---
type: salon
number: 104
title: History, Theory, Connectivity
date_recorded: 2026-03-05
date_published: 2026-03-05
video_id: 7zk9GzgaLvs
url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs"
duration_seconds: 5346
moderator: Renata Janiszewska – Lion’s Head, Canada
speakers:
transcript_source: zoom-transcript
languages: ["en"]
flags:
  - speaker_index_missing
---

## Renata Janiszewska [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4s)

Welcome!

This is Techspressionism Salon 104, and today we'll be talking about technology, art, and Expressionism, among other things. I'm Renadia Anushevska, and I'm coming to you from Lion's Head in Ontario, Canada. And I'm co-moderating today with Michael Pierre-Price. We're going to start with a discussion among three guests whom we've invited here today. And sadly, one of them has to go, Angela has to go at 12.45. But at that time, we'll open the discussion up to the entire audience.

The three distinguished guests today, I will introduce them by reading a short bio of each of them. Helen Harrison is a founder of Techspressionism, and she's also an advisor to the group. She's an art historian, museum director, and journalist specializing in modern American art, with degrees from Adelphi University and Case Western Reserve University. She directed the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center from 1990 until her retirement in 2024, Previously curating at the Parish Art Museum and Guild Hall, and leading Manhattan's Public Art Preservation Committee. A long-time critic and author, she wrote for the New York Times, From 1978 to 2006, she penned the Eye on Art column, for 10 years.

And has contributed essays to leading journals and major exhibition catalogs. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts and Stony Brook University, lectured widely, and hosted Art Waves on WLIU 88.3 FM. She's also the author of five art world mystery novels. Next is Catherine Mason. Who was born in Australia, raised in the US, and trained in Britain. She holds a History of Art degree from Birkbeck and a Master's in Museums and Gallery Management from City University.

A leading historian of computer art and digital art since the Cash Project in 2022, she has authored A Computer in the Art Room, co-edited White Heat, Cold Logic. And most recently published Creative Simulations. She's recently become a visiting research and knowledge exchange fellow in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths at the University of London. Our third guest, Angela Ferraiolo, is a systems artist focused on open-endedness, self-organization, morphogenesis, and adapted processes. Sorry, adaptive processes.

She has held a residency at the Intelligent Engineering Lab at Sokha University in Tokyo. And lectured for School of XX Coax in Weimar. Her professional background includes roles at RKO, H2O Studios, Westwood Studios, and Electronic Arts. Her work has been exhibited internationally in numerous venues. Based in New York City. She co-chairs visual and studio arts at Sarah Lawrence College, where she founded the computational arts program in new genres, and is developing projects in adaptive systems and open-ended evolution.

Welcome to our panel today. So, as I mentioned, I would be giving a brief intro about our fourth wave of Expressionism. So, in art historical terms, if you look back. We know that there was… an expressionist movement in Germany at the very early days of the 1900s, or early years, I should say. And the next, expressionist wave would be the abstract expressionists of the 1950s, and on from there. And then we have a neo-expressionist wave that took place mostly in the 80s and 90s.

And then we have… To expressionism. So if you just… that's just a framework to keep in mind, because we're going to be talking about the intersection of art history with developments in science and… I'll let Michael speak a little bit more about that now.

## Michael Pierre Price [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=300s)

Okay, thank you, Renata. Appreciate that. So it's… The fact that we have Techspressionism, which acknowledges technology and expressionism, so there is a natural affinity here, and I think as creative individuals, both scientists and artists. Draw on that sense of creativity. And if you look at the last 150 years or so, you can see so many parallels where advances in science and changes in art go in tandem, in parallel, from the mid to late 1800s, where The understanding of light, matured, and then you have the Impressionists using that new knowledge about light into their creative process of actually creating the artwork.

Then in the early 1900s, you have Albert Einstein throwing this huge monkey wrench into the understanding of physics with both special and general relativity. And at the same time, artists are realizing that there are changes happening that made them look at the world differently, so you've got Cubism arising from here, Dada, Expressionism, like you mentioned, and then… we celebrated last year 100 years of quantum mechanics and surrealism, so I think that speaks so highly about how these things work in parallel.

And then the mention of Jackson Pollock and the abstract expressionists. There was a study done in the late 1990s that showed there's a fractal quality to Jackson Pollock's drip paintings. And so, for all of these things, to me, this just brings Techspressionism Merging all of that together, and I… I think that… that… that's very interesting, and I thought I would mention that and share that with everybody today. So, thanks.

## Renata Janiszewska [07:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=439s)

I'm sorry. We're talking about where technology and expressionism cross over in the sphere of art history. And Helen and Catherine, I'd like to ask you if you could talk a little bit, please, about exploring the intersection of the abstract expressionists with early computer art. And either one of you, please. Go ahead.

## Helen A. Harrison [07:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=463s)

Well, I would like to say, first of all, thank you to Colin and Renata and everyone who put this together. I think one of the things that excites me about Techspressionism is that it's become an international movement, and that people all over the globe are identifying with this particular approach. And Colin always credits me with changing the wording of the original manifesto from a style to an approach. And the reason why I argued for that… well, I didn't have to argue too hard, I think Colin kind of fell over right away, but was because the style element is so different, and this is true of abstract expressionism as well. It's one of the reasons that it was a very difficult, term to agree upon. In fact, the artists never really did agree about it, because there are so many different ways that the artists approach this kind of expressionistic representation of what is really an introate or intangible character.

Some of them, like Pollock, are very energetic, or you can see the energy in the movements that are represented on canvas, but then there are others who their work, like Rothko, for example, the work is more ephemeral, more kind of soft, gestural still, but not with that same sense of energy. It's a different kind of energy. So there's a very wide spectrum of approaches, and I think that's why that term is more appropriate, because it really allows a greater scope for people who are working with technology, but not just for its own sake.

It has to… Pollock's famous statement was that art has to make a statement. That what that statement is, and how you translate it from the imagery on canvas or the imagery on paper into something that relates or speaks to you is kind of left up to the viewer. But at the same time, the… The impulse is to… to say something, something that reaches people. And not just make marks on canvas, not just blurt it out, as some people felt, you know, Pollock was just spitting it out for the sake of doing it. And you could do that with technology as well.

But why? Why would you do it? The impulse behind it is what we want to examine.

## Renata Janiszewska [10:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=619s)

Thanks. Catherine or Angela, do you have anything in response?

## Catherine Mason [10:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=624s)

Yes, I would echo that, and I think that the fact that there is this new, well, newish movement to Expressionism, it goes right alongside artists who are working in a very, perhaps, precise. Way that appears at first glance to not appear very expressionistic. It actually still is an expression of the human. It's just perhaps a use of different tools. So, obviously terms, there are… certain artists won't accept certain terms, and there have been a lot of debates over, you know, even the use of the term computer art since its, sort of, its early days in the late 60s, mid to late 60s.

But still, there is this sense of wanting to, say something through the art, and you could say that was an expressionist tendency. So, I think I actually brought some slides. I don't know if we were going to share those, or were those going to come after, The presentations, but I have a… I have a picture of Colin Sheffield and Harold Cohen together. So, I don't know if you want to show those later, or… but it's, kind of an interesting, juxtaposition between somebody who, Colin Sheffield, a British artist, in 1970, member of the Computer Arts Society, put a lot of, Paint, kind of threw paint around, via a plotter that he mounted on the wall that he made himself.

And then the, Juxtaposition with Harold Cohen. I don't know if you've got those slides able to share screens or not.

## Renata Janiszewska [12:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=722s)

I'm sure…

## Angela Ferraiolo [12:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=724s)

Are these.

## Renata Janiszewska [12:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=725s)

Do that. Angela's going to share.

## Catherine Mason [12:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=726s)

Oh, and just gonna do it. Okay, brilliant. Just so that people know what I'm rabbiting on about here. You know, Harold Cohen is often considered, you know, much more precise and, logical, less about. Expressionistic in terms of paint, use. But having said that, I'd like to argue that actually he was, he was really very, and it comes from a tradition of European modernism, which is about color and expressing emotions and sense of place through color, and he spoke about, to me, about wanting to.

Express and give some sort of sense of place in his work, although he wrote code to do that. And indeed, Colin Sheffield also wrote code to do, to do, you know, his, plotter works in a little bit… a little bit before Cohen, Cohen started at Stanford around 1973, started developing early experiments with Aaron, which started off, obviously, very simply, but then expanded because he made it his life's work, looking at this. So, although he never would have called himself an expressionist, Harold Cohen, I don't think, I think maybe Colin Sheffield might have, and Sheffield also came from, A background of painting.

So there are crossovers between painting and digital technology, for sure.

## Helen A. Harrison [13:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=819s)

Oh, and then there are other kinds of technology, too. You think of the Gutai artists in Japan, where they were using… they had a… one of them had a motorized unit that actually made marks on the… on canvas. Another one swung from the ceiling and painted with his feet. Another one used light bulbs. She made a dress out of light bulbs. I mean, this is a kind of… break with tradition that was very unacceptable in Japan. But in the United States, they were considered, you know, derivative, that they were imitating European Expressionism or American Expressionism, because it seemed so radical in Japan in the 50s, but in the United States, it was like, been there, done that.

So it's kind of interesting to see how different technologies are accepted in different ways. Look at how long it took for photography to be accepted as an expressive medium.

## Renata Janiszewska [14:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=878s)

Right. Thank you, and I want… I was wondering if perhaps we could look at the slide set now, because Angela put it together. It's a bit of contribution from a few of us cobbled together.

## Angela Ferraiolo [14:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=893s)

Yeah, I think… I think it'll help, ground some of the, like, images that people have been referring to, like Catherine and, and Helen, so… Yeah, let me just turn on my screen sharing. And then… oh, sorry, I had Google open, because it seems like my connection is slightly unstable today, so I have to apologize for that. But let's just make these full screen. And… here we go, okay. So this is just a title slide, but this is Colin Gold. Colin, did you want to say a few words about your work here, maybe?

## Colin Goldberg [15:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=931s)

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Angela.

## Angela Ferraiolo [15:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=934s)

Sure.

## Colin Goldberg [15:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=934s)

So yeah, you know, like, I gave these images as an example. They're, pretty much the most recent paintings that I've completed this year, and they're small studies. And, you know, my undergraduate background is in painting. I actually studied under a guy named Angelo Ippolito. Who was a second wave New York school abstract expressionist painter, originally from Italy, and he kind of, you know, turned me on to abstraction. And then I got involved using the computer in my work after moving to New York City, and got involved doing web work in the mid-90s. I ended up there pretty much right when the browser, the mosaic browser, you know, became widely available.

And started working with tools like Illustrator, primarily and some Photoshop to, you know, to create abstract work. So, these pieces kind of combine those two loves of painting and digital media, and I generally work in a way that, is kind of like a conversation or an interplay between those two, processes, so I'll start with in this case, I started with a digital drawing layer, which is on the bottom of it. They're both small works on linen, so I printed on them and, using a large format printer, and then took those, pieces, painted onto them.

And then I photograph the work and bring it back into the machine. Kind of as a mock-up. And then the top layer, these wireframe forms, are kind of, an element that I've been working with, for over 20 years now, with a series called Wireframes, and I think that kind of speaks directly to the, you know, the technological aesthetic. So, so yeah, in a nutshell, that's kind of… The background of these pieces.

## Angela Ferraiolo [17:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1047s)

Thanks, Colin. And it's also… it was interesting to hear, like, how the term Techspressionism came into being from… from you and Helen, how it's, like, an approach and not a style. And I think, like… like these images and, like, so many artists are looking for, like, what is that… what is that bridge between the technology I'm using and maybe, you know, like, the worlds of fine art that, that I was educated in, or that I, that I, like, learned to start in. And this is, this is just an image of Techspressionism. Today it's a category, I think, that… that represents an approach, right, as Helen says, to, working with technology as an artist.

And… but Expressionism… sorry, yeah? So… so… so, but Techspressionism… Techspressionism itself started, like, a little while… a long time ago, right? I mean… I was trying to figure out, like, like, when the movement came into being. But as Helen says, we can think of it as a fourth wave, or Renata says we can think of it as a fourth wave of these expressionist movements in art, eventually, like, I think trying to find, like, how does it sit beside technology? And it's interesting, even beyond Techspressionism, People… like, I'm thinking of this great book by David Hockney about techniques of the masters, which is really, if you read it from a technological perspective, it's really a history of artists trying to make their piece with technology, exploit technology, see how it can add to their studio practice. So, like, there is this lineage, which I think is, like, very smart to look at, but… there… it seems like there are several perspectives in trying to situate this as art goes on.

So this is Jackson Pollock, which is… Helen is the expert on Jackson Pollock. Like, these are the famous towns now with pictures of Jackson Pollock and his technique of action painting. Which you can look at as, like, physicality and embodiment, but you can also look at it as a way of incorporating randomness into artwork, or a way of incorporating spontaneity into artwork. So this is an example of a studio artist, a traditional painter, trying to come to terms with some of the concepts that become very important in digital art and even generative art.

## Helen A. Harrison [19:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1197s)

Oh, could I just interject one thing while we're looking at Pollock? Could we go back to that other slide? One of the reasons that Hans Namath wanted to make a film of Pollock was because in the still photographs, you see how his arm is in motion? It's a little bit blurry? He couldn't capture the actual movement in a still photograph, because it freezes the frame. And he said that… and I knew Hans Namath, and we did discuss this, and he said that Pollock's movements were very rhythmical.

It was not just splashing it out. That these… his movements were almost repetitious in a way. There was a rhythmical flow to the way the image was developed. So even though it wasn't planned out in advance, it was still very… it obeyed the laws of physics, or what… of course, chaos theory wasn't known at that time, but it really was an organized kind of approach. So, the film shows him, particularly not the one on glass, which is what you're seeing on the left there, but the one where he's painting outdoors on a stretched… a stretch of long, narrow canvas, where he steps bit by bit by bit by bit, and the forms repeat themselves in slight variations, but there's a definite rhythmical quality to them, and so they are composed spontaneously and improvisationally, but there is definitely composition there, and of course, that's what Richard Taylor's work showed with the fractal analysis.

## Catherine Mason [21:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1295s)

And would you almost… would you almost say that this shows an underlying… I mean, this spontaneity, this process, it almost shows an underlying… it makes visible the underlying rules of the universe, doesn't it?

## Helen A. Harrison [21:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1310s)

In a way, yes, because, well, one of the things that Pollock did, of course, was to, as he put it, I don't work from the landscape, I… I observe it. So he would see the vines that grow in the trees, he would see the bushes and the all kinds of undergrowth that were in his environment out in the Hamptons. And those shapes, those forms, the way nature regenerates itself, was definitely contributing to his underlying impulse. That gave him the structure, it gave him something to work off.

Without actually imitating it, without trying to duplicate nature. You know, he famously said, I am nature. So what he was trying to do was to do the same kind of natural generation of form that a tree or a bush or any other growing thing would do. But I think he did it very well, and I think that was part of the point of Richard Taylor's analysis, that when you look at a cloud, when you look at a tree, all these things that have fractal structures, you can see the analogy in Pollock's forms.

## Angela Ferraiolo [23:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1387s)

Yeah, so the act of painting becomes almost more important than the actual painting itself, or we would say it, like, starts to move towards the procedural, is maybe what… how a programmer would… would try to think about this. But I wanted to, move on to… now, Catherine, did you want to, say… about this…

## Catherine Mason [23:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1408s)

This is Colin Sheffield on the left there of your screen, and that's exhibited at a trade fair in London called Computer 70 of 1970, where computer manufacturers would exhibit their latest equipment. And the Computer Arts Society, which was very newly formed at this date, was given a little section of this trade fair to show some, you know, artistic uses. It was kind of almost a novelty at this point. But it's interesting that, you know, a side discussion would… we could have about, acceptance of this work, and that, members of the Computer Arts Society often found, The, the manufacturing, the trade, the industry, was more accepting of their work and was willing to give them space to show it than the fine art world was.

So, this enormous, painting machine, it's really a plotter that, Colin Sheffield built, designed and built himself. And he constructed it on a wall, and it used, stepping motors and compression to spray acrylic paint, having, he having written code to describe where it was supposed to go. So that's the teletype that you're looking at in the front there. And, you know, it was very well received initially. The BBC came along and filmed him, and made a program, which is kind of astonishing to think of today, you know? But people found it a very unique and radical way of producing art.

And, as I say, Sheffield came from a painting background, so in a way, he saw that this was, although he created rules, they were rules that also govern the underlying universe, similar that what Pollock was tapping into, perhaps, but using very different tools, very different means. To achieve something, which is also very abstract and painterly. Unfortunately, I only have this black and white slide because, Sheffield gave up all of this computer work. About 3 or 4 years after this photograph was taken, he found that he just couldn't get enough, funds to keep going as a fine artist. So, he gave it up, and he threw away all of his… artwork, which is very sad. And these were canvases, he would roll them up and kept them in the garage, but when I met him in around 2003, it had all gone, sadly. So we just have photographs and a little bit of BBC film remaining.

Anyway, I've juxtaposed this with Harold Cohen, who obviously spent his entire career, right up, really, I believe, just before he passed away, he was actually still sitting at the computer a day or two before. And anyway, this is one of his, painting machines. He had several different machines over the course of his, his career, which he devised himself. This one was one that he worked with Epson to make, and he often built some of the early machines himself. He had different things, like turtles, and as his work progressed, he… and as the technology improved, you know, he took on different modalities.

But again, you know, the thing that sometimes is overlooked with Cohen, I think, is that he's an amazing colorist. Like the Colin Sheffield, that would have been very bright, strong. Colors, which, again, sadly, we're not seeing here, but, you know, he used really strong colors. And Cohen saw himself as first and foremost, a colorist. And he came out of that, kind of 1960s, 1950s, emphasis on color, color field, painting, and so on. He represented Britain at the Venice Binali in 1966, you know, as a painter. And it wasn't until later that he went to the States and, started thinking about what would happen if I took some of the knowledge that I have as a painter, how could I encode that? Could I get a machine to do some of the things that I do when I make pictures, and what would that tell us about the nature of being human? What would that tell us about, The nature of the universe, really. So, again, even though it's very precisely made with code, it still is very recognizably a Harold Cohen. Somehow it has his signature mark on it, and you would never mistake it for anything else.

## Angela Ferraiolo [27:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1679s)

Yeah, and just to circle back to what Michael was saying at the beginning. Harold Cohen enters, computer, like, computational media at a really interesting time, because he's using a very specific form of AI called an expert system, which is… which of course is like, how would I do these, like, what… you sort of atomize what makes a Harold Cohen painting a Harold Cohen painting, and then give this machine a set of rules to reproduce these paintings like, you know, infinitely. So, of course, anything that would come out of a Harold Cohen machine would be a Harold Cohen painting, much the way some artists today try to chain language models on their own data set. So he's, like, kind of way ahead of the game, and then… that system of building AI sort of got way too complicated, like, case studies expert systems that use on… use case-based reasoning, so, we've moved on from that. But, and now, Catherine, you chose to include, Lillian Schwartz also in the talk, and I thought that was such a great idea.

## Catherine Mason [29:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1749s)

Yeah, I really like Lillian Schwartz, and I would encourage everyone to get onto YouTube and look up some of her films that are on there. She was a filmmaker, she also did still images, and this head that you're looking at there on the left-hand side of the screen, that comes also from the Computer Arts Society collection. So, she was an American, but she did come to Britain in, I think it was 1972. And she obviously brought work with her, and this piece, entered the collection of the Computer Arts Society, which was subsequently donated to the V&A. So that forms part of the V&A's collection there, and it's a really large piece. I mean, it's massive. And it's, again, quite strong, you know, in its imagery, and its color is very strong. She loved to work with color.

And her films are sort of full of these pulsating, vibrating colors that bounce off your retina. She worked at Bell Labs, which, she went to after… she was invited to go there by Leon Harmon, who was the artist who made that, perhaps you've seen it, that amazing nude, Studies in Perspection… Perspective, which is kind of a famous work of computer art from the mid-60s. And she was part of the EAT movement with Billy Kluver and Robert Rauschenberg, and, she won one of their, competitions at the Museum of Modern Art. They ran a competition to, to, you know, to have artists working with, scientists and technicians. This was in 1968, for the exhibition, The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age. And she won it with an interactive kinetic light sculpture.

So, that kind of put the marker down for where her work was going to go subsequently. And of course, this was a very exciting time at Bell Labs, because they had Stan Vander Beek there, and Namjoon Pike, who was mentioned in the chat just a minute ago. He had left the year before Lillian arrived, so that was about 68 that Namjoon Pike left. He'd worked there for a good 5 or 6 years. And she spent the majority of her career at the lab, navigating an environment that was very masculine. So I think it's astonishing to discover that a woman could, you know, be actually extremely successful, in this field, you know, even, you know, at a time when, you know, there wasn't so much gender parity, perhaps, as there is now. But she found ways to navigate that, and she had a very successful career there. Initially, they told her that she would just be a visiting, sort of like a visiting artist, and they wouldn't give her any official recognition. But eventually, she was given a proper title and a desk.

And I think even she had a little bit of funding. So, you know, but she had to kind of fight for it. But it's just an interesting reminder that, at this time, women could and were involved in computing, but perhaps not in such large numbers as men, due to the social constraints of the 1970s and 80s.

## Angela Ferraiolo [32:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1933s)

Yeah, that's a great point. Derek, not so familiar with her sculptures, but it is interesting when digital… like, it is interesting when it… when… Computational works start to leave the screen and enter the physical world, and then that… this is our… our next example. Let's see if we can advance the slide. Yeah, this would be an emert who's, so I know Anna Merch from Skydance, that big installation at Denver Airport. And so this is a… this was a new work that you shared with us, Catherine, and I thought maybe… I thought this was such an interesting piece, actually. What's, like, how does this… how did you see this relating to computation?

## Catherine Mason [32:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=1975s)

Well, Anna Murch, Anna Valentina Murch, to give her a full name, she was, a Brit, by birth, and this is her piece from the Royal Academ… the, Royal College of Art degree show in 1973. And she actually made this big tent, and I think it was actually… I did make a note here, it was… 18 feet across. I mean, this was huge. And it was made out of fiberglass fabric, so it had this kind of luminous quality to it. And then inside, she had computer-controlled slide projectors showing slides, 35mm slides, that she had, photographed herself of various images.

From, the urban landscape and the countryside. So, so it, it, it had, it sort of told a story in that it went from a very, hard-edged kind of urban, look. Right through to, A very organic, plant-based, you know, sort of look to it. And she said that this was because she was very concerned at the time with nuclear disarmament, which was a big thing in Britain at this point. And she felt that after the bomb, there would be the destruction of a bomb, there would be daisies coming. So the piece, when you sat in it, and it was interactive in that the viewer was entitled to, invited to walk inside the tent, to recline on cushions, you know, very sort of… it tied into those happenings that were, you know, keen on… people were keen on in the 60s.

And they would watch this slide projection that kind of told a story arc, and it was obviously figurative, but it was also describing the artist's expression of what could happen after a nuclear war, basically. And so the very final images are of daisies that sort of spring up, because she said that after the bomb, the flowers grow up through the ground. So, you're seeing, really, the viewer becoming an active participant in the becoming, the making of the artwork.

And it was here at the Royal College of Art that the Computer Arts Society people saw her work, and they took her… they took this piece and exhibited it at a show in Edinburgh later on that same year. And just as an interesting little aside about education at this time. At this point, at the RCA, she was in the, School of Environmental Media. Because they didn't really have, anything that we would call today, you know, computing, or digital media, or something. So, environmental media, she told me, was an offshoot of sculpture. So it's interesting what you just said, Angela, about the sculpture. It's obviously no longer in existence, this department at the Royal College, but it's a forerunner of contemporary multimedia departments.

And, you know, as I interviewed and spoke to a lot of these artists in the early 2000s who had worked in the 60s and 70s, they told me that they were often sculptors first, because a sculptor is somebody who is able to create things. They can build stuff with their hands. You know, it's easier, perhaps, for a sculptor to solder things together and to make circuit boards. You know, so it's interesting that a lot of people came from a kinetic background, which was all about making light pieces that you had to wire together yourself, and from a… they were often in sculpture departments. You know, Paul Brown started off in sculpture as well. Many people started off in kinetics, which was quite a…

## Angela Ferraiolo [36:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2188s)

I'm thinking of Gordon Pask, you know, who is, like, considered one of the very first cybernetic artists, and, like, rooted in the sculpture studio.

## Catherine Mason [36:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2196s)

Absolutely. So, it's interesting that nowadays we don't… we don't sort of have that, progression from sculpture to, because our tools have evolved so much, but it's interesting to think about that at the time, isn't it? Anyway, Anna Valentina Mertz, she continued… after… shortly after this piece, actually, I think about a year or so later, she moved to San Francisco, and she continued her life in the U.S, and became known for large-scale environmental sculpture installations, and had a very successful career.

## Angela Ferraiolo [37:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2223s)

Yeah, absolutely. But now, it's so… so you have these screen-based, screen-based artists, or canvas-based artists, they're… they're, they're very, they're trying to figure out computers, the sculptors are trying to figure out computers. And the math people are, too, and that's where we come to this. People were mentioning this earlier, this fractal analysis of Pollock's artworks. And I'm thinking of, the… actually, the mathematician that first, I would say, like, he wrote the first papers on fractals. His name was Benoit Mandelbrot, and he compared fractals to, ready-mades. He said, these are ready-mades that exist in the universe, in the mathematical world, and we just need to look at them. So… I always found it interesting that he would compare himself to Duchamp, who says, like, you just need to be able to, like, as an artist does, the mathematician needs to act as an artist and point out the ready-made object in the world as the work of art. I love that.

## Helen A. Harrison [38:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2288s)

That only one of those six images is actually a Pollock painting.

## Angela Ferraiolo [38:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2292s)

Oh, well, this is the analysis diagram, yeah.

## Helen A. Harrison [38:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2297s)

Seeing is undergrowth, like, up at the top left is undergrowth, you're seeing trees at the lower right, you're seeing moss, and then on the left, the middle one is a Pollock painting.

## Angela Ferraiolo [38:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2310s)

Thanks for clarifying that, Helen. Yeah. It's… when you look at a Pollock painting, do you see a fractal, foundation to, what he was doing?

## Helen A. Harrison [38:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2322s)

Well, personally, I do, knowing what a fractal is. Of course, he wouldn't have known, because Mandelbrot didn't theorize that until the 1960s, so it would not have been something that he was aware of. But again, I don't think it has to do with awareness. I think it has to do with the natural spontaneity of the rhythmical movement, and someone in the chat mentioned his interest in music. Which, of course, is equally rhythmical, but I think one of the main misconceptions about his work is that he was listening to the music while he was painting.

And he did not. There was no record player or radio in the studio. It's well documented. There was no electricity in the studio, but even if you'd had a wind-up Victrola, you'd have to change the record every 3 minutes, and that would not work. But there wasn't one. And for some reason, it's gotten into the folklore that he was, you know, dancing around to Dizzy Gillespie or whatever, but he did not. He listened to music in the house, sometimes incessantly in a large record collection, mostly classic jazz, not bebop or progressive.

But he was not… the music was in his head, let's put it that way. So all of this was done with a kind… wrapped in a kind of… Silence of his own thoughts, rather than external stimulus.

## Angela Ferraiolo [40:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2411s)

Interesting, yeah I blame Hollywood, you know, for these kinds of ideas.

## Helen A. Harrison [40:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2417s)

You know, Ed Harris' movie has a soundtrack, which is a fine thing, but it's like, you know, if you're watching an action movie, you know very well that the orchestra isn't playing while the car chase is on.

## Angela Ferraiolo [40:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2429s)

Right, true, yeah. Awesome. There used to be a separation between… okay, well, that's a different talk altogether. But I did want to mention some recent… Harold Cohen's show at the Whitney, curated by Christiane Paul, especially, I think, was, like, for me, that was a real moment, you know, in the curation of electronic art. So, but there is recent interest in trying to figure out, like, what is happening here. And you see curators trying to situate, computational artworks, generative art, things like that, with a longer lineage of, art making.

So, I did want to mention these, like, more recent exhibitions, and then I thought, I'm sorry I have to leave, but some ideas we could talk about might be, like, what is Techspressionism separate from, like, a purely generative art or computational art? Have these exhibitions helped establish a lineage, for this artwork… this… this approach? And, what are the ways that we might reconcile the physicality of painting, the materiality of painting, with the immaterial aspects of computers? For me, it all comes together in process, but there might be other ways that people can reconcile these two seemingly different approaches.

And how to bring the behavioral mess of the studio to the clean environment of the screen. So, just as a computational person, the screen isn't always that clean. I would just throw that out there. Sometimes it is quite the mess. But I think these are great, topics, like, just to get the ball rolling, although the audience, I'm sure, I'm sure all of the people in the Zoom will have their own ideas, but I will stop sharing here. Thanks for watching our slides, and thanks everyone for, your contributions to the conversation.

## Renata Janiszewska [42:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2549s)

Thank you. Thank you.

## Angela Ferraiolo [42:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2550s)

I'm sorry, I actually have to leave, but I just want to say to my co-panelists, it's wonderful to meet you. I've, like, been following you in the, like, from a distance, electronically, and now it's great to be here, and it was great to be invited. Thank you, Renata, and great to meet everyone. So have a wonderful rest of the day. Good luck with the conversation.

## Helen A. Harrison [42:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2571s)

Thank you, Angela.

## Angela Ferraiolo [42:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2572s)

I don't even jerky.

## Renata Janiszewska [42:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2574s)

Thank you, Angela.

## Angela Ferraiolo [42:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2575s)

Thank you!

## Michael Pierre Price [42:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2576s)

Makes sense, though.

## Catherine Mason [42:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2579s)

Also, I just want to put out there, that, Cohen started painting again on top of his printouts towards the end of his life. I don't know if you've seen any of those ones, they didn't have them in the Whitney, I don't believe. But some of his late, late works, he would print out on these massive Epson printers, hold them up to the wall, and then he would actually, paint on top of them with acrylics. So he was kind of merging the two properties towards the end of his life, which I think is really fascinating.

## Helen A. Harrison [43:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2610s)

Well, that's very much what Colin is doing at the beginning of his life. I think that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, going back to the handmade aspect and augmenting what the computer can do. The computer could give you structure, the computer could give you a range of color, the computer could give you certain kind of energy, but what's wrong with patching with it? I mean, you do what… artists do what they do. There's really no… no limit to the different kinds of multimedia interventions, I think, that are available.

## Catherine Mason [44:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2649s)

I would agree, yeah. And there was also a, you will know this, Helen, there was a famous exhibition of 1958 at the Whitechapel in London, which I think was the first time that Pollock had been shown on a wide scale in the UK. There might have been the odd… I think there was a painting that arrived at the ICA prior to that, but anyway, it was the first proper big exhibition, and it influenced a huge number of people who subsequently went on to work in quite different directions, but they found something that was within that was striking, really striking for them, mostly Roy Ascot. So if anyone's interested in that, you can look up Roy Ascot.

A very important British pioneer of cybernetics, and he saw these Pollock paintings at the Whitechapel, and immediately, somehow, made this connection between bringing the, Physicality, the expressionism, the, that, that, that… quality of dancing, I think somebody said in the, in the chat. He brought that together with cybernetics and made his art interactive. He saw that gesture became extremely important. Mark-making was very important. And of course, what do artists who use computers want to do? They want to make interesting marks.

You know, Harold Cohen said to me once that he felt that he might run out of ideas. He might run out of ways to make new marks, on paper, on canvas, so he felt that perhaps if he could encode his knowledge into a computer, it would find endless ways of making new marks. But in fact, I don't think he… he didn't really need to do that. You never run out of… of… of… The desire to make marks and new marks.

## Helen A. Harrison [45:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2748s)

People that you don't want to repeat yourself. You know, people criticized Pollock for changing his quote-unquote style in 1951, when he had the exhibition of Black paintings, and he… he couldn't go on regenerating the same kind of imagery. He felt that it was, it was… like, painting for the market. And, in fact, Lee Kras… there's a famous quote from Lee Krasner, where they were at the opening of this show at the Betty Parsons Gallery, and the work was very stark, very dark, and figures re-emerging. And someone came up to her and said, oh, very nicely, but couldn't you do it in color?

Black paintings don't sell, you know? I mean, and she said the insensitivity was just astonishing. You don't do it because it sells, you do it because you need to do it. And if you need to change, you change. And whatever the marketplace will react, that's what they react to. And those paintings are still not widely accepted.

## Catherine Mason [46:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2814s)

No.

## Helen A. Harrison [46:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2815s)

The kind of… the kind of, decision-making that goes into kind of rethinking your whole approach is essential for artists. I mean, you can go back and revisit earlier work, and in fact, I was talking to one artist, it's a little off the topic, but A guy named Peter Busa, who was part of a movement called the Indian Space Painters back in the 40s. It was a kind of abstraction that riffed off Northwest Coast Indian art. And years later, he went back and started doing those images again, and I was kind of shocked. I thought, you know, didn't you do that 40 years ago?

And he said, I… I didn't… I didn't take it far enough. I see more potential in it now. He had to… he had to think about it for 40 years before he could come back to it. And I thought, well, you know, I'm… I'm not getting it. He's getting it, but I'm not. And I think that… it's very brave of an artist to do that, to revisit earlier imagery. And I… you know, there's kind of a very… strong… Incentive for artists to just find a signature style and repeat it ad nauseam, because it has a market or it has a following. And I think that, you know, you have to… you have to resist that very strongly.

## Catherine Mason [48:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2901s)

Interesting, yeah.

## Renata Janiszewska [48:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2905s)

I see that we're… we have a lot of comments building up in the chat, and it's time to throw the discussion over to you, the audience. I think probably the best way to go about it is if you want to speak, if you just raise your hand, please, and we'll go from there. Rose.

## Roz Dimon [48:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=2926s)

Great discussion. Thanks so much. I just kept thinking so much about, many of us who are painters, and how, you know, at least I'll speak for myself, my paintings filled up with pixels. Unexpectedly, you know, in New York in the 80s, I mean, these squares and electricity came in, so I'm coming from a different place, not where the code rose up into my paintings, but the paintings… Reacted to code, and it's still all about paint for me, and for, I think, for many of us, in a way, but I know that when I went on to get into digital art.

All by accident, but I do find that the mark… I mean, it was all about the mark that I make digitally responded to the times that I lived in, and that's something I don't think we're talking about enough, are the painters that went… yes, we were painters, but then we went over to the computer and we found the marks that were already infiltrating… infiltrating our paintings. And they have an edge. Even the marks that I use today on a Lincoln portrait, you know, there's an edge to that kind of mark that speaks to now, as the time that we live in now, distinctly.

And I think that is another discussion we could have about all this, even though I love… I mean, I remember going to see Harold Cohen in his first marks that he did. It's fascinating, and I love what Helen's bringing up about Jackson Pollock. I've learned so much lately about him. I should know more, living out here in the East End at this point. But, it's fascinating that the fractals were underneath it, but… and thank you, all of you. I'll pass it on. Pass the baton.

## Catherine Mason [50:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3017s)

It's very fascinating about the mark-making. I think that's brilliant. So, it's almost as though there's something that is in the, in the, age in which you live that.

## Roz Dimon [50:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3027s)

Yes.

## Catherine Mason [50:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3028s)

Mmm.

## Roz Dimon [50:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3029s)

Yes, and in the air, and in the, like, it's spiritual and digital. I mean, I think it's a miracle we're looking at each other on this screen, in this place, we forget. I mean, like, what… it's incredible, I mean, it's unbelievable, you know? And the amount of layers, too, along with the whole pixels. I love those pixels. And my early paintings and digital, my people who are following me, I can paint my socks off. They were like. Oh, Roz, these are so ugly.

And I looked at them, well, yeah, I guess they were. But I was so excited, because it was the mark I needed for… to express what was coming out.

## Catherine Mason [51:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3063s)

Great.

## Renata Janiszewska [51:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3064s)

Thank you. I think Lucy, we have Lucy next.

## Lucy Boyd-Wilson [51:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3069s)

Hi, thank you, everybody. Loving this conversation. I would like to bring up the, interactive technologies such as virtual reality and, motion capture devices, such as Kinect, are ways to bring the gestural mark-making, real-time, live, motion-based, for both the artist and even creating experiences where the viewer can engage in mark-making. And become part of the art creation. So I just wanted to bring up those… those technologies.

## Helen A. Harrison [51:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3104s)

Yeah, actually, I had some experience with that. We created a virtual reality tour of the Pollock Studio, and one of the components… we didn't do it because it would have added an extra layer of fundraising. But there was an element where you could actually… you would look at the studio floor as a kind of template, although it's… that's completely random, it's not a work of art, but it has all the colors and gestures that you find in Pollock's work, and you could kind of make marks in space, responding to what was… the stimulation, and then you… it would be sent to you.

It's sent to your own email, or your own account. And so you actually created… could create a work of art, inspired by the studio, and then have it as your own.

## Catherine Mason [52:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3154s)

That's a really brilliant idea, isn't it?

## Helen A. Harrison [52:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3156s)

Cool, you know, but it was going to be another 50,000 bucks, so we didn't do it.

## Catherine Mason [52:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3161s)

One day.

## Helen A. Harrison [52:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3162s)

But it's something that, you know, can be done, and these technologies are changing all the time. Artists… I don't think artists could even keep up with it, but if there's a technology out there, an artist will start messing with it, I'm sure.

## Renata Janiszewska [52:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3178s)

We have a question from Greg.

## Greg Garvey [53:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3185s)

I think Stephen Carpenter was first? If he wants to go first?

## Renata Janiszewska [53:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3191s)

Okay. Okay, Steven, are you… Available?

## Stephen Carpenter [53:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3195s)

Yeah, I'm… I'm… I'm here, and… and I'm… in awe, I'm… with the art history, and with… The attachment to Long Island. I spent 11 years on Long Island and learned everything that I should have learned in art history in central New York and didn't. Just… just seeing and just being there, with… with the space, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I… I came at this from a traditional tactile background. But at the point at which I was really beginning to develop as a painter.

I lost the sight of my right eye. For… temporarily, but I lost it, which eliminated depth of field. And it was… it was a… it was a terrible moment, because I said, does this mean, now that I'm ready to do significant artwork that I don't have a forum for it, because without depth of field, you had to watch the shadows converge as the brush got to the canvas, and by 20 minutes, I had a headache, because it was too much effort. So, technology Saved my life, which was the fact that The digital screen has no depth of field. It allowed me to continue to work as if I had stuff. So, okay, fast forward. Now I have sight coming back, which is good. It only took 10 years.

But now I have all of this digital… all these digital tools, and all of this digital repu- reputation. But I still have the idea, and it was such a breath of fresh air to hear that… you can paint, you can make a drawing, submit it to a… to a printer, it comes back digitally, printed, now you paint, take the photograph of the paint, send it back to the printer. And I did a couple of these, but I know that's where I'm gonna end up. And it's just… it's… it's really exciting to see how you look out, and you can see where two paths that are supposed to be parallel are going to converge.

And I think that's one of the things about… that I'm so happy about with tech… Techspressionism. Is that the doors are open. It's not… it's not borders, it's fields to… to explore. And, I guess I can shut up now, but I've got so much to say, and… and, I will save… I will save reminiscences for later when I can contact people directly.

## Catherine Mason [56:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3366s)

Let me just say briefly, Stephen, have a look at Lillian Schwartz, because she also had problems with her eyes.

## Stephen Carpenter [56:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3374s)

I will do that. I've got a list of… I've got a list of people… I know that I'm not traveling in a space that hasn't been traveled before. But every time we're in it. It feels so different, and it really is kind of different, but at the same time. You either have… what's the expression? You either fish or cut bait. Or you put up the brushes and say, no more. And I… I'm not one of those. I… I have to… I have to be busy. So, thank you for your audience.

## Renata Janiszewska [56:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3409s)

Thanks, Steven. Can we hear from Greg now?

## Greg Garvey [56:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3414s)

Yeah, what I… one of the things I think is very exciting about Techspressionism is that it's an international movement. And I think that, in many ways, this is something that has been going on for quite a long time. I had an exhibit at what was then known as the Yale Digital Media Center for the Arts. I found myself in an argument with, at the opening presentation, with a graduate student who was arguing that, against the use of digital technology. It was just a trend.

And… I countered by saying it's really a new kind of international style. That you can find roots going back perhaps as early as the 50s, or you could even locate it much earlier in Dada, or… Basics experiments with Art-making, materials, performance, the convergence, and the embrace of doing things, discovering new ways to do things, and art is always related. Even if you're painting, painting is a technology. Making paint, making brushes, and so there is this lineage, which is a part of… not just the avant-garde, but it's kind of… for those who are excited by discovery and invention, and… Different ways of making.

## Renata Janiszewska [58:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3518s)

Thank you very much, Greg, and we have a question from… or a comment from Clayton.

## Clayton Campbell [58:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3527s)

A… Here I am. Hi, Renan.

## Renata Janiszewska [58:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3533s)

Hi.

## Clayton Campbell [58:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3534s)

Hey, this has been really stimulating. Thank you to the speakers, it's just been wonderful. Hearing, your knowledge and wisdom and anecdotes, so thank you very much. Just intellectually, and I was wondering if the panel and maybe others could speak to this… these thoughts I'm having. I was interested, Yeah, Renata, and the way you introduced the different phases of expressionism, and where you place Techspressionism as, this… Further evolution of, A kind of urgency of, A mode of art making, let me put it that way. But I also was interested in the question that were left with us, the four questions before the speaker had to leave.

And whether you all might take a crack at that. And that was, how does Techspressionism differ from other forms of Computational… and digital art. And it made me wonder, is Techspressionism really a movement, or is it just a really, innovative platform? For really diverse, creative, artists, so… those were thoughts I was having. I was wondering if you might speak to them, the panelists.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:00:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3624s)

Well, I think if you… if you think of it in terms of the… of the… of technology as a tool. You could say oil paint is a tool. And people use oil paint in a huge variety of ways, everything from representation and mimesis and, you know, photorealism kind of thing, to the most abstract and, for many people, unintelligible imagery. So, that's just the tool. What you do with the tool is what counts. In fact, Pollock said it himself, that a technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

So, it isn't… it isn't about… whether or not you can write code. It's really about what the end product is, what your… what your intention is. And with Techspressionism, it's inherently subjective. You can make digital art that is just… just patterns, just decoration. You could make it for advertising purposes, you could make it for gaming, you could, you know, many, many ways that you can use that tool. But if you want to use it to express your emotions and have subjective content.

That… that's the… the narrow avenue down which the Techspressionists travel.

## Clayton Campbell [01:01:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3705s)

Let me ask you this, Helen. A lot of work, is… has a great deal of feeling in it, comes from a subjective place. What…. Would make someone who's experiencing the work by an artist who's identified as a Techspressionist say, this is a… this is a work by a Techspressionist.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:02:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3733s)

Well, you wouldn't necessarily know it just by looking at it, because even something that might just appear… like, one of Pollock's critics said his work is a beautiful design for a necktie, and in fact, it has been used as a necktie, but.

## Clayton Campbell [01:02:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3750s)

I know.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:02:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3750s)

Yeah, that the… the image itself Conveys that content is… it's a little bit slippery. It's a little bit hard to know. I mean, you think about a Mondrian that seems to be so cut and dried, you know, so this is just geometry.

## Clayton Campbell [01:02:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3768s)

Right, right.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:02:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3770s)

It had emotional content. The colors themselves, Kandinsky believed that the colors themselves had this kind of emotional, impact. And, you know, there's been reams written on color theory, and how color affects your mood, and synesthesia, how people experience color and hear sound, or… I had a friend for whom color was days of the week. Like, it was Monday, you know, that was a synesthetic reaction to color. So, it's awfully hard to quantify the way that an image could… could convey that inner expression.

But, so maybe you have to know a little something about the artist's intention, which I, you know, this is why people ask artists for their statements. What were you talking about?

## Clayton Campbell [01:03:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3817s)

So… The question that was posed, one of those four questions then, I wonder… because she said, how does Techspressionism differ from other forms of computational and digital art. That seems to be kind of a… A large question for tech specialism to be asking itself right now. Maybe that's not… The right question. Maybe… would there be another question? The movement, at this point, its lifespan should be asking itself? I'd like to just…

## Colin Goldberg [01:04:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3852s)

Jump in on that really quick.

## Clayton Campbell [01:04:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3853s)

Thing.

## Colin Goldberg [01:04:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=3854s)

Yeah, please. So, you know, Techspressionism was a term that I came up with, back in 2011 as a way to describe my own work, because I didn't think there was A good way to… to define it. And people said it was digital art, but I don't see it as digital art, because a lot of what I do involves my hand with a paintbrush, dipping it in paint, and putting it on a piece of linen. So, to me, that has nothing to do with digital art. And, when I was a graduate student, at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, I was enrolled in a computer art program, graduate computer art program, and the undergraduate program had already been renamed to digital art. And almost none of those students had any interest in putting their work into a gallery setting. You know, it was about getting work in a game design studio, or working at Pixar. You know, so to me, two things about calling my work digital art, it just didn't… didn't really fit the definition of what I consider my work, and some of it's digital work, digital art in the sense that, to me, it would be art that's created and consumed digitally, like screen-based animation, for instance, or a VR environment. But I think that, you know.

It put a name to something that I didn't have before, and then fine art people wouldn't accept it being called a painting, because I was running it through a printer after painting on it, but… so, you know, artists like Rauschenberg and Warhol also incorporated screen printing, and Photo silkscreen into their paintings, and yet they're still called paintings. So I thought, well, I can take the liberty of continuing to call my work paintings. And as far as, you know, how would you identify work by a Techspressionist, you know, one thing early on that I thought was really important was this idea of self-identification, where even on the homepage, it says you're a Techspressionist when you say you are. So if somebody, like.

You know, identifies or believes in The term, that is, it speaks to them and resonates with them, then that's kind of the idea behind it, whether or not that, you know. Has any degree of acceptability in the art world or within critical theory, you know, that's up to question, but that's kind of the way that I could see it. Versus, say, a curator saying, oh, here's a group of artists, and I'm gonna put them all together in this show called Techspressionism, because they all work with computers. You know, to me, that really doesn't follow the vision of what this is about. So, anyway, that's just from my own personal point of view, but that certainly doesn't speak to all the other, you know, participants in this big, sort of, project.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:06:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4019s)

Like saying, I'm gonna put all these people together because they paint. So we'll have a show of painters. Okay. Have a show of painters, but they could be painting any subject, or no subject at all, or something from their imagination, and just because they use paint doesn't really make them compatible.

## Clayton Campbell [01:07:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4038s)

Well, why do you think she asked the question?

## Helen A. Harrison [01:07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4042s)

About.

## Clayton Campbell [01:07:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4044s)

Did it have any distinguishing factors about it at this point? That's what made me curious, you know.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:07:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4051s)

I think because people see the technology first. And look for the content. It's… the medium is kind of overwhelming, especially for people, for laypeople like me, who don't really know anything about computational imagery and how to create it. But the idea that the technology itself generated the art is… and like Colin said, you know, you go to a gallery and you say, here's my work, would you show it? And you say, well, it's not real art, it's computer imagery.

How do you get over that barrier?

## Colin Goldberg [01:08:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4087s)

Also, I think that the question itself assumes that Techspressionism as opposed to other forms of digital art, well, I don't see it as one of many flavors of digital art. It is outside of digital art. Digital art might be a component of Techspressionist work, and I remember a roundtable discussion with Helen and Christiane Paul of the Whitney talking about this exact topic, and, you know, I remember, actually, it was prior to the recording starting.

Asking Christiane, well, you know, if there's a sculpture, that is created through the use of technology. Would you consider that digital art? Or whether there's a painting that incorporates digital technology into it, would you consider that digital art? And she sort of emphatically said, yes, I would consider that digital art. I personally disagree with that. I would continue to call them paintings and sculptures. So that's a difference of opinion. But I would not say that it is, say, you know, how does it differ from other forms of digital art that's presupposing that it is just another, you know, another name for digital art, which I don't think it is.

## Catherine Mason [01:09:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4160s)

And, you know, the art world has always had an obsession with categorizing and cataloging things, and you know, where can we place this, and what can we do with this, and what's a name for that? And really, if you think about who an artist is, they're not a person who is easily categorized. You know, even ordinary… even ordinary people like myself, you know, we're not easily… human beings are not easily put into little pigeonholes. But art history loves that, and I mean, I get this all the time when I write a book. It's like, well, where would it go on the bookcase, bookshelf, in the shop, in the bookstore, you know? And I'm like, well, it's about ideas, and it's about what it is to be human. Can't we kind of, you know, get beyond some of these labels all the time?

Time, but, this is something that, I think maybe just generally humanity likes to pigeonhole things, and they like to label things. Perhaps it makes it easier to understand the seeming chaos in the world, I don't know. But that's partly, what digital art, you know, has art that uses Contemporary digital technologies. We've been up against this since… It started.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:10:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4228s)

No, but you're right about the world. I mean, this is something that… is it YA? Is it a cookbook? Is it an art book? Is it a picture book? Is it history? Is it a thriller? I mean, all these different categories, these, you know, minutiae breakdowns. Help people to decide what they're looking at, or what they're reading, or what they're thinking about. And it is, kind of frustrating when you have something that doesn't fit into any one of those categories, but at the same time, it is kind of understandable.

## Clayton Campbell [01:10:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4259s)

Yeah, we have a…

## Renata Janiszewska [01:11:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4260s)

Couple of questions.

## Clayton Campbell [01:11:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4262s)

Sorry, that's a great conversation. Thank you very much, everyone. Of course. I'm glad to keep chatting.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:11:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4268s)

Michael Pierre Price.

## Michael Pierre Price [01:11:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4270s)

Yeah, so, yeah, I've… I'm really happy to have assisted Renata today in… in moderating, but… so this is… kind of related. I think, speaking for myself, and in my conversations with many of the artists here who I've gotten to know. We've gravitated to, Techspressionism, because, I think one way or another, we've felt like, the left-handed stepchild in the art world and it's like we have found a community here. And so I'm… I'm trying to figure out, from your standpoint, as historians.

Are there comparable… are we going through something that other artists have gone through previously in… this weight of technology trying to self-define things, when we've just had this discussion, That it… the technology is… an application, but it's not self-defining, and so the idea of Techspressionism being this moniker, we can kind of… put all of ourselves under this very, very diverse umbrella, has been very useful for me, but I'm just kind of curious, historically, has this been faced, often or not? Or is this… or are we in some unique universe right now?

## Helen A. Harrison [01:12:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4365s)

Oh, well, I think photography is the… is the obvious precursor. That once that technology was developed, a painting is dead, we're never going to need that anymore, and then it was like, oh, well, it isn't really art, because it's just capturing what you see, and so it doesn't have any soul, it doesn't have any emotion, and it took decades for people to get over that, and even today. There's a certain, bias against it, and I think that If there is an, an analogy that… that is probably the most appropriate one. But even now, I think there's still… because it's… I think one of the elements is that some… a lot of digital art is not unique. It's duplicatable, which is… was true, also, of photography. And even you think about printmaking.

Printmaking is sort of, like, down there in the lower level of the hierarchy, because it's… you have multiple versions of the same thing. And once you have that, the uniqueness of the image is diluted.

## Catherine Mason [01:13:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4434s)

I just want to show this from my book, I don't know if anybody can see, but this is, Joshua Reynolds, who was the first president of the, Royal Academy, and he had a camera obscura. Which he used, this was in 17, well, mid-18th century, so 1700s, and he used this as a tool to help, you know, devise, perspective and line up sitters and so on. But look, you can see that he's made it disguised as a book. So that when it was sitting around in the studio, or on his desk, it just looked like a big, kind of, leather-bound volume sitting there, like you might have all kinds of other stuff. He didn't want anyone to know that he was using anything that could be sitting as cheating.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:14:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4479s)

Exceeding, exactly. Well, Hockney wrote about that quite a bit, about the idea books.

## Tommy Mintz [01:14:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4486s)

What was that book you just showed?

## Catherine Mason [01:14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4488s)

This is my own book, sorry, called _The Computer in the Art Room_, which you can get as an e-book.

## Helen A. Harrison [01:14:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4494s)

But that… that sense of, of, you know, you're… you're cheating because you're using a machine is, you know, the artist is supposed to… everything is supposed to be sui generis and not rely on any outside,

## Catherine Mason [01:15:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4508s)

And I think this probably goes back to Renaissance times, when, you know, artists worked so hard, and they would put themselves together into guilds and so on, in an attempt to try and raise up the status of art, because art was seen as really quite, you know, didn't have a lot of use. So, you know, artists have, probably since the time when the caveman put his hand on the side of the cave wall and, you know, blew pigment around it, ground up minerals, probably since that time.

Artists have been trying to raise themselves up to the same level as scientists. You know, we are important, society does require creativity and art. But it's a shame that, you know, we've had to fight for this continually.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:15:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4549s)

Thank you. I think Cynthia, Beth Rubin, please.

## Cynthia Beth Rubin [01:15:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4552s)

Okay, so thank you, and I wanted to echo what Michael Price just said about being the stepchild of the art world. I think that Expressionism has… represents artists who have become kind of the stepchildren of the digital world. That what's considered digital art increasingly has been people who focus on code. First, even though they may, in the end, produce perfectly wonderful work. But for some of us, we came to using computers from a different perspective.

You know, I personally was really drawn to the color and the luminosity of the screen, and I had the opportunity to work with early coders in the mid-70s, and didn't turn it… didn't do it, because everything was just in black and white, and X's and O's. And so that's… I don't want to… I know there are a lot of people who want to talk. So, that's all I'm gonna say, is that we're in that in-between place, where we come to code is integral to our work, whether we wrote it ourselves or we're using software code, but we… are twisting it in different expressive ways.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:17:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4631s)

Thank you, Cynthia. And Annette is next.

## Annette Weintraub [01:17:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4639s)

I was really interested in the example of Joshua Reynolds, because it also reminded me about how much early photographs were manipulated. And there's a history of, using multiple images to make a… to make a photograph. You know, photographs were never photographic truth. They were… there was always an element Of, manipulation and editing. And that… I really like the idea that these boundaries are broken down, that painting isn't simply making marks, that photography isn't merely mirroring reality. And I think this discussion of the antecedents of Digital art, or for a better term, computationally assisted art.

It's important because it's important not to see these things as siloed in boxes, but as part of a kind of a unitary stream of expression that takes different forms. And that is very layered, because there's a whole history of artists such as, you know, Frank Stella, using, 3D modeling and never really talking about it. So, as much as many… artists who use technology are foregrounding it. There's a huge, history of artists who use it and hide it.

Because it's kind of a, like, a dirty secret in the art world. So it's really interesting to me to see investigations both into the history and forerunners, and also into the contemporary ways of using it that bring it together more.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:19:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4753s)

Thank you. Lee Musgrave is next.

## Lee Musgrave [01:19:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=4757s)

It's fascinating to me, really fascinating. Here I am, sitting here as an old man in my 80s. Listening to discussions that I had with Professors and other artists in 1962. 1962. And the same discussions are still going on. Really fascinating.

The only people I could get interested in anything I made in 1962 with A barotype or a headliner. That's what it was called. Nobody used the word computer. As soon as it was demonstrated to me what this thing was… doing. And what it was supposed to be used for. I couldn't wait to take it apart. I risked my job, I risked being jailed. To play with this thing. Because I wanted to see what kind of mark-making I could do with it. That's what was important to me.

And to my good fortune, A lot of you here have heard me say this before. The two men, old men like me now. First, Robert K. Strauss, who owned the business. And Mike Flannery, who managed the business. When they discovered what I was doing with their equipment that had nothing to do with the business. They could have really… Done bad things to me. But they were encouraging. They actually said to me, show us what it turns out to be, we want to see it. That's the marble of the human being.

You know, I had the good fortune to be working for these kind of individuals. I didn't know at the time that Robert K. Strauss was a member of the trustees of the art museum of Santa Barbara. I didn't… I didn't know what a trustee was. I was so dumb Andy Young at that time. But, I made these things. On positive 35 millimeter film. Not negative film that's translucent or transparent. Positive. It looked like a piece of paper. And I manipulated all of the ways to make marks on this.

I took it to my art professors and showed it to them. All of them, only two of them were even remotely interested. They just looked at it and said, oh yeah, okay, well. Let's get back to what we were talking about. It took several years before I started hearing about other young artists Doing things with… machines or computers. All of us were trying to do the same thing, to make it presentable. Because it had been drummed into us in college that your art has to be presentable before you can go to a gallery.

Forer collectors will be interested in it. There was no way. I could not make that hurdle. There was no way to make these little 35 millimeter positive pieces of paper Presentable to a gallery. Yep, when I tried, they just showed me the door, just instantly. That's all you got, kid, go away. Simple, right? It took years to get past that. Big hurdle. Huh? The hurdle that Colin brought up is still with us today. I still… talk to a lot of collectors, the first thing they say to me is, well, you're gonna use those vegetable dyes on a piece of paper or canvas, and it'll fade before I'm even dead.

That's what they say, because that's what they believe. I'm gonna be in LA in a couple of days to meet with some of those people again, and I know this same question's gonna come up again. You know, they're gonna ask. My work is printed on paper. So it's got two strikes against it right there. They don't like paper very much. There's very few collectors. Who are happy about buying anything on paper. And then, what am I putting on paper? I'm not putting on oil-based inks that will last centuries, I'm putting on some vegetable dye stuff that might make it, may not make it, nobody knows yet.

All of those arguments are still right there in front of you. And it's extremely frustrating, because especially when you're dealing with big collectors, because they're not talking to you about the image that you're showing them. I'm not… involved with the painting. They're concerned about their investment. If I invest in this, if I buy this, sure, I can enjoy it for a few years, but… what's it gonna be worth when my or my grandchildren Want to sell it.

Because is it going to be there on the paper still? Or is it going to be gone?

## Renata Janiszewska [01:24:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5090s)

Thanks, Lee. Annette, did you have something to add?

## Annette Weintraub [01:24:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5097s)

No, sorry, I just forgot to take my hand down. Apologies.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:25:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5103s)

Okay.

## Lee Musgrave [01:25:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5104s)

Thank you, I needed to be interrupted anyway.

## Catherine Mason [01:25:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5107s)

I'll tell you… A very funny story, if we have a very quick minute, that Patrick Prince told me about Robert Mallory. And some of you may have, come across Robert Mallory. He had quite a career as a junk artist, making kind of big sculptural things out of bits of found objects and junk and so on, in New York. Anyway, he then turned to the computer because he inhaled a lot of resin, in making this stuff, and he became quite ill. So he went back to his dealer, who was Leo Costelli, and he said, here's my work that I've done. And of course, it was this big, because it came off the plotter, which in, you know, the mid-1960s was… that's the size of it. And Costelli apparently said, oh, well, that's all very well, but I want something big! Because he had, Andy Warhol and those huge, big pieces. He says, nobody will buy something this little, I want big things, make it big, and then I'll sell you.

So it was purely a size of, to do with the size. And so, Mallory and Patrick Prince started calling this the Leo-Castelli effect. So you can invoke that, you know, well, I've got the Leo-Castelli effect. When you get… when you come across that, you can… you can invoke that.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:26:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5172s)

That's a great story.

## Catherine Mason [01:26:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5173s)

Is.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:26:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5174s)

I… I'm really…

## Helen A. Harrison [01:26:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5176s)

Going to have to leave, but I really appreciate the attention that everyone's been giving to this topic, even though it dates back to 1962. It actually dates back to 1862 with photography. I think, you know, we've got the same… the same issues going. After all, photographs are usually on paper, which is probably why Andy Warhol blew them up big and put them on canvas. So that he could… Leo Castelli could move them out. But I think that the Techspressionist impulse is alive and well. I'm thrilled that Colin has been so… so consistent in keeping this momentum going and building on this wonderful community.

And all I can say is, rock on, Techspressionism! And bye-bye, everyone. Thank you so much for being here today.

## Catherine Mason [01:27:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5229s)

Lovely to meet you, Helen.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:27:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5232s)

Thank you, Helen. And it's a good moment to say thank you to Catherine as well. You're welcome. We really appreciate having had you both.

## Catherine Mason [01:27:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5241s)

Oh, thank you, it's a pleasure, thank you.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:27:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5243s)

It was just wonderful.

## Catherine Mason [01:27:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5245s)

Giving me.

## Renata Janiszewska [01:27:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5246s)

Yeah, it was… it was really wonderful. I also want to mention our next salon is going to be coming to you live from New York City with Erin Ko, who's moderating the Every Women… Every Woman Bien All, which is opening this Saturday, or Sunday, a number of Techspressionist artists are in the exhibition, and I'll be co-moderating from here in Canada. And, there's an after-party that starts when we end our recording, so welcome to all the people who were perhaps new faces today.

And, please feel free to stay and enjoy the conversation.

## Colin Goldberg [01:28:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zk9GzgaLvs&t=5289s)

All right, well, thank you very much, Renata, for moderating, and Michael for co-moderating, and thanks so much, Catherine, for joining us and sharing all of your knowledge on the topic. It's really great, and I see there's a bunch of people here in the… in the Zoom that I've not seen before, so that's, always very nice. So, I encourage whoever wants to stick around to… to do so. We do have a topic picked for next month, as Renata said, but the following month is open, so usually the topic of conversation at the after-party is what the next salon is going to be, but I know that there is some other exhibitions that are being planned, one notably in Los Angeles, so maybe some of the information about that is going to be shared by the organizers.

So, that being said, I will stop recording. In 3… 2, 1, and cut.