Even in seemingly desolate parts of nature, it is difficult to escape the modern city. This podcast is a series of meditative environmental recordings that capture nature as it is, in situ, a part of the metropolis and the metropolis an inextricable part of it. It is recorded on hikes to the peaks of the Angeles National Forest, on walks through Los Angeles parks, on excursions to dump sites at the edge of the city, and beyond.

“New Topophonics” takes its name from the influential 1975 exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” Unlike the Ansel Adams-style depictions of untainted nature, this new movement focused on the built landscape—architecture, motor vehicles, asphalt, concrete—alongside the natural world. By capturing the man-altered landscape, these photographs cast a critical eye on urbanism's destructive—and also constructive—environmental effects. “New Topophonics” captures a similar landscape, raising increasingly relevant questions about human interventions in the environment, and environmental interventions in human life.

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