LEGIO X
Q: Tell us about your background. Did you study art or music and if not how did you get into them?
A: When I was 15 years old I ran away from home. After sleeping in post offices for a week I ended up in a new living situation where I was left almost completely unsupervised. So I started taking LSD, lots of LSD -- several times a week I would trip on acid and listen to music and make drawings. My favorite bands to listen to while on psychedelic drugs were The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, The Grateful Dead, The Butthole Surfers, Pink Floyd, and PIL -- -- but I did not care to listen to Huey Lewis and The News as their early work was a little too new wave for my taste. I would also check out copies of Art In America and Artforum magazine from the school library and get lost deep in the pages. The paintings would turn into incredible animated cartoons in front of my dilated eyes.
This led to some D I Y graphic design work where I was using ink pens, paper, typography books, and photocopy machines. A Kinkos mindset, if you will. I continued designing posters for concerts at my hometown's local music hall and then in college I was placed in charge of designing posters for all of their events - including movies, concerts, and guest speakers. I studied Art History at University but otherwise did not receive any formal art or music education.
Q: What do you think guides you more, your visual or musical curiosity, and how did you start using AI tools to create art?
A: I make visual art every day -- while I only work on music maybe a day or two per week -- but that being said I am always listening to music -- so the visuals and music go hand-in-hand, eyes-and-ears, intertwined.
I have never used MidJourney. Not even once. I prefer the low fidelity look of other tools like "DALL-E mini" / "Craiyon". I started out using some early GAN models for image creation. So, I was already a bit addicted to making images. Then, in early 2023, it started becoming much easier to access tools to work on AI video. So, I dove in headfirst, mostly using Runway and Neural Frames. I also still make images using mostly Craiyon and SDXL.
Q: There are a lot of references to chromatic music ideas. Can you elaborate on how that movement influenced your music and visuals?
A: That is likely an entirely subconscious thing on my part -- it's not like I purposely seek out chromatic music but it must resonate with me -- it does tie in with a lot of purely abstract films that were made in the 1950's & 1960's -- and there were even references made within the Futurist art movement way back around 1912 about combining abstract cinema with chromatic musical compositions -- in fact they created a film that was purely made of colors titled THE RAINBOW -- so I am honored to be considered as being a part of that creative lineage.
Q: Tell us about your creative process. How do you find what works with what and the musicians you collaborated with for the solo show?
A: Nearly always I generate the visuals first and then work on matching up music after I get footage that I am happy with -- sometimes my footage isn't long enough for a particular piece of music so then I will go back and extend my footage so that the music can stretch its legs.
The musicians for this show are picked mostly from a circle of close friends that i've had for the last decade or more -- some of whom I still speak with on a daily basis -- some of the music was created especially for this show -- other songs were buried deep in their catalogs -- more than a couple times a musician told me that they had completely forgotten about a particular track that I had selected
Q: How does AI creation differ from your early video art practice and what do AI tools offer that your past practices didn't?
A: In the most basic sense I am generating the visuals using a computer instead of a camera -- but my approach to editing and shaping the raw materials hasn't changed all that much.
SPEED! SPEED! SPEED!
For example -- you can make a 3 minute long song in 15 seconds now. Never before in human history have we had the capability to create video or music in FASTER than real-time. But this speed is both a blessing and a curse -- while it is true that you could now create three hundred songs in just one evening.
LEGIO X
Q: Tell us about your background. Did you study art or music and if not how did you get into them?
A: When I was 15 years old I ran away from home. After sleeping in post offices for a week I ended up in a new living situation where I was left almost completely unsupervised. So I started taking LSD, lots of LSD -- several times a week I would trip on acid and listen to music and make drawings. My favorite bands to listen to while on psychedelic drugs were The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, The Grateful Dead, The Butthole Surfers, Pink Floyd, and PIL -- -- but I did not care to listen to Huey Lewis and The News as their early work was a little too new wave for my taste. I would also check out copies of Art In America and Artforum magazine from the school library and get lost deep in the pages. The paintings would turn into incredible animated cartoons in front of my dilated eyes.
This led to some D I Y graphic design work where I was using ink pens, paper, typography books, and photocopy machines. A Kinkos mindset, if you will. I continued designing posters for concerts at my hometown's local music hall and then in college I was placed in charge of designing posters for all of their events - including movies, concerts, and guest speakers. I studied Art History at University but otherwise did not receive any formal art or music education.
Q: What do you think guides you more, your visual or musical curiosity, and how did you start using AI tools to create art?
A: I make visual art every day -- while I only work on music maybe a day or two per week -- but that being said I am always listening to music -- so the visuals and music go hand-in-hand, eyes-and-ears, intertwined.
I have never used MidJourney. Not even once. I prefer the low fidelity look of other tools like "DALL-E mini" / "Craiyon". I started out using some early GAN models for image creation. So, I was already a bit addicted to making images. Then, in early 2023, it started becoming much easier to access tools to work on AI video. So, I dove in headfirst, mostly using Runway and Neural Frames. I also still make images using mostly Craiyon and SDXL.
Q: There are a lot of references to chromatic music ideas. Can you elaborate on how that movement influenced your music and visuals?
A: That is likely an entirely subconscious thing on my part -- it's not like I purposely seek out chromatic music but it must resonate with me -- it does tie in with a lot of purely abstract films that were made in the 1950's & 1960's -- and there were even references made within the Futurist art movement way back around 1912 about combining abstract cinema with chromatic musical compositions -- in fact they created a film that was purely made of colors titled THE RAINBOW -- so I am honored to be considered as being a part of that creative lineage.
Q: Tell us about your creative process. How do you find what works with what and the musicians you collaborated with for the solo show?
A: Nearly always I generate the visuals first and then work on matching up music after I get footage that I am happy with -- sometimes my footage isn't long enough for a particular piece of music so then I will go back and extend my footage so that the music can stretch its legs.
The musicians for this show are picked mostly from a circle of close friends that i've had for the last decade or more -- some of whom I still speak with on a daily basis -- some of the music was created especially for this show -- other songs were buried deep in their catalogs -- more than a couple times a musician told me that they had completely forgotten about a particular track that I had selected
Q: How does AI creation differ from your early video art practice and what do AI tools offer that your past practices didn't?
A: In the most basic sense I am generating the visuals using a computer instead of a camera -- but my approach to editing and shaping the raw materials hasn't changed all that much.
SPEED! SPEED! SPEED!
For example -- you can make a 3 minute long song in 15 seconds now. Never before in human history have we had the capability to create video or music in FASTER than real-time. But this speed is both a blessing and a curse -- while it is true that you could now create three hundred songs in just one evening.
LEGIO X
Q: Tell us about your background. Did you study art or music and if not how did you get into them?
A: When I was 15 years old I ran away from home. After sleeping in post offices for a week I ended up in a new living situation where I was left almost completely unsupervised. So I started taking LSD, lots of LSD -- several times a week I would trip on acid and listen to music and make drawings. My favorite bands to listen to while on psychedelic drugs were The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, The Grateful Dead, The Butthole Surfers, Pink Floyd, and PIL -- -- but I did not care to listen to Huey Lewis and The News as their early work was a little too new wave for my taste. I would also check out copies of Art In America and Artforum magazine from the school library and get lost deep in the pages. The paintings would turn into incredible animated cartoons in front of my dilated eyes.
This led to some D I Y graphic design work where I was using ink pens, paper, typography books, and photocopy machines. A Kinkos mindset, if you will. I continued designing posters for concerts at my hometown's local music hall and then in college I was placed in charge of designing posters for all of their events - including movies, concerts, and guest speakers. I studied Art History at University but otherwise did not receive any formal art or music education.
Q: What do you think guides you more, your visual or musical curiosity, and how did you start using AI tools to create art?
A: I make visual art every day -- while I only work on music maybe a day or two per week -- but that being said I am always listening to music -- so the visuals and music go hand-in-hand, eyes-and-ears, intertwined.
I have never used MidJourney. Not even once. I prefer the low fidelity look of other tools like "DALL-E mini" / "Craiyon". I started out using some early GAN models for image creation. So, I was already a bit addicted to making images. Then, in early 2023, it started becoming much easier to access tools to work on AI video. So, I dove in headfirst, mostly using Runway and Neural Frames. I also still make images using mostly Craiyon and SDXL.
Q: There are a lot of references to chromatic music ideas. Can you elaborate on how that movement influenced your music and visuals?
A: That is likely an entirely subconscious thing on my part -- it's not like I purposely seek out chromatic music but it must resonate with me -- it does tie in with a lot of purely abstract films that were made in the 1950's & 1960's -- and there were even references made within the Futurist art movement way back around 1912 about combining abstract cinema with chromatic musical compositions -- in fact they created a film that was purely made of colors titled THE RAINBOW -- so I am honored to be considered as being a part of that creative lineage.
Q: Tell us about your creative process. How do you find what works with what and the musicians you collaborated with for the solo show?
A: Nearly always I generate the visuals first and then work on matching up music after I get footage that I am happy with -- sometimes my footage isn't long enough for a particular piece of music so then I will go back and extend my footage so that the music can stretch its legs.
The musicians for this show are picked mostly from a circle of close friends that i've had for the last decade or more -- some of whom I still speak with on a daily basis -- some of the music was created especially for this show -- other songs were buried deep in their catalogs -- more than a couple times a musician told me that they had completely forgotten about a particular track that I had selected
Q: How does AI creation differ from your early video art practice and what do AI tools offer that your past practices didn't?
A: In the most basic sense I am generating the visuals using a computer instead of a camera -- but my approach to editing and shaping the raw materials hasn't changed all that much.
SPEED! SPEED! SPEED!
For example -- you can make a 3 minute long song in 15 seconds now. Never before in human history have we had the capability to create video or music in FASTER than real-time. But this speed is both a blessing and a curse -- while it is true that you could now create three hundred songs in just one evening.
