Author of Audition · Intimacies · A Separation
I'm really interested in the formal aspect of characters who are channeling language, who are speaking the words of other people, and in characters who are aware of how little agency they actually have, who have passivity forced upon them, who perhaps even embrace their passivity to a certain extent but eventually seek out where they can enact their agency.
VR Pioneer · Musician · Author JARON LANIER
Who Owns the Future? · Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality & Virtual Reality · Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
AI is obviously the dominant topic in tech lately, and I think occasionally there's AI that's nonsense, and occasionally there's AI that's great. I love finding new proteins for medicine and so on. I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we're really getting a little too full of ourselves to think that.
When we do that, I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.
Father of VR · Musician · Author JARON LANIER
Who Owns the Future? · Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality & Virtual Reality · Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
AI is obviously the dominant topic in tech lately, and I think occasionally there's AI that's nonsense, and occasionally there's AI that's great. I love finding new proteins for medicine and so on. I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we're really getting a little too full of ourselves to think that.
When we do that, I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.
Artists, Writers, Filmmakers Share their Stories
Marilyn Minter · Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy · Dean Spade · Laura Eason · Intan Paramaditha · Tey Meadow · Sara Ahmed · Ellen Rapoport · Dian Hanson · Kate Mueth on the importance of agency, owning the narrative, and the joy of creation.
Famous Rock & Urban Climber ALAIN ROBERT
Known for Free Solo Climbing 200+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers using no Climbing Equipment
you are fighting to stay alive. You are fully in the present moment; you don't have time to think about being afraid. You are focused on what you are doing. You struggle to pass another window, then another, and you don't have time to think about your problems. The only thing you are concerned about deep down in the back of your mind is that you need to stay alive, and for that, you need to remain calm and focused.
Famous Rock & Urban Climber ALAIN ROBERT
Known for Free Solo Climbing 200+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers using no Climbing Equipment
you are fighting to stay alive. You are fully in the present moment; you don't have time to think about being afraid. You are focused on what you are doing. You struggle to pass another window, then another, and you don't have time to think about your problems. The only thing you are concerned about deep down in the back of your mind is that you need to stay alive, and for that, you need to remain calm and focused.
JULIE ANDREWS · PAUL SCHRADER · JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY · ETGAR KERET · JOY GORMAN WETTELS · CHAYSE IRVIN · MANUEL BILLETER
Share their Stories
Novelist · Short Story Writer
What I have done in my career is just try to assess who we are, what we are, why we are here, and how come we, as animals, are able to walk around and wear pants and dresses and talk on the internet, while the other animals are not. It's been my obsession since I was young. I think if I hadn't become a novelist, I might have been happy to be a naturalist or a field biologist.
Novelist · Short Story Writer
What I have done in my career is just try to assess who we are, what we are, why we are here, and how come we, as animals, are able to walk around and wear pants and dresses and talk on the internet, while the other animals are not. It's been my obsession since I was young. I think if I hadn't become a novelist, I might have been happy to be a naturalist or a field biologist.
Writer Director
Oh, Hi! · The Boy Downstairs
In reality, we're all complex people with feelings and our own sets of baggage. I do think we are very good at self-sabotage, all of us. It's a very easy road to go down. It's safe because it's comfortable, and we know it. When you can find the ways you self-sabotage and try to stop that, it will hopefully lead to a happier life and things that are meaningful. When I was in my late twenties, I got out of a serious relationship and kind of reentered the dating scene. I was shocked by the simplification of a lot of complicated feelings around dating and how women are so easily labeled crazy, and men are so easily labeled assholes.
Writer Director
Oh, Hi! · The Boy Downstairs
In reality, we're all complex people with feelings and our own sets of baggage. I do think we are very good at self-sabotage, all of us. It's a very easy road to go down. It's safe because it's comfortable, and we know it. When you can find the ways you self-sabotage and try to stop that, it will hopefully lead to a happier life and things that are meaningful. When I was in my late twenties, I got out of a serious relationship and kind of reentered the dating scene. I was shocked by the simplification of a lot of complicated feelings around dating and how women are so easily labeled crazy, and men are so easily labeled assholes.
Showrunner · Writer · Creator
The Rookie · The Recruit
There used to be a time when leading men were okay with falling down as a character. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones is a prime example of that. Even going back to the fifties, they understood that failure and falling down, but getting back up, is an endearing quality. It's a universal human quality. We have gotten to a point in the last 10 or 15 years, or maybe longer, where leading men often want to win every fight. It’s in their contract: "I have to win every fight" or "I can't fail" or "I can't fall down." It's just such a mistake because the audience roots for you more if they see you fail and then get back up again. Noah is totally comfortable playing that character who's just trying to figure it out on the fly. Sometimes, he gets it wrong, but he's never going to give up. You can really feel that coming off the screen.
Showrunner · Writer · Creator
The Rookie · The Recruit
There used to be a time when leading men were okay with falling down as a character. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones is a prime example of that. Even going back to the fifties, they understood that failure and falling down, but getting back up, is an endearing quality. It's a universal human quality. We have gotten to a point in the last 10 or 15 years, or maybe longer, where leading men often want to win every fight. It’s in their contract: "I have to win every fight" or "I can't fail" or "I can't fall down." It's just such a mistake because the audience roots for you more if they see you fail and then get back up again. Noah is totally comfortable playing that character who's just trying to figure it out on the fly. Sometimes, he gets it wrong, but he's never going to give up. You can really feel that coming off the screen.
Filmmakers, Writers & Artists Share their Stories
How do the arts help us understand the world? How do our personal lives influence the art we make? Benoît Delhomme, John Patrick Shanley, Jim Shepard, Anthony White, Laura Eason, Mark Gottlieb & Michael Begler explore their creative process.
Emmy-nominated Producer, Writer, Playwright
I think the show conveys to the women watching that their lives matter. They don't have to be some gorgeous aspirational person, although Sloane absolutely fits that mold. But for others living in the Midwest, struggling and feeling unseen, hopefully, the mirrors of Lina and Maggie will help them not feel so alone and remind them that their stories are important and matter.
I think the show conveys to the women watching that their lives matter. They don't have to be some gorgeous aspirational person, although Sloane absolutely fits that mold. But for others living in the Midwest, struggling and feeling unseen, hopefully, the mirrors of Lina and Maggie will help them not feel so alone and remind them that their stories are important and matter.
Musicians, Writers, Filmmakers & Actors Share Their Stories
How do the arts help us find purpose and meaning? What role do stories play in helping us preserve memories, connect us to each other, and answer life’s big questions? Max Richter, Etgar Keret, Athony Joseph, Claudia Forestieri, Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz Johnjoe McFadden, Sheehan Karunatilaka, Catherine Curtin, Kate Mueth explore the importance of creativity and the arts.
The Lives of Billionaires Comic Artist & Author DARRYL CUNNINGHAM on Making Complex Subjects Simple
No one should be a billionaire because it's damaging. There's a certain level of wealth that's damaging to a country. Billionaires have so much wealth that they have enormous political power, which is undemocratic. There should be a ceiling on wealth. I have nothing against people becoming millionaires or even multi-millionaires. But multi-billionaires are incredibly bad for all of us. If you have so much money that you can buy an entire political party, that's a thing that shouldn't exist.
Filmmakers, Writers & Artists on Connecting through Creativity
How does art change the way we see and experience the world? Art has the power to offer transformative experiences, but what about the lives of artists who give so much of themselves? How can we balance creativity and personal well-being while still making work that is true and meaningful?
This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.
The Creative Process: Podcast Interviews & Portraits of the World’s Leading Authors & Creative Thinkers
Inspiring Students – Encouraging Reading - Connecting through Stories
The Creative Process exhibition is traveling to universities and museums. The Creative Process exhibition consists of interviews with over 100 esteemed writers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Hilary Mantel, Neil Gaiman, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tobias Wolff, Richard Ford, Junot Díaz, Marie Darrieussecq, Michel Faber, T.C. Boyle, Jay McInerney, George Saunders, Geoff Dyer, Etgar Keret, Douglas Kennedy, Sam Lipsyte, and Yiyun Li, among others. Artist and interviewer: Mia Funk.
