Nissue #35: Agnieszka Pilat, Artist.
I had never heard of Agnieszka Pilat until a few weeks ago when my old friend (and one-time boss) Susan Best posted about the artist’s current exhibit at Modernism West in San Francisco. In fairness, whenever Susie gets excited about something, that’s reason enough to pay attention but wow, the work that Agnieszka is creating — inspired by her “collaborator” Spot just as much Renaissance masters like Da Vinci and Michelangelo — is something else entirely exceptional.
I hope that when you read Nissue #35, you get a sense of the passion Agnieszka brings to her work, not just for her own art but for the future of how all artistic expression continues to be influenced by technology. Sadly, good ol’ Spot was not available for comment.
(If you are in the Bay Area, I highly encourage you to visit the exhibit, which is on until the end of October. The gallery is housed within Foreign Cinema in the Nission).
Nish: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Agnieszka: Having a purpose in life, and the courage it takes to pursue it. I am a huge fan of Viktor Frankl who expanded on the Nietzchean philosophy that “he who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” (I respect Nietzche but relate more to Frankl!).
Today, there’s so much being said today about experiences, and having fewer possessions (the whole anti-capitalist conversation), and living in the moment. The problem is that in the developed world, people have bought into that mindset - that giving up on consumerism and going for experiences, will bring them happiness. But only experiences that transform you provide an opportunity for growth and are a source of sustained happiness. In my definition, happiness is a result of finding a purpose in life.
Nish: What was your worst job ever?
Agnieszka: I am not sure I ever had a job I hated… I mean, I didn’t have many jobs working for others in my life, I’ve worked for myself for so many years now. That said when I first came to the U.S. I worked at a coffee shop, and my boss was a real jerk, but I still made it fun by learning how to juggle coffee cups and learning the names of our clients.
Nish: What was your first job ever?
Agnieszka: A driver for my family’s bakery in Poland. When I was 18 my father bought me a car with a condition I would help around on the weekends delivering pastries and cakes from his bakery to the stores. This was very early after Poland’s economy had changed from communism to the free market and my parents started their business. During that time, I learned everything about the value of hard work, self-reliance, and grit. My parents didn’t take a day off for years when they were building their business and I am so proud of them and of what they built.
Nish: What was your best job ever?
Agnieszka: Painting with Boston Dynamic’s Spot! I have been painting for years now, and I know the craft, the materials, and the process intimately. So there was only so much innovation and learning that I was still getting from that process.
Now… working with Spot, that put me back into the mindset of learning, innovation, experimentation, and surprise. My inner child awakened so to speak… The challenge was awesome but so was the reward. I had to re-think everything I knew about painting and I created an entirely new body of work. Now, in addition to playing with the most sophisticated robot in the world, I got to be a part of an awesome team of innovators, engineers, and hard-working people at Boston Dynamics, who accepted my silliness with curiosity and friendship. So in a sense, playing with machines made me build meaningful relationships with humans.
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Agnieszka: Comparing myself to others and measuring my value through that comparison. I believe that obviously, the best mindset is to be *your* best self, as opposed to mimicking others. Each of us comes from a different place and time, with different challenges, talents, and opportunities. I am not saying don’t be competitive -- competitiveness is essential to achieve professional success. It’s important to know the professional context, set goals and so forth. But… measuring my worth by comparing my accomplishments, my place in the hierarchy, is something I wish I did less of. So I am learning to compete against myself and compare to who I am today, to who I was yesterday, last year, last decade.
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Agnieszka: I deplore people who are users. I get really triggered when I see people manipulating others for their own advantage, especially when they use guilt or victim mentality to make a claim on other humans. It’s a sense of injustice I suppose that really fires me up, it’s very upsetting to see bad people being rewarded at the cost of people of value.
Nish: What’s some advice you’d give to yourself at 23?
Agnieszka: Find mentors. Build relationships with people who are smarter than you and who have accomplished awesome things, especially in the domain that interests you and in the fields you aspire to master.
Nish: What is your greatest extravagance?
Agnieszka: Actually, it’s really hard to think of extravagant stuff in my life. I live simply, I work almost every day, I am not a big spender and most of my travels are work-related. I take pleasure in being productive and I’m at my most happy when I am in the studio. I don’t party much and I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years. I am very duty-driven. In this context, I suppose it’s ok to say that trying MDMA is my greatest extravagance, and I appreciate how it helped me manage my anxiety and opened me up to more empathy and love.
Nish: You have exclusive dinner reservations for 4 excluding family and close friends, who are the 3 people (alive, dead, or imaginary) you’d invite?
Agnieszka:
A self-aware, intelligent machine from the future. AI that I can converse with, an intelligent computer like HAL 9000 from 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist and Holocaust survivor who wrote Man’s Search For Meaning.
John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach because of his understanding of the psychology of performance. I would love to learn from him how to be better at achieving my goals.
Nish: What is the theme song of your professional life?
Nish: What is your motto?
Agnieszka: Be brave.
Nish: What is something you’re really excited about right now?
Agnieszka: The direction of my work. I have been working with machines and technology for many years now, but in the last year, I feel like I tapped into something that’s very significant not just culturally but historically too. So (without sounding arrogant) it’s an exciting moment to start to believe that the work I am doing with machines and technology is history in the making.
At heart, I will always be a classical painter: oil painting is notable for the fact that the genre has focused attention on the central figures of every era, from the aristocracy to the merchant class to celebrities. The machine is increasingly becoming the power broker in society — hence my commitment to painting portraits of machines and technology. Both humans and machines may ultimately look at these pictures as representations of the past, and even value the works as collectors. I want to serve both audiences. I am building a museum of the future. How exciting is that!
End Interview.
Want more art? Two other artists I interviewed are fnnch and Kelly Tunstall. And as mentioned above, Modernism West is located within Foreign Cinema, whose chef-owner Gayle Pirie appeared in Nissue #3!!!!