Hey there, I'm Jason Gautz, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Started in 2008, Big Think is a kind of online think tank of big ideas from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.

On the podcast, we revisit these ideas in new ways.

Our producers surprise me and my guests, with short interview clips from Big Things Archives,

ideas that we didn't come here expecting to discuss.

I'm very happy to be here today with Nate O Thompson.

He's the artistic director of Creative Time, which commissions and presents ambitious public art projects

with thousands of artists

throughout New York City, across the country, around the world, and now even in outer space.

They did Waiting for Godot in hard-hit New Orleans neighborhoods after the flood that I talked

about with actor Wendell Pierce on this show.

NATO's new book is called Culture as Weapon, the Art of Influence in Everyday

Life. Welcome to think again, Nato. Good to be here. So, yeah, let's start by what you mean

by the weaponization of art and culture. You basically begin the book by saying that art is now

ubiquitous and like it's everywhere we, you know, in every aspect of

our lives, but it's been weaponized as well. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. So,

I mean, it's funny because often when you say the word art, we still kind of, in our minds,

we think of paintings in the museums, or you think of a sculpture, maybe think of a video installation.

Right.

And I think classically, that is what we consider the visual arts.

But if you just kind of open your mind to the kind of tools that artists have been using, that is to say, visual representations,

or deploying, evoking materials to get us to feel a certain way.

...