Back in 2013 I had a chance to speak with sound recordist and soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause about his work and outlook on the Earth’s changing soundscapes – a conversation we called Repairing the silent spring. The notion of a … Continued
Our predicament is simple: the reality of certain slow and complex dangers* points to the fundamental unsustainability of the world as we know it, and we’re failing to produce meaningful action because our way of life and the society we … Continued
One of the many starting points for this blog was my three month stay in Greenland in 2008 where I felt like I was rain in a paper cup: “The beat of the sea on the shore always calms my … Continued
Back in January Jonatan Spejlborg got in touch and invited me to co-design a week-long course for LungA, a school which he co-founded in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, a couple of years ago. LungA School is based on the model of the … Continued
After four years of research and writing I’m happy to be able to share my thesis – a theoretical and practical exploration of the meaning of sustainability and the possibilities for envisioning and embodying a different kind of cultural narrative … Continued
Over the last two weeks I’ve had the chance to speak about some of my research at two different conferences, the RGS conference on co-production in London and Degrowth 2014 in Leipzig. I’ve always found conferences a bit daunting but … Continued
It has been a while since I’ve had the time or presence of mind to post anything on PatternWhichConnects, mostly because of the busyness of changing places and finishing up my thesis. It seems like most other things in my … Continued
The blog tour is a kind of online relay where different bloggers write about their work and writing process. By invitation from last week’s blogger and artist, Emily Wilkinson, I’ve been thinking about how to put my different processes of … Continued
[A society] has to have constellating images to pull together all these tendencies to separation, to pull them together into some intention. – Joseph Campbell I am sat at the optician’s, waiting for my new glasses to be cut, glaring … Continued
Regulars to this blog will be aware of the work and writing of Tony Dias who has been a conversation partner and fellow explorer of many of the ideas that have appeared on Remembering throughout the last years (if you … Continued
It’s been about three years since I began PatternWhichConnects. Exactly how it started I can’t really remember any more. It was probably more of an inkling than a definite idea. At least that’s how I’ve come to think of it: … Continued
I close my eyes and really listen. Some of the sounds I can readily identify, the drone of chicadas, birdsong, monkey howls and flies zooming past the microphone. Then there is another layer of, to me, unidentifiable forest sounds where … Continued
This is a culture that wasn’t afraid of ages, but made a waking dream of eternity and dwelt in it. – Jay Griffiths In the middle of the night I hear singing outside of the tent. It is a slow, … Continued
Draget, the small strip of coastline on Thy where my family’s summerhouse is tucked away between conifers, is a moraine landscape that was formed by the glacier which covered most of Denmark when it retreated at the end of the … Continued
I first met Charlotte Du Cann at a Transition meeting in Norwich years before I bumped into her again at the Uncivilisation festival in 2011. And living in the same end of the country we have been meeting with the … Continued
Vinay Gupta is one of those hard-to-pin-down, hyper-productive people that seems to be everywhere once you start looking. The Hexayurt, a low-cost shelter made from plywood, is perhaps one of his best known projects – having found use in places … Continued
After a few months of editing and learning how to put together a publication, Morten and I are happy to be able to share a translation of his work on time, art and society: “Towards a New Time Culture – … Continued
Steve Wheeler is one of the people I’ve met who has been thinking about collapse for the longest and probably the deepest – I highly recommend his blog Steelweaver which contains some real gems of insight for anyone thinking about … Continued
Taking time out from busy organising at the last Uncivilisation festival, Dougie Strang shared some of his reflections on the Dark Mountain Project with me over a cup of coffee and breakfast. We delved into the role of art and … Continued
Having thought about improvisation as a central theme in my research, I was excited to find myself in conversation with Alex Fradera at last year’s Uncivilisation festival. Alex is an improvisational performer and psychologist who uses play and creativity as … Continued
I first encountered writer and storyteller Sharon Blackie at the Uncivilisation festival back in 2011. She was telling about her experience of moving to the Hebrides, becoming a crofter and connecting with her new home. I’ve since found a trove … Continued
Last year around this time, I found myself responding to an invitation by Cat Lupton to contribute a piece to her new blog The Place Between Stories. That was the beginning of a longer conversation that has unwound itself into … Continued
This is the third and final instalment of a longer dialogue with Tony Dias in which we develop some of the themes that emerged in the first and second parts. TD: One of the things I have been realising … Continued
This is the second of a three-part conversation with writer & thinker-maker, Tony Dias, where we delve further into some of the issues that opened up in the first conversation. We share this conversation here in the spirit of gift … Continued
After the disappointment of getting ill and missing what sounds like two fantastic days of conversations and workshops at Redrawing the Maps last week, I was excited that Social Spaces and 00:/ were taking their Common Room prototype to Norwich … Continued
Last February I approached Tony Dias for an interview about his involvement in and thoughts about the Dark Mountain Project. This turned into a series of dialogues about his work and my own, a process of mutual sense-making. In this … Continued
Vad som än händer så kommer vi aldrig vända om. Kultiration
I’d come to think of Gregory Bateson as an academic version of Alan Watts, pointing to the limits of the Western modernist worldview and probing unexplored territory between the disciplinary silos of the Academy. When I went to see An … Continued
I bumped into Jay Griffiths at the Dark Mountain festival and had an improvised chat about wild time, progress and narrative. A cross-post from the blog on time-culture.net: The otherness of time – A conversation with Jay griffiths. This is part … Continued
The site has been dressed up to be more reader friendly, more easy to navigate, and generally just a little better looking. The main thing is that I’ve switched from Iweb’s blog module to WordPress which is a massive improvement. … Continued
About this time last year, I was sitting in the same place I am sitting now, mulling over similar thoughts, trying to convey sentiments that arose from the exact same place. A year ago, I put it thus: “Sitting in … Continued
My old friend Morten Svenstrup and I am launching the website time-culture.net as a place for dialogue about how we experience time and how this affects our lives individually and collectively. Over the next couple of months we are trying … Continued
When I came across Steve Thorp’s blog Psycho-Bubble last winter I found a style of writing that was both sincere and explorative, the kind of words that take you along with them and suggest new directions without telling you where … Continued
This review of David Graeber’s ‘Debt’ appeared in Volume 16 of the International Journal for Community Currency Research. It was difficult to really communicate the depth and breadth of this book in the space available but hopefully it will whet … Continued
The third issue of the Dark Mountain Project’s yearly publication is in the making. It is crowd-funded by people who pre-order a copy of this beautifully bound hardback (image above is a detail from the cover of issue 2 by Rima … Continued
When the going gets rough and all statements seem worthless it is time to sit still, ruffle some feathers and leave the world to its own. I’ve been spending some days listening to the black bird outside my window, go … Continued
“This is like a movement of people who have seen the promises broken. You come through the other side of the development process and suddenly you’re facing being poorer than your parents. Environmental degradation, overcrowding, decline. It is just what … Continued
I recently partook in a conversation about violence. Really, it was about appropriate responses to ecocide but it quickly focussed on the much narrower topic of whether violence is a legitimate response to the destruction of the community of life. … Continued
In early February I called up the American philosopher Andrew Taggart in New York for the first of a series of interviews with people involved in or affiliated with the Dark Mountain Project. Having just started my fieldwork I didn’t … Continued
I continue to be excited, uplifted, exhilarated, even, by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours – a collection of poetry that remains central to the journey of soul-making despite being written more then a hundred years ago. These poems speak … Continued
Perhaps what we should fear most in this age of Collapse is the strain on our hearts that the weight of living in the Machine puts on us. Times are tough and toughness seems to call for protection, the building … Continued
Once we start recognising recurring features in the world and begin seeing patterns that converge, we tend to merge disparate part of our reckoning to build larger concepts that explain. This is undoubtedly deeply rooted in our psychology and probably … Continued
I’ve finally found the time to bring PatternWhichConnects up to scratch, or at least a little closer to what I originally had intended. When I looked back on the first year of running this site it was with part joy … Continued
It’s the hour of passing through the needle’s eye: “I am here” becoming “I was there”. Like smoke time dissipates into memory. We built good memories. Did you see me? I wonder. Laughter and giggles resounded from the tree tops … Continued
It was a strange time to be writing. All my circles had converged on each other and patterns I had never dreamed of became apparent. A new line was being drawn and although I could not yet see it clearly … Continued
Happy New Year. May the coming year bring you strength and joyous times wherever you are. The year gone felt like a bumper car ride with one hand tied on the back. Fun, scary, and a little painful. Rilke’s image … Continued
It’s one of those days. Words seem like enemy soldiers lined up on the surrounding hill tops, menacing silhouettes against a darkening sky, a firing squad waiting to pull the trigger at the slightest tremble. I tremble. This week has … Continued
Carolyn Steel is an architect who got interested in what would happen if she described cities through food. The work and the insights that came out of asking this question throws light on the processes underlying the growth of cities … Continued
Having had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend at the Dark Mountain Festival 2011 in Hampshire, I started thinking seriously about researching the Dark Mountain Project as part of my PhD. I spent much of the festival chatting to people about the … Continued
I started reading Iain McGilchrist’s book ‘The Master and the Emissary’ a while back. I started other books before I finished reading it but I still dip into it occasionally because it is simply a startling and fascinating account of … Continued
I had the good fortune to come across the imagineNATIVE film and media arts festival in Toronto this week, and having found a short film I saw at the festival online I thought I’d point in that direction. This work … Continued
Trains, tired transformations, talkings and translucent trees. You find so many holes in time when you move faster than your two legs can transport you.
I have been running this site for a year now. Closing a circle is always a good opportunity to reflect on what’s happened and where one is going. So here I offer a few reflections on my last year online … Continued
Words and images can change minds, hearts, even the course of history. Their makers shape the stories people carry through their lives, unearth old ones and breathe them back to life, add new twists, point to unexpected endings. It is … Continued
What is the Heart-Mind Computer? I offer you my initial thoughts and visions for the Heart-Mind Computer. Not as a way of explaining what it is, or what I think it ought to/could/would be if it was enacted or received … Continued
This is the programme subject to a minor change. Lucinda Abel won’t be able to do her online narrative, so instead I am setting up a ‘melodrome’ – an interactive kit where you can trigger music/word pads to create your … Continued
Artists, inventors and visionaries are cordially invited to co-create the Heart-Mind Computer, an interactive art exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich. For one evening only, the Living Area – the open space displaying the Centre’s permanent exhibition – will be … Continued
I’d like to know if someone out there has done a qualitative comparison of attitudes to ‘feminism’ across different nationalities. It might well have been done, I have never studied gender beyond my general interest in politics but here is … Continued
Ever since I started reading Wittgenstein as an undergraduate I have been fascinated by the power of words to invoke and create meanings and, ultimately, reality. One of the few quotes that has stayed with me over the years is … Continued
“What matters, is not what is written on the page, what matters, is what is written in the heart, So burn the letters, and lay their ashes on the snow, at the river’s edge when spring comes and the snow … Continued
So what happens after all this reading and thinking about Gaia? If we take seriously the insight that the Earth works as a grand organic whole and that we form an inseparable part of Gaia, what happens next? Is the … Continued
I wanted to write a sort of introductory piece to Gaia. This turned out to become a rather lengthy and slightly muddled account of cybernetics, Gaian evolution and gradient reduction theory. Then I picked up Gaia in Turmoil by Eileen … Continued
You might well be aware of Jason deCaires Taylor’s world of underwater sculpture coral conservation projects. I wasn’t until now and this completely threw me. The images speak for themselves and deCaires Taylor’s website says it better than i could … Continued
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a Great Transition. This is the time of [insert pet doomsday subject here. If you’re not feeling very imaginative try: the sixth mass extinction, global warming or global food/energy crisis]. … Continued
As I am currently reading up on Gaia (or Earth System Science), I felt struck by serendipity when I saw that philosopher Mary Midgley was coming to the University of East Anglia to give a lecture on humanism as part … Continued
