Welcome to The Spaces in Between, a weekly newsletter on culture, language, and technology written by Stephan Caspar. If you’re new here, then welcome, feel free to subscribe.
I’m still glued to the news in a way that is probably unhealthy but can’t pull myself away and anxious that there isn’t more violence and unrest in the coming weeks. However, it has been a constructive week of work and home is ticking over with school and remote learning. I’ll say a bit more below, but safe to say that I’m happy to hit Thursday night and already looking forward to the weekend.
As is usual when I’m feeling a bit battered and beaten up by everything happening in the world, I retreat into reading and making.
I wanted to make something hopeful and found myself thinking about the oddness of things. If you’re driving on roads in France, you’ll often see signs for “Toutes Directions” which translates as all directions, which you might find unhelpful, and slightly comic, but really means other directions when shown with another sign for a named place or route. Sometimes you’ll even see “Toutes Directions” and “Autres Directions” (other directions) together. I suppose I was thinking about the sign in terms of possibilities, as optimistic and future-looking; but I also recognize how confusing these signs are to visitors (and some in France, I’m sure).
Working with linocut is satisfyingly messy, lifting little strips of rubber and rolling on thick gloopy ink. I’m enjoying the results which are blocky and raw, but I’m going to move to the harder lino so that I can work in more detail and with more precision. I also purchased a pasta maker to use as a press, which I’ll use with lino and Tetra Pak prints. Relief printing has a wonderful history of protest and political expression, if you have a moment take a look at the work of John Pedder.
I heard another artist say that they find it hard to get started at the beginning of the year as if they have so many ideas that they don’t know where to start, or just meeting a little resistance.
These words held in my mouth,
these words a way to inscribe we are not lost
in a vast expanse of lostness.
Teaching & Learning
My new standing desk converter arrived and I had a proper tidy as I set it up. I’m alternating between sitting down, which is convenient for typing, and standing when I’m reading or answering emails. I am feeling the benefit, although my feet ache sometimes and it’s better when they’re cushioned by trainers/sneakers.
Last night I started watching and listening to talks at Art and Code which is an event run by colleagues in the College of Fine Art. The speakers share a hybrid approach to their practice, combining computers with all manner of craft, making, and artistic process. I’d really like to think that we’re all hybrids now and that we not only combine materials and techniques but the histories, theories, and stories that characterize them. I’m looking forward to a talk by Imin Yeh who creates intricate paper sculptures and whose mailbox I spent an evening cutting, folding, and sticking together.
I’ve just finished writing an article about one of the classes I teach, showing students how to make short 360˙ videos that can be viewed in Virtual Reality headsets and talking about the kinds of storytelling that we experience in using immersive technologies. The writing was useful and even as I read through the publisher’s drafts, it feels as if it really captures the beginning of an idea, rather than (as these articles tend to be) the fruition of a project or the essence of a body of work. I suppose it is a good starting place and it might serve me to challenge the ideas and statements that I’ve laid out as the work matures.
I’m looking forward to teaching again (I know it’s only been a few weeks), and I’m excited to meet the class. It will be interesting as we enter our third full semester of teaching remotely. We have learned so much, we have some more strategies and tools that we had when we were thrown into this. I’m desperate to get back into the room and meet people. Let’s see if we can just keep going a little longer.
I enjoyed this short animation (via Rambunctious Roundup) by Andrea Dorfman of a poem by Tanya Davis. Home is where we’ll be for a bit.
Life Lessons
The more I learn about the attacks on the Capitol, the more I’m filled with dread and horrified by what I’m learning. There’s no doubt now that it was much more than a mob, run wild, but an act of sedition with deadly intent. The confederate flag was flown and white supremacists, nazis, and anti-semites turned up with zip ties and fashioned a noose from camera-cord. This was a heavily armed mob, brainwashed by lies that the election was stolen and whipped into a fervor.
The experience of watching events unfold was a collective one that we process and reflect on intimately, individually. When our employers, as many have, issue statements about national events, they can’t seem to speak for us. Official emails are littered with phrases that we’ve heard before, borrowing from a vernacular of outrage and supposed-understanding that render statements sterile, and formulaic. This article in the Chronicle sums up the emptiness of the response to the storming of the Capitol and expresses anger at the inability of senior leadership to write in ways that connect with the emotion and feelings of their staff and students.
An article from The Guardian on talking to students about the attacks on the Capitol.
Lost and Found
Okay, I know another heavy week, so I’ll round off with a few educational things.
FutureLearn’s Blended Learning Design, a free online course started again this week. It has been brought bang up to date, reflecting much of the conversation on teaching remotely during the pandemic and yet again will bring a community together to share and reflect on good practice.
And it looks like teachers are bearing the cost of some of the EdTech that they’re using in schools. Many suppliers dropped their prices or opened up free use, but that has pretty much disappeared, even though regular schooling is still way off and students and teachers still meet up remotely. I hope as the semester begins that suppliers will heed the call for support, otherwise I’m afraid it just looks like opportunistic profiteering.
I’ve been on substack for a couple of months and only starting to realize what a wonderful community of writing and storytelling this is. I spent a late evening peering down rabbit holes and reading posts until it felt like the whole street had turned in and I was the only one awake.
Here are a few recommendations for you, the first a collection of all that is strange and slightly unhinged, The Rambunctious Roundup is published each week and I’m already raiding it for wonders. On first reading, I thought it might be too meme-y or loaded with internet trivia, but videos like the one below and the clarity of the writing elevate it to something more.
Christopher Brown is a writer and photographer who publishes Field Notes, a newsletter on nature and the environment. It is beautifully written, revealing images of a world that often lies just out of sight, beneath our feet, or in the sky.
So, enjoy this video, Jewish music sung by Neta Elkayam filmed in a tiny cafe in Morocco. It is moving and beautiful and feels like you’re tucked into a corner listening intently.
Thank you
So, a rambling issue this week, thanks for bearing with me. I hope that you’re well and that you have a plan for the next few weeks, to stay healthy and creative. I love reading your emails and welcome recommendations for books and films. Please keep them coming and if you would like to share this newsletter with a friend or colleague, then go ahead, it’s really no problem.
Have a restful few days, take care.