Salon 45 // "...AND BEYOND" : Show & Tell

Hello, I'm Colin Goldberg and it is Wednesday, June 8th. Welcome to the Techspressionist Salon Number 45. And today's topic, suggested by Michael Price, is And Beyond, kind of in the spirit of our current exhibition at Southampton Arts Centre. And it's a pretty open-ended topic. It's going to be a show-and-tell format, which means artists get, let's say, five to ten minutes to share. Why don't we say five minutes? Because it seems like with the number of people that have their hands up, that would probably be the best bet. So what I'll do is I will start a timer for five minutes when each artist starts sharing, and then I am going to give you a warning when there's one minute left. And I'll just say one minute. So I wanted to just open it up really quickly with a little bit of a preview of what we're going to be doing for a catalog.

Colin Goldberg

And can you guys see my screen okay? All right. So I've been working on this with the images from a really great photographer by the name of Jeff Heatley. And he, let's see.

So I'll look up the spreads version.

So this hopefully should be back to me as a hard copy, a single hard copy for proofing and color matching in about a week. And then, hopefully, within the following week, it's going to be made available. And looking like, you know, we'll probably be making it available on Amazon as well as maybe Blurb. So it's mostly spreads. We got the group shot here. And I'm just going to open up this session with Helen Harrison's Forward, which I think is a really good introduction to this topic of and beyond, because it's an interesting take that she has on the exhibition. And I think her conception of what and beyond might be all about wouldn't necessarily be the materials other than digital, but the actual content of the work itself. So Helen writes, in 1928, ruminating on the rapid pace and profound nature of change in the 20th century, the French poet and philosopher Paul Valéry wrote, we must expect great innovations to change the world.

Colin Goldberg

We must expect great innovations to change the world. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself, and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art. This prediction so impressed the cultural critic Walter Benjamin that he used it as the epigraph of his famous 1935 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, as it was originally titled. These writers and others were pondering the same issues that face artists in the world of art. And they were also impressed by the fact that the artists who now, nearly a century later, self-identify as Techspressionists.

Colin Goldberg

Thanks to digital technologies and the internet, works of art have become, in Valéry's formulation, ubiquitous, as he foresaw. We shall only have to summon them, and there they will be. This level of accessibility requires us to adopt and accept new attitudes towards creative expression. As Benjamin observed, the debate regarding the artistic validity of new media, begun with photography and cinema in the late 19th century, centers on the so-called aura of the singular work of art, and the aura of uniqueness remains powerful. Yet a digitally Generated artwork is not a reproduction in the conventional sense, that is, a copy of something else, though it can be, and often is, reproduced in multiples that are indistinguishable from one another.

Colin Goldberg

Handmade versus mechanical, one-off versus duplication, such binaries ultimately resolve in light of the works of art themselves. By whatever technique it's created, Techspressionist imagery generates its own aura, deriving its authenticity from the artist's intention. Expression is paramount. Technology is merely the delivery system. Jackson Pollock faced a similar concern. Frustrated by the focus on his materials and methods rather than the content of his paintings, he insisted, it doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something is being said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

Colin Goldberg

So there we have it. And with that, I am going to open it up. And the first artist to share her work is Renata.

Thank you, Colin. I wanted to say a few words about the Canadian Node before I talk about and beyond. We have formed a Canadian Node. We have 13 Canadian artists on the index. I was able to have an in-person meeting with Lee in Montreal a week or so ago. And we decided to put together an online show which will be open to all Techspressionists.

Renata Janiszewska

The theme of our show is The Flavour of Maple. You can interpret that any way you want. I am going to have a forum put online. Sorry. First of all, we are on Instagram. We are on Twitter. Please, if you haven't already, follow us. We have lots of exciting Canadian content and beyond. Brazil and France and Iran. They all are connected with us. And I'm enjoying this group a lot.

Renata Janiszewska

So we want to have our website done by the beginning of July, middle of July at the latest. There'll be a form, a Google form, and there will be a $10 fee, which we're only putting there to weed out people who aren't serious. And if you have any financial restraints, please let us know, and we'll work it out, help you. We'll waive the fee.

Renata Janiszewska

And with that, I will now go to my ideas about the and beyond. For me, expressionism is intrinsically and beyond. And I'm going to share one of my video works with you, which is one minute in length. Before I share it, I just want to talk a little bit about how I often use means that are meant for one thing, and I subvert them and try to break, for example, the structure of the apps that I'm working with. And it's this iconoclasm that is and beyond, because it's anti-conventional.

Renata Janiszewska

Many art tools in the digital are in a mode that is sequential, linear, empirical, and for a concrete purpose. And I think that's a really important thing to think about. When I shape the art tools for my own end, then I'm putting them into the and beyond. Some artists would rather not say how they make their works, and I'm not one of them. Whenever people ask what tools I've used, I'm really happy to share. And I actually had the experience where an artist asked me what I used, and I said I'd send him a list. And then we were in a panel or some clubhouse or something together, and he told the whole group, yeah, and Renata shared all her apps. And I guess some artists feel like there's a bit of constraint, but really no two people are going to use an app the same way. And I start my work with my own work as raw material.

Renata Janiszewska

So I'm actually, it's like cooking, you know, when you have a bit of salad dressing left over and then you add something to it. And it's that spirit that is how I make a lot of my work. I guess I'm always learning from the last thing that I did. And that's another example of going beyond, because no one's going to make the same choices, and I make them based on my own taste.

Renata Janiszewska

Another thing I do is sometimes I desaturate my work on purpose, because that's another example of going beyond. I feel that taste has coarsened, and you have to really hit people hard. These days. And that's often difficult for me to accept because, you know, pumped up color is everywhere. I just think that you are sorry, I just think that subtlety of color requires contemplation.

Renata Janiszewska

And that requires time. Just a note on the music before I show you my piece. I used a very regular metronome like rhythm. So it's a little bit different. I'm not going to get into this one. But I also made the melody in a minor key. And that's another example of going and beyond. It's got a kind of plaintive mournful quality that belies the regularity of the music. And the name of this piece is, what is it? Land of a Thousand Yellows.

I'm not hearing any audio on my end, Renata. Okay.

Yeah, my bad.

You might need to stop the share and then reshare. There should be a little checkbox that pops up that says share device audio.

Okay. Stop share. Stop share screen. Yeah, I tried it before. I practiced a few times and it always went. It says my microphone is off. It says my microphone is off when I go to screen share.

Renata, is it possible the microphone is off on the iPad?

No, because I'm speaking through the microphone right now. Okay. It just says the microphone is off. And I'm sorry, everybody. I really did practice this a number of times to make sure that you could hear the music.

You would want the source to be not the microphone probably, but the program.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay.

Awesome. Thank you, Renata.

Thanks for sharing. Nice. Thanks.

All right. So we will move on to Giovanna.

Yeah I wish I can share my screen this time let me try okay always an open system preference for some reason.

And, you know, if anyone does have questions, let's try to hold them to the end just so we can try to get through as many people as possible for the presentations.

OK, I think. OK, I still have a problem to share my screen, so let me share my YouTube video here. I think Colin can help me open up. I put in the chat.

Gotcha. All right. Let me try to share here.

This is the recent program I use. How I use the mic. It's a collab with Google. So how it works is a live. Like when you type some sentence and you can upload your own image. So the image will generate is an artificial intelligence. AI. I think the most important thing is I feel like you need to solve some really good image. And it's very funny because. I also have several. But unfortunately, I couldn't share my screen here.

Giovanna Sun

But it's very interesting that when you share when you want to generate something. If you find a good source of image that in another word, you have to give them a good DNA. It is not like if you give them the pool is what generate like a pool. So I still have a. It's not like a totally artificial intelligence.

Giovanna Sun

Which I mean, you still need to give them some something more makes sense. Let's say if I want to do something like a like a blue image. So I upload the blue image and I type in. Oh, we create and the machine learning and I want to see like how I will generate image. So the so you all see the outcome. So the result is a like a human brands with the blue image and also with a hand. And if for some reason, I think that's also they have something like from the block. That's like a logo from up blocks because the probably because of the up lies a kind of pioneering for all these artificial intelligence things. So. There is a one particular I really I like it. Well, I'm not finished here, but I can share in the chart. So, yeah, Colin, can you open this?

Giovanna Sun

I put in the chart so you can download. You can share. So that's when I type in. Because I use these this is a metropolitan museums, a public domain images. It's free. Great. This. So I upload these and I type in space X to the moon. I Vincent van Gogh. And this is the result. And I think that this is interesting and I love this. I still will do some editing and oh, yeah. And the other thing is, if you want to play around with this program is I feel like it's still like a high risk because you need to have a ring. And you also need. You have the really a lot of storage because they save on Google Drive and the people, whoever in that the development team, they can access your Google Drive. So, you know, do your own research and do you know, you do need to my own risk. But I use like an empty Google Drive, so I don't really care.

Giovanna Sun

But you still need to have a better rent to run this program. OK. Yeah, that's my presentation today.

OK, thank you, Giovanna. And if there is a link that you could share in the chat to the platform itself or whatever tools you use to do this experimentation, people would probably. OK, yeah.

I'll take that. The page here.

They have a Twitter and I think they pinged on the top. Yeah, but I think the one thing you really need to really need to this is a deep concern that is this is a startup, which means they may crash or something may happen to damage your computer. So I already explore and I have experience, but I still remove that.

I think the paper.

Yeah.

OK, great. Thank you, Giovanna.

You're very welcome.

All right. So. Just for anyone who just came in, if you do want to share anything with the group, just use the raise hand tool and you'll be added to the queue. The next artist who is up is Tommy.

Hi, Colin. I'm on two machines. I'm going to try to share my screen from my computer and let me know. This is working. See. Can everybody hear me as this other share is going on? So, gosh, I couldn't pass up. A little bit of a discussion of Walter Benjamin. Such an interesting moment to just read and reconsider Valeray and Walter Benjamin. Right. Can I just read a little bit? I'm sorry. I'm going to just take up some of my time, not even talking about my work. But I highlighted this. I think I should just read this part of the introduction to the work of art and the mechanical reproduction, as we call it now, which is this quote of Valeray that starts and just to think about this is 1931. He's writing it right. Profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the beautiful in all the arts.

Tommy Mintz

There is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be. Right. The last 20 years. I'm sorry. Which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. Right. The last 20 years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. And I feel like that's the part where we're sort of doing digital and beyond this sort of consideration of space and time and how technology.

Tommy Mintz

Allows us to reconsider. How we understand it. So we must expect great innovation to transform the entire technique of the arts. Right. 1931. So I also just want to just in case you didn't think Valerie was a genius. There's another quote that Benjamin Walter Benjamin puts in the work of art and the agent mechanical reproduction.

Tommy Mintz

Valerie saying 1931 again. Just as water, gas and electricity are brought into our houses from far off. To satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort. So we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand. Hardly more than a sign. The sign is read Paul Valera and Walter Benjamin because it's really interesting sort of how they're.

Tommy Mintz

Really thinking about our. Relationship with technology and our understanding of place and time. And understanding of place and time. And really how technology is the. The way we. Form form our understanding our conceptualization of. You know what's beyond our immediate sensory observation. So okay so I've been working on a lot spending a lot of time outside recently it's beautiful out and. Just you know spending time really. And.

Tommy Mintz

Enjoying. These moments of here I am. The one I really wanted to share I think I'm only going to share one. It's a lot of work to share that I've been working on. And I've been working a lot. This is. This is an image that I generated. Today. I shot it this weekend. I spent. Couple. Couple weekends now in a row. Going to. Columbus circle photographing. And notice that. There's this tourist. Bus that goes around it's called the ride. And there's windows facing just one side and everybody's on these.

Tommy Mintz

Seats facing out. Towards. What turns out to be like a series of. Staged events on the streets. So one minute. Okay. And this event right here. At Columbus circle is. This woman who. Normally has a partner actually. Dancing with her. Going around. And. I kind of set up. Waiting for her to do her dance. And. Now as people passed I really felt. No.

Tommy Mintz

Wonderful. Connection with this. Series of passing moments there's also a skateboarder riding around. So that's my medication on Valerie. Walter Benjamin. Thank you.

Awesome thank you tell me. Yeah. I appreciate that I was familiar with Benjamin. You know before. Reading Helen's essay but I was not familiar with Valerie and his you know. The one line in there. You know that. Talking about. His sort of foreseeing this phenomenon. About art we shall only have to summon them and there they will be. I mean how precious is that you know it's really pretty unbelievable.

Colin Goldberg

I mean. So. And I see Michael Rees is here. I might do a brief intermission because I know Michael wanted to. Maybe mention the seminar seminar that is going on tomorrow. And if you wanted to jump in Michael or if you wanted to wait till I. Yeah can you. Done can you hear me.

Yeah. Yeah great. Thank you so much Colin for giving me a little spot here. We ran a. We planned and ran a conference today was the first day and tomorrow is the second day. Second and last day. It was organized by myself and Michelle Thurs. And it's on YouTube. If you follow me on social media you can see it on my feed. If you.

Michael Rees

You know want to check it through the Web site you can go to my Web site which is. Michael Rees dot org Reese's R E E S dot O R G. And tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Michelle will be hosting the platforms part of our conference. I think I mentioned it's called projects and platforms. Today we talked with artists and their approach to NFTs. I thought it was a scintillating conversation. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot even though I've been studying this carefully for a while now. And then tomorrow we're going to talk to platforms and Michelle is going to conduct that interview. A woman named Sophia Garcia from Art X Code which is a generative design generative art blockchain experience.

Michael Rees

Then also the McCoys Jennifer and Kevin McCoy from you know they're artists but they also have a company called Monograph. And then finally Nadia Teja who is from Snark Art. And I don't know if you guys know Snark Art. But they. Have produced some really stunning projects in the NFT space. So again Colin thank you so much for allowing me to give a little pitch. The best place to go is Michael Rees dot org and Reese's R E E S dot org 2 p.m. To 3 30 p.m. Tomorrow afternoon. And of course the YouTube video I'll post it on my site shortly so you can watch today's event if you missed it. OK.

Thanks again. Awesome. Thank you Michael. And Michael Kevin McCoy was basically he was he was one of the people that basically minted the very first NFT right. It was a collaboration.

Yeah that's correct. He claims he claims to have minted the first NFT. And I don't know that anybody's disputed that. I you know so I kind of believe him. I guess I'd say I believe him.

It's that's what Wikipedia says also. You know I kind of remembered that name and I looked it up. So really fascinating. And thanks for coming on. Michael's sculptures are in the show. If you hadn't seen them they're the really awesome inflatable AR enabled works in the exhibition in Southampton.

So thanks for coming on. I'm so happy to be a part of that show. It's such a beauty. Congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Bye bye. All right.

Oh I'm still on. I'm just I'll stop speaking.

OK. OK. Bye bye now.

All righty. So we're going to we're going to pick up with Holly. All right. All right. All right. All right.

All right. And share screen. Oops. OK. Can you hear me?

Yep.

OK good. All right. So now wait where did it go? Where did it go? So here it is. Okay. This is really, this is really very impromptu. So I feel like I have been wandering in the wilderness for like 20 some years until I got connected to you. You have, you have no idea. So I see the world is shapes and patterns and rhythm and color. I don't see it as nouns. And when I was in Stanley in the Falcon Islands in 1999, I saw this city scene and I knew I wanted to make it be my personal impression.

Holly Gordon

And so I used Photoshop to create it. And there it just sat. And the same thing happened when I created this from a wind shaft. And so I went and I created this from a wind shaft. And so I went and I created this driving up the Jersey Turnpike in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And then for me to tell you that I felt completely embodied by Jackson Pollock when I had my camera set up with my remote control and I was capturing these drips and these sprays in the Keeney Peninsula in Maui. It was unbelievable.

Holly Gordon

And then my patron didn't particularly care for my photos that I took. He said it looked like tourist photos. And just by chance, I started to experiment with Nick Silver effects. And the next thing I knew, they put me into their creative pool. And I had created this whole body called, oops, called Water Music. And three of the pieces were in there. And I had created this whole body called Water Music. And three of the pieces are in the exhibit. And so sometimes my water was sharp and crisp. And sometimes it was gossamer. And I really imagined how Jackson Pollock felt when he was pouring his paints and deciding upon the thickness of them or the thinness of them. And he was stirring them all over his canvas. Okay. I have this attitude toward technology. I have this attitude toward technology that I want to humanize it.

Holly Gordon

It's like even Stieglitz said in 1934, if you're going to manipulate your photography, do it for all it's worth. And digital photography wasn't even established then. Technology is a means by which we can create and present our feelings, our point of view. I am connected to Mother Nature. My work has a very natural bent. And I will tell you, I was so taken by the environment salon weeks ago. I really would love to see some kind of environmental virtual exhibit be considered because that is something that unites us all on this planet. So this is stacked against us. I very definitely wanted the four North Port smokestacks to be in this image. And there's the fisherman in Macky Maw who is a is a lone figure against the smokestacks. For years, I've been creating this image called Crows Over Long Island Farm Field because I'm so concerned about how urbanization is eating up our lands.

Holly Gordon

And finally, in 2016, I decided to superimpose Vincent Van Gogh's Crows Over the over my created image to convey the deepest concern that I have for what's happening to our planet.

Okay, so I

Started to, I was having MRIs for a torn rotator cuff and my brain was examined and I thought, going to create from the images that are taken inside of me. And then I created this from IO in Maui, which is down island, not up where I created my water music. And I realized water itself has a different persona, depending upon how it flows. So I thank you for letting me share this with you.

Awesome. Thank you, Holly. You're welcome. All right. All right. Our next artist is Michael Price.

Thanks, Colin. Holly,

I think you need to stop your share.

Oh, sorry.

That's okay.

So, I appreciated your little story,

Colin, that you shared about how and beyond God. Added to the Techspressionist of show name. So I thought that was a really great kind of backstory to all this, but I, but I agree with what Renata stated that and beyond is implicit. I believe

With the Techspressionist of name and I think the sensibilities that

We all have in our own unique ways. One of the things recently that I was reading. Thanks to Patrick Lichty

Was Kandinsky's two books that he had recommended a number of salons ago and Kandinsky in the book concerning the spiritual and heart.

He also had some really good insights about moving forward and what he was seeing it and he saw that the advances that we were seeing in science and all around that akin to some of the things that were happening in photography and elsewhere that the mechanization could be seen as the there and kandinsky was saying no it's in the artist's use of the technology technology is where the there is there and so for me, I see that as a really important thing now today, where AI and other avenues can produce very interesting works. The double-edged sword that I see, and this is something that I value in this group, is in the sense that the artist's spirit and eye and whatever else goes into it is an essential element in working with those powerful technologies, because I find it really interesting and fascinating.

But at the same time, if

We're not careful in this age that we find ourselves where there's so much information online and everything. We can become very lazy. And I worry about that. That's something I think that the younger generation can learn from those of us who've had to kind of wrestle with the emerging technologies to realize that it's not just about getting the end result. It's what of you is in there.

And just real briefly here. Can everybody see my screen?

Yep. So this is an image that I created recently, again, using AI. But what I'm finding fascinating or what I'm doing that I feel is very different than a lot of other people is I'm more fascinated by the technology. I'm more fascinated by the linguistic quality of some of this AI versus trying to replicate what other people do or trying to say, oh, I want a beautiful sunset.

You know, this location, this way, that way, and specifying things.

I'm using the ambiguity of language to partner with the AI to find interesting imagery. And so. That for me is one of the things that I think as artists, as tools become more powerful and bring in new innovations, I think we go through a growth period where you learn about the tools and you use them. And maybe it's in a very straightforward way because our thinking has been regimented on how things have worked before. And these new powerful tools that can go in so many different directions. It's in our creative spirit.

Unattributed

That the end beyond will

Keep things new and fresh and

Continue the artist spirit that we reach back in time towards what's happened before and what we can leave for the following generation.

So that's kind of where I'm coming from.

Thank you, Michael. Does that piece have a title?

No. It's still a work in progress.

It's even better. Like open ended. So there's no.

No, it's nothing.

Nothing imposed on it. Right.

Yeah.

Cool.

Thanks.

Awesome. Thank you, Michael. And thank you for coming up with the theme for today's salon. And that will be discussed at the end of the salon in the after party. Once the recording starts stops. I think maybe that will be a good tradition for us to come up with the theme for the next one. At the. The after party. So that way it's a consensus-based decision and sort of group think.

Colin Goldberg

So Lucy is up next.

Hey, thank you. I am hoping I can, I'm hoping that five minutes is enough. And I was wondering, could I possibly have six minutes if needed? Sure.

Okay,

Thank you. So this is a piece I'm working on for, to submit to a full dome film festival, a couple of full dome film festivals. I'm developing it as a VR piece. It will be both a VR piece and a dome projection piece. So it's immersive. I'm creating it as a, you know, a VR environment and then rendering it for dome.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

It's called Earth Tree Sky because a tree belongs to the Earth and it belongs to the land and it belongs to the sky and it bridges those domains. It's like it holds the land. It holds the Earth and it holds the sky. So that's the official name and for the purpose of today. It's also called Below Above and Beyond so… Because it really is. I… Really great idea. I promise it really is below, above and beyond.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

So I'm just going to play it. This is the three minute version. I just couldn't quite get it less than three minutes. All right. So first of all, what you're seeing here is a warped fisheye projection. And the very center is the right above you, the top of the dome. The lower half is in front of you and around the perimeters is the edges of the dome. So it's happening all around you. But it's I kind of enjoying it as a sort of a warped fisheye projection. So I'm just going to play it.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

I hope everybody can hear it as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that is the warped fish eye version of it. Since I developed it in virtual reality, I also test it in a dome. I created a dome in virtual reality. I can test it there. And I haven't, you know, seen it in a real dome, but it's a very different experience as, you know, in a dome. I mean, you are like looking all around you. And then I can, you know, you can experience it as the actual VR where you are amongst the roots. They're like right there around you. You're really immersed in it. Or amongst the leaves and everything is just like moving and swirling around you. And I have to say, all three versions, the sort of swirling fish eye version. And the dome experience and the actual VR experience. They're all, they're really different from each other. They're really different experiences. And the, the dome version is only half the experience.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

It's only the upper half. The VR version of it. You can, when you're up in the tree, you're looking down into amongst the roots. At the same time. So it's like the actual VR experience of it is like, you know, twice it's above and below you. So I, for me, immersion is a really something I'm really working with in, in my work. It's like. Immersion is a feeling that is a whole other medium. You know what, what does it feel like when it's all around you? So I'm really enjoying and exploring and.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

Pressing forward with that. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, Lucy. Really fascinating. Work. Next up is Lee. Lee Schnaiberg.

Thank you so much. And by the way, Lucy, that was just amazing. So thank you. That was just beautiful. I can't wait to try the VR. Version. Tell me when I'm at the halfway mark, please. So that. So that I can remember to tie it up so I can bring up something about. Wonderful going beyond with. With Tommy's software.

Lee Schnaiberg

But first I wanted to say about going beyond. Get my share my window. Okay. Share screen. Share the whole screen. Sure. Why not? Okay. Sure. Sorry about that. And where is it? Why can't I get to my screen? I apologize for this. Going beyond. I. I sort of learned this week. Actually today. They kept them the cherry tree in my backyard. And I started to go beyond my regular spastic movements while I'm. Shooting these panoramas. And I find that. What's happened is.

Lee Schnaiberg

Something I've never experienced before. And. I've learned. What I thought was because it was just a. Cut tree. But somehow the movements that I've learned how to do with like holding back instead of just being kind of going forward like a wild person. That's given me a whole kind of iconography that I never imagined would show up like this. So that was something that I really wanted to share with everybody. And again, this is like all of these pictures are from one image, but I just been like Pollock, pieces of it and I really find that's something I've never experienced before and then wrapping up the other thing that was really exciting this week was I started to play around with tommy's software and it's amazing and I've been mixing my rogue panos like the angels.

Lee Schnaiberg

I tried. Right away and I have another one which I couldn't find just before today where the angels are all sort of competing with each other but that was super fun and then I went down the street and renata when she was here we were mentioning the colors of these strange pylons and so I started doing shooting with them but then I got back into tommy and it just worked so well together that I've just been overwhelmed by being slow with the camera instead of really fast and being able to bring out all these sort of more subtle or more controlled movements and that's it but tommy's software is amazing and last last last thing my girlfriend is really smart phd in computer sciences and she built a front end for tommy software so I could use it and when she's totally happy with it and it's got no bugs she wants to send it on to tommy so that everybody can use it if we get tommy's blessing so that was it that was my I hope I did that in the right amount of time and thank everybody for your for checking it out thanks

Awesome thank you lee and yeah I think that this idea of collaborative software development for creative uses is pretty pretty awesome it just takes that whole collab concept in a different direction which I think is really interesting and it's cool to see you guys sharing you know your methodologies

Like that oh yeah I am so grateful I'm so grateful tommy so generous and tommy if I can ever repay you like today's stuff I just learned like today my mind's blown on how like being like there's a way that you can do these really controlled panorama sabotages so if I can share anything with you it would be my pleasure at some time and thank you so much for letting for sharing and being honest I mean generous and I'm sure you're honest too thank you so much everybody thank you for this afternoon and thank you so much colin

Sure thank okay we have ellis up next so there's ellis and lee and that's the end of the queue as far as I can see it unless anyone else wants to get their hand up

Hello can everyone hear me yes

All right good

Share screen it'll just be the screen ah okay so hello my name is ellis eclipse I identify as a virtual photographer in the artistic sense I this is very much my first show and tell and I wanted to start off correctly by just going down a very short timeline of how I went from basically this was my very first piece batman nihilismo of I believe of 2021 to my most recent creation the untitled 1999 so my mother is very fascinated with artists I her biggest her biggest she's the probably biggest fan of vincent van gogh and she has always supported me through the arts whether it was cooking or music but painting was probably the most recent and she got me paint by the numbers which is the canvas of this frame and I was getting into it.

Ellis Eclipse

And then it kind of frustrated me, not because I just didn't really follow the numbers, but it was mostly because it was very limiting. I had an idea of how I wanted to invert the colors that they gave me and created an entirely different piece. But my mind and my hand was very out of sync. So out of a fit of rage, I just drew a bunch of Batman. And this is like the most abstract form of Batman, if you can see it. And he was kind of like this six feet tall guy with his sword out of shape and everything and everything like that. And then that became Batman Nihilismo.

Ellis Eclipse

And then maybe by January, I started to explore like older video games in their form of what is called a photo mode. A photo mode is a virtual camera that destroys the limitations of a traditional digital camera, basically virtualizing it. And the very first game to create this virtual camera was a Lord of the Rings game. And this was the very first photo I had taken. And this was the very first photo I had taken. It allowed me to invert the colors, adjust the lighting, adjust the zoom.

Ellis Eclipse

And it basically like free in terms of like a word free cam move the camera around to the angle that I liked. And this was the very first photo. It has no name but I actually started liking this sort of freedom that it gave me. And so it really allowed me to change my perspective in terms of what it looks like and how it works. So then I moved on to a different game called Watch Dogs 2, in which I took this photo. This was during February, right after the death of one of my favorite aunts, Mary.

Ellis Eclipse

This actually does have a name. It's called Dream Bridge. And as painful as it is to look at, I actually do love it because the environment is based out of a virtual reality of San Francisco. So the dreamy aspect of it is supposed to be the fog that you would find in San Fran.

One minute.

Oh, sorry. And then I took, like... I took a couple more pictures back into older video games. For Still Life, I went to Vampire the Masquerade. I actually enjoyed the paintings of Still Life. So I wanted to see how far virtual food had gone. And this, as you can see, is just hamburgers, fries, and pizza. But the most recent is actually one that I have right now.

Ellis Eclipse

I have printed this out. It's on a metal print. It's a 24 by... Sorry, it's a 16 by 24. This is called Untitled 1999. And it is my first time that I have explored virtual abstraction. I think I have a larger one right here. Because I like the abyssal look of it. Of just staring into space and being... Zoomed into it. That's time. Sorry.

That's okay.

Yeah, I mean, if you want to just wrap it up, feel free. I just want to make sure everyone gets a chance to share. And if there's time for questions.

All right. Well, all I have to say is that I'm very inspired by the Techspressionists in terms of their abstract expressionism and their use of technology. And since most of my... My art is based out of not only technology, but virtual reality. I want to explore it by going forward in this route. And that is my timeline.

Cool. Cool. Interesting. Yeah, it's definitely unique. One thing that is interesting about this group is just the diversity of means. The way that people put their work together. It's... It's... It's just completely mixed bag of all sorts of different stuff, which is really interesting. So next up is Lee Day.

Evening, everyone. I thought I could share some work I did during COVID. I hope I haven't... I don't believe I've shown any of this work here. But it certainly goes beyond the surface and into... The depths of the streams around my house. Let's see if we're actually sharing. Is that coming up? Yeah. Okay, good.

Lee Day

I don't really have all that much to say. This is... I was stuck inside. I was stuck inside for COVID and got very frustrated. And one place I could go out and let out some steam was going into the stream next to the house. And it was both a sense of joy and a lot of... And release. And this is what was produced there.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

It's all traditional photography in the sense that I'm not manipulating it. It's all close-ups and time exposures. That's the basic technique. Time exposure in the sense that it may only be a 15th of a second, but with the water moving so rapidly, you get a lot of blurring and you get highlights moving around and the sun reflecting on multiple surfaces. So are there any questions or thoughts later? Be glad to talk.

Awesome, thank you Lee. Well I think you are the last artist at least that has their hand up unless anyone else who's in the Zoom would like to share. So I guess we can open it up for questions for Lee or any of the other artists. Oh here's Patrick. Hey Patrick. So we're just wrapping up all the presentations and we're sort of opening it up for questions for any of the artists or just general discussion.

Lee, was your square format native or did you crop it to square?

It was hard to hear but I think the question is did I crop or was it native? I shoot a shot with the 35 millimeter, but the intention was always for it to be square. Okay.

Lee, when you say that it's a time lapse and you're shooting running water, what

Is the length of time? It's not really time lapse. It's just a longer exposure, but it's anywhere from a tenth of a second or in some places where the water is moving quite fast it might be a 30th at the second but when you're very close to the to the subject matter that's it's moving you know it's moving through and blurring quite a bit in that in that you know that speed thank

You

Patrick, you're welcome to share if you'd like. We just wrapped up everyone who had their hands raised. But if you have something to share, you're welcome. You're muted.

I wish I was a little bit more ready than I am. Basically, I don't have anything, but what I'm really getting interested in is this larger project that I've been working on since 2017. I'm now starting to call AFK, in other words, the idea away from keyboard. And it's just the idea of going out and doing vernacular 3D scanning and that sort of thing that has this real kind of expressive feel to it.

Patrick Lichty

And let me see if I can find one piece. Well, I think actually I'd be fumbling around too much, but I'm doing some stuff in Winona. And it's pretty easy to find. I'm going to find one on my Instagram feed.

You know, if you have any information you could share about the IDMA show too.

I know that there's a bunch of Techspressionists in the exhibition.

And maybe you can let us know when it's opening up and how we can see it and all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah, definitely. Okay. So, yeah, I'm curating a show called Weird Media. We have about 90 artists in it, about 15 Techspressionists. It's at the Laird Norton building in Winona. And Negin and I are working on the materials. There'll be a catalog and an online thing. And let's see here. Let me get the URL out here just for the call to works.

Patrick Lichty

It's going to be idmagallery.org. Probably up by the end of next week and next week, middle of the next week. And it's open. It's open from the 24th to the 26th. And in the beautiful Laird Norton building, we have a performance going on at Broken Records. And we're also going to have, we're also building a partnership with the Minnesota Maritime Art Museum, which actually has a very nice early 20th century collection, including some expressionists. And I think... I think in the long term, it might be very interesting to discuss the idea of maybe talking to them about water-centric work that Techspressionists are involved with, that this might be something that they may be interested in. They say, in other words, I met with the... Basically, I was just with the director right now.

Patrick Lichty

And we were talking about, you know, how we can hook up with... You know, with the show now. But they're very interested in possibilities over the next two, three years. And, you know, but with, you know, all water-based material, indigeneity, all these sorts of things. And, you know, that's kind of the thing there. I think, actually, what will be really good is that...

Patrick Lichty

I'm hoping maybe we might have a couple, you know, a couple short things online before. But let's see here. Is that... Might be able to actually show you the website in two weeks. And give you a view, give you a full view of what's going on. But anyway. Nice. Yeah. So anyway, we're... And I'm really, really happy that...

Patrick Lichty

Number one, I'm really happy that I was able to... You know, support the project by including, you know, a bunch of Techspressionists. And I'm really happy to the Techspressionists who... You know, when... I think I mentioned... And I know Negin mentioned it. And we're, you know, got on the call and put your stuff in. And the one thing is, is that I did actually give, you know, the Techspressionists, you know, a lot of consideration. Because I, you know, I wanted to... You know what you were saying? And beyond? Yeah. You know, and so the thing is, is that, okay.

Patrick Lichty

You know, this is... This isn't a huge showing. But it's another nice-sized exhibition, you know, where we have some more Techspressionists in it. And I'm hoping that, you know, we can just keep, you know, putting down the stepping stones, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's awesome. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. Thank you, Patrick. And let's see here. This is the third one. This is the fourth one at Winona State. The first one was curated by Christiane Paul. The last one was Mark American. I'm doing this one.

You know, I don't know if you guys are doing the... Any kind of Matterport capture. But if you need a contact at Artland, you know, I could pass on my contact who shot the show in Southampton. Because they're distributed, you know. I think they sent people out to shoot. And they were pretty affordable.

Colin Goldberg

Like how much? $450 for the whole shoot.

Oh, that's great. Okay. We'll see. We'll see. Right on. Okay, super. Okay.

Thanks, man. Sure thing. I actually have a question for Lucy. So you mentioned that the piece that you're creating is going to be, you know, viewable in VR and also projected onto a dome. Could you tell us a little bit more about both of those aspects? Like if you were, say, like, you know, you have a VR headset. Is there somewhere that you'd be able to go and experience it? And then also with regards to work that's viewable within a dome. Like what sort of facilities accommodate work like that?

So my first intention is the submission for the dome film festival. Two film festivals. And they both will be showing, if I'm accepted. And I don't know if I will be. But if I'm accepted, it will be. I'm sure. So that's the setup. Most of these, like the big planetariums, it's seated. It's a seated dome. So there's a clear forward. You can look around. But there is a forward.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

But there are also domes which are for standing or lying. So you can be, you know, standing all around facing any direction. Easily. So in creating something for a dome, it's a good idea to, you know, have a front, a forward. And many experiences are designed that way. But myself, I really wanted it equally designed for being fully immersive. That's just as interesting no matter which way you're standing. So that's a little bit about the dome. For VR, I'm developing it in VR. It's a VR experience. And then I render it for a dome.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

It needs a bunch of optimization before it's ready to actually put out there on a real platform. Especially, say, for a quest or something. So that is, I'm going to need a bit more time for that. It's not my first priority right now. And, yeah, I guess I would make it available maybe on the Oculus platform or marketplace.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson

But probably, yeah, I haven't really thought how I would make it available. It would definitely be, say, on the Oculus marketplace, not in a VR social environment. Because those platforms are much more limited. And, yeah, what I have so far is just a bit too heavy. I really need to... Well, I don't know. It just isn't going to work in a VR social setup.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions for any of the artists who presented today? Just shout it out if you have anything. Or if you just have a topic of conversation.

I have a question for Alice. I was wondering... What Alice's next step is, given what he's shown us today. Where he plans to go next. What his next photograph might be. Is he still on?

Yeah.

Oh, great.

I... My next... I guess my next, like, little solo exhibition that I'm going to put on my portfolio. Is going to commemorate my birthday. My 27th birthday. Because at the age of 17, in high school, I struggled deeply with mental health issues. And on my birthday will be the 10th anniversary that I tried to take my life for the second time.

Ellis Eclipse

And... I want to... Kind of commemorate it. By learning more about GIMP. So I can learn how to do a photo collage. And at the same time... Bring up awareness to suicide prevention and other mental health issues. I don't think... I never really imagined I would... I would get this far in life. But... I don't know. At the same time...

Ellis Eclipse

I definitely have a deep appreciation for life thus far. And... That's my next move.

I think that sounds like a remarkable project. That will benefit many, many people.

Thank you.

I look forward to seeing it.

Thank you.

Anyone else? We can also certainly open up... The discussion to ideas about what would be... A good jumping off point for the next salon. Which would be two weeks from now. If anyone has any suggestions. We certainly can discuss that while the... Quote unquote camera is still rolling.

Well, I mean, I think... I think that we could definitely take you on a little tour of the, you know, of the of the website of the gallery website. You know, hopefully that'll be done. Keep you in touch with that. And actually, you know what, if I can share just a second.

Now, the theme of that show is weird media, right? Weird media. Yeah. I mean, that could be an interesting topic for the salon to sort of build off. I mean, we'd sort of be stealing your title, but you know what?

No. Hey, I'll tell you, you know, actually, that, you know, that would be, you know, that would be fantastic. Just as you know, just as kind of as long as we say it's kind of, you know, it's kind of hooked in with the, you know, just, you know, it's just kind of, you know, we're going to talk about this is kind of, you know, as a little bit of a topical touch on the weird media show. That's great. You know, that's fantastic. You know, and we've got some of the artists who are in, you know, here and that's fantastic, you know, so. And by the way, one thing really, really quick, if I can, is that I'll just share this. This is what I'm talking about. So what this is, this is the central fountain in Winona. And this is, you know, Princess Winona, the, you know, they're one of the, a Sioux princess who, you know, through her self into the river, you know, nice colonial story.

Patrick Lichty

But the thing is, is that the basically one of the things that I was interested in is basically I scan this with my iPad. And you can see there's some glitching to it. And I think which is really interesting. And then basically took AI with Photoshop and replace the sky. You know, that was just gray. But I mean, but the idea to me, I think, is that the expression and the gesture of, you know, just basically going out someplace and creating by moving through a space and capturing and then bringing it home and then making a piece of work out of it.

Patrick Lichty

As a process, I really, I really like that. I really like this idea and it's starting to really solidify. So there you go. That's what's kind of gone for me.

Thank you, Patrick. So consensus. What do you guys all think of this idea of weird media? As a theme for the next salon in two weeks down with that. So, you know, you should all bust out the work that's the weirdest, you know, and, you know, like, I think that what's interesting is like the work that challenges the notion of what art is, you know, I mean, I definitely feel that if I start to think about what I'm doing, I'm going to be able to do it. But if I start thinking about this expressionism project as a piece of social sculpture versus something else, then I start thinking about what it could be in a completely different set of ways than looking at it as a collective or an artist group or any other sort of label like, you know, looking at it as art, you know, that everybody can sort of move in the direction that they want.

Colin Goldberg

And that's what I'm thinking about. So I think that's really exciting to me to hear about the Canadian node and the flavor of maple. Interesting. We have a lot of maple products here in Vermont, which I've been getting very, very hooked on. Specifically, the maple creamy, which is maple soft serve ice cream.

We Canadians consider it a birthright to always have a can in the fridge.

Nice. Nice. Here's the flavor of cheese. So that's all right.

Anyone else want to broach the topic of and beyond and or weird media?

Yeah. Well, I just want to say, though, because of the NFT.org. I see it's upcoming in two weeks. We actually can do like a special virtual session. That's a very good way to explore for more collectors. And I also have some past that I did several of a company that you are in New York City, you want to join this event that I can do. I can get a pass.

Giovanna Sun

Just mingle with people.

This is cool.

They do have a lot of people go there and the ticket is so expensive.

You know,

Giovanna, like what I've found is Instagram chats are a really good way to just pull people together from within the Techspressionist community. That's kind of like how the nodes first started getting organized as I thought, well, here's the index. I could see all the people right in there who are from Canada, who are from France and just started chats. So like, you know, if you want to get people together who are physically in New York City, you can go down to the New York section of the artist index, see who's in New York City and just start a group chat with an Instagram and say, hey, anyone who wants, you know, like a ticket, like I have a few comps or whatever, you know what I mean? So and I think that's a really good way that we can use the index. Yeah. As a way to organize. Like I got a message from there's two Isaiah's.

Colin Goldberg

Apparently there's two different organizations called Isaiah, but one of them is doing a conference down in Florida. And one of their people reached out to me and said, hey, are there any Techspressionist that might be interested in teaching a one day workshop in Fort Myers? So I just literally like copied and pasted all the Florida artists in the index into an email. And she reached out to a couple of them. You know what I mean? So I think that trying to organize in a localized way using things like Instagram chat, which are just prebuilt for us already. You know, I mean, if Mark Zuckerberg is going to be sucking the life out of our souls and taking all of our personal information, we should at least have some benefit from Meta's products. I'll probably be blacklisted for life by being on a recording saying that, but that's fine.

Colin Goldberg

So, yeah.

Colin, I can't see you anymore. I can't hear you.

I will be wiped from the stricken from the record. Well, it's being published on YouTube, which is a Google platform. So I don't think they'll have any problem with trash talking Meta products.

They'll get promoted.

I did. And I think I DM do about this Patrick that I've been corresponding with your pal Roman. Yeah, I didn't know that he actually lived downtown and hung out with like, you know, Motherwell and all the old school abex painters like he's like the missing link this guy. You know, it's pretty remarkable.

Colin Goldberg

Just his background and you know it looks like he's, you

Know, he was. Monk.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy. So I guess the Roscoe Center for the Arts is at the college where he studied to become a monk. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, so he yeah, he mentioned that, you know, he's open to the idea, possibly of there being some sort of a Techspressionist and his show there at some point in the future. So that

Would be amazing.

He's a really kind, generous person.

Yeah. I mean, his work, you know, is some of the work that really. Inspired me early on. And, you know, I remember seeing it long before I ever, you know, was really involved in anything to do with this project. Just the idea of someone taking calligraphic brushes and mounting them in a plotter.

Well, yeah. You know, I mean, I saw this stuff in 1994. As it's like, I'm looking at this. I asked him me. I said, Would you mind? You know, would you mind? You know, could I be your student? He says, No. And I said, Oh, okay. Well, and then, and then I said, Okay, well, I'm going to go figure this out myself. And he's basically said, That's what I want you to do, Patrick.

Yeah. He mentioned you specifically. We've we've exchanged a couple emails, you know, and I was sort of urging him. Him I was saying well would you mind if we listed you in the in the Techspressionist artist index and he said well actually I identify as an algorist but I appreciate what you guys are doing and I think it's important and I respect that you know I feel like the algorists really were the first organized computer art movement right I mean

Well I mean if you want to kind of talk about things like that you know you could probably maybe talk about eat maybe as yeah and then also Also, there were the people in Zagreb, you know, the new something with Vera Molnar and that sort of thing. And they were around the same time as, you know, but Vera Molnar is also an Algarist, you know. So, I mean, it's. You know so that's yeah there's yeah

As far as isms go like that they were probably the first ism to arise out of the computer right

Yeah well I mean yeah and then there was you know I mean there was that thing that came out that I said the thing that came out of zagra but it I mean it's kind of like saying like the new objectivity you know out of photography you know and you know and that sort of thing so in other words it was kind of an ism but that had a name to it you know kind of like new media you know so I mean it's like you know yeah there yeah it one of the first sure exactly definitely

Right on well it's been really it's been it's been really yeah kind of cool to be

Able to correspond

With that guy yeah he is 90 years old you know right 90 he's 92 92 yeah

Amazing and makes

Amazing bean soup nice well if you guys are able to tune in to Michael Rees's thing tomorrow it should be a real interesting one with the mccoys definitely casey casey reis today was like pretty incredible to see and listen to and hear about his you know development and processing and show some of his personal work it's like really witnessing some cool history in the making so with that it looks like it's just about 705 so that puts us at an hour and a half mark and I guess I will count us down until the next salon which will be on let's see the 22nd super and that will be weird media great awesome so we will stop recording in three two one and cut