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.

Drawing

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

Japan 08

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

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.

we.assimilate

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

The Institute of Psychoplasmics

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

Remote Victim

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

The Nagual

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

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

Another Halloween Post

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.

DY-66

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