The Bad Vibes Club

Intimacy by Hamish MacPherson

The Bad Vibes Club

Show Notes

In March and April 2020 Hamish MacPherson used social media to ask, “Are you having sexual or sensual intimacy with people who are distant from you during the COVID-19 lockdowns?” People replied anonymously and Hamish asked friends and acquaintances to record themselves reading these texts out. Then Matt turned them into this podcast. It contains some sexual references.

Words: anonymous. Voices: Adam Wilson Holmes, AF, Angela Andrew, Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot, Beth Bramich, Carolin Meyer, Conor James, Elizabeth Rochester, Emilia Robinson, Francisco Zhan, Genevieve Costello, Gillie Kleiman, Gregory Hari, GS, Hannah Bellil, HMTIDT4U, Joshua Jayraj, Maria Sideri, May, Michael Whitby, Molly Chapman, Molly Martian, Nina Sever, Paul Hughes, Peter Jacobs, Ralph Pritchard, Sean Alayo, Tamara Tomic-Vajagic.

Music/editing: Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau

You can buy a book of the texts with original photographs from stilllifemag.org with profits going to Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement and Covid-19 Prisoner Emergency Fund.

More from The Bad Vibes Club

Sep 11, 2026

It’s the final episode of the series! Matt and Andrea discuss painting pedagogy from the UK, to the US, to… Bob Ross? We read Daniel Sturgis’ essay ‘Condensed Knowledge’ from 2017, and sections of Mira Schor’s book 'Wet: Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture from 1997.

Jul 20, 2026

In this episode, Matt and Andrea read Pedro Favaron y Chonon Bensho’s paper ‘Metsa Kené’ from 2020 (translated to English by AI) and Giuliana Borea’s ‘Personal cartographies of a Huitoto mythology’ from 2010. As a support text, we also read Florencia Portocarrero and Gabriela Germaná’s ‘The “Indigenous turn” and the rise of Amazonian art’ from 2026.

Apr 23, 2026

In this episode, recorded live at City and Guilds Art School in London, Matt and Andrea read Douglas Crimp's essay, 'The End of Painting' from 1981 alongside a number of texts and a video by Helen Molesworth on the painter Noah Davis from 2020.

Mar 24, 2026

Matt and Andrea present a live podcast from TACO! in Thamesmead, London. We look at the work of Anselm Kiefer and Gerhardt Richter, two artists who have achieved both critical and commercial success and are considered by many to be geniuses. Who decides which artists get to be geniuses? What happens to the way their work is written about? Is there something about painting as an art form that lends itself to the idea of the painter as genius?

Feb 2, 2026

Matt and Andrea present a live podcast from NCAD in Dublin, at the invitation of Fire Station Artists' Studios. We spoke about the dot: a mark that connects a diverse group of painters such as Georges Seurat, Philip Guston, Yayoi Kusama and Emily Kam Kngwarray. We read Linda Nochlin on Seurat, Margo Neale on Kngwarray and Jennifer DeVere Brody on Kusama. Thanks to everyone who came along to the event, to Mark, Niall and everyone at NCAD for hosting and to Sara Greavu for the invitation!

See all episodes →