May 18, 2025

Welcome to this experiment; I am not sure how it is going to unfold and play out, but then that’s part of the charm (I think).

Before I dig in, a little bit of context for you. I am currently sitting in a cafe called… I am looking around and I do not see a sign, but I know it has the word ‘coffee’ and ‘sheep’ in it. So, probably, I am in a cafe called Coffee Sheep in the Slovakian town of Trenċin. I am here for the next two weeks, until May 31, on a research trip. In 2026, Trenċin is the European City of Culture, and they have asked the Bureau to produce a site-specific artwork that has “something to do” with the abandoned railway bridge and rail line that bisects the city. The only parameters are that it has some form of community engagement; the produced ‘artwork’ needs to be up for at least a year; and to program a series of events via whatever it is that the Bureau comes up with. I’ll be back in the Fall for a month, where the site-specific project will be completed and launched to the public and produce a series of events throughout 2026.

The so-called Bridge to Nowhere, the site of exploration.

What, you are probably asking, is this “Bureau” you constantly mention? I am not going to go into too much detail, as you can check out our website, but suffice it to say, the Bureau is my future; ideally, my name fades from memory and what’s left is this: the Bureau of Operational Landscapes, a nebulous character whose interest lay in the (overlooked) industrialized landscapes of the 21st century and how one might build a sustainable relationship to such sites.

But let’s move on. I promised to make these newsletters short and punchy.

Lately, I have been interested in local media, or even what could be called ambient or small media. This is a bit of a paradox, as the Bureau’s interests are in planetary, transnational landscapes that transcend the local in favour of the global. Think: a modern port, the grease in the machine that lubricates intercontinental circulation and distribution. Or, a network of rusted steel railway lines that links a small Slovakian town to broader systems of trade and transfer. And yet, each of these has local implications. They are bounded by geography and the human-scale, affecting the daily comings-and-goings of of each and every one of us regardless of how disconnected we are from those larger landscapes. The local is not the opposite of the global, but it is where planetary relations become grounded and visible. In other words, the local is an intersection of competing trajectories; a way to ‘see’ the messy entanglements of people, power, culture, history, and change.

And now about this expiring newsletter.

Imagine yourself in a car, travelling along some highway, passing by a distant urban centre when the radio station you are listening to starts to crackle, the spectral airwaves wavering, displacing some decades-old hit with, God forbid, New Country or something like that. Suddenly, the signal drops, you have punctured that boundary of transmission and entered into the next local circumference of geography, praying for a half-decent station so you can hear Bob the Used Car Salesman make his pitch for cut-rate financing on a beat up Ford or something. Everything Must Go!

That’s how I see this newsletter, an ephemeral action that exists in a particular moment in a particular time in a particular place, only to disappear as quick as it came. This is not about growth or branded content, but a directive to myself to stay tuned and in the moment, absorbed into the peculiarities of Trenċin and a way to expose the inner, sloppy, contradicting and, perhaps, even euphoric process of making something. This is also inspired by Craig Mod, whose notes on walking I have always admired.

There are two words I can never spell: rythym and grafitti.

I won’t post everyday, but I’ll post most days. I won’t check who unsubscribes, but I will delete all of you once May 31, 2025 comes around, probably as I make my way to the airport and back home. I’ll post what I think of as Field Reports, immediate forms of “action-writing” (I just came up with that — see, writing is beneficial!) that at times can be small stories, experiences, what I ate, thoughts about the project, some photos, some videos: a mix of up down and everything.

I have no idea where this is all headed, but that’s part of the fun. Thanks for joining.

p.s. If you think I can improve the navigation of this page, let me know, I am new to this platform.