Salon 16 // Randi Matushevitz, Gary Hopkins, Roz Dimon

All right. So welcome everyone to the 16th Techspressionist Salon. Today is Tuesday, April 27th. My name is Colin Goldberg. And we have three artist presenters today. Randy, could you help me out with pronouncing your last name? Matushevitz. Matushevitz. Okay, I didn't want to butcher it. Gary Hopkins and Roz Dimon.

Colin Goldberg

So, yeah, so we're going to go into the presentations. Each artist will get, you know, 10-15 minutes to share. You can feel free to share your screens if you wish. And then we'll just kind of open it up for, you know, general discussion. People can bring up topics if they want. And we'll just kind of, you know, have it be kind of informal like that. So, Randy, do you want to kick us off? Sure.

So, hi, everyone. This is my first time presenting here. And I'm glad to be able to catch these meetings when I can, being from the West Coast, because, you know, it's primetime, 11 a.m. For other groups. So let me share my desktop with you. There we go. Can you all see that? So I'm originally a painter and such an oil painter where I paint a lot of faces. I'm interested in gestures and silent communication, what other people are thinking. I don't know if you've had this experience, but sometimes when I see faces and people, I think I know what they mean or they're feeling or going through something. And over this last year, my mother was diagnosed in home hospice. And I started to...

Randi Matushevitz

I started to work with my phone as I live with her. And I was able to bring my still paintings into facial recognition, animation, you know, apps. So some of you are really amazing, and I hope to grow in my technical abilities. But now, but, but, and, I've started to create images that move to express these facial.

Randi Matushevitz

What? Yes. In different ways. So this is one of the first times I'm showing my video where I recently showed them in a gallery in LA Shockbox where I just was able to project. This is a very new place for me. And again, working with faces and to translate emotions. So these are some NFTs I made for BG Gallery out here in Santa Monica.

Randi Matushevitz

And he did this NFT. So I'm going to show you some of these. So this is a NFT show. And again, it's the silent communication tapping into what's human. What's human in the world of AI. Looking at AI to mirror. And I hope I'm using the terms right. Who we are and what we do. Especially in this time of such great division and just having respect for another human being is challenging.

Randi Matushevitz

And as you can see, I'm capturing states of mind and really translating a feeling. And trying to create a sense of being. And trying to create some human connection through this feeling. So these are some of those. And you see how they go. What I started to do, and I'd like to show you something that I made for this is Queenie. And using one of the characters from my paintings to tell a story.

Randi Matushevitz

And Queenie was showed alongside another character, Toulouse, who you had seen moving earlier. And together they have this conversation. And I've started to add sounds through different sound platforms. You know, you can choose to use the rights to them. And then I layer them to create my own sound.

Randi Matushevitz

And I don't know if you can hear it in this presentation. Because they're very low. They were low for the gallery. So I'm going to show you a little bit of the story. So here we go...! Are you using Adobe character animator for this? My big secret is mug life. And there's another facial capture. So I go on to animate other characters. And I'm very aware of timing for this. So I want to show you one that will be on the Helms Design building sometime this summer. And this is Quaft.

Randi Matushevitz

. Oh, this is Fame. Sorry. Wrong one. Let me stop this one and go to I think they got me. I have my apologies, guys. But in this instance, here's Quaft. And this will be in silence. And again, projected outside a building. I'm very excited to share it live on drive-by. It's a three-minute, again, celebration of being human.

Randi Matushevitz

I really am into this subtle thing. I just love facial expressions and gestures. And I'm inspired by the way we watch movies in a lot of ways. So this one gets kind of lengthy to watch the whole thing. But you can see it's her story. And her interaction with other characters. And I think it's a really good one.

Randi Matushevitz

And I think it's a really good one. So it's, yeah, I'll be really curious to see how this lands on you guys. And what you think of this kind of work it's new versus showing analog paintings and creating stories through multiple paintings and it's I'm really very interested in that slow gaze and yeah that expression of being human it's about the only thing I can give to the world is my hopes that we'll treat each other a little better and recognize we're all as important in our own lives right? So there's a real philosophy and it's just I'm trained formally live model painting faces, breaking it down, lighting them and this is the foundation for this work, you know, that live drawing and painting and now the expression I get from filters and layers and layers. So I'm using all of the Leap Suite.

Randi Matushevitz

I am learning and I'm using iMovie and Premiere. Just bought a new laptop so I have more power so I can play with more of the Adobe. This is brand, you know, you guys talk about VR and AR and I'm so blown away by the possibilities the technology is bringing me. And yeah, and then where that could take me in the future. So you see how Queenie, I mean, how Quaft is going.

Randi Matushevitz

And they're just all these states of mind. So for time's sake, I'll move because it does get on. And this is a recent NFT that, sorry for the dog. Let me give her a treat. And what I'm the new thing. I'm doing is I've been working with a digital company to digitally map again, the painting of just to remind us to loose. So then I can produce this as a three sculpture. Sorry for the dog. And, and work on digital mapping to project the videos onto them or multiple videos. I'm not really sure where that will take me. Let me give the dog a carrot real quick or she won't stop.

Randi Matushevitz

I apologize, guys, for that. So that's really compelling work. Thank you. Yeah, I was a little nervous showing it. I haven't really shown it to anybody. I'm not in the NFT now show which is okay. And I won't I won't take personally. Haha. I remember. No, just kidding. But thank you for looking and any other thoughts. I'd really appreciate it. It's all brand new for me. And I'm just happy to be able to have this group and to be awed by all of you and how long you've been pursuing technology and I'm just lucky it's all begun to the phones and charla, you know, easy breezy.

Randi Matushevitz

Easier. I'm not coding. You know, Randy is someone who's always tried to bring some kind of intimacy and what I call touch to the scene. Yeah. So I think it's really important that we bring this digital space. I did write it in my comments, but you bring you bring us I mean it has such a an emotional connection.

Randi Matushevitz

Which You know, in zoom we can have that. And I also think with digital work. At least that's been interesting to me to not remove people but to enfold them into and bring access into a work of art. While retaining its mystery. And you certainly are doing that. I love the your idea of the two characters that are painted that are having that conversation and telling that story. I mean, that's just like mind blowing. I mean, that's like illustrated storytelling in its finest and that would be something to really explore I think I really love these I think they are beautiful. They were great and I have two quick questions. Have you exhibited them in a gallery and if so do you project them on a wall or on a monitor. So this is my first I did I did in April I had to exist exhibitions at the same time so I had this.

Randi Matushevitz

I don't I and again I'm learning that I need more lumens everything's new for me, and I bought these Kodak lumen. Can you see I'm trying to see if my camera camera has my thing. Anyway, but this Kodak Luma 350 and I bought a few of them so I'm going to show you some of them. So then I had to learn how to suspend them. And then one gallery was afraid someone would steal it and they made like that had someone make this contraption to hold it on to the base. The second show was in shock so that's Ventura in this place Art City in Ventura County in California, and then the second was again in April in Hermosa Beach at a gallery called shock box, and I was able to suspend the cameras from the ceiling because they play upside down and I had to loose and cleaning. And I had to loose and cleaning.

Randi Matushevitz

So that was really amazing. So then I started playing at the same time, and it was very fortunate it got written about an artillery magazine and gallery rounds. So I felt by Jeannie Davis and that was like wow I couldn't believe it. You know, that was really a blessing because again first time. And then at the same time I found out I was being like that Helms had accepted work and asked me to make a three minute video that would fit their dimensions so yeah that's I'm projecting them but I have. I have small like photo screens. I didn't really like it. I have plugged my USB into my television. I like that. I like it when it could be bigger by, I haven't really purchased any of those flex screens or rented them, to try them at home, you know, so I'm open to, you know, I'm very, I've been reading about Tony Osler and Nam June Paik.

Randi Matushevitz

So I'm thinking digital mapping. I'm thinking what about old TVs. I'm it. So I'm, I'm thinking of more ways to bring them, you know, to people, but right now I'm just so excited to show them as characters and then those heads, you know, what will that look like? And what will it be look like to have a room of paintings and video, and then this digital mapping onto those sculptures. So now I've ordered small ones., again, you know, I'll tell you who I'm looking at. So you see the, the lineage and, just making the paint talk has been just fulfilling my goals so much. I never knew that I would enjoy it so much and get frustrated too, because how do I make it different? How do I make it unique? And even what's behind me, it's a still from a video, you know, and then to see these new images that I trying to paint.

Randi Matushevitz

And I just wind up like throwing the paintbrush at it because I can't copy that, you know, in paint. So there you have it. Thank you for asking. Thank you. I really love your work, Randy. It's wonderful. A lot of my work, even if it's up on Instagram, those are just like little lessons of what I'd like to learn on the computer. And I put them up there as individual paintings, but the, but the full animations of stories. So I really love the fact that you're blending this emotion and sort of abstraction of the figure, but keeping the human. And I work with a musician and I also have soundtracks on mine, but I'm finding it's really hard to find a gallery who won't turn the sound down.

Randi Matushevitz

So I was wondering how you handle that in terms of giving the artwork it's full do. When, that's why I wind up in iMovie because I don't know how to do different things and in a premiere or sometimes the apps allow me whatever lets me control the sound. So at the end, I'm trying to remember if it might've been an iMovie, I controlled the, the in and out of the sound. But then I realized that it was actually not what I wanted to say. So I took my projector and I turned it off and then I turned on the volume and then I turned on the fade and then I kept playing with it and playing it back till it was low enough and playing it out loud in my house. Cause I take my same projector and projected and listen to what they would let me because of it's COVID. So nobody got a headset. My cam, you know, so there could have been a headset or a wireless headset someone could have put on.

Randi Matushevitz

So that's how I handle it. That's why you couldn't hear Queenie in the presentation because so low that the gallery didn't have to turn it off. Turn it off and it was only and it wasn't continuous through the whole video so they were okay with it so that's how I handle it painting seeing the paintings come to life was really magical you know and kind of startling but then other things with it kind of broke the magic of it and I think I think what you're trying to do is very ambitious and very difficult so it's sort of always a fine line so when they start talking it's like it's so creepy and it's all that uncanny valley stuff and all the issues that you're talking about but for instance when I saw the teeth the teeth to me don't mesh you know with the painting so it almost looks like they have dentures or something so look maybe if you painted some teeth or the teeth weren't showing for whatever reason like it took me out of that world the magical world of your painting yeah and then bringing in all the sort of geometric effects the sort of kaleidoscoping and mirroring and everything also like that sort of a different realm it was in your painterly realm which is really beautiful just I think there's so much there just in making the painting come alive which usually when people you know like make Van Gogh's sky swirl around it's just really stupid but like it's very creepy and it's one of the things that I think is really cool when it comes alive and I think you can go deeper in that just that thing like you don't need all that other stuff great and that it can just be so strong with just that because that's how they all start they all start with that first animation or continue where I go back and make more of those clips and I keep and then there's the limits of the current tech I'm using and the apps I'm using and the teeth and I'm just going to make come with that and I haven't been able to get rid of the teeth I hope as I move into the adobe suites that I will be able to maybe you know pull them out so to speak and just you know and see what else I can do because when I do paint teeth because I do have paintings with teeth and then it gets double teeth like it gets weird or you see it looks like white foam on the mouth you know when I start to distort them so if anyone has any tips just put your name in the chat or I'm gonna find you I would encourage you to use Premiere and do after effects actually for that masking yeah I actually liked the section that I saw with the face and having an overlay of a video you know somebody driving down the road and I think it's a really good idea to have that kind of overlay of a video I thought it could lend itself to really interesting psychological territory with overlays but that you would have to use Premiere and it's so much easier to get things done in Premiere than iMovie no right in Rush you mean not Rush Premiere but just the full Premiere right yeah I'm gonna I that is currently on my list of places to go so that again my first ventures is what you're seeing and trying to teach each app or layer them or I was very concerned like Anne you're saying creepy scary good I had the first people I showed those two you know and so I tried to like you say it create different one different more expansive stories but that's part of what I'm looking forward to on the heads can I just put those quote-unquote creepier ones that are just the moving faces on them and we'll see but I will be very rich.

Randi Matushevitz

Psychological territory. Yeah there's a lot there. Thank you and that's where I want to play that is where I am and I've always been in the somewhere between dystopia and euphoria. After Effects has a really powerful character animation rig plug-in that they may have spun off to actually its own separate program now I can check for you but that might be really good. Oh this is terrific this is what I wanted to show you. I was hoping was to get guidance and more knowledge and Carter just so you know that desert stuff that's me I started also along this route so I've started playing with my phone more I'm filming you know when we're on the freeway I'm going back and forth since my mom passed to now my home in Las Vegas as we you know keep going back and forth there and revisiting childhood things.

Randi Matushevitz

Thank you. So there's just yeah thank you thank you everybody. Yeah and I wanted to chime in Andy I'm familiar with your traditional media work here in the Los Angeles scene so it's really great to see you going into the digital with it and how it translates and so I think it's great and it opens up a whole new you know bit of potential and to really expand your expression.

Randi Matushevitz

It's has a looks looks great. Yeah. It's a lot of potential coming across and I was okay with the abstract non-objective effects added to the faces you know and that it opens up narrative space in a way and it and it furthers augments the abstraction which is I think you know I think it's a good thing.

Randi Matushevitz

Thank you. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. Yeah. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition.

Randi Matushevitz

I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. I think there's room for both and I think depending on the project and the or the exhibition. And I'm laying that into some of them and I'm you know, just to see what it does since I love horror movies Okay Thanks everybody.

Randi Matushevitz

All right. All right. Thanks Randy. Oh Yeah, it was great So, let's see I guess

Next up is Gary Mike Mike All right, I guess Do the share screen All right, and anyone that isn't speaking just if you could mute yourselves, that'd be appreciated just to keep everything quiet Okay, so I Have been a painter ever since I was like 10 years old, but I was really pushed into science and math by my parents so And I love science and so I spent 35 years as a computer programming for business applications and systems design but always was doing painting and somewhere back in the 80s early 90s a friend of mine had a digital camera and I'd never heard of such a thing and he was She's showing me that and I thought wow I want to be able to make paintings so what I'm going to show you here is kind of my evolution as an artist using digital media and certain concepts that have carried along over the years I Started out basically like this is a picture of the house I lived in Portland I look now I live in Central, Oregon In a beautiful area with mountains and desert But this was you know Me kind of taking an image off of a camera and I used was using Corel Painter at the time.

Gary Hopkins

I was kind of a software junkie and I would use any painting program. I could get my hands on Photoshop was kind of out of my reach at the time and it I didn't really I thought it was mainly for photo photography Which I came to change my mind later on so I used MS Paint and did a lot of different Photographs that my son gave me when he was on a trip in Europe you know simplifying a photograph into something into the color saturated simplified environment of a painting and that was something that Really appealed to me strongly and so I took a lot of pictures around in my neighborhood and my friends and kind of turned them into paintings and here's someone you know using different colors not using color making more like a drawing or charcoal work and That was kind of an exciting time and I did a lot of work along those lines This is a place in Italian beachside, I think it's a famous place Some other works Or you go in and manipulate the photograph and paint paint and the colors and the richness that you want and eventually I started getting more abstract using the same photographs.

Gary Hopkins

This is called new temple So that was kind of I spent the first probably 20 or 30 years being a watercolor painter and I spent the first probably 20 or 30 years being a watercolor painter and was used to layering and working from light to dark and building up layers and so once I got into doing working digitally I just that was kind of how I approached it because I didn't really have any other concepts about how to do painting and but I loved digital and I loved being able to eventually, you know get it on paper. That was one of my big things Was learning how to print it how to get the colors That I wanted to come out on the paper that I was seeing on the screen because the screen is light and the color range as total gamut is quite different than what winds up getting on the paper and I learned a lot by trial and error about that I really needed to saturate the colors more intensely and certain colors like blues and stuff would go to black on paper if you weren't careful, so I eventually learned about ICC profiles and found better quality papers and printers that helped me achieve that and artistically I was I was a landscape painter and eventually I kind of I wanted to use more colors I wanted so I moved into looking at impressionists and Fava's art and kind of been an art student my whole life and art history and you can see as I moves along these are evolving over the years where get more into This is called Mountain Road, but the roads around here are very twisty in turn and it kind of developed as kind of a symbolic language for mountains and water and movement and kind of wrap that around in an abstract and more brightly colored Color work and Here's one called Oceanside.

Gary Hopkins

So I was still at this point You creating landscapes in a way that were more abstracted but still using somewhat naturalistic colors and here's a soft beginnings the landscape much softer a dream dreamscape sort of then I began to learn more about Masking and colors and layers and really started pushing the envelope in an experimental way for a landscape And then from that even further towards a more abstracted language But really showing the hand of the artist. And I had a lot of exposure in the Portland area to the Portland Art Museum that has a huge collection of Japanese and Chinese screens, painting and woodcuts and their whole view of how to walk through a landscape instead of from an aerial perspective or perspective of the Renaissance, it's more of an experiential space where you're in one particular spot and then the next spot on the canvases might be from a totally different perspective.

Gary Hopkins

So a lot of those concepts have integrated themselves into the work as I moved along. And well, this one is called Swing in Clear Water that the colors have their own symbolism and their own meanings to me. And I just tried to use simpler digital tools like warping and manipulating the shape and build up constructed environments.

Gary Hopkins

Another thing that I worked a lot on besides the landscapes was urban. And I did a lot of photography and photo painting out of that. And this is a more abstract, but it's called Castigating Waters, where it's very impressionistic, but still using the natural colors. Here's a much more lively, fun, music plays a big part of what inspires my work.

Gary Hopkins

As you can see, using the grid patterns of buildings and lakes and those kinds of shapes is starting to find their way into my work. This one is called City Whispers. It's more of an internal landscape. I've always thought of it as a kind of a landscape. I've always been inspired by Miro's work from an early age. I didn't understand what he was doing, but to me it was magical and mystical and I just loved it. So this kind of working with different digital image shapes and techniques to start to build up an experience and an expression or a feeling or a sense of space was pretty important.

Gary Hopkins

This one is called Floral Chanting, where I began to work with trying to get a sense of shallow depth of space with bright and bold colors, because that's really one of the things that I truly love, is bold and bright colors. Here's one called Hoodoo Wind. I'm trying to, I was working more on simplifying the work. I kind of bounce back and forth between wanting to simplify things and then, you know, in a large oil painting, you can get huge simple areas of color. And if you do it digitally, it just looks like a big flat, and it's so totally flat that it's hard to, you know, be satisfied with that. So I kind of try to introduce some sense of complexity and depth and texture and movement of the human hand, even though, you know, it's got geometrical hard edges. So I like playing with those two things together.

Gary Hopkins

So this one called Hoodoo Wind is kind of like the wind across the mountain landscape. In Oregon, it, it, it really gets wild here sometimes with the wind coming in off out of Alaska and out of Canada. And this is called New York City, Love from the East Side, which was, I kind of did a series in black and white and just tried to introduce smaller amounts of color to let them sort of have a bigger voice by being a smaller sense of color. And, and allowing, working more with patterns and, and to define shapes and volumes and, and my compositions.

Gary Hopkins

This is called Oceanside where I have, you know, symbols of the sun, symbols of water, the beach, trees. And so it allows, you know, I hopefully it allows a viewer to kind of wander through this in a sort of choreographed form at their own, in their own direction. The title, I think kind of sends you down a path, but it's up to the art, the viewer to really make up their own story.

Gary Hopkins

Another theme that I worked a lot on is I called Moods and States. It's more psychological moods, states of mind, states of being. This is called August Heat. And this was one of my only international sales. I sold, I had a show in Portugal. And this was one painting that sold. But it was kind of, kind of that hot feeling of August, that warm, with nice cerulean blues and hot reds and oranges kind of working together.

Gary Hopkins

I, sometimes I take a break from the full colors and I did quite a few works, where I tried to do more neutral colors. This was called the Waiting Colors Return. Still using patterns and kind of learning more how to build up, geometric shapes and patterning. This one it's called Fragile and Complex. It's more about, I guess how I was feeling at the time.

Gary Hopkins

So it has that thin, fragile, delicate lines. It has a certain complexity in here. It, you know, I think helped. A lot of the, some of the works that I do, I have that inner, inner landscape aspect to them. Here's one, happy, happy, happy. So, obviously lots of bright colors and buoyant energy and, kind of resting in a field of neutral grays, which I really like how, how gray, then blacks can help, give a place for color to work.

Gary Hopkins

This is called Journey and Judgment. How, you know, this was, I was thinking about how we, in our artistic journey, we have a lot of self judgment about what we're doing, whether it's good or whether it's bad or, whether it's working or it's not working. And that, it seems like it's a constant fight. To get it one way or the other. This one is, Shamanic Dreams.

Gary Hopkins

I love new age music, along, along with jazz and classical. So it was that kind of deep rhythm and, and sense of symbolism and, movement, that was brought on by that. Soul lights, another kind of interior landscape. Winter's Castle. And I'm trying to, you can see using a small amount of, at this time, I had already switched over to Photoshop, because primarily for its control over the color that I got. And, and being able to shift and move the color around, even after I had done, done the work. And I do that a lot.

Gary Hopkins

And, and, and, it had its own set of paint brushes. And I kind of felt like, I didn't really want it. I wasn't, I didn't want to use a painter anymore because, I didn't want to give fake impasto brush strokes because I felt like, it's digital. It's two dimensional. It's flat. You know what I mean? You can get a certain shallow depth of field, but I wasn't, pattern is a natural form of the digital world. Bright colors are a natural form.

Gary Hopkins

That fluorescent colors, those are all aspects of our modern day world. And that's, I said, okay, let's just use those forms. And hopefully that will, that will, because I love it. And I think other people, I think that's, I think that's a great way to kind of relate to those, those, those elements in the work.

Gary Hopkins

This is called Wonderful Tonight With You. That's a jazz song, that I was working more and more on, simple repetition and, bold color with areas of complexity hiding beneath. So, give it that sense of layers and movement and then, integration and reintegration. Here's, I have under the music things, blues songs, that has elements of nature and, the mood, I think of, soft yellows and deep blues and violets.

Gary Hopkins

This one is called Bright Horns. That has that sharp clarity and, power of horns and kind of this fragmented, syncopated rhythm to it. This is a called cello song, where I was listening to some cello music with its vibrato. And, that's kind of a literal interpretation of the music, and movement and tone and color.

Gary Hopkins

Okay, jazz. This was jazz in the city, which was kind of interesting because I, I used a lot of the, linear elements, and with counterpoint. And I got this printed on aluminum and all of the, light white colors actually became, the aluminum underneath. So it was, it was kind of nice. It worked out pretty well. And, I think that's, most of the work I get done, I get printed in, by, Whitewall in Germany and, on their photographic paper, because it, tends with a, a matte, acrylic overlay. And it gives it a nice soft, look of a print.

Gary Hopkins

And the colors are very rich and, they're not as, saturated as they appear on the screen, but, they have a, they still retain a certain vibrancy, and a trueness to, to what, I, originally envisioned. This is called Modern Baroque. This one I printed, it was four feet by three feet. So it was a pretty good size print.

Gary Hopkins

And it turned out, turned out pretty well. See, music lost in echoes. And, Samba and verticals. I love Brazilian music. It's a lot of fun and, very energizing. And, I was listening to that for about a week. Hello? That was fun. And here's shoe bear number eight. One of my favorite pieces. And then under, symbolics work.

Gary Hopkins

Contemplation, it's kind of a head-like figure with that meditative sense of color and lines and form emerging into a blending with space. Crossing over again, another head-mind moving through a depth of complexity of ideas. Deepening mystery. Exotic flowers. Icon face. Primordial. And spirit blooms. And then about a year or two ago I started working more on series work where I take a certain set, like a new invitation to color was, you know, my kind of rethinking my art. What was my color theory about using harmonious colors or analogous colors or neutral colors or saturated colors and how they work together? And I put them the structure that I put them on was more geometric and pattern based.

Gary Hopkins

And so I had these series of that using those working on those ideas together. That was really interesting. This is some of them. I did like 15 of them during vacation. Then I'll skip ahead to this one. Color structures was more about using a geometric scaffolding structure to put the colors on and give them some sort of a form. Using pop art elements, you know, with the big dots and black lines and outlines. And having the compression of a vertical space with the yellow and the blue.

Gary Hopkins

Horizontal lines. And then the last couple of years, it's been more refinement of those ideas. This is an incantation of freedom. Using a really deep buildup of texture with dots and painting and scratching and then areas of flat color. So at this point, I only use Photoshop. And because, you know, it's giving me plenty to work with. And it seems like the more I paint, I do something almost every day. So I have literally thousands of works.

Gary Hopkins

Here's more colored threads. Give it that depth and feel of intangible. Okay. That's about it. That's what I wanted to cover. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Gary. Does anyone have any questions? You can just shout them out if you do. No questions. But I'd like to compliment you. That was a very strong presentation of wonderful work. Thank you, Lee. Thank you.

Gary Hopkins

Thank you. I have a compliment and a question. Am I unmuted? I love all your colors and the color palette experimentations. And I was just noticing now, seeing them all go by, that it seemed like all the compositions are perfect squares. Yes. Well. Actually like a difficult aspect ratio. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure if you're a fan of square. And then I know everything's square now because the NFTs and Instagram and like everything. Yeah. Or experimented with more. You know, rectangular formats. Oh yeah. Yeah. I have several thousand works and I just happened to pick these because they were easier. To organize, but.

Gary Hopkins

Yeah, I have long and narrow, tall and narrow. I kind of gotten away from. Pure squares. I like a slightly elongated rectangle now vertical or horizontal. For the reasons you said it's it. It's a more natural way to look at a painting. I think if it's. Slightly run portrait or landscape as that aspect that clearly defined and. Square is. You know, it works for Instagram, but that's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Gary Hopkins

Thank you. Gary. Gary. In terms of resolution, your pieces there. Sometimes what three by four feet. Sometime do you, do you work in 300 PPI and Photoshop and do you. Print them out to, I mean, what's your final product. Yeah. Actually, you know, I mean, I have a pretty powerful system. But I really. I usually work at very low res 40 DPI.

Gary Hopkins

And because that way I can work very fast because I. You know, I've, I've worked with Photoshop now for 20 years, so. I don't want to be slowed down while it's cranking on doing, doing stuff. So. And then, so when I get the work 99% done. Then the last steps is I work with color. And adjusting and fine tuning with using curves and that kind of stuff. To get the color. Exactly as I want. And then.

Gary Hopkins

I use a multi-step process. I go up. If I, you know, it's say. 30. Say 40 by 40 inches or 42 inches. At 40. Then I'll go the same size. But I, but I leave it at 80. And it. And it keeps the same pixels. And then, and then I start popping it up. Until I get to. 300 DPI. The same size. But I have, I found that I have to do it in. Two or three steps. No more than doubling it each time in order to retain.

Gary Hopkins

The fine. Clarity. The color and the purity of the lines and that kind of stuff. Otherwise it gets a little fuzzy. And that's just because I've done a lot of experimenting and reading and I've tried different software. That uses fractal. To for enlargement and that kind of stuff, but. And then, you know, once I get it up to that size, then. I just, I use it as a maximum JPEG and. Send it off it with the SRGB.

Gary Hopkins

Color space and. Quite well seems to. Do a really great job with it. And. Plus they ship it back in a really great box. So if I have to send it back to the company, I can. Send it off to a. A show. Somewhere. I already have. Box built. All I have to do is. Put on the hardware and sign on the back and ship it. Do you, do you work, do you think about layers at all, or do you just more spontaneous and just get it? No.

Gary Hopkins

Yeah, I do. Hundreds of layers. But the way I work is I'll build up every. Basically every color and every shade. Every brush mark is on its own layer. And I build it up and I, until I get to a certain point. And then I it's a, I commit to it. I collapse it. So it's at that point is there's no going back. And then I'll build up more layers and then I collapse it. And then I built up more layers and then I collapse it. So.

Gary Hopkins

And you may have said this, but do you use it? Use a walk-in pen or do you? Walk-in tablet. Yeah. Medium sized one. Yeah. And the monitor I have is a. Is a Dell monitor, but it's color calibrated. And you can pick which color space you want. You can use Adobe color space or SRGB or whatever, when you want. So the colors I see on the screen or what gets printed, which is really nice.

Gary Hopkins

Before that I had a spider and I had to do my own color calibration. And it was. Pain in the ass. I wasn't really that happy with the result, but. Once I got this monitor, it really made things a lot easier. Well, thanks. I enjoyed your presentation. Thank you. Yeah. I had an Epsom 7,600 printer. And so I used to print on everything I could get my hands on. I used in K and I print on watercolor paper. Printing on.

Gary Hopkins

Any kind of. Paper that I could find my, you know, get my hands on. And that's where I kind of learned. To. You know, I think I learned a lot. Through a lot of failed. Examples of. Well, you know, blues tend to go black and reds turn to go brown and. And. And at first I just kind of lived with it. And then I kind of. Tried to adjust it. And then I learned, you know, Over time.

Gary Hopkins

Things got better and more available in the. In the world. From Adobe and other places that. You know, You know, You could get more and more accurate results. You know, And now printers at 1400 DPI. I mean, You know, you can't, you can't see that. At all. So 300 is plenty for the most part. For Prince.

Gary Hopkins

Thanks, everyone. Hey, Gary, I just had one comment about your, you know, I love your work. I love your, the vibrancy and the whimsical attributes. But I got to tell you, I'm a real fan of the square format. Because square really is the perfect format. And I don't have to, I don't have to worry. I'm not distracted.

Gary Hopkins

And, you know, there was a very famous New York photographer, Jovan, who shot everything horizontally because the orientation of our eyes, he said, well, we see everything horizontally. So that's the way I'm going to shoot. But I shot. A rola flex which the square format and to me I could do anything with it so I wouldn't abandon don't abandon those squares I love them I think they're very you know they're very versatile and if you like a really flat matte paper for your work fuji makes a very nice flat matte that's what I do just fuji collie crock okay I was gonna say because they fuji is balanced to white and I've used it a few times but yeah I just love what you do and your versatility and your production is it kind of makes me want to go home and do some more work because fill me up son but always a pleasure gary thanks thank you gary I really like the seeing the evolution of your work I appreciate that so thanks for that and I also noticed that for me a lot of your work has almost sort of a collage feeling to it and it really reminded me of some of the early 20th century artists and I was just curious if you were going for that at all because it looked like it looked like you know looking at you know strictly like from a Photoshop standpoint what I couldn't tell but I assumed that you had either beveled beveled some of your layers or added some shadows in there and I thought it really helped me to kind of get a sense of the way that you stand out shapes and colors really nicely there really felt like almost like a cubist sort of feel to some of the pieces like I said there it just felt like really beautiful collage work yeah that's kind of something that's evolved in my work lately primarily I was I started looking at works from barnard newman and frank stella and people like that and digital the collage the cut out is because a lot of the times I'll take a part of a painting that's not working very well and I use a hard edge selection cut that out and then paste it with a drop shadow it works yeah I'm very sure and sometimes and I found that I have to use like two drop shadows one that's very tight and dark and another one that's softer and I'm really happy that's what it's really good for me and it's like you know it's not as much of an away from the room thing as it is it's not as much of a way to get in and out of the way of the world it's not as much of a way to get in and out of the world it's not as much of a way to get in and out of the world it's not as much of a way to get in and out of the world it's not as much of a way to get in and out of the world it's very effective I really it was great to see the evolution of your work I think that for me that was really nice and I really like where you've gone with so much of the work so yeah if you're gonna have the money you're gonna have the money you're gonna have Kudos.

Gary Hopkins

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you, Gary. Thanks for sharing with us. Thanks everyone for all those questions and comments. And I guess we'll move on

To Roz. Hi everybody. Maybe you want to take a ninth inning stretch or something, but yeah, a little breather, relax, move. I know. I have no idea. The water. I'm really, I used to lead an exercise program when I worked in the World Trade Center with the Wall Street Journal online. And I had everybody come over to my cubicle and we did these ridiculous little exercises because you really get into this box and can't get out. Well, I'm going to take us back in time here a little bit, folks.

Roz Dimon

This is a CD I did in 1995. It's an animated piece called "'The World's Greatest Bar Chart." Yes. And the instructions are pretty hilarious. I mean, it says require Macintosh platform, eight megs of RAM. I mean, really. Set your monitor to 256 colors, sound volume up, double click to play the world's greatest bar chart. This piece I was working in the, I got in digital early and then in the nineties, I got in the eighties actually, I took one of the earliest courses at the School of Visual Arts. But by the nineties, I was working, doing pieces for in commercial work and showing an international digital shows early ones and curating. And I was, I could have gone to Pratt and taken a graduate course, but they said, oh, you could teach half of these. And then the digital world, I'd go in to support my habit.

Roz Dimon

And they said, oh, you can do digital, you have digital shows. So I started working inside corporate, which I had never been trained for, but I found it fascinating to do commercial art. And I was always at the World Trade Center for some strange, strange reason. I live nearby too, but this piece, the world's greatest bar chart was done when I was working for Lehman Brothers and we would go in, I was on the shift from like three to 11. It was all these creative people. And we had a blast actually, but we would get to, it was just constant doing Excel charts that would go out to digital of bar charts and spheres and money, money, money. And my work seems to always somehow be about Americana in some way, whether it's guns, Jesus, money, and this piece, I would go home at night after doing all these bar charts and I would just be working on my own work.

Roz Dimon

So I'm gonna go just share the screen. What's happening now is I'm, here it is so many years later and I am still working digitally, but I really want pieces like this to be rolled up so people can see them. This was made in Macromedia Director. Animation for me, watching pieces like Randy's and other people working in animation, for me, animation is always and remains a way to go deep inside that flat, flat digital, but for me, spiritual space too. I always find it amazing, this flat space with millions of layers that has no texture, none. Even when I painted, I rarely got into texture, but I love that illusion.

Roz Dimon

And it's just, it's been quite a journey. So I know I was going somewhere there, but I guess see when you're 67, you go, now, what, what? What was I gonna say? Anyway, I'm going to now share my screen and, oh, I was saying how animation is for me all about going in what I would call the mathematical Z space of a painting. And even my recent diamond scapes where you go online, it looks like a slide show where you're going from left to right. I'm using old technology and easy technology to go inside a painting. And I want my diamond scapes to be things where you're actually image mapping deep into a digital piece. Cause it's fascinating to me how many, I'm not gonna say how many, I'm not gonna say how many, but how much data can get on this screen is awesome. I mean, even Gary's pieces had that, there were chunks of real complex stuff going on.

Roz Dimon

And that illusion to me, I mean, it can't be done in painting, you know, it can, but you can't unearth those layers and share them. And that's where animation has always entered the picture. And I had actually gone home and made this piece called the world's greatest bar chart in 95 or 92 or something and later animated it. So I'm now going in with my programmer. I'm gonna share my screen. I'm gonna share my desktop.

Roz Dimon

You guys seeing this? It says click to start. It's very small. Yes, it says it. Believe me, get ready. This is maintained in the resolution it was made. And so welcome to the world's greatest bar chart where we enter a bar chart that is completely insane in terms of what it measures about money and stuff.

Roz Dimon

All is modern. This cyber mutant wants to be explored. As you may- guessed from its title, it is about the human species' obsession with comparative analysis and measurement. Like most art, however, the piece is in itself inexplicable and mysterious. It holds no answers. Have fun. If you have problems, go to the question mark.

Roz Dimon

Now, I'm still working on this, and keep in mind that this, you can skip that intro at any time, but I didn't want you all to miss that because it's so inspiring. But this piece, I'm working on it, and we went back in time with my programmer, young programmer who often says, Roz, I wasn't born when you did this, which is rather mollifying, but we went back in time and he was able to emulate this piece. On his going back in time, and we're rolling it up to be on this website to be open source coded so everybody can go into it. What happens when you go into this world's greatest bar chart is you roll over the outside images, and when you click on them, it's a sound work as well.

Roz Dimon

And when you click on these various things, different sound effects come up. And then you go back in time. And you can see that you can see in the inside. So I'm going to just start with the inside. And you can see that you can see in the inside. And you can see that you can see in the inside. And you can see that you can see in the inside. Pieces on the outside.

Roz Dimon

If you go inside the piece it brings up other animations. That begins in the mind. And I'm clicking to turn them on and off. And so it's a sound work as well. And I was always directing Carmen on these pieces. But let's go to another sound and go up to the vitamins up here. I'm up here in the vitamins. I know it's a small little screen. But this is how big it is. Remember resolution at that time.

Roz Dimon

That's a vitamin prayer I did to the Lord's Prayer. It's a total spoof on the Lord's, well not a spoof, but it's all the way up here. It's all about your health. We did this by, I think we had our sound in a toilet or something. We got in a lot of funny situations doing this. Going inside the glass.

Roz Dimon

And I'm still adding things to it that aren't quite in there yet. But it's a whole sound. It's a way of immersing inside a bar chart that is all about nonsense and basically measures nonsense. And we're getting very close to launching it. And I'll just show you that when you do redo this, when you click start, you can just click on the start and skip the intro.

Roz Dimon

So there it is. The World's Greatest Sound. The World's Greatest Bar Chart. I'm wondering, you know, I want people to have it. I want them to, I think with everything going on with money right now, it's very relevant to the situation, especially the whole NFT thing as well. I mean, I'm excited about it. But the money thing is always something I'm kind of laughing at and also trying not to get too, like just part of the herd. I mean, to me, I want to make some kind of spiritual and emotional reflection on the space. I mean, I'm doing this new piece called The World's Greatest Bar Chart. And I'm thinking about all the birds. And it's all about the birds talking about NFTs and the ridiculousness of it. And, you know, because I have to put my arms around it as an artist and reflection, not just as well, just about the money.

Roz Dimon

You know, we got to remember, why are we artists? What are we saying? But I am trying to think about this and we'll open it up. I'm just showing one piece right now. But I've been working on this for about a year, just trying to get the pieces back up. And I still think it's a very relevant piece. And I think it's a very relevant piece to the situation right now. But here it was done in 95 and, you know, done in the World Trade Center, like the mecca of money, if ever there was a center of money in the United States that has now, you know, fallen to the ground. And different pieces came up after that were a little more spiritual and oriented about how things that we think are these monuments and they disappear.

Roz Dimon

So I think I'll stop the share. I will say that I have a piece coming up in an auction very soon at the Little Red Schoolhouse. It's a pretty radical downtown, socially progressive, LBGT-oriented school that's been around for years. And you get asked to be in this auction. I'm really happy to be in it. And I have a piece in it. Of course, you get nothing. You know, the life of the artist. Don't we love it? But that's fine. It's a worthy cause.

Roz Dimon

But I'm excited to have a piece, and it kind of relates to the bar chart, because it's a piece I did after Donald Trump was elected. And it's a piece that's called Fake Art, Fake News, Fake Elections. And it was a one-off I did. Really came out of I was in Manhattan the day after the election. It came up a month later. I did this piece. But it kind of relates to the bar chart's whole kickoff on money and what's important about it and what isn't. And I put it in for the bid. You have to put it in a starting bid, which it goes up on the auction block through the Little Red Schoolhouse. It will be in a Chelsea, New York gallery. But also on Artsy. And my bid, they put estimated bid and then asking bid. And I put my estimated bid at $45 million for number 45.

Roz Dimon

And so I put the starting bid at $450. So it's kind of funny to be having a piece like this going up for auction along the same line. I'm working on this world's greatest bar chart also done in the mecca of American capitalism. But Artsy wrote back and said, what's the meaning? Why is this artwork going? We need an explanation for why it's estimated at $45 million. So I wrote a little description and said, you know, it's integral to the piece that I'm showing about the election of billionaire Donald Trump, number 45.

Roz Dimon

So anyway, just giving a little context of then and now. I'm going to stop the share. And if anybody has some thoughts about the world's greatest, I mean, I have made a few NFTs. But I don't know. I could take all. I have so many digital works. I could take them and put them up as NFTs. And I've sold work over the years, digital pieces as prints and different things. And here's a piece I'm taking. And I guess the question, if any of you have opinions about it, is I'm kind of in a place with NFTs of thinking, hmm, I think I'll make it like either unlimited. And everybody can buy a copy of this for $50.

Roz Dimon

Or make it very specialized and rare. And yet it really brings up the whole thing about rarity in digital art. It's like we're enforcing rarity. But that's been going on for a while, even with lithographs. You know, a lot of them don't wear down anymore. You just decide how many prints. But anyway, I'll just open it up if anybody has anything to say.

Roz Dimon

Well, you know, in terms of rarity. I think one of the things that the internet economics showed was that if you sell something for a dollar, you're not going to make a lot of money. But if it's a dollar and a million people buy it, you've done really well. Yeah. You've gotten that exposure, you know. Because they think, oh, it's only a dollar. I'll buy it. So, you know, depending on your, if you really want to blast it out there and have people enjoy your content of what you're doing. And what you're saying and expressing. You know, that is a route that I would certainly look at. You know, it's not like you're doing a masterpiece that you're only going to do one print of. And you have this. Oh, it is a masterpiece. Of course it is. Well, of course it is.

Roz Dimon

Of course it's a masterpiece. So, was that still done in director, Macromedia's director? It was. And, you know, it's totally, you know, rise home with the new museum. Yeah. It's a great piece. And I think one of the things that you talked about with Tim is recently we launched their art database, which I have a piece in Pale Mail.

Roz Dimon

Flash programmer. It was done in Macromedia director. Macromedia director. And later I converted it to Shockwave. But, you know, these things are no longer, you can't play them. So that's one of the issues. Yeah. I was surprised that you were. I didn't even know it was still around. Well, it isn't. And that's what I'm doing with my program. We unearth an emulation. And now we're remaking it from what we were doing in the past. Really cleverly making videos into GIF animations and bringing it back to life. Okay. So we're going to experience it today because it speaks to the monetary BS that's going on. Yes. As I said with the NFT. Yeah. It's a timeless masterpiece. That's for sure, Russ. Oh, yes. Thank you. But I do like bringing access and letting people, you know, reaching a larger public.

Roz Dimon

I've always been interested in doing that as a digital artist and getting it out there. So I am kind of thinking about it as like a digital piece. Thinking of maybe you get a link and we thought maybe we'd put it up as a NFT animation or there is a still image too, but it's very small. You could get a printout, you know, or just the still image could come with it. And we thought maybe we let whoever buys it, you know, the first person, we'll put your photo up inside the animation.

Roz Dimon

There is one picture in front of it in a dollar bill. I don't know. It's just a lot of ways to think about how to market things. Yeah. I mean, one thing that I think is interesting about NFTs is that even if it's owned, the general public can still view it and experience it just the same as the owner, you know? So it sort of makes it, you know, it's an interesting question. Like if you price it very low, you know, everyone can own it, but is that different than one person owning it and everyone else can just consume it in the same way, you know? And, you know, I think it's a great question. Your piece definitely like, you know, it brought me back. I did a lot of work with director and lingo and all that kind of stuff. And actually Steve Miller and I did an interactive web-based piece that used QuickTime VR, which is extinct.

Roz Dimon

And we tried to like figure out a way to make it, you know, playable on the web. And, you know, I talked to a bunch of people. There's a great list in New York City. I think they're still around. It's a listserv called WAC. It's the WWW World Wide Web Artist Coalition. But it's basically mostly coders, you know? And so like one of the people on there was like, well, you know, you could run a, you know, run a server somewhere running a virtual machine with an older version, you know, of server software. And it could be actually running it on an old version of Mac OS with the QuickTime plugin and stuff like that and have that remotely. So it's a great piece of work. And it's really, really helpful to see how it's going to be served in some way.

Roz Dimon

Seems like a lot of trouble though. It is. And then we, I wanted to make it interactive and make it live again. It's a piece I really support in my collection and want to go on and live. So I happen to be working with a wonderful coder and yeah, we have picked it apart and, you know, that's another thing too, Colin. The thing about the NFT is that I have to either give a print with it or something because it's up there on the web. We've made it into a website so anybody can go see it. And I don't want to prevent people from seeing it, you know, but I might make a special experience with a password for people who buy it, something like that. But, you know, I don't know. I'm open if other people have a thought about it. I mean, there's another coin that's coming out called Materium and run by, out of London, by this guy named Vinay Gupta who runs the company and that sort of thing.

Roz Dimon

And what they do is they do NFTs that are kind of like indexes. They're kind of like indexes to physical objects. They're sort of like a certificate of authenticity rather than the piece itself. You know, so, you know, I mean, that's, I mean, that in looking at, you know, the coins that are dealing with, you know, the ideas of a physical object going with an NFT itself, you know, this is one, this is one group that's doing it. And one thing I also want to say is that I also did a, I mean, I know what you mean with this obsolescence sort of thing, because I did an entire documentary for the Smithsonian American Art Museum on urban sprawl in 2000. And I mean, I had a, you know, I had a big commission for it. And the thing is, is that it ran real player video and it ran QuickTime VR as, as panoramas.

Roz Dimon

And I mean, I can still, you know, I still have the print panoramas. They're gorgeous. But the thing is, is that the, you know, I'm not a fan of the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, the, the interactive installation, you know, you know, it's, it's, it's still somewhere down on one of the Helios servers at, at the, at the museum, but you know, the, the technology is totally broken.

Roz Dimon

Right. Yeah. And that's, yes. And that is an issue with digital art. I will say the New Museum, I, I attended a webinar yesterday on the New Museum rhizome.org. And I know Colin has like quite a few pieces in the art base. Yeah. And I have one and some others, but they are, they have just made a new, you might go check it out. It's I think it's rhizome.org.artbase or it's artbase.rhizome.org.

Roz Dimon

Yeah. They just resurrected the art base. Yep. They did. And they've got a new way. Like if you go into my piece, Pale Male, and you click on it, it actually links to the new interactive piece of the piece behind me. And yet they're showing one that they got in 2007. Okay. But they're doing, using this, new Wiki data and base and customizing it and using a coding program so that you can really delve into digital art from all different aspects and share it and search all the database by either, you know, like Shockwave who was working in Shockwave and you can put a date and what were they doing? And so it's a new database to be, to be looking at rhizome is spelled R H yes. Thanks Patrick. R H I Z O M E started by her. Mark Tribe in 1995. I'm sure Colin knows about it too, but, and so. Yeah.

Roz Dimon

I, I, I used to go with them over in, over in Soho. They, they had a place, they, they had a, before they went into the new museum, they had a, they had an office over on spring. Yeah. I was thinking of a digital art, fossil, digital fossil museum. But anyway, I guess rhizome's doing that already. Yeah, they are. And then I don't know, it's, it's, it's good. For people to see, I mean, the nineties, as we know was, it was a huge.com scene and very creative, a ton going on.

Roz Dimon

But you know, the past, well, the past is important, but I also love being here with this group and seeing what people are doing now and, and, and going, going ahead. So it's a good, good combo. I think though, but getting things like I, you know, it's like, you and I are both, you're part of the nineties scene very much. And the thing is that I think that what happens is, you have a lot of people, you know, who are in, you know, kind of the post internet scene who are in many ways, I mean, especially in VR right now, they're, they're recreating a lot of the things that we did in second life or recreate or recreating things that were done in the 1990s and that sort of thing. And, and I mean, on one hand, whether there's, there's a new context, there's some new content, you know, to me, sometimes I find it a little bit, a little bit frustrating and just saying, oh, here's this new stuff.

Roz Dimon

And I said, this looks amazing. And you like the stuff we were doing in the nineties. And you know, there were artists, true Patrick, who were doing stuff like this. And I know when I came along, you know, and thought, oh, I'm doing everything and it's new and different. And there were certain experiments going on 20 years before me and coding and all sorts of things, you know? So it's kind of a cycle. I believe that, that, that happens.

Roz Dimon

Yeah. And the whole like you know, eight bit aesthetic that's going on now with people trying to make everything look like those old school video games or a lot of the internet memes, like that Nyan cat or however you pronounce it, you know, that looks really pixelated. Yeah. And I mean, I love what Sue Dean is doing because it's from a different point of view, really.

Roz Dimon

She's coding, but I have to say like early pieces, they, the pixels, I mean, was all about that, you know, you, you really, you, you, it was hard to, I mean, that's one thing I loved about it was showing those dots, you know, that's, that's why I got into digital artists. They invaded my old paintings, all these crazy electronic squares.

Roz Dimon

So it's, it's interesting to see where it's going. And the fascination with the pixels, it's still there. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. I liked to see that piece. It's nice to see that piece again, Roz. I remember when you showed it at the Code Show in 95, very early on. So it's, I think it's fun and exciting how you're resurrecting it, you know, with the current technology.

Roz Dimon

Oh, thanks Victor. It's, it's great. I know we were hanging out in that crowd, then weren't we? Did you come to Code? Yes, I did. Great. Roz, did you happen to go to a show that was down in the downtown, the, it was the Guggenheim Soho, the show called Mediascape. I think it was in the late nineties maybe, but that was just a mind blowing show that had, you know, installation based work and Nam June Paik installation, the Nam June Paik installation was in there. Did it have Bruce Wans, I think, was he the curator, Bruce Wans? I'm not sure. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. He did the whole SVA School of Visual Arts. They were huge in the early days, you know, and, and Bruce was a big part of that. Bruce Wans and, and, you know, it was a few of the shows. They would have big shows at SVA, but I think he did that show and it was, yes, it was very impressive.

Roz Dimon

Yeah. I remember there was one installation where there was like a stationary bike, like an exercise bicycle, and then there were screens and, you know, it was, it was connected. So the faster you pedaled, you know, the faster the virtual environment went by you. And back then, you know, it was like mind blowing, you know, it was like, couldn't even believe it. That was, that was Jeffrey Shaw's Visible City, wasn't it? I think it might've been. Yeah. And I, there was another piece that sticks out in my mind where it was like, and I think this artist is still working. I don't know the artist's name, but it was like a grid of like wood panels that was hooked up to like a photo sensor, like a camera was forward facing. And as you walked by it, they would flip, you know, to like make the image of what was in front of it.

Roz Dimon

And they would make this little click noise. Danny, can you let me? Yeah. That's Danny, Danny Rosen, Wooden Mirror. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that piece just, I mean, it's like, yeah, right in my mind. And by the way, Colin, if you remember in 2006 for a, for a very fateful critical theory class, remember I did that 48 page essay on the, the, the pixel as aesthetic choice at the end of the 1990s.

Roz Dimon

That's right. Digital minimalism. And I wrote my whole thesis, or my whole paper on, on memetics. Now working on implementing it. It's actually on academia.edu actually. Nice. So anyway. Oh, so I wanted to let you guys know too, now that we're in this sort of open session. So Anne gave me her, her essay for the NFT Now show recently, actually, I think I posted it either it's all blurring together this morning or last night or some sometime fairly recently, but, on the, on the Techspressionism site, if you go into, the exhibition section, there is a page for that show, which is coming up and the essays is there. There's also actually a, a new section on the homepage too, just called essays. And that has a submission form where if any of you guys are writers and are interested in submitting, essays, you could submit them through that page or that form, which, I, I actually, I posted Anne's essay on that page as well.

Roz Dimon

And that'll be just kind of like a starting point, because I think that, one, one piece that's kind of missing from the, the, the site is really like some sort of, a compendium of critical theory or essays that, you know, support the visual content in some way or look into it, you know, and kind of view, and I think that's a really goodens the feel of the book. So, but I'm not just going to get into the art of that. I'm going to just get into the world of words and not just go into the mind of the author, but I'm going to just get into the real feel of the book. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text.

Roz Dimon

And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text. And I'm going to just get into the real feel of the text.

Roz Dimon

And I'm going to You know, I think that the essay is really interesting. The artists that she chose, you know, are a lot of them I'm not familiar with, you know, or hadn't been familiar with their work. So I've been helping her to slowly, you know, we're in the process of putting the material together, you know, in Kunstmatrix and stuff like that. So, yeah, that's going to open up on May 5th, which is the beginning of Freeze Week. And the opening is, I believe, 6, 6 to 8. There's a there's an RSVP, though, on that page for the exhibition. You could also get there if you just go to NFT now show dot com. That's kind of like a shortcut, but we're going to do like a Zoom, like a Zoom reception. And, you know, whatever, you know, whichever artists can make it are going to, I guess, be invited to come.

Roz Dimon

And I'm not sure exactly how we're going to do the do the reception, you know, like we did the last one during the last salon, which I think worked out well. But this one, I guess, you know, it's going to be a little bit more people sort of like outside of the group who submitted work. And certainly, you know, hopefully they'll want to also, you know, become more involved as time goes on. But it seems like a pretty interesting, you know, and diverse show that and is, you know, curated.

Roz Dimon

And, you know, we have yet to really completely solidify the installation and all that kind of stuff. So that's a little bit of a work in progress. Which, you know, we have about a week to go for that. So hopefully we'll be able to get that all organized. And, yeah, you know, just wanted to put that out there. And, you know, I'm always open also for suggestions or ideas with regards to the site itself. You know, recently it was changed around so that the show, the collab show is on the homepage, you know. And that was kind of like a last minute decision where, you know, I was talking to a. Couple people, including Helen, about, you know, what do you think about this idea of just putting whatever is the current show right on the homepage instead of it being within an exhibition page? She really liked that idea.

Roz Dimon

And I think that's really frontlining, you know, the work, you know, and all the other stuff. The written content to me is kind of secondary. I mean, you know, like honestly, like, you know, Warhol's famous quote or whatever. I never read. I just look at the pictures. Like if I could. Do that literally, I probably would do that. If I could get through life just doing that, I probably would. And here I am, like talking about it, adding an essay section to the website. But, you know, I do. I do prefer just to look at pictures if I can. So and also that gives a, you know, that gives to me like that's something that's really appealing about Instagram and why I like chose that platform is kind of like a jumping off point for this project in terms of a hashtag and everything else is because.

Roz Dimon

You know, there's no prejudice when you're just scrolling through a feed looking at images. You don't know anything about the images. You know, you're just looking at the pictures and then maybe you click on it and you see like who it is or what hashtags are associated with it or what it's about. You know, but you don't need to read a whole preface or anything like that. And I like that. You know, I feel like that gives sort of a very, you know, the ability to have like a very gut reaction to things, which, you know. Usually I think is a pretty true reaction. So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. And yeah, you know, quick question. Yeah. On the homepage, we have the collab number one right now. Will that change to the NFT and will the collab one still be up or how does that work with Koontz Matrix or, you know, I'm not quite sure.

Roz Dimon

So we talked about, you know, like if there should be an end date for. For the show. And at this point, I think we're not going to have one. What I'm going to do is just at the time of the NFT show opening, that will be the show on the homepage and the collab show is going to be accessible through the exhibitions page. You know, like basically that entire chunk of the page will just move to an internal page and whatever the most recent show is, that's what will be on the homepage. But unless there's a real good reason to take them offline. Which I don't think there's a real necessity. I mean, basically, we have up to fifteen hundred pieces in our partnership with Koontz Matrix. So we can have up to fifteen hundred pieces uploaded to the account, which is a good amount of content.

Roz Dimon

Yeah. No reason to take it down. Yeah. So I think, you know, and I'd like to get Davo's opinion on this. He's not he's not in this in this meeting because I think he's recuperating from his last his second shot of vaccine. But what I'm thinking is, you know. The NFT show is going to open up May 5th and then Patrick and I are putting together the Techspressionism in 2021, which was sort of the original show that then, you know, of these other shows kind of started popping up. So we had talked about maybe trying to time the 2021 show with the wrong biennial, which I believe opens up on November 1st. Right. Or somewhere around that time. Yep. So.

Roz Dimon

And I'm not completely clear on how that all works, but I think that to time it in conjunction with this other event is only going to drive traffic and interest. And I think what we can do is just kind of like at some point between May, May 5th and November 1st, the NFT show will close and we'll open up the second round of the collab, you know, once that's finalized. And, you know, I'll be. Talking with Davo and then Brandon Gellis volunteered to work on the installation piece of that project. So and I'd like to, you know, have these revolving roles to available to people, whoever's interested in like getting involved in either the setup of the VR piece, the curatorial pieces, you know, writing, et cetera, you know, so or editing, curating, that kind of stuff. And certainly, you know, if anyone really feels interested in getting involved.

Roz Dimon

And the website administration, you know, I'm happy to set someone up there, too. I mean, it's. And by the way, just reference like, you know, you know, basically having it on at the same time as the wrong is I mean, it's very, very simple. In other words, it isn't anything that, you know, they'll probably have a link to our stuff up, you know, might be involved. You know, I'm hoping that since I'm on the board that, you know, we'll be involved somewhat in a, you know, some of the. Press releases and maybe some as some of the press going on. But the thing is, is really just primarily, you know, just, you know, synergy of visibility, kind of like the NFT NFT show being during freeze, you know. So in other words, there's just these there was these potentials for, you know, for having these shared touchstones and that sort of thing that can, you know, that can create synergies, you know, press synergies and that sort of thing.

Roz Dimon

The wrong I when I went there, it seemed like it's kind of like set up as a randomizer. You know what? You know what? The thing is, is what you've seen right now is you've seen the wrong as the TV channel and the biennial is taken down. OK, how do they how do they present that? Like, you know, how do they present the different participants?

Roz Dimon

Basically, the thing is, they showed as they showed as a series of nested listings, you know, and so that's kind of it. In other words, basically, you know. The wrong biennial homepage is basically kind of like an index of participant participants. And there are a number just, you know, everyone is kind of different. So what happened is, is that last last edition we had we had, you know, we had what we called list curators who went around and basically did a did a sampling and took people on a on a Zoom tour and, you know, went and, you know, went through. Went through different pieces.

Roz Dimon

And then, you know, as I said, there's a there's a whole different, you know, a whole bunch of different, you know, types of engagement. But the one thing is, is that I'm talking with David, you know, lately and Nagin knows him, too. And the thing is, is that it's he seems to have a different approach for this time. And I'm still I'm still trying to unpack it. I'm still trying to get him to unpack it for me.

Roz Dimon

So, you know, but the thing is, is that it's, you know, it's. Almost always gets in the New York Times. And last year we got an honorable mention for the Starts Prize for the European Union, you know, which is basically the big cultural prize for you for the EU. And so, I mean, there's and I think David also got a good a good chunk of money to build some infrastructure. Actually, I think the one thing that he's trying to do is he's trying to build a he's trying to build an artist's social media platform.

Roz Dimon

And that in the end, really what he wants to do is that he wants to help us all survive. You know, in other words, he wants to be able to find ways for us to be seen and us to also have opportunities to have, you know, paying engagements. I hear you. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the way I feel about this platform, you know, philosophically as well. You know, I mean, that's kind of the idea behind it. You know, it's like there's strength in numbers. I mean, maybe you could see if you'd be interested in coming. Again, in presenting at some point, you know, that would be pretty cool. It would be pretty cool. He's a he's good friend, but he's also a bit of a different bird. And, you know, he might he might he might want to catch him on a good day. Sure. Absolutely. Right.

Roz Dimon

So he's a good guy, though. Cool. Cool. He's very Spanish. Spanish. Colin. I have a question. I got the email from you with the Zoom link and it mentioned the Tech Pressionism 2021 International Juried Exhibition. Has that exhibition already been juried or is it new? So it's still in the process of being curated. Like Patrick and I are meeting regularly, picking work, picking artists and stuff. The open call ended. A while back. But basically, like the artists that are going to be included. And I think we're leaning towards it being 100 artists, you know, total and sort of like, you know, with a couple sort of sub goals other than it being all work that, you know, involves the use of technology for some form of personal expression within a fine art context. You know, and those would be to have it be.

Roz Dimon

Gender equal and to have it be as internationally diverse as possible. You know, so we got in so many pieces and it's just kind of like it's, you know, I've got I've gone through the call for entry stuff once or twice. And it almost takes me about three or four hours just to just do a cursory look through on things. So, you know, it's I mean, I realize that a lot of curators, you know, basically have the attention span. For you going through some work as the as your basic gerbil. But and I'm sorry, I'm just being I'm joking a little bit. But what goes on is, is that, you know, I mean, I've been told by a lot of friends of mine, you know, who are saying, you know, half the time they, you know, you know, it's a 30 second. It's a 30 second elevator pitch, you know, for the most part. And then when they see something, you know, they'll they like they'll drill into it.

Roz Dimon

But yeah, exactly. So, you know, what I'm trying to do is, you know, I'm trying to, you know, basically, on one hand, you know, honor the community. You know, that's you know, that's been very active. And then secondly, you know, on the other hand, is that really try to give, you know, the people who, you know, went into a call for entry, you know, a really honest consideration, you know, because they, you know, they deserve the honor of being, you know, they deserve the amount of respect to being looked at and given. Yeah. And honestly, you know, I think it's really important that people take an honest consideration because, you know, they paid the money and they took the time to put their stuff in. But, you know, there are some people who threw some stuff in that is like, well, what the hell what the hell did you do?

Roz Dimon

You know, it's like, well, does this have to do with anything? But I get that with any of the shows that I curate anyway. So and, you know, like there is sort of a two part process to that. And part of that was that, you know, after the call for entry on call for entry dot org ended, you know, I went through the submission. There was over there was over twelve hundred pieces submitted through that. And so and I saw what I found was that, you know, the majority of pieces that came in through cafe were artists from the US, Canada, England, from English speaking countries. Whereas a lot of the artists in our index, you know, were from other countries. They just never got the call for entry because for whatever reason, you know, most of the people who applied through that portal are from English speaking countries.

Roz Dimon

So at that point, I decided to. It's definitely interesting. I'm sorry. So what I decided to do is I emailed everybody that submitted work through call for entry and said, hey, you know, like we're extending the deadline. But the first phase is over. The second phase is basically people who are in the artist index. Right. You know, which is the artist index on our website on expressionism dot com. And some percentage of those people went and started using the hashtag in their posts. And a bunch of them personally reached out to me and said, hey, like, can I get added to the index? Here's my website. And like I sort of felt like the people that took that initiative wanted to participate to, you know, a higher level than people who didn't who just submitted work to the form.

Roz Dimon

And then went on to the next call for entry. So, you know, that's kind of been the filter is that was like top of funnel, as people say in the marketing world, you know. And then as it goes down, I mean, you know, the people that show up here time after time to the salons and stuff like that are the people to me that I consider sort of the core group of expressionists. I mean, what really signifies it other than active ongoing participation? You know, regardless of someone's CV or whatever else, you know what I mean? Like if somebody comes in from the outside and they have this amazing resume and they're represented by Gagosian, but they could really care less about expressionism or this group or anyone in it. Well, they can go apply to some other digital art show as far as I'm concerned.

Roz Dimon

You know, so I don't know. That's just kind of the way I feel about it. Like it's prime to me. It's primarily a community. And, you know, like, you know, that's kind of like the approach that, you know, and some of these other shows like the NFT show is more like a general open call where it didn't really involve active participation necessarily in the use of the hashtag or participation in these live events. You know, but the live events really are. I mean, the closest thing to like all of us being together, you know, in any sort of format. I think.

Roz Dimon

I don't know. What do you guys think about that? I mean, cause I always struggle about like thinking about, you know, what is this? What is Techspressionism? Is it a collective? Is it a movement? Is it just a website, a platform, you know, like what is it? And I guess it could be, you know I mean initially on the website, I had this line which I had removed. I probably should put it back there, but I stole it from 12 step programs where it said, you know, you're a Techspressionist when you say you are. And I kind of feel like that's like what being an artist is too, you know, no one can like really say, I mean, people always like to say it, but you know, that person isn't an artist or whatever, you know what I mean? But really like nobody can really take that away from someone else. Hey Colin.

Roz Dimon

If you think about it in many ways, I think about the exhibition of the first papers of surrealism in New York in 1942. In other words, basically what happens is that, you know, you had people, you know, you had like, you know, the people we know as the surrealists and also Duchamp came in and basically ran a mile of string through the whole place so you couldn't go through it. But the whole thing is, is that, you know, in other words, that was an encapsulation of certain people who were involved in, you know, a certain conversation and that sort of thing. And that was encapsulated in this particular thing. And I think that's really kind of what we're trying to do. And, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm not thinking necessarily in, you know, in, you know, they, you know, all these different directions, but I mean, I think to me, it's very simply that, you know, people who are, you know, people whose imaginations have been captured by what we're trying to do.

Roz Dimon

And then, you know, also, you know, as the, as, as the, you know, as the first papers of surrealism, that sort of thing, it, it encapsulated, you know, as the, you know, as the first papers of surrealism, that sort of thing, it encapsulated, you know, a lot of people who were, you know, who were active within the, you know, surrealism as a genre and a movement at the time. And, you know, I think that's, you know, I think it's perfectly fine.

Roz Dimon

One of the, Colin, one of the, I was watching a, a YouTube video the other day, it was Ed, Ed Reinhardt, I think was in it and Bernard Newman. And they were talking about the abstract expression, the expressionists at the time in the forties and stuff. And he said, they were basically a community of people because they had no place to show. Nobody know who they were. Nobody knew what they were doing. And they just got together to share their ideas and their love of, of, and they were all very different about what they did.

Roz Dimon

And, but I have, you know, when I heard him say that, I thought, well, that's what, you know, what we're doing here. It's the same. Same kind of empathy. Yes. Yeah. I mean, really, it was like to a large degree, Helen Harrison's support of this idea really early on, like even like 10 years ago when it was basically just me and a word that I came up with to describe my own work for, for a title of a show, you know, and she was like, she kind of latched onto that because she's an abex scholar and it probably resonated with her. And that gave me some level of confidence to, to feel like, you know, maybe there are, maybe there, there's some legs to this, you know, and then it took like a decade for it to be, you know, and it was really the fact that another artist just went and called herself a Techspressionist in, in an article who was Osven Rosen.

Roz Dimon

She hasn't been in this in a while, but she was at the first one. And, and that kind of like spurred me to, to think, well, maybe this could be, you know, like a group. And let's see if this is a conversation, right? And it is. Yes. That's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. And, and, you know, it's fantastic that you, that you did that. I agree, Patrick and Colin. I mean, I, what I really like about this, this group, and again, I go back to the storyteller in me is that it isn't just a group of people talking to themselves. It's like this sort of expansion web of conversations that we have here. And then we spread out around the world, which is just totally fascinating.

Roz Dimon

And so. Well, this whole idea of recording it too. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't my, I think it might've been Davos idea. But like, I kind of thought about it, but then I thought, no, people aren't going to go for that. They're not going to want to, you know, have, have themselves recorded and be published. But I think that decision was really like a turning point for the group in a way, because, you know, we're creating content now every two weeks that even, you know, the rest of the world can see. If they're not present, you know? And I think that's, that's something that's very different than, you know, has really happened before. Like, you know, it was just sort of like, I don't know. And then with the, with the interviews that Roz, you know, kind of developed, like, I think that, you know, that also is, you know, I mean, it's like, really like we're using all of the same strategies that, corporate America uses, you know?

Roz Dimon

And, and I had through the years. Done for my clients, content, marketing, all that stuff. And, and the, you know, the product is, is us, it's all of us, you know what I mean? So I feel like that's kind of, you know, the point of it. And, you know, I'd like, also to put out there that, you know, like Patrick just, did his first interview with Greg Little, who is our graduate advisor. And, you know, I would encourage any, any of you guys to, and an amazing artist also, you guys should definitely check out the interview. It's the, it's the one that's on the homepage. Now. It's the most recent one. You know, like if, if any of you guys really feel strongly about either being interviewed or interviewing someone else, you know, or being interviewed by someone else, you know, definitely like get in touch with, with Roz or myself and, you know, Yeah, I'm happy to as well.

Roz Dimon

I'm Patrick as well. Absolutely. You know, like, the more the, the merrier, basically, you know, I think that, and we've been using just zoom to. To record the, the interviews. So, you know, and, and there is an interview format that Roz came up with. It's on the interviews page on the site, you know, which is downloadable and that's kind of like a guideline, you know, for people to use as far as, you know, an interview format, but really like the idea for that too. Also, you know, I mean, Warhol's interview magazine, you know, was sort of like, you know, this idea of. Artists interviewing other artists. So instead of. Some journalists going and interviewing artists, you know, it's just artists interviewing other artists, which I think makes it a lot more like a conversation and a lot more interesting.

Roz Dimon

I'm going to be, interviewing Carter, actually Carter Hodgkin, really soon. So that'll be great. And I just want to say, Colin that I watching this group evolve. I think it gives a real, the meat. Yeah. The meat, there's a lot of meat here and a lot of content and educational. Focus. Yeah. It's not just about the focus without it being, you know, pedagogical really, but it's, it's more like a it's evolved into something that I think is a. A real witness to what's going on at the time through artists who are doing really different and varied work. And there's a generosity in this group and an openness, you know, a lot of young kids were really getting turned off. I mean, I'm part of the newer gallery scene, so I respect that. But at the same time. It was getting rather archaic.

Roz Dimon

And we're in this new art. March into this new land that, I mean, it's been going on a while, but it's in a new sphere now. Andy Young people, I like the way that this whole, you've kind of created a, a basis. It's not rigid at all, but there's certain, there's something about this community that is, has been really warm and engaging and, and also on a pretty top level. I mean, I've found most of the presentations. To be, to be really, really good and very different. And there's a real individual reality to it and, and purpose. And I know young people have been dissuaded with the old art scene. And this is a new one and I, I think it's, it's got legs.

Roz Dimon

Yeah. I think a lot of the people. Making, you know, work now and especially with NFTs, I feel like, you know, for all of the negative. Spin it's getting, there's a lot more people creating art on computers now because, you know, they believe that there's a market for it. And, you know, I mean, I think there is, you know, and I think it hasn't completely found it's true sort of like, usage case or whatever you'd want to call it, you know, but it's interesting to see people that probably would never apply to art schools or, you know, might not even have majored in art in college making work and doing things that are expressive. Even if it's like weird self-referential mean.

Roz Dimon

Thing. Like that's what our culture is all about. And that's true. And it's rising visual culture. It's a rising visual language. You're right. Everybody's an artist now. But there's also a thing of, of taking all that and making a new language out of all of that, which is also going into the artwork itself. And, you know, it's so, yeah, it's, it's, it's beyond marketing if it's just marketing, then of course that's important. But I think that I think this group speaks to it. I think it speaks to that vis rising visual language and how it's changing the art world and the world.

Roz Dimon

I just did. I'm just coming off a almost ending two week writers conference here in Boston through grub street, which is one of the largest creative writers support organizations. And I started to put in, you know, for all agents and everybody, my stories and things. And I'm thinking. I'm putting expressionist on everything because these are wordsmiths and everybody I've talked to is like, you know, they just don't glaze over. They hear a new word, they go. So it's been really interesting to see how the writer's side of this is really interested in the word itself and what it represents. So. Hmm.

Roz Dimon

Yeah. I found like a lot of times I have to repeat it a couple times to people. Yeah. And I'm like, they're like, do you know that the word that you're using is an expressionist? And I'm like, what? So I'm like, do you know that? And so I'm like, are you sure? And it's like, we're just going to have to get it out of the way. Is extremely powerful you know I remember I was at an agency... Culture about bond that's where actually... You know quoted my first commercial site I did the agency site and then did... Apples launch site through them as well and they're all like philosophy was... Word-of-mouth marketing you know and built word-of-mouth through creating the stories like I don't know if you guys remember like wendy the snapple lady in these like weird characters but like those were totally personal the letters were fictional they were made up you know all the people in the tb commercial is just random people in the agency that they pulled out today like would be in the steve commercial which is pretty funny but you know but rise when you're talking about you know corporate culture in new york back in the nineties I mean I feel like a lot of those people who are freelancers you know when they clocked out they went and made some really crazy stuff and like they didn't care at all about whether or not it ever sold whether it was exhibited because they had a good job they were making money as a freelancer so they just made whatever they wanted and also these people had like the sharpest skills you know because they had to create for corporate america so like they had to know the you know the software you know inside and out to be able to execute the ideas that you know the bigwigs you know wanted so it's always here to be it's another blurring of boundaries.

Roz Dimon

You know, like that whole thing, commercial art and fine art, that didn't happen in the Renaissance. People worked together and skill of craftsmanship and painting was all part of the, actually, the financial situation. I mean, it was, you know, I mean, Jesus was like Coca-Cola. And, you know, I'm really into Jesus. But at the same time, it was more, you know, I think the separations that artists get ghettoized into in the last years has, I mean, we need to take the, we have the reins and we need to take them. And I think it's fine to have a job that you do. And then, yes, like you said, go home and take those skills. I mean, people said, oh, do you live on your work? And yes, yes, I was head of new media and, you know, doing creative direction at the Wall Street Journal online and then coming home and, you know, even inside it was creative.

Roz Dimon

So I don't know, the whole corporate and fine art thing, there is a difference. We know when we do a piece and it comes out of the heart and. And it's going to speak to everyone in a different way. We don't know, but they're different. But at the same time, you know, there's so much excellence within commercial art. It's incredible. So I think that what we're talking about here and all these breaking borders and working with people across countries, it's a new revolution, you know? Yeah. I remember there was a show Zaha Hadid, who's passed away, but she was, you know, primarily an artist. She was a great architect. And then I saw her show at the Guggenheim, which was like everything from architecture to prototype, you know, futuristic cars. And then there were these abstract wall pieces that were sort of like wall sculptures, all like in the same show going around the Guggenheim spiral, you know?

Roz Dimon

And that really like was a very liberating experience for me, because I always felt like I had to hide the fact that I did this, you know, sort of, you know, advertising work from the architecture. And I'm you know you can't be some other person but then you know I saw that show and I was like wow like you know she is presenting herself in a very holistic way which I think is you know healthy and like you know like with michael price you know spy hunter I mean come on that's art right there you know I mean so yeah anyway we're getting right around the one two hour actually so I am going to close the recording out but I want to thank you guys for calling to give you my feedback I want you Patrick were talking about in terms of the 2021 show, I really do feel that the way you're approaching it makes a whole lot of sense, because every person who's signed on or wanted to be part of this is like a little mosaic that helps define what Techspressionism is, and those of us who have been really active, I think just it's organically shaping itself.

Roz Dimon

I mean, sure, we each have our own different starting point of what brought us here, but we're all helping. I mean, I can't tell you being here in Phoenix, there's nobody that I've really connected with, that I've connected with as closely here, and you are all miles and miles and miles away, but I feel closer to you as an artist than I do with people that are in my neighborhood here, who are also artists, but don't get this technology-based stuff. And so for me, that's what's driving me. And so for me, that's what's drawing me to this, and my contribution, whatever that might be, is I feel is being supplemented by everybody else's contribution. And I think the more that we participate, the more we clarify, and it's going to change and mutate over time, of course, but it doesn't feel top-heavy to me.

Roz Dimon

And that's what I really, really like. I like the organic quality, and I love the substance. It's the substance that everybody brings to this show. It's the substance that, to me, makes it consequential. Well, I mean, one thing I want to share with the group is that I was very, very, very active with a couple of groups. One called The Thing that was out of – was basically for a while housed in a half loft in Postmaster's Gallery out in Chelsea before they went up to, like, I think Penn Street or whatnot. But then on the other hand is that – and then that got involved with RhyZome with – when Mark Tribe and Alex Galloway first started it. And the thing is I was in Canton, Ohio, which basically – with Greg Little, by the way, actually. But what's kind of interesting is I knew him long before I stayed with him.

Roz Dimon

But the whole thing is that, you know, except for going to some things like the International Symposium for Electronic Arts or something like that, there was none of this stuff around. There was no community. And the one thing that was fantastic is that I could get on the net, and there was this – you know, there was this community of really open, generous people. You know, a lot of them were in New York. But the whole thing is that in many ways this is how I got my start. You know, this is how I – I basically became a virtual New Yorker. And there was a guy named Black Hawk who was – she's a famous painter, but I – I can't remember her name. But the thing is that it was her son, but he wrote for FlashArt. He was a fairly prominent curator. And so the thing is that, you know, we were part of these communities, and these communities got really, really tight.

Roz Dimon

And one thing that I always loved was the fact that I would go to New York and Black Hawk would get a whole gang together and, you know, including a lot of people who are, you know, still well-known now. And the thing is that, you know, when I came to New York, we'd have like a 50-person, you know, dinner or party or something like that. And, you know, I mean, I – I mean, it wasn't – it wasn't, you know – it was amazing. But the one thing is that Black Hawk always told me is like when I came, you know, it's like people are basically off doing their own thing. It kind of gave an excuse for the New York New Media community to come around. And – but the thing is that, you know, I think that, you know, within, you know, these genres and that sort of thing, there have been certain people with a certain amount of generosity that have created these communities.

Roz Dimon

And I think that they've been so vital to me. And I think that's why I love this place. And, you know, I would like to say is that, you know, if there was an epicenter to this, I would love the fact that, you know, it's like Nagina and I would go someplace that, you know, there'd be like 40 of you, you know, come out and we'd go out to dinner and talk about what we were doing. You know, I think this is the sort of generosity that I would like to be. Nice.

Roz Dimon

You know, so that's – that's – Absolutely. Yep. And I want to make sure that there's redundancy also because like, for instance, this summer, we actually literally like closed on selling our house. And a week later, we closed on a house in Vermont. So we're going to be moving from New York, escaping New York, just like that movie with What's His Name in it, which like I kind of feel like I'm that guy right now, like running from like the crazed COVID-laced Long Island Expressway and moving to New York. And then moving to Vermont. So like, you know, there'll definitely be periods where like I'm sort of in flux or whatever. So, I mean, I'm definitely glad Davo has been, you know, stepping up to moderate. But also like if anyone else is interested in serving as a moderator or whatever, you know, like I'm happy to like, you know, like, like, you know.

Roz Dimon

Yeah, I can probably pull a couple. Sure. Spread it out or whatever so that, you know, we make sure that the wheels keep turning regardless of what goes on. But at any rate, I'm going to count down. You guys are more than welcome to stick around after we close the recording out, which is going to be in three, two, one.

Roz Dimon

Bye, everybody.