Machines in Between

Who are you and who are we in this age of mechanical reproduction? In Episode 4: Binary Spirituality, co-hosts John and Libby get down to business as they ask big questions and entertain small conspiracies. Libby presses John about their sponsor Infinity 88 and its elusive CEO Kelvin Trinsel while John reveals disturbing new facts about the Rosary 1653. Featuring segments from Susannah Crockford, Cory McAbee, Amber Mann, Dennis Herbert, Jeremy Seedorf, and the Nielsen Family Band, episode 4 culminates in the world premiere of “Stan,” an old-time radio drama produced and performed by the Infinity 88 Players. Based on real people and true events, “Stan” revolves around electric shock therapy, the Michigan Institute of Psychosynthesis, and the promise of becoming yourself for the first time. Come listen to how the drama unfolds and the cultural critique flows. For up is down and you are me and we are thee in this topsy-turvy ride through the loops we make and the loops that are made from us. Public humanities never sounded so good.

In Episode 3: Push Button People, hosts John and Libby Modern consider the scene of Lancaster, PA and reflect upon their encounter with the Amish encounter with machines. Who are we in this push button age? Honing in on the devices of domestic bliss and the algorithms of religious tradition, this episode features segments on the trade in raw milk between Amish farmers and Orthodox Jews (Rachel Feldman), breast pump telepathy (Emily Ogden), the thinghood of dishwashers (Annette Aronowicz), the war on dandelions (Lancaster Conservancy), push button parasites (Kerry Mitchell), mechanized intimacies (Tomas Matza and Nicole Heller), and the comforts of big brother (Nielsen Family Band). Composed of original music, lo-fi beats, and cutting edge scholarship, Machines in Between is sponsored by Infinity 88. Public humanities never sounded so good.

Episode 2 revolves around a question of what do you love when you love your machine? Joined by an all-star cast of musicians and collaborators, hosts John and Libby Modern explore the mechanics and metaphysics of technophilia in these viral times. All manner of machines are held up for loving appreciation: Beautiful glitches and block chain deities. Social media embraces and the tingling textures of 16mm film. Fountain pens and the future of civilization. A child’s imagination of the iPad. The whip of the wind and its measurement. Insulin pumps. Automatic transmissions and cassette tapes that defy logic and entropy both. So put on your headphones on and you will hear a lush array of samples, original beats, and immersive stories that address our frenzied infatuations and our nostalgia, our anxieties and our standing awestruck, and whether machines can ever truly love themselves. With appearances from Mark Taylor, Judith Weisenfeld, Elizabeth Wilson, Hillary Kaell, Sylvia Alajaji, Nathan Schneider, Tim Ingold, Maeva Kroll, and Holly Andrew, each episode of Machines in Between beta tests a new application of the Rosary 1653, an experimental sonic-emotional-spiritual technology provided by series sponsor Infinity 88. 

Side two of our first mixtape. As an example of headphone<>spirituality™ it will initiate sonic pleasure and intellectual well-being.

Side one of our first mixtape. As an example of headphone<>spirituality™ it will initiate sonic pleasure and intellectual well-being. 

In the first episode of this off-kilter variety show, the listener is treated to a lush array of samples, original beats, and eclectic stories that take up the question of what is happening now. What is to be done as we grow entangled with machines, their pleasures, their economies, and their conditions of possibility? Smart devices. Sex toys. Robot intimacies. Kitchen appliances. Religious technics. Urban cyborgs. And machines that rust and wound and bleed into the ground. In Saturation hosts John and Libby Modern invite world-renowned philosophers, historians, and musicians to consider how machines reveal something about who we are and who we imagine ourselves to be. With appearances from Joan Scott, William Robert, Maia Kotrosits, Cory McAbee, and Ahmad Greene-Hayes, the premier episode of Machines in Between is also the first public demonstration of the Rosary 1653,  a new sonic-emotional-spiritual technology provided by series sponsor Infinity 88. 

Located in Lancaster, PA, THE VINYL CHURCH is an interactive installation where visitors can bear witness to the machines in between. The Vinyl Church is a sacred space of saturation. Walls covered with records chosen for their insistence upon another world; chosen for their intensities, desperate demands, and surplus of feeling; chosen for their longing, for their standing awestruck and bent harmonies. Portals to the other worlds of heaven, UFOs, and talking spirits, of chakras and healing energies. You are invited to select the album that speaks to you and to place it on the turntable altar. When the needle sets into the groove you will hear, see, and experience the spirit of our technological surround. 

Welcome to Machines in Between. This is a little preview of what is to come. 

The first (of eleven episodes) drops on November 5th. With over a 100 collaborators from around the world, you will soon experience psychic and sonic disturbances that will shake you to your foundations. You will transcend the obstacles. You will encounter the between. You will transgress all that came before. And you will become yourself for the first time.

Funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and Franklin & Marshall College's Center for Sustained Engagement with Lancaster, Machines in Between is the first audio series to have been given access to Infinity 88’s patented techniques of headphone spirituality. Every sample is an argument. Every beat is a new theory of the universe.