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 Ma…

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 shift…

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 Artif…

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 developmen…

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-…

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://…

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 learni…

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…

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…

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://twit…

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 t…

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 sin…

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 feat…

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/s…

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.y…

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/912…

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://p…

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 intelligenc…

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-signu…

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 wi…

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.wikipe…

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…

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://…

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 …

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-C…

Excited to chat with one of the most exciting projects in the music and crypto field, Songcamp, and the world's first headless band, Chaos! Camp Chaos: https://www.chaos.build/ Songcamp: https://songcamp.mirror.xyz/ Follow Mark: https://twitter.com/markredito Follow Matthew: https://twitter.com/matthewchaim Follow Songcamp: https://twitter.com/song…

Welcoming crypto art legend and valued Interdependence subscriber Harm van den Dorpel on the podcast to discuss scarcity, genetic algorithms, managing expectations, limit experiences and his upcoming work, Markov's Dream Follow Harm: https://twitter.com/harmvddorpel Check out Harm's Work and writing: https://harm.work/ Check out Markov's Dream: htt…

Celebrating the release of Debit's album "The Long Count", composed using machine learning tools trained on the worlds largest archive of Mayan wind instruments! We discuss the genesis of the project, working with the gorgeous grain of nascent AI instruments, ancestral technologies, travels through Mexico, the plague of musical conservatism, and th…

Hi everyone! Something different this week. After listening to some great episodes pulling apart the Bandcamp Epic Games acquisition and showing some skepticism about Web 3, I approached Money 4 Nothing podcast to have a convivial discussion about crypto for a collaborative episode. We discuss common concerns and skepticisms, debate the motivations…

We are happy to be back after Mat's COVID trip, discussing art prepping, Sterling's upcoming ArtBlocks piece, and his expert opinions on the state of ML, AR, VR and what is worth watching (and ignoring) about the impending metaverse. Sterling's upcoming ArtBlocks reveal: https://www.artblocks.io/project/279 Sterling's art: http://www.sterlingcrispi…

Hey y'all, after many references to this project in previous episodes we are really happy to welcome Adam and Luke from Context! We discuss their efforts to make Web3 activity legible to humans, debate criticisms of the speculative nature of the Web3 art space, discuss the antecedent of drop culture, the shockwaves caused by making previously hidde…

Hey everyone! This week we host the inimitable Cherie Hu to discuss the evolution of Water & Music into the first contributor led research DAO for the music industry, the changing definitions and focus of music & technology, Tik Tok and the politics (and occasional burden) of relatability. It was fun and revealing to work through the particularitie…

Jacob from ZORA runs us through his latest essay, Hyperstructures, and the future of ZORA protocol. We pull apart how permissionless protocols and cc0 projects are gathering significant momentum and what this might mean for the future of the internet and art making! We also dive down the rabbit hole of some pretty psychedelic NFT use cases. Super f…

A wonderful conversation with Jack Callahan, Eric Farber and Mike Pollard of Nina, who are building a protocol for permanent collections of music on the fast and affordable Solana Blockchain. Made all the more special that we come from similar experimental music scenes, we discuss the critical importance of establishing and archiving context for ma…

We invited artist Simon Denny over to our studio for the final podcast of the year to go deep on his practice, a commitment to exploring context as a medium, making crypto art and exhibitions before everyone cared, and Dotcom Seance, his wild new art project on Folia. A perfect guest to close out the year! We will be taking a break for the first we…

Big one this week, artist and researcher Kyle McDonald did the gruelling work to calculate the energy and carbon cost of Ethereum, and we try to break down those numbers, calculate their relative impact, discuss critiques of web 3 and debate why they are mostly coming from where they are coming from. Ethereum Emissions: https://kylemcdonald.github.…

We had a long and wonderful chat with Ali after reading his "Who Goes Crypto?" piece on the increasing number of working people opting into investing money into the casino of crypto and meme stocks rather than adhere to crumbling narratives over how the economy works, and for whom. We also dive into an area of his expertise, online disinformation a…

We've been wanting to have this conversation for some time! Scott Moore joins us to discuss Gitcoin's efforts to sustain open source developers, the emerging culture shock between late 20th century free software ideologies and new proposals to get developers paid (which parallels a lot of the culture shock happening in the art and music world rn), …

We had a wonderful friday night hang with artist Deafbeef, who has had a crazy year transitioning from full time blacksmithing to becoming a respected artist known for his on-chain audio visual experiments. After an intense year we try to go as far off script as is possible and just talk about art, satire, music making and cooking videos. Check out…

Wonderful to welcome Jess from Seed club, who help web communities make the transition to member owned DAOs! Apply for Seed Club: https://seedclub.xyz/ Follow Jess: https://twitter.com/thattallguyAv Jess Sloss

Slaying Moloch, starting the first crypto art registry, Bowie Bonds, Data markets and data unions with Ocean Protocol's Trent McConaghy Trent has been very influential to our thinking. There are few people who can talk with such fluency on matters we care about, even better build compelling alternatives. In this we discuss how he and his wife Masha…

In conjunction with this years Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts titled "Iskra Delta "curated by Tjaša Pogačar we interviewed Janez Skrubej, the author of "The Cold War For Information Technology: the Inside Story". Inside indeed, as Janez was the former CEO of Iskra Delta, a major contender on the world stage for not only personal computers, but …

Hi everyone!! We often have discussions on here about web 3 representing a real opportunity for the independent music industry, and Bruno Guez is an expert on how that might end up transpiring, from his time working as a label head, directing the Merlin Network and more recently in building Revelator. Check out Revelator: https://revelator.com/ Fol…

Rhea Myers conceptualised a new art world by curiously tinkering with new tools and seeing what art she could make with them. We catch up with her to reflect on the earliest days of crypto art, her experiments with the medium and their art historical roots in 60's conceptualism, the current state of the field, Loot frenzy and the recent arrival of …

Thrilled to welcome artist, educator and meme master Max Alper (La Meme Young) to join us to discuss running an online art school, sound and meme pedagogy, musical body building and deliver an on the ground report of crypto excessiveness arriving in his new home of Puerto Rico. Learn music with La Meme Young: https://www.patreon.com/la_meme_young F…

Our first ever in person discussion this week with writer and curator Shumon Basar to discuss his new book with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, The Extreme Self, published in accompaniment with the exhibition "Age of You" most recently hosted at Jameel Art Centre, Dubai. We discuss a number of neologisms that appear in the book, not least …

Hey everyone, thanks again for your support! We have a great cast of people joining us over the next few weeks. In line with our recent emphasis on collective character development, we invited Arif Khan and Juliet Gardner of Alethea AI to discuss the incoming age of synthetic media, collectively and autonomously created characters, their concept of…

If you have spent any time online recently, you have no doubt seen an explosion of remarkable images generated from text with Latent Visions, VQGAN and CLIP. We spoke to Adverb, the creator of Latent Visions, about his project, Promptism, and where we see these applications developing in the next few years (or at this pace, months). Unmissable disc…

Thrilled this week to invite artist and author Emily Segal, whose debut auto-fictional novel “Mercury Retrograde” tells the story of a young artists attempt to reconcile the abstract landscape of overfunded startups and the art world, set in New York between Occupy and the Trump Presidency. We discuss what can be learned from the post-internet era …

Hi everyone, this week we are thrilled to invite author and developer Daniel Suarez, whose self published science fiction book Daemon became a cult success for its hard science fiction depiction of a narrow AI preprogrammed to re-order the world after the death of it's game developer author. We discuss Daemon and it's follow up Freedom™, how those …