Barbara London: Today my guest is the software-savvy artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen. Born 1987, now based in Berlin, Jakob grew up in Denmark. His mother was an educational sociologist and his father was an engineer. A tinkerer since childhood, Jakob’s interest in technology developed after he hacked a video game called Unreal, using Level Editor to do so. He still works with this same tool, which is now known as Unreal Engine. Jakob, thank you so much for joining me.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen: Thank you, Barbara. It’s always a pleasure to be speaking with you and hear your thoughts.

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Barbara London: Welcome to Barbara London Calling 2.0. I’m your host, Barbara London. In 1974, I founded the Video Media Program at the Museum of Modern Art, where I was a curator for 40 years. Last year, I published Video Art: The First 50 Years, the first in-depth history of video art.

Today, with technology as ubiquitous and as fluid as water, I’m interested in how artists adopt technology to their own artistic language and vision. In Season 2 of Barbara London Calling, I’m speaking with 12 artists from all over the world, each challenging the entrenched definitions of what art is and what it can be. These 12 artists and I will explore the role of technology in contemporary art today and where it might take us tomorrow.

Today, I’m speaking with Auriea Harvey, a boundary-breaking artist born 1971 in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1989, Auriea moved to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design, where she received her BFA in sculpture. Before long, she began creating Internet art, video games, work in extended reality, and recently she moved on to NFTs. Auriea is now based in Rome, where she is calling from today. Auriea, welcome to Barbara London Calling 2.0.

Auriea Harvey: 

Hello, Barbara. Great to be here.

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In each of the first 12 episodes of “Barbara London Calling,” I spoke with artists working at the forefront of technology and creativity. But today, for the 13th and final episode of Season 1, I’m speaking with a curator who is helping to build a space and platform for those artists to continue their exploration.

Today I’m joined by Chrissie Iles, the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. As a leading authority on contemporary art and the moving image, Chrissie has curated important exhibitions, including “Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art, 1964-1977” and “Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905-2016.”

Chrissie, I’ve been trying to remember when we first met—I believe it was while you were Head of Exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England. We’ve been wonderful colleagues and friends ever since. Thanks so much for joining me, and welcome to the season finale of “Barbara London Calling.”

Chrissie Iles: Barbara, thank you very much for having me on your podcast. It’s a real honor, and a real pleasure to be talking together. 

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Today, I’m calling Didem Pekün, a Turkish–British artist, born 1978 and now based in Berlin. Didem’s lyrical video installations interrogate different ideas of identity, displacement and statelessness.  

Didem, thanks for joining me.  

Didem Pekün:  Barbara, thanks so much for having me. Such a pleasure. Thank  you.

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Today, I’m calling Marina Rosenfeld, a Brooklyn-based composer and sound and visual artist. In 1993, Marina orchestrated a performance artwork called Sheer Frost Orchestra. It was scored for seventeen women each playing an electric guitar using nothing but bottles of nail polish. Sitting in a line, the women were directed to play their guitars in a series of choreographed actions: drop, hop, drone, scratch and “A” for anything.

Marina received a degree in music from Harvard and an MFA in fine arts and music from CalArts. She’s currently an artist in residence at Nokia Bell Labs, where she found inspiration in an experimental prototype for a multi-microphone, nicknamed the Deathstar. Marina, welcome to “Barbara London Calling.” Thank you for joining me.

Marina Rosenfeld: I’m pleased to be here. Thank you for having me.

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Today I’m calling Bani Haykal. Born in 1985 and based in Singapore, Bani Haykal straddles the world of language, art and music. As a media artist and teacher, he picks apart the nuances in our technology-fueled lives. In Singapore, he grew up listening to American rap music, eventually finding his way to avant-garde multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton, architect and composer Iannis Xenakis, and electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram. Bani’s interactive installation sifrmu version 5 is featured in “Seeing Sound,” a new exhibition I curated for Independent Curators International. The piece acts as an encrypted translation device, allowing users to explore the power of commonalities across different languages—but also the deeper power of incongruencies across those same languages.

Welcome, Bani. Thank you for joining today from Singapore.

Bani Haykal: Hi, Barbara. Thank you for having me. It’s good to be on the show. I’m really appreciative of being able to come on board and speak to you and speak to a wider audience as well.

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Today I’m calling Jonathas de Andrade. Born in 1982, Jonathas lives in Recife, on the northeastern coast of Brazil, where he works across video and photography with an interest in how language can render truths as well as untruths, and how that same language can liberate or marginalize its subjects.

Jonathas, thank you so much for joining me.

Jonathas de Andrade: Hey, Barbara. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the invitation.

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