Complete verticality signifies rigidity, institutionalisation, and full visibility—a total submission to the upright, regulated structures that society employs to audit, measure, and control individuals. This posture characterises both the bureaucrat and the compliant citizen. In contrast, horizontality symbolises the aspiration for unmediated peace, total withdrawal, or absolute equality; yet, within a highly managed world, sustaining true flatness is nearly impossible without being marginalised, cleared away, or neutralised by the administrative state. Consequently, authentic human existence must adopt an angular form. Angularity constitutes an active act of resistance—a deliberate leaning, tilting, and generating of friction that disrupts the system’s expected geometry. An angle is inherently sharp, refusing to align with the established grid. This orientation enables individuals to navigate institutional structures independently, exploit systemic gaps, remain unpredictable, and keep the gatekeepers permanently off balance.
This website exists to explore the tangible problems faced in everyday life, and to investigate the deep history that has shaped human experience for centuries. The work lives at the intersection of critical sociology, visual storytelling, and digital media. These are not separate pursuits; they are deeply connected tools for exploring the world, processing experience, and uncovering the complex social and physical landscapes called home.
- Critical Sociology & Contemplative Politics: This serves as the intellectual compass. Driven by the foundational principle that rigorous self-criticality is an absolute necessity when synthesising external criticality, the work demands that the analytical gaze be turned inward with the same intensity with which it investigates the wider world. Research utilises the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse to reveal the hidden, unaccountable power structures operating within shared society, operating on the belief that external critique is hollow without a continuous, honest audit of one's own positions and motivations. While Marxism is incredibly useful as a sharp diagnostic tool for dissecting these systemic structures and institutional forces, it is not held as a dogmatic blueprint or a live-and-let-live rule. Instead, the analysis is driven by an intersection of thought rarely captured in mainstream discourse: a traveller politics best described as Sovereign Anarchism or Existential Libertarianism (in the classical, anti-capitalist sense). As a secondary, empirical application of this critical framework, dedicated research investigates localised power dynamics across both institutional and spatial landscapes. This analysis is developed through two core investigations: The Amygdala Prison: Situational Enclosure, Betrayal Trauma, and the Double Binds of the Charity State, which uncovers how systemic structures weaponise psychological trauma to enforce situational enclosure, and Blood, Soil, and the Common Good: The Architecture of Border Hegemony, which dissects the spatial and territorial structures used to maintain boundary-based hegemony over land and community. This analytical worldview is deeply rooted in lived experience, stemming from a history of living as a "New Age traveller" during the 1990s—a period that sparked an enduring interest in the critiques of civilisation and technology put forward by John Zerzan, with a significant analytical focus on the core arguments within his work, Running on Emptiness. This perspective is informed by a deeply radical Christology but is fundamentally shaped by a specific spiritual path: having taken Bodhisattva vows and refuge within Tibetan Buddhism, everyday practice and theoretical outlook remain closely akin to Zen. This intersection forms a Rural Contemplative Ecology—one that prioritises direct presence, human freedom, and an active commitment to addressing suffering over rigid, materialist dogmas.
- The Power of the Lens: Photography appeals because of how it alters the relationship with time, space, and emotion. When fully immersed in a moment, much of what is happening around the periphery is missed. A photograph allows a step back from the immediate noise to embrace radical presence and truly see. The approach to imagery is grounded in absolute honesty. While DSLR technology is utilised, much of the photography is captured simply on mobile phones, presenting the world exactly as it is. Images are not manipulated; it is extremely rare to even crop a photograph. What appears is the truth of the frame in that exact split second. On a deeper level, this practice has operated as a vehicle for healing, using the camera to frame and capture anxiety and panic triggers—taking overwhelming internal experiences and externalising them into bounded, unedited visual spaces to transform moments of vulnerability into acts of deep investigation.
- Sonic Landscapes & Hardware Expression: The exploration of space and emotion extends deeply into sound. Through the ongoing study of music theory and the embrace of tactile, dawless hardware, sonic environments are built from the ground up. Financial limitations have never been a barrier to creativity; instead, they serve as a catalyst for resourcefulness. Utilising the affordable yet powerful Roland AIRA Compact range—specifically the T-8, S-1, and P-6—allows for deep electronic synthesis and sampling entirely outside the confines of a computer screen. This musical focus spans two distinct but complementary sonic directions: ambient drone and digital post-punk. The long, shifting textures of drone allow for a deep, meditative engagement with the isolation and expanse of rural landscapes, while the urgent, synthetic rhythms of digital post-punk capture the raw friction of structural critique and resistance. This hardware-driven production serves a dual purpose: providing original, atmospheric accompaniments for the YouTube channel, while fuelling an independent artistic journey through a steep, rewarding learning curve.
- Digital Creation & Grass roots Roots: Moving images have long been a tool of documentation and resistance. While known widely today as Leonie, activists from grassroots movements will recognise the name Owl. In the early 2000s, under this name, a series of direct-action films was produced and published alongside a SchNEWS annual, capturing the raw energy of independent media. Today, the YouTube channel is the natural evolution of that lifelong commitment to independent filmmaking, embraced to share moments with a cold world held partisan behind monitors and mobile phone screens. The films intentionally respect the timeline, remaining firmly rooted in the "walk-with" moment. By leaving the moss behind in the editing process, the videography offers an inclusive picture, inviting the viewer to join the absolute-as-is reality of the experience. Gaining over 500 subscribers qualified for a YouTube partnership, though thresholds remain below the 1,000-subscriber threshold for ad-based revenue. No money is made as a YouTuber; the project is entirely non-commercial—a labour of love and public service. While the channel occupies a quiet, specialised niche, it has brought together the finest, most thoughtful viewers imaginable. Documenting everything from community dynamics to the quiet, contemplative realities of rural living, this space serves as a living archive of action research—built alongside an audience that truly cares to look closer.
- A Shared Life in the Borderlands: Woven throughout this journey and featured across the website and videos is a partner, Charlie. The meeting happened while hitchhiking—two lonely, isolated people who found a deep friendship that, through mutually beneficial collaboration, grew into a shared life. Charlie’s passion is farming. Before the meeting, the understanding of agriculture was limited to rambling along public footpaths across open fields. This transition to agricultural life carries a unique perspective: for thirty years, a vegetarian path was followed—not out of a dogmatic belief that people should abstain from meat, but as a deliberate response to a society consuming far too much of it. For six of those years, this commitment took the form of a successful vegan diet while living within a Bristolian autonomous collective. The view remains that factory farming is awful; by eating less meat, rather than consuming it three times a day, every day, animals are granted the opportunity to exist as something other than a mere capitalist commodity. Today, despite the mud and the mess, daily farming practices have brought deep benefits and learning—most notably the traditional care of sheep and the rewarding, hands-on work of raising cade lambs. This engagement with the land extends deeply into gardening, approached through both culinary and aesthetic lenses. Culturally, a focused kitchen garden serves as a space for practical, sustainable sustenance. Aesthetically, the garden operates as a space for deep phenomenological exploration—a rewarding process of raw, unmediated sensory awareness in which a seed is watched as it grows into a sapling, matures into a mature plant, and is ultimately harvested and shared. Through this slow cultivation, the shifting textures, light, and natural rhythms of the earth are experienced directly. While Charlie is naturally insular, the driving force behind this platform is outgoing, thoroughly enjoying the process of relating to people through correspondence and deeply cherishing the memory of genuine friendships. Together, travels extend across the Borderlands—Cumbria, Northumbria, and the Scottish Borders. It is an unforgiving, wild landscape that, through fortitude and resilience, has become deeply appreciated and enjoyed. Out in these spaces, a thriving community exchange is enjoyed, completely surpassing the stagnation contract often presented by the modern world. Presence is shared at country shows, antique auctions, livestock and farm sales, local village halls playing carpet bowls with the farming community, exploring historical sites, and sometimes just down the pub.
Ultimately, this platform is where academic scepticism, creative expression, and personal reclamation meet. The belief remains that by exploring flaws, conflicts are worked through—because there has to be resolve in this world. This space rejects the arrogance of the ideological blueprint; there is no desire to live as an example or present a dogmatic showcase of perfection. Instead, the focus rests on a simpler, far deeper commitment: to live to be beneficial in the immediate, unmediated present. Guided by the principle that it is far better to share life's abundance than to capitalise on it, the goal remains unchanged: to document the world honestly, challenge established structures, and break through the digital glass to foster a space of genuine, shared awareness and meaningful resolution.