This is a transcript of Episode 50.
Travis Holland (00:24)
Welcome to Fossils and Fiction. In this episode, we’re going to chat to one of our favorite paleo artists, Zev Landes. You had a really good chat with Zev. Tell us all about it.
Alyssa Fjeld (00:36)
a fantastic time as always talking with Zev. Zev, for those of you who have never encountered his art before, is a graphic designer, cartoonist, all around creative that’s done a lot of work with conservation groups.
both here in Australia and in Sri Lanka. I know Zev personally from Monash University. He’s worked with a lot of other people in my lab and he’s also the artist for the logos for our dinosaur dig that we do here in Victoria called Dinosaur Dreaming. He also designed these little ornithopod earrings that I’m wearing. If you’re watching the video on YouTube, you can see them. They’re very cute. Or you can look up Zev on most popular social media, but he does these just…
Fantastic cartoons, absolutely lovely fluid designs. You can also look to our logo for another great example.
Travis Holland (01:20)
Yeah.
Scratch and Skitters, our fantastic mascots were designed by Zev and he gets into the whole process of designing them and how he went about that to get into our minds. And you can see now why Scratch and Skitters reflect the two of us so much. You’ll hear all of that. And of course, if you want to get hold of any of Zev’s artwork, look at his socials or our merch is covered in Scratch and Skitters stuff.
Easy to pick that up.
Alyssa Fjeld (01:47)
Absolutely.
Yes, support Zev, hire him to do your next logo or buy our merch.
Alyssa Fjeld (01:56)
Welcome back to Fossils in Fiction. I’m Alyssa Fjeld, here today with artist and all around great guy, logo designer for our show, Zev Landes And we’re here to talk all things paleo art and how one gets from wanting a logo or some kind of piece of graphic design for a paleo project to the finished piece, what it’s like to be an artist in the modern industry and whatever else we end up meandering into. Zev, how are you? Yeah, excited. I mean, I’m going to share a lot of
deep dark secrets. There’s going to be a bit more therapy than, you know, how to create art. It’s going to be an exciting journey. So let’s do it. Zev, for the listeners at home who may not be familiar with your work or what you do, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you’re at today? Hi, hi everyone.
Hi everyone at home. I’m waving hello to the camera I brought in a little bit of show-and-tell and we’ll put it on the video But if there’s anything Alyssa just jump in and explain it. So my name is Zev. I’m a cartoonist and artist and one of the things I’m trying to do is work out what I can do with my art So I started drawing when I was like really little the more I look into my old boxes of things as a little kid like going through my old stuff for my parents place the more I realized my god actually used to draw all the time and
I went on a bit of a journey where I tried to do more serious things with my life. I was working at Deakin and started a PhD. I really, really enjoyed lecturing and teaching and taking people through coursework, just exciting adventures through learning. And about a year into my PhD, I realized I don’t want to write. I want to draw. I want to draw pictures. And I just, my notes turned into just cartoons everywhere. There were always drawings, but they really…
came to life. And that was probably the first step that I took towards coming back to art and finding ways to bring it to life and use it. So yeah, so that was that was kind of the first one. And then the second step on that journey was I hurt myself pretty badly. I hurt my knee and I was in and out of hospital for a while. And during that time, I drew pictures. I got myself a big drawing tablet, one of those digital ones. And I sat there and I’d try and draw three cartoons every day.
And I started off by drawing political cartoons. So I go through the newspaper and I sort of pick three articles and teach myself how do I draw? And how do I draw something that’s like funny and edgy and gonna make people think? So that was kind of the next step on my creative journey was doing political cartoons. And for a while I drew some stuff for the Big Issue magazine. And that sort of culminated in 2016, the first time Trump won his election. Oh God, yes.
It was before he won and it was very funny. It was, sorry, it was at this phase where it was still very funny and I thought, if I’m going to be a cartoonist, I have to go to America. So I lied my way into, I can’t tell you how many events, I spent a month on the road following Hillary and Trump. I just lied my way into events and I’d stand at the front of like, you know, I went to the debate, the first debate. I’ve lied my way into like the press area and sit there and just draw and I draw cartoons.
And we ended up with like a couple of pages in the Big Issue magazine. It was fantastic. But the thing about that journey and that experience is whilst it was fun, it was funny. People got very angry. And the whole world of politics, I don’t know if anyone else listening at home has experienced this, but it’s getting darker and angrier. And I think social media is playing a big role in that. But I didn’t want to draw that stuff anymore. I wanted to draw stuff that would be joyous or bring people together or stuff that we can, you know, unify.
So for example, animals. It’s one of the reasons I love drawing animals and I started drawing animals. They can be prehistoric, They can be from, you know, here and now. I’m pretty agnostic about which ones I draw, but that was sort of the next step on the journey to drawing things and creating art around animals and stuff. And yeah, it brought happiness. It brought connection. So that kind of took me through to…
this phase of where I’m at, which is trying to find ways that I can create art that connects people, but still uses my brain. How can I, you know, get people to think or feel or stuff like that? So that’s, yeah, that’s been my creative journey. You’re wearing a piece for the listeners at home who don’t have the visual. You’re actually wearing something from Parrotfish Collective, which was one of your art projects. This was something you did through conservation groups here in Australia or somewhere else? I hung out…
When I was at uni, we had a share house with my friends from India, Sri Lanka, China. And when we found out that the Sri Lankans all owned exotic hotels on the beach and were going back there after they finish their courses, we followed. And me and my partner Phoebe ended up working with a couple of our friends there and starting a cafe and surf shop called Salty Swamis. So have a look online. That’s something that I’m really proud of. And that’s still going today. But the other thing we did.
was we started working conservation communication. So we were right next to the jungle in a place called Aragam Bay. And our friends would take us out to the jungle every few days. We’d go for drives, they’d go birding. This is before I realized birding was cool. Birding was not cool. And these really amazing, sexy surfers would take us out birding and they’re like, shit, all right, this stuff’s cool, I gotta do this. So a big shout out to all my friends in Sri Lanka.
and the amazing people. I wouldn’t be doing this work without that opportunity. So while we were in the jungle, we were in a Jeep one day and we were chatting to one of the people that were taking us through and it turns out he was an expert in pangolins. Not only an expert in pangolins, he was helping set up the CITES conference in Colombo, like the world conference. And I thought, can I make cartoons for it? Can I make mascots? Can I help you? Can I help you?
Look, for political reasons, like there was a bombing and other things in Sri Lanka, so the conference didn’t go ahead. But I spent quite a few months working with scientists, developing mascots and stories and creating stuff for conservation at that level. And we needed a brand, and so we created the Parrotfish Collective. And that was with, again, the same sort of group of friends. One of the amazing friends that I’ve worked with, Binod Malwata, is like an exceptional conservationist. Yannick Tisera.
Yevon, they’re great photographers and wildlife enthusiasts and you know, their knowledge was incredible and I could draw it. I could bring it to life. So that was the Parrotfish Collective and from there we created an organization where I got, it wasn’t just me and these guys creating it, we would try and bring young creatives from all different communities right across Sri Lanka and give them the opportunity and work with them to help create
content for conservation. We’d find people working at the cutting edge in the grassroots of conservation, such as our friend in Pangolins or people studying fishing cats or blue whales. And we’d create content because there wasn’t stuff there. So the shirt I’m wearing at the moment is like a ranger’s shirt. And so when we were over there in the jungle, I realized these guys are fighting elephant poachers in short boardies and t-shirt. I thought, shit, can I make you a uniform?
One of the big projects, if you ever see the Bass Coast Dinosaur shirts, we’ve had them at some of the Dinosaur Dreaming digs. What I do is I find leftover fabric from the industry and we create the shirts for the Rangers and I use the money from the sales here to kind of pay for that, or I have in the past. So that’s one of the ways I’ve been using my creativity to bring it all to life. So that’s the Parrotfish Collective, but COVID meant, you know, I don’t really work there anymore. I work here and that brings me to you. Well, yeah.
Zev is somebody that we’ve worked with a couple of times, both in the show itself. So Zev helped us with our logo design, which we’ll walk through in just a second. But just to give you an idea of all of the fun places that Zev can be encountered in the wild. We first learned about him in our lab after the Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail began to take off, which was a project that was meant to bring, if I understand it correctly, like attention to the Bass coast of Victoria, which is this strip of area that has a lot of dinosaur fossils as well as other things.
people might want to see, tourists might want to see. And he began working with some other paleontologists in our department. So Jake, who’s been on the show, and Ruairidh is in his own right, a paleo artist. But Ruairidh and our previous guest Mark Witton have come into paleo art from a very different angle, from the angle that Zev has come in from. And I think that it’s important to kind of talk about the different ways that art intersects with paleontology and science in general, because, you know.
Obviously there are scientists who have very creative ideas, but um… I just preface this saying I don’t like paleontology? I actually don’t even like this shit. Like, I draw them because they’re weird animals with like googly eyes and there’s work in it. don’t like this stuff. You’ll see his art, but that’s okay. No, it was amazing. The Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail was sort of my jump back into dinosaurs. I haven’t played with dinosaurs since I was a little kid. I had the set of…
the ones from the Natural History Museum. I’ve got an old photo and now that I’ve met Pat and Tom Rich, I realized they were involved with that and I’m looking at a little photo of myself playing with the toys and the exhibition that they probably facilitated. So feels nice to be, know, after many, many years coming and meeting the people that probably sparked my imagination when I was little. I want to just
sort of share the Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail journey because that was sort of the gateway into all of this. For those of you that don’t know, the Bass Coast has got like a really high population of paleontologists. It’s ridiculous. It’s like if you’re a paleontologist and you want to work, that’s like the epicenter. You basically huddle around Leslie and wait for like handouts or Pat and Tom. No, no. In all seriousness, I was working on Philip Island and I found out about the Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail.
And get a job there, I basically sent them an email every single week saying, can I draw dinosaurs? Can I draw dinosaurs? And it’s kind of, it’s a double edged sword because when they finally said yes, I don’t know if they actually wanted me or if they just wanted me to shut up and like, yes, you draw the dinosaurs. And then I realized I have to learn what a dinosaur actually looks like. And a little did I know that they don’t look like Jurassic Park. I kind of had to learn a few things. So I started ringing.
And I rang Mike Cleland, who lived a couple of streets away. I live on Phillip Island, by the way. And I rang Mike for help. And then I went to Dinosaur Dreaming and I made friends with everyone and asked them lots of questions. I remember sitting there with Astrid as Astrid’s trying to break rocks. I’m just peppering her with the questions of like, what’s a Pliosaur? What’s a Plesiosaur? Why do they have flippers? Do they have five flippers or six? What’s that thing? Does it have a bumhole? know, like, and I like.
I haven’t learned much since then. Like I still do the same thing. We’re working on projects at the moment where the unfortunate paleontologist I’m working with gets the same level of questions. But yeah, I think the Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail was my entry into this world, meeting you all. And for a lot of you listening, if I haven’t met you yet, I’m looking forward to it. But for a lot of you who I have met, I can’t tell you how special it has been to meet the particularly Victorian paleontology community. People are so…
excited, positive, gentle, nice, passionate about what they do and are doing incredible work. And so to be able to work with them and help them on their journey and help them tell their stories is an absolute privilege. And I think as well, like the Victorian paleontology community has a lot of like different goings on than you might see in more traditional like European and North American communities. Like there is a lot of cooperation with landowners. There’s a lot of volunteers.
And I think one of really special things about Bass Coast is that you design so many dinosaurs for it, some of which have had a bit of a renaissance like Australovenator and some of which are a little bit more controversial, which were things that you might not have known going into the project, but.
Which one? on. You say it. We’re going to talk about it at CAVEPS. Hang on. Does Pat and Tom listen to me? Tom, are you listening? Tom, you didn’t hear it from me. No, no, no. was going to say anyway. For those listening at home, I’ve covered the microphone and made faces like don’t mention the fucking serotops. No, I love drawing serendipacerotops not because of the picture in the cartoons that you could bring out of it, because it opened a whole lot of discussions and questions. the way we presented it.
in the work was to say, okay, we don’t actually know the answer. There’s a question there to go out and solve and you can be part of that mystery. And so when kids would, I’d give them the sticker or the poster or something like that. It’s about a call to action. Get out there, get involved. And also the joy of science that we don’t actually know the answers that we’re out there searching and playing with ideas. And this is the best knowledge we have now. And this idea of like playing with things as far as like
doing the cartooning and the graphic design is something that I, so Zev came on as a guest for one of our conferences, our student conferences, where you helped teach a bunch of PhD students who are essentially the emotional equivalent of like a whippet like they’re just 90 % anxiety to let go and relax and actually do something playful with the designs that they were coming up with for their own study creatures. That seemed like it was very hard for them to do.
Well, I think, yeah, I probably traumatized everyone and I haven’t been invited back. But that said, again, everyone listening at home, if you want me to do a conference or a workshop. He’s very good. very good. But I will traumatize everyone. One of the best things about art is everyone can do it. Creativity is about playing and letting go. And as long as you sort of don’t have like, it doesn’t have to be perfect and you’re just trying ideas, then, and you’ve got that space and that permission for yourself.
then it can be an extraordinary experience and journey. I think as soon as you sort of give yourself this idea that it has to be right, every line has to be correct. And so when I facilitate these workshops, it’s about playing with ideas and just letting go and just random crossing, like cross pollinating random thoughts to see what’s funny and what’s not. It gets a little bit difficult in today’s age because if you say something that accidentally slips out, that might be a little bit.
spicier or less correct, then you can get in a little bit of trouble. But I think if people know who you are, can give you, they know it’s not a yucky thing they’re trying to say. Like I’ve drawn a lot of cartoons that have not landed. Usually I check with someone, whoever I’m working with on the project, but it can be risky. That said, play is at the absolute center of any creativity you want to do.
And I think, you know, it’s not just about workshops. It’s most of you who are studying in paleontology or working in the field. Your work is creative. You need to play. You need to think laterally. You need to let go of ideas and, and yet see what, see what works. So I think it’s a relevant message for all of us. Yeah. I mean, it still blows my mind that some people in our field are not visual people. So I, one of my supervisors, I’ve asked them, you know, John, do you ever think about like,
the live trilobites and he’s just, no, I don’t, really just, don’t, you know, it’s not something I think about. See, when I think about like, no, when I think about live trilobites I think about like, how can I draw them as a cartoon? Like I instantly like, what’s their emotion? You know, what are their googly eyes doing? Do they have a bum hole? Like are they, do they smell? Are they excited? I’ve literally got a trilobites with you guys. But yeah, go trilobites
Well, speaking of… had to say that otherwise she wouldn’t invite me.
so I’m just curious. You’re talking a little bit about your process. Can you walk us through a little bit of what it’s like to do one of your projects? Yeah. You can pick anything you like. Look, one of the projects I’m working on at the moment is for Kronosaurus Korner. So Adele Pentland and I, friend of the show, and we…
pitch to Kronosaurus Korner to create a whole set of mascots for them or characters and to create some workshops and to start working on their merchandise and their interpretation. So I had to work out what a Kronosaurus looked like. And for all those artists or creatives listening at home, here’s what you do. The first step is Google Peter Trusler Kronosaurus. If he’s made it, just copy it. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you think you’re doing, he’s spent more time doing it. Peter hasn’t done it.
They’re like, you know, Andrew Plant has or someone else, like you just copy them. sorry, should I be saying this out loud? You’re just copying the masters. They go, do Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Mark Witton Mark’s stuff is like, you know, I like Mark’s work, but he draws like Tyrannosaurus and stuff. So at the moment, I find that a little bit harder to draw. It’s a bit, I do the more obscure stuff. I do better drawing more obscure animals.
because no one actually knows what they look like, so you can pretend. If you draw Tyrannosaurus, like, no, it didn’t have that. People get very angry about it. We’re back in politics again. Going back to how you start a project, the first thing I do is I have a look at what it exists in the cultural sphere. What does it actually look like? Not from a scientific perspective.
but from a cultural perspective. And for me, that’s really important because I want to end up at a point where people will recognize that animal as something within. But at the same time, I then take the next step and go, okay, what’s the science showing us today? What’s the best idea of that animal? And I do that by talking to people who are passionate about it. So I can’t read a journal. I’m completely illiterate for anything science. So I’ll call someone and I’ll call them panicked. I’ll go Adele, what’s a panicked?
Tell me about pterosaurs. Please. She She will tell you about them. Tell me. And you pry the information out of them. draw, I tend to draw, I keep sketch notes and I draw in real time. And then I try and land in a place between the two where I’ve taken the ideas and the, the, the knowledge that we have today, the best that we have today and marry it with what are people expecting. And that expectation is important with especially cartoons or things that are stylized because
You want people to feel or understand something at the end of it. You don’t want them to think, oh, what animal is that? And then try and get the joke. You want to get the joke really quickly and they need to recognize that animal or that thing instantly. Kind of like an icon or yeah, a cartoon. No, who would have thought? So when I start a project, I kind of start from both ends. The question I ask as well is what do we want people to feel?
What do we want them to feel? Do I want to make them laugh? Do I want to make them curious? You can obviously ask the second question about what, what do we want to make them curious about? But those are the sort of questions that I’ll sit down with you as the paleontologist or the commissioning or the institution and say, okay, what do we actually want to achieve out of this? And somewhere between all of those things, then I start drawing. And most of my pictures are rough sketches, like rough ideas here. And then
And only then do I take it onto the iPad. So I draw with an iPad Pro and I use a Apple pencil and I use Procreate. And the reason I do that is because it’s easy. The program is very, very good and you don’t have to have the best iPad in the world. You can get an old secondhand one. It works really, really well. And there’s an undo button. And that undo button is the real secret to making your art look good. It’s like basically, yeah, I’m not going to give away all my secrets, but let’s just say tracing works as well.
he’s telling the truth. So when we designed the logo for our show, a lot of it was back and forth with Zev trying to capture the emotionality and some just rough ideas about the shapes that the animals would be and how they would interact with each other. So we knew we wanted to have Australovenator and we knew we wanted to have Astaingia, And so was about how do we, what are these two characters like and how are they interacting, but also what’s going to fit in a logo.
It’s practicality as well, which you take into account. was also meeting you and Travis, sort of having an interview and working out what, who are you? What are your personas? mean, which of you is like the cool, calm, amazing person and which one’s the one that stuck interviewing me in room? I’m not anxious, you’re anxious. So what we did is…
you know, for our mascots, what I did was I sort of spoke to Travis and Alyssa and got the vibe of what they wanted from their show. What sort of emotions we wanted to communicate, we want to be fun, serious, realistic, and you can match that then in style. Do we make it a hyper realistic picture or do we make it really silly and playful? Do we use bright colors? All of these sort of stylistic questions. And that’s sort of how we ended up with what we did.
I did a lot of rough sketches and I’ll go back and forth with people where I’ll show them the early workings. But this is like, I don’t know if we’ll talk about this later, but the age of AI has really changed the game for a lot of us. And for me in particular, it’s probably one of the things I feel more anxious about because I’m trying to think what can I offer? Like, why would you employ me? Why would you work Witton? Yes, I’m fun and charming and amazing and can draw funny pictures.
But at the same time, it’s like, if I can type it into AI and it does it free in one second, what am I offering? And so you’ll hear this, like, I don’t have answers for this and I don’t have answers for what to do career wise and things like that. I struggle with these questions. But the reason I show the workings and I bring the people that are commissioning me along on the journey is because there’s a symbolic, there’s an emotional attachment there. They feel like they’re part of it. It’s bringing to life something that we do together.
And they also see how much work and thought and love go into each bit. And it might be a bit wanky and, and, and if we’re able to like, it’s like, I put a lot of energy into this stuff. And if you can see it, you feel it and you also value it as well. And so I don’t know if it’s an antidote to the age of AI, but it’s least something I’m doing to, to, to offer, um, a, an option that, has value, but they like,
something that still means something in the age of mass-produced artwork where you can just click a button. Yeah, well I mean think the value add would say definitely for you, it’s like having you along on the digs I think is just in and of itself of value because you actually ask those questions like, does this matter? Why are we doing this again? And sometimes we are just bogged down in a debate about some detail of some dinosaur that is just not actually that important and it’s a nice moment to snap out and go my gosh, yeah, what are we doing?
No, no, no, no, no, it’s important. I’m doing a podcast, a whole lot of paleontologists I want jobs with. Do not ruin this for me, Alyssa. He’s very talented. And look at that smile. So what I think is really important to understand is that art and creativity for me comes in collaboration. I love helping people tell stories. A lot of people do art for different reasons. I don’t know if you…
In your own lives, know people that are like artists or illustrators or doodlers or whatever they do. But some people do it to get their own emotions out. They journal or they create work that no one will ever see. And that’s still creativity in art. Other people like designing, you know, will disappear and spend months painting and doing it slowly and enjoying it and share it and enjoy the process of sharing it. And then other people, it’s more of a performance. know, for me, I’m more on that end of the spectrum where it’s a collaborative thing.
it’s cartooning, it’s live, and I love that people can be involved in the whole process. And so it’s not actually in many ways about the artwork, it’s about the connection. Like that’s, if you’re looking at really the essence of what I do, it’s about connection, A, with the person who’s commissioning me and helping or collaborating is a better word. You know, it’s about helping them and bringing to life their story, but also connecting them to then their audience.
Do you find that it’s different working with individuals like, you know, working with scientists kind of that are just self-employed, like PhD students or working with institutions, working with conservation groups? did those differences in the audience or I guess the patron with are those things that
you find matter or are there big differences? can I? I don’t know who to work with. That’s the first question that I’m still working out. Like I think a really important part of being on the podcast and sharing where I’m at is to say that there are like, I don’t know the answers to this stuff. I listened to your show with Mark Witton the other day and I found it very overwhelming because he’s like, he’s doing very well. And to sort of find a journey today and find a way that’s both meaningful.
and sustainable like economically like it’s it’s really difficult. So I’m at the point in my career where I’m working out what do people want? What do I enjoy doing? And how can I do this more? And so I know not to discount your your question, but just to say, I have no idea. And and please
Write in, give me suggestions because at the moment I know what parts of the profession I really enjoy and what parts could be meaning, but working out who to work with is a challenge. Do you go for institutions like the museums who are big and so big that they’re actually kind of impenetrable? do I go for little like, do I work with Inverloche Visitor Center? So we’re talking about doing a little display there and it’s small and the budget’s like,
It’s meaningful and I love the work, but it’s tight, the budget’s tight. So how do you do this stuff sustainably? And also how do you get impact? Do you work with someone that’s going to create something and only eight people are going to see it? Or do you create something that, I worked recently on the Island Whale Festival where we created a huge exhibition. It was interactive, it was 3D, was all sorts of amazing stuff.
And over 8,000 people played with it over three days, came in and saw our exhibition. And this is like full staring competition with a humpback whale, life-size humpback flippers, and like an entire seascape of animals hanging from the roof that I created. Do you want to create like who and how do you want to create and what do you want to do with your work? Yeah. Well, and I imagine, I don’t know what the scene is like in the UK, but just population-wise and…
In terms of the amount of people that are physically existing and working in the kinds of fields that need your kind of art, like Australia is not necessarily as big a pool as like North America or is Europe, which I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve seen. Well, I don’t know. knows? Well, no, I’ll tell you who knows. People who are listening. That’s true. Everyone who’s listening to this, know, part of this is working out who wants, who can I work with? Yeah. I wanted to ask you the question specifically like.
I love doing this sort of work. How can I do it more? And how do I, you know, who are the people to chase? From a careers perspective, it’s like, do you keep banging on the door of the museums? Are they the only way to do it? And that involves, you know, becoming a like a preferred supplier for the government and becoming a tenderer and going through processes and maybe maybe, you know, 10 year plans. I don’t even understand it as so obtuse, but or difficult to impenetrable. That’s the word. It’s so impenetrable. It’s
It’s very difficult. And, but I know I can perform on that level if they give me a shot. Yeah. Or do you kind of find researchers who are doing smaller projects and things like that, and you piece together a calendar where you’re doing lots and lots of things, but then, you know, end up working like all the time and it’s a difficult juggle. So I don’t know the balance, but I think certainly sharing ideas is a big part of this journey. And so I’m sitting here asking you, if you’ve got any suggestions or ideas, please.
I’m totally open to them. Well, I mean, and just for the listeners at home that might want to share ideas with one another, you know, the comments section is a great place to discuss what you think might be a viable option. Help Zev with his career path. Help yourselves as well, though. I think the more we talk about this stuff, especially for early career artists and researchers, it’s like I don’t think any of us really benefit from keeping that stuff secret. I mean, other than, guess, whoever gets that commission.
Well, I don’t know, is there a scarcity model still like, like we’re looking at change, even if you’re sort of more established in your career of paleontology, the way AI or social media has changed in the last few years, it means that all of us have to reevaluate what we’re doing, how we presenting our work. You everything’s up for grabs and it’s a bit scary. So I think sharing this stuff, both the anxiety, but like the positive ideas.
is a really nice way to go through it and go through it together. But as I said before, I have no idea. And it’s scary. is. It is. personally, I feel you about AI. It’s something that I think is really worth talking about, especially when it comes to things like creative pursuits, right? So for full transparency, on this podcast, we use AI in the video editing software. So it takes out the pauses and things. So it makes me look better. Absolutely. And then somewhere I get it. Can I get the deep?
Ben Francischelli voice? Sorry. We’ll just swap you guys around and see if anyone notices. Yeah, like so it’s one of those things where sometimes the application is really useful because for the podcast, for example, this is we don’t get paid to do this. please buy our merch. Zev made it, you know. But so doing things like that.
that I don’t feel are part of the creative process. They take out a level of work on my part that I think is beneficial because it allows us to continue doing the project. But when it comes to things like art. Hang on, where’s the line? Because exactly I am doing a project for Kronosaurus Corner. mentioned this few times like I’m drawing Kronosaurus. I love doing the character and the googly eyes and getting it come bringing it to life. I don’t want to draw a coral reef. I don’t want to it. It’s like, oh, God, I like.
The next month just drawing little strokes of lines for the coral. Like, nah, so can I use AI? Or if it’s just an underwater ocean photo and I’ve got to pay $100 for rights or something and buy the rights to an underwater photo or I take it myself or I use AI. And it’s like, what do I do? I love doing, I’d love to be able to take the photo myself.
but maybe for a smaller project I can use AI, but am I putting myself out of a job? Like is that the next person in the food chain says, I don’t need a Kronosaurus really drawn by Zev, I can just use AI. It goes on from there. Well, someday the robots will replace this podcast with, I’m assuming a Ben Francischelli voice for all of us. But yeah, like I think that’s a really good question. Like where do you draw the line and where does it stop being like an exercise in creativity and skill building and it just starts becoming laziness?
Or just creating content, you know. The other thing I’m struggling with is social media. I don’t know if any of you listening at home is sort of struggling as well, but I definitely got addicted through Instagram. I was scrolling and getting angry and scrolling and feeling jealous. You know, what’s it, Toothy Grin. I love his work. And then I got angry and jealous. Watch out, Toothy Grin. No, no, was like, the work was so, Jonathan, his work is so good. And I was going through it and feeling this sense of like,
self-judgment or I’d be looking at you know, look you look at Peter Trusler’s work and it’s exceptional like like he’s He’s next level but for us humans It’s like, you know, you look at another artist and instead of celebrating and getting excited I found myself getting like self judgy and thinking gosh, I’m not that good And so I this really unhealthy moment with social media and also my feed was full of like Tupperware party friends trying to sell me politics and shit
I just like, wanted to, I wanted to make fun stuff. So I had to step back for a while and I don’t know how to re-engage with this. Like, do I create content for the sake of content to get followers and listeners? Like, I want you to listen, but do like, am I just creating more spam? Do I put my energy into creating, you know, stuff that’s offline? And can you build a career offline? Can you build a career through exhibition design or a-
illustrating for papers or stuff that’s tangible, experiences. I’ve put a lot of energy into designing exhibitions over the last year or so. So interpretive experiences where people are off their phones and actually experiencing something in real life. They can touch it, feel it, or in a kind of a sick way they can take photos or selfies with it. it’s like, I get it. So that idea of social media is like, I don’t know what to do next.
Yeah, and I feel like within social media as well, you get like these hyper specific niches. So it’s not just paleo art, it’s like realistic paleo art, or it’s you have to have art that kind of goes in these predefined boxes almost. So do you share art to create an audience? And what’s the point? Or do you share on like, do I create content? And then would AI not be better? Because I can just, you know, input a couple of my own pictures and say, create a million of them.
Build a following and then I end up with 10,000 followers from Scandinavia who have nothing to do with anything We’re not gonna give me happiness or friendship, but they’re like I have numbers Yeah, I mean and like you say with Instagram. It’s like I’m looking at those photos and liking them in the space of several seconds It’s not real appreciation for the work that’s gone into the piece a lot of the time Yeah, but to bring it back to our discussion before about careers like you’re all in the knowledge economy You have to build your personas whether you like it or not
And so there’s an element there of like, okay, we still need to engage with this stuff. You still need content, which is why you need a cartoonist and other things. But what that looks like in the age of AI. I don’t know.
these are really difficult things and there are no answers. Yeah. And trying to work out what to do. mean, another question I’d ask you is like, which organizations have to use
handmade art or because it’s organic, know, and which other ones would use AI. So for example, if you drive past Caulfield, there was like a dinosaurs alive exhibition or something. It was like the kids and totally AI. The Tyrannosaurus have like stegosaurus things coming out of his eyes and you had three tails and a horn. So at the same time, Melbourne Museum probably should be using paleo art and has to be, you know, think of it as the metaphor of organic. So, you know, where does it, who’s worth
Who’s still going to value this stuff over the next few years? I don’t know the answers. feel like it, you know, ever since the advent of kind of like pop art, there’s been this real disconnect within, like you say, the knowledge economy from the artists that create pieces that feed back into what we do. mean, aside from the workshop that’s going on at SVP this year that Mark is leading that involves the history of paleo art, I’ve been going to conferences in our field since like at least the 2010s because I’m ancient.
And I don’t remember at any point seeing paleo art get discussed or geological art. However, it is still required in the US as part of a geology undergrad that you do your own sketching and like I mean my teachers would have gotten on my case about taking pictures because their dimensions to the the outcrop that a photo is just not going to capture that your naked eye will and I think that’s like the last vestige
than my schooling where we encountered art. And I think that might be part of the problem. I don’t know. I think certainly like your podcast, Fossils and Fiction is very much about that nexus between creativity and pop culture and paleontology. This is what you do. And so that’s why these questions are the right place. This feels like the right place to kind of ask these questions.
I think that you know, you used to have to draw and go out into the field and sketch today, you can bring your cartoonist or can bring an artist with you. I mean, I’m sure back in the day you did as well, but it’s probably easier to get someone in for a day or, to work collaboratively online with people. You know, I said before, I keep throwing Peter Trusler under the bus, but if you want to learn how to draw, I copy.
Gabriel N. Ugueto So one of the things I do every night is I try and find a book of someone’s illustrations that I really like, Bob Nichols as well, and other artists. mean, and I basically draw it in my own style. I pencil and paper and I sort of like turn their pictures into cartoons. And like, if I had to riff off what you’re doing, and that’s how I’ve taught myself how to draw and just collaborate, not collaborate, but like get inspired by what other people are doing. But to go back to your question, like,
You know that that nexus between creativity and paleontology, whilst it might not be in that, like we’re sitting here on a podcast that’s doing this exact thing. And hopefully you can see more and more researchers or people that work in the field are aware of that and they need content. Yeah. Like everyone needs content. Yeah. Now more than ever, I mean, and this is something they teach you going through the Masters of Macquarie. They teach you here at Monash is that science communication will be part of your career. You are unfortunately going to have to be
your own advocate for your own research, but also your own career trajectory. And I do say warn because it is like its own skillset that you’re building outside of research. Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by that? Because at the same time we’re being asked to like, you’ve got to become a professional artist. I have to become a videographer, a spokesperson, you all of you paleontologists, you all have to be PR agents.
You have to know about SEO with your website. You have to know about like what the newest trends in art and content and the algorithm are doing. I mean, can you imagine Pat and Tom sitting there working out with like making content for algorithms to name Qantasaurus Like… I think Pat would rather walk into the sea. I really want to hope that it’s different here in Australia because back in North America, I do feel like…
There was a certain amount of kind of feeling stuck at times with what the image of a paleontologist should be or could be, you know, the bone wars do loom large as does Jurassic Park. But here it feels like we have more freedom to kind of create a new sense of identity as paleontologists. And I don’t know, maybe that’s bit too sweeping, but I personally would rather live in a world where, you know, that’s possible and where we can invite artists on our digs.
Yep, if you’re listening at home, artists on digs are good. They’re much more fun. He made fun vests. And then when we go out and we’ve got the vests on, because we have to wear high vis stuff in order to work on the coast. And the public come up, they see the vests. I mean, prior to this, when we didn’t really have anything branding to show what we were doing, the public would just kind of go, oh, there’s some folks in high vis digging on the beach. But now they see dinosaur dreaming. There’s photos of dinosaurs. They’re much more likely to come up and engage with us.
I think that’s, that’s a net positive. Yeah. look, all of this, I mean, for, all the anxiety and hand wringing that are brought to this show, like, I love what we get to do. You know, what we do is amazing and finding all these different ways of doing it is just really special. AI and social media are really difficult questions. And that’s why I brought them to you and all of these listeners is like questions. Yeah. They’re not, they’re not, not sitting here and I have no idea what I’m doing, but
I’m saying that saying like, let’s share this and work it out together. Yeah, I think it’s one of those issues that’s worth discussing, like actually discussing in your own communities in the forums with us, we’re happy to talk about it. Me and Travis are both really interested in these questions. Can I ask a question? You how you had Mark on? Do you think he would have ended up where he is if he would have started now in the age of TikTok? I cannot imagine Mark Witton doing a TikTok dance.
like putting up a speed paint every day or or showing or not even that like I don’t know. I think having the freedom to fail in private like not fail fail but like get good at your craft make mistakes put a bad drawing out and then say that’s not very good and have the freedom to like not have that on the internet forever. I don’t know I kind of miss that.
I’ve to be fair, I’ve kind of been embracing it a bit. So one of the things I used to do with Instagram was I would post the finished picture, but then you could swipe to see all the bad versions of it. It was so good. And it was kind of like, it was showing people that you don’t get this perfect thing. You go through a world of existential crisis every single day of a drawing. I cannot tell you how many quarterly life or half life crisis I have every single picture.
like existential angst, just drawing a mega raptor. I hate you mega raptor. So yeah, I think sharing that’s really important. I think the stickers.
The stickers have been huge. Just merchandise in general, but stickers are something I’ve seen coming into Vogue in conferences especially that I think has just been a game changer. It’s free, they’re small, they’re portable and they display your art. Can I zoom out from stickers and sort of talk about the world of goods? So merch is important for multiple reasons. Firstly, because it’s about, you know, sharing who you are and what you do. But we live in a consumer society.
And we actually mediate meaning through goods. We buy stuff, we use stuff, we wear stuff. It’s a social language. And so a great metaphor would be, what do you think is the most visited exhibition at any museum? It’s the gift shop. More people spend time looking at the freaking dinosaurs in the gift shop than they do at the exhibition.
So there’s an element there where I’ve tried to put a lot of energy into creating merch, not because I want to make, you know, I don’t see this, the economic pathway. It’s not, I don’t see it as sort of like the answer to everything, but it’s a really important medium. And I think, you know, people play with, we made t-shirts years ago for pangolins. I was telling you at the very start about pangolins. No one bought it.
No one bought the Pangolin t-shirt that we had in the gift shop, but everyone picked it up and goes, Mom, what’s a Pangolin? And do know how valuable that one question was? You know, when you create a range of, one of the things I find really frustrating is when a gift shop or a museum will only put up one or the two bestsellers of something, they’ll just have the main characters. You’ve got to have all the others because it’s the questions and the conversations that stimulates and triggers, you know, who’s that one?
You’re never going to sell, just order three of them. Like you don’t need to sell hundreds. But having that conversation piece is really important. Having that collection of animals and also showing, you know, there’s a range of stuff going on here other than just T-Rex and triceratops. So I think merchandise is super important. And if you don’t know how to do it yourself, you know, there’s a lot of creatives out there that can help you on your journey. Not just me, but like I’ve, I was amazed working with a Monash group, you know, how many people just
draw and create. I’m amazed at every dig how many people have got their sketchbooks or taking ideas or drawing. And it’s not just through drawing, it be through song, through poetry, writing, painting, anything, dance. There’s so many ways that we communicate. So I guess that would be my main message is, you know, you don’t need to do all of these things you were saying before about you have to be your own PR agent. Maybe you don’t, maybe you just need to collaborate with people that do.
Maybe you should just hire an artist. Or find your friend at the desk next door to you who likes dancing and do something with them. Yeah. interpretive trilobite dancing. you wouldn’t you wouldn’t realize how many people in science are secretly also very into art. And I say secretly because it’s just not something that gets emphasized a lot of the time. But you’ll see, I mean, my friend Riya who’s in our degree program, who
hopefully get on the show at some stage. There’s lovely watercolor paintings of Tasmanian devils and other dasyurids and you know if you talk to her you would know that but it’s not something that would be like I guess the first thing you would notice in the course of just completing the degree. I’ve got a couple of questions that you sort of triggered that it’s like I’m thinking okay so we’ve talked about merchandise and we talked about exhibitions and things like that working with museums.
You know, what even happens to these institutions over the next 20 years? You know, if you and your cohort are training up to be paleo curators, that’s the dream job. Does the museum even still exist? Yeah. Is it all virtual or, know, when Travis goes around and sort of visits all these museums, where does he see it headed? I’d love to ask Travis that question. Travis, where are the museums headed? Like, where is the space or is it all going to be online and it’s just paleo digital art?
Like is that what I need to put energy into or us as a community? That’s where the whole space takes place is just on blue sky or Twitter or something. Yeah, Karem’s fabulous galleries and puts together. There’s amazing stuff there, but where’s it all headed? I feel like 3D models are increasingly becoming de regueur Just the kind of like rigs that I mean, for example, Astrid comes up with incredible stuff in Blender, but I think the stuff that people can print out at home has recently become like really big.
I it’s also just stuff that looks unique. Finding a voice in an online space more than it is like institutions. know, unique is a really key point. Unique is a really, really important word. I love that you brought that up because drawing unique stuff is like a bit of a superpower. A, because no one’s it before, so they can’t pick apart your picture. And B, because like there’s so much crap online. There’s so much stuff. If you type in the word
Like I was drawing Pelagornus for pre-strike base side and there were a lot of Pelagornus’s, Pelagornusi It’s the toothy bird, the toothy seagull, the horrible seagull. Yeah, well it’s kind of, yeah. You don’t want it stealing your chips. It’ll take your fingers. It’ll take your dignity and your fingers. So I was drawing Pelagornus and they go online and there’s like a hundred of them and it’s sort of like, wow, okay.
But if you’re drawing something super obscure like I’m trying to draw this fish for Kronosaurus Korner and there’s a couple of pictures, but I can kind of I can play a bit if you Google it in you know that will probably come up I’ll hopefully share it with y’all when we launch stay tuned for that but
Like that’s a really doing something unique or something that you are studying or something that you are doing. It’s really special. Yeah. There’s a couple of artists in the bug space that are like this, just people that nobody else is drawing this animal. So when you Google it, like Nobutamara is somebody that comes up a lot and he’s just got these fabulous pencil sketches of every weird bug you can think of. So he’s the default artist that most people would then associate with these bugs or there’s
Ni 075, which does this kind of Pokemon style art for radiodonts. And it just becomes the default image, I think, for a lot of people. So you have like this tremendous influence in that space to kind of like you’re telling people what it looks like as well, which is really powerful. putting the thought into it, like in my perspective from the AI thing, I would rather have if it’s a bug no one’s drawn before, I’d rather have the human making those decisions than the algorithm. Yeah.
I do do you think we’ll ever get to the point where you can put your measurements in where you can sort of feed it into the machine and we’ll pop out with a 3d model and you’ll able to print it or put on Google glasses or some other glasses and go in and integrate and give it a cuddle. look, I reckon yeah, like if it’s doing all this for me, it may as well have like a pleasant accent and make tea as well. You know, yeah, want C3PO is what I’m saying.
I’m looking forward to the time when we’ve got smell integrated in virtual reality.
What advice would you give to early career artists and researchers? It’s a really difficult one because the first thing I’d say is I don’t have any answers. I’m sort of one step ahead of you groping in the dark. We’re all kind of stumbling along working this out together. But that’s also the joyous thing about it is that we’re discovering things, we’re playing with things. And as long as you bring that attitude to it.
and trying to find people who are excited. It’s about relationships and finding people that are passionate and will value this sort of way of communicating and thinking. There’s no point in working with someone that’s just not up for it. Or if you can find people that are excited and happy and curious, that’s been for me the most exciting part of all of this is collaborating and finding those people to work with and joining their journey for a bit.
So as an artist, that would be my number one, two, and three thing. I practice a lot. I told you I draw every day, every night for like hours. But I also don’t share all the really bad pictures, which I probably should now. No, I do lots of squiggles and stick figures. And I think that practice, life drawing as well, is really helpful. using it, if you want to do drawing or if you want to do any creative pursuit, it’s practice. You really got to practice.
And I think it would be really interesting to get you back on at some point to talk with some other early career artists about all of these topics to talk about some of the issues that have come up and what different perspectives might be from different people at different stages in their careers. yeah, I’m looking forward to sharing my work as well. You know, that’s the other thing. Like I’ve spent the last year working on quite a few projects quietly in the background. And I think we’re sort of getting to the point where we’ll be able to
print them and put them out there. So stay tuned. There’s definitely something with Kronosaurus Korner. It’s hopefully something with Bass Coast in the works. And there’s a lot of other little bits and pieces floating in there as well. So that’s awesome.
So Zev, if people are interested in your work or in doing work like what you do, what would you suggest they do? Can they find you online? So yeah, look, honestly, I don’t need you to find me online. What I need from you, what I need from you is your advice. So if you’re sitting there at home, sitting in a museum and work at a museum, or if you’re working in an institution, if you’re in a lab and you need communication stuff or you could work with a creative.
You don’t need to hire me, but sharing ideas of how I can make this sustainable, how I can work with organizations like yours, that sort of stuff is really, really valuable at this point in my career. Working out, does this actually come to life in a way that you can make impact, you can reach audiences, but at the same time, it’s financially sustainable. I can do it as a job job. So that’s what I would ask from our audiences. Share with me your ideas, even if you’re not.
you know, head of the museum, even if you’re an early career researcher or you’re, you know, right at the start of your honours. Like, share with me your ideas, because I think all of us are trying to work out how do we get to do this stuff and share it with the world, because it’s pretty amazing the work you do. And giving me the opportunity to join you and help you tell those stories is like an absolute privilege. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Zev. I hope that you’ve enjoyed our little chat.
Thank you again for designing our logos as well, and we will see you on the next one. Bye.
Travis Holland (52:06)
So during the interview, Zev wanted to ask me a question and he actually called me up afterwards and said, you have to record an answer to this. And the question was where are museums headed? Is it all going to be digital stuff? And I guess he’s asking me this as
Perhaps not a museum expert, but as a digital communication media expert. I think it’s a really interesting question. And I actually put a version of this to the next guest on our next episode, who you’ll hear from in a few weeks time when we release that episode. But if I’m going to take a stab at it, what I think we’re actually going to see is digital technology giving greater access to people. So you get scans and quality photographs and people can now 3D print or
visually manipulate on their computer screens, you know, those 3D scans of fossils, as well as having those really, really high quality photographs so that they can essentially conduct research without having the original specimen. That’s going to be something that we’re going to see much more of in paleontology generally, but also in museums. Of course, there’s nothing like having the actual specimen in your hands though, so I don’t think
museum collections are ever going to go away for their research purposes. But also we’re going to see technology continuing to enhance the experience inside museums. So we already see this with special cinemas and lighting and sound displays. To give an example, I went to the Australian Museum recently for an exhibition on Machu Picchu and the Inca. And one of the main draw cards of that was this fantastic virtual reality experience where you got to fly over
and experience Machu Picchu in different stages. Sort of, there was visualizations of how it might’ve looked at the height of the Inca empire, and then also how it looks today. And it was kind of guided by a character that was part of it. Now, some of this was a little bit cringe, but how else are you going to see Machu Picchu from the middle of Sydney, right? And then you, you finished the VR exhibition and walk out to see the real object. So I think we, as technology becomes more accessible,
more high quality and it’s easier to make these animations and put them in place. We’re just going to see more of that. We’re going to see this integration working hand in hand. And that’s something museums have always done. They were big adopters of media technology of film cinema, 3D cinema, 4D cinema, you know, where you get sound and smell and I guess wind movement and all that sort of stuff as well. So yeah, I think museums are going to keep adopting that.
The challenge, of course, is whether smaller museums can keep up and simply the costs, the cost of these things can be a lot to integrate them in a way that works for the volume of visitors that museums get. But yeah, that’s where I see museums and digital tech heading.
Alyssa Fjeld (54:51)
Yeah, it’s a bit like ⁓ modern theme parks. There’s a lot more kind of screen elements integrated into the rides today than there used to be, but that can be a different type of immersive experience. It can make it easier to share media across museums, especially if, like in this case, instead of transporting like physical props, you’re just.
transmitting digital information and if they’ve got the same equipment that you’ve got, you can just run it, which is, think, maybe even beneficial for small museums if we applied the same technology in that instance.
And then I think you make a great point about accessibility as well. Like we talked on one of the early episodes about a student at UNE, Eleanor, who has severe physical challenges. She’s in a wheelchair. Paleontology wouldn’t be accessible to her if we didn’t have these digital scans and photographs and emergent technology. And she’s brilliant at what she does. So I’m super glad that we have that stuff that enables Eleanor to help advance the field.
Travis Holland (55:47)
reducing travel and therefore carbon emissions is also really helpful It’s a big contributor of technology to that kind of thing is being able to reduce travel, to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. It’s not to say we shouldn’t be…
concerned about the emissions or the mining operations that go into making this technology. And this is something I also emphasize with my students quite a lot. nonetheless, it’s easier and better for the environment to send an email than it is to fly across the world or to hold a Zoom meeting than it is to fly across the world or drive across your city even. So that can all be, yeah. Well, that’s right. And it’s good for mental health even.
Alyssa Fjeld (56:20)
Yeah, especially in Melbourne.
Travis Holland (56:27)
On that regard to not spend an hour stuck in traffic, right? yeah. ⁓ Zev’s interview also, you know, he was really open and vulnerable with us, with you in that discussion and I guess with us in the audience. And, ⁓ I really want to acknowledge that and, and thank him for that. You know, the discussions he had about the challenges of making it as an artist and the self doubt that come along with that was, was really fascinating and, ⁓
Alyssa Fjeld (56:31)
⁓ Yeah.
Travis Holland (56:56)
and powerful discussion. All I can say is thank you, Zev, for sharing with us.
Alyssa Fjeld (57:01)
Yeah, absolutely. I think always more vulnerability and discussion about important topics like this, it benefits all of us in the community. Even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist, even if you aren’t personally illustrating creatures for your manuscript, I think it’s still really valuable to have an opinion, to weigh in, to think about where you sit with some of the things that Zev brings up and to…
you know, kind of respect the vulnerability that he shows in the interview by yourself allowing a little moment of vulnerability. So I think that’s what I would encourage people going into this interview with is just to kind of, yeah, maybe let yourself be a bit vulnerable as well and think about how you might want to approach some of these topics.
Travis Holland (57:44)
Well, thank you so much, Alyssa, for setting up that interview and for Zev for coming along. Make sure you check out his artwork. It’s absolutely fantastic. And he mentioned a few other places it’ll be accessible and available in coming months. So look out for that. And if you want to get your own piece of scratch and skitters, then jump over to our website and ⁓ click on the shop link.
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