Art Stalking

48 Sheet

2010-09-15T16:11:00.001+01:00

The billboards have been speaking to me again. Their messages leaping out of the paper and infecting my brain with subliminal commands, you feel empty, you need me, this will fill that hole, desire, obey, consume...

But sometimes forces of resistance manage to break through these portals instead. Taking the form and twisting it, questioning the nature of these message boards to the subconscious.

Ian Richards

The dream state can be accessed to show us the potential of images in the media, that they can have moments of ecstasy, strange violent joy, if we only take the time to read them actively instead of passively.

(This particular intrusion of one reality into another was so powerful my camera couldn't capture it, so I borrowed evidence from DiG )

Elizabeth Rowe

The debris can be reformed, grow into new shapes, remind us of the creative possibilities we saw when we were young, before they convinced us that fun had to be bought.

Lucy McLauchlan

Or we can simply distill the adverts and logos into pure icons, sigils that refuse translation, while firing off endless associations.

Harry Blackett and Robin Kirkham

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EC Arts: 48 Sheet
Ian Richards
Elizabeth Rowe
Lucy McLauchlan
Harry Blackett and Robin Kirkham

Dead Fingers Talk

2010-06-21T00:29:00.000+01:00

I've just posted my first review to Interface, about a group show in response to William Burroughs' Tape Experiments. Please drop by and let me know what you think.

Something wordless called me to this exhibition, the dry hissing of ghost tapes echoing sibilantly around the streets. As I entered the space, a portal reached out to me, bending space with cones of acceleration and deceleration. Plastique Fantastique's three-dimensional diagram was charged with a subliminal feline Scientology spell. It pricked my skin with a strange energy, and my brain was infected with the parasite-thought of Burroughs' reality-changing playbacks of tapes.

Read more -->

Dead Fingers Talk: The Tape Experiments of William S. Burroughs
IMT Unit2/210, Cambridge Heath Road,  London, E2 9NQ
28 May - 18 July 2010

SLESP

2010-01-08T13:27:00.006Z

I've been collaborating on a project in the virtual Eastside Projects in Second Life that Michael Takeo Magruder has been developing with them. Myself, Antonio Roberts and some students from BIADs MA Digital Arts in Performance have been using the space and the virtual objects left there to explore the possibilities for this kind of exhibition.

My slot has been this week, and I've taken phrases that suggest control, persuasion and compliance from Liam Gillick's plays (that are being performed for his exhibition in the RL space), and scripted them into objects for avatars to sit in.

I'm interested in whether we can use this rather structured environment to produce new relations, so feel free interact with any other avatars you see, perhaps responding to the space, the phrases, or the context.

It would help me if you could document your visit somehow, maybe take a snapshot and forward the chat log, if you get time you could make a few notes about your response.

This link takes you to the door of the main virtual Eastside Projects, assuming you have Second Life set up on your computer, and you need to walk along the wall to get to the 'twin' space where we've been doing things.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Transitional%20Space/140/133/51

My SL name: Ana Vemo

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EP:VV

Changing Room
23 November 2009 - 23 January 2010

Changing Room is an evolving mixed-reality installation that considers the mutability and reusability of artefacts, concepts and situations in the Digital Age. Lead artist Michael Takeo Magruder will collaborate with Extra Special People artists Ana Benlloch, Iona Makiola, Antonio Roberts, Lee Scott, Zhao Wei and Selma Wong to develop a new collaborative space.

Blending the shared virtual environment of Second Life with the shared physical environment of Eastside Projects, the artwork will facilitate the realisation, curation and documentation of seven distinct - yet interrelated - art projects arising from a common pool of virtual and physical resources.

Experience the artwork's physical component at Eastside Projects alongside Liam Gillick's Two Short Plays, a new solo exhibition (27 November 2009 to 23 January 2010) and the virtual environment in Second Life). For further information please visit: www.takeo.org.

Changing Room is an experimental prototype for EP:VV (Eastside Projects: Virtualised and Visualised) - a new space for imagining ideas about Art. EP:VV will develop online, multi-user virtual worlds that afford new models for participation and representation of the gallery's artworks and initiatives. For more information about EP:VV and its ongoing development, visit: www.eastsideprojects.org or email info@eastsideprojects.org

Ever felt there’s something missing in your life?

2009-11-03T22:59:00.004Z

The Event is upon us and we'll be spending the next 5 days changing our name every 6 hours, wearing hand decorated dungarees, playing thought-stopping games, eating brightly coloured food, asking questions, strengthening our Dantien, collective dreaming, strumming red, yellow, green and blue ukuleles, finding portals, calling rainbows, going to the top, chanting punk meditation, making friends, sleeping in pods, giving out flowers, love-bombing, and having all the fun we can cram into the day.

Want to join us?

http://theotherplaceportal.net/family/

All You Can Eat

2009-10-14T23:16:00.007+01:00

Come along to the Gallery of Owls' Zine Event at the Sunflower Lounge on Thursday 15th Oct from 8pm. As well as performances from Pseudo Nippon, Fallen Timbers, and the genius Richard Peel, Stuart and I will make a rare and exciting Milgram appearance, DJing cold head games, and hot perverted beats. We've also put in zine-style reprints of a.a.s. maga-zine and comics from 2003-2009

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While you're here, I do hope you're following The Family's blog - fun times ahead in November, and a spooky Vision Quest next week.

SVarndell

2009-03-25T09:38:00.004Z

I haven't been blogging much recently, partly because there hasn't been so much going on, but also due to my PhD and art practice getting in the way, but if you're missing the art commentary, you should head over to Steve Varndell's new blog where he talks about all sorts of interesting stuff, including Rollerderby, socks and art shows, such as Treasure Seekers VIII (Caitlin Griffiths show curated by Charlie Levine and Kate Pennington-Wilson):

"These images are highly stylised, informed by the classical and elegant handwriting commonly used all those years ago. They compliment the stories by developing the work of the minute takers slightly away from their words and into the aesthetic. I can't help but wish the minute takers had done more doodling in the margins. There is a link in the way the forms have been isolated and diplayed as single entities, to the more classical Japanese painters and calligraphers motto of less is more elegant."

from svarndell.blogspot.com

If you don't know him, Steve is an artist and curator, who is part of Crowd 6:
www.svarndell.co.uk
www.crowd6.org.uk

Parfyme Backpack Factory

2009-02-13T19:34:00.002Z

Met up with Parfyme again (We'd been in their Tent Show, and Pelle was part of Red Line Surveillance - building the mini bus shelter that's still there). They've been doing a Residency in Loughborough for Radar.

They travelled around the campus and further afield, getting "Ideas" in a custom made rucksack/mailbox - they were deliberately vague about what this meant, but when pressed said that perhaps something to do with public spaces would be good. They then took some of these ideas for activities on their current residency, and they may also feed into future work However, there was also an interesting suggestion that what they were really doing was to encourage people from a particular place to discuss what they thought would benefit them and if some people agreed, give them a push toward working on it together. Rather than being there to "fix" things, they were a kind of catalyst that could activate an area and encourage further public engagement.

This is from a set of photos up on Flickr of them exchanging Danish Sausage for ideas.

They came over to Birmingham for a couple of days, braving the snow to gather ideas around the Ikon, Brindleyplace and Digbeth, I didn't manage to see any of the things people suggested, but think it's a really good thing to just ask people to consider their environment in a different way, to change the course of someone's working routine, their train of thought. Whether any of the specific ideas get implemented is not the point for me, but instead that we start to realise we can work together to improve public spaces, and always be coming up with new ideas.

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Parfyme website

Drawing

2009-01-20T07:58:00.008Z

I've noticed that drawing seems to be getting more popular recently around here, of course there's always been plenty of great illustrators, and one of Birmingham's best artists - Paul Newman - has always had drawing as an important part of his practice. I'm thinking more of people who had stopped doing much drawing taking it up again, or people starting who had never really done much.

I used to draw all the time, but it was more a way of getting my visual ideas out than an end in itself, like storyboarding or illustrating narratives that I was constructing. I even used to create my own comics, but found it a bit frustrating as I wanted to interact with characters not control them (this is probably where my current practice came from). Doing One Day Comic with Henrik Schrat helped me to see drawing as an action, as a process that could be collaborative, and since then I've been getting back into it.

I used to draw in a very painstaking way, often taking a day to do a panel of a comic, or longer if I was doing an illustration for a magazine, but when you're doing something in a short timeframe, with other people, this has to go out of the window. Sure, not all the results will be brilliant, but the drawing becomes more of a document of something that happened between people than a polished product, and to me that's more interesting. (No, I'm not just trying to excuse my dodgy skills!)

Trying to explore this, over New Year's Eve (9pm - 2am) a group of us made a comic together: it was open to anyone we'd met out and talked to about it, but ended up mostly people from Owls and a.a.s. with Jerome from B.I.F.S.. We chatted about a starting point, and settled on doing something about Pookahs, as we've been working with this idea for a while, with performances and videos based on them. Someone suggested we use the Surrealist exquisite corpse technique to generate ideas, then we each did two or three pages to make a crazy disjointed beast, that I think gives a flavour of the themes and process really well. We'll be selling photocopied versions, as I think full colour ones might be too pricey, but could make this available as pdf or special technicolour edition if anyone's interested.

I also went along to Dr Sketchy's Burlesque life-drawing class on Saturday, after Graphiquillian made it sound interesting. I was a bit nervous, and gulping cider to offset this probably didn't help my drawing skills, but had a great time overall. The speed of the poses really pushed me to work in a different way, and I was surprised by how a lot of my drawings came out - not perfect certainly, but perhaps a bit more energetic than stuff I've done in the past.

I'd like to experiment a bit more with how I do things next time, maybe even try, gulp, colour!

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Liz Walker's photos from Dr Sketchy's Brum

Alex Hughes' Dr Sketchy's Post

Graphiquillian's Dr Sketchy's Post

Candice Smith's Dr Sketchy's Post

One Day Comic & Feature: Architecture

2008-12-05T23:22:00.003Z

Works by Henrik Schrat (with guests) & Shezad Dawood form an installation at ESP that feels very different from the opening exhibition there. It may be a happy accident that the artists were scheduled together, but the works complement each other well. Although many dismiss comics and cowboy films as sidelined genres, here they are stretched and mutated into exciting new forms.

For One Day Comic, Schrat worked with others (including myself) to create each comic in just a day. It was daunting, and seemed impossible at first, but with plenty of coffee and Henrik's enthusiasm, somehow it all came together. The final results might not make much sense, but it is the process that's fascinating - it showed you how much you could achieve when you put your mind to it and when you had a tight deadline.

In Feature: Architecture, Dawood has made a film with participants including a Christian historical re-enactment society, Gay Leather bartenders, opera singers and an avant-garde art band (The Lonesome Cowboys from Hell) - I'm not sure I followed what was going on but there was something to do with a massive bar fight, a cross between Billy the Kid and Krishna, and zombie flesh-eaters. My kind of night out.

There's also some extracts from the comics on Henrik Schrat's website

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Feature: Architecture by Shezad Dawood
&
One-Day-Comic by Henrik Schrat
With special guests a.a.s, Access Local, Asia Alfasi, Simon & Tom Bloor, Celine Condorelli, Hans Christian Dany, Shezad Dawood, Stefan Heidenreich, Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry, Plastique Fantastique, Olav Westphalen

open 6 December 2008 to 31 January 2009, Thursday - Saturday 12-5pm

Eastside Projects
86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR, UK
eastsideprojects.org

Tomas Chaffe

2008-10-07T21:09:00.003+01:00

Went to the first show at the new Moot Gallery space to see the opening of the Tomas Chaffe exhibition. I've worked with Tom before on The Quatermass Code, and know that his work often plays with the space of the gallery and other contextual elements. (He also co-organises Via Vaudeville events.)

'Viewer Added Value (Artist Run Gallery)' 2008, Plastic and screws

The work was all fairly peripheral, but fortunately we were provided with a map so we could hunt the art. The titles and materials generally tell you most of the story, my favourite being 'Approx. 192 x 1713 x 630mm (The Largest Possible Plinth To Enter The Gallery Space Without Altering The Fabric Of The Building)'. 2008, MDF, white paint and timber. As you might guess, this was a scuffed plinth placed on its side, that could be ignored as a room divider or contemplated as a minimalist sculpture as you wished.

'Progress Report' 2008 Bound paper document

I feel I should make a comparison with the Martin Creed show at the Ikon at the moment, but as I haven't had time to see it yet, I should probably leave that one hanging: imagine I said something astute about simplicity, humour and the everyday.

'Losing Costs' 2008 Illuminated desk globe and electricity meter

The pieces stand up to interpretations to do with social issues, for example you can draw an eco message from 'Losing Costs', but I'm not sure if this is the most important thing about the work.

'Everything I'd Ever Known Is Behind My Thumb' 2008 6x4" inkjet print

The above print, only makes sense in this show, in the context it is being shown in (it's the same window as in the previous photo). I'm interested in the personal relationship Tom has with the space, with the staff, and with the viewer. This grounds the experience, makes it specific, and rather than alienating you, draws you in.

In background: 'The Air Between Them And You' 2008 Mirrorpane, clear plastic and frame

Japan 08

2008-09-30T13:00:00.002+01:00

I haven't really got my head around how to write about my trip to Japan for Call and Return at the dis-locate festival, but here are a selection of my photos to be getting on with

If these are a bit small try going to the page direcly:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/japanana/show/

Call And Return

2008-09-19T16:19:00.008+01:00

Very, very quickly because I'm currently in a Typhoon in Japan, I'd like to remind you about Call and Return, the project Nikki, Stuart and I are doing as The Ludogeographic Society. We've just started the gameplay, and missions are here.

It's the next stage of Emergent Game, and players will be in UK, Japan, and elsewhere. The main feature that has been emphasised this time is the process of the players generating the missions themselves. This was always an important aspect of the game, so now it is one of the first five missions, as well as the other four having been developed through workshops and previous discussions with players.

Stuart will be in Bristol co-ordinating the igfest end of things, and myself and Nikki are at Dislocate in Yokohama. Will be interesting to see how it develops, so feel free to join in or just check the site when we've summarised what happened.

Oranges Can Dance

2008-08-12T15:06:00.006+01:00

Charlie Levine has just curated a show which continues her interest in selecting and presenting work in an experimental way. This was a solo exhibition in a small theatre room in a pub of Tim Robottom's collection of kitsch ornaments and other items that would often be seen as 'bad taste'.

Questioning ideas of taste and collectability, the ironic distance usually present in such shows was undermined by the audience selecting items that they wanted to keep, and so affirming that they do have value for them. Everyone proudly displayed what they had chosen, and hopefully they now have pride of place in new collections.

Oranges Can Dance was held at The Old Joint Stock Theatre Gallery, Birmingham, on 9th of August 2008, 6pm and 8pm

Oranges Can Dance on Charlie Levine's Website
Charlie Levine's Blog

Tiny Details, Grotesque Proportions

2008-08-08T13:51:00.008+01:00

Went to opening of Elizabeth Rowe show at Walsall, I really like her work, and wanted to do a quick post about it. I usually try to write more about artist-led spaces, but unfortunately there hasn't been that much going on lately, might have a bit of a re-think about how to organise this blog...

As you arrive at the gallery, you see a display of juneau/projects work from their residency, great to see it here, like a music shop display from another world.

Liz's work is generally referred to as collage (she reworks imagery from catalogues, magazines etc) but is a lot more varied than this suggests. I'm really interested in how her recent work is bursting out of the confines of the frame, from tiny interventions that you almost don't spot, to a gigantic wall piece growing up the wall and ceiling of the space.

The imagery is surreal, schizophrenic, the products stop being tame and erupt into life, either merging into devouring monsters, or scuttling like insects at the edges of your vision. This is not to say that there is not humour in the work, in the face of the pressures of consumer overload, I'm left with the impression of liberation and play being found in the cracks.

Milee (Feng-Ru) Lee is currently doing a residency at Walsall, and I popped in to chat to her, she's been doing some beautiful drawings, and will be performing in the gallery at various points as her cute sheep character.

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Tiny Details, Grotesque Proportions is at The New Art Gallery Walsall, Gallery Square, WS2 8LG from 8th August - 28th September
artatwalsall.org.uk

juneau/projects site

Milee Lee's site

Re:Flux (Part One)

2008-06-27T09:20:00.003+01:00

Just a quick reminder about Re:Flux, which is on tonight in the Jewellery Quarter (details below). It's part of the Vivid Flux Festival and features artists reinterpreting original Fluxus scores and writing their own to be performed by other members of the group, so the focus is more on the sharing of ideas, building on others' work and adding to it. Should be loads of fun and plenty of free apples.

We'll be attempting to live update with photos and texts, and asking the audience to join in, so could be an interesting experience, do follow along and join in if you're there.

Re:Flux Fluxconcert
Co-curated by a.a.s. and Ensemble Interakt
Friday 27th June 2008, 5pm - 9pm (late arrivals admitted)
St. Pauls Church, 30 St. Pauls Square, Birmingham. B4 1QJ
Tickets £3/£2 (Concessions)

Re:Flux Flickr page
a.a.s. Re:Flux pages
aas Twitter

we.assimilate

2008-05-24T10:52:00.003+01:00

Here are some images and video of the Insectoid performance we did a few weeks ago in a double bill with Tai Shani. Performers on the night were me (Ana Benlloch), Alex Marzeta, David Miller, Paul Newman, Vanessa Page, Antonio Roberts, Stuart Tait and Vickie Wood.

There were lots of glitches with technology, as usual, but the beauty of doing something like this is that the mask covers most of your emotions, and everything seems like it's intentional. This is probably the most successful performance we've done, and although I'm not a fan of such a theatrical layout and setting, there's lots we can take from it for the future.

If that's whetted your appetite, here's the video in 2 parts:

And links if you can't get the embedded versions
we.assimilate (part 1)
we.assimilate (part 2)

More on Insectoid's YouTube channel

Insectoid website

Insectoid! Last.FM page

Surface Unsigned Hoo-Ha

2008-05-19T15:46:00.003+01:00

There's a whole riot going on in the bloggosphere about the Created in Birmingham Surface Unsigned situation, which I won't add much to here, since people like Pete Ashton; Chris Unitt; Danny Smith; and Birmingham: It’s Not Shit know more about the whole thing than I do. To summarise though, bands have to sell at least 25 £6 tickets to shows to progress to the next round, which seems a bit steep.

It's been suggested we can help publicise this by linking to CiB's original post to push that up the Google rankings when people look for Surface Unsigned. I'm interested to see the power of blogs being harnessed in this way, how it shows we have a real community spirit, even though a lot of us can only identify each other as Twitter names and small square avatars. Nevertheless it's great to bump into each other and do that strange double take, as I did with @peteashton and @charlottecarey at the Fierce launch. That was the highlight of my evening, treat that as a review if you're wondering how all this fits into an art blog ;)

Wunderkammer

2008-04-09T23:50:00.001+01:00

Wunderkammer curated by Kate Pennington-Wilson and Charlie Levine at BIAD, Margaret St Birmingham was a 'cabinet of curiosities' made up from the archives there and current student's work. David Miller and Edward Wakefield were lying inside perspex cabinets as characters drawn from when they were students at Margaret Street. Ed was lying in state, with audio playing (unfortunately you couldn't hear this very well with all the noise) and David was writhing ineffectually in his white ribbon bondage.

Charlie Levine Wunderkammer page (on her website)
Charlie Levine Wunderkammer page (on her blog)

The Institute of Psychoplasmics

2008-04-08T23:14:00.001+01:00

Did a performance for the opening night of The Institute of Psychoplasmics (as undercover as staff at the Institute looking for friends that had gone missing there). We decided to experiment with Twitter for updating it as it was going on, which seemed to work quite well: http://twitter.com/aasgroup We also had an audio piece in the stairwell.

There's a great video by Pil and Galia to do with a cult-like group that developed after the catastrophic Ikea riots and some amazing sculptures by Diann Bauer of merged people after some ambiguous Science Fiction disaster

The Institute of Psychoplasmics curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv
Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park, London, SW11 4NJ
9 April - 26 May 2008
Featuring: a.a.s. / Insectoid / Diann Bauer / Amanda Beech / Mikko Canini / Seth Coston / Rod Dickinson / Pil and Galia Kollectiv / Tai Shani / Francis Upritchard / Roman Vasseur

Pil and Galia Kollectiv Psychoplasmics page
a.a.s. Psychoplasmics page

Net Working

2008-03-29T12:06:00.003Z

I've not had time to post much recently, due to a really heavy workload, but if you've seen me at your event and want my thoughts do give me a nudge. If you're not sure how to do that, look over in the sidebar, where it says Stalk Me, and there's a load of little buttons where you can choose your social networking site of choice to contact me, I've even just added twitter, which I've been frightened of for years.

But don't, you know, actually stalk me please...

There should be plenty of good stuff coming up soon, I'm in a show in London curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv: The Institute of Psychoplasmics if you follow the link you can also buy tickets for the Tai Shani + Insectoid offsite performance event on 8 May at Shoreditch Town Hall, EC1V 9LP

There's an Insectoid Last FM page now with free mp3s (and a Milgram one, if you're into that kind of thing)

Then of course there's Nikki Pugh's Emergent Game, which I'll be involved in to some capacity, starting to get really excitied about it, and just itching to finish my assignments so I can start making avatars.

Remote Victim

2008-02-18T23:31:00.003Z

I've been looking at the effects of being 'cruel' to avatars for a while, and have just made this video in Sims as a bit of an experiment. I've called it an Avatar Endurance Performance, but of course the main victim was myself, as I nearly gave myself RSI by repeatedly making the Sim do what I needed it to until it was right.

Link to YouTube page

Cory Arcangel

2008-02-08T16:33:00.001Z

Went to the opening of A couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould at the Castlefield Gallery in Manchester. On the way I spotted some of those mosaics based on pixel imagery that you see around lots of places. They stuck in my head this time, considering the show I was going to see, particularly as the second one reminded me of the famous piece by this artist Super Mario Clouds (2002).

I'm a big fan of Cory Arcangel (Best. Name. Ever.) and was really looking forward to his new piece, where a piece of music was constructed from clips of video from YouTube etc. The images flashed past rapidly, each note a separate blip from a video, amateurs flipped to professionals flipped to cats playing piano. It was hypnotic and fascinating.

Older pieces were also on show, Permanent Vacation (2007) was a cute log-jam of two computers batting 'Away' auto-response emails to each other.

I Shot Andy Warhol (2002) was developed by hacking Hogan's Alley (the 1980s Nintendo cartridge) to create a bizarre shoot-em-up. There's an tongue-in-cheek connection between Warhol's work on iconic portraits, and Arcangel's use of people you can still recognise when they are simplified pixel sprites.

I was even lucky enough to talk to the artist in this lengthy exchange:
Cory Arcangel: Is this the queue for the restroom?
Me: Yes

Cory's blissfully retro blog

Castlefield Gallery

KateGoes...

2007-12-19T23:51:00.000Z

I don't usually write about bands here, but I do sometimes make exceptions if there's some kind of art/performance angle, so my excuse for writing about KateGoes is that they have a different theme for each gig, dressing up and acting in keeping between songs. Of course I'm sure plenty of you are familiar with their output, as they're a perfect recipe for a MoseleyHeath band: seasoned with Misty's Big Adventure, a pinch of Pram, hints of Novak and L'Augmentation, but full of secret ingredients of their own.

Shockingly this is the first time I'd seen them live, although I'd heard some of their tracks online after entering into a correspondence with Kate, who charmingly wrote me a rap about a time we met. I was glad to finally be free to get to one of their gigs, and this one seemed to be themed as a family get-together - apt for Christmas (although in a throwaway line as they left it was revealed that it had actually been a funeral...)

Kate and her 'little sister' were dressed in frilly party dresses, and other members were meant to be her Gran, Grandad and Dad. Family photos were projected behind them, creating odd Tony Oursler effects when faces hit the balloons.

It took a while to get used to the 'overtired little girl' chatting between songs, but it perfectly suited the Slits/Dresden Dolls pitch of the songs - the kind of feminine tactic that can irritate some, but throws the 'crazy woman' stereotype back in people's faces if it's done well. The strength of the songs held the performance together, much tighter than on CD, childhood memories are filtered through knowing adult sensibilities, then freed up again in the sugary high of making such effortlessly catchy pop.

It's easy to get distracted by the whimsy and references to POGs, but go and listen to Heartbeat on their Myspace page: a sweetly harmonious nursery rhyme that disguises obsessively intense emotions. It takes me back to being a C86 loving teen, shivering with semi-requited lust, wanting to get so close we fused. Never has a squeaky toy sounded more ambiguous.

Hell, they even gave out party poppers and did the conga around the room, what's not to love?

KateGoes Myspace Page

The Nagual

2007-12-18T00:36:00.000Z

a.a.s. performance at Crowd 6 Christmas event Mistletoe and Mingling. We dressed in festive red velvet and decorations then chanted as we went around a Christmas tree. At the appointed time, we pulled our tinsel entrails out of our stomachs, and started to wrap them around the tree. Spent, after the extertion of the ritual we fell to the floor, then we crawled off, only our animal spirit left. The tree remained all night, dripping 'blood' as a reminder of our sacrifice.

Here's a link to the YouTube video if the embed doesn't work
Larger versions of photos on the a.a.s. Flickr page

I AM The Great Grock

2007-12-03T23:24:00.000Z

We (a.a.s.) did a performance at the Royal Standard Turner Prize Extravaganza protesting against our own inclusion in the show as an homage to The Stuckists, who protest against the Turner Prize most years (but not this year)

Here's a link to the YouTube video if the embed doesn't work
Larger photos on the a.a.s. Flickr page

Heath Bunting Status Project

2007-11-29T22:17:00.000Z

Went on Heath Bunting's psychogeographical walk in Nottingham, where we were trying to find a 'route' between places by linking their 'status'. He'd made a map of Nottingham based on things you had to provide to be able to access certain things (store cards, railcards, the lottery etc)

When we found a connection between places, we wrote it on the pavement (Able to provide proof of address etc) and as we went we discussed issues, such as identity and how it can be constructed.

Heath Bunting's site and the Status Project
Status Project at Trampoline
Larger versions of photos on my Flickr page

Last of the Urgents

2007-11-17T23:02:00.000Z

Colony's new curated group show coincided with the launch of their book As if something once mentioned, now plain to see

One wall of the show was united by Jo Mitchell's wall painting, a snaking path linking nightmarish drawings by Nikolas Arvanitis and dreamy paintings by GL Brierley.

I didn't catch who made the kitsch/baroque confection in the middle of the room, but I did have to use my cameraphone to see the decorative money inside.

The quietly disturbing exhibition seemed to be less appealing to the audience than the bar and music in the book launch, but there was some powerful stuff here, that wormed its way into my head and set up home in the mouldering ruins of art.

Colony

Where The Deer And The Antelope Play

2007-11-16T23:51:00.000Z

A joint show between WebsterGotts and Mandy Rees, a sweetshop coloured overload of balloons, 70s wallpaper patterns, and hallucinatory cowboys. The Western theme lassoed the artists together: Bearwood became a border town in a dream, where plastic faces bobbed around in a melodrama of gazes, a stare is so cold and hard it knocks down a man like a bullet, and people are lost in a shifting surface of pattern.

WebsterGotts

Mandy Rees

Birmingham is lucky to have new artist-led spaces putting on light and engaging show like this, it's what really puts us on the map, so lets hope they get the support they deserve, whatever their future plans.

The show will be open 10-4 Saturdays, 11-2 Sundays until the 9th of December

Crowd 6
WebsterGotts

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Sorry about the image quality, I keep forgetting my camera and having to use my mobile

Another Halloween Post

2007-10-31T23:55:00.000Z

I'm sure you know all about the Bacchanalian orgy that is the annual Ikon Eastside closing party, and this years' coincided with Halloween. Double Trouble. Seven inch provided their usual high quality films and audio (although the acoustics in the warehouse didn't do any favours).

Unfortunately, I didn't get in to Scott's performance/installation, which is a shame as I'd have probably enjoyed it. (I hear it was based on Poe's fear of being buried alive)

Here are a few snaps to add to all those on Facebook and elsewhere.

Artober

2007-10-13T23:55:00.000+01:00

A lot of my friends have been down in London over the last few days schmoozing at parties for the Frieze and Zoo Art Fairs, little knowing that the event of the weekend was right here in the Midlands: The launch night of the Artober Festival in Leicester.

The incomparable Richard Peel did a solo proto-ballet, miming Club Silencio-style to a recording of his own voice and songs (can you imagine how postmodern that was?). If I sound like I'm mocking it, it's only 'cos I'm so jealous of his genius. If you missed it, you're a fool, buy his book to try to make up for it. Yes that's a cardboard guitar he's playing.

Cheesy compere Dave from Metro-Boulot-Dodo asked us to come up with even worse puns than the name of the festival, I came up with loads, including my favourite: Whoregust - a summer festival celebrating the oldest profession.

During this, Phil Henderson heckled Dave with the killer line "What about Goth?" a propos of nothing, then did a compelling keyboard set of drones and repetitions. It was constantly teasing the edge of being painful: Phil's expression switched from absorbed masochism to serene sadism and back again.

At one point you could just about hear him say "Goth" in the middle of some inhuman whines and muttering. The joys of delayed gratification.

DY-66

2007-09-30T14:47:00.000+01:00

I've been busy with the a.a.s. installation at Five Years Gallery, Unit 66, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, E8 4QN. It runs 29th September - 7th October 2007, gallery open Sat - Sun 1-6pm. The installation was based on a spy game that started in Birmingham (as KR-36 - part of The Event) and has evolved into a London mission as well.

Photos of events from Birmigham and London became merged in an overall story, there was a key to the photos on an old rolodex and a microfiche with slides of Birmingham gas mains

Visitors playing Cat's Cradle, an important metaphor in the show, as there were lots of threads tying things together, but they were always shifting and uncertain. We'd also been talking about Schrödinger's Cat, so this visitor was perfect

There's some information here, we'll add more after the show has come down.

*News: DY-66 reviewed by Lucinda M Holmes here

a.a.s.
Five Years
DY-66 on YouTube
Photos from a.a.s. Flickr page

How To Make A Difference

2007-09-26T23:51:00.000+01:00

Freee art collective have got a show at IPS in Bourneville (27 September to 3 November 2007). We helped them with a performance where they read out their manifesto and we joined in the bits we agreed with to make a spoken-word choir. It was exhausting but I think it's a great artwork, it really made me read the text carefully, and the conversations I had with Stuart about it to choose sections to read were just as much part of the piece as the consensus achieved during the reading itself.

The space was filled with billboard works, and large scale reinterpretations of slogan pieces such as "Protest Is Beautiful" and "The social function of public art is to subject us to civic behaviour".

The small text behind Gavin Wade and David Beech is "The function of public art for the gallery is to preserve the distinction between art and the rest of culture by establishing a legitamate form of exception on art's own terms". I also liked the way they had placards piled in the corner, not displayed like valuable art objects.

Oddly, the Birmingham Comedy Festival has picked up on this event, presumably because of the "Have You Heard The One About The Public Sphere?" video featuring Norman Collier (1970s northern comedian, known for a 'faulty microphone' routine and chicken impressions). They may also have seen the other Freee video pieces, as there is a humour in them, I particularly like the "How To Talk To Public Art" video, where they visit sculptures in Manchester and display slogans in front of them. I won't spoil the punchlines though.

Freee
International Project Space
View photos at Artstalking 2 Flickr page

Modern Traditions

2007-09-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

This is a David Thomas show at Crowd 6 in Bearwood, forgot my camera unfortunately so these are just some phone snaps.

Great turnout, this space puts on some really professional exhibitions even though it's only opened recently.

The work was quiet and meditative, simple translations of signs, photos, audio and video of everyday life in China. However the space was dominated by the large banner reading "Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back", which suggests the central theme of the show: that the boom of China's power and economy is coming at a price of the loss of a more tradtional way of life.

The gallery is open 22nd September - 14th October, at weekends or by appointment (Sat 10-4, Sun 11-2)

Crowd 6
David Thomas

Being & Drunken Boat

2007-09-11T22:29:00.000+01:00

I've been struggling to get to blog, so thought I'd put these two shows together, a quick comparison perhaps.

Being by Damián Ortega at Ikon Eastside

Smooth, buttery curls of locally sourced copper rolls, some were slightly lost in the large space, but a couple of pieces were strong on their own. Perhaps it would have been nice to see a Tate Britain Turbine Hall treatment, with a vast sea of copper filling the space. There was also a video by Ortega of typewriters crashing to the ground, which seemed unconnected, but there may have been some reference to the passing of outdated technology and industry.

Drunken Boat at Colony

Casey & McAree's Fucked Arc dominates this show (a curatorial intervention across the 2 rooms at COLONY, creating a version in cardboard of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc). I'd heard it was going to be even more awkward to get around, but they'd left a gap to get to the loo (too kind of them in my opinion)

Most of the sculpture was fairly lo-fi, humerous work, although Grex Cox's formica clad furniture (right, above) had a slightly more self-contained presence to it.

These exhibitions are examples of the current popularity of sculpture in Birmingham, despite having different ways of approaching the form, they share a slight sadness at their heart, as if responding to loss and impotence. I'm not sure if I prefer the fairly formal, traditional approach of Being with its subtle references to local industry; or the more overt use of populist imagery and familiar materials in Drunken Boat. I can't help but think that the return to an interest in objects is a sign of the increasing retreat to more commercial possibilities in the current art climate, and I hope that there will still be a place for works that challenge people to change what is going on around them, not just mourn it.

Larger versions on my Flickr page

Destination: Geodecity

2007-08-05T21:01:00.000+01:00

Reactor event over Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th August 2007, where we became Geo-Pioneers, working together to envision and build a new utopian society.

We were picked up in one of three cities, with our allowed luggage in small pink bags. "Arthur" read hypnotic instructions on the way to the site, while we looked at a series of images of things that would be relevant over the coming weekend.

We arrived at the site, a small field, in between two rock faces (a hellish sun trap in the uncharacteristically roasting weather, but very beautiful). First task was to make some tabards with our new names on, we made a lovely pastel-hued cult

We'd been asked to make tetrahedrons with our vision for Geodecity on, and we put them together in a tessellating model (that was as fragile as our dreams...). Then we were divided into groups based on the colours we had chosen. The Yellows went and gathered supplies and cooked the food, while the green team build the habitation domes, with help from others later.

There were a few invasions, a dog came in followed by its puzzled owners, and then the police visited, possibly alerted by the dog owners that there was something funny going on.

We managed to get all the domes up by sunset, then had a stew around the fire made by the Blues

The next day we made plans for those to come in the future and took a last look at the camp and went home

More:
Reactor's Destination: Geodecity page
My Flickr page
Josie's Photos
Ellie's Photos
Antonio's Photos
BBC Report

Ayling & Conroy City Gallery

2007-07-13T22:59:00.000+01:00

Ayling & Conroy went for a fairly traditional 'gallery minimal' style for their show in Leicester, rather than their immersive installation at Spectacle last year (which suited my own tastes more). Still, there were some really interesting things there, particularly the painting series based on the prints of Katasushika Hokusai but done in the style of teach yourself to paint guru Bob Ross. Mark Hutchinson (seen talking to Hannah) wrote a good text for the handout publication too.

There was an after show party at The Function Room, Ed DJing, and a small group of us dancing wildly to make up for the lack of participation from everyone else

Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe

2007-06-30T23:21:00.000+01:00

The Please Excuse Our Appearance residencies & Jacques Nimki's closing party was a picnic on the field at Ikon Eastside. "Smart dress required.”

Frozen Tears III Launch

2007-05-31T15:29:00.000+01:00

Frozen Tears III Launch at Koenig Books on Charing Cross Rd

I turn up early. I'm hot, sweaty and obviously from out of town. Someone I recognise takes pity on me, but I end up rambling.

Thankfully I can hide by watching the readings, all crammed into a downstairs cupboard, the writers and audience have to smell each others' discomfort, Christ do my tits keep getting in the official photos?

Everyone seems to be talking about cunts, I'm feet away from Stewart Home as he recites his clever porn, I try to listen intelligently and not stare like a stalker-pervert.

I only see fragments of No Bra from the stairs and have to sneak up to snap her for blog purposes.

As I'm clock watching for my train back, I suddenly see more people I know and should give more of my attention to, like David B & Esther, but I just twitter about having to get back to Birmingham (I always worry this makes me seem less cool, but seem to have a compulsion to mention where I live all the time, maybe it comes across as having an admirable committment for coming in the first place).

On the train I crack open the skin around the book with a nearly erotic pleasure, and read with the tingling ginseng-alert feeling good writing gives me.

Planet Alice

2007-05-26T23:36:00.000+01:00

Junkplanet were playing in Brum, here's John making a Junk Voodoo stick. It was at Alice's birthday party (left) and I met her lovely friends Tanya & Jon (middle & right). We decorated the living room with junk too, you can see my rubbish bag chain and toilet roll tower in the background

There was string across the room with various things from their bag o junk hung up on it

John and Chris played most of the gig with their backs to the audence, the cool fucks. It was a really intense experience, people crammed against the walls, held there by noise and drones, shaking our organs and working peculiar magic on our brains. They finished off with a humming chorus from the audience which was pretty special, I felt like we were all being initiated into an esoteric cult of Junk worshippers. Hmmmmmm.

larger versions on this Flickr page

HeebieJeebies

2007-05-23T22:40:00.000+01:00

Went to HeebieJeebies show at The Works Gallery. Works were by Keir Williams, Lisa Metherell & Chris Poolman

Glow Sticks were everywhere (note: this child was not stuck there permanently); this is Vanessa & Alex enjoying some glowing accessories

Sotto Voce

2007-05-19T23:45:00.000+01:00

This was the Emmett Walsh show at Spectacle Gallery and it was a good one to end on before they have to leave.

There was a seafaring feel, with the seascape projected across the space, cutting it in two, and effectively making you feel lost in an unfamiliar environment as soon as you entered.

There were engravings and prints up on a wooden 'stage', getting on it to see better was a little like being a navigator on a ship, but one from a dream, where the maps were made from insects, words and people.

Above left to right: Emmett, Joe and Ed

Fierce Launch

2007-05-19T02:27:00.000+01:00

Went to the opening party for Fierce, there was a big queue for the party, they let people in a block at a time and then we all had queue again for our one free drink, Although somehow, Jo got two, the little party animal

It was Charlie's birthday bash, here she is eating cake with Caitlin, later we all danced ourselves silly as there was nothing else to do there except watch the fish behind the bar

larger pics on this Flickr page

Springhill BCAF Party

2007-05-06T12:42:00.001+01:00

Apologies for my lack of blogging, it's been pretty hectic. Here's a quick photo blog for ya!

Reuben and Karin put on a party for the steering group* and friends, we were served by Arnie all night which was lovely. I spent most of the evening playing tunes with David and Liz, Reuben had got a load of old records out and it was like a disco in a charity shop

Ed W rocking out, probably to Sabbath, maybe Motorhead, then he went a bit Fight Club with Joe

Never one to turn down a hat when it drops in front of him, David sporting Ed's, lost when headbanging

links to larger pics on this Flickr page

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* The BCAF steering group organised The Event and are made up of representatives from the artist-led groups a.a.s.; Capital Art Projects; COLONY; [insertspace]; IPS; Modulate; Periscope; 7inch Cinema; Spectacle; Springhill Institute.

Appy Polly Loggies

2007-05-01T23:44:00.000+01:00

Hello all my avid readers,

I'm sure you have all noticed that my blogging has reached a slight hiatus over the last month or so

I'm fully intending to do more soon, however in the meantime, may I recommend these blogs to tide you over.

http://webstergotts.blogspot.com/

http://weightlossforwinners.blogspot.com/

http://thomasmoronic.blogspot.com/

Nonpermanent

2007-02-17T23:44:00.000Z

Went to Nonpermanent/Secret Wars event at Custard Factory, with Stu and met up with Ellie, Niki and Dave from Nottingham.

Wasn't really sure what to expect, and when we arrived all we saw were blank walls ready for doodling on

A few of the invited Graffiti Artists got going, don't know them all, but think that's Sri in the middle and Teck doing the rabbit

This is Ian Stevenson, signing autographs perhaps, I like the way him and the girl are mirrored in his drawings behind them

Later Jon Burgerman and Pete Fowler had a Secret Wars All Stars draw off battle

This was great, I'm a big fan of battles of skill, and they were obviously mates who respected each other's stuff. They got awarded wrestling belts and auctioned their work for the NSPCC

Human Beatbox for half time entertainment

Chu stickers were left on the floor. Remember seeing this guys stuff all over, especially when I worked in Walsall

The main nonpermanent event was guys drawing on whiteboards and then wiping it off and starting again

But this was a bit overshadowed by the organisers giving out pens and letting us all draw everywhere. The ladies from Clutter Magazine had started early, but by the end people were covering every available space

It was difficult to tell who was an invited artist and who was audience, as lots of people were skilled at that style of drawing, but after all the spaces were filled up it started to look a bit of a mess

Some of my efforts, I drew round the blobs of paint and bricks on a wall and apologised to whoever was cleaning up for all the mess we'd made

So what have we learnt? Well at bad points of the evening I felt like I was trapped in a Youth Club version of Nathan Barley, but there was some really good work as well, not what people might think of as my usual taste, but I have a secret liking for Cute/Dark illustrations as anyone who's seen my in my Gloomy Bear T-Shirt will know.

Similarly, I was torn about us being asked to draw on the walls, that kind of controlled anarchy can be a bit lame, but there was still an orgiatic Carnivalesque buzz to it, unless that was just all the free Tiger beer I'd had.

Larger pics at my Flickr page

Here are more links, gleaned from walls, flyers, goodie bag etc.:
*Nonpermanent
*Secret Wars
*Jon Burgerman's Site
*Ian Stevenson's Site
*Un-Plugged Sticker Project
*Chu's Site
*Nook Retro Products
*Fawn Gehweiler's Illustrations
*Emma's Illustrations
*Cromatics Badges, Stickers etc.
*Munny Shot Toys
*Matt Jones' Illustration & Products
*Elana Mullaly Illustrations
*Tamar Moshkovitz' Illustrations
*Kenn Munk's Designs
*Cutterskink Graffiti Art & Products
*Fusshop Products
*Perpexcity Puzzles
*Plushood Toys
*Devout Dolls

Phew, what a lot of product

Protest and Propaganda

2007-02-05T23:46:00.000Z

Went to do a talk at Chelsea at short notice, after having been recommended by the very lovely Pil and Galia. Had to do a talk in the morning to some students from Poland, and then had a nightmare getting there (One train cancelled, one delayed, one tube line closed after an 'incident'). Freaked out, sweaty and stressed when we arrived, but they were very nice and hopefully it added to the crazy, intense artists from Brum vibe.

So wired after all that we had to go to some art to calm down. It's probably a bit of a faux pas to go to Tate Britain if you go to Chelsea College, but we wanted to see the Mark Wallinger Protest Installation, which I liked. Most people were looking at the front and not the other front, but we like to look at the other front. (There's a show title in there somewhere)

Mark Wallinger
State Britain 2006
Photo: Sam Drake © Tate 2006

Enjoyed the Chapman Brothers room too, full of casts of stupid/dark body/technology interfaces with great names. It was pretty dumb, but intentionally so. Of course the idiots don't realise it's not good because it's rude, it's good because it looks like it's good because it's rude...

Jake and Dinos Chapman
When Humans Walked the Earth 2006
Photo © Tate 2006

Walked past where Brian Haw has been protesting, there still seemed to be something there, but couldn't see what from the other side of the road

Managed to nip into Tate Modern just before it shut to see a blur of the Media Burn show. There was a pleasant aesthetic to a lot of the work, but it all felt like a lovingly preserved Situationist punk zine rather than a genuine call to arms.

Ant Farm (Chip Lord, Doug Michels, Curtis Schreier, Uncle Buddie) Media Burn 1975, re-mastered 2003 Courtesy the artists and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York

Might try to get back there, cos you've gotta try the slides, right?

The Seashell and the Computer

2007-02-01T23:42:00.000Z

After yet another nightmare day at work in the lead-up to our OFSTED inspection, managed to get to the opening of Flatpack, the 7 Inch Cinema festival. They were showing the Seashell and the Clergyman in St Paul's Church in the Jewellery Quarter, with a live accompaniment by Minima

Fuck me it was good.

I cried a little.

I'd been wanting to see it for ages, and nothing is more likely to make me come out of my eyes than a proper old Surrealist film, or dribble out of my ears than some Slinty atmospheric audio, plus I was pretty tired and emotional. Sure the Freudian symbolism was a bit humorous, but I got totally wrapped up in it all, yes, yes, strangle the General!

After that, a party in the bar round the corner with a laptop 'singing' versions of indie hits was probably the last thing someone like me would be interested in, right? (Note to those who don't know me: the act Mr. Hopkinson's Computer is pretty much designed to appeal to me, uniting my twin obsessions of synthetic voices and bizarre covers) I danced drunkenly and bought the album. I didn't regret it in the morning.

... So Sad

2007-01-14T18:24:00.000Z

Went to this exhibition opening at the Guy Hilton Gallery, 35 Fournier Street, London E1 6QE

It was curated by Mark McGowan with works from Brian Catling, the Centre of Attention, JJ Charlesworth, Sacha Craddock, Richard Dedomenici, Sarah Doyle, TheFucks, Marcia Farqhuar, Andrew Hunt, Mark McGowan, Harry Pye, Will Self, Bob and Roberta Smith, Stella Vine, Jessica Voorsanger.

The main draw of the show was Mark McGowan supposedly eating a swan, as a protest against the Queen (all his work courts the media, trying to be provocative and essentially making video art using their technology)

The rest of the 'swan' was offered to the audience, they could have some marmalade with it too

There were plenty more art offerings, exploring the title of the show in different ways. Smashed pot held together with sellotape and Centre of Attention's floral tribute

Flag made by Andy Hunt, based on a real flag he took a photo of at a Luton football match. He got the flag for free after the World Cup, apparently. Also a video by the guy dressed as a dog called 'Peanut Buddha', note Slade poster in background

Other stuff down in the basement, like this little Cyclops painting hidden in an alcove, a pinball machine covered in cut outs from magazines

Will Self was doing some kind of counselling, didn't get close enough to hear what it was all about as he was very popular

Another one of Mark's celebrity friends is Bob and Roberta Smith, who included some paintings and possibly a sign over the door that said this was the best gallery in the world

This guy was great, he tried to introduce himself to us a few times, but I've forgotten his name. He had a dog's head too. A costume one, not a real one or anything.

Another thing Andy Hunt did was give an old painting he did when he was 17, and it was shown along with a letter of explanation

Mark McGowan's site

There's usually plenty of press about his stuff, here's some I found online from Friday Cities and Times Online

And, if you want larger versions of pictures go to our Flickr page

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NEW: One of the artists, Sarah Doyle, has some photos of the show on her Flickr page about So Sad

Mark McGowan

2006-11-23T11:53:00.000Z

Dead Good Artist

TV News at IPS, Bournville

Two days after Remembrance Sunday Mark McGowan started six days of lying on the ground on Birmingham’s busy New Street in a semi-foetal position dressed in full military combat dress and a red beret. BBC Midlands today were there to interview him (as they were during the dry-run in September).

The performance ‘Dead Soldier’ is “the latest in a string of bizarre stunts”1 by “Yob artist Mark McGowan” 2 and it accompanys his current show at IPS entitled ‘TV News’.

Passers-by were outraged at the afront to our troops overseas, but I suspect that if the ‘reporter’ said to passers-by “This man is protesting against the war in Iraq” or “Raising awareness of the War in Iraq, in order to spark debate”, I suspect there would have been more “Here here”s and less “Not here”s.

“Performance artist Mark McGowan is no stranger to wild stunts” 3 and “his latest mind-boggling stunt” 4 of “so called performance art” 5 succeeded in getting exactly the Media attention that is the focus of the IPS show. The audacity of “Madcap Mark McGowan” 6 and curator Andy Hunt is impressive; their confidence in being able to put out exactly the right press release material to get the desired response from the press and incorporating it into the installation in time for the opening speaks volumes about the predictability of the press.

“Controversial artist Mark McGowan” 7, “a man whose art doesn’t really exist unless people take notice of it” 8, exploits the laziness of British journalism and it’s mindless sensationalism: On close inspection of the newspaper articles that form a significant proportion of ‘TV News’, the “Lonely maintenance worker” 9 is referred to as “Madcap Mark McGowan” 10 in three separate articles by South London Press over two years, and there were at least 8 separate stories in the show that had variations on the Question “But is it art?” If you believed everything you read in the papers “Whacky Mark McGowan” 11 has been 37 years old since some time in 2002, except for a brief period in 2004 when he was 38. If you believed the Mass Media unquestioningly, you’d be fucked. It is also notable how little evidence there was of some of the more arduous performances (Cartwheeling from Brighton to London, or Sailing a shopping cart to Glasgow for instance) ever having been completed.

As “The latest stunt by Camberwell Arts College tutor Mark McGowan” 12 ‘TV News’ is an exhibition specifically about the Media attention his work has drawn from 2001 to the present, as well as various bits of documentation from those performances and related letters of communication, and as such offers a good overview of his practice in all its aspects: the ‘Work’ in artwork; the Exploration of suffering; the manipulation of the Media. Frankly, considering the effort, time, and thought that has gone into this show (including the performance), I’d say the £4,000 fee that The Sun was so disgusted by was fucking cheap.

Although the Media focused entirely on the “Loveless Mark McGowan” 13, “A man posing as a dead soldier” 14, and stoked up resentment and anger against him personally, and against the Arts Council for ‘giving away’ public money, there is much more to ‘TV News’ than is immediately obvious to the casual observer. If the show has a failing, this is it: The performance ‘Dead Soldier’, on New Street, may well have achieved the artists’s aim of gaining Media attention for the performance, but it failed to draw any attention whatsoever toward the exhibition at IPS, which I think is a shame. One other mystery in the exhibition though is the inclusion of “£1,000 three legged celebrity impersonator race” as there appeared to be no press coverage in evidence, contrary to the nature of the rest of the show.

In conclusion, McGowan is far from being an “idiotic artist” 15, and ‘TV News’ provides a good benchmark against which to measure all future encounters with the Media. The show also throws up two things that I found surprising: The first is the idea (from one woman on a news report) that ripping someone’s head off is a measured response to having a car keyed; and the second is that in this whole exhibition of Media reaction to McGowan’s work, chat show presenters Richard and Judy are the only ones to provide a considered response to McGowan’s work.

Mark McGowan's 'TV News' at IPS, 16 November to 16 December 2006
Performance: 'Dead Soldier', New Street, Birmingham 14 to 20 November 2006
International Project Space, Bournville Centre for Visual Arts, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, Maple Road, Birmingham. B30 2AA
T: +44 (0) 121 331 5785
www.internationalprojectspace.org

1] “I vandalised 47 cars ‘for the sake of art’”. Jayne Atherton. Metro. 18th April, 2005. p.11

2] “Your art’s not up to scratch”. Nick Sharpe. The Sun. 18th April, 2005. p.15

3] “Running on empty”. Helen Pidd. The Guardian. 7th July, 2005. p.6

4] “Cartwheeling artist going nuts for rocks”. Sara Wallis. The Argus. 11th August, 2005. p.12

5] BBC Midlands Today. September 2006.

6] “Loon for one more on top”. Chris Pragnell. South London Press. 20th August, 2004.p.3

7] “Warning Mars race”. Adrian Pearson. Southwark News. 16th February, 2006. p.16

8] “Running on empty”. Helen Pidd. The Guardian. 7th July, 2005. p.6

9] “Bachelor’s 55-mile crawl in search of a girlfriend”. The Times. 27th December, 2005. p.26 There is no mention of McGowan even being an artist in this article.

10] “Off his trolley”. South London Press. 12th December, 2003. p.4 & “Pranks for nothing...”. Oscar Mortali. South London Press. 17th December, 2002. p.3, as well as note 6 (above)

11] “Forget Blaine..here’s a real British nutter”. Gary O’Shea. The Sun. 13th September, 2003. p.19

12] “Not art but crime”. Soutwark News. 10th February, 2005. p.10

13] “Love is Crawl”. Greig Box. Daily Mirror. 7th January, 2006. p.27

14] “Gunning for a reaction”. Jasbir Authi. Birmingham Mail. 8th September, 2006. p.25

15] “Dead Stupid”. Virginia Wheeler. The Sun. 15th November, 2006. p.25

Vyner Street Virgin

2006-11-05T23:48:00.000Z

Met up with Pil & Galia so they could interview us for Plan B magazine. John Brainlove joined us at The Approach after a bit and we had a really interesting chat about art and science fiction.

They took us to some galleries around the Bethnal Green area:Between Bridges (which has something to do with Wolfgang Tillmans and we saw him walking down the road, my what a celebrity packed weekend!). The exhibition was of 1960s posters by Sister Corita, a Californian nun

Then went down Vyner Street, where there are loads of little galleries, mostly fairly commercial (in the London sense). Modern Art have a couple of spaces, Matthew Monahan did lumpy sculptures, disjointed and pathetic, like Frankenstein's monsters made from scraps left behind in the art cupboard and behind stage. Someone more clever than me in our group said that they seemed designed to appeal to buyers who wanted art that gave a nod to classicism while being suitably post-modern and ironic. Didn't get any pictures of the show as my battery ran out, but here are some pictures of his work in general, since I like to illustrate my ramblings for your entertainment.

Katy Moran was over the road in their other gallery, similarly hinting at art history, she paints images taken from the internet, then repaints them to a blur. They seemed like cheap fakes that had run in the rain, and made my eyes hurt, trying to figure out what they might have once been

Anj Smith had some tiny paintings in the show Feral Demosphere at Ibid Projects (more pics on their site)

In another mood I might have liked these, but found them too twiddly and arch, they reminded me a little of the Chapman Brothers' adjustment of Goya prints, although less well handled. They seemed to explore fashion as a nightmare, as if trying to get hold of that Takashi Murakami Louis Vuitton handbag has given her the sweaty night-horrors.

Vilma Gold had a show by Aïda Ruilova, there were slides of items from an architect's house that he thought of as a Pyramid-like tomb.

I was more interested in her videos of chains being pulled through models of buildings from films, or more accurately I liked the industrial music made by the repetitive loops, and how the visual rhythms of what was on the screens conditioned the viewer to behave in a certain way.

David Risley Gallery had Jonathan Wateridge's huge images of wrecks in landscapes, painted on layers of plexiglass that gave a tacky 3D effect that reminded me of postcards that change as you move them, or waterfall lights in restaurants. Some said "Found on Sky One", I couldn't possibly comment.

The rest is a bit vague, the only other one I can remember is that Fred had the Simon English drawing/collages Banks Cream and the Somerset Owls

there may have been others we went to but I was art blind by this point. Hope you're not.

Larger versions of my pics on my Flickr page; the rest are from the galleries pages

Turner Prize 2006

2006-11-04T22:31:00.000Z

Met John and Jasmine at Tate Britain, had some coffee and pretended we couldn't see Russell Brand sitting opposite us, snogging a ladyfriend.

Mark Titchner's work has grown on me since I first saw it, although I'm always a fan of spinning optical illusions and slogans, I originally thought he was a bit too ironic and retinal, but I think the jarring difference between those criticisms alerted me to the possiblity that there was more going on:

I enjoyed his slightly folky take on advertising and propaganda, changing it from something manipulative into an ideology that persuaded you with its charm and wit. NO I wasn't just hypnotised by the pretty spinning wheels and flashing screens. Oh, OK, maybe a bit. What let his part of the show down was the way there was too much crammed into one room, but hopefully that won't affect how well he does as the judging is based on the original show not the hang at the Tate, right?

Rebecca Warren's sculptures were in the lumpy clay style that seems to be the vogue, hinting at figures, but never really going anywere. They were surrounded by vitrines with assemblages made from scraps from her studio, that just remided me of the 3D doodles people make when they've got their minds on something else and are fiddling with the sellotape and blu-tac. Maybe that was the point.

Tomma Abts' paintings left me thoroughly cold, they're all 48 x 38 cm and often suggest some trompe l'oeil (obviously popular this year), but didn't seem to work very well. As I was looking for pictures for this though, I did find some that worked better, maybe the computer screen is a better medium for her.

Phil Collins (no, not THAT one) did some work that was meant to be about the effect reality TV has on the participants, with a video of him on one wall looking concerned at the plight of a former reality star on the other wall. The blurb suggested this might be a comment on the importance of TV coverage to the Turner Prize, possibly.

There was also a working office installation, which was unstaffed as it was the weekend, but did make his work more interesting to me, he does seem to fit into the relational aesthetic craze in contemporary art so might win, but who knows?

Photos nicked from the Telegraph Slideshow which also has more information, and here's a link to the Tate Turner Prize page as I'm addicted to putting links on things.

After all that we went to the pub and plotted, fortunately managed to shake off Brand at this point, the creepy stalker...

Smack Gig

2006-10-31T23:11:00.000Z

A performance at BIAD by the art group Smack...

They were making strange, droning, electronic music, while on top of giant plinths

Mark's da-glo plinth put Alex's in the shade a little, but you could go inside the plain one, although I was scared to do that for long.

Henry was hidden away inside his box, with a projection above it. I'm assuming he was making noises with a guitar and some records (of course it could have just been prerecorded)

I went through a door in one of the plinths, and entered a spooky alternate universe where I could see inside Mike's brain and my T-Shirt came to life, and then I got attacked by a ghost and everything went a bit odd...

Happy Halloween

As always, larger versions of photos on my Flickr page

Knock Down Ginger: My House Projects

2006-10-07T23:34:00.000+01:00

This was an Ayling & Conroy performance event My House Projects

Richard Peel had some drawings and a sound piece and also did a presentation about a potential large-scale, big budget animated series based on his work. Just in case you don't know it, here's his website

Fo my piece, gimp bot girl, there was a computer set up in a bedroom where the audience were telling me to do things over Messenger. I was hidden away in a cupboard downstairs updating a webpage from their suggestions. There's an archive of it on my RobotGirl site

Ang Li was preparing food all night as his performance, then you cooked it in a little pot. I think the sitting around eating was more important than the food itself

Chris Henry Clarke stood on a bed and asked us to throw paper aeroplanes at his heart

James Robert Ford set up a Nintendo tournament/drinking game. This was quite a popular piece. We had to rush off to get the train, but I suspect this continued well into the night.

For larger versions go to my Flickr page

Liverpool Biennial

2006-09-15T21:20:00.000+01:00

Went to the Liverpool Biennial with Stu and met Ellie, then went to this ornate hotel where we had to pick up our packs, the artists and hotel guests mingling with much bemusement

Went to FACT which was a bit meh, although we got some amusement from Shilpa Gupta's piece where our shadows interacted with animated houses etc.

The Royal Standard was one of the recommended Independents at the Biennial, it's a really good artist run venue, in a great old blocky pub, lots of the art was nice too, including Marit Victoria Wulff Adreassen's strange little drawings and Sean Hawkridge piece, that can be seen at makes-giving-easy.com

Next was A Foundation, a massive space donated by James Moores (can you tell I've got gallery envy?). They had the New Contemporaries, Grizedale and Goshka Macuga's "Sleep of Ulro". This was a huge installation with lots of dream like elements: holes in walls with lenses to look through, mushrooms growing out of chairs, pirate hands in glass cases... you get the idea. Didn't get under my skin, but was impressive in some ways

Then met up with some others and went to St George's Hall for the speeches, that were actually held in a small hall then broadcast on a screen. Some people got given giant acupuncture needles. We got pissed on free wine.

There was a so-called "Chinese Pavillion" - we suspected they were putting the column up then taking it down repeatedly - and there was also a Hydro-electric dam made from egg shells (Ed and Ellie looking at it)

Outside there were some models of tramps on a van that had been driven around all day

(This is sounding a bit like a child's account of their Summer holidays) And then we went to see Grizedale Arts' performances, that were meant to be for a live webcast but I don't know anyone who got it to work. As we arrived back, Count Pollen was starting - Bedwyr Williams with the Numchuck Tudors (Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope), like a kind of Salem stand-up.

After making us wait about an hour, juneau/projects/ were doing their thing, in flashy embroidered (?) suits, playing songs (written by children, I believe) from their new album You Awake in a Forest

For larger versions go to my Flickr page

Ikon Eastside Picnic

2006-09-10T18:13:00.000+01:00

Didn't get many pics of this as my battery died, but there was loads of stuff going on at Eastside Green and in Curzon Street station.

Captain Ed was a shiny white clad master of ceremonies, introducing all kinds of sea themed loveliness including many shanties:

and David the mer-man read out a story that I didn't hear but the text can be found on his website

Richard did a solo proto-ballet which was ace as usual too.

Laundry's performance of standing around and then making strange, slightly Tai Chi movements was a bit like a communist dance cell

Later on we did an Insectoid audio performance, a few hitches but made kids stare which is always great, video here

And randomly, these are The Destroyers who were quite a hit with the public, they were in the seven inch cinema event the night before and the room was rammed

Larger pictures on my Flickr page

Contained Happening

2006-09-04T23:42:00.000+01:00

Contained Happening
Matthew Andrew, Ana Benlloch, Grag Cox, Caitlin Griffiths and Daniel Mort
Curated by Charlie Levine
International Project Space, Bournville Centre for Visual Arts, Birmingham Institute for Art and Design Maple Rd, Bournville, Birmingham, B30 2AA
Open to public Tuesday 5th Friday 8th September 2006 12-5pm

A couple of swells on the way to the show

David playing my interactive animation, flanked by Mariama and Stuart

Long and short view of the installation

Larger pictures on my Flickr page

Apparatus Phasmatis II

2006-08-25T23:31:00.000+01:00

Stuart did his AudioVisual performance again, at All Saints Church, Highcross Street, Leicester. Flickering ghost images from our old performances jumped around the space, moody organ music and chanting children moved from speaker to speaker.

He'd changed the music so he had more control over it, but was a bit pissed off cos he couldn't get the microphones to work and record live sound.

I was pretty stressed and out of it, apologies to those people I saw that night and just mumbled stuff while giving them a thousand yard stare.

Larger versions on our Flickr page

Only the Lonely...

2006-07-25T23:54:00.000+01:00

Ikon opening and launch party at Eastside, featuring Clippetyclop, a 'Country and Deafness' band featuring Aaron Williamson.

I got pissed and danced like a loon to their crazy covers, then ended up giving shoulder rubs to loads of people, god knows why.

Tract Penzance

2006-07-22T23:25:00.000+01:00

Tract organised by Newlyn Art Gallery and ArtSurgery at Jubilee Pool, Penzance Promenade

Eva Weaver - Mermaids Calling. The artist walked from Penzance station to the Pool, changing from a City Woman into a mermaid along the way.

Deep Blue by milgram , a site-responsive sound performance; mixing audio recorded from the site with samples made from the moves in the first chess game where a computer beat a reigning world champion.

Matt Hawthorn - Shanty (various inscriptions of objects) in this section he had small model boats in an umbrella and asked the public to throw them in the sea

Sarah Jane Pell performed Hydrophilia on the South Pier, Wharf Road, Penzance.

Her plastic helmet was filled with saline by an assistant who communicated with her in diving signs, and the trust between them was one of the most interesting things about the performance.

She breathed through a tube, making imploring movements and filling small bottles, and the endurance of trying not to drown herself, while freezing in the rain.

For larger images visit my My Flickr Page

Mark McGowan Festival

2006-07-16T21:15:00.000+01:00

at Space Station Sixty-Five, East Dulwich
Week One: Ideas Zoo curated by Dave Beech

This is by WebsterGotts, what the heck are these things that you stick your head through called?

WebsterGotts were playing golf all weekend, and kept losing the ball. They managed to look dapper while retrieving it anyway.

Webster (or maybe Gotts) managing to get ball inside for once

Gotts (or maybe Webster) making a tricky shot around a market

A variation of the golf game. WebsterGotts are Alexis Gotts and Scott Webster and apparently much of their work revolves around time wasting

Hester Reeve was hidden in the garden doing little sketches of ideas and then came out to a fanfare, putting them with the others,

then doing a little dance of triumph

Brian Dawn Chalkley read out things from her/his Transvestite Manifesto but we missed it, these are some remnants

Dave Beech & Tim Brennan, Mark Hutchinson discussed some theory and left these on the walls but we missed it too - it was very hot and difficult to get to ok?

here are some blurry snaps of John Russell's 'performance' of not pissing out of a window.

my Flickr

Drumz and Drones

2006-06-13T20:27:00.000+01:00

Dan Williamson and Phil Henderson did a performance in the Pink House in Brum with great squally noises and fucked up visual mixing. Mmmmm.

Dan was mixing video, stuff being filmed live and old, mangled tv or computer game stuff

Phil had some kind of old style keyboard, and odd stuff like a metal detector, to make noises when he put it over the other equipment

Sample image of the kind of visuals Dan was making, looks pink cos of venue

For larger pictures visit My Flickr Page

This video might take a while to load, its just a 30 second clip, but the performance went on for about 2 hours.

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Wizard Wars!

2006-06-11T23:17:00.001+01:00

Well, it finally arrived, it was very hot and pink, and filled you up good and proper. Here are a few fleeting images that cannot even begin to express the majesty of the event...

Human mortal males and females of the 21st century
Welcome to the netherplace
Welcome to the nowhere time
Welcome to the wizard wars

The Observomancer greets us

Baron Skellington and Beedork watched by The Observomancer

Beedork and Baron Skellington are introduced by the Observomancer

Beedork and Baron Skellington getting down

Beedork dancing

Jemimah Ghostlips holds aloft the Chalice of Rombok

Jemimah Ghostlips holds aloft the Chalice of Rombok watched by Baron Skellington and Beedork

Jemimah Ghostlips admires the Chalice of Rombok

Jemimah Ghostlips is distracted by Beedork's crazy mutant dance

while Baron Skellington sneaks behind her

However, Jemimah Ghostlips rebuffs Baron Skellington

and prepares to unleash her imaginary lions

You loved it, didn't you?

For larger versions visit My Flickr page

Visit Lucy's YouTube page for
Part One and
Part Two

Adonis & Astronomy

2006-05-14T18:05:00.000+01:00

Just a quick couple of images from Sideshow, Adonis Flores Betancourt is a very nice performance artist from Cuba, who did a few different things around Nottingham City Centre in his army outfit (he was a soldier for a while).

This one is by the castle, he stood in a pot for hours, completely still, it was quite unnerving.

Juliana Capes - The Pavement Astronomer. For a couple of days she joined up chewing gum into new constellations.

[insertspace]

2006-05-07T12:14:00.000+01:00

Conditions of Carriage

Don't ask me how, but I'd got stuck in Nottingham one day, nothing in particular to do, but not able to leave. In a lazy, directionless mood, I fiddled with an old bus ticket, only noticing after a while a picture of a chap in naval costume on the back. He seemed to be in the act of falling over from too much rum, or perhaps dancing a jig. I was just dismissing it as an insidious example of viral marketing, when I heard a sea shanty playing. I was a bit fazed by the coincidence, half worried that I had stumbled into a hallucinatory Village where lost sailors rubbed shoulders with ex-government agents. As I got closer I found two Captains reading salty tales to each other; in a world of their own where it was normal to be dressed for the sea in the middle of England and talking of the deep and not the shallow.

Trying to get to the bottom of this, I took a second look at the ticket. There was a website, but more intriguingly a tiny drawing of a crow, a fragment suggesting more. There must be some kind of secret treasure trail around the city. I got on a random bus, muttering "Two stops, please?" which seemed to work. Looking hard at my clue, I enjoyed the clever mimicry of a transportation infomercial, calling into question the nature of the journeys we are all on, it was so authentic it was... it was... it was just a normal ticket, wasn't it.

Still, I wasn't going to be put off, this might be an important part of the initiation process: the secret would only be revealed to someone who persisted. I tried again, a different line, another two stops. Painfully nervous, I turned the ticket over, but instead of gold I just got more of the archaic dot matrix style text that appeared on the front. This must just be some gibberish spewed out by a malfunctioning machine. I glared at it, furious that I was being ridiculed like this. My watery eyes seemed to be desperately trying to make sense of the image, as if I could make it resolve by an act of will into something, anything, like ... an old computer game screen, Space Invaders, or Galaxian perhaps. Although... it must be meant to look like that: there was the Captain's hand jutting into the edge and that same website! I was back on track.

Waiting for the next bus I scribbled down odd details and then more joy: an oddly familiar dove became a free-floating symbol of many things at once: capital, transcendence, peace. Surely a sign that I was reaching some kind of understanding, accepted by the forces behind this peculiar game. There were a few duds of course, but I resisted the urge to check with the drivers whether they had the funny ones with pictures on, and made notes on everything, now that I realised it was all part of a much larger picture.

The next trip showed me a piece of another ticket from another time, a real or imaginary cloakroom had been guarded with half a paper stag, tangled up in string. All I saw just led me right back to myself, I started to feel I was feverishly travelling the folds in my skull, colour and number coded for your convenience: lilac 23; red 45; orange 36. With too bright eyes and shaking hands I took my next slip. Two things slammed simultaneously into my forebrain: 1) A slogan: "We are all living/We are all dying" like the logo of some post-Benetton corporation mindfucking us with an Eros/Thanatos double bind; and 2) a tiny drawing of a crow. I'd reached the loop.

Dazed and illuminated, I realised that I didn't need to find a copy of the last frame with the two birds together: the fissure was more perfect, suggesting thousands waiting in potential. I'd thought this adventure would show me the sights, but instead I had been putting together pieces of a puzzle where I was a part of the solution. Daily waste had become a gift, but one that attached itself to me symbiotically, giving me as much as I was prepared to offer it back. Think of a whole city of commuters spending their journey meditating on these little poems. Thousands waiting in potential.

© Ana Milgram 2006 for Sideshow

[insertspace]

Sideshow artist-led initiative featuring exhibitions, performances and talks took place from 21 April - 25 June 2006 in Nottingham and the surrounding region
Captain Ed in Nottingham on Saturday 22nd and Saturday 29th April
[insertspace] talk: 5pm, Sat 13th May. The Old Moot Hall Inn, Carlton Rd, Sneinton, Nottingham, NG3 2DG

Sideshow Performances

2006-05-06T15:33:00.000+01:00

One of the great things about Sideshow (god I'm such a whore for the cause) is the performances, events and talks they have at the weekends. it means it really feels like an event that's going on for a couple of months rather than just a show you go and see.

This is Daniel Lehan - "Hide". He looks like a nice enough bloke, but he's watching your every move and typing it up on a scrolling screen above everyone's heads.

Phillip Henderson - "Balls: Divination". Massive build up then over in a second. 360 Ping Pong balls being dropped down a spiral staircase in a little library.

Dan Williamson - "Armchair Cut-Up". ...then put back together again

Stu leading us through the streets to another performance

Ayling & Conroy - "Fight for Sore Eyes". Yep, it did make your eyes sore, and your ears. Bonkers.

view larger versions

sLideshow Tour

2006-05-03T23:43:00.000+01:00

I do apologise if you're not at all interested in the arty goings on in Nottingham and Leicester at the moment, just bear with me, it's just that going to see shows is the closest I have to a social life at the moment, and I don't want to post blogs about staring at a computer screen trying to think of something interesting to say about a student's essay.

So, on this day in May I went on a tour round Leicester given by the lovely Chris, unfortunately no-one else turned up, but we had a super time, skipping around all the lovely sites and talking in an erudite way about art and so forth.

Museum on New Walk curated by Hugo Worthy. Artworks dotted around normal exhibits, mostly referencing the museum or art history system in some way. This was one of those 'clever' artworks, an imagined Beuys adaptarion of a Vuitton bag, there was a blackboard too.

Ayling and Conroy made this little tattooed bust of someone, not sure who, am I meant to?

Not part of the exhibition, but one of those baffling pieces of folk art as real art that places seem to commission. (Hint: it's the one on the right)

This was nice: a little pointless survey by "David Hume" (fishy name...)

Collages by Liz Rowe at Phoenix Art Centre, pictures don't really do them justice, they're really intense and need to be looked at up close.

We finished up at the Frog Island venue, where the show was organised by students and recent graduates of DMU. Chris convinced me that Frog Island was a Theme Park, and I was a bit disappointed to see that it was a slightly run down industrial area, but the warehouse they used was great:

Went back to City Gallery after that and discussed the event and artworks, getting slowly more heated as I got through a bottle of wine...

Tom Flintham at sLideshow

2006-04-27T20:55:00.000+01:00

Went to see some of Tom Flintham's paintings.

I liked them, they had bunnies

I think this might be what Henry Rogers would call a "knowing edge"

sLideshow

larger versions

Trapmaster: Journey Through The Vortex

2006-04-24T00:51:00.000+01:00

at the Samuel event. the Trapmaster readies himself for the task ahead

The Being and Spectroons do something spooky

This may or may not make more sense if you go here

For larger photos go to a.a.s. Flickr page

Added: Some videos, might take a while to open

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The Quatermass Code Talk

2006-04-23T23:22:00.000+01:00

Went up to Sheffield to do a talk about the installation in BLOCspace on the final day of it being open (although there is a special viewing at their 'fair' next weekend - 29th April)

Just cos I love pictures of it, here are some more:

Tom C made this panel and Alex S made films to be seen on screens in the helmet

Henry O's panel, flashing panel says "Human Decision Required"

Ed O's panel. Every now and then a binary stream comes out of the speaker, and if you swich to the phone it'll translate it into a message. Sometimes.

Drawing Board by Jo H and David N. There are diagrams of the Quatermass Code machine and how it sends the signal via satellite

Some animations by Antony Lopez on the screen

The Brainsmoothing machine, and old favourite that keeps cropping up

What a bunch of interesting looking stuff

Here are some people wandering around trying it out

Stu obviously impressed by the noises people are making with the equipment

As always, if you want to see larger versions of any of these go to my Flickr page

DOT Arena 2 (2)

2006-04-22T16:34:00.000+01:00

It's up now and looking lovely...

... although they are still working on some bits - but hey, what town isn't slightly under construction

There are paintings in some of the spaces, ones that would be cutely small in a normal show could be imagined as vast epics since your sense of scale is skewed

You can write stuff on the bench in the park, I wrote something on the back, wonder if anyone'll see it

Mable Cable made some scary dolls, one is the Elephant Man I think

The Council House

Library featuring a www.richardpeel.com comic

The Cherry Tree pub

Invisible sculpture by Jason Thomson, there are instructions and you have to imagine stuff

There's a window in the floor and you can look down at a garden with pool made by Tom and Alex

Flashing Lights and Remote Control!: RobotGirl - you can drive her around and make her do performances.

sLideshow Opening

2006-04-22T00:25:00.000+01:00

Hi there, another installment of the lazy photo blog, I promise I'll start actually using words more in the future, but I seem to be having a bizarre visual patch, ah well it has to happen to the best of us occasionally.

As part of sLideshow in Leicester, theres this archive of stuff to do with Leicester art upstairs at the City Gallery called the War Room

And there's an a.a.s. flyer as part of the archive! How exciting!

Don't know what this is all about, maybe it's meant to be a representation of the art struggle in Leicester.

Aftershow: Ed and Richard doing their thang again, we were all a bit tipsy on home made wine, but I'm sure it was great

For larger photos go to a.a.s. Flickr page

sLideshow on Myspace

sLideshow Website

DOT Arena 2

2006-04-20T10:17:00.000+01:00

Went to take my piece for the DOT cardboard Leicester that is in Sideshow (more on that soon). Here's a few snaps of the work in progress:

Sally and Ed working hard on the DOT reconstruction of Leicester in cardboard. People are doing artworks in this as well.

You can walk around, it's all different scale, and there are large buildings you can go inside.

Build still in progress

A lovely scene of Leicester

Some benches where Mable is going to do a piece.
There appear to be DOTs in the air, I think it's just a bit dusty.

DOT's Factory

Tommy's moon

Harriet holding up the sink she's making for the hospital

Not sure where this is, looks vaguely familiar, I should have checked all this...

DOT's version of Victoria Park, Leicester

Some DOT workers beavering away

to see larger versions go to my flickr page

more on DOT

more on Sideshow

A Stranger Drifts Into Town Or Someone Goes On A Journey Opening at mac

2006-04-16T22:34:00.000+01:00

Sorry I'm just posting pics from flickr at moment, but still a bit busy...

Ed and helpers constructing The FuncArt Walkway/Causeway:

People watching "Coffee, black, and a slice of cherry pie" by a.a.s.

Waiting room and Arlene's photo

tracing the route between the City Gallery, Leicester and mac, Birmingham

to see larger versions go to my flickr page

The Quatermass Code

2006-04-08T17:12:00.000+01:00

Important experiments proceed at Quatermass' control room

Volunteers help us with our trials

There is no cause for alarm

Planet People mill around but seem calmed by the noises and flashing lights

New clone in training

The experiment requires that you continue

News analyisis technology plus encoder/decoder

Scientist tests dream transmission unit

An NSA guard ensures everything is under control

to see larger versions go to my flickr page

The Conversation

2006-01-29T23:45:00.000Z

We did a live art event at the Ale Wagon in Leicester, where all the pieces related to conversation, based on the Francis Ford Coppola film. When you arrived, a.a.s. made you have a conversation with the person on the desk before you came in and took their place, waiting for the next person to arrive and have a conversation with you. Then you could go in.

Milgram were getting people to choose sentences from reel-to-reel tapes and trying to make a conversation from them

Niki started conversations about things he'd read in the local newspaper, John set up an interview situation and had a digital piece that can also be seen at GeekSpace, Dan did an audio loop of lines from the film, and Dave was teaching people how to say "I am an artist" in Japanese

It was a great evening all round, the theme of the show seemed to really make people want to have good conversations, which in the end was the best thing about the event.

Alisa Margolis

2006-01-23T11:49:00.000Z

Vilma Gold

The first thing that hits is the smell. Not that usual art gallery smell of MDF dust in the air from recently built walls, or the smell of the emulsion that covers them, but a heavy, pungent, oily paint smell hanging heavy in the air. The visual impact isn't far behind - mouth wateringly decadent swirls and eddies of colour rise out of the inky black canvasses like coral appearing out of misty aquamarine water, or nimbus clouds billowing out of endless azure skies, or the retina-scorching clarity of gas giants and moons against the dizzying nothing of space. Opulent flowers bloom against aged backgrounds that resemble old scarlet velvet, and schools of tropical fish hover on the edge of existing in the patterns and paintily flourishes. The effect is one of visual overload, in the best possible way - the eye becomes hungry for more of these treasures with their strings of stellar pearls and naggingly familiar forms made of drips and explosions of decadently drooled paint.

These paintings are so very beautiful, and yet so very overdone, that in the tension between abject appreciation and borderline repulsion I don't know whether I want to laugh, cry or throw up; but the resulting indecision allows me to gorge on them for just another few moments.

Alisa Margolis at Vilma Gold 12th Jan - 12 Feb 2006.
VILMA GOLD 25b Vyner Street, London. E2 9DG

T: +44 (0)20 8981 3344
www.vilmagold.com

Project 99

2005-12-19T20:45:00.000Z

Project 99 was a performance event that took place on the four Saturdays before Christmas 2004. Two art groups competed to sell the most artists' multiples from the back of ice cream vans. Each team selected 9 works, and 99 copies of each multiple were made. All items were priced at 99p, and made by professional artists.

The performances took place at Ikon, Brindleyplace, Birmingham every weekend, as well as other locations around Birmingham:

The Mailbox - 27th November
Craft Market, Lower New Street - 4th December
The Custard Factory - 11th December
mac, Cannon Hill Park - 18th December

27/11/04 a.a.s.	04/12/04 a.a.s.	04/12/04 d.o.T.b.
11/12/04 a.a.s.	18/12/04 a.a.s.	18/12/04 d.o.T.b.

Boats, Beds and Vomit

2005-11-20T18:38:00.000Z

Shot down to London for a meeting and some art:

"Like a Dog Returns to Its Vomit" Jake and Dinos Chapman (White Cube)

I really like the Chapmans, even though they seem to be going down a more "sellable" route by making things you can hang on your wall (if you want to create an atmosphere of a pervy art therapist's office). This show addresses the artists' relationship with art history, a kind of coprophagic vomit bath by the looks of it - shitting elegantly over Goya and children's drawing books alike. What makes this more than adolescent territorial pissing is the beauty they manage to create if you take the time to look for it.

White Cube

Paul McCarthy - LaLa Land Parody Paradise (Whitechapel)

There were lots of parallels between this show and the previous one, similar abused child doodling and detourned adverts. There's obviously a link too between the misplaced phalluses on McCarthy's pirates and some of the Chapman's previous sculptures (McCarthy's one of the victims of their Oedipal urges I guess), but some of his sculptures also reminded me of Ron Mueck's incredibly detailed work. Spookiest was an animatronic sleeping pig that moved uncannily as you approached it. The massive offsite installation based on a Disneyland ride took things to another level, but although it was undoubtedly impressive, it didn't really touch me, other than making me slightly seasick.

Whitechapel

"Her Noise" Curated by Lina Dzuverovic Russell & Anne Hilde Neset (South London Gallery)

This was a sound themed show by female artists, and most of the work was interactive. I'm doing a bunch of stuff about cover versions and Karaoke, and I've always had a bit of a thing about Sonic Youth's covers, in particular their weird Ciccone Youth stuff. I could barely contain myself when I realised the Kim Gordon piece ‘Reverse Karaoke’ asked us to fuck around on some instruments while a recording of her singing was played. Even better, we got to design a sleeve and keep a copy on CD, while one was left at the gallery too.

There was also a great humming bed that you could get in (Kaffe Matthews’s ‘Sonic Bed, Menu Of Five Pleasures’). It was almost... too nice... we really had to force ourselves to leave otherwise the gallery staff would have found us there at the end of the show, with our brains melting out of our ears. Christina Kubisch had some groovy headphones that you could hear electromagnetic waves with, and Hayley Newman made an installation of plasticine models of things used in Fluxus performances.

Her Noise Link

See Saw

2005-11-10T12:28:00.000Z

Show opened OK, good amount of people came, and plenty enjoyed being cruel to my digital character, the evil swine: 101: Do it to Julia. I think David organised the space well, and even though we only had a few areas to show things, it worked. The building is old and there are a lot of restrictions on what we can do there, it's obviously not designed for showing digital artworks, but the contrast between the architecture and technology added to the dreamlike atmosphere of the pieces.

Here's Milee Lee's Kung-Fu Picture, with Arlene and Leon checking it out:

and David Miller's Moving In Time

More on See Saw

Art Sheffield 05

2005-10-28T17:21:00.000+01:00

We did a performance at the Spectator T event, based on the Art & Language ideas of Spectators A & B and the Dave Beech addition of Spectator C

more info

The installation behind is based on a 70s doorbell

The curator (Gavin Wade) created a character called Tony T, a Slayer fan who doesn't like art. Jonathan dressed for the occasion.

Total GHAOS

2005-10-09T16:02:00.000+01:00

I went to the Reactor Party event on Friday, and I'm just starting to come out of the brainwashed haze I found myself in after I had been forced to stay in the asylum watching a re-education video at least 10 times until I could answer questions on it.

I'd been intending to infiltrate and subvert the system from inside, but it was all too big and confusing, and I ended up just wanting to be good and do what I was told.

I should probably explain that this was an interactive performance event, based on a faux-Communist system, where you had to work for credits to buy vodka and move up the levels to try to meet the beloved leader, or whatever else seemed a good thing to do at the time.

GHAOS

Fucking great stuff anyway, although, it was a bit difficult to tell where the lines were between pretending to be a fascistic, totalitarian system that fucked with everyone and actually being that. But of course that's one of the reasons I liked it. It's on today as well, but I couldn't make it, so I'll have to try to find out what happened at the end.

Hopefully they didn't mow everyone down for being subversive.

Post

2005-09-24T18:23:00.000+01:00

I was involved in organising this event at the Mailbox in Birmingham, was originally meant to be a summer long festival but because they kept changing the dates, it ended up being a day, with a few installations up for longer.

Greg Cox made sculptures out of wood and Formica and dotted them around the building

Absent Projects (David, Ian and Pam) measured and built odd stuff all day

Delpha Hudson from Rubber Glove being a slow shopper. Her friend was being a fast shopper, then they swapped

David Brinkworth providing musak for shoppers. He sang 'Close To You' and other easy listening favourites as well as performing with a Hen Party

Rosemary Keep Tile: She inserted a number of these around the space, they relate to the shops they are near.

Reuben James Preston's hanging sculpture

whatsthebigmistry and FuncArt: Priya asked people questions, and Ed built the trolley and helped out too.

larger versions on my Flickr page

BLOCassembly #1

2005-09-23T23:33:00.000+01:00

Did a performance with David Miller, where we filmed him whenever he wasn't watching something else at BLOCspace, Sheffield; 23rd September 2005

BLOC

Reactor Party

2005-09-15T09:58:00.000+01:00

Total GHAOS Preview Interview

On my travels around the Midlands I seem to keep seeing earnest groups of people wearing red and black, setting up tables, waving flags, and shouting through megaphones about the Reactor Party, Total GHAOS, and the evils of Rexism. I’ve been surprised to see people signing up to a manifesto they haven’t read in return for free badges and stickers, and wanted to know more about what was going on.

I've been hearing a lot about Total GHAOS recently. What is this, and how will we know when we get it?

Total GHAOS is Uncle Commi's vision for the future of the world. This Utopia is here and it is on Crocus Street, Nottingham. Total GHAOS is built on a foundation of egg boxes and powered by potatoes. Bicycle power-plants provide light and all GHAOS actors [i.e. the audience] are free together here NOW. It is open to you on the 7th 8th & 9th October 2005, we will then all know and it will be free to all to know. You do not need to get it.

You follow Uncle Commi, and despise Skepticus Rex, but how can we tell the difference between them?

Uncle Commi is our beloved leader, the discoverer of GHAOS. He consumed GHAOS and he is the most professional GHAOS Actor [i.e. the audience]. His I.C.S. . (Inner Conceptualising Space – Ed) is perfectly formed. We despise Skepticus REX, in all his forms; Skepticus REX is a cheating liar. He uses slight of hand and mind control to lead weak Cousins away to the deep river filled with piranhas. Sometimes Skepticus REX becomes invisible, this is a good way to find him if you are looking. If you do find him - crush him under your boot.

Who will be your leader? You have a free choice, as long as you choose Uncle Commi.

Why does everything have to be so black and white, surely there's room for people to find their own paths?

There are no paths, only one way. If there were paths they would all go the same way: The Reactor way, it is always the correct way. As the manifesto states,

"The Reactor Party is the only true source of authority within GHAOS, as such the need for formal Party sanctions is not contradictory to the principles of GHAOS, but is in fact a virtual necessity. Not to have sanctions would be to undermine the Party and suggest that the individual is totally responsible to and for himself. The reasons for the authority of the Reactor Party is not simply a matter of GHAOS, but is based on the perceptions of all GHAOS Actors [i.e. the audience]."

The true GHAOS Actor [i.e. the audience] should remember that if a seed falls on a path it will die. If a seed falls on The Reactor way, it might flourish and blossom the pink fleshy fruit of GHAOS. It's not so much black & white. It's more black, white, red, pink and grey – but as yet the Reactor Party has no official line on Michael Jackson's music.

You seem to offer GHAOS actors [i.e. the audience] freedom on the condition that they do what you say. Isn't that a bit contradictory?

All GHAOS Actors [i.e. the audience] are already free. But some believe they are not. Some are lead into isolation and non-participation. A weak GHAOS Actor [i.e. the audience] will stand in the corner or hide somewhere playing solitaire, or snake on their mobile. Doing as you wish is not freedom, we do not offer a condition that GHAOS actors [i.e. the audience] do what the Party says, only that if they do not join us NOW, they will later. As the manifesto states:

“Once all GHAOS Actors [i.e. the audience] understand and comply with their role within the Party, they will be free to follow the Party line and take action.”

I’m reminded of the Illuminatus Trilogy, where Chaos and Order are set up as opposing forces, but then seen to be part of the same system. What's the difference between GHAOS and Chaos?

In the beginning; the letter G is bigger than the letter C, it also spelt in capitals and therefore GHAOS appears to be more important than Chaos. Chaos may exist without any person's awareness of it. It does not necessarily come into being as a product of consciousness. Whereas GHAOS is the source and the product of engagement and participation. GHAOS is GHAOS and the forest is the forest. If a tree falls over in the forest, does the forest also fall over?

One of your proposals is “Search out and mercilessly destroy all seals.” What's your problem with seals?

The Seal is the natural enemy of the LYNX. On one fateful visit to the Earth’s surface, at a time when the Dark Arts were at their strongest, the Giant Red LYNX was captured by a gang of seals who viciously bit of it’s wings and left it for dead thinking that they had removed forever the LYNX’s ability for lunar exploration. Seals are there to be opened and broken. The correct action to take with a seal is to end it.

There’s something 1984 about all of this, but they seem to be playing a very subtle game under all the shouting and absolutes. Perhaps by becoming part of an exaggeratedly totalitarian system like this, GHAOS actors [i.e. the audience] become aware of how easily they are manipulated by the slogans and propaganda that are all around us. Or perhaps they really believe all this.

Maybe two plus two can equal five?

Maybe I could love Uncle Commi?

Total GHAOS came into being between 7th - 9th October 2005, Nottingham, UK

The Reactor Party are a splinter group of Reactor

Ticklish Subjects

2005-09-01T23:41:00.000+01:00

Had to rush back from a family event to get to the opening of the BIAD MA show, Ticklish Subjects which I had a piece of work in, because I'd been doing the Fellowship there.

My piece was called the Berners-Lee Research Facility and was a fictional installation of a fictional seminar room, showing a fictional website, from a fictional residency at a fictional university.

Reactor

2005-08-13T23:41:00.000+01:00

Function V

Experience One
I stood outside the gallery for a few moments longer than I would have normally. I'd never been to a Reactor Function event before, and despite myself I was nervous. I'd heard stories of people being taken off by shadowy figures and having unspeakable things done to them. I don't know if I was dreading this happening to me or if I ... wanted it ...
The masked figure at the door ticked my name off the list and let me in, and I realised that the entrance space was unusually full of people. We were being herded forward with no way to escape. There was the unnerving feeling that we were cattle being led to the slaughter.
I was surreptitiously given a way out - someone handed me a card offering me the chance to take part in a cultural experience, I snuck off up the stairs to a room covered with exotic fabric to be greeted by a man speaking an Asian-sounding language. Through gestures he led me through a series of rituals, answering my questions with polite but firm gibberish. I felt out of my depth and angry that I didn't know what was going on - echoing the experience of being introduced to rigid cultural practices as a child.
By the time I emerged, everyone else had moved into the main exhibition space with AuntyNazi barking arbitrary rules at them such as only ten people being allowed in the bar at one time, and announcing that the event had 'started'. The audience stood around with almost identical expressions of mild fear. I realised I probably shared this, and distracted myself by looking around.
The layout of the show was much like any ordinary exhibition, with individual performances going on in discrete areas, and the space as a whole had not been altered. Works included a picnic where audience members read a jumbled argument from an autocue; an artist who spent most of the event on the floor, moving at timed intervals; a man standing in an alcove turning with a camera in his mouth, his body partly obscured and recreated by screens; someone explaining how their plastic polar bear was a van; a rambling talk; and a (possibly) live typed commentary.
What really brought the event to life were the complementary performances by Reactor and AuntyNazi. The latter, with crude masks and loud proclamations demanded most attention, but if you focused on the surface alone you'd miss their own subversion of authority. Every demand for obedience to Health & Safety laws was accompanied by dangerous behaviour; every announcement of a new activity from the timetable was combined with muddled flicking through notebooks.

Meanwhile, in the background, Reactor could be seen ushering people through a door, followed by disconcerting bangs and screams; and moving scary-looking objects that seemed destined for use in violence and intimidation. Finally they shepherded us into a room, built up the terror by filling the room with smoke, and eventually let us escape into the street through a window.
Gratuitous non sequitur to be used as a quote: Lies, confusion and shouting - some of my favourite media.
© Ana Milgram 2005

Experience Two
Every now and then, for my whole life, I got this thing where I felt odd. The best way to describe it is to say that I felt like I was detached from the world like about a foot back from where I actually was. That and feeling like I wasn't myself. Whenever it happened I'd feel like that for several weeks before it wore off.
Then a friend of mine who sticks needles in me in the name of acupuncture told me there was a reason (a husband/wife block - whatever that means) and fixed it in about an hour.
So when I turned up to Reactor's Function V event (That's V for 5), guest curated by Auntynazi, feeling all husband/wife blocky and like I wasn't myself, what happened next was quite unexpected.
As around thirty "audience" members stood around on the slipway in the entrance to Spectacle, and while a guy in a cardboard mask (Luke) crouched, tapping a twelve foot length of drainpipe with a sledgehammer, another guy in a mask leapt up on top of a ten foot high pile of packing crates while introducing himself (Daniel) and Luke and the show while giving a general health and safety talk while the pile of crates swayed under his weight. During this time Daniel popped a lens from his glasses that fell to the floor and made a big fuss about it. A friend of mine called Ed bent down to look for the lens and I went over to help too. I can only guess that this was the reason why Daniel then leapt to the floor, threw his arm over my shoulder and proclaimed to the audience that I was called Steed. And it made sense.
It occurred to me later that Ed had worked with Reactor before and may have been an undercover performer.
One rule: Ten people maximum in the bar area at any one time.
At various intervals people could be seen both leading members of the audience out of the back door (we joked that they were being led off to a gas chamber) and carrying assorted objects through the gallery and out of the same back door; fire extinguishers, ammunition boxes, etc.
I found the whole experience quite disorientating, so therefore, for clarity...
Performances I actually noticed:
1] The main AuntyNazi performance of compering involving the renaming of audience members, announcements about the show, and dangerous health & safety announcements. Also, the bit where Daniel walked up and down gesticulating wildly while shouting "This is a background performance" and variations thereof for about five minutes.

2] A woman called Tina who had two TV/VCRs set up as autocues while she and various other audience/participants ate sandwiches while reading the dialogue aloud. I was so busy trying to remember to keep my mouth full of sandwich and keep up with the text that I have no idea what any of the dialogue was.
3] There was a woman in the bar area drawing portraits of people and, I think, talking to them, then sticking the pictures on the bar room wall.

4] A projection in the bar area appeared to be a description of people passing though the space, but someone told me it was playing off a laptop somewhere and was pre-recorded. I didn't believe them.
5] A guy dressed like a tired ballet dancer looking through a toilet roll; unrolling it as he turned in quarter turns while two videos played a live rotation and a recorded rotation of the same space.
There was one scary moment when Luke put his hand on my back and asked if I was ready, several times, in the dark. I wondered what was going to come. Then he rushed off to open the lift doors for...
6] A monologue by someone in a scary mask that sounded like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and Bill Hicks in the dark with a torch, but his mini disk broke down (on purpose?) and when he asked if it was ok I reassured him.
7] An attic space like a kind of ashram where a guy called Harminder was just ending whatever it was he'd been doing (I think Ana had seen him earlier).
I went outside to show someone what I thought was a red lynx on the building next door and noticed some reactor guys carrying the same fire extinguishers, ammunition boxes, etc. as earlier out of the back door again and putting them in the back of a van. "Oh, I see".
I pointed out to Jude (made up name) the security guard that at one point there were more than ten people in the bar area and he told me that most of them were reactor and therefore did not count.
The whole event was a very interesting experience that I still feel like thinking about more and that was a week ago. If there's ever a Function VI, I'll definitely go, but I still want to know if the woman in the red jacket who was on the phone all night was dictating what was being projected on the bar room wall.
The finale was frankly the best way of getting the audience to leave a show that I have ever seen. We were herded into a back room and locked in. There was red light, a box in the middle of the floor with hazard tape around it, and an announcer telling us there was a count down to something explosive. The box kind of exploded in a lame way, but then smoke started pouring in through a vent and I thought about the earlier gas chamber 'joke'.
Then a loading bay four feet off the ground was opened up onto the pavement outside and everyone clambered out onto the street. Baffled. I wasn't sure if I was still Steed or Stuart again.
© Stuart Milgram 2005

Reactor Function V curated by AuntyNazi at Spectacle Gallery, Works by Roman Alaska, Auntynazi, Joanna Callaghan, Tina Carter, Robin Close, Katherine Cooper, Katie Doubleday, Nick Holloway, Harminder Judge, Reactor and Jonathan Waring, Saturday 13th August 2005
Spectacle Gallery, 38 Freeth Street, Ladywood, Birmingham
www.reactorweb.com

www.spectacle-gallery.co.uk

Reactor Function V

2005-08-13T23:00:00.000+01:00

This was an event organised by Reactor but curated by Auntynazi, or some combination of that, I was never sure.

Great, chaotic evening, full of odd performances, and techniques to jolt you out of your usual patterns of behaviour.

full review here

Calum Stirling

2005-05-30T11:33:00.000+01:00

Mobilette at Vivid

You know how the first time you see an architect's scale model it really grabs you, the perfect detail, the way it plays with your sense of scale, of reality. For Stuart, this was when he was 15, on work experience at his local council. Of course he'd seen model railways and villages, but there's something precise and idealistic about an architect's model. Then in Taiwan recently we saw an architect's model of the gallery in which the model sat. We could almost imagine we saw tiny models of ourselves peering at a model of the model, and so on to infinity.

It wasn't until seeing the recent show by Calum Stirling at the new Vivid project space in Digbeth that we started thinking about how they represent a kind of fractal extrapolation of signs.

The key piece in the show was a model of a city commercial district on a revolving platform in a locked office. The model could be viewed through a window, but also via an old black and white CCTV set up back projected in the main space. Together with the accompanying music, the piece took on the feel of an atmospheric, European film - an impression reinforced by the German signage on all of the model shops.

There was other work in the show: a wall piece made from Renault radiator grill badges (The project space used to be an MOT/Tyre outfit); a video of fire hydrants; a wooden model of a Laptop; wood and metal constructions resembling seating; and a lightbox covered in a piece made from plastic bags. Although there were connections to be made between all of the works, they almost became a distraction from the strength of the signature piece.

This video installation had a particular resonance in this space. Because of the current regeneration of Digbeth into part of the "East Side" development, the model represents all architects' models in such areas of development and the video projection becomes a stage of magnification on way up to the scale of the city itself.

Oddly, while walking away from the show into town, we looked in a barber's shop window and saw a model of the shop in the window, with toy chairs and images cut out from magazines. I swear, if we looked from the right angle, we could see ourselves looking through the window.

Mobilette by Calum Stirling at Vivid 27 May - 4 June 2005
VIVID, 140 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham. B9 4AR

T:+44 (0)121 766 7876
www.modelcitizen.org.uk

www.vivid.org.uk

Gary Seven

2005-05-13T11:28:00.000+01:00

The Custard Factory, Birmingham

I have this clear memory of having this recurring dream when I was a kid where I was running along the beach with a dog (I don't own a dog and never have) and there was this feeling of dread like I knew something bad was about to happen. I was watching myself in the dream as I got closer and closer to the jagged remains of a broken bottle point up in the sand. At the point where I was just about to tread on the glass, I would always wake up. The point about telling this story is that I later discovered that this was in fact a Government Information Advert that was aired repeatedly in the 1970s when I was growing up. I had the memory filed in the wrong area of my brain or something.

When I went to the Custard Factory Gallery to see the Gary Seven show, curated by Ana Benlloch, I had feeling the same thing had happened again. Gary Seven was a character from the second season of Star Trek (The Original Series), from the episode 'Assignment Earth'. The Character and his assistants; a transmogrifying (Transmoggyrifying?) black cat/woman called Isis, and a ditsy blonde 'hippy' called Roberta were obviously designed as characters for a spin off Gary Seven series, but Paramount decided not to take up the option. Enter a team of Writer/Directors that had experience of working on a Sci-Fi TV series from early Doctor Whos and Gary Seven became British.

Throughout the Seventies and early Eighties, Gary Seven had a small, late night cult following on BBC2, but was axed after an unpopular attempt at a Dr Who style regeneration into a new leading man.

The work in this exhibition refers back to the original episode of Star Trek and the British TV series and features fake TV adverts using a 'Donovan Masters look-alike' (the leading man in the series), a replica of a special effects workbench, examples of outsider/fan art (cardboard and gaffa tape phasers), a black plastic tunnel full of blue fog, and interviews with extras and security guards from the British studios where the series was filmed.

The overall ambience of the show is added to by Stuart Tait's audio work constructed from sound effects from the original Star Trek episode, and a bank of spotlights set up to resemble a lighting rig from a stage set. As I moved around the space a projection of images from Assignment Earth by James Preston flipped and changed on a wall projection and it took me a while to figure out that there were about a half dozen PIR sensors triggering the images to change as I moved between them. I tried standing still and it came up with images of a white computer screen from the same episode.

Works featuring in the show were displayed under names such as Will Fifty Six, Stuart Eight, Justin Zero, as a device referring back to the series. By the end of the show, I was beginning to remember the feeling I used to have when I was allowed to stay up and watch Gary Seven as a child, and was disappointed to be told it was entirely a fiction. At least it wasn't an advert this time. But this is.

Gary Seven curated by Ana Benlloch was at The Custard Factory 9th - 15th May 2005
The Custard Factory, Gibb Square, Birmingham. B9 4AA

T: +44 121 224 7777
anabenlloch.net
Gary Seven Exhibition
aasgroup.net

My life with Gary Seven

2005-05-09T20:24:00.002+01:00

I curated the Gary Seven exhibition at the Custard Factory, Birmingham (9 - 15th May) with some of the students from BIAD in it, as well as other artists. It was based on the 60s Star Trek episode Assignment: Earth. This featured an agent called Gary Seven, his intelligent cat and assistant Roberta. It was designed to be a spin off series, but never made it. I wanted to give it a life outside of this, fulfilling it's potential in some way.

more about Gary Seven exhibition

Review of Gary Seven exhibition

Crow

2005-04-14T23:10:00.001+01:00

14th - 21st April 2005
Custard Factory, Birmingham

Group show of 92 images of crows curated by Stuart. He arranged them in a kind of taxonomy to do with the medium.

Read the text I wrote for the exhibition catalogue here

tba*

2004-11-24T23:47:00.001Z

This was an exhibition of new work created on the opening night with the audience that we did with John R at the Cockpit (which is now called Spectacle)

we got them to sit an exam, make paper planes, get videoed saying a phrase, etc

more on tba* here

Mike Nelson

2004-07-01T11:23:00.000+01:00

Triple Bluff Canyon at Modern Art Oxford

The purple walled corridor, low-lit and thick with the smell of paint, is a brief, claustrophobic space, and an entirely convincing illusion that leads directly into another. An octagonal room, deep maroon walls alluding to a kind of tatty opulence, presents a simulated choice of exits. Of the four available doorways (all identical, and glassed with mirrors), one leads backward, and two are locked. Where am I? Some kind of between space. An elaborate magic trick, dusted with perfect detail. The fourth door leads us backstage, and the bluff is revealed: behind those maroon walls, we realise the octagonal room is a space within a space, constructed of a wooden frame and boards. Looking at the raw back panels it's hard to believe they contain such a convincing illusion. With the same materials so often used to create flat painted surfaces, Nelson's octagon is not walked past but walked through; not looked at, but lived.

Upstairs, we find a reversal of the previous situation - rather than finding a way out, we are looking for a way in. A reconstruction of a cluttered workshop or studio, built in a similar manner to the octagon. In a film projected large against one wall, an American 'conspiracy theorist' states his complex world view, stacking warped perceptions, accusations and half-truths into a complex construction all of his own. From some angles, we see the film framed by Nelson's studio. The table, covered in books and magazines, an electric fan and a stool, juts into the frame. We can feel Nelson crunching through the gears of his various techniques, culminating in this very precisely tangled mess of constructs and concepts.

A ramshackle wooden tunnel forms an unexpected and incongruous entryway, cutting through a huge heap of sand that almost reaches the gallery ceiling at some points. The sand trickles and moves from time to time, glowing in the diffused light from the skylight and the perfect white walls. The room is pregnant with atmosphere, serene, surreal and expectant. Moving on, we see the inside of a wooden shack, sand cascading through the long broken windows. The gallery space has been divided, bent, torn and reworked: we have to detour back through the previous rooms to see the outside of the shack, perching half-buried on a spectacular reconstruction of a sand dune. These locations have a pervasive feel of decay and abandonment that plays against the obvious intricacy of their construction - once again, the illusion revealed, this time at the exact moment it is activated.

Nelson has filled the gallery with matter and meaning way beyond its capacity. Further investigation only adds to the undulating landscape of reference points, inflections and half glimpses: Triple Bluff Canyon continues to change around me long after I have left the gallery.

Triple Bluff Canyon by Mike Nelson at Modern Art Oxford 8th May - 4th July 2004
Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP

T: + 44 (0)1865 722733
Modern Art Oxford

Brainlove Mike Nelson interview

Guardian review (Adrian Searle)

Mike Nelson is represented by Matt's Gallery, London

Andrew Sheppard and Sophie Taylor

2004-04-06T11:19:00.000+01:00

Japan Reflections

'Japan Reflections' is an exhibition of photographs taken by Andrew Sheppard and Sophie Taylor while enjoying a prize they won by sweeping the board in Fujifilm's annual Seven Brides photographic awards. The prize was 10 days in Japan as well as a tour of the Fuji factory and a chance to meet with some of Japan's leading photographers.

Tell me how the project first came about, and a little of your history and what you do.

Jess Morgan (curator) : Andy and Sophie approached me with a catalogue of photo's they took while on their trip. From the wealth of images they had (about 3-4 albums worth) I realised the potential for a show. Andy wanted the shots to have a life outside of their album but was unsure as to the potential of the work. Once they had secured a show with us there was no stopping them. Andy wanted to try something new with his images and between us we picked a selection form the main body of work and he had them all printed onto canvas. This has given the works a new added dimension and made them even more special.

Andy Sheppard : The project came about as my associate photographer Sophie Taylor and myself were overall winners of the Fujifilm wedding photographer of the year in 2002. in this competition you had to submit 3 images from one wedding and each of the three had to feature the bride. To make it different on our winning entry we had just the bride & grooms hands as they exchanged rings and the brides foot and hand during the service with the ring symbolishing the wedding and the confetti on the floor. During 2002 Sophie & I were motivated by the chance of winning such a fantastic prize which was 10 days in Japan.With every wedding we photographed the chance that we might win this fantastic prize motivated us to try different photography and experiment with abstract styles.

When and where did you arrive in Japan, and where did your travels take you?

AS: We arrived in Japan in April 2002 we were based in Tokyo and travelled to meet various Japanese photographers and discuss styles of work and compare trends and fashions within the photographic industry. We also had discussions with Fujifilm at there head office. We are very proud because as a direct result of are meeting Fuji agreed to test the UK Market for a Chromagenic Black & White film which we worked with them on our return to the UK (Neopan 400CN). We also visited the Fujifilm production site and lots of the beautiful temples and stunning architecture in around Tokyo.

Did you have any predetermined ideas about what you were looking for?

AS: We wanted to take images that reflected the life and the culture of the people and the sites of Japan, looking at differant viewpoints to those the normal tourist would take.

Do you see this work as documentary photography?

AS: I must admit we didn't have this in mind at the start of the visit. Although we are both inspired by the work of Cartier Bresson and his amazing ability to capure a moment in time. Also inspired by the work of Dorethea Lang which can show so much expression and tell a complete story just from an image. Looking at the results I guess what we are inspired by comes through in the images we took.

'Japan Reflections' at The Gallery April 5th - May 9th 2004
The Gallery, Stratford Leisure & Visitor Centre, Bridgefoot, Stratford On Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6YY

T: +44 (0) 1789 268826

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

2003-11-23T11:08:00.000Z

PS1


	Dirty White Trash (With Gulls), 1998

Tim Noble & Sue Webster are famous for working with trash. They are famous for other things too, like getting on TV and telling an old couple to fuck off (on the life-swap programme ‘Living with the Enemy’), or for wearing leather jackets and looking like pop stars. As you might expect, lots of art people don't take too well to this kind of thing - their work was dismissed in many quarters as shallow gimmickry and over-simple attention seeking. "This is rubbish!" you imagine the oldster traditionalists screaming, arms thrown in the air in affected outrage, "is this what Art has become?" Of course, they have lots of fans too, who admire them for their faux-punk attitudes and take-no-shit style. Tim & Sue are second generation yBa's, shameless self-promoters, ligging and ad-libbing their way to success - one of their first notable pieces ("Hijack", 1994) was a series of fly-posters featuring their faces plastered over those of Gilbert & George accompanied by the words "Tim Noble, Sue Webster, The Simple Solution".


Forever, 2001

Tim and Sue operate using the language of trash and glamour, pop culture, neon, and kitschy romance. Their main body of work is built on their shadow sculptures – piles of everyday refuse painstakingly organised to cast detailed shadow self-portraits against the gallery wall. It’s an impressive craft. They also make neon signs, like Tracey Emins, but bigger and more Vegas. At PS1 their neon piece, spelling out the word “Forever”, dominated an entire room with its flickering blue-purple-red rhythmic pattern. There’s a kind of sentimentality about this work that is offset by the possibilty of it being ironic in some way. Forever how? Forever until someone takes the plug out when the exhibition comes down?


	Dollar Sign, 2001

There’s another neon piece in the shape of a ‘$’. It’s attractive, casting pretty light shapes onto the walls of the darkened space. It resists any immediate interpretation because of the ubiquity and blandness of the dollar symbol. It might not be the most revealing piece of work, but the tension between the attractice flashing lights and their possible meaninglessness is hypnotic. It holds your gaze even though you think maybe it's a bit shallow and simplistic. You can't help liking it as you walk away thinking "so what?"

"The New Barbarians" is a sculpture, from ages ago. It was conceived by Tim and Sue but the actual making was done by other people. This may really get some people's goat if they don't understand that having ideas and making them happen is an essential part of being an artist, regardless of whether you physically make anything. But maybe these kind of people would like 'The New Barbarians' anyway because it looks like a nice, well-made sculpture. The idea is simple. Two neanderthal figure amble towards you, naked, over-long arms dangling at their side. Their faces look like a Duane Hanson sculpture of Tim and Sue - that is, clearly recognisable but malformed to look odd.


The New Barbarians, 1997-99

The New Barbarians represent humans as crude, basic, animalistic, curious... they deflate the arrogance of the 'paragon of animals' view of humanity. But at the same time, these Barbarians are touching, walking out together, naked and brave. They are semi-formed, simplified creatures. This piece was made between 1997-99 - perhaps this is Tim and Sue's pre-millenial gesture, humanity walking onward in curiousity and ignorance. I can't help wondering if this work will be remembered in a few years as great, iconic art that really spoke of its time, or as the arse end of the yBa hype. I hope it's the former - beneath their deceptively flippant ego act, Tim and Sue are making some fascinating stuff.

© John Brainlove 2003

Tim Noble and Sue Webster at PS1 October 12 – December 29, 2003
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, 22-25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave in Long Island City, 11101, New York

T: 718 784 2084
www.ps1.org

Mike Nelson

2003-07-02T11:02:00.000+01:00

Interview

Mike Nelson creates large, sprawling installed environments that completely transform the interior of any space they inhabit. From the construction of rooms themselves (Nelson's installations often take the form of a series of rooms built within a space) to the vast array of objects that inhabit them, these are theatrical, experiential, absorbingly detailed pieces that defy easy interpretation. You can find yourself, in just a few steps, travelling between a banal office space (complete with working PC, desk, plants, plug sockets, light switches) to the inside of a garden shed (petrol smell, old tools, planks, nails, rags) to an empty room bathed in eerie red light. Both disorientating and mesmerising, Nelson's work invites the viewer to lose themselves not only in the maze-like constructions but in the myriad of associations and interpretations they offer.

Nelson is currently represented by Matt's Gallery in London. He was nominated for the Turner Prize and represented England at the Venice Biennale (both 2001), and has since exhibited at the ICA in London and the 2002 Sydney Biennale. The installation "Lionheart" has been purchased for the collection of the New Art Gallery, Walsall, and will be on display 25th July-14th September 2003.

Is the element of surprise important to the viewer's experience of your work?

Not always, say with a piece such as "To the memory of H.P.Lovecraft" (1999) it was - I'd hung a heavy steel re-enforced door at the entrance to the gallery, inside I had demolished everything up to the height that the unseen beast could have reached which had fictively tried to eat itself out of the white cube, whilst it emulated the subtitle of a Borges short story; a kind of parody of a parody. Here the scene was quite surprising, stepping off the street in that most gothic of cities Edinburgh, the scene was of utter rabid devastation. "Tourist Hotel" also used surprise in that it gave the viewer a fake or misleading main exhibition, the real bulk of the show (which looked less like "Art") being squeezed into and underneath the stairs and mezzanine of the Douglas Hyde gallery in Dublin. However, Lionheart does not use surprise in such a way, partly because to some extent it is less a built environment for a particular space, and more an autonomous object of sorts. Surprise is a good narrative device. It cannot replace a piece of densely well written description or prose, it can enhance or punctuate it.

"Lionheart" seems a piece full of suggestion, a kind of visual fiction to be pieced together by the viewer. Do you see this as narrative or leaning more towards the surreal?

The two terms are not mutually exclusive, but I would say that narrative is the element that forms the structure for the piece. If you wanted to compare it in terms of art historical terms there are many that could have some pertinence. In terms of how I perceive the piece being read your description is quite accurate; the piece was made in 1997 at a point when I had developed a way of working which used the construction of a hybrid script to create an object or environment through which the viewer could access the essence of the piece but still relate it to their own experience or history - their own script. I was also particularly interested in the resonance of an object that knows why it's there even if you don't. This is something that I think you will find in the work of Paul Thek through to later artists such as Mike Kelley, and often appears like, or is, the detritus of a performance.

Do you want people to forget they are in an art gallery when they look at your work?

I want them to slip between that self-consciousness of looking within an art gallery and a more meditative state where the act of movement and viewing absorb to the point where the visitor is reading the work sub-consciously or storing the information to be re-read later, maybe within a context that makes sense of the information at some time in the future.

You have said that your work requires a "particular chemistry between the installation and it's location". Does this make the reconstruction of works in a new space difficult?

I don't actually remember having said that. However, there is often a relationship between the work and where it was made. This does not undermine the work when the piece is re-installed, it may change it, and different pieces are affected to varying degrees. When a work is remade or re-installed its status is changed, especially when it is put into a museum collection, it becomes historical, like a document, it speaks of its time and place just like a painting by Goya or Barnet Newman would.

How carefully do you pick the objects you use in an installation? Is there any element of randomness to what goes in?

I tend to be looking for certain objects or materials when I'm building a piece, obviously within that equation with the type of materials I use there is a huge element of chance as to what you find at that given time and location. Lionheart was built at the time of the 1997 general election, and was constructed out of materials that came from places other than the country they were collected in: Materials from London were collected and transported in the back of my pick-up to Bremen in Germany where more materials were collected. I also took a trip to Helgoland, an island in between England and Germany, where materials indicative of that place were gathered. The materials were very indicative of the countries and there current geo-political position at that point. The London materials were from a very wide and eclectic range of countries reflecting our colonial history, whereas the German material was predominantly from Turkey and the East of Europe reflecting the trade routes that had reopened since the fall of the Soviet Union several years earlier. Helgoland's relevance was that it is a piece of literal common ground between the two countries, not only in geographical terms but also in that ownership of the Island had changed hands between them; the British swapping it with the Germans for Zanzibar at the end of the 19th century. Lionheart was built to resemble a notional island.

Your use of surrounding contextual material (e.g. the book accompanying the ICA show, handouts and essays) suggests that you want to make your installations harder to pin down rather than easier...

You say that as if it is a bad thing. I think it should perhaps be re-phrased as opening up the possible frame of reference. I think the book; "The Forgotten Kingdom" was a generous accompaniment to the ICA show, all the texts within it were relevant to the piece or previous pieces and existed as another layer of reading to the works. It was seen as a kind of reader to "Extinction Beckons" my previous book and to "Magazine" the book I have just put out.

Is there a perverse pleasure in transforming the corridors of somewhere like the ICA into a grubby 80's-style amusement arcade? Do you enjoy toying with people's expectations of certain institutions?

In that particular case yes, it was so close anyway all it needed was a little push.

Do you see being nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 as a largely positive or negative experience?

It was exactly as I imagined, once nominated its inevitability negates all discussion of pros and cons.

What do you have planned for the digital piece you are making for www.e-2.org?

The piece demands that I don't discuss the potential workings of it in detail, it has been going on for some time now and as it does history and technology complicate its completion.

What other projects do you have coming up in the future?

I converted a 1954 GMC bus into a Red Crescent mobile hospital come veterans opium den in San Francisco recently, which hopefully is moving to New York in September. Also in September I shall be in the Istanbul Biennial, and next year I'll be doing a show at Modern Art Oxford.

Mike Nelson was interviewed via email 2/7/03 for fusedmagazine.

B.OPEN

2002-08-23T10:58:00.000+01:00

Baltic Centre

Welcome to the Baltic. A vast new centre for the arts, and the latest in the increasingly ambitious series of 'urban regeneration' projects brightening up many of North England's post-industrial cities. The Baltic building was a huge disused flour mill right on the southern bank of the river Tyne - in it's new incarnation a Tate Modern-esque cathedral to contemporary art.

It's impossible not be impressed by the size of the regeneration project. From the 'blinking eye' pedestrian bridge that leads over the Tyne to the magnificent Baltic interior, they've done a damn good job. It's impossible to fault the Baltic for it's ambition. Of course, all this has very little to do with the art in it's opening show, B.OPEN.

(l) Carsten Holler, Neon Circle (2001) / (r) Jane and Louise Wilson

Initial signs are not good. On the way over the bridge we spot a few fairly ordinary Julian Opie efforts - big people symbols in the style of a public information sign. And as usual, I can't fight the initial 'so what?' reaction this work inspires. Big plastic people reduced to a symbol... and? It's just soooo 1999.

Navigate your way past the first wave of shops and restaurants and you're rewarded with a big B.ORING flashing lights installation (above) that fails to engage. It's supposed to alter your perception of the space apparently. But in my experience most of the things in any given space do that without being big, expensive and flashing on and off annoyingly. Good for the kids though.

Jane and Louise Wilson's work isn't so good for the kids. 'Dreamtime' is another one of their snail-pace exploration movies. Many people like this work. I'm not one of them. I remember being nonplussed by everything they've done except an early work in which a gaunt figure floated around the space in question like a ghost. No such fun here - this piece demonstrates just how boring the (intrinsically exciting) US space programme can be if placed in the hands of overexposed London video artists.

I feel like I'm having an allergic reaction to this art. Why am I failing to engage with it properly? Is it the size and spectacle of Baltic distorting my experience of the work? Or is this show just below par? I think about it as I go up the wobbly metal stairwell to the next floor.

Some large gongs that were supposed to be here have already been removed. Shame, as I liked the idea of all that noise reverberating around the gallery. A performance by a Japanese artist who ties bread to his body has long since passed. Maybe he was the only bread-related artist they could find. There are some anonymous photos with a sport/ ballet thing going on. This work has put me in an unkind mood somehow, tarnishing my initial enthusiasm with listlessness. More large Opies that may as well not be there. People mill around, attempting to inject them with some significance. They fail, and leave. Am I being lazy in looking at them this way? Or are they really this vacuous? Probably both. I move on.

Chris Burden, famous for being a radical live artist in the Seventies, has made some Mechano bridges including a scale model of the Tyne bridge (the real bridge is visible from the 4th floor gallery window). This is a project that engages primarily through it's industriousness - the bridges are interesting from the craft angle, and look like they took a long time to make. One interesting thought is the way that artistic process relates to that of actual labour. They are interesting, but I can't help thinking Chris Burden used to be a hell of a lot more interesting.

I feel a little cheated. The building is a lot more interesting than it's contents - let's hope that Baltic can put together some more coherent shows to start justifying that monstrous price tag.

B.OPEN: Chris Burden until October 6; Jane and Louise Wilson until September 1; Carsten Holler until August 26; Julian Opie until October 13 2002.
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead Quays, South Shore Road , Gateshead. NE8 3BA
T: +44 (0)191 478 1810
www.balticmill.com

John Russell

2002-06-13T10:52:00.000+01:00

The Collagist

(l) The Collagist advert image / (r) "Silver" 2002

Excerpts from press release -
"Aesthetics have exploded beyond their traditional institutional confines and ART IS CALLING INTO QUESTION its own status. Works of Art have lost their aura. Art is NO LONGER SEPARATE TO THE REST OF EXPERIENCE. Art has seeped out from under the gallery door. WARNING: Boundaries are being blurred and audiences are WIDENING. It's a VAST AND TERRIBLE ARTISTS' PLACEMENT SCHEME out there. A cat which had been lying on the wall, spews forth a green torrent of putrescent AESTHETICISM, teeming with reflected images of TORTURE and child slavery, sex and the tears of the obsessed. The street is knee-deep in blood, patrolled by a thousand sculptures - huge obelisks with connected body parts and FEMINIST INSTALLATIONS. A group of YORKSHIRE MINERS are fighting mutant children."

.....

"There are a thousand Richard Serra sculptures and Louise Bourgeois Spiders silhouetted against the sinking sun. The sky is black. "WE ASK FOR YOUR COOPERATION AT THIS TIME ... PLEASE REMAIN CALM" ... Our eyes watch the spectacle. An exact replica of Mona Hatoum's body filled with maggots is conducting traffic and organising contra-flow systems. More and more, boundaries are being blurred and ACCESS is WIDENING - Barriers are disappearing. Gangs of SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE ARTISTS are hunting in packs down the Marylebone Road. THE MELANCHOLIC, IRONIC, ROMANTIC ARTISTS are musing over images of what-cannot-be, and of what-never-was but talk of what-might-be-but-never-can-be, one of them is carrying a carefully protected WEAK FLAME OF HOPE which flickers IRONICALLY in the cold wind."

The press release for John Russell's 'The Collagist' is a massive thing, a complex, rambling piece of philosophy-fiction-nonsense-theory-nightmare that forms a parallel with the cut-up image/context jigsaw technique that makes up his collages. It rants about the state of contemporary art, the closing of the traditional art/ mass cultural divide, oscillating between a statement on postmodern art and a Burroughs-esque cut-up horror story. If the effect of the bland, institutional statements that Russell lampooned in BANK's 'press release' show is to close down possibilities by spoon feeding meaning, then the effect of this press release is the opposite. Meaning seems to evaporate as soon as it is formed, or change from one image to the next, until inconstancy becomes the meaning.
The collages themselves are large (1x2m) glossy computer prints consisting of cut-and-pasted Photoshop imagery and backgrounds. The prints include printed frames around the outside - some ornate, gold and decorative, some plain strips of colour. These borders seem to oppressively contextualise the images, as if to remind us of the baggage that comes with looking at them. The are very self-aware objects, never letting us forget what they are - the weight of art history and theory has been put on display along with the work. The works are titled after the colours of their "frame" borders, suggesting that these strips of colour are more important than the actual content of the image - everything we see in these images is subject to the oppressive contextualisation that exists elsewhere. Perhaps this is what the press release refers to in it's portrayal of the art world as an apocalyptic horror story - things have become so tangled and unclear that 'making sense' doesn't seem to make sense any more.

"Green/Blue" (2002)

This uncomfortable context-content relationship underlines the work's subjectivity and interdependance with everything else that is going on around it. The use of other artists' work can be construed as satirical - in "Green/ Blue" (above) Jake and Dinos Chapman's sculpture becomes a drooling, hilarious B-movie monster, making us wonder how we could ever have taken it seriously in the first place. By appropriating images of other artists' work into the context of his own, Russell reframes them outside of their usual reassuring critical setting, opening them up to new lines of interpretation - and criticism.
How all these ideas and images fit together is not exactly clear (why does Peter Frampton have a giant bird head?) - but perhaps that is one of the points Russell is attempting to make. I think John Russell wants to portray some kind of truth in this work - and if the truth happens to be confusion, then so be it.
© John Brainlove 2002

The Collagist by John Russell at The Trade Apartment from 25th May - 29th June 2002.
The Trade Apartment, 404-408 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, London SW9 8LF

T: +44 (0)20 - 7733 8181
www.thetradeapartment.com

Levis

2002-02-03T10:37:00.000Z

Art into Advertising

A young man stands in a brightly lit room, turns, and runs straight through the wall... it explodes at his touch. He keeps running, flying through more and more walls, unstoppable. A woman appears running next to him, exploding into the scene in a shower of rock and plaster. They pause, panting, and look at each other... then run straight through the side of the building. Suddenly they are running vertically up the trunks of two giant trees. They jump... upwards, outwards, away from the earth, into the sky, and space. Not only bent on escape from the confines of their prison, they have escaped even from the confines of the planet. Its beautiful, ultra-modern, hi tech melodrama set to an arrangement of Hendel. Every time I see this piece of film, the final moments make my mouth drop open with amazement.

Which is quite often at the moment. The film has been on heavy rotation on C4 and ITV, because it's the latest Levis ad. Which means, of course, that it probably isn't art after all. It was devised by a bunch of advertising guys, and that amazing final scene is plastered over with the 'engineered jeans' (the ones with the funny diagonal cuffs that nobody likes) logo, 'freedom to move'. The freedom on offer isn't at all obvious, unless it's the freedom of the Levis company to appropriate art language in order to try and flog jeans.

A little investigation via the Levis website reveals that film is entitled "Odyssey", and directed by Jonathon Glazer, the music video director and creator the gangster flick 'Sexy Beast'. It brings to mind a similarly flashy piece by Chris Cunningham, commissioned for the Royal Academy's 'summer blockbuster' exhibition Apocalypse. In Cunninghams piece, entitled "Flex", a man and woman physically batter each other, brutal, naked, in some kind of life or death struggle. No motives are revealed for this slightly sickening fight but a primal instinct of some kind. The film is striking for its beautiful imagery, and also for its lack of content... what you see is what you get.

Cunningham and Glazer serve as an interesting examples - they represent a new group of commercial/creatives who make extremely striking, artistic works in the field of advertising (presumably for large piles of cash). Cunningham created Sony's famous "Mental Wealth" Playstation campaign (featuring a girl with a CGI altered face) and has directed music videos (notably Portishead, Bjork, and Aphex Twin), but in interviews has stated that he sees no boundary between his commercial work and his art-context work. On the other hand, artist Simon Faithfull (co-director of e-2.org) was recently quoted as saying -

"An artist may sometimes earn money through design work but an artwork is not a solution to a design brief and so I wouldn't see commercial web design as art." (BBCi, 'Well Connected Art')

This a sentiment which directly opposes the idea of these two directors' work as art. Their films are undoubtably pre-approved and heavily storyboarded existing, as they do, in a primarily commercial context.

Many artists seem to simply not care about using commercial money where it is available, shrugging off ideological concerns (e.g. Absolut Vodka's commissions, Tracy Emin's gin advert). But the broader academic dialogue, based in Marxism, Adorno's ideas of the 'Culture Industry', and more recently Naomi Klein's work, suggests otherwise.

Can corporations function as benevolent sponsors of the arts, or does their underlying agenda to hijack culture by imbuing their product with cultural value make the relationship damaging rather than supportive?

Yes. They usually have too little idea about art to be able to "hijack" anything. Your question is phrased with the assumption that this is what they want to do, when in many case they only want to show that their company is "putting money back in the community" and they don't care too much where, as they have to spend a certain percentage per year, showing the public at large that they are not just there to make money. The problem occurs when the curator THINKS they have to pander or indeed anticipate the sponsor's (often imagined) objections and present a self-censored programme. In the end if the curator thinks they are being manipulated, they are perfectly able not to go ahead with the event. However most of them will have put their self promotion ahead of ethical or cultural intergrity and will of course go ahead with it. They will be very proud to have organised a show sponsored by Becks and Sony, as it will make the show seem more official/established/important. I therefore argue that the curator's/ organiser's underlying agenda (self-promotion?) has hijacked commercial brands to give credibility to their cultural endeavours. Pierre Coinde, Co-Director of The Centre of Attention

It's not a question of outlook, perspective, feeling, or sentiment. Or agenda. Corporations don't hijack art in addition to supporting it; benevolence is damaging. The State has to be included in this formula, too. Look at how philanthropists in the C19 paid their fortunes into schemes for improving the working class. Improving the working class? The working class don't need to be improved; they need to be liberated from the class system. It's not so much that the philanthropist or the philanthropic corporation distorts the culture it sponsors by applying subtle pressure for that culture to support its own interests (which, of course, it does, anyway); the principle problem is that the very social relation that sponsorship establishes, whether on behalf of a corporation or the State, is lop-sided: industry and commerce as the host; art as the guest. Sponsorship is a form of neutralisation and mastery. The more benevolent it is, the less it applies its own agenda as a condition of funding, the more efficiently will the relationship set conditions on and divisions within the social world and the subjects that participate in it.

Dave Beech, Artist/writer

Yes it is damaging, but it can stil be supportive paradoxically.

Giorgio Sadotti, Artist

If art is effective, intelligent, emotive, striking and thoughtful - in other words 'good' - then it will inevitably become part of the fabric of wider culture. In which case it will be impossible to stop it existing alongside 'products' and 'corporations'. If an artist produces a work that genuinely throws up questions or challenges people, and then a corporation wants to co-opt it (for whatever reason) then the artist has more than achieved his aims. His ideas are reaching a mass audience. Isn't if better for an artwork to be featured in the Sun than in a little-attended, but oh-so-cool gallery?

Tom Sharp, :here magazine

RESOURCES -

www.nologo.org

Becks Futures

>

See the Levis film here

"Serving" Britart now

"Beck's Futures" is an annual art prize held at the ICA. This show seems to have been colonised by Becks. The handouts, the posters, the invites, the private view... all geared more towards promotion and advertising of Beck's than the artists on show. It is immediately obvious that Becks see this as a equally beneficial partnership, but the heavy handed nature of their side of the bargain is difficult to ignore. The website is the most overt example of their co-option of this event. Everything about it screams Becks - the colours, the layout - even the familiar pop-up window, rather than being associated with the video on show, is entitled "Beck's pop-up space". The "topical" section entitled 'art or arse?' features an article entitled 'the art of brewing', as well as an opportunity to send in your own 'my eight year old could have done that' art piece and win some... you guessed it. It is actually quite difficult to find any reference to the artists in the Beck's futures show at all, and when you do it's a flimsy paragraph. There are magazine style portraits of all the artists, but there is not a single image of their work. It's strange that with advertising currently obsessed with using terms such as 'freedom to move' (Levis again) or 'everyone needs a place to think' (BBC4), that it is the sponsor that seems to crowd out thoughts, allowing precious little freedom to think about anything else.

Naomi Klein, in her seminal study of late 20th Century capitalism "No Logo", states the problem like this -

"...a stampede of manufacturers [are] now looking to replace their cumbersome product-production apparatus with transcendental brand names and to infuse their brands with deep, meaningful messages. By the mid-nineties, companies like Nike, Polo and Hilfiger were already taking branding to the next level: no longer simply branding their own products, but branding the outside culture as well - by sponsoring cultural events, they could go out into the world and claim bits of it as brand-name outposts. For these companies, branding was not just a matter of adding value to a product. It was about thirstily soaking up cultural ideas and iconography that their brands could reflect by projecting these ideas and images back into culture as 'extensions' of their brands."

The effect of this is an entangling of the different functions and responsibilities of the various individuals, institutions, companies, sponsors, and state funding channels involved in making a show happen. The positioning of all these things in relation to an exhibition changes the ways in which it is received. With the sponsor normally in the position of benefactor, this changes the position of the artist accordingly to that of recipient - suddenly, as in the case of Beck's Futures, the artists are the guests in Beck's exhibition. And each instance of this passive/aggressive relationship slightly changes the wider relationship of 'culture', 'business' and 'state'. This has already happened on television - every programme now has a "sponsor", or a company which sees the opportunity to have their logo hover in front of their favoured demographic's eyes for a few seconds and register positively with them. This is an even more uncomfortable arrangement when applied to an art exhibition.

It could be argued that this is a naive argument, and that the relationship between art and advertising is not only necessary, but progressive and positive in it's outcomes. And looking at it from the angle of the relatively few artists that benefit from events such as Becks Futures, it must be hard to disapprove of sponsorship. As Hillichamp spells out in the text below, art needs money. And as Dave Beech (artist and Art Monthly critic) states in his response (see the text box), it may not be the source of the money that is the problem, but the conditions in which it is given. In this case, it is the awareness of these conditions that becomes all important. Art remains art, and we view it as such, but always at the back of our minds is the discomfort at the conditions in which it is exhibited.

by John Brainlove

It's no secret that the most important things on television are the paid adverts, followed by the trailers promoting forthcoming programs, followed by the programs themselves.

It's also my opinion, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this, that adverts are the greatest artform of our age.

Art needs money. It's as simple as that. Maybe in some utopia, where the wheels of commerce no longer grind, and all the work is done by Microsoft programmed atomic robots/angels from Heaven/divvied up by egalitarian worker's co-operatives* we can all enjoy and or make art free from the taint of The Dollar, but until then we have to live in the real world. The real, unfair, random, nasty ridiculous world. Art makers have to eat, and office working art-philes like me don't have the free time to or energy to go tracking down the latest and most exciting art shows and happenings for ourselves, so it's nice for it to be brought to us. And if it's a beer brand or a bank or a Third World exploiting jeans manufacturer that has to bring it to us, okay.

The Beck's Futures competition is a great example of how corporate sponsorship and involvement can raise the profile of new art makers and contemporary art itself, getting real art makers and their wares in all the magazines and giving them money to boot - ace!

In the art world, like any market, there is no underground. Any art makers who show and sell their work are no less commercial than the animators at Disney, or the poor souls who worked on the comic book adaption of Star Wars Episode II. Does this mean art is lost? Does this mean it has no integrity? I don't believe so.

Our civilization, like it or not, is about selling, is about value-added, is about measuring and targeting demographics, tapping into the zeitgeist. It's about advertising and sales. Brand awareness, if you like. So why not commission something beautiful at the same time as promoting your brand? Why not reward creative talent, and share it with the audience the mass marketing media creates?

You may say that commercial pressure will taint the art, undermine its validity, but every art maker is constantly dealing with many conflicting constraints/demands/desires/wishes/expectations on or for their work.

Here's a quote from the brilliant (in my view) Brian Duffy (creator of the ModifiedToyOrchestra), about his experience at art college:

"...I thought to myself 'Oh my God, this is just awful' because you have to learn all these intellectual levels of veiling that means someone who doesn't understand those terms doesn't understand the paintings, and without that you can't get peer approval."

Here's a quote which really got my goat, from Meredith Etherington-Smith about the Affordable Art Fair, (from an editorial in Art Review):

"OK**, so some of the art is dreadful. But it pleases someone and the artist gets paid. I'm all for democratic art."

"I'm all for democratic art"? How incredibly patronising! In my opinion this kind of snobbery is more of a danger to art than the lure of sponsorship from desperate to be hip corporations.

I believe in the democratic ideal. I believe that the people know best what is good for them. Not in an ironic 'oh, aren't Abba' kitsch way (look at that hilariously tasteless print of Ganesh) but in an uprising against slavery way, in a deposing the Tzars (and later the Communist party), in a risking your life to fight Hitler, or Franco way. In voting for Will as the nations Pop Idol and not Gareth Gates (who I hate). And you know Rick would have won if he hadn't stepped out (or was he pushed..?).

Back in the day my man Marshall McLuhan was telling people that the mas media was the folklore of the industrial age (see The Mechanical Bride), even if he saw that as a bad thing. Well folk stories never were for the folk, but were a social construct to bind them to the status quo.

I say:

Advertising is our art. We should be proud.

*( select the appropriate option according to your pipe dream)

**(I may not know much about art, but at least I can spell "okay")

by Hillichamp