New Models

Trained in the twilight of legacy media and skilled in the dark arts of the extremely online, BEN DITTO bridges communication systems and cultural logics of the 90s-00s-10s and 20s. In advance of launching his new channel, Ditto Nation, the London-based creative-director/artist /cultural-analyst speaks to NM about the physical limits of the self and the technology that defines it, platform death-tripping, ML trend consulting, and the new magick of natural language spellcasting. Initial release to NM: 8 SEP 2022 For more: IG: @ben_ditto IG: @ben_ditto_resurrections TikTok: @ben_ditto_actual https://linktr.ee/ben_ditto

Calla Henkel — one half of the artist duo, with Max Pitegoff, behind Berlin’s Times Bar, the New Theater, and currently TV Bar; as well as author of the “thrilling” (Cosmopolitan), “darkly glamorous” (The Stylist) debut novel, Other People’s Clothes (Sceptre, Doubleday, 2021) — talks to NM about scene-creation, image recuperation, and the post-2006 evolution of Berlin’s culture sector. Plus: self-mythologizing, LA lobotomizing, and the cringe self-help book secretly powering Berlin’s writing renaissance. (Subscriber release: 20 Jul 2022) For more: IG: @callahead_ TV Bar: http://www.t-v.city/ Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff: Bortolozzi Gallery

Hardboiled trend consultant Ricky Backtrace is hired by a crypto exec to investigate a new kind of marketing agency called a "cancel shop," but things get complicated when the transquadrapedal get involved. This is Ep. 1 of a new long-form radio drama by Lil Internet. // For Ep. 2, subscribe: patreon.com/newmodels Subscriber release: 19 June 2022

Political scientist Kevin Munger joins NM to discuss his new book “Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture” (Columbia Univ. Press, 2022). Along the way Kevin demystifies the hippie to yuppie pipeline, sheds light on the changing intergenerational contract, explains the origins of the concept of “generations,” and considers what may happen when Boomers’ outsize influence wanes. Subscriber release: 30 Jun 2022 For more: Twitter: @kmmunger Substack: Never Met a Science Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture (Columbia Univ. Press, 2022).

Deep internet A-listers Holly (@holyyyycow) and David Yoakum (@davidy) join NM for the only podcast about Remilia Co.’s ill-famed PFP NFT project you actually need to listen to. From 4chan to Kali/acc, Charlotte Fang to Ryder Ripps, we bring you this niche history so you can judge for yourself how the social web is re-aligning in 2022. Plus: new aesthetics, young girls, and Urbit x No Agency devirtualized in NYC. Subscriber release: 1 June 2022 For more: Holly’s essay “The Rise and Fall of Kali/acc” in the NM Codex Y2K20 (2021)

Cultural savants Shumon Basar (The Extreme Self & The Age of Earthquakes) and Dean Kissick (NY editor of Spike Art Magazine) join the show during Berlin Art Week for a sprawling, late-night convo on communication and creative production in year 2022.
 Along the way, we note the accelerating pace of decades, revisit Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 mass-media glow-up, log a veritable dictionary of neologisms, consider whether the art market as we know is a historically bound concept, and ask if we’ve possibly reached the end of clear-cut, market-ready “generations.” Also: mid-ification, zentrism, eNFT portals, and adult drainers. [recorded 29 Apr 2022] For more: https://twitter.com/shumonbasar https://twitter.com/deankissick Basar, Obrist, Coupland’s The Extreme Self (Penguin, 2021)
https://www.mcnallyjackson.com/book/9783960989738 Dean’s column for Spike Art https://spikeartmagazine.com/?q=search&input=dean+kissick&field_online_bool=All Dean’s 2021 essay for New Models & The Stolbun Institute, “Hello Darkness”
https://newmodels.io/editorial/issue-3/hello-darkness-dean-kissick

NM speaks with Kevin Driscoll, author of The Modem World: A Pre-history of Social Media (Yale Univ. Press, 2022), which examines the physical — and social — technology that underpinned the DIY side of networked technology’s evolution in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Parallel to institutional network culture were the proto-dark-forest communities of BBS networks and other pre-www systems. From FidoNet to De Digitale Stad (DDS) Netherlands, Kevin maps out this early territory, with a brief history of the French Minitel system along the way. Through his work, Kevin asks us to consider what it really means to be “autonomous” online and what alternate conceptions of “the internet” might be possible when we consider the broader origin story of the digital social sphere. (Subscriber release: 23 May 2022) For More: https://kevindriscoll.info/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minitel https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300248142/modem-world/

Scholar of media studies and Chernobyl expert Svitlana Matviyenko joins us from Kamyanets Podilskyi, Ukraine to discuss critical infrastructure security and the imminence of cyberwarfare.
 On this episode, Svitlana, who is also the co-author of Cyberwar & Revolution: Digital Subterfuge of Global Capitalism (U. Minnesota Press, 2020) gives an expanded definition of “cybernetic warfare” and what she calls “communicative militarism”; connects psychological-operations with the post-war “commercial seduction of the subject”; reveals present-day strategies of “audience production,” and unpacks the post-digital terms of mutually assured destruction. Subscriber release: 1 May 2022 For more: https://twitter.com/svitlanax https://networkcultures.org/blog/author/svitlana/ https://www.sfu.ca/communication/team/faculty/svitlana-matviyenko.html

One of the great millennial club demons, DJ and producer Dances With White Girls (aka Frog) talks to NM about the ever evolving relationship between artists and platforms, from Hollerboard to TikTok. We also talk how AI music software is changing the game, pop-up scenes, and PLUR black tie. Plus: Frog’s 12 Rules for Club Life. Twitter: @dances New Release: Repopulate Mars presents The Arrival Subscriber release: 8 Apr 2022

Writer and researcher Sam Moore speaks about his new book, with Alex Roberts, THE RISE of ECOFASCISM: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FAR RIGHT (Polity, 2022), which finds, in the dissolution of pre-millennial frameworks for climate, capital, and governance, conditions that are ripe for the re-emergence of fascist formulations of power. We talk to Sam about the interface between humans and the natural world; the return of trad values; and strategies for climate change mitigation that short-circuit the instrumentalization of nature as a tool for capitalist expansion and/or a race-based ordering of the world. Sam is also a co-host of the podcast @12rulesforwhat and leads the Collapsology group that meets weekly via the New Models Discord and publishes to http://collapsology.substack.com/ Twitter: https//twitter.com/sammoorewrites Pod: https://www.patreon.com/12rulesforwhat/ Substack: http://collapsology.substack.com/ Book: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-rise-of-ecofascism-climate-change-and-the-far-right--9781509545377 Book: https://dogsection.org/press/pifr/