iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Ok number one, that's an amazing Alan Bennett impression; number two, this sounds great and I'm downloading it for today's outdoors work. Thanks!

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Fucking hell this is a gopping record.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Have you thought about writing something PhD-shaped for general publication?

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

But GOD I LOVED THE STUDYING BIT AND THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AND THE DISCOURSE AND EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED ME. As a life experience, what a fuckin' ride.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I did get a book contract off the back of my thesis but it had to be cancelled as I couldn't afford to support myself and find the time to write it (there was a pandemic on after all);

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

My dream of getting a permanent academic contract has piffled away into nothing and I've watched colleagues, incl my actual PhD supervisor, get made redundant one after another;

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I was considering writing a blog post about this but I can't work out what the point of it is or what I've learned in the intervening years. My PhD hasn't helped me get a job or move into the industry I studied (podcasting) as it largely has been overtaken by corporate pricks and adverts;

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Boy how my life has changed* since then! *it has not

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

@drsarahbrand.bsky.social Ahoy, it occurred to me earlier that it will be the ten year anniversary of starting our PhDs about now, will it not?

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Oh, and printed apologies and retractions should be on the same page, covering the same size and column inches of spread, with the headline in the same size font as the original incorrect story. Forced to boldly highlight their misdemeanours.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Difficult area though, isn't it? As much as the operations of the far right populist press should be curtailed, too many impositions on the industry could lead to well-intentioned investigate journalism's wings being clipped, too. A start? No editorials on front pages Max % of content editorial

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Well done Emley Moor! 10 on the Toniben Scale! I firat remember watching this as a bemused teenager. Jonathan Meades called it 'heavy entertainment' and I was in love with the surrealist style of it. Looking back, this might be where my love of hauntology began youtu.be/WWRmBXhC7Cs?...

youtu.be

Meades, Remember the Future, 1997

YouTube video by Godburn

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

@jasonhazeley.bsky.social Hi, just wanted to say thanks for the recommendation of You Could Do Something Amazing With Your Life on the OGWN podcast the other day. What an astonishing read. I think it's going to stay with me for a very long time. Looking forward to Felled.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Hopping season's over All the money's spent I wish to god I'd never done No hopping down in Kent

Cutting down a really poor crop of hops in a private garden in Deal, Kent.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I come here infrequently but when I do it's always nice that I seem to have picked up someone new and hopefully interesting. I'm afraid I am, however, not that interesting, but I do enjoy a good faff around with something. This evening I dismantled, cleaned, restrung and re- set up my telecaster.

Black telecaster deluxe, all shiny and restrung, perched on a tatty old chintzy sofa.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I had a missed call earlier today actually I think it was them

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Even something like Agadoo – for parties and get togethers, therefore social groups, therefore hierarchies and social structures, suddenly you have class and status in there, btw where is your party happening who is it for how much was the drink and now hello capitalism I think way too much lol

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Nah I don't think most people think of it that way, but if you consider that every song is a product of a society and culture that has history and is organised a certain way you can kind of see that every bit of music has an element of politics maybe?

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

When my music students are doing their dissertations I explicitly tell them that if you have left out the political then you haven't addressed the subject properly. Music is a media form and therefore is strongly connected to money/status/power. Break down your chosen topic using these tools.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Leave the 'smart' bullshit to your phone (and be rightly suspicious of that). If you want a great watch for being brutally accurate, indestructible, and all round brilliant, try a Casio G-Shock. If you really need all the health monitoring stuff, Garmin do great ones. Proper watches are much better.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Brian Eno says there should be a recommendation bit on Amazon that says, 'People who bought this item you are looking at have *never* bought: ____'

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Trying to promote my own hauntological folklore-and-landscape-based media work on here while everyone I follow is right now glued to Penda's Fen on BBC4 is probably wasted effort I think...

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. If you want to hear what you can do with audio documentary (evocative world building and playing with lost media, hauntological shortwave and a live audience), please see here: www.goodwinsandsradiogram.org/ep9-the-drow... Autumn's here. 'Tis the season.

goodwinsandsradiogram.org

The Drowners

Sea monsters

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

> audio was, in the end, far more psychologically satisfying than video-based media, and in truth people don't really watch video anyway – Dan le Sac is right, this is prolly more about clippable content for the socials. Boooo.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

These mainstreamers are commercially-focused and care not of the actual *advantages* of audio-only. You wanna see what you can do creatively in just audio? The Skewer, The Sink, Broken Veil, Welcome to Night Vale... places where you can build worlds. My research found that the experience of just >

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I did a PhD in podcasting back in 2019, before everyone started to do video. Back then it was still a media landscape filled with alternative and indie makers cutting new paths and dreaming new dreams. The whole medium has now lurched towards the mainstream both in format and in output.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Agree with this. Also, audio-only is still seen as the poorer cousin of video because when you've got only some sound to listen to then WHERE DO YOU POINT YOUR EYES? Free improv guitarist Derek Bailey said he hated recorded music because 'what am I supposed to do, just stare at the wall?'

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I visited the Derwent Valley reservoir today, which is where 617 Squadron practiced the dambusters raid, and holy moly, the bravery of those young men. The sculpture erected in their memory is absolutely terrific as well. The light beams under the plane are incredibly well imagined and rendered.

Sculpture of a single Lancaster bomber commemorating 617 Squadron's 'Dambusters' raid.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

What's with all this windy all of a sudden It's not right My eyes are full of bits and the air should not have agency to make decisions

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I was lucky enough to see it in Bayeux about ten years ago. A magnificent graphic novel. Alan Moore would have been proud to have written it I reckon.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I've never known a year where the transition between summer and autumn has been so striking and abrupt. Tuesday: Ice cream and sunburn. Wednesday: Ghosts and piles of dry-yet-wet leaves.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

And came second out of two. On the way home the van driver hit a rabbit and it was all quite upsetting. This is what happens, kids, if you sell your soul to rock'n'roll. The devil's music.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Aged about 16 I was in a punk band called Rabid Snail. Our youthy was really supportive and a volunteer drove us a 150 mile round trip to a battle of the bands event in Worthing. One band had pulled out, leaving just us and a quite good indie 5-piece who covered Radiohead's The Bends. We were shit.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Not sure why it's taken me so long to get to this as MC's book on Hauntology was instantly a favourite. Hiding in a shed at work from the rain, pooches for moral support.

Merlin Coverely's Psychography book, in a shed, with a dachshund and Jack Russell for company.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Huey: 'You're an asshole and a coward. Security, throw him out. No, actually, fuck it, stand still, motherfucker, I'm gonna deal with you myself.' And he did.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I also watched Huey from the Fun Lovin' Criminals jump into the crowd and punch a man clean out. One punch. Carried out by security to an ambulance. He threw a bottle at the singer mid-song and it hit him square in the face.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Reef, who at a gig in about 1999 made the mistake of doing Place Your Hands about fifth in the set. I was nearish the front but after they did that song turned around and saw the audience exiting en masse. Felt terrible for the band.

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Die as in how stand-ups die? Shed Seven at the fag-end of Britpop, an audience of barely 50 in a venue for 500, the same group of ten scallies 'crowd' surfing each other across the sad-looking audience (my school German teacher was there, watching from the side of the stage, fully stoned);

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Why does this photo look like he halfway thru spitting a few bars at the Rap Battle

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Dr Ben Horner @theaudiosphere.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The idea of exploring a real and virtual place all at once I still find electric. Of course now I'm a grown up I know about psychogeography and how place makes you feel, tho m'colleague @soniaoverall.bsky.social tells me what I'm actually doing here is 'schizocartography'. Cool.

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