@danlockton.com
Utrecht, NL + Norwich, UK Professor of Design & Imagination, Norwich University of the Arts ⦿ Director, Institute for Sustainable Worlds ⦿ Design⸻imagination⸻climate⸻futures ⦿ http://imaginari.es ⦿ http://newmetaphors.com ⦿ he/him ⦿ Not employer's views
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💜 citizen sleeper x ace attorney
🔥 revenge against the epstein class
🤑 marxist-animist weirdness
🃏 card-based narrative
🇮🇳 set in alternate india
✨ dreams of dead gods
🍃 branching stories
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The thing I really don't get about academics using LLMs to generate ideas/write papers is: that's the part of my work I 💯 love: creative challenging & fulfilling. I pay the piper by sitting in committees, doing loads of paperwork & abiding by lots of procedures. Why give up the best part of the job?
okay, Ill bite.
What do you think the point of reading for and writing a literature review is? The process of reading and writing is crucial for THINKING. Your ideas are shaped by all of this, offloading it to gAI, no matter how "good" you think gAI is at it defeats the purpose entirely.
My half-cooked theory about this is that affordable housing, free education and free healthcare (so, high taxation economies) create the conditions for morally responsible business, because they remove the need for everyone to absolutely maximise their earnings every stage of employment
Opening up a new front on settlement (not migration) is politically stupid as well as morally obscene.
absolutely fumin' at how the woke sadiq khan has partially pedestrianised Westminster Bridge
Also, hope for a better world is actually appealing to people.
This week's post is about #AI, #metaphors and magic, and, inspired by @davemurrayrust.bsky.social and @mlucel.bsky.social, how to deal with the enchantment through design makingsciencepublic.com/2026/02/27/m...
Onfim’s drawing of himself on horseback as a warrior defeating an enemy.
Two of Onfim’s works. On the left is a copy of a passage from the Book of Psalms he did for schoolwork. On the right is an apparently autobiographical depiction of a monster labeled with “I am a wild beast.”
Some more spelling practice by Onfim with some human figures who have round heads and varying numbers of fingers on their big hands.
Onfim’s writing practice accompanied by 7 little people in his particular drawing style, who tend to have very big hands with many fingers.
Nice AI-image-generating tool, but it will never be as great an artist as Onfim, a child who lived in the Novgorod Republic in the mid-1200s and who scribbled these drawings and schoolwork writings on birch bark at the age of 6 or 7.
what even is the fucking point
"It could never happen here" isn't even a political position, but a bunting-infused bit of political nostalgia. The only reason things never happen is because active measures are taken to stop them. Let's make the UK a place it can never happen, rather than optimistically just hoping that's the case
...a 4-year project funded by the Centre for Unusual Collaborations, with @jochamb.bsky.social, Raimon Ripoll Bosch, Jet Vervoort, Maikel Waardenburg, Jessica Duncan, @joostvervoort.bsky.social, Joyce Browne, Dan Vy Vu and me. Register here: forms.office.com/pages/respon...
A banner for the Library for Transformative Play launch, with photos of people and games and the logos of the universities involved
How can playful creative activities help teams from different disciplinary backgrounds collaborate? We’re launching our Library for Transformative Play at Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands, tomorrow, 24 February, 16.00–17.00 CET. It's one of the outcomes of Playing with the Trouble...
Paired with @danlockton.com next month, In Splendid Isolation, a debut story by RL Doughty.
Very excited about 'Halls of Residence'—published next month by the wonderful @nightjarpress.bsky.social. My first published short story.
A lesson about networks that I’m kind of proud of: at the beginning of the year, I gave my 200 students a dumb survey: fav books, foods, etc. I told them they could use pseudonyms and that I’d share their responses with the class. We’ve been using that data in various ways: to make points about +
For anyone familiar with New Metaphors imaginari.es/new-metaphors/ this is the same daymark, near Coleton Fishacre maps.app.goo.gl/M1x5qTUjibE5... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingswe... featured as a possible metaphor in the card deck.
WE ARE LIVE! Dying with nerves and excitement. Please help us realise All Will Rise by supporting our kickstarter! Plot your revenge against the billionaire class and play the demo now! #indiegames #indiedev #gamedev
that's buollying
Just wanted to say thank you Alom for these recipes—tried the two dals, both very good but also excellent instructions!
Strange feeling seeing my handwriting on that Post-it note slipped in the (Paperchase) box. Going by the sticker design, this is probably from a batch I assembled in a garden shed in Twickenham—incidentally just behind the Pilates studio visible @3m33s in Black Mirror s03e06 'Hated in the Nation' 😅
A screenshot of an eBay.com listing for the Design with Intent toolkit, on sale for $135 Buy it Now
Fascinating to read the (AI?) description here—including that the DwI cards are "a widely respected behavioral design and UX strategy tool used by designers, researchers, product managers, and innovation teams." www.ebay.com/itm/19797979... $135
(download them here imaginari.es/wp-content/u...)
Strange how hostile most newspapers always were about ‘media studies’, can’t imagine why.
So much of what we know, the facts, constructs, mental models that are available to us, come from an ongoing interaction with the people in our social networks and information universes. Being surrounded by yes-men and groupthink collaborators is like being in an inverted conspiracy cult of one.
no need to get cranky
Step 1: deliberately scare people with misinformation and lies about what a proposed policy or plan will do. Step2: wait for misinformed people to complain. Step 3: say that “clearly people are concerned,“ so we should “listen to the people“ and reject the plan. The Populist Playbook
Step 4: mainstream media “reports the controversy” rather than the fact it was manufactured, and the amplify the quotes of those who manufactured it.. Step5: other elected leaders who know the truth, still vote against the good plan or policy, because they’re too afraid of the “heat.“
Have you heard of “The Populist Playbook?”
A few years ago, I posted what I still consider one of my most important messages.
It was about “The Populist Playbook” that I’ve watched play out often over my 33+ years of city planning.
Since then, it’s only gotten worse.
Do the steps sound familiar?
by popular request i have turned the meme into a blog post, which explains how it works, links to the template file and includes a selection of examples from the thread
#KirbyFraming
With Trump’s increasing belligerence, the UK urgently needs to establish digital sovereignty. Our country’s day-to-day functions should not rely on a handful of US-based tech giants.
I am calling for a UK digital sovereignty strategy. Write to your MP! action.openrightsgroup.org/protect-brit...
There are so many knock-on effects of degrading US regulatory standards, which will inevitably drive down standards everywhere else. I don't know about you, but I want the next plane I get on to be a lot better than "good enough".