Immaterial Voices
Claim This Podcastby Brian O'Neill for Immaterial Books
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Podcast Overview
<p>Immaterial Voices is the podcast of Immaterial Books, an independent publisher of contemporary art and literature on photo media and its practice. Hosted by photographer, writer, and sociologist Brian O'Neill, the show consists of interviews with artists, scholars, and practitioners about contemporary image making, theory, and history.</p>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
10/7/2024
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Recent Episodes
December 15, 2025
What is a Photobook?: A Conversation with Hans Hickerson
<p>What exactly is a photobook? This episode is with longtime artist, bookmaker, photographer, writer, translator, and editor Hans Hickerson. For the past five years or so, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill has been working as a critic, or at least, writing about photobooks, as Contributing Editor at The Photobook Journal. Hans is the Managing Editor of that publication and agreed to come on the show to share his experience.</p><p>In this conversation, Hans and Brian delineate the characteristics of the photobook, and in so doing, discuss numerous famous and lesser-known examples. They discuss how they evaluate books and some that have surprised them. They especially home in on questions that concern image-text photobooks and connections to literature, such as how photobooks represent places, historical epochs, and cultures. For example, how can text be used to complement, rather than dominate imagery? In approaching these topics, Hans also explains how he got into photobooks decades ago, what it meant then versus today, and how the field has changed. He also relates some fascinating stories and insights from his encounters with the likes of Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Jim Goldberg, and more. During the conversation, they also talk about the challenges of distribution, art book fairs, and gallery curation.</p><p><strong>Notes:</strong></p><p>Fishpond Press - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://hanshickerson.com/books">https://hanshickerson.com/books</a></p><p>Kevin Cooley’s Wizard of Awe - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.eriskayconnection.com/the-wizard-of-awe/">https://www.eriskayconnection.com/the-wizard-of-awe/</a></p><p>John Volynchook’s Faultlines - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/faultlines">https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/faultlines</a></p><p>Jordan Baumgarten’s Family Tree Removal - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://smog-press.xyz/collections/frontpage/products/family-tree-removal">https://smog-press.xyz/collections/frontpage/products/family-tree-removal</a></p><p>Kult Books - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://kultbooks.com">https://kultbooks.com</a></p><p>Sleeper Studio - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://sleeper.studio/INFO">https://sleeper.studio/INFO</a></p><p>Michel Tournier - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803244306/the-mirror-of-ideas/">https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803244306/the-mirror-of-ideas/</a></p><p>The Yearbook Committee - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.theyearbookcommittee.com">https://www.theyearbookcommittee.com</a></p><p>Jordan Gale’s Long Distance Drunk - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://photobookjournal.com/2025/10/03/jordan-gale-long-distance-drunk/">https://photobookjournal.com/2025/10/03/jordan-gale-long-distance-drunk/</a></p><p>Gary Alan Fine’s Talking Art - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo28263673.html">https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo28263673.html</a></p><p>Brian O’Neill - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.brianfoneill.net">https://www.brianfoneill.net</a></p><p>Immaterial Books - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com">https://www.immaterialbooks.com</a></p><p>Wyoming Toad - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail">https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail</a></p>
November 19, 2025
Bookmaking and the Art of Observation: A Conversation with Ryan Searl
<p>In this conversation, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill, sits down with photographer and artist Ryan Searl. Based in Illinois, Searl explores the places that seem off the beaten path, but that are not often too far from home. Across the seemingly endless horizon of industrial agriculture in the American Midwest, Searl locates the coordinates of poetic meaning, but also questions them, attentive to its many appropriations. In Searl’s multivalent landscape, we encounter, through his persistent approach, a place that evolves and to which he responds, as new issues, risks, and quiet joys unfold.</p><p> O’Neill and Searl talk about inspirations in the history of art, as well as from the Farm Security Administration photographers, independent filmmaking, ambient music, and more. Searl explains how he develops his projects and the tensions of when and how to include portraits, as well as how to engage and deepen one’s commitment to diverse communities over time. As they discuss, photobooks and zines, in particular, can offer a potential window into art and art worlds for those without formal art training and multiple publics, free from social pressures associated with traditional galleries.</p><p>Searl has an extensive bookmaking practice, working with risograph and other printing techniques. The latest project from Searl published by Immaterial Books is Primary Wires.</p><p><strong>Notes:</strong></p><p>Blurred Horizons Exhibit - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025">https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025</a></p><p>Ryan Searl - @ryan_ramsey</p><p>Primary Wires by Ryan Searl - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/primary-wires">https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/primary-wires</a></p><p>South of Chicago by Tim Carpenter and Nathan Pearce - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.micamera.com/en/prodotto/south-of-chicago-tim-carpenter-nathan-pearce/">https://www.micamera.com/en/prodotto/south-of-chicago-tim-carpenter-nathan-pearce/</a></p><p>Democratic Vistas by Jason Lee and Tim Carpenter - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://smog-press.xyz/products/democratic-vistas">https://smog-press.xyz/products/democratic-vistas</a></p><p>The Triggering Town - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69402/the-triggering-town">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69402/the-triggering-town</a></p><p>Russell Lee archive - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://lib.arizona.edu/special-collections/collections/russell-lee-photograph-collection">https://lib.arizona.edu/special-collections/collections/russell-lee-photograph-collection</a></p><p>Analog Gallery - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://analogwines.square.site">https://analogwines.square.site</a></p><p>Brian O’Neill - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.brianfoneill.net">https://www.brianfoneill.net</a></p><p>Immaterial Books - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com">https://www.immaterialbooks.com</a></p><p>Wyoming Toad - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail">https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail</a></p>
November 13, 2025
Photography En Plein Air: A Conversation with Ciel Baptiste
<p>In this conversation, Immaterial Voices host Brian O’Neill, sits down with photographer and artist Ciel Baptiste. Based in Illinois, Ciel has been exploring and experimenting with film photography, especially black and white, as a means to connect with the landscape and region.</p><p>In this conversation, O’Neill and Baptiste talk about inspirations in the history of art, as well as from the Farm Security Administration photographers, press photography (e.g., Jack Bradley), the history of documentary photography in Illinois, inspirations in cinema, garage sales, Instagram, and more. Throughout, Baptiste discusses the importance of experimentation and exploration in photography in the creation of projects. The most recent project of Baptiste’s work that has been published by Immaterial Books is En Plein Air.</p><p>While many photographers busy themselves in the studio, Baptiste is drawn to the airy landscapes of central Illinois. Charmed by waterlogged fields, termite-ridden barns, and the symmetry of phone lines and cornfields, Baptiste’s workis a collection of rural vistas and landmarks, moments frozen in time. For them, these images allude to distant memories of a once-bustling hub of agriculture, left to decay as the country aged. And yet, it remains a place of new questions and possibilities.</p><p></p><p><strong>Notes:</strong></p><p>Blurred Horizons Exhibit - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025">https://www.immaterialbooks.com/fields-of-vision-2025</a></p><p>Jack Bradley photography archive - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/bra_jack/id/1714/">https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/bra_jack/id/1714/</a></p><p>Ciel Baptiste - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.cielbaptiste.com">https://www.cielbaptiste.com</a></p><p>Ciel Baptiste - @crrrrl</p><p>En Plein Air - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/en-plein-air">https://www.immaterialbooks.com/store/p/en-plein-air</a></p><p>Champaign Urbana Small Press Fest - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://illinoislibraries.wixsite.com/smallpressfestcu">https://illinoislibraries.wixsite.com/smallpressfestcu</a></p><p>Analog Gallery - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://analogwines.square.site">https://analogwines.square.site</a></p><p>Brian O’Neill - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.brianfoneill.net">https://www.brianfoneill.net</a></p><p>Immaterial Books - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.immaterialbooks.com">https://www.immaterialbooks.com</a></p><p>Wyoming Toad - <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail">https://wyomingtoad.bandcamp.com/album/light-rail</a></p>
12 total episodes available
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- What is Immaterial Voices?
<p>Immaterial Voices is the podcast of Immaterial Books, an independent publisher of contemporary art and literature on photo media and its practice. Hosted by photographer, writer, and sociologist Brian O'Neill, the show consists of interviews with artists, scholars, and practitioners about contemporary image making, theory, and history.</p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates bi-weekly.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 7 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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