Le Random

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/ai-psychosis-summit-macy-gettles-quasimatt-and-kevin-esherick

In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Macy Gettles, Quasimatt and Kevin Esherick about the community around the AI Psychosis Summit that took place in Downtown NYC, April 30, 2026.

They cover the origins of the community, from a memey, joke tweet to a packed Chinatown DIY community gathering. It's a scene where devs make art and artists ship products, where the point is the community rather than any individual art object. They also discuss managing AI euphoria with backlash, slop discourse and whether New York is over as Josh Kline's October article suggested.

Read Kevin's Monday Editorial with us, What Was the AI Psychosis Summit??

Chapters 📖:

00:00 What was the AI Psychosis Summit?

05:04 How AI showed up in the work

11:30 Facing the anti-AI backlash

16:58 Cottagecore, aesthetics and slop

25:08 The image in 2026. Process vs. concept

28:03 AI psychosis, defined

36:36 Founding myth: a joke tweet

38:23 The Kline essay: is New York art over?

46:50 Scene tech and the Shake app

53:07 'What's next' and where to find everyone

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/figure31-discussing-and-demonstrating-del

In this special video episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with artist Loucas Braconnier (Figure31). They discuss DEL, a two-year project that began life as a terminal-based C application with a "Grim Reaper" persona before becoming a browser-native work. It consists of globular "bodies for the Ethereum network" rendered in real time as ASCII art.

They go over Braconnier's path into blockchain art and his attraction to work that evolves over time, the discipline of building for longevity, and a wider conversation about how AI and new tools shift the artist's focus from technical skill toward conceptual intent. In the second half, Braconnier gives a live demo of the work and a visual walk-through, showing how its entities express network data through behaviors like twirling, meditating, or trying to escape the viewport.

Monday's Editorial: Jakob Kudsk Steensen on Non-Human Pathways

Chapters 📖

00:00 — Introduction: meet Loucas Braconnier (Figure31) and the work

01:02 — Finding blockchain: the spark that drew him to Ethereum

03:02 — Why blockchain: what it brings to art that evolves over time

05:30 — Sculpture Garden & "Traveler": protocol art and the contract's inner space

09:38 — How DEL relates: dialogue with and departure from his earlier work

15:19 — On-chain & longevity: immutability, repairability, committing to the future

18:22 — Two years of work: from a terminal "Grim Reaper" agent to the browser

22:07 — Bodies for Ethereum: liveliness, behaviors, giving voice to the network

25:53 — Live demo: walking through the main collection

28:58 — Reading behavior: behavior modes and the 3D object behind the ASCII

30:41 — Browser as space: native viewing, reproduction, and the original

34:35 — The data readouts: exposing configuration, logs, and block hashes

40:10 — Owner tuning: editing parameters and giving away control

44:57 — Custom sites: bespoke builds over marketplace platforms

51:00 — AI and making: technical skill versus conceptual intent

56:02 — Closing: final reflections and what comes next

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/new-york-frieze-week-michael-connor-regina-harsanyi-and-karyn-nakamura

In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Regina Harsanyi (Associate Curator of Media Arts at the Museum of the Moving Image), Michael Connor, Executive Director of Rhizome, and artist Karyn Nakamura about Frieze Week in New York.

In particular the discussion focuses on the week's programs on May 16th, with Rhizome's 7 on 7 at New Museum, as well as MoMI's Open Worlds: An Afternoon of Digital Art Encounters.

They cover an anatomy of Frieze Week itself, (art fair, satellite fairs, Whitney Biennial, and all) before zeroing in on what each guest is bringing to the table. Connor traces the sixteen-year arc of 7x7, this year organized around the theme of "Containment." Nakamura discusses her own 7x7 project with Lucas Gelfond, which probes the geometry of meaning inside language models and the possibilities of interpretability research as artistic material. Harsanyi walks through the museum programming in depth.

See our "New York Digital Art Guide"

Monday's Editorial this week is an essay by Bauman on the relationship between protocol art and worldbuilding: The Cerebral Samba

Chapters 📖:

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:18 Frieze Week: What It Is and Why It Matters

00:07:20 The Saturday Battle Royale: 7x7 vs. MoMI

00:08:52 7x7: The Commons Residency and the "Containment" Theme

00:13:11 Karyn Nakamura: Interpretability as Artistic Material

00:16:19 MoMI x Tezos: Digital Materiality and the Fellowship

00:18:38 Edgar Fabian Frias and the Nureyka Performance

00:20:17 Travess Smalley's Pixel Rug Book and OONA

00:23:52 The Artist/Technologist Binary

00:35:20 Corporate Sponsorship and Artistic Subversion

00:38:27 The Josh Kline Essay: Real Estate and Art Quality

00:42:10 Rhea Meyers & Linda Dounia collaboration

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/strange-rules-and-protocol-art-at-the-venice-biennale

In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with artists Trevor Paglen and Primavera De Filippi about Protocol art.

The occasion is Strange Rules, the landmark group exhibition co-conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Holly Herndon, and Mat Dryhurst, running at the Palazzo Diedo in Venice for the full duration of the Biennale. The show offers the most institutionally significant framing of protocol art to date, and Paglen and De Filippi represent two of its most distinct vantages.

The conversation opens with the question of how each artist situates their practice within the protocol framework. Paglen, long known as a revealer of hidden infrastructures, reflects on a career built between systems observation and systems intervention. He and on how his new work Voyager marks a turn inward, toward consciousness rather than exposure. De Filippi, a longtime Protocol art theorist and one of the few artists to self-define as a protocol artist, walks through her Protocolism Manifesto and the decade-long Plantoid project that preceded it, sharpening a key distinction: the difference between making art on top of a protocol and making the protocol itself as the creative act.

Meanwhile, our Monday Editorial with Shohei Fujimoto completes our Venice Biennale coverage for the week. (More to come!)

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction & The Strange Rules Exhibition

01:39 Trevor Paglen's Work: Voyager and the Pivot Inward

02:49 Trevor Paglen on Protocol Art & Post-Minimal Influences

04:57 Primavera De Filippi Defines Protocol Art & the Protocolism Manifesto

08:13 Voyager Explained: AI That Hypnotizes You

10:22 Plantoid: The Self-Replicating Blockchain Sculpture

13:34 The Breadth of Protocol Art & the Venice Biennale as Platform

17:43 Why Protocol Art Is Rising: Generative AI & the Meta-Layer

20:57 Photography, Modernism & the Current AI Rupture

23:35 Capital-A Algorithm: Fear, Critique & Alternatives

26:36 Embracing the Algorithm: Open Source & Artistic Autonomy

30:05 Consciousness, Entanglement & Voyager's Six Journeys

33:41 Synthetic Life, Symbionts & Machine Qualia

39:05 Protocol Art as a Lens for Economics, Politics & Technology

42:34 Protocol vs. Instantiation, Copyright & Closing Thoughts

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/james-bridle-questioning-machine-intelligence

In this podcast episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with artist and writer James Bridle about what we actually mean when we say "intelligence." They discuss whether building our most powerful technologies around such a narrow version of it is a fundamental mistake.

They also unpack author Bridle's argument from Ways of Being that intelligence has always been a political construct, and that contemporary AI represents a reduction of a reduction. The conversation moves through the three effects Bridle sees AI concretely producing right now: consolidation of power, environmental destruction, and a spreading ontological crisis.

They end by widening to consciousness, ecological thinking, and what a genuinely non-human intelligence might actually require.

It is one of the more skeptical conversations Le Random has hosted on AI, and one of the most clarifying. Enjoy!

Monday's Editorial: Keiken on the Worldbuilding Lens

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction: What Is Intelligence?

02:01 The Human Bias in How We Define Intelligence

08:03 Boosterism vs. Doomerism: Bridle's Dual Critique

15:10 Can Agentic AI Produce Ecological Intelligence?

20:07 Citizens' Assemblies and the Power of Diversity

24:37 Symbionts: A Third Way to Engage with AI?

29:55 AI Coding, Relationships, and What Actually Changes Us

36:16 Three Real Effects of AI: Power, Environment, Uncertainty

41:00 Art, Ethics, and the Glitch Residency

45:10 Consciousness Beyond Language: Mountains, Machines, and Standing Waves

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/kayvon-tehranian-and-sebastian-sanchez-digital-art-post-boom

In this special episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Kayvon Tehranian (CEO and co-founder of Foundation and Rodeo) and Sebastian Sanchez (formerly Christie's Manager of Digital Art Sales, now independent advisor and curator) about the structural challenges of the digital art market following the 2021 NFT boom.

They discuss Foundation's recent sale to Blackdove and how Christie's, Sotheby's, and Rodeo have had to dissolve departments or shut down entirely because growth models built on crypto speculation proved unsustainable. The conversation explores where growth actually stalled and why none of the business models worked. Tehranian and Sanchez discuss what their organizations achieved, what can endure, and the need to rebuild from scratch.

In the end, this conversation moves into the lofty topics of digital art becoming independent of volatile crypto cycles, moving into physical displays, and developing self-sufficient institutions built through slow, intentional work by committed participants.

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

01:40 Are These Isolated Incidents or Symptoms?

09:52 The Business Model Problem

14:13 Crypto Speculation vs. Art Collecting

19:13 Why Are Auction Houses Pulling Away?

25:45 The Role of Institutions

30:56 Anti-Establishment Energy and What Endures

36:00 The Physical Display Problem

38:40 What Will Endure: Rooted Practices

43:55 How Close Was It to Being Sustainable?

48:02 Leaner Models and the Future

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/lawrence-lek-world-entry-points

In this special podcast episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random’s editor in chief) speaks with artist and filmmaker Lawrence Lek about NOX Pavilion at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami, an immersive installation centered on a self-driving car in a “therapy” program for malfunctioning AIs.

They unpack Lek’s long-running NOX universe: a speculative rehab center where care can slide into control, and where machine interiority is treated as a technical defect. The conversation moves from the politics of nonhuman rights and legal gray zones (“it depends”) to Lek’s recurring fascination with autonomous creative agency and what it would mean for an AI to make art as a choice that conflicts with its intended function.

In the second half, Lek and Bauman widen the lens to world-building: why a world isn’t one thing but multiple entry points, how ideas like Umwelt and worldview shape what any intelligence can perceive, and why Lek increasingly thinks of his simulations as “superficial models”—interfaces to reality rather than claims to foundational truth.

Monday’s Le Random Editorial: "Embodying AI at NeurIPS 2025: Creative AI Track" by Luba Elliott

and "Ian Cheng on Composing with Systems" by Peter Bauman

Chapters 📖:

00:00:00 Intro + Monday editorial highlights (NeurIPS / Luba Elliott)

00:07:06 From ecology to AI: nonhuman agency, rights, and “mature” discourse

00:13:39 Repairing AI interiority: Enigma’s “Revery” and malfunction-as-psychology

00:19:58 Legal personhood + Empty Rider: blame, responsibility, and the “it depends” machine

00:27:35 The crash test dummy: guide character, onboarding, and corporate voice

00:32:11 The empathy transition: why people resist empathizing with machines (for now)

00:38:25 Narratives vs “living code”: simulation stories and instantiated lifeforms

00:44:21 What counts as a world? Umwelt, worldview, and multiple entry points

00:53:23 Where immersive worlds may head: metaverse hangover, AI’s role, and formats shifting

01:00:50 Outro + goodbye

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/2025-art-in-review-with-thefunnyguys-conrad-house-and-peter-bauman

In this end-of-year episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random’s Editor-in-Chief) is joined by thefunnyguys (Le Random CEO) and Collection Lead Conrad House to look back on 2025: its biggest storylines, their favorites of the year and what they’re watching in 2026.

They unpack a defining tension of the year: as crypto-native attention and prices stayed weak, institutional and traditional-art adoption of digital art kept accelerating. The conversation moves through platform and ecosystem shifts (VVV’s rise, Verse as gallery infrastructure, Art Blocks nearing the end of AB 500, Fxhash’s next chapter). Next is a discussion of “worlds”—protocol stacks getting richer, more modular, and increasingly entangled with AI, physical spaces and simulation.

They close with Le Random highlights (including Raster and a more nimble publishing rhythm), personal favorites of the year, and a forward look at Node Foundation in Palo Alto, Canyon in New York, Colección Solo in Madrid, and Zero 10’s next iteration in Hong Kong.

Mentioned:

1. "Ian Goodfellow on Inventing GANs"
2. "THE PEOPLE ARE IN THE COMPUTER—PART I" on Alec Radford (most popular piece of 2025)
3. "The Ultraintelligent Machine and Gaberbocchus Common Room" by Jasia Reichardt and Our 100th article
4. "Drifella III: Room for Complexity" - 4,000+ word deep dive on Evil Biscuit's classic
5. "Parker Ito and Evil Biscuit on Possessed Spirits"
6. "Standout Artwork of 2025"

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Intro + agenda

01:29 Big takeaway: digital art’s institutionalization

04:23 NFTs fade in crypto, rise in trad art (two camps)

07:12 Capitulation vs institutional growth (NFT categories)

09:53 Macro check: S&P vs ETH/BTC/XTZ

13:30 What brings collectors back? (liquidity + catalysts)

23:08 Fairs & infra: Art Basel, minting tech, new spaces

26:00 Platforms reposition: Art Blocks + fxhash

30:08 “Worlds” as the frame (protocol stacks + world models)

42:07 AI art maturity: from hype to diffusion

44:23 Le Random focus: Raster + collecting strategy

49:30 Q4 editorial shift: Friday pods + agility

50:45 Favorites of 2025: kickoff

50:56 Favorite group shows

58:56 Favorite releases: Claude/Gemini/Marble → vibe coding

1:07:54 Favorite solo works

1:17:46 Favorite artist picks

1:27:23 Looking ahead to 2026

1:38:11 Outro

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/terra0-what-the-autonomous-forest-wants

In this special episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Paul Seidler and Paul Kolling from art collective terra0 about their project Autonomous Forest (2025)⁠. They cover the nearly decade-long journey from ⁠white paper (2016)⁠ as university students to the project's NFT launch in December 2025.

The collective shares how the original idea in the white paper mutated with projects like Flowertokens, Premna Deamon and now Autonomous Forest.

They also cover why working through German law and smart contracts creates better frameworks than pure speculation, how the project evolved from startup pitches to nonprofit governance, and what it means to build living systems that exist outside economic (and human) exploitation.

Monday's Le Random Editorial on "Standout Artwork of 2025"

Thursday's Le Random Editorial: "Zero 10 Part 1: Beeple Casts a Spell" by Kevin Buist

Chapters: 📖

00:00:00 Intro: terra0 + “Autonomous Forest” (what it is)

00:10:01 The long arc: Flower Tokens, Premna Daemon, and the road to Autonomous Forest

00:17:02 The pivot: from “forest as economic agent” to removing ecosystems from the market

00:22:00 Why blockchain matters: voting, trust, governance, and accountability

00:26:03 Repeatability + policy experiment vibes — and where AI fits (and doesn’t)

00:29:01 Legal fictions: “corporations as slow AIs” and the problem of intention

00:32:04 Personhood for nature: who can speak for rivers/forests/nonhuman interests?

00:38:04 Protocol art roots: relational aesthetics, software art, and law as medium

00:41:01 World-building + generative art lineage (instructions → systems → protocols)

00:49:00 Guattari’s “Three Ecologies,” land art links, and closing reflections

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/stephanie-dinkins-ai-memory-and-survival

In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random’s editor in chief) speaks with transdisciplinary artist Stephanie Dinkins about AI as a container for preserving oral history, tradition, and the kinds of community knowledge that rarely make it onto the internet.

Dinkins shares how a chance encounter with Bina48 in 2014 reshaped her practice. They discuss how this connects to her push for small, community-driven data that protects nuance and self-definition, especially for Black and Brown communities, against the homogenizing pull of large corporate models.

They also cover Not the Only One as a “living archive” of family memory, the politics of access, privacy, and consent, and why Dinkins treats imagination (and hyperstition) as a practical method for building the AI futures we actually want.

Monday's editorial (Beeple on Robot Dogs as Canvas): https://www.lerandom.art/editorial/beeple-on-robot-dogs-as-canvas

Chapters 📖:

00:00:00 Intro: Le Random podcast, Beeple, Stephanie Dinkins

00:03:40 Play, exploration, and academic freedom

00:07:02 Meeting Bina48 changes everything

00:12:31 Small data versus homogenizing big data

00:18:35 Worldbuilding, autonomy, and Not The Only One

00:24:57 Using AI to preserve family ethos

00:31:53 Prompting against algorithmic whitening

00:39:05 Beyond fear: engagement and agency

00:45:42 Students’ use, negotiation, and deep work

00:50:27 Surfing change and lifelong learning