<p>Welcome everybody!</p><p>The second issue of the Journal of Global Pop Cultures is out now. This time we focus on the Natures of Pop: while folk culture was traditionally viewed and ideologized as deeply rooted, enduring, organic, and authentic, pop was popularized as an artificial construct characterized by a plethora of ephemeral trends, cultural industries, and performative self-understandings. Pop was post-natural — replete with technology, capital, and performativity. Countercultures like the hippie movement can be understood as reactions to this condition. Against the backdrop of the climatic crisis and the Anthropocene, how can the decidedly artificial and technologic natures of global pop cultures be understood, situated and transformed? How have pop imaginations been drawing the line and negotiating the dichotomy between nature and culture, the body and the brain, the non-human and the human?</p><p>In our scholarly “Journal” section, to set the tone, we invited Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Welsch from the University of Jena to provide a thought-provoking reflection on wind turbines that, indeed, oscillate (or rotate) between nature and culture. Our second special guest is Dr. Darren Moore from LASALLE College of the Arts, who presents us with a dialogue between Guy Ben-Ary and Lanfranco Aceti on cybernetic creativity that took place at the College. Further peer-reviewed articles cast light on the title theme from a variety of viewpoints such as Nouveau Réalisme, Jungle, Prog Rock, Dandyism and Posthumanity.</p><p>Our “Magazine” section explores the paradoxically surprising and revealing overlaps between pop culture and nature and how each can be found embedded in one another. In this issue, Dr. Maren Lickhardt examines animal print as a sign of denaturalization, Juliana Schneider sees a shift in human thinking and actions based on the interconnections between nature and technology, and Anja Rötheli and Noëlle Schmid take a closer look at the blossoming ideals and withering realities of the garden. We also talked to Anja Charbonneau about Broccoli, a magazine for cannabis lovers, to George Reinhardt about the political concept of Organism Democracy, and to Henning Besser from Deichkind, about how outdoor-wear and robots are interconnected to resonance and unavailability. Additionally, we invited media artist Dorita to contribute a series of entries that highlight her artistic work and research into plants, unagi, and robotics. Last but not least, musicologist Tomotaro Kaneko worked with dj sniff to create the “Japanese Pop Nature from 1934-1985” mixtape which features vinyl releases of field recordings, sound effects, and environmental music from Japan.</p><p>Editors: Annekathrin Kohout, Judith Mair, Takuro Mizuta Lippit, Jörg Scheller, Masahiro Yasuda</p><p>Guest contributor: Dorita Takido</p>