Mat Dryhurst, Technology Artist

Mat Dryhurst is an artist and the partner of Holly Herndon. Together they are renowned for their work in machine learning, software and music.

APOSSIBLE™ is a non-profit bringing psychologists, technologists, artists and creatives together to explore how technology can better support creativity and human fulfillment. In this ongoing interview series we’re discovering what people value, what makes their lives fulfilling, and what kinds of relationships to technology they already cherish.

1. What is a ritual, practice, or routine in your life that is important for your psychological wellbeing and/or fulfillment? Why?

Not long ago I would have said to follow my football team. I live in a rabbit hole of esoteric interests and goals, and sport (particularly football) is a universal thread shared by many. I love that I can talk to almost anyone in the world about football.

Now I would say hanging out with my child, for similar reasons. It is nourishing in many ways that are well documented, but I did not expect how much it would change my perspective on the world and others around me. Being a parent is universal, and parents see other parents. Despite its challenges it offers a new lease on life.

I think that both cases, to differing degrees, tap into something about fulfillment that I find important. Happiness is entangled with your commitments and challenges. I guess this eudaemonic conception of happiness, as opposed to the hedonic experiences marketed as happiness, has never been clearer to me. It has also given me a different lens on religion, and other long standing social rituals I was more prone to dismiss. Shared commitments establish a cross cultural trust that moor us.

2. What is a human-made creation that brings out the best in you? Why?

I honestly don’t know what brings out the best in me, I feel others may be in a better position to say so. Probably influenced by the last question, the first answer that comes to mind is marriage. I’ve been married for 18 years, and the commitment and shared concern for another has been very empowering for me, as otherwise I am quite cerebral and prone to disappearing inside myself. I think if I didn’t have a partner I would forget that I exist most days.

3. When do you cherish the slow or hard way of doing something? Why?

It could be cope but so much of my sense of purpose is tethered to long term goals, and trying to be consistent and follow threads of ideas and principles. I’m not sure that approach is guaranteed to be fulfilling for everyone, but it feels more likely to be for me in particular. There is a sense of fulfillment to staying with the course of an idea and seeing things incrementally validated, but that is also shaken regularly as you learn how the world is much more chaotic than your particular model.

That said I do find myself defending inefficiency a great deal. In the realm of culture and technology that I’m most familiar with, I think short term markers of success, while perhaps easier to identify and celebrate, often take emphasis over less tangible or efficient systems that can provide more meaningful returns over time. Cultural systems and protocols compound and are larger than any one individual, which is one principle behind my interdependence thesis.

4. What is something you appreciate or long for from the past? Why?

I’m hesitant to be too romantic about the past as my conception of it is either tied up with being immature and having a limited lens on how things were, or has been informed by an idealistic reading of something I did not experience. It’s grounding sometimes to think of how quotidian things today will be romanticized in the future.

The closest thing I can think of is writing books, letters, making records. I guess doing things that take time, and have natural constraints. I’m really grateful that it doesn’t take days to send a line of communication to someone about something important, but on the efficiency question I think many, myself included, are often too quick to dismiss the value of older formats and what benefits the constraints they imposed offered. There is a longing and richness to be found in those formats.