Artist of the Month – Giulia Canevari

My paintings are inspired by the simplicity and perfection in Nature, revealing what our soil provides for us. I am moved by other botanical artists, portraying plants in a natural way, sometimes illustrating the features of each plant scientifically, or simply picturing their beauty without getting too methodical. Painting Nature is a way for me … Read more

Building Better than Bitcoin

Bitcoin and the Blockchain are perhaps the most hyped technology today, rivalling even Artificial Intelligence for extreme predictions and outrageous claims. We need to talk about the ecology. Bitcoin is a cryptographically-backed, anonymous, pseudo-currency invented by the otherwise unknown Satoshi Nakamoto. It has a dollar value because it is traded on the market, as can … Read more

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Life

Harry Gleeson was wrongfully hanged for the murder of Moll McCarthy in 1941, and fully exonerated in 2015 after the case was re-investigated by the Innocence Project in Ireland.[i] Gleeson was framed by the police, with the collusion of elected representatives, for the murder of Moll McCarthy, by reputation a ‘lady of the night.’ There … Read more

Post-Modern Decrepitude

If you are complaining about Climate Change, Brexit, Donald Trump, and all the cozening of late capitalism, I will not take you seriously if you have accepted, without very much thought, that there is only ever an arbitrary relationship between a signifier and what it signifies. I will say to you that you are closer … Read more

Spanish Smokescreens

The Catalan independence movement may seem like a throwback to a bygone age of nationalism. But the disproportionate reaction of Spain’s central government to the referendum in October has served, perversely, to make the break-up of the country more likely. Along with wider curbs on freedom of expression, the repression orchestrated by a ruling Partido Popular … Read more

A Decision to Emigrate

I quit. I had wanted to say those words for a long me and that day they arrived. Leaving a job during the Irish recession, being mum to three children under six and having a husband who worked for himself – circumstances were such that it was neither the easiest move nor possibly the wisest … Read more

Blaze

We say we are ready to be eaten by the music but have scant idea what that entails, what fire those geometric petals conceal. In need of advice, we turn to the dead: their eyes are forests, they cannot speak. This room begins to seem a temple raised to a pixellated god, to the warp … Read more