SXSW Interactive: James Powderly

The cultural references came fast and furious, ranging from hip-hop to Hermes, in James Powderly's all-too-brief keynote interview Monday at South by Southwest Interactive.

The session began 15 minutes late, and after a 15-minute video introduction and a 10-minute story about Powderly's recent detainment at the Beijing Olympics, interviewer Virginia Heffernan was left with only 20 minutes to explore all other aspects of Powderly's work as an open source art evangelist and political activist.

Powderly, the founder of Graffiti Research Lab, was detained and interrogated by Chinese authoriites in August. He was planning to project a laser image onto one of the buildings near Tiananmen Square.

During his 10-day sentence, Powderly watched ping-pong and basketball with his fellow detainees before gaining release on the closing day of the Olympics.

"There were like 50 police officers and 10 camera crews outside the bar where they grabbed us," said Powderly, a former NASA engineer. "They made a big show of arresting us. While we were in, they asked if I was related to (LeBron) James on the US basketball team."

Currently working as the research director of the Free Art and Technology (FAT) Lab, Powderly is continuing to further the idea of open-source art, where the tools and technology used to project laser images or build art with LED bundles are all available for free downloading and use.

"I'm interested in making open source seem cool, like a music video, " he said "Our motto is: Release early, often, and with rap music."

Powderly showed some of that rap music off as part of a video that the FAT Lab did with Styles P. and Az, featuring Matrix-like camera sweeps combined with laser drawings and lights.

Some of the technology that GRL and FAT uses does create magical results, but Powderly would rather cast himself more as the trickster of ancient mythology than a modern-day magician.

"The trickster or transgressor steps over the line constantly, even the lines they make themselves," said Powderly, who cut a cool vibe onstage in all black and low-slung hat. "We want to draw people in, and then turn it on ourselves and show how its done."

As Heffernan pushed for more detail, Powderly looked to Greek mythology to help explain his work, which aims to give artistic support and technology to those who need it.

"Hermes wondered why he didn't get the same privileges as Apollo" even though both were the sons of Zeus, Powderly said. "He said, 'If my father does not give it to me, I will become the prince of thieves.'"

Describing the cat-and-mouse game of police versus urban graffiti artists, Powderly said he wanted graffiti to remain illegal.

"I don't think everyone should be a crook. I just think there needs to be some crooks," Powderly said. "I think there should be some cats, too. But it looks like the mice have started to win again."