Le Random

Episode page and full transcript: https://www.lerandom.art/episodes/melanie-lenz-generativity-and-vera-molnar-at-the-va 

In this episode, host Peter Bauman (Le Random's editor in chief) speaks with Melanie Lenz, Curator of Digital Art at the V&A, about Vera Molnár and Degrees of Disruption: Vera Molnar and Generative Art, her display at V&A South Kensington, open until May 2027.

They follow Molnár's practice per the show's layout. It goes from her early geometric paintings in Paris through the machine imaginaire, her first access to a computer in 1968 and decades of plotter work. Lenz explains how the display draws on the V&A's computer art holdings, including the Computer Arts Society and Patric Prince collections, and why it closes with contemporary artists such as Casey Reas, Harm van den Dorpel, Licia He, William Mapan and Entangled Others.

They also discuss how museums show the process behind computer art, the stigma around artists who work with machines, and why Lenz avoids the word "pioneer."

Read our editorial, Degrees of Disruption: Vera Molnár at the V&A

The display runs at V&A South Kensington until 30 May 2027, free: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/degrees-of-disruption-vera-molnar-and-generative-art 

Also in this episode: François Molnár, Degrees of Disruption, Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV), Charles Csuri, Sougwen Chung, John Cage, Cybernetic Serendipity, François Morellet, Gottfried Jäger, Julio Le Parc

Read next: Molnár's Paris

Listen next: Ep. 17, Digital Curators Series 01—Douglas Dodds on Collecting and Valuing Emerging Technologies, Ep. 5, Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt II (1960s) with Michael Spalter

On the Living Timeline: Vera Molnár Develops Her “Machine Imaginaire” (1959), Vera Molnár Begins her Computer Art Phase with the Interruptions Series (1968)

Chapters 📖:
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Why Vera Molnár, why now
05:12 Disruption as a way of life
07:31 Paris and the output space
11:25 Rules, art history and the art world
14:39 GRAV, François and agency
18:31 Entangled Others and generative AI
23:51 Showing the process
27:43 The machine imaginaire
30:55 Getting the computer
33:43 Generative principles today
37:36 Rules and learned models
41:51 The P word
44:37 Stories still to tell

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 (Monk Antony, 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??

Also in this episode: Anthropic, Basel Social Club

Listen next: Ep. 44, Figure31—Discussing and Demonstrating DEL with Peter Bauman, Ep. 38, 2025 Art in Review with thefunnyguys, Conrad House & Peter Bauman

Chapters 📖:

00:00 What was the AI Psychosis Summit?

05:04 Which projects used AI at the Summit?

11:30 Why take no public stance on AI?

16:58 Is cottagecore a rejection of AI?

25:08 Is art about social context or process?

28:03 What does AI psychosis mean?

36:36 How did a joke tweet start the Summit?

38:23 Is New York art over?

46:50 What makes the Shake app scene tech?

53:07 What's next for the Summit?

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

In this special video episode, host Peter Bauman (Monk Antony, 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

Also in this episode: Rafaël Rozendaal, Artforum

Read next: Rafaël Rozendaal on a Liquid Canvas

Listen next: Ep. 45, AI Psychosis Summit—Macy Gettles, quasimatt and Kevin Esherick with Peter Bauman, Ep. 30, Parker Ito—Understanding the World through Images with Peter Bauman

Chapters 📖

00:00 Introduction

01:00 What drew Figure31 to Ethereum?

03:00 Why does evolving art need a blockchain?

05:28 What is the inner space of a contract?

09:36 How does DEL depart from Travelers?

15:17 Can on-chain art be repaired later?

18:20 Why did DEL take two years?

22:05 What is a body for the Ethereum network?

25:51 What does the main collection show?

28:56 What lies behind the ASCII characters?

30:39 Is every viewing of DEL the original?

34:33 Why expose a machine's inner workings?

40:08 Should owners be able to retune it?

44:55 Why build a custom site for every work?

50:58 Does AI make technical skill irrelevant?

56:00 Closing Thoughts

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 (Monk Antony, 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

Also in this episode: Josh Kline, Édouard Glissant, Linda Dounia, Rhea Myers, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), MIT, Avery Singer, Ken Knowlton, Sarah Friend, Travess Smalley

Read next: Reprogramming Sensory Habits, Wendi Yan & Karyn Nakamura on the Artifice of Knowledge

Listen next: Ep. 18, Digital Curators Series 02—Regina Harsanyi & Jon Ippolito on Preserving the Digital, Ep. 25, Recapping Digital Art in 2Q 2025

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

02:16 Why does Frieze Week matter?

07:18 Seven on Seven or MoMI on Saturday?

08:50 Why containment for Seven on Seven?

13:09 Can interpretability become art?

16:17 Can a blockchain be an art material?

18:36 What is Edgar Fabián Frías's Nierika?

20:15 What are Travess Smalley's Pixel Rugs?

23:50 Who is the artist, who the engineer?

35:18 Why refuse sponsors' technology?

38:25 Does high rent cause bad art?

42:08 What is the right to opacity?

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 (Monk Antony, 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!)

Also in this episode: OpenAI, Sam Altman

Read next: Living Aesthetics: A Grammar of Protocol Art and Worldbuilding, Trevor Paglen on Technological Points of View

Listen next: Ep. 38, 2025 Art in Review with thefunnyguys, Conrad House & Peter Bauman, Ep. 43, New York Frieze Week—Michael Connor, Regina Harsanyi & Karyn Nakamura with Peter Bauman

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

01:37 Where do their practices meet protocols?

02:47 Why does Hans Haacke matter to Paglen?

04:55 Who counts as a protocol artist?

08:11 What happens when a model prompts you?

10:20 How does Plantoid reproduce itself?

13:32 Why show protocol art at the Biennale?

17:41 Why is protocol art going mainstream?

20:55 Is AI today's photography moment?

23:33 Which algorithms are people afraid of?

26:34 Why run open source models locally?

30:03 Why avoid the word consciousness?

33:39 What is a symbiont?

39:03 What is it like to be a bot?

42:32 Does protocol art make copying moot?

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

In this podcast episode, host Peter Bauman (Monk Antony, 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

Also in this episode: James Bridle, Gene Kogan, Hito Steyerl

Read next: Hito Steyerl on How It Uses Us

Listen next: Ep. 36, Stephanie Dinkins—AI, Memory & Survival with Peter Bauman, Ep. 39, Lawrence Lek—World Entry Points with Peter Bauman

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

01:59 Why is our idea of intelligence biased?

08:01 Boosterism or doomerism?

15:08 Can agentic AI be ecologically smart?

20:05 What can citizens' assemblies teach?

24:35 Are symbionts a third way with AI?

29:53 What actually changes us?

36:14 What are AI's three real effects?

40:58 How do art and ethics meet at Glitch?

45:08 Can mountains and machines be conscious?

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 (Monk Antony, 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.

Also in this episode: Kayvon Tehranian, Sebastian Sanchez, NODE, Mike Winkelmann (Beeple), Becky Kleiner, Micky Malka, MoMA, Tyler Hobbs, XCOPY

Read next: Micky Malka & Becky Kleiner on the Birth of NODE, NODE's 10,000: Fast Art, Slow Looking

Listen next: Ep. 27, Reviewing Digital Art in 3Q 2025, Ep. 38, 2025 Art in Review with thefunnyguys, Conrad House & Peter Bauman

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

01:38 Isolated incidents or symptoms?

09:50 What's the business model problem?

14:11 Speculation or art collecting?

19:11 Why are auction houses pulling away?

25:43 What role do institutions play?

30:54 What endures of the anti-establishment?

35:58 Why is physical display a problem?

38:38 Will rooted practices endure?

43:53 How close was it to sustainable?

48:00 Are leaner models 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 (Monk Antony, 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

Also in this episode: Luba Elliott, Ian Cheng, Karl Sims, Sarah Friend

Read next: Lawrence Lek on AI Reinventing Place

Listen next: Ep. 41, James Bridle—Questioning Machine Intelligence with Peter Bauman, Ep. 31, Ian Goodfellow on Inventing GANs with Peter Bauman (Deep Learning Series 02)

On the Living Timeline: Lawrence Lek Wins 2024 Artist Award at Frieze London (2024)

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

07:04 Can AI have nonhuman agency and rights?

13:37 Can AI interiority be repaired?

19:56 Who is to blame in Empty Rider?

27:33 Who is the crash test dummy?

32:09 Why resist empathy for machines?

38:23 Are simulations stories or lifeforms?

44:19 What counts as a world?

53:21 Where are immersive worlds heading?

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 (Monk Antony, Le Random's editor in chief) is joined by thefunnyguys (Le Random CEO) and Conrad House (Nemo Cake, former Collection Lead at Le Random) 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"

Also in this episode: Raster, Evil Biscuit, Copper Giloth, Art Basel, Gene Kogan, Ian Goodfellow, Kim Asendorf, Matt DesLauriers, Zach Lieberman, Jan Robert Leegte

Listen next: Ep. 27, Reviewing Digital Art in 3Q 2025, Ep. 25, Recapping Digital Art in 2Q 2025

Chapters 📖:

00:00 Introduction

01:27 Is digital art institutionalizing?

04:21 Why do NFTs fade in crypto, rise in art?

07:10 Capitulation or institutional growth?

09:51 How do S&P, ETH, BTC and XTZ compare?

13:28 What brings collectors back?

23:06 What's new at fairs like Art Basel?

25:58 Where are Art Blocks and fxhash going?

30:06 Why were worlds 2025's big idea?

42:05 Is AI art finally maturing?

44:21 What was Le Random's focus this year?

49:28 Why Friday pods and more agility?

50:54 What were the best group shows?

58:54 Can Claude and Gemini be group art?

1:07:52 What were the best solo works?

1:17:44 Who were the artists of the year?

1:27:21 What should we look for in 2026?

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

In this special episode, host Peter Bauman (Monk Antony, 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

Also in this episode: Christiane Paul, Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst, Philip Galanter, Sasha Stiles, Simon Denny, Sol LeWitt

Listen next: Ep. 44, Figure31—Discussing and Demonstrating DEL with Peter Bauman, Ep. 22, Protocol Art & Blockchain Formalism—Mitchell F Chan, Ania Catherine, Dejha Ti, matto & maltefr

Chapters: 📖

00:00 Introduction

09:59 How did earlier projects lead here?

17:00 Why remove ecosystems from the market?

21:58 Why do blockchains matter here?

26:01 Is it repeatable? Where does AI fit?

28:59 Are corporations slow AIs?

32:02 Who can speak for rivers and forests?

38:02 What are the roots of protocol art?

40:59 How do artists build worlds?

48:58 What are Guattari's Three Ecologies?