John Rux-Burton | Simulist Ephimera
@johnruxburton.bsky.social
Writer, satirist, poet & artist of Simulism — finding meaning in infinity and down the back of the sofa
https://www.johnruxburton.co.uk/ Substack @simulistephimera
https://www.johnruxburton.co.uk/ Substack @simulistephimera
Pinned
Writer. Photographer. Maker of gardens. Simulist.
It's not our answers but our questions that define us...
Don't you think?
It's not our answers but our questions that define us...
Don't you think?
Why dyslexia is a huge advantage in an AI world:
I’m a novelist with dyslexia + APD. After a life of being told off for pour spelling, now my typos prove my work wasn’t written by AI
#Dyslexia #Neurodiversity #AI #WritingCommunity #Art
I’m a novelist with dyslexia + APD. After a life of being told off for pour spelling, now my typos prove my work wasn’t written by AI
#Dyslexia #Neurodiversity #AI #WritingCommunity #Art
December 6, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Why dyslexia is a huge advantage in an AI world:
I’m a novelist with dyslexia + APD. After a life of being told off for pour spelling, now my typos prove my work wasn’t written by AI
#Dyslexia #Neurodiversity #AI #WritingCommunity #Art
I’m a novelist with dyslexia + APD. After a life of being told off for pour spelling, now my typos prove my work wasn’t written by AI
#Dyslexia #Neurodiversity #AI #WritingCommunity #Art
The Circus of Meaning - a haiku cycle
This piece is the second in a "circus of metaphysics" cycle. I'll share more over the next few weeks.
Find the first ‘Free Fall’ on Instagram
#haiku #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #haikupoetry #surrealpoetry #existentialpoetry #circus #metaphysics
This piece is the second in a "circus of metaphysics" cycle. I'll share more over the next few weeks.
Find the first ‘Free Fall’ on Instagram
#haiku #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #haikupoetry #surrealpoetry #existentialpoetry #circus #metaphysics
December 5, 2025 at 10:17 AM
The Circus of Meaning - a haiku cycle
This piece is the second in a "circus of metaphysics" cycle. I'll share more over the next few weeks.
Find the first ‘Free Fall’ on Instagram
#haiku #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #haikupoetry #surrealpoetry #existentialpoetry #circus #metaphysics
This piece is the second in a "circus of metaphysics" cycle. I'll share more over the next few weeks.
Find the first ‘Free Fall’ on Instagram
#haiku #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #haikupoetry #surrealpoetry #existentialpoetry #circus #metaphysics
How Tom Stoppard saved the lives of millions of women, and continues to today.
Read Professor Baum’s letter in the Times that explains how Arcadia transformed his research.
Literature isn’t just for the beach
www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...
Read Professor Baum’s letter in the Times that explains how Arcadia transformed his research.
Literature isn’t just for the beach
www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...
Times letters: Halting the scourge of illegally dumped waste
Sir, Jenni Russell’s article highlights staggering ineptness on the part of local and national authorities to deal with the dumping of toxic waste in Kidlington
www.thetimes.com
December 3, 2025 at 10:48 AM
How Tom Stoppard saved the lives of millions of women, and continues to today.
Read Professor Baum’s letter in the Times that explains how Arcadia transformed his research.
Literature isn’t just for the beach
www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...
Read Professor Baum’s letter in the Times that explains how Arcadia transformed his research.
Literature isn’t just for the beach
www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...
Interesting short story on substack @simulistephimera
Here’s part II of a short introduction
Here’s part II of a short introduction
November 30, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Interesting short story on substack @simulistephimera
Here’s part II of a short introduction
Here’s part II of a short introduction
Interesting, dark, short, short story on Substack @simulistephimera
Here’s a quick intro
Here’s a quick intro
November 30, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Interesting, dark, short, short story on Substack @simulistephimera
Here’s a quick intro
Here’s a quick intro
This is the unvarnished sound and vision of the pattern-making mind. I hear the cadence that others miss. If you want wonder, come on a journey.
Please tell me what your pareidolia ‘sees’.
#Neurodivergence #MythicSatire #ConceptualArt #パレイドリア #أسطورة #UKArt
Please tell me what your pareidolia ‘sees’.
#Neurodivergence #MythicSatire #ConceptualArt #パレイドリア #أسطورة #UKArt
November 29, 2025 at 12:03 PM
This is the unvarnished sound and vision of the pattern-making mind. I hear the cadence that others miss. If you want wonder, come on a journey.
Please tell me what your pareidolia ‘sees’.
#Neurodivergence #MythicSatire #ConceptualArt #パレイドリア #أسطورة #UKArt
Please tell me what your pareidolia ‘sees’.
#Neurodivergence #MythicSatire #ConceptualArt #パレイドリア #أسطورة #UKArt
If you write about AI, not what it is but its implications - how it makes us feel and how it will change us - let’s form a community of ideas. It’s the most pressing topic of our time.
November 28, 2025 at 3:06 AM
If you write about AI, not what it is but its implications - how it makes us feel and how it will change us - let’s form a community of ideas. It’s the most pressing topic of our time.
If you want to build a garden from recycled materials and rehomed plants, read this
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Part II - How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden
Where can you get mature plants and fabulous materials for nothing (or nearly) to build your dream garden?
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:57 PM
If you want to build a garden from recycled materials and rehomed plants, read this
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Oxford, AI, and a small manifesto on why the humanities might be about to rise from the dead – all in one post. If you think this sounds like clickbait, good: you are already baited. Come and struggle with the framework:
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-oxford...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-oxford...
Why Oxford has made the most important move in AI today
Oxford, AI, and why the humanities may be about to rise from the dead – and what that means for who gets to ask the machines questions.
simulistephimera.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Oxford, AI, and a small manifesto on why the humanities might be about to rise from the dead – all in one post. If you think this sounds like clickbait, good: you are already baited. Come and struggle with the framework:
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-oxford...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-oxford...
I’ve just published a new short story, Terra Nonnullius.
5-minute read; 10 to work out who owns what; 5,000 years of human history to suggest you won’t be getting an answer any time soon.
What happens when journey equals ownership
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/terra-nonn...
5-minute read; 10 to work out who owns what; 5,000 years of human history to suggest you won’t be getting an answer any time soon.
What happens when journey equals ownership
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/terra-nonn...
November 18, 2025 at 11:45 AM
I’ve just published a new short story, Terra Nonnullius.
5-minute read; 10 to work out who owns what; 5,000 years of human history to suggest you won’t be getting an answer any time soon.
What happens when journey equals ownership
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/terra-nonn...
5-minute read; 10 to work out who owns what; 5,000 years of human history to suggest you won’t be getting an answer any time soon.
What happens when journey equals ownership
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/terra-nonn...
Started a Japanese-inspired mitate-mono (見立て物) garden from old stones (most are), rehomed plants and a wonderous second-hand pagoda imported from Japan. Read the mini series about the ups and downs of garden life.
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/how-to-bui...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/how-to-bui...
How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden
or the non-brochure, bad, but beautiful (and to a budget) briefing by John Rux-Burton
simulistephimera.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Started a Japanese-inspired mitate-mono (見立て物) garden from old stones (most are), rehomed plants and a wonderous second-hand pagoda imported from Japan. Read the mini series about the ups and downs of garden life.
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/how-to-bui...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/how-to-bui...
The Willow Bell
A new poem by John Rux-Burton - come too and lie below the willow bell
open.substack.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:49 PM
There is not getting round it, and Martin Scorsese would probably agree, Del Toro is not the best judge of whether he made a film about AI
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-franke...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-franke...
Why Frankenstein is a defining study in AI… and a Simulist gesture fortissimo.
John Rux-Burton says: I would never say don’t listen to Guillermo Del Toro… but his mentor, the great filmmaker Martin Scorsese might.
simulistephimera.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:39 PM
There is not getting round it, and Martin Scorsese would probably agree, Del Toro is not the best judge of whether he made a film about AI
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-franke...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/why-franke...
Mono ma ∞ [32] ~ Mono ma ∞ [0000100000]
2025 150 × 100 cm John Rux-Burton
This series explores the hallucinatory power shared by the artist, AI, and the viewer.
We've made the AI in our image. It will always attempt closure; humans will always attempt ‘why?’
#JohnRuxBurton #Simulism #Monomano
2025 150 × 100 cm John Rux-Burton
This series explores the hallucinatory power shared by the artist, AI, and the viewer.
We've made the AI in our image. It will always attempt closure; humans will always attempt ‘why?’
#JohnRuxBurton #Simulism #Monomano
November 6, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Mono ma ∞ [32] ~ Mono ma ∞ [0000100000]
2025 150 × 100 cm John Rux-Burton
This series explores the hallucinatory power shared by the artist, AI, and the viewer.
We've made the AI in our image. It will always attempt closure; humans will always attempt ‘why?’
#JohnRuxBurton #Simulism #Monomano
2025 150 × 100 cm John Rux-Burton
This series explores the hallucinatory power shared by the artist, AI, and the viewer.
We've made the AI in our image. It will always attempt closure; humans will always attempt ‘why?’
#JohnRuxBurton #Simulism #Monomano
#wherethewhaletalkstothestars #japanesegarden
First major pine tree went in yesterday. Its been an extraordinary journey building an recycled japanese garden from donations. Read about it at open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
First major pine tree went in yesterday. Its been an extraordinary journey building an recycled japanese garden from donations. Read about it at open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
The Skip, the Pagoda, and the Kindness That Turned a Derelict Garden into Art
John Rux-Burton discusses serendipity, tobi-ishi, giving and a hundred small acts taught him much about generosity and creation
open.substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:46 AM
#wherethewhaletalkstothestars #japanesegarden
First major pine tree went in yesterday. Its been an extraordinary journey building an recycled japanese garden from donations. Read about it at open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
First major pine tree went in yesterday. Its been an extraordinary journey building an recycled japanese garden from donations. Read about it at open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Sometime soon, I am going to say something really profound...
It worked for Wordsworth in 1799 and 1805 and 1850 (and the last time, he was already dead)
It can work for me too...
simulistephimera.substack.com
It worked for Wordsworth in 1799 and 1805 and 1850 (and the last time, he was already dead)
It can work for me too...
simulistephimera.substack.com
John Rux-Burton | Substack
Fiction, photography, satire, poetry, myth. Simulist adventures in making meaning - as I laugh myself to death.
Oh, and some Topogenesthetics thrown in… whatever that is. Click to read John Rux-Burton...
simulistephimera.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Sometime soon, I am going to say something really profound...
It worked for Wordsworth in 1799 and 1805 and 1850 (and the last time, he was already dead)
It can work for me too...
simulistephimera.substack.com
It worked for Wordsworth in 1799 and 1805 and 1850 (and the last time, he was already dead)
It can work for me too...
simulistephimera.substack.com
Fifteen years since From the Marches to the Sea
Start and end: the tobi-ishi to novels. The close of my early photographic period.
Still in print today. Thank you Logaston for having faith...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/from-the-m...
#Simulism #Writing #Photography #Welshmarches
Start and end: the tobi-ishi to novels. The close of my early photographic period.
Still in print today. Thank you Logaston for having faith...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/from-the-m...
#Simulism #Writing #Photography #Welshmarches
From the Marches to the Sea: A photographic Journey Taith ffotograffig
The landscape and literature of Mid-Wales; the greatest National Park that never was. Photographs and words by John Rux-Burton
simulistephimera.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Fifteen years since From the Marches to the Sea
Start and end: the tobi-ishi to novels. The close of my early photographic period.
Still in print today. Thank you Logaston for having faith...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/from-the-m...
#Simulism #Writing #Photography #Welshmarches
Start and end: the tobi-ishi to novels. The close of my early photographic period.
Still in print today. Thank you Logaston for having faith...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/from-the-m...
#Simulism #Writing #Photography #Welshmarches
Digital Mitate Mono - Towards a Kintsugi of Images
Simulism - the lost and the found as one
#Simulism #MitateMono #Kintsugi #JapaneseAesthetics #Art #見立て物 #金継ぎ
Mono* ma*∞-[2] ~ Mono * ma*∞–[0000000010] [Detail]
John Rux-Burton 2025 | Pigment print archival baryta paper 100 × 90 cm | 8 + 2 AP
Simulism - the lost and the found as one
#Simulism #MitateMono #Kintsugi #JapaneseAesthetics #Art #見立て物 #金継ぎ
Mono* ma*∞-[2] ~ Mono * ma*∞–[0000000010] [Detail]
John Rux-Burton 2025 | Pigment print archival baryta paper 100 × 90 cm | 8 + 2 AP
October 29, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Digital Mitate Mono - Towards a Kintsugi of Images
Simulism - the lost and the found as one
#Simulism #MitateMono #Kintsugi #JapaneseAesthetics #Art #見立て物 #金継ぎ
Mono* ma*∞-[2] ~ Mono * ma*∞–[0000000010] [Detail]
John Rux-Burton 2025 | Pigment print archival baryta paper 100 × 90 cm | 8 + 2 AP
Simulism - the lost and the found as one
#Simulism #MitateMono #Kintsugi #JapaneseAesthetics #Art #見立て物 #金継ぎ
Mono* ma*∞-[2] ~ Mono * ma*∞–[0000000010] [Detail]
John Rux-Burton 2025 | Pigment print archival baryta paper 100 × 90 cm | 8 + 2 AP
“Sooner or later I’m going to have to save the universe.
I don’t know if I can be bothered this time.”
The Ghosts of Swelford Slaughter — where ghosts, gods, and hedge funds collide.
Read a free extract on Substack
I don’t know if I can be bothered this time.”
The Ghosts of Swelford Slaughter — where ghosts, gods, and hedge funds collide.
Read a free extract on Substack
Book I of The Ghosts of Swelford Slaughter Trilogy
An extract from a darkly comic Cotswold novel of ghosts, gods and very English sins.
simulistephimera.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 7:18 PM
“Sooner or later I’m going to have to save the universe.
I don’t know if I can be bothered this time.”
The Ghosts of Swelford Slaughter — where ghosts, gods, and hedge funds collide.
Read a free extract on Substack
I don’t know if I can be bothered this time.”
The Ghosts of Swelford Slaughter — where ghosts, gods, and hedge funds collide.
Read a free extract on Substack
Writer. Photographer. Maker of gardens. Simulist.
It's not our answers but our questions that define us...
Don't you think?
It's not our answers but our questions that define us...
Don't you think?
October 29, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Writer. Photographer. Maker of gardens. Simulist.
It's not our answers but our questions that define us...
Don't you think?
It's not our answers but our questions that define us...
Don't you think?
The Welsh Marches Japanese Garden — Where the Whale Talks to the Stars.
Built from Freegle, gratitude and thirty tonnes of rock
#Simulism #Art #JapaneseGarden
Built from Freegle, gratitude and thirty tonnes of rock
#Simulism #Art #JapaneseGarden
October 29, 2025 at 6:42 PM
The Welsh Marches Japanese Garden — Where the Whale Talks to the Stars.
Built from Freegle, gratitude and thirty tonnes of rock
#Simulism #Art #JapaneseGarden
Built from Freegle, gratitude and thirty tonnes of rock
#Simulism #Art #JapaneseGarden