Culture & Code

This show will examine what we learned in Austin for how storytelling mainstreams AI into daily life. We’ll use three broad themes drawn from our panel plus several interviews we conducted at this year’s festival: 1.) Why storytelling is foundational for human life, work and play. 2.) How Generative AI transforms storytelling and change our ideas about the storyteller. 3.) How human-driven, AI-powered storytelling can  help people reorient their future, and how you can to do today.  

This show is a conversation with Debra Aho Williamson, a research analyst and market influencer for the social media landscape at Insider Intelligence and eMarketer. Deborah played a pivotal role to shape the discourse around social media marketing, advertising and usage. Deborah and I will explore how AI is redefining the way marketing and advertising is conducted for social media. We'll focus on meta as the primary lens because of its size and influence on the industry, but AI's implications for social media marketing and advertising go well beyond a single company to include popular culture and government policy itself.

Evette Vargas, a Hollywood-based screenwriter and producer across multiple media formats talks about the writing process, the role of AI in Hollywood, and upcoming projects at her production company Indigo Reign Films.

Our interview with voice actress, and artist advocate Carin Gilfry digs into the three C’s of AI & Voice Acting: Consent, Control & Compensation in the Age of AI in Hollywood and beyond

This show is a conversation about AI and fashion. Culture & Code spoke with Carl-Axel Wahlström, a senior creative director and consultant for the fashion industry based in Stockholm, Sweden. Carl is the CEO of the Copy Laboratory, a full service studio that uses AI to redefine visual storytelling for the fashion industry. This interview explores the background, the current practice, and the likely future of AI for fashion media.

Culture & Code recently spoke with Chris Browne, an acclaimed filmmaker and visual effects artist. Chris traces his passion for visual storytelling back to his childhood days experimenting with a video camera to make homemade science fiction films. His early artistic experiments ignited a lifelong calling.

Keith spent his early 20s working in famous but dirty recording studios in New York, producing projects for various media and even playing keys for Lauryn Hill. He was still sleeping on couches and floors when he got a gig at Audible.com, becoming one of the top audiobook directors for Audible Studios. He even got to work with some famous humans and direct a few award-winning audiobooks. After many years of directing at Audible and having had enough winter, Keith relocated to Dallas, Texas, the hometown of hisbeautiful and far-more-impressive-than-he wife. Dallas also happens to be home to a thriving voiceover industry, which worked out nicely for him as he is utterly unqualified to work as a banker, rancher or hipster. Keith no longer sleeps on floors but does enjoy the occasional couch nap.

Culture & Code spoke with Stewart Lyons, a multi award-winning television producer for smash hits like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. We discussed the Hollywood strike, AI in entertainment, and possible directions for creative work transformed by technology.

We believe our job as creators is to expand human potential by mastering a new medium for expression. For Generative AI to benefit the human condition, it must be tamed by people pushing themselves to realize something difficult and worthwhile. Helping creative professionals dream bigger and create smarter is the mission of Culture & Code.

Yogi Berra famously quipped that “the future ain’t what it used to be.” That’s especially true when it comes to trying to predict changes brought on by technology. More and more decision makers are turning to science fiction not simply for entertainment but for clues about how people and societies navigate the different worlds spawned by new capabilities. Design fiction is taking that a step further by deliberately composing fictional narratives based on real world technologies and cultural practice. This show is about how we’re approaching Design Fiction as a way to understand the future and try to make it better.