Stream Episodes 1-7

Très Mall soundtrack now on Spotify

In a dying American shopping mall haunted by ghosts of commerce and culture, three teens navigate absurd adventures while surreal guest interviews with artists, thinkers, and weirdos punctuate their journey through the ruins of late capitalism.

Très Mall is an experimental animated series that fuses absurdist narrative with incisive cultural commentary. Set in a decaying American shopping mall—a graveyard of consumer dreams and suburban sprawl—the series follows three queer, disaffected teens as they navigate surreal scenarios involving the psychogeography of adolescence.

But this is no ordinary cartoon: each episode features stylized animated interviews with renowned intellectuals and cultural critics. Guests include Noam Chomsky on media manipulation, Michael Hardt on affect and empire, Priyamvada Gopal on colonial legacies, David Joselit on art and visibility, and Genevieve Yue on media and memory. These interviews are woven into the diegesis of the show, appearing as talking mannequins, TV static sermons, or ghostly infomercials—blurring the line between fiction and critical theory.

Très Mall combines the DIY ethos of underground comics with the visual playfulness of early MTV animation. It’s Liquid Television meets The Midnight Gospel by way of Ghost World. Both a love letter to lost youth and a critique of what replaced it, Très Mall is a weird, smart, and urgent animated series for our exhausted era.

In Très Mall, Derek G. Larson animates a surreal and philosophically charged satire set inside an endless shopping mall, an allegory of consumption and mediated life in late capitalism. The ongoing animated series features intellectual guest voices such as Noam Chomsky and Boris Groys, situating animated characters amid debates on aesthetics, media, and political theory. Through painterly digital animation and absurdist humor, Très Mall questions how systems of validation, ideology, and spectacle circulate through contemporary culture. 

Presented alongside Made in Mexico: The Anti-Communist Cartoons of Dibujos Animados S.A. (1952–56), Larson’s research-based project uncovering a little-known chapter of Cold War cultural diplomacy. Produced in Mexico under the direction of the U.S. Information Agency, these animated shorts blended modernist design with anti-Communist propaganda to advance U.S. political aims in Latin America. Working in collaboration with Byron Davies and Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Larson examines these films through archival materials, newly digitized excerpts, and critical essays, revealing animation’s role as both an aesthetic and ideological instrument of modernity. Together, they trace animation’s entanglement with power, from Cold War persuasion to the soft coercion of consumer culture, proposing that cartoons in all their forms remain vivid mirrors of political life. 

Two animated characters standing side by side against a white background. The character on the left has purple skin, short blue hair, and a green hat with various pins, wearing a black T-shirt with colorful graphics, teal jeans, and green sneakers. The character on the right has pale skin, curly reddish-brown hair, and a clownish face with exaggerated features, wearing an orange tank top with a Bernie Sanders graphic, teal jeans, and pink shoes.
Pink neon sign that reads 'Tres Mied' on a maroon background.
A close-up photo of a man with blond hair, blue eyes, and a Light beard, wearing a dark jacket, against a light background.

Derek G. Larson is an artist and educator based in New York whose work merges animation, philosophy, and politics. He is the creator of Très Mall, a surreal animated series featured on DIS that combines critical theory and humor through guest collaborations with figures such as Noam Chomsky, Boris Groys, Emily Apter, McKenzie Wark and David Joselit. Larson’s research also examines Cold War-era propaganda, most recently through the project “Made in Mexico: The Anti-Communist Cartoons of Dibujos Animados S.A.” (Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 2025) and the forthcoming screening Modernism for Export at Anthology Film Archives. He holds an MFA from Yale University and has exhibited internationally, with upcoming solo exhibitions at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia and on DIS.

New York, NY
Très Mall Full Series Dis

A cartoon blue-skinned elf with pointed ears, long green hair, and a white sleeveless shirt, wearing a green pointy hat with a yellow pencil stuck through it, displaying a sad or resigned expression.
A collage of logos from various cultural, educational, and arts organizations and institutions, including MASS MoCA, MoCA Tuca, Tranen, Vermont Studio Center, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Telfair Museums, Times Square Arts, The Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Wassaic Project, Morris Museum, Westobu Festival, ada, DIS, Purdue University, NMC, McKenzie Wark, Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Michael Hardt, and others, with a title about future space, trade, and capitalism in digital cities.
Event poster for a presentation titled 'Modernism for Export: Cold War Cartoons Made in Mexico' scheduled for 7 PM on Wednesday, February 11. Featuring speakers Derek G. Larson from FDU, David Joselit from Harvard, and McKenzie Wark from The New School. The event is curated by Jed Rapogel and focuses on an anthology film archive.

SCREENINGS

2026 (solo**)

  • upcoming Feb. 5th Derek G. Larson: Très Mall (Episodes 1-8), curated by Rachel Waldrop, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens GA **

  • upcoming Wednesday Feb. 11th at 7pm “Modernism for Export: Cold War Cartoons Made in Mexico,” Derek G. Larson (FDU) with David Joselit (Harvard) and McKenzie Wark (The New School), Curated by Jed Rapfogel, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY **

2025 (solo**)

2024 (solo**)

  • Très Mall Episode 7 “Art’s Properties” : Featuring Boris Groys, David Joselit, Jim Jinkins, Carlos Oliva Mendoza. on Dis https://dis.art/series/tres-mall **

2023 (solo**)

2022 (solo**)

  • Très Mall Episode 6 : “Interview with Noam Chomsky,” https://dis.art/series/tres-mall on Dis **

  • MdW Assembly, Mana Contemporary, Chicago IL **

  • La Cueva, Screening & Presentation, Mexico City MX **

2021 (solo**)

  • In Good Company, Mana Contemporary, Chicago IL

  • If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now, Wassaic Project NY

  • Très Mall Episode 5 : “The Violence Entrepreneurs,” Très Mall on Dis **

  • Très Mall, Film @ Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer MN

2020 (solo**)

Collections

Refereed Journal Articles

Presentations

  • Larson, D. G. (Lecture), XXI Congreso Internacional de Filosofía, "Animation & Capitalism," La Asociación Filosófica de México, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. (March 2024).

  • Larson, D. G. (Lecture), "Cartoon Capitalism, Propaganda & American Individualism: US Cold War Animations Made in Mexico," University of Washington, Seattle WA, University of Washington, Seattle WA, Seattle, WA, United States. (February 2024).

  • Larson, D. G. (Moderator), "Mexican Animation, American Propaganda, and the Cold War - A Showcase of Cartoons from Dibujos Animados S.A. (1952-56),"Northwestern University, Block Museum of Art, Chicago, IL, United States. (November 2, 2023).

  • Larson, D. G. (Moderator), "Presenting: Mexican Animation, Propaganda, and the Cold War - A Showcase of Cartoons from Dibujos Animados S.A. (1952-56)," Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City, Mexico, Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City, Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico. (May 2023).

  • Larson, D. G. (Moderator), "Animación Mexicana, Propaganda Y Guerra Fría - Caricaturas de Propaganda Anticomunista Producidas en México con el Apoyo Secreto de EE.UU. en los 50," Archivo General del Estado de Oaxaca, Archivo General del Estado de Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. (April 29, 2023).

  • Larson, D. G. (Moderator), "Future Space, Trade and Capitalism in Digital Cities," panel with McKenzie Wark (New School), Michael Hardt (Duke), and Carlos Oliva Mendoza (UNAM), moderated by Derek G. Larson (Purdue), CAA College Art Association, New York, NY, United States. (February 16, 2023).

  • Larson, D. G. (Co-Moderator), Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), "Creative Imaging in A Generative Simulation," Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States. (2022).

  • Larson, D. G. (Visiting Artist), "Très Mall," Indiana University, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, Bloomington, IN, United States. (2022).

  • Larson, D. G. (Moderator), Future Bodies Symposium, "Accessibility + Design,”Future Bodies Symposium with Kel Smith, A.P. Vague, Jing Zhou, David Adelman, xtine burrough, moderated by Derek G. Larson," New Media Caucus, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA, United States. (September 30, 2022).

  • Larson, D. G. (Moderator), Animafest Scaner IX, "Rocky and Bullwinkle and Propaganda - Derek G. Larson (Assistant Professor of Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University, Lafayette, United States)," Animafest, Zagreb, Croatia. (June 6, 2022).

  • Larson, D. G. (Presenter), "Très Mall: Philosophy, Capitalism and Violence," Rising of Lusitania AnimaDoc Film Festival, Rising of Lusitania AnimaDoc Film Festival, Wrzesnia, Poland. (May 2022).