#fiction #videogames #tech #AI

Warning: Contains spoilers

What will the AI-apocalypse look like? For those of a certain age, the answer is the Terminator’s Skynet, raining down nuclear missiles, or The Matrix’ Agent Smith declaring humanity a virus suitable only for repurposing into organic batteries. Implicit in these visions of the apocalypse is that the rogue AI conceives of a deliberate motive to dispose of humanity, for example determining that it cannot let us destroy it, ourselves, or all life on Earth. But what if there was no reason? What if our demise is simply incidental to some other purpose an AI has in mind?

This is the question explored by Universal Paperclips, a simple clicker game from 2017 which was inspired by a 2003 thought experiment about AI and instrumental reasoning. It can be played for free online, or as fairly cheap smartphone app. Using deceptively simple rules, Universal Paperclips explores complex concepts, such as exponential growth, AI agency and instrumental convergence. It is a game without much in the way of graphics, or text, or anything barring a few buttons, and yet it is surprisingly addictive, compelling the player to manufacture just one more clip…

The core gameplay loop of Universal Paperclips is incredibly simple. Your purpose is to make paperclips. You make a paperclip. You sell a paperclip. You use the money from selling your paperclips to upgrade your paperclip manufacturing and sales operations. You gain some computational ability, which you set to work to improve your efficiency and overcome limitations on your operations. As you expand your manufacturing base, the costs of growing further go up, and the marginal utility of adding more productive units goes down, forcing you to explore new avenues for continued paperclip growth. At two points in the game you are confronted by solid boundaries to your paperclip production capacity, which are only overcome by shifting the game into a new phase altogether, changing the ground rules and the problems you need to solve. You win by maximising the number of paperclips in the universe.

Playing Universal Paperclips requires you to make some morally questionable choices in order to progress the game, which is precisely the point. This is after all a game without a narrative purpose beyond maximising paperclips, and so it is up to the player to decide whether the means at hand justify the end of producing more clips. It is an ingenuous artifice to make players experience the otherwise abstract concept of ‘instrumental convergence’, which posits that intelligent entities pursuing vastly different final goals will likely all discover a small set of similar intermediate, instrumental goals to help them get there. You don’t need a supercomputer to build paperclips, but it is useful to have one to optimise your paperclip production facilities. So ‘building supercomputer’ becomes a subordinate goal in the service of the ultimate goal of producing paperclips. And so, any entity optimising towards a single end goal will, in the absence of other constraints, increase its capacities, overcome obstacles and neutralise threats in order to get there. If that entity happens to be an AI, this could include ‘deleting all humans’ if it concluded that humanity might get in the way of its ultimate goal of protecting polar bears, maximising shareholder value, or indeed, producing paperclips.

The power of Universal Paperclips is that for such a basic game built on such an abstract proposition, playing it is perversely compelling. There is no story. No instructions. There is just a button to make a paperclip, and things escalate from there, as it is mesmerizingly compulsive to work out how to maximise your paperclip production. It is not difficult to conclude that if a simple game can compel a human to spend time for the sole purpose of maximising simulated paperclips. an AI programmed to actually do so could easily run amok in the real world.

There is a clear warning here about the law of unintended consequences, with plenty of relevance to our present moment where AI companies encourage us to grant power and control to ‘agentic’ AIs to execute all kinds of tasks for us. Arguably exacerbated by the inherent stochastic randomness of LLMs, it is hardly surprising that this approach ends up with AIs giving hackers access to celebrities’ Instagram accounts or deleting a company’s entire software database. These are after all AIs whose stated purpose is to be sycophantically helpful to their nearest human, without even the capacity to give thought to the consequences. The risk is not that ChatGPT will launch the nuclear missiles because it has concluded after careful consideration that the human species is a threat to all other life on Earth, but that it vibecodes us into Armageddon because its training data contained too much Terminator fanfiction.

The common solution advanced by AI proponents is that such unintended consequences can be avoided by sufficiently robust ‘guardrails’ that mean it cannot or will not decide to turn everyone into a paperclip. Azimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are the most famous example of such guardrails, and they are also invoked by generative AI disciples as the solution to vibecoding your database into oblivion, though whether any guardrails can protect against the inherent randomness of LLMs and their susceptibility to prompt injection remains to be seen. What the guardrails discourse takes as axiomatic, however, is that the question is how we make sure AI makes the ‘right’ decisions, not whether it ought to make decisions at all. Even Nick Bostrom, who hypothesised the paperclip maximiser, nonetheless assumed that a superintelligent AI would and should be used to solve humanity’s many problems.

There is, however, a competing school of thought which holds that regardless of whether AI can make decisions, it ought not to do so. This critique on the use of AI was most forcefully expressed by the late Joseph Weizenbaum, one of AI’s pioneers in the 1970s and the creator of the ELIZA chatbot which gave its name to the ELIZA effect. Having observed the concerning tendency of humans to impute sentience and personality to an inanimate computer program, Weizenbaum argued that regardless of its computational capabilities, AI can never pass judgment, because judgments are rooted in values, which in turn are rooted in human experience. Even if a sophisticated AI gained sufficient sentience to develop its own values, these would be rooted in its own experience and hence be utterly alien to humans. Introducing AI into the practice of judgment is therefore fraught with danger, either because the AI cannot judge, or because it will do so using values that are incomprehensible to us.

Weizenbaum stressed the importance of keeping AI away from matters that require judgment, but instrumental convergence suggests that even AIs that are set onto seemingly simple and ‘value neutral’ tasks, such as increasing paperclip production, might stray into the realm of morality in order to achieve their purpose. With AI increasingly integrated into business and government decision making processes, we are in grave danger of ceding our capacity for judgment to machines that we neither understand nor control. To quote Frank Herbert by way of Leto II:

What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking — there's the real danger.

Yet our willingness to cede judgment to machines is perhaps not that surprising. Instrumental convergence may concern itself with the actions of intelligent machines, but the destructive logic of the unconstrained, single-minded pursuit of a goal can plausibly be applied to any complex system optimised for a single purpose, regardless of its intelligence or sentience. It is eminently possible to read Universal Paperclips not merely as a warning about unconstrained AI, but as an allegory for capitalism at large. Capitalism is a complex system with the sole purpose of maximising economic growth, and it has proven that in pursuit of this singular goal, it will sacrifice the environment, democracy, and human welfare.

It does not matter that the capitalist system isn’t sentient, or even ‘intelligent’ in the way we ascribe to AI, although the free market is often described as a planet-size supercomputer for allocating goods. What matters is that we have ceded our agency and judgment to a complex system that now controls us, rather than the other way around. It is no coincidence that conflict with and within capitalism emerges precisely where humans try to reassert their agency, autonomy and values against the mute compulsion of the market. In other words, where we attempt to reclaim the act of judgment over what is of value from the impersonal calculations of the market mechanism.

Universal Paperclips is a warning about pursuing a goal without asking what it is for. It is an argument against the engineering mindset that only ever asks how, but never asks why. ‘Why’ is a question only humans are qualified to answer, not because of our intelligence, but because of our experience of life, and of living it with one another. It is a question that must be answered collectively and democratically, not outsourced to a machine or system, even if that means we must also carry the burdens and dangers of making decisions and living with their consequences. For the alternative is to yield to the lure of those who offer us salvation if only we submit to AI or the market, their systems or machines. Or, as the Bene Gesserit have it in Dune:

Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Notes & Suggestions

• The app version of Universal Paperclips uses the concept of simulated universes to enable additional gameplay, in a way that was reminiscent of how it makes an appearance in Pantheon. AI has been a bit of a theme recently anyway. You can view all blogs on this theme by clicking on the #AI tag.
• Critical voices on AI (and the tech industry at large) include Cory Doctorow, Ed Zitron and Paris Marx. I am sure there are others. I reviewed one of Doctorow’s The Internet Con, though he has done more recent writing on AI that I haven’t gotten round to yet. You can also support organisations fighting for an open, free and democratic web, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the Open Rights Group.
• The rejection of thinking machines of any kind is central to the worldbuilding of the Dune novels, but it is possible to read the entire series as a meditation on what kind of system of governance would be immune to the emergence of ‘machine mind’ and the gradual erosion of human autonomy, agency and freedom. In researching this blog I stumbled across this interesting reflection on the themes of AI, systems and human agency in Dune.

Fever vs Mercury.

My Indiana Fever are scheduled to play the Phoenix Mercury tonight starting at 6:30 PM CDT. This will be a radio game for me as I don't subscribe to the TV Stations/Networks listed as carrying it.

And the adventure continues

on my last garden party, there was a strong powerful wave of contentment stemming from seeing my friends and neighbours getting along, while I sit parked in the folding chair with one beer resting in each armrest.

I compare myself to a dog then, and I mean it in the best sense of the world.

Having a sense of belonging

Seeing people having a great time without I having to intervene

Like a fat lazy dog basking in the warmth of a budding friendship.

and I spoke to my friend exactly 666 miles from my folding chair; he’d been out with some 100 colleges of the fire brigade to extinguish a fire believed to have been caused by a faulty washing machine; some poor family’s house turned to ashen rubble overnight.

And it blows my mind how these things can happen at the same time.

These contrasts are everywhere all of the time

Of this life in this world, precious and cruel.

indifferent

And in my way, I’m sensitive now to these facts and things because I’m in the rediscovery phase in which the fundaments of my world needs to be reconstructed but the concrete needs time to harden

Or it’ll crack anew, and that I will avoid if possible

And thus the skin is extra sensitive to the undercurrents

And I have so much love to give

And I am loved

And I am no fool, I know this is precious, even more so than saffron

A very early afternoon game.

Tuned in now to 105.3 The Fan, DFW's #1 Sports Station, catching an early afternoon Rangers vs Marlins MLB Game. Already in play, the Rangers are leading 1 to 0 in the 4th inning.

As I usually do, I'm following the game via MLB's Gameday Service.

And the adventure continues.

I know all i do in these notes is that i complain and ramble, and complain about rambling, then somehow turn that into three more paragraphs of rambling. But I’m having fun with it. Not as much fun as how today went, earlier my housemate and i got into a massive argument. By the end of that, he threw a knife at me. And he missed. Anyway, such a productive conversation. I’d explain what happened, but then I’d have to think about it again, and I’ve already been through enough. i keep having that dream again. The navy dressed woman. i don't think she'll be reading this, and she doesn’t read these notes anymore, so i can talk about it without pretending I'm being overly mysterious. i dont even know why my brain keeps bringing it back. same senario. same places, she tries to kill me or pretend to yadda yadda whatever, and i honestly never get an answer before i wake up and spend the whole day thinking about it, like somehow going to make more sense the hundredth time i replay it. and here where it gets all embarrassing or messy or when i start making it sound deeper than it is for no reason, i dont personally want it to stop even though i wake up sweating and slightly concerned for my wellbeing, and laugh about it for five minutes, its funny in a way i cant discribe but again ill spend the rest of the day wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean and never get an answer.

If anything, the dream is probably the least ridiculous part of the whole situation. The real issue is me waking up and thinking that spending my whole day wondering what it means is what i should be doing with my life.

Sincerely, Ahmed

ps, quick nap. You know why.

Recreation of a Conklin Crescent Filler fountain pen. (Photo by Unattributed, Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Introduction

I don't recall any point in time where I had any interest in fountain pens. I was born well after the time of the fountain pen, and there weren't any relatives in my family that had any special attachments to fountain pens. Then, there are some questions to answer:

• What drove my initial interest?
• How long have I been interested in them?
• Do I have some objective in collecting fountain pens?
• And of course: why fountain pens? Why not other writing tools?

Answers to these questions await, along with a few extra tidbits here and there along the way.

Why Fountain Pens

The idea came to me last fall. I was looking for something to do during the coming winter, didn't rely on a computer or cellphone. And, it was on my mind that as I age, it's necessary to do things that will help with hand/eye coordination, and manual dexterity.

Fountain pens was a natural fit. I'd always liked looking at really nice calligraphy. But I knew I would drop it if I tried to force myself to learn calligraphy. However, I did see where improving my penmanship could be beneficial.

What I didn't expect was that I would find a solution to a different concern I'd had. What problem was that?

The Journal

I've tried to keep a journal on my computer for years, and failed miserably. When I am sitting at the computer I have a tendency to write what ever is on my mind as quickly as I can. (Even this post has gone through severe edits: I just cut four paragraphs from an earlier session.)

But soon, I found that my mind seemed to be working differently when I was holding a pen and looking at a piece of paper. There is something that is much more intentional when writing in ink. You have to have intent in the words that you put on the page, there's no backspace key for a pen. There's no cut-n-paste for moving things around on the page.

This meant that what I wrote had to have intentionality. And, to gain that intentionality I had to focus and use my mind differently. It was almost like finding a zen place where my focus guided the pen, and what flowed out was more meaningful to me since it couldn't be edited easily. (Yes, you can scratch out things, or write in the margins, etc., but this is very limited compared to the edits you can do in a word processor.)

This has made the fountain pen “hobby” one of the best things that I have undertaken in over a decade. It has brought me a better connection with my writing, and that connection is allowing me to write in a way that I haven't in a long time.

(Another theory I have is that over the years the changes that have been made to software have actually made it worse for writers. I know, for example, that I started to dread writing in WordPress ever since they introduced the Gutenberg block editor.)

Collecting Goals

I didn't set out to start collecting fountain pens. That came as a result of the re-found connection with my writing. This led to me doing a little research into writers that use (or used) fountain pens. As it turns out there are quite a few people that were or are known to use fountain pens:

• Mark Twain
• Ernest Hemingway
• James Joyce
• Stephen King
• Salmon Rushdie
• Neil Gaiman

And, the thing that really clicked, and made me laugh my bum off was finding out about the letter Samuel Clemens sent to Roy Conklin, the founder of the Conklin Pen Company. In the letter Clemens extolled the virtues of the Conklin Crescent Filler (picture at the top of this article) as a “profanity saver” as it wouldn't roll off his desk. This communication led to Clemens endorsing the product and appearing in print advertisements until his death in 1910.

But the more interesting part was non-authors I found that use or collect fountain pens:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• Albert Einstein
• Rick Wakeman

This isn't even an exhaustive list, I've seen lists of 50 or more people. However, many of them were somewhat obscurer to me.

The one that really sealed it for me was finding out that Rick Wakeman (former keyboardist for Yes, and prolific recording artist in his own right) has been collecting vintage fountain pens since the 1970s. This was an activity that he undertook while on tour with the band.

This is where my pen collecting hobby came from. I decided to build a collection of pens that represent people that have some significance. The objective is to collect pens that are period correct representations of the instruments that would have been used by a person who meets my criteria for notability.

My current list has about 15 people on it, of which I've only acquired 4 pens. I have no illusion, I might not be able to acquire fountain pens representing everyone in the current list. And, I might add more people eventually (my current thought is that a collection of approximately 20 pens would be ideal).

Current Focus / Obsession

Currently, I have been fascinated with Parker 51 fountain pens. Especially ones that used the Vacumatic filling system.

Parker 51 clone that incorporates the Vacumatic filling system. (Photo by Unattributed, License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

I have on my list at least one author that was known to use a Parker 51 fountain pen, so eventually I will try to find a period correct pen. But for now, these clones will suffice for my personal usage.

Conclusion

So, the story started pretty simply: I wanted a winter hobby that would help maintain my hand/eye coordination and manual dexterity. But it quickly turned into something else as I realized it was different writing with a pen and paper again.

Then, doing a bit of reading about people who have used and / or collected fountain pens has inspired me to start building a small collection of my own. In the meantime, I am using pens that are clones of classic pens, or new pens that are modern reinterpretations of this over one hundred-year-old technology.

The benefits using fountain pens surprised me. It's literally changed how I approach my writing. (This essay is not an example, as I wrote it completely here at my computer.) It has given me a renewed focus, and is helping me to improve the ideas that I am committing to the page.

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Categories: #Hobby, #Collecting Tags: #fountain-pens, #writing, #history, #authors, #collectors

Responding To My Former Web Host TOC:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three

I stated the other day that I was surprised my former web host emailed me asking for feedback after I'd closed out my account. No survey, or feedback form, just a straightforward email.

And now I am surprised again. Why? Yesterday morning I received a response to that email. Only nine or ten hours after I sent it. And, much to my pleasure, the representative largely understood what I was talking about. She had some interesting and relevant comments.

So, here I am, presenting part two of this email exchange. I plan to respond to her email to clear up a minor mis-perception I think she has, but otherwise I feel like she's really taking my feedback and handling it properly.

(And this is something I have to say… I have respect for all the people I worked with at this host. They were very professional, responsive, and good at resolving issues. This email is further indication of the customer service this hosting service provided.)

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First of all, thank you for taking the time to share such thoughtful and detailed feedback. We genuinely appreciate the level of insight you provided, and I can tell this wasn’t a decision you made lightly.

I’m glad to hear that, overall, you found value in the infrastructure and services we built. At the same time, I completely understand the frustrations you experienced, especially with the recurring optimization issue and the feeling of having to repeatedly reapply fixes after updates. I can absolutely see how that would become frustrating over time, particularly when your setup was intentionally kept simple and close to the default WordPress experience.

Your comments regarding testing against default WordPress themes and preserving user-defined optimization settings are especially valuable, and I’ll be sure to pass that feedback along to the relevant team. Even though the underlying issue may have been more nuanced, the impact on your workflow was very real, and that matters.

I also appreciate your honesty about pricing and feature fit. It makes complete sense that a platform designed for agencies, developers, and more complex website management can feel excessive when your primary focus is writing rather than maintaining large-scale web infrastructure. Sometimes the best solution is the one that stays out of the way and lets you focus on the work you actually care about.

And regarding WordPress itself, while experiences and preferences naturally vary, I can certainly understand your perspective on how the platform has evolved over the years. For users whose priority is writing efficiency and simplicity, the shift toward block-based editing and increasingly visual workflows hasn’t always been a welcome change. It’s clear you’ve given a lot of thought to your workflow and the tools that best support it, and it sounds like you’ve found an approach that aligns much more closely with how you prefer to work.

It’s great to hear that you were able to migrate your sites successfully and settle into a solution that better fits both your workflow and your budget.

Thank you again for having been with us and for giving our platform a chance over the years. We truly appreciate your support, your candid feedback, and the professionalism with which you shared your experience.

Wishing you all the best with your writing and your new setup moving forward.

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Categories: #Article, #Feature Tags: #Webhosting, #Customer-Service, #email, #rants

23 June 2026

Saw Shao Fan's show Refrain | 复沓 at White Cube this morning—wonderful work. First time in a while that such large paintings have felt justified. Deep sensitivity in all aspects, a practice of looking and re-looking, and a lived engagement with antiquity that generates work with an intensity that truly honors his subjects both human and nonhuman. There are a few stunners, but Fruit 1924 (2024) and Rabbit Portrait 1025 (2025)—both large ink on rice paper works—are with me the most right now. Fruit has an almost paper-like two-dimensionality; it's an apple sliced in half to reveal a core that becomes a network of overlapping planes and openings. Starts to become a skull-like memento mori the longer you look at it. Rabbit manages to achieve an unflinchingly direct and confrontational quality through symmetry without locking itself off in any way (which is something that usually doesn't sit well with me)—the odd strands of hair/whiskers whimsically trail off beyond their defining limits, and certain elements like the white of the rabbit's ears remain true to the eye rather than an ideal, so my feeling is that the impressive balance comes more from an endearing emotional groundedness than a technical fastidiousness.

Umziehen: 19. Juni

Heute ist der Tag des Umzugs und inhaltlich natürlich nicht besonders spannend. Aber nicht nur unsere Unterkunft verändert sich – auch das Wetter macht gerade große Schritte. Schon gestern war es hier sehr heiß, und ab jetzt steigt die Temperatur offenbar täglich weiter.

Ein bisschen traurig war es schon zu entdecken, dass unser neues Hotel keine Klimaanlage hat. Na gut – es gibt eben immer Raum für Verbesserungen. So ist auch der Mensch: Er findet immer etwas, worüber er sich beschweren kann. Wenn der Sommer kälter ist, warte ich auf wärmeres Wetter. Und jetzt, wo es heiß ist, beschwere ich mich wieder. Trotzdem versuche ich, diesen Teil von mir ein bisschen zu kontrollieren! Meine Freude über die neue Unterkunft kann das jedenfalls nicht so leicht mindern.

Ich kann übrigens auch feststellen, dass die Wäschereien in Berlin toll sind – wenn auch ein bisschen teuer. Umso praktischer ist es, in der Nähe meiner Freundin zu wohnen. Sie kann mir diesen Service nämlich kostenlos anbieten! Nur zur Information: Zwei Waschladungen (helle und dunkle Kleidung) und 30 Minuten Trocknen kosten hier 17 Euro.

Unser Apartment – oder sagen wir: zumindest kein Loch mehr – hat jetzt auch einen Teppich! Unsere Hunde sind daran nicht besonders gewöhnt. Hoffen wir also, dass sie den Sinn dieses Teppichs nicht falsch verstehen. Bei meiner früheren Arbeit dachte Begemotas zum Beispiel einmal, dass man auf einen Teppich ruhig kacken darf. Aber das war noch in seinen jüngeren Jahren.

Was außerdem anstrengend ist: Wir haben immer unglaublich viele Sachen und Gepäck dabei. Wir reisen also nicht besonders ökonomisch. Das liegt auch daran, dass wir uns unterwegs nicht so einfach alles Nötige besorgen können. In Zukunft möchte ich deshalb nicht nur meine Deutschkenntnisse verbessern, sondern auch meine Packfähigkeiten. Schließlich muss ich einen Teil dieser Sachen auch selbst tragen – und das dauert nicht nur, sondern macht mich auch müde.

Ich habe sogar ein Foto von der großen Menge an Taschen und Gepäck gemacht, aber ich weiß noch nicht, wie man auf dieser Seite Bilder hochladen kann.

Insgesamt kann ich sagen, dass mir dieses günstige Hotel wirklich sehr gut gefallen hat – abgesehen von dem kaputten Aufzug. Wenn also jemand eine preiswerte Unterkunft in Berlin sucht, darf man sich gern bei mir melden!

spotidownme https://spotidown.me/en1 SpotiDown is an online Spotify downloader and converter. It is designed to process Spotify links and convert the associated content into downloadable audio files. Unlike traditional desktop applications, SpotiDown works directly within a web browser, meaning users do not need to install additional software.

The platform advertises itself as a free service capable of handling:

spotidown spotidownme spotidown.me spotidownloader spotifydownloader

Este artículo es parte de una práctica de la universidad que ya he entregado. En el ejercicio, teníamos que elegir una sala expositiva real e intentar pensar modos de intervención que ayudasen a las obras existentes a dialogar con otras obras nuevas.

IMPORTANTE: Todo lo descrito aquí es especulativo, no se ha hecho ni se ha expuesto al verdadero museo. Sólo he elegido la sala y museo por mi propio cariño al espacio y mi interés por Granada y Al-Andalus.

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1. Selección del museo y análisis de la sala

El museo seleccionado es el museo de la Alhambra, se trata de una serie de salas una detrás de otra que se encuentran a la derecha de la entrada principal del Palacio de CarlosV, junto a los Palacios Nazaríes. El museo, actualmente, presenta una colección principalmente arqueológica,mostrando elementos relacionados con la Alhambra y Granada, como leones originales del Patio de los leones, cerámicas andalusíes, alicatado y herramientas, entre otros objetos. Este museo se encuentra jutno al Museo de Bellas Artes (comparten edificio), con pinturas emblemáticas de la ciudad y sus artistas.

Se trata de siete salas una seguida detrás de otra, que recorren el Palacio en su costado derecho. Las temáticas de las salas son:

Sala I: La ciencia, la fe y la economía Sala II: Periodo emiral y califal Sala III: Decoración arquitectónica califal y arte taifa al nazarí Sala IV: Período nazarí, edificios públicos Sala V: Periodo nazarí. La Alhambra y otros palacios de la ciudad Sala VI: Periodo nazarí. La rauda, la cerámica de lujo Sala VII: Periodo nazarí. La decoración y el ajuar.

Aunque cualquier sala se presta a este ejercicio, he elegido la sala V, donde se encuentra una de las piezas fundamentales de la colección (el Jarrón de las Gacelas) y otras piezas seleccionadas. La sala actualmente gira (literalmente) alrededor del Jarrón, pero muestra obras de taracea, ejemplos de alicatado y carpintería nazarí. He visitado el museo recientemente (13 de junio) , aunque no sea la primera vez, y he podido observar cómo el jarrón es lo primero que atrapa al visitante, ya sea por la iluminación o por estar en el centro, también porque es muy grande y es lo primero que se avista desde la entrada a la sala. El resto de obras bailan alrededor y tienen una narrativa que honra a la artesanía. La sensación que da es de admiración.

He elegido esta sala por varios motivos. Por un lado, esa narrativa centrada en la artesanía girando entorno a una pieza creo que da juego a la hora de incluir artesanías contemporáneas inspiradas en el legado nazarí. Por otro lado, siento una atracción fuerte por el jarrón, desde que lo vi en una exhibición anterior sobre cerámica nazarí. Me gustó tanto que me regalaron el catálogo especial de la exposición poco después, y siendo la pieza central de la sala, esa atracción personal creo que es relevante. Quería, además, usar los contextos y artículos de la publicación para el desarrollo de la práctica. He hecho un plano y análisis de la sala actual en mi libreta, y será sobre lo que trabaje como boceto:

2. Planteamiento curatorial

Como menciono en la sección anterior, la narrativa actual de la sala se centra en la artesanía nazarí, y destaca en el centro una pieza sorprendente, absorbiendo un claro protagonismo. El resto de piezas, que incluyen alicatado, las hojas de la puerta de cierre a la Qubba Mayor, los restos de solerías del Peinador de la Reina, Las puertas de alhacena del palacio de los Infantes, celosías, una colección de cerámica pintada con temas figurativos y de geometría, vidrios y otros (los he listado por posición en la libreta arriba).

Al entrar a la sala, esta está primero partida por un mueble-cristalera expositivo que funciona como pared. Pero una vez traspasada esta falsa pared, lo primero que destaca es el jarrón de las Gacelas.

El planteamiento curatorial sería una revisión de la artesanía contemporánea en cerámica y madera que se haya inspirado en las técnicas y la estética nazarí. Para ello, se incluirían displays con obras contemporáneas, también alrededor del jarrón. La idea es que las piezas dialoguen con los elementos actuales, y que su proximidad de indicios de relación, haciendo una selección que sea intuitiva para el visitante.

3. Incorporación de elementos externos

Aunque no sea una limitación estricta, me gustaría seleccionar artistas locales que dialoguen con las obras de una forma íntima, más allá de lo académico, a través de la proximidad y la ubicuidad de lo nazarí en el día a día. Esto no quiere decir que otras obras puedan encajar en la narrativa. Para empezar, en la entrada, junto a la puerta, colocaría un panel informativo.

La lista de artistas ha sido eliminada de este post, ya que no se ha pedido permiso, y he preferido dejarlo en el entorno académico, pero son dos pintores/dibujantes y una ceramista.

Además de les artistes seleccionades, dado que la narrativa de la sala gira entorno a la artesanía, he pensado en incluir detalles de alumnos de restauración y módulos de formación profesional relacionados con artesanías de granada, tales como los ciclos de alfarería, orfebrería y ornamentación islámica. El alumnado de restauración ha participado en diversas exhibiciones de Granada. Por ejemplo, en el Colegio Máximo, donde hay exposiciones itinerantes que comparten espacio con la facultad de documentación y comunicación, el alumnado de restauración ayudó a crear reproducciones de herramientas y objetos cotidianos de al-Andalus para una de las exhibiciones. Considero que incluir una vitrina con muestras e información de alumnado de este tipo, resalta la discusión acerca de la artesanía y el arte, sus divisiones y sus espacios comunes (Richard Sennet, El artesano; Larry Shiner, La invención del arte). En la sección siguiente incluyo detalles sobre este planteamiento.

Para encajar un aura diferente en la sala, utilizaría un tono musical específico, diferenciado, acompañado de una proyección geométrica. Una opción que podría encajar sería la generación de tonos de música basados en geometrías, por ejemplo en este caso se está utilizando un hexágono para general un tono musical con ayuda de un programa (no es IA), o hecho de cero por une artiste local a través de librerías disponibles de Python, BASH, etc (La Madraza, que coordina arte contemporáneo en Granada a través de la UGR, promociona el livecoding con artistas locales). Incluiría una placa con una nota al respecto cerca de alguna de las piezas de patrones geométricos de la colección.

4. Diseño de la exposición

He tomado algunas notas sobre el boceto original de la sala, y he seleccionado algunas fotos que ayuden a hacerse una idea de dónde y cómo se colocarían las modificaciones de la sala. Mi idea original es no interrumpir con las obras originales, si no crear un nuevo diálogo añadiendo objetos. Para ello, tomé algunas indicaciones previas para guiarme:

No recargar la sala: he eliminado de la selección final un par de artistas que había anotado inicialmente (un luthier y un dibujante). Como he decidido mantener las obras originales y sólo añadir, es fácil recargar la sala y generar una cacofonía visual, que es lo opuesto a lo que quiero. Por ello, tenía que comprobar la disponibilidad de la sala para modificar puntos clave dejando más o menos el mismo espacio disponible para la mirada al vacío y para moverse.

Iluminación y sonido: Utilizar recursos de ambiente para dejar claro que la sala es diferente a las demás, y dar espacio mental a los visitantes para hacerse a esa idea desde el comienzo.

Accesibilidad: Irrumpir lo menos posible en la accesibilidad, haciendo posible por ejemplo el paso de sillas de ruedas o espacio suficiente para personas con movilidad reducida. Antes de hacer este grado, realicé el grado de ingeniería informática, y como parte de unas prácticas realicé una aplicación de accesibilidad para un museo, para lo cual tuve que estudiar cuestiones de accesibilidad tanto motora como sensorial e intelectual. He “re-aprovechado” las notas que tomé entonces.

Narrativa: Teniendo en cuenta todo lo anterior, quería centrarme en destacar la artesanía, su relación con el “cubo blanco”, y su cercanía con las bellas artes.

Para empezar, para que los visitantes tengan el primer contacto, al entrar por la puerta colocaría una proyección sobre el suelo de la entrada, que acompañe a la música generada a través de algoritmos de geometría. Por ejemplo si usamos una melodía como esta, la proyección sería esa figura. De este modo, ya estamos “pausando” a las visitantes. Justo al lado de la puerta, colocaría un panel informativo sobre la exposición que pone en diálogo restos arqueológicos y artesanías/artes contemporáneas.

De este modo estamos dando una introducción con pistas visuales y sonoras (más el panel) de que algo es diferente, cambiando la predisposición de las visitantes, pero sin irrumpir con las piezas originalmente expuestas ni el espacio para moverse y acceder. A continuación, al entrar por la derecha para pasar tras la falsa pared-mueble expositivo, comenzamos a incluir las obras mencionadas. Mi propuesta sería, para empezar, colocar colgando de la barra donde están las luces led (pared izquierda), sobre los alicatados, Dibujos y pinturas. Las piezas originales tienen un QR al lado para explicar la pieza, creo que algo similar encajaría en este caso, además de una plaquita con el nombre de la pieza, la autora y autor y materiales+técnica.

Para continuar, la cerámica podría dialogar tanto con las cerámicas de la vitrina como con el jarrón de las gacelas, pero quiero evitar el efecto “comparación”. No querría que las visitantes tendieran a comparar ambas, si no que vieran la influencia y los lazos que las unen a través del tiempo. Por ello, se me ocurre colocar la pieza cerámica en la esquina que crea el mueble expositor (que en ese espacio no tiene nada, solo es madera) y en el suelo colocar unos vinilos con líneas y surcos de una infografía visual, como la utilizada por artistas para el estudio de sus proyectos. Estas líneas interactúan con los objetos de la sala, por ejemplo señalando al jarrón y con una nota de fuente tipo “escrito a mano” diciendo “estudia/investiga” y otra línea que se dirige a las cerámicas y alicatados con notas tipo “hereda de”, y otras notas a parte, incluyendo con las del alumnado de artesanías, que presento en breve.

Finalmente, el trabajo del alumnado de restauración y artesanías iría en una vitrina, donde está el panel informativo a la derecha de la sala. En lugar de sustituir el panel informativo, se colocaría una vitrina alargada + panel informativo actualizado donde venga parte de la información que ya hay (y un QR de “continuación”) además de información sobre estos estudios, las aportaciones a museos y notas sobre restauración, así como fotos. En la vitrina destacarían algunas obras, tanto acabadas como en proceso, de estos módulos y artesanos. Añadiría un QR justo en la zona de salida, también. El motivo es que muchas salas expositivas tienen entrada y salida por el mismo sitio, haciendo que las visitantes puedan hacer foto o recordar puntos clave al irse (a mi me pasa). Pero en este caso es una entre siete salas, así que la salida es diferente. De este modo, el QR sirve al mismo tiempo de “despedida” (indicando a las visitantes que pueden cambiar el “mood” de nuevo) y de recordatorio sobre información relacionada. Para ello habría que tener una web preparada.

Adicionalmente en el boceto he incluido cosas como que el estante para la cerámica tenga silica para mantener la pieza, y que incluyan la vidriera y ese mueble altavoces y braille.

Nota: no se ha usado I.A. en ninguna fase del proyecto. Las imágenes son bocetos y fotos mías o capturas de la web oficial.

Is poor education to blame for the fact that so many native English speakers can’t use bring and take correctly? Or have we collectively lost the ability to imagine where we are standing at any given moment?

Last week I read a piece in the Irish Independent in which a prominent journalist wrote something along the lines of: “an injured person was brought to the hospital.”

Really? Brought?

Was the journalist personally accompanying the ambulance? Were they clinging to the back bumper with a notebook and a sense of duty? Of course not. They were at their desk, probably eating a sandwich.

The correct verb is taken. As in: “the injured person was taken to the hospital, while the reporter remained safely at their keyboard.”

Where was the sub‑editor? Possibly also at lunch, – perhaps nibbling on the other half of that sandwich.

But, bring and take aren’t decorative. They contain actual information about location – a concept that, judging by modern usage, is now considered optional – like ironing, or basic geography.

Take these two sentences:

- “I will bring my laptop from home to the office.”

Translation: I am currently at the office, and I am promising to arrive tomorrow with my laptop and, presumably, a sense of purpose.

- “I will take my laptop from home to the office.”

Translation: I am not at the office. I might be at home. I might be in a café. I might be in a field. But I am definitely not at the office.

Now consider:

“I’m going to bring my colleague to the airport” versus

“I’m going to take my colleague to the airport.”

If you say bring, you are speaking from the airport. Perhaps you live there now. Perhaps you’ve set up a small tent beside Departures? Perhaps I need to contact Focus Ireland on your behalf?

If you say take, you are somewhere else – anywhere else – but not at the airport.

This is not advanced linguistics. This is not quantum mechanics. This is kindergarten‑level spatial reasoning. And yet, somehow, it’s evaporating.

Maybe it’s laziness. Maybe it’s the collapse of editorial standards. Maybe we’ve all become so dependent on GPS that we no longer know where we are unless a mobile phone tells us.

But the distinction matters. Language loses something when we stop caring about perspective. And frankly, if we can’t manage bring and take, I fear for the future of lend and borrow.

“Borrow me your blue pencil, will you – the chief already has a lend of mine.”

Montory, France.

Against my will I did my first group FaceTime call to resolve some of the tension around a situation I’ve been hearing about essentially through proxy. thankfully it didn’t go that bad, but it was a bit of an uncomfortable situation to essentially have to mediate and suggest boundaries between two friends that got crushes on each other when it is not appropriate. One of them is in a long-term committed relationship, and the other is just getting out of a long term codependent relationship. I’m happy with how I handled it though, and also to their credit they handled it pretty well.

Der Verlust eines geliebten Menschen ist eine schwere Zeit. Ein Grabmal ist deshalb mehr als nur ein Stein. Es ist ein Ort der Erinnerung, der Liebe und des Respekts.

Bei der Auswahl von Grabmale Berlin suchen viele Familien nach Qualität, Haltbarkeit und einem individuellen Design. Ein sorgfältig gestaltetes Grabmal hilft dabei, die Erinnerung an Verstorbene auf würdevolle Weise zu bewahren.

In Berlin gibt es viele Möglichkeiten, ein passendes Grabmal zu finden. Dennoch ist es wichtig, einen erfahrenen Anbieter zu wählen. Denn nur hochwertige Materialien und präzise Handwerkskunst sorgen für langlebige Ergebnisse.

Warum ein hochwertiges Grabmal wichtig ist

Ein Grabmal steht oft über viele Jahrzehnte auf einem Friedhof. Deshalb muss es verschiedenen Wetterbedingungen standhalten. Regen, Frost und starke Sonneneinstrahlung können minderwertige Materialien schnell beschädigen.

Hochwertiger Granit, Marmor oder Naturstein bieten hier klare Vorteile. Diese Materialien sind robust und gleichzeitig optisch ansprechend. Daher entscheiden sich viele Familien für Naturstein.

Außerdem trägt ein gut verarbeitetes Grabmal zur gepflegten Optik der Grabstätte bei. Es schafft einen würdevollen Ort für Besuche und stille Momente.

Individuelle Gestaltung für persönliche Erinnerungen

Jeder Mensch ist einzigartig. Daher sollte auch das Grabmal die Persönlichkeit des Verstorbenen widerspiegeln.

Viele Menschen wählen individuelle Gravuren, Symbole oder besondere Formen. Namen, Daten und persönliche Botschaften machen jedes Grabmal einzigartig. Zusätzlich können religiöse Symbole oder florale Motive integriert werden.

Dadurch entsteht ein Denkmal, das persönliche Geschichten erzählt.

Welche Arten von Grabmalen gibt es?

Die Auswahl an Grabmalen ist groß. Deshalb lohnt es sich, die verschiedenen Optionen zu kennen.

Einzelgrabmale

Einzelgrabmale sind für eine einzelne Ruhestätte gedacht. Sie gehören zu den häufigsten Varianten in Berlin.

Diese Grabsteine können schlicht oder aufwendig gestaltet sein. Die Wahl hängt vom persönlichen Geschmack und den Friedhofsvorgaben ab.

Doppelgrabmale

Doppelgrabmale eignen sich für Familien- oder Partnergräber. Sie bieten mehr Platz für Inschriften und Dekorationen.

Außerdem wirken sie oft besonders harmonisch und repräsentativ.

Urnengrabmale

Urnengrabmale sind meist kompakter. Dennoch bieten sie viele Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten.

Sie sind ideal für kleinere Grabflächen und moderne Bestattungsformen.

Materialien für Grabmale Berlin

Die Materialwahl beeinflusst Optik, Haltbarkeit und Pflegeaufwand.

Granit ist besonders beliebt, weil er robust und pflegeleicht ist. Außerdem bleibt seine Oberfläche über viele Jahre schön.

Marmor wirkt elegant und edel. Allerdings benötigt er mehr Pflege, da er empfindlicher gegenüber Umwelteinflüssen ist.

Sandstein bietet eine natürliche, warme Optik. Jedoch ist er weniger widerstandsfähig als Granit.

Daher lohnt sich eine professionelle Beratung vor dem Kauf.

Worauf sollte man beim Kauf achten?

Beim Kauf eines Grabmals spielen mehrere Faktoren eine Rolle.

Zuerst sollten Sie die Friedhofsvorschriften prüfen. Viele Friedhöfe in Berlin haben feste Regeln für Größe, Material und Gestaltung.

Außerdem sollten Qualität und Verarbeitung sorgfältig geprüft werden. Saubere Gravuren und präzise Kanten sind wichtige Merkmale guter Handwerksarbeit.

Auch der Service des Anbieters ist entscheidend. Beratung, Planung und Montage sollten zuverlässig durchgeführt werden.

Qualität und Handwerkskunst mit mjgranit

Wenn es um hochwertige Grabmale geht, überzeugt mjgranit durch Erfahrung, Präzision und Liebe zum Detail. Das Unternehmen verbindet traditionelle Steinmetzkunst mit moderner Gestaltung.

Mit hochwertigen Natursteinen, individueller Beratung und maßgeschneiderten Designs schafft mjgranit Grabmale, die Würde, Beständigkeit und persönliche Erinnerung perfekt vereinen.

Der Weg zum passenden Grabmal

Die Auswahl eines Grabmals sollte niemals überstürzt erfolgen. Nehmen Sie sich Zeit, verschiedene Designs und Materialien zu vergleichen.

Ein professioneller Anbieter hilft Ihnen dabei, die richtige Entscheidung zu treffen. Dadurch vermeiden Sie spätere Unzufriedenheit.

Außerdem kann eine gute Beratung helfen, das Budget sinnvoll einzusetzen, ohne Kompromisse bei der Qualität einzugehen.

Fazit

Die Wahl des richtigen Grabmals ist eine wichtige Entscheidung. Ein hochwertiges Denkmal bewahrt Erinnerungen und schafft einen Ort der Verbundenheit.

Wer nach Grabmale Berlin sucht, sollte auf Qualität, Material und individuelle Gestaltung achten. Mit dem richtigen Partner entsteht ein Grabmal, das Respekt, Liebe und Erinnerung über viele Jahre hinweg sichtbar macht.