22. Janky (w/ Daniel Felstead and Jenn Leung)

Update: 2024-11-25

Description

Two of our discourse besties from UAL's Fashion Media Practice & Criticism -- experiential designers Daniel Felstead and Jenn Leung -- join us to talk Janky Capitalism (the obvious falling-apart weirdness of the world while capital spins off farther and farther away from it, leaving us behind), Roblox, and neural media.

You probably know their work from the iconic 'The Metaverse in Janky Capitalism' on Dis and its associated 'Literally No Place' and 'Always on My Mind' -- or from associated speaking / discourse production all over the internet (++ more on Jenn (link) and Daniel (link)).

References from the pod include:

Ruba Al-Sweel's awesome piece for SQD: 'Sandbox Semiotics' referenced in the intro.
Jenn references artworld queen Anna Uddenberg (e.g. 'Continental Breakfast'), Harvard's GSD's Guide to Shopping, and Ian Bogost (whose critique of anthropomorphism in video games we really relate to).
Daniel references Sam Cummins from Nymphet Alumni, a favorite podcast that everyone should already know and spend all their time listening to.
Daniel references Catherine Malabou's concept of plasticity (throughout her work, typically referencing neuroscientific plasticisty, here used in its more generalized form).
The second half of the episode spends some time with the theory of K. Allado-McDowell, specifically the concept of neural media. We could not recommend this episode of our other favorite podcast (New Models) more strongly.
Roberto mentions Zachary Horton's 'Cosmic Zoom', which is our obsession atm.

Ok enjoyyyy byee!