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User Preferences: Tech Q&A With Mario Zoots

Each week we chat about the tools of the trade with one outstanding creative to find out exactly how they do what they do.

From Know You.

Each week we chat about the tools of the trade with one outstanding creative to find out exactly how they do what they do. The questions are always the same, the answers, not so much. This week: Mario Zoots

The CreatorsProject: Who are you and what do you do?
Mario Zoots: My name is Mario Zoots and I was born in Denver, I continue to live and work here. I went to school for new media studio art, this is where I learned how to use the computer as the main tool for the production of new work. I am one part of the audio visual performance group Modern Witch, I am also co-founder of the DIY publishing project Drippy Bone Books. I have exhibited my collage and video works in Denver, Los Angeles, New York, São Paulo, Mexico City, Amsterdam, and Berlin.

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What kind of hardware to you use?
For the last few years my iMac has been my trusty companion for video editing and digital collaging. For my music project Modern Witch, I record with a Sequential Circuts Six-Trak and an Akai MPC 1000. I have wide variety of analog and digital synthesizers, drum machines, and effects pedals.

What kind of software do you use?
For my video works I use Final Cut Pro and Resolume Arena. I use all the classic Adobe software for HTML, collage, and book projects. Ableton Live for sampling, recording, and for the soundtracks in my video works.

Modern Witch: “Liquid Lie”

What piece of equipment can you simply not live without?
My iPhone, a trusty companion for the last few years. My thumbs are strong from writing emails on this guy.

If money were no object, how would you change your current set up?
I would buy an old building in the industrial part of Denver and transform it into a live/work space where I would keep archives of black and white magazines, cameras, televisions, VHS tapes, and analog synthesizers. This library of objects would serve not only as my toolkit but as a museum of dated technology.

Is there any piece of technology that inspired you to take the path you did?
A camera. Since I was 14, I have always had either a disposable camera, polaroid camera, or digital camera in my hand. Documentation of the things around me and the archiving of everything I have ever made is something I practice regularly. My current work involves the manipulation and re-imagination of found photography. I am drawn to photography because of how immediate the results are and how accessible the medium is.

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From Art Beyond the End of Art.

What is your favorite piece of technology from your childhood?
In 1990 my mother bought me a Sega Genesis. I remember being so thrilled and excited for my first gaming system. Sonic the Hedgehog and I became really close over the next few years. I think even years before that, on my birthday one year around 1986, my grandmother bought me a Knight Rider R/C voice car. The car spoke electronically (actual voice of William Daniels), and featured a detailed interior and a Michael Knight action figure as well. This car would light up and talk to me, I loved this object so much.

What fantasy piece of technology would you like to see invented?
A Transporter. You know, the machine used in Star Trek that converts people or objects into a energy pattern (dematerialization) then “beams” it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter (re-materialization). I think we are almost there.

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