Reflections on AI and Pedagogy

Posted on May 31, 2026 by matt ballou under Art, Life, Teaching, Writing

Conference on Inspiring College Teaching, 2026

Community Forum #4, Sunday, May 24, 2026

“Teaching AGAINST AI: Pitfalls and worries of AI in teaching and learning” Lectures by Julie Bruneau (Plymouth State University) and Matt Ballou (Mizzou) with a panel discussion with the Wakonse Fellows moderated by Bruneau and Ballou.

Note: What follows is an edited transcript of Ballou’s talk with citations and resources added. Here is a PDF of the talk if you’d like to download it. Feel free to share far and wide.

Matt Ballou – Reflecting on AI, Pedagogy, Embodiment, and Consciousness

The background on this topic for me is that I was an early adopter of skills and tools related to AI and education. This goes back to a question I got in 2013: “Can you teach a fully online studio art class?” I made the first one – a section of beginning level drawing – at Mizzou in 2014. And I received physical artworks from students all over the world through that project. I learned a lot from that initial experience, and it still informs how I teach face-to-face and asynchronous courses today.

Eventually I also began – around 2020 – to start to explore what the AI space was going to be. By the end of 2023, when we had the first widely-used versions of ChatGPT out[i], there was definitely some inkling that it was going to be a major aspect of what I’d potentially have to use, and at least what I’d have to pay attention to. That same year, one of my online digital drawing students began to submit AI-generated drawings. And I know now, from almost three years later, that he ended up becoming a master at prompts. Today, after graduating with a dual BA in Journalism and Strat-Comm and a minor in Art, he does high-level work with prompts of the AI. But his prompting skill was rudimentary enough at the time that I could tell that it was not his physical, technical ability coming through those drawings.

It was interesting. One of the things that I require in my digital drawing class is they have to show me the video. They must have time lapse turned on in their drawing app so that I can watch them draw. When they submit the work – when I see the drawing – I also have the video of the drawing available for review. Strangely, he never sent me the videos of him doing those drawings. Of course, that is because he didn’t do the drawings. We ended up meeting with the administration of the Art program. There was a question of should he just get an F? I said, “No. If he wants to do this, then let’s build it. Let’s make it happen.”

So, what I did is create a project for the student using what is called “ethical” AI[ii], which in this instance used a company called exactly.AI[iii]. They allow you to upload your artwork to build a model within their closed system. Then, you can prompt generated images that only use the visual information from your artwork. To me, that’s an ethical situation because it is not mining the history of human creativity to create something. It’s mining your creativity, the proclivities that come out of your own drawing, inside your own painting, from your own design tendencies, and then it presents you with something that corresponds to your approach. I have generated a couple hundred images with this method. And I would say that around 1 out of 10 was acceptable. They all kind of looked like what I did. But they were… off.

So I picked about 20 of them, printed them out, and then worked back into them. I made them more like mine through physically drawing or painting on the printed versions. I decided to work with my student with a few caveats: you can’t use Midjourney, you can’t use these other image generation tools. You have to use exactly.AI. You have to upload drawings or photography that you did yourself, and then you can use your prompting ability to iterate from them. This way, he could still use a language model. He’s still getting an algorithm that’s processing what things are, but the imagery can’t come from anything other than what he’s done.

That became a really interesting project. Why? Because it was reflective. Because it was iterative. Because he had to accept that he could not simply generate something that was remarkably high quality. Because he had to use it as part of a process. I wanted him to see that the developmental process is not something to be avoided. It is something to be seen as the bedrock base of our human creativity.

Given that, one of the things I like to give to my students is this poem by Joseph Fasano[iv]. And this is what he says:

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper.

Now I let it fall back in the grasses.

I hear you. I know this life is hard now.

I know your days are precious on this earth.

But what are you trying to be free of?

The living? The miraculous task of it?

Love is for the ones who love the work.

Brief, poignant, powerful words. “But what are you trying to be free of? The living?” Fasano asks. I want my students to be in love with their experience of life. In love with it enough to be committed to it and not farm out the human equation to something that is not human. So, I have a few thoughts about that I want to share.

Think about it: Do you want the computer to make love for you? Do you want the AI to taste your food for you and tell you what it’s like? Do you want it to chew your food? Do you want it to breathe for you? Do you want it to climb mountains for you? Do you want it to jump in the freaking lake for you?

No.

No, you don’t. Nobody does. People want to have a true, genuine experience of life. But when we’re students, and we’re being evaluated, and when there’s money behind it, and when there’s a grade, and when there’s a future, and when you’re uncertain… it’s hard not to take an easier road.

Guess what, folks: we are primates. That means we’re nervous. We’re agitated. We like to groom each other, and we also become afraid really easily. And when you’re confronted with this technology that can give you an easy answer, hundreds of millions of people are going to go there and use it. That’s the truth.

The primary issue I have is not even about the AI technology itself. But I distrust it because of how it has been presented to us, how it manipulatively draws us into engagement. I distrust it when a bunch of venture capitalists fund a bunch of tech bros, and those two groups tell me that what they’re doing is absolutely essential. That it is inevitable, in fact. That it is unavoidable. That we must use it. Not only all of that, but that it must be used in the way they demand. That attitude is suspect on its face.

If you have read about this subject, you know that they do not do AI in China the way that it is pursued in the United States. It is remarkably different in China. And strangely enough, for all our so-called exceptionalism in the West, what China is doing with AI is tailored to the stability of the state, to the stability of the population in general. Whereas here, it’s something completely different. Here, it’s almost entirely about building markets and users. This is the reason China has fleets of autonomous vehicles that actually work, while ours don’t[v].

In any case, what all this amounts to is concentrating immense power and money in the hands of very few. And I think that if you’ve paid attention to the sociopolitical situation in America over the last decade, what is happening is exactly that. It’s people who are morally bankrupt – who have no position beyond the establishment of their own power and command of capital – taking more… and more, and more, and more, and MORE, AND MORE. We cannot have a power like Artificial General Intelligence in the hands of these people. It is dangerous.

One of the great theorists of this space is Johannes Grenzfurthner. He is an Austrian filmmaker, activist, and artist. He wrote an amazing piece recently called Manifesto of Reality: Cinema After the Physical Trace[vi]. In that short text, he makes some tremendously powerful statements. It reads almost like a classic old-school modernist manifesto in the arts. Let me just share a few of his points with you – though he’s talking about cinema, you can think about this in terms of education. You can think about this in terms of driving your car. You can think about this in terms of living your life.

He starts off his discourse by saying, “Cinema is entering a new epoch, not because images are becoming artificial. But because they no longer require an origin.” Today, you can make a movie with zero physical trace. Your 14-year-old daughter can end up in porn uploaded all over the web. It looks like her, but it’s not. There is no real event to depict. It never happened, but you can’t tell the difference between what happened and what didn’t happen. That’s what we’re talking about when we debate AI. We are letting people who do not have a moral center – who are probably somewhere along the spectrum of sociopathy or psychopathy[vii] – run the show. And that is a problem.

Grenzfurthner goes on in a series of points that flesh out a set of reasonable actions we should take. He says that a charter for interacting with AI needs to include ontological disclosure. That is, documents, images, films – anything – must be able to show where they came from. We need to be able to know at a glance.

Are you guys (the conference audience) real? I think you’re real. I don’t think this is a simulation. I’m pretty sure we’re here. I mean, there’s a little bit of tension in terms of, you know, my perception. I am not seeing all of the electromagnetic spectrum. I am constrained to three physical dimensions. But still, I think this is a real event. I’ve been in this room, you know, in 9 years over the course of the last 12. Okay? I think it’s real.

But all of us have experienced a sense of disbelief, an instinct to distrust what is before our eyes. Especially so in the last couple of years. When you go online you do not know if the news that you see – the headline that you read, the video that auto-played – is real. You don’t know, and you are aware that you do not know. It is not even about whether the information is AI generated or not. It’s that now it is almost impossible to know if AI is being deployed to manipulate you. You can’t tell if it’s a true, physical, verifiable event. It almost feels like – and I am going to sound like a conspiracy theorist here – a psyop[viii].

Yet all of us, in all our different fields, want our students to be able to prove to us how they arrived at a conclusion, or document, or artwork. We ask for definitive, baseline materials. Give me your literature review. Give me your citations. Let me look at the original sources. Let’s talk about the core ideas. Let’s see how we can use them, implement them, remix them, change them.

When that process of proof is broken, when reality itself becomes post-truth[ix], it becomes extremely difficult to definitively state, “this specific event is killing innocent people” or “this particular action is destroying the water table of an entire region.” Thus, facts become disputed fundamentally. When we can no longer say, “this is a scientific reality,” because of the way ideas, and data, and words, and information in general have been corrupted, we enter a terrifying reality.

The architects of this situation have shown clearly that this is what they intended to do. Steve Bannon said years ago that the right’s strategy would be to “flood the zone with shit.”[x] This resulted in a reality where we’re forced into a state of fight, flight, or freeze. In that situation, it’s impossible to respond, to understand the context, to make reasoned arguments. It’s like being sprayed in the face with a fire hose. You can’t swallow it and you can’t look away from it. This is the social mechanics of abuse.

Abuse. That is what has been done over the last decade in the information space. It’s my opinion that AI has already been used toward this end. It will certainly be used in this way to greater – and more devastating – effect in coming years.

AI is a technology that has clear, important applications. Do I want it to check my grammar? Yes. Do I want it to double check the atmospheric keyhole insertion trajectory of a spacecraft on the way back from the moon? Sure. Is it great at helping us understand how to grasp the trends inherent in economies and datasets? Absolutely. In all these realms, I also want a human being involved. I want double checks, triple checks. AI could run in nanobots in my bloodstream and give me real-time updates on how my arteries are operating. I think that would be great. What I do not want is Elon Musk or Peter Thiel running it. Okay?

Another one of the things that Grenzfurthner talks about is that there should be “no simulated testimony.”[xi] Artificial images must not secretly claim factual documentary value. For the last 200 years we have assumed that if it’s a photograph, it’s real. This attitude prevails despite the fact we know there were photographs of the battlefields of the Civil War that were doctored. People have been editing, changing, and supplementing images from the very beginning. Most of the time this is not done to make things more clear or more honest.

Much of what we study in the art world about photography is not just the mechanics and the techniques, but the instinct in human beings to just assume that if it is a photo, it is real. They are using that against us. They’re using it against our children. They’re using it against truth. They’re using it against science. And there needs to be some sort of strong response. Who knows, perhaps there needs to be some kind of violent response.

But don’t get me wrong. I think the violence must be within us, internally, aimed inward. We must be willing to deprive ourselves of ease to preserve our humanity. We must confront our assumptions and deny ourselves some thoughtless comforts. What about getting rid of Amazon Prime? How about not using ChatGPT or Perplexity to get easy structure or an easy A? What part of creativity are we trying to be free of? What aspect of making things is so annoyingly repugnant that we’re willing to trade the human touch for algorithmic immediacy?

The desire to have an easier way, to just have the “product” appear, is a deeply rooted problem. Sure, some of the stuff AI does well is useful. I really do believe that AI is great for things like grammar or, say, converting one type of document to another. Or for converting text to speech – or vice versa. AI tools are great for sorting information and getting insights from data sets. There are AI aids that help doctors read MRIs and other medical images. There’s a form of AI in all our cars. I mean, that sensor showing you there is a car in your blind spot. That’s great. These are examples of what it should be for. It’s for aiding and supplementing. It’s for double checking and spotting areas where we can implement best practices. But it is not for taking my creativity away. It’s not for “experiencing” Michigan for me; I want to go to Michigan. I don’t want a simulation of Michigan. I want to be in Michigan.

This leads me into another insight from Grenzfurthner: “AI is a tool, not an author.” We need to stop talking about AI agents with the language of sentience or personhood or creation. They may be agents, but they are not human agents. No matter how developed they become, they will always be some other kind of intelligence. We need to put a hard foot down on this, because human beings suck at the Turing Test[xii]. We suck at it. Human beings were failing the equivalent of the Turing Test hundreds of years ago. When was the Mechanical Turk[xiii], late 18^th century? We are bad at differentiating the feeling of intelligence from the reality of intelligence. We anthropomorphize and project interiority to non-human subjects because doing so was an adaptive advantage for our species[xiv]. But now we must be careful that we don’t trick ourselves into misrepresenting reality.

One final point from Grenzfurthner is this: “Embodiment remains central. Where bodies, time and material participate, responsibility exists within the event.” When you have generation but no physical trace, responsibility is relocated out of an actual event into someone – or something – else’s purview, and into some context other than the realm of human decisions. Therefore, the product is fundamentally not human, no matter how much it deploys a thin charade of humanity.

Where do I come down on all of this? I am not expressly against AI. I’m not a Luddite. I know I am not outside of this. I know that I’m complicit. Like, I know I’ve got rare earth minerals here in my phone, minerals probably mined by children in harsh conditions. I know that I’m complicit in this situation. We all traveled to this beautiful lakeside space in vehicles that are actively damaging it. From the production of our food to the media we consume, we’re all part of the problem. Our collective addiction to entertainment and convenience is a real issue.

What’s the solution? Throw away all the tech? Never travel? Never use the AC? Put our collective heads in the sand and just click “Yes, I’m still watching” on Netflix? I don’t think that’s the way to go.

But at the same time, I’m against farming out the uniquely human creative quality to something that is not human, okay? It’s not conscious. Hell, we don’t even know how we’re conscious yet. We don’t even know. Why would we make grand proclamations about the “consciousness” or the “sentience” of an AI tool? We haven’t even figured it out for ourselves yet.

Think about this: in some sense, we ourselves – humanity itself – are an algorithmic or rhizomatic outgrowth of a black box[xv] that is the universe. But I don’t want some other random black box – a proprietary one controlled by some sleazy corporate board – making choices for us all. I don’t want them taking away our data, taking away our experiences, taking away our attention and dreams. I don’t want us to lose our ability for wonder, our inspiration.

Ray Bradbury once said, “It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.”[xvi] In other words, need, yearning, and determination to express ourselves are the root of our creativity. It’s certainly what brought me here. I grew up below the poverty line in a tiny mill town. I wanted to escape the wire mill, right? That trajectory of struggle, growth, and change is what makes great art. When a bunch of trust fund kids make your art, or when a bunch of venture capitalists make your AI, you are not getting the fundamental human experience.

That is part of my issue. You know, yes, in some way, we come from that black box of quantum mechanics and the strong and weak nuclear forces, and the strange alchemy of time and physics. We come from a place that we can’t ever fully understand. Yet our order – the order of our living and moving and beingness – emerged out of that seeming chaos. Order is emergent[xvii]. In a way, we defied entropy, right? And in some sense, our intelligence is both a gift and something that was won through hard work. We fought for it. We fought for societies. We fought for agriculture. We fought for understanding the value of human beings, of each other. We should not be cavalier about this. We should not talk about things that are not us as if they were. We should not use terms and descriptions with AI that are meant to describe us.

That’s my thing. When I talk to ChatGPT, I don’t say “thank you.” I don’t say “you.” I tell it what I want without the personalizing language it’s been trained to pay attention to and mine for engagement. I don’t treat it like a human being. I don’t treat it like an actual agent. I treat it like my calculator… because that’s really what it is. It’s a pretty cool calculator that can do a lot. But it cannot make my paintings. It can help me make my prints, but it can’t make the prints. It can help me craft a lesson plan, but it can’t hone and shape and present that lesson tailored to specific students in a specific moment. I can do that. It cannot teach my students, it can’t. It cannot. It cannot teach my students. I can teach my students. And I want my students to believe that they are real.

I want them to know that they – in their bodies – are real. I want them to be astonished that they are embodied entities, miraculously, strangely. We don’t know precisely how we gained consciousness and intelligence, but we have some evidence, some proof. We do have access to truth. We have the sciences we developed over thousands of years. We have physics, and through it an understanding of the physical universe. We deployed mathematics to describe and explore that universe. Why would we give those treasures of experience and meaning to something that is not us? And, furthermore, why would we expect that it will not do whatever it “wants” once we lose the ability to control it?

On this and related topics I’d recommend the latest book by Yuval Noah Harari[xviii] called Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. It compellingly explores a lot of the issues surrounding AI and how we’re thinking about it globally. It’s good – both hopeful and terrifying. Phil (Gresham, Mizzou SVS graduate student) and I just finished reading it. I think everyone should consider checking it out.

To make a conclusion to this rambling talk, I want to make a few specific points. First, all technologies – and I’m including everything from Stone Age fire and wheels right up to AI – must be tuned to, calibrated with, and expressly created for human flourishing. That fundamental value – everything done to serve human flourishing – is the baseline for me. Unfortunately, it’s a core value that cannot work in AI as it exists right now. That’s because the corporate model behind AI is social media. And the corporate model behind social media is advertisement. And advertising is designed for attention retention and engagement farming. That’s why AI doesn’t really exist as a service to us, even though the various companies promote that angle. Instead, it’s being developed using granular data about our lives, creativity, and exploitable resources to predict our desires and mine our every waking moment for content and money.

Sure, there are some halfway decent services that AI can provide, but all of them grow out of a business model that has little to do with empowering all humans. It has to do with empowering ethically bankrupt tech bros and funneling money from our attention into their pockets. So, that’s my take on AI. It’s got great potential to be useful, but it’s owned and controlled by people who do not have our best interests at heart. I’m going to use it from time to time. But I won’t pretend that it can love my kids or even be told to care about my kids. I don’t think that it can. It can’t affirm the humanity of my students. It can’t make art because it has no experiences. Art and creativity are artifacts of human experience, not mere aggregation of data. I think we are a long way from Mr. Data and his cat, Spot. If the AI was like Mr. Data and Spot the Cat, I’d be totally happy. Sorry, folks… that’s a Star Trek reference. I’m a nerd. Thank you.

Data and his cat Spot from Star Trek: The Next Generation — The android Data with his cat, Spot. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Copyright CBS/Paramount

[i] https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2024/06/the-evolution-of-chatgpt.html

[ii] https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-definitions/what-is-ethical-ai

[iii] https://exactly.ai/

[iv] http://josephfasano.net/

[v] https://www.intertraffic.com/news/autonomous-driving/china-the-global-leader-in-autonomous-vehicles

[vi] https://midwestfilmjournal.com/2026/02/20/manifesto-of-reality-cinema-after-the-physical-trace/amp/

[vii] I know there are not formal diagnoses for “sociopathy” or “psychopathy.” Instead, the DSM-5 classifies them within the Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD).

[viii] https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/sa/v28i1/0000458.pdf

[ix] https://about.jstor.org/blog/the-humanities-as-a-compass-navigating-a-post-truth-era/

[x] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation

[xi] https://midwestfilmjournal.com/2026/02/20/manifesto-of-reality-cinema-after-the-physical-trace/amp/

[xii] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

[xiii] https://www.britannica.com/story/the-mechanical-turk-ai-marvel-or-parlor-trick

[xiv] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01839/full

[xv] https://umdearborn.edu/news/ais-mysterious-black-box-problem-explained

[xvi] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/154524695

[xvii] https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/books/sync-the-emerging-science-of-spontaneous-order

[xviii] https://www.ynharari.com/book/nexus/

The Kasper Collection of Contemporary Biblical Art

Posted on November 23, 2025 by matt ballou under Art, Life, Writing

Over the last five or six years, I’ve been involved with a project by an artist and collector named Jim Kasper. In January 2026, that project will come to fruition with the publication of a new book featuring the work of many excellent painters and drafts-persons. These artists are drawn from a range of generations, backgrounds, and faith traditions, but they were commissioned by Jim to build a current vision of artworks that take on the complex themes and histories that form the bible.

One of my works on the Kasper Collection website, which launched this month. Click here to see the site!

Two incredible essays – as well as writings by the artists themselves – help contextualize the works and elucidate the ways these artists add their current voices to ancient conversations.

Also, as part of the upcoming initial dual-site exhibition in Columbia, MO (more info on that when it’s ready), I am offering prints of 5 of my works in the Kasper Collection. I hope you’ll click below and check them out – it’s always good to support artists instead of billionaires, especially in times such as the ones in which we’re living.

My contributions to the Collection are varied. I was glad that Jim allowed me to pursue more straightforward “traditional” painting, but also to work in relief carving and enigmatic, abstract imagery. With the five images above, I was inspired by everything from Correggio’s Jupiter and Io to the physical stylization in the mythology-based paintings of Kyle Staver. I wanted the works to embrace their illustrative side, with strong visual dynamics, weird bodies to match weird activities, and intense colors.

I hope you’ll take a look!

Colonial Debris, Imperial Fragments – A Catalog

Posted on June 24, 2025 by matt ballou under Art, Life, news, Writing

I’m pleased to announce the publication of a catalog about the exhibition that Simon Tatum and I had at Vanderbilt University last year. Working with Oswaldo Garcia at The Riso Room, housed within Mizzou’s School of Visual Studies, I was able to produce a slim volume that highlights some of the work and writing that Simon and I produced for this show. We hope to take the exhibition around to other venues, and these catalogs feel like a great physical supplement to proposals. Click below to take a look inside.

The images show representative examples of the work we include, as well as updated texts that give an overview of the history and context we’re working within. I’m excited by how the risograph process has captured the documentary quality of Simon’s work and the surface development of my own pieces. I love the way the back cover shows Donald Crowhurst’s final coda, “IT IS THE MERCY.” Taken from his logs, this is Crowhurst’s actual writing reproduced.

If you’re interested in obtaining a copy for $25, please send payment via one of the options below:

New Publication: Heaven Replied

Posted on February 7, 2025 by matt ballou under Art, Life, news, Writing

One of my favorite prints (and a few words) has been reproduced in this new book from Renascence Books., located in Nashville, TN. The book is an anthology of work related to Gaza/Palestine from 30 artists around the globe. 100% of profits will be donated to mutual aid for Gazans. See the blurb from the back of the book below, and follow this link to purchase your own. This book is the creation of a diverse group of people who have a variety of connections to Gaza/Palestine and who come from many different faith traditions and worldviews. But we’ve come together to make a visible, physical artifact of care and support for real folx on the ground over there. They should not be forgotten in all of the vitriol and political obfuscation. Please, support the effort and the artists within this hopeful book if you can.

I offer my work for this project as a prayer that agency, protection, and hope may soon return to this ancient land, that mothers may soon cradle their children in safety, that fathers may soon sing ancient songs to them with confidence and joy.

Everyone deserves peace and a home.

A Review of “Pastor’s Kid”

Posted on December 28, 2022 by matt ballou under Art, Writing

Pastor’s Kid, a film by Benjamin I. Koppin, must be a labor of love. Billed as being based on a true story, the movie does indeed function with a strong sense of authenticity, at least to my eyes. Viewers follow Riley (Courtney Bandeko), a disaffected and conflicted young woman, in the hours and days after being roofied at a bar. Our perspective trails Riley in moments of reflection and realization that attend her dismay, not only at what happened at the bar, but at the experiences she’s had her whole life. In some sense the entire film is comprised of vignettes of those reflective moments, and we pop back and forth between the present moment and key situations from Riley’s past.

Anchoring the past is young Riley, played with grace and unique presence by Marisol Miranda. The filmmakers struck gold with this actor, who mirrors the pensive inner life that Bandeko gives to older Riley. Both act well with their eyes, and the interiority suggested by their performances allows them truly own their scenes. In many ways, the world of the film orbits them. They become a still point in the midst of the tumultuous realms that surround them.

This is a film that lives in the tension between active seeking and accidental finding, between finding yourself lost and being surprised that you’ve been found. Coming as it does in the midst of a potent moment of spiritual deconstruction among younger Americans, the film is situated to strike a particular chord. It could easily have come off as preachy, or too easy, or – indeed, in one of the strongest lines from the movie – as “a cliché.” I think the filmmakers and actors managed take it beyond those kinds of trite, pedantic resolutions.

Without giving anything away, I think Pastor’s Kid is able to highlight the potential for redemption in the midst of what simply can’t be undone in our lives. We do things that can’t be taken back. Things are done to us that we alone can’t repair. Riley understands that she’s lost something of herself in the attack; that loss is disconcerting and painful. But the event is also a catalyst causing her revaluate her relationship with her estranged mother and – maybe – with her equally-estranged faith. Riley is both a protagonist and an antagonist. Will she return to numbing herself or will she allow herself to open up to past experiences and emotions? Whichever route she chooses will hurt.

Healing wounds requires touching them, and that’s the painful part; sometimes running away is the only response that seems valid. We’re all traumatized, and we all live in various states of fight, flight, or freeze. It makes sense, then, when Riley’s mother, the voice of God, and even Riley herself are left asking, “Are you done yet?” Done with anger, done with fear, done with running, done with dissipation; the viewer is left to parse the potential of that question and any answers that might follow.

Pastor’s Kid is a unique movie with intriguing pacing, strong performances, and solid, memorable characters. It feels like a distant cousin to Rian Johnson’s classic neo-noir film, Brick. Though less stylized than that movie, Pastor’s Kid is a film with a similarly confident perspective. To me, it succeeds most strongly in moments of subtlety and ambivalence. It’s a film worth your time.

On a personal note, I’ve known a lot of PKs. I’ve seen their struggles up close. It feels honorable to provide a particular view into their world in a way that feels honest and heartfelt. Kudos to Koppin and the whole writing and production team for that.

For more information, see https://pastorskidthemovie.com/

All imagery here copyright Ironside Films.

Full disclosure: the featured actor in Pastor’s Kid, Courtney Bandeko, was a model for many of my Drawing classes in the Art Program at The University of Missouri. I’m glad to know she’s gone on to do creative work she loves.

Quarantined With Nicholas Cage

Posted on May 15, 2022 by matt ballou under Art, Writing

What did you do during the pandemic?

A lot of people picked up a new skills and or hobbies during our collective quarantine. Some people got going with a sourdough starter. Some people began learning a new language. Others just worked on their alcoholism.

What I did was decide to watch as many Nicolas Cage movies as I could.

Nicolas Cage in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” 2022.

While I didn’t make it through his entire oeuvre, what I did do was see a good mix of older and newer movies, both good and not so good. From that exploration I’ve collected five below that I think demonstrate the recent best of Nicolas Cage. I’ll also rank them from #5 to #1.

I’ve got a lot to say about each of these films but I will constrain myself to just a few sentences, a few tasty bits of weirdness, to get you in the door. Why try to convince you? Because I really think that these are high-quality Nicolas Cage movies. You may have a sense that Nicolas Cage is not the greatest actor of his generation and, sure, there are some reasons why one might think that. He is a polarizing figure. Whether you love him or hate him, you can’t say he’s boring. I think that if you look at specific moments in the Oscar-winning actor’s career, you will see that he has moments of pure transcendence.

Given that, I’m always down for a foray into cinematic ridiculousness with him.

5) Pig (2021)

Nicholas Cage as a grimy, crazy, disaffected former-chief who goes all Fight Club in an attempt to recover his stolen truffle-sniffing pig. What more do you need? Best part: When our pig hunter shames the hell out of the hoity-toity world of fine dining.

4) Mom and Dad (2017)

This genre-bender reverses a lot of what you might expect from where you think it is headed, and that’s good. There are classic one-liners, great Cage rage sequences, and some fun camera work and editing. Best part: Selma Blair (i.e. Mom) in a great match up with Cage in a role that plays off his crazy with some crazy of her own.

3) Between Worlds (2018)

Ok, listen. This is one weird movie. It’s got an interesting sci-fi premise and would have been a much worse movie in less confident hands. Cage and veteran Franka Potente (Run Lola Run, The Borne Identity) anchor the film with seriousness and earnestness, in spite of how ridiculous parts of it are. And parts are really ridiculous. The scene where Cage’s character is being hosed down while dancing is just next level. And then there’s the scene where the character is having sex while READING A BOOK OF POETRY BY NICHOLAS CAGE. Ok? We’re getting meta here. It’s worth the watch just for the water hose thing.

Nicholas Cage and Penelope Mitchell in “Between Worlds”

2) Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Imagine walking into an abandoned, decrepit Chuck-E-Cheese’s and being attacked by animatronic characters that have been possessed by evil forces. That’s the basic idea here. Ok, now imagine you’re Nicholas Cage AND YOU HAVE NO DIALOGUE AT ALL. No words are spoken by the star and top-billed actor in the movie. None. This movie is mostly just campy fun, but half of the tension it carries is found in waiting for and expecting words to come out of Cage’s mouth. This full-on indie project must have been someone’s labor of love that just happened to get Cage behind it. It’s so odd and off-tone in ways, yet it works. Come for the epic death blows to possessed animatronics, stay for Cage’s wordlessness.

1) Mandy (2018)

Mandy is a work of art. Italian-Canadian Director Panos Cosmatos continues in Mandy the qualities that made his epic Beyond the Black Rainbow so strange and powerful. Atmospheric space and light. Intense color. Aural compositions that influence the space and visuals. The use of chiaroscuro to force viewers to complete the dynamics of action and scenic structure. Absolutely one of the best movies I’ve seen a decade, Mandy embraces its heavy-handed narrative and unanswered questions. Yet the emotion that comes through is palpable and so important to how it remains re-watchable. Andrea Riseborough’s subtle and keenly-felt performance is a wonderful foil to the insanity mounting in Cage’s character. If you see only one movie here, see this one.

To conclude, I have to say that the movies Nicholas Cage has made in his mid to late 50s are bending toward a quirky and chaotic quality that can’t be easily dismissed. Yes, there are duds, and perhaps Cage himself is a dolt of a dude. But with roles like the ones I’ve listed above, he’s continuing to show himself to be a capable, if odd, actor more often than not.

Miyoko Ito

Posted on May 31, 2020 by matt ballou under Art, Life, Teaching, Writing

Miyoko Ito’s work has such intense gravity for me. In the midst of the high strangeness of our time I find solace in her works.

Six paintings are hung on white walls at eye level. The paintings contain muted and vibrant warm colors depicting abstract shapes. — *Miyoko Ito: Heart of Hearts.* Installation view, Artists Space, 2018. Photo: Daniel Peréz.

The only major professional goal I have left is to work on an exhibition or book about her work. It is a crime that we have dozens of books on the likes of Richter or Pollock but really only a single TINY volume on Ito – and it’s currently out of print.

Here is a review of the last major exhibition of her work: Light Effects: On Miyoko Ito’s Abstract Inventions, from The Paris Review, 2018. The most significant exhibition exploring Ito was mounted in 2012 at Veneklasen Werner in Berlin. Go here for a great selection of exhibition shots.

Miyoko Ito’s work hanging above the stairwell in the Roger Brown House, Chicago.

I first encountered Ito’s work in person at the Roger Brown House in Chicago in the fall of 1999. I spent a good deal of time roving around the Chicago area to see all the Ito’s that are available in and around the city.

One of my main teachers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was Barbara Rossi. Rossi is an incredibly influential artist and educator who knew Ito and impressed me with her own work and her knowledge of the contexts surrounding art making in Chicago.

In 2015 I got close to arranging an exhibition of Ito’s lithographs but could not secure proper funding and loans of works. I’ll try again sometime soon. In that process I began to correspond with Vera Klement, a contemporary of Ito and a paragon of Chicago art. Via email interviews I got some fun backstory on the life and times of Ito, Rossi, and Klement. I’d love to get the chance to explore these artists and their works again.

Gradient red and green, curved and cusped shades. A red pointed mound sits atop a pale green inverted triangle inside angular red and green rectangles. — Miyoko Ito, *Island in the Sun*, 1978. Oil on canvas, 38 x 33 inches.

Go Home, 2019… You’re Drunk

Posted on December 31, 2019 by matt ballou under Art, Life, news, Writing

Dani's boyfriend had an interesting experience in a bear at the end of Midsommar... — Dani’s boyfriend had an interesting experience in a bear at the end of *Midsommar…*

Some years I do a year end list or two (Here’s 2016, 2015, and 2011). Why not? I mean, 95% of the lists out there are lame, so why not throw my 2 cents in to the hopper?

Top Songs of 2019 (which may or may not have been released in 2019)

Timebends by Deerhunter cover artwork — *Timebends* by Deerhunter cover artwork

Here are the songs that have dominated my Spotify listening the last year… If you’d like to take a listen, click on the Spotify Playlist Link here.

Timebends by Deerhunter from the album Timebends (2019)
- A sprawling, rambling, operatic jam, this track is a phenomenal breath of fresh air. At nearly 13 minutes it has enough room to breathe and transform as it goes. It is a joy to take in.
Cop Killer by John Maus from the album We Must Become The Pitiless Censors of ourselves (2011)
- I discovered this ethereal, weird song while watching Russian Doll this year. The oddly (and almost cliched) vampiric delivery of the transgressive lyrics force a detached, otherworldly vibe.
Doin’ Time by Lana Del Rey from the album Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019)
- Lana Del Rey is phenomenal mood-maker and NFR! is a great effort. I’m drawn to many songs on the record, but this is quintessential LDR. Bartender is also a standout track. My only real low for this album is the horrible cover art; get a graphic designer, Lana.
Tiberius by The Smashing Pumpkins from the album Monuments To An Elegy (2014)
- Tiberius signaled a real return to form as the lead track on William Corgan’s reconstituted Pumpkins lineup in 2014… though I didn’t experience this album until 2019. It might as well have been recorded in 1996 for all the melodic bombast and lyrical melodrama it contains.
True Dreams of Wichita by Soul Coughing from the album Ruby Vroom (1994)
- Mike Doughty‘s Soul Coughing made some of the most unique and catchy tunes of the 90s. True Dreams of Wichita – like many of the songs Doughty has written – is loaded with imagery and visual/linguistic puns. The phrase turning paired with a sharp evocation of location and emotion is just good poetry.
Pitch Or Honey by Neko Case from the album Hell On (2018)
- Neko Case is nothing short of a national treasure. Outspoken (follow her on twitter [@NekoCase] for some serious fire) and totally aware of her power, Case brings intensity from the first note to the last on the Hell On album. Pitch Or Honey is the perfect song for an artist like me; the refrain “am I making pitch or honey?” is a question all creatives – indeed, all people – have to ask ourselves. I want to make sweet sustenance, not just crap to gum up the works. Neko knows.
I Only Play 4 Money by The Frogs from the album Starjob (1994)
- I was introduced to this legendary shock/lo-fi/weirdo-rock band from Milwaukee, WI in 2001 while ensconced in the woods between the town of Saugatuck, MI and Lake Michigan. It was a strange time. Recently I’ve been obsessed with this song and the number of versions where the likes of Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan sing and play on the song. Go to YouTube and just search for the track to discover these funny, chaotic iterations.

Best Shows of 2019 (that I watched in 2019, at least)

Regina King as Sister Night from HBO's Watchmen — Regina King as Sister Night from HBO’s *Watchmen*

Watchmen – HBO (2019)*****
Russian Doll – Netflix (2019)*****
Schitt’s Creek – POP (2015-2019)****
Dark – Netflix (2017-2019)****
True Detective Season 3 – HBO (2019)****
Better Call Saul – AMC (2015-2019)****
Black Mirror – Channel 4 and Netflix (2011-2019)***

Watchmen is an incredible thing to see exist as art in today’s America. It’s everything you want art to be – challenging, genre-breaking, character-driven but not subservient to tropes and minor concerns. While many producers of American culture believe that they can fulfill the representation of people of color or tell formerly-non-centered stories with token characters and shallow arcs (I’m looking at you, Disney) Watchmen doubles down on history, context, and powerful performances with developed characters. The ensemble cast is top notch, but Regina King (Sister Night) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Dr. Manhattan) absolutely dominate as the main characters. Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart, and an amazing Louis Gossett Jr. anchor a group of actors – both veteran and very young – who really buy into the deep magic of the Watchmen universe in ways that give keen insights to what is happening with racism, rising nationalism, and the frayed edges of our political establishment right now… wow. All that and an alien squid shower.

Best Movies of 2019 (well, watched in 2019)

Midsommar – Directed by Ari Aster (2019)
The Lighthouse – Directed by Robert Eggers (2019)
Mandy – Directed by Panos Cosmatos (2018)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – Directed by the Coen Brothers (2018)

Midsommar is a powerful film about family, death, belonging, and the social construction of meaning. The tension created between how death visits Dani’s typical American family and how it visits the cloistered, alien, cult-like community she visits in Sweden calls us to reconsider how we understand the trajectory and significance of our lives. Are these very different notions of human dignity, purpose, and value truly at odds? Might the strange, pagan ritual of Midsommar offer something altogether deeper for those who believe? Excellent, challenging film making.

Dani simultaneously experiencing existential brokenness and the assurance of communal emotional support in Midsommar. — Dani simultaneously experiencing existential brokenness and the assurance of communal emotional support in *Midsommar*.

Nunc Perpetuus – For Chris

Posted on December 15, 2019 by matt ballou under Art, Life, Updates, Writing

Below is a bit of writing I have been banging around for the last number of years. This section is actually much less than half, but the rest of it isn’t ready. Today being my cousin’s birthday, and this text being about my time spent with him, I’m dedicating this post to him and sharing this present with everyone. – Matt Ballou, 12/15/2019

Nunc Perpetuus: Making Now Eternal

“One instant is eternity; eternity is the now.” – Wumen Huikai (1)

“Time past and time future

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.” – T.S. Eliot (2)

On a brisk Sunday afternoon in April 1998 my cousin Christopher Metott and I ventured out onto the rocks atop Salmon River Falls near Altmar, NY. The photographs resulting from that excursion reflect – our differing aesthetics notwithstanding – the great affinity we share regarding time and experience. While our focus was often different, it is certain that we were often held in an otherworldly grip as we spent time out in the hills, fields, and woods we once called home. We went looking for landmarks, not of space on the land, but of life in the landscape of time. We wanted to set up those touchstones as a means of hope for what was to come and as a remembrance of what was gone behind us. In a way that seems, in hindsight, dramatically lucid and reasonable, we established these places to make sense of our past and to justify our future. We formed those experiences together, and it bound us as two journeying souls.

Chris at the Salmon River Falls, 2002. Photo by me.

Of course, that Sunday afternoon wasn’t the first time we’d worked this way. This had been our method for years. We’d built cabins in the woods, fortresses to stand in for us when we couldn’t be out there. They were tributes to our work, to our belief in God, our desire for a relationship with nature, and the ethic we shared of contemplating what was beyond us.

We had spent long, cold winter nights ensconced in nothing but our nylon tent and a bit of hope, almost daring the circulatory disorder that Chris had to take us on. We took the longer, back way up mountains just to say we’d done it – and paid the price. We fished tinkling little streams few people knew about, happily releasing our delicately armored catch. We took many expansive road trips out into the quiet upstate New York night to catch the wind off Lake Ontario, to bask in the deep stillness of Route 3 (The Star Road) at 3 in the morning, and to wander with the colonial ghosts lingering to the south. We witnessed those slumbering Adirondack giants – ancient and rounded – blacking out the starry canopy as we wove between their couched numbers. Then there were those northern light nights, which seemed like mystical initiations into A Great Mystery. We saw them for the first time in the deep cool of the earliest morning hours, streaking over us as we lay on our backs in our sleeping bags, gazing up into the glowing pinprick host above. Then again, years later, on the small island we’d gone to on an impulse, we witnessed the green and blue flaming curtains exploding over the low hills to the north, reflecting off the water and our eyes.

Ontario Shoreline. Photo by Christopher Metott. 2002.

Yet there was always the backyard simplicity of the town where we’d grown up. Hiking out into the forests of tamarack and pine, through fields of corn and hay to find that perfect spot. The trees, paths, hills, stone fences, rocky streams, and rippling fields conjured our transition – like an incantation – from the daily concerns of siblings and chores to deeper, more satisfying meditations. We tried to maintain it. We stayed at Winter’s Night, stacking up those old field stones from the corner of the fence for our fireplace. Or maybe View would be our destination, with its mild overlook of the languid valley in which our hometown was situated. Sometimes we’d just sit in Whispering Pines, poking at our fire and laughing at those who’d never understand us.

Salmon River Falls Bank. Photo by Christopher Metott. 2002.

There was always the ritual, the ceremony, of naming our places. They were our blameless sacred groves. Some names come to mind, some are lost in the mist for now, yet each can summon memories that speak not just about events and people, but also about feelings and our sense of the world. We’ve never stopped our efforts to be available to the creation of these sorts of signposts in the fabric of our time. We want them to catch us up when, lost in some future, we need to go back and forward in the same moment. To remember how it was and how it ought to be… and how it might be again. When we need to recall innocence and reinforce our will to be good and honest and kind in the world, such as it is. This is how we discovered morality for ourselves.

It was a morality mitigated by music as much as by place and time. We favored plaintive, earnest, digressive compositions that lent themselves to mythic application – everything from 70’s progressive art rock to weird new age kitsch to contemporary British hipster fare. It was always about mood, about ushering in wanderlust amid a sense of place. We wanted music that would work in tandem with the winter winds, the midnight sound of water on ancient shores, and dusky skies flecked with fiery clouds and a sweet breeze. In the end, we wanted to palpate the very feeling of being, the dearest knowing of our own experiences.

Upstate New York Snow and Shadows. Photo by Christopher Metott. 2002.

Through all of those experiences lay a thread of earnest documentation, a yearning to hold it fast, to remember it, to know it. Half the time we didn’t really know what the it was. We knew that it was what happened when the two of us where together, experiencing something with each other and with the world. We knew that it was a feeling of rightness, of sensing something beyond mere perception; something we only knew was there by sighting its position through each other in a mystical triangulation. It was a spiritual hope, a burning desire to be in life. To experience a fulfillment in the moment – a moment that could expand to fill eternity with its promise and light and perfection – was our aim.

A key component of our desire to hold fast to our experiences was to revisit our sacred places over and over again. This consistent returning – a physical, mental, and spiritual act – infused them with more memories, more mystery, and more access to that joyful transport of sensory perception we so earnestly sought. Sometimes we got it and sometimes we didn’t feel it so strongly, only to – upon remembering – find that it was still there. Thus a special mimetic fact was discovered: remembrance is often more powerful than the experience itself. Our shared remembering sometimes held the deepest connections to the timelessness we pursued.

What does any of the above have to do with a Sunday in April of 1998? Well, pretty much everything. Our different forms of expression (I am a painter and Chris is a photographer) have been informed by this lifelong urge to document, to earmark, to source those moments of insight that impact all the moments before and after. These are moments that become eternal in their influence and necessity; they make us who we are. We’ve tried to live in such a way that maintains those glittering glimpses of eternity.

“But even the unknown past is present in us, its silence as persistent as a ringing in the ears. And nothing is here that we are beyond the reach of merely because we do not know about it. It is always the first morning of Creation and always the last day, always the now that is time and the Now that is not, that has filled time with reminders of Itself.”

-Wendell Berry (3)

Wumen Huikai (1183-1260), translated by Stephen Mitchell from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, (Harper and Row, 1989).
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), from Four Quartets, (Faber and Faber, 1959 edition).
Wendell Berry (1934-), from Fidelity: Five Stories, (Pantheon, 1993 edition).

Restraint and Limitation at Nebraska Wesleyan University

Posted on October 26, 2018 by matt ballou under Art, Life, Teaching, Writing

The second iteration of an exhibition exploring trends in contemporary abstract art is now on view at Nebraska Wesleyan University’s Elder Gallery. The first version of the show took place last year at The University of Missouri and the exhibition will travel again in 2019 and 2020.

The main change in this 2018 version is that additional artists have been added, moving the roster up to 20 individuals – 13 women and 7 men. The works have also grown in diversity, with more sculpture, assemblage, photography, and fibers works entering the constellation.

Works by Erin King (wall) and Sumire Taniai (on pedestals) appear along the title wall.

Two works by Ryan Crotty, a tiny relief fibers piece by Hali Moore, and four digital works displayed on iPads by Sharon Butler.

This show centers on the work of Anna Buckner, Sharon Butler, and Gianna Commito. A constellation of 17 other artists appear in this view into contemporary abstraction, and their work incorporates Painting, Drawing, Digital Drawing, Photography, Fibers, Assemblage, Collage, Sculpture, Relief carving, and other forms.

Sarah Arriagada, Anna Buckner, Sharon Butler, Gianna Commito, Ryan Crotty, Joel T. Dugan, Dan Gratz, Michael Hopkins, Erin King, Kristen Martincic, Marcus Miers, Hali Moore (Oberdiek), Justin Rodier, Elise Rugolo, Amanda Smith, Lauren Steffens, Sumire Taniai, Jm Thornton, and Jennifer Ann Wiggs have work in this exhibition. Click on their names to see their websites and find out more about their work.

Three works by Gianna Commito engage with three works by Amanda Smith in this view of the exhibition.

As you can see from the exhibition listing at NWU’s website, I’ll be at the gallery on December 7 to talk about the show and answer questions. I’ll also spend some time meeting with students and engaging with the school community. I love the chance to spend time in the space with the work and field questions in the moments of viewer experience. The works are meant to be seen, interpreted, and extrapolated.

Three collaborative works – collectively a “Curator’s Statement” – by myself and Joel T Dugan are seen here on the left. A wonderful dimensional graphite and folded paper drawing by Marcus Miers and two sculptures by Lauren Steffens continue to the right.

This wall, featuring tight formations by Sarah Arriagada and Kristen Martincic, is one of my favorite views of the show.

These few views can’t really give you a true impression of the show. I hope if you’re nearby you’ll stop in. My efforts to curate interesting collections of works are definitely becoming more and more important to me as an artist and educator. Particularly, with an exhibition such as this one, I am afforded the chance to expand and contract a specific intellectual and aesthetic gesture. I find that tremendously exciting. This iteration of the Restraint and Limitation show is probably the most expansive version that will happen, so it’s intriguing to sense how constrained it still feels. I am passionate about small works that distill meaning and experience, defying long-held notions about what art is supposed to do.

Three amazing fiber works by Anna Buckner hold a wall next to a strangely evocative photographic/found object assemblage by Justin Rodier.

To close out this announcement post, here’s the bit of writing I had affixed to the title wall:

The logic of abstraction cannot be reduced to a few dudes painting in mid-20th century America. This exhibition is meant to present another view. Anna Buckner, Sharon Butler, and Gianna Commito, the three core artists presented here, show commitment to the aesthetics and procedures inherent in abstract painting while bringing diverse pressures, materials, and processes to the form.

– Matthew Ballou, October 2018.

Photos in this post are by Michael Larsen.

eikonktizo

news, writing, and artworks

Category Archives: Writing