In the first episode of the 2024-2025 season of Tech in the Arts, hear from Jessica Bowser Acrie, the director of the Arts Management and Public Management programs at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. Having recently attended the Christie’s Art + Tech Summit, Bowser Acrie shares her key takeaways for arts managers.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

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, discuss emerging technologies, and uncover things that arts managers, arts geeks, and people like us really want to know.  My name is Brett Ashley Crawford, and I am the Executive Director and Publisher for AMT Lab.  

Today, I am joined by Jessica Bowser Acrie, the manager of the Arts Management and Public Management programs at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, and we're going to discuss her recent experience at the AI Symposium at Christie's Auction House.  Show notes and related links are in the show information, and the full transcript is available on our website, amt-lab.org.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

So what was your favorite thing about the conference? 

Jessica Bowser Acrie

Again, it was an opportunity to swim in a circle that I don't normally swim in. Coming from Carnegie Mellon University, we're very educated and feel very well informed about the concept of AI and the different ways that AI is changing arts and the culture, public policy and all of the other things around it, so from the moment that I decided to attend the conference I thought that this would be interesting. I'm from a performing arts background like yourself, Brett. So, this auction house situation is so curious to me. I mean, it's a very high-end conference, right?

You and I have been to AAM, or we've been to you know, just different sort of conferences out there. The budgets on this was quite Interesting, right? So this was a very high end, high tech conference. I would also say that I would say that my favorite part about it was just being in the room were very different conversations and the conversations that we have about technology are happening that there was concern and overlap, um, with, you know, what is going on in the art world.

 But this is very much the luxury art world. You know, I mean, um, we are often thinking about – and, especially like with your book and other things – we’re often thinking about the organizational side of technology and you know, “how are fundraisers going to use Bitcoin?” or “how are fundraisers going to use blockchain?” and this was more decidedly very “how are we going to get art buyers even more invested in digital art?” and NFTs were brought up.

I think – yeah. It was just very, very, very different than I thought it was going to be. But I think my favorite part, which was your exact question, was the keynote from Steve Wozniak, who - I'm a big Apple fan. It's hard not to be in this universe. I know that lots of people are the Android friends out there, but, you know, I've enjoyed my Apple phone since I got one in 2008.

It was very exciting to hear from the person that literally made the personal computer. I would also say, on display at Christie's, while this was happening, was a very extensive collection of formative computer technology objects. Because, you know, we often think about Christie’s as selling art, or an auction house as selling art, but of course they sell a wide variety of things that are important.

And so, going to be on the auction house, for example, and therefore was in their galleries was one of the original Apple IIe's, I believe it was. Literally the Apple that Steve Wozniak made with his own hands, and it sat on Steve Job’s desk for a long time -- so said the note of it, right? But there was also other important artifacts which don't always go under arts, but more under culture and ideas like that. So it was very interesting to see a lot of those objects, get a tour of those objects.

It was very interesting to hear from Steve Wozniak. Now I'm happy to inform you what he had to say on AI. You know, I found other people at the conference that had the same interest, so I had the opportunity -

-  the second day of the conference was my favorite day, although the keynote of Steve Wozniak was on the first day. But the, you know, the second day was more of a current state of auction houses and galleries. And so we had a great conversation with a couple of people from that, that I can talk to you about a little bit more in depth.

 But then I also was able to talk to a couple of people from foundations that had been brought in to speak to us. One of the funders from the Doris Duke Foundation was there. That was meaningful to be able to connect with them and hear how they felt.  technology, how they think of AI in those fields and that kind of stuff.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

 Yeah. So I'm curious about the keynote. You said it was one of the more, you know, again, you geeked out a little bit on it and I was out because I had an Apple IIe. So yeah, I get all of that. So what is, what were some of the favorite takeaways from his keynote and the conversations?

Jessica Bowser Acrie

So, the first day was all very tech oriented and not as much tech in the art oriented, which is fine. You know, we had panels on things like. The role of our, um, sort of, like, real AI, um, it should be noted that, uh, if there's any, uh, Shark Tank fans out there, there was a panel on investing in innovation and AI, and so Kevin O'Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, was on that panel, and again, as a person that's sitting in the office for academic reasons, you know, when I go to conferences, I'm very transparent - I'm looking to meet contacts to either bring back, to talk to our arts management students about current trends that are happening in the field. Or, I'm hoping to meet people that may employ our students, hire our students for internships, or do a capstone project with our students, right? These are the main reasons I'm going to things.

 This conference was also about sort of just opening my eyes and mind up to the more  auction house side. After an entire day of very high level tech talking, from investing in tech archivations to the future of human creativity, to all of these things, we bring out Steve Wozniak, who is a bit of a prankster, like self-proclaimed. I read his autobiography many years ago. And, um, he came out and said immediately, he's like, “I don't know how you guys are going to like this, but I know we're supposed to be talking about AI.” He's like, “and I study this kind of stuff all the time, but there's no I in AI. It's just artificial.”

He's like, “there is no intelligence in this yet, right?” And I have to say, as a person that identifies with one of the memes that's going out there right now, that says something like, “I want AI to do my dishes and walk my dog and, uh, you know, clean my house, not write my poetry.” I feel that, right? And so it was really nice to hear, um, Steve  come up and talk about the fact that he realizes that. That we are on the beginning breakthrough of something, but like, to not rush to judgment on this, and that we still need people very much, and that we need people to be using these things in smart ways, you know, and again, he is not a man that is afraid of technology in any way, right, but, and we, again, from hearing how to invest in it, to how to use it in a research project, to how to use it in all these things throughout the panels, like, for him to come up and say, like,  what I, a normal person, feel,  I think about ChatGPT, which is it's not going to solve everything and we have to use it more like a tool like the way I use Excel.

Like, I don't expect Excel to make my budget. I expect Excel to be able to help me clear, see the picture, see where I'm spending if I put my budget in there, right? But it's not going to make the budget for me. It's not going to solve the true creative issues, I think.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

I think that's an excellent observation. The variety of different things that I engage in around AI has been saying for a while now that the human has to be a part of the equation. And the more I engage with various generative AI systems, the more I recognize it's not there. I mean, it's a great small personal assistant, an excellent travel planning companion.

 But when I'm asking it to do higher order thinking, it still comes back to what I would call for as a professor at a university, fairly basic. You know, and that's great because it can do those fairly basic things. And I think that as we learn, and that's what, you know, will hopefully be.  Learning as a society and in our classrooms, how to engage with AI usefully, intellectually, professionally, ethically, and how to also engage interpersonally with each other away from AI, right?

 I think one of the other questions I had for you sort of coming out of this is, as I'm reading headlines where Facebook has launched a create your AI character, right? And there's a great deal of fear. Elon just created the AI, quote unquote, parody video that has been in the news because it's sort of against the his own policy on X.

 But the point is you can do a lot of interesting things, but what really is the future? I'm curious what you took away and or what other people were saying about here are the things we're looking forward to or anticipate from artificial intelligence and or other forms of technology in auction houses, in society, in the marketplace,  right?

Jessica Bowser Acrie

So again, I mean the second day of the conference really honed more in on this for me and specifically in the morning right, so we did and again the room would fill and dissipate accordingly, but like for example It was super fun to hear from Beeple. Beeple was one of the panelists on a panel of “When Worlds Collide, Bridging the Gap Between the Traditional and Digital Arts Markets.” He is famous for being a pioneer in the NFT world and creates his art digitally, wants it to be sold through the NFT - and look, there's no big surprise here, and this was actually talked about on that panel. The NFTs were like the hottest thing on earth for about, you know, 6 months and now they're sort of, dissipating a little bit. But, you know, he is passionate about the fact that again, we know how art works now, right? An artist makes a piece of work. They get to sell it once, and they get the money for it once, right? The dream of the NFT is that perhaps the artist will get to continue to earn profits off this thing that they created, whether it be a physical or a piece of art that is then also made into an NFT, right?

 Now, I will say, unlike any other swag I've ever gotten, there was an interesting swag aspect to this conference. We've all been to conferences. And so, throughout the different panels, and I was able to collect all four, we were able to collect four different NFTs. They were only made for this conference.

 Again, as someone that works in the non-profit world, I was joking with other people in the audience while we were getting these. I was like, I have to get all four, because they told the tale of the first conference, they had with this that they gave away an NFT, and actually, one of those NFTs ended up now being valued at like $300,000. So, this is my retirement plan, friends. I've got four NFTs and I'm hoping that like one of them like becomes something.

 No, I get it. So it was really cool to hear from Beeple, and I mean again to focus back on my question - on the first day, we also heard from Refik Anadol. I think that when you are hearing from these very “on the edge of creativity” people that are making things at this level, It's very exciting/ Again, I can appreciate that people just flocked to Refik's piece in MoMA and how he uses the generative AI to reflect upon the own AI within what he's making and demonstrating, right?

 I will also admit that some of it's a little over my head, but it is beautiful work and I understand what they're doing. It also seems somewhat unattainable, you know, like how is a kid here at CMU that might be - You know, our degree is a mashup between the Heinz College of Public Policy and all of the schools of the College of Fine Arts here at campus, which includes the school of art.And it's like, how would you even teach this?

 You know, we think about people being a clay artist or a fiber artist. And this digital art, and it happens in performing arts too, it's hard to capture, it's hard to think about how to sell it. And so, both of those were really neat, to hear from those two particular people, but neither of them, I would say, were able to articulate well enough for me, sort of an average art-appreciator and theater-goer - how will this change my life, right?

 Like I'm very happy that their personal practices can move forward and be groundbreaking and be awesome, right? But I'm not sure how it trickles down to me at a level that is other than just appreciating their particular art, right?

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

And that's an excellent point. And I think that whether it's NFTs, other forms of digital art, or contemporary art exploration, it's very niche, right?

 And so, there is no art, in my opinion, that is, quote unquote, for everyone, right? Therefore, we bring in our own preferences, our histories, our identities into something. And NFTs and other digital art forms are amazing for some artists and some audiences. And you got the opportunity, which I think is so exciting, to really be listening to the best and the brightest who are making it right now.

 They weren't necessarily, it sounds like at this conference, bringing in people who are making what the future will be, because that's not what auction houses do. Auction houses are mostly engaging with those who are established where they can auction. 

Jessica Bowser Acrie

 My favorite panel probably overall was on the second day. “Arts and the Market” was the topic that day. It was a conversation between Dirk Boll, who's the deputy chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art at Christie's, so again, a Christie's person, but then it was also Marc Glimcher, I believe his name was, and he's the CEO of Pace Gallery, so we have a top VIP leader at Christie's in Dirk Boal, and a head of Pace Gallery, right, and both of them are talking about the selling and moving of art and the selling and moving of digital art.

 And you know, again, when we're working with budgets at even the largest performing arts organizations, and like, for example, Pittsburgh has one of the biggest cultural trusts that manages a downtown set of blocks that has just an astounding budget, right? But like, they said something like, Pace sold over $800 million last year, and Christie's $65 billion - with a B - dollars last year and both of those were down, right?

 There was a great conversation about them saying how first off I would also say as far as like the digital aspects of this 82 percent of bids  at Christie's are now coming in digitally. This conference was happening in the Christie's auction house floor room, which I've had the opportunity to tour with students. We often go on trips and treks, and so we've gotten to tour this room before when an actual live auction was going on, but we're sitting in the room where the auctions happen, and they're saying that less and less people are showing up, and so the trust in that. I think there was also a really interesting conversation about how even 10, 15 years ago, there was the necessity that buyers wanted to see the physical art at least once. But, now, they're finding that is not the case, right?

 People, again, are buying art in the art market because they're looking for appreciation on an investment. And we know that that is a fact about how the arts market work, right? I guess maybe I'm still one of these silly people that thinks like you would buy a piece of art because you love it. But often people are buying art because it is the market, right?

 They think that it will go up, right? They're hoping that it's an investment that will acquire more prestige, whether that be a watch, you know, like a $10,000 Rolex watch or something, or whether it be, you know, a million dollar painting. The auction house is right there, but it was interesting to hear the, the gentleman from Pace talk about how galleries are still far behind on this.

 Galleries don't have great CRM systems. Again, we're talking about AI, right? Here's what AI can't fix - some of the things I took away from this. The man that owns Pace Gallery, and has for many years, his family has owned Pace Gallery, and they are saying they don't have a great CRM system, that much of their knowledge is in these art handlers and gallery attendants that have been doing this for years.

 They write the note down of Mark, “this person might be interested in buying this piece again if it ever comes out” or “this particular buyer likes all these things,” and he's like this is still a handwritten and hand note taking industry. So again, you can't go to ChatGPT right now, or any of the other ones that are out there and say, “I own this piece of art, who should buy it?”

 I mean you do still need Someone that is managing a gallery and so he sees his job at both managing the artist and managing the buyers. And you know, he basically said at the end, and I have it in my notes somewhere, but he said, if someone can figure out to do that, better galleries will be gone.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

 And I think that also goes back to, I mean, at the end of the day where we are nowhere near, quote unquote, the humanness of AI, right? Because humans are naturally irrational, like we are psychologically complex beings that are irrational. And when it comes to art, the concept of what is an appropriate aesthetic to accomplish, one that you learn when you're taking a painting class is very different than why I want to buy that painting or why that painting has actually increased in value, right?

 That this marketplace dynamic is tied to that irrationality and also, you know, wants and needs and demands. The other thing that popped in my head was, you know, my big, one of the, I would say a third of the book that I wrote, Raising the Curtain with Technology Success Stories, is knowledge management.

 And that organizations, even who have excellent CRM systems, Customer Relationship Management, or CMS, Customer Management Systems, that knowledge management still has to be intentional, and how do you build it? I do think AI will have a role, and could probably right now, because they're starting to become quickly embedded in them, where you could take an audio file with someone who's at Pace, and say, add this information to this person's record.

 And it will start doing that, probably not with the data cleanliness you would want right now, but I could see that happening in the next few years pretty quickly.

Jessica Bowser Acrie

He literally came out and said though, like, when someone figures it out -- and maybe it'll be through technology or maybe it'll be through people management or maybe it'll be through knowledge management -- when someone figures out how to manage artists better and be able to get their work to market. Right? He also talked about that. The technology is speeding up things, and I think we all feel that. Right? I think there was also an overall feeling from the conference that I took away that technology is definitely making us faster, but is it making us faster and we like that, right?

 So, you know, these are things that I'm still processing through that I'll hopefully be able to demonstrate to our students and think about in other ways. But like he was just saying, you know, to be a living artist, you used to do like a big show, maybe like once every two years.  And you could live off of the profits and the sort of things of that.

 He's like, now, like artists, living artists have to do like four shows a year and they have to hustle, and they have to get it out in different sort of ways. And there's this expectation of because we can do everything faster because we can, you know, you don't have to have your poster put to the printer and they don't have to typeset it. I mean, I know we're a long time from that. But, now we can have Canva and we have a poster made pretty quickly in like five minutes, right? So, I think that there was a bit of like everyone pro technology here, but then also there would be these cracks of like hearing, you know, Steve Wozniak say like, “there's no I in it yet,” right?

 Or hearing, the sort of the protectors and gatekeepers of artists, which I would consider a gallery manager to be that, right? Saying like, we're making them do so much more than they used to have to do. Like, I just want people to create art.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

 This is a great place to sort of wrap up the conversation, which is AI or any other technology - It's supposed to be a tool that we can use to be more effective, maybe more efficient. And sometimes there's this opportunity cost where it feels like the technology is, you know, the tail wagging the dog. The technology is impacting our lives right now in ways that Maybe we're not getting the gains that we were hoping and we're paying this opportunity cost deal of our time.

 Which is why, you know, I'm ever so embracing at times of the slow movement, the slow art movement. You know, that we have to find the counterbalance to how fast life is picking up to how art might do better with certain moments of slowing down.

Jessica Bowser Acrie

Yeah, you know, and on the auction house side, even that was mentioned. You know, we used to sell a piece of art, maybe like a particular artist or a piece of art, like every 10 or 20 years, once it had lived with an owner for a while and as it's become easier for them to get the art to you, easier for them to verify it. Things are actually even selling more and selling faster and turning over more. So, you make 60-whatever billion dollars.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

Billion with a ‘B.’  This has been a wonderful conversation. It sounds like it was an exciting opportunity that was also at times sort of introspectively a time for you to think about your own values around technology and art, which is also always good.

And I appreciate you taking the time to share your findings, experiences with our audience.

Jessica Bowser Acrie

Thanks so much. And again, I wish I had been able to maybe feel a little bit more in that world, so maybe I would have a slightly different review. But, it was very exciting for me to be there and represent Carnegie Mellon University, and be able to tell people about our fabulous arts management program.

And you know, for the record, we have many MAMs [Master of Arts Management students] that have worked at auction houses over the years. We've had many MAMs that go into the gallery field. So, it was great for me to learn about how those fields are adapting to changing technology so that we can bring it back to our students.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

I think that's wonderful. I really appreciate you every day in our workplace and I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much, Jessica.

Jessica Bowser Acrie

Same to you. Thank you.

Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Tech in the Arts. If you found this episode informative, educational, or maybe inspirational, be sure to check out our other episodes and send this to your arts or technology aficionado friends.  If you want to know more about arts management and technology, check out our website at amt-lab.org. Or you can email us at info@amt-lab.org.  You can also follow us on Instagram at techinthearts, Or, for Facebook and LinkedIn, follow us at Arts Management and Technology Lab.  Our season runs from September through May, so feel free to follow us on your preferred podcast app. Thanks for listening.