iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 1h

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 · 21/09/2026

#Bristol - Coming up in November at the Cube: Forest Ecologies, Colonial Legacies This screening brings together three artist films that explore postcolonial, speculative and scientific understandings of forests. Journeying between Colombia, Germany, and Indonesia, we hear from the diverse […]

assemblag.es

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

"Stripped of all revolutionary meaning, sovereignty becomes little more than a sad imitation of the Californian ideology wrapped in nationalist robes.21 In practice, it serves to legitimise expansions in domestic surveillance, projects of mass displacement, and an endless expansion in mineral […]

assemblag.es

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Fondly remembering the time when I plugged an Apple Time Machine into my university’s Ethernet, looked my office and went home, inadvertently leaving 24 hours of network chaos in my wake.

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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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Reposted by Stephen Cornford

Chuck Darwin @cdarwin.c.im.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

Astronomers spent decades designing the Square Kilometre Array Low (SKA-Low) to hear the faintest whisper in the observable universe — neutral hydrogen signals from the cosmic dawn, when the first stars flickered on roughly 13 billion years ago. What they’re picking up instead is electronic […]

c.im

Original post on c.im

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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 · 07/09/2026

One of my favourite pieces of #VideoArt from the last decade - Andy Holden's wonderful Laws of Motion in A Cartoon Landscape is available to watch on Vimeo for a limited time. Treat yourselves to an hour of both hilarious and profound reflections on the physics of cartoons and their […]

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

@mhoye previously an aqueduct? I went for a lovely walk once in Cornwall where the remains of a water-powered china clay mill were. The aqueducts that powered it were still working.

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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 · 02/09/2026

@joost_rekveld Avantwhatever in Melbourne has one that was started to run some film/video commissions that they initiated in the wake of the pandemic. I am currently hosting my recent film output there.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

TAT-8, the first transatlantic fibre optic cable was inaugurated in 1988. It spanned nearly 6000km and cost approximately $340 million. It was operational for just 14 years, in which time it is estimated that 66 languages became extinct.

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Reposted by Stephen Cornford

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 · 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

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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 · 04/08/2026

Around 2019 there was widely publicised controversy over the proposed bandwidths for 5G transmissions, with meteorologists concerned that they could interfere with the passive sensing of atmospheric water vapour. Now that 5G is a reality does anyone know how this situation has developed?

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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

@joost_rekveld Yeah, I'm well aware of the perceptual basis of colour (although my understanding is that the three types of cones map a flat triangular field of colour, and that its the combination with brightnesses sensed by the rods which produces the third dimension). But I'm more interested […]

assemblag.es

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

@joost_rekveld Hmmm, maybe I am making a leap from electricity and magnetism to electromagnetism that is not explicitly there, but my thinking is that the frequencies that he describes which "penetrate and give life to the universe" are electromagnetic and that their combinations are equally […]

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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 · 01/07/2026

Two days. Two rejections. Onwards regardless.

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2026

“We can isolate a crystal, but cities and cells die when cut off from their environment. They form an integral part of the world from which they draw sustenance, and they cannot be separated from the fluxes that they incessantly transform” (re-reading my notes from Stengers)

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Stephen Cornford @stephen-cornford.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 04/06/2026

Cultivate a healthy suspicion of heavily saturated colour.

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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 · 16/05/2026

This week I came across an article about diamond drilling, not just in prospecting but in a productive mine at Nkana, with these illustrations of diamond drill heads - also known as crowns 👑

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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 · 20/04/2026

Is it me or is 5G actually slower and less reliable than 4G was?

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Reposted by Stephen Cornford

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/04/2026

The shitweasels are also asking for waivers! Because the few rules that are left are just too much. Please don't ask Jeff Bezos to pay a measly million dollar bond in case they don't launch 50% of their sats within 6 years. That would be unfair! Also please don't worry about what radio spectrum […]

mastodon.social

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