What’s this, a Sunday issue? For the first time in ages, I was caught out with a migraine that laid me low most of Friday, although I still managed to get things done, heading into work for a meeting and dropping off a parcel before heading home and finding somewhere to lie down in a darkened room. Thoughts rattle noisily around your head while you close your eyes and try to sleep.
I came back to this issue today after everything had passed. There were one or two paragraphs already written during the week but I’ve abandoned them almost completely. I’m going to do something slightly different, just add some photos, and see where it takes us. Let’s take it easy this week.
This first one is from my walk around the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Love this building, great color on the windows, there are so many lines traced through the image, the shadow from the telephone wires and electric cables, and the vapor trails in the sky.
Spaces to Connect
My first meeting this week was in Baker Hall. It is one of the largest buildings on campus, designed to Andrew Carnegie’s strict specifications. The floor is raked, so you’re either walking up or down the slope, apparently so that the building could be readily converted into a manufacturing plant, which is a rumor I’ve since heard is false, although the building did originally house large engineering machinery and seem like a factory.
One of the most amazing features of the building is the staircase and vaulted ceilings designed by a Spanish immigrant named Rafael Guastavino. These interlocking terracotta bricks are held together by compression creating artful spirals and crisscrossing patterns throughout the building.
Next, I drove over to Lawrenceville and ran a few errands, dropping by the gift shop for greetings cards and a bit of shopping.
I dropped off a three paintings at The Silver Apple Gallery, they will be available to pick up and keep when the free exhibition opens in March. There are little free art galleries dotted around the states and would love to import this back to the UK. It’s satisfying to share work for free and I like the idea of these bits of work enjoying a new home.
Life Lessons
I saw this display as part of a robotics exhibition in the Hunt Library. There is a group experimenting with the possibility of creating an inflatable robot inspired by Baymax in the movie Big Hero Six, which is a treat to watch with family on a Sunday afternoon.
There is a fascinating mix of engineering and paper sculpture and reminded me of the little maker experiments that you can do with foil packets and straws. This one is from a PLIX MIT Workshop.
Even little robots have character, see this little guy working on his sit-ups. It is starting to get a little freaky though when they’re this lifelike (thank you, Nia, for sharing this). Do we need robots to be like people? Does this make them better communicators? Do we care more about things that we can connect with? I’m thinking there’s some reading ahead.
Lost and Found
Going back to thoughts on the metaverse from a few weeks, ago. This interview with John Carmack who was for a bit the Chief Technical Officer at Oculus (he still might be), talking about how the metaverse already exists with Fortnite and Minecraft, and how it is successful precisely because they didn’t set out to make one. Quite!
My wonderful colleague Sebastien Dubreil shared this excellent article by Anil Dash, about halfway through you’ll think about all the platforms you use, almost everything that publishes any sort of content, including this one. Even if I jump off this platform, are all others doomed to follow these steps?
I took this photo at Gallery Closed in a neighborhood called Troy Hill. Every month new works are displayed through the windows (which means taking a picture isn’t easy), but it is a fascinating way to display public work and I suppose it’s interesting to think of exhibition space in this way, all the workings out of sight behind closed doors, no attendant, no staff.
Thank you
On my way back from the gallery, stopping for a smoothie at Reed & Co. I love these artists that are posted to the wall. I see Salvador Dali, Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Frida Kahlo but can anyone help me with the others?
This week I made plans to head to Washington D.C, it looks like some of my other travel plans, to Boston, might be on hold, although there’s still a chance I might head to Austin for a few days for SXSW Interactive. Conferences still seem to be predominantly virtual, there are some in-person happenings and you have to think about why you would want to be seated in the audience of an event when you could be at home watching it remotely.
I used to find that I mostly enjoyed the conversations at conferences that happened between events, little groups of people meeting up, sharing ideas over drinks. I don’t miss walking around trade fairs, these used to be a slog and all anyone is trying to work out is whether it’s worth their time to talk to you. I’ll move on.
Here is a final photo for you. When I first got here it felt so strange to see so many flags and now I’m sort of used to it and even brave enough to fly one that I purchased from Flags for Good. I have seen those that send positive and progressive messages and others that represented hateful and oppressive ideas. There are few things as effective at saying so much and communicating so widely as a flag hung from a pole or draped from a window.
I feel as if I’ve slipped behind on my sabbatical routine, it was a nice mix of reading, writing, and making, but I felt like I spent the week replying to emails and getting roped into meetings. I’m going to make a big effort to get back to what I need to be doing, I already have the feeling that time is slipping away and need to protect it a little better. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do that, with the help of a my colleagues who can look after things for me and I can take a back seat with everyday tasks.
Here’s some music for you. Love Cate Le Bon, the videos are definitely getting weirder. Great song from her new album Pompeii, who can resist that saxophone?
Perhaps with hindsight, I’ve written this issue in the sort of state that I have during a migraine, sure it is unpleasant but I’ve also learned over the years that it is a strange daydream, you’re trapped inside a closing loop where thoughts seem to echo and reverberate until you wake up. Then there’s a sort of peace and stillness, an almost cleansing feeling. I know many people that connect their migraines with creativity and I recognize that. They are a part of me.
“Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.”
― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Thank you, see you next week.
Loved reading about the staircase at Baker!