Harmony Korine doesn’t do anything by the book. In fact, he doesn’t even read books. “Oh, I haven’t read a book in two or three decades,” Korine says, not proudly but matter-of-factly, but maybe also a little proudly. The iconoclastic Gummo and Spring Breakers director may be associated with earlier eras of outre cinema. But provocateurs never go away — they are just reborn as immersive artists using the latest LLMs. At 53, Korine has found himself up to a new kind of art form, or what he believes will become that, seeking to create cinema he describes as “digital drugs.” The form was hinted by, but goes beyond the bounds of, his projects of the last few years like video game/VR/cinema mashups Aggro Dr1ft and Baby Invasion.Korine recently created a short-form piece set in the Miami Design District featuring trippy images like astronauts and shapeshifting cat astronauts, all moving through the sunlit spaces of upscale South Florida outdoor malls while butterflies float by. And his studio EDGLRD has a deal with upstart GenAI firm Runway to explore the tech further. (He also is working on webtoons — traditional entertainment, comparatively.)As he walked through the South Beach offices of EDGLRD (pronounced edgelord despite the vowel efficiencies) on a recent afternoon, Korine demonstrated how he is looking to reach for his 90’s rebel-boy rep, only with late-2020’s tools. Korine finds movies uninteresting (the only one he can recall seeing in 2025 was Rihanna’s Smurfs) and believes all the criticism of AI slop deserves an eyeroll. Instead, working on AI-driven immersive projects is what excites him, an artistic fridge cigarette to gives a break from all the noise (even if it creates some more.) 

Also, he thinks the Bella Thorne Spring Breakers sequel is ridiculous. (This interview has been edited for clarity, slightly.)
So what books have you read recently?Oh I haven’t read a book in, gosh, two or three decades.Have you seen any movies that you’ve liked — Sinners? W