Interdependence

In advance of the premiere of her new AI fueled gesamtkunstwerk “Gorgon”, the artist Marianna Simnett joins us to dive into mythology, mimicry and the saga of convincing tools to do what you want them to! “Gorgon” (commissioned by LAS) will take place at HAU Berlin from the 13-17th September https://www.las-art.foundation/programme/gorgon Follow Marianna Simnett: https://www.instagram.com/marianna...

Over the past two decades Shawn Reynaldo has operated in every corner of electronic music. His substack "First Floor", recently anthologized into his debut book, offers a refreshingly candid account of his feelings about the turbulent state of a culture in transition.  We dive into some of the choice essays from his book, reflect on some major shifts of the last decade, and attempt a COVID post mo...

Everyone and their llama is talking about AI ethics and law, so we invited the high Llama Andres Guadamuz, an eminent researcher in AI and IP, to discuss the particularities and uncertainties of AI training law, in honor of his recent paper on the subject. It is an issue of our time. We make it fun.   A Scanner Darkly: Copyright Infringement in Artificial Intelligence Inputs and Outputs: https://p...

After some weeks of nativity bliss and medical drama we are back!  A joy to invite Venkatesh Rao to take us down a number of his bunny trails, focussing initially on his great piece The Permaweird, the latest in his Great Weirding series. We discuss the tendency to call "crisis!", a generally ambient sense of weirdness, and how the latest developments in AI suggest that isn't slowing down anytime...

We caught up with Damien Roach, aka patten, aka 555-5555, to discuss the need for new language to navigate the abstract implications of machine learning for our understanding of art, and the limitations of the modernist approach. We also eventually get around to discussing his beautiful new record "Mirage FM" created in part with Riffusion, a text-to-audio model. Follow Damien: https://twitter.com...

Runway have been on an absolute tear of late offering new AI tools for their creative production suite, so we invited CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela to join us to discuss their approach, and how the mental models of artists and greater society may change in accordance with the shifts happening.       Try out Runway: https://runwayml.com Follow Runway: https://twitter.com/runwayml Follow Cristóbal: https...

Hey everyone!  We recently linked up with the inimitable K Allado McDowell as part of the "Death by Landscape" series at HKW Berlin to discuss their new book "Air Age Blueprint" with a live audience, out now on Ignota Books, as well as recent controversies around AI sentience, and K's own work exploring interspecies communication with machine learning. Lots more to come, hope you are warm and well...

Over the moon to welcome titans of AI music Dadabots! We debate the coming obsolescence of human artists, their new open source AI music organization HarmonAI, and discuss what is being prototyped on the bleeding edge of AI sound generation.  Follow Dadabots: https://twitter.com/dadabots Dadabots in the AI song contest: https://www.aisongcontest.com/the-2022-finalists  

We catch up with Moisés Horta Valenzuela (Hexorcismos) to discuss his remarkable experiments with music and machine learning, and his upcoming software project Semilla that experiments with co-ownership of musician AI models shared for anyone to use. Just...the best. Listen to Hexorcismos: https://hexorcismos.bandcamp.com/ Follow Hexorcismos: https://twitter.com/hexorcismos Check out Semilla: http...

Primavera De Filippi of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society joins us to discuss her economic experiments, her groundbreaking art project Plantoid, her novel concept on Extitutional theory, and her current thoughts on the state of crypto. Follow Primavera: https://twitter.com/yaoeo?lang=en An Introduction to Extitutio...

A great joy to host Andy Turner and Emma Catnip to discuss their work in celebration of the release of Plaid's latest album Feorm Falorx. We discuss their intergalactic space travel over the covid lockdown, our mutual rabbit-holing over the latest AI tools and techniques, and the situation for touring artists as they prepare to take the record on the road. Experience Feorm Falorx, the album and gr...

Hi everyone! Back in the saddle after an enforced little break prompted by a peculiar cluster of medical scare, pregnancy and founding a new organization. What a wild year. Thrilled to host James Bridle to discuss his recent book on ecologies of non-human intelligence "Ways of Being", animal sensing and co-operation, deliberative democracy, the singing origins of language, cybernetics, and a great...

Mat joined our friends Emilie & Andrea at The Culture Journalist to cover a brief history of the current wave of AI art, why artist replacement narratives can veer on the absurd, and the work we are doing launching our new organization Spawning .  Read and subscribe to the Culture Journalist: https://theculturejournalist.substack.com/ See if you feature in AI training models, and opt out or opt in...

A real joy to welcome one of our favorites David Kanaga, the composer and game designer behind Soft Valkyrie, a recent opera starring Stephen Fry and Attila Csihar, the dog opera O​ἶ​κ​o​ς​piel and more. We discuss gaming and modern composition and the fascinating villainy of Wagner. Listen to Soft Valkyrie: https://davidkanaga.bandcamp.com/album/soft-valkyrie-first-day-from-the-ring-of-the-nibelu...

A joy to welcome Yancey Stickler to discuss his idea of Post-Individualism and his new project Metalabel. We also get into his prior work founding Kickstarter, its parallels to web 3, and new proposals to fund artistic scenes. Metalabel: https://www.metalabel.xyz/ Follow Yancey: https://twitter.com/ystrickler Read Yancey's great blog: https://www.ystrickler.com/writing

Such a joy to have on virtuosic musician and instrument builder Tim Exile to discuss his collaborative online musical ecosystem Endlesss, the uneasy state of contemporary music, new folk traditions and what piqued his interest in web 3. Follow Tim: https://twitter.com/timexile  Endlesss: https://endlesss.fm/ Tim's music: https://warp.net/artists/91285-tim-exile/info  

David Turner shares some of the most insightful and thorough analyses on the music industry through his Penny Fractions newsletter.  We link up to discuss the current state of streaming, his skepticism about much of crypto, and his positive perspective on the regular recycling of the 20th century in popular culture. Sub to Penny Fractions: https://pennyfractions.ghost.io/ Follow Penny Fractions: h...

Anil is one of our favorite thinkers on AI. To celebrate the advent of Anil's debut book "Logiciel: Six Seminars on Computational Reason", we try and pick apart some high level concepts on reason and computation,  and discuss why recent deep learning breakthroughs may require a break from traditional conceptions of what we consider to be intelligence. Follow Anil: https://twitter.com/cavvia The In...

A real pleasure to welcome Emad Mostaque to discuss the impending launch of Stable Diffusion, his comprehensive plans for open source AI infrastructure, the impending reconfiguration of how we create everything, and how artists might hope to adapt to it all.  Stability.ai - https://stability.ai/ Stable Diffusion Beta: https://stability.ai/beta-signup-form Follow Emad: https://twitter.com/EMostaque

Wonderful to catch up with DDSP co-author Hanoi Hantrakul, whose practice considers transcultural exchange using new technologies from machine learning to 3d printing. We discuss his contribution to the 2022 AI song contest, his VST plugin developed in his new role at Tik Tok, and the fascinating challenge of fair and generative ways to interact with deep cultural traditions in the context of AI. ...

We had a wonderfully funny chat with Marina Abramović on AI authorship and digital twins, the urgent need for heroism, and the parallels between performance art and web 3's attempts to value the immaterial. Marina Abramović's debut NFT project with Circa - The Hero 25FPS: https://circa.art/nft/ Marina Abramović: Seven Easy Pieces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Easy_Pieces Marina Abramović: T...

We sit down with Sound.xyz founder David Greenstein to discuss the many different experiments and approaches happening to revalue music within the Ethereum ecosystem, touching on Spotify, TikTok and the traditional music industry in contrast. Full disclosure, we contributed a small sum to Sound's seed investment round.  Follow David: https://twitter.com/dgreenstein1 Follow Sound: https://twitter.c...

Celebrating the release of his first book "Greenpilled: How Crypto Can Regenerate The World" we welcome Kevin Owocki to discuss regenerative crypto-economics, doomer optimism,  impact DAO's, public goods and crypto's relationship to the state .   Buy Greenpilled and take the pledge: https://greenpill.party/#book Sub to The Green Pill Podcast: https://availableon.com/greenpill Follow Kevin: https:/...

Our favorite projects at the moment are finding ways to harness the generative potential of Discord communities to coordinate ambitious projects, and what THE FRINGE are building is remarkable. Already having created a bespoke successful Sci-Fi universe with their debut film PROSPECT, they are turning to Web 3 to build a more expansive, co-created and ultimately fair way to create movies.  Really...

Wonderful to chat with Brett Scott in advance of his new book "Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for Our Wallets" (Penguin) about the creeping incursions of cashlessness, the naivety of crypto and why cash is maybe worth keeping around! Follow Brett: https://twitter.com/Suitpossum Preorder "Cloudmoney": https://www.amazon.com/Cloudmoney-Cash-Cards-Crypto-Wallets-ebook/dp/B09HSBDLKG Sub t...