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The Culture & Technology Podcast

The Culture & Technology Podcast

Written by: Vienna Business Agency
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How is technology changing culture? From exhibition design to the performing arts, we invite leading curators, researchers, artists and cultural experts to explore how technology is shaping the future of cultural experiences and sparking new opportunities in the process. Hosted by the Vienna Business Agency together with Severin Matusek, The Culture & Technology Podcast aims to establish a long-term perspective on the ways emergent technologies transform culture.

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Episodes
  • Bernhard Günther: The Great Learning

    Bernhard Günther: The Great Learning
    Jul 7 2026
    Bernhard Günther is a cultural manager, curator, musicologist and the artistic director of Wien Modern, one of the world's largest contemporary music festivals held in Vienna since 1988. As a passionate visitor and organizer of concerts across diverse genres and formats, and as an occasional musician, he has been intensively engaged with new music and its context for over 25 years. In this episode, Bernhard and Severin discuss how Wien Modern evolved from its 1980s origins as a response to Vienna's nostalgic classical music scene into a deliberately confusing, friction-generating platform that challenges narrow definitions of what contemporary music can be. Günther explores the festival's 2025 theme "The Great Learning," which responds to Vienna's 37% population growth and increasing diversity by actively addressing questions of representation, discrimination, and who gets heard in classical music spaces. He discusses the tension between data-driven curation and human taste, why festivals must resist becoming "elite things," the dangers of AI in understanding discrimination, and why bringing people together to physically experience music—even when it provokes disagreement—matters more than ever in an age when social media promised connection but delivered polarization instead.
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    56 mins
  • Simon Denny: Memories of the Future

    Simon Denny: Memories of the Future
    Jun 9 2026
    Simon Denny is an artist living and working in Berlin, known for his conceptual work examining technology, power, and contemporary culture. His practice spans diverse media including paintings, sculptures, installations, and exhibition-making, often investigating the cultural footprint of influential technology figures and companies. Denny has exhibited internationally and gained recognition for works addressing tech industry aesthetics, from early pieces about Kim Dotcom and Peter Thiel to recent explorations of defense tech and AI. In this episode, Simon discusses his latest exhibition "Forces of the Unknown," which uses AI-generated imagery and plotter-painted canvases to draw connections between Italian Futurism and contemporary Silicon Valley ideology. The conversation explores how Marc Andreessen's "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" inspired the work, the shift from consumer tech to defense tech ("hard tech"), and Silicon Valley's evolving relationship with weapons manufacturing. Severin and Simon also examine AI as an artistic tool, the ethics of technological labor displacement, and the role of artists in capturing cultural moments without prescribing political solutions.
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    1 hr
  • Günseli Yalcinkaya: Internet Folklore

    Günseli Yalcinkaya: Internet Folklore
    Apr 17 2026
    Günseli Yalcinkaya is an artist, curator and writer based in London. She is a Contributing Editor at Dazed and the former host of Dazed’s podcast, Logged On, and has appeared in talks and panels at the Architectural Association, BFI, Somerset House, Sónar+D, Serpentine Galleries, Unsound Festival, Vienna Digital Cultures and X Museum. Her essays have been published in CURA, Dazed Magazine, Spike Art, Vogue, Zora Zine and 032c, as well as in books for Aksioma, Julia Stoschek and LAS Art Foundation. In this episode, Günseli discusses her concept of 'internet folklore,' which connects advanced technologies with cultural practices like folklore and mythmaking. The conversation delves into the ways internet culture influences society, the impact of AI on human interaction and creativity, and the emerging significance of quantum culture. Severin and Günseli also explore her collaborative AV performances and the intriguing parallels between AI and psychedelia.
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    59 mins
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