That Was The Week That Was - 19th January 2025

"Your flight has been cancelled." These words flashed across my phone on Monday evening, about 12 hours before I was due to fly early the next morning to Germany's capitol city for the Berlin premiere of "Eno." Luckily I managed to rebook my flight for slightly later, to arrive just a couple of hours before the screening at the legendary Babylon cinema.

Thankfully the flight was on time and after quickly dumping my case at the Airbnb apartment in the Mitte district of Berlin, Gary Hustwit and me headed over to the cinema to meet our friend Marc Thiele – the founder of the Beyond Tellerrand conference – who had very kindly agreed to host the Q&A after the first screening. An hour before it was due to start people began to arrive yet the stage that was to host the Q&A was still being built so we were told we couldn't let anyone in yet, even though it was really cold outside and the crowd was starting to gather, pressing against the doors to be let in. Eventually we got the go ahead and people flooded in, taking their seats inside the beautiful setting of this old theatre.

After Gary did the introduction, Gary, Marc and me headed down the road to get some food at a place called King King. I'd set a timer for the length of the film so we knew to be back in time for our Q&A. As we talked, still waiting on our food we noticed the timer was now at less than five minutes and we were still yet to eat anything. A few minutes later the food arrived and we had to wolf it down in order to get back to the cinema just as the credits were starting – and a room full of applause. Wish we had longer at King King as the food was good.

The Q&A went well and the reception to the film was lovely to see. Typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann – author of the classic book Stop stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works introduced himself, telling me his family was from the north of England as he then attempted to do some northern accents. He of course knew that I wasn't "Liverpudlian", even though the press would have you believe otherwise. During the second screening a group of us tried to find a bar to get a drink. Turning away from one because it was too full, and deciding against another because it was a smokers bar, we ended up at Marc's hotel bar. I had a very nice Whisky Sour as the conversation flowed around themes of creativity and the role of the artist in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

The following morning after waking up in the early hours not knowing where the hell I was, I again got a message from KLM saying my flight had been cancelled, this time due to fog at AMS. Looking at the flight options my best bet was to get a refund and fly back with Lufthansa via Frankfurt, getting back to the UK only half hour later than planned. It's times like these you realise how much simpler phones and their apps have made situations like this. Before this I would have had to call the airline – that's after checking via a call that my flight was on time. All that is alleviated with the advent of the mobile app.

As I've been lucky enough to do a lot of travelling, over the years I've come to understand what home comforts I need to take with me on these trips. These include Custard Creams – ideally the ones from Fortnum and Mason though Marks and Spencer's come a close second; a tin of Earl Grey silky teabags, again from Fortnum and Mason; a pair of my favourite slippers and a pair of pyjamas from Rhodes Wood in Harrogate – though I do have my eye on the ones from Budd in Piccadilly, the same ones worn by Daniel Day Lewis in The Phantom Thread. These are all touch points of reminders of home.

Getting back to the UK, the next day I needed to to finish a new piece of work which is being shown and auctioned at an exhibition in New York in February through Gazelli Art House – the London gallery which has represented me for the last few years. I can't say too much at this stage except that it is a triptych which will be a shown as a print together with a digital component. Incidentally it was nice to see Gazelli Art House on Simon Schama's new BBC series about culture, filming the item on pop artist Pauline Boty there.

I managed to find time to watch the brilliant documentary Undercover: Exposing the Far Right which you can find on Channel 4, produced by Tigerlily who are also the co-producers of the Eno doc. It's a terrifying expose of how tjhe far right is now trying to use "intellectuals" and pseudo science to justify racist views. Highly recommended watch.

Speaking of digital art, it was sad to hear that Makersplace – one of the first platforms for selling digital art, and the platform that was integral to selling Beeple's infamous work "The First 5000 days" for $69 million alongside Christie's – was shutting down its operation. Especially sad as my friend Jessica was now out of a job; someone who I've loved working with over the years and who I would be seeing in New York this coming week. Cocktails will be consumed and tales will be told I'm sure. Makersplace closing is just part of the continuing shift in the digital art marketplace and won't be the last such company to go under. Culture is a constantly shifting process and the halcyon days of Cryptoart are never going to return though they did serve to alter the landscape in respect of digital art. The main lesson I've learned in my career is to be adaptive to those cultural changes. If you try and hold on to one world view, without the ability to react to those changes, you're not going to survive.