Sabotage, Implementation, and Expanded Geo-engineering: An Interview with Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne on Collaborative Practice

Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne have made more critical interventions into fossil fuel capitalism than possibly any other artists or climate activists working with digital media today. In transforming digital tools away from their intended commercial use, they have calculated carbon offsets based on pipeline disruption (Offset, 2023–ongoing), made botnets that swarm climate change news articles (Synthetic Messenger, 2021), and redistributed grant funding to incarcerated climate activists (Fragile States, 2022). In addition to their visual projects, Brain and Lavigne have both published widely on their work, from creative re-envisionings of the LaTex white paper to more formal statements on their theories and methods (“All That Is Air Melts Into Air,” e-flux Architecture, 2024). In this interview with the guest editors of the “Media and Climate” special issue, Brain and Lavigne discuss the aforementioned projects, as well as how their practices are informed by data activism, alternative methods for technology under capitalism, and providing models and interventions that reach beyond the art world.