Informer

Today's conversation is with Zachary Small, staff reporter for the NY Times. I have been following their arts journalism since they wrote for Hyperallergic years ago. They're often the first to identify new, consequential developments in a field that thrives on change.

Today's conversation is with Prem Krishnamurthy, designer, author, and educator. His multifaceted work explores the role of art as an agent of transformation at an individual, collective, and structural level. This manifests itself in books, exhibitions, images, performances, publications, systems, talks, texts, and workshops.

Having worked in the arts in NYC for about 15 years now, a constant inspiration has been Ruby Lerner. I have found her profound commitment to the importance of artists in building a more imaginative and rich culture in this country and her extraordinary talent in realizing that belief as the founder of Creative Capital, to be the gold standard of how to build rational and strategic approaches to arts funding.

I've known Sara Wookey since we both lived in the Netherlands when I was working in creating music for dance, collaborating with our mutual friend Seamus Cater. Her career progressed in very exciting ways, eventually becoming a student of the seminal figure in dance, Yvonne Rainer and is a certified teacher of Rainer’s seminal dance work “Trio A” (1966) and other repertoire.

She received her Phd. from Coventry University in England where her research looked at dance in the museum as relation and social-spatial practice contributing to institutional change and a model for public spaces post-Covid.

She is now based in Cambridgeshire, England and works as dancer/choreographer, researcher and consultant. And she's also a square dance caller.

My friend, the designer and artist, Mushon Zer-Aviv was in town a few months ago so we sat down to catch up. Having worked in open, values-driven design in tech for the last two decades, Mushon goes deep into what he sees as being the mistakes of the early internet and how we can avoid them in the future. His thoughtfulness is always optimistic: as he says, he is a designer so he wants to design! He points to the contradictions inherent in our tendency to offload "ethics into infrastucture" and the kind of return of the tech bros singing the same song with web3. This is a wide-ranging conversation that points to so many of the current challenges while showing new paths to the future.

Deborah has a reputation as an innovative arts leader here in New York. Over the past couple of years, she has fully transformed into a sharp-eyed astrologer building from decades of experience in the arts as well as a lifelong spiritual practice. In this, the final Dog Days 2022 episode, Roddy and Deborah discuss the value of astrology in the context of being an arts director where everybody is obsessed with knowing the future. And what it means for Deborah to give notice, then begin a full-time astrology practice in upstate NY. This is a wide-ranging conversation about the value of art, and astrology, in creating space for people to relate to one another and is a great way to close out the summer.

There are a handful of contemporary net artists for whom I have particular affection. Constant Dullaart is one of them. Since I first learned of his work in the early aughts, I've found an extraordinary depth to every move he makes. As our understanding of the internet has matured, Constant's work becomes more relevant. I most recently worked with him as one of our Eyebeam fellows in our Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future initiative in 2020. I appreciated this conversation so much, his insistence on thinking through powerful ways to help people re-think ways of being together digitally, most recently creating common.garden, the only art exhibition platform fully exited from surveillance capitalism.

As we enter these long, hot days of this unusual year, I'll be releasing three special episodes that aim to provide some dreamy inspiration for late summer. Between now and labor day, I'll be speaking with three dynamic artists over three episodes. The conversations move from foundational questions around what technology actually means to playful platforms for new forms of co-creation and community, and then finally to a discussion of astrology as an ancient, vital technology for spiritual practice.

B Covington, a multi-modal sound artist whose work is as formally challenging as it is joyfully satisfying, was in New York last month and sat down for a conversation with me at my office in Brooklyn. I enjoyed our time so much an it is the first episode of Informer that was recorded in person.

James Bridle imagines new modes of invention and engagement inspired from relationships with non-human beings. He's a fascinating thinker and this is one of my favorite conversations.