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DEAFBEEF on Vernacular in a Standardized Age

DEAFBEEF is participating in the group show Infinite Images at the Toledo Museum of Art. In a conversation with Peter Bauman (Monk Antony), the artist reflects on translating his code-based practice into the forged-iron, tactile sculpture Glitchbox. He explores how physical labor, material constraints and embodied interaction reveal facets of generative systems that purely digital works can’t capture.
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Peter Bauman: Can you talk about the significance of Glitchbox as a physical sculpture in your practice? While your work has often included physical components, this piece at Infinite Images feels like a deeper commitment—a forged iron object meant to be touched, manipulated and heard.

‍‍Contemporary institutions increasingly favor multimedia, interactive experiences—what does working beyond the screen enable for you? How do embodied, sensual interactions allow you to express ideas that purely digital works can't?‍

‍DEAFBEEF: In a past life I wanted to build synths and instruments. I was originally inspired to work metal after seeing the kinetic sculptures of Arthur Ganson. Although that took a few twists and turns, including several years as a blacksmith-jeweler crafting 3000 hand-forged wedding rings. I knew that someday I would return to making noisy objects that move and change.

Since the events of 2021, I'd been working towards making real-time audiovisual performance when it happened to align with the opportunity to do something for the Toledo exhibition. In the theme of parameterized systems, Glitchbox was a natural first choice but I intend to continue in this direction and don't think it will be the last.

There were many design challenges that don't often come up in purely digital works. Making a weird machine that people will touch in a museum setting requires attention to safety, physical accessibility and durability. Those aspects influenced its form and function.
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If purely digital works get to sidestep these concerns, we must ask what else gets left behind in the virtual?

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I find it interesting that in the NFT generative art scene, great importance is placed on things like minimal dependencies, permanence and on-chain storage. On-chain generative art delights in its Platonic idealism. Cryptocurrency has historical ties to the Extropian movement. Life extension culture overlaps with crypto. There appears to be a Gnostic urge to transcend bodies and the material world.

Yet until we can spend our digital cash to upload our brains to computers, we're stuck in our lovely messy meatsacks. You can only experience anything, including the digital, through your body's interactions with a complex environment. Glitchbox is, in part, about that embodiment.

I'm also thrilled to exhibit alongside LoVid and Operator, two artist duos who have deeply explored embodiment as a theme in generative art.

‍Peter Bauman: The original Glitchbox (2021) was an entirely digital, programmable NFT that you transformed into a functioning sculpture for the show. Can you talk about the process of building it? How does physical labor connect to your ongoing concerns with permanence and craft?‍

‍DEAFBEEF: For me, permanence is mostly about personal agency over the tools I use. As much as possible, I want the materials and processes to be within my ability to influence directly, without intermediaries. I'm not a purist; I recognize trade-offs and dependencies always exist.
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In myth, blacksmith archetypes are often physically impaired or burdened. I see that as an acknowledgement that no technology is neutral; there is always a cost or trade-off.

I think of my shop like an organism of which I'm only one part. When I use the tools and materials around me, they also change me. Although I'm careful and mindful of safety, masking and ventilation, there is still risk. I'm wearing my joints and bones, exposing myself to more chemicals than otherwise.
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I'm aware that I'm expending my life. But I want the sensual experience of making. 

I want to play with fire and electricity, hear the sounds and breathe the smells. I want to use my body in daily activity. I get satisfaction from repetitive physical work. I sleep better at night and there's no doubt it influences my brain chemistry.

When working up close to physical materials and energy, when you zoom in, instead of finding pixels/abstractions, you find demons and wildness. I make discoveries and artistic decisions while in this feedback loop that I feel would be more difficult if I were directing a team or hiring fabricators.

This is how I want to live and I present it as context for the work. It's not unique to me; blacksmithing and craft movements have seen a resurgence and I believe it speaks to something.

‍Peter Bauman: And what might that be speaking to? You’ve said that Glitchbox has six themes, including “labor” and “craft.” Can you touch on the other themes? How do they emerge in the work, especially when a visitor is turning a knob or flipping a switch?‍

‍DEAFBEEF: I joked about Glitchbox having many facets, perhaps six like a cube. In seriousness, I do think it's multifaceted and expect people will experience it differently. On a sensuous level, there is sound, light and touch to explore.

But beyond that, I hope curious visitors will notice the details and peculiarities and wonder about how it was made, who bothered to spend the time and why. There's a touch of absurdity in its maximalism; I hope some people find that funny.

I can't say whether the custom controls are of better/worse quality than prefabricated ones but I can be sure that they are unique.
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Vernacular stands out in an age of standardization. 

A screen can show any image but it can't escape being a screen—a mass-produced object that has the potential to blend in. Forged iron joinery, I hope, inspires some curiosity. Iron carries associations with labor. The hammer marks are still visible as proof.
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Maybe visitors will reflect on the system as a whole and recognize that computer code is just one narrow aspect. I wanted to show an example of how generative systems don't only exist "somewhere else" as a formal description in inaccessible computer code or at "sometime else" as the residue of a past computation. Generative systems can be interactive, participatory, immediate.

It's true that flipping a switch won't make conceptual themes obvious. But maybe that interaction inspires someone to dig deeper and find this essay—or read about cybernetics, Roy Ascott—and think about the blurry boundary between author/audience, human agency, embodiment and whatever other connection they bring to bear through their own experience.

All I know is that it's messy. Despite our need for categorization and hierarchy, the reality is that everything is connected in complicated ways; it's not always clear who is steering.

‍Peter Bauman: What added messiness does AI bring? You’ve written that Glitchbox juxtaposes the themes we’ve discussed—embodiment, craft, how cybernetic systems resist digital confinement—with the rise of AI. Does the physicality of the piece counter or complement the increasingly frictionless world of AI-generated media?

DEAFBEEF: There are some connections but my aim was not to make an on-the-nose response. It's not a John Henry story.
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It's more about me asking myself—in the present circumstances, as an artist—what ought I do? 

With my particular set of interests, experiences, quirks, temperament and with my age—the productive years I have left—what's the best use of my time? There are many artists engaging critically with AI, both technically and thematically in sophisticated ways. I think rather about how I can best speak, through my own set of resources and constraints, and what my body compels me to do.

Craft and labor are important aspects of my practice. Art doesn't have to be labor intensive: using computers, AI, assistants and fabricators are all equally valid. From Robert Smithson "casting a glance" to Roman Opalka painting numbers for years.
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But while a computer might produce the same result as a human, only one of those can trade their finite life force in service of an expression, the knowledge of which is important to its meaning. 

That context matters, as art, in my opinion, is predominantly a social activity.

There's a lot of strange effort tucked into corners of this piece. It might not be visible but knowing it's there changes it. For whatever reason—and not because I'm a Luddite—this is the kind of work I feel compelled to do. I'm not only concerned with the result. I want to have the experience of doing, discovering, becoming. Generative AI is very useful but it can't live your life for you.



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DEAFBEEF is a generative artist, musician, programmer and blacksmith creating work with a minimal toolset.
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‍‍Peter Bauman (Monk Antony) is Le Random's editor in chief.