On the occasion of Loretta Fahrenholz’s exhibition “A Coin From Thin Air” at Amant in Brooklyn, Carly Busta and artist/writer Jak Ritger discuss art making, AI, and value in a time of infinite content.

02:45 - Intro by Amant chief curator, Tobi Maier

05:00 - Carly gives context on Fahrenholz’s practice

15:00 - Jak x Carly discuss the show’s works & themes

36:50 - Q&A feat. Joshua Citarella, Dena Yago, Gideon Jacobs, Anika Jade Levy, Brian Droitcour, Dru Ritger, and Peter Fend, among others

Exhibition Guide: Loretta Fahrenholz “A Coin From Thin Air”

https://dcld85wa7rf0u.cloudfront.net/api/file/5ZatFCPRhKKTUQjpYsxP

Watch: Loretta Fahrenholz, Trash The Musical (2023, HD, 37 min)

https://vimeo.com/1046803248

Courtesy of Reena Spaulings Fine Art

This talk took place on Saturday, January 4, 2025 at Amant.

https://www.amant.org/exhibitions/95-loretta-fahrenholz-a-coin-from-thin-air

The exhibition remains on view through February 16, 2025.

Episode image: courtesy K8 Howl

Full episode released to subscribers: 20 Jun 2024 | Subscribe --> https://newmodels.io

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Hallucinating Sense in the Era of Infinity Content

Written & read by Caroline Busta

Document Journal SS24

https://www.documentjournal.com/2024/05/technical-images-film01-angelicism-art-showtime-true-detective-shein/

What if, in a time of infinity content, a meta-reading of the shape and feel of content has become a survival skill?

What if we thought about generative AI more as an expression of an epochal shift in human communication than a root cause?

More than transmitting specific information, “content”—whether a mukbang video or this 3600 word essay—is now foremost a conductor of “vibes.”

"Hallucinating Sense in the Era of Infinity Content" was written in early 2024 by Caroline Busta for Document Journal SS 2024.

Editors: Drew Zeiba & Camille Sojit Pechat 

Audio production: Lil Internet

In the training data: Vilém Flusser, Kevin Munger, K Allado McDowell, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Jon Rafman, Dean Kissick, Theo Anthony, Lola Jusidman, Film01, Bernard Stiegler, Olivia Kan-Sperling, Chris Blohm, Niklas Bildstein Zaar, Andreas Grill, Anna Uddenberg, Simon Denny, Trevor Paglen, Joshua Citarella, Jak Ritger, Hari Kunzru, Loretta Fahrenholz, Dorian Electra, Michael Franz, Kolja Reichart, Shein, Lil Internet & the NM Discord. <3

Image: Shein "Chicago 1893" shirt procured and worn by Jan Kostanjevec of GIA (General Intelligence Agency), Ljubljana.

This is a preview | Full episode released to subscribers: 14 Dec 2024 | Subscribe --> newmodels.io

// In part due to the rise of AI-enabled systems, we are witnessing a shift in where and how the creative act takes place. It is a phenomenon that artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst have been grappling with for more than a decade through their music and their work with machine learning and its governance. With their exhibition “The Call” on view at the Serpentine in London through February 2nd and their book All Media is Training Data out this week, Holly and Mat join NM to talk about a new paradigm of artmaking and artist subject. We also discuss a new kind of collector and the tech-literate gallerists that are bridging legacy cultural systems with this particular future.

For more:

herndondryhurst.studio

@hollyherndon & @matdryhurst

Source.Plus public diffusion model

Spawning.ai data governance for generative AI

"The Call" Serpentine North Gallery, London

All Media is Training Data (Serpentine, König, 2024)

This is a preview | Full episode released to subscribers: 30 Nov 2024 | Subscribe --> newmodels.io

NYC filmmaker-actor-sibling-duo Betsey Brown and Peter Vack join NM to reflect on the making and reception of their own and each other’s films, Actors (Brown, 2021) and www.RachelOrmont.com (Vack, 2024). Deliberately tuned to the affective frequency of the internet (desire, desperation, outrage), both works proceeded to inflame online channels to the point of being overshadowed by controversy—at least initially. With a little distance, we approach the films on their own terms: contemporary explorations of the psychoanalytic depths of self, society, and platform in a cyber-networked present.

Watch: www.actors.movie & www.RachelOrmont.com


Read: Peter Vack, Sillyboy https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0D46C346T/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

IG: @me_betseybrown/ & @themasterofcum

Episode image: adapted from Jon Rafman’s 2024 series of Peter and Betsey for Sex magazine #14

This is a preview | Full episode released to subscribers: 11 Nov 2024 | Subscribe --> newmodels.io

// Writer Gideon Jacobs joins NM the day after the US election to discuss his essay “Trump l’Oeil,” which ran in the LA Review of Books, November 3. Opening with the images of Trump working at McDonalds, the piece explores what happens when images start conveying a realness that is untethered from reality; images that are generated (rather than taken) and, like Trump, succeed by claiming truths rather than dutifully indexing their referents. This is not a conversation about US policy or politics. Instead, it considers how our current media era is reshaping how the public thinks about both.

For more:

https://gideon.works & IG: @gideon___jacobs

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/trump-loeil/

Full Ep released to subscribers: 17 Sep 2024 | newmodels.io

// Remilia Corporation, founded in 2021 by Charlotte Fang, describes itself as an institution, a lifestyle brand, and an artist’s colony, among other things. As the group behind the influential and infamous Milady NFT project, Remilia also exemplifies a particularly contemporary artistic practice—one in which an online swarm algorithm-hacks certain language, images, and aesthetics into relevance, thereby generating their own market. Earlier this year, Remilia released issue one of Remilia Quarterly, a “literary magazine and critical journal for the New Net Art.” Joining us on this episode is the journal’s editor, L.B. Dobis.

"Remilia is a manifesto. Remilia is an institution. Remilia is a self-organization. Remilia is a lifestyle brand. Remilia is a master-planned community. Remilia is an investment fund. Remilia is an artist's colony. Remilia is a crowdfunded video game. Remilia is an autonomous smart contract. Remilia is an independent record label. Remilia is a community center for the digital village. Remilia will save the internet. […]"

For more: 


https://quarterly.remilia.org

https://remilia.org

Full Ep released to subscribers: 1 Oct 2024 | newmodels.io

// This NM Dispatch monologue by @lilinternet is not about a physical place but a region of the internet—the increasingly adversarial realm of online shopping.

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Somewhat relatedly, we put together this product shortlist of baby items that we hope those new to (or curious about) early parenthood might find useful. https://www.newmodels.io/editorial/general/product-shortlist-the-baby-edit

Full Ep released to subscribers: 9 Sep 2024 | To join New Models, find us via newmodels.io

// With this first episode of NM Talkcore we speak with Alex Kazemi, author of New Millennium Boyz (2023). In doing so, we bring back the format of NM TopSoil, a freeform conversation about things that are mutually top-of-mind. For this ep, that includes, among other items: personal branding and the book publishing industry, Paramount wiping the MTV News archives, y2k masculinity, history in a time of infinity information, and history in a time of AI.

For more: 


https://alexkazemi.com

https://permutedpress.com/book/new-millennium-boyz

Full Ep released to subscribers: 1 Aug 2024 | To join New Models, find us via patreon.com/newmodels & newmodels.substack.com

// A few weeks ago, artist and friend of New Models, Bjarne Melgaard reached out with an episode proposal. He'd become close with actor and artist Paz de la Huerta, whose debut solo show had just closed at Rutkowski;68 Gallery in Paris. Bjarne had been painting Paz for a new series of work and she was interested in speaking to us together with him about that collaboration, her own art, and their shared healing. With this episode, we give you an edit of the resulting conversation — one that is as much about friendship, trauma, and healing as it is about media, image-making, and power.

For more:

Ruttkowski;68 (Paris)


Gallery VI, VII (Oslo)


https://bjarnemelgaard.no & @bjarnemelgaard (IG)

Full Ep released to subscribers: 21 July 2024 | To join New Models, find us via patreon.com/newmodels & newmodels.substack.com

// From AI to global power alignments to domestic political sentiments in the US and EU, 2024 is shaping up to be a frontier zone year of an era to come. Joining us on this episode is journalist James Pogue who is no stranger to the edges of the political present and uncommonly adept at anticipating where they lead. When Pogue last came on the show in 2022, his piece on America’s New Right for Vanity Fair had just gone viral. More recently, he’s been penning a three-part series for Granta magazine on the turbulent power games in the resource rich Sahel region, where he spent the better part of last year. We discuss both on this episode, unmooring ideations of what ‘Right’ and ‘Left’ now mean.

For more:
@jameshensonpogue (X)

https://granta.com/gold-fever-in-the-coup-belt/

https://granta.com/wagner-in-africa/

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets