Michael J. Masucci has been at the forefront of digital art for over 40 years, blending creativity with advocacy to help digital art gain recognition in contemporary spaces. A founding member of EZTV and the CyberSpace Gallery, one of the world’s first galleries dedicated to digital art, Masucci has been a pioneer in integrating art and technology. His work celebrates the coexistence of past and present, often mixing vintage tools with cutting-edge techniques to honor where digital art began while exploring where it can go.

Masucci is fascinated by the human condition and its complexities, drawing inspiration from philosophy, nature, politics, and other art forms. Collaboration is central to his practice; he thrives on the unpredictability and energy of working with others, particularly in live performances that incorporate digital elements. His projects often combine live theater, multimedia dance, and holographic projections, bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds. While he embraces new tools like AI, Masucci’s heart remains in creating works that connect people and preserve the stories that shape our understanding of art and technology.

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

**“Mind’s Eye 2020”** (1987) Documentation of live multimedia performance. Video Projection & Scenic Design: Michael J. Masucci, Choreography: Zina Bethune

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

Like many children, I started drawing pictures and making up songs before I started first grade. My mother was a musician and encouraged me to explore my creativity, and my father was interested in science and technology. He wanted me to be a doctor. I attended, the Bronx High School of Science, a specialized school for students who were, supposedly, gifted in math & science. This was the first high school at the time to have its own computer (a room-sized IBM 360 as I recall). I saw the more advanced students making images with alphanumerics. This was my first introduction that among many other things (mainly mathematical), computers could also make images. This was the 1960s and it was all very revelatory and inspirational to me. So, from my earliest introductions I always saw computers as tools for making art.

In college, I did briefly consider a career in medicine and obtained a summer internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. There I had access to a more advanced computer, as well as an early example of what later would be called the internet.

The first computers I owned were relatively inexpensive ones but allowed me to write simple code (no “apps” were available yet). At first, I needed to design & build a hot-rodded rig that I cobbled together from analogue video production equipment and low-end personal computers. I was able, by 1980, creating “Standing Waves” a series of real-time motion imagery. I was able to make a living for several years performing live projections shows at clubs and galleries. The tech was only a means to an end, and never was the point. The art or the cultural experiences resulting from the art, that is what always has mattered. In 1984 I began curating digital art as well as continuing to produce it.

Beginning in the early 1980s my first relatively powerful computers, were actually used to help produce my musical scores, which accompanied my visuals. That’s when I also began experimenting with the internet, years before there was a world wide web.

Documentation of **“Fly-By”** (2015) live multimedia dance, projections, real-time animated avatars via telepresence.
Concept & Digital video: Michael J. Masucci, Choreography: Donna Sternberg
Real-time Avatar telepresence transmission: Vanessa Blaylock
Producers: Kate Johnson, Joan Collins.

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

I’m mesmerised by the human condition, in all its diverse, contradictory and beautiful panorama. The good as well as the bad. I thirst for insights into who we are, where we came from. I don’t have any answers, but many questions. I look for clues in nature, philosophy, political discourse, in the sciences, and of course in the artworks of others.

I prefer to collaborate with living, human beings, rather than with pixels or AI. And although I admire great animation (and can and sometimes still do animate myself) I never wanted to be a puppeteer, or to ‘pull the strings’, not even of virtual people. I like the ‘push-pull’ of human collaboration, the thrilling discovery of seeing what another human mind, heart, body and spirit brings to a project.

Whenever possible, I create projects that have both a live, as well as digital component. Projects such as live multimedia dance and/or performance art pieces, or theatre productions that incorporate digital projections, screens or installations, allow be to exercise my love for producing digital work, with the irreplaceable, spontaneity and unpredictability of a live performance. Even my current experiments in life-size full motion color holography are leading towards the integration of these digital holographic projections, with live performers, and ultimately, telepresence.

And I continue to prefer in my digital images, combining CGI with photographic and/or video elements of actual people. Obviously in the last few years, I also, when I feel its appropriate, utilize AI tools as well. But usually as a last resort.

**“Standing Waves”** (1980-2) Still from series of Real-Time Motion Graphics Performances

What are the most significant changes you’ve witnessed in the digital art landscape since CyberSpace Gallery’s inception in the 1990s?

CyberSpace Gallery, which the Victoria and Albert Museum generously said “literally put digital art on the map,” proved that people would come and see work not done with traditional media. It attracted some mainstream press and began a conversation in Los Angeles that exists to today. Now, attending a IRL gallery or museum is an option. A choice, not a mandate. That was not the case decades ago.

Later, when CyberSpace Gallery started an online art gallery in 1994, it was among just a handful in the world. Today, more people experience all forms of art, not just digitally native, through the internet. That is a major transformation.

Another major change is that at one time, access to personal computers was still very expensive and usually only in the hands of the privileged. Over a period of years, access to computing somewhat democratized, bringing these amazing inventions into more and more people’s reach. But there is still very much a digital divide, and we should remember this. What we take for granted is still not available to many in certain parts of the world. Smartphones of course has made a big difference. And as the online data system gets bifurcated, into what some call the “splinternet” (where some areas of the world have deep restrictions to accessible online information), we are becoming a world where differing cultures experience access to information in vastly different ways.

And of course, the widespread adoption of telepresence, such as through Zoom and other platforms, has democratized a capability that was rare until the last decade. But artists, including myself, were experimenting with long-distance transmissions of images and sounds since at least the 1980s.

It is important to see the conversation that is underway between those who embrace AI and those who are spearheading a counter-revolution, the so-called ‘Human Intelligence’ movement. I use AI when I can’t do it any other way but am reluctant to make it my first approach when I make work. I see both the advantages, and disadvantages to so quickly completely abandoning a way of creating that has existed since pre-history.

Still from “**Quantum Entanglement**” (2007) digital projections from live multimedia performance. Visuals: Michael J. Masucci, Choreography: Donna Sternberg

**“Quantum Entanglement”** (2003) Still from Video/Digital

What role does social activism play in your artistic and curatorial practice, and how have you balanced art with community engagement?

For me, social activism is often a critically important component of great art. So many of the masterworks from earlier periods reflected a spirit of freedom, aspiration, enlightenment or social change. I’ve tried my best to use the access I’ve had to technology to help social activism where and when I could.

Decades ago, my late partner Kate Johnson (1969-2020) and I (both cisgender straight persons) were faced with the task of preserving what became an indispensable archive of early Queer media art. This was a type of social activism concurrent with our own arts-based practices. I also spent 20 years collaborating on and off with choreographer Zina Bethune (1945-2012) whose focus was on physically challenged persons. Here, my art was used to celebrate and advocate for, as well as fundraise for, persons who were often ignored or forgotten within even the more progressive wings of society. Again, social activism was an essential part of the artmaking.

Now I don’t believe that art must serve some social goal to be great art, no not at all. I do believe that art, in and of itself, is extremely beneficial to humankind. But I am often gravitating towards those pieces that do express more than beautiful form, composition, tonality, vibrancy, etc. Those things in themselves matter, but a more transcendental experience happens when a great artwork can influence, in a positive and not condescending way, the social order and help make this crazy planet a better place for all sentient beings.

One issue we must not shy away from, of course, involving the rapid acceptance and deployment of AI tools, is the energy consumption required to power these capabilities. And the ever-increasing reliance on rare minerals (often mined through the exploitation of indigenous persons) such as cobalt, to make them possible. I hear vigorous debates on both side of the technical perspective as to just how environmentally harmful AI tools may be. I don’t claim to know the truth and I certainly use these tools sometimes, But I will constantly monitor the facts as they become clearer. And if it seems as if the ease and power of these tools is outweighed by their negative impact on the environment, then I will be glad that I previously had learned the skills of drawing, animating, photographing and playing musical instruments.

It's easy to be selfish. We utilize search engines, telepresence video chats, live stream entertainment, and utilize AI without any sense of the amount of energy that is being used to do so. I am certainly as guilty as anyone of this. But I’m trying to be more sensitive to the real costs of all this, including for the costs to those exploited persons living in those countries where rare minerals used for such tech miracles, are mined. A new form of gluttony has arisen, one where the mindless consumption of internet (and now AI) related energy is as prevalent as the mindless consumption of food, stimulants, fossil fuels, or entertainment. Artists, especially those of us increasingly internet dependent, might consider a new chapter of activism, where energy consumption is balanced with associated environmental and social impact concerns. A recent, ongoing project of mine “VR Babies” inspired by the writings of Information Security expert Winn Schwartau, interrogates and challenges the rapid adoption of digital appliances at a younger and younger age.

**“VR Babies”** (2023) From the series of stills and animations inspired by the writings of Winn Schwartau

You’ve worked extensively with new technologies and media. How do you see emerging tools like AI or VR influencing the future of digital art?

There is no question that AI, VR, XR, AR, holography, telepresence, etc., etc, etc, are taking an ever-increasingly more dominant part of the cultural landscape of creativity. I applaud it, welcome, it, and use each tool available to me, when, and if, it seems like the best solution. But I try not to get fetishistic about tools, and never have. Many tools during my career have come and gone and many of the tools we adopt today will as well.

AI and increasingly immersive art will take center. stage very soon, and in some instances already has. The sheer potential for a new type of monumentality, imbedded within virtual; worlds, where aspects informed and influenced by dreams, altered consciousness, emotional, gender and neurodiversity, coupled with the ability to simulate physical capabilities (such as flying) that are beyond the scope of human action, will transform our species. Obviously, the most technologically sophisticated and massive installations, will be sponsored by corporate, institutional or very wealthy patrons. They will serve as trophies of their power, resources and influences, just as the monumental statues of the past once did.

Personally, I am more interested in what individual artists can do with more modest resources, then what somewhat with an immense budget can produce.

And it’s imperative to understand that the rapid (as if almost overnight) emergence of AI has created a powerful, and dare I say useful debate, a backlash, a re-emergence of the importance of hand-crafted works. We need both, or we lose as much as we gain. Let the tool selected be a statement that compliments the artwork but does not define it. For the tools of today will one day (perhaps soon) be obsolete themselves.

Documentation of “Rage to Know” (2005) live multimedia dance performance. Visuals Scenic Design: Michael J. Masucci, Choreography: Donna Sternberg.

You’ve taught and lectured at esteemed institutions worldwide. What lessons or advice do you most often share with aspiring digital artists?

I always suggest that people explore beyond their safe zones. If it’s comfortable, then its complacent. Take risks, make mistakes, even dare to make a fool of yourself. Don’t fear making something that may not only flop commercially and/or critically, but may alienate some people. I don’t mean be intentionally offensive, if it can be avoided. Respect for the differences between us all is at the core of what is needed in great art today. History is filled with people who risked everything, only to be vindicated, hopefully during their lifetimes, but certainly in the canons of history. No one can guarantee success, attaining widespread recognition while alive, or being remembered after you gone. But daring to push yourself beyond your comfort zone, will reveal not only your vulnerability, but the strivings that are currently outside the borders of your reach. And reaching for them just might bring you the critical and financial attention that will propel your career onto an international stage.

Today’s reliance by so many artists on ‘apps’ is a good and bad thing. I don’t see anything wrong with letting an automated system do the technical work, but I do hope that artists don’t universally hand over all their creative decisions (other than a simple ‘text prompt’) to an algorithm. I encourage some people to be the renegades and to learn how to create the tools as well as just use the tools developed by others. I suspect that in the near future there will be a bifurcation among artists, those who are solely, as I call it, “app-dependent”, and those who create, or at least modify, their own tools.

I was quoted decades ago in an interview, asking what advice I would give to younger artists, and replied “push the wrong button.” I still believe that is part of expanding one’s horizons. And that means not becoming app-dependent. From Photoshop to Midjourney, more and more artists seem to reflect the capability of an app, then their own capability. As galleries and museums look for those rare individuals with a unique voice, exercise what is your signature. A blend of what you have to say, and what vehicle you choose to say it with.

But most importantly, I think the best advice I might give is to not take yourself too seriously. I find many aspiring artists believe that they are so special, so extraordinary, that it actually stifles them. I rarely find that these almost narcissistic tendencies ever bear out evidence of the person’s self-assumed greatness. The best artists I’ve known have seemed to be the humblest, and certainly the hardest working. So maybe my advice would be let other people say how great you are and stick to doing your work. And realizing that no matter how good you are, you can always be better. And in a world with so many artists, especially digital artists, that people come and go, and you will be remembered, if at all, by your work.

Your career spans decades and diverse disciplines. Looking ahead, what are your next creative or curatorial goals?

I always try to simultaneously go backwards and forwards. I like to revisit where I’ve been creatively before and I equally like to gain access to capabilities I had not previously enjoyed. And to remember the value that the past teaches the present. In the mid-1980s I began a program at EZTV called “curatorial collaborations” In it I would select an artist (usually a performance artist, actor, model or dancer, but sometimes a visual artist) and give them access to what was then often inaccessible video production capability. I’d collaborate with them in making a video artwork (mitigated by an ever-increasingly advanced set of digital tools) that would become part of an art exhibition of theirs I would curate.

Last year, as part of Lois Lambert gallery’s participation in the Getty initiate PST Art: Art & Science Collide!, I curated am exhibition called “The Analog Brain” of five strong and brave women, who had all experienced and transcended major struggles in their lives. These five artists; Alina Kalinouskaya, Cally Lindle, Nikolina Lawless, Makani Nalu and Edith Sööt brought their intelligence as well as their talents and vulnerability into a series of short digital video works that continue the tradition of curatorial collaboration.

Simultaneously, and continuing into the next year, one aspect of “The Analog Brain” became its own ongoing project. Conceptual artist and performance artist/dancer Alina Kalinouskaya created a dance piece called “The Vitruvian Huma” that was realized as a full-size, full motion opaque color hologram. I produced it in collaboration with Dr. Gregory Carpenter and Michael Collins at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s iEXCELL Holographic Theatre. We will be expanding the project and attempting long-distance holographic transmissions, possibly having Alina dancing holographically, through telepresence with dancers in other locations.

As for curating, a new digital arts festival that I co-created in 2024, DNA Festival Santa Monica, will continue as an annual event, and we will be curating artists from around the world. Any digital artists interesting in being considered are of course welcome to contact me.

**“War & Peace”** (2005). Still from Digital Animation

What is a profound childhood memory?

I’ve been so fortunate to had had many profound experiences in my long life, it’s hard to choose. I was at Woodstock, joined in the Great Peace March on Washington, saw Dr. Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy speak in person, and attended performances by many of the greatest rock start of all time. And yes, I am old enough to have watched live on television, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. It was the conclusion to a very eventful day, as earlier that day I had my first ride in an airplane. A wealthy classmate of mine had a pilot’s license as a teenager, and he took me for a ride in his dad’s small private plane. That night as we watched Armstrong climb down the short set of stairs from the lunar lander, and saying “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” I was forever reminded how quickly technology can evolve, when the will and resources are available. From 1903, when the Wright Bros first successful achieved flight (of only a mere 12 seconds), to 1969 when I was able to sit in a tiny two-person private owned aircraft flying over the high school that my first and I both attended, to ending that day with watching humans on the moon.

Since then, many milestones, achievements and inventions, both in the arts as well as the sciences have taken place, at an ever-increasing pace. And although humans still haven’t managed to solve our most basic problems of inequity, justice, freedom, poverty or environmental damage, the possibility for us to overcome our most intrinsic faults remains. As we can develop miraculous technology feats, the impediments of greed, ego and insensitivity,

**“The Family that Plays Together, Stays Together”** (2023) from the VR Babies series.

If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?

It would be in some amazing time-traveling alternative universe, to work with the earliest artists, the cave painters. Currently the oldest recognized artworks date back to 51,200 years old, in the Leang Karampuang cave in Indonesia. There may most likely be even earlier artworks (arguably including a 130,000 year old Neandertal site), but this cave piece is the oldest yet discovered. What did this artist or artists intend with their creation? Was it shamanic, as so much of art has been? Was it a form of magic? Or was it a type of storytelling, a chronicle of their history? I would love to have been an assistant on their creation.

We owe it all to them, those unknown geniuses who recognized that you could translate and transfer the physical world into an image. They created the beginnings of VR with their achievements, most are of course, lost, destroyed and forgotten. But those that have survived, and any yet to be discovered are the “shoulders of giants” upon which we stand. The widespread adoption of computing, the networked world it allowed and the AI horizon we have entered is the greatest transformational development since the adoption of fire. The invention of art, whenever and whenever it occurred (or occurred in many places separately) is at the very heart of what we take from granted, and perhaps egotistically, all too often, take far too much credit for.