Exploring the Future of Art: Innovation, Collaboration and Technology

Episode Transcript
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Alexander Hallag (00:00):
Hi, this is Alexander Halak and welcome to
the Music is Talking podcast.
For over three decades now,I've been an internationally
published music photographer andin that time I've met and
worked with some amazingcreative people.
To see some of my musicphotography, check out instagram
.
com.
the music is talking, or visitmy website, which is www.

(00:20):
themusicistalkingcom.
So join me as I speak with awide variety of creatives,
including musicians, filmmakers,authors, artists and many
others, to talk about theirpersonal creative journeys and
their unique ways of makinginnovative and original work to
help connect the wider creativecommunity through shared
experience.
I recently attended an NFT basedexhibition called Flow State by

(00:45):
my friend, nate Hill and SunGrazers at the Oshi Gallery here
in Melbourne.
Nate is a digital artist and afreelance photographer who is
known for his whack and whitedigital landscapes.
Some of the imagery he hascreated have been used by
international bands such as ToolCorn and the Crystal Method.
Sun Grazers is a collaborativeproject between acclaimed aerial

(01:09):
stills photographer andfilmmakers Jerry and Sarah
Grayson of Helly Films and TobyDundas, co-founder, composer and
musician of the band TemperTrap.
So okay, guys, thank you verymuch for coming this morning.
I really appreciate it.
As I was saying, I came to thisexhibition, expecting just to

(01:32):
see visual art or traditionalvisual art, of artwork on the
wall in a form of a print, butwhat I saw was completely
different.
So where is the future of thearts going?
What happens when music andvisual art and filmmaking

(01:58):
collide?
What does it look like?
Well, I got answers in a uniqueway by seeing this amazing
exhibition at the Oshi Gallerywith these guys.
So if you guys can just tell mea bit about you guys and where
you've come from and whatbrought you together

Toby Dundas (02:23):
I'm a musician.
I've been playing in a bandcalled the Temper Trap for too
many years to mention now, buthave always had a sort of a keen
interest in film and have hadthe opportunity outside of the
band to score some feature filmsand things like that.

(02:44):
And through kind of workinglike that and I guess my through
mum and dad really, who werefriends with Jerry and Sarah we
all became acquainted, which ledto some songs from the band
being used in a fantasticfeature documentary that Jerry

(03:08):
and Sarah made, I want to say inabout 2013.

Sara Grayson (03:13):
2013,.
Yeah, 10 years ago.
Oh my gosh.

10 year Anniversary, 2013.
So obviously since then wereally stayed in touch and I
guess about two years ago I'dsort of approach them about
potentially using some of theiramazing footage that they've
been filming over the years andhave got a fantastic sort of
reservoir of online for anotherproject.
And then, yeah, we just kind ofgot talking about crypto and

(03:42):
NFTs and those kind of things,and so that led very naturally
to Sun Grazers, which is theproject that the three of us
have been working on for thelast 18 months or two years.

Jerry Grayson (03:57):
Yeah, and Sun Grazers.
I don't know if you know theword, but it's a comic that
burns brighter as it gets closerto the sun and then it goes
round again and does the samething again a few years later or
centuries later.
I'm Jerry.
I spent my life as a helicopterpilot.
I was eight years in the Navydoing search and rescue and at

(04:21):
the end of that time theyembedded a BBC crew with us
doing a documentary about therescue flight and I think it was
only the second fly on the walldocumentary that they've ever
done and they stayed with us forabout six months and they were
filming in the back of thehelicopter very quietly, staying

(04:44):
out of the way while we get onwith the job.
And then there came a point atthe end of that where they said
okay, we've got to do theopening sequence and so we're
going to put we're going tolower by winch present her down
onto a pinnacle of rock out inthe ocean and he's going to do a
piece to camera.
So he will be shouting at thecamera, we'll record it on his

(05:06):
person and then re-record itlater, and we want to use the
helicopter pilot to start veryclose to him and we'll be tight
on the zoom and then we'll pullback, and we want that pull back
to take about seven and a halfseconds and then arrive back in
the hover, and by which time thecameraman will be wide and they
went wow, here's this thingthat I've been, you know, flying

(05:28):
around for eight years and Ican do that reasonably
competently.
But here I'm using it as a toolto create an image, and that
image has a beginning, a middleand an end to it, and I've got
to use all of my flying skillsto achieve that on behalf of the
director.
And suddenly this light bulbwent off, that here was a whole

(05:48):
career in front that clearly wasgoing to take a lot of time
investment to learn how to doproperly.
And that's what I've been doingfor sort of more than four
decades, and always commissionedby people to create imagery.
And then we got into creating alibrary of imagery for ourselves

(06:12):
and licensing that, and thatled then into NFTs, which is
this wonderful fresh sheet ofpaper where you haven't got
somebody looking over yourshoulder saying I need this
within this period of time.
You know, the length isentirely variable, the content
is entirely variable, andsuddenly we find ourselves,

(06:35):
literally in the creation of anew art form.
Really, wouldn't you say, nate?

Nate Hill (06:40):
Yeah, totally Okay, guess that's over to me.
So I'm Nate Hill.
I've been a creative visualartist and dabbling in music for
longer than I'd care to say aswell.
I sort of started the journeydoing photography whilst being

(07:06):
in bands, went down the path ofcreating sort of digital imagery
, wandered into making albumcovers and doing stuff for bands
and then sort of made my wayinto the NFT world.
So it's been an organic journey,I would say, just sort of going

(07:29):
down rabbit holes and trying tofind ways to express ideas that
I had and just ways to becreative, something that I
always feel like I need to do.
And so when I hit the NFT partof the journey not long in came
across the work of the SunGrazers and struck up

(07:51):
conversations just around whatwe're doing, how we're doing it,
how to get stuff out there andget it seen, and through doing
that there was a mutualadmiration about what each party
were doing and how they weredoing it.
So just sort of organicallyhappened that we collaborated

(08:13):
and put together some amazingartwork and music and sort of
take it from there.
And that's a good point, Ithink, to chuck over to Sarah,
because she tells this storyvery well about how this
exhibition came together.

Oh gosh, thanks, nate.
That's very big shoes to fill,following on from you three
legends.
So I'm Sarah, I'm married toJerry.
We have had a film companysince actually 1989.
We shoot principally from theair, in the early days from

(08:50):
helicopters, the fixed wing andnow, most recently, drones,
which is a much moreenvironmentally friendly way for
us to shoot, which is part ofour raison d'etre.
So we're pretty happy with theway things have gone.
I think, just picking up on whatJerry was saying, I guess the
first sort of three or fouryears of Heli Films, which was

(09:11):
the company that we used to filmthrough, as Jerry was saying,
we were commissioned bydirectors, whether it was Ridley
Scott to go and shoot BlackHawk Down or Verna Herzog to go
to Kuwait after the first oilfires and bring them back images
that really were striking.
We would take a brief and thenvery often be left to our own

(09:34):
devices.
The same for TV commercials andmusic videos that we would make
with bands, also with directors, which led very neatly into
Jerry directing commercials andmusic videos and then films for
museums and art galleries aroundthe world.
But we would always win onlocations, whether that was in

(09:55):
the US or Africa or Europe wouldfind a reason to stay on
location and shoot for ourselvescreatively, and that was how we
built up the body of work thatTobes was referring to and Nate
was referring to.

(10:16):
We got quite a large backcatalogue, I guess, for one of a
better way of expressing, andwe got to the stage I guess it
was at the beginning of thepandemic, which I'm sure
everybody has a reference pointthere where we could no longer
get on location.
We were stuck in Melbourne, oneof the toughest lockdowns, I

(10:38):
think, in the world and one ofthe longest, five kilometres
from our home.
Thankfully, tobes Studio waswithin the radius of our studio,
so we had started conversationsabout NFTs before the pandemic
struck, so we were able tocontinue working between the
three of us, sharing filesbackwards and forwards, but we

(10:59):
weren't able to get on locationand shoot specifically, and so,
for that reason, we were lookingat new ways of incorporating
this creativity, which usuallywe would express by going on
location and shooting newmaterial, for whatever reason,
probably, like Tobes was used tocreating music, and we couldn't

(11:22):
get on location any longer, andJerry had spent almost a year I
think it was 2020, darling,jumping into crypto, looking at
NFTs, simultaneously unbeknownstto us.
Toby had been doing the samething and so when we started the
conversation in early 21, wewere the three of us that were

(11:44):
very much flying in parallel,flying in tandem, which was why
we set up sun grazers, and itwas to incorporate Tobes music
with the vision that we createand I think, sort of going back
to the concept of the Flow Stateexhibition, which is what you

(12:05):
came to see, alex, at OshieGallery.
Having been filmmakers for somany years before getting into
NFTs, you know, when you make afilm, you have a soundtrack you
usually have.
You have a narrative, you havethe peaks and troughs that Jerry
was describing.
So, although although you know,one could create, obviously,

(12:27):
stills that work as NFTs and wedo have a body of work of stills
based on the Hurricane Katrinaseries that we shot it's really
the third element, which is themusic that comes into play with
the narrative structure of thefilm that works for us.
And I sort of deep dive thesubject of NFTs Once Toby said

(12:53):
yes, he'd like to work with us,which was very exciting, and one
of the first people I cameacross was Nate, and I was
really intrigued and entrancedby his twisted landscapes which
were on several platforms andthey were sometimes animated,
sometimes stills, mostly color,although he has an amazing black

(13:17):
and white series of work whichreally has like its own visual
identity and, like Toby with hisband's music and Nate with his
visual art, we also have kind of, I guess, a visual language
which we're quite known for.
So when I found Nate and Ishared his work with Toby and

(13:38):
Jerry, I was like, oh wow, youknow, this is, this is going to
another level, and we loved howhe incorporated the twists and
in fact, I think it was thefirst series of four NFTs of
ours that we created.
We used a particular piece thathas a revolve.
It's not a twist like Nate does, but it's.
It's a world that Jerry uses inthe edit suite, and so I guess

(14:02):
I'll be quick, I'll fast forwardto Got the bit first.
Thanks, boys.
Yeah, I'll fast forward to, Iguess, the end of June 2021,
when we released our first fiveNFTs and we sold two one-of-ones
very quickly within a week ofeach other, and it sort of gave

(14:24):
me the confidence to reach outto Nate and to say you know, I'm
not sure where you're based,but this is who we are.
We really love the work that youdo.
We're open to any discussionsthat you know, whether it's over
the phone or in spaces orwhatever.
And Nate came back and saidwell, I've seen that you guys

(14:47):
are based in Melbourne.
So am I.
I was like, oh, you know, it'sback very, very quick, quick
fire messaging.
And I said, oh, did you knowthat we're working with Toby
Dundas?
He's also in Melbourne, as areJerry, both Jerry and I and Nate
sort of pretty much came backsaying well, I'm also a drummer
and a musician as well as avisual artist.

(15:07):
So there was this kind ofcoming together of the four of
us in that year of 21, whichthen led to maybe this time last
year I plucked up the courageto say to Nate you know, would
you ever do a collab with peoplelike us?
And I didn't tell Jerry andToby because I thought, if he's,

(15:29):
I nearly swore then if he saysno, if he flicks us off.
I won't tell the boys andthey'll never be any the wiser,
because we'd already kind ofstarted a friendship and we'd
had beers and I think they wouldhave been mortified if they'd
have known that I was going to,you know, push that out.
So but I did push that out andNate came back like 10 minutes

(15:50):
later saying I collab with youguys.
Yeah, sure, absolutely, andthat was kind of the flavour of
how it felt to work together.
It was really a meeting of manyminds, many creative skills,
nate and Toby with the music.

(16:10):
Toby's very visual, obviously,nate is very visual, and our
starting point was creating theoriginal art, the aerial pieces,
and there's a couple of groundpieces too, which Nate then puts
his special source, the twistto, and the piece basically has

(16:31):
another life of its own.
So, yeah, that's kind of, Iguess, the background and the
lead into Flow State, theexhibition.

You know.
That's really cool that youguys, you know the symbiosis,
that you all happen to be inMelbourne and they just worked
out that way.
So I guess, for someone like mewho is new to this whole NFT
world, nate, can you walk methrough this, because, as a
visual artist, what is NFT?

(17:04):
Why did you pick this route toeven explore with your work, as
opposed to a traditional work onwall?

Nate Hill (17:11):
Yeah, sure.
So NFT stands for non-fungibletoken and basically the best way
that I sort of have thought ofto to talk about it is that when
you are create an NFT, you'recreating a token and the artwork
is attached to the token.
Someone buying an NFT iseffectively sort of buying like

(17:34):
a stock in an artist.
So they'll hopefully they'llconnect with the imagery and
really love it and want to haveit as something that they can
collect, display on a digitaldisplay or look at it on their
phone or whatever.
But they're also investing inyour as an artist and hoping
that you will have a lastingcareer as an artist and that

(17:56):
that artwork that they'vecollected will retain or gain in
value.
So basically you can see theartwork is like a cover, like an
album cover, if you like, for atoken.
The token is the part of thescenario that holds the value.
So I don't know if that makessense.

That's sort of one way to look at it, so
they're not actually getting aphysical piece.

Nate Hill (18:22):
Not necessarily, so sometimes you can.
As an artist, you have thatchoice.
You can offer a print orsomething with your NFT.
I've done that myself.
I've given out prints to peoplewho have collected my work, but
essentially it is the tokenthat they're collecting and
buying and investing in, if youlike.

Right, and Sarah was talking about your
twisted landscapes.
So for those that don't knowabout your work, can you talk to
me about those?

Nate Hill (18:52):
Sure when that came from.
So it alluded to the fact thatI started out in photography.
So I studied photography atuniversity, went away from it
for a little while while I wasbeing in bands and doing little
mini tours and all that kind ofstuff Came back to it again when
we had our first child, and sophotography has been the huge

(19:16):
part of my sort of creativeoutlet.
And so once I started sort ofgetting back into it again,
working from home, sort ofstarting a little bit of a
freelance business, I starteddabbling in photo manipulation
and digital art.
That was around the birth ofInstagram.
So I was sort of finding all ofthis new art and working out

(19:39):
and wondering how it was madeand trying to do some creative
stuff with it myself.
So I ended up sort of going downa rabbit hole of apps and doing
digital art on my iPad, iphone,you know, just whatever I had
handy and in diving into a wholeheap of these apps I found one

(20:00):
that could manipulate photos inthis twisty kind of way.
So there are a few apps like iton the market.
One famous one is called TinyPlanet, I think, but there are a
few things like it.
The one that I use is no longeravailable, but I have kept a
device with this particular appon it so that I can keep doing

(20:22):
it, and basically, I sort offound a way of taking my
landscape photography, twistingit and creating these portals or
different universes, and Ifound it really fascinating.
It was something that struck meand it was something that I
hadn't seen other people doing,and I started toying around with
including a figure in theseplaces just as something to

(20:48):
start with, to tell a bit of astory and to show a bit of scale
, and that's how it sort ofstarted.
Once I started putting thesethings out there, they started
gaining a little bit ofattention, and I got my work
shared by platforms likePhotoshop and the like.
So it was something that I feltlike I discovered that perhaps

(21:10):
hadn't been done before, and itwas something that I felt like I
could really express somecreativity and a visual language
that was my own, I guess.

You know, as a photographer myself, that's
really cool to hear that.
You know, you too came from abackground of photography, and I
suppose I don't say for moststill photographers, but when
you do stills, you sometimes atleast for myself, speaking on my
behalf.
So that, speaking on behalf ofmyself, I found that sometimes

(21:48):
I'll be looking at my stills andI wonder what if they had
movement?
And your twists and landscapesdefinitely have movement to them
.
So then, like what's also whatI like with what you guys have
done, it's almost as if a wholemovie has been created in a

(22:11):
single image from the filmmakingelement that Sarah and Jerry
provide, and then Toby with yourmusic as that score.
When you guys startedcollaborated on this, is that
how you looked at this or howdid that?

(22:32):
You know what came first thevisual from the filmmaking, or
the music, or the landscape?
Yeah, yeah, you know the oldchicken and the egg thing.
So what's the chicken?
What's?

the egg?
And well, that's the bigquestion.

It you know it changes.
It changes sometimes piece bypiece.
So the first weird part of whatyou're just saying is that we
frequently I'm just thinking myway through the, through the
pieces that we've that we'vedone here in flow state, but the
majority of the time it's notcome from a photograph, it's

(23:10):
come from a piece of film.
So we will have generated apiece of film and we'll go, okay
, let's take a still image outof that, because you know, a
film is only, you know, 25 stillimages every second.
So, provided the, thedefinition is high enough, then
you can take out out a still.
And that's how we began withNate and said, okay, what about

(23:34):
this still?
And?
And he would say, well, itwould be better if the horizon
was a bit more like this, andwe'd, you know, shuffle for
forward or backwards to a pointwhere it accommodated the, the
needs of Nate's particularspecial source, and and then,

(23:54):
from that still, nate wouldanimate it.
So this new baby was, was bornout of parentage.
That started out as as movie,then became still and then got
animated and twisted.
So, from the, from the, fromthe visual side of things, it's
quite a peculiar direction to go, then, and I'll turn it to you

(24:21):
in a minute Tobes, because wedon't think with these pieces
but with other work that we'vedone together, we have sometimes
let the visuals lead andsometimes let the music lead.
So we found in early days thatwe were trying to do pieces in

(24:42):
under 60 seconds as a typicalsort of length.
But and we would be doing thatbecause of technical constraints
, because at the moment theplatforms that sell our work and
not well equipped for largefile sizes, that's the, that's
the holy grail, that's wherewe're working towards and that
then changes the whole dynamicof of how we watch movies and

(25:05):
all that kind of thing.
But for the moment, just to getyou know a two and a half
minute piece, for example, wehave to choose what we're going
to do.
We either have to have verylittle movement in it or we have
to compress it, which we don'tlike doing.
But we found early on that theunder a minute was just not long

(25:27):
enough for you to expressyourself musically and I think
we've sort of settled into anice balance between the, the,
the music, the visuals, thelength, the movement etc.
Which tends to work out ofbeing a little bit over over two
minutes and that that seems togive you the chance, toby, to to
work your magic where you're.

(25:51):
You have a beginning, a middleand end and a theme to.
Is that about right?

yeah, that's definitely true.
I think the one of the sort ofexciting things about the fact
the the way we're working inanimating a still image, even if
that's come from a film in thefirst place, is that it does add
the kind of temporal elementand gives you a chance to tell,

(26:21):
sort of impart, a story ontothis still, and music is really
good for doing that.
And that's why in films, whenyou want to enhance emotion or
drama, that's why music is soeffective at bringing that sort
of element which is not alwaysobvious from what is shown

(26:43):
visually.
And so, like Jerry was saying,in order to kind of create that
narrative with music, it doestake time and it's it is really
hard to to sort of go on anyjourney within like a really you
know, within 30 seconds, whichwas you know the early stuff we
were doing and that was a realkind of challenge for me is like

(27:08):
well is, is that possible tokind of like start here and end
here and then how do you do thatso quickly?
but certainly throughout thefirst year of kind of working,
as we did start to sort ofextend our timelines and then
obviously reaching the kind offlow state series where we were

(27:30):
working with Nate and sort ofsettling on sort of two minutes
15 with this work, with the kindof animation style, we've got a
bit of a head start because itisn't as file size intensive as
if that was two and a halfminutes of film.

Yeah, we'll be screwed for the reason that that
Tobes was explaining in termsof the narrative arc of the
piece of music, it.
This is the most complete bodyof work that we've made.
That's, that's moving, that'sanimated, and I think that that

(28:12):
would be a real plus for you andNate Tobes working together and
doing the composition andplaying instruments together and
jamming together, and each ofthese individual NFTs stand
alone because of the freedomthat you've been able to bring
to the music.
I mean as well as the vision,obviously, but just the other

(28:34):
thing I wanted to touch upon isthat one of the things that
we've all loved about Nate'swork prior to this collection
was the three dimensionalitythat the twisted landscape
brings, because even if it'scome from a still, the twist
brings you, the viewer, intothat, whether it's a vortex or
whether it's the, the rabbithole of life, however you want

(28:57):
to describe it.
One of the pieces is actuallycalled after the undertow that
was in the in the collection,and although it's a 2d image,
the technique that Nate bringsdraw, literally draws you in,
which you would have seen in theexhibition and, through that, I
think that you need the time tobe able to be drawn in as a

(29:19):
viewer, which the music allowsyou to do, because you are
literally in the zone, you're inthe flow state when you're
watching the piece can I?

can I add to that also that that and I've only
really realized it quiterecently is that it's usually
Toby that ends up naming thepiece, by which I mean we all
throw names for a piece into ahat.
It's usually Toby's that wechoose, because what, for

(29:51):
example, after the undertow?
It's a watery landscape, it's a, it's a.
It's like coming up out of awhirlpool that you've been
sucked down into and and youknow we stress about what.
Now, what are we going to callthis piece?
and Toby comes up with after theundertow and you go bloody
obvious really wasn't it and butthat's what also, I think, in

(30:17):
that particular piece, forexample, that's what you had in
your head from actually quiteearly on, wasn't it?

naming wise both or feel yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
yeah, and I think I mean in flow.
So I think Nate had quite a, Ithink actually we probably all
had quite a few names in the end.
But certainly, yeah, I thinkthat's true like when I and in
this case when Nate and I werecomposing, you do sort of like

(30:44):
you get a feeling from thisvisual and you kind of follow
that pathway and that certainlywhat you create musically, in
that, that feeling that you tryto enhance, which is the first
one that the piece, kind of like, radiated to you, and then you
kind of reflect back, does youknow, point you in directions of

(31:08):
, of titles, because you'retrying to like, I guess, make
that, that feeling more that tothe person that's coming to the
exhibition to view it okay.

So let me ask you this, toby.
So you're saying earlier thatyou have done scores for film.
How is this different for youin your approach, obviously,
since it's not a narrative filmbut a narrative piece of art how
do you approach it?

I think I think in this case, like you have, you
actually have more freedom in anarrative film if you are sort
of somewhat bound by what thedirector is trying to say or
what the script's trying to say.
So that gives you kind of likea street that you can go down

(32:07):
and you might be able to, likeyou know, the air to the left or
the right of that sort ofmessage.
But certainly you're trying toamplify someone else's message.
And in this case it is like aquite a just a visceral reaction

(32:29):
to watching, watching thepieces and just kind of how, how
do they affect you, how do theymake you feel?
And that's the sort of startingpoint that I tend to use in
terms of when we started Nateand I started working together.
Often I have just like a littlelittle, kind of like a nuggets

(32:52):
of an idea that had beensomething that had come to me
from just watching the work thatNate, sarah and Jerry put
together.
And then that's when we wouldsort of like begin our own
collaboration of like okay, well, if we're sort of got this
little seed here, how do we sortof push it in directions, and

(33:12):
where do the ideas of the drumstake it, and even in one case it
was the drums that were thatidea and the music kind of
reacted to the drum.
So that was a reallyinteresting way to work.
But I think yeah, to kind ofsummarize your actual question
it's actually much more freeform and you can really do

(33:33):
anything, and that's certainlyone of the things I like about
sort of working in this format.

Can I just add something?
to that Sorry.
So you know, as filmmakers,jerry and I are very used to
working with musicians and Jerryusually directs the piece and I
usually produce.
And in that context, you know,as Tobes was saying, you know
the director has sometimeswritten the script or has

(34:00):
certainly been working with thewriter and has cast the movie
and has a very clear, you know,definition of how the score is
going to bring the drama or thepay-fas or the sentiment to the
piece.
And specifically with thiscollaboration with Tobes, sun

(34:21):
Grazers, as well as then workingwith Nate, we didn't want to be
didactic, we wanted themusicians to be, to have their
own freedom, and we do pass thevision backwards and forwards
with Toby, toby, jerry and I,even before we'd send it to Nate

(34:41):
and some things we rejected andsome things that Nate would
reject, and it has been acollaboration is kind of how I
would describe.

Yeah, and it's fully sent.

Yeah, and I think we had that very first convo
that we had with you, tobes andMelbourne, and before we'd even
started on the first four piecesfor Sun Grazers, we wanted you
to have that room and so I'mreally glad that it feels like
that, because we haven't hadmuch where we've not.
We might have wanted to amplifycertain things from each of us,

(35:15):
whether it's the visuals or the, the music, the soundscapes,
but it's, it's been fun, yeahall this is very hard for me,
though, because I'm a didacticmiglimaniac, so it's quite a
king.
you're the king, aren't you?
Yeah, they call you the kingsin Sun Houses.

So, king Jerry , at the gallery opening, you
talked about this art form andbasically changed in the world.
And you talk, you spoke aboutvirtual galleries and things and
blew my mind.

(35:53):
I'm like I say this is all.
This is new for me.
So you know, I think of goingto a gallery and seeing pieces
on the wall, seeing prints,paintings, sculpture in a
physical space, and you werespeaking of a digital.
I mean, this is a digital artand then you're also speaking of
a digital space.

(36:14):
Can you talk me through this?
Because this is that I say blewmy mind then and still even
trying to process this is stillkind of I'm still trying to
figure this out how all of this?

Sure, okay.
So when you say you're new toit, don't worry, we're all new
to it.
It's only by degree, because itreally has not been around very
long.
You know, we're all.
We're all talking about the AIchat, gbt.
And do you know, it waslaunched in the middle of
November.
We're only in February.

(36:49):
It's just extraordinary therate at which things move and
become accepted and then webuild on that and we move on to
the next and the next.
So you know, really, nfts weshould call them art NFTs,
because in a minute there'sgoing to be everything NFTs.
And that's an important part ofwhat Nate was saying about how

(37:10):
you tokenize things, and I'llsort of explain a bit more about
that at the moment.
But they've only been aroundfor a short handful of years and
I keep referring back to whenwe first got the internet, or
web2 as they call it now.
And we've been operating inweb2 for, say, call it, 25 years

(37:33):
now, just sort of the mid nine,mid to late 90s.
And if you think back to thatmoment when somebody said to you
, what do you think of theinternet, and you went, uh,
what's that exactly?
Oh, I know what it is.
I've read it in the newspaper.
It's where thieves and druglords run riots, isn't it?
And avoid the law.

(37:55):
And that's what we all thoughtthe internet was.
We had no concept of where itwould take us, what it would
result in the fact that, youknow, we can now have our fridge
tell us that we're about to runout of milk, or that all of the
things that we've come to takefor granted, like zoom, chatting
with our grandchildren or ameeting or whatever it might be,

(38:17):
all of the purchasing onlinethat we do the directions that
we need I mean, try going outwithout your iPhone these days
and finding your way from A to B.
We've all lost the ability todo it, and so we had no concept
at the start of web2, theinternet, as to what it would
become.
Here we are at an exactcorrelation of that moment, when

(38:41):
somebody said what do you thinkof the internet?
Um, what do you think of themetaverse?
We're at that moment.
We're go.

Uh well, let's define that in some way yeah
please from someone like me,what the hell is the metaverse?

okay, so it is a digital twin of where we're
where we're at.
Let me try and expand on that abit.
First, although everybody talksabout, ah, put a headset on and
wander around in the metaverse,yeah, you can, but that's quite
disorienting, especially forolder people.
So start in the easy way whichis on your screen and use your

(39:17):
mouse to move around in threedimensions.
It's not the same immersiveexperience, but it is a step
towards understanding it and itmeans that, for example, um,
we've we've had this exhibitiontogether in the oshi gallery, uh
, and we're used to what agallery is.

(39:37):
It has walls and it has aceiling and a floor and we walk
around on the floor and the andthe art is, you know, nicely lit
on the walls that's the space Iknow.
Yeah, there you go, and youstand there and you have a
conversation about it and youmove on to the next piece well,
yes, thanks, brown brother,that's a good exhibition you
have good wine and, um, well,there is a, a digital equivalent

(40:05):
of that, a digital twin of it,and actually using oshi gallery
is a really, really good exampleof that, because they did
create a twin of the real worldenvironment.
It actually looks like it is.
You can go and stand virtuallyin this virtual environment and
it is as if you are standing inthe real thing.

(40:26):
Now, those who are not yet onboard with this whole concept
would say well, why am I doingthat?
Why wouldn't I just go there?
Well, hang on a minute.
Um, first, you might be livingin new york and the gallery is
in melbourne, um, and you mightnot want to spend the two or
three days and thousands ofdollars that it takes to get

(40:47):
there, but you can afford togive 20 minutes on a friday
afternoon or whatever it mightbe.
So this enables people togather from all parts of the
world in the same place at thesame time, nearly as if they
were there.
And because it's not the flat2d thing, that, uh, that a zoom

(41:10):
call is, um, you are seeing aperson expressed in the way they
want to be expressed.
I mean, it might be in a DarthVader costume or, you know, with
a goat's head on or somethingin the same way as in real life,
in the way that we dress and wesort of um dressed to be a part
of our tribe, but never mindall that weird stuff.

(41:32):
Just imagine that you, youravatar, your simple avatar that
looks like you, appears in thisvirtual gallery and he's able to
talk one to one with a personwho's actually in new york, but
you're both standing looking atthe same painting, the same
piece of art on the wall.

(41:53):
And then imagine that sarah, asthe, as the producer of this is,
is, is talking to you in the,in the corner of the gallery,
but she can see that those twopeople over there have been
standing talking at that pieceof art for the last five minutes
.
So she'll go.
Excuse, excuse me, yes, I'mjust going to go over and talk
to those people and andtherefore her.

(42:15):
The physical relationship ofpeople within this gallery is
much, much more like what itwould be in the real world, but
it takes away the time problems,the expense problems, and then
lets you take one step further.
So, for example, our gallery inthe meta metaverse, which is

(42:37):
still kind of being defined as a, as an expression, but has a
water floor and, no, no ceilingto it.
Um, and because you're notconstrained by things like
gravity and physics in themetaverse, you can let again.
You let your imagination runwild.
Does that kind of get?

sure I mean so for me as a photographer.
I shot analog film for yearsdigital came out and I didn't
move into it, run away.
I told everyone that I knewthat was going into that.
I thought it's a passing fadyeah people are gonna wake up
soon enough and they go.
No, quality wasn't that goodand it wasn't until even uh, it

(43:21):
was around, actually around thetime that my daughter was born
that we got our first digitalcamera.
I think it was two or threemegapixels yes and it was great
because it was just somethingwhere I had to go and film, I
could take a quick photo and,much to her chagrin, uh, for the
first year I took a photographof her every day yeah and I
think now she hates camerasbecause of me um so I, you know,

(43:44):
at that time I saw, okay, thisis useful for that.
But what you're speaking of hereis again mind blowing.
And you know, I kind of thinkof you know where people used to
talk about, who people thatcould afford this could say, oh,
I'll meet you at lunch inlondon, if one was in new york
was in san francisco and theyhad the funds.

(44:05):
They can do this, this now, fromwhat I'm hearing, it's not
about funds.
This will be a possibility, a,a reality within a, within a
virtual reality yeah, it's,almost it's almost like um going
into one of those films.
Oh my god, the matrix type ofthing where there's a gallery,

(44:27):
am I, am I kind of grasping thisright?

yes, yeah and what, and what it does eat up is
not funds but time.
It is voracious on your timebecause it becomes addictive and
you go well, if I can do this,then maybe I could do that, and
so you explore a bit further andexplore a bit further, and
that's why there is such a rapidadoption going on here, but
still people have not reallywrapped their head around where

(44:51):
it has the potential of goingright, uh.

So nate, um, you have two hats here.
With flow state, you not onlydo this amazing twisted
landscape which goes over thefilm footage, you also are
helping tobi create some of themusic.
So, for you, are you everthinking about music as you're

(45:14):
making the landscape, theinitial landscape, or do you
come back to that?
Yeah, kind of kind of walk methrough this for you as because,
yeah, we're in two halves, yeah, for this.

Nate Hill (45:27):
Music's always been a huge part of everything that I
do, so um being in bands and andloving music um passionately
from a young age.
Um it's informed all of thecreative stuff that I do.
So when I'm creating visuals, Ioften almost always have a
record playing um at home whileI'm doing that.

(45:48):
So it's music definitelyinforms the art in some way,
even if it's just a small way.
With this particular project,it was really important to me to
to be able to have a little bitof a dabble in the music side
of it as well, just to be ableto have that full collaboration
that we were talking aboutearlier.

(46:08):
So being involved in in a lotof different aspects of the, the
whole overall piece and thefact that it was working with
someone like toby um was a huge,huge plus for me, being a uh
temperature up fan from uh awhile back, uh, so it was just
really cool to be able to umhave the visuals as something
that I normally do andcomfortable doing, but I then

(46:30):
also push into the music andhave um an idea of where I'd
like it to go and what I'd likethat universe to sound like, I
guess okay.

So, um, now with this we've touched about
this a little bit of the aitechnology coming out.
Do you guys see this, um andthis is a question for all three
of four of you do you guys seethis as a help or in a possible
hindrance?
Because I've heard of somethings where people are going
into the ai generator sayingtype me an essay.

(47:04):
Essay comes out.
So could someone not say I needthis landscape, this music yeah
out in terms of visual art.

It's already.

It's already it's happening as you can go into
there's.

There's several ones you can go into and type uh
, draw me a picture of a sharkwith a surfer on its back going
through a cosmic landscape inthe style of rembrandt and it'll
do it, and it's like anapproximation.
It can pull all those thingsand it can do something um and

(47:42):
it's gorgeous sometimes it

is if you know how to.

I mean, it's like it's like a tool if you know
what in any.
If you're trying to makesomething visual uh, music.
If you're trying to write anessay my brother-in-law, jayme,
is obsessed with chat gbt andhe's using it in all sorts of
interesting ways for hisbusiness of like writing client

(48:07):
emails.
Or if you have to write, if youhave to research um he's an
architect.
If you have to research aparticular um technique to
present to a client, you can putthat in and it will come up
with like all the informationthat can pull from the internet
and give you a really good broadlist of um ideas and from which

(48:31):
you then shape them, and thesame with the art tools.
It's like it can be good forlike an idea generation.
No one's gonna successfullylike do that and then sell it
for a lot of money becauseanyone could do it.
But the skill, I guess, is inlike knowing what to input on
the input side of the equationso that the technology gives you

(48:54):
back something that you wantokay.

But so I'm gonna ask you as a musician,
because I've heard that somepeople are talking about it can
be done musically.
So if they you know, if someonemade the example of the shark
surf a guy and said, and I wanta soundtrack sounding similar to
the temper trap, now is and isgoing to find the temper trap

(49:18):
and it's going to, I guess,create something musically
loosely based around your guysmusic.
So, yeah, how do you feel then?
Feel that as a musician that Isuppose, and maybe if I'm not
understanding things fully, butI guess if it collects all this

(49:39):
information, then it's going tohave a big pool to pick from and
it's just a matter of timebefore maybe you'll be obsolete
as a musician, possibly yeah, Imean look at, look at the
history of the world, our, ourentire human.

Look back we've made all sorts of innovations
we've made all sorts of careersobsolete over the past hundreds
of years through technology, soit's inevitable that that will
happen but there will always bea need to if you're a fan to see
a band live that's where itbecomes more tricky.

(50:18):
But but then there's things likeyou look at, gorillas have been
doing something for decadesalready where you know it's,
it's animations and hologramsand projections are the band.
I'm not squeamish about thesethings.
It will be a certain amount oftime before, like, physical

(50:39):
musicians are replaced, but Ithink it's inevitable that
visual artists will be replaced,musicians will be replaced.
Filmmakers will be replaced atsome point in the timeline,
because we've done that to allsorts of things that have been
replaced by technology, andthat's okay, because people will
figure out new and interestingways to interact with that

(51:03):
technology and create somethingthat we haven't even thought of.

Nate Hill (51:07):
yet that's what I was gonna say.
I don't think it's gonna stoppeople from being creative.
So because I know from mepersonally I have a need to do
something creative in my day,and so it'll just depend on the
tool that I use to be creativewith.
So that's sort of one of thethings I've been thinking about
with the whole AI thing.

(51:28):
Plus, at this stage, andprobably, like Toby said, it
probably will happen, but Idon't feel like some AI can
generate my visual language.
So there's gonna be parts ofthings that you can do as an
individual, as a creative, thatperhaps it'll take longer for

(51:50):
these things to come and comefor you and take you.
But I do think that it's just.
It is a tool, it's somethingthat you can look at.
You could be worried about itor you can just not necessarily
you don't have to embrace it,but you can perhaps use it as
part of your toolkit.
I think that's one of the waysthat creatives can go down this

(52:12):
path.
The other thing that I wouldsay is as it stands at the
moment, something interestinghappened to me the other day in
this AI world is I had acontract sent to me for an
artwork that I'm making for aposter for a band, and in the
contract it stipulated that youwere not to use any AI in the
creation of the artwork.

So there are.

Nate Hill (52:33):
It's very.
People are aware of it.
People know that there areoptions out there where you
could create something with AI,and it's not a personal creation
, it's a machine creation.
So there's a lot of discoveryto happen with this and I think
rather than be scared, just workout ways.

(52:54):
Embrace it, work out ways.

Another I mean an interesting sort of parallel
path to that is perhaps to lookat, like, the concept of
sampling.
When that became a thing andeveryone's like, oh, you're just
taking someone else's work, butpeople figured out creative
ways to take something andenhance it.
And I mean maybe an idea likeis that the AI becomes part of

(53:21):
your process and you're kind oflike visually sampling something
and then you're taking that andturning it through your kind of
like skill and style and allthose kind of things, and taking
it and turning it to somethingthat's better than what you
would have made on your own.
But with that so it'sinteresting to hear that people
are like going no, how do we dothat?

(53:43):
And I guess, and the side tothat is like well, how do you
police that?

Nate Hill (53:47):
Yeah, it's gonna be harder to.
I think now you can still sortof I feel like I can see what's
been AI 100% generated, if it'sa whole thing.

But if it's like, what does that contract mean?
Is like, can you use AI as likean idea generator and then take
it and completely do something?

Nate Hill (54:06):
I am sure you could, and that's the gray area.
It's a big gray area, yeah,absolutely.

But it's the difference of exactly what
you're saying, toby.
It's the difference of it beinga component or it being the be
all and end all.
I mean, I've been reallyconflicted about this until I
realized that.
You know, back in the day, along way back I know, when I was
doing my end of school examsand we weren't allowed to use

(54:33):
this new thing, the electroniccalculator.
You had to use this bloodyslide rule and I remember
thinking at the time this is notpreparing me for the world that
I'm going out into, becausethey have calculators there.
That's how it operates.
And of course, we thenmultiplied up with computers and

(54:53):
so on.
And the other day I read thatHarvard are now allowing AI to
generate the studentsdispositions at the end of the
term and the old Foggy and mewent hmm, absolutely.

I'm a questioner.

And then I thought back to that aspect of
the slide rule or the calculator, and you go well, if this tool
is out there, then we should betraining to use it and that
should become a component ofwhat we're doing.
But now we move on to thevisual side.
I don't just hand over theSarah on this, but I absolutely

(55:33):
agree with what you guys aresaying.
First, it's not a constraint tocreativity, it's just another
tool in the box.
But if it's and here's mypicture, which is generated by
AI that stuff I'm already tiredof because you can recognize it,
yeah yeah, yeah, 100%.

So we collect NFTs .
I mean, we all collect NFTs.
We're artists that create andmost of us then put the
percentage of what we've earnedback in, and often it's more
than we've earned.
Sorry, Tobes, sorry, tobes, soas collectors and I'm in a lot

(56:16):
of Twitter Spaces, groups anddirect messaging groups on
Twitter and dealing with lots ofartists and photographers
filmmakers and photographers, Ishould say and when some of the
photographers moved into usingAI, probably in the last two to
three months, I could pickimmediately if it was Dali or

(56:37):
Mid Journey.
And because it was, it's prettyobvious and I'm quite shocked
at how much material there isthat is pure Dali or Mid Journey
and I think that I actuallythink that some photographers
have somewhat lost their waybecause their own personality
isn't coming across in the art.
Having said that, we do collecta lot of AI, but when it says

(57:00):
all of the boys have said it's atool and the original heart of
the artist is coming through.
But one thing that I think ispretty obvious is one thing I
just wanted to say because it'sa massive subject and we could
probably talk about it foranother podcast.
Before Jerry and I got togetherin 1989, my background was

(57:22):
photography, stills photography,also film and television.
But specifically I looked afterfor two years an incredible
British photographer calledTerry O'Neill, who is one of the
world's leading portraitphotographers celebrity portrait
photography in general.

Right, okay, you know Terry's work right sure.

So I looked after him when he moved back to London
with his then wife, fayeDunaway.
He'd been in the US for six orseven years managing her career
and he came back to the UK andhe's a cockney guy so he swore a
lot.
I met him at a gallery openingand we got on well.
And I'd come back from Africa Ithink I'd been taking stills

(58:05):
over there and I'd beenintroduced by the gallery owner
and the gallery owner had saidyou know, terry's just got back
from the US and he's looking forsomebody to basically get him
out and about and working in theUK.
And the reason I tell thisstory is that, you know, terry
was a traditional photographerinitially, mostly black and

(58:26):
white.
The Stones, the Beatles, thewho, mccartney, oh, clapton that
was his era.
You know he was a kid of thatperiod of time and one of the
first things I did in order toget work for him was to look at
his body of work, so curate theblack and white material into
mood boards that I could thentake to galleries, to museums,

(58:48):
to magazines, to commercialclients.
And the reason I'm telling thisslightly long-winded story is
that, like Jerry and I, we areand were back along live action
filmmakers With the birth ofNFTs.
We have taken those live clipsof material that we've shot and

(59:10):
we've bought them into thecomputer and we've digitized
them and we've put VFX visualeffects onto those pieces so
that they're no longer just thenatural world.
So a particular scene which wecreated with Tobi is called A
Beater Birds and it's anextraordinary scene shot outside
Cape Town, very near one of thereally poor townships called

(59:33):
Kailisha, and it's a scene offlamingos in all their glory,
sort of dancing and struttingthrough the waters.
And I say dancing and struttingbecause the way that we bought
the piece into our edit suite.
We then added effects andslow-mo and so on that enabled

(59:54):
this action to sort of come tolife, if you like.
So what we're creating is notAI and was not AI and we're not.
I've tried to dabble with AI bytaking one of our pieces and
then going into Dali or goinginto mid-journey and using the
same prompts that I use when Iwrite the backstory to the piece

(01:00:15):
, and it's turned out absolutelyrubbish, because I'm not a very
good AI artist, clearly.
So you know, I always say AIisn't easy, like flying a
helicopter isn't easy, or beinga drummer or a musician or a
composer or a photographer, andit's the same thing as everybody
thinks they're a photographernow because we've all got

(01:00:37):
iPhones, but it's not about thebeast, it's not about the
software mid-journey, it's notabout the iPhone, it's about the
eye and it's about what you'retrying to say is what I think.
And then the last thing I wouldjust kind of say is that I'm in
quite a few photography groupsand taking your point, nate,
about the contract, there are alot of photographers, people

(01:01:00):
like Victoria West, who we allknow, who's won multiple awards,
you know internationalcompetitions and so on, and when
you're entering comps you'renot allowed to use even
backdrops.
And now it's saying no AI.
And you know, certainly withTerry's work we were based in
London and we would shoot a lotof album covers and I'd go out

(01:01:23):
in recce locations to find themoody sky that Clapton wanted
and the right kind of brick workthat he wanted, and so on, and
we'd wait for days and days anddays to get the right.
You know weather conditions,just as we do with live-action
filming.
And it got to the stage wherewe couldn't photograph the work

(01:01:44):
quickly enough to fulfill theclient base that we had.
So we started by bringing themusicians into studio, obviously
lighting them in the way thatwe wanted, with backdrops, which
is how, and that was back inthe mid-80s and we never tried
to say this is a live location.

(01:02:06):
We never said this is BatterseaPower Station or whatever.
But backdrops and effects havebeen used in all of our worlds,
and Toby was talking aboutsampling and I think that, as
Toby's is saying, victoria andothers now are no longer using

(01:02:26):
backdrops in their studio.
They are creating AI backdrops.
So that's putting the backdropartists potentially out of
business, unless they thenbecome an AI artist using those
skills.
So, yeah, it's a bigconversation, but it's not one
we're afraid of and I kind offeel like what Nate was saying.

(01:02:49):
We do have quite a visuallanguage of the work that Sun
Grazers puts out the hour andthe visual.
I'm very aware that when dronescame into our world of
helicopter filming, all ourinvestment in technology was,
frankly, obsolete almostovernight Half a million dollar

(01:03:11):
camera.
You can now have a 4K JaraSabilized camera on a drone for
a couple of grand and it'sreally good quality, but it
doesn't mean that the pilotknows how to create aerial
imagery.
There's a lot of people flyingvery low level, wanging
backwards and forwards, doingall that Superman stuff and
dropping over the edge of cliffs, and that's fine if that's what
you want to do, but it's notthe kind of visual language that

(01:03:37):
we have.
I guess we used to do thatstuff.

Alexander Hallag (01:03:41):
Hearing.
You know, as I said, it took mea long time to come into
digital technology myself and Iremember the first time I saw or
heard a Photoshop, Iimmediately hated the idea of it
because I didn't have enoughinformation.
And it wasn't until a good mateof mine actually said well,
with Photoshop you're not makinga great photo, in Photoshop

(01:04:03):
you're taking your great photosand just making it that much
better.
And when I start from thatapproach, that kind of softened
my ease into it, because I was.
I think part of my fear waspeople making fake photographs
or, you know, just maybe notfake photographs, but just

(01:04:27):
making things that were notpossible and or making a piece
of rubbish shine.
So when I finally did, when Iheard it from that viewpoint, it
made it.
It made me more open to thepossibility.

(01:04:48):
And I think you know hearing youknow, because, again, all this
technology is new for me of theAI stuff, yes, so for me, you
know, I started seeing Photoshopas a tool, as you're saying
with these tools, and so, if I'mhearing, correct it from all
four of you, that you're notscared of it, as perhaps I was

(01:05:11):
when I first heard aboutPhotoshop, but you're more
seeing this as just another toolwhich can be used and,
depending on how you use it andwhat you do with it, really
dictates.
Yeah, yeah, and how is this?

Nate Hill (01:05:23):
going to happen anyway.
So it's working out a way touse it or don't.
But I don't think that, youknow, burying your head in the
sand is necessarily an answerwith any of this.
So I've always felt like if youare creative and do something
creative, you'll find a way todo that with whatever you have.

(01:05:46):
So, whether it is and there arestill people doing analog
photography, you know andprocessing film, vinyl has made
a resurgence so I don't thinkold things are going to always
just forever go away.
There is always going to be usefor the tools that you have and

(01:06:07):
say, use them in the way thatyou can.
So, rather than being worriedabout it and want to stop AI, I
think just you know you use itor you don't, and you find your
own way with whatever you'regoing to be creative with.
And one other thing I wanted tosay when we were chatting about
it before, about how can youprove it.
I think part of the big plusside of things like NFTs is that

(01:06:31):
whole idea of provenance.
So being able to prove howyou've created something will be
a big thing.
So that's what I thought aboutwith the whole poster thing, is
that I can prove that Iillustrated this part, that I
took this photo to create thispart of this poster, so I can
actually show my work.
So, whereas if people just wantto plunk down a AI generated

(01:06:54):
image and claim it as their own,there will be ways that you can
work that out, whether that'shappened or not.

Sara Grayson (01:07:00):
Yeah, and here are we having a conversation.
Here we are having aconversation, which we do in
Twitter spaces, whether it'sonce a day or once a week or
once a month, and there willcome a point, I'm sure, when the
machine that's generated, theart can give the backstory.
But I think that part of thereason why we do these sort of

(01:07:23):
whether it's a podcast or aTwitter spaces or a talk in a
gallery or a museum, as Nate'sjust been doing in Sydney is
that the audience still wants tointeract and hear the emotional
connection with the artist tothe piece, in Nate's case in
Sydney, or all of our cases atOshie.

So if I can jump into somewhere, then, so
kind of going off what you'resaying, jerry, so let's say that
the gallery that Nate was justin in Sydney had a digital space
.
With that, someone from Seattlecould virtually attend his
exhibition, hear him in realtime.

(01:08:06):
So they'd still be in Seattle,but the experience would still
be as if they were there.
And again, if they were set upfor that, nate could have a
conversation with them in realtime as if they were face to
face, like we are right now.

Jerry Grayson (01:08:22):
Exactly yeah, and you can't have the free wine.
But you know, the wine you'vegone and bought for yourself is
going to be a lot less than theairfare.

Toby Dundas (01:08:32):
I mean, we've been in a way like this sort of
virtual attendance is.
We've been doing it for a longtime, like we used to go to the
library and attend a book inorder to research for an essay
at home and then when Web 2 camearound, something, you could
virtually attend that book andyou didn't need to go somewhere

(01:08:53):
to interact with that source ofinformation.
We've all been doing it forages, just that, as bandwidth
gets greater, that you can domore with it.
And now we're in a point wherewe can have a digital avatar of
ourselves in a digital locationwhich, just for our human minds,

(01:09:17):
makes us feel more involved inthat process.
It feels more kind of real tothe way we interact with the
world.

You know, with all this, all I can think of is
you know, think of it inFrankenstein, where they say
it's a new world of gods andmonsters and we are on a new
threshold of infinitepossibility, where some of these
things may become greatbenefits to us and some may
become great nightmares but, wedon't know, and it's very

(01:09:47):
exciting and a little terrifyingto go forward, but so is waking
up in the morning.
We can wake up and get hit by acar.
So we can't be living in thisfear base of don't embrace the
technology, rather go forward aswe do every day in life see
what happens, learn, adjust takein what is good for us.

(01:10:11):
If it's not, we don't do it.
And yeah, so you know, I thinkthat's part of what excited me
in seeing the exhibition is itshowed me a possibility of
seeing art and listening tomusic, looking at a short film

(01:10:34):
in a completely new way.
And excited me is like wow,okay, this is not what I'm used
to, but I did like the idea ofI'm seeing this visual from the
film side and I'm hearing music,which made me think of going to

(01:10:56):
the movies and watching a moviein the cinema, or DVD, blu-ray,
whatever the format and thenseeing this new component of
visual art mixed in and, as Isaid earlier, it's almost like
having it all in one frame, butit's all there.

(01:11:17):
Because, I'm not having to watchan hour and a half film.
You know, you guys, the piecewas saying two, two and a half
minutes.
So two and a half minute filmof amazingness and possibility.

Thank you.
I'm really, I'm so happy thatyou engaged in that way, Because
that was the intention and Ithink that's why we all had the
sense from the beginning that itwas a collaboration.
But we each had our areas ofheart and soul and blood to

(01:11:53):
bring to this.
So I'm, it's delightful thatyou felt that.
I mean that's an old fashionedword, but it is.
It's full of delight, I shouldsay.

It does come with new challenges.
I mean the, the.
We want the person who islooking at our art to be
immersed in it, and because ithas sound with it, it's very
hard to be fully immersed in itwithout wearing a headset, for
example.
You know, if everybody was, youknow, pressing the button and

(01:12:22):
activating the thing, or howeverthey were doing it, and you had
this cacophony of sound goingon, it wouldn't work at all.
But again, there is a solutionwithin web three, the metaverse,
because you can set it up suchthat the music doesn't become
audible until the avatar iswithin.

(01:12:42):
You know, a virtual, let's say,three meters of the image, and
for that reason, sorry to crossyou.

Donnie.
For that reason we created ourown metaverse gallery in a
software program called ARIUMA-R-I-U-M ARIUM Spaces and there
are other.
There are other software likeVoxels, so Voxels is what OSHI
Gallery used to create.
The digital twin, spatial, isanother gallery and we're in an

(01:13:11):
exhibition that opens I thinkit's Wednesday and the gallery
that's curated us has built agallery using Spatial.
So it's just another software.
One of the reasons why we choseARIUM when we built our
metaverse gallery last year andit did take you a good week

(01:13:33):
because we were importing itsall film in our gallery.
It's not the flow state,because that's a collaboration
and we haven't got to that pointyet of bringing it in and it
isn't any of the stills at thisstage, but it very much has the
personality of the three of usand whilst Jerry built it, there

(01:13:53):
was then, you know, maybecuration more by me than maybe
Jerry and Tobes, and then therewas very much a discussion about
the walls needed to be black,as they are in OSHI.
We built this last May so thatthe art could come off the walls
as if you were in a cinema, asyou say.
So even though it's a virtualgallery, it's still very much a

(01:14:17):
part of who we are in terms ofthe space that you go into, you
know, as the audience member orthe viewer collector.

So what's the future for the four of you
together?

I think we're about to have a lunch and figure that
out.

Nate Hill (01:14:38):
That's exactly right.
We created quite a largecollection of imagery and music
and for the first part of theexhibition at OSHI Gallery we
didn't release everything, sothe future is putting the rest
of it out there, I guess.
So we've got how many morepieces?

(01:15:00):
Seven, seven more pieces thatwe created that we didn't
release at the time.
We've got an album, almost ashort album worth of music that
we'd like to put out there forpeople to be able to enjoy on a
tone as well, and we'll just seewhat happens from there, with
such a pleasure and privilegeworking with these guys that I

(01:15:21):
can't rule out doing more aswell.
So we'll just see how it allplays out.

Don't be alarmed.

Well, hey, let's wrap up, guys.
We wrap up.
If you can, I'll have these inthe show notes so people can
find you guys easier.
But just again, see who you areand your socials and how people
can connect to your workindividually and then as the
whole.

Nate Hill (01:15:46):
Cool.
So Nate Hill, digital artistfrom Melbourne, and you can find
me on Instagram under just NateHill, On Twitter at Nate Hill
Photo, on Facebook at Nate HillPhotos.
Just for a bit of fun and games, nothing's the same.
And I have a websiteNatehillphotographycomau.

Fully Doxxed.

Yeah, fully doxxed.
Yes, toby Dundas, musician andcomposer, my Instagram is Lheho,
which is E-L-H-E-E-H-A-W, orthe band is the temper trap.
Thanks, Nate, and I've got awebsite too, which I should

(01:16:31):
definitely update, which is justTobyDundascom.
And then the Sun Grazerswebsite is SunGraiserscom,
correct.

Correct.

I'm going to pass it on to the boss for this one.

Well, as Jerry says, you could go to just
linktree forward slashsungrazers S-U-N-G-R-A-Z-E-R-S.
We're actually on Twitter asHelly Films, capital H-E-L-I
films, and Toby's Twitter is thetemper trap.

(01:17:09):
As Toby was saying, OurInstagram is the earthwins,
because that's the IMAX filmthat we made, which is how we
met Toby 10 years ago, so wethought it was appropriate to
use that.
The underscore earth underscorewins, the earthwins.
Jerry Grayson, Sarah Grayson,both on LinkedIn.

(01:17:32):
For those that like LinkedIn,which interestingly more and
more people are using this year,it's bizarre, really bizarre In
our world.
I won't give you Facebookbecause they're private and
they're pretty rubbish and it'sall family stuff and I guess
just picking up on what Nate wassaying.
So, yeah, we released fourpieces that sold out during the

(01:17:55):
Oshi exhibition, which wasfantastic.
One fellow bought all fouranimated pieces, which was
extraordinary to us.
Amazing.
He's a big collector.
I think he loves, knows Nate'swork very well.
Another fellow bought seven ofthe still piece, which was

(01:18:17):
extraordinary too, and obviouslyhe's somebody that wants to
trade and to hold some and, asNate says, see the trajectory of
we artists working together.
And then we've had other peoplewho've bought two pieces of the
edition that's currently stillavailable.
It's got a day in the deluge.
It is a limited edition of 10pieces and four of those have

(01:18:41):
sold already, two of them to oneperson and I think the price on
those was something like 350bucks, something like that, and
they've kept one for their owncollection and they've put one
up at 12.50 already.
So that's the kind of thingthat Nate was talking about,
that collectors like to seethere's a potential to have a

(01:19:03):
return.
And I think, as Nate was saying, to go back to the body of work
, they obviously know Nate'shistory, but they don't know of
the Nate Hill Sun Grazerscollaboration.
So, yeah, we're going to go andhave a good lunch and we're
going to go and talk aboutwhether we release the next
pieces on Nifty Gateway, whichis the platform that Flow States

(01:19:25):
on at the moment, or whether werelease on one of the other six
or seven platforms that we'recollectively on.
Thanks, alex, though that wasgood fun.

Thanks, guys, you know, so you know, as we
enter this new domain, thank youfor sharing and enlightening me
to new possibilities out there.
And, yeah, really excited tosee where this world takes us in
art, music, visually, film.
Yeah, I'm really excited.

(01:19:57):
Thank you guys for coming onboard.

Nate Hill (01:20:00):
Thank you Our pleasure.

Thanks for hanging out with us.
If you like this and would liketo hear even more about
exciting and informativeepisodes, then please take a
moment to give us a follow onInstagram at the music is
talking, and don't forget tosubscribe to our channel
wherever cool podcasts can befound.
Thanks again.

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