Ivor Novella

The Smiths: A Novella by Michael Bracewell

Short sentences. Paragraphs averaging two sentences long. Michael Bracewell’s The Smiths has the feel of a pop single, say ‘Hand in Glove’, which Bracewell first heard on the radio in 1983. It was love at first listen…

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a month ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · Neil Scott

Short sentences. Paragraphs averaging two sentences long. Michael Bracewell’s The Smiths has the feel of a pop single, say ‘Hand in Glove’, which he first heard on the radio in 1983. It was love at first listen.

These opening seconds announced a life-changing visitation out of absolutely nowhere. Mysterious, portentous, thrilling, yet profoundly charming. A sudden gale, blood temperature, roaring down an empty street on a summer night.

Forty-three years on, the experience of hearing The Smiths inspired this curious little novella.

And it is little: a mere 17,000 words, short even for a novella. The book’s designers have reduced the line length to ensure it achieves a respectable 110 pages. But it is frustrating to read as my eyes lost their mooring in the broad margins.

Once I got used to the typesetting, the prose is superb — arch, pithy and resonant. It compels the reader to go back to the album and experience the songs with refreshed ears. And while Bracewell’s intoxicated descriptions inevitably pale next to the wounded urgency of the Smiths’ first four albums (The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow, Meat is Murder, and The Queen is Dead), I was grateful for the nudge.

At a time when Morrissey’s reputation sits somewhere between Engelbert Humperdinck and Enoch Powell, writing about The Smiths is a risk. To avoid such issues, Bracewell creates a fantasy autofiction in which he leads the actress Carole Bouquet (That Obscure Object of Desire, For Your Eyes Only) through the London of his twenties. It was a time when Bracewell was stuck working in a menial civil service job:

There was no grade of clerical officer lower than the grade I occupied, and my attitude to the job was that of an overweight ghost assigned to haunt a car park.

The Smiths were his saviour, a glimpse of a world of intelligence and glamour. The litany of icons who inhabit Morrissey’s outsider pantheon —Jean Cocteau, Oscar Wilde, Pat Phoenix, Billy Fury, Candy Darling, Shelagh Delaney — are still strangely unassimilable by the mainstream. Even as queer art becomes hegemonic, such figures, like Morrissey himself, resist commodification.

Bracewell identifies Morrissey as a regional Georgian poet transposed to ‘hinterland estates, dank subways, bank holiday fairgrounds and soot-blackened tombstones, engineering brick and wet precincts.’ How bracing! It is difficult not to be nostalgic for what has been lost, however grim it was at the time.

But this is not a melancholy book. By the end, Bracewell is recalling ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ and asking, “How could something so funny be so sad?” And just like The Smiths’ music, this book is both.

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The Smiths: A Novella
by Michael Bracewell
128 pp., £14.99, June 2026, ISBN 978 1 399 63860 9
White Rabbit Books,

Here is a playlist I created of songs mentioned in the novella.

10. If I Had Four Dromedaries (Chris Marker, 1966)

One of my dreams is to make a film composed entirely of still images. Chris Marker—best known for La Jeteé, the short, still-image movie that inspired 12 Monkeys—provides the perfect template here.

9. Game (John Minton, 2025)

Thrilling high-concept rave-era drama about a guy who has been in a car crash and is then taunted by a poacher (Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods) in a wood. Produced and soundtracked by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow for a measly £250k, it deserves to be picked up for proper release.

8. The Mahabharata (Peter Brook, 1989)

We watched this epic in a hip Neapolitan cinema after a long day of travelling. My wife, , is a Sanskrit scholar and knows the mythological background. I was just happy to enjoy hearing the stories told for the first time.

7. I am not your negro (Raoul Peck, 2016)

Remarkable biopic of a remarkable man. James Baldwin is the Quentin Crisp of black men: witty, dandiacal, waspish, cultured. I also enjoyed watching some of Peck’s other films, The Young Karl Marx and Ernest Cole: Lost and Found.

6. Barcelona (Whit Stillman, 1994)

A few months ago, I saw Whit Stillman in person at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh and enjoyed the muddy 35mm screening of his debut movie, Metropolitan, but we had more fun watching Barcelona. Wonderfully witty.

5. Frankenstein (Guillermo Del Toro, 2025)

Low expectations always help. And I enjoyed this baroque movie set partly in Edinburgh. Begins ludicrously, but develops into something quite enchanting.

4. I Know Where I’m Going (Powell and Pressburger, 1945)

A year without Powell and Pressburger would be sad indeed. This fantasy romance was the most charming film I saw in 2025.

3. The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)

One of the most thrilling films I’ve seen for a long time. It is politically incorrect, grubby, wayward—everything that the AI aesthetic of our era is incapable of being.

2. All the President’s Men (Alan J Pakula, 1976)

With the death of Robert Redford, we looked for a film to honour him by watching. This seemed the obvious choice, especially as it is the third in Pakula’s peerless conspiracy trilogy (the others are Klute and The Parallax View). It is the most consistently brilliant of the three.

1. Shifty (Adam Curtis, 2025)

My wife tells me that this is not a film but television. However, I think we would better appreciate TV if we saw shows as unbearably long movies. Awesome footage, bonkers narrative. Lots to chew on, lots to ponder. The overall message, that the current politicians are lost and that change is coming, is strong.

Despite the year having 27 days left to go, we have collectively decided that December doesn’t count.1 It’s Spotify Unwrapped season, and friends on Instagram have been either sharing why Spotify is evil or their favourite tracks.

Thankfully, I don’t need to worry about alienating either side because my streaming tastes are far too embarrassing to be divulged. Instead, I have curated a list of interesting tracks that represent my year. Enjoy!

✡️ January

January is a good time for getting cosy and watching movies. I was underwhelmed by Nosferatu and The Brutalist in the cinema, but had a good time watching Heretic at home. I particularly enjoyed the mini-TED talk that Hugh Grant gives comparing religions to songs and kept coming back to The Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe, which is the template—the Judaism—for Radiohead’s Creep (Christianity) and Lana Del Ray’s Get Free (Islam).

👨‍🎤 February

I visited London in February for the first time in years and had a great time seeing it with fresh eyes. It allowed me to be a tourist and do things like visit the place where the cover of Ziggy Stardust was shot. My favourite song on the album is still the first song.

🎻 March

Tindersticks came to Glasgow in March and delivered a sublime set of melancholy songs.

💋 April

Ahead of seeing talk about John Lennon and Paul McCartney (check out his playlist), I revisited The Beatles for an entire month. Here is a demo, included by Leslie, that led to the band being rejected by Decca.

📺 May

A new Adam Curtis documentary is always a treat, not least for the soundtrack, and Shifty was a brilliant return to form. Here is a classic theme tune to an old TV show (Vendetta) and Curtis’s The Mayfair Set.

💄 June

I didn’t see Oasis in 2025, but I did catch Morrissey and Pulp. While Morrissey’s songs are still great, and it was incredible to hear How Soon is Now live, the atmosphere at the gig was less fun. Both Pulp’s fans and set were exuberant.

🏛️ July

I have been listening to more classical music this year and particularly enjoyed a playlist that a fan made for Lindyman.

🎤 August

I generally prefer audiobooks to podcasts, which are too ephemeral, too slapdash. This year, I particularly enjoyed by Tiffany Jenkins. Alas, Spotify only gives users 15 hours of audiobooks a month. When this happens, you can listen to albums of stand-up comedy. There’s a lot of Stewart Lee and Norm MacDonald on there.

🍝 September

Unfortunately, I missed ’s Charles Mingus listening session during Govanhill Festival, but did greatly enjoy listening to the album itself.

🦒 October

My interest in Geoff Dyer led to me to see him in Edinburgh back in June. His new book is good on bands like Hawkwind, but it is his avant-garde improvised jazz recommendations that I enjoyed most. The Necks’ new triple album, Disquiet, is mesmerising.

🚘 November

One of my favourite genres of music is what we might call Ballardian driving music. I didn’t drive much in 2025, but when I did I listened to this Atrocity Exhibition playlist, which includes interviews with James Dean, speeches by JFK, recordings of Freud, and music by people like Steve Reich:

🐦‍⬛ December

The month has barely begun. Who knows what we’ll discover in the next few weeks? But I did have a great time watching Game (John Minton, 2025), a new film set in the rave era produced by Geoff Barrow from Portishead and starring Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods.

🎧 Bonus

One of the few podcasts that I regularly listen to is and I was thrilled to be a guest last week:

Strange Exiles

Episode 43: Neil Scott - Unaltered Images

My guest is Neil Scott, a photographer, writer and designer who has written for The Glasgow Bell, Recessed Space, OutsideLeft, and Crumble Magazine among other places…

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4 months ago · 3 likes · Bram E. Gieben and Neil Scott

Day One

This time we chose to go south. We had forgotten that the south is where madness lives. Things ‘go south’. But what some call madness for others is an opening of the eyes, a broadening of horizons, an evolution of sorts.

It does not feel like that at the beginning, however, as this evolution is full of subterfuge; the locals jumping queues with a cunning and bravado we do not possess. We are not receptive to it. We call it out. So far, we are winning. But are we winning?

When we arrived, tired and disoriented, we sought our habitual north, in tastes, actions, schedules, but we were thrown in at the deep end. No north was available, or if it was, it was only in appearance, to lure us in. When we look closely, we discover Macclesfield was Lombardy. The tears kept appearing in the fabric of reality.

South is where paintings come to life, perhaps as a side effect of the humid heat. What should be static and 2D is animated. A dog asks for a drink, erect and full of elegance, already more stylish than we are, worn out by trying to have our way.

We talk about bon vivants, a little surprised by the number of them around us. We are not part of that crowd. We would like to be, but we lack something essential which we have not figured out. We are seekers of something else. Cheap and cheerful, you said. At least we are cheerful.

Day Two

Overwhelmed, we left again as soon as we arrived, by sea this time, to a little paradise. We returned in the evening, ready to give the city another go. Within reason.

We sheltered in splendour (Northern, Milanese splendour) as we were still considering how to make ourselves bon vivants. It was the wrong step, or at least a step in the wrong direction, because all it achieved was to single us out as tourists, a label that is sticking to us like clingfilm.

But it is nothing a few negronis cannot cure. I love the holy trinity of this cocktail: 1/3 gin, 1/3 vermouth, 1/3 Campari. Father, son, holy spirit. In a wide glass where my nose does not get stuck.

You crafted a detour for us to see a romantic sunset.1 Boy, it was romantic! To witness the death of a day in a city where death is so present was a magical act of worship. All the elements were present, and helped us with closure and celebration as we left the shore arm in arm.

As we walk, I notice that this city is one of deep contrasts. One minute, we are in the cool Spanish quarter, with the youth; in the next street, I am judged by shoppers for my messy sea salt-laden hair. I like contrasts. They give me freedom to choose.

‘Do you feel you are in Naples yet?’ You asked me 24 hours ago. I could not say I did. Something in me was resistant to opening up to the unknown, needing instead to rest in comfort. But now, in this grandiose arcade, I appear to have arrived.

Day Three

It started in a promising way, with a walk through Sanitá, a town forever changed by a bridge, and five friends who wanted to create a thriving community. I liked the place; it reminded me of other cities in other, long-gone times. These are cities I miss.

The shadows from purgatory, with their squiggly flame, accompanied us all day since we made their acquaintance in the catacombs. We saw the inside of their skulls and some Dominican frescoes displaying dubious anatomy lessons.

Maybe we did not ask the souls the right questions, for they were insistent and did not allow us to get on with our day. Nothing was straightforward since the morning. We went south, trusting the goddess serendipity, but the jester souls kept tripping us. The Royal Palace gardens are closed on a Tuesday, even after all we did to get there. We should have checked, but ChatGPT is overenthusiastic about the schedule and does not collect the basics. We had a perfectly devised plan with no garden on a Tuesday. It could never work out. We ended in a ghost town; the souls were clear they would be heard. I felt as if we were Dante and Virgil, roaming an uncertain landscape, in the midday heat of hell.

At lunch, I ordered, unbeknownst to me, a pasta dish without pasta, with shrimp that were squid and zucchini flowers without flowers. This was meant to be a good restaurant. One of those where you don’t throw napkins away, but you wash them instead. Still, it was tasty and elegantly served.

We were not allowed to leave the town until we did penance, so we took refuge in a station cafe. It feels we are getting more and more away from bon vivancy, practically and conceptually. A bon vivant allows themselves to be done to. We seem to want to do all the work ourselves, straining beyond our means. It takes a while to let go. Knees hurt. We administer negronis.

Day Four

This is what the volcano told us, as we looked into the crater of Vesuvius: ‘Every cause has an effect’. It is a concave space of porous rock, and we are both disappointed that there is no magma. Is it even alive? The warning ‘There will be eruptions in the future’ surprisingly seems to calm us. Living under this threat is the equivalent of meditating as if your hair were on fire. It works to focus the mind. We get excited by the rising heat and the sight of a bar at the top. My beer never tasted better. Maybe sulphur is an enhancer.

We needed the respite, the views and the perspectives as the day started in a shaky way: a train over ten times more expensive than it should have been, an impossible schedule, and the feeling of wanting to give up. I am glad we recovered, and the purgatory ghosts left us alone. The volcano must have reminded them of hell.

I finally have my lunch of pasta with shrimp, the one I should have had yesterday, in the unpretentious cafe next to the station. The guy is genuinely happy to see us again after our pre-climb morning expressos. The dish is excellent, but he runs out of tiramisu. Every single table, regardless of nationality, is disappointed. It must have been one hell of a dessert, as it is barely 1.30pm.

Having started with the cause, we go on to the effect: the remains of Herculaneum. We imagine what it would have been like to live and to die here, among the skylights, the frescoes, the walled gardens, the pools, the lava. It is beautiful, as well as impressive, that they trust us to guide ourselves through time and space. We are free to roam.

On our way back, we return to a German bar already visited. They know how to keep the beer cool and the olives, which we have to beg for, and we do – they are spectacular, so it allows us to put up with the sulky waitress. What is the dividing line between efficient and resentful? I cannot tell. There is not a lot of super-legitimacy here, but I must admit that people are beautiful, especially the bin men.

Day Five

This is not the whole picture. Just out of frame is the bewildered face of an old woman. This woman was not, as we thought, his grandmother but a woman who had collapsed in the cloisters of a Sorrento monastery. The boy ran to his father for help, and we ran towards her. She is fine now, just went out without a hat or water. 

Earlier, we saw a vigorous shouting match on the train. Later, we will see supermarket security kicking a man in the kidneys as the army rushed in. It is not even full moon, and Thursdays are quiet in this town, people gathering energy for the weekend.

I have the full photo of the pietà collapsing woman. You sent it to me to write, but cropped it for everyone else for the sake of dignity. At that time, we did not know she was fine. We considered what it would mean if she weren’t, if we had just witnessed THE life-changing event. When the kicking happened outside the supermarket, you instinctively took out the camera.2 You want to be a photojournalist, to look at the events that make up life: of a person, a community, humanity, the planet.

What does it mean to look, to witness events? And to be looked at, with that image captured, held, reproduced? We did not even know what was happening. It took its time to fully form in our awareness. Looking is a reasonable way to understand, to explore and to research. But with care. Trauma is the image one cannot unsee. 

Back in Naples, the surly girl at the German bar is cheerful, and we try to work out why. 

Day Six

For everything there is a cause and an effect. Everything, absolutely everything, leaves traces. I think of traces as sketches in the world, maps that tell how to orient ourselves in our time on earth.

On our last day in Naples, we visited Pompeii to understand what happened under the volcano, and what it was like to live in 79AD, especially on that fateful 24 October when everything was swallowed by smouldering ash. Pompeii is an amazing place, worth a world-wonder label: the scale and beauty are monumental. It is better preserved than I envisaged, and I was moved by the delicate frescoes of amphoras in a black room. The theatre is impressive; the brothel, curious; each district characterful. As in Herculaneum, we are free to roam and make our story, integrating this ancient tragedy as best we can.

We have lunch in the cafe, dusty and tired from a visit that has already lasted 4 hours, and we know has some more to go. Among the endless supply of arrogant tours, I realise that, in Pompeii, the remains of the city enter into a dialogue with the traces we are leaving right at this moment. Crossing paths with the guy in the skull t-shirt, the Thespian guide making every detail dramatic, the Spanish family who don’t know where they are going … all intersect with us, the short British couple. This is also a relationship, however infinitesimal, and with every relationship we change imperceptibly.

The imprints we leave on each other, like those on the dusty vias, might be as Italian gestures in the wind, short-lived, the residue minimal. Others are like marks on lava stone, more permanent. Some, like the traces you leave in me, my love, are like our names etched in granite, impossible to erase. Conscious of how I interact, I want to do it well: I smile with mouth and eyes, I let people pass in front of me. If Vesuvius erupted right now, what would they find?

We left the best till last as we exited through the Villa of Mysteries to go to Vomero, chasing some of the Elena Ferrante feeling. Her books are what brought me here. In the fresco, a Dionysian initiation rite is explained with some of my favourite words: transfiguration into an imaginary.

Day Seven

I think of the Neapolitan character as we are in Rome for one day, and I am afforded perspective. Here in the capital, they have heavenly-tasting frizzante water on tap, and an elderly woman comes with a shopping trolley of empty bottles to fill them up, forming a bewildered queue behind her.3

Rome is a city that has a country inside. In the Vatican, we fulfil a lifelong dream of seeing the Sistine Chapel, but surprisingly, I am more in awe of Raphael’s School of Athens, the Matisse room and the little Morandi paintings, which echo the amphoras of Pompeii. Morandi is one of those underrated artists who I think should be better loved.

To get us in a longing mood, as we leave for Scotland tomorrow, we visited two of the flats Muriel Spark lived in in this eternal city. One was in Piazza di Tor Sanguigna. The other, ‘in a little street between Piazza Farnese, where Michelangelo added a floor to what is now the French Embassy, and the great Campo dei Fiori’. Did she conceive here her transfiguration of the commonplace? We sit in Piazza Navona, where she hung out. I try to see her among the fountains, to celebrate Camilla’s message: Edinburgh will finally have a statue to her.

So, the Neapolitan character … Elena Ferrante got it right. It is a city of contrasts, of hard work living under a volcano, not easy, not spacious, not transparent, run down and tatty. But in its cunning, in trying to get the most out of the tourists, which straight-up-and-down Rome does not overtly do, there is charm. I see myself here more than in Rome, too grand and too religious for me.

Back south, the German giant mixes me a last Negroni. Surly is nowhere to be seen. When Napoli score a goal against Cagliari in the 95th minute, everyone hugs.

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I love being among people who are revelling in the moment.

All too often, we find ourselves scrolling on the phone, numb to the world. However, if you’ve spent all day drinking, you tend to get lost in emotion. These guys looked like they were fresh from a Renaissance painting.

Earlier in the day, I walked past the supporters waiting for the game at Celtic Park to finish and the party to get started.

There was a group of photographers standing by, hoping for things to kick off. Alas, I needed to get across town for a talk by Michael Clark.1

By the time I got back in town, I assumed it would all be over. This guy was still in the spirit of things.

It was fairly quiet and there were hardly any flares. Also, I only had 3% battery left on my phone so had to be efficient.

But when I saw this guy wearing a green mask I remembered why I love these occasions. He reminded me of something from Diane Arbus or Peter Hujar.

There were teenagers climbing the Mercat Cross like medieval soldiers in a siege.

There were even a few pyrotechnic flares.

I am slightly reluctant to post this photo of young couples finding love among the celebrations and hope they don’t mind. It certainly captures something of the romance of the moment.

Alas, with all the smashed bottles there were some injuries. I think this guy got cut by the glass.

Another guy got stretchered away by the paramedics in green.

By the end of the day, Glasgow Cross was a mess …

… but some fans did bring black plastic sacks to pick up the rubbish.

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It felt more subdued than last year’s celebrations. That time I saw Simon Murphy. He was there earlier in the day and did a great photo essay for Lower Block.

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Clark himself was not averse to using football tropes.

On 27 March, the filmmakers put on a night of music and art to raise money. Tickets were relatively pricey, but Beck Slack had a guestlist place for someone who was willing to document his set. Here are my photos.

The Audience

On 25 March 2025, Josh Wirz spent an hour lying in a river. He was wearing a wet suit and was attached to a structure that relayed a video feed while, at the same time, David Hicks (standing in for Berger who was ill) pretended to be a news journalist reporting on the event from the bridge above.

Here is how Berger Wirz describe the performance:

We started with the idea of a figure floating in water, filmed from above by a rig-mounted camera, live-projecting the image onto the floor of a public space—making it feel like the space itself was flooded, its inhabitants trapped in water. A bleak vision of the future.

The gap between these moments—the event vs. the media's broadcasting of the event—is the focus of this work, and through it, we hope to open up a conversation about media representation, climate reporting, and how we understand the local impact of global issues.

The main interest for me was the reaction of the crowd. These rubberneckers were fascinated by the idea that a tragedy was taken place. However, they seemed only mildly disappointed when they were told it was an art event.

Here are some photos I took at the performance.

Back in February 2025, I was commissioned by The Bell to interview Laura Carreira and write about her debut, On Falling, a film about the alienating effects of working in an Amazon-style warehouse.

The article turned out well—thanks to the astute editorial suggestions of and —but much of our conversation was left on the cutting-room floor.

Since then, On Falling was awarded Best Feature Film by BAFTA Scotland, and Carreira was named the ‘Hottest’ person in Scottish culture by The List magazine.

Here is an edited transcript of my press junket Zoom interview.

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Neil Scott: Hello. Where are you?

Laura Carreira: In Glasgow … on Wellington Street, I think. I can’t see much out of the window.

I mention the location because On Falling is largely shot in and around Glasgow, right?

Yes, a lot of the crew was based in Glasgow, so it made sense for us to establish our base in Glasgow. A lot of the interiors we shot in Glasgow and the warehouses were throughout the Central Belt.

But the protagonist, Aurora (Joana Santos), lives in Edinburgh …

I decided to shoot the exteriors in Edinburgh because I felt like Edinburgh was the place she would be. I guess that was from my own experience. (I moved to Edinburgh 12 years ago.) The only time I lived in Glasgow was during the making of the film.

And, of course, because so much of the film is about her separation from the city, we don’t really know which city it is, because we only see her travelling to work at night.

I was wondering if you see any differences between Glasgow and Edinburgh? Do you know that line about how you have more fun at a Glasgow funeral than you do at an Edinburgh wedding?

I never heard that. I know people from Glasgow, and I think they’re very funny, but I know people from Edinburgh, and they’re also very funny. From an outsider’s perspective, I don’t see the differences as much.

In Portugal, we have a similar thing with Lisbon and Porto. I was born in Porto, but spent my teen years in Lisbon. I like both cities, and I think it’s the same with Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Everyone in the film seems to be joylessly scrolling on the phone. What do you think about this type of alienation beyond the alienation the protagonist gets from working in an Amazon-style warehouse?

A big part of the film was showing phone usage as a symptom of something else. I tried not to point the finger at Aurora and blame her for phone usage, but it shows a longing for something. The phone, to Aurora, is working as a social support. Whenever she’s alone, she goes back to being on the phone. It is her best friend. And, when it breaks, she’s going to try everything to fix it.

Doomscrolling can be an empty experience, but you do get occasional jolts of pleasure. I just went on your Instagram, and there was someone saying, “On Falling is a social drama masterpiece. Impressive, oppressive.” How do you feel when you get feedback like that?

That’s obviously great. I use mine a lot to promote the film. But it’s definitely a creation. You’re creating your life as you want it to be perceived by others. The sounds from the videos that Aurora is scrolling through were important in understanding what the algorithm thinks are her needs.

During the 1968 student protests in France, they had this graffiti, “Underneath the paving stones, the beach!” It was this idea that, below our boring everyday lives, there is potential for liberation. But I feel like today we have the opposite problem: we have all the surface pleasure, and below it is a layer of oppression. How can we achieve liberation now?

In the film, I wanted to look at these topics of work, poverty and self-blame in a different way. There’s a narrative that, if you’re experiencing poverty, it is because of how you spent your money. Or, if you’re experiencing anxiety or depression, you should go for a walk or get therapy. There’s this pressure on the individual to blame themselves for what they’re going through and to find the solutions.

There’s a lot of hope in creating films that are compassionate. That’s my contribution, and I’ll continue contributing to what you call our liberation. There’s enormous potential in how we could live. If the system were to stop, we’d find much better ways of living.

There is a strikingly cold palette to the film. I was wondering if you could speak about your visual approach.

We wanted to show the reality of each space. We were not constructing anything. With the flat, it had to be a beige flat, because all the rented rooms I lived in had this beige colour.

Then, the choices we made were related to the theme of isolation: how can we portray loneliness? What would it look like? For me, the first image was a painting by [Edward] Hopper, of the character alone. And that didn’t feel like the right framing.

So we went the opposite direction and placed the camera much closer to her. That to me felt like the right frame to show loneliness and always keeping almost the same perspective. The camera has the same routines as Aurora and is constantly seeing Aurora in the same way. It’s not very welcoming of others into the frame.

When I saw the fish and chips shop scene, with all the hen parties and drunkenness, it made me curious about cultural differences. One thing I know about Portugal is that they have this untranslatable word ‘saudade’, which means a feeling of loss and longing. I wonder if Aurora’s isolation is a particularly Portuguese alienation?

We’ve been screening the film in many different countries, and the positive way in which people are relating to the film tells me that these feelings of alienation and longing for something else are pretty universal.

It’s a hard one for me because I am Portuguese, but I have lived my entire adult life in Scotland. In five years, I will have lived longer in Scotland than in Portugal. Both countries are home in different ways.

The film feels very relevant and contemporary, but at the same time, there is an element of nostalgia with the flatshare of Polish, Spanish and Portuguese people. It feels slightly pre-Brexit in a way. What did Brexit mean to you?

It was a pretty strange time to be in the UK, as a European migrant, with the anti-European sentiment. At the same time, I remember how kind the Scottish people were to me at that time. They were, if anything, apologising for what was happening.

In my first few years in Scotland, I mainly worked with other migrants and shared flats with other migrants. I remember questioning that, thinking, “Oh, I just seem, I don’t seem to interact with a lot of Scottish people.” That was definitely something that I wanted to bring to the film.

One of the movies I was thinking about when watching On Falling is the greatest film of all time, according to the BFI poll, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. What does that film mean to you?

Watching that film created an impression on me. It shows the day-to-day, mundane details in such a beautiful, microscopic way. It opened doors for filmmakers today to explore themes in a different way, to keep searching for other ways of looking at alienation, which is so often avoided.

The other film I thought about was Nomadland. After she won the Oscar with that, Chloé Zhao went on to make a Marvel superhero film. So, I’m curious, what Marvel superhero film would you like to make next once this film takes off?

It’s not on my plans, if I’m honest. I want to keep making films about work. Films I can stand by. There’s a space for everything. Of course, there are going to be entertaining and escapist films, and I’m glad they exist, but it’s good not to escape all the time.

Thank you, Laura.

On Falling is available in the UK on the BFI player.

Read more about Laura Carreira on her website.

Neil Scott: The 70s and 80s seem like a tremendously exciting period to be working. Where do you think that energy came from?

James Mackay: It came from the fact that London was full of squats and interesting spaces, and it didn't cost very much to live there. Artists could survive quite easily without having to rely on the art market to sell their work. There was also more state support for artists, which is lacking now. There was not vast amounts of money, but just enough money to go from project to project. I think there was also less bureaucracy.

The people who were in charge of state funding—the Arts Council, BFI, and whoever else—were listening more. So if you were looking for money, they would call you in to discuss the project. Now it's all blind. You have to send in a proposal for something that they're looking for. It's all the wrong way around. And, of course, the bureaucrats outnumber the artists. It's almost like it's a privilege to be asked to make work for them. Whereas, really, it's a privilege for them to be in a position to assist artists. I always felt privileged to work with Derek.

How did the commissioning process work in the 70s and 80s?

The first thing they would do is look at the work you'd already done, then talk to you about what you wanted to do, and, if that went well, you would propose the project. Now, it starts having to “answer the call” and provide something that fits into what they want. That is not how art is made.

Did you go to the Duggie Fields show at The Modern Institute? There’s this extraordinary archive of him going out clubbing and being a part of this scene…

Duggie worked very hard. There was a social aspect, but there always has been the art. There has always been a kind of social aspect to artists’ lives.

It was like his life and art were united—there was a total aesthetic vision—especially when it came to going out and dressing up. We don't seem to have that as much now.

No … of course, you have Grayson Perry, but I find that slightly risible.

Yes, that's not quite the same thing. Maybe because it's not collaborative; it’s not generative.

So you’re thinking of people like William Blake whose lives and artwork are totally intertwined? Yes, Derek's was. That's what he did. He lived for art. He started gardening when he was seven when somebody gave him a book called Beautiful Flowers and How to Grow Them.

His father and grandfather were filmmakers though he didn't pick up a camera until 1971. He started painting at a very early age and he was a very accomplished painter, even before he went to art school. So he was an artist all his life, that's what he did. He didn't really do anything else. And he was a very brilliant man. I mean, he got a double first from King's College. So he had an incredibly sophisticated mind. Although he didn't thrust it at you. He was very open. Easy to talk to. He didn't talk down to people.

I think of his garden as an accessible way into the Derek Jarman world. When you go back through the films, they are highbrow and engage with high culture. Wittgenstiein, calling works Et in Arcadia Est … doing a whole film in Latin.

That's true. The Sebastiane film is totally in Latin. Kind of pidgin Latin, but Latin. It's not like you need to be able to understand Latin to understand the film. When Derek was at the Slade, the painting school was a bit macho for him. He found refuge in the theatre design department, which was more gay-friendly. And you can look at his whole career as a theatre designer from Jazz Calendar, all the way through to The Devils for Ken Russell. Dungeness [Prospect Cottage] is a magnificent piece of set design.

Thank you, James.

Read more about Derek Jarman:

Neil Scott: In this new Derek Jarman show, archival materials (polaroid photos, drinking glasses, diaries) feel as important as the paintings. What do archives mean to you as an artist?

Luke Fowler: An archive is a repository of memory: the stuff of your life, the material artefacts you decide to keep. When does a collection become an archive? Is it when you're dead that it becomes an archive? Or is it when you're canonised? I'm interested in the margin between official and unofficial archives and what constitutes an archive. Does somebody who collects plastic bags have an archive? I'd argue that they do, but it's often only when it becomes enshrined in a museum that becomes “an archive.”

Did you go to the recent Duggie Fields show at The Modern Institute? Whatever you think of his paintings, his archives show that he had this total aesthetic vision of his life. Everything is part of the work. What do you think of this idea of living? Is everything art or is there a cutoff point?

The mundanity of making a living is the cutoff point. Maybe I'm romanticising it, but there was a time when it was easier to survive as an artist when you didn't have to prostitute yourself. Or maybe people like Andy Warhol were always prostituting themselves and had that Gesamtkunstwerk of The Factory. The commodification of art is obviously something that's been slowly creeping in since pop art with this model of art as an industry which so many contemporary artists have taken up.

For me, the divide between art and life is just getting the kid off to school, making his sandwiches and telling him to clean up his room. I wish I could do that in a more artistic way … When he was in the pram I would have a camera with me but it was before he had agency, before he could moan at me saying “Where are we going? What are we doing?” And me saying: “Oh, I just want to go to this derelict site on the east end of Glasgow to take a photograph of a Greek sculpture that's been left in a field.”

What draws you to Derek Jarman?

It’s his spirit of collaboration and how he brought people together. You can see his aura through the people he worked with. I’ve had the fortune of working with a close friend of mine, Cerith Wyn Evans, who also collaborated with Derek Jarman. I've also got to know James Mackay, his producer, pretty well over the years. Derek was very close to Coil, and my film includes music by Drew McDowell, who was in Coil. I also hung out with Tilda Swinton a little bit when we made this collaboration for Pringle together. So I think the legacy of Derek comes through the people that he touched.

One of the reasons the late-70s and early-80s are so potent is because there was this brief, pre-AIDS, moment of extreme freedom in terms of sexuality, combined with this strong political resistance to things like Section 28. Where is tension now? You still get the occasional reactionary headline, but their hearts are not really in it.

Yeah, you can see this when you read Modern Nature [Derek Jarman’s journals] and he's talking about people being upset by the scandal of two gay men in bed together. But there was also resistance from some of the art students. They were saying “Oh, it's very risky, but is it art?”

It was done as part of the National Review of Live Art. I always think fine art people are a bit dismissive of performance art.

Yeah, some of them are … and then obviously there are people who go to the art school and do performance art, so you can't just characterise them one way. I would go to durational performances from an early age from people who were really into Hermann Nitsch, Ron Athey and people like that. I was brought up on that stuff so I had no aversion to it. It's cool to like Cosey Fanni Tutti's work. But you wonder whether they would go to the equivalent of that now. It is fine when it's a safe black-and-white photograph of people naked, rubbing themselves in shapes and textures. But would you go to that now?

Do you have a favourite of Jarman’s Super-8 films?

I love Sloane Square, Studio Bankside, and Journey to Avebury. Those are my top three.

What do you like about these?

Just the editing. The way that he used his surroundings and the people that he had around him, which he curated into these beautiful movies. He’ll have one nice image, followed by a good image, followed by a good image, and then just cut out all the bad ones, just pile them on top of each other … and there you have your film.

Weren't you filming at Hot Mess [a queer club] recently?

Yeah, I was doing some filming for Alex Hetherington's new film, which is a portrait of Simon [Eilbeck], the deaf DJ who runs Hot Mess.

And how was that as an experience?

It was cool. Everyone was really welcoming and flattered to be photographed. They felt a bit left out if they weren't included, which is the complete opposite of the straight world where everyone’s self-conscious and a bit like "Why are you taking my photograph?"

Did it feel decadent?

I was impressed at how fabulous the outfits were, like people dressed up in costumes made from jockstraps ...

How many jockstraps did they need?

I think it was about five.

Five! Thank you, Luke.

Luke Fowler’s short film about Prospect Cottage can be seen at Digging in Another Time: Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature at Hunterian Art Gallery until 4 May 2025.

Read more about Derek Jarman:

Top Ten Films of 2024

• Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, 2024)

• The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger, 1948)

• Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)

• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, 2023)

• Tish (Paul Sng, 2023)

• La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, 2023)

• The High Frontier (John Butler, 2024)

• The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)

• The Apprentice (Ali Abassi, 2024)

• The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020)

Top Ten Books of 2024

• Phantom Limb by Chris Kohler

• Middlemarch George Eliot

• Unmastered: A Book on Desire Most Difficult to Tell by Katherine Angel

• The Ordeal of Civility by John Murray Cuddihy

• Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer

• Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

• Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

• Social Sculpture by Sarah Lowndes

• Killing for Show: Photography, War, and the Media in Vietnam and Iraq by Julian Stallabrass

• The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe

Last Saturday, my friend Neil Bromwich (who, with Zoe Walker, has a big show opening at Talbot Rice Gallery in 2025) asked me for my top events of the year. So here, in no particular order, are the artistic encounters that stuck in my memory.

Human Chess — Jonny Keen

I hadn’t intended to take part in this performance by the river Clyde but they were short of "pieces". The idea was that 32 people would be living chess pieces moved by players with occasional misdirections by the artist. It was fun. GSA sculpture student Jonny Keen orchestrated a powerfully immersive work, raising questions about agency and submission to higher powers. I hope it is restaged soon to see how it changes in a different context.

Death and Life — Gustav Klimt

My trip to Vienna was rather frenetic, stimulated by the stupid tourist pass I bought. However, this painting by Klimt stopped me dead. Familiar to me from it being on the cover of a book on modernism, it embodies my midlife crisis.

Before Behind Between Above Below — Martin Boyce (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh)

This was not so much a retrospective as a reimagining of his obsessions. I saw this twice and both occasions were memorable. The first time Martin Boyce came in to rearrange the vinyl leaves that had been disturbed at the opening. The second time, a group of blind art lovers came in to enjoy the textures and descriptions of the work. There's an uncanny effect to hearing abstractions turned into words that made it even more immersive.

Give Your Thoughts and Win — Shona Macnaughton (17 April 2024, QMU)

An absurdist participatory workshop about dysfunctional academic questionnaires in which Macnaughton critiqued the neoliberal university. Ostensibly part of the launch of Hannah Proctor's book Burnout, I was totally mystified but in a way that heightened the senses.

Obstruction — Cameron Rowland (Glasgow International)

A heavy chain with a padlock prevented people from entering the Ramshorn Cemetry, home of Merchants who made their money from enslaved tobacco pickers. Like Maurizio Cattelan's The Comedian, this has a brutal simplicity that cuts through the noise of modern life. While initially I found it banal, the image stayed with me and has been the spur to investigate Glasgow's darker history.

My other highlight of GI was Lawrence Abu Hamdan's performance essay in Audio about the live translation of the Nuremberg trials.

Glasgow Show — Niall McCallum (Glasgow Project Room)

Glasgow Project Room quietly gets on with showcasing quality work every month or so. I was bowled over by Niall McCallum’s exhibition there, which itemised and moved everything he owns into the gallery and turned his flat into a white cube with TV stand sculptures and the ghost of parties past. The weight of a life lived, the sacrifice of the artist. McCallum joins Cathy Wilkes, Smith/Stewart (one of whom is from there), Francis McKee, and Neil Clements as part of a peculiarly Northern Irish perspective.

This year, they also hosted great shows by Lilian Ptáček, Andrey Chugonov, Patrick Jameson, John Nicol et al. Fascinated to see what is coming up next.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa — Benvenuto Cellini

Florence was a disappointment—no city can bear so many tourists—but Cellini's bronze in the Piazza della Signoria transcends all the vulgarity. Indeed, it spits on the selfie sticks and baseball caps with contempt. It helped that I had been reading Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae for whom Perseus represents the Apollonian male triumph over the Dionysian female nature of Medusa. Incredible statue.

Dion Kitson — The Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

When travelling by train, it is sometimes nice to get a split ticket and visit another place for an hour or so. We stopped in Birmingham and visited the Ikon Gallery for Jesse Jones's Artemisia Gentileschi show featuring the marvellous Stephanie Lamprea. The other exhibition they had was Dion Kitson's Rue Britannia, where you could play pool with brooms and see a Fontana-esque trampoline. Fun and brilliantly executed.

Brutal Glasgow — Natalie Tweedie and Rachel Loughran, Glasgow City Heritage Trust

Brutalism was a utopian dream to reshape humanity through architecture. Alas, the dream turned into a dystopian nightmare. Rachel Loughran's exhibition based on Natalie Tweedie's iconic illustrations was not a celebration nor a condemnation but a nuanced attempt to place brutalist architecture in a real-world context. Check out my brutalist tour of Glasgow and interview with Loughran.

Waiting Room — David Bellingham (Dunoon MOCA)

Alastair Noble & Kathy Bruce's grandly titled Museum of Contemporary Art in Dunoon has quickly become one of the most interesting small galleries in Scotland. Their exhibitions explore the spaces between language, art and poetry. Just as the island of Iona saved Christian texts in the Dark Ages, maybe Dunoon MOCA will save modernism.

David Bellingham's delirious collection of printed-out texts, visual puns, and conceptual jokes was a delight to experience. It was especially memorable to go to the Masonic Lodge afterwards and discuss with David what art can and should do. Thanks to Angela for inviting me along.

Two weeks ago, I visited my in-laws in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country. It is a region famous as one of the world's great food cultures. The Basques take pride in using fresh ingredients1 and simple recipes. While fast food exists, it is not typically as corporate burger joints but in the form of pintxos.

Pintxo is the Basque equivalent of tapas, the small-plate snack the Spanish use to prevent flies from getting in their drink. While many bars in Spain serve food, it took the Basques to turn this way of eating into a fine art.

This is, I suspect, due to their bar culture. In British cities, pubs are huge, anonymous places. The archetypal pub is a Wetherspoons, which accommodates hundreds of people who can even order anonymously with an app. In Basque cities, bars are small and personal. Almost everyone lives in flats, and most apartment blocks have a bar on the ground floor. Sometimes, these bars barely fit a dozen people, so locals spill onto the street to socialise before flitting to another bar.2

With so much competition, you might think innovation is inevitable, but tastes are surprisingly conservative. The standard pintxos are tortilla (Spanish omelette), jamón (ham), and the Gilda (olives, anchovy, guindilla, and oil)—all served on bread. While these are tasty and comforting, I want to try something a bit more exotic when I'm on holiday. So, I was happy to spot a poster advertising a pintxo contest in Deusto, the neighbourhood where I was staying.

A total of 17 bars were taking part. Each offered a special pintxo and a glass of wine or beer for the bargain price of €3.50.3 Once you had tried the pintxo, the bar would stamp your booklet, which you could hand in at the end to win a prize. The organisers encourage people to write down their favourite bars and pintxo.

I decided to take it seriously and imagine what it would be like to be a food critic.

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Pintxo 1: Deustoarrak

Iberian ham cheek glazed with orange on a parmentier of mushrooms and foie.

When we judge food, are we judging it against an abstract standard or just amongst the entrants? How can we judge one if we haven’t tasted the others?

This pintxo was astonishing. I would have given them the prize right then if I didn't have sixteen more to sample.

The only thing I would mark down is that it is not really a pintxo, at least not according to the traditional definition. A pintxo (which literally means “little stab”, implying the use of a cocktail stick) is something that you can eat with your hands and is quick to prepare. I waited thirty minutes for this and needed a knife and fork.

Pintxo 2: Mugarri

Octopus with pepper and paprika piperade

If people ask me about my dietary requirements, I inform them I am allergic to bivalves (mussels, cockles) and cephalopods (squid, octopus.) I won't die if I eat them but I will feel queasy and probably vomit. Nonetheless, I quite like checking every decade or so to see if it is still the case. Maybe all the kimchi and kefir I consume have changed my microbiome?

Alas, after this grim pintxo, I didn't feel great. But this was more down to how greasy and full of onion it was, I think, rather than my allergy to octopus.

Pintxo 3: Lagun Artean

Endive boats stuffed with crunchy salad

This one looked disgusting: two leaves with a salad slathered in mayonnaise. However, it tasted delicious. Low visual expectations can help, it seems.

The bar is on a street corner so got foot traffic from both directions. wrote recently about the lack of street culture in the UK, saying that it can't just be the weather which means we don't socialise outside. However, I don't see what else it could be. It was 24 degrees outside in October at 10pm. Unimaginable temperature for the UK.

Pintxo 4: Etxe Berri

Chicken salad

It occurred to me that I know at least three professional food photographers.4 Along with weddings, food photography is one of the main sources of commercial income for photographers. It is a specialised world, where PVA glue is used instead of milk to stop cereal from getting soggy. For restaurants, it is the best way to entice customers. Food photography is everywhere and, in a post-Instagram world, is coming to influence how meals and restaurants appear.

My own efforts at food photography are functional at best. A bit like this pintxo, which is a simple chicken and mayonnaise spread on bread, combined with a tomato (the symbol of Deusto) and a tortilla chip (representing the South American immigrants who made it).

Pintxo 5: Itxas Bide

Pulled pork sandwich with a touch of garlic mayonnaise and jalapeños

This is one of the only places in Deusto where you can get La Salve, the local beer, on tap. It has a slight BrewDog feel, with lots of meat and burgers. Their pulled pork sandwich was tasty but lacked much in the way of presentation.

It is worth noting that there is no translation for “pulled pork” in Spanish (or Basque). They use English, indicating a creeping Americanisation of culture.

Pintxo 6: Café de Deusto

Spring cod toast with mushroom (boletus) emulsion

Owner-operated bars are my ideal. The owners become friends and care about their clientele. But, success under capitalism inevitably leads to owners with multiple bars. Café de Deusto is owned by the same guy who owns Mugarri and Etxe Berri (see above). I worry that economies of scale might lead to corner-cutting, but this one was good. Definitely the best of the three, with seeds and flowers adding visual interest.

Pintxo 7: Madariaga 33 Etxea

Pintxo "Valle Pasiego"

This bar is located in a pedestrianised area below a big block of flats and has the best atmosphere. Patrons were spread out like on a plaza as kids played without worrying about cars.

However, I wasn’t really sure what to make of their pintxo, which was pâté on sweet toasted bread with seeds and chocolate sauce. Very weird to contrast sickly sweet with savoury meat.

Pintxo 8: Akeita Gozo

Japanese octopus dumplings with saké

Food is the great universal. Everyone in the world has to eat. What’s more, we see each culture reflected in its food, what they value and the environment they emerged from. It also provides a point of comparison.

The refinement and small size of the pintxo are comparable to Japanese sushi or gyoza, so it was nice to see Akeita Gozo experiment with a dumpling accompanied by saké. Indeed, the name of this bar Akeita Gozo looks like it could be a transliteration from Japanese, but it is Basque.

This marble-sized dish was just small enough to eat in one bite, providing a kaleidoscopic sensory experience. This was my winner.

Pintxo 9: Bordatxo Jatetxea

Crispy cheese and quince

Deusto has a main road running through the middle of it that discourages people from exploring what's on the other side. By this stage, however, we were intrepid food explorers. I’m glad we did as this was delicious: cheese wrapped in a thin layer of pastry with a dash of quince jam and a bonus slice of jamón.

Pintxo 10: Chamonix

Iberian bun with arugula, honey and mustard sauce on bao bread

In Britain, slot machine halls are seedy and desperate places. They have misted glass to hide the shame of the players. In Spain, there are basically just bars. You can get cheap drinks and watch football. I didn't see anyone gambling.

The only annoying thing is that to enter, you need to bring your passport and register for a facial recognition gate. Partly this is to ensure you're not under 18, but presumably also to prevent problem gambling.

After eventually getting in, they made me their sliced pork in a bao bun. Succulent meat, soft bun, well-seasoned, it was surprisingly delightful.

Which makes it all the more embarrassing that I think we forgot to pay. We are so used to the British way of ordering and paying at the same time, that we forgot to ask for the bill. Hopefully, the facial recognition system won't ban us from entering bars in the future.

Pintxo 11: Bar Sport

Crispy empanada of shredded beef, accompanied by a joyful sauce

I didn’t notice any prejudice against the many South Americans who have moved to Bilbao in recent years, but there is a big class divide. One of the most common sights in Deusto is a wealthy old person accompanied by a South American helper.

The question I had is whether people would give up their favourite native foods in favour of a “superior” cuisine. Would I give up roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for pintxos? Very possibly. If I was South American, I would give up this greasy empanada in a flash.

Pintxo 12: Bar Ikatz

Piquillo pepper stuffed with squid and shrimp cream, candied mushrooms, coffee foam and fried leek

One of the early signs that the effective altruist movement might be misguided was that so many of them were fans of Huel, the meal-replacement drink that efficiently satisfies your nutritional needs so that you can get on with saving lives.

For effective altruists, the attention to detail found in Bar Ikatz’s elaborate pintxo would be a waste of time and energy. But what is the point of living if you can’t experience the delight of candied mushrooms and a dash of coffee froth?

Pintxo 13: El Rincón de Arantza

Caramelized smoked sardine toast on cream cheese

I asked my father-in-law if Basque food culture had changed in the past forty years. He said it had been totally transformed. Maybe this is due to competition between venues. Maybe it is increased leisure time. But I wonder if food is the fine art of a culture which doesn’t believe it will exist in a hundred years’ time. There is no point striving for immortality when climate change or the singularity threatens to bring civilization crashing down. We need to enjoy our pleasure now … as I did with this perfectly balanced combination of fat, sugar, and salt.

Pintxo 14: Goiri Eder

Cod with orange sauce

One of the first things I learnt about the Basques is that they managed to explore the world because their salted cod enabled them to travel great distances without picking up new supplies. Bacalao, their salted cod, is still immensely popular and often features in pintxos. This one was beautifully presented, however the taste was ultimately forgettable.

Pintxo 15: Bar Presley

Prawn Torpedo with Aioli Sauce

Obesity is not as bad in Spain as in the UK, but it’s getting there. Levels of obesity increased from 7.3% in 1987 to 15.7% in 2020. Like everywhere else, unhealthy processed food has got cheaper. Rising prices mean people are moving away from olive oil towards cheaper substitutes. I didn’t enquire about what kind of oil was used in this “torpedo” or the accompanying mayonnaise. It was too tasty, though, and I could see how people might get addicted to food.

Pintxo 16: Meson Antioqueño

Potato stuffed with beef and rice, coated with corn flour

This bar had a Colombian flag outside its door, a signal to the growing community of immigrants from South and Central America that they were welcome inside. Their deep-fried cornball was pretty gross, but I can imagine it would be a comforting reminder of home.

Pintxo 17: Jolastoki

Vegetable tower with cherry tomato

The final bar, Jolastoki, was another casino with a facial recognition system. I was let in instantly, so it does work. It was also the first time I had seen anything green on a plate: a stuffed courgette with meat, cheese, and a tomato on top. It is slightly greasy and unappealing, but I was so starved of vegetables that it went down well.

If you’re ever in the area, do check out my three favourites: Akeita Gozo, Deustoarrak, and Bordatxo.

1

An abundant grocers in a working-class district.

3

In the Basque Country, you don't get measurements like Pint or Half-Pint. Instead, there is a Zurito (small glass), Caña (medium glass) and, rarely, a Jarra (large glass). These vary in size depending on the bar. In some, a caña is basically a pint. In others, it is a lot less. In Deustoarrak, for instance, the zurito was bigger than the caña simply because the glass didn’t have a stem.

History was cyclical. The Bible may have had the concept of linear time, but only in the sense of an apocalyptic endpoint. It took the scientific revolution1 to inspire our modern understanding of progress.

Suddenly, life could be transformed in a couple of decades. New inventions, new perspectives, new fashions—humanity became addicted to novelty and convenience. In the nineteenth century, standards improved exponentially for some, while declining into squalor for others. Nevertheless—and with a few revolutions along the way—the trade-offs seem worth it. Almost every metric improved: infant mortality, longevity, household income, crime rates etc.

Yet, despite all this evidence of progress, why are we not optimistic about the future? It was with this question in mind that I visited Sonica, Glasgow’s festival of art and technology.

Progressing towards what?

After 500 years of progress, some are questioning what it was all for? Does a world of junk food, digital distractions, climate change, and microplastics count as human flourishing?

This is also the question at the heart of John Butler's The Fourth Planet, a fantastic short film that imagines life in a Martian colony. Butler takes seriously the ambitions of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. He is from the generation that grew up reading SF and who dreamt of living on a Stanford Torus.

Butler identifies three possible routes for making Mars habitable for humans. The first is geo-engineering—using CO2 to change the climate, with a class of indentured workers serve an elite. This fails in the film due to the harshness of Martian weather.

The second attempt is bio-engineering, adapting humans to the climate. Alas, the adapted population get literally alienated and decide to leave for the stars.

Finally, there is psycho-engineering, where they live immersed in a virtual reality (VR) simulation of Earth that allows them to ignore misery.

Of all the options, the latter is the one that is being pushed on earth the hardest. Mark Zuckerberg has spent billions developing VR (announcing new Augmented Reality glasses this week). It is a lot easier to put a helmet on your head than to change nature or human biology.

Songs for a Passerby (dir. Celine Daemen, 2023)

I’ve still only tried VR a handful of times. Each immersion has been intense, though not necessarily an experience I wanted to repeat. Celine Daemen’s Songs for a Passerby is a surreal and emotional VR opera, where you become a character in a journey into the nature of consciousness.

Interview with Celine Daemen

After experiencing Songs for a Passerby, I had the opportunity to interview Celine Daemen.

Neil Scott: What audience reactions have you had? Have people freaked out?

Celine Daemen: We have had people who are very afraid of dogs. Because it's an intimate one-person experience in VR, it's intense and people get scared. Some people are anxious in the dark cityscape. Some people really take their time, sit down next to the horse, and really sink into the moment.

How much do you feel you've got to prod people to move forward in the story?

Not much. We mostly have to tell people to take their time.

You're from the Netherlands, which is a high-trust society. I feel like VR is a high-trust art form. You put on this headset where you can't see the real world and hope that no one is going to play a trick on you. Have there been any issues with that in different places with different cultures?

Yes. We presented it in South Korea a few weeks ago and the poetry of the piece really spoke to the culture. People there were quite delicate watchers. I expected it to not land well in the United States, but the poetry still landed well in America.

What I pick up on is the dreamlike aspect of the piece. It's interesting because we're living in an age where dreams are undervalued, perhaps more so than at any other time. We don't see them as prophecy. We don't even have the Freudian psychological view of dreams anymore. It's just the brain processing stuff. What are your feelings about dreams?

I really wanted to work with this dreamlike structure to have intuitive logic and not physical-reality logic. The piece is about the contrast between physical reality and metaphysical reality. The idea of looking at your own body is also calling into question whether I am that body or am I a mind that is looking at that body? Is that me or is this me, the thing that can reflect on itself?

The current theory of dreams is that they are a way of processing experience.

Yeah, I think it's interesting. One moment you're right beside the dying horse. Later on, you are looking over the city and you see yourself standing next to the horse. So in a sense, that is really about also in the mind, revisiting the moments that you experienced while you were right in the middle. It's giving pace to reflect on things and asking are we kind of just in the middle of life having everything directly happened to us or are we also spectators of ourselves in situations? It's like this sad emotion of life is kind of rushing by and we are just spectators looking at ourselves while that happens. That's another interesting thing about dreams is that you cannot really act.

You're just frustrated ...

… And placed outside of it. So you feel very immersed, but at the same time, outside of it.

I was in The Hague recently and went to a place called Madurodam, which is this miniature version of Holland. Is there a Dutch tradition of worlds within worlds?

I am a huge sucker for miniature worlds, but I don't know if it's a cultural thing for the Netherlands.

Holland is known as a very ordered society, right? Clean, rational, good transport ... that's the perception from the outside at least.

It's funny you look at it like that. But I don't come from Holland. I'm from the deep south of the Netherlands, which is the Catholic part, which is also the messy part. Maybe there is something about Protestants and Catholics in the piece. The cultural fascination from growing up in a Catholic environment asking questions of the embodiment and the mind and the soul.

We are the second generation that has fallen out of faith but we are still left with these questions. It's not like I am proposing answers or saying this is what you have to believe. But the piece is a kind of play space for us to go through these questions.

The Narrative (dir Ahmed El-Shaer, 2024)

There is another VR experience in the Glasgow City Chambers. With Ahmed El-Shaer’s The Narrative, rather than walk around a space, you use a joystick to control your experience. Alas, there's only one direction—forward into a pixelated, polygon world of marble and symbols. A historical narrative commentary is quietly spoken in the background.

Interview with Ahmed El-Shaer

Neil Scott: This year's Sonica has, for me, been about getting back into VR. Do you think VR is still on an upward trajectory? In ten years will it be indistinguishable from reality? Are we going full Matrix?

Ahmed El Shaer: Yeah, actually, I feel we are already in Matrix, to be honest with you. Look at what happened in Beirut from two days ago [when the pagers of Hezbollah exploded].

Do you have a vision of what the future will look like?

There will be more and more mixing between reality and the physical. With the latest headsets, you not only go into VR, you turn your physical room into VR. Day by day, it's going to this level. We now have these sensor suits where your body and movement are recorded and transferred to be simulated inside the VR library. More and more, technology is not to be part of our life but to be the life.

Do you think we're in control of technology? Or do you think the technology takes care of itself?

Until now, we are safe. Until now, it's still in the tools category. But it's becoming the controller of people's behaviour and thinking. You don't need VR to change people's way of thinking, you only need Facebook.

Do you have any predictions of what the world will look like in 20 years?

Maybe the closest idea about how the future will look is something like Ready Player One. The film is not bad, but the novel is better. The transfer of everything to be under control, controlling behaviour and way of thinking.

… And living in shipping containers?

Houses have become smaller. You don't need a lot of furniture like before because all the devices and tools you need are in one smartphone. Day by day, you don't need as much space. And most of your day will be inside virtual reality.

Melting Through the Scatters of Time (Andrey Chugunov)

Part of the appeal of Andrey Chugunov's Melting Through the Scatters of Time was that it was shown in two historic buildings that are rarely open. Once the novelty of being in the Mercat Cross and the Tolbooth Steeple had worn off, my thoughts turned to the nihilistic intensity of Chugonov's work. Like many of us, he doesn't see a rosy future ahead. History has become heavy. The seconds are counting down. The doom awaits.

Interview with Andrey Chugunov

Neil Scott: It's amazing that you got access to the Mercat Cross and Tolbooth Steeple. What was your idea for this work?

Andrey Chugunov: My idea was to reveal the process of time and histories that are hidden. A lot of people were buried in history without any notice. History is something that is shaped and perceived by us differently from different perspectives.

There's an essay by Nietzsche, where he implies we can have too much history and end up drowned in information. It certainly seems like that with the internet.

Yeah, it's too much. That's why I try to create spaces that are very isolated, secluded, and meditative. People can go and hang out for a while and see these stains of history. It's remarkable to isolate yourself and, at the same time, you can hear noises from the outside, inside. You fall out of time, but you perceive these echoes from the outside.

I tend to associate your work with a nihilist tradition. Do you think we can end up trapped in our personal world outside of the community?

In some way, yes. History is something very, very dark and our stories are like a speck of dust that we can't even see. Now I believe more in these small stories that people can tell about their perception of different events.

In Russia, and elsewhere, there is a national story that has to be told again and again.

Yeah, it's idealised. Ideology is everywhere now and I really dislike it. I'm trying to train my acceptance of everything.

Your show at Glasgow Project Room felt fairly Buddhist with rocks and stone and water. Is non-attachment the ultimate nihilism?

Yeah, I guess so. My art career started with a small ritual where I burned objects to initiate myself as an artist. I burned my passport because it's a prescribed identity that some authority put on you. I burned my credit card because it's a representation of money. In Russia, there is an idea that each male should build a house, grow a tree, and have a child. I wanted to crush this myth, this social pressure.

A lot of people in the West have a notion of time as linear and horizontal. But, in some Eastern traditions, it feels like time is vertical because it's all about the moment, and the moment is infinite. How do you relate to time?

For me, it's vertical as well, but going deeper … like I'm falling in it rather than going up.

Sonica calls itself the festival for curious minds and daring spirits. It offers an opportunity to check out what artists are doing with the latest technology, including virtual reality, robotics, and digital tech. Sonica continues until 29 September 2024.

Well, what happens is that sometimes they get accepted and you have to write them which takes lots of time. On top of doing my day job and writing this blog, I felt rather stretched.1 To reduce workload, any failed efforts were recycled here.

Initially, the submissions were supposed to be articles, but they soon diversified into talks, photography, and even music.

Here is a chronological list of those submissions:

5 January
Pitched a review of Elizabeth Price’s show at GoMA, which was accepted by the art and architecture magazine, Recessed Space.

12 January
Inspired by what was then the hot new thing — chatGPT — I submitted a parody of a bot to 2HB. My submission was rejected so I republished it here.

19 January
Proposed a text about psychogeography to Crumble Magazine. This was accepted and was published in a physical magazine in September. Here is an edited version.

25 January
I emailed Andy Irvine to see if I could speak about The Photographer’s Eye at 5Things. I could and the talk happened in April.

1 February 2023
UX Glasgow did an event on Side Projects and I contributed an introduction.

8 February
Pitched a review of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale to OutsideLeft magazine. This was published under the title: What Good Does It Do Us To Confront Despair?

16 February
Emailed The Skinny about writing short reviews about films in the Glasgow Film Festival but heard nothing back. More persistence needed perhaps?

16 February
Emailed Calum Sutherland, editor of Nothing Personal, suggesting a piece about the difference between the performance art world and the fine art world. Unfortunately, the magazine is currently on hiatus so I posted it here.

17 February
Emailed MAP magazine to see if they were interested in my review of Colin Grey’s show at StreetLevel Photoworks. MAP commission texts and are not set up for submissions so were unenthusiastic.

21 March
I submitted an experimental remix of David Bowie’s Please Mr Gravedigger to Radiophrenia, a temporary art radio station. It was accepted and was broadcast live. Hear it on Bandcamp.

27 April
told me the Frieze New Writers programme had been helpful for her art writing career. I submitted a review of Andrew Sim’s Modern Institute show but I did not get picked.

15 May
I learned of the Film and Video Umbrella from a symposium years ago. I proposed to write about Jamie Crewe’s False Wife for its Michael O’Pray Prize but was not successful.

24 May
After helping them with their website, I proposed a review of the new Maria Fusco book for Glasgow Review of Books. Unbeknownst to me they had been deluged with submissions, so I posted it here.

9 June
Kat Husbands and I ran a workshop about Communities of Practice at UX Scotland. This was kind of a submission, right?

13 June
I had a vague goal to submit to a different venue each week, but when the opportunity came to review Monster Chetwynd’s show at Mount Stuart I happily got in touch with Recessed Space again.

12 July
The man who writes asked people on Twitter to respond to Elon Musk’s banning of Substack links. I wrote a quick paragraph but don’t think it ever appeared anywhere.

1 August
While I was disorientated on holiday, I wrote a review of Margaret Mitchell’s show at Street Level Photoworks as a submission for the Source Writing Prize. It did not win.

26 August
I almost didn’t do any podcasts this year. However, invited me to be on ‘s YouTube to speak with the two of them and about literature and film. It was fun.

30 August
magazine asked people to submit culture reviews and published my review of Mrs S in their November issue.

1 September
In a sign that I was scraping the barrel, I created social media accounts on Goodreads, Letterboxd, and LinkedIn. I saw this as a form of submission to contemporary forms of networking, but did the bare minimum on these platforms and pretty much abandoned them. Maybe next year.

1 December
After being impressed by the exhibition of Cafe Royal Books at Stills Gallery, I wondered if they would be interested in publishing a zine of my photos of 2012 Orange Walk. I have yet to hear back from them.

The year of submission was a failure on its own terms, but was a success in overcoming the fear of rejection. The main outcome is that I want to consolidate my energy next year and focus on one thing. I will announce what that is next Sunday.

As with my books of the year, I updated a Twitter thread every time I watched a film. At the time of writing, I have seen eighty films. Is that a lot? If so, it is mainly from having been extremely disciplined in not watching television.

In an age of streaming, it makes no sense to list only those that came out this calendar year. Instead, I’ve made a list of the ten best films I saw, no matter when they were made. Let me know what you think if you watch any of them over the Christmas break.

10 Best Films I Saw in 2023

1. Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023)

Slick, stylish event cinema that seals the zeitgeist in a plastic box. Funny and self-aware, but without cynicism. There is so much going on (I learned that Gerwig has ADHD, which makes sense) that it can reinforce whatever prejudices you go in with. I much preferred it to Oppenheimer, which was far too wordy, despite Cillian Murphy’s intensity.

2. Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)

Almost 100 years old but unbelievably fresh. Post-modern before his time, Keaton's inventiveness is unmatched. Watch it below.

3. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

Beautiful, affecting, evocative and intensely cinematic. It makes sense that it was produced by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) but it is totally its own thing.

4. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (Christopher McQuarrie, 2023)

The best movie about Al alignment I've seen and definitely the year's best action movie. Ecstatically enjoyable.

5. The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes, 2021)

The first hour is utterly sublime as rock meets avant-garde to make the coolest band ever. The second hour is bittersweet as they drift towards being a normal-if-still-great band.

6. The Driver's Seat (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1974)

This has a bad reputation, particularly among Muriel Spark fans, so I went into it with low expectations. It is, however, very kino. Hysteria-filled Liz Taylor is a murderee touched by madness and intent. Andy Warhol is great in his brief cameo. An incredible document of the pervasive sexual assault in the 1970s.

7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras, 2022)

I adore seeing photography on the cinema screen and Nan Goldin's pictures are so tender and raw. Connecting it to the opioid crisis gives the film contemporary emotional relevance, but her photos are the star.

8. Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)

An understated romance across time with some moments of pure cinema, Past Lives sustains its unique (A24) vibe across the 95 minutes. Strong Oscar contender.

9. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)

Daniel Day-Lewis has such a deliberate, concentrated presence that you can't tear your eyes away. Every scene with him is electric. It is aesthetically filmed and Jonny Greenwood’s soundtrack is sublime.

10. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)

Announced as the best film of all time by the critics and filmmakers who voted in Sight & Sound’s poll, I dutifully went to see this at the GFT at the beginning of the year. To paraphrase Simone Weil: "A housewife left in an apartment on her own would have no rights, but she would have obligations." It's 3h21m of everyday life that you can't help but be absorbed by.

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This year I added to a thread on Twitter every time I finished a book. I wanted to be honest about what I read, no matter how embarrassing or ephemeral. My theory is every confession of cringe redoubles the desire to improve. Publicly exposing your tastes helps you find like-minded people … or at least alienates the hostile. It has also made compiling this list much easier.

As with my favourite films, due to be published next Sunday, I cannot imagine being restricted to only those books that were published in 2023. To do it justice, you’d have to read hundreds of contemporary books, which sounds maddening.1 My reading is driven by curiosity, research, or recommendations by people who I admire. I wrote previously about reading discipline and it paid off because I finished twice as many books as last year.

What did you enjoy reading this year? Let me know in the comments.

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10 Best Books I Read in 2023

1. Bel-Ami (1885) by Guy de Maupassant

A compelling novel about the rise of a poor ex-soldier to the heights of Parisian society. Duroy is a charming rogue and it was a delight to read. For a nineteenth century novel, it is also extremely sprightly.

2. A Year with Swollen Appendices (1996) by Brian Eno

It is 1995 and Brian Eno is producing David Bowie and U2, saving Bosnia, swimming naked with an erection, thinking about culture, and generally living his best life. Wonderful to revisit with the new (2023) introduction.

3. Hooking Up (2000) by Tom Wolfe

I devoured this collection of waspish essays documenting American excess. Wolfe is such a confident satirist that some think him snarky, but you can sense the substantial intelligence behind it all.

4. Less is More (2021) by Jason Hickel

A few years ago George Monbiot called for new political narratives to help exit neoliberalism. Jason Hickel's book on Degrowth provides just that. Lucid, purposeful, and empowering.

5. Exercises for Rebel Artists (2011) by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes

I had wanted to read this before Guillermo Gómez-Peña appeared at Buzzcut this year and I'm so glad I did. In it, utopian politics are grounded in the body and the experience of performing a life.

6. The Photographer's Eye (1966) by John Szarkowski

I re-read this in 2023 because I wanted to do a talk about it. I found it challenging and awkward, disturbed by the possibilities it presented.

7. Everybody (2021) by Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing is brilliant at telling the best stories about resonant figures from the 20th century such as Wilhelm Reich, Ana Mendieta, Andrea Dworkin, Susan Sontag, and Kathy Acker. Memorable.

8. Mrs S (2023) by K Patrick

Strangely liquid prose despite being written in a short, staccato present tense with minimal punctuation. Patrick's debut slows the reader down to appreciate the depiction of desire. Like Paul Lynch’s obtuse style in Prophet Song, it feels like writers are seeking a style that can’t be imitated by AI.

9. O Brother (2023) by John Niven

Gut punch of a book. How do you process the suicide of your brother? Niven teases out resonant moments from their upbringing and by the end of the book it feels resolved, artistically, if not in life. Read my full review of O Brother.

10. Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography (2009) by Rodge Glass

I read the chapters in reverse order, starting with the Gray I know and going back to the origins, which I always find the least interesting part of a biography. Those latter chapters, when Glass was a witness to events, are the most lively. The whole thing puts one in awe of Alasdair Gray's achievements.

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I took a lot of photos this year. Thousands. From these, I selected a hundred that I liked and whittled these down to fifty-two. The criteria for what photos make the cut are simple: they have to either grab me or feel significant in some way. To aid the reader, I have grouped them into four slightly overlapping groups: Street Photography, Portraits, Art World, and Architecture.

Street Photography

I love the randomness of street photography, particularly in Glasgow where there is always something interesting going on. Street photography forces you to be alert to the world. It’s almost a form of mindfulness meditation.

Portraits

This year I have been trying to get more confident in asking people if I can take their picture. I want to create an honest connection with a person and learn how to put them at ease. My inspiration for this is the brilliant Simon Murphy, who gave me a brief masterclass in portrait photography after I interviewed him.

Art World

What I love about the art world is that it is full of people who are willing to create something where once there was nothing. If you think art is so bad, what would you put on the wall if someone asked you to fill a space in an exhibition?

Architecture

If you enjoyed this post, check out last year’s photos.