pjmaughann

This summer I attended a 4-week studio run by @benjaminbratton and the philosophy of technology think tank @antikythera_xyz, where participants from Google Deep Mind, Santa Fe Institute, École des ponts ParisTech and elsewhere discussed how AI is creating a new operating system for the world, while “making cognitive” systems that already exist. For @tankmagazine’s 100th issue (!!!) I’ve written about the method Antikythera uses at its studios, a way of working I (somewhat cheekily) call “evil design.” The essay outlines five traits that underpin the group’s approach—diagnostic, infrastructural, hyperfunctional, allocentric and pharmakon—and reviews the work that was produced. The issue launches in London tonight at @t_o_o_g_o_o_d. I’ll be there, repping evil. If you can’t make it, you can buy a print copy at the Tank website, or read it for free at the link.

5 lessons from Charles and Ray Eames. 1. Find out if there’s actually a problem before offering a solution. 2. How you work is just as important as what you make. 3. Discover why current designs are the way they are. (“Innovate as a last resort.”) 4. Give the gift of knowledge. 5. Keep on iterating (even when you’re dead.) Extracted from my recent interview with @eamesoffice director @eamesdemetrios for the innovation issue of @greatest by @goat

In April I went to Finland and toured the world’s first commercial-scale factory turning renewable electricity into edible proteins (with help from a single special microbe). The company that built it, Solar Foods (@soleinprotein), has been on my radar for years, and eating Solein (“solar” “protein”) felt like meeting a celebrity. I went there to report on the company and their plans for @noemamag, and the story of my trip, as well as some thoughts on the promises and perils facing cellular agriculture, has just been published. Please read it!

Simulation // Autopoiesis // Exocivilizations // Immature-Mature Biosphere-Technospheres // Game Engines // Brains // War Gaming // Origins of the GPU // Nvidia vs AMD // Whole Earth Simulation // Digital Twins // Extreme Silicon // Top500 // Cambrian Computing // Planetary Intelligence I spent a lot of 2023 writing this. infinitymirror.antikythera.org

It’s accurate to think of our hands as technology. Once we do, we can question how touchscreens, keyboards and AR gestures might be holding them back 🫰🤏👌🫴🖖 Thrilled to publish another @modem.works research paper (with beautiful artwork by @sannevandenelzen) about our most sophisticated bit of kit, the hand, which may have been disenfranchised by past machine interfaces, but has been plotting its long-awaited comeback. Link 👆

“Whereas in architecture, volume describes the ratio of open space within a structure, in sound it refers to the intensity of a signal. It may be that these two definitions are in the process of merging…” I love this project on the consequences of spatial audio for music and everyday life. An honour to think deeply and chat regularly with @prsseau and @basvandepoel @modem.works and to have the ideas visualised by the finest in the biz @area_of_work. Read the essay in my bio for maybe the best Leon Theramin anecdote on the market 👁️

an honour to channel my inner bureaucrat for a collaboration with the goat @ferdinandoverderi on a research-led campaign for @stoneisland at the end of last year. also a pleasure to interview @santandave who I saw live in 2018 at a tiny Berlin club called Burg Schnabel when he was 19 and I was definitely not 19 🕰️

found my friends 🥹

This year I have been working on a sci-fi novel, and on Thursday I will read an excerpt from it at @softpowerverysoft in Berlin as part of @the_well_tempered curated by @greenjade___ and @saki.hibino There will be performances by @amfq and @kloxii with an installation by @cmmc.performance. Doors are at 7pm and I think I’m up first. The first image here is by the wonderful @tabithaswanson_ working with AI to respond to the text I’ve written. We will show more on the night 🌒

At @noemamag I discuss the power that light has over the entire biological world, a phenomenon I (re)discovered via Huberman’s cursed podcast two summers ago. Blue visible light above all synchronizes the cybernetic orchestra of clocks in our brain, organs and individual cells and does so much to determine how we feel, recover, sleep and perform. I wrote this essay because I became interested in the idea of “chronotherapy,” or time itself as medicine, and because even if I am loathe to admit it, nothing makes me feel better than a morning walk in the sun.

I wrote about cooking and computation in today’s g**rdian 👨‍🍳🤖

@foodscapes2023 at @labiennale, which opened this weekend, rummages around in the guts of the Spanish food system, to see what’s growing in the greenhouse of Europe (with editorial fine-tuning and a few fresh thoughts from the almanac boys.) Huge congrats to mi hermano @castillo_vinuesa, to the team, the architects and filmmakers. Go see it, you have 6 months. I think I have aperol poisoning.