Sapiens

I don't say this often, but... everyone should read this book. Sapiens offers a rare chance to step outside of your life and look at the big picture, while being throughly entertained by some brilliantly clear and compelling writing.

From cave men to artificial intelligence, Harari covers where humans come from, what we've done, why we've done it and what we might do next. It's highly readable, incredibly succinct considering the scope and certainly never dull.

In tracking human progress, from hunter-gatherers 'of no signifiance' to the atomic bomb and the internet, Harai is particularly adept at identifying and exploring the ideas, myths and beliefs that have made it all possible. He explores big concepts with breezy simplicity - gender, money, writing, empire, religion, science and ideology - explaining how they came about and how they have influenced the development of human societies.

This is all illustrated with fascinating detail, zooming into relatable events in order to reflect wider trends. In this way Harari navigates the complexity of human history, while retaining his expansive perspective. He also manages to challenge over-simplified or distorted interpretations of events - albeit with a light touch relative to more academic texts.

While largely balanced, there is a welcome polemic element to his writing too. Harai often returns to man made environmental change and animal welfare in order to raise questions about the impact of mankind beyond the mirrored walls of of human culture. He also identifies a number of traits which appear to have shaped his own worldview. These include the importance of imagination in the organisation of human society, a fascination for our individual capacity to hold contradictory beliefs at the same time, and a longitudinal trend towards an ever closer integration of the world population.

It is the author's ability to frame big questions within the broad sweep of human history in such an accessible and entertaining way that make this book so good. I can honestly say that it has changed my way of thinking.

Spook Country revisted

When it was first published, I found the cover design and title 'Spook Country' a little perplexing. It seemed somehow un-Gibson, like the novel had been packaged as a mass-market spy thriller. I could only hope that this would lead more people to discover the depth of perspective that it offered. Of course, like so much of of Gibson's writing, I don't think I appreciated this depth at the time. It now seems even more prescient.

All the usual Gibson traits are there: near future-technology (this time 'locative' virtual reality - which could now be seen as both fore-runner of augmented reality and the new generation of VR); subcultures (art world, systema, free-running, BASE jumping) habitual drug use (benzos, coffee and broasted potatoes); enthralling story; profound insights and a cast of characters who effortlessly redefine cool.

There's also the sense of zeitgeist. Unlike previous trilogies, which reflect their time through projections of the future, Gibson has very intentionally rooted this series in the culture it was written. The use of present or near future technology in fiction is always going to timestamp your work. Here Gibson is explicit in this use - drawing on wi-fi, iPods, clam phones (soon to be made obselete by the smart phone) and specific brand names. As a result, with the series published between 2003 and 2010, he has documented one of the most rapid and significant decades of change in regard to our relationship with communications technology.

The point about brand names is important, Gibson was keen to stress when speaking in London at the publication of 'Zero History'. This codified language is central to our experience in the world of the early 21st century. Whereas his previous novels painted corporations as machivellian international powers (think 1990s anti-globalisation protests), the relationship here is more complex. It is personified in the charachter of Hubertus Bigend, the London-based Belgian marketing guru behind the mysterious Blue Ant and the one constant in all three books. Often the fixer and the enabler, he guides the achingly cool female lead characters down the rabbit hole of cutting edge cool in search of truth. And yet his motives are never clear. Through an R&D division with bottomless resources, he is ostensibly on the hunt for anything cool that he can co-opt into his marketing business to sell brands. In doing so he co-opts the female leads themselves, challenging them to question how far they want to sign themselves away to this seemingly benign, yet alarmingly omnipient, commercial entity. Sound familiar?

Artist Studios: Keeping Creativity in the Capital

'It's an increasing struggle to maintain a practice that isn't funded in a commercial way' says Emma Hart, an exhibiting artist living in London who has shown at Folkestone Triennial, Whitechapel Gallery, Camden Arts Centre and Matt's Gallery.

Emma is at London Art Fair for the first time - not as an exhibitor but as a panellist. She's here to discuss the role that artists play in the creative reputation of the capital and what can be done to keep them here in the face of rapidly rising rents.

In November, Hart was awarded £50k by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation through its Awards for Artists. If that hadn't happened, she says, "I would have had to consider a move out of London." But she doesn't want to leave. She's a Londonder. Her family live here. As it is she has already just had to move South to Peckham from the East.

Behind the panel is a map showing applications to Whitechapel Gallery's triennial London Open exhibition in 2012. It's a fairly even spread across the boroughs. But when compared with the 2015 map a number of factors become apparent. This by no means a scientific data set, but there is a marked shift in applications from West to East, and from inner to outer. An increased number of applications from outer boroughs may, says curator Daniel F Herrman, be attributed to changes in eligibility, but it's where the dots no longer exist that is a concern. I hadn't expected to see such an effect in so a short space of time.

"We all have anecdotes of artists we know who have left for other cities" says Ben Luke, the Evening Standard's Art Critic, including other European capitals such as Berlin. Recent statistics compiled by artist's newsletter (a-n) have shown that artists in the UK earn an average of just £10k a year. "That's just £3 an hour" says Luke, "a third of the London Living Wage".

This means that artists are very rarely full time - subsidising their work through a variety of other income streams including teaching. "10 years ago succesful artists were going into studios paid for by themselves." says Hart who also teaches at Central Saint Martins, "Now even Turner prize winners are moving back into supported studios. Many are coming back to teach."

Hart's studio in Peckham is managed by [Space Studios], an organisation that rents out around 500 spaces to artists in the capital. While they own some of their properties outright, those that they lease have seen rent rises of as much as 400% in recent years.

Also on the panel is Fabio Altumura, Gallery and Development Manager for Cubitt, an artist run co-operative based just around the corner in Angel. Cubitt sustains its studios through rent and other initiatives while receiving Arts Council funding for its gallery and education programme. "I keep meeting artists who can't afford to be artists" he laments.

In 2014 the Greater London Authority's Cultural Strategy Unit estimated that as many as 3,500 artists are likely to lose their places of work in the next 5 years - 30% of the 11,000 practicing artists they found currently provided for by 298 separate studio buildings or sites. Only 17% of these spaces are freeholds.

So what can be done to help these spaces which are under so much pressure from a grossly inflated commercial property market?

The panel turns Kirsten Dunne, the senior Cultural Strategy Officer at the GLA who comissioned this research. Can politics play a role? Might there be some provision for studios under affordable housing quotas?

Probably not under curent planning laws, she responds. "Housing is the biggest issue facing Londonders today", she remind us. London needs more homes, but it also needs more infastructure to support it's growing population - schools, hospitals, energy, green spaces. Councils accross London are under a lot of pressure. (In fact if you visit Big Bang Data at Somerset House this month there's a fantastic interactive installation which puts you in the place of decision making around these issues.)

But Dunne and her colleagues at the cultural strategy unit, headed up by Munira Mirza, have been building the case for artists' contribution to the capital, and are talking to London boroughs and developers to keep culture at the heart of the city. "Studios are a really viable model because artists are brilliant at paying" says Dunne, who is now researching alternative forms of funding.

There is a lot of evidence, however, that "artists are the victims of their success", says Luke. They move into new areas, start squatting and make the area popular. "We don't benefit from that value that we create" underlines Hart "I can't afford the rents that I have apparently made bigger."

Altumura recalls an interview with David Byrne in the New York Times. "There's this romantic vision of artist struggling in big metropolis," he says, "It's not romantic, is a struggle. How much cultural capital has been established on artists not being paid? We need to put value on what we are dealing with."

So what happens when artists can't afford to be artists and what does it mean for an area if only a certain economic class of artist can afford to stay?

Living in New York, Altumura witnessed first hand the hollowing out of the city. "New York has lost most of artists to West Coast" he says "and this impacts on the art that is being made."

"If only those with money start taking up art in the first place, that skews everything because there is a lack of diversity." says Hart "We (artists) can't make links into communities if we are always on the move and we can't put down roots ourselves."

"Institutions need artists nearby too" says Herrman on behalf of the Whitechapel Gallery. If artists and cooperative organisations are priced out "then it creates a monoculture of criticality and creativity" he warns "and I think that would make London far less attractive as a place for tourism, for thinking, for living and defiantly as a place for growing. We, as institutions, are keen on diversity."

So what can be done?

All of the panel agree that artists and arts leaders have a role to play in highlighting the problem and advocating for alternatives.

"Artist co-ops such as Cubitt are an extremely beneficial model for other forms of co operative organisation" says Herrman.

"I'm always been amazed by how resourceful artists are and can be" agrees Altumura "as long as they have the basics covered such as affordable living and an affordable studio.We need to enable more artists have their opinions heard and to allow artists to be in a position to do what's best for them."

"I remember an article saying that it's standard procedure to have a business person on the board of arts organisation" posits Dunne "but it's not standard procedure to have an artist on the board of each business organisation. That would certainly be a recognition of value."

"I would like to start hearing arguments which go beyond how much money artists make and how many jobs they create." says Hart "For me that would be a critical space and a more fundamental debate about what art really does and what we need. We need to go beyond talking about art in just financial terms."

"Berlin is not just interesting an interesting place to work because rents are cheap" says Herrman "Rents are controlled. Since the 1988 housing act there is a lack of tenancy protection (in the UK), be it for artists or the general population, which incentives speculation over long-term tenancies. That is not the case in many other countries."

In more immediate terms, a new £20m London Regeneration Fund has just announced by the Mayor's office. It includes provision for artist studios and work space which should at least start "to dent the shortfall" says Dunne. Funding for new creative space includes Cell Studios in Hackney Wick, The Bow Packing Works, two industrial sheds in Enfield and the ground floor car park of a Magistrate’s Court in Richmond.

Dunne also points to a few tentative schemes which tether affordable housing to affordable workspace, such as Hackney Wick Fish Island, and to developers, such as Peabody and Grovesnor, who she says do have an understanding of the long-term benefits of community. She is also keen to highlight best practice in councils such as Waltham Forest, who she says want to embed culture in their communities.

But, as she and Hart both agree, a lot of this relies on a shared understanding of what exactly is "affordable". If you read the property pages of the London Evening Standard, the current definition offered by London developers seems to be £350,000-£400,000+ for a two bedroom flat through a shared ownership scheme. I can't afford that, and I'm not even an artist.

Chris works for London Art Fair and Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists as an Account Director at Four Colman Getty. He convened this panel on behalf of London Art Fair but any views expressed in this article are personal or those of contributors.