Going Backward to Go Somewhere New

The companion podcast to Issue No.78 of The Intersect. Chelsea and Georgia sit with a question the newsletter only gestures at: when artists deliberately slow down — soldering their own synths, drawing with pendulums, dressing new software in 1970s clothing — is that creative progress, or just well-designed comfort in the face of AI? Pull up a chair for the friction.Contents00:00 Slow Tools, New Costumes00:01 The Software That Feels Old00:04 Build It Yourself Synths00:07 Innovation Meets Countermovement00:09 The Harmonograph Mystery00:12 What Deliberate Inefficiency MeansIn this episodeSlow Tools, New Costumes — Three very different objects, one suspiciously similar gesture. Chelsea and Georgia open with the hunch that's about to run through the whole conversation.The Software That Feels Old — Giorgio Sancristoforo's Homework runs on Apple Silicon but looks like it crawled out of a 1973 studio. Why do musicians keep choosing virtual patch cables when cleaner interfaces exist? The answer isn't really about sound.Build It Yourself Synths — The Music Thing Workshop Computer arrives as a bag of components. Thonk can't keep them on the shelves. A conversation about why people who grew up on plugins are now reaching for a soldering iron — and what that says about innovation in instruments versus innovation in sound.Innovation Meets Countermovement — Ellen McGirt's Design Observer piece traces a pattern older than any of us. Photography didn't kill painting; synths didn't kill acoustic music. So what becomes retro when AI image generation matures?The Harmonograph Mystery — Raf Jakob's wooden side table makes one drawing in ten minutes and then it's done. Is calling it furniture a meaningful gesture, or well-designed cope? Maybe both.What Deliberate Inefficiency Means — Four objects, one gesture. Chelsea and Georgia land on the honest answer — and on what the counter-movement to AI might actually look like when it arrives in full.Stay in the loopIf you want to sit with these questions every week, come find us — no hype, no doom, just the friction.Website: theintersect.artInstagram: @theintersectnewsThreads: @jberkesselBlueSky: @polymash.bsky.socialSubstack: The Intersect on SubstackLinkedIn: Juergen Berkessel