Bio: Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll work together as executive members of the new media business art collective Tough Guy Mountain. In her individual practice, Cat works in installation, visual art, performance and textile, often contrasting the art economy with the greater economy. She is currently pursuing her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jon produces visuals, software, video games and makes music under the moniker People Tanning. He currently works as an educator and freelancer. It was on Jon's advice that I decided to turn the art / work project into a podcast. Look for Tough Guy Mountain's virtual reality video game being released in November 2017 through Trinity Square Video's upcoming V/Art project.

Recording Notes: This interview was recorded at the former Tough Guy Mountain headquarters in the rectory space of St. George the Martyr's Anglican Church, nestled between the church itself-- the venue home of Toronto's Music Gallery-- and the former site of OCADU's student gallery-- now bulldozed for condo development. Visual and performance artist Jennifer Chan was present while the interview was taken making use of the laundry facilities.

Links:

Artist:Tough Guy Mountain: http://www.toughguymountain.com/Cat Bluemke: http://catbluemke.com/People Tanning: https://peopletanning.bandcamp.com/Therapy Font (Jon's art videogames): https://therapy-font.itch.io/

References:One of the fighting boys: https://www.instagram.com/samchampion_/HackerYou: http://hackeryou.com/Damien HIrst: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtHistory/comments/3if2mb/why_does_everyone_hate_damien_hirst/Vapor Wave: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/vaporwaveMacintosh Plus: https://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/floral-shoppeJames Ferraro: https://jjamesferraro.bandcamp.com/Cinecycle: https://www.facebook.com/cine.cycle/Jon McCurley: https://soundcloud.com/precariatcontent/pc-03-amy-jonAdrienne Crossman: https://soundcloud.com/precariatcontent/pc-07-adrienne

Photo: Cat Bluemke

The song used in the opening of the podcast is entitled Eschatologies of Tech (Executive Theme) it was produced for Tough Guy Mountain: a play, which showed at Factory Theatre for Summerworks 2015.