Born and raised in New Orleans, Marcus Brown crafts objects—sometimes monumental, sometimes intimate—that blend history, technology, and ritual. His work urges viewers to confront the unseen: memory, sound, and the stories buried beneath everyday footpaths.

Marcus’ “Human Universal Musical Sculpture (HUMS)” was selected to represent Louisiana in 250: A Celebration of Public Art in America, our summer exhibition with CODAworx, the leading platform for the public art industry. Inspired by the electric hum of the human body, this interactive sound sculpture invites the public to trigger harmonic resonances through touch, a testament to Marcus’ ability to fuse old-world craftsmanship with the bleeding edge of innovation.

But Marcus doesn’t make monuments that merely commemorate. With his ongoing project Slavery Trails, he maps America’s suppressed histories using augmented reality, turning street corners and parks into digital memorials that demand attention from passersby. In conversation, Marcus sifts through the spiritual mechanics of making, the ghosts of New Orleans, and the responsibility of placing memory in plain sight.

Contacts & Socials

Website: https://artistmarcus.com

Instagram: @paintwithmusic

Facebook: @artistmarcusbrown

Episode Credits

Host: Scott ‘Sourdough’ Power

Guest: Marcus Brown, sculptor and educator, featured artist in 250: A Celebration of Public Art in the U.S.

Production: Crewest Studio, Los Angeles

Theme Music: Ricky Peugeot & Desi DeLauro of Parlor Social

Stay in the Loop: Subscribe to NOT REAL ART, and follow us on Instagram for more coverage of the 250: A Celebration of Public Art in the U.S.

The Not Real Art Podcast is intended for creative audiences only.

The Not Real Art Podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs.

Now let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I am your host.

Faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host.

Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles.

Man, do we have a special show for you today.

The one and only Marcus Brown from New Orleans is here to talk about his work, his incredible work and also his participation in our first Friday's exhibition 250 Celebrating America's 250th Birthday with Public artworks from a across the country in all 50 states including D.C. as well as Puerto Rico.

And Marcus was one of the featured artists in that show and so he's here to talk about his work with us today.

Before we get into it, I want to thank you for tuning in.

We do this for you.

It's all about you and we're just so grateful for your loyalty.

Of course, as always, we want to encourage you to check out all the good, healthy stuff we've got for [email protected] want to thank our sponsor Arterial Arterial.org through their sponsorship you can donate and support this program with a tax deductible donation.

So please consider doing that for us.

Thank you ahead of time for your support.

And so without further ado, I want to get into this conversation with Marcus Brown.

Marcus Brown is a New Orleans based sculptor, interdisciplinary artist, inventor and educator whose work bridges public art history and emerging technology.

He he holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute and a Master's in Education in Fine Arts from Portland State University, Brown creates permanent sculptures, augmented reality installations, sound works, and interactive public art that explores cultural memory, identity, and overlooked histories.

His national recognized Slavery Trails project combines sculpture, AR spatial audio and oral histories to create a decentralized memorial marking sites connected to the history of slavery across the United States.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including New York City, Berlin, Krakow, Venice, and Seoul, and at institutions including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the New Orleans Museum of ART and the McKenna Museum of African American Art.

Through Slavery Trails and other public art commissions, Brown's work can be experienced in New Orleans, New York city, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. biloxi, Mississippi.

Influenced by mentors Helen Emory, John T. Scott, and Jim Leedy Brown combines traditional materials such as bronze, steel, aluminum, and W with digital technologies, interactive audio, and augmented reality.

He's also the creator of electrosonic painting, an artistic practice that transforms painting into live musical performances through custom built electronic instruments.

Brown has taught sculpture and visual arts at the New Orleans center for Creative Arts and for nearly two decades, where he mentors emerging artists while continuing to expand the possibilities of contemporary public art through research, fabrication, and community collaboration.

I'll tell you what, I so enjoyed talking with Marcus.

It was a real gift and a real treat.

I'm real honored and grateful that he came on the show.

So without further ado, let's get into.

This fantastic conversation I had with the one and only Marcus Brown.

Marcus Brown, welcome to the show.

Hey, how you doing?

Thanks for having me, man.

Thanks for coming on, man.

I'm just so grateful to have you here.

I know how busy you are.

I know everything going on, you're classing up the joint here and, and, you know, having you on the podcast here.

Have you done many podcasts in the past?

You know what?

Not really.

I think this week is a new thing for me because it's a couple different podcasts this week, so definitely different for me.

Yeah.

Okay.

Got a trend, new trend happening here.

This is good.

This is good.

Do you feel like the podcast space or place gives you an opportunity to say things that maybe you don't normally get to say or that you, you know, find a new way to.

I think so.

When you're on television or in a different kind of interview, it's a lot more measured.

You know, your responses have to be pretty measured.

You have a lot more, you know, time limits or issue sometimes.

But I think that podcasts have done a really good thing for our conversations as a, as a culture, I guess, as a digital culture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know for us with this show, you know, the whole thing has always been about celebrating and elevating artists and their stories and trying to create a space and a place platform for, you know, interesting conversations and just humanizing and demystifying, you know, art and artists.

Because I, you know, there's a lot of people out there that I feel like, you know, maybe feel intimidated or by art or artists and, you know, maybe it's not accessible to them or, or, or maybe the first World of art does a great job of making it all feel very precious and very exclusive and very intellectual, and that's great.

But, you know, I think for regular folks like me out there, you know, sometimes that can feel, you know, like, it's not for me.

And anyway, so we hope that this podcast, you know, helps to humanize and demystify so people can feel like, oh, yeah, I can relate to that.

You know, artists are people too.

Exactly.

So do you remember how old you were when you made your first piece of art?

You know, I probably was.

I don't know if I thought about it as art then, but I probably was.

You know, I was a little kid and I started the story.

My story is when I was little, my grandmother used to babysit me during the day.

She had like a nursery school and I used to draw on brown paper bags.

And that was basically how I started drawing.

And she would, you know, I was pretty hyperactive kid.

I don't know if, I don't know if we would have called it ADHD or anything like that, but I was hyperactive kid.

But once I sat down and started drawing, I was like, it's calm, very calm.

So my grandmother really appreciated that.

And she also did some art.

You know, she was a amateur painter and a self taught painter.

I don't know if I call it amateur, but, you know, that kind of was my first outlet as a kid was doing that.

And then of course in music came later, but, you know, just something that you could do quietly, that was the quiet thing.

Yeah, drawing is more quiet than drums.

When did you start playing music?

When did you start playing piano and instruments?

So I grew up with my older sister.

She's about nine years older than me.

She had, she played, she had piano lessons and had a piano.

And so we had a piano in the house.

And then later, you know, so I always used to kind of jam on that.

And then later on I ended up playing alto sax at like my school's band.

At my elementary school, there weren't a lot of arts available and I think band was like the only one that was available.

Playing music ended up being.

I found out it was a lot more fun not being in the actual band.

Band.

Starting a band with my friends.

Once I got to like, you know, 12, 13 years old kind of thing, I figured out it was more fun to play with your friends in the garage than it was to.

Right.

To do that.

But music's always been a part of my life, you know, as you know, I'm from New Orleans and my dad worked as a musician driver for the New Orleans Jazz Festival since pretty much started.

Okay.

So growing up, I always had a lot of access to musicians.

Although my father wasn't really a musician.

I always had musician Influences.

He would bring me to see all of these amazing artists.

So that was always a part of my kind of upbringing.

I'm very lucky.

Yeah, yeah.

On multiple levels, you know, not the least of which is, you know, being from New Orleans, I mean, what a special place, you know, in the world and in our country.

You know, I mean, I've had the opportunity to go there a few times and it just to me is just the most culturally dynamic, culturally most rich, interesting community that I've been to in America.

That.

And that's not, you know, I mean, I mean that sincerely and you know, hope I'm guessing you feel that way too.

You know, when you live other places, you find out how alien New Orleans is.

Yeah, right.

And you find out how different it is.

It's completely.

You realize you don't live in the same America that everybody else lives in when you live here.

So we're definitely like a weird Caribbean, European, African.

We're different.

It's a different gumball.

Yeah, it's definitely all kind of, we have a lot of different, you know, we have a lot of different influences here.

And it definitely.

You find out when you live somewhere else, you, you, you, you kind of, it gives you a glimpse of what the rest of America is like and you're kind of like, wow.

Well, that's why people like coming here and they're thinking so, you know, so.

Right, right.

So at what point in your practice, in your career, in your life did you start thinking of yourself as a voodoo craftsman?

I think that when you, I don't know when, when you do mixed media in the way that I do it, I always felt like, I always felt that.

And this is.

No, I feel like it's maybe a disrespect to the actual voodoo religion, but for me to say that.

But the way that I think about it is that art making is a spiritual process in a lot of ways.

And I think that we, we, we've over intellectualized art a lot and that's great, but it also removes.

There's a lot of removal of what the, of the soul of it has.

You know, where, where does that come from?

And I think that in, you know, contemporary art worlds, it's hard to, it's hard for people to understand that there's some kind of a spirituality to it.

Maybe it's not, it's not like a religion necessarily, but it goes back to.

Speaking of grandmothers, my other grandmother, one of the things that she told me growing up, after I was a grown up, but after I got out of college, she was like.

I was explaining to her that I don't go to church.

And like, some families, that's a really big deal.

That's a huge deal.

And then my family, I come from a pretty mixed Christian family.

Like, you know, my grandmother was super Baptist, and my mom and a lot.

My mom is, like, Roman Catholics.

I was raised Roman Catholic.

So it's kind of a big deal to.

For her to say this, but she said, you know, that's your prayer.

When I said, hey, I was doing art.

I didn't go to church.

She goes, well, that's your prayer because that's your gift that you were given, so you have to do stuff with it.

And that kind of stuck with me in the aspect of, you know, you're making art to help people have more access to their own spirituality.

Maybe that's a.

Of their own to find some kind of connection.

Maybe it's not.

I mean, I don't want to sound too, I guess, spiritual here, but that's what the voodoo craftsman comes to.

It's this idea that there's these other forces and these materials.

It's my way of thinking about a different kind of postmodernism.

You know, like, the materials are metaphor type of aspect.

And I think that that's always been present in a lot of African cultures in the aspect of, like, you know, making masks, like the ceremonial practices that are associated with creating objects for.

Not just for, like a hang on the wall use, but for a spiritual use or a ceremonial use.

And I think that's reflective in kind of where I come from, here in New Orleans.

I mean, if.

Even though I'm not technically a Mardi Gras Indian or a black massing Indian, technically, it's a part of my culture, and it's part of my family's culture.

And they make suits every year specifically for a ceremonial practice.

And all of those things connect to this.

These indigenous traditions, whether it's West African or Native American, those are connected where you.

You're making these out.

You're making these objects for use.

So that's kind of what I mean when I say voodoo craftsman or craftsman.

That is, I'm making objects to use them.

And I think that's something that sometimes is different.

And art.

Now, I guess there are a lot of artists that make interactive art, but I guess that's my way of thinking about how I make interactive art that's different is that it comes from that lineage of you're making this mass for this ceremonial practice, or you're making this sculpture for this practice.

Are you making this sculpture so it could do something and connect to another person?

And I think of that as a. I kind of think of it as a calling, you know, you have to.

It's also a follow your bliss situation, you know, But I think that that relates to a lot of the work that I do.

I try to make it accessible and connect the public to something maybe they didn't think they could be connected to.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, what you're saying really resonates.

I mean, you know, for me personally, it's like.

I think a lot about, like, why I am so moved by art and art objects and artists and, you know, speaking for myself, it's just.

It always felt like some sort of art and artists always felt like, to me, some sort of gateway to the supernatural or the gateway to a portal to some other kind of truth.

The gateway, you know, just a bridge to something spiritual, you know, And.

And that's, for me, you know, I mean, I.

And I have, like.

You can't see what I'm looking at, but, like, in my office, I have, like, all these kind of handmade, you know, objects that aren't probably worth anything, I mean, financially.

But that's not the point for me.

The point is that the energy they exuded, energy that feels supernatural or honest or true.

Like, it's like, as a truth seeker, right?

Like, I feel like that's why art speaks to me, because it's like in a world that is seemingly mad and crazy and dysfunctional on so many levels, it's like, oh, okay, where's the truth and where's the honesty?

Where's the integrity?

And our art objects, for me, always seem to be a thing, an object that felt true, you know, or felt honest, you know, for me, you know, but absolutely.

Well, when did you start getting.

When did you start making public art?

So the public art, I didn't really start making that until I was, like, a senior in undergraduate school.

I made a few public.

I've made a public art piece in Kansas City.

I went to the Kansas City Art Institute, and there I had a professor named Jim Leedy, who had an art center, and I made these two sculptures to go outside of his art center.

He was a pretty influential character in area is an amazing guy.

Started this.

The Peter Vocos Art center in Kansas City, and he's really nurtured and created, like, a really thriving art community there.

He passed a few.

Few years ago.

He.

Yeah, so I.

That was one of the first Things I did, and those were like, those are pretty big.

I think those are like 18ft tall sculptures.

And I kind of learned a lot about engineering something that's going to be large and go outside and that whole thing.

The piece hums human, musical.

Human universal musical instrument.

That piece.

That was my first public art piece in New Orleans after I came back after Katrina.

So that was kind of a big deal for me because that was my first public art piece really, that was permanent for a long time in New Orleans.

It's not there anymore, but it was for a long time.

I was my first permanent piece here in New Orleans.

And at the time this.

So the.

The thing that I think is interesting about that is used a lot of technology that is easier to talk about now than it was to explain to people then.

The pieces that I used were.

A lot of us are familiar with the way iPhones work and like how this idea of biometrics and like bioelectricity.

Sure.

And so the piece basically developed this musical instrument.

It's like a specialized amplifier.

And what it did was it took your.

Your signature.

Your signature signal verifies electrical signal and it triggered it to produce a sound and an oscillation.

It's.

It's a shame I didn't have, you know, $50,000 to really do my patents back then properly.

But the technology now is being used for every.

That kind of technology is being used for everything.

Even though this is not like a actual biometric thing, it's a.

Basically a bio triggering thing.

And like so many things work with that same technology now kind of connectivity.

It was one of that sculpture, oddly enough.

I didn't think about it at the time, but it might have been one of the first things that was a public outdoor piece that used that type of technology.

And like this idea that you're using your.

Your own electricity to make sound.

So it was very difficult to explain to people what.

How to do it.

And at the time, I had to either bring the device with me to show people what it did and like explain it to me.

Not an easy thing to do.

That thing was big and heavy.

Yeah.

But.

And the funny story is I had.

Looking at my notes here.

So when I was at.

When I evacuated New Orleans during Katrina, I ended up finishing my graduate degree at Portland State University and Then I did this residency at Pacific Northwest College of Art when it was before it was a part of Willamette University.

And I ended up doing a artist in residency and teaching there.

And as a part of my residency, I did a couple exhibitions.

And so I developed this device when I was out there more.

And I had all of these exhibits with these little devices called eHorns.

And they were little bitty, they were a lot more portable.

It's like the main thing that made hums work.

And what I found was all of these devices only worked really well on chakra points.

And it's the weirdest thing because I had people.

Yeah, yeah, it's really strange.

I had.

I had acupuncturists from all over the Northwest just like fascinated with the fact that there was a device that I made that could actually make that all those different points become a sound.

And so people are fascinated with that.

And yeah, it's just.

It's a very strange phenomenon.

I think it's still probably not completely understood properly, you know, in mainstream science, but I mean, we understand that, you know, the way that your iPhone or your smartphone works is your body's electricity can touch a button and stylus and all that.

We understand that part, but I don't think we understand the whole.

There's a whole different thing that that device does.

So that was really fun.

I was really.

I was in the right place for it in the Northwest for people that studied a bunch of Eastern medicine.

So they were like really into it.

So.

But yeah, that's just.

That was.

That was really fun.

So you, you know, you mentioned Katrina.

Right.

And so, I mean, tar.

I mean, I don't, you know, we don't have to talk about if you don't want, but I mean, you know, that was such a catastrophic, horrific event for your community, for New Orleans.

How did it impact you and your family?

It sounds like you had to evacuate and you were gone for a while.

Yes.

So the thing that I think is probably the most.

My wife and I had just gotten married, like in May 05.

So when Katrina happened, we had just moved to New Orleans after getting married.

We got married here.

Moved here.

And so our stuff was barely unpacked.

And so even though think it was horrible, we were a lot more fortunate in the fact that where our apartment was, it didn't flood.

We were on a second floor and we were in a place that didn't get the water, but my, my entire family, everyone.

I'm very lucky that all of my family members made it out.

We were lucky enough to evacuate by car and bring friends with us and bring family, you know, so for us, we were lucky.

We had like two vans and so we were able to like pile people in and go.

But it's definitely, I think it was a lot more damaging for the people who are older and the people who lost everything, their house, their car and just didn't have anything to go back to.

I could say that my.

Both of my parents separately, you know, and my family members, you know, under the circumstances, we did great.

I had to.

My mom and my dad lost their houses.

I was lucky enough to come back to New Orleans and like, I ended up flying back here to go take my mom's refrigerator out and clean, you know, like go.

Yeah.

Like put the Hazmat suit on and help my mom with stuff.

So I was fortunate and, and being able to do that.

I know a lot of people who are not coming back, you know, they just didn't come back.

It's really, really rough.

Then definitely things culturally have changed here a lot.

I think that we lost a lot of population and there's still not, you know, I would say New Orleans is back for sure, but it's not gonna ever.

I don't think it's gonna be the same type of city it was before that.

And I think today we still deal with some, some similar issues.

I mean, I think we definitely have a lot better grip on what things man made catastrophes could do.

How, you know, and I think the community here is a lot more like proactive and going, okay, so, so what did you guys do?

You know, because before, you know, we probably wouldn't have had that bad of a catastrophe if it wasn't just mal management.

And yeah, you know, that whole situation with the, with the levees, that's a issue.

We definitely have a very technologically, it's hard to imagine it, but we definitely have a very different kind of infrastructure here that I think that is for better or for worse.

I think other cities in the United States, now that there's more climate things happening, I think there's a lot to learn from our.

The way we do things here with the pumping systems and like the infrastructure aspect of it.

So I do think that other places are going to have to start figuring out how much water can they pump out for, you know, like.

Yeah, you're seeing that right now on the east coast with the, that's a lot rain.

Yeah.

I mean, I.

It sounds bad to think about it this way, but it's like, I'm a lot less worried here.

I know more about what's gonna happen.

I'm a little bit more like, okay, well, that street's gonna flood.

This is gonna flood.

Yeah.

When I go up to New York doing Slavery Trust, if I'm like, oh, I'm not getting on the subway today, you know, like, I'm not gonna go deep.

Right.

I'm like, I'm good, guys.

Yeah.

I'm from a place that floods.

Y' all don't know how to deal with this.

Yeah, man.

Well, you know, I think it's.

Yeah.

I mean, you're.

You're hitting us.

You're hitting on a few things that.

And I want to just ask about, but I want.

Because.

But I want to be respectful and careful the time, because I want to talk about slavery trails, and I want about the use of technology in your work and what have you.

But, you know, at being a New Orleanian, being an artist, you know, obviously arts and culture, the culture sector, New Orleans, I mean, New Orleans, you know, its identity, its culture, I mean, is so rooted in the arts.

And as a.

As a New Orleanian, as an artist from New Orleans, as a culture bearer, I mean, did you.

In the.

In the kind of the rebuilding after Katrina and the cleanup and then bringing the city back, you know, over the last 20 years, I mean, have you.

How have you.

Have you felt a responsibility as a culture bearer to try to help in the restoration and rehabilitation of the arts and culture sector in New Orleans?

Is that just something that.

I mean, I don't know how.

Have you thought about it?

Yeah.

I mean, so I've been at the.

I teach at the New Orleans center for Creative Arts, and I've been there for.

This will be my night.

I think this will be my 19th year, starting in fall.

Absolutely.

Because when I came back to New Orleans, it really was with a purpose of if there's not artists like me, if there isn't an artist like me to teach some of the younger generations and to be there to pass on some of the knowledge and pass on some of the traditions, I think that we're going to have a cultural void.

You know, we're going to not be at New Orleans anymore.

And so I did feel a huge responsibility to stay, because I saw at the time when.

After Katrina, you know, when we came back, there was ton.

There were tons of people come.

There's tons of people who've come here and already left, who really were trying to help rebuild New Orleans and when they weren't from here.

But I think that, you know, being from New Orleans and being a part of the culture, I didn't really, in my mind, think about myself as a culture barrier.

But I definitely thought about how younger me would have had a different story had I not had older artists to look to, to go.

This is a way that, you know, you could do what you love and you can have fun and you could, you know, do this for a living.

This is a real job.

Yeah.

And I think that's important.

I think it's.

If we lose that, that's problematic.

You know, I understand.

I have a lot of musician friends who I know are.

They're not coming back to live here.

You know, they might come here every jazz fest or something, and I totally get that a little bit.

But we need.

We need people who understand our culture to be back and to help.

Because, you know, when you think about the communities here growing, you know, the young people that are here, you know, they need to have the arts as an outlet.

They need to have the arts.

We have a great amount of talent here, and just not a lot of.

We have a lot of underwhelming resources.

In fact, I think that here, I mean, there was a study recently that showed that New Orleans visual artists are the least supported in the country.

It's fascinating to think about it in, like, to compare it with a national level, but just in the visual arts, we rank pretty low and what our communities are able to support.

So while we celebrate the tourism of music and art a lot, we don't put as much as we should put back into it as like a.

As like a thing that we need to preserve.

I think that's changing.

I think there's a lot of people interested in preserving it.

Yes.

And trying to put, you know, the right resources in the right hands, but it's definitely an uphill battle here.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

Well, and I mean, you know, we had the fires, you know, here in LA a couple years ago.

Right.

And.

And I mean, similar.

There's some, you know, Altadena in particular, huge artist community out there.

You know, generational, you know, going back and just completely wiped out and.

And, you know.

Yeah.

Many, many of the similar kinds of stories.

Well, you know, look, I want to, you know, shift gears a little bit because, you know, there's so much to talk about.

I mean, your career, you're.

You're such a polymath.

You know, and call it multidisciplinary or, you know, whatever, but, I mean, as an artist, you just work in so many different mediums with so many different materials and tools and technologies.

And, you know, and.

And.

And, you know, so there's a couple different things that, you know, we can talk about.

You know, I want to talk about Slavery Trails.

I was quite moved by that.

It was really something to learn about and something to see.

Let me start with this.

I mean, where is that project at right now?

What is the status of that project?

So Slavery Trails is.

It's my effort to make a national decentralized memorial that's digital, that's augmented reality.

And.

But right now, where it's at is in New York.

There's.

In the city, there's four exhibits up, and I have two that are.

I have one in Philly that just opened I call Owner's Way.

About Owner Judge, and that one's only accessible through the website Virtual.

What's great about working with the project is that if you run into political work, roadblocks, then there's still a way to do it and have the piece work.

Mm.

And then there's one in D.C. that's.

And there's one of the Owner Judge.

One is about the President's house in Philadelphia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's at that location.

And then the White House.

Black Hands is at the White house in.

In D.C. yeah.

So, yeah.

But, you know, the one that I just opened that I'm really excited about is Doc Snores, which is Black harbor, and it's about the.

Essentially, it's about the black dock workers and how that was a underground railroad network.

And so I've worked with Dr. Marcus Ridecker, who's an author and historian, and he just put out a book called Freedom Ship, and it talks a lot about all of the different enslaved people who've escaped slavery via a maritime means.

And it's a really moving book.

And it's Goes into detail, great detail about Frederick Douglass, how he escaped these.

They're just things that we don't get to understand.

One of the things we don't really understand the process.

Everybody says underground railroad, and everybody assumes it's like, not literally a railroad, but we talk about it all in these land routes versus the ship routes that were really successful.

And so there's just all of these different stories in that book, and that really inspired.

The Doc Snore piece is.

So that's up at East Esplanade.

East River Esplanade.

Park in New York at Pier 35.

So it's like right on the water.

It's a beautiful little area.

And the.

That was that.

That whole series in New York for Slavery Trails is in collaboration with NYC Parks.

And they've, they've really been supportive of, you know, if I want to do something, they're like, okay, let's.

Let's try to make it happen.

And the first piece I did there was actually Slave Market Wall street.

And that was my first real work that I got to put up there that really started the process of doing all these other sites of enslavement in New York.

And there's tons of other places to.

To make pieces for.

And right now I'm moving at.

I'm moving in a pace of, to.

I'm pacing myself.

I'm only one person.

So the project requires a lot of research and it requires talking to a lot of historians.

And to make these pieces.

I'm just trying to give the public a connection like we talked about earlier, like some kind of a spiritual connection and like visualization of like what this particular with our country was built on, but also the humanity of that's in there from this, from this history of enslavement.

And so in each piece, I try to make it as digestible as possible to make the people who weren't going to be interested in seeing a piece about enslavement, getting into.

Interested in it and seeing it from a different lens and hearing and understanding what happened at all these sites.

And right.

In New Orleans when I started it, the process of this project, you know, there's so many different sites, there's so many different historical sites that are here in New Orleans.

It's.

It would be overwhelming for me just to address slavery trails in New Orleans.

Right.

But one of the reasons I have been doing New Orleans sites in New York sites is because the financial centers of enslavement were primarily based out of New Orleans and New York.

And they have this really tight connection that I found, you know, trends in how these, how these structures were working.

And one of the pieces that's in New York called American Gold is specifically about the illegal transatlantic slave trade that when that went on until after emancipation pretty much.

And, and that was, you know, a lot of.

Speaking of New York, a lot of it came in and out of New York and that was a huge.

There was a huge infrastructure for that that went to Cuba and South America from.

And it was all financed through, you know, all of these agencies in New York City.

So yeah, well, you know, when I was, when I was on the website, when I was on the website and I was looking at, at some of the videos and stuff, you know, I was so struck.

There was that one video, forgive me, I won't get the name right, but it's the installation where the, the, the men, and I guess maybe women too, but primarily men, were burned alive.

Right?

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so, so I'm watching the video, right?

And, and the, the video is sort of maybe through the perspective of the VR goggles.

So you're seeing the, the, you know, the, the rendering, if you will, of, of, of.

And the recreation of this horrific human crime against humanity.

And, and, but because it's a, a virtual reality, augmented reality kind of installation, real people are sort of walking, you know, down the sidewalk, right, going about their life in modern day New York, you know, and it just was so poignant to me, you know, this idea of not knowing our history.

You know, what, we walk by every day and we don't know, you know, what happened there.

And you know, the old, the old thing about, you know, history is bound to repeat itself, you know, if you don't know it or whatever.

And, and it was just like, wow, you know, here are these people, you know, probably, you know, good people, whatever, you know, they'd be horrified, right, if they knew, right, that, that, that, that, that crime against humanity had happened right there in that spot that they would walk by maybe every day.

Obviously, your installation is meant to enlighten and raise consciousness and raise awareness and, and what have you.

So hopefully they're, they're learning and they're paying attention.

But, but it just struck me, right, about how, you know, how much we don't know how much we walk past every day.

And the, the ghosts, it was like ghostly, right?

It was like, it was like, wow, okay.

You know, it really, it really, it really, it really hit me hard, you know, it was really quite something, you know.

Thank you for, for doing that work.

Oh, no, I appreciate, I appreciate that.

You know, you got that out of it.

It's hard to do imagery like that on a regular basis.

We have a site here that, where a whole bunch of lynchings took place at the turn of the, the, I guess the 20th century.

And you know, every time I'm thinking about trying to do the piece, I'm like, I, I, it's, it's, it's hard to do it, it's hard to do it sometimes.

So making this kind of work, I have to Give myself breaks and like stretch out certain things because you just can't.

You get overwhelmed with some of the things that are horrific.

And I think that that's, that's one of the things that, you know, inspired me to do the project to begin with was I thought about how we don't understand it because we can't see it since we're so visually.

Our brains are wired to do everything visually.

And so as human beings we kind of just like put it off to the side.

We don't understand it unless we have some kind of representation of it in the actual place where, where it was.

So definitely the ghostly.

I feel like I'm trying to bring the ghost that I think about or that I see to life with the work that I create.

And, and sometimes it works.

Some, you know, some things are.

Translate better than others, you know, but it's.

I feel like in this particular case I'm trying to do that bit by bit.

So I'm hoping that over the next couple years I can get some more support to do this project bigger and better because, you know, there's, there's a, there's tons of sites.

So the one that I was trying to do in la, I've kind of stopped.

I'm still trying to get my, the Bitty Mason piece.

I'm still trying to get that together to, to get that finished.

Where do you want to do it in la?

What are some of the, what are some of the hang ups in la?

So the main issue is they do have a bitty, A Bitty Mason memorial site.

And I think I'm just.

My big hang up there is just trying to get the organization that manages that to let me put it up, put up my marker.

My, my thing is easy.

It's just a sign so that I have some.

So sometimes I run into things like that where it's like, you know, I might talk to an organization, I might talk to the city, they'll be like, that's great.

But then it kind of doesn't.

I need to have a better connection on how that gets put out.

Even in New Orleans.

It's.

It's been, it's been a thing where.

Yeah, right.

Well, let's talk more offline about that because I mean, I, I might know a couple people that I don't know if you know now, Art, but that's an organization that might prove helpful.

I know the woman that runs it and she's been on the podcast and we have some friends in Department of Cultural affairs.

And what have So I don't know, but you know, we'll talk.

That would be great.

I would love, I would love to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and you know, you mentioned la and you know, part of what was so poignant also about your piece, the slavery trails, is that, you know, while that particular aspect of slavery, you know, obviously on one level it's over, but on the other hand it continues to live on and resonates in so many, so many ways.

But slavery is still happening today.

Yeah, you know, you talk about the iPhone, you know, we all enjoy it, but the precious materials, minerals, what have you that are mined for the chips, what have you.

These, these men and women are, are, you know, essentially slaves.

You know, I drive around la, I have a theory.

You know, there's so many nail salons and massage parlors around la and I'm just like, they have to be like, how and why and, and what is the connection to human trafficking and what is the connection to the mafia?

What is the connect, you know, like.

Yeah, so modern slavery in this country and around the world is still a very real thing.

Thing.

It's just a different, differently, you know.

Right.

They just call it something else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, anyway, we, it's.

So that's all this is a whole.

Another podcast we can.

Right.

Talk about.

Yeah, no, we can because.

Yeah, no, that's a very true, yeah, that's a very true thing.

Yeah, it's, it's really horrifying to see what people endure on, on the behalf of mining.

Yeah.

Just.

Yeah, it's insane.

Right, well, and I mean, you know, like these, like these nails.

But I mean, yes, that's like on the iPhone.

But then it's like, you know, in la, I know like a lot of well meaning women, you know, who would rail against things like human trafficking, you know, go to these nail salons and get their nails done and you know, and I'm looking at these Asian women just like working so hard, you know, on these, you know, nails of these white women.

And I'm just like, okay, what, what is happening here really?

You know, and I don't know, it's just, it bothers the hell out of me because I think I just feel like it's connected to human trafficking on some level.

But anyway, I digress.

So I want to talk about technology because you are, I mean, you're a musician, you're a real polymath.

You're a musician, you incorporate technology into your work.

You do the electrosonic paintings, which are just incredible.

I just love it, it's so immersive and experiential and robust and rich and multilayered.

And so, you know, obviously you've not shied away on using technology and you've really leaned in and using technology and so much of your work.

But we're living now in a time of AI.

You know, there's a lot of controversy about AI.

I figure it's.

At the risk of oversimplifying it, I'm no expert, but it's sort of like, you know, I sort of liken it to fire.

It's like fire good, fire bad.

You know, I figure AI is going to be.

Have good things and have bad things.

And you know, so we're in this kind of hype cycle right now.

So it's hard to maybe understand realistically.

And it's a divisive topic among the arts community.

Artists, I think, are really struggling with it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

How are you feeling and thinking about AI?

So on one hand, I think about it as like a tool.

It could be a great tool for solving problems.

I for one, you know, definitely think that it's worth using in certain contexts now long term, I do think that there's a lot of things that these models can't understand.

They are made by people.

And so, yeah, there's a lot of issues with it.

I do think that artists should be aware of how their work is going to be used.

And it, I think it's causing the problems I see with it with art is that it takes these different artists styles and takes, you know, the, the copyright issues that I see with it are, are huge.

And I think that the.

In the way that we're using the energy and thinking about energy on our planet is problematic with AI.

So I do think that it is.

I do think that we have.

We have to think about how much power and how much resources that this uses.

Because what it's doing is compounding a problem that we already.

We're not dealing with to begin with.

So that's a problem.

But, but as far as like making art, I think that.

I believe that using that for artists, right, for people who make things with their hands, I think that in the long run I find that it makes my work more valuable because.

Yes, because I made it with my hand and it's not a robot.

So I think that in the long run, I'm hoping that is the context that our society will think about it.

As I have talked to a lot of people who want that they want the real Thing I think the authenticity will always win.

Yes.

Now when it comes to doing certain technical things, like I gotta tell you, like, there's certain things like, especially with writing code, I'm just kind of like, yes, you know, yeah, right.

Certain things I'm like, okay, I, you.

Know, yes, let the machine write the machine language.

Yeah.

I mean, it depends on what it's doing.

But for some things I'm kind of like, yes, I will absolutely let you do.

I will check your work.

But yes, am I letting it.

Do I think that it should be deciding which missiles to fire and things like that?

No, I think that we have let it get the.

We have let the companies run, have no guardrails.

And I think it's super problematic as an educator, the stuff that I see happening with, you know, the psychological aspects of it, I think it's horrible.

I think there needs to be guardrail on it.

And I definitely am concerned for my students who aren't going to want to do the work to learn how to do things by hand.

And I think as an educator, I went, I did a resident, a little resident teaching thing at my old art college at Kansas City Art Institute.

And the thing I thought was fascinating was that I went to the bookstore, like the art, the little like store on campus, and what another professor, and he was like, look, remember those blue books you used to have to write and do all your testing?

Well, they're back because of AI.

So now you have to write everything out just like I did when I was there, you know, like everything.

So, so there's certain old school things that I'm like, yes, now you guys have to learn how to write with a pen.

You cannot just type this stuff with your thumbs or whatever.

So like there's things that I'm like, that's good that, that is going to be good for this generation if they have to, if they're forced to do this the old school way, I, I feel like that's good for them.

It's good for their brains.

There's definitely something that happens and this has been studied and I don't have all the right, you know, studies to reference, but you know, using your hands to write and to draw and like even just to take notes.

It's not even about going back to the notes.

There's a process that your brain, that happens in your brain when we use our hands and it's kind of how we evolved.

So I look at this issue of AI as I have to put guardrails on what I am going to Use it for what I want to do with it.

And with Slavery Trails specifically, I've had to tell, you know, modeling these sculptures and then doing these textures and all of this, the painting and things that's involved with it.

I think the thing that it's done, maybe negatively for me is when I don't know if it's negative or positive, but you know, people will go, oh well that doesn't look real.

And I'm like, are you expecting it to look real, like a AI generated thing?

Because that's not what it is.

It's not going to look like that.

So that's one of the things that I think is interesting to, as an artist, what I have to go up against when I'm showing my work, I have to compete against an artist who is going to use a really realistic AI generated person.

Like I'm talking to you now.

And I think that it's the same context and what to me it feels like the same thing that the CGI artists are dealing with in Hollywood.

It's like, yeah, okay, well you, it's obvious that something has been lost by using the AI for these things.

I know that there's some things I could tell right away that they did not do it the way that they could have done it better.

Yeah.

So.

And my wife actually worked in the film industry.

She's still on and off does, but she primarily worked in the film industry in costume.

Yeah, it's just, I think it's, yeah, it's, it's problematic.

I think it's completely destroyed a lot of people's lives and unfortunately, and I don't think it's done yet.

I think that the best thing I can do as a mixed media artist or the artist kind of artist I am and teacher I am is like, I try to teach my students like how to make things with their hands and how to be self reliant so that yes, when all the robots fail, at least somebody I tell, I jokingly tell my students, when, you know, when everything is destroyed, then you will have to rebuild everything.

So yes, I mean it's kind of a dark way of telling a, you know, high school or college student, but just like, yeah, you need to learn how to do that so that later when I'm old you can fix the world.

Right?

Yeah, right.

100%.

100%.

And it's sort of, it plays out in so many interesting ways.

I've been an avid camper and backpacker and canoeist and stuff over the years.

And it's, you Know, I happen to know how to start a fire with no matches in the rain.

And.

Not that I've done it recently.

That's a good skill to have, though.

But I'm just saying, like, yeah, everybody should know how to do that, you know, like, it's probably a really good skill to know, you know?

Right.

It's.

I mean, it's, it's something that I feel like this generation, it's not fun to all of them to have to do that, you know?

No.

My daughter's 6, but she likes to do.

She's into that kind of stuff, which I'm happy for, at least right now.

Yeah, yeah.

You know.

Right.

But I do think that, yeah, there's some, I have some students who are just like, I don't want to.

That sounds like work, you know, like they don't want to use their hands as much, so.

But yeah, but I agree with you, though.

I agree, I agree that, you know, that there is.

And I was talking about this the other day with somebody, an artist.

I was like, yeah, I do think that this technology, so called technology revolution is putting a premium on the human made, the handmade.

And there's absolutely an opportunity for artists to stand up for, for humanity and authenticity and offer an alternative.

And so it's, it's, it's, it's exciting in that way because it makes artists maybe more relevant than ever.

Yeah.

And I think that it's all about understanding it enough to be able to promote a, promote yourself and to advocate for yourself in a way that makes sense.

Because that's the hardest thing is that keeping up with the way that, how fast we're moving.

I think it's a mistake to just go, oh, I'm just not going to change anything.

You have to spend some time learning about it.

That's what I think is the crazy part is, like the learning about it is important, even if you're not going to use it.

Yeah.

Don't put your head in the sand.

Right.

I mean, knowledge is power and if you're ignorant, then you can be exploited, you know, so, you know, at least.

And yourself.

Right, Exactly.

Yeah.

Do you happen to know the work of Rashad Newsom?

I do not.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna send you a link.

I think given your work, given his work and how you guys kind of both leverage technology and as a tool and, and I think, I think it would resonate with you.

And anyway, and I think he's also from Louisiana, so.

Okay, cool.

But Man, I tell you, you know, Marcus, I'm so just sort of.

My, my heart is full right now.

I'm just really charmed by this conversation.

And, you know, I'm realizing we've.

We've come up on an hour and I hate to have to kind of sign off now.

I know you've got other, other more important things to do, but I'm just really grateful for you taking the time to sit down today and, and have this conversation with.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

This is really cool.

Cool.

And I enjoyed it a lot.

It's really cool.

Before we, before you go, is there anything on your mind that you want to say?

Anything that people should know?

Anything coming up.

So I think the main thing I want people to know is that, you know, they go to the president's house in Philly to look up slaverytrails.com and check out ona judges exhibit, check out some of the exhibits that might be in their city and just kind of learn about the, the process, the slavery trails idea, you know, trying to make it a national thing.

You know, we don't have.

I mean, we're not the German government.

The Stupelsteins is one of my influences.

And that particular project that addressed the Holocaust had a lot of government funding, you know, and so for me to do this, this is all just like all my funding trying to make it happen.

And all I could do is tell people to go check it out and, you know, see how it could be useful to them, you know.

Marcus Brown, thank you, man for coming through and come back.

Thanks for listening to the not Real Art podcast.

Please make sure to like this episode, write a review and share with your friends on social.

Also, remember to subscribe so you get all of our new episodes.

Not rel Art is produced by Cross Crew West Studios in Los Angeles.

Our theme music was created by Ricky Peugeot and Desi Delauro from the band parlor Social.

Not real Art is created by we edit podcasts and hosted by Captivate.

Thanks again for listening to not real Art.

We'll be back soon with another inspiring episode celebrating creative culture and the artists who make it.