This week there were some exciting work-related developments which I can't really talk about yet, but I might be able to in the future. Or I might not. I know, I am such a tease. I've also been talking to some people about doing some training for them, and we shall see where that gets to.
We caught the last day of Mark Leckey's In the Offing at the Turner Contemporary and I didn't think that much of it. I like Leckey's work generally – Fiorucci Made me Hardcore is brilliant – but this was a collection of other people's work, largely musicians, and it didn't hang together for me. I said afterwards that it is always interesting when musicians dive into visual art because they often don't have the chops to step beyond the original concept. That makes the work a bit one dimensional, and that's how I felt about most of the work here. It falls into the "glad I saw it, but didn't really work" bucket.
Other than that, this has been a quiet week, when I've spent far too much time in the house – perhaps unsurprising given that it's been freezing when it's not been raining (and occasionally both freezing and raining).
The three things which most caught my attention
- Peter Capaldi bemoans the fact that it's much harder for young working class people to get a start in the arts and creative industries. And he's right. I was lucky enough to be part of the tail-end of free education (I paid no fees and had a grant all the way through to postgraduate level) and I am utterly horrified by how education has change. Fuck, as they say, the Tories.
- Neil Gaiman's memorial lecture for Douglas Adams is a good one. I'm amazed I hadn't seen this until this week.
- Hilariously, it looks like there is a massive bot problem on Twitter, as shown by the number of failed AI prompts.
Things I have been writing
I have moved my email from Substack to Wordpress, which means you'll need to subscribe to get my posts. I'm still working out how this works -- I suspect subscribers will get early access, but I'll make them open a couple of days later. The first one is up and it's about the continuing challenge of a return to office.
Things I have been reading
Neal Asher is a science fiction writer that I have been reading since his first novel, Gridlinked. He's an interesting blend of SF and horror which, in his earlier work, absolutely hit the spot. I didn't enjoy his last one that much,but Jenny Trapdoor already feels like a bit of a return to form. The proof will be in the finishing…
