Paul Watson’s notes, replies, likes &c.

A lot of people seem to be are having rough times at the moment. There’s a faintly British legacy psyche of putting up with it I think, but a lot of it seems more existential than just getting through a bad patch. Omnishambles is turning into Permashambles. Demographically, we have yet to acknowledge the true cost of a retired population. Democratically, individuals are becoming more powerful than nations. Economically, global capitalism is running out of road in a lot of places. Systemically, there is a big question mark over the state of our combined health – of people, places, and the planet.

I have lived my whole life within this ideological wasteland. It is a landscape where perpetual economic crisis and political scandal reign supreme, where public funding is forever swallowed up by the religious fervour of free-market philosophy, and environmental catastrophe and technological existentialism loom ever closer. Here, even culture exists in a time out of joint, ever repeating the hits of the 20th century as the markets demand. Yet, if you look towards the horizon, you will not find the slightest pretence that things will ever truly change.

But here's the thing: being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.

BUT… It was not “the internet” that did this.

It is capitalism and its insistence that the only value anything in life has is the profit that can be extracted from it. It is capitalism that sees anything that is not generating profit as waste. It is like acid spreading across every aspect of our lives and devouring it all, burning it away until there is nothing left.

Put simply, the numbers don't add up. Data from Patreon and Substack suggests the average conversion rate from follower to paying fan is about 5%. This means a creator would need a total fanbase of 20,000 followers to yield 1,000 paying supporters. And building a core fanbase of 20,000 engaged followers is extremely difficult in today's crowded creative landscape.

Emerging research indicates vast amounts of energy and water are being consumed by the data centres powering these large language models. However, discussions around these concerns are often obscured by the ongoing promotion of AI as a progressive too – especially when related to human ingenuity and originality. It seems an opportune time to ask one of these language models, in this case Bing Copilot, powered by GPT-4, about its own perceived environmental impact.

However, in recognition that a singular query contributes approximately 4.32g of CO₂, compared to Google queries which generate approximately 0.2g of CO₂, these questions were kept to a fair minimum.

New blog post by me: Think global, act localhost

In both Derrida’s and Fisher’s conceptions of hauntology, the crucial element is that of time. For Derrida, the return and repetition of the past in the present is manifested through the figure of the revenant, that which returns each time as if it were the first, unchanging and insistent, demanding a reckoning for a message that went unheard or was ignored. For Fisher, as we shall see, there are two opposing temporal currents intrinsic to hauntology: the no longer and the not yet. The former haunts the present from the past, an event, idea or entity whose moment is past but which continues to make its presence felt. The latter haunts the present from the future, through the unfulfilled promise of that which never came to pass but which may yet do so. In both instances, their impact is felt now, in the present, either through repetition or anticipation.

A multifaceted artist, Michaela Ďurišová’s artistic odyssey commenced in a diverse realm of disciplines, from music and set design to crafting exquisite jewellery. Her foray into photography was serendipitous, ignited by her need to capture her jewellery creations and share them with the world. Yet, her path took an unexpected turn when a single photoshoot with her mother altered the course of her career.

A young boy’s time-travelling fight against ancient evil. When the Dark comes rising, who will hold it back? This dramatisation of Susan Cooper’s cult novel is a magical journey into the supernatural.

There would be no timetable, no compulsory lessons, no uniform, no hierarchy. Teachers would be called by their first names. The children would make up the rules and decide what they wanted to learn.

There’d be no fees, fixed hours, term times or holidays. They were to be schools without walls - and open whenever the community wanted them.

Many of them quickly folded - with some communities not receptive to the idea of educational anarchy. But a few put down solid roots.

Fiddler’s Green Peculiar Parish Magazine was born of a languid afternoon of conversation on a sunny tavern lawn. Taking its name from the pleasant afterlife dreamed into being by sailors, cavalrymen, and other adventurous spirits, Fiddler’s Green gathers friends, good cheer, and a bit of magic to create a better world not someday, but now.

I’ve just implemented a Dark Mode colour scheme that will automatically be used on this site if you have set “dark mode” as your colour scheme preference in your browser or OS.

Happy to announce that I have a piece on my Acid Renaissance series of artwork in the forthcoming issue of Undefined Boundary: The Journal of Psychick Albion, which is now available to pre-order.

Things become altogether more complex when you experiment with engaging ChatGPT as a research assistant. It will produce relatively accurate and well-written prose on general subjects or well-known authors that feature prominently on Wikipedia and other such openly accessible platforms. But a more specific subject – I tried “manuscript illumination in the Tournai region around 1400” – will wake up another side of the chatbot. It will then provide information that looks very convincing but that turns out to be completely irrelevant. When asked to clarify, it will vehemently insist on its mistakes, or it will apologise while making new ones without blinking an eye.

Bookplates from the collection of Richard Sica

Samuel Araya is an artist living in the poison heart of South America, his work has appeared in a variety of media, from videogames, t-shirts, posters, records, to cards and books, including five editions of the prestigious "Spectrum: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art" annual. Currently also dedicates time to his career as a gallery artist, with an important number of international shows already gracing his curriculum.

The sculptures of Ghyslaine and Sylvain Staelens are not afraid of the twilight or the light. Like their creators, they have the experience of both. They oscillate between haze, chiaroscuro and clarity with impunity. They are expressionist and yet they elegantly support any critical gaze. They're mystic, they're not eccentric. They are created consciously to go and populate a mysterious forest. Under a grey sun, they blend with the grains of dust, honey-coloured light and deaf beardage of old trees. They can be impetuous, they can be meditative, they're always enigmatic.

Throughout my practice small acts of engagement respond to the landscape using a variety of strategies, such as making and building using found materials, creating pools of light on the forest floor, using craft materials such as paint and wool, introducing starscapes taken by the Hubble Telescope or glittering light from the surface of the sea.

The final images are the culmination of these interventions. The forest becomes a studio, forming a backdrop to contextualise the work, so that each piece draws on its location; a golden tree introduced into a thicket shimmers in the darkness, painted paths snake through the undergrowth, and strands of wool are woven between trees mirroring colours and formal elements within the space.

Blót is the term for “sacrifice” in Norse paganism. A blót could be dedicated to any of the Norse gods, the spirits of the land, and to ancestors.