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Hi there, Joanna here. This episode is a special one
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because we welcome our 2nd guest in this second season of the
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podcast. As ever, the idea is to talk
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about exhibitions of all kinds, the insurance and outs of the
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art world, or simply the pleasures of image gazing with
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someone who plays a very specific role in our consolation
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of art professionals and lovers. Our guest is image alchemist
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Steven Alcock, who talks about the book as exhibition, his
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passion for cuttings, colleges and images when he was a child,
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and of course, his new book Elements, published by Thames
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and Hudson and available in book shops worldwide.
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You probably know him from Facebook 1st and now from
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Instagram, where he has more than half a million followers
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and devotees, and where he posts sequences of images associated
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in the way that makes them sing to the senses and tickle our
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brains. A few notes about the sound, you
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may notice that it is different. This is because we recorded the
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episode in person for the first time and we're still playing
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with technology, figuring it out as we go.
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So this is all the better to entertain you and create an
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exciting, genuine, heartfelt and engaging episode.
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Or so we hope. Without further ado.
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Here we go. Hello and welcome to another
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special episode of Exhibition. Is this the podcast where we
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visit exhibitions so that you have to or so that you
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experience them vicariously through us?
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This time we have our 2nd guest on the podcast, The one and only
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Steven Elcock. Yes, that's Steven Elcock, the
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one with the books. Yes, those books that make you
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wonder, dream, hope, escape, and return to reality with a sparkle
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in your eye. We invited Steven because he has
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a new book dedicated to the elements, a framing that seems
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quite scientific, although as one might expect, alchemy,
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mystery and myth will take over, along with the impulse to better
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understand the universe. For us, it's a way to dedicate
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an episode to another kind of exhibition that can be more
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accessible to our listeners outside of London and the UK.
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But most of all, it is the pleasure of talking to Stephen
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and to bring some of his insights to you.
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So, Stephen, thank you so much for being here.
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Well, thank you for inviting me. It's a real pleasure to be here.
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Thank you for that generous introduction, those kind words.
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Thank you. Ah, my pleasure, my pleasure.
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So I'll just briefly introduce you, if that's OK.
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OK, to those listeners who may be living under a rock and not
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know you. So Stephen, you were a touring
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musician in the 80s and early 90s but experienced the
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dissolution with the music industry, right?
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If my memory serves. That just about sums it up.
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Yes, that does. Yes, that's a good summary.
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OK, let's not linger. Not linger.
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No, that's not. That's not to dwell too long on
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that. So you started another career
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until you had a terrible breakdown that took you down a
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very dark path, yes, which culminated into a life
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threatening disease, in fact an undiagnosed pneumonia, which led
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you to being housebound, bedridden and quite unwell.
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And and and quite unwell for some time.
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Yes, I I did it. It was a culmination of some
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rather irresponsible several years irresponsible behaviour
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and some cumulative effect of sort of self-destructive
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impulses aligned with sort of addictions and things.
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So, and it inevitably, I crashed and burned after a few years, a
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sort of very irresponsible and self-destructive part.
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Yeah, which, you know, happens to so many of us.
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You know, it's such a human thing to go through.
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And it is also really human to have a sister who actually, as
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you were in your home, bedridden.
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So luckily, Steven's sister, luckily for you, but also for
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us, she actually convinced you to open a Facebook account.
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My sister in alliance with some friends of hers and a couple of
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other people, they realized I was quite, I was fairly isolated
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at the time and I didn't really have and I didn't really have
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much much access to the out to the outer world.
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And this was in the infancy of Facebook when it still was, when
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it still was quite genuinely ground breaking and almost
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utopian. And it, I, I resisted.
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I resisted for ages. It was just saying, well, you
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should join every people on there, you know, and you know,
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it's amazing potential and blah, blah, blah.
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And I didn't even have, I didn't own a computer like a desktop or
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even a laptop. I had a very, very antiquated
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second hand, I believe mobile phone, which was like a kind of
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proto type BlackBerry thing that just that just didn't really
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work. And I remember, yeah, it didn't
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really work. So I had very little Internet
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access at home. And I remember that, that very
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phone, I remember taking it, I was living in Peckham at the
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time. And when it, when it, when it
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ceased to work, I remember taking it to a couple of phone
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shops on Peckham High Street, those sort of people and the
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look of horror. What the hell is this is like
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some ancient artifact. So, and then when I, when I was
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actually able to, so I did join, I'd signed up to Facebook.
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And so I spent, I subsequently spent, I became quite obsessed
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with it. And when I was able to sort of,
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you know, be well enough to leave the house and things with
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my flat things, I spent an inordinate amount of time in
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Internet and spent a lot of money in the Internet cafes of
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Peckham. I used to communicate with
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people in Internet cafes. Really.
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Yeah. I did have a job at the time,
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but I was off work for several months because I was, I was so
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ill. And so I didn't really so and,
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and so in that period where I could sort of nip down the road
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and live in an Internet cafe, I'm basically building up my
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Facebook account. And then that continued when I,
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when I returned to work, I, I spent, but most of my, most of
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my time in that, in the job I had at that point in, in
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publishing, I wasn't in, I wasn't sort of office space, but
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I did have a sort of office desk.
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So, and I did spend far too much time.
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Well, actually, no, it was beneficial for me, but I spent a
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company time. They basically paid for me to
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set up a Facebook account. Thank you.
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Thank you. No, please don't make.
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Employer who we won't name of Steven.
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No, don't Nate, but they'll know who they're.
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But I did. They did get their revenge in
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the end because they made me redundant.
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Well, you know, sometimes redundancy, which has happened
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to me as well, can kind of save your life.
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And I must say that the way I see what you started doing at
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the time was that you started curating an exhibition online,
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and you gathered followers, and you built a community of people
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of now more than half a million people on Instagram.
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And I heard you say that, you know, there's a joke that Mark
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Zuckerberg saved your life. It transformed my life and I
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hate to, you know, if sometimes now given, given all that's
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happened in the intervening years, it does now feel a bit
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like a sort of Faustian pact that I've sort of almost sold my
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soul to the level in in incontrovertible fact that I do
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that this, that what I do now, I probably wouldn't.
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I would not be doing this now, I don't think without without it
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being based in on so in social media.
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Of course, of course, but I would also say that, you know,
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images seem to have saved your life or more specifically, the
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flow of visual philosophy and the connection with living and
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long gone artists and creatives. You know, I think that's really
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kind of the thing that really connects us to you and lots of
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people that have claimed to have been healed by your images and
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the flow of images and the very careful curation which takes us
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to this book. So you've just published a book
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called Elements subtitle Chaos, Order and the Five Elemental
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Forces published by Tamsen Hudson, and it's in book shops
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now, I think. There are several editions.
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It's just been published, published a couple of weeks ago.
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This is the beginning of December.
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So it's published a couple of weeks ago in America, US
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edition. And it's there are French,
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German, Italian editions and theoretically it should be
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available worldwide. That's amazing because we have
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listeners all over the world. So go ahead, go to your book
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shops and have a look at this book and buy it if you can,
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because it is quite, I mean, it doesn't differ too much from,
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you know, the cosmic dance or, or did you have a new approach
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to this one? Well, this is this is elements
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is actually the culmination of what was what was this?
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What was initially designed as a trilogy.
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So, so it is the third, it is the culminating, but it's kind
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of a full stop. It's like an end of a end of a
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end of a phase. So when I when I initially was
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talking to Thames and Hudson, we thought I wanted to do, I wanted
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to create a series of books that created a kind of visual map of
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both the human imagination and the universe, which is the most
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ludicrously ambitious aim Elements follows on from the
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previous two volumes. The first volume was Cosmic
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Dance was released a couple of years ago and then followed by
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Underworlds, which is published last year.
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And it is deliberately designed as as an as an all, as a, as a
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map of the universe. That was kind of the culmination
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of everything that felt like the, a kind of the natural, the
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natural endpoint, the natural, the natural culmination of
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everything I've been doing on Facebook and Instagram.
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It was based on all things cosmological on and it was
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designed as a as A and I hate to use the word journey because
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people abuse that word as possible.
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Journey and Curator are two of the most abused poor.
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Abuse curator? How do you mean?
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I know people, you people, describing themselves as we'll.
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Talk about that. We'll talk about that.
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Yes, obviously genuine curators and real curators, as it's
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still, but Cosmic Dance was designed as a journey from the
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from the micro. The micro, the macro micro.
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So from yes. The smallest units,
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infinitesimally small to the incomprehensibly vast.
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Yeah, underworlds. Was was then it was everything
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that was underneath underpinned everything that was
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subterranean, everything that was subconscious, whether it be
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the whether it be physical or geological underworlds or
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whether it be psychological or fantastic underworlds.
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And then there was some we did have some.
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We deliberated and discussed what form the the final volume
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would be, but it quickly came to consensus myself and editors
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that elements was a really seemed like a really elegant way
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of rounding things off because the elements are basically the
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stuff that holds everything together.
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So it's the, they are the glue of, if you like, of the, the
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thing, the glue of the cosmos. And also they, the elements are
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essentially a way of explaining the chaos of existence of.
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So it felt like a way of of stitching everything together
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and really finding a way out of chaos.
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I would love to read the final two paragraphs of the preface.
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Of course. Yes, because you frame it in a
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way that is most encouraging and at the same time realistic and
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contemporary. So you write, and sorry to throw
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your own words at you, but it's such a beautiful preface.
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So quote. The perpetually traumatized
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planet on which we are currently marooned is a world that is
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seriously out of balance, A world in the grip of an apparent
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death wish, trapped in a feedback loop of doom, the
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ultimate lost cause. Every day we witness multiple
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unfolding catastrophes, a slow motion apocalypse, watching in
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mute horror or black in black. Indifference is everything that
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generates most of us feel disorientated, disenchanted,
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alienated from the rhythms of the dying world around us, our
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connection with every living thing brutally severed.
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UN quote. So this paragraph is incredible
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because I somehow connected your personal breakdown with your
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very, very high sensitivity to the idea of the breakdown of the
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universe. And I thought it was so
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beautiful to see that here. And did you feel that when when
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you choose your images, is it a subjective perspective?
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How? How do you go about doing that?
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It's intuitive. It's difficult for me to
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articulate exactly why certain images appeal to me.
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It's a kind of it's both. It's a subliminal level, but
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it's also a viscal level. It's something there is
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something that will suddenly appeal to me.
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If you think so. It's not something that I can
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easily explain verbally that that, that I just know that
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image. If I, if I come across images,
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I, I just know that they're right, whether it be for a book
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or whether it be for or whether it be for social media.
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The key to how I, how I put books together is, is the, is
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finding correspondences between different images and finding
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affinities and trying to find the best sequencing of them and
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putting images in juxtaposing with one another, with one
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another to give meaning to do each reflect on on the other.
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And and that is the most time consuming, time consuming
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process. I would if if I could it's most
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eager considering the the paragraph in complete
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contradiction to the paragraph you've just read.
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If I if I if I felt I could get away with it and it wasn't so
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sort of wanton destruction of scarce resources, I would
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happily have. I'd love to have a vast
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warehouse and have and print out every single image I'd like
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considering for book and and just make a great call and and
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spend ages shifting them round because I don't have much
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sophisticated programmes or anything at home.
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So I it was all in my head, the kind of working out sequences
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and. You know, in Paris at the Palate
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took you this academic, a historian called George Didi
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Uberman. He curated an exhibition at the
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Palate took you where you had images projected on the on the,
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on the on the floor of the museum.
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And you entered this very dark room and you could see lots of
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images. And when you say that, I imagine
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you printing them and putting them on the floor and just
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walking around, like, sit like, like Citizen Kane, you know, in
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the film and just kind of looking at your image, shifting
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them around. That's the quickest route to
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another breakdown. I've been doing that.
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So yeah, I'm going completely so because also that that mean I
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try to be out outward looking that sounds like I'm completely
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obsessed with with my own process, but I try, but
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everything I try and do and everything that and there's
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there's a key, a key to the images I I want them to reflect
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on. They have to reflect both on on
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the current world and I am commenting on the world and
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current events. I am whether people, whether
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people intuit that and discern that or whether whether that's
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overt or whether it's hidden. But I am everything to me has a
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social purpose. Everything that I do, it's not,
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I'm not just putting to, I don't feel what I'm doing is putting
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together pretty images and a succession of beautiful images
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just to just purely to enchant people and delight people.
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It's a communication device that is quite incredible because you
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are saying things across the book.
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And it's really incredible to go over these images and to really
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start thinking and connecting through these images to so many
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things that you can think about the world and also to the
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undoing of the world, which is, you know, something that that's
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where my question was headed with this idea of the connection
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with the universe, you know, this idea of the breakdown and
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the chaos, and then this idea that images are kind of an
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interface between possible worlds.
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I think we are all fascinated with your brain, Steven.
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That's the thing. And that room that you you that
00:18:04
you describe for me is your brain.
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I can see that. It's like it's like an infinite
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library. It's the sort of the bald heads
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idea, an archive. It's the infinite number of
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chambers and rooms and things. I still try to be grounded,
00:18:18
though. I don't try and I I deliberately
00:18:20
try and Orient orientate myself so I'm not lost in in that
00:18:24
fantastic world. I'd try and be grounded and be
00:18:27
and engage with the world. But the the.
00:18:29
Thing that I find really fascinating is that I'm a
00:18:32
fantastic so I don't visualize things in my brain.
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And that's why I'm so fascinated with your your project, because
00:18:39
I think you do, don't you? I do.
00:18:41
Yeah, and I'm really. Interested in knowing to what
00:18:44
extent do you remember images and when you get them and you
00:18:48
get the image you're thinking about, are you surprised or is
00:18:52
it exactly? Can you remember exactly the
00:18:55
images as they are? No, I can't, no, actually, I
00:19:00
can't remember, don't and, and, and it is, I can still look
00:19:03
through it, it, it may sound implausible, but I can look
00:19:06
through this book or like previous books and I, and I tend
00:19:10
to, I tend to look forward all the time.
00:19:11
My brain is all, I'm always thinking 2 projects ahead.
00:19:15
So like, this is done to me. This is done.
00:19:17
And so I'm thinking about other things, but obviously for, for,
00:19:21
for for sort of purposes of like an occasion like this and
00:19:27
interviews like this and, and I have to, and doing public
00:19:30
appearances, I have to revisit the book.
00:19:33
And it, it amazes me every time I look through this or other
00:19:35
books, but I didn't spot, I didn't notice that before.
00:19:38
I will spot things in the images and I will spot things that I
00:19:43
didn't that when I actually, I'd spot details and think, well,
00:19:48
that's why I decided to put that image next to that one.
00:19:51
So, and I, it would be like in retrospect, there would be
00:19:55
sometimes it will just be a, a shape or a pattern or some
00:19:59
little incident or some little minor details.
00:20:02
I think, Ah, actually that, that's why there's a huge amount
00:20:05
of thought put into it. But then I I like to think that
00:20:08
that people can get. It's not just a book that you
00:20:11
just flick through and oh, my books, not just books you can
00:20:14
just flick through in their disposal and their pretty coffee
00:20:16
table books. I like to think that people can
00:20:19
revisit them again and again. And, and also there were, there
00:20:22
were deliberate, I suppose the the, the, the, the contemporary
00:20:26
term for is that Easter eggs where you would like things
00:20:29
hidden in films and games where there are things that there were
00:20:33
there were images throughout the book.
00:20:35
There, there, there were, there were that the refer to book that
00:20:38
the images earlier in the book or later in the book.
00:20:41
So there were things that are in there.
00:20:43
There are multiple pathways through the book.
00:20:47
So, to emphasize the importance that you attribute to the
00:20:52
connection with the world, do you mind if I read the last
00:20:57
paragraph? OK.
00:20:58
So it's just to give our listeners like a real idea of
00:21:01
this book and the intent behind it.
00:21:04
So you So after having written about this idea of a traumatized
00:21:10
planet, the final paragraph says quote.
00:21:13
Only by recognizing that we are subject to the same elemental
00:21:17
forces that control all creation and by learning to live in
00:21:21
harmony with these forces, can we re establish our relationship
00:21:25
with the natural world, recover balance and equilibrium and
00:21:28
avert looming disaster. Our future welfare and probably
00:21:32
our very survival depends upon our next move.
00:21:36
Let's remember our place in the universe and try not to fall
00:21:39
flat on our faces. And I love, I love this, this
00:21:44
kind of like harshness at the end where you're like, let's get
00:21:48
real, actually. I'm going to be I'm going to be
00:21:50
completely honest here now publish it is that that is
00:21:54
actually that that's not that the final sentence was more
00:21:59
extreme than that, but I was it was it was considered to be too
00:22:04
extreme my original paragraph. So I I did read it.
00:22:08
They're very good. They don't they don't tend to
00:22:10
interfere at all very much at all.
00:22:13
But in this instance, they, I think they felt I was maybe a
00:22:16
bit too prescriptive and a bit too harsh.
00:22:19
And it is redacted and slightly bulgarized.
00:22:22
So, so the the language was a bit slightly more explicit.
00:22:26
I I, I I. Sort of sensed it.
00:22:28
So this is really to say how important it is for you to
00:22:32
really communicate the power of images in that sense and that
00:22:39
you you really feel it in a situation where you go back
00:22:44
thousands and thousands of years.
00:22:45
These images are across times. They you have the past speaking
00:22:50
with the present, speaking with different times in the history
00:22:54
of humanity. And it's really beautiful to see
00:22:58
that you make it kind of tunnel towards something that is so
00:23:03
contemporary and that it has been a question for so long, but
00:23:06
has become so prevalent now. But now I have another question
00:23:09
that has nothing to do with this.
00:23:12
I would love to know more about you and I'd love to know more
00:23:15
about you. As a child, were you interested
00:23:17
in art? Were you bookish person?
00:23:20
How did you visit exhibitions? How how did you What was your
00:23:26
relationship to art and visual art?
00:23:28
I. Guess that I've always been as a
00:23:31
very bookish child and quite not quite introverted, I suppose.
00:23:39
Not, not, not not solitary. I had friends and things, but I
00:23:45
tended to have sort of maybe one or two close friends rather than
00:23:48
large group of friends. But I was always immersed in
00:23:50
books. I've something that's always
00:23:54
frustrated me and maybe this is this is kind of a displacement
00:24:00
that this kind of collecting of images is a kind of displacement
00:24:03
that could be a replacement. I was always frustrated.
00:24:07
I, I, I was terrible at actual art as a drawing, painting
00:24:12
things I had, I had, I had, I, I, I, I had very active
00:24:17
imagination. And there were things I wanted
00:24:19
to, even as a very young child, I wanted to draw and I wanted to
00:24:22
paint and I couldn't do. I just could not do them.
00:24:25
And that was a great source of great frustration and, and and
00:24:30
even when I was older that that that continued, I think that my
00:24:35
imagination was both was both verbal and, and visual.
00:24:39
And I used to, I did used to collect images as a child.
00:24:42
And I used to defate. I used to, I used to vandalise
00:24:46
and and cut up and destroy. And this is this is appalling
00:24:51
van. This is some of this is
00:24:53
appalling cultural Van Yes, I used to cut up.
00:24:55
Books I. Used to destroy books, but more
00:24:58
than but I used to sort of cut up in magazines and things like
00:25:03
mail order cat, my mum's mail order catalogues and I used to
00:25:07
cut up comics and, and just I, I actually accumulated, I ended up
00:25:13
accumulating the, the cat. They were in boxes and carrier
00:25:17
bags, thousands and thousands of images, which I, which I
00:25:21
sometimes would, but what did you do with them?
00:25:23
I create, sometimes created colleges, but more often I, I,
00:25:28
I, I had, I just had them and I used to look at them and arrange
00:25:32
them and that was it. And then sort of put them in
00:25:34
different, sort of sift them around.
00:25:36
I was completely obsessed with this.
00:25:38
Something I maybe do regret, which I should never done,
00:25:41
although I'd never retained them, is that I had, I, I have
00:25:45
like incredibly, what would be now priceless collection of
00:25:49
things like old Marvel comets from like the 60s.
00:25:52
Did you not? Cut them off things.
00:25:55
That are now worse and it's not an exaggeration.
00:25:59
Thousands. If not, they're so.
00:26:00
Expensive. Absolutely, I know.
00:26:02
Early, you know, early Spiderman, the Silver Surfer,
00:26:06
fantastic early issues of those things that I just cut up and
00:26:11
had them things so I could have retired years ago if I found
00:26:14
home run is to keep those. And how about?
00:26:16
Museums. So would you go?
00:26:18
Where did you grow up, by the way?
00:26:20
I, I was born in, I was born in Essex, but my, my because of my
00:26:26
dad's job, we moved around quite a lot.
00:26:28
All in all in the UK though. So most of my most of the places
00:26:33
like N provincial, like Northampton and Litchfield in
00:26:38
Staffordshire and Birmingham and places didn't really my, my my
00:26:44
parents were very good in terms of sort of take they used to, we
00:26:50
used to visit lots of stately homes, castles, places like that
00:26:55
And, and, but not really art museums, things like Natural
00:27:00
History Museum or Science Museum and places, but not really.
00:27:04
I think the first time that I ever went to, for example, the
00:27:08
National Gallery was probably not till I was.
00:27:10
I went on my own and but were you?
00:27:14
Attracted to museums and contemporary art?
00:27:18
Yeah. Absolutely, and art in.
00:27:20
General but but. Also like appreciation of
00:27:23
architecture and, and, but also I was, I was obsessed with the
00:27:27
sort of books that I I was always immersed in books I was
00:27:30
obsessed with, but with a lot of fiction and things, but I was
00:27:34
also really obsessed with illustrated books in particular.
00:27:38
It is old encyclopedia is like my my maternal grand grandfather
00:27:44
had who has quite a modest life. He was sort of, he's basically
00:27:48
an agricultural labourer all his life, but he was one of those
00:27:52
he, he, he had his quite a small, but a small library of
00:27:57
like reference books and things. And these were absolutely
00:28:00
fascinating illustrated encyclopedias of Natural History
00:28:04
and science and technology that were put that I suppose
00:28:07
published in the 3rd 1930s and 40s.
00:28:10
And also this incredible sort of multi volume thing that was I
00:28:14
think it was called the history of the peoples of the world,
00:28:17
which would kind of which now would probably be incredibly
00:28:21
offended. They were they they were sort of
00:28:22
produced probably in the 20s or 30s.
00:28:24
So it was sort of photographs of every that that people from
00:28:29
every indigenous people. But this, this fascinated me.
00:28:32
But also, as well as the photographs of the people and
00:28:35
the and and the and the where they lived it, it did feature
00:28:39
like their, the artifact. They may have been framed in a
00:28:41
sort of imperialist and colonialist way, but the images
00:28:45
of that that to me, I was absolutely fascinated.
00:28:47
So it's so interesting. Because it seems like the books
00:28:51
LED you to museums, but your first love was books, fiction.
00:28:57
Did you write? And I feel.
00:28:59
Embarrassed whenever I did because I because when I was a
00:29:03
teenager I was I was sort of like, I used to write and I know
00:29:07
everybody does this and it sounds like some of the most
00:29:10
appalling cliche, but I did used to I I I wrote poetry and I
00:29:14
thought I would end up being a poet and I was sort of being
00:29:18
pushed towards that because when I went by your teachers.
00:29:21
Or your parents by teachers. And but I not by my parents, by
00:29:25
teachers, and I won competitions and things.
00:29:30
That doesn't sound like a bleach, no.
00:29:31
And that's like a real career. Yeah, it was a real.
00:29:33
Like a real career. And and like when I, when I was
00:29:36
still at school, there were like, there was like
00:29:38
documentaries about my like this teenage prodigy, a poet.
00:29:44
And I assume that's what I would do now.
00:29:49
Now if I look back at that, it's, it's horrendous.
00:29:52
Maybe you should. Cause I mean in your, so the,
00:29:54
the books are really interesting because I mean elements also
00:29:58
corresponds to this structure where you have an introduction
00:30:03
about each section, so about each element in this case.
00:30:07
And then you have really interesting quotes from all
00:30:12
kinds of literature and from everything.
00:30:14
And and including like text science textbooks and things
00:30:18
there's lots of. Things in here, maybe in future
00:30:20
books you can kind of like put some of your poetry.
00:30:23
No, I'm not. Put it like that, I I actually I
00:30:27
did. There was for my second book,
00:30:31
Book of the Book of Change, which was a bit of an orphan
00:30:35
because it's not quite finished. I had a sounds like I'm most
00:30:40
accident prone to, but I did have quite a nasty accident.
00:30:42
We're doing it and it's also during COVID.
00:30:46
So it's not, and it's not quite finished.
00:30:49
It's not quite perfect, but it's just sort of, I regard it as a
00:30:53
bit of a sort of unfinished and potentially my masterpiece if I,
00:30:57
oh God, I said master. I don't mean I, it's potentially
00:31:00
my best book, but it's not quite finished.
00:31:03
I did for the introduction of that which I, because I had an
00:31:06
accident where I smashed my arm. I had to write the introduction
00:31:10
again in bed using my phones. I couldn't type and and it's
00:31:15
typed with just my thumb. And I did incorporate some of my
00:31:20
poetry in. I took it out before it was no,
00:31:23
no, I removed it. Why did?
00:31:25
You do that. I was slightly embarrassed I it
00:31:28
didn't it, it seemed incongruous with the pros around it.
00:31:31
It didn't didn't quite work. I'm.
00:31:33
Sure, it will come back. So I was trying to frame because
00:31:37
of course our names are exhibitionists and I was trying
00:31:40
to frame this idea and, and your interview in the sense that a
00:31:45
book can be an exhibition. So I, I wonder if that's
00:31:49
something that has brought up to you, has been brought up to you
00:31:52
that if you think like that or if there's a very, very crucial
00:31:58
difference that kind of maybe undermines that idea.
00:32:03
That it's an exhibition? Yes, I, I think it is.
00:32:07
I think it is. That's how I, that's how I,
00:32:09
that's how I try, how I try and frame it to myself and how I try
00:32:12
and envisage it when I'm putting it together.
00:32:15
And I do and I do as I mentioned that the thought, the thought of
00:32:19
having all the images and putting them out on the floor, I
00:32:22
also envisage them as as at least certain sections of most
00:32:26
books, as as if they were on gallery walls.
00:32:29
Yeah, because when you. Describe that for me, that's the
00:32:31
way a curator thinks. You know, you think of the
00:32:34
images together, you think of relationships between the
00:32:37
images. And I was even trying to look at
00:32:39
them and thinking, oh, there's a lot of approaches through
00:32:42
colour, for example. But then there's a lot of
00:32:44
structural approaches. The image is structured in the
00:32:47
same way and conveys a similar kind of not same, not same
00:32:52
message, but like a theme or approach.
00:32:55
And then there's relationships between very different things
00:32:59
and and you can see that the, the, the way they're articulated
00:33:04
together is much more, is much deeper.
00:33:07
And it's not only on the visual sense or kind of takes the
00:33:10
visual to another realm completely.
00:33:13
And that's where, you know, it kind of takes off and it's quite
00:33:16
an incredible experience to leave through the book because
00:33:19
the associations are not basic, you know, they're not like
00:33:23
they're really incredible connection.
00:33:25
So I was really kind of thinking about this idea of exhibition.
00:33:29
But then there's something that as a curator myself is really
00:33:34
funny because when I read the the captions of the images,
00:33:40
there's the title, there's the date and there's the author or
00:33:43
the artist, but you don't have size or materials.
00:33:47
That's not. That that's not my decision.
00:33:49
That's that's that is I see. Yeah, that's.
00:33:53
That's the house style of Thames and Hudson because.
00:33:56
I must say that I have kind of a very similar experience to you
00:34:01
when I was a kid. And being from Lisbon, from
00:34:03
Portugal, obviously lots of those masterpieces that are, you
00:34:07
know, encyclopedias, you know, they're in books, you don't have
00:34:11
access to them. And I remember the first time I
00:34:14
saw a painting by Caspar David Friedrich.
00:34:18
It's so small. And it changed the way I related
00:34:22
to it because I thought it's a much more cerebral relationship
00:34:25
to landscape. Than what I.
00:34:27
Thought because it's so small and for me the dimensions and I
00:34:31
keep thinking Oh my God, how big is this?
00:34:34
What is it made of? And I'm really curious about
00:34:37
that. And I'm interesting to know,
00:34:39
interested to know that you're curious about I, I and.
00:34:41
I always so, so, so, so on. As far as so on social, if I
00:34:46
post on Facebook or Instagram, I will always post that.
00:34:50
You're very careful. I will always.
00:34:52
Try and post the, the the the attributions and all the
00:34:56
dimensions and media and things where it's available.
00:34:59
Sometimes it's not always available or I don't have time
00:35:02
to do spend hours and hours of researching, but I know that's
00:35:06
important. I know that's important.
00:35:07
I know it's important both to the people that create it.
00:35:09
That is it respectful is out of respect to the the artists or
00:35:13
illustrators or photographers. But I think it's also important.
00:35:17
I think people appreciate that people who view it and it's
00:35:20
important to me. But it is, yeah, I think, I
00:35:24
think it's because a book of these this these kind of
00:35:26
dimensions that if you put too much on there, then it then it
00:35:30
clutters the desire sort of clarity and and cleanness of
00:35:34
design. If if I had my way, they would
00:35:39
maybe be. If it was, if that was a
00:35:42
concern, then I would have a addendum at the back with full
00:35:47
credit. But that.
00:35:47
Takes me to a deeper question, which is the status of images,
00:35:51
which I find really interesting because you and I have the very
00:35:55
similar experience of connecting with art through books.
00:35:59
Yes. And it's a.
00:36:00
Very, I think, common experience to a lot of people and suddenly
00:36:06
these very material things become images and become
00:36:10
something else. And I'm really interested in
00:36:13
that because in the curating world it's kind of anathema.
00:36:16
You kind of think, no, you have to respect the the work and what
00:36:20
you do here, you know, for example, exhibition catalogues
00:36:23
is really kind of shocking. Like you have to really
00:36:26
carefully think about the scale and about the material.
00:36:29
But at the same time, once you've absorbed the work or
00:36:32
you've seen the work published, it still exists for you in some
00:36:36
way. And that's the thing that I find
00:36:40
really interesting with your projects.
00:36:42
Suddenly you're in another realm and you're in a different
00:36:45
relationship with these images. Can you talk a little bit about
00:36:49
that? I'm not sure yet.
00:36:54
Yeah, it's, I don't know. I think that I, I, I try and
00:37:02
respect all the images I do. There were certain things where
00:37:05
and, and I try and, and and and I try and I, I do.
00:37:11
So I put myself into the, my, the mind of the, of the creator
00:37:16
of these, of, of, of, of all the images.
00:37:19
But I do and I don't, and I'm not egotistical enough to think
00:37:24
I'd give images new life. And although maybe in some, in
00:37:28
cases where they are drawn from maybe illustrations from old
00:37:33
encyclopedias or textbooks or, or 19th century illustrations or
00:37:39
children's book illustrations, I maybe do, I'm giving them new
00:37:42
life because they, they, they, they may be obscure or now or
00:37:47
currently or people that have been forgotten or unknown.
00:37:50
And I hope that gives them new life and putting them in, in,
00:37:54
in, in, in, in, in juxtaposition with better known things.
00:37:59
And I do think that they, they images do take on a different
00:38:03
life in a book than they do on on a wall or in a or in a
00:38:08
gallery. Yeah.
00:38:10
Let's say it because I think the other the the the reverse is
00:38:13
true as well, where suddenly you have a painting by Paul Nash,
00:38:18
for example, in relation with a a detail of an illustration of
00:38:24
an encyclopedia. To be honest, I don't know
00:38:27
exactly what a page I'm talking about and if it's true, it's
00:38:30
Paul Nash or someone else. But it does also give a
00:38:33
different kind of life to Paul Nash's painting.
00:38:35
You have on page 219 an incredible talismanic shirt with
00:38:45
the whole Quran written inside, which is already, I think, in
00:38:50
the book. It has that existence where you
00:38:52
can't see it, but you know it's there.
00:38:54
And then you have the Paul Nash painting, yes, of the sunflower,
00:39:01
which is absolutely incredible in terms of relation because the
00:39:06
the front of the talismanic shirt has a sort of astral
00:39:13
decoration, right? So it really is this ability for
00:39:19
this specific medium to bring these images together.
00:39:22
So that's really incredible that you're touching upon that
00:39:25
because there is now we're going through a phase, some of us in
00:39:30
the art world where we're looking at a very dry, dogmatic
00:39:36
history of abstraction, for example, of modernism, for
00:39:41
example, and kind of detecting all the spiritualism that went
00:39:48
into it, all the power that was attributed to images that kind
00:39:53
of was drained out of it. In some cases, even Mondrian was
00:39:57
interested in Theosophy, for example.
00:40:00
And that has been somewhat hidden to us, you know, in our
00:40:03
history. And you're kind of bringing that
00:40:05
up again. That's hugely.
00:40:07
Important to me spiritual dimension and all the
00:40:11
supernatural magical dimensions and of art.
00:40:16
I think, I think we, I think they're, I think they're hugely
00:40:19
important. And I think that we can, I think
00:40:23
in the world that we inhabit, which is so it's so grim and
00:40:27
going through this, there's no, there's no denying the fact
00:40:30
that, you know, if you, if you think objectively and you really
00:40:35
look rationally about the world, it's, it's absolutely
00:40:37
terrifying. We, we aren't living in
00:40:39
miserable and very quiet and scary tumultuous times.
00:40:45
And I do think that without being without, without without
00:40:49
adhering to any kind of necessary spiritual or religious
00:40:54
belief system, the way that you can connect with the planet is
00:40:59
via the spiritual strands in whether it not just whether it
00:41:05
be in art or whether it be in literature or poetry or cinema
00:41:09
or music in anything or photography, fashioning.
00:41:12
That's really important and that's not wishy washy and it's
00:41:15
not insipid. And it, and, and it should be
00:41:18
allied with a sort of pragmatic approach.
00:41:20
I think there's a way, I think if you're going to, if you're
00:41:22
going to address things like climate breakdown and, and, and,
00:41:26
and the, the, the kind of the, the obvious implosion of Western
00:41:32
hegemony, then you then to have a sort of a feeling of a
00:41:38
connection with a great something greater than yourself,
00:41:42
which is doesn't have to be a supernatural being, but can be
00:41:46
with, with other people and with the people around the planet.
00:41:49
That is the, that is the way forward.
00:41:51
And that's the, we have to establish those connections with
00:41:53
people. And I don't care if if that
00:41:55
sounds hopelessly utopian, because I think that is the only
00:41:58
way, the only way forward, because we're otherwise we're
00:42:01
being LED, we're being driven off a Cliff.
00:42:03
I knew. Your books through an artist and
00:42:06
the way they describe the books was everything coming together
00:42:11
and looking across the world of things that we have formally in
00:42:15
common. And I thought, that's terrifying
00:42:19
to me because I love difference. I don't like the idea of
00:42:22
sameness. It's great to change your mind,
00:42:26
you know, and it's great to learn with other people because
00:42:28
I've changed my mind completely. Because your books are not about
00:42:31
sameness, they're about these small connections that could be
00:42:37
aligned, you know, say, worshipping the sun, for
00:42:39
example, the Mayans did not worship the sun in the same way
00:42:43
some other indigenous population did in the Pacific Islands.
00:42:48
And maybe this idea, the connection that they have is
00:42:51
that relationship to the sun. But then there's a lot of
00:42:55
difference. And I think your books respect
00:42:57
that a lot. That to me.
00:42:59
That, that that is so important with, with what I do is to try
00:43:03
and represent as many different cultures and as many different
00:43:07
traditions and as many different diverse ideas and, and, and and
00:43:13
philosophical concepts as possible.
00:43:17
And, and it's not always easy to find to be truly represent a
00:43:21
different truly inclusive, but it's, it's actually becoming,
00:43:25
it's becoming, well, it was becoming easier, but until sort
00:43:28
of there were, there were certain great certain certain
00:43:33
corporations who are now making it more difficult to find things
00:43:36
because they're dependent actually on advertising.
00:43:38
But it is becoming more, it is becoming easier to find images
00:43:42
from different sources. It's still frustrating to me
00:43:46
that, for example, if I want that, that this, it's still
00:43:50
difficult to find, for example, a lot of African art online
00:43:54
accessible partly because it hasn't been digitised and it's
00:43:59
not easily scanned. And, and, and it, and it is also
00:44:02
frustrating to me that there's sort of a lot of indigenous art,
00:44:05
not just from Africa, but maybe from Oceania or from Pacific and
00:44:09
and South America, A lot of the things you know, and constantly
00:44:13
directed to American or European museums.
00:44:17
If I want to use African art, it's, it's really, it's really
00:44:21
disturbing for me that the stuff that's been stolen by a Met, you
00:44:25
know, it's in the Met or the British Museum or the Kunst
00:44:28
Historic Museum in Vienna. But that's that that those are
00:44:34
things that that that's accessible to a non expert like
00:44:37
me who doesn't have actually privileged access.
00:44:42
But nevertheless, I hope that the fact that people may spot
00:44:46
that those things are in European or American museums,
00:44:50
but that makes people question what they're doing.
00:44:52
And obviously they're obviously de de accessioning and the whole
00:44:56
thing of decolonising the collective collections of of
00:45:00
European and American. It's hugely institutions is
00:45:04
hugely important and restitution and giving due recognition to
00:45:09
the people that created those things.
00:45:11
But now. Shifting perspectives.
00:45:13
What is your element? My element.
00:45:16
Because there's. 5 right there's water, fire, earth, air and
00:45:23
ether. I would.
00:45:25
If I say ether that's going to sound incredibly pretentious and
00:45:29
self regarding I think why? Why, why why Why makes it like
00:45:33
I? Live on a I'm not airy fairy and
00:45:36
sort of above. I consider myself unworlded.
00:45:40
I'm not, I am perhaps slightly unworldly, but I do, I do also
00:45:45
have a, a quite a down to earth nature and perhaps an approach
00:45:50
to certain things. But I do possibly, I think fire
00:45:54
maybe as well, which may be, which may be slightly
00:45:56
surprising, But I'm, I'm I'm, I'm incredibly driven and
00:46:01
passionate about things. So I'm obsessive about things.
00:46:03
But ether as well, because I do think that because ether was the
00:46:06
most ether that actually do the chapter on ether was that was
00:46:10
possibly the most, it was the most challenging to compile, but
00:46:15
also possibly the most interesting and satisfying
00:46:18
because I could, I could publish several volumes of images of
00:46:22
water and fire. But ESA will present what how do
00:46:25
you represent ether? Because ether is basically
00:46:28
spirit. It's the stuff that holds
00:46:29
everything together. It's it's thought forms, it's
00:46:32
thought, it's processes of it's, it's, it's basically, it's
00:46:36
inexplicable. It's something deliberately
00:46:38
misdeed. So I had to think.
00:46:40
I had to think in the creative ways to try and of of of finding
00:46:45
images that which to represent that rather that wasn't that
00:46:49
weren't just sort of although the chapter does include a sort
00:46:53
of Victorian ghost and the great artists who who who the
00:46:58
channeled spirits like the Hilmer F Clint or Georgiana
00:47:02
Houghton and Emma Kuntz. I wanted to include other things
00:47:06
as well that made-up to me represented listen.
00:47:10
Yeah, I'm so happy you say that because that was going to be 1
00:47:13
the focus of one of my questions, because I reread and
00:47:16
read leaf and leaf through again the chapter on ether because I
00:47:23
find it the most moving 1. And I'm really interested in the
00:47:28
fact that the first full blown page image is Paul Clay's Dawns
00:47:35
of the Moth. I was so surprised the first
00:47:39
time I saw it. I thought, oh, why, why is this
00:47:42
painting here? And then, as you said before,
00:47:45
you go back and you think, ha, OK.
00:47:49
And I find it really moving this chapter because ether represents
00:47:54
at the end of the day and as far as I've gone in the book,
00:47:57
because as you say, this book will accompany you and all your
00:48:00
other books through your life. It for me, it's represents the
00:48:08
obsessive, almost hubris like drive to know the universe and
00:48:15
to look for answers and to look for a primordial thing that
00:48:21
links everything together, like a sort of ectoplasm that comes
00:48:25
from the ears of people. Because in the other elements
00:48:29
there's this really annoying thing of antiquity, which is
00:48:33
always the hierarchy. Which one is the best one?
00:48:36
Which one is the creative one? This is the way.
00:48:39
Of bursting through that and transcending that, yes.
00:48:42
But transcending hierarchy and transcending fixed.
00:48:45
Transcending a fixed system, yes.
00:48:48
Exactly. And it's absolutely difficult to
00:48:51
tell what it is. And your attempt to illustrate
00:48:55
it and give us several answers in correspondence to the
00:48:59
introductory texts that kind of gives a sort of overview of the
00:49:03
different approaches to this notion is really, really
00:49:07
incredible. And it's so inspiring.
00:49:10
It's really absolutely remarkable.
00:49:13
Like you have Paul Clay and Max, and but then you have real
00:49:18
images, scientific images. There were things like the.
00:49:21
The Russian Bone music, it's an X-ray that has been transformed
00:49:26
into a record, a vinyl or not vinyl because it's a long X-ray.
00:49:31
And this was I I found out about these completely by accident.
00:49:36
Somebody interviewed me, Uncle Stephen Coates, who does a
00:49:40
programme on Soho radio, and he interviewed me about
00:49:44
underworlds. And then we've started talking
00:49:47
about general things and he we mentioned these and he has a
00:49:50
whole website full of them. What these are, what, what these
00:49:53
are, are these are artefacts from Stalinist Russia.
00:49:58
And then sort of slightly later Khrushchev and conceded when
00:50:04
Western popular culture was prescribed and considered and,
00:50:08
and was banned basically in in the Soviet Union.
00:50:11
And so there was a huge underground scene where people
00:50:15
would smuggle records into into into Russia and throughout
00:50:22
Eastern Europe post post Second World War in particular, there
00:50:28
was a huge appetite for jazz, particularly sort of modernist
00:50:32
bebop jazz post Second World War.
00:50:35
And it, this was, this was a mark of rebellion.
00:50:38
So there would, there would be this underground where people
00:50:40
would smuggle records in and they would be distributed widely
00:50:45
and people would, would, would, they'd have underground clubs.
00:50:49
But if this was highly dangerous, particularly in
00:50:51
Stalin's era, for the before the Second World War, there were
00:50:56
records were smuggled in, particularly from from Europe
00:50:58
and, and the and the States. But after Second World War,
00:51:01
there was a terrible this was complicated by the fact that
00:51:06
there was a complete shortage. There was no acetate, so people
00:51:09
could not, they worked out how to say what they they would
00:51:11
reverse engineer record. They had cutting sort of
00:51:14
underground cutting plants where they were cut, where they would
00:51:17
basically bootleg tribute them, put them in in book covers and
00:51:20
sell them and distribute them throughout the Soviet Union.
00:51:24
After the war, there was no they they couldn't get hold of
00:51:27
acetate. So there's nothing to make the
00:51:28
record from until somebody worked out that X-rays are
00:51:33
basically acetate and they, and they tested it by and they
00:51:37
tested using X-rays and cutting records on them and it worked.
00:51:43
And so there became this thriving scene where people
00:51:47
would they, they did do deals with hospitals where they would
00:51:52
get discarded X-rays and they would, or they would actually
00:51:57
break it and they would steal X-rays and then create records
00:52:02
out of them. And this, this, this lasted
00:52:07
until from, this is essentially from sort of the immediate post
00:52:11
Second World War till about 1965.
00:52:13
So the, the image that's in the book is, is basically of a it's,
00:52:18
it's an X-ray of somebody'd neck.
00:52:20
And I think it's a broken neck that has been transformed.
00:52:23
This I believe is a, is a Charlie Parker 78.
00:52:28
The fidelity is not wonderful, but it's but it's so it's so
00:52:32
sort of Peters out sort of about 1965.
00:52:36
But there are things like the early Beatles albums and Bob
00:52:38
Dylan things that are on expressed on X-ray X-rays of
00:52:42
people's sort of tumors or the fractured legs, which are
00:52:46
basically like A Hard Day's Night or with The Beatles, or
00:52:50
it's just the most extra. And they're they're kind of the
00:52:53
the the ingenuity and the human that just to just to do this is
00:52:58
just extraordinary. And some of them are just
00:53:01
incredibly beautiful artifact just to look at it's so.
00:53:04
Tragic, Yeah. At the same time, because it's
00:53:06
disease, you know, it's I'll bodies trying to bring music and
00:53:11
joy to people and arts in a, in a very authoritarian context.
00:53:16
It's it's so incredible. Do you find yourself more drawn
00:53:20
to images when they have a history behind them, or do you
00:53:26
have drawn to specific kinds of images?
00:53:29
Do you notice a pattern in in your I?
00:53:32
I don't think no, I they don't necessarily have to have.
00:53:37
They can be. They can just be a purely
00:53:38
beautiful image and just pure, just pure abstracted that maybe
00:53:42
doesn't have any. It just appeals to me on a
00:53:45
purely emotional or aesthetic level so I can.
00:53:49
Plug your Instagram account. It's quite interesting because
00:53:53
sometimes something happens. I go on Instagram and I see one
00:53:57
of your images and I see tongue in cheek reaction to, you know,
00:54:02
things that happen worldwide and.
00:54:05
An oblique relationship with the sort of commenting oblique.
00:54:08
Yeah, I do that. Yeah.
00:54:09
Most people probably don't get it, but and that's that's that's
00:54:13
that's perfectly. That's absolutely fine.
00:54:14
I don't expect, but because it it it appeals to me.
00:54:17
I do it for my own benefit primarily.
00:54:20
But I hope that people see that I'm commenting on current
00:54:24
events. Sometimes that gets me into a
00:54:25
lot of trouble, but we won't but.
00:54:27
It's, I think it brings connectivity and a sort of
00:54:32
solace because at the moment we have such a hard time talking
00:54:36
about what's going on for fear of depressing the person in
00:54:41
front of us or, you know, bringing even more sadness into
00:54:45
people's lives. So sometimes we try not to bring
00:54:48
too much, you know, these subjects that are, you know,
00:54:51
really worrying us and seeing images online that kind of hint
00:54:56
at that situation and just they make you feel less alone in this
00:55:02
collective sadness or worry or, you know, despondency that
00:55:06
sometimes you can fall into. So it, it really is, there's a,
00:55:10
a power of images that I think, I don't know if you agree with
00:55:14
this, but sometimes I see images as if they're lying dormant and
00:55:20
someone comes and wakes the wakes them up.
00:55:22
Yes, I. I do agree with that lie to that
00:55:25
there is. There are images that may be
00:55:28
very familiar that have a different meaning and can and
00:55:32
you can and can be mined and used.
00:55:35
It's interesting. Because we're talking on the
00:55:37
very day, hopefully the last day, that Storm Dara is hitting
00:55:42
the UK. And I did notice Jeff Walls, a
00:55:45
sun gust of wind after Hokusai. And I looked at it in a
00:55:50
completely different way because I've always.
00:55:52
So this is an image of four men, the fourth of which on the far
00:55:58
left side is sort of scattering documents and papers that are
00:56:02
flying about. There's kind of a a tree that's
00:56:06
also kind of bent by the wind. And I've always focused on the
00:56:09
foreground. I've always focused on the four
00:56:11
men and today I was looking at it and I was looking at the
00:56:16
background and looking at the weird choice of background that
00:56:21
seems so much of kind of urban or near, you know, those those
00:56:30
landscapes in the outskirts of cities a fashionable.
00:56:33
Way it's liminal spaces, but also sort of wasteland.
00:56:37
It's there's something very apocalyptic about this image,
00:56:40
absolutely. And I had never seen it like
00:56:42
this. I always saw it as a sort of
00:56:44
prowess of staged photography that's supposed not to look
00:56:49
staged. And all this discourse that was
00:56:53
always surrounding Jeff Wool images for me, you know, And
00:56:58
then today I had a completely different relation to it.
00:57:01
And I focused much more on this background.
00:57:05
I mean it looks. Like a still from the movie,
00:57:10
like the road or something like that.
00:57:14
And I think it's an extraordinary part.
00:57:16
It's again, this is a very familiar image and the image
00:57:20
that people that are over the last 20 or so 30 years, I guess
00:57:24
it is natural people have been familiar with.
00:57:27
But I think it would praise constant.
00:57:30
There are depths to it that yes, as you, as you correctly pointed
00:57:35
out, and I was looking at it for not doing it, for putting
00:57:38
together like a PowerPoint presentation for talks.
00:57:41
I was comparing it to, to the actual hockey side, how he's
00:57:45
really clever way that he references it and, and, and
00:57:49
subverts it. But also as I found a lot of the
00:57:52
preparatory work and all that because it was a product of it's
00:57:55
basically Connor's product of a couple of years work and
00:57:58
planning and just some of his preparatory.
00:58:02
He apparently worked and sketches and basically collage
00:58:07
is putting things together to see individual small photocasts
00:58:11
to create, to create what is basically a large.
00:58:15
It's essentially a collage rather than it's just, it's just
00:58:19
extraordinary, the process that's gone into this and the
00:58:21
thought and the and I yeah, I think it's one of the most
00:58:25
powerful images of the last 50 years.
00:58:27
Yeah, it's. Incredibly powerful and like you
00:58:30
say, you know, it keeps changing and the relation to it keeps
00:58:33
changing and what's left for me? But to ask you, what would your
00:58:38
dream exhibition be? Would it be in space in the
00:58:42
museum? Would it be in a book?
00:58:44
Is it your next book? What what would your dream
00:58:47
exhibition be? A.
00:58:48
Film, a film, film or film or theatre.
00:58:53
I think that sounds hugely ambitious.
00:58:56
I would like to do and, and I'm talking to people about doing
00:59:01
actual exhibitions in galleries. So there were things, there are
00:59:04
things that that that not quite confirmed but are like 90%
00:59:09
confirmed that would be happening in the next couple of
00:59:12
years with people. My next book is hugely ambitious
00:59:20
and it's going to be slightly a different, a different format
00:59:23
and a different entirely new approach.
00:59:26
So it's getting the my next book more explicitly addresses the
00:59:31
the current state of the planet in a, in a more direct way
00:59:35
because it's it's it's the title is Ark.
00:59:38
So it's basically going to be, it's an attempt to Noah's ark in
00:59:43
book Paul, what do we want? What do we say?
00:59:46
From the living. World and my original
00:59:48
discussions Timbers and Hudson were cheap.
00:59:50
Oh why did we include everything that's too vast a subject would
00:59:53
include the products of human imagination.
00:59:56
If you start in front of include art, music, literature,
00:59:59
philosophy, science, etcetera. It'll be in multi volume series
01:00:04
of books and impossible tasks to do.
01:00:06
So I'm focusing on just on flora and fauna.
01:00:08
So it's animals and plant life. So it's living things.
01:00:12
So I want it to be a celebration and also a call to, you know, an
01:00:19
alarm call And, and my most hyperbolic, I want it to be a
01:00:24
sort of manifesto for a better planet.
01:00:26
Amazing that. Sounds absolutely incredible and
01:00:29
I can't wait for it. Thank you so much.
01:00:31
Thanks very much and hopefully we'll have a chat again for
01:00:35
about the new book in a few years.
01:00:37
When is it going to come out? All being well, Spring 2026.
01:00:44
Good luck with. This project.
01:00:45
Thank you so much, Stephen. Thank you.
01:00:47
Thanks.