Locust Radio

In Locust Radio episode #30, Tish Turl interviews fellow Locust comrade, Adam Turl, on their new book, Gothic Capitalism: Art Evicted from Heaven and Earth (Revol Press, May 2, 2025). You can order the book from Revol Press, Amazon, or find it at other booksellers.Artists, ideas, books, writers, artworks and other stuff discussed in this episode: Adam Turl, Gothic Capitalism: Art Evicted from Heaven and Earth (Revol Press 2025); Ernst Fischer, The Necessity of Art (Verso, 2020); Boris Groys, “The Weak Universalism,” e-flux (2010); Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936); Walter Benjamin, “Theses on History” (1940); John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative (2009); Mark Fisher, Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction (2018); Donna Harraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić; Joseph Beuys; John Heartfield; Anupam Roy; Richard Hamilton; R. Faze; Born Again Labor Museum; Amiri Baraka; Omnia Sol; Sister Wife Sex Strike; Dada; Judy Jordan; Bertolt Brecht; Claire Bishop; The Sublime; “Third Places;” Fluxus; Abstract Expressionism; The Sopranos; The Wire; Surrealism; Charlie Jane Anders; Emily St. John Mandel; Pier Paolo Pasolini, La Ricotta (1963) and The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966); Boots Riley; Federal Arts Project; Luis Buñuel, The Exterminating Angel (1962); The Artists Union; Voltaire, Candide (1759); Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967); Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet (1989); Beethoven, Symphony #9 (1822-1824); Sam Esmail, Leave the World Behind (2023); David Cronenberg, Videodrome (1983); Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism (2024)Produced by Tish Turl, Adam Turl, Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet. Theme by Omnia Sol, Drew Franzblau and Adam Turl. Hosts include Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz and Adam Turl.

In episode 28 of Locust Radio, Adam Turl is joined by Anupam Roy – an artist based in Delhi and member of the Locust Collective. This episode is part of a series of interviews of current and former Locust Collective members and contributors. It is being conducted as research for a future text by Adam Turl on the conceptual and aesthetic strategies of the collective in the context of a cybernetic Anthropocene. Locust Radio hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl. Producers include Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl. Related texts and topics: B.R. Ambedkar, see also B.R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936) (pdf); James Baldwin (writer/author); Geroges Bataille, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939 (pdf); The Bengal Famine (1943); Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936); John Berger (artist and critic), see also Ways of Seeing (video) and Ways of Seeing (1972) (book); Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (artist); Pieter Bruegel the Elder (artist); Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); Bedatri D. Choudhury, “The Artist Who Sketched a Famine in India,” Hyperallergic (April 30, 2018); Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation; Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009); Antonio Gramsci; Institutional Critique (art); Marshall McLuhan (philosopher); Fred Morton (author); Pier Paolo Pasolini (poet and filmmaker); Platform Capitalism; Lionello Puppi, Torment in Art (1991); Kohei Saito, Capital in the Anthropocene (2020); Shulka Sawant, “Cultivating a Taste for Nature: Tagore’s Landscape Paintings,” Economic and Political Weekly 52, no. 19 (2017): 57–63; Songs for Sabotage, New Museum Triennial (2018); J.W.M. Turner (artist); Adam Turl, Dead Paintings (2010-); Adam Turl interviews Anupam Roy, “We Are Broken Cogs in the Machine,” Red Wedge (May 7, 2019); Vincent Van Gogh (artist).

In episode 26 of Locust Radio, Adam Turl is joined by Omnia Sol – a comic, video, and sound artist in Chicago. This episode is part of a series of interviews of current and former Locust Collective members and contributors. This series is being conducted as research for a future book by Adam Turl on the conceptual and aesthetic strategies of the collective in the context of a cybernetic Anthropocene. The featured closing music / sound art, “Overview” and “Wilhelmina,” are from Omnia Sol’s forthcoming vs. Megalon. Check out their bandcamp. Locust Radio hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl. Producers include Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl. Related texts and topics: Arte Povera; Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936); Michael Betancourt, Glitch Art in Theory and Practice (2017); William Blake; Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); Stan Brakhage ; Bertolt Brecht - see also Brecht, “A Short Organum for the Theater” (1948); Cybernetic Culture Research Unit; Mark Fisher, “Acid Communism (Unfinished Introduction)”; Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); Scott Dikkers, Jim’s Journal (comic by the co-founder of the Onion); Dollar Art House; Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009); Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (2014); Mark Fisher, K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2019); Flicker Films; Fully Automated Luxury (Gay) Space Communism; Glitch Art; Jean-Luc Godard; Grand Upright Music, Ltd. vs. Warner Brothers Records (Biz Markie) (1991); William Hogarth; Tamara Kneese, Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond (2023); Holly Lewis, “Toward AI Realism,” Spectre (2024); Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Nam June Paik and TV Buddha; Harvey Pekar (comic artist); Gregory Sholette, Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (2010); Grafton Tanner, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts (2016); TOSAS (The Omnia Sol Art Show); Nat Turner; Wildstyle and Style Wars (1983 film); YOVOZAL, “My Thoughts about AI and art,” YouTube video (2024)

Our first segment focuses on the history of socialism and science fiction (SF) in the early to mid-20th century United States, in particular the novels of George Allan England and the Popular Front SF of the Michelists in the 1930s and 1940s. Our second segment discusses the efforts of organizers in the Carbondale Assembly for Radical Equity (CARE) to help trans and queer persons — targeted by the recent wave of oppressive legislation in states like Florida, Texas, and elsewhere — relocate to the relative safety of Carbondale, Illinois. Guests in this episode: Sean Cashbaugh, a postdoctoral lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program and author of “A Paradoxical, Discrepant, and Mutant Marxism: The Emergence of Radical Science Fiction in the American Popular Front,” in the Journal for the Study of Radicalism. Cassandra Coffey, “a forty-year-old transfeminine nonbinary anarcho-communist redneck from Kentucky who has spent the past several years involved in queer liberation action and grassroots organization for causes that promote equity, emancipation, and challenge unjust authority.” Joe Shapiro, associate professor of English literature at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and author of The Illiberal Imagination: Class and the Rise of the U.S. Novel (University of Virginia Press, 2017). Mattie Stearns, “a nonbinary libertarian socialist J20 defendant, organizing in Carbondale for about ten years, and life-long resident of Carbondale. They are going to school to become a venture socialist. They are a general trouble-maker.” You can reach out to CARE at carbondalecare@proton.me or by messaging the CARE Facebook page. You can donate to CARE by making a donation on the Carbondale Rainbow Cafe website and writing “CARE” in the memo box. Or you can send a check by mail to Rainbow Cafe, 118 N. Illinois Avenue, Carbondale, IL 62901, and write “CARE” in the memo line. This episode’s opening reading is “Cogita’s Plan,” from the “Stink Ape Resurrection Primer” forthcoming in Locust Review 10. Music featured in this episode includes Melissa Carper, Mike Watt and the Secondmissingmen, and Omnia Sol. Locust Radio is a project of the Locust Arts and Letters Collective. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl.

In this episode of Locust Radio, Tish, Laura, and Adam discuss the theme of, and editorial for, Locust Review #10, “The Monsters Are Coming,” the social construction of the monstrous, the idea of “solidarity with monsters,” differentiating between “their” monsters and “ours,” and how every accusation from the far-right is an admission of guilt. We also touch on the obliviousness of the British ruling-class and its recent “coronation” spectacle, and the looming midnight of the 21st century. In this episode, we also listen to music from Melissa Carper, Omnia Sol, and Kid Pixie. Please go to their bandcamps and buy their music! Adam also interviews Nick Shillingford from the Socialist News and Views podcast, and Luke Herron-Titus from Southern Illinois Democratic Socialists of America, for the third Irrealist Worker’s Survey (IWS). In the IWS interviews we discuss solidarity with AI, self-determination for Frankenstein’s monsters, working-class sabotage, conspiracy theory robots designed by Oxford University “scientists,” being liminal spaces, and more. Artists, authors, books, articles, and artworks discussed in this episode include: B. R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936); William Blake, “Jerusalem” (1808); Kelly Budruweit, “Twilight’s Heteronormative Reversal of the Monstros: Utopia and the Gothic Design,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , 2016, Vol. 27, No. 2 (96) (2016), pp. 270- 289; Jeffrey Cohen, Monster Theory: Reading Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Emory Douglas (visual artist, member of the historic Black Panther Party for Self-Defense); Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (Autonomedia, 2004); Brian P. Levack, “The Horrors of Witchcraft and Demonic Possession,” Social Research, Vol. 81, No. 4, Horrors (Winter 2014), pp. 921-939; Dave McNally, Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism (Haymarket, 2011); China Miéville (author); Anupam Roy (visual artist); Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818); Susan Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” (Gordon and Breach Science Publishers SA, 1994); Enzo Traverso, Left Melancholia: Marxism, History and Memory (2016); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Stink Ape Resurrection Primer (serialized in Locust Review #4 onwards, 2021-present); HG Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896); HG Wells, The War of the Worlds (1895-1897); and more… Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet.

In this Halloween episode of Locust Radio, Tish and Adam discuss folk horror, folk devils, and ghosts,  listen to music from Fat JackRabbit, Omnia Sol, Hans Predator, and Worthless Scarecrow, and hear poetry from Mike Linaweaver and Leslie Lea. Our co-host Laura Fair-Schulz was out sick and we look forward to their return in the next episode. Our discussion starts with the story of a spectral hound called “Old Black Eyes,” a cryptid that dissolves itself in its own tears, and more. Tish and Adam talk about the ethos of Halloween cutting against the capitalist impulse to map the entire world for profit and that UFOs are a secular visitation of “Biblically accurate angels.” We also discuss the persecution of witches, Silvia Federici’s argument that magic is antithetical to capitalism, the irrealist strategy of appropriating “folk devils,” solidarity with monsters,  and how the working-class itself summons the hauntological ghost of Marxism. Tish and Adam invent a new cryptid that has an anteater-like proboscis that steals children from Christian Nationalists and the worst members of the bourgeoisie to “save their souls.” Lastly: “no one wants to Sysphus anymore'' and “we are the monsters we’ve been waiting for.” Songs featured in this episode include: Fat JackRabbit, “Bad Dream”; Omnia Sol, “Rod Lavars”; Hans Predator, “Suck-cess”; and Worthless Scarecrow, “Not”. Please check out their work (linked here to their bandcamp pages) and show them some love, and buy some music. Poems  featured includeL “Someday Massacre” by Mike Linaweaver (forthcoming in Locust Review #9); and “Spring” by Leslie Lea (from Locust Review #8). Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl, and produced by Alexander Billet and Omnia Sol. Theme music is by Omnia Sol.

Tish and Adam are joined by our new co-host Laura Fair-Schulz, our new co-producer Omnia Sol, and our guest, poet, writer, and comrade Crystal Stella Becerril. Crystal Stella Becerril collaborated for several years with Locust Radio co-producer Alexander Billet, Omnia, and Adam at the Red Wedge project in the 2010s. She is a freelance writer, podcaster, and an organizer with the National Writers Union Freelance Solidarity Project. Stella poetry and non-fiction has been published by multiple websites and journals. She’s presented several papers at the Historical Materialism conferences in London, Toronto and New York. Earlier in the pandemic she helped organize a rent strike in her apartment building in New York City. In today’s episode we discuss writing poetry and theory, the relationship of poetry and photography to capitalism, how we are conditioned to understand work and time under capitalism, the anxiety of trying to take care of yourself in a class society, organizing freelance workers, the art of editing, poetry vs. the digital attention economy; and more. Some of the works discussed, read, or listened to in this episode: Crystal Stella Becerril, “What if You Had Taken the Day Off?,” Locust Review 7 (2022); Omnia Sol, “icloud fucking sucks”; Omnia Sol, “Juicy Slice”; Crystal Stella Becerril, “Wages for Housework and Other Neccessay Labor,” Red Wedge Magazine (2019); Tish Turl, “Giving Up,” Locust Review 5 (2021); Kevin Coleman and Daniel James, editors, Capitalism and the Camera: Essays on Photography and Extraction (Verso: 2021). Locust Radio is hosted by Laura Fair-Schulz, Adam Turl, and Tish Turl; and produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander BIllet. Theme music by Omnia Sol. Original opening produced by Drew Franzblau.

Why does this extraterrestrial on a talk show say the aliens want to “help us,” and why are they so interested in our water? Seems fishy… Adam and Tish speak with artist, writer, and Locust Arts & Letters Collective member Laura Fair-Schulz about her work, and how labor, identity, gender, abstraction, dysphoria, and liberation all inform it. At the end of part one, Tish reads a poem from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer about ghosts going on strike. Also discussed in this episode: Laura Fair-Schulz, “Candyman 2021: Art Reveals Horror,” Imagojournal.com (October 25, 2021), Laura Fair-Schulz, “Writing Marxism Out of Art History,” RedWedgeMagazine.com (May 1, 2019), Mark Fisher on Magical Voluntarism, the ArtNet series on NFTs and the art world, “Inside the NFT Rush,” by Ben Davis, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 (November - December 2021), Frida Kahlo’s house being dismantled for NFTs, Henry Giroux, “Jim Crow Politics Have Descended on Education,” Truthout (October 27, 2021), and more. Artists and writers discussed include Alice Neel, Mark Fisher, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, James Baldwin, Richard Hamilton, and more. Works by Laura discussed in this episode can be viewed at the Locust website.   Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl, and produced by Alexander Billet and Drew Franzblau. Music by Omnia Sol.

In this episode begin with an excerpt from the Locust anthology series, Swarm Stories, and then Tish and Adam move on to discussing art, politics, and propaganda with Locust member Anupam Roy. Anupam Roy is an artist and propagandist with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. We also discuss Anupam’s drawings, appearing in Locust Review #5, Excuse Me I Was Sharpening My Teeth and May Day; Tish’s “franken-prose-poetry” series, The Stink Ape Resurrection Primer'; and Adam’s painting/collage, Snek Rallies the Oil Snakes, while Aelita Beheads Elon Musk, and Possum Sings Against the Rain, and augmented digital print series, Social Resurrection Task-Prints. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl: https://www.bornagainlabor.com/ Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/ Discussed in this episode: Adam Turl interviews Anupam Roy, “We Are Broken Cogs in the Machine,” Red Wedge (May 7, 2019): http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/broken-cogs-in-the-machine Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks: https://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf Ben Davis, “How the New Museum’s Triennial Sabotages Its Own Revolutionary Mission: What’s all this talk of propaganda?” Artnet (February 20, 2018): https://news.artnet.com/art-world/how-the-new-museums-triennial-sabotages-its-own-revolutionary-mission-1226768 Interviews with Nagesh Rao, Tempest, “Authoritarianism and Resistance in India,” parts 1, 2, 3: https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/01/authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india/ https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/01/authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india-2/ https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/06/authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india-part-3/ From CPIMLL’s English language Liberation - “West Bengal Verdict And After Lessons for the Left” https://cpiml.net/liberation/2021/05/west-bengal-verdict-and-after-lessons-for-the-left From CPIMLL’s English language Liberation - “Modi Shrugs Off Responsibility As India Gasps for Breath” https://cpiml.net/liberation/2021/05/modi-shrugs-off-responsibility-as-india-gasps-for-breath Dave McNally, “What is the meaning of revolution today? Behind the New Reformism,” Spectre https://spectrejournal.com/what-is-the-meaning-of-revolution-today/

After Salvador Dali receives a well-deserved beat-down, Tish, Adam and Alex talk surrealism! Widely known, but frequently depoliticized in our current day, surrealism is a cornerstone of the critical irrealist project for us at Locust Review. We discuss its origins, missions and goals in liberating the mind from the fetters of capitalism and empire, and its communist activism. Morning Star, by Michael Lowy Black, Brown and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora, edited by Franklin Rosemon the Robin DG Kelley Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, by Robin DG Kelley “Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art,” by Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky, signed by Breton and Diego Rivera: https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/rivera/manifesto.htm Afrosurrealism, edited by Rochelle Spencer “Claude Cahun: The Androgynous Surrealist,” by Jacqueline Martinez, The Collector: https://www.thecollector.com/claude-cahun/ “When the Surrealists Expelled Salvador Dali for “the Glorification of Hitlerian Fascism,” by Josh Jones, Open Culture: https://www.openculture.com/2018/03/when-the-surrealists-expelled-salvador-dali-for-the-glorification-of-hitlerian-fascism-1934.html Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Adam Turl, and Alexander Billet. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

Lots has happened since our last episode: the storming of the Capitol, the fascists’ disorientation, and the inauguration of a new president who can’t wait for us to get “back to normal.” Tish, Adam, and Alex discuss what it is about capitalism’s obsessions with normalcy that is so detrimental to working and oppressed people. Also, an unexpected guest shows up in the form of a dead coyote wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. “The Rabble and the Door,” by Steve Edwards, Spectre, January 15th, 2021: https://spectrejournal.com/the-rabble-and-the-door/ “Keep Socialism Weird” and “Breaking the Norm,” both by Peter Frase on his blog: http://www.peterfrase.com/2018/10/keep-socialism-weird/, http://www.peterfrase.com/2018/11/breaking-the-norm/ An Essay On Liberation, by Herbert Marcuse Death and Dying In the Working Class, 1865-1920, by Michael K. Rosenow “What Is a Struggalo? Inquiry at the Juggalo March,” by Gavin Mueller, Viewpoint, September 18th, 2017: https://viewpointmag.com/2017/09/18/struggalo-inquiry-juggalo-march/ The Politics of Everybody, by Holly Lewis “Hardhats and Hippies: An Interview With Penny Lewis,” Penny Lewis interviewed by Chris Maisano, Jacobin, June 3rd, 2013: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/06/hardhats-hippies-and-hawks-an-interview-with-penny-lewis Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/ This background music for this episode's sketch is "Moment of Truth (Violin Version)" by David Hilowitz

Adam, Tish, and Alex discuss all manner of post-election oddities, and what they tell us about an imminent Joe Biden presidency. We also talk about the prospects for anti-fascism, the tasks of radical art, and why brunch is a stupid idea for a meal in the first place. Plus, poetry from Tish and fellow Locust editor Mike Linaweaver, and the final thoughts of two very presidential severed heads. For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, we share some of our current writing and research, including a much-overlooked group of writers who tried to claim sci-fi for communism in the 1930s, and an overview of the work of Hugo-nominated fantasy writer Chuck Tingle. If you want to hear this portion, and haven’t subscribed yet, do so now: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview “The Urgency of Anti-Fascism,” by Adam Turl, Tempest, October 15th, 2020: https://www.tempestmag.org/2020/10/the-urgency-of-anti-fascism/ Starship Troopers, written by Eric Neumeier, directed by Paul Verhoeven “The Politics of the Pandemic: Panel I,” part of Historical Materialism Online, featuring Rob Wallace, Richard Seymour, Josep Maria Antentas, George Nikolaidis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZk4ZCwBKxQ&list=PLcqXhvSDf0z1_1fjg5P3KstOLswjRjk_f&index=16 “Out of the Castle and Into the Street: Art Under Trump,” editorial in Red Wedge, January 20th, 2017: http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/out-of-the-castles “‘One thinge that ouerthroweth all that were graunted before’: On Being Presidential,” by China Mieville, Salvage, January 30th, 2018: https://salvage.zone/in-print/one-thinge-that-ouerthroweth-all-that-were-graunted-before-on-being-presidential/ Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/