Browser-based Malevich is a triptych of Firefox browser-plugins that warp and distort any webpage you open into a digital approximation of one of the three thematically-related Suprematism paintings by early 20th-century Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich: Black Square (1913), Black Cross (1915), and Black Circle (1915).

At Volume, we’ve become pros at producing remote-recorded podcasts during all the different stages of lockdown and social distancing that punctuated 2020. Along the way, we have learned two very important things:

1. It is difficult to get high-quality recordings of guests or participants if you have to record them from home over Zoom or some other online app.
2. If the guest recording is low-quality, the only thing that can save the show is if the host voice-over is crystal clear, crisp, and high-quality by contrast!

The host or narrator’s recording definitely makes or breaks a podcast. It is the one…

Over the past month, Volume has been happily expanding. With a slew of exciting new projects building up over the course of the year, we decided that it is time for us to assemble a bigger team and invite exciting new people to join our podcasting company.

Looking for a specific kind of person

To make sure we create an efficient, inspiring, and effective team we made sure to look for people who:

• Bring a totally new perspective, background, or skillset to the team: To keep creating compelling content, we need to keep things fresh!
• Can self-manage and work independently: This is especially important for our current…

This post is from the HOW TO PODCAST newsletter

On the 27th of July we launched the first episode of Kill Switch, a new podcast produced by Volume, Access Now, and the #KeepItOn coalition.

What makes this podcast different from previous Volume shows is its diverse international cast. The #KeepItOn coalition consists of over 200 organizations from all around the world — fighting against government-mandated internet shutdowns from Sudan to Pakistan.

Each episode of Kill Switch features a roster of guests from this coalition. In the first episode, we talk to Oliver Spencer from Free Expression Myanmar, Berhan Taye from…

This post is from the HOW TO PODCAST newsletter

Over the last couple of months, everyone has had to adapt to new ways to live their lives, do their work, and survive different degrees (and ‘levels’) of quarantine and social distancing. At Volume we had to take it a step further than just surviving: we had to innovate!

We have been more productive than ever, it seems, because we’ve been perfecting the art of remote-recording even before #LockdownSA started. By the end of June, we’ve become experts in different forms and styles of remote-recording; from WhatsApp voice-note interviews to conference-call…

Journalist Megan Garber recently wrote an incisive takedown in The Atlantic of board-game conglomerate Hasbro’s latest instalment in the Monopoly multiverse (a new edition to the ranks of Star Wars Monopoly, Monopoly Millennial, 007 Monopoly, Pokemon Monopoly, Ultimate Banking Monopoly, and over 1500 more absurd editions, spinoffs, and branded licensing). The headline of Garber’s article on this brand new edition called Ms. Monopoly got straight to the point:

“The Board Game That Turns Feminism Into a Joke”.

Garber’s article itself quickly gets to the gist as she argues that (and illustrated how) the new Ms. Monopoly board-game is a blatant…

internet teapot presents the third issue of the Algorithms of Late-Capitalism zine: Minorities Report — Speculative Subversions

by Adriaan Odendaal & Karla Zavala

This month has been filled with an overwhelming amount of events that illustrate how state surveillance, systemic racism, and machine-learning technology are increasingly (and often, catastrophically) intersecting. Smartphone tracking of #BlackLivesMatter protesters; widespread backlash against Silicon Valley’s technological collaboration with law enforcement; and the proposed bill banning the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement in the US. It is against this backdrop, and countless other preceding events, that internet teapot presents the third issue of the Algorithms of Late Capitalism zine: Minorities Report — Speculative Subversions.

This zine is the result of…

When pioneering podcasts such as Serial first launched, it signalled the dawn of an exciting new medium. Since then, podcasts have become a mainstay of popular culture and a booming industry firmly established within the global media landscape. Along with this progression came the establishment of the medium’s own conventions, standard formats, and narrative tropes.

The problem with the growing success and popularity of podcasting is that the adherence to convention and expectations can cause the medium to become stagnant and formulaic. Cultural theorist Mark Fisher called this “the cult of the minimal variation”. This means that instead of taking…