Visual Thinkery Story Telling with Bryan Mathers
Ep. 04

Visual Thinkery Story Telling with Bryan Mathers

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Hop on the airwaves with Bryan Mathers

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0:00

And good morning, good morning, good morning.

0:05

It's me again, Jim Groom.

0:07

And for this hour of DS106 Radio Camp, Summer Camp,

0:14

I'm here with the inimitable Brian Mathers,

0:19

who I've been a long-time fan of his visual thinkery work.

0:23

And he's with us this morning to talk a little bit about some

0:28

of his ideas and kind of his journey

0:30

through talking through pictures, if you will,

0:34

or thinking through pictures.

0:36

So Brian, welcome.

0:39

Thanks, Jim.

0:41

Big fan also of your good self.

0:43

And in fact, I think you've got some skin in this game in terms

0:46

of maybe what we'll talk about today.

0:49

If skin in the game means using you to the nth degree,

0:54

then yes, I have skin in the game.

0:57

Well, listen, I am a curious creative,

1:02

as I'm sure many of our listeners,

1:04

our millions of listeners are.

1:08

You know, a little thought presents itself,

1:12

and I'm thinking, well, where can I take that?

1:16

And a lot of those thoughts have been--

1:20

a lot of those early thoughts around visual thinkery

1:22

were reclaim-oriented thoughts, I guess.

1:25

But in particular, this idea of aesthetic

1:32

is something that I didn't really

1:34

understand until I started doing work for you.

1:38

So you would use words like "iconic."

1:42

It's very iconic.

1:43

That's my best Jim Goom impression there.

1:45

And you talk about art.

1:50

Yeah, thank you.

1:51

You talk about art.

1:52

You know, I know nothing about art.

1:54

I know nothing about what makes something iconic.

1:58

And yet, you would give me a fairly loose frame

2:02

to create stuff in, and I would create within that frame.

2:08

And it's almost like you were able to keep

2:10

that conversation going, to sort of--

2:14

maybe some of the weaker things sort of got left on the shelf,

2:17

and some of the stronger ideas that came through redeveloped.

2:20

But this idea of how does it make you feel--

2:24

whenever you create something visual,

2:29

and you put it in front of someone's eyeballs,

2:32

they digest it without even thinking about it.

2:36

They can then think about it, but it goes in first.

2:40

So that idea of what does it feel

2:43

like before you get a chance to think about it

2:47

is something that I have often came back to.

2:50

And yeah, I suppose I'd like to spend some time today sort

2:55

of maybe fumbling around in some different directions,

3:01

just to explore the idea of sort of aesthetic and visual

3:04

language.

3:05

It's interesting, too, because being

3:07

an early kind of partaker of your visual magic,

3:12

one of the things that hit me in Barcelona

3:15

when you drew the kind of sketch that

3:18

would become the iconic vision of Reclaim Hosting

3:23

is the album, and the album which then gave birth

3:28

to the fact that we're like an independent record store,

3:30

or even an independent record label.

3:32

And then we kind of have played with just that single vision

3:38

and that single--

3:40

I don't know if it's an allegory, analogy, however,

3:43

we're a metaphor.

3:44

But the thing that was so powerful to me

3:47

about the record was that it very simply and very kind

3:54

of concisely captured the principles

3:59

that Reclaim Hosting wanted to represent.

4:02

Like we believed in it, it undergirded this idea

4:05

of an independent record label, this idea

4:07

of an independent hosting company that was actually--

4:11

had different principles than say Bluehost, or GoDaddy,

4:15

or some of the bigger ones.

4:16

And those were more aligned with the artist,

4:19

more aligned with the creator, more aligned with building out

4:23

a sense of who you are, and us providing

4:26

a kind of infrastructure that's affordable, accessible, DIY,

4:30

et cetera.

4:31

And so I saw that record, and immediately I

4:35

was like, that's the Reclaim aesthetic.

4:38

Like that is not just the visual beauty,

4:41

that is a set of principles that we can build upon visually

4:45

and have for now going on 10 years with you.

4:50

And so it's amazing to me how you so quickly picked up

4:56

on so many of the principles undergirding Reclaim

4:58

and then found that iconic image that we could then

5:02

build everything else around.

5:03

I just thought that was magic.

5:05

Well, again, this is very interesting

5:08

because there's two sides to this, isn't it?

5:10

Because I didn't recognize what it was.

5:14

You were able to see what it was, and the fact

5:17

that here is an aesthetic.

5:19

You know what I mean?

5:21

All I had done was to absorb the conversation that

5:25

was playing out in front of me and sort of played back

5:31

something that sort of came from my own brain, I guess.

5:36

And that's what I've tried to bottle in visual thinker,

5:39

where everything I do starts in that conversation

5:44

because I'm a very thin-skinned person anyway.

5:48

I'm very empathetic.

5:49

But I'm always just trying to step into whoever

5:52

I'm working with, their shoes, and to try

5:55

to absorb what it is they're trying to communicate

5:58

or trying to say or trying to be.

6:01

But it took you to recognize what it was,

6:04

and then immediately you played it back to me.

6:07

So it's a bit like a game of tennis, I guess.

6:09

You played it back to me, and you said, well,

6:12

can you go in different directions?

6:14

And I remember being on a plane and just sort of going,

6:18

well, OK, this is like solving puzzles.

6:22

As soon as you have an element of the visual language--

6:25

so if the aesthetic is how you feel,

6:28

and as you talked about values, you

6:30

talked about something being independent

6:35

and those sort of things.

6:39

But a record is a thing.

6:43

It's a noun.

6:43

It's an element of that visual language.

6:47

And then the question is, well, what can I do with that?

6:49

What can I do with that element of language?

6:53

Because it doesn't take much to think about, well,

6:56

a record in a record store and a greatest hits album.

7:01

You know what I mean?

7:01

And you can just start sort of stepping--

7:04

well, if something's not useful to the aesthetic,

7:09

you bypass it.

7:10

But if something then becomes useful,

7:12

say, well, what would that be?

7:14

I remember us thinking about mono and stereo,

7:17

and stereo, that idea that everything's backed up.

7:19

And it's just like, well, lovely.

7:20

There's a little way to communicate that.

7:23

You want stuff in stereo, don't you?

7:24

You want--

7:25

Yeah.

7:27

There's limitations to even that little bit of visual language.

7:30

But it's a lovely little play that as soon as you

7:33

have something, you can use.

7:36

And if you think about some of the other visual languages

7:40

I've explored with other clients,

7:46

things like Penguins, I'm sure some of our listeners

7:51

will recognize.

7:52

The Penguins are created for the GoGM network.

7:58

And again, they are a really great, really flexible

8:04

visual language.

8:06

And of course, it's a really good--

8:10

the idea of the concept was there before I came along.

8:14

As in, they used to--

8:16

different members of GoGM used to send this squidgy stress

8:20

toy penguin to each other.

8:22

And then so it would pop up in Rio de Janeiro.

8:25

And here's a photograph of our penguin on Rio's beach

8:32

with one of our members.

8:35

You know what I mean?

8:36

And then it would be in Australia or whatever.

8:39

But this idea of a penguin, it was already there

8:44

for a reason.

8:46

And spotting it is half the game.

8:49

And sort of going, actually, penguins are really good--

8:54

who doesn't love penguins?

8:56

You can sort of get behind it.

8:58

You don't have a gender problem with penguins.

9:01

You know what I mean?

9:02

They're sort of gender friendly.

9:04

And so from an illustration point of view

9:06

and a sort of capturing point of view,

9:08

and from where they're always up to sort of antics

9:10

and doing sort of silly stuff, but they're really

9:12

pretty clever, to be honest, in terms of survival.

9:15

That idea of survival as sort of researchers

9:18

spread amongst the globe.

9:20

It's just, again, once you've got it,

9:24

you can-- it'll run and run.

9:25

And it's still running.

9:27

And that amazes me, because it started off

9:29

as one little thing that then struck a chord.

9:32

And again, that team were able to recognize the power of it

9:37

and what it could do.

9:38

And it's done different heavy lifting.

9:40

Yeah, once you've got a visual language,

9:42

it can do the heavy lifting for you,

9:43

whether that's communicate stuff or--

9:45

in Gojian's realm, it's more about making

9:50

stuff feel friendly, I think.

9:52

They've done some pretty serious sort of research and documents

9:56

around research, or outputs from that research,

10:00

that I, as a researcher, I'm not.

10:04

But I would find that pretty intimidating.

10:06

But yet, sprinkled with penguin dust, suddenly,

10:11

it's more accessible.

10:13

So it's doing a different thing there,

10:15

I think, than maybe the reclaim.

10:19

Yeah.

10:19

It's two things that I think you really do well

10:21

with some of the work you're doing.

10:23

And I'll come back to the second one.

10:24

But the first one is, you have the--

10:28

let's say the driving metaphor, or that kind of principle

10:31

that gives birth to a broader aesthetic,

10:34

whether it's a penguin or record.

10:36

And soon enough, you will find yourself, I find--

10:41

and I mean specifically you, not the royal you--

10:44

kind of playing with the jokes in there.

10:48

You immediately start playing on words.

10:51

You start punning around.

10:52

And the whole thing not only has a kind of principles behind it,

10:57

but then it's fun.

10:59

And I think those are two amazing things.

11:02

A, how many hosting companies, how many research groups,

11:06

how many learning management systems have, A,

11:10

anything akin to an aesthetic, visual sense of beauty

11:14

or driving principles.

11:15

And then B, are even remotely fun and playful and humorous.

11:22

And I think the marriage of those two things

11:27

really takes the work that you've

11:30

done for a pretty large swath of the community

11:34

now to a new level.

11:36

And I really love the fact that you're able to--

11:41

and they're sometimes small things.

11:43

Like with Martin Weller's book on metaphors,

11:46

the name of the boat is meta and then the number four.

11:50

And it's simple enough.

11:52

It's not crazy.

11:53

But it's great.

11:54

It's beautiful.

11:55

It's so playful.

11:57

It's so right on.

11:58

And I really like that.

12:01

And I think that also playfulness

12:04

underscores, like you were saying with the research,

12:06

the idea that this is accessible.

12:08

This is open.

12:10

Please come join us.

12:11

We're not here to scare you with security, servers,

12:17

climate control.

12:19

This is like, come in and do this and play with us

12:23

and have fun and learn something.

12:26

I love the way you were able to kind of walk

12:29

that line for "Replayment."

12:31

It sounds very much like that for "GoJian."

12:34

And I'm wondering, how does that play

12:35

into your idea of the visual style or the aesthetic?

12:40

Yeah, look, thank you for picking up on that.

12:43

That's very helpful because I think

12:47

I realized reasonably early on in the visual thinkery journey

12:52

that humor was my most powerful weapon.

12:57

Humor disarms.

12:58

I think I learned it most not necessarily working

13:02

for my ed tech clients.

13:03

Because essentially, I've got two banks of clients.

13:06

Clients in the education ed tech world.

13:11

And then I've got a completely separate bank of clients

13:15

that are around environmental policy and plastic pollution

13:21

and preventing plastic pollution.

13:22

So people like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth.

13:26

There's loads of little NGOs based in Brussels

13:28

that I've done a whole bunch of work with.

13:31

And the idea of using dark humor--

13:34

so whenever you're talking about an existential crisis

13:38

as we face in the world today, how do you reach people?

13:44

As in, are you going to--

13:46

do you have to use shock tactics?

13:48

Do you have to-- so for example, plastic pollution,

13:50

do you have to-- is it another picture of a turtle

13:52

with a plastic around its neck?

13:57

You know what I mean?

13:57

Which is hard to look at, but it's

13:59

trying to communicate this sort of problem.

14:02

I think I realized that the power of cartoons

14:06

and that humor element that can be not slapstick humor,

14:15

but dark humor.

14:16

I'm sort of just going, really?

14:20

Can you believe this?

14:22

And leaning into that side has been really effective.

14:26

Because it has the-- in fact, I'd probably

14:29

say dark humor has a stronger power to it

14:33

in terms of disarming or grabbing

14:36

the attention of someone who's looking at it.

14:39

It's certainly not forcing them to close their arms.

14:41

It's the opposite of that.

14:44

So I've been amazed at how that can be used.

14:49

But again, a lot of the humor that I tend to pick up on--

14:54

OK, a lot of it is coming from me

14:56

or things that I find humorous.

15:01

You know what I mean?

15:02

But most of it's rooted back in that conversation

15:04

I'm having with the client.

15:08

It's their world that I'm spotting.

15:12

Because I'm an outsider, I'm able to sort of spot

15:15

something that's absurd or a situation or a part of a story

15:19

that's absurd.

15:20

And yeah, whenever I play the ideas in front of the client,

15:26

they are gravitated generally towards those more absurd--

15:31

those little bits of playfulness.

15:33

There's another element to it as well, which is--

15:36

part of it is just I've drawn--

15:39

we've used a Jaws metaphor.

15:40

There's a boat on top.

15:42

I've sort of looked at various different images

15:46

to do with the movie.

15:47

And I've drawn a boat.

15:48

And I'm going, well, what would this be called?

15:51

And the boat tells you what it should be called.

15:54

The boat answers right back.

15:57

Or I've got a person in danger of the shark.

16:01

They're on a lilo.

16:02

Well, of course, they're on a laptop.

16:04

So it starts telling you.

16:07

Because you have this visual language

16:11

or the scene's already set, it starts

16:14

telling you the bits that need to be there.

16:16

So yeah, it's funny how it evolves.

16:21

So it's interesting, too, because you, Brian,

16:25

have in many ways developed an aesthetic.

16:29

I can look at art and say, oh, this is Brian Mathers' art,

16:33

although I have to be honest with you--

16:35

and this might be a good frame--

16:40

I didn't realize you did the art for OER 20--

16:45

was it 4?

16:47

For the most recent--

16:48

and that was a really great piece.

16:50

But I was like, oh, wait, this is Brian Mathers' art?

16:54

I didn't recognize it.

16:56

And was that, for you, a conscious departure

17:02

from your aesthetic?

17:04

Or is it part of your experimentation?

17:07

Or did it just-- it called for something totally different?

17:10

There was no sense of cartoon in that.

17:13

So I'm just wondering what your take on that is.

17:16

So if you look carefully, there's

17:19

definitely cartoon in there.

17:21

There's definitely cartoon in there.

17:22

But I loved how that came out, actually.

17:28

Sometimes you've got to do a bit more digging.

17:30

Maybe we should describe it for the listeners,

17:32

because I didn't do a good job of describing it.

17:34

So what is the piece we're talking about for OER 24

17:38

before we go too deep into it?

17:40

Well, so there's the lettering themselves.

17:45

So it's more of a brand aesthetic, isn't it?

17:49

Because-- and I've done this at successive OERs, where I've

17:54

met--

17:55

again, had a conversation with those people that are chairing

17:59

and responsible for the themes.

18:02

Usually, Maren Deepwell is involved,

18:04

has been involved in there, too.

18:06

And so she's guiding the process,

18:09

because guiding academics is a tricky business

18:11

at the best of times.

18:13

And I'm hunting for clues.

18:17

I'm playing a game that my participants don't necessarily

18:21

see as a game.

18:22

You know what I mean?

18:24

Sometimes if they're new to it or new to how

18:25

I work on my process, they go, well, what's this about?

18:28

What's this conversation about?

18:30

What are we doing here?

18:31

But what I'm doing is I'm poking,

18:33

and I'm trying to find an angle.

18:35

I'm trying to find a clue that I can work with.

18:37

I'm trying to find--

18:39

and so for OER 24, which is based in Cork City,

18:48

one of the things that evolved was the Book of Kells,

18:53

the Ireland being an ancient place of learning, I guess.

19:01

And that's the time taken to create something beautiful

19:06

that held the knowledge.

19:08

And so what I tried to do--

19:10

and I didn't know whether it was going to work.

19:12

And I actually came up with two or three different ideas--

19:16

but was to try to think, well, what

19:19

would a modern version of that be, as in an O'Brien version?

19:23

Because I do things in my style, because I've only

19:26

got one style.

19:27

It's just me.

19:30

So I was trying to just absorb the beauty of some

19:35

of those ancient texts.

19:37

But yet, live in a digital world, I guess.

19:42

And so I spotted some of these little small dots, almost.

19:51

And you find them in different ancient civilizations.

19:53

You find them, obviously, in First Nation Australian

20:01

culture.

20:01

You'll find it in Tinga Tinga art in East Africa as well.

20:06

But these are almost like stipple, sort of dot effect.

20:11

And so I created OER24 with that.

20:15

And I don't know.

20:17

It just really resonated with people.

20:19

And it really worked.

20:21

Better than that, I went to OER--

20:24

I really enjoyed OER24.

20:25

But they had big screens everywhere with it on.

20:28

It's one thing creating it.

20:29

It's another thing displaying it.

20:31

And they had it on everything, which

20:36

was beautiful because RGB-wise, you

20:40

can use punchy colors when you're drawing on an iPad.

20:43

And it really popped.

20:45

I was really pleased with how it evolved.

20:47

But again, it's rooted in a conversation.

20:52

But the question is, Jim, is it art?

20:55

Is it art?

20:55

But is it art, Brian?

20:58

But I think it actually--

21:01

one of the things I'm realizing just asking that question is,

21:05

I didn't see it, only saw it on the laptop

21:07

because I was in that OER24 in person.

21:09

So I didn't get to see that.

21:11

And I didn't get the subtlety of it

21:13

until I was like, oh, that's Brian's art.

21:16

And then I gave it a second look.

21:18

And I'm like, oh, I can see some of that.

21:21

But for me, the subtlety of it and the fact

21:23

that I almost felt like you were trying on a completely

21:27

different style or going where you needed to go culturally,

21:32

with the idea of illumination and the Book of Kells

21:35

and all of that.

21:36

But it raises a bigger question, I think.

21:38

And this is maybe for you more individually as an artist,

21:42

is part of your aesthetic, obviously, is rooted in cartoons

21:48

and is rooted in humor.

21:49

And then you've married those two for your own project

21:53

with the work you're doing around a history, if you will,

21:57

through zines of Ireland.

22:00

And I think, how does the kind of aesthetic

22:03

now start to marry to the politic of what's going on

22:08

and where we do?

22:08

Because I don't think as much-- and this is a big philosophical,

22:11

this is an artistic question--

22:13

can you divorce an aesthetic from a politic?

22:17

Reclaim has a politic.

22:19

We don't want to be like the big corporate sellouts.

22:21

We don't want to play big ed tech.

22:25

We don't want it.

22:26

We want people to feel like they have a voice.

22:29

We want people to feel like there is a person behind it.

22:31

That's a politic.

22:32

And that's a politic we're trading on.

22:35

And I wonder, have you, through your own work

22:38

as a visual artist, sometimes a gun for hire,

22:42

found your own aesthetic and your own politic

22:45

through your work?

22:47

Yeah, thank you for asking that.

22:50

Yeah, I think there's a commonality here.

22:56

And I will tell you the cartoonist's greatest trick,

22:59

Jim.

23:00

I will tell you.

23:02

The cartoonist's greatest trick is that a wobbly line,

23:06

if you draw something with a wobbly line,

23:08

it is more human than a very straight computer-created line.

23:15

And so when you draw a cartoon and have people in the cartoon,

23:20

it feels human.

23:22

If it feels human, it feels genuine.

23:25

And it feels honest.

23:27

And I think that represents me.

23:31

I'm trying to create things that are genuine.

23:35

I don't really do any corporate work.

23:37

I'm not really working for the man.

23:40

I'm trying to take conversation with real people

23:44

and turn it into things that reflect,

23:47

turn it into art that reflects those people

23:49

and what they're trying to say.

23:50

So that element of being genuine and that element of honesty,

23:58

I think, is so powerful, especially in an AI world

24:04

or in a computer-y world.

24:08

But the humor is also human.

24:13

So building humor into art just makes things, again,

24:17

feel more human.

24:19

So I think that's the sort of essential strand.

24:21

So then trying to deconstruct my Irish past or my Ulster past,

24:29

again, I found trying to use cartoons and humor to do that.

24:34

And for me to be honest with myself

24:39

and allow others to see some of my thinking,

24:43

I found it incredibly powerful.

24:46

Funny enough, though, it seems to get harder.

24:48

Every scene I do gets harder.

24:50

I don't know if I'm trying to set the bar higher

24:53

or whether I'm getting slower or whatever.

24:56

I'm not quite sure.

24:56

But I definitely get a chance to be me

25:02

and to try to say stuff in a way that some of--

25:10

I would just love to have an impact in Ireland

25:13

as someone who was born in the Troubles

25:17

and thinks very differently now than maybe they

25:21

would have done when I was growing up.

25:27

And so being able to sort of deconstruct that

25:29

and be able to jump back--

25:30

cartoons allow you to do that.

25:32

I can represent myself as a boy or whatever else,

25:35

thinking a thought, finding something funny

25:37

or finding something absurd very easily in a cartoon.

25:42

I don't know a better way of doing that.

25:47

And yet I'm able to keep it completely personal

25:49

so that someone else can look at it

25:51

and go and identify or choose not to.

25:54

They can see meaning or choose not to.

25:57

But there's no threat there.

26:00

I'm not telling them what to think.

26:01

I'm just talking about stuff that is meaningful to me.

26:05

So yeah, that has been another whole journey, really,

26:11

that has amazed me.

26:13

Well, honesty and humor could almost be like a life

26:17

philosophy, right?

26:19

Be honest but funny, right?

26:21

That would be a wonderful life philosophy

26:23

if you one could adopt it as much as possible.

26:27

But yeah, I think--

26:28

Sounds like a great gentleman's barber's, doesn't it?

26:31

Honesty and humor, gentleman's barber's.

26:35

I maybe need to set that up, having a background

26:38

in hairstyles as I do.

26:41

But I also like the point you made,

26:42

and one that I really didn't make and should have,

26:46

is you do keep it as a-- because it is such a gigantic topic,

26:51

and it comes from so many different points of view,

26:55

so many-- and it is potentially a point of contention,

27:01

that you're acknowledging and approaching it

27:04

from your own journey through it,

27:07

as you do seemingly most of your art.

27:09

And I think that's interesting, because part of--

27:14

and I don't know, because having been

27:17

a student of literature, and maybe not to the same degree

27:21

as visual art, the term of aesthetic

27:24

was almost like the term of art.

27:26

Is it art?

27:28

What exactly is an aesthetic again?

27:31

It's one of those terms that it took me most of my life

27:34

to come to terms with.

27:36

But I understand, OK, it's visual beauty,

27:39

but it's not just that.

27:41

It's also some sort of principled idea

27:44

that an artist represents, so it can offset the beauty.

27:48

And I love it, because it's one of those multifaceted concepts

27:54

that undergirds a whole creative way of thinking, that is,

28:00

as a word, you could almost unpack it over a lifetime.

28:05

And I think that's why the fact that your story in itself is--

28:10

I continue to be a gigantic fan and just truly--

28:15

how would I say--

28:17

just not mesmerized-- that's the wrong word--

28:21

but fascinated is the wrong word.

28:23

It's too general.

28:26

But astonished might be right.

28:29

I don't know what the right word exactly is.

28:31

I got to figure that out.

28:32

But the fact that at a certain point,

28:34

being a programmer, saying, you know what?

28:37

Done with that.

28:37

I'm going to try my hand at this whole creative cartoon thing.

28:44

And the success you've had, I just

28:47

find that really admirable.

28:48

I think maybe that's the term I'm looking for,

28:51

the admiration I have at your ability to do that.

28:54

Well, look, it's admirable if that's

28:56

the way you tell the story.

28:58

But that's not how it was.

29:02

I've only ever done a succession of small experiments.

29:07

And I'm switching careers.

29:09

I keep pinching myself, going, oh, yeah,

29:12

I used to run a software company.

29:15

I used to do all sorts of stuff in a completely different

29:19

world.

29:20

And it seems like a completely different brand.

29:22

But I never really made the conscious choice

29:28

to be a cartoonist.

29:32

I started drawing on an iPad in order to do a thing,

29:36

in order to say a thing in a corporate world.

29:39

And one thing led to another.

29:41

And people started asking me to do stuff for them.

29:44

And they were terrible.

29:45

But it was definitely small steps,

29:48

because I'm not brave enough to--

29:51

and I don't think I've ever had visions like that.

29:54

I remember as a young man, whenever

29:56

we were starting our first company,

29:59

I went to this entrepreneurship course.

30:01

And apparently, it was very important

30:03

that we all had 10-year visions.

30:05

And I was very certain that I didn't have anything

30:09

like a 10-year vision.

30:10

As in, it was me and three other guys

30:12

had started this little web company back

30:14

before the dot-com crash.

30:15

Yeah, I just didn't have a vision,

30:21

because I just don't think that way.

30:24

I just see little, small, curious wonderments.

30:30

And I just go from one of those that

30:35

then opens another couple of different rabbit holes.

30:39

I think people in this audience will

30:44

know what I'm talking about there, because I've

30:46

seen very similar behavior.

30:50

And especially anybody who enjoys a remix, I think,

30:54

is oriented in that way, where a creative opportunity presents

30:59

itself, and they have to take it.

31:04

And so that's the journey, really,

31:06

as in how it looks like from 30,000 feet.

31:11

Maybe it looks more impressive than it is.

31:14

It's worth talking about the remixer,

31:15

and I do want to come back to that.

31:17

But before we do, you reminded me of one of the things

31:21

that this idea of vision, and maybe not having

31:25

a 10-year vision, or not having a grand historical narrative

31:28

that's driving your work.

31:30

I've been reading a Belarus author

31:33

who won the Nobel Prize--

31:35

I don't know if it was 2015 or '17.

31:37

Her name is Svetlana Aliaksevich.

31:41

I think I'm pronouncing that right, but forgive me if I'm

31:43

not.

31:43

Anyway, I'm reading a story by her,

31:46

or actually a narrative by her.

31:47

It's kind of documentarian, where

31:49

she has a whole bunch of people tell

31:51

their stories of what it was like in the Afghanistan War,

31:55

so when the Russians went to Afghanistan.

31:57

And so that's all to tell you what she wrote.

31:59

But what was interesting to me is, for the first time--

32:02

I've read a bunch of her books-- for the first time

32:04

in her books, she spent a little time explaining her vision.

32:10

And it was super interesting to me,

32:12

because I've read many of her books,

32:13

and she never says anything about why she's doing this

32:16

or how she's doing this.

32:17

A lot of other pundits do, but she doesn't.

32:20

But in this book, she says, my idea

32:24

is to try and resist the grand historical narratives

32:28

and capture the people telling the story in the moment that

32:32

will be forgotten, and tell the details about what

32:37

was in their kitchen, or what they were eating,

32:40

or what they smelled, or all of these other details that

32:44

will get lost in the grand historical narratives.

32:47

And she talks about it as small histories,

32:49

as individual histories, which kind of is an interesting way

32:53

to maybe think about the Ulster Project,

32:55

but also maybe to think about some of the broader ways

32:58

that communities now can and should

33:03

start to tell their stories and start to think about,

33:06

there are the grand narrative historical visions that

33:08

will be told, whether we like it or not,

33:11

but our small place in it and how we saw it

33:15

and how we experienced it and what it meant to us

33:18

may weave together a whole bunch of smaller histories

33:23

that tell a different, grander history.

33:25

And I'm fascinated by her attempt at that.

33:29

And it reminds me a lot of what you're talking about.

33:32

Reminds me a little bit of moving away from that.

33:35

Well, look, yeah, that makes complete sense to me.

33:40

And again, back to the root of the things that I do

33:45

is conversation, because conversation

33:48

is almost like the smallest common denominator.

33:51

You know what I mean?

33:52

In history, I guess.

33:54

Or there's maybe one way to look at it.

33:58

But finding-- the nuggets are hidden in the grubby detail.

34:05

Yeah.

34:06

And that has been clear to me for many years.

34:10

Certainly in my process, that's clear.

34:13

As in, it's just the form of words

34:15

that someone chooses to use without thinking,

34:19

as in a little metaphor that just sort of pops into it.

34:21

Like, aha, that's the angle.

34:24

That's the angle I'm looking for here.

34:25

It's because it's telling a story.

34:27

It's telling a story that comes from the source.

34:31

So yeah, those-- because who can possibly--

34:34

I've also-- how do you stand on a plinth

34:39

and proclaim yourself the authority to sort of say,

34:43

here is how it is?

34:44

You know what I mean?

34:45

I don't know how to do that.

34:46

I didn't go to the right school that allows me to do that.

34:49

You know, I can only tell you what it looks

34:53

like from where I'm standing.

34:56

You know, and also I've found that where other people are

34:59

standing, they see all sorts of other things

35:02

that are so interesting.

35:06

So it really bothers me in things like just meetings.

35:10

You know, whenever you don't get the viewpoint from a person

35:14

who feels like, for whatever reason, they can't contribute

35:17

or isn't allowed to contribute, or you know what I mean,

35:19

or it's not a level playing field or whatever,

35:22

that just feels so unfair to me because everybody

35:27

sees different stuff.

35:28

Everybody thinks different stuff.

35:29

And it's those little grubby--

35:34

you know, in the grubby dust, that's where the gems are.

35:38

Yeah, and it's funny because that's

35:39

how this Belarus author does it.

35:42

It's all through conversations and the way

35:44

she weaves them together as a broader idea.

35:47

And so to the point of your kind of style,

35:52

and you're hearing all these different things

35:54

and being able to bring them out and then kind of weave

35:58

in those points that people didn't make,

36:00

you've also gone beyond that and made a machine

36:03

where other people can jump in and actually add their two bits

36:09

and not have to worry about being--

36:11

not being able to talk about it or being silenced in a meeting

36:14

or not having that place.

36:16

Like, you've created this really cool tool

36:18

called the Remixer, right?

36:21

And can you talk a little bit about the creation

36:23

of the Remixer and why you did it?

36:25

And I know you're excited about it now.

36:29

So I'd love to hear why you're excited about it.

36:31

Well, I've been working on the Remixer for a number of years.

36:35

And it's the same sort of thing where one day I

36:40

discover what SVGs are, a document describing vectors.

36:48

And then my web--

36:51

sort of year 2000 knowledge of the web sort of goes,

36:55

well, hold on a minute.

36:57

If you twiddle parts of that document, the SVG changes.

37:02

Oh, that's interesting.

37:03

You know what I mean?

37:04

And again, a series of very small steps.

37:08

And also then, you always need a reason to create stuff,

37:13

or at least I do.

37:14

So yeah, I remember being--

37:19

what was I?

37:20

I was at some sort of a retreat with people

37:24

like Greenpeace and environmental organizations

37:29

that were sort of thinking about policy,

37:31

but also they had some artists along.

37:33

And I found myself there.

37:34

And it was brilliant.

37:35

But I was like, well, hey, there's a campaign.

37:38

And we could use this.

37:39

We could remix business cards.

37:43

And there would be a thing.

37:45

So suddenly, I've got a reason to turn some lines of code

37:50

that I'd mucked around with into a--

37:53

well, if that person was able to remix their own business card

37:58

and print it, oh, that would be really interesting.

38:00

And I found myself sort of in a space

38:02

where people were like, this seems

38:05

different from conversations we've

38:07

had when it comes to thinking about campaigns.

38:10

And so again, one thing led to another.

38:14

And every enhancement I made to this machine,

38:19

I guess, more people started dabbling with it.

38:24

But its root is in that same curiosity,

38:31

or that same realization that the way I see the world is not

38:35

how anybody else sees the world.

38:37

Whenever I see the opportunity to remix something,

38:40

everybody else sees different opportunities

38:44

to remix something.

38:45

So one of the remixers that I'll share,

38:49

or that we can put in the notes of this radio broadcast,

38:57

is a little cartoon that people can remix the speech bubble.

39:00

And it's funny.

39:03

I just sort of thought--

39:05

one, you assume that people are like yourself.

39:07

So I assume everybody wants to remix.

39:09

And that's not true.

39:11

I think, in fact, probably the majority of people,

39:14

when presented with an opportunity

39:16

to remix something, actually sort of won't,

39:19

for whatever reason.

39:20

I don't really know why.

39:23

Whether they don't think that that's fun,

39:25

or whether that's putting them on the spot,

39:27

or whether they don't get enjoyment from that, I don't

39:29

know.

39:29

But there's certainly a slice of people who will see something

39:33

and jump right in.

39:34

And so some of the remixers that have worked best,

39:38

things that have been used for conferences,

39:40

so things like a remixable postcard,

39:42

have been simple enough to allow people to just upload a photo,

39:46

type a few sentences, even, and publish.

39:50

And of course, everybody being able to see what everyone else

39:53

is remixing is the real gold of it,

39:56

where a gallery just starts to emerge

40:00

of different people's inputs.

40:01

And I don't know why that gives me so much joy.

40:05

But it really does, because there's

40:07

something very human about that, and realizing that everybody's

40:11

got a different angle.

40:12

And therefore, everybody's remix is different.

40:18

So I guess that's the background to the remixing machine.

40:22

But it just keeps going.

40:23

That's the thing.

40:25

It's funny to me, the way that your remixer

40:27

captures that sense, like you said, of make it human

40:32

or honest, and make it fun.

40:35

And I think one of the things I know,

40:37

I remember about our conference together, OER by Domains 21,

40:42

is the remixer was employed to allow people to--

40:46

because it was a fully online conference.

40:47

We were deep into COVID.

40:49

And the remixer allowed people to create their own,

40:51

essentially, conference name tags.

40:54

You didn't really need a conference name tag,

40:55

because it was an online conference.

40:57

But almost everyone created it, because it

41:00

was a fun, unique way for them to introduce themselves

41:03

to the rest of the people in the conference.

41:05

And it worked.

41:06

And it was a really--

41:09

I started to associate the people who would come to that

41:13

and who would introduce themselves with their name tag

41:17

kind of like you would at a conference that was physical.

41:19

And it was a really beautiful trick

41:22

to kind of take some of what we've expected

41:24

in physical conferences, but give it

41:27

a new twist and a fun twist, and still say,

41:30

it's important for you to be there.

41:32

It's important for you to introduce yourself

41:34

and to kind of give yourself a sense of what it is.

41:37

I really love that piece of it.

41:39

Yeah.

41:40

Yeah, that worked so well, didn't it?

41:43

And again, it seemed like a good idea at the time,

41:47

so we created it.

41:47

But like most projects that involve Jim Groom

41:53

and Brian Mathers and Maren Deepwell,

41:56

afterwards, we're like, oh, yeah.

41:58

Yeah, that had a different angle to it.

42:02

So again, I find myself looking at how people present

42:07

themselves and thought, oh, there

42:09

would be an interesting person to talk to.

42:11

There's a person that actually I need to make sure

42:15

that I connect with them.

42:17

And in a way that if you give me a delegate list,

42:21

as conferences tend to do, it's just like, well,

42:23

I've got nothing to go on here.

42:24

I don't know.

42:26

I've just got a name and an institution.

42:28

Exactly.

42:28

You know?

42:29

And so there was a very functional angle there

42:33

of essentially allowing people to introduce themselves.

42:36

Also, people sort of saying, I am here.

42:40

Because also with that conference,

42:44

because it was all online, people could check out.

42:48

But somehow by creating something,

42:51

you were saying, I'm now officially

42:54

part of this conference.

42:55

And therefore, I guess that people were probably

43:00

more engaged as a result by I don't know how many percent.

43:04

Maybe it's only 1% of them.

43:05

But definitely, I think there's an impact.

43:08

So this is what happens with all sort of creative projects

43:11

is afterwards, you're like, oh, yeah.

43:13

And it had that effect, too.

43:14

And that was quite interesting.

43:18

Well, the investment there is definitely telling.

43:20

Like the idea that people invested a little bit of time

43:23

and as a result, it paid off.

43:24

So I mean, that's great.

43:26

And look, this has been an amazing conversation.

43:30

We're coming to the end of our hour, Brian.

43:32

So I just wanted to get a sense, is there any points about--

43:36

because I know I hijacked the conference again and again

43:39

around Belarusian literature and the rest.

43:41

So is there any points you wanted to make

43:43

that I might have missed?

43:46

No, I don't think so.

43:47

I think we've done very well.

43:50

I think I'll be keen to see if anyone remixes

43:54

my little cartoon on the remix machine, anyone who's

43:58

listening.

43:58

And look, there's millions of listeners, I'm sure.

44:02

Nobody's listening.

44:03

That's the rule of Diaspora Six Radio.

44:04

Nobody's listening.

44:06

OK, so the gallery is just going to be

44:09

me remixing my own cartoon.

44:13

But is it art?

44:14

[HUMMING]

44:18

If art happens in a vacuum, is it still art?

44:21

Is it still art?

44:22

Well, that's a topic for another day, isn't it, Jim?

44:25

It is.

44:25

Well, Brian, thank you so much.

44:27

You're so generous with your time and your thoughts.

44:29

And I really appreciate it.

44:31

It's been a pleasure.

44:32

I very much enjoyed the conversation.

44:33

Thanks, Jim.

44:34

All right.

44:35

You too, Brian.

44:35

Take care.

44:36

Cheers.