'They can't code this'

Episode two of the Machine Sessions, plus other news

Hello readers. Episode two of The Machine Sessions is here, and this week it’s a conversation with artist and writer Caroline Ross. Caroline is a wild materials artist and teacher, as well as a writer and author of two books, Found and Ground and Drawn from the Wild, both of which teach the reader how to make and use wild materials in art.

Caroline and I spent an enjoyable hour talking about (post)modern art, Daoism, Christianity, AI as a form of spiritual hubris, Palaeolithic cave paintings, whether tool making was the Fall, and how making brushes from swan feathers is a form of resistance to the Machine. As ever, you can watch and listen above, or on my YouTube channel.

In Other News …

In other news, the actual book has arrived in my house, and is looking funky:

All the reader offers about how to get hold of it are running until it is published next month.

My events page is also filling out. Keep an eye out for forthcoming events in Galway, Ireland, and Cambridge, England, in addition to already announced gigs at UnHerd in London, Blackwells in Oxford and my list of US tour dates.

Most recently added is a November weekend being organised by my friend Martin Shaw, the mythologist and writer. The Merrie Pilgrimage to Walsingham is a weekend of walks, talks, conversations, Christian wonder tales and general merriness. I’ll be in conversation with Martin about my book and other things: you can get hold of tickets for our event here. Martin writes about the weekend as a whole here.

As promised, there will also be more to this Substack over the next few months than merely book plugging, even though that is taking up a lot of my time at present. Keep your eyes peeled in the near future for more Sunday pilgrimages, wild saints and other interventions, as well as the launch of my new campaign/gripe Writers Against AI.

Blessings to you all.

Paul