Archived entries for Editorial/Rant

MANIFESTO TWO POINT OH

Developed with Nikki today in advance of an awesome workshop/presentation/performance thing I’m helping her run for MADE in November. Them’s our ideas. And this is my OH MY ONLY TWO DAYS UNTIL THE UMBRELLA PROJECT STARTS face. It’s a pretty scary face.

splacist (splā sĭst)

A contemporary mode of practice proposed by Paul Conneally. A new set of ideologies defined by Hannah Nicklin and Nikki Pugh. A hop, skip and a jump away from phsychogeography and the works of the situationist international. With more practice and less wine. Think space, place and splice. Though still with a bit of wine.

Developed empirically by whoever’s interested.

WE ARE THE SPLACISTS

We will own this city.
We will take it back.
We will link and shift; across time, space, people, places and processes.
We will weave throughout the fabric of people’s lives.
We will unpick it.

We will expose and re-see.
We recognise our observation affects the outcome unavoidably.
We will affect and be affected.
We will glory in the moment, the collage, the marking and then passing on.

We reject your beginning, middle and end.
We will work on and across edges. We will push them. We will blur them.
We will trace and leave traces.
We will work with you, not for you.

We reject your shopping centre, your pavement, your cultural quarter;
We will under mine pre-defined spaces. We reject them.

We will fail spectacularly, vitally, elegantly.
Our practice will be open, although it may not always be out in the open.

We will make exchanges.
We will make adventures.
We will reveal beautiful moments.
We will reveal the ugly.
We will hold your hand.
We will whisper in your ear ‘let go’.

We will reclaim the city, not for you, but with you.
We are you.

WE ARE ALSO THE TECHNOLSPLACISTS

We will not be technosplacist when being splacist will suffice.
We will never underestimate the power of cardboard and masking tape.
We will not be afraid to get our hands dirty.
We will not be afraid to do without digital at all.

We will use ‘digital’ as tool and material, not as veneer.
We recognise ‘digital’ is not necessarily something ‘other’.

We will make and share our own tools as appropriate.
We will collaborate.
We will be generous.
We will be porous.

We will re-reveal technology as used by private interests.
We will hold them accountable.
We will put it to our own uses.

We will cut, and we will paste.
We will undo.

We will be artful. We will be skilful. We will fail usefully.

We will find our own energy sources.

We will pervade.

At Home

my tent

August 2004

The Tl;dr version of this post is this link. But please do just read it.

Edinburgh is a fucking beautiful place. Despite my inner-midlander that wept at the sight of every incline, I felt remarkably at home there.

Feeling at home is something it’s been hard to cultivate since turning 18, really. I’ve lived in 14 different houses in the 8 years since I made my first home away from home. In a tent. In the Ardeche region of France. It became home when I tied several old crates together on their side and built a makeshift bookcase. That and the Marmite my mum sent in shoebox-wrapped packages.

My books used to mean home for me, but my relationship to my books has changed since they became part of my living (PhD), and now the familiar wallpaper of my desktop feels like home. The small idiosyncrasies I’ve set up as short cuts, the things I keep on each ‘space’, right hand top for emails, bottom right for calendar, top left for internet, bottom left the exotic realms of ‘miscellaneous’.

Home is always when me, my brother and our mum find ourselves together. Home is Christmas-time jokes about stockings that still appear (but this time before we get up, not after we go to bed, which tends to be via the local pub these xmas eves). Home is the slightly stilted conversation of more extended family trying not to bring up global warming or gender equality in our company.

Home has also been mashed potato and toad-in-the-hole. The smell of Jean Paul-Gautier on someone’s neck. Smokey hair. The very slightly different texture of a tattoo shaped like a star.

Home is Big Skies. Lincolnshire sausages. And horizons that go on forever.

Edinburgh is a fucking beautiful place. I felt remarkably at home there. Despite the hills.

And that, of course, has a lot to do with the people. The wonderful amazing constantly confounding people that make up my small corner of the theatre industry. But it also has a lot to do with a place. A single place that while I was there was like an oasis. The Forest Cafe. Continue reading…

I can understand them.

Riot

I can understand them.

I shouldn’t have to couch this in apologies about not condoning of course. But I will.

Because there is a difference. I wouldn’t do it. But I can understand it.

Because actually I think the most important thing is trying to understand it, and the reason this is happening is because people don’t or can’t try to understand people; they’re just ‘mindless’ ‘scum’ ‘youths’ ‘black’ ‘pigs’ ‘anarchists’ ‘protestors’ ‘chavs’ ‘lazy’ ‘stupid’ ‘fuzz’ or one of any number of words that means ‘them not us’.

Every day in many ways you are told about what you should have. What you should wear, the kind of phone, the brand of trainers, the size of TV. But not you. You don’t have the money. We’ll give you the aspiration. The one for the stuff, mind, not skills or education, we don’t want you thinking about it. And we don’t tell you that it’s an empty addiction, that it’s never enough. And every now and then we flash a golden ticket in front of your eyes, a game show, a talent contest, a lottery. Take a chance, they say, life is just a game of snakes and ladders and you may just hit the ladder that takes you all the way to the top.

Brands aren’t people. They’re massive. There are no real people behind that.

And there are whispers of people getting something for nothing

And then it’s a corner shop, not a chain, it’s someone’s livelihood. But after you’ve broken one window, why not another, what’s stopping you? And it feels so good, it makes you feel strong, you’re having an effect. Mostly people look down on you, you can see it in their eyes. Now they’re afraid of you. Scared. You’re on the news. On TV, it’s reality tv where you dictate the camera angles.

You don’t hear or feel the fear of the people in the houses, not out on the streets.

You just feel the pounding of the blood and ringing of the alarms in your ears and your body feels like it’s vibrating. You feel strong. You feel like you could do anything. So you do.

‘you’re just trashing your own community’, so what? No one else gives a fuck about it, why should you. (Ever heard of self harm?)

Looting is an act of aggression against the rules of capitalism. A rejection of the label ‘have not’.

You might not phrase it like that

“I’m hungry, I come and I ask for food, I say please. Every day. I come and I see you’ve got lots of it, more than you need. Days, years, decades I come by. Keep on saying please. Year’s we’ve been asking the government. One day I’m just going to take it.” (paraphrasing an interview from the streets of Hackney http://boo.fm/b433800)

People will get hurt. Houses and goods and livelihoods will be broken. People will be jailed, mothers will lose their sons and police officers’ families won’t sleep, wondering if they’ll take another brick or bottle to the face.

And a thousand more horrible things I couldn’t possibly really understand.

But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

A broken society is built on the failure of imagination of both government and people.

Stay safe.

Edit, this has got a bit of attention, glad it struck a nerve, even if it was just my half murmured thoughts about a small aspect of it (the looting). If you want to do something (and in general for a good ‘there is such thing as community’ feeling) check out the #riotcleanup hashtag on Twitter. @Artistsmakers is trying to organise community led cleanups.

Imagining Better Cities.

I actually didn’t have a proper title for my TEDxYork talk, but I reckon the name they gave the youtube entry does a pretty good job. Now available for viewing at your leisure: me, ranting about Art and the City:

Other Must Sees include Alan Lane, Dan Bye, Baba Israel, Alex Kelly, Tassos Stevens and many more. Go find them all over here



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