WEBVTT

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Radio impression.

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Like a weird Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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Welcome to Debian.

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So yeah, this is March eighteenth. We're talking to Sammy and Andy about the development of unseen sound and How New York City played a role in all of that.

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They've given consent for us to record audio and video. We've got the transcripts going to create that form of access afterwards and, yeah, it's for the groundworks.

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Archive.

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Yeah, I should have had something to follow up after that. Andy, we talked about.

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Like I can ask some questions where y'all can just start talking. Do you want me to just like poke with questions or?

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I think some prompts would be good and then you won't be able to stop us.

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Exactly.

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Yeah, I'm actually like. Sammy, would you mind just talking about a little bit about who you are, like a little bit of an introduction?

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What folks should know, for example, if they're coming to learn more about unseen sound.

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Totally. So I'm Sammy Veler. I am a co-founder of an artist on virtual space called New Art.

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City, which was founded in March of 2,020. And I've been the only like non technical team member of this gallery since we were founded.

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And so New York City is a tool which allows artists to make threed multiplayer websites without code.

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And we've chosen to run it more like an art gallery or an arts institution than a startup.

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A lot of what my job has been over the past almost 4 years, holy crap, is working with artists, educators, and institutions to work in virtual space because, I mean, Like, 80% of the people who have come through our doors have never made one before.

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And so this is kind of like access and action that's like we're trying to make a gate broken environment where people who have not had access to this tool get both cultural resources and strategies and support in addition to access to the tool itself.

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So there's a lot of inviting people in who are typically excluded from institutional environments. And so, I mean, and we were trying to be as accessible as possible in virtual space, which is somewhat rare, trying to be as accessible as possible in virtual space, which is somewhat rare.

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And a lot of that is working with. Artists like Andy too. Push like be more experimental about how we do access.

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We've had an alt text field on visual assets for a long time, but like alt text is not access for a long time, but alt text does not access.

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There aren't as many kind of hard and fast rules about what you can do in virtual space and it's like trying to be more experimental and more expansive in the way that we think about it.

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That makes a lot of sense. Especially in terms of like art. There's a lot of digital accessibility guidelines are focused on more like concrete.

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I need to communicate this piece of information versus.

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Yeah, art. That's been a challenge we've had for how you even. How much you describe what you describe.

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Yeah, I think what like Andy has taught me that it's like you don't have to be dry like you don't have to be succinct like there aren't actually rules for visual description.

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You can go. You like it it can be really long if you want it to be like it's I don't know I feel like it's the subjectivity that's beautiful.

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Absolutely. And then there's like this added layer of potential. Authorship over the person, like from the person that's creating access, which I've always found.

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Really interesting. Cause Andy and I've talked a lot about how sometimes access actually limits agency and choices.

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And thinking through. This was more in the sense of like if you're moving through. Like a digital space, sometimes the way they create access is like you have to go a certain path or a certain route.

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But I think there's also something where if you have kind of like a horizon of potential interpretations of an art work.

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Adding the description is going to inherently like limit that a little bit whether you mean to or not.

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But it could also open it up. Beyond the horizon of interpretation that a sighted person would have.

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And that's always been. Really interesting to me. I know that's just one form of access, but

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Well, I mean, that's kind of exactly our goal in the way that we're like documenting these virtual spaces through like one on one interviews with artists that it's trying to sort of form this synthesis between the interviewer who is coming to it and describing it without context and then the artist filling in context of how it was made and like what the intent is.

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How it was made and what the intent is. And I think it takes you on the journey of discovery, it's I think it takes you on the journey of discovery, it's not objective, it is a synthesis of 2 subjectivities.

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Yeah, we definitely have to talk more about methodology. Sounds like what you're, I didn't even realize how much what you're doing is like what we're trying to figure out on the groundwork side too.

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That's. It's really fascinating because it also speaks to the Okay, musicology is a discipline because we have so much technical knowledge around like music notation and analyzing.

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Music and things like that. We're often a decade or more behind a lot of similar humanities fields.

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In terms of conversations around even basic things like gender, like trying to work on stuff. It just, it takes us a bit longer to assimilate all that because we have so many things going on.

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That we are still often stuck on preferencing. The perspective of an outside observer.

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Who is somehow seen as like a bit more objective. So this is still a bit new to us. Challenging that in a way that I know a lot of other disciplines are, they're a bit farther along this process.

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But

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I like what you're saying about like the subjectivity and having the dual subjectivity instead of pretending that there is a wholly objective piece of it.

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Like what, we're benefiting by, for example. Letting disabled folks talk about their own art and letting disabled scholars look, you know, that kind of insider piece.

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Yeah, valuing that I think is really cool.

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Not where I expected to go. Sorry. And we should actually talk to you. Hi.

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It's suchale.

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Well, I mean, on that note. I think what's what's I love what we're talking about and what I what I think is great is when you consider what the actual experience is with unseen sound is that it there's a starting place.

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There's a place where you start. That doesn't necessarily need to be the place that you start.

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And you kind of wander around with no rules, no finish line, no puzzle, nothing other than to just explore.

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With the choice of listening if you want or reading if you want. And and that sort of thing so I don't know, I like the idea that There's just no fucking pressure and it allows for people to have an experience without

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I don't know, worrying about any kind of, you know. Objective and I think that's just like Yeah.

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There's something about games right that yeah enforces it's like 100% completion like I want to see everything.

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And that, yeah. Yeah.

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Every side quest. I'm very, very guilty of that. But yeah.

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Well, yeah, and that's why when people are like, oh, so it's a game, it's a video game, it's a whatever, it's an audio game and it's like I don't I often don't know how to Because like you do use a controller.

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It feels more like Dungeons and Dragons to me, but we've talked about that a lot.

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You know, well yeah, you know. Yeah.

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And like that's it's like the yeah the horizon of experience in Dungeons and Dragons is the mind.

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Right.

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And like this is true of every artwork, but it's like a lot more evident in a game in a game where yeah, that like the humans are the structure of play.

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And I mean Yeah.

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And Andy is kind of the DM here, right? Like he's created a world, he's created some potential paths and hooks.

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But like it's up to the participant to decide if they want to do that or not.

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Yes, that and that's the whole thing where it starts off with a little DM introduction and then like, there you go.

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Figure it out. Play around take a break. But it has all these mechanics of like game play, but it really is just If it's bait it really is going with the sense of just the new art dot city gallery.

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Perspective is like This is just a essentially like a an XR or whatever. Sound installation, right?

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Like this could all of these sounds all of these actions could exist in a gallery space and that kind of was the first intent.

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Of what unseen sound was going to be as an app. But now it's not a physical space.

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And it's just, a sound installation and not necessarily. A video game. You know what I mean?

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Do you are there things that we're. So I think we've talked a little bit about things that we're.

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Lost in the transition.

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Well, I know Andy and I have talked about this, but Can we talk about things that we're gamed to?

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Hmm

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Like, are there things that once you started collaborating with New York City dealing with kind of like the new reality of What was feasible?

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For the installation.

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Yes, yeah, I mean One of the reasons, well yeah, first off, it's Sammy knows what the fuck I'm talking about usually.

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So beautiful.

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And there's no like access. No, no access fatigue of like me having to explain things over and over like it was with the thought works team.

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But you know, so, so other than like, oh my god, I'm finally in good hands here.

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Which was nice was the fact that I, like Sammy and I had already kind of had these discussions about this kind of work before.

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Hi.

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You know before thought works got closed down and then I called upon her to save this project right And so, yeah, I mean, really.

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My approach was, hey, I know that this could, this could be done. On the platform. I'm familiar with it enough.

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The new thing that we did was the caption stuff and so like that was never even intended for the unseen sound app.

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Because I knew that it was getting way too far ahead and it was going to confuse the people working on it.

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Came to our city. I was like, hey, let's do this thing. But then I want.

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Captions to be triggered on screen that are connected to each sound that plays. And that's.

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That's what we ended up with. And, and that's the thing that I still don't really know the ins and outs and how that was done.

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And that's like what I really wanted to do was give Sammy the chance to describe that whole process because it's really fascinating and I also would like Sammy, if you could talk about how if how or where this approach exists otherwise online or in any kind of XR or digital medium because I'm not sure that it does.

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Right, and I think the gesture that came out of that of the captioning, I feel like it's really in the installation.

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Component of the piece. I think it really like ties it together that like the gesture is this sensorial disjunction, right?

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That the person who is controlling and hearing the sound is not seeing the screen and everybody else is seeing the screen and only seeing the descriptions of the sound.

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So it forms this kind of clear divide between like the agent of play and like who gets to see or experience what.

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And I think that was, that ends up really describing a lot of, because it's like, I think a lot of the curatorial process for this piece was like.

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Shit talking with Andy for an hour and like that was what our meeting would be. That's I think it's like yeah the way that I want to curate right that it's like you know like cool ante to your extended practice.

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Yeah. So I mean, I think, I think that is something that was really gaining.

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Oh, that's so much. Okay. If you ever need a short bio. That should be your short play.

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I have thought about it right now. It's ranch wife, but make it cyber. But I think the other thing that's ranch life, but make it cyber.

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But I think the other thing that was cool about this approach is that, like, obviously XR is so, so like default retinal.

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People think that it's like in a headset and it's like wow wow, dazzling.

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I think something about the blue screen and like obviously a reference to Derek, D's Blue.

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And It like. It's yeah to like produce a non visual virtual experience I think is this like really brilliant kind of refusal of what is expected of XR.

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And and and the blue screen like you had said the reference to the film because that color blue was chosen based on like the visual impairment of the director.

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Which is also You know, very similar to mine, but also, and I think Sammy, we had also talked about this.

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Was you know when you plug on a TV or a monitor and there's no device or there's no signal it just fucking goes blue right there's no more static TV snow like there was when things were analog.

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But yeah, so, so it's like, well. Is it is it working? Am I getting what I'm supposed to get?

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And it's like, yeah, you're not getting the visual signal that you're expecting because.

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You're sighted. So screw you. But like.

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That definitely happened in the gallery space.

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Oh yeah?

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Yeah.

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I wish I wish we had a camera.

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Yeah, and that's an amazing thing to observe that they're like the, yeah.

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Cause people thought that it wasn't that it wasn't working. I love it. I love it.

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And I did a I did a performance last Summer of me on a stage with a cane performing with different canes and they were supposed to have a video projection.

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But it never went on so it was just the blue screen and it was projected behind me on this huge screen and so I would just go up and play with it, cast my shadow.

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All that sort of thing and this is like no signal on the bottom right or something like that. And that and that's kind of when I was like, oh, so the double meaning.

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For the color. Chosen for unseen sound is The No Signal and Derek Jarman, right?

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So it's like no signal. Visual impairment where you're your eyes are going blue because you're not getting the visual signal that you need.

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And so. I'm so glad that people had that experience where they're, you know, so you're saying that people were like, well, is it working?

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Yeah

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That's fucking brilliant. I hadn't even thought of that because this is the first time I think I've heard of anybody that.

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That experience that anybody had, so that's wonderful.

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It reminds me of

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I love fooling people.

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And I think this is like This is not all that different from like when you have a headset installed in a gallery.

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Right.

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Oh yeah.

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Like all of that access friction, it also happens to sighted people. When we had the VR installation at, at grey area, there had to be a person who was the attendant of the headset.

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All day long to get people into it. It's like the friction is so evident in all of these things.

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Just like stripped all of the other stuff away and just like, yeah, played with the friction.

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And that's the thing with like the head mounted displays is that from as a blind person historically.

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Whatever if they fit if they fit over your glasses if you could if your prescription is whatever but the fact that can't really operate them.

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Like what's within that you might be able to turn them on and turn them up. You know, unless it's one of the like the Apple Vision Pro, you have no access to do it.

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Like you can't even get the fucking Oculus you can't even say like Hey, Oculus opened up the YouTube app.

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Like you can't do that successfully and you can't. Move a cursor around, like there's no access function in that or the vibe or like whatever other crap is out there.

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To say all of this default, yeah, default, body subject. It's crazy.

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Yeah, it's all default. Yeah. Yeah, and when we did that thing at Grey Area, for the Krypttech metaverse lab.

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I instantly like the people that were you know demoing the stuff that worked for HTC. I knew that they weren't gonna have any answers or Solutions for access.

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So like as soon as they approached me, like, do you want to try it on? And it's like, I give you 5 s.

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We get it on and they're like, okay, move your hand. That'll get the cursor to click on the center and I was like, no, here you go.

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Yeah

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Because I know that if I can't just press the button on the controller and start the program I have to actually move the cursor with my hand and find the cursor blah blah blah then I knew that every other step was going to be more insulting.

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Right and and that you know and all these other things I was like well do you have this is this the thing and they're like I'm not sure it's like you come to demo in an accessibility conference and you don't know.

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Is no knock against that person, but absolutely about that company. And it's like, why would I want it even?

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Definitely. Yeah, definitely structural.

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Yeah. Yeah, it's like why would I even want to create anything for this A-list piece of tech?

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This company has had years to put time into this shit. And they haven't. So it's like, so not only is it an inaccessible thing for blind folks, but it's also people worry about, you know, just the headset design and like.

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Totally.

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You still still still still have this. Learning curve of people understanding VR, let alone AR, which is something that is when you're using your phone is way more accessible and easy to just activate, but it's still something that people think is just for Snapchat.

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Or Instagram, right? Or whatever. They don't realize like you know, when they're using QR code, they're kind of like using this sort of shit, whatever it is.

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And so I can still imagine how Even if the head mounted display even if the program was accessible and you still to put on a headset that people would still be like, I don't think so. I don't know.

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Oh, I don't like it. That kind of thing. But then like throwing headphones on a table and then having a monitor on the wall is just kind of like look we're all familiar with this shit it's all as plain First off, I describe it.

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If you're blind, you get a description of what this damn thing is. But if you walk in the room, you kind of figure out there's 2 components.

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Yeah

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And then you wait, right? And it's like. There's nothing tricky to do and that, and you know, that's from the get-go that like from the you know, making sure that the table was adjustable to a proper height for a wheelchair for a wheelchair for the controller being easy to navigate.

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And then like the the headphones in the headset you know I got a little headphone app with one big fucking knob and that's all you need and it just doesn't take up any space.

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Here is like hitting down.

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And you know and then the headphones and then so Yeah, and then there's a bench where people can sit and watch the monitor.

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Because benches need to be in more galleries and then if you make it part of the piece, they can't move it.

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So.

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Yeah, I will say almost if not every piece of furniture that you could sit on like any seating.

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Nice. Almost all of it, if not all of it, was basically provided by the artists as part of their exhibitions.

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Yeah, I mean I yeah

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Which I found really, really interesting. And it's you know it's possible but here I'm misunderstanding something like maybe because you all had seating they didn't feel the need to provide any other seating but I found it really interesting.

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No.

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Hmm

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No, but I think it's, it's, it's, I think that it's something that like every disabled artist notices about or it's like and it's yeah just from all of my experience, like every disabled artist notices about it, or it's like, and it's, yeah, just like from all of my experience with these, it's like.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, like I have a roll later that doesn't have a seat and that's a choice I intentionally made because it makes it lighter and easier to move.

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It's not the one I had at the gallery that was a rental, but I like having a basket and I'm I'm tall and I have white hips and most of the time the relators aren't comfortable with that anyway.

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But I remember, actually having the thought when I was there and got this rental, like, oh, I'm glad that the one they sent has a nice wide seat.

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Because there might not be seating in the gallery and then I was like oh no no I remember the artist saying they were providing seating like these were actual thoughts I had when I were providing seating.

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Like these were actual thoughts I had when I arrived there.

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Yeah. Yep. Yeah, like.

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Yeah. And it's like, yeah, it's kind of frustrating that it was really kind of on the artist to do this that it was really kind of on the artist to do this that it would have been on the artist to do this, that it would have been a battle if the artist hadn't made it on the artist to do this, that it would have been a battle if the artists hadn't made it part of their

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pieces.

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Yeah, and what we would have been stuck with are those like institutional gray chairs that no one wants to sit on that are gross and ugly and hard to move and that sort of thing.

00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:40.000
So it's like I picked out the bench and the table and I think the chair, the chair made, I don't know if I picked out the chair, I think they were like, hey, here's a chair that we have or some shit.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:48.000
But yeah, everybody else basically had to end up. Figuring out their own, their own.

00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:56.000
Or they had the choice of what, you know, seating they wanted and originally it was, you know, they were like, oh, it's going to come out of your.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:01.000
You know, your project budget and we're like, hey, no, we thought the gallery had this shit so you guys can find the money elsewhere.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:11.000
And they did. But like. Yeah, it's just goes to show that it's a small gallery, but they're still not providing enough.

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:27.000
Space to sit and enjoy the the work. Or just rest your damn body, right? But so you know that and that was like I want to be comfortable when I do stuff when I experience stuff.

00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:45.000
I want to spend time with things if I want to right and so it's like by Providing a place to sit to do that and then also another space for people that either want to watch the monitor or want to wait to get to the headphones.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:52.000
They're not just like milling about and making somebody nervous or they're also just not on their feet if they don't want to be on their feet.

00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:05.000
And so yeah, the whole the whole time was you know the The the goal was to separate the access but then also have that access match the same energy as the piece.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:16.000
You know what I mean? I mean, the sound, the sounds were created. First except for one one little section and then the descriptions were written afterwards.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:30.000
And the one exception is there's a part where the the text is like the caption is the text that I used.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:44.000
As a script for the voice over to speak. So there's like, there's a text script.

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:45.000
Oh my god, yeah, the screen, that's So buddy

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:57.000
Of you know a bunch of Just like vocal formants and sounds like that so like the letter O repeated over and over again so the screen reader would go Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah, so we would do that, but that was written before the recording of the screen reader, but everything else all of the captions and descriptions were written.

00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:06.000
After the sounds were composed and created. You know, there's definitely the captions are in reaction to that.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:28.000
But what I think is fun and hopefully was fun where the people that watched it before they heard it. If they went in and when they heard it, they could distinguish like, oh that was I don't know, whatever, putting the cork back in the bottle sound or whatever the hell some of those words were.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Yeah.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:31.000
Or the really disturbing piece about the crabs or, you know, the air vent I think was the most obvious.

00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Like the air vent. Section was recordings of air vents and everything else was really kind of either you know, something I created.

00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:47.000
With a synth or something that I manipulated as a field recording or some of the, yeah.

00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:49.000
Yeah, there were some cane sounds in there too.

00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:54.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like the cane sounds as a human element, but not everybody knows those sounds.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:02.000
So that was pretty funny. But yeah, the Air Fat was just kind of like the one thing that wasn't synthesizer or process really.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:12.000
But you know, like, and so. It was great and you know another cool element to this was the controller that Sammy built.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:13.000
Do you want to talk about that? Because I love that thing.

00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:32.000
Right, I mean that's what I was like kind of bracketing as we were talking about all of the frictions of getting in a fucking frictions of getting in a fucking headset that like the goal with the frictions of getting in a fucking headset that like the goal with the controller was to have a knob or button per function, that there was no extraneous control surface whatsoever that as soon as you are touching

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:45.000
it, you are using it. And that's and I think that I mean that's like Something that we're working towards a lot right now that that was kind of my first little experiment with trying to do this, but that's going to be.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:50.000
More common in our physical installations that we're not using a keyboard or a mouse or even a game controller.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:57.000
Like the next one that I'm building is using literally the same joysticks that you would use to control a wheelchair.

00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.000
Hi, I think I know as a disabled person what you're getting at here, but I'm gonna ask anyway.

00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:16.000
Can you explain why that's so much more beneficial? Because I know there's a lot of folks that will go, oh, let's use a technology and devices that are already made that people already have access to and experience navigating.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:26.000
But I agree with you there's a huge benefit to having things with like more limited, you know, every everything has a purpose kind of thing.

00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:28.000
Can you talk about that a little bit more?

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:43.000
Yeah, I mean, we've been thinking about this a lot. I think there are a few things that like a keyboard and mouse like WASD and Mouse like it supposes a specific kind of experience with games in the first place.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:45.000
And then something, something that you need to operate with 2 hands that has to be flat on a table is also kind of problematic.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:58.000
One of the first design considerations was Andy was like, what if somebody could roll up in their chair and and just put this in their lap.

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:07.000
And so that kind of mobility was a factor. And we also wanted to constrain the axes of movement.

00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:11.000
So usually you can move and look in New York City, but we want to just make this X and Y.

00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:22.000
So reducing that to a single knob rather than having a game controller where there are a bunch of buttons that you press that have no output that ends up being a lot more confusing.

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Okay. But then at the same time, we input our own confusion in the controller because there are 2 buttons, but it doesn't really say what the buttons do.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:36.000
One of the buttons will advance you to the next way point in the scene and one of them will take you back to the beginning.

00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:43.000
But people are just like keep pressing them and like not it's not quite no what they were doing.

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:47.000
Oh, but but the thing is is I did put that in the description.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:51.000
It was in the description, but like I asked Andy if he wanted to label them. Yeah, yeah.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:56.000
Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, no, did not want. Yeah.

00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:57.000
No.

00:28:57.000 --> 00:28:58.000
Yeah.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Oh yeah, so not labeled on the controller. Yeah, there was 1 point where there was like a Sticker or something with a QR code on the table next to it But something happened and the controller ended up on top of the QR code.

00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:09.000
Sucking perfect.

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:12.000
For a period of time? I think that's what it was, but like you couldn't because I remember texting Andy.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:22.000
I don't see the QR thing anywhere unless There was also one when you're like leaving the exhibit which is where they had all the text about what was happening.

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:27.000
It was by the door as you leave. But then I remember text to you. Nope, never mind. Just kidding.

00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:28.000
I found it. It was just like somehow stuff had been set on top of other things, probably while folks were using it.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:48.000
Yeah. Yeah. There was there was a code that was supposed to be in that room and then on the table and then I think originally there was also supposed to be the like whatever the wall text was and the instructions were supposed to be also in print on that table.

00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:53.000
But they wanted to do like really large print bullshit whatever and would have taken up so much space.

00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:01.000
I think you can put a QR code. There and then you know braille the thing if you want But yeah, I mean the fact that it ended up.

00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:20.000
And it end up being hidden by the controller. Doesn't surprise me, but hey. You know, it's just the 2 buttons you, you know, you press one and it brings you to the beginning you press the other one and it transports you through each scene if you will and it's like not the worst thing in the world if you press them So, you know, but at the same time, it's kind

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:27.000
of like, well, how does a blind gamer figure out how to play a game. You know, playing smash bros. What are the controls?

00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Oh, there's like 19 different things. All right. So I press X and then I know it's punching.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:39.000
I press Y and I know it's kicking, like that kind of thing. Like I'm used to pressing buttons until I find out what it is.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:44.000
Like when I look at an analog synthesizer. Like I was playing a Moog grandmother.

00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:59.000
Couple weeks ago. And was like, I know what this does. This is laid out a little differently than what I'm used to, but hey, oh I turned that knob, okay, I know what that is, you know, so it's like sealing around and not reading an instruction book because I can't.

00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:07.000
But like being able to easily work my way around just like by fucking with stuff and you know being a fidget.

00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:17.000
I guess that's that's my little tangent on that but that's why I was kind of like yeah I don't want letters or Braille on the thing because I want kind of like, yeah, I don't want letters or Braille on the thing because I want somebody to figure it out.

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:25.000
If they want to, you know, and really it's like those buttons are there if you do get bored and you get to like you know, move around all you want.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:34.000
But also if you're having trouble with the joystick itself you can you know getting out of where you are like if you get caught or you're stuck and frustrated you just hit the transport

00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:44.000
And it's like regarding whether or not you know what they do, they like they will take you, pressing them will take you back kind of in into the zone of the exhibition.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:53.000
Yeah, and that's, you know, and that's something that a lot of game makers have been considering for accessibility lately and I say lately like very very very recently.

00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:01.000
When you know like accessibility has become like an award worthy like category at game awards and that sort of thing.

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:08.000
Where like developers that are either disabled or not are realizing like, oh, we can do really kind of cool shit with this.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:20.000
You know, and then especially since like the the easy hard expert level dynamic of games like you know we're like the real game bros are like if you're not doing it on expert level then you know Yeah, yeah.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:21.000
Yeah, like the Dark Souls.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:22.000
The games are getting look easy now. Yeah.

00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:30.000
Where it's like, easy mode is fucking cool and easy mode is accessible and like With everything.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:31.000
Oh man. Cause then it's like Yeah.

00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:45.000
It took me forever to give myself permission to like Turn down the mode when I was when I started losing like dexterity in my hands Although the funniest thing was when I finally upgraded my computer to a computer that should have been playing the Witcher games instead of one that most certainly should not have.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:50.000
Huh.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:56.000
Yeah, man.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:57.000
Huh. Huh.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:04.000
I realized, 90% of this was actually the delay in my computer processing. My keys and it used to crash if there were too many enemies on screen so I'd have to like turn down the difficulty because it yeah but no I mean it's It's really interesting that even someone like me that usually is like HIP with disability. I, you know, usually used to it, right?

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:12.000
Like it's funny how games will sneak that internalized, and back in.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:14.000
Yeah, and then yeah, yeah, and No, right exactly.

00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:25.000
He was like, nobody knows what I'm doing. Like these, because I usually play single player stuff too, cause I won't even talk about having a very feminine sounding voice.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:26.000
Oh, yep.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:41.000
And you know multiplayer games that use voice stuff but Yeah, it's funny like it feels like cheating even privately and I really like this feature of what you did too because I don't picture.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:42.000
Oh right, right.

00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:43.000
I use the language of picturing things in my mind, but I actually can't. That's more of a scripts that I've picked up.

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:53.000
So it was really, really helpful for me. Not have to worry about that. I think the only way I could have navigated that was if I could hear.

00:33:53.000 --> 00:34:00.000
They could hear faintly. Directionally where the next room was. I think that would have been my only hope.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:06.000
But having the teleport button made it so much. Better. For me personally.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:10.000
You know,

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:26.000
Yeah, no, I'm that's and that's something that we you know like the way that the sound is also designed in New Art City is different than how I often would like compose for.

00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:41.000
Like maybe like a unity game or even just for like a multi-channel. Soundpiece and so I wanted to I would love Sammy to talk more about that but then I also wanted to say something more about about the game shit.

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:46.000
And like access where it's like And I kind of want just go on record because this is fun.

00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:54.000
I don't know if you guys have considered it, but we talk about like you know, what like what level difficulty and that sort of thing and like.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:05.000
Remember when like the last of us too was like the big access thing blind people can finally play games because they had all of these amazing you know, little access interventions and stuff.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:13.000
They still chose a bloody gory zombie game that's still kind of tough. To play and then you have to like Learn this whole new rule book on how to play it excessively, right?

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:37.000
So it's like they added all this stuff. So you could do it but they didn't think like universally of like how could this actually work without us having to throw all these access bells and whistles in there.

00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:38.000
Well, yeah, I'm like.

00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:44.000
Like make it make it plain right but but they couldn't so a lot of blind people were like well this is great but fuck this you know like I don't I don't want to deal And then as an as an aside, like originally they had all those like the cinematic cut scenes, which they didn't audio describe.

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:45.000
So I was like, So it's like, what the fuck are your motives?

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Huh. But you know this experimental said you didn't do the basic shit

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:50.000
Which is so funny because that's That's like the easiest. Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:36:03.000
Yeah. Well, and they updated it and they added it but it was like the people that were disabled and blind that worked on this game?

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:04.000
Right.

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Were testers, not creators. And that's like one of the fucking thing. The guy who was a tester is this amazing gamer.

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:14.000
But you know, he's really into games and I'm like, cool, cool. Yeah.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:15.000
Yeah, yeah.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:20.000
Yeah, you need people that have been excluded from playing games at all. Cause there is something about like what do you even have the right way because I don't like zombie games.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:21.000
No. No.

00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:25.000
I mean, I don't really understand why I like the Witcher, but that's a whole other thing.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:26.000
Yeah.

00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:28.000
I don't understand why I like the Witcher is so misogynist but anyway. Like it.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:30.000
Yeah.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:39.000
Yeah, no, I see I see what you're getting at with the there's like who has the right to and when do we have the right to intervene?

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:40.000
Right. Right. And then, yeah, and so, I mean.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:45.000
Like it's still very after the fact. And then who even among your community has the right to weigh in.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:37:02.000
Exactly. I mean, it makes sense that you would get a gamer who knows all of that stuff and, you know, and then could also help promote it from a gameer standpoint, but Yeah, like I just remembered so many people getting psyched about it and then being like Dude, I don't want to play this game.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:11.000
Whereas like something like Animal Crossing. Lot of blind people play because every element in that game has a different sonic like signifier.

00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:13.000
So it's like this creature makes this sound. This land makes this sound. This action makes this sound.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:27.000
So you can play it like you don't even have to be visual at all with it. But if you are visually impaired, you could see some of it like the sounds make that context.

00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:38.000
Work for you and like, yeah, and so a lot of people use that and it's like I don't know if Nintendo thought of that but they kept it up and it's just kind of like a cool way of doing stuff.

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:39.000
But anyway, the yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:46.000
We have like all the Pokemon had their own little sound too. I'm thinking back to even like earlier Nintendo games.

00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:47.000
Interesting.

00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:51.000
But so yeah, and so it's, Like that whole thing, like who gets to do it?

00:37:51.000 --> 00:38:03.000
It's like I always talk about The notes on blindness VR experience which is like that what's the guy's name, Hall, right?

00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:09.000
That guy wrote Touching the Rock and the Notes on Blindness. You guys know I'm talking about?

00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:10.000
Yeah, I forget his name, cause it's basic. Yeah. Right. But so.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:15.000
We write about it in the article. So we can just reference everyone to the article. No, I can pull it up and look real quick.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:26.000
They made a movie based on this man's like micro cassette recordings that he did when he was losing his sight and he was losing his sight kind of rapidly and it was all new to him.

00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:45.000
And those recordings of him are really endearing, you know, and it's like it's it's a little bit of acceptance and then fear and then just real-time journaling as to like holy shit what's going on with my with my eyes now it's as, Blindness is a spectrum and everything.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:53.000
This guy's experience is actually very different than a lot of other people, even people that had like that same symptoms and stuff.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:12.000
And so for a while though, this is what like his way became standardized. Like Oliver Sacks was like, this is the way that blind people feel because this guy is like forgetting what everything looked like when he couldn't remember what things looked like anymore and that's everything and so sacks pushed that for a while and that was wrong.

00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:20.000
Right? And so what became out of that was a film about the guy and it was called Notes on Blindness and it included.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:36.000
Some of that stuff and then some other. Stuff and when it was screened the film was screened it had audio description right it was blind friendly, but then when they made the VR or XR experience or whatever where you know you put on a headset.

00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:42.000
And you kind of relive his notes, right? There's like his recordings and then there's like, so there's his speech.

00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:50.000
And then there's Sound Design made that matched what he was talking about like if he was in the park or if he was by the water or whatever.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:56.000
So You know, and this thing came out, I don't know, almost a decade ago.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:05.000
And was heralded as this great simulation of blindness and then this really great example of spatial audio in . R.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:13.000
And it didn't that part didn't impress me at all and you know I'm just kind of a jackass where I can be a dick like, yeah, no, next.

00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:18.000
But the whole fucking thing Yeah, cause it's like, holy shit, who designed this? This is whack, right?

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:33.000
This could, this isn't even like interesting sonically and it could be tremendously but then at the same time it wasn't made for me because it's on an oculus or whatever, you know, whatever was around.

00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.000
Yeah.

00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:37.000
Like what what uses it accessible VR experience on a device I can't even fucking turn on

00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:45.000
And not only that when I would have, because I have like, we have 2 oculi. We've got 2 oculuses here, right?

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:54.000
One I bought and one I got from work and it's like They're both dope, but I, you know, I have to have like my son or my wife or whoever like set it up.

00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:07.000
So Baron set up. The notes on blindness thing for me and there's text. And there's like controls and like you know other visual prompts to do stuff.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:13.000
But it's not read to you. It's not accessible. It's not meant for me.

00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:14.000
Yeah.

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:24.000
Like the film had audio description, right? That's cool. Like an A, but like This thing here didn't have that and if it did I didn't know how to turn it on and it was just kind of like people bring that up in the industry as like this wonderful spatial audio.

00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:34.000
Example and I just like no don't even just don't platform this bullshit anymore because they've had years to update it and they didn't because they don't care but they keep getting all this credit for this.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:43.000
And so I wanted to make sure that with this piece with unseen sound that we didn't have any of that bullshit, right?

00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:49.000
The one thing, so I say I don't want to have any of that bullshit.

00:41:49.000 --> 00:42:04.000
But the one thing as it is now, I think you can't activate the, you can't read the captions easily with a screen reader, but you can.

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:14.000
Like I've done it. Where I can access what the captions read with the screen reader, but it's still doesn't change when you hop from one caption to the next.

00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:25.000
Or when one appears or not. So if the blind person isn't necessarily privy to what those captions are, which is fine with me.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:33.000
Right, but at the same time when I get comments like that that caption was really funny and like oh I don't want people to lose that on the joke.

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:53.000
Right, so that's something and I don't even know if Sammy and I have even had that conversation yet of making that possible, but it's also One thing that's great about this archive Groundworks is doing is that will have those sounds and that text available for people to cross reference and that sort of thing.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:10.000
You know, you can lead somebody. To that resource. Yeah, I forgot. I don't what I really I forgot that was good I asked Sammy about the sound and some of the

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:15.000
Limitations because we just kind of jumped right into this. There's things that I Time I was crazy.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.000
The timeline is crazy. I feel like we've I think

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:20.000
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:27.000
Should we back up and talk about the timeline a little bit, like how Sammy and everyone else there got involved in the first place.

00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:32.000
Ha ha!

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.000
Yeah, 2023. Yeah.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:41.000
Yeah, yeah, so in March of Last year, I found out that 23 that thought works arts was disbanding and they were the people working on the app with me for a year and I didn't even Yeah, yeah, my cryptic residency site.

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:45.000
And your residency site. I think was the, yeah.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:52.000
And so I didn't get any notification. I just started seeing that people were leaving the Slack channel and I'm like, what the fuck?

00:43:52.000 --> 00:44:02.000
And so I emailed one guy, Andy Mcwilliams, who was running the whole thing and email got sent back and then I contacted Vanessa, Leonardo and was like, what?

00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:07.000
And then, oh yeah, whoops, it looks like they're out of business and like, well.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:15.000
The the thing immediately I was in fucking Mexico City in a hotel trying to finish up work and I had to deal with this and I was like, you know what?

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:36.000
I'm just gonna ask Sammy, which is because we had already had this kind of conversation. About like what would an Andy Slater New York City space look like like an exhibition and so because I had been working with them on access for At least a year at that point.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:37.000
Was this about a different piece? Or just like a potential future thing.

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:50.000
So we already had these conversations in this cool relationship and stuff. So. Yeah. Well it was it was something Yeah, potential like what would an all sound experience look like at New York City?

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:59.000
And so that was already in my head and although like the original unseen sound, the thought works version was going to be in in AR.

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:19.000
Thing that only worked in that space. A site specific to that space where wander around through a space and activate these sounds knowing that wasn't anything that we could do either quickly or you know at least with what New York City has.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:26.000
Then, you know, it was like, well, let's just make it. A New York City space and we'll put it in here.

00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:33.000
We kind of already know, I already know what I want it to be and what I think it can be because I know how the thing works.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:38.000
And then yeah, so it was like what in March I think I was like, Hey, do you want to do this?

00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:47.000
And I can give you all my production money. And then I think we actually started finally working in maybe late July or August.

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:49.000
Does that sound right?

00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:59.000
Yeah, and then it was just like straight like it opened in like September and then we went straight into making Nats piece for a gray area, which was late into making Nats piece for a gray area, which was early October.

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
So.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:05.000
Right. So yeah, it was just like I used sounds that I already had like things from my library.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:17.000
There was nothing that was created specifically for this other than like My voice, the things where I say access, denied access buffering, and then the in the introduction, everything else was.

00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:27.000
Preexisting and I formatted some of that work. To be. Easily spatialized.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:30.000
Yeah, good.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:31.000
Yeah, access denied.

00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:34.000
I just I cackled. At the opening when I heard the access buffering access denied thing. I don't know if you were around for that, Sammy.

00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:35.000
It was, it was amazing. Like I just.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:36.000
Mmm.

00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:37.000
Yeah, it was awesome.

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:39.000
I did, I, yeah.

00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:42.000
And that was, yeah, that was a last-minute thing that like I put in one side of decided like I'm not going out to this opening.

00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:53.000
This is too fucking much. I, that's when I think I said, here Sammy put these in and you know.

00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:55.000
And that sort of thing. And so.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:01.000
I think like half of the artists like did not show up in protest.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:06.000
Yeah, yeah, like me and me and Carmen did not. The 2 blind people were like,

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:07.000
Yeah.

00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:13.000
Yeah, the other 3 were there. Yeah, you and Carmen. We're not, that's correct.

00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:14.000
Yeah.

00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:19.000
Yeah, like they we just yeah Yeah. Yeah, because you know, they didn't install our ramp.

00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:34.000
This is that they didn't fucking care. So anyway, yeah, so like this was all stuff that I had and some some in which some of the sources were for installations that I had.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:42.000
Exhibitions and stuff that I had like planned for 2,020 that just never opened and so I got to find the use these things in in a space.

00:47:42.000 --> 00:48:02.000
And so Yeah, but you know, originally the like The way that I would have approached this, using like, Unity Game Engine would be using like different types of files and different ways of specializing the sound.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:22.000
Using shit that's already like exists like in unity or google resonance and that sort of thing so when looking at the New York City thing where some of the Some of the mechanisms that I Just assumed we're there because, don't know, everything else had it.

00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:30.000
They're not in place yet and you know I think Maybe there wasn't a need to try to get this stuff done.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:37.000
Maybe it's kind of hard to. Maybe it's a huge ask when you're working with like the way that New York City.

00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:47.000
Is created with and that sort of thing. But like what we did was really in the scheme of things really a basic.

00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:52.000
Way of doing it, not like basic like. You know, whatever, but a really nice and plain.

00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:54.000
Like a wiker like me with a pumpkin spice latte.

00:48:54.000 --> 00:49:05.000
Yeah, right. Yeah, it's not pumpkin spiced latte based. No, you know, it was just like a A general sort of thing, an easy practical way of doing this where like I Yeah.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:14.000
But that's like the disabled way, right? Like we wanna find The simplest, most straightforward, energy and resource efficient, it's gonna work.

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:21.000
We don't have to follow the same everyone else's doing it. Yeah. Okay.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:22.000
Although I don't nothing about technology. So I'm curious like how it works in the first place.

00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:27.000
Right, right, and you know, and, and that also. Right. Well

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:29.000
Or as much as you want to share about how it works. I don't know what's proprietary.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:35.000
Well, yeah, I'll I'll talk just about a little bit and then like Sammy can get into the into the tech stuff.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:41.000
So Like there were even things where the refile formats that I wanted to use that. Were going to be kind of a pain in the ass to implement from what I remember on such a tight schedule.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:55.000
So, you know, instead of like having all of these you know, a really intricate sort of triggers and things like that.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:17.000
We didn't have time to you know, really get to that sort of thing. So we just kind of made it where as you approach a sound or on the back end like a sound file you are you know the the volume of it increases as you get closer to it so does the positionality between you know, the stereo field.

00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:25.000
And you know, that's that's that's a way that games have been doing it for for decades, but.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:40.000
Since we're approaching it from like this psycho geography like sonic drifting kind of thing it's implemented in a completely different way than like Doom, what have, you know, whatever.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:46.000
And so it was really cool. And, you know, none of the sounds really mean anything either.

00:50:46.000 --> 00:51:01.000
So you're just kind of forced to just experience them. That doesn't mean that you need to have the, you know, the you know, remove the ancient artifact and the boulder comes rolling at you.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:02.000
You don't need to put anything in your inventory.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:24.000
Because we didn't need it because Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, exactly. But you know, it's like down the line like some cool Easter egg shit whereas like if you do walk in one little place that triggers something completely different and you're only gonna find these little tiny little events and shit if you really spend time in there and you know what the hell you're doing but like at this point

00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:37.000
There's there is no point in really doing that although maybe moving with another piece or maybe even at some point updating this like having newer, not newer, but like.

00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:52.000
Separate ideas of these kind of. More decision-making things like if I do this this thing over here happens as opposed to I'm walking to this and I'm hearing it and becoming immersed in it.

00:51:52.000 --> 00:52:06.000
So those are things that because of that tight that time schedule like oh All of that cool shit. Or all of that hard stuff we could get to that later because what we have now is still pretty fucking cool and no one's gonna fucking know.

00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:20.000
Hmm.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:21.000
It's just a website.

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:23.000
Right. It's like, no, no one's gonna know. Somebody could put this on and be like, oh, are you using all of the new $9,000 blah blah blah you know plug-ins for this and that sort of thing and it's like nope But you wouldn't know because you're not you're not looking at shit, right?

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:27.000
So it's like You know, art is what you get away with. But that's not so.

00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:30.000
Yeah.

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:36.000
And another thing though is like, you know, and I talked about this in the article is how like shit like Max MSP.

00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:50.000
Is not accessible and those are the kind of like cool like decision making and like you know all these like chance elements and these this sort of like really ridiculously high level chain of events and things like that.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:53:08.000
That's what I do want to create. I long to create those kind of things. You know when given a platform to do that I want to take full advantage of it but it's still like so time consuming and I don't know if any any of those weird ideas that I think about.

00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:15.000
You know, if they're even possible with the way that the New York City like Creator.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:28.000
It's laid out right now, right? There's still a lot of mystery for that. To me, because We decided not to get too deep into it because time, time, time, we got this fucking thing done in a matter of weeks.

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:51.000
And I'm so happy with it and it's just it's fucking perfect, but it was just the fact that like and given all this earlier time to do a run-on cryptime still had to throw this shit together but luckily I had people that I love and can rely on and trust working on it so you know Second A.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:53.000
Let's talk about the sound, Sammy.

00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:58.000
Yeah, I mean, It's I think it

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:08.000
New York City uses kind of gaming vocabulary but this it's like Andy said earlier this is this is installation art. It's like Andy said earlier, this is installation art.

00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:10.000
It's like installation art. It's like installation art that runs in the browser.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:27.000
But it's it's like you're You're not expected to have an inventory or a goal when you go to see an art installation, or a goal when you go to see an art installation, but it's just like sound installation, but it's just like sound installation, but it's just like sound installation, but it's just like sound installation, in particular, is extremely resource intensive in a gallery

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:42.000
space. So it's like, I think what's cool about New York City is that it opens this tactic up to New York City is that it opens this tactic up to different media and it opens this tactic up to different media and it inverts all of these tactic up to different media and it inverts all of these paradigms of resource intensity and institutional backing.

00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:53.000
What Andy and I did with this piece is like what New York City is designed to do. The captions were like a new thing but we didn't have to customize anything to make the sound part work.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:55:03.000
It's arranged in a visual editor and I think the coolest part of the process is like Andy sent me these silver on white maps of how he wanted the areas to look.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:16.000
And then I just used those as a jig to place all of the audio objects and we added a new feature to visualize the audible radius of each of the things.

00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:29.000
It overlapped properly. I mean, just play tested it a bunch of times and then, Concurrent audio is also, it's, it's like, it's not.

00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:43.000
That trivial in terms of like computational power. So we ran up against some limitations of, when you're triggering the audio instead of just kind of looping it ambiently, like we had to be a bit strategic about performance on that.

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:51.000
But. Yeah, it was it's it was it kind of exactly the way New York City is meant to be used honestly.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:56:00.000
Which everything you're saying feels. But it resonates with me very deeply as someone with chronic health disabilities and thinking about like how to maximize what you've got.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:09.000
And that like very particular way of. Thanking and moving through the world and like applied to this sort of situation.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:14.000
It does seem like that kind of

00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:15.000
It's

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:18.000
I don't know, equivalent of deaf gain. I don't know what what phrase I'm reaching for exactly.

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:43.000
Yeah, and like that's how I mean that's how I fucking work where it's like I know how to work within this and within that and I do my best to learn like the Limits or you know, the perks of like whatever medium I'm working with, whether it's a software or an instrument or something like that, or like, what can I do if I only do this and then keep within

00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:51.000
that because I have an idea if my idea doesn't necessarily have to be reliant on this one thing.

00:56:51.000 --> 00:57:17.000
It's like you can just you can just put it together, you know, like I Started composing with like tape and like record players and 4 tracks and stuff like that where it's like I know how to know, not not fake something but work to get the same result as something that is incredibly know, involved and like that is certainly something that's totally like a blind aesthetic, right?

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:28.000
It's like, I go to the I start in the middle of the page in order to get all the information on the website like I'll start at the bottom to go up and that kind of thing right as you know an example of just That's just how it works.

00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:40.000
And so when I create, I often Think that way. And I think that is totally what was helpful here was that I had a clear idea.

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:57.000
Least to myself of having to communicate. You know, it's like, here's all the sounds, but here's how I want them composed in a sort of physical layout or or whatever where the the the maps that I drew We're really based on how I used to draw D and D maps when I would DM when I was like, 12 or 13, right?

00:57:57.000 --> 00:58:15.000
It's like, here's a space. This image here, like if you look at the key, this means this, or I'll have like notes of like, you know, zoom or swamp top or something like that or whatever the hell I was calling.

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:16.000
Pop swamp, yeah.

00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:22.000
It's weird. Pop swamp, weird stuff like that. Was just kind of like, this is where all the firecracker sounds.

00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:30.000
Occur but it's also swamp. And so yeah, you know, and then when Sammy was like, here play through this, what do you think?

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:42.000
Like holy shit that actually worked, you know, I mean the score that was the map was always elastic, right?

00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:48.000
So that was really fun to communicate because and then it worked and I was like man this is everything is just so practical working

00:58:48.000 --> 00:59:06.000
So the communication was very much like here's a kind of map, a score. Here are the assets that you developed the sounds which are mostly drawn from things that you had made for what you had hoped would be installations that turned into pandemic era.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:19.000
You know, and then, Sammy are taking these pieces. Kind of making them work and then it goes back.

00:59:19.000 --> 00:59:20.000
Yeah.

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:27.000
To Andy to kind of place is that is that sort of have us developed I'm just trying to get a sense of like what have a have a collaboration worked logistically too because this is That is such a short.

00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:28.000
Timeline.

00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:34.000
This is a pretty, it's like, this is a pretty normal New York City timeline or like this would be impossible in any other place.

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:40.000
But New York City is really designed. It's stripped down to an extent that you can do things really, really quickly.

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:46.000
But yeah, I mean, it was really basically like that. It like, Compared to other installs I've done, it wasn't, it was in a lot of ways easier.

00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:55.000
Andy got me the stuff I needed. Andy got me the stuff I needed. It was in a lot of ways easier. Like Andy, Andy got me the stuff I needed.

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:58.000
It was like I uploaded it and Andy got me the stuff I needed. I uploaded it and captioned it.

00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:06.000
Like information was given to me in a structured way and we also talked a lot. Conceptually about so like do we want it to be like a ring or do you want it to like do you want it to be kind of linear?

01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:12.000
Do you want it to like fuck with people's perception of where they're going. And yeah, it was pretty, I think it was a pretty simple kind of back and forth.

01:00:12.000 --> 01:00:21.000
It was pretty, I think it was a pretty simple kind of back and forth. It helps when you're friends.

01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:22.000
And what about, oh sorry, go ahead.

01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:27.000
Yes, sure. And then, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I was gonna say there's also like you know, Sammy.

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:32.000
You know, has like, I don't know, electronic music background. And that sort of thing too.

01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:40.000
So I was like, just, you know, what do you think makes sense here? You know, you put this shit here and this shit here.

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:54.000
Understanding the sounds and maybe even how some of that stuff was created or whatever but also thinking like Oh, you know, knowing, knowing when to hold him in one to fold him, knowing like when it's really important that this thing starts right here and then.

01:00:54.000 --> 01:01:01.000
When oh this whole area over here is just you know whatever this can be more randomized or not as important.

01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:04.000
Like there was that understanding of like

01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:11.000
Hierarchy or importance or just drama and impact of sound and placement for some of it.

01:01:11.000 --> 01:01:17.000
As opposed to like all of it needs to be. Super bucket dope and in your face all the time.

01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:28.000
Yeah, I mean, it really felt like co-authorship and it's like, I think it was possible because like Andy gave me a lot of trust as kind of the human interface to building the thing.

01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:40.000
I love that. I have I don't know. I have a question that sounds very strange. I'm trying to think of a better way to word it, but I'm really curious how shit talk factors into the creative process here.

01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:53.000
Because I think there is something about. Collaboration with a disabled artist were like being able to be very open about where access feels were, like what happened, what I don't know.

01:01:53.000 --> 01:02:06.000
I mean, do you have any thoughts on that? And like the role that this because we joke about like, oh, we spend a lot of time doing this and it seems extraneous but I My hypothesis here is that it actually is not extraneous.

01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:08.000
It's actually essential.

01:02:08.000 --> 01:02:23.000
Well, yeah, I mean, I think that working with disabled people or like it's like a lot like I've experienced this with not also that there's a critical lens that you have to take with the world.

01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:37.000
To like approach these things in a caring way and spending a lot of time like talking and listening is it's like I think it's a vital part of the process, And especially where it's like, I always view curation as like care and facilitation.

01:02:37.000 --> 01:02:53.000
It's like selection is something that curators should barely be thinking about. It's like, yeah, and I think.

01:02:53.000 --> 01:03:04.000
That was that like yeah dealing with the fucking institution is is really really fucking frustrating and it's yeah trying to bring comfort into that process is really important.

01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:11.000
I have never heard curation explain that way and that That just completely blew my mind. Like it's still spinning.

01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:12.000
That's

01:03:12.000 --> 01:03:13.000
More like Karaish and I know.

01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:31.000
And like I don't I don't know that this is exactly a controversy. It's like I think Hans Olric Obrist even kind of speaks speaks about it in this way in like some of his books, but I think there is this kind of public perception of, a curator as curation as this kind of.

01:03:31.000 --> 01:03:40.000
Form of overarching authorship and it's like it kind of can be but it's like no exhibition thesis is like, mmm.

01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:53.000
It can never it can never be above like the art that the artist is making. An artist should never have to back their concept into some curator's brilliant fucking idea.

01:03:53.000 --> 01:03:57.000
This is gold. I just

01:03:57.000 --> 01:03:58.000
Exactly.

01:03:58.000 --> 01:04:00.000
Sorry. So, so back to the shit talking. Like what's, yeah, so what's great is that.

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:13.000
What's great about like least with like me and me and Sammy is that she knows when I what I'm talking about when I'm shit talking like there's no real Explanation of things.

01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:27.000
Outside of initial like access conversations that we've had or that she's had with other folks and that sort of thing, especially like working with Nat Decker, you know, but like It's like in when it came down to What is the, you know, like the installation, the idea?

01:04:27.000 --> 01:04:47.000
Because like putting the shit on the separate monitor was that was like late-stage sort of thing I think like I don't think it was in an original part of it, it was just gonna be, everything would be on like one computer or something, but separating the monitor from the controller.

01:04:47.000 --> 01:04:58.000
A lot of that came out of like, you know what, we have to like make this as simple as possible because we don't want the curators to get in the way with it.

01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:06.000
We don't want the access coordinator to get in the way with it and we don't want the people working at the galleries to have to.

01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:17.000
Even, even explain shit like we wanted everything to just be you know, so simple that we didn't have to rely on anybody else to do anything.

01:05:17.000 --> 01:05:34.000
And so like having like the. Like using up the space and just like originally I was gonna have my cousin go in and paint a mural on the wall, but then Leonardo was asking too many questions and like forget it.

01:05:34.000 --> 01:05:35.000
Yeah.

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:36.000
No, I just like, I just wanted to come in and fucking do it on this day. You know, and I was like, can we, can I paint the floor?

01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:56.000
Can I adjust the lights and all this stuff and like yeah but It took forever to get those. Answers and I was like this is like access shit right now now that I have to pivot everything I need answers like immediately and they weren't able to get them because of like the chain of people that needed to answer them.

01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:57.000
Yeah.

01:05:57.000 --> 01:06:03.000
So it was like, all right, well, you know, this needs to just be Based on knowing what a headache things could be.

01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:16.000
We needed to keep it as simple as possible. So when I made the decision to not come out Luckily the installation was really fucking simple and Sammy could just go down there and you know approve or whatever.

01:06:16.000 --> 01:06:30.000
But you know like and while our stuff was you know nice and and easy a lot of that was kept in mind knowing how complicated some of the other installations were.

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:31.000
Right? And so like, making the decision. Yeah.

01:06:31.000 --> 01:06:38.000
Yeah, yours was probably. The most straightforward to install.

01:06:38.000 --> 01:06:52.000
By design, because it's like, look, everything else? I didn't want my work to be compromised because everybody was spending time on all of this other stuff and I'd also even more importantly I didn't want the installation of my work to fuck with anybody else's shit.

01:06:52.000 --> 01:07:02.000
And that's why I chose to use headphones too, because, you know, I didn't want my sound to interrupt other people's open installations, right?

01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:10.000
And that's how I think, that's how I think in the majority of group shows that I'm in.

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:11.000
I do have like a oh, you can keep going, sorry.

01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:19.000
But so be Oh yeah, well, I was gonna say so keeping all of that in mind where it's like.

01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:37.000
This is going to be easy for me, but at the same time, it's going to be curator-proof or gallery, you know, installation proof is that's just something I've had to just adapt to, you know, over the years because I can give every goddamn instruction in the fucking world, make it as simple as possible.

01:07:37.000 --> 01:07:43.000
I will still prefer to be on site during installation and make sure that nobody fucks with it, right?

01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:49.000
Because it's like When I give detailed shit There's a reason why I'll give the detail.

01:07:49.000 --> 01:08:10.000
It's not just to be like, oh, here's another thing you could do it's like this needs to be done this needs to be done this should be done in this order and it's going to make me feel better and I'm asking for all of this because I have tested this and I designed it for this so when I get to installation and you know this is even like if something's one foot higher on the

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:16.000
wall than it should have been then it's like no put it put it back I am going to be a dick about it because everything is thought out.

01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:24.000
It's not like you're you're not just being difficult artist like this is again as you're disabled person moving through space and people are constantly.

01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:32.000
In validating your experience and your knowledge. In terms of like this is how it needs to work it needs to be this way.

01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:33.000
Because this is what's gonna be accessible. Yeah.

01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:39.000
Yeah, yeah, and people will, you know, I don't care, you know, people think I'm being difficult, but it's like you are paying me to show my work and represent my work the way that I want my work to be represented.

01:08:39.000 --> 01:08:57.000
Then you're going to represent the work. In the way that I want it represented, right? It's like you're gonna fucking do what I tell you because it's like Isaac Hayes didn't write a 20 min fucking song for you to stop it after 2 min, right?

01:08:57.000 --> 01:09:15.000
It's like I, you know, no people don't do that shit. So it's like You have to follow all of my rules, damn it, but at the same time my rules are really elastic and there's so much spontaneity and in improvisation and things that go into making and creating and performing stuff.

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:27.000
So, but the shit talking. Not only allows me to vent and event for both of us event because we all know the people that I was shit talking.

01:09:27.000 --> 01:09:34.000
To somebody that isn't disabled or doesn't identify as disabled or whatever, but them to get it.

01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:45.000
And like that's just such a fucking relief. And that's, that's a reason why I love collaborating with disabled people because We understand that us talking about accommodations.

01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:53.000
And talking about people that say their allies but aren't and how you might be getting fucked over with this or this because people don't understand that.

01:09:53.000 --> 01:10:06.000
When you have to go through some new state run payment portal to get 200 fucking dollars and it takes you know more time spent trying to get paid because it's not accessible than it does to create the work.

01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:13.000
Then you're not just like complaining, you know, like this is part of the thing where it's like somebody needs to listen and whether or not you have that same lived experience.

01:10:13.000 --> 01:10:22.000
Same disability or not, what ever you still know, right? It's like, oh yeah, no, I know.

01:10:22.000 --> 01:10:27.000
For me, it's this. But for you, it's that and it's the same damn thing.

01:10:27.000 --> 01:10:39.000
So being able to like. Honestly, I crafted All of the access notes and things that I wrote and recorded for for the piece for the website.

01:10:39.000 --> 01:10:49.000
For the for the exhibition website was done in a way that I think was at some points kind of snotty saying like I'm doing this because I don't trust y'all.

01:10:49.000 --> 01:10:59.000
Based on all of the shit talking that we did you know and it's like But then also like finally getting the curators to promise to provide image descriptions and other kinds of access if the artists couldn't get it done in time.

01:10:59.000 --> 01:11:08.000
They wanted the artist to do all that stuff. And I love it when the artists are doing all that stuff.

01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:16.000
But it's also a huge ask when you know, you, you know, you don't try to implement that until like one or 2 months ahead of the show.

01:11:16.000 --> 01:11:35.000
So yeah, so, and that's why. Putting in like the access buffering and access denied part of you know those little clips that you've come into.

01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:36.000
Okay.

01:11:36.000 --> 01:11:40.000
Randomly or not randomly but you know throughout the unseen sound that's a reference to that where it's like you know, I have to provide my access for myself and now I have to consider it for everybody.

01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:50.000
Else because there isn't really somebody stepping up 100% to do this whether they'll argue it or not it didn't seem that way and that's that's why I chose not to go.

01:11:50.000 --> 01:12:02.000
Because Had I been there? And all of the other shit that had gone down before that opening, I know that Our installation is really simple.

01:12:02.000 --> 01:12:10.000
Was not asking a lot at all. Everything else that was complicated and knowing how frustrated the other artists were, it would not have been good for me to be there, right?

01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:28.000
Like. I think they probably would have, you know, had, you know, breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I wasn't coming too because like I couldn't sit by and you know my fellow cohort and friend artists, people.

01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:34.000
Being screwed over because of access or you know deadlines and pressure and stuff like that I wouldn't be able to be in that.

01:12:34.000 --> 01:12:51.000
Fucking room, you know, I would have like lost my shit and just When I say lost my shit, meaning like Had an attitude and become difficult because of the way that other people were being treated And I'll admit that, and that's why it was good that I didn't go.

01:12:51.000 --> 01:13:02.000
When you think about like Sarah, I'm talking about complete activism. Right. Like act of complaining being a form of activism I think that's necessary.

01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:13.000
I think there's something that's really difficult when you're dealing with disability and access. Even access broadly constrained is like just getting it, right?

01:13:13.000 --> 01:13:28.000
And not things that are going to be spelled out. And EDA policies and you know, Delicacy AG guidelines or whatever, but getting what's going on and giving people the benefit of the doubt and believing them when they tell you their access needs.

01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:43.000
And like a lot of these very like human. Cultural pieces. I think there's a tendency like artists In my experience, disabled folks in general are often punished one way or another.

01:13:43.000 --> 01:13:59.000
Often in terms of social capital immediately for speaking up about having access needs in the first place, but then doubly so when we have to talk about the ways that they have not been met despite agreements or that you know.

01:13:59.000 --> 01:14:13.000
Where it failed after the initial conversation and there's always these questions about. Professionalism talking about it or the right way and the wrong way to talk about it and if you should just keep your mouth shut and you're doing this.

01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:19.000
Complex arithmetic, I think especially of artists there earlier in their careers. Our Right and I

01:14:19.000 --> 01:14:20.000
Oh, definitely. Yeah

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:38.000
Yeah, it's it takes so much time to like feel entitled to like advocate for yourself and it's I feel like often or it's like I feel like that was kind of the buffer I was trying to play where I was like, OK, I'm going to go down and go down and be the squeaky wheel because you shouldn't have to additionally do the labor of interfacing with curators who you have

01:14:38.000 --> 01:14:42.000
to, But yeah, like, you know, explain things ad nauseam too.

01:14:42.000 --> 01:14:47.000
Yeah, yeah. Or anybody. Yeah, anybody. It's like, you know.

01:14:47.000 --> 01:14:54.000
When you're when you're a younger artist or I don't know what's the term emerging.

01:14:54.000 --> 01:14:55.000
Right.

01:14:55.000 --> 01:15:02.000
Right, as I say, you know, you have all of this, all of this stuff that you're always thinking about and trying to do to, you know.

01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:07.000
Move forward in your practice and your career. And then when you're disabled, then you have a accommodations.

01:15:07.000 --> 01:15:16.000
When it's first off, you, you may not feel comfortable or know really how to engage successfully with The curator mind.

01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:27.000
But then when you have accommodations that you even though the curators may have said like oh we totally get this we want to do everything we can and we will doesn't mean that they get it and that they're gonna do it.

01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:41.000
You can't give anybody the benefit of doubt in that situation, right? But you know, you, you may not know, you know, even depending on what your disability is, your way of advocating for yourself it could be completely different than the way that I do.

01:15:41.000 --> 01:15:51.000
And I'm a fucking, you know, almost 50, you know, white guy. I can get away with a lot more than I think most people can.

01:15:51.000 --> 01:15:59.000
And that's also why I become difficult on behalf of other people and sometimes to the point where the other people are like, you are too fucking intense kind of thing, right?

01:15:59.000 --> 01:16:22.000
Which is fine and I'm like I understand that let me know when you when let me know when you need the pit bull out of the cage and But you know, and I try not to, I really It's it's It's a thing where I think what came out of this whole process of the These are the exhibition thing.

01:16:22.000 --> 01:16:26.000
And going back and forth with access. You know, I came up with this saying of like, if you're not blind, then you're wrong.

01:16:26.000 --> 01:16:46.000
And I've said that a lot during that this whole, during the whole cryptic thing. Either privately to myself or within the cohort and then I think even to some of the people involved where it's like.

01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:54.000
You know, when I hear somebody say, well, this This ADA web access accessibility specialist says this.

01:16:54.000 --> 01:17:06.000
Are they blind? No, well then they're wrong. Meaning you can't you can't fucking define what I want to do by whatever standards a sighted person considers, especially if it's art.

01:17:06.000 --> 01:17:20.000
Right? But then if it's like, oh, you know, we heard that blind people They don't like Braille and that you should only have a QR code in the beginning and not on each at each piece like why why who told you that?

01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:21.000
Right? And there was shit when I was working with connect.

01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:24.000
I heard what the thing that made me do less work.

01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:31.000
Yeah, right. Oh yeah, exactly. Or, you know, I don't want to go against somebody that works at the lighthouse, why?

01:17:31.000 --> 01:17:46.000
Like who, what? They're, they're not the end all. They're maybe, they may be the local proprietor of like, printing stuff out and you know whatever and providing Braille but they're also you know, there's just so many different contexts.

01:17:46.000 --> 01:17:47.000
Yeah.

01:17:47.000 --> 01:17:57.000
And the people at the lighthouse are great, you know, and the people that make those tactile maps and shit, they're awesome, but You know, it's like There's no expert.

01:17:57.000 --> 01:18:08.000
But then when you ask your artists and your artist is is you know conflicted on that you know, you take their word for it or whatever, but then, you know, asking for extra labor from that person because they spoke out and said, no, I don't think that that's the way to do it.

01:18:08.000 --> 01:18:19.000
You could try it like this. Or you know whatever it's like I don't I'm sick of sighted people telling me how my thing needs to be.

01:18:19.000 --> 01:18:25.000
You know, I don't mind getting advice when they're like, you know, like, what about this?

01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:32.000
You know, I learned about this and here's the thing, is this a good idea? Oh yeah, that could work but Only if everything else goes right.

01:18:32.000 --> 01:18:38.000
So, you know, and so yeah, the whole like if you're not blind, you're wrong.

01:18:38.000 --> 01:18:57.000
Stop telling me. That it's impossible to do this. Stop telling me that this person said that it has to be done this way because it's like My opinion is more valuable than than yours in this particular thing.

01:18:57.000 --> 01:18:58.000
Now if it, yeah.

01:18:58.000 --> 01:19:03.000
Well, I think.

01:19:03.000 --> 01:19:04.000
To you at this moment.

01:19:04.000 --> 01:19:05.000
Have you met the disability community? The idea that we have a consensus on much is just of.

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:08.000
Yes. Yeah.

01:19:08.000 --> 01:19:17.000
Have you heard it's like, you know, it's like, like it's a fucking it's a logical fallacy like the appeal to authority it's like it's like yeah I don't know

01:19:17.000 --> 01:19:18.000
Yeah, yeah. But it's, yeah, yeah.

01:19:18.000 --> 01:19:27.000
Yup, yup. Well, but on those lines, though, Sammy, like as a curator, I, so I found a lot of times when I get into these ridiculous situations.

01:19:27.000 --> 01:19:36.000
Sometimes I think it's a failure on the part of the person hearing the access need, hearing the criticisms the lack of providing access need.

01:19:36.000 --> 01:19:54.000
To either do or even like have the resources to do some emotional labor. To like be able to acknowledge that like harm may have been caused to this person whether you intended it or not and like to have the space and the resources to deal with that so then you can deal with a problem.

01:19:54.000 --> 01:20:12.000
And I'm just I'm curious like If that's been your experience, if there's ways that you frame this and do this, like how do you even get to a point where because it sounds like as a collaborator you hear these criticisms you are able to participate in the shit talk, you're able to take that and go.

01:20:12.000 --> 01:20:17.000
So yeah, like what is that like navigating?

01:20:17.000 --> 01:20:18.000
Hmm.

01:20:18.000 --> 01:20:19.000
Yeah.

01:20:19.000 --> 01:20:25.000
Do you try to just not I know like one part of this is you just try to not end up in the situation where Andy has to be.

01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:31.000
Bulldog or pit bull or whatever animal we were jumping in there but also like

01:20:31.000 --> 01:20:32.000
Yeah, I mean, I think like.

01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:36.000
Yeah. From the perspective, like if a curator is asking you, how do you even handle this?

01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:39.000
How do you handle the pit bull that is Andy Slater?

01:20:39.000 --> 01:20:41.000
The Chihuahua.

01:20:41.000 --> 01:20:42.000
Hello.

01:20:42.000 --> 01:20:44.000
And. Well, I mean, I think I'm lucky to have a lot of trust with Andy.

01:20:44.000 --> 01:20:54.000
And I think it's just like I'm relatively new in the curator game. I'm also kind of like making it up as I go along and I just I feel really lucky.

01:20:54.000 --> 01:21:03.000
That I've gotten to like learn how to do this in a context where like I'm not really beholden to it's like it to like scarcity mindsets.

01:21:03.000 --> 01:21:12.000
It's like I'm really. I'm always just, I'm here to like begin with the access frictions.

01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:17.000
I feel like we always try to think of it from the top rather than as like a compliance thing afterwards.

01:21:17.000 --> 01:21:25.000
And I think it's really liberating when you consider it that way, because I think that's the opposite of the way that you typically interface with an institution.

01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:32.000
But then when, yeah, when I, when I am the interface between the artist and the institution.

01:21:32.000 --> 01:21:56.000
That it's just like. Well, I mean, I think within that cohort also, Andy being a more established artist uses that kind of power and standing to advocate more forcefully than artists who are earlier in their careers might feel entitled to do.

01:21:56.000 --> 01:21:57.000
Oh.

01:21:57.000 --> 01:22:01.000
Yeah. Gosh, you said so many brilliant things I started jotting them down. So can you talk about this idea of not operating from a scarcity mindset?

01:22:01.000 --> 01:22:12.000
The minute you said that, I was like. Revisiting things in my life. Dealing with academic institutions, but like what that looks like, what that means.

01:22:12.000 --> 01:22:13.000
Well, I mean, I think one of our operating principles is that the things that can be free should be free.

01:22:13.000 --> 01:22:27.000
And I think it is it is a real challenge because New York City has been operating on a pretty shoestring budget for quite a long time.

01:22:27.000 --> 01:22:35.000
And we were quite lucky to be. That like Andy diverted a lot of like production resources from his project directly.

01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:45.000
To us, so we had a lot of kind of time and space to really focus on Andy. But.

01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:46.000
Yeah.

01:22:46.000 --> 01:23:00.000
My entire project budget. Which is, I think, yeah, I wanted to say that to just be like, they're like, you have all this money for your production budget, like give it to Sammy in them because you know other than travel and shit like that I didn't build anything or do anything.

01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:14.000
So that's what Yeah, I mean, I. Going back to planning it out in a way that's going to be sustainable or practical it was also like holy shit I didn't spend any money and that worked out really nicely.

01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:20.000
And also the access cost was not something that happened at the end that all of a sudden you didn't have money for

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:21.000
Right.

01:23:21.000 --> 01:23:26.000
It was access was the point that it wasn't yeah it was yeah they weren't like these separate concerns.

01:23:26.000 --> 01:23:48.000
I think it gets it gets trickier when you're in kind of a DIY space that it that like You know, you want like a lot of my challenge like with the New York City archive is basically the thing that you do in order to be added to the permanent collection is like making your piece accessible with like metadata and like contributing a tour.

01:23:48.000 --> 01:23:59.000
Like, and I want to make sure that the like I would really I'm like using some of my funds for my IBM Fellowship to fund dedicated access stewards to help.

01:23:59.000 --> 01:24:12.000
Through this process. Like getting asking people to do free labor is hard. I'm trying to make this digital civic space that allows this to look more like an active community care than like them.

01:24:12.000 --> 01:24:20.000
Then I don't know this like compliance process, like how do you leave enough? Because it's like this human interface with access work is so important.

01:24:20.000 --> 01:24:41.000
There's no turnkey thing. There always has to be, up like a person involved. Like how can you make the documentation of what is possible in ways of thinking about it available alongside technical resources for like attaching.

01:24:41.000 --> 01:24:42.000
Yeah.

01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:55.000
Metadata that is valuable to to like an art object it's all just like really really complicated how can you reduce the frictions to like human input and how can you like make a space where humans are empowered to do it.

01:24:55.000 --> 01:24:56.000
Let's see.

01:24:56.000 --> 01:25:13.000
And a good good analogy is that I saw Sammy last week at a residency. I was doing at the Yucca Valley Material Lab out in Yuck Valley and I was there for 2 weeks and we figured out like immediately that kind of navigating that space.

01:25:13.000 --> 01:25:21.000
Because there's cactuses and shit and even you know I going from the studio to my trailer was a gravel path, right?

01:25:21.000 --> 01:25:44.000
So I could follow the gravel. But then at the same time it would also lead to the other trailers and I would get lost so We just went and Took like a little Habachi set and then like 5 or 6 different benches and lined on the right side of my path those benches like a bang into them and find the path right it was just something where it's like They originally like, oh, should we put like rope down?

01:25:44.000 --> 01:25:50.000
We can install this thing where you can just follow the rope like this use what we have. And just put this stuff there.

01:25:50.000 --> 01:26:01.000
Because it's like they already knew and this is really like I mentioned this because it's kind of rare where it's like when I walk around with my cane and my cane is also like a fidget tool, right? I love it.

01:26:01.000 --> 01:26:09.000
I'm kind of wild with it and some orientation of mobility people are like, oh Jesus Christ Andy, what are you doing?

01:26:09.000 --> 01:26:10.000
Okay.

01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:20.000
You're doing it wrong. But it's like I bang into stuff. Now there's people that I've worked with and that I know that will like if I bang into stuff they'll like pull me and put me in the right direction it's like McCain is supposed to do that. Right?

01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:21.000
Yeah.

01:26:21.000 --> 01:26:31.000
Like I'm supposed to find where that edge is and then bang it and then I know it's there and hopefully remember that it's there if I need to.

01:26:31.000 --> 01:26:47.000
That's kind of. I guess what I want to say is that's kind of like what doing stuff with with Sammy and then of course with other with disabled artists and stuff is that get that in that I'm supposed to have permission to go in.

01:26:47.000 --> 01:26:57.000
Touch that sort of thing, right? I really, I was gonna tie this into something and I don't know if I did but

01:26:57.000 --> 01:26:58.000
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The care, yeah.

01:26:58.000 --> 01:27:05.000
I think it was you were getting it like that human element of access right because I I've been in so many situations where it's like which piece of software do we need to buy to fix this problem?

01:27:05.000 --> 01:27:11.000
And it's like, you need to just care and be a human being.

01:27:11.000 --> 01:27:12.000
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:27:12.000 --> 01:27:15.000
That start there. Like it's not to say that access doesn't cost. Investments of time and money.

01:27:15.000 --> 01:27:19.000
It most certainly does, but like

01:27:19.000 --> 01:27:29.000
It does have to be factored in as a cost. It's like it can't be like something that you do if you have the resources to do it.

01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:30.000
Yeah, and yeah.

01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:31.000
Yeah, the afterthought piece of it.

01:27:31.000 --> 01:27:32.000
You have to start from what is the most accessible thing we can do. Okay, looks like a resource thing that I tend to do as a curator also.

01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:39.000
Where it's like, I always start like, okay, what is your dream? Like, don't think about constraints.

01:27:39.000 --> 01:27:44.000
And then I can pluck like, OK, here are the things that are easy in here, the things that are hard.

01:27:44.000 --> 01:27:45.000
Yeah.

01:27:45.000 --> 01:27:59.000
Here's kind of the path of what is possible. And this happens in physical space also. Like this is the number of monitors we have.

01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:00.000
Yeah.

01:28:00.000 --> 01:28:03.000
This is what we can put on walls or whatever and it's like there are a lot fewer constraints in virtual space but it's they don't not exist and it's like there's something something that I can do to like make those things meet.

01:28:03.000 --> 01:28:15.000
Yeah, and then in customize it individually like that's and that's the thing that you know during my residency there I spoke with with the directors of the program and stuff it's like This shit isn't accessible.

01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:28.000
With a wheelchair right now. If that's a goal, you're going to have to build another building and do all this stuff, but however there are some really small changes that can be made around here to make it more practical and comfortable for folks.

01:28:28.000 --> 01:28:58.000
And it's just like you got to work with people individually like the ADA can tell you everything or somebody can tell you that the ADA is everything but it's like you can just go and do this shit custom.

01:28:59.000 --> 01:29:05.000
Yeah.

01:29:05.000 --> 01:29:06.000
Yeah.

01:29:06.000 --> 01:29:10.000
Catered to the person that you're working with or your collaborating with and you'll learn a lot from that because you know this person might use a scooter or a walker or a wheelchair or crutches but they might not need this $75,000 solution, especially when there's like this care and trust between that person and like you know between everybody and it's like you know like I always there's always trust

01:29:10.000 --> 01:29:13.000
like sometimes I'll latch onto somebody's arm Especially if they're cute.

01:29:13.000 --> 01:29:29.000
That I love that like in Tennessee of hanging out with you. I was like reflecting on that when we were in the deserts like that like yeah that part of interfacing with you like go left Andy or like I that feels so so special or like the intimacy of knowing how to take a part not scooter is yeah and like.

01:29:29.000 --> 01:29:31.000
Right. Yeah.

01:29:31.000 --> 01:29:38.000
It just makes me think of these. Yeah, like access as this, it's much more like a carrier bag of strategies than like a handbook of regulations, you know?

01:29:38.000 --> 01:29:54.000
That is the best the government can do to sort of set a legal floor but we're not looking for the best the government can do to sort of set a legal floor but we're not looking for a floor where like we're looking for for like I don't know something that is more essential and it's Yeah.

01:29:54.000 --> 01:30:08.000
And the floor, it's absurd. My favorite example is that there is no regulation about how far and accessible like ADA parking space has to be.

01:30:08.000 --> 01:30:09.000
Or how

01:30:09.000 --> 01:30:16.000
From the door. And this is one that like impacts my daily life because they're moving all of the accessible parking.

01:30:16.000 --> 01:30:17.000
Oh shit.

01:30:17.000 --> 01:30:31.000
So far away that you're going to exhaust the battery in a power chair. Before you get like that sort of stuff or like the path itself isn't accessible but you know, that's why there's also times that what it says is actually You run into this with digital accessibility guidelines.

01:30:31.000 --> 01:30:38.000
It doesn't work for everyone, right? Like there's no one font that's gonna work for all dyslexic people and on and on.

01:30:38.000 --> 01:30:44.000
Yeah, I love this that very human element which feels like

01:30:44.000 --> 01:30:45.000
Yeah

01:30:45.000 --> 01:30:46.000
I know the intimacy, the fondness. Right.

01:30:46.000 --> 01:30:49.000
And all of this when you're not doing it is going to destroy the art. You know, like you're not gonna get.

01:30:49.000 --> 01:30:52.000
Right. Yeah, yeah.

01:30:52.000 --> 01:31:00.000
The product. If if art is on some level has some sort of human interface. Boy, could we get in arguments here.

01:31:00.000 --> 01:31:08.000
But like, you know. Taking the humanity out of access is going to take the humanity out of disabled art making too.

01:31:08.000 --> 01:31:09.000
And yeah.

01:31:09.000 --> 01:31:13.000
Yeah, it's like, yeah, like so much is lost through like automation.

01:31:13.000 --> 01:31:26.000
Right. But, and then now, but so much is being gained from like AI, like, which is like, I mean, I love like standing with somebody and being or they send me a picture and they describe it or I'm like, hey, what is that? What am I looking at?

01:31:26.000 --> 01:31:28.000
Yeah. Okay.

01:31:28.000 --> 01:31:33.000
What am I looking at? And you have a cool conversation like oh it's this this is pretty cool.

01:31:33.000 --> 01:31:34.000
I know, like when we like we were in the car and I like handed Andy my iPad.

01:31:34.000 --> 01:31:39.000
Mini and it was like what do you like? It's like this object like what do you think this is?

01:31:39.000 --> 01:31:52.000
What are you handing me? What do you think it is? Yeah. But that and then being like, all right, I'm gonna use the the be my eyes AI thing or chat GPT to describe an image.

01:31:52.000 --> 01:31:59.000
Which is like, I like to do that along with somebody's description because the app will like compose it in a very S.

01:31:59.000 --> 01:32:04.000
It always thinks. Every picture I've sent you it thinks is cozy. And I'm trying to figure out if I'm cozy.

01:32:04.000 --> 01:32:06.000
Yeah.

01:32:06.000 --> 01:32:12.000
Or if it's cause there's cats like I was trying to figure out what like triggers the emotional word.

01:32:12.000 --> 01:32:13.000
Cause I don't think of myself as a cozy person, but apparently the AI does.

01:32:13.000 --> 01:32:21.000
Probably the cat. Oh, you're cozy, but your cat, your cat amplifies the coziness.

01:32:21.000 --> 01:32:22.000
It's fine.

01:32:22.000 --> 01:32:32.000
It is it is really it's interesting. Tool and it also you know, I'm always gonna prioritize interdependence over independence, but I'm also gonna recognize that there's a lot of times that we get left behind.

01:32:32.000 --> 01:32:35.000
You know, so having some of these tools that help us not. Be left behind.

01:32:35.000 --> 01:32:42.000
Yeah, yeah, and they're And they're fun. And then also it's like, I don't want to bother this person with like telling me what the fuck this is.

01:32:42.000 --> 01:32:57.000
I can just run a real basic. Diagnosis diagnostic on my own I can analyze this with my tools And and that's and that's really fun and what I think is cool about that is You know, I would say like it's it's It's better than nothing, but it actually is really pretty freaking great.

01:32:57.000 --> 01:33:22.000
Like, especially the Be My Eyes, which is you know run by G like the open AI GPT and so it's like

01:33:22.000 --> 01:33:23.000
Hmm.

01:33:23.000 --> 01:33:30.000
I don't know, it's really good. I did some watercolor monotypes the other day and it you know it just called it abstract lines and squiggles it seemed to have no meaning and I was like motherfucker but that, you know, and then I was asked it is like, does, does it look like Site Twombly and it did not know that was, which is great

01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:44.000
too. But, you know, it could tell me the colors that were there and some of the shapes and these things that, you know, is really just kind of objective of like, oh yeah, here it is and it's on a table and there's a brush next to it and that sort of thing.

01:33:44.000 --> 01:33:50.000
And it wasn't cozy. That's what you're telling me.

01:33:50.000 --> 01:33:51.000
Interesting.

01:33:51.000 --> 01:34:00.000
It was not cozy. It said colorful. It was funny, but like, You know, those those sort of things are really nice and the AI is getting more and more, I don't know, human, which I kind of really like.

01:34:00.000 --> 01:34:09.000
And you can ask it follow-up questions and that kind of shit. But like Having that and being able to like augment that with a human with a person.

01:34:09.000 --> 01:34:16.000
You know, they're with you and then showing them what this thing does and like Yeah, you should use this in your Instagram post.

01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:21.000
Like this is, this is cool. Like whatever, if it's AI, if it's not wrong.

01:34:21.000 --> 01:34:35.000
Then yeah, I mean, I think it's a really, you know, fine description. I know some people are like, I don't want the AI describing my stuff.

01:34:35.000 --> 01:34:36.000
Yeah.

01:34:36.000 --> 01:34:39.000
And it's like, well, you haven't spent enough time with this thing. Because just because you tried it 3 months ago doesn't mean that it stopped machine learning, that's not learning more and more from the feedback.

01:34:39.000 --> 01:34:48.000
And it's really pretty funny. And so like when you had asked Elizabeth if it was cool that you used either that or similar.

01:34:48.000 --> 01:34:55.000
It was, yeah, it was the basically the thing that's underpinning be my AI.

01:34:55.000 --> 01:34:56.000
Chat. Yeah.

01:34:56.000 --> 01:34:58.000
The open AI, GPT 4 voices, I want to say.

01:34:58.000 --> 01:35:07.000
Now it doesn't need, it's not voice or nothing. I mean, you just like, you take it and you you put a You put a photo in there and you say, please describe this, it'll describe it.

01:35:07.000 --> 01:35:08.000
Yeah, it's just a GPT 4.

01:35:08.000 --> 01:35:16.000
Yeah, it was it's kind of like our, we were doing that as our original pass and then we have a grad student worker who's going through following the access guidelines that like our access lead is setting up.

01:35:16.000 --> 01:35:18.000
Cool. Sweet.

01:35:18.000 --> 01:35:37.000
Mostly I thought it was a little funny Andy because I was like this is exactly what Andy wanted us to do but That was mostly cause I wanted to make sure and have everything in writing because we're trying to be as like consent driven as possible with every single artist and trying to not make any assumptions and be able to document.

01:35:37.000 --> 01:35:38.000
That they would

01:35:38.000 --> 01:35:46.000
We did actually ask this question because sometimes I think I asked a question in my real life and I did not.

01:35:46.000 --> 01:35:47.000
I mean

01:35:47.000 --> 01:35:50.000
Have I did feel a little silly being like, hey Andy, are we allowed to do the thing that you told us we should do?

01:35:50.000 --> 01:35:51.000
Yeah.

01:35:51.000 --> 01:35:52.000
Yeah, right. Exactly. But yeah, I mean, and that's, yeah.

01:35:52.000 --> 01:36:04.000
But that's another like letting artists kind of Drive the process that's been cool. I do want to mark that it's 2 PM.

01:36:04.000 --> 01:36:05.000
Yeah, I do have to go, but I'm having so much fun.

01:36:05.000 --> 01:36:14.000
Eastern one PM. Central and initially I asked for your time until an hour ago. I I still have time but Can I ask one more question and maybe, Sammy, if you want to answer it first, if Andy has a bit more.

01:36:14.000 --> 01:36:19.000
I just wanted to like, what's next with your collaboration with unseen sound? With anything, what's next?

01:36:19.000 --> 01:36:20.000
That's just my last.

01:36:20.000 --> 01:36:38.000
Yeah Good question. I mean, continuing to work on this archive and making more kind of Yeah, structures that make this more of a community oriented process for SAMI isn't the kind of main interface driving it forward.

01:36:38.000 --> 01:36:51.000
Andy and I'm the kind of main interface driving it forward. Andy and I are always kind of scheming about, grants or it's about what's what's news right now.

01:36:51.000 --> 01:36:58.000
Yeah, I mean like I would love to You know, when there's time, kind of expand and keep adding to the world.

01:36:58.000 --> 01:37:03.000
So there's like some little tweaks and there's been discussion of like, you know, doing more of that.

01:37:03.000 --> 01:37:09.000
But, you know, I don't want to have to rely on Sammy to do all of that.

01:37:09.000 --> 01:37:17.000
So I. Gonna at some point get into the back door and see how how accessible it is.

01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:25.000
I know that there's stuff. That I can navigate on the back end. I haven't touched it in year, so maybe I'm wrong now, but I'm sure that it's it's it's still fine.

01:37:25.000 --> 01:37:30.000
So I want to do that. I want to get a better understanding on how the worlds are built in there.

01:37:30.000 --> 01:37:46.000
And expand that, but also like I mean, I would love to even curate. A sonic gallery at some point like you know an exhibition of just different sounds spaces by other artists and stuff.

01:37:46.000 --> 01:37:49.000
We haven't talked about that. I think I thought of that the other day. So I'm pitching then Did we?

01:37:49.000 --> 01:38:06.000
I think we have talk about, like, oh yeah, opening, opening up the sonic description tool to like other blind artists and like I was thinking about that too like I would love to learn more about the sonic description tool to like other blind artists.

01:38:06.000 --> 01:38:10.000
And I was thinking about that, other blind artists. And I was thinking about that too. I would love to learn more about your frictions trying to author a thing on We can make it more accessible.

01:38:10.000 --> 01:38:28.000
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'm in another thing is like, well, We talked about launching it on on New York City like having it live live live live live live which then, you know, takes away, you don't have necessarily the separation.

01:38:28.000 --> 01:38:43.000
Between the monitor and the sound device if you're on your computer, that sort of thing. Having that, you know, the separation we had in the in the gallery exhibition is going to have to be, you know, on the, you know, whoever is the user and that kind of thing.

01:38:43.000 --> 01:39:06.000
But having that live where I think other people can you know, really dig into that. I think it's is really hopefully the next step because You know, there's also I just I just want it out of the Leonard the the Leo sphere and like onto on my own terms of what we what we can do with it.

01:39:06.000 --> 01:39:12.000
But another thing and Sammy had brought this up early early on. Today was like performing with it.

01:39:12.000 --> 01:39:13.000
Yes.

01:39:13.000 --> 01:39:14.000
So like, you know, we watched the video documentary. That's That documentation is Sammy performing with it and she knows like where all the shit is.

01:39:14.000 --> 01:39:32.000
So it's just kind of like the perfect you know, walk through. Whereas like with me, I'm still, you know, I don't, I don't have everything memorized where things are laid out, which is what is exciting to me.

01:39:32.000 --> 01:39:42.000
But yeah, like I, going to do some performances this summer where it's me with the joystick controller.

01:39:42.000 --> 01:39:50.000
In a computer in a at a venue projecting the captions and then just the sound performance is me.

01:39:50.000 --> 01:39:55.000
Moving through the space like they used to call that I believe Machinima back in the, yeah, so like that kind of I, yeah.

01:39:55.000 --> 01:40:12.000
Yes. Well, I think even slightly different like because I'll it's like using a virtual world as a performance tool versus like using it at using like game worlds as a way to record narrative film.

01:40:12.000 --> 01:40:13.000
Yeah, like Scott, pretty famous for doing that.

01:40:13.000 --> 01:40:20.000
Is that what Miss Shinema was? Oh. I always thought it was something where you go in a space and then you dance or you move and you perform all this kind of thing with your little characters.

01:40:20.000 --> 01:40:24.000
No, that's called Fortnite Andy. I'm just kidding.

01:40:24.000 --> 01:40:25.000
Yeah.

01:40:25.000 --> 01:40:36.000
What's the, yeah, what's the, what's the, not fable tail, something tails, early.

01:40:36.000 --> 01:40:37.000
Oh, tail tailtails, yeah.

01:40:37.000 --> 01:40:48.000
Like maybe mid 2 thousands game art developers, you know what I'm talking about? Whatever tale of tales like they would you know they would have these experiences that were like you're just doing this thing and then people would go in those worlds and do those things together and that kind of thing.

01:40:48.000 --> 01:41:04.000
But yeah, so like playing this using this as an instrument in a performance tool. Is really something that, you know, I'm going to start doing and I'm working on having a solo show at the end of the summer with Kerb Peel Gallery where I'll have a bunch of other work.

01:41:04.000 --> 01:41:15.000
But we'll certainly have this installed for people to. You know, to use in the same kind of setup as the the EA A T exhibition.

01:41:15.000 --> 01:41:26.000
But, you know. I want to be able to perform on it. And then even add extra, you know, add more sounds and even think more about.

01:41:26.000 --> 01:41:40.000
You know, composing different parts in a way that would make sense for it when I want to perform, you know, and then having like the transport button to hop around and do all these other sort of things is, you know, another great way of performing on it.

01:41:40.000 --> 01:41:48.000
Thinking like that, cause Man, if I could tour with just that shit, that would be fucking great.

01:41:48.000 --> 01:41:49.000
Yes.

01:41:49.000 --> 01:41:54.000
See, I want to put it in the cube at Virginia Tech where it's got the like hundreds of.

01:41:54.000 --> 01:41:55.000
It could be wild.

01:41:55.000 --> 01:42:00.000
Spatial audio speakers around. It could be wild. But anyway, I should I should let you go.

01:42:00.000 --> 01:42:21.000
Thank you so much. What will happen next? I'll make sure that the recording and transcript and any access things we create with it are available to you.

01:42:21.000 --> 01:42:22.000
Cool.

01:42:22.000 --> 01:42:28.000
You'll get our. Like once once you have time to think about it and if you want to let us use it in the archive or for other purposes, we'll get the permission forms to you and and all of that but definitely stay in touch and if at any point y'all record something on your own you got any pieces you want to share in the archive.

01:42:28.000 --> 01:42:35.000
Let us know, cause we're helping with both like. Some private archiving, and then also public facing things.

01:42:35.000 --> 01:42:36.000
So.

01:42:36.000 --> 01:42:37.000
Cool.

01:42:37.000 --> 01:42:42.000
Yeah, I mean, this is so awesome. I would, I would love to maybe cross publish this through New York City's channels also.

01:42:42.000 --> 01:42:49.000
I think we got to a lot of really fucking awesome stuff here. I really appreciate you interviewing us and I would love to talk.

01:42:49.000 --> 01:42:55.000
Separately about like how you're approaching archiving. I feel like there's a lot of things that we could.

01:42:55.000 --> 01:42:56.000
Learn from what you're doing.

01:42:56.000 --> 01:43:02.000
Yeah, I want to learn a lot more about what you're doing because this isn't entirely like I said, I'm a musicologist.

01:43:02.000 --> 01:43:03.000
Hmm.

01:43:03.000 --> 01:43:09.000
I was analyzing scores. 1 4 5 one baby. So

01:43:09.000 --> 01:43:10.000
Yeah.

01:43:10.000 --> 01:43:16.000
This is it's like new to me also and I think we're in this kind of genre of like people who really want to be preserving culture.

01:43:16.000 --> 01:43:28.000
Kind of disconnect between the traditional like heavy stone archaic idea of an archive that there's something a lot more kind of fluid and transforming about this new.

01:43:28.000 --> 01:43:33.000
New phase, especially of artist led archives. There's so much there.

01:43:33.000 --> 01:43:39.000
Yeah.

01:43:39.000 --> 01:43:40.000
Yeah.

01:43:40.000 --> 01:43:41.000
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

01:43:41.000 --> 01:43:52.000
Heavy stoner instead of heavy st10, dude, alrighty. But no, yes, please, I think And yeah, and I was thinking that too when Elizabeth was telling me about like, you know, maybe even like, yeah, gamifying or threed, icing or whatever the part of the archive and that

01:43:52.000 --> 01:43:55.000
Oh yeah, we're talking, we've got a, we've got like a matter port, 3D scan.

01:43:55.000 --> 01:44:03.000
Where you can like walk through the archive and then different artifacts and stuff will be located in different places that will trigger.

01:44:03.000 --> 01:44:04.000
Cool.

01:44:04.000 --> 01:44:12.000
But we were thinking about like what an access companion to that is that retains a lot of the agency of being able to like go where you want.

01:44:12.000 --> 01:44:16.000
So we're thinking about creating like a text-based dungeon crawl game esque.

01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:17.000
Bye.

01:44:17.000 --> 01:44:25.000
Way of doing it that could be split screens so you can see both or you can elect one or the other.

01:44:25.000 --> 01:44:26.000
Oh, fuck.

01:44:26.000 --> 01:44:27.000
Oh gosh.

01:44:27.000 --> 01:44:34.000
We're working on a dual screen interface for New York City right now. But I have been thinking so much about like this kind of like the roots of computer games as interactive fiction, the roots of computer games as interactive fiction.

01:44:34.000 --> 01:44:37.000
And if it's like you start in the Dungeon Carlo game as interactive fiction. And it's like you start in the Dungeon Carlo game that's all text-based.

01:44:37.000 --> 01:44:56.000
If you have that basic kind of decision tree structure of how you navigate a virtual world, it seems like such a perfect place, like nonretinal place to map out how you want a game to be.

01:44:56.000 --> 01:44:57.000
Nice.

01:44:57.000 --> 01:45:12.000
Well in my other well I have too many research projects but one of my other really big ones is focused on tabletop role playing games, creating cognitive accessibility tools, but then also developing like different stories and modes of story telling that are actually more truly radically inclusive across like gender racing like that and trying to explode the idea of like the one hero's journey.

01:45:12.000 --> 01:45:17.000
Toad.

01:45:17.000 --> 01:45:18.000
No.

01:45:18.000 --> 01:45:20.000
Our current focus right now is like taking operas and letting people get inside them and like blow up the problematic narratives from the inside because we're a bunch of So like I.

01:45:20.000 --> 01:45:23.000
Yeah. Right.

01:45:23.000 --> 01:45:30.000
I don't want to be too spoiler alert with this, but we just filmed our Orpho and.

01:45:30.000 --> 01:45:31.000
Awesome.

01:45:31.000 --> 01:45:35.000
And yeah, I, I was definitely stabbing people with a sword that deserved it. And I had always wanted to be able to do.

01:45:35.000 --> 01:45:41.000
You have to be perfidious all over Mantua. I only have to be perfidious once.

01:45:41.000 --> 01:45:43.000
Jesus slam in the door.

01:45:43.000 --> 01:45:44.000
I know.

01:45:44.000 --> 01:45:51.000
Yeah. It's amazing. Anyway, please please stay in touch like if you can shoot me an email I can try to find a time that we can chat about all this because this sounds amazing.

01:45:51.000 --> 01:45:57.000
Yeah, totally.

01:45:57.000 --> 01:45:58.000
Definitely.

01:45:58.000 --> 01:46:03.000
And of course always if you want to play D and D. Cause I have a problem. Like pages is my research assistant and she is getting paid to play D and D soon just because I want some team building.

01:46:03.000 --> 01:46:04.000
Okay

01:46:04.000 --> 01:46:05.000
Wow.

01:46:05.000 --> 01:46:10.000
For my student workers. But anyway. I have a problem. Thank you all so, much.

01:46:10.000 --> 01:46:13.000
No.

01:46:13.000 --> 01:46:14.000
Thank you.

01:46:14.000 --> 01:46:24.000
This was wonderful and it's just, it's an honor to be like. Able to chat with you all about this and I'm really excited about the future of art making when I when I chat with folks like you.

01:46:24.000 --> 01:46:25.000
Hooray!

01:46:25.000 --> 01:46:27.000
Thanks. You too. Bye.

01:46:27.000 --> 01:46:31.000
Bye.Bye