Einen schönen frühen Nachmittagabend. Welcome here in the Francisco Carolinum as the Institution for Photography and Media Art of the OÖ Landeskultur GmbH on the occasion of Herbert W. Frankes. He's here with us. Exhibition Der Visionär, The Visionary. We prepared this panel to be able also to talk a bit wider, not only about his really exceptional work, but also about media art as a phenomenon of different generations. The host and the moderator of this talk today is Annika Meyer, a social media specialist and a specialist creator for media art, but really a very current development. So NFT is one of the topics she's dealing with. ist eines der Themen, mit denen sie sich beschäftigt. Ich würde gerne direkt an sie übergeben, weil unsere Rede in etwa eine Stunde lang dauert und wir möchten recht direkt sein, weil wir auch Gäste sehen. So weit. Ich würde gerne diese Runde an Alfred Weidinger, der Direktor dieser Institution, the director of this institution. Annika. Okay, thank you. Does this work? Do you hear me? Yeah. Good evening. Thank you, Genoveva, for the kind introduction. Thank you for everyone coming to celebrate the opening of Herbert Doesn't See Me, Herbert W. Franke, tonight. He's over there. Herbert doesn't see me. Herbert W. Franke tonight. He's over there. Yeah, the panel is going to last 60 minutes and we open the last five to 10 minutes for your questions. So if you have any questions to anyone on stage, you're welcome to ask them afterwards. And yeah, we'll speak about the development history and reception of digital art. What were the beginnings of early computer art like? What prejudices did visionaries and pioneers face and to what extent has the reception of digital art changed over the years and with me on stage let's start with Genoveva because you've already met her Genoveva is the curator together with Susanne Pech, Herbert W. Franke's wife and yeah they're together since 40 years, and she basically knows everything. It's super impressive to work and speak with her because she knows everything Herbert has done, and Genoveva and her have curated the exhibition together. You either have seen already or are going to see afterwards. To my left is Georg Back. He's an art advisor, curator, and also expert in generative art, digital art, NFTs, basically an expert in everything that's happening right now and has happened over the past, let's say, 20, 30 years. And you're curating an exhibition about the metaverse, titled Snow Cash, and I think it's going to open in October at Kunsthalle Zürich, so that's maybe going to be your next big stop after Venice in April. Yeah, that's going to be at the Kunsthalle in Zürich, yeah. Okay, excellent. So everyone can travel there. Then we have on screen Raphael Rosendahl. He's based in New York. He can't be with us tonight, but yeah, he's an early pioneer or a pioneer of internet art. And yeah, for him, the internet is a canvas. And yeah, he has been very successful in the, oh, Kevin doesn't like me using the word space. I just wanted to say NFT space, but yeah, in the NFT space, we're going to hear more about that from Raphael later. Thank you for joining us from New York. And I think I have to say good morning to you. Yeah, then Susanne and Kevin Bosch. Yeah, a photographer, I think I'm allowed to say. No, I'm not allowed to say that. Kevin started as a photographer and left photography behind himself and these days he uses the blockchain as a medium and he thinks about questions of values and identity and hopefully we'll see a solo show by him next year here in Linz. Very much looking forward to that and I guess most of you know from here Linz Christa Sommera she teaches here, and together with Laurent, she's an artist duo, and yeah, I guess we, from you, are going to hear a lot about Linz, the media art scene here, and thank you especially to all the artists from Vienna traveling here to be with us tonight, and to all the artists who come even further, like Jan-Robert Legte from Amsterdam, Dam Jansky from New York, Manuel Rosner from Berlin, John Gerard also from Vienna, but Irish artists. So thank you to all the artists who made their way to Linz to be with us tonight. Susanne, let's start with you and Herbert. yeah to lens to be with us tonight Susanna let's start with you and Herbert I think I didn't I would really be interested to hear first from you I mean Herbert started very early on to work work with technology and think about art and technology and I mean how did that happen so early in the 50s well of all, Herbert is not an artist at the beginning. He studied physics, so he's a physicist, and I think that's very important to understand how he's looking to art. Because as a physicist, first of all, you're working with machines, because without machines, you can't understand what's happening in physics, in nature. So it's usual to work with machines, first of all. Second, you are trying to understand how physics are working, functioning. That means you are looking for patterns. You are looking for patterns and you are trying to bring them into a formalistic language and that's the language of mathematics. them into a formalistic language and that's the language of mathematics. So that's the point as a physicist and that's the same as an artist. Why did he come into the artistic world? At university he made a dissertation, a thesis about electron optics. He worked there with light and the phenomena of light. And he realized that there is that much beauty in the world of science. So a lot of pictures done with instruments are very beautiful. Not all of them, of course, because it's not the purpose to make beautiful pictures. But it started to interest him how it is working and what's behind aesthetics and whether it's possible to find the best mathematical language to understand how aesthetics are working. So he's exploring art like a scientist I would say that's quite interesting and that's that's what I also just got asked by an ORF yeah if he saw himself as an artist or if we think today he's an artist and you just said when he started he didn't start as an artist so So when did that change for him? And I guess most important is, I mean, this is like the first like really major museum show for him. So how was the reception and how has that reception changed when it comes to his work and him working with technology? Well, how did he come to be an artist? This was, I think, mainly by a mentor he had. Franz Rohr, he was an art historian, yes, that's the right word, and he was occupied with modern art, abstract constructivism and so on, And he got in touch with him. And when Herbert said, he was 25, something like that, very beginning in the 50s, when he said to him, look, what you are doing is serious, that has importance. It might be something important for the art world. You should not do that as a hobby. And that was the point where Herbert decided, I declare it as an artwork. Also knowing that there's almost nobody around who would accept that. But he said, I'm going out and tell the world it's art, whether it's art or not. I believe it is art. It's art, whether it's art or not. I believe it is art. So it was the influence, I would say, by this person who said, you have to go into that direction. It is serious. And this was also the point where he tried to understand how art is working, functioning, how aesthetics are functioning, to go deeper inside from a scientific point of view. Johannes? We lost Raphael on the screen. Just briefly. Ich habe es auf dem Bildschirm. Nur so ganz kurz. Ja, und wie, ich meine, für ihn hat er zu einem Zeitpunkt entschieden, und Kevin und Mario Klingemann sind auch hier im Publikum, ein Künstler, der mit AI arbeitet. Ich fand das ziemlich interessant, dass, als Mario uns sagte, es hat ihm etwa zehn Jahre gedauert, um herauszufinden, dass das, was er mit Technologie macht, Kunst ist und dass etwas für ihn verändert, oder für ihn verändert, als er sagte, dass er ein Künstler ist. is art and that something changes for him or change for him when he said, I'm an artist. So when Herbert said about himself, I'm an artist, how did the, let's say, the world, the art world, people react to his art? Were they like, oh yeah, you say it's art, then we all agree it's art? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Nobody did agree, of course, first. And it took quite long. And I think up till now we have the impression that most of the art world is is not accepting what he is doing as an artwork the the community is getting bigger who who think it is art but looking to a general view of art artists and art reception I think up till now we are still in a phase where we can't say majority believes it is art so he had a lot of discrimination as an artist I would say and a lot of no interest you know people didn't care for what he was doing. He always thought he will never be able to be accepted as an artist in his world, in his lifetime. So it is very nice to see what is happening now and that yeah, at the end obviously there is a reception that he is an artist and he came here in wonderful Francisco Carolino Museum. The first, by the way, maybe it was an accident, his first exhibition was in the year 59. It was in Vienna in the Museum of Angewandte Kunst. Up till now, I cannot understand why it happened. So it must have been an accident. But nevertheless in this time he showed what is called experimentelle esthetik, a show where the generative photographic works as well as the oscillographic analog computer works were shown. Of course, no reception. No bigger newspaper was there or was interested in... But nevertheless, it was very important for the young artists to be shown there. Then he had to wait quite a long time. There were shows, of course, like VEGETZO COMPUTERKUNST, which he curated himself, where a few of his works were shown and others. But this was a show, it ran in approximately 200 towns over the world by Goethe-Institut, but it was not a real art show, accepted as an art show. It was something like digital computer works, but not artworks. And then we had a bigger show in the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien. This was, I think, 2010. And, well, now we are here. So it is the third really big show, I would say, exhibition about Herbert as an artist. And to be open, he never thought it would come to that point that he would be able to enter a traditional museum like this. Exactly, it's the first exhibition in a... Traditional. Is Alfred Weidinger here? Can he hear us if we say traditional museum? We might get in trouble. Quotes,? If we say traditional museum, we might get in trouble. Quotes, quotes. Quote traditional museum, but yes, it's an art museum because the first one was Angewandte Museum, Angewandte Kunst. So not an... And that's also what all his writing is about, right? So like fighting prejudices and trying to convince and prove to people in 57, 78 again, when he wrote his books, well, this is art, I tell you why. And, I mean, I think it's three weeks ago that Herbert and you joined Twitter, and, yeah, after that, that was quite wild. I visited, together with Alfred Weidinger and Genoveva, I visited Herbert, Franke and Susanne in Munich and I shared on my Instagram that I'm going to visit them and people like, yeah, artists went wild and were like, oh, wow, wow, he's a legend and so on. And then I was like, when I was there, one of my first questions was like, Herbert, do you know that artists on the internet think you're a legend? Like a lot of people, like some of the most important artists working right now with digital art, and he was like, really? And I was like, yes, come and see yourself. And then I spoke again with Susanne on Tuesday, that was a Friday on Tuesday, and she was like, oh yeah, but we have so many things to do, and I was like, yeah. But I think it's... Who cares? Did I say that? I hope not. I was like, no, it's going to be beautiful. Come and see yourself. And then 30 minutes later, I guess, yeah, who knows you knows how fast she is. And 30 minutes later, there was a Twitter account. And I think two hours later, there were 1,000 people following. And 48 hours later, there were 10,000 people following. And five days later, I think we were at 12,000 or 13,000. So it's growing and yeah you introduced him as a the two of you introduced him as a dinosaur I think of computer art and I think the first we've got more than 15 15,000 likes so I would say quite a few people think he's an artist and a legend and what he has has achieved is worth looking at. It's astonishing how this community was growing in the last 10 years because, of course, at the beginning, there were a few people around that were similar in thinking, like Gottfried Jäger, Geheim Grafenhorst, and Manfred Mohr, Vera Mollner, but these were very few people. They knew each other personally. They didn't have email, of course, and no Twitter, but they wrote letters. So there are still documents of communication of them. They felt to be friends, and friends because they have same thoughts about art. Also, they maybe never saw them very often, sometimes at a conference or a show. But usually you had only distant contact. But now, that's really amazing what's happening now. And there's a community of thousands and ten thousands of people who are doing and thinking like Herbert did 70 years ago. And that was very impressive for him to get notice of. I think I remember you all. Yes, Raphael is back. Hi, Raphael. Good to see you of. I think I remember you, oh, there's Raphael is back. Hi, Raphael. Good to see you again. Hi. I think, yeah, you've mentioned two things when we were watching what's happening. Do you remember what you said? You said there's the people who either know his work and think he's a legend or the ones who, like, that you were surprised to see that no one said, oh, this is not art and this is not relevant. Either people said, well, he's a legend or the ones who like that you were surprised to see that no one said oh this is not art and this is not relevant either people said well he's a legend or they really started looking at his work and do you want to tell the story of I think it's our favorite tweet the person yeah it was really our favorite tweet it was so nice he said well I'm doing generative photography and I did open um um the photography and I did a work and did that work and was so impressed by myself with my artwork and wow gosh now I'm I have to understand that there was somebody who did the same things for 70 years ago so I can I can stop making art any longer now. So we found that very, very impressive for us to get such a nice note. Yeah, I think you basically set up 60 years too late and I had no clue that I was 60 years too late. Yeah, Genoveva, you together with Susanne, you curated the exhibition and it's titled Visionary. Can you give us maybe one, two, three examples of visionary ideas, thoughts? Why is Herbert W. Franke a visionary? I mean, he's such an impressive person, not only as a media artist, and that also was the conception. So the very first idea, when we started to talk about the exhibition, after me falling in love with the works, knowing, of course, Herbert W. Franke within the context of Ars Electronica for years, but how intense and how many things he achieved, really, as a first. He is not only a visionary, he's really a pioneer. And when we started with our texts, and I asked Susanne, why not make a hit list of all the really first achievements, like the first artwork printed out in color? I mean, we all have inkjet printers now, but it was incredible using a machine or using the big computers in a very, very early stage is one example. Of course, working with all kind of machines or apparatus, what ability does this tool have? So it's a very contemporary way of working. So as an artistic method, what kind of things can I achieve with the tools? Because the tools always shape what I do. This is what we know, but it was so early. It was so early really using these tools as a partner, for example, or also the Zufall, yes, serendipity, always as a really as an integrative part of his process of working and this also in a philosophical way, not just as a tool but really to think of what does this big impact do with our world and how can I figure out this also systematically with the means of mathematics and so on and also with programs which were partly self-created or partly shaped and existed, and even shaped back so that Texas Instruments also put in parts of what Herbert W. Franke achieved back to the tool. I think this is a way, as we working with media art know that also media artists they shaped for example the tool of video. So this was always a back and forth and I think these are the things we can really learn from out of these 65 years of algorithmic art. Very long career, and he also was in the metaverse already in 2008. I mean, that's incredibly early. And we have two people with us. One person is with me on stage, or with us on stage, Georg Back. And in the audience, Wolf-Lisa from Damm Gallery. Thank you for joining us from Berlin tonight. The two of you have started working with Herbert very early on. Yeah, I say you believed in his work when sort of like no one else was doing it. What got you as an art advisor, curator, expert in digital and generative art, what got you interested in his work? Well, first of all, I started actually as a gallerist. We were showing photography. We were interested in experimental photography and digital photography. And we were looking at the roots of where digital photography comes from and started to discover Gottfried Jäger's work, and obviously Herbert Franke, who was actually, I believe, even a mentor for Gottfried Jäger. And so that's how we started showing his works in some group shows. And I recently did also an exhibition in Zurich where we... 2019, that was, right? No, actually last year. And yeah, so I was first more interested in the oscillograms because of the photography side of it. But I mean, looking at his earth, this is quite amazing compared to other pioneers of computer art, you can basically always see a shift in technology, so he's been always picking up the newest technology whether it's the metaverse or you know like plotter drawings or or Mathematica so it's quite quite amazing that his style also changed with each new technology and I mean there's many books you can read so it's almost like it's a huge universe that he built, I mean the science fiction books which are quite unique for an artist that you are basically not just an artist but also a writer, a theorist, a science fiction author. So you were thinking about the future. And it would be interesting to see how he saw the future like 50 years ago and what became true in our times. Yeah, it's crazy reading his science fiction book. I would love to see them all on Netflix, actually. Can someone please take care of that? Netflix, hello? We'd love to see that on Netflix. It's so no-no, I would love to see. We had an interesting conversation today with you, Kevin, because I noted down the question, why did it take, yeah, it's difficult to say, the art world, because people like Wolf-Lieser and Georg Bach, they understood very early on what he has achieved, or someone like Christa Sommerer teaching students and telling them about his work and you doing your own work. And you, Kevin, had a pretty good explanation why it took the public, let's say, so long to get interested and understand generative photography, generative art, and maybe also slash digital art. Yeah, what are your thoughts on this topic? Well, I have a few. I was asking myself the question why it took so many decades for generative artists, and Herbert in particular, to reach the, again, so-called traditional art world or the public. There was a disconnect, there was a division, it seemed, between generative and computer art, and again, traditional methods. And at first I thought maybe it had something to do with it taking decades for us to develop an intimacy with technology. Now we all run around with phones and we have computers. But soon I realized, no, it's not that, because in fact, most people don't have any understanding about how these devices work anyway. What I've come up with, I think, is it has taken, and it is going to take, continue, continued, we must continue to create emotional bridges. And what I'm talking about is I think a lot of the academics, the artists themselves, the bold institutions back in the day who decided to show some of this work and the curators, I think they tended to intellectualize it, which is perfectly fine, and look at it scientifically. And a lot of the discussions that were being had were, I think were easy to leave people feeling left out. If you look at the work of Herbert, and a handful of others, only a handful of others, you see the breadth of the work, the obsessive, as we know now, scientific sort of approach to exploring emergent technology, which not everybody did. While people may have had access to this technology, they weren't as prolific as Herbert has been. But it's taken a long time to understand the emotional value of his work, which exists. So I think that's what we're dealing with here, is that divide. And it's not that they're at fault, but perhaps the computer art, generative art community, in some way, if they care, I mean, it's not to say they had to be subsumed by the so-called traditional art world, but I think it was just, it was not doing artists like Herbert justice to deny this emotional conversation to be had about the work. this emotional conversation to be had about the work. Yeah, so you say, one, the intellectual approach and trying to explain it, and then the emotional response to it. And I mean, if you go later into the exhibition, there's a room, math, art, and if I, and I mean, I'm in the internet a lot looking at art, like I guess you, Raphael, all of us, if I look at work like math art today, to me it looks like, because I'm in the internet a lot looking at art, like I guess you, Raphael, all of us. If I look at work like math art today, to me it looks like, because I'm so familiar with what's happening right now, it looks to me like it was done yesterday. Yeah, and actually, that's the last part of my kind of thesis here, is that time has brought us to a place where so many of the graphics, the compositions, the color schema, they actually are charged now with a sense of nostalgia, because so much of what his work gave birth to were the graphics and the ad campaigns and basically popular culture that emerged out of so much of the work that he did. So I think now, and I love this about time, is that you had work that when it emerged was absolutely visionary and futuristic. Then probably at some point, you could have looked at it and said it's passé. And then you come back now and you realize, well, it's retro, it's cool, it's nostalgic, still visionary and future forward, future looking. And so you cannot deny the power of nostalgia and that the work itself is now, it's like in our DNA. It's whether we like it or not. It's embedded in our psyche. It's part of the cultural fabric. It's the cultural landscape is so full of the fruits of what he seeded. And also you said since he was basically doing everything or tried everything that could be done, he had basically done everything. Let me tell you the bane of my existence. As an artist, you certainly wouldn't want to inadvertently rip somebody off. You wouldn't want to have a work, like the person who tweeted, to realize, like, oh, that's been done already. But it's almost impossible to create something using generative tools and it not to look like something you've done, Herbert. He ruined it in a way for everybody to some extent. No, but I mean, he's done it all. Every shape, every combination, every color. He did the work. And by the way, he didn't do it with a little clicky filter or a pre-programmed tool. He built this stuff from scratch, from code up, and used tools in ways they were not imagined to be used before other people started doing the same. So that is, that's, that's, that's. So that's why everything looks so familiar when you look at stuff on art books, for example. Sure. And I think we're seeing now a lot of young artists who, you know, it's not their fault that they're not aware of everything, but they are becoming aware of it now. And they're kind of taking a few steps back, like, oh, you know, which I would encourage any artist in the room who does not have a sense of where they fit in in that continuum of the tradition of making art, they should probably do their work. Yeah, maybe not look at his work in total, you might get depressed like me as a writer looking at his work when I heard, I think ZKM, Herbert's archive is in ZKM Karlsruhe and I think they mentioned when we had a meeting with them 1,800 manuscripts and then I was going through what I had written as a writer and then I was like, wait, that's not close to 1,800. Okay, he's a bit older, but still. Plus the Romani? Yeah, plus the novels novels they are not included in that yeah it's it's pretty tough he was like yeah crazy um crazy workaholic i would say and they are visionary so rafael hi from new york good morning and i guess it's a bit late i know it's a bit late i know we hear you super well. So you're one of the pioneers of doing art on the internet. How did you get started as an artist to work with the internet and what has changed for you when it comes to the reception of your art over the years? Is it easier now? Yeah. Before I introduce myself, I wanted to reply to what you guys were talking about. That the big change, I think, that we're feeling now and why computer art is being accepted is that the art world was based on parties. And it was always, who do you meet at the party? Who do you hang with at the party? And nerds don't like parties. And so all these nerd artists were making art but they felt really bad at the parties and now all of a sudden there's this distribution on the internet and they can get away with being not really a people person and i think you'll you'll see a different era but this whole idea of galleries and biennials and you have to be cool and meet the right people that era is over and so now the nerds can just make their work and spread it online. So maybe that answers the question of why we're seeing it growing now. I love that as well. No parties, it's enough being on Twitter. I meet like basically everyone on Twitter. I know so many people in this room just through Twitter. And now we're all here together. So thank you everyone who made it from Twitter. And I mean, Dam Jansky, I think you have a new buyer artist living in a browser. So thank you for living in the real world today with us. But sorry, Raphael, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the old idea of Jackson Pollock on a motorcycle and being drunk and fighting with other artists in the bar, that's a different era. Yep. So how did you get started as an artisan? What has changed for you through NFT, through the blockchain, through the hype? So for me, what really got me started was the Dutch public TV had a website that was very experimental. So they asked artists, what can you do in the browser that you cannot do on TV? And it was very interdisciplinary, and that was very inspiring to me. So they asked artists, what can you do in the browser that you cannot do on TV? And it was very interdisciplinary and that was very inspiring to me. So it was really coming from the Dutch broadcasting culture, which is kind of anti-commercial and experimental. And then classes in school were really important to me that I learned. I felt intimidated at first and then I learned, oh, you really don't need to know everything to do something on the internet and you can get started and this feeling of my browser window is the same browser window as a museum or as coca-cola that feeling that we're all in the same browser that gave me a feeling that I could just do whatever I want and connect with an audience without any editor or anyone in between and that was very energizing to me and you are very successful doing I mean you were one of the first artists who was able to actually sell artworks as websites and now also a lot has changed for you like also for kevin through nfts and using you use blockchain as a medium you use the internet as a canvas yeah what has changed for you with nfts i mean you were already big on twitter before i mean that's also a plus you know being, being active on Twitter. We also see that with Habit now it helps actually a lot. But also you said back in the days the communities, they had to write letters and meet in real life. We meet 24 7. I think, Kevin, you reply within 15 seconds to every direct message. I think, Raphael, within a minute or so I get a reply to each of my emails. So yeah, what has changed through NFTs and the blockchain? I think the blockchain, first I used domain names and then the blockchain, but for me, it was always thinking as the internet as a medium-specific space for experiences. So it's not documentation. You're looking at art. And so that fundamental thing, this is not a website with photos of the work. This is the work. That was basically, that's completely the same in the blockchain or with domain names on the World Wide Web. It's just saying, I always really felt strongly that there is a huge audience that might feel intimidated to go to museums or might not live near a museum. And I always wanted everyone to be welcome. And I think that to me is the same in Web 1 and Web 2 and Web 3. It's really about giving everyone the option to participate. That's the ground emotion for me. And that's also what the blockchain and NFTs make possible when it comes to collecting art. I mean, I think that was it last week, your drop, and the one by Jan-Robert Lichter, I think 0.1 ETH, and yours was 0.2 ETH, so that's basically less than $500 people could actually own like a unique piece by each one of you. And this was, to me, the piece that was missing. So I always, in Web 1, I was showing works in domain names, but they were always for a high price. So there was a disconnect with the audience and the purchase. And I think now, everything being completely medium-specific, the ownership and the viewership are completely intertwined. I think that was the part that was missing for me. And there are also downsides to tying the viewing of the work to selling. I don't think that's ideal. Sometimes you should view a work without thinking about value. sometimes you should view a work without thinking about value but uh i do think that the ownership creates a more emotional connection from the audience to the work that wasn't there before okay thank you and i really liked what you said about the art world and parties and usually the art world before the pandemic um yeah everyone traveled from let's say, Venice to, I don't know what, LA to London to Paris to basically everywhere. And I wanted to ask you, Susanne, why, Herbert is one of the co-founders of Ars Electronica, founded in 1979. Did he do it because of the party part? Probably not. Definitely not. No, he's also no party guy. It's incredible for him to be that person. So what was his idea of founding it? Well, to be open, the concept had a history. It was not done for Linz. It was done for Vienna Künstlerhaus two years before. He had a contract to develop that concept. It was much broader. It was machine art from fireworks up to digital work, of course. So he wanted to show the full history of machine art, let's say it this way. And then this Hannes Leopoldseeder from the ORF, he got in contact with that concept and was very interested to get in contact with Herbert. And they sat together one afternoon and figured out what could be done. He wanted to do more electronic things, so they decided to put a section out of that concept, and it was named Ars Electronica. And it still exists, and my first time in Linz was, I was here for, actually, Ars Electronica, and was on a panel there, so I guess, yeah, Linz is now known as the sort of birth town of digital art due to Ars Electronica and it's a UNESCO city of media arts, which is an incredible title. You live and teach here, Christa. Yeah, I mean, you're an artist yourself. You teach a lot of students. So you're very close to, let's say, change. How do you feel what has changed for you as an artist and also when you work with students? How do they react to digital art? How did they react to digital art and what has changed maybe also through NFTs? Because I heard a lot of, let's say, professors or art students like totally saying, no, I don't want to have anything to do with that stuff. It's too close to the market. Yeah, thank you, Annika. I think there are several questions, of course, to have anything to do with that stuff. It's too close to the market. Yeah. Thank you, Annika. I think there are several questions. Of course, I think what's really important when you're teaching at the university, especially an art university, that you make people aware of the history of the field you're working in. And in our department at the Art University Kunstuni, we are running the Department of Interface Cultures. We have been teaching the history of media art for now almost 20 years. And of course, Herbert W. Franke's work is one of the most important highlight artists that we feature. Firstly, of course, with his connection to Ars Electronica, but also because he was one of the first pioneers of digital art. And also not just his own artworks, but also his writing, you know, on aesthetic, on information aesthetics. So it's a must for our students to read these things, to reflect on it, and not, you know, discover suddenly, oh my God, you know, something like this has been done, what was it, 65 years ago, but that they know the history of the field they're working in. And actually, I'm very happy a lot of our students are here as well. And so I think it's also very good. Hi. It's very good to see now, you know, the real pioneer here, because we have been teaching his work for a long time. People know about Herbert W. Franke's work. They know also about Manfred Mohr. They know about, you know, Werner Mollner and all these pioneers. And it's very funny because when we came here to Linz, I think it was 17 years ago, there was not such a teaching of the history of media art. We were in this department. We said it's important for us to know where we're coming from and, you know, where this field is going to. And now I see, and this is a very good thing, that these kind of programs are spreading up everywhere. So there's like, for example, in Krems, we have the very strong media art history department of Oliver Grau. There are other institutions. ISEA, of course, is a very important conference where media art history is being told, there's of course SIGGRAPH, so there's more and more such kind of initiatives and of course as Elektronika archive, so there is a lot of history here, you just need to go into it, have a look and see what has been done, it's not new and a lot of people are coming from academic background and they leave their traces, they're writing their master's thesis about it. They're writing their PhDs about it. So there is a lot of traces and a lot of history. And if you're interested in, you can find those connections. Coming to the question of whether it's an insider thing, yes, of course, it's a very academic community, or at least so far it was a very academic community. On the other hand, I don't fully agree to the statement of saying there are no parties in the media art world. There are a lot of parties. We had a lot of parties. We're going to a party after. Especially if you go to Us Electronica, you know, it's one big party. So I don't think it's such a dry community of geeks who are not, you know, into art and parties, especially here and in other places as well. But what we can say is that it's a very insider community where everybody knows each other and, you know, we appreciate our heroes. And of course, Herbert is a huge hero of everyone I know in this community. And yeah, we appreciate our heroes, and of course Herbert is a huge hero of everyone I know in this community. And yeah, we appreciate these heroes, and we know it's like in science, you know, you need to know who has built something before you. And coming to this question of NFT, I mean, we had discussions, and I know that some of our students, for example, Cesar, who is a PhD student, he is doing a lot, hi, Cesar, about crypto art. So many of our students are working on this. But it's not just about making money, you know. It's about producing content and pushing the field forward in terms of trying out new concepts. And I think right now, I wouldn't say that students are against NFT or too reluctant. It's just, you know, it's a new area. And of course, people are impressed by the gains that they can make or some artists can make. And this is important. And of course, for any art student, it's super important to know how to make money. And a couple of years ago we organized a panel at the lentus museum actually media art and the art market wolf lisa was there christiane paul was there i think oliver grau was there so we had a kind of very specific panel about how artists can make money with digital art and yeah I think it's an ongoing process and I would not say it's a bad thing to make money but of course it needs to be tied into a history and also a comparison of you know what has been done before and it's not something that just dropped from the ceiling. I mean Raphael you have a money bag right next to your name on Twitter, right? Why that? I always wanted to ask that and found it a strange question for Twitter, but we're sort of like among us right now. So why the money bag? I always found it interesting that in popular culture, movie stars and musicians, it's okay to make money. And it seems that in the art world, there's this power struggle that collectors say, oh, artists shouldn't make money. They make better work when they're poor. And they make you feel like when they give you, when they buy your work, you still owe them something. Oh, now you have to do this for me. Now you have to do this for me. I will protect you. So there's this power imbalance where artists are supposed to be outside of the economy, they're dreamers, they are very pure, but then the structure around it, the gallerists pay you too late, the actors act like they control you, and it's okay to make money, I don't have to be embarrassed. That to me is just a personal statement. I feel very liberated that I can make a drop outside of any platform and connect to an audience. Yeah, that's where I'm coming from. Okay, great. Thank you for that explanation. Would you want to repeat your Iowa way story in public? The first question he asked you? I don't know. I was thinking you wouldn't do that. So you also, I mean, the interesting part how you, Kevin, entered the let's say crypto scene was because one of your photographs sold for one point something million. And I mean, that was for you the feeling that you made a lot of money and you felt strange as an artist, right? So how did you stop being a photographer, sort of, and enter the blockchain field? So that event that you're referencing, yeah, the sale of an artwork for a lot of money, that was, yes, in a way what precipitated a project in 2018. I had been engaging with the blockchain as a method since late 2012, early 2013. as a method since late 2012, early 2013. As Herbert well knows, as technologies emerge, you, just like if a new paint or, you know, a brush comes out, you play with it. You see what you can do with it. I had been interested in cryptography for years and the alphanumerics that are generated when you create, when you encrypt work or when you, in the case of blockchain, when you create a wallet and you have its public key and the private key and that relationship, the idea that I could store value within these alphanumerics, that these alphanumerics could be proxies for something else, something much deeper. Yes, anyway, to get back to what you're saying, I was feeling commodified, I think it's fair to say, after a couple years of the attention being on the monetary value of my work as opposed to the artistic value. And so it was a playful way of kind of controlling that narrative. I tokenized myself on the blockchain in the same way one would create a crypto token, something like a cryptocurrency. I created 10 million virtual works of art. Each one, the idea was a piece of me. If they wanted to treat me like a commodity, I was going to facilitate that just for fun. But I did want a sort of a meaningful connection to it. And the way I thought I could do that was also create a physical component, not for shock value, but actually because it was the easiest way with my blood, I used the alphanumeric, the contract address that is generated when you deploy a contract to the blockchain. I know it's all very technical. I made a rubber stamp with my blood. I printed these on paper. And I felt that I therefore had a meaningful connection because I created physical work that could not have this meaningful existence were it not for the creation of the virtual. In any case, that was in 2018, and it led to a number of works, including very early NFTs that were not attached actually to any um any visual or oral or any other media they were just tokens the token as art um and uh uh yeah it's it's it's been it's been quite a quite a couple years anyway and in end of april your solo show opens at gallery nagel and draxler in berlin and you're going to show paintings i found that quite interesting yeah you're not doing paintings yeah that's nobody's asked me about that yet painting i i used to paint i did a lot of stuff you know i move across all sorts of media but i came back to painting it's possibly because during the pandemic there was it was even more intense. Like if I was on the computer making art 50% of the time, 60% of the time, during the pandemic, it was almost 100% of the time for some reason. I don't know why. I didn't have to. But no, there's something to be said about painting. I mean, there's just how direct it is, the way you can communicate directly without going through something else. said about painting? I mean, there's just how direct it is, the way you can communicate directly without going through something else. And the type of work I'm doing, even though much of it is paint on canvas, there is a process I use that starts with collecting data, using deep learning algorithms to train, to study this data. It surfaces insights that inform me. I then work in a feedback loop around and around, let's call it with the computer, so to speak, and then this manifests on the canvas, and I decide when it's done. I would not characterize this as a particularly scientific process. It's ritualistic, with some hard science, I guess, in the background, but it's what I choose to use to bring myself into a mental space where I try to use electronic tools to bring insights and truths that I might not be able to surface on my own. Okay, yeah, I'm very excited to see paintings of yours. And that also painting, I mean, paintings always worked well on the art market. That brings us back to the topic of the art market. Georg, you're the expert here with us of the art market. I mean, you started very early on as a gallerist, you know, selling computer art, generative art, and so on. Yeah, what has changed? And has it actually really dramatically changed for artists, for galleries? I think there's a pre-NFT and the after-NFT time. And I mean, for a gallerist, it's been always quite tough. I think with generative photography, it was interesting to see that when we showed it for the first time at art fairs, there were like not so many people interested in that type of art, but the ones who were interested were quite often very interesting collectors or museums because it was quite new for them and they discovered something new. I had to explain to everyone what generative means. Most people thought it was some degenerate art or something like that. So I... And then suddenly there was this whole wave with the GANs, so people were talking about generative adversarial networks and then there were like these first sales of Christie's and Sotheby's and then with the NFTs, suddenly everything changed. I mean there was was a lot of interest. And I see that right now, all these NFT collectors, they're also interested in physical artworks. So they're contacting me for, yeah, Herbert's works or other pioneers of computer art. So they are starting to discover this whole history of digital art. So they are starting to discover this whole history of digital art. And I think actually there was always an interest there for digital art in our time. But the market never took care of it. I mean, yeah, we just had a discussion before about the net art movement in the 90s. I remember when that came up, I was so interested, and I thought, well, this is the big art movement of our time. And there was no gallery who picked it up. It was just a very niche little group of people who were interested in that kind of art. Luckily, in Switzerland, we had a small institution. I don't remember what it was called, but it became the HEC afterwards, which is now a very nice and quite a big museum, or like a Kunsthalle type of exhibition space. like a Kunsthalle type of exhibition space. And yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, the market is now quite strong, I would say. I mean, there's a lot of demand. And as an art advisor, I also, I'm not just selling to anyone like interesting artworks. I'm trying to place the artworks into really good art collections or build great new art collections. Quite often, the collectors have started with NFTs and now they are kind of widening their collection into different fields. So yeah, at the moment, it's a good time in the art market. But it was different, like pre-NFT, I would say. Yeah, as long as everyone's talking about NFTs and a few people are talking about money, and I'd just like to say to the students in the back, one, yeah, NFTs make a great delivery mechanism. It's a great delivery mechanism for natively digital work, for sure. But, you know, these stories you hear about, like, make NFTs and suddenly you're rich, here's a fact. Here's a fact. It's always been like this. Art people, at least in the United States survey, people who identify as artists as their primary profession in the United States, less than 1%, a fraction of 1%, make more than $10,000 in a year. That's, right? Artists. Now, do the great democratization of art through this wonderful decentralized technology, have NFTs changed this? For some artists, yes. Yeah, for sure, there are people who didn't sell work before that do now. But do you think that that percentage of wealth has changed? No. It's still a fraction of a percent. I'm looking around this room and I see a couple other artists, and myself included. We are part of the fraction of a percent of people who actually make a living off this stuff. You too. But I mean, this is a rare group of people. This isn't about discouraging people to make NFTs. It's just this gold rush that the media would like you to believe exists. Take that with a grain of salt. People aren't all making $69 million. Yeah, Wafaa? Can I reply? Yes. I do think if you really have a long view of history, maybe 200 years back, you're seeing that we're moving to an information economy. And I do think the sector of people who identify as artists or for who the creative profession is a part of their life has grown in proportion to the population so I think the creative industry in its whole breadth is much bigger than 200 years ago where artists were there was a couple of artists at the court and a few artisans and I think now as a percentage of the population it's it's a bigger profession. Parents would cry if their children told them they wanted to be artists that's changed a little bit a little bit. But I mean the interesting thing is I mean I don't want to go too deep and we've reached the 60 minutes limit and also we would like people to see the exhibition but what I as a curator and writer and also being active on social media realize, it's sort of like the artist's, it's a genuine interest, and it's the pioneers like Manuel Rosner is with us like 10 years ago. I mean, that compared to Habit, I mean, that was quite late, but we're also born a bit later, so Manuel started, you know, building virtual galleries and virtual worlds in 2012 out of his own interest, and he never stopped doing that, and when something new happens he does something new same with Rafael or we have this new platform right now Mario all of you guys I see here and are with us tonight you're always like ahead of your time when there's something new you're doing it and I mean Rafael is big on Twitter you're big on Twitter I mean it's let's use the word hustle it's not maybe best to describe it, but it's the artists who work 24-7, who live 24-7 for their work, and I think that's a big part of it. I can also briefly mention one... Is this what they call passion? Maybe it's passion. Is it? Is that what it is? That's very emotional, right? So you also need a sort of like work ethos, right? Herbert is a passionate artist. Herbert, you're a hard worker, I would say. I think it needs both, right? And yeah, I mean, I would say don't be scared to get in touch with people. I guess that's the most important part, right? Just do it and ask questions for the students in the room. Just write the people a direct message. I love that as a curator and writer. It's great. I mean, through that, I started working the people a direct message. I love that as a curator and writer. It's great. I mean, through that, I started working with quite a few artists. They just texted me, and then we never stopped working with each other. Yeah. As a curator. Do you also love that, receiving direct messages? I love it. Sure. And I think creating artworks is really about passion, of course, and we all have to kind of burn a bit for what we do. I mean, it's clear. I think the experiences of working with media art as a curator doing the exhibition of the cyber arts, of the winners of the Prius Electronica for about 20 years, I think it changed a lot. And this is also what maybe Christa described. So artists being aware about their own media art history, I think it changed 15 years ago a bit, 10 years, so that I think it's a bit like VHS. They always forget that anything has been done already. But in media art, I think we also had to work on our own history. This is really a part of being aware that this is art and it's a certain development and it's not only just a system developed out of the wider fine art context. It became for a certain time something like a system of its own, and then it broke up. Is it not happening now because the time has passed, because there is history now? Absolutely, yeah. And it's really important. Otherwise you have nothing to talk about. And therefore I'm also really happy to work with Herbert W. Franke, but also with Laurent Mignon and Christo Sommerer because also from their biography they are kind of the first generation of artists who really started as young artists in media art only. So early is this entire development. Yeah, we're all early on here, and it's still early. And I'm happy that all of you agree that we need to look at the history. And I guess all of you are very honored that we have a huge part of the history of computer art with us in person. Or actually you and Herbert, I guess you're also a huge part of his work and practice and being with him all the time. So thank you everyone for your time and interest and for being here. And does any one of you have a question or are you all ready for the party? Questions? Otherwise, we can also mingle in the back. Is there someone over there? Oh, it's John. John Gerard. Hiya. John, we missedingle in the back. Is there someone? Oh yeah, over there. Oh, it's John, John Gerard. Hiya. John, we missed you in the afternoon. Do we have a... Hi, wonderful to be here and thank you for the wonderful panel. Congratulations to Herbert. I can't wait to see this exhibition. I just want to ask the panel, and in a way by extension Herbert, to what degree does it feel, it feels to me that the contemporary fine art world is heading into a crisis. And that crisis is exemplified by the Venice Biennale curated section coming up, which I will imagine will have no computer generated work whatsoever in it. Ditto Documenta. I would imagine it will have zero computer generated work whatsoever. And I think part of that has to do with this disconnect, which George said when nfts came in everything changed suddenly we can attach cultural value to digital things and i'm i'm you know i sat and pursued a work on feral file from rafael the other day you know seeing what's happening on these incredible platforms exhibition sites and distribution systems simultaneously like Artblocks, Virofile, FXHash. I'm amazed at the number of people who are collecting in those environments. I'm amazed at the money they're spending, even though that's not the subject. The subject is the fact that digital things are being valued. And scrolling back to my original question, I wonder how is the contemporary fine art world heading into a crisis as a kind of an academy at the same time as the digital art world is coming up and into power, powered by this incredible assignation of value by NFTs. Yeah, we all have strong feelings about that. Kevin is very good when he has strong feelings. Go ahead with your feelings. I love that. I don't want to sound like I'm upset about everything. But no, I mean, I mean, yes, you, some of my peers would like you to believe there's a revolution of sorts happening. It's a decentralized revolution versus the establishment. The thing is, most frequently, the artists that have some modicum of success, Sotheby's or Christie's waves a little wand and they come running. And so they get co-opted by the establishment. And the same psychological levers that are at play in any economy are at play again in this decentralized world. I listened to a talk the other day. People were talking about how gender equity was not going to be a problem anymore. It's inclusive and creative sovereignty and all these wonderful ideas. And yet, when money's in the mix as it is, you can throw all that out the window. The same levers are applied and power plays are applied, unfortunately. At least that's what I've seen. By the way, there is, strangely enough, in the Venice Biennale, there is a show of NFTs being put on by the Cameroonian Pavilion. Yeah, there's going to be NFT stuff. Yeah, that's right. I believe Lynn Hirschman-Leas. And there's some off-space stuff also going to happen. Raphael, would you also like to reply to that question? Yeah, sure. I agree with the question is already a statement, and I agree with it that we're seeing a shift that is similar to from classical music. When recorded music happened, I think the earliest recordings were bad quality. And I'm sure the people of the opera said music happens in the opera house with costumes and the director and the symphony orchestra to its fullest potential. And the early music recordings were bad quality. People said, oh, that's not music. That's just a bad recording. And as time went on, those recordings got better and better and they created their own venues, their own distribution. And now we know classical music is siloed in a certain area and recorded music changes culture. And so what I think we will see with the visual arts is that young people grow up being very connected to art, maybe not even buying it. And maybe as they grow, they start buying, but that's not even important. But I think now you will see kids age 12 see exhibitions in gaming environments and growing with the artists of their generation in a way that just we haven't seen yet in the same way that we didn't see recorded music 200 years ago. And to me, it's such a big shift. It's the same from theater to film. It's a similar shift. And when movies started, people said, well, movies are never going to be as good as the theatre. And now we understand that films and TV shows have more cultural impact than the theatre. And so I think both will exist and I think institutions will play a large role in exhibiting digital art, maybe not so much in collecting, but empowering a much larger audience being a part of art and growing up with it from a young age, that's something that I think we're going to see. That's the real shift, that the connection of the audience with the artist. To add, hi, John, what John said, and John, you know John has been in the field for a long time as well. And I think what we see now is that digital art is taken for granted. You don't even have to explain this anymore to people why digital art is art. And some people even say it's obsolete to say digital art. It's just art, because the method or the methodology of how you make it doesn't matter so much anymore it's becoming very hybrid we see it also at the art university you know people use all sorts of media they use digital media but they lose use maybe also textile they also use ceramics they use all sorts of media and what we see now and that's a very good thing is that that media art, or the old media art, as you call it, or digital art, is just becoming as valuable as any other art form. And I think that's a very good trend. That's what I observe. Great. Anyone else with a question? Otherwise, drinks, exhibition, party, more history? otherwise drinks, exhibition, party, more history? History, more history, more history. Okay good, let's party. Thank you everyone for joining us.