January 27, 2020 • 42 mins
If you're struggling to find your place online, both creatively and as a human in general, listen up! Our guest is Maya Man, an artist and technologist based in New York City who’s building experiments at the Google Creative Lab, dancing in studios and public spaces, and maintaining her love/hate relationship with the internet, which she describes as mostly love. We discuss how to disrupt your daily screen trance, turn a world of devices into your own digital playground, and stay inspired and real both on and offline.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:21):
and embrace the and not the or, so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human bend diagram, then you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Who
(00:45):
are you on the Internet. We spend a lot of
time talking about who we are on this show, but
today we're specifically exploring who we are on the World
Wide Web. I don't think anyone calls it that anymore. King,
I'm bringing it back Netscape. Anyone? Is that still a thing?
Not since nine? Right? As you can see, if left
to our own devices, get a devices like a phone. Okay,
(01:07):
I'm going to stop you right there and introduced today's guest.
Maya Man is an artist and technologist based in New
York City who's building experiments at the Google Creative Lab.
Dancing in studios and public spaces, and maintaining her love
hate relationship with the Internet, which she describes as mostly love.
(01:27):
Maya's website is Maya on the inter dot Net, but
her work doesn't just live on the Internet. It's also
lived in places like Times Square. She's created a prolific
body of work which she refers to as quote weird
web things, and which we referred to as a digital
playground where we just really want to hang out. If
you're struggling to find your place on the Internet, both
(01:47):
creatively and as a human in general, you're going to
find a lot of support and inspiration in this episode.
So let's meet Maya, shall we. Let's do it as
someone who identifies as both an artist and a technologist.
(02:07):
What do those terms mean for you? From your identity?
What what aspects of your work do they describe? The
technologist part is really that I have a background in
computer science. I love coding, and to me, that is
just my medium and that is the way that I
(02:28):
create the artwork that I want to make. To me,
being an artist means having the ability to bring an
idea to life, and for me, technology is my way
of doing that. Do you consider dance and movement your
primary form of art, or do you bring into other
aspects as well. Dance for me has always been an
art form that I've gravitated toward. As a kid, I
(02:50):
could never stop moving, and I always, you know, every
time I listen to music, I always wanted to be
dancing all over the place. But for a long time,
dance existed very separately from my interest in technology and
my interest in math and science, and I always saw
them as two parallel paths. I never saw them as
two things that would overlap. So it really opened up
my world when I realized there were these people that
(03:11):
work at the intersection of art and technology and incorporate
their own interests, whether that be in writing or design
or photography. And for me, realizing that I could incorporate
dance with my interest in technology was totally mind blowing
and exciting. And so a lot of my work does
involve dance, and I think that's kind of my favorite
(03:31):
intersection to work at. But I also like to explore
other aspects of the way we interact with technology. Do
you remember something specific or a specific moment that caused
that revelation of wait a minute, this computer science and
dance can come together, like is it something that you saw,
(03:51):
was there a class that you took, How did you
sort of start to find the cohesion between the different areas.
My introduction to the world of creative technology in general
came when I attended the very first P five j
S conference at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which was
about five years ago, and that P five JS is
(04:13):
a javascripts graphics library and it's part of the Processing Foundation.
There I met this community of artists and designers and
educators and P five was founded and the conference was
being led by Lauren McCarthy, and it was so inspiring
to see these people who came from all different backgrounds
(04:35):
coming together over this new piece of technology, but also
bringing in all of their interests together and having conversations
about how the library should be or how they can
make the platform. Were welcoming to people in all these
different types of conversations. So that was the first time
that I've realized, Okay, well there are people out there
or combining their what they loved to do with technology.
(04:58):
And I started thinking, you know, what avenues do I
have to combine dance with technology? Because that was my
love outside of my computer science studies, and I started
to learn a little bit about computer vision, and I
was learning about it through open CV, which had a
library on processing, and so I was playing around with
(05:19):
using processing and computer vision, and I was able to
get an analysis of videos of myself dancing that I
was then able to manipulate and make different visuals that
responded to the way that I moved. Uh, And that
to me was my kind of gateway into the world
of dance and technology. But there are plenty of people
who you know, for years have been experimenting at this intersection,
(05:41):
but for me, that was the first time that I
was exposed to that and was able to begin making
work there. I love that Carnie Mellen played such a
big role in that. That is a school that is
kind of well known for applying the intersections of technology
with other art forms. They have a great theater program,
they've got it's incredible and engineering school, so that was
(06:02):
fantastic that they were able to play a small role. Yeah,
in this conference. I really admire the programs that they
offer and Goal and Levin runs the Studio for Creative
Inquiry down there. He's done a great job of really
curating a curriculum and fostering a community around the intersection
of technology and the arts. So you attended Pomona College,
(06:23):
where you double majored in computer science and media studies
with a focus in digital production. Why those two majors.
I started school deciding to study computer science, and I
had taken a two week coding course right before I
left for college. It was my first exposure to coding ever,
and I absolutely loved it. I had always loved math,
(06:47):
and I loved physics before that, but learning how to
code and realizing that I would have the ability to
bring my ideas to life in that way was so
exciting to me that I decided to major in computer science.
And when I started studying computer science in school, I thought,
you know, it seems like most people study computer science
here and go on to become software engineers, and so
(07:09):
that's probably what I'll do. And you know, I'll always
be dancing on the side. And I still love art
and design, but that wasn't something that was really going to,
you know, affect my choices in my computer science studies
or future career path at all. But it was really
that at that conference when I met all of those
people who are part of the processing community. That I realized,
(07:31):
you know, my interests in technology can be bigger than
purely learning to code. I also love thinking about how
technology affects people and the political and cultural consequences of media.
And that's when I decided that I wanted to also
be studying something like media studies, which focuses on theory,
(07:51):
so how does technology affect people currently and in the past.
And at the same time, my focus was in digital
production because I was interested in the application of media
studies and how I could actually use my computer science
knowledge to create things that I was proud to put
into the world and contribute to the world of media.
Those majors, for me, they really complemented each other nicely,
(08:14):
because in my computer science classes, we were constantly, you know,
talking about algorithms and optimizations and programming languages and you know,
bits and bytes, but we weren't really talking about the
potential consequences of the technology that we were being taught
how to create. And so after completing that double major,
(08:34):
I really think that there should be more overlap between
those two disciplines because for me, they really complemented each
other nicely. You were recently the lead technologist on a
project at the Google Creative Lab, working with pioneering choreographer
Builty Jones, and this project explored the intersections of art, tech, identity,
and the bodies. So can you just fill us in
(08:56):
on this magical merging of things? Please us? And it
feels like pose net might be a good place to start.
Pose net is a machine learning model that runs on
TensorFlow JS. TensorFlow is Google's machine learning platform, and JS
just means JavaScript, so that means that it's written in JavaScript,
(09:18):
which is a coding language that runs in your browser.
What pose net does is it analyzes an image and
it estimates where key points are on a person's body
in that image. So it's been trained on thousands and
thousands of images of people where someone has gone in
and said, okay, this is where the person's eyes are,
this is where the elbow is in that image, and
(09:38):
after seeing thousands of images like that, the machine learning
model is able to start to guess when it sees
a new image where a person's eyes are, elbow is
or ankle is. And the exciting thing about pose net
is that because it's on tensor Flow JS, it runs
completely in the browser, so no images are ever sent
to a server. It's completely private and runs locally on
(09:59):
your sheen. This is exciting for me as a technologist
who's also a dancer, because historically, to be able to
analyze movement, you had to maybe use a connect which
was a special piece of hardware, or you had to
use an expensive motion capture suit or like a three
hundred sixty degree camera rig um and pose net is
really lightweight, so it just runs in the browser and
(10:20):
it's as easy as going to a website to be
able to check it out and try it. So, how
did you leverage pose net for this project with Bilty Jones,
who is amazing by the way, I adore him. Yeah. So,
Bilty Jones is a legendary choreographer, artist, director, writer. Builty
Jones is a pioneer in thinking about speaking about and
(10:41):
making work about the body. So when we were thinking
about how an artist might use pose net um, he
was clearly going to be an exciting collaborator because he's
already thought so much about dance and the body and
storytelling through the body. We're interested to see how an
artist of Bilty Jones call over would be interested in
(11:01):
using a machine learning model like post net. So what
did you guys end up building together? Over series of
five workshops, we worked with him to see how he
would use the pose net and you know, use that
as a method for storytelling with his dancers. And so
we ended up creating a collection of posset net experiments
that now exist online and anyone can go and try
(11:22):
them out. And they all involve body movement and language,
which is the title of the projects that we worked
on together, and a lot of them use speech to text,
so a person can say something out loud and the
words will appear on screen, and then they can manipulate
the words with their movement. So it's a way for
someone to tell a story that way. So Maya, you
(11:42):
wrote this great medium post on this project and will
definitely link to it in the show notes. And in
that post you talk about that when you demo pose
net for Bill, his central question was not what are
all the things that can do? But rather what do
I want from it? And I love that you wrote
that you learned this lesson by working with Bill in
(12:05):
technological restraint that was essentially let the concept star and
the technology play a supporting role, and I was so
fascinated by that in this time when we're really looking
at different ways that art can intersect with, be elevated by,
be rediscovered with technology. What does that look like to you?
(12:26):
To let the concept be the star and for technology
to support it. It was really exciting working with Bill
because he really was focused on the meaning of what
he was trying to convey and how powerful that would be.
And you hear him ask the question can this make
me cry? And he's really interested in the emotion that
(12:47):
something that you create evokes, and he's less interested in
the specific media that it takes to get there. And
that's a framework that I will carry with me, I
think for the rest of my career. Even though a
technologist and I'm very excited about technology, A technology like
pose net is so exciting. It's a you know, huge
jump ahead. But at the same time, it's really a
(13:09):
tool like any other artistic tool that people have used
in the past, like a camera or even a paintbrush.
It's to me and to build. He really saw it
as a tool for artistic expression and that was the
way that he thought it should be used. And so
in that medium post and as well in all of
the work I make now, I like to think of
the technology I'm using as a tool, not the focus itself.
(13:48):
You have created a bunch of really cool digital projects,
and it's so great within them to see what you're
just talking about really coming together. And I love that
in your word words you describe them as weird web things. Truly,
to go on your website and look at your projects,
and also your not just your primary Instagram account my
(14:10):
on the internet, but your secondary account, my am making things.
Really is this digital playground is kind of what it
feels like. So tell us about a couple of weird
web things or digital projects that you've made that you're
excited about. One project that continues to give back to
me that I really enjoyed creating is called glance Back.
(14:33):
I started creating it because I was thinking about that
feeling when someone is staring at you for a really
long time and you're not staring back at them, and
it's kind of awkward and you feel uncomfortable. And then
I realized that that was how my computer felt, because
all day long I was staring at my computer and
it didn't have a chance to look back at me.
(14:54):
Because so kind of jokingly that was the love that
that was the reason I created glance Back, which is
a Chrome extension, so if you have Chrome, anyone can
add it and basically, once a day at random, when
you open a new tab, glance back will immediately take
a photo of you. Happens super fast, you don't have
(15:14):
time to fix your hair, look cute at all, so
it's usually me just dead, you know, dead face, staring
at the screen. It takes a photo of you, and
then it asks what are you thinking about? And then
you type in whatever you're thinking about at that time,
and then it logs that and then so slowly over time,
because it happens once a day, you start to collect
this kind almost like a daily diary of you interacting
(15:38):
with your computer. And I also love that for me,
when I'm usually on my computer, I'm not thinking about
myself being on the computer. I'm really focused on whatever
I'm looking at on my screen. So I I also
love that it really for me disrupts my daily trance
that I'm in when I'm looking at my screen and
I start to think, you know, wait, what am I
(16:00):
thinking about? And even now when I look back at
past glances that I've had. I remember these really mundane
moments that it's captured, where I was thinking about making
a dinner reservation, where I was searching certain song lyrics
or small details like that that would be forgotten otherwise.
Now they're forever archived. And also all of the photos
are stored locally, so that means that they're not leaving
(16:22):
your machine. They're not being sent to a server anywhere,
because I know the idea of your computer randomly taking
a photo of you could feel pretty weird. Um, so yeah,
you can feel like that they're they're safe on your machine.
I feel like I would end up just having a
collection of my double chin, right, Like if you don't
have a chance to even like fix your hair, it's
(16:42):
gonna be like my mouth hanging open, double chin, like
not not a cute look. Yeah no, And it's I
love that idea of breaking the trance. It's like how
I feel every time I open up my phone or
I'm on my phone and I hit the camera and
it's accidentally in selfie mode and I'm like, oh my gosh,
that's what I look like. Yeah, that's that's basically what
(17:03):
it is. But I love the context that that brings
with it about the picture that is taken in that moment,
No exactly, but but my point is not about the picture.
It's really about the mirror, right, Like it's about the
mirror of seeing, Like this is me with eyes glazed over.
(17:24):
I could have been like this for the last hour,
you know what I mean. I think that's kind of
what you're touching on my right, Like, it's this bringing
you to this moment of presence dropping in that I
feel like for me can often get lost when I'm
on my computer or on my phone, definitely, and I
spend most of my day looking at my computer because
(17:44):
that's my job. I never think, oh, now is a
good time to take a photo of myself. So it's
also this this documentation of how I spend most of
my time, which is very funny. My favorite thing about
it is seeing other people use it. And so friends
are just people who have founded online will send me
photos of all of their glance backs from you know,
(18:05):
months and months pass and it's really fun to see,
you know, what they caption things, or how the background
changes and where they are. I love it. I'm getting
it immediately after our conversation. So one of your other
projects that I found fascinating is called Paint Me and Pixels,
So I Can Dance Forever. Tell us about that. How
did that idea come to you? What was the process?
(18:26):
I started that piece thinking about how dance. When you're
watching dance in real life, off screen, it's very ephemeral.
It lasts only for a moment. You see a movement
for a second and then it's gone, and that's the
way it's meant to be. But then I started thinking about,
you know, by rendering myself for anyone else dancing on screen,
how can I kind of manipulate that process to create
(18:51):
a different perspective on watching someone dance or watching a
video of myself dancing. And so, thinking about that question,
I started imagining what it would look like to have
every single movement that I perform layered continually on screen,
so nothing has ever left behind. Everything I do would
kind of stick on the digital canvas. And that was
(19:13):
the thinking behind Paint Me in Pixels So I Can
Dance Forever, Because once you are rendering a dancer in pixels,
you can do whatever you want. They could last on
screen infinitely, which is not the way that dance exists
in real life, but I wanted to push on that
a little bit, and so I created the piece using
processing and open CV and basically it analyzes a video
(19:35):
of myself dancing and then continually, as I'm moving, my
form is layered over and over and over. So by
the end of the piece you have this unique digital
portrait of the movement that was just performed, that was
continually generated by whatever moves in the moment I improvised.
This piece was shown in Times Square in New York.
(19:55):
How did that happen? Yeah, So this piece was shown
because I was a part of a cure ration by
Decode Experiential. Me, along with a bunch of other new
media artists, were asked to submit a piece um to
go up on these big screens before they became ads,
which was really exciting. I know, two of the women
who were curating the group of artists reached out to
(20:17):
me and asked if I would like to be involved
in what piece I would want to submit, and I
was super excited, and so I decided to submit that
piece because you know, I loved imagining it on really
huge screens in an already very busy space, but having
it be this very human movement and form to me,
is an interesting thing to combine with technology, which is
(20:38):
often feels kind of so oppositional to the nuance of
human movement. So it was exciting to see it up
there along with you know, all the other Time Square craziness.
So maya let's talk a little bit more about dance.
I know that we've touched on it, but your Instagram
account features a lot of really cool dance videos in
studios and in public spaces. There's this one at the
(21:00):
Atlantic Avenue subway stop that I love, and it's so fun.
Maybe it's because inside I feel like I am a
gangly giraffe. Maybe in the outside I am too, But
it's so fun and enjoyable to watch you dance. And
you're also on dance magazine, Watch and list. So where
(21:21):
does dance sit in your life right now? To you?
What role in your life? What sort of piece of
the pie of your life does dance play for me?
Dance is also something that exists totally separate from my
work with technology, and I currently take classes a lot
all over New York. Recently, I've been taking house dance classes,
which is new for me, at the studio called the XPG.
(21:44):
So for me, it's something that continually challenges me and
is something that brings me so much joy and takes
me away from looking at any screen. I spend you know,
hours just focus on movement and learning and training in
what you know, learning from what ever teacher I'm taking
class from. And you know, also, so that's what that's
what I'm doing in the studio. But I also am
(22:06):
just constantly dancing walking around New York because I honestly
cannot help it. Um So, if I'm listening to music,
I want to start moving immediately. Like if I go
for a run, I can barely make it the whole
way without having to stop and dance a little bit.
So it's something that is like a walking Apple ad.
(22:27):
You know, do you remember those like the original iPod
ads or people are like silhouette. Yeah, I know. And
so if for for me, it's something that I feel
like I can't not do. And that video in the
subway station on my Instagram, I actually I was going
somewhere and the train was just taking really really long.
Instead it was going to be like twenty minutes or something,
(22:48):
and so I figured I might as well just dance
a little bit and well I waitted. Um. So it's
something that I will always prioritize, even if it's not
the main thing that I do. It's not my main
job where I'm not a professional dancer per se, But
still it's something that is so important to me in
my life, and I think I'll be doing it as
long as I can. Do you just find a stranger
(23:11):
to video you while while you're hanging out in the
subway stations. The technicals of us. I mean, I guess
for any dance video that you see, if it's not
in a studio, in the studio, often either the studio
will videotape class or I'll ask someone to videotape the
choreography that we've just learned. But the ones that you
(23:31):
see that are not in a dance studio or me
just putting my phone on the ground in that case
the subway station and just filming myself and trusting that
no one's gonna just like pick it up. Yeah, I mean,
I'm watching it, you know, I'm keeping an eye on
it while I'm dancing. But does it glance back? That
would be an interesting addition, dance glance back? Maya you
(24:08):
have this facility with the Internet and with digital media,
and certainly you have education and training in it. But
it's so interesting to me that your handle on your
website and your Instagram account is Maya on the Internet,
And I wanted to ask you, what does life on
the Internet mean to you? What does it feel like
and does it feel different than life off the internet,
(24:31):
Like how do you make sense of this internet thing
that we all deal with every day. I definitely have
a love hate relationship with the Internet. It's incredible in
so many ways. It connects so many people that find
community online, and I'm able to constantly learn from the
Internet and read things that maybe I wouldn't have access
(24:53):
to otherwise, or learn things on YouTube. You know, obviously
it has so many benefits. But I think also I
make my my Instagram handle is Maya on the Internet
because I think I do separate who I am on
the Internet a little bit from who I am in
real life off screen, and so to me, may on
(25:13):
the Internet or me putting content online is a representation
of who I am off screen. Um I r L.
But to me it's not equivalent to you know, who
I am as a person, because obviously any human is
so much more nuanced and detailed than anyone could possibly
(25:33):
represent online social media profile. And so to me, that's
what it means to be I I enjoy putting, putting
myself online, putting my work online, putting you know, details
about my life online. But that isn't my entire life.
So it's me on the internet. What are your tips
for harnessing the best of the Internet while staying sane
(25:57):
through let's call them challenges of it. I'm constantly experimenting
to find more ways to use the Internet mindfully. But
things that I've found that work really well for me
are one. There is this platform that's called Arena. It's
a r E dot n A and it is a
(26:19):
platform where you can collect different links and images online
and be able to start to kind of archive or
bring together different things that you found on the Internet.
And to me, that's been useful as a mindful way
to use the Internet rather than just infinitely scrolling, using
it more as a way to find things that inspire
(26:39):
me and then save them as if I'm collecting things physically.
So that site is really great and there are no
ads or anything on there, and so it's also really
fun to kind of go through and look at what
other people are collecting or what other people find interesting.
And so that tool for me has been really a
useful way to engage with the Internet, but in a
more mindful way. I also have been starting to practice
(27:03):
what my aunt recently released this book called six, which
is all about how she and her family take twenty
four hours a week to be completely off their screens.
Her name is Tiffany Shlaine, and she calls it text shabat,
and so I've oh, gosh, I love that. Yeah, it's
it's really great. And she's been doing it for a
really long time, and I have been starting to try
(27:25):
to do it to the extent that I'm able to
in my own life, and it's been really useful to say,
you know, Okay, for for twenty four hours, I'm going
to take some time and be completely offline. I'm going
to let the people know who need to know and
write down, you know, any directions I need to know
ahead of time or things like that. But having a
set time to take a break from, you know, the
(27:47):
constant flow of information that can come at you on
the Internet has been a really useful practice for me.
As we follow up question though you don't even use
Google Maps on that day like that, you actually like
pre plan your travel and right direction. Yeah. So I've
been doing it a few times, and I do. If
(28:08):
I'm going to an event or if I'm meeting up
with someone, I'll write down the directions and I'll know
where I'm going to be coming from, so I write
them down beforehand. Very old school, I mean, I remember
I still remember discovering the map thing online and we
used to like print out. I remember that printing out
like map quest, printing out the directions and bringing them
(28:28):
in the car with you. Wow. Do you have like
an auto responder up on the day that you're not online?
Some people I should. I'm fascinated by Christina loves responder.
I usually tell the people that I think who might
be trying to contact me with anything that would need
(28:48):
a more immediate response. But otherwise I think, you know,
it's not like I'm going on a seven day vacation.
It's maybe twenty four hours if that. Uh, And so
I usually just expect that, you know, if someone is
contacting me, I'll get back to them when I'm back online.
And it's never been a problem. So now does this
include phone calls? Christine is like, I need grass about it, right,
(29:14):
Like in a previous life when we had landlines, do
you remember land life? Those were a thing where like
you could put your computer away, but people can still
reach you if something we're going wrong. But like now
that our cell phone is also how you text, is
also your directions, is also your Twitter, you know, rabbit hole.
(29:35):
To step away from that one device really does cut
you off. Well. I do remove apps from my phone
all the time. I will remove Instagram and then reinstall
it when I want to get back on to the weekend.
And it always shocks me that I don't miss having
Instagram when I don't have it. It's almost like, you know,
(29:57):
it's just so habitual to open it up if on
my phone. Yeah, my, I'd love to just touch on
your creative process a little bit because what we're talking
about really reminds me of something that I was talking
about with a friend recently, where we were discussing just
inspiration in the world of the Internet and how sometimes
it can feel like we're all just sort of looking
at each other right like that we're just constantly surrounded
(30:20):
by images from other people and it's sort of difficult
to feel like there's space to have original ideas come from.
And so I'm just curious, how do ideas come to you?
Like what inspires you? Do you feel like you have
to get offline to get inspired, or being online inspires
(30:41):
you just as much. I usually start with a question,
not at all an answer, and so I've never if
I'm making a piece, I've never fully conceptualized it or
fully thought it all the way through as I started
making it. And that's just my personal process. But I
usually start with a question like, for glance back, you know,
(31:02):
how can you document this daily weird relationship that you
have with your computer? Or for paint me in pixels,
you know, how can rendering a dancer digitally create a
different portrait of their movement than when you're watching someone
dance offline? And so by starting with that question, I'm
able to start to think about how I would answer
(31:24):
that in the way that I choose to make things.
So I usually start then by you know, building a
small you know what, I like, a small prototype of
the idea and testing that out, and then based based
on how that goes, I take it further and further
and further. But a lot of the kind of you know,
answers or and vision that comes comes only step by
(31:47):
step for me um and I think that's really helpful,
because it is really hard to feel like, Oh, I
have this idea and this is exactly how it's going
to be, and now all I have to do is
make it for me. There's a lot that happens in
between thinking of an idea and then starting to investigate
it further and further and further before it ever even
(32:08):
involved into what I start to see as an end vision.
Is someone who seems so prolific, You've created so many things.
Do you have a bunch of projects going on it
once or do you like to answer one question to completion.
There's part of me that would love to say that,
you know, I just start a project and I take
it all the way through and I finish it, and
(32:29):
then I do my next project, because that sounds really
nice and organized. I would love to be able to
say that too, but that's totally not how it is
for me. A lot of times I'm parallel processing lots
of different projects at once, and it depends on the
amount of time I have and what I'm really into
at the moment. And so there are projects that I
(32:51):
usually have to set aside a lot of time to
go deep into one project, so like a full full
day on a weekend to you know, take the next
step in our project. But then that doesn't mean that
I'm only going to work on that, you know, until
it's finished. Last year, for several weeks, I had this
practice where I was reading one art and design book
a week. Um and I used reading as a loose
(33:14):
term because some of them were mostly just visual books.
But yeah, and so I was I was reading one
art and design book a week and then then coding
a sketch based on that book, finding something in that
that inspired me. And that was a really useful practice
for me because it wasn't about creating, you know, my
next big project, but instead it was a small scale,
(33:35):
very contained creative exercise that was useful to kind of
help me generate new ideas, and then inevitably I learned
new skills or picked up new technologies by creating the
sketches that I wanted to make that informed the projects
I did later on. So it's a balance between making
things big and small, but I like to have both
going on I love that practice. It's basically like a
(33:56):
digital sketch book. Yeah, totally. So what questions are you
thinking about? Now? What comes next? So right now I've
been thinking about printing, actually, which is a medium that
i'm as a technologist and whose work exists up to
this point solely digitally. I haven't thought about that a
lot before, but I just finished a piece that's called
(34:21):
not a Picture but an Event. That quote is pulled
from Harold Rosenberg essay about American action painters like Jackson
Pollock or William Dakooning, who painted with their full body
all over the canvas. And I was really interested in
that and thinking about how I often document dance with
my full body but then render that as you know,
(34:43):
color on a digital canvas using a computer. I also
simultaneously have become really interested in the process of rizzograph printing.
That process is kind of like screen printing, where the
ink is directly applied to paper you printed in layers
of color by color, And so I've started thinking about
you know, for a long time I've been creating work
(35:04):
that transfers my movement to a screen, but now I'm
thinking about how do you transfer my movement to a
screen but then also to a print. So that's something
that's exciting that I'm exploring. Now, that's awesome. Yeah, that
really excites me. I love the tangibility. Is that a
word tangibility will make it one now of that and
(35:27):
also being able to compare and contrast what something feels
like in your hands versus in your hands but on
a screen. Yeah, definitely. It's a very different feeling to
be able to print something out and hand someone a
physical object versus showing them something that, sure they could
find any time online, but it doesn't have that same
physical representation. Christina, I'm so struck by how Maya is
(35:57):
able to use technology in these really innova of ways,
and at the same time she's really exploring our relationship
to it. Oh for sure. I also really love how
she's being so thoughtful about privacy and users and the
role of code and computer programmers in building the future. Yeah.
By the way, I just downloaded Glance Back. I am
(36:18):
eagerly awaiting my first debt computer photo. I will text
it to you. Thank you, You're welcome. Also, okay, can
we talk about tech shabbat. I'm obsessed with this idea Okay,
we must. So this is my most wanted tech practice,
but also the one that I'm the most nervous about,
(36:39):
especially now that I have a baby, Like, am I
supposed to google things to make sure she's not dying
if I can't use my phone for twenty four hours? Yeah?
You know, it's such an astute point, Christina, and I
loved how you were like, Okay, what happens to directions
phone calls? Is an auto responder involved? Well, it's just
that we've collapsed all these things that we used to
use a bunch of different technologies for maps and calculators
(37:02):
and I don't know Encyclopedia Britannicas, and now it's all
just on your smartphone. So if we put our phone
away for a day each week, what are we supposed
to do instead? I mean, do you still have a
complete set of encyclopedias on your shelves? I don't, and
I'm sad about that, I really am. But you know, Christina,
(37:22):
what we're talking about reminds me of our conversation back
in episode seventy three Creative Destruction, when you had just
gotten back from a largely phone free yoga retreat in Mexico.
And you talked about how you love to find a
way to leave your phone in a box on the weekends.
Do you remember that I do. Recently, on that note,
(37:44):
a friend invited me to a brick event in l A,
which are these phone free events. So they had these
nineties VHS cases under each person's seat, you know, like
the puffy ones. Oh yeah, like the Disney videos. Yeah, exactly,
and we all'll put our phones inside for the duration
of the event. So the idea is that you turn
your phone into a literal brick for the time that
(38:07):
you were. You know, I had no idea going in
that it was a phone free event, and so I
slightly panicked, But it ended up being highly fulfilling, and
I had to tell you, Christina, I was amazed at
how many people were there. So I think there's an
interesting distinction between the phone itself and the internet. Right.
So what I loved about being in Mexico was where
(38:29):
I was I didn't have any service, so I could
still take pictures on my phone, but I wasn't wasting
time on Instagram, or I could read a book on
my Kindle app but not fall down the Twitter rabbit hole.
So I guess I'm saying, I want the discipline to
put my phone on airplane mode or something. Yes, I
love that. I think that's such an important distinction. You know,
(38:50):
I also like to continue to think about less extreme
ways to curb my use, Like you know, there's apps
to track phone use, like moment or you know. I
just got a new iPhone and built in it sent
me this report the other day and it said like
how many pickups I had during the day or during
(39:13):
the week, And it was honestly terrifying. I was like,
oh my god, it was a very very clear mirror.
But you know, I think that can be really helpful
to assess or have you heard of this whole gray
scale movement where you turn your phone to black and white. Yeah,
I've tried it. Actually, it is helpful. The problem is,
the second you go to take a photo, gray scale
(39:34):
is not useful. So I like, I kept toggling it
off to the camera and then I just left it off.
But so it reminds me. Actually, there's another phone called
the light phone, and it kind of reminds me of
phones from the early two thousand's. So it's a it's
an actual phone that you then connect to your existing
you know, iPhone, Android, whatever, and then you leave your
(39:57):
smartphone at home so you can place call alls. You
can send really basic texts so no emojis, um, and
you can set an alarm and that's literally all it does.
But it's all gray scale and text only, so it's
meant to cut down on the endless scrolling and the
addiction of the icons and the bright colors and the apps.
(40:18):
It really is kind of a retro throwback to what
phones were like twenty years ago. And it seems kind
of crazy to buy a second phone to curb your
phone usage, but it could be pretty awesome. I don't know,
I might try. Christina. This has got me firing on
all cylinders because I am I have to tell you,
I'm this close to getting a flip phone, and the
(40:39):
only reason I haven't is really because of needing to
use apps like Instagram, right, And I also just the
idea of having something that feels rotary esque is very
exciting to me. So this week, think about ways that
you can create sanity for yourself in your relationship to
technology and your phone, and let us know what you find.
(41:01):
We love hearing your updates and questions and you can
reach us on Yes, Twitter and Instagram at t L
d n E pod or email us at hello at
t L d any podcast dot com, or you can
leave us a voicemail at eight three three high t
L d n E. That's eight three three eight five
three six three, and don't forget to dial the extension
(41:22):
eight oh three when you call to leave a voicemail.
We love voicemail and extra bonus points. If you call
us using a rotary phone or one of those like
nineties cell phones that was so big with the antenna,
send us a pick and we will link to Glance
back pose Neet Maya's medium article all about that cool
built Jones project, her website and social media accounts which
(41:46):
are chock full of cool stuff like the subway stop,
dance break and links to all of the tools that
we've been talking about, and you can find that at
t L d any podcast dot com. Slash one oh seven.
(42:06):
Thanks so much to our producer, Maya Coole and to
you for tuning in. As always, please subscribe, rate, and
review on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you heard,
it really helps us get the word out to fellow
human ven Diagrams. Until next time, remember the limit does
not exist. The Limit does not exist is a production
(42:30):
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah.
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:21):
and embrace the and not the or, so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human bend diagram, then you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Who
(00:45):
are you on the Internet. We spend a lot of
time talking about who we are on this show, but
today we're specifically exploring who we are on the World
Wide Web. I don't think anyone calls it that anymore. King,
I'm bringing it back Netscape. Anyone? Is that still a thing?
Not since nine? Right? As you can see, if left
to our own devices, get a devices like a phone. Okay,
(01:07):
I'm going to stop you right there and introduced today's guest.
Maya Man is an artist and technologist based in New
York City who's building experiments at the Google Creative Lab.
Dancing in studios and public spaces, and maintaining her love
hate relationship with the Internet, which she describes as mostly love.
(01:27):
Maya's website is Maya on the inter dot Net, but
her work doesn't just live on the Internet. It's also
lived in places like Times Square. She's created a prolific
body of work which she refers to as quote weird
web things, and which we referred to as a digital
playground where we just really want to hang out. If
you're struggling to find your place on the Internet, both
(01:47):
creatively and as a human in general, you're going to
find a lot of support and inspiration in this episode.
So let's meet Maya, shall we. Let's do it as
someone who identifies as both an artist and a technologist.
(02:07):
What do those terms mean for you? From your identity?
What what aspects of your work do they describe? The
technologist part is really that I have a background in
computer science. I love coding, and to me, that is
just my medium and that is the way that I
(02:28):
create the artwork that I want to make. To me,
being an artist means having the ability to bring an
idea to life, and for me, technology is my way
of doing that. Do you consider dance and movement your
primary form of art, or do you bring into other
aspects as well. Dance for me has always been an
art form that I've gravitated toward. As a kid, I
(02:50):
could never stop moving, and I always, you know, every
time I listen to music, I always wanted to be
dancing all over the place. But for a long time,
dance existed very separately from my interest in technology and
my interest in math and science, and I always saw
them as two parallel paths. I never saw them as
two things that would overlap. So it really opened up
my world when I realized there were these people that
(03:11):
work at the intersection of art and technology and incorporate
their own interests, whether that be in writing or design
or photography. And for me, realizing that I could incorporate
dance with my interest in technology was totally mind blowing
and exciting. And so a lot of my work does
involve dance, and I think that's kind of my favorite
(03:31):
intersection to work at. But I also like to explore
other aspects of the way we interact with technology. Do
you remember something specific or a specific moment that caused
that revelation of wait a minute, this computer science and
dance can come together, like is it something that you saw,
(03:51):
was there a class that you took, How did you
sort of start to find the cohesion between the different areas.
My introduction to the world of creative technology in general
came when I attended the very first P five j
S conference at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which was
about five years ago, and that P five JS is
(04:13):
a javascripts graphics library and it's part of the Processing Foundation.
There I met this community of artists and designers and
educators and P five was founded and the conference was
being led by Lauren McCarthy, and it was so inspiring
to see these people who came from all different backgrounds
(04:35):
coming together over this new piece of technology, but also
bringing in all of their interests together and having conversations
about how the library should be or how they can
make the platform. Were welcoming to people in all these
different types of conversations. So that was the first time
that I've realized, Okay, well there are people out there
or combining their what they loved to do with technology.
(04:58):
And I started thinking, you know, what avenues do I
have to combine dance with technology? Because that was my
love outside of my computer science studies, and I started
to learn a little bit about computer vision, and I
was learning about it through open CV, which had a
library on processing, and so I was playing around with
(05:19):
using processing and computer vision, and I was able to
get an analysis of videos of myself dancing that I
was then able to manipulate and make different visuals that
responded to the way that I moved. Uh, And that
to me was my kind of gateway into the world
of dance and technology. But there are plenty of people
who you know, for years have been experimenting at this intersection,
(05:41):
but for me, that was the first time that I
was exposed to that and was able to begin making
work there. I love that Carnie Mellen played such a
big role in that. That is a school that is
kind of well known for applying the intersections of technology
with other art forms. They have a great theater program,
they've got it's incredible and engineering school, so that was
(06:02):
fantastic that they were able to play a small role. Yeah,
in this conference. I really admire the programs that they
offer and Goal and Levin runs the Studio for Creative
Inquiry down there. He's done a great job of really
curating a curriculum and fostering a community around the intersection
of technology and the arts. So you attended Pomona College,
(06:23):
where you double majored in computer science and media studies
with a focus in digital production. Why those two majors.
I started school deciding to study computer science, and I
had taken a two week coding course right before I
left for college. It was my first exposure to coding ever,
and I absolutely loved it. I had always loved math,
(06:47):
and I loved physics before that, but learning how to
code and realizing that I would have the ability to
bring my ideas to life in that way was so
exciting to me that I decided to major in computer science.
And when I started studying computer science in school, I thought,
you know, it seems like most people study computer science
here and go on to become software engineers, and so
(07:09):
that's probably what I'll do. And you know, I'll always
be dancing on the side. And I still love art
and design, but that wasn't something that was really going to,
you know, affect my choices in my computer science studies
or future career path at all. But it was really
that at that conference when I met all of those
people who are part of the processing community. That I realized,
(07:31):
you know, my interests in technology can be bigger than
purely learning to code. I also love thinking about how
technology affects people and the political and cultural consequences of media.
And that's when I decided that I wanted to also
be studying something like media studies, which focuses on theory,
(07:51):
so how does technology affect people currently and in the past.
And at the same time, my focus was in digital
production because I was interested in the application of media
studies and how I could actually use my computer science
knowledge to create things that I was proud to put
into the world and contribute to the world of media.
Those majors, for me, they really complemented each other nicely,
(08:14):
because in my computer science classes, we were constantly, you know,
talking about algorithms and optimizations and programming languages and you know,
bits and bytes, but we weren't really talking about the
potential consequences of the technology that we were being taught
how to create. And so after completing that double major,
(08:34):
I really think that there should be more overlap between
those two disciplines because for me, they really complemented each
other nicely. You were recently the lead technologist on a
project at the Google Creative Lab, working with pioneering choreographer
Builty Jones, and this project explored the intersections of art, tech, identity,
and the bodies. So can you just fill us in
(08:56):
on this magical merging of things? Please us? And it
feels like pose net might be a good place to start.
Pose net is a machine learning model that runs on
TensorFlow JS. TensorFlow is Google's machine learning platform, and JS
just means JavaScript, so that means that it's written in JavaScript,
(09:18):
which is a coding language that runs in your browser.
What pose net does is it analyzes an image and
it estimates where key points are on a person's body
in that image. So it's been trained on thousands and
thousands of images of people where someone has gone in
and said, okay, this is where the person's eyes are,
this is where the elbow is in that image, and
(09:38):
after seeing thousands of images like that, the machine learning
model is able to start to guess when it sees
a new image where a person's eyes are, elbow is
or ankle is. And the exciting thing about pose net
is that because it's on tensor Flow JS, it runs
completely in the browser, so no images are ever sent
to a server. It's completely private and runs locally on
(09:59):
your sheen. This is exciting for me as a technologist
who's also a dancer, because historically, to be able to
analyze movement, you had to maybe use a connect which
was a special piece of hardware, or you had to
use an expensive motion capture suit or like a three
hundred sixty degree camera rig um and pose net is
really lightweight, so it just runs in the browser and
(10:20):
it's as easy as going to a website to be
able to check it out and try it. So, how
did you leverage pose net for this project with Bilty Jones,
who is amazing by the way, I adore him. Yeah. So,
Bilty Jones is a legendary choreographer, artist, director, writer. Builty
Jones is a pioneer in thinking about speaking about and
(10:41):
making work about the body. So when we were thinking
about how an artist might use pose net um, he
was clearly going to be an exciting collaborator because he's
already thought so much about dance and the body and
storytelling through the body. We're interested to see how an
artist of Bilty Jones call over would be interested in
(11:01):
using a machine learning model like post net. So what
did you guys end up building together? Over series of
five workshops, we worked with him to see how he
would use the pose net and you know, use that
as a method for storytelling with his dancers. And so
we ended up creating a collection of posset net experiments
that now exist online and anyone can go and try
(11:22):
them out. And they all involve body movement and language,
which is the title of the projects that we worked
on together, and a lot of them use speech to text,
so a person can say something out loud and the
words will appear on screen, and then they can manipulate
the words with their movement. So it's a way for
someone to tell a story that way. So Maya, you
(11:42):
wrote this great medium post on this project and will
definitely link to it in the show notes. And in
that post you talk about that when you demo pose
net for Bill, his central question was not what are
all the things that can do? But rather what do
I want from it? And I love that you wrote
that you learned this lesson by working with Bill in
(12:05):
technological restraint that was essentially let the concept star and
the technology play a supporting role, and I was so
fascinated by that in this time when we're really looking
at different ways that art can intersect with, be elevated by,
be rediscovered with technology. What does that look like to you?
(12:26):
To let the concept be the star and for technology
to support it. It was really exciting working with Bill
because he really was focused on the meaning of what
he was trying to convey and how powerful that would be.
And you hear him ask the question can this make
me cry? And he's really interested in the emotion that
(12:47):
something that you create evokes, and he's less interested in
the specific media that it takes to get there. And
that's a framework that I will carry with me, I
think for the rest of my career. Even though a
technologist and I'm very excited about technology, A technology like
pose net is so exciting. It's a you know, huge
jump ahead. But at the same time, it's really a
(13:09):
tool like any other artistic tool that people have used
in the past, like a camera or even a paintbrush.
It's to me and to build. He really saw it
as a tool for artistic expression and that was the
way that he thought it should be used. And so
in that medium post and as well in all of
the work I make now, I like to think of
the technology I'm using as a tool, not the focus itself.
(13:48):
You have created a bunch of really cool digital projects,
and it's so great within them to see what you're
just talking about really coming together. And I love that
in your word words you describe them as weird web things. Truly,
to go on your website and look at your projects,
and also your not just your primary Instagram account my
(14:10):
on the internet, but your secondary account, my am making things.
Really is this digital playground is kind of what it
feels like. So tell us about a couple of weird
web things or digital projects that you've made that you're
excited about. One project that continues to give back to
me that I really enjoyed creating is called glance Back.
(14:33):
I started creating it because I was thinking about that
feeling when someone is staring at you for a really
long time and you're not staring back at them, and
it's kind of awkward and you feel uncomfortable. And then
I realized that that was how my computer felt, because
all day long I was staring at my computer and
it didn't have a chance to look back at me.
(14:54):
Because so kind of jokingly that was the love that
that was the reason I created glance Back, which is
a Chrome extension, so if you have Chrome, anyone can
add it and basically, once a day at random, when
you open a new tab, glance back will immediately take
a photo of you. Happens super fast, you don't have
(15:14):
time to fix your hair, look cute at all, so
it's usually me just dead, you know, dead face, staring
at the screen. It takes a photo of you, and
then it asks what are you thinking about? And then
you type in whatever you're thinking about at that time,
and then it logs that and then so slowly over time,
because it happens once a day, you start to collect
this kind almost like a daily diary of you interacting
(15:38):
with your computer. And I also love that for me,
when I'm usually on my computer, I'm not thinking about
myself being on the computer. I'm really focused on whatever
I'm looking at on my screen. So I I also
love that it really for me disrupts my daily trance
that I'm in when I'm looking at my screen and
I start to think, you know, wait, what am I
(16:00):
thinking about? And even now when I look back at
past glances that I've had. I remember these really mundane
moments that it's captured, where I was thinking about making
a dinner reservation, where I was searching certain song lyrics
or small details like that that would be forgotten otherwise.
Now they're forever archived. And also all of the photos
are stored locally, so that means that they're not leaving
(16:22):
your machine. They're not being sent to a server anywhere,
because I know the idea of your computer randomly taking
a photo of you could feel pretty weird. Um, so yeah,
you can feel like that they're they're safe on your machine.
I feel like I would end up just having a
collection of my double chin, right, Like if you don't
have a chance to even like fix your hair, it's
(16:42):
gonna be like my mouth hanging open, double chin, like
not not a cute look. Yeah no, And it's I
love that idea of breaking the trance. It's like how
I feel every time I open up my phone or
I'm on my phone and I hit the camera and
it's accidentally in selfie mode and I'm like, oh my gosh,
that's what I look like. Yeah, that's that's basically what
(17:03):
it is. But I love the context that that brings
with it about the picture that is taken in that moment,
No exactly, but but my point is not about the picture.
It's really about the mirror, right, Like it's about the
mirror of seeing, Like this is me with eyes glazed over.
(17:24):
I could have been like this for the last hour,
you know what I mean. I think that's kind of
what you're touching on my right, Like, it's this bringing
you to this moment of presence dropping in that I
feel like for me can often get lost when I'm
on my computer or on my phone, definitely, and I
spend most of my day looking at my computer because
(17:44):
that's my job. I never think, oh, now is a
good time to take a photo of myself. So it's
also this this documentation of how I spend most of
my time, which is very funny. My favorite thing about
it is seeing other people use it. And so friends
are just people who have founded online will send me
photos of all of their glance backs from you know,
(18:05):
months and months pass and it's really fun to see,
you know, what they caption things, or how the background
changes and where they are. I love it. I'm getting
it immediately after our conversation. So one of your other
projects that I found fascinating is called Paint Me and Pixels,
So I Can Dance Forever. Tell us about that. How
did that idea come to you? What was the process?
(18:26):
I started that piece thinking about how dance. When you're
watching dance in real life, off screen, it's very ephemeral.
It lasts only for a moment. You see a movement
for a second and then it's gone, and that's the
way it's meant to be. But then I started thinking about,
you know, by rendering myself for anyone else dancing on screen,
how can I kind of manipulate that process to create
(18:51):
a different perspective on watching someone dance or watching a
video of myself dancing. And so, thinking about that question,
I started imagining what it would look like to have
every single movement that I perform layered continually on screen,
so nothing has ever left behind. Everything I do would
kind of stick on the digital canvas. And that was
(19:13):
the thinking behind Paint Me in Pixels So I Can
Dance Forever, Because once you are rendering a dancer in pixels,
you can do whatever you want. They could last on
screen infinitely, which is not the way that dance exists
in real life, but I wanted to push on that
a little bit, and so I created the piece using
processing and open CV and basically it analyzes a video
(19:35):
of myself dancing and then continually, as I'm moving, my
form is layered over and over and over. So by
the end of the piece you have this unique digital
portrait of the movement that was just performed, that was
continually generated by whatever moves in the moment I improvised.
This piece was shown in Times Square in New York.
(19:55):
How did that happen? Yeah, So this piece was shown
because I was a part of a cure ration by
Decode Experiential. Me, along with a bunch of other new
media artists, were asked to submit a piece um to
go up on these big screens before they became ads,
which was really exciting. I know, two of the women
who were curating the group of artists reached out to
(20:17):
me and asked if I would like to be involved
in what piece I would want to submit, and I
was super excited, and so I decided to submit that
piece because you know, I loved imagining it on really
huge screens in an already very busy space, but having
it be this very human movement and form to me,
is an interesting thing to combine with technology, which is
(20:38):
often feels kind of so oppositional to the nuance of
human movement. So it was exciting to see it up
there along with you know, all the other Time Square craziness.
So maya let's talk a little bit more about dance.
I know that we've touched on it, but your Instagram
account features a lot of really cool dance videos in
studios and in public spaces. There's this one at the
(21:00):
Atlantic Avenue subway stop that I love, and it's so fun.
Maybe it's because inside I feel like I am a
gangly giraffe. Maybe in the outside I am too, But
it's so fun and enjoyable to watch you dance. And
you're also on dance magazine, Watch and list. So where
(21:21):
does dance sit in your life right now? To you?
What role in your life? What sort of piece of
the pie of your life does dance play for me?
Dance is also something that exists totally separate from my
work with technology, and I currently take classes a lot
all over New York. Recently, I've been taking house dance classes,
which is new for me, at the studio called the XPG.
(21:44):
So for me, it's something that continually challenges me and
is something that brings me so much joy and takes
me away from looking at any screen. I spend you know,
hours just focus on movement and learning and training in
what you know, learning from what ever teacher I'm taking
class from. And you know, also, so that's what that's
what I'm doing in the studio. But I also am
(22:06):
just constantly dancing walking around New York because I honestly
cannot help it. Um So, if I'm listening to music,
I want to start moving immediately. Like if I go
for a run, I can barely make it the whole
way without having to stop and dance a little bit.
So it's something that is like a walking Apple ad.
(22:27):
You know, do you remember those like the original iPod
ads or people are like silhouette. Yeah, I know. And
so if for for me, it's something that I feel
like I can't not do. And that video in the
subway station on my Instagram, I actually I was going
somewhere and the train was just taking really really long.
Instead it was going to be like twenty minutes or something,
(22:48):
and so I figured I might as well just dance
a little bit and well I waitted. Um. So it's
something that I will always prioritize, even if it's not
the main thing that I do. It's not my main
job where I'm not a professional dancer per se, But
still it's something that is so important to me in
my life, and I think I'll be doing it as
long as I can. Do you just find a stranger
(23:11):
to video you while while you're hanging out in the
subway stations. The technicals of us. I mean, I guess
for any dance video that you see, if it's not
in a studio, in the studio, often either the studio
will videotape class or I'll ask someone to videotape the
choreography that we've just learned. But the ones that you
(23:31):
see that are not in a dance studio or me
just putting my phone on the ground in that case
the subway station and just filming myself and trusting that
no one's gonna just like pick it up. Yeah, I mean,
I'm watching it, you know, I'm keeping an eye on
it while I'm dancing. But does it glance back? That
would be an interesting addition, dance glance back? Maya you
(24:08):
have this facility with the Internet and with digital media,
and certainly you have education and training in it. But
it's so interesting to me that your handle on your
website and your Instagram account is Maya on the Internet,
And I wanted to ask you, what does life on
the Internet mean to you? What does it feel like
and does it feel different than life off the internet,
(24:31):
Like how do you make sense of this internet thing
that we all deal with every day. I definitely have
a love hate relationship with the Internet. It's incredible in
so many ways. It connects so many people that find
community online, and I'm able to constantly learn from the
Internet and read things that maybe I wouldn't have access
(24:53):
to otherwise, or learn things on YouTube. You know, obviously
it has so many benefits. But I think also I
make my my Instagram handle is Maya on the Internet
because I think I do separate who I am on
the Internet a little bit from who I am in
real life off screen, and so to me, may on
(25:13):
the Internet or me putting content online is a representation
of who I am off screen. Um I r L.
But to me it's not equivalent to you know, who
I am as a person, because obviously any human is
so much more nuanced and detailed than anyone could possibly
(25:33):
represent online social media profile. And so to me, that's
what it means to be I I enjoy putting, putting
myself online, putting my work online, putting you know, details
about my life online. But that isn't my entire life.
So it's me on the internet. What are your tips
for harnessing the best of the Internet while staying sane
(25:57):
through let's call them challenges of it. I'm constantly experimenting
to find more ways to use the Internet mindfully. But
things that I've found that work really well for me
are one. There is this platform that's called Arena. It's
a r E dot n A and it is a
(26:19):
platform where you can collect different links and images online
and be able to start to kind of archive or
bring together different things that you found on the Internet.
And to me, that's been useful as a mindful way
to use the Internet rather than just infinitely scrolling, using
it more as a way to find things that inspire
(26:39):
me and then save them as if I'm collecting things physically.
So that site is really great and there are no
ads or anything on there, and so it's also really
fun to kind of go through and look at what
other people are collecting or what other people find interesting.
And so that tool for me has been really a
useful way to engage with the Internet, but in a
more mindful way. I also have been starting to practice
(27:03):
what my aunt recently released this book called six, which
is all about how she and her family take twenty
four hours a week to be completely off their screens.
Her name is Tiffany Shlaine, and she calls it text shabat,
and so I've oh, gosh, I love that. Yeah, it's
it's really great. And she's been doing it for a
really long time, and I have been starting to try
(27:25):
to do it to the extent that I'm able to
in my own life, and it's been really useful to say,
you know, Okay, for for twenty four hours, I'm going
to take some time and be completely offline. I'm going
to let the people know who need to know and
write down, you know, any directions I need to know
ahead of time or things like that. But having a
set time to take a break from, you know, the
(27:47):
constant flow of information that can come at you on
the Internet has been a really useful practice for me.
As we follow up question though you don't even use
Google Maps on that day like that, you actually like
pre plan your travel and right direction. Yeah. So I've
been doing it a few times, and I do. If
(28:08):
I'm going to an event or if I'm meeting up
with someone, I'll write down the directions and I'll know
where I'm going to be coming from, so I write
them down beforehand. Very old school, I mean, I remember
I still remember discovering the map thing online and we
used to like print out. I remember that printing out
like map quest, printing out the directions and bringing them
(28:28):
in the car with you. Wow. Do you have like
an auto responder up on the day that you're not online?
Some people I should. I'm fascinated by Christina loves responder.
I usually tell the people that I think who might
be trying to contact me with anything that would need
(28:48):
a more immediate response. But otherwise I think, you know,
it's not like I'm going on a seven day vacation.
It's maybe twenty four hours if that. Uh, And so
I usually just expect that, you know, if someone is
contacting me, I'll get back to them when I'm back online.
And it's never been a problem. So now does this
include phone calls? Christine is like, I need grass about it, right,
(29:14):
Like in a previous life when we had landlines, do
you remember land life? Those were a thing where like
you could put your computer away, but people can still
reach you if something we're going wrong. But like now
that our cell phone is also how you text, is
also your directions, is also your Twitter, you know, rabbit hole.
(29:35):
To step away from that one device really does cut
you off. Well. I do remove apps from my phone
all the time. I will remove Instagram and then reinstall
it when I want to get back on to the weekend.
And it always shocks me that I don't miss having
Instagram when I don't have it. It's almost like, you know,
(29:57):
it's just so habitual to open it up if on
my phone. Yeah, my, I'd love to just touch on
your creative process a little bit because what we're talking
about really reminds me of something that I was talking
about with a friend recently, where we were discussing just
inspiration in the world of the Internet and how sometimes
it can feel like we're all just sort of looking
at each other right like that we're just constantly surrounded
(30:20):
by images from other people and it's sort of difficult
to feel like there's space to have original ideas come from.
And so I'm just curious, how do ideas come to you?
Like what inspires you? Do you feel like you have
to get offline to get inspired, or being online inspires
(30:41):
you just as much. I usually start with a question,
not at all an answer, and so I've never if
I'm making a piece, I've never fully conceptualized it or
fully thought it all the way through as I started
making it. And that's just my personal process. But I
usually start with a question like, for glance back, you know,
(31:02):
how can you document this daily weird relationship that you
have with your computer? Or for paint me in pixels,
you know, how can rendering a dancer digitally create a
different portrait of their movement than when you're watching someone
dance offline? And so by starting with that question, I'm
able to start to think about how I would answer
(31:24):
that in the way that I choose to make things.
So I usually start then by you know, building a
small you know what, I like, a small prototype of
the idea and testing that out, and then based based
on how that goes, I take it further and further
and further. But a lot of the kind of you know,
answers or and vision that comes comes only step by
(31:47):
step for me um and I think that's really helpful,
because it is really hard to feel like, Oh, I
have this idea and this is exactly how it's going
to be, and now all I have to do is
make it for me. There's a lot that happens in
between thinking of an idea and then starting to investigate
it further and further and further before it ever even
(32:08):
involved into what I start to see as an end vision.
Is someone who seems so prolific, You've created so many things.
Do you have a bunch of projects going on it
once or do you like to answer one question to completion.
There's part of me that would love to say that,
you know, I just start a project and I take
it all the way through and I finish it, and
(32:29):
then I do my next project, because that sounds really
nice and organized. I would love to be able to
say that too, but that's totally not how it is
for me. A lot of times I'm parallel processing lots
of different projects at once, and it depends on the
amount of time I have and what I'm really into
at the moment. And so there are projects that I
(32:51):
usually have to set aside a lot of time to
go deep into one project, so like a full full
day on a weekend to you know, take the next
step in our project. But then that doesn't mean that
I'm only going to work on that, you know, until
it's finished. Last year, for several weeks, I had this
practice where I was reading one art and design book
a week. Um and I used reading as a loose
(33:14):
term because some of them were mostly just visual books.
But yeah, and so I was I was reading one
art and design book a week and then then coding
a sketch based on that book, finding something in that
that inspired me. And that was a really useful practice
for me because it wasn't about creating, you know, my
next big project, but instead it was a small scale,
(33:35):
very contained creative exercise that was useful to kind of
help me generate new ideas, and then inevitably I learned
new skills or picked up new technologies by creating the
sketches that I wanted to make that informed the projects
I did later on. So it's a balance between making
things big and small, but I like to have both
going on I love that practice. It's basically like a
(33:56):
digital sketch book. Yeah, totally. So what questions are you
thinking about? Now? What comes next? So right now I've
been thinking about printing, actually, which is a medium that
i'm as a technologist and whose work exists up to
this point solely digitally. I haven't thought about that a
lot before, but I just finished a piece that's called
(34:21):
not a Picture but an Event. That quote is pulled
from Harold Rosenberg essay about American action painters like Jackson
Pollock or William Dakooning, who painted with their full body
all over the canvas. And I was really interested in
that and thinking about how I often document dance with
my full body but then render that as you know,
(34:43):
color on a digital canvas using a computer. I also
simultaneously have become really interested in the process of rizzograph printing.
That process is kind of like screen printing, where the
ink is directly applied to paper you printed in layers
of color by color, And so I've started thinking about
you know, for a long time I've been creating work
(35:04):
that transfers my movement to a screen, but now I'm
thinking about how do you transfer my movement to a
screen but then also to a print. So that's something
that's exciting that I'm exploring. Now, that's awesome. Yeah, that
really excites me. I love the tangibility. Is that a
word tangibility will make it one now of that and
(35:27):
also being able to compare and contrast what something feels
like in your hands versus in your hands but on
a screen. Yeah, definitely. It's a very different feeling to
be able to print something out and hand someone a
physical object versus showing them something that, sure they could
find any time online, but it doesn't have that same
physical representation. Christina, I'm so struck by how Maya is
(35:57):
able to use technology in these really innova of ways,
and at the same time she's really exploring our relationship
to it. Oh for sure. I also really love how
she's being so thoughtful about privacy and users and the
role of code and computer programmers in building the future. Yeah.
By the way, I just downloaded Glance Back. I am
(36:18):
eagerly awaiting my first debt computer photo. I will text
it to you. Thank you, You're welcome. Also, okay, can
we talk about tech shabbat. I'm obsessed with this idea Okay,
we must. So this is my most wanted tech practice,
but also the one that I'm the most nervous about,
(36:39):
especially now that I have a baby, Like, am I
supposed to google things to make sure she's not dying
if I can't use my phone for twenty four hours? Yeah?
You know, it's such an astute point, Christina, and I
loved how you were like, Okay, what happens to directions
phone calls? Is an auto responder involved? Well, it's just
that we've collapsed all these things that we used to
use a bunch of different technologies for maps and calculators
(37:02):
and I don't know Encyclopedia Britannicas, and now it's all
just on your smartphone. So if we put our phone
away for a day each week, what are we supposed
to do instead? I mean, do you still have a
complete set of encyclopedias on your shelves? I don't, and
I'm sad about that, I really am. But you know, Christina,
(37:22):
what we're talking about reminds me of our conversation back
in episode seventy three Creative Destruction, when you had just
gotten back from a largely phone free yoga retreat in Mexico.
And you talked about how you love to find a
way to leave your phone in a box on the weekends.
Do you remember that I do. Recently, on that note,
(37:44):
a friend invited me to a brick event in l A,
which are these phone free events. So they had these
nineties VHS cases under each person's seat, you know, like
the puffy ones. Oh yeah, like the Disney videos. Yeah, exactly,
and we all'll put our phones inside for the duration
of the event. So the idea is that you turn
your phone into a literal brick for the time that
(38:07):
you were. You know, I had no idea going in
that it was a phone free event, and so I
slightly panicked, But it ended up being highly fulfilling, and
I had to tell you, Christina, I was amazed at
how many people were there. So I think there's an
interesting distinction between the phone itself and the internet. Right.
So what I loved about being in Mexico was where
(38:29):
I was I didn't have any service, so I could
still take pictures on my phone, but I wasn't wasting
time on Instagram, or I could read a book on
my Kindle app but not fall down the Twitter rabbit hole.
So I guess I'm saying, I want the discipline to
put my phone on airplane mode or something. Yes, I
love that. I think that's such an important distinction. You know,
(38:50):
I also like to continue to think about less extreme
ways to curb my use, Like you know, there's apps
to track phone use, like moment or you know. I
just got a new iPhone and built in it sent
me this report the other day and it said like
how many pickups I had during the day or during
(39:13):
the week, And it was honestly terrifying. I was like,
oh my god, it was a very very clear mirror.
But you know, I think that can be really helpful
to assess or have you heard of this whole gray
scale movement where you turn your phone to black and white. Yeah,
I've tried it. Actually, it is helpful. The problem is,
the second you go to take a photo, gray scale
(39:34):
is not useful. So I like, I kept toggling it
off to the camera and then I just left it off.
But so it reminds me. Actually, there's another phone called
the light phone, and it kind of reminds me of
phones from the early two thousand's. So it's a it's
an actual phone that you then connect to your existing
you know, iPhone, Android, whatever, and then you leave your
(39:57):
smartphone at home so you can place call alls. You
can send really basic texts so no emojis, um, and
you can set an alarm and that's literally all it does.
But it's all gray scale and text only, so it's
meant to cut down on the endless scrolling and the
addiction of the icons and the bright colors and the apps.
(40:18):
It really is kind of a retro throwback to what
phones were like twenty years ago. And it seems kind
of crazy to buy a second phone to curb your
phone usage, but it could be pretty awesome. I don't know,
I might try. Christina. This has got me firing on
all cylinders because I am I have to tell you,
I'm this close to getting a flip phone, and the
(40:39):
only reason I haven't is really because of needing to
use apps like Instagram, right, And I also just the
idea of having something that feels rotary esque is very
exciting to me. So this week, think about ways that
you can create sanity for yourself in your relationship to
technology and your phone, and let us know what you find.
(41:01):
We love hearing your updates and questions and you can
reach us on Yes, Twitter and Instagram at t L
d n E pod or email us at hello at
t L d any podcast dot com, or you can
leave us a voicemail at eight three three high t
L d n E. That's eight three three eight five
three six three, and don't forget to dial the extension
(41:22):
eight oh three when you call to leave a voicemail.
We love voicemail and extra bonus points. If you call
us using a rotary phone or one of those like
nineties cell phones that was so big with the antenna,
send us a pick and we will link to Glance
back pose Neet Maya's medium article all about that cool
built Jones project, her website and social media accounts which
(41:46):
are chock full of cool stuff like the subway stop,
dance break and links to all of the tools that
we've been talking about, and you can find that at
t L d any podcast dot com. Slash one oh seven.
(42:06):
Thanks so much to our producer, Maya Coole and to
you for tuning in. As always, please subscribe, rate, and
review on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you heard,
it really helps us get the word out to fellow
human ven Diagrams. Until next time, remember the limit does
not exist. The Limit does not exist is a production
(42:30):
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah.
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