In my podcast series Barbara London Calling, I host conversations with pioneering and up-and-coming artists. Together we explore what motivates and inspires these artists, what technologies they use in their unusually varied practices, and how they see the world as artists working at the forefront of technology and creativity.
Many of the artists are featured in my book, Video/Art: The First Fifty Years (Phaidon: 2020). Several are also included in “Seeing Sound,” an exhibition I organized, which tours in 2021 under the auspices of Independent Curators International (ICI), the nonprofit based in Manhattan.
I want the twelve conversations in Barbara London Calling to show media art as the farthest-reaching, most innovative art of our time—a kind of art, and artist, that plays an essential role in the study and understanding of contemporary art in general.
Why did I create this series? In 1974, I founded the video-media exhibition and collection programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York—the first program of its kind at a major museum. More recently, I wrote Video/Art: The First Fifty Years, published by Phaidon, which surveys the first half century of video art.
But media art is much broader than just video art. In these conversations, I wanted to explore the past, present and uncharted future of media art.
What exactly is media art? Is media art simply a catchall term for art made using the latest electronic tools and communication systems? Tune into the series to discover how media art belongs to the here and now, as it continues to evolve with technology, with the times and with us, its users.
Hover over the Podcast tab in the navigation bar to see individual episodes, including full transcripts of each episode and links to the works discussed.
You can listen to the podcast series on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. Be sure to like and subscribe so you can hear all twelve episodes as they’re released.
– Barbara London