---
type: interview
number: 17
title: Tommy Mintz
date_recorded: 2021-06-17
date_published: 2021-06-17
video_id: k1kO0JSzqc8
url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8"
duration_seconds: 3555
moderator: null
interviewee: Tommy Mintz
interviewer: Michael Pierre Price
speakers:
  - name: Tommy Mintz
    country: NYC NY USA
    start: None
  - name: Michael Pierre Price
    country: null
    start: None
transcript_source: whisper-large-v3
languages: ["en"]
---

## Tommy Mintz [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3s)

Michael Pierre Price, I hit continue. Sounded good to me.

## Michael Pierre Price [00:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=6s)

Michael Pierre Price, Welcome. This is another in the ongoing Techspressionist artist interview series. Today is June 17 2021. My name is Michael Pierre Price and I'm a Techspressionist artist out of Phoenix, Arizona. I specialize in abstract algorithmic and surrealist art. Today I'm pleased to interview Tommy Mintz. Let me start by highlighting a bit of Tommy's background. Tommy Mintz grew up in New York City's West Village in the 1980s and 90s.

Tommy now lives in Chelsea with his wife, kids and cats and is currently an assistant professor of photography at CUNY Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. Here in an MFA for the Texas State University of Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas in 2005 and a BA from Queens College in 2005 and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1999.

He has exhibited in galleries locally, nationally and internationally. Mintz is an urbanist of the Jane Jacobs school of thought. Through his work he seeks to engage in a conversation about how Jacobs ideas of what makes a vibrant urban landscape are important to consider in this moment of large-scale neighborhood change. Currently most visible in massive construction projects and new sidewalk dining spaces.

One of the unique aspects of Mintz's photographic work revolves around his creation known as the automated digital photo collage. The ADPC is an algorithm for creating a time lapse collage. It compares a sequence of photographs pixel by pixel for areas of change. The ADPC is an algorithm for creating a time lapse collage. It compares a sequence of photographs pixel by pixel for areas of change. Pixel areas are then detected as different and pixel areas that are detected as different are layered on top of the image. Layering areas of its own choosing the ADPC creates a decidedly nonhuman view which intrigues with its logic and strange algorithmic humor which I find rather intriguing in the work. The ADPC echoes our human struggle to remember during this moment in the inception of digital augmentation.

The familiar gaps parallel of our own fragmented perceptions. This was conceptualized in 2004 as a public installation in a bus shelter. The ADPC is written in the Python programming language and was first exhibited at the Hudson Gildersleeve Museum in the Gildersleeve Museum in 2013 where it ran on a Raspberry Pi computer and standard webcams generating low resolution live interactive collages of gallery visitors.

Well, that's a lot to take in and I'm sorry for stumbling a little bit on that, but welcome, Tommy. It's really good to see you today and I'm really excited by your work and you getting a chance to share it with all of us.

## Tommy Mintz [03:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=203s)

Thank you so much, Michael. That was a great introduction. I like how you sort of picked up on algorithmic humor, you know, that sort of idea of like what machines do that can make us laugh is like a really intriguing thing. You know, it's like they don't actually have a sense of humor, but there's something that might be sort of repeatedly inadvertently happening within an algorithm and its interpretation of the algorithm. So I think it's interesting to see how you sort of put together this idea of pictures that is somehow funny, you know, because it's doing things that are unexpected. You know, I'm not a humor theorist, but there is this, you know, there's some logic to humor.

You set up an unexpected situation and then undermine or set up an expectation and then undermine it. Right. And I think that's a really interesting perspective to take on, you know, sort of how to look at a picture, you know, that's digital at this point. You know, the unexpected is something that I'm fascinated by.

## Michael Pierre Price [04:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=271s)

Really?

## Tommy Mintz [04:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=271s)

Yeah. And so here's a shameless plug for my favorite book is called Photography and the Art of Chance. Wow. It's written by Robin Kelsey, and he's a photography professor at Harvard. And he wrote this book that sort of talks about a number of different artists over the history of photography and how they engaged chance within their photographs. And even the earliest photographer, William Henry Fox Talbot, is one of the two people who invented photography. Right. Yep. Syndergeir in France, Talbot in England simultaneously. Talbot in one of his earliest pictures took a picture of. I want to say it's.

Pick the not Oxford. What's the other university in England that he photographed? Cambridge, right? A famous bell tower in Cambridge, unbeknownst to him actually documenting the time that he took the picture. He only noticed that and he wasn't even taking a picture of the bell tower. He's taking a picture of a building in front of it. And in the background was the bell tower with the hands in the position indicating the time he took the picture. And he only noticed that when he looked at it later. Right. And he said this is this chance encounter that only happens in photography. You know, a writer.

Yes. Writes in every detail.

## Unattributed [05:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=350s)

You know, there's intention there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

## Tommy Mintz [05:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=354s)

So I think that's an inherent pleasure in photography is finding those sort of moments of chance and surprise.

## Michael Pierre Price [06:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=361s)

Yes, I see. Yeah, I do get what you're saying. So, Tommy, what is it about? I guess. Looking back now, if we if we spend just a few moments here thinking about you growing up and your influences as you became an adult. What drew you to photography? What are those cultural influences that have brought you to your practice now today that I didn't necessarily highlight in the quick intro that I did, but that you feel are kind of like important touchstones in your life? That may be influenced you to see the way that you're seeing photographic work and with the algorithm that you've created for this, because it's a very interesting perspective.

You know, from my standpoint, looking at your work and I'm really curious to see, you know, what was it? You know, can you identify some things in your past or your influences, family, culturally, societally that you feel are might be important? What are some of the things that you feel might be interesting to share?

## Tommy Mintz [07:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=432s)

Sure. So I mean, there's 2 things that I think I'd like to talk about. One is the sort of formal aspect of the recent collages, and maybe I can pull up some of them at some point as we talk. Maybe I'll do that as we talk right now. Okay, I'm gonna try to share my screen if that's okay. There's so let's see if this is working.

So there's an emphasis on edges that's occurring in a lot of my compositions, and I realized maybe after looking at these for a long time. I mean I've been putting together collages by hand and generating. Maybe I should even pull up an older done in Photoshop collage that has multiple frames. Put together by hand that the edges are left in place, and these edges for me are the remnants of the joy of the dark room that I grew up in elementary school and middle school and even high school. I took classes at a community center called the Children's Aid Society on Sullivan Street and in Greenwich Village, and they had a dark room. And one of the things that I've learned is that. One of the cool things to do if you were a photographer and you know printing in the dark room was to show that you weren't cropping your pictures that you're taking showing the whole picture by showing the little edge of your frame right and printing that little black edge, and the way you do that is by filing out your negative carrier a little bit and changing the size of the frame that was of light that's being projected onto the photographic paper.

And. And that was something that I thought of a lot when I was, you know, in the dark room I was very into making that frame part of my print part of the scan actually when I was even scanning film in order to collage stuff using Photoshop in the late 90s and early 2000s before I ended up doing what I'm doing now I would scan film but I actually filed the negative carrier of my Nikon cool scan. And. And I sort of film scanner so I could get that same frame so I think there's been this continuous thread of like the dark room process and really, I, I teach I teach in a dark room I love the dark room still and I think it's something that has an innate value in itself, the magic of seeing a print bloom in the developer is something that is, you know, makes a huge impression. Right, so.

Right, so. Yeah. So, I spent a lot of time in dark rooms as a kid. And then I went to a high school that had a dark room and the student run lab for the yearbook, which I got very involved in high school, and spent a lot of time just taking pictures taking pictures of casual photographs for, you know, these pages in the yearbook that, you know, we're just sort of pictures of people going about their day. I would do that not just in high school but also sort of outside of the school, you know, and streets surrounding and just hanging out after school and I ended up just being a person who had a camera all the time and feeling very comfortable with it. Sort of from a very young age.

I would fill my pockets with film that I would roll myself on very lucky to live in a place where we have access to bulk film that you could buy and load yourself, you know, if you had. If you had. If you had a desire to you know you could spend $30 on 100 rolls of film basically, you know, and that would. That was much cheaper than any other way so I shot a lot of film I shot a lot of film and I still have it in bin somewhere. Actually my parents basement, I know exactly where.

But, so, I mean I'm not sure if that was covered in the bio but I feel like there's a joy of photography of the, of the technique of the going out and taking pictures of being present. And aware of what's happening around, you know there's this approach to photography that I think I followed that we call street photography, where you just stand somewhere and observe what's going on around you, walk around until you find an interesting place where something might be happening and take it all in. So.

## Michael Pierre Price [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=714s)

So from that standpoint. So from that standpoint. So from that standpoint. You know, you're in a world of obviously you're in a world of being not just in a small house. You're in a world of being in a home. You're in a world of being in a home. So I think you're in a world of being in a home. And you're in a world of being in a home. And you're in a world of being in a home. And you're in a world of being in a home. And you're in a world of being in a home.

## Tommy Mintz [12:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=737s)

And you're in a world of being in a home. And you're in a world of being in a home. A street, I'm a certain height, I have a certain width, you know, and I occupy space, and I have a big camera in my hands. And instead of trying to blend in, I just try to be present and amicable to anybody that's around me. I actually carry examples of my work in my pocket. So people ask, hey, what's going on? What are you doing? Which happens more than, you know, okay, more than once a month, hopefully, you know, somebody will approach me and say, you know, what you're taking pictures for? And I'll give them my business card and show them some prints that I have and give them a postcard and sort of hope to sort of be as welcoming of those interactions as possible. And I like to be present as the photographer.

I'm not trying, you know, if I had my druthers, I'd wear one of those, you know, vests with all the pockets and have like a thing with my like, name on it that says, Hi, I'm Tommy, the photographer, you know, it's sort of like, I don't I don't try to hide. In fact, by being there, clearly, people ignore you, because they don't want to talk to the crazy person smiling at them, you know, with the camera. So yeah, I mean, there's I absolutely do want to catch what's going on without interrupting it. But just by being there, you know, physics and everything says, you know, observation.

## Unattributed [13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=831s)

Yes, right.

## Tommy Mintz [13:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=832s)

Yes.

## Michael Pierre Price [13:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=833s)

Okay, cool.

## Tommy Mintz [13:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=834s)

And I'd like, I like to acknowledge that, you know, absolutely, you know, in my work. And that said, there's a lot of photographers who I whose work I admire, do try to be as subtle as possible. And I follow that as well. I'm not bringing my camera to my eye and taking pictures like this all the time. Sometimes I have my camera a little to the side, I'm just holding it and taking some pictures. There's a photographer Vivian Mayer, Mayer, M-A-I-E-R, who there's a posthumous documentary about her work. And she's a photographer whose work is fantastic. And in her work, you can see how she takes her pictures because she takes pictures of herself in reflections.

And you see that she's just holding her camera sort of at chest height all the time. And people ignore her. You know, she's there with her camera. And you know, she's not me, maybe she blended in, maybe she, you know, just stood there and was just, you know, with a bunch of kids. That's another trick. I have kids. Whenever I'm with my kids, you know, people look at them and think, you know, whatever, he has a camera, they're a tourist or something.

## Michael Pierre Price [14:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=895s)

Yeah, you can't be too intimidating, I guess.

## Tommy Mintz [14:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=899s)

So, so yeah, I mean, I spend a lot of time in places where there's people with cameras anyway. That said, there's places where so for example, in this one, I was taking pictures of this guy's car, a beautiful car parked in front of a landmark in the city, and he came out of a car and chatted with me and asked me, you know, what's going on. And I, let's see if we could even zoom in on here. Oh, look, see, there's tourists starting to go around the city. These are portraits of this moment in the city where you have interactions and strange, strange, you know, here's this humorous, algorithmic humor that I think I would never make any of these choices, yet I appreciate every single one. I'm not sure if you see this is a zoomed in moment here. I'm actually behind the bumper of the car that I'm about to talk about.

But is my screen share working, Michael?

## Michael Pierre Price [15:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=957s)

I'm seeing a fellow with a backpack and a mask. Yes. I'm seeing the tail end of the car.

## Tommy Mintz [16:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=965s)

Tail end of the car. There's a double decker bus behind him with no tourists on it. Okay. It's a tour bus.

## Unattributed [16:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=971s)

Yeah.

## Tommy Mintz [16:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=972s)

There's a warning sign. There's clouds clouds that are billowing from actually a chimney. This is a steam escape pipe. When a steam pipe under city streets bursts, because there's steam that's piped under some streets, they put these pipes up to position the steam to go above pedestrian heights so you don't get burned by it. So this is sort of steam to the left and right of this pipe emitting and the steam is getting layered in ways that, you know, is something I would never do, you know, the way that these ladies are half cut out with the bus cut through them.

## Michael Pierre Price [16:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1015s)

I know it's something that I think is I'm sorry, I mean, I'm still seeing the screen is kind of blinking. Thank you. Still seeing the one of the car and the gentleman let

## Tommy Mintz [17:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1028s)

Me see I'm gonna change this fear then okay I'm gonna try to just share in yeah when

## Michael Pierre Price [17:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1034s)

You were when you were just

## Unattributed [17:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1035s)

There

## Michael Pierre Price [17:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1035s)

For a moment about the steam and the ladies I didn't see that it didn't

## Tommy Mintz [17:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1040s)

Move around okay I was just zooming into different locations let me see if this better hold on one second so sorry so I was taking pictures of gosh is that like a Chevy I don't know I'm not a car person I just thought it was like beautiful old car and the guy whose car it was came out actually drove away right chatted with me took my card we chatted about what I was doing there he is little bits of him and actually there's so much detail in this you really get more than just little bits of him when I blow it up large you can start to recognize ears and eyes and little details and then when you're you know sort of looking at these small details and that's what I'm being very flying

## Michael Pierre Price [18:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1101s)

Places.

## Tommy Mintz [18:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1102s)

And I enjoy that a lot. So there happened to be birds flying past and the way they got rendered, you know, sort of over one another and that's really cool. So is that how many

## Michael Pierre Price [18:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1118s)

How many images were captured and over? Maybe what how long of a timeframe in order to create this particular collage do you remember yeah

## Tommy Mintz [18:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1132s)

So this one was about 36 pictures that's kind of what I shoot one you know roll of film if you will And I might take five, 10 minutes to do that. I like to let light shift a little bit, hang out in the place long enough. In this one, actually, the sun wasn't out. This is a cloudy day. But there's an effect that the algorithm has when light is striking from a different angle. It's now a different value in that pixel. And there's something that occurs that is particular to the way the algorithm interprets pictures, which I enjoy. So I'm trying to take pictures to feed it intentionally things that will be even more interesting. So I'm spending more time in a location. Waiting for time to pass, in fact, so that the sun will move a little bit further in the sky and the angle of shadows. Let me pull up one that's shot on a sunny day here instead of a cloudy day while we're talking about that.

So the angle of shadows will... I'm sorry, go ahead.

## Michael Pierre Price [20:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1201s)

These are all shot from a tripod?

## Tommy Mintz [20:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1205s)

No.

## Michael Pierre Price [20:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1206s)

They're handheld?

## Tommy Mintz [20:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1207s)

Some are. Some are. Yes. Some are... And is this sharing again now? Did preview start sharing? No. Oh, it's not. What's happening here? Sorry. Did I lose you? Michael, you just popped off screen. Oh, you're back. I'm so sorry. So on some pictures, and the ones I just showed you is not handheld. What I do is, as part of my process, I bring my pictures into... Oh, this is sharing. You see the picture with...

## Unattributed [20:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1239s)

You see all these bicyclists.

## Tommy Mintz [20:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1240s)

Yeah, yeah. So when shadows move... Yeah. Right? It sort of becomes a new value. So here we have this shadow cutting through after the person passed by. I waited a little longer. The shadow moves and creates these sort of beautiful edges and textures and digital textures, too. Because there is a JPEG artifact that can also be detected as a different thing. When I zoom really far in, you can really see that there's... Right. There's a variety...

And here's one of the things that I sort of studied when I was looking at programming. There's different ways that each section of a JPEG is encoded from maybe 32 different gradients, basically, in different directions. Maybe it's 16. I might be wrong about the number. And some are from the center out, some are bottom down, some are left, right. And in this, I often see these strange forms that are those... I don't know. I don't know if you can see them. But these are ways that the JPEG compression algorithm works of creating a gradient in one direction or another. So here you get to sort of see these interesting square forms being generated in areas where I'm creating a little blur in the compared images and those overlaps are...

The edges are sort of these funny... Artifacts, if you will, of the process, which you don't see unless you print it really large, which I do. And I've been printing some of these and I make panoramic stitching many of them together. And maybe five feet tall by 25 feet wide. So it's kind of life size.

## Michael Pierre Price [22:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1356s)

That's awesome.

## Tommy Mintz [22:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1358s)

And kind of immersive where you walk into a print and it'll surround you. And I can even show you ways that I've installed that in the past too in a moment.

## Michael Pierre Price [22:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1368s)

So with some of these images, some of the elements are solid and others feel ghostly. What determines the amount of transparency or solidity that elements in these collages have?

## Tommy Mintz [23:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1387s)

So it's the amount of change that's occurred in that location. Since... The element was in the picture or photograph. So if there's no change, actually, if the sun hasn't moved, often actually, if I could show you, when somebody's against a blue sky, they'll remain there for the entirety until something else walks in front of them or flies in front of them.

People seem to disappear when they're in front of something that's textured. Asphalt, bricks, things like that. And that kind of cuts through and creates these...

## Michael Pierre Price [23:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1429s)

Oh, I see that. I see that.

## Tommy Mintz [23:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1431s)

Times where... Right. It catches light differently. Something's happening there in a level that's not visible, notably visible to me as I'm taking the pictures. But yeah, the light has shifted in those places. And if you look in this grid area, the light has shifted so much that it's kind of gotten rid of everything. As the shadows shifted there. So this was actually shot on a tripod. This one is shot from a place where I got a haircut on 31st and 7th, Roger Merkel Salon. He has a second avenue... I'm sorry, second story salon on 7th Avenue. And I always wanted to take a picture out the window because he's looking at these guys, which I think are the coolest store in the city.

So I wanted to take a picture of that. So... But no, this is second story view, which is something I think is really interesting to have this perspective where you're sort of looking down at movement. You get a very different pattern of motion, of placement, you know, people in space that occurs when the camera is above. So that's something I'm planning on doing more of is carrying the camera sort of up on a large monopod, you know, maybe 15 feet up or something like that. And I've done that in the past. And I've set up a Raspberry Pi camera to do that in the past at Maker Faire in 2015, actually.

So, I mean, this perspective is something that photographers have used historically as a place where they would have a photo studio, you know, one story up. And they, you know, just turn their camera out the window and take pictures. Okay. And in fact, the sort of first extant photograph by Niepce of like just, you know, roof lines in Paris. And it's sort of from this same angle, if you will. You know, we're sort of just above looking out over things. It's, I think, a very referent... Referential. Sorry.

## Michael Pierre Price [25:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1558s)

You think by being a New Yorker, this has influenced that sense of street photography? And your special take on things? I'm just kind of curious as to sort of that influence on you and whether you've thought of that or whether you identify that as, you know, your... I mean, New York City is such an iconic, you know, place for artists and photography. So, I'm just kind of curious whether or not that's been a big...

Shaper of, you know, of who you are as an artist.

## Tommy Mintz [26:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1601s)

Absolutely. 100%. And it's a really joyful place to be privileged enough to be an artist. People have gotten pushed out of most... Mostly, it's very difficult to live in New York as an artist. I happen to have family. I grew up here. And then I ended up luckily in affordable housing. And so, I'm okay. I have a job. I can pay the rent. No rent. Pay, you know, the mortgage and maintenance.

And, you know, maintain things. I don't have to depend on the vaguerities of the art market. Except in my work, which I think is something that's very difficult and you can't... Of course, there's always exceptions. But it's hard to depend on that as a way to make it as an artist. Especially... Yeah. You talk about, like, health insurance. You know. Yeah. Don't get me started. But so...

## Michael Pierre Price [27:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1658s)

Especially with a family.

## Tommy Mintz [27:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1659s)

Especially with a family. Absolutely. So, you have to make certain choices. I've always worked at jobs. And I decided that I wanted to teach. So, New York has a lot of opportunities for artists to teach. I worked in nonprofit organizations in the South Bronx. I worked in one for many years. Teaching. And not just photography. It was technology. I was a community technology teacher in the mid 90s.

And loved it. Thought I was going to do that forever. And do that to pay the bills and be an artist. I ended up getting pushed out of that when there was a management shift. And, you know, had some time to think about what I wanted to do. So, I went to art school. At Queens College. In order to get the credentials to teach in a college. I had taught... So, after I left the South Bronx, I taught after school in Harlem. Teaching video editing to high school students. Who were great. But I realized I don't have the energy or ability to work with that age group. But I like teaching. And I was always enjoying teaching, you know, older students. And the technology center in the Bronx. And so, I got an MFA. And started teaching as an adjunct. As well as working, you know, at a corporation as a graphic design...

Yeah. First, I actually was writing standardized math test questions for them. And sort of segued from that into graphic design. So, nine years in corporate America. But, you know, New York offers that. As a place for, you know... People to live and work and see a lot of work. I grew up going to a lot of museums. I have memories of going to museums as a, you know, sort of formative ones. Where I'd see like a Jasper Johns. And that's something that, you know, sticks with me. Or especially Red Grooms. I'm not sure if you know the artist Red Grooms. But he has a sort of energy to cartoonish energy that he has in his paintings and sculptural installations. That I find very influential.

I read a lot of comics. I went to a lot of comic book shops as a kid. Also, I mean, that was like... It was the height of it, I think. In the late 80s, early 90s in New York. Had low enough rent that you could have comic book shops. Right? But you had enough people there that would go to the comic book shops. And now there's too many people and the rent's too high. And, you know, there's only one left or whatever. Yeah. But you get to hang out and read. And I got into Robert Crumb. Who was probably inappropriate.

You know? And that got me into a lot of this sort of 70s underground comic. With, you know, sort of things. So that's also, I think, very much an influence. That energy of like the, you know, cartoon comic underground zines in general. I was very into. As well. Street art. Graffiti. Yeah. I got to see. You know? And also as a young artist, I got to work in very cheap post-industrial space. You know? Where we got to pay, you know, a dollar a square foot.

## Michael Pierre Price [31:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1876s)

Yeah, yeah.

## Tommy Mintz [31:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1877s)

You know? And have hundreds of square feet. And just make big prints and be crazy. And that was a really amazing experience. It doesn't happen in New York right now anymore. No. Literally the building I was in is now a 40-story luxury condo.

## Michael Pierre Price [31:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1891s)

Oh my God.

## Tommy Mintz [31:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1892s)

Really? Wow. It was a famous, you know, artist studio space that, you know, was there for decades. You know, 30 years, if not longer. And so, I mean, that's the story of New York in a way. Yes. So I feel like I have sort of observed this part in my lifespan. But I also sort of feel like I'm also the sort of child of the tail end of this. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the story of the great era of the 1950s through the 1970s. Okay. When you had that kind of presence of just artists who knew each other. They'd hang out on the stoop. Yeah. And, you know, they'd go to the bar. They were just around. They'd paint. And, you know, I got to meet, and actually some of my friends are, you know, children of famous artists who had studios. I got to visit. You know, I didn't even appreciate it in a way.

You know? You're like, ah, there's a lot of stuff around Cass's house. You know? Watch out for that. Okay. Don't step on the porcelain stuff on the floor. You know? Little did you know. You know? So, yeah, I think those experiences were very formative and gave me permission, tacit permission, to be an artist as an identity. You know? It's sort of like, oh, you know, people are artists. I like that. That's me.

## Unattributed [32:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1964s)

That's huge.

## Tommy Mintz [32:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1965s)

I'm drawn to that. Yeah.

## Michael Pierre Price [32:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=1966s)

Yeah. That sense of representation is, you know, something that gets talked about quite a lot. But it is really a big issue. And I think that's what I influenced on people, especially kids growing up, is being able to see that this is something that I could be because I see that around me. And that's a big, big factor. So that's interesting to hear. Do you feel that one of the things that I see quite a bit is that artists, I think, naturally are experimenters. Right. And trailblazers in a lot of ways. And I'm just curious, with your work, with this collage work, I see it as really a very interesting innovation. And I'm wondering that the artifacts and just the very AI kind of field that your work has, how you see that moving forward for you? And how experimentation is an important thing in artists?

Because not only do I want to hear about you specifically, but I think in terms of this whole global expressionism community is that sense of, I mean, there's so much experimenting going on. And in a society, I think, especially Western society, that notion of mistakes is frowned upon. And, you know, like breaking the mold, oftentimes we get crunched into staying inside the mold. And so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.

## Tommy Mintz [34:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2080s)

I have a couple thoughts. I mean, the first thing you're asking is sort of like what's sort of future directions that sort of I'm thinking about maybe as an individual artist. I've been thinking about... This is something that I've continued to do with this is increase the resolution of the pictures. You know, we're sort of going from megapixel to gigapixel to...

There's 360 degree cameras that I'm interested in using. There's 3D spaces that I feel like instead of using this algorithm on a pixel, why not voxel or, you know, a 3D pixel, right? Yes. And how would that then act or behave? What would come out of that? I don't know. You know, it's kind of like that. So those sorts of directions are kind of interesting to me as like the technical direction. Okay.

As a photographer, I kind of want to just spend more time outside. I want to right now see if my newest Raspberry Pi can process my Canon 5DS 50 megapixel files that it's using. Oh, my gosh. I think I was generating the last time I tried. I used a Raspberry Pi 3. The Raspberry Pi 4 is now out. But it just turned off when I tried to like have it generate something using these JPEGs. You can see like here we're zooming in. I'm not sure if you can see.

## Unattributed [36:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2165s)

Yeah.

## Tommy Mintz [36:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2166s)

But this is like a person's nose and their eye. You know, it's sort of... And here I'm zooming out more and more. You know, just sort of like it's in there. And it's all there. And that amount of detail I love. I want to keep it. I'd like to do that outside. One of the pulls of this was to have a public project and be out there making this outside.

I've been inside since I went really high resolution. So, that's something I want to do more personally this summer. Like make a note to myself. Hey, when you watch this, have you gone outside? The other question that you posed, Michael, at the same time is sort of like what's... What's happening in art as we go into... Like do you want to... I feel like I'm going to maybe not answer the second question.

## Unattributed [36:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2219s)

No, that's fine. That's fine. Go with where you're headed. That's cool.

## Tommy Mintz [37:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2224s)

But I mean, I think one of the things that's really interesting as artists with technology today is that there's a lot that is available. Yeah. And it's available. You know, that's... It's there. Right? I mean, that's really what it is. It wasn't available 50 years ago. Right. You know? So, we're able to make stuff up. It's like...

And so, you think about like real estate space that was available. You could like play around with like real estate. Now, like, boy, you sort of take it for granted that like you just have like screens that have computers that are powerful enough everywhere. And it's available. And I think we kind of take that for granted. You know, we're in maybe peak tech production. Maybe not at all. Right? That's even scarier to think. I actually... I'm worried, you know, in a way. And I think I'm expressing my worry of the future ecologically, economically, like socially. Like there's an anxiety I think we're all experiencing. And also a nostalgia for this moment of like feeling like, you know...

The end of the tunnel. We're sort of feeling like we're getting through something hard together. You know? Honestly, I felt, you know, the same way before the pandemic. I'm just sort of feeling like there's a moment now that we're living in that I feel like lauding.

## Michael Pierre Price [38:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2319s)

Okay.

## Tommy Mintz [38:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2319s)

In a way that is appropriate to the aesthetics of today. You know? So if you think about like sepia tone pictures in the 1930s or, you know, bright color photos, the 1980s. Or, you know, paintings of the, you know, 1820s or whatever. What's the aesthetic to laud today? You know? I'm thinking of like digital obviously is the place where everybody's putting their mind and money and energy. Yeah. You know? Like actual energy too is being poured into running computers, which is kind of nuts. And so I, you know, I am definitely using it. And I think it's the place to work, but not without reservation. Right? You have to always keep one foot in noticing, you know, what's happening with the materials you're using. As a photographer, for example.

Photography has a romantic notion of being heroic and going out and documenting these things and showing the world out there to people and changing people's behaviors. But also there's surveillance and the use of state apparatus throughout history using photography as a means of oppression.

## Michael Pierre Price [40:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2405s)

Yes.

## Tommy Mintz [40:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2405s)

You know? So the computer. I'm going to just leave the ellipsis there. And you could say, you know, has done nothing. Right. It's done many things. But also has this kind of maybe flip side to the use of this same thing that I'm doing my artwork with. You know? Could be used, you know, whether it's to shut down a pipeline or to, you know, profile, you know, people's ethnicity in certain regions of the world in order to, you know, intern them or whatever. You know? And in fact, AI. And that aspect of imaging, computer vision. Right? Object vision. That whole sort of end of, you know, the panopticon, if you will. You know? Potential of technology is something that fascinates me. Absolutely. Okay. You know, as I'm, you know, running my algorithm, which is really dumb one. It's just comparing pixel by pixel.

You know? I could potentially run a different algorithm slightly. That instead of comparing pixels, just says, here's an object. Was it in this location before? You know? Let's pop it back in. You know? And honestly, there's security webcams that will do that for you.

## Michael Pierre Price [41:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2487s)

Yeah.

## Tommy Mintz [41:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2488s)

And they'll show you a video of the six places your dogs were during the day in your living room all at once in a collage video. You know? And it's, you know, something that, you know, I think a lot about. And I think it's something that. It's real interesting about technology right now.

## Michael Pierre Price [41:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2506s)

Cool. Do you have. So. I'm looking at the time here and I, you know, we're doing, we're doing well. So as we're talking about the future, there's a couple things I just sort of wanted to address. And one thing specifically with you, your photographic artwork, your collages. And you as an artist. I. This question, I think.

People in technology based artwork get asked similar questions. I think it's very different in various ways. But. So there's a. There's a heavy. Partner in your work on the technology side with your algorithm. As an artist, as Tommy. What. Control or what guides you. In creating that final image. That you say. I want to share this with the world. Where does that artist come through? That's partnering with this technology algorithm that you. Created and honed over the years. And you're looking to continue to move forward as the, as you just rightly said. Technology keeps expanding. And we can do more and more. Where's the, where's that artist. I that artist's heart and soul. That sort of directs. What, what these final images look like. Cause that to me. Really speaks to the crux of. Who you are.

Your unique vision that you're sharing with all.

## Tommy Mintz [43:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2616s)

I think primarily it's just. Where the lens is placed, right? Any photographer, the primary thing they do is select. A subject. They go out and point their camera at what they find interesting. I find life on the streets. The city really interesting. So maybe. Primarily the, that energy. The sort of.

I don't want to use the word Flannery. Like that sort of has a negative connotation of. Yeah. A near do well who, who meanders around the street and. Notices what's going on. But there's some thing to that. Moment of like wandering around the city. That sense of discovery. Of wonder of surprise and recognizing.

You know where that might happen. What patterns, what shapes. Well, sort of allow for that to occur. And then pointing my camera at that. Staying there. Recognizing when things are actually about to occur. Cause you kind of want to anticipate. A gesture. You know, connection, a position of a vehicle or a person. You might notice that there's not that many cars in many of my pictures. There's a lot of bicycles and people. That's because I choose to take pictures of. Those moments when those. Things are passing by my frame. And I'm not saying that I'm not going to do that. But I'm saying that I'm going to take pictures of those moments. So I think that's where the artist comes in. You know, it's. I also choose.

When I'm handholding my camera and here's another. Example of that. I part of my process. And I think I have to describe this. I know we're running out of time is. I take my pictures. Raw files. Process them using Adobe Lightroom classic. So I, you know, make parts lighter, make parts darker. And then from there. I open them. All as layers in Photoshop. And then run a panoramic.

Algorithm on them. Or. Auto align layers. Another way of describing that. It's the same thing. Right? Panoramic. It's auto aligning spread out or. Here I'm just auto aligning. So I run the panoramic actually do it's called. I'm just going to. From Lightroom classic. I go to photo. Edit in merge to panorama in Photoshop. And then there's a dialogue box that opens and I just don't blend them together. I uncheck blend together.

## Michael Pierre Price [46:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2772s)

Okay.

## Tommy Mintz [46:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2772s)

And they hit. Okay. And they just show up as a stack. No, actually, I'm sorry. There's one more. One more step. I choose. The. The projection. I could have the pictures either just slid. Left and right up and down. They can be skewed to change perspective or worked with like. A bulge. And I've been working with that.

Choice. How do I want to, and here's one that's kind of fun. Let me see if I could pull this up. One last picture. Is it going to end on two? This is one of the most recent ones. How does that. Edge that frame that I really pay a lot of attention to. Behave when it's run through these different very. And I know I understand the algorithms I could, you know, I understand what they're trying to do, which is straighten lines. And, you know, there's sort of a thing. That I'm enjoying sort of logically, but there's also an aesthetic to it that I think for me, it goes back to that moment of filing my.

Negative carrier in the dark room and in the. Children's aid center. Printing. How we're doing with those frames.

## Michael Pierre Price [47:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2846s)

So for instance, in this image that I'm seeing, it looks like we have like the monopoly guy on the side of the building there. But it what's interesting is it looked like. The building that's off to the left of the lighter building. Is vertical. And then you've got this sort of. Curved aspect to the image.

Over layered on there. So my question is, and I don't want, I don't necessarily need for you to get too technical here. But as an artist. You're making those choices. To say. I'm assuming you. This, this image could have looked a lot of different ways. That you found this something pleasing to you or that spoke to you or that. You felt like. Really shocking. And that you were able to. Show this off in the way that made the most sense to you. Am I kind of interpreting that correctly that. Okay.

## Tommy Mintz [48:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2909s)

So absolutely. And there was many versions. There are many versions that I, you know, I could show you my. My work drive ever. Shows up again. I can show you all the versions that it iterates through to get to this point. That I shuffle through. I can step back and add layers back in at any point and, and rearrange them. Okay. And then I can. I can. I can. I can absolutely do that.

I sort of run them in a default sequence. And then if I want something to be more prominent, I can just say, Hey, add this layer back in. This layer back in. And I just sort of type that into my algorithm and it does it.

## Michael Pierre Price [49:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=2944s)

So in a lot of ways that's. To be a very. That's kind of emblematic or, or sort of. Characteristic. Of a lot of technology. So I think that's the other thing that I've learned from working with artists is that. We sort of Parker and utilize our tools that way. That they can create. Aspects that we would not be able to normally do as a human being. But as the, hopefully the creative genius of, of our humanity. We get to then say, this is the way I want to assemble. These parts.

Into something that's a final image that really. Says something about who I am and what I want to share with other people. Am I, I don't want to put words into your mouth or necessarily, you know, like express your thoughts innately, but. I just see that there's a, there's a very. Robust. Core. To a lot of the technology based artists that we're all.

Working through. Is that we're all working through in our own way that we express. And that's the expressive part of the expression is that I, that I think is really. That sense of community that we all sort of connect to one. And we recognize it. Yeah.

## Tommy Mintz [50:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3029s)

And I think there's an interesting tension that we get to play with of like, what, because it is. The cold process and not a very human thing. And we're bringing the human. Emotion. Warm. And I think that's, that's a really interesting. Question always is, you know, where is that coming from? Right. Is it, is it the artists.

Is it. You know, And, and, and I like to also think about like. Like Jackson Pollock strip paintings are easily sort of like, Oh, is it really the artist? You know, or is it the technology he chose of a, of a can. And just knows to swing it around. Yeah. I mean, how.

## Michael Pierre Price [51:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3078s)

That's I'm not

## Tommy Mintz [51:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3083s)

Stwesting. You know, and the coon a lot. There and. And. The way that the sort of use of technology and expressionism, it has a really interesting parallel to that sort of pushing of technology and painting. And you know, and I like that simple metaphor, or analogy, you know, that we could use of, you know, describing how as artists, we're approaching these technologies in a way that we recognize in others, you know, like, the Kooning and Pollock, we're using really doing totally different things. Yeah, right with their paints. But they were doing totally experimental things with paintings, and recognizing that they're both doing totally experiment. And so I think that's a really wonderful sort of set of artists to look to, even if you don't have them in your life, you know, just sort of having them in the past being exposed to knowing that, like, here's two artists, what happened?

## Michael Pierre Price [52:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3154s)

I are just precisely doesn't have to be them.

## Tommy Mintz [52:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3156s)

And of course, you know, any, you know, you could really, you know, you could really, I think that's one of the fun things about being an artist and being allowed to just sort of call it yours, you know, is that you take not possession, but sort of care, what's it what's a caretaking of this, you know, you're in, you're the next we're the next generation of trying to keep that experimental notion of, you know, work alive. I think there's a Yeah.!

Yeah.

## Michael Pierre Price [53:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3228s)

Yeah. So, do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share? Or, you know, I think you started alluding to a little bit, but this is sort of the, you know, I think a couple of questions that we tend to end with. One is, what are you finding valuable in the artist interview series segments on and that's sort of where you see the future kind of art headed, but also, what is it about expressionism or what brought you into the fold, if you will, or into the community? And what are you finding valuable in it? Because I think it's, you know, I think it started during a unique time during the pandemic and everything. Obviously, but it's, it's a growing community and it feels like there's a lot of buy in from the artists. And I guess for me, it's, you know, this, this is like a really cool thing to be able to talk to you chat like this, to get it, you know, in a few days or so up on up on the web and up on the expressionist website, and people will get a chance to hear your thoughts and see some of your artwork.

But what you know, kind of, if you could sort of dovetail those two things about expressionism and where you think things are headed, and, you know, either for you personally, or just in general, I think would be a nice sort of way to sort of wrap things up. Yeah,

## Tommy Mintz [55:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3326s)

I think expressionism filled some, you know, avoid something that I've been looking for, you know, in the artist community in a way. That, you know, there's plenty of places you could post art and then, you know, there wasn't this live thing going on where you can join from anywhere, you know, it just happened that poof, we're all on zoom and poof, you know, some people that I was already following on Instagram, started posting, you know, the hashtag of expressionism. Okay, and that's where I found.

I started I think, actually, they just start. Hashtagging my own stuff and then Colin was like, Oh, no, and there's here's a website or I found the website. I don't know and asked to join one of the meetings and Colin was very friendly and said, Yes, of course you could join the meeting. Yeah, so, where's our going so before the pandemic. I participated in.

I want to call it MIT media arts hackathon or technology. I don't know what it's called. Technology art hackathon I'm forgetting the exact name. Art and technology hackathon. And the group I was working with came up with an idea of kind of like Peloton style device, you know with a big screen and a camera, but for artists. So you could be doing your art and having an art thing and have a, you know, an interaction with somebody. And it's kind of like I can't believe I need to contact someone. I need to contact them again because we haven't like talked in, in months, but I mean I really do think there's been this need, you know, even before the pandemic artists wanted to be able to connect we you know we miss having the local bar that all the artists would go to. Yeah. You know, and there was a, I think you're right with that yeah absolutely.

## Michael Pierre Price [57:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3447s)

And I think that's why, for me, Techspressionism has continued to grow and my participation has grown is that it's so substantive. Yeah. And, you know, I really feel like we're, we're all really realizing just how, how we meet each other how we grow from each other, and, and, and we are all so different I mean I just think that the points of view are different but the art styles are different. But there's, but there's this genuine common thread underneath it all. That. Yeah. And I think that's what makes it so interesting that we're really connected.

## Tommy Mintz [58:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3490s)

I think all those differences are what make it so interesting yes you know if everyone's doing the same thing boy that would not have the same energy.

## Michael Pierre Price [58:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3501s)

Well Tommy I really enjoyed this time. I know that you've got a lot of interesting things happening. I look forward to your sharing on the salons that you've created. You know we have period, you know every other week or so. But I'm grateful that we could do this was really interesting for me personally and I'm genuinely grateful to your to you and for you sharing some of yourself in this way. So thank you.

## Tommy Mintz [59:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3540s)

Thank you Michael I am flattered. And really cool.

## Michael Pierre Price [59:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3546s)

Cool.

## Tommy Mintz [59:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3546s)

The pleasure's mine.

## Michael Pierre Price [59:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3547s)

All right, awesome. Well, I guess we're gonna wrap things up here. So thanks Tommy.

## Tommy Mintz [59:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kO0JSzqc8&t=3552s)

Excellent. Thanks Michael.