me that like that's almost the way that I think about this endeavor more so than any other way or, you know, in an idealistic sense, it being an art project that's participatory, that's using sort of the social fabric as its medium versus, you know, trying to be a movement or trying to be a collective or trying to be an organization.

Colin Goldberg

I mean, the thing that we do have in common is that we're artists and the idea of social art, I think, I don't know, it's just something that resonated with me. So I just wanted to put that out there. So, yeah. But I also just wanted to make sure that anybody that is in the meeting right now that would like to present, that has yet to present to the group.

Colin Goldberg

Can do so. So, I mean, at this point, I'm kind of losing track. So if you just want to unmute yourself and shout out, you'll pop up. Otherwise, we can open it up.

Karen, go ahead.

See if I can do this. Is the sound okay? Because there's music in one of my pieces. Now I have to go to where? Can you see this?

Yep.

Yes. Okay.

Okay. It's down here.

I thought I had three minutes so I was trying to put my life in three minutes. I work in a genre called sudden fiction, which are small micro stories for me they run between about 300 words and maybe 1900 words, max. Max. And my artwork and tech speak to the resiliency of the human heart to survive in the ever shifting landscapes of life. And I've been doing this for a number of years.

Karen LaFleur

I started with computers, as I said in one meeting in 81, and I kind of grew up with them. These were done in the mid 90s. They're different voices of different characters. Their stories embedded and somebody was talking about bringing mixed media in and things. This is paintings projected on the walls brought back in digitized. It's a mixed bag of everything. So I did this for years in my gallery and I sold them and I'm still selling them. Then I started to take the text and embed it inside the characters themselves.

Karen LaFleur

Then I started to play around in different genres. I've been doing a children's literature conference every other year and I do their opening animation to start the conference. So I have to go with their themes. This one here was their impossible dreams. Obviously graphic novel influenced. Then I realized I had the layers. I had the stories. Let's make the move. So I came to the animation actually through this journey.

Karen LaFleur

Then I started to experiment with stories in abstract form. This was actually an exhibit I did for a bunch of lit majors. I told them go ahead in and read the stories. They were just kind of stunned. But they had a blast once they figured it out. This is Rapunzel. You can actually read it from the upper left serpentine curve down through the whole thing and ends in the lower left living happily ever after. From there I started to take those digital paintings and started to put them into storyboard form. So this will eventually be a full animation.

Karen LaFleur

Then I started to work with experimenting just getting vocabulary and abstract forms, getting away from the realistic forms because well basically I'm losing my hands to autoimmune conditions so it's hard for me to draw. So what I do is I do these paintings and then I have control of every element in these paintings so that they can be used in other areas even if it's a tiny dot.

Karen LaFleur

And that's how these end up getting created. Then I started to take the abstractions and make them move. A bunch of these are posted on my Instagram account. They're just little five second experiments in learning the language of moving abstraction. Then I started to work with the Hammond Museum and once a month I'm posting about one to one and a half minute animations with them. So I'm working with that. Then I started to take the abstractions and make them and that was a five second clip from one of those animations.

Karen LaFleur

And then hopefully this works for you. This is September's I work. This is the full minute. And I work with Nancy Tucker, the musician on this. She does all her original performances and compositions.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

And that's what I do. I'm doing more and more of these. They're getting longer. They'll end up coming back circling into my stories. And eventually my sudden fictions will be animated. This. So that's what I do.

Thank you so much.

Really wonderful. Thank you.

I really identified with a lot of your different work for different reasons, you know, introducing painting and mixed media, the fabric from Malavika. When I travel, I travel and I have no travel photos. I just have photos of colors and cracks and dots. And they're my palette where then I take and I create onto the computer. I don't use any paint programs or anything. It's all done with a mouse and clicked around everything.

So that's what I do.

Anybody else? Would anyone else that has yet to present their work to the group like to? If you want to, you could just unmute yourself. And shout it out. Otherwise, I guess we can open it up to anybody that's in the meeting. If you're working on anything new or anyone has any sort of specific topics or conversation they want to bring up. One thing, one other thing other than I think I might have said social art, but it was really social sculpture that Boyz was talking about.

Colin Goldberg

There's another thing that I just wanted to share with you guys in the chat, which is there's a group in New York City called the Art of Art. And it's a group that's really focused on the art of art. And they're doing a series of exhibitions in New York City called The Thing. And I remember back when the web was just getting started.

Colin Goldberg

There weren't really that many Internet service providers and The Thing was one of them that was just for that was started by an artist named Wolfgang Staehle. I think that's how you pronounce it. But I see them as sort of like a predecessor to what we're doing in a way. And it's an interesting model. Like I pasted the link into the Wikipedia link into the chat. And they kind of formulated their own like geographic, almost like chapters, you know, and I was thinking that might be something down the road. If people like say, you know, a group of expressionist artists based in Canada wanted to come together and pull together a show of Canadian expressionism, you know, that might be a way of people geographically kind of like formulating many communities also or a way of the, you know, what we're doing sort of growing and evolving.

Colin Goldberg

And I think that's a way that would be allowed for local in person community building as well. You know, I don't know if that has any validity or not, but some more food for thought. But yeah, anyone that wants to jump in and show your new stuff or anything else? I'm not sure if you guys think we should continue recording past the presentation period or not. Anyone have any opinion on that?

Why not? I mean, I find out if you stop recording, then something brilliant comes up that you didn't record or you know, I mean, sometimes the way that you're talking, the thing you said about this thing being a social sculpture and mentioning Joseph Beuys, that's really interesting that coming from you, Colin, because it kind of gives a philosophy to what we're doing here, you know, and you sort of was one of the main, well, you're the main person who I see as the progenitor of this. And again, it gives it a lot of openness, which is which is good. Great.

I mean, you know, like I was sharing with Davonte and a couple of the other artists before we started recording, you know, I've definitely struggled with like, what to call this endeavor, you know, or how to describe it, you know, and then I sort of like, re-remembered the conversation with Joseph about this idea, you know, and it really sort of made sense to me that, like, I'd like it to be what people make of it versus how they would describe it.

Colin Goldberg

And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. And I think that's an interesting way to put it. To describe it's it is the combination of two words in that way but I think it's also it can't just be arbitrary you know it does actually have to stay true to what expressionism was all about where it wasn't necessarily depiction you know and I feel like even media like photography can be used in a very expressionistic way and doesn't necessarily need to be like illustrative or completely figurative you know and in terms of putting the show together the first sort of main group show which will most likely be preceded by this really cool collaborative project that Davonte has come up with I you know I was thinking that like an initial way of organizing the work could be like abstract expressionism and figurative to expressionism in the way that Der Blau Reiter and De Brucke and all of those sort of groups preceded the abex painters but it's all sort of the same tradition of expressionism so I kind of wanted to put that out there and see what you guys thought too

I think it's interesting I mean you know I have to say my own work has always a some usually has some kind of figurative thing in it but I'm not like drawing a toy pussycat with digital you know depicting a picture it I mean it there is I mean expressionism when you look at into the abstract marks of even a piece it's about a figure or you know the piece I think it was Michael Pointer rory rogers and you know there are things in there that have imagery you can see but there's an abstraction to it that makes it interesting and also I personally I think looking when I look at digital there's kind of a close edge between decorative expressionism where it's a bunch of paintings flying around this is just me you know and something that has a deeper deeper something going on with it that has to be done that can't be done in other media you know you can't just take a painting and then go that's something that I think that really needs that people out there don't understand educationally about digital is that we're not taking paintings and then making a digital geclay print of them which is where sort of that gets a bad rap and there's nothing wrong with doing that but we're working with the medium itself.

Roz Dimon

I mean, with the edge, the tool, even, I mean, some of the work I do is even with a pencil lately and having worked in digital for 25 years, I pick up a pencil now and I'm definitely drawing differently than I used to. So it's nice to connect the larger lexicon of art history, you know, to this, which is several people have brought up today with connecting old with new. I think that makes it very exciting and broader. And then we critique each other. I mean, we talk to each other about our work. I think it's exciting. I was in a group called Picture Element in the 90s and it was one of the earliest groups in New York City that did this, there were eight of us. Picture Element was a word we really thought about very much too, that the digital had to be a part. There's nothing online about it.

Roz Dimon

I'm the only, if you're looking for it, there's a site, but it isn't completed. And, but it was pretty serious, serious painters working with digital and having it as part of their work.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that, you know, it's the discourse that makes it interesting, you know, for me anyway. And it's like, you know, is the medium the message? You know, I mean, the medium is what sort of is a unifying force or, you know, that's, you know, the thing that we all have in common is we all are, you know, our work is all touched by technology in some way. It's not necessarily about technology, you know?

Colin Goldberg

And I think that diversity is what makes it interesting, you know, in that, you know, when Helen first got involved, one point that she made was the definition originally was, included the word style, you know, a style, which, let's see, how, what did it used to be? It was an artistic style in which technology is utilized as a means to express emotional experience rather than the external world. And Helen suggested changing that word style to approach. And, you know, initially I didn't see how important that was, but it really is important because otherwise all of the work would end up being curated to look, look the same, to have the same aesthetic and the same, you know, feel to it. And I think that's very limiting and that really locks in your 15 minutes of notoriety as, you know, a movement or a group or an endeavor because it just, you know, moves on to the next thing.

So I, you know, I'm a lot more interested in my final piece, not looking like a piece. Painting. You know, the pieces that I showed today are a transmutation of both. But most of my work is obviously digital and should never be inferred as a painting. And I think that's part of what beginning this conversation allows me to do is to place my digital art on a level playing ground with other art forms.

And it also speaks to the sped up time we're in. I mean, you know, it's fine if you do draw dots all your life, but Gerard Richter, who's one of the more interesting artists in the last, you know, contemporary scene in the last hundred years to me, and you go to see his shows at the Whitney and whatever, and he has all these different periods and they're interesting. And, you know, you don't, you change in your life and in digital, we're changing every year. You know, Warhol said, you know, fame, you get 15 minutes. Well, now you get five seconds. I mean, fame, it doesn't even really mean the same thing. Digital is changing everything. This is the movement. I mean, I've thought so forever, but I've been out here blabbing about this for a long time. But it is, it really is. And it's the artist speaking to and the artist being made in this little place that we're all speaking to each other.

Roz Dimon

So, yeah. I'm glad to be here too.

Yeah. I agree, Roz. Yeah, very much so.

I mean, I don't know, Davo, how this thing is going that you started where we're doing work with other people, you know, the, can you, Colin, I don't know if you want to talk about this during this meeting, but I know that I've been working with a woman in Iran. I mean, here I read the New York Times every day and it's, we just put sanctions on Iran and Iran just has warships and the, the, the, the ships away from Iran. And I'm having a wonderful, incredible experience with this Iranian artist. She's a book illustrator and I don't see illustrators as a bad word. I mean, actually I find the skill of drawing something incredible that if you can expand upon is even better going beyond illustration. So I know what you're saying there, but she's so talented and beyond her illustration, she does these incredible, interesting digital patterns with her work.

Roz Dimon

And we've been having a great thing together. And I feel like we're busting through all that crap. You know, we're it's a new kind of universe and a way to communicate beyond the gallery. It's a whole new kind of gallery or art world even.

I agree. Davo, do you want to speak to sort of where we're at in the, in the collab? I saw Emily asked if it could be expanded. I mean, you know, I'm kind of going to let you take the lead. I don't know if you want to have like one chapter be complete and I'll go through one iteration. Yeah. Before we do like 2.0 or whatever. I know Patrick and I have been going back and forth and we have a bunch of work. He's in the midst of a move right now from the UAE to the US. So he actually, I actually asked him if he'd be interested in co-curating the show with me. So the group exhibition, because we had over 1200 pieces submitted and I'm just a bit overwhelmed and shocked with that. He's got a lot more curatorial experience than I have. I think he's got a lot more experience than I do. So he agreed to that.

Colin Goldberg

So, you know, at some point once he lands on stateside, you know, we're going to start sifting through. But and also, you know, we still have to do the interview, the co-interview, but are any pairings, like have any pairings completed their homework by the deadline yet?

Just one, just one pairing so far. I'm actually guilty of not finishing up my, my end of the deal too. So there's a couple of things. I think I'm going to have to do a little bit more. What was that? I don't feel so bad that we hadn't had mucus come up sitting there. Yeah. So as far as the current collab goes I originally envisioned it taking about a month. It's looking like it's taking a little bit longer than a month to completely flesh out for everyone, which is, which is fine. This has been a learning experience for everybody, which is what I wanted to be anyway.

Davonte Bradley

We've had, we have 10 participants in this first little run through. For the next one, I'm not sure how many people would be particularly interested in doing it again. But the more the merrier. The more conversations that we have between artists, the better. And that's what the initial vision was for that collabs, artists having conversations with each other, their art responding to or speaking to the other artists art and back and forth and back and forth. And then you have this beautiful mess of stuff.

Can we do you plan on it'd be nice, I think, to share really some of the experience you know with when

It's together or maybe yeah, you know, I plan on doing like an actual virtual exhibition, probably using Kunstmatrix once everything is done. So, yeah,

Or even here in the chat, or that or that both.

Yeah, I think definitely. I mean, we're going to have a Kunstmatrix. Account. Yeah, that I'll definitely give you, you know, credentials for because we might as well use the account and have shows sort of that run, you know, like if we can always have a show up. That would be pretty killer like you know this could be the first one because it's semi organized to the point that at least the pairings are all aware of, like, you know, the grouping and whatever else and maybe the deadline needs to be extended a bit, but I think it might make sense to just try to get. Yeah.

Colin Goldberg

Or do you know you know in the process to like we're going to have the nextain and I mean, it'll be a fairly extensive show, really, if it's four works per grouping.

Yeah, at the minimum.

At the minimum. So, you know, there were a few back and forths with Patrick and I were like, I gave my response to his and then he sent me another response back and I was like, I wasn't expecting it. I thought we were just going to do one back and forth. So, you know, but that, you know, opened up the, you know, my thinking a little bit as far as. How it could be expanded upon. But I think if we sort of limit the segments to things that are reasonable, then at least we can get something up and have it be a learning experience for the next one. Which might be, maybe the next one is just a completely new set of artists that haven't. That way it sort of gives everyone the opportunity to participate and show. And then, because I'm not really sure when the actual Techspressionism 2021 show will be ready to launch.

Colin Goldberg

But I'm anticipating probably at the earliest, you know, late spring, early summer. And a lot of that will be due to, based on Patrick's availability. I know he's starting up a new teaching position and stuff when he gets back to the U.S. As well. And I did actually hear from the Southampton Arts Center. So. So the director that I've been working with is actually changing positions. She's moving to a museum called Guildhall, where she's going to be the chief creative officer. And there's a new person that's going to be, or he's already the director of that place. Southampton Arts Center will be my point of contact there for the proposal of a physical exhibition. But she did indicate, you know, that it has been received positively by their board. You know, so we're just sort of. Wait. Waiting to hear back and see if we can solidify something.

Colin Goldberg

I'd like to sort of see if we can lock in a physical exhibition either there or at another venue prior to putting out a press release about the timing of the virtual show. Just so that we're able to leverage, you know.

That'd be great.

Put out one notice and say, hey, there's this virtual exhibition coming up and there's going to be a physical show a year out. I think that'll be a much stronger because very few, you know, media outlets are going to run. A similar story twice. Like, you know, you get sort of one shot to make a splash. So if we can gang up, I think the virtual show with an upcoming physical exhibition, that'll really make it into something more newsworthy. If you guys, you know, agree to that sort of approach.

Definitely. And Colin, but meanwhile, we could, the Coons Matrix idea of doing some of the smaller or the shows like that were, you know, the experimental things we're doing. I don't know. I don't know. You talked about the cost of it. And we don't have to talk about that today. But I certainly, if we could take over Coons, I can't even say it. Coons Matrix.

Roz Dimon

Situation more as a group where we're more aware of it. Of course, you have a beautiful show up there. I think it's still up. Is it still up?

Yeah, it's on my site. I set up a virtual viewing room as a, you know, sort of a learning experience. I'll paste it in the chat.

There's a cost to that. I don't know as a group at a point, you know, if you're really serious about art, you know, I mean, I'd be happy to if it's something where we have to. Isn't there a cost to having that? I mean,

There is. But at this point, the call for entry is actually, you know, basically paid for itself and then left some reserve over. So, you know, and so that generated some money from the submissions, some of which was used for the actual setup for the call. For entry, which is around 400. And then there were a couple email blasts that went out to basically their entire list of everyone digital in the world, which was like 9000 people a couple of times. And then also I put it out there on the art deadlines list and the New York Foundation for the Arts site, both of which were paid placements. But even after all of that, there's still some reserve. So that can definitely cover Kunst Matrix.

Colin Goldberg

And, you know, most likely. There should be some to, you know, for promotional costs for promotion of the show. Once once there's something finalized for the dates, you know, I think definitely there should be a formal press release put out through PR web or a similar outfit like that. And, you know, this is sort of my day job to some degree. So, you know, like I think part of it is just kind of getting the details. But I mean, I think but I appreciate that, you know, and I think that at this point. You know, there is no formal business enterprise really associated with it. And I kind of honestly prefer it to not be that ever.

Colin Goldberg

You know, I think that's when, you know, things can go awry. And people have asked me like, oh, like, have you trademarked it? Is there a logo? And it's like, no and no. You know, I like, you know, my feeling is that having worked in branding for a. Very long time. My goal is for this to be antithetical to everything that has to do with branding and much more, you know, based on ideology.

Colin Goldberg

You know, maybe that's kind of a. You know, a naive way to look at it. I'm not really sure, but I'm will tell, you know.

Yeah, you know, I actually like that you only charge ten dollars on that entry. You know, I even put up a little flag when I saw that. Didn't. But I and some serious artists out there working in digital compadres of mine don't or anything that has any kind of entry fee, you know, or they're very careful about it. And I'm sort of the same. But I thought the ten dollars actually was, you know, you have to support what you're doing somehow. And I thought it was reasonable. It's not like you're asking 50. There's some things out there on cafe that, you know, they ask for fifty dollars for the artist. I just come on.

Yeah. I mean, that was actually a suggestion that call for entries. I originally, you know, when I contacted them. Was planning on making it a free call. And they said, you know, you're going to get flooded with a lot of irrelevant work if you make it a free call. So you should put at least a minimal fee up there to, you know, filter it out to some degree. And I thought that made sense. So, you know, I think it worked out well. And, you know, like sort of down the road, I thought, well, I'll put this. Coupon code together for the anyone in the index, you know, and I also wanted to mention that having taken a cursory look at the entries, the majority of the entries are from English speaking countries, which is not surprising since the call for entry is in English. So people who are not primarily English speakers might not even end up being on the websites where the call is presented.

Colin Goldberg

Like the bulk are U.S., U.K., Canada. That being said, you know, I personally would advocate that the show include the artists in the index in a much broader sense. Not, you know, to be more inclusive of artists that maybe are in the index that didn't necessarily apply for the call. But that might just be because they're not English speaking artists and they didn't see the call, you know, or, you know, like. I mean, I think that's the sort of the feeling I have. And let me know what you guys think is that this be as broad of a geographic cross section as possible.

Colin Goldberg

You know, I mean, to me, that is what's going to be the strongest presentation. You know, I think there definitely needs to be a level of quality in the work and a level of seriousness for the artists, you know, that would be in the show. But yeah.

Colin. Well, relating to your sense of this being sort of an organic endeavor here. I mean, I think honestly, over time, I think they're going to be chapters if you and maybe not even to that level of sense of organization. But, you know, artists in France who are technology based may decide to do their own thing. Still connected.

Unattributed

Through, you know, what's happening on the website and Instagram and whatever. But I mean, you were talking about regional sorts of things. And I think that's I think that's the strength of this becoming more of organic type of organizations like a tree, you know, like the central trunk. And then things happen on their own. And I really like that because I think. If you try to make it too top down. Heavy. We've all seen the history. Those kinds of efforts. They tend to collapse under their own weight after time because you get the, you know, the high priest saying this has to be this way. And, you know, to be part of this, you have to meet this, you know, certain criteria. And if you take a look, especially today.

Unattributed

I've been really impressed by the variety of the artists here. I love Michael's work. What Lucy was showing. And, and others. It's very inspirational. And. Being here in Phoenix. I, I feel like I've had to look towards the coasts to get folks that are more on the cutting edge that are looking at the technology, not as an end of itself. But as. As a medium to explore.

Unattributed

Their artistry and the end. So for me, I'm just really, really grateful. And so my plug is if you're not on the discord server yet, get on there so we could stay in contact with each other. During the two weeks between, you know, between the salon calls. Cause Devante has done a great job and setting it up for us. All.

Unattributed

I tried.

I agree too. It's a language. And a language is morphic. Language grows. Brings things in from other languages and to try to corral it into something. It is not going to help expand and grow. I think the best thing we can do. As artists is not only talk about it. Amongst ourselves, which is a wonderful support system. Believe me.

Karen LaFleur

But to talk to people. That we know in key positions. To get the word out there. I do know some people. And some pretty good art schools. Who are like the presidents of et cetera. And former directors of museums. Who are of an art history. Background. And then if you know anybody, even if they're retired or whatever. Let them know what's going on because I think that's going to build a strong foundation. To the people that we need to start using the word.

Karen LaFleur

Let it be organic.

Yes.

Well, Oh, go ahead. Oh, Did you want to share? I know. I don't think you've shared. I haven't.

I think I will. The next time I had one of those. I worked until like six in the morning on. Experiencing the law of diminishing returns. So. Overworked their pieces to that point. But anyway, I wanted to ask more about logistics and mechanics of things that. You've talked about. Like for instance, the collaborative project. And the Kunst.

Nora Gibson

With it. Matrix.

Matrix.

Matrix. Site. It appeared that the, with the collaborative. Guidelines that people were passing back. To me. Was very useful. My work is temporal. So I'm working in video. I do. I make. Generative. I program generative graphics that perform it in. In video and in real time. And so. I was wondering how that would work. For someone who works in motion graphics exclusively.

Nora Gibson

I don't make really, I mean, I put up a still say on Instagram maybe from the video, but it's not work that's meant to be consumed as a still. And so I would have that question for also like the Kunstmatrix gallery site, like whether there is accommodation for moving video imagery. I guess I'd have that same question for, let's see, did she, is she still here? Yes, Giovanna Sun as well for her site.

Nora Gibson

I saw that, so Colin, you know that like I wound up submitting work for the call that just closed. I just, I wound up submitting it to you because the site didn't really have any capability for me to upload. So I had to make sure that I was uploading it to my video and even my video stills are so much bigger than what that upload would permit. So, and that's not the first time I've experienced that for like trying to get my work displayed in online galleries. A lot of it is geared towards still imagery and not moving imagery. So I can compress a, you know, a four gigabyte file down with, you know, a five gigabyte file and then I can just, I can just make a file that just repackages it nicely. But at certain point, like I can never make like less than a 25 megabyte file of anything that I do.

You know what I mean?

So that's, so that is the question. What, what formats and what is the, going to be the logistical accommodation for people who, who make generative video?

Well, I know that Kunstmatrix, I believe, you know, they have a five megabyte file that they use for their video editing. I think that's a good question. So I'm not very sure I know if video could be placed within the VR environment.

I learned after the call- Actually, yes, I can answer you because we just finished one of our new VR in November last year. My video was in the one of the screen in the virtual 3D rendering gallery. But the thing is, it's very limited. It's very limited that the way we're doing it is we the simplest way like because I have a YouTube channel. So it was upload to YouTube and we copied the code and paste it into the 3D render space.

Giovanna Sun

So that's how we figure out. But of course, there are many more advanced technology or more deep tech can do that. But of course, that will be more expensive for the budget to custom out the code.

Right. So, I mean, within Kunstmatrix, which is the platform that we're going to be using for the group show, there are certain technical limitations that still are going to be remain to be seen. As far as this testing goes. And I mean, from what one of the artists told me who has some experience specifically with Kunstmatrix is their recommendation. That is the platform's recommendation is that exhibitions are limited to three videos throughout the exhibition. So part of it is going to be really beta testing and trying to see, you know, like how far down. Video could, you know, like if submissions can be compressed down below a five megabyte limit, that might just be a recommendation based on the idea of limited bandwidth. So I know that there are also other options, like there's options within Kunstmatrix where you can have multiple rooms that are linked together.

Colin Goldberg

So depending on how the platform functions, they might preload all the content as you enter a new room. So that might, you know, that might change. Yeah. That might change the landscape of what is possible. And a couple months down the road, the platform itself might have evolved to the to the point that it's a non issue again, like I have yet to do enough testing to really speak to it completely accurately as far as like people have asked me, well, does Kunstmatrix Kunstmatrix accept placement of looping videos? I don't actually know the answer to that. But certainly I would encourage anyone that is interested in doing that. And I think that's one of the reasons why I think it's important for people to sign up for Kunstmatrix. I know they have a free account option where I think you can use it as a personal space to play around with.

Colin Goldberg

And then, you know, you can always upgrade to a pay account, which is relatively affordable, I think. I mean, I signed up for a separate paid account for my own my own space that I used for my, you know, my online viewing room that I pasted in the chat up there. I think that was great. You know, it's maybe 15 bucks a month or something like that.

Colin Goldberg

But you know, you can sign up for a free Kunstmatrix account to do some experimentation. And that certainly would be welcome if anybody does work specifically with video content. And I know that other group members have told me about the placement of 3D objects as well, which is something interesting.

Colin Goldberg

You know, and I think down the road, probably there will be future shows that would be based specifically on time wilted. Based work or centered around particular media, you know.

I wrote to Kunstmatrix about this. I'm primarily video and that down the road is the key phrase. It seems like a great program. And I think they're probably just not there yet with the video. They kind of told me they were, but it wasn't really true. I mean, you could put up very, very short duration videos and that's a genre. You know, there are some people that work in very short and hopefully with loop. And that could be interesting. But at this point, I don't think it's really up. It's ready for prime time, their video capability.

Clive Holden

In six months or a year, this stuff moves fast. So, and there's also other ways to show video too. So, yep.

Yeah, I don't personally work in like Blender, but if there's anyone that does, I know that you can just make your own gallery space within that. And that's something. Good. It would be cool to collaborate on because I'm keen to actually learn Blender next. So I can work with some 3D modeling. I don't know if Lucy that's in your wheelhouse, but since you work in Unity. But anyway, that's just a thought like collaboratively that if there's a space that, you know, an alternate space other than Kuntz Matrix for all of the folks here that work in video, and looping video, which I would fall under that category, like maybe we can create our own room or.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And I would encourage artists who work in time-based media to sort of start hooking up with each other and trying to, you know, come up with a plan to maybe curate a show based around that, you know, using a platform that will work properly for the medium, you know, because I think that's, there's, I would be very hesitant to say to artists, hey, you need to compress your work down to the point that, you know, it's not acceptable to you.

You know what I mean? It doesn't work. That shouldn't happen.

So I would say, you know, minimally the work would have to be presented either in a flat way that is, you know, embedded on a page that would be linked to from the virtual gallery. So at least it could be seen in a way that, you know, is presentable, that's acceptable to the artist. That's the most important thing. The fact that it's in a virtual room to me is somewhat secondary, you know, it's interesting and it's kind of cool, but that's not what the art is about, you know? So that's just my personal take on it. And I'm happy to, you know, to hear input from you guys, like Clive, you know, people who work primarily in video as to how video submissions could be presented for this show in a way that makes sense. And that would be in the best, you know, would present the artist's work in the best light, in the best way, perhaps in the context of it could, now I know that like, for instance, like an object in a Kunstmatrix space has an information panel that you can click and there can be a link embedded there.

Colin Goldberg

So maybe there is like one, a portal to entry where it lets you say, okay, now to view video submissions, and maybe it's a wall, like a piece of wall text, right? About video submissions. You click the information panel, takes you to a link of embedded videos. That way they don't need to be in a room.

Well, I thought- And they can- Yeah, what I thought is you guys have, you'd have your hands full dealing with what you've already got for this show, but by all means, let's talk, you know, four months, six months, a year down the road, because this is going to grow. Yeah. And you know, I mean, I'd be open to doing something with a YouTube playlist. I mean, it's not as cool looking as Kunstmatrix, but it's a very efficient way of looking at some high quality video that tons of people can see and there's no problem with quality. So, you know, also it's very easy to embed YouTube or Vimeo videos in a nice looking webpage.

Yeah, totally. And there's a lot of nice WordPress plugins too, that allow you to embed playlists and have navigation, and so, and, you know, with regards to the upcoming show, there were a number of artists that I recommended that, you know, they asked about submitting video and I said, hey, just send me some links, send me a bio and a statement. And anyone who's on this chat that didn't do that, I would encourage you just to go ahead and do that and we'll figure it out, you know, honestly, because I don't want people to be working outside their medium of choice because of the technical constraints of Kunstmatrix. That's kind of like an arbitrage. Yeah. You know, it's like a virtual platform that I just happened to see and say, hey, that's really easy to use and to put a virtual show together.

Colin Goldberg

But ultimately, like I would rather the show be inclusive of video work and even immersive or interactive work if we could figure out a way to present it effectively. I mean, as a new Oculus user, I would love at some point for there to be a show that's in actual VR. You know, I mean, who knows if there would ever really be any kind of an audience, outside of absolute nerds like all of us, but who cares, you know? And I think that, you know, the idea of including video is something that was brought up. And I did, you know, solicit a number of artists to submit work directly as, you know, YouTube and Vimeo links. And, you know, collectively, I'm sure we can figure out a way to present them in a way that makes sense and doesn't compromise the quality. Right. You know, absolutely.

Colin Goldberg

Because I think there's a lot of strong video work, you know, amongst the different artists in the group.

I have a quick question, Colin, on that. I sent in the Vimeo links, but some of my work is already up, you know, like on a museum site. And I can speak to them because I know them. And you could link to their site, then my video is already playing with all the space. So I think it's more on their end whether they want you to link into them that way. I'll find out. I mean, for everybody, if they have other public facilities that we can give the link to you.

Karen LaFleur

So you'd have...

Well, I think for the purpose of a group show, the work would all need to be presented in some sort of a unified format. You know, like, you know, sort of a group show. Certainly we could link to artists' sites individually from the information panel that would accompany any works that are accepted into the show. But I think that it should be consistent as far as say, you know, let's say there's a dozen video pieces that are selected for presentation. They should all be presented contextually within the same framework, you know, for the sake of consistency.

Colin Goldberg

And also I think just, you know, to keep people within the framework.

So that's why I wanted to ask you first. So thank you.

Right. Well, I mean, if you own the videos and it's your intellectual property, you know, unless you have an agreement with the museums, you could certainly embed them elsewhere as well. Okay.

I'll find out whether they want it up twice. You know, that kind of thing. Right.

Absolutely.

Colin? Yeah. I just wanted to mention, since you were talking about having an Oculus headset, there's a VR art group that I just started participating with called VR Art Live. And you might want to just check what they're doing. It's really specifically about virtual reality artists getting together and participating and creating stuff and showing their stuff and doing art shows for that. Cool.

Awesome. Would you have a link that you could paste into the chat window for that?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah. I did see there was like a Facebook group for Google Tilt Brush. And that actually like made me go and get Google Tilt Brush and play with it. And it's a lot of fun. But I mean, I've very just scratched the surface of the possibilities and, you know, I've had much more incredible sculptural experience than like it related to the idea of sculpture to me more than anything else. Of course I love sculpture more than painting in a way. But yeah. Absolutely. If you could paste that link in that would be great. Sure. And we are also on the Discord server that Davonte set up. It's kind of like split up into different channels I guess where there's like a resources channel and different other stuff like that.

Colin, I'm going to paste in here a link to the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media at Yale. I spoke there last summer about my diamond scape pieces and their paintings, digital paintings, that people get in front of physically. They're all made digitally and you actually interact with them with your iPhone and go inside. It's like a website. You go into a web, totally HTML coded, website, you go inside the painting. It's not like you're linking to Roz Dimon or in my resume, but it's not really a video. It's entering into the multiple, multiple layers of the z-space of a painting. I spoke there, but I was one of the only ones with a, I'm just a 2D person so much, I love the illusion of flatness.

Roz Dimon

But there were so many people there working in VR, and it was a VR and game conference. My pieces, some of them that are in certain museums around here, they're all in the same place. I'm not sure if you can see them. I'm not sure if you can see them. That's why I didn't enter them because the museum's got them.

Roz Dimon

But to the point you were making earlier, Colin. But it's a wonderful center. I'm going to put it in here. It was a fabulous conference and it linked games with interactive media, with VR, Oculus, everybody had headsets. I was one of the few exhibits they had invited into this that was just a flat piece. But it's because there is an immersive aspect to the flatness I'm doing. It's like thousands and thousands of layers in a flat abstract landscape about something. So I'm going to put it in here. But it is the CCIM Yale EDU. And they're always doing things there. And I don't know, it might be interesting for you.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that definitely, and I would encourage you to jump on Discord when you get a chance to and post it in there. That way it's sort of there for perpetuity.

Actually, I'll just go ahead and put that in the resources right after this. Awesome. Pin it. Very cool.

And Davo, I just want to say again, I really appreciate you stepping up and providing this kind of support for the group in terms of putting together these different channels of communication and taking the lead on the collab project and stuff like that. And I would certainly encourage anyone else in the group that just wants to jump in and start doing stuff to do that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great way to do so. Because again, like Mike was saying, this top-down approach doesn't work. That would be, I think, a bottom-up approach is really where it's at as far as things that work. I mean, I don't know. It's really sort of a grassroots effort, I think, that is going to be something that will give what we're doing the greatest chance of success.

Colin Goldberg

So really, muchos gracias. And maybe we'll trade off roles next meetup and you can be the mod and I can be the timer. And anyone else that wants to moderate certainly can do so. I think maybe I'll try to write up a little script about meeting stuff

That can be- Best practices.

Yeah. That's a great question. And I think that's a great way to kind of open it up with and that would be kind of a guideline. But yeah.

Also, here's a suggestion, Colin, that I meet with my gallery in New York, Carter Burden Gallery, and we meet every week. And I'm meeting these artists that I never would meet at the openings. And we're having similar kind of discussions like we're having here when you get to know each other a little better. And what they do is they invite someone who would like to, the woman who moderates that is a great artist. And so I think that's a great way to kind of open up that and then open it up with and then would be kind of a guideline. So, but yeah. So, I think that's a great way to open up that and then open it up with and then would be kind of a guideline. So, but yeah. The director of the gallery says, if someone would like to present, let me know. So we let Sarah know. And then you get to take a nice half hour where you actually think of something where you share and it's a little meatier and if you want to do this.

Roz Dimon

But I think then we get in a little bit more than three minutes. But it's a thing that ahead of time you only have one for each meeting. And it's where you have about 20 or 30 minutes and that person presents in a Q&A. And again, maybe you don't do it every time we meet because this group has so much to talk about and new people, but it might be an interesting thing. So people get to really know a history of a person and where they're coming from. Just a suggestion.

Yeah, I do think that's a good idea. You know, it's tough because I'm very torn on how rapidly to continue to add people to the index. That is, you know, I'm constantly seeing new artists that are using the hashtag literally like every day. There's at least a couple of people that are using the hashtag. Literally like every day there's at least a couple of new artists using the hashtag. And then it's like, well, you know, this could really go on forever. And then if that's the case, everyone is only going to keep getting like the three minutes, you know what I mean? So it's like, do we cap it at a certain amount of artists or like, what do you guys think about that?

I've got a somewhat solution for that. We can still maintain the kind of three minute presentation stuff, right? But if we're going to be utilizing distribution, we're going to have to do a lot of things. And I think that's a good idea. And it's like, we're going to have to do a lot of things. And I think that's a good idea. We might as well utilize Discord more and Discord has an open chat feature and like you can stream and set it up just like this more frequently. Like we don't have to necessarily do those every two weeks. We can do that like maybe once a week or once every couple of days where people can have a more in-depth conversation with one another or a longer conversation with other. Discord is always open. Like we don't have to have a necessarily meeting

Point. Can you stream your art in Discord? Because I think when you're professing, I think it's kind of like, I think the whole thing about sharing is really amazing.

Yeah, you can. Virtually every function that's in Zoom is in Discord to use.

Oh, weird. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So I'd recommend that. Like we could probably set aside time every week or so if people are interested and they can just hop into a call or a channel in Discord because I can set up more rooms for that too. I can set up how many people can be in a room to, you know, be able to share like that.

I like the idea, but I have to say doing a prep when you do present for that, which I've done a few times, it's a lot of work just to get your, not a lot, but you know, you put something into it so you don't want to just go do it if nobody happens to be there. It's almost like it has to be, someone has to say, oh, Roz is presenting or Colin or whoever, you know, or Clive or Emily, who is presenting at this time and give people like a week or two to even know that they're doing it and you just do it once in a while. But then they get a little bit of, you know, at least they're doing it and they know people will be there or hopefully they will.

And I mean, I can set up announcements for that too in Discord as a platform too. Like I can announce like, okay, so Roz will be presenting at this time. Make sure you tune in on this day at this time. And then there you go.

You can have a conversation.

I'm sort of an old beast in new clothes still. But you probably go to Discord and to know what's happening or is it email? I mean, email is still a thing that you can like, look at it at the end of the day and then get your calendar all figured out.

Well, the announcements in Discord, they're persistent so long as they're there. Like, as long as I don't delete them, they're just going to be there. Now, if you wanted a message that you could go check every now and again, Colin has an email list for everyone that's involved with these calls. So perhaps when somebody wants to do a presentation, we could send out an email list. An email blast to the participants of these Zoom calls and let them know, hey, on Discord, we're going to be doing this event instead of on Zoom or something along those lines. Like this is just me brainstorming.

No, I love it. It could. And then also it could happen on Zoom to Colin's point. You have people coming in every two weeks, of course, but when they come, you might go, oh, this is our middle Tuesday of the month when we feature one person for let's say 15 minutes, maybe. It doesn't have to be 20 minutes. You know, you could- You could kind of say, and, but every, the next week we'll be getting to more of the people. I don't know.

You know what else, Roz, I think might be a way to do this would be now that we're recording the Zoom meetings and we're going to establish a YouTube channel, like the idea of interviews evolved out of Davo's collab project. And I think that like, Warhol came up with the interview magazine. I think it was based on the idea of artists interviewing each other. So instead of some like journalists interviewing an artist, it's just artists interviewing each other. And the project that I was working on with Nequital back in the nineties was it was called Ever Beta, which now I use as just my freelance business name. But back then it was like, the idea was like an arts network and it was, you know, even

Musicians

Interviewing artists or videographers interviewing people in theater or, you know, across disciplines. But I think, you know, if we have something where it's asynchronous, like YouTube, we could start doing- Yeah. Interview sessions where, you know, people are paired off or whatever, and then we're archiving it. So that would be like a really interesting way of having it be, you know, content generation, but also content generation that then can be consumed, you know, by people who aren't necessarily participating in a synchronous situation like this one. Yeah. Yeah.

We talked about that, the insularity of the tech group, the International Symposium for Electronic Arts. I don't know how many of you guys know about that.

Roz, would you be interested in spearhanding an interview series of trying to like group up artists, pair up artists? You know, I mean, it could be done, you know, to start with the collab, but I think ultimately like that would be one of the best to me uses of a YouTube panel would be to give each artist the opportunity to, you know, to a more extensive degree talk about their work.

Colin Goldberg

I think instead of it just being like a presentation, it'd be much more interesting if it was actually like a conversation. And maybe it is just through zoom where it's two artists where the, you know, the, you know, maybe they're, they're given equal time, or maybe one is sort of like the feature artist interviewed by the other artists, and then they take turns, you know, switch

Roles or whatever, record these sessions and I'll think, I'm going to think about that. I knew if I'm such a big mouth I knew I'd get in trouble.

No, I think that was that's, you know, I think that would be cool and like that would be a thing, like you know if you're interested in that concept, you know, you'll probably do the best job and executing it and pulling it off because, you know, it's something that you're interested in and like that's what I think, you know, ultimately like anyone doing anything in association with this, it should be something they want to do. Anyway, you know like I, you know, the last thing I want to be is like a high priest or whatever. Mike said you know like that is just not, you know, like I think that everything you really should just be volunteer and whatever else like you know at some point I came up with like email addresses for a couple people at expressionism.com, then I realized like, you know what like maybe people don't want that, you know like, and so like you know, to me like it's.

Colin Goldberg

I don't know like I want this to be sort of the anti. The anti, you know, the anti collective or the, you know what I mean like, I don't know, it just it should be unbranded.

But it's great. I'm, I'll do it. I have to go to another zoom meeting I, it's poetry actually poetry.

That's my other love.

My God, it's loving it. It's wonderful. But I have to go. But, but, Colin, I'm going to work on that concept, a little bit, and I guess I could either email people or find you on Instagram or think about it. I think the idea of maybe mixing up people who are doing different things might and helping develop a certain maybe a form of questions. So, yeah.

Roz Dimon

Might not happen. I'm taking it.

You want to come up with a name of name for it or whatever else you know by all means like it's part of the experiment. So, okay.

See you guys later. Bye.

See you, Roz. See you.

Pray for America.

Ha.

Oh my God. Bye everyone.

We'll see ya. Oh, before, before we start wrapping up things I know I wanted to share a little bit of just some just knowledge, knowledge for you, in case you were curious I know I think most of you use Instagram if I'm correct, or most people here have an Instagram. So, yeah. It's not that you're not just an Instagram community.

Davonte Bradley

It's that you're not just the top by your side. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. It's that you're not just the top of the group. In that whole feed. But I was able to get a little bit of information regarding that from somebody that is actually in close contact with somebody that works at Instagram. And it was able to share information regarding like best practices that has been updated for as of like two weeks ago.

Davonte Bradley

So how Instagram's feed or its algorithm works right now is that it is prioritizing new features that they the platform rules out. That means right now they are prioritizing reels, which is something that they recently added onto the platform. They're 15 to I believe 30 second videos. They want you to like interact with these videos and make your own as well. Otherwise, your posts are going to be penalized.

Davonte Bradley

Well penalize an algorithm by ranking lower than these posts. And according to Instagram, they want you to be making these like five or six times a week in order to be profitable. And so they want you to be making these like five or six times a week. And so they want you to be making these like five or six times a week. And so it's but it's, but for regular people, for people that you know, have lives, right, they also made but it's, but for regular people, for people that you know, have lives, right, they also made again, it's like, Oh, if you can't do that, two or three reels, if you can help it a week would be but it's, but for regular people, for people that you know, have lives, right, they also made recommend you know if you know your audience's most active times posting during those times but at least one Instagram live per week at least one Instagram tv post and at least two reels will help your visibility a lot more oh you are oh you have a meeting at four okay yeah sorry guys I have to go yeah

All right have a good one nice meet you bye nice to meet you

But it's manageable it's not impossible it is definitely manageable but I thought that people would be interested in knowing that and it's also the case that your interactions on the platform actually affect how well your posts are viewed as well so the more you like and comment on other people's stuff the more you can get your audience to like and comment on your posts rank too so it's like they really want you badly to just use everything that's on the platform and if you don't they're like no you're not important so it's it is a whole beast facebook actually work kind of similarly too but are

Reels generally live recordings or can you have like a like a video on your device and post it as a reel are you are you familiar like platform I actually have not used it oh well it's a very limited like very limited usage reels

Is like the most recent iteration of what started with like the vine craze from like I don't know how many years ago that was but it's

Really short video cut it down right yeah

Pretty much yeah and they're bringing it back as reels I use a little

Bit for 3d videos so you can either put a 50 seconds video or yeah you can go up to 30. Yeah hashtags I don't think they really work with reels like they don't you get the views from the music you choose but so it's kind of cool because you can put a video that will get like I don't know maybe sometimes I add 1000 views but I don't think that reels without a person in it do really work I think reels are more a format for making fun videos yeah I'm not sure it's really a good format for arty things because I don't know I've been a bit disappointed by the usage of reels because like you said before I wanted to use the new features of the platform to have a like a visibility bonus but yeah it can be rough very well for me but I think if you're an artist and you want to use reels it's maybe better to reels where you talk about your work instead of making video work more like behind the scenes thing.

Unattributed

I suppose.

Yeah, because I've seen a lot of painters use it. Like they will actually record very small bits of their whole process as they're making the painting and then post it to Reel. So you can use pre-uploaded, yeah, you can use pre-uploaded, I mean, pre-recorded content to upload it as a Reel, as long as it's within 15 or 30 seconds.

Davonte Bradley

And you can surprisingly get a whole lot in that time period, like that time to, visually anyway.

It might also be a good format to use where like, you know, as an artist, you can talk about your work or do a demo or something like that, where it's like live action versus like, you know, actual video art per se, or like renderings or animations, that kind of stuff.

And one thing that is interesting to know for people that want to keep like a clear, clean feed with only art, you can have Reels in your Reel tab that don't appear in your feed, but they're still in your account. You can disable the thumbnail in your feed if you want to. Yep.

So we're coming up on two hours, guys. I don't know how much longer you all want to stick around, but I think we should probably limit it to some degree as far as the length of the recording, just- Right. I'm nervous about it saying, you know, like your cloud recording didn't save because it's too long.

Colin Goldberg

So maybe I'll at least just stop the recording now, unless anyone else has any other stuff they want to add or any other announcements to record for posterity. Does it seem like it makes sense to everyone who's still in the meet? For me- No, step off.

Because like Roz, I've got a writer's group meeting in five minutes.

Nice.

I've got to go to the other side of my artwork. Nice to be with all of you. Love the conversation and I'll see you again soon.

Alrighty.

Thanks, Karen. Nice.

The presentation was awesome, Karen. It was nice.

I'm out of here. I'm going to go meet with Albert Goldbarth, the poet. For all you poets out there who may know him, I don't know. Anyway, so long. Thanks for your time. Thank you.

Catch you later. Thanks for doing your work. Appreciate it. I've got to go too. Great seeing you all and meeting some of you.

And- Nice seeing you too. Awesome.

Thanks.

Thank you so much. Lovely meeting. And nice meeting one of you. Bye.

Bye. Thank you. Thanks for coming.

Yeah, thank you so much. And I'm going to take off. I'll see you on Discord.

Yeah. OK. Awesome. Thanks, Lucy.

OK.

I kind of live in Discord, unfortunately.

Because I'm always on my computers. Why? I'm out of here too, guys. I got to get back to the dreaded day job. But really cool to see every meeting we have, that there's more and more artists. It's pretty exciting. Can't wait to see the totality of the collaboration. It'll be interesting. Awesome. Waiting for the next one. Thanks, guys. Have a great day. You too. Talk to you next time. All right. See you.

Unattributed

See you.

All right. I am going to stop the recording now.

Yeah, I think.

Techspressionist Salon Number eight signing off. Thank you.