In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab: Torah, Tech, Tomorrow, host Mike Wirth sits down with his friend, Israeli digital artist and projection‑mapping creator Erez Cohen. Mike first encountered Erez’s work through a projection‑mapping piece called Metamorphosis, where veins and fungi slowly overtake a Jerusalem building and turn the city itself into a living, speculative Jewish landscape. You can explore more of Erez’s video mapping, sound, and interactive pieces in the My Works section of his portfolio at erezcohen.art.
The conversation traces Erez’s journey from hacking video games and running private servers to building immersive environments with tools like Visual Studio, TouchDesigner, and 3D animation. Together they dig into how that background in world‑building feeds directly into his practice of Jewish futurism, why his art is Jewish simply because he is Jewish, and what it means to design custom, generative experiences for a generation raised on platforms like Roblox and Minecraft.
Mike and Erez also reflect on collaborating on a digital projection project for Israel after October 7, the impact of war and canceled exhibitions on an artist’s plans, and the tension between staying present to crisis and still imagining the futures our kids might inhabit. It is a grounded, personal look at how one artist is using projection, sound, and code to explore Jewish identity, memory, and possibility in real time.
0:06
6 seconds[music]
0:18
18 secondsWelcome back to the Jewish Futurism Lab, where [music] we talk Torah, tech, and tomorrow. I’m Mike Worth, Jewish futurist, community artist, and design
0:27
27 secondseducator. Coming to you from Crowntown, Charlotte, North Carolina. Today, I want to introduce you to Israeli digital
0:34
34 secondsartist Eris Cohen, a friend of mine whose work first grabbed me with a wild projection mapping piece called Metamorphosis, [music] where veins and
0:42
42 secondsfungi slowly overtook a Jerusalem building. His work is ethereal and thoughtprovoking, and I’m happy to share our very nerdy convo. This is the
0:51
51 secondsepisode where Jewish futurism gets into the ones and zeros of creativity. Let’s do it, y’all.
1:12
1 minute, 12 secondsAll right. Today I want to introduce you to uh a friend of mine, Israeli digital artist Eris Cohen. ERS and I first
1:20
1 minute, 20 secondsreally connected when we both participated in a a digital projection art project uh for Israel in the aftermath of October 7th in Tel Aviv. Uh
1:29
1 minute, 29 secondsas a group, we came together. We were trying to hold grief, solidarity, and resistance and light and motion on the sides of buildings instead of just in
1:38
1 minute, 38 secondsour our our social media feeds. And since then, I’ve been following his work closely, watching how he keeps returning
1:46
1 minute, 46 secondsto the question of what Jewish imagery belongs on the walls and in our streets when the world is on fire. I first
1:54
1 minute, 54 secondsencountered Eris’s practice through his metamorphosis projection mapping piece where as I mentioned veins and
2:01
2 minutes, 1 secondmushroomlike fungi slowly in a systematic way start to crawl over this facade of a building in in Jerusalem and
2:09
2 minutes, 9 secondsevolve so many cool things to make this effect happen and really was dazzling.
2:14
2 minutes, 14 secondsAnd I I had to know this guy right after seeing that work and doing this collaboration.
2:21
2 minutes, 21 secondsAnd there was something in that image that hit me, you know, right in the the Jewish futurism part of my brain. You know, a city uh we think uh know getting
2:31
2 minutes, 31 secondsquietly rewritten by this kind of unexpected like organic intelligence growing across its surface just kind of
2:38
2 minutes, 38 secondsresonated in so many ways as we think about the future and you know what things are unfolding today and impacting
2:44
2 minutes, 44 secondsour world. And over time, you can really feel how Eris’s background in hacking video games and running private servers
2:53
2 minutes, 53 secondsand teaching himself tools uh like Visual Studio and Touch Designer. It’s super cool. Turned into a language for building worlds instead of just images.
3:05
3 minutes, 5 secondsHe doesn’t set out to make Jewish art in particular as a category sign. The work is Jewish because Eris is Jewish.
3:14
3 minutes, 14 secondsBecause his reference, his memories, his fears, and his hopes are all shaped by Jewish life in Israel. And they leak
3:21
3 minutes, 21 secondsinto everything that builds uh whether he plans it or not. Super cool work. And that to me is Jewish futurism in
3:30
3 minutes, 30 secondspractice and not in branding. but an artist taking the same generative customizable tools our kids use in
3:38
3 minutes, 38 secondsthings like Roblox and Minecraft and letting his own Jewish experience shape what kinds of worlds those tools can can
3:46
3 minutes, 46 secondsmake and show us. That’s the conversation I want to share with you today. So without further ado, my amazing interview with uh the one and
3:55
3 minutes, 55 secondsonly here with all of his contact info and my friend for a few years in the link in description.
4:04
4 minutes, 4 secondsReally since your your metamorphosis piece uh the projection mapping.
4:09
4 minutes, 9 secondsOh, I’m so glad that you have seen this piece. you know uh actually like when you said you send me like some uh
4:17
4 minutes, 17 secondsgeneral like ideas and topics that we going to talk about I actually like few minutes before like
4:25
4 minutes, 25 secondswe got up I looked for this piece because this piece is so um I made it as a
4:34
4 minutes, 34 secondsstudent in Jerusalem um and actually like this piece is like some kind of um mushroom fungi taking over the building.
4:48
4 minutes, 48 secondsUm which is like I did a 3D model of the building and grew uh systematically like
4:57
4 minutes, 57 secondsveins and fungi over the building. Um and uh like
5:05
5 minutes, 5 secondsI got the it was like very early stages of AI. I used the also um I took
5:11
5 minutes, 11 secondsfootages of uh Jerusalem and infused them in um ant colony um kind of way
5:22
5 minutes, 22 secondsbecause uh this uh work was like first
5:28
5 minutes, 28 secondsgot sparked by me like when um probably if you have maybe seen the the Last of Us show.
5:37
5 minutes, 37 secondsYeah. about the fun guy will cause zombies. So, uh so this actually show and video game
5:46
5 minutes, 46 secondsof course is um talking about this fun guy that like taking over like it’s people in the show
5:55
5 minutes, 55 secondsbut it’s actually a phenomenon that happen in nature where a fun guy take over a ant colony.
6:03
6 minutes, 3 secondsSo this whole um video mapping piece uh is is something that like I see right
6:11
6 minutes, 11 secondsnow uh as many things that you know it’s always I guess art in general is always
6:19
6 minutes, 19 secondsgetting related to the correct times I guess like the Bible you can say but u yeah
6:27
6 minutes, 27 secondswell I I saw that piece and and um I was following you on Instagram and in your stories you’d you’d flash sometimes the
6:35
6 minutes, 35 secondsUI of Touch Designer and I went oh actually he knows his [ __ ] [laughter]
6:43
6 minutes, 43 secondsand you know your works now I’ve been seeing has been in many places in Israel and in ours electronica like really
6:51
6 minutes, 51 secondsimpressive achievements um and uh you also studied oil painting uh when you were younger
7:00
7 minutesyou’re you’re you’re a mela Vic, you know, wizard, my friend, like, you know, level 49. So, thank you very much.
7:08
7 minutes, 8 secondsSuper happy to talk with you. And, um, you know, we’d love to know about your your background and how you how you fell
7:15
7 minutes, 15 secondsinto digital art because I I I read that you’re self-taught. So, tell us a little bit.
7:21
7 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. So, um, as a kid, I like drew a lot in classes in school, high school, you know, it’s something that, uh, I
7:30
7 minutes, 30 secondslove to do. And also like um as a in young age like my mom sent me to this
7:36
7 minutes, 36 secondsoil painting um uh class by a very like amazing artist that is living in a lot is presenting
7:45
7 minutes, 45 secondslike in Israel museum in Jerusalem a lot of pieces and
7:52
7 minutes, 52 secondsyeah I mean until this day like when I smell the the smell of oil paint is like
7:59
7 minutes, 59 secondsso uh It’s it’s strong freshbacks into the past, you know. Um
8:06
8 minutes, 6 secondsyeah, it’s like painting is been like maybe my first medium. Uh but also as a
8:13
8 minutes, 13 secondskid I was loving playing video games, I guess. Um got into a lot of art
8:20
8 minutes, 20 secondscommunities. I mean it doesn’t was art, it was like um it’s was called tagging, you know. I got introduced into
8:28
8 minutes, 28 secondsPhotoshop while uh a community online was needed for some kind of logo and and I somehow got like a Photoshop in my
8:37
8 minutes, 37 secondscomputer and and started teaching myself I guess from YouTube and and divine art
8:44
8 minutes, 44 secondsI think it this called uh this website called which uh it’s like a great community of digital artists. Um, and I
8:54
8 minutes, 54 secondsgot lucky in high school, I guess, to start um using Arduino
9:01
9 minutes, 1 secondif you know this uh little one uh board um mini processor or I think it’s called.
9:08
9 minutes, 8 secondsYeah. Beautiful. Like tons of little projects you can plug in sensors and they have like a you know like they have the basic chip that uh is good, right?
9:18
9 minutes, 18 secondsIt it caps out with memory and then they have like some awesome ones, right? So, that’s really cool. What tell us what year like about what time in in history is this?
9:29
9 minutes, 29 secondsOh, um bet you’re in high school and you’re you’re doing Yeah, it was like 2014. 2014. Okay.
9:38
9 minutes, 38 secondsIn in um high school in Elat in the south. Born and raised in Elat. Beautiful. The Red Sea. Yeah.
9:47
9 minutes, 47 secondsYeah. Yeah. I like these cities have a very special place in my heart, you know. Um it was like a front seat in the
9:57
9 minutes, 57 secondsin the theater of like nature because like you’re surround surrounded by mountains, sea, coral reefs, uh a lot of
10:07
10 minutes, 7 secondsquiet like comparing to Tel Aiv right now. Um, and
10:13
10 minutes, 13 secondsyeah, so like when I got introduced into like uh coding, I guess it was uh like
10:20
10 minutes, 20 secondspretty hard. No GPT that will script for you like something small. Um,
10:27
10 minutes, 27 secondsI I knew how to read code, but I was never like a hard hard coder. Um, I always hated math, but like as I grew as an artist, I understood that math.
10:38
10 minutes, 38 secondsIt’s like I I I envied you know I I was like ah I wish I knew math because I can I I will
10:48
10 minutes, 48 secondsdo like such amazing thing or I will understand stuff better to use this one algorithm that that you know for example
10:57
10 minutes, 57 secondsum uh algorithmic um like this is another topic but like how
11:04
11 minutes, 4 secondsalgorithms are uh presented to us It’s kind of beautiful art pieces, you know.
11:11
11 minutes, 11 secondsUm, no, you make you make great sense. I uh I’m a little bit older than you are. Um,
11:20
11 minutes, 20 secondsso my my uh beginnings happened uh with Flash, so I was a a big Flash user in
11:26
11 minutes, 26 secondsthe 90s and the early 2000s. And once uh action script 2 came out where you could do object orientation,
11:35
11 minutes, 35 secondsyou could make voids and particle systems and like all sorts of amazing amazing things. And I I too I was like,
11:42
11 minutes, 42 seconds”Oh, I should have paid attention in high school because you know now trigonometry, right? S and cosine makes
11:51
11 minutes, 51 secondsan object move around the screen in a in a circular pattern, you know, and it’s like I can write the code too, right?”
11:59
11 minutes, 59 secondsBut it’s like I have no idea what the hell it means. Yes. Yes.
12:04
12 minutes, 4 secondsActually like um this Sunday I started teaching touch designer at Kifa University. Beautiful.
12:12
12 minutes, 12 secondsBeautiful.
12:13
12 minutes, 13 secondsYeah. And I always try to see myself as like um well I was a student as a in art school
12:22
12 minutes, 22 secondsbut um see me again as a student you know being introduced to those things as
12:27
12 minutes, 27 secondsthe first time and um I can I can like it’s very challenging to show somebody
12:36
12 minutes, 36 secondsthat uh assign or coinous functions are happy things to see or like you know
12:45
12 minutes, 45 secondswhen I see like um the options that are available to to
12:52
12 minutes, 52 secondscreative coders um and get excited. I think I wish I could like pass those
13:00
13 minutesexcitements and feelings to other people to to catch up with like the the energy,
13:06
13 minutes, 6 secondsyou know, of the of the making stuff right now because I I guess like we will
13:13
13 minutes, 13 secondstouch it a bit more about like AI um coding for like um a dyslexic uh kind
13:21
13 minutes, 21 secondsof person like me um who is like the syntax we which you know like the dot um
13:29
13 minutes, 29 secondsseek uh um all of those like so matter and to to a person that like
13:40
13 minutes, 40 secondsfor example um the iPhone correct me in writing in Hebrew when I writing in English um I
13:48
13 minutes, 48 secondsdon’t need to be perfect anymore to to communicate or to no or not being judged if like my uh
13:57
13 minutes, 57 secondsHebrew dot got like some kind of switching um letters, you know, and um
14:05
14 minutes, 5 secondsyeah, I think is a quite positive things like the changes right now. A lot of people seems to hate AI revolution right now.
14:15
14 minutes, 15 secondsIndeed. Yeah. there’s there’s a whole range of opinions and um it’s so interesting to hear you approach it uh
14:22
14 minutes, 22 secondsyou know through uh an accessibility point right where you can really say that uh because of dyslexia right coding
14:32
14 minutes, 32 secondsand syntax can be maddening right because like a a curly bracket or something or can all the way up here and
14:39
14 minutes, 39 secondsit’s 50 lines down can will make any person insane yeah but debilitating where you can’t
14:47
14 minutes, 47 secondseven do it. So like this now gives you this on-ramp to doing beautiful things.
14:52
14 minutes, 52 secondsI mean your work is is poetic, you know, like in the way that it approaches stuff and that I we we can talk about AI. Um
15:02
15 minutes, 2 secondsum I want to stay here in this kind of digital space because you know AI is is a is an outcome of the work that you and
15:11
15 minutes, 11 secondsI are doing which is generative art, right? So, so that existed for 30 years
15:18
15 minutes, 18 secondsor so, right? At least I’m aware of um before AI as we know it, generative AI
15:25
15 minutes, 25 secondsexisted. I mean, you’ve seen and and us too, right? Is like collage machines and
15:31
15 minutes, 31 secondsthings that like rearrange. I mean the uh processing community that’s online
15:38
15 minutes, 38 secondsI’ve been connected to not so much anymore but back when I was a student I went to Parsons um and um I studied with
15:46
15 minutes, 46 secondssome awesome people who really said y’all you got to learn Java you got to stay in this processing world and um
15:54
15 minutes, 54 secondsyeah just like the ability to sketch there and uh with object orientation to be able to create locking And that’s how
16:03
16 minutes, 3 secondsI really understood algorithms for the first time was through um creating like data trees out of uh Excel documents and
16:11
16 minutes, 11 secondsdatabases and just seeing like wow you know and and um like here’s this system that has parameters and is very logical and can
16:20
16 minutes, 20 secondsscale up in a massive massive way. Um, so talk about how in your work, you
16:27
16 minutes, 27 secondsknow, you you’re looking at at the nature of of generative and how you see algorithms and is there anything in there eras that’s Jewish?
16:38
16 minutes, 38 seconds[laughter]
16:39
16 minutes, 39 secondsWell, as an artist, I think I I pre present myself in each one of my artwork. So
16:46
16 minutes, 46 secondslike I guess there’s a lot of way to saying that but um but what come into my mind is like also
16:55
16 minutes, 55 secondsa work I did as a student uh which is was like my final project uh it was uh
17:03
17 minutes, 3 secondsit was back in the time where GPT 3.5 was and um I was fine-tuning this model
17:12
17 minutes, 12 secondson my personal diary which is written in Hebrew with my
17:19
17 minutes, 19 secondsdyslexic handwrit. Um, and I turned into my handwriting into a font and the AI
17:29
17 minutes, 29 secondswas like memorized all the previous other diaries pages that I wrote. And
17:36
17 minutes, 36 secondsevery person that came into the the exhibit got like a
17:43
17 minutes, 43 secondsa fresh wrote written AI page in uh diary in my like uh page in my diary
17:53
17 minutes, 53 secondsum and only for him you know I didn’t saved anywhere the outcomes of those system I
18:00
18 minutesmean um I have put in like a little sensor that Like if there wasn’t any person in
18:08
18 minutes, 8 secondsthe room, there is no new generated uh text and after like when it was exhibit
18:17
18 minutes, 17 secondsuh exhibits in the past. Um a lot of people came to me and said, “Wow, Arz, it it’s made me really like
18:27
18 minutes, 27 secondsemotional. You really got me in this one.” And the text was amazing. And I’m like I don’t know what you have read.
18:37
18 minutes, 37 secondsUm it’s interesting what are you saying I’m really curious about like what happened when you were there because I
18:46
18 minutes, 46 secondshave no idea what you have read like I just made so looped the mini system with
18:54
18 minutes, 54 secondsAI agent. Uh for um another piece of this artwork was um another AI agent
19:02
19 minutes, 2 secondsthat was those two um two agent was talking to each other like in a
19:08
19 minutes, 8 secondspsychological treatment and the first one is just like spitting out new pages in my diary like it was me
19:18
19 minutes, 18 secondsand the other agent was like um I told him okay so we uh psycholog
19:27
19 minutes, 27 secondsyou’re in a treatment and the next text that you’re going to read is the patent. It’s like is the guy
19:36
19 minutes, 36 secondssitting in front of you? Talk to him like um what you going to say to him if he was telling you like this is my
19:46
19 minutes, 46 secondsday like this is what I wrote in my diary. Um, so I I think like that
19:56
19 minutes, 56 secondsputting yourself into some generative if it’s in the actually in the broken code you coded or
20:05
20 minutes, 5 secondslike the thing that you thought about even if it’s AI vibe coded app for
20:12
20 minutes, 12 secondsexample in our case is like um artpiece you know I make a lot of those nowadays
20:19
20 minutes, 19 secondsUm I I think that even if AI is involved in the process,
20:26
20 minutes, 26 secondsAI is just waiting for us to use it. It would not make this silly um thing that
20:34
20 minutes, 34 secondsyou wanted to make. He made it only like because you asked it for.
20:43
20 minutes, 43 secondsUm you you touched on so many fantastic uh things in that space you know and um
20:51
20 minutes, 51 secondsit’s lovely that you made theater some sort of drama occur with with the AI you know like within itself um that’s
20:59
20 minutes, 59 secondsamazing you know I I I really am excited when artists really see that um there’s
21:06
21 minutes, 6 secondslike a whole space of unexplored variations within a system and uh AI I
21:13
21 minutes, 13 secondsreally helps you do that really well and and get people to just like see all the in between, you know, and uh you know
21:23
21 minutes, 23 secondswhat what do you feel about that as a as a superpower of AI is that um it can bring a people have said it can bring a
21:31
21 minutes, 31 secondsdanger of monotony, right? Because if you know you and I and a bunch of people turn into makers like us um then we
21:41
21 minutes, 41 secondscould like tsunami uh the internet or or the world, you know, feasibly with like every variation
21:48
21 minutes, 48 secondsand then there’s no uniqueness anymore, you know, or or do you think no, not at all. You know, it’ll it’ll stay it’ll
21:57
21 minutes, 57 secondskeep be kept in check, you know, what what kind of outcome if you were to think to the future as might unfold? I mean, you know, when you said it, I got
22:06
22 minutes, 6 secondsremembered like that even um before AI times, I I I think I saw some YouTube
22:15
22 minutes, 15 secondscommentary about every possible sound that we can possibly make. There’s a limited
22:24
22 minutes, 24 secondscombination of like frequencies that we apparently can make. So or here and the
22:31
22 minutes, 31 secondstime will come and people talked about it even before the the AI revolution um that
22:40
22 minutes, 40 secondsit will come I guess but um I think that everything is remake of everything and
22:48
22 minutes, 48 secondsI don’t know maybe like fashion things will come back and and it will be refreshing.
22:55
22 minutes, 55 secondsUm yeah, this is quite interesting. I mean the whole slope I I I guess you heard
23:02
23 minutes, 2 secondsthis um slang slope. Um it’s getting
23:09
23 minutes, 9 secondsa a niche for itself like people who take their slops seriously I guess.
23:17
23 minutes, 17 secondsuh which is funny thing to say because if it’s so uh easy to make you know what
23:25
23 minutes, 25 secondswhat it can bring to people it’s it’s um maybe a counter thought that came up to me
23:34
23 minutes, 34 secondsI mean don’t don’t don’t you see slop as sketching right like just photorealistic
23:41
23 minutes, 41 secondssketching you know like um I think I I’ve talked on this show before about
23:48
23 minutes, 48 secondsthere’s a fundamental understanding of creativity that everybody should should have, right? And when somebody makes that and they take it seriously, right?
23:59
23 minutes, 59 secondsLike um they could be seeing images that amazing for the first time and just be mesmerized like you and I have been, right, in the past like, whoa, that’s
24:07
24 minutes, 7 secondsreally good, you know? Um and they’re still in that state. And as you do more creative things, you start to see all of
24:17
24 minutes, 17 secondsthe creative things and you start to know reference points and you you start to see like, oh yeah, right, like you were saying, there’s a lot of repeats,
24:25
24 minutes, 25 secondsthings loop, right? History rhymes, there’s revival of styles and things. Um
24:31
24 minutes, 31 secondsand uh you know I think uh you know AI gets us to this this place now where we can uh you know anybody can sketch at this super high caliber level.
24:43
24 minutes, 43 secondsSo it’s just it’s a little lopsided. You know what I mean? Because there’s something beautiful about the simplicity of a pencil and paper with a raw idea,
24:52
24 minutes, 52 secondsright? like those two things moving through space in tandem that just human beings kind of got right and we should still honor like I I believe that I
25:01
25 minutes, 1 seconddon’t know if you are a fan of sketching but I think it’s necessary you know um when you have a raw idea really just
25:09
25 minutes, 9 secondssomething not wellformed um and uh I like to use AI
25:16
25 minutes, 16 secondsslot right the slop I make um is uh I like to I fine-tune some some models
25:22
25 minutes, 22 secondsmyself to on my my work and I talk about it in my own book, right? Just to be transparent, I’m trying to model transparency of use of AI in that way
25:32
25 minutes, 32 secondsand that it really expands my ideation horizon and gives me the opportunity to do those weird fringe things that would
25:40
25 minutes, 40 secondsbe normally uh not efficient or or like a waste in production time and cost. So,
25:48
25 minutes, 48 secondsum that’s amazing, right? like u but I I don’t want to carry it into the final work
25:54
25 minutes, 54 secondsuh in that way because I still feel as a graphic designer that like the ethical side of image
26:02
26 minutes, 2 secondsappropriation we’ve lost our way just in the world we’ve lost our way like the rules it’s like Mad Max you
26:10
26 minutes, 10 secondsknow like who who’s going to fight for it like type of type of vibe you know what do you make
26:17
26 minutes, 17 secondsI mean as time passed on. We don’t hear about those lawsuits and all of those
26:24
26 minutes, 24 secondscopyright things. It’s just like irrelevant anymore, you know. Uh funny to think about it, but
26:32
26 minutes, 32 secondsI mean um creating images now I mean if everybody can do it so it’s
26:40
26 minutes, 40 secondsbecoming cheap I guess uh which is um yeah it’s more hard to impress people
26:48
26 minutes, 48 secondsand but I don’t know if you know this one guy is called
26:57
26 minutes, 57 secondsuh I have a book of him uh Rick Robin I think. I hope I don’t
27:03
27 minutes, 3 secondsmistake his name. Um he say he’s like um a spiritual guy that uh tell us.
27:12
27 minutes, 12 secondsYeah, he’s a spiritual guy that um uh music producers love to hang with him and love to have them in the studio. Oh,
27:21
27 minutes, 21 secondsyou have the name Rickman. Yes. Yes. Yes. The Beasty Boys, LL CoolJ, right? Def Jam Records.
27:27
27 minutes, 27 secondsExactly. So yes, amazing guy. Yes.
27:31
27 minutes, 31 secondsSo I saw this one meme about um they took like one part of interview with him
27:38
27 minutes, 38 secondsand uh they ask him like what people pay you for. If you don’t do music, you don’t produce, you don’t know anything.
27:46
27 minutes, 46 secondsand he was like just saying um something in between the lines of I have the confident in my taste and I
27:56
27 minutes, 56 secondsknow how to express myself. So uh for example
28:02
28 minutes, 2 secondsuh a normal person will not be able to express himself to the levels of um producing
28:10
28 minutes, 10 secondsone kind of another of image with AI you know um it’s like
28:19
28 minutes, 19 secondsif people are scared of the the job being taken away for them which is is scary like as um
28:28
28 minutes, 28 secondsas a person in the workforce, you know, as a a freelancer that nobody owes uh anything for me, I guess. Um I don’t
28:38
28 minutes, 38 secondshave an employer to pay me like the um retirement or like uh how you going to say it? Um a pension.
28:48
28 minutes, 48 secondsYeah. Yeah. Like or or um some benefit. Yeah.
28:51
28 minutes, 51 secondsBenefits of quitting. you know, if you quit, you you quit, you get like this bonus or something in Israel at least.
28:59
28 minutes, 59 secondsYeah. Yeah. I mean, so yeah, it’s kind of scary that that my job will be taken away from me, but
29:09
29 minutes, 9 secondsI need to have my confidence in my taste and that I know how to see the right thing, say the right thing, if it’s to
29:17
29 minutes, 17 secondsthe client or if it’s for the to the AI that I’m making my images, making my
29:24
29 minutes, 24 secondscodes, you know. Um and I mean basically
29:33
29 minutes, 33 secondsa great artist even if it’s oil painter um if you’re a master of of painting
29:41
29 minutes, 41 secondsit doesn’t say that you will be a great artist. Um you need to have something more than like just a nice picture.
29:50
29 minutes, 50 secondsUm, if it’s a background story for the piece, if it’s a strong uh emotion that
29:58
29 minutes, 58 secondsyou created like as a person, you know, you embedded a certain emotion or at
30:05
30 minutes, 5 secondsleast try to explain something in you in the piece that you are making. Um
30:12
30 minutes, 12 secondsI I guess that if if it’s true prompts or through your paintbrush, this will what will make you into a this kind of
30:22
30 minutes, 22 secondsartist or a slope machine that um I I don’t I I don’t judge you know because I
30:28
30 minutes, 28 secondsam a consumer of slop as we are all if we know it or not you know it’s it’s kind of it’s it’s bit like kind of
30:36
30 minutes, 36 secondstricky those days. Um, so yeah, I got to appreciation also for
30:42
30 minutes, 42 secondsthe sloped artists that uh fill my feeds in in funny and and cat videos. I guess
30:50
30 minutes, 50 secondsI mean there’s some stuff that’s like been mindblowing, you know, like and I think it’ll be in bananas when they release some of the tools that they’re
30:59
30 minutes, 59 secondsteasing, you know, like that do Marvel level special effects in a couple of hours, you know. Um, but uh, one thing
31:09
31 minutes, 9 secondshere before we get back to nerding out about digital art is, um, you know, you’re an oil painter and a digital
31:17
31 minutes, 17 secondsartist, right? Who works with AI and appreciates AI. You’re you’re really have this amazing like dual identity,
31:24
31 minutes, 24 secondsright? Because art, the art world says that the oil painter is the real master,
31:31
31 minutes, 31 secondsright? The real artist uh, with what you’re saying. And you’ve uh you shared earlier like well you know it’s not just a pretty picture you have to tell a
31:40
31 minutes, 40 secondsstory you know I mean like which I think you found in coding and digital art and AI so where today do you think the the
31:49
31 minutes, 49 secondsaura right of art like if if the aura of art is what I just defined of being the masterful painter right um the original
31:58
31 minutes, 58 secondswork right oil art you know like even the smell of the linseed you said it’s nostalgic you know and it it also means money.
32:07
32 minutes, 7 secondsYou know, if it’s acrylic, nah, you know, you can’t charge as much. Boo- boo. So, where today do you think the
32:15
32 minutes, 15 secondsaura of of art is?
32:22
32 minutes, 22 secondsUm, I would say video, I guess. Yeah. like
32:28
32 minutes, 28 secondswe we transformed into like video first you know like if for example Instagram
32:36
32 minutes, 36 secondswas a picture uh social network I guess and now it’s reals it’s like
32:45
32 minutes, 45 secondsuh images doesn’t like even spark a bit of attention from us anymore I guess if it’s not presented in
32:54
32 minutes, 54 secondsthe right um on the white wall. I mean if it’s in gallery for sure I can go and watch a painting or an image or a print.
33:06
33 minutes, 6 secondsUm in real life it’s easy but we consume so much media those days through the
33:14
33 minutes, 14 secondsphones. I guess video is like it’s also like the number one media we
33:21
33 minutes, 21 secondsconsume and also it’s like so popular so it doesn’t feel special anymore.
33:31
33 minutes, 31 secondsUh if you like take it into oil painting, it was so special because
33:38
33 minutes, 38 secondsum I don’t know like every time I see a painting nowadays, I try to look for the
33:45
33 minutes, 45 secondsum brush strokes to see if it’s a print.
33:49
33 minutes, 49 secondsFor example, those days I guess if I see a cool video, I go check if it’s an AI video.
34:00
34 minutesUm so yeah video is like
34:08
34 minutes, 8 secondsit’s it’s the future but maybe after it I don’t know what will happen [laughter] because we already morphing into
34:16
34 minutes, 16 secondssomething newer. I I I feel but I don’t know don’t know how to point my point like my hand into
34:24
34 minutes, 24 secondsI think what’s what’s really great um what you just said is that uh that uh you talked about things being special.
34:34
34 minutes, 34 secondsThat’s what I that’s what I really mean.
34:35
34 minutes, 35 secondsThat’s a great word to use when I’m when I’m trying to say aura, right? Trying to sound like a like a a a fortune teller.
34:42
34 minutes, 42 seconds[laughter]
34:43
34 minutes, 43 secondsUm, but that’s a word that comes from from history when when talking about when when photography came out for painters,
34:50
34 minutes, 50 secondsh how it stole the aura of art, right? Because you could just print print a copy of the
34:57
34 minutes, 57 secondspainting and I don’t need to buy your painting for a million dollars or even then, right? Whatever it was, $1,000, who knows what painters were selling for
35:05
35 minutes, 5 secondsthen. Um, and uh, I think that’s great, right? Like that’s a piece we can use for the definition. So thank you. Right.
35:13
35 minutes, 13 secondsWe could say what is special like when we ask people you know what’s special in art today for you know and where does it
35:21
35 minutes, 21 secondslive? Because you you talk about the gallery the the building you know the screen you know these are all living
35:29
35 minutes, 29 secondsplaces for you as an artist and that’s incredible. So it’s like art is everywhere uh almost today right? Yeah.
35:39
35 minutes, 39 secondsYeah. Yeah. I mean, um, for example, I got a friend, uh, a conversation with a
35:46
35 minutes, 46 secondsfriend who wanted me to help him, uh, in in um,
35:53
35 minutes, 53 secondshe he needed like images uh, for some for some reason. And I was saying to him, “Oh, so cool. You use a
36:01
36 minutes, 1 secondnano banana.” Oh, ah, you need to take a picture. Oh, cool. So, use an iPhone.
36:06
36 minutes, 6 secondsAnd he was like, “Yeah, but I want errors behind of it. I want something
36:13
36 minutes, 13 secondsspecial.” I I can say. Um so yeah, everybody can do anything right
36:21
36 minutes, 21 secondsnow. And for like the this person who starting a business and
36:28
36 minutes, 28 secondshave like already tons of u of expenses, you know, you get like he buy everything
36:36
36 minutes, 36 secondshe need in the business. Now it’s time for marketing.
36:40
36 minutes, 40 secondsH will generate a nice cat video eating his pizza in the his pizzeria. He doesn’t need any anyone else, you know.
36:51
36 minutes, 51 secondsUm and yeah, good for him. You know, it’s like uh those are like people who will really
36:59
36 minutes, 59 secondsbenefit from the the AI, I think, the most. Um the the small person, you know, um the the screw in the in the system.
37:12
37 minutes, 12 secondsUm but time like not it’s not that the it’s not that every time a person will
37:20
37 minutes, 20 secondstry to like cut off expenses or like need something quickly. Sometimes he will need something special, something
37:28
37 minutes, 28 secondsuh who I guess some um I try to remember it was like also I
37:38
37 minutes, 38 secondssaid to him let’s bring somebody if you want something special let’s bring somebody
37:44
37 minutes, 44 secondsthat his whole life he wanted to be a photographer okay and you bring him you
37:52
37 minutes, 52 secondsget the you pay to the to this uh person. But be sure that like every uh
38:00
38 minutesimage he he takes he he take it because he he wanted to. This is his out. He
38:07
38 minutes, 7 secondswant to be um he have his special eye for example, his human eye. And
38:17
38 minutes, 17 secondsum I guess like when you support an artist for this example a
38:23
38 minutes, 23 secondsphotographer is like not you wouldn’t say firstly this is an artist because you need photo of a restaurant and you
38:32
38 minutes, 32 secondsbring an a photographer but this photographer this is what he’s doing with his life. He’s dealing all day with
38:40
38 minutes, 40 secondsimages. Um and this will bring this something special that we talking about
38:48
38 minutes, 48 secondsum the the human desire to do things like um to the best to the to what we can do
38:58
38 minutes, 58 secondsin AI. It doesn’t I mean you have these settings in cloud code how much effort you wanted to put into it which is funny
39:08
39 minutes, 8 secondsbecause um yeah it’s just like uh I want my AI agent to be lazy today. I did like it
39:17
39 minutes, 17 secondsnot wasn’t something that you said. Um but yeah let let’s say that when you bring an artist to do something or uh
39:26
39 minutes, 26 secondsany other person be sure that like the human desire will produce something
39:34
39 minutes, 34 secondsbetter than just um a I don’t know any other person that will just prompt the AI make me an
39:44
39 minutes, 44 secondsamazing piece of art to my restaurant or or something like that.
39:51
39 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. No, absolutely. So, I think it it sounds like you’re saying that um you know, we need to lean in, right? We need
39:59
39 minutes, 59 secondsto engage this technology so that like it doesn’t shape us, right? We have to shape it. Um that that that I think is
40:07
40 minutes, 7 secondswhere we kind of lose we could lose our soul, you know, like if uh if we if we you and I were to outsource everything.
40:15
40 minutes, 15 secondsUm, and clearly AI is changing the way that we work. You know, the the the things that we would spend time doing
40:22
40 minutes, 22 secondslabor on now get onto other things, right? Like maybe other iterations of an idea or refinement of something or or uh
40:32
40 minutes, 32 secondsenhancing the business side of our business, which is always like, oh, I just want to do the work, right? The art.
40:39
40 minutes, 39 secondsSo, I think there’s it’s important that we have to keep that mindset with AI, right? And like I’ll always now that I
40:47
40 minutes, 47 secondsget that I’ll ask my I like to use perplexity a lot. So I’ll ask perplexity like hey could you please like I’m thinking about this as my goal, right?
40:56
40 minutes, 56 secondsLike I don’t want to just ask this kind of random question. Here’s where I’m going. And I I’m very good about laying out my prompts. A nice tip someone just
41:05
41 minutes, 5 secondstaught me is um do you know JSON notation, JavaScript object notation?
41:11
41 minutes, 11 secondsDo you write prompts with that ever?
41:15
41 minutes, 15 secondsUh no. So like I prompt using uh like voice uh recording uh you know
41:22
41 minutes, 22 secondstranscripting uh so I I talk a lot in English to the AI and describing what I
41:29
41 minutes, 29 secondswant out loud. Uh which make this all feeling like very magical to say.
41:35
41 minutes, 35 seconds[laughter]
41:36
41 minutes, 36 secondsThat’s awesome. Um, so Arez, I want to I want to ask you about um your new piece. Uh, it’s now
41:45
41 minutes, 45 secondsexisted a little bit, but the the live real time AI video camera, which blew my mind, man, that was so cool to see. I
41:54
41 minutes, 54 secondsthink the uh the other great successful moment of that in history was uh I think Tik Tok had come out with an anime
42:02
42 minutes, 2 secondsuh live thing that still was a little slow, right? But yours has this wonderful fluid speed and
42:10
42 minutes, 10 secondsthat’s incredible. So talk about the genesis of that and you know where it stands now where it’s going.
42:20
42 minutes, 20 secondsUh so real time AI isn’t something new. Um my
42:26
42 minutes, 26 secondswork is uh cannot be done without uh open-source libraries that people wrote
42:33
42 minutes, 33 secondsfor stable diffusion to be exact. Um and I have just like took a lot of things
42:43
42 minutes, 43 secondstogether and and make it a one piece I guess like mixed a lot of different kind of thoughts and ideas. And
42:54
42 minutes, 54 secondsso the technical side is um is one thing but um what made
43:02
43 minutes, 2 secondsuh this project interesting is um a project that was invited for me um to
43:12
43 minutes, 12 secondsmake um real time AI video mapping uh uh kind of installation
43:20
43 minutes, 20 secondsUm, and I found myself uh in a rabbit hole like like not a rabbit hole but uh
43:27
43 minutes, 27 secondslet’s say like uh I was in the zone when building this and
43:34
43 minutes, 34 secondsat the time like uh besides the the tool that was like available to to like everybody um I think the few stuff that
43:43
43 minutes, 43 secondsI did differently was like mixing the video mapping element with a touchscreen
43:50
43 minutes, 50 secondsand um manipulating the the user experience um
43:57
43 minutes, 57 secondsto make you paint with your finger straight into the AI um outcome.
44:06
44 minutes, 6 secondsSo in one side you just uh finger paint like in um all the other painting uh
44:16
44 minutes, 16 secondssoftware but the feed the video feed that you seeing is the real time AI
44:24
44 minutes, 24 secondsforming into like into your painting and into your lines. Um
44:31
44 minutes, 31 secondsand yeah, this walk was like um I think the first thing that I did and went
44:38
44 minutes, 38 secondsviral and and got like u I didn’t understood how like viral it
44:47
44 minutes, 47 secondswill be because you know this stable diffusion is like very old right now but
44:54
44 minutes, 54 secondspeople still getting excited to see the same stuff in different um
45:02
45 minutes, 2 secondsin different views, you know, because everybody knew how it’s looking, but
45:09
45 minutes, 9 secondsthe the UI that I made to this thing made it uh usable for any person. And
45:16
45 minutes, 16 secondsthis is what we actually did. We already test this system in a real live festival in Jerusalem and gave the people to
45:26
45 minutes, 26 secondspaint in this application and the output is projected to the Jewish Museum of Italian uh the Jewish Italian Museum.
45:37
45 minutes, 37 secondsYeah. Uh in Jerusalem which is a special place to his own. Beautiful place. Yeah. Yeah.
45:45
45 minutes, 45 secondsUm so yeah it’s to me it was like a fun project but it suddenly went into a
45:53
45 minutes, 53 secondsviral piece and from all over the world suddenly people approached me and and like uh it was a short time of like a
46:02
46 minutes, 2 secondsvery crazy hype about the thing. Um and uh it it’s pushed me a lot into
46:12
46 minutes, 12 secondsum alen stling this um mixing um the special thing about mixing uh things one
46:22
46 minutes, 22 secondsin each other. For example, um we talked about how image uh AI uh generative uh
46:30
46 minutes, 30 secondsart for example images is not special because everybody have it but if you do a simple
46:39
46 minutes, 39 secondstwist into it and I can drop examples but it’s like ruining the the maybe the im
46:48
46 minutes, 48 secondsimagination. Um, it’s okay that you get the first thing
46:54
46 minutes, 54 secondsfrom the AI, but if you don’t make the mark on it, uh, your own,
47:03
47 minutes, 3 secondsuh, maybe you missing out um, another part
47:10
47 minutes, 10 secondsof yourself that you can put into your piece. Um, yeah, I love that, man. That’s that’s
47:19
47 minutes, 19 secondsfantastic, right? That you make this really meaningful connection between that you see that in yourself.
47:27
47 minutes, 27 secondsThat’s right. That’s what I mean when I say that you you have a really great sense of connecting to algorithms, you know, as these nebula mysterious
47:35
47 minutes, 35 secondsesoteric things, right, that um are everywhere. Um now, uh so I love that
47:43
47 minutes, 43 secondsyou’re using stable diffusion. That’s that’s what I use to to train uh my Jewish futurist uh neon mic model
47:52
47 minutes, 52 secondsthat I’ I’ve uh I love it because, you know, it feels like uh I can come up with a composition, you know, of something and it’s like, “Oh, cool.
48:02
48 minutes, 2 secondsWell, let me let me then make that. Let me draw and paint that.” Um I feel like that’s a that’s a fantastic way to work.
48:09
48 minutes, 9 secondsUh and uh so this is incredible. this thing goes viral, right? And like now
48:16
48 minutes, 16 secondsyou’re you’re really getting deep into all this side of things. Um to what end, you know, where do you
48:24
48 minutes, 24 secondsthink uh where do you think you want to take this experiment, right? Versus what clients are asking you to do?
48:31
48 minutes, 31 secondsUm so yeah, clients it’s uh
48:38
48 minutes, 38 secondsI love to take uh commercial works actually. Um because even if I don’t
48:46
48 minutes, 46 secondslike uh as an artist don’t like the vision um people that know don’t know what you
48:54
48 minutes, 54 secondsare doing can ask for pretty weird things sometimes you know it’s it’s weird to me
49:01
49 minutes, 1 secondfor them it’s totally fine and logical but yeah like what what what’s been thrown
49:09
49 minutes, 9 secondsyour way that’s been like what You can you can keep names out of it, you know.
49:16
49 minutes, 16 secondsUh no, for example, I did a interactive piece for children’s uh which is a
49:23
49 minutes, 23 secondsmotion capture um interactive game where a penguin on screen is mimicking
49:31
49 minutes, 31 secondsyour body. And I mean it’s got into this weird
49:39
49 minutes, 39 secondsplace where the anatomy of the human body is not the same as the anatomy of the penguin.
49:47
49 minutes, 47 secondsAnd the penguin is not as reactive as you are.
49:54
49 minutes, 54 secondsand and I had this dialogue with the the client
50:01
50 minutes, 1 secondtrying to explain him like that um yeah maybe it’s like a technician mind
50:09
50 minutes, 9 secondsor like an artist mind that like you have those weird logical blocks that no
50:16
50 minutes, 16 secondsI cannot drew a paint oil painting with acrylic brush no this is cannot be happening but uh Um
50:25
50 minutes, 25 secondsthis like weird um they asked me to do it differently and then you need to
50:32
50 minutes, 32 secondsthink how you how you overcome yourself, how you like step up from like the correct position
50:41
50 minutes, 41 secondsthat you have and and push a little far more more into the client. Um,
50:50
50 minutes, 50 secondsand a lot of the time when I work for a client job, suddenly I will stop midway, do a little backup save to this weird
50:59
50 minutes, 59 secondsmidway uh outcome that I have and we’ll come back to it because I missed Yeah. Yeah. I will fork it and then and
51:08
51 minutes, 8 secondsthen I will come back to it because I I miss uh I I miss something and I got
51:14
51 minutes, 14 secondsthis weird abstract um outcome from the systems. It’s supposed to be like very beautiful and commercial and to the
51:23
51 minutes, 23 secondsclient taste suddenly it became super weird um and I call it like happy accidents. Yeah.
51:30
51 minutes, 30 secondsYeah. some things that if we think about the dark side or like the evil side of AI,
51:40
51 minutes, 40 secondsit’s much harder to me to come up with happy accidents.
51:46
51 minutes, 46 secondsIt’s something that uh I I think about a lot when I like have an idea and I thinking how to execute it.
51:54
51 minutes, 54 secondsMhm.
51:56
51 minutes, 56 secondsto make AI flexible and like give me the power to mess
52:04
52 minutes, 4 secondsaround with stuff is kind of challenging. Um because it’s it’s re it’s writing like a
52:12
52 minutes, 12 secondswhole system in a few minutes and and there’s no way you can like tweak stuff
52:19
52 minutes, 19 secondson your own. Uh like unless you are like a experienced developer I guess which I’m not.
52:30
52 minutes, 30 secondsI’m very little, you know, I learned how much code should artists learn, you know, like that. What’s the you learn what you need for the project and that’s
52:38
52 minutes, 38 secondsit, you know. Um, yeah. No, that’s it. I I appreciate what you said earlier, you
52:47
52 minutes, 47 secondsknow, about uh your dyslexia and how that connects you to your AI use. And I think like that that is the same for me.
52:54
52 minutes, 54 secondsYou know, I’m I’m ADHD plus. I I have who knows what else is happening with me and um yeah like I I get fog I get
53:04
53 minutes, 4 secondsscrambled I get an idea and I lose it and I will I’ll sit for 10 minutes and try to recconjure it you know like ah I
53:12
53 minutes, 12 secondshave it you know and the glimmer is there and um and sometimes like having a
53:18
53 minutes, 18 secondschat with an LLM about nonsense stuff or something I’m tinkering with like brings it back you know I I’m really interested in this idea of being in the flow state.
53:30
53 minutes, 30 secondsYou know, you know what I’m talking about when when you’re working and and coding, which just like wow, you know, like just that you’re having these
53:37
53 minutes, 37 secondslike elevated states of of dopamine and and you know, the serotonin’s flowing and you’re feeling amazing about what you’re doing, you know.
53:46
53 minutes, 46 secondsUm I think in AI well I I got like myself your experiences when you have
53:53
53 minutes, 53 secondsthis uh ma this one moment and the perfect idea come to your mind uh maybe
54:01
54 minutes, 1 secondyou in a bar maybe you drink like a wine or or I don’t know just was showering you know the shower is like a very good
54:09
54 minutes, 9 secondsspot for ideas to come um so with AI I I
54:17
54 minutes, 17 secondscan when the idea hits and you are afraid of it of like you
54:24
54 minutes, 24 secondsforgetting it the hype to go down or I don’t know something like will stop you to from making it right now you can’t
54:33
54 minutes, 33 secondsthrow it to the AI to make it and and
54:39
54 minutes, 39 secondsI I guess like this flow state the flow zone um
54:47
54 minutes, 47 secondsis something that AI is uh getting uh more good at at like one shot prompt to uh walking thing.
55:00
55 minutesIt sounds Yeah, it sounds scary. uh or or I mean
55:08
55 minutes, 8 secondsif you have this one idea you can make like a very simple prototype and and I I think this is a good thing you know
55:17
55 minutes, 17 secondsbecause to uh just think about something make it happen and then perfect it it’s like I
55:27
55 minutes, 27 secondsthink it’s the most um recommended way I can introduce to somebody uh that want
55:34
55 minutes, 34 secondsto like have big dreams that start small and then go bigger and scale up. Uh in
55:41
55 minutes, 41 secondsart it’s it’s it’s also you know um Yeah. Right. I found Mona sketches before the Mona.
55:52
55 minutes, 52 secondsYeah. Yeah.
55:53
55 minutes, 53 secondsAnd they show a development, right? Like not a not a a perfect like some somebody sat down and Oh, there it is, you know.
56:00
56 minutesYes.
56:02
56 minutes, 2 secondsUm, so there is I’m I’m you know curious about um
56:10
56 minutes, 10 secondsare there any themes in your work that explore your Jewish existencehood right that exist that talk about life in
56:18
56 minutes, 18 secondsIsrael that talk about life in lot right for example which is uh unique amongst Israeli cities.
56:25
56 minutes, 25 secondsYeah. um uh your place in the universe, time, cosmology, all all those things,
56:33
56 minutes, 33 secondsyou know, your your work is like it it when I see it, it takes me to other places. It uh I often talk about with
56:41
56 minutes, 41 secondsJewish futurism that um you know, the work when I when I go there and I’m doing my my I’m in my flow state, I enter a liinal space, right? A liinal
56:50
56 minutes, 50 secondsspace in between reality and somewhere else. tell us.
56:56
56 minutes, 56 secondsYeah. Um, so
57:02
57 minutes, 2 secondsI would say that like um I use a lot of technology to produce my
57:09
57 minutes, 9 secondsart and also like as I use technology as art
57:15
57 minutes, 15 secondsum itself I can say um this is like I’m in this uh creative
57:23
57 minutes, 23 secondscoding uh niche I guess um And the coding is part of the art itself. So it’s like this new medium.
57:34
57 minutes, 34 secondsAnd you know when I um while studying in the
57:43
57 minutes, 43 secondsart school in Musla in Jerusalem, uh the 7th to October came and
57:50
57 minutes, 50 secondsum I was pretty much frozen in in terms of creating stuff.
57:57
57 minutes, 57 secondsUm, it’s like opposite of what you asked,
58:03
58 minutes, 3 secondsbut I mean the me being Jewish is like um very scary uh thing to be right now.
58:17
58 minutes, 17 secondsYou know, it’s been yesterday the Holocaust uh national day in Israel and Yeah.
58:26
58 minutes, 26 secondsYeah, sure. And I finding myself like thinking about this podcast that we have today. Um,
58:35
58 minutes, 35 secondsexposing myself as a Jewish artist, I guess, because I don’t go too viral about me being Jewish. Um
58:44
58 minutes, 44 secondsand I I got a lot of time my art got involved into um into this subject which
58:55
58 minutes, 55 secondsit’s it’s really scared me to know that like growing in a lot I was
59:04
59 minutes, 4 secondsfar away from any like I don’t didn’t experience in my childhood any
59:12
59 minutes, 12 secondseven that Israel was was was like going through a lot. Um, and then moving into
59:20
59 minutes, 20 secondsJerusalem, I I got into understanding that
59:27
59 minutes, 27 secondsevery piece that I do is is some kind of mess who grew in Israel who is Jewish.
59:36
59 minutes, 36 secondsUm, and like uh my uh parent like my uh dad
59:42
59 minutes, 42 secondsis Moroccan and my mom is Egyptian, you know. Um
59:49
59 minutes, 49 secondsand suddenly I make um
59:58
59 minutes, 58 secondsso suddenly from a kid that grew in a lot and drew in classes and loved to paint
1:00:06
1 hour, 6 secondsin oil and you know just saw beautiful stuff in in the craft and in the making
1:00:14
1 hour, 14 secondsand in putting you inside something h and really enjoying
1:00:21
1 hour, 21 secondsit. You know, suddenly I come to this um art school and I figure out that
1:00:29
1 hour, 29 secondsuh simple stuff that I do have some strong political agendas suddenly, you
1:00:36
1 hour, 36 secondsknow, and and I didn’t really knew where I would come into. for example, um
1:00:45
1 hour, 45 secondsthe art school experience is quite different than the art that’s like you, you know, from the little hometown that
1:00:54
1 hour, 54 secondsthey come from. Um art is just like something special, beautiful. Uh it makes you excited.
1:01:04
1 hour, 1 minute, 4 secondsUm learning more into art, art history. um
1:01:12
1 hour, 1 minute, 12 secondsbeing exposed to to other kind of art, you know, for example, um
1:01:20
1 hour, 1 minute, 20 secondsJerusalem is, I think, the most interesting place in Israel for artists.
1:01:25
1 hour, 1 minute, 25 secondsIt’s it’s um creative ecosystem that
1:01:32
1 hour, 1 minute, 32 secondsI haven’t seen really too much in Tel Aviv, for example.
1:01:37
1 hour, 1 minute, 37 secondsI haven’t even not even talking about that for for sure, but um making art in Jerusalem is uh was challenging to me as
1:01:46
1 hour, 1 minute, 46 secondsas like Israeli, as Jewish um
1:01:53
1 hour, 1 minute, 53 secondspretty pretty like um powerful times in my uh creative uh journey, I guess,
1:02:01
1 hour, 2 minutes, 1 secondto to um get hit by those um thoughts.
1:02:13
1 hour, 2 minutes, 13 secondsYeah, I I’ve heard and tell me if I’m right here. I’ve heard uh my Israeli family especially say that there isn’t really much anti-semitism in Israel.
1:02:22
1 hour, 2 minutes, 22 seconds[laughter]
1:02:23
1 hour, 2 minutes, 23 secondsSo, so I can I can absolutely see what you’re saying where the work you were doing was about your life and then all
1:02:31
1 hour, 2 minutes, 31 secondsof a sudden in the online space the world it got moved into this political space not not by your choice by by others choices.
1:02:41
1 hour, 2 minutes, 41 secondsYeah. online. Um I guess like in art school they also
1:02:48
1 hour, 2 minutes, 48 secondslike uh teach you about like um so all kind of arts and and sometimes even the
1:02:55
1 hour, 2 minutes, 55 secondsthe teachers were like saying uh stuff that like I didn’t even meant
1:03:03
1 hour, 3 minutes, 3 secondsto get into some kind of a debate or like for even um
1:03:11
1 hour, 3 minutes, 11 secondsuh pronouncing my talk as um political or something and um
1:03:19
1 hour, 3 minutes, 19 secondsand yeah this is part of the process I guess but online online is like
1:03:26
1 hour, 3 minutes, 26 secondsum it’s it’s maybe the scary arena maybe I’m living in Israel so I feel safe here but uh online is is is
1:03:36
1 hour, 3 minutes, 36 secondslike an other kind of battlefield you know to be exposed to to
1:03:43
1 hour, 3 minutes, 43 secondsa very um violent uh hate, I guess.
1:03:51
1 hour, 3 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. Yeah. It it lives and it thrives online.
1:03:57
1 hour, 3 minutes, 57 secondsIt’s uh healthy to take good breaks, right? Yeah.
1:04:01
1 hour, 4 minutes, 1 secondRashem for Shabbat. So, that’s uh that’s amazing. I like putting my phone away and, you know, cut it cut it and cut it back. Um yeah, I was I agree with you.
1:04:13
1 hour, 4 minutes, 13 secondsYou know, I I’ve now been to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and have had unique experiences in both cities. Um I was in Jerusalem for the Bianali. So like
1:04:21
1 hour, 4 minutes, 21 secondseverything was art centric and the exhibition that I was in um at the He slow-mo center was, you know, wonderful
1:04:29
1 hour, 4 minutes, 29 secondsbecause it was Jewish artists from all over the world um coming together. It felt really really amazing. And then
1:04:36
1 hour, 4 minutes, 36 secondsgetting to see like um the the amazing uh Hami Hami File, right? Uh the uh
1:04:44
1 hour, 4 minutes, 44 secondscoffee house art residency museum place that’s got incredible work uh by amazing
1:04:50
1 hour, 4 minutes, 50 secondsartists um and uh you know and then contrast that with things at like the the museums um you know on on Ben Yehuda Street that are just historic things.
1:05:02
1 hour, 5 minutes, 2 secondsAnd that you’re right, the Italian the Jewish Italian Museum is is a phenomenal be beautiful building. You know, it’s kind of in a little grotto, a little al
1:05:11
1 hour, 5 minutes, 11 secondscove thing. So, um yeah, that’s uh that’s really awesome. So, I’m gonna ask you straight up. Do you feel like your work is Jewish
1:05:20
1 hour, 5 minutes, 20 secondsart? You know, when you’re when you’re creating these algorithms and and things like that, and I’m thinking specifically if I could ask you about your piece
1:05:28
1 hour, 5 minutes, 28 secondscoming, which is the the landscape that you did. That’s the sound visualizer, right? Like to me that’s that’s
1:05:36
1 hour, 5 minutes, 36 secondsconnecting to the to the parardz, you know what I’m saying? Like in Cababala and and I felt like that was a Yeah, of
1:05:44
1 hour, 5 minutes, 44 secondscourse I map that onto your work, you know? So I’m asking you uh do do any of these things kind of
1:05:52
1 hour, 5 minutes, 52 secondsblow in that way? And do you feel like it’s Jewish art?
1:05:57
1 hour, 5 minutes, 57 secondsUm, yeah. I think that
1:06:04
1 hour, 6 minutes, 4 secondsI I guess like because it’s so complex to to okay, how I will phrase it.
1:06:16
1 hour, 6 minutes, 16 secondsFor example, the work, the coming work is a scan of uh flowers in in forest near Jerusalem.
1:06:28
1 hour, 6 minutes, 28 secondsAnd for this specific artwork is um 3D scan
1:06:35
1 hour, 6 minutes, 35 secondsof it, you know. So I I’m not sure if like every piece I
1:06:43
1 hour, 6 minutes, 43 secondsmake I think as a Jewish art but those times I understand that like
1:06:52
1 hour, 6 minutes, 52 secondsum even though the all the the hardships
1:07:00
1 hour, 7 minutesum it is what it is. I am what I am and and especially in hard times, you know,
1:07:09
1 hour, 7 minutes, 9 secondsuh I see myself as but I I find magic that in the in the
1:07:17
1 hour, 7 minutes, 17 secondsscariest time of your life, you are like Elohim, you know. It’s like
1:07:25
1 hour, 7 minutes, 25 secondsyou you are still um or or like um
1:07:34
1 hour, 7 minutes, 34 secondsyeah holidays you know it’s all part of of me and I cannot like
1:07:43
1 hour, 7 minutes, 43 secondsuh even if I could I cannot deny it. Um to the haters online, it doesn’t really
1:07:50
1 hour, 7 minutes, 50 secondsmatter who or what do I think about myself because I I am already in this um square, you know.
1:08:01
1 hour, 8 minutes, 1 secondSo it doesn’t really matter like even if I see it as Jewish art, it is Jewish art because I’m the one who made it.
1:08:14
1 hour, 8 minutes, 14 secondsMash. Mash. I love it. Um, that’s beautiful. You know, I think I asked this question and and I can see you’re
1:08:22
1 hour, 8 minutes, 22 secondslike looking at me like what are you saying really? You know, because that’s the difference between being in the diaspora, right, and being in Erit
1:08:31
1 hour, 8 minutes, 31 secondsIsrael. I think that the psychology is is interesting, you know. Um, and you’re right, like the the haters on the left
1:08:39
1 hour, 8 minutes, 39 secondsare and elsewhere too very much want to try and delaminate your Jewish heritage from who you are,
1:08:49
1 hour, 8 minutes, 49 secondsright? Like your national identity and things like that in the West. That’s that’s very real, right? Um, so let’s
1:08:57
1 hour, 8 minutes, 57 secondslet’s pivot now towards the future, okay? Um clearly uh you’re you’re
1:09:05
1 hour, 9 minutes, 5 secondspainting less than you are coding and building installations now, right? As a as a creator, which is wonderful. Uh you
1:09:13
1 hour, 9 minutes, 13 secondsknow, what do you see kind of happening in the future? Or what do you want to see, right? Do you want to see this uh
1:09:20
1 hour, 9 minutes, 20 secondsum you know, Israel become a beacon for digital art? Do you want like a what kind of goals have you uh laid out for yourself in this space?
1:09:32
1 hour, 9 minutes, 32 secondsMaybe you have encountered this headline that says that um uh Israel is like the
1:09:40
1 hour, 9 minutes, 40 secondsper capita or something the countries that use cloud code the the most. So Israel is like the heaviest consumer of
1:09:49
1 hour, 9 minutes, 49 secondsof coding with AI. Um, which is interesting.
1:09:55
1 hour, 9 minutes, 55 secondsAnd I think that like if I said that we
1:10:02
1 hour, 10 minutes, 2 secondstalked about um that video is the new king I guess of of of
1:10:09
1 hour, 10 minutes, 9 secondsmedia and uh I think that images will not be counted and or videos
1:10:19
1 hour, 10 minutes, 19 secondswill also be so easy to make that the only thing that’s made uh that left is
1:10:26
1 hour, 10 minutes, 26 secondslike inter interactive spaces, interactive pieces. Um
1:10:33
1 hour, 10 minutes, 33 secondsI don’t know VR and AR like failed like I was disappointed from it.
1:10:40
1 hour, 10 minutes, 40 secondsMe too. So cool. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. things haven’t gone right in
1:10:46
1 hour, 10 minutes, 46 secondsVR and AL but I really think that um
1:10:54
1 hour, 10 minutes, 54 secondsum we will not make videos we will make uh mini world
1:11:02
1 hour, 11 minutes, 2 secondsum interactive pieces I mean uh Google has done this experiment when you can
1:11:09
1 hour, 11 minutes, 9 secondslike create an environment and play with it yeah have you have you is it what’s it Google Bloom or something where you type in and it makes a world and a character.
1:11:20
1 hour, 11 minutes, 20 secondsHave you tried that one? Is that what you’re talking about?
1:11:22
1 hour, 11 minutes, 22 secondsYeah. I I don’t have Ultra. I don’t have Ultra.
1:11:26
1 hour, 11 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. Um but I I I do think that like um if you you consuming a content that
1:11:36
1 hour, 11 minutes, 36 secondshe’s not interacting with you, it will be uh swiped away like an image
1:11:43
1 hour, 11 minutes, 43 secondsthat pop up in your feed. for for example, you know, um the the next media is something interactive, something that
1:11:53
1 hour, 11 minutes, 53 secondsmade with you in it as as a viewer. Uh maybe as a interactive developer, I’m biased.
1:12:03
1 hour, 12 minutes, 3 secondsYeah. But um this is what I think the future will be
1:12:09
1 hour, 12 minutes, 9 secondsmore towards to um customize experiences
1:12:15
1 hour, 12 minutes, 15 secondsall built for you and and somebody will like create it will put the guideline
1:12:23
1 hour, 12 minutes, 23 secondsand you will um like everything will be generative not like in the kind of um
1:12:30
1 hour, 12 minutes, 30 secondsslop in the kind of system that waits for you to to interact with you.
1:12:41
1 hour, 12 minutes, 41 secondsBeautiful, right?
1:12:44
1 hour, 12 minutes, 44 secondsUh I think you know Mark Zuckerberg try tried that with his Oculus helmets to make that world there, you know, and and um what is the video game? Roblox.
1:12:55
1 hour, 12 minutes, 55 secondsOh yeah. has millions and millions of kids around the world of all ages in this world, you know, and like that’s what you mean is that like there’s a
1:13:04
1 hour, 13 minutes, 4 secondskind of standard for object creation and um but it’s it’s a very flexible space, right? Like um Yeah.
1:13:14
1 hour, 13 minutes, 14 secondsYeah. I mean already awesome I see my nephews playing Roblox and I always ask him questions about it
1:13:23
1 hour, 13 minutes, 23 secondsbecause this is the future and I’m old guy now like when I was young I was in the
1:13:32
1 hour, 13 minutes, 32 secondsfuture right now I I’m I missing out a lot I think where I don’t know what’s
1:13:39
1 hour, 13 minutes, 39 secondsgoing on in Roblox you know it’s it’s the it’s and For example, uh video games,
1:13:48
1 hour, 13 minutes, 48 secondsespecially hacking video games and making private servers as a g as a kid,
1:13:56
1 hour, 13 minutes, 56 secondsuh made me um into made me go into Visual Studio when I understood
1:14:03
1 hour, 14 minutes, 3 secondsabsolutely nothing. followed a a YouTube tutorial or something
1:14:10
1 hour, 14 minutes, 10 secondsand I mean it’s p paid off I think where I got comfortable um with with those
1:14:17
1 hour, 14 minutes, 17 secondskind of worlds and uh the community of Roblox I guess you can build maps and
1:14:24
1 hour, 14 minutes, 24 secondsother people can enjoy your map and this develop something in your mind. Um Minecraft of course is is number one.
1:14:33
1 hour, 14 minutes, 33 secondsYeah. But this is uh yeah I’m excited the new age like what my nephew will grow up will do.
1:14:42
1 hour, 14 minutes, 42 secondsThis is a very interesting uh thing. I will wait to see.
1:14:49
1 hour, 14 minutes, 49 secondsYeah. No, I mean I’m I’m excited for for the kids, you know. I’ve got two kids myself and they’re uh fully immersed,
1:14:57
1 hour, 14 minutes, 57 secondsyou know, and um but they they don’t they don’t yearn like we do, you know, for for things. I think because when we didn’t have a lot of this amazing
1:15:06
1 hour, 15 minutes, 6 secondstechnology, we had to be bored and do things with like dirt and sticks, you know, uh you you you develop a certain
1:15:15
1 hour, 15 minutes, 15 secondsuh what would you say like a a a focus on um you know doing well with the
1:15:24
1 hour, 15 minutes, 24 secondsnew technology, right? Like using it for its best use instead of just you know like a tinker. Yeah.
1:15:32
1 hour, 15 minutes, 32 secondsYeah. Um, well, Eris, uh, is there anything that you got, uh, coming up, exhibitions? I know you’re doing touch
1:15:40
1 hour, 15 minutes, 40 secondsdesigner classes, like anything you want to share with the community and then I can drop some links in the description for folks to follow up.
1:15:48
1 hour, 15 minutes, 48 secondsUm, actually right now, uh, nothing too interesting. Um,
1:15:54
1 hour, 15 minutes, 54 secondsuh, the wall is, uh, kind of like changed a lot of the plans. uh we had a lot plans that got cancelled but um I
1:16:04
1 hour, 16 minutes, 4 secondswill be happy to the who got interested will follow me up and uh I will keep you updated in the the future upcoming
1:16:12
1 hour, 16 minutes, 12 secondsexhibitions or shows um and yeah
1:16:19
1 hour, 16 minutes, 19 secondsfabulous well I hope you’re not stuck trying to do installations inside of Mads [laughter] which is the worst the
1:16:27
1 hour, 16 minutes, 27 secondsworst venue of venue news for you my friend because your work is beautiful and thoughtful and thank you very much
1:16:34
1 hour, 16 minutes, 34 secondsvery Jewish I’m sorry actually it is I’m accepting it wonderful wonderful well um thank you
1:16:43
1 hour, 16 minutes, 43 secondsfor for sharing your heart with us today and your mind [music] and um yeah we look forward to seeing you again Eris and and hearing from you with your next
1:16:52
1 hour, 16 minutes, 52 secondslevel things to come so thank you very much for inviting me thank you have a nice Heat. Heat.