unfinishing

Matt Busher is a designer and art director who started making a solar-powered web server in the summer of 2020. He’s got lots of fascinating things to say about teaching yourself how to do things like that – and about finding low-tech solutions to problems rather than reaching straight for an app. My conversation with him is coming up next week.

Matt's design practice is called 21-87. He works with individuals and organisations to develop visual identities, publications and spaces guided by an inquisitive, research-led approach. Recent commissions include an identity for a new artist- and maker-led online store, Inland; a delightfully surprising ecom store for Australian fashion brand Song for the Mute; and a wayfinding system for an electric vehicle startup Arrival.

Matt also collaborates with a previous guest on unfinishing, Rishi Dastidar. You can listen to the episode with Rishi here: https://anchor.fm/em-anderson/episodes/with-Rishi-Dastidar--Postcards-for-strangers-e1fmh95

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email ([email protected]) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag. More details and a full list of episodes are available on my website: ecanderson.wordpress.com 

For those who are interested, here are the links to various things I discuss with Matt:

Graham Oakes talks to me about his endeavours in stand-up comedy, in sketch groups, and in creating YouTube videos. Graham tells me about how he prepared for his first stand-up gig while carrying mattresses through Newcastle, and about what happened when a community of "real" vampires took against one of his YouTube videos. Graham also created the artwork for unfinishing and if you'd like to see some other examples of his work, you can find them here: @grahamoakesart

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email ([email protected]) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag. More details and a full list of episodes are available on my website: ecanderson.wordpress.com 

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. What’s the value to be found in unfinished and private writing, art, and music? What stops us from finishing things off? And what might happen if the pressure to complete projects disappeared? I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

unfinishing is produced and presented by Em Anderson

My guest in the next episode of unfinishing is Graham Oakes, who talks to me about his endeavours in stand-up comedy, in sketch groups, and in creating YouTube videos. Graham tells me about how he prepared for his first stand-up gig while carrying mattresses through Newcastle, and about what happened when a community of "real" vampires got upset about one of his YouTube videos. Graham also created the artwork for unfinishing and if you'd like to see some other examples of his work, you can find them here: @grahamoakesart

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email ([email protected]) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag. More details and a full list of episodes are available on my website: ecanderson.wordpress.com 

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. What’s the value to be found in unfinished and private writing, art, and music? What stops us from finishing things off? And what might happen if the pressure to complete projects disappeared? I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

unfinishing is produced and presented by Em Anderson

Mark Antony Owen is a poet and publisher. He talks to me about his online poetry project Subruria, which is about the place where the suburbs and the rural landscape meet. Listen in to find out why the project gets updated every three years, how Mark has created a coffee-table book on the internet, and how facts become disguised as fiction in his work. Mark is also the creator and curator of poetry journals iamb and After... and is on Twitter (where he can be found leading discussions on all things poetry) here: @MarkAntonyOwen

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email ([email protected]) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag.

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. What’s the value to be found in unfinished and private writing, art, and music? What stops us from finishing things off? And what might happen if the pressure to complete projects disappeared? I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

unfinishing is produced and presented by Em Anderson

The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes

Mark Antony Owen is a poet and publisher. He talks to me about his online poetry project Subruria, which is about the place where the suburbs and the rural landscape meet. The full episode is out next week - listen in to find out why the project gets updated every three years, how Mark has created a coffee-table book on the internet, and how facts become disguised as fiction in his work. Mark is also the creator and curator of poetry journals iamb and After... and is on Twitter (where he can be found leading discussions on all things poetry) here:  @MarkAntonyOwen

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email ([email protected]) or on Twitter (@TrueBagglerag). 

Sophie Taylor is a writer and visual artist. She talks to me about a poetry collection she doesn’t want to publish. It was written by an AI text generator, and it’s called deep / FALSE!

In the collection Sophie processes low-fi revenge porn. She emptied notes, police interviews, unsent emails, shopping lists, and voice memos into AI text generators. The AI learned elements of her language and created a parody of her voice to create the poems. The AI not only created fake cultural references and verse, but slowly started telling jokes and even giving advice.

Sophie’s website is here: Www.mrsophie.com It includes examples of her text, audio, and visual work, as well as her radio show 'Polyfilla' on No Bounds Radio.

The Aphex Twin poetry anthology to which Sophie has contributed is here: https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/you-ve-got-so-many-machines-richard-an-anthology-of-aphex-twin-poetry It’s published by Broken Sleep books and is edited by Rishi Dastidar and Aaron Kent. And some things we mention in the podcast: Star and Shadow Cinema: Star and Shadow Programme; The Paper (Good Press): The Paper – Good Press — good books & more

If you have a project you never finished or never made public that you'd like to talk about, email [email protected]

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes. unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson (@TrueBagglerag). The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes: https://www.instagram.com/grahamoakesart/

My guest in April is the writer and artist Sophie Taylor. She tells me about a poetry collection that she doesn't want to publish. (And it's written by an AI text generator).

Subscribe here across podcast platforms to listen to the episode when it's released (you can also catch-up on previous episodes via the same link): unfinishing • A podcast on Anchor

My guest is Rishi Dastidar, who is a poet and copywriter. Rishi’s poetry has been published by the BBC, the Financial Times and the New Scientist, amongst many others. His second collection, entitled Saffron Jack, is published by Nine Arches Press. Rishi is also co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, and he serves as chair of the writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi has written for many different brands over the course of his career in copywriting, and was recently a judge for D&AD.

Rishi’s unfinished project is Self-Portrait Postcards, which began when he started writing down all of his Facebook updates (filling over fifty notebooks in the process). Rishi ended up collaborating with the designed Matt Busher to create an exhibition in which his updates were displayed on postcards, with visitors invited to choose one to take away with them. 

For those who are interested, the unfinished novels Rishi mentions in our conversation are Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. 

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes. If you have a project you never finished or never made public that you'd like to talk about, email [email protected] 

unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson (@TrueBagglerag). 

The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes: https://www.instagram.com/grahamoakesart/

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

In Series 2, Episode 1, my guest is Rishi Dastidar, who is a poet and copywriter. Rishi’s poetry has been published by the BBC, the Financial Times and the New Scientist, amongst many others. His second collection, entitled Saffron Jack, is published by Nine Arches Press. Rishi is also co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, and he serves as chair of the writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi has written for many different brands over the course of his career in copywriting, and was recently a judge for D&AD.

Rishi’s unfinished project is Self-Portrait Postcards, which began when he started writing down all of his Facebook updates (filling over fifty notebooks in the process). Rishi ended up collaborating with the designed Matt Busher to create an exhibition in which his updates were displayed on postcards, with visitors invited to choose one to take away with them. 

For those who are interested, the unfinished novels Rishi mentions in our conversation are Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. 

unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson (@TrueBagglerag). The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes https://www.instagram.com/grahamoakesart/