At the Machinic Language Symposium hosted at UAL, Melanie Hoff touched on some critical ideas about what language does under the shifting pressures of code and environment. Through examples from performance, computation, and collective experiments, she showed how language actively shapes how we relate, communicate, and make sense of the world. Melanie describes language as a lived system of sensation shaped by code, culture, and power that dictates how we understand ourselves and the world. It can be consciously and collectively redesigned in response to the systems and environments we operating within.

The Ink & Switch team hosted a social this month at ARIA. Two of my favourite talks focused on how much of our tooling still falls short of supporting real thought.

The first one was a mindblowing demo by Marcel Goethals on Programmable Ink, which showed how powerful it could be to merge the immediacy and fluidity of writing/skectching with embedded computation. A medium that’s as tangible as pen and paper yet dynamic enough to simulate, transform, and respond.

The second talk on material programming by Agnes Cameron touched upon the idiosyncrasies of knit as a medium and discussed the possibility of knitting software that remains malleable and works with and for knitters with varying degrees of expertise.

Had the pleasure of a front row view into Kelli Anderson's book and talk Alphabet in Motion at the St.Bride Foundation. Phenomenal piece of paper engineering exploring the history of type and technology!

The book is a visual treat in itself but Kelli also went the extra mile sprinkling all that rich history into incredible essays and included them in the book. She walked us through her process of 5 years and IMO it is every maker and prototyper's dream space to be in.

The Ink & Switch team organised a social at the Tldraw office in London to share some recent news and research from the lab. Peter Van Hardenberg gave a presentation on Malleable Software and demo on Patchwork. Loved the bonus super cool demo from Lu Wilson on recent experiments and updates from Tldraw.

The web is for everyone. The joy, the whimsy, the vibes too — for everyone.

I had the pleasure of attending Dave Meckin's talk today, and it was truly fascinating! He explored the intricate relationship between sound, movement, and experience design. From emotional sonification to bio-diversity loss, he touched on some incredible work that investigates rhythms that shape our world.

During his talk, Dave shared insights into his creative process — from selecting materials and experimenting with form to integrating sound and movement. He explained how each choice is guided by the rhythms he seeks to convey in his sonification experiences.

One idea he shared really resonated with me:

There is rhythm to our world even if we cannot see it. We are all rhythmic creatures.

Here’s to more multi-sensory experiences!