The Bad Vibes Club

Matt, Andrea and Ross discuss the final episode of Adam Curtis’ TV series ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’. We’re in a park! Together! In the sun! We sum up - talking about what we’ve learned about Adam Curtis, and ourselves. References Atlantic story about the data historian Peter Turchin - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/ Time of the Gods a fi...

Matt, Andrea and Oscar discuss episode Five of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’. References: John Akomfrah in conversation - https://www.lissongallery.com/studio/john-akomfrah-tina-campt-saidiya-hartman C Thi Ngueyn - The Seductions of Clarity - https://philpapers.org/rec/NGUTSO-2 Maryam Tafakory's video essay Irani Bag - https://watch.eventive.org/monographs/play/6021b3a8555...

Matt, Andrea, Oscar and Ross discuss episode four of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’. We talk about scripts, the active vs passive voice, and the problem with making individuals the bearers of history. Just one reference today - Schneider TM & Kptmichigan, The Light 3000 (Smiths cover) - https://youtu.be/vodnI38cNI0

The third episode! Ross is back, and he hasn’t watched it, so me, Andrea and Oscar try and summarise it for him. Also includes a good story by Ross about catching a mouse. Woman captures dramatic video driving through flames while fleeing Woolsey Fire in Malibu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR0RQ8Gx6I0 Watching The Pain of Others - https://vimeo.com/298425068 Desktop Documentaries Tutorial wit...

Matt, Andrea and Oscar discuss episode two of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘I Can’t Get You Out of my Head’. We talk about the limits of the BBC archive, and the history of the Black Panthers that Curtis never quite gets into. Links to the stuff we mention in this episode are below. Muub Tube with Ralph Pritchard and Owen - https://muubtube.podbean.com/ Community Development as Micropolitics by Akwugo...

Matt is joined by Ross, Andrea and her son Oscar to discuss the first episode of Adam Curtis’s new TV series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’. We talk about post truth, Curtis’s claim that what he does is journalism, and the affective or emotional tone of Curtis’s films. Below is a list of links to things mentioned in the episode Tribune Article about Adam Curtis - https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/02/i...

Matt speaks to Ralph Pritchard, artist filmmaker, about his ‘Films from the Quar’ series, including his latest films Approval, Flinching and Crushing. We talk about his work, OCD and uncertainty. And I tell Ralph about a dream I had. You can watch Approval, Flinching and Crushing at this link - https://ralphpritchard.co.uk/Quarantine-films-S2-only - and see more of Ralph’s work at his website - ht...

Matt, Hamish and Sophie have a catch up about lockdown, money, art and fatbergs.

In March and April 2020 Hamish MacPherson used social media to ask, “Are you having sexual or sensual intimacy with people who are distant from you during the COVID-19 lockdowns?” People replied anonymously and Hamish asked friends and acquaintances to record themselves reading these texts out. Then Matt turned them into this podcast. It contains some sexual references. Words: anonymous. Voices: A...

Matt speaks to the writer Lars Iyer about his latest book, Nietzsche and the Burbs. They also talk about method, music and what time Lars wakes up in the morning.

Matt speaks to the music producer M.J Harding about bangers, intensity, addiction, shame and the voice between speaking and singing.

Matt speaks to the artist Joey Holder about conspiracies, getting caught in the crossfire of artworld controversy, and the time a clownfish squared up to her.

Matt speaks to the artist Richard Whitby about conspiracies, Virginia Woolf and the post-cinematic, and his newest film ‘The Lost Ones’.

Matt talks to the artist Kate Liston about affects, stances, performance and CrossFit.

Matt talks to artist Ben Jeans Houghton about two of his film works. ‘2ndlife’ (2018), made on a residency in Japan, and a new work in progress, ‘Screaming Bird Singing Dawn Rainbow Mountain’, made at Hongti Arts Centre, Busan, an international collaboration made possible by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and supported by Arts Council England and Arts Council Korea. You can watch Ben’s film ‘2...

Matt speaks to curator Anne Duffau about her peripatetic project A-Z, sci-fi and the power of parties.

The third and last conversation with Andrea Francke. This time we talk about Eve Sedgewick’s writing on paranoia and reparative reading. We talk conspiracy, strong theory, universalism and black feminism.

The second conversation with Andrea Francke. This time we talk about The Idiot, a novel by Elif Bautman, and from that, we talk about female subjectivity in fiction, mumblecore, and privilege.

The first of three podcasts with Andrea Francke where we read different texts and use them to talk about Andrea’s research and interests. For this conversation we both read some Chinese sci-fi (the book is called Invisible Planets) and then talked about care, AI, robots and subjecthood. (You don’t need to have read the stories to enjoy this I promise.)

The Gleaning is the second in a series of events and artistic responses to James Richard’s Wales in Venice representation at the 2017 Venice Biennale. For ‘The Gleaning’, the artists Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau and Sophie Mallett present a series of stories and short audio essays highlighting different kinds of gleaning. They explore gleaning as a historical right to subsist on common land, as a...

Beth Bramich talks to the artist Chloe Cooper about her work with Jenny Moore and Phoebe Davies as Bedfellows, a research project about sex re-education, performing an Internal Scratch at Battersea Arts Centre, sex education at the British Museum, sex positivity, activism and consent.

Matt talks to Revital and Tuur about their film ‘Trapped in the Dream of the Other’, filmed in a coltan mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A performance with sampled sound about the Grenfell Tower fire, resentment and cruelty. Originally given as a performance at ICA London and CCA Derry-Londonderry as part of The Bad Vibes Club’s ‘Feeling Bad’ events in summer 2017. I use ideas and words from Jean Franco’s book Cruel Modernity, Achille Mbembe’s essay Necropolitics and Marina Warner’s essay Back from the Underworld: The Liveliness of...

Matt speaks to Sarah about collaboration, dithering and her internet doppelgänger

Matt speaks to artist John Walter about jesters, Alien Sex Clubs and Shonkyness.