In this interview episode Grace, Alyssa, and Christi sit down with Michael Walsh an American sculptor who uses modern and digital techniques, to create his artwork and talk about his works, processes, and thoughts on integrating the technologies he uses with traditional institutions.

[Musical Introduction, fades out]

Alyssa: Hello and welcome to our podcast interview series, with the arts management and technology lab. My name is Alyssa and I'm the podcast producer.

Grace: I'm Grace and I am the technology and innovative content manager here at AMT Lab.

Christi: And I'm Christi, a contributor at AMT lab.

Alyssa: Today. We'll be sitting down and interviewing Michael Walsh an American sculptor who uses modern and digital techniques, to create his artwork.

Grace: We initially came across Michael and his work at a recent event here in Pittsburgh called Thrival interactive this past September, touted by the Thrival festival as an evening that explores the intersection between art and technology. A little bit of background for our listeners, the Thrival festival is a yearly festival for humans, technology, culture, and community that explores the innovations of the fourth industrial revolution through networking, excursions, breakout sessions, and other fun events. Michael was one of the exhibiting artists this year at the interactive event, who we had a chance to speak to you and we are thrilled that you're joining us today, Michael, thank you so much for stopping by.

Michael: Thank you very much for having me.

Grace: For viewers who are interested in checking out Michael's art throughout the podcast, or once you're done listening, you can stop by his Instagram, Michael Walsh sculptor. That’s Michael Walsh sculptor on Instagram. So, pop on over to that platform, if you'd like to see what he's been up to lately,

Alyssa: Christi do you want to get us off?

Christi:  Sure. So, for our first question, I think Michael, what drew you towards virtual reality and 3-D printing?

Michael: I started to research. that Like... probably 3-D printing, I probably started to research that in 2008, I had heard about it. And as a sculptor, it seemed like a very logical step, um, that if that was available now that someone who was pursuing what I was pursuing would actually, you know, at least try it and see if it was effective. Um, virtual reality came, you know, much later where basically the software and hardware wasn't really necessarily available until I want to say on mass, when the Oculus rift and some of the software packages were released to the general public and, um, you know, I'd been in discussion about the many ways that digital technology could affect the field of sculpture. So, you know, I've used seven axes, carving robots, you know, 3-D printers, you know, five axes routers, three access routers. We've even, reverse engineered and then built, um, you know, sculptures from animations. So I'm approaching this from a lot of different directions.

Christi: And  when you say we, are you talking about, do you have a group behind you that you have to work with in terms of dealing with the robotics or the VR bits that you're using? Cause I noticed you were talking about, you've worked with these different kinds of-

Michael: I think I say we, because most often at least there's a conversation with someone else about how do we do this, or someone has the tooling and they're generous enough to give access, or there's certain people who have been pursuing this since the late seventies that have become mentors of mine that I'm lucky to have relationship with. And other artists that are working in this field since it is, you know, growing and expanding at the same rate that the technology is available. When I say we, I think that, you know, I'm part of a broader conversation. I just happened to with my own practice, you know, utilize this kind of advance.

Christi: Can you talk a little bit about that, the intersection of these different art forms and how you're bringing your digital art kind of into your background with graffiti art and how those two sort of mesh together, or maybe don't mesh, or how do you see them?

Michael: They absolutely mesh. The most exciting thing about that for me recently has been virtual reality, where I'm not sure how this happened, but when I went to the New York Institute of technology in 2017, I believe, to work with Matt Cornelius and Robert Michael Smith, initially I was asking them if someone could make me a software package where there were spray paint cans, that I was actually sculpting with. I wanted to get the spontaneity of the way that I listened to music and translate that very directly into expressionistic line and form and virtual reality made that possible where now something that was very arduous has become very immediate again. And I'm seeing my work change and grow again. I will say that it was a stumbling block, but if you can imagine drawing with air and then trying to use processes like metal casting, where there's 32 steps and it takes months and months to render an object and try to keep this very dynamic form and movement alive that existed in the thing that was once painted. You know, like to try to, you know, elaborate, we were painting things that looked like they were coming off the wall or off the train. They were moving very quickly. It moves like dance. Um, they, I would listen to music, um, and experiment with, you know, really trying to respond to, you know, spontaneous about that.

When I brought it off the wall initially in 1997 and made it out of metal. Um, you know, it was, it was just very difficult. And, um, I guess the digital technology to try to wrap it up is now making it happen just as fast as it did when I would ever have to sneak around in the middle of the night and get it done very quickly, which is exciting. You know, it's really actually been a lot of fun. It's really opened it backup for me. I'm really excited about what I'm doing right now.

Christi: Yeah. I imagine with the casting, there's a lot of downtime as you go from one process to the other. So, it sort of loses that continuous feel of art.

Michael: I don't know about that. Like, you know, I right now, I'm doing a big casting project and what that's, it's a commission. So, it also has, you know, just placed all this material and all this time. Which is a resource, you know, all those resources. So, I've experimented with other pieces during this time. I'm just finishing the molds. I finished most of them today. It's a very exciting day actually, big day, big day. Cause I started modeling this stuff in May, 3-D printed it for two months solid and started making the mold. So, I'm, you know, I'm into like a four or five month stint. So, when you're talking about a long time, yeah, but I mean, you know, there's all these like aha moments. You know, first it was we've got this print and we assembled it and it's almost six feet tall and that's the first time we've done that. And then there was, you know, there will be when I break open the molds, these bronze parts come out. So, I don't necessarily assign that to it. It's just been my goal to take probably, you know, this very femoral, disposable, aesthetic that anyone can edit and use the most, you know, time honored, um, permanent materials. That's kind of been something I've been playing with it's, you know, almost like, you know, a paradox, you know, that's exciting to me because doing things that don't make any sense to other people.

All: [Laughter]

Alyssa: Now, thinking about the 3-D printing aspect and the VR technology, like, is this technology that you currently use something that other artists or arts managers can work with or do you think-

Michael: Absolutely

Alyssa: Can you elaborate?

Michael: Yeah, I know quite a few artists are starting to especially use the paint programs. They're very immediate, I'm using a sculpting program. And, you know, have since I'm, you know, An autodidact. I have to teach myself all this stuff. And more importantly also rely on the people that I have in my network to help me along with that. Which, you know, so there's a lot of facets. You know, now I have a 3-D printing lab in my studio. I was lucky to get some support from the S Kent Rockwell foundation, which I'm very appreciative of and purchased some 3-D printers. I, you know, I have a Oculus rift with a really good gaming computer that I purchased the last couple of years. So, I've been acquiring all this equipment to work in tandem with all of the industrial equipment that I've either designed and built over the years, including furnaces and kilns, welding equipment, woodworking equipment.

So, you know, Really very thankful. I have a very amazing sort of thing. I think I drifted from your question. But, um, in other words, yes. Um, let's back up. Okay. Can you ask your question again? Sorry about that.

Alyssa: No, it’s totally fine. Basically it's thinking about the 3-D printing aspect and some of the VR technology that you use, is the technology something that other artists or arts managers could work with or is there a lot of practice or training that goes into it?

Michael: well, actually there's so many tutorials out there that you can get moving with it. There's so many different softwares. There's so many different ways to kind of like play around and, you know, not get so crazy technical with it. They've made that a lot easier in the beginning it was very difficult. We would make these sculptures we really liked and not be able to get them to do. What's called a baleen task, which creates the watertight mesh that allows you to 3-D print it. So, we'd lose work, tons of hours, and we'd be really frustrated. The virtual reality programs are pretty plug and play. And literally right from inside the headset, you can download files, STL, and OBJ files. They can go right directly to your processing software or your slicing software that then can take them to any CNC or 3-D printing equipment and actually then physically manifest it.

Grace: tying off of that for the 3-D aspect. You mentioned that sometimes with 3-D printing it takes several months. Cause I think you said you were talking about how you had just molded something in April or May, and you're just now breaking them out. When you have that kind of time commitment to do something like that with the 3-D printing, what kind of goes into managing that in terms of either for your schedule or with the tech and making sure that there's enough supply or material within those? Cause I'm trying to, I guess I'm trying to figure out how, you know, with the 3- D printing or the molding, you know, how are you able to make sure that that process is seamless and doesn't cause any issues or if you do come across issues, what you do to kind of tackle those.

Michael: Wow. [Laughter] Okay. So, management wise, I've been a design builder and designed nightclubs, restaurants, and people's residences, and stuff for theatrical, things for music industry. So, I've taken that level of expertise again, I'm self studied, and applied it. So, things like supply chain management, sourcing, um, project management, you know, the actual overall timeline, you know, understanding, okay, if we need X amount of material lets buy X amount of material, plus 20%. Just so that we make sure we don't run out. If something breaks, for example, who can fix it. Luckily there's someone here locally that helps me work on my 3-D printers and actually taught me to work on them now where I have to call him a lot less. Unless it’s something major, because, you know, they’re machines they break. You know, what's awesome about it that I'd like to add is, because I think this really plays to what technology promises. We've been promised all this time, that automation was going to give us our lives back. It was going to take the mundane tasks away. It was going to when we had a more agrarian lifestyle, prior to being conditioned by the industrialists. Thanks Andrew Carnegie. Thanks man.

All: [Laughter]

Michael: Anyhow, so thought I’d throw that little jab since I'm in your university, but the reality is, is I ran simultaneously an experiment with that this summer. I, you know, took my life back. Instead of like, when you're a sculptor, you should be called a professional sander because you just sand things all day long and you just keep doing it and doing it until you have these refined forms. Right? Well, while my robots were printing away, yes, I'd come in in the morning or in the evening or whatever that cycle was and load the files, load the film, and do whatever I needed to do. I could actually take back time and spend it with friends, and family, and my partner. I started playing music again. I spent a lot of time in nature. I did things that artists sometimes don't take seriously, which is like, how important it is to live a balanced life. I worked a lot on getting back into physical shape. I worked on diet. I worked on things, healthy mind, spirit, body, and the robots did afford me that. And I think that's a really important thing to look at here. Is that I really did have moments where I realized, wow, by utilizing this in my practice, I have the spontaneity back. I have me back, because I'm no longer like locking myself in a warehouse seven days a week. And, you know, granted, there's a part in this project right now where I'm doing that, but it's not 12 months anymore. And, that's the beauty of it. I can be sitting at home at 12 o'clock at night, get inspired, not have to suit up and put on like steel toed boots and have two people to hold something up and go, does that look right? No, move it a quarter inch, but I can do that in the software. And you know, there's just all these things now that are like, wow. You know, this is the equivalent of pro tools to a musician, it really revolutionizes the way that you can actually like, be really intelligent about your life and your practice.

Grace: Right. So it's not just managing the art. It's also managing you in a way, but in a way that you're able to control that and make it beneficial in many different aspects is what it kind of sounds like I'm parsing,

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Grace: but that’s very interesting that the tech is allowing you to kind of maybe take back some of the artistic bits of you that you haven't really necessarily had a chance to explore for time reasons.

Michael: Well, look at the lack of time we have in our lives, I mean, we're trying to live simultaneously in kind of the cyber space on our phone. Everybody complains about it or makes dialogue about it. You know, so, It's like, I look at it as good and bad technology. Like, you know, like social media, I don’t necessarily find that is a good technology. It's not necessarily a bad one. It can eat up a lot of your time and be addictive if you'd let it be. I'm very interested in how these technologies that I deem as good technologies can help us forward. I've watched a lot of artists just, you know, not take their health into consideration, mental and physical, and suffer for that and develop, you know, addictions or addictive behaviors or crazy behaviors based upon just the time intensity and the intensity of mind and everything like that. I think for myself that was one of the main things I wanted to get away from is just like pushing myself too hard. This has given me a more peaceful way to go about things that I feel like is making me, I have more enjoyment, but I think I'm making better work because of it as well.

Grace: Thank you for sharing that. Thank you.

Alyssa: So, one of the questions that I would really love to ask you about is cosmic carousel over at burning man. And for some of our listeners cosmic carousel was a 6,000 pound interactive ride. And the sculptures certainly could be viewed at a distance, but there is that interactive component as well. Where if participants wanted the full experience, then they could ride the sculptures and rotates, but they needed other participants help to climb onto the sculpture and rotate it. Considering work similar to this one. How do you manage the safety aspect of it?

Michael: Safety? We’re talking about burning man. [Laughter] That's the cool thing about burning man is like, I mean, you're on your own. I mean, it's truly a place where like, you know, we were worried that the piece might hurt somebody and that was not what we wanted to see happen. But the reality is that it being able to live out there in that big space. I mean, imagine you got to land a sculpture that's 23 by 23, approximately high and long on one of Salvador Dali’s painting canvases. That's what it's like and go to the least hospitable place that I think I've ever been and survive, not only the build, but survive the actual putting up, and the human spirit and the collectiveness of all that.

So that, with that being said, that being the initial understanding of what we were signing up for. Actually the sculpture is almost secondary to what the conceptual agenda was that I didn't really share with anyone. I wrote this mythology and named it, the cosmic carousel, that was about these space people. That basically came to earth to see if we, as humans were worth even dealing with. And that's debatable. It's actually from third stone from the sun, which is a Jimi Hendrix and the aliens decided the chickens are the most intelligent thing on the planet. So, they decided to vaporize the planet. So I took a little bit of that, a little Dr.Seuss, a whole lot of Bootsy Collins cooked up. I became a character named flight commander prism from the psychedelic funk group armada. And I came down with my crew to basically test the humans out, to see if we wanted to communicate with them and what that was all masking the dig. You know, almost, um, you know, Syd, Mead and Nisha Kapore shiny objects sitting out futurist objects, sitting out there acting like a weather thing was, was kind of the bait with the agenda was to not tell anybody and use this implied idea of creating community in this small area.

So to speak to what your question was, People started to assimilate directly into alpha and beta roles. And they would like, communicate with one another. Like no one was on their phone. That was a huge win, you know, it being there. And actually when we took it to the world's fair nano and we took it to world maker fair also too. It's like, you got to pay attention. The thing's dangerous. So you can't be like, you know, that was the, that was the first thing is get off your phone, get back to life. You need a community to climb on. Like we lifted this guy in a wheelchair up onto it one day, for example, and, and like, so people, and there's two ways you can spin it. It has the inertia of the Wheel of Fortune or the big wheel on, what is it? Price is Right. It really spins like that. And, but inside you can pull a wheel and there's a round booth inside of it. And the round table is also important, cause there was no head, there was no foot. Everyone was on an equal playing field. And so, the top deck of the sculpture became this little mini community, because once you've helped somebody up, you're already engaged with them. You're already talking with them; you're already working with them and you're working with the people on the ground. So, you've just watched this thing unfold. And from the minute that we peel the protective coating off of it, we actually had to. We actually got in an argument with some people that did not want to get off of it when the crane showed up to take it down. We're like, dude, you got to get off the sculpture. So, unlike a lot of my other work that is not really inherently extremely, you know, specific to an agenda. It's more about this aesthetic I've created and the many ways that can be applied through, I just said the dirty word, process. All the conceptual artists are gonna freak out and think I'm old hat, but I still think it's very important.

In fact, you know, my stuff's not gonna fall apart in five years or twenty minutes, it's going to be here for a very long time. Which I think is very important. I want to honor history while we move forward. That's very important. But this particular sculpture is all about the people. The people make it though, it's I feel it's one of the more beautiful things I've made to just look at, it looks lonely without the people on it, when you see the pictures of the people. And I've never made something that was more effective. And my team. God. I mean, I can take up an hour just telling you serendipitous stories of, you know, like Shanghai. My friend was stuck there and we flew him directly to San Francisco to meet us. And he ended up lost in Hawaii. And so just this whole story, but each member of that team, literally their strengths and weaknesses locked together to create this thing. That was my vision, accidentally originally, but it could not have happened without that team. And that's why I talk about we a lot, like I really honored their commitment and their sacrifice and their skillsets and their personalities and just everything they brought to the table.

Grace: Which from a management issue really seems to be an important bit within the arts, no matter what kind of sector you're in or what you're doing with them. I guess that's one reason why I was so interested when you first said and started using the term, we, you know, what would, what did that mean for you?

Michael: Well, I just try to, I didn't want to sit in a room by myself. Like for 40 years making these things and just be there by myself, that's pretty lame. I, and you know, when you say arts management, it just depends on what strata you're talking about. Cause the art market can be pretty cold and especially arts administration. It can be really pretentious. I think that shit is a bunch of bullshit and it's boring. It doesn't turn anybody on. It's all about money. And I want to make art that I want to do more projects like that. I really dig what I'm making now, but even like right now, now I have some stuff I’m kicking around. More has more effect on people is more accessible, is less elitist.

Alyssa: Do you have any strategies in particular for creating that perfect team? That just seems to sync up with one another?

Michael: Never. I'm a real like, Oh, let's just dive in the water and see what happens Type. People just gravitate to things like that. They start to have their own gravity. And if you allow it to happen, I think people start to show up and it's up to you to recognize that, you know, and sometimes you don't till afterwards. You know, I won't lie, I devolved into complete madness when we were making that sculpture. From the original, like the original moment of going, we're going to do this to it being on the Playa was under four months, which I would never suggest anyone to do that

All: [Laughter]

Michael: That was insane. And like, so, you know, I was a very difficult personality and, you know, I take a lot of the weight of these things. So, I tend to put myself in that position a lot of times. I'm getting better at dealing with the stress, but you know, the reality is, is that, you know, sometimes too, if you don't have a lot of institutional support and financial support, You just got to take whoever’s around and try to make the best out of it.

You know, like, um, that project, I matched the Kickstarter and a good friend of mine matched the Kickstarter and that was our budget and like that was it, and I mean, I've been kind of flying like that the whole time. Whereas like, you know, I didn't attend art college, so I don't have that network or that provenance. As a graffiti artist, we're still like doing this, like sort of for us by us, you know, there's cause and people like that have had massive institutional successes, but if you even look at their approach, it's kind of like outside of the mainstream of that. You know, the way that they can create, you know, like commodity products and large, amazing scales, you know, scaled artworks and things. So, you know, I'm an outsider's outsider. I dig it there, you know, it gives you more freedom.

Christi: So do you think that there is a space in those sort of more brick and mortar institutions for a work like cosmic carousel?

Michael: Absolutely

Kristy: Like, you know, burning man is sort of this magical place where the city appears out of nowhere and then almost as quickly disappears. But can something like that. Can you, do you think you could capture that same quality inside of one of those boring old museums?

Michael: It would be better to do it there because what it needs is a fresh look. I mean, you know, if you look at a lot of institutions, they're not necessarily that attractive to people because they walk in, they look at something that might have like real importance as a piece of art, but maybe someone doesn't want to dig that deep. Or maybe they want to participate, and I think there's a lot more participatory art. And I think that, you know, it can have a gravity because it does doesn't mean that the other stuff is better or less than, or is worse or better. It's just that I think that institutions can modernize faster, if they just say yes more than no.

Grace: Um, so because virtual mixed and augmented reality are some of the new technology that art spaces such as museums, that we've mentioned before, um, and galleries and a couple of different other places that people can either view art or go experience art. Um, I think we recently spoke about a couple of, um, Apple's AR art visits, the art walks that they were doing.  So if they're exploring these kinds of technologies, along with, interactive displays and chatbots just to name a few, what recommendations might you have for arts managers when it comes to working with people like you?

Michael: Wow. Okay. Cool. I get to have an opinion about this. That's fun.

All: [Laughter]

Michael: Well, I mean, I think that my practice presently doesn't apply as well, but there is a project that I want to do that I kind of want to keep a lid on that it would make, it would necessitate some kind of-

Grace: Well speak in terms of broad terms, then when you're working with a tech, maybe like the 3-D printing-

Michael:  Yeah

Grace: You know, I’m thinking of Thrival specifically, cause you had those pieces, um, you know, is there any kind of way that arts institutions could help support what you're doing?

Michael: Fund me.

All: [Laughter]

Michael: That's what makes the world like happen because the materials cost money, and your time. You have to just stay alive while you're doing this thing. But no more importantly, I think that it would be really interesting to have developing dialogues with curators, administrators, people about the effect this is having, you know. Like, uh, for a long time, I think the field of sculpture was hiding, um, that some of the biggest sculptors in the world need computation in order to actually execute these pieces. Like you can't make Richard Serra's pieces without some of this stuff you can't make a Core’s work without some of this stuff, Tony Crag comes to mind just as three examples of people whose work I sort of follow.

Mars one who is not only a really cool guy, but really pushing the boundaries of what was thought even possible with his work, especially his molecule project. You know, the interdisciplinary artists that are, you know, taking engineering, and architecture, and Industrial technologies, and digital technologies. I mean, this is, this is the way forward for sculpture, as it meshes with design and also augmented reality, all of these other fields. So, I think that the administrators would be best off to start to become. Aware of this because there's all this important work that's been developed already. We're not talking about the future and there's all this work that's going to keep going forward, because the stuff that I'm looking at that's going to be coming out in the coming years is just so revolutionary. As an artist and as a curator and as an administrator, why wouldn't you embrace this? This is like, you know, this is like when Charlie Christian recorded the first album with an electric guitar and X amount of years later, Jimmie Hendrix was on stage. I mean, this is what we're talking about. There's this quantum leap, about what is possible through this. And, that's what makes it so exciting.

Grace: So, maybe when they're considering these kinds of technologies and bringing them in, maybe reaching out to artists in the space, such as the one that you're in. Maybe that's something that maybe that'll allow them to make their decision easier or more targeted to the audience that they're trying to bring in. Does that make sense?

Michael: Please, can you rephrase just cause I don’t think I understood completely?

Grace: Yeah, sorry.

Michael: No, it's okay.

Grace: I guess I'm thinking in the sense of when museums or these kinds of arts spaces are looking to bring in this kind of technology. Whether it's with interactive displays or, you know, things that we've seen in the past with VR exhibits or AR exhibits, that potentially reaching out to artists who are already in that space and already using that technology that might help bridge the gap in terms of knowledge base and even use. Understanding how to use these kinds of technologies with a larger audience, with someone who's had a lot of hands on activity with that kind of thing, and maybe give them a much better sense of how to kind of, formulate or mold the exhibit that they have in mind.

Michael: Sure, I mean no matter what you're doing, people are always using consultants, especially ones that have had experiences with a particular medium or a particular application. And in this case, I think that there. I mean, even people who are really traditional. That I know that our sculptors, I stay in conversation with, from the person who's like, you're a sellout that shit's awful. Like why on earth would you ever use a computer? To like the person who's like, I can't wait until the chip comes out, I'm sticking it right in my brain. I'm going to be the first person in line. And everyone in between. I think you'll start to find that everyone's been touched by this. I mean like the computation power of what's in our pocket. Like, you know, I think that to answer, to try to answer your question, um, it would only make sense that the administrators became aware of people who are experimenting with this on a regular basis. You know, there are sculptors and I use some of this same kind of jargon for lack of a better way to put it. They call themselves digital sculptors. I've developed enough work now in the digital sort of arena to consider myself that too.

I don't want to pigeon hole myself in that particular way because what I do. You know, some of it is, is very ancient. In fact, you know, I'm interested in all of it. So, but I think that, you know, what we should be looking at too, is how what's been happening this whole time in this timeline of humanity and the arts and how that cross sections and all these other things is now intersecting with these new things that are available. And who are the people willing to kind of, grab at that mashup. And how can we effectively start to captivate people, especially younger people who are not interested, maybe in some of the same things. As, you know, there's a definitive line at a certain age where like, I can remember not having to answer my email for like a week and that not mattering and having a pager, like, you know, like someone like me you might be able to captivate in a certain way. But like, if you're trying to grab the attention of someone who's 20 years old right now, perhaps speaking their language that they understand would help that.

Grace: Right. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Christi: Yeah. And I think she touched on, I know you're working on something you mentioned you don't really want to divulge any details about, but do you have any upcoming projects that you are willing to share with our listeners? Things that we can go and see maybe in the Pittsburgh area or anything in the broader scope.

Michael: Well, the one project I'm working on is. On right now is a milestone in that the scale and level of complexity and technical nature of it. It's a private commission, so it will be in the Pittsburgh area, but I probably shouldn't give out the address. I mean, maybe we can talk to the dude and see if he's all right with it. Maybe he could have a party or something, but, um, you know, I'm right now working on a sculpture that with its plinth, when it's done will be about seven and a half feet tall cast in bronze. I did all the file work, you know, in a CAD based program, and then optimized it for the casting process. So, there were a lot of really technical [Inaudible] engineered to have all these things happen. Like it can take a Gale force, wind sustained for a certain amount of time.

Kristy: Is it going to live in an outdoor space?

Michael: Yes. And, you know, it was what I've been molding. And 3-D printed the entire thing in house. I molded the entire thing in house. I’m going to work with a brilliant foundry man named Bob Marshall Stenson in Chicago. I'm leaving this weekend and, you know, work with him to cast it in bronze. It will come back here and then be assembled and installed hopefully in November. That's my, that's what I'm shooting for doing my best, but I'm already really behind on this one. Cause it's been that taxing.

To give a little taste of what I want to see happen is like with the interaction thing. Um, though I can't divulge the nature of this project. I'm trying to right now, since my interest has always been in music, I've been working at, you know, capturing a certain proficiency of playing an instrument. And I'm trying to figure out how to translate it into form and color and also assign data based on people's emotional responses and their bio rhythms to create something that I'm just calling other. And it bridges, kind of visual art, music, and interaction and humanity and all these things. But I need some help man.

All: [Laughter]

Michael: I need some really smart people to help me figure it out. The ideas there but it's pretty intense. And, um-

Grace: That makes me think of, there was that the. Gosh I'm forgetting who did it, this is horrible. But they, it was a bunch of drummers and they assigned colors, I think to, or some certain patterns to their movements. that ended up being very cool visual-

Christi: very slow exposure photographs and they LED lit drumsticks and just kept the shutter open. Captured the light and the patterns, for like the length of a song.

Grace: Yeah. It doesn't quite sound exactly what you're wanting to do, but that's where my visual immediately goes in terms of what the end product might look like potentially, or, you know, maybe take it a step further. That’s just kinda where my brain went.

Michael: Yeah. This idea is pretty out there and if I can pull it off I think people will really dig it. More importantly it could change and morph and shape shift. And it would basically be something that became whatever was happening, more like an organism in the way that it functioned. And that would be based upon the interactions that everyone was having with, what was going on and, you know, which is a big jump for me. That's, you know, the things that I've done as an artist, but I mean, this idea just won't get out of my head and, you know, like, you know, I need, I need to keep doing new things. Like, you know, any gallerist, if you wanted to have a great sales record, like make the same thing over and over and even use the word brands now, which that, that's okay sure man. But, you know, like, I guess in my, incorrigible nature I just want to keep pushing it, you know? I got involved in art to push what my own personal and otherwise idea boundaries were. And I just hope to see that continue to happen and feel lucky that I'm even still doing it. And honestly had absolutely no intention of ever becoming an artist it just happened, and I just rolled with it. [Laughter] So, this has all been very organic.

Grace: So, I think I can speak for everyone else in the room that we look forward to seeing where that ends up and how that kind of comes to be. As you work with that idea in your head and the technology that you've been using and figure out how to, make that come to fruition. So, I'm, I personally am looking forward to it. So, fingers crossed if it comes within the time that I'm here in Pittsburgh.

Alyssa: Absolutely. And just out of curiosity which instrument do you play?

Michael: A guitar.

Alyssa: Ah, nice. Cool. Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you taking the time to interview with us.

Michael: No, thank you. I appreciate you reaching out. It's been fun.

Grace: For any listeners who may want to check out Michael's art, you can visit MichaelWalshArt.com You can check out his work on line and see what all he’s been doing and what he's up to and keep in touch with him that way. So, thank you, Michael again for joining us. Thank you, Christi for joining us, as well

Christi: Thank you that was lovely.

Grace: and Alyssa as always.

Alyssa: Thank you as well Grace.

Grace: Thank you so much.

Alyssa: Thanks for listening to the Arts Management and Technology Lab podcast series. You can read more on the intersection between the arts and technology at www.amt-lab.org Or, you can listen to more interviews and discussions in our podcast series on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher. Thank you for joining us.

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