Urgent Futures with Jesse Damiani

Pollution is a massive problem—yet it rarely gets the kind of play other climate issues receive. But did you know that some scientists and mycologists are using mycelium to detoxify contaminated sites? It's pretty incredible stuff—and my guest this week, Danielle Stevenson, is a leading expert in this field of 'mycoremediation.'Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.My guest this week is Danielle Stevenson.Danielle Stevenson is a multidisciplinary scientist, mycologist and environmental problem-solver who works with soils, fungi, plants and people to address wastes and pollution in creative and circular ways. She holds a Bachelors of Humanities from the University of Victoria and a PhD in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California Riverside. Her dissertation research focused on bioremediation of brownfields with fungi and plants. She also founded and runs D.I.Y. Fungi (est. 2012) for research, education and action around fungal food, medicine, waste management and remediation, and Healing City Soils (est. 2015) with the Compost Education Centre to provide soil metal testing, resources, and community bioremediation for people growing food.She currently serves on the Department of Toxic Substances Control's Equitable Community Revitalization Grant (ECRG) Treatment Technology Council (TTC) and the Board of Corenewal. She is involved in many projects and organizations around the world supporting regeneration of lands and waters, environmental education and community-capacity building. Learn more about her work here: https://www.danielle-stevenson.com/ and https://diyfungi.blog/ and connect over: linkedin.com/in/danielle-stevenson.Wow, this conversation with Danielle was so illuminating—and, in its way super hopeful. As I’ve mentioned before, I take the “urgent” in the title of Urgent Futures broadly—it doesn’t have to indicate a blaring alarm. There can be urgent play, imagination, and comedy, for example. But in this case there really is a blaring alarm: pollution is a major threat, and as Danielle discusses, it just doesn’t seem to get as much attention as some other climate change issues. I’m fascinated by possibilities of fungi for bioremediation—for bringing life back into contaminated sites, especially through Danielle’s focus in “mycoremediation.” Danielle is one of the leading minds working in this arena. These types of solutions show why ecological approaches to crisis hold so much more potential than trying to build a magical quick fix.Support Reality Studies:ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. If you have an evening with drinking and a morning you need to feel fresh, I strongly recommend these.Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).NordVPN: Right now, get up to 71% off + 3 months extra through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and sign up for emails to get 25% off your first order.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Emily Segal, a writer and trend forecaster, discusses popularizing 'normcore', blending trend reports with AI, and leveraging NFTs for book funding. She explores trend forecasting, luxury, fashion, and technology intersections, evolution of 'normcore' trend, auto fiction writing process, Deluge publisher merging NFTs with traditional approaches, AI impact on writing creativity, and trend forecasting evolution.

My guest this week is Brittan Heller.Brittan Heller works at the intersection of technology, human rights and the law. She is currently a lecturer at Stanford University and a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, examining XR's connection to society, human rights, privacy, and security. Heller is on the steering committee for the World Economic Forum's Metaverse Governance initiative and studied content moderation in XR as an inaugural AI and Tech Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights. She is a visiting fellow at the Yale Information Society Project, a Senior Non-Residential Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, and an affiliate at the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet. Heller has been awarded a 2024 Bellagio Residency to write about the intersection of spatial computing and AI.Brittan is my go-to source for anything that sits at the intersection of human rights law, ethics, and emerging technologies. I first met her in the early(ish) days of VR, and she was already developing the body of research that would culminate in her groundbreaking notion of “biometric psychography.” The term refers to body-centered information that can be gathered using sensing technologies including spatial computing and AI, which reveal a given person's physical, mental, and emotional states. Given how poorly we’ve managed to protect people’s privacy with more basic forms of technology, the notion of advertisers, scammers, or governments getting this biometric information is…alarming. Which is why it’s so critical to establish foundations for developing new frameworks in privacy law. This is just one aspect of Brittan’s practice, but it gives a sense of the kind of urgent, necessary work she does.Support Reality Studies:NOTE: Thank you for supporting my work by purchasing these products through the links provided. I will only ever share products I actually believe in.ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. The next day after drinking feels way better when you take one of these. Art fairs have no shortage of alcohol—perfect time to test drive ZBiotics. Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).NordVPN: Right now, get up to 71% off + 3 months extra through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day. There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and sign up for emails to get 25% off your first order.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Asad J. Malik, Lia Halloran & Kip Thorne, Cherie Hu, Eric Czuleger, Idris Brewster, Dennis Yi Tenen, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, and more. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.The best way to support the show, you ask? Pop over to YouTube and hit that Subscribe button. You hear it all the time for a reason—nothing will help the channel grow more than that simple click.Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen.Formerly she was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Russell holds an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London with a focus in Visual Culture. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally.Recent exhibitions include Harmony Holiday: BLACK BACKSTAGE (2024, The Kitchen); Matthew Lutz-Kinoy: Filling Station (2023, The Kitchen); Samora Pinderhughes: GRIEF (2022, The Kitchen); The Condition of Being Addressable (2022, ICA LA); Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon (2022, The Kitchen); Projects: Kahlil Robert Irving (2021), Projects: Garrett Bradley (2020), and Projects: Michael Armitage (2019), all with The Studio Museum in Harlem in partnership with The Museum of Modern Art; (Never) As I Was, This Longing Vessel, and MOOD with Studio Museum in partnership with MoMA PS1; Thomas J Price: Witness (2021); Dozie Kanu: Function (2019), and Chloë Bass: Wayfinding (2019) at The Studio Museum in Harlem; LEAN with Performa's Radical Broadcast online (2020) and in physical space at Kunsthall Stavanger (2021).She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award, a 2022 Pompeii Commitment Digital Fellow, and a 2023 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (Verso Books. 2020). Her second book is BLACK MEME (Verso Books, 2024).Legacy has an extraordinary ability to synthesize topics across art, visual culture, history, and media theory, and distill them into clear ideas and arguments. This was true in Glitch Feminism, which in my opinion is already a modern classic, and it’s true again with BLACK MEME. Meme here doesn’t just refer to digital images, but is used in its more classical understanding as in the Greek mimesis, which means “something imitated.” Through this perspective, “Black meme” refers to the transmission of Blackness as a viral agent. The book makes the case that the history of visual culture in the United States is rooted in the contributions of Black people. She writes, “In this book I argue that Blackness in itself is memetic and, by extension, that the technology of memes as a core component of a dawning digital culture has been driven by, shaped by, authored by, Blackness.”Yet this Black data—transmitted via the Black meme—has been produced under the violence of white supremacy, and has been extracted from Black people by White power structures. She demonstrates this history by identifying critical turning points in the 20th and 21st centuries which have paved the way for the notion of the “meme” as we understand it today, in its more digital framing. The book asks readers to face these histories, and to consider how we might begin to build structures that acknowledge historical harms and compensate Black people for their cultural contributions. And that still is only scratching the surface of all the work this book is doing. I strongly encourage you to go pick up a copy and read it for yourself.Support Reality Studies:NOTE: Thank you for supporting my work by purchasing these products through the links provided. I will only ever share products I actually believe in.ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. The next day after drinking feels way better when you take one of these. Art fairs have no shortage of alcohol—perfect time to test drive ZBiotics.Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).NordVPN: Right now, get up to 74% off + 3 months extra through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and use code MEMORIALDAY30 for 30% off of orders over $175.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Asad J. Malik, Lia Halloran & Kip Thorne, Cherie Hu, Eric Czuleger, Idris Brewster, Dennis Yi Tenen, Lisa Messeri, and more. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.The best way to support the show, you ask? Pop over to YouTube and hit that Subscribe button. You hear it all the time for a reason—nothing will help the channel grow more than that simple click.Lisa Messeri is an associate professor in sociocultural anthropology at Yale University. Her research focuses on the norms, aspirations, and consequences of work done by expert communities as they forge new fields of knowledge and invention. She is the author of In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles (Duke University Press, 2024) and Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds (Duke University Press, 2016). Her research has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, PBS’s Nova Next, and Wired. Messeri received her Ph.D. from MIT’s program in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society.All of the conversations I host on Urgent Futures are personal; they’re conversations with people I think understand something about the shape of things to come. But this conversation with Lisa was especially personal for me. In the Land of the Unreal is an ethnography of the VR community in Los Angeles in 2018. All three of these details hold great significance in my life.I see my work in the VR community—in Los Angeles—starting in 2014, as the beginning of my professional career. Or at least my professional identity. Much of how I now understand reality and the real were also forged during this time. It’s an inevitable outcome of working in an industry that is making active claims about reality (however correct or not). Looking back, 2018 is when the first inklings of my ideas about Postreality started to come into view, when the initial VR hype had simmered, and when political realities came crashing into the tech’s utopian ideals.I’ve spent the past few years reflecting on this time, feeling a little sheepish about the ways I was magnetized by some of these grand visions. Lisa’s book really captures what all of that felt like—in my view, it’s as close to being there as we’re going to be able to get. And most importantly, her elaboration of the concept of the unreal, this interplay between fact and fantasy, feels more relevant now than ever. Do yourself a favor and go buy the book!Reality Studies Recommends:NOTE: Purchasing through these links supports the work I do with Reality Studies. I will only ever share products that I would endorse regardless of financial incentive.ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. The next day after drinking feels way better when you take one of these. Art fairs have no shortage of alcohol—perfect time to test drive ZBiotics.Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).NordVPN: Right now, get up to 74% off + 3 months extra through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and use code HAPPYHEMP for 20% off.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Dennis Yi Tenen, an Associate Professor at Columbia University and co-director of the Center for Comparative Media, dives into the intriguing relationship between AI and language. He highlights the historical evolution of AI as a collective endeavor, advocating for interdisciplinary collaboration. Tenen emphasizes the importance of long-form thinking in an age of short content and examines how cultural heritage shapes AI technology. Their discussion also touches on the emotional nuances of technology and its potential for enhancing creativity and social understanding.

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.The best way to support the show, you ask? Pop over to YouTube and hit that Subscribe button. You hear it all the time for a reason—nothing will help the channel grow more than that simple click.🎧 For audio-only, subscribe to Apple Podcasts & Spotify so you never miss an episode!My guest today is Idris Brewster.Idris Brewster is a Brooklyn-born artist and creative technologist who disrupts traditional narratives through spatial experiences. Idris’s work explores the liminal space between the historical archive, public space, and technology. Idris is the Executive Director of Kinfolk Foundation, an augmented reality archive that puts the power of monument making and historical preservation into the hands of Black and Brown communities. Idris has received several awards and recognitions for his work, including Forbes 30 under 30, Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, New Museum, Eyebeam, and the Museum of Modern Art.The Apple Vision Pro has everyone talking about spatial computing again, but as I’ve said in the past and continue to believe after a decade in the industry: XR adoption is a question of culture. Cultural norms will ultimately determine if and how spatial computing becomes a reality.I’m not even saying we should necessarily be advocating for spatial computing to be adopted at mass scale—my opinions on that continue to evolve. But what I know for certain is that the only way I believe we’ll see positive outcomes is by using the tools for different ends than data harvesting and advertising; using the tools in unexpected ways, in ways that are unique to them.To that end, Idris is doing urgent work through Kinfolk. One of AR’s unique affordances is its ability to activate specific real-world sites. In Kinfolk’s case, those activations are about revealing erased histories, deepening context to space. And those new understandings don’t leave you when you put the phone down. This is something that came up in an earlier episode of Urgent Futures with Asad J. Malik, and it’s something I’ve learned firsthand through working with Nancy Baker Cahill on AR public art projects like Battlegrounds (2019).One of my goals for this show is to square my background as somebody covering and working in technology with my sense that we are in a critical time for developing new systems that will sustain life on earth. Modes of information, communication, and creative expression are part of that picture, and Idris’s work and thinking demonstrates why.Reality Studies Recommends:NOTE: Purchasing through these links supports the work I do with Reality Studies. I will only ever share products that I would endorse regardless of financial incentive.ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. The next day after drinking feels way better when you take one of these. Art fairs have no shortage of alcohol—perfect time to test drive ZBiotics.Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).NordVPN: Right now, get up to 66% off + 3 months extra through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and use code HAPPYHEMP20 for 20% off.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Asad J. Malik, Lia Halloran & Kip Thorne, Cherie Hu, Eric Czuleger, and more. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.Want to see the video version of the show? Pop over to YouTube and hit that Subscribe button so you never miss an episode.My guest today is Eric Czuleger. His fascination with travel, history, and politics began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Albania. After service, he completed his first circle of the globe. Returning to the U.S. he worked as a barista, yoga instructor, intelligence analyst, journalist, and tech storyteller. Eric spent his year of statelessness while completing his MSt in creative writing at Oxford University. He's lived, worked, and traveled through 47 countries and climbed two of the seven summits. Czuleger is the author of Eternal L.A., and Immortal L.A. He is also the writer and reader of the Howl Podcast, which is strange short fiction for a strange short existence.Reality Studies Recommends (Note: Purchasing through these links supports the work I do with Reality Studies. I will only ever share products that I would endorse regardless of financial incentive.)ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off with code JESSEDAMIANI at zbiotics.com. The next day after drinking feels way better when you take one of these.NordVPN: Right now, get up to 66% off + 3 months extra through this link. It's an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. Mission Farms CBD: Lots of junk CBD on the market, but Mission Farms CBD is the real deal. Head over to missionfarmscbd.com and use code EARTH25 for 25% off.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.For more information visit: https://www.realitystudies.co/ Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signal in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.The best way to support the show, you ask? Pop over to YouTube and hit that Subscribe button. You hear it all the time for a reason—nothing will help the channel grow more than that simple click.My guest today is Cherie Hu.Cherie is an award-winning researcher, founder, and educator forging new paths in music, technology, and business. Since 2019, she has run Water & Music, a global innovation platform for the music business. Through data-driven market research, online courses, consulting projects, and live events, Water & Music has helped thousands of industry professionals translate emergent music-tech trends into transformative opportunities in business and culture. She has also published hundreds of articles for Billboard, Forbes, NPR Music, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Variety, and DJ Mag, among many others. In Fall 2024, Hu will be joining Syracuse University's Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries as a Professor of Practice, focused on teaching emerging music business models and technologies.Cherie is my go-to source for understanding key matters in the music business. Music is a domain where developments in technology often land early but have spillover effects in other industries. Think about how prominent sampling and remix culture have become through music, and the effect in domains like art, design, and video.In our conversation, which we recorded in December 2023, Cherie artfully walks us through the music business, and in the process reflects on broader shifts in technology such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. She also makes a pretty big prediction for 2024—hop into the episode to find out.Reality Studies Recommends:NOTE: Purchasing through these links supports the work I do with Reality Studies. I will only ever share products that I would endorse regardless of financial incentive.ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. The next day after drinking feels way better when you take one of these. Art fairs have no shortage of alcohol—perfect time to test drive ZBiotics.Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).NordVPN: Right now, get up to 69% off + 3 months extra through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and use code SPRINGISHERE for 25% off.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. You can learn more by visiting realitystudies.co. And if you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Asad J. Malik, Lia Halloran & Kip Thorne.Reality Studies is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Lia Halloran and Kip Thorne discuss their upcoming book that combines art and science, exploring concepts of black holes, wormholes, time travel, and gravitational waves. They share their collaboration process, failed attempt to publish in Playboy, fascination with wormholes, personal experiences in science and art, learning to fly, and the importance of recognizing mistakes in the scientific field. They also mention upcoming events and media coverage for the book release.