Tomas Chaffe

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

Heath Bunting Status Project

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

Knock Down Ginger: My House Projects

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

Adonis & Astronomy

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]

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

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

Total GHAOS

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.

Reactor Party

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?

© Ana Milgram 2005

Read more about her experience of Total GHAOS here

---

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

The Reactor Party are a splinter group of Reactor

---