Tag Archives: Writing

Reflections on AI and Pedagogy

Posted on by 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 18th 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/

That Was 2025

Posted on by under Art, Life

Every year is an amalgamation of the years that came before. While there might be touchstones and specific events keyed to one year or another, no year can be entirely of itself. So some of what follows is tied to this past year, but some of it is from outside of that temporal container. Regardless, I wanted to make a few notes about what struck me and what stuck with me this year without a whole lot of thinking about ranking or hard and fast lists. It’s good to take stock and look back so that the turning to look forward can have some context.

At a great party with former students in Rocheport, MO.

100 Pounds Down

2025 is the year that I lost 100 pounds. On January 18, 2024, I was 291.6 lbs. Today, I’m 186.6lbs. This is a testament to medicine, determination, consistent workouts, and finding ways to manage my own instincts about food and drink and effort. But what changed in January 2024? Why do I think of that as the start of something new? That’s when I began to supplement my daily workouts, efforts to eat and sleep well, and overall stress-reduction with Zepbound.

What it did was take the edge off of my constant feeling of hunger… what many people describe as “food noise” in the mind. Zepbound was the little tweak that enabled me to no longer have an inner insistence that I endlessly had to fight. I felt satiated, FINALLY. My portion sizes went down. My need to just eat everything on the plate – or to have a double or triple portion – disappeared. All of that went away. It became much easier to control my desires in much the same way that antidepressants helped me focus on what was truly important for my family and for my life.

This tirzepatide medication enabled me to turn around years of baggage in my thinking and habitual activity. I was disciplined with working out for nearly a decade, but I still struggled with knowing that it was time to stop eating or drinking. With Zepbound, I was able to do what I needed to do and hear my inner rational voice about what was important. It has definitely been a life changer. My whole world is so much better. Without that extra 100 pounds everything – working out, teaching, playing with my kids – is so much easier and more fulfilling. My knees, ankles, and back feel DECADES younger.

In The Ear and Eye Holes

Another great aspect of 2025 was experiencing (or re-experiencing) some amazing podcasts and movies from a bit of a different perspective. One of the things that I did was watch a bunch of vampire movies with Miranda, my oldest daughter. Seeing those films again (starting back with the original 1922 Murnau Nosferatu and then watching the 1979 Werner Herzog Nosferatu, not to mention a half dozen others) was a unique and dynamic endeavor. It was wonderful to watch those monster and horror movies with Miranda (and sometimes some of her siblings), ask her about her interpretations, and explore how she was understanding all of it. I greatly enjoyed the Robert Eggers 2024 version as well (but I didn’t take my kid to watch that one).

Another powerful experience early in 2025 was when I watched a movie starring Amy Adams called NIGHTBITCH (2024). Based on the novel by Rachel Yoder, it’s “a magical realism-style story of a stay-at-home mom who sometimes transforms into a dog.” I encourage everyone to go watch it. It’s about embodiment, change, parenthood, meaning, self-actualization, and hope. Such a great movie. Amy Adams goes SO HARD in this film… an award-worthy performance.

Amy Adams in NIGHTBITCH

Movie Highlights: Watching The Shining with my kids and seeing Eggers’s Nosferatu in the theater with Jesse. Experiencing NIGHTBITCH on a whim.

In the podcast realm I enjoyed going back through the Futility Closet podcast episodes. This phenomenal podcast is no longer is being produced, but that doesn’t mean they’re out of date or stale. The married team of Sharon and Greg Ross made 365 episodes, then called it quits. The episodes are infinitely re-listenable, there are NO ADS, and the opportunity to be astounded by the world and get inspired to research events is just solid gold. I’m almost done with a full listen-though in 2025, and it was so worth it. Futility Closet really is a cohesive account of global culture and what we try to do as human beings. The writing and the presentation overall are very much accessible. This is not highfalutin fare. It’s not the multi-hour-long episodes of people like Dan Carlin, not a dry lecture about history. Futility Closet gives you tight 30-minute episodes that hit on the main takeaways. They give you the backbone, all the resources so you can look up more, and they’re just really personable, sweet people.

Music in 2025

My students get me hooked on so much good music. This year, these are the heavy-hitters that stuck in my studio rotation. I’m not ranking them, just telling you to get on the train and listen.

Ecca Vandal

Key: Band/Artist – My Suggested Description of Genre

                  Key Tracks (linked to videos)

Big Thief – Alt-Americana-Emo?

                  Vampire Empire (2023), Velvet Ring (2016)

Ecca Vandal – International Pop-Punk/Hardcore?

                  Cruising to Self Soothe (2025), Molly (2025)

Eartheater – Semi-Androgenous-Femme-Alien-Anthemic?

                  Crushing (2023), Below the Clavicle (2020)

Wet Leg – 21st century-BritPop-Post-Punk?

                  mangetout (2025), Chaise Loungue (2022)

Suki Waterhouse – Shoegaze-Dream-Pop

                  Dream Woman (2025), Good Looking (2019)

Pacifica – Argentinian-Girl-Pop

                  Indie Boyz (2025), Anita (2023)

Main point from the music section: Ecca Vandal, Eartheater, and Pacifica need to get PAID.

Seasons In Academia

One of my great joys is teaching. I love working with my students and seeing what they do when they graduate. In 2025 I saw one of my grads, Andrew Long, graduate with an amazing thesis exhibition and text, then immediately get a great job.

Me and Dr. Kerr at her retirement party
In deep conversation with Andrew at a conference

Another transition was the amazing Dr. Barb Kerr retiring after nearly 50 years of teaching and scholarship. It was an honor to be at her celebration party. She’s been such a mentor and inspiration to me.

RIP Dad

My dad passed this year. He was 83. For years I wrote to him with photos and updates in physical letters… and now at least once a week I think “I should write to Dad” only to remember that he’s gone. I’m glad he lived on his terms and did just about everything he wanted to do and not much that he didn’t. And I’m glad I got to speak at his funeral and give him the send off he wanted.

Speaking at Dad’s burial
One of the final conversations we had

Thankfulness

One thing I’m taking away from 2025 is the understanding that I was able to have positive growth and a grateful mindset in my family, job, and art-making in spite of the horror show going on in the world. Straight up state-sponsored murder and genocidal activity on one hand, and obvious grift and obfuscation of the truth on the other, all wrapped up in nationalism and religion. It’s enough to put anyone into a high stress crash-out. But I’m thankful that I’ve been able to find a balance where I can be informed about that stuff and take steps to counter it in my own small ways (as a parent, educator, and community member) without letting it put me in the ground. In 2026 I want to keep living with hope and joy, not through some abstract pie-in-the-sky platitudes, but though real life with my family, honest interactions with my students and colleagues, and deep exploration of ideas and meaning in the things I read, watch, write, listen to, and make.

Mix CD Era Glory

Posted on by under Life, Teaching

I make playlists every semester for my classes. These collections of songs are largely built from the ice-breaker/introduction discussion assignment I give to my students on the first day. I want to know what they listen to, what moves them, inspires them, sticks with them. And then I want to serve up songs during focused working time. With studio art classes at Mizzou lasting about 2 hours and 20 minutes, there’s plenty of time to get a vibe going. This way they can be both exposed to the things their peers love but also get the excitement of hearing their own personal deep cuts. I love the feeling of sharing some of my favorites with them, as well as discovering what “the youth” like today.

My interests in music are very eclectic, and that’s down to my exposure to so much variety through my students. But it didn’t start there. Below I am featuring a few of the most iconic Mix CDs I’ve been given over the last 25 years. I’m including Spotify playlists for each one. Go! Listen to them! In situations where the original song is not available on that platform I’m linking to YouTube videos.

I also want to shout out the amazing people who shared these four mixes with me. They are creative people and much cooler than I ever could be. I will link to some of their current projects. I’ll also talk about some of the tracks in each section and give some background on how these united groups of songs have stayed with me for a quarter century.

Ox-Bow 2001: DANCE, DANCE, DANCE – Eric May*

Created in 2001. Spotify link to this playlist.

  1. Armand Van Helden – You Don’t Know Me
  2. Folk Implosion – Nothing Gonna Stop The Flow
  3. Outkast – So Fresh And So Clean
  4. Outkast – Ms. Jackson
  5. Stardust – Music Sounds Better With You
  6. Beck – Beercan
  7. Beastie Boys – Sabotage
  8. Deee-lite – Groove Is In The Heart
  9. Daft Punk – Around The World
  10. Fatboy Slim – The Rockafeller Skank
  11. Madonna – Ray Of Light
  12. Groove Armada – I See You, Baby (featuring Gramma Funk) – Fat Boy Slim Edit
  13. Daft Punk – One More Time

I had a fellowship at Ox-Bow for three months in the summer of 2001. It was a very important time for me. A lot changed in me. You can read about my experiences here.

Ox-Bow is a lot more institutionalized now. Back then, it was a true bohemian type situation. What happened at Ox-Bow, stayed at Ox-Bow. The vibe there was a hold over from the 60s and 70s in a lot of ways, and this was before the world was really turned on its head by the US response to 911. The internet was still new and slow, there was practically no social media, and almost no one I knew had a cell phone. It was just a different time. There was room to go a little wild as well as room to explore your own thoughts and perspectives.

One of the best things that we did at Ox-Bow was have intense, blow-out parties every weekend. The cohort of fellowship residents did work during the main part of the week (maintenance, housekeeping, kitchen duties, etc), so when we partied, we went hard. A large meeting tent would be raised in the central field, a few turntables would be installed, and speakers deployed. Then our resident DJ, Eric May (with help from others) would spin records and CDs deep into the Michigan night.

I discovered a lot of great music that summer (The Beta Band, AIR, Massive Attack) and fell more in love with acts I’d always liked (Mazzy Star, Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Cat Stevens). Most of that stuff wasn’t being played at the parties, though, as they’re a bit too contemplative and musically less conducive to drunken dancing and themed costumes. Hence, the mix we all left with was something closer to late-90s college party than artsy hipster fare.

We definitely burned some calories to these songs…

*Eric checked in with me about this mix – he mentioned in the comments that Mikey H. and Reid T. had a larger hand in crafting it than he did! Shout out to Mikey and Reid! Reid has gone on to an amazing career as a scenic designer and has an amazing portfolio of exceptional design work. Go check him out!

FHS’s Mix – Fred Sturkey

Created in 2002. Spotify link to this playlist.

  1. Archers of Loaf – Scenic Pastures
  2. Kitchens of Distinction – Railwayed
  3. Drop Nineteens – Winona
  4. Gang of Four – Cheeseburger
  5. Gang of Four – Paralyzed
  6. Talk Talk – Eden
  7. Television – Marquee Moon
  8. Kitchens of Distinction – Gorgeous Love
  9. Kitchens of Distinction – Drive That Fast
  10. King Crimson – Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part 1
  11. Talk Talk – It’s My Life
  12. Butch Walker – Hot Girls in Good Moods
  13. HUM – Green to Me
  14. HUM – The Inuit Promise
  15. Kitchens of Distinction – Polaroids
  16. Drop Nineteens – Kick The Tragedy
  17. Drop Nineteens – My Aquarium
  18. Kitchens of Distinction – Under the Sea, Inside the Sky

Fred Sturkey worked with me at Good’s of Evanston. I started overseeing shipping and receiving for the art and frame store a couple weeks after 911 and about 4 weeks after the end of my Ox-Bow residency. I’ve written about Fred a bit before, and was very sad when he died in 2019. He was a high quality human, and was always happy to hold forth about music or politics, history or philosophy. Just a gentle, sweet guy.

This mix CD is one of the greatest gifts anyone has given me. This introduced me to HUM and Talk Talk and Kitchens of Distinction, three bands that have been in my life ever since. So different from one another, but totally unique and important. KoD is particularly interesting as a group from the late 80s/early 90s that championed the expression of queer relationships and perspectives. They did it in a matter-of-fact way, with a sense of imagery and poetry that draws the listener into shared human experience. I really love the texture of the guitar sound and the soaring vocals.

Structurally, the mix isn’t tracked perfectly, but it stands out for me purely because of the music it introduced me to. I’ll be forever grateful, Fred. RIP, sir.

The Art is Hard Mix – by Nikki Maloof

Created in 2004. Spotify link to this playlist.

  1. The Starlight Mints – Submarine #3
  2. Wilco – She’s A Jar
  3. Appleseed Cast – Fishing The Sky
  4. The Shins – They’ll Soon Discover
  5. Mike Doughty – The Rising Sign
  6. Rilo Kiley – It’s A Hit
  7. Nick Drake – Northern Sky
  8. Spoon – Anything You Want
  9. The Long Winters – Scent Of Lime
  10. Phoenix – Run, Run, Run
  11. Owen – The Ghost Of What Should Have Been
  12. The Smiths – Cemetery Gates
  13. Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around The Block
  14. Clem Snide – Better
  15. Modest Mouse – Paper Thin Walls
  16. Paul Simon – Mother and Child Reunion

Nikki is a successful artist who was also in the first drawing class I taught while in graduate school at Indiana University. She was dedicated, confident, and effortlessly cool. Those qualities have stayed with her as she built her career, had kids, and mounted major international shows of her work. She gave me this CD after we compared notes on music in that class, and she really got me hooked on The Shins, Spoon, and Nick Drake. An interesting combination of indie rock and mainstream(-ish) alt-pop, this mix is just a rich, comfortable listen. There are some great gems here, like Soul Coughing’s singer/creative engine Mike Doughty’s solo work in The Rising Sign.

The Close to Totality Mix – Tina Casagrand-Foss

Created in 2008. Spotify link to this playlist.

  1. Yeasayer – 2080
  2. Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer
  3. Spoon – Bring it on Home to Me
  4. Donovan – Celia of the Seals
  5. Old Crow Medicine Show – Cocaine Habit
  6. McLusky – Day of the Deadringers
  7. The Pixies – Down to the Well (Peel Session)
  8. Queens of the Stone Age – Someone’s in the Wolf
  9. Sigur Ros – Fonklogi
  10. Serge Franklin – KKK
  11. Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations)
  12. Blur – Out Of Time
  13. Ugly Casanova – Spilled Milk Factory
  14. Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso
  15. Ima Robot – Paint the Town Red
  16. Kings of Leon – Pistol of Fire
  17. Johnny Greenwood – Proven Lands
  18. Tom Vek – That Can be Arranged
  19. The Black Keys – Till I Get My Way
  20. Radiohead – Idioteque
  21. Miwa Gemini – Traveling Man
  22. Foo Fighters – Stacked Actors

Tina has an amazing energy. She’s a true go-getter, someone who is actively working to make the world better. As the founder and managing editor of The New Territory, she’s forging a space for the stories of the people and places that make up the Midwest to shine. She was a stand-out in my classes way back when, and she’s always a treat to collaborate with. I have written for The New Territory and made artworks for the magazine, as well as spoken at the Missouri Scholars Academy, which is one of Tina’s favorite annual summer projects.

This mix is highlighted by driving, raging, bloody tracks like the Peel Session version of Down to the Well by The Pixies, Saul Williams’s – List of Demands (Reparations), Ima Robot’s intensely violent Paint the Town Red, and Pistol of Fire by Kings of Leon. There’s definitely some serial killer vibes going on in this mix, but interesting moments of calm are interspersed throughout (Donovan’s Celia of the Seals or Blur’s Out of Time). There’s a variety of attitude in this mix – some of it is very serious, or even anxiety-producing (Greenwood’s Proven Lands or Williams’s List of Demands) – while other songs are tongue-in-cheek or just hilarious (Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso or Miwa Gemini’s Traveling Man) I like the range of time across the tracks, as well as the tension between related genres/styles.

It’s loaded with bangers, all-time classics, and deeper cuts that stand the test of time. I’ve kept bringing these songs into my classroom since the day Tina handed the CD to me!

For some reason, the track order that was burned onto the CD itself is not the order that Tina wrote on sleeve – I ended up listening to it wrong for all these years…

The best part about these mixes is that they are palpable, physical artifacts made for me. Sure, we can listen to the music without the object, but the object is proof of something. It was there with me, and it was there with the people I mentioned. It shared space and time with us, and it travels along with us. The meaning is not only in the music, it’s in the fact of human interaction and sharing deeply human concerns.

Marvin Glenn Smith, 1942-2025

Posted on by under Life
Matt Ballou, Portrait of my Father, Marvin G. Smith. Oil on panel, 20×16 inches. 2014.

Marvin Glenn Smith died on Tuesday, August 12, 2025. He was 83 years old. Marv was born on May 24, 1942 in Camden, NY. He loved Studebaker cars, bawdy blues music, and the aircraft of World War 1. In many ways these things framed the contours of his life.

Known for his love of fast cars and racing, Marvin survived a horrible accident at the age of 19, an event that left him with extensive, permanent injuries. He spent the rest of his life going to auto shows, attending and watching races around the country, and collecting manuals and other materials related to cars and the racing world.

Mom and Dad, mid 1970s.

Marv went on to a long career at Camden Wire, working in the quality assurance area, where he was able to use his sharp skills in analysis and mathematics. He took an early retirement in 1995, eventually settling north of Camden in Empeyville, NY.

It was at this time that his decades long passion for studying World War 1 became a main focus for him. He filled his time with reading and research, amassing a collection of WW1 books, objects, documents, firearms, and art. He traveled extensively to explore military history at museums and trade shows, but perhaps most cherished was his trip to Germany in 1997, where he visited many battle sites first hand.

He had a unique personality – a calm, pleasant demeanor with a touch of nihilism sprinkled in. He would constantly drop catch phrases into conversations: “Nothin’ serious” and “Another day in paradise” came up often. As a “live and let live” Libertarian, Marv often found himself at odds with the dominant, invasive politics of his adult life. Though a quiet, reserved man, he always enjoyed conversation and could hold forth about the blues or history any time. He loved discussing items in his WW1 collection and possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the people and places of that time.

My last chat with my dad, 2025. Photo by my sister.

He is survived by his sisters Linda (Leon) and Martha, his children Walter, Matthew (Alison), and Stacey, and many grand kids. He was preceded in death by his parents and beloved daughter Denya. At Marvin’s request, there will be no funeral service.

My sister Stacey was able to retrieve a piece of dad’s WW1 trench art, a 50mm artillery shell decorated in a floral motif with an eagle. This will serve as dad’s urn when he is buried in his family plot. It’s wild – and sort of perfectly poetic – that something made by a young man in the tumultuous trenches of a world at war 110 years ago, will now go into the ground in upstate NY with my father. In a way, he got to take one part of the collection he built over a lifetime with him.

Colonial Debris, Imperial Fragments – A Catalog

Posted on by 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:

Impossible Interiors at William Woods University

Posted on by under Art, Life

I’ve got a group of works on display at William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri. The show runs through October 6th, and I’ll be giving a talk that evening. For a preview, look below.

This is the third time I’ve shown this body of work, and I’d like to get the chance to show it again. The subject of the work – a “friendly-fire” bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. If you’d like to see more about this situation, check out my writing about it here.

The card for the exhibition.
Back of the card with description of the show.
Here are just a few of the works on display, along with some details. There’s a lot to see, so come on by!

I’m also pleased to have a small group of my collaborations with Joel T Dugan also on display at the gallery. These Phoneme works are some of my favorites, and there are a number of just finished works included.

Come so close that I might see…

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Recently, my friend Aarik (whom I haven’t seen in person in about two years, which is a travesty) made an intriguing post on Twitter. He was musing about the idea of publishing an anthology of reflections regarding an important single line from some song, film, poem, or other source. He suggested calling this journal Hold The Line and I’ve been thinking about the idea every day since I skimmed my eyes over his tweet.

It goes without saying that each one of us could offer many dozens of lines from the treasure trove we carry in our minds. Lord knows I’ve been moved by everything from scriptures to contemporary internet memes. When I glide back over my life, though, it’s clear that some lines are held more closely to my core – to the experiences they influenced – than others.

Lying in bed last night I decided to make an entry in Aarik’s theoretical journal. My Hold The Line for today (for right now, since probably it would be something else in 20 minutes), is from Mazzy Star’s 1993 masterpiece, So Tonight That I Might See.

“Come so close that I might see the crash of light come down on me.”1

There’s something so powerful in the idea that when we come together we approach transcendence: come so close that I might see. It’s a proposition, a hope. If/Then. If this other entity is close enough to my core, then perhaps I may experience a charged glimpse of something beyond me. Then it would also be within me, a kind of multiplicity that blows out me-ness with all-ness.

Even so, my perspective – my sensate awareness – is also central. This is like Annie Dillard’s “tree with the lights in it”2 or Moses’s burning bush; the intimate presence, both terrifying and awesome, brings astonishment. Come so close that I might be more than me. Ego death. Samadhi. A disappearance of masks and pettiness in lieu of some true (if only momentary) unity.

Let there be light – and it crashes.

There is a bit of an out-of-body charge to the order of operations in Hope Sandoval’s mumbled words, in the “gothic hallucination”3 of Roback’s droning guitar tone. From closeness to sight to the mystical crash of light. Closeness catalyzes an outside, transmundane experience. I see the light come down on me in that moment. Sharp, electric, like an accidental brush against a live wire or the vertigo of a hypnic jerk.

I have felt that pulsing disorientation a few times. With Robin, her blond bob, and the small of her back all those years ago. With Miranda, born like a bomb, a modern Minerva bursting fully-formed into new reality. Even last week, suddenly seeing a former student after years and almost bursting into tears over it.

Maybe the crash of light always carries tears along with it.

Cliché, I suppose. But also real experience and astonishment… moments of enlightenment brought on by the presence of another real person.

Album cover for Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I Might See.

1) Mazzy Star. “So Tonight That I Might See.” So Tonight That I Might See, performance by Sandoval, Hope and David Roback, Capitol Records, 1993.

2) Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York, NY: Harper, 1998. Page 35-36.

3) Moreland, Quinn. “Review – Mazzy Star: So Tonight That I Might See.” Pitchfork, Pitchfork, 14 June 2020, pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/mazzy-star-so-tonight-that-i-might-see/.

Another Ten Years

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Last month marked ten years of writing posts and posting pictures here. In most ways this site has become my de facto artist website rather than a space to post observations and non-art stuff. Kind of lame, I know. But I’ve had a personal website (and domain) for almost 22 years and I have administered it in a lot of different ways. But at some point – particularly after getting deep into full time teaching – I decided to lay aside HTML and CSS and private hosting.

I still have all of those older versions of my websites. Sometimes I browse them from their resting places inside my hard drives. I think about the effort and consideration that went into them. Thankfully I never committed the Geocities and Angelfire design atrocities… maybe WordPress is just the more contemporary version of those gaudy old things, I don’t know.

I have not written much in 2019. It has been a hard, strange year – emotionally, professionally, physically.

Physically, I have been sick and run down a lot this year. The medications I take to manage my heart disease are rough, and they constrain my metabolism and energy level; I have fallen asleep without wanting to a number of times this year. Though I work out every single day, my endurance seems to be sliding lower and lower. Normally I teach a course or two over the summer, but the reality is that I know I couldn’t keep up with that at this point. There’s more to say… but I won’t.

Professionally, while I’m not sure exactly where my artwork is going, I have a good body of work underway and am getting it out for people to see. I was recently promoted to Full Teaching Professor, which is the terminal rank in the Teaching Line. It took nine years to achieve. I feel secure and thankful for Mizzou, but there are a lot of pressures that rest on the shoulders of professors in a time when Universities are trying to do more with less. As someone who understands the importance of mental and physical health, well, those pressures can be life-threatening. I know that being an educator is not just time spent with students. If it were, I think I’d generally feel much better. God knows that I am still encouraged by being in the classroom – each and every time.

Emotionally, I don’t think I am the same after the heart attack. My general affect, emotional intelligence, and responses were dulled significantly. After two years it seemed that I had returned to normal. But have I? In 2012 I had a pretty major crisis of faith – one that corresponded with the onset of depression. There were other factors during the period of time between 2012 and 2015… then 2016 came with the death of my sister and my cardiac arrest mere days later. There have been a number of other things in the 3 and half years since then that have made impacts as well. Perhaps I am being changed by the medications and the inertia of routines… At least I am getting joy from working on LEGOs with my kids.

So I haven’t been writing. Maybe more will come.

2017 Pride

Posted on by under Art, Life, news, Writing

I completed a number of projects in 2017 and started a few more. Setting goals and keeping an eye on the prize during the vicissitudes of daily life can be hard, but I’ve gotten better at it over the years (thanks mostly to my loving partner, Alison). I already mentioned stuff about my exercise routine, and posted about my exhibition of recent work (that opens today!).

Back in May I set some goals for the year while at the Wakonse Conference on College Teaching in Michigan. Here are my written goals:

I’m happy to say that I’ve worked to complete most of these items and even those I’ve not yet finished have been pushed forward. I’m glad, given how agitating 2017 was socially and politically, that at least in terms of family and my work I’ve been stable and focused. The results are things of which I am really proud.

Probably highest on my list is the publication of my essay On Scholarship: Empathic Attention, Holy Resistance. It appeared in SEEN Journal and explores the importance of attention in an environment of political vitriol and “fake news.” I hope you’ll pick up a copy and read it – it’s one of the best things I’ve written in years, and it shares space with artists and writers and thinkers I admire. I’m really thankful for the opportunity to have this piece out there.

A shot of the cover of the SEEN Journal and a copy of the first page of my essay. Above is a copy of The New Territory.

I am also super excited to be working on a piece for The New Territory. If you are a Midwesterner, you need to get this publication. I am working on a piece exploring the work of Joey Borovicka and adjacent ideas about interiority, Midwestern space, and solitude. I can’t wait to get it finalized and ready for the editors to sort through. Getting to write about key ideas and the work of others is very important to my identity as an artist and educator. I also just love being involved with publications like The New Territory and SEEN. They are labors of love and works of passion that really do the hard work of shoring up meaning, intellectual effort, and spiritual yearning.

I hope to continue this trend in 2018, as I’ve got the Promotion to finalize!

 

 

Recent Publications

Posted on by under Art, Life, Writing

13725109_10154344363709491_3439759102298509937_oCollaborative digital artwork featured in the neotericART piece. See below.

I’ve had the great pleasure of having a few publications this year. I’ve always got 2 or 3 pieces in the works, so it makes sense that they’d come out from time to time. This year sees a brief but prestigious invitation and two wonderful panel discussions that I coordinated. If you’d like to check them out, see below:

Nerdrum Bio for Grove Dictionary of Art

Dr. Judith Rodenbeck of the University of California invited me to write a biography of Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum for the Grove Dictionary of Art, an imprint of Oxford University Press (online version is here). Dr. Rodenbeck is the lead editor of the 2016 Grove Art update. My piece will be published in the next couple of months. I’m pretty excited about this!

A Non-Verbal Debate: Digital Collaborations

This piece, created for neotericART (where I have contributed for many years), is a discussion of online, live collaboration tools – digital whiteboards – and how artists are beginning to adapt them into their work. Just the tip of the iceberg on this developing practice!

You Make The Work By Performing It: A Roundtable Discussion on Oblique Perspective

The Finch is an amazing online publication co-edited by Richard Benari & Lauren Henki. They invited me to lead a group of my graduate students in a panel discussion about some of the ideas that Dorothea Rockburne brought up in a recent interview. Our far-ranging conversation was one of the best I’ve had in a long time.