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/mariannasimnett/

Collect OGRESS on Foundation: https://foundation.app/collection/ogress

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 mortem.

See Shawn on tour: https://thevinylfactory.com/news/first-floor-shawn-reynaldo/

Buy and read First Floor Volume 1: https://velocitypress.uk/product/first-floor-volume-1/

Sub to the  First Floor Substack: https://firstfloor.substack.com/

Follow Shawn: https://twitter.com/ShawnReynaldo

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://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4371204

Follow Andres on twitter: https://twitter.com/technollama

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 soon

The Permaweird: https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-permaweird

Subscribe to Ribbonfarm: https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/

Follow Venkatesh on twitter: https://twitter.com/vgr

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/patttten / https://www.instagram.com/patttten

Buy "Mirage FM": https://patttten.bandcamp.com/album/mirage-fm

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://twitter.com/c_valenzuelab

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.

Order "Air Age Blueprint": https://ignota.org/products/air-age-blueprint

Check out the HKW: https://www.hkw.de/en/

Cover art by Somnath Bhatt 

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: https://semilla.ai/

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 Extitutional Theory: https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2021-01/introduction-extitutional-theory

Read Blockchain and the Law (cowritten with fellow pod guest Aaron Wright):
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674241596

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 graphic novel: https://plaid.warp.net/

See Plaid on tour soon: https://ra.co/dj/plaid/tour-dates

Follow Andy Turner: https://twitter.com/chimpandy

Follow Emma Catnip's work: https://linktr.ee/emmacatnip

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 deal more.  Few have such an encyclopedic and generous grasp of this field and it was a real treat. 

Have a sweet week 🦾

Read "Ways of Being": https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/317823/ways-of-being-by-bridle-james/9780241469651

Order the audiobook of "Ways of Being" read by James himself! https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250856111/waysofbeing

Read "The New Dark Age": https://www.versobooks.com/books/3002-new-dark-age

Follow James: https://twitter.com/jamesbridle

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: https://haveibeentrained.com/

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-nibelung-directors-cut

Follow David: https://twitter.com/dkanaga

Play Oikospiel: http://www.oikospiel.com/

David's music: https://davidkanaga.bandcamp.com/

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: https://twitter.com/pennyfractions

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 Inclosure of Reason: https://technosphere-magazine.hkw.de/p/The-Inclosure-of-Reason-ecTsvnENeC1GXtmgRNaMH9

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. 
 

Follow Hanoi: https://twitter.com/yaboihanoi

Vote in the AI Song Contest: https://www.aisongcontest.com/the-2022-finalists

Try Mawf: https://mawf.io/

Try DDSP: https://magenta.tensorflow.org/ddsp-vst