Hello, I hope that you’re well and having a good week. It’s been strange and surreal, with events in the UK overtaking the few notes I had jotted down and the newsletter I was going to publish. I’m still going to mainly stick with what I was going with.
Yesterday afternoon was spent at the yearly student fair, inviting the new intake to come and visit our room. There were so many people, it was great, but at various times I was masked and unmasked. I have my fingers crossed I make it through the week. It was lovely meeting people though.
It is warm and sunny this morning, the house is quiet and I’m sipping coffee. I started a bit later because there were so many emails and messages on my phone from friends and family, some at home and people here expressing their thoughts on the passing of the Queen, who only a few days ago appointed a new Prime Minister and accepted the resignation of the previous incumbent.
I feel a little disconnected, both in terms of my distance geographically and also, despite growing up in the UK, that my only real interest and understanding of the royals was as a viewer of The Crown, which mixes fact and fiction but is also fascinating in terms of the history of the era and some of the events, such as the Aberfan disaster, really didn’t know much about.
More thoughts later, but first let’s catch up with the week.
Teaching & Learning
Another challenging week, I still feel like I’m playing catch up and preparing my lessons like it is my first year in the teaching profession. Nerves are getting the better of me and I wrote, re-wrote, and ultimately slightly satisfied with some of the lessons that I delivered this week. I have got to get into a better rhythm here or the stress is going to take a toll.
We did have some successes though, despite a few new people joining and others dropping classes, the groups are starting to come together and I’m learning a bit more about the people in the room. I’m loving this interdisciplinary mix, of artists, writers, social scientists, engineers, actors, linguists, chemists, and neuroscientists to name just a few of the areas that I can remember. The best moments are when they reference a concept against something that they are learning elsewhere and make connections between these different areas.
It’s great because sometimes I feel like I’m just another student in the class. That’s the best feeling. I’ve liberated myself for while from the idea that the instructor needs to have all the answers, instead, they need to be able to articulate great questions and set up different lines of inquiry. Also having a bunch of games and activities is useful because these are entry points into concepts, ways of exploring. I suppose there are still some concepts that I share, I can provide context, some history, and insight into ideas and how these are formed, but really this is just way-finding, guiding students to answers they probably would have found along the way.
Just wanted to add a lovely video that I came across about the CMU Textiles Lab, this is great stuff and wonderful to see just the sort of interdisciplinary activity that I was talking about.
Life Lessons
Christian has been exploring AI art, you can see some of his (?) creations on Flickr, and led me down the rabbit hole to better understand what’s going on here. If you’re new to AI-generated art a fun starting point is crAIyon (formally Dall-e) where you throw in some text and see what comes back. The results are weird and a bit crude, but you can generally decipher what the AI is drawing its info from.
There are quite a few of these generators kicking about, and if you use discord, then midjourney is another, but if you want to get a better idea of the potential of AI-generated art, then take a look at these images created by Stable Diffusion, which will create art from a combination of sketches, words, styles, influences, almost anything that you ask to consider. I’m not sure the results are really my cup of tea, these exquisitely rendered results are all a bit smooth and kitschy fantastical (is that a phrase?). I can tell that they’ve been created by an AI, and agree with Christian that there’s an uncanny valley at play here.
It’s fascinating to read what’s going on behind the scenes and I suppose artists are going to learn to use this technology, in the same way, that they have learned photoshop or blender, or mastered printmaking and collage for that matter. I’ve already seen people enhance their images in other applications, or recreate them in linocut or even paint them in oil and acrylic. I warn you once you start looking at this stuff, just like the rest of the internet, it is hard to look away…
As usual, there’s a dark side to all this and so much discussion about the value of AI-generated art and the process that people use. If you’re entirely new then this is a good overview.
Here are a couple of images for you, words by me, picture by midjourney.
Lost and Found
So it has been a funny ol’ week. First the appointment of a new Prime Minister and then the death of the monarch only a few days later.
Britain has been struggling with an identity crisis for years, and Liz Truss has fallen into the job having been voted in by a tiny minority of 80,000 conservative party members which seems to be the mandate to rule in a country of around 50 million eligible voters. The PM all but ruled out an election in the first few words of her acceptance speech, and if you ever thought democracy was alive and well in the UK, then may have changed your mind. I thought Jonathan Pie’s take (paywall), sent to me by a friend was pretty on the nose.
I’m worried too sitting on this side of the pond, that Liz Truss’ proposals seem vaguely familiar to republican ideas of abandoning public services to the market and reducing the state in a way that privileges the wealthy and punishes those in need of support at various points in our lives. Times when we lose our jobs, get sick, or have families. Cutting taxes for top earners to power the economy is a total fallacy, the rich just reward themselves more, and ordinary people lose out. When this is combined with an erosion of workers’ rights, which is the opportunity afforded by Brexit, then the result is catastrophic.
I doubt the Queen would have thought any of this as she performed her duties. She seemed very old and frail, it was the first time we’d seen her in public for a few months, and I doubt we knew it would be the last. She has been a constant in my life, her profile on the coins in our pockets, the stamps on envelopes. And despite Christmas messages and occasional moments on camera, I feel I know very little about the woman.
A constitutional monarchy is an antiquated system, but I feel somehow that it was another check against authoritarianism, and despite people like Boris lying and doing whatever he wanted, he couldn’t escape that he was a public servant, with the crown providing a protocol for parliament and the judiciary. It’s hard to say that the Queen was complicit in Britain’s terrible past, and sure she upheld the racism of colonization, visiting commonwealth countries where atrocities took place, where people stripped of identity were forced to fly a flag bearing her emblem, but also I think she had a sense that she could be a diplomat in service of many nations. I think many British people feel conflicted by the system, and I hope shamed by the wealth and privilege of the Royal family, in a country where there are food banks and long waiting lists for social housing.
At no point could she have walked away from her duties, which rightly or wrongly she carried out with great conviction. The television series “The Crown” suggests that somehow the monarchy has to steer itself carefully through this history because the UK is locked into its constitutional system, without bias, setting aside personal beliefs. Perhaps one day the UK’s fragile democracy will be strong enough to stand alone, without the need for this prop, a figurehead, this living statue that is a monarch, but I can’t see that happening just yet. I can only hope for reform, reparation, and the start of a long process of dismantling, wealth and land redistribution, and finally perhaps something that will fade away, dulled into history and obscurity. Despite all this, it is strange when things change, everyone knew this day was coming and we’ll see what the future brings.
Thank you
So, I hope that you have a good week. We have the new soccer season starting and so much to do over the weekend. I hope that you get some rest too.
I did get the chance to do a couple of wooden boards, they are a bit rough, I rushed them on Sunday evening to get them done. I listened to some music, a wonderful podcast called Sombrero Fallout which reminds me of the content and tone of John Peel’s shows on Radio 1.
I’m realizing now that even though I painted this before the Queen died, that Moe is looking quite regal, and it would only take a few brushstrokes to add pearls and a tiara.
Thank you for your emails, let me know what you are up to, and hope to see you next week.
Enjoyed this a lot. Not just because of the mention. (Thanks!) I loved your reflection on our monarchy and our interesting 'democracy'.