The Cluster F Theory Podcast

Hello!We're going to take a break for a little while. In this episode, we discuss what the past 7 months have been like for us and what kinds of topics we'd like to cover in our next season.If you have only recently found us, we'd love it if you'd go back to the beginning and listen to earlier episodes. Also, feel free to share the podcast and subscribe to our Substack in order to be emailed with new episodes. Also, rate it and review it or whatever it is you're supposed to do with podcasts. I don’t know…The discussions we've mentioned in this episode are: 6.⁠ ⁠Ritual- Andy Nyman https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/6-ritual-andy-nyman2. Foreplay|Endgame - Joseph Koerner https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/2-foreplayendgame-joseph-koerner13. Parafiction - Carrie Lambert-Beatty https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/13-parafiction-carrie-lambert-beatty23. FGM - Nimco Ali https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/23-fgm-nimco-ali17. Buffering - Tom McCarthy https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/17-buffering-tom-mccarthy14. Scenes - Adam Thirlwell https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/14-scenes-adam-thirlwell3.⁠ ⁠War Games - Annabel Daou https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/3-war-games-annabel-daou25. The Emotional Aftermath of War Reporting - David Chater https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/25-the-emotional-aftermath-of-war7.⁠ ⁠Negotiating the Long Term - Catherine Ashton https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/7-negotiating-the-long-term-catherine12. Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/12-invisible-women-caroline-criado31. AI - Nick Rhodes https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/31-ai-nick-rhodes11. Contingency- Hanneke van Laarhoven https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/11-contingency-hanneke-van-laarhoven36. Hypochondria - Caroline Crampton https://theclusterftheory.substack.com/p/36-hypochondria-caroline-cramptonThank you so much to Julian Mayers from Yada Yada for editing everything. And a big thank you to DC Turner for the theme tune and the logo.See you all soon!Gia and Tim This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Caroline Crampton is a writer and a podcaster. She is the creator and host of the award-winning detective fiction podcast Shedunnit. She curates articles as editor-in-chief of The Browser, and she writes reviews and essays for publications like Time, Literary Hub and the Guardian. She writes non-fiction books about the world and how we live in it. Here most recent book A Body Made of Glass was serialised as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, chosen by the Guardian as a literary highlight of 2024 and was one of Nature's 'top reads for summer.'Caroline Crampton: https://www.carolinecrampton.com/Caroline's newsletter: https://www.carolinecrampton.com/newslettersignup/Shedunnit: https://shedunnitshow.com/The Browser: https://thebrowser.com/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Pete Etchells is a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University. He researches the behavioural and wellbeing effects of playing video games, as well as metascientific issues regarding best practice in digital technology effects research. He’s written articles for various publications including New Scientist, the Guardian, the Observer, the New York Times, WIRED and the Telegraph. His most recent book, UNLOCKED, investigates the science behind our relationship with digital technology.Pete Etchells' personal website: https://www.peteetchells.com/Faculty page: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/peter-etchells/Twitter/X page: https://x.com/peteetchellsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/peteetchells/Articles at The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pete-etchells This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Architect and theorist Jimenez Lai was born in Taiwan, grew up in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. He holds the Robert Gwathmey chair at Cooper Union, and is the director of architecture agency Bureau Spectacular. Before establishing Bureau Spectacular, Lai lived in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier Van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Lai's first book, Citizens of No Place: An Architectural Graphic Novel, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Lai has won various awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects, the Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale, and the Designer of the Future at Art Basel. Lai represented Taiwan at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale. Lai's work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, SFMOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, and LACMA.Jimenez Lai's Instagram (look at his great hair!) https://www.instagram.com/0super/Bureau Spectacular https://bureau-spectacular.net/Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimenez_Lai This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE sits as a crossbench peer in the UK’s House of Lords.She is an advisor to the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, a Commissioner on the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, an expert advisor for the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, and Founder and Chair of 5Rights Foundation. Before taking up her seat in the House of Lords in 2012, Baroness Kidron spent 30 years as a film maker. Her credits include, the BAFTA award-winning 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit', 'Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason' and 'To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar'.She also co-founded the education charity Into Film, which currently engages with over two thirds of schools in the UK offering a wide programme of film clubs, cinema screenings, and resources and training to support classroom teaching. Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE's personal site: https://beeban.com/Baroness Kidron's Parliamentary page: https://members.parliament.uk/member/4258/career5 Rights Foundation: https://5rightsfoundation.com/Into Film: https://www.intofilm.org/Beeban Kidron's IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0452319/Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeban_KidronThe Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Kathy Lette is the author of 17 novels, THE woman about town in London and one of the pioneering voices of contemporary feminism. She is well known for her one-liners, wise cracks and witticism and is as close to being the 21st century's Dorothy Parker as anyone else I know.She wrote her first book, Puberty Blues, when she was 17. The book addresses the sexism in teenage culture in 1970s Australia. Her most recent book, Revenge Club, addresses the sexism older women face and has been called 'erotic fan fiction for the peri-menopausal'. Kathy was educated in the school of life and says the only examination she's ever passed is her cervical smear test.Kathy's Official Site: https://www.kathylette.com/ Links to purchase Kathy's books: https://www.kathylette.com/my-books/Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_LetteKathy's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathy.lette/Kathy's X/Twitter: https://x.com/KathyLetteThe Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Nick Rhodes is a composer, producer and founding member and keyboardist in Duran Duran. Apart from his work with Duran Duran, he's had several side projects with Arcadia, The Devils and TV Mania and has collaborated with various artists, including Blondie, Mark Ronson and the Dandy Warhols. He's a keen photographer and art collector. Nick's wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_RhodesDuran Duran's 'Invisible' video made by AI:Duran Duran's official site: https://duranduran.com/Duran Duran's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duranduran/Duran Duran's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Pb3fztIUVLCisYZgygcjgThe Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

The artist and thinker Brenda L Croft is from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples from the Victorian River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, and Anglo-Australian/German/Irish/Chinese heritage. She has been a key participant in the Australian First Nations and broader contemporary arts and cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner—artist, arts administrator, consultant, curator, educator and researcher—since the mid-1980s. Brenda is a Professor of Indigenous Art History and Curatorship, Australian National University. In 2023—2024 Brenda is Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.Australian National University faculty page: https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/brenda-croftORCID page: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4913-6238Harvard page: https://afvs.fas.harvard.edu/people/brenda-croftAustralian National Portrait Gallery: https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/brenda-l-croft-1964Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_L_CroftBrenda’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brendalcroft/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/.Thanks for reading The Cluster F Theory Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support the podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Note: This interview was recorded before the most recent General Election in the UK.Professor Tamsin Edwards is a climate scientist specialising in quantifying the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly for the ice sheet and glacier contributions to sea level rise. She was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report published in 2021.Tamsin regularly provides expert advice on climate science to the public, policymakers, media and businesses, and is currently the first Parliamentary Thematic Research Lead for Climate & Environment, advising the UK Parliament on research evidence to better inform scrutiny, legislation and debate. She is an award-winning communicator and co-presents the BBC Radio 4 series “39 Ways to Save the Planet”.Tamsin's faculty page: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/tamsin-edwardsTamsin's wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamsin_EdwardsAll Models Are Wrong: https://allmodels.plos.org/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Peter Saville is an English art director and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of Factory Records in 1978 and designed many record sleeves for their bands including Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' and New Order's 'Power Corruption and Lies'. Outside of Factory he did work for artists such as Roxy Music, Wham!, OMD, Ultravox, Peter Gabriel, Suede and Pulp. He's worked with various fashion houses including Christian Dior, Stella McCartney and Calvin Klein. He was the Creative Director of the City of Manchester, designed the England football team home shirt and in 2020 was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to design.Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Saville_(graphic_designer)Work For Sale: https://www.paulstolper.com/artists/28-peter-saville/works/Fan site: https://petersaville.info/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Caroline A. Jones is Professor in the History, Theory, and Criticism section, Department of Architecture, MIT. She studies modern and contemporary art, focusing on its technological modes of production, distribution, and reception, and on its interface with science. She has also worked as a curator, including three exhibitions at MIT's List Visual Arts Center: Hans Haaken, Video Trajectories, and Sensorium. Her exhibitions and/or films have been shown at NY MoMA, SF MoMA, the Hirshhorn DC, and the Hara Museum Tokyo, among other venues. Publications include Machine in the Studio (1996/98), Picturing Science, Producing Art (co-editor, 1998), Sensorium (editor2006), Eyesight Alone (2005/08), Experience (co-editor, 2016) and The Global Work of Art(2016).Caroline is currently working on the most important and radically original project on Symbiontics. Caroline's faculty page: https://architecture.mit.edu/people/caroline-jonesMore on Symbiontics: https://brooklynrail.org/2020/07/criticspage/Symbiontics-a-view-of-present-conditions-from-a-place-of-entanglementhttps://listart.mit.edu/exhibitions/symbionts-contemporary-artists-biospherehttps://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544481/symbionts/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Sarah Ditum is a journalist for The Sunday Times and has also written for The Guardian, New Statesman, Grazia and UnHerd. She writes columns and features about politics, culture and lifestyle including topics such as violence against women, gender identity and cancel culture. Her book Toxic: Women, Fame and The Noughties, about misogyny in celebrity culture during the 2000s, was published in 2023 and it was announced in spring '24 that one of the book's subjects, Paris Hilton, acquired the option rights in order to turn it into a documentary series.Sarah's Substack 'Tox Report': https://substack.com/@sarahditumSarah’s book 'Toxic' at Hachette: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/sarah-ditum/toxic/9780349727134/Sarah's articles at The Times: https://www.thetimes.com/profile/sarah-ditumSarah's articles at The Critic https://thecritic.co.uk/author/sarah-ditum/Sarah's articles at Unherd https://unherd.com/author/sarah-ditum/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada: https://www.yada-yada.net/Thank you for reading and listening to The Cluster F Theory Podcast. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

David Chater is an award-winning British broadcast journalist who has worked in international television news for over 40 years. He has reported for Independent Television News, Sky News and Al Jazeera English from pretty much every conflict you can think of. He's reported on the Falklands War, the Yugoslavian Homeland Wars, the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War, the Sri Lankan civil war, the war in Afghanistan, the second Chechen War. He's been in the middle of a Scud missile attack, a grad rocket attack was in the middle of Operation Shock and Awe in Baghdad and was shot in the back by a sniper which required life-saving surgery. He has stepped away from international conflicts and is enjoying his new life as an olive farmer.David reporting live on Sky News on April 9th 2003 as US troops occupied Baghdad as part of in invasion of Iraq: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada: https://www.yada-yada.net/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Jason Farago is a critic at large for the New York Times, writing about culture and its place in the wider world.His writing has taken him from wartime Kyiv to the Olympic stadiums of Tokyo to dance parties in Johannesburg. He also is the co-creator of Close Read, a criticism series that delves into a single cultural work, detail by detail. Before joining the Times, he served as a US art critic for The Guardian and was a regular contributor to publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, the BBC, Art Forum, and many others.In 2017 he was named one of the inaugural laureates of the Rabkin Prize for arts writing. In 2022 he was awarded one of the inaugural Silvers-Dudley Prizes for criticism and journalism. And in 2023 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for criticism.Jason was born in New York and holds degrees in art history from Yale University and the Courtauld Institute of Art.NYT page: https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-faragoX: https://x.com/jsfInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonfarago/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada: https://www.yada-yada.net/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Nimco Ali OBE is co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation, a global partnership to end female genital mutilation. Nimco is an activist, author and a survivor of FGM. Her tireless work has put FGM front and centre in the feminist campaign to end violence against women and girls. Nimco was awarded an OBE for her trailblazing activism in 2019. In the past 10 years, Nimco was awarded Red Magazine’s Woman of the Year award, placed at No 6 on the Woman’s Hour Power List, named by The Sunday Times as one of Debrett’s 500 most influential people in Britain, as well as one of the Evening Standard’s Most Influential People in London and was placed at number 5 on the BBC’s 100 most inspiring Women in the world list.Nimco’s debate book, What We’re Told Not To Talk About But We’re Going To Anyway, was published by Penguin in June 2019.The Five Foundation https://thefivefoundation.org/Nimco's Twitter/X https://x.com/NimkoAliWikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimco_AliThe Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada: https://www.yada-yada.net/. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Vid Simoniti is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Art at the University of Liverpool, where he also directs the MA in Art, Philosophy and Cultural Institutions. Before joining the department at Liverpool in 2018, he was the inaugural Jeffrey Rubinoff Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, the University of Cambridge. Vid's academic work bridges philosophy, political thoughts and arts criticism. He's interested in how art can bring about social and political change and his most recent book Artists Remake the World offers his answer to that question. And as the title suggests, it's both a hopeful and an ambitious one. Vid has an exciting public profile. He has been the BBC New Generation thinker, presented radio shows, and he has hosted the Art Against the World podcast, a collaboration with the Liverpool Biennial. https://www.vidsimoniti.com/Art Against The World podcast: https://liverpoolbiennial2021.com/programme/art-against-the-world/Faculty page: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/vid-simoniti/The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada https://www.yada-yada.net/.You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.If you enjoy the podcast, it’d be great if you could rate or review it ore reccommend it to your friends! Thanks!Thank you for listening to The Cluster F Theory Podcast. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

David Joselit is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Art, Film at Harvard and the department's current chair. He previously held the chair in Art History at Yale and was a curator at the ICA in Boston. He's one of the editors of leading art and theory journal, October. David is one of the most important, if not the single most important, theorist, critic and historian of 20th century and contemporary art and the cultures and concerns that produce and consume it. David is the author of several books including American Art Since 1945, Feedback: Television Against Democracy, After Art and Heritage and Depth: Art and Globalization, which was awarded the 2021 Robert Motherwell Book Award. His most recent is Art's Properties published in 2023.David Joselit's faculty page: https://afvs.fas.harvard.edu/people/david-joselitWikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Joselit This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Thank you for listening to The Cluster F Theory. If you don’t already subscribe at Substack, please sign up on our page in order to receive an email when new episodes are released. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it or review it wherever you listen and share it with your friends. Thank you!Tracy King is a writer, producer and consultant based in both Birmingham and London. She has written for publications such as the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The New European. Alongside her writing, she has produced various animations including Tim Minchin's Storm and was the producer and organiser of the charity science and critical thinking conference TAM London. She is currently involved in a campaign to save Birmingham's libraries from closure an her spare time Tracy does stand-up comedy, makes miniature furniture, and plays Minecraft.Her brilliant memoir, Learning To Think, has been published this year.Tracy's website: https://www.tracyking.co.uk/Tracy's author page at Penguin Books: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/245465/tracy-kingAn extract from Tracy's memoir Time To Think ("I always believed my funny, kind father was killed by a murderous teenage gang. Three decades on, I discovered the truth", The Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/24/funny-kind-father-murderous-teenage-gang-three-decades-on-i-discovered-the-truthThe Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Thank you for listening to The Cluster F Theory. If you don’t already subscribe at Substack, please sign up on our page in order to receive an email when new episodes are released. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it or review it wherever you listen and share it with your friends. Thank you!Anna Kornbluh is a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where she founded InterCcECT, the Inter Chicago Circle for Experimental Critical Theory. Her research and teaching interests center on the novel, film and cultural aesthetics in theoretical perspective, including formalist, Marxist and psychoanalytic approaches. She is the author of Immediacy or The Style of Too Late Capitalism; The Order of Forms, Realism, Formalism, and Social Space; Marxist Film Theory and Fight Club; and Realizing Capital, Financial and Psychic Economies in Victorian Form. Her essays have appeared in various publication such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, Diacritics, Public Books and Differences. Anna is also an active community organizer. She's a co-founder of Humanities Works, an initiative to debunk myths about the dire prospects of Humanities graduates, and is an active member of the UIC United Faculty bargaining team. Anna Kornbluh: http://www.annakornbluh.comAnna Kornblum's faculty page: https://engl.uic.edu/profiles/kornbluh-anna/InterCcECT: http://interccect.com/Humanities Works: http://humanitiesworks.org/UIC Faculty: https://uicunitedfaculty.org/---------The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com

Richard Wiseman holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, and has published over 100 academic papers examining the psychology of magic and illusion, deception, luck and self-development. He has written several popular psychology books (including The Luck Factor and 59 Seconds) that have been published around the world.Richard has also created psychology-based YouTube videos that have attracted over 800 million views, he is one of the most followed psychologists on social media, and the Independent On Sunday chose him as one of the top 100 people who make Britain a better place to live. He is a member of the Inner Magic Circle, and acts as a creative consultant on several stage and television projects, including work with Derren Brown.The first season of his On Your Mind Podcast reached No.1 in Apple Podcast’s Science charts, and in 2023 Richard was given the Royal Society’s prestigious David Attenborough Award for his research and public engagement activities.https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wiseman---------The Cluster F Theory Podcast is edited by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada.You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theclusterftheory.substack.com