Matt and Ross talk about festivals, and how they feel about the music they listened to as teenagers.
The Limits of Admission
Matt talks about the limits of what we are willing to admit in public. Can we ever really admit our failings?
A Bald Dad
Matt talks about being bald and making jokes about baldness. He also proposes a new belief that he thinks should be commonly held: that men who carry on having full head of hair after the age of about 40 look ridiculous.
Lollipop People
Matt reflects on his paranoia about whether the lollipop people near his work like him or not.
Interviews
It’s a hot day. Matt talks about a job interview and then gets distracted by global politics.
Who says vibe?
Matt and Ross chat about whether vibe is a young person word anymore and what different people might mean when they say it. Then they talk about being middle aged for a while. There’s also a high pitched screeching noise for a bit which is less present on the recording than it was in real life.
Getting Older
Matt talks about turning 40, getting sentimental and the meaning of milestones.
Resentment
Matt walks through Hendon in the rain, talking about resentment and the far right, and how resentment is a performance that constitutes the hierarchy that the far right uses to justify it’s political programme(s). He mentions Richard Seymour's new book 'Disaster Nationalism'.
Sweetness
Matt talks about sweetness, ‘Americans’ on TikTok and how capitalism can’t capture the feeling of eating a McDonalds in a steamed up car in the carpark of the Sydenham Sainsbury’s with all the crows.
Anti-Productivity
Matt phones up Ross and tries out a conversational fugue chat. We talk about conversations with your parents, Ross comes up with some productivity hacks and we have a conversation about what being middle class means, based on Matt watching Joanna Hogg’s 2019 film The Souvenir. (Apologies for the audio quality, I’m working on it)
Thinking Out Loud
Matt talks about thinking out loud, clarity and the difference between strong and weak theory. He also almost gets run over by a Tesla.
Private Feelings
Matt walks through the city talking about tooth pain, verrucas and nostalgia: all private experiences that can be very intense for the person experiencing them, but hard to communicate to other people.
Preferably You Leave
Matt talks about listening to old songs, Philip Guston and how sometimes art isn’t made for an audience. There's also a bit about gendered icks.
Narcissism
Matt talks about narcissism. Is this podcast narcissistic, he wonders? (Yes, is the answer.) Also, what is it to perform narcissism in an age when our sense of self is always already fractured and scattered across the technological platforms through which we construct it?
Conviction
Matt walks to the library and talks about what it means to have conviction as an artist. What should you have conviction in? When is it useful to remain convinced by your work and ideas, and when is it important to give up? (n.b. At some point in the podcast Matt shouts ‘8:30’ and that’s because someone has just asked him the time in the street.)
The Back of Things
Matt talks about his teenage anti-capitalism, seeing the back of things and how political disgust can turn into aesthetic interest.
Doing a Roly-Poly in a Group Crit
Matt walks to work and talks about the desire to act out while teaching.
Objects, People, NPC, POV
Matt walks to the library and talks about Object Oriented Ontology, Ed Atkins, and the NPC and POV trends on social media.
Decisions and Intuition
Matt walks around campus and talks about how being an artist trains you to make decisions, and how we find the edges of what can be talked about in art practice, and what has to be passed over in silence.
Denim Tote Bag
Matt tells the story of a forgotten artwork based on a denim tote bag made by the artist James Richards’ as part of ‘Music for the gift’, his Wales in Venice project from 2017. Warning: Matt sings a song at the end.