Salon 94 // 150 Media Stream Chicago

Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our 94th Techspressionist Salon. My name is Colin Goldberg. I'm an artist currently based in Southern Vermont. I'm joining you here from 150 mediastream, the largest public digital art installation in Chicago. It's composed of 89 led video blades and the installation in full stretches 150 feet by 22 feet. I'm part of an exhibition here called Techspressionist artists, which is composed of 4 audio visual pieces each 2 min in duration.

Colin Goldberg

My work is featured alongside and commissioned pieces by artists Renata Janiszewska, Karen LaFleur, and Jan Swinburne. I'd like to extend my thanks to 150 mediastream curator, Yuge Zhou, and producer, David Bloom for bringing Expressionism to Chicago. I'd also like to thank Yuga's assistant, Colin Mason, for providing support, and he's going to be doing a walkthrough of the installation space shortly. First, st I'm going to present a quick history of Techspressionism. We'll then be joined by the curator, who will share some background information on 150 mediastream, and then each of the 4 artists will share on their work in the show.

Colin Goldberg

After all, 4 are to share. Then we're gonna open the floor for questions and answers, and about an hour into the recording. There's gonna be a live meet and greet event happening here at the installation site. So I'm gonna sign off. And you just gonna sign off at that point. And we're not just gonna take over as moderator. So I'm just gonna share my screen here and we'll get started on the history component.

Colin Goldberg

Okay, you guys see my screen. Okay.

Yes.

Great. So get back to the beginning. Alright.

Colin Goldberg

So Techspressionism is defined as an artistic approach in which technology is utilized as a means to express emotional experience. The term is derived from the root words, technology and expressionism.

Colin Goldberg

So back to the presentation.

Colin Goldberg

I'll start with a little background information which will provide some context for how the term 1st originated. But in the summer of 1993, I did an internship as a studio assistant for a New York artist named Steve Miller, who's been exploring the visual language of technology in his paintings since the 1980s. Miller's studio is a renovated potato barn in the Hamptons, and was a former studio of the artist, Frank Stella. That's Steve on the top left, giving me the rabbit ears during the internship I learned screen printing from a fellow assistant, Robert Bardin, who had been Andy Warhol's printer for many years. That's him on the right next to Steve.

Colin Goldberg

30 years later, Techspressionism.com was launched from the front porch of this very studio. My work, Pollock studio, shown on the left is one of my earliest paintings, incorporating digital print, digital overprinting. In 2,005 it was accepted into the permanent collection of the Pollock-Krasner house and study center, the former home and studio of the painters, Jackson, Pollock and Lee Krasner. The Pollock House's director. At the time Helen Harrison would go on to become a key figure in Techspressionism's formation as an artist group, and continues to serve as an advisor to the project.

Colin Goldberg

In 2,011. I did a pop-up show in Southampton, New York. I needed a name for the show and the term Techspressionism just popped into my head. It seemed like a good way to describe my work which combines technology with personal expression. Helen Harrison wrote the catalog introduction, which was the 1st use of the term Techspressionism in critical commentary. Ms. Harrison would later generously offer her time in the movement's development, and was instrumental in helping to define the term, notably stressing the importance of defining Techspressionism as an approach rather than a style.

Colin Goldberg

This allowed the term to be applicable to a wide range of artistic modalities, both figurative and abstract. In 2014 I wrote the 1st draft of the Techspressionist Manifesto, inspired by artistic manifestos of the past, including Andre Berton's Surrealist Manifesto and Marinetti's futurist manifesto there are 10 points in the manifesto, but I feel that the 1st 3 are the most central one. The computer and technology in general are not separate from humankind, but are a natural extension of us.

Colin Goldberg

2. Technology is a continuum as old as humanity, not a novelty or fad. 3. The computer is just one of a long string of tools that have enabled human expression, including the typewriter, the camera, the printing press, the pen, the pencil and paint. Techspressionism was 1st referred to as a movement in Wired in 2014, in an article titled, If Picasso had a MacBook pro Ironically at that time I was the only artist using the term to describe their work. The term Techspressionism was 1st used on television in a Pbs interview recorded during a 2015 Artist Residency, I did at the studios of Key West.

Colin Goldberg

The art. The interview aired on the Pbs. Miami show art loft and was later syndicated to other Pbs. Stations across the United States.

Colin Goldberg

One morning in the summer of 2020, I did a Google search for Techspressionism, and saw that an artist named Oz Van Rosen had independently used the term to describe her work in several articles online. I reached out and asked her if she was interested in developing an artist group around Techspressionism, and she was receptive to the idea. We decided to use Instagram as a platform to locate other artists and established an account for Techspressionism. Featuring our work. Later that month I reached out to Steve Miller to discuss the idea. We did some brainstorming, and on August 20, second 2020 Techspressionism.com launched from the front porch of Miller's Sagaponack studio.

Colin Goldberg

Shortly thereafter I contacted Helen Harrison. In addition to her post as director of the Pollock Prasner House. Harrison is the author of a monograph on Pollock, and is a respected scholar on abstract expressionism she found the idea of interest, and agreed to serve in an advisory role for the project. Helen suggested organizing an exhibition to gauge interest in developing the artist group. So we organized a zoom meet up to discuss the next steps.

Colin Goldberg

The 1st expressionist salon was held on September 1st 2020, and in attendance were Helen Harrison, Oz Van Rosen, myself, Steve Miller, and my friend and graduate, school colleague, Patrick Lichty, who was teaching animation in Abu Dhabi at the time we collectively established the current definition of Techspressionism with the goal of bringing it into common usage as a term of art historical nomenclature. The salons have become a core component in Techspressionism's development as a movement.

Colin Goldberg

Techspressionism started as an artist group during the pandemic, when many people were quarantined and Zoom gained worldwide popularity as a means of communication. These meetups were inspired by the surrealist salons of the 1920s in which artists could meet informally to socialize and discuss ideas. These international artist meetups include regulars from Canada, the UK, Iran, and Germany, as well as visitors from many other nations. This screenshot from Salon number 2, is the earliest photographic documentation of the salons Artist Davonte Bradley, also known as Davo, who is visible in the lower left, proposed recording our salons and creating a Techspressionism YouTube Channel, which, launched in 2021 salons are held on the 1st Thursday of each month at noon Eastern time and are free and open to the public.

Colin Goldberg

Artists, are encouraged to share their work online via zoom screen sharing. Techspressionism's growth model is based on self-identification. Basically, you're a Techspressionist. When you say you are to further this philosophical approach, we introduced the hashtag Techspressionism on Instagram to spread the word and to allow artists to self identify with the term. The Instagram hashtag has been the primary mechanism by which Techspressionism has propagated itself internationally. There are currently over 80,000 posts on Instagram using the hashtag Techspressionism. The Techspressionist visual Artist index was established in October 2020.

Colin Goldberg

It's a curated selection of artists primarily discovered through their use of the hashtag on Instagram. Over the past 3 years our online artist index has grown from the 4 artists in our initial salon to over 350 artists from more than 45 countries. Artists working with technology can add the hashtag Techspressionism on Instagram to their posts to gain visibility to the group and our Instagram, Curator, Renata Janiszewska. When the Instagram, when the Techspressionism YouTube Channel launched in 2021. It also became the platform for an ongoing series of artists interviewing other artists in the spirit of Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine.

Colin Goldberg

These interviews include discussions with many pioneers in the field, such as the artist, Anne Spalter, who is founder of the Digital art programs at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University and Frank Gillette, a seminal video artist in the 1960s, whose work was recently included in signals. The Video Art Survey at the Museum of modern art.

Colin Goldberg

In the 1970s the German artist, Joseph Boies, created the term social sculpture to embody his understanding of art's potential to transform society as a work of art. Social sculpture includes human activity that strives to structure and shape or shape society or the environment. Some transformative goals of Techspressionism based on community consensus include the following. To present innovative work in a broad range of styles expressing the expressive potential of electronic media to demonstrate that artists have always adopted contemporary technologies for creative purposes.

Colin Goldberg

And to exercise curatorial inclusivity regarding gender equality and international focus and sociocultural diversity. In 2022, Michael Pierre Price established the Techspressionism, Roundtable Series. The 1st Round Table was a lively discussion on the movement between Helen Harrison and Christiane Paul, the current curator of Digital art at the Whitney Museum. This recording, along with the other roundtables, is available for viewing on Techspressionism.com. Because the artist group was founded during the pandemic. Our 1st few exhibitions were held online.

Colin Goldberg

In May of 2021, the exhibition NFT Now, curated by Anne Spalter, opened on Techspressionism.com. As one of the Web's 1st curated exhibitions of nfts. Techspressionism, Digital and beyond was the 1st large-scale physical group exhibition of Techspressionist artworks. The Exhibition which I curated for Southampton Arts Center in Southampton, New York, included the works of more than 90 artists working with technology from over 20 countries around the world.

Colin Goldberg

Last summer the Kingsborough Art Museum hosted, Hello, Brooklyn. Expressionism, 2024. A group exhibition of digital artists curated by artist Tommy Mintz. The exhibition included over a hundred expressive innovative works in various styles and mediums by an international selection of artists.

Colin Goldberg

This fall the 1st exhibition of Techspressionist works outside of the United States will be held at the Contemporary Art Museum of Uzbekistan. It is tentatively titled simply Techspressionism. The Curator, Cynthia Beth Rubin, will lead a group of 12 artists to Uzbekistan in September the exhibition will be open in September 3, rd and will be up for 3 to 4 weeks. And now I have one more thing to let you guys know about before we get into the Walkthrough last night was actually the opening reception for the 1st expressionism exhibition in Manhattan.

Colin Goldberg

Hello, Chelsea, Techspressionism 2025. The exhibition is at Hudson Guild Gallery, in Chelsea, which is located at 4 41 West 26th Street on the west side, and runs through June 25.th so with that, I'd like to introduce our next guest. Curator, Tommy Mintz will share a few details about our current exhibition in Chelsea, and you can take it away, Tommy.

Thank you so much, Colin. It was really wonderful overview of the I can't talk and tap at the same time of the history of Techspressionism. And yeah, I really appreciate this community and this group as an artist, I'm sorry once again can't tap the talk. I, you know, find it to be very sustaining in my practice to be involved. In a group of artists that have A common interest and engagement in each other's work over a period of time. So here's, by the way, the location of our current show 400 and 41 West 26th Street, on the west side of Manhattan. Exactly as Colin said. There's a lovely little path up to the entrance of the Elliott center. Hudson Guild. Elliott Center is the name of the building, and there's a gallery space within that. So here's the view of the current exhibition, and we have well, so from the left there John Zieman, Renata, Yanashevska, Oz Van Rosen Davo.

Tommy Mintz

Probably Colin with his metagraphs, book and postcards that we're giving away that have AR component to him. And Steve Miller, I love the fact that Colin has a stack of postcards in a very generous way here, which is kind of embodies the whole ethos, I think of expressionism, which is a very generous approach to art making. I. I don't think we're operating from a sense of scarcity when we have this ability to interact in ways that are not based on geographic proximity. When I was in graduate school, Joseph Nechvatal came to visit and let's see through the Joseph Nechvatal right here. I'm sorry tapping and talking at the same time. Joseph Nechvatal is A digital artist who's on one of the screens here, and I'm doing a bad job giving a tour of the exhibition and talking through it. But Joseph Nechvatal came to visit Queens College when I was a graduate student there, and he told me the most important thing to a sustainable life as an artist was not selling your work. Of course that's important, but having a group of artists that you can share work with and who you respect. And this show represents the energy and creativity the expressionism community has generated through these continuous interactions that in the past would have really been difficult.

Tommy Mintz

Because of the geographic distances. Digital artists have always worked at the same tools that businesses have used, and maybe in subversive ways. And I love the fact that, you know, during the pandemic we kind of subverted the productivity tool of Zoom to create a community that you know produce energy for art. So. Yeah, I mean, I hope that this show the shows that we've been putting together in physical space further cement that relationship and expand on it in a way that you could see the connections, maybe, between artists work that allows for continued growth in each, you know, in everybody's practices, really. So yeah, that's my direction as a curator and my 5 min spiel as a Tour guide of this exhibition.

Tommy Mintz

So yeah, I'm gonna scroll a little bit more through these empty shots of the show being installed. We have Clive Holden there, and you know, on the other screen there we have headphones for people to listen to things. We have lovid and Carry on. Shim sham on that column right there. That's to the right now. And gosh, I have a lot of pictures of the empty space. Yeah, I think that's Joseph Nekbital right there with his virus. And we have a large wall of images that we're really wonderfully demonstrating this international. Group. That Techspressionism.

Tommy Mintz

Memberships the members of come from right. So such an amazing array of places. And I wanted to describe that within that Salon style. Wall, over there. And I'm gonna scroll past this till we get to some People showing up. Darcy Gerbarg has a beautiful augmented reality. Sculpture here that Sung Jin Lee is viewing. And yeah, people showed up last night. It was wild, you know. I didn't expect such a crowd. But, boy, you put a show up in Chelsea, and all of a sudden People show up. That is the wonderful Nina Sobell. Right in the middle of the picture there, next to Scojo, Nina's talking to Lee Day, and behind lead day is Ann Shapiro, who's talking to Cynthia, Beth, Rubin, and all those wonderful interactions in person, I think, are really the sort of point of having a show and an opening reception for giving artists a place to, you know.

Tommy Mintz

Appreciate each other. So yeah, that's all I have to share, really. And I'm gonna try to unshare my screen. But you need to be patient with me because I'm tapping.

Tommy Mintz

Did that share stop.

Yes, it did.

Great. Thank you.

Okay, Tommy, and can you remind us when that show is running through.

So the show the I'm sorry the Hudson Guild, Elliott Center is open Monday through Friday 9 Am. To 5 Pm. The that's free the show is up through June 25, th so we have about 2 months in Chelsea.

Awesome. Okay, thanks so much. And our next salon, which is going to be the 1st Thursday of June June 5, th is actually going to be an artist panel that is going to be taking place from the gallery. So if you guys are in town and you'd like to come by, or if you'd like to zoom in, our salons are always on the 1st Thursday of the month, at 12 Pm. Eastern time. So with that, we're going to switch to the main event here, which is the exhibition at 150 media stream for expressionist artists. And we're going to open that segment up with the curator Yuge Zhou! So I'm going to pass the mic on to Yuga.

Hi, thanks, Colin. I think I should share my screen. Don't do that. Can you guys hear? Can you guys hear me?

Yep.

Okay. Alright I'm gonna share my screen.

Yuge Zhou

So I'm gonna start with, like, just a brief background about myself and moving on to you know, introduction of the media stream and our program in general. So my name is, I'm a video artist and curator based in Chicago. My personal work. Explore coexistence and social interactions in urban spaces. This is a piece shot in the subway station in New York City and it was a video collage and it was shown at various places in the world. And the most recent version was collected by the Tomar Art Foundation.

Yuge Zhou

This is another piece of mine. That is using Olympic gymnastic footage. And it's again about the kind of the coexistence and the geopolitics of the you know. That is kind of going on in the war right now, as the trampoline gymnastics change identities when they jump on the trampoline knives. And this piece is also featured at various places at different venues. And it's gonna be if anyone's in New York City in June, it's gonna be featured at Times Square as part of the midnight moment program from June 1st to June 30th every day for 3 min, from 1157 to 12 to 12 am. So check it out. If you're in New York.

Yuge Zhou

So I'm gonna spend some time on the Vanity Media stream. Installation. The installation is located in the lobby of a high rest building at 1 50 North Riverside Plaza in Chicago. So the building is it really has a really interesting structure. It has like this, upside down triangle shape, and it has a really deep base. The reason for that is that the building itself is built on the train tracks on the Metro tracks. So there's metro tracks literally underneath where we are sitting right now. And so we have a really small footprint, but a really deep base. And it's right next to the river in downtown Chicago. So it's really prime spot. So the Arts program started early 2017 and the installation is located in the lobby of in the lobby of this building, and the lobby is a glass. It's kind of like a glass.

Yuge Zhou

Glass. It's glass material. So it's you can see the installation from outside and even from the train that passing through the building and the installation has a really unique shape. It's divided into 89 individual led panels, and it stretches over 150 feet long, and which is 2022 feet tall. It's the largest structure of its kind in the city. Like, I said, our program launched in 2017, and since then we have started showcasing commission works by emerging and renowned local and international Median artists.

Yuge Zhou

And the Arts program also includes partnerships with many major institutions and university for Arts program. And so our goal is to provide a forum for students and faculties and cultural practitioners in Chicago and beyond to showcase and promote their work in, you know, in this environment, that is, you know, not traditional art gallery or art museum, but it's kind of an intersection between the art and the Vietnamese and culture of Chicago. This is a kind of a short list of the institution we worked with.

Yuge Zhou

You know, since since our since our opening. And I'm gonna this is, I'm gonna just quickly go through some of the works that we featured before. And this is this is from our opening artist, Jason Sullivan. And this is a collaborative collaborative work between Megan price. And so, as you can tell, artists have sort of utilize this unique structure of 89 blades, but using their own medium and kind of create works to fit and you know not just like not just like random works, but really work within the structure and create designs that would, you know, aesthetically and conceptually, you know, fit with this structure that we have.

Yuge Zhou

We also have interactive works. This is an augmented reality piece by Rory Scott, Pisa Butler, a renowned fiber artist. And this is a project in partnership with the Art Museum of Chicago. Our one of our most recent projects in partnership in partnership with architectural studio mass context. We also showcase performative works in our space. Normally, it would happen right in front of the video wall. And in you know, like the performance would respond to the content. On the installation.

Yuge Zhou

Also also the orchestra. We have. We have music performance in front of the lobby as well. In front of the video wall. And this is a collaborative piece between Mbo animation artist and Chris doar a jazz composer, and we had his 9 piece orchestra performing in front of the video wall to accompany the animation behind them. We also do a lot of artist talks. Whenever we have a new project, we would have artists to talk about our work. So it's like, kind of discussions so that people would learn more about the project and the artist. We gave a lot of tours to local class.

Yuge Zhou

Oh, School of the Arts in of Chicago, the Uic Northwestern. People, just you name it. We average. We would give 2 at least 2 classrooms per month. This is one of our openings with the traffic ballet. So without further ado, I think we should, you know, have artists and have a works walks through about, you know, the our new projects for expressionist artists, and we're gonna have my assistant, Colin Mason, to give a tour he's Colin is right in front of the video right now. So he's gonna give a tour of the space and of the installation. And I just want to just quickly say that the new, this new exhibition, this new exhibition is gonna be on wheel from April 28th to July 20, th and the billing hour is from Monday to Friday 11 Am. To 2 Pm. And Saturday one to 10 p. 1 to 10 pm. And you can check out more information about the work on our website, 150 mediastream.com. So I'm going to stop share. So Colin Mason can. You know you can see Colin's screen?

Yuge Zhou

I think we should have the spotlight on Colin Mason. Yes.

Yuge Zhou

Yes, all right. So as you can see that this is, you know. I guess a 25% of the installation is a really long installation. It's like, say, it's a hundred 50 feet long 22 feet tall, and it's impossible to capture the whole space at once.

Yuge Zhou

So the installation has a really, the screen is really high. The resolution of the installation is actually really high. I mean, I guess it's hard to see from, you know, a cell phone lens. But you know, the artist will tell you that it probably takes them forever to render out their projects, because, it's 4 by 4 k, so it's 15,260 pixels by 2160 pixels. So it's a very, very large canvas to work with. And we, whenever we commission new projects, you know, we would alert the artists and make sure that this is something that they can render in their studio.

Yuge Zhou

So we do have sound in the space but it's kind of hard to hear right now, you know, from the from the cell phone. But the behind the video wall there are 8 speakers embedded. So you can hear the sound in the in the space although they are not. They are kind of blend in with the ambient sound. And there's a receptionist in front of the video wall to check in our guests and the public. I guess if anyone have questions about the installation and the project and the curatorial program or anything. You know, they can put down in the chat.

Yuge Zhou

Yes, you can see. Actually, there's a train passing through right now in right next to our building. So it's in Chicago. We have the famous our train. There's a green line and pink line, and the red line and purple line, and many more colors of lines. But so we have the green lines and pink line right literally right next to our building. So at night, if you get on one of those trains, you can, you can see, like even you pass through the building. You can see the video wall very clearly from the train. And also across the building. So our building is right next to the river. So you know, if you are walking on the river walk, you can also see the video wall.

Yuge Zhou

And you know we are programmed. So our goal is to showcase digital art artists, artists who work in time-based medium. It is really one of my personal Mission to advocate, you know, for the for this medium, since I'm working in this in this type of work as well. So we do not show any commercial works. There's no like info, infographic or anything other than just Art on the installation. And the program is funded by the tenants, that is, that is, in the building. So our building, 150 North Riverside, is a commercial office building. So it's not residential. And we have.

Yuge Zhou

I said, maybe 50 different companies ranging from investment firms to law firms. We have the Hyatt Corporation and we have William Blair, who's an investment firm. And that's a law firm, and many of those companies have their own art collection and their own in-house curators. So they are patrons of the art, and they generously, you know, put down part of their rent to this installation. So our commission fee to the artist and all the operating budget of the installation is donated by the tenants of the building. So we really thankful for that.

Yuge Zhou

Yes. So what I think is really interesting is that how you kind of see artists, especially this project. You know the fall artist. Great. Very interesting work that address the unique shape of the installation, using the tools you know that they have and create such a different works. But all those works can coexist on this. You know. Platform so in a way, you know, we see this installation as a piece of sculpture, you know, like it's a it's a sculptural installation, but it's also moving right? And it's the content is changing all the time. So you know, in Chicago we have a really long history of public art, and we have the Picasso we have Chago. You know, we have a lot of very, very long history of public art, and I think you know, Stream is part of the legacy, you know, and the future.

Yuge Zhou

Hopefully, you know of the public art in Chicago, as the technology becomes more and more accessible, especially screen technology, I think you're gonna see more and more screen-based public art installation in the city, you know, in big cities, especially like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Denver. I think the reason for that is that you know, people are interested in something that's not just static, you know, but it's moving. And the content is kind of changing over time. So we are really one of the 1st program arts program in Chicago that started this. You know, this type of model. But I think it's gonna be, you know, more and more popular, you know, in the within the within the country, but also, you know, globally.

Yuge Zhou

Not sure if anyone has questions about the installation or the technology behind it. I guess I just want to mention quickly that so Oh, we have. So for to, in order to drive the content on the video wall to output the content on such a large video wall, we have 5 computers so we on in the on the 6th floor of the building. There's a large Control room. And in the room there is like 5 computers so 4 out of those 5 computers are outputting content onto each quadrant of the video wall. So we have 4 quadrants right? And then the 5th computer is a backup machine. So if one of those Computer fails, then the 5th one would pick up the content so that there's no downtime. And we have the our playback system has a has the ability to not only showcase linear, pre-rendered content, but also generative work as well. So we have artists who worked in unity open framework and touch designer.

Yuge Zhou

So our next project in the fall is actually gonna be interactive work where we have cameras on the video wall and the camera would capture the visitor and guest activity in the lobby and directly transfer that content onto the video wall.

Yuge Zhou

Okay? So David is asking, is there any significance to the layout of the installation in terms of in terms of. If in terms of height in terms, if height, and these changes of the individual blades. So Yes, so the, I guess. A little bit of the background of the design of the unique shape of the installation is that. If you can see behind the behind, the blaze is like this kind of horizontal line that actually leads to the garage of the building. So The architect of the building the architect is partners. They are based in Chicago. So they when they initially designed the building, they were not happy with the horizontal line that leaves, you know that is like right behind the video wall. So they wanted something to be in front of the line to kind of soften that line, but also to create more dynamic into the lobby space and bringing outside inside. So the layout of the installation is there's many iterations of the layout, but the ultimately they landed on this design is this idea of the wave, you know? Because we have, we are. We have, like the river right next to us. So this shapes you know of the blaze like it, kind of like a wave, but also like this idea of kind of nature, because we also have the trees and the grass. So there's a garden right next to the right, next to the building as well. So the grass kind of the tall grass and the tree. Tall kind of tree, like the verticality Of you know of the blades, is kind of a reference to that as well.

Yuge Zhou

So there's a lot of A lot of kind of nature elements in the original design. And yes, it is visible across the river. And so we, I guess another reason for the design is also kind of a technical constraint. So at that time, when we, when we 1st installed, you know, installed this video world that was like 2016 and you know, I think we talked about having it like a curved shape or other kind of shapes. But this is also just something doable, you know, at that time, you know, with the kind of the screen technology we had. So Yeah, but it really worked out pretty well, you know, I think it's just such a unique shape. And also, I think architecturally, fits really well within the kind of a high rise lobby, you know of the like of the space we have here.

Yuge Zhou

So why did the creators decide to use blaze and space intermittently. So. I mean, I think each each creators probably have their I mean, each artist would probably have their own. I were you asking about the artist or asking about the original design of the blaze of the video wall? I think if you're asking about the artist, I think they are probably, you know, depending on. Depending whatever of the design of the video. Okay,. I mean, I think what they wanted to do is to have something that's unconventional. I think the thing that they didn't want is to just have a rectangle wall like a rectangle screen the lobby. Because that's just kind of everywhere that just feels like.

Yuge Zhou

You know, it's it feels like that's what we used to see. And so they want to have something that is, like very unique, that is not like, you know, just a regular rectangle. Wall. And I think this blades idea like again, is part of like what they can do at a time. You know, it's not like but the you know they were. It was they were taught they. I think there was 1 1 version of the design where the blades was like same height, and then like same width. But that just didn't look interesting. I mean, just so. So actually, I was not part of the design team like I got haired right after they, you know, they decided on the layout, so I guess I didn't know exactly what it was like the Decision making process. But I did look through all the iterations of the designs, and I think so. They had like a 1 time there was a curved kind of blades, and then there was also something more continuously.

Yuge Zhou

You know, without the space in between. But I think they landed on this on this shape. Because that is just I think it's like it's looking. It looks more interesting. It's very sculptural. But it also like you can. You can kind of see the nature like the you know the garden behind the blades. So it's not completely blocking the outside. But then it also creates kind of this undulated shape like it's a vape shape. So I think there's multiple factors. But another reason, like I said, is also technologically, what is what was do about it at time?

Yuge Zhou

Yeah, I think I agree. I think there's definitely architectural element, like, you know, the building itself is so tall. And you know, we have a really high ceiling as well. So I think the blaze was like going up was definitely to kind of address the architectural features of the lobby as well.

Yuge Zhou

Yeah, I agree. It's very interesting, you know to see how the different blades you know the width and the thickness, the thickness and the height create a 3 dimensional curve space. So I always tell the artists whenever they create a work for the installation that, it's you can look at the video wall as a window into another world, or you can look at the video wall as a piece of sculpture. So, however, you want to address it, I mean, I think those are 2 main approach that the artists have taken.

Yuge Zhou

Yes, thank you. So yes, I mean, I agree. Yeah. The blades open the space and allow the beavers to enter the space. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think it's a very smart idea as well. It's like, you not only because the lobby is all glass, you know, like, so you can actually see what's going on outside and outside can see what's going inside. But with the installation you add like, almost like a virtual kind of element into it, like you, you kind of. There's another layer to the to the kind of the scenery outside, and you know whatsoever what's going in the lobby like you kind of enters another dimension, and depending on the content of the you know, the artists are created on the video wall. It could be something abstract, like what we're looking at right now and geometric. And it gives something that is literally. You know, like, like opening up a space behind the video wall, we had artists like, I said, who create interactive works, where you can see yourself on the video wall. So it's a it's a very interesting installation in that sense that you know, just a sheer possibility of it. So like I said, the how big a file master artist generates. So the installation has a very, very high rise screen. So it's 15,360 by 2160 pixels. So I think normally, the file that the artist generate is I think I think it's depending on the length depending on how many minutes the work is. But we normally ask the artist to produce somewhere between 2 to like 8 or 10 min of work. So that's I can probably go. The file itself can go up to maybe 20 or 30 GB. I mean, we do ask artists to render as high resolution as they can. They can. They can render it out in like the mov, mov file or animation but I think in general it's some artists also render out in Mp. 4. So I think it ranges. The file. Size is probably somewhere between 10 GB to like 30 or 40 GB.

Yuge Zhou

So it's pretty large file and we have a really large storage space for it as well, and we keep expanding it. So a couple of years ago, we just expanded our storage room. Another thing I want to mention about the program is that once we commission the work, the work, become part of our collection. So we not only showcase New Commission work, but our past feature projects we also we also show it as well like it's, you know, like, maybe not on a day to day basis. But we you know, we occasionally would pull while our past work, and we'll show it for like special events, or you know, I'll just like. You know, if there's a class tours, you know. Oh, you know, visit some special visitors so like our past work are part of our collection, and we are slowly building building up a really kind of a comprehensive, comprehensive media art collection. We do not show steels, so stills has to be converted into some kind of animated format. So yeah, we do not show still work. So it has to be a time-based piece.

Yuge Zhou

Great. I think we? I think we should. I guess. Colin and I need to get offline and start our in person meet and meet and greet at the lobby. So I guess maybe the next next thing is the artist in each individual artist to share talk more about their work for this exhibition.

Yuge Zhou

And thank thank you so much, everyone, for all your great questions.

Alright. Thanks so much. Yuga for sharing about the installation site, and thank you to Colin Mason for the awesome walkthrough. It's really pretty incredible to be here in person. And to see just the scale of this work. It was also, you know, a challenge to create work. At this size we had some technical constraints that we had to deal with. And basically, the proportions are something like 15,600 by 2160. So it's like the equivalent of 4 4 k screens lined up together.

Colin Goldberg

So I'm just going to share very quickly on my work. I've used up a lot of time already talking about expressionism. So I'm just going to quickly share on my piece, which is called Interior landscape, and I'm just going to put on the actual piece which is at the proportions of the screen. Can you guys see my screen? Okay. Okay, so as an undergraduate painting student, I studied under Angelo Ippolito, who is a noted New York school abstract expressionist.

Colin Goldberg

And when I asked my professor what his work was about, Ippolito simply responded, it's about paint. I found his answer, at 1st frustrating and then liberating. It allowed me to appreciate and then fully embrace abstraction without the need for explanation. Prior to that my work was primarily figurative. So, in the words of Marcel Duchamp, a work of art is completed by the viewer. And I really like that. Years later, I related my professor's response. It's about paint to Marshall Mcluhan's famous phrase. The medium is the message.

Colin Goldberg

And that's kind of the way that abstract expressionism developed, I think, ideologically is, there didn't need to be a real concrete explanation of the work, very emotionally based, like the action paintings of Pollock or Rothko's color field paintings. So my particular work in the exhibition, then, is about pixels, and it draws upon the surrealist practice of automatic drawing which aims to produce art without thought or intervention from the conscious mind.

Colin Goldberg

Each mark, color, and motion is influenced by the sum of the previous ones. As the work develops organically from the subconscious. So it's really created in a stream of consciousness way. There's no preconceived notion of what it's going to end up like, although the initial composition with the different various elements is done as a still digital drawing in adobe illustrator, the actual animation is done in adobe animate. So expressionism is an approach that provides me with a glimpse inside myself through the oracle of technology. Thus the title of my piece in this exhibition interior landscape.

Colin Goldberg

It's about pixels. And now I'd like to pass the mic on to Renata Janiszewska, who's our next artist presenter, and Renata is going to be taking over moderation from here. So I want to thank you guys all. And I'm going to head downstairs. But again, a real honor to be part of this project, and I appreciate all of my 3 co-conspirators who created work for this show as well. So I'll pass the mic on to Renata.

Thank you very much, Colin, and I want to say thank you to Yuga, and also to her assistant, Colin Mason, for all the work they did with us, and how they helped make this project happen in a really smooth way. I'm just going to share my screen. And.

Renata Janiszewska

Yeah, I. I really appreciate expressionism because I work. I live and work in a fairly isolated part of Canada. There are only 800 people in the village where I live and the art that's produced around me. It tends to be based more on the landscape around. Because I use digital tools to do my work. I really always would like places to show that work on a screen rather than printing it out. This installation at 150 is so good as a place to get a different perspective on the work that I'm creating. I do the music, and I do all the images myself. And in this piece in particular, I made a lot of interplay happen between abstraction and representation.

Renata Janiszewska

So here you see an abstract part of my 2 min piece. The piece is called Pastel Souf. Which in English means pastel size, and the color palette that I used in this piece was fairly muted in many places, although when you see it from different angles, the colors really changed a lot from where they 1st started to seeing them on the actual installation itself. So portraiture has been a preoccupation of mine for some time now, and I use a really large variety of softwares to make my work look a certain way in this. Still, you're seeing a piece made entirely out of emojis.

Renata Janiszewska

It's a still from a video work, and it's got a kind of reference to Italian Renaissance art. And this is not from the work itself. This is like a prior sketch that I did before I made the piece for 150 media stream, and so you can see, the proportions of this are almost a square. But I did set this little excerpt.

Renata Janiszewska

And. Sorry in that last bit. There you saw some data mashing which is a technique that I find challenging to work with this excerpt. I'm showing you now is at the scale of the work that you see on the installation. So it's very long and sorry. It's very wide and not very tall.

Renata Janiszewska

Sorry folks.

Renata Janiszewska

And then finally, you see it as it is in the installation. But at night time.

Renata Janiszewska

Bye. I just want to say thank you again to my fellow artists who worked on this project with me. I couldn't have surmounted the technical challenges without the help of Karen LaFleur, and also without the support and comradeship of my other fellow artists, Jan Swinburne and Colin Goldberg. And now I'm going to pass the presentation on to Karen LaFleur.

You're muted, Karen.

Yeah, I know I have a giants other window that popped up on my screen. Same here. I thank all my fellow artists, too, for all the cooperation and support and passing files back and forth that we had to do. I'm going to jump right in and share my screen here. Okay, we have to wait a second for Zoom to get out of the way. Okay, there we are. So my piece on the 150 mediastream video wall is titled Mccorasol, and I'll explain that in a few minutes. Why, that's titled that way. But 1st I'd like to thank Yugesao for this amazing opportunity to be on such an incredible video wall. It certainly was a technical challenge, but it was also a fun challenge to do. I want to also thank Nancy Tucker, who does the music on my moving image artworks, and made a beautiful score for this particular piece for Chicago. And then I also like to thank David Bloom for making the 1st contact to 150 mediastream and for his input on production in the project.

Karen LaFleur

Here's another close-up of my piece. There's a lot of things happening in mine. You could stand at any point up close in a video wall and see a video in and of itself, and if you stand back you end up seeing the whole thing. This is probably about, you know, a fat quarter or a short 3rd of the piece on the video wall. And I'm going to play it right now and again. The music's by Nancy Tucker.

Karen LaFleur

Oh.

Karen LaFleur

I titled my piece, my corasol, because it's based on fungi roots, these tiny mycelium that attach onto tree and plant roots and extend actually, the tree's reach to nutrients and water, etc. So it's sort of this symbiotic relationship. And I really like that idea, because with Techspressionism we always seem to be handing out a hand to each other to move everyone forward in their own creative processes, which I love about the group, and so on the bottom. You can see probably what would have been the full screen down the wall Without the templates. Okay. On this next screen. Here, everybody's been talking about the blades. This is actually the template on the top that Yuga gave to us at the very, very beginning.

Karen LaFleur

And you can almost see the 4 4 k sections in there that we had to work with. Obviously the center strip is the full piece that I just showed you in the previous slide, and on the bottom you can see how the blades affect your design. So it was constantly. All of us were going back and forth trying to get the placement of where we wanted objects to actually appear on these blades. So it was quite a technical challenge. As everybody said, it was 15,360 pixels across by 21 pixels down.

Karen LaFleur

This is a huge file. So we did pass files back and forth between each other. Some people had processing speed, others knew how to do the compression work, but may not have had the room on their computers. So other people would work on the compression together, and it was well over a year that we worked on this project together. So not only is it an amazing piece to see on the video wall, but is really a collaborative piece between all of us to get this job done. I am zooming in here now on some details that you don't see when things are flying by you, so that each little part and piece has its own little choreographic score. It's almost like this giant, Rube Goldberg sort of machine, all sort of spinning at once.

Karen LaFleur

So I thought I'd give you a couple of up-close detailed pieces. And here's another one. So everything in the piece does move, even though your eye is focused on the actual large screen itself. Which is why, if you stood in front of it in one small section, you'd have a video of its own. Here's another detail shot still.

Karen LaFleur

And here's the video wall at night.

Karen LaFleur

And I'm going to end on this last slide. If you look at the color photo on the right. You'll notice that sort of on the left-hand side of that photo. There are these white, streaky lines coming in. These are actual sketches from my husband's sketchbooks. He was a brilliant artist in and of his own right, but he passed away way too young, and on the left, you see, actually the drawings from his books. But he, ever since he was quite young he would go every summer to Chicago and paint with his grandfather plein air on the streets of Chicago in the industrial section zones every summer. So this is my private. But now public love letter to Phil, and I'm bringing him to Chicago on the video wall.

Karen LaFleur

At this point I'm going to pass the screen over to Jan Swinburne. Let me stop share here so she can.

Karen LaFleur

There we go!

Oh!

All right.

One can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great. Let me get to my share and get rid of zoom. Okay. So I also wanted to thank everybody for 1 50 media stream, and you exhaust my colleagues. David Goldblum, for getting things rolling and helping us with, you know, actually being able to get into Chicago and test things as well, and take pictures. And yeah, it's just been a really fascinating project all along, and a great group of artists to be working with. We really were able to help each other out with this. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about this project. I got really excited about being able to show at 1 50 media, because a lot of my work is centered in sound, and the form of the blades actually did sort of fit the idea of a waveform, so that was an interesting and really exciting piece for me.

Jan Swinburne

This sonic flight towards peace is a project. It's an iteration of a project that I've shown elsewhere. And I was really happy to create it for something for this particular space. And I'll just talk about the process a little bit. This form that you see is actually the sound of a sonic jet that flew over my House during one of the Toronto air shows. So it was so. It was like a big sonic boom. And I basically captured that sound and was really interested in the fact that the waveform itself kind of resembled a plane. You know it looks like it has wings and a tip, and certain planes are designed that way. So that was really interesting. And you know. So I worked from this low resolution image and just gradually worked with changing it a still and then working towards actually animating I it's let's see if this will go. There's a lag!

Jan Swinburne

Very crude, simple animation, and then went to secondary iterations, and then this was the 1st time I actually use the image. And it's a video, a standard video with it, traveling through space, which was the idea of sound and distorted sound, and something. You know, invisible, made visible kind of being transformed all through technology into this sort of organic form. Was something that really kind of I found very intriguing. So. There's a still which you can see a lot more of the details that you know, if you're not at 1 50, you're probably not seeing, and I think I've got a.

Jan Swinburne

The next one is just gives you an idea. Of the sort of feathery movement Of this sound. And it's really interesting, too, because of the times that we're living in. And you know the idea of war jets and Unsettledness and everything else, and being able to transform something that's meant to, you know, defend or harm, or whatever way you want to look at it into actually something that's peaceful and sort of talks more to. You know the kind of nicer side of life. And then through the process and through working for this particular installation, it seemed I ended up with this color scheme, and, like everyone said we, we had to do a lot of iterations and experiment and see what worked. And because, you know, it is a switch, and the Leds have their own quality, the blades. There's all sorts of things. So The idea was to, you know.

Jan Swinburne

Push, kind of push ourselves and explore what we could do here. And I think this is the video which will give you can't hear the soundtrack. Let's see, there should be sound on this.

Jan Swinburne

So that's kind of where that ended up, and I wanted you to get a good sound Of the jet and let you see what it ended up as.

Jan Swinburne

Okay. And I think that's it for me. And I will hand it back to Renetta and thank you. Everyone for this opportunity, and being narrows. Stop, share. Okay, thanks.

Alright. Thank you, Jeff. It's time to open it up. If you have any questions, and you've been putting them into the chat. If you just want to raise your hand, then I can call on you.

Renata Janiszewska

Alvin.

So I've got. I've been making my own videos, and my largest ones are start with about 600 source files. Each one's about 15 MB. So the raw source files run just shy of 10 gigs. But when you're making Mp. 4 s. At least with the software I have, you're limited to 4 GB which wouldn't be big enough for this. Which can you recommend software that could concatenate those files into a large enough file for a project like that. That's sort of interesting to me.

Erin or Jen any.

Renata Janiszewska

You're both muted.

Karen I think, Karen, speaking.

Oh, I'm sorry! I thought.

Yeah, okay.

I hit the button, but it didn't go. Sorry about that. I used final cut pro. It was the only software I could find out of my toy box of softwares that would do a true 15,360 pixels across. Many of them will let you set that. But when you print it out it did not match the actual shape of the template that was given us. So.

I'm sorry. What was the software called? Again?

Final cut, pro, apple.

Final tech, pro.

Final Correct.

Like scissors.

Yeah, but you did need you do need compressor to render it out. But I think, Karen, you were able to render it out on Handbrake.

Yeah. Handbrake would not give us the right? Oh, gosh! What do you call it? The.

Resolution.

Yeah, I was in another in the background. The only what we ended up doing was an Mp. 4. I took all the files and got the Mp. 4 together because I had space on my computer. And then Colin took it with Jan's guidance, and Colin had compressor, and he used compressor From the Mp, 4. File. Yeah.

I mean, I have, I have.

Down.

I have an Mp. 4 file. I mean, you know, that runs for I don't know 4 min. It's not that big. It's not 10 GB or 20. It's much smaller.

It has to be has to be large.

Right? So the question is again, the source files. This is about 600 on the largest one. Each one's 15 MB. So I mean. There's a lot. There's almost 10 GB of source files, you know, 600 each one's a frame, and so that there's presumably there's enough information to do this question is how to concatenate it so that it meets those criteria.

You have to scale it and scale it somehow, for the you know, for the aspect ratio that we were dealing with right.

No? Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, they're you're right. They're not. They're not 15 Byte 2. I mean, they're obvious. I mean, in that particular situation. Yeah, it. I'd have. I'd have to change their aspect ratio. The aspect ratio is 4, 3. But that's just that's just a technical issue.

Yeah.

You know. I mean, there are various ways to do that, and I have enough. I mean, I could write software to do it myself. If I had to, as far as scaling goes, rather than put each one into Photoshop and rescale it. To do that for 600 files, I'd be spending a week at it. But I could probably figure out how to do that robotically. So okay, that would be fine. But then, how do I concatenate them in such a way that I mean again, my, the software I'm using. I mean, basically.

Allen Hirsh

It has a 4 GB limit when it makes the Mp. 4 Si think that's that is sort of a technical limit for Mp. 4 S. Maybe I'm wrong. That was my understanding.

Hmm! I'm not sure about that.

I've had Mp. 4 s. Larger than that.

Yeah, yeah, that's where software like, compressor. It's interface is awkward as hell. But it does do things. You can really get, you know, the unusual aspect ratio, but you can adjust. You can operase a fair bit. You can also operase a lot in Final cut pro 2, and probably other. You know, Davinci, and all of those other apps as well. So yeah, you have to play. Hmm.

Yeah, thank you, Jen, and thanks, Karen. Are there any other questions? Do I see any hands?

Renata Janiszewska

Okay? As Tommy mentioned the next salon, which is the 1st Thursday in June, will be taking place around the show. Hello, Chelsea, which just opened on April the 30, th and runs until June 25.th in Manhattan, at the Hudson Gilt Gallery you can find a micro site about the show and also about the 1 50 media stream show on the Techspressionism website. We have a catalog that was put together for the 1 50 show. It's worth taking a look at. Again on the Techspressionism.com website. And The one the one salo after the June one is up in the air, I believe. Oh, no, it's an open mic. That's right. So the July 1st salon is an open mic one.

Renata Janiszewska

Sorry it's not the first.st It's the 1st Thursday in July. And that means, if you do, if you're an artist and you do want to share work at that to either email, me or DM, me on Instagram, and I'll put your name in the in the list. So far, I think I have 2 people already lined up for that particular song. So that's the 1st Thursday in July. Open Mic. And with that I guess I'll hand it over to Michael to just close it out.

Okay. Well, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stop the recording in just a moment here. And for all of you who want to hang around, we will do our after party. Once again congrats to all of the artists. In the 1 50 media stream exhibition.