Click the link below to listen to the very first episode of the Everything is Cake Podcast. The podcast will be a companion piece to my writings here on Substack where some episodes will elaborate on written topics, and other weeks there will be standalone conversations and discussions. I’m really looking forward to exploring this new world to see where it takes me. Would really love you to join me, OK?
Spotify - Everything is Cake Podcast - #001 - Joshua Burnside
I’ve been thinking about the connection between physical spaces and creativity—how, and if, they’re related. The term ‘liminal’ refers to a state of flux and in-betweenness, where the dominant or governing logic of a given situation is temporarily suspended. To take the word slightly out of its fixed context, I’d like to explore the idea that real art is made when commerciality is completely removed, and physical spaces like squats, communes, garages, alleyways, and independent small venues are used to suspend the governing logic, allowing for creativity without judgement, where the risk is both high and non-existent at the same time.
Stormzy has opened a new nightclub in London’s Soho district. The press release explains that ‘House Party, a new Soho venue envisioned by Stormzy, transforms the typical nightclub experience by recreating the nostalgic vibe of house parties from his youth. Each floor of the club is designed like a different room in a traditional home, including spaces like a kitchen, bedrooms, and a roof terrace, evoking a warm and inclusive atmosphere. The venue uniquely blends this homely feel with modern nightlife through immersive theatrical elements, such as actors playing family members who interact with guests, creating a dynamic and engaging environment that redefines a night out in Soho.’
This nightclub is a perfect example of postmodernist philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s concept of ‘Simulacra and Simulation’, a critical theory that explores the relationship between reality, symbols, and society. Baudrillard argues that in the postmodern world, reality is increasingly replaced by symbols and representations, which he calls ‘simulacra’. These simulacra are not just distortions of reality; they become reality themselves, blurring the distinction between the real and the fake. This process is what Baudrillard refers to as ‘simulation’. Simulacra are copies or representations of things that no longer have an original, or never had one to begin with. They are images or models that have lost their connection to the real world and now exist only as self-referential realities. Simulation is the process through which simulacra replace reality, creating a representation of reality so convincing that it becomes more real than reality itself, leading people to interact with the simulation as if it were reality. Severe stoner chat, but I think it’s an important idea not to be overlooked in this discussion.
Baudrillard’s theory was famously brought to life in The Matrix. Although he distanced himself from the movie and criticised its interpretation, the fact that such a niche and introspective theory found its way to the big screen only reinforces his point. I get the urge to watch The Matrix at least four times a month. I’ll be in the middle of something completely arbitrary, and out of nowhere, the urge to watch it consumes me entirely. Something about the colours, the music, the clothing, the computers, and the overall aesthetic feels comforting to me, though I can’t quite work out why. If I were to guess, I’d say that it’s the era in which the movie was made that mainly affects how I feel towards it—the late 90s/early 00s. In one of my last posts, ‘Post Punk Domesticity’, I talked about the desire to return to that time. There seems to be something about those years that feels safe, like a familiarity just before the world shifted—a liminal space of suspension and anticipation. The House Party in Soho exists as a 90s simulacra, a representation of a time that no longer exists. With wallpaper that looks like your granny’s, Jenga in the living room, bunk beds, and dumbphones, the idea is to escape our current reality and go back to a ‘better’ time. There is clearly an inherent longing for a pre-moderntech way of life, but it is a climax that almost no-one can reach because the nostalgia is being posted on TikTok in real time. There is a blockage somewhere down the line. Stormzy is tapping into the collective unconscious but falls short because it’s made to make money. Lots and lots of money. Call me presumptive, but I think we might finally be coming to the realisation that the commercialisation and commodification of physical space is sucking the life out of us.
When I was in my teens and early 20s, I lived in a constant state of house party. If it wasn’t at my place in Belfast, it was at someone else’s—then someone else’s in Brighton, Glasgow, Nuremberg, Paris, Nashville. It was a never-ending cycle of faces, music, booze, conversation, romantic flings, and personal growth. It was exhausting, but all I needed was a warm shower, a hot meal, and a few minutes to myself, and I was ready to do it all over again. The thought of it now fills me with dread, but I’m very much at peace with that. It’s not because of my age, necessarily, but simply because my preferences have shifted. For those who need these liminal spaces—these in-between areas where fleeting self-reflection happens through personal interaction—the opportunity is being taken from them. They’ve been priced out of cheap homes, forced to live with their parents, or are too scared to throw a house party for fear of complaints or the constant threat of eviction. Squatting has been clamped down on, and the joy of being stupid and irresponsible has been stripped away. Every move is monitored by the phone, by the machine that tells us we need a personal brand at all times, while our personalised ads show businesses debranding to appear more organic.
Creativity can thrive in physical spaces that exist outside the reach of mainstream attention—those that are able to slip through the cracks of the commercialised world. In a society where art is increasingly commodified and tailored to the wealthy, these hidden spaces become sanctuaries for ‘anti-art’, a form of creative expression that challenges the status quo, offering a powerful way to imagine and shape an alternative world—an adjacent reality where art serves the community rather than the market. Capitalist hegemony1 is in full swing when the house party no longer exists. When there are no communes or squats, no places where the dominant or governing logic of a given situation is temporarily suspended, it is because we are about to be offered it for purchase. Time after time, the revolution has been packaged and sold back to us, losing all of its meaning and force. A house party isn’t a house party when it’s a made-up set; a garage isn’t a garage when it’s on the list of ‘Top 10 Places for a BRAT summer’2.
There is a debilitating sense of uncertainty about the future that this profitisation can bring. I felt it when I lived in London, but it can be said for any large city around the world. It can now be said about towns and villages too. In fact, this existential dread seems to be found almost everywhere. We have come to accept our reality as a simulation—a copy of a copy, a diluted version of something that once existed, though we can no longer put our finger on what that original thing was.
I’ve been reading a book by Hakim Bey called ‘TAZ: Temporary Autonomous Zone’3. A Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), as Bey describes it, is a fleeting space where people can break free from the grip of established systems like governments, corporations, or societal expectations. These zones aren’t meant to last forever; they pop up, thrive for a moment, and then disappear before authority can clamp down. In a TAZ, the usual rules don’t apply, allowing for spontaneous bursts of creativity, community, and autonomy. Bey’s idea centres on creating these temporary spaces as a form of resistance, offering a brief glimpse into an alternative way of living, even if just for a moment. When I think of these spaces, I imagine the last stalwarts of the old world—the kids who sat on walls with cans. The wall in the village, the park, or the big tree became a TAZ, offering a sense of autonomy. Sadly, now even those spaces have been taken over by social media.
Bey uses the example of the dinner party as a potential TAZ, as long as spontaneity exists at the gathering. In such a setting, ‘a group of humans [can] synergize their efforts to realise mutual desires, whether for good food and cheer, dance, conversation, the arts of life; or to create a communal artwork to attain the very transport of bliss—in short…a basic biological drive to mutual aid’. He introduces the concept of ‘psychic nomadism’ as a vital element in shaping the reality of a TAZ—the idea of moving rootlessly from philosophy to tribal myth, from natural science to Taoism. The psychic nomad possesses multifaceted vision and the tools to perceive an entirely different world. By remaining mobile (psychically rather than physically), psychic nomads resist society’s control mechanisms, such as consumerism, state power, or institutionalised religion. However, when considering Stormzy’s House Party, Bey would argue that this ‘commodity fetishism’ has ‘created a tyrannical false unity which tends to blur all cultural diversity and individuality, so that one place is as good as another’.
A musician who holds a constant place in my mind is Belfast based, Joshua Burnside4 . I hope he won’t mind me saying it, but I believe him to be a total anomaly—a TAZ unto himself, you could say. If you watch any videos of Josh online, you’ll notice a constantly changing background—a figure moving from place to place, creating temporary spaces of creativity, each one serving as a transient source of inspiration and reflection for himself, his audience, and viewers alike. I was boarding a plane from Belfast to London for some meetings when I met Josh heading the same way. He was going over to sign a contract, and the only thing he carried with him was the clothes on his back. He didn’t know it, but in that moment, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for him. I saw in him what used to be more prevalent in the creative world—something many, especially Irish artists, now desperately seek. His lack of luggage wasn’t due to an ungratefulness; far from it. Instead, what he showed me was that the dominant logic of a given situation could be temporarily suspended. In other words, as an Irish musician, he wasn’t going to London to sell his soul or lean into his ‘Paddyness’. He was going to exist exactly as he was, unapologetically so, and then come back home. I’m mindful of projecting a philosophy onto Josh that he might not personally endorse; this perspective is purely my own interpretation. But nonetheless, I think he can teach us a lot. Josh has sat on the edge of commerciality for his whole career, yet has never fully submerged himself. This has given him the freedom to play in alleyways, pubs, massive venues, and then back to the pub—all within a few months.
As musicians, we spend years gigging in as many places as possible. Then if you manage to gain notoriety or sign to a label, you’re often told to stop playing so many shows—to create artificial scarcity in order to attract bigger and bigger crowds. While this often makes sense, as artists are unable to keep up the pace, someone like Josh has changed the way artists can exist. But how is this possible? Is Josh fully autonomous? Probably not—he’s no doubt got a great team behind him, helping and assessing when to release this song or play that gig. Yet he retains a sense of psychic nomadism, continuously finding or creating spaces where he can live creatively and freely, even if only temporarily, without being captured or constrained by the dominant culture. His work with local communities and showcasing art by those outside the mainstream provides an important blueprint for how we can thrive in a world of simulation.
Josh is an active member of Vault Artist Studios, the largest provider of affordable studio spaces in Northern Ireland and the only multi-disciplinary studio space in the north of Ireland, with two premises in Belfast City. In a fashion similar to Hakim Bey, Vault’s ‘About’ section on their website explains: ‘Writing our story, or anyone’s story for that matter, before that story is finished, is to play with emphasis and construct chains of events in order to create something which, in the end, is inevitably subjective, potentially skewed and liable to change. Also, who knows where we’ll be in ten years’ time? And how the person who tells our story then will pick and choose from the various things that happened to write that future narrative?’ By embracing spontaneity and impermanence, Vault has been able to create an experience that isn’t beholden to the rigid structures of logic or governance. The fact that artists know their studio space isn’t permanent, on one hand, could be frustrating, but on the other, can create a nuanced sense of inspiration leading to artworks that might never have been created in a permanent commercial art studio or gallery.
I can only speak for my own city of Belfast, but the decline in small independent music venues is concerning. We once had more of these than large venues. A space that can hold around 200 people (at a squeeze) is crucial for nurturing a vibrant scene. The presence of multiple such venues increases the chances of the scene thriving. Additionally, the ability to book these venues for free, with the owner making revenue from the bar, plays a significant role in allowing the scene to develop and flourish. I also firmly believe that risk is a crucial element in any creative scene that pushes beyond the boundaries of what is considered possible. Before I pulled back from the live scene a few years ago I was very anti-risk. I was in one of those bands that used in-ear monitors, backing tracks and laptops etc. So was I part of the problem? Well, I don’t think so! Not necessarily. In-ear monitors can be a much safer option for your ears and backing tracks can be used to create a sound so all-consuming that the audience can feel completely immersed. All of these things can be good. But when these things are relied upon risk cannot exist, and that’s where I think the problem lies. I spent 6 years with my first band playing hundreds of shows and the risk was high. That risk made us better musicians. There was more room for mistakes and growth. But because our world is so commercial, so heavily based on views and listens, young musicians coming up are so averse to risk because the 20 seconds of a song they got famous for on TikTok only has one shot at being filmed on TikTok when they’re playing it live. No record label in their right mind would let their artist go out on stage and risk it all.
The world is changing and despite my critiques, I know that it’s important for things to evolve and change. Artists need to earn a living, and for those in expensive cities, the financial pressure is even greater. Playing corporate gigs and signing with major record labels has become part of the reality, I’ve played so many of those gigs just to put food on the table. There is no question that artists across all disciplines deserve better financial support. But before the money, and in fact beyond it, my hope is that artists can experience that Temporary Autonomous Zone—where the usual rules are suspended, where risk is high, and the reward isn’t monetary. Where there is no A&R coming to decide your fate, and things don’t go exactly how you planned. It’s in those moments, in those spaces free from commercial pressures, that an artist can truly discover who they are, push through the simulation, and take home for safekeeping, their raison d'être.
Hegemony - The social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group.
Brat - Charlie XCX - Charli told the BBC's Sidetracked podcast that brat is a concept that represents a person who might have "a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra".
It has been deemed by some pop critics as a rejection of the "clean girl" aesthetic popularised on TikTok, which spurned a groomed ideal of femininity, and instead embraces more hedonistic and rebellious attitudes.
“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things some times,” Charli explained on social media.
“Who feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”
https://archive.org/details/T.A.Z.TheTemporaryAutonomousZoneOntologicalAnarchyPoeticTerrorism
https://www.instagram.com/joshuaburnside/?hl=en
Well written, and interesting topic to read and reflect on!