Salon 28 // Tommy Mintz and Stephanie Sydney

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the 28th Techspressionism Virtual Salon. I am your host and moderator, Davonte Bradley. Joining me are Colin Goldberg, who coined the term Techspressionism, Tommy Mintz, one of our presenters, and Stephanie Sindi, one of the other presenters. And of course, you know, our copious amount of other artists who are in attendance today.

Davonte Bradley

A lot of familiar faces. I think a few new ones too. I'm seeing some new names on the here. So if you're a newbie, welcome. Glad you're here. So that being said, general format here is that we have our two presenters. They'll do their presentations, span for about 30 minutes or so. There'll be a 15 minute Q&A session right after each presentation.

Davonte Bradley

During that time, I do ask you to keep your mic muted and save your questions either for after the presentation is done, or you can go ahead and submit your questions in the chat and then we'll try to get to them after. As long as time permits, because some of these discussions get a little bit linky sometimes, but it happens.

Davonte Bradley

And then other than that, I do want to thank you for joining us today. I do believe someone had an announcement after the presentations as well. But we'll cross that bridge when we cross it. I think it was Roz. Yes.

I have a teeny little fun little commercial that I think a few of you glitch artists will enjoy. If we have time. It's just a little thing I came across.

Yeah, well, there you go. Well, after presentation fun, I guess. And other than that, I think I streamlined things a bit too much. Now I'm like, I lost words. So we're going to.

I just wanted to say one thing really quick before we get into the presentations. So, you know, anyone that wants to hang out after the recording ends at 4, I think, you know, we're going to start maybe starting to use that time to do any sort of community building stuff or people want to talk about ideas. You know, how to. You know, anything dealing with the group at the group level. I think that might be a good way to a good time to do that since whoever's interested in being here now, you know, is here already and can stick around if they want to.

So can be out there. Yeah.

And we usually have some very spirited discussions afterwards too so it's good time. See, it's the after party so to speak. It's not recorded either. By the way, that's its posts recording time. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think, without further ado, as long as Tommy is ready, because he's got to go first as he has something to do after.

Davonte Bradley

Are you ready Tommy. Yes, can you hear me.

Yes. All right. Great. So, thank you. And thanks Colin for this whole thing I really appreciate this group. And feel like there's a lot of interesting things that you know it's coming, coming out of this right now so it's very, very, very pleased to share my work with you. All. I'm in right now. Guild Gallery to which is on Ninth Avenue, between 17th and 18th Street in Manhattan. In an exhibition that is going to be up through November 17 so if you happen to be swinging through New York like I heard somebody say, I'm gonna go, feel free to drive by in fact the I'm going to show you a view of the gallery from outside the exhibition is visible 24 hours a day through the, to the windows right here. So, the exhibition consists of two large prints and five.

Tommy Mintz

Small prints and one interactive pinhole camera attached to a raspberry pi that's running the algorithm that generates the images that I've included in this show which an algorithm I call the automated digital photo collage and it's a Python program that takes a sequence of images and compares them to a baseline image and whatever's different. So, it's a very interesting. Between those images and the baseline image gets added in to a time lapse collage, if you will. And what I've done like go ahead and show you the smaller prints. What I've been doing is creating images by holding my camera.

Tommy Mintz

Sort of either fairly still in my hand or on a tripod. And taking multiple pictures and running those pictures through my algorithm I feel like there's a lot of glare on this picture so these are images that might have 30 or so separate frames included in them, and these images are printed using a pigment transfer process from ink to. I'm sorry. Is it in the image. Blank my name right now. Transfer ease process. And the large prints are amalgams of multiple automated digital photo collages that are put next to one another, in order to create a very wide field of view. In essence of panoramic. So here we have these panoramic.

Tommy Mintz

Automated digital photo collages and in order to give a sense of immersion I'm going to back up a second here. The way that I hung this print this is a 20. These are 224 foot by five foot prints hung from the ceiling with fishing line, and I feel like I could have gotten away with dinner fishing line I really want to see them like they're floating and hung in a large curve shape, so that there's a bench in the middle here, so that the viewer can sit in the center of the screen. But they're actually sitting in this perspective and have the image as they turn field fill their field of view.

Tommy Mintz

I'm not generating virtual reality here but I feel like there's an interesting set of ideas that you know we're sort of familiar with that idea of filling our view with the digital image and now here. You know, sort of in the physical space but it gives a very. I don't know. It's kind of interesting. Surprising interactive feel.

Tommy Mintz

If you could see this, let me back up a little bit. The fabric moves slightly all the time. There's a fan on so that the images are never completely still. And that sort of undulation, I appreciate a lot and include it intentionally. I feel like that materiality, that lightness of the fabric is something very interesting. And I want to kind of enhance that. So the inside curve is one image that's generated, that was generated on 11th Street and 7th Avenue, which if you look straight down 7th Avenue here, you have a view of the World Trade Center.

Tommy Mintz

And it's where... It's a corner that I grew up on also. My parents live a block away and still. And on the other side, we have a print that's the same size that you walk very close to through the space that's right between the wall and the print. You really have to, once again, be very close to it. You get to really examine this up close and notice. These interesting effects that the algorithm has on the composition and what's included and what's not. And really how it's something that is digital in essence, but has a strange familiarity and allows us to play very human games of things like pattern recognition and what's similar and what's different. And what's changed from one day to the next. And what's changed from one place to another. So as you walk around this image, and this, by the way, is 21st Street and the West Side Highway, which at this point was an active construction site.

Tommy Mintz

And it was the previous location of the I-Beam Atelier, which was a fantastic... And they're out in Brooklyn now, but it was a fantastic resource for digital artists in New York City. And it was a real tragedy for Chelsea to lose that resource. And so that's why I chose this location. So all of these locations are very close to the gallery, which is right here on Ninth Avenue.

Tommy Mintz

Sort of halfway in between both of those spaces. So this is another personal corner. This is a corner that my parents live on. I'm not sure if we get to see this. So much glare. It's interesting how badly this reproduces in single, you know, sort of personal space. And it's a little bit of a perspective. But once you open both eyes, that glare disappears somehow. So this is the White Horse Tavern on 11th and Hudson.

Tommy Mintz

And here we have the last horse stable on 38th Street. And right behind it looming is Hudson Yards and the vessel and this sort of very modern moment. I'm interested in that sort of contrast that we have. And I'm going to go ahead and take us outside so we can see the three other metal prints here. So this is the White Horse Tavern. This is part of the Hudson Guild Community Center. And the space that this opens on to has some doors that I wanted to present work through. And so I have an image that people see from this walking by area. And I'm going to take outside.

Tommy Mintz

And I'm going to say, So be sure to take a look for that. And in the far right of the building, you can see the white horse as you're thinking of you in the haven. And you can see the city ofit in the middle. And you can see the city of Taiwan. And you can see the city of Taichung. The street here that you have to view from outside and they're lit so that people can see them all night long and then the last so there's five prints on aluminum that I just showed you maybe you saw some of them sorry to rush through and the last work I have here is this pinhole camera version of the automated digital photo collage built on the raspberry pi 4 running on the display and then the display is a little bit of a and this is a pinhole lens here poked through a piece of tin foil giving us this fairly soft you know maybe impressionist or Techspressionist collage if you will so this is running live right now and if I were to hang out outside I'd see myself generated and actually I think this just finished one cycle and it pauses for a little while showing off its complete picture and then it'll start the cycle again generating a new collage so it's not a huge gallery space but I tried to really fill it with this with this one piece to you know emphasize the space of the space here and then in contrast with that sort of hanging floating fabric I wanted to have some metal prints that you know express another aspect of how to present digital images which I think is a really interesting question so that's my presentation I was just I just wanted to walk around and show everybody if anybody wants to see a particular section I'm happy to stand in front of it or answer any questions that anybody has I'm going to put this on this view hold on one second let's switch my camera around so I can see myself here we go hi so I wasn't looking at the chat or anything but I'm happy to you know talk about you know whatever's on anybody's mind.

Tommy Mintz

Tommy,

Is this a gallery that's open all the time? What are

The hours? Tuesday to Friday, 10 to 5. Great. Please come on in. Tuesday to Friday, 10 to 5. 119 9th Avenue.

And what's that here?

Between 17th and 18th streets. So if you're at Chelsea Market, it's north of Chelsea Market block uptown.

Great. Thanks.

Your gallery is sort of a little cell gallery block.

All right. Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you. Tommy, what's the material of the large pieces, the cloth? What kind of material is that?

It's a polyester poplin. It's a signage or sale material. I got this printed from signs.com and it's the same material that you can request. The sale be made out of or a giant sign. So it's a pretty durable.

So in contrast to the metallic looking prints, the smaller prints, is that more of a matte base look to your work or is there some kind of sheen? Because it looks very, you know, looking at it through your, through your camera here, I mean, it's pretty matte.

Yeah.

Does that, does that present a really different vibe or feeling between that and the more metallic prints?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's a very different feeling. You know, it's sort of two aspects of that kind of information that we are processing all the time digitally. You know, there's sort of a calming thing to it. I like, but there's also this edge, I think that I'm also very interested in.

Well, I, for me, your work with the differences in, in the, in the Python program that you, you've got your collage aspect here. What's the audience reaction been to really like large scale imagery with those changes? Do they feel, I don't know, see, see, you know, seeing some of those, those changes like at a really large scale. I'm, you know, trying to think about what it would look like in my mind here. I'm just kind of curious as to what the reaction's been.

I think the reaction is kind of curiosity. Actually, you know, people are wondering what they're looking at. Kids have come in and been like, wow, I'm seeing through that person. You know, so there's a recognition of the place. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, makes tier because it's a local local and that allows people understand kind of what they're looking at and then enter into it through that in a way that they're understanding. Oh, this is not just a single picture. It's there's something done to it. You know, something computer done to it is what people are saying to me. They can see that, you know, it doesn't really matter what it is almost that the technical procedure behind it. Isn't really what people are asking about so much as, you know, you know, I guess they do ask about that too, but it's, you know, like what's, what's the theme is what people have been sort of asking what's, what's, why am I interested in taking pictures here and showing these places this way?

Tommy Mintz

It's kind of a nice, yeah. And so that's a great response, I think, you know, to sort of take the image at its face value and not, you know, at its appearance almost, and not worry about the process. Okay. And which is hard for me because I'm so involved in process oriented, you know, and yeah, it's been very nice response. It's a, thank you. And it's a, it's a very interesting population that uses the community center. There's kids, there's senior citizens, there's musical theater, rehearsal and theater people. And there's a stage here and stuff that they rent out. So there's all sorts of vaccine site going on, you know, there's all sorts of people coming through. It's a very non art world kind of space, if you will, people just, you know, who are not intentionally going to visit a bunch of galleries end up here, which is kind of nice.

Tommy Mintz

So.

All right. Next up, I think Renata had her hand up with a comment or question.

Yeah, I was just curious, you use, you use the aluminum dye bond, and is it a dye sublimation process onto the aluminum?

So this is, so I do dye sublimation as well. So I'm just trying to tap and spin my camera around here. I do dye sublimation on aluminum as well, but this here is actually not even dye bond. This is a very, very thin aluminum. Can you see how thin this is? It's a really thin aluminum. And this is pigment transfer. What I do is I first onto a piece of plastic. I coat the metal in a material called transferees.

Tommy Mintz

I-E-Z-E. And then I put the plastic on top of the metal with the transferees on it, let it cure for a few minutes. And then peel off the plastic and transfer the print on leaving, you know, errors if you will. If you look there's bubbles that sort of deteriorate the image in a unique way. So unlike the dye sublimation prints which are kind of perfect.

Tommy Mintz

These have a lot of flaws created by the printing process and I've come to enjoy. And here maybe you can sort of see how you know part of that looks like the clouds that are... Doing their digital thing too. I like the dye sublimation a lot, but I feel like it's a little too clean, too perfect, too cold, if you will.

Tommy Mintz

I think they're beautiful and gems, and I'm not going to stop doing them too, but I've been really yearning to do a more hands-on printing process, you know, making things. Definitely respect that.

It looks really, really great, Tommy, and thank you for your answer.

Thank you so much, Renata. I appreciate it.

That gives me ideas now too. All right, we definitely have a couple more questions in the chat now that we can get to. I think Malavika was asking, asking about just like, I think, general care for the metal prints, like what they're, like, I guess, what protective measures do you take with those? Am I getting that question right, Malavika?

Davonte Bradley

Not sure if she's... Yes, correct. What I wanted to understand that is the, I mean, when it is on the metal, is it going to long-lasting because people, when they buy, they always ask this question that how we have to take care or how long it is going to stay, like, so that is one question, and second thing is whether any precaution is required, means like if any, how some, something coming in contact, maybe a sharp thing or anything, so is it going to create any kind of marking on that?

So, thank you, Malavika. Those are great questions. I think that this, I think I'm going to let you just kind of take the video to the end. So, for me, I don't know. That you're going to have to get to the point of it. So, you know, you're going to have to get to the point that you're going to have to get to the point of it.

Tommy Mintz

So, you know, you're going to have to get to the point I'm not sure if you can see. I did give each of these a coating with a Krylon enamel coat, which after I started doing it, I emailed the manufacturer of transferees and they said, well, we don't actually recommend enamel. We recommend water-based stuff, but the enamel worked really well. I did spray coat everything. Absolutely. It was a little tacky and remained tacky for a long time.

Tommy Mintz

And so that spray coat, I think also protects it from scratches. That said, I've scratched this one a fair amount. Can you see this right here? And yeah, the spray coat kind of goes away. Do you see by my thumb right there? There can be damage. I recommend framing them. You put them in a frame like any other picture, put something in front of it and it will be protected for sure.

Tommy Mintz

But yeah, it's an interesting concern with digital arts, especially when printing in color.

Longevity is definitely an important concern.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Let's see. Sherry, I guess your question was with respect to the metal prints, asking if those are printed on both sides or just the cloth?

And the cloth and the part that is very close to the wall. Yeah. And the part that is very close to the wall where you have to walk near the wall. Is that printed on the other side of the other image or is that a totally separate piece?

It's two separate pieces and I hung them back to back. Oh, okay. There's actually a piece of bamboo up in here that I hung between, that I actually sewed them both to. I went around and I don't know what kind of stitch I used, but I used a pretty loose stitch to put them both together at the top.

Yeah. Well, I think it really works well and I love the undulation. I think that really adds a whole other element to the work. I think it's absolutely beautiful and I hope to be in New York during that time and see the show. So thank you. Fantastic. Beautiful.

Please let me know. I don't know if you're asking about the double-sided printing on metal too, but I was doing that as well. I was scraping some of my old prints and just reusing them. And that's a fun sort of painterly process. If you mess up one of these pigment transfers on metal, you just pour some rubbing alcohol on it and scrape it off and start again.

Nice. I was actually going to ask you about the cloth prints as well, because I was like, how in the world did you double-sided print something that big on cloth? And I was like, oh, it's actually two sheets. All right, now I know. Yeah. Yeah.

And this is kind of building on past work I've done. I printed on shower curtains in the past and hung them back to back as well. And that's also a fun, inexpensive way to make very large, very lightweight prints.

We got a question from Colin. More technical question, it looks like. Does the Raspberry Pi set up periodically save images to a storage device, or are they impermanent to getting replaced with each iteration?

So on this right now, it's storing every picture. I have a 128 gigabyte card inside this. It's only taking 1024 by 768 images, because that's what the display can display. And those pictures are 34 kilobytes. So I'm sorry, I can't do the math of how many I can store, but it's in the... A lot. Yeah. There's so many zeros. There's so many zeros that I think I can go for many months before I run out of storage on this. And then, yeah, I transfer them. I do put a USB drive in this at some point and just copy them all off and flip through them. On some presentations, I was asked by the gallery director not to include the printer and buttons that go along with this, because it was a little janky and wasn't printing quickly enough for people to not just press the button over and over. Because the LP command on the Raspberry Pi was slow or whatever.

Tommy Mintz

So, yes, they're all saved. And in other installations of this, you get to rewind back through them and print.

Oh.

On the...

I think the Wi-Fi is struggling.

Is it my Wi-Fi? I'm sorry. I feel like it's everybody else's. It must be mine.

I think, yeah, it's on your end. Unfortunately. But it's all right. I think that's kind to be expected. You are doing essentially a live presentation of your work. So it's all good. Let's see. What else? What else? Great. From Jan. Okay. It's definitely... Do, do, do. Okay. So it looks like no more questions. I'm sure there are some questions in the chat, but you definitely have some praise in the chat. So there's that.

Which I could totally read off of if anybody was curious. Totally great. I appreciate it. This is really fun. Thank you, everybody, for, you know, paying attention as I wander through with my bad Wi-Fi. I appreciate your patience.

I think it was good enough. It got the job done. So thank you.

All right.

All right. All right. So does it... Before we move on, does anyone else have any questions for Tommy or, you know, just want to tell him some praise? Because there... I saw a lot of praise in the chat itself, but nobody's actually spoken it. So if you want to actually speak it, you can do that. Not going to stop you.

Unless you're all just very shy. Yeah. Congratulations on the show. Oh, man. It looks great. It does. Thanks so much. Thanks for, you know, a first in terms of, you know, from the field broadcasting into a salon. So that's pretty cool. Hope to see more of those in the future. It's a different feel for sure.

Yeah. Really looks intriguing, Tommy. I hope I can get by and see it.

Sometimes I do forget that we actually do have quite a few folks in New York. So yeah. Might as well.

Yeah. Thanks again. And yeah. Let me know if you're in town. I'm happy to give personal tours.

Yeah. I really liked the way you showed the detailed way taking your camera nearby to give the feel that when it is, you know, the fan because of the fan, how the fabric is moving. And I mean, I also got the same feel. So thank you for showing it so nicely.

Thank you so much. Bye. Bye.

Bye. I think that the dual view going on also helped too. Because you had a full shot and then close up with your personal camera.

I have a pro sort of broadcast studio ground here. Camera one, camera two.

Yeah. There you go. All right. Well, thank you again, Tommy.

It's great. Thank you. All right. I'm going to turn off my cameras. I'm going to just listen for a little bit as I hop on the subway.

All right. Enjoy your trip. Thanks. Okay. Well, that was interesting and a first. Again, if you are, if this is your first time being in the salon, we have actually never had an in-person demonstration or presentation quite like that before. All of our presentations thus far have been, if you go back and look at our YouTube, they've been, you know, presentations online, using slideshows, that kind of thing.

Davonte Bradley

But this was not that. This was in person. This was live. So that was certainly I wish we could probably do more. But, you know, I'm pretty sure main limitations would be Wi-Fi connectivity. But in the future, probably when everything switches to like 5G or something, it'll probably be a little bit easier to do.

Yeah. I will say this, though, you know, in the future, artists want to show us around their studio, you know, in work environment a little bit in addition to screen share. I think that might be interesting, you know.

I agree.

Oh, yeah.

Studio tours are important, too. You see how chaotic somebody works.

All right. And yeah, that dual camera setup is a good way to do that. Like, you know, if you have your desktop machine set up and you don't want to screw up with the, if you have a screen share set up with PowerPoint and everything, you can also just log in separately on your phone. Walk around your space, show, you know, show your work environment, your tools, all that kind of stuff, and then switch back to the desktop view, you know, for the screen share.

And if you want to be really fancy, you can actually configure your phone to actually remote control your PC. But that might be beyond some people's technical capabilities. But it is an option if you're willing to explore that. It is possible. I've actually helped Allison do that with her streams. Yeah. It's a thing.

Davonte Bradley

That being said, I think we can go ahead and move on to our next presenter. Stephanie Sydney are you here?

I'm here.

You're here.

Are you ready? Yeah. I can hear you. All right.

You have the floor.

I'm ready. Thank you. Thank you, Colin, and thank you, Davo. Really thrilled to have this opportunity. And just want to give you a little bit of background about myself because I'm probably a stranger to pretty much all of you. I was born in London, England, and moved to Malibu, California when I was 14. I left home at 18 to become a starving artist.

Stephanie Sydney

Let me share my screen. Where did it go? It was in my

Basement. It was in my basement. It was in my basement.

And anyway, so I started off as a painter. I took every painting class and art class I could. This was an assignment in college. But after three years, I was really sick of sleeping on floors. Hitchhiking everywhere and getting bread and cheese on credit. I needed to work and fell into being a graphic artist.

Stephanie Sydney

I dropped out of school and had no time to paint, but found I could photograph my world as I rushed around from one deadline to another. One of my photography teachers at UCLA said I had a quirky way of looking at things and that I should develop it. So after learning the basics of graphic design, I stumbled into a place called Sineggers, a design studio. It was a studio that did movie posters and ads. I didn't do this painting, but I did work on the lettering and the layout. I was now working all hours of the day and night.

Stephanie Sydney

And I became a night manager and hired this kid who was a graffiti artist as a kid. He was a graffiti artist. His name was Chaz Bohorkas. And he opened my eyes to graffiti and I started exploring the scary back alleys of East LA to photograph it. The hip hop graffiti and rap scenes started around that time.

Stephanie Sydney

I discovered a way to make double exposure photographs in camera that I found very exciting. I was now working at J. Walter Thompson, a giant ad agency in Century City, which was the pristine castle of skyscrapers full of lawyers, agents and entertainment companies between Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. Using the world around me, I explored double and triple exposure photographs of street graffiti and tall corporate buildings.

Stephanie Sydney

I left advertising in the late 80s to avoid the approaching computers and develop this series some more. The images had to get out of their tidy white mats and they became mixed media pieces with found elements from the streets. I had a few good years of working on my art and showing and even made Pick of the Week by Peter Frank in the LA Weekly for a solo show at the Brand Library and also a group show with graffiti writers at Zoo. I was a member of the 2001 Gallery on Melrose, curated by Chaz Bohorquez, who is now becoming a famous graffiti artist. I then ran out of money and had to go back to work learning the computers. I luckily got into a design studio that did movie stuff and got to learn Photoshop there. I took a lot of digital classes and continued studying art and photography at UCLA.

Stephanie Sydney

This was my very first digital collage I did while I was working at a design studio. It's not my photographs, it was just stuff I found in the computers there, but it was my first exploration into doing digital collages. The first series I came up with I called my quilts and they got really complicated with a lot of images, but I got tired of them pretty quickly and so I moved on to simplify.

Stephanie Sydney

And I did the brief series of these mixed media. Pieces using all my own photographs from after that first one. I've used all my own photographs in my collages ever since, with one exception that I'll give you a brief overview of later. This series I started off calling uncommon pairings, but then I came to find out that it was a term used in wine tastings and culinary adventures. So it's not what I had in mind, you know, putting together these really diverse images.

Stephanie Sydney

So now I'm thinking of calling them dueling dualities. So I started off with just putting one image on top of another and kind of very slightly blending them together, but then I started mixing them up some more. And that's actually at MoMA in New York, the staircase. And just trying to surprise myself with putting different things together.

Stephanie Sydney

I'm definitely a disciple of Rauschenberg and love the idea of chance and creating chaos, creating order out of chaos. I definitely work in chaos. I need a cluttered environment. And then pulling something out of it. Something essential. This way I went back to the graffiti very briefly to see how I like putting it, doing it in Photoshop. But I think I was burned out on graffiti after those years of working in camera.

Stephanie Sydney

But it was interesting. This one, when I was a small child, I had a postcard of a Salvador Dali painting. It was one of my treasured objects, and it was Christ on the cross rising up into the heaven. And after I'd done this image, I was flying out of Portugal, and that stone was an anchor in a fishing village in actually the borderline between Spain and France. And anyway, years after I'd done it, I realized it was very similar in a way to the Salvador Dali painting. Must have bubbled up from my unconscious.

Stephanie Sydney

And I created it. That's, I think, the Swiss Alps or the Italian Alps. I call this guy Burger Boy. So I kind of have two streams going. I have one stream. You know, I go back and forth between the two. Some of them are just two images together, and they're kind of surrealistic. This one I call Boston and Bodie. The wheel is in Bodie, which is a ghost town out in the remote desert of California.

Stephanie Sydney

And there it will... View of Boston flying in. So I have the, you know, two or three images series, and then I have ones later on that have multiple images and become more like abstract paintings. This was an ancient... On an island, a Greek island, an ancient wall, a new ruin. And I opened the door.

Stephanie Sydney

I put Santa Monica inside. It's in the swamps of Louisiana. Call this Eucalyptus Twilight. Well, this is why I added photos that I didn't take. I found a box of photographs of my mother when she was a young actress in England and started exploring, doing collages with images of her. She was quite beautiful.

Stephanie Sydney

And then this gallery director, he came up with... He had access to these images, and he asked me to do some collages for a fundraiser for the gallery. And he gave me Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. I had a bit of fun with that. And then that's Lucita Hurtado, an artist who was a very dear friend of mine and my mother's. And the photo... That photograph was actually taken by Man Ray when she was very young.

Stephanie Sydney

And then back to my collages. I am exploring the boundaries of perception, the definition of reality, and the chemistry of attraction of objects and happenstance. That landscape was taken in Spain. This one is from Greece. And I put a poem in there in case you can't read it. It says, day and night over time and shifting tides flying through the skies, I think of you.

Stephanie Sydney

This one, the base photo of me. And then the other one is from the top of the World Trade Center back in 1990. And then the sculpture is from Delphi. It's the charioteer that was found in Delphi. And it's really kind of the origin of our whole culture, our whole civilization. And then the lights are from Las Vegas. And then the old truck was abandoned out in the desert in Nevada somewhere, way out in the boonies where my sister lives somewhere.

Stephanie Sydney

And then the! That's downtown L.A. From an airplane. This is one I did last year, lockdown. I love to explore. Just, you know, it's like the happenstance thing. I explore. Like, what would happen if I were a human? If this and this come together and then blend into each other and become one. That poster on top, the figures, I took it in Mallorca, in Soyer, which is a little village in the north. And it was raining. It was a Xerox copy posted on a lamppost for some taekwondo classes or something.

Stephanie Sydney

I just loved it. Very kind of Edward Meyer Bridge, whatever his name was. His doorway was in Naples in the old section. It was just a feast of peeling paint and rust and crumbling civilization. I really couldn't get enough of that. These things were used in construction. I think they used them to hold up the floor while they're like nailing it all together and securing it. So I put it in here and have it kind of trying to hold up the sky, the earth.

So that's what I'm doing.

And then I'm going to show you the old warehouse. That's an old warehouse out in Sparks, Nevada. The construction site was a hospital, became a hospital. A collision of nature and construction.

And then I'm going to show you the old warehouse.

It's a power plant across the bottom, polluting the planet. That's actually a rooftop in New York, a hotel in the rain in December down in Soho somewhere. That's the roof. That was actually on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. That photograph, the figure was from a screenshot from the film Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. She was an acrobat on the high wire. And I call it Between Two Worlds. If you've seen the film, it's about life and death.

Stephanie Sydney

That was the construction of a new high rise and century city, multimillion dollar condos in that building now. These are becoming more of the abstract paintings. Another machine from Bodie in Goldstown. Old gold rush town that was abandoned out in the desert. Light studies. That one actually started at the convention center in downtown Hawaii.

Stephanie Sydney

And that actually started in the convention center in Hawaii. This one actually started with my grandma as crystal bowls. That construction site was in New York. It's a train station in England, in London. And this one actually started with my grandma as crystal bowls. Ancient stone from Avery. That's actually my most recent one.

Stephanie Sydney

And this one was my most recent. I'm just I'm going to end with a couple of my self portraits. Living in Los Angeles, it's such a culture, you know, the Hollywood culture and everyone's so into being an icon and, and everybody's hungry to be an icon. But having been born of this mop of curly hair, I decided my hair was my icon. But being a woman of a certain age, you become invisible in this town. And so and unrecognized by the youth driven culture. So this series plays with that since it's only my hair. It's ever recognizable in the images, reflections taken all over the place. Anyway, thank you all for your, your attention and being here. And thank you, Colin and Davo again for this opportunity. We appreciate it.

Stephanie Sydney

And that's it.

Colin D' Well, the pleasure is all ours. And thank you very much for your presentation. Ed was that was a lot. Actually, it's a lot to take in and process.

I cut it down a lot, actually. I can make a week to edit down.

Colin D' I can definitely feel

That before, because I had to edit mine down quite a bit. Because there was there's a lot I looked at it. And I was like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I have over 300 images that I could use. I need to not use all of them. All right. So does anyone have any questions for Stephanie? Or praise? Comments? Concerns? Roz, I see your hand.

Roz Thank you for the presentation. I had lots of thoughts going on. Do you? Do you work in series at all? Or is it just sort of wherever you are you? Stephanie D' You just work kind of impulsively. I'm just wondering if there's a certain because you have all these different influences. It seems like there's pop, there's all sorts of cultural influences, which by the way, I really enjoy that when the when the artist brings that in like the Vim vendors. I mean, that's one of the greatest films ever, if you ask me, you know, with some fire.

Roz Dimon

But I enjoyed your presentation. But yeah, curious if you if you kind of work in series and exhaust them or do you feel you're progressing towards something or away from something? Or is it more? Roz Kay Or just you're just responding to your world in a digital way?

Stephanie D I'd like to keep working in series. I mean, those self portraits is an ongoing series. And then this was sort of the two streams There's the one that has two to three images in it, and then there's the ones that have multiple images. And the two to three images are kind of, to me, more surreal.

Yeah.

And the multiple images become more like abstract expressionism kind of stuff. So those are the two main things. And I veer back and forth between the two. You know, whatever I'm going through, whatever I'm shooting, you know, I carry a camera everywhere I go and I shoot, you know, all the time. Just literally out of my car window sometimes. We drive a lot in L.A.

Stephanie Sydney

But, yeah, so and then I do, I'm currently working on a series that's much more specific. It's going to be, I think I have about eight images so far, but they're all following a certain format. But when I do that, I end up, you know, after a while, I just want to do different things. I just break out. I don't like to be ruled too much by too many strict rules. But I do start out with them and do several. And then I go, okay, enough of that. You know, I want to do this. So it is impulsive and it is, you know, playing with chance and happenstance and sort of, you know, being in the moment kind of feeling.

Well, it's very interesting work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think this could lead to, we can talk about it maybe at another salon, but I've thought about this before. But the whole thing you brought up about abstraction is I feel there is a new kind of abstraction that's happening out of this very technology where our ability to, like Walter Benjamin would just couldn't believe what we can duplicate now.

Roz Dimon

But we're so able to duplicate imagery that I find that even with my own work, sometimes I have so many images. And one piece that it's turning into abstraction. And that's a very different concept than really in the past where people usually started off realistically. And then they became more, it became more minimal and, you know, leave out stuff and edit it out. But we're in such a plethora of imagery now that I think that would be an interesting kind of dialogue to see where some of us are at with that. I know it's affecting me in a way that totally unanticipated going into abstraction.

Yeah, I find the idea of taking reality and making it into an abstraction really an interesting challenge. And really, I find it very thought provoking.

It has that micro macro thing, like you can go deep inside and find all those little people or all those little, all those little images and stuff that, you know, abstraction usually leaves out, at least in the past. So thanks. I don't want to hog this, but yeah, I'll let you go. But thank you very much.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate the feedback. Thanks.

Hi, Stephanie. It's Zeyda. Sir. Hi. Hi. I joined late, but I did catch most of your pieces. Thank you so much for sharing. I just wanted to ask a question. How important is the narrative in your compositions? Is there a narrative? Is there always, you know, I know it's an abstraction. But is there an object? Is there an underlying narrative that you know you pursue in general?

I think the narrative is more it's more an abstract narrative. It's wanting to see the world differently. Wanting to create new feelings of new relationships with reality. That's right. I think it's not a specific, you know, story so much as an exploration of reality. It's a kind of our definition of reality. You know, it's pushing the boundaries of perception. So it's trying to, you know, it's like jogging ourselves to wake up or something.

To me, it's like when you go ahead. To me, when I see the persona or your silhouette or whatever in the composition, immediately places the person or the viewer. I think it's a very important thing. So I think it's important to have that in the, you know, in the environment or in the abstract. So to me, my mind always goes to the narrative of the storytelling part of what is this telling us? You know, what is what is the viewer telling us? Or it could be your silhouette or someone else's silhouette or whatever the subject and object is. But I mean, my mind starts creating a narrative. So maybe that's part of abstraction. And that's the beauty of abstraction, because we can always put our own stories and relate our own, you know, experiences to the image. So maybe that's what I'm thinking.

Yeah, anyways, Well, the ones I use my silhouette, my hair in, that's like a separate series, which is about, you know, being in different environments. And like I said, being an icon. But being invisible. At the same time, you know, women of a certain age, they become sort of marginalized or ignored.

Yeah, you mentioned that. That's important to know, because I mean, that's wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I'm glad I catch your part. And congrats to all of you. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Stephanie. So you've got like five questions. Lined up, it looks like. So I hope you're ready to answer some questions. So first up, we have Renata.

Yes, I wanted to say thank you very much, Stephanie. I really, really enjoyed your presentation. I have a question regarding how you present your work. Do you feel that it works on the screen? Or I noticed you have a printer behind you? Do you show it in print form? And what would be your ideal way? Of showing your work?

Yes, I obviously I prefer it on the screen because it has the backlit effect. That, you know, I've tried putting it in light boxes and I do like that, but they can become with some inexpensive and, you know, difficult to store difficult to move. I have the Epson printer and I do print out prints. I ideally I'd like to print really large. I've done. Some. 30 by 40 or 40 by 60. On.

Stephanie Sydney

You know, Plexi with, you know, back with center or whatever. And I've done some metal prints and I like, I like the metal prints too. And want to do more of that. But it's been a budget thing. You know, I got my own printer and I print and frame my stuff myself, you know, do, you know, for group shows or whatever. Mostly I print smaller, you know, I can go 24 inches, but. But yeah, ideally I'd like to go really big.

What is the largest metal print that you've ever made?

Metal I've only done 16 by 20s. I actually do a series of the self portraits on metal. But. But on Plexi I've gone up to 40 by 60.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Renata. And next up, I have a question. I think it was actually Susan, but you, you put your hand up and down. So I think you were next.

The, the iPad app keeps raising my hand. I'm not raising my hand. There's it's triggering office, the voice somehow. Oh, well, that's somebody's voice is making me somebody, someone that's talking as making the raise hand icon go up without my doing it. So. There you go.

Duly noted. All right.

That's I keep putting it down. Okay. Thanks. Gotcha.

All right.

Okay. All right. Well, next up then I guess we have Lucy.

Thank you. Hi, Stephanie. I just want to ask if you think that your work was influenced by your, by your work, your, your stay at the digital film movie studio, as you said, do you think that you can, you can see the movie environment also in your art?

I think so. Yes. I certainly learned a lot about Photoshop doing, you know, the digital collage kind of things in the movie posters. You know, I think I'm truly a disciple of Rauschenberg. So I think he's kind of at the root of a lot of the subjects I take photographs off and all of that. But, but I think, I think some of my pieces, some of the more abstract pieces maybe have some more influence of the movie poster world, but mostly I learned the tricks of the trade there.

Who is your favorite artist? Rauschenberg. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Lucy. And next up, I think we have Michael. Michael Price.

Thank you. Beautiful work, Stephanie. I really, really enjoyed it. It's, I guess I have one comment with a question, but then I also have a technical, more technical question that may be a Photoshop question. You. I'm not sure. But I really liked the pieces that felt more surrealistic to me than necessarily the multiple image that got more abstract. I liked both of them, but I saw them as kind of two distinct works in my mind.

Michael Pierre Price

So I was curious as to if you see it that way as well. Well, and if there are motivations behind the ones that felt like you were putting things, it felt like scale type of things going on. Like you had big backgrounds, but then you blew up smaller images to fit inside there and felt very surrealistic, which I really liked. And it seemed like you approached it as such versus the ones that were multiple images over layered one another. Then my technical question is, your colors feel very, very distinctive, almost like ink washes. And I was kind of curious as to your process to get those very distinctive colors.

Michael Pierre Price

I was just kind of curious if there's something that you're doing differently in Photoshop to get that.

Oh, it depends. I mean, each one is sort of a unique challenge. You know, I mean, I use various tools, you know, vibrance and curves and, you know, all kinds of things and blending modes. Blending modes makes quite a difference. But each one has its own challenges to it. And I agree. I think my first love is really the images, the surrealistic ones where I play with scale and stuff.

Stephanie Sydney

The multiple image ones, they become things when I need a total diversion and I want to get lost for hours. And I spend hours and days and months even sometimes trying to make, you know, trying to create something. And I'm trying to get out of this chaos that, you know, I start, I create a chaos and then I try to get it to become something. And it's quite a, you know, a long challenge. And I think it's kind of an escape thing. But the other one, the two, the pairings, the dueling dualities, whatever, they come, they usually come a lot quicker. They don't come that often, but they come a lot quicker and they're easier to manage. And they don't, you know, I don't have to. When they work, they work. They're just like, yes. You know?

There was one that you showed midway through where there was like a sky and it almost looked like a window paint kind of effect looking down. That one really, really struck me. I really love that one quite a bit.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So, but all of your work, I just, even the ones that are approaching abstraction. You make chaos work and that's not easy to do. That's not easy to do. So I just wanted to say thank you for very inspiring work. So thank you.

Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that.

All right. Thanks. We have some praise in the chat as per usual from a couple of people. But does anyone else have? Any other questions or comments that they have for Stephanie? Yes. No. Maybe so. Just curiosity sated, looks like. All right. Well, thank you very much, Stephanie Sydney for your presentation and for the answers to some of the questions that some of our guests have had. I'm actually.

Davonte Bradley

Wasn't prepared to have this much time left over. This is the first time in a minute that we've had almost almost a full hour left over. So I'm at a bit of a loss for what we can do and talk about here. But I guess we could get started with Roz sharing her little commercial that she found. If that's OK with everyone, because I mean, I run these, but I don't run these, if that makes sense.

OK. Is everybody ready for just a little very small commercial break here from Rozolution? OK. I'm going to go share my screen. Can you hear me, everybody? Yep. Put a thumbs up. OK. I haven't shared in a while here. Can everybody see this beautiful screen over here?

Yes. OK.

Well, my husband called me. He has. I mean, I've been talking to him for a while. I have several screens, big ones, a Wacom and another. But my husband's office, he's in high tech as well, risk management and stuff, IT advisory stuff. And he has his, he looks like you're in the cockpit of like some, you know, I don't know, spaceship or something when you go in his office. But this is just one of his monitors. And I took a screenshot of us looking at this monitor. And this is just with a little love kiss for you guys who can appreciate. And I just, I just caught us. I decided to catch us both looking at a monitor of his that has gone totally bonkers. It's literally 21 seconds. Here it goes.

Wow. Quality monitor, isn't it? Awesome.

I love it.

This is my kind of monitor.

Tell her I'll trade her one of her good monitors for this one if she wants it for ours.

This is for Sherry Karver. I love it. That was it. I'll play it one more time. It's so short. But at the end I'm saying this is for Sherry Karver. I was thinking of Tommy Mintz too. And anyway, it just was kind of a funny thing. Oh, let's go back. Oh, don't I even know how to go back? Yes. Here we go.

Roz Dimon

There you go. End of commercial break. That's awesome, Roz. Sherry, I hope you liked that. Thank you. And Tommy, thank you. There you go.

Thank you, Roz. I really

Did like it. Very good. So thank you. Yeah.

Let my husband know if you want to trade or something, you know, for a monitor that works.

Yeah.

All right. That's good.

That gives me an interesting idea that would probably be not as expensive as I'm thinking, but it could probably work. Just buying a bunch of like broken monitors and CRTs. Yeah. And just having them all like lined up.

Yeah.

And plug them all in, see what they do.

And you could call it, I mean, you could call it, Davonte, you could call it, this is the way the world is going or something like that.

Just a little tongue in cheek, just a bit.

I actually have an image, one of my pairings with a screenshot like that was color bars all over. And I put it into another image and I should have left it in my slide presentation. It was one that got deleted the other day.

I've never seen one glitch that well.

Yeah. I've never seen that before either. And I've seen a lot of monitors in my former IT days, but nothing like that before.

No, before I. I was absolutely like, wow, look at this.

I work hard to do that in some of my videos. Lots of editing.

Yeah, there it is. If you want to have it, I mean, let me know. I can just send the video to you. You might want to incorporate it in something.

Oh, I'd love a screenshot video if you could do that. Now who is this, Jan? It's Jan, yeah. I'm up in Canada, so picking up the monitor is a bit out of my zone.

Are you on Discord or how should I send you a screen grab?

I can put my email. Yeah, put the email in. Yeah, that's great. In the chat. Okay, great. Thanks, Roz. Sure.

See, there you go. This is a space for sharing and all sorts of stuff. And prompt to inspiration. Happens all

The time. I do want to add one thing, because you know, Dav, I'm very reticent to talk when I get going. But I have thought a lot in the last years, even decade, about how commercials, I used to hate commercials, let's get rid of them. But now I'm sort of like, well, at least commercials, they're actually selling something. They're really trying to, it's not subterfuge. It's like, this will really make your clothes white. You know, it's, there's something about commercials that I thought would be an interesting show that, or something about, if you have a blog, that the commercials might be the most interesting part of it, where you're actually plugging something and something you believe in, but it's not total, like, double evil speak or anything, you know? Anyway. Now the content is so commercially laden, you know?

Roz Dimon

I mean, oh, I just happened to have this Coca-Cola, but I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to put it aside me. You know? It's murder mystery or whatever.

It's so interesting because I am, for the past, like, I guess, what, two, three years now, I've been on my own because I'm weird like that. I've been studying marketing and advertising and stuff like that on my own. And just like these shifts in focus that have happened in the advertising space, it's really interesting. Because what's gone on is the fact that, come on, I'm going to buy this. But consumers are now more informed, right? Like we have access to so much more information than we used to 10, 20 years ago. And because of that, our shopping habits have all changed. What we're influenced by has changed. So there's been a lot of study and research going on to this. Like, okay, so what actually motivates people now? Like what kinds of imagery motivates them to do certain things now?

Davonte Bradley

And the tone and the, like, just the kinds of advertisements have changed immensely because of this. Of that now they're extremely like personalized like you'll see like popular youtubers endorsing a product like a brand will reach out to a youtuber like hey you want to you want to plug our product because they trust you they don't necessarily know or trust us but they trust you so can you can you help us sell this thing that's true yeah so it's very interesting just the tactics that have shifted just to get people to buy things now

I think it's interesting it is yeah I think so too yeah

If someone wants a broken monitor my cat just broke mine last week nice I have I have an old tv that was broken because of the cat I still have it's in my closet now that's a high maintenance cat yeah oh god he's destroyed so much like there used to be more things behind me and the reason that they're not there anymore is because a certain cat has decided that he wants to knock them all down yeah so he actually even pried a piece of art off the wall and it fell on me one day so I was like you know what let me just not have that there anymore but yeah he's a nice cat at

Least he cares he cares he cares so much

I'd like to share that I have a new website that's just finished the last few days I mean maybe I'll share like longer in the future when I have more time but yeah sure I do have a new website that I'm very happy about good well that's my that's my commercial well

I think we'd all be here happy to see it oh shall I screen share I mean if you want to we have a good 40 minutes now so by all means go ahead okay let me I've

Kind of got two things going on here I'm also replying to a client and watching y'all but I'm done with that so I'm gonna see if I can screen share okay share content screen okay

Lost webcam footage

What we lost webcam footage yeah I'm going to get into here you've seen my see your browser okay here we are oh

Nice yeah

I paid somebody to help to work with me and this is the home page which is my digital pieces in a rotating slideshow I have a nice grouping of portfolio and projects of three projects this is my digital work the portrait of a woman blended series that's has three sections those use those bottom ones use procreate and artrage and these the icons and the adjusted cells use are entirely iPhone and iPad created.

Susan Detroy

And then I have a video section that's all made on digital iPhone and iPad that links to my YouTube now. This first section is I call Suite Life, obviously inspired by natural world. Videos that are created and kind of happy, pleasant work. And then here I'm showing how I create. I make videos that show how I create on my iPad. I. Speed them up and do that kind of thing. And then I have videos that I'm making during the pandemic and Corona stuff.

Susan Detroy

And I have a nice about page. That was my story. And I'm just starting to enter the exhibit. It's an events, but there's a fair number of those as well as press and media. This is one of my most favorite pictures of myself. I like a lot and I'm starting a new section where I.

Hello, I'm Susan Detroy digital artist. I'm pretty much with you stopping the written part of sending out to people journey. Although I made this first share on MailChimp. What you are doing videos now experience. In the early years, I'm really jumping into video art was changing me life as well as the digital life lately. And then I wanted to let know about that's new.

Last year, I. For the first time did commissions that are. Created on my iPad and iPhone. Using other people's mementos. Mementos. And these are some samples of that work that I did last year. And I think I'll do it again this year. It's sort of an end of the year. Deal. And then of course I have. Contact page with a piece.

Susan Detroy

And. And then. That be it. So.

Well, it looks like the designer that you employed did it. Fairly good job. What's up.

Yeah, I think it did. And I'm now. I'm. Learning how to enter things myself, which I'm starting to do with the. So I'll get out of that now. Okay. I'm back. I did that pretty seamlessly. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Your website looks great from, from what I could see. Yeah. Thank you.

I'll put it in the chat. I feel it's been a lot of time coming. There's a terrible backstory. But just a couple sentences that. My other website I had for years got hacked. And I had to abandon ship. And go to a whole new. Hosting service. Start over. So this is the result of. A painful. And a start over. So.

Sorry to hear about your old website, but. You've got a good replacement now.

Yeah, I do just. If it happens to people like it's, it's a very hard thing to have happen. But I'll put that in the web in the, in the chat also. And. Thank you. For watching.

Thank you. For sharing your experiences with us this afternoon.

You're welcome.

See, I'm looking at all the faces to see if somebody wanted to say something Ross. Did you have something to say?

Well, actually I was thinking to myself about our meetings and I just wanted to bring up. That I personally find it harder even every other week to make time for this. And I love it. I absolutely, every time I come, I find the presentations really invigorating and on a certain level. And I think Davo does a fabulous job and this, you know, I, I'm not wanting anything to stop with expressionism. So I think it's a building exciting movement, but I do find, and I wondered if other people feel that I, I, I mean, if it were once a month, I know I'd be, oh, wow, I got to get to, you know, I, I think, or maybe a little less often, this is just something I'm saying, or maybe we don't all have to be here every time, but there is something nice about the continuum and I just kind of throwing it out there.

Roz Dimon

And, if Colin, this isn't something you want to discuss or Davo right now, we can take it offline, but I, or you can bring it up at some other time, but it's just something I've been, I've been considering. Cause you know, we kind of started in COVID. I mean, Techspressionism, I guess Colin started that about like, you know, in 2012, but it's really been getting some steam here, you know, with the salons we started in COVID and now things are at least opening up some, I might regret this when it's saying this when it's February, but I'm just, yeah. And it's, but does anybody else, do you have any thoughts about it or Colin or Davo? Do you, or other people, do you have any thoughts about this?

You know, I was,

Even though I can't always come like, like last week I was traveling and didn't have connectivity. But if it would only be once a month and then I would miss it, that would be a long time, you know, between touching base with you guys. So I like every two weeks. And I think you're right, Roz. I mean, everybody doesn't have to be here every time. We all have other commitments.

And you know what, to your point, you know, we can always go, you can find the salons and go watch them if you're not there. But it's just different when you're there. You know, I feel it's different when you're there.

What did you have to say, Colin, I think?

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny, Roz, because I was actually sort of thinking that exact idea of shifting it to, to a monthly, maybe in the new year, but, you know, I, I don't really have that strong of a feeling towards that other than, you know, personal laziness on my part to some degree.

Colin Goldberg

You know like but I do like that you know it's something that the two-week format allows more artists to present you know obviously so I don't know like I mean I think that's definitely something that is a possibility you know I was I was really literally thinking that same thing like what if this went to once once a month you know I don't know like I feel like I would you know and I don't know if you were here in the very beginning when I brought up the idea that maybe after the recording session ends whoever wants to can stick around to talk about sort of like general community related issues but I think that you know that part of it kind of like you know we were meeting sort of as an advisory board which would be sort of like you know sort of like you know sort of like you know sort of like was, you know, kind of the result of there being some income generated from the initial call for entry.

Colin Goldberg

And then a PR person was brought in temporarily to see what they could do. And that was like why, you know, a bunch of us started meeting separately. And, you know, after that was done, it was sort of like, okay, it was hard to get people to show up, you know, at a different separate time. So I feel like sort of if the after meeting is about like, you know, group related stuff, or it could even be, I mean, the initial format for this was that like, that actually would happen now, like after the artist presentations are over. And like, you know, that I'm cool with that, too. For one thing, you know, we can all just hang out afterwards and take care of business, you know, during this part of the session, if there's time. And also, it's like full transparency where it's on the record, it's recorded, people can put forth their ideas, not like that matters.

Colin Goldberg

And, you know, I mean, I've been thinking a lot about just like what this is, you know, and maybe that would be an interesting topic of discussion for the remainder of the time, because I'd like to hear what you guys think about that. And like what, you know, it could be and what everyone thinks about it moving forward, like, you know, because to me, the whole idea of an advisory board made me feel sort of uncomfortable. Like, you know, I don't like the any, any sort of correlation between this project and the other. And so I think it's a really good question. And I think it's a really good question.

Colin Goldberg

And I think it's a really good question. And I think it's a really good question. This is just one of my thoughts on like, this idea of like, you know, being able to bring down all your relationships with your clients and really sort of working together on like a non profit organization or any sort of, you know, standard societal structure that's, you know, along those lines. Like, you know, when I first heard about this idea of social sculpture, it was through an artist named Joseph neck fatale. This was back in, you know, the 90s. And I was doing something. I mean, my business name is ever beta. And that's still a business name I use to operate even if you're not a designer. So I think it's a really good question. And I think it's a really good you scroll down to the bottom of this site there's a link to ever beta and it's like the idea is like it's always in beta the web is always in beta I mean I actually have my brand tattooed on my arm which is like you

Know something I got it that's dedication in

The village in some sort of a strange fit of inspiration but you

Know

He said that like you know and at that time ever beta was something like this except it wasn't only about visual artists it was like poets and musicians all interviewing each other and we were streaming it over real video which there was only dial-up back then and there wasn't enough people to even watch it because not enough people there no one had broadband so it was like an interesting idea but it didn't really have legs because there wasn't an audience for it but he was like he introduced me to this idea of social sculpture that was developed by a german artist joseph boys back in like the 70s I believe and I guess the idea and he was also I believe a co-founder of the green party in germany and he was like a political activist and stuff and you know he believed that art could transform society and that you know he had some other ideas like everybody is an artist which you know has been contested by many artists but you know I like the idea that something can be a work of art that's outside of you know traditional conceptions of what that could be you know and that would be my sort of idealized vision for this project you know would be sort of sort you know a social sculpture that's you know participatory and involves you know people at whatever level they choose to participate you know that is as distributed and decentralized as could be you know I mean I think there's certain restraints being sort of like online where there's a domain associated with it a domain has to be registered somewhere and I registered it because I came up with the word you know back in you know a decade ago so but other than that you know like I feel like there are a lot of aspects to it that you know ideally like I'd like to be it to be something that's brought into common usage that is not something where the goal is to trademark it or to copyright it or to have intellectual property rights assigned to an owner you know for it to be a word and I did see something that I shared online that patrick actually found that it was a very important factor I found which was really encouraging which was an article by a turkish I don't know if it was a graduate student or it was for some sort of an online some sort of a journal and it was written in turkish but it was about expressionism in the end you know an academic paper and that was really exciting you know to see that I mean I had no idea that even existed or I'm not 100 percent clear how he even located that but that's the direction that I would ideally like, you know, this to go in would be, it's a topic for discussion that could be developed.

Colin Goldberg

And, you know, I mean, it'd be really cool if, it was just people in other countries speaking other languages, just take it and run with it and start their own zoom sessions, all speaking their own, you know, because it is primarily English based here. So anyway, I'm going to, I'm going to open it up and stop talking now, but that's my little kind of things that have been bouncing around in my head, you know, and, and as far as the timing of this launch, you know, I'm cool with like leaving it as it is for, for the time being. But certainly, you know, I would, I would, you know, be very happy to work with anybody that wants to volunteer, time in doing any sort of aspect of keeping this sort of thing going, you know?

Yeah, I really, I really, I really like the every other week I have to say, I understand, Colin, if there are burdens, then yeah, I think, I think there's enough folks who have shown that. I mean, I don't know. I, it feels like we've sort of, it doesn't feel imposed. Now you may feel imposed upon it and I could well appreciate that aspect, but I know for myself, that getting a dose of inspiration every other week really is good for me. And the thought of that only being once a month, I don't know. And it feels like there'd be big holes. Now I may be saying this because I've gotten used to it, but I think that we've managed to have a fairly regular number of people showing up every two weeks. Kind of is self-regulating. I think it was, if it was imposed or that we started off there and we saw a natural trailing off, then that might, but I, it feels like there's a lot of content and the depth of the discussions and presentations to me have been really impressive.

Michael Pierre Price

And I would miss if we were out once a month. But I do understand that it just doesn't happen in and of itself. And if there needs to be more of a divvying up of commitment to help make things happen, then that's a valid discussion to have.

Yeah, I feel like, you know, that would be a really important way to ensure that this keeps going. Know, regardless of my existence on this planet, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like, and that would be my goal, not to like, you know, cut myself out of the process, but to make sure that it's, you know, documented, whatever I'm doing could be handed off to somebody. So say I am indisposed for whatever reason. I mean, I had open heart surgery a couple of years ago, couldn't do anything for a couple months, you know, I mean, I was laying in bed, but, you know, like, really, like, I mean, most of what's happening on my end is just the creation of, you know, the sort of promotional graphics for each salon, trying to, with Davos' assistance, line up artist presenters, you know, and make sure that the information gets published on the site, which, you know, that part of it is definitely something that I would welcome some assistance with, even if it was just to have a backup person who's familiar with WordPress as, you know, a webmaster type person who can then post the content.

Colin Goldberg

I mean, most of like, you know, what I do, I mean, I do on a daily basis, go in, on Instagram, basically, and search on the hashtag, share, you know, nice, nice content to the story on the Techspressionism account. So that's another sort of service level commitment that someone could ostensibly take over would be to run the Instagram account. And that could be something, you know, like, I think in a lot of sort of service based organizations, or like, you know, volunteer based organizations, there's this service physicians that rotate periodically. You know what I mean? So those sorts of things, I think, could be defined. And whoever, you know, if there's people that are interested, I think, then that would certainly be good news for me. You know, I definitely feel like one part of it is that I spend a lot of time that I might be in the studio making my own work, keeping the community running, which, you know, again, it is in itself to me sort of like a piece of art in a lot of ways, like, or it could be, it could be like, when I look at it that way, then it's, you know, more satisfying or fulfilling, you know, and a lot of times, like, I'll see things that are happening within group, or even just how it's developed so far.

Colin Goldberg

And it's, it's certainly worthwhile, you know, to me, in terms of like, the energy that's put into it. So, but, you know, again, like, moving forward. I would, I would love it for people to, to, like, you know, the way Davo came up with this idea of a collab or whatever, come up with things that are completely autonomous, that they could just create based around this idea of Techspressionism, even like curating local exhibitions, and finding artists that are in your geographic area, you know what I mean? Like, I think a lot of these things, like, the thing was like an early online sort of tech art network, you know, and that had these nodes that were in different cities that kind of like popped up, you know, like, I don't know how the guy did it. I think his name was Wolfgang Staehle, who put that together.

Colin Goldberg

But, you know, it's a good model, I think, you know.

I think GH, Huanyi Man, it's hard to say his name, but I think he was also a big part of the thing. GH?

Yeah, the name sounds familiar. Definitely. Definitely.

I was thinking a lot about the concept of inclusivity. You mentioned that a lot. And I was recently writing a proposal for some digital competition. And I used Techspressionism as the core of my statement. And I spoke a lot about how the values of feminism, you know, gender politics, sexual politics, mental health, all of those are, I feel Techspressionism GH? Support the digital movement? Supports and promotes those kinds of causes just by the way we include people. And I'm going to make a shameless plug here because I did an interview for the interview series recently, and I found myself feeling almost like I was part of this lineage of Andy Warhol because of his interview magazine and because people are interesting. And I think that's one aspect of this that makes it worth kind of calling it the social sculpture that it is because we learn about each other through our work.

Renata Janiszewska

Also, the no copyright idea for Techspressionism as a hashtag or as a just I'm going to use I am using it more and more when I write about my work because it definitely. It's a poor monto for a lot of a lot of ideas. So I also wanted to suggest that maybe we could put something about the inclusivity idea right on the man in the manifesto. And I'd be willing to write that. I was going to email that to you.

Cool. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, the manifesto has gone through a couple different versions, too. You know what I mean? So there's like the current one. Patrick took what I initially. Wrote and he wrote, you know, the next version, one point one, you know, so I definitely am open to the idea of it being an ongoing.

That's part of the culture, right? Absolutely. You know, and the other thing is interesting.

Go ahead.

I just want to say I'm totally up for being the person who does the Instagram account for a while, like a three month period. I'd love to do that.

OK, cool. Yeah, I mean, you know, the Instagram. Kind of like was the start of this whole thing in the sense that, you know, Helen Harrison said, Well, why don't you put a show together when I first pitched through the idea of this whole scenario? Which was kind of like based on the fact that I saw someone else, an artist named Ozanne Rosen used the term in print calling herself expressionist and I was like, Huh? You know? And prior to that, like it was just something that came up with as a title for my own shows. You know? So. So, you know, the hashtag really helped, you know, the idea spread to. So that's how I found Davo was through his use of the hashtag. And, you know, the so, you know, I was thinking about how there's these different like layers of the group or layers of like the concept.

Colin Goldberg

Like there's the core sort of like salon member people who come, you know, regularly or like the online community. And then there's like the Instagram hashtag users, some of which, you know, have been using the hashtag consistently for the entire year. And I don't think I've ever shown up to a salon, you know what I mean? But it's this whole other component to what it is, which is no less or more like important, in my opinion. You know, like obviously the community aspect is the part that we could all feel. And like, you know, it's tangible, right? We're here. We could see each other and stuff, you know, but the idea that like all these other people in other languages and other countries, you know, are using this hashtag, even if it's just someone who's throwing it in there as, oh, this is another way to get my post, you know, higher in the algorithm.

Colin Goldberg

Right. Like it's achieving the purpose of then some percentage of those people click the hashtag, follow it back to the, you know, the actual. Techspressionism account, you know, and then go and read the manifesto or find one of you guys in the artist index. You know what I mean? I don't know. It's very, very odd. And then there's, you know, some of the other people who were involved, maybe, you know, who are more established people who like came through almost like it's a TED talk, like Spooky or Ants Fault or other people who aren't here all the time, you know, but their, their background and experience, you know, definitely brings. A lot to the project. So it's interesting, you know, all these different layers of like what it is and, and, you know, and I was thinking at some point, you know, I mean I missed the cycle this past one, but there's a creative capital grant that I think I might try to do for the next round, which is like, I think 2023, 24, you know, there's different other things where it, it could be, you know, conceived of as, you know, a project.

Colin Goldberg

Right. Yeah. Initially I was looking at applying for it and it was just like to put the group shows together and creative capital doesn't fund group shows, but I think the larger project as a whole, it's, if it's conceived of as community building could be, you know, something that would be, you know, relevant or potentially like, you know, I don't know really, but it's all part of it is just. Trying to figure out a way to make sure that this doesn't. You know, completely take away my ability to support myself and my family, you know, cause there, there are a lot of hours that, that are already put into it and a lot that could be put into it to help it, you know, move forward into the future and stuff. So anyway, trying to figure that all out, I guess it's all like a question of balance, you know, but I definitely will take that, you know, I appreciate it.

Colin Goldberg

I'll, I'll take you up on that. We're not for the Instagram. Take over. And, you know, I have been. Doing so basically like using a repost app to repost people's content, you know, like one I've been doing three posts at a time. So each featured artist has like sort of a row, you know, an Instagram and then on a regular basis, just checking the hashtag and sharing to the story. Interesting posts or reels or whatever. Using the hashtag, you know, at one point I was using a scheduling app I was using later, but they removed the ability to repost with a URL, which was like really annoying. I don't know why they did that, but Instagram changed their API. So you couldn't do that anymore. So it became more of a manual process because initially I was doing a featured artist every day and like the very beginning of this thing.

Colin Goldberg

And that was like a little crazy.

I wanted to, I wanted to say how incredible. I was so impressed. I am with the website because every time I go back to it, it seems like you've added more. And it's so professionally done and it's so has an impact. And I was also wondering about the Kunstmatrix people. Are they our sponsors? So is that how we get to use their software for group shows?

Yeah. So they are, they are a technology partner and that just came about basically by, you know, I found out about them actually also through. Joseph neck for tall that I saw that his gallery was using Kunstmatrix to show his work. And because I originally was, you know, I said, Hey, do you want to be in this, this group show online? And he was like, well, I can't use the Kunstmatrix. Or he said, you know, he somehow introduced me to Kunstmatrix. I forget exactly how it happened, but they, yeah, I, I, I sent them some analytics on the site as far as like, you know, you know, the visitor count and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, in, in comparison to a lot of the commercial projects I've worked on, we have a very low bounce rate. You know, there's pretty much people who go to the site are there because they want to be there and stick around, you know?

Colin Goldberg

And I think one thing that really could be improved is our YouTube channel. Like, you know, there's a fairly low subscriber count right now. It's under a hundred. I think wonder once it hits a hundred. Then you can, you can have a short URL, you know, like youtube.com slash expressionism. But before that, it's like youtube.com slash some gobbledygook that runs off the end of the browser window, you know? So like, hopefully we'll hit that soon. But, you know, this has been, I've been doing web work, you know, since the web started pretty much in 94 ish.

Colin Goldberg

So like, this is something that I can take what I learned in, in that commercial environment. Just like Stephanie Sydney was talking about her agency background, you know, and like apply it, you know, to something that I care about, which is, you know, and the original sort of, sort of mission statement for Everbada was advancing and enabling artists in the digital age. And I've sort of reverted back to that now, you know, in that I basically, that's my, my studio business. That's like what I make my work under, you know, just so.

Colin Goldberg

So it's, it's essentially a pro bono project of Everbada, you know, from a business standpoint, but that's the mission, you know what I mean? So it's kind of like, you know, figuring out a way and, and, and the, the ultimate goal is that it promotes each one of us as an individual artist, you know, that would be the, the, the sort of purpose of this thing. I think, you know, beyond, you know, and obviously including.

Colin Goldberg

Those other. Aspects, which would be the sort of, you know, gender balance, social, cultural, and international inclusivity. Those sorts of things and just providing a place for discourse, you know, because, I mean, honestly, after grad school, there's very little, you know, for me to. To have that compares to like those sorts of critiques and other things that, that I used to enjoy, you know, and so this is, is like that and more because. It's people out there working in the field. It's not just sitting in a, in a classroom and doing it because, you know, you're there in an academic environment. So.

I was recently contacted by a magazine in Europe, in Barcelona. And they are, wanted to interview me. And I mentioned Techspressionism. You know. Several times and. And they responded to that. I. They tell me the, the inner. Will be online. Sometimes it's more. It'll be interesting to see how they approach that subject. And it'll be interesting to see if you start to get. Responses from European artists who. Who see the interview. I don't know how to pronounce the. The name of this. Magazine. They do a print issue and an online issue. It is spelt. A L dash.

Lee Musgrave

T I B a nine. Magazine. I'm not even sure what language. I don't think that's Spanish, but I could be wrong. It'll be interesting to see. If you start picking up more. People. On the website and maybe on the YouTube. Who are based in Europe.

Absolutely. You know, and there is a press section on the site. So I've been, you know, periodically just searching on Google news. To see if it shows up anywhere. And I've seen that a couple of different. Pieces, you know, that have run online that I've added. I know Michael pricey had your online show and that mentioned expressionism. There were. A lot of people. And I think Sherry Karver also had a, an article or she was. In the text of the article. So anything that shows up in Google news, I mean, all of those things. I think collectively help.

Colin Goldberg

The. You know, the visibility and, and everything like that, you know, and the Instagram also is really how. I've. Locating people to add to the artist index. You know, is. And we're not alike. You know, we could definitely talk about that. As well. Like what sort of like the. I've been doing as far as sort of procedures go, but usually like.

Colin Goldberg

If I, even if I see someone out there that isn't using the hashtag, whose work I think is interesting. A lot of times I'll just send them. A sort of message like, Hey, cool work. You know, like check out. Expressionism whatever. And you could use the hashtag if you want to show up. In a hashtag search. And then sometimes if I'll see people using the hashtag.

Colin Goldberg

Send them sort of another, another sort of message. That's, you know, But I think it's a message that's, you know, Thanking them for using the hashtag and asking them if they want to be included in the artist index and then sort of soliciting that information. And that kind of varies, you know, Just how much.

Colin Goldberg

It doesn't happen on any sort of regular schedule, you know, but. It has been ongoing. We did actually just add, I added. Our first. Cuban. Techspressionism is the other day, which is pretty cool.

Nice.

So.

Oh. So we are actually right at. 3 58 PM. So we're right here at the, the end of our scheduled recording time. It's been an interesting discussion so far after the presentations. Talking about our community and, or just this social sculpture of what this is and where we're going forward.

Oh, I wanted to say one quick thing also Davo before. Yeah. Close is that. So next salon. I know that we had one person scheduled and then there was another person that wants to present or wanted to present as a heart. You'd been scheduled to present at the next salon. But the next salon. We're actually going to be doing the online opening for the. The, the, the group exhibition text fashion is in 2021, which was, you know, kind of. The, the seed of a lot of this stuff. We've been around that long when the call for entry went out through. Call for entry.org over well over a year ago.

Colin Goldberg

There was like, you know, 1200 pieces submitted. Through that. And that was a lot of the basis for people. You know, starting to use the hashtag and getting the word out through this open call. And anyway, the, the show, which is Pat. Patrick Lichty and I are Coke have been co-curating is basically. You know, You know, That's how we've been able to get back into the online space and really pretty much, you know, It is now the artist list is online on the site under exhibitions and it's going to open up at the next salon, which will be two weeks from today.

Colin Goldberg

And we're still trying to get your son to work that out with Davos for us. How we're going to show that many pieces in an online opening but it's going to be interesting there's artists from 26 countries represented in the exhibition and you know it'll be our first real sort of survey of artists using technology as a means of emotional you know expression of emotional content so I think that's exciting and then we will resume the sort of artist presentation format in the first salon in november and I believe we have two artists booked for that already sahar and then an artist I know she goes by sky water I'm

Not I'm not sure what else to call her but yeah I

Mentioned that exhibit to the interviewer of that magazine as well nice

Sweet and so the url for the show just to close it out with this is just Techspressionism.com slash ts 2021 and that's going to be the permanent url for this show and if all goes as planned I believe it's also going to be part of the wrong biennial that patrick had you know talked about getting a setup there so when the show opens it'll move to the home page but that url will then be redirected to the home page and then when the show is over at the end of the year because it won't be 2021 anymore it'll move back to that url but that's the url to use if you're giving it out to anybody would be slash ts 2021 all right and yeah that's about it plug for that a long time in the making right

All right well I think it's been a great salon today great salon so far I think everyone for coming and your attendance and your participation discussion and all that good stuff that's involved and actually I think one of our presenters is missing now because she had to go but and actually tommy's gone too I think anyway both presenters are gone oh tommy's still here never mind I'm here there he is okay thank you tommy and thank you stephanie even though I know you had to go for your presentations and thank you most wonderful audience again this whole thing cannot be here if not for you so thank you for your continued participation and your attendance it means a lot

And thank you Davo for doing this every two weeks and taking the time to you

Know keep this keep this going appreciate it yeah no problem I would not miss this for the world unless I was dying knock on wood a little bit that being said though thank you so much everyone and that'll be it so have a good one you by the way you don't have to leave your official countdown yeah sorry we're closing out in five four three two one and