We are now officially in the fifth year of Future Machine’s journey, although really it started in November of 2019, before the pandemic began and the world changed, then stayed the same, then changed again. I didn’t write much in 2024. I had decided to dedicate the year as much as possible to When the Future Comes, for the first half of the year I didn’t take on any other work, with Arts Council funding in place for the third element of the project ‘ The Cabinet of Curious Places’ we went full steam ahead into a year of journeys, arrivals, appearances and coming together, making, exhibiting and thinking.
Some of this process was affected by some health problems and the year passed by with many unexpected issues arising, including grief at losing some friends and guardians. The Cabinet was a difficult artwork to make and exhibit – involving competing visions of what it could be, what it was for, what it should hold and where it should go. I will write more about this soon when I and we as a collective of artists have fully reflected on it. This is probably why I didn’t write much whilst being in the flow of doing the work and responding to the unexpected as it happened. These difficulties were an important reminder of the ethos and heart of the project, to let things emerge, as they are, within the framework of the five places and Future Machine’s annual and seasonal journey to each place, with no agenda other to find a way to come together when it is time to come together, find ritualised ways to witness the present, listen to the past and speak to the future.
It felt like Future Machine grew up in 2024. We needed 4-5 years to truly see something of what Future Machine and the rituals and gatherings that have been emerging in each place, could become. Future Machine is becoming a being of it’s own, a shiny clumsy warrior that appears and returns between the trees, the people, along the paths and the lanes. A strange totem, golem or being that people remember and are beginning to make friends with, a wooden and copper familiar that is beginning to belong somehow to each of these places.
In Peppard, people remembered how to speak to the future and showed each other how to shift the lever and turn the handle to wake Future Machine up. They had prepared their messages to be spoken and received. Friends old and new were relieved to gather together again in the early Spring sunshine to celebrate the spring equinox and our return after the long wet, winter. Juliet Robson handed out her soundscapes for people to spend some meditative time listening as they walked around the cricket field. We celebrated the day of the spring equinox by walking around the village with Future Machine in tow, meeting people and the school children as they came out of the tiny, ancient local primary school, along the way.
In Nottingham, friends new and old gathered, this year the blossoms had pretty much been and gone as we they are nearly a week earlier each year, if this continues they will soon be out in the week of the Spring Equinox! Some of the blossom rituals are now 7 years old, a new photo and film is shot by Frank Abbott of the gathering under the blossom tree each year, Small Food Bakery makes a blossom cake, we’ve been visiting Mellers Primary School since just before the pandemic in 2020, new actions emerge, new people discover the blossom trees filling the memorial gardens, meet Future Machine and speak to the future.
In Cannington, it was our third visit to the primary school. The children are beginning to remember Future Machine, connect the annual summer visit to the trees they are planting in the playground and their commitment to look after them for the future. Again, Future Machine is becoming a friend to the children and teachers, with an element of surprise, returning with new messages for the future from the other places, and reminders of the messages they left in the past. One of the most exciting moments this year was when the children from Rowan Class of 2024 heard the message from Rowan Class in 2023. The children also spontaneously danced together around Future Machine as the music of the weather played out of the large copper trumpet. Here we have a few dedicated Guardians, the teachers and Caroline Locke’s mum and her best friend who host us and Future Machine whilst we visit, providing refreshments, a space to set up and calm! This year two other people, one the local postie became inadvertant guardians when Future Machine tripped over a very high pavement and landed on it’s side in the main road. These heros helped us lift the very heavy Future Machine back on it’s wheels and the damage to the copper trumpet and front panel was luckily repaired by technicians at Derby University and my jeweller friend Jackie!
In Cumbria, a new ritual of walking from Windermere Library to the shores of Lake Windermere at Millerground has emerged over the last two years. This year to witness the dusk, we met people watching the sunset and wild swimming in the lake. Alongside this moment of return, we were able to meet again as a small group who had spent some time in the summer months responding to beautiful prompts to witness dawn and dusk, written into a handmade booklet, created by Wallace Heim. This year we were unable to work with the teachers and students at the Lakes School but made plans for 2025.
Returning to where it all started in Finsbury Park, London a new ritual is emerging, no longer a procession around the park, we spoke to the future, finding different ways to think about how we create the future… with teas and seasonal homemade cakes, coming together to chat, meet, draw and write and Esi Eshun’s ritual around a tree in the park. Then the annual music performance of the weather by Future Machine, Alex Dayo, Dave Kemp and the other Rainmakers and other dance and music peformances created a celebration of the Autumn and the weather into the evening. London, being the capital city somehow calls for something different, although what emerges in each place is equally different from each other, but the happening in Finsbury Park has grown and is turning into a larger celebration from the others, which seems right for the place and time, for now.
What also emerged in 2024 is what this project, ‘When the Future Comes’, is initiating or inspiring alongside Future Machine’s journeys and appearances, and the rituals and comings together that happen around them. Throughout the year in each place, things are also emerging. Particularly in Finsbury Park – where the London collaborators Alex, Dave, Esi and me are in residence at the Commons/Jamboree Hut and running workshops, developing research collaborations and a small gardening project. The hut is now home to The Cabinet, which acts as a repository for some of the archives from the project and a place where people can come to find out more about ‘When the Future Comes’ as part of my parallel workshops ‘Creating the Future’.
In Christ Church Gardens in Nottingham, Frank continues his work filming the gardens weekly throughout the year. His films are emerging and evolving and building a huge body of work witnessing when the future comes to the gardens. Occasionally but rarely we get involved, this year we were invited to consult with the gardens on some concrete boxes that Nottingham City Council wanted to install in the rose garden. We managed to persuade them to install them by the playground instead and plant more blossom trees in the memorial area and are waiting to see if this gets approval, given the precarious financial position of the council since it went bankrupt and went into special measures.
Caroline is continuing to plant trees at Cannington Primary in the spring, taking her large tree bell back to the school, connecting the tree cries that the children wrote with the trees they planted and the messages for the future they spoke to Future Machine.
I am thinking more about how we archive the future. The Cabinet and the banner are a way to tell the story of the project as it emerges, Future Machine speaks for the people who have spoken to the future and is a witness to change in each place, this website also documents the process with images, videos and words.
2025, the fifth year has begun. A time for me to focus on the journeys of the Future Machine, whether or not we get new funding to help us along the way. I will be creating a box for each year of the project, to be installed in my studio at Primary so I can archive the future whilst we speak to it. I will also start to bring all the writing together that we have done and do about this work, towards a series of books about the project. I will be continuing work on the ‘Future Machine’s Journey’ banner, aiming to also create a series of banners about each of the five places.
I can see now how each year emerges from the last, the difficulties of creating The Cabinet has somehow enabled ideas and space for new ways to the tell the story of Future Machine, the 5 curious places, and the people, ecologies and environment that inhabit them, and our present, past and future.