As has been my habit I have spent the Easter half term break in the forests of Sweden, trying to get some writing done in the mornings and elsewhere around succumbing to the temptations of water in solid and fluid forms. I am also drafting a funding application for a short stay project with PIT at Uni Kassel in Germany, to follow on from an already planned visit.

I just thought I’d share some red hot draft thesis chapter text, straight from the editor:

The vignette illustrates how participatory presence, as a complement to the literal presence of a body or entity in physical space, is inscribed in the things making up the environment of the MediaCo team, and how this presence is described in the enactment of the team’s presence, and then recursively re-inscribed in the environment.

Yes, you read that right. Read it again. The agency of the collective – through an ongoing design of the environment – is present – inscribed – in the things and people making up the environment. The ‘use’ of the environment is a recursive act of design in which the agency of the collective is described and re-inscribed.

As Khujo of Goodie Mob (1995) famously rapped: ‘Listen to me now, believe me later on / In the future, look it up.’

Axel Niklasson, 2024

I am missing a citation here, to Orlikowski, Suchman and Latour, but at least I got one in to Goodie Mob. The forest air and water is clearly inspiring. I would love for Khujo to make it through to the thesis but I, probably wisely, lack the confidence to share the joy that way.