Art of Interference

Hosted by The AoI Collaboratory

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Latest episode

Jun 2026

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EN-US

About the show

Art of Interference explores creative responses to climate change. We feature artists whose images, sounds, and performances encourage us to retune the relations of nature and technology, the human and the nonhuman. We ask climate scientists about their research and how it chimes with the interventions of contemporary artists. Additionally, we speak to activists, cultural critics, and policymakers about the need to develop a new ethics appropriate to our twenty-first century of planetary crises. In each episode, we discuss timely and untimely perspectives on how we, amid our human-made emergencies, may act in the world and allow this changing world to act on us. Our third season investigates different Earth materials--metals, minerals, rocks, soil, moss, or wood. How, we ask our guests, does organic and inorganic matter in all its elemental states and shapes inspire their artistic creativity? And in what way does their work challenge prevalent notions of agency and entanglement, care and co-dependency, control and disturbance? By pursuing these questions, we present contemporary art as a unique laboratory to reevaluate common notions of interference and what it means to be alive amid the ecological crises of our present. Our first two seasons featured artists whose work collaborated with water and air, or fourth and final season will discuss artistic practices that use fire as a medium to address the challenges of our over-heating planet. In our AoI Special Editions, we present thought-provoking conversations about the arts as transformative media of inquiry, the role of art within the landscapes of higher education, and the interplay between artistic research, climate studies, and technology development. Art of Interference is produced at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. It has been made possible with the financial support of “The Science Communication Media Collaborative “ of the College of Arts & Science. For more information, visit us at https://artofinterference.com.

Listen to episodes

28 recent

June 2, 2026Episode 553 min

Earth 5: Salt

Hosts: Tori Hoover and Emma VendettaSalt: Homer called it “a divine substance.” Plato considered it as the element most dear to the gods, a distinction awarded for its central role in human life. Indeed, our bodies cannot function properly without it. But as the climate changes and warms and shifts in response to industrialization, the role of salt is shifting, too. Salts from human activity, like those in fertilizers and de-icers, are contaminating waterways and changing freshwater ecosystems, and rising seas encroach on freshwater territories as well. Today’s episode attempts to wrestle with the element’s broad and varied resonances through the work of sculptor Blane De St. Croix, with a particular emphasis on 2023’s “Salt Lake Excerpt.” We also talk with Professor Bill Hintz, an environmental scientist whose work at the University of Toledo revolves around the impact of road de-icing salts on freshwater ecosystems. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

February 27, 2026Episode 459 min

Earth 4: Forests

Host: Lutz KoepnickIn today’s episode of Art of Interference we speak with Ursula Biemann, a Swiss artist based in Zurich. Her work over the last decades has explored forests in the Amazon and the Andes as critical engines of planetary life. In her widely exhibited films and installations Biemann continually seeks to bridge existing divides between Indigenous knowledge systems and Western science. We also hear from biologist and conservation ecologist Malu Jorge about the wonders of carrying out research in the rainforest, and from scholar Mark Anderson about the rights of nature movement and how Amazonian cosmologies emphasize the sociality and intelligence of nonhuman entities. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

December 23, 2025Episode 347 min

Earth 3: Soil

Soil is the foundation of life, but how often do we recognize it as such? On this episode of the Art of Interference, we speak with visual artist Allie Horick about her soil quilts—works that stitch together earth from family burial sites across Tennessee to tell a story of dispersed legacy and delicate connection. We also talk with regenerative farmer Maxwell Patterson and Vanderbilt professor Chris Vanags about the science of soil and the benefits of climate-smart agriculture. Whether used as a medium for art or growing, soil ecosystems show how variety, interconnectedness, and reciprocity sustain dynamic forms of life. Paying closer attention to this critical infrastructure has the power to transform people, communities, and the planet.Host: Jennifer GutmanFor more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

December 3, 2025Episode 246 min

Earth 2: Wood

In this episode of Art of Interference, we explore the medium of wood as a means of rethinking traditional ideas of human and nonhuman being amid a world of planetary emergencies. “People are really more like wood than we might think,” carpenter, artist, and scientist Seri Robinson insists in our conversation. Wood is influenced by the weather, by climate change, and by its proximate environments—and we, as humans have much to learn from it. And in our interview with artist Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, we discuss wood as an element that is deeply connected to memory, ritual, and spirituality. It is much more than just a useful resource, a lifeless object, or a pleasing decoration. It is a vibrant and essential element of life. Join us on this episode as we consider the deep time and ever-evolving role of wood.Host: Maren LovelandFor more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

August 28, 2025Episode 148 min

Earth 1: Lithium

Lithium plays a key role in the green energy transition. Its extraction, however, comes at considerable costs for the environment and for local communities, particularly in the so-called lithium triangle in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. In this episode, we speak with artist and curator Guely Morató Loredo and her collaborator, sound artist Victor Mazón Gardoqui, about two projects that engage with the mining of lithium in South America today, its devastating impact on Indigenous people and sacred sites, and its connection to much older histories of colonial extraction. We also hear from social anthropologist Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz about the rise of electric cars, their reliance on lithium, and the need to develop new ideas of mobility; and from geochemist John Ayers about the challenging water-intense process of lithium extraction. Host: Lutz KoepnickFor more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

December 6, 202448 min

Special Edition 3 | Connecting the Dots

Diné artist and photographer Will Wilson has been photographing hundreds of abandoned uranium mines and remediation site on the Navajo Nation over the last few years. In this episode, we speak with Will about this project, called “Connecting the Dots for a Just Transition,” and the power of photography to reveal and remediate environmental injustice. We also hear from Leah Lowe, the director of Vanderbilt University’s Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, which exhibited Will’s work in fall 2024 as part of an ongoing initiative exploring the role of “eco-grief” in the arts.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

November 2, 2024Episode 1056 min

Air 10: In the Air

In this final episode of season 2, we talk with dancer and dance scholar Mariama Diagne about the art of “heavy hovering”—the ability of modern ballet and dance to teach us a different way of moving and being on Earth. We discuss efforts to relocate human life to other planets to escape the effects of climate change, the beauty of meeting the challenges of terrestrial gravity, the environmental legacy of Pina Bausch’s dance theater, and the transformative qualities of West-African dance practices. And since this is our last episode for this year, AoI's five team members also take a pause to reflect on their favorite moment of this season . . . and their preferred dance moves. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

October 17, 2024Episode 950 min

Air 9: Smoke

Smoke is a beautiful—yet sometimes strange, or even terrifying—phenomenon. In today’s episode, we explore how the mysterious qualities of smoke open up possibilities for exploration and better understanding of human relationships with the earth and air. First, we get to know the multi-colored, pyrotechnic smoke sculptures of esteemed artist Judy Chicago, who began producing these works in the late 1960s as a response to the male-centric land art movement. Then, we hear from Bill Fox, the Director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno; he has worked extensively with Chicago’s smoke sculpture archive, currently housed by the museum. Finally, we feature a conversation with Dave Petersen, a scientist who’s devoted his entire career to understanding smoke and wildfires.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

September 13, 2024Episode 845 min

Air 8: Wind

“Wind, wind, wind. If you repeat the word wind often enough, then it will blow by itself.” These are the poetic words of this episode’s featured artist, Theo Jansen, who has spent the last three decades creating and evolving his strandbeests—massive PVC creatures that walk down the Dutch coast powered by the wind alone. Wind propels sail boats, kites, turbines, and strandbeests alike, all with invisibility. Join us as we explore how climate change is actually changing winds, discuss on-shore and off-shore wind farming, and dive into the complexities of making wind art. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

August 16, 2024Episode 756 min

Air 7: Oxygen

Our air and atmosphere require 21% oxygen to sustain life as we know it. Human-induced climate change has put this ratio under pressure. In this episode of Art of Interference, we feature Santiago Sierra’s work 52 Canvases and Ted Chiang’s short story Exhalation as two recent interventions that draw our attention to the precarity of the air around us. We talk with curator Meredith Malone about the strange beauty of Sierra's toxic images and we discuss what can be learned from marine mammals about the future of oxygen on our planet.For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/

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