My recognisance is ongoing for week three. A few years ago I might have been thrilled to spend weeks between bed and a sofa playing video games and watching TV but that’s not so much the case nowadays. I feel a pang to be active, making the most of my time; seeing and experiencing, producing and consuming. I wonder; is it a natural stage in life to become bored of distraction? Another theory I have is that at a certain point you reach a saturation of consumption with makes you jaded. (Daily utterances of ‘we don’t need more stuff’).
For example, I have really struggled to play video games with much enthusiasm since finishing Disco Elysium and Control in quick succession in 2021. They were both so accomplished; deeply moving, coherently worldbuilt, transformative and aesthetically rich that I’ve struggled to care about anything since. All of my gaming experiences since have been compared to them and have been poorer for it. (Control doesn’t have the universal critical acclaim that Disco Elysium does but it ticks my very specific lore/worldbuilding boxes – just look at my renders.)
I ground my way through the pretty poor TV series Bodies when some folks at work were expressing excitement about it. I won’t go into specific criticism because it’s just not worth it but I couldn’t help thinking (and saying); ‘How can you make a bad show about time travel when Dark exists?’ Dark did such great work balancing the pull of tropes and cliches of time travel thrillers while pushing against them and developing clever narrative and aesthetic tricks to move past or around them that Bodies, which just barrels full on into plot-holes, visual cliches (the future is glass screens, monochromatic suits and symmetrical haircuts) and tropes, is almost offensive. Yes, I’m aware it’s based on a comic and some of the choices (why is everything so blue and orange?) are loyalty to the source, but that’s not how many people will encounter it.
All this to say that it’s a somewhat disappointing landscape; are things getting worse, not getting better or am I getting more choosy? Maybe it’s a combination of all three mixed in with the feeling I have when I sit in front of a screen that I really should be doing something else anyway.
Year in Review
Unsurprisingly my sense of time also seems to distort. A year I started and ended on crutches, fresh out of hospital and it feel likes not much else has happened as life briefly flowered again in the summer then rapidly wilted back to painkillers and average media experiences in my flat. This is all drawn from a combination of phone photos and calendar.
- January
- Newly out of hospital, Radha came to visit, quick to start hobbling around as much as possible (per orders)
- Talks for MA Innovation Management, #DesignForPlanet
- Missed the away day at work. They sent a mask instead.
- Cracked the structure of the PhD.
- 1-3-10-30 project kicked into gear at work.
- VV started walking (before me).
- February
- Picked up the new Omnium Mini (I wouldn’t ride it for six months.)
- Work was mostly about recruiting new grads and writing an extensive year-ahead plan.
- Talks for University of Michigan and Milan Politechnico
- Computer Generated with the foreword I wrote was published.
- External reviews for validation of MA Anticipating Futures at CSM.
- Had our bathroom redone after it exploded on me at Christmas, decided to try a beard again and VV ate pizza.
- March
- Talks for MA Service Design (LCC), Common Design Studio. Guest crit at RCA Superfutures
- Travelled to Copenhagen for Danish Design Centre talk on imagination and futures and to meet lovely Arup Copenhagen folks. Night before I convinced VV and Santo to come too. Saw Crystal’s amazing work while there too.
- Lots more 1-3-10-30.
- VV went to her first bike race and took part in some meetings.
- April
- On From Later again.
- Really fun talk for Milan Design Week followed by a rave in our hotel until 3am.
- Talk for MA Biodesign (CSM)
- Started getting neck deep in AI strategy at work, 1-3-10-30 continued to slowly balloon, convinced work folks to Karaoke.
- NHS started ghosting me and I started seeing private consultants who were like ‘looks fine’, Mum went to a videogames exhibition, VV played piano, JL and I compared legs in Milan and I ran into Alice who was one of the first grads from one of the first courses I ran.
- May
- Was on Service Design YAP podcast.
- Did a talk for the Copenhagen Institute of Futures Studies and for the Creative Computing Institute
- Ran a seminar on Design Futures for Milan Politechnico again.
- Went on a tour through Austria for Desired Futures (met a bunch of great people and did a thing with Julian) and then Berlin for our show at Berlin Design Week and saw Parrr.
- Binged a bunch of PhD work.
- We watched the Giro, redid the balcony and VV became a climber and the beard went about here. I hate having a beard.
- June
- Noah and Nick came to visit (separately).
- Went on holiday to Whitstable, saw animals, walked the beach, flew kites. I ate lots of Oysters, no one else did.
- It got really hot, but I went to the private views again which was wonderful.
- Was on the jury for the RSA Bicentenary Medal.
- Team away day and more karaoke.
- VV went to an exhibition about AI.
- July
- I was allowed back on a bike (indoors with no resistance, but still) and we watched Le Tour.
- We made big decisions about 1-3-10-30 when we realised it was going straight to the top. I recorded myself talking many times (over the next two months) for a four minute talk about it in September.
- Did a talk for Futures Europe Network.
- Doctor’s said my leg looked fine and discharged me, I got new tattoos and new glasses because life felt good again.
- The Portuguese family paid a last minute visit to London and David Benquexited. VV wanted and got a scooter and built some towers.
- August
- Started the month in Newcastle, chaperoning VV through a wedding. I had a great suit but then VV got the pox as soon as we got back to London.
- Was on Comuzi’s podcast/vodcast.
- Big 1-3-10-30 and intense work for September deadline. Difficult and occasionally fractious month of meetings that tested the limits of my passion for commercial work. Lots of workshops and research for AI strategy which was fun and intellectually interesting so balanced that out.
- First proper outdoor bike ride on the Omnium (six months after it arrived home) and took VV out every day I could.
- September
- More tattoos. VV and Santo got stuck in a lift and the firemen had to come and get them out because it was a million degrees that day.
- I was still recording and listening to the same four minute talk everyday.
- Work got feverish then we all went to Amsterdam. I gave a ‘burst’ (4 minute talk) on 1-3-10-30 and hung around a stand with it on to talk to people about it. At some point in the next 24 hours my leg re-broke (but I thought I’d just pulled muscles)
- We went to Portugal, saw the family, I sat around with ice packs on my hip between beaches and pools (still thinking I’d just pulled muscles). VV drew a lot and chased dogs.
- October
- Started in Portugal looking at some Roman ruins.
- Spent most of the month in pain and working from home. At the end of the month went for an x-ray where they confirmed the leg was broke again.
- Crystal came to visit.
- Wrote a piece for Crafts magazine about AI featuring Sougwen and oio.
- Did another From Later.
- Successful completion of PhD upgrade exam.
- VV rode a bike with no hands. She was thought it was cool.
- November
- Brilliant birthday Tiramisu from Marie and later Helga.
- Did a talk for Graphic Media Design and in doing so rummaged through all the stuff I’d left in my old office, finding some great cards and notes from students and colleagues.
- Wes and Kane came over for a Civ V day.
- Had a bunch of scans, tests and negotiated with an anaesthetist so that I could have surgery at the end of the month. Did that surgery.
- December
- VV’s birthday. Lots of Peppa pig. Me attempting to be in convalescence but back to where we were at the start of this post. Scans look good apparently but the consultant says ‘hope’ a lot.
Short Stuff
- What’s the worst tweet of the year? Possibly the final year of twitter.
- I think I read this a while ago but re-read it recently. How empathy works in the context of conflict.
- Dougald has a newsletter, which I didn’t realise. Here’s one on productivity and fun.
- Eryk has done a pretty thorough roundup of developments in AI this year through a critical lens, not gawping at the technology but the better understanding of the costs to the climate and society that have emerged.
- Including referencing this AI Now Institute report on climate and labour rights.
- An extensive writeup of Japanese personal websites.
- Jay has a new podcast out here.
- I didn’t realise that Gibson has to rewrite the sequel to The Peripheral after Trump was elected to keep up with the ‘fuckedness quotient.‘ Really this is a thing about how tou write books about crypto.
- A lot of my inbox is GPT v Bard because America. This piece on Mistral (from France) which is the number three competitor in mathy-maths is quite interesting, less because it’s ‘omg so powerful’ (always subjective, rarely a longstanding claim) but more cos it runs on a phone. This means it’s more about how and where we interact with it, Matt Webb style, rather than debates over power and efficacy without really addressing what it’s for. (To be clear, I don’t think household gadgets need AI or should have it but it’s pretty much inevitable.)
What of resolutions? I was actually very happy with work/life etc. for a lot of last year – I worked hard on good things. The bits that were shitty were beyond my direct control and I think I responded as best as possible. My resolution last year was to check myself when I was frustrated that someone was doing something in a way I wouldn’t and I think I’ve got better at that though it’s still something to keep an eye on and is just embedded in my personality. I’ll think about the next one.
Maybe speak before 2024, love you.