‘The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’; the individual commodity appears in its elementary form. Our investigation therefore begins with the analysis of the commodity’.
Capital Volume 1: Karl Marx
‘In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation’.
‘The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images’.
The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord
Inspirations and influences include Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, AWN Pugin, John Ruskin, William Morris, Catherine Bauer, Joseph Frank, Christopher Alexander, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Jan Massys, Christophe Plantin, Miloš Forman, Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, Eleanor Marx, Sylvia Pankhurst, Ludovico Silva, Sebastiano Timpanaro, JB Priestley…and many others
I’m interested in looking at the key concepts of Marxism – commodity production, commodity fetishism, value, capital, capital accumulation – in everday, local settings, like this example below.
My research projects include the history of modern housing – by that I mean Catherine Bauer’s definition of housing that is of good quality and low cost.
Other research projects are Red Vienna, the social and political history of London, global trade, literature of London, films made in Britain between the 1930s – 1960s.
I have a curious obsession with the artist Jan Massys and the painters of the Northern Renaissance.
I organise Radical Walks around London and the south east.
One of my favourite bands at the moment is The Pribata Idaho
Commodity Fetishism 
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