Mother of All Demos III

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• Minisode: American Artist on Mother of All Demos III

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  Minisode: American Artist on Mother of All Demos III

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  American Artist: So the earliest computer interfaces always had blackness as a basis of what could be done on a computer.

  My name is American Artist. That is not the name I was born with. I changed my name in 2013. I grew up in Southern California, but I moved to New York around the time that I changed my name and I've been living here ever since. I'm an artist and an educator.

  This work is a functional computer that is made out of dirt. It has this material of asphalt that's been poured onto it and it's dripping and sticky with this black material. And it's on this standard desk. What you see on the monitor of the computer is white text on a black interface.

  The shape of the computer is modeled after the Apple II, which was the last commercial personal computer that used this all black interface. So the earliest computer interfaces always had blackness as a basis of what could be done on a computer. I wanted to make a computer that was really rooted in this moment where blackness served as the basis of what could be done in virtual space.

  This work is called Mother of All Demos. The name is based off of an event that's pretty well known in the computer science field. This moment in 1969 when Doug Engelbart gave a first demonstration of this new computer interface that he had created alongside the use of a mouse and being able to click around.

  Doug Engelbart worked for Stanford Research Institute and he led a lot of innovations around computer technology and interfacing and how they were networked. He pioneered a lot of ideas that were central to the development of Silicon Valley.

  And in that moment across the industry, computers began to use this white background as the backdrop for a computer interface. Prior to that, all computer interfaces just used text based languages and you would just type code into a computer screen. When interfaces were text based, they always had this black background on them. 

  And so whiteness pushed blackness aside as the original background of the interface to bring in this new era of computation. And in that moment it was said, blackness on the computer, it's bad for reading, it's not good for your eyes. And yet nowadays, we see a lot of that formal language of the black aesthetic coming back into computation. 

  I was thinking about the beginnings of the computer interface and ways in which anti-Black racism had been present in the decisions around what an interface would look like. This piece is part of the series Black Gooey Universe. There's hand prints next to where the keyboard of the computer would be. It appears that someone has just used this computer and they've touched the sticky surface and gotten their hands covered in this black material.

  This word gooey is a way of saying this acronym GUI, which means graphical user interface. And that is a type of interface where you have windows and folders, and a mouse and a cursor, and you can click around. And so the Black Gooey was really about thinking about what a computation rooted in Blackness could look like and what kind of material manifestations it might have.

  It was a return to that moment, but also wanting to rethink all of the values that we associate with computing that things need to be fast or pristine or mimic an office space—wanting to question what that idea of use even means and for who. For who are these things productive? Is productivity the only desired outcome of a device like this?

  I do imagine someone having just used this computer, not someone that actually exists. It's a speculative person for whom this looks like a very inviting computer. This is a type of computer that represents their values and understanding of computation. And what I was really trying to do was make something that for anyone entering the gallery this would look uninviting. 

  I wanted to make something that felt dirty, sticky, things that you wouldn't necessarily want to touch, but then to show that someone actually is using this thing. And that was really about showing how much different computer technology could be if someone else had been in the room deciding what these different visual and formal design strategies would be.

  And so if, let's say, a group of straight cis white men in the 1960s designed this office space device to mimic what they saw as a average way that someone might engage with information and visual information, what does it mean for that to then inform the way that everyone will engage with it from that point forward in perpetuity? 

  This work very much does feel like a thought experiment because it's pulling together these different histories and trying to flip them on their head and get us to really question how we even relate to computer technology. So much of what I'm trying to do in art doesn't really feel like how most people think about art, but it feels like it's trying to do a lot more in terms of shifting culture, raising consciousness about different political issues, and trying to use these formal and visual strategies as much as possible to really embed all of these deep thoughts into a material object.

  Mother of All Demos is providing an alternative that is not necessarily attempting to resolve an issue. It's just provoking. It's saying, what if this computer is almost not useful? What if use isn't the main goal or deliverable of this object? But rather, it's merely intent on expressing different ways to exist or communicate that fall outside of everything we understand a computer to be able to do.

• Descripción verbal: American Artist, Madre de todos los demos III, 2022

  In Refigured (Spanish)

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  Descripción verbal: American Artist, Madre de todos los demos III, 2022

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  Play Transcript

  Narrador: Esta escultura, que se titula Madre de todos los demos III, tiene varios componentes. La obra mide 1.5 metros de alto, 74 centímetros de profundidad y 1.3 metros de ancho. Su composición incluye piezas de computadora, algunas reales y otras esculpidas, sobre un escritorio sencillo.

  American Artist: Mi nombre es American Artist. Esta obra es una computadora funcional que está hecha de tierra. Tiene este material de asfalto que se ha vertido sobre ella y está como goteando y pegajoso con este material negro. Y está en este escritorio que es una especie de escritorio estándar. Y lo que ves en el monitor de la computadora es texto blanco en una interfaz negra. Hay huellas de manos al lado de donde estaría el teclado de la computadora. Y parece que alguien acaba de usar esta computadora y tocó la superficie pegajosa y se cubrió las manos con este material negro.

  Narrador: La computadora hecha de tierra es de color marrón claro, con variaciones sutiles en el tono y la textura en todas partes. Descansa sobre el escritorio e incluye un teclado. Hacia la parte posterior del escritorio blanco, que sería lo más alejado del espectador al estar de frente a la obra, hay un cable de subwoofer, un cable de audio con los colores del arcoíris, que aquí se usa como uno de video, que se conecta a la computadora de tierra. Este cable de subwoofer de aproximadamente 2.5 centímetros de ancho y 46 centímetros de largo alude a la cultura musical negra, es la única parte de la obra en colores brillantes pero su tamaño evita que se convierta en un componente visual dominante. Encima de la computadora de tierra, frente a la cinta, hay un monitor CRT monocromático real, que tiene una pantalla de inicio con un fondo negro con texto blanco.

  American Artist: Cuando enciendes la computadora por primera vez, el texto se desplaza hacia abajo en la pantalla y luego llega a este momento donde te pide una contraseña de inicio de sesión, y obtienes este cursor parpadeante que siempre está en marcha. Y lo más probable es que cuando lo veas, no se desplace ni se mueva. Simplemente verás este cursor parpadeante llegar al final de este indicador de inicio. 

  Narrador: El cursor parpadeante es el único elemento animado o en movimiento de la obra, y parece sugerir un próximo paso que aún no se ha escrito.

  American Artist: La forma de la computadora está modela de acuerdo con la de Apple II, que fue la última computadora personal comercial que usó esta interfaz completamente negra. Y quería hacer una computadora que estuviera realmente enraizada en este momento donde la negrura servía como base de lo que se podía hacer en el espacio virtual. Así que fue una especie de regreso a ese momento, pero también querer repensar todos los valores que asociamos con la informática de que las cosas deben ser rápidas o prístinas o imitar un espacio de oficina. Quería hacer algo que se sintiera sucio, pegajoso, cosas que no necesariamente querrías tocar, pero luego mostrar que alguien realmente está usando esta cosa. Y se trataba realmente de mostrar lo diferente que podría ser la tecnología informática si alguien más hubiera estado en la sala decidiendo cuáles serían estas estrategias de diseño visual y formal.

  Narrador: Frente a los elementos de la computadora y en el teclado se vierte asfalto, que es de un color negro intenso y vidrioso. El asfalto se asienta en un charco en la parte delantera del escritorio y está flanqueado por dos huellas de manos oscuras en la superficie del escritorio blanco. Aunque el asfalto ahora está endurecido, unas pocas gotas delgadas se enroscan hacia abajo alrededor del borde frontal del escritorio, lo que nos da una idea de la viscosidad del material, que sería similar al jarabe o pintura para casa.

  American Artist: Elegí asfalto porque es negro y gooey (pegajoso). Y esta palabra, gooey, es una forma de decir el acrónimo GUI (por sus siglas en inglés), que significa "interfaz gráfica de usuario". Y eso es algo que surgió en las computadoras alrededor de los años setenta. Y así, Black Gooey (negro pegajoso), que es parte del nombre de esta serie de obras, se trataba realmente de pensar en cómo podría verse una computación arraigada en la negrura y qué tipo de manifestaciones materiales podría tener.

  Narrador: El título de esta obra, Madre de todos los demos III, hace referencia a un evento muy conocido que tuvo lugar en el campo de la informática en 1968 cuando el ingeniero Doug Engelbart demostró muchos de los elementos de las computadoras modernas, desde Windows hasta el procesamiento de textos. Antes de eso, todas las interfaces de computadora habían usado solo código basado en texto para realizar diferentes funciones. El trabajo de American Artist crea su propia maqueta en la que el color negro se vuelve metafórico. Como lo describe American Artist, Madre de todos los demos III habla de un momento crucial en la invención en el que los pensadores negros estaban subrepresentados y excluidos. El artista hace referencia a este momento histórico en lo que llama una especie de "experimento mental" que hace la pregunta: ¿cómo cambiaría la negritud como base de un sistema operativo la forma en que recibimos y compartimos el conocimiento hoy?

• Descripción verbal: Introducción

  In Refigured (Spanish)

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  Descripción verbal: Introducción

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  Play Transcript

  Narrador: Entrando por la puerta de la calle Gansevoort que da al lobby del Museo y moviéndose hacia la derecha, hay un corredor de 2.6 metros de ancho y 5.2 metros de largo que conduce a una pequeña galería. La galería del lobby es gratuita, no se requiere boleto. Esta exposición se titula Refigurado, curada por Christiane Paul, y es una mezcla de arte digital escultórico y en pantalla.

  En el pasillo de la izquierda, hay gráficos de introducción para la exposición en inglés y español. Al final del corredor hay dos puertas dobles de vidrio que conducen a una pequeña galería con paredes pintadas de gris, una alfombra oscura y una iluminación tenue. Una gran cortina en el centro, a la derecha de la entrada, se divide la parte delantera y trasera de la galería.

  Cerca de la pared izquierda de la galería hay tres grandes pantallas LED redondas escalonadas que muestran secciones de la animación Las fauces de de Rachel Rossin. Hay un monitor más grande montado en la pared trasera que muestra la animación completa, así como un iPad que los visitantes pueden usar para ver el elemento de Realidad Aumentada de esa obra de arte.

  A la izquierda de la cortina hay una proyección de video de gran formato con tres monitores de TV horizontales integrados y un banco al frente para que la audiencia se siente a verlo. Esta obra se titula estoy aquí para aprender así que :)))))) de Zach Blas y Jemima Wyman y tiene una descripción verbal extendida en la guía móvil.

  A la derecha de la cortina al frente hay tres obras de arte. La primera se titula Madre de todos los demos III de American Artist. Hay puntales de 76 centímetros alrededor del objeto, que mide aproximadamente 1.3 metros de ancho, 73 centímetros de profundidad y 1.5 metros de alto. Esta obra tiene una Descripción Verbal extendida en la guía móvil. La siguiente obra en el extremo derecho de la galería está rodeada por una serie de paneles espejados que forman una instalación en forma de L titulada La serpiente que ríe de Moreshin Allahyari. Incrustado en uno de los paneles de espejo hay un monitor de pantalla táctil para que los visitantes puedan interactuar con una narrativa en línea que mezcla historias personales e imaginarias. En la esquina hay una escultura con forma de serpiente suspendida del techo, que representa la figura del genio de la mitología árabe que es el personaje principal de la narrativa en línea. Volviendo hacia la cortina que separa la galería hay una serie de obras de Auria Harvey. Sobre una gran plataforma ovalada de unos 4 centímetros de altura se encuentra un pedestal con un objeto escultórico titulado Ox, apoteosis que representa a tres personajes, siendo el principal un buey. Reflejando ese objeto hay un modelo digital de la escultura, titulado Ox, apoteosis, en un monitor que cuelga del techo. En primer plano de esos dos objetos, frente al pedestal, hay una pantalla curva que muestra un entorno virtual titulado SITE1 que cuenta la historia de origen de los personajes escultóricos. Fuera de la plataforma, hay otro pedestal vacío separado con un iPad conectado que permite a los visitantes ver la versión de Realidad Aumentada de Ox, apoteosis y caminar alrededor del pedestal para interactuar con él en el espacio.

• Verbal Description: American Artist, Mother of All Demos III, 2022

  In Refigured

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  Verbal Description: American Artist, Mother of All Demos III, 2022

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  Play Transcript

  Narrator: This sculpture, which is called Mother of All Demos III, has several components. The work is 59 inches high, 29 and a half inches deep, and 50 inches wide. Its composition includes computer parts, some real and some sculpted, atop a plain desk. 

  American Artist: My name is American Artist. 

  This work is a functional computer that is made out of dirt. It has this material of asphalt that's been poured onto it and it's sort of dripping and sticky with this black material. And it's on this desk that's sort of a standard desk. And what you see on the monitor of the computer is white text on a black interface. There's hand prints next to where the keyboard of the computer would be. And it appears that someone has just used this computer and they've touched the sticky surface and gotten their hands covered in this black material.

  Narrator: The computer made out of dirt is a light brown color, with subtle variations in hue and texture throughout. It sits on top of the desk, and includes a keyboard. Towards the back of the white desk top, which would be farthest from you if you’re in front of the work, is a subwoofer cable, a rainbow-colored audio cable, here used as a video one, connecting to the dirt computer. About one inch wide and a foot and a half long, this subwoofer cable, which alludes to Black music culture, is the only brightly-colored part of the work, yet its size keeps it from becoming a dominant visual component. Sitting on top of the dirt computer, in front of the ribbon, is a real monochrome CRT monitor, which has a start-up screen with a black background with white text. 

  American Artist: When you first turn on the computer, the text scrolls down the screen and then it arrives at this moment where it asks you for a login password, and you get this blinking cursor that's kind of always going. And so most likely when you see it, it will not be scrolling or moving. You would just see this blinking cursor and it arrived at the bottom of this startup prompt.

  Narrator: The blinking cursor is the only animated, or moving, element of the work, and seems to suggest a next step that is yet-to-be-typed. 

  American Artist: The shape of the computer is modeled after the Apple II, which was the last commercial personal computer that used this all black interface. And I wanted to make a computer that was really rooted in this moment where blackness served as the basis of what could be done in virtual space. So it was sort of a return to that moment, but also wanting to rethink all of the values that we associate with computing that things need to be fast or pristine or mimic an office space. I wanted to make something that felt dirty, sticky, things that you wouldn't necessarily want to touch, but then to show that someone actually is using this thing. And that was really about showing how much different computer technology could be if someone else had been in the room deciding what these different visual and formal design strategies would be.

  Narrator: In front of the computer elements and on the keyboard is poured asphalt, which is a deep, glassy black color. The asphalt sits in a puddle at the front of the desk and is flanked by the two dark handprints on the white desk top’s surface. Although the asphalt is now hardened, a few thin drips curl downward around the front lip of the desk, giving us a sense of the material’s viscosity, which would be similar to syrup or house paint. 

  American Artist: I chose the asphalt because it is black and it's gooey. And this word gooey is sort of a way of saying this acronym GUI, which means “graphical user interface,” And that’s something that came around to computers around the seventies. And so the Black Gooey, which is part of the name of this series of works, was really about thinking about what a computation rooted in blackness could look like and what kind of material manifestations it might have.

  Narrator: The title of this work, Mother of All Demos III, refers to a well-known event that took place in the field of computing in 1968 when engineer Doug Engelbart demonstrated many of the elements of modern computers, from windows to word processing. Before that, all computer interfaces had used only text-based code to perform different functions. American Artist’s work creates its own demo in which the color black becomes metaphorical. As American Artist describes it, Mother of All Demos III speaks to a pivotal moment in invention that Black thinkers were underrepresented in and excluded from. The artist references this historical moment in what they refer to as a kind of “thought experiment” that asks: how would Blackness as the basis of an operating system change how we receive and share knowledge today? 

• Verbal Description: Introduction

  In Refigured

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  Verbal Description: Introduction

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  Play Transcript

  Narrator: Entering on the Gansevoort Street Lobby entrance to the Museum and moving to the right, there is an 8 and a half feet wide and 17 feet long corridor leading up to a small gallery. The Lobby Gallery is always free, no ticket required. This exhibition is titled Refigured, curated by Christiane Paul, and is a mix of sculptural and screen-based digital artwork.

  In the corridor on the left, there are intro graphics for the exhibition in English and Spanish. At the end of the corridor are two glass double-doors that lead to a small gallery with gray painted walls, a dark carpet, and somewhat low lighting. A large curtain in the center, to the right of the entrance, divides the front and back of the gallery. 

  Close to the left wall of the gallery there are three large staggered round LED screens showing sections of the animation The Maw Of by Rachel Rossin. There is one more large monitor mounted to the back wall that shows the complete animation, as well as an iPad that visitors can use to view the Augmented Reality aspect of that artwork.

  To the left of the curtain is a large-scale video projection with three embedded horizontal TV monitors and a bench in front for audience viewing. This work is titled im here to learn so :)))))) by Zach Blas and Jemima Wyman and has an extended Verbal Description on the mobile guide. 

  To the right of the curtain in the front are three artworks. The first artwork is titled Mother of All Demos III by American Artist. There are stanchions about 30 inches around the object, which measures approximately 50 inches wide, 29 and a half inches deep, and 59 inches high. This work has an extended Verbal Description on the mobile guide. The next artwork in the far right corner of the gallery is surrounded by a series of mirrored panels forming an L-shaped installation titled The Laughing Snake by Moreshin Allahyari. Embedded in one of the mirror panels is a touch screen monitor so that visitors can interact with an online narrative that mixes personal and imagined stories. In the corner is a snake-like sculpture suspended from the ceiling, representing a jinn figure from Arabian mythology that is the main character in the online narrative. Moving back towards the curtain separating the gallery is a series of artworks by Auria Harvey. On a large oval platform about 4 inches high is a pedestal with a sculptural object titled Ox, apotheosis representing three characters, with the main one resembling an ox. Mirroring that object is a digital model of the sculpture, titled Ox, apotheosis, on a monitor hanging from the ceiling. In the foreground of those two objects, in front of the pedestal, is a curved screen showing a virtual environment titled SITE1 that tells the origin story of the sculptural characters. Off of the platform, there is another separate empty pedestal with an ipad connected to it that allows visitors to see the Augmented Reality version of Ox, apotheosis and walk around the pedestal to engage with it in space. 

• American Artist, Mother of All Demos III, 2022

  In Refigured (Spanish)

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  American Artist, Mother of All Demos III, 2022

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  Play Transcript

  American Artist: Me llamo American Artist. Este no fue el nombre que me dieron al nacer. Me cambié de nombre en 2013. 

  Esta obra es una computadora que funciona y que está hecha de tierra. Tiene este material negro de asfalto que se le ha vertido encima y está como goteando y se siente pegajoso. 

  Narrador: El título de esta obra, Mother of All Demos, se refiere a un conocido acontecimiento que tuvo lugar en el campo de la computación en 1968 cuando el ingeniero Doug Engelbart hizo una demostración de muchos de los elementos de las computadoras modernas, desde windows hasta los procesadores de palabras. Antes de eso, todas las interfaces de computadoras habían utilizado únicamente código basado en texto para realizar diferentes funciones. La obra de American Artist crea su propia demostración en la que el color negro se vuelve metafórico. 

  American Artist: La forma de la computadora sigue el modelo de la Apple II, que fue la última computadora personal comercial que utilizó esta interfaz totalmente negra. Y yo quería hacer una computadora realmente arraigada en ese momento en el que la negritud servía de base de lo que podía hacerse en el espacio virtual. Era como una especie de regreso a ese momento, pero también de replantearse todos los valores que asociamos con la computación, que las cosas tengan que ser rápidas o inmaculadas o que imiten un espacio de oficina. Yo quería hacer algo que se sintiera sucio, pegajoso, cosas que no necesariamente querríamos tocar, pero para mostrar que alguien realmente está usando esta cosa. 

  Elegí el asfalto porque es negro y pegajoso. Y esta palabra “pegajoso” es una especie de forma de referirse a este acrónimo GUI, que son las siglas en inglés de “interfaz gráfica de usuario”. Entonces este Black Gooey [Pegajoso Negro], que forma parte del nombre de esta serie de obras, se trata en realidad de pensar en cómo podría ser una computación arraigada en la negritud y qué tipo de manifestaciones materiales podría tener.

  Se trata de ofrecer una alternativa que no necesariamente intenta resolver un problema. Es más bien provocar. Es decir, ¿qué pasa si esta computadora casi no sirve para nada? ¿Y qué ocurre si el uso no es la meta o el objetivo principal de este objeto? Sino que simplemente intenta expresar diferentes formas de existir o comunicarse que quedan fuera de todo lo que entendemos que una computadora puede hacer.

• American Artist, Mother of All Demos III, 2022

  In Refigured

  0:00

  American Artist, Mother of All Demos III, 2022

  0:00

  Play Transcript

  American Artist: My name is American Artist. That is not the name I was born with. I changed my name in 2013. 

  This work is a functional computer that is made out of dirt, and It has this material of asphalt that's been poured onto it and it's sort of dripping and sticky with this black material. 

  Narrator: The title of this work, Mother of All Demos III, refers to a well-known event that took place in the field of computing in 1968 when engineer Doug Engelbart demonstrated many of the elements of modern computers, from windows to word processing. Before that, all computer interfaces had used only text-based code to perform different functions. American Artist’s work creates its own demo in which the color black becomes metaphorical. 

  American Artist: The shape of the computer is modeled after the Apple II, which was the last commercial personal computer that used this all-black interface. And I wanted to make a computer that was really rooted in this moment where Blackness served as the basis of what could be done in virtual space. So it was sort of a return to that moment, but also wanting to rethink all of the values that we associate with computing that things need to be fast or pristine or mimic an office space. I wanted to make something that felt dirty, sticky, things that you wouldn't necessarily want to touch, but then to show that someone actually is using this thing. 

  I chose the asphalt because it is black and it's gooey. And this word gooey is sort of a way of saying this acronym GUI, which means “graphical user interface.” And so the Black Gooey, which is part of the name of this series of works, was really about thinking about what a computation rooted in Blackness could look like and what kind of material manifestations it might have.

  It's providing an alternative that is not necessarily attempting to resolve an issue. It's rather just provoking. It's saying you know, what if this computer is almost not useful? What if use isn't the main goal or deliverable of this object? But rather, it's merely intent on expressing different ways to exist or communicate that fall outside of everything we understand a computer to be able to do.