INTERLOCUTOR Interviews

aja monet is a poet, lyricist, writer, and community organizer from Brooklyn, now based in Los Angeles. Her debut studio album, when the poems do what they do, was released in 2023 to acclaim, and it earned a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album.We published a version of this interview in the online edition of INTERLOCUTOR on February 1, 2024, and this episode is the full and unedited recording of the discussion between aja monet and our Contributing Editor, Logan Royce Beitmen.

Virginia L. Montgomery (VLM) is a multimedia artist working across video, performance, sound design, and sculpture. She is known for her unique, synthesia-esque, surrealist works that unite elements from mysticism, science, and her own lived experience as a neurodivergent individual. Her artwork is surreal, sensorial, and symbolic. It shifts in subject matter from stones to moths and machines, as VLM deploys an idiosyncratic visual vocabulary of repeating gestures and recursive symbols like circles, holes, and spheres.In this interview, VLM discusses her recent solo exhibition at Austin's Women & Their Work, Eye Moon Cocoon, which featured her ongoing examination of native Texas Luna moths and our multifaceted associations with the moon, along with her unique parallel career as a Graphic Facilitator.

Tyler Nesler talks with leading AI researcher, author, and TED speaker Blaise Agüera y Arcas about his new book, Who Are We Now? - an exploration of how biology, ecology, sexuality, history, and culture have intertwined to create a dynamic “us” that can neither be called natural nor artificial.Identity politics occupies the front line in today’s culture wars, pitting generations against each other, and progressive cities against the rural traditions of our past. Rich in data and detail, Who Are We Now? goes beyond today’s headlines to connect our current reality to a larger more-than-human story.The book is available December 19 via Hat & Beard Press.

French-American artist Miles Hyman has a solo show, Secret Lives, up at NYC's Philippe Labaune Gallery through December 23. Hyman's recent paintings lead us on a journey through his sources of inspiration. From his early childhood memories of the Ferris wheel in Bennington, Vermont, to his travels with his jazz musician father, to the bustling streets of New York, to the romantic embrace of Paris, where he has made his home for the past two decades, every stroke of his brush is a testament to that odyssey. The culmination of his artistic pilgrimage leads him to Italy, a country to which he already shares a deep artistic connection. Here, he weaves the pages of the Louis Vuitton travel book, an ode to the eternal city of Rome. These works are studies of light, imaginative juxtapositions, and records of personal geography. Alongside his paintings, there will be a selection of original strips from his latest graphic novel adaptation, La vie secrète des écrivains, penned by French author Guillaume Musso.

Hallie Packard's works depict a place nostalgic and foreign—comfortable and untouchable at once. A place through which the presence of humanity echoes, but from a source that has long since expired. Human-made relics interact with the natural world, confirming the question of previous human existence and conforming to—even mutating to become one with—the wildly organic environment surrounding them. As reminders of the wonder that abounds and the respect it deserves, her works are dedicated to rediscovering and cultivating the magic of this world. 

“Everyone is fascinated by crime,” says author/musician Harper Simon. “When you look at the history of song, romantic love songs may be the dominant mode of songwriting, but second would probably be songs involving crime—murder ballads, for one. Crime is a major theme in all songwriting.”Simon offers a new and expansive contribution to this legacy with Meditations on Crime, an ambitious multi-media project that includes an album he produced of musical collaborations with a sweeping range of contributors (Julia Holter, Gang Gang Dance, King Khan, the Sun Ra Arkestra) and a book he edited featuring essays by such notables as Ben Okri, Miranda July, Hooman Majd, and Jerry Stahl, alongside artwork from giants like Cindy Sherman, Tracey Emin, Julian Schnabel, and Raymond Pettibon. In this interview, Simon talks with host Tyler Nesler in detail about the genesis of this project and its development over several years into its present multifaceted form.