Feat. artist and social theorist JOSHUA CITARELLA who has been exploring how deep online spaces have evolved over the past few years, shaping popular politics in turn — especially among younger people. Last fall when we spoke to Joshua (ep. 6), he had just published a long-form piece on Politigram and the Post-Left. In this ep, we talk to him about his most recent essay, “Irony Politics & Gen Z” (published on New Models this spring), discussing the funnel of online radicalization and what tactics the left needs to consider for more effective off-ramping.

Feat. theorist and philosopher BENJAMIN H. BRATTON, this episode offers a high-gear, macroscopic mapping of Earth and its systems circa 2019 — incl. how notions of “the artificial” and “intelligence” differ across cultures; hemispheric zones of citizenship and exclusion in the age of AR; and a view of human consciousness as a geological phenomenon, a layer through which Earth’s planetary system is coming to know itself. Plus much, much more. Bratton, whose work spans philosophy, art, design, and computer science, is currently preparing (alongside 5 other books) a much anticipated follow up to his 2016 volume The Stack: On Software ...

New Models speaks with MAT DRYHURST & KEI KREUTLER, two figures central to Berlin’s diverse crypto scene, to unpack the possible impact of Facebook’s Libra coin (provided it succeeds). From the Bitcoin villages of Switzerland to Libra as an arm of US foreign policy, this episode takes the coin’s tagline at face value asking, _were_ everyone to be invited the the global economy… what would that look like, how would that actually be achieved, and what would the fall out be?

Founders of nonfood, Lucy Chinen & Sean Raspet discuss contemporary food supply chains and sustainable food futures, including the R&D of their own algae-based nonbar. Along the way, we address: monocultures, fear, skeuomorphic flavor, cellular agriculture, and the real cost of “all-natural.” (w/ Caroline Busta, Daniel Keller, @LILINTERNET)

Featuring TREVOR McFEDRIES, co-founder of Brud, the LA-based transmedia studio behind a crew of digital-native influencer-avatars, including Lil Miquela, Blawko, and Bermuda. Also known as Yung Skeeter or DJ Skeet Skeet, Trevor came up via the music world, producing, directing, and DJ-ing for Katy Perry and other A-list acts. On this episode, we talk to Trevor about the fantasy of contemporary LA and marketing’s ability to shape public consciousness in a highly polarized public sphere.

Featuring LA-based musician and scholar TOM KRELL (aka @howtodresswell) who talks with us about the aesthetics of climate activism, the roll of the critic today, music as carrier signal for identity, the threshold for authenticity, the value of negativity, extraction and power — let’s just say it’s a rich and sweeping conversation that offers tools for thinking through some of the big questions of our day and insight into the mind behind one of the past year’s best albums “The Anteroom” (@dominorecordco).

Featuring New York-based writer NATASHA STAGG who, on the occasion of her new book “Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019” (Semiotext(e)/Native Agents), speaks to us about the myths and metadata of NYC’s culture sector and the protocol for creative production in the 2010s. (w/ Caroline Busta, Daniel Keller, @LILINTERNET)

Featuring Washington D.C.-based writer/editor MIKE CRUMPLAR, whose work focuses on radicalization in America and the systemic drivers of incel culture. This January, Mike published the first segment of a project that looks at the autobiographical writings of Isla Vista spree shooter Elliot Rodger. His Framework takes Elliot not as author, but as subject—a protagonist trapped in his own novel as an unwitting byproduct of American late-capitalism.

ALEX KAZEMI is an online trickster and magick-practicing provocateur. When this episode was pre-released to our Discord community in February, it fomented vidid debate among the hard materialists, gnostic scholars, and woo-woo sympathizers. On this episode, we talk Super Super magazine, new sefirots, and Marilyn Manson’s God complex, all to ask: Can magick be a framework for today’s attention economy? Alex Kazemi’s book “Pop Magick” was published in February by Permuted Press, with an introduction by Rose McGowan.

Berkeley-based writer and co-host of the wildly popular anti-corruption podcast TrueAnon, LIZ FRANCZAK joins New Models for a cathartic reflection on pandemic politics and the pros, cons, and probability of popular revolt. This conversation was recorded March 25th.

Writer, consultant, and Ribbon Farm founder VENKATESH RAO speaks with New Models about memetics & institutions, virality & democracy, Log Level thinking, BIOS Level politics, and how to navigate reality in a time when we’re all NPCs in a world going “brrrrrrrrr.” ⛓️This conversation was recorded April 7th, 2020.

Writer and theorist NORA KHAN speaks with New Models about how institutional power reifies itself online, COVID aesthetics, and the labor pressures of distance working/socializing/learning via platforms such as Zoom. Nora is the author, most recently, of Seeing, Naming, Knowing (Brooklyn Rail Press, 2019) on mass surveillance and ‘machine visual culture.’