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tomabba.studio
Tom Abba
@tomabba.studio
860 followers 820 following 550 posts
Director Digital Cultures Research Centre and Pervasive Media Studio Resident. Artist, writer and publisher. Opinions are all my own. Usually making something
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Reposted by Tom Abba
davidmbarnett.bsky.social
Hello, Sunday. How’d you fancy backing a six-part immersive audio project set in the folk horror world of Withered Hill? Cost you £18, all in. I know money’s tight but this is an absolute bargain.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...
The Devil’s Sound
A 6 episode immersive audio folk horror experience, set in David Barnett's Withered Hill universe.
www.kickstarter.com
January 18, 2026 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Tom Abba
terribiliti.bsky.social
23 of the most haunted minutes of your life or your money back
Poster for the John Smith short horror film The Black Tower, 1987
January 16, 2026 at 7:38 AM
tomabba.studio
Always worth trying for the Friday night crowd. It’s the end of the week, you’re tired, the kids are in bed, and all you want is to be scared.

Oh. Just me then.
January 16, 2026 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Tom Abba
redheadfrommars.bsky.social
“No one really dies, they just drop their physical body, and we’ll all meet again, like the song says. It’s sad, but it’s not devastating if you think like that. It’s a continuum, and we’re all going to be fine at the end of the story.”

~ David Lynch - January 20, 1946 - January 16, 2025

#filmsky
Black and white photo of legendary filmmaker David Lynch
January 16, 2026 at 9:10 PM
tomabba.studio
If it’s awful I’ll be demanding my money back…
January 16, 2026 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Tom Abba
tomabba.studio
Heard talk of The Devil’s Sound, as endorsed by notable authors on this very site?

Wondering what it’s all about?

Try the teaser here. All you need is your phone, earbuds and three minutes.

devilssound.ambientlab.net

Kickstarter here btw: www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...
The Devil's Sound
The Devil's Sound
devilssound.ambientlab.net
January 16, 2026 at 5:01 PM
tomabba.studio
Well I ordered it a few days ago, so that’s all very nice to hear.

Not that I had any doubts.
January 16, 2026 at 5:55 PM
tomabba.studio
Heard talk of The Devil’s Sound, as endorsed by notable authors on this very site?

Wondering what it’s all about?

Try the teaser here. All you need is your phone, earbuds and three minutes.

devilssound.ambientlab.net

Kickstarter here btw: www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...
The Devil's Sound
The Devil's Sound
devilssound.ambientlab.net
January 16, 2026 at 5:01 PM
tomabba.studio
entirely agreed. I forgot to reply to the request for a contact list.
January 16, 2026 at 1:22 PM
tomabba.studio
agreed on the first two points - my advice is to find someone who's opinions you already respect too. Their (inevitably) critical feedback will be easier to take!
January 16, 2026 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Tom Abba
casella.bsky.social
you really do gotta hand it to Clute sometimes
thetransfemininereview.com The Transfeminine Review @thetransfemininereview.com · 3d
So on @withouthistoryband.bsky.social's recommendation, I tracked down the essay "Necessary Golems" by sci-fi critic John Clute this morning.

And yeah, people need to read this, cause boy does it feel relevant.
Most of us are writers and critics and readers of sf, and as such we inhabit a beehive-dense congregation of affinity groups, by virtue of which it is very difficult for anyone who has been involved in the genre for more than a few years not to have had contact with a significantly high proportion of those who’ve also been active in the field. The benefits of affinity are, in general, obvious enough. But there are reasons to think that this degree of personal contact is not the healthiest thing in the world for sf criticism. The club-like camaraderie of sf unsurprisingly tempts critics and reviewers (in particular) into any number of strategies designed to avoid internal friction: refusing to review books written by friends or acquaintances – which, for anybody who’s been in the field for more than a decade or so, may well mean most of the writers going; muffling negative responses – after one has found oneself forced into a midnight spasm of honesty – in the dawn rewrite; dissimulating archly, in code. The end-result – that the sf beehive buzzes with “friends” who will not review the books of anyone they know, in case they might have to tell the truth – gives sf a sad face. Reviewers who will not tell the truth are like cholesterol. They are lumps of fat. They starve the heart. I have myself certainly clogged a few arteries, have sometimes kept my mouth shut out of this “friendship” which is nothing in the end but self-interest. So perhaps it is time to call a halt. Perhaps we should establish a Protocol of Excessive Candour, a convention within the community that excesses of intramural harshness are less damaging than the hypocrisies of stroke therapy, that telling the truth is a way of expressing love: self-love; love of others; love for the genre, which claims to tell the truth about things that count; love for the inhabitants of the planet; love for the future. Because truth is all we’ve got. And if we don’t talk to ourselves, and if we don’t use every tool at our command in our time on Earth to tell the truth, nobody else will. If that means we sometimes make errors, speak cruelly, carve caricature grimaces onto the raw flesh of books, so be it. Some golems are necessary.
January 16, 2026 at 2:27 AM
Reposted by Tom Abba
sardonicus.eu
Andrei Tarkovsky, Ten Polaroid Photographs
man in a woods, leaning against a tree, a dog at his side woman at a table staring at a rose lying on the table cloth next to an empty plate a dog in a foggy landscape person with a dog stood under a tree next to a fence
January 16, 2026 at 8:40 AM
tomabba.studio
And again for the evening crowd. Or the lunchtime one in the states.
January 15, 2026 at 8:36 PM
tomabba.studio
(that's a very kind thing to say, and has made my morning)
January 15, 2026 at 12:00 PM
tomabba.studio
And you can pledge for this without shoes on!! (Athough we recommend shoes when we release it)
January 15, 2026 at 11:58 AM
tomabba.studio
Good to see you!
January 13, 2026 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Tom Abba
tomabba.studio
We're a few days in and pledges are healthy. Almost robust.

This is a call to our friends for amplification though. If you'd like to see what a Barnett-aligned immersive audio series, told over six weeks in late summer 2026 might look like, then, as they used to say:

RTs welcome..!

(thanks!)
January 13, 2026 at 3:19 PM
tomabba.studio
Sorry to hear. Be well.
January 13, 2026 at 3:51 PM
tomabba.studio
We're a few days in and pledges are healthy. Almost robust.

This is a call to our friends for amplification though. If you'd like to see what a Barnett-aligned immersive audio series, told over six weeks in late summer 2026 might look like, then, as they used to say:

RTs welcome..!

(thanks!)
January 13, 2026 at 3:19 PM
tomabba.studio
Adrian's right - read old books. Especially those two.
adrianhon.bsky.social Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 5d
Anyone interested in this area should read Oliver Grau's Virtual Art and Bolter and Grusin's Remediation, which talk about how ideas of immersion change over time, and how new media end up putting score tickers and picture-in-picture over time.

But hey, who needs to read *old books*, am I right?!?
January 13, 2026 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Tom Abba
davidmbarnett.bsky.social
Have you backed THE DEVIL'S SOUND yet? The new immersive audio experience in the world of Withered Hill.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...
The Devil’s Sound
A 6 episode immersive audio folk horror experience, set in David Barnett's Withered Hill universe.
www.kickstarter.com
January 12, 2026 at 5:10 PM
tomabba.studio
Did I mention that we have a Kickstarter, for a brand new six episode Immersive Audio series, set in @davidmbarnett.bsky.social's Withered Hill universe?

I did?

Sorry, all good here then.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...
January 12, 2026 at 3:02 PM
tomabba.studio
It's Sunday, it's @davidmbarnett.bsky.social's birthday, my sous chef (aged almost 3) and I have made cottage pie for dinner later, and The Devil's Sound is available for pledges. We're in this for the long haul, but early pledges are very welcome!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...
The Devil’s Sound
A 6 episode immersive audio folk horror experience, set in David Barnett's Withered Hill universe.
www.kickstarter.com
January 11, 2026 at 12:11 PM
Reposted by Tom Abba
plottwiststudios.bsky.social
The amount of reposts is as insane as it is inspiring! <3 That said, we still need 510 backers of the lowest tier ($20) in less than 65 hours, or the campaign WILL fail! And we will receive not a cent of that money! Thoughts and prayers are appreciated, but backers are how we fund real artists!
plottwiststudios.bsky.social Plottwist Studios LLC @plottwiststudios.bsky.social · 12d
Sorry, folks. Seven days to go and 50% funded. We'll need a modern internet miracle to see these lovely ladies get their sequel. I was always worried that the visuals were not appealing to most VN gamers, but... ouch

www.kickstarter.com/projects/pro...

#indiegame #Kickstarter #Gaming #pcgame #free
Women of Xal II
Original Game Free! The revolution begins. Can Xjena survive rising violence and The Great Silence— Xal's final extinction event?
www.kickstarter.com
January 11, 2026 at 12:28 AM
tomabba.studio
Was bought A Cook’s Book for Christmas. The sausage ragu is heavenly (as if you didn’t know!)
January 11, 2026 at 11:20 AM