The tenth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read three texts about maintenance and art. We look at ‘What It's Like to Live With Art That Doesn't Love You Back’, a 2017 magazine article by M.H Miller, Ben Lerner’s 2016 piece for the New Yorker about the Whitney museum’s conservation team, ‘The Custodians’, and Helena Reckitt’s, article about feminist art and maintenance ‘Forgotten Relations: Feminist Artists and Relational Aesthetics’ from 2013.

Download PDFs from www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub

The ninth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read two texts that help us get to grips with developments in Brazilian art and sculpture in the mid-20th Century. First we look at Ferreira Gullar’s foundational Neoconcretist text ‘Theory of the Non-Object’ from 1959, with the help of Michael Asbury who embeds it within his essay, ‘Neoconcretism And Minimalism: On Ferreira Gullar’s Theory Of The Non-Object’ from the book Cosmopolitan Modernisms from 2005. Then, we take a closer look at the career of a famous Brazilian Neoconcretist, Lygia Clark, by reading Suely Rolnik’s essay ‘Molding a Contemporary Soul: The Empty-Full of Lygia Clark’ from 1999.

Download PDFs of the texts from www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub

Asbury, Michael. ‘Neoconcretism And Minimalism: On Ferreira Gullar’s Theory Of The Non-Object’. In Cosmopolitan Modernisms, 168–89. Annotating Art’s Histories. London: Iniva, 2005.

Rolnik, Suely. ‘Molding a Contemporary Soul: The Empty-Full of Lygia Clark’. In The Experimental Exercise of Freedom: Lygia Clark, Gego, Mathias Goeritz, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel, edited by Rina Carvajal and Alma Ruiz. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999.

Matt speaks to artist and academic Emma Bennett about theatre, talking to the audience and ASMR.

https://people.ucd.ie/emma.bennett

Matt talks to the performance artist Cian Donnelly about character, voice and ‘Belfast Music’.

Me and Ross Jardine talk about Ed Atkins' poem 'Old Food' in its book form, and as a performance by the British actor Toby Jones.

Radio broadcast for rummur radio, Bergen, 2021. Join Radio Anti as they play white noise tracks and talk about the commercial, affective, and attentive qualities of noise

Matt talks to Sophie Lewis about translating two books by the French writer Noémi Lefebvre. They cover the practical aspects of translating, literary tone, and what happens when you try and use an English colloquialism for an American publisher.

You can buy both the books we spoke about, Blue Self Portrait and Poetics of Work, from Les fugitives in the UK - https://www.lesfugitives.com/authors#/noemi-lefebvre/

And through their website you can read some of Sophie’s writing on translation as well - https://www.lesfugitives.com/authors#/sophie-lewis/

Matt speaks to the artist Dina Kelberman about her 2019 film ‘The Goal is to Live’.

The feature length film is made entirely of clips from the Canadian TV series ‘How It’s Made’, and we discuss the process of making the film, including the soundtrack made by musicians Rod Hamilton & Tiffany Seal. We also geek out about ‘How It’s Made’ more generally, and talk about its relationship to the capitalist production processes it purports to explain.

Dina’s website with a trailer for the film - http://dinakelberman.com/#thegoalistolive

Manufactured Landscapes by Jennifer Baichwal -https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/projects/films/manufactured-landscapes

Rod Hamilton & Tiffany Seal - https://soundcloud.com/rod_and_tiffany

Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy3W-3HPMWg

Workers Leaving the Factory (1995) - Harun Farocki - https://vimeo.com/59338090

Images of the World and the Inscription of War, Harun Farocki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjOl8TY8GkU

Workers Leaving the Googleplex by Andrew Norman Wilson - http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/WorkersGoogleplex.html

Matt, Andrea and Ross discuss the final episode of Adam Curtis’ TV series ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’.

We’re in a park! Together! In the sun! We sum up - talking about what we’ve learned about Adam Curtis, and ourselves.

References

Atlantic story about the data historian Peter Turchin - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/

Time of the Gods a film by Lutz Dammbeck - https://www.kanopy.com/product/time-gods

Matt, Andrea and Oscar discuss episode Five of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’.

References:

John Akomfrah in conversation - https://www.lissongallery.com/studio/john-akomfrah-tina-campt-saidiya-hartman

C Thi Ngueyn - The Seductions of Clarity - https://philpapers.org/rec/NGUTSO-2

Maryam Tafakory's video essay Irani Bag - https://watch.eventive.org/monographs/play/6021b3a8555932006e2111b0

Riar Rizaldi Ghosts Like Us - http://rizaldiriar.com/ghostus.html

Black Power: a British Story of Resistance - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tj50#credits

Matt, Andrea, Oscar and Ross discuss episode four of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’.

We talk about scripts, the active vs passive voice, and the problem with making individuals the bearers of history.

Just one reference today - Schneider TM & Kptmichigan, The Light 3000 (Smiths cover) - https://youtu.be/vodnI38cNI0

The third episode! Ross is back, and he hasn’t watched it, so me, Andrea and Oscar try and summarise it for him. Also includes a good story by Ross about catching a mouse.

Woman captures dramatic video driving through flames while fleeing Woolsey Fire in Malibu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR0RQ8Gx6I0

Watching The Pain of Others - https://vimeo.com/298425068

Desktop Documentaries Tutorial with Kevin B. Lee - https://vimeo.com/500495238

The eighth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read a few texts about sculpture and pedagogy. We look at Elena Crippa's essay about how Anthony Caro brought the group crit over from New York and used it to change the Central Saint Martin's sculpture course. We discuss the impact that had on British art schools from the 60s onwards. We also look at David Harding's writing on his time as the course leader for Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art from 1985-2001, which though explicitly was not a medium specific sculpture course, seems to reflect a lot of the issues that we have been speaking about in other episodes through the lens of trying to do something different with art education.

Visit www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub to download PDFs of all the texts we read for today’s episode.

Matt, Andrea and Oscar discuss episode two of Adam Curtis’ new series ‘I Can’t Get You Out of my Head’.

We talk about the limits of the BBC archive, and the history of the Black Panthers that Curtis never quite gets into.

Links to the stuff we mention in this episode are below.

Muub Tube with Ralph Pritchard and Owen - https://muubtube.podbean.com/

Community Development as Micropolitics by Akwugo Emejulu (publisher’s site) - https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/community-development-as-micropolitics

Errol Morris and Adam Curtis conversation (full text) - https://www.errolmorris.com/content/interview/believer0406.html

Matt is joined by Ross, Andrea and her son Oscar to discuss the first episode of Adam Curtis’s new TV series ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’. We talk about post truth, Curtis’s claim that what he does is journalism, and the affective or emotional tone of Curtis’s films.

Below is a list of links to things mentioned in the episode

Tribune Article about Adam Curtis - https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/02/in-defence-of-adam-curtis

New Yorker interview with Curtis - https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/adam-curtis-explains-it-all

NXIVM documentary ‘The Vow’ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vow_(TV_series)

The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay - https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781890951894/the-civil-contract-of-photography

Lutz Dammbeck - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0198892/

Matt speaks to Ralph Pritchard, artist filmmaker, about his ‘Films from the Quar’ series, including his latest films Approval, Flinching and Crushing.

We talk about his work, OCD and uncertainty. And I tell Ralph about a dream I had.

You can watch Approval, Flinching and Crushing at this link - https://ralphpritchard.co.uk/Quarantine-films-S2-only - and see more of Ralph’s work at his website - https://ralphpritchard.co.uk/

Matt, Hamish and Sophie have a catch up about lockdown, money, art and fatbergs.

In March and April 2020 Hamish MacPherson used social media to ask, “Are you having sexual or sensual intimacy with people who are distant from you during the COVID-19 lockdowns?” People replied anonymously and Hamish asked friends and acquaintances to record themselves reading these texts out. Then Matt turned them into this podcast. It contains some sexual references.

Words: anonymous. Voices: Adam Wilson Holmes, AF, Angela Andrew, Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot, Beth Bramich, Carolin Meyer, Conor James, Elizabeth Rochester, Emilia Robinson, Francisco Zhan, Genevieve Costello, Gillie Kleiman, Gregory Hari, GS, Hannah Bellil, HMTIDT4U, Joshua Jayraj, Maria Sideri, May, Michael Whitby, Molly Chapman, Molly Martian, Nina Sever, Paul Hughes, Peter Jacobs, Ralph Pritchard, Sean Alayo, Tamara Tomic-Vajagic.

Music/editing: Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau

You can buy a book of the texts with original photographs from stilllifemag.org with profits going to Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement and Covid-19 Prisoner Emergency Fund.

Matt speaks to the writer Lars Iyer about his latest book, Nietzsche and the Burbs. They also talk about method, music and what time Lars wakes up in the morning.

Matt speaks to the music producer M.J Harding about bangers, intensity, addiction, shame and the voice between speaking and singing.

Matt speaks to the artist Joey Holder about conspiracies, getting caught in the crossfire of artworld controversy, and the time a clownfish squared up to her.

Matt speaks to the artist Richard Whitby about conspiracies, Virginia Woolf and the post-cinematic, and his newest film ‘The Lost Ones’.

Matt talks to the artist Kate Liston about affects, stances, performance and CrossFit.

The seventh of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea read a selection of texts to get to grips with the work of Park McArthur. We read a 2015 essay from Afterall by Andrew Blackley called ‘Geometry, Material, Scale’, an interview with McArthur from Bomb magazine, one McArthur’s own texts about care, and, in order to make sense of McCarthur’s conceptual art inheritence, we read the 2010 preface to an edition of Lucy Lippards book, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. We talk about sculpture in relation to care, the meaning of the art object when an artwork also has a conceptual and critical component, and what it means to think about the positionality of the artist, without reducing art to an expression of identity.

Visit www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub to download PDFs of all the texts we read for today’s episode.

Matt talks to artist Ben Jeans Houghton about two of his film works. ‘2ndlife’ (2018), made on a residency in Japan, and a new work in progress, ‘Screaming Bird Singing Dawn Rainbow Mountain’, made at Hongti Arts Centre, Busan, an international collaboration made possible by BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and supported by Arts Council England and Arts Council Korea.

You can watch Ben’s film ‘2ndlife’ at the below link.
https://vimeo.com/253318990
Password: please_take_a_stone

Matt speaks to curator Anne Duffau about her peripatetic project A-Z, sci-fi and the power of parties.

The third and last conversation with Andrea Francke. This time we talk about Eve Sedgewick’s writing on paranoia and reparative reading. We talk conspiracy, strong theory, universalism and black feminism.

The second conversation with Andrea Francke. This time we talk about The Idiot, a novel by Elif Bautman, and from that, we talk about female subjectivity in fiction, mumblecore, and privilege.

The first of three podcasts with Andrea Francke where we read different texts and use them to talk about Andrea’s research and interests. For this conversation we both read some Chinese sci-fi (the book is called Invisible Planets) and then talked about care, AI, robots and subjecthood. (You don’t need to have read the stories to enjoy this I promise.)

The Gleaning is the second in a series of events and artistic responses to James Richard’s Wales in Venice representation at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

For ‘The Gleaning’, the artists Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau and Sophie Mallett present a series of stories and short audio essays highlighting different kinds of gleaning. They explore gleaning as a historical right to subsist on common land, as a creative practice of selection, as mimicry and stealing, and examine examples of gleaning by machines and animals.

Beth Bramich talks to the artist Chloe Cooper about her work with Jenny Moore and Phoebe Davies as Bedfellows, a research project about sex re-education, performing an Internal Scratch at Battersea Arts Centre, sex education at the British Museum, sex positivity, activism and consent.

Matt talks to Revital and Tuur about their film ‘Trapped in the Dream of the Other’, filmed in a coltan mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A performance with sampled sound about the Grenfell Tower fire, resentment and cruelty. Originally given as a performance at ICA London and CCA Derry-Londonderry as part of The Bad Vibes Club’s ‘Feeling Bad’ events in summer 2017. I use ideas and words from Jean Franco’s book Cruel Modernity, Achille Mbembe’s essay Necropolitics and Marina Warner’s essay Back from the Underworld: The Liveliness of the Dead.

Matt speaks to Sarah about collaboration, dithering and her internet doppelgänger

The sixth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about entropy in relation to sculpture. We look at two texts. One is Robert Smithson’s 1966 essay, ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’, and the other is a 2015 publication on the work of Beverly Buchanan from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, edited by Park McArthur and Jennifer Burris Staton. We talk about entropy, ruins, major and minor approaches to work, and the relationship between wider culture and formal developments in art.

Below are the texts we looked at for this podcast. You can download them from dekersaint.com/badvibesclub

Smithson, Robert. ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’. Artforum, 1966.

McArthur, Park, and Jennifer Staton, eds. Beverly Buchanan: 1978 - 1981. Mexico City: Athénée Press, 2015.

Matt speaks to artist John Walter about jesters, Alien Sex Clubs and Shonkyness.

Beth Bramich speaks to artist Jonathan Hoskins about gentrification, politics and his recently published book ‘OWN DE BEAUVOIR!’

The Bad Vibes Cloud hosts an episode of Seven Oh Nine, a podcast of stories, poems and improvisations made collaboratively by Robert Bidder and Siân Robinson Davies.

Matt talks to the artist Beth Collar about the dark ages, gruesome death, and trapped wind.

A guided meditation on bitterness, mediocrity and inertness. A chance to journey through past aggravation you can’t forget, and future revenge that never seems to arrive.

The Bad Vibes Club welcomes new co-host Beth Bramich as she speaks to the artist Sophie Mallett about radio, collaboration and nationalism.

Matt talks to the artist Erica Scourti about art, twitter bots and self care.

An audio essay about philosophy, with sampled music. First given at the ICA as part of ‘Realisms and Object Orientations: Art, Politics and the Philosophy of Tristan Garcia’, 2014.

Radio Anti present a mixtape of entropic words and music.

Matt talks to Joe Fletcher Orr and Sam Venables – artists and curators from Merseyside, about art, class, family and work.

The fifth of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture with Andrea Francke. In this episode we talk about the artist Barbara McCullough’s film, ‘Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes’ from 1981. The film takes the form of a series of interviews with Black American artists about their relationship to ritual. We focus on the sections with the sculptors David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Betye Saar. We also look at an essay by gallerist Linda Goode-Bryant and art historian Marcy S. Philips called, ‘Contextures’ from 1978 that talks about the work of a related group of artists, including Hammons, Nengudi and Saar, who had shown at Goode-Bryant’s New York gallery, Just Above Midtown, in the mid 1970s.

You can get a link to the film and download PDFs of both texts at dekersaint.com/badvibesclub

Unluck is a podcast about chance, probability and luck. Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau speaks to people who have been struck by lightning and been in plane crashes, as well as hearing more everyday tales of chance events to explore the contemporary meanings of luck and chance.

The third of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about Rosalind Krauss’s essay, ‘Sculpture in the Expanded Field’ from 1979. In the essay, Krauss lays out what has become a very influential idea of postmodern art through defining a very particular genealogy of Minimalist and post-minimalist artists working in the US in the 1960s and 70s. We also read a chapter from Tina Post’s 2023 book, Deadpan, in which Post thinks about Minimalism in relation to an aesthetic of looming and an affect of threat.

You can visit https://www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub to download PDFs of the texts.

The third of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode we talk about Phyllida Barlow’s proposal from 2012 for her Tate Britain Commission in 2014. We also talk about Barlow’s ‘The Hatred of the Object’ from 1997 and ‘Hearsay, Rumours, Bed-sit Dreamers and Art Begins Today’ from 2004. It’s basically a big love in for Barlow as an artist who writes towards making rather than theorising. Andrea and Matt talk about vitrines, art made for Instagram, and theatricality (again).

Below are the three texts we looked at for this podcast. You can download them all from www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub

Barlow, Phyllida. ‘Artist Proposal’. Tate. Accessed 17 July 2023.

Barlow, Phyllida. ‘The Hatred of the Object’, 1997.

Barlow, Phyllida, Mark Godfrey, Alison Wilding, and Jon Wood. ‘Hearsay, Rumours, Bed-Sit Dreamers and Art Begins Today’. In Objects for --: And Other Things, 210–15. London: Black Dog, 2004.

The second of a series of reading group podcasts on sculpture. In this episode Matt and Andrea talk about Hal Foster’s ‘An Art of Missing Parts’ from 2000 where he writes about Robert Gober’s sculptures as dioramas and primal images. The text is an explicitly Freudian, psychoanalytic reading of Gober’s work and Matt and Andrea have different views on how appropriate that is. Because of the theatrical nature of dioramas, Matt and Andrea also speak about Michael Fried’s famous (and famously derided) critique of Minimalism, ‘Art and Objecthood’ from 1967.

Below are the two texts we looked at for this podcast. You can download PDFs of both texts by visiting www.dekersaint.com/badvibesclub

Foster, Hal. ‘An Art of Missing Parts’. October, no. 92 (2000).

Fried, Michael. ‘Art and Objecthood’. In Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 322-384. Malden, Massachusetts, Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.