Category: Blog posts

Lists of lists

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Recently the reading I’ve been doing is about the meaning of home or, really, the meanings of home. Cumulatively it can feel a bit like the scene in ‘Being John Malkovich’ where John is in a restaurant surrounded by people who are all variations of him, all talking but the only word they say is Malkovich. The word ‘home’ starts to blur as it gets repeated over and over and over and. It feels like the words fold into each other, until the meaning starts to go or it all becomes quite Malkovich, Malkovich. That could just be because I’m marinating myself in the subject but it’s also made me reflect on what turns those lists and frameworks into things that are useful and used.

Reading Jeanne Moore’s (2000) piece ‘Placing home in context’, I think she’s great at setting out a variety of ways in which the meaning of home has shifted over time, and how it can vary across countries. How different disciplines have engaged with the idea of home and how meanings of and feelings about home have been represented. It’s a bit of a speedy romp through the subject so it’s more about breadth than depth.

She does draw together lots of lists and frameworks that have been developed to try and capture the meaning of home. Seeing so many of them together in one short article makes her reflection that lists ‘imply all meanings are equally experienced, and do not encourage a focus on the relationships between items’ more apt. A sense there are so many different ways of describing what comes through as quite a consistent set of messages. Lots of overlap and commonality between them, with Putnam & Newton (1990) finding that privacy; security; family; intimacy; comfort, and control consistently appear in research about the meaning of home. Other lists have the same words or similar meanings, which perhaps isn’t so surprising, at least for those lists and frameworks that are talking about a suggested ideal of home.

I went to the Museum of Home for their event ‘More Than a Place: Centre for Studies of Home Annual Lecture 2026’ which was a talk and Q&A with Katie McCrory exploring what she describes as the eight universal emotions that come together to create ‘a feeling of home’. This work is based upon the Life at Home report by IKEA, and in the book she identifies ‘comfort, control, security, accomplishment, belonging, nurture, enjoyment and aspiration’ as the eight emotions. Plenty of venn diagram overlap there with other lists and frameworks too.

Within an academic context I can see that lists and frameworks provide scaffolding for thought and a way to organise and reflect findings. A drawing together of what’s been learned and found, a chance to reflect on how those findings relate to the wider literature – findings suggested x which differs from the previous literature in y scenarios. Trying to represent and honour what’s been found in a way that some other literature might not quite feel it does, even that which can appear to be similar. So if people talk about security rather than privacy, it would make sense that security is the word that’s used, even though the sentiments might be analogous to another piece of research where people talked in the language of privacy. The weight of different words can vary from person to person and so when analysing the research, in the absence of anything within the wording which explicitly suggests one or other of those choices, different researchers might lean towards one rather than the other. Over time, the development of the frameworks and lists helps build up an understanding of an area and that can develop into recommendations and more directional proposals.

From a policy and practitioner perspective, I’m conscious that lots of reading I’ve done which suggests a framework has been developed, has seemed hard to translate into practice. Thinking about frameworks I’ve used in a policy or delivery context, they would be ones that have some actions or processes attached to them. There would have been underpinning research which led to the development of the list of criteria. No doubt there could be the same questions about why some options or wording were selected rather than others but when it’s accompanied by input which allows the framework to be used, rightly or wrongly, that can feel less of a pressing concern. Or at least, if the framework itself feels useful, if it seems totally bonkers then that’s obviously something else altogether.

Having a sense of who I want the work to help and what they might need, then helps shift some of that Malkovich, Malkovich energy. Given I’m intending to develop a framework as part of the outputs of my research it’s useful to have in mind more of a sense of where I want to be aiming towards. It helps explain why lots of the ones I’ve seen haven’t felt very satisfactory, that I find myself asking ‘and then what?’ about them. Being able to take a step back from the lists and lists, and indeed the lists of lists, to see the aspects that are common across those and why and where there might be gaps. Holding in mind that it is about being able to translate those lists and frameworks into action and activity that’s useful, rather than feeling like what I’m trying to do is come up with one list to rule them all. How to do that is another question, for another day, but having a sharper idea of what I’m away towards is very clarifying.

It’s like Piccadilly Circus in there

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Policy makers can be reluctant to put in place policies that are seen to impinge upon the privacy of people in their own homes, yet commercial entities are less worried about this. From adverts in kitchens on fridges to people having massive logos on their clothing, accessories and in their homes, it’s another way of letting the outside in, making homes more public spaces.

Instinctively the idea of adverts on fridges feels quite shocking and a departure but reading Saunders & Williams 1988 piece ‘The constitution of home’ was a reminder that it’s perhaps more of a variation on a theme. They were talking then about advertising coming into the home through the TV and radio, and how this connected the home and outside world. They had slightly mixed views about the extent to which the home is or isn’t a private space but it was helpful to be able to see these adverts in a longer-term context.

TV and radio advertising has helped pave the way for the adverts on fridges, but with TV and radio, the ads are quite one-way. The people and organisations placing the ads would be able to get viewer or listener numbers and they might be able track if there was an uplift in activity as a result. They would have much less information available than is there now through tracking on phones and internet devices. This creates much more of a feedback loop between the adverts, organisations and audience. It’s also providing much more data which can be tracked and logged and used, with the attendant concerns about the possibility of personal or big data being used in ways we would find unethical.

Some of the sense of difference might just be the shock of the new, happening in a situation where there are growing concerns about the impact of data and devices. A sense that there’s increased surveillance but it’s not clear that we are safer or benefiting from it in other ways. That devices are making things seemingly more convenient – so smart fridges can tell us something is getting close to its best before date, but at a cost we hadn’t considered, let alone really reckoned with. The hollowing out of high streets, a loss of big and small businesses that can’t compete with massive online, offshore companies, more job insecurity and lower pay for more people. The social impacts of becoming more removed from others – those that we disagree with and now feel more removed from so it’s easier to be angry with and about them. Removed too from those we care about or might care about. Of course, no one smart fridge or other device does that but the cumulative impact of convenient things is something people are concerned about, for instance in the increasing hollowing out of high streets or declining concentration spans.

There is something different about the extent to which it’s a choice to engage. With TV and the radio you can choose to switch them on or not. If the adverts come on you can switch off or leave the room, and it’s you engaging when you want to but otherwise they aren’t around. With the adverts on the fridge, the fridges weren’t sold with that function to start with, so it isn’t as though people made the choice and were able to consider the trade-offs. People chose an expensive fridge and then subsequently that functionality was introduced, which feels very different indeed. There was eventually some functionality introduced that allows the adverts to be switched off but it isn’t clear they can be entirely removed.

In many respects then, smart devices with advertising are part of the longer history of the outside coming inside, or there being a much more permeable link between the home and the wider world. What remains then, is a sense of how the lack of choice looms larger in that context, but it also shows how homes, and expectations about homes, can push back on shifts. The company that introduced them thought they would be able to get away with it, yet people felt able to complain and have their views heard in a way that might be harder to achieve in a more communal space.

Why try harder?

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I was yesterday day’s old when I discovered there’s no qualification to become a Retrofit Evaluator. Niche insight but it opened up a bit of a Pandora’s Box because under the British standard for retrofit – PAS 2035 – any evaluation of a retrofit should be completed by a suitably qualified Retrofit Evaluator. If there’s no qualification that can be done to get qualified, I think we can agree it’s hard to see how that is possible. In practice, what this means is the Retrofit Co-ordinator, another role under PAS 2035, and one that does have a qualification available does the evaluation.

In some respects perhaps not so surprising – monitoring and evaluation is an area most would agree is important in any context, yet it’s the area that is more likely to fall away than most. Whether because it’s for a project that is over-stretched, under resourced or behind schedule, evaluation is rarely seen as a core focus. Or the next project is getting scoped up and approved before there’s time to complete a proper evaluation of previous projects that might feed in to the development of the next project. So the fact there isn’t a qualification for this role is less of a concern than it might be for the actual installer roles.

Yet this role without a route to being meaningfully undertaken feels like such a symptom or metaphor for longstanding issues within the retrofit sector. The ongoing performance gap issue is one that has been long recognised but, as the recent 2025 National Audit Report (NAO) on energy efficiency installations showed, hasn’t been fully dealt with. Poor quality works, homes left worse off than they were before the works were undertaken because of mould and damp, affecting the health of the occupants and the fabric of the building itself. The NAO report itself found that 98% of homes that had external wall insulation installed under the Energy Company Obligation and Great British Insulation Scheme have got significant issues requiring remediation.

These issues arise in large amount because of a lack of attention, or ability, to deliver good quality works and ensure the details are right. Good processes, with monitoring and evaluation built in, can really help address or prevent issues. They can draw attention to areas where the work isn’t quite right and allow them to be improved or redone whilst the works are ongoing. Post-completion, they can identify issues with the works before they become much more serious. The intention is also that the Retrofit Evaluator can share lessons learned and areas for improvement with the installer to help them upskill people for subsequent projects.

More widely, in a context where approaches, products and technology are being developed, monitoring and evaluating their performance is crucial. Understanding how they work in practice, if they are easy to work with or need some workarounds to try and integrate them. Finding out how occupants respond, if they are easy for them to use or not. As more heat pumps have been installed in a great variety of homes, including ones that aren’t so well insulated, it’s become clear performance is better in a wider range of use cases than had previously been considered. That makes a massive difference in terms of the level of insulation needed for a home, with knock-on implications in terms of disruption and cost for the home-owner, and resourcing requirements for the supply chain. Without the monitoring and evaluation it’s harder to be confident in a particular approach and the status quo assumptions and actions are more likely to be considered.

What then is the workaround for the lack of a Retrofit Evaluator? As things stand, the Retrofit Co-ordinator now has to fulfil this role. They get to mark their own homework. If the basic level of feedback identifies any issues, they then have to escalate the evaluation to a more in-depth level. This would be undertaken by another Retrofit Co-ordinator. However, this requires them to do that escalation process. The worry is that in practice there might not be incentives to do so, or the quality assurance and monitoring of their work to pick up the cases when they don’t.

If there wasn’t a consistent drum-beat of stories and reports raising concerns about the quality of retrofit work undertaken, it might feel like that was an unfair assumption. Against that background, it feels like another reflection of a sector that recognises the need to change and improve – hence the development of the role in theory Yet it remains a sector that continues to struggle to address fundamental aspects around quality and reliability of the work it’s doing. Undermining trust, the health and well-being of people and their homes, and the ability of their work to get close to delivering the environmental and financial benefits people are paying for.

The ties that bind

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One of the things I’m interested in exploring is how to connect in to what people already think about their homes in ways which connect to the wider world. To try and show and persuade people that this is about tapping into ways of seeing the home and the connection people have to their home and beyond to the world, I don’t anticipate it being a kind of Buzzfeed ‘This one trick will convince you’ kind of approach. That feels too risky, too easily pulled apart and then you’re back to where you were before. Crucially though, I also don’t think that’s true. There are a myriad connections and, they are likely to manifest differently for people, which makes sense given the plethora of experiences of home that people can have.

Doing this feels helpful because there can be a reticence to try and engage with how people use their homes because they are seen to be private spaces. Getting involved in that kind of space then feels like it is transgressing and people feel uncomfortable. An English(wo)man’s home is their castle and all that. By identifying ways people already make those connections

Lots of work has questioned and problematised that view of the binary splits that the public/private one is part of. This binary is often accompanied by others – with the home, classified as a private space, and one that is associated with the feminine. By contrast, the public sphere is then classified as masculine. Nonetheless, this idea that the home is a private endures for many, and in a policy context, makes people more reluctant to intervene. Despite the fact there are lots of ways in which regulation reaches into the home. From infrastructure to health and safety standards for materials and products.

In that context I enjoyed finding out about Halle’s work (1993) looking at the artwork that people choose to have in their homes. They did some statistical analysis of the themes and, where they were reproductions, the artists, using this to investigate landscape paintings as markers of status and class differences. Landscapes, family photographs, abstract and ‘primitive’ art and religious iconography were the main things he found. Across classes he found a commonality in terms of landscape paintings being there, but those of foreign or historical scenes were more often found in upper-middle class homes.

Rose (eg 2003 & 2004) writes about photo’s and she also notes how their inclusion in the home connects the occupants to the outside world. They find their inclusion is an important way a building is made a home, but it is also another way we use images to stretch our integration with the outside world.

And it’s one of those things that, when I read it, seemed so obvious. Cieraad talks about how the home can become so familiar that it’s a great place for anthropologists to study because there is so much that is obscured in plain sight. Reading about the different ways we choose things to decorate our homes, reminding us of the world outside and our place in it. It perhaps isn’t enough on its own to show and convince, to allow people to feel more comfortable about accepting that divide isn’t so real. For many people though, it should feel tangible and resonate with them as they look around their homes. Most people will be able to see things they choose to display because they connect them to friends, family and their world. A story and way of thinking about things that resonates, and cumulatively can help engage people.

Learning to read

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Reading can be, if you’re lucky, an intuitive thing to do once you know how, offering an enjoyable private pleasure that opens you up to the world. Learning how to read when you already feel like you know how to read can, by contrast, feel like quite hard work.

With the PhD I’m getting to do lots of reading but it feels like I’m having to learn, or re-learn, how to read. I’ve long been an avid reader, as a child I would devour books. I’d go to the library on a Saturday morning and take out the maximum complement of eight books. They would usually all be read by the end of the weekend, often the end of Saturday. One year in school we had to write a book report for every book we read that year – I read over 100. As an adult, reading books was still a big part of what I enjoyed doing, even as I wasn’t reading many books in a year for quite a long time. Years ago I decided to set myself a challenge to read 52 books in a year – at that stage I was reading less than 20 a year. It took a few years to reach the target but having the target did encourage me to try harder and explore different ways to make time to read. The more I read the more I found it easier to find time to read as it once again became more normal and part of day to day life.

It’s a very intimate thing to spend time with a book. For both fiction and non-fiction it’s about allowing the author and their world and characters into your head and you into theirs. A way to become more connected to the world, to understand other people and yourself, exploring connections and perspectives. ‘If on a winter’s night a traveller’ by Italo Calvino takes the idea of reading and explores how it can connect us to the world. In lots of ways reading can be a solitary experience and he explores the enjoyment to be had in the rituals and anticipation of the pleasure to be found in a book, as well as the unexpected journeys books can take us on.

In work world, I was used to reading lots, or probably more accurately, scan reading lots on speedy journeys through lots of material. My undergraduate degree was in Law, so I was accustomed to being able to scan through large amounts of often complicated content to find the salient parts. In jobs I was used to doing the same, often whilst also being in, or Chairing a meeting, so my attention was very divided. Not a leisurely journey but just trying to navigate quickly through the environment and understand where there might be opportunities or lurking tricky situations.

I’ve always felt comfortable in my ability to read things quickly and extract some key points, albeit have long been aware of, and not liked, the way in which it feels like I can be a bit of an etch-a-sketch reader. That I can read something, enjoy it or be interested, but then struggle to retain much of it after I’ve finished. Being part of book clubs has been great for that. Having an opportunity to revisit the book and explore it, get different perspectives and have to try and justify my own views and emotions about a book helps to retain a bit more of that information. Getting to return to the information and use it to explain why I do or don’t think something is well explained or written, making sense of and analysing it rather than just repeating it.

That worry that I can be an etch-a-sketch reader feels like something that doesn’t sit with doing a PhD. If the point of doing a PhD is about trying to become an expert, taking the opportunity to go deep into the literature, scan reading seems out of kilter with that. That in skim reading I am just being too superficial and lazy. Then again, in trying to closely read and make notes on each article, it can be hard to work out if I’ve read ‘enough’. When I have looked up from whatever it is I’m reading to check in on my project plan and see how actual progress looks compared to the plan, it looks like it will take me many decades to even scrape the surface of the literature. There is plenty of guidance out there which suggests a close read isn’t necessary or optimal and sometimes it can be more efficient to re-read something later because it turns out to be key, rather than assuming everything is key and reading it in detail.

At the same time as having to re-learn how to read, I’m also recovering from concussion, so my brain is having to learn and re-learn lots of things. After concussion the brain is having to rewire itself to do things, going around the parts of the brain that are a bit bruised, having to learn new ways to do things it’s been used to do more effortlessly. It’s tiring and takes a lot more energy to do something more slowly and maybe not as well, or at least feeling like it’s not as good because the discomfort levels are higher. The concussion has meant I’ve not been writing as much, or doing as much of lots of other things, as I would usually do.

It’s felt a lot like that in trying to learn to read differently too. Something that I’m used to do quickly and effortlessly, more or less, has been feeling slow. I’ve been putting off reading because of the classic worry that I won’t ‘do it right’, which then means that I’m not giving myself as many chances to practice and learn – to re-train my brain.

In a world where editing out friction is a big part of the sales-pitch of websites and apps, technology and processes, actively seeking out friction and trying to do difficult things can feel disproportionately harder than it actually is. I’m also aware of, and have found useful, lots of online resources for people studying a PhD to learn tools and tricks. So I’m constantly bashing up against the sense that I ‘could’ and ‘should’ be better at this than I am – further highlighting how slow I am.

I think what’s helped is coming to see that I’m looking to get a sense of the landscape rather than map every microbe. Trying to understand where there is fertile soil, areas that are densely populated and those which are little travelled, or perhaps approached from one direction but there might be paths to and from that part which haven’t been traversed. I’m not looking to map every blade of grass, every piece of bark on every tree. Stepping away from that level of detail to try and get more of a sense of how different things connect. Trusting that I can still make my way through the landscape, and understand myself in relation to that landscape, without having to account for each leaf on each tree.

The other aspect that has particularly shifted in the way I read, is now more actively getting a sense of myself in that landscape, rather than seeing myself as a passive viewer of it. When reading books before, whether fiction or non-fiction, it would feel like there would be some dialogue between myself and the author(s). Perhaps it might be the tone or a turn the story or a character took in fiction that I found myself reacting against. In non-fiction that sense of things being revealed, deepening my understanding, shifting my views or giving them more nuance or connections to other disciplines, ideas or events. And having the opportunity to discuss those views in book clubs or elsewhere meant I was still exploring them, just that for much of the time it felt like I was not a part of those discussions.

In trying to learn how to read for my PhD I’ve been reminded of the the first time I wore my lovely long-distance prescription sunglasses. It took over twice the time to walk home as the sights I could now see blew my mind. I loved that walk, and being shown the world anew. I was astonished that everyone else who could presumably see as well as I now could wasn’t also doing the same. In time that sense of wonder shifted, still there in that way, and available for me to dip into, but not something that I needed to do all of the time. That I could go about my business with a deeper appreciation and sense of ease when moving through the world.

Now when I’m wearing my prescription sunglasses and being able to see things that are far away, I can still enjoy it, revel in it but I can slip into and out of different modes of seeing. Sometimes that detail is front of mind and all I can focus on and that’s lovely. Other times, it’s a quiet background hum and instead I’m able to see the view, take in the overall scene. That ability to shift my focus with the reading, to sometimes place myself in the moment or go into lots of detail and at other times to step back is something that is taking a while, will likely continue to take a while, to learn. It’s likely to be slow, or slower than I think it could or should be to learn. Likely to continue feel frustrating but hopefully continues to make my world feel richer and more resplendently detailed, while helping me to get a better sense of the overall lay of the land.

History may not repeat itself, but it might rhyme

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Reading Barbara Penner’s fascinating book ‘Bathroom’ (2013) about how the modern, predominantly Western, bathroom has evolved, the parallels with the energy transition felt noticeable. Very different technologies involved but both water and energy consumption are so firmly entrenched in our lives, expectations and daily practices. The history of bathrooms shows how differently we can behave and therefore suggests we shouldn’t assume we’ve reached an unimprovable, or unchanging situation with the current entrenched position of bathrooms in our lives. How they came to be so offers reflections for the energy transition.

Penner traces the development and refinement of different technologies, showing a mix of reasons and circumstance that dictated which became more widely adopted and which fell by the wayside. How, despite new bathroom related technologies becoming available, there were issues with deployment. They were usually only available to the rich, and even then often only taken up by those who were prepared to deal with the issues getting technologies put in to their home, particularly when the wider infrastructure like sewage pipes wasn’t there to support it. Many poorer areas struggled to get the new products because companies weren’t interested, with a more widespread approach only happening when the public sector got involved. Where efforts were targeted at those who were less well-off, it was often driven by a sense of morality and desire to improve health but also behaviour. Henry Roberts, a Victorian architect, designed flats for poor families which were radical in their inclusion of a room specifically designated as a bathroom. The aim of Roberts was to provide the occupants with the ‘moral training of a well-ordered family’, looking to introduce and enforce an appropriate distance between the bodies of the various occupants and also between the bodies and their waste.

The patchy, ad hoc nature of the change and take-up of bathrooms was interesting to read about. In a world where fitted, matching suites are the norm, hearing about people starting to get some elements of what we would now consider to be fundamental parts of the bathroom, the toilet, sink and bath or shower, but not all of them showed how much has changed. Striking too, how those decisions would be driven by considerations around space, cost and availability, with factors such as health, morality and norms also playing a big part. Even where people did get some aspects of the bathroom put into their home, they would often continue with older technologies in parallel.

In the world of energy transitions, the take-up of new technologies is patchy too – globally but also within countries and across geographies, property types and personal circumstances. Even in the same home, people can have a few different technologies. Perhaps getting some insulation or a heat pump to serve an extension, whilst still having the boiler as the main heating source for instance. Although less explicitly moralistic than some of the efforts in relation to water and bathrooms, there is still a sense that it’s the ‘right thing to do’ to try and support those who are less well-off to get energy measures installed. That said, it’s also true that lots of the early adopters for energy measures are those who are well-off and prepared to navigate the complexity of installation.

Penner is also really strong on showing how the development of the bathroom allowed for our homes and bodies to become much more private spaces whilst also making bathrooms, and by extension homes, much more connected to the public sphere and regulated. Previously, all the functions we would use a bathroom for were done in more communal spaces. People would go to the toilet together, or in more public or shared spaces. Bathing, or cleaning yourself if not actually taking a bath, would be done in spaces with other uses, such as the kitchen, scullery or bedroom. As well as sharing spaces, people would often share the washing water itself.

To allow for the infrastructure which could underpin the kind of toilets we now consider to be standard, regulation and government action happened. The Public Health Act 1848 had clauses regarding domestic sanitary arrangements, marking the first moment when government entered the private bathroom in a meaningful way. The Act required that any new built or rebuilt house needed a sufficient WC or privy and an ashpit with doors and covering. Homeowners were required to notify the local board of health in writing prior to constructing privy/cesspool and surveyors were given the power to shut down any judged to be nuisance or injurious to health. Eventually The Great Stink of 1858 led to the closing of private cesspools and stopped people putting their waste into the Thames, facilitated by the building of a co-ordinated waste system to manage and treat the waste. This led to the adoption of that approach nationally and internationally too.

A criticism of action on climate by those who would consider themselves to be right-wing is that it’s really just cover for more intervention by the State. It was clear reading the book how development of products by the market helped make deployment possible. Without that range of options available, the problem solving to try and improve measures and the mix and match potential that marked the start of the development of the bathroom, it’s hard to see either why more infrastructure might be needed or how it could develop. That said, and I’ve not done further reading so perhaps other accounts might take a different view, it’s hard to see how the development of the infrastructure could have developed in an holistic way without the intervention of government. The private sector focus on generating a desire in those who could pay, and would put up with the challenges of getting measures installed and adapting their homes and way of life, didn’t seem able to provide a comprehensive offer to everyone. Private sector effort and enterprise could generate a want and partially fulfil it.

That sense of the attitudinal changes shifting over time, which fed into and out of the technology changes, was such a strong part of the story for me. As someone who has been brought up with certain norms around cleanliness, so much of what was normal for so many seems unthinkable now. It was a reminder of the fact that even though things can feel quite fixed in terms of behaviours and norms, they are constantly changing, as are how we use spaces, or even if we have designated spaces at all for certain activities. With the advent of new technologies it became easier for people to decry public defecation, once normal and necessary but less so when technology provided other options and design allowed for privacy.

I came to the book to get an understanding of how a part of the home has changed. One of the things that became quickly obvious but I hadn’t consciously engaged with when starting my PhD, was that different parts of the home are subject to change in different ways and over varied timescales. It was therefore really useful to get a sense of how changes to bathing and toilet habits have affected what we now think of as the bathroom, as well as other parts of the home. What was reassuring was how much of it felt relevant for the changes in how homes are designed and used now from an energy and broader environmental perspective. Despite the different technical challenges, I finished the book with a deeper sense of how fundamental social and cultural changes are to if and how positive change unfolds.

‘While it often feels as if change is unthinkable – that people’s beliefs and behaviours are as deeply entrenched and immovable as infrastructure – this history has shown time and time again that our ideas about and our methods of dealing with water and waste are much less uniform, inevitable and fixed than we usually realize. Bathrooms, like sewers, are relatively recent inventions and they constantly evolve and adapt in the face of shifting social, medical, economic, political and environmental factors.’

Barbara Penner, ‘Bathroom’

The hard sell

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I was at Elemental London earlier this week. A trade show and conference about the built environment. Plenty of flanges and pumps and gadget goodness to try and make sense of.

At one of the sessions I did go to, someone giving a presentation said that it’s hard to sell heating systems because people only want to talk about them if something goes wrong. A gentle, knowing laugh went around the space.

It feels like there’s plenty of truth in that. Heating systems aren’t the most exciting thing to talk about, there’s lots of technical details which don’t mean much to most people. The language and technical details can be off-putting to most.

So why try and sell a heating system? Why not talk about the things that do interest people instead? Warmth and comfort and relaxation. As Fouquet discusses, people think about energy services – not exactly marketing ready language but that phrasing more readily engages with what people are actually looking for. The outputs and opportunities that flow from the energy, rather than actively being interested in the energy source itself.

We can either keep being frustrated with people or we can go to where they are and really engage with what interests them. There was some sense of an attempt to do that in sessions around the conference, with discussions around co-creation and protecting what’s important to people. More of that is needed to turn fledgling ideas and approaches into things that can more consistently appeal to people.

A scone-fuelled mission

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It’s fun to have a mission.

I’ve been to the Tate Britain many times before but this was the first time I had a mission – I was looking for artworks that had representations of home in them.

Often I wander around museums and don’t really feel like I’m engaging with them. I did a short ethnography course a million years ago and the activity I undertook was watching others interacting with an artwork. Sitting there for an afternoon I felt quite exposed because, although I’d picked a quite well known and large piece of art to watch the watchers, most people passed it by very quickly indeed. My sitting there for so long felt very out of place compared to how long others were interacting with the artwork.

As someone who’s never learned ‘how to’ interpret art, I don’t feel like I come to it with a very wide vocabulary to understand what I’m seeing. That’s partly why I’m so interested in including reviewing different cultural materials in my PhD – it’s a way for me to learn some skills and approaches to understanding and interrogating artwork.

I love going to museums and galleries and enjoy exploring, so being able to get more ways to understand pieces of art and find ways to interact with them in a more meaningful way feels like such an enriching thing to be able to do. The fact that it’s in the service of something that feels useful in terms of answering the questions of my wider PhD then means I can allow myself to enjoy it without the more puritanical streak in me freaking out.

I also got to have some delicious tea and a lovely scone with an absolutely stonking amount of clotted cream and jam to refresh me part-way through the endeavour. If anyone had told me this is what working on the weekend could be like I think past me would find it as hard as current me to fathom this could be the case.

In that context then, I really enjoyed having that sense of purpose – being able to make my way around the exhibition with a hook to see what I could find. I also passed on my mission to the posse I was with which added to the fun, for me at least – I didn’t do a feedback poll to see how the others felt about it.

I had expected to be able to find more things along the way than I did though. Lots of pieces either didn’t seem to relate to the home or didn’t show people in that context.

Here are a few of the ones I did find along the way.

Walter Sickert, Ennui, 1914

A fascinating piece, with such a story within it of the relationship between the two people. Virginia Woolf wrote an essay about Sickert, and particularly this piece, as a response. Albeit Woolf was writing in response to another version of the painting done by Sickert and held at the Ashmolean Museum – that one has much more vibrant colours and decor but the people within it are unchanged. Stuck and bored whatever their surroundings.

That sense of a story in the paintings comes through much more strongly in those pieces where there are multiple people in. From a Dr looking after a sick child, to men distraught – sometimes supported by their wife as in Hick’s work, at other times, as in Egg’s the prostrate woman is apparently the cause. Of course that also makes it harder to see the interiors though…

Woolf makes another appearance in the home of one couple in Gupta’s series showing homosexual couples at home. The photos were taken at a time in the 1980s when homosexuality was being portrayed as deviant whilst these photos present them as ordinary rather than other.

Luke Fildes, The Doctor, 1891
George Elgar Hicks, Woman’s mission: Companion of manhood, 1863
Augustus Leopold Egg, Past and Present No. 1, 1858
Sunil Gupta, Lovers: Ten years on, 1984-6

All of the paintings have a story to tell but from this collection of paintings at least, it’s a gentler story in those with just one person in. Peace, quiet and reflection in the scenes but, apart from McEvoy’s painting the interiors themselves are vibrant and busy – full of colour and objects.

Mary McEvoy, Interior: Girl reading, 1901
Harold Gilman, Edwardian interior, c.1907
Edouard Vuillard, Jeune femme dans un interieur, c.1910

More wandering and exploring, a beautiful richly coloured and empty view of the room where Shakespeare was apparently born; a side-quest visit to see the Henry Moore’s because I can still enjoy the stark, sensual beauty of them whilst working hard.

Then, as we left the building, we were met by Chris Ofili’s colourful, elegiac piece in memory of those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire. A totally different piece. The scale monumental compared to the smaller pieces I’d seen. Richly coloured and far removed from the gentle, quiet reflections. As with some of the other pieces, telling a story about when things have gone wrong, failings and harm. This time, at a societal level rather than between two people. The painting itself has a dreamlike quality about a nightmarish situation.

Chris Ofili, Requiem, 2023

Only a few pieces of art found on my visit but that small selection shows just how varied homes and home-making and un-making can be, how fundamental they are to our lives and wellbeing.

Moons and moons and moons

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Talking about other planets often becomes another way of talking about Earth, making it easier to engage with ourselves, our habits and the impacts they have. Reading ‘Orbital’ by Samantha Harvey, the poetic, beautiful book about a day in the life on the International Space Station, much of what made it so wonderful to read was being taken to somewhere else I’d never be able to, and seeing Earth afresh. It felt revelatory being shown the beauty and improbable aloneness of our Earth in the universe.

Taking a different planet seemingly as it’s focus ‘Moon’, Duncan Jones’ 2009 film, offers another way for us to see ourselves and Earth. So much of the story is about the focus of Sam Rockwell’s character Sam Bell on looking after himself as he finishes up his three year posting on the Moon, ahead of returning to Earth, his wife and family. Sam is all alone on the Moon apart from an AI helper and ‘buddy’ as he mines for helium-3. His contact with Earth is limited to intermittent recorded messages as the live communications link between the Moon and Earth is down. At the start of the film we see Sam trying to keep himself together physically and mentally. We see how much he wants to get back to Earth, to his home and family, how close it all seems and yet how far given what seems to be a declining state of health. As the film unfolds, we watch his health deteriorate.

Seeing him as he gets physically injured, and as his mental health is affected, it felt like I was seeing the madness of our pursuit for energy playing out on one person. Getting sick and going mad as an allegory of our collective madness. How this manifests in him – his health suffering, physically and mentally scarred, bruised, burned and eventually left for dead. Disconnected from those he loves, watching them from afar, intermittently, as they grow and change without him there.

Heidegger talks about how technology can alienate us from ourselves and our true sense of being. That we are all beings in this world, with relationships to each other that are fundamental as inherently social creatures. As we see in ‘Moon, Sam is able to make sense of the work he’s doing because of what it means for the possibilities for his family, and how much he values getting messages from them. Heidegger is worried that technology can lead us to see nature and other people simply as raw materials – whether in ‘Moon’ that’s the person who is doing the mining, or the materials they are mining for. Technology then, in Heidegger’s view, takes us away from our sense of self, our way of being in the world which he sees as crucial to our humanity. Although there’s much to criticise Heidegger for – professionally and personally – ‘Moon’ gives a cinematic view of what that disconnect can look like.

The distant company Sam is working for, distant both physically and emotionally, seem to be operating from this Heideggerian perspective. They give Sam meaningless platitudinal reassurance but don’t do anything to fix equipment or look after him in ways which would actually be useful for him. Sam continues to work even whilst he is unwell, out of a sense of obligation and to avoid giving any reason for his return to Earth to be delayed. He has some interests outside of his work there, making a model replica of his hometown and exercising. In the main his life and meaning has become so built around the work, and the work ending so he can return home, that he needs to keep working so he, his location and his purpose there can hold together.

Sam’s work extracting helium-3 makes visible how energy extraction can look in practice, something we can usually avoid. Seeing the mining unfolding on the Moon, a place that seems such a pristine environment, feels more shocking, throwing into further relief what we are doing on Earth. Compared to earth, where it’s estimated there is only about 100kg globally of helium-3, the amount on the Moon is relatively more abundant. Different samples have found up to 10 parts per billion(ppb) of helium-3 on the Moon, with the average about 4 ppb. These are still very low levels of the material but lots of organisations have nonetheless investigated mining there. Currently helium-3 is used in a few ways, including in cryogenics and quantum computing but it’s also considered a potential future source of energy, as the film proposes it is used. The film shows the Moon’s surface getting utterly churned up as Sam tries to find some crumbs of helium-3 to send back to Earth.

In the literature around energy transitions, one of the key discussions is whether we have seen or are seeing, energy transitions or whether it’s more a case of energy additions. The argument for energy transitions is about progress away from older energy sources and bringing online new ones. Primarily this is a discussion about a transition away from filthy fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy – renewable sources such as solar, wind or hydroelectric, as well as ones that are cleaner by some metrics ones such as nuclear. Proponents of this view would point to how some sources such as coal, have fallen away or gone completely in many countries.

Fressoz’s book ‘More and more and more’ argues that what we’ve had, and are going through, are energy additions. That whilst new technologies are coming online, we’re still using old technologies too, and this increase in the availability of energy is leading to an overall rise in consumption. The data can certainly support this view. Data from ‘Our World in Data’ shows that more traditional biomass is burnt globally now than 100s of years ago. We’re still using coal and gas. This year has seen the highest ever level of coal usage globally. As Fouquet and Pearson’s 1998 article shows, the more energy that becomes available, and the more affordable it becomes, the more likely we are to spend disposable income on energy. This encourages people to develop new or cheaper energy sources and services, making it more affordable, and normal, for people to use more energy. Then we go around the loop again.

Shove talks about the adoption of practices and how comfort becomes something that people seek. This feedback loop between availability, use and rising expectations or changing norms can then feed off itself. We can justify the mess we make of places on Earth or, in a potential future, the Moon or indeed other planets – apparently Jupiter has the most helium-3 of all the planets but that’s even more inaccessible than the Moon – because of all the uses we make of energy. The entrenched position of the habits and expectations becomes enough to explain or justify the impacts. It can also become easier to accept the impacts than address the behaviours.

I found watching ‘Moon’ to be an unsettling story in many ways, yet it was also like watching a story I’ve seen many times before. The film provided a near-future reflection of scenes that continue to be played out across the world in pursuit of resources. Although ‘Moon’ is science fiction, it reflects existing extractive patterns here on Earth, affecting those working in the industry and the Earth itself. ‘Orbital’ gives us reasons to care, inviting us to see anew how precious this planet is, while ‘Moon’ shows us the consequences of that lack of care. Together, they offer different ways of seeing ourselves, giving emotional reasons to care, and to want to reassess our actions.

It takes how long?

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One of the biggest differences I’ve experienced so far in the move from work world to a PhD is having more time to do things.

In previous roles I was used to covering lots of vacant posts, having work plans for the days and weeks of myself and my team that I would constantly juggle as new ‘urgent’ things came in which meant re- and de-prioritising things. Whether it was true or not, and I definitely feel there’s been an outbreak of busy-ness amongst people that even as I try not to feed into myself, either in terms of talking to myself or presenting my workload to others, I always felt like there wasn’t enough time to do things properly.

I think I was good at coaching other people to accept that not everything needs to be gold-plated, and good enough is great most of the time. Even within that, it often felt like myself and my team were being asked to do pieces of work without much time to really explore the subject, consider options, understand the wider landscape or even just have time to think or proof-read things.

Now though, thoughts which I am sure I’ll look back on and shake my head at, I find myself looking at the timelines for a PhD and thinking it seems improbable to have so long to do one overall piece of work. Even thinking about it as multiple workstreams for different research activities, it seems like a really long time relative to the kinds of timings I’ve had before. The fact I’m the only one doing the work, whereas in work world the project plan would be capturing activity for the whole team I was managing, is obviously a big difference.

Things can take longer than I think they will take and one of the things that I have been noticing as my PhD unfolds, is a tension between expecting or being used to doing things quickly, and having the time to be more considered or thorough. Often when working on something now I have a voice in my head that has checked how long it’s taken me to do something and thinks I’ve been too slow. I then chastise myself for being slow and get into a back and forth discussion with myself about if or how I’m being slow. Taking turns to prosecute or defend myself.

Looking more widely, beyond an immediate task to the list of things I’d love to do, then more widely still to issues and challenges in the world, such as climate change, there’s a sense of urgency. A want and need for things to be moving more quickly. A sense of the impacts building up, spiralling out in time and place to this and future generations, all affected by our slowness and inaction. Or back to myself, thinking about all of the things I’m not doing, can’t do, will never do. That suffocating sense of it, rage and fury and want and need.

Then as I’m writing this, I see a man walk past my window, or in truth, very slowly shuffle past my window. I’m distracted from writing this piece, exploring my own sense of frustration and astonishment at the opportunities I have by him. It takes him, relatively or comparably, longer to pass through my line of sight than I would expect it to take me. For him, on the basis of the times I’ve seen him go by, that seems to be his normal, glacial pace. Everything he does or plans to do must presumably be calibrated to how long it takes him to get places. The actual him, not the him he perhaps used to be or wants to be. Maybe he and I might make the same journey but his expectation of timings might be double what mine would be.

As I look back to a screen full of news reports about how climate change has likely made Hurricane Melissa four times more likely, the fraying consensus around the need to act on climate change, slow progress ahead of the upcoming COP30, it all feels so very slow. Too slow. The urgency not matched with action.

I try to soothe myself with thoughts of the man shuffling past my window, telling myself that sometimes things just take longer than it seems they should take. That he might not want things to take so long either, might also be furious and frustrated but that doesn’t make things faster, probably the opposite.

I stretch and play with the analogy, coming back to it over and over to see if it can help me think differently. To find a way to translate the dignity of the man shuffling by, still trying and doing, into something that makes sense of what I see around the action on climate. For now at least I just have to hold those different things in the same view because they don’t feel like they can easily be reconciled. Things can take too long, longer than we want or need and things flow from that – sometimes good, sometimes bad, often unclear at the time or changing in hindsight. Back to the same message, over and over, to just start from where I am and do what I can. Sometimes that feels enough and sometimes it doesn’t.