Good grief how are you?
Are you drenched or are you melting? Are you trying to find an end of a tangled knot of cable? Its okay to give up for a moment, its okay to stop and think about it later or a little less or never again.
So go ahead and find some shade, pull down the blinds, whack up the brightness on your lithic device and dry your greasy thumbs enough to pity scroll through these recent half melted activities.
What's been happening…
Sowing some seeds in allotments
During summer term I received a small seed grant to help develop sustainable tech practices with community green spaces in South East London. I organised a series of workshops for like minded folks affiliated with the university and spent some time visiting allotments and speaking with volunteer groups in local community green spaces.
We discussed methods for exploring sustainable ‘low carbon’ computing, permaculture and ‘off grid’ approaches that merge technology, creative education and community ecological activism. Some of the participants are part of a exciting research group at UAL Critical Climate Computing (3C) where we aim to continue to develop some of these ideas into community projects in the future.
Emergent Flora Exhibition
In June I took part in an exhibition at Cambridge University called ‘Emergent Flora’ organised by students at the digital humanities department (link). The show featured a wide range of ecologically centered digital and tech art pieces, such as ‘Data Lake’ by Natalia Stoker who made a sculptural piece of e-waste that had been soaked in a river.
I exhibited a small interactive physical sculpture called ‘Tungestun Touch’ that connects one of the many geological minerals used in electronics with their technical application in a smart phone. A mineral sample of Wolframite (the ore from which tungsten is extracted) is connected to a 3v cell vibration motor that vibrates when a phone is placed onto the sculpture, replicating how tungsten is actually used as a counter-weight to increase the physical vibration in a smart phone (link).
Digital Ecologies symposium
I had a fantastic time at Digital Ecologies 3 that took place at Bath university on 24/25th July. The symposium was organised into 3 strands - Machine / Material / Land and brought together artists and researchers with practice based approaches that explored the sticky, messy, violent and vibrant interdependencies between technology and ecology.
The symposium included an exhibition and workshops, some of my favourite encounters were entering into ‘The Museum of Roadside Magic’ (Libby Dove,2024)a converted truck containing artefacts from a fictional folkore of auto mobile supersition, magic and witchcraft where i purchased charm with eldeflower to improve my campervan’s electrics.
Clair Loder also had a couple of participatory / interactive peices that were great - a multi-species noticeboard for people to record and share their observations of the non-human and this peice that involved making a decorative frame using recycled e-waste to perform an acknowledgement of capitalist extraction to a mysterious man called ‘Mr.Webb’.
What have I been reading?
Even if you don’t listen to Novara Media every week you probably have come across the work of Ash Sarkar who has put together this concise analysis titled ‘Minority Rule - Adventures in the Culture War’ (Verso, 2025). Her main thesis is that identity politics is being weaponized in the current media landscape by an elite that is preventing a unified working class with an anti-racist and anti-establishment agenda. As an individual who became a semi regular spokesperson for the left, taking part in TV ‘debates’ on shows like ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’ Sarkar is well positioned to reflect on the fractured and violent consequences that manufactured ‘click bait’ journalism is having on society.
Who's afraid of Palestine Action?
I, along with many others, was rattled by the attempt to proscribe the non violent direction action group Palestine Action and, along with many others, made some noise outside court of justice 4th July during the unsuccessful appeal (however this may still be overturned as co-founder has got permission to legally challenge the ban). Amongst the many editorials and many public figures publicly asking “what the actual fucking fuck?!?” A short piece by Huw Lemmy in LRB synthesises how the proscription of Palestine Action is an explicit attempt to condemn activists under terrorism act and prosecute defendants without a trial is designed to suppress public conscience and has links with the social movement the Quakers.
More LLM weirdness
Bellingcat (investigative journalists) published this piece of comparative research analysing different LLM models (25 of them) and their ability to accurately geolocate images of places. I am anti LLM’s and ML for many reasons (mainly environmental but increasingly concerned about the stupidification of everything) and don’t have a use for them so perhaps this isn’t that remarkable to the regular user, and i understand how it language in signs can indicate regions but some of these images are just lakes, mountains and forests and it can still predict geographic region!
Upcoming events and exhibitions
Bit Rot at Copeland rd Gallery
Some recent graduates from the undergraduate Fine Art Computational Arts program at Camberwell (where I teach the MA program) have established a collective Phreaking and are busy organising an exhibition at Copeland Rd Gallery off peckham rye titled ‘Bit Rot’ (link) that opens 7 - 10th August 2025 - it really will be exciting with a load of performances taking place at the opening 5 - 9pm 7th August 2025.
Archive of Weird Memories at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives
Archive of Weird Memories is an evolving display of works by artist (an ex Motherhouse Studio mate) Tan Wang-Ward, developed during an ongoing residency at the Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives. The project takes its name from a 1934 article in the Daily Sketch—the national tabloid newspaper—about Limehouse Causeway, and centres on archival materials related to Limehouse—a district steeped in maritime heritage, sailors’ communities, and cycles of urban transformation.
Furtherfield: From the City to the Coast
Ruth Catlow and Marc Garret have migrated the Futherfield HQ to Suffolk, the port of Felixstowe and are continuing their community centered projects working with young people to imagine climate futures of a coastal town. The exhibition features 2 recent eco social live action role plays (LARPs) The Treaty of Finsbury Park (where I played a squirius the squirrel and facilitated a multispecies festival) and Reimagine This Coastal Town involving young people time travelling and community speculation about caring for the cities future.
2–17 August, 11am–4pm and by appointment - info here.
Thankyou for getting to the end - I appreciate your attention, it gives me dopamine, which I pass on.