With his podcast Doomscroll, Joshua Citarella brings online culture, political discourse, and algorithm-driven media into the Whitney Museum, transforming conversation itself into a live, participatory artwork.
At the Whitney Biennial 2026, the definition of contemporary art expands far beyond objects displayed on walls.
The exhibition moves through performance, sound, technology, conversation, digital culture, and participation, reflecting the ways contemporary life increasingly unfolds across both physical and online spaces.
Curated by Marcela Guerrero and Drew Sawyer, the Biennial examines the systems that influence how people think, communicate, form identities, and understand the world around them.
Joshua Citarella enters that conversation through a format millions of people already know intimately: the podcast.
His project Doomscroll transforms the gallery into a recording studio, bringing conversations about online politics and culture directly into the museum.
When a Podcast Becomes an Artwork
At first, the setup appears remarkably simple.
Microphones.
Chairs.
A sparse recording environment.
The arrangement closely resembles the setting in which Doomscroll might normally be recorded elsewhere in downtown Manhattan.
Inside the Whitney, however, the context changes everything.
The podcast becomes part of the exhibition.
Conversation becomes performance.
And the audience becomes part of the recording environment.
Visitors are no longer simply listening to something produced elsewhere and delivered through headphones.
They are physically present while it happens.
Slowing Down the Internet
The title Doomscroll immediately evokes one of the defining behaviors of contemporary digital life.
Endlessly scrolling through information.
Moving rapidly between political news, memes, commentary, images, videos, arguments, and algorithmically selected content.
The experience can feel passive and relentless.
Citarella transforms that behavior into something slower.
Instead of simply consuming information, the podcast creates space for ideas to be discussed, challenged, and examined.
Topics that normally circulate through social media feeds become the subject of sustained conversation.
The pace changes.
Scrolling becomes listening.
Reaction becomes reflection.
Politics in the Age of the Feed
Doomscroll examines online culture and politics in the twenty-first century, focusing on ideas that are often shaped and amplified through digital networks.
Episodes discussed in the transcript engage subjects including celebrity and political discourse, the psychology of liberalism, and the intersections of masculinity, fitness culture, and conservatism.
These are topics that rarely remain confined to traditional political institutions.
They circulate through social media.
Online communities.
Forums.
Influencers.
Memes.
Recommendation algorithms.
The internet does not simply distribute political ideas anymore.
It actively shapes how those ideas are encountered.
Citarella’s work brings that process into focus.
The Gallery Becomes a Studio
Recording Doomscroll live inside the Whitney changes the relationship between audience and artwork.
Listeners become visible.
Their presence affects the energy of the room.
The direction of a conversation can change.
A live recording can never be reproduced exactly.
Each iteration becomes its own event.
That unpredictability introduces a performative quality.
The artwork is not a finished object waiting to be observed.
It happens in real time.
From Passive Audience to Participant
The Whitney’s open architecture reinforces this sense of participation.
Sound can carry beyond the immediate recording space.
Visitors moving through nearby galleries may hear fragments of conversation before realizing what is happening.
Someone might enter expecting to encounter a conventional artwork and suddenly discover that they are standing inside a live podcast recording.
Listening.
Watching.
Becoming part of the atmosphere.
That transition collapses the distance between observer and participant.
You do not necessarily need to speak to influence the work.
Simply being present changes the environment in which it is created.
The Digital Becomes Physical
Much of Doomscroll concerns ideas that originate or circulate online.
But at the Whitney, those conversations become physical.
Bodies occupy the same room.
Voices travel through actual space.
Ideas usually encountered through screens are discussed face-to-face.
That shift matters.
Citarella brings the digital network into the museum without attempting to recreate the internet visually.
Instead, he concentrates on what moves through those networks: language, ideology, identity, persuasion, and belief.
Making Systems Visible
Within the broader Whitney Biennial 2026, Doomscroll connects directly to the exhibition’s interest in systems.
Algorithms shape what people encounter online.
Platforms influence which ideas become visible.
Social networks affect political discourse.
Digital communities create new forms of identity and affiliation.
These systems can feel invisible because they are embedded so deeply in everyday life.
Citarella’s project creates enough distance to examine them.
The podcast becomes a lens through which online behavior can be discussed rather than simply repeated.
Conversation as Contemporary Art
There is also something significant about presenting a podcast within one of America’s major contemporary art institutions.
The gesture asks what qualifies as artistic practice today.
Does art need to produce an object?
Can research become art?
Can dialogue?
Can a podcast episode become a performance?
At the Whitney Biennial, those boundaries remain deliberately open.
Citarella’s work suggests that contemporary artistic practice can operate through conversation just as powerfully as through painting, sculpture, or installation.
The medium is not separate from the subject.
A podcast about networked culture becomes part of the very media environment it analyzes.
Are We Scrolling or Listening?
Perhaps the strongest idea behind Doomscroll is the transformation of attention.
Doomscrolling encourages speed.
The podcast encourages duration.
One produces an endless stream of fragments.
The other attempts to hold a conversation long enough for complexity to emerge.
That distinction feels increasingly important.
The political and cultural conversations shaping contemporary life are happening constantly.
Online.
In comment sections.
Across feeds.
Through videos and podcasts.
Inside communities that may never encounter one another.
Citarella does not remove us from that environment.
He asks us to examine it more carefully.
Within the Whitney Biennial 2026, Doomscroll becomes more than a podcast.
It becomes a meditation on how information becomes belief, how digital systems influence identity, and how conversation might create a different relationship to the constant flow of online life.
The question that remains is simple:
Are we actually listening—or are we only scrolling?
Explore the Complete Tarik Talk Whitney Biennial 2026 Series
Tarik Talk created dedicated coverage of every artist featured in the Whitney Biennial 2026, with individual episodes exploring the artists, artworks, ideas, and perspectives shaping this edition of the Biennial.
Watch and listen to the complete series across Tarik Talk’s podcast streaming platforms and social media platforms, and explore the full Whitney Biennial 2026 series on TarikTalk.com.