(originally an assignment for an MLitt course module, “Experimental Visual Art”, University of Glasgow) The origins of the modern computer are vague because the various features that came together to create it – the thermionic valve, digital input, digital output, electromagnetic storage and the cathode-ray tube – evolved separately and were brought together piecemeal in…

(this piece was originally written in December 2020) For the purpose of this piece I will look primarily at the effect of Covid restrictions on a woman in her mid-60s, retired and living in a residential area on the outskirts of Glasgow with a population older than the city’s average. As she does not go…

Agnes Sampson was the pillar of her East Lothian community in the late sixteenth century. She was a poor but respectable widow who served as the local midwife. The locals called her “The Wise Wife of Keith”. That all changed after the ship carrying James VI and his new bride Anne of Denmark was beset…