Abstract

This article, Interview: Joel Slayton is just that, an interview with CADRE Founder Joel Slayton.

Bio

Kathy Rae Huffman is an American curator, writer, producer, researcher, lecturer and expert for video and media art. Since the early 1980s, Huffman is said to have helped establish video and new media art, online and interactive art, installation and performance art in the visual arts world. (Kathy Rae Huffman "I can address the admin and process for the long running online exhibition Web3D Art, but Karel was the one who researched the tech.")

Article Body

Kenny Nguyen 0:00

First, please introduce yourself.

Kathy Rea Huffman 0:04

My name is Kathy. I'm an independent curator and writer. I live in Southern California, it's a sunny day here. As usual.

Kenny Nguyen 0:17

What is the earliest memory you have of working with art and slash core technology?

Kathy Rea Huffman 0:24

Well, I actually started in what was then called technology, which was would be video and sound art. When I was as a grad student, in the 1970s, I started in just being interested in video and trying to help. I had a job at the Long Beach Public Library, who had the librarians had purchased some video equipment to do oral histories. And they couldn't figure out how to do it. They had shelves of empty tapes that they had recorded. And so I went and took a tutorial at the interactive television program at Cal State Long Beach. And I was taught by this older woman who she said, Listen, if I can do it, you can do it. And so it's okay. She said, if you can do you can use the toaster, you can do this. She was pretty cool. And so I started doing the video for the book, you know, different things that the library did that they wanted to have recordings of. And then when I went into the museum studies course, at Cal State Long Beach, I did it so that I could have access to some gallery space, because I thought that was the only way I've ever really get to know more about this mediums if I could work with an artist and I was student and I had no possibility to get a gallery space. And I didn't know how to go about that was just a dream. So I ended this class. And by this time, I've been reading a lot about video and knew that it had a lot of potential for education, for expression for documenting things. And I just thought it was a pretty interesting thing. But nobody knew what it was. Nobody knew what the word video meant. So I said in this class, and we went around in circles, and everybody said what they were interested in, I was the last one in the circle. Everybody had printmaking, we the, I don't know different things. Everybody had their own ceramics and everybody had some aspect of art that they were interested in pursuing. And they came to me, I said, Well, I'm really interested in video. And they looked around this table. And it was nobody knew what the word was. So I can remember thinking to myself, I get a lot of work to do. So that from then on I then I did an internship at the Long Beach Art Museum, which was an I didn't realize it when I started all this out. But it was the West Coast center for video, art and video. At that time, it was a pretty dynamic program. And I became an intern to them. David Ross, who was the deputy director in charge of the video program. And you know, I just jumped in feet first and did all the things that you do to make those happen in. And I was just hooked 1980. So this was all like maybe in 1975 7677, I was I became curator through a series of events, people leaving and my friend St. John would go and apply for the job. So I did you know, and they chose me because I was the local girl and just finished my MFA and Museum Studies program. And I was invited to because of the West Coast perspective, I guess, to organize a program of video for the parents via knowledge. So it was 1980. And it was the first time I traveled abroad to Europe. And it was the first time I'd seen any artists working with a computer at that show. So I was intrigued

Kathy Rea Huffman 4:35

let's just you know, it's not it's not a straightforward story. It's like a lot of things. And when you start looking back, you realize a lot of things come from different ways and you just choose where to go and things happen that you never planned.

Kenny Nguyen 4:50

What is your experience working with web 3d And what is being commonly referred to as the metaverse these days? Oh, well,

Kathy Rea Huffman 4:59

we Looking backwards. This is the metaverse and probably like everybody else, I participate in online forums and Instagram different things. So I'm part of that group. Otherwise, I have nothing to do with. And I'm very doubtful that we're able to do anything about it. The web three day I became aware of it, geez, I guess back in the 80s. I was on this cigarette art show jury and I did an exhibition of artists using computers in 1983. And it was a big show, it was in California artists. And it was some of the earliest works that were involved in 3d imaging and various I mean, all kinds of things from plotter drawings and performances and everything, but photography, but the 3d stuff was pretty interesting. And I think from there, I just kept my ear to the ground. And I was on the jury of the art show in 1985, got introduced to some of those ideas that were percolating in the technical community. And then in, I think it was 1989, at SIGGRAPH in Boston. By that time, I was a curator at the ICA in Boston. I was introduced, and I was I heard Jaron Lanier, and he was talking about virtual reality. And I went out to the San Francisco Bay Area and visited him in his studio and asked him explain what he did, and then invited him to come and give a talk at ICA. So it was, you know, from that point of VR with big, heavy things, it wasn't very interesting. You gotta have all this equipment and big computers. And I think when br Mel got introduced a little bit later on, it was it was first VR ml it was because it was didn't need all that stuff. And you can still manipulate space. And so that was quite interesting. And that came along with a group of artists that I worked with, in Germany called Venkat. TV.

Kenny Nguyen 7:09

In our research, we found an article as such article that discussed the art exhibition VR ml that your co organize, with, in collaboration with Carol

Kenny Nguyen 7:20

to DESeq do the same.

Kenny Nguyen 7:24

For the web 3d, can you tell us a little bit about how the exhibition came about? Are there any works from the exhibition that stand out to you today,

Kathy Rea Huffman 7:32

I had to actually look it up, because I didn't remember all works was a long time ago, it wasn't the first show we did. Carl was he had the domain, I had the connection to the art world in the art experience. And he was an artist, performance artist and had worked with this large group of artists to do a big project at documenta in. And so I knew him pretty well, from that I've worked with that group. So we came up with we've met some people who were doing this work and with that would be kind of fun to do. And and I've been working online quite a lot. Since at, gosh, when was it? No, it must have been 95 game 95. So we were both a really embedded in Internet things, internet practices. And we knew that 3d was happening. And so we put out a call. And we just organized an exhibition, I think with first one came after 1997. I went to Monterey to the web 3d consortium to see what it was all about. And of course, it was really technical. There was an they had an art show, which was two workstations that nothing was really working. So we thought, well, that's not a very good art show. So we decided we would do one. So we had big, big response and big international response. There were quite a number of artists from all around the world, you know, so it was quite an exciting discovery. Yeah.

Kenny Nguyen 9:02

What are some challenges that you face? When exhibiting with 3d art? How do you engage your audience in digital art experiences that might not be exhibited within a museum or gallery context?

Kathy Rea Huffman 9:15

Okay, so my point was to bring it to a gallery context. And to put it into a museum context, which I was able to do. It wasn't happening in museums and galleries, a couple of places did show some 3d works. There was some shown at the Whitney Biennial, for example, worked by John Colima in a work another another work which we'll look at printing. Anyway, at the time, in the beginning, there was no standard software. Okay. So we got all these submissions from around the world and everybody had their own proprietary software people were not just using the the basic VRM mail, you know, coding, which was pretty simple, I think in it. Very big pollack. until it was quite easy, you know, it wasn't quite according to the I'm not a program. But according to the people who made the work, it wasn't a complicated, so they guess it Adaptec fix it up, they made it really complicated. And so it was really exciting to see all these works. But we had to download the software, we had to then make that software available to people who might look online to see the work, because they would have to install that software software to see the one work. So when you get 30 works that use about 20 Different software's, you might understand the complications that

Kenny Nguyen 10:40

occurred as a pioneering digital curator, how does it feel to create new opportunities for artists and pave the way for other collecting and exhibiting institutions?

Kathy Rea Huffman 10:54

I don't know how to answer that question. Because I mean, I was never ambitious, to try to think of. I mean, I was I was as curious as anybody about all of this. And so I was learning at the same time my audiences were learning. And I think it was maybe my enthusiasm that rubbed off on the audiences, because I've found I would have to be present, you know, to talk to people who might not know what, even people who worked with the technology often didn't understand what the artists were trying to do with it, or why they were doing it. They said, Oh, yeah, we know that software. But why are they doing it using that? So we were more concerned with the content of what how people were using this new possibility to show content and what could they show? What could you experience by using the RML? 3d software,

Unknown Speaker 11:58

one of your early projects holding space by kick Galloway, and ensuring in space net holes, full hole,

Unknown Speaker 12:07

hole singular, all in Spa, okay. Rabinowitz, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:15

A Long Beach Museum in art is regularly featured in cadre classes, and San Jose State. When, as a pioneering work in virtualization and technology, logical augmented co presents. When I showed the work to students, I like to show a clip of the project that includes news reports, or shows the public reaction, which was astounding, people falling on their knees when they see and speak to a loved one across the country. Can you explain the project? And tell us about this Genesis, and impact from a cure curatorial standpoint?

Kathy Rea Huffman 12:59

Well, I mean, it probably shows my ability to take risks. The project was the artists work they they envisioned it, they organize it, they put it together, I was the institutional person who said yes, this is this, you know, so with an institution, like the Long Beach army sent them, they could get the necessary permissions and the the money that was donated for the project would happen nonprofit, to put it so and then just got spit right back out to them. You know, but I did do an exhibition of the work and get help them where it could. They edited their video and belong at our video studio. Afterwards, they put the documentation together at our video studio. I was at every one of them. Event all three nights that had happened and what stood evolve. One of their concerns was that it not be seen as an art world insider event, because they wanted it to be completely unannounced. So the first night it was simply, well, a few friends of theirs came but it was simply people who were passing by this big screen caught unaware of what was happening and realizing what it was and then they would explain, you know, what's going to be three days. So by the third day, there were people holding the babies and what we didn't plan for and didn't expect was the piles of trash that were left afterwards. Because people bring their signs and drinks to toast and all that stuff was left. So that was a kind of unusual thing we didn't expect. I mean, it wasn't amazing work and the artists were extreme. Laser dedicated and, you know, they were all in they had a team of videographers and technicians that, you know, just put their all into the project. That was incredible. I think it you know, nobody knew if it was gonna work really because there was no rehearsals or anything. I mean, they did testings, of course, but you know, you never can really predict these things. 100%. So it was a giant risk to to, for them and for the funder, the Broadway department store, which I think is an amazing sponsor. And they also get a big window and all the space behind the window, because they had to set up all this equipment in Lincoln Center in New York was the other side. So it was it was point to point,

Kenny Nguyen 15:54

your activity within the field of media art began around the early 1980s, when, when commercially available, technology began for us, at a pace previously unseen. Was there a specific project they use technology in a particular novel way? Are that surprised you when you first encounter?

Kathy Rea Huffman 16:16

Well, I think what was I can't answer your question directly. I think all of the artists working with technology in these early years are quite different. You know, that wasn't like, one way they were focusing on one direction. Artists are interested in television, interested in interactive communication. This was way before internet, you know, even the pre internet, this is really thinking about communication, or a big communications were the telephone, radio, and television and radio and telephone. So artists were using all of those things, they were using radio, they were using the telephone, there were a lot of telephone projects in the early days, that there were using video, and we kind of exchanged the word video and television just kind of you know, it was television technology, it just wasn't being broadcast. But cable, we used a lot of things in April, you have

Kenny Nguyen 17:31

mentioned that part of freelancing requires multitasking. But I think being a cultural critic, and much more, what has been your favorite part of freelancing?

Kathy Rea Huffman 17:43

Well, when you freelance you don't have to do a lot of things you have to do when you work in an institution, or our faculty member at a university, you don't have committee meetings, you don't have to justify things in the same way that you do when you're working in institution. You know, there are pluses and minuses. For me, it was just a natural way to continue working in after certain time to get sick and tired of the institutional processes and you have enough connections and ideas of your own. So you don't really need that infrastructure in the same way. And you can partner with organizations.

Kenny Nguyen 18:34

Given your experience with influencing the current art world, and digital mediums. What is your vision for the future regarding emerging artists roles and impact for the next generation?

Kathy Rea Huffman 18:47

Um, I've more or less stepped back from being a person who feels that their influence influencer. I mean, maybe at one time, I could have been called that. And I did that gleefully, and willingly, without any consideration for what anybody thought, because I was just convinced that this was what had to be. And that's how I operate it. You know, you you go through phases in your life. And sometimes you're at this moment where you have opportunities, and you are absolutely, by necessity must take them. And even if it means that it's a great amount of stress, or you get a lot of critique or whatever, you still have to take those chances. So I did that. I'm not doing that so much and more and more in the role now of like, what we're doing here is trying to fill in some blanks about who were the human beings involved in what happened at that time and what were they like and stuff like that, you know, I'm more of a historical personal, you know, serves over 20 years ago, this step was going on 2025 years ago, I didn't even remember the names of the artists in the show, so I had to go look it up myself. So, you know, I've done a lot of shows since then. And a lot of big projects and, you know, huge exchanges and stuff. So that these were things done under a lot of pressure, even, you know, during the time, I made an international move and started a new job, and I'll set focus working on those 3d shows. And so, you know, with, sometimes you look back, you don't even know how you did it all, because there weren't enough hours. But, you know, you do it. And it happened. And they were very exciting times. I mean, some of the most exciting times, we had some good times in working with this 3d consortium. And at one time, we were presenting at this big, they had one of the conferences in Germany, in pattern born. Okay, so I was by this time living in Europe, so it was wonderful, we got a lot of people to come. And at this particular conference, it was amazing, because we had a lot of women there who were working with 3d. And we even somewhere in my final photos, there's a picture on, there must have been 10 or 12. Women who came, and we're all really doing wonderful work, I mean, including to me quartile, including Katrin Ruiz, from RPI. And there's a number of other women that I can get a priority from Paris. These are some that I kept in touch with over the years, for sure. But there were a lot and this was very exciting. And in my mind, I think at that point, I made a kind of shift. And I recognized that these women's stood apart from the rest of the guys who were there because it was really, the consort team was really run by some military men from Monterrey. And they were great. They were no problem there. But you know, they were quite heavy. And they were the ones and so, and we're using these things for scientific means. So that was important. So we came with, you know, women who are making some very different kinds of work and I thought that was important. And it gave me an opportunity to kind of shift my focus and personal focus to focus more on work with women. Okay, thank you. Yes.

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References:

Media

Video Recording of the Interview with Kathy Rae Huffman , Conducted November 28, 2022

Kewords

Documenting, Video, Metaverse, Freelancing, Software development