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://linktr.ee/JohnRuxBurton
https://linktr.ee/JohnRuxBurton
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?
Photography Post-Barthes, how observing the failures of AI informs our understanding of human perception and how I am exploring this as an artist.
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Photography at the Event Horizon of Meaning - why do not see the world, we imagine it.
How my work in photography is changing our understanding of human perception.
open.substack.com
January 13, 2026 at 11:18 AM
Photography Post-Barthes, how observing the failures of AI informs our understanding of human perception and how I am exploring this as an artist.
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Circus of Metaphysics: High Trapeze Haiku.
These are my latest in the series that looks at the performance, applause, masks, and sawdust of the ring, and life. These about my great-great grandparents - who were little people. More @simulistephimera
The haiku of solar terms 17 feb coming soon
These are my latest in the series that looks at the performance, applause, masks, and sawdust of the ring, and life. These about my great-great grandparents - who were little people. More @simulistephimera
The haiku of solar terms 17 feb coming soon
January 13, 2026 at 8:50 AM
Circus of Metaphysics: High Trapeze Haiku.
These are my latest in the series that looks at the performance, applause, masks, and sawdust of the ring, and life. These about my great-great grandparents - who were little people. More @simulistephimera
The haiku of solar terms 17 feb coming soon
These are my latest in the series that looks at the performance, applause, masks, and sawdust of the ring, and life. These about my great-great grandparents - who were little people. More @simulistephimera
The haiku of solar terms 17 feb coming soon
Poem at the turn of the year: “Tin-glaze” – Alhambra passages, Kyoto stone, a forest tomb; patterns, gouges, resolutions too late.
If you like your New Year poems closer to Heaney/Eliot than greetings cards, you may like this
on Substack (link in bio).
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
If you like your New Year poems closer to Heaney/Eliot than greetings cards, you may like this
on Substack (link in bio).
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Tin-glaze: A Poem at New Year
Tin-Glaze
open.substack.com
December 31, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Poem at the turn of the year: “Tin-glaze” – Alhambra passages, Kyoto stone, a forest tomb; patterns, gouges, resolutions too late.
If you like your New Year poems closer to Heaney/Eliot than greetings cards, you may like this
on Substack (link in bio).
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
If you like your New Year poems closer to Heaney/Eliot than greetings cards, you may like this
on Substack (link in bio).
open.substack.com/pub/simulist...
Tonight’s act in the Circus of Metaphysics: High Trapeze Haiku.
Christmas is full of those moments when the bar leaves your hands and you just hang there in the dark, waiting to see if someone catches you.
#haiku #poetry #circusofmetaphysics #writing #art
Christmas is full of those moments when the bar leaves your hands and you just hang there in the dark, waiting to see if someone catches you.
#haiku #poetry #circusofmetaphysics #writing #art
December 23, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Tonight’s act in the Circus of Metaphysics: High Trapeze Haiku.
Christmas is full of those moments when the bar leaves your hands and you just hang there in the dark, waiting to see if someone catches you.
#haiku #poetry #circusofmetaphysics #writing #art
Christmas is full of those moments when the bar leaves your hands and you just hang there in the dark, waiting to see if someone catches you.
#haiku #poetry #circusofmetaphysics #writing #art
Wrote the Christmas card I actually wanted to send: sprout rage, dead wind farms, Radnor Forest, potholes, care homes, and why “pulling together” is our favourite national myth.
Gallows humour with a mince pie (available gluten free)
substack.com/@simulisteph...
Gallows humour with a mince pie (available gluten free)
substack.com/@simulisteph...
December 22, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Wrote the Christmas card I actually wanted to send: sprout rage, dead wind farms, Radnor Forest, potholes, care homes, and why “pulling together” is our favourite national myth.
Gallows humour with a mince pie (available gluten free)
substack.com/@simulisteph...
Gallows humour with a mince pie (available gluten free)
substack.com/@simulisteph...
Winter solstice over the Elan Valley in mid-Wales, above the drowned house of Shelley’s uncle. Repurposed as infrastructure, east Radnor Forest waits to discover whether its own future wind-farm destruction
The wider project lives over on Instagram at www.instagram.com/johnruxburton
The wider project lives over on Instagram at www.instagram.com/johnruxburton
December 21, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Winter solstice over the Elan Valley in mid-Wales, above the drowned house of Shelley’s uncle. Repurposed as infrastructure, east Radnor Forest waits to discover whether its own future wind-farm destruction
The wider project lives over on Instagram at www.instagram.com/johnruxburton
The wider project lives over on Instagram at www.instagram.com/johnruxburton
The landscape that inspired Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Nolan, Oldfield and others is under great threat from giant windfarms.
Deadline for planning representations 23 DEC
Read about it on this link
www.instagram.com/p/DSXHZPdjZf...
Deadline for planning representations 23 DEC
Read about it on this link
www.instagram.com/p/DSXHZPdjZf...
John Rux-Burton on Instagram: "This view is about to disappear.
What you’re looking at is the Walton Basin in Mid-Wales at dusk — a rare cradled night landscape formed by smooth enclosing hills and a...
28 likes, 2 comments - johnruxburton on December 17, 2025: "This view is about to disappear.
What you’re looking at is the Walton Basin in Mid-Wales at dusk — a rare cradled night landscape formed by...
www.instagram.com
December 17, 2025 at 11:14 PM
The landscape that inspired Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Nolan, Oldfield and others is under great threat from giant windfarms.
Deadline for planning representations 23 DEC
Read about it on this link
www.instagram.com/p/DSXHZPdjZf...
Deadline for planning representations 23 DEC
Read about it on this link
www.instagram.com/p/DSXHZPdjZf...
Reposted by John Rux-Burton | Simulist Ephimera
December 17, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Is the truth in the glitter or the grit?
Mirror-Ball Haiku is part of my “Circus of Metaphysics” cycle – a mirror ball throwing snow-globe light across furrowed ground, glamour over graft.
If you made it here, the algorithm behaved. Welcome home.
#haiku #contemporarypoetry #metaphysical
Mirror-Ball Haiku is part of my “Circus of Metaphysics” cycle – a mirror ball throwing snow-globe light across furrowed ground, glamour over graft.
If you made it here, the algorithm behaved. Welcome home.
#haiku #contemporarypoetry #metaphysical
December 12, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Is the truth in the glitter or the grit?
Mirror-Ball Haiku is part of my “Circus of Metaphysics” cycle – a mirror ball throwing snow-globe light across furrowed ground, glamour over graft.
If you made it here, the algorithm behaved. Welcome home.
#haiku #contemporarypoetry #metaphysical
Mirror-Ball Haiku is part of my “Circus of Metaphysics” cycle – a mirror ball throwing snow-globe light across furrowed ground, glamour over graft.
If you made it here, the algorithm behaved. Welcome home.
#haiku #contemporarypoetry #metaphysical
This is not my garden. Yet. On the Welsh borders I’m building a Japanese-inspired mitate garden from donated plants and other people’s rocks. Part IV is up: 50 tonnes of stone, a doomed pallet truck and a dry river with a rogue pipe. Read
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/part-iv-ho...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/part-iv-ho...
Part IV - How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden
Projects don’t go off the rails: they are like fighter planes and F1; inherently unstable, always out of control. You have to steer… all the time.
simulistephimera.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 8:22 PM
This is not my garden. Yet. On the Welsh borders I’m building a Japanese-inspired mitate garden from donated plants and other people’s rocks. Part IV is up: 50 tonnes of stone, a doomed pallet truck and a dry river with a rogue pipe. Read
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/part-iv-ho...
simulistephimera.substack.com/p/part-iv-ho...
Antlers or tree?
A root in a beech wood. First of my “Mitate Ma Infinity Readymades” – real objects behaving like my images: logic/memory. Pareidolia in the wild.
What do you see first?
#pareidolia
#patternrecognition
#perception
#artandtechnology
#conceptualart
#photography
#mitatemainfinity
A root in a beech wood. First of my “Mitate Ma Infinity Readymades” – real objects behaving like my images: logic/memory. Pareidolia in the wild.
What do you see first?
#pareidolia
#patternrecognition
#perception
#artandtechnology
#conceptualart
#photography
#mitatemainfinity
December 10, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Antlers or tree?
A root in a beech wood. First of my “Mitate Ma Infinity Readymades” – real objects behaving like my images: logic/memory. Pareidolia in the wild.
What do you see first?
#pareidolia
#patternrecognition
#perception
#artandtechnology
#conceptualart
#photography
#mitatemainfinity
A root in a beech wood. First of my “Mitate Ma Infinity Readymades” – real objects behaving like my images: logic/memory. Pareidolia in the wild.
What do you see first?
#pareidolia
#patternrecognition
#perception
#artandtechnology
#conceptualart
#photography
#mitatemainfinity
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