The Intersect of Tech and Art

·E78

Going Backward to Go Somewhere New

May 19
13 mins

Episode Description

The companion podcast to Issue No.78 of The Intersect. Chelsea and Georgia sit with a question the newsletter only gestures at: when artists deliberately slow down - soldering their own synths, drawing with pendulums, dressing new software in 1970s clothing - is that creative progress, or just well-designed comfort in the face of AI? Pull up a chair for the friction.

Contents
  • 00:00 Slow Tools, New Costumes
  • 00:01 The Software That Feels Old
  • 00:04 Build It Yourself Synths
  • 00:07 Innovation Meets Countermovement
  • 00:09 The Harmonograph Mystery
  • 00:12 What Deliberate Inefficiency Means

In this episode

Slow Tools, New Costumes - Three very different objects, one suspiciously similar gesture. Chelsea and Georgia open with the hunch that's about to run through the whole conversation.

The Software That Feels Old - Giorgio Sancristoforo's Homework runs on Apple Silicon but looks like it crawled out of a 1973 studio. Why do musicians keep choosing virtual patch cables when cleaner interfaces exist? The answer isn't really about sound.

Build It Yourself Synths - The Music Thing Workshop Computer arrives as a bag of components. Thonk can't keep them on the shelves. A conversation about why people who grew up on plugins are now reaching for a soldering iron - and what that says about innovation in instruments versus innovation in sound.

Innovation Meets Countermovement - Ellen McGirt's Design Observer piece traces a pattern older than any of us. Photography didn't kill painting; synths didn't kill acoustic music. So what becomes retro when AI image generation matures?

The Harmonograph Mystery - Raf Jakob's wooden side table makes one drawing in ten minutes and then it's done. Is calling it furniture a meaningful gesture, or well-designed cope? Maybe both.

What Deliberate Inefficiency Means - Four objects, one gesture. Chelsea and Georgia land on the honest answer - and on what the counter-movement to AI might actually look like when it arrives in full.

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If you want to sit with these questions every week, come find us - no hype, no doom, just the friction.


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