[Werking Title] with Eliza Lambert: Kia Miakka Natisse On Audio Art
By: Eliza Lambert-Arnold
Kia had just returned from an artist residency when we sat down to chat, and she was brimming with inspiration. This former Invisibilia host did not grow up as a backseat NPR baby. She found her love of audio through her education, approaching it as an artistic practice. She’s medium-agnostic — a storyteller-first who uses her winning authenticity to build community.
We chatted about the moving target of being real, her interest in the taboo, and how she hopes to keep bending audio into something new.
Eliza Lambert: Kia, where I've been starting these conversations with folks is asking what your first job was.
Kia Miakka Natisse: The first job that I considered a real job — I had to apply for it — was working at the Finish Line sneaker store at the mall.
EL: Amazing. And what skills from that job do you think you still use today?
KMN: Being personable, outgoing, friendly and making people feel comfortable. Those are still all skills that I very much use, trying to help people find the things that they're looking for, but also feeling comfortable. I ended up being a top seller at one point, a 16-year-old kid, because I understood you have to be friendly and welcoming. That encourages people to spend more time with you, which in a shoe store means spending more money.
EL: Absolutely. Do you see it also relating directly to hosting or are there other job titles you would relate to it?
KMN: As far as it goes to like talking to people, hosting, but also interviewing, all of it is to me about reading somebody's energy and trying to meet them where they are. Maybe help them be in the same space as you and create a space for safety so everyone can show up in the wholeness of themselves. It's hosting, interviewing, getting people to share information with you, to show up on tape in their full personalities and not some packaged personalities that they're used to delivering. To me, those are all connected practices of making people feel safe to share who they are, what they want, what they're looking for, what questions they have.
EL: Where do you consider your podcast journey starting?
KMN: I always had a thing for sound. I'm remembering a project that I had to do when I was a junior in high school. I had a great English teacher assigning this project: to make a piece in the tradition of David Sedaris on This American Life. I did it on the Y2K scare and how afraid I was that something bad was going to happen. (Nothing did.) It came to me naturally. The teacher was like, "You're really good at this and you should consider…” At the time, it's the year 2000, and This American Life was the only business in town for that type of work. I didn't really see how to make that happen.
After grad school, I worked on my master's thesis, which is part-research and part-artistic project. I created a print book that had all this digital media included in it. Through that, I started playing around with audio. After grad school, back when Third Coast used to do a residency, [I] ended up getting one of those residencies. I'd been forming an art practice, had begun to focus more on sound, narrative, and storytelling. Doing that residency really opened up a lot of doors for me that otherwise probably wouldn't have been available.
EL: Totally. The industry's changed so much from the moment your teacher was like, "Hey, you're good at this," to when you ended up in NPR and all of that. I'm wondering how you reflect on the way the industry's changed since you've been in it.
KMN: We're in a weird place right now. I have been in media for a long time and in a lot of ways I find myself being media-agnostic. I'm a storyteller first, then I find the medium that best serves me, my abilities, and what I think the story can hold. I did not grow up listening to NPR, but being able to come to NPR years later and work for this podcast that was a descendant of This American Life — because Alix Spiegel really formed her voice in that space — it was a really beautiful closing of the loop. Now, seeing how there are a lot of really creative and talented people, I like to focus on that. I'm really interested in the art form, in people pushing the boundaries of the work, being creative and artistic in that way.
For me, it's like watching any young thing develop where it goes through these awkward stages. I don't see myself abandoning the form. I will continue to figure out ways to blend other ways of making to find survival as an artist and a maker and still be dedicated to my craft. The job that I had two years ago doesn't exist anymore. The type of work that I was making two years ago, it's not that people aren't invested in making it. Institutions can't figure out ways to monetize that type of work, in my experience, at least not the institution I was at.
While that's sad, it doesn't necessarily make me feel that work's not worth making anymore. How can I be more creative? How can I be more collaborative? How can I find new solutions to continue to tell the rich storytelling that I love to make and listen to? As well as create a sustainable career.
EL: If you were to create a niche for yourself within podcasting or generally, what would you say that is?
KMN: There's a niche topic-wise which I'm always interested in talking about or exploring: things that we're not necessarily supposed to talk about or explore, or are slightly taboo. I'm really curious about those things and unpacking them. More formally, my niche would be like having a voice that is very authentic. I'm not interested in being an expert or showing up as an all-knowing omnipresence. I'm wanting to create a space for vulnerability and authenticity with the audience, to say, “I'm entering a subject just as blind as you are and I'm willing to show myself.” I write narration, but I also will just record thoughts on the fly, talking and thinking about the different ways in which a voice sounds when it's written and very prepared. I'm really interested in using both of those aspects of my voice, both the professional polish and also the more amateurish regular musing.
EL: This is a bit of a philosophical question: authenticity has been such a big part of creating a personality on the internet. Everyone's 'authentic,' and that can feel like a moving target sometimes. I'm wondering if authenticity has changed while you've been in the industry, what it means to show up authentically. Or maybe, what was your path to discovering what it meant to show up authentically as someone who is also performing?
KMN: There's ways that your authenticity can be shaped. I'm still cultivating how to have narrated spaces but also have non-narrated, more live tape. It's a balance. Of course, there's an aspect of playing to the audience. You don't want to be so authentic. You'd bore them to death, you know? Because that's also authentic. Sometimes I'm not interesting. Sometimes things that are deeply interesting to me are not interesting to everybody else. Authenticity is built in community. You need someone to reflect it back to you, of "I relate to that and I see that you're being honest about that; that connects to something inside of me." Authenticity is something that's created between two points. There's me authentically being myself when I'm by myself, but that may not be the same person that shows up when I know I'm recording myself. I'm not gonna show everybody everything because then there's also the danger of parasocial relationships — people who think they know you and they don't actually. We all contain multitudes. There's boundaries. It's a dynamic and changing thing.
EL: But I hear you that it necessitates community, absolutely. I'm wondering what your hopes are for the audio future. Where things might be able to go?
KMN: One of the things that I've grown more curious about is audiobooks. I'm interested in blurring the lines between podcasting v. audiobooks v. sound art v. experiential. I think about how to package narrative stories in ways that are monetizable and don't depend on ads. I'm very exhausted by the ad model. My hope is that people have more creative ways of creating stories, bringing them to market, and then building community around it. The most beneficial communities that I've been in as an artist have been very interdisciplinary. I'd love to see more of that in audio, seeing the work that we do as an art form, building community around it, and then welcoming other perspectives, viewpoints, practices, disciplines to collaborate, to influence, to inspire. That really makes me happy as an artist.
EL: Is there anything else that you want to make sure is on the record?
KMN: I'll just tell you what I have coming up! I'm developing this extraterrestrial show that I'm really excited about, and thinking more about audiobooks as a path of telling long-form narrative audio stories, and not necessarily feeling reliant on the 52-week ad model or subscription podcast. I've been working on a creativity workshop with AIR that I'm really excited about, trying to bring some form and shape to thinking about creative practice and nurturing that for any type of artist, but especially audio artists. I'm very excited to talk and think and create some form and shape around creative practice with the AIR workshop sometime in the fall. I'd also love to mention my substack — Raise Your Hands and Scream.
EL: Oh, I love AIR. That's exciting. Kia, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.