Artists and Hackers

Duct Tape Hacking and Joyful Resistance

Lee Tusman
You’re listening to Artists and Hackers, a podcast on art, code and community. We talk to programmers, artists, educators and designers in an effort to critically look at online art making and the history of technology and the internet. We’re interested in where we’ve been and speculative ideas on the future. I’m Lee Tusman. This season we’ve partnered with the New Media Caucus, an international non-profit formed to promote the development and understanding of new media art. We’ve interviewed 5 new media artists working today, both individually and at a live in-person event in February. This season of the podcast is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts grants for arts projects.

KT Duffy is a new media artist from Chicago’s southwest side and is currently an Assistant Professor in Art, Technology, and Culture at the University of Oklahoma. They received their MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. They live between Chicago, IL, and Norman, OK, with their partners and dogs.

Duffy conjures entities into existence via code-based processes and digital fabrication. As a Neurodivergent-NonBinary person, the normative modalities of learning and making were not designed for them. To move through these structures, they made their own systems, glitching and patching and breaking the entanglements of binary logic. Their work manifests infinite possibility, translating the immeasurable interconnection of transcendent sentience, and examining the impending demise of binary systems.

Lee
When I saw your work, I just wanted to see if it’s all in my head or if it’s there, if there’s something there which is, I feel like I’m picking up on a background in DIY culture or community. Is that something that you bring to your work as an artist, or am I offbase?

KT Duffy
No absolutely, I’ve run like a DIY space in some formats as I was like 18 you know, like in college, and an undergrad and during my MFA and after my MFA. You know, just kind of putting on shows like here and there and then I had a couple like established spaces and then I have a background in my undergrad degree is social work. And then I also have another degree, a dual degree in digital art and design. So yeah I just think the things that I studied really drew me to like more of a community practice or like a community-minded practice. I also have you know I have a set of skills that’s like I guess you would say in demand and most of it is like self-taught me kind of just BEEPing around with technology until I figured it out and so you know that’s like such a privilege to have. And so it’s the thing that I try to like lend to as many organizations and movements as I can as a way to just support but like also kind of be in the background at the same time.

Lee
I think that’s really cool and you’re talking about the movements, I’m also thinking of also kind of the aesthetics of DIY not that that’s any one thing but one of the areas that I often think of if we’re going down the DIY rabbit hole is that I’m thinking of maybe my own background and peers working with glue sticks and scissors to make zines, photocopy machines to make posters. Is that something that kind of influences your relationship to tools as a new media artist at all?

KT
Um, oh yeah, yeah, I’m laughing because a lot of my friends and I like refer to the work I came in making as like hotglue art because it it was very much that, like trying to just like you know, put different forms together and figure out like how things fit or don’t fit. And within a digital practice that’s very much the way that I work. I like the term duct tape programmer although it’s just like somebody that’s gonna just kind of-

Lee
And what does that mean?

KT
Hack away at a problem and figure out like a really inelegant solution but a solution that works or or in my case like maybe doesn’t work on purpose. So you know I really identify with like the super old HDMI cable into the slightly older HDMI cable into the newer kind into like USB-C, you know like this kind of like chain of genres and technology. You know having to like link all that stuff together to get something visual to like spit out on the device. Who knows what you know generation or genre? So that’s very much my my practice is kind of like hacking things and like duck taping, loading them together and just, I’m really interested in the results that come from that. I don’t really do well with an exacting process. I have pretty bad ADHD so for me, kind of just like moving around like solving a little problem here, solving a little problem there, or making this weird smooth here and then like figuring out how to like make a system that connects all those things that’s like pretty wonky and half broken but visually is really interesting to me is is usually where we’re at in terms of like making stuff.

Lee
Yeah I mean I think there’s an interesting part of the DIY mindset of having to kind of learn and try out and do things and that’s also obviously hyper present in new media in certain ways. There’s can be a tendency to kind of constantly use new technology I’m curious if that’s something that you’ve had to kind of manage or figure out? Your own relationship with constantly using new technology or going back to kind of old tools? Or ways of working? Or kind of how you split that difference?

KT
Yeah I feel like new media is literally just like learning things as you’re making a project. You know that’s like how I’ve always been, so I’ve always learned by teaching things that are maybe like a little out of my wheelhouse. Or by you know just like diving into a project that maybe I’m slightly unqualified for, but I figure it out you know just by process and by actually making. I really love this idea of one of my mentors Jenna Frye who’s at Johns Hopkins now but it’s like making to learn rather than learning to make. Like I’m not the person that’s ever going to be able to sit through like a theory lecture on you know, coding or computer science like I just cannot like learn that way or pay attention that way and so for me, it’s all like super process-based stuff and you know every semester I’m like super excited to kind of like redo all most of my classes every semester to just like include upgraded technology that I kind of have wrapped my head around over the summer or over the winter break. And then it’s a super fun space to experiment with students because you know it’s new to them, it’s slightly new to me, and we can problem solve a lot together and have a classroom space that’s more like an open laboratory than like this hierarchical structure of me professing information somehow into their brains.

Lee
Totally I resonate with that a lot. You know one of the things that ties together the people I’m interviewing this season is that everyone is a new media arts scholar or professor in some way and you’ve talked a little bit about your kind of, how you like to learn, and a little bit about the classroom. I’m curious to hear what drew you to becoming a teacher in the first place? What brought you to the work and how did you became a professor?

KT
I come from a family of teachers all the femmes in my family are were like Chicago Public School teachers. And I really did know I was gonna do art in some capacity. I was also like really into soccer and you know I had this sort of like social Justice background education, did a lot of programs, you know making programs within, between different entities and stuff working with a lot of youth. Yeah I don’t know, it just felt like a good place for me to kind of have all of these interests of mine intersect. Like I said, a lot of people I know don’t learn in a traditional way. Like if I have to follow somebody else’s system to learn something I’m just like set up for failure. But if I make my own system and then you know, follow that system then I’m able to like actually comprehend things and like move on to the next subjects and so I really love teaching in that way. Like in this sort of backwards forwards messy middle like nonlinear way of you guiding students through different softwares and different coding processes. I went to grad school maybe without the full intention of teaching but once I started doing it it just felt really natural. And it felt really cool to connect with artists who were just like had you Know just been alive a little longer than they have you know, and so I really love that space of exploration with young artists who are you know kind of figuring out their identity and figuring out like the things that they care about. And I just find it to be like really inspiring and really reciprocal and like I said think it’s a good place for me to kind of bring all of my interests. You know, my interest in like social justice and like collaborative making, and you know a lot of other things into a space that you know can can be collaborative and can kind of produce some unexpected things.

Lee
I’d I’d love to hear a little bit more too about the role of social justice either in your practice or teaching or both?

KT

For me, it’s really important to not only educate the students in contemporary uses of software like how to get into the industry but also like prepare them for what the real world is going to look like, whether that’s offering techniques for allyship and solidarity for certain students or facilitating and turning students onto resources that talk about their background or talk about their experience and what that background experience could be like working in the tech sector or working as a tech artist with a given identity. Because as we’re seeing tech you know put more into our culture, just thinking about AI right now, these are the things that the students are up against, right? And it’s not just technology. It’s like capitalism. It’s racism. It’s the environment. It’s environmental racism, like all of these things are so heavily tied to the tech stacks that I teach. And it feels really irresponsible to not focus on that just as much as I focus on like the technical tooling and training.

Lee
There’s a certain organic form that’s present in a lot of your work. There’s a playfulness, a joy in even both your use of materials, I don’t know but it looks like you use slime or at least slime influenced materials…

KT
Oh totally. Yes, so much slime. Yes, my 90s Gak has to make its way into everything in some way. Yeah.

Lee
And then of course you’re also kind of building things that you know spark joy and and humor and things like that. I’m thinking of your installations using like a miniature golf course. Yeah, can you talk a little about kind of joy or play in your work?

KT
Yeah I think it’s for the students and especially the students who are you know? Maybe this is their first art class where they’re being challenged to think about like their privilege and positionality. I think creating spaces of joy and illustrating how like joy and playfulness can actually be forms of resistance against you know the normative usage of things like the the way that technology is set out to like quote unquote make our lives better. But also like actively kill people. And so you know we can talk about this stuff all day and we’re not going to not talk about it because it’s depressing and it’s scary right? We’re going to talk about it. But we’re also going to experience like joy and play as resistance. So I think that’s really really important in like any kind of movement work or like ah equity Justice based practices is that joy. And my play has to be part of it. And it’s not saying that should be prioritized or that’s any more important than any of the other you know ad avenues and strategies that people take, but I think especially for the students who I think sometimes can feel really really overwhelmed and like they don’t even know where to begin. And think offering like beauty and joy and play like as a way to push back against things is a really good vehicle for me to get students to start to go a little deeper.

Lee
What are your thoughts about the difference between physical space and online or virtual space? Are these big distinctions to you or are they, or do you see them as quite fluid?

KT
I think I see them as as quite fluid. You know like the site specific stuff is obviously site specific right? like I know my practice is kind of like make a lot of things for a thing you know as as evidenced by the installation. It’s like made with many different parts and so like some of those parts are like making animation out of something that you know, some weird video I took of like some tadpoles swimming around and a natural spot and then like glitch the BEEP out of it.

KT
with virtual space I kind of just see it as another like site specificific type of installation. In terms of you know, where’s this gonna play? How is it going to be seen, right? Because I’m just thinking about my phone and how we hold it in my hand and that’s like a site. That’s like instant installation right? Like that’s a site of experience with the piece and you know my practice with both of those, like physical, digital, is really all about using all of these forms to kind of collapse and expand a space at the same time. Like making moments of, you know interaction and genesis. And you know trying to like really mess around with you kind of basics of like foreground, background relationships just to like create a space that you know it’s kind of indistinguishable between what’s a video, what’s a screen? What’s a layer of Acrylic? What’s 3d printed? What’s a motor? To kind of like create all these like moments of like illusion out of things that could otherwise be readily identifiable. And I do that a lot with my video practice and you know my Vr practice which I make VR experiences and then render videos from where you know I take a lot of like source elements or like just things I’ve built. And I kind of keep this just weirder library of like forms and code snippets and vector shapes and that’s kind of where all of a lot of the shapes that I work from like they kind of come from this library. So in a way they’re all kind of like cousins of each other. And they’re all like offspringing from each other. And I really like this idea in terms of thinking about just like evolution of you know, an animal or a human animal like how could it have played out very differently you know like a lot of the forms I make are like kind of lumpy. Sort of personified. I think a lot about when when I don’t know a thumb sprung out of some kind of human type creature’s hand and like the exact conditions when that happened were. Like write for that adaption to like you know proliferate into that being’s offspring. All of the things that had to come together to make that thing into an evolution. I’m really really interested in that and interested in how that could potentially play out on like different timelines and in you know, different world building structures and so that’s kind of why I’m sort of drawing from these like really referential images and videos and forms of weird 3D printed things.

Lee
I Love hearing about your bag of tools or your like pantry of ingredients in making your work and the last thing I wanted to ask about, you don’t work just as a solo artist but you are also someone that works in collaboration with many others and I was curious to hear a little bit about the role of collaboration in your practice?

KT
I have a graphic design studio with one of my partners, called Mx. Studio, we’re based out of Chicago. We mostly do branding and websites and products for nonprofits and artists and companies and entities that have a similar value system to use. I also have CQDE lab. And that’s with Alejandro Acierto. And that’s namely like a sort of writing project. So we have a book that was published on Pigeon Press called it’s a Manifestex of Coding of Feminist Coding, and in it we just talk a lot about like situational relationships between like physical space and like tools and technologies and like kind of what I was talking about earlier like how to make space for these like essential conversations around like the implications of technology while also you know making spaces for learning and and exchange you’re kind of using the makersspace, the traditional makerspace as a model for how all of these things can kind of be manifested in a communal space where people can actually like share and learn and you know, develop their both their like ideas, worldviews ideas and also their skills. And right now we’re working on a second text. That’s an edited volume of essays from different artists where we kind of respond all the artists were invited to you know, write kind of anything they wanted about tech or tech problems or you know something that they just have just been thinking about and then our piece of their writing is to kind of like respond and offer like some you know further like how to go further on these topics. That’s currently what we’re working on now.

Lee
That’s great. I Love hearing about all your different projects and I appreciated you speaking with me tonight.

KT
Yeah, thanks so much. This is fun.

Lee
At the beginning of our conversation KT and I talked about their roots in DIY Do It Yourself Culture. For me, it’s a touchstone for how I approach art, music, and organizing in general. In my mind, I associate it as growing out of punk DIY culture even if not the music itself. The idea of not needing professionals, breaking down hierarchies. It’s also a mindset of not needing experts approval or their guidance but taking the initiative to try things out, for better and for worse, and trying to create microcosms of alternate communities and creative societies.

There’s not a single aesthetic of DIY but maybe a mentality of using what you have. So it was really funny to hear KT talking about how their friends associated them with hot glue. That’s the ultimate DIY art hack tool.There’s an immediacy of scissors, glue, spray paint, tape - these are some of the tools in my mind I associate with a particular kind of DIY. In the digital realm, KT talked about how they assembled their own bag of tools over time, like a library of forms, code snippets, vector shapes. They add to this by working with and teaching with various code libraries.

KT talked about creating spaces of joy and playfulness, and about how that can serve as a form of resistance, particularly against normative uses of technology but also as a way in, a door for students or anyone to try things out and talk about them. I like how KT makes space for conversation, they talked about their collaborative project a feminist manifestx of code-ing with Alejandro Acierto which incorporates ideas from restorative justice models and intersectional feminism to critique and discuss topics in creative coding, education, and our relationship to the broader tech industry.

What KT does well is bring ideas of communality to the forefront, in thir projects, their collaborations and their teaching, and around what we make and the implication of the tools and technology we’re using, creating space for what they describe as thinking, doing, making, and being.

Thanks to our guest on today’s program, KT Duffy. My name is Lee Tusman. Our audio producer is Max Ludlow.

This season of the podcast is produced with the New Media Caucus for New Rules: Conversations with New Media Artists. You can find out more by visiting www.newmediacaucus.org/

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov

Special thanks to Jessye McDowell, Rebecca Forstater and Nat Roe.

Our music on today’s episode is:

HoliznaCC0 - Agorophobia

Xylo-Ziko - Last Night

Daniel Birch - Brushed Bells in the Wind

Meydän - Away

Kirk Osamayo - (Ambient) Fight

You can find more episodes, full transcripts, music credits and links to find out about our guests and topics on our website artistsandhackers.org You can find us on instagram at artistandhackers, and on mastodon at artistsandhackers at post.lurk.org You can always write to us on our website. Please forward this or any of your favorite episodes to a friend. And be sure to leave us a review or feedback wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening.