Artist Interview: Patrick Lichty

Patrick Lichty is a technological artist, writer, curator, educator, and activist specializing in media, AR, VR, AI, and NFTs who has investigated how media shapes how humanity perceives reality at the edge between the virtual and the physical.

Lichty is known for his solo work, collaborations with his partner, Negin Ehtesabian, and collective work as part of the activist groups RTMark, The Yes Men, principal of the virtual performance group Second Front, and collaborator with Pocha Nostra, Critical Art Ensemble, Terminal Time, Morehshin Allahyari, Cao Fei, and techspressionism.com.

We asked Patrick about his art, creative process, and inspirations.

*From Machine Drawings, 2002 by Patrick Lichty*

Can you tell us about your background as a digital artist? How did you get started in this field?

Comparatively speaking, I started fairly early in time, and late in life. I came from a family of artists, but my academic undergrad was in digital engineering, and my life put me in a situation in the early 90s, where I had to leave engineering to be a freelancer, so I did digital design half time and became a digital artist for the other half. I was 30 at the time, and a bit concerned about not having the “speculative 20s” in my art career, but one of my first inspirations was Wassily Kandinsky, who left being a lawyer at 30, so that gave some confidence.

A lot of my work early on was terrible, as I was working through the fin de siècle, first wave of vanguard, including Expressionism, Dada, Suprematism, and you just have to work through those early days until you find your voice.

What inspires your art? Are there any particular themes or subjects that you enjoy exploring through your artwork?

At first, I think I was just trying to find my voice for the first five or so years. After that, it was really the notion of social critique through tactical media, and creating a voice based on social justice, which is still a component. Also, generative art and Algorism, was an influence since the late 90s. But I think now, my main interest is doing critical work based on new technologies and formal explorations that deal with the merger of NewMedia and contemporary art under postInternet, and now post-media that reflect on history.

For example, for the last 16-17 years, I have been dealing with virtual, augmented, reality, and artificial intelligence as well as generative drawing/text. As I was discussing with the people at Peer to Space today, I think it’s about how we can make the most effective experience for the topic we want to talk about as artists.

“New technologies and their impact on society really excite me, but this also doesn’t take over the conceptual aspect of the work.”

*These 7000 Oaks Do Not Exist, 2020 by Patrick Lichty*

What is an event which you consider a milestone in your digital art career?

I think that, instead of an event, I want to talk about a project that I think really transformed me. For roughly a decade, I helped produce a New Media critical journal with Whitney Museum digital curator, Christiane Paul, called “intelligent agent” it was online most of the time and from roughly 2008 to 2012 it was a set of on-demand print magazines. During that decade or so, I got to meet most of the best artists of the time which was a real privilege, and I was able to do a lot of work in equity in New Media through that.

Can you tell us about some of your favorite pieces or a past or upcoming project? What makes them special to you?

There’s a 2020 piece of work, called “confinement spaces” which is a VR and LiDAR installation based on my 3-D scans of the landscape of the United Arab Emirates during the first days of the Covid pandemic. Over six months, I have done about 85 large scale, 3-D scans of the landscape, which I created immersive environments by taking the 3-D images into models into 3-D studio max and rendering immersive media. I think that being that it caught such an intense period of time in modern history, and that it was involving some of the first VR installations commissioned in the UAE was really special to me.

*From Confinement Spaces, 2020 by Patrick Lichty*

Do you have any speaking engagements, awards, exhibitions you’d like to mention?

As part of my collectives, I’ve been in about 10 to 15 biennials, been published on writings on New Media and non-institutional curation. In addition to the awards I got through my collectives, I got the new Century NewMedia award from the Smithsonian Museum of American art, and an honorable mention, for ours electronic is golden Nica award for a really complex multi media, essay that I wrote called “grasping at vets” on conflict between intellectual property, tactical media, and corporate culture, which is in a static version in my book, “Variant Analyses,” which you can download from the Institute for Network to cultures.

What materials, software, and tools do you typically use for your digital artwork? Are there any specific programs or techniques you specialize in?

For general purpose work, I use the processing language, adobe, software, auto desk, software, a VR tour program called 3-D vista, and Inkscape for my drawings on my pen plotters.

What does your creative process look like? How do you approach brainstorming and conceptualizing ideas?

Most of the time I am inspired by Marcel Duchamp in letting a concept drive the process and the medium. Usually this has to do with new technology or a social critique that has come to mind or a combination of the two. I get an idea, and I chase it, like the Personal Taxonomies project.

*From Personal Taxonomies, 2019 by Patrick Lichty*

How do you balance technical skills with artistic creativity in your digital artwork? How do these two aspects complement each other in your work?

My technical skills, or my ability to adopt them, is generally pretty adequate for whatever I need to do, and I think I credit that to my technical background, so that hasn’t necessary been an obstacle. The process, context, and form are all inherent in the work that I do so I really look at this as a synthetic approach. Both drive each other.

Can you share an example of a challenging project you've worked on recently? What were the obstacles you encountered, and how did you overcome them?

One of the most challenging projects in recent years was one called “Personal Taxonomies.” In beginning in 2017, when I was living in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, I had started making a scenic calligraphies and a East Asian style on my iPad, 3 to 5 a day, and after I had done a couple thousand or sell, I had read about artificial intelligence finding patterns within large bodies of data. For me, this reflected in my interest in Noam Chomsky’s idea of “deep structure,” or our neurological predisposition towards linguistics.

I began wondering whether there were just certain patterns of mark making within each of these calligraphy’s that I had made that might’ve been common throughout. All of these different works. Testis I took about 500 each of the pieces and use them as control and reference sets in a artificial, reality training set. What I did from that point was that I took the first trial of each of those generations, and then I compare them with each other to see whether they were points and commonality, and I animated these results.

“The result was kind of a Rorschach test. There was this shadowy shape that was shifting around on the screen that looked a lot like the calligraphy, but what it left me with was a feeling, whether I was chasing something Sublime that would tell some fundamental truths about myself, or whether I was chasing my tail in the most spectacular way possible. I think that either way, work was pretty impressive, and it really hasn’t been shown in a museum or gallery, it’s mainly documentation on my website.”

How do you stay inspired and motivated as a digital artist? Are there any specific techniques or practices you use to overcome creative blocks?

Maybe the fact that new forms of technology keep developing, and with them create impacts on society that inspire me to form critiques is what probably keeps me inspired after all this time.
When I have a creative block, I think that basically going into blitz mode helps, basically, just starting to work on things, throwing them out there, and just hurling onward until something sticks. This works for writing as well.

“When I was in engineering, a former supervisor once told me that it was better to do something wrong, then to do nothing at all and I thought he was right.”

Are there any artists or creative influences that have had a significant impact on your work? How have they shaped your artistic style or approach?

Early on, I was inspired by the first wave Avant Garde, but mainly through the anti-art movements like Dada, Gutai, Fluxus, and so on. Artists from the telecommunications era like Bill Bartlett, Peggy Cady, Judith Doyle, Hank Bull, Roy Ascott, Tom Klinkowstein. Also, being part of the tactical media crowd was very formative, with people like Rich Pell, Paul Vanouse, Claire Pentecost, BIT, VNX Matrix, Igor Vamos, Jacques Servin, Critical Art Ensemble, and Morehshin.

Later, on these days, there are a lot of people, but people I really admire are Domenico Dom Barra, Systaime, Talan Memmott, Faith Holland, Carla Gannis, Lynn Hershmann, Christiane Paul, Roman Verostko, and many others.
And probably a couple of my first influences wasalgorithmic artist, Roman Verostko, who I met in the mid-90s and fell in love with machine drawing, as well as my friend and graduate advisor. Gregory Little, who has been an incredible influence on the field by being teachers to people like Cory Arcangel, Liz Phair, and Paperrad.

Can you talk about any collaborations or partnerships you've had as a digital artist? How do you approach working with other artists or clients to bring a shared vision to life?

Throughout my career, a large part of my work has been part of collectives, like collaborating with Guillermo Gomez Peña, being part of the tactical collective RTMark, making media for the first 15 years of The Yes Men, being a founder of the Second Life performance art group, Second Front, as well as meeting my partner, Negin Ehtesabian, while collaborating through Morehshin Allahyari in her early days (Negin and I would meet in Azerbaijan when I lived in the UAE for six years). That has been my most fulfilling collaboration to this day.

I did a paper for College Art Association on Collaboration and New Media, which is also a video on YouTube. I think that there are a lot of models for collaboration, like distributing the work, defining clear hierarchies, or a communal and anarchic flatness, where there are no stars, which is extremely hard but very rewarding. In the end, most of my collaborations turned into surrogate families where we had common respect and affinity, where egos were usually shown the door. This wasn’t always the case, of course, but this was an ideal.

One example was the model we had for Second Front, which at times had as many as nine people. The idea was that we would share equally as much as possible in the work on the credit, but the person who came up with the idea, and the performance score, was basically called the Director, and was able to claim to work for the most part. That gave credibility to the creator, while giving the ability to claim the work to the rest of the group. Although we are dormant at the moment, we have been in existence for 17 years and done, to my account, 51 performances.

*From GAN Carpet project, 2018 by Patrick Lichty and Negin Ehtesabian*

How do you handle feedback and critique of your artwork? Can you share an example of a time when feedback has helped you grow as an artist?

I’m much better with it than I used to be. I used to take criticism very badly until I stopped taking it personally. I figured that after 30 years, somebody’s going to give me a harsh critique or praise, but in general, I feel that even on a bad day I’m not doing terribly, so it’s really just about the work and balancing the good and the bad.

“Probably the most useful critique I ever had was by a gallerist named William Busta in Cleveland where I am from, roughly. It was in those first two or three years, where I brought him these prints of terrible derivations of Malevich’s work. He looked at them, then went to his bookshelf, drag down about 6 to 10 of the major magazines, and he said, “Look, it’s obvious to me that you’re serious about this, but I think you need more experience. Take these titles down, read them for a while, and if you get the narrative within them, come back in 10 years, we’ll talk about a show.” In eight years, I was already in the Whitney Biennial. He made his point.”

How do you navigate the business side of being a digital artist, such as pricing your work, marketing, and building a client base? Are there any strategies or tips you would share with other artists in this regard?

I’m a little sheepish in that most of my income, until a few years ago, came from awards, commissions, or speaking engagements. As with many artists, I have been perennially terrible with the business side, this is why I have been trusting in my gallerists and studying the business side, far more over the last few years. I do this by being involved in communities, most lately Paddy Johnson’s NetVVork community. Bing that I see myself exiting the conventional workspace in the next 10 to 12 years, it would be great to have the responsibility to have a relatively steady income source from my studio and my work by then.

Are there any specific projects or goals you're currently working towards as a digital artist?

Focusing on selling the work more, doing a long-term upgrade of my website, build more virtual spaces for my work.

*From Techspressionism Works, 2021 by Patrick Lichty*

What do you hope to achieve in the future?

I have never had a solo museum show. With my experiences, a retrospective would be exciting, and it would not be boring.

What is a profound childhood memory?

Christmas Eve in Ohio, eating pizza with my family and dog. I love family, and in that most of my birth family are gone I miss them. This is why I am so grateful for Negin and my family in Iran.

What is a fun fact about you?

I am obsessed with my partner, and cats. I have a robotic cat called Molloy 2000 at home.

What would we most probably find you doing if not creating art?

Working out, playing music, cycling, or flying a first-person drone. I love the feeling of flight.

How do you think technology is impacting creativity?

Depending on what you’re talking about, this isn’t a new question we could go back to Rauschenberg and Kluver and “experiments in art and technology” in the late 60s to consider this, but I think what we’re thinking about is the incremental democratization of creativity away from virtuosity and craft through digital technologies like artificial intelligence.

“…as with any other disruptive technology since photography, and that it bifurcates the community into those with a more technical approach, which is less informed by history and culture, and the artist that are more focused on meeting apart from pure aesthetics.”

How do you think NFTs are impacting digital arts?

I think that they are allowing media arts to enter the contemporary art material ecosystem more firmly in their native form, then post Internet did by taking digital culture and creating conventional art forms, such as painting, sculpture, drawing. Using the blockchain to create a sense of provenance will, at least, for the near future, guarantee, born digital art, a place in the contemporary art ecosystem.

*#177 Edition365 2021, The Ghost of Umm al Quwain From Confinement Spaces by Patrick Lichty*

How do you see digital arts evolving in the future?

Part of this depends on the evolution of digital culture. For the past couple years, we thought there might be the emergence of “the meta-verse” which seems to be a little overstated at the moment. Futurists are often also connected to salespeople, especially in the tech sector. I think there are two questions here; what is the future of digital art that is tied to “the industry”, and digital art that is a outgrowth of cultural exploration. I see this as a distinction between disciplines, like engineering and physics. They both have their places, but they have different foci from which they deal. In short, I think this is really reductive, perhaps the evolution of digital art will follow advances in technology on one side, and the other side will seek to capitalize on those technologies. Both have their place.

What advice would you give to aspiring digital artists who are just starting out?

I really like the advice that you hear about showing up for every day, doing the work, being smart, but generous, and just understanding that your ego is your enemy. Be confident, but not arrogant. Every young artist has that moment when they learn the difference between confidence and arrogance; look for it and learn deeply when it comes.

I think it is great to work with others, and being collective as there is strength in numbers, but on the other hand, make sure and take care of yourself, because at some point someone is going to try to take advantage of you. Don’t let them, but also don’t overreact when that happens.

Are there any resources or learning materials you would recommend to help them improve their skills?

In many ways, I feel that ideas are more important than skills. But if I were to say, I’d say, just find as much as you can digest as much as you can practice as much as you can, and get out there as much as you can. Also, be organized.

If you can afford it, I believe in networking communities like that Paddy Johnson has, and Neto Thompson’s alternative art school. There are also some nice communities that get together and she’ll work like Techspressionism.com that meets every couple weeks and just shares work.

*From Googled Earth, 2019 by Patrick Lichty with Negin Ehtesabian*

Patrick Lichty has an MFA in Computer Art from Bowling Green State University, is a Herb Alpert/Calarts Fellow, recipient of the New Century/New Media award from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and a Golden Nica Honorable Mention from the Ars Electronica Festival. To this end, he has also been featured in the Whitney, Venice, Maribor, Yokohama, and Melbourne Design biennials and shown in the Sundance, Berlin, and Melbourne film festivals. As a writer/editor, Lichty edited In the New Media Journal Intelligent Agent for ten. Years, published by Whitney Digital Art Curator Christiane Paul He is also published with numerous presses, including MIT, Oxford, and Blackwell. He has books/chapters with the Institute for Networked Culture in Amsterdam. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Digital Media at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota.