Super Connected goes International with the 'OFF Festival' in Spain
A Return to Soho Theatre...in Madrid
Hello dear readers, and a belated but sincere Happy New Year.
I wanted to keep you in the loop as we step into 2026. What follows is my monthly newsletter, shared here in full for those of you who read on Substack rather than by email. If you’re not already subscribed, you can do so here.
This edition brings together a few strands of work that have been converging over the past year: a return to a familiar theatre name in a country that predates my professional life, but not my creative one, a podcast series about Soho’s creative history, and an international collaboration that situates Super Connected within a wider cultural context. Here’s a brief guide to what’s included below:
1. A Return to Soho — Super Connected goes International
2. New Soho Podcast Episodes (with Stephen Fry, Jools Holland, and more)
3. The OFF Movement and our connection to Spain
A Return to Soho - Super Connected goes international
After more nights than I can count performing at Soho Theatre in London, I’m thrilled my first show of 2026 takes place in a theatre of the same name, but in Spain!
On 20th February, I’ll be performing Super Connected at Soho Theatre Madrid, as part of the OFF February Festival.
After touring the show across the UK for 3 years, it feels both surreal and deeply right to be taking it abroad for the first time — and Madrid in February sounds gorgeous.
What makes this especially meaningful for me is that Spain is where I grew up with my mother, and where I first began writing songs.
If you don’t already know, Super Connected is a live multimedia piece combining my latest album with a film drama and theatrical staging.
It explores what constant connectivity is doing to us — especially for young people and family relationships — and it only ever plays in real time, in real spaces, with no streaming. The official website is here. And film reviews on IMDB here. If you like the idea of a warm weekend in Spain this February, you can book tickets here.
So yes — a return to Soho. Just not the postcode I was expecting - thanks to the incredible spirit of everyone at ‘OFF’ (whom you can read more about below).
New Soho Podcast series
Alongside this return, I’ve released a short series of podcast conversations focused on Soho itself — its history, its creative importance, and what has been lost through gentrification and commercial pressure.
The series draws on interviews from our feature length film doc - ‘Soho Is…’, and features conversations with Stephen Fry, Jools Holland, Marc Almond, June Brown, Emily Capell, and co-creator of the project - my dear friend Kevin Godley.
Soho has been part of my family life and working world for 3 generations, and these conversations reflect a long-standing personal connection — an attempt to understand what creative places give us, and what happens when they disappear.
The series sits within the Super Connected Conversations podcast and is available now wherever you usually listen. You can find them here.
The OFF Movement
The Madrid performance of Super Connected takes place as part of OFF February, an international initiative organised by The OFF Movement — a new foundation concerned with how technology is shaping human life and freedom.
At the heart of The OFF Movement is a question posed by Professor Shoshana Zuboff:
“This third decade of the 21st century is likely to decide our fate. Will we make the digital future better, or will it make us worse? Will it be a place that we can call home?”
The OFF Movement begins from a position that feels increasingly difficult to argue with: that while technology has brought undeniable benefits, the prevailing model of digital development is no longer neutral, and is often actively misaligned with human interests. Systems designed for optimisation, extraction, and behavioural influence now shape attention, perception, decision-making, and even political reality — frequently without democratic consent or meaningful public debate.
Like my own work with Super Connected, their work is not anti-technology. Rather, it is rooted in the belief that technology should remain a tool in service of human beings, not a force that reorganises society around logics that erode autonomy, privacy, mental health, and collective trust. Much of what is currently promoted in the name of progress — from hyper-targeted persuasion to opaque algorithmic governance — depends on forms of surveillance and behavioural conditioning that leave individuals increasingly vulnerable, distracted, and divided.
The OFF Manifesto sets out a clear warning: if we allow this trajectory to consolidate unchecked, we risk normalising a world in which human judgement, dignity, and freedom are secondary to systems that do not recognise what is uniquely human at all. The consequences are not abstract. They are already visible in declining attention, worsening mental health, political polarisation, the concentration of power in a handful of technology companies, and the growing difficulty of discerning truth in in all of our lives.
OFF February is both a symbolic and practical intervention. Participants are invited to step away from social media for 28 days — not as an act of withdrawal, but as a way of recovering time, presence, and perspective.
Super Connected sits naturally within this context and OFF February reflects everything Kate Alderton and I have done with Screenless Socials and PhoneFreeze on our tours. Super Connected is a live, communal work that exists only in shared physical space — a deliberate refusal of endless streams and frictionless consumption. In that sense, the collaboration with The OFF Movement is a beautiful philosophical alignment: an insistence that culture still matters, that human presence matters, and that some experiences should resist being flattened into content. You can read more about The OFF Movement and their manifesto here. I hope to see you at the festival.
Super Connected — Live in Madrid📍 Soho Theatre Madrid — 20 Feb Tickets
This publication has been shared during a period in which I’ve stepped back from routine digital participation. I remain reachable through my website, and I’m grateful to those helping steward this work while I focus on what comes next. With the new year underway, may we find better light — or, as the song puts it, Alúmbranos. Tim x
About Tim Arnold
Tim Arnold is a British rock artist whose work sits at the intersection of music, film, and theatre. Best known for Super Connected — a critically acclaimed live multimedia work (The Times ★★★★ Mojo ★★★★) feature film, and album — his recent work has focused on the cultural and psychological impact of the digital age, particularly on young people, families, and education.
Over the past two years, Super Connected has been performed across the UK and used as a catalyst for conversations involving schools, mental-health professionals, educators, parents, and policymakers. The project is not presented as advocacy or instruction, but as a shared cultural experience — one that invites reflection on attention, autonomy, and what it means to remain human in an always-on world.
Arnold’s work draws on his background in rock music while extending into long-form storytelling and communal theatre spaces. Super Connected exists simultaneously as an album to live with, a film to sit with, and a live event that can only be experienced in the room — a deliberate refusal of frictionless consumption.
As the project moves internationally in 2026, Arnold continues to collaborate with cultural institutions, schools, festivals, and organisations exploring how art can open conversations that data and policy alone cannot. www.superconnected.tecnology
