20. Low-Power Mode (w/ Tega Brain)

A very warm welcome to Helena McFadzean, who is joining the Disintegrator wrecking crew. This week’s episode features one of our favorite artists, Tega Brain. In this episode, we talk through two of our favorite pieces, both of which are not just great exercises in conceptual design, but are actual practical engineering projects whose artistry consists in real solutioning. References from the pod: Sam Lavigne is an artist and engineer and educator whose collaborates frequently with Tega Brain. Both his creative technical work and his writing are highly recommended.The two pieces we talk about most are Cold Call, a collaboration with Sam Levine, and Solar Protocol, a collaboration with Alex Nathanson, and Benedetta Piantella, among others.Tega references the Critical Engineering group (Julian Oliver, Gordan Savičić, Danja Vasiliev), whose manifesto is very much worth reading, and 100rabbits, whose blog and methodological work are super super engaging.In climate-related discussions, we talk about Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Breeding Sweetgrass, Holly Jean Buck’s Ending Fossil Fuels, the concept of ‘feral computing’ from Austin Wade Smith, and the data work by Crowther Lab on forest development.Marek briefly mentions Joshua Citarella’s absolutely phenomenal ‘A Public Option for Social Media’.Thanks for your patience while both Roberto and Marek were in mega-travel mega-project mode. We will be releasing something very large in the next few weeks to make up for it. :)