Emergent Game: Call for Ludens

We invite you to play Emergent Game and help us explore possibilities across appropriated digital and non-digital spaces.

For the last month or so, a small group of people have chosen to describe themselves as Ludens - those willing to take part and play - rather than Sapiens - those who will only watch. Together we have been exploring an open-ended game format known as Emergent Game.

Emergent Game: Sapiens? Ludens? Choose.

It’s a bit hard to describe because as new people get involved their interactions influence what is happening… although I think it is fair to say that we have now arrived at something that is utilising a range of web applications (photo-sharing, video-sharing, map-sharing, idea-sharing…) to catalyse re-imagining the everyday stuff around us.

There is some commentary on the Emergent Game website that describes this in more detail than I can here, but even that is really just scratching the surface.

what is?

If you are interested in any of the following, then this could well be the The Game for you:

  • exploring use of public spaces
  • exploring the edges
  • exploring groups of people
  • examining modes of participatory practice
  • messing around with technology
  • messing around with language
  • messing around with ideas
  • interacting
  • playing for the sake of learning
  • playing for the sake of playing

However, if you think you must be any (or perhaps all) of these types of people to join in, then please think again. Simply put: Emergent Game is what you make of it.

To help you decide whether to become a Ludens, a Sapiens or to go ahead and forget all about it, I recommend you first have a look at the Sapiens section of the Emergent Game website. Here you’ll find some commentary to give you a flavour of what’s been going on so far.

Don’t worry if it seems impenetrably technological - The Game doesn’t assume dizzying amounts of computing knowledge; only a willingness to give things a go. Likewise you don’t need the latest smartphone or satnav (but we do recommend a mobile phone, access to the internet and perhaps a digital camera).

Loki logs in

As you may have noticed, each Ludens is anonymous. Emergent Game is played through a customised soft toy avatar that represents you both online and for the real-world aspects too. How far you take this customisation is entirely up to you.

Lepufo gets some new eyes

If you can see the potential in all this and are ready to get involved, here are your initial instructions.

If you can see the potential in all this, but see yourself as more Sapiens than Ludens, here is your news feed.

If you have a group of Ludens, are ready to challenge our notions of place, but need to discuss language support, here is your contact form.

If you have an agenda, and need to discuss either incorporation or a splinter group, this is also your contact form.

Either way, we’re looking forward to talking to you.

The small print:

Emergent Game is supported by the New Generation Arts festival, 2008. Our main flurry of activity will be in early June, but things are already getting started now and could well run on for longer than the festival too.

For those of you based in or near Birmingham, UK, there will be various workshops and events - please watch either this or the Emergent Game website for more information as it is made available.

Pub Cnversations: Melanie Carvalho and Ross Birrell

Please note that there has been a change in venue and this pub conversation will now be held at The Spotted Dog.

The Spotted Dog, 104 Warwick Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B12 0NH.
Tel: 0121 772 3822
Tuesday 29th April
 7.30pm

Places are limited, so please email selfservice@hotmail.co.uk to book.

Melanie Carvalho

Melanie Carvalho is an artist working and living in London. She has shown in solo exhibitions (Cubitt gallery, London, 2002; Hidde van Seggelen, London 2006) and group exhibitions (East International, Norwich School of Art and Gallery, 2007; Where the Wild Things Are, Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2006; The Impossible Landscape, UMass Fine Art Centre, Amherst, Massachussetts, USA, 2006; Collage, Bloomberg Space, London; Solar Lunar, doggerfisher, 2004; Plunder, DCA, 2003; Viewfinder, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2002). She also co-curated The Poster Show with John Maclean that was shown at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, in 1999 and Cabinet, London, 2000. Carvalho studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and the Royal College of Art and received a Rome scholarship in 1998 . She recently published a book entitled Expedition: A Journey in Search of Tropical Scotland, (which includes an essay by Ross Birrell) as part of a piece of work of the same name, whereby she travelled around the west coast of Scotland drawing, painting and filming the palms and sub-tropical flora that grown there. Her work is in private and public collections, including the New Art Gallery, Walsall.

Ross Birrell

Ross Birrell is an artist and writer. He has shown in group and solo exhibitions including the 4th Gwangju Bienalle (2002), Utopia Station (Sindelfingen, 2003), Envoy, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam and BüroFriedrich, Berlin (2003), Between the Lines Apex Art, New York (2003), Homo Ludens: Works from the Envoy series 1998-2005, Friesmuseum, Leeuwarden (2005) and most recently the survey show curated by Jörg Heiser, Romantic Conceptualism, Kunsthalle, Nürnberg/BAWAG Foundation Vienna 2007. Since 2005 Birrell has collaborated with David Harding on a series of films and installations, Port Bou: 18 Fragments for Walter Benjamin (2005) and Cuernavaca: A Journey in Search of Malcolm Lowry (2006) commissioned by Kunsthalle Basel. In December 2007 they were awarded an SAC Artist’s Film and Video Award for a new film to be shot in Havana and Miami in Spring 2008, to be premiered at CCA, Glasgow in January 2009 on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

Ross Birrell is a lecturer and researcher at Glasgow School of Art and editor of the online journal, Art & Research. He is represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam.

Pub Conversations

For more information regarding Pub Conversations, the Pub Conversations podcasts and Self Service, go to www.pubconversations.co.uk

The Institute of Psychoplasmics

The Institute of Psychoplasmics will not make you do anything against your will. However, they do strongly encourage you to watch this space as they broadcast from London tonight.

psychoplasmics

labels

charity tags

await further instructions

emergent game

The Emergent Game website is.

digbeth tweets

After a year of abstinence, I have finally succumbed to twitter.

Why?

SMS updating, time-stamping (sort of) and tomorrow’s invigilation. Here.

After the invigilation, once we’ve gathered back at VIVID, we’ll also be collating visual and aural traces here: www.flickr.com/groups/invigilator_digbeth/.

Let the quest for how best to document Invigilator continue!

Invigilator: Digbeth

paul conneally + nikki pugh + you + them
Saturday 29th March, 2-5pm
meet at VIVID at 2pm

As Digbeth continues its metamorphosis and assimilation into Eastside (Birmingham’s transforming, revitalising and regenerating regeneration project[1]) art institutions and project spaces present there are slowly increasing in number and yet, for the most part, they are safely kept behind locked gates, barred windows and access-controlled doors.

For Invigilator: Digbeth, a team of volunteers will take the role of gallery invigilator/visitor assistant outside where, rather than sitting in gallery spaces, they will be watchful over the streets and the day-to-day life unfolding there.

This is the fifth in the Invigilator series[2] where a single set of directions has been transposed onto different locations to determine the exact place for watching over; we can choose our significant starting points, but then a pre-determined sequence of lefts, rights and straight-ons takes us on a not-quite-random walk to an unplanned invigilation site.

Invigilator: Digbeth will consist of several invigilations taking place simultaneously throughout the Digbeth area. The significant starting points will be the galleries, studios and project spaces that would normally host the invigilators. The same galleries, studios and project spaces responsible for Digbeth’s renaissance…

Digbeth is also significant as the starting point for the Invigilator series as a whole since the directions used to arrive at the invigilation sites were derived from those used to get from home to a part-time job invigilating at VIVID.

All are welcome to join us for Invigilator: Digbeth. We will meet at VIVID at 2pm, borrow some of their red t-shirts and then walk to our respective invigilation sites (about 4 people per team) where we will be watchful for about 30 minutes before returning to VIVID for refreshments and feedback. No special equipment required: just bring yourselves, suitably warm clothing and a willingness to interact with the city.

Queries on the day phone: 0121 766 7876 (VIVID office)
Further information on the Invigilator series: www.npugh.co.uk/projects/invigilator

invigilations

references:
[1] http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/eastside.bcc
[2]New Forest,Derby,Tokyo and Nuneaton

Invigilator:Digbeth has been supported by Access West Midlands

aposematic (6)


something good on Vimeo.

Aposematic

\Ap`o*se*mat”ic\, a. [Pref. apo- + sematic.] (Zo[“o]l.) Having or designating conspicuous or warning colors or structures indicative of special means of defense against enemies, as in the skunk.

… or, as in this case, a little toy mutilation/online social networking/role playing/flash mobbing/gang warfare warm-up for a game coming up in June.

Here’s my first toy mod to produce an avatar for use in the game:

aposemate

  • 1 × soft toy from charity shop
  • 6 × flashing blue LEDs
  • 3 × white LEDs
  • 3 × UV LEDs
  • 12 × really small rubber o-rings
  • 3 × mini toggle switches
  • 1 × push-to-make switch
  • 1 × 9 volt battery
  • lots × poor soldering skills

After some experimentation with different configurations I had to accept that the battery really had to go underneath the wiring for the LEDs. Also that the LEDs needed glueing in position to stop them from dropping back down into the body of the ladybird. This now means that the avatar is a ladybird/nikki/mayfly hybrid with a limited lifespan - once the battery dies, the avatar kind of dies too.

This has already led to some interesting behaviour on my part as I watch myself becoming very protective of the little critter and its limited supply of energy: have I switched the LEDs off when they don’t need to be on? have I put it away in such a way that the push-to-make switch isn’t accidentally pushed-to-maked?

The game itself will be a hugely collaborative effort so we don’t yet know what the final outcome will be. All that we know right now is that you’ll need a mobile phone (or possibly just a camera and an internet connection) and a toy that has been modified to represent you within the game.

In the meantime, add your name to the Emergent Game mailing list and start scouring those charity shops for something that can represent you. (With a little bit of tweaking, of course.)

aposematic (5)

aposematic

aposematic (4)

aposematic

aposematic (3)

aposematic

Harborne Victorian gents toilet

SSSI - Sites of Social Special Interest No.3
Harbourne Victorian gents toilet.

Join Harry Palmer on a pictorial survey of one of Birmingham’s last remaining Victorian still-in-use toilets

Sat 22nd March 12-1pm. Meet outside Harbourne Library (top of the high street).

Please bring a sketch pad and pens
invitation from Harry

sssi

sssi

sssi

More documentation to follow: either here, here or here.

aposematic (2)

aposematic

aposematic (1)

aposematic

absent

Going to Oldbury this morning I noticed another absence, this time in Ladywood.

spectacle

We said goodbye to Spectacle some time ago, but it was still a bit of a kick to see that whole area of buildings knocked down. What’s going to replace them? Some nice flats?

…and more importantly, are there going to be any more spaces run by the next generation of up-and-coming arty folks?

revolve

Walking over to Ikon this afternoon there was something missing.

radiant

No more slowly revolving door between Paradise Forum and Centenary Square. You could just walk straight through.

paradise

Uncanny. …and yet what a fantastically simple idea!

I’m not sure if this is permanent or not, but there’s perhaps a chance considering the lack of impediment to getting into the building from the Chamberlain Square side (discounting all the steps!).

Is it wrong that I’m missing a revolving door?

Fern Cottage

I generally have a couple of website clients on the go alongside my main commissions as an artist [caution: superficial divisions - not always useful!]. I don’t do the web design full-time so, in addition to being a supplementary source of income, these commissions are really important to me as a way of keeping my skills as up-to-date as possible.

After several months working alongside Joe and Kelly in Rednal, we’ve now launched the website for their new holiday home Fern Cottage. Well, when I say new, I mean about 250 years old…

Fern Cottage was built circa 1750 and, as well as being one of those places that’s tucked away in it’s own quiet niche so you can forget that you’re just on the edge of Birmingham, it’s also famous for being one of the childhood homes of J.R.R. Tolkien. Yes, that J.R.R Tolkien .

I’m happy to say that, in true Grand Designs stylee this project met with several delays linked in with the renovation of the cottage, but the results were worth waiting for. I just wish we were a bit further on into Spring so the turf and garden had had a chance to get going a bit.

fern cottage

So, what was I up to whilst Joe and Kelly were sanding the wooden beams in the ceilings and debating over the light fittings? Where was I bringing in a bit of learning curve to the web design?

Paperwork

This was the first challenge. As the projects I’m getting involved in get progressively larger in scale it was time to get the contracts and other paperwork up to standard too. I’d already learned my lessons (the hard way) with regards to fighting project creep and making sure there’s a design brief that sets out exactly what’s to be done for the price quoted, but it was time to make sure things like copyright and liability were explicitly covered too. Fortunately AIGA (founded as the American Institute of Graphic Arts, now a professional association for design in general) have already done most of the hard work with their Standard Form of Agreement. Perhaps a bit O.T.T. for most of the jobs I do for artist portfolio sites, but we felt it was necessary here. And of course, now I’ve developed my own templates from this, these can easily be adapted for future projects. Phew!

All this was backed up with Slim Timer so I could compare how long I estimated things would take with how long they actually did.

Blueprint

I’ve been implementing my own frameworks for coding sites for several years now (particularly with regards to browser resets and typography), but with the Fern Cottage project I decided to give the Blueprint CSS framework a try.

This felt sort of alien at first, however it was very easy to implement and yes, it did speed things up a lot - particularly with the usual fun and games getting compatibility across browsers.

This article sums things up quite nicely.

After a bit of wrangling I decided to leave the Blueprint classes in the code for all to see. Does it feel like cheating? Maybe just a little, but I’m sure I’ll get over it!

Libraries

I’ve been playing with javascript libraries more and more recently, but have been very strict when it comes to using them within live sites. It’s very easy to start using transitions and effects just for their own sake. Since I’m coming at this web design stuff from a process and architecture point of view rather than as a graphic designer (probably evident in the rather flat style I seem to be developing!) I’m generally cautious about following the crowd with whatever the in thing currently is.

The Fern Cottage rooms and facilities slideshow however was a perfect situation to use glider to add a bit of interactivity and compress what would otherwise be a fairly mind-numbing list.

Setting up the tea and cake shot for the dining room section was quite fun too!

tea and cake at fern cottage

Getting social with Flickr

After a few photo shoots it became obvious that we had loads more photos that we wanted to share than we had space to put them on the website. Flickr came to the rescue and although it wasn’t appropriate to embed slideshows within the Fern Cottage site, Flickr was a nice way of extending stayatferncottage.co.uk out into the wider world. The We’ve stayed at Fern Cottage group is an important part of this and I’m hoping it will be both an appealing way for people to get involved (complementing the guestbook) and also an easy way for Joe and Kelly to document the cottage as it grows into itself.

Joe and Kelly would also be really interested in hearing from anyone who has any photos of Fern Cottage from the past so please get in touch with them if you have any Fern Cottage photos, or perhaps just add them to the Flickr group.

zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, one

Installed Ubuntu; needed flash plugin for Firefox; went to Vimeo to test; saw this; liked it; shared it.


ASIMO - The Humans Are Dead from Jeffery Patch on Vimeo.

invigilator invites

Invigilator : Digbeth

We’re currently getting excited about the re-appropriated business cards we’re using for the Invigilator: Digbeth invitations. Hope you do too!

[link to vimeo page]

INVIGILATOR: DIGBETH
paul conneally + nikki pugh + you + them
Saturday 29th March, 2-5pm

meet at VIVID at 2pm

bring a red top if you haven’t already arranged to use either one of ours or one from a different venue

npugh.co.uk/blog/invigilating_digbeth
 enquiries@npugh.co.uk

invigilating Digbeth

Since May last year, Paul Conneally and I have been invigilating.

First I invigilated some of the New Forest. Then Paul replied by hopping on the train with the morning commuters and invigilating a building site in Derby.

Shortly after that I wanted to explore what would happen if you had more than one invigilator. I wanted to see how the presence of multiple invigilators affected the dynamics of an area that has to be walked through (rather than just a point location that people can walk past).

invigilating Tokyo

I was in Japan at the time so this gave rise to Invigilator: Tokyo and - inevitably - a whole barrage of further questions!

More recently, Paul and I met up in Nuneaton for the first of the invigilations that we have done together. More questions!

We now feel it is time for us to turn the process around on itself and use the next invigilation to examine its origin: my old part-time job invigilating the gallery space at VIVID.

We want to dissect what we have learned so far.

We want you.

We’re currently gathering people who would like to don red t-shirts and join us on Saturday the 29th of March for Invigilator: Digbeth. We want to scale up the Tokyo action and send small teams of invigilators percolating out through Digbeth: turning the whole cultural quarter thing inside-out to extract people from their barricaded, security-protected warehouses and onto the street for an hour or so.

As a nod to how this series of works came about, we’ll be using VIVID as a base, liberating their red t-shirts, and also returning there for the debrief session and refreshments afterwards.

The invigilations themselves involve following a set of left/right/straight-on directions and then probably about 30 minutes standing around that location being watchful. What we’re after, in order to give Invigilator: Digbeth some clout is a) as many invigilators as possible so we can properly cover a large area and b) some suggestions for relevant starting points for the random walks.

So, for now, we’d like you to do three things for us:

  • Put that date in your diary: 29th of March, 2-5pm.
  • Suggest some cultural venue/art institution-esque starting points that the random walks to the invigilation locations can start from. We know about the obvious ones near to VIVID such as Ikon Eastside, the Custard Factory and the soon to be opened Eastside Projects, but we’d like more. Are there any? Bung something in the comments and let us know about it!
  • Let us know if you’d like to take part. All welcome, but we’d be particularly keen to hear from anyone who would normally work as one of the aforementioned venues.

More details to follow a bit closer to the day, and further invites are being circulated in the real world too.

with increased confidence and positive mind

The recording session lasted only a few hours, but we felt kind of strange for quite some time afterwards.

deep thought

psychoplasmic sound

just some shoes

(Well, until we got to the pub.)

The Institute of Psychoplasmics
curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv

Pump House Gallery
Battersea Park, London
SW11 4NJ

9 April - 26 May 2008

Preview 8 April 2008
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

slutspurt and matterhorn

copenhagen window

Click Opera shares observations on observing a city in a couple of interesting posts from Copenhagen including taking photos through shop windows early in the morning and comparing matterzones as reported by 4 different ‘travel guides’:

a copy of the Time Out Guide to Copenhagen which I browsed in a bookstore, the guide and listings section of an English-language newspaper called The Copenhagen Post, a Japanese magazine’s Copenhagen special edition I spycammed in a sushi bar, and recommendations from Click Opera readers who knew me and knew Copenhagen.

Check them out and then look again at your own place!

five wasted years

I only became aware of them around 2005, but I’ve gained enough of value from attending several different workshops organised by Midwest since then that I’m happy to spend most of today and tomorrow contributing to Up, Up and Away: “part of Midwest’s programme for demise”.

Having just spent about 10 hours with a fairly diverse collection of artists and getting a sense of how the Midwest programme has also benefited them, reading this on D’log this evening was, um, unexpected:

Midwest £62,064
[ supposedly a support organisation for artists in the West Midlands, which never really took off — but somehow hung on to funding for about five wasted years ]
The full cuts list

The post goes on to say:

Cuts to the useless Midwest were widely expected among artists.

As I understand it, back in 2002/2003 Midwest were told in no uncertain terms that they had to prove their worth within the first 18 months of operation in order to receive the remainder of their funding for the rest of the initial 3 year planned lifetime. Not only did they do this, but they then went on to extend the programme for about another 2 years. That second segment has now come to an end and, with things in Birmingham having changed a lot since Midwest’s conception, the organisers have decided that it is now appropriate to bring Midwest’s activities to an end.

This decision was made public to the members of the mailing list in early September last year, so, yes, in that sense, Midwest not getting any further funding in the next fiscal year was widely expected!

Comments are currently switched off on the D’log post and with no obvious means of direct communication via the site I thought I’d open up things here to find out more about why Midwest is apparently seen as useless by some artists. It’s fair enough that some people may hold that view, but I’m curious about how this can be built on for things to come in the future.

What was it about the programme that didn’t work for you and how would you have done it differently?

avatar

Talking about how to represent yourself in a mixed-reality game.

Nova from Bleach:
nova

Pete from Birmingham:
pete

UPDATE:
Pete gets a bit more vocal on the subject and starts to put his avatar to work.

bolt

bolt

Found whilst moving house.

Pub Conversation: Douglas White & Justin Coombes

This from the Self Service mailing list, announcing the next in the series of Pub Conversations:

Thursday 17th Jan from 7.30pm

back at our usual venue:
The Lamp Tavern,
257 Barford Street,
Birmingham.
B5 6AH

Aside from directions and past conversation podcasts, our website is playing up at the moment so it isn’t up-to-date. Instead, please see the biographies below to realise why this is a night in the pub not to miss.

Places are free but please rsvp to selfservice[at]hotmail.co.uk to book.
Also, please pass this on to your mailing lists and any others who may be interested.

Douglas White

A Royal College of Art graduate, Douglas White has won the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award, and a Mann Drawing Prize. He was also shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize and the Jerwood Drawing Prize. He has also won the Cockburn Art Prize (1999), the Southsquare Art Scholarship (1996) and the Margaret Pollock Scholarship (2004). His work was selected for the New Contemporaries exhibition in 2004 and 2006. His first solo show was held in October 2006 at Paradise Row, London.

Justin Coombes

Another Paradise Row solo show artist, Justin Coombes is a Goldsmith’s graduate, specialising in photography. He was short-listed for the Paul Hamlyn Award 2007 and the Vordemberge-Gildewart Prize 2006 and won the BOC Emerging Artist Award in 2005. He also has work in the British Government Art Collection.

… a culture where things are produced because people care about it and not necessarily because they hope other people will buy it. So, what we will see is things made by the people for themselves.

…and when we stop doing it, we’ll be dead.

Escapism

I got through yesterday’s shift by treating it like an art project and, as a result, I became somewhat intrigued by the various accoutrements that accompany the returned exam papers and the stories they might hint at…

The Great Escape

Extract, silent (48 seconds)
Rubber band and paper clip accompanying literacy and numeracy exams from various of Her Majesty’s Prisons.

Link to video on Vimeo.

invigilator’s sheets

Currently doing a temping job sorting through incoming examination papers.

Dismayed to see the exam papers testing basic adult literacy are written in comic sans ‘cos, yeah, right, that’s going to make it easier…

Will wear an invigilator shirt to work tomorrow.

red

fin

Looking on as a small dog saves us the bother of wondering how long our beach drawing will last before the tide comes in…

studio notes

Reproducing some of my notes from the recent studio conversation in an attempt to keep some momentum going over the Christmas slump and because it feeds into other stuff elsewhere…

Draw your own conclusions and do as you see fit!

Things in [square brackets] are notes I’ve added as I’ve typed these now.

  • Defensible space vs. shared spaces
  • £4 per square foot, including bills (national average £7 [national average for what? What were we comparing?])
  • Studios as something to exploit and then move on from
  • Nobody [at the studios] was talking about their work!
  • Programming vs studio space. Where is the activity?
  • Push people out into the city [to further their careers, make way for new artists and prevent a plug forming in the studios]
  • The functions of a café includes that of an ad hoc public space [cf actually making a direct financial profit, many projects are born here]
  • Associate programme:
    • collaborations
    • sharing knowledge
    • Friends model
    • Travel bursaries
    • How do you make it sweet enough for people to be dedicated?
    • computer access 24 hours
    • library
    • Access to space and to each other (primary function)
    • Draw on it for information and opportunities
    • £12 per month
    • not through a selection process, but available to anyone who feels they are following a path within the visual arts
    • Consists of an active core
    • Peer-to-peer networking
  • Studios as part of the ecology of the area and the region (how does it do this and how is it charged with energy?)
  • Using the institution to create networks
  • Who is the gallery for?
  • Spike Design as a way of getting the funders through the door
  • DCMS toolkit
  • What is our relationship with bricks and mortar that can fit our new economies?
    • related to profile
    • dependent on career stage of the artists involved
    • are studios actually the model of the future?
    • Where is the urgency?
  • 24-hour access
  • Studios providing new ways for graduates to participate in the city
  • Cube in Bristol as a potential model based not on studio space, but on social activities that become the starting point for many initiatives, thereby leaving a legacy.
  • Do people need an ongoing space?
  • Do people need a temporary space?
  • A space that the city provides will never be your space - it is for generations
  • Nuclei around centres of common need
  • How to manage something that is fractured?
  • Artists do not want to be building managers
  • Lack of social confidence in Birmingham’s practitioners (by contrast Spike Island grew from activism and lobbying)

Merry Christmas everyone - what can you make happen in 2008?

forays

Coming at a time when I’ve just had to repeatedly justify my practice in terms of explicit marketing frameworks, income generation and business strategies, this extract from “how to unload bags and practice failure” by Forays is really very soothing:

There is something about excessive, inefficient and pointless labour for the sake of art that is kind of beautiful. Maybe it is that labour in other contexts, like at our jobs, is usually equally as inefficient but there is a lie to it, the lie that it matters, which however meagrely keeps people going back to their jobs. But unloading a bag for nothing, for no result just makes its pointlessness explicit, so obviously useless, and in some strange way more satisfying. And, what is also beautiful is when you go into something with a goal and by the end the goal is destroyed and in place of the goal you are left with a situation.
how to unload bags and practice failure

I’m making a note of it here for my own benefit because it strongly relates to various projects I’ve been working on and, in particular, recent conversations regarding the Invigilator series: methinks I’ll be wanting to come back to this later.

Birmingham studios

Just a little light reading as a quick follow-up to the studio conversation to tide you over until Self Service releases the official summary…

The Birmingham Post has followed up on the debate at the event with an article about studio spaces in Birmingham.

Here are a few extracts that stood out for me and an indication as to possible routes for discussion/action to take as a response (sorry it’s quite cryptic but I’m away from home at the moment and not really in the right frame of mind to write anything more substantial):

Birmingham accepts the principle in its published creative strategies and ought, on the face of it, to be well placed to work with artists in helping to lift vast, run-down areas like Eastside. But for some reason it seems to have more difficulty in translating theory into practice than its rivals.

Terry Grimley on regeneration and competition between cities to attract investment and footloose young professionals

Jumping off points:

  • Working with artists.
  • Following up on pledges put into print.
  • Attracting new people into the city in contrast to that of keeping hold of the people who are here already. (The issue of graduate retention is briefly mentioned later on in the article.)
  • Rivalries between cities?

The studio situation is really difficult. The council says it wants all this stuff but you have to create structures to support people. It’s completely out of kilter with every other major city for the council not to be making empty buildings available.

quoting Ruth Claxton, artist

–verb (used with object)
1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for.
dictionary definition for ‘support’, my emphasis

Artists are key cultural assets for any city. Whenever a trade delegation visits Bristol nowadays, they are always taken to Spike Island. Artists need places to make work, and we have to address the whole question of artists’ workspaces. I feel it’s a joint responsibility between the city and the Arts Council.
quoting David Drake, Head of Visual Arts at ACE West Midlands

Jumping off points:

  • Using a bottom-up approach (with suitable top-down support at times).
  • Artists need places to make work - it’s not all about galleries and exhibitions and showcase events.
  • “Birmingham will get a reputation as a vibrant, creative, international city when it becomes a vibrant, creative, international city”. (Attempt at paraphrasing a commenter somewhere on CiB, I think).
  • Fundamental changes vs glossy patches.
  • Creating flexible frameworks around which people can build their own activities and value as appropriate to the work that they do and the way that they do it.

buy, buy, buy!

Just in time to coordinate with the Artgos exhibition/event the invisible hand is now back open for business.

invisible hand: the shop

I experimented with a print-on-demand service earlier this year and, having just received a trial print of the new genzaichi/you are here T-shirt, I’m happy to say it passes the quality control test and the shop is now live and open for business!

The incentive for the invisible hand came about after increasing frustration that I’d already put all my own spare money into a few major projects - thus leaving me reliant on external funding for upcoming ideas I wanted to develop further. This is ok for some things, but I’d rather not be completely dependent on Arts Council and the like anyway, and sometimes you just need to be able to access some cash on a timescale of less than two months.

This has increasingly been the case as my practice simultaneously moves further into areas that are difficult to describe in a funder-friendly manner (what exactly are the outcomes going to be?) and that need me to be responsive to things happening around me.

The invisible hand was therefore developed as a way for my practice to become more self-supporting. Rather than selling actual artworks (I don’t usually produce objects), I’ve gathered together some of the core ideas that run through my work and I’m now selling products that relate to those. It will also come into play during 2008 in relation to a few publishing projects I’m working on. Watch this space…

circumnavigate predictability

So, if you fancy a t-shirt with an obscure Japanese railway reference (niche market?) or some badges bearing manifesto-esqe statements, the invisible hand is the retail outlet for you!

Payments are all handled via PayPal and absolutely all of the profit goes into a pot that will only be used in the production of art works. I’ve indicated by each item approximately how much from each sale goes into the project fund.

I’m in two minds about whether to develop any invisible hand branding or not, but I’m thinking it would be really nice to be able to add an invisible hand logo alongside any others that may have supported a project. I want to be able to say somehow that “this work wasn’t all funded by government hand-outs y’know!”.

What do you think?

Artgos

Starting today and running until the 15th of December, Artgos will be at the Merrion Market in Leeds.

artgos

This Christmas artsparkle presents Artgos, a new catalogue store in the heart of Leeds’ shopping district! A collaboration between Artsparkle and theartmarket, Artgos will be selling work by big name artists alongside fresh talent working with multiples, those fabulous, affordable artworks that make such great stocking fillers. Come along to the catalogue shop for a unique shopping experience, see performance artists in full flow, and kick-start your contemporary art collection for as little as £1!
Artgos website

Counsel for the Artist will be there in the form of some packs of postcards made especially for the event.

Each pack contains one postcard for each of the following statements:

  • Make exchanges with spaces
  • Strive to achieve modest connections
  • Set your own agenda
  • Add to a culture of learning and experimentation
  • Get the message across
  • Meet a new network
  • Resist the ascribed role of witness
  • Circumnavigate predictability

When I’ve shown them before I’ve been struck by how much these have resonated with other people - not just artists - so with any luck this will be a good opportunity to get the statements circulating into some interesting places.

There’s a veritable flotilla of links relating to the Artgos event, including the main Artgos website here.

If the Flickr stream is anything to go by, a lot of work has gone into preparing the space:

I’m digging the order forms! Hopefully some images of the opening party will also be added later.

If you can’t get along to The Art Market in person, I have limited numbers of map-wrapped Counsel for the Artist postcards available through the invisible hand shop.

map-wrapped counsel for the artist

pub(lic) conversation relocated

Update 02/12/2007: and now we’re pushing the capacity of VIVID too!

Demand for places at this event has been very high. If you have already booked and happen to have a fold up chair or cushion handy please feel free to bring it with you as we may be slightly short on seating.

There are (very) few spaces left, BUT BOOKING IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, PLEASE EMAIL selfservice@hotmail.com ASAP TO BOOK

PLEASE DON’T JUST TURN UP - WE CANNOT GUARANTEE WE WILL BE ABLE TO LET YOU IN IF YOU HAVEN’T BOOKED.

Self Service mailing list

We’ve had so many people book places for the upcoming Pub(lic) Conversation about studio provision and support for artists in Birmingham that we’ve had to find an alternative venue.

Shame, because the Lamp is a crackin’ good pub.

The open discussion will now be held at VIVID. For those of you who haven’t got experience of Digbeth warehouse spaces, make sure you wrap up warm.

Unfortunately the new venue does not have a bar so you may want to bring your own (in addition to the extra jumper) if you feel you can’t wait until after to visit one of the local hostelries.

There may be a small budget for refreshments, and possibly a tea urn too!

Same as before though, please email selfservice@hotmail.co.uk to book a place.

PUB(LIC) CONVERSATION ABOUT STUDIOS AND ARTISTS WORKSPACE IN BIRMINGHAM

Tuesday 4th December, 7.30pm
VIVID,
140 Heath Mill Lane,
Birmingham.
B9 4AR

Guest speaker and host, Lucy Byatt, Director of Spike Island, Bristol.

In December, after a six month stay of execution, Birmingham Artists will lose the subsidy for their studios at Lee Bank. This space was the only Birmingham City Council subsidised artists’ workspace in the city. Meanwhile other studios (including those the majority of Self Service members inhabit) are in privately owned buildings that are often cold, damp, insecure and uninsurable.

Self Service feel this most recent withdrawal of support for artists’ practice, should act as a catalyst for a wider discussion about the lack of affordable, fit for purpose studio provision and production facilities in the city

  • How should artists in Birmingham respond to the council’s action?
  • Could artists be doing more to demonstrate the intrinsic value of arts practice to the city?
  • Are successful models for studio provision just about providing artists with space to work?
  • Is the Creative Industries agenda at odds with the realities of most artists’ practice?

With these, and many more, questions in mind we have have invited Lucy Byatt to host a pub(lic) conversation around this issue.

Everyone is welcome, though as we are limited by space, booking is essential.
PLEASE EMAIL selfservice@hotmail.co.uk TO BOOK A PLACE.

Spike Island is a national centre for the production and exhibition of contemporary art. Located in Bristol, Spike offers excellent studios as well as project and exhibition space for the making and showing of ambitious new work. Spike Island emerged from an artist run initiative developed in the late 70’s, Bristol Art Space. Whilst it is no longer ‘artist run’ the values of support to artists and those developing their career within the contemporary visual arts remains a high priority.

Lucy Byatt has been Artistic Director at Spike Island in Bristol since September ‘02. In her five years at Spike Island her role has been to build the vision and create the organisational change required to enable her to deliver the recently completed £2.25m capital development. Spike Island has retained its generous number of low cost studios and created new space within the building to establish the Associate Programme so providing access for many more people developing a path within the visual arts. The galleries, right at the heart of the building, now refurbished, are amongst the most exciting spaces in the UK. The much improved residency studio space has enabled Spike Island to enlarge the International Residency Programme so creating a web of networks across Europe and beyond.

Previous to this she was based in Glasgow, where in 1993 she did the MFA at Glasgow School of Art, and Concordia University Montreal. In 1995 she joined Visual Art Projects as co-director, balancing her own practice as an artist with the demands of working with this newly formed arts commissioning organisation. During her four years at VAP the agency became influential, commissioning some of the most ambitious artist’s projects in public space in Scotland. In 1999 she left VAP to establish The Centre also based in Glasgow, an agency again focussed on artists working in the public domain, The Priority for The Centre was to build a critical context for this work through discussion, collaboration, conferences and publications.

For more information see www.spikeisland.org.uk

Currently Self Service is Tom Bloor, Jo Capper, Mona Casey, Faye Claridge, Ruth Claxton, Greg Cox, John Hall, Cheryl Jones, Nikki Pugh, Liz Rowe and Matt Westbrook.

For more information see www.pubconversations.co.uk

link and ShiftSpace

A ShiftSpace remix of a blog YouTube remix of the junicho renga ‘A Circle of Fire’ by Paul Conneally.

link and shiftspace

pub(lic) conversation

Update 25th Nov: we’ve had to relocate to VIVID, more details here…

Returning from a hiatus of a few months, Pub Conversations is back with a slight variation in the format in order to address the urgent issue of studio provision within the city.

I’m assuming Tindal St. and Lee Bank will have their share of representation, but there has to be more to Brum’s studios than that so it would be good to see some new faces to share their views. Likewise we’d love to hear from recent graduates who are maybe looking for somewhere to operate from - what do you want and what would be workable for you?

I’m not sure if this one will be podcast, so make sure to book a place via selfservice@hotmail.co.uk

Here’s the information from the mailout:

PUB(LIC) CONVERSATION ABOUT STUDIOS AND ARTISTS’ WORKSPACE IN BIRMINGHAM

Tuesday 4th December, 7.30pm
The Lamp Tavern,
257 Barford Street,
Birmingham.
B5 6AH

VIVID,
140 Heath Mill Lane,
Birmingham.
 B9 4AR

Guest speaker and host: Lucy Byatt, Director of Spike Island, Bristol.

In December, after a six month stay of execution, Birmingham Artists will lose the subsidy for their studios at Lee Bank. This space was the only Birmingham City Council subsidised artists’ workspace in the city. Meanwhile other studios (including those the majority of Self Service members inhabit) are in privately owned buildings that are often cold, damp, insecure and uninsurable.

Self Service feel this most recent withdrawal of support for artists’ practice, should act as a catalyst for a wider discussion about the lack of affordable, fit for purpose studio provision and production facilities in the city

  • How should artists in Birmingham respond to the council’s action?
  • Could artists be doing more to demonstrate the intrinsic value of arts practice to the city?
  • Are successful models for studio provision just about providing artists with space to work?
  • Is the Creative Industries agenda at odds with the realities of most artists’ practice?

With these, and many more, questions in mind we have have invited Lucy Byatt to host a pub(lic) conversation around this issue.

Everyone is welcome, though as we are limited by space, booking is essential. Please email selfservice@hotmail.co.uk to book a place.

Lucy Byatt was educated at Brighton University, Glasgow School of Art and Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. In 1995, after working as an artist over a number of years, she joined Visual Art Projects in Glasgow as Co-Director and in 2000 she established The Centre, an independent commissioning organization where she worked with artists including Graham Fagan, Toby Paterson, Simon Starling, Siobhan Hapanska and Vong Phaophanit

Spike Island is a national centre for the production and exhibition of contemporary art. Located in Bristol, Spike offers excellent studios as well as project and exhibition space for the making and showing of ambitious new work. Spike Island emerged from an artist run initiative developed in the late 70’s, Bristol Art Space. Whilst it is no longer ‘artist run’ the values of support to artists and those developing their career within the contemporary visual arts remains a high priority.

For more information about the Pub Conversations series see www.pubconversations.co.uk

Currently, Self Service is Tom Bloor, Jo Capper, Mona Casey, Faye Claridge, Ruth Claxton, Greg Cox, John Hall, Cheryl Jones, Nikki Pugh, Liz Rowe, Charlotte Smith and Matt Westbrook

invigilator 4

Like the memorial in the park, all I really feel confident about saying regarding each of the pieces in the Invigilator series at the moment is simply that they happened.

george eliot was here

Nuneaton: George Eliot and Invigilator were here.

invigilator: nuneaton

invigilator: nuneaton

caterpillar was here

my new camel

This morning I went along for an introductory visit to the local primary school where I will be doing a project with some of the students.

I found myself in the staffroom with some teachers fresh from an assembly where they’d had two dancers performing. One thing led to another and suddenly the conversation had evolved into the one about Not Getting Modern Art. You know the one - it always starts with The Bricks and The Bed.

I let it go. I didn’t have the heart to introduce myself as the artist who’d just been asked to do something with the reception class’ bricks.

bricks

Observation became participation after stepping in to perform banana-opening duties at break time and the food-related theme continued with invisible chocolate soup and an invisible glass of wine with cream on top.

You gotta love it.

camel (mine, new)

4649ing

Well, I’m feeling like a proper 4649 veteran now, but it’s actually only 3 weeks today that I was first invited to join Kissa Hanare’s project!

Taking part has raised all sorts of interesting questions: not least about my own lack of political awareness of what’s going on in my own country. I haven’t got anywhere close to answering those, but in the meantime I wanted to note down a few thoughts about my photographic contribution.

going for the chat jugular

In the introductory post I challenged you, dear reader, to take some images of the 4649 stickers that would stimulate a chat. Having already challenged myself to do likewise I had previously gone into Birmingham’s city centre and headed straight for two obviously very charged locations: the Hall of Memory and the Peace Gardens.

Yikes! Red poppies everywhere! Giant red poppies. hmmmm, not sure what I feel about that, think it’s possibly crossed a line somewhere…. (Oh, and by the way, Happy Christmas Birmingham)

Happy Christmas Birmingham

Heading off somewhere equally disturbing in the opposite direction, I also suddenly became aware of how noble and, well, perfect the statues around the Hall of Memory are.

sculpted

What exactly are we saying here?

… and how do I want to use the stickers to respond to it?

After a fairly predictable set of images involving statues and red telephone boxes I headed off down past the Mailbox towards the Peace Gardens - a distant memory from first-uni days and the number 44 bus up from the Vale.

public notice

This is when I started getting a bit more creative and started incorporating parts of existing signage into my images. Sod possible language barriers, this was much more interesting. I also loved the ambiguity that came from me not actually knowing what the text on the stickers says, or in what tone it says it.

What happens to 九条死守夜露四苦 when you put it next to a sign that says “For how long?”?

Anyway, I felt using the stickers to react to more subtle details in the city landscape was a lot more interesting.

Article 9999-999

round-up

I probably spent about an hour and a half taking photos and have whittled the results down to 39 which I’ve uploaded to a Flicker set.

Which ones are most successful and why? (How do you judge success for something like this?)

meanranch, while at the back…

down the pub

I just want to say a big thankyou to everyone who responded to the mailout and have requested stickers either from myself or directly from Hanare.

There’s not much time left before the Monday-night event, but you can still print off a few if you’d like to contribute.

Of the original batch of stickers Hanare gave me I’ve given away 11 to people who wanted to join in and I’m now left with just one. Where should I put it? Should I go for a good photo, should I stick it somewhere it’ll get left up for a while, or should I seek out somewhere where it’s likely to be seen by people who can read the text?

Kissa Hanare and the 4649 project

Every Monday (but not holidays, they don’t like to work on holidays!) Naho, Yufuko and Sakiko transform a Kyōto living-room into Kissa Hanare - something I like to think of as Café Independence (…but I’m now told the detached-ness I was inferring from dictionary searches is just an architectural reference). Not only does Hanare provide a menu of, where possible, locally-sourced, organic food, but they also work hard to create an atmosphere in which they and their guests can freely address a range of pertinent social and political issues.

In my limited experience, I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of Japanese culture, but I have a small sense of how difficult it must be to create this type of space. (Hell, I can’t even really imagine it happening here!) What’s more, judging by the blog, I believe they’ve managed to make it sustainable to the extent that the project’s been running for at least 18 months now. Impressive!

Regular café nights are interspersed with lectures, workshops and larger projects.

4649 and Article 9

4649 (representing “yoroshiku” - a Japanese term I’m not even going to begin to try and translate, let alone the significance here) is Hanare’s latest project and they’d like to ask you for your support.

Since 1947, Japan has had a pacifist constitution arising from Article 9.

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. wikipedia

Its exact origin is disputed, as has been its interpretation by successive governments. As you can imagine, there has recently been increasing talk from various Japanese politicians of revising this article.

I’m not going to start passing judgement here based on a few articles I found on the internet, however what I do feel strongly about is that there should be a space for Article 9 and the potential consequences of amending it to be highlighted and discussed freely amongst people who are not politicians.

I’ve exchanged emails a few times with Sakiko recently. Here’s how she introduced me to the 4649 project (slightly edited, my emphasis):

…we are planning to have a t-shirt silk-screening party on November 12th, in which we will print images of a Japanese gangster with the statement written also in the gangster style font that opposes amendment of the Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which prohibits Japan from possessing any military force and use it to solve international conflicts.

Additional Information about Article 9

Article 9 is, in a way, an apology for neighbouring countries for what Japan did before and during WWII, as well as a promise that we will never become a militaristic country. The Japanese government has been attempting to transform the beautiful part of this constitution for a long time, yet have met huge opposition from Japanese people. Since Koizumi, though, the danger of the article being amended has been greater than ever, and we want to do something about it.

Here is what we are planning to do for the party. Prior to the party, we will print tons of stickers with the same image and send to those of you living abroad and outside of Kyoto. And I want you to put the stickers out on the street and take pictures of them and send to us, which we will project as a slideshow at the party and upload to a Flicker site. People attending the event are able to see the image in other parts of the world, and hopefully feel that we are not alone. Showing the photos is really critical because based on my experiences in Japan, we are so isolated from the rest of the world, physically, and mentally.

By showing the pictures, I want people to have a sense that what we are fighting matters, and is supported by people abroad, NY, SF, BCN, Pula, London, etc. plus, Japanese people living abroad might see the image too!

Here is an idea behind the image. In contrast to the States and Europe where there is a very sophisticated visual resistance culture, Japan lacks it so badly that young people here have a hard time getting involved with political activity. By taking the aesthetic of Japan’s gangster culture and twisting its violent and rather nationalistic representation, and saying goodbye to the conventional peace movement images like the dove, we are hoping to encourage Japanese young people that there are many creative ways to express their opinions.

Sakiko

Here is the image she’s talking about:

4649

A challenge to you

There’s a nice quote I came across whilst Googling stuff earlier:

To reach consensus in democracy, it is necessary to guarantee a free space where even the oppressed can express their opinion without concern for logical consistency and truth. The fact that chats have been neglected as the fundamental element of democracy shows that past democracy has been only for the few who could speak logically and consistently.Polylog

It doesn’t bear close scrutiny, but there’s a few nuggets in there that resonate strongly with how I perceive Hanare. My challenge to you is to use that graphic above to make an image that stimulates a chat at Hanare (or beyond).

Remember the aims are a) to have the sticker on the street and preferably somewhere that is obviously not Japan and/or b) to demonstrate the potential of creative techniques to express an opinion.

You could be provocative:

click for provocation

You could be subtle:

click for subtlety

You could be surreal:

click for surrealism

You could be terribly, terribly British (or whatever):

click for red phoneboxes

Useful bits of information

  • The event at Hanare is on Monday the 12th of November, so that’s the deadline to aim for.
  • To get some stickers you can contact Hanare at kissahanare[AT]yahoo.co.jp, they’ll take about a week to arrive.
  • To get some stickers you can contact me, I’ve got a handful spare.
  • To bypass the stickers and get started right away you can print the image from this file.
  • Email your photos to Hanare to add to their Flickr page. (Don’t forget to tell them where the photos were taken.)
  • Follow what’s going on on the Kissa Hanare blog

Can’t be bothered?

Here are some suggestions for some low-energy ways of showing some support for Hanare:

  • Forward this post’s link to people you know and spread the word.
  • If you have a Flickr account, add 4649 Project as a contact.
  • Subscribe to the Kissa Hanare blog feed: http://cafekyoto.exblog.jp/atom.xml

I’m sure you can think of others - be creative!

update: I wrote a little about the photos I took in this later post.

my card…

meishi

Devoid of labels but providing that portable genzaichi hit, the new business cards have arrived.