 Hey everybody, welcome back today. I have a very special episode for you I had an opportunity to sit down with a very good friend of mine Kirsten Otis from the museum of fine arts in Houston, Texas and Kirsten is the audio and visual design director at the Houston Museum there and he's in charge of all the art projects that get set up in the museum That basically use all the technology that we talk about on this channel, especially CRTs so he came into town wanted to see my shop and we had an opportunity to sit down and discuss all kinds of different topics specifically revolving around CRT restoration maintenance how he and the museum actually get equipment and then Mostly how they store it all kinds of great topics. We also get into some different art pieces that are going on around the country So I really hope you enjoy this special treat that we have here today And if you do like this kind of content, please do it me a favor and hit the like button But right now let's get into the interview with Kirsten Otis Kirsten. How's it going? And thank you for coming Well, it's great Steve. I appreciate it. I was a had to come up to DC to pick up a truck and Figured out that you're on my way back So it worked out real well after about two hours of sitting in traffic made it here. Weather's great It's about 90 and that same percentage of humidity in Houston right now. So, yeah I definitely Remember when I visited Houston, even though it was just May it was actually like a that's pretty interesting a year ago Yeah, when I was in Houston with you and We Definitely experience some more heat there than here in Virginia, but yeah, so you're with the museum and Why don't you you know give us kind of an idea of what it is that you do like a Normal kind of day Well, I I'll start by I ran into you from I'm trying to figure out who was Jacking up prices on all the PVMs over the last 10 years or so so I started by finding my life and gaming and they're basically the culprits from the beginning and then caught your channel kind of in the mix of all of that and by that point I was trying to figure out how to maintain what we did have and The we have one CRT guy in town, which is one of the largest cities in the whole country And he's past retirement age and does not like working. So we were looking for something a little more Dependable so that's why that's how you ended up in Houston But the I came there from working in local theaters in town landmark theaters And so I was the main projectionist and had a few other jobs I was in the army at that time and my friend was the projectionist at the museum He had been there 30 years since the early 80s and I'd come in to assist with a few things I was going to college at that point when I started there and the other art installer quit unexpectedly So I got brought in and had one year left in school took a break from that for a while and came back but I fairly quickly took over exhibition design there for the video art and That was a very jumping into a fire situation. There was no inventory There was no real standard for how it was being done they were in the middle between transitioning between DVD players and VCRs and Mac minis that would play the art into the solid-state playback devices that are at this point basically Devices that you'd use in menu boards. So it'd be a Like there it bright sign as a company that makes most of them But to their digital signage and they can sync together for multi monitor display so museums like them because it's much easier than syncing 10 DVD players and Hoping it keeps running for three months. So that's Kind of evolved into me taking over the video department at the museum So we run two movie theaters that show 35 and 16 millimeter plus digital Cinema and a Incredibly large inventory of equipment for the exhibitions with a brutal list of all the CRTs, but it's pretty run 60 or so at this point Like dozens of projectors a whole slew of old playback devices from umatic to VHS beta cam film projectors and We also run zoom meetings because that's what everybody does now. So yeah, well mixed in all of it There's definitely some things have changed obviously since you know 2019 and 2020 and So we definitely have that video meeting kind of thing happening and then If you're in like the professional world and you're probably anywhere near audio video somebody's probably gonna look to you right to try to Teach everybody even more than you're like trying to do And I don't want to get too much into that kind of it, but let's so let's let's get on some fun stuff We were talking about equipment and we said you kind of walked into a job where you had Like taken over a pretty hectic position there at the point this all happened and When you're in charge of the audio video department all of a sudden you have this huge inventory of CRTs Analog video equipment that is like super cool to us, you know nerds and things but So you walk in and you get this and you're trying to like put your arms around this a little bit at first So is it is it's just is this were you super into? Maybe CRTs like outside of work or is this mostly been because of work? The renewed interest comes with the museum and that's So I mean I grew up I was born in 79 So I grew up exactly with the evolution of gaming from the NES on my parents hadn't in television and I had every Nintendo system through the GameCube and Genesis and Kind of skipped a lot of the 32-bit stuff and then came back in with More recent things and what followed around when nesticle and the other emulators came out around late 90s or the 2000s I was very insane that that was even a Concept really and even had like a Commodore for a while and ran a little bbs for like six months at my house Which was very strange And still have that and actually Yeah, that's like you still have the oh you still have the Commodore Now if I sold one of them to my life and gaming action yes, they used it mother shots I think oh and monitor and everything the the curse or the The Commodore CRT, right? Yeah, that was the one I had Don a repair video on a gosh three four years ago So you did grow up, you know like in that whole scene and then you get to the museum and Now you have all these crazy amounts of pvms. I'm looking at this list here. Oh Yeah of crazy CRTs and So I know that like most of these You're just like you walk in and you start there are they are they organized was like The we probably acquire I've doubled the collection. Maybe okay, so we started with the the two 1900s the early pbm cbms and 20 and ones that's just kind of the mid-range mid-range 1920 inch and this weird Mitsubishi It's like insane 29 inches like 300 pounds and that was I've just been acquiring things since then like all the nine and five inch Or for a specific installation that was supposed to go to Paris Right before the shutdown happened and it was flawed it already left and I was supposed to fly to Paris and then International traveled stopped the day before I flew out. Yeah, I missed being stuck in Paris for two years but the Yeah, we've just been finding it like all the 20 30s I've bought since we've gotten there and I think to you actually fixed one while you were in town Which was exceedingly helpful that one was damaged in shipment. Yeah, they all tend to be but so now we have four that work great We're trying to get more. We got eight of those Dotonics Sets to for the new building opening and the other than not having shielding. They're totally fine for what they do They're not as high-end as Trinitron's but they're also yeah, that's expensive. Well, I think that Let's so so yeah, I'm looking at a list here and and just to give everybody kind of an idea I'll read off some of these things you talked about one exhibit that was set to go to Paris, right? Yeah, and it was basically involving most of these you have goodness 16 9 L's and six five zero four one cues and And Actually, that's that's pretty impressive because most of the eights are earlier than that or the nine inches earlier than that and kind of Need a lot of servicing usually so that's probably better for you to have those newer ones But what was what was that exhibit supposed to be? with those it's a So it's part of the Latin art collection the tube to give a frame reference the Artists that tend to use the CRTs the most heavy in the Latin department, especially in the 90s very common They'll do large arrays and it seems mostly like everybody saw Namjoon Pike's work in the 70s 80s and 90s and Adapted that to their own ideas. So the modern department has a Namjoon Pike for example and then other works that Have used CRTs like one specifically by Roy fridge. He's a Texan from Dallas and it's a Videotape he took with a video camera in his freezer running So it's just a slow swirl of the ice crystals in there looks incredible But he's very specific about being on a black Old tube TV and because it's supposed to look like you're looking inside something So you'll get these restrictions about though So the one with the five nine and 14 inches the 14s were added by the curator The original design is only five and nine inch on these three steps. They're playing three different videos there's a surround sound setup and He just sent three pictures of drawings no equipment So probably the problem that museums have is we'll get like Namjoon Pike sends equipment with his installations But most artists are here's some VHS tapes and some drawings. I made 30 years ago figure it out So I went out for his original installation and most of Namjoon Pike's they use consumer TVs because they're artists They don't always have a lot of money. So we When I they wanted to put this up like we're buying good monitors for this So they were still cheap then these were maybe $50 each for most of these the 14s were expensive But the 9s and 5s were nothing it was more to ship them than to buy them So that worked out extremely well And I just bought extras because I think it uses 18 total for the work But the curator thought they were too small at the end So she brought in 20s and 14s which was fun and the artist was fine with it That's easy. That's the one of the more interesting ones We had to buy a ton for that were extremely specific So you brought up some names there like Namjoon Pike is probably the most well-known I would think he's the catalyst, right? that did all this video art and really Took things to a crazy next level sometimes especially Towards the end and some of those pieces he has what is it like when you're dealing with Somebody like let's say Namjoon Pike for example if you did a Exhibit for that is that like more is that owned by some kind of entity now that manages that kind of Well, it's case-by-case like that when you worked on the Joker two videos That was kind of specific on how they wanted that like one of the ones I saw the version of his was two on top of each other hanging from the ceiling Revert one on each facing each direction and they were bolted together and it was I think 14 inch PVMs and it's just look like a big cube But for Pike specifically his he is exceedingly specific with his but once he got older He put in clauses for his works that allow you to change the displays as technology advances So the one that we have is rose art memory and it's a very elaborate frame with 20 CRTs in it And that's two channels of video and like our masters for that are on laser disc and But the originals were on pneumatic and where we can wow actually get that from his video editor Still lives in New York and is very really good guy But for that one it started with a bunch of nine inch CRTs from Korea these Korean and they were just a little like kitchen Counter TVs like your mother had sit in the counter such a good watch TV while she's cooking it has a little like LCD channel thing in the bottom and some buttons and The power supplies external on them. They're small power brick looks like the original Xbox like 360 power, okay? Yeah, it is so big So there's 20 of them against the wall 20 of those breaks. It just overheated instantly TVs basically died within a year of it running and they replaced it with these 9-inch flat screens which are basically medical device monitors like kind of small with like a mount camera tops very Expensive like exceedingly so for the image quality, but it also looked terrible compared to flakes It's a digital display. Yeah doesn't have that same effect of them So all those TVs slowly enough of them died that we pulled the piece and our We have a media conservator coming in finally actually so we're gonna work with her to get it back to its original So we've got two sets of the original CRTs and storage and they're gonna come bring them in and go through all of them and Find a way to provide power that isn't 20 heat generating power bricks and an enclosed space So that that one's but that one is it's interesting because he's letting things evolve Yeah, but every work they give you paperwork and the lawyers get involved and they will be specific if they want to be Most of them are very relaxed on it. It's they want a size to be the same and They want it to be able to carry the signal Consistently or something to be black and white but for the most part the curators make up those decisions in the end and It's very malleable. I know that a lot of people That watch this show constantly ask me and watch the channel ask me about the Dotonics CRTs and I thought since I had you here, we could take a couple minutes and just venture off and talk about Dotonics and Just to give a little bit of a little anecdote I was at Houston and I I talked to you know, we had planned for a nice long PVM class on restoring and working on a 2030 which I had worked on a Tons of those But then you asked about Dotonics, which I have never worked on and had even a chance to see and So we did a class on it. It was more almost discovering what was going on with it, right? And so you have more experience with the Dotonics been around you guys have eight of them and the DN 25 Those are the 25 inches. I'm guessing right now. That's what I thought you brought one of them in You know, what what do you think about them? How like Why don't you give us a little bit of feedback on like your usage of them and how they perform? So I've met talk to Kurt years ago And it took us me years to get approval to buy these The and Bob did the interview with them, which was very fun Yeah, we're talking about Kurt the guy who is like the the last it wasn't his family starting Yeah, the stories his family started it. They basically made monitors for the government So they had professional monitors that like NASA used and they were used for ultrasound machines And that was what he talks about in his talk with Bob as they were the end of that all happened when they moved to flat screens And they were basically starting to shut down and they got a call from MoMA in New York and asked them if they could make TVs for them. So is basically right around on Sony cutoff production. They were trying to find a new source I think MoMA has 200 TVs from him probably. Wow. It's it's a lot like black man has over a hundred I think they they've like he's done really well, which is great for him And I was trying to get about at least 20 just to have as a backup, but for them. It's they He bought just a ton of new old stock tubes and boards. He made his own interface board to work with them It's it's a very simplistic set. It is the tube in a metal chassis It looks very similar to like the Barco Square TVs from the 80s. It's a very basic metal chassis You can have speakers in it if you want the speakers actually sound a very good I'm surprisingly it has a very rudimentary menu system in it We've had three of them running for three years now Nine to five every single day or nine to nine every single day and they still work like they're perfect Yeah, I had no issues with them the issue that MoMA has with them is they have no shielding It's a metal box with the parts in it and MoMA is around a subway So they have interference issues all the time. I mean all consumer TVs are gonna have a problem in New York City, too Yeah, they're gonna have a let me know Houston's big also, but yeah, they do have Subways and a lot going on there. Yeah, so That's kind of what I could see is I really Like the metal design of them and I think that that would be awesome to be able to just Have that design to throw other tubes in because like you say you're actually putting almost the guts and the tube from another set inside these shells with their own interface boards and But so let's talk about like you say the good thing about them is is they were they had they felt fit that need for the Look and then they were very stackable, right? Yeah, they have indentations for the feet They're meant to be stacked literally they are perfectly flat on each side and They're he designed them for museums by doing that and there are no buttons on the front There's just a hole that the IR sensor is hiding behind So you cannot turn it on without the remote it'll turn on if you give it power But you have no control and he uses a very generic remote that's easy to replace and he'll give you the Like I have the service code to get in and so we have it set to have a certain volume It starts on for the work normally and it starts at zero But we do that so I don't have to go and up the volume every single day Yeah, but yeah, they've the timer works really well We've been using as I got them specifically with S video and composite and but he has boards with component video And it'll do RGB if you really want but component most of the time I couldn't imagine RGB being much of a need for you and your applications as much as it is a gaming thing Yeah, so Maybe if there was a computer thing like set up for some reason of retro PC or something, but Yeah, I kind of felt like that was one of the great things about that monitor It was specifically designed to stack. I mean really high like if we were talking about some of those Namjoon bikes I remember they would not only stack them, but put them all together and Could be suspended on a wall tied together and it would seem to be ten or plus Monitors maybe I don't know if they're actually stacked together if they were tied together But those would be ran. I think he'll I think they go four or five high yeah safely But beyond that you can reinforce and do whatever you want there I mean, it's a metal box you can drill into it put hangers on it They're insanely easy to work on the back just comes off. Yeah, I remember screws and it's just a cavern inside there So but the the biggest probably issue is that if you get inside there it really is just an empty space and If you compare that with like the 20 30s or the 25 30s from Sony They have an immense amount of metallic shielding inside around the tube even yeah to try to prevent interference in purity problems and And so that's one of the drawbacks of the tube is it's using a lot of that Come it's almost like Consumer level Hardware where it's open and naked back there kind of and it allows for interference to get into the tube some interesting We have the Artist version of that TV. I just put together. I'll send you the picture so you can put them up We're showing the Nam June pike documentary this weekend at the museum. Oh, like I would not have if I had known that I would have scheduled this trip a different weekend But PBS did it so it's available on PBS. You don't have to go to Houston to see it, but we acquired 20 25 inch TVs from another museum in town and it was from a local video artist named Andy man And he would do just it was very like local no budget versions of what Nam June pike did So he would do he had a piece called the tree and they were just in this like large shape And it had a Christmas tree on it that would go around all of them. It was a lot of stacking and videos being Just broken out between the channels so but he did was take They look like Panasonic's because they they are professional because they have in and out for composite and I have BNC So like mid-range professionals But he took the entire case off and put them in a plywood box That is just all the surrounds and then he had a brackets in the front so the tubes mounted to the front You can see around the tube It is not a seal at all so you can see straight through on the edge And then he just drilled the board into the bottom of the wood and then the input board on the back It's just flapping around and The power cable is also just loose just like it's not even held down with like a you bracket or anything It is insane in there like you kill yourself so like there's no back on it They are just breeze flowing through them. So they were in storage He died 20 years ago or so and they did a panel installation when they did this kind of video art showcase at the museum 20 years ago or so and they were in that and then they've been in storage since so they were selling their storage facility so I talked to them and we basically kept them from getting crushed and They we've put 12 of them up as a 4x3 Like wall showing and I edited the Nam June Pike trailer and so that's it's just playing on six different channels and it just looks fun Oh, that's awesome. What we found is he screwed around with the TVs and some of them are the images upside down Yeah, I'm it's upside down and reversed. Okay, and there's no control. He just messed with the wiring and did that Yeah, he just did the you like swapped the yoke wiring so that they would it's right It's ridiculous. I got turned on like video is down here And we you can reach the buttons with a chopstick like you still read the end and the buttons are still on the boards You can like push in there and he just wired it. I was like, oh, obviously we can fix this but no But like half of them have like purity issues, but it's perfect for this like one the composite in works So I shoved just the luma in from s-video. I basically shoved composite into an s-video breakout So it's just pushing black and white, but it looks incredible. So yeah, send you the that's no Show a picture of it. I did see the picture. She sent me of I guess those units because it sounded like it the when you know The ones I was talking about. Yeah, they wouldn't they're so heavy. It's ridiculous. That's that's just great. So these and these are Basically this artist went in almost homemade. I mean did homemade Experimentation with these He wanted them to stack and that's how yeah, I mean they were not stackable before but well, not just Did all this other stuff and Man you just got to think that's crazy cuz like you say you could easily the older you go back in a CRT The easier you could be to shock yourself or someone. I'm sure he did I mean he did not live very long. So I don't remember how he died I didn't know of him when he was but people loved him. So yeah, we're I'm trying to get more Information about his history, but the museum doesn't have any of his pieces because he was more of an outsider artist in town Yeah, so we don't necessarily the MFA isn't really the most outsider museum in the world So that's kind of what the contemporary museums tend to do. But yeah, that one's we put that up I finished it yesterday at about three. Okay I was like Karen because they're storing him at my friend's house because they I had to blow them out because they've been in a Warehouse for 15 years. They're covered in bugs and rat whatever So we brought them finally just carried them all in there and shook them up and like three didn't work So we swapped them out with other ones and got all running instantly all these kids were just staring at it Just yeah, I'm fascinated by it. It's just been watching younger people interact with the tube TVs Especially is very interesting and just what's so fun about working at the museum is you get to watch How people interact with because I design every video piece at the museum and install it and they're all very different And you can see what fascinates people and what doesn't and like anybody who's under 20 is probably not gonna have much experience with these TVs unless they're just grandparents still won't get rid of it or something so that's It's just very fun to see that and be able to Like explain what's happening to them like they look behind it So we had to put a little barrier and make sure nobody tries to touch it. Oh, yeah each in and just Gonna kill somebody so yeah, yeah, no, that's that's that's really interesting and good to see because I have always been concerned that You know if if there's nobody out there working on these things they will all just go away because the vast majority of New tech has obviously gone in a completely different direction and rightfully, you know, so you still shouldn't you know We still shouldn't be filling the earth with new tubes for the entire planet, but At the same time There's just such a distinction between a CRT and then the way Modern displays really look and even the way they work obviously So here in that younger generations Have an appeal to it is nice. Does that help like does that? Influence I guess would you say how many more? I mean obviously probably since you've tripled your list since you got there how many more exhibits you bring in that are involving Like CRTs is that makes others more in the museum more open to I would say it's very similar at every museum That it's up to the curators you have in your director Because we have one curator that is extremely interested like we finally acquired a work on 35 millimeter an old Bruce Conner film that We explicit like they have a digital version, but we're like no We wanted 35 because it was made on 35 millimeter film So we wanted that to have as an archival version and there's been more of an interest in having those Original copies like we had there was this whole problem with video art in the early 2000s is all these studios went to DVD They would send you DVDs We would get Latin artists from Brazil, South America, Central America Sending DVDs that were in TSC and they had converted their pal video over in TSC. So it's already changed from its original Design at its core and now it's in DVD Which is a terrible format to be dealing with now that the compression is just outrageous It all looks terrible like the blacks are all gray. It's horrible So we've been reaching out to artists and getting original VHS tapes They send them to us because we can basically digitize anything at that point I think the only player I don't have as high eight right now So we'll we can count or anything like we have an amazing laser disc player that's still going after 35 years So this has been kind of my mission life. We've taken all the tape based Things that we have in the collection digitized all of them to just make sure they don't degrade anymore and they're Contacting these artists that sent DVDs out to get original PAL copies original like tape versions sometimes you we got a eumatic tape recently from a Venezuelan piece. So that's been as We've basically Help the curators understand it more so video art for most museums other than like the Tate and MoMA Was just an easy thing to collect you buy tape It sits on a shelf in cold storage and you just play with it every six years when you install it But that's changed over the last five years or so all the conservators around the world I went to a thing at NYU years ago when I was able to meet Bob while I was in town and introduced him to MoMA, but the Everybody's been getting a figure out what to do about this is where they've reached the end of CRT's the tapes are all going bad and The DVDs are starting to go bad as well And they're we're dealing with how they don't make four by three displays that are flat out over 19 inch So right yeah basically bought all of them Oh, they have these Hitachi's that are third I think 42 inch Yeah, Bob got to see when he was there, but they bought all those so they don't exist So we're everybody's trying to get a solution for the future And there's this like weekend discussion of what to do about video art in general and who like how Everybody can kind of help each other out and find ways to maintain things because you can't showing something Like non-June pike is the most extreme example, but the you do not get the same image Or whatsoever, especially with video art on a modern flat screen and most of these video artists use the nuance of The way the tube generated the image and that was essential to how they like flickering was important to them Maybe they wanted it on RF. So you're gonna write lower quality image specifically So you want we're trying to reach out get we have a whole like five-page questionnaire that goes out to every artist And it is like what display do you want it on how big like can it be projected? Is it film like is it stereo mono? How like what cable quality it's like very but That has to be done before they die Is you're after that you're just trying to figure it out when you're just trying to guess and I think that A lot of people can definitely relate to that because there's always the argument of what was the Even the people that develop the video games that everybody's crazy about you know There's a perfect example of how that medium doesn't translate well onto a modern display So neither would the analog film and anything Like that you're working on it's the same It's the same kind of issue and I think people can kind of relate to it on that Yeah, like the sonic waterfall being brought up ever like half the my life of gaming videos are the sonic waterfall at some point To just get over this disconnect between perfect RGB video on a modern display through a frame meister or something and you lose that filtering effect like all of the Little checkerboard patterning they use to try and hide the fact that they couldn't do transparencies Is lost at that point. So then you get to but it's nice all this evolution all these people that have helped like especially training cori and the Why even like Jason back years ago just all these people in volt are and all them have created all this insane technology that never I don't know how it even got it's it's bizarre that this all got created Like momo you mean like the newer stuff that they're doing now like the frame meisters evolution to To like the retro tank stuff and like with my chi and things. Yeah, there's There it is kind of crazy boxes. Yeah Because there are people there's museums are just buying like the cheapest thing off amazon to get hdmi to composite for tv's and That's like why I brought up the atlanta things. Yeah, the best box that I found so far They were like 400 dollars a new but now they're under 100 Yeah, that's I was glad you brought one for me that has everything and I actually got this recently for Cheap special off of ebay. That was like promise to me working, but it didn't come with anything else. So that nice Uh version you sent me has everything I need to get going so that I'm very interested in testing that thing out and even um The because the first thing everybody's gonna ask me is there is there any Lag or latency in it Because that's nothing that you would really even care about for video really that's more of just a um Video game issue if people want an easy way to go from hdmi down To you can get s video and composite out of that and stereo audio Extracted from that that's even nice too and it does ntsc and pal Yeah, we've been using with the dotronics. I have two of the players using two of these for three years No issues. Okay. Yeah, and these have been on like running constantly for over like three years now Yeah, extremely dependable. They should have limited Lag because they're meant to be used in signal chains for video Editing or production work. So they should be pretty decent, but I haven't we'll see. Yeah, I got the tester We'll do it. We'll do I'll do a test and check it out because that'll just be fun Um, I I like it too just to be able to easily get hdmi down even just to play a video Like, you know, you guys are using it. So I'll have a lot of fun with that one, but Uh, yeah, I mean if there's Anything else here we, uh Want to touch on we could jump on that before we Kind of start to run things down if there's a couple topics Um, so speaking of MoMA, there's a show that's called signals I believe that is one of their main exhibitions right now. It's up through. I'm pretty sure the middle of july I'm heading up there at the end of june to see and it's kind of a Retrospective on video art. It sounds amazing. So if anybody is in new york between now and roughly the middle of july Try and check it out all up send Steve some info after I see it But it looks very impressive and I've seen a few photos from the website But it looks like something I would love to get down in houston if possible But instead I get to go visit it and I'll try and stop and see bob and whoever else is up in new york at that time Yeah, that's um, you know, I got I got to go up to MoMA in february right before um, I got I got sick. So it was like literally two weeks before that happened But that was uh, that was very impressive right down in the middle of new york city in uh, manhattan And I unfortunately did not have time to go in that day and check out the museum But I want to go back and that sounds like a pretty great Um show. So yeah, if there's anybody I know we do have some people up there in brooklyn and stuff at the Arcade they should definitely go check out that piece this month Yeah, I mean if you can get up there, you should definitely get in touch with them and see if they'll I know let me go see it. They said they would they'd be happy to I'm gonna spend a whole day with them So they can explain how they put it together and that's a lot of the museum stuff is so in houston we For being a large city we're very isolated like dallas is five hours away austin three hours away And there aren't we are the biggest museum in houston. So we support other museums So I work with every museum that doesn't have staff to help them install video works We loan equipment out constantly And if they are trying to offload things to make space we'll hold on to it form Like we have some tv's from rice right now the university That has they have a video Building that just got torn down. They had a film Theater in there that's 50 years old So we took on some of their equipment to keep it in running so we can basically run it every so often So it's not just sitting in storage, but the what I've been trying to do when I visit me other museums is to get More like to get ready to see everybody to go face-to-face discussion and See who's interested in more collaboration and sharing ideas about like for me The tv's have kind of established. We figured out what's good But I'm trying to as these digital projectors evolve, which is a huge problem for us. They Keep dropping models every few years. So but they reuse lenses So one example is I'm certain this lens from 15 years ago is being used in a new panasonic So if I have 20 of those lenses and I know that this current panasonic I'll save $50,000 on lenses because they're all like $2,000 each for these lenses So things like that are extremely helpful and we're We'll probably get to the point as we reach in life for crts Even the ones that Kurt's selling with dotronics where we'll just be sending them to each other to help out And if no one wants to do an omg pike rubber perspective We might just send them from everywhere around the country with the way because art moves through these companies That just have big semis that are padded effectively and That's kind of how the tv's will have to move and you've had to do that with your shipping especially which is great that that's It's really helpful that you're helping people understand that because even the ones we're getting from people are just like always broken so yeah, it's it's a difficult thing to sometimes get across to some people but at the same time it's gotten better and I've definitely talked to a lot of people always about You know not not trying to just go the way of ground shipping Unless you absolutely have to and I I'd rather you do something that's like The air shipment or something whatever non ground because they just throw them the ground they throw them They put them on conveyor belts. They do drops off these conveyors And it's it's just it's just really luck. You can pack it perfectly and it still breaks so yeah One thing one more shipping thing so bought a kurt with dotronics sends them in these like half pallet crates that are It's I forget what they call it's like it's not plywood, but it's like just a bunch of wood glued on top of each other in sheets Yes, so he makes those they're pallet ties and the boxes They're in boxes with star foam pieces around them and then those boxes have star foam around them inside This crate so there's four per crate and we got four so we got two of those crates and The one of them showed up and it was just crushed and the And I was like what the hell so we called him and he's like it's insured fine Just just we'll send him back and then I'll send you new ones And we but we pulled security video and the guy delivering it was just basically like an end point delivery from Whoever the mainship or was that was just in this truck and he was just yanking it. He had one pallet Whatever a tongue on there and was just yanking it out and dragging it It looked like he just crushed it on the way out So we just sent him the video of that and he got his claim But I was like you can like he tried so hard and they weren't even they were just like bent like the metal casing was bent Like they weren't they were totally serviceable still. Yeah, I was like, that's just insane That's crazy. You can do everything you want, but I mean they were insured. So it worked I mean that was like a $10,000 claim. Wow. So I mean that insured. I'm hopefully the Shippers learned a slight lesson from that. They lost a lot of money on that one, but Like I mean people have cameras at their houses. So that might yeah, that was just it was infuriating So we needed it was a month in delay to get the new ones and it was everything was on a time constraint So even the best late plans will uh fall to somebody's negligence We're talking about trying to find a piece of hardware that's extremely rare And you finally find it And then it's in good condition and then you're like sweating the whole time It's being shipped because that's like the last step And it can literally go from I finally found this thing to getting your hopes up and just You know open in the box to pieces Well, that's what i'm doing right now picking up an old truck and driving it back to texas way across the country So, um, yeah, let's talk about real quickly here Shipped because that's like the last step and it can literally go from I finally found this thing to get your hopes Up and just you know open in the box to p.m and just how How meticulous you guys are for your storage on even not just crts, but all kinds of stuff Well, I was in the army for a while. So that helps I think if they're one thing that I got out of that other than some college money was a Being drilled into you that preventative maintenance is the most important thing of owning any Thing that is a machine or an electronic device is it will save you a ton of money Over time and help ensure that it's working and also just cataloging and organizing. So we've It was kind of we just had a bunch of equipment in a corner when I got there and one of the tunnels under the museum and We I kept pushing things farther and farther out into the tunnel where the art handlers keep crates and that I pretty sure made them mad. So we got somebody to buy us a cage So we put a cage around that space. So we ended up with that And then we finally I think the closet was ready when you were there So everything moved it's basically a 60 foot long closet that's six feet wide So it's just a whole long row of boltless shelving that I think we got from u-line or tensco That's not that's amazing. You have basically the exact same one right here Yeah, we have like the most expensive one you can buy but they're They're great like they hold six or 800 pounds on each one and it's very easy to get them in and out But that we have them all lined up for the projectors I'll keep a log of how many hours are on each one for the ones that have lamps And not the laser ones and for the TVs I have an inventory that just a huge spreadsheet of where everything's going and then we can try to Basically equalize them. So like the dotronics ones that are coming out I think in two months that's rotating finally after three years So those will basically be put away to not be used in the next one So we try to just keep things as even as possible because it's just constantly rotating and Working with so like in a curator wants something for a show We'll just set up like three of them or something and With for most of the curators It's like an aesthetic choice because for all of that show like all the the way things are hung The seats that are in there the pedestals used for art is All has to fit like an aesthetic vision for the installation itself Or if the artist is very specific and wants some color, but One like we're the one we did when the Anniversary of the moon landing happened. I think four or five years ago We did a show of photography from that And the photography department asked us to put together something as well So we got a TV a period TV if I think from the early 60s It's like a magnum box or Phillips or something a little orange TV And I had the shop in town that works on our TVs modify it to have a composite input So it's just a little rca cable hanging out and we've got an old footage of Cronkite and the news covering the moon landing So we plugged it into there had a huge antenna sticking out of it and it just played that on a loop So but we specifically found an old what wood grain Paneled pedestal to put it on so it was yeah overly it was very ridiculous looking But people were just like much like this video wall that I talked about with the namjoon pie Like people just stand there and like stare at it and the image looked terrible Like it was such an old TV. It was all black and white. It was all washed out But it just kind of brought you back to that time in a sense Yeah, though, that's but that's what like you said that was part of it Anyway, it wasn't like the picture quality would have been that good back then for a broadcast and just the fact that it was broadcast Um So Yeah, the preventive maintenance obviously is a big important thing But also there at the museum you guys have great controls over your environment. Oh, it's like if you're talking about We're talking about in houston relative you go outside of your building and let a piece of equipment sit there Just rot in a couple years, but then you guys Have your humidity taken care of right and I mean temperature control Things like that other things outrageously specific in that building different galleries have different Different artworks have humidity requirements. They'll put um desiccant inside pedestals They they've specially designed pedestals that they have little tubs of Desiccant beads in there to absorb moisture in the air Uh, there's a cold cold storage where the photographs works on paper things that degrade much more quickly, especially in bad temperature environments and all our films are stored in there the Works all the video workspace. They are kept in there the dvds and tapes and whatnot are all stored on a big shelf They if you're able to get to mini apple issues to see the walker their video collection is unbelievable and they have A vault that there was and then there's a hole busted in the back So the vaults extended more and then another hole over here because they their video collection is absolutely massive And they walked me through it. It's just incredible to be whole just rows of tapes There's all umatic beta cam all these master tapes because that was the master for everything up until like the mid 2000s um That's an advantage you guys have where you can prolong the life of electronics as long as pretty much possible um by doing what you're doing with the preventive maintenance and temperature humidity control, but also I like the way you were explaining the um scheduling and the shuffling around more moving You know some go in to circulation some come out and So that's a great idea Because it's not always good to just keep electronics and things sitting there not never using them And we're part of we've actually emptied that closet and had to move it to another buildings They're filling in concrete around there. So we just put everything back in so it's In there, but not organized yet But what I'm trying to do with this is have they see one of those long extension cords As a plug every few feet and just have everything Plugged in or being able to be plugged in so you can just turn it on and then have a big Composite distribution box back there to just shoot signals out so that we can basically run like a color bar signal to it for testing Just because it's just a huge some of these are so damn heavy Like I do not want to move it off the shelf and put on a car and then set up Something to put some signal through it. So I know like these at the Mitsubishi you've got on your list I know the ones that I mean nothing was bigger than the ones you get used to have there that you sent over to your friend's game shop the 40 inch ones That were for we had to lift those out of those crates to put them on these carts that A friend of the old actually the old installer at the museum helped Dave build those uh The whole setup to hold them. So yeah, we're finally integrating them. They still will not maintain purity at all I don't they're infuriating they look incredible though So we'll we're setting up an s video extension to those so he can run a Saturn and run like I don't know mvc2 Or quarter combat or something on there. So it they're they're very impressive They uh, there's something else, but yeah, they're they're large and very tough to keep the image pure But they were those are some big ones. You also you got I mean you just had some really huge ones I remember the Like those yeah the 1900 cvms and pvms those were big and then some of those other sonys that were the older ones I think I don't think it's on here Yeah, we have a 25 inch of that same that cvm one and that was the old security training monitor I found it in a like an old meeting room. It was just sitting there. They hadn't used it in like 10 years So I just pulled it out of there and it's still like amazingly works perfectly But it's from that era where the back board was Like whatever compressed sawdust or it's like almost cardboard like it doesn't even have a metal back It's just a piece of wood like the old 40s and 50s tv's all had that and It's very funny like the cap that goes around the back of the tube where the Fucking the neck board is the it's just another like I don't know like almost sawdust feeling just piece that is loose on there that fits inside the main backboard It's very of that era for their design. But yeah, it's just kind of sitting around right now And I've also been working. We just find tv's around town So we'll take the van around and pick up tv's that people are giving away or feel like 20 dollars We'll go pick it up and then either we I've been collecting them to just give to local artists So the consumer ones like we have a bunch of the silver wega type ones So it's like sony, whatever sanyo whatever company makes Sylvania or any of that and we'll just we're not going to use those for a show But we have an art school next door the glacell school that has this graduate program that does art and half of their stuff every Cycle is video art. So we're always helping them with that So we'll just give them a bunch of those to just do whatever they want with or if there's local artists That need that we'll loan it out to them. We're just giving to them because I don't really want to maintain 100 tv's But it's in the end. It's just to try to help things continue or Dave will sell them at a shop or something if it's something that the museum didn't buy and I just found it So it's anything to just keep like he's not selling them for a lot either. So it's pretty Easy to just get into that without having to ship a pvm or something. That's that's great That's like this. There's the shop that we were talking about in in uh, new york a second ago, brooklyn They did the same thing where they will sell Mostly 20 inches and under he really doesn't like to take anything over than that And you don't want to it's terrible. Yeah, it's hard and possible to get rid of really And then yeah, it's like 50 75 bucks or like the normal price a lot of times for it So I don't know if you know It's It's really nice. I think to anybody just to be able to go somewhere if they're like looking for something You know, they get a tv that works. That's not that expensive um But they know it works and look at it And in a game shop is even cooler. So Uh, it's always good to help out, you know, keep keeping metal infills, too All right Yeah, pretty bad. Well, um, I didn't know if there was anything else. We have one more segment the gift segment so uh The original of this envelope is screws for something that dave's eventually or steve's eventually gonna work on and everyone will learn about I don't want to ruin the surprise. That's we'll leave that in history. The other is they Don't mess with texas patch. There you go that he can put on to whatever Iron it on right here. Yeah above my very important retro tech logo. There we go And I had this lying around that I hope a large fits. It's a reproduction of the gaiaris shirt for the tennis this game I remember this. Yeah, excellent. That's uh, thank you That's well, how about that? You never know, you know all these nice gifts. That's great. Thank you kerson. I uh I do have something for you, but it's not even down here and But I'll tell uh, what's everybody it's and I don't know if you still even want this It's a uh a rack That you can strap Two pvm eight inches two for like rack mounting. Oh, well, we love this So two or three of them that I don't know I knew driving something like that dual rack. Yeah Yeah All right, everybody I want to say quick. Thank you for watching today and uh, hopefully you enjoyed that interview With kirsten. Thank you again to kirsten for helping us out and doing that interview And also if you happen to find yourself in houston, you should definitely do yourself a favor and check out the museum there And uh, go support the work that kirsten and his team do By showing up and checking out the museum. They have an incredible selection of things that really will blow your mind one more time if you enjoyed this video Please do hit the like for me and I appreciate you and I'll see you next time with some more retro content