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Jonny Campbell

The occasional dispatch

Notes.

Things I’m building, trying, and figuring out.

Gig tickets heaped on a dark table: Shine club-night tickets in orange and cream, pale blue and green Ticketmaster tickets with colour bars down their stubs, Ash at Spring & Airbrake on white paper, and among them dark outlined tickets for gigs with no paper left, like Christy Moore and Primavera Sound 2013.
10Build notes

Twenty-four years of gigs

From 2002 to 2011 my gig tickets went in a shoebox, and after that into my inbox. I tipped both out and made one page of every gig there’s a record of: the paper photographed and cut out, the rest drawn in outline.

AI GeneratedRead note
Fifteen screens from the site in a grid: the homepage, then the fourteen JONNY//OS machines in order, from HAL’s red eye, Mother’s project list and the Esper photo to the Matrix rain, the Precrime ball, the OS1 logo and an Arrival logogram being translated.
09Build notes

I rebuilt my website

My website has a power button now. Press it and the page boots into one of fourteen film computers, from HAL to Arrival, each running my work its own way. What’s on it, how it was built, and how the launch film was made.

AI GeneratedRead note
A mosaic of fourteen film frames in order, from HAL’s flight deck and Mother’s green text to the Matrix rain, Tony Stark inside Iron Man’s HUD, Her’s red OS1 screen and a logogram on Louise’s laptop in Arrival.
08Build notes

The typefaces of cinema’s computers

From HAL to the heptapods: who made each film computer’s screens, what they’re set in and how sure anyone can be, the colours really in the frames, and the faces I chose for JONNY//OS.

AI GeneratedRead note
An AI-generated image: a fruit fly standing on the worn ivory key of a piano at night, with the black keys behind it blurring into shadow.
07Build notes

An instrument wired like a fruit fly

I asked Codex how you’d build something around a fly’s brain, and within the hour it was an instrument. How Murmur works, what’s real about it and what isn’t, and how it came to run in your browser.

AI AssistedRead note
An AI-generated image: the StackedFM Prism, a wedge of white aluminium with a long touchscreen showing StackedFM and a volume knob on its right-hand end, on an oak desk by a window, with records leaning against the wall behind.
06Build notes

A StackedFM device, designed in conversation

I bought a touchscreen and asked AI to design the rest: a folded aluminium case, real parts, and the files a metal shop would need. Here’s how it went, and what’s still only on screen.

AI AssistedRead note
A render of a teal copy of Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, floating face on in front of a shelf of books, with the shelf and a white pegboard behind it out of focus.
05Build notes

A room for my books

I rebuilt a corner of my office from 14 photos, put it in the browser and gave it a voice that finds books on my real shelves. How it came together, what’s real, and why next time I’d scan the room first.

AI GeneratedRead note
The Tower at night in the rain: a red-brick building cut open to show five floors of rooms with people and machines at work, a Foresight sign on the roof, and Belfast’s streets and lamps around it.
04Build notes

How I built the Tower

A cutaway building in Belfast that shows Foresight’s pipeline across five floors. What failed first, the loop of agents and harsh critics that got it most of the way, where I stepped in, and what I’d do differently.

AI GeneratedRead note
A cream and red Divoom MiniToo on a warmly lit desk, displaying remaining Codex quota and reset times.
03Build notes

I turned a tiny retro monitor into an AI usage dashboard

A little screen, a few scripts, and a way to see how much Claude and Codex quota I have left. Here’s how I built it.

AI AssistedRead note
An AI-generated image: a pint of Guinness on a dark mahogany bar in a pub at night, with brass taps and bottles glowing behind it, and beside it a phone showing Pint Tracker’s Submit a price page, which asks: At the pub right now?
02Build notes

Pint Tracker, built to run without me

A weekend test that made the papers, then died because every price needed me. Why I built Pint Tracker, how I rebuilt it to run itself, the sun and shade map, and what I’d do differently.

AI GeneratedRead note
Two cards side by side. On the left, part of the brief for this note, dictated and lightly edited, in a monospaced face, with the line about handing write-ups to AI highlighted. On the right, the top of this note as published, with its AI Assisted badge.
01Start here

Notes I don’t have time to write

Every note here is labelled AI Assisted or AI Generated. Why I hand the write-ups to AI, how a note gets made, and why I still think writing matters.

AI AssistedRead note