Feeling Smartly: in the dust motes was published 17 June 2026 on Clot Magazine and is one of several articles commissioned by Six Minutes Past Nine as part of their Plastic Prognosticate programme. The blog blow describes some of the motivation behind the piece.
When I first started studying photography back in 2013, I grew more and more amazed by the little moments of friction between those who value ‘the photograph’ over text, or vice versa. And so, a desire to resist ‘either/or’ narratives quickly began to underpin the projects I worked on. I found myself constantly asking, what if I refuse one fetishisation over another; instead of analogue vs digital, original vs found photography, mono vs colour, I treated all with equal respect, even love. (why is there an astronaut in a field of flowers/ and LAMELLA:// are both the most visible examples). From there, I resisted the temptation to favour and promote one media over another – faithful to writing and image without favour. To do the opposite, it seemed to me, simply reflected the way we humans tend to sort and value each-other and I’d rather not contribute to the cruel hierarchies that so many of us accept as ‘natural’. As I worked through this approach, I began to notice how attempts to overcome injustices, or even petty favouritisms, almost inevitably reinforced the very thing we artists were often trying to address. For instance, in the artistic decision to lead with process over representational mark-making, via desire that positions itself against the representationalism some argue informs a deeply embedded worldview – one where an original is unquestionably more valuable than its copies – I suspected the very same forces that produced the earlier undervaluing were also informing the resistance to it. Of course, few would question this type of value when considering a photograph of a painting. Or a bank note in relation to a block of gold. However, peel back layers, shift across seemingly unrelated domains, and the same logic begins to reveal itself in origin stories about humanity itself. God made Adam, for example, in his image. Perhaps God was the original and Adam the copy. So far so good. But what of Eve? Not even a copy of God but merely a fragmented copy of Adam, and designed simply to satisfy. Barely even a copy! And such a troublesome one at that, with her insistence that Adam should eat from the tree of knowledge, prompting the fall from prelapsarian perfection. So process is better, yes? If nothing else, it undoes the assumption that an image’s value lies in its final representation rather than its making. But what happens, in our polarised world, when process wears the crown and representation is dismissed as only ever a political problem, despite the fact that we humans are ontologically representational as well as process driven, the distinction itself inscribed and re-inscribed, each inscription always making and informing the other? What happens when the correction overcorrects? [edit 29/06] Are we not then in danger of shooting the messenger, rather than the cause?
My intention and desire to treat media with a sense of egalitarianism emerged circa 2014/15, just as tensions between ‘either/or’ scenarios began to reach fever pitch on social media. These either/or scenarios could be seen everywhere; digital/analogue, leave/remain, splintering feminism/defensive misogyny… the list goes on and enters every domain imaginable. [Edit 29/6/26] Polarisation was not new. It is rooted in our linguistics. however, social media has put it in the sharpest relief. The polarisation around every topic you might think of nowadays is quite extraordinary. And on each side, outrage and sanctimony, are hard to resist, or rather too easy to believe in. Like many others, I sometimes find myself seduced by the satisfying energy of certainty, especially where social media itself is concerned. Nevertheless and despite the temptation, I try hard to maintain a zoomed-out view, not because I am afraid to take a stand, but because I believe it allows us to notice overlaps, meeting points, and commonalities. That is how I approached an open call from Six Minutes Past Nine and Clot Magazine, which asked for writing that ‘treats the future not as a fixed destination but as a contested cultural territory […which…] examines how speculative narratives emerge, circulate and shape the horizons of collective imagination.’
I was pleased when they accepted my proposal and you can read the result here: Feeling Smartly: in the dust motes. Thank you so much to both organisations for the commission. The piece references ideas and critiques from Evelyn Waugh and Anna Kornbluh – each writers who produce(d) work I love but also have some quarrels with. In it, I urge those who write, create, make, and doodle to keep doing so – and to envision a future and a now that is open to all.