Future Shock and Its Rot (by sarah)

We are creating a new Category "Future Shock and Its Rot" to go along with things like Aethelflaed and All Things Anglo Saxon, Moon Mania and Beyond, and Ammonites and All Things Cephalopod. These are categories that define specific topics of research or longer form projects such as poetry collections. Topics written about in these "Quests" will also appear in other categories such as history or technology, but tend to have over arching themes that need looking at all collected together rather than just disappearing into the broader categories.

I (Sarah) have been debating the addition of this category for a couple of years now because I am aware I straddle two worlds - Art and Science/Craft and Technology and though people would like to split them into exact dichotomies they are not, but they do tend to exist socially in distinct and separated communities. I have always seen myself as a bridge between those communities - back in the day helping artists with websites and following the progress of accessibility tools without which I would not have been able to complete my degree, as at one point I had lost the use of my hands for even holding a book to read, and of course my interest in green technologies and medical advancement as well as the intersection of tech and art in things like case modes and poems about Markov chains.

My two worlds are imploding and exploding and warring and hating and hurting in a great big mess involving greed and witch hunts and a perfect example of dipoled thinking that is currently crippling our society in everything at the moment.

The topic I am avoiding writing is of course AI - a meaningless term in and of itself. I have avoided writing about it because as I said I straddle the two worlds and am in the weird position of watching as a tech utopia I had envisioned 20 years ago can now never be, even though the technology for it now exists. And watching those technologies being badly and irresponsibly made and used causing ecological and economic devastation whilst still having to defend the use of technologies that provide access for disabled people like me, which have all been rebranding as AI for marketing purposes, and having to field issues such as getting my work rejected because I have "obviously used AI" when I have not, but work of mine that has been published has been scraped and I write genre anyway..... or my photos of storm light looking too realistic or the astronomy photo montages... a story of false AI use accusations that can currently sink your career.

I was loathed to start writing without doing a lot of research and then even more so when I realised it would be a topic I am on both sides of - something that will endear me to nobody and actively harm my career and then the issue that I am now going to be filling our over 20 year old blog with terms that may break who finds it and associates all our work with AI because algorithms can not get the nuance or even often the bluntness of a written argument often misunderstanding whether something is for or against a thing let alone giving complex overviews.

So I spoke to Alaric and the kids about this to check everyone was ok with me writing and potentially breaking our family blog and then I started my deep dive. And some of the stuff I have mentioned above happened after I started this deep dive and I realised I didn't want to just be writing about the negative either - there are plenty of awesome things happening but at the same time as I tried to research this topic and some stuff for post COVID revival projects. The more obvious it became that the wonderful window to people and knowledge that I had watched grow throughout my life was dying or in its death throes. The internet as I knew it doesn't really exist and that added a new quandary - was there any point in even attempting this? Will people even see it?

My conclusion was that it doesn't really matter if others get to see this as I need to put it down in writing so that I personally know where I am going with it! And there is rot and destruction and active death but there also needed to be scope to still celebrate and mark the good and just discuss the "ugly" or ill fitting parts. Bits that might fall into the good or the bad depending on how they are used or implemented.

I had already written Future Shock almost a decade ago now and that techno-social aspect has lingered in my thoughts and the disparity has grown. It was the moment we realised we were living in the future - I remember Charles Stross mentioning his similar moment which was a laptop-using cybergoth girlfriend and a "I'm living in a cyberpunk novel" realisation.

I am alive due to medical tech and people I know have been using AI to find and fight cancer... brain injury survivors and the elderly struggle to use the online world the doctor's surgery try and force you to use to order prescriptions and make appointments... I have had to talk vulnerable adults out of actions AI chat bots have encouraged...

Once upon a time I was very excited about Google Deep Dream and trained it with photos I'd taken to produce a book baby and other bizarre concoctions and my poetry was on a website under a specific licence because it was being used with permission for a language model to create poetry. These were interesting and fun art projects - the images were delightfully weird and the poetry, so obviously generated, was the entire point. This was machine art with human curators.

So how I can say I am anti AI and I definitely can't say I have never used it - other artists when I explained my projects to told me to rename them - they aren't the same as what is happening and accessibility tools are not the same... but on some level they are, and this is where the tangle exists... pretending you have drawn something created, and where the material used to train the AI come from, is important but is a distinction many in the Arts community do not want to acknowledge or more likely simply do not know about. The poem generator was also next to a poetry ping pong where different types of words are on different coloured ping pong balls and you turn the handle to produce a sentence - they both used the same under laying language constructs... this was a Literature Festival about 20 years ago - these fun things could not happen now.

And what even is AI? What is meant? Artificial Intelligence has meant many things to many different people and those in industry use it differently from those in academia, who have several uses depending on which research groups they work with, and this is all different from sci-fi readers which is different again from the general public and of course the marketing department is something else again. So there is a language barrier, and when I was first looking at writing about all this there actually was not the language to do so - sure I could make up terms but sometimes it is best to wait and see what words emerge. and sometimes due to dual meanings or ambiguous or rarely used acronyms you still end up making up your own terms for things. AI needs a lot of defining at the moment and it is a forever shifting landscape under my keyboard clicking fingers.

To try and work all this out I have been attending tech events and discovering some awesome charities Tech4Good SouthWest and more weapon design companies masquerading as humanitarian aid than I thought possible.

When offered sessions with experts I have taken them... they suggested I write a series of articles, or a book, or a series of workshops to explain the whole AI thing across multiple industries and the first time I was like "but... but that is why I am here... I wanted another answer - case studies I could point people at - lovely summaries" but apparently they do not exist yet and as the months drew on and I was getting the same response in despair I have been thinking this is going to be more than a simple few blog posts, and I don't really want to do it, but I can not see disabled people excluded from creative spaces just because of a confusion of word use and I can not leave the dangers of chat bots left unsaid and I can not ignore the environmental impact or the lost legacies of AI contaminated medical data bases.

And I can't ignore that sometimes AI is a tool for art but that the ethics of using ones trained on stolen art has possibly destroyed any legitimate use of it for that. Curation, intention and directional lead are important with inkblot paintings as much with AI which is why I am horrified to see such bad images being produced.

At an arts strategy group I attended the AI Good or Bad Session and I said "if you are going to steal the art and cost the earth can't you at least make sure there are no extra legs or pugs of a million eyes."

The environmental impact is bad - you can tell it's bad by the fact that companies dumped their green credentials in a way that had the geek communities in uproar. With situations like noise pollution caused by temporary generators in car parks and extreme energy and water consumption and that is before we look at emissions in general and building on what had previously been protected land (or at least attempts including here in the UK).

The concept of Meek Geek has been supplanted with Crypto/tech/AI Bro and all our heroes are dead or have been exposed as the villains. The great philanthropy future is drowning under billionaires, and the coders with consciences are working for community interest companies and not really making much money.

This keeps sounding like it will be all depressing but it won't be, honestly - I want to look at ways forward and positive developments too! I mainly want to untangle it all.

Eve and May (by sarah)

It is May, the beginning of May, the beginning of Summer - for some the new year begins now, what ever it is a time of new beginnings... except it is also when Mum was dying, it was an end, a birth to the after life maybe... a something and definitely a transition.

Tomorrow it will have been two yrs, we are only just sorting out her room... only just removing the broken stair lift (it couldn't be fixed metal had sheared off of it), only just paying off some of the stuff that needed paying off. We have only managed any of this with help - we found the roof had been leaking and teenagers swarmed the house and like a little chain of ants took ruined carpet and matrices to a small skip we had out the front. We made them sushi and they stayed to play video games and craft things afterwards - I cried because the teddy bear calendar had been moved - it was still in the configuration my dad had set it too. It had to be moved.

The house moves forward, into a new era, it is once more a big house - Jean has wondered off to University... there are no small children... it is strangly empty and yet not as we have a house full of stray animals... but it is different. Mary likes being able to use the computer more - the entertainment centre is back in the living room and we watch films and play games.

My health has not recovered from miscarriage, covid or looking after mum... but it has gotten better just not as much as I would have liked. And if I was angry about womb stuff before hand I am livid now... we had to go private to get teenage periods that were heavy enough to cause passing out looked at treated in any sort of reasonable time frame... and mum... mum who made sure I knew about periods before I had them because she hadn't and had thought she was dying when her's started... was still too embrassed to tell me she was having some problems in her 70's because everything about wombs and sex and often boobs... problems conceiving, loosing pregnancies, still births, abortion, periods, STDs, AIDS, problems both physical and mental after having a baby and even not wanting babies or sex... all of it is taboo still - all of it is not talked about.

And well I confronted her about blood... she had stage 4 womb cancer... with everything else that was happening it was a drop in the ocean of medical chaos at the time but involved us having to make "interesting" medical decisions, she had already had two different types of breast cancer (no really) which she had beat with operations, radiotherapy and the lighter end of chemo. They told us that it would only be pallative for the cancer but that it was initially advancing quiet slow - the treatments for it in the state she was in would likely have killed her but she was still scheduled to go on the lighter side of chemo etc... as she fought off infections it became aggressive and very quickly spreading. It still wasn't what killed her.

There was genetic testing and a want to stop this kind of thing happening in future - for womb and reproductive system health to stop being shunted to the side. I am sharing all of this with my mum's permission including that though she would never sign a Do Not Resuscitate or ask for no treatment whilst there was hope... she did decided to only take palliative care and go for quality of life over more invasive cancer treatments. I know some people felt this was me allowing mum to kill herself but it really wasn't and all the decisions where talked over endlessly with her and medical professionals. It was also not her only active cancer - she had a slow growing tumour on the adrenal gland.

But all that aside the womb cancer could have been found sooner... and this is the case for many and we don't talk about it... lives are lost needlessly because we won't talk. Before covid I had a set of workshops I had created specifically to try and break these barriers down - the conversations can save lives. Even nurses attending the workshops told me they had suffered and talked about stuff with colleagues or gone to the drs. Stephen Kings mother died because this very thing and that is before we even look at how birth control has been used untested and has its origins in eugenics, or how pain is dismissed as hysteria or aesthetics denied because you managed a vaginal birth so you'll be fine with pain...

This was why I started The Glass Pelvis, and the more I looked the worse it got.

All of this and more is bumbling around my brain - and it is two yrs since mum died, five since dad died and mum basically gave up on life, six since I the miscarriages.

I am a mess, I am still on a crutch... but it is much better than it was... I like to earn medals - you know those race at your own pace type thingies and after mum died I did a Golden Heart challenge with Medal Mad inscribed for her. Then last yr I did the Fogetmeknot medal to remember dad - he always thought he'd be forgotten... ironically or the universe joking with me... I forgot to get the inscription done - Alaric says we can take it and have his name added to it at a shop in Gloucester. I also dragged the family into memorial walks for diabetes, cancer and dementia charities.

This year I have chose Get Lippy 60k in May from the Eve Appeal which is a charity that deals with gynea cancers of which there are five main ones. Womb cancer is of course one of them.

Walking is hard for me and oftentimes painful but there will be dedicated walks for this with live streaming from the me only ones and I am resurrecting my walking group but under the new name Wandering Stars who I plan to walk with on Friday's. I am happy to go visiting country parks and things with people too or do the odd evening if peeps want to join me.

You can of course sponsor me and help raise money for the charity - here is my just giving page:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/sarah-snell-pym-get-lippy--eve-appeal?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Fsarah-snell-pym-get-lippy--eve-appeal&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share

Gloucester Story Telling Cafe – Stories and Songs For May (by sarah)

After last months amazing first birthday bash The Gloucester Story Telling Cafe is hitting it's second yr running with the fabulous Cath Little as guest storyteller and Jessica Law as guest musician. It is very exciting to be able to bring such fantastic artists to Gloucester and to hear everyone sharing!

I can not express the joy it has given me, Jane and Deborah to watch the cafe grow and bloom in this way.

It is the fist Thursday of every month at The Folk of Gloucester a fabulous timber framed building that looks like it is from a fantasy story itself!

Doors open at 7 pm for a 7:30 pm start.

99-103 Westgate Street - just down from the Cathedral and it used to be the Folk Museum and then The Life Museum.

It is pay what you want and as well as our monthly guests we have an open mic - 10 mins max and welcome all forms of story telling within in that so bring you personal anecdotes. flash fiction, traditional tale, shaggy dog story, musical ballard and share!

Gloucester Story Telling Cafe 5 – The Summer Time Special (by sarah)

It's that time again already! July was hectic with end of term and beginning of summer holidays events including The Gloucester Festival of Archaeology!

Now its Augusts turn and we shall be starting off with The Gloucester Story Telling Cafe tomorrow evening at The Folk of Gloucester - this is our monthly story telling night and is open to many and varied different types of story telling from flash fiction, to biopic, to traditional tails, to Crankies and probably a whole lot more!

What you need to know to come and see the show!

When:

Thursday 2nd of August 2023

(It is the 1sr Thursday of every month except January)

Doors open 7 pm for a 7:30 start

It is a pay what you want system - we have no funding currently so could do with some shackles to keep the night running but equally if you have nothing or little to give just come along and enjoy the night for free

End time is around 10 pm (we are aware that one site says 9 pm it is an external site to us so we can't change it!)

We have an interval where you can buy drinks and cakes at the Cafe and Bar, it is also open before the show

Where:

The Folk of Gloucester, 99-103 Westgate Street, Gloucester (just down from the Cathedral)

It is the old Tudor style wooden framed building!

Who:

This months guest story teller is Nick Brunger - check them out even if it is just to see the awesome photos on their website!

And music from Ed B

You:

We also have open mic slots capped at one story, three poems or 10 minutes maximum. Please come and share your stories with us or just kick back with a beverage of choice and enjoy the night.

One, Two, Three… Blast Off (by sarah)

Before covid we were running a story telling night called The Moving Story Telling Cafe but it was derailed and not just by covid - we sadly lost one of our trio to cancer. So last month we relaunched but this time without the Moving - The Folk of Gloucester have kindly offered us a permanent home and also house one of the other Legacy projects of Chloe The Midnight Story Teller... The Story Telling Library.

Last month was a special launch and opening of the library with lots of guest story tellers who all knew Chloe personally - that means the this month is going to be the first actual Gloucester Story Telling Cafe and it happens to fall on May the Forth. One of the reasons the three of us... Chloe, Jane and myself worked so well was that we are unashamedly geeks but perhaps not so obviously geeks to those with narrower ideas of what a geek is. We love our sci-fi and fantasy and I had a request from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society to have an event that geeky poetry would be welcome... well how could we resist such a set up.

So we are blasting off with a Starwars joke and a sci-fi author whizz reading a poem from their sci-fi novel!

Chris Hemingway is a poet, prose writer and musician from Gloucestershire. His book “The Future” was published in 2016 and was described by Cheltenham Poetry Festival as ‘darkly witty, like “The Man Who Fell to Earth “ meets “The Office”’. He has also had published two poetry pamphlets ‘party in the Diaryhouse’ and ‘paperfolders’. That’s a lot of ‘p’s’…

I have used a picture of my dad dressed up an explorer of space when he was a little boy - my Granddad took arty pictures and with my Nanny loved to make outfits for my dad and I am so lucky that copies of this one still existed in Australia and that a cousin kindly sent a copy to me.

Doors open at 7 on May the 4th 2013 at The Folk of Gloucester 99-103 Westgate Street Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 2PG

There is a cafe and bar. Entry is free but we will have a pay what you want pot out!

We are open to all story telling types from traditional to memoirs, to flash fictions, to novel extracts, to oral and of course narrative poetry!

Our Moto is "story telling for all/everyone" and as such not only do we have some fab guests lined up as well as music but we have an open mic were we would love people to come and share. Open mic slots are a max of 10 minutes.

This is the years itinerary - first Thursday of every month except January as lets face it - it is nearly always going to be too close to New Years Eve for most people and I can't be dealing with that!

Here is the Facebook event for tomorrows: One Two Three... Blast Off! and May the Forth be with you!

event

I am very excited about where this is all going - Story Telling and Gloucester have a long history and I hope a longer future!