Explore every episode of the podcast Poetic Sadness

In this episode, Asia Bazdyrieva meets artist and writer Anna Engelhardt. Their conversation begins with the two of them looking back at their search for articulation, and their increasing inability to speak. They then focus on Anna's recent film, Terror Element, whose semi-fictional protagonist—a young woman who works as a forensic investigator—explores the production of an atmosphere of weaponised fear in late-1990s Russia. Through this specific case, they draw a connection between the current geopolitical moment (including the Russian war of annihilation on Ukraine) and many unexamined histories of the recent past. The key threads that unfold throughout the episode are: questions of sense-making in the age of paranoia and information warfare, questions of agency, complicity, and voice.

Author and host: Asia Bazdyrieva; Sound: Antuum; Art direction: Nella Rieken.

In the forthcoming episode, Asia Bazdyrieva speaks with research-based video artist and writer Anna Engelhardt. While their conversation focuses primarily on Anna's recent film, Terror Element, they also explore broader historical and geopolitical contexts spanning three decades. This teaser highlights several of the key threads that unfold throughout the episode: questions of sense-making in an age of paranoia and information warfare, agency and complicity, and the search for one's own voice.

Author and host: Asia Bazdyrieva; Sound: Antuum; Art direction: Nella Rieken.

In this episode, Asia Bazdyrieva meets philosopher of computation M. Beatrice Fazi to discuss the role and function of abstraction as a kind of activity that produces worlds. Referencing Fazi’s articles and books, including Contingent Computation: Abstraction, Experience, and Indeterminacy in Computational Aesthetics and Digital Theory, they talk about the politics and poetics of theorizing, the distinction between digital and analogue, computational aesthetics, synthesis, and digital butterflies.

M. Beatrice Fazi is a Professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Sussex. She was a fellow at the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures, where Asia Bazdyrieva is a scholar in media theory. The episode was recorded on December 17th, 2025 at ÆSR — Applied/Experimental Sound Research Lab at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Sound: Antuum. Art direction: Nella Rieken.