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you know next time you can do a podcast sorry

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[Music]

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hi uh I’m Ryan Steck the artistic director of art engine I’m here with

Introduction

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famous New Media artist Jeremy Bailey or perhaps there’s less AR involved in today so I should just say Jeremy Bailey

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uh Jeremy’s practice is uh full of a blend of performance and Technology I

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consider him a leader in the Canadian context of what we once called

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he also recently founded uar a commercial platform for augmented

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reality sculpture and is the head of experience at freshbooks a human of many

1:10

hats welcome to Arden and Jeremy nice to see you how you doing great yeah great to be here yeah thanks

1:16

for pointing out that we’re both wearing hats it’s perfect I like yours and I’m a

1:24

little less augmented yeah a little less famous today um but yeah really happy to be here and excited to talk about this

The history of monetization in New Media

1:30

we we’ve been uh doing a number of conversations around the the wrap-up of

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this phase of the digital economies lab and you’ve been working with us to help shape the program but of course this

1:43

incredible moment of uh the nft hype has sort of breaking into the mainstream and

1:48

we thought it was interesting to have a conversation and talk about some of the intersections with the work that we’ve

1:55

been doing but it’s a sort of start and frame this conversation could you help us put some of this current hype moment

2:03

in context and talk a bit about what other kinds of experiments in

2:09

monetization have been undertaken in the history of New Media and what kind of insights emerge from that

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yeah so I think the you know the first there are like several contexts to unpack the first context it’s worth

2:21

noting is not like that recent we are within like you know at least a half

2:26

decade or decade of artists experimenting with the blockchain and with crypto and it was almost cliche

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just a few years ago for an artist to express themselves with like a token like for this exhibition I’ve made my

2:38

own token it’s called J jar token or you know famous New Media artist token yeah um and and there’s some artists that

2:45

actually did it well um so I don’t want to like trash on like like an era of experimentation what’s

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different I think right now is we’re seeing what’s pretty normal in New Media which is like to try something really early on

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um go mainstream I think if you look at it in a broader perspective of New Media in general there are several interesting

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insights historically I would say the first one is to to go back to the kind

3:09

of beginning of New Media which different people would place at different position places but I kind of put it

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um in the late 1960s early 1970s when video art first emerged and specifically

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you know artists were that were working with video early on were counteracting

3:26

monetization and they used to know that there were a few reasons for that the first was a lot of the more fluxus

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artists uh artists like namjoon Pike Yoko Ono who were coming out of a period

3:37

where they had they they had a Manifesto declaring you know that art had become over commodified and so it was a

3:44

movement to release art from you know commodification and make art experiential sounds kind of familiar

3:50

actually to the internet era right where everything’s an experience and experiences have been monetized but it was actually did it was the act the

3:57

action was to make art free and accessible to everyone

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um and there were things like happenings and so on which were like large get-togethers or parties almost if you

4:08

think about it where people would you know basically sense together or have experiences that couldn’t be recreated

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in documentation you know artists like Chris Burton even talked about it like you can’t commodify this performance it

4:19

exists for this period of time then never again then video comes along and I think um a lot of artists started to

4:25

experiment with that um and they and also counter uh or react counter-reacting to a history of of

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commercial media right like 50 years of Television had been about Commerce Leave it to Beaver The Brady Bunch whatever

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and you know pleasing The Advertiser um you know and you had artists like Richard Sarah at that time making videos

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like television delivers people where they were right really describing the audience as a commodity being delivered

4:52

by television to advertisers and so that history is very interesting

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and you know artists even made their own tools um but they were not at all interested in selling right they’re

5:02

interested similar you know just kind of basically and making the media available

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um and that begin you know and so begins kind of the era of personal media which is a lot of what we consider the history

5:14

of New Media so as we progress you know through the 1980s and 90s and New Media becomes associated with newer

5:21

Technologies specifically computer and digital technologies that were emerging at the time but don’t forget like for a

5:27

long time it’s just like video synthesizers and analog stuff right but there’s this kind of moment obviously in

5:32

the 90s where things get a lot faster and there’s the flip to the internet as well and then I think the history that

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we’re talking about today you know really begins Because the Internet is you know a next wave technology

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and artists that we would Now call Net artists start to experiment in that realm what I think is interesting is

5:53

again these artists were they weren’t actually um they weren’t actually trying to

5:59

produce a counter narrative they were producing a net new narrative and corporations were catching up to them

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right so you had AOL and companies almost advertising like this is the place where you will get to express

6:10

yourself like an artist and people were looking for the niches or edges of uh of

6:17

Human Experience you know the same way they might have done in in person in the 1960s but now in this Global Village of

6:23

the internet do you do you see it I mean in as

Repurposing commercial technology

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um repurposing of commercial technology like I I um I associate the history of media art

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as one that is um almost a parasitic nature of artists

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sort of taking I mean right from the most iconic piece of the protopac is the production of a a an object and a tool

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from a massive Global corporation that artists um then try to figure out how to

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not necessarily produce a counter narrative as you were saying like that but but try to somehow write a new story

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within that and that this could have continues to evolve do you think that the the era of netard and the one that

7:10

we’re now is these tools are they at a granular level more

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um it isn’t just this sort of binary relationship there really really is building tools and something that isn’t

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just about you know repurposing a commercial industrial thing yeah no I

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think that’s super interesting like so the portapac obviously was Sony’s first consumer video camera and at that time

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the most um the best-selling consumer electronics device in history

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um but it was marketed to everyone like you can look at ads from that era and it’s like businessman and tree shooting video of baby birds but you know part of

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that time people had to shoot on you know eight millimeter film get it processed it was a whole hassle so it

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was a revolution like in in a in a mass media commercial context and they made

7:58

money from it and then the artists you’re right like did reappropriate that technology and I I think of what

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happened right after that which is artists like Nam June Pike um working with others which started to

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design their own video tools like video synthesizers and then that was true you

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know that’s been true New Media forever a lot of New Media artists have open source tools or

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um you know especially in the creative coding Community you have long you know time Legacy stuff like Casey race and

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working on uh processing which you know then others have worked on in regards to

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p5.js but you know or open Frameworks which was a creative coding platform that allowed a lot of the you know kind

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of experiments that I did early on to happen um I think that’s also true though this

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era with the crypto currency stuff that I mentioned earlier where or blockchain experiments where artists actually you

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know artists like I remember my friend Billy renkamp like years ago was like Jeremy like this is how the blockchain

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is gonna like change everything and and here’s what it means philosophically like they would like they positioned it

9:03

ideologically and that ideology has definitely been soaked up by like a larger Community but artists were at the

9:10

Forefront early on yeah I wonder if we can if we could talk a bit about this moment of the

Disruption

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um of disruption in the in the in the current cliche use of the word disruption like it it feels to me

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um very similar to other sort of Silicon Valley disruptions that there’s really at this moment instead of there being

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um some profound reforming of the way we organize things it’s really a kind of

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concentrated uh concentrated bit of power that is creaked open but really

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it’s really moved from one small group to another and and the hype here is really

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um yes it may be you know puts a tiny crack in some of the sort of dealer art

9:58

traditional like high-end art uh High Finance world but but it doesn’t really

10:03

transform power structures or transform even the general space of artists lives yeah like you’re

10:11

making your event like Tesla is no better than GM or whatever in terms of like I mean at the end of the day

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they’re just transplanting consumer to a new bucket and the powerful stay in

10:22

power or it’s just to you know just change the faces on the on the about us page basically yeah

10:28

it feels like that is that does it feel like that from to you sometimes I mean I

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don’t feel like that necessarily all the time about every single thing but it’s it’s a kind of creeping feeling that

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sometimes gets in the way of trying to get to some of the more interesting things that might be happening yeah I mean I think it’s worth while

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noting that you know even if we were to go back to the 1960s you know attention economy dictated that I’ve named a few

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names like I rattled off a couple names at the outset and that those names actually stayed in power for the next 50

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or 60 years so the our world has been very good historically at canonizing and but the tool for Canon has primarily

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been the written word which I’ve always found particularly interesting like that’s how art has established its value

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historically um and there have been a few Gatekeepers you know back early on it would have

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been like your Clement Greenberg or something like that people would argue that the internet actually like allowed you know a vast democratization of who

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people paid attention to as legitimate artists right um

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of media as well like yeah changed the experience of it because the prime not

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only the primary sort of canonization but really to this day the primary experience of many artworks is through

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the written word like we we read about artworks far more than we ever get

11:54

access to them yeah and I and I mentioned you know the kind of the attention economy because even within

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the platforms you know algorithms are programming themselves to like put the thing in front of you that they think you’re gonna most like but the algorithm

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needs variables and one of the varias will be with some with something someone like you also liked right

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um or who are some credible sources we could anchor to that would you know kind of legitimize that this is you know

12:18

worth your your time but if you you know take the polar opposite position where

12:24

everything is available at all time you’re kind of in this Fifth Element moment where you know images are just like flickering in front of you there’s

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no way you could possibly quote unquote consume the breadth of media

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um and so I don’t know if we’ve you know there’s a psychological wall that we don’t often talk about in in this space which is

12:41

like the number of names and the and the themes of a movement that you know like there might be in a in any given art

12:47

movement like people presenting you know 100 different views on on on you know

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our takes right and then we choose one and we say that’s what that was all about right ybas it was you know it was

12:58

all about money and sex or something like that we just like like that’s it yeah more nuanced summarize it into that

Public Value

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point in that uh I think in terms of like you know one of the uh another

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um sort of let’s say critical or sort of cynical feeling that rises up uh around this moment uh and the expansion uh into

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the popular imagination of of the cryptocurrencies and and the way nft has

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kind of uh as a concept has really like brought that forward is it it feels like

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this kind of granular monetization uh of and privatization of the net you

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know like that everything becomes a kind of um possible to ascribe ownership to I

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wonder how you um have been thinking about the idea of public value in this moment because your your practice has

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really you know you’ve been uh involved in all kinds of scales of work a lot of

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public institutions and and very much about community and your practice as well in the last few years

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um how do you think about public value in this in this moment well I think like

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you like if we like almost like blur the line between both questions we wouldn’t feel uncomfortable if a lot of people

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who don’t didn’t normally make a lot of money were suddenly making a lot of money if the power if the pyramid got

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turned upside down if it was like women of color were making millions of dollars in nfts you’d be pretty excited I think

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right you’d be championing this as like a major win yeah I think you know one of

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the reasons it’s uncomfortable is that that we’re not necessarily seeing that you know there are exceptions for sure

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though um and there are some communities I think like the hen Community which is an nft Community that’s zero carbon and

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open source where people are coming together around the ridge original internet ideals the idea the ideals of

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like sharing cooperation you know like helping each other and it’s less

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fiduciary and like or less about the finance of that exercise right like

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um I think that’s one of the perverted things right as soon as capital it touches an artwork we start to change

15:15

the value system by which we evaluate that work right now we’re evaluating it based on how much it’s sold for instead

15:21

of its value of you know content uh if you will to use like a term that actually has been commodified right but

15:29

like content by any other word would be like something that pushes culture forward right or that that if we go back

15:36

to the 1970s you know appropriates the language of Television to forward the culture such

15:43

that women you know are no longer relegated to cooking show hosts or something like that right is it possible

Hype Cycles

15:49

for us to um have do you think it’s possible to have some of the the these kind of

15:56

interesting gains without these kind of massive hype Cycles like I think of something like you know what Pokemon go

16:02

did for AR uh and the way that changed um the you know not just the popular

16:08

imagination but a willingness to try something in this domain but of course there’s all kinds of you know commercial

16:16

noise that comes with that in the sort of tail end of it but it is it possible

16:22

to have that without this kind of massive commercial hype it’s almost obvious that like there’s a first mover

16:28

advantage in terms of the again the attention economy like if I’m there first and there’s nothing else to look

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at you get a certain amount of value just from being there first but that’s been true for generation of media right

16:39

including the first Mo like apps on the app store for your iPhone or something right like you would download I don’t

16:45

know what crappy apps you had on your first period but they how often do you even visit the App Store now you were

16:51

just curious to figure out what’s this all about yeah um and that behavior you know among

16:56

early adopters is actually counter-intuitive to like you know like larger audience Behavior there’s this

17:02

concept um Jeffrey Moore an economist introduced it was like this idea of you

17:08

know early adopters and this this point every startup gets to where they have to cross a Chasm you know getting into the

17:14

mainstream is actually extremely difficult because the values that the early adopter has novelty you know being

17:20

there first like similar to like uncovering a band all those things

17:25

um don’t actually translate to like the broader you know mainstream audience

17:30

What’s called the majority in Jeffrey Moore’s model um and then there’s a group after that called laggards and they’re definitely

17:36

like they they will never they will never convert right but the majority requires the early adopters to say this

17:43

is interesting um and you know maybe you should try it out and there’s an earlier majority that gets involved and then after that point

17:51

though the early adopters are no longer interested they’ve moved on to the next kind of thing right and yeah there’s

17:57

Gartner’s hype cycle that also explains you know you get this peak of hype driven by you know the hysteria of those

18:02

early adopters and then there’s the trough of disillusionment it’s called in the in Gartner’s hype cycle

18:09

um and then there’s this like steady incline toward um hope and some sort of like practical

18:15

application that is actually beneficial to society um but I think that it’s natural it’s

18:21

natural because we’re just trying to figure out the media again like Marshall mcluhan might have said you know we’re

18:26

looking in the rear view meter to try and figure out or project what speed is really going to mean

18:31

building a new vocabulary do you think some of that in relation to ownership is

Ownership

18:37

that like um is that part of the long tail and part of the problem that we’re that is

18:43

like a bit of the the because is this sort of conundrum that is being

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being continued to work on it’s not like a lot of the hype press was like there’s never been a way to ascribe ownership to

18:56

a digital file before yeah as if the entire legal profession didn’t exist but

19:01

um but nonetheless there are there are uh interesting you know aspects of of

19:08

the way to think about and evolutions of that yeah is that is that the wrong

19:14

Focus though is that like does that sort of just reproduce that review mirror

19:19

effect that you’re that you were just talking about that were basically um trying to in the end recreate

19:25

intellectual property that existed prior to yeah or like or figure out how to create

19:32

property within the digital realm when it you know was never designed for that um and I think like when you’re asking

19:38

for context there are lots of examples including you know Rafael rosendal a collaborator of mine who created website

19:44

contracts but people who are trying to monetize or did you know create some kind of uh digital form of an artist

19:51

certificate that would apparently have value and the reason for that was just that there were a lot of digital artists

19:57

a lot of net artists who were poor you know who were not like were told who

20:02

couldn’t dealers would say I can’t sell your work like if it doesn’t plug in you know you’re not going to be able to it’s

20:09

not sorry if it plugs in you it doesn’t sell right that would be the kind of right the normal thing

20:14

um and you know this didn’t really kind of over time this argument didn’t really make

20:20

sense when people saw the internet economy become the primary economy you know like that there’s like it was

20:26

almost like a tension built up I feel like over the last 20 years because I know I felt it too and tried to

20:32

introduce this topic numerous times in different art circles where I’d say like hey how come like artists are not

20:38

benefiting from this you know massive macroeconomic Trend how come it seems

20:44

like artists are getting left behind and in fact you know artists were mostly contributing their value for free I

20:50

think what was different is instead of for free to each other like you know as a communal or cooperative activity often

20:57

do platforms that were then as Richard Sarah would have said were delivering those artists as product advertisers and

21:05

then you get to the era of like the content producer and I think that it’s worth being resentful about that because

21:10

we have like 20 years of Labor that was essentially funneled into those companies you YouTube Just Google you

21:18

know Facebook um yeah and Instagram you know which is Instagram and all those companies Snap I’ve thought a lot about it in terms of

YouTube

21:25

YouTube when you look at that history of YouTube and um there’s the user created content but

21:31

even their relationship to piracy that was so like imagine if they had had to

21:37

actually follow real true copyright laws uh how difficult it would have been and

21:43

still to this day kind of impossible yeah but it is a massive graveyard of uh you know artist labor that’s what I

21:49

would refer to it as and at some point you know they’re they’re hopefully is some kind of I

21:57

don’t know I mean it also trained audiences to believe that this is something that they should expect for

22:02

free and the present day you know very few artists contribute to those economies or are have started to stop or

22:09

look for Alternatives and what you’re seeing is those that are there are like dying of stress right because the

22:14

algorithms require continuous uploads daily uploads and you know it’s not sustainable so there’s a new generation

22:21

of startups there’s this thing called the creative economy that Kickstarter was the first to identify that are

22:28

trying to figure out hey can we establish models that help Finance our

22:35

you know create they’re just using the term creators these days right in the creative economy but I think artists fit

22:40

in there and artists does you know certainly I haven’t seen very many galleries jump in front of that and say like hey actually we’d like to get

22:46

involved in helping artists live sustainable lives um and so we’re happy to present the

22:53

work but how it gets made but but for any investment there’s got

22:58

to be a return right so I think that that’s also a reason to be you know suspicious and another reason why

23:04

artists should be again like you know building their own tools and I think getting out in front of it understanding

23:11

the Technologies and potentially um you know cooperating to create Alternatives which they are doing and

23:17

that’s why I’m encouraged I think there’s two there’s two narratives going on right now um one is of cooperation and the other

23:24

is yes a further capitalization for sure well I think that there is something to be said for the sort of long tail of

23:32

um of the of the nft moment in the popular imagination of like really uh

23:38

ownership was possible before but it has really driven home the idea that these

23:44

uh that there are creators who make things and and that maybe they should be

23:49

paid and that this you know sort of um even the sort of you know hyperbolic

23:56

way that some of the popular press might report on it of like you know the trying to use outrageous language that

24:02

someone’s paying for a you know a cat gif or something like that as as if you know that’s the same same art uh you

24:10

know a blue painting I can’t imagine playing et cetera going back you know a century

24:16

but there is this idea that that these are things that are made by creators of

24:23

one kind or another and that the next phase of figuring out like oh okay everything shouldn’t be free necessarily

24:30

or if things should be free for Access how does one get how do they get made

24:35

like you know writers were the first to experience this you know the internet made writing free first because it was

24:42

the cheapest Media to distribute yeah and you know and most writers today that

24:47

are are not writing for a corporation are building out their own subscriber bases right they’re doing the sub stack

24:54

thing they’re building a newsletter right there or they’ve become like embedded in you know companies as like

25:00

copywriters or whatever right um but certainly like every media and every Creator is going

25:08

through that same narrative in their head like if I continue to give this away for free when does it actually pay

25:13

off right yeah and to your point earlier it does pay off for a very slim you know group of people who kind of transcend

25:19

that Fame yeah barrier and then from my experience talking to friends and and

25:25

being in similar contexts at different times what it allows you to do is like not to do your art like do some like you

25:31

know commercial deal or like get this interesting project or get like ultimately a commission right like

25:36

that’s what we’re all seeking it’s like to get that big commission which is back

25:41

to the patronage model of like you know pre-victorian era kind of art making but do you think like in this moment

NFT Platforms

25:49

um we’re seeing a few more things that um feel a little less like winner take

25:55

all kind of structures which is so yeah America’s done such a great job of exporting that kind of approach and

26:03

you’re seeing do you feel like we’re seeing more of that yeah we are so like first of all the of the nft platforms

26:08

you’ve probably heard of some of the big ones right um your foundations your Nifty gateways

26:14

you know ones owned by the Winklevoss twins famously of Facebook so it seems like uh oh don’t touch that but

26:20

meanwhile there are several that have been started by artists uh there’s feral file

26:26

um started by um Casey Reese who I mentioned there’s Folia or maybe it’s the reverse that he

26:32

sort of fully I can remember um then there’s like the hick and nunk one the hen for short that I mentioned

26:38

and that’s open source um and they’re building like a gallery model inside of that where you can build Galleries and

26:44

there are even like um exhibitions that have happened that specifically highlight

26:50

um you know underrepresented artists it’s actually kind of encouraging it reminds me of like you know in your

26:56

local city like the neighborhood context and I know geography does play into this I think you might remember an era and

27:02

even in media of the film festival or something where a small community came together to support one another in my

27:10

own experience in for example the hen Community was like Hey get on this platform and like hey let us help you

27:15

figure out how to use it and then like you can use my template and people were trading with me in a way that you know

27:21

was really quite refreshing on the flip side obviously there are these huge like auctions that Christie’s has got

27:27

involved with in Sotheby’s that always is going to exist though they’re always going to try and capitalize on hype

27:32

right if we can talk a bit more about the geography aspect because I think you know that

Local Contexts

27:38

um there’s this uh like a long sort of subtext and sometimes overt about a

27:45

Bounder or a borderless world uh you know that’s bound up in Internet culture

27:50

and uh and and and digital um digital culture as well that there’s like this this rhetoric of sort of

27:59

global globalness but local contexts are so

28:04

specific and important um you know how do you how do you understand for you that that those

28:11

relationships between uh local communities like City geographies but

28:17

maybe also local artistic communities and stuff like that yeah I mean I think like

28:23

I’ve been a part of the internet or like internet art community of tea and there are many communities actually within

28:28

that for a long time and there is this sort of digital Nomad thing that goes with it and honestly like that wasn’t my

28:36

decision like I remember feeling like my local community rejected what I was doing because they didn’t understand it

28:42

um there are some exceptions to that rule like Berlin you know quote unquote like certain cities like stepped in and said like we are the internet or

28:49

something for internet um just to be candid about it but on the flip side

28:55

um I’ve been working with a bunch of uh toronto-based artists for my uar you

29:00

know thing which you you know you said I founded this big thing it’s just a Shopify store right that I like made function for sculpture in augmented

29:07

reality but you know I was like oh let me make it local let me try doing a local show and then um you know and I’ll

29:15

it’ll feel like because that’ll like transcend this it does feel like people don’t connect to what’s going on on the

29:21

internet and it doesn’t really have that local connection because I think local connections still matter I mean I’ve experienced that in Toronto right where

29:27

like my work unless it had some kind of local context just was like meaningless it was like out in the internet either

29:32

and um so I’m in the process of like planning and trying to figure out what that means personally so I’m I’m I think

29:39

it’s a topic of Interest I did a try and approach a local gallery to show you

29:44

know that shows New Media to show these works and they they decided they didn’t want to

29:50

um which I was like curious because I was like you know all it’s completely digital so you actually don’t have to show anything right you have to say

29:57

you’re showing it like yeah just say it just um but there seems to be this um one of

30:04

the tensions I’ve encountered in my career as an internet artist is a tension between like the walls of the

30:09

gallery like Thou shalt not pass and you know the the kind of more uh fluid

30:16

boundaries of the internet and for me it’s really important to um recognize that the internet is a social or

30:23

relational aesthetic it’s not you know like we’re what is it Web 2.0 introduced that concept

30:29

um and that’s not that dissimilar from the way Geographic networks function too and I think um

30:35

they just they just haven’t mixed well uh for some for whatever reason um to me as we’ve seen internet culture

Digital Culture

30:42

grow or more it’s not that’s that’s even a kind of um a poor term as we’ve seen the space

30:48

of digital Technologies in our everyday lives there has been such a multiplicity of cultures there is no more an internet

30:53

culture or digital culture it is so entangled in the everyday life and so

31:01

then that means there’s all these transportable places uh and new spaces

31:06

where artists should be involved like it should be able to be um and not borderless in the sense of

31:13

the way we used to think about that in that globalization but but the way that there can be I think you’re right

31:21

it’s often difficult to contain and that’s why I think of it very similar to the fluxus right where it’s like the art

31:28

happens kind of here instead of here on the wall right it’s happening kind of in the head and I’ve made a lot of artworks

31:34

that were you know just designed to be distributed that way and when I was creating works for YouTube I always

31:40

imagined them as a component of the algorithm or part of the Stream

31:46

um because that was the context right but that is very difficult to grasp in a physical sense Yeah you mentioned

31:53

something interesting or you know you’re sort of uh being reductive about your your AR project thing it’s just a

31:59

Shopify store but that touches on the idea of uh of this kind of ubiquitous nature of

32:06

these Technologies and how the tools can be picked up um and the sort of back-end elements or

32:13

cobbled together for pieces to do um what are quite unique and interesting ideas without having to build this whole

32:20

thing up and maybe is that do you think one of the you know maybe wider lessons

32:25

of the moment to try to get uh local communities to sort of you know if they

32:31

see the nft hype and try to understand it to think that that if that opens up into a world of a plethora of digital

32:38

technologies that can allow you to make something that’s interesting and valuable for your community

32:44

yeah yeah I think um that’s the Porta pack moment right like you pick up the camera like in the 1969 you pick you

32:51

know your your namjoo Pike you go to the Macy’s department store you pick up a video camera you get in a cab you get

32:57

stuck in traffic because the Pope’s there you record the pope going by and you show it in a gallery in SoHo later

33:03

that night you call it video art right but if you didn’t go to Macy’s and pick it up or try or record the pope or if

33:09

you didn’t experience have that experience you didn’t really participate in a cultural movement I think I think

33:15

the fear you know the fear I have is that by having an allergy to anything new we reject the possibility of

33:21

progress and you know to a certain extent we say you know I was talking to someone who works in the quote-unquote

33:26

Arts you know like Opera ballet and they’re like kind of a thinker in that space and they’re saying that whole

33:33

realm of uh of making now considers itself a an elite group of people who exist

33:40

solely to protect something that would otherwise not exist so they exist at a

33:47

point in time 300 years ago and their job is as stewards of this like rare vase or artifact right

33:53

and they’re just like they’re almost like a time capsule um but that is also they also have the position that the audience can’t

34:00

possibly understand the value of that artifact and so Their audience numbers

34:05

have been falling over time and but it they’re they actually consider themselves in direct conflict with their

34:12

audience which I find really interesting as an internet artist where you almost have the opposite problem where it’s

34:17

like I want more audience more more right like I need more likes

34:23

um if you had that attitude on the internet right like I don’t know how you would value the work differently but maybe that is there’s something in the

34:29

middle between like we reject the concept of an audience and we are just a vessel of history and

34:37

um you know we must Ascend into the realm of like tchotchkes and you know

34:42

like what I wonder if we uh maybe divert a little bit to that to that like sort

Digital Adaptation

34:50

of um Canadian scene uh uh discussion because I know that you were part of

34:57

um putting that digital strategy fund uh you know kind of gave some advice and counsel about that whole process and now

35:05

we’re obviously we’ve had quite a bump in the road over the last year and a half but uh you know as you’ve sort of

35:11

seen some of these projects uh unfold and met people both probably formally and informally been on tons of panels

35:17

I’m sure uh how are you seeing that sort of digital adaptation

35:22

happen across the country in the different context well it’s interesting the person I mentioned though I didn’t

35:28

give them their name I should it’s uh David Max but he he wrote a paper on the

35:34

topic uh and he received two of the two grants from that that fund and

35:39

um he was he basically um he has a really interesting point of view maybe I shouldn’t just steal

35:45

someone else’s point of view but you know there are several crises that have we’re experiencing currently like

35:51

climate change is one um you know uh race racial Injustice is

35:57

another the pandemic is a third right um and and then the digital digitization

36:03

is potentially kind of another another one in the expropriation of of capital but anyway he was saying like

36:09

all of these can you can look at them separately and the art world can be like up in arms

36:15

about the crisis we’re facing like oh my God like this is wrong and that’s wrong or you could consider them all actually

36:20

symptoms of the same problem which is that we’re upholding assist an unjust an

36:26

unjust system oh sorry I didn’t even mention like reconciliation right indigenous uh uh the indigenous rights

36:32

crisis so all of these things are actually conflated and the Arts are ignoring their responsibility to

36:39

actually Advance on these major events instead of sort of like instead what

36:46

we’re seeing quite often is like well I can’t participate like it’s all it’s on the internet I can’t possibly practice

36:51

and actually the internet might be one of the answers to the problem if we were to embrace it as like a technology that

36:58

might allow us to investigate what our you know um like issues that require

37:03

participation like none of these issues can be solved in a corner yeah they require actually activism and

37:10

participation to to fully reconcile yeah I think that’s a really interesting perspective sorry yeah no it just I mean

Climate Crisis

37:16

particularly that’s I find it’s very resonant with some of the discussions we’ve been having here particularly with

37:22

something like climate change I think is a great example of um the climate crisis uh it’s clear that

37:31

scientific facts more scientific facts will not transform action right if

37:37

there’s one thing we’ve learned from the last I mean I was an environmental activist in the 90s you know and it the

37:44

the story has not changed and so uh you know here at Art engine we’ve been reflecting about that like well then

37:51

there’s a crisis what is the artist’s role in responding to the crisis and

37:57

clearly um you know there is a major gaps in what

38:02

um work needs to be done through all kinds of sectors and the knowledge is known about the crisis

38:10

participating in in rethinking and restructuring and imagining a different

38:15

way but that’s the thing I think that’s the key word like if I was gonna like hashtag this thing would be hashtag

38:20

participate you know but like if you don’t participate you know you you don’t

38:25

you don’t actually get to be a part of the happening and the happening is where we arrive at the new experience that

38:31

we’ve never had before yeah I think a rejection of it is dangerous because you leave it in the hands of the few that

38:38

might not necessarily be in a the right place to make a good decision socially because it is so macro in scale like

38:46

it’s not gonna it’s not like we’re gonna fall back on something else like it’s not like the Arts and Crafts movements

38:51

just ahead of us and we’re going to start whittling wood it’s just not going to happen that way you know yeah I think

38:57

it’s a really interesting that’s like how do we participate and and how do you think about participation in a very

39:04

complex technological world right where where participation in the early 20th century well in the early 20th century

39:11

it was already too complex right like for you to participate in politics in a way that was conceived when you know

39:18

community and localness was perhaps the extent of your affecting world and now

39:25

it’s it’s so huge so I think really artists need to be part of the laboratory of thinking about how do we

39:33

participate in discussions that have ramifications Global ramifications in

39:39

all of those Wicked problems that you’ve been that you’ve been talking about as we sort of maybe touch back on the

The Technological Moment

39:46

question of um of this technological moment and the kind of the the sort of blockchain

39:54

contractual sort of obsession that’s happening right now what do you think

40:01

can emerge from there for people what do you think is the most interesting thing to sort of come out at this moment or

40:07

where should we um where should we try and Foster like more interesting activity there it’s

40:14

it’s really happening fast and ways that I can’t ignore are somewhat exciting and even if it reproduces a certain amount

40:21

of power there are a certain displacement of power that’s very exciting to me and as an example A

40:26

friend of mine recently went to work at a company it’s not his name in the company it’s called rally and they exist

40:32

at to help creators create their own coins and their own like basically their own their own economies around their

40:39

practice where people who participate in their practice can increase the value of their

40:44

participation it’s it’s kind of bizarre but the actual organization is based in Silicon Valley but

40:51

is decentralized and those the creators actually vote on the progress of the company and all the decisions that get

40:58

made right so you know by any other kind of lay I would never have imagined that 10 years ago that there would be

41:04

companies that start up and they’re like our model is going to be cooperation from day one like right and we’re going to let the customers like vote on our

41:10

most important issues kind of thing people still get paid don’t get me wrong and there’s like they’re also you know

41:16

uh taking a cut but the fact that it’s a you know decentralized distributed uh

41:22

model of decision making from day one as a company it was really interesting is really interesting to me similarly there are artist cooperatives like I’ve

41:28

mentioned a few and artists run you know startups where the artists are

41:34

generating better splits like 90 10 or you know 85 15 for the Arts and not only

41:41

that building in royalties for the secondary Market which we know is where most of the excess value is created

41:48

right so I I’ve been working um with a group group in Berlin to launch a platform we’re working towards

41:54

a prototype in the fall and we we brought a summer school of individuals together and it’s really amazing to see

42:00

who’s joined the summer school by the way it’s like people from startups artists all kinds of people that

42:05

um you know one of the things that we hit early on in terms of like well which technology what technology should we use

42:11

um was like the idea of well you know a value Exchange in the secondary tertiary

42:16

and you know like whatever how you know how does value propagate over time and I

42:22

think the blockchain like we keep coming back to it we can’t think of another technology that’s

42:27

better at automating the practice of being accountable to the original

42:33

Creator um and of course there are legal precedents for this right but I don’t

42:39

know if you’ve ever had to chase down your copyright because I’ve had stuff as an artist it is really expensive and and

42:48

really inaccessible to an artist so if we could even automate the legal layer of protecting your creative copy uh

42:55

right in some manner I think that represents tremendous value now I know there’s a lot of fault in the current

43:02

implementation of a lot of these platforms that they don’t actually protect your copyright at all because someone could just steal the thing and

43:07

and you’re still not legally protected but um you know I see this as like

43:13

stairs you know on a staircase toward you know an ideology and the ideology is

43:19

Right which is like attribution to the artist you know over time matters

Decentralization

43:24

yeah I think that the the the the key moment in there and I really liked

43:30

hearing what you were saying about decentralization there because I have this skepticism where

43:36

um oftentimes within the that techno infrastructure decentralization is is is

43:42

kind of what they really mean is an anti-state anti-regulation idea like how to get the

43:50

the stage and go around sort of Regulation or or take regulation out of

43:56

a kind of governmental uh uh yeah so we assume that’s shady right but it’s but

44:02

you know what’s interesting is there is that you know um The Case of the you know the fuel pipeline getting hacked

44:08

right the um the ransomware attack right and they they were paid in Bitcoin but they all

44:15

of that bitcoin’s since been recovered by the government right and the you know the interesting thing when you were when

44:20

you read about it was the government was like yeah it’s a public Ledger we could see all the transactions yeah between

44:27

the hackers and you know where they were moving the money yeah so I think one of

44:33

the things we have to be careful for is like the assumption that the existing system was built to be fair you know

44:39

what specifically when the banking sector um excluded you know vast majority of

44:44

the American black population as an example um in terms of getting a mortgage right

44:50

the whole geographies were held off limits and that was built into the system right and supported um and then

44:56

we backed that system up after 2008 during the Wall Street Crash right and we allowed a whole generation of people

45:03

to default on student loans and to go bankrupt on medical debt but we bet you

45:09

know but we ran to rescue this system that we think is so great so I you know in terms of like yeah sure like

45:17

maybe I’m going long on this kind of thing but like it’s easy to be like oh look like all the like Wall Street Bros

45:22

are building this new thing it’s just that there are artists there too and I think you know if you’re not aware of

45:29

that you should be that there are artists actually behind the scenes yeah I think that’s really special yeah and I think

Moments of Revolution

45:35

it’s the it it’s the uh maybe it’s my age as well get I getting older and the

45:41

anxiety of of these moments of change that on one hand I can uh hey I can see

45:47

the potential for change and I see where those things are happening but so many times uh moments of Revolution are

45:54

moments of opportunity for the ultra powerful and Ultra capitalists right how do we

45:59

um how do we try to like amplify um the most interesting parts of it we

46:05

have to participate like you have to be a you have to be a CO co-owner of this like future

46:11

um but you know yeah otherwise I think you’re right there’s going to be a bunch of millionaires that um you know maybe some of them we like

46:18

it’s a lot to rely on like let’s just trust they do the right thing right

46:23

I mean you know the nice thing is a bunch of these systems are built on cooperation from the outset knowing that

46:29

that’s you know like a tendency um and then some of them aren’t so we’ll

46:34

see what shakes out I’m really on the side of like the Cooperative this future and you know

46:40

the idea that the technology is commodified to the extent that you can pull it off the shelf like nuts and

46:46

bolts and you know that’s what I’m doing and that’s what others are doing now we’re not actually like inventing it we’re just like oh yeah I’ll take one of

46:52

those I’ll take one of those like piece it together you know well this has been a really uh fascinating uh conversation

Outro

46:59

uh I really appreciate you taking the time maybe before we go uh do you have

47:04

is there something you’re working on right now that you’re sort of headed to is like is is uar sort of is that like a

47:12

a kind of a baby that you’re really working on like trying to get trying to trying to pull it into its next phases

47:19

well it was created as an artwork for exhibition which anyone could you know that’s why I was I kind of downplayed it because that’s what it was created for

47:24

but then uh what I’m doing now is I’m working with other artists I mentioned a bunch of toronto-based ones but what I’m

47:30

trying to do is transform it from like it’s the Jeremy Bailey show to supporting other artists and I’m

47:35

actually helping them build artworks and figure out how to sell them um and so expect like we’ll do like some

47:42

kind of a little launch later this summer and I’ll flip the site into being all about them instead of about me and

47:49

then next fall I’m working towards this more open augmented reality platform

47:54

where anyone will be able to sell augmented reality artworks online augmented reality will always be just

48:01

like a bizarrely hilarious you know and hilarious media for me because it’s like always going to be Out Of Reach I

48:07

guarantee you this like will be like 75 years old talking about it’s going to be like future state that

48:14

never arrives but um gonna have some fun with that I think this fall um so stay tuned to that and generally

48:20

my whole thing right now is to try and train other artists on on these tools and and the stuff so that’s the

48:25

privilege of I think talking with you today is like if we could just get more it’s the access problem it’s like cable

48:31

access but now we have like you know um hardest Finance access like

48:37

I want to teach people how to do their taxes that’s great uh Jeremy Bailey tax tutor

48:45

on the way yeah I should have I should have disclosed they work at an accounting

48:50

software all right

48:56

thanks Ryan well thanks again uh it’s always a pleasure to talk to you yeah

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