Jussi Parikka ( https://jussiparikka.net/ ) is a writer and media theorist. He is Professor of Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University and Visiting Professor at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague as well as the Winchester School of Art. He is the author of Insect Media, A Geology of Media, What is Media Archaeology?, and Operational Images.
Abelardo Gil-Fournier ( https://abelardogfournier.org/ ) is an artist and researcher. Originally trained in Physics, he holds a PhD in Arts from the Winchester School of Art (UK). His practice addresses the entwining of image surfaces with the living crust of the planet. His work encompasses different techniques, spanning from sound and video installations to computational processes such as machine learning, including assemblages where the living conflates with the animate.
Together they have collaborated extensively, and their new book Living Surfaces: Images, Plants, and Environments of Media (can be found here) will be launching on 25th June. In this conversation they break down some of their thinking around the materiality of media being inherently connected to the sites they come from.. they talk about plants and living surfaces, of 'dynamic formations'. And how this book related to their practices as individuals.
Link to the full text read at the beginning by Jussi Parikka, on Mater.digital: https://mater.digital/jussi-parikka/
On Abelardo Gil-Fournier’s recent solo show at the Fundacion Cerezales- https://www.artforum.com/events/juan-jose-santos-mateo-abelardo-gil-fournier-fundacion-cerezales-2024-549901/
Operational Images book- https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/operational-images
Seed, Image, Ground video essay- https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/situations-post/seed-image-ground/
They talk about Elemental Media through an example of: how the emergence of photography introduced the question among botonists: What if plants are somehow living photographs on their own?
Other people referenced throughout the conversations
Esther Leslie, Synthetic Worlds
Nicole Starosielski - https://filmmedia.berkeley.edu/people/nicole-starosielski/
Giuliana Bruno - https://afvs.fas.harvard.edu/people/giuliana-bruno
Anna Tsing - Patchy Anthropocene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efmf77F2oNM
Harun Farocki - https://www.harunfarocki.de/home.html
Anna Munster and Adriene Mackenzie On Their Invisualities
J R Carpenter - https://luckysoap.com/criticalwriting.html