https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/ 2026-07-14T02:11:57+00:00 https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/ https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wiki:logo.png text/html 2026-07-11T13:01:36+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=start&rev=1783774896&do=diff I started this collection of notes in the first few years of my kids being born. For the first few years of each of their lives I had very little studio time, my main artistic practice was writing notes to myself about how I'd like to practice if I had the time. I got into the habit of quickly tapping down ideas on my phone on the loo, on the stairs inbetween fetching teddies/clothes/food or just before falling asleep. As hard as that was, it's really done me a lot of good to just stop for a bit… text/html 2026-07-11T12:59:37+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=koans&rev=1783774777&do=diff Koans 65) The sound if something struck! - and I have forgotten all I knew. Training was not even temporarily necessary. In movement and deportment I manifest the Ancient way, And fall not into a possible pessimism. Nothing of me remains when I pass, text/html 2026-07-10T22:43:54+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=capturing_competition&rev=1783723434&do=diff Capturing Competition This inner feeling of queerness has always been there, not just something I might encounter, in some possible future. I'm interested in how the tensions between felt sensations, wide eyed looking and ways I've felt kept and eye on and talked about as I was growing up. How deeply but secretly I’ve felt concerned and suspicious eyes on me throughout my life. The split I’ve experienced in myself is part of the gender and sexuality conflicts, splits and exclusions in working… text/html 2026-07-10T22:42:01+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=mental_space_is_shame&rev=1783723321&do=diff Mental space is shame The sense of a private interior mental space that we're all taught as being the bedrock of modern Western philosophical thought, comes from shame. The experience of having thoughts and feelings that need to be hidden and protected from all sides, comes from shame. text/html 2026-07-10T22:37:50+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=thoughts_and_spaces&rev=1783723070&do=diff Thoughts and spaces Something about the mismatch between thoughts and feelings I'm least aware of and the material situation I find myself in. The spaces we encounter in our everyday lives are designed to keep us in place and encourage us to play certain roles. Like canteen style display counters and tills in supermarket cafes, hospital waiting rooms, or collections on peoples dedks in open plan offices, booths in late night bars. text/html 2026-07-10T22:35:07+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=the_kitchen_hob_is_singing_to_me&rev=1783722907&do=diff The kitchen hob is singing to me Most of the time I'm so focused on my own thoughts, the physical space I'm in fades almost completely away. Right now though I’m in the Kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and THE MATERIALS OF THIS SPACE ARE SINGING with MY BODY. I’m experiencing this kitchen as a huge, complex landscape. Imagining the thoughts and feelings teeming around my empty Kit-Kat mug, like a giant watching a colony of seabirds around a cliff, some larger thoughts glide around the wa… text/html 2026-07-10T22:32:29+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=rocking_laelia&rev=1783722749&do=diff Rocking Lelia This experience of sensing thoughts, its so much about being a body in a room. As I rock Laelia, gently swaying my hips left to right, moving my spine then my head 5-6 cm one way then the other - I look at the corner of the bed, smoothly panning from one perspective to another, the edge of the ikea shelves and become more aware of their 3 dimentionality, and the spatial nature of the room. Moving in and looking at the room in this way feels like it unlocks something. text/html 2026-07-10T22:24:51+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=thoughts_are_confusing_to_look_at&rev=1783722291&do=diff Thoughts are confusing to look at The thoughts that move between us are difficult to see, their markings are confusing to the eye, not as clearly separated, ordered and defined as we might like. Even if we could see them we wouldn’t be able to understand what most of them are trying to communicate. Each adapted to live in or around somewhere in the landscape of human rooms, the corner of a mouth, beside a fruit bowl, around a cot. Each with its own very limited, highly specialised ability to se… text/html 2026-07-10T22:23:34+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=merging_mediating_thoughts&rev=1783722214&do=diff My merging mediating thoughts One of the ways I try to hide, is to mediate the space between myself and other people. Instead of standing away from someone and being comfortable with the gap between us and their ability to see me as different to them, I try to fill that space by translating from them to me, so I control what is seen and what passes between us. text/html 2026-07-10T22:20:05+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=thoughts_growing_in_holgate_working_men_s_club&rev=1783722005&do=diff Thoughts growing in Holgate Working Men's Club Thinking about how thoughts live, grow and reproduce in spaces, how they adapt and thrive or are silenced and pushed out. Showing what a thought does, (its role in the ant colony of the mind) by showing where it comes from Holgate working mens club, men telling stories about being sent on a wild goose chase by some idiot, talking about holidays by the fruit machine, grandad and his mates chatting as they guard their dominoes, kids weaving through … text/html 2026-07-10T22:16:42+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=media_ether&rev=1783721802&do=diff Media Ether I'm beginning to feel more and more the need to believe in some kind of ether! A substrate of emotional energy and collective memory between people and the media they have consumed. The idea of the thoughts being on another plane to our material life is gone for me. text/html 2026-07-10T22:15:05+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=no_such_thing_as_mental_space&rev=1783721705&do=diff No such thing as mental space There is no such thing as mind, perceptions, thoughts and feelings are in the same physical material spaces as us. For a long time, and much more after cancer, I've seen my embodied life, my experience of the places I spend time in and the people I'm close to, as less real than the space of my mind, which I’ve seen as a seperate realm, unified and complete in itself. I’ve understood embodied emotions and human contact as things which penetrate my mental life and n… text/html 2026-07-10T22:12:17+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=sexuality_in_analogue_times&rev=1783721537&do=diff Sexuality in analogue times Haunted by experiences of possible future selves, as imagined years ago. Selves I haven't become or fully lived, yet they are still part of me. I didn't become gay me, or straight me. My unexpressed sexuality is a little sneaky, a bit slippery, a bit creepy. text/html 2026-07-10T22:08:13+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=worming_thoughts&rev=1783721293&do=diff Worming thoughts I’m watching Leo, squirming up to the arm in the sofa to get comfy, watching Axels adventures on youtube. The love I share with Leo getting deeper into my bones as I look at him this morning after last night in A&E. The feeling when from my text/html 2026-07-10T22:06:42+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=species_of_thoughts&rev=1783721202&do=diff Species of thoughts Most thoughts are tiny, roaming around spaces trying to make sense of what is happening in the space immediately around them. They first grew in other spaces, adapting to be highly specialised to sense different things, e.g. what kind of place this is, what the decor is like, what things are in the space and which memories they trigger, people's body language and expressions, keeping track of the conversation etc, to feed information back to the thoughts closer to or in the … text/html 2026-07-10T22:05:30+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=i_get_this_feeling&rev=1783721130&do=diff I get this feeling A lot of the time I get overwhelmed by the presence of other peoples thoughts and feelings, all these distortions in the space-time of the room emanating at me. Sometimes I get a sense of my thinking and feeling happening outside my body, moving around the room, communicating with other people's ideas, emotions and memories in ways I don’t understand. I used to think that was my super power, maybe it’s just anxiety. I think it’s double edged. text/html 2026-07-10T22:02:25+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=every_thought_is_a_growth&rev=1783720945&do=diff Every thought is a growth Every thought is a growth. If I attack them with violence they split and multiply. Sat meditating I picture abstract 70s orange and green colored blob forms flowing between me and the other people sitting, like three dimensional rivers and estuaries. I don't know which thoughts and feelings are mine, they all look the same. The grain of the blobs like the calcification of my testicle on the ultrasound. The ultrasound man shows me the imagery of the 'starry night' effe… text/html 2026-07-10T21:55:11+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=inner_outer_split&rev=1783720511&do=diff Inner outer split I’m sat here in the ultrasound waiting room with four other men, older than me but with a similar shaved head, bit of stubble, bit of a belly, not quite sportswear not quite casual, they're more in their 50’s, a couple with their wives or girlfriends. We've all got a similar posture steadied, looking casually into the distance, even if me and one guy are trying to look more casual with one leg crossed. I can feel the emotional energies and it's not all bad, it's musical, there… text/html 2026-07-10T21:50:56+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=camouflaged_thoughts&rev=1783720256&do=diff Camouflaged Thoughts I spend most of my time hiding my thoughts and feelings, without even realising I’m doing it. As I look for other peoples thoughts, they are usually hidden in the spaces between us -between clothes, walls and glass screens. They appear fleetingly. text/html 2026-07-10T21:49:52+00:00 neilwinterburn (neilwinterburn@undisclosed.example.com) https://neilwinterburn.net/notes/doku.php?id=defensiveness&rev=1783720192&do=diff Defensiveness The more I meditate the more I realise I experience the world in a state of fear and defensiveness, seeing everything and everyone as a potential attacker. I adapted to that experience by trying to understand people better, to be seen as an empathetic person. Being a defender is living in a state of anxiety. Seeing everything as a threat. Attack as a form of defence. Reading situations to snuff out threats before they happen.