1/10 This is the story of The Machine Stops by EM Forster, written in 1909. It's also the story of #AI#Brexit & #China. You could be a theatre director looking for a gig, an academic researching the future of #AI or a citizen of #China ...read on...
2/10 The Machine Stops tells the story of Vashti and Kuno (her son) who live in standard rooms with The Machine providing everything through screens that deal in 'second hand' information. Vashti does not like the idea of travelling & trusts the omnipotent machine for everything.
3/10 Kuno is more rebellious; he has heard of people living above ground on the earth. He persuades Vashti to visit him IRL & she does. He tells her he doesn't like the confines of The Machine & that he has visited the surface. The Machine disapproves of 'unmechanical' behaviour.
4/10 This is the #Brexit bit. The machine begins to stop but instead of complaining, people make do. Finally the Mending Apparatus itself fails but belief is so strong in The Machine that people just keep going. There is no 'wake up' moment. Belief in the machine is too strong...
5/10 Kuno is transferred to a room nr Vashti. 'The Machine Stops' he says. She doesn't believe this. At this point the work can be read as a commentary on technology but moreover it is a commentary on the dominant state's hold over people. It is dangerous to disagree.
6/10 Things continue to fall apart. Nobody knows how to repair The Machine. Lights go out, the machine fails to provide. Eventually, the machine does collapse & it takes everyone down with it. There is no fail safe because the majority have placed their faith in The Machine...
7/10 There is no happy ending in The Machine Stops, it is a premonitory story that gains more insight each decade. It clearly predicts the neo-conservative idea of 'the reality based community' in the USA (attrib Ron Suskind). A proto Trump world of distorted 'facts'...
8/10 It shows how, in the UK, a small group of people took hold of the populist narrative & created their own machine for self-promotion that fed platitudes & 3 word slogans to 'the plebs' in their rooms. The people did not overthrow this slogan machine, they actually defended it
9/10 So, you might yourself look at The Machine around you - it looks like it is falling apart doesn't it? Will you budge up a bit & accept the propaganda, or will you rise above & find some new land to grow on? Or...
10/10 direct a new version, adapt the story, make something else of it? Rise Up! Oh yes, it's been adapted before by lots of theatres (in the UK). But why not have a go? Tell the story of The Machine Stops...#LiveWellForLessPayMoreSooner
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1/5 Thatcher/Johnson downfall - first you need a 'heavyweight' Tory to turn against you. In this case the candidate is Theresa May...
2/5 Secondly, you need a major policy divide. In Thatcher's case it was the Poll Tax. Riots followed. In Johnson's case it's 'Levelling Up'. Soon people will see that it is only Tory constituency Levelling Up, not the rest of The North.
3/5 Plotting & insurrection are how Tory PMs are removed. A caucus gathers, WhatsApp group shapes up, hardliners sense pay back time. Knives out, but where are they? Thatcher was famously undermined by Geoffrey's Howe's pro-European speech. Johnson's downfall is of his own making
1/10 An aberration. Night Mail (for Sean Bonney) after WH Auden.
This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the chaos and the civil disorder,
Packages for the rich, letters for the poor,
The Amazon Prime held for the woman next door.
2/10 Pulling up Lives, a steady climb:
The gradient’s against her, but her UC’s declined.
Past abandoned shops and moorland boulder
Neglected towns are left to moulder,
Snorting speedballs as she passes
Silent miles of skunky grasses.
3/10 Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Glazed over citizens sleep with cockroaches.
Sheep-dogs abandoned upon the hills;
Animals force fed with pre-death pills.
In the farm the beasts stand unaware,
As there’s no-one left to really care .
LEVELLING UP
It might be a space to do ’take downs’ on Laura K but I’m not going to do that. Let’s have some facts and journalism instead. If you’re interested in ‘levelling up’
or think it’s just another empty bluster mantra then read on...#levellingup#ToryBritain - DB5 dash.
GENERATIONAL
Property wealth is held by Boomers. They mostly protect their wealth, vote Conservative & pass on to their children. There is no indicator through taxation that @conservatives will level this up. Younger people 30-40 still live with their parents.
REGULATORY
UK streets have been decimated by giants like Amazon. Plenty of flim flam about new (low) paid jobs though. BBC source: Amazon pays £492m in UK tax on sales of £20.6bn. There is no levelling up framework assessing fair competition for UK shops in relation to Amazon.
2/10 The first thing to say is that #Coventry has some brilliant artists, people able to challenge, design & make new work. In the artist lab we explored the city - it's not all concrete - it has a canal, green areas & 5g (not everywhere)...
3/10 Here are Sunil, Colin & Sabine. What's really impressive is their openness to share ideas & be honest about successes & failures. Sabine taught us about Coventry's history & its history of promoting peace. In the room, artists, academics & civic officers. @Jonestheregen
1/10 #MentalHealthMatters - read on if you are interested in arts & mental health. This is a practical guide that talks about the impact of the pandemic @ace_national@HENLEYDARREN@DCMS - we @closeandremote have spent the last 18 months responding to the situation.
2/10 #MentalHealthMatters - March 2020 all of our work was cancelled @closeandremote - along with other artists we were in trouble. With digital & painting skills we reinvented our workflow, not overnight but by trying things out. Zoom went from novel to necessary...
3/10 We quickly realised that people struggling with mental health did not want to spend time online. It needed a different approach. With @2NQLondon#ArtSchoolinaBox was developed. It's a very simple idea - you get an art workbook & all the materials in a box, with some tea bags
1/10 This is a knowledge dump about mobile #AR#opensource#XR etc. To get this look at mutiny.org.uk/portfolio/elea…
1 The state of #AR for public works often focusses on images
2 More interesting experiences (walking) focus on spatial audio
3 Building in web has limits, but pays off
2/10
4 The client will want exact tracking of 3d spatial #AR objects
5 GPS variability across devices won't allow exact tracking
6 Open source strategies introduce adaptability & immediate testing on site
7 App stores are dead ends for dead apps (18 month cycle) @closeandremote
3/10
8 The sweet spot for 'locative' media is integration of the senses, in Eleanor as you walk along the River Wensum the boats & oars are panned left @SandyNuttgens
9 Sound design for software is a potential growth area, it needs people who get software & sound