Find the Others

Last month I wrote about game designer Paul Cezge’s new newsletter and titled the post ‘Real Things For Real People‘.

My own efforts making a zine over the last two years – creating, printing, and mailing physical items – stem from a belief in the importance of tangible connections with people.

The act of sending and receiving real things – be it a zine, a newsletter, or even a one-dollar PDF to real people is an important antidote to the impersonal nature of the kinds of digital exchanges we currently find ourselves with. 

Maybe it’s a legacy of having grown up in a DIY punk scene or because I’ve been making zines since I was 10, but making and creating real things and putting them into real peoples hands is something that I’m increasingly feeling more and more passionate about as we head into the mid 2020’s.

A few people have asked me how I square his with my consulting job being almost entirely about techno-social systems, virtual worlds and narrative metaphors. But I honestly don’t see any disconnect at all … We live inside of techno-social systems.

The Internet (and the virtual worlds that precede it) is for meeting people. It’s always been about discovering a shared place online and subsequently sharing your ideas, time, and attention with people who have the same interests as you. The Internet is about meeting people and facilitating/coordinating action in real life. I’m not just talking about politics here, I’m talking about everything.

The memories of my 20’s are punctuated by secret warehouse noise raves, guerrilla gardening mobilisations, and beach parties. Remember how weird and wild flashmobs were in the mid 00’s I went to a few of them too? All of this stuff was organised online. The most important socialweb era ‘social technologies’ are in my opinion, things like meetup.com and Facebook events – before they got weird, shit and spammy.

Party’s aside, these technologies facilitated other things in my life too: The Murray Bookchin reading group I used to attend in a squat, RPG design meetings in cold and draughty social club spaces, and things like WordPress or camera nerd meet ups.

My point being, that because of the way that the Internet has impacted my life, I have an unshakable understanding that it’s a coordinating mechanism for finding others. Building community, and then meeting real people and doing real things in real life.

Check out this 1995 video of Bill Gates talking to Letterman about the Internet and ‘how you can use it to find people with the same interests as you‘:

Almost all of Letterman’s ‘funny man’ objections through out the interview are him pointing to existing cultural coordination technologies that dominated culture back in 1995 – the example in the clip I queued up – Magazines. Unfortunately for us 30 years later, magazines are all gone. And trying to find the others on social media in a way that isn’t algorithmically mediated by ad-tech is almost impossible.

Floating Croissant

In the 2020’s ‘The Others’ are mostly found the Dark Forest. I’m not sure how you, but I’m in lots of little Telegram and Signal groups chats, plus Discords both big + small. And one of these group chats is called ‘London AW Floating Croissant Chaos Agents’.

During DevConnect last year an existing Telegram group chat was used to pile London based people into as we met each other around the convention. It’s a group of people all interested in building Autonomous Worlds on the blockchain.

The group chat is a lively one. Full of artists, programmers, theorists and games developers engaged rolling discussion about books and articles on virtual worlds, metaverse legislation and recommendations for locations of finest baked goods from across London. The group chat’s name still retains an element of its original function – to coordinate a breakfast meeting on a narrowboat on the Regent’s Canal.

Unlike other groups I’m in however, this one has enough escape velocity to manifest things in real life. There’s been several whole chat group meet ups since November 2023 and some smaller impromptu pub meetings too.

There’s a lot of energy in the chat as it’s made up of a collective of people who have all had several ‘lives’. As a result we all have a lot of motivation and skills to make things happen. And earlier this month two things happened…

Open Croissant + Floating Worlds

First, a few people in the chat who are founders at two companies building in the scene decided to run a fringe event on Autonomous Worlds to coincide with ETHGlobal London 2024. They named the event ‘Open Croissant‘.

Upon hearing the news, I and a few others decided it would be cool if the group produced a semi-regular journal/zine on the subject of worlds. Just 10 days later, all 56 pages of Floating Worlds went to print. Then we waited 7 working days for delivery, and then further 2 for the conference.

The zine included essays from Tonk, J David Osborne, AWTNMY, Me, A manifesto from the AUTONOMOUS CULTURE RESEARCH BUREAU, OPNPC, and Kitty Mayo. And includes a games corner with a word search and a pastry related solo RPG.

I went though a weekend crash course in print design and layout, and Goblin Oats from tonk.gg did all the art.

As an aside, its the first time I’ve used print.work – the company single handedly keep the zine economy alive in the UK – and my experience was great. They held my hand though my PDF export as print PDFs are more complicated than literally rocket science! No issues (apart from the ones on my end!).

Playmint got some mech made up, a dice and a nice tote bag, and the conference where we handed them out went really well!

It was well attended, with lots of familiar faces and some Twitter handles materialised into meat space as actual people. Tonk.gg gave a talk and several of the Playmint team also spoke. The zine came out of Tonk’s marketing budget, but in future Floating Worlds is going to be funded by dues at our meet ups to ensure that we can print/make another issue later in the year.

It was quite amazing that we managed to go from *we should make a journal* to *here’s the journal* in side of 10 days. Folks in the chat are the sort of people who had essays ready to go.

I’m super proud of our little London based worlds chat group. I learnt a lot (and a hard lesson) about doing more ambitious print things for my own zine.

This zine isn’t for sale or anything, they are all gone. A limited run for a single event/conference.

REINER 6 Digit self incrementing mechanical number stamp

Speaking of zines. Because this was a blockchain related event, and we all know that crypto people sure LOVE a non-fungible collectable. We thought that Floating Worlds should probably be a numbered edition.

Let us all Un-fung the fungible with numbers.

When I come to making my own 50-60 page edition of Start Select Reset (SOON) I’ll be using this stamp to number the copies too. As of right now my amortised cost of the mechanical hand stamp is 50p per use. But that will come down further as I use it for the rest of my life making my own zines lol.

Anyways. If you have a chat group with high escape velocity. Make a zine or do something IRL.

The post Floating Worlds appeared first on thejaymo.net.

Mistakonic Virtual University Press have brought Anna Greenspan’s hugely influential CCRU infused PHD thesis: Capitalism’s Transcendental Time Machine, to print for the first time for its 22nd anniversary.

The forward was written by buddies Wassim Z. Alsindi, Max Hampshire, and Paul Seidler. Picking Greenspan’s thesis up where it left off back in 2000, they bring technical and philosophical discussion to the world of blockchains in an extended introduction.

We propose that distributed, consensus-based timekeeping technologies—incorporating the mnemotechnics of what are commonly known as blockchains, but more fittingly referred to as timechains—can be apprehended as a realized instantiation of a generative substrate for the spawning of occurrences in virtual time as a by-product of their production of Chronic order. This ‘ultimate abstract power,’ and the concomitant shift in the temporal apparatuses at our disposal, has ramifications regarding the increasingly fragmented era of patchwork modernity that now delimits the preconditions for experience itself. This fragmentation is not merely a point of analytic interest, however. In the past, radical movements with temporal secessionism at the core of their manifestos include the May Fourth movement in China, French Revolutionary Time, and the rearchitecting of time-zones by nation states to distance themselves temporally, economically, and politically from their imperial and colonial oppressors.

In honour of the book’s publication 0xSalon, it;s the first broadcast edition; discussing the thesis and themes in the book. It was strange to on a Salon call knowing that it was being recorded, but it if you haven’t seen or heard of 0xSalon the video / call below is a good introduction to the community its vibe. Something the organisers have spent a lot of time fostering and encouraging.

The post Twenty-Two Years of Transcendental Time Machines | 0xSalon appeared first on thejaymo.net.

I’m speaking remotely at two conferences in September. Futurecon + Ars Electronica. Both events are Solarpunk adjacent. Really looking forward to both of them. As usual once the recordings are online I’ll post ’em to the blog.

FUTURECON

WHAT PUNK ARE YOU? Past, Present and Future Trends in Anti-capitalists Science Fiction

SATURDAY 4th SEPTEMBER

• Fábio Fernandes (Brazil, host)
• Jay Springett (UK)
• Nicoletta Vallorani (Italy)
• Pepe Rojo (Mexico)
• Samit Basu (India)

Set a reminder! Watch it here.

ARS ELECTRONICA

Branch Magazine Symposium: Solarpunk and Other Worlds

FRIDAY 10th SEPTEMBER

What kind of stories should we be telling in the context of a climate-changed world, and what role does technology and the internet play in them?

This panel will feature discussions focusing on Solarpunk as movement that seeks to imagine what an environmentally and socially just world could look like, and how to get there. Solarpunk offers a courageous and pragmatic counterpoint to more pessimistic storytelling, like dystopian cyberpunk. The panelists may also discuss Other Worlds, alternatives to current paradigms that go beyond where the solarpunk imaginary takes us.

The discussion will span topics such as: decolonialism and climate justice, ecological economics, inhuman intelligences, agencies and assemblages, humans as observers, collaborators and stewards, technology and the internet, what it means to embrace the unknown, and more.

• Christine Lariviere (CA, Host)
• Luiza Prado (BR)
• Sarah Friend (CA)
• Jay Springett (UK)

Check the event details out here

I’ve just updated my Talks page.
It has links to documentation of public talks I’ve given going back to 2012.

The post Upcoming Events: September 2021 appeared first on thejaymo.net.

I will be on a Solarpunk panel alongside writers Francesco Verso (IT) and Ana Rüsche (BR) at LuxCon 2020 this Sunday, April 18th.

The livestream begins at 12pm CET (11am UK time), live at this link.

The email pre-discussion has been really great so far. I think we’re going to have an interesting conversation during the event.

I expect we’ll cover: world building as an memetic engine for different and diverse futures; Solarpunk expanding across anthologies rather than novels; why it can be both punk and optimistic and probably more.

You can find the full LuxCon schedule embedded as images below or as a PDF at this link.

As with most cons during the Covid Era you can also join the LuxCon discord here.

The post LuxCon 2020 – Eurocon Presents: Solarpunk | 18.Apr.21 appeared first on thejaymo.net.

I was supposed to be on a flight to The Canaries this morning. We booked it before Christmas. It became apparent we wouldn’t be going in the middle of last week, Jet 2 canceled their flights mid air on Saturday morning and Easyjet finally put us out of limbo yesterday morning. So I have a week off, and like a week where I do have work on, I’ll be largely self isolating. Can’t say the same for last week however.

I worked Monday and Tuesday, had a project kick off and continuation of a project thats so secret it doesn’t even have a code name

On Wednesday I went out drinking with Gordon White.

We were joking that from now on every time we meet it’s has to be to be to a biblical backdrop. Last year we flew into the embers of the fires in Tasmania. He’s back in London now during a time of pestilence. We drank a lot of mezcal cocktails in 7 dials.

During our session Dr Jack hunter called to cancel his appearance with Gordon at Tredwell’s, as he got off the phone, he turned to me and said “You should do it”. So with less than 48 hours notice.

I did:

We had a public conversation about ecology, the sprit world, hope. A main theme that emerged during the discussion was our culture (or should I say natureculture’s) lack of words for describing things. I’m glad I made that episode on depression last year. Similar vibes.

Saturday saw Gordon in conversation with The Scarlets at the Avenging Angels event at the Old Nick in Holborn.

It was awesome to see and meet so many #RSPM’s. Quite amazing to be in a pub named after the Devil with *everyone* in it talking about Magic.

After the event we moved to the Enterprise just off Russell Square where the only things I remember talking about was Warhammer 40k and Enya.
So I was 15 again or something.

Permanently Moved

Living In A Time Of History

S3E10

The longue durée, paying taxes after pestilence, boomers, ancient greeks, make art when the time ghost is at the door.

—

Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded in one hour by @thejaymo

Website: https://thejaymo.net/
Podcast: http://permanentlymoved.online
Zine: http://startselectreset.com

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

One day I *may* be able to to talk about what I’m up to.

Dipping the Stacks

I was a teenage Riverdancer – and I may never get out

How Vin Diesel Ended Up Living Every Nerd’s Best Life

The Inconvenient Truth about Your “Authentic” Self – Scientific American Blog Network

Hear How Choral Music Sounded in the Hagia Sophia More Than 500 Years Ago

Reading

I finished reading The MAGA Doctrine. I think its really worth taking a look at if you want to understand where Trumps quote unquote intercellular base is.
Haven’t started reading anything else, yet. But sarah from Silver Press put their edition of Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde in to my hands on Monday morning, so I think that will probably be on deck very soon.

Music

TBH I’m still listening to the Infant Annihilator album I blogged about last week. But A friend sent me a like to this single ‘Damned to Love You’ by Miserable with the comment ‘Singing like Billie Eilish is now a genre’

Remember Kids:

Real life aesthetics are becoming a little too on the nose even for cyberpunk set designers IMO.

The post In The Food Forest Of Souls, Angels Are Avenged appeared first on thejaymo.net.

This week I went to and from Unsound Festival in Poland.

It’s my second time in Krakow. It’s such a lovely city – wet & cold this year tho. Compared to glorious 20+ degrees last year it was a bit of a different experience.

Regardless, it was still good. I got to hang out with a cool and inspiring bunch of people (I speak about it on the podcast this week).

My favourite artists I got to see were Lingua Ignota

and Dreamcrusher!!!!!!

Can you believe I took the photo above on my phone!? Wild.

No photos of the panel on interspecies solidarity or the solarpunk talk I did. Everyone was too rapt to take any I think LOL. I’ll ask for the official ones once the festival is over. I’m sad not to have seen the main shindig as I could only make the early part of the week. I’m Missing Lyra, Sunn o))), Holly etc. Ah well.

Listen to the this weeks show for more details.

I really want to recommend the second season of Shane Dawson X Jeffree Star documentary ‘The Dangerous World“. First Episode below:

It really doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the first series at all. The whole documentary is intertextual with the previous one. Cutting backwards and forwards in time to related scenes. Especially related to things Jeffree said last year that is contextualised in this show.

You really also don’t need to know *anything* about Youtubers or the Fashion/beauty world. The whole documentary is an exposée of the makeup world. At one point 700% markups are mentioned and you can see Dawsons eyes pop out of their sockets.
There’s also a moment in episode 3 where he is talking money/profit splits on Merch like t-shirts and hoodies between him and Star’s company and the sort of deal they could offer him as a creator with 20million+ subs – its incredible. Basically Dawson cries and says that he’s been getting absolutely fucked over his entire life.

I think its important that you do know going in that Jeffree Star was the queen of myspace originally. So he’s like a generation ahead than Shane Dawson. Star basically got tired of being fucked over and built an apparell / makeup / business empire themselves. One that takes a much fairer cut as a supplier to other creators.

Also seeing the whole thing about Dawson being accused of fucking his cat in a mega shit storm online. It happened over a very old joke he made on a podcast. seeing someone on the receiving end of that level of of the cancellation is fascinating is quite emotional.

I can’t wait to watch the rest of the season.

Permanently Moved

Back From Krakow

S2E28

I just got back from Unsound Festival in Poland yesterday. I talk about the panel and talk I did, and some of the artists I saw live. Also being inspired by hanging out with inspiring people.

—
Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded in one hour by @thejaymo

Website: https://thejaymo.net/
Podcast: http://permanentlymoved.online
Zine: http://startselectreset.com

Dipping the Stacks

The ‘OK’ Hand Sign and the Hate Symbol Trap | MEL Magazine

Formal objection to island fish farm lodged by a group of underwater fairies

California’s massive power outage is a wake-up call for the whole country | Popular Science

Counter Mapping – Emergence Magazine

The Ministry

After last week working so hard on the talks I decided to do something different. This week I switched gears. I started work again on the ‘audio’ comic adaptation of a short solarpunk story I wrote last year. It’s er.. MUCH harder than I thought it was going to be going in. Learning a lot about it tho. We’ll see how it goes and if I can keep noodling away at it. I have a long way to go before I can even think of recording it.

I have also decided to christianise my meditation book. This is quite an extensive re-write but one that will make it a better text.

Reading

I read two books this week. And started a second Warhammer 40k book. lol

Music

TBH I’m still buzzing from the HEAVY AS FUCK Dreamcrusher set. Check this fucking track out.

Remember kids:

The post Unsound Festival 2019 appeared first on thejaymo.net.

October 11, 2019

|

Event 🎫 | Multispecies 🐝 | Permanently Moved 🔊

just got back from Unsound Festival in Poland yesterday. I talk about the panel and talk I did, and some of the artists I saw live. Also being inspired by hanging out with inspiring people.

—
Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded in one hour by @thejaymo

Website: https://www.thejaymo.net/
Podcast: http://permanentlymoved.online
Zine: http://startselectreset.com

Show Supporter 📻

£5 MONTHLY 👏

Quarterly zine; my gift to you ✉️

Subscribe 🔊

Wherever you get your podcasts

Back From Krakow

Since we last spoke I’ve flown to and from Poland, and boy are my arms tired.

As mentioned last week I was there to moderate a panel discussion on interspecies solidarity between cultural geographer and filmmaker, Amy Cutler and the writer Luke Turner. It was a really good discussion. We couldn’t just jump into the conversation on solidarity as the topic is ultimately to many people’s ears in the current landscape of 2019 a ‘weird idea’ to say the least. 

So instead we felt our way there. Via Tim Ingold’s comments on the difference between moving through space and being on landscape from Against Space: Place, Movement, Knowledge. Though Kenith Olwigs reframing of our relationship to the land from a landscape to Landship. The discussion then felt its way through Anna Tsing’s mushroom at the end of the world and Donna Harrayway’s concept of making Kin by encouraging others to foster and recognise a sense of quote unquote Entanglement with the more than human world. We used the words Multispecies entanglement a great deal. 

For my part it was great to have a conversation with other people in a public setting where you could roll through the material on this space with others that know well. From Eduardo Kohn to Monica Gagliarno without needing to pause and explain a concept from scratch. Or mentioning things like landscapes are haunted by the past in very real and impactful ways. I got the sense from conversations in the audience that this was a good move, as they grasped the concepts at some intuitive level due to the nature of the conversation, but not necessarily understanding them fully. 

Amy brought up that there is emergence in emergency and there must also be solidarity in the world’s extinction. I thought later that the adage “an injury to one is an injury to all” is of even more importance when talking about multispecies entanglement than when it’s just applied to humans. 

A key notion that came up around how the human is ultimately a human construction and therefore subject to all our fallacies and foibles seemed to resonate with the audience too. 

Luke spoke about coppicing and pollarding of the forest. How the forest is not necessarily the wild space of one’s imagination. That a forest like Epping is a collaborative space between humans doing human things in the landscape that humans do and the trees themselves. After all a coppiced tree will live far far longer than one that was left to grow and die on its own natural timeline.

An audience member said that it was the best discussion they’d seen in the 4 years they’d been coming to the festival, which was cool. Hopefully the talk will be published to the festival archive sometime soon and I’ll let you all know when that happens.

My Solarpunk talk was at midday the next day, a tricky time for the talk audience wise considering that it was Unsound karaoke the night before. Big thanks to those that showed up on 3 hours sleep to hear me talk about cultural fracking of futures in mainstream media, Solarpunk, unfolding and polyphony. It went well and folks thought it was interesting. Obviously I’ll link to that too if/when it gets posted.

The whole festival was great, I got in early in the week so it was more of the experimental artists. Lingua Ignota performed basically the whole of Caligula from start to finish on my first night. It was an incredible performance, there was a moment when she sang the Kyrie, and it was awesome to see that for the first time in a nominally catholic country. The atmosphere from the audience turned the room inside out and you could have felt a pin drop let alone heard one. Came away really impressed by the one person live set too. I was also really pleased to have seen Dreamcrusher, it was HEAVY and I loved every second of it.

Of course as ever, it was a real privilege to be at Unsound, I’m always amazed when anyone invites me to anything to be honest i really do appreciate it.

I wanted to talk a little bit about my experiences at events like unsound or sonar as a speaker. Of course being a speaker is different from being an artist at the music venue, but you wear the same wristband and get to go to the same places not always afforded to the attendees. 

I’ve been incredibly lucky that people have always been generous with their time and attention at events like this. Either I’ve known other people either performing or speaking at the festival, or known friends of friends who I have been able to hang out with. This year I need to give a big shout out to Lisa, Lyra, Jacob, Luke, and Debi. 

Because the reality is, when folks you know go do something without you or with others you are in a foreign country, in a foreign city. And you are completely on your own. It happened to me in the Hague this year and it’s a bit bleak. So the atmosphere to combat this is very much. Dinner at 7.30 bring anyone you want. And that’s really nice. 

These festivals for me are periods of intense inspiration. Being around other creative people, executing on the thing that they love. Whether it’s writing, music, journalism etc. Speaking to people about the things that they love doing and are getting to do is obviously inspiring. It naturally makes you fired up and want to explore your own creative life and want to lean into it harder. It’s mainly because the conversation isn’t one big back slapping session either. But also there’s moments that can cut really deep into dealing with ones self doubt, creative struggles with their practice and the like. Which of course I’ve been talking about on here myself. 

Everytime I’m exposed to an environment like this, i’m inspired to do more, create more. Be more me.  

The post Back From Krakow | 1928 appeared first on thejaymo.net.

Wow, What a week. Still decompressing from the trip. Writing this post has helped me process it quite a bit.

I attended Sonar+D Last week to take part in a panel on ‘Tales of the Next Internet‘. I spoke alongside cybersecurity journalist Marta Peirano, researcher and activist Xenia Ermoshina, with the panel moderated by Ash Sarkar.

The panel went really well, and the topics covered were diverse but also coherent. I spoke on Long term thinking, and questioned wether we can even call the internet infrastructure (who ever heard of 100 year website or 1000 year internet), How software should make us feel, and finally on the upcoming proliferation of sensing devices and the urgency of climate change action. I finished my talk by reading “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” which might give you some idea by how off piste my talk was by the end.

Sonar+D is an amazing festival, bridging the delicate line between corporate sponsored event by leaving space open for more radical voices. I saw some amazing talks.

I saw Honor interview Noriko Taniguchi of team lab

And Ash Interviewed Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst onstage for their voices of AI talk

Plus saw a bunch of fantastic art and other talks on building virtual worlds etc.

It was fun being a participant, being able to walk stright out of Sonar+D into the festival. I got to see a bunch of cool artists I Embedded a tumblr photo post below

I also drank a lot of absinthe and ate a lot of fantastic food. I also got to see and hang out with a bunch of other acquaintances and friends at the event. I was grateful for their company. Speaking to people you know when your social battery is low is so nice.

A real highlight was staying with my good friend Huw Lemmey once my sonar hospitality ran out. On Saturday we hiked up Montserrat to Sant Jeroni peak. The view was incredible. And such a fun day, with lots of deep conversation and laughs here we are at the top.

Permanently Moved

S2E16

As time passes I am becoming more and more aware every time I interact with social media that I am complicit.

—

You can subscribe to Permanently Moved in itunes: permanentlymoved.online/itunes or search in all your favourite podcatchers.

Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded in one hour by @thejaymo

A lot of folks I saw at sonar seem to be listening and gave me a lot inspiration and encouragement. It was also nice to see so many people give Huw’s Bad Gays podcast amazing feedback in real time and see how he reacted.

Dipping the Stacks

Honestly i spent no time on the internet but this is amazing

NEURAL NETWORK IN GLASS REQUIRES NO POWER, RECOGNIZES NUMBERS | Hackaday

The Ministry

It is so inspiring being around friends and other amazing people who ‘execute’. A few conversations about imposter syndrome came about but friends re-assured me that i was there because I am executing too.. Which made me feel nice (but that my have been the beer). I have a lot of things on the go which I hope to get out into the world soon.

“perfect is the enemy of good enough” is a thing I think musicians and creatives with background in classical training always fight. It was really nice to hear that I’m not the only person fighting this every single day.

I also had some great conversations at sonar. Some of which included the notion of doing some future work.

Reading

I finished listening to Slaves of Darkenss which means I’m 2 books away from finishing the 54 book series. and i thought DUNE was a long slog during my Asia trip! Then i roll straight in to book 1 of 6 book ‘Solar War’ series. It takes 54 books to cover 9 years of plot. And 6 books to cover a battle that lasts 85 days. (the first and last war for mankind – it never ends – Warhammer 40k is set 10k years later and the Galaxey is still aflame )

It’s been amazing tho. Absolutely everything my 10 year old self wanted back in 1994 when I first discovered Warhammer.

Music

Annie is a member of Hollys ensamble, we had breakfast one morning at the hotel. I listened to her EP that day and it’s Fantastic.

Remember kids:

This is a personal meme joke with regard to this guy.

The post Back From Sonar+D – Mega Post appeared first on thejaymo.net.

I had barely recovered from last weeks unexplained lurgy and then headed off to the Netherlands once again to The Hague to give a talk – this time at bordersessions. Here’s my Trip Report:

First observation, despite public transporting being incredible over there. The Hague is just that bit further away from everything. Previously it has seemed trivial to just hop cities whilst i’ve been staying. But hoping from The Hague to Rotterdam or up to Amsterdam for dinner etc is a bit more of a mission. I should also note that its more a little more of a mission to get to the airport if you miss the fast train. (Not that I wan’t to relive the trauma of my return journey which included nearly missing my flight on the pages of this blog)

Anyways. I’d never been to The Hague before. I learnt that like 60% of the people who live and work there work for the government. Like a souped up company town I suppose. It does have a lot of church bells, and thats lovely.

The first night of the festival was speakers drinks and the headlining interview with Paul Mason. He was talking about his newest book Clear Bright Future.

During the day the next day I attended the workshop ‘How to measure the ecological development of a zoöp?’ at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. the emerging project continuing from the Terrafiction workshops I took part in last year.

In the zoöp concept: an important role is played by the zoönomic instrument that helps indicate the
ecological development of the collective body of nonhumans within the zoöp.

I didn’t take any pictures during the workshop but I did tweet this:

It was good to see other folks there. Sjef, Klass, Theun, Ian etc. Also the folks who have commitments to start a zoöp. Let me tell you, wild speculative ecological conversations in Holland are a decade ahead of where they are in the UK.

I’ve spoken to Sjef and Theun about it a few times now. I suppose its partly around the Netherlands being a totally human managed environment. Landscape engineering is Just what you do with a decade. I dearly hope that when the opportunity arrises, I can some how be the conduit to segue all this important work and thinking into the UK.

Anyway, that evening I spoke on Solarpunk And The Great Unfolding: Building Keystones Of Continuity at the main festival night. The talk was quite well attended and I had some really interesting conversations afterwards at the bar.

I also saw some other fantastic talks, one about the burgeoning Kite energy sector, and another panel on the Zoop, which was all on more than human personhood. Many assumptions at the beginning of the panel, the audience nodded along with zero pushback – wouldn’t of happened in the UK for sure.

Friday, I had the day to myself. I was thinking about attending some of the other workshops as part of the festival but my social battery was below absolute zero so I took myself off to see James Turrell’s celestial vault and ‘The Sand Engine’. Took a fun, long assed bus ride though the outskirts of The Hague to the coast.

I got to the coast and set about hiking to the vault. You crest a big hill and are greeted with the crater

You then enter via a tunnel wall and see the alter:

I spent about an hour in the vault. Laying on the alter looking up at the sky. Seeing the first sunshine that had been in the sky since arriving 2 days before hand, the sideways rain had stopped whilst I was on the bus there. It was an amazing experience to have such a long private time with the art work.

I went to see Hollands ‘Sand Engine’ that was further down the coast.

The sand engine (also called Sand Motor) is an experiment in the management of dynamic coastline. The first one was run off South Holland in the Netherlands. A sandcastle-shaped peninsula was created by humans; the surface is about 1 km². It is expected that this sand is then moved over the years by the action of waves, wind and currents along the coast. To protect the West of the Netherlands against the sea,

Wikipedia

At this point. I was 90mins from the bus stop and about 2.5 hours from my hotel. I was also burning a little bit. Ill prepared for 23 degree heat with a rain coat stuffed into my travel pack.

In the evening i went for dinner with Theun Karelse and Ian Ingram in Amsterdam and I enjoyed their company a lot.

Permanently Moved

No podcast (see above)

Dipping the Stacks

900-year-old grape pips reveal unbroken history of French wine variety | Science | The Guardian

“The Medea Hypothesis:” a downhill trajectory for life on Earth | The Seattle Times

The Controversy of NASA’s EmDrive”

his is a $15 trillion opportunity for farmers to fight climate change

The Ministry

The hour that I spent ‘charging up’ on the Alter was very impactful to me. I let my mind wander in a way that I only really do when doing Journeying practice outside of meditaiton.

Laying on the alter in the sun looking up at the sky i felt gears shift and engage, like a complicated pocket watch ticking back to life. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I am doing with my life, and experiencing a humbling.

Indeed, having a lot of free time to myself in a foreign country outside of festival commitments gave me a lot of opportunity to just consider.

Routes though and ways forward. Self reflection, hubris and resolve.

Reading

Still smashing though Warhammer books i’m afraid. Im sure you are not interested but I read 2 books last week. Vengeful Spirit + The Silent War.

Music

I was listening to a lot of Sunn 0)))s life metal album. Thats about it.

Remember kids:

The post Back from Bordersessions appeared first on thejaymo.net.

I have just updated the ‘Works‘ page on my website with all the upcoming speaking events I have this year. I want to rebuild the site at some point but I hate wordpress more than I hate how the website looks right now so it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list.

I thought I would post an update outside of my regular weekly rhythm to include some of the confirmed highlights for me in the year ahead. I hope the 50ish of you that find me interesting enough to follow this blog find the information all in one place interesting.

Also.. I just posted something similar to LinkedIn so I just copy and pasted it here.

They are Europe

Various opportunities have presented themselves this year including inclusion in We are Europe’s – They Are Europe Program

We are Europe is the association of 8 major European events joining forces to promote, create and produce innovative cultural practices, defined by creative diversity and exchanges.

64 People are chosen every season and this year I was honoured to be included as one of them. As a result in part I now find myself on the professional speaking circuit:

Upcoming Talks (Confirmed)

Jun 19 – Solarpunk And The Great Unfolding: Building Keystones Of Continuity@Border Sessions – The Hague

Jul 19 – New Internet (Panel Discusion) @Sonar-D – Barcelona

Sept 19 – Land As Platform @Primer – Copenhagen

Oct 19 – Interspecies Solidarity (Panel Discusion) @Unsound Festival – Krakow

Oct 19 – Solarpunk: Life in the future beyond the rusted chrome of yestermorrow @Unsound Festival – Krakow

Consulting

I am also available for operational and strategy work assisting organisations, projects, & people navigate complex, high growth environments. I’ve worked extensively in blockhain & adjacent tech worlds with a focus on building and scaling sustainable and regenerative cultures, that focus on employee agency & innovate company forms.

Message me for details.

2018 Speaking Events

Oct 18 – Beyond Cyberpunk (Panel Discussion) @Unsound Festival– Krakow

Oct 18 – Public Discourse in the Age of Conspiratainment @Unsound Festival – Krakow

Sept 18 – Solarpunk – Tolhuistuin Festival @Tolhuistuin – Amsterdam

Sept 18 – Land As Platform – Coded Matter(s) #15 @Fiber Festival – Amsterdam

Sept 18 – Realty Hacking – New Frontiers World Building BA @Brakke Grond | Vlaams Cultuurhuis – Amsterdam

Aug 18 – Solarpunk as Civic Imaginary @Citizen Sci-Fi Alliance – London

Jul 18 – New Age of Cults @Acclerate Working Group #3 (#AWG3) – London

Jun 18 – Owning Digital Stuff Is Going to Get Weird @Blockhack #4 – London

May 18 – Solarpunk : A Grand Dress Rehearsal – Terra Fiction @Het Nieuwe Instituut – Rotterdam

May 18 – Deep Sensing  – 2p2 Web Berlin @Trust  -Berlin

The post Work/Life Update 2019 appeared first on thejaymo.net.

UPDATE: 27 OCT – I FORGOT TO POST THIS LAST WEEK. IT’S BEEN SITTING IN MY DRAFTS. I FOUND IT THIS MORNING

“Our value system doesn’t allow us to enjoy anything without putting a price on it, we miss a great part of the beauty of life.” – Father Thomas Keating

(Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel)

Unsound was great. Had an amazing time. Might write a follow up piece to this talking through my highlights as I saw a lot of great artists.

I got the chance to do a little bit of sightseeing. The hi-light of that afternoon was seeing the Stained Glasswork of Stanisław Wyspiański in St Francis of Assisi basilica in Krakow.

I mean just look at it. It depicts creation. Incredible. Also Krakow has a pinball museum. If i go back to unsound I’m going to spend more time there than just one pint.

I also bumped in to some very old friends who I have known since I was 13, but haven’t seen since 2011-ish? totally random. They were on holiday in Krakow. Fantastic stuff, smol world.

Permanently Moved

Episode 26 – One Foot Forward

This Episode contains a brief overview of Unsound Festival. A shout out to old friends and I talk about the Hexen 2.0 Tarot Reading I did this week.

You can subscribe to Permanently Moved in itunes: permanentlymoved.online/itunes or search in all your favourite podcatcher

Dipping the stacks

I haven’t had time for the Internet this week.

The Ministry

I went to the kick off of DECAL (Decentralised Arts Lab) on Monday. Coming out of furtherfield, it’s an exciting project and I’m happy to be involved.

As I mentioned in this weeks podcast. I’ve switched to the Hexen 2.0 tarot as it seems to be my business these days. This card  shook me in the Celtic cross reading I did the other day as the heart of the situation.

the only answer is er… yep.

Reading

I read inhabit: instructions for autonomy at the air port on my way home from poland. Jay Owens gave it to me at her birthday a few weeks back. Its a great book, dark green and inspiring. Worth it.

I just started reading The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life: Before 8AM I’m struggling with it a little bit as it’s really badly edited and the exact same paragraphs in chapter one show up in later chapters. Plus there is a lot of shilling. Im only about an hour away from finishing it so i guess im committed.

Music

The new princess nokia album is great. This might be my fav track, but undecided at this point.

Remember kids:

The post Next Up appeared first on thejaymo.net.

October 19, 2018

|

Event 🎫 | Permanently Moved 🔊 | Solarpunk 🌅

Episode 26 – One Foot Forward

This Episode contains a brief overview of Unsound Festival.

A shout out to old friends and I talk about the Hexen 2.0 Tarot Reading I did this week.

Different Times Podcast

Holy Roar Podcast

You can subscribe to Permanently Moved in itunes: permanentlymoved.online/itunes or search in all your favourite podcatchers.

Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded in one hour by @thejaymo

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One Foot Forward

 So I’m back from Unsound Festival in Krakow, and I’m just beginning to recover from the retox diet I adopted whilst I was there. My talk on conspiracy theories came over quite dense, but seemed to be well received by those in the audience. Mega Merkel as a robot, billionaire vampires, Rumsfeldian epistemology, and the closing inversion of Euripides question everything to believe everything.

And why not both at the same time? The Beyond Cyberpunk panel went well, too. Perhaps my favorite quote coming from Lee Gamble, saying, So Cyberpunk is more MDMA and Solarpunk is more DMT? The answer is yes, obviously. I think the audio is recorded for both of those panels and I’ll put a link to them as soon as they’re online.

I’d like to say a big thank you to all the festival buddies that I made while I was out there, everyone that hung out with me and that I broke bread with. In particular Lisa Blanning, the journalist, who hung out with me quite a lot and there was really great conversation and a lot of hospitality. On my return, I rolled straight into Further Field’s Decal or Decentralized Arts Lab workshop on Monday, and that was absolutely fantastic.

I cannot wait for this project to materialize. I think it’s going to have a real impact on both the art world, but the cultural world in general. So keep your eyes peeled for that. And the rest of the week has been spent hanging out and catching up with friends and family and doing lots of washing. So that’s about me up to date.

I should also mention and give a shout out to to Mr. and Mrs. Waller, who I bumped into in Krakow. Claire is someone I’ve known since I was 13, and I’ve been friends with Paul since I was about 14, 15, something like that, and I haven’t seen them since 2011, and to bump into them in Krakow for 40 minutes was fantastic.

Paul is the host of Holy Roar podcast, where he interviews a lot of bands from Holy Roar and the hardcore and metal scenes in general. And he also hosts Different Times podcast with another friend from home, Daniel. I really recommend that podcast, they go through old issues of magazines like Metal Hammer and Melody Maker and talk about the news and the music that’s being reported on at the time.

Because they’re old bastards now and they get to do that because they were there the first time round. With all that out the way, I am going to talk about what’s next for me, because I now have a huge chunk of time between now and the end of the year, where I don’t have that many commitments, I have a few.

After that I’ll be going away for two months, and then I’ll be returning, kind of, next year. In February, early March, and wondering about what to do with the rest of my life. I already have a few things to do next year, um, which I’ll talk about at some point, got commitments for June and also September.

But given the space weather, yesterday and today, I thought I’d sit down and try and figure it out. So I broke out the Hexen 2. 0 tarot. For those that don’t know, Hexen 2. 0 is a project that began in 1995 with Susan Triester. When she created her alter ego, Rosalind Brodsky, a delusional time traveller that thought she was working for the Institute of Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality in the 21st century.

The Hexen Tarot is a continuation of that project, with the foundation being the Macy Conferences of 1946 1953. The deck itself, essentially reflects the creation of the internet, built around the framework of the interconnected histories of the computer and the internet. Cybernetics, counterculture, science fiction, and scientific projections of the future, government, military research programs, and social engineering.

A criticism of the deck from the tarot community has been that the only reading that could be done with the deck lies solely in the area of the work that it represents. But strangely, it seems, This is also the work that I am doing. I can imagine a 3. 0 version of this deck in 2055 containing my friends and also colleagues.

Running through the Celtic Cross reading yesterday, I got the Sun as my first card. An image that displays the text An End to Civilization with anarcho primitivism on one side and post left anarchism on the other. As the reading unfolded, I had a visceral reaction, both to the images on the cards, the cards that came, but also, I now know what it is that must be done.

This deck is now live for me, and it’s a really interesting experience. There is now a route forward. Anyway, thanks for listening.

The post One Foot Forward | 1826 appeared first on thejaymo.net.

“The names of blockchain firms make Californian companies look humble – Gnosis, Ether, Kraken, Stellar …. Ontology” – Ben Cerveny

I missed a week last weeks blog entry. I thought it might feel like the weekly chain had been broken and everything comes tumbling down. But it doesn’t so there’s that. The week before last was really busy sorting out travel for events and writing talks, being social and also family stuff.

Today is Monday Oct 1. Yesterday I got back from Amsterdam which already feels like a blur. Meeting people I admire, 3 talks in 4 days, 2 day workshop, new faces and lots of good conversation, oh and tiny but cold Dutch beers, lots of them.

The main reason I was in Amsterdam was to speak at TerraFiction at Brakke Grond as part of Fiber Festivals Coded Matter(s) #15

The talk went really well. I enjoyed it a lot. I spoke along side a fantastic lineup: Astronomer and writer Pippa Goldschmidt, the speculative fiction writer E. J. Swift, Maja & Nik from FOAM, Ivan Henriques presented his [Symbiotic Machines for Space Exploration] project, and Miha Turšič from Waag spoke on his new project with the ESA. What I was doing there talking about Land as Platform and Solarpunk remains a mystery.

I also gave a long presentation to interdisciplinary students doing an MA in worldbuilding. On (unsurprisingly) world building but more importantly reality hacking. And I spoke on solarpunk and they way it can be used to speculatively re-imagine civic space at Tolhuistuin.

In-between all that, I caught up with a friend I haven’t seen in ages, and attended a two day workshop at Waag on world building which was the third part of the same workshop I’d been in at Het Nieuwe Instituut earlier in the year.

My output was a short story about a baker in late 21st century Amsterdam who’s business partner is the yeast called (Hono) he uses to make all the bread. They work as a bio-coop. Also if there is such thing as Middle Ages High Catholic sci-fi that’d be his world view.

One team produced an *extremely* Adam Curtis video about their Accelerationist patchwork city:

Also Ben Cerveny from The Foundation For Public Code and The New Normal took me and Sjef for a ride on his boat.

Permanently Moved

Your attention is sovereign

1. You, personally, get to decide where you put your attention.
2. By acknowledging this fact you have to take full responsibility for where you have put your attention in the past, and where you will put it in the future.

Multitasking is mostly bollocks.

This is last weeks episode. Its had the most positive feedback of any show i’ve done so far. I’m really grateful for all the positive remarks.

Dipping the stacks

Don’t bother

The Ministry

got a lot more on my pate. I need to write a talk on conspiracy theories for unsound.pl more on that next week.

Also super energised after all the conversations In the last week. Much to think on in terms of my own life and what I want from it.

Reading

I finished Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants on the plane on the way home. Incredible book.

Music

Remember kids:

The post Catching Up appeared first on thejaymo.net.

To whom it may concern: It is springtime.

– Kurt Vonnegut

Narrative

Yup. Late again because I was travelling/working. I really think I should probably double down on the schedule and stick to it regardless of what I’m doing. I didn’t even do the podcast last week. as I was on a plane and traveling around. Thats said, I don’t think that I couldn’t have made one on the go.. I own a tiny mono-mic that plugs into my phone so… yeah. My Bad.

I was having a great time wandering around Amsterdam in the morning on Thursday and then Rotterdam before I spoke at Het Nieuwe Instituut in the evening.  The talk was well attended for a (bank holiday) and it went well:

Title: Solarpunk: A grand dress rehearsal in remaking our present and future history.

Blurb: Right now, across disparate fields, a future is being built. But the future does not passively ‘arrive’ fully formed from the aether, we must first meet it the way humanity has always done: though dreams, stories and song. This talk will explore narrative strategies and strategic narratives such as RetroSuburbia and Land as Platform to make life more wonderful for us right now, and more importantly for the generations that follow.

I’m not sure how the talk will be posted online but I’ll find out. If its not documented in full I might ask for the audio from the board and slap the slides over the top and post it to medium or something.

After the event we drank tiny beers and I finally met Mx from Terra0.org and a bunch of people from Fiber Festival and also Boarder Sessions, plus its funny that Bratton’s New Normal Crew are everywhere in the circles I move in. It was really worth while.

On the Friday there was a workshop that was about living along side DAOS etc. Definitely hints of the European creative scene are goldilocksing their way to re-enchanting the world, but Calvinism has run a real number on the Dutch thats for sure especially the atheist ones.

I’m grateful to IAS Associate Sjef for his hospitality and also the link up to the Nieuwe Instituut in the first place.

Permanently Moved

Permanently late more like amiright?

Dipping the stacks

Who the fuck cares anymore about social media? Since i installed Twitter Demetricator and put my phone in black and white I definitely have spent less time on it.

The Ministry

Well apart from all the stuff above I have a new laundry list of things I need to work on. And I need to plough though them as quickly as possible as i’m away again for 10 days at the end of May.

Wish me luck.

Reading

I’ve started reading The Contemplative Journey by Thomas Keating Fr. Thomas Keating, is a Trappist monk and priest, known as one of the architects of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts, in 1975. It’s fascinating to read so soon after St Teresa of Ávila’s The Interior Castle.

Music

Some of my best buds in the whole wide world have a new album out. If you are interested where the state of the UK’s Country/Folk Scene is this album is the Shonky Tonk British Doom Folk album for you

Remember Kids:

The post Late Again appeared first on thejaymo.net.

Wizard Prang was threatened by toast. He knew that he was supposed to eat breakfast. It was good for him. But eating was exactly what he did not want to do early in the morning.

Chronicles of Wizard Prang by Stafford Beer

Narrative

This post is three days late. It did briefly cross my mind about 8am on Saturday that I needed to post something but i was A. too tired (no one seems to sleep in berlin?) B. too busy and had to run out the door for a breakfast engagement, followed by brunch, then get to Trust for my p2pWeb talk, then after that was drinks, dinner, then more drinks.

So in short it was kinda busy.

I’m frantically preparing for my next round of being away from home due in Rotterdam on Thursday. Conversations I took away with me from Berlin have caused it to pivot some what a a major re-write is in process.

It is now Tuesday and it’s nearly 30 degrees so i don’t want to spend all day inside either.

Permanently Moved

Episode 7: Eugh what a drag to get this done today! Thanks for listening everyone! Please stick with me, really not feeling this one today.

Dipping the stacks

I don’t want to talk about it.

The Ministry

Reading

I finished invention of nature.

Music

TarLung had an album out last year and i missed it. Sludgy Doom FTW

Remember Kids:

The post Unspool appeared first on thejaymo.net.