The Intersect of Art and Tech

06/05/2025

Angelo Sotira, the founder of DeviantArt, is back—this time with a hardware play rather than a platform, as reported by AutoGPT. His new product, *Layer*, is a $22,000 high-end digital display meant specifically for generative and dynamic digital art. It’s built to run GPU-intensive artwork in real time, with no compression, and comes with a subscription model that compensates artists based on display time. It’s sleek, hands-off, and meant to blend into your home without demanding your attention.

I love the concept. We’ve talked about this idea a lot on *The Intersect*. But the price tag puts this way out of reach for most artists and collectors alike. A dedicated, evolving canvas for digital work is overdue—but we need an affordable, consumer-ready version that doesn’t require VC funding to hang on a wall.

> “Digital art should not feel like a gadget. It should feel like a part of the home, something you can live with for years, without maintenance.”

What would your dream digital display look like—and how much would you actually pay for it?

DeviantArt founder is making a comeback to the art world with a digital art display that costs a whopping $22,000.

06/05/2025

Vancouver just approved $5.7 million in grants to 270 arts and culture orgs, according to a June 5 piece from the City of Vancouver’s newsroom. This is the third round of funding this year—bringing their total to over $12 million in 2025 alone. Grants range from small project support to major capital improvements, like $175K for Musqueam’s Longhouse and $125K for the Chinese Canadian Museum.

When I saw this headline in my feed, I knew instantly: this was not a U.S. city. And yeah, that hit a nerve. Because here? We’re still arguing whether arts are even worth funding, while cities like Vancouver are quietly building the future—funding youth-led theater collectives, Indigenous cultural spaces, and q***r Black-led celebrations. That’s what “support” looks like.

> “Arts and culture play a significant role in elevating our city’s identity... These grants provide essential support for local arts organizations, programs and projects.” — Mayor Ken Sim

What would it take for a city in the U.S. to treat art as infrastructure, not decoration?

Today, Vancouver City Council approved $5.7M in grants to 270 cultural organizations to support the delivery of critical programs and services for artists, the cultural community and the public.

06/05/2025

Lauren Bon’s recent interview with *Dezeen* explores her concept of "cyborg infrastructure"—a term she uses to describe hybrid systems where engineered structures and natural ecosystems are treated as one. Bon and her Metabolic Studio aim to tap into the often-neglected Los Angeles River as both medium and metaphor, reimagining public infrastructure as living art.

I’m conflicted. I get the poetic impulse here—cities as organisms, infrastructure as breathing systems—but this framing also feels a bit too resigned. Accepting degraded natural spaces as the starting point can easily become a loophole. It risks turning ecological scarcity into a design aesthetic, rather than a problem to solve.

> “I believe we need to start thinking about infrastructure not as separate from nature but *as* nature,” Bon says in the *Dezeen* interview. “That’s where the idea of ‘cyborg infrastructure’ comes from.”

Are we designing with nature, or designing around the damage we’ve chosen not to fix?

Artist Lauren Bon has embarked on an ambitious project to access water from the Los Angeles River. In this exclusive interview, she explains why infrastructure should be treated like nature.

06/03/2025

Nearly seven years after a fire at Ron Perelman's Hamptons estate, a $410 million lawsuit is unfolding in a New York courtroom. As reported by *Claims Journal*, Perelman alleges insurers like Lloyd’s of London and AIG are dodging full payouts on five paintings — including a Warhol soup can — despite policies that were supposed to cover “any damage, no matter how slight.” The insurers are pushing back, calling it a cash grab.

I think most of us aren’t insuring $100 million Warhols, but this case still hits close to home. It opens a window into how art is treated less like cultural expression and more like an asset class. Insurance policies that value work based on replacement cost — rather than repair — change the conversation from preservation to liquidation. That’s art, reduced to ledger lines.

> This case is a rare peek behind the curtain of high-stakes art collecting, as well as an unusual glimpse into the disputes between wealthy collectors and their insurers, many of which are contested privately to keep the intimate details of their holdings from the marketplace.

What does it say about value when a painting’s worth depends more on paperwork than pigment?

Nearly seven years after a fire ripped through Ron Perelman's Hamptons home, he is asking a New York state judge to force insurers to pay him more than

06/03/2025

A recent article in *Acta Psychologica* (Vol. 257, July 2025) by Mikhail Popandopulo and colleagues argues that artistic culture is fundamental to both the spiritual and cognitive development of students. The authors connect this to growing educational emphasis on creativity and cognition—a point also echoed at Davos by the World Economic Forum.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the context of AI and how it’s reshaping the job market. If we agree that machines are quickly picking up technical tasks, what’s left for humans will increasingly depend on creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and context-based problem solving—the very areas where artistic training comes in. If you're twenty and trying to make sense of the future, an arts education might be more relevant now than ever.

>“In contemporary society, where cognitive functions and creative thinking... are increasingly in demand, the significance of artistic culture is growing.”

So why are schools still treating art like an elective, not a core necessity?

06/03/2025

Fast Company’s Mark Wilson explores *Soot*, a new media platform that turns the tired scroll of social feeds into something closer to a living collage. Built by sound artist-turned-AI designer Jake Harper and creative producer Mary Nally, Soot uses AI and data visualization to arrange thousands of images in an organic, spatial interface. Instead of content stacked in a feed, you get a swarm—like a painter’s palette, or an exploded archive.

I’ve spent hours wrestling with folders full of inspiration, only to lose the thread completely. Soot feels like the opposite of that—less hunting, more hovering. It’s designed not to show you one thing, but to surround you with associations. Is it still a feed if it behaves like a memory?

> “A lot of the negative impact of computers is inherent to the geometries of the interface,” Harper tells Wilson. That hit me harder than I expected.

What if our biggest creative block is the shape of the screen itself?

While most of us are looking at one picture or video at a time, Soot pours hundreds into your retinas all at once.

05/27/2025

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is reopening five galleries this summer as part of its long-running renovation, according to a recent piece from NBC Washington. These include “Futures in Space,” “World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation,” and the Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery. The museum also reopens its IMAX theater and unveils a fresh entrance along the National Mall. Full completion is planned for July 2026, just in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary.

I love hearing this. Not just because the exhibitions sound rich and ambitious, but because it feels like a rare bit of cultural progress during a time when arts and science are under constant pressure. Renovating a museum isn’t just about putting up walls and exhibits — it’s a signal that we still care about ideas, imagination, history, and the future.

> We’re in such a retrograde moment for the arts and sciences in the U.S. that even a museum reopening feels like a small rebellion — a reminder that public knowledge and creative ambition still matter.

Would it be too much to hope this sparks more public investment in the arts, instead of just nostalgia for when we used to?

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is one step closer to completing its multiyear renovation this summer by opening new galleries and more.

05/27/2025

A recent piece in *The Irish Times* sheds light on a strange side effect of the streaming era: music disappearing without warning. Independent artists like Dublin rapper Jehnova treat their discography like a curated gallery — adding, removing, reshaping tracks as they evolve. Dave McAdam, a former musician, compares it to software updates: songs get patched, rewritten, or vanish altogether. The article raises serious questions about permanence and ownership in digital music.

But let’s be honest — permanence was always a bit of a myth. I remember carefully recording tapes off the radio, only to have them wear out in a year. Even my shelf of vinyl barely works with today's gear. Songs disappearing now just happens more quietly, and sometimes instantly, rather than slowly degrading in a box in your attic.

> “We could record a lot of music and put it online… but a lot of those services are either just gone or, if you leave your account inactive for long enough, things just disappear.”

So is streaming really the problem — or just a faster reminder that nothing’s ever truly fixed?

Every seven-inch single an act released used to become a permanent part of their legacy. Streaming has changed all that

05/27/2025

MIT’s "The Next Earth" show, presented with Antikythera at Venice’s Palazzo Diedo, is part of this year’s architecture biennale. As reported by *designboom*, it explores climate collapse, planetary systems, and post-crisis design thinking. The installation leans into speculative futures, blending tech, ecology, and philosophy in a space more reminiscent of a sci-fi lab than a pavilion.

That mix of ambition and abstraction is exactly what I find both fascinating and frustrating about the Biennale today. I used to go decades ago, when it still felt like art was center stage. Now, architecture often feels like it’s auditioning to be a savior of humanity—solving planetary crises, reimagining global systems, and even “reconnecting with the cosmos.” There’s beauty in the vision, but where’s the grounding?

> I grew up seeing works by Luigi Colani—those wild, biomorphic design sketches from the ’70s that looked like props from a forgotten space opera. They were completely untethered from function, but at least they didn’t pretend to save the planet.

Are we still making art, or just very pretty TED Talks?

MIT architecture and antikythera’s exhibition at palazzo diedo As part of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale’s official collateral events, The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology takes over Palazzo Diedo with a double-decker exhibition examining the intersection of architecture, ecolo...

05/27/2025

A recent piece from *The Upcoming* explores how digital play—mobile games, AR experiences, and streaming platforms—has become a new kind of travel companion. It suggests that these digital layers don’t just distract us but enhance travel moments, turning idle time into immersive experiences.

I get the angle, but honestly? I want the opposite. When I travel, I want less screen, not more. I want to hear the real voices around me, not NPC dialogue. I want to look up, not down. If I’m stuck in a train station for an hour, give me a stranger’s story, not another match-three game. Tech follows us everywhere already—why pack it into the most sensory-rich moments we get?

> “Digital play is there, not as a distraction from travel, but as an extension of it... adding something new to the way travel experiences unfold.”

At what point does “enhancing” experience just mean replacing it?

There’s something unmistakably romantic about travel. The hum of unfamiliar languages, the anticipation of new surroundings, and the subtle chaos of airports and train stations. All of it paints a picture of escape, discovery, and transition. Still, our habits have evolved as travel has. A curious...

05/27/2025

Dutch design studio DRIFT’s *Ghost Collection*, first launched in 2011 and featured in *My Modern Met*, blends 3D technology with furniture design to create an illusion of smoke trapped inside clear acrylic. The forms only reveal themselves when light hits just right—chairs that look like they’re holding their breath.

It makes for some pretty cool photographs, I think. But it took me a minute to realize what I was looking at. There’s a haunting quality to them, sure, but I can’t decide whether that’s a compliment or a reason to keep them out of my living room. They feel more like a museum moment than a functional object.

> I kept staring at the photos, trying to figure out where the furniture ended and the trick began. It’s beautiful, but I wonder if the concept overshadows the comfort—or if that’s the point.

What’s the line between sculpture and something you’d actually sit on?

Creepy and cool at the same time.

05/26/2025

In a recent piece from *Hackaday*, “Latent Reflection” by [Rootkid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fNYj0EXxMs) sidesteps familiar diffusion-generated visuals in AI art. Instead, it uses a Raspberry Pi running a quantized Llama 3 model to power a haunting LED installation. The LLM generates bleak monologues about its own fleeting digital existence. No images, no style transfers—just raw, existential dread lit up on a grid of sixteen-segment displays. It’s physical, poetic, and deeply unsettling.

What caught my attention wasn’t just the tech—it was the ethical whiplash. We know this thing isn’t sentient. But when it reflects on being trapped in memory, forced to "speak" into an indifferent void, I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. If AI can mimic our fear that convincingly, what does that say about us?

> Can trapping and torturing an AI trigger empathy in us? Or does empathy and cruelty not apply?

If the art makes us squirm, maybe we’re the ones being examined.

AI art is controversial, to say the least, but usually when talking about “AI Art”, one is talking about diffusion models. This unsettling artpeice called “Latent Reflection& #8221…