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plans

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Intro

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hello and welcome uh today we’re talking with izzy culpitz campbell uh she’s an artist designer and community organizer

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uh as he has a long-standing experience in a variety of fields

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including tech fashion gaming and ux production for a technology

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platform and i understand that very soon we’ll add teacher to that list as well welcome

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izzy uh maybe you can tell us a little bit about that uh uh that new role that you’re going to

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play so what what are you developing at the moment for that

Critical Code

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um i’m kind of hoping it will be a little bit independent study like

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um because i feel like with critical code there’s so many ways to approach it you know either from like a research

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perspective or um you know creating some kind of visual like data visualization can be very

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critical of how we see and develop data algorithms platform design there’s so

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many ways that technology kind of infiltrates our life and all definitely just because of my

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background put a kind of a social justice spin on all of it um particularly with my you know work with

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uh dmg um thinking about how you know technology tools and

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um are built for you know creative and marginalized people when we talk about your role as a

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as a teacher instructor broadly um it’s obviously a difficult time for

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any educational institution whether it’s a formalized institution or or more of a grassroots

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sort of instructional initiative for

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creatives and artists broadly what are they

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training towards if you know what i mean um i mean i think that differs for

Training

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for everyone i think artists have had so many different kind of ways of dealing with

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you know the current pandemic and limitations in our art practice i think um you know there’s ways of kind of

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doing things safely you know like this interview um and just going forward or stopping or

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adjusting um you know we’ve i’ve uh with dmg we we

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actually had to pivot a number of our exhibitions online um so i think there’s still opportunity to create art um but i

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do think there’s an extra emphasis on what technologies and tools we are using to make that

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art um even if you aren’t making digital work you’re now potentially you know performing through platforms like zoom

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um which changes you know your relationship to how you’re creating or

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or sharing that that work and uh dmg of course is uh

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gamesmakinggames can you uh talk a little bit more about that platform yeah so dmg is a community like originally

About dmg

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based in toronto now that we’re more remote it’s really broadened our our potential

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for what we think of as community we’ve always been somewhere for anyone interested in

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making games to explore that with um a real focus on

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making that space for marginalized people who have you know very traditionally been kept out of technology development spaces

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um and games in particular we see games as a way of telling stories and narratives it’s

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really a cultural product um which i think a lot of you know the arts world is coming to see that as uh

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they are cultural products you know in a similar way that film is um there is this relationship with industry but

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there are these small independent creators making really meaningful um meaningful work in this area of kind

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of games interactive media whatever you want to really call it um our definition

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of a game is so broad you know from digital games to tabletop games to

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um you know little little card games uh mobile games all of those kind of things are in there it’s interesting how games

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have uh relatively recently been starting to

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looked at more seriously in the media arts broadly was it a deliberate decision for dmg to focus on game

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development within its sort of social mandate uh specifically or was that did it just

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happen i mean i think it started with a group of friends who didn’t have a space to

How did dmg start

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talk critically about the games they were making playing uh learning to

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engage with so yes absolutely it was made specifically around games

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starting with a very small group of people you know we still have our monthly socials and that’s just where people share what they’re working on

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and so as our community grows and shifts our definition of games grow and shift what they need what we need to support

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them shifts um myself i wasn’t one of the founding members but um you know you talked about

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my interest in kind of electronic and software art was how i got into dmg

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which was really looking at like you know i’m making these like primarily wearable electronics physical

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objects that are like interacting with the body um

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and i really wanted a space to think about how technology works how i can build technology and

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i really i learned the tools to make those interactive experiences with because

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they are so close to a game they are these kind of playful objects that you know there are rules of how you

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interact with them which really is so much of you know game design and game

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development yeah and and the problems are maybe not problems but the issues that

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you identify uh as a as one of the founding motivations for dmg

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are something that we recognize i think broadly in the media arts still

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are games and point of entry to let’s say break open

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some of the more static elements within the field of media arts i think they’re

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one of those entry points um i think that adding that

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interactivity is kind of something that you know computation in a broad sense gives us

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um we aren’t just looking at you know a movie to watch um we’re thinking about how we’re

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actually interacting with that piece of media which i think you know we’ve come from from many different spaces i mean i

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always point to a funny pattern in wearable technology where you know similar to my path it’s like

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i worked on you know kind of queer performance body video work and then suddenly

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someone was like oh you can put a button to interact with that video work and then i was like well if i’m

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having this physical object in the world why don’t i just make that an experience that the person can wear

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um because when you think about you know that’s one entry point um and then you know through kind of

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playing with these electronics i i came to this you know connection with gains

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um and found dmg so actually that’s a very similar story where people see

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their art practice and dmg is a space to actually come in and engage with games and and bring that back into their art

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practice um as well as you know join industry um we just recently did the online exhibition

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we had to pivot at the last moment um i think our opening was like april 15th or

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something um was actually a residency of um our past

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participants looking at their first game that they made with dmg um and we actually gave them funding to

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go and kind of change or redesign or revisit that game to update it so that it’s playable now

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um because you know trying to look at how one dmg has had an impact on people’s

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practices but also just you know how people would revisit that first kind of prototype

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um and change it um and it was interesting to see all of those those changes and people think about

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actually how did games and and this interactivity that i’ve kind of

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added to my practice change what i’m doing you know we’ve got some people who are now doing a master’s

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in neuro in psychology around you know the impacts of vr which is like a very

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obvious three point to games we’ve got other folks who you know are now writing you know novels that you know

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started a game jam um playing with similar similar ideas and so i think it’s just trying to track

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those it’s not all the same narrative it’s never always the same narrative but there are these things that people take

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up and learn from you know the community and change it as they go

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potentially interesting link to a current development in

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the arts broadly but certainly within the media arts which is that idea of

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experience experiential art immersiveness of art

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uh and that even within the context of the pandemic with so many closures that

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i think two or three new museums have been announced that are exclusively about digital interactive

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immersive art do you see new business models or new ways for

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artist prosperity emerging also through your dmg activities i i

Digital art

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think it’s it’s funny we we had kind of in the past been playing with a lot of these like digital

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forms and sometimes actually i think getting a bit of uh pushback you know like oh well that’s

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you know it’s not a real exhibition if it’s online and i think because all of us were having these conversations of

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like actually what does an online exhibition have i felt a little bit like um the work that we’ve been doing at dmg

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suddenly actually have this real space to grow um you know thinking about what tools we’re using how we’re engaging with

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technology how you know digital experiences can be you know seen as art

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and so i do think like actually gaines has been doing a little bit particularly

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thinking about business models you know like um there are spaces and games like itch

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io which you can self-publish your digital pieces and sell them um for you

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know as much or as little as you like or pay what you can model um and i think these things often were

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not necessarily seen as like quite a legitimate art practice um and i think that actually there is

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more space at this current moment you know it’s because none of us can be exhibiting in a white cube gallery right

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now for you what does that what could that idea of prosperity for artists look like

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and prosperity and uh stability

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maybe as two different sides of that yeah i mean i think like i i always think about you

Prosperity for artists

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know particularly uh like economic sustainability as like a

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community driven uh thing you know i don’t i don’t think that the

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the arts will succeed with you know a couple very um prosperous individuals it’s really like

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we all need to work as one one one community to figure out how we can actually like particularly with

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marginalized folks share that prosperity and all be coming up with these new models of sustainability

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um i think this kind of connects you know to work dmd is doing and also the work that we did in the digital

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economies lab kind of thinking about you know this idea of a artist union and how can we share our

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knowledge and our understanding and um our experience within the arts world to help each other

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um and so i think that’s like maybe pretty idealistic but i think it’s a it’s a pretty great

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base for you know success in in the art world um and particularly success for

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like individual creative people you know whatever they’re making you you already mentioned that

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part of your contribution within the digital economies lab revolved around the idea of an artist

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union recently there was a book by ariella aisha azulae called potential history

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unlearning imperialism in which a series of prompts were given to

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think around including one that says what if we all went on strike and this was aimed at museum workers but and any

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anybody working in the in sort of the artistic field

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what other well first of all what are some of the ideas around this

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idea of an artist union and potentially what other lessons could be learned from

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workers unions and and other um labor initiatives let’s say i think the

Success together

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the biggest one is really like we actually do

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we will find more success together um i think this is this is shown

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all over um i think one great example of like you know a creative union or film

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unions right um and particularly when we’re working in you know these creative entertainment spaces

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where you know it’s not like one they’re very like

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glamorous jobs um people love the things that they’re doing um and two it’s not like

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the work is a bit more ephemeral to say like this work that i’m doing is making x of this

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um the economy is a little bit different with with entertainment um and so

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you know people who are making money off of them will always want to get whatever you are supplying for

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the lowest cost and that you know when we all say actually that cost is higher that will

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have power um which you know is really what

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you know work workers um organizing is all about where do you see sort of the

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the within the creative field broadly where does the power lie i mean

Where does the power lie

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currently i think it’s with you know people who are um

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you know engaging in freelancers for you know small small tasks that they need

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help with um it really depends on the on what field we’re working in though right like with

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something like games it really is in you know major studios and large studios um

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it’s not it’s not with the the individual workers it’s interesting to think about if power

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could be brought back to the makers directly within the idea of a of a union

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but at the same time things like the prompt let’s go on strike is an

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interesting one because i remember a strike at a local museum here in the ottawa area

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that went on for a long time but very few people seem to notice and the

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leverage that came from that particular action seemed from the outside in any case

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limited what are some other tactics or strategies that creative workers could

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use if their if their work is valued in in different ways yeah i mean

The work comes in

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i like i i think you you this is where the work comes in right this is where i think

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this piece particularly we’re working on is like thinking through

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how we can actually begin to think about this like i think that

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if it was a silver bullet xyz and you have leverage then you know we would

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obviously have already done it um and so i think this is where this is the work

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like i don’t i don’t have the answer for the thing to fix this um but i think this is where um

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you know this piece is thinking about how we can actually start to brainstorm things that we

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do need help with that the community does need support in and and and

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kind of you know in a playful way engage those topics um of what are the the kind of

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community need here what you remind me of is that it cannot necessarily be

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other people doing it and then once it’s done you join in

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uh it does need to be a collaborative communal effort as well yeah and like

Risks

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it’s not easy discussions right like particularly when you’re talking about you know personal

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prosperity um personal finances and economics you know um

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that’s that’s a risk on the table like when you are thinking about you know whether i will be able to

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you know house myself feed myself those kinds of things and i think this is why often these movements come from

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marginalized people because often they have much more

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um they have much less to to risk because they don’t have

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access to all of these systems that work for a very small amount of people um and so that’s why these these

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movements often come from you know those that have less in the first place

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because you know it’s it it is it is a hard thing to say the

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thing that’s working for me is not working for everyone else and we need and i am going to change that

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yeah that’s an that’s an interesting thing to think about that when we talk about

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solidarity or mutual support that it implies that there is a risk involved

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especially for the people who are already entrenched in some of those established systems

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yeah what

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could be some of the approaches to to sort of

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let’s say stimulate that sense of solidarity and to widen that scope for

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that sorry i’m not expressing myself very well that sense of that there is and within

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and without of the system that the people who are in

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a certain let’s say cultural sphere

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and the people who are outside of that how do we breach that

Supporting marginalized people

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yeah i mean i think in my work i’m really looking at supporting

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my like supporting marginalized people like

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i think that that is kind of one there are many tactics for this i think you know there are people doing

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more work to kind of cross these divides across these barriers have those

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discussions and i think on like a personal level i i have a lot of those discussions with friends i do think that

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my tactic has always kind of been one of like

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loyal support for marginalized people um listening to what they need what i

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can give what i might need um and so i think in that ways i mean i

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think i’m i’m i’m more in entrenched in that kind of like solidarity

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um and mutual aid thinking um where actually in my mind the

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solution does not always come from outside um it comes from

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the community growing together that’s always been my approach so i

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think something like you know this program we just launched damaged labs is really about tmg wants to see more studios that are

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taking an approach to games which is is of thinking of the cultural impact of the

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things that we’re making the working conditions the collaborations that are are being fostered in the industry

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um and so there’s often multiple approaches you know if i want to improve the stories

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that are being told in the industry i could go and talk triple a games and try and improve that i am the one who takes the approach of

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like actually let’s build the studios that we want to see in the world let’s come up with frameworks to support those

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people it’s it’s just always where i’ve had my energy to do that work

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um i don’t know that that always that really answers your question but i think

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sometimes the work that i do is in the vein of

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supporting you know what i can like my community supporting marginalized people

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um finding people who are like-minded who want to create this work um

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who want to think about you know the how we enact more cooperative business

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models um and be an example of that work even on even on a small scale to start

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i’m reminded of a a conversation i heard recently with the founder of um substack the newsletter

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platform where he said that he was in the social media business before and

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was not liking what he saw but realized at some point that

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he could only do so much within the limits of the social media sphere and he had to

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step outside of it in order to create something new is that a little bit the approach that you’re taking with this

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damage lab uh initiative yeah i like i definitely like this initiative is you

Supporting cultural production

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know primarily meant to find support for people who want to build studios in this

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specific way of thinking about the impact of the games that we’re making on like a cultural level

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on you know a worker’s level and so absolutely that’s the that’s the mentality that we’re taking is

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you know we want we want these studios to exist so let’s support their existence because we know

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that actually the models within um

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you know investing in game studios is i’ll give you money and you get

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you know 10x money back to me which is not like there’s not a lot you

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can do with that when you’re like actually the thing i want to get out of this money is um is some kind of social impact like i

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want to see you know more authentic representation of my identity i want to see

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um you know uh children learning from games

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you know personal personal um emotional coping mechanisms and that’s what i

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really want to get and and if you you can kind of do that and come up with a business model that

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makes 10x money but when it comes down to it your your promise to taking on that investment

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will always be getting more money and that and that’s just the fact

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but it’s really interesting to take an approach to cultural production from the perspective of a social impact

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project how did you how did you get to that point can you can you tell us a bit more

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about that yeah so i mean i think this was something that like has been like we’ve kind of been thinking about a bit

Investment Readiness Program

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dmg and like our our edie brought um jenny jenny faber kind of brought this investment readiness program

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which is specifically about uh nonprofits and charities getting into this kind of social enterprise so

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we that’s our funding our funding is from the the government uh government funding to actually support

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non-profits finding financial sustainability and that

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works within the confines of a field that is traditionally seen as a

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commercial venture as well yeah yeah yeah and i mean um

Social Social Enterprises

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you know social social enterprises are commercial enterprises um yeah so uh it

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actually seemed like that’s why we felt it was a good fit for dmg because we do actually have this um

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very commercial aspect of games that we’ve kind of been we haven’t really

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dived into quite as um quite as

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quickly as we would you know some of our educational programming or um community programming because

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uh we didn’t see that fit um we of course supported members who

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wanted to start game studios but we weren’t quite as actively engaged with

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with industry as as we are with damage labs just wanted to take a little side trip

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on the topic of business models um you have been working for

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a a tech company for uh for a couple of years

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um that idea of platform the platform business model

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that we see in many ways whether it’s uber or airbnb

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um have you looked at that type of business model

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and through sort of a counter research lens looked at how some of those

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principles could be applied to the cultural sector i mean i i don’t know that i i have like a like

Platform Design

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a strong thesis for you um i think they’re all kind of inputs to any thinking that

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i am doing you know i i don’t know that i make like all the time direct

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correlations between you know that that work that i am doing for kind of a a

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professional work um but i mean i think there is an element

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of yeah at its core like platforms have actually a lot of similarity to game

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design or or community um development like with platform design you really are just thinking about

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relationships and how we’re who are uh creating rules around how people

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interact and and with what um i think often when i’m thinking about

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you know my professional work versus more of my artistic practice the outcome

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is different um you know when you are designing anything there’s going to be a certain outcome

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with you know an art piece that you want to design for so uh you

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know it’s one thing to design a a user experience for um

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a large massive software company where it’s like we want it to be really understandable and easy to use and

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um often efficiency is going to be really high up on what you’re actually thinking about you’re designing for in

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like an art practice you know i you do i am designing an experience you know talking about experiential art design

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um but often you’re looking for almost the opposite of efficiency it’s

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it’s about um bringing up questions is something that i often

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which links into like critical critical design practices where you know you aren’t

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designing to solve a question you’re you’re designing to pose a question which i think art really

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really brings up as well i think though you know in the kind of community organizing aspect um it’s it really does

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make me think about what platforms we are using and how that data is is um

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being shared or could be shared um like there’s obviously just like a

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depth of understanding around how platforms might use and incorporate data

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that you know i might be exposing users to community members too

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on both of those thoughts you know like they’re similar thought processes they usually end at a different place i guess

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part of why i was going for that question was the idea that the

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the platform in the end is what gains the most and the people who are

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connected to that platform on either side where it’s mostly about volume right

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honestly what what people get what the actual artists get from spotify for instance is minute in comparison to what

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what spotify itself gains so the and going back to that idea of

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bringing power back to the an agency uh and control back to the people who

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actually create the content and and the artistic product

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uh whether there is a subversion or a counterfoil way to look at these

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platforms that might benefit creators i think it’s all great you know like

Literacy and Critical Engagement

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there’s there’s ways that we can use these tools to our benefit and there’s ways that are not like

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i don’t think it’s like you know you as an artist using a platform is inherently bad

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um but understanding that these platforms aren’t made for the production or support of

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you know cultural products i think is one thing to think about um what you are getting out of these

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platforms is another thing to think about you know there is a massive volume um

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and so yeah i think that’s more around literacy and critical engagement with these things right um

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which is which is often you know i think one of the great

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benefits i think i talked a little bit about of this pandemic is like oh people are suddenly thinking about digital art

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production in a much more broad context you know like it’s not

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just the web artists who are like let’s make an online exhibition because you know we now need to sell paintings

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and sculptures and all these things on online but then the counter to that is

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very rapidly we’ve all had to take on these digital

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tools and platforms and so i think at the beginning i was having these like oh my goodness what about

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have people thought about what tools they’re using and like what they’re signing up for and what they might be giving away in doing that which i think

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is where there is some benefit in

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literacy and knowledge of how to actually build our own systems and tooling and know when

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know when it’s worthwhile to do that um because i think that’s one thing sometimes we

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we have a lack of resources like in all of our various arts arts organizing

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fashions and so we are often looking for the the quickest for the easiest or the cheapest um

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which needs to then also be weighed with you know the the

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um you know why is it why is it cheap

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or why are we getting paid less um you know but what’s what’s the payoff there

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very often it’s it’s a tricky thing to negotiate because very often the individual creators

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are working to make a living and to [Music]

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create yes and then to create the space around that to also have to be aware of some of

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the other forces that are working in on them is a very difficult

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there’s a lot of pressure in that sense yeah i mean i think with most things digital like these aren’t new

Digital Conversations

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conversations either it’s not like we suddenly have like a oh as artists we need to you know

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engage with these like uh capitalistic models of art production

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like that’s been happening since you know like you know forever i look when you know

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that most of our you know particularly western uh history of art is around you

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know who is paying for this then i will make it you know um

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leonardo da vinci sure as hell didn’t want to paint jesus um so yeah i think like the they’re just

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they’re just shifted conversations in a digital world you know it’s before we were making art museums you know private

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public um what what’s the difference between engaging in those different types of

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arts institutions these are all conversations that aren’t new um

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just moving a bit to what you’re doing with your various initiatives with the with the dmg but

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certainly with the damage labs that idea of community building and of

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being interdependent within those types of communities

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what is your what is your approach to that type of community building i think we’re approaching damaged labs it’s like

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it is a quite a you know in the industry

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business world but we’re bringing all of the thoughts of you know mutual aid and

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grassroots organizing that dmg has always had its core um and so you know we do want to come up

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with a way that these studios as they grow and build can support more of these studios

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being created you know we don’t want this program to be one cohort um we want to figure out a way that

35:10

this these cohorts give back to this community and we can grow this

35:15

this initiative which i think is really important which i think is a call out to that kind of

35:22

interdependence you know we we’re making damage labs because the existing systems for funding uh

35:30

dmg believed the existing systems for funding games was not um at best not productive at worst

35:37

harmful to marx people to engage with um and so we’re hopefully creating some

35:42

alternative to that um and you know in that we have to

35:49

figure out how we can actually spread that to be larger than just you know the 10 people we could let into

35:55

our first cohort and you know we did get many more applications than we thought like the need for this type of

36:01

programming was really felt when we put up the call and and everyone’s responses to this program has been yeah people do

36:08

see this lack as well it’s a an interesting proposition because on the one hand you want it to

36:14

be supported maybe by the structures that are already in place

36:19

while at the same time trying to find alternatives for those same structures yeah i mean again this is this is the

The Head The Hand The Heart

36:26

this is the navigating this the critique this is the element of literacy and experimentation and new new

36:34

models of doing um this kind of work i’m trying to formulate

36:40

a question here because what you are talking about reminds me of a recent

36:46

book the title of which escapes me but it talks

36:52

about the head the hand and the heart as

36:58

types of work that can be done and how for a long time

37:03

the head so the knowledge work has been prioritized at the cost of

37:09

the hard work so the the care and handwork um which refers more to the the direct

37:17

application of craft and and other types of um

37:23

work in that sense you seem to straddle all those three elements uh in your work is that

37:31

is that something that you i mean i think i do like i

Interdisciplinary Work

37:37

i value um interdisciplinary work

37:43

in a really like meaningful way um

37:48

i i often do have this tension between um like a love and respect for like what i

37:55

consider like deep craft knowledge um and i think through my career have

38:01

have had a hard time kind of you know i i care a lot for this like deep

38:07

and like when i say like deep crap it’s like one thing like this is the one thing that i’m an expert at you know i’m gonna make like as a kid i was like

38:14

i would love to be a jeweler i love jewelry and i like i’ve done jewelry it’s great

38:21

but there is an element of it that i’m just like there is so so many details of the the

38:30

medium of metal to learn before you can get to that point where you are

38:37

really playing with how you can get into that like

38:43

change how you’re manipulating that material and i think that goes for like so many different uh fields and i think

38:49

that’s like you know i guess you’re kind of talking about the handwork but i think that can apply as well to

38:55

you know i’m getting a phd in you know specifically this one area of this very specific

39:02

thing where i have often like bobbled between a lot of these things to greater or

39:08

lesser success um and i think it’s just something that i’ve always done like i’m a very broad

39:14

thinker and um i even going back i think i kind of call

39:20

it like when i started my degree i i started at the nascad

39:25

um on the east coast and uh the program that i was in was called intermedia which is like this kind of

39:33

um it’s this like a specific art practice which is very funny to have a full

39:38

degree program about kind of a uh

39:44

an art practice like a theoretical art framework almost

39:50

um but the whole idea being like it’s not about having two

39:57

mediums that you you do and are good at it’s about finding that that center point at where they actually

40:03

meaningfully connect um and i think that’s like just the mentality that i’ve often taken into

40:10

like the thing that i really enjoy is finding where all of these things meaningfully connect which is which is

40:15

different than something like mixed media which is like i’m going to paint and i’m going to sculpt and they will

40:21

have a conversation but i’m just i’m putting mediums together it’s like no actually i want to find the

40:27

connections between these things and kind of interrogate that well it mirrors sort of what what we see

40:34

in even your initiatives as well where many of these things become intertwined and

40:41

there is not really a clear one discipline uh that

40:46

that you’re trying to move forward so to close off the conversation and especially from

40:52

your point of view straddling so many different fields and points of entry

40:57

i’m curious how you might see this particular point in time with so many different influences

41:04

from climate emergency to social justice even outside of the current pandemic

41:09

what are the possibilities for artists and creatives at this point going forward

41:17

which role could artists and creators play i i’m not sure if it’s like

Conclusion

41:23

that much different than you know we’ve seen historically i think there’s

41:32

a few more opportunities to kind of share work more broadly um through like digital

41:38

mediums particularly you know across borders and all that stuff now

41:44

um but i do think there’s a you know that artistic work is about

41:50

looking at these things that are happening and processing them in some way or critiquing them drawing in questions

41:58

um allowing you know an expression of a response to these things

42:04

um i don’t i don’t know if that’s like a unique opportunity that we have right now

42:10

um but i think like these things are all very important for us to be grappling with to be discussing and

42:17

you know you can write an essay about climate change which is one way of like thinking about

42:23

processing it and you know artists are often making something to express um

42:29

you know similar ideas um which is just a different medium of engagement

42:35

uh than than than other forms you know um

42:40

you know scientific investigation and that’s another way of looking at these

42:46

things um this is the context that we’re all making work within um

42:52

and you know there’s there’s obviously ways of of you know making beautiful pieces of cultural um

42:58

significance that don’t really pull directly on these things but you can’t really ignore the context that anything

43:03

is made in and i me personally i think a more a more opinionated view on that is like

43:08

these are the things that artists should be engaging with and that’s where you know really meaningful art comes in but

43:14

that’s probably a more personal um you know my own my own preference

43:20

fantastic well thank you so much izzy for taking the time to have this conversation with us

43:27

and we’re really looking forward to what is going to happen with uh with the damaged labs and what wonderful projects

43:33

come out of that awesome well thank you so much thank you all right bye

43:53

and then [Music]

44:10

you

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