WebRTC BackRooms Podcast

About WebRTC BackRooms Podcast

In the podcast, we slip behind the polished interfaces of contemporary tech and AI to uncover the disquieting depths beneath. Wandering through online spaces and digital cultures, we turn WebRTC protocols into peer-to-peer spaces of gathering — an alternative beyond mainstream platforms. The virtual space where we meet favors opacity over exposure and rejects the logic of the clearnet, data extraction, and the surveillance systems shaping today’s major corporate platforms. The format unfolds as a series of virtual rooms, or backrooms, created for each guest. Here, we meet investigative artists, researchers, writers, and architects, and together we attempt to trace the uncanny ways in which we inhabit an increasingly tangled world. Here, we meet investigative artists, researchers, writers, and architects, and together we attempt to trace the uncanny ways in which we inhabit an increasingly tangled world. meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

A podcast deep-scrolling into XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet

Category

society & culture · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Dec 2025

Latest episode

16 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

6 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   16 Oct 2026

   The BackRoom of Cute Violence & Playable Ideology w/Noura Tafeche and Total Refusal

   What happens when violence becomes cute, when military propaganda adopts the visual language of entertainment, fandom, and platform culture? What political worlds do videogames ask us to inhabit, and what happens when we refuse to play? Produced by Me AndOther Me, WebRTC BackRooms is a podcast series exploring XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet. Recorded live at Kontejner in Zagreb around a shared dinner table, this special episode brings together visual artist and researcher Noura Tafeche and artist collective Total Refusal. Moving between Tafeche’s Kawayoku research into cuteness and digital militarism and Total Refusal’s practice of counter-playing through works including How to Disappear, Sons and True Sons, Hardly Working, and Let’s Play: I Am Old and Tired, the conversation follows images and gestures as they circulate between military communication, online communities, and videogame worlds. Waifus, weapons, military influencers, and armed heroes reveal how violence becomes familiar within everyday entertainment, and how fantasies of masculinity, sovereignty, and restoring order move between games and political life. Turning from the hero to the background worker, we examine NPC routines, soldiers repeating TikTok gestures, and livestreamers performing as algorithms: bodies caught in loops of maintenance, visibility, and engagement. Throughout the episode, we ask: who gets to act, and who is left keeping the world running? What happens when we stop progressing, conquering, or performing for the system? Through desertion, counter-playing, camouflage, and withdrawal, the discussion explores different ways of refusing, misusing, or remaining inside digital infrastructures long enough to make another kind of space possible. CREDITS PODCAST Direction & Production: Me AndOther MeVirtual Camera: Cenk Güzeliş, Luca Lazzari, Viktoria Märkl, Lilly Krüger, Ruben Ungerathen, Adrian Weiss, Linus MemmelTechnical Setup: Me AndOther Me, Luca LazzariSound Design: Paul Böhm aka Brootworth Volumetric Streaming: Me AndOther Me, Marek Simonik (Record3D)Text: Me AndOther Me Thanks to the ORF III Cultural Advisory Board. Produced with the support of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport as part of the funding program Pixel, Bytes + Film. This special episode was produced with support from Kontejner in Zagreb and the European Media Art Platform. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   21 Sept 2026

   The BackRoom of Domestic Datasets & Ambiguous Dwelling w/Simone Niquille

   How do machines learn to see a home, and what happens when domestic space, everyday objects, and human routines become training data for algorithms?Produced by Me AndOther Me, WebRTC BackRooms is a podcast series exploring XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet.This episode traces Simone C Niquille’s research into computer vision, synthetic data, and the politics of how machines learn to perceive bodies and spaces. Moving through projects including Home School, Sorting Song, Regarding the Pain of SpotMini, and The Beauty and the Beep, the conversation explores virtual model homes, autonomous robots, training datasets, and the assumptions embedded in categories such as “chair,” “room,” and “home.” From SceneNet RGB-D and Boston Dynamics to IKEA furniture, robotic vacuum cleaners, and a wandering chair named Bertil, Simone’s work reveals how seemingly ordinary domestic environments become sites where questions of standardization, language, categorization, and machine vision are negotiated.Throughout the episode, we ask: if the map is not the territory, can the dataset ever be the home? The discussion situates machine vision within larger questions of language, architecture, categorization, and technological power, examining what disappears when lived environments are translated into fixed categories, and how we might preserve ambiguity, curiosity, and the possibility of not knowing.CREDITS PODCASTDirection & Production: Me AndOther MeVirtual Camera: Cenk Güzeliş, Luca Lazzari, Viktoria Märkl, Lilly Krüger, Ruben Ungerathen, Adrian Weiss, Linus MemmelTechnical Setup: Me AndOther Me, Luca LazzariSound Design: Paul Böhm aka BrootworthAudio Mix: Kristaps Andris AustersVolumetric Streaming: Me AndOther Me, Marek Simonik (Record3D)Text: Me AndOther MeThanks to the ORF III Cultural Advisory Board. Produced with the support of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport as part of the funding program Pixel, Bytes + Film. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   9 Sept 2026

   The BackRoom of Virtual Bonds w/Joe Hunting

   How do relationships, communities, and gathering spaces unfold inside VRChat, and what happens when virtual bonds become as real as AFK life?Produced by Me AndOther Me, WebRTC BackRooms is a podcast series exploring XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet.This episode traces Joe Hunting’s documentary practice inside VRChat, documenting relationships, community, and presence in social virtual spaces. From weddings in fantasy cathedrals to dance classes, memorial rituals, friendships, and life-saving bonds that move between online and offline life, the conversation explores how virtual worlds become sites of genuine human connection across distances. Joe’s work highlights VR as a real social space where stories unfold, bonds form, and small, semi-private, self-made worlds become intimate places for care, identity, and shared life.CREDITSA Podcast by Me AndOther MeDirection & Production: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk GüzelisVirtual Camera: Cenk Güzelis, Luca Lazzari, Viktoria Märkl, Lilly Krüger, Ruben Ungerathen, Adrian Weiss, Linus MemmelTechnical Setup: Me AndOther Me, Luca LazzariSound Design: Dila Kırmızıtoprak, Mehmet CakirEditing: Marius LindlAudio Mix: Kristaps Andris AustersVolumetric Streaming: Me AndOther Me, Marek Simonik (Record3D)Text: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk GüzelisThanks to the ORF III Cultural Advisory BoardProduced with the support of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport as part of the funding program Pixel, Bytes + Film This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

4. 

   14 May 2026

   The Backroom of Hidden Labor Behind Machine Vision w/Nicolas Gourault

   Welcome to the Backroom of Hidden Labor Behind Machine Vision w/Nicolas GouraultThis is the WebRTC BackRooms, a podcast series deep-scrolling into XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet. In this episode, together with Nicolas Gourault, we discuss the hidden infrastructures and labor behind contemporary machine vision systems. Drawing from Nicolas’ films and research on autonomous driving technologies, the conversation traces the vast networks of annotation workers, click labor, and operational image production that allow AI systems to function while remaining largely invisible within public narratives of automation.The episode reflects on how machine “vision” is never autonomous, but constructed through distributed forms of human labor embedded within global technological pipelines. We discuss how datasets are produced, and how workers across different geographical contexts participate in the training of systems they rarely control or fully access themselves. Through this, the discussion opens broader questions around authorship, invisibility, and the myth of artificial autonomy.From simulation environments and labeled datasets to the politics of visibility within autonomous driving systems, the conversation examines how operational images increasingly organize contemporary space, mobility, and perception. We also reflect on the neo-colonial structures embedded within these infrastructures, where outsourced digital labor sustains AI economies while remaining hidden behind narratives of seamless technological progress.Throughout the episode, we ask what it means to produce images that are no longer made primarily for human spectatorship, but for machines, infrastructures, and automated decision-making systems. The discussion ultimately situates machine vision within larger questions of labor, logistics, and spatial governance, asking how these invisible image economies reshape the environments we inhabit.A Podcast by Me AndOther MeDirection & Production: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk GüzelisVirtual Camera: Cenk Güzelis, Luca Lazzari, Viktoria Märkl, Lilly Krüger, Ruben Ungerathen, Adrian Weiss, Linus MemmelTechnical Setup: Me AndOther Me, Luca LazzariSound Design: Mehmet CakirAudio Mix: Kristaps Andris AustersVolumetric Streaming: Me AndOther Me, Marek Simonik (Record3D)Text: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk Güzelis This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

5. 

   18 Mar 2026

   The Backroom of Internet Aesthetics and Liminal Spaces w/Valentina Tanni

   Welcome to the Backroom of Internet Aesthetics and Liminal Spaces w/Valentina TanniThis is the WebRTC BackRooms, a podcast series deep-scrolling into XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet.In this episode, together with Valentina Tanni, we discuss the memetic strategies of internet aesthetics, how visual trends emerge and disappear almost overnight, and how certain visual languages—glitches, lo-fi graphics, uncanny renderings—become signals of belonging within online communities. Drawing on Valentina’s research and books on internet culture, the conversation explores the strange ecology of online images and how collective participation shapes their meaning. From the eerie familiarity of the Backrooms to the strange humor of “Italian brainrot,” the episode reflects on how internet culture produces its own mythology, references, and visual codes. The discussion also turns to newer forms of AI-driven aesthetics. We reflect on phenomena such as AI ASMR imagery, endlessly looping generative visuals, and the flood of synthetic images now shaping online taste. Throughout the episode, we ask what these evolving visual cultures reveal about contemporary image circulation: how memetic images become cultural memory, and how online communities continuously invent new aesthetic languages through fragments, repetition, and remix.A Podcast by Me AndOther MeDirection & Production: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk GüzelisVirtual Camera: Cenk Güzelis, Luca Lazzari, Viktoria Märkl, Lilly Krüger, Ruben Ungerathen, Adrian Weiss, Linus MemmelTechnical Setup: Me AndOther Me, Luca LazzariSound Design: Mehmet CakirAudio Mix: Kristaps Andris AustersVolumetric Streaming: Me AndOther Me, Marek Simonik (Record3D)Text: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk GüzelisThanks to the ORF III Cultural Advisory BoardProduced with the support of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport as part of the funding program Pixel, Bytes + FilmThe visual artworks embedded within the virtual environment are by Rosa Menkman and are presented with the artist’s permission. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

6. 

   23 Dec 2025

   The Backroom of im/possible image resolutions w/ Rosa Menkman

   Welcome to the Backroom of im/possible image resolutions w/ Rosa Menkman (https://beyondresolution.info/). This is the WebRTC BackRooms, a podcast series deep-scrolling into XR, AI, and the future of hanging out in the spatial internet. In this first episode together with Rosa we interrogate resolutions, image standards, and politics of seeing. We ask what defines an image, what defines seeing, and what gets erased when technology resolves the world into sight. The discussion follows Rosa Menkman’s long-term research into compression errors, resolution limits, and the technical choices that shape visibility. Resolution is approached as a compromise rather than a neutral condition, shaped by efficiency, standards, and exclusions. A Podcast by Me AndOther Me <3 (https://meandother.me/) Direction & Production: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk Güzelis Virtual Camera: Cenk Güzelis, Luca Lazzari, Viktoria Märkl, Lilly Krüger, Ruben Ungerathen, Adrian Weiss, Linus Memmel Technical Setup: Me AndOther Me, Luca Lazzari Sound Design: Paul Böhm aka Brootworth Audio Mix: Kristaps Andris Austers Volumetric Streaming: Me AndOther Me, Marek Simonik (Record3D) Text: Me AndOther Me / Anna Pompermaier & Cenk Güzelis Thanks to the ORF III Cultural Advisory Board Produced with the support of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport as part of the funding program Pixel, Bytes + Film The visual artworks embedded within the virtual environment are by Rosa Menkman and are presented with the artist’s permission. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit meandotherme.substack.com (https://meandotherme.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1)

Contact WebRTC BackRooms Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.