Plato’s Allegory of the Cave offers a metaphor for the limits of human perception. The prisoners in the cave know the outside world only through shadows projected on the wall in front of them. In a similar way, a large language model’s apparent knowledge of the world comes not from direct experience, but from “shadows” in its training data texts that describe things, events, and our conversations about them. Since an LLM cant actually 'see' we might better think of it as a prisoner in a yet another cave or as Kulveit(2023) proposes, a ‘blind oracle’ who only hears the conversations on the prisoners talking about the shadows. Although it is possible to create an LLM which knows nothing of the
ART
Moss worlds
MossWorlds: The Exhibition is now on! National Trust Castlefield Viaduct 22 Oct 2025 – 1 Feb 2026 Step into the lush, layered world of moss a quiet hero of Manchester’s past, present, and future. Through immersive art, music, poetry, and hands-on activities, MossWorlds re-stories moss as more than a plant: it’s resilience, intelligence, and wonder. From lowland bogs to railway embankments, community parks to viaduct gardens, moss has always been part of Manchester’s evolution See more info on exhibition here See more about the project here: https://mossworlds.co.uk/
Remember Nature 2025 (with Yu-Chen Wang)
I am taking part in Remember Nature 2025 Here is the information...I will be at hulme GHarden centre making Microprotests (see generator above built in p5js click to re-generate).... A Nationwide Day of Artist‑led Action to Stand Up for Nature NATURE REMEMBERED Communal Walk: 4 November 2025 (12.30–3pm)Meet at Manchester Art Gallery, Derek Jarman Pocket Park, M2 3JL.Tickets (Free) Gathering: 4 November 2025 (3–5pm)Hulme Community Garden Centre, M15 5RG.Tickets (Free)In 2015 artist Gustav Metzger called on art schools and students of all disciplines to “Remember Nature” and “make a stand against the ongoing erasure of species”. Tuesday 4 November 2025 marks a decade since that call, and partners across England are coming together, bringing ethics into aesthetics, for Remember Nature 2025. You can find out more about
Cryptogamic oracle v1
Micro protest workshop
The Micro-Protest Workshop explores the power of gentle protest through small, situated acts of resistance. Participants use a process of ‘diffractive mapping’* to co-create protest signs and slogans that draw on perspectives from ecology, art, and activism. Rather than large-scale statements, these micro-signs give voice to overlooked or more-than-human worlds, transforming protest into an exercise in empathetic imagination. Drawing on Corbett’s idea of gentle protest (Corbett, 2017) and the Situationist practice of détournement (Debord & Wolman, 1956), the workshop uses humour, play, and re-appropriation to show how media objects, even modest ones can disrupt dominant narratives and open space for critical reflection.
Moss workshop
The Moss workshop explores the overlooked ecologies of the city. Equipped with ecological ‘probe kits’, participants move slowly through the city exploring damp walls, gutters, and cracks, using microscopes and cameras to encounter mosses and other life forms, usually hidden from view. The process of looking closely and documenting these organisms invites reflection on the more-than-human world and the ways in which our tools; lenses, photographs, notes enhance our perceptions and mediate what we see and value. By shifting attention from fast, screen-based media to the intimate scale of moss, the workshop creates a space to question how visibility, evidence, and care are distributed across environments and societies. By combining hands-on ecology with reflective media practices, the moss workshop asks us to consider how slowing
Springtails under microscope
https://youtube.com/shorts/vO5B57RXVLM?si=xADWZH7ghxTv58Z3 Progress on generative film composition using touchdesigner. This uses a series of Caches and composite overlay (set to difference) a basic patch but the effect perfectly fits what I was looking for. Very much inspered by the work of experimental cimtograpers (Tschekassky, Smith, Brakhage etc)
Self Portrait (Film stills, Nerf)
Portrait: Lex
Minute to Midnight – Exhibition Gallery Oldham
It’s not often I get to opportunity show my work in an actual gallery these days such is the plight of the socially engaged / process based artist, and it makes me remember how much I love the process of developing a dialogue with other artists and the space of gallery. And it is a delight to be showing along side some amazing artists. @verdant.city @adelecjordan@mishkahenner and @rebeccachesneyartist @galleryoldham A Minute to Midnight December 7 - March 1, 2025 So how does moss relate to climate change? Here are some interesting facts I put together for @sparkartistsnetwork and the forthcoming panel discussion: Moss is under threat: According to the 2023 IUCN Red List of the of moss in Britain , 19% are
States of being
Biokinetic Mantra for the Evocation of the Animistic Matrix
live performance with Maya chowdhry and Chris Gladwin. "This 30min live electronic music performance will feature organic components (mushrooms, moss, terrariums, water) being brought into contact with the ecstatic technology of dance music."I have recently returned to performing live and reawakened a part of my brain that had been dormant for a while. I'd forgotten how much I absolutely love the focus and intensity. The excitement of not knowing what's going to happen, or indeed sometimes wondering what is happening when something completely new emerges. Working with new collaborators has pushed me to explore new methods, leading to a number of fresh works in progress. Last month, I performed with Chris Gladwin and Maya Chowdhryat DVRK MASS II | Sonic Transformations: Ecosystems (organised by
Electronic Music Ensemble at Chorlton Arts FestivalElectronic Music Ensemble at
I performed as part of a line up from SODAs electronic music ensemble (which comprises of students, alumni and staff) at Chorlton Arts Festival, in Wilbraham St Ninian’s Church. I performed again alongside Maya Chowdhry continuing the ‘Biokinetic Mantra for the Evocation of the Animistic Matrix’ project - bringing together bioacoustics filed recording live electroaccoustics, and techno. This involved Darkling beetle larvae and rehydrating moss on hydrophones… Image: Neil Spencer Bruce SODAs electronic music ensemble 5691
Morecambe Bay walk
Boundary detector drawing
Boundary detector, drawing 2024 Drawing of Boundary detector device, developed to accompany text for forthcoming publication with Glassball studio: Follow the development of this work here... https://antonyhall.net/blog/guideline-micro-commission/
Moss identification card deck
This card pack was developed for a moss walk for the Eco pedagogies Symposium 2024. The walk traced a route between the Firs Botanical Gardens and Manchester Museum. In this iteration of the moss workshop, I discussed my emerging "methodology of moss" and the role of art as a perception-changing device. To develop the card pack I photographed each species of moss I found along the route and created a card for each one, including information on the numerous biomes encountered. These cards not only aid my learning and memorisation of moss species but also include prompts, instructions, texts, and readings that will enable others to facilitate their own walking and moss workshops in the future.
MOSS IS NOT THE ENEMY
Boundary detectors – mosscillator walk
A day of field work, walking and talking with @glassball.studio we walked across a segment of the Peak District national park boundary, connected our boundary detector up to a fence to create a strange radio like circuit (also connected with a bat detectors as signal transducer) we could hear strange sounds emanating from the either. Initially we discovered we could almost perfectly receive Radio 4. With some further tweaking / breaking we were able to get a multitude of voices - “Hello…Hello… “ one said as if speaking to us. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Antony Hall (@tonazoid)
SPARK#9 Moss Walk
A couple weeks ago I took people on an urban moss walk for Spark#9 a monthly meeting organised by @sparkartistsnetwork @castlefieldgall . It was a short walk (only half of what I planned) mostly staring at damp walls under bridges. This particular bridge is host to an unusual (in an urban context) liverwort called Metzgeria furcate clinging onto existence in this cave like environment. Under another bridge just down the road, a more common but impressive Great Scented Liverwort - Conocephalum conicum grows in ring like formations over the walls (Liverworts are bryophytes like moss). We rounded up the walk at the recently reopened @mcrmuseum where we talked and made terrariums. It was heartening to have such a good turn out –
NOW IS THE TIME OF MOSS
Glint- Instagram residencey
What is it that I do?
The question, "But, what is that you actually do?" [1] was posed to me as an impressionable master's student [2] after having presented my entire portfolio of work; the question perplexed me because, at that time, my practice was still developing, and I still wasn't entirely sure what it was that I was doing. Later as an emerging professional artist discussing practice, this straightforward yet wise advice was given by a curator; 'Think of a thing that you do, and keep doing it' [3]. The thing was, even though there was clearly 'a thing that I did', having embarked on the foundational works that would inform my practice for many years to come, it took years to realise what it really was that I did. My Tabletop Experiments
DYCP – Funding 2022-23
I am delighted to announce I was awarded a DYCP grant from Arts Council England to develop my creative practice, enrich networks and also undertake training. I plan to meet mentors and fellow artists for a series of creative collaborations and conversations. Here are some highlights from the project: Highlights will be posted on this page while a series of posts are listed on the following tag: https://antonyhall.net/blog/tag/ace-dycp/ View this post on Instagram Moss Walk for SPARK artists Network A post shared by Antony Hall (@tonazoid) Now is the Time of Moss 2022 - A series of 10 terrariums created from found materials
Imagine you are walking
How long does it take to imagine an action? I have been thinking about motor observation and motor imaging as part of the Experience in Action project with BEAM Lab. How does imagining or observing an action affect how we later perform that action? I know that before I do anything significant I imagine it or visualise it, a mental simulation repeating over and over many times. I will plan to make something in my head, in my own personal imaginary 3-D workspace before making it. However, I have never thought about how long these things take to imagine. In the following visualisation activities - I became aware of how my thoughts cycle in loops at speed, often viewing the situation
Field Station at ARTBOMB 22
Joana Chicau - Chris Dobrowolski - Antony Hall - Jola Kudela - Rob La Frenais - Loré Lixenberg - Dave Lynch - Matthew Rosier - Sidney Sparks - Filipos Tsitsopoulos - Miranda Whall Inari - Linda Cassels We are in a Climate Emergency and our festival will help you consider what you can do to help. ArtBomb 22 is Doncaster's experimental arts festival and designed to help provoke debate across current environmental and ecological thinking...by commissioning world-class art to spill onto the streets of Doncaster with a programme of performance, film, music, talks and workshops across multiple sites - including the architectural jewel in the crown - Doncaster's Unitarian. View this post on
24 hour Bioblitz, Highfield Country Park
Sunday 12th June 2022Highfield Country ParkDrop-in events between 10 - 10.30 pm. We need your help! A BioBlitz is an intensive collaborative race against the clock to document as many different living things in a defined area within 24 hours [from huge trees to microorganisms]. Join artists and scientists and other local nature enthusiasts at the Bee Sanctuary, Highfield Country Park. Learn about nature recording identifying plants and animals, and help contribute to scientific research. Bring your phone to take photos, download the iNaturalist app and make an account. Everything you record on the 12th of June in Highfield park will count towards our Bioblitz event database. Or just come along and explore Highfield and enjoy nature. 10 am to 4 pm:
Perception Group exhibit Para-lab Report 2021
para-lab Perception Group: Antony Hall and Ellen Poliakoff.The perception group explore the creative possibilities of re-creating experimental psychology within the context of an expanded [collaborative and interdisciplinary] art practice. The group work with aspects of sensory deprivation and multisensory illusion ( the clay hand illusion, ganzfeld and strange face illusion) which combine touch sound and visual elements. Artefacts include outcomes from the 'Experiments in art and perceptual illusion project' a PhD project by Antony Hall based on collaborative work with experimental psychologist Ellen Poliakoff. The exhibit consisted of workshop editions resources, instructions, diagrams and a collaborative research paper co-authored by Hall and Poliakoff [More information on para-lab report 2021 here...].
Moss Map
During a residency with Gallery Oldham (2021) I worked with bryological (moss) specimens collected from the local area 150 years ago. This inspired a series of meandering walking workshops focused on revisiting and recollecting mosses from my local area. Meandering is a form of walking fieldwork where participants engage in a series of "focused distractions"—activities like collecting, sampling from the environment, and microphotography—to redirect their attention and uncover alternative perspectives. The Moss Map serves as a multi-layered, always changing, exploration of experience and memory, documenting a meandering research journey. See Bryophytes project with Gallery Oldham Images from the 'Proximity' exhibition At Abingdon Studios 26 Aug – 16 September 2021. The 'Moss Map' and bottle terrariums were created as part of the bryophytes project
Unfeasible object workshop at Manchester Science Park
Thu, 23 September 202110:00 – 14:00Location: Manchester Science Park, Bright Building, Pencroft Way, Manchester, M15 6GZV During this workshop, you will be guided through several activities and perceptual illusions to focus the senses before building objects for the ‘Clay Hand Experiment’ and the ‘Unfeasible Object’ experiment. The CHI is based on the Rubber hand illusion; only in the CHI and Unfeasible object experiments, participants build their own hand and other non-hand like objects rather than using a replica rubber hand. Using clay, it is possible to distort and manipulate the clay beyond the form of a hand and create different degrees of ‘unfeasible objects’ and attempt to embody these as part of our own body image. The workshop explores the possibility
Daisy Nook Country Park
Short 4k walk through woods by River Medlock and canal paths designed as part of the Gallery Oldham Bryophytes project. Daisy Nook is a beautiful woodland following River Medlock, intersected by the old Waterhouses Aqueduct and Hollinwood canal. It has a mixture of woodland paths and gravely wide tracks beside the canal, which are all great for moss. Look out for Liverworts on the muddy banks near the footpath and river. Also, check the fallen trees for different moss. Routplotter.com https://www.plotaroute.com/route/1618255 The walk starts at a car park off the A627 walk into the woods and down to the riverside. Notice the damp stones by the river and many fallen trees with interesting mosses and liverworts. Following the trail, through the woods beside the River Medlock, you