14: Timeline Ch 10—On-Chain Era (2020s) with Erick Calderon, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Itzel Yard & Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to this LeRandom Artist discussion following the release of the final, I can't believe it, chapter of our generative art timeline, covering the 2020s. It's the last chapter has been released and this is our last chapter discussion. Well, kind of. I'm your host, Peter Bauman or Monk Antony. I'm the editor-in-chief at LeRandom and also joining us today are four guests, four artists who shaped and defined what we can probably all agree has been a wild decade. One guest will describe it as the shit hit the fan era and those guests who we are so happy to have today are Lauren Lee McCarthy, Eric Calderone or Snowfro, It's Soul Yard or I.X. Shells and Raphael Luzano-Hemmerer and then also joining us from the LeRandom team are our co-founder, the funny guys, and our collection lead Conrad House or Nemo Cake and Conrad is also the image coordinator for the timeline, so he helps adding all of the images for all the moments and categorizing them. It's a lot of work because there are over a thousand moments, so almost that many images. So thank you very much, Conrad. And speaking of the timeline, it's really hard to believe and strange that this is the final timeline chapter release and artist discussion. This is our 10th chapter, but it's our 11th discussion because chapter four on the 60s had two. So we do plan to continue having timeline-focused discussions now that the chapter releases have concluded. What we'll do is make them more inter-decade, so we'll have somebody from the 2010s and maybe somebody from the 1990s and somebody from the 80s and somebody from this decade or something like that, but we want to have them more cross-generational, so that's the idea. The timeline is also now fully released, which I similarly can't believe. It's 10 chapters and over a thousand moments and well over 100,000 words. It covers 70,000 years of art history, digital art history, systems thinking history. It also represents almost two years of work and writing and hasn't just been me. It's also been a team effort. So it's a lot of work, so we appreciate your appreciation of it. And it's also something that we're going to keep working on, editing and fine tuning it and adding things. And then eventually we want to completely overhaul the design and make it a lot more user-friendly. And ultimately we want to also have a physical book. So stay tuned. This is certainly in no way the end of the timeline, but it is the completion in some ways, which is very, very nice to do. But the decade that we're here to talk about is the 2020s and sitting here today towards the end of the second half of 2024, we are almost halfway through what has been a fascinating extraordinary decade. An enormous amount has happened in only about a whirlwind three or four years. And we're here today to look at how that tumult has affected digital expression and even vice versa. How the digital can examine and address some of our current issues. Some of the themes of this decade so far, besides just what's been a very challenging decade from a macro level, has also been the rise of generativity and art. There has been this NFT mania of 2021, the rise of AI art and its advancements. Peak institutional interest, which we talk about, we talk about all of these, peak kind of tech love in our relationship with tech. And then just the culmination of so many long-term trends in mass media and art, which is also related to our relationship with tech. And we're so fortunate today to have four people with us who drove those themes firsthand and I'll introduce them now. The first is Eric Calderon or Snowfro. He is a generative artist, the CEO and founder of ArtBlocks, which is the world's first platform dedicated to decentralized generative art. Eric likes to work across both physical and digital media, including LED art, ceramics, 3D blocks and digital art. He is best known for creating Chromie Squiggle, a generative art collection and art blocks, Genesis project. Calderon's Chromie Squiggle, 9,999, was recently acquired by Lackma and will be exhibited in its upcoming digital witness revolutions in design, photography and film in November later this year. Our next guest is Lauren Lee McCarthy, who is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of automation, surveillance and algorithmic living. She's also the creator of P5JS, the very widely used open source and educational platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning code. McCarthy is also a professor at UCLA where she co-directs the social software studio with Casey Rees, who also joined us for the 2000s talk. She has received grants and residencies from creative capital, United States artist, Lackma Sundance and Ibeam. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has received awards such as Art Selectronic, as Golden Nika and the Japan Media Arts Social Impact Award. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Barbican Soul Museum of Art and Cigraf. Our next guest is Itzel Yard, who is an artist and self-taught coder, also recognized as I.X. Shells, with a background in architectural technology and computer science. One of her most outstanding projects includes Dreaming at Dusk, which was a collaboration between Yard and the Tor project from May 2021, which made her the top-selling female NFT artist in the world. And that same year, Yard was placed on Fortune's Nifty 50, and her work has been acquired by Buffalo AKG, as well as exhibited at the upcoming Tina Rivers' RAN, curated Electric Up, opening in September 2024. Her work will also be featured in the upcoming Against All Oggs, Historical Women and New Algorithms at the National Gallery of Denmark. Our next guest is Raphael Luzano-Hemmer. He is a media artist working at the intersection of architecture and performance art. He uses technology to create platforms for public participation with media such as robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, digital walls, and much more. He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale in 2007. He has shown at biennials all over the world, and collections holding his work include Momma, the Guggenheim, the Tate, and many others. He has received awards including BAFTAs and like McCarthy and R's Electronic Golden Nika. He has lectured widely at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and other top institutions, and finally his work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the globe. His solo show, Raphael Luzano-Hemmer, co-resting the circle, opens at Bitforms Gallery in New York on September 4th, and his recent work will be shown at the Armory Show in New York also in early September. We can't believe the four people that we have on. We're so excited to share this talk with you, so let's get started. [MUSIC] With the timeline each chapter, most of the chapters have covered a decade since the 1950s, and then I've named each decade. So the 70s was the artist programmer, Era, and the 80s, the PC Era. Last decade, I named the AI era, and that's because there were so many advancements in AI after this decades long AI winter. And now I'm opening it up to everybody about what you think the name for this decade should be, or could be, I mean, you can make the case that it could be the AI era again. It could be maybe the platform era with the introduction of things like our blocks. The institutional era, I think there's a strong case that this is probably the most institutional interest we've seen since maybe the late 60s and new media art in general, but that's debatable. So we can talk about that. It could be the on-chain era, maybe the community era, the co-creation era. So yeah, those are some ideas, but I'm wondering what anybody thinks. Something to me that stands out is that we've had the last couple decades to be able to create ourselves based on the resources that are available on the internet. Now with AI, anybody can kind of become anything with enough resources and time and focus. And I think that's been happening for a couple of decades. I've been able to do a lot myself without being skilled in any of those things. And I think this era is the era where all of those things, it's like, you know, we bought a 3D printer a decade ago. And it's like, what am I going to do with it? But now we have this era where all these things are coming together. It's a software era, and that software era makes it possible for anybody to do just about anything. And so it's the coming together of all of the things that over the last couple of eras or decades have been niche into this self-empowerment or self-protectivity era that is catalyzed by AI, YouTube, forums back in the 90s and early 2000s to make people be able to be productive on their own without necessarily reliance on others. Oh yeah, I was going to add to what Eric was saying. I think it's been really interesting to see these new platforms and these new tools emerging with so much energy. And we think back to where we're starting this conversation which I guess is 2020 was the beginning of the pandemic. So I think I've been working on this project that's called Driverless and it's been thinking about just like what is it? What is that feeling of being on something that's like moving at high speed towards the future with a questionable driver and a driver seat if any? So I'm trying to figure out with the more positive wave name that is, but there's something about this feeling of just like we're moving quickly. They're we're seating some control to these autonomous systems that we're interacting with and there's really exciting things that come out of it, but there's also a caution that's needed. I think we're just in the back of my mind a bit of like who's driving here and where are we going? So I think that's also kind of like we're in the middle of this decade and we're talking about it. So there's something very open-ended about it to me. Like is this the end of the world decade? I'm not sure. Yes. I'm in addition, I'm adding my voice to Lawrence. I do think you know there is a desire for all of us to be techno-optimistic and to you know feel like we are getting empowered and that I have seen a lot of examples of friends of mine, for example, in Mexico and Brazil in places where they have never had the mediation of the art world be able to survive thanks to some projects that they have done digitally that have found platforms that you know can keep their operations going. So that's certainly a source for optimism, but just in general sort of the bigger picture I think that this era you know cannot should not in my opinion be called something that's very positive because we you know we are seeing just such a decimation of the planet and we're seeing such a loss of accountability with new oligarchs that are concentrating power in such few hands. We are seeing the rise of unbelievable amount of the most toxic nationalism and adversarial politics. We're seeing the lack of trust in any you know political institution even in the media that we communicate. So I would say that it would be like the fuck around and find out era or the shit hits the fan era or dump the earth era. Maybe if we're only talking now about art what I would say is that what we've been doing digitally for so many decades is now entering what I would call a normalization. What I mean by that is that the art per se is not valued only by the means with which it's produced or consumed but also by a series of concepts or relationships or criticism or poetry that relates to other traditions of experimentation. So for example I really like how LaRandom has had this chronology of historical moments because I think that gives us a historical perspective which is something so needed. So I think that we are in the period where institutions are realizing that we're here to stay. The digital art forms part of globalization that this is not about collecting novelty or originality. It's about the inevitable you know language which is technology that we can't be outside of and if we want to speak about our society today or our economy or our relationships what's natural what's normal is to do so through technology. So I think that we're seeing that all of these institutions, publications, art critics and so on are understanding that this is not just like a little ghetto. This is just people trying to speak with the language of their time. So normalization era is one that I have and I have one more which is digital dramaturgy. So I think that a lot of times what I've been seeing especially with I work a lot alongside interactive installation and immersion and so on and what we're seeing is that people keep coming up with like truly theatrical performative approaches to the digital and which connects it back to very long traditions of theater making digital dramaturgy is something that I would love to emphasize because what it emphasizes is the actual content. It's what does it tell you? What does it make you feel? What are the questions that are asking as opposed to the novelty of the actual medium itself? I think people know me as someone that likes to live in peace like my surroundings are always very calm very soon like they're in my partner's very it's a very uh stoic person and I like to live like that but I know that chaos is part of society and of all of us just as art is and it is stimulators in a way and I know every and nothing can be perfect but if we learn to adapt and to live and the more people adapt just like we're creating collective experiences the more we're going to be able to live in like a balanced way. I think it's all about that right at the end. Just when you're playing with noise algorithms and like you're like oh my god this is so erratic that's making me so uncomfortable that then you find the right point where you say okay start over enough but it's also like you can play music to it. Yeah I think it's fascinating how this decade has been so filled with challenges from the very beginning literally from January 2020 I think that's when COVID that's when I first sort of COVID and since then we've had this dissonance between a lot of success and normalization and new media are like Rafael's book of but also social challenges that we maybe haven't seen in decades that that we're also dealing with with pandemics and two western wars and then wars like things that are happening and other parts of the world conflicts and crises that don't get as much attention things that Rafael your work touches on quite a bit things like social issues at the US border for instance I'm wondering how the early challenges of this decade and this is open to anybody how they've already impacted our relationship with art and technology. I myself like growing up I used to think that I could solve many problems. I remember applying to computer science and I wrote this letter of intent that would say I wanted to come back to my country Panama with enough knowledge to create applications that will help with climate change and all the challenges that we're facing as a developing country like there's islands that are disappearing where native people live and that's their only way they only way they know how to live. There's the water of the Panama Canal, it's drying out and that's affecting the whole world and economy. And we depend on that to generate income in the country. I think I just wanted to study computer science or study that because I wanted to get enough knowledge to create this apps. And also, but then I got distracted. I was like, okay, this is, this is also used to create art and it's beautiful. And I started learning more about that and that's something that made me feel safe, almost like in a bubble of safety. I think of like many artists think that they can change the world and we can change it as a collective. Like there's a sort of programming that is running in the background of everyone's minds and computers. Sometimes we are seeing people doing the same reactions, the same interactions, like they're talking to someone and they're on their phone, just crawling down. That's programming. They've proven to do that. And I think we can program in a more positive way. We can create collective experiences and movements that can change things around. I'll just add that more on the pandemic kind of moment. Like I feel like we've seen for the last couple decades, we've seen this inevitable shift towards a more digital focused world. We spend more of our lives online and as there is a way value, our digital possessions more than we did in the past, I think that's something that was coming for a really long time. I think the pandemic just kind of helped everyone, or at least for me personally, it was like pre-pandemic, post-pandemic is more the moment that I kind of crossed that chasm of understanding how much digital will impact, how much our time in the digital space impacts and affects us as humans, psychologically, emotionally, all those things. I feel like you know, it was gradual. It kind of came out of nowhere. Let's say, you know, I mean, I was logging into BBSs in the 90s, right? And then all of a sudden, it's Facebook and then all the things that kind of come after that. Kids playing more and more video games, immersively just kind of spending their time in a digital space. But when we were not allowed to leave our house for a while, that clicked in a different way. And I don't think there's any putting that genie back in the bottle. That was already happening for a couple of decades, but the pandemic specifically just kind of made it clear, at least to me, that this is what the future is going to be in terms, you know, whether it's for better or worse, like, I, you know, I think we go through cycles of enjoying the digital space and then desperately wanting more physical and person immersive interactive experiences. But I do think the pandemic starting this decade is an interesting moment in that I don't, you know, I do think it catalyzed a lot of the communication, a lot of the conversation around what's happening with digital art. It also gave us more time at home to make stuff and learn stuff and think stuff, you know, I, you know, a question later for me about the platform. It's evolution and I have some kind of comments on that on how that time just allowed us to kind of learn more about the digital space. We spent more time online than we ever did probably. And I, yeah, I think there's just this moment of, you know, we can't go back, we can try. But I think we can't go back as a society where, you know, children are, if you offer a kid $100 cash or $100 and roadblocks, like they will take the digital over the cash a lot, if not most of the time these days. And I think it just kind of catalyzed that for me. The pandemic itself just kind of catalyzed that for me. Yeah, I think that's one big topic of like coming from such a reclusive state of COVID and trying to find ways that we can participate more. And I think what it's all kind of mentioned was really nice where you don't have to be kind of a bunch of scattered islands, but we can kind of all come together. And I think this is like a really good transition into, I think the next general question. So again, applies to everybody, but all of your artists practices or even beliefs have a common interest in kind of the participative power of a generative work, as well as kind of the emotional approach to what, what I think a lot of people consider a cold medium sometimes. But this kind of reflects a broader trend in this decade where artists are using technology not just as a tool, but as a means of fostering connection and community, whether it's due platforms like art blocks or even open source initiatives such as P5JS. But we should kind of share this understanding that the digital realm can be as emotionally resonant and participatory as traditional forms of art. But although that we believe these things, we still see this kind of traditional divide between the traditional art world and the media world, where there's kind of been this this large disconnect for decades now. Are we still seeing the distinctions blur now that we do have kind of, I think, a broader interest in digital art, or are there kind of other significant challenges to kind of, I think, closing this gap between the traditional world and the new media world? I mean, I think participation is fundamental in art. I think that, you know, the Champs-Zedleur, Gare, Félite, tableau, it is the look that makes the painting. We're ultimately making art for it to be completed by a public. And one of the key things of digital art has always been, at least my type of work, is that it's incomplete and out of control. And what I mean by that is that it is the participation of the public that, you know, actually interprets the work, takes it somewhere where I did not anticipate where it might generate some surprise. And then the out of control is that part where, you know, the artwork doesn't really instruct you how to do things or not do them. It's something that is more of a platform that allows you to self-repercement. So for me, participation is the fundamental aspect of creating relationships of intimacy instead of intimidation. The spirit of the great Marxist composer, Fredrick Chesky, of coming together. Like, why are we making art? And he would answer a very 1971 answer, but I think it's good for us as well is for people to share experience, for people to come together. So I think the digital, like for example, in many of our works allows for a distribution of these works in a way that it was unprecedented. Now we can reach out to different communities in different geographical locations, for example, or across different types of boundaries that are set for us. And the possibility of coming together is no longer something that, you know, takes place necessarily only face to face and in the in the meat space, which of course it's always welcome, but it's something that's a little bit broader. So I think that, I mean, I've been working with participation from, from say, an internet side since the '90s. And I have a feeling that this is here to stay. I have three children. And when they were little, they would go to museums and, you know, look at a painting and say, "That turn it on, it's off." You know, it needs to be active, it needs to, be telling us a story, it needs to create a kind of more theatrical opportunity for all of us to come together. They're better now. They don't say things like that anymore. But all of this to say that I am a strong proponent in the fact that this participatory practice makes the artwork open. It makes it versatile. It makes it critical, it makes it poetic. And most importantly, it takes away from the artist's position as a messianic voice. And we're just facilitators of experience with people, which then brings us to politics if you guys want to talk about that. Yeah, it reminds me of Eric something that we've talked about before where you've mentioned how participative elements of just this space in general has brought people together in ways that traditional art seem to not be able to achieve. First of all, I just want to second what Rob Alder said is so impactful. I often kind of share the story that like I grew up playing the violin, going to the symphony, and I can't get someone to go to the symphony if I pay them too. Right? It's just not immersive. It's not exciting enough. It's not interactive enough. It's just like, you know, and the way you describe how your kids look at a canvas and asking you to turn it on, I feel like that's the difference between people going to a scurlic show and being salted with lights. And loud music and wanting to jump around. And maybe that becoming the standard for what is an exciting cultural experience, not sitting down in a room with like a bunch of 90-year-olds, and very quietly listening to music. So, early on, I kind of reinforce what you just said there. And yeah, I think the participatory part of this, you know, kind of going back to the idea that video games is a way that younger generations interact with each other. And this, to me, feels like a way that, honestly, older generations. But, you know, I can't put on a headset and play counter, I mean, I wish I had the time. But play Counter Strike can like interact with my digital community in the way that younger generations might be able to do that. But I can get it on Clutter and Share ideas about art and share my art and share other people's art and talk about art in an engaging way in a very similar digital connective kind of approach as what those generations are doing with while they're playing video games and like interacting with each other. It's like this kind of unlocked that, or maybe going back to the idea of normalizing, you know, kind of normalize community for a generation that's not sitting there and playing video games. of the time. And I think there's something really powerful and performative about all that. And I think there's something really exciting about getting people outside of their shell a little bit. I think that, you know, we live in a society where we act very guarded a lot. And that's just kind of the way that we've kind of been trained to be. And I think that by, you know, there's like positives and negatives to all the technology, but by hiding behind a profile picture, a lot of people have been able to express themselves in some ways for the best and in some ways for the worst in ways that they wouldn't in real life. But it's unlocked kind of individual expression in a way that I think wasn't really available before. So I think that that generational shift is really. It's just it's just it's just becoming more accessible for a broader audience than just, you know, the ones that were brought up waiting for the for the canvas to be lit up or turned on. I personally have never been that interested in what is a traditional art form. I'm interested in what are all the ways that art can exist in our everyday lives. Because a lot of people don't go into museums at all or into any any art spaces. So I think digital art is one way of kind of exploring all the different ways that you can reach people. I think this is similar to what Mark Allen Eric are saying. I think there's something else that because digital art hasn't been accepted in the same way some more traditional media. I think that's largely a financial state question of how the work can actually be owned and collected and we started to see some changes in that with things like an a tease. But I think what it's done is that it's created these communities of artists working digitally because we have to make our own support structures. We have to make communities to be able to kind of fast to the work that we're doing because there isn't the same kind of support coming from the financial market or at least not in the same scale. And so well that's been a challenge. I think it's something positive because when I think about my experience of being an artist on the thing that makes it worth it is the community. It's it's not easy to be an artist and so I think to have those networks of people that you really trust and enjoy being in conversation with that's the thing that ultimately is kind of redeeming for the struggle and the energy that you put in. And I think working digital artists like you get a unique opportunity to connect with people because everybody is online and also because it is a little bit outside of the mainstream. It's interesting learn that you that you say that's because in your career in your work, it seems that you're constantly balancing these two opposite sides of opposite sides of technology. On one hand, you you celebrate the impact that software can have on communities, on creative expression. But on the other hand, you also look very critically as software as an artist. You question a lot of technologies such as computers, internet AI facial detection, which are all built by war agencies and mega corporations. I'm curious how do you how do you manage this distinction between these two sides of technology? Yeah, it's a great question. I think about this a lot in my work and also in my teaching practice, something I've been thinking about lately is like, why are we teaching why am I teaching students to code is that even necessary? I don't believe it has the same promise of like class mobility that it did maybe 10 years ago with all the AI tools and things that are emerging. And when I come back to as I believe it's I don't think everyone needs to know how to code or to use technology, but I think that by doing this, we get an understanding of what is happening in the world, like what is this thing that's shaping so much of our lives in society? What does it actually mean to write code or to make something a technology? And ultimately, I think comes down to a feeling of autonomy that I really believe that to be able to contribute to the direction of the world or the development of technology, it's not necessary to have an advanced degree in it, it's just necessary to be able to experience what's going on and critically reflect and feel the agency to make decisions about how you want to engage with things and what your opinion is. I think that's the thing that's often taken from us when we interact with different companies or technologies. There's this kind of narrative that we're the user that we have to take things that's given that this is just the system in place. And we kind of exist within it or where the off in the product that's distributed through the system. And I think that is a narrative and it's something that we can counter and say, no, I can look at something and try it out and decide if I want to use it and how. And so I think a lot of my work and my teaching is about that process. So it's not just across the board saying, oh, I love technology. Let's see what we can do. But it's also not saying, I'm so critical. I'm not going to touch it. I want to engage with it so I can understand it on a more nuanced level and then be able to make decisions about how I want to interact and use it or what sorts of other tools I want to make. And the artworks that I'm making or the experiences that I'm trying to make in class are aimed at trying to give other people that same sense of agency. Like, oh, I can't have an opinion about this. I am an expert on technology because it invades my life. And I have an opinion. I think every person should be able to have that feeling and not have the power to kind of take it away from them. Yeah, it's a it's such a fascinating point. I do have a similar question for Raphael, just about your approach to to critically engaging with technology. So something you said recently was what within the last few years is if we're going to use technologies like AI in our society, somehow as artists, it's our job to either pervert the uses, make their abuses evident or make them more connected poetic or critical our approaches to them. How do you navigate those tensions? The answer is badly. I navigate them badly. There is an ongoing paradox in my work, which is on the one hand, a lot of my pieces are about, you know, making tangible the mechanisms of control, tracking, you know, pursuit metrics. So a lot of my works have this kind of ominous, dark surveillance aspect to them. While at the same time, while while we're policing the public and we are being complicit with what we denounce, we are also kind of going for that seduction of participation and the selfie and the reality TV. So there is this two lines right there is this artwork that can work from the perspective of seduction and inclusion, but that same artwork works from that level of kind of like a no well in predatory vision. And sort of navigating that tension is what my my work is about is is something that I don't think needs to be resolved. My work does not want to be more realistic about technology, nor do I want to just be, you know, adopting it for its own sake. So I want to be able to to explore the space in between. It's in between. There's a full spectrum. And then depending on that artwork, you want to negotiate with the public. That's that's why we're doing it in the first place because you yourself cannot resolve it. It cannot be resolved. You put it out in the world for this debate to continue. So using technology or using artists of birth and challenge the role of technology in our life. Eric, it seems like art blocks and you tend to stress more of the positive elements of artistic intervention with technology. So for example, artists using the same tech stack in the same language and the same browsers that, you know, evil government and mega corporations, they can use the same tech stack, but to show audiences that art can actually and technology can have a positive impact on culture and community and creativity. So what's your approach to using art as maybe a lens to critically examine technology? Yeah, I mean, I think anything in the world, the dollar can be used for good or for bad of pocket knife can be used for good or for bad. And obviously as we get into technology, it makes it hyper good and hyper bad is just the same for the same reasons that there's we have a disability to distribute our work to a greater number of people and engage with a bigger number of people because of the technology that's advanced over the last couple decades. You can also damage a greater number of people. And so you could spread a more positive message or you can spread a more negative message in, you know, the political landscape these days is really just an example of how that technology can be used for misinformation and sometimes the reality of the real things get lost and all that. So I feel like there's, you know, any of these things can be used for good and for bad. And unfortunately, or fortunately, I mean, like with any new technology, there's going to be like a period of over hype around the technology. I've personally stated that, you know, the over high financialization of a of the things that happened over the last first half of the decade, especially the beginning of, you know, our blocks was detrimental to the long-term impact of all these things. It doesn't mean that it will not, you know, generate a medium or the digital art space will not survive. It just, I think, that it put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It kind of changed the perception or the reason why people participated in it. And I think that, for example, the intentions that I came at this when why I created it was just out of pure curiosity and excitement to be able to like help people release work in a way that I thought would be interesting and impactful and it turned into something much bigger. I think what you need to consider though is that there's this top of funnel, right? Like we talk about top of funnel and a lot of different things. And top of funnel here is that as a result of the potentially financialization of what we did, we got a huge top of funnel. And that over time has filtered out into a group of people that are actually truly passionate about this medium, both as creators and collectors. And, you know, you have to ask yourself whether they would be here or not if it wasn't for that. So, you know, it's like for a very good thing, there's a bad thing. And you have to wonder where, not just our blocks, I just mean the dinner to meet him as a whole, the digital medium as a whole, where we would be today, if it hadn't been for that top of funnel that, you know, carried with it some negative connotations and impacts in terms of the hyperfinancialization of the work. The hyperfinancialization of the work is the same process and mechanism that allows us to distribute our work in a hyper-distributive way. And that's what's so beautiful about this technology. So, again, everything has its own and it's con. And we have, we as the artists, I think, you know, the contemporary art museum here in Houston, they have this slogan, it says, "Trust artists." You know, that's like their slogan. And it's just "Trust artists" period. And I think to some degree, we as artists are kind of take on this burden of trying to do what's best with the technology and try to bring it to the best possible light, because I think that, you know, a lot of artists, a lot of creators are truly passionate about what's going on. A lot of collectors are truly passionate about what's going on. And I think that that deserves a chance to be known and to be accepted. And, you know, and that was saying, in the early days of our blocks, you know, we tell people, you know, "Look, I'm here to let creators create art and share their art in a new way, and you should buy stuff because you like it." I mean, the response was like, "You're stupid. You're making it. You really want us to believe that you really created this platform for art and not for like this kind of madness that ensue." And I'm like, "Well, I mean, there wasn't really a precedent for this madness to ensue when this was created. I mean, this wasn't a precedent that was set. I think you could argue that things that came after that, you can't possibly deny anymore the potential impact of what you were doing within this ecosystem. But in those early days, there was no indication or no precedent that this was going to explode in the way that it exploded." And as a result, you know, we've at least with our blocks and myself as an artist and a lot of the artists that are within the digital art community, you know, they were artists before. They are artists today and they're here to share their work and try to share their message with this broad number of people. And ultimately, hopefully, inspired that curiosity and delight. And you know, I say those terms a lot. I think that's what draws me to technology. That's what draws me to art. You know, I'm not one to kind of have like a deep message in my work. I just like to make people smile. But I'm more importantly, like, I want people to be curious and I want people to explore. And there's so much to explore with everything from the libraries, you know, that we use like P5 and processing and 3JS and all these things to, you know, the interconnected nature of the community that forms around it. And I think that's just so powerful. And it's so exciting. And again, you can't put that genie back in a bottle. And I would want, I would want to, even knowing kind of some of the negative side effects that come with it as there's negative side effects with anything else in the world. I like the term of using light as a sort of change as well, just like you're like, because just by sitting here, like, I'm in this museum, right? And if I turn around this screen, you can see like all this statues, like, I've never seen this in my life. There's no such thing in my country. But what I can say is that they change depending on the amount of light that they receive. They can change their form, their structure. Like, it's easier to look at things when they receive natural light, rather than being locked inside a room where there's this artificial light that makes you feel a little bit trapped and you don't feel the artwork as a life, right? I think that's a good metaphor for what artists are trying to do in this community. Like most artists want to find the light, even if they used to make a lot of dark, creamy, black and white artwork. It's like I used to do. I was just, I used to get upset if I created an artwork and I, I would be able to share it because it had so much color. And I had to follow this pattern of black and white because that's how I felt during the time. And I have changed the lot. I feel like a more positive person. I think that's all thanks to this community that I became part of. I became more talkative. I wanted to share my appreciation to artists by acquiring their work, having a home and that way I could remember them. I could think of them and they will see that I actually value what they do. Because they become my friends. I talk to them most of the time. And it's this a beautiful way to create a connection, a link. I know not everyone thinks this way when they go and collect art, but it is easier to have an artwork and an art piece that will become meaningful. In some way, when you actually love it, rather than just expect that this will become the next big thing. The negative impact that can have in our communities in terms of finances and all of that, it can become something positive. We can change life. My life changed completely. I come from having a computer that was strong enough to create artwork, to being able to buy a good computer, run 11,000 pixels. So I can show it to a lot of people at a time and real time. It's just like something that I always dream of and I'm able to do it. I wish we could more people could have that opportunity. It's important to focus on that. There's dreamers. I also want to keep dreaming. The world keeps moving. I think in that way, it's a way we can stay safe in this world that is so unfair. Awesome. And yeah, and just in response to its tools, comments of creating art and dreaming in this unfair world that we have, maybe you can expand on the work that I think you're just about to showcase. We've already talked about it a lot before, but a lot of I think all of your work engages with audience interaction and participation and the upcoming piece that you have at the National Gallery of Denmark, how do technology and alternative works permit you to include the public in ways that reflect the more intimate side of the digital. My heart has been pumping all day. We've been doing the previews of the work, the reactions and the way people just engaged it even though they've never seen something like that. It's just so interesting and moving to me. It's interesting because I'm used to it for like the longest time. I've seen so many interactive shows online. I haven't been really in person too much, but I used to share artwork from other artists. Just for fun, nobody knew my name or my face. I just like, I love it. I want to share it. I became a community. I think it's just beautiful to see how. For me, it's a way to change lives. When I started sharing art, I was just very introvert. I used to spend a lot of time at my room, but I found a way to connect online, just like in video games. It's like you create a profile. You are getting all of this smaller shifments through the day, like finishing an artwork and finishing something that you want to say about the artwork and sharing it and getting those feedback. It's sort of a game. Sometimes I'll just do it and leave it that way and not expect anything for many years. But then it became something that can be impactful, just like NFTs, where we started doing phone racers. I thought it was a mission. I thought it was a big responsibility. I needed to step out of my shell. I'm like using a little term that everyone has used during this conversation. And now I feel like I'm in a quest to become part of a world that I'm not really used to or I really don't know too much. I didn't study art in school or I didn't dream of being part of a museum or a gallery ever. That was impossible to me. I was just like just sharing for fun. I'll just create a bunch of outputs through the day and pick one, two, four, you know, and share it on the stories or any medium I had. And that's something that people really appreciate. And there's still people that used to follow me during those days where I was just nameless and out there in a way. But now they're still there. And if I can feel their support, how they text me like, "Wow, I've seen you grown, I've seen you change in so many ways and you're still doing what you love." For a while, I thought it was very overwhelming to be in such a position. But like I said, I think now it's more like a quest, a mission to become something that I don't even know what I'm going to become. But it's making some waves, making changes, maybe more people will start learning this program, touch the center or any other program that allows you to create art. And there's going to be more spaces for people to show through this. Even for us in the community, it's very clear how your art has been evolving over two years. And we definitely have a very interesting trajectory. I hope I can find some time to make it to Copenhagen and experience your working person. I am aware that we are approaching the end of our scheduled time very sadly. We want to leave some room for all of you to just share some closing thoughts or maybe to direct some questions to the other participants. And maybe Raphael, maybe you can go first. Is there anything you want to ask? Is there any question you want to ask? Yeah, I want to mention, as we were thinking about this decade, of course it's been insufficient. But I have seen a really healthy move of museums that have been finally resetting their collections and programs away from dominant colonial races, patriarchal, heteronormative representation. And that they're being opening more to performative, ephemeral content. Things like the digital is, is, for a long time I've said the digital art is not visual art. It's performing art. And one of the reasons why museums are having a hard time adopting it is because they will have not been open to things that like generative art does change over time or that, you know, our event based. But I do want to note that that's changing that I think that there's not a museum I can think of contemporary art that isn't actively starting to be engaged with more performative approaches. And I think that that's a really good tendency that's happening this decade. The second thing that I think it's it's also happening is there's a new found interest in conservation of digital art. So as we enter these collections, there are really robust questions to be asked over how these things can actually survive over time. And the entire generations of artists have been erased because their work has not been backed up has not been conserved properly. And I think that we we are now beginning a really, you know, sort of good tendency toward thinking about conservation as as something to be able to maintain a legacy. So I just wanted to know those two tendencies that I see that are positive that are happening in this decade. Just a very tiny brief follow up in your career, which I believe began around the early 90s or fail. Do you think that this decade has seen peak institutional acceptance since then? Yeah, I mean, especially at the level of collections. So I did start in the early 90s and most of my work was in performance. So I did just like say art blocks is now to a whole bunch of contemporary artists. It back in my day, that was this at KMR, so electronic of V2, so the digital networks that still exist by the way, but that helped me develop my work through these festivals. And then gradually I entered more the gallery world. And I was very much against collectibles. I always thought that the art world was vampiric and necrophiliac. I still think that, but now I'm part of it and I'm understanding the ways in which actually galleries collectors can actually have relationships of sustenance to maintain an operation that can be sustainable. I think that for example, museums did not buy my work until say momai in 2005 bought 33 questions per minute, a generative piece that I made for the Havana by annual five years earlier. And then the moment that momai acquired my work, all of a sudden it's almost like you had a stamp and other museums that felt that it was safe to acquire my work. But what I'm seeing now is unlike anything, I think that the rise of curators like Tina Rivers Ryan or people who are getting to positions of power, I think are making this process a little bit easier. So yeah, definitely in this decade, I think that there's a lot of artists who have been in the margins who are being brought into the collections, and that's a super healthy thing. Since you mentioned Tina Rivers, I think she's one of the most amazing creators that are out there. She also she helped me not only pick a network when when she came into you know this far off like vision that also acquire a lot of works from the artists, but we spoke for two hours at a time, just like sharing thoughts. She will just like be an actual friend like if she felt like a friend of art that will also teach me at the same time. I also wanted to mention that there's an exhibition that she's doing and will follow which has been on the making for five years. It's about optical art and it includes a lot of artists in my work, Ben. Going back to something that you mentioned Rafael about preservation, this is one of the conservation of art. It's one of the most important things in terms of working with museums. It's one of the reasons why I connected to them because I really believe in it, just like I believe in documenting my own art as a way of leaving. That's one of the reasons why I started because I really wanted to leave something behind where people could see what I used to do, what I what I am, what I what I will become or it's like a sort of diary trying to share a bit more about the exhibition and part of it's about women that were forgotten. They used to make art in other countries, they travel a lot because they were recognized where they where they live, just the way I I correlate because I had to travel across the ocean, 20 hour flight to be able to have some visibility and the physical world. Now I'm learning a lot and maybe I can go back to Panama where I actually live and bring some of that knowledge and spread this seeds of growth with my art, which is a way I think it can be a positive effect. I wanted to follow up a bit on Eric's point earlier, which I really agreed with that sometimes there's a tendency to reduce a technology or tool to good or bad and like Eric was making the point that it's more nuanced than that. There can be many things happening at same time and it's important to take the time to do on pack that and to really grapple with it. At the same time, I want to put back on the idea that like everything is good and bad because I think that while that's true, every technology also has values that are embedded in it, but that come from the people that make it in the police that they're bringing to it. And so different technologies facilitate different outcomes and have different affordances and limitations based on the way that they were designed. So I think it's that's something we thought about a lot in the creation and development of T5 is what are the values that were bringing to it who are the people in the room working on making it and then, you know, how do those values then propagate and get actually built into the tool itself. And then what comes out of that what is possible. And it's something I think about in my own practices as well. So while my practice is pretty performance based, I'm often making apps and tools kind of directly responding to some of the dark patterns and things that I see in a lot of technology platforms. So I just wanted to kind of reflect on that and think about a lot of people in this color kind of like building systems in different ways. And I think it's interesting to look at those different systems and then reflect on what ideas are kind of embedded in that. I think that's one of the exciting things about digital art is that because there's this system meeting that's happening. You really get a look at some of the ideas and beliefs and thoughts that are being communicated by the artists or the tool maker or the person creating the system and that plays out in the artwork or the. tool that's made in the outputs from it. I love that. Yeah, if you look at a p5js as a technology, I think it may qualify as something that is only good. Like I just can't really, I can't really put my finger on like a non-positive use of that. So yeah, I agree with what you're saying, learn 100%. I just want to say that I'm in a room with a lot of people that I just greatly admire and I, it's just really humbling to be here and I really appreciate you guys in every single one of you all. And I'm really excited about, you know, what Lurendem is doing to help document this. I think it's just so important and valuable and you guys contribute to the positive side of things in a way that very, very few people do in the Sego system. And so I just want to express my gratitude for you guys as well and say thank you for bringing us together. It's really special to be here. And I have one closing thought which of course is Duchamp, which is, Duchamp said that the artist is a creator of context and part of my problem with the context of of digital artists exactly that it's not reflective of the work that is included. And I think that both art blocks and P5J are examples of of of contexts that critical poetic artists can adopt can feel at home in and that is so important. So I want to thank the context makers in the room for for making that space for artists. Well, I mean, thank you so much for kind of turning it around on us but at the very end, very tricky of you, but yeah, thank you. And I think it's brilliant to close with Duchamp Raphael. I also like how Duchamp he's described art before as a way of understanding life. And I think that's what all of your practices do is they give us all a way to understand life even that little bit extra and more. And so thank you all very much. I mean, I can't even begin to express how grateful we are and hopefully we can all meet again and chat again soon. It's been a blast. Thank you everybody. It was such an honor. This is an amazing group to have. Thanks guys. Have a great day. Bye everybody. Bye.