Bytesize Podcast

Rotem Rozental

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Technology
Updated Biweekly

A taste of global media, technology and visual storytelling. rotroz.substack.com

May 27

High Resolution: A Conversation with Assaf Dar-Sagol

Assaf Dar-Sagol is a veteran music producer, composer, orchestrator, cellist, and the co-founder and CEO of Polyverse Music, a company developing audio effects plugins and virtual instruments for musicians, producers, and sound designers. In the past few years, they have shaped a vibrant community around their products and work. Dar-Sagol’s perspective is particularly important, since the community around synthesizers and plugins is not only global and vibrant, but it also mirrors the visual arts’ return to analog technologies and tactility as a response to digital existence in unexpected ways. Dar-Sagol’s co-founders are Aviram Souhami, as well as Erez Eisen from Infected Mushroom, the iconic psytrance duo. Together, they develop unconventional tools that allow artists to radically transform their sounds. I was curious to hear from Dar-Sagol about how musicians and the electronic scene are impacted by the current AI landscape, as well as what innovation looks like at this moment. A number of High Resolution conversations have focused on the impact of collaboration and community on one’s practice in the context of visual arts, but I did not yet get to speak with someone who navigates the intersections of audio, production, and tech about that context. It feels pressing to look at what is happening in other creative domains, and how similar pressures and technological shifts shape both fields. As always, we also get into some predictions, discussing the future impact of AI on both the electronic music industry and the musicians’ studios. If this resonated, I’d be grateful if you passed it to one person who you think should be reading Bytesize. Not a mass forward, just share with one person you think would be interested. That’s how this grows. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

52 min
Apr 1

High Resolution: Ali LeRoi

Ahead of the opening of Everybody Hates Exhibitions this Thursday, April 2, at 6 pm at LACP, I welcomed Ali LeRoi to Bytesize this week. This solo exhibition, curated by your truly, features his never-before-seen photographs captured behind the scenes of the iconic TV show, which recently marked its twentieth anniversary. In this conversation, we discuss the experience of going back to those moments, two decades after the show debuted, and how the camera allowed LeRoi to both connect to the moment and position his own life story in relation to both the fictional narratives of the show and the real human relationships on set. Ali LeRoi: Everybody Hates Exhibitions, opening April 2, 6-8pm, at LACP: lacphoto.org. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

52 min
Feb 18

High Resolution: Cory Doctorow

Canadian author, journalist, and activist Cory Doctorow coined the term Enshitification in 2023, accurately capturing the experience of being online in the 2020s, in virtual environments that were purposefully being decayed by corporations and tech giants. The companies that govern our day-to-day life online were deteriorating the level of service to increase their profits: If the search results you receive on Google are not good enough, chances are you will click on more results, therefore seeing more ads, therefore improving Google’s bottom line. Enshitification poignantly reminded the world that the participants in the online domain – us! – are the product and that we are users also in the sense that we are trapped within those systems. In this post, I suggested that the flux of images generated by AI creates a similar phenomenon that can be considered as Artshitification: a flood that keeps going at our expense, locking us into services we cannot not use. In this case, the platform was not downgraded after providing a trustworthy service, it was decayed and degraded from the get-go in order to attract as many users as possible, before protective guardrails were set around it. In that respect, the process of artshitification might be more rapid (and perhaps more massive) than enshitification. I finally got to speak with Doctorow about this term and how he understands the condition (predicament?) of our current global and visual culture. His new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, explores life with AI further, and will be coming out in June. You can see more and pre-order here. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

57 min
Jan 14

High Resolution: Penelope Umbrico

What a great way to start 2026! I have been following Penelope Umbrico’s work through her Suns from Sunsets on Flickr ongoing project, which she began in 2006. Accumulating images of people capturing themselves in front of sunsets on Flickr, Umbrico created a stunning collage of the sun’s vibrant colors at dusk, and while doing so, she captured our shifting understanding of participation in the world through digital images and the social rituals that were developing around them online. Bytesize is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In 2025, we finally got to work together, as part of Reservoir: Loneliness, Photography and Well-Being which I organized at LACP (and shout-out to @Jennifer Pritchard, who helped develop the concept!). The program brought together nearly 40 artists from across the world, who were invited by mentors to work with them for a period of nine months and incubate new work about loneliness. The results of their extraordinary efforts will be shown in an exhibition at LACP, opening January 29, 2026, before traveling to other locations. Under her guidance, Penelope’s cohort explored the meeting points of consumerism, technology and well-being, producing work that navigates our shared and strange lives with robots, landscapes that are re-defined by Amazon distribution centers, or how AI captures a thematic image of female aging. During the first week of the new year, she and I got to have a conversation about her path, projects from recent years and how all of this connects to a beloved department store in Toronto. Thanks for reading Bytesize ! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

51 min
12/15/2025

High Resolution: Eivind Røssaak

Eivind Røssaak’s recent book, The Cory Arcangel Hack, makes a compelling argument for observing the first generation of twenty-first century post-conceptual artists as hackers who disturb the modernist picture plane. For groundbreaking multimedia artists like Cory Arcangel, the surface of an image, a computer, a floppy disk, a gaming console, a record or the Instagram feed is a starting point, an invitation for intervention, or, to use Røssaak’s terms, to cut through the flow to see what lies beneath the surface. Working on research at NYU in the early 2000s, Røssaak had a front row seat to the shaping of Arcangel’s artistic milieu on the Lower East Side and its resonance across the art world during and after the first decade of the twenty-first century. Røssaak and I also got to speak about archiving the web, his current research around archives and indigenous communities, as well as the impact of AI on scholarship shortly after he came back from launch events in New York. A reminder: Today, Monday, December 15, I will host Bytesize’s first Happy Monday – Portfolio and Work Share for paid subscribers. You can upgrade your subscription: Or gift a subscription: Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

56 min
11/12/2025

High Resolution: Conversation with Michael Howard

Michael Howard is trying to change the relationship between social media and photographers. He wants photographers to be able to see and share work without ads, videos, strange audio, or unnecessary additions. Images only, please, and if the app can be a gateway for building a community online and IRL then, well, fantastic! Foto, the app he co-founded and launched in February this year, hopes to address a very real need: to bring the focus back to the photographic image, and cultivate a social network that is actually social, and — maybe? — friendly. Bytesize is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The feed is chronological, and the team rolls out updates after receiving community sourced feedback. New pro features will be added behind a paywall in the future, yet the free version will continue to be available for all. In addition, they began organizing events IRL, specifically, a global photowalk that took place in a number of cities. I have been really interested in Foto’s model, which is devoid of ads, and the generous way in which Howard utilizes the Substack chat to garner feedback, suggestions and comments from actual Foto users. It feels sincere and, who knows, it might help shift how we orient ourselves online. In other words, Foto might carve out a space on social media that focuses on people as contributors and members rather than users. Tune in to listen/hear us talk about Foto’s origin story, its mission, where it’s headed, and Howard’s thoughts on the conflicted meeting point between photographers and AI. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

49 min
11/10/2025

Michael Howard is Coming to ByteSize!

Michael Howard, Foto app’s Co-Founder, is coming to ByetSize this week, and I hope you’ll tune in to hear us discuss building a social network that focuses on images rather than using images to grab your attention, and fostering a community instead of advertisers. It was wonderful to hear from him about the vision, how the app started, and where it might be headed. The full interview is coming later this week. ByteSize is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. On a very different note, last week I was honored to be invited by Orange County’s Community Scholar Program (CSP) to talk about Israeli photography in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as we just marked three decades since the murder. I still perceive that day as a watershed moment in Israeli society, a moment of no return. I thought the confluence of tragic political circumstances, shifting media landscapes and the response of the local art world might be of interest for many of you, so here it is: Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

1 min
10/27/2025

High Resolution: Conversation with Kristine Schomaker, Shoebox Arts

Kristine Schomaker and I finally get to talk about best practices for artists who are building their career in a sustainable way, explore the relationships between creatives and AI, think about artist communities in Los Angeles, and, generally speaking, have a great time. Bytesize is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. It was so wonderful to think about community in such a generative way, and observe it as inseparable from creative practice. With that in mind, I thought this could be a positive way to start your week, so I hope you enjoy the watch. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments and the chat (for paid subscribers). Here are links to some of the awesome people, organizations and Substacks we mention: * Kristine’s magazine, Art and Cake. * Kristine’s Substack, Shoebox Arts. * Galia Linn and Blue Roof Studios. * Shana Nys Dambrot and HIJINX ARTS | 13 THINGS LA. * Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). * Clockshop. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

46 min
10/23/2025

Kristine Schomaker is Coming to Bytesize!

Kristine Schomaker is an artist, educator, organizer, mentor, curator, connector, and oh my gosh, I am probably missing some titles! Through projects like Shoebox Arts, which supports artists in myriad ways and now reaches even more artists who could sure use it on Substack, magazines like Art and Cake, or her roles in the Brewery Artwalk in Los Angeles, she has a front row seat to vital processes that ripple across the art world, and a deep understanding of what artists need to improve their professional journeys. Bytesize is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Kristine is also incredibly generous with her knowledge and experience, as she is committed to nurture individuals and find ways to support creative communities. Click on the video for a taste of our conversation about the need to change how we write art histories. There’s much more (and many shoutouts to organizations and people we love snd admire in LA!) in the full interview that will be posted on Monday. I will also include resources Kristine mentioned and some of the beloved organizations we discussed. There might also be some nerding out about to-do lists, spreadsheets, and best practices. Be honest, who can resist some solid Excel talk? Tune in Monday, and in the meantime, if you’re in LA, check out the seasonal Brewery Artwalk this weekend. Kristine, and many more local artists, will open their studio spaces for visitors and fun hangs across the 16-acre campus (October 25-26, 2025, 11am-6pm). More info here. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

1 min
07/28/2025

High Resolution: Mishka Henner

I first came to know Mishka Henner’s work in the early 2010s, while editing a photo blog and writing about art. He shared a project with the world titled No Man’s Land, which appropriated frames from Google Street View. There was an extended moment where you could not look anywhere in the photo-world without seeing his work, or work by other artists who were turning their attention to publicly available satellite technology. It was fascinating, controversial and, as he shares in our conversation, a career changing moment. I have been following his work ever since, watching his photo-based conceptual work grow and taking on new forms, often satirical and always visually striking. Mishka has an intuitive seismograph for shifts that are happening in and around photographic technologies and how we think about, experience and discuss them. He brings art histories to the present and considers the present through the lens of near and far futures. As we grapple with the presence and the impact of AI specifically in creative fields and within visual culture, I wanted to hear more from him about his path and what lies ahead. I would love to hear from you! Tell me in the comments if you would like to see more interviews and video-based features on Bytesize. If you’ve been enjoying Bytesize, I’d love it if you considered becoming a free or paid subscriber. Founding and Paid Members help keep ByteSize independent and get access to things like one-on-one reviews, consults, and more to come. Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

51 min
07/25/2025

Preview: High Resolution with Mishka Henner

This coming Monday, I will feature the first in a series of conversations with creatives about technology, visual culture, media and contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. Here’s a taste from my interview with the photo-based artist Mishka Henner, as we were discussing his 2011-2013 project, No Man’s Land, which was (and is!) controversial and thought provoking. As Mishka shares, he was motivated by a desire to re-define documentary photography in the age of satellite photography—that was suddenly available to all through Google services. I have been following Mishka’s work for over a decade, and I am so thrilled to share it with all of you. Much more is coming. I would also love to hear from you - let me know if you would like to see more of these conversations in the comments! If you’ve been enjoying Bytesize, I’d love it if you considered becoming a free or paid subscriber. Founding and Paid Members help keep ByteSize independent and get access to things like one-on-one reviews, consults, and more to come Get full access to Bytesize at rotroz.substack.com/subscribe

1 min

11 Episodes

A taste of global media, technology and visual storytelling. rotroz.substack.com

Creator

Rotem Rozental
Years Active

2K
Episodes

11
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Rotem Rozental
Show Website

Bytesize Podcast