00:27:44 · Ruby Justice Thelot
Many labs, many companies have artists in residence programs. We've already seen the presence of a lot of digital art make it into its way into institutions. But what does it mean to have now a brand new crop of people working with these tools and making things, post them online? And I think that in and of itself is a great question. Right? In part because having the ability to make anything is just one thing, but making the right thing, I think, is the important thing. So when people are making all sorts of different software, all sorts of different applications, tools, and websites, I think it's probably worth it to ask, what is it made for? Are people going to use it, or is it mere just like... Maybe just be like a... It's just it's just a craft. It might just be a craft. It just be a thing that you're making in your bedroom, which is for fun, and it's not meant to be seen. It's not meant to be watched. But I think it's important to have these discussions because they're becoming, I think, an important part of how regular people interact with technology. There's a lot of tools I'm thinking about like, know, Max, MSP, or different sort of creative software that were very, very hard to use now that have been sort of unlocked by by AI. And I think a lot of people are encountering them for the first time through these videos, through these reels, through these creators. And I think it's showing people a lot of the possibilities in tech. And I think it'd be foolish not to talk about the impact that that's gonna have on the relationship of the average person with technology. And so in the following moments, we should see our dear guest Sofia Puccini walk in in a little bit. I wonder if she's behind the door or if she is waiting for the exact thirty minute mark to walk in. Yeah.
00:29:53 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:29:53] S1: Oh, do I just, like, walk in? [00:29:54] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Please walk in. Sit on the chair. [00:29:56] S1: Well, hello. [00:29:57] S0: Yeah. This is real life. This is this is live. Yeah. The mic is on. [00:30:03] S1: Hello, MTS. [00:30:05] S0: Hello, MTS. [00:30:06] S1: I am... Yeah. I'm joined with Ruby for the first time. [00:30:10] S0: It's very exciting to be here with you. [00:30:12] S1: I know. It's it's such a switch up of the usual dynamic. [00:30:16] S0: The last time I was here. I mean, I feel like we didn't get a chance to talk this... That much, but I'm here and we're live, and we were just trying to figure out, like, what exactly we're gonna talk about. Yeah. And so I kinda set the stage by speaking about the rise of creative technologists. Mhmm. I talked a little bit about... Okay. Well, the... In the engrams, when you take a look at all the mentions in in in terminology, it shows up in the books in the mid fifties. Specifically, Disney has a role for [00:30:45] S1: Oh, interesting. [00:30:46] S0: For a creative technologist in 1993. But really, I feel like it really gains popularity when Google launches its own creative technologist role in 2014. [00:30:54] S1: Interesting. Okay. So what, like, what what was the job description for, like, the Disney role versus the Google role?
00:30:54 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:30:54] S1: Interesting. Okay. So what, like, what what was the job description for, like, the Disney role versus the Google role? [00:31:02] S0: Well, famously, of course, like, Disney was literally in the base of creative technology. Like, they had to come up with novel ways of animating. So it was really like a a technical role at the intersection of how do you help the animators, illustrators bring their things into the digital realm, specifically as they were transitioning from hand drawn to more digital animation? And so that was really the term creative technology. And Bran Ferren, right, he was an Imagineer. That's what the people who come up [00:31:32] S1: with it. Imagineers. Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:34] S0: Yeah. Which is one of the coolest titles I've [00:31:36] S1: ever heard. [00:31:36] S0: I know. Yeah. And so he became the president of creative technology in 1998, which is very interesting. And another thing I talked about is how, well, people like to... You know, they see the people do a lot of reels on... About cryptology or a lot of different sort of hacks or projects, but the history of the collaboration between engineers and artists is well trodden. It's been there for a long time. Yeah. Specifically the sixties. Right? Bell Labs, Xerox PARC [00:32:04] S1: Yes. The
00:32:04 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:32:04] S1: Yes. The [00:32:04] S0: EAT, were all examples of times where companies oftentimes were like, hey. We got a couple of extra computers, couple of extra printers, couple of extra this and that. Plotters come and work in our office. Mhmm. We'll pay you or you'll get a grant or whatever. Yeah. You can come in every day. And so whether it's like, you know, Franker,, a lot of these artists worked at telecom companies, at Xerox, at Bell Labs. Another... An artist that I really like called Tom Lloyd, he worked with an engineer from RCA, right, like the tape company to make his light sculptures. So... And that was in the sixties as well. And so there's a lot of... There's a big history of that collaboration. So I think we're... We... We'd be remiss if we didn't mention this just because people are doing cool visualizations, whatever things on on TikTok and videos.
00:32:56 · Sofia Puccini
[00:32:56] S1: Totally. Well, I'm curious your perspective because I think that right now, there's just kind of, like, a sentiment of selling out that I think that, like, if you're an artist who's really dedicated to, like, their values as an artist, then you kind of naturally self select out of technology spaces because they tend to be more correlated with, like, profit incentive or what have you. So I think that there's, like... I'm curious your thoughts on that, because that feels like why there's a bigger bifurcation now, and there seems to be a lack of, like, actually good art in tech, and then a lack of, like, actually more, like, tech pilled artists. Like, say for, like, you know, Grimes or... Like, there's there's a bunch of experimental people doing stuff. But...
00:33:39 · Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:33:39] S0: I think what's interesting, right, is that this this idea of the selling out, I don't think makes sense historically because Mhmm. Bell Labs was so big and so powerful at its peak that, like, it literally led to the antitrust rules that, like, like, first antitrust rules were because Bell had a monopoly. Bell, of course, invented the phone. And so, like, a lot of the infrastructure for telecommunication was owned by Bell. So this was, a big tech. Like, it was a a good analog for it. And so it was just a matter of fact that, like, if you wanted to have access to computers, to plotters, like, those are not things that an artist could acquire by themselves. Of course, sometimes you had the university space. I'm thinking of Joan Shrogan, potentially the first ever digital artist. This is a highly debated topic, but Joan in 1963 made some of the first drawings with a computer. And she was working at the university, I think, of San Diego. Was like a secretary at the time. So you wouldn't have access to these things previously, so that's why I think it's important to recognize, like, these were important collaborations. And I mean, whether it be, as I said, Mona or Frank or any of these people, I don't think they were selling up. I think they were curious as to what this new technology could do. And, I mean, people were still making paintings, and they're still making sculpture, whatever they wanted to do. Like, they... Nobody was forcing people to use technology. Just there's certain people who were interested in seeing what these things could do, and that's really what they were able to do with the support of Xerox, Bell. Or EAT was a bit more grassroots. It was less company based, but I think there's quite a bit of of history behind that practice. Have you seen, like, the public reaction towards these collaborations?