For the second episode of AMT Lab’s Art && Code series, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator Ashley Offman talks with Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo and Dr. Kate Sicchio, two-thirds of the live coding trio known as Codie. 

Sarah and Kate discuss how their prior experiences in academia and at tech giants influence the art they create. They also talk of their interdisciplinary approaches to performance, including the integration of coding in live performance, as well as the nuances and differences that exist in the live coding and DIY sound scenes worldwide. Sarah and Kate discuss the performative nature of the live coding scene and how, in this discipline, the code is the show's star. The trio uplifts the beauty and importance of making errors in live coding and the creative process at large, highlighting the potential for innovation and education. This podcast was made in partnership with the Frank Ratchye Studio for Creative Inquiry.

transcription

Ashley Offman  2:38

Welcome to another episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast series of the Arts Management and Technology Laboratory. The goal of our podcast series is to exchange ideas, bring awareness and stay on top of the trends. You're listening to our art and code podcast series, highlighting artists working at the intersection of performance, real time visuals and live coding. This series is in partnership with the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. My name is Ashley Offman, my pronouns are she her and I am the social media and marketing manager for AMT Lab. Today I'm joined by Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo and Dr. Kate Sicchio. Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo is an artist and programmer, focusing on videos made with code and synths preferably involving artifacts and improvisation. She is a graduate of the Integrated Digital Media program at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. Computers are not the boss of her and she lives in Berlin. Dr. Kate Sicchio is a choreographer, media artist and performer whose work explores the interface between choreography and technology. Her work includes performances, installations, web and video projects, and has been shown in Philadelphia, New York City, Canada, Germany, Australia, Belgium and the UK. Her PhD focused on the use of real time video systems within live choreography, and the conceptual framework of choreotopolgy, a way to describe this work. Her research has been published by the International Journal of Performing Arts and Digital Media, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Computer Music Journal, Media N, Contemporary Theatre Review and Learning Performance Quarterly. Dr. Sicchio has had extensive teaching experience in higher education. She has taught interactive technologies, choreography, and many subjects in between to both undergraduate and masters level students. She has worked in the UK, Malta, Germany, as well as in the US. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Dance and Media Technology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Sarah, Kate, thank you both so much for joining us today. So I'm going to start with a question for you, Sarah. So you've worked as a frontend engineer for a couple of prominent platforms, including Kickstarter, I want to know, how does your experience at a crowdfunding site kind of influence the art you're making now, if at all?

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  4:59

I don't think I would say that the site itself influences my art really directly. I think one of the bigger influences is there, I've learned that there are tech companies that are excited that you're an artist and Kickstarter was one of those companies. Everybody who worked there, I think, had some sort of creative practice, or they really appreciated that people did. And it was a very diverse group of people versus there are other technical companies that are not excited that you do art. And a friend of mine told me recently about a story that they heard that a recruiter was disappointed that somebody had a more diverse background, like they weren't going to be committed to writing code enough or something I don't I don't know. I think that's a very strange thing to think. But I've always looked for places that they saw my art as a plus and I do think it teaches you how to look at JavaScript differently. You know, I am used to writing errors when you improvise live, you are going to write errors and approaching code by thinking about that, and knowing well, what am I going to do when I make errors, how I'm going to make the system resilient, that's really helpful. And so I think, if anything, my art has influenced the kind of work I do more than my work influencing the kind of art that I do. 

Ashley Offman  6:18

Yeah, that's awesome. And Kate, so your work spans choreography, media, performance, and the integration of other technologies. What sort of draws you to your interdisciplinary approach? What really excites you about that? 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  06:30

Well, I started with always finding a new way to make dances that was a big interest of mine and so why not use these new technologies that are always evolving. But recently, I've also been really drawn to actually my knowledge as a dancer and mover makes me an expert that technologies need. And this has really become apparent in my work with robotics. Like they need choreographers. They don't know what they're doing. They're trying to make these things move, but they barely move the people code them barely move themselves. So So yeah, so that's been an interesting kind of switch in my approach recently is that used to be about finding ways of making dances now it's about using dance to make new things. Technology. 

Ashley Offman  07:13

 Yeah, that's a very interesting thought I've sort of that really, it just makes a lot of sense in my head the way you said that, because I also have a dance background. It's like, that's so true, though. I remember like seeing robotics, even like in school, when they would teach you how to make the most basic little robot. It's like, well, this thing doesn't move like a person. Isn't that the point? Right, right. Yeah. So a question for both of you. So you're two thirds of Codie, a group of live coders, which is something that I was really interested to learn about, that you guys put on Algoraves around the world? That is sounds so interesting. Can you guys talk about the process of putting one of these shows together?

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  07:52

Yeah. So I think it can really differ location by location. And a big part of that is what the city you're in is like, what sort of venues you have available, I think, influences the kind of shows that people throw. So since we were doing it in New York, we were very lucky in Brooklyn, there's a number of bars that might be busy on the weekends. But if you ask them for their space, on a Wednesday night, at seven o'clock, they're super happy to let you come in and use the space and use their projector and their sound system. Usually, I mean, often for no money. Often they'll keep the bar take and say if you guys want to make money, you can charge at the door or not charge at the door. And that made it so that we could do shows that were very experimental. So usually what we would do is Livecode.NYC, had a group of people and we first started doing it, we roughly had as many members as could fit on a bill. So it was ideal, we could just go in, get a space bring people in, we tried to do it once a month or so. And so with that it made the shows be it's just like you invite anyone who wants to come play, and give them a space and a willing audience that might be big and might be small, but it had like a very DIY show feel that you can show up with your projectors and your laptops and your cables and just put a show on and then do you want to talk more about what's 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  9:14

Yeah in Richmond, it's a little bit different. I think mostly just because I've only been in Richmond five years, I'm much more involved in arts there than maybe the DIY sound scene. So the Algoraves I've put on there have been in like the basement of a gallery, or our most recent one, which was really fun, was there's this art festival every year in Richmond called InLight, which is like, outside. So we literally like had a parking lot and projected on buildings and people came and danced in this parking lot. So yeah, it has in Richmond. So far, the ones I put on have had more of this like art slant, rather than a DIY slant, which is also been fun. And also nice, because then I don't always have to like drag out the projectors. And,

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  9:58

and we should say the content of a show is we're talking about the form, but the content is usually usually it's one musician and one visual list person, it can be more we played shows with more musicians where Kate and Melody collaborated in different ways. And you are writing the music and the visuals live while you're sitting there. What live means is been some a little bit of a topic of contention in the live code community will not content and let's just say discussion. Yeah, I don't think it's like rancorous. It's just people you know, some people believe that you should start with a blank text editor. And you project the text editor. And if you have visuals, you also project the visuals and you start typing. And people can read the code and see how it's being built up. And you should always start with nothing. Although I also think it's funny cuz people say nothing, but most of the music programs have samples in them. So right or libraries are Yeah, so nothing is general, other people will prepare stuff more. I think there's a funny tension going on right now. Where it's a performative show. It's a performative environment. And so people want to come off well, yes. So they want to prepare because they don't want to feel embarrassed. But live code is also about the fragility of computers and error. And so a lot of times I think, as we've put on shows, I always tried to reassure people like things are going to break and that is the point and the audience is there for that too. And no one's going to say, Oh, my God, your music stopped for two seconds. That was the worst show I ever saw you like eff it live code. Like that's not a thing.

Dr. Kate Sicchio  11:32

Yeah, yeah. Failure is always kind of been part of the aesthetic. And yeah, I feel like people are Yeah, not wanting to do that so much. Now they have a lot of pre programmed things that they're just commenting in and out rather than actually typing and making the typos and

Ashley Offman  11:48

like a rehearsal like you want like it's very interesting kind of what you're, you're discussing of like There's a beauty and failure. And I think there's something of having like that preparation, that rehearsal, if you would, if it was a completely live performance. Kate, when you have, you know, dancers in your Richmond space, are they? Is it? Are they improving? Or is it something where they're rehearsing sort of ahead of time, they've got like, sort of a form and a structure that they want to follow when they're playing within sort of a defined parameters.

Dr. Kate Sicchio  12:18

Yeah, it's, it's a little of both. So it is a visual, like, usually I'm working with scores, this idea of like, something to follow while they're improvising. So it's not completely like, an open space. But because I'm live coding the score, like I'm making the score as they're performing, so I'm changing it on them. So so even though there's this like more general, you know, container for it, it is changing. And that's like, what makes it special and makes it like become this like duet between coder and dancer. Right? Is that, like, we're both responding to each other? By making the score happen live. And so that's like, yeah, that's I think the special thing about it, like, I don't want it to be too set where, because like, then the magic things can happen and emerge. And yeah, that's when you get that real, special live performance feeling as as the performer, I wonder if that's like, this is like a total tangent. But I wonder if that's like part of like this, like, the thing about liveness. And live coding is, it's like, maybe it's selfish. Like maybe that's like, why I want live coding to be about typing in liveness because that's what makes those special moments happen as a performer. And maybe those don't read to the audience. And people who are more concerned about the audience maybe want these preset things where it's polished? 

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  13:35

Well, that's part of the trick of live code is that it seems like a performative practice, yes. But it's secretly not. Or the performance is only part of the point, you know, it's not going to a club or going to a dance performance or a play, where people have rehearsed this thing and decided what to show you and like wheeled out this perfect cake that they have baked for you, right, and said, please see this cake, the other part is actually taking part in it. Like, I hope that every single person who comes to an Algorave performance leaves wanting to be one of the performers, because then that's how they join the community. And you can bring people in and teach people how to do it. And yeah, and that's the fun of it is the interaction. So with the dancers, right, there's that. And then when we play together, as well, the collaboration is between what we see and hear, and then how that influences what we do next. Like I think about the fact sometimes you've told me, you've had dancers, like ignore parts of the scores that they hate, like, they just won't do it, there's no reason they have to do it. Right, you have made a suggestion. And then likewise, we've played together. And it'll be like, I don't really like that part. So I'm just gonna keep making visuals that are made, make and sort of try to push the other person into that vibe. And so yeah, I think that's a huge part of the practice. That's less it's the iceberg, right? It's like below the surface part of the practice. That's interesting, right?

Ashley Offman  15:01

Yeah, I think that's very, it's very interesting how it's like, oh, it's not just, we're putting you we're putting on a performance for you. We're also putting on a process for you, we're showing you like the How It's Made the behind the scenes. That's very, it's very fascinating. So both of you have, you know, Sarah, you live in Berlin, and both of you have sort of worked and presented around the world, what common threads do you think, sort of resonate for you across sort of both the geographic borders, but also political, disciplinary, intellectual borders within your work?

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  15:35

I have no idea. Answer that and I will see if I can think of something.

Dr. Kate Sicchio  15:39

Yeah, I mean, I think they're different communities different definitely have different practices. And like, there's definitely geographical places that live codes been more established. So like, the UK has been doing this for a long time. Lots of cities in South America have been doing this for a long time. Mexico City in particular, has always had like this kind of, like, big live coding scene. And like every place kind of has like, yeah, like something special about it, like, Mexico City is known for this, like, yeah, live coding from a blank slate approach. And like, they have like rules to like, you start with nothing. You have 10 minutes, like go. And then yeah, I think when I the way, like things have sort of evolved in the States, there's much more of like, a dance club feel. I think that I mean, I guess a lot of the scenes have that electronic music feel to it, but there's like this real push for that. A lot of times in the States.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  16:41

Yeah, the UK I think often it seems like they have more funding. I feel like I always see the UK doing things at the British Library or having more of an institutional funding versus in the States. It's much more DIY, like pulling it together as you can whether it ends up looking more like punk, rocky or polished. It's still like there's not really very much institutional support. 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  17:06

Yeah, that was really apparent. We were in the Netherlands in April. And like, they were very like, yeah, we performed in like this pretty big venue for the Algorave. They had, like, there's something called Creative Coding Utrecht, which is like very much supported by the government. So there's Yeah, there was, like a lot of yeah, just money for digital arts. That was apparent. Yeah.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  17:31

Well, so maybe something also, that's interesting about the interaction of borders and our practices is, computers often, like try to make it seem like there's one right answer, right? In computing, there's very often like, this is the way you do it. And sometimes people fight about whether their way is the one true right way. But computing seems very interested often in being right. And I think by seeing by getting to travel and having such an international scene and seeing it develop in different cities and different countries, that also undermines the idea that there's one right way to do it. Like there's not one right way to live code. There's the way I like to live code and the parts I like about the scene. And those might be different from other parts that other people find value in it. But as a global community, I think live code works really hard to be open and say there's more than one right way to do things. And that's been I feel like from the beginning, a lot of the people who first started off doing live code, Alex McLean, Kate, also, other people were very focused always about it being inclusive, and bringing people in to do stuff, inviting people to play shows giving people empowering people to really do stuff. And so I think that is reflected in the people in the scene and our practices still. 

Ashley Offman  18:45

Awesome. I want to go back to Sarah, you know, the common threads sort of in our discussion so far has been sort of in the beauty of errors. And I listened to your talk from a few years ago, Kablooie, I thought it was very fascinating, just talking about the beauty of errors. And sort of straying away from like the that kind of anger that you spoke about, you know, a sort of contention of like, oh, you know, this live could performance isn't perfect. There's a errors going on sort of FU live code. So as you said, What does once you Can you expand a little bit more about like an error that you've seen in live code that has been a really rare, I'm gonna pause for a second. And this is an error that I'm having right now.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  19:28

I love to talk about errors in all shapes and forms. So I will say the talk about completely came from, in JavaScript land in frontend engineer land, about jeez, like, not quite 10 years ago, now, let's say, seven or eight years ago, people started getting really excited about adding static typing to frontend code. And so for people who are not computer engineers, there's sort of two ways of thinking about errors and how you tell computers what to do. And you can do something where you specify a whole lot of stuff about the program that you're writing. And then if the computer looks at that, and says, Oh, this logic doesn't hold up, it just won't build your program, and it won't run your program, and it will like, send you to jail, and you will be sad, because you did not write good code. And jail, you will go to jail. And then there's another kind of programming called dynamic programming your dynamic types. And in that case, you don't tell the computer as much about what's going on. And it will always run the program. And then sometimes the program will blow up in your face because you made a mistake, and your logic wasn't perfect. And this is like an ongoing sort of battle within computer science, static and dynamic typing what's better, and historically, sometimes one is on top, sometimes the other one is on top, and JavaScript, which is the main language of the web is a dynamically typed language. And you write code, and sometimes it breaks. And then as more and more businesses move to the web. You know if code breaks, it matters if you are, you know, there's like famous bugs in like cancer treatment machines and like airplanes and like, yes, if there's an error there that matters. If there's an error so that you know, your bank didn't get to run a transaction, maybe that matters a little bit more. And if there's an error, so that like the New York Times a photo failed, like so really all that important, probably not. But as like, as an industry as the web became more and more of a thing, people got really into the fact that JavaScript should have static types. And that JavaScript programmers weren't real programmers, because they were just script kiddies. And like, the like neg. I feel basically like Microsoft negged JavaScript engineers into adding static types because they're like, well, is that real programming and all the JavaScript engineers are like, Oh my god, I'm so sorry. No, we'll fix it and that pissed me off, because I don't think you can make makes perfect. And I think it's a big waste of time. 

Ashley Offman  21:57

Yeah,

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  21:57

 to try to make it perfect. And so that talk and a lot of work I do is about the inevitability of errors, and that you're imperfect. There's a really great book called I think it's on mistakes, I can't remember the author, I'd have to look it up but she talks about how errors in somewhere like this existential threat to us, because it means that something you thought, and the way the world worked, has a gap. And you can look at that as this awful thing that like the platonic way, like you don't understand reality, and reality is this other big thing that we're never gonna get to. Or you can look at that as like a beautiful space of hope and creativity and triumph, that when you've errored, you've imagined something and like, that's really awesome. So I think that's why I'm interested. I'm always interested in errors. For the existential reasons, and the practical industry reasons. 

Ashley Offman  22:48

No, that's awesome. I feel like education has always been a very safe space for errors. And for that kind of creativity and imagination, specifically, teaching and specifically in the arts. You know, I come from an arts background, too. I have my undergraduate degree in musical theater. So that's definitely a space. I feel like there's a combination of both like, Oh, yes, your error is beautiful dance. I had this professor Pearlann Porter. And always what she would say to us was that she jazzes,she does, she's not a dancer. She's just jazz. And that's always been something that's really stuck with me. It's like, Oh, you didn't mess up you jazzed? 

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  23:29

And that. And that did happen with so I, when we live code, we I use a framework I made myself it's built on web technologies. And browsers are very forgiving environments, browsers want to try to run what you've sent them. And if it's broken, they'll be like, I'll try to fix this. But that means that I ended up making errors when I was coding, that instead of failing, just made cool stuff happen. So like, I did an animation and I kept restarting every frame counter cycle instead of continuing because I made a mistake. But then that meant that like, instead of rotating in a circle it like shifted back and forth. And it was like a very like characteristic movement that trying to write that animation would have been so much harder and more irritating than like, doing the animation by messing up. So yeah,

Ashley Offman  24:16

That's so cool. That's very interesting. Kate, I want to talk to you a little bit more about sort of your, your work. Now you're teaching at VCU in dance and in media technology, I want to know kind of how is both your training, but then also your experience with teaching in these fields? How are they playing together? How is your training and your experience in live code influencing your teaching? Are you when you're working with dancers? You know, are you kind of training them to work in these new fields? Or what? What does that look like for you? I'm very curious. 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  24:48

Yeah, I think when I'm, when I teach like a choreography class, I do try to bring in some sense of digital tools. But for the most part, I think, I'm interested in students. One thing I get a lot in like, dance comp is like, I don't know where to start or, oh, I want to start with this piece of music. I'm like, Well, okay, but then the dance becomes about that piece of music, and not necessarily about what you want to dance about. That's a whole thing. But also, like, I think one of the things is like to get into making choreography, you really need like a system, or you need like a process, right? And I think that's where the live coding comes in. Or like, my work with technology comes in is like, sometimes I do give assignments with using tech, like digital tools, but most the time it's like, okay, what are you doing now? to, like, start making movement? Are you taking a gesture? Are you developing the motif? Are you like, what is your system for doing that like, and I think that's something that I think helps students realize, like, oh, I don't have to, like, just come up with all this movement. Like, actually, I can, like, take this one phrase and keep developing it. And actually, that might actually make a nicer composition anyways, because then I have these, like hooks for the audience, like, they'll recognize this gesture, but they'll realize it's on the foot now instead of the hand or so like giving them systems to work out what they need to make, I think is what I tend to do when I'm teaching that kind of class. I also do teach like live coding and creative coding classes. And I think what makes me different than when I'm teaching those classes is like I make students perform, and get up and walk around and do stuff with their bodies, or like this embodiment of code, which they're definitely not getting from other coding teachers. So like it, I guess, it feeds both ways, right. And that's what's really special about my position that VCU is that I am in this hybrid position where I teach in these two departments and can make those two things happen. Yeah.

Ashley Offman  26:53

Going to kind of continue on to that. So in your PhD research, Kate, you coined the term choreotopology, right? Describing the use of real time video systems in live dance. Can you explain this concept to our listeners? And how have you grown and adapted it from your research and your dissertation to now?

Dr. Kate Sicchio  27:14

Yeah, so when I was doing my PhD, I was really interested in video projection within dance. So yeah, concert dance with something on the back screen. In particular, I was interested in when those visuals are happening live through a camera system. So. My PhD was a long time ago. So we had like CCTV cameras, and I'd like make these infrared lenses and stick them on. And like, yeah, basically get composited adapters and then put it through the computer and do some computer vision techniques to make like these optical flow systems for movement. And so basically, for the PhD, I was kind of figuring out, okay, if you're going to use this system, how do you choreograph it? So again, this idea of choreographic systems, and it really became obvious that whatever movement you're doing in the physical space on the stage is happening simultaneously in the camera, and in the projector, and in this, like, greater composition, and I was like, Okay, so there's these like, different spaces that it's all happening. And they're all connected through this one movement. Well, typology as a form of geometry, is looking at geometry, as movement connecting spaces. So that's where the topology aspect came from, like, it's not like about a space that you can measure to space that's connected through movement. And it's always transforming. So you think of like, a klein bottle, right? Like, you can't, if you stop, you sort of yeah, get this real, like impossible shape, right? But if you keep moving, it's seamless. So that's where that kind of concept came from. Like, okay, you get to choreograph all these spaces seamlessly through the movement and that's what's going to connect them. And I think that idea of like, finding ways that movement connect things is what has stayed with me, like I've moved sort of away from these video systems, and away from that kind of projection work. Like a like, I moved into things like wearables, and like haptics and like sometimes don't use screens at all. But yeah, that this idea of like things that the connection is the movement, and that's always going to be through the system. And you have to think about it sort of all at once and individually, is really what I think is stayed with me. Yeah.

Ashley Offman  29:40

So Sara, another question for you. So when you're creating sort of generative digital art, what are some of the creative challenges that you find when you're working in data? And with algorithms? How do you balance sort of the aesthetic exploration in what you want the final, if you if you have an idea at all, when you start like what you want your final visuals to look like with technical execution.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  30:06

For generative work, I think the most important part of a system is creating a system where it's easy to make the thing that you want to make, so that I'm not thinking about everything all at once. So the La Habra, which is the library I created to do my visuals, it's an SVG library. I have a color palette that is defined so that when I'm playing, I'm just like, I want pink and blue and green. And I know what and I made those colors. And they matched when I made them so that I don't have to think about it anymore. And likewise, I have textures and animations that I have created beforehand. As we were discussing, right, I've created the elements of a system that can combine in many ways. But the system is made to make things that look like I like it to look. And then I've done lately, more layering of different tools and systems. So now I'll make the SVGs, which are like these flat images with sort of elements appearing and disappearing and animations. And then now I've started feeding them into other systems into glitch emulators or video emulators, or also analog video systems. And then in that case, the challenge is less remembering what to write and what to type, and more about being able to steer the flow of what is going on in the system. So this system is less of an idea of imagining, I want to make specifically this thing and more being able to steer what is going on in the system towards something that you like, and sometimes I failed. The parking lot Algorave that Kate was talking about, for that I actually had recorded a video for her ahead of time that I also improvised didn't sit down and be like, This is what I'm gonna make our cake to perform to. But we weren't in the same place, it was easier for me to sit down and provide something in my head, send it to Kate, and she played along. And in the analog system, if you are working with feedback, and you accidentally mess around with the hues, it's really easy to make things like rainbow feedback. And I try very hard not to do that, partly because it is easy. And I guess, the parts where I do feel like I'm like, I love errors. But the place where I feel like I demonstrate mastery, is by being very intentional about the colors that I'm using. And so I messed up on that video, and I couldn't really do anything about it. Like the last part is kind of rainbow barf. And I was like, ah, you know, I like 

Ashley Offman  32:40

That's what I call my Google Calendar.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  32:43

 Well, there's a term that I think I can't remember now if it was a professor or somebody that I interned with had called clown barf. And clown barf is the range of colors that you get if you've created a system, and you've randomized the RGB values. So a very common thing people do when they first create generative art, right? So you create generative art and you think I'm going to make a system or I'm going to make an image. And then I want some parts of it to change according to chance. And one of the easiest ways and first ways people do it to make sense to me is by changing the colors, and how are you going to change the colors? Well, RGB values have three values, you can randomize that. And the output is a range of colors called clown barf, and so clown barf is fine. But getting away from clown barf is again being more intentional. And that's like how you sort of develop your mastery is your ability to improvise and steer the system in a way that the output is always decent, or that people don't notice that you screwed up. That's also happened. People don't that was the greatest show, you're like, nothing worked. I was just trying to get through this with the two functions that kept working. I always tell people that some people were like, don't tell people it looked good. And I'm like, No, I'm gonna tell I ****** up. And it was good.

Ashley Offman  34:00

Final question for both of you. That's, it's big. It's lofty. It's maybe about 10 words long, but they're the most scary 10 words that I could put together. And they're probably actually more than 10 words. For both of you. What exciting possibilities or opportunities do you see kind of coming up for people that are in your unique positions of working at the intersection of art and tech and the human experience?

Dr. Kate Sicchio  34:28

I think, yeah, the human side of it is really important right now. I think it's safe to say we're both into computation, not automation. And I think that's like, I don't know, just everyone wants to talk about AI. And I don't want to. And it's amazing that you didn't ask us. And I'm thank you for that. Because that's like not Yeah, I'm not I'm interested in our intelligence and other intelligences and not necessarily these generative ones that like the generative artificial intelligences. And I think we can do more interesting things with just computation. And that's where I want to see humans making art.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  35:13

Yeah, I don't know if I would call it exactly an opportunity. But I feel right now our position is to continue making the case for why computation is interesting. In the face of a lot of current art and technology, coolness, you know, there was all of the crypto and NFT's and, you know, that was an important place, I think, to articulate why not do it, you know, for me, obviously, the environmental part was the easiest reason not to do it. There were other reasons not to do it. And then same with AI. You know, there's so many different ways to know things. You know, I think about that with Kate like you can know things through the body, or you can know things through an aesthetic practice or art research. And it seems ridiculous to me to spend our time trying to make machines cut off the ways that people know things and obscure the ways that people know things and focus around one kind of theory about knowing things. It's not even proven versus engaging with the tools we have to make different things and find different ways to know stuff together. And I want to say I knowing that is something I got a lot from Kate. So something that I like to tell the story but doesn't always come up is Kate was actually my thesis professor for my master's degree. And we I had in pre thesis, we had been working on our papers and they really wanted us to make it like this UX design HCI kind of thing where you made a project and then you tested it on people or you gave people surveys, and that was how you knew if your project worked And I was like, I'm not doing that I am making art. I've been a UX designer before I came to grad school, I did not come to grad school to do to do more UX.  And Kate was a new professor, and she sent us these surveys, asking, What about our projects, you know, cuz she's starting up this class, and I wrote this rant to her that I was like, I refuse to do this way of knowing. Just so you know, I've been having this battle for three months, I'm not doing it, you can't make me. I don't know what we're gonna do. Like, literally, I feel like she must have regretted being like anything else you want to say, because I was like, I've got a lot, I want to say. And Kate came back and was like, Yeah, you know, art research, or research through your art practice, is a way of knowing something, it is a way of understanding something, here's some articles read them. And that was a really transformative moment for me. And I think that finding other ways to give people that kind of transformative moment by seeing that computers can work differently, that you can make art with them, that you can understand them as a system, you can have a dialogue with and not like some fake chatbot dialogue, but like, a dialogue about I want to represent this, and it's hard to do it in this way and easy to do it in this way. And coming to understand things aesthetically, is really important. And so I like to Yeah, I think our opportunity is to show people that in the face of a push for a kind of computation. That's the opposite. 

Ashley Offman  38:21

Yeah.  Yeah, I feel like we've lost sort of a lot of the humanity of just what technology like the humanity that can come from technology, just with the pandemic and with people. It seems as if people in a desperate search for connection have actually just disconnected themselves further. What does that what does that bring up for you,

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  38:45

if I never thought of it that way, but I think that's fascinating, you know, that it can be wall computers can be a wall between people, partly, I think because they expect you to communicate one way and showing people that they don't have to be that way is important, especially because people try to make technologists often try to make things easy to use. But that means there's one way to use it. And then it feels like magic, right? If you even think about like having a phone where it's very hard to access the source code, versus having a laptop or the web where it's very easy to access that source code. And that sort of obscures the like, great when it's hard to access, it feels magic. And I remember when I first learned how to write programming languages, how to write compilers, that was also a really great moment, because I was like, Oh, these are made by idiots just like me. Like, it's not magic. It's made by people. 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  39:37

Yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking of that in terms of like, also might be, aside from that, but like, I just got this new motion capture system. And so there's like, you can put all these balls, you know, in the right places, and you get the skeleton, and it's built in, and it works super fast. But I have one colleague who I'm working with, who wants to motion capture Nigerian dances, he's from Nigeria, and we right away, we're like, we need more markers on the torso. Like, it's not getting all those like, modulations of the spine. And like, it just like is like shoulders and hips. And we're like, not enough. So we have to like design a new skeleton. And then another, the same kind of idea. I'm working with someone who's also who uses a wheelchair. And so yeah, we could use the regular skeleton. But that's not also not useful for for him like we and he, he has so many things he wants to do with his avatar he wants he first of all, he wants to try to on clothes using his avatar. But then he's also interested in like, his hips are really shifting in one direction, so he wants to measure that over time. And then he's also interested in like, basically projecting, like, 3D renderings of new. He works in housing for people with disabilities. So if we can, like, put his like avatar in a, in a, like an architectural 

Ashley Offman  41:04

In a house

Dr. Kate Sicchio  41:05

rendering, he can see if like, Oh, when I turn my chair, I'm not gonna make it into the bathroom. 

Ashley Offman  41:09

Right? 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  41:10

It needs to be wider thing. And that's all stuff that's not built into the system. Right? These are all real human things. 

Ashley Offman  41:17

Yes, 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  41:17

That are like, yeah, not built into the normal skeleton that will be for a video game avatar or whatever they think they're, we're using it for.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  41:26

You can sneak that in because it's art. And so then don't expect it to be business. You know, in business people would be like, Well, how many people are really going to use this and is it worth our, you know, investment?

Ashley Offman  41:36

If more people than you think if that's how you're going to be thinking. 

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  41:39

Right? But you don't even have to you don't have to make that case when it's art. Yeah. So you can sneak all sorts of fun stuff in I think,

Dr. Kate Sicchio  41:45

And then you can find solutions that way too. Like yeah, like maybe some of Bill's work actually will like provide a better way for people to design for people with disability, but we Yeah, wouldn't know that until he was like, I want to try and close with it. But you know, like, yeah, like he came up with this like project that is kind of out there. And that might lead to something that actually could be better for other people. But yeah, if we just stick with what they've given us, we won't. We won't know we need to we need to make the errors first. 

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  42:15

Yeah. 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  42:16

That's yeah, that's the gap of creativity in the error. Yeah.

Ashley Offman  42:20

I think that is a great place to kind of close this conversation. Thank you both so much. This has been so enlightening. I feel like I've learned so much about errors. I keep thinking of the woman on TikTok. That's like, everybody's so creative with the people that are creating crimes against food. But now, I feel like I have a different perspective on how to look at errors and all of this. So thank you both.

Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo  42:49

Thank you for having us. It was really fun. 

Dr. Kate Sicchio  42:51

Thank you so much.

Ashley Offman  42:52

Absolutely. Thank you for listening to the art and code series on tech in the arts. Be on the lookout for new episodes coming to you very soon. If you found this episode, informative, educational or inspirational. Be sure to send this to another arts or technology aficionado in your life. You can let us know what you think of this podcast by visiting our website amt-lab.org. That's a m t dash L a b dot o RG or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can follow us on Instagram, @ tech in the arts or Facebook and LinkedIn @ Arts Management and Technology Lab. We'll see you next time.