Image is one of my generative art pieces inspired by traditional Maltese tiles. Find all of them here.

My vision for the pillar ‘culture’ was quite fluid in 2022. The goals were not as strict as for example my sporting goals. Nevertheless, I did have some direction I wanted to take my explorations. The main objective was to have fun and to be a ‘homo ludens’. Enough room for fun, fooling around, and playing.

Diversifying sources

The only strict direction was that I wanted to diversify my sources. This relates to my ambition to be free and independent. In my search for freedom, I should try to be aware of my prejudices and biases as much as possible. Of course, this is an impossible mission, but it’s worth attempting anyway.

I’m super glad I added this goal to my list, as it helped me get out of the reading bubble that I unconsciously resided in. You can read my reflection on this ‘diversity challenge’ in my article about my 2022 reading journey.

Reading

  •  ✅ 40/40 books read
  •  Diversity challenge
    • ✅ 11/10 books by non-cis-male authors
    • ❌ 1/5 books by Asian authors
    • ❌ 2/5 books by South American authors
    • ❌ 2/5 books by African authors

Generative Art

This year I’ve started sharing my generative art experiments (on this Instagram page). It has been super cool to experiment and try new techniques and learn new coding concepts. It has also reignited my interest in mathematics and physics. See for example this essay I wrote about Perlin noise. I’m completely in awe of natural laws and how they can be used to make cool visualisations. It’s a great way to explore these laws and make them more understandable to me. Because to use them in the art pieces, I first need to understand them properly. I talk more about how I intend to deepen my relationship with mathematics, physics, and the laws of nature in my 2023 goals and planning document. I have a very cool vision for a project about symbiotic relationships in nature. The structure of this project will also be based on a lesson I learned about myself this year. It is a way of working that I recognise in all of my projects and it looks something like this: 1) study, 2) create, 3) share. This sounds extremely simple, but let me explain the details and nuances of it in this article. I’m quite pleased with it.

  •  ✅ Create a generative art collection of Maltese patterns
    • I made a series of works inspired by traditional Maltese tiles. Check them out on my Instagram page.
  •  ❌ Get some artworks published somewhere (can be digitally or irl)
    • I’ve started sharing the artworks via Instagram, but that’s merely self-publishing. I’ve not made an effort to get it published somewhere meaningful yet. Also because I have not produced any finalised products yet. I’ve only produced drafts and sketches. But I have some plans for the future brewing… so I’ll will make sure to include it in future plans 🙂

Soup Boi

I ended up trying only 7 new soups in 2022. You can read all of my ultra-short reviews on this page. How do I feel about only making 7 soups? Not too bad honestly. This was mostly a fun side quest for me. I love soups, but I don’t have a specific passion for cooking or food. Because of this, I don’t mind not hitting the targets. This goal did not exist to serve me on my way to anything. Therefore I’m quite excited to announce that I will be continuing my list of soup reviews on this blog indefinitely 🙂 I will not put any target number on the soups, but I would just like to try out more soups and review them and keep this list. It’s fun to do 🙂

  •  ❌ 7/50 different soups
  •  ✅ Write a blog post about every soup that includes: recipe, proces and a review.
  •  ✅ Create an end-of-the-year rating list with all the soups

Writing

I did not hit any of these goals. But I’m quite satisfied with my output of articles this year anyway. Although I’d love to write more essays and blog posts with reflections or observations. I very much enjoy writing those articles.

The radio show where I did my spoken word columns got canceled after 7 months, so I only ended up with 7 spoken word pieces. I’ve also found a new structure for my newsletter that I experimented with toward the end of the year. That new structure enables me to write and share in a quick, low-intensity sort of way. The new structure is the following: 1) thought, 2) art, 3) quote, 4) sport, and 5) picture. And then I just share a short observation within these categories. It’s easy and fun and it keeps me going!

  • ❌ 5/12 essays
  • ❌ 8/12 reflection documents
  • ❌ 11/12 random blog posts
  • ❌ 7/12 spoken word pieces for Radio Noadors
  • ❌ 7/50 soup articles
  • ❌ 38/100 articles