00:42:45 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:42:45] S0: Yeah. I mean, I am, my dear friend Alexia Adana, who is now at Luma, Luma AI, was the video artist in residence at OpenAI when they had that program with Sora. And what she was doing was really, really cool because what she noticed is the thing Minne Atairu noticed and that a lot of thinkers like myself were, like, at the intersection of, like, blackness and AI. Realized that, oh, there's some things that are not in the dataset. Yeah. And so for for Alexia, for Minae, for people like this, it became a possibility to build these sort of alternative datasets that had... That represented, I think, their respective communities. And specifically for Alexia, who's almost like a futurist in how she approaches her art... Like, she has a... If you go on her Instagram page, we'll make sure to link to it. It's, like, really crazy stuff she's able to make with these different models and whatnot. But they are centered on a black woman and, like, how she can exist in the future. I mean, I also thought that was very beautiful and very interesting. Like, once again, it's the same thing that I talked about yesterday with techno and and and the techno rebel techno rebel by way of Toffler, how technology as a means to empower oneself. Yeah. And I think that that's what's very interesting to me in that work. Do you find that the stuff you see online, whether it be the media pipe stuff, whatever. Like, do do do The Yeah. Yeah. The touch designer stuff. [00:44:17] S1: Like, do
00:44:17 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:44:17] S1: Like, do [00:44:17] S0: you, like, do you find that it's in line with, like, the self empowering? Or, like, how do you [00:44:23] S1: I don't know. It's weird. I... It feels like we're in, like, a truly, like, chaotic soup of content right now [00:44:31] S0: Mhmm. [00:44:31] S1: That's, like, half... It's like some of it is mildly impressive. Like, very... I think few pieces of content elicit, like, a very strong emotional reaction in me. I think there's, like, been a few times this year, and I like to think a lot about Instagram edits. Like, if you if you ever, like... There's a show that you like and somebody makes a really impressive edit of it, I feel like that's, like, such a powerful, evocative, like, form of art and has been for a while. So... Yeah. So it's just like whenever I'm, like, scrolling and I'm looking through these, like, touch designer projects or, like, edited videos, there's stuff that's, like, pretty impressive, but it all kind of tends towards the same thing. [00:45:12] S0: Mhmm.
00:45:12 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:45:12] S0: Mhmm. [00:45:13] S1: Like, it it feels like we all mode collapsed in a in a way. And it's nowhere near, like, some... For example, in, like like, growing up when I was watching music videos on YouTube, and there were truly people taking it in, like, striking directions that was just, like, so weird and and truly, like, came from their own minds. And I feel like that era of YouTube is, like, kind of dead. The best that we have now is, like, short form that's, like, kind of creative. I've been, like, trying to find the, like, beauty in short form for a while. Like, because I think there there are reels that have moved me. You know? They exist. I... But I was... [00:45:49] S0: Someone made a someone made, like, a a list... A canon list of, like, the best... They had, like, the Casey Frey dancing video with the the... They're just like these... To me, there's like... As as a cybernography, like, there's these moments on the Internet that are so... I watched that, and I was laughing, crying because those videos were still so Yeah. Funny and impactful. [00:46:10] S1: Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:10] S0: Yeah. Yeah. And I think... You know what? I teach in a creative technology program, into a design and media. Like, the students can kinda do whatever they want with technology. Yeah. And I think the main thing that I tell them is, like, why are you making this? Sometimes when I see the touch designer thing with the things, I'm like, I'm not exactly sure what this is for. Yeah. [00:46:30] S1: And what's the purpose?
00:46:30 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:46:30] S1: And what's the purpose? [00:46:31] S0: I don't know. But then again, like, art does not does not need a purpose per se. Yeah. But it really falls into this weird thing. Is it design? Is it art? Is it, and I guess it depends on the intent of the actual creator. But I'm often like, okay. But, like... Because we've we've seen the image in Heap glove. Like, we we know that this is possible. Is there something specific that you're trying to show with this, or is this just, you know, just a portfolio, just showing your technical ability and it's just like your... What you're able to do? In which... But that's also fine. You might just be looking for a job. [00:47:05] S1: I... No. I I totally agree. I also think, like, it's weird that that... I don't know how this has felt to you if you still use TikTok. I don't know what your, like, social media diet is right now. [00:47:16] S0: It's my TikTok weekend right now, so I'm having a great time.
00:47:16 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:47:16] S0: It's my TikTok weekend right now, so I'm having a great time. [00:47:18] S1: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But it feels like everyone has, like, now moved to Reels for some reason. Or I think some of the best content, like, in the Internet visually is on Reels. So I... That's what I use. But it feels like there's... Like, I I think some people have a a really good way of making, like, the point they wanna get across an art, and they really excel at, like, micro storytelling within a reel. And I always found that to be, like, a skill in and of itself. What I... Like, what I've noticed is just that there... There's this way that people have of combining music with visuals that is really, really interesting to me right now. Mhmm. Like, these very, like, hyper beat synced edits that I'm seeing a lot, like, a lot of, like, motion graphics designers do, where it's almost, like, literally every single, like, micro detail in the music is mapped to some, like, visual element. And to me, that feels new, because that feels like it's, like, a new medium that combines both very, like, intricately. So, yeah, so that's what I've been, like, very impressed by.
00:48:24 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:48:24] S0: Mean, yeah, like, one of the one of the songs that I really loved this year was the song Overkill by Lam, but I discovered on TikTok. And it was just... Once again, like, I think the the syncopation in the edit, the way she organized the thing, like, it was just... Not only the song catchy. The whole thing was, like, extremely compelling. I've seen quite a bit of people also use, like, the the language of computer vision. Like, they'll do the music video, but, like, they're... There's, like, squares over the different segments of the [00:48:50] S1: seen that. And and these are, like, the artists themselves making those videos Yeah. Too. That's what I think is so interesting because, like, I do this too where, like, I just... Like, I'm, like, I'm not gonna pay for a t... A team to do a music promo edit of some sort. Like, I'm just gonna make, like, some bullshit on TouchDesigner. You know? So, so I've just been, like, doing that, and and I can tell everyone else is also doing that. Like, everyone else is shooting their own videos, propping them up or whatever, doing some edit, and then posting them. And then that's, like, that's just what music marketing has started to become. [00:49:23] S0: And, I mean, I think it's very beautiful. This is possible. I I I think about the budget for something like the videos that we sort of grew up watching. Like, those were million dollar [00:49:33] S1: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The VEVO era.