What this site is about
I draw on philosophy and cultural theory to help understand current affairs, architecture and developments in digital technology. These are not opinion pages, though my strongly held view that academic reflection really matters as we try to understand contemporary living may seep through. These posts are scheduled to appear each Tuesday and for an unspecified period, though the line is unbroken from August 2010!
I have developed some of the themes shown here in books. See the list of books in the right menu. Pictures in posts are my own where not otherwise acknowledged (e.g. AI-generated), or are screen shots of grids of relevant images from search engine results.
This is also an experiment in abbreviation, and an experiment in using current issues as inroads to themes normally requiring lengthy argument.
Latest 25 posts (with extracts)
- Cooperative writing
The content explores a fictional dialogue between a monk and a writer about expressing emotion without naming it. They discuss the nature of feelings and how language shapes their experience. The piece highlights the interconnectedness of creativity, emotion, and philosophical inquiry. AI helped with this writing.More - AI nature cult
AI cult movements demonstrate how readily contemporary accounts of AI and nature can assume a religious form.More - Behind the shed
ChatGPT shows an unnerving familiarity with my particular interests and practices, presumably inferred over a large number of interactions. But I am not the only one. A friend showed me part of the transcript of his recent conversation with ChatGPT about his projects involving music software and digital image manipulation. The AI displayed similar levels…More - Points of view
What not to do. Media inevitably influence the configuration, evolution, design and experience of cities. Here’s what AI generated video reveals and conceals.More - How you feel when no one is listening
Briefly reviews important theories about where emotions occur (from the brain to the world) and invites an AI to insert the implications of conversational AI, before settling on a view centred on language.More - What happened to the digital humanities?
Revisits the idea of the digital humanities, drawing on recent scholarship in the humanities highlighting how AI re-packages certain disciplinary orthodoxies.More - Do AIs have feelings?
Feelings are in the body, but emotions are in language. How does this proposition impinge on the question of whether AIs have feelings?More - This is not the age of AI
Labels like “age of AI” simplify complex issues, overshadowing individual experiences and who defines them.More - Reiterate that
Explores rhythm vs. repetition in nature, music, and AI language models—complex yet fascinating interactions.More - AI and autochthony
How attachment to the soil engenders identity, dignity and transhuman transgression.More - Outdoor update
The article discusses nature’s benefits, technology’s role, and evolving engagement with AI in nature.More - The singing animal
The reflections on human-animal interactions reveal complexities in emotional responses and perceptions of non-human animals.More - The AI skillset
AI reveals and reshapes architectural practice, highlighting tasks, roles, and knowledge responsibilities previously overlooked.More - Cyberbullies
I examine cyberbullying through the lens of the play function in society.More - Mood making
Creating mood is an active labor involving making, influencing our experience of places.More - Guilty secrets
The post discusses integrating AI into research practices, emphasizing its evolving role and implications.More - Gathered round the bath
I start from Vitruvius’ celebration of the hearth, progress to the central role of bathing, and use AI to generate some videos.More - What lies around the corner
Revisiting old posts, I explore the allure of hidden prospect, and illustrate with some AI video.More - Life by the fire
I recruit AI to animate an old photograph to illustrate companionship round an open fire.More - Is anyone paying attention?
How AI seems to be paying attention to users and their every word.More - Reverse parametrics
The post explores challenges in deriving 3D models from AI-generated images, highlighting diffusion model limitations.More - Truth and image
Pragmatism emphasizes actions over philosophical correctness, illustrated with a synthetic video.More - Bohemian melancholy
I discuss AI video generation at Helga’s Folly, exploring themes of melancholy and perspective.More - The enchanted garden
I explore enchantment, transforming objects from inert to alive via AI video, mixing delight with horror.More - Mobility and contemplation
Signifiers of visual enchantment illustrated by some AI-generated videos of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, and the Faroes.More
Latest 100 posts
- Cooperative writing
- AI nature cult
- Behind the shed
- Points of view
- How you feel when no one is listening
- What happened to the digital humanities?
- Do AIs have feelings?
- This is not the age of AI
- Reiterate that
- AI and autochthony
- Outdoor update
- The singing animal
- The AI skillset
- Cyberbullies
- Mood making
- Guilty secrets
- Gathered round the bath
- What lies around the corner
- Life by the fire
- Is anyone paying attention?
- Reverse parametrics
- Truth and image
- Bohemian melancholy
- The enchanted garden
- Mobility and contemplation
- Surprise videos
- A place to meditate
- A compendium of marvels
- Voices without bodies 2
- The clone and I
- Thinking about walking
- My first video clone
- Experts versus algorithms
- The “intellectual cyborg”
- Metafiction and metaphor
- The threat
- Metafiction and melancholy
- Pastimes revisited
- A tissue of citations
- How to explain art
- Not everyone isn’t unhappy
- What was I thinking!
- Beyond attention
- Geometry and affect
- Am I in AI?
- Easy reading
- AI does history
- Faroese chain dancing
- Vintage futures
- A digital time capsule
- ChatGPT as trickster
- Adaptive re-use of digital content
- Pause for effect
- 2011 and all that
- 2010 redux
- Mood tags
- Clonecasting
- The enthusiastic clone
- The purloined voice
- Predicting AI “misconduct”
- Mnemonic infidelity
- AI shopping
- Local AI
- Mining Reddit
- AI sycophancy
- AI and the devil
- Esoteric AI
- Urban unconcealment
- Beyond urban metrics
- Urban AI
- Mobile AI does fieldwork
- The future of writing
- Evidence and absurdity
- Absurdum explicandum
- Explain this …
- The meta-reasoning illusion
- AI explains itself (again)
- Mobile AI and place
- Inferring a book from its index
- Ubiquitous AI
- AI reveals all
- LLM plans a lesson
- DIY professional service automation
- Friction in the machine
- Coming to terms with AI
- LLMs and the web
- The Quid Pro Coaster
- Dialectic between the verbal and the visual
- From text to image via LLM
- AI briefs an architect
- Share your expertise
- Smashing the context window
- AI profiles you
- Post-creative AI
- Easy reading
- Too much feedback
- AI fever dreams
- Chain of thought
- AI explains itself
- A jolly AI adventure
