While the real landmark event of 2024 was the birth of my son, I still made time for some great literature, music, and travel. Here’s what stayed with me all the way into 2025:
Books
This year’s highlight was Heather McCalden’s adventurous autobiography The Observable Universe (2024). The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden
I happened upon the book in the bookshop at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. It’s one of those texts you pick up, flip through, and decide to give a chance. I’m glad I did.
I also read a collection of Memories (2023) by my grandmother, Lucy Schmudde. The book was bound as a hardcover with supplemental material that included contributions across the family. More on the process here.
Other non-fiction books from this year included:
- I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me Trevor Paglen (2008)
- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander (1979)
- A History of the World in 12 Maps by Jerry Brotton (2012)
The non-fiction list also includes several books related to my work at Yorba:
- The 162-page paper that help formalize REST principles, Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures by Roy Thomas Fielding (2000)
- The excellent Mastering Emacs by Mickey Petersen (2015/2024)
- Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport (2019)
Cinema and Streaming
Perfect Days by Wim Wenders (2023) was my standout film. It’s a calming, introspective story that started life as a vehicle to show off Tokyo toilets and was revived by a fast-fashion nepo-baby as an adverting vehicle. Having worked in the film business, I can say that it’s a small miracle that the director managed to overcome the financiers.
Music
Concerts
The surprise of the year was Lovatraxx playing at Radio Blackout in May. It seemed like no one knew this band from Lyon, France very well - including myself. But by the end of the night they had completely won over the audience. A great live show.
I also had the privilege of seeing Robert Henke orchestrating an incredible audio/visual live performance on 1980s Commodore hardware in Milan. Henke has a virtuosic understanding of the medium of electronic music. The limitations imposed by the hardware created a unique canvas that was unlike any other performance I’ve ever seen.
New Music
Speaking of Henke and virtuosity, cEvin Key reunited with Bill Leeb and now Rhys Fulber to release a new Cyberaktif album. He describes the late bandmate Dwayne Goettel’s virtuosity in the following words:
Despite this, Skinny Puppy fully threw themselves into a productive period that put Cyberaktif in the rearview mirror. Sadly, tragedy struck on August 23, 1995, when Goettel died of a drug overdose at the age of 31. Key, with whom Goettel had worked closely in the Tear Garden, Doubting Thomas, and Download, recalls his friend as someone who, despite the heavy electronics of each project, knew “how to integrate with sequencers…[but] not let the technology get the better of you.”
~ Reunited After 33 Years, Cyberaktif Reveal Their eNdgame
Even without Goettel, the new Cyberaktif is a stellar record.
Other notable recent releases:
Pendulum by Twin Tribes
Another Heaven by CURSES
“Dreampain” from Poised Over Pause Buttons by ADSR, a 2024 release of old tapes from 1987 to 1991.
And these two singles by Hungry Boys:
“Newdance”
“Toi”
Travels
Obviously there was less travel with a newborn. But I still managed a visit to Berlin, Peoria, and Chicago and Frassinetto, Sardegna, Savona, Treviso, and Udine in Italy.
One of the highlights was summiting Mount Coglians (2,780 m/9,120 ft) in Northeast Italy.
Podcasts
I became a paid subscriber to Past Present Future. I fell in love with their “History of Ideas,” featuring thinkers like Montaigne, Simone Weil, and Susan Sontag. The hosts offers informed, contemporary perspectives that really spark reflection. A few highlights:
- History of Ideas 1: Montaigne
- History of Ideas 6: Simone Weil
- History of Ideas 8: Susan Sontag
- History of Ideas 11: Umberto Eco
Exhibitions
I have to admit that I didn’t see a single excellent exhibition in 2024. But here are a few individual artists that caught my eye:
“7PM” by Nicole Wittenberg“7PM” by Nicole Wittenberg
The Miranda July retrospective at Milan Osservatorio
It wasn’t my favorite exhibition, but I did love finding a few Neil Welliver paintings at the Peoria Riverfront Museum’s Solitude: The Necessity of Art.Neil Welliver
I’ll carve out a couple special mentions for some net.art. “Bitwise Liminal” is “a short film in 256 bytes of code.” Lizz Thabet’s “Meet Me on the Deep Net” beautifully combines elements of web artistry and sound.
Essays
I’m a big fan of Ben Tarnoff’s book Internet for the People, so it’s no surprise that I got a lot from reading his New Yorker piece, “What is Privacy For?”
A couple of older essays on complex systems and their management: “II. Herbert A. Simon and ‘Near-Decomposability’” and “Is there a general skill of ‘management’?”
Ali Alkhatib’s provocative essay “Destroy AI” also caught my eye.
With hegemonic algorithmic systems (namely large language models and similar machine learning systems), and the overwhelming power of capital pushing these technologies on us, I’ve come to feel like human-centered design (HCD) and the overarching project of HCI has reached a state of abject failure. Maybe it’s been there for a while, but I think the field’s inability to rise forcefully to the ascent of large language models and the pervasive use of chatbots as panaceas to every conceivable problem is uncharitably illustrative of its current state.
[…]
I think we must forcefully put on the table the possibility that we will destroy systems that fail to make a compelling affirmative case for their existence. That threat must be credible. We should actively undermine and sabotage systems, and recognize that labor as a moral project that we engage in, the way luddites sabotaged machinery that tore people apart."
Meditation
This was a year with very little sitting meditation. But my son appreciated the aggregate hours of Kinhin walking meditation together.