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Web We Want Festival – Play the Web We Want!
Reblogged from an original post for the Southbank Centre, in advance of the November 2014 Web We Want Festival about…
Jeanette Winterson on why art matters now more than ever
Written before the 21st century had really demonstrated its commitment to war and the interests of the 1%. It’s surprising how little the questions have changed.
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An American lady travelling to Paris in 1913 – the kind of American lady who will still be travelling to Paris in 2013 – asked Ezra Pound what he thought art was for. Pound replied: “Ask me what a rose bush is for.”
Europe was on the edge of war. Do rose bushes matter in a war? What can art do for us now, in the likelihood of another war?
I know there is a sneaking feeling, even among art lovers, that art is a luxury. While pictures, books, music and theatre are not quite handmade luggage or perfume, most people would not admit that art is essential. The endless rows over funding centre on an insecurity about the role of art in society. Nobody doubts that hospitals and schools must be paid for by all of us. Mention art, and the answer seems to be that it should rely on the marketplace; let those who want it pay for it.
Read on http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/nov/25/art.artsfeatures1
where in mythology are there stories of collective endeavour that turn out well?
Train to London – through Westcliff
A golden bright morning
I remember I can make a decision
…decisions and the way we make them…
I remember because I have made this decision before
I can’t remember how well it stuck before
it is a choice
it requires me to let go a little of stories, reasons, anxieties, rightness, justification
in order to travel the beam of light, the golden current
life invites me
my 16 bits of consciousness are too narrow to carry counter conversations
the still waters
the coordinated flights of flocks of birds across the sands
the man in the seat in front from a victorian gothic novel
it’s not only to attend to the gold, to the feelings of elation but also to just what is
I have to write my public statement for the Web We Want
I am terrified
by the responsibility
that I will speak from the wrong part of myself with strangulated voice
rather than in polyphonic mode
there are oddnesses
to invite people to join me is to invite people to invest their energy and time in something for me
What is the story of the making of the web
is it the making of Babylon (for which we will all be punished)
where in mythology are there stories of collective endeavour that turn out well?
Cultural Geographies of Play your Place
We are preparing for a series of gaming events at a new location (to be announced) for Play Your Place…
On admitting to being an artist
when it comes up
i brace myself
take a deep breath
and call myself an artist.
as a way of being FOR art
FOR a tradition of willful (rather than submissive) practices – that I am not ready to give up on.
being the most artist that I can be
which is to be free and connected and alert and part of a conscious shaping force of the whole ecology of ideas, beings and things.
re-claiming art now
and using my elbows the best I can to make some space for future art freedoms
i see the encroaching marketization of everything and I refuse to run
and risk loosing touch with the values and process that have shaped me, enriched my world
art continues to generate more ways to be and see myself together with others
i want to keep collaborating with others to create and artify the world.
corporations are running out of land and mineral and energy resources to exploit
now they are moving into us, inside us, mining our insides
“creativity” (as an alternative to art) does not provide a safe haven from corporatisation.
so i am for art that is critical, indigestible, eloquent, indescribable, shapeshifting, cross-realmish, inter-connected, awkward, lumpy, unmanageable, critical- and networks give us a great way to do this together.
– 2012 – as part of a discussion on the Netbehaviour email discussion list about the difficulties of admitting to be being an artist in the current context. http://www.furtherfield.org/netbehaviour/worries-about-blacklists
blogging again
With the recent acquisition of my own “domain name” and publication of a portfolio (pulling together a collection of works that are in some way “mine” – in that they either would not exist without my existence – or they would be different without my existence) – and with due respect to the squally social, economic and environmental conditions- I write this first blog post after a long time.
Though I am a prolific (if undisciplined) muser and maker – private writer, doodler and maker of film, games, artworks- there are many reasons why I haven’t blogged for a long time.
The trickiest of these is negotiating the tensions between public speech and my responsibilities within the various positions I hold in the middle of artistic and educational bureaucratic systems.
I have the feeling that that most public speech that is not couched in academic format, or made on issues other than lifestyle preference or sentiment, or within given frameworks of cultural commentary is regarded as distastefully political or promotional.
It is both political and personally risky to speak one’s private, (difficult, oddly shaped, incongruous, independent and irresponsible) mind in public.
Also, vanity demands that if I am going to negotiate difficult territory in public I should do it well- but on my own terms. So I say that ‘well’ means, playfully and with close attention. I will allow many anomalies and contradictions. The purpose is to move from an unreflective condition of amusement and attention seeker to rigorous grappler with experience- which is currently made up of everyday personal and socially constructed cinches, delights, and melodramas, that may be of interest to others because of the common treacherous grounds upon which we tread.
This is also an act of self- emancipation.
By forcing myself to communicate the relationship between the many complex strands of daily life I may force myself to integrate and simplify the mesh of forces in my head.
Of course there is a tension between sanitization and incontinent oversharing. Some experiences are only half born, others (especially those concerning experiences of others) are not mine to reveal, and because any shared word constructs something new in the world- one has to be circumspect.
However I will need some method for describing the many things that I just cannot talk about- the dark matter- that makes up the bulk of life. Marc and Charlotte have both written and thought about the significance of Gregory Sholette’s insights into dark matter and its articulation of the relationship between the few constellations of bright stars in culture and the ground, the bulk of life experience and action, that remains hidden from view for eternity.
Life is made of dark matter – I am daily engaged in dismantling conversations (conversations that dismantle me) with friends and colleagues effected by the impacts of the politics of neoliberalism and austerity. Our individual identities are dismantled along with valuable working relationships and methods in a chaotic and barbaric way by the daily assaults launched by current political contexts.
Also in stage conversations and negotiations with possible commissioners and partners on new projects- as we circle each other sniffing for affinities and mutually agreeable paths for collaboration.
So when ‘private’ moments occur I will describe them in terms of terrain (boggy, rocky, bleak), smell (sour, floral, shitty), feeling (whimpering, sweating, glowing) sound (barking, splatt!), materials (a ball of wall, slime covered chocolate) etc etc. So when suddenly a strange glumphing creature appears in the middle of a blog post – smell it, listen to it and perhaps you will recognize bits of it.
The other trouble is that I am given to endless scene setting.
I am initially driven to write something by an uncomfortable situation or jubilant moment and then never get to the point.
on admitting to being an artist
when it comes up
i brace myself
take a deep breath
and call myself an artist.
as a way of being FOR art
FOR a tradition of willful (rather than submissive) practices – that I am not ready to give up on.
being the most artist that I can be
which is to be free and connected and alert and part of a conscious shaping force of the whole ecology of ideas, beings and things.
re-claiming art now
and using my elbows the best I can to make some space for future art freedoms
Re-rooting digital culture at ISEA 2011
Some thoughts on returning from ISEA 2011 in Istanbul.
It is ever more urgent for us to develop functional infrastructures for imaginative interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration.
A world where humans play with things
Overland – video shown as part of my presentation at Furtherfield’s Re-rooting Digital Culture unconference on Friday.
In September 2009, as part of our media art ecologies pyramid pledge, We Wont Fly For Art,* I took an overland trip to the Eclectic Tech Carnival (and art biennial) in Istanbul, breaking my journey in Linz. I was joined by Aileen and Rob. I blogged and documented the journey with unglamorous tools (a recycled computer and an old mobile phone).
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