Cultural highlights 2025: Digital delights

Julie Brominicks

I like rain, rock, moss and cold water. My favourite stage drapes are unzipped tent flaps. Books should be made of paper, the best coffee is drunk outdoors, I don’t have a phone and have zoomed just three times. 

But, Nation.Cymru after all, is online. Dear readers, for a brief period only, this IRL girl’s gone off piste. Here are my Ding Dong Digital Delights. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda. 

1. John Harvey’s Intersections of sound, image, word, and life

Every weekend, John Harvey, former Head of The School of Art, Aberystwyth, publishes a perfect blog. John is an art historian, author, and visual, digital and sound artist. Not surprisingly for such a disciplined multi-disciplinarian, his blogs interweave sound snippets, photographs, digital art and concise perfect prose. 

Essentially an autobiographical journal amounting to a journey through life, we get an insight into John’s technical and creative process – he is currently composing a sound installation to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster – alongside his personal musings. The result is fascinating and slightly other-worldly, like watching an arthouse film in a dark cinema.  

https://intersections.johnharvey.org.uk/

2. Retracing Footsteps; Olrhain Olion, exploring the past, present and future of Yr Wyddfa

The result of a collaborative project between Eryri National Park Authority and the University of Chester, this, apparently, is a real life exhibition in Betws-y-coed visitor centre. Combining extracts from historic visitor books with contemporary artwork and photographs of Yr Wyddfa, it invites the viewer to reflect on how the landscape has changed over time. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Retracing Footsteps – Yr Wyddfa (@retracing_footsteps)

I had no idea! I’ve not seen it. But for months I’ve been following excellently curated Retracing Footsteps (Olrhain Olion) posts on Instagram. Along with an intriguing photograph of a landscape or page from a visitor book, a typical post might read; 

“Started from Llanberis exactly at 12 o’clock. Weather looking rather threatening, got to the halfway house at 2 o’clock (Mosses Williams) 

Treated ourselves with tea bread and butter […]” Unknown Author, September 24 1886.”

As if bygone travellers have taken to social media. 

https://www.instagram.com/retracing_footsteps/?hl=en

3. The Loneliness of the Afternoon Drinker, The Hittites. 

Some of you will know Dr Simon Rodway for his work in the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth University.

You might be familiar with his occasional posts here at Nation.Cymru.

Others might know him as author of the children’s books Cadi Goch a’r Ysgol Swynion, and Cadi Goch a’r Crochan Hud. Such versatility!

If you live in Aberystwyth, you might also know he has been singer-songwriter frontman of local band The Hittites for years; his growly vocals complemented by a cast of talented musicians.

Such a versatile author is going to be a great lyricist, right? Right. The Loneliness of the Afternoon Drinker is my all-time favourite song.

I missed The Hittites recent gig in The Ship and Castle, so when I saw this reel on Facebook I actually cried. IRL. 

Buy it on Band Camp here. https://thehittites1.bandcamp.com/