I must be getting on. I have a lot more time for Madonna than I used to. I gladly buy into the whole radical older mum of 2 struts her stuff regardless of 21st century social norms. I admire someone who samples the wondrous Abba, possibly the biggest influence on my life between 4 and 6 years old.
But when I saw the grand dame on telly a few weeks ago being interviewed by a sycophantic youngster, she made the mistake of trying to articulate something else that obsessed me between 4 and 6 years old - "Where do ideas come from?"
Madonna, following in the footsteps of so many cultural colossi, cited the need to "find my muse" for every new reincarnation of herself. And this year's muse was - the interviewer enquired...?
"Leotards" she answered, thoughtfully.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Lukewarm Radiator
I hadn’t been out of the Lake District for about a month before travelling last weekend to speak at the Radiator Festival, an art & new media wingding in Nottingham, an idiosyncratic kind of town slash small city, where they have things called the Household Bank and a Leprosy Mission. I think Boots might have started there too (any pharmaceutical relationship to the Mission I wonder). I was looking forward to seeing my friend and one-time mentee Jeanie Finlay who lives there, an artist and film-maker who – like the ideal mentee she was – has surpassed her mentor’s meagre personal and professional achievements in every field. She even speaks Japanese.
I’m something of an alumni of the Radiator festival, having spoken at its first incarnation in 2000. As I recall, a handful of people – almost all working at the event – attended my gig, directly after which the organiser handed me a cheque for £350. Whilst I was still on the stage. I don’t think I have ever been paid more, or more rapidly for any presentation. I liked it.
Arriving at one of the Festival’s main venues, Broadway, after some phenomenally slow service at the town’s Wagamama noodle joint (and remember I’m speaking as someone who endures Lake District speed service on a regular basis) , I joined a late ‘remote’ talk by a commissioned artist. A handful of people, mostly working for the event, clustered around a small computer monitor into which one was typing in an online chat. The roar and fun of the downstairs bar was deafening, and a few semi-detached audience members shared beers at the back of this upstairs ‘space’ – one of those semi-circulatory, transitory rooms which neither invite relaxation or facilitate communication or interaction. I sneaked onto a seat and looked across at the curator Sarah Cook (the chair for our next day’s panel) who I had arranged to meet there, trying to ascertain her level of commitment to the event.
I found myself instantly wondering if anyone from the event had even spoken to anyone in the bar or foyer downstairs about it – announced it I mean, when it was starting, what it was, why they should come? The security guy on the stairs had shrugged when I had asked him what was going on up there. Yes, it’s hard to walk into a crowded room of drinkers and endure a few nanoseconds of embarrassment. Yes a few twats would probably shout at you as you struggle to be heard over the drinking, as you struggle to make ‘moving-upstairs-to-engage-in-an-online-chat-on-a-small-screen-with-some-obscure-foreign-artist-you’ve-not-hear-of ‘ actually sound inviting. But isn’t it the job of a festival like this to try and get new audiences.? Or just any audiences?
I am reminded of the late and much-missed Robert Woof (see my eulogy below), director of the Wordsworth Trust - someone who unfailingly rang you up a few hours before the Trust’s monthly poetry events to personally invite you to attend. You invariably did. As marketing gets, it doesn’t get much more targetted and God knows he must had dreaded doing it some days – I mean, this guy was the Director, not the administrator, he had other stuff to do. But he knew that how to get people in to events – at least outside of the safe haven of London – using a combination of guilt-tripping, manipulation of the English’s fear of embarassment and unwillingness to say no, and a sympathetic acknowledgement that you probably hadn’t read the brochure as closely as you might have.
Anyway, in moments Sarah and I had escaped to the roaring bar and fortunately quickly engaged in an – as ever with Sarah –widerangingly enjoyable but techno-flavoured discussion that included Sarah’s patient responses to:
“Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot of that academic dance and technology stuff programmed here?”
“Is it just me, or is Open Source for artists really problematic – I mean, you’re not allowed any images on Open Mute’s Omweb thingy....”
“Is it just me, or is this a very small audience?”
You can see that after 4 weeks up my mountain, the Rural Laptop seeks affirmation for her distantly paranoid observations of the cultural world from afar.
I’m something of an alumni of the Radiator festival, having spoken at its first incarnation in 2000. As I recall, a handful of people – almost all working at the event – attended my gig, directly after which the organiser handed me a cheque for £350. Whilst I was still on the stage. I don’t think I have ever been paid more, or more rapidly for any presentation. I liked it.
Arriving at one of the Festival’s main venues, Broadway, after some phenomenally slow service at the town’s Wagamama noodle joint (and remember I’m speaking as someone who endures Lake District speed service on a regular basis) , I joined a late ‘remote’ talk by a commissioned artist. A handful of people, mostly working for the event, clustered around a small computer monitor into which one was typing in an online chat. The roar and fun of the downstairs bar was deafening, and a few semi-detached audience members shared beers at the back of this upstairs ‘space’ – one of those semi-circulatory, transitory rooms which neither invite relaxation or facilitate communication or interaction. I sneaked onto a seat and looked across at the curator Sarah Cook (the chair for our next day’s panel) who I had arranged to meet there, trying to ascertain her level of commitment to the event.
I found myself instantly wondering if anyone from the event had even spoken to anyone in the bar or foyer downstairs about it – announced it I mean, when it was starting, what it was, why they should come? The security guy on the stairs had shrugged when I had asked him what was going on up there. Yes, it’s hard to walk into a crowded room of drinkers and endure a few nanoseconds of embarrassment. Yes a few twats would probably shout at you as you struggle to be heard over the drinking, as you struggle to make ‘moving-upstairs-to-engage-in-an-online-chat-on-a-small-screen-with-some-obscure-foreign-artist-you’ve-not-hear-of ‘ actually sound inviting. But isn’t it the job of a festival like this to try and get new audiences.? Or just any audiences?
I am reminded of the late and much-missed Robert Woof (see my eulogy below), director of the Wordsworth Trust - someone who unfailingly rang you up a few hours before the Trust’s monthly poetry events to personally invite you to attend. You invariably did. As marketing gets, it doesn’t get much more targetted and God knows he must had dreaded doing it some days – I mean, this guy was the Director, not the administrator, he had other stuff to do. But he knew that how to get people in to events – at least outside of the safe haven of London – using a combination of guilt-tripping, manipulation of the English’s fear of embarassment and unwillingness to say no, and a sympathetic acknowledgement that you probably hadn’t read the brochure as closely as you might have.
Anyway, in moments Sarah and I had escaped to the roaring bar and fortunately quickly engaged in an – as ever with Sarah –widerangingly enjoyable but techno-flavoured discussion that included Sarah’s patient responses to:
“Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot of that academic dance and technology stuff programmed here?”
“Is it just me, or is Open Source for artists really problematic – I mean, you’re not allowed any images on Open Mute’s Omweb thingy....”
“Is it just me, or is this a very small audience?”
You can see that after 4 weeks up my mountain, the Rural Laptop seeks affirmation for her distantly paranoid observations of the cultural world from afar.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
How do you cry online?
This is one of questions, that in the blur of the funeral of my friend Marie Nally, I starkly remember. It was part of a brief eulogy that had been emailed, and someone - I think it was my friend and work partner Nina - read it out in the service, shaking with the A4 in her hand. Marie had a strong online network of friends, chiefly though her engagement in the breast cancer cause (the disease that took her life), for which she paved the way for so much of todays' Internet support and discussion.
It's still a question of the utmost poignancy and loneliness of grief, articulate of the fundamental limits of our expression: technological limits, emotional limits.
Last week came the news of the death - also from cancer - of Robert Woof. Robert was the director of the Wordsworth Trust in nearby Grasmere, and an irreplaceable and inspiring friend to my partner Adam and I. Robert was a man of enormous intellect, but rarely for an academic, his erudition was woven into a vast net which - at lightning speed - would have him making the most inspirational cross-references. Even for much younger guests - as often the Grizedale artists we have with us are - an evening with Robert was a totoally engaging cross-cultural tour at breakneck speed.
Robert is pictured here at an unforgettable dinner at our house a few months ago with the film-maker Ken Russell and many other notable guests. I had the honour (and it really was) of sitting between these wise men for the meal, and enjoying a conversation that leapt from the sadomasochism of Percy Grainger (something I know a little about thanks to my school music teacher - another story for another blog) to elderberry pie, to road planning in the Lake District and many places in between. For once, I shut up and savoured being the audience. Robert knew he had limited time. He had a huge appetite for food, wine and conversation that evening and - as so often at dinners with Robert - the night ended in the small hours, with his wife Pamela, encouraging him out into the darkness to be driven home.
In so many ways Robert was much kinder to the Lake District than it was to him. He never gave up working tirelessly to promote the place's most famous cultural export - Wordsworth - in both the lowest and highest circles. Here was a man who in his seventies, was taking the first train down to London at 5 in the morning, to appear on Breakfast TV listening to some dreadful 6 year olds who who recited 'I wandered lonely as a cloud...', deafeningly, in a circle around him. Every Tuesday, a few hours before one of the Trust's poetry evenings, Robert would personally call you up (knowing, as he did, that I hate poetry - not that that ever came between us) and cajole you into coming to the event. They were always fun, and this typifies Robert's charm and persistance, his belief in his mission and his personal accountability for its success. And yet the Trust's library building (which finally opened this summer) - a cause which ate so much of Robert's energy in the last few years - was a feud with the planners on an epic scale, a needlessly and pointlessly protracted war with a council who should know so very much better.
So, Adam is on the other side of the planet in Japan, when he receives an email with the news. He must cry online.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
iPod love - part 2
I have been doing rather lot of driving on the same stretch of M6 recently and consequently my brain is in overdrive as it disengages with the actual road signeage.
Back to the iPod - I was thinking of the analogy of pot-pourri, but a pot-pourri where each and every distinct scented fragment transports you somewhere absolutely now - the school hymn book, your grandmothers house, your mother's embrace.
One of the compelling but potentially dangerous aspects of the iPod is its capacity to hold literally thousands of pieces of music that have a direct and powerful emotional effect on you - all available (and discard-able) within a millisecond. Think of the music that transports you back to your teenage years, to school or to heartbreak. Think of how rarely most of us encountered that music before. Maybe while screeling through a radio dial in a hired car, or at a friends wedding, and remember how viscerally it affected you.
Like many I am sure, I have filled the little beast with only the creme de la creme of my musical taste, scouring the Web for downloads "christ, Magazine - I haven't hear that since I was 15!") and consequently it's now like a quietly ticking bomb, a genies lamp.
What does the iPod's ability to fast-track us to the most heightened emotional states of our lives do? I find myself on perpetual 'shuffle' mode, gorging on successive memories at 95mph on the motorway, then skipping ruthlessly through the opening bars of dozens of them thinking 'Christ, not Magazine again!'
Back to the iPod - I was thinking of the analogy of pot-pourri, but a pot-pourri where each and every distinct scented fragment transports you somewhere absolutely now - the school hymn book, your grandmothers house, your mother's embrace.
One of the compelling but potentially dangerous aspects of the iPod is its capacity to hold literally thousands of pieces of music that have a direct and powerful emotional effect on you - all available (and discard-able) within a millisecond. Think of the music that transports you back to your teenage years, to school or to heartbreak. Think of how rarely most of us encountered that music before. Maybe while screeling through a radio dial in a hired car, or at a friends wedding, and remember how viscerally it affected you.
Like many I am sure, I have filled the little beast with only the creme de la creme of my musical taste, scouring the Web for downloads "christ, Magazine - I haven't hear that since I was 15!") and consequently it's now like a quietly ticking bomb, a genies lamp.
What does the iPod's ability to fast-track us to the most heightened emotional states of our lives do? I find myself on perpetual 'shuffle' mode, gorging on successive memories at 95mph on the motorway, then skipping ruthlessly through the opening bars of dozens of them thinking 'Christ, not Magazine again!'
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
iPod – the ladies’ friend
Is iPod - at last – the life-soundtrack every girl’s been waiting for?
I had a CD Walkman for years but could never be arsed complicating my travel arrangements even more by sorting out CDs and batteries before leaving the house. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many women I have seen using a Walkman outside of a gym.
Maybe, just maybe, as I’ve got older I need to block out more of other people. Whatever – I find myself addicted to my sleek lime green friend, nurturing it (him? Her?), feeding it new music at regular intervals, clothing it in a sensible zipup case when not in use (i.e rarely) and even conversing with it during our long car journeys together with Teach Yourself Japanese.
Oh, and because it's autumn you should be mushroom-hunting. Here's a photo of some exquisite chanterelles to get you inspired.
Monday, October 10, 2005
“Vegan Banquet”
Like ‘friendly fire’, these words feel uncomfortable, even improbable, together.
But, hey, I’m one of the many thirty-somethings who in the past trained themselves to consume ‘milks’ called ‘Rice Dream’ and ‘Soy Delicious’ before finding out that female mice fed on GM soy beans were growing penises. And anyway, putting stuff in your tea that actually curdles on contact makes you start really enjoying the ever-reliable, mechanised consistency of some really unhealthy products like Coke and Big Macs.
When I stayed in New York, imagined mid-life crises around dairy-intolerance became a regular conversation topic at parties. When we left our apartment I had a T shirt made for my landlord / friend – a major exponent of the theory that milk products were killing us all. It said ‘Dairy Happens’, and went down a storm.
Now, this is my blog and I don’t have to be fair - but having ranted against Lake District food here, I really have to haul a recent ‘vegan banquet’ (their words) consumed in London recently, right over the coals. Which, incidentally, might have helped furnish the dishes with that elusive but important culinary feature – flavour.
The cafe was in one of the last central London hippie / squatter enclaves, and so you’re eating in what almost feels like a theme restaurant in this age of bleached laminate-flooring and chrome light fittings. Bizarre throwbacks such as freestyle jazz and allowing smoking compound the retro vibe. You can almost imagine staff being issued with uniforms of ratty dred wigs and piercings behind the kitchen door. Anyway, suffice to say that the tepid mush served us had all the classic vegan attributes – no seasoning, undercooked pulses, overcooked vegetables and a certain holier than thou miserliness – no fresh coriander (they even manage that at the tandoori in Maryport for God’s sake) and certainly nothing as needlessly raunchy as a popadum.
So, if you find yourself mysteriously craving a vegan banquet in central London, take my advice and eat at one of the many fabulous and economical South Indian restaurants behind Euston train station on Drummond Street. You can even wig out completely and order a (dairy-filled) lassi with it.
But, hey, I’m one of the many thirty-somethings who in the past trained themselves to consume ‘milks’ called ‘Rice Dream’ and ‘Soy Delicious’ before finding out that female mice fed on GM soy beans were growing penises. And anyway, putting stuff in your tea that actually curdles on contact makes you start really enjoying the ever-reliable, mechanised consistency of some really unhealthy products like Coke and Big Macs.
When I stayed in New York, imagined mid-life crises around dairy-intolerance became a regular conversation topic at parties. When we left our apartment I had a T shirt made for my landlord / friend – a major exponent of the theory that milk products were killing us all. It said ‘Dairy Happens’, and went down a storm.
Now, this is my blog and I don’t have to be fair - but having ranted against Lake District food here, I really have to haul a recent ‘vegan banquet’ (their words) consumed in London recently, right over the coals. Which, incidentally, might have helped furnish the dishes with that elusive but important culinary feature – flavour.
The cafe was in one of the last central London hippie / squatter enclaves, and so you’re eating in what almost feels like a theme restaurant in this age of bleached laminate-flooring and chrome light fittings. Bizarre throwbacks such as freestyle jazz and allowing smoking compound the retro vibe. You can almost imagine staff being issued with uniforms of ratty dred wigs and piercings behind the kitchen door. Anyway, suffice to say that the tepid mush served us had all the classic vegan attributes – no seasoning, undercooked pulses, overcooked vegetables and a certain holier than thou miserliness – no fresh coriander (they even manage that at the tandoori in Maryport for God’s sake) and certainly nothing as needlessly raunchy as a popadum.
So, if you find yourself mysteriously craving a vegan banquet in central London, take my advice and eat at one of the many fabulous and economical South Indian restaurants behind Euston train station on Drummond Street. You can even wig out completely and order a (dairy-filled) lassi with it.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Ken Russell's legs
Well that was some weekend.
The Coniston Water Festival came to fruition with a diverse smorgasbord of cultural open sandwiches. My favourite was Ken Russell's Lovely Legs Competition - pictured here in progress (those are my boyfriends legs on show). I have removed Ken's as they were just too good. But seriously, shortly after this pic was taken he declared himself the winner. And shortly before it he had discussed Cumbria's self-proclaimed ' Professor of Adventure', Millican Dalton, an Edwardian cave dweller who developed a line in mountain tours for the bored English bourgoisie.
Find out more about this fascinating nut at www.professor-of-adventure.com
Nowadays of course, Millican would be living off Cumbrian Rural Regeneration grants, completing hundreds of Health & Safety assessments and wearing a hideous fleecy instead of canvas shorts (a garment he claimed to have invented)...
Friday, September 02, 2005
End of the Century
Yesterday morning I drove past a remote rural bus stop at which stood a middle-aged man wearing a Ramones Tshirt saying 'Too Tough To Die'. Sadly for most of the Ramones this hasn't proved true. When I sayed in New York a few years ago - in the band's native East Village - you could even buy T shirts that said 'Pray for Johnny', who was at that time the only surviving core member.
Coincidentally, over the last few nights I've been watching 'End of the Century', the recent docu feature on the seminal band. It's no great film but it's been nostalgic for me - the first gig I ever went to as a 14 year old (I've just looked it up online and it must have been Sept. 23rd 1984) was the Ramones at the Glasgow Barrowlands. Back then this venue was still the sweat and vomit-pot of legend. I still remember meeting my older brother Mark (pictured here with me recently) afterwards (we had gone seperately - it's not like you take your kid sister to see the Ramones, c'mon), after he's spent the gig inches from the stage. His Tshirt was shredded (a la Incredible Hulk) and he was lager-drenched but euphoric.
I don't remember much about the experience except the speed of the noise, and the profound sense that I was not going to be the same again. I have often heard creative people reminisce about these moments in their teenage years, when they realised (or is it that they decided?) they had turned a corner in their life. One occasion I have heard of was an early Sex Pistols gig (was it at the Royal College of Art or St Martin's?) at which it seems 80% of the audience have gone one to become noteable artists or musicians. I wonder what that power in moment or place is made of?
In the DVD extras (a favourite place of mine as I enjoy extended meandering interviews) not only do we see how profoundly different the band members were (a highlight is Johnny picking up the Hall of Fame award and thanking Bush and America - the audience applaud his irony as they can't believe a rocker is really rightwing) - we also get a sense of how miraculous the bands long career is. Apart from the series of more or less interchangeable drummers, each key member had serious addiction or personality disorders. But somehow - as my boyfriend Adam puts it - a 'concern for trousers' and immaculate 2 minute songs won out.
One beguiling interviewee (now playing guitar in the sky with most of the Ramones) is Joe Strummer (of the Clash), whose acting I also rate in Jim Jarmusch's 'Mystery Train'. He's full of praise for the tightness of the Ramones' live set, their concern for trousers and style generally. In one particularly eloquent passage, he states that 'bands matter so much more than individual artists because they symbolise something important to humankind about the importance of being together, working at something'.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Let them eat cake
Why is food so shit in the Lake District?
Even assuming the locals never eat out (and why would they) it's supposedly a place dedicated to serving the millions of visitors it fleeces annually with every comfort and stimulation they could hope for. And yet, not only is the food almost invariably crap, its rare as hen's teeth toboot. Countless times have I walked into a cafe at 2pm to be told that lunch is finished, or at 4.30pm to be told that no tea is available as it's dinner time (for who - the under 5's?). As I personally keep most of Ambleside's ethnic restaurants afloat over the darkest winter months with my custom, I can't help but feel like the place could try and meet me half way for the rest of the year.
Last weekend we endured a phenomenally overpriced and pretentious 4 course (obligatory menu type for optimum ripoff)) dinner with Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, who were up at Grizedale to discuss their greasy pole sculpture for Appleby. There were butter swans (melting rapidly), bucket sized wine glasses, bread rolls stuffed with God knows what, and brusque staff. Luckily the company was entertaining and each new plate was greeted with gasps of amazement by us - I think the staff interpreted this as flattery...
Case Study from Today:
I leave the house having not had time to lunch there due to rigid adherence to new time management self-help book, plus not wanting to get in the cleaners way. I am driving for an hour or so to the 'local' hospital for an X ray, and whilst en route I realise that the only lunch prospect viable is the local supermarket. My car renders any alternative costly and time consuming (you'd be amazed at how scarce and expensive a parking place is up here), but, flirting with the almost alluring mystery of the prospect of a hospital sandwich (would they exist? what fillings would be left by 2.30pm?), I decide to press on until after my appointment by wolfing a banana.
I am early, and so I cruise around Barrow-in-Furness, a hardcore kind of place far from the Lake District's pretensions. There's a chip shop here , doing well at lunch time, but I don't fancy it in the heat. There used to be a great little old-fashioned italian run by an expat Sicilian with that skin condition the Singing Detective on Tv had. Photos of hen nights with his signature banana dessert plastered the walls but you could always face out onto the streets whilst you ate a well-priced and speedy (something you NEVER get in the LD proper) spag bol.
I digress - to cut a long story short, on my way home - famished at 3pm - I remember that a nearby town has a rather chi chi little cafe in which I am certain to be able to eat. Now, I am no hard core ethical consumer, but i feel a little self-satisfied as I decide to opt to support this local entrepreneur instead of the supermarket, I park, I pay, then sit down inside the cafe - the girl emerges "We're just doing soup and cake now" Soup?! And not just soup, celery and stilton - a soup which almost sounds like December. It's 80 degrees outside.
So, you guessed it, I end up in the supermarket, where along with another 40 ors so diners, I enjoy a well-priced and speedy cooked English breakfast - at 3.15pm on a hot July wednesday.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
It doesn't get much better
Me & Nina's film Bata-ville has been accepted for the Edinburgh Film Festival AND broadband has arrived at my mountain top!
A few minutes fiddling with a router and I was almost disappointed to find myself wireless too - such ease. I recall my first ever home dial-up in 1994 I think it was - lines and lines of code I had to type in to a Mac Classic, invariably followed by failure, mysterious error messages, expensive help phonecalls (though at least you were only one of 11 other subscribers) and that endless endless furry modem trill. Actually, I might rather miss that now. Something about the audible frailty is so articulate of the miracle of the Web, especially so when you live as literally remotely as I do.
A few minutes fiddling with a router and I was almost disappointed to find myself wireless too - such ease. I recall my first ever home dial-up in 1994 I think it was - lines and lines of code I had to type in to a Mac Classic, invariably followed by failure, mysterious error messages, expensive help phonecalls (though at least you were only one of 11 other subscribers) and that endless endless furry modem trill. Actually, I might rather miss that now. Something about the audible frailty is so articulate of the miracle of the Web, especially so when you live as literally remotely as I do.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
No puns on the word 'Tate'....
I have just spent a typically over-stuffed three days in London, ending in an over-stuffed Virgin train carriage en route home to the north sitting next to someone enduring a protracted phone text relationship melt-down with someone called Trevor (not that I was peering over her shoulder, it's just the cramped conditions y'know). Thank God for my iPod - though I sometimes wonder if my total reliance on the 'shuffle' mode implies some kind of fundamentally indecisive nature.....
Nina (Pope) and I are in the final (ish) furlong of the distribution of our film Bata-ville and are limping to the finish line with our graphic designer Re. An ex-student of Nina's, the working relationship - mainly via the enormous and fraught website - has deteriorated to a kind of mute tussle, something akin to the mock-fighting that Nina's two cats engage in whilst we're all round the meeting table at her studio. Like the last bout of any long session in the ring, each party wants out as quickly as possible but with themselves as the winner. The spoils include a DVD cover and film poster which noone has the objectivity or energy to really apply themselves to. We've done so many print design jobs at this low-level stage in the last throes of an epic project, and they rarely meet one's aspirations - but how to avoid this pattern eludes us. Answers on a postcard welcome.
Before Re even arrived we had 6 hours of high-level life coaching with our assistant Jane, a woman so awesome that the title doesn't fit. A day of her time spans business strategy, mailing list additions and washing up.
Today was spent outside the studio after yesterdays 13 hour day - Bata-ville was one of three arts and regeneration case studies in 'Tracing Change', a symposium at Tate Britain. It was a pretty small event with an invited audience made up of many artists we were familiar with, some stakeholders from local authorities and other interested arts-folk. Unusually for us, Nina and I managed not to take the podium, instead of relying on our EPK (Electronic Press Kit) for the film, featuring a shockingly badly filmed interview with us about the project which we played frm DVD to the audience. David Cross (of artists Cornford & Cross) chaired the day with the authority of a better-dressed Paxman - this man is the natural successor to the increasingly flabby Mat Collings, surely.
Anyway, the event included a roleplaying workshop where I played a commissioner, the enterprise was flawed by my detailed knowledge of the field from my own activities and my boyfriend's (director of Grizedale Arts). However, I enjoy any activity using post-it notes and felt tip pens and ended up the spokesperson of the group. That might have been because I was wearing the brightest clothing. Hierarchies work in mysterious ways.
Pleasant though it was, 10 - 4 is too short an event for both the theme under discussion and for the projects presented and as it ended a handful of really interesting comments hovered in the air only to dissipate on the way out. Over lunch I met an ex-student of mine from way back in my first year of teaching, at UCE - Gavin McWilliam, who had been one of those over-talented but delicate young men whose idealism is dented fundamentally by the introspection of art school and its often puerile debates. I both recognised him and recalled his name, testament to the fact he was one of my first students and formed part of a (I now see) unique cluster of idealistic and engaged students whose group tutorials never ended on time, so vigorous was the debate. At the time, I was too inexperienced to realise that every group tutorial since would seem comparitively like a Teenager's Bible Group . It was genuinely thrilling to hear that after some years in design he was finishing a landscape architecture course and sounded like he's really found his passion. It's rare to encounter students so long after your interaction with them and even rarer to be able to remember anything about why you ever cared about them - so this was a much-needed antidote to the woes of my current academic role wrestling bureaucracy.
Before the train I met an old friend and ex-boyfriend who I have kept up with, perhaps because in the years following our break-up we attended an (accidentally) cathartic fencing class together every Thursday night. His wife is expecting their first child and - something of a comedian - David has been disrupting the antenatal group's 'breakaway' workshops. When asked to complete the sentance, 'The pain of childbirth is....", he added - to very little acclaim amongst the mothers to be - "a feminist lie?".
Nina (Pope) and I are in the final (ish) furlong of the distribution of our film Bata-ville and are limping to the finish line with our graphic designer Re. An ex-student of Nina's, the working relationship - mainly via the enormous and fraught website - has deteriorated to a kind of mute tussle, something akin to the mock-fighting that Nina's two cats engage in whilst we're all round the meeting table at her studio. Like the last bout of any long session in the ring, each party wants out as quickly as possible but with themselves as the winner. The spoils include a DVD cover and film poster which noone has the objectivity or energy to really apply themselves to. We've done so many print design jobs at this low-level stage in the last throes of an epic project, and they rarely meet one's aspirations - but how to avoid this pattern eludes us. Answers on a postcard welcome.
Before Re even arrived we had 6 hours of high-level life coaching with our assistant Jane, a woman so awesome that the title doesn't fit. A day of her time spans business strategy, mailing list additions and washing up.
Today was spent outside the studio after yesterdays 13 hour day - Bata-ville was one of three arts and regeneration case studies in 'Tracing Change', a symposium at Tate Britain. It was a pretty small event with an invited audience made up of many artists we were familiar with, some stakeholders from local authorities and other interested arts-folk. Unusually for us, Nina and I managed not to take the podium, instead of relying on our EPK (Electronic Press Kit) for the film, featuring a shockingly badly filmed interview with us about the project which we played frm DVD to the audience. David Cross (of artists Cornford & Cross) chaired the day with the authority of a better-dressed Paxman - this man is the natural successor to the increasingly flabby Mat Collings, surely.
Anyway, the event included a roleplaying workshop where I played a commissioner, the enterprise was flawed by my detailed knowledge of the field from my own activities and my boyfriend's (director of Grizedale Arts). However, I enjoy any activity using post-it notes and felt tip pens and ended up the spokesperson of the group. That might have been because I was wearing the brightest clothing. Hierarchies work in mysterious ways.
Pleasant though it was, 10 - 4 is too short an event for both the theme under discussion and for the projects presented and as it ended a handful of really interesting comments hovered in the air only to dissipate on the way out. Over lunch I met an ex-student of mine from way back in my first year of teaching, at UCE - Gavin McWilliam, who had been one of those over-talented but delicate young men whose idealism is dented fundamentally by the introspection of art school and its often puerile debates. I both recognised him and recalled his name, testament to the fact he was one of my first students and formed part of a (I now see) unique cluster of idealistic and engaged students whose group tutorials never ended on time, so vigorous was the debate. At the time, I was too inexperienced to realise that every group tutorial since would seem comparitively like a Teenager's Bible Group . It was genuinely thrilling to hear that after some years in design he was finishing a landscape architecture course and sounded like he's really found his passion. It's rare to encounter students so long after your interaction with them and even rarer to be able to remember anything about why you ever cared about them - so this was a much-needed antidote to the woes of my current academic role wrestling bureaucracy.
Before the train I met an old friend and ex-boyfriend who I have kept up with, perhaps because in the years following our break-up we attended an (accidentally) cathartic fencing class together every Thursday night. His wife is expecting their first child and - something of a comedian - David has been disrupting the antenatal group's 'breakaway' workshops. When asked to complete the sentance, 'The pain of childbirth is....", he added - to very little acclaim amongst the mothers to be - "a feminist lie?".
Friday, April 01, 2005
It's lambing season here too
Yesterday was mostly spent at the Koiwai Farm near here in Iwate - a kind of real farm meets tourist attraction that appears to successfully balance production of dairy products (though est. 1891, these stil have a kind of cachet here in japan - e.g people give butter as a special gift) with a very popular visitor attraction complete with the hand-rearing of lambs. All the livestock we saw were experiencing a kind of 5 star accommodation that would have their UK counterparts voluntarily making their way to the slaughterhouse - fresh sweetsmelling hay, futuristic polytunnels (v popular here due to typhoons etc) and adoring Japanese schoolchildren. Though the whole enterprise had a whiff of the old Grizedale Centre about it, it was a fair number of notches up in quality - from the gift shops to the food options - the latter being a kind of indoor barbecue where you cook your own food on a brazier. Very funky was a series of snow 'igloos' they use all winter for families to have barbecues in the grounds - a massive success that I can imagine we could import but using leaves and branches instead of snow. The snow rests on a metal support that is removed for summer - it's a great example of the Japanese love for a kind of expedient and easily consumed 'natural' experience.
The night before Adam and I delivered our talk at the Iwate Museum of Art, very well-recieved despite the challenges of translation. If in doubt say 'peter rabbit' and all the japanese laugh and nod.
At Kata and Kate's where we're staying, their daughter Emily (see below) demonstrated her Kendo to us and I compared the abject polyester European fencing kit I have, to this majestic get-up.
The night before Adam and I delivered our talk at the Iwate Museum of Art, very well-recieved despite the challenges of translation. If in doubt say 'peter rabbit' and all the japanese laugh and nod.
At Kata and Kate's where we're staying, their daughter Emily (see below) demonstrated her Kendo to us and I compared the abject polyester European fencing kit I have, to this majestic get-up.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Glamour & snow
The opening of 2 big shows at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo showed us that some things are the same wherever in the world you are! Except the previews ended with the serving of Japanese whiskey (darker and sweeter than Scotch) and started with lengthy translated speeches of thanks. It was nice to meet the incredible array of expats at the preview - from collagen-enhanced Italian publishers, to an Aussie art journalist who told me that Tapies was a ' really interesting young spanish artist'.
As at home a large unruly crowd of us made our way to an Indian restaurant having drunk to much, and I sat next to a curator called Ong Keng Sen who was fresh from a project at the ICA in London. The naan was good but the rice - being traditional Japanese - was slightly odd.
http://www.mori.art.museum/html/eng/index.html
Yesterday was spent travelling to Sendai with our hosts Kate and Kata - including more delicious sushi and a visit to an inspiring futuristic 'mediatheque' incl. library and gallery - and then to iwate where they live. Driving snow greeted us!
As at home a large unruly crowd of us made our way to an Indian restaurant having drunk to much, and I sat next to a curator called Ong Keng Sen who was fresh from a project at the ICA in London. The naan was good but the rice - being traditional Japanese - was slightly odd.
http://www.mori.art.museum/html/eng/index.html
Yesterday was spent travelling to Sendai with our hosts Kate and Kata - including more delicious sushi and a visit to an inspiring futuristic 'mediatheque' incl. library and gallery - and then to iwate where they live. Driving snow greeted us!
Saturday, March 26, 2005
International & intergalactic harmony
Since returning to Tokyo I have got rid of my jetlag and several hundred pounds – the latter in ‘Big Camera’, a massive strip-lit technology store that - despite its equally massive savings – came close to my idea of hell.
Yesterday was spent mainly at AIT (art initative tokyo) with a group of San Francisco CCA curatorial students who had been in the city a week with Kate Smith – a curator who used to work in the UK. They introduced a whole load of Californian artists and then the day broadened to include a very diverse group of ‘others’ and that included me. Each speaker had just 5 minutes – signalled by a crowing alarm clock – to present their work, so it was pretty dynamic! Of interest – in extreme brief - were:
ACC (Autonomous cultural centre) – Weimar / Germany
Peter Bellers – Uk artist based in Tokyo –& Command N project
Makimato Masato – Akhibara TV – use of all the front window TVs in stores in city’s electronics district
The Common Room, Indonesia
We also hooked up with expat Kate Fowler & her Japanese husband who will accompany us to Iwate for most of next week and are incredibly helpful networkers. Today too much time was spent at the Mori Centre (built by uncle of japanese uber artist Mariko Mori – not starving in a garret there then) where the big cahuna art centre is, director is from the UK – Peter Elliott. It appears to be within a Dubai-style shopping mall but the shops are dull and scattered throughout in a random way – the highlight was the garden where some fish that appear to be related to one that went into space (?!) on one of the shuttles – have been deposited into the pond as an act of intergalactic harmony (very important to the japanese).
The day ended at Haranjuku, which to align with Camden Market in London would be a little unfair but it is comparable in crowds and average age.
BUT instead of an overall goth-theme (though it appears) there’s a pink lolita theme and the streets include yet more megoliths of consumerism – our favourite (obviously) was called The Forest, where Adam happily had his photo taken with a glamourous transvestite.
Other highlights included:
The puppy shop – very sad very small dogs in striplit capsules – average price £600
A fancy dress shop for pets – in the window a bee costume for small dogs
Personal ashtrays which smokers use here - a kind of portable metal envelope for your ash
Some very lovely kimono wearers – I am a convert
Yesterday was spent mainly at AIT (art initative tokyo) with a group of San Francisco CCA curatorial students who had been in the city a week with Kate Smith – a curator who used to work in the UK. They introduced a whole load of Californian artists and then the day broadened to include a very diverse group of ‘others’ and that included me. Each speaker had just 5 minutes – signalled by a crowing alarm clock – to present their work, so it was pretty dynamic! Of interest – in extreme brief - were:
ACC (Autonomous cultural centre) – Weimar / Germany
Peter Bellers – Uk artist based in Tokyo –& Command N project
Makimato Masato – Akhibara TV – use of all the front window TVs in stores in city’s electronics district
The Common Room, Indonesia
We also hooked up with expat Kate Fowler & her Japanese husband who will accompany us to Iwate for most of next week and are incredibly helpful networkers. Today too much time was spent at the Mori Centre (built by uncle of japanese uber artist Mariko Mori – not starving in a garret there then) where the big cahuna art centre is, director is from the UK – Peter Elliott. It appears to be within a Dubai-style shopping mall but the shops are dull and scattered throughout in a random way – the highlight was the garden where some fish that appear to be related to one that went into space (?!) on one of the shuttles – have been deposited into the pond as an act of intergalactic harmony (very important to the japanese).
The day ended at Haranjuku, which to align with Camden Market in London would be a little unfair but it is comparable in crowds and average age.
BUT instead of an overall goth-theme (though it appears) there’s a pink lolita theme and the streets include yet more megoliths of consumerism – our favourite (obviously) was called The Forest, where Adam happily had his photo taken with a glamourous transvestite.
Other highlights included:
The puppy shop – very sad very small dogs in striplit capsules – average price £600
A fancy dress shop for pets – in the window a bee costume for small dogs
Personal ashtrays which smokers use here - a kind of portable metal envelope for your ash
Some very lovely kimono wearers – I am a convert
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Mountain air that smells of eggs
I have been unable to exceed five hours of nocturnal sleep since arriving in Japan but have high hopes for tonight based on my recent consumption of a washing up bowl of soporific ramen noodles.
But I did want to blog before bed-time as so much has happened. Adam and I are just back from Hakone, 90 minutes on the ‘romance train’ (a species of bullet train) from Tokyo. It’s a place billed as ‘no must sees’ in the guidebooks and therefore a must-see for Adam and I, jaded from our years if living in ‘the most beautiful part of England.tm’. Hakone is famed for its hot springs, which I’ll cover later, and appears to be a rather charming ‘something for everyone’ kind of tourist resort – we’re talking a Begonia Museum - clinging onto various mountainous precipices and even in mid-week March, popular. It’s the home of the Hakone Open Air Museum, an old skool sculpture park, whose former director Adam had charmed in the Grizedale drizzle a few years back. The old school tie network of international sculpture parks meant that Mr Matsimura and Mrs Noda – whose park is funded by the Fuji empire – were happy to return the favour many times over, and we spent today with them sampling the incredible density of amusements on offer - from eggs cooked in the sulphurous steam of the local volcano (eggy smell / ergo eat eggs – what’s that about?!) - to a clotted cream tea at the colonial Fuyima Hotel, a Shinto shrine plus – in the inclusive Japanese spirit - a Buddha carved into a rockface.
We were very generously accomodated in the Park’s own club, a rather classy late 60’s affair, very stylish despite the bizarre Japanese versions of mid-century European art. Vast windows looked out onto exquisite Hokusai-esque forests, and closer the the building were tiny courtyards of traditional Japanese plantings – including the seasonal cherry trees. I squeezed in 2 traditional Japanese baths – one reluctantly this morning at 5 due to jetlag – and one last night. In both I was alone, though they are usually communal experiences where you wash first and then join the deep, wood and stone bath for a very very hot soak. In Hakone these baths are heated naturally by the hot springs, and a water level window looks onto an exquisite private courtyard. It was sublime and I am now wondering if I could fit one in at home.
Perhaps the most exciting thing was the dining, which took place in an epic room with very groovy 60’s carpeting, James Bond-esque picture windows, and a soundtrack of late 50’s Western pop.
On arrival for dinner our places were already set with a seasonal array of incredible creations – probably 15 separate dishes – and this was only one half of what was to follow in a succession of pots, dishes and trays. The artfulness is almost impossible to describe and each flavour was distinct, some fragrant and moist, some austere. Our hosts seemed genuinely delighted at our enthusiasm for the food, more so at breakfast when we devoured a traditional Japanese breakfast of rice, pickles and fish to the strains of the Everley Brothers and polite smalltalk about driving in England (actually that’s a crap description as noone can ‘devour’ such delicate foo, at least not with my chopstick skills). After dinner we retired to chat in a traditional tatame room, which save for the passive smoking and my jetlag, was a very enjoyable chance to talk cats with our host (he had a persian that looked like Catherine Deneuve and we discussed how to prevent them from ruining the tatame) and witness the endearing giggliness and natural warmth of the Japanese.
The Museum itself is located against a breathtaking natural backdrop, but is dominated by vast works by generally obscure 20th century sculptors. I found myself more interested in the tree-training structures all over the garden. The collection is still growing under Fuji’s patronage but the impression is of a tourist experience rather than an art one. However, this isn’t to denigrate it, as it as fascinating to visit not only the park but the other cultural sights locally with Mr Matsimura and Mrs Yoda – and to witness an attitude to cultural consumption so different from our own – one perhaps of a kind of casualness – which at its worst, in the UK, we see as camera snapping hordes of Japanese tour groups – but in fact one can interpret as consumerism akin to any other practiced here.
But I did want to blog before bed-time as so much has happened. Adam and I are just back from Hakone, 90 minutes on the ‘romance train’ (a species of bullet train) from Tokyo. It’s a place billed as ‘no must sees’ in the guidebooks and therefore a must-see for Adam and I, jaded from our years if living in ‘the most beautiful part of England.tm’. Hakone is famed for its hot springs, which I’ll cover later, and appears to be a rather charming ‘something for everyone’ kind of tourist resort – we’re talking a Begonia Museum - clinging onto various mountainous precipices and even in mid-week March, popular. It’s the home of the Hakone Open Air Museum, an old skool sculpture park, whose former director Adam had charmed in the Grizedale drizzle a few years back. The old school tie network of international sculpture parks meant that Mr Matsimura and Mrs Noda – whose park is funded by the Fuji empire – were happy to return the favour many times over, and we spent today with them sampling the incredible density of amusements on offer - from eggs cooked in the sulphurous steam of the local volcano (eggy smell / ergo eat eggs – what’s that about?!) - to a clotted cream tea at the colonial Fuyima Hotel, a Shinto shrine plus – in the inclusive Japanese spirit - a Buddha carved into a rockface.
We were very generously accomodated in the Park’s own club, a rather classy late 60’s affair, very stylish despite the bizarre Japanese versions of mid-century European art. Vast windows looked out onto exquisite Hokusai-esque forests, and closer the the building were tiny courtyards of traditional Japanese plantings – including the seasonal cherry trees. I squeezed in 2 traditional Japanese baths – one reluctantly this morning at 5 due to jetlag – and one last night. In both I was alone, though they are usually communal experiences where you wash first and then join the deep, wood and stone bath for a very very hot soak. In Hakone these baths are heated naturally by the hot springs, and a water level window looks onto an exquisite private courtyard. It was sublime and I am now wondering if I could fit one in at home.
Perhaps the most exciting thing was the dining, which took place in an epic room with very groovy 60’s carpeting, James Bond-esque picture windows, and a soundtrack of late 50’s Western pop.
On arrival for dinner our places were already set with a seasonal array of incredible creations – probably 15 separate dishes – and this was only one half of what was to follow in a succession of pots, dishes and trays. The artfulness is almost impossible to describe and each flavour was distinct, some fragrant and moist, some austere. Our hosts seemed genuinely delighted at our enthusiasm for the food, more so at breakfast when we devoured a traditional Japanese breakfast of rice, pickles and fish to the strains of the Everley Brothers and polite smalltalk about driving in England (actually that’s a crap description as noone can ‘devour’ such delicate foo, at least not with my chopstick skills). After dinner we retired to chat in a traditional tatame room, which save for the passive smoking and my jetlag, was a very enjoyable chance to talk cats with our host (he had a persian that looked like Catherine Deneuve and we discussed how to prevent them from ruining the tatame) and witness the endearing giggliness and natural warmth of the Japanese.
The Museum itself is located against a breathtaking natural backdrop, but is dominated by vast works by generally obscure 20th century sculptors. I found myself more interested in the tree-training structures all over the garden. The collection is still growing under Fuji’s patronage but the impression is of a tourist experience rather than an art one. However, this isn’t to denigrate it, as it as fascinating to visit not only the park but the other cultural sights locally with Mr Matsimura and Mrs Yoda – and to witness an attitude to cultural consumption so different from our own – one perhaps of a kind of casualness – which at its worst, in the UK, we see as camera snapping hordes of Japanese tour groups – but in fact one can interpret as consumerism akin to any other practiced here.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Well, it's a start
Let's start a great British blog with a weather report:
Though visability from my mountain-top home has been zero for the last 4 days, I managed to spot the first daffodil in bloom this year in my garden - as I reversed out of my drive at typical break neck speed to start the first leg of my journey to Japan via St Martin's in Lancaster where I teach.
Here at college things are busy - I'm remembering why I don't generally do holidays. It's so much easier just to keep working than to explain to students over and over that no, they can't expect feedback on their dissertation draft 27 whilst you are on the shinkansen to Kyoto next week - 'Please see Oxford English Dictionary' for definition of 'holiday'.
On the plus side, I have set up some good meetings to drive forward lots of iniatives at the start of next term - Kate Brundrett, the coordinator or the Cumbria Artist's Network - is coming to talk about the Fred arts festival in October this year - and if / how we can get our spanking new gallery here on campus involved. Also keeping up with the 'Business and Community Enterprise Unit' here, which seems to be one of the few areas of College with funding which just might be useful in getting a gallery programme of the ground. Also have secured two young artists - Jonathan Griffin and Oliver Lamb - to come to talk to and (I hope) inspire our 3rd yr art students about life after art school. So few of the art students here have any aspirations to make a career out of what they're studying, it's tragic. Both Jonathan and Oliver are still making work despite being in unsteady economic circumstances - so I am hoping that they will be both realistic and motivational.
Jez (the other half of the embryonic -i.e still recruiting - BA New Media Arts programme here (see www.ucsm.ac.uk/cme/) and I are supposed to be generating stage 2 of the afore-mentioned website over the next month, but we keep getting swamped by more urgent-feeling stuff - ergo I feel very chuffed with getting this blog going - a small step in the right direction....
Though visability from my mountain-top home has been zero for the last 4 days, I managed to spot the first daffodil in bloom this year in my garden - as I reversed out of my drive at typical break neck speed to start the first leg of my journey to Japan via St Martin's in Lancaster where I teach.
Here at college things are busy - I'm remembering why I don't generally do holidays. It's so much easier just to keep working than to explain to students over and over that no, they can't expect feedback on their dissertation draft 27 whilst you are on the shinkansen to Kyoto next week - 'Please see Oxford English Dictionary' for definition of 'holiday'.
On the plus side, I have set up some good meetings to drive forward lots of iniatives at the start of next term - Kate Brundrett, the coordinator or the Cumbria Artist's Network - is coming to talk about the Fred arts festival in October this year - and if / how we can get our spanking new gallery here on campus involved. Also keeping up with the 'Business and Community Enterprise Unit' here, which seems to be one of the few areas of College with funding which just might be useful in getting a gallery programme of the ground. Also have secured two young artists - Jonathan Griffin and Oliver Lamb - to come to talk to and (I hope) inspire our 3rd yr art students about life after art school. So few of the art students here have any aspirations to make a career out of what they're studying, it's tragic. Both Jonathan and Oliver are still making work despite being in unsteady economic circumstances - so I am hoping that they will be both realistic and motivational.
Jez (the other half of the embryonic -i.e still recruiting - BA New Media Arts programme here (see www.ucsm.ac.uk/cme/) and I are supposed to be generating stage 2 of the afore-mentioned website over the next month, but we keep getting swamped by more urgent-feeling stuff - ergo I feel very chuffed with getting this blog going - a small step in the right direction....
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