Interview with Joshua Goldberg

Joshua Goldberg was the Digital Artist in residence at Wits School of
the Arts, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South
Africa) for the month of June, 2005

the live visualist cometh
a Q&A with Joshua Goldberg, by nathaniel stern

I remember meeting Joshua at a group interview for graduate school -
we were both trying to get in to New York University's "Interactive
Telecommunication Program" (ITP) - what Newsweek has called the
"Harvard of Interactive."

We both did miserably, and neither of us thought we'd get in.

After starting there the following year, we became pretty good
friends; although I, along with most of ITP, thought Josh and the
software he was using (Cycling74's "Max") to be more than a bit mad.
We all believed it wasn't going much anywhere. More than 5 years
later, he's an expert in said application, which is now a main focus
at ITP as well as my own teaching at the WSOA Digital Arts MA (Josh
himself is still mad). I was pleased to have Josh as our first
Digital Artist in Residence at Wits School of the Arts (with a full
schedule of events all over town); after dinner one night, I had a
quick email discussion with him about his art, his curating, the
party scene, teaching, and what he was doing here.
Why would two geeks ever transcribe what could be typed in the first
place?

nathaniel stern: Joshua, talk about your work. How would you define
yourself? Does it differ for you in your hats as artist, curator and
live visualist?

joshua goldberg: Right off the bat, you're encouraging me to get
incredibly pretentious. Sometimes when I talk about my work I get
frustrated, because I find myself using such dry terms to describe my
stuff.
But I'll try not to do too badly, bear with me.

I'm a video artist who specializes in exploring abstract patterns.
These patterns can come from found material, such as television or
the motion of bodies through space, or they can come from
mathematical equations. I love working as a curator and encouraging
other artists to think the same way, and I love the visceral,
exciting experience of doing it in real time, as a performance.
How's that?

NS: Perfect. But I have to add that said patterns are astoundingly
beautiful - and this coming from someone who isn't really into the VJ
style or culture. I think you once said about your work, something
like, "at its worst, my stuff is the best screen saver you have ever
seen; at its best, it's almost transcendental beauty." Tell me your
schpeel about VJ vs live visualist.

JG: I'm being called a Super-VJ all across South Africa. I love
publicity, but I really hate being called a VJ. The VJ term comes
from DJ, who is a guy who plays records in clubs. DJs almost always
play other people's stuff, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with
that. They know how to manage a crowd by playing rhythms and
melodies which veer from familiar to new, and familiarity is one
major tool in their arsenal. When you listen to a song you love over
and over again, the emotional resonance grows. The song touches you
in ways you did not anticipate when you first listened to it. It's
just not the case with video. When you watch a video, you rarely
want to watch it again fifteen times, even if it's short or you
really love it more than anything. It becomes stale, it becomes less
meaningful. So it's much more of a responsibility for people who do
live visuals to only work on their own content, because its freshness
is so fleeting. VJs play other people's clips. I craft a visual
experience, I'm a visualist.

NS: Just to clarify, not only do you make your own clips, but your
self-made software allows for a more improvisational performance
which is always different, right?

JG: Exactly. I work between video feedback, different clips to start
with, and play with numbers and oscillating effects in the visuals to
match the feel and the rhythm in real time. In simplest terms, people
can expect to see trippy moving images that match the set.

NS: I know it's hard to explain…. Let's get to Mark Shuttleworth
and free culture. He's a huge hero here in SA amongst the geeks, and
we also just had a big Creative Commons conference in Joburg.
Shuttleworth promotes free software available for use and change, and
CC does the same for content - re-usable and editable music, text,
images, etc. What's your take on them in the artistic and African
contexts?

JG: Shuttleworth's a worthy hero. I've been reading quite a bit
about him since I got here; his actions are incredibly noble and
inspiring with reference to the push to develop Linux [the open
source Operating System] more in academic and governmental systems. =

I think he's great. I love Creative Commons because it gives me a
way to widely disseminate my work with the purpose of inspiring and
jumpstarting emerging artists without being worried about losing
credit for the pieces themselves. And Africa is a perfect match for
CC- everyone can inspire everyone else without getting bogged down in
typically American stupidity like endless copyright.

NS: It seems we've taken most advantage of your live visualization
skills while on your visit. Tell us about that. How did you get into
that scene? Burning man? From what you can see, why does that seem to
turn people on here in South Africa?

JG: I got into visualization because music and movement in clubs
seemed to be a perfect match for the first visual programming
experiments I began making in early 2000. I have my friend Carlos
Gomez de la Llarena, the architect and net.artist, to thank for that;
he got me my first gigs and gave me the confidence to keep on
performing. Doing work at Burning Man was really more of a result of
the joy i get from performing and showing; Burning Man is all about
sharing your absolute best strengths with as many people you can. I
think South Africans love live visuals for the same reason everyone
else in the world gets into them; they enhance great music and a
great experience and a great party. Who wouldn't like that?

NS: A bit about your work as an artist and curator. I know you've
just arrived, but what can you see in the new media scene here? Where
do you think it can, will and/or needs to go?

JG: I think that there's one word which I can use to sum up what
needs to happen: MORE. But I can also say more. To everyone who
is interested in doing new media work in a live context, or in a
gallery context: be unafraid to fail. Keep doing experiments, don't
restrict yourself. Don't second-guess your own work, trust your own
conceptual instincts, so that you have the patience, bravery and
energy to follow an idea through to completion. Getting started in
work like this can be difficult because of the complication and
breadth of the tools. Trust your instincts enough to remember your
original ideas, and be skeptical enough about every tool you use so
your ideas don't get lost in the tech. Just because I use Max/MSP/
Jitter as a primary artistic tool doesn't mean it's perfect; it means
that it's the best thing for me until something better comes along.

NS: OK, Josh, finally, tell us about your gigs here. You had a full
weekend here in Jozi (with four events!), something at the
Johannesburg Art Gallery the following Friday, and a gig in Cape Town
that next night Saturday.

JG: I lectured at Wits to the grad students all week, and I couldn't
miss a safari in the Kruger Park (with laptop). The other stuff in
Joburg and Cape Town:

Joburg:

June 10th 15:00