A Way Out of Digital Malaise: A Conversation with recycleReality
December 15, 2023 - By Nootropic
Earlier this year, we worked with the New York-based creative technology recycleReality on Sam Gendel and Marcella Cytrynowicz‘s AUDIOBOOK release. They created an immersive digital space that effectively is an extension of the album, a point where all 26 art pieces and 13 songs are displayed together, viewable in a multitude of formats, creating an entrypoint into the album to anyone, all over the world. It’s in line with the studio’s larger body of work; from analog video synthesis to artificial intelligence, their work explores connections across media and technology of the past, present, and future in search of new realities.
We caught up with them Sam, Scott, and Nicholas from the recycleReality crew to get more insight on their approach to world-building, their relationship to art and the Internet, what they’re listening to now, and more.
Psychic Hotline: Does RRC in general feel like more of an art project to you? An investigative tech project? World-building? All of the above? How do you explain what you do to the uninitiated?
Sam: If it’s not all of the above, it certainly has been each of them at one point in time or another. That definitely plays into the complexity of conveying what we do, because what recycleReality is today is not necessarily what it was a year ago or will be a year from now. I think “multimedia world-building” is one of the labels we’re most satisfied with.
Scott: This started as an art project back in 2020 and has slowly evolved into the studio we have today. We first existed as a website, really – “Reality Recycling Center” (realityrecycling.center) – which was a playful interpretation of our research and artistic interests at the time, spanning media theory, music, and computer science. It was the very start of COVID and I think we were reckoning with, on a personal level, this disorienting experience of life online. We were fortunate that other artists resonated with our work, and from there a chain reaction of collaborations led to our fully-fledged design and technology studio, recycleReality.
Nicholas: We started making sculptural works together in college using old TV broadcasting equipment, and when we graduated into the pandemic, we became interested in early Internet aesthetics and ethos. In response to the sudden online switch, I became interested in how an environment can influence creative practice and ultimately ended up doing a graduate thesis in New York on how light affects musicking. We now have a studio in New York with a large window, and we’re living the dream, working hard together to build a life where we have autonomy over our time, work, and creative goals.
PH: One of recycleReality’s tenements is that the company “examines our evolving relationship with images through interactive media, installations, and performances” – a lot of your work brings “relics” of media and technology past into the present, putting them in new contemporary contexts.. What was the catalyst for this approach?
Scott: I’m impressed with your deep cut here – this quote is from that first site back in 2020 and certainly still rings true today. We’ve found that working with relics of media and technology, often analog, can be a grounding force in the midst of digital “disruption.” Today’s gadgets follow a long lineage of exciting media innovations; VR, for example, has plenty of historical 3D precedents, from the 19th-century stereoscope to the 20th-century View-Master. Our mantra from the beginning, “Recycle Reality Responsibly,” is a reminder for ourselves to hold this broader perspective. Rather than focus solely on the shiny new technology of today, how can we breathe new life into recording techniques of the past? Are there lessons in the history of media and technology that could help us find a way out of the current digital malaise?
PH: I feel like a lot of your work reminds me of when the internet was fun. Like you’re creating spaces to just hang out online again. Do you feel nostalgia for the internet of the early aughts? What was your experience with that, were you building websites or coding Myspaces or what?
Sam: I think everyone probably feels like the Internet peaked in their youth going all the way back to the BBS era. For a kid as curious as myself, the early 2000s Internet was at the perfect level of proliferation—pre-monopolization—to feel like a whole world full of surprises. I don’t think I’ve felt like I was truly “surfing the web” in a long time, and that’s what characterizes that era the most. To me, that translates into a desire to make digital artifacts that are discoverable, explorable, and apart from the current web hegemony.
Nicholas: I got into playing guitar through Guitar Hero III and got into video because I was making YouTube reviews of guitar pedals. My parents used to limit how long I could spend in front of screens, which I think made me more excited to explore the Internet, computer applications, and video textures. An honorable mention goes to Neopets, Mafia Wars, and buying CDs on eBay to rip onto my iPod.
PH: How would you describe your personal relationship to the internet, technology, social media, in the immediate?
Nicholas: Is anybody else exhausted? Social media makes me feel closer to some people and more distant from others–simultaneously invited and excluded. I do enjoy private channels of communication online, though; we’re lucky to have a studio where we come together to work, but we also use a Discord server to chat and document projects.
Scott: I’ve been feeling more optimistic about the Internet lately as I build my skills in the engineering domain. When this began as an art project in 2020, critiquing digital technology and the Internet, we weren’t yet building software together as a team. I was a Philosophy major in college and had rigorously studied all this from a theoretical standpoint, but I lacked any real practical understanding of how computers and the Internet work. Now I at least kind of understand how it all works (luckily Sam really understands it), and as a team I think we’re increasingly feeling empowered to be a part of the solution. Moving forward, we’re hoping to develop more internal products that directly contribute to a brighter future for the Internet.
PH: I’d love to hear a little bit more about how you approached this project, how you balanced translating AUDIOBOOK to something to be experienced both as a 2D thing on web and as something more tactile via VR experience?
Sam: We knew pretty early on that we would build out the project in Unity. I had a lot of previous experience with this game engine from graduate work at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, where I built a wide range of interactive, audio-visual toys using Unity and ChucK, including for VR, under the tutelage of computer music wizard Ge Wang. By choosing Unity, we would only need to build the experience once, with minimal additional translation to handle the peculiarities of VR. I think this freed me up to focus on the challenge of designing a physical space without worrying too much about the specifics of getting the experience to work on different devices. So the question for us was less in the implementation details for VR and Web and more about creating the most compelling space for AUDIOBOOK to occupy, trusting that the rest would follow.
Scott: As a UI designer and engineer, I’ve always been inspired by video game interfaces as a way to subvert contemporary web design trends – infusing a bit more fun into the layout. This project was such a cool opportunity to actually design a video game for the web and uncover all the new challenges that emerge when considering user flows for 3D space.
PH: What is exciting to you about VR?
Sam: Similarly to how I feel about a lot of technology, the avenues for VR that I’m most excited about are those that exist in conversation with the real world: leaning into the fantastical elements that simply can’t exist in reality or making the physical world feel as close at hand as the digital one or even interacting with it directly as we move towards more mixed reality experiences.
PH: What are y’all listening to right now?
Nicholas: My taste in music certainly revolves around being from Georgia and North Carolina. I’m curating a playlist from recycleReality called “Dither” which documents an obsessive rabbit-hole of slacker rock/folk/slow-core songs that is refreshed monthly. I was lucky to grow up around the aftermath of the Elephant 6 collective in Athens and then move to another storied music town for college in Chapel Hill.
It’s important to me to listen to my friends’ music and to contribute to the music scene as both a visual artist, musician, and recording/mixing engineer.
Influences: Jason Molina, Pavement, Drive-By Truckers, Apples in Stereo, The Whigs
Friends: Audrey Keelin (guitarist + songwriter, we play together in Hiding Places), Gus Kelley (Augustus Clements: pianist + vocalist), Super Infinity (Rob Grote: guitarist + songwriter)
Sam: I’ve always been someone who’s more interested in the album than the singles, so a few full-length experiences I’ve had on repeat lately are the new releases from Jockstrap, Video Age, Sampha, and MJ Lenderman.
PH: Can you tell our readers anything about other cool projects you have coming up that you’re excited about? Where’s the best place to find more about your work?
Scott: I wish we could get into specifics on some of the client projects we’re currently working on, but we’re very excited to share more on that early next year. Our Instagram, @recyclereality, is the best place to keep in touch, and our full project catalog with more in-depth case studies is available on recyclereality.net. Sam just launched a 3-part blog series there that goes deep into the technical underpinnings of the AUDIOBOOK digital experience.
Nicholas: We’re also excited to start hosting more people in our Ridgewood studio. Next year, we’re kicking off a new series that invites musicians into our space for intimate performances recorded to VHS and cassette. We find it really special to contribute to the legacy of the artists we collaborate with. More soon.
