Art of Interference

In this first episode of Art of Interference, we speak with Vietnamese visual artist Thao Nguyen Phan about her video installation Becoming Alluvium. The work centers on a parable on dew and the human follies of controlling nature. It first showed in 2021 and New York Times critic Holland Cotter called it “a beauty.”

In this episode, we talk about:

• Phan’s career-long preoccupation with the Mekong River,
• the role of artists in contemporary conversations about climate change,
• and how the effects of technological interventions change people's relation to the water.

We also hear from :

• climate scientist Steve Goodbred about the shifting waterways in Southeast Asia and the effects of rising oceans levels on the Mekong Delta, and from
• literary scholar Ben Tran about the extent to which Phan's art can serve as a model to live amid the climate emergencies of our present.

Co-Hosts: Emma Reimers and Lutz Koepnick

For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

“Wind, wind, wind. If you repeat the word wind often enough, then it will blow by itself.” These are the poetic words of this episode’s featured artist, Theo Jansen, who has spent the last three decades creating and evolving his strandbeests—massive PVC creatures that walk down the Dutch coast powered by the wind alone. Wind propels sail boats, kites, turbines, and strandbeests alike, all with invisibility. Join us as we explore how climate change is actually changing winds, discuss on-shore and off-shore wind farming, and dive into the complexities of making wind art.

For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

In this week’s episode, the Art of Interference team explores the magic and allure of snow as a creative medium. We speak with international snow artist Simon Beck, whose large-scale snow-shoe drawings transform winter landscapes into geometric wonders. Environmental scientist George Duffy helps us to break down the science of snow and the various threats posed to snowy climes in an age of global warming. We reflect on the cultural impact of snow’s disappearance in Arctic regions and on the relationship between the plurality of snow as an atmospheric phenomenon and the vocabulary used to describe it. Most of all, we consider how snow’s capacity to transform the environment into a blank slate inspires all sorts of creative responses—it’s an ecological relationship that stirs our deepest memories of childhood play and instincts toward imaginative world-building.

For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

Our fourth episode takes a look under the hood of what we understand as interference. We feature the work of German artist and experimental musician Carsten Nicolai to discuss analogies between water and sound, acoustical and aquatic waves. We hear from Hawaiian scholar and surfer Karin Amimoto Ingersoll about the art of attuning one’s body to the waves of the ocean and communicating with the elements. And we survey Western ideas of freedom and key experiments in modern physics to propose a new concept of interference, of acting and being acted upon, that reflects our world of human-made climate emergencies—a concept for which artists such as Nicolai provide intriguing models.
This episode is co-hosted by Emma Reimers and Lutz Koepnick.

For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

Join us for Art of Interference’s second episode, which takes a closer look at the fascinating phenomenon of fog. In this episode, we delve into the work of Fujiko Nakaya, a Japanese artist whose unique fog sculptures have been exhibited around the world. In this episode, we talk about:

• The ephemeral and evocative nature of fog,
• Nakaya’s unique fog sculpture exhibit at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany,
• and how fog can teach us how to see the world in new ways.

We also hear from

• Art curators Sara Theurer and Andrea Lissoni about their experience exhibiting Nakaya’s work,
• and atmospheric scientist Ralf Bennartz on what fog is and how it transforms the way we see the world.

For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/