iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

Woke up in shitty England again. A country that thinks so much of itself and has so little to offer.

View of Winchester cathedral in the mist. In the foreground a low rise post war brick development adorned with hanging baskets, union jacks and the St George’s cross 🤮

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

This afternoon, we went on our own #fungi #forage returning home with a bumper crop of boletes.

A kitchen table looked down from above covered with bowls and baskets containing chopped and cleaned mushrooms. A woman is sat opposite the camera, her hands bury preparing a mushroom.

A beautiful bolete with a curved leg protruding from the moss.

A tiny fresh bolete mushroom held by fingertips in front of an out of focus forest

A tall shaggy ink cap mushroom among grass and leaves.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

This morning I read Jumana Manna’s wonderful text ‘Where Nature Ends and Settlement Begins’ about foraging for za’atar and ‘akkoub in Palestine, the Israeli ban on foraging these ingredients, food appropriation, and the accidental species erasure of […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

Front cover of a red book whose title is A Grammar Built with Rocks.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

This morning I have discovered that my university network refuses to connect to the PeerTube service on which I host the professional outputs of my research. 🙃 @avantwhatever

$University of Southampton- Palo Alto Advanced URL Filtering University of Southampton Web Page Blocked Dear User Please note that the URL you are trying to access has been blocked by our UoS firewall policies due to it being categorised in one of the blocked categories. Your online safety and security are our top priorities, and as part of our network security measures, certain website categories are restricted. The specific reason for blocking this URL is that it falls into one of the following blocked categories: Category: malware URL: avantwhatever.xyz/ User: soton\sec1d22 We understand that this might be inconvenient, but these restrictions are in place to protect our network from potential security threats. If you believe this URL should be accessible for legitimate business reasons, or if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact our IT Service Line by completing the form located here: If the domain is a Newly-registered domain it may present a higher security risk, as they are sometimes used to host phishing, malware, or other malicious content before they are fully assessed and verified as safe. Link to Service Desk Exception Request Form. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in maintaining a secure and productive online environment. Kind Regards, iSolutions Service Desk$

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

Tonight Stumbling Over Stones returns to the airwaves with a mix of Music for Plants and music from Okkyung Lee, Sung Tieu, Hototogisu, and Trabant. Tune into Noods online or on DAB from 10pm (UK time)

An archive photo of an interior with banjos and palm plants sharing the space.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

Number 3 in the series is the Pan-American Crossing which stretches from California down the west coast of Central America. In the first 5 years of its operation, 6 native American languages were among the 27 that went extinct. #Data=Erasure

Handdrawn cross section of a submarine fibre optic cable, on polar graph paper, with a chequered pattern of blues and greens surrounding the steel cores, each of which is inscribed with the name, date and nation of an extinct language.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

Wet weather has returned to the overcast isle. We stepped into the showers for a minor #fungi foray in Goblin Combe. Followed by pub Sunday roast. Can anyone identify the deadly looking one on the right?

A mossy stump covered in clutches of sulphur turf mushrooms

Forest floor level photo of white wide-brimmed mushroom with a skirt that makes it look like something I would never touch!

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

Just completed the second of these. Would you believe that in 1994 someone still thought it was a good idea to name a cable Columbus-IIB? Columbus-IIB stretches from Florida to the infamous tax haven of the British Virgin Islands (whose indigenous Arawak and […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

Diagrammatic drawing on polar graph paper of a cross-section of a submarine fibre optic cable with a chequered pattern and the names of extinct languages inscribed in its steel cores.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 10/09/2026

Here is what I suspect will be the first in a series of #diagrams that in some sense 'realise' the score written two years ago. A cross-section of the TAT-8 transatlantic fibre optic cable, drawn on polar graph paper, with the first 27 languages that became […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

A diammatic drawing of a cross-section of a submarine cable drawn on polar graph paper. Apart from the description in the post, the text "infrastructures of erasure" and "carrying capacity • cultural homogeneity" are inscribed in rings around the diagram.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

Back in the studio today for the first time in weeks. Made a couple more #Diagrams of Dispossession. This one shows the block model of an ore deposit with the planned mine pit and the drill cores from which the model is inferred, drawn on top of a table showing […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

This just arrived in my inbox for proofing, which means in a couple of months my tirade against the colonial exploitation of sub-Saharan Africa in the name of energy transition will be available to read.

Chapter 11
Circular Economies, Recycled Colonies
Stephen Cornford
I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.
James Baldwin (1966)
We need critical minerals ... If we can’t get them through our deep seabeds ...
then we should look to Africa, which is where the preponderance of these
minerals are. How can we help foster the public-private partnerships,
bring the American capital, and expertise, and standards to Africa so that
we can keep exploiting [pause] ... so that we ... [pause] exploring where
we can get these minerals?
Senator Todd Young (2024)

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2026

Recent #cosmosgram drawing showing the number of anthropogenic objects in earth orbit, compared with the number of natural satellites (moons) and planets in the solar system. (The ratio of satellites to moons is currently ~37:1)

Pen drawing on polar graph paper. Coral red dots and dashes swirl in multiple overlapping orbits around the central circle, in which text reads 18686 Active Satellites in Orbit
1861 Rocket Bodies 29313 Anthropogenic objects 8766 debris fragments 468 known moons 9 dwarf planets 8 planets.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2026

Two years ago I published a handmade book including this page as a proposed 'instruction score'. Yesterday I decided to try to make it. In 2026 one language has become extinct and 35 new submarine cables have become ready for service. What took me by surprise […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

A graph showing the historic increase in the
total length of intercontinental communication
cables, plotted against the number of living
‘languages,

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026

Shopping at the local organic veg farm this evening.

Sunset over a large vegetable patch with sun streaming out behind clouds and forested hills in the distance

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026

The view from my desk over the next two weeks.

View through an old casement window, a lawn with a deep well outside and a large stack of firewood against the gable end of a brick barn, with a large oak tree towering above it.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026

Just leaving Prague by train on the way to Broumov and then to Hoprich, where my partner and I are spending the next two weeks on a writing retreat.

Landscape view from a train window, train tracks, graffiti and socialist housing

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2026

Just finished making this little lot from the overhanging branches of my neighbours plum tree. Now sat in the garden ostensibly to ‘relax’, but I seem to have brought three intimidating books with me so I can choose which one I should try to tackle this summer.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2026

Pleased with the most recent #Diagram of Dispossession. This one is a hand drawn diagram of the concrete collar for a vertical shaft mine (1933) taken from the Papers and Discussions of Transvaal Mine Managers, with the underground design of the Gounkoto Gold […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

Old hand drawn black and white diagram of the concrete collar on a vertical mine shaft, with a colour diagram of a contemporary underground mine design drawn on top of it.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

Looking for references for an upcoming piece of writing on the spectral, so I opened up Goethe's Theory of Colours last night and quickly came to this paragraph (of absolute garbage). Even the big dogs of our cultural history can't escape the historical situation of their opinions sometimes.

"Compare the varied effects which result from the augmentation of yellow and blue to red, from the combination of these two higher extremes to pure red, and the union of the two inferior extremes to green. What a far more
varied scheme is apparent here than that in which magnetism and electricity are comprehended. These last phenomena may be said to be inferior again on another account; for though they penetrate and give life to the universe, they cannot address themselves to man in a higher sense in order to his employing
them aesthetically."

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 13/07/2026

On Wednesday evening I will be on independent radio for the first time in 18 years, presenting my first guest show on Noods Radio: noodsradio.com Stumbling Over Stones—a title borrowed from a piece of writing by the late grate Steve Roden—will be an […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

An old sepia photograph of man in a reclining chair sat listening to a large technical radio system with a gramaphone horn protruding from the top.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 31/05/2026

Local grocers was selling whole boxes of tomatoes for £4 so we spent much of yesterday turning them into all sorts. Here are my two jars of unsun-dried tomatoes. Must be about 7 tomatoes in each jar.

Two hexagonal jars stuffed with dried tomatoes garlic, basil leaves and olive oil.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 30/05/2026

Most recent #Diagram of Dispossession. That’s a 3D model of the Elida copper deposit in west-central Peru, drawn on top of a ‘Daily Borer Return’ form as used in South African mines in the 1940s. Tables, spreadsheets, censuses, block models, colonialism is […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

An archive table printed on old paper, to be filled out by mine workers with a 3D visualisation of a rock drawn on top of it.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 30/05/2026

Yesterday we did the annual elderflower harvest in the garden and turned it into 4 litres of elderflower cordial 😋 Still meaning to turn this into champagne one year, but somehow never find the time to search out the ingredients and equipment.

Four brimful bottles of red elderflower cordial on the kitchen table

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 09/05/2026

Just came across this incredible image in a recently purchased pile of geological survey reports from Tanganyika [sic]. Diamonds were common quarry for colonial miners, valued not only as precious metals but also as the cutting edge of geological drill rigs. In […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

Black and white photo captioned “diamond-drilling mica pegmatites at Jumbadimwe”

The photo shows three black worked surrounding a white man operating a small geological drill rig.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 09/05/2026

With open studios done and dusted for another year I can get back to these colonial archives that I am busily conserving and vandalising.

Several folds out maps, charts, tables and diagrams from colonial era geological surveys and mining association papers laid out on a desk.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 20/04/2026

Feedback on a forthcoming book chapter about mining. No matter how long I work in academia I will always struggle to understand why it is necessary to say what you are going to say, say it, and then say what you have said in order to consider the job done.

"Chapter 11 has no conclusion and ends abruptly. The author should ideally send a short paragraph to be included there."

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 13/04/2026

For #CablesOfResistance I presented my research on the Silicon Valley geophysics start-up KoBold Metals. To keep track of the research I made a diagram of their connections to BigTech and Venture Capital on the one hand; and of their Earn-in Agreements and […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

A handdrawn diagram with a computer screen mouse, keyboard and headset at its centre, from which a large number of cables extend to numerous hard-drives, each labelled with the name of an individual or organisation tied to the company at its centre.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2026

Research for this talk has now turned into a drawing of tangled cables and external hard drives.

Pencil drawing on paper of a series of external hard drives with the names of billionaires and venture capital firms written on them, all connected to a hub with “investment rounds” written on it.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 24/02/2026

Circular Economies, Recycled Colonies April 11th, 11:00–11:30 (CET) 👉 programm.infraunited.org/cableresis…

Screenshot with this text:

This talk explores how BigTech are using artificial intelligence to prospect for critical e minerals in Africa. KoBold Metals, Silicon Valley start-up is harvesting historic geological survey data, and licensing its proprietary Al engine to mining companies, to create “a Google Maps of mineral deposits”. The circular economy will not be forged from recycled metals, but recycled colonialism.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 12/02/2026

Back on this series of machine drawings… Diagrams of Dispossession takes UK colonial office reports, parliamentary papers and the like as the substrate for pen-plotter drawings taken from prospecting surveys and mine planning documents of contemporary mining […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

Double spread from UK parliamentary papers in 1905 detailing discussions about the mortality of ‘native’ miners in the Transvaal mines. The right hand page includes a large table of mortality rates. On top is drawn in colour a contemporary plan for an open cast rare earth mine, showing the proposed pit design.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 10/02/2026

Great post today - these beauties arrived from Tokyo. Double LP of Tsugaru Minyo folk music and a collection forbidden lewd songs, whose content will sadly be lost on me.

Record sleeve with a stylised picture of a Japanese woman in traditional dress with abstract patterns and kanji script next to her. All on a silver background.

Record sleeve with a Japanese watercolour painting in grey, a moon-faced asian man witj enormous ears and a smudge of red atop his head in front of a distant mountainous horizon. Kanji script at the top left.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 03/02/2026

I have been putting off buying a copy of this for *years* now, and for no good reason. Finally gave in and immediately it’s arrived I regret not reading it the moment it came out. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Front cover of Ariella Azoulay’s book Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026

Wow . . . here's a blast from the past. Not seen one of these come up for sale before. We —myself and the good people from the museum of transitory Art in Ljubljana— made an edition of 12 of these. Archipelago is a four track CD documenting the eponymous sound […] [Original post on assemblag.es]

The top of a black plastic portable CD player with the words Stephen Cornford: Archipelago (Islet) neatly engraved in it.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026

I keep returning, again and again, to this paragraph from Achille Mbembe's book Brutalism. I can't think of a clearer summation of our current predicament. We live in Brutalism.

Computational mechanisms, algorithmic modeling, and capital’s sub- sumption of life in its entirety have become one and the same process. Whether we are talking about bodies, nerves, matter, blood, cellular tissues, brain, or energy, the project remains the same: on the one hand, the con- version of every substance into quantities, the preemptive calculation of po- tentialities, risks, and hazards with a view to their financialization and, on the other hand, the conversion of organic and vital ends into technical means. The aim is thus to loosen everything from an underlying substratum, cor- poreality, or materiality; it is to artificialize everything, and to automate and autonomize it. It is a question of submitting everything to effects of quantification and abstraction. Digitalization is nothing else than this cap- ture of forces and potentialities and their annexation by the language of a
machine-brain transformed into an autonomous and automated system.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 08/01/2026

Absolute furniture mayhem in the studio this morning after picking up an old plan chest from a deceased relative’s house over Christmas.

Wide angle shot of a small studio space cluttered with shelving, desks, dismantled furniture, screens and prints hanging on the walls.

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