48 Sheet

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

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.

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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

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?

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

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

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

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