February 16, 2024 • 61 mins
Guests: Tristan Al-Haddad, owner and creative director of Formations Studio, and Gerry Chen, Phd candidate in Robotics at Georgia Tech.
First broadcast February 16, 2024.
Transcript here: https://hdl.handle.net/1853/73502
"We're going to dematerialize the library."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (00:00):
Good?
(00:01):
OK, yeah, so if youwere in Crosland Tower,
you were, like, literallylost in a labyrinth of books.
And it was quite fantastic.
As libraries do,as libraries have,
this library has transformedtremendously from that time
until now.
And, at that time, it wasstill sort of a sacred library.
It was quiet.
Everybody was studying, and youweren't really supposed to talk
or you'd have to go outside.
(00:22):
You certainly didn't takephone calls in the library.
But now the library is acompletely different construct,
and we could have a wholeshow talking about the library
as a typology.
You probably have, right?
Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:56):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta,
and this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thestudio with Fred Rascoe, Marlee
Givens, and Jude, no last name.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
Whichever you're herefor, we hope you dig it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:18):
Our show today is called What's
on the Price Gilbert Windows?
It's the third in ourartist and residents series.
So Fred and Charlie,have you seen the windows
on the first floor of thePrice Gilbert Memorial Library?
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:32):
I have.
There's been a lot ofpaint up on those windows,
like little dripsand drabs and smears,
and then big swirlsacross the whole thing.
FRED RASCOE (01:41):
And some temporary mini scaffolds, QR codes--
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:44):
Big ones.
FRED RASCOE (01:45):
--some kind of chain and motor contraption.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:48):
But even that list of things
doesn't actually answerthe question, what's
on the Price Gilbert windows?
MARLEE GIVENS (01:55):
So you went to the source, right, Charlie?
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:58):
I did.
Back in January, I sat downwith Tristan Al-Haddad,
the current artist in residenceat the Georgia Tech Library,
and Gerry Chen, a PhDstudent in robotics.
We had a publicconversation about
these artistic shenanigansup on the windows.
Today's interview ismade up of excerpts
from that conversation, whichwas recorded in the Scholars
(02:18):
Event Network Theater aspart of Media Arts Day 2024.
We talked for, like,an hour, and you're
going to hear a little lessthan half of that today.
So the full interview willland on the podcast feed
sometime next week.
Don't write me a letter.
FRED RASCOE (02:33):
Our songs today are about paint everywhere, even
on windows, robots,and orbital mechanics.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:41):
OK, I get the paint and the robots,
but why orbital mechanics?
FRED RASCOE (02:45):
I don't know.
We'll find out.
Weird things happen whencreating art in public places.
So let's dive into thatuncertainty and start
with "The Troublewith Public Places"
by Cadallaca right hereon Lost in the Stacks.
SPEAKER (03:01):
Who's that guy over there?
Hello.
[INAUDIBLE]
[CADALLACA, "THE TROUBLE WITH PUBLIC PLACES"]
[INAUDIBLE]
[INAUDIBLE]
FRED RASCOE (03:17):
That was "The Trouble with Public Places"
by Cadallaca.
And this is Lost in the Stacks.
Our show today is artistin residence three
what's on the Price Gilbertwindows our guests are
Tristan Al-Haddad and GerryChen, two of the team that
has created the work of artcalled Polycentric Truthes
in the Price Gilbert Library.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:38):
Tristan is a Georgia Tech graduate
and was previously a memberof the Georgia Tech faculty
in the School of Architecture.
He is now creativedirector and owner
of Formation Studio inAtlanta and the current artist
in residence at theGeorgia Tech Library.
FRED RASCOE (03:54):
Gerry Chen is a PhD student in robotics
here at Georgia Tech,and as he told Charlie,
he expects robots totake over the world.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:02):
Yeah, and when I listened back,
he actually saidhe hopes they will,
and I have no idea howmuch he was joking.
So let's move on.
Let's drop into therecorded conversation.
We're going to startwith Tristan discussing
his artistic process.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (04:18):
My work is almost 100% site-specific.
It has to be respondingto some sort of context,
whether that's aphysical context,
the historical context, thecultural context, et cetera.
So taking on thisresidency, the question
was how and why doyou do a residency
at Georgia Tech in the library?
It's got to be specific to that.
And so that's this questionof art and technology
(04:41):
and the conversationbetween the two.
I mean, that'ssomething that I've
been working on inmy practice and also
when I was teachinghere for a long time.
But this was a real opportunityto challenge art and technology
to challenge each otherand to make something new.
And so that wasreally important to me
to be engaged withstudents and faculty,
to test and pushresearch such that we
(05:04):
can make something totally new.
And that was really important.
And the end product,honestly, hopefully, it's
going to be really beautiful.
Actually, it's goingto be really beautiful,
no question about it.
But in some ways, the endproduct of a residency
is much less important thanthe process of a residency.
You don't necessarilyknow where you're
going to end up whenyou go into a residency,
whereas if I have aprofessional commission,
it's much more linear, andthere are the thresholds
(05:26):
and approvals.
And if you get tothe end and it's not
what you all agreed on,that's less OK than when
you're doing a residency.
So this is much moreabout experimentation.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And so the artwork (05:36):
undefined
that's on the terrace of thelibrary, that was a commission.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (05:40):
Correct.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:41):
What were the guardrails on that project?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (05:43):
The literal guardrails--
so the project iscalled Crosland Chroma.
Croslin is the tower,Crosland tower--
Chroma, which I'llexplain in a second,
but let me tell theback story to that.
So the way Idescribe the piece is
that it's the lovechild of public art
and public safety after therenovation of the library.
And they have thisincredible double terraces
(06:05):
on the seventh floor,spectacular views
of midtown, downtown,spectacular sunsets.
So students wereloving it up there.
But there was a safetyconcern in terms
of students being ableto get to the edge
or put themselvesin unsafe positions
because people reallyliked the view.
And so they wouldsit on the edge
and hang their feetover it literally.
(06:28):
So there was asafety concern there.
And then I think the dean,along with other leadership
at the institute said, OK, ifwe've got this safety issue,
let's not just think aboutit in terms of safety.
Let's think about how do wemerge a need with a desire.
And so that's why I describeit as a lovechild of public art
and public safety.
So the piece iscalled Crosland Chroma
(06:49):
and it's 182 dichroicpolycarbonate--
sorry for all the verbiage--dichroic polycarbonate fins, so
basically a kind ofmultichromatic film, which
takes light and breaksit into component colors.
That's the simple version.
(07:10):
But it does it based onthe angle of incidence.
And so the fins startin one direction
and twist 90 degrees asthey go up and are then
tensioned to createa kind of barrier
so that people can'tget to the edge.
So that's kind of satisfyingthe public safety component.
The conceptual componentand the artistic component
is dealing with theidea of knowledge.
(07:30):
So historically inthe Western tradition,
probably in most traditions,light, white light, fully
constituted light having allof the spectral components
represents thebody of knowledge,
a diverse body of knowledge.
And then each of the components,or each of the colors,
represents the diversebody of knowledge.
(07:51):
So the idea is thatyou can take sunlight,
which is fullyconstituted knowledge,
and break that into allof its constituent parts.
And really, that'swhat the library does.
That's what the library is.
The library is auniverse to itself.
Diversity is aboutdiversity of thought
that all comestogether to create
this whole that's greaterthan the sum of the parts.
And this is almost likethe opposite of library.
(08:14):
If the library is all ofthe constituent parts coming
together to make the universalknowledge, what Crosland
Chroma does is ittakes white light
and breaks it intothe constituent parts.
So it's like playingthe library backwards.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:25):
Did you have that metaphor in your mind
before you got to the project?
Is that kind of howyou thought of things
and thought of the library?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (08:32):
That is--
do you mean for theresidency or for Chroma.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:36):
For Chroma.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (08:37):
Oh, for sure.
Certainly.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:38):
So that was in your head, kind
of floating around, and thenyou found a place for it?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (08:43):
Nothing is ever linear like that,
in my experience.
And this project that we'll talkabout here is also not linear.
It's elliptical.
These things arevery much elliptical.
I'm going to talkabout elliptical--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
I'm going to talk about elliptical thought
in a little bit, which hasboth a positive and negative
connotation.
But nothing is that linear.
(09:03):
For me, too, materialityis really important.
So because I make my ownwork, and [INAUDIBLE] more
autographic than allographic.
An architect is an allographic.
An architect makes a drawing,which is a notational system,
hands it to someoneelse, they build it.
There are 1,000 people involved.
And so there's a distancebetween the idea,
(09:24):
the representation, andthe material artifact.
For me, that space is collapsed.
And so I'm alwaysworking directly.
I build my own work,make my own work,
fabricate it, alwayswith many collaborators.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:35):
Is that a pleasing tension for you?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Pleasing and exhausting. (09:37):
undefined
Yeah, it is.
It's actually--up to this point--
I mean, who knows whatthe future will hold--
but up to thispoint, that tension
is, in fact, thefundamental tension
because I'm not really thatinterested in ideas that are
devoid of the material world.
And I'm not reallyinterested in material things
that don't have ideas.
(09:59):
So one of the otherthings that was
sort of a core ideaof this residency
was how to take a textand how to read that text
and translate it into some sortof artwork under the library.
So how do you literallydematerialize the library
and make transparent orilluminate the knowledge which
is held within the library?
(10:20):
So it's very Gothic in that way.
Or you can think of theother classic example
would be BibliothequeSainte-Genevieve
in Paris, which has all of thenames of the authors inscribed
in the facade of the building--that same sort of idea.
So, to me, that'svery site-specific,
incredibly site-specific.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:36):
Yeah, beyond the idea of this
is a piece of artthat's in a place--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (10:40):
Correct.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Something much more. (10:40):
undefined
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (10:41):
Correct.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:42):
We're going to let all the listeners sort
of see this forthemselves, eventually,
but we do have to describe alittle bit what's going on.
We've got these hugewindows on the north
side of the library brokeninto squares that are offset.
So it's, like,170 feet of glass.
(11:03):
And did you knowthat that's where
you wanted to go withthis artwork right away
or did you have to move throughthe build and track down
your canvas?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (11:13):
The idea, the intent, originally,
was not to work on the northfacade, the glass facade.
The original intent, whichwe proposed and were denied,
was to take the brickof Crosland Tower,
either on the westside or the east side--
the east side wouldhave been fantastic
because it would have beenvisible from all of the towers
(11:33):
in Midtown--
and to basicallycreate a palimpsest
of the robot drawing for sixmonths nonstop and just drawing
over itself and over itself andover itself and over itself.
CHARLIE BENNETT (11:46):
I can't imagine why that was denied.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: We got that close. (11:48):
undefined
I found the anti-graffitithat would have allowed
us to clean it and everything.
We tested it, but no.
It was denied.
But the point there is thatit started from that idea
and then had to translatefor practical reasons.
But that also started fromGerry's original work.
And I'd ask Gerry to describethe background of his work
(12:11):
and what motivatesit, if that's OK.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:14):
We will discuss Gerry's work,
but in the next segment.
FRED RASCOE (12:18):
This is Lost in the Stacks and let's
prep for the robottalk with a music set.
JUDE (12:25):
If you are so inclined, you
can file this setunder TJ211.I867.
[POW!, "MACHINE ANIMAL"]
FRED RASCOE (12:44):
That was "Robot Robot"
by Erik Nervousand, before that,
"Robot Named Machine"by Alvalanker.
And we started with"Machine Animal" by POW!
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:56):
Hey, friends.
FRED RASCOE (12:57):
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:58):
I want to ask you on air.
Do you think you're goingto run out of robot songs?
FRED RASCOE (13:01):
I don't know.
There's a lot ofrobot songs out there.
We'll see.
But stay tuned forfuture episodes.
Those were songs about ourinteractions with robots.
MARLEE GIVENS (13:18):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and today's showis called What's
on the Price Gilbert Windows.
We are listening to excerptsfrom Charlie's conversation
with the artistTristan Al-Haddad
and the Georgia Techrobotics student Gerry
Chen about their libraryinstallation, Polycentric
Truthes.
Let's hear Gerrydiscuss his work.
GERRY CHEN (13:38):
My PhD research is focused
on this graffitispray-painting robot.
And one of the reallyinteresting things about this
is that, like any robotor machine or person,
this particular robot platformis good at certain things.
And it's also weak atcertain other things.
So one of the thingsthat it's really good at
is scaling to really big sizes.
So I use this cable-based robotwhich, unlike a typical robot
(14:01):
arm, which is a bunch of rigidmetal links and really heavy
motors, instead, youhave just strings
and you have motors on theother side of these strings
that wind up these stringsor let out the strings.
You can then tie thesestrings to the spray paint
can in the center and then pullthe spray paint can around.
And the nice thing aboutthis is that if you
want to make somethingthat's 10 times as big,
you just buy 10times as much string.
It's pretty easyand pretty cheap.
(14:22):
So this is one of thereasons that graffiti
is an excellent applicationfor this type of robot.
Of course, the weakness isthat it's not very stiff,
so if there's wind, it's goingto flop around a little bit.
And these are allengineering challenges
that we have to deal with.
So this robot is likea skycam, except rather
than moving around horizontally,you flip it on its side,
and then it paints on a wall.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:42):
How many iterations of this robot
have you been through sinceyou kind of started the idea?
GERRY CHEN (14:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say because it is kind
of a continualdevelopment process,
where every single day, I walkinto lab and I see some issue,
and I try to come up withsome technical solution
to that issue.
And sometimes, the answeris a technical solution.
But sometimes,the answer is also
embracing the qualitiesof that particular robot
(15:08):
and embracing the qualitiesof the art that comes out
when you create that robot.
So one example in thelibrary is because it
does have these wobbles,a lot of the lines,
especially in certain areasand certain locations,
it is more wobbly than others.
And there's someartistic value, I think,
to revealing what actually wasthe artist that created this--
(15:33):
having the transparencyof what created that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:35):
When you say wobble, you mean, like,
the strings cannot becompletely tight at all times.
There's going to be someslack and some overtightening.
GERRY CHEN (15:43):
Yeah, exactly.
Because the strings are notlike rigid steel things,
as one example, they canstretch a little bit,
so when they stretch,they wobble a little bit.
But also, the more severething is that strings can only
provide a forcein one direction,
but they cannot provide anytorque or any force in any
(16:05):
other direction--
OK, maybe a littlebit too technical.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:08):
How did you all connect?
Did you see the robot, Tristan,and then say, oh, I need that,
or had you all worked before?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (16:16):
Yeah, so towards the end of--
actually, maybe I wasno longer teaching.
I can't remember.
But Gerry-- when I was afaculty member at Georgia Tech,
I spent a lot of time inthe digital fabrication
lab at Marietta Street.
And I still spendtime over there
working with the students andother colleagues and whatnot.
We do other research projects.
(16:36):
Gerry was using the labto test I guess probably
not your original, but probablythe first large-scale really
functioning graffitirobot at the lab.
And so I saw that, and I wasreally interested in what
he was doing there.
I thought it was great.
He's a great guy.
That matters-- comeswith working with people.
So it was sort of alwaysin the back of my mind.
And then, when thisresidency came to fruition,
(16:57):
it seemed like theperfect opportunity.
And then again,thinking about this idea
is how do wedematerialize the library
with a six-monthcontinuous live drawing.
It was kind of a perfectmatch, though we didn't
get to do exactly the thing.
But the idea was there.
And so I startedtalking to Gerry.
Beyond the technicalstuff, Gerry
has been talking aboutwhat do computers
(17:19):
do, what do robots do, whatmachines do, what do humans do,
and where do you find theintersection between what
each entity, elementdoes within a system.
That's a question that I've beeninterested in for a long time.
So myself and somecolleagues around 2010,
we're doing projects and workingon papers around this idea
of the DAM paradigm.
(17:40):
So the DAM wasdigitally-augmented making.
And it's almost obviousnow, 15 years later,
but the question then was howdo we collaborate and create
with machines, withintelligence, and then
the whole thing of AI.
We can-- that's awhole other thing.
But how do we collaboratewith machines in such a way
(18:02):
that humans are allowed todo what they do really well
and machines are allowed todo what they do really well?
And together, youget something bigger
than either one by itself.
And so that's what we're sortof calling the DAM paradigm.
I was alreadyinterested in that.
And then seeing thatGerry was doing that,
he was doing some otherthings with trying
to understand how artists--
the kinematics ofhow artists move,
(18:24):
graffiti artists, and sort ofarcing of arms and all of that,
and that came backinto this project.
I thought this is aperfect opportunity.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:31):
So your original idea
was on the outside of thelibrary in huge scale.
And then that was--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (18:39):
80 feet tall by 40 feet wide brick wall.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Layer after layer. (18:42):
undefined
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (18:43):
Layer after layer, like just build it up.
It would be, like, 3 inchesthick and in six months,
it would be amazing.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:48):
How did that then translate
into the window on the inside?
I'm really interestedin if there's
an epiphany moment of thisis where we're going to do it
and this is how we'regoing to change the idea.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Well, there was (19:01):
undefined
just the practical-- thepracticality of being told no.
That's number one.
And so then the nextquestion was, OK, well,
what is a site inthe building or what
is a context within thebuilding where this can work
from a practical perspective?
It can't be a permanent thing,so glass makes a lot of sense.
And then the northfacade of the building
(19:23):
has an incredible view from bothinside and outside as you're
kind of coming up the hill.
So there's this dualityof inside outside.
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:32):
You get to see your past
as you're working on--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (19:35):
I get to look at the architecture building
and have some trauma.
[LAUGHTER]
But so there's thisreally nice duality--
also, if the original ideawas to dematerialize the text
and transform the text,text to image, that idea--
then working on glassmade a lot of sense.
Also, this idea of the Gothic,stained glass, all of that--
(19:56):
there's a reference there.
All of these are, I would say,soft connections, not epiphany
moments, but soft connections.
And there was one otherone-- did I say day to night?
There's really spectacularday to night transformation
that did impact the compositionin terms of the color,
the choice of colors,the white and black.
Basically, there'sa reversal offset--
CHARLIE BENNETT (20:17):
--from the sunset or is it--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (20:19):
No, simply that, during the day--
so in the finalcomposition which,
for me, is an aesthetic diagrammore than a mural, frankly--
CHARLIE BENNETT (20:29):
Hold on to that thought.
We're going to get back to that.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (20:31):
OK, so we have three colors.
One is pure black,one is pure white,
and then we have this beautifulmagenta kind of in the middle.
So during the day, theblack or the blue background
has this reallystrong graphic effect.
But the white sort of dissolves.
Vice versa-- if you'reoutside looking in,
the black dissolves.
The white comes forward becauseyou have the darker interior.
(20:54):
And at night, that reverses.
CHARLIE BENNETT (20:55):
Yeah, is that just like a thrill,
when you can findmultiple viewpoints?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (20:58):
Oh, for sure.
I mean, for me,personally, I'll say
that my work is generallydifficult to photograph
because it's reallyabout how it changes,
either through your movement,its movement, or the change
of lighting conditions.
So yeah, it's very thrilling.
I mean, any workthat has the capacity
to transform itselfand its experience--
that's sort of theholy grail for me.
FRED RASCOE (21:21):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks,
and we'll hear more fromTristan Al-Haddad and Gerry
Chen about paint androbots in the library
on the left side of the hour.
I love there ain't no cure.
JOHN LINDAMAN (21:41):
Hi, I'm John Lindaman.
I'm from the Watson Library atthe Metropolitan Museum of Art
and the Museum ofObsolete Library Science,
and you're listening to Lostin the Stacks on WREK Atlanta.
More wattage in the cottage--
tune it in andtear the knob off.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:04):
Today's show is called What's
on the Price Gilbert windows?
Like that?
MARLEE GIVENS (22:10):
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:11):
And it's all about the artwork titled
Polycentric Truthes inthe Georgia Tech Library.
You're hearing excerpts froma conversation I recorded live
in the library withTristan Al-Haddad
and Gerry Chen about the workthat they're doing there.
I had to cut a lot of it out.
But here's a little piece.
At one point inour conversation,
(22:31):
OK, I indulge in alittle nostalgia.
Tristan, you knowlibrary as well as I do.
You were here in the'90s, the blessed '90s.
What do you thinkof all the changes
since you startedschool and have
watched the library as astudent and as a faculty member?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Yeah, so like I said, (22:51):
undefined
I came to Georgia Techcampus in 1996 as a freshman.
And this library was verydifferent, very, very,
very different.
There were books.
There were lots of books.
And, of course, there arebooks in the library now,
but there were lots and lotsof books in the library.
Crosland Tower was just stacks.
And we talked aboutLost in the Stacks--
you could really get lostin Crosland in the stacks.
(23:12):
And I used to.
It was wonderful.
It was really likea little labyrinth.
So if you were inCrosland Tower,
you were literally lostin a labyrinth of books.
And it was quite fantastic.
As libraries do,as libraries have,
this library has transformedtremendously from that time
until now.
And at that time, it wasstill sort of a sacred library
it was quiet.
Everybody was studying and youweren't really supposed to talk
(23:35):
or you'd have to go outside.
You certainly didn't takephone calls in the library.
But now the library is acompletely different construct.
Now the libraryis really about--
for me, the library isreally about creativity,
collaboration, conversation.
And I think that'sinteresting for this project
because, literally,we are transforming
the library into a studio.
(23:58):
Right now, we are activelymaking large-scale artwork,
which is technologicallyenabled in the library.
And that's pretty exciting.
Certainly, I would not haveimagined that in the '90s.
Could you just wait?
Now.
JUDE (24:17):
Now.
Now you can file thisset under TPQ35.J4.
SPEAKER (24:25):
Margaret Thatcher said today
that the economy ofBritain has never been--
[MALCOLM AND THE MIRRORS, "PAINT YOUR WINDOWS WHITE"]
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:40):
You just heard "Paint Yourself a Rainbow"
by The Suede Crocodiles.
Before that, "Paint My WindowGreen" by The Resonars, and we
started with "PaintYour Windows White"
by Malcolm and the Mirrors.
And the backstory to "Paint YourWindows White" is horrifying.
Those were songsabout painting windows
and everything elsein your environment.
(25:01):
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
is called What's on thePrice Gilbert Windows?
Our guests are TristanAl-Haddad and Gerry Chen, two
of the team that has createdthe work of art Polycentric
Truthes, which is, yeah, onthe Price Gilbert windows.
The work is, in part, basedon the text of the book
(25:24):
Dialogue Concerningthe Two Chief World
Systems by Galileo Galilei--
that Galileo.
I asked Tristan to explain thebook and why he was using it.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (25:35):
So basically, it's a dialogue.
It's structured as a dialogue.
It's almost like a play,and it's structured
as four days, day 1, 2, 3, 4.
And each day is kind ofa different argument.
And there are three characters.
There are two protagonistsand one antagonist,
Salviati, Sagredo,and Simplicio.
Simplicio, obviously,he's the antagonist.
(25:57):
And the basic premiseis to make an argument,
to make a rhetorical argumentfor the Copernican model
of the universe ascompared to the Ptolemaic.
What does all that mean?
We collectively,in the West, used
to believe that the sunand the entire universe
rotated around us, the Earth--
very egocentric, right?
(26:18):
I mean, obviously.
But that's not what happens.
And that's the Ptolemaic model.
So Galileo was arguingfor the Copernican model,
that we are actuallyrotating around the sun
and the universe is much morecomplex than we had generally
believed, even thoughthat's not true
because there were ancientGreek astronomers who
had this same model.
(26:39):
This was quite well-known.
This comes back tothe piece, which
we can talk abouta little bit more,
which is calledPolycentric Truthes-- how
do we construct arguments?
How do we build worlds?
We really only looked atday one and translated
day one because you'vegot to limit yourself.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:55):
And translated meaning--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (26:56):
So that it could be transformed.
And the way that Isort of described
it is that it couldbe dematerialized
and rematerialized code,and that code could then
be rematerializedas image or symbol.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:10):
So the dematerialize
is talking aboutthe translation.
It's no longer the textthat we can see and read.
It's something else thatcan then be expressed
through a different tool.
Is that--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: That's correct. (27:23):
undefined
Whenever I read almostanything, including novels,
if I can't translate it intosomething that's nontext-based,
it doesn't ever really stick.
That's the first-ordertranslation from text idea
into some other format,some other symbology
that makes sense to me.
(27:43):
They're drawings.
They're really drawings.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:46):
You translate it first,
like images andannotations and sort
of a series of symbols or justsymbols that seem to reflect--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Well, right now, this (27:56):
undefined
doesn't mean anything.
This is just metrying to understand.
This is, to use thearchitectural analogy,
this is like a Carlo Scarpa,sort of drawing in the margins,
figuring things out.
So this is notabout composition.
This is about this is aboutunderstanding and translating
(28:16):
something into nontext format.
CHARLIE BENNETT: One of the phrases (28:18):
undefined
that came up in ourconversation and in descriptions
of the project washuman-style movement.
I asked Gerry totalk more about that.
GERRY CHEN (28:29):
So I think that there's
a lot of interestingaspects about specifically
the way that humans movethat's different than the way
that robots move.
So you always have to dothis translation step.
For example, when a graffitiartist is spray painting,
just the kinematics of theway that their arm works
are different than thekinematics of the way
that my robot or any robotfor that matter works.
So there's alwaysthis translation step
that has to be done.
(28:49):
And this is a really corepart of my thesis, which
is, how do you translatethese human motions
into graffiti spraypainting motions?
The first is, when we recordhuman graffiti artists actually
spray painting graffiti,they're moving with motions
that are reasonable.
The spray paint-- you can't moveit too fast because then it'll
be too thin of paint.
But you also can't move ittoo slow or else it'll drip.
(29:10):
And humans, when they'reactually painting,
they have a verygood idea of this.
So then, when wetranslate it to the robot,
we have to do very minimalthings to make it work well.
But if you have someone,for example, painting
on a piece of paperor painting on an iPad
or something like that,suddenly, all that dynamics
intuition is lost.
And then when youtranslate it to the robot,
it really looks like trash.
(29:30):
So you really have to do a lotof fixing to make it work well.
And then, finally, this thirdstage, working with Tristan--
so he is taking thetext and translating it
into this architecturaldesign software.
But then I don't understand thisarchitectural design software,
and the robot doesn't understandthis architectural design
software.
So we have to have anothertranslation to go translate
into code that both I canunderstand and translate
(29:53):
that code into code thatthe robot can understand.
Each one of those steps--
there's alwaysinteresting subtleties
about the particular featuresof each representation
and what care you haveto take in order to--
well yeah, in order totranslate between any two
representations.
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:09):
So success is getting
the graffiti-paintingrobot to have
the same kind offlow and confidence
that a graffiti artist has.
GERRY CHEN (30:21):
As best as we can.
But also, there arequalities about the robot
that are slightlydifferent than the way
that a human would paint.
And I think that those addto the artwork as well.
I am trying toemulate human artists,
but also, there'salways going to be
unique qualitiesabout both of them
that I think still add value.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: I think Gerry and I (30:39):
undefined
have a little bit ofa productive tension
in this question.
Translating a lot of whatwe've been working on--
so I should say that we ran twomechanical engineering capstone
projects to develop the wet dipbecause we're no longer using
spray paint.
(30:59):
And that was a technicalconstraint of being inside,
of having the depth of the buoy[?] and all sorts of things.
But also, for meconceptually, I wanted
to get all of the imperfections,the drips, the dips,
the starts, the stops thatwould be unique to the robot
rather than to a human.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:16):
Sort of its personality--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Its personality, (31:17):
undefined
maybe its insecurities, whateverit is that would be quite
different than if I--
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:23):
Did you say the robot's insecurity?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: You got to ask Gerry. (31:26):
undefined
I mean, if they're goingto take over the world,
they're going to havesome anxiety about--
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:30):
I regret starting this interview.
[LAUGHTER]
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (31:34):
But it does have a personality.
It does have a kindof human personality.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:37):
Did you give it a name?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: We've had lots of names. (31:39):
undefined
But coming back andactually-- so we've
had lots of studentsworking on this.
We did two mechanicalengineering capstones
to develop a smallrobotic arm that
was capable of taking abrush, an actual brush,
dipping it in wet paint onone side of the cable robot,
and then turning aroundand going and pushing
(32:00):
against the glass with6 inches of depth.
CHARLIE BENNETT (32:03):
I'm nervous just hearing
the description of it.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (32:06):
It's been very challenging, but very
rewarding as well.
GERRY CHEN (32:09):
Yeah, I feel like every day I walk in,
I always think to myself,I can't believe I actually
have permission to do this.
CHARLIE BENNETT (32:16):
So if we find the answer
to the organizing question,what is on the Price Gilbert
windows?
it's experiments in how toget this thing to paint well.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (32:28):
For me, the two organizing questions-- one
is that in terms of processand experimentation.
The other is thisnarrative of world-making
and what I'm calling polycentrictruth, which is not new, but is
becoming more and moreimportant in a world
where we are livingin our ecochambers.
(32:49):
Everybody's in theirown little ecochamber
and not necessarilytalking to each other.
That's going to becomeeven more important
with artificial intelligenceand all of the kind of stuff
that's going to be produced.
So, on the one hand, it's areflection and translation
of the text.
On the other hand, it'sa reflection and maybe
a projection of societyin terms of what
(33:10):
the kind of conceptualcontent of the piece
is, but then from aprocess, a research
experimental perspective, it'sall of those other things.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I know you don't (33:17):
undefined
want to describe the end resultlike, oh, it'll be a square
or it'll be--
I mean, it won't.
But what will people see?
What's the processthat people will
see when this artistic projectstarts, does its thing,
and then stops?
GERRY CHEN (33:36):
I guess, starting from blank windows,
we have to set up our robot, somount it to the building itself
because we are using thebuilding itself as part
of the robot, incorporating thebuilding as part of the robot.
From there, there's a lotof calibration processes
that we have to do,both calibrating
to exactly the dimensionsof the building,
(33:58):
but also calibrating theparticulars of the robot.
And then, from there, wecan actually start painting.
And then so we'll paint about--
it's about 19 feetworth of glass,
and then we'll pulldown the robot,
move to the next 19 feet,and then continue painting
from there.
And then slowly,slowly, piece by piece,
then we can finish theentire bank of windows.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: The cable robot (34:21):
undefined
has limits in termsof what it can reach.
So basically, we have to movethe entire infrastructure,
each bay of the facade.
So there will be seven baysthat we're actually painting on.
We're not painting inthe flanking mezzanine
areas for a variety of reasons.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:39):
So I just want to ask a question of both
of you, one sentence answer--
how does it feel to paintall over the library's
windows, Gerry?
GERRY CHEN (34:50):
It's such a unique and special opportunity
for me to be able to see myresearch go into something that
is out there in the real world.
It's a really uniqueopportunity that I
think very, very fewpeople get to have.
So I feel very special.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (35:06):
I've sort of been painting on Georgia Tech
campus for about 30 years.
So it feels pretty natural.
MARLEE GIVENS (35:14):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and our guests today wereTristan Al-Haddad and Gerry
Chen.
Tristan is the current artistin residence at the Georgia Tech
Library.
He is also a GeorgiaTech graduate,
was once a member ofthe Georgia Tech faculty
in the School ofArchitecture, and is now
creative director and owner ofFormation Studio in Atlanta.
Gerry Chen is a PhDstudent in robotics
(35:36):
here at Georgia Techand the wrangler
of the graffiti-painting robot.
Jude, will you filethis final set?
JUDE (35:44):
And you are the person who can file this set under
N72.56b45.
[THE ROBOT ATE ME, "THE EARTH TURNS AROUND"]
MARLEE GIVENS (36:11):
That was "Galileo" by Trauma Illinois,
and before that, "The EarthTurns Around" by The Robot
Ate Me.
CHARLIE BENNETT (36:18):
Oh dear.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:18):
Songs about the orbital mechanics
of the solar systemto make a point
about our human experience.
Today's show is called What'son the Price Gilbert Windows?
CHARLIE BENNETT (36:36):
Oh no.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:37):
All about the large-scale art
project on the Price GilbertMemorial Library's windows.
Hey, Fred?
FRED RASCOE (36:42):
Yes?
MARLEE GIVENS (36:42):
If you had a chance
to paint somewhere in thelibrary with no restrictions,
where would yousplatter some color?
FRED RASCOE (36:47):
I think the big slab of white concrete
out front.
How about you, Charlie?
CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, gosh, it would (36:52):
undefined
have to be all over my office.
Marlee?
MARLEE GIVENS (36:56):
I would paint my office windows
and just complete thecave that I've started.
CHARLIE BENNETT (37:00):
Nice.
MARLEE GIVENS (37:01):
How about you, Jude?
JUDE (37:02):
Anywhere but the windows.
The name of thegame with libraries
is proper fenestration.
CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, that was better (37:08):
undefined
than I could have imagined.
FRED RASCOE (37:10):
Good answer from the intern.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Roll the credits. (37:11):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS: Lost in the Stacks (37:17):
undefined
is a collaboration between WREKAtlanta and the Georgia Tech
Library, written and producedby Alex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
CHARLIE BENNETT (37:28):
Legal counsel and a box
of slightly used spraypaint cans - Philip!
- were provided by the BurrusIntellectual Property Law Group
in Atlanta, Georgia.
FRED RASCOE (37:37):
Special Thanks to Tristan and Gerry
for being on the show, toCatherine Manci, Leslie Sharp,
and everybody in thelibrary who supports
the Artist in Residence program.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
Our page is library.gatech.edu/lostinthestacks,
where you'll find ourmost recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form,
(37:59):
if you want to getin touch with us.
MARLEE GIVENS (38:00):
Next week, we are expecting a visit
from an old friend who mightjust make some trouble.
CHARLIE BENNETT (38:05):
All the clues are there, people.
FRED RASCOE (38:07):
It's time for our last song today.
A great art experiencein any environment
should be atransformative experience.
It should break thingsdown and translate them
into something new, givingus fresh perspective.
So let's close with a song abouttransformative experiences.
This is "Transformer"by Marni Stern,
here on Lost in the Stacks.
(38:29):
Have a great weekend, everybody.
[MARNIE STERN, "TRANSFORMER"]
Good?
(00:01):
OK, yeah, so if youwere in Crosland Tower,
you were, like, literallylost in a labyrinth of books.
And it was quite fantastic.
As libraries do,as libraries have,
this library has transformedtremendously from that time
until now.
And, at that time, it wasstill sort of a sacred library.
It was quiet.
Everybody was studying, and youweren't really supposed to talk
or you'd have to go outside.
(00:22):
You certainly didn't takephone calls in the library.
But now the library is acompletely different construct,
and we could have a wholeshow talking about the library
as a typology.
You probably have, right?
Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:56):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta,
and this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thestudio with Fred Rascoe, Marlee
Givens, and Jude, no last name.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
Whichever you're herefor, we hope you dig it.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:18):
Our show today is called What's
on the Price Gilbert Windows?
It's the third in ourartist and residents series.
So Fred and Charlie,have you seen the windows
on the first floor of thePrice Gilbert Memorial Library?
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:32):
I have.
There's been a lot ofpaint up on those windows,
like little dripsand drabs and smears,
and then big swirlsacross the whole thing.
FRED RASCOE (01:41):
And some temporary mini scaffolds, QR codes--
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:44):
Big ones.
FRED RASCOE (01:45):
--some kind of chain and motor contraption.
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:48):
But even that list of things
doesn't actually answerthe question, what's
on the Price Gilbert windows?
MARLEE GIVENS (01:55):
So you went to the source, right, Charlie?
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:58):
I did.
Back in January, I sat downwith Tristan Al-Haddad,
the current artist in residenceat the Georgia Tech Library,
and Gerry Chen, a PhDstudent in robotics.
We had a publicconversation about
these artistic shenanigansup on the windows.
Today's interview ismade up of excerpts
from that conversation, whichwas recorded in the Scholars
(02:18):
Event Network Theater aspart of Media Arts Day 2024.
We talked for, like,an hour, and you're
going to hear a little lessthan half of that today.
So the full interview willland on the podcast feed
sometime next week.
Don't write me a letter.
FRED RASCOE (02:33):
Our songs today are about paint everywhere, even
on windows, robots,and orbital mechanics.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:41):
OK, I get the paint and the robots,
but why orbital mechanics?
FRED RASCOE (02:45):
I don't know.
We'll find out.
Weird things happen whencreating art in public places.
So let's dive into thatuncertainty and start
with "The Troublewith Public Places"
by Cadallaca right hereon Lost in the Stacks.
SPEAKER (03:01):
Who's that guy over there?
Hello.
[INAUDIBLE]
[CADALLACA, "THE TROUBLE WITH PUBLIC PLACES"]
[INAUDIBLE]
[INAUDIBLE]
FRED RASCOE (03:17):
That was "The Trouble with Public Places"
by Cadallaca.
And this is Lost in the Stacks.
Our show today is artistin residence three
what's on the Price Gilbertwindows our guests are
Tristan Al-Haddad and GerryChen, two of the team that
has created the work of artcalled Polycentric Truthes
in the Price Gilbert Library.
MARLEE GIVENS (03:38):
Tristan is a Georgia Tech graduate
and was previously a memberof the Georgia Tech faculty
in the School of Architecture.
He is now creativedirector and owner
of Formation Studio inAtlanta and the current artist
in residence at theGeorgia Tech Library.
FRED RASCOE (03:54):
Gerry Chen is a PhD student in robotics
here at Georgia Tech,and as he told Charlie,
he expects robots totake over the world.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:02):
Yeah, and when I listened back,
he actually saidhe hopes they will,
and I have no idea howmuch he was joking.
So let's move on.
Let's drop into therecorded conversation.
We're going to startwith Tristan discussing
his artistic process.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (04:18):
My work is almost 100% site-specific.
It has to be respondingto some sort of context,
whether that's aphysical context,
the historical context, thecultural context, et cetera.
So taking on thisresidency, the question
was how and why doyou do a residency
at Georgia Tech in the library?
It's got to be specific to that.
And so that's this questionof art and technology
(04:41):
and the conversationbetween the two.
I mean, that'ssomething that I've
been working on inmy practice and also
when I was teachinghere for a long time.
But this was a real opportunityto challenge art and technology
to challenge each otherand to make something new.
And so that wasreally important to me
to be engaged withstudents and faculty,
to test and pushresearch such that we
(05:04):
can make something totally new.
And that was really important.
And the end product,honestly, hopefully, it's
going to be really beautiful.
Actually, it's goingto be really beautiful,
no question about it.
But in some ways, the endproduct of a residency
is much less important thanthe process of a residency.
You don't necessarilyknow where you're
going to end up whenyou go into a residency,
whereas if I have aprofessional commission,
it's much more linear, andthere are the thresholds
(05:26):
and approvals.
And if you get tothe end and it's not
what you all agreed on,that's less OK than when
you're doing a residency.
So this is much moreabout experimentation.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And so the artwork (05:36):
undefined
that's on the terrace of thelibrary, that was a commission.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (05:40):
Correct.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:41):
What were the guardrails on that project?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (05:43):
The literal guardrails--
so the project iscalled Crosland Chroma.
Croslin is the tower,Crosland tower--
Chroma, which I'llexplain in a second,
but let me tell theback story to that.
So the way Idescribe the piece is
that it's the lovechild of public art
and public safety after therenovation of the library.
And they have thisincredible double terraces
(06:05):
on the seventh floor,spectacular views
of midtown, downtown,spectacular sunsets.
So students wereloving it up there.
But there was a safetyconcern in terms
of students being ableto get to the edge
or put themselvesin unsafe positions
because people reallyliked the view.
And so they wouldsit on the edge
and hang their feetover it literally.
(06:28):
So there was asafety concern there.
And then I think the dean,along with other leadership
at the institute said, OK, ifwe've got this safety issue,
let's not just think aboutit in terms of safety.
Let's think about how do wemerge a need with a desire.
And so that's why I describeit as a lovechild of public art
and public safety.
So the piece iscalled Crosland Chroma
(06:49):
and it's 182 dichroicpolycarbonate--
sorry for all the verbiage--dichroic polycarbonate fins, so
basically a kind ofmultichromatic film, which
takes light and breaksit into component colors.
That's the simple version.
(07:10):
But it does it based onthe angle of incidence.
And so the fins startin one direction
and twist 90 degrees asthey go up and are then
tensioned to createa kind of barrier
so that people can'tget to the edge.
So that's kind of satisfyingthe public safety component.
The conceptual componentand the artistic component
is dealing with theidea of knowledge.
(07:30):
So historically inthe Western tradition,
probably in most traditions,light, white light, fully
constituted light having allof the spectral components
represents thebody of knowledge,
a diverse body of knowledge.
And then each of the components,or each of the colors,
represents the diversebody of knowledge.
(07:51):
So the idea is thatyou can take sunlight,
which is fullyconstituted knowledge,
and break that into allof its constituent parts.
And really, that'swhat the library does.
That's what the library is.
The library is auniverse to itself.
Diversity is aboutdiversity of thought
that all comestogether to create
this whole that's greaterthan the sum of the parts.
And this is almost likethe opposite of library.
(08:14):
If the library is all ofthe constituent parts coming
together to make the universalknowledge, what Crosland
Chroma does is ittakes white light
and breaks it intothe constituent parts.
So it's like playingthe library backwards.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:25):
Did you have that metaphor in your mind
before you got to the project?
Is that kind of howyou thought of things
and thought of the library?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (08:32):
That is--
do you mean for theresidency or for Chroma.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:36):
For Chroma.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (08:37):
Oh, for sure.
Certainly.
CHARLIE BENNETT (08:38):
So that was in your head, kind
of floating around, and thenyou found a place for it?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (08:43):
Nothing is ever linear like that,
in my experience.
And this project that we'll talkabout here is also not linear.
It's elliptical.
These things arevery much elliptical.
I'm going to talkabout elliptical--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
I'm going to talk about elliptical thought
in a little bit, which hasboth a positive and negative
connotation.
But nothing is that linear.
(09:03):
For me, too, materialityis really important.
So because I make my ownwork, and [INAUDIBLE] more
autographic than allographic.
An architect is an allographic.
An architect makes a drawing,which is a notational system,
hands it to someoneelse, they build it.
There are 1,000 people involved.
And so there's a distancebetween the idea,
(09:24):
the representation, andthe material artifact.
For me, that space is collapsed.
And so I'm alwaysworking directly.
I build my own work,make my own work,
fabricate it, alwayswith many collaborators.
CHARLIE BENNETT (09:35):
Is that a pleasing tension for you?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Pleasing and exhausting. (09:37):
undefined
Yeah, it is.
It's actually--up to this point--
I mean, who knows whatthe future will hold--
but up to thispoint, that tension
is, in fact, thefundamental tension
because I'm not really thatinterested in ideas that are
devoid of the material world.
And I'm not reallyinterested in material things
that don't have ideas.
(09:59):
So one of the otherthings that was
sort of a core ideaof this residency
was how to take a textand how to read that text
and translate it into some sortof artwork under the library.
So how do you literallydematerialize the library
and make transparent orilluminate the knowledge which
is held within the library?
(10:20):
So it's very Gothic in that way.
Or you can think of theother classic example
would be BibliothequeSainte-Genevieve
in Paris, which has all of thenames of the authors inscribed
in the facade of the building--that same sort of idea.
So, to me, that'svery site-specific,
incredibly site-specific.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:36):
Yeah, beyond the idea of this
is a piece of artthat's in a place--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (10:40):
Correct.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Something much more. (10:40):
undefined
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (10:41):
Correct.
CHARLIE BENNETT (10:42):
We're going to let all the listeners sort
of see this forthemselves, eventually,
but we do have to describe alittle bit what's going on.
We've got these hugewindows on the north
side of the library brokeninto squares that are offset.
So it's, like,170 feet of glass.
(11:03):
And did you knowthat that's where
you wanted to go withthis artwork right away
or did you have to move throughthe build and track down
your canvas?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (11:13):
The idea, the intent, originally,
was not to work on the northfacade, the glass facade.
The original intent, whichwe proposed and were denied,
was to take the brickof Crosland Tower,
either on the westside or the east side--
the east side wouldhave been fantastic
because it would have beenvisible from all of the towers
(11:33):
in Midtown--
and to basicallycreate a palimpsest
of the robot drawing for sixmonths nonstop and just drawing
over itself and over itself andover itself and over itself.
CHARLIE BENNETT (11:46):
I can't imagine why that was denied.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: We got that close. (11:48):
undefined
I found the anti-graffitithat would have allowed
us to clean it and everything.
We tested it, but no.
It was denied.
But the point there is thatit started from that idea
and then had to translatefor practical reasons.
But that also started fromGerry's original work.
And I'd ask Gerry to describethe background of his work
(12:11):
and what motivatesit, if that's OK.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:14):
We will discuss Gerry's work,
but in the next segment.
FRED RASCOE (12:18):
This is Lost in the Stacks and let's
prep for the robottalk with a music set.
JUDE (12:25):
If you are so inclined, you
can file this setunder TJ211.I867.
[POW!, "MACHINE ANIMAL"]
FRED RASCOE (12:44):
That was "Robot Robot"
by Erik Nervousand, before that,
"Robot Named Machine"by Alvalanker.
And we started with"Machine Animal" by POW!
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:56):
Hey, friends.
FRED RASCOE (12:57):
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:58):
I want to ask you on air.
Do you think you're goingto run out of robot songs?
FRED RASCOE (13:01):
I don't know.
There's a lot ofrobot songs out there.
We'll see.
But stay tuned forfuture episodes.
Those were songs about ourinteractions with robots.
MARLEE GIVENS (13:18):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and today's showis called What's
on the Price Gilbert Windows.
We are listening to excerptsfrom Charlie's conversation
with the artistTristan Al-Haddad
and the Georgia Techrobotics student Gerry
Chen about their libraryinstallation, Polycentric
Truthes.
Let's hear Gerrydiscuss his work.
GERRY CHEN (13:38):
My PhD research is focused
on this graffitispray-painting robot.
And one of the reallyinteresting things about this
is that, like any robotor machine or person,
this particular robot platformis good at certain things.
And it's also weak atcertain other things.
So one of the thingsthat it's really good at
is scaling to really big sizes.
So I use this cable-based robotwhich, unlike a typical robot
(14:01):
arm, which is a bunch of rigidmetal links and really heavy
motors, instead, youhave just strings
and you have motors on theother side of these strings
that wind up these stringsor let out the strings.
You can then tie thesestrings to the spray paint
can in the center and then pullthe spray paint can around.
And the nice thing aboutthis is that if you
want to make somethingthat's 10 times as big,
you just buy 10times as much string.
It's pretty easyand pretty cheap.
(14:22):
So this is one of thereasons that graffiti
is an excellent applicationfor this type of robot.
Of course, the weakness isthat it's not very stiff,
so if there's wind, it's goingto flop around a little bit.
And these are allengineering challenges
that we have to deal with.
So this robot is likea skycam, except rather
than moving around horizontally,you flip it on its side,
and then it paints on a wall.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:42):
How many iterations of this robot
have you been through sinceyou kind of started the idea?
GERRY CHEN (14:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say because it is kind
of a continualdevelopment process,
where every single day, I walkinto lab and I see some issue,
and I try to come up withsome technical solution
to that issue.
And sometimes, the answeris a technical solution.
But sometimes,the answer is also
embracing the qualitiesof that particular robot
(15:08):
and embracing the qualitiesof the art that comes out
when you create that robot.
So one example in thelibrary is because it
does have these wobbles,a lot of the lines,
especially in certain areasand certain locations,
it is more wobbly than others.
And there's someartistic value, I think,
to revealing what actually wasthe artist that created this--
(15:33):
having the transparencyof what created that.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:35):
When you say wobble, you mean, like,
the strings cannot becompletely tight at all times.
There's going to be someslack and some overtightening.
GERRY CHEN (15:43):
Yeah, exactly.
Because the strings are notlike rigid steel things,
as one example, they canstretch a little bit,
so when they stretch,they wobble a little bit.
But also, the more severething is that strings can only
provide a forcein one direction,
but they cannot provide anytorque or any force in any
(16:05):
other direction--
OK, maybe a littlebit too technical.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:08):
How did you all connect?
Did you see the robot, Tristan,and then say, oh, I need that,
or had you all worked before?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (16:16):
Yeah, so towards the end of--
actually, maybe I wasno longer teaching.
I can't remember.
But Gerry-- when I was afaculty member at Georgia Tech,
I spent a lot of time inthe digital fabrication
lab at Marietta Street.
And I still spendtime over there
working with the students andother colleagues and whatnot.
We do other research projects.
(16:36):
Gerry was using the labto test I guess probably
not your original, but probablythe first large-scale really
functioning graffitirobot at the lab.
And so I saw that, and I wasreally interested in what
he was doing there.
I thought it was great.
He's a great guy.
That matters-- comeswith working with people.
So it was sort of alwaysin the back of my mind.
And then, when thisresidency came to fruition,
(16:57):
it seemed like theperfect opportunity.
And then again,thinking about this idea
is how do wedematerialize the library
with a six-monthcontinuous live drawing.
It was kind of a perfectmatch, though we didn't
get to do exactly the thing.
But the idea was there.
And so I startedtalking to Gerry.
Beyond the technicalstuff, Gerry
has been talking aboutwhat do computers
(17:19):
do, what do robots do, whatmachines do, what do humans do,
and where do you find theintersection between what
each entity, elementdoes within a system.
That's a question that I've beeninterested in for a long time.
So myself and somecolleagues around 2010,
we're doing projects and workingon papers around this idea
of the DAM paradigm.
(17:40):
So the DAM wasdigitally-augmented making.
And it's almost obviousnow, 15 years later,
but the question then was howdo we collaborate and create
with machines, withintelligence, and then
the whole thing of AI.
We can-- that's awhole other thing.
But how do we collaboratewith machines in such a way
(18:02):
that humans are allowed todo what they do really well
and machines are allowed todo what they do really well?
And together, youget something bigger
than either one by itself.
And so that's what we're sortof calling the DAM paradigm.
I was alreadyinterested in that.
And then seeing thatGerry was doing that,
he was doing some otherthings with trying
to understand how artists--
the kinematics ofhow artists move,
(18:24):
graffiti artists, and sort ofarcing of arms and all of that,
and that came backinto this project.
I thought this is aperfect opportunity.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:31):
So your original idea
was on the outside of thelibrary in huge scale.
And then that was--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (18:39):
80 feet tall by 40 feet wide brick wall.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Layer after layer. (18:42):
undefined
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (18:43):
Layer after layer, like just build it up.
It would be, like, 3 inchesthick and in six months,
it would be amazing.
CHARLIE BENNETT (18:48):
How did that then translate
into the window on the inside?
I'm really interestedin if there's
an epiphany moment of thisis where we're going to do it
and this is how we'regoing to change the idea.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Well, there was (19:01):
undefined
just the practical-- thepracticality of being told no.
That's number one.
And so then the nextquestion was, OK, well,
what is a site inthe building or what
is a context within thebuilding where this can work
from a practical perspective?
It can't be a permanent thing,so glass makes a lot of sense.
And then the northfacade of the building
(19:23):
has an incredible view from bothinside and outside as you're
kind of coming up the hill.
So there's this dualityof inside outside.
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:32):
You get to see your past
as you're working on--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (19:35):
I get to look at the architecture building
and have some trauma.
[LAUGHTER]
But so there's thisreally nice duality--
also, if the original ideawas to dematerialize the text
and transform the text,text to image, that idea--
then working on glassmade a lot of sense.
Also, this idea of the Gothic,stained glass, all of that--
(19:56):
there's a reference there.
All of these are, I would say,soft connections, not epiphany
moments, but soft connections.
And there was one otherone-- did I say day to night?
There's really spectacularday to night transformation
that did impact the compositionin terms of the color,
the choice of colors,the white and black.
Basically, there'sa reversal offset--
CHARLIE BENNETT (20:17):
--from the sunset or is it--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (20:19):
No, simply that, during the day--
so in the finalcomposition which,
for me, is an aesthetic diagrammore than a mural, frankly--
CHARLIE BENNETT (20:29):
Hold on to that thought.
We're going to get back to that.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (20:31):
OK, so we have three colors.
One is pure black,one is pure white,
and then we have this beautifulmagenta kind of in the middle.
So during the day, theblack or the blue background
has this reallystrong graphic effect.
But the white sort of dissolves.
Vice versa-- if you'reoutside looking in,
the black dissolves.
The white comes forward becauseyou have the darker interior.
(20:54):
And at night, that reverses.
CHARLIE BENNETT (20:55):
Yeah, is that just like a thrill,
when you can findmultiple viewpoints?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (20:58):
Oh, for sure.
I mean, for me,personally, I'll say
that my work is generallydifficult to photograph
because it's reallyabout how it changes,
either through your movement,its movement, or the change
of lighting conditions.
So yeah, it's very thrilling.
I mean, any workthat has the capacity
to transform itselfand its experience--
that's sort of theholy grail for me.
FRED RASCOE (21:21):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks,
and we'll hear more fromTristan Al-Haddad and Gerry
Chen about paint androbots in the library
on the left side of the hour.
I love there ain't no cure.
JOHN LINDAMAN (21:41):
Hi, I'm John Lindaman.
I'm from the Watson Library atthe Metropolitan Museum of Art
and the Museum ofObsolete Library Science,
and you're listening to Lostin the Stacks on WREK Atlanta.
More wattage in the cottage--
tune it in andtear the knob off.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:04):
Today's show is called What's
on the Price Gilbert windows?
Like that?
MARLEE GIVENS (22:10):
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:11):
And it's all about the artwork titled
Polycentric Truthes inthe Georgia Tech Library.
You're hearing excerpts froma conversation I recorded live
in the library withTristan Al-Haddad
and Gerry Chen about the workthat they're doing there.
I had to cut a lot of it out.
But here's a little piece.
At one point inour conversation,
(22:31):
OK, I indulge in alittle nostalgia.
Tristan, you knowlibrary as well as I do.
You were here in the'90s, the blessed '90s.
What do you thinkof all the changes
since you startedschool and have
watched the library as astudent and as a faculty member?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Yeah, so like I said, (22:51):
undefined
I came to Georgia Techcampus in 1996 as a freshman.
And this library was verydifferent, very, very,
very different.
There were books.
There were lots of books.
And, of course, there arebooks in the library now,
but there were lots and lotsof books in the library.
Crosland Tower was just stacks.
And we talked aboutLost in the Stacks--
you could really get lostin Crosland in the stacks.
(23:12):
And I used to.
It was wonderful.
It was really likea little labyrinth.
So if you were inCrosland Tower,
you were literally lostin a labyrinth of books.
And it was quite fantastic.
As libraries do,as libraries have,
this library has transformedtremendously from that time
until now.
And at that time, it wasstill sort of a sacred library
it was quiet.
Everybody was studying and youweren't really supposed to talk
(23:35):
or you'd have to go outside.
You certainly didn't takephone calls in the library.
But now the library is acompletely different construct.
Now the libraryis really about--
for me, the library isreally about creativity,
collaboration, conversation.
And I think that'sinteresting for this project
because, literally,we are transforming
the library into a studio.
(23:58):
Right now, we are activelymaking large-scale artwork,
which is technologicallyenabled in the library.
And that's pretty exciting.
Certainly, I would not haveimagined that in the '90s.
Could you just wait?
Now.
JUDE (24:17):
Now.
Now you can file thisset under TPQ35.J4.
SPEAKER (24:25):
Margaret Thatcher said today
that the economy ofBritain has never been--
[MALCOLM AND THE MIRRORS, "PAINT YOUR WINDOWS WHITE"]
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:40):
You just heard "Paint Yourself a Rainbow"
by The Suede Crocodiles.
Before that, "Paint My WindowGreen" by The Resonars, and we
started with "PaintYour Windows White"
by Malcolm and the Mirrors.
And the backstory to "Paint YourWindows White" is horrifying.
Those were songsabout painting windows
and everything elsein your environment.
(25:01):
This is Lost in theStacks, and today's show
is called What's on thePrice Gilbert Windows?
Our guests are TristanAl-Haddad and Gerry Chen, two
of the team that has createdthe work of art Polycentric
Truthes, which is, yeah, onthe Price Gilbert windows.
The work is, in part, basedon the text of the book
(25:24):
Dialogue Concerningthe Two Chief World
Systems by Galileo Galilei--
that Galileo.
I asked Tristan to explain thebook and why he was using it.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (25:35):
So basically, it's a dialogue.
It's structured as a dialogue.
It's almost like a play,and it's structured
as four days, day 1, 2, 3, 4.
And each day is kind ofa different argument.
And there are three characters.
There are two protagonistsand one antagonist,
Salviati, Sagredo,and Simplicio.
Simplicio, obviously,he's the antagonist.
(25:57):
And the basic premiseis to make an argument,
to make a rhetorical argumentfor the Copernican model
of the universe ascompared to the Ptolemaic.
What does all that mean?
We collectively,in the West, used
to believe that the sunand the entire universe
rotated around us, the Earth--
very egocentric, right?
(26:18):
I mean, obviously.
But that's not what happens.
And that's the Ptolemaic model.
So Galileo was arguingfor the Copernican model,
that we are actuallyrotating around the sun
and the universe is much morecomplex than we had generally
believed, even thoughthat's not true
because there were ancientGreek astronomers who
had this same model.
(26:39):
This was quite well-known.
This comes back tothe piece, which
we can talk abouta little bit more,
which is calledPolycentric Truthes-- how
do we construct arguments?
How do we build worlds?
We really only looked atday one and translated
day one because you'vegot to limit yourself.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:55):
And translated meaning--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (26:56):
So that it could be transformed.
And the way that Isort of described
it is that it couldbe dematerialized
and rematerialized code,and that code could then
be rematerializedas image or symbol.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:10):
So the dematerialize
is talking aboutthe translation.
It's no longer the textthat we can see and read.
It's something else thatcan then be expressed
through a different tool.
Is that--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: That's correct. (27:23):
undefined
Whenever I read almostanything, including novels,
if I can't translate it intosomething that's nontext-based,
it doesn't ever really stick.
That's the first-ordertranslation from text idea
into some other format,some other symbology
that makes sense to me.
(27:43):
They're drawings.
They're really drawings.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:46):
You translate it first,
like images andannotations and sort
of a series of symbols or justsymbols that seem to reflect--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Well, right now, this (27:56):
undefined
doesn't mean anything.
This is just metrying to understand.
This is, to use thearchitectural analogy,
this is like a Carlo Scarpa,sort of drawing in the margins,
figuring things out.
So this is notabout composition.
This is about this is aboutunderstanding and translating
(28:16):
something into nontext format.
CHARLIE BENNETT: One of the phrases (28:18):
undefined
that came up in ourconversation and in descriptions
of the project washuman-style movement.
I asked Gerry totalk more about that.
GERRY CHEN (28:29):
So I think that there's
a lot of interestingaspects about specifically
the way that humans movethat's different than the way
that robots move.
So you always have to dothis translation step.
For example, when a graffitiartist is spray painting,
just the kinematics of theway that their arm works
are different than thekinematics of the way
that my robot or any robotfor that matter works.
So there's alwaysthis translation step
that has to be done.
(28:49):
And this is a really corepart of my thesis, which
is, how do you translatethese human motions
into graffiti spraypainting motions?
The first is, when we recordhuman graffiti artists actually
spray painting graffiti,they're moving with motions
that are reasonable.
The spray paint-- you can't moveit too fast because then it'll
be too thin of paint.
But you also can't move ittoo slow or else it'll drip.
(29:10):
And humans, when they'reactually painting,
they have a verygood idea of this.
So then, when wetranslate it to the robot,
we have to do very minimalthings to make it work well.
But if you have someone,for example, painting
on a piece of paperor painting on an iPad
or something like that,suddenly, all that dynamics
intuition is lost.
And then when youtranslate it to the robot,
it really looks like trash.
(29:30):
So you really have to do a lotof fixing to make it work well.
And then, finally, this thirdstage, working with Tristan--
so he is taking thetext and translating it
into this architecturaldesign software.
But then I don't understand thisarchitectural design software,
and the robot doesn't understandthis architectural design
software.
So we have to have anothertranslation to go translate
into code that both I canunderstand and translate
(29:53):
that code into code thatthe robot can understand.
Each one of those steps--
there's alwaysinteresting subtleties
about the particular featuresof each representation
and what care you haveto take in order to--
well yeah, in order totranslate between any two
representations.
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:09):
So success is getting
the graffiti-paintingrobot to have
the same kind offlow and confidence
that a graffiti artist has.
GERRY CHEN (30:21):
As best as we can.
But also, there arequalities about the robot
that are slightlydifferent than the way
that a human would paint.
And I think that those addto the artwork as well.
I am trying toemulate human artists,
but also, there'salways going to be
unique qualitiesabout both of them
that I think still add value.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: I think Gerry and I (30:39):
undefined
have a little bit ofa productive tension
in this question.
Translating a lot of whatwe've been working on--
so I should say that we ran twomechanical engineering capstone
projects to develop the wet dipbecause we're no longer using
spray paint.
(30:59):
And that was a technicalconstraint of being inside,
of having the depth of the buoy[?] and all sorts of things.
But also, for meconceptually, I wanted
to get all of the imperfections,the drips, the dips,
the starts, the stops thatwould be unique to the robot
rather than to a human.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:16):
Sort of its personality--
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: Its personality, (31:17):
undefined
maybe its insecurities, whateverit is that would be quite
different than if I--
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:23):
Did you say the robot's insecurity?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: You got to ask Gerry. (31:26):
undefined
I mean, if they're goingto take over the world,
they're going to havesome anxiety about--
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:30):
I regret starting this interview.
[LAUGHTER]
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (31:34):
But it does have a personality.
It does have a kindof human personality.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:37):
Did you give it a name?
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: We've had lots of names. (31:39):
undefined
But coming back andactually-- so we've
had lots of studentsworking on this.
We did two mechanicalengineering capstones
to develop a smallrobotic arm that
was capable of taking abrush, an actual brush,
dipping it in wet paint onone side of the cable robot,
and then turning aroundand going and pushing
(32:00):
against the glass with6 inches of depth.
CHARLIE BENNETT (32:03):
I'm nervous just hearing
the description of it.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (32:06):
It's been very challenging, but very
rewarding as well.
GERRY CHEN (32:09):
Yeah, I feel like every day I walk in,
I always think to myself,I can't believe I actually
have permission to do this.
CHARLIE BENNETT (32:16):
So if we find the answer
to the organizing question,what is on the Price Gilbert
windows?
it's experiments in how toget this thing to paint well.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (32:28):
For me, the two organizing questions-- one
is that in terms of processand experimentation.
The other is thisnarrative of world-making
and what I'm calling polycentrictruth, which is not new, but is
becoming more and moreimportant in a world
where we are livingin our ecochambers.
(32:49):
Everybody's in theirown little ecochamber
and not necessarilytalking to each other.
That's going to becomeeven more important
with artificial intelligenceand all of the kind of stuff
that's going to be produced.
So, on the one hand, it's areflection and translation
of the text.
On the other hand, it'sa reflection and maybe
a projection of societyin terms of what
(33:10):
the kind of conceptualcontent of the piece
is, but then from aprocess, a research
experimental perspective, it'sall of those other things.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I know you don't (33:17):
undefined
want to describe the end resultlike, oh, it'll be a square
or it'll be--
I mean, it won't.
But what will people see?
What's the processthat people will
see when this artistic projectstarts, does its thing,
and then stops?
GERRY CHEN (33:36):
I guess, starting from blank windows,
we have to set up our robot, somount it to the building itself
because we are using thebuilding itself as part
of the robot, incorporating thebuilding as part of the robot.
From there, there's a lotof calibration processes
that we have to do,both calibrating
to exactly the dimensionsof the building,
(33:58):
but also calibrating theparticulars of the robot.
And then, from there, wecan actually start painting.
And then so we'll paint about--
it's about 19 feetworth of glass,
and then we'll pulldown the robot,
move to the next 19 feet,and then continue painting
from there.
And then slowly,slowly, piece by piece,
then we can finish theentire bank of windows.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD: The cable robot (34:21):
undefined
has limits in termsof what it can reach.
So basically, we have to movethe entire infrastructure,
each bay of the facade.
So there will be seven baysthat we're actually painting on.
We're not painting inthe flanking mezzanine
areas for a variety of reasons.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:39):
So I just want to ask a question of both
of you, one sentence answer--
how does it feel to paintall over the library's
windows, Gerry?
GERRY CHEN (34:50):
It's such a unique and special opportunity
for me to be able to see myresearch go into something that
is out there in the real world.
It's a really uniqueopportunity that I
think very, very fewpeople get to have.
So I feel very special.
TRISTAN AL-HADDAD (35:06):
I've sort of been painting on Georgia Tech
campus for about 30 years.
So it feels pretty natural.
MARLEE GIVENS (35:14):
This is Lost in the Stacks,
and our guests today wereTristan Al-Haddad and Gerry
Chen.
Tristan is the current artistin residence at the Georgia Tech
Library.
He is also a GeorgiaTech graduate,
was once a member ofthe Georgia Tech faculty
in the School ofArchitecture, and is now
creative director and owner ofFormation Studio in Atlanta.
Gerry Chen is a PhDstudent in robotics
(35:36):
here at Georgia Techand the wrangler
of the graffiti-painting robot.
Jude, will you filethis final set?
JUDE (35:44):
And you are the person who can file this set under
N72.56b45.
[THE ROBOT ATE ME, "THE EARTH TURNS AROUND"]
MARLEE GIVENS (36:11):
That was "Galileo" by Trauma Illinois,
and before that, "The EarthTurns Around" by The Robot
Ate Me.
CHARLIE BENNETT (36:18):
Oh dear.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:18):
Songs about the orbital mechanics
of the solar systemto make a point
about our human experience.
Today's show is called What'son the Price Gilbert Windows?
CHARLIE BENNETT (36:36):
Oh no.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:37):
All about the large-scale art
project on the Price GilbertMemorial Library's windows.
Hey, Fred?
FRED RASCOE (36:42):
Yes?
MARLEE GIVENS (36:42):
If you had a chance
to paint somewhere in thelibrary with no restrictions,
where would yousplatter some color?
FRED RASCOE (36:47):
I think the big slab of white concrete
out front.
How about you, Charlie?
CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, gosh, it would (36:52):
undefined
have to be all over my office.
Marlee?
MARLEE GIVENS (36:56):
I would paint my office windows
and just complete thecave that I've started.
CHARLIE BENNETT (37:00):
Nice.
MARLEE GIVENS (37:01):
How about you, Jude?
JUDE (37:02):
Anywhere but the windows.
The name of thegame with libraries
is proper fenestration.
CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, that was better (37:08):
undefined
than I could have imagined.
FRED RASCOE (37:10):
Good answer from the intern.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Roll the credits. (37:11):
undefined
MARLEE GIVENS: Lost in the Stacks (37:17):
undefined
is a collaboration between WREKAtlanta and the Georgia Tech
Library, written and producedby Alex McGee, Charlie Bennett,
Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
CHARLIE BENNETT (37:28):
Legal counsel and a box
of slightly used spraypaint cans - Philip!
- were provided by the BurrusIntellectual Property Law Group
in Atlanta, Georgia.
FRED RASCOE (37:37):
Special Thanks to Tristan and Gerry
for being on the show, toCatherine Manci, Leslie Sharp,
and everybody in thelibrary who supports
the Artist in Residence program.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
Our page is library.gatech.edu/lostinthestacks,
where you'll find ourmost recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form,
(37:59):
if you want to getin touch with us.
MARLEE GIVENS (38:00):
Next week, we are expecting a visit
from an old friend who mightjust make some trouble.
CHARLIE BENNETT (38:05):
All the clues are there, people.
FRED RASCOE (38:07):
It's time for our last song today.
A great art experiencein any environment
should be atransformative experience.
It should break thingsdown and translate them
into something new, givingus fresh perspective.
So let's close with a song abouttransformative experiences.
This is "Transformer"by Marni Stern,
here on Lost in the Stacks.
(38:29):
Have a great weekend, everybody.
[MARNIE STERN, "TRANSFORMER"]
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.