Episode 044 Diego Mellado

Show Notes

This week we’re visiting with Diego Mellado, an engineer who works in the service of artists. Diego has a formal technical background as a trained engineer but a long time ago after becoming disillusioned with the corporate world, pivoted to using these skills to support contemporary artists. He has spent the past ten plus years in the studio of artist Daniel Canogar, designing and building elegant and durable technical implementations of Daniel’s artistic visions. The technical expertise that people like Diego provide to artists plays a crucial but often unsung role in the art world, and especially in conservation. How artwork leaves the studio, and what documentation accompanies it has a major influence on how well an artwork will survive the future. Years ago Diego was able to see this connection, and began immersing himself in the conservation world and today is an incredibly unique individual in that he has more than a decade of engineering and document works of art within the context of an artist’s studio, but also now is very much part of the conservation community.

Links from the conversation with Diego
> http://www.danielcanogar.com/

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Transcript 

[00:00:00] Ben: From Small Data Industries, this is Art and Obsolescence. I'm your host, Ben Fino-Radin and on this show, I chat with people that are shaping the past present and future of art and technology. This week, we're visiting with someone who is part of the conservation community, but comes to it from a very unique angle. 

[00:00:20] Diego: Hi, I am Diego Mellado and I am an engineer for artists. 

[00:00:25] Ben: Diego has a pretty hardcore technical background is a trained engineer, but many years ago, after becoming disillusioned with the corporate world pivoted to using these skills in the service of contemporary artists. He has spent the last 10 plus years in the studio of artist Daniel Canogar designing and building elegant and durable technical implementations of Daniel's artistic visions. The technical expertise that people like Diego provide to artists plays such a crucial, but often unsung role in the art world, and plays a sort of quiet but important role in conservation as well. You might think of conservation and preservation as something that happens in museums long after something is collected, but with time-based media, how the artwork leaves the studio and what documentation accompanies it has a major influence on how well an artwork will survive the future. Years ago, Diego was able to see this connection and began immersing himself in the conservation world and today is a very unique individual in that he has more than a decade of experience engineering and documenting works of art within the context of an artist's studio. But also now is very much part of the conservation community, including taking a leadership role within the Electronic Media Group or EMG, which we've heard about on this show. This positioning gives Diego a very interesting and unique perspective, both on the inner workings of artists' studios and the conservation field and I really just enjoyed this chat so much and I'm so excited to share with you. Before we dive in, no spoilers, but just an FYI. Next week, we have an artist interview that is going to knock your socks off, and as a reminder, we are only able to have artists on the show and pay them a fair speaking fee thanks to the generous support from all of you. If this little show has become something, you look forward to each week and you have a couple extra bucks, I hope you'll consider joining the ranks of the lovely folks that have supported the podcast. There's two ways to support, including our Patreon which will unlock for you all kinds of exclusive content. You can find it all at artandobsolescence.com/donate. Now without further delay, let's dive into this week's chat with Diego Mellado. 

[00:02:43] Diego: When I was a kid, I really liked working with computers. We had a 2 86 Intel computer at home with a monochrome monitor. My brother who's older than me he already had a ZX Spectrum. So computers have always been around my infancy and I was really, really enjoying open things, checking how things work tearing them out, trying to find the ins and outs and why things were working, how things were communicating, how mechanisms were working. I knew that I wanted to be an engineer but there is a lot of different options and something that was becoming more and more relevant or that it was getting more and more attention in Spain at that moment was Ingeniería de telecomunicaciones, which can be translated as telecommunications engineering and was covering everything related to communications by electronic means not only digital, but also analog. After speaking with my parents, especially with my mom, she suggested why don't you look at this program? It has a lot of mathematics. It has a lot of physics. Uh, it seems that it's good for jobs. So why don't you check it out? And, and that's what I did. I get into the public school in the public college. One of the universities here in Spain, and at the very beginning, I was thinking about computer networks uh, telematics, but it was just one of the branches that the telecommunications engineer was covering. I was getting into electronics, I was getting into, optic communications, I was getting into digital signal processing, which led to AI and big data processing and all these trends that you can see everywhere right now. The part that I liked the most at the end was radio frequency, which is probably the most physical part of telecommunications and it has to do with how to throw waves into the free medium or into cables, into guidelines and put some information into that so you can watch Netflix at the end of the day. My very first job was designing antennas and I know it sounds super nerd, but I was loving it and But the company where I was working, wasn't working that good and I changed to this larger engineering company that is very well known for making Radars. And the thing that I was liking the most about Radars is that it was covering everything I studied in college from analog electronics to radio frequency, to communications theory, to digital signal processing, to data visualization. Unfortunately as I was saying before, even though I was liking the ingredients, it, it was not just the right fit. Uh, somehow I guess I was looking for something a little bit more creative. So I clearly remember how my life in arts and technology began. It was 2009 and there was this show named, um, VIDA. VIDA was, a yearly show. It was kind of a context that it was organized by Telefónica which used to be the national telecommunications company for Spain. And this was a show, context on arts and artificial life. So, that time I was still working as an engineer, and I was really not liking it. I was liking working the technology, but I was not liking the environment. I was not liking what the technology was being used to because we were told that it was, um, a radar to check the weather conditions but when you looked at the specifications, you easily understood it was not and it had more to do with military technology than weather forecast or whatever thing. So I was really looking for a change in work. It was right after the 2008 crisis. So it wasn't being easy. And one day commuting to the work I saw this huge poster about this show, VIDA, and it was the 11th, uh, edition of this show. And it was like, what has artificial life and art has to do one with the other. What of these things that I have a study in during engineering school has to do with arts. So I say, I want to watch this. I want to see what is this about? And I remember  getting into the first room and  seeing this installation  by Philip Beesley and it's like, I want to do this. I just want to do this. It's not that I want to be an artist. It's that I, I want to work with the technical details of this. And there were a bunch of installations. 10 more or less and I could see some things not working, some things that technologically could be solved in a different direction. Some things claiming to do things that were not exactly that. And it's like, I, I want to help these folk. I want to be an engineer. I want to be solving the problems that are being here. I want to be able to bring technological solutions to this. And after that moment, what I did, I start email bombing every single artist in the show, every single artist I could find around that. And The very first artist that I work with was, uh, Federico Muelas. He was a friend of a family friend. So when I, I was talking with some relatives and some close friends about, hey, I want to move into this do you know any artists that could just answer one of the emails that I have sent in the last two weeks, please? So somebody suggested his name Federico and he was, and I think he's a, still a teacher in the school of Visual Arts in New York and at that moment he was doing a big installation. If I remember properly, the name was Blue Flower if I remember properly the content, the video content was. Blue ink being dropped into water. Maybe you have done this during your childhood something that those, um, ink drops start getting into very fluidity shapes that if you turn the image 180 degrees, it starts to look like a plant that is blooming or a flower that is opening. And he was looking for someone who could translate the image recorded by a camera, to sound. And that was my first job. I remember that I was programming it in MATLAB, that is kind of the nerdiest engineering matrix programming thing that you can find. So depending on how that ink was moving into the water, different parts of the grid were activated and generating sound. 

So I remember contacting Daniel right before summer. And so a couple of months went away and I get no answer from him. So I insisted and he told me, Hey, I'm having a challenge with one of my artworks. Why don't you drop by the gallery and see what happening? And that ended up being my first job for Daniel. Uh, at that moment, he was exhibiting a series called Pneuma where you can see, um, a bunch of telephone cables making some kind of a sculpture being illuminated with a projector below. So the projector was just projecting white lines, moving into different directions. And when those lines were hitting the cables, you can see just a tiny fraction of the cable being illuminated by, um, moving white line. And it was kind of resembling energy moving into that cable, you know like the echo of old conversations of old energy moving and flowing into those cables. And the piece was astonishing. It was super beautiful. It was simple but effective. It was using technology without technology eating the whole installation. But the problem is that the projector was over heating, uh, because it was inside of a closed box and it was kind of strange because the box was. Big enough to deal with a good amount of air, to allow to the projector, to cool down and to have some kind of flow like some kind of air circulation. And then I noticed that the actual fan inside of the projector was pointing inside of the box instead of outside of the box. I was thinking like, what should I do now? I mean, I can make some circles around this and say that this is super complicated, but at the end of the day, it's just turning the projector 180 degrees. So I just look at Daniel and said it's just about putting the projector in the right position. And that's how it started. Then it came a different version of the artwork with the case was much smaller. So then I had to actually design like a ventilation flow and add some, you know, fans and ducts and study a little bit where to put things and of course make things smaller and more resilient. But the very first job for Daniel was just turning a projector around.

A lot of people ask me, what does an engineer do inside of an art studio? And it's like, if you think about what engineering means, or at least what I like to believe that engineering means is solving problem, solving problems by technical means. Like you give me a problem and I'll find the right technology to do what you need. So in that sense I am being as engineer now as I was 10 years ago, when I was working with Radars. The only thing that has changed is the problem scope. Right now it's not about measuring distances or speeds or getting the sea ripple. It's about communicating a message it's about having aesthetic output. It's about using some information to get an emotional impact. And that's what I started doing when I started working with Daniel and that's basically what I keep on doing right now. What have changed during these years is the, um, scope on the size of the project. When I started working with him, it was about cooling down a projector. The last big project that we have done was hanging three tons of LED sculpture in Dubai with an interactive handrail that was producing uh, narrative sound composition. But at the end of the day, for me, it's kind of the same thing. It's like what we want to do. Let's chop down the problem. Let's find out how we can or how we want to address it. Let's make a diagram. Let's make a system that fulfills what Daniel wants. At the beginning, it was dealing with small electronics and consumer electronics. And now it's much more about build that whole solution. But for me, it's kind of the same thing. It's like what we want to do. What are our restrictions? Let's find the right technology. 

 Everything that starts with an idea of Daniel. So for example, I, one of the clearest remember that I have was Cannula and it's one work we did back in 2016, it was like Diego, I want to use YouTube videos as a pallate I want to draw with YouTube videos and it's like, okay, let's see how we can do that. And then is where the, kind of the technical research starts in that specific case was about finding how to deal with videos, how to load them into a program where we could use some shaders to distort them or to make different calculations with them. Or when we started with the flexible L E D series that was back in 2012. It was like, Diego, I want to break the screen. I want to make it flexible. I don't want to make it look flat anymore. So I started looking for flexible screens, flexible LEDs and different companies appear all of them in China. So it was like Daniel, I have found these two companies. What do you think if I just go to Shenzhen and have an interview with them? It's like, why not? And then you start. Different conversations with providers. So you start testing different technologies. So right now we are using different form factors as screens. Christobal one of our programmers just mentioned this screen. It looks good. It looks different. It could look good for the next exhibition that we want to do because the size form has to do or is related with paintings one way or another. Do you mind if I buy a bunch of them and the day after they're in the studio, I already took out all the single parts of the screen to see how we can make it look, something that is not an actual screen. So in that sense, I think that they have a lot of freedom to dig in, into what to do. What I like is solving problems and Daniel brings a lot of problems And that's what I enjoy. And there will be absolutely no art without Daniel's idea or Daniel's guidance. I'm just setting the canvas. I am looking for the right colors or brushes.

A couple of years ago, the studio grow significantly. I was doing a little bit of everything. I was doing hardware. I was doing programming. I was doing, project management. Uh, I was doing installation. So a couple of years ago, Daniel like make a, like a big bet for the studio and we hired an additional programmer. And now all these conversations that had to do with more details on what data to use, how to convert that data into information, how to build a narrative, around the programming. Now those have to do much more with Diogo our Portuguese programmer and Cristobal, who just joined us a couple of months ago. I'm not programming myself anymore. I'm just doing some tweaks when something breaks. I, I can do some repairs, let's say some maintenance and conservation tasks, but right now I'm more into, let's say project management and project development. My task now has more to do with designing an abstract solution. It's like, okay, we are going to use a computer here for this, this and that. And we are going to use this environment, but then we are going to use this hardware here, here and here. But I am not so much into programming. I have a lot to do with hardware still, which I, I really like, I prefer to work with things with elements than with the programming, but now that, that the studio has grown a lot, that kind of conversation is in a different way. 

[00:18:14] Ben: Something that I think is really interesting is with folks that support artists in their studios, I think when somebody has been with them for as long as you have something that I've seen that is quite common is a lot of assistant go on and become artists because, they've seen how it works. But something that you've done that I haven't seen a lot and I think is just so interesting is, um, you know, rather than saying like, okay, I'm gonna go be an artist now because I've seen the inside. I know how it works and I'm gonna make a go of this, you've gotten involved in the world of conservation and I just think that that's so cool and so fascinating. And again, I think highly unique. I would imagine that this perhaps grew out of maintenance and conservation related needs within the studio. So I'm, I'm curious what kinds of conservation challenges that you've had to deal with over the years?

[00:19:14] Diego: Let me pick up the question, what you were saying. If I never consider being an artist myself, because I did there, there was a moment after some three, four years that I was saying, why couldn't I do this and I even dreamed about joining ITP in NYU, I guess that you know, the program, and I was checking it and I was working with Danielle and I suddenly it's. Had this revelation that is like Diego, you are not an artist. You're an engineer. And what you enjoy is solving problems. You're not a troublemaker. Daniel is a huge troublemaker. You like solving those kind of problems. So I saw it clear. It's like one of these moments, I say, Diego, this is your place. And in some sense, that's very much related also to your question about conservation. I cannot stand seeing those posters in the museums about this artwork is down because of reparation or this artwork is broken or this artwork cannot be exhibited because of maintenance. That drives me mad. I totally understand things not working. I've been there myself a lot of time, but it's like, there has to be a way of solving this and at that moment I was having the feeling there was not the proper background or the proper knowledge inside of collections and exhibitions space to deal with, uh, let's say technology based artworks. And that was like, why couldn't I do this at the same time we were getting a lot of questions we were being request by collectors about maintenance, about what is going to happen with this artwork in 5, 10, 25 years. And it's like, there should be some people already worried about this. And I was finding this problem, this new technical challenge, very appealing because part of engineering also has to do with life, life cycles and to adapt solutions to the future and to foresee changes. And it's like, there is this, again, this part of my background that I can apply to arts and that's how it has started. It's like, I want to make the studio's artwork more reliable, more strong, and let's be honest. We make a living out of selling artworks. So, uh, collectors and institutions like artworks that can last. And so it was kind of a nice match it was kind of interesting to jump that problem because there was a need and it was going to make the work of the studio more reliable and more interesting. So for me, it was again facing a new problem and trying to solve it by technical means. So there was this moment around 2016 that I had the feeling that there was a lot of movement around time based media, around new media and especially around computer based and software based media. If you remember Tech Focus, number three, I think it was right around those dates. And I was already, speaking with some conservators here in in Spain, as I was doing, when I wanted to work with artists, I was email bombing, every single new media, art, or time based media art conservator that I could find. And probably everyone in your list of podcasts already received an email from me six or seven years ago saying, hey, how can I develop myself into this field? One of the answers that I got is you need to get a proper conservation background. You have excellent technical skills, that's for sure, but you are not a conservator. And if you want to work as a conservator, you need to get the proper background. And at that time I could not find a single new media art, or time based media art conservation program. That would suit me either because there were only a couple of similar things in the states and I could not afford that, or either were in Germany that I could not because I was speaking no German. So it was kind of, of frustrating. So, in a conversation with Joanna Phillips, she suggested this program happening in Krems. Krems is a little town by the, the Danube river in Austria, very, very close to Vienna. What was called media art histories, media art cultures that were like two different versions of the program. One was low residency and the other was full time. So I went for the low residency one, it's a program directed by olive Oliver Grau, who is one of the most well known scholars in media arts. And even though the program was focused more into media art history, uh, more, it was more philosophical, theoretical, they allowed me to make it as much about conservation as I would like. Patricia Falcão was already teaching in the other program in the full-time program, media art cultures. So they kindly introduced me to Patricia and I was insisting Patricia, as much as possible. Can you please be my master supervisor? And at that moment, I was thinking about how I can get the right background or the right education to be a conservator. And this is how I remember the conversation, I hope Patricia does remember it in the same way she was telling me, Diego, why do you want to be a conservator? You have a background and you have, position that nobody has. You are engineer inside of an artist studio. We don't have that voice. You can get some knowledge on conservation, but why can't you be that person inside of the studio that knows the details of the technology and can contribute to the conversation with that point of view. And that's what I did.  I like taking care of the conservation of the artworks in the studio. I like thinking of the design of the artwork, taking into account conservation. I love having conversations with you with all the EMG group about what are the problems, how we can face them. I like being in touch with institutions and making the artworks that we do in the studio more appealing to them, bringing answers, uh, even, uh, arguing with them about if those are the right questions or not. So I feel that I can do much more from there than trying to be a conservator because being a conservator in this field is very, very, very hard, I guess that you already know this. So I'm kind of playing safe from my position, what I know the things where I can start conversations, what I can hear and I can bring a lot into the studio. I think it's not a secret that there are many, maybe not many, but at least a bunch of people doing what I do, which is solving technical problems for artists. I'm not the only one I know I'm not the best one, but it would be good to try to encourage these people to join the conservation conversation because those voices are needed. The thing is that sometimes thinking about conservation from inside of the artist studio, it's complicated. You know, It's not easy for artists to make a living out of selling art and resources are scarce. So if in top of dealing with the technology, dealing with the production, being able to produce an artwork, if you have to put on top the effort of thinking about how this could be conserved, gathering the documentation. Because it's not about just delivering a bunch of pages. It's about delivering the right amount of pages with the right information, keeping track of that is not easy because what you thought it was interesting five years ago, maybe it's not right now. When the artwork fails, it's my phone, the one who rings the moment and we have some artworks all around the world. Keeping everything working, OS updates, obsolescence, things that fail, keeping track of problems that are not yours, but they affect you. That's hard. It's something that consumes a lot of resources inside of the artist studio and we are very lucky to be more than 10 people working in Daniel's studio, but that's not that common. Most of the artists, they have to work on their own and it's like how difficult is for them to take care of conservation on top of producing art. So at some point, I thought that, you know, dealing with conservation and dealing with documentation was something that should be taking care from the institution and not from the artist studio, but let's be honest, if we can do better works, everybody's going to be happier. And finally digital art make those more appealing for collections and for institutions. That's going to be good for everyone. It's going to be good for the artist, it's going to be good for the institution, it's going to be good for the art scene, but we need to gather that community. And something that I felt that has changed a lot in the last years, or at least since I took the effort of actually research and developing and reading all those papers that have been there for years. The community is growing and I feel like the community is trying to reach the right stakeholders and it's including artists and it's including producers. And the moment that we understand that is good for the environment, for the digital art environment to contribute to this discussion everything will be easier. And if any of those engineers technicians working for artists is listening to me. I kindly ask them to take a step forward and to tell what their problems are ask for solutions share what ideas they're doing. Just like, Antimodular or Rafael Lozano-Hemmer studio did publishing that white paper on conservation or Casey Reas did some years ago too. It's like the more we can contribute to this field, the better. Maybe the people who is getting training in time-based media conservation right now, they will find places inside of artist studios. That's kind of my dream. I feel like that. Kind of profile is very much needed, like super needed. 

[00:30:55] Ben: Amen. As someone who is just so tapped into the professional time based media conservation world, and has so many years of experience managing, you know, these very real practicalities of an artist studio, what are some of the key differences between the two, you know, when the rubbery really hits the road, and theory is put into practice when it comes to documentation and conservation of time-based media art in the context of an artist studio what does that wind up looking like? What are some of those key differences if there are any?

[00:31:30] Diego: I think that the main difference when we want to face conservation is conservation for what. And what I mean with this is that conservation may not mean the same for the artist than for an institution. And conservation may mean different things for different institutions. Maybe you have an institution that is all about history and you know, I'm keeping a piece of hardware is fundamental because that piece of hardware has, not only a function inside of the artwork. It's not just a computer that generates an output, but it also has a historical value. So, the approach that we have in the studio about conservation is keep the art working. Do whatever you need to keep the artwork working. The artwork is not the computer. The artwork is not even the programming language that was used. The artwork is not the screen. The artwork is what we try to describe in the manual is an algorithm in the case, for example, of, um, computer in a software based artwork, it's an algorithm that brings or grabs information from a data source and then generates a visual output according to these parameters. So that's how we face the production of documentation inside of the studio I'm trying to deliver to you a document that describes what the artwork is and what the artwork isn't. And that's what we do in the form of a manual. And we put a lot of effort in trying to explain that a manual should not be just an installation guide. It should not be just to help to turn the things on and off. It should be the way that the studio or the artist communicates to the institution, to the future conservators, to historians, what the artwork was. And again, it could be in the same line that an institution that wants to have different shows on media art and gather as many visitors as possible to enjoy what the studio or other studios does. Or another institution would be just about keeping that computer because they want to keep timeline of how the use of computers impacted art creation since 1970, maybe. But we have our position and we clearly state it, and that allows us a lot of freedom because different institutions may ask for different things, but we try to deliver a clear message. This is what the artwork is, and this is what the artwork should be doing. And this is what it should be respected. And I will deliver you source code, programming environments, everything, and you can use all of that to make the artwork work. But if you need to move, um, artwork from a Mac OS system to a Windows system, that's fine and that's why I'm giving you the source code so you can use a different programming environment and recompile it. And that's kind of my approach to conservation. One of my little most proud moments on conservation was when I was able to compile the code of one of David Rokeby's artworks that was, um, code developed for a Power PC. And I was able to compile it and make it run into a Raspberry Pi. Defining what the artwork is, is very difficult because sometimes the limits are blurry as Dragan would say. And I guess that that's kind of one of the. High just friction between institutions and artists is like, how can you justify that something can change or not? And I think that we are still lucky that most of the digital artists are still alive and we can have this conversation. Unfortunately pioneers are dying and so I think this is a very good moment to try to gather as much information as possible. And if not, there you have the work of the art historians and the same way that art historians have a study, what pigments Velázquez was using or how the technology of the process change for centuries. Art historians of the future will have to research on why Daniel was using Mac computers for some time and then he jumped into PCs was there real reason was not was making that the artwork different or not. The good thing is that from inside of the studio, I'm starting to get the right answers or answers that I was not receiving before from collectors or from institutions that make a lot of sense, like, what happens if I change this or that if I use one screen or two screens, how does that effect to the coherence of the artwork? So maybe being inside of this field of conservation doesn't allow you to see the forest behind of the trees, but I have the feeling that the conversation is getting into the holds of all the actors that take part in this conversation. And, I'm happy to see that happening. People are usually afraid of new things, but something that I have noticed lately is that there is a lot of conversation about digital art. There is now a conversation ongoing. You go to AIC conference and even though the EMG group is a small, there is people who comes from collections that are not focused on digital art, but hold digital art and ask questions. I am not in the best position to make how do you say future guesses on how the conservation profession is going to develop, but in the same sense that technology has become part of contemporary art, I don't feel like talking about new media art anymore and when people talk about new media art, I have the feeling, and again, this is only personal opinion, that is more of a historical label of an art was that was done from the seventies to the early two thousands and of the nineties where there was a need or there was intention of highlighting technology. Right now technology is part of the artwork is in the same way that internet is not something that you connect anymore is something that is just into our lives. So in a similar way, I think that contemporary art conservators of the future will have some skills and will have a good understanding of what dealing with technology mean, but they won't be C plus plus experts, or digital video containers experts. There will be people with a good understanding of how technology plays a role inside of the artwork, and they will have the right background and knowledgement to speak to those experts. It's a little bit difficult to have somebody who is expert on every single thing, but if you have a good understanding of what time means in the development of an artwork, Why time is important. Why a time dimension plays a role inside of the artwork then you just have to find the right professional that can deal with technology. 

[00:39:29] Ben: Well, you know, as somebody that I think is very well versed in these two extremely different worlds, one of the artist, studio and thes and ads of that and the time-based media conservation world. What do you think maybe that we're missing or we're not getting quite right when it comes to how we, think about artists' work. 

[00:39:52] Diego: I think that I cannot point to one thing that is missing in the years that I've been studying and researching, I've seen a lot of improvements just to put it like in a very clear way, mind's opening, mind's opening everywhere. Mind's opening inside of the institutions. Mind's opening inside of the artist studios, mind's opening inside of the conservators themself and those minds gathering and working together. And what I think that will provide not the solution, but the framework for the solution is the community. It's the more people we gather, the more experience we can share the better. I was feeling the community a little bit closed, like the time-based media community a little bit close, like North America was having some conversations with the UK and something was happening in Germany and the Netherlands. And in the last years that's opening basically because there is a lot of people traveling from one side of Europe, to the states and sharing that information and making more and more conferences and making those conference more and more open. But still we have a lot to learn and a lot of voices to hear from Central and South America. I mean the amount of things that happen from the seventies till today in Argentina, in Brazil, in Chile, around digital art is amazing. And now is starting to being told. What are doing the different countries inside Africa? How those artists are dealing with technology. How collections in Asia and are starting to collect digital art, how those Asian artists are working with those elements. I think that the improvement that is already ongoing and it's the solution is make the community as big as possible sharing information as much as possible. Some problems that we have in Spain for example, is that most of the information is in English and not all the conservators and institutions in Spain have a good level of English to get into those details. So translating information into different languages is also super useful, but it's about information flowing. I really feel that there is enough. Information right now to take care or at least to start taking care of collection of digital works of time-based media works, but it's about moving that information and also finding the right technical solutions for the right size institution. I mean, if you have a small size institution, maybe you can even afford a NAS, but then you can use a cloud storage. It's not the best, but the infrastructure is already there and there is already some damage control included. Well, it's something it's finding the solution that suits you for resources, for money, for size, for whatever.

[00:43:16] Ben: On this education and like information sharing point, you know, I, I often get questions from folks interested in getting into the time based media conservation field, folks who aren't coming from a technical background, I often get the question of like, where should they start in terms of picking up technical skills? Like, should I learn Python or this or that? I'm curious to hear your take on this for listeners who might be hearing this that are interested in, or maybe are already beginning to get into the field of time-based media conservation and feel that they need to bulk up on their technical skills. What would your recommendation be? 

[00:43:58] Diego: That's a very tricky question. Because I think that there are like two different paths to go. One is the one that I already mentioned before, which is time-based media will be part of contemporary art and the other one is get super pro into one technology. And that's kind of betting. I think there is a lot of need for people who knows how to repair, a CRT displays. But there are not more CRT displays anywhere because there's no way of getting even more produced. So getting focused into one technology like you must learn Open Frameworks or any framework based in C plus plus because there was a lot of artworks produced in the two thousands using that framework makes you the right person to solve that. For me, that's kind of niche. So I guess that I would try to have a wider scope and try to understand what programming means. At the end of the day, programming differs a lot from Java to C plus plus. But the mindset of what programming means for me is kind of common. So I think it's more important to understand technology, even more understanding what part technology plays into the artwork, that being an expert into that technology. Because for the better or for the worse, we are surrounded by technology right now. And that's one of, also one of the reasons why we have so much digital art or so much technological based artworks right now, because we as a society are obsessed, uh, slash in love with technology. So it's what everybody has on their hands right now. So why not making art with that? So having an understanding of what technology is and what technology does will allow conservators to find the right professional. There will always be C plus plus experts. There will always be Python experts. Well, maybe in 1000 years time no, there are already those person who knows how to deal with that in the same way that when you need to find the right chemical combination for a color, you ask a chemist to give you a hand with that. If you need to know what are the physical details of one element, one type of stone or one type of material for a sculpture, you go to the professional into that field. There are conservators focus into concrete or into pigments, but my take is that the contemporary art conservator profile will be more and more a team leader, a team leader that understands the needs of the artwork that understands, what role each part of the artwork plays and we'll find the right professional to deal with that part. That's a approach very related to systems engineering, which is part of my background. So that's kind of, uh, how do you say hard wire into my mind? So maybe it's not the only way of looking at it, but it's kind of my take. 

[00:47:27] Ben: I think what you're saying is very true and it's very similar to discourse that's been going on in the contemporary art conservation world. I think you're completely right. You're actually only really the second person that we've had on the show who works directly with an artist as a sort of, you know, technician or engineer. Do you have any advice for, techies, professional engineers, developers who, might be a little over working for like Meta or some other soulles corporation or, you know, like designing like war machines and might be interested in working with artists. Do you have any advice? 

[00:48:08] Diego: I mean, what worked for me and I think that can still work for everybody it was just sending an email to one artist. I think that artists are really looking forward to explain the world we live in. And the world we live in is crazily based on technology. And that is making us take a very unfundable path as society. And, I think that any artist will love to be able to work with technicians, engineers, programmers. So the only thing that I can ask them is get in touch with the artists, find an artist that they like and get in touch with them because I feel that there is a lot of room for them in this field that we work in. There is other way of taking this question then, which is, um, not only, um, engineers that want to work to with artists, it's engineer that want to be artists themselves. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm talking too much about my own perspective, which is an engineer that wants to work with artists. I have found like two different kind of new media artists, those who have like a lot of experience on the material themselves, that they have been engineers. They have been programmers, things like that. And those who are interested in the output of technology, but they want to build a narrative on something else. I am so delighted about how those who have been engineers and now they're artists can twist technology and can make things out of technology. So if there is any engineer technician that feels that they have this kind of artistic pulse these creative, uh, pulses, I very, very much encourage them for a very. Um, how do you say E egoistic point of view, to use technology, to force technology, to make us think about technology and to, um, reveal that kind of dark in the sense that is not exposed part of technology, because nowadays in this society that is driven by technology, we really need that kind of reflection on what technology can be. 

[00:50:43] Ben: So Diego, uh, what is coming next for you? 

[00:50:47] Diego: Well next, and I'm really looking forward to that is vacations, but I think that is not what you're asking for. Inside the studio, we have been working with LEDs and with the screens for a long time, and we are preparing a little twist on that using LEDs in a different way, using different form factors, the screen. So I am very excited about that. Let's see how the last quarter of 2022 comes with that. And also Ali set and I, we are preparing the next edition of our time-based media conservation workshop, and I'm really, really looking forward to that, to happen and get some feedback from the students. It's something that I really, really like.. 

[00:51:28] Ben: Diego, thank you for coming on the show and taking the time to chat. 

[00:51:32] Diego: Ben it's been my pleasure, thanks a lot for your invitation. 

[00:51:35] Ben: And thank you, dear listener for joining me for this week's show. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, how about leaving a lovely little review for the show on your favorite podcast platform as always, if you want to help support our work and mission of equitably compensating artists, you can join us over at patreon.com/artobsolescence or. If you're interested in making a one-time tax deductible gift through our fiscal sponsor, the New York Foundation for the Arts, you can always do that at artobsolescence.com/donate and on our website, you can find the full archive for the show, including show notes and full transcripts. Until next time, have a great week my friends, my name is Ben Fino-Radin, and this has been Art and Obsolescence.