That Was The Week That Was — 7th June 2026

Charles taught me that the beauty of being hands-on is that you get to make all the choices and move at your own pace
— Llisa Demetrios talking about Charles Eames

This weekend saw the inaugural edition of In Between Days, a two-day online symposium about creativity, technology and change presented by Anamorph and Chance Operations and sponsored by Field Notes.

It was only a few weeks ago that Gary and I started to talk about what this event could be, and why it was needed, and so it was incredible to experience — through amazing organisation led by Gina Vestuti and brilliant moderation by David Bader — an inspiring, thought provoking couple of days.

All the speakers brought different things to the conversation: Kevin Bethune talked about non-linearity, having a skill set that many could never describe, yet found invaluable, from working in nuclear reactors to designing shoes for Nike. Ari Kushner talked with Jessica Edwards about the provocative films he makes using AI, how he feels they're not satire, and even showed the process of making them. Llisa Demetrios spoke about her work as Chief Curator at the Eames Institute, the power of curiosity and the things she learned from Charles and Ray Eames and how their legacy is still relevant today. The first day finished with the force-of-nature that is Aaron Draplin, talking about trusting your process and how you should continue to make things with "a youthful vengeance."

The second day started with Gary and I talking about making the Eno documentary which was shown the evening before in an exclusive version just for IBD attendees. Then the legendary Laurie Anderson joined Gary to have a great conversation about her practice, how she doesn't like the term technology, how she likes to revisit things to find hidden treasures, about simplicity and reduction and a whole load of other wonderful stuff. Yumi Sukagawa was next and took everyone on a guided meditation followed by some brilliant journaling exercises, talking about the importance of rituals, such as the practice of writing morning pages. The final guest of the day was Everett Katigbak who talked about his time in the belly of the beast such as Facebook and Anthropic and his research and thoughts on what he called analog intelligence.

On top of all that it was wonderful to see how engaged the audience were. The chat room was constantly flowing with reaction and insightful comment.

It was a weekend which confirmed the importance of making things; of putting things into the world which you feel deserve to exist; the importance of slowing down and taking notice; the beauty of imperfection, of creating something just for the sake of it and making the familiar strange, the power of process and curiosity, the plurality of ideas and the intrinsic power of people getting together to talk, listen and share their thoughts in these uncertain times.