Why I need to stay with the openness that Substack provides, despite the looming ads

A response to the recent news about big investment

If you’ve read anything I’ve written before you’ll know that I can’t resist using theories of complex adaptive systems to look at everything in the world. I see the mysteries of multiple connections, dynamic interaction and emergence in human behaviour, the workings of the psyche, creative processes, the internet… and today, in the evolving and ever-emergent multi-system phenomenon that is Substack.

When I heard the news about the recent massive investment in Substack and the possibility of advertising, I found myself dreaming of creating a closed platform, beyond the reach of such things. It would be made up of all the people I love reading and interacting with here, a little algorithm-free haven where I could talk and exchange and make sure that I actually saw what people were posting and sharing, instead of missing things all the time. This morning, though, I realised why that wouldn’t work, or why at least it would be a poor substitute for what I currently enjoy here.

One of the best things about Substack is that it’s an open system, made up of many smaller dynamic systems (us) which are continually interacting with each other, creating feedback loops, and giving rise to new forms of emergence. The flows of the larger systems in which the Substack system is embedded are like its veins; energies of culture, language, convention flow freely within it, making it possible for the system to live and breathe. Like any other living system, this openness is crucial to its survival as a system. All of the systems involved – whether the smaller systems (us) that make up the larger system (Substack), or the still larger systems of which the larger system is a part (culture, language, location) – need to be able to continually exchange material with what’s beyond them, in order to stay alive.

Complex adaptive systems are not free-for-alls. They operate within constraints that are built into each system, and the algorithms that drive Substack are one of these sets of constraints. Constraints limit and affect the possibilities of emergence but they don’t control the interactions, which in a complex adaptive system are so numerous and interwoven that they can never be tracked or completely understood. As individual points within this three-dimensional web of interacting systems we have agency – we respond, or don’t, interact or not, block, or subscribe. Every action we take has an effect on what happens next, even if we can’t predict or name all that results.

An open system of my favourite people has already created itself here within the larger system that is Substack; it’s self-organised in response to who I’ve liked, interacted with, muted or blocked. My smaller, personal system needs to be open to new energies and new sources of inspiration. I want to be available to people who might be looking for what I’m offering, and to people who might be ready to offer me something that I didn’t know I needed (while at the same time, like any other complex adaptive system, maintaining my own boundaries so that I can continue to function as a system, with my own agency and integrity).

The people that have congregated around my contributions seem mainly to be oriented to an open, self-reflective process, which watches inwardly at the same time as sharing out. They’re smart, they know that being honest is tricky, that we all have egos and get confused. Nonetheless, their focus is predominately on the work that they make, the explorations they attempt; they’re asking questions about art, the nature of art in the world today, about the processes of their own creative practices. They also want to receive; to find the work of others, to engage with what people write about and make and say – to think and appreciate and explore and connect.

Many of us work in solitude for many hours a day, we appreciate the thoughtful exchanges with others that we find here. And many of us don’t have the desire or the time to have our open-hearted, questioning beings distracted and diverted by advertising-confected candies that are designed to steal our attention and erode our souls.

As complex adaptive systems, part of sets of other systems, and containing our own multitudes, we are, in a certain sense at least, free. There are no rules. We don’t need a manifesto, or to mount an anti-ad campaign, or send a complaint to Hamish McKenzie. Each one of us is our own system, making our own decisions, following our own instincts, looking for our own satisfaction and attempting to make our own offerings out to the world. We just have to stay true to ourselves, tend to the energies within, without, and moving through us, as honestly and regularly as we can. The unpredictability of emergence will take care of the rest.

I’m not going to leave Substack, or look for a closed platform, for now. I want the gifts that my careful curation serves up to me daily – the unexpected thoughts and ideas and images, the always-new collections of colours and marks. There are hundreds of us here who hate the idea of adverts and growth, short videos and all the rest; artists of all kinds who are desperate not to be swamped with tech-bro manipulation and bullshit. I’m going to continue to curate my Notes, block anything that’s outside what I’m looking for, and continue responding to what feeds my soul. Hopefully if we keep interacting, keep responding, sharing what emerges from the endless, unexpected exchanges that we find here, we can stay alive as dynamic, loosely-bounded but open organs of inspiration and exchange, using this system to our own advantage.

This is how I’m currently choosing to navigate the unfolding uncertainty of Substack; a living, unpredictable system which, albeit imperfectly, is serving me well.

All images TamsinHaggis