WEBVTT 00:00:14.279 --> 00:00:16.382 Hello, everyone. 00:00:16.382 --> 00:00:19.352 Welcome to our friend the computer. 00:00:19.551 --> 00:00:21.420 This is Ana, as always. 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:23.422 And Camila is here, too. 00:00:23.422 --> 00:00:25.291 I guess we don't really need intros anymore. 00:00:25.291 --> 00:00:27.260 So what do you. 00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:31.631 I mean, yeah, we probably don't, but it's nice to. 00:00:31.731 --> 00:00:34.033 I guess we have very different accents, so. 00:00:34.033 --> 00:00:36.703 Yeah, not likely that we're going to get mixed up, but I'm. 00:00:36.703 --> 00:00:37.804 I'm Camila. 00:00:37.804 --> 00:00:58.457 Well, your Your intro is actually relevant to today's podcast I think though because you just did like a screening and you went to an exhibition for this episode and we just did an interview for Cursor Magazine where I interviewed Camila. 00:00:58.557 --> 00:01:02.762 And yeah, I guess like if you do an intro, then we can talk about the interview a little bit. 00:01:02.762 --> 00:01:05.965 Sure. Yeah. So I'm. I'm. 00:01:06.031 --> 00:01:07.167 I'm Camila. 00:01:07.167 --> 00:01:13.406 I'm a I'm a visual artist and a writer and sometimes a filmmaker. 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:18.811 I had a screening of the film I made two nights ago here in New York. 00:01:18.811 --> 00:01:22.382 It was the premiere and it was good. 00:01:22.382 --> 00:01:25.617 It was for this festival called Prismatic Ground. 00:01:25.685 --> 00:01:28.655 It's like an experimental documentary festival. 00:01:28.655 --> 00:01:39.031 And yeah, we we screened my film and did a little Q&A, and it was in like the programing is in these things called waves. 00:01:39.031 --> 00:01:43.203 So it's like groupings of films. 00:01:43.203 --> 00:01:55.347 And my way was called a Memory of a Memory, and it was really, Oh, the other films are really amazing as well, and it was really nice to see my film, like alongside others as well. 00:01:55.347 --> 00:01:57.283 Yeah, and yeah. 00:01:57.283 --> 00:02:07.960 And so that one was about Chile and kind of looking at like history and the present, like always. 00:02:07.993 --> 00:02:22.942 And it was kind of the project that I was working on as we all before we did our project, you and me and our project together that was looking at Project Syverson. 00:02:23.042 --> 00:02:25.979 So it was, it sort of preceded that. 00:02:25.979 --> 00:02:28.448 And I use similar research for them. 00:02:28.448 --> 00:02:30.449 So yeah, that was cool. 00:02:30.449 --> 00:02:45.764 And then we did, we did an interview for Kirsten magazine, which is like an online magazine that looks at tech, the Internet and kind of people, I guess, society. 00:02:45.865 --> 00:02:51.170 And so they had the second issue was themed visions for the Internet. 00:02:51.270 --> 00:02:56.742 So we did, uh, you interviewed me, but, but it's like an in conversation. 00:02:56.742 --> 00:02:59.746 Yeah, it was definitely a dialog. 00:02:59.878 --> 00:03:01.480 Yeah, it was really fun. It was. 00:03:01.480 --> 00:03:07.120 I kind of like started the interview with kind of asking about your workflow because our workflows are very different. 00:03:07.187 --> 00:03:10.924 Something that I noticed from like starting the podcast with you. 00:03:10.990 --> 00:03:13.126 So I kind of just wanted to know more about that. 00:03:13.126 --> 00:03:29.675 And then that sort of flowed into, I guess also like our maybe kind of perceptions of the Internet and how we use it and what we can learn from the previous pre-Internet networks that we've been researching. 00:03:29.842 --> 00:03:35.882 Yeah, it was nice to sort of reflect on this first season that we've been doing of these pre-Internet networks. 00:03:35.882 --> 00:03:39.686 To think about what we can learn for the future. 00:03:39.686 --> 00:03:53.665 And I think we've been doing a lot of work kind of thinking beyond the podcast and, and looking at our collaboration and where both we both come from sort of like an art design background. 00:03:53.665 --> 00:04:13.118 And yeah, we've been thinking about like ways that we can make other creative works and yeah, and for other organizations as well that like aren't podcasts. 00:04:13.353 --> 00:04:24.730 Yeah, I, it's very fun to see like cursors title visions of the internet and then our friend the computer, our name underneath that it's very it's very fun. 00:04:24.831 --> 00:04:26.699 Thanks for having us on cursor. 00:04:26.699 --> 00:04:30.536 Thank you. 00:04:30.603 --> 00:04:32.237 But yeah the other day as well. 00:04:32.237 --> 00:04:34.940 So today we're doing it's like a bonus episode I guess. 00:04:34.940 --> 00:04:48.053 And these bonus episodes, I suppose I've been thinking of them as like looking at ways that the these networks we use by people and often like creatively. 00:04:48.120 --> 00:05:02.502 So today we're looking at a sort of Brazilian version of Mini Tell the Frenchman to tell a network called Video Texter, but we're doing it through the lens of the work of an artist. 00:05:02.502 --> 00:05:14.213 So the artist, Eduardo Katz, is from Brazil, and he his practice, I guess, looks at poetry, but kind of like visual poetry. 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:29.995 And he uses language and and text on computer networks are on tech, on different computers, but like from the eighties or from the seventies through to today. 00:05:30.062 --> 00:05:53.786 And what was really exciting was that I didn't even realize this, but he has an exhibition in New York at the moment and I went to the so the opening night of the exhibition and it's called From Minotaur to NFT, and it's it and Faria Gallery, and it's until June 18th and you should all go if you're in New York. 00:05:53.952 --> 00:05:55.487 So it was great. 00:05:55.487 --> 00:06:03.495 But what was really funny was that like I saw minutes held terminals for the first time and I. 00:06:03.596 --> 00:06:04.930 You're going to free. 00:06:04.930 --> 00:06:05.764 Yeah yeah. 00:06:05.764 --> 00:06:17.142 So I don't fangirl really like I can quite like you know but I, I was I realized when you started blushing. 00:06:17.242 --> 00:06:22.048 Yeah I was and I was, it was like getting my friends to take pictures of me. 00:06:22.048 --> 00:06:22.514 Yeah. 00:06:22.514 --> 00:06:33.225 Take pictures of me with these I mean there's how terminals and I even like was talking to just random people about their like so yeah, like what is this? 00:06:33.225 --> 00:06:39.031 And I just jumped into the conversation to be like, oh, and, and then I actually talked to Eduardo. 00:06:39.031 --> 00:06:42.668 He was there and he was like surrounded by people. 00:06:42.668 --> 00:06:50.776 And then I'd gone into this like a second gallery and I got into the second gallery and then dipped back into that one and there was no one in there is just standing there. 00:06:50.776 --> 00:06:57.583 So me and my friend Erica, who's Erica already went backstage making this video artist as well. Yeah. 00:06:57.583 --> 00:06:59.851 So she she was like, we should talk to him. 00:06:59.851 --> 00:07:05.490 So we went, we went out and talked to him and had quite a long conversation with him. 00:07:05.490 --> 00:07:08.326 And I was later I was like, Oh, was I fangirling him? 00:07:08.326 --> 00:07:09.595 And then I realized I wasn't. 00:07:09.595 --> 00:07:14.166 I was fangirling minutes. Hell, yeah. 00:07:14.233 --> 00:07:17.702 Oh, so like, because I only know. 00:07:17.737 --> 00:07:27.747 I only like listen to that video of where he narrates the animation of the artwork though we're going to look at and I only, I don't know. 00:07:27.747 --> 00:07:30.182 I think his voice is just incredibly sexy. 00:07:30.182 --> 00:07:32.819 Was he like, really sexy? 00:07:32.819 --> 00:07:35.620 He was pretty hot. Great. 00:07:35.620 --> 00:07:36.656 Yeah, he has a five. 00:07:36.656 --> 00:07:37.923 He's like, quite confident. 00:07:37.923 --> 00:07:40.793 He's got very good posture. 00:07:40.793 --> 00:07:43.795 Yeah, he he was, um. 00:07:43.862 --> 00:07:45.932 Yeah, kind of reserved. 00:07:45.932 --> 00:07:59.011 But after we started talking, like the three of us, he did kind of really, like, engage with my insane questions about, about his notable artworks. 00:07:59.011 --> 00:08:05.418 Yeah, it's interesting as well that, that exhibition was called from from inital to NFT, right? 00:08:05.418 --> 00:08:11.023 Because I can imagine, like a lot of these old school digital artists are like that. 00:08:11.023 --> 00:08:19.031 Artists are now kind of like having another little rise again because of the NFT boom. 00:08:19.130 --> 00:08:57.336 Well, and I don't know whether that's like actually welcomed a lot by like a lot of like old scored just because like even Eduardo seems like he's quite anti like the hype ification of the internet like he talks about we'll get into this later but he talks about how the Internet is sort of just like another small little tool and piece of the technology that is part of like a larger context, a network of of like design products that isn't, you know, it's over accredited, it's overrated. 00:08:57.336 --> 00:09:16.788 And just like its impact on on the world and which is like a really interesting I think take for a digital artist to have But yeah I don't know I can imagine a lot of that art is coming up again now because of Nfts and I. 00:09:16.923 --> 00:09:26.032 Yeah, it's, it's an awkward like revival because Nfts are just so different to like nineties net art. 00:09:26.131 --> 00:09:38.910 Yeah, I mean I think that I want to talk about this a little bit more in detail later, but it's essentially a retrospective this show looking at his works. 00:09:38.910 --> 00:09:42.782 Yeah, from like the eighties through to today. 00:09:42.782 --> 00:09:59.331 So he has made an NFT like in a new work and it's it was really interesting to see his progression through the different technology over time and he's you know he engages with it with a similar kind of face as it, I guess. 00:09:59.432 --> 00:10:20.852 Well, no, like he has he has his idea of like people and technology and biology and how these networks kind of combine and looking at communication and different forms like nonhuman communication and things through all of his work. 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:32.398 But when he works on specific technological platforms or devices, he engages really specifically with those devices. 00:10:32.398 --> 00:10:41.039 So those networks and looking at ways to kind of play with the Yeah, the specifics of of that tech. 00:10:41.106 --> 00:10:53.818 So I don't think he necessarily like looks at these technologies as like an NFT, like the discussion around Nfts, which is like it's the future, it's going to solve all of these problems. 00:10:53.818 --> 00:11:03.629 It's more like, okay, well in this present moment, this is what we have and let's engage with it right now with the knowledge that it'll be superseded by something else in the future. 00:11:03.629 --> 00:11:12.038 And to look at the progression of his practice across all of these different technology was really kind of mind boggling, actually. 00:11:12.270 --> 00:11:22.280 It's quite it's a small show, but having it all sort of packed in there and kind of reflecting the screens, reflecting on each other a little bit with Yeah, that's great. 00:11:22.347 --> 00:11:23.481 Yeah, that's so cool. 00:11:23.481 --> 00:11:44.970 I also like love any art exhibitions or digital exhibitions that are kind of accepting of of nfts, but are also like, you know, this stuff existed way before cryptocurrency and it's only been popularized because of the financial, like the kind of efficient financialization of digital art, which is good. 00:11:45.037 --> 00:11:49.642 But we've existed as artists before for a long time. 00:11:49.642 --> 00:12:00.820 So and I think, you know, I mean, this is a whole other topic, but like NFT is a there is some great work being made that is there? 00:12:00.852 --> 00:12:02.520 No, there is no, there is. 00:12:02.520 --> 00:12:21.307 I mean, it's it's more that there are some artists that are engaging with the blockchain, that are critiquing it, that are playing with it, that are treating it like like a conceptual artist would treat any sort of medium or platform. 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:30.515 I would say that like the majority of what we see as like NFT art, it's not the type of art that I would engage with in real life either. 00:12:30.582 --> 00:12:36.755 There's different layers and levels, yeah, for sure of art and different audiences. 00:12:36.822 --> 00:12:37.889 It's not for me. 00:12:37.889 --> 00:12:40.392 I have a lot of thoughts about End of Days. 00:12:40.392 --> 00:13:00.412 I'm not someone that's probably going to start engaging in that space because of these thoughts that I you know, I think it is always interesting to see like how artists unpack and make connections and and things like that is a part of the joy of art. 00:13:00.412 --> 00:13:01.880 And art is me. 00:13:01.880 --> 00:13:05.683 Yeah, I guess I had a similar revelation to that as well. 00:13:05.717 --> 00:13:20.099 The reason why I hated it so much in the beginning was because it actually just like revealed how the art world has been running on on finance since its inception. 00:13:20.331 --> 00:13:26.138 It was an illusion to think that it was just like for the people and like for society and for your brain. 00:13:26.138 --> 00:13:29.341 And it was just part of this whole kind of economy. 00:13:29.341 --> 00:13:32.344 And NFT has really exposed that, I guess. 00:13:32.378 --> 00:13:32.977 Yeah. 00:13:32.977 --> 00:13:42.620 I mean, there's so many issues with taste in blockchain that like, you know, I'm not going to get into, but I think these things are worth kind of dissecting and art is a good way to do that. 00:13:42.620 --> 00:13:47.860 So I'm happy for artists that are really engaging with it in that way. 00:13:47.960 --> 00:13:53.465 But I think you're right that it has kind of overtaken almost like the history of digital art. 00:13:53.465 --> 00:14:22.528 And, you know, I, I know I worked on a project during the pandemic with a curator, Sabrina Baker, who we together did a series of interviews with digital artists, including she interviewed me looking at artists that had been working in digital spaces before the pandemic, because we noticed in the pandemic that there was this like surge of people working in the digital space and people engaging with digital. 00:14:22.528 --> 00:14:24.897 I almost like it was new, right? 00:14:24.897 --> 00:14:40.144 So, you know, they it was sort of forgotten in 2020 that that there is a whole like this discourse around this is thoughts and other artworks and a history and it wasn't really being approached so much in that way. 00:14:40.379 --> 00:14:57.996 We have been looking at this for so long, you know, just looking at Eduardo Katz's work, like you see really see this like connection over time and progression of, of ideas and from over time, but also over different technology. 00:14:58.062 --> 00:15:04.436 So I think it's worth looking at NFT days in that context, history in that context. 00:15:04.570 --> 00:15:08.874 But I'm sure that it will end and something else will come. 00:15:08.941 --> 00:15:11.277 Yeah, I actually wonder. 00:15:11.277 --> 00:15:30.696 I don't actually know that much about how the conception of NFT is linked to the pandemic, because I obviously know about, you know, the boom of stocks and GameStop and how that happened because of the kind of geographic constraints of the pandemic and incentivize people to put their money into these things. 00:15:30.696 --> 00:15:42.408 And then also just like be a lot more in touch with forums and have people hype each other up to digitally protest right against the closing down of GameStop. 00:15:42.607 --> 00:15:56.688 But I there must be like a more tangible link between the literal invention of Nfts and, and how that was maybe accelerated to its production by the pandemic. 00:15:56.788 --> 00:16:00.591 If anyone knows, let me know because I don't want to do this anymore. 00:16:00.625 --> 00:16:07.533 So certainly they are going back to this. 00:16:07.533 --> 00:16:11.669 We should probably talk about the actual art piece, right? 00:16:11.736 --> 00:16:12.236 Yeah. 00:16:12.236 --> 00:16:21.679 So we're going to look at Eduardo Katz's 1985 artwork or like visual poem called Rehab Re Abracadabra. 00:16:21.779 --> 00:16:32.624 So we're looking at this piece which was in the exhibition, but it was actually presented as part of Rhizomes Neck Anthology Project, so you can watch it online. 00:16:32.624 --> 00:16:35.293 So this is why we're going to look at that particular one. 00:16:35.293 --> 00:16:39.731 So we looked at the Frenchman Attell in previous episodes. 00:16:39.798 --> 00:16:48.673 But, you know, with the success of Miniso, how France was looking to sort of export its video text protocol telltale, I suppose, to other countries. 00:16:48.907 --> 00:16:53.644 So this included attempts at installing a system in Ireland in 1988 and the U.S. 00:16:53.644 --> 00:16:55.014 in the early nineties. 00:16:55.014 --> 00:16:59.350 But there was a 1982 expansion to Brazil. 00:16:59.418 --> 00:17:02.086 It was mainly limited to the city of Sao Paulo. 00:17:02.086 --> 00:17:24.777 And like other video tech systems from around this time, it was administered by the telecommunications department of the government, which was the state governments tell us with applications and services being provided by private entities, there were other state run video tech systems, but this was the largest city, so it had the most possibility for subscriber growth. 00:17:24.843 --> 00:17:35.554 Though the large scale implementation of the network was impeded by a lack of personal phone lines, which is how it gained popularity in France. 00:17:35.621 --> 00:17:42.326 But in this case, the terminals were largely placed in public venues like libraries, shopping malls and airports. 00:17:42.361 --> 00:17:55.540 When I was talking to Eduardo, he said that they were called Is these public terminals because the shape of like the box or something that they were in was like the shape of a year. 00:17:55.606 --> 00:18:01.779 It's so interesting to think of it like a like a listening device simply. 00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:10.122 So in the mid eighties, Brazil was in the process of escaping a brutal military dictatorship, which had been going for 20 years. 00:18:10.189 --> 00:18:21.032 But the process was fraught and complicated, and at the same time, there was this surge in interest in new technology, which included artists and activists. 00:18:21.099 --> 00:18:34.613 So the draw of video text was kind of this like open interaction, communication and nonlocality particularly because it was these like public terminals. 00:18:34.613 --> 00:18:45.089 So this sort of combined to create a sense of almost like democratized space, even though it was run by the government. 00:18:45.324 --> 00:19:03.241 And in 83 a video tech space gallery code art they online set up by live radio and Nobel bookstore and then later exhibitions such as 1986 is Brazil High Tech, which was curated by Eduardo Katz and Flavio Farias. 00:19:03.307 --> 00:19:13.152 There was this kind of like energy around trying to use this digital space as as a gallery. 00:19:13.152 --> 00:19:21.160 So it was a place that artists could make work but also present work and create community. 00:19:21.226 --> 00:19:28.733 So many of the artworks created in this time have been lost because they relied on the MIT Itau protocol, which is now defunct. 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:35.807 But yeah, it's rather Katz's work has been recreated or restored, which is great. 00:19:35.807 --> 00:19:39.010 We can look at it and experience it together. 00:19:39.076 --> 00:19:52.824 But yeah, when when I was talking to him, he was saying that like they spent such a long time trying to recreate the exact colors and loading time and experience of using the minute. How? 00:19:52.824 --> 00:19:58.931 Because, I mean, these works directly relate to exactly that system and the specifics of that system. 00:19:58.931 --> 00:20:07.372 And so to, to restore it requires kind of thinking beyond just like, oh, what did it look like? 00:20:07.439 --> 00:20:39.270 You know, it's interesting as well, hearing about the little arts clubs that popped up around the time in the eighties for digital art, because I know there was a few and obviously in the States sort of centered around or leading up to Homebrew Computer Club, but a lot of Homebrew Computer Club, which was leading up to the inception of Macintosh, kind of stemmed from little art spaces in in Silicon Valley and in L.A. 00:20:39.270 --> 00:20:51.883 and in San Francisco that came from like this hippie attitude in the seventies, but also was really drawn to, like the new technology that was invented at the time. 00:20:51.883 --> 00:20:55.420 All kind of consequences in dark consequences from the war. 00:20:55.487 --> 00:21:01.727 But it's really cool to hear that these art spaces weren't just in the States and they're in Brazil as well. 00:21:01.727 --> 00:21:08.200 And also not just because they were centered around like computers, but also pre-Internet networks. 00:21:08.366 --> 00:21:15.874 Yeah, I mean, I think it was like this viewing the this new technology is like a new way to make work, right? 00:21:15.874 --> 00:21:17.875 Or like way to engage with each other. 00:21:17.875 --> 00:21:20.479 And artists always do that. 00:21:20.479 --> 00:21:27.051 I think there was also I read an article, it was it was an article in an old computer magazine. 00:21:27.051 --> 00:21:43.902 So it was like from the eighties that about a video tech system in Canada I think who Teledyne And they had quite a large like sort of artwork stuff happening that was I think actually though it was like state state funded. 00:21:44.001 --> 00:21:46.337 I'm sure it was happening on Unitel in France as well. 00:21:46.337 --> 00:21:48.874 We just didn't we didn't cover that. 00:21:48.874 --> 00:21:52.477 So let's have a look at this work. 00:21:52.544 --> 00:21:58.349 So it's available on the Rhizome website as part of the Net anthology project. 00:21:58.416 --> 00:22:01.019 And there is a little video so you can watch it. 00:22:01.019 --> 00:22:06.857 And Eduardo does do some voiceover that explains, explains it. 00:22:06.857 --> 00:22:09.728 So let's have a listen to that. 00:22:09.728 --> 00:22:14.965 This, this piece is entitled Re Abracadabra, and it's from 1985. 00:22:14.965 --> 00:22:19.203 It was actually displayed online in 1985 on the mini tail network. 00:22:19.270 --> 00:22:35.019 My work has always been very interested in undoing this mode of thinking that is predicated on on oppositions in other words, binary thinking, where you have the word over here, the image over there. 00:22:35.086 --> 00:22:43.461 So I have always tried to create works that were predicated on the worldview that does not operate based on binaries. 00:22:43.561 --> 00:22:46.530 The work starts with a triangle. 00:22:46.631 --> 00:22:49.300 Subsequently you see a rectangle. 00:22:49.300 --> 00:22:56.641 This group of two dimensional forms evolves into a three dimensional letter. 00:22:56.775 --> 00:23:08.753 Consonants are placed in a orbital path around the vowel, like a subatomic particle would be, or a moon of a planet. 00:23:08.819 --> 00:23:19.463 And when you finally understand this black curtain down, if you want to see it again, you have to push another button and request from the server. 00:23:19.530 --> 00:23:39.151 So I see a computer generated graphic of a3d letter, a drawn out kind of asymmetrically, and all the lines are straight and it's not hand-drawn, but it's just seemingly drawn out by a sort of computer. 00:23:39.217 --> 00:23:44.388 And a lot of the lines are different colors, like red, yellow and blue. 00:23:44.489 --> 00:23:52.931 But they keep kind of changing and they change by having a color trace out the graphic. 00:23:52.998 --> 00:23:59.703 The background is black, and there are small specks in the back scattered across like stars. 00:23:59.770 --> 00:24:10.182 That twinkle between being letters that spell out kind of abracadabra, too little blue squares. 00:24:10.182 --> 00:24:15.119 And the letters in the back keep changing between squares and letters. 00:24:15.186 --> 00:24:20.892 While the 3da in the forefront changes its outline with different colors. 00:24:20.959 --> 00:24:35.840 What I noticed that was quite cool was the way that the A's shifted in color because it's either by tracing its path or doing it pixel by pixel on an on an axis on an x axis. 00:24:35.941 --> 00:24:43.781 And it reminds me of the tracing effect, really reminds me of the way 3D images are rendered now. 00:24:43.848 --> 00:25:06.671 So 3D rendering engines usually use like physically based path tracers and path tracing is a rendering technique that uses an algorithm which kind of integrates over all of the luminance that arrives on a single point of the surface of an object. 00:25:06.738 --> 00:25:21.353 And these rendering techniques were obviously not used yet in the eighties, but a lot of the algorithms used now in 3D rendering were actually invented by mathematicians in the eighties. 00:25:21.452 --> 00:25:38.202 I just did some research on this earlier and the main one that was invented for this rendering engine called cycles that I normally use, if I do any 3D rendering, which I haven't done in a long time, but it's pretty much the main one along with Eve. 00:25:38.202 --> 00:25:57.821 Yeah, that one uses similar path tracing, tracing algorithms that are based on an equation that James Chi Kucera invented, and it adheres to three particular principles of optics. 00:25:57.821 --> 00:26:06.798 The first one is the principle of global illumination, the principle of equivalence and the principle of direction. 00:26:06.897 --> 00:26:24.615 You can kind of guess what they sort of mean, but yeah, so it kind of draws on like real world physical observations, because in the real world, objects and surfaces are visible due to the fact that they are reflecting light. 00:26:24.715 --> 00:26:28.787 And this reflected light then illuminates other objects and turn. 00:26:28.787 --> 00:26:35.393 So these principles that are like integral to the equation are actually taken from real life physical observations. 00:26:35.393 --> 00:26:45.903 So you kind of have this like first sort of equation where iris laws are literally copied in maths and used in digital. 00:26:45.903 --> 00:26:48.472 I guess like abstract functions. 00:26:48.472 --> 00:27:00.117 But I just yeah, I kind of went on a tangent with this, but I think the path tracing thing is really beautiful because the path tracing algorithm is I mean, first of all, it's like really inefficient. 00:27:00.117 --> 00:27:07.157 So a very large number of rays must be traced to get high quality images free of like noise artifacts. 00:27:07.157 --> 00:27:26.211 So that's why I traced the tracing of lines comes first, and then the more simple surface textures or backgrounds are rendered afterwards, rather than it being rendered like line by line, access by access, just like more simple loading of images. 00:27:26.310 --> 00:27:38.656 So that was like that was a cool thing that I saw in the art piece where loading of images was suddenly introduced by path tracing rather than line by line loading. 00:27:38.757 --> 00:27:39.356 Right. 00:27:39.356 --> 00:28:09.721 So, so with this minute homework, he's working with Keyframe, so he actually had to program at pixel by pixel cool to be able to get that appear to get that look and so it's on a black background because the black is no information Yeah so he didn't have to do anything for the background it was just those lines that must have been so complicated to to make. 00:28:09.788 --> 00:28:10.521 Yeah. 00:28:10.521 --> 00:28:14.125 And you know, he's, he's using this like proprietary technology. 00:28:14.125 --> 00:28:17.461 So it's not like it was super open access or anything. 00:28:17.461 --> 00:28:20.198 He had to, like, work out how to do it. 00:28:20.198 --> 00:28:42.487 And then the other thing you mentioned was about the color, which is sort of interesting to think about because I think a lot of people felt like minutes Hell in France was a black and white system because the original terminals that were available for free, they were like the cheaper, early, cheap ones were black and white, but the system was able to use color quite well. 00:28:42.554 --> 00:28:46.657 And so he sort of plays with that with that idea as well. 00:28:46.724 --> 00:28:48.093 And then the letters. 00:28:48.093 --> 00:28:59.871 So it's essentially like it starts as this triangle in the center and then it slowly through lines, morphs or changes into like a 3D letter. 00:28:59.871 --> 00:29:04.509 A And in Abracadabra is the only vowel. 00:29:04.576 --> 00:29:13.317 And so then around it at these little red dots that then switch to letters, switch back to dots with the letters of the consonants of abracadabra. 00:29:13.317 --> 00:29:18.288 So it spells out abracadabra as a whole. 00:29:18.388 --> 00:29:23.560 And I think that the idea of like playing with perspective in these works is really interesting. 00:29:23.795 --> 00:29:33.637 When I talked to him, he was talking about like like you said, that the the letters and the dots surrounding the A, they could be stars, but they also could be particles, right? 00:29:33.637 --> 00:29:39.510 So that when like at extremes, the macro and the micro look the same. 00:29:39.576 --> 00:29:40.144 Right. 00:29:40.144 --> 00:29:52.289 Because you have the A is like a 3D kind of world and then you have the specs is like these abstract stars, these abstract planets or particles that make up the 3D letter A or the. 00:29:52.289 --> 00:29:52.457 Yeah. 00:29:52.457 --> 00:30:18.982 And even the 3D letter A is interesting here because he also was saying and I was talking to him that like the minute I was in the 3D space, you know, it's, it's 2D and so to to then try and show a 3D perspective in that space, it's it's part of how he kind of subverts the syntax of these networks. 00:30:19.049 --> 00:30:31.796 There's also this a minute how low the loading speed of an intel is really interesting and you know it loads left to right up to down but trying to find ways to kind of manipulate that and to visually work around it. 00:30:31.863 --> 00:30:46.176 There's there's other works in this exhibition where he's sort of he's kind of tracing out the infinity symbol loop thing, but it's got like a a gap in it. 00:30:46.176 --> 00:30:47.612 So it's sort of half open. 00:30:47.612 --> 00:30:56.253 But the way that his place that lines in the pixels kind of makes it look like it's loading in a slightly different direction. 00:30:56.320 --> 00:31:04.328 And there's another work as well that has quite a long animation in three acts, but that's not how the Minotaur was meant to be viewed. 00:31:04.328 --> 00:31:06.396 It was, yeah, that's that. 00:31:06.396 --> 00:31:22.113 It's meant to be like a quick, you know, you load a page but instead of, you know, doing that he's, he's playing with the loading speed and pages to sort of make a longer animation and have people kind of concentrate on the screen for a longer period of time. 00:31:22.180 --> 00:31:50.307 Yeah, I think it's so funny how I just was really drawn to this path tracing animation effect because it really reminded me of like so many animations that I've seen that from like eighties graphics, even from just adverts that I would see or production logos that are drawn out before movies like eighties movies that I've seen, like even like the Disney logo. 00:31:50.307 --> 00:31:55.579 It kind of does like an image path trace of, of the logo as like a wand. 00:31:55.680 --> 00:32:06.958 And for some reason that just like animation effect really reminds me of something super eighties and then I did some research on to why and where image path path tracing actually came from. 00:32:06.958 --> 00:32:13.865 And a lot of the equations were invented in the eighties, even though renderings still hadn't been put into use yet. 00:32:13.932 --> 00:32:21.538 Yeah, and I mean, in this case it's like, how else do you make an active piece from it as well? 00:32:21.739 --> 00:32:28.913 Because otherwise it's like an image and you sit and you, it loads and you wait for it to load and you watch it. 00:32:28.913 --> 00:32:37.888 In this case, it's really responding to the system, to the network itself in including the loading time in the piece. 00:32:37.955 --> 00:32:38.855 Yeah. 00:32:38.855 --> 00:32:49.334 Which is also, you know, like his works, as I said before, like often look at tech networks and like biology and this sort of connection to the human side of, of things. 00:32:49.334 --> 00:32:54.271 They use tech to speak to this like very personal physical kind of aspects. 00:32:54.372 --> 00:32:54.972 Yeah. 00:32:54.972 --> 00:32:59.509 Because it looks like the the computer is drawing out the graphic, Right. 00:32:59.509 --> 00:33:08.219 So it looks like the computer is doing the art rather than loading it because it's tracing the path of it as if it was hand-drawn in a way. 00:33:08.219 --> 00:33:10.587 Yeah. Is it on loop? 00:33:10.587 --> 00:33:12.390 Yeah. Mm hmm. 00:33:12.390 --> 00:33:27.805 Something else I heard him say, I think in a talk online that I was watching was about sort of the his use of language and the sort of transformation of language and appearance and disappearance and digital poetry. 00:33:27.805 --> 00:33:43.788 I think he often makes works where where he plays with language in a way where it's like the language or the text doesn't want to be understood, so it will flash into frame and disappear or it'll kind of swirl around you. 00:33:43.788 --> 00:34:06.309 Or so I think it's cool to look at these, look at how he uses language or text in these specific digital spaces is another work in the exhibition that's not on a minute how I for one where it's on like a like a O computer and it's almost like a top down view of a cube, but it's made out of text. 00:34:06.411 --> 00:34:17.621 So yeah, kind of like how these spaces can be used as like a space of imagination as a space of, like transformation. 00:34:17.688 --> 00:34:22.193 It's not just he doesn't see these as just like a flat canvas. 00:34:22.293 --> 00:34:25.262 It's, it's a whole world. So. Yeah, yeah. 00:34:25.262 --> 00:34:28.900 Which is probably why he experiments with concrete poetry a lot. 00:34:28.900 --> 00:34:32.170 It's, it's sort of what concrete poetry is meant to do. 00:34:32.170 --> 00:34:34.472 It's to display. 00:34:34.472 --> 00:34:49.119 I mean, for me, I only like concrete poetry because it shows that the awkwardness of language and the awkwardness like linear language, and that you, there's like so much more in terms of communication other than just semiotics and vocabulary. 00:34:49.119 --> 00:35:10.440 And in this piece I think it's applicable because I also keep thinking about the word video text and how sort of awkward that is, because it's, it comes from these the hyphenate IT or compound word of video text, which is English, and then they just added an O at the end to kind of they added a T in an hour I guess because the New York Times is. 00:35:10.641 --> 00:35:12.110 Oh true. 00:35:12.110 --> 00:35:12.844 Yeah. 00:35:12.844 --> 00:35:16.213 Yeah, you can be well, I guess you could say video tech. 00:35:16.213 --> 00:35:20.418 So I mean, I don't know, make more space to know what to know. 00:35:20.518 --> 00:35:23.420 The lines of grammar. Yeah. 00:35:23.521 --> 00:35:41.672 But yeah, there is something probably significant to say about the introduction of technologies that were then literally introduced a whole new subsector of language to these nations that where they had to gather. 00:35:41.672 --> 00:35:53.851 Yeah, a new language to be able to define and talk about these new technologies that were that were being used, even if it was invented in the country like it still took influence from cybernetics and maths. 00:35:53.985 --> 00:36:00.358 And we all know that like basically maths and algebra is just a hybrid of different languages. 00:36:00.525 --> 00:36:06.396 But yeah, video text is like a funny, funny word I like, Yeah, yeah. 00:36:06.396 --> 00:36:15.472 I mean there were so many no words for the different networks that were essentially using the same like base the base words. 00:36:15.572 --> 00:36:27.518 The other thing that I thought was kind of interesting about the show was that, you know, these works are on Frenchmen at whole terminals, but, you know, in Brazil that they had different styles of terminals. 00:36:27.585 --> 00:36:36.626 Yeah, I think it actually does add an interesting like historical component, especially because the machines were French, they had French writing on them. 00:36:36.626 --> 00:36:41.132 So at the show I heard people talking and being like, Oh, it's in French. 00:36:41.199 --> 00:36:45.268 It's like, well, this is why I, I guess to close. 00:36:45.268 --> 00:37:00.851 We spoke about this earlier, that what I found interesting about the exhibition was that it was this like retrospective of his works that use specific technologies, technology as a material, but also as a venue or as like a space. 00:37:00.952 --> 00:37:02.253 So there were minute how works. 00:37:02.253 --> 00:37:08.192 That was an old Macintosh, a work on a macintosh that I got to like click, click with. 00:37:08.192 --> 00:37:10.193 I was like, Can I touch this? 00:37:10.260 --> 00:37:17.134 There's also a slow scan TV, which would use like a telephone network to receive images and a few other things. 00:37:17.134 --> 00:37:22.606 I was a work that use Google Maps and he had a gif as well. 00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:36.353 Like it was sort of, you know, it was interesting to see them all together and like what it gave wasn't a feeling of an artist that was like using emerging technology and being like into the future. 00:37:36.353 --> 00:37:44.961 Whatever seen on Mars, it was more like an artist engaging with different forms of technology in the present. 00:37:45.061 --> 00:37:49.567 Yeah, like I said before, like in this current moment, what is being used? 00:37:49.733 --> 00:37:52.769 How is it being used and what does it mean? 00:37:52.802 --> 00:37:54.237 Where's it come from? Where's it going? 00:37:54.237 --> 00:38:33.443 But with this real knowledge that it will end and be supplanted by something else, like all civilizations fall or whatever, You know, it's like it's not it's yeah it didn't tool yeah even like everything the internet works yeah yeah yeah and there was I did read a quote and there was a New York Times article about that and the reason new are anthology exhibition that was at the new museum I think in 2019 Cuts is is quoted in that saying this network no longer exists referring to the minute how just like the internet we have now will one day no longer exist. 00:38:33.510 --> 00:38:36.713 There's a general misconception when we talk about online culture. 00:38:36.947 --> 00:38:41.184 Everyone is so obsessed with the internet, but to me it's a historical phenomenon. 00:38:41.418 --> 00:38:44.255 It will be superseded by other networks in the future. 00:38:44.255 --> 00:38:46.456 Yeah, exactly. 00:38:46.456 --> 00:38:48.592 That's kind of what we talked about in the beginning. 00:38:48.592 --> 00:38:48.925 Yeah. 00:38:48.925 --> 00:38:56.099 His take on the internet being obsolete in the future and not being this like singular tool that will last forever. 00:38:56.099 --> 00:39:05.342 But I wonder if taking that approach, which I don't know how many people are kind of considering it from that angle, I wonder if that changes. 00:39:05.342 --> 00:39:08.244 Thinking about the internet as as forever. 00:39:08.244 --> 00:39:15.286 Let's like develop it as much as we can instead of the idea that it might end in something else might come about. 00:39:15.353 --> 00:39:17.822 That changes my perspective on it a little bit. 00:39:17.822 --> 00:39:21.726 On our tech existence, on our on the human condition. 00:39:21.791 --> 00:39:22.592 Yeah, for sure. 00:39:22.592 --> 00:39:43.914 And I think it negates the idea of the Internet being super abstract as well, because the Internet is so reliant on like physical things and servers and where their place could geographical placement of them and who owns them and where are the coders base. 00:39:43.914 --> 00:39:54.958 It's nice to know that the Internet isn't this like abstract, impenetrable thing of like a ghost of a tool that will always kind of remain or always be in the ether? 00:39:54.958 --> 00:39:59.996 Like, No, it's actually depends on very physical, very real things. 00:40:00.063 --> 00:40:04.668 So obviously that will make it obsolete in one way or another. 00:40:04.768 --> 00:40:12.809 It also makes me think a lot about conservation and kind of, yeah, archiving and the importance of that. 00:40:12.876 --> 00:40:20.751 You know, this artwork had to be restored through, I imagine, quite a costly process, costly and time consuming. 00:40:20.751 --> 00:40:23.753 You know, not everyone has the ability to do that. 00:40:23.887 --> 00:40:33.963 So thinking about like what would happen if, you know, in 30 years or something, we have a different network and what we have now isn't accessible. 00:40:34.030 --> 00:40:35.465 Yeah, for sure. 00:40:35.465 --> 00:40:37.201 I have one last question. 00:40:37.201 --> 00:40:38.034 Okay. 00:40:38.034 --> 00:40:43.440 The title of the work, it's Rehab or Kadabra or Abracadabra. 00:40:43.440 --> 00:41:15.072 And I was just wondering that because this network was like a new creation of magic, like new information, or is it maybe also something a little bit more to do with like the abstraction of how information is is rendered, like the abstraction of like what I mentioned earlier with physical laws being put into equations to create rendered digital duplicates of visualizations like is that a reference to the title or what, what's the meaning behind it. 00:41:15.306 --> 00:41:16.273 I don't know. 00:41:16.273 --> 00:41:36.760 I mean, the re abracadabra, I think it's like referring to this sort of like loop that it's on, perhaps in the reveal of the sort of like triangle is like fundamental structure into this, a shape which maybe is, you know, it's like the first letter of the alphabet. 00:41:36.827 --> 00:41:50.708 Actually, I actually just Googled the meaning of the origin Abracadabra and it says that it's from the Aramaic phrase avra dobra. 00:41:50.708 --> 00:41:55.246 Two separate words, meaning I will create as I speak. 00:41:55.346 --> 00:41:57.081 So I think, yeah. 00:41:57.081 --> 00:42:01.684 And then it says that the source is three Hebrew words ad father and son. 00:42:01.751 --> 00:42:05.422 And I could, which is the Holy Spirit. 00:42:05.523 --> 00:42:45.862 So yeah, I think it's probably something also to do with the actual like rendering process is that he because he yeah he was I mean this a 70 layers and this works because there's another work that is a barcode like the image of a barcode and and I think you know like the eighties the barcodes like mid eighties barcodes like a new thing and kind of strange and you know because the barcode has like the lines but then it has text and numbers down the bottom and so he has like it's the barcode but then the the numbers in the letters like change. 00:42:46.030 --> 00:42:59.909 And as they're changing, it's like playing with the word it's like they use I was playing with the word like God and me in Portuguese, the way that they kind of pop up. 00:42:59.909 --> 00:43:03.179 And then I think there's like there's numbers too. 00:43:03.179 --> 00:43:04.981 And from memory, I don't remember. 00:43:04.981 --> 00:43:07.483 I mean, I think it has like the year. 00:43:07.483 --> 00:43:12.356 I think, yeah, I think the numbers, the, the numbers that come up as the year that it was created. 00:43:12.356 --> 00:43:14.657 Oh, okay. Wow. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. 00:43:14.657 --> 00:43:23.132 Because he uses, he uses the blocks of the abracadabra letters I guess also to create some kind of pattern of meaning like barcodes. 00:43:23.199 --> 00:43:24.902 Um, yeah. 00:43:24.902 --> 00:43:29.340 It also reminds me of when I code as well. 00:43:29.340 --> 00:43:36.079 Sometimes I have this great egoistic like God, like complex of I'm thinking that I'm writing things into existence. 00:43:36.179 --> 00:43:44.621 So sometimes I'm like that, like coding is so cool because I'm literally writing, typing out these visualizations, especially in the beginning. 00:43:44.621 --> 00:43:45.188 Not anymore. 00:43:45.188 --> 00:43:55.365 I had this new sort of like magical flair of, of creating work was like just writing it out and then it would turn into this different visual representation. 00:43:55.599 --> 00:44:07.945 I guess I get the opposite feeling when I go into the like Inspector, when I'm on websites, I just start deleting stuff, you know, like a feeling of destruction. 00:44:07.945 --> 00:44:08.244 Yeah. 00:44:08.244 --> 00:44:11.614 It's the antidote to the abracadabra. 00:44:11.681 --> 00:44:12.315 Yeah. 00:44:12.315 --> 00:44:13.150 I'm so jealous. 00:44:13.150 --> 00:44:14.652 I'm like, not in New York. 00:44:14.652 --> 00:44:16.253 And it was horrible. 00:44:16.253 --> 00:44:20.824 Very much like, yeah, like I saw it. 00:44:20.824 --> 00:44:22.693 And then I was like, What? 00:44:22.693 --> 00:44:36.373 And yeah, I managed to get out to the, to the opening and yeah, so it's on until 18th of June, so I'll put details in the show notes and the link to the Rhizome page where you can watch it as well. 00:44:36.373 --> 00:44:45.648 You know, in my practice and also in this podcast and our practice together, where we're looking at how history flows towards the present. 00:44:45.682 --> 00:45:04.802 It was so great to see, like I keep thinking about it, these works seem simple when you first look at them, but have so many layers, and especially when you think about them in conjunction with each other and juxtaposing these like works from the eighties through to now, it really, you know, it was quite like meaningful. 00:45:04.934 --> 00:45:07.371 It felt, I don't have a way. 00:45:07.371 --> 00:45:14.510 I felt like the stars aligned and we are doing the right thing by doing this podcast. 00:45:14.510 --> 00:45:23.353 And we were manifesting things into into reality that way, that if cool. 00:45:23.353 --> 00:45:25.021 Well thanks for that. 00:45:25.021 --> 00:45:34.498 I've enjoyed experiencing that online exhibition with you and being able to review it in real Marin Review. 00:45:34.498 --> 00:45:40.903 Yeah, from the eighties, at least specifically in many cases. 00:45:40.903 --> 00:45:42.271 You would love that. 00:45:42.271 --> 00:45:43.407 I would love that. 00:45:43.407 --> 00:45:46.242 I'm not sure how long the podcast lasts. 00:45:46.242 --> 00:45:49.246 I'm sure it would just Eduardo Katz's work. 00:45:49.246 --> 00:45:53.951 Like the full works that were in the show have just like, you know, the establish. 00:45:53.951 --> 00:45:54.851 There's so many layers. 00:45:54.851 --> 00:46:06.730 So I'm sure we could talk for ages. But yes, next up we're going to do Belgium text, which is a German Btecs system. 00:46:06.730 --> 00:46:11.802 I guess we're going to be recording that together or separately depending on the situation. 00:46:11.802 --> 00:46:14.804 But Camila's going to be in London next week. 00:46:14.905 --> 00:46:16.239 I'm going to visit Ana. 00:46:16.239 --> 00:46:19.742 You know, we've never met, so I know. 00:46:19.777 --> 00:46:21.577 I don't know how tall she is. 00:46:21.577 --> 00:46:27.818 Yeah, this is the pre internet networks like version of the podcast. 00:46:27.818 --> 00:46:31.320 And then after we meet it will be post-internet. 00:46:31.320 --> 00:46:33.322 Oh, it's going to be completely different. 00:46:33.322 --> 00:46:34.992 So get ready. 00:46:34.992 --> 00:46:35.925 Yeah. 00:46:35.925 --> 00:46:37.126 Very exciting. 00:46:37.126 --> 00:46:38.728 Thanks for listening everyone. 00:46:38.728 --> 00:46:41.798 And go see the show if you're in New York. Yes. 00:46:41.965 --> 00:46:46.570 Or if you're on the internet, you can check it out on our anthology as well. 00:46:46.670 --> 00:46:50.007 Well, this specific this specific work, right? 00:46:50.072 --> 00:46:51.942 Yeah, this specific piece. Yeah. 00:46:51.942 --> 00:46:53.844 Okay. Cute. 00:46:53.844 --> 00:46:57.047 Thanks, everyone. Goodbye. 00:46:57.146 --> 00:46:58.081 It's time to go.