Speaker A: All right.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a very special interview episode. We're joined today by Marcel Schwittlick. Dialing in all the way from Germany. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you've heard his name a lot. If you've been listening to Ken's show, you've heard his name a lot. We love him for everything he's doing with plotters and all this cool stuff. Marcel, how's it going? Welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Hi, thanks for having me. Good to be here. I'm fine, how are you?

Speaker B: Doing well. Unfortunately, I just told you, you know, Trinity couldn't make it. Something came up last minute. So it's going to be just the two of us today. You, the guest, will do 90% of the talking. So really it's on you. So, you know, less pressure on our side.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I think the best place to start, as always, is just for you to introduce yourself to everyone who's listening in case they might not know who you are and give us a little bit about your background in art and coding. How did you discover the blockchain, NFTs, and all that good stuff?

Speaker A: I'm not really sure where to start. You know, within our world, like I'm kind of known for plotter generative work stuff. Yeah. So that's what I've been kind of focusing on for the last couple of years. And it's been a crazy great time. I've been kind of managed to touch a lot of things which were on my mind for a really long time. So it was really great to have somewhat of an audience around, which was like very different to the years before.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: the NFT thing became a thing like this. So it's a— it was a great experience for me to kind of share the stuff also, like, in real, real time, you know. Like, sometimes I just, you know, I'm a big fan of, like, freestyle, so I don't want to, like, over-design or over-engineer things. I just, like, kind of, like, want to move fast. And that was kind of interesting experience. Yeah.

Speaker B: Is your background— would you consider yourself, like, a coder first or an artist first? And how do those 2 things kind of intersect to bring you to where you are now?

Speaker A: I mean, yeah, it's a good question because it's not easy to answer because it's kind of like in the middle realm or something, right? So when I was like a late teenager or something, I came across the works of Manfred Mohr and Frieda Nacke and so on. And this was really fascinating for me. I always had to think for computers. I was like, you know, I spent my early teenage years on the internet also, like with modems and whatnot. And like on, I IRC. And then I came across this stuff and I was like, wow, that would like really hit kind of the spot. And it was like, it really spoke to me. And I remember I was like in the moment of like, do I want to study art? Do I want to study computers? Right. First, I was not really confident, still not really confident. And like studying art was not really like a thing. And coming from my background, it was, would be like, okay, cool. You want to be unemployed and whatnot. So. And I kind of knew what I wanted to do, you know, just have like a hunch, not, you know, I had no idea that I would be doing what I do right now, but I had the problem of, you know, like working with Processing in the beginning that I had no idea like how to do the things I wanted to do. So kind of like the technology was, I don't know how like graphics pipelines work, whatnot. So I studied computer science and like with a media focus or whatnot. So I You know, learned how OpenGL works or compression works, all of real-time multithreading, blah, blah, blah. Like, it was fantastic, really. I think it was a good decision to do that. Later on, I studied art, you know, like a bit later. In fact, there is a class called Generative Art in Berlin, which exists for about 10 years. Like, it's part of the University of Arts. And yeah, I joined that class and You know, I also liked the art school and it was a great experience actually for me to touch this, even though I'm not sure I really liked it a lot. I kind of did completely the opposite. You know, I've been doing like generative art, you know, straight digital before that for since I'm like a late teenager or something. And once I joined generative art studies, I did sculptures or just like worked with steel. I had no, you know, I don't know. It's like the resistance of, you know, what you're supposed to be doing or whatnot.

Speaker B: I noticed that even looking at your website and you have some of your works, or maybe it was even on Twitter recently, you shared pictures of generative or maybe algorithmically designed paintings that you had done that looked like they were probably done by hand, but not using a robot, right? Not using any kind of drawing device. Even kind of before you got into the plotter stuff, you were coming up with interesting ways to employ like generative techniques into creating art. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny. I just came across, I was searching for something different. You know, I was going through my files or something. I was trying to find something and then, you know, you come across some other stuff. Throughout the whole time when I was, you know, like doing generative art or something like, I always had like, you know, my personal work, like, and what I kind of like did for myself, like to explore was always very graphically reduced or simple. You know, it's like coming from the idea of that the kind of the data is the aesthetic part and like how the rendering can be as simple as possible. Because like in, within like freelance jobs and so on, like the aesthetics was more important, but kind of from the art side, I was interested in the system of like what's going on and the graphical representation's gotta be as minimalistic as possible. People start like this, like, you know, with lines after all.

Speaker B: Mm-hmm.

Speaker A: And, um, with the time of like, you know, me getting deeper into like how computer art works and like what aspects there are. At some point I kind of wanted to develop the work that was so influential to me further. Yeah. Like kind of continue where maybe these artists have left off or like maybe are still working on, but like at some point I was like, all of these mathematical functions within which are representing the graphics there, I was feeling With my own work bored, like what I can do, you know, maybe it's just a lack of inspiration or something. And I was— I wanted to bring something that surprises me, you know, in the process. I think this is like a theme which many artists in that sphere are kind of struck by because you are kind of like the creator and the audience, like first yourself from your system. So it's a little bit of a meta creation. But I mean, there were parts where I was surprised, but In the end, kind of wanted to find like a little bit of a, bring the body in there or like something really unpredictable or something, you know, that I didn't really know what. And these paintings that you mentioned are, you know, related to what I like, one big topic, you know, that I kind of following for some time is like to work with cursor lines, cursor, you know, whatever you are doing like on your screen while you are browsing Twitter or whatnot. And like this kind of entropy, you know, like that you bring into the computer, your movement.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Was really surprising because I wasn't able to generate this type of data from nothing. And these paintings are like, you know, they're a little bit like augmented algorithmically. So like they are like laying flat on the ground. I got a projector like mapping like the lines that I want to draw on the board. You know, I just tried to like stay as close as possible to what the algorithm said, what was supposed to be done, right? So while I'm still actually not in the place to kind of do this type of stuff, Automatically, but I don't think it's really the point that this has to be completely hospital neutral, cleanly made without intervention. I did quite a couple of these. Yeah, it was crazy because it's big, it's pretty messy. I don't know, it's really heavy. Like acrylic paints, you know, it's not as expensive as oil paints, but like if you use like 50 liters or something on a piece, like it's definitely something. But there I kind of felt like I gotten really appreciative of the process that is away from completely virtual. You know, like, don't get me wrong, like, I love the computer, you know, like, I love what you— it's the most fantastic tool that you can have, you know, especially when you're writing software. It's so powerful. You can literally do anything, you know, like, kind of like time is kind of like your limitation, right? And I always wanted to bring something out kind of like have other layers conceptually in there, but like still be very crisp on the algorithmic foundation of that. And there are many examples of me trying this out. So like when it comes to today, when I'm doing series under a certain idea, I call them compositions number blah. And these are all compositions which are based on cursor lines. So like this is a thing that has been happening for quite some time. And like I'm trying to geometrically, conceptually explore the nature of these lines. And there is so much to be explored and done, like different ways of looking at them. Like I've been writing, you know, I don't know, my framework went through 3 different languages over the years of like me rewriting and like analyzing these lines and making in the end kind of like data visualizations if you want to be technical. But something that I also learned like really early, like in internship I did at Onformative, which is a generative design studio in Berlin, which was one of the few that existed in the world at that time, that if you got data, it doesn't really matter. You can turn data into anything. Like, you know, you can be trying to represent something or you can be completely free with it. So I don't really see it as data visualizations. I see it a little bit as the exploration of the data and of the unpredictabilities. And yeah.

Speaker B: You know, this was a detail that came out in the interview you did with Ken, one of the very earliest arbitrarily deterministic. You have, I guess, a script that you wrote that is analyzing your mouse movements, capturing every little line and arc and scribble that ends up just occurring through your day-to-day use of the computer. Where did that even idea come from, and can you talk a little bit more about that? Because, you know, a lot of generative artists, at least the ones that we've talked to, when they're working in things like JavaScript or Processing, like, they're using You know, the noise functions that might be native to those languages to then create a lot of like what we perceive as randomness in the final outputs. But you're drawing from this library that you've collected over, I imagine, many years of movements from your mouse. That's kind of like your noise function that you're drawing from, right? Or is that, is that too simple? I guess, am I, am I right on this?

Speaker A: Yeah, no, 100%. It's, um, I see it a little bit as meta-random. You know, because in the end, like my workflow is similar, you know, whether you're calling like random or noise or, you know, whatever, I'm just calling random into my collection of lines, really. It's just a source of entropy after all, right? So if you use like random or noise, you, you know, it depends on the language that you're using. Like the entropy is coming from either like when your computer started, you know, this pseudo-random somewhere it has to start from. This is a little bit the law of the big numbers. You know, if you have enough data and you sample randomly within that, you know, it's technically pseudo-random. But the distribution is very different. And there are very hard contrasts that would— if you would want to try to approximate this kind of data, like you would try to imitate that, you know, like if I would try to sit down and try to do an on-chain project of like simulating mouse lines in order to not be working with data, then it would be a step of imitating something. And I don't see the point. If the stuff is there and it's raw and it's interesting, then the point is kind of in exploring the qualities of this material. And It's still surprising me, you know, like, I guess I'm going to be stopping at some point to explore this, like, I don't know, but so far it's been going on. And, um, yeah.

Speaker B: You've got over 80 compositions, right? I don't know if you actually started the numbering from 01, but I'd imagine you've been working with it for quite a while, and you, you seem to still be able to plumb new ideas out of each iteration of that series. I wanted to ask you, kind of also related, Where do you find the generativeness in your work? And in particular, I guess the contrast between a lot of what we talk about in the show and a lot of the artists that we bring on are releasing art on places like fx hash, where they're doing like a long-form release where the code has a lot of randomness built in and then the final outputs, they exist in that space that the algorithm can provide. In your interview with Ken, you mentioned that you like don't really use randomness or noise. And I think in particular, you were talking a lot about At the time you were working on the Upward Spiral series where each one was identical and it was really just the color of the pen that differed from each composition. So the question would be like, since you don't really release long-form projects, at least that I'm aware of, but you have this huge like fan base and collector base amongst people who enjoy generative work, like where do you kind of feel like your work sits in this Web3 NFT world of what we call generative art? And like, how do you define like generativeness as it applies to your work?

Speaker A: Well, you know, quite a bit before the NFT thing for generative art was like taking off, I kind of said goodbye to generative art like that because I was interested in many other kinds of approaches, you know, like I think it was kind of like exhausted. But, you know, my influence or like my spirit that I can't— or that I'm exploring, that I'm, you know, just also like as an artist trying to find out like what is it that really Interesting to me. And I was going like one level zooming out or something, you know, that's why I started to label my art a little bit as like electronic art. It's difficult, you know, like to say, because that's kind of the lowest common denominator, because there's always like electricity involved, you know. I mean, it doesn't really matter, but like there are so many, you know, generative art, I think for me has a little bit of something to do with not having control. of the system or whatever you're creating. So like one thing is that there is a system that is like somewhat defined like an algorithm here. Like an algorithm is also like cooking recipes. So if you look at it like this, there is generativeness in that regards is kind of like still interesting. And for the upward spiral work, it's not like really classically generative because in fact it's the least generative that it can be because it's literally sine cosine in order to make a spiral. And all of the 144 pieces are structurally completely equal. Like, I've never done something like that. I'm literally playing back the same record 144 times, like playing the same file. This is the algorithm. And the thing that is out of your control is that every one of them is still different and unique. And the system is then like on a really microscopic level of where the variations are happening, because the textures on these works are Like a zoomed-in portrayal of the surface of the paper, which is then like a system that is out of my control because there are certain irregularities in there. And, you know, whenever there's like literally dust or like a piece of sand like under it or like hair under the paper, it's being magnified to a degree that I was not expecting. Like it was kind of crazy. This was for me personally, like a really strong point on that argument that even though you're doing the same thing, There is a random function which is happening whenever you're bringing it into the real world, because there is no— there's always variation and noise kind of happening naturally. And I'm not sure if this is, you know, whatever the people who are perceiving the work is also something that they're struck by. Still, you know, I don't really know what I'm doing most of the time. You know, I'm literally trying things out and trying to learn as much as I can. And this series in particular was quite a risk because at that time I mean, it took 2 years, like, on a daily to kind of do this. And I haven't done a project that had such a scale or like such a, you know, that was also interesting personally for me, like, as an artist, where, because you go through waves of like what you think of that, you know, like there were many times where I'm just like, what the fuck are you doing, Marcel? Like, you're wasting your time on this. And like, it's, you know, it's completely pointless. And this is like, why don't you do something like Why don't you go a bit crazy or like, you know, do something, right? And I think in retrospect also the strength in this series was like to really limit myself of like not bringing in, like making each piece like a unique work in itself within, with a little concept attached to it, but like kind of like hold tight and like trust the process and trust the previous idea. But usually the process doesn't take 2 years. Usually your iteration within the classical software Is that you click and then you have 144 black outputs and then you're like, oh yeah, let's change something here. And then you do that again. So the iteration was like very slow. So it was a huge gamble for me whether I'm going to be happy with it, you know, like, because there was no turning back after a couple of them because my goal was really to pull this through. And I think I've learned a lot during that, not when it comes to software, but like kind of on a higher level, what it means to create and giving really a lot of space to reflect and think. This is what I like about all of the stuff that's ending up on a plotter anyway, because you, you know, where the rendering process takes time, you know, I always love it also when you're rendering within software and even the JPEGs take long to render, you know, you feel the computer is busy, like everything is maxed out 100%, and you're like, okay, Now I got time to think, whereas in other situations you are like kind of drawn towards acting and like creating something or like adding something to it. And there you're like, okay, my work is done. And now, you know, the work kind of happens internally. And for me, it's these spaces of like, you know, not being able to be active and like kind of to think. I start to appreciate them a lot and they're coming over every, you know, within every project kind of in a different way. Like lately, Yeah. spending a lot of time in the darkroom. So there's like even another level because like kind of got to be around the process and really can't do anything else. And, um, that's crazy. So I'm not sure if I'm like intentionally going there, but definitely enriching to the project when it kind of takes time.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there's something very monastic about it, right? And like you said, 144, I think you mentioned it takes like 12 to 14 hours to make one of those upward spirals. And I'm not sure how long it takes to make some of the luminograms that you're working on recently, but like you said, with generative art, with long form, where we're primarily dealing with tokenized pieces that aren't necessarily going to be produced physically, or if they are, they're just going to be printed through like a really high-end inkjet printer, or maybe in some cases plotted, right?

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: But you have to sit and spend an entire day and block it out and be in the studio and Swap the pens and babysit the machine and fix the motor if it starts to fatigue or, you know, all the pieces, right? I know those, that a lot of those pieces wear out and have to be replaced. So there is a really fascinating aspect to the amount of patience and dedication you have to it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I was planning to talk about it later in the episode, but this is kind of like a question that we ask a lot of people on the show who creatively like this is like, what do you listen to? Like, what do you do? Do you feel like the music that you might be playing influences the way that the machine works or the outputs? Are you just in headphones? Are you just in quiet reverence of the machines as they work and so focused on making sure everything is working? Like, what is the vibe like as you're undergoing these processes?

Speaker A: I don't think there's like a thread through that. Like today I was earlier listening to Linkin Park, which I haven't done in a while. So that was fantastic. Oftentimes, sure, like listening to the sounds, you know, I mean, this has kind of, you know, for the upward spiral pieces, like they were really happening next to me. But there's also a different sound. It was really like melodic and rhythmic and kind of pleasant to live by. I listen through speakers. I'm not a big headphone person. Like, I listen loud and I like a lot of UK electronica. Like, I don't know, like '90s Reflex Records and like Warp. A lot of electronic music. I listen to a lot of rap, reggae. I don't know. It's like, it depends on the day really. But oftentimes I also do not listen to music, honestly.

Speaker B: Just listen to the sounds of the machine.

Speaker A: Or literally nothing. Like, even when I'm not hearing anything, like, that's been the norm kind of lately too. Nothing. Silence.

Speaker B: Well, you know, a big aspect of your work these days and what we know you for are the plotting machines, the drawing machines that you use. So what is the story of how you started to collect these things?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Because there's, there's a lot of modern machines that are available at a hobbyist scale. But I know that you've gone beyond that. You've built your own machines and you collect vintage machines or even machines that aren't necessarily thought of to be like traditional plotters that you then modify. So what is behind that borderline obsession? And can you give us kind of a little oral walkthrough of your collection right now? Like, what do you have going on in your studio?

Speaker A: The beginning of that, you know, we talked about these paintings. So when I was not working with plotters, the works were already to be plotted. I've sometimes categorized it like so simply, either you're working with pixels or you're working with vectors. Yeah. And I was always working with vectors, feeling like, you know, you can kind of like hold onto the structure of the work more. And once you render, you got pixels and it's kind of like, it's a one-way compression if you want, you know, you can't go back and kind of, you know, you can't continue working there. And in retrospect, it's also like pretty natural, like, you know, all of the things which kind of like earlier were kind of staying in the digital realm, like they were screaming for being plotted. That definitely comes in a way through my inspiration of all of the early computer artists who like were forced to use plotters whenever they wanted to visualize their work. So this is an interesting generational step that is kind of happening there. And yeah, it was going step by step, honestly. Like, you know, it also took a little bit of some time in order to build up kind of space, like physically and also like headspace-wise, in order to work with that, because it really takes a little bit of dedication and things that are kind of staying in the behind the scenes or so. There's like, you know, a little bit like the iceberg, you know, the majority of the work is not visible or something, right? But it's— that's cool, actually. It was going like step by step. I got all kind of like little kits. Like in the beginning, it was absolutely horrible, but Definitely managed to make a couple of series that are also pretty long and like, you know, sent them around the world, like to friends or so. Like, this was like without NFTs also, but interesting that that happened. It's like with anything, like you are going deeper into the material that you're working with. And I was just always looking for a way to bring the digital works in the world in the most native way, right? So like printing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: is for me a thing that works for pixels absolutely fantastic. Yeah. So when the work is like kind of the structure, kind of like the data that is then for me, that is the work. Like, coincidentally, there are drawing machines that kind of like works. And right now I don't even know, there's like 40, 50 drawing machines that I got in the studio that I collected. And before I collected these, I built like a big drawing machine by myself that I used for the upward spiral pieces. But this was also a really long process.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Cried a lot. I made big breaks in between of like throwing all of that stuff in the corner and just like not touching it for a year because it didn't work like a tool, right? You always had to like twist something, do something, it's falling apart, it's drifting, like it's missing steps, like something is fucked. And I'm just like, God, I wish, you know, software doesn't act up like that, you know? But like, if, if you got these kind of machines and to bring them into a level of them working really like a tool that You're working with it kind of on another level, except from like kind of working on it. In the end, I managed, like this machine still works. Like I used it for the most recent Luminogram series and for the Upward Spiral series. It's actually fantastic, but it's very slow. And somehow I guess like finding like plotters on eBay, like, you know, '80s machine and kind of learned that some like really capable engineers, many of them have spent many, many years developing these fantastic machines. And like, it's kind of impossible for me especially to build such a machine because there's so much functionalities that would literally take you also years and like a lot of money in order to develop that. And each of these different models have a little bit of something special to them, which I just found out during the process, you know. Yeah, that was really fascinating because it kind of then also became Part of the work to kind of, you know, say I'm like working on a composition number whatnot and like trying to play around the creation process of making it work on one certain machine kind of became part of it. And I kind of learned what is the unique thing about that. And this was kind of like also became part of it, kind of makes it for me very special because many of these works I was making are not really like, we're not really able to do in a any other way. And I kind of like it that it's recycled, you know, it kind of like makes it a bit special and like crisp and like really only this one way to do it. I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah.

Speaker B: I mean, I noticed the Octet series, you know, you posted videos of the performance and the machines that you use there, rather than it being an arm that goes around and plots like we see in a lot of the more modern plotters, the machine only moves the pen on one axis and then has, I guess, like wheels to move the paper back and forth. So it's like moving the paper in conjunction with moving the pen, and I think that's how you get that 2 axes of movement. On the one hand, that's probably very good for like adding speed in certain directions, just being able to move the paper back and forth versus having to move the arm, but then perhaps less easier to draw certain types of arcs or other types of design. So before we actually talk about Octet, I wanted to ask you about The Long Run, which is a shorter series that you've done. I'm not sure if it's considered a composition. It's just, um, only 5 or 6 pieces exploring antique pens that might be 40 years old depending on when they were sourced from.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And the way that the ink degrades and degrades differently between them. First question, how did you go about finding those pens that you used in that project, and where'd the inspiration for that one come from? Because they're really, really cool pieces, and I, I think that probably a lot of people aren't even aware of them. You know, they're kind of hidden away on Foundation somewhere. So yeah, can you talk a little bit about that piece and the idea behind it?

Speaker A: I mean, they are hidden somewhere on Super Rare. Like, this was for me— I don't really know where the motivation came from. Maybe it was the idea of like making a series that is not by choice but by necessity short, but still concise or like maxed out in its variations. The idea, I think it— I don't know, I just probably just like came in the chaos. And I remember just that like all of these old pens, they're kind of— they're special plotter pens like from the '80s. There's a huge arsenal of like different types, like it's crazy. You got some magazines like, I don't know, I'll show you sometime. Like it's crazy what kind of detail has been going into this way of putting color on paper, you know, it's crazy. And Why did I use these? Like, also in a way, like, because it kind of made it for me really special, like, kind of out of my control. Like, I could not just go and buy these and like manufacture. Like, it made it kind of— I don't know what it is, but it's like with this thing with recycling and finding instead of creation. It's kind of like a bottom-up instead of a top-down approach. And also I couldn't, you know, kind of like get more of these pens or something, you know. I got like 3 pens with one machine and like, you know, a couple of them lying around, like, all of them completely dried out because I haven't been touched for 40 years. And I was kind of I've been collecting these and like been using them sometimes here and there in a drawing, kind of like in a freestyle to try them out. But they were not like really reliable in that sense because it was not inside of them what was kind of on them, you know, like same, like these cursor lines, like, you know, you're still surprised by using that because you didn't really have control of, you know, I want now color RGB value XYZ. It's not possible because you kind of just got to work with what you got. Collected quite a few of them. And then I was like thinking, okay, the machines that I use for these, they have like a pen revolver, you know, they can hold up to 8 pens and you can switch them kind of automatically with, with the code. And I was counting, I was like, hey, I got 8 yellow pens. That fits. Sometimes things fit and I kind of like searching for these little things that's just like, okay, that's nice. Then I was going forward and I had like exactly that many of a couple of these colors and like more didn't exist.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I had like 8 reds, 8 blues, 8 blacks, you know, 8 yellows. Then I tried them out and they're like very varied still, you know, it's not like the same thing. And so it was just trying to portray this type of variation. So in a sense, this is where the generative aspect comes into play again, because when you think about it as a system that's out of your control, for me, the system there was really small of like, okay, you got this system of like these possibilities, and it's out of my control of like choosing exactly, but still there's some umbrella kind of like bringing it together and making it concise. And for me, it's also beautiful to display it. This time and this variation is something that is, you know, like color degradation doesn't really happen in the digital. So for me, this is really interesting that it's something unique for this world and also for this world of these colors. So for me, it was They're kind of perfectly a way also to round up and like finish these pens. I think that's where it started from. Like, I wanted to find a way to empty all of these old pens and let go of them, you know, like kind of let the past be the past, like finish the old stuff that I found. And they kind of came together nicely. I found a way to empty them all and like just fell into place. And I— yeah, you know, like when you make lines like with a pen, these works, they're actually Dots, right? It's really, really small. But if you want to really empty a pen, you can't just like move it over. You gotta like dot dot dot dot dot like dot it. So that's what I was doing to I don't know how many million dots per piece or something. It's a lot. Like took a long time for each each of these sixteen eighteen hours for one or so. But it does it still does like thirty dots a second. Like it's really really fast. And yeah, for me it was a beautiful poetic round thing of like. Boom, finishing this, like, have, you know, also pretty monumental impression and kind of like not introduce like a design-ish approach of that I want to empty them in a beautiful way. I just wanted to kind of let them speak for themselves and like just get the dots out there. Yeah.

Speaker B: I think they're phenomenal. I aspire to own one one day.

Speaker A: Hey, thank you.

Speaker B: They're super cool. So I encourage everyone to go check those out on SuperRare. They can find them through your website. Let's jump back to Octet after that little detour. This was the first piece of yours that I collected. You were kind enough to kind of jump in and let some of the folks in tender on the reserve list there.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: 2 questions I had about it. First, which of the different performances was your personal favorite? Because you kind of broke it up across a few days. And second, you said in the writing on the piece that you use AI in the process of coding it. So was this kind of just like a one-time thing? Do you have an ongoing practice with AI? What inspired you to incorporate AI in this particular project? And kind of an open question on like, what's your view and how you use it?

Speaker A: Yeah, happy to tell the story there. Just to make the introduction, I was kind of speaking about this project, I don't know, a year or so in the time before it actually happened, and difficult to make this happen, like to communicate what I was planning to do. And like, luckily Petra from the former TZ Connect dSPACE, like Tezos place in Berlin, was like, hey Marcel, we're closing down, go for it. Like, you know, I received a little bit of funding which otherwise would not be possible. You know, it's like, I mean, I still made— it was not a net positive project after all. So then, you know, I was like, okay, go for it, Marcel, in one month, let's go. And I'm like, shit, I need half a year to execute it because it takes quite a lot of software development in order to make this real time. Because I didn't want to just, you know, I'm not a fan of performance when you might as well just like press a button and like let the thing do its, you know, you can kind of design an autonomous piece that is just doing something for an hour. You don't need to be sitting there. But I really wanted to create something like an instrument where you do have a little bit of control over what's going on, but at the same time it's a little bit too complex so you really know what the hell is going on all the time. So That actually worked well because I had no clue what the fuck's going on in the middle of the performances. But at the same time, I had a way of gauging that. So then started the time to put that piece into place, like write the software for it, right? And AI, it's actually found its way in there too, pieces. Well, first of all, I'm not a huge fan of the AI thing. I don't know, for me it's like it's machine learning and ChatGPT came out a little bit before that. And it was kind of interesting, like, to generate all kinds of, like, boilerplate, you know, like within the project, there was lots of code to be written for communication, you know, like protocols and something that, you know, when you're doing, like, graphics, it's fine if something is a little bit off or something, you know, you might as— but within that architecture code, you don't want anything to go wrong. So it's like a really time-intensive and, like, really engineering kind of mindset that you gotta put on. And it was interesting because ChatGPT was able to generate all kinds of like bare bones, you know, whatever, like TCP connection stuff where it's really unnecessary to reinvent the wheel. So it's absolutely perfect. And a couple of these things like, you know, work that way, but really, really quickly, you as the creator have, you know, you can't rely on ChatGPT of like continuously developing your big project. You know, in the end, you're gonna go back to manual.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Programming as usual. So within the work, it also came out of the idea of me using cursor lines as a data input. And then I had 8 different algorithms prepared that I can trigger by button press and also using like a random, using different parameters of like lengths and sizes and blah, blah, blah. And I wanted on the works kind of to put something on in contrast. So I used these human lines and then I asked ChatGPT to generate me a piece of code to simulate cursor lines, you know, like human mouse movements or something, right? They did it exactly how I was expecting, like with the concatenation of like sine, cosine, noise, blah, blah, blah. It's really simple and exactly used it like that. So like within the pieces, you can see that some lines are like, hey, what the fuck is this? Like, and some are like a little bit like, easy to understand. And some, some lines are a little bit out of, out of the norm. So like, I wanted to put this type of data a little bit onto— into contrast. And it's very rudimentary AI inclusion in there. So not really worth mentioning, but it was kind of the idea to put real recorded data and like synthesized data a little bit in contrast to see how they play together.

Speaker B: And you can check out videos of that, those performances on your website. It's really cool just to see you kind of like setting everything up and then putting everything into motion and just letting the machines go. And it does create quite a— I don't know if symphony is the right word, maybe more of a cacophony of noises as they're all running in parallel and doing their thing. It's super cool aspect of the project is just being able to see it in video like that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Let's talk about your most recent work, which We should definitely mention that you have this exhibition coming up at Paris Photo, and I believe the work will be exhibited on Verse. Is that right?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And this is a continuation or another entry into like the luminograms series that you've been working on that I think started with It Is What It Is. I guess in one way, like, you're working with a plotter, but you're just doing a different medium, right? You're using light instead of ink and doing it in a darkroom on top of this photography paper. So if you can tell us a little bit about your inspiration, and I know from reading a little bit in the descriptions that this piece is like influenced by concrete art, concrete photography, which that word concrete, you know, to collectors like us who don't necessarily have a deep art background, we've seen it come up from time to time in generative artworks, typically with typography.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: But here you're using it through photography, through light. So maybe you can just kind of talk a little bit about like, what is the idea behind this concrete art movement and its influences on you, and then this project and like what you're trying to go for with these luminograms?

Speaker A: Well, it's a big topic, yeah, that kind of like found its way into— found its way into all kind of different media or art forms, right? So there's like concrete poetry, concrete photography, concrete art in general. And, um, it's got like one really strong aspect which is like about freedom And like independence of like abstraction or figuration. There is really no point of reference within something that has kind of this as an approach. It's really like the media itself that kind of stands for itself. It's really fascinating. There are so many, you know, especially for like people with interest in like, say, generative art. You know, it's a fantastic encyclopedia. called Against Abstraction, for example, or like Oulipo. And like, you know, a lot of, a lot of stuff has happened like way before computers in a practical way were kind of accessible. So it's funny that it's like an idea that artists have been drawn to for a long time. It's fantastic because it's absolute freedom in itself and very concrete. I'm drawn to it a lot You know, and when it comes to photography, there's been like absolute fantastic artists like who've been, I don't know, like, I guess, '60s or '70s, or, you know, also much later than that, have created work that in a way, you know, it has a lot from generative or algorithmic art, honestly. Like, I think maybe generative art is actually a subset of concrete art. Depends. Yeah. I mean, you can nothing, you can box nothing like Completely. I think there's huge similarities. So the idea is there to explore the medium really, right? And the reason to use machines to execute has a little bit— it's a necessity, I would say, because in other ways you would bring kind of subconscious movements or like aspects into the work, you know, that you can't really help not to. So it's, it's a means of like bringing your subjectivity as an artist away from the work, right? So the kind of idea can be portrayed as neutral or like as clean as possible. Lights and photographic paper, and this is another kind of little system, right, that I'm in a way exploring as an engineer, as a scientist, and as an artist at the same time. So like all of these works are a little bit through the lenses of all of these. That's why they are in a real scientific approach in the execution, right? Because it's not like running around like, oh, today I feel really joyful and like, you know, energetic, and so I'm gonna, gonna go wild, you know. It's like a thing which happens very much in the mind. And like this, you can only explore the media very detailed, right? Like otherwise, like you would not be able to repeat similar things in order to really explore the materiality. And like, this has been really rewarding. And in fact, also the latest series has been like really tough, honestly, because I learned so much on the way of like that photography is, you know, it's not just like printing something out. This is such a completely different world of like different mindset and different workflow and different conceptual and mental processes that are going on, which I am also new to and happy that I can explore it. And like, I'm trying to bring it together with an algorithmic approach and like see what kind of works in the digital and what does not work in the physical. It's something which is, uh, I don't know, when you're doing something like this, there is more problems and issues than you can imagine. Yeah, like, and so it's like a great playing field for somebody who likes to solve problems or like, like to figure things out. And in that series, also a little bit split, which I kind of did the first time because I've been not doing a lot of digital-only works in the last couple of years and kind of gotten back to it within that series in a way also to put them into contrast. So there's a series of like luminograms and a series of like straight digital, you know, outputs works like that are from the same algorithm. And I'm trying to bring it together and see like, what are the strengths of each side? Like certain things you can't do in any other way, right? So like the digital ones got color and you got so much more detail you can kind of work with. And the luminograms have, you know, a certain kind of quality, which you can only see when you're really far up close because there's the detail in the light reflections are really interesting. And there's something that I really drew to the medium also. I scaled these up a little bit, so the previous luminograms are kind of small, if you want, at least compared to the recent works. And that is crazy, like, you know, I don't know, dozens of liters of chemicals, like huge trays, you know, like it doesn't scale so easily. And, um, that was definitely a tough process. Like, it was, um, not sure how to say it in any other way. That was not that I cried a lot, but it was difficult to tame the idea.

Speaker B: Does this series, by the way, have a title?

Speaker A: The title is Composition No. 92.

Speaker B: That's it? No subtitle? No?

Speaker A: I don't think so. You know, sometimes the titles like kind of come to itself and I kind of like it exactly like that.

Speaker B: When I saw the digital versions being shared first, I kind of assumed they were like a blueprint for physicals being made. So will these be sold in pairs? Like if you buy the physical, you'll get the digital twin? of it that exists as the NFT? Because traditionally you've— not traditionally, right? But like, a lot of the work that you've done with NFTs has been a picture of the physical piece tokenized, and that functions as like the proof of ownership of the piece, I guess, or the receipt. So are those going to be separate? Or are they going to be tied together in any way, I guess, is the question?

Speaker A: They're completely separate. Like, it's 2 series with the, you know, one is digital, one is luminograms. I was playing with the idea Honestly, but there's like straight organizational issues of like, you know, thing is, worst position to be in as an artist is like, you know, turning yourself into a print service or something, right? So imagine like you're collecting like digital pieces and then people like, this one please, you know. I want to kind of decide which are the, the works and that go in which way and kind of also go with the flow a little bit because like that, like that's— I would be kind of be forced in And like, okay, try to imitate this digital piece, right? But I don't want to imitate one way to another. I don't want to print something out like they are, you know, they got a connection from the fundamental algorithmic approach to how they are created. And that's it.

Speaker B: Gotcha. Okay. And I guess we can look forward to both of those physicals and the digital pieces being sold somewhere on Verse right around the time of Paris Photo, which I think is in— we're recording this Mid-October, I believe that's like mid-November, right?

Speaker A: I don't know, 10th, 8th, something like this of November.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. So here's kind of a weird question, something that I've been thinking about a lot. And I think I'm hoping that this actually resonates or will apply to you in a way, because so much of what you do is like, has been physical first, but it derives from code. And, you know, I've seen some conversation recently about NFTs and preservation and longevity, the virtues of being on-chain versus using IPFS and like, The stability of Tezos versus the longevity of Ethereum. And a lot of people are now, I think, as they've gotten more and more invested in NFTs in particular, are now starting to think about, will these things be around in 50 years? With your work, there's this physical component. I kind of feel like with my octets, for example, if I lost the wallet with the NFT, that would be a shame, but I have the piece, right? I have this physical, you know, you've got video on your website. of the performance, that, you know, there's provenance there, I feel like it wouldn't be the end of the world. If my piece were destroyed, and longtime listeners of the show might remember I told a story about an instance where I actually thought I had accidentally destroyed one of my octets. You can go back to that episode and listen to it. I won't retell it here. What is your kind of policy or your thinking as an artist where you have the ability to reproduce something like an Upward Spiral, right? Like you have the code, you might not have the exact pen anymore, But like, if I held the NFT and something happened to the piece, yeah, in terms of preservation, in terms of like longevity, like, is it, you know what, sorry, like, that was it, that was one, like, that performance is over, I'm not gonna reproduce it? Or like, how do you kind of think about that? Because you do do this mixed digital physical thing.

Speaker A: So like, if you accidentally tear apart your Octet piece, it's over. The piece is gone. Like, um, you know, I don't do things twice. I think it's boring. I don't want repeat. I don't want to copy. I'm not like remaking or something, you know. It's kind of the nature of the pieces also, especially in the Octet where there's absolutely no, you know, everything happened kind of live, so I wouldn't even have data to do it again. You know, for me, like, I grew up on the internet, right? So I have a little bit of a technical inclination in my life, and I'm using blockchains because I'm really actually fundamentally What's the word? Like, I'm— I like it, whatever. I trust it, you know. It's some— something that I'm very more likely to trust than like other systems. And for me, it's, you know, one of the only ways that I could think of in a long way to digitally not archive but like to catalog works, because I don't have to take care of that. Whereas my website, I could just at some point like not do it anymore, and like this kind of stays there. If there's like other websites like Artsy, you know, in a couple of years they decide to Whatever, it's not lucrative anymore, stop it. So like this type of overview is also gone. So that's the whole idea of decentralization, which I'm a huge fan, which I guess everybody working with software in art has an inclination to. And at the same time, it's completely out of my control of what's going to happen in case things go south. Like I'm going to be hosting a Tezos node to make sure that shit is up, but then it's kind of Pointless because then I'm the only point of failure. It's kind of contrary to the whole decentralization idea. But in the end, it's kind of like in a two, you know, two rails, like whatever fails first, I guess, like the other one is going to be the one that is verifying it. But for me, the works, like when it comes to works which are drawings whose provenance is to be handled via the tokens, then the work is the work, right? And I see NFTs like very technical as a tool, the same as I see machine learning. You know, it's like, I think that's the kind of split that you can always see. I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, like, it's, um, in the end, like, if, you know, blockchain goes off, I think we're gonna have really other issues at our hands, like, in the sense of, like, not having electricity or, like, having, like, more wars. You know what I mean?

Speaker B: I mean, I definitely figured that with Octet, it being performance-based that that would not have been on the table. But I was more curious to ask for like some of the other works like Upward Spiral. And when we're done with the episode, I'll give you visual confirmation that the octets are safe and intact. None of mine were destroyed. Yeah, this wasn't like a roundabout way of trying to get you to make me a new one or something.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But I thought it was just curious because, you know, I think with the bear market, right, people are starting to look at the prices of things like Tezos and starting to think more critically about the longevity and security of these things, even if there will be another bull market and things will be better. I think I have seen some bubbling up of concern about Tezos versus Ethereum, and I just kind of thought there was a parallel to people who make physical works and have the ability to restore them. But I do think it's a fair policy to say like, no, like that's it.

Speaker A: Oh yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's very fair policy, but I was just kind of curious, like philosophically where you landed on it. And I think it makes a lot of sense. I was going to ask you a question more directly about Tezos versus Ethereum, but it sounds like you're very chain agnostic or you don't have a lot of concern necessarily. I think you have a decent amount of work on both chains, although more recently you've skewed towards ETH, I would say. But I don't know, is that just like a price point thing or is that just an experiment to see what it's like to put work on ETH?

Speaker A: I think it kind of just came, you know, after ETH became proof of stake, it was fine for me to also use it. And in the end, like technically ETH is much more mature and there's like some, you know, technically there's many advantages. Like even all of the smart contract code, you can like literally copy it, modify it, deploy, and you're ready to go. Whereas on Tezos, like everything is in goddamn Michelson low level, whereas you can't just like learn by examples, you know, it's absolute disaster. Bad for people like me, us who just want to learn. It's good for businesses, I guess, because nobody can copy your IP of a, you know, whatever your contract architecture is, whatever service you are offering. Nobody can just like copy it and like reverse engineer and like redeploy your thing. So I like both ways. Like, you know, I made good, really good experiences. I don't think there's a, you know, I think all or like most collectors also don't really see a difference. Whereas I do understand investment-wise, like when you are From that perspective, I guess ETH has got an extra leg on the floor. So let's see. I would be happy for Tezos to stay up, and I think there's fantastic things working on it.

Speaker B: It's definitely the art blockchain first and foremost, and I don't think anyone wants to see its demise and think about what would happen to all the amazing work that's been put there, a lot of yours included.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the work still exists also for all of the straight digital stuff. I think that Should not be forgotten in a way, you know, like even there's like a million FX hash projects. I think the work is still there, even when the chains are not working. You know, like for me, the tokens are fantastic means of making this ecosystem also economically working out. I think it's really important for for a movement, for a scene, for that. So really thankful for that. And like things have been really stale before that, and all of a sudden everybody came together again. So this was a. Fantastic. And I think it also helps the whole scene to move forward, get mature like that when it's recorded, you know, and there's like more voices on the table. I think really interested to see like where things are going.

Speaker B: Well, Marcel, if you're okay, I think we should move towards wrapping up the episode. We usually do a few rapid-fire questions. First and foremost, based on a recent tweet that you made, You're playing Diablo 4. I imagine you're a gamer outside of it. So the 2 questions: what class are you playing in Diablo 4 right now? And do you also play other games like Magic: The Gathering, perchance? Have you ever encountered, like, played that style of game?

Speaker A: Well, I'm actually not a gamer. Like, I played, like, the games I played in my life, you can count them on one hand. I played Counter-Strike 1.5, 1.6. I played Warcraft 3. I played Diablo 2 and Diablo 4. And I don't know what I'm playing right now. The one where you can have the extra skeletons.

Speaker B: Necromancer.

Speaker A: Necromancer.

Speaker B: Are you worried at all about what this gaming activity is going to do to your library of mouse movements? I mean, is it totally going to add all these wild new gestures that you didn't have at all?

Speaker A: That's interesting, actually. Well, I play on PlayStation, but in the end, the movement— yeah, like I did play a couple of times Warcraft and like recorded during that time. It is different stuff, actually. You know, that's what I mean. It's not over. There's so many things to explore, like to also be more contextual of like what you're moving. But Diablo is pure enjoyment, leisure.

Speaker B: Both Trinity and I are huge Magic: The Gathering players too. And we're like always fishing to see like who's out here playing Magic, but it's surprisingly few people considering how nerdy this world is. You would assume a lot more crossover, but another miss there.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's— I think I made some touch points with it like ages ago, but it didn't stick.

Speaker B: It's all good. Another question that we like to ask is, who would you like to hear us interview on the show?

Speaker A: Oh my God, like, that's difficult, man. I would be leaning towards people who are not— got nothing to do with NFTs, obviously, you know, because what I like about this type of sessions and like conversations is like I draw a lot from this. I'm really interested in the people behind work and like stuff that I like. I have the feeling I learn a lot there and makes it really personal. And, you know, just artists who are not really working with NFTs, I guess, for example, Karoline Kriczeki, like she's doing fantastic work and I would love to hear her speak about her work. Not sure if I've ever gotten anything anywhere from her.

Speaker B: All right, cool. I guess to formally, formally wrap it up. What's going on with Marcel in the future? What can we expect from you? What can we look forward to? Anything that you want to plug? What's coming up after Paris Photo? Are we doing more Luminograms? Where do you kind of imagine your next few years going? What can you kind of leave us with to be excited about?

Speaker A: I have no clue. I mean, I'm working on a couple of things. I got no clue though. You know, I'm sometimes like, I'm thinking about stopping because— no, I'm just kidding. Like, I tried already too many times to stop. Like, I don't know, it's a Hey, I think you just gotta watch out. I have no idea what's coming. I'm also excited. So let's speak again about that.

Speaker B: Cool. All right, well, I guess just keep your eyes open for Marcel's work. Check out your website. It's full of amazing documentation of all of your works, and a lot of times accompanied by video. It's really cool seeing the lasers moving in the, uh, photo lab and stuff. So tons of amazing stuff to find on your website. We're going to include links to that below. And the notes if you're listening on a podcast app or on Spotify. I think that's it. I think we did it, Marcel. I hope you had fun. That's the episode.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you, Will. It was fantastic. Nah, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Speaker B: Well, that was Marcel Schwittlick. Look out for the upcoming release on Verse. It'll be exhibited at Paris Photo. Thanks to Marcel. I hope you all enjoyed. We'll be back again soon with another episode. Until then, bye everyone.

Speaker A: Thank you. Bye-bye. The rail of the week. To be signed.

Speaker B: We're waiting.

Speaker A: Always.