Shows
Art of InterferenceEarth 3: SoilSoil is the foundation of life, but how often do we recognize it as such? On this episode of the Art of Interference, we speak with visual artist Allie Horick about her soil quilts—works that stitch together earth from family burial sites across Tennessee to tell a story of dispersed legacy and delicate connection. We also talk with regenerative farmer Maxwell Patterson and Vanderbilt professor Chris Vanags about the science of soil and the benefits of climate-smart agriculture. Whether used as a medium for art or growing, soil ecosystems show how variety, interconnectedness, and reciprocity sustain dynamic forms of...
2025-12-2347 minArt of InterferenceEarth 2: WoodIn this episode of Art of Interference, we explore the medium of wood as a means of rethinking traditional ideas of human and nonhuman being amid a world of planetary emergencies. “People are really more like wood than we might think,” carpenter, artist, and scientist Seri Robinson insists in our conversation. Wood is influenced by the weather, by climate change, and by its proximate environments—and we, as humans have much to learn from it. And in our interview with artist Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, we discuss wood as an element that is deeply connected to memory, ritual, and spirituality. It is muc...
2025-12-0346 minArt of InterferenceEarth 1: LithiumLithium plays a key role in the green energy transition. Its extraction, however, comes at considerable costs for the environment and for local communities, particularly in the so-called lithium triangle in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. In this episode, we speak with artist and curator Guely Morató Loredo and her collaborator, sound artist Victor Mazón Gardoqui, about two projects that engage with the mining of lithium in South America today, its devastating impact on Indigenous people and sacred sites, and its connection to much older histories of colonial extraction. We also hear from social anthropologist Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz about the ri...
2025-08-2848 minArt of InterferenceSpecial Edition 3 | Connecting the DotsDiné artist and photographer Will Wilson has been photographing hundreds of abandoned uranium mines and remediation site on the Navajo Nation over the last few years. In this episode, we speak with Will about this project, called “Connecting the Dots for a Just Transition,” and the power of photography to reveal and remediate environmental injustice. We also hear from Leah Lowe, the director of Vanderbilt University’s Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, which exhibited Will’s work in fall 2024 as part of an ongoing initiative exploring the role of “eco-grief” in the arts.For more informat...
2024-12-0648 minArt of InterferenceAir 10: In the AirIn this final episode of season 2, we talk with dancer and dance scholar Mariama Diagne about the art of “heavy hovering”—the ability of modern ballet and dance to teach us a different way of moving and being on Earth. We discuss efforts to relocate human life to other planets to escape the effects of climate change, the beauty of meeting the challenges of terrestrial gravity, the environmental legacy of Pina Bausch’s dance theater, and the transformative qualities of West-African dance practices. And since this is our last episode for this year, AoI's five team members also take a pause...
2024-11-0256 minArt of InterferenceAir 9: SmokeSmoke is a beautiful—yet sometimes strange, or even terrifying—phenomenon. In today’s episode, we explore how the mysterious qualities of smoke open up possibilities for exploration and better understanding of human relationships with the earth and air. First, we get to know the multi-colored, pyrotechnic smoke sculptures of esteemed artist Judy Chicago, who began producing these works in the late 1960s as a response to the male-centric land art movement. Then, we hear from Bill Fox, the Director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno; he has worked extensively with Chicag...
2024-10-1750 minArt of InterferenceAir 8: Wind“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 informati...
2024-09-1345 minArt of InterferenceAir 7: OxygenOur air and atmosphere require 21% oxygen to sustain life as we know it. Human-induced climate change has put this ratio under pressure. In this episode of Art of Interference, we feature Santiago Sierra’s work 52 Canvases and Ted Chiang’s short story Exhalation as two recent interventions that draw our attention to the precarity of the air around us. We talk with curator Meredith Malone about the strange beauty of Sierra's toxic images and we discuss what can be learned from marine mammals about the future of oxygen on our planet.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2024-08-1656 minArt of InterferenceAir 6: Air ConditioningTemperature regulation has become a deeply political issue in our boiling world. In this episode, we speak with London-based artist Susan Schuppli about her work on the violence of temperature and the inequities of climate control, and with architectural historian Joseph Siry about the role of air conditioning in twentieth- and twenty-first century building design. We ask what it takes to claim universal rights for livable temperatures and how contemporary art can help recalibrate existing ideas about comfort and convenience.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2024-07-2349 minArt of InterferenceAir 5: Smog“I am working very hard, although this morning... I was terrified to see that there was no fog, not even a wisp of mist: I was prostrate, and could see all my paintings done for, but gradually the fires were lit and the smoke and haze came back.” When Monet wrote this in a letter to his wife in 1900, the term “smog” had not yet been coined. But the artist was certainly describing the eerie beauty of polluted fog. In today’s episode, Tori and Emma speak with artist Kim Abeles about her Smog Collectors series and talk to atmospheri...
2024-07-0658 minArt of InterferenceAir 4: Carbon DioxideIn this episode, we turn our attention to the carbon footprint of the contemporary art world. What can galleries and museums do to reduce their CO2 emissions? How do curators and museum directors rethink their exhibition and conversation practices to reduce their institutions’ environmental footprint. Our guests are Amanda Hellman, the director of Vanderbilt University’s Museum of Art, and Mark Scala, the chief curator of the Frist Art Museum in Nashville. We discuss how climate considerations shape their respective approaches to preserving and exhibiting art and how we can’t separate conversations about decarbonization from ongoing efforts to decolo...
2024-06-1355 minArt of InterferenceAir 3: CloudsIn this episode of Art of Interference, we turn our attention to the larger-than-life cloud creations of Tomás Saraceno, an artist who creates cities in the clouds and flyable cloud sculptures as a way of imagining more ecological futures. We also hear from media philosopher John Durham Peters whose book The Marvelous Clouds revolutionizes the way we think about humans, nature, and art. Finally, we learn from a cloud scientist, Andrea Salazar, about the importance of cloud feedback systems on a warming planet. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2024-06-0352 minArt of InterferenceAir 2: BreathIn this episode, we talk with Grammy-award winning fluteplayer Molly Barth about the relation of breath, contemporary flute music, and climate change. We also hear from pulmonologist Dr. Priya Balakrishnan about the impact of increased air pollution on the work of our lungs. And we explore the connections between good breathing and good listening, and how extractivist economies tend to suffocate both. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2024-05-1548 minArt of InterferenceAir 1: EtherIn this first episode of our second season, we speak with three artists and scientists who reach out beyond the atmosphere of our planet in distress: astrophotographer Gerhard Huedepohl, photography historian Katerina Korola, and astrophysicist Erika Grundstrom. Dedicated to the idea of marvelous transparency and luminosity, they remind us to be better stewards of our air on Earth.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2024-05-0249 minArt of InterferenceSpecial Edition 2 | Holding Impact: Art, Science, and the Tasks of Contemporary MuseumsAmie Esslinger’s site-specific installation Holding Impact is currently on display in Cohen Memorial Hall on the campus of Vanderbilt University. In this program we hear from Amie and from Amanda Hellman, the director of Vanderbilt’s Art Gallery, about Amie’s artistic process, the probing questions Amie’s work asks about the relation of contemporary art and advanced science, the unique opportunities afforded to university art museums to incite research and curiosity, and the pleasures second graders bring to art venues. __________________AoI Special Editions present thought-provoking conversations about the arts as transformative media of inquiry...
2024-03-0142 minArt of InterferenceSpecial Edition 1 | Reverberations: Ancient Rock Art TodayThis special edition of Art of Interference explores echoes between ancient rock and cave art and our contemporary moment. We feature the work of photographer Stephen Alvarez and visual artist Dustin Mater and discuss the role of non-profit organizations such as the Ancient Art Archive in preserving and educating the public about the oldest art on our planet. Steven and Dustin will join host Lutz Koepnick for this conversation, as will Steph Welsh, the Executive Director to the Ancient Art Archive, and Leah Lowe, Professor of Theater at Vanderbilt University, and the Director of the Curb Director. __________________
2023-09-2843 minArt of InterferenceWater 10: Water ProtectorsIn the final installment of Art of Interference’s first season, we feature a contemplative conversation with Cannupa Hanska Luger, an artist of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota heritage, who speaks with us about the practice of water protection. We also hear from curator Patricia Norby, who recently organized the Water Memories exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as Winona LaDuke and Autumn Peltier, two activists whose work revolves around protecting the sacred relationship between humans and water. After nine episodes of thinking through water and its many forms, this episode examines how Native artists and ac...
2023-09-1653 minArt of InterferenceWater 9: Rain“Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon,” wrote poet Edward Thomas in the trenches of the first World War. Today’s episode deals with two different sorts of grief: climate grief, as inspired by composer Jamie Perera’s Anthropocene in C Major, and pandemic grief, which he tackled in his follow-up project, Sonification. Today’s episode explores how we might utilize grief productively to make change, and considers the importance of interrogating what it means to consider ourselves the antagonists in a climate change narrative. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2023-09-0148 minArt of InterferenceWater 8: SnowIn 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...
2023-08-1043 minArt of InterferenceWater 7: Ice“If one looks at a glacier long enough,” the Icelandic author Halldor Laxness once wrote, “words cease to have any meaning on this earth.” In this episode of Art of Interference, we put Laxness’s observation to the test. We meet Montreal-based artist Jessica Houston and climate scientist Bruno Tremblay to discuss Letter to the Future, a 1,000-year project collaborating with the ice in Antarctica to invite reflections about our planet’s past, present, and future. We speak about the project’s ambitions, the pleasures and challenges of working in the arctic region, and what art—and words—can do to address the...
2023-07-2741 minArt of InterferenceWater 6: OceansFor this episode musicologist Joy Calico joins Lutz Koepnick as co-host to discuss contemporary projects dedicated to the planet’s oceans in distress. We speak with Juliana Snapper and her collaborator Andrew Infanti about their unique opera,You Who Will Emerge from the Flood. A soprano who combines radical vocal techniques and improvisation, Snapper’s underwater performances not only push the operatic medium to its extreme limits but ask tough questions about the role of music and art in face of our planetary crises. We also hear from media scholar and ocean humanist Melody Jue about what she calls our...
2023-07-1351 minArt of InterferenceWater 5: RiversIn this episode, we delve into the fascinating world of rivers as we talk to artist Carolina Caycedo, whose work contemplates human and river relationships by breaking down boundaries between activism and artmaking. Additionally, we discuss the destructive effects of damming with geomorphologist Frank Magilligan (Dartmouth), before further discussing Caycedo’s works with curator Carla Acevedo-Yates and art historian Lisa Blackmore.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/
2023-06-2944 minArt of InterferenceWater 4: WavesOur 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 cl...
2023-06-1542 minArt of InterferenceWater 3: FloodsThis third episode of Art of Interference features artist Eve Mosher whose project High Water Line reflects on the ever-more common experience of living in flood-prone areas. In our conversation, we talk about:the importance of engaging communities in complex climate issues,understanding storm predictions,and the importance of the imagination in facing the perils of present and future.We also hear about:a team of researchers at Vanderbilt University building complex models to research urban floodings caused by climate change,and the role of floods in different mythologies and what we can possibly still learn...
2023-06-0154 minArt of InterferenceWater 2: FogJoin 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 t...
2023-05-1638 minArt of InterferenceWater 1: DewIn 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...
2023-05-0344 min