024 WTFuture - Of Lavender Asteroids and Joyous Celebrations - Interview with Space Artist ARTronaut, Frank Pietronigro

Listen Now to 024 WTFuture - Frank Petronigro

Watch 024 WTFuture - Frank Petronigro

This week we  piled into a driverless Waymo and wove our way through the foggy streets of San Francisco,  to find ourselves at a wild Castro birthday party for a legendary zero-gravity painter and “arttronaut”.  And while we were discussing this adventure, who calls us but Frank Pietronigro, the guest of honor himself, during the show!  In a delightful, rapid-fire conversation, Frank outlines his cosmic art plans: deflecting killer asteroids by painting them half-lavender, (using the Yarkovsky thermal gradient for planetary defense), low-Earth-orbit discos, and epic funerals in space.

 Beyond his interstellar art, Frank reflects deeply on his battle with cancer as performance art, his image of a laughing Jesus on the cross, and his final resting plans in the San Francisco Columbarium, where his ashes will sit just three niches away from Harvey Milk, enjoying a ground-level view of visitors in red high heels.

Once Frank’s cosmic storm passes, we keep the high-frequency vibes rolling by launching into tech and neuroscience news, like Apple’s upcoming sovereign, local AI, Tesla’s rumored satellite-linked “PI Phone”, and space-based data center interests of  Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Of course the show would not be complete without a discussion of our built in  hyperdimensional quantum antennae, with thousands of cellular microtubules in our neurons potentially tuning into parallel multiverses. 

We close with a look at the vintage Lakhovsky multi-wave oscillator—a 1930s electromagnetic device designed to help cells vibrate back into health—this episode serves as a thrilling, optimistic manifesto for detaching from fear-mongering and tuning back into the natural groove of joy, hope, and planetary generosity. Enjoy!