The Luminous Arts
The Luminous Podcast is a discussion series featuring artists, designers, and engineers active in the new media art scenes. Join the host Robb Pope, cofounder of Digital Ambiance and longtime visual artist, on a journey exploring the landscape of modern new-media arts. The guests range from VJ’s to Sculptural Artists, Lighting techs, VR Designers and everyone in between. The discussions featured on the podcast are an honest, in-depth look at the lives and challenges facing today’s most accomplished and respected voices in the new media, immersive, and visual arts scenes.

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Episode 026: David Glicksman
Hey guys, welcome back to the Luminous Arts! I spend the next hour and a half talking to a good friend of mine, David Glicksman. He’s the Director of Creative Technology at Gensler’s DxD department in LA. They’re doing some really next-level installations in some...
Episode 025: Nathan Lachenmyer
In this episode, I sit down with my friend Nathan Lachenmyer to talk about his work as a creative technologist. He started his career at MIT, in my hometown of Boston, which is actually how I met Nathan in the first place. Nathan is a super talented creator and he’s...
Episode 024: Christopher Bauder
Christopher Bauder, the founder of White Void, was one of the people that I had in mind when I started the Luminous Arts podcast. I was in Berlin for the Touch Designer Summit when I first saw his work. It was a performance called Skalar and it was being shown in an...
Episode 023: Bill Galusha
Bill and I started to circle each other off of the Shiny list about a year and a half ago. He’s an OG head in the new media arts scene and he’s worked with some of the most iconic groups and projects in our community. Bot and Dolly, Future Forward, Nonotak, Obscura,...
Episode 022: Nicholas Perillo
Nick is the creative mind behind one of the most impressive works of kinetic new media arts I’ve seen. The piece is called morph and it’s truly a genius mix of form, motion, light, and sound. I saw the work come through my social media feeds and immediately wanted to...
Episode 021: Tiffany Trenda
Tiffany Trenda is a new media fashion artist based out of LA. We met each other through my friend Anouk, another new media artist active in the fashion-tech scene. I was curious how the conversation would go. We spoke on the phone about a week ago and our...
Episode 020: Luke Taylor
Welcome back to the Luminous Arts! This time I’m talking to my friend Luke Taylor from all the way over in Australia. He’s the lead engineer for Advatek, the company that makes the Pixlite line of LED controllers. We’ve been using his hardware for years, giving...
Episode 019: Shlomo Zippel
Welcome back my artist people! In this episode I’m talking with Shlomo Zippel, a developer turned light artist based out of the Bay Area. We’ve kind of been in each other’s orbits for years but we’d never actually met in person. Recently I started dating a friend...
Episode 018: Toshi Hoo
Toshi and I have been friends for almost 20 years. I met him on a beach in Cape Cod during a psytrance party. He was an established VJ in the Boston scene and I was just trying to figure out how that whole world worked. He brought me into the fold and taught me...
Episode 017: Joshua White
This is a really special episode for me. Joshua is one of the pioneers in the performance visual arts scene. He was one of the first to project live visuals on stage and since I was 18 years old I’ve known about his work as one of the pioneers of visual music. When...
Episode 016: Richard DDT Trapani
Good morning people! In this episode, I sit down with my longtime friend Rich Trapani, or Rich DDT as residents of the Bay Area know him. Originally out of my hometown, Boston, he’s made a name for himself out on the West Coast running an immersive new media salon...
Episode 015: Bob Bonniol
Welcome back, everybody! This episode is with Bob Bonniol, the founder of Mode Studios in Seattle, and a longtime inspiration to me. He’s a legend in the live show production industry, being at the forefront of new media technologies as they made their way onto the...
Episode 014: Sofia Aronov
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Luminous Arts Podcast! Today I’m talking with Sofia Aronov, an Italian experiential designer and new media artist living and working in NYC. I met Sofia on a trip to Brooklyn back in 2019. She was working for Fake Love, the...
Episode 013: Steve Lieberman
August 19, 2020 Hey everyone, welcome to the 13th episode of the Luminous Arts Podcast! Steve Lieberman is a longtime friend and inspiration of mine. He’s a lighting designer who’s work is world-renowned in the festival stage and high-end nightclub arenas. I met...
Episode 012: Forest Stearns
July 7, 2020 Forest and I have been friends for almost 12 years. We were talking about art projects before I started Digital Ambiance and before he was an Art Director at Deviant Art down in LA. He’s a prolific illustrator and street artist who’s skills with a...
Episode 011: Mark Slee
June 25, 2020 In this episode of Luminous Arts, I talk with Mark Slee, the developer of the software behind the Tree of Tenere. He’s an accomplished producer and light artist who runs an art gallery out of San Francisco. We’re both quarantined in separate corners of...
Episode 010: Timo Lejeune
May 5, 2020 Hey everyone, welcome to the Luminous Podcast! Well, that was an excellent conversation. I just finished a long episode of the Luminous Arts with Timo Lejeune, a light artist based in the Netherlands. His group, Lumus Instruments, combines light and...
Episode 009: Gabriel Dunne
April 1, 2020 This episode of the Podcast is with Gabriel Dunne, an interactive multimedia artist and code wizard who’s been a staple of the Bay Area new-media arts scene for more than a decade. He’s one of the original members of the OOOShiny list, a gathering place...
Episode 008: Keith Anderson
February 12, 2020 Keith and I met for the first time during my trip to Vegas this year for the LDI Conference. I learned about his work as a VJ in the festival scene years ago and at Burning Man this year he started dating one of my installation techs (small world,...
Episode 007: Tyler Kicera
November 19, 2019 This week I did my first remote episode of the show, which actually went really smoothly. I sat down (across the country) with Tyler Kicera, Senior Director of the Kinetics Department at Tait Towers. They’re responsible for some of the most...
Episode 006: Rebeca Sanchez Pastor
September 30, 2019 I met with Rebeca while she was in the country consulting on a new nightclub design in Las Vegas. Her company, LEDs Control is a prolific LED feature design firm and has a lot in common with Digital Ambiance. She’s a Mexican native, Barcelona-based...
Episode 005: Matthew Ragan
August 19, 2019 Hey everyone, welcome to the Luminous Podcast! This is a conversational series where I sit down with new media artists from across the scene and around the globe (but usually in my living room). My goal with this program is to create a relaxed forum...
Episode 004: Scott Draves
July 16, 2019 My friendship with Scott goes back to before I moved to the West Coast. He’s an artist & programmer that made his name coding phenomenal generative artwork. His most well-known piece, titled “Electric Sheep”, started as a self-evolving algorithm,...
Episode 003: Christopher Schardt
Hey everyone, welcome back to Luminous Arts! If this is your first time tuning in, this is a conversational series where I sit down with new media artists from across the spectrum with the goal of giving a public voice to the people behind the most...
Episode 002: Cynthia Cardenas
April 18, 2019 Welcome to episode 2 of the Luminous podcast. We just finished up the Smode master classes here at the Lumen Labs. There were so many cool people here from all over the country to learn all about this amazing new platform. Tonight I got to hang out...
Episode 001: Brian Pinkham
March 18, 2019 Hey everyone, welcome to the brand new Luminous Podcast! This is a new conversational series where I’m going to sit down with new media artists from across the spectrum. My goal with this program is to give a public voice to the people behind the most...