Get a behind the scenes look at the Art && Code podcast series. In this wrap-up episode, AMT Lab’s Podcast Producer Jabrenee Hussie, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator Ashley Offman, and Lead Researcher Hannah Brainard discuss key takeaways from the series. They look back at some of their favorite interview moments, from ethics of artificial intelligence as an artistic tool to the social scene of live-coding.
The Art && Code Series, in partnership with the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, featured seven artists working in live visual performance, immersive design, and software development. Artists included Zoe Sandoval, Matthew Ragan, Kate Sicchio, Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo, Char Stiles, Olivia Jack and David Lublin.
transcription
Jabrenee Hussie
Welcome to another episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast series of the Arts Management and Technology Laboratory. The goal of our podcast is to exchange ideas, bring awareness and stay on top of the trends. You're listening to our Art&&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 Jabrenee Hussie, my pronouns are she/her and I'm the Podcast Producer for AMTLab.. Today, I'm joined by Lead Researcher Hannah Brainard, and our Social Media and Marketing Coordinator, Ashley Offman for our Art&&Code series Wrap Up Show. For the past five weeks AMTLab has been producing an art and code podcast series in which we interviewed seven different artists, live coders and programmers practicing all around the world from various backgrounds. The series featured Zoe Sandoval, Matthew Ragan, Kate Sicchio, Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo, Char Stiles, Olivia Jack and David Lublin.
We're going to discuss the lessons we learned, what piqued our interest and how experiencing these artists and their expertise has affected us.
Can you describe your preparation process for the interviews in the art and code series?
Hannah Brainard
Yeah, absolutely. So really live visual performance, computational art is an area that's not super familiar to me, though, super interesting and exciting. I had a lot of background research to do before diving into the interviews. So I really had a lot of fun kind of learning about each of the artists, really different backgrounds, and sort of how they got into the career path that they did. In addition to that, I tried to experiment with the tools if I could, for example, Olivia Jack developed a tool, a web based peer2peer software called Hydra. And so I went on and tried it out. And though my ability to make magic with it was kind of limited, it was really interesting to kind of see some of what they do and get a better sense of it before going into the interview. So a lot of fun. Yeah,
Ashley Offman
I have sort of similar experience to you, Hannah, that my background is definitely not in computational art or live coding. And so I mean, my first step was to, for my one interview, was to watch a video of someone live coding, which was really fascinating. And I think it opened up a lot of doors for me to ask very specific questions about the process of putting a show like that together. And it was really neat to talk to Sarah and Kate about that. I also watched Sarah's talk, Kablooie that she gave at the JavaScript conference. Because I wanted to talk to her
Jabrenee Hussie
in 2018.
Ashley Offman
In 2018, Yeah, I wanted to talk to her about it, because I was just really fascinated by it. And I thought that it was just a cool philosophy, not just in live coding, and not just in kind of our industry, but also in everyday life. So it was really cool to get to talk about that was her
Jabrenee Hussie
I watched to talk to it was actually like very engaging. It was so engaging is such a good talk. I was like, Oh, I wish I could have been there. Right. I know it was that she should give it give it again, but like, now, you know, it's 2024. And what have we learned in the last six years? I think there have been a lot of errors of the world you know? Yeah, I think it'd be interesting to revisit something like that. Okay, pivoting off of that. Yeah, there anything discussed in the interviews to this day that still stays with you and that you just can't let go of?
Hannah Brainard
Yeah, I mean, so much. I mean, especially going into it without a whole lot of knowledge about this field. There's a lot of like, really interesting stuff that I learned. One thing was in conversation with Olivia Jack. Still from from Hydra. She was talking about her introduction to live coding, I think kind of in the party scene, but she went to a party and you see this live coding on the screen and maybe her first impression was a little bit boring and kind of didn't understand what the interest was in it. But then the more that she kind of was exposed to it, she like really was engaged with the social process behind it being able to see kind of how people think and the creative experience in lifetime. And that ended up kind of shifting the way that she approached computer programming, and then sort of introduced her to start taking part in the field too. So I thought that was really interesting.
Ashley Offman
I think something that stuck with me, I was fortunate enough to get to be in the room for the Char Styles interview. So anytime that she would in the podcast be like, exactly, yeah, it was probably because of some sort of face that I was making some sort of reaction that I was having. So I wish I could tell you exactly, you know, what I looked like in each of those moments. But I really loved hearing her talk about just her foundations of even being a student here at Carnegie Mellon. And then going into like having this idea of wanting to work with computers, and then it not really working for her. And then doing, you know, studio art not also not working but then somehow finding a career and so much success in a field that blends both. I think that is something that really kind of stuck with me because it just is like your intuition sometimes is right. And your first instinct you may not think that you're making the right choice, but I mean, it definitely seems like she did so. Go Char
Hannah Brainard
I love that you brought that up because I think it's so interesting thinking about each of the different seven artists that we talk to each comes from a totally different background Char started with painting. Olivia with computer programming and engineering, David was in mathematics.
Ashley Offman
Kate's a dancer.
Hannah Brainard
Matthew Ragan was in circus performance.
Ashley Offman
Yes. Oh my god.
Hannah Brainard
Yeah, make an interesting. Zoe was in film and photography. So all of these sort of like, interesting, different interests kind of come together in the same space. And I think that's kind of what's what makes it what it is. it's a really social experience with a lot of variety.
Ashley Offman
Yeah, Yeah and it kind of breaks the stereotype. I think we were, I think I talked about this in my interview with Sarah and Kate of like, there's a stigma of technology being a very like insular and isolated field. But it's what we've seen through this series is that it's really not and that it can become like, a community experience.
Hannah Brainard
I'm going to pull the quote here really quickly from Olivia Jack's interview, because she was talking about the same sort of like social experience. I really want to pull one of Olivia's quotes here, because I thought it was really interesting. But she said,
Olivia Jack
writing code that's meant to be live coded. Part of it is like, leaving the code as this open ended thing that you can keep changing. And so it's much more of some sort of ongoing dialogue.
Hannah Brainard
And she continued, she said,
Olivia Jack
some of the selling point is like how complicated and seemingly magical it is, and, and live coding is a bit, the opposite of some of what's interesting is how kind of social it is and how much it can be about like sharing something or learning together or building your own tools.
Hannah Brainard
So much of it is what happens in the space and not necessarily this individual experience, I think is really interesting.
Jabrenee Hussie
It's kind of different for me coming from a tech background myself. So a lot of the times, what really stuck out to me was the Zoe's interview with Matthew and so much of being able to embed your culture and like your way of life and your, you know, hopes and dreams for a better world into your technology. Because a lot of the times when we're learning that in school, learning that in college, you get stuck in this, oh, you're going to work for someone, you're gonna work for the Googles. And you're gonna work for the Facebook's and the Netflix's. And you know, you're just kind of going to sit at a desk and work all day because, you know, that's what we're taught in these fields. Like you're behind a computer, you're there's no social interaction. There's no like, being of the people and being able to like truly be yourself. You're kind of like a little robot. But we love little robots. But at the same time,
Ashley Offman
Little robots have feelings to jobs Jabrenee.
Jabrenee Hussie
They do. They do. We love them.
Ashley Offman
I feel like things like this are also part of how these new pathways are gonna be created. Like, I think that it's important for, like you said, Jabrenee like for people like in your former your former school or your former department to see this and to see that it's a like, plausible path for someone to go down and make a career out of it. Because I think that people don't necessarily see something or view something as a possible career until they see someone else do it. So those are just my thoughts. Did you watch WALL_E?
Jabrenee Hussie
I have a little robot named Jay. Right now he lives in my closet, but it's okay, but like being able to experience these interviews, it kind of made me feel like oh, maybe I could have you know, still been a little more creative staying with my, you know, tech path, I didn't have to make that one ad and try to go into entertainment in order to get that, you know, feel of actually wanting to be creative and wanting to, you know, share my views with the world in a different avenue. So yeah, it really opened my eyes to a lot of the things that, you know, growing up doing a lot of tech stuff, and even in college that we didn't get exposed to at all. So, you know, it really kind of sparked my interest to be like, Hey, I should really talk to my former department and get them to watch these interviews to really open, you know, our eyes up to see all the things that we can do outside of being like, those little antisocial robots that people think that are in the tech industry, even though we all are like, really passionate about, you know, changing the world and like, really doing something different. That's the side that people don't see when it comes to computer science and the people that are behind those things, like you really want to do something great for the world, but you ended up kind of just going with the flow, because you don't know any better.
Hannah Brainard
Yeah, I definitely agree.
Jabrenee Hussie
Let's take the listeners behind the scenes, what is something that you experienced any of the guests that we had in the series, that was really fun, or really eye opening? That's not recorded in the podcast.
Ashley Offman
I mean, I said it kind of a little while ago, but with, with Char just getting to be in the room. And it was nice to be able to be here for a podcast that I wasn't specifically recording just to kind of sit and watch and see what see what's up. And I was really funny to just, even though I was not like I was supposed to be a fly on the wall, like it's still very much like felt part of the experience. And I think that we have a lot of we have a lot of fun while we're doing these podcasts. I mean, we get to bring in some of the coolest people ever to come and talk to us. And so I think you know that. Or maybe you can cut this out if you want to Jabrenee but when Sarah dropped an F bomb in the middle of in the middle of our podcast. That was that was pretty funny. And I think you did it. You did a good job of editing that out. But I think I remember being I think I remember looking at you every day going. Can we say that? So it's nice, because, you know, of course, we never, we bring amazing guests, and we don't want them to feel sort of filtered or restricted in any way. But sometimes things like that happen. And it's a lot of fun to be a part of it.
Jabrenee Hussie
It's funny that you mentioned that because I was gonna say the same exact thing. Like the energy of Kate and Sarah's interview was very much very open and very like real and even, you know, dropping that F bomb. It was like, Oh, so this is they're very comfortable with us. And that's the type of environment that I really wanted to create every time someone came in. Yeah, I want you to be comfortable. I would like char would be like, Oh, can I nerd out for me to be like, yes, you can do whatever you want, like anything we wanted. And I was so fascinated about the different things that would just come off the top of their head. I was like, this is amazing, like, and I really appreciated that they were that comfortable with us to be able to take it there.
Ashley Offman
Like Char's roommate's dog that only only understands Korean.
Hannah Brainard
I agree with all of that. And I feel like those are the things I was gonna say too. There's one other thing and I really enjoyed hearing about them talk about each other because it's sort of like colleagues in the in the field, they all are familiar with each other's work. And so they're like, Oh, you got to talk to so and so that's really awesome, because they did this and that. And so I think it's really fun to kind of be able to be a connection between them
Jabrenee Hussie
finding a connection between Char and David was really cool
Ashley Offman
crazy.
Jabrenee Hussie
We're like what,
Ashley Offman
Wow Oh, yes. Yeah. And when she was like, No way you got to interview David. Yeah, we did. Pretty awesome. So yeah, it's very funny to see the admiration that they all have for each other.
Jabrenee Hussie
So what technology discussed in this series intrigued you the most and why?
Hannah Brainard
So much of it. And this is going to be a really vague answer. You might not like it, but I think it was interesting how they all discuss the ways that sort of the tools shape the process and in some way can limit them. Char was talking about her work with the MIT Media Lab, Future Sketches Group, and talking about how tools shape the artwork that comes out of it and Matthew, and Zoe kind of shared the same sentiment. And so in a lot of ways, I think they all have taken to creating their own tools to express what they want to express. And I think that's one of the most interesting parts of it. And then now they have this tool to be able to share with other artists in the field. So that's very broad. In addition to that, I think hydro was really fun to play with, because like I was saying, like, if you're a very beginner, just kind of trying it out, there's something that you can do. Or if you've been doing this for years, like there are lots of opportunities there as well. So I think that one was a fun one to play with,
Ashley Offman
I was really interested to hear about choreotopology from Kate and my interview with her and with Sarah, I was just really fascinated by it, because it felt like the most sort of applicable directly, almost applicable thing to performance. And my background, I'm a performer. And so it was really interesting to hear about the integration of like real time video in choreography, and just kind of the different ways to think about choreography, because choreography is a very, I mean, it's very codified, almost like, almost like code. Haha, see. So it's very like kind of prescriptive in a way. And so it was very interesting to hear about how she developed almost like a whole new system. And also, you know, then going into things like with like haptics, and wearables and how that sort of technology can also be adopted to create adaptive tools for folks with disabilities. That was really fascinating to me. I didn't necessarily see that connection but then when it was made, I was like, Whoa, that's really cool. And it was nice to see kind of choreography, be translated, not just to like movement as dance, but just like movement is every day people movement
Jabrenee Hussie
Jabrenee, What about you? For me, I'm not going to say like technology, but Chars interview from like, a tech person's perspective was very, like, eye opening to me, like I could connect with some of it. And you know, with my experience of coding and different things like that, but like concepts of Turing completeness, I was like, they don't teach us that. That was cool. And then, like, even her talking about making Carl and the use of that, and then how she, you know, integrated in making the fastest integer multiplier and her experience of talking about, you know, showing that to people in that experience of like really seeing it in real time. I was like, this lady is really cool. And that technology is really cool. I was like, I need to know more.
Hannah Brainard
Yeah. I agree. There was - you said, the concept of Turing completeness, which was also something really unfamiliar to me. But she was talking about now I'm going to misquote it if it's Dune on a pregnancy test.
Ashley Offman
Yeah,
Hannah Brainard
Really like Goofy's silly possibilities with computers. As part of the fun and the experience
Jabrenee Hussie
And see that's the thing I'm like, you don't get that enough in education to know that that is a possibility. Like, we're always kind of stuck on being like, you know, math, arithmetic. And, you know, solve this, you know, really concrete problem, not about use your imagination, what can you create? What can you do? Like? Yeah, so being in all these interviews, it really kind of opened my eyes up to, you know, coding outside the bounds and coding more creatively, rather than, you know, just doing the basic arithmetic. And like trying to solve this Farfetch problem that the professor gives you in You know,
Hannah Brainard
Sometimes it can just be fun. It can just be expression.
Ashley Offman
Yeah.
Hannah Brainard
Right.
Jabrenee Hussie
So if you had to pick your favorite project mentioned in the series, which one would it be?
Ashley Offman
This is a hard question.
Hannah Brainard
I do have one that comes to mind quickly for me, just because I'm passionate about how climate intersects with arts and technology. And so one project that Zoey and Matthew were talking about, it was with Visions 2030. It was the three domes and they were kind of largely responsible for one of them. That helped, like participants in the experience, after a series of prompts help visualize their ideal future in a in a sustainable future. And so I kind of thought it was interesting their role in bringing that together and helping people get engaged in the process in real time I thought was fun.
Ashley Offman
I thought Carl was really cool. I feel like for becoming a Char Style fan account, but I think that Carl was really neat and I was kind of going back and looking at it. And I just think that it's nice to kind of talk to somebody about a project that they're so passionate about. And I think that's part of why I was so excited about it, because it was so cool to see her face light up when Hannah when you were like so, tell us about Carl. And she was like, Oh my gosh, she was talking about Carl like that was, um, it just really made me interested in it, for sure. I think it's a cool thing, because it makes like, sort of this, like live coding like accessible just to the general public. It's like, oh, you know, you don't have to know JavaScript or anything, you can have it just like in the palm of your hand, that was pretty neat.
Jabrenee Hussie
For me, the projects that really stuck out to me were a lot of the things that Zoe and Matthew talked about, I'm gonna say it again, the influences of Zoe's culture that she put into a lot of the work that they had on their website, I was like, this is beautiful. And I didn't know that this was possible. And this is really inspiring to me. But yeah, I think a lot of the times, when you are, you know, experimenting with technology, and you know, trying to create something, you get stuck into, like this big picture, you know, how can I change the world? How can I, you know, help everyone, but seeing things like that kind of told me like, Hey, it's okay to kind of, you know, make it a little small, make it for the people who, you know, are right there with you, or the people that have that same experience with you. And then you can branch out after that, because everybody can learn something from that, even though, you know, you may not also be Venezuelan, but it was like really inspiring the way that like, just looking at it, and watching her talk about it, it was just, it was very inspiring. Okay, so this is our last show, as we know, is our Wrap Up Show. Um, so what do we want the listeners to take away from this series as a whole?
Hannah Brainard
I think - So, one question we asked almost all of them was to look towards the future and kind of think what was ahead. And so many of them talked about artificial intelligence. And I think I mean, that's definitely a hot topic right now, it needs to be addressed. But specifically around some of the ethical concerns around how to implement it. One story that I love was David Lublin, was talking about a project he did a while ago, before kind of AI was in the mainstream. And I'm gonna misrepresented a little bit, probably. So go back and listen to it. But So David, David Lublin’s, early project was adding captions through machine learning. So we scraped the web for a bunch of scripts and applied it to television in real time, I think with like a Western kind of perspective. And so there was an ethical consideration around where the scripts were obtained. And then he he also said that he would have to wake up in the morning and check to make sure that this AI mechanism didn't say anything horribly offensive, and if it did take it down. So there's still this human element, so deeply involved with everything that we do in AI, that can't really be pulled away. So I think so many of them mentioned that while it's a tool that almost all of them have used in some way through their work. It's not a replacement for artistic expression and human expression in so many ways. So I thought that was interesting.
Ashley Offman
Yeah, kind of jumping off that human expression piece. I remember very specifically saying to Sarah, because we asked them the same question about, you know, what do you see for the future? And I remember, just kind of saying, and, you know, you can go back and find my exact quote, but that, that we've kind of lost a lot of the humanity just that can come from technology. And I think that having all of these amazing artists come and talk to us about the expression like you said, Hannah, that they are still able to create even in an age where AI is kind of dominating the tech conversation. I hope that people kind of reexamine just kind of their relationship, especially as AI tools are becoming more mainstream just their relationship to them. I guess and we can reframe it, you know, AI is not is not necessarily always a harmful thing. But I think that it's something that needs to be used consciously it needs to be really used with great care. I mean, I read an article recently - did you see that The New York Times is filing a lawsuit to try and get ChatGPT shut down, did you see that?
Hannah Brainard
I saw that headline, but I haven't read it yet.
Ashley Offman
It's really interesting. Like, legally, they're able to do it. So it'll be interesting to see kind of what comes of that, if anything. I feel like, it's, we're in a very interesting time, with things like that. I know, even just like in school, it's it's become a, it's become a much bigger topic of conversation. So I just think that people need to reexamine their own working relationships with AI.
Jabrenee Hussie
For me, the biggest takeaway that I would want someone to take away from this series would probably be that, you know, because a lot of professional people listen to this podcast. And, yeah, I just want people to understand that there's more that you can do. Sometimes, a lot of the times we get stuck into these same careers and like the same, like boxes, because we don't know what else is out there. And even for me, like this really opened my eyes to what else is out there as far as tech and even the, like, cross section with choreography and dance from Kate, it was like, there's so many things that you can do in the world and it kinda is just limited to your imagination. So I just want people to know that, you know, if you want, if there's something else that you're really passionate about, you can always kind of explore that and examine that without having to sacrifice, you know, the other things that you're interested in, you can do whatever you want. So
Hannah Brainard
I agree with that, and not to discredit the insane capabilities of all the artists that we talked to. But I think part of the process for me was learning like, Oh, this is like, what people are working on. Like, this is something that's actually within reach is not something that like, I don't know, it's just for the elite computer science geniuses. Yeah. Even though that's who we talked to.
Ashley Offman
We're surrounded by them constantly.
Hannah Brainard
They could communicate it in a way for us that was like, Oh, this is obtainable. Yeah, I wanted to do this. I could try something.
Ashley Offman
You know, people say you either have like a math brain or like a creative brain. It seems like they all have both, and they were able to Yes. And they're able to just like translate it. What's so funny?Jabrenee, why are you laughing?
Jabrenee Hussie
Oh, because it was funny, because you said you either have like a math or science brain and their creative brain. I'm like, I have, like, I have an IT degree. And I'm also trying to do this entertainment stuff, you know?. And I kind of learned that you can integrate those things that I never like, a lot of the things are, can very easily connect them. But you always kind of put them in their own separate boxes. So like, These interviews are like, Oh, wait, you can do all this at once.
Ashley Offman
yeah, exactly. It's all about context. It's all about context.
Jabrenee Hussie
It's like, you know how when you're a kid, and you get a Barbie, and you're you see the Barbie do all these different things like Barbie is an Astronaut Barbie is a banker Barbie, you know? And so it makes you go, Oh, I can do so much. But in this context, it's kind of like not seeing anyone do that before and getting to meet these people and like learning about their lives and learning about their backgrounds. It's like, oh, that's like a Barbie like she could do it, so I can do it. I can do it.
Ashley Offman
New release of the Barbie movie but it's we got you know, everybody that we got on the art and code series as Barbies and cans if they want to be you know, this Barbie, this is Barbie who does live coding? This Ken's job is this Ken's job is computer, right? Absolutely. So speaking of, you know, the end of this series, and the beginning of a new one - Hannah, do you want to talk about what our our next podcast series is gonna be?
Hannah Brainard
I would love to. I'm so excited about this. So as I was talking about earlier, I'm so passionate about how climate kind of fits into this conversation. So our next series coming this spring is about climate and we're talking with a variety of professionals in different disciplines across the arts. So, people involved in performing arts circularity in theater design, how tech can help build a fan-based climate movement, how galleries can be more sustainable and how people can offset through carbon sequestration projects. So it's really it's going to be a lot of fun and I hope everybody tunes in later this spring.
Jabrenee Hussie
Thank you for listening to the Art&&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 AMT dash La b dot O R G. Or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @techinthearts or Facebook and LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. We'll see you next time.