[March 9, 2022 | Season 2, Ep. 10 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: Today, my guest is the artist Ken Okiishi, born 1978 in Ames, Iowa. Ken comes from what he calls a linguistically expressive family, with roots in Hawaii and Japan. The simultaneity of those different cultures and identities helped motivate Ken’s interest in language. He received a BFA from Cooper Union in 2001 and went on to explore image networks and media systems through his art. Welcome, Ken, and thank you so much for joining me.
Ken Okiishi: Hi, Barbara. It’s great to be on the show.
[February 23, 2022 | Season 2, Ep. 9 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: My guest today is Ed Atkins, an English artist whose lively practice revolves around writing, the moving image and installation, with a keen interest in the emotions our digital technologies are unable to contain. Born 1982, in an English village outside Oxford, Ed grew up in a household that considered literature to be the creative pinnacle. He graduated from London Slade School of Art in 2009. That same year, his father died of cancer. Death, loss, distemper and debility have been preoccupations ever since. Ed, thank you so much for joining me.
Ed Atkins: Pleasure. Thanks for having me, Barbara.
[February 9, 2022 | Season 2, Ep. 8 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: Today, I’m speaking with visual artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda. Born in 1966 in Gifu, a city in central Japan, Ryoji now divides his time between Paris and Kyoto. He works with sound in its raw state—that is, sine tones and noise, often in frequencies at the edge of human perception. Ryoji, thank you for joining me.
[January 26, 2022 | Season 2, Ep. 6 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: Today I’m speaking with Nalini Malani, a versatile artist who easily moves between the mediums of painting and video, and between the cultures of Bombay, as she still prefers to call it, and Amsterdam. Born 1946 in Karachi, British India, her Sikh agnostic parents and family fled during Partition, in 1947, to Bombay before settling in Calcutta. After a job transfer of her father to Bombay, Malani studied at the conservative British style Sir J.J. School of Art, where in 1969, she received her diploma in painting.
During her studies she already had a studio in the multidisciplinary Bhulabhai Memorial Institute, Bombay. There, she interacted with actors, musicians, poets, and dancers, and saw how theater reaches an audience rarely found in the elitist gallery spaces. That summer, in 1969, she was selected to be part of the renowned Vision Exchange Workshop, VIEW. As the only female participant, she became its most productive member, creating a large series of camera-less photographs, experimental 8mm color stop-motion animation and a series of short black-and-white 16mm films. From this, she developed a filmic view that would dominate the rest of her artistic life in all the different media she used. Nalini, thank you so much for joining me.
Nalini Malani: Hello, Barbara, it’s lovely to see you and it’s lovely to talk with you this afternoon. We’ve known each other for a long time, but it’s lovely to meet across oceans at this moment. At least that’s possible.
[January 12, 2022 | Season 2, Ep. 6 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: Today I’m speaking with Sondra Perry, an interdisciplinary artist born 1986 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Sondra creates insightful artwork using video, computer-based media, installation and performance. She is one of today’s bright, young stars, highly respected as an innovator. Technically adept, with wit and grace she investigates such timely topics as desire, race, power and gender. Sondra, welcome to Barbara London Calling 2.0. I’m delighted to talk with you today.
Sondra Perry: Thanks for the invitation, Barbara. This is really cool.
[December 29, 2021 | Season 2, Ep. 5 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: My guest today is Amar Kanwar, an Indian artist whose masterful films and multimedia work explore the politics of power, violence and justice. Born in 1964 in New Delhi, where he still is based, Amar started his career as a filmmaker. He gave up filmmaking for a while and became a researcher for occupational health and safety in the coal mining belt of Madhya Pradesh in central India. He turned to art making in 1990. He has been collected and shown internationally, with work that ties together the personal, the social, and the political. Amar, thank you so much for joining me today.
Amar Kanwar: Thank you, Barbara. It’s really nice to meet after such a long time.
[December 15, 2021 | Season 2, Ep. 4 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: My guest today is Tracey Moffatt, a true innovator and an acclaimed artist who began her career as an experimental filmmaker. Born 1960, Tracey grew up in a suburb of Brisbane, Australia, where she absorbed a rich visual vocabulary by watching local television and movies. Her unflinching artwork is a mix of childhood memories, popular culture, history, film, television, literature and dreams. She uses fiction to comment on her own personal history and on serious issues of the volatile political landscape.
After receiving her BA from the Queensland College of Art in 1982, she photographed the Aboriginal Islander dance theater and became a founding member of the Boomalli Aboriginal artist collective in Sydney. In 1988, she sharpened her skills by working professionally in documentary production for television station SBS TV in Sydney, where she continues to live. Tracey, thank you so much for joining me.
Tracey Moffatt: Hello, Barbara London. I’m thrilled to be in a podcast. My first one.
[December 1, 2021 | Season 2, Ep. 3 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: My guest today is the acclaimed artist and inspired thinker Lorraine O’Grady. During her productive career, Lorraine has engaged in a range of disciplines, from performance and dance to photography, writing and the moving image, all while investigating the politics of diaspora and identity. Born in Boston in 1934 to Caribbean immigrant parents, Lorraine served as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. government, moved on to become a literary and commercial translator, then a rock music critic before she turned to visual arts in the late 1970s. Welcome, Lorraine. I’m delighted to speak with you today.
Lorraine O’Grady: Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
[December 1, 2021 | Season 2, Ep. 2 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: Today my guest is the software-savvy artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen. Born 1987, now based in Berlin, Jakob grew up in Denmark. His mother was an educational sociologist and his father was an engineer. A tinkerer since childhood, Jakob’s interest in technology developed after he hacked a video game called Unreal, using Level Editor to do so. He still works with this same tool, which is now known as Unreal Engine. Jakob, thank you so much for joining me.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen: Thank you, Barbara. It’s always a pleasure to speak with you and hear your thoughts.
[December 1, 2021 | Season 2, Ep. 1 | Barbara London Calling]
Barbara London: Welcome to Barbara London Calling 2.0. I’m your host, Barbara London. In 1974, I founded the Video Media Program at the Museum of Modern Art, where I was a curator for 40 years. Last year, I published Video Art: The First 50 Years, the first in-depth history of video art.
Today, with technology as ubiquitous and as fluid as water, I’m interested in how artists adopt technology to their own artistic language and vision. In Season 2 of Barbara London Calling, I’m speaking with 12 artists from all over the world, each challenging the entrenched definitions of what art is and what it can be. These 12 artists and I will explore the role of technology in contemporary art today and where it might take us tomorrow.
Today, I’m speaking with Auriea Harvey, a boundary-breaking artist born 1971 in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1989, Auriea moved to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design, where she received her BFA in sculpture. Before long, she began creating Internet art, video games, work in extended reality, and recently she moved on to NFTs. Auriea is now based in Rome, where she is calling from today. Auriea, welcome to Barbara London Calling 2.0.
