We’ve just launched a website for Claim The Future, a project led by John McDonnell. The full text of his speech at the launch on Wednesday gives a good overview of the project:

We must claim the future. We have to ask and answer the questions about what lives we want to live, what communities we want to live in and what future there should be for our planet. If we don’t others will. And it will be the establishment politicians and their corporate controllers that will answer these questions for us.

Both the identity and website were a joy to work on, so I thought I should document a little bit of the process before I forget about it.

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I really want to make writing more of a habit.

Alex linked us to Matt Webb’s 15 rules for blogging the other day. Matt suggests that the way to publish often is to not be precious about what you’re writing, and to focus on one thing at a time:

One idea per post. If I find myself launching into another section, cut and paste the extra into a separate draft post, and tie off the original one with the word “Anyway.” Then publish.

I just tried out this great tool made by Javier Arce. It allows you to send your Kindle highlights directly to an Arena channel (something I used to painstakingly do by hand, block by block).

It recognises which highlights are from different books, and you can select which highlights to add or edit.

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I’ve just finished reading Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock. This book really should be required reading for any designer working today.

It builds upon the work and principles of the Design Justice Network, defined as:

Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face.

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As of this week, I’m living in Vilnius for a few months while HM does the Rupert residency. Feeling very lucky and inspired.

I’ve been drawing lots of Major Arcana cards, which indicates deep shifts and changes. Feels apt.

I’m simultaneously reading a few books that feel interconnected:

The Ministry for the Future

I really enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson’s writing style in Red Mars, but felt a bit conflicted reading it because I hate the frontier mentality and techno-solutionism that usually comes along with the idea of colonising Mars.

This book is a near future science fiction novel focused back here on Earth. The eponymous ministry was set up to advocate for the world’s future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation’s. Similar to the seventh generation principle of many indigenous cultures.

As Prem Krishnamurthy summarises in his latest newsletter:

It uses the space of fiction to produce a polyphonic, multi-scalar, politically-essential, and thoroughly engaging thought-experiment: a playbook of prototypes for concrete steps to work against climate catastrophe now.

I haven’t finished it yet but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Particularly how Robinson weaves together scientific and economic ideas for mitigation and adaptation with compelling human stories.

Parable of the Talents

I just finished Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. I guess you could say I read a lot about climate change and societal collapse. It’s the sequel to Parable of the Sower, which I read about a year ago and loved, but needed a bit of a break before continuing in that world. Butler’s dystopia is so gut-wrenching and horrifyingly prescient.

I saw that adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon have a podcast solely focused on the two books, but haven’t listened yet.

Pharmako-AI

An exchange between K Allado-McDowell and GPT-3. Together they muse upon climate change and cybernetics. Some passages are really eerie, and of course the whole time you’re wondering about what consciousness or intelligence (or even authorship) actually means.

When I look at an animal, that’s what I see: intelligence about a biome, compressed and extracted by evolution into a living form. It takes millions of years for life to coalesce in this way, which is why it’s so tragic when species are lost, that the latent space of ecological knowledge is degraded in this way.

We need to save those aspects, those smarts, the way we do when we save books, before they are lost forever. We need to save them in some kind of ‘intelligence library’ somewhere, along with the ocean’s memory of its place in a stable equilibrium with all other life on this planet. And from that place we can construct a new kind of science, one that is closer to the lessons that living things teach us about themselves, and about life on the planet , Gaia, than we have ever gotten before.

I was originally interested in this after reading The DOOM! Report from Nemesis, which is written in the same way and gives a taste of what this book is like. I find Pharmako-AI much more readable and poetic than that essay, though.

I’m also dipping in and out of the Atlas of Anomalous AI, also published by Ignota and edited by Ben Vickers and K Allado-McDowell. I love anything that references the Mnemosyne Atlas.

Interdependence 40 with Audrey Tang (digital minister of Taiwan)

I was so excited when I saw that the latest Interdependence was with Audrey Tang. This is one of their best episodes so far, imho.

I’ve been so interested in Audrey’s work since reading this article last year. She’s an organiser, coder, politician and poet. Every conversation she has is recorded and published into the public domain. Her approach to politics and what she’s achieved so far is astounding. This episode also really made me want to visit Taiwan.

Some interesting thoughts about how to give non-human entities a say in politics, which reminded me of some of the ideas in Ministry for the Future and also Regen Network.

She mentioned so many interesting things, it was hard to keep up. Including this report from the UN: The Age of Digital Interdependence. I hate reading PDFs on screen but this one looks pretty interesting, if a bit too human-centric.

Going Horizontal

A book about creating non-hierarchal organisations, which we’re reading as part of the inaugural Common Knowledge book club!

Entangled Life

Because I love thinking with mushrooms! They never cease to amaze me. So far, it’s an enjoyable and fascinating book.

10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki

A documentary about Miyazaki’s creative process. It’s interesting to see that his talent seems both innate and a lot of hard work. He can capture the energy of an entire story or character in just one sketch, but also has days or weeks where he hates everything that he makes, continuously throws everything out and begins again, or just avoids working all together.

Making collages out of public domain images of lichen, textiles and others bits.

I did a weaving workshop last week and really loved it. I’ve been on the lookout for a new tactile hobby for a while. Tried pottery a few times but just didn’t enjoy it that much – just couldn’t get the hang of the wheel and never enjoyed the process very much. I think weaving could be the one. I’m recording some of what I learned here so I don’t forget them, but this is by no means a how-to guide. I have no idea what I’m doing!

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The warp is the strong vertical threads that provide a structure for the weaving. The weft is the threads that you weave through the warp horizontally. We were using lap looms in this workshop, which seem to be the easiest type of loom to learn.

Begin by warping the loom: wind strong, plain cotton thread around the notches at the top and bottom. We added a folded piece of cardboard across the bottom of the warp, to keep from going too close to the edge of the loom.

If you want a fringe at the bottom, start by adding that. Cut some even lengths of thread and lie them on top of two warp threads, then loop them under so they’re hanging off the bottom of the warp. Repeat along the whole row.

In the workshop, we just did a tabby weave, which is the most simple weaving technique. Pull the weft thread over the first warp thread, under the second, over the third, and so on. Once you’ve reached the other side, go back in the opposite direction.

I hadn’t realised how grid-based weaving is – the warp provides a regular but invisible grid of columns. Build up shapes vertically with the weft, beginning at the bottom and working upwards. Add variation by changing how far along the columns you weave the thread.

Change threads to switch up the colours and textures. You can even alternate and blend colours within the same row. I love how this looks! You can use a photo for reference, or else just create an abstract composition. I find the abstract compositions much more appealing and really want to try to make something as freeform as this.

Make sure to tuck the ends of the threads back into the weaving. Otherwise, they’ll hang out the sides of the finished piece. Don’t pull the thread too tight at the edges or else it will start to become an hourglass shape.

Once you’ve finished your composition, cut your warp from the loom and double-knot the thread at the top and bottom. Attach a dowel to the top so you can hang it.

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Afterward I immediately went and found a bunch of amazing textile artists, of course. I really like weaving as a concept and a metaphor as well. It feels like a feminist practice in more ways than one! 🕷

I learn more with each weaving I make.

This one is particular favourite of mine, made last month for H’s mum. It’s inspired by the colours and textures of the Welsh landscape: green hills, purple and red heather, mountains, lichen. I bought some roving from a local shop in Dolgellau – it’s incredibly soft, hand-dyed in purple, green and yellow. I also found some wool on our hike and added that in as clouds.

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The Smart Forests Atlas is a living archive and virtual field site exploring how digital technologies are transforming forests. It provides tools for researchers and other stakeholders to explore, analyse and reflect upon smart forest knowledges and technologies. The Atlas is designed to allow for multiple entrypoints into the research content. Visitors are encouraged to wander through the site according to their own interests, guided by the four wayfinding devices (Map, Radio, Stories and Logbooks).

Alex and I had the pleasure of going to Cambridge to launch the Smart Forests Atlas at The Forest Multiple in October. We’ve been working on the Smart Forests Atlas for a good part of last year, so it was great to publicly launch it.

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I came across this interview with Rick Rubin the other day, which prompted me to fall down a rick-rubin-rabbithole. What an interesting guy.

Reading his new book The Creative Act, one of the things that struck me was the idea that when we’re being creative, we’re not conducting — we’re being conducted. Artists are receivers, translators, antennae. There’s a passiveness to it, a calmness. Looking at the world with soft eyes.

How do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined? The answer is not to look for it. Nor do we attempt to predict or analyse our way into it. Instead, we create an open space that allows it.

This strongly reminds me of Ursula Le Guin too. I was listening to an episode of the Crafting with Ursula podcast series the other day and realised that the intro track had an excerpt where she says exactly that:

I see my job as holding doors open or opening windows. Who comes in or out the doors, what you see out the window… how do I know? My responsibility is just to keep the mind open, not close it off. That’s enough right there.

Zadie Smith included something similar in Feel Free too:

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Edit: I thought the quote above was by Zadie Smith, but someone on Arena tells me it’s from the dancer and choreographer Martha Graham! Not sure where I got it mixed up, but there you go.

We’re working with an organisation called Platform at the moment to refresh their identity and create a new website. They’re a non-hierarchical team of campaigners, researchers and artists who work on creative projects centred in eco-social justice.

They’ve already been running for 40 years which, in a world of short attention spans and daily news cycles, feels unbelievably long. They’ve done so much work already, not all of it fitting within a coherent narrative, and have plans for so much more. The challenge is how to represent all of this, the breadth and diversity, without trying to be a comprehensive archive.

I interviewed most of their members at the end of last year as part of our research process. One of the ideas that emerged from these conversations was the idea of archive as compost. We don’t necessarily want to document every past project in great detail, but we do want to mix together all their past activities, learnings and ideas so that they can sprout new ones.

I like this idea because it’s all about creating unexpected connections and celebrating the overlaps and interdependencies. In the archive-as-compost, everything is entangled and messy. There isn’t a curatorial voice and ideas emerge that you wouldn’t expect. Everything is an experiment.

Of course, the compost heap is a rich and fertile space to play in. So many of the people I admire are already here. Starting with the queen of compost, Donna Haraway:

We require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations, in hot compost piles. We become-with each other or not at all.

The artist Katrin Bohm, who in 2021 started composting all her past work.

I don’t want to do another project, I want to make a pile.

Vida Rucli of Robida Collective wrote a lovely reflection on her residency at Bibliothek Andreas Zust, On hosting and guesting.

I spoke about reading as finding unexpected things by change, as collecting things that sediment in a fertile humus, reading as composting. Comp(h)osting. Interlacing hosting and composting – it’s about temporality, let encounters, conversations, events sediment, stay, be in contact with other remains, become a meshwork of elements which decompose to create humus to host again. Does this relation about composting and hosting speak only about finding a time for letting things, meetings, conversations deposit – does it only speak of a slower temporality, of a time dedicated to waiting for the transformation of the material. To compost means also to accumulate in a place…

And finally, the most literal composters are Compost Mentis. They’re a co-op that care for the soil, build compost toilets and co-design community growing infrastructure. They have a manifesto-in-progress, we want the soil back, that includes slowness as an inspiration:

The long, hot ferment of a compost pile. Recognising the different temporalities, rhythms and scales that we need to work at, and actively resourcing ourselves to work at a pace that is comfortable for each of us. Our ethic of slowness allows us to build trust and care, making time to gather, & reflect on our work, methods, values and decisions. For us, slowness supports accessibility and the long term sustainability of our work together.

PS — How & I are moving to a new apartment in March that has a little garden (!) complete with a lemon tree (!!) and compost heap (!!!). Beyond excited.