The Gould Standard

A conversational podcast about the arts, culture, and contemporary society.

We talk with artistic heroes working to create a more inclusive and mindful world, hear their incredible stories, and get to know what makes them tick. Our guests are leaders in a wide range of fields, nationalities, and lived experience, including musical composers and performers, painters, poets, filmmakers, actors, dancers, broadcasters, and more.

The Gould Standard

  • Cory Doctorow: An Encore
    The Gould Standard
    The Gould Standard
    Cory Doctorow: An Encore
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    In a special encore presentation, we’re delighted to highlight our conversation with Cory Doctorow, originally published in October 2020. Stay tuned for a new season of The Gould Standard as we bring you even more thought-provoking conversations. Has technology ushered in a Brave New World of creativity, connectedness and individual empowerment— or has it created an invisible tool to enable surveillance, manipulation and the invasion of our privacy? Few people alive speak more clearly and provocatively to these issues than Cory Doctorow, award-winning science fiction writer, blogger and activist for a more open, accountable and human-rights-focused digital future. In this in-depth conversation with host Brian Levine, Cory explores the deep social engagement, sense of wonder, and occasionally, the rage that inspires his fiction and non-fiction writing.

  • Mobley: The One-Man Band
    The Gould Standard
    The Gould Standard
    Mobley: The One-Man Band
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    Austin-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mobley describes his style as “post-genre,” an evocative mix of pop, soul, rock with inventive touches that defy classification. What marks him as one of the most interesting emerging artists today is his beguiling blend of searing social criticism with captivating melodies, all brilliantly on display in his recent album, Young and Dying in the Occident Supreme. In this revealing conversation, Mobley talks about re-inventing himself as a one-man band who creates a richly layered ensemble experience while performing solo, his work in film and video and his unique and haunting collaborative video project inspired by the parlour game “Exquisite Corpse.”

  • Ai Weiwei: The Conscience of An Artist
    The Gould Standard
    The Gould Standard
    Ai Weiwei: The Conscience of An Artist
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    Ai Weiwei is a unique presence in the world of visual art – equal parts avant-garde icon, activist and moral conscience for our times. His courage is legendary both in pushing the boundaries between the new and the traditional in art and between art and politics. He has inspired the world with his defiance in the face of authoritarianism. Join us for a deeply moving conversation, ranging from Ai’s origins and formative influences, his struggles to defend freedom of expression against the forces of repression, his monumental installations and his equally bold provocations of the powerful and complacent through his documentary films.

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