Simon Ralph Goff and I are working on an extra little addendum to the Umbrella Project at the moment; a 6-track EP, with 3 shorter versions of the instrumental music behind each soundwalk, and 3 re-workings of the stories I found in the city for a shorter form performed over that music – about 4-6 minutes max. I sat down to work on that tonight, and this came out. I’m not sure if it’s quite right for any of the specific walks (commute, nighttime, daytime). But it is sort of about all of them. Perhaps we’ll make it a 7th track? Maybe this will just rest here. Largely unedited, fresh draft stuff, but I wanted it to have a life beyond my harddrive because there’s some ideas I like here, so here it is.

//

The city is a dream. A dream that lingers long after sleep has passed.

The kind of dream that hangs on the edges of our visions, reminds us of loves we have lost, people who have slipped past our fingers, that makes the places we walk through seem like the childhood homes we revisit in the night; that we turn a corner in and somehow certain things just aren’t right.

The city is a dream. It is the happenings of a thousand people’s days – arguments, small glimmers of kindness, tired stumblings, forgotten tasks, lists lost, and cracks in the pavement skipped – shaken up together, working their way out. The city is not a thing, it is a state of being – empty cities are ghost towns; they die. All that’s left are the dusty walkways where you struggle to recollect what has gone before.

The city is dreaming, it dreams you as you dream it. The city caresses you as you move through it, it lifts you and reaches into you in the way of an ex-lover visiting in the night. Insidious. Something you cannot extract yourself from. You are in the city and the city is in you. When you leave you relish the escape, but quietly know you’ll feel the pull to return to the neon visions of the night before long.

The morning commute is where you see this state. Also, motorway service stations. Those places between the dream, and awake.

And the city slips like dreams do too, one moment a rushing street, another a palace to consumption, the next an empty place designed only for passing through, then those nooks and crannies where old refrigerators, crisp packets and fallen bricks build up. Tombs to broken buildings mount next to the back walls of places that throng with coffee and china and steam and laughter.

The city sees you. It sees you and forgets you and feels your footfalls. The city remembers that it has missed you. Can’t imagine how it forgot. You touch its walls and stoop to pick up a glove that someone has lost.

You look at the glove. Small, but adult, probably a woman’s. You see the ghost of her running for a bus and dragging her purse from her bag, the glove falling to the ground unnoticed.

You hold it for a little longer than you expect. Then place it on the wall next to the pavement.

You look at the glove. Small, a child’s perhaps, you see the ghost of a harassed parent, barely maintaining consciousness through a haze of caffeine. The child throws it off and the pushchair runs over it. You briefly feel the milky texture of an infant’s skin. You gently place the glove on a nearby post box, then move on.

You look at the glove. And suddenly tears are falling from your face. Tears for the place you were 2 hours ago. Tears for all you have been holding back, all you continue to have to. All of the learning to un love someone. All of the extricating yourself from something with which you fit so well. You hold the glove tighter. Then fold it into your pocket.

For months later, when you feel like you’re falling, you reach into your pocket and grasp the slightly coarse fabric of that grey lost glove. That gift from someone who didn’t know they would give it.

You are never lost. Your hands are held by ghosts. The city sees you, in its dreams. Greets you like a friend both long and never forgotten. Still there when you wake up.

//

image shared by Jeff Youngstrom on Flickr via a CC license.

Exciting thing! Andy Field and I are up to stuff again, returning to the Arts Council England’s (ACE) State of the Arts Conference this year, much more integrally than how we were part of last year’s; this time we’ve been able to help shape the way, where, and with whom the conversations happen. Live blog! Artists bursaries! Actual conversations on themes! Some very exciting and challenging live bloggers feeding in and back everything said by everyone! All in all it looks like a massive leap for ACE, in a brilliant and totally important direction. A bit below from mine and Andy’s statement of intent:

“Before, during and after State of the Arts 2012, we will be hosting this online space as an important new facet of the conference.

We want this to be a place for anyone with an interest in the arts to share their thoughts and ideas. A carnival of voices discussing anything and everything about the state of the arts in 2012. In particular we hope that this site might allow people who can’t make it to Manchester for the day of the conference to have a really meaningful impact upon the event.”

Read more on our intent over here, see who all our livebloggers are here, and start submitting your thoughts on the main themes of the conference (along the top of the page) on the submit page.

To get you all started we’d love to start a little ‘art is’ meme – I found a really lovely mine of ‘art is’ images on flickr which I’ve been using to title each opening blog post that’s up there now, and we’d love to know what your answer is to that question is (positive, negative, or indifferent), so, how to join in:

• Find an image that for you says something about what art is and why it is important.
• It can be a picture, or a picture of an event, or a diagram. It could be something you find on the net (though preferably creative commons), something you take a photograph of, or even something you draw yourself. It doesn’t really matter.
• Send it to us as an image post on the submit page
• Tell other people to do the same.*

*plagiarising Andy a bit with these instructions. Sorry Andy, it’s late and I’ve been staring at the website way too long.

THAT’S INTERACTION, THAT IS.

I haven’t really talked about comics much here, before – though I have music, games, dance and, obviously, theatre – but as comics are more and more a part of my life these days (film and TV; meh), it was pretty inevitable that one would drive my fingers to the keyboard at some point.

Ready yourself for some minor spoilers (nowt more than you’d get from the blurb on the back, and no major later ones, I hope).

I just finished reading a comic called ‘Aaron and Ahmed‘. It was recommended to me by my mate Andy whose judgement in comics (except for the men in tights kind) I trust implicitly. But, unusually, I struggled with this one. Andy said it had him in tears, and so I fully expected to be in pieces afterwards, but instead I just felt kind of… silent.

I think I want to talk about a flaw in the work, though I’m not sure. Like I said, I really struggled to read the comic; I just didn’t move past the first few pages.

The writer offers you a once-broken man; an army psychiatrist saved by the love of a good woman, only then to lose her in the attack on the Twin Towers; seeks out employment in Guantanamao Bay. That’s the opening premise, Aaron before we meet Ahmed. We watch him walk into the Guantanamo.

And that’s when I leave. Because my disbelief refused to be suspended the moment we traipse the halls and dusty grounds of that detention camp. Detention. Those little neat words like hospital corners. Place of torture; that’s what we see in Aaron and Ahmed. Aaron sleepwalking around rooms where different horrific tortures are inflicted on detainees. Victims? They’re certainly portrayed like that. Right then I’m lost to the main character, right then I can’t possibly walk by his side.

What stopped me at that first page I saw a man being tortured was like the feeling of a seeing punch to the stomach of someone I love further away than I could reach them. I wouldn’t walk by it, not even as narrative companion.

This story doesn’t fit in my head. My mind said. But it fits in my world, it’s one of the pieces; it fits together with the piece I am a part of. These acts or ones like them are committed by a culture I buy into. My government is implicit in tortures like these.

Here is what interests me about the work; it’s close, recent stuff, this. How could I possibly be asked to suspend myself? It doesn’t have the historical/generational distance of Maus or Ethel and Ernest, the ‘not-here-but-somewhere-like-here’ of something like Habibi, or the personal ‘true story’ nature of works like Fun Home or Persepolis. I felt rudely present throughout the whole. And maybe that’s right; that I feel my body – my mind – present. That I see how they might or might not be implicit in a story; this story. That I see both me, and story, and the places they both vanish, because that’s where things sometimes get dangerous. Like the kinds of stories, the memes which the story goes on to talk about (still, I felt, pretty heavy-handedly). The stories we (cultures, societies, religions) tell ourselves about the world. The stories which always have to rearrange the world to fit into our heads. Sometimes these stories should bear unfolding. Sometimes we should trace the creases.

It is the first few pages which cause me to trace the creases. I didn’t really rate the stuff in the middle, but then at the end, the main character’s final conclusions ring true; there, Aaron finds me again. It’s an idea (meme) often repeated, by many people. Here’s one from 403 years ago:

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Yeah, horrifically well known Shakespeare, I know. It’s been running through my mind, that, recently, though. No one is ever lost to the night sky; it is only ever obscured from view.

Sometimes love burns with disappointment, or regret, or too much weight, or it is obscured, lost. Sometimes you might fly on it, it might suddenly be in the face of a stranger, or stoop with you to pick someone up when they least expect. I couldn’t walk with Aaron past those people being tortured. And when I realised what this meant to me, several hours after finishing the comic, my eyes were wet.

If you want to buy the book, at all, I recommend getting it from the lovely guys at Page45, you can reserve stuff via Twitter and everything.

I’m stupidly excited to be able to announce a thing I’ve been working on since just before Christmas, the first in a series of DIY performance shows in Leicester, called ‘Performance in the Pub’.

if something isn’t happening where you are, make it happen wherever.

Performance in the Pub began as an idea in my head as I was writing this article for my mate’s punk webzine about what DIY theatre and music can learn from one another. I realised that I’d been complaining about the lack of innovative programming in Leicester’s theatres, but doing nothing about it – and also while sort of knowing that the kind of stuff I thought it was missing don’t really suit massive venues like Curve etc. So, money/mouth is; here I am. Putting on small-scale, DIY and storytelling performance on in a pub.

The first event will be taking place in The Cookie Jar, The Crumblin’ Cookie’s brand new venue in the centre of Leicester. It will be a double bill of solo performance; Tassos Stevens with Jimmy Stewart, and Ira Brand with Keine Angst. BOTH OF WHICH ARE AMAZING. You can find lots more about this first show and the two performances on the Eventbrite where coincidentally, you can also get tickets.

WHY A PUB?

Because I’m so bored of all these divisions between art forms. And big shiny buildings that act like cathedrals to art/theatre/etc. They have their place, but the problem is it’s not a place that’s a part of most people’s lives. The pub, on the other hand, is. That’s why a pub. Single-form buildings only work heavily subsidised by either government (arts council) or large-scale commercialism (cinemas, large music venues), or alcohol (small venues). The latter is way more fun, so let’s fill nooks and crannies of these buildings with theatre, performance, dance, exhibitions, craft, music and more. Make our cities exciting, varied places to be. This is my contribution.

WHAT KIND OF PERFORMANCE?

Just stories really. I mean, that’s what most theatre and performance is. I’m saying ‘performance’ here, because most of it won’t be like a ‘proper play’. It’ll be stuff people made with their actual bodies in a room – trying ideas and stuff out until they found something that worked. Think of how bands put music together compared to how composers do – that’s the difference between ‘performance’ and ‘theatre’ for me. The performance I put on will be small-scale, DIY, and/or storytelling theatre. By turns loud, funny, heart racing, lovely, musical, spectacular, touching, and transporting. I can promise you it will be from some of the most exciting, innovative and brilliant acts in the UK, and as the UK is well good at performance, PROBABLY THE WORLD. Totes.

HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?

How much does it cost me, or how much does it cost you? Well, basically I, and everyone involved in putting on PitP shows are working for free, I pay for the travel, food and accommodation of the performers, I give myself a pat on the back if I’m lucky. All the promotion, printing, deposit for the venue, website building, and everything is upfronted by me, and hopefully paid back by the money people donate for tickets. That leads us to:

How much does it cost you? Well actually that’s another important thing to me, that you can ‘trial’ this stuff, that if you really don’t want to spend a 5ver or whatever on it, that you can just walk in, and sit down, and see what you think, and maybe pay afterwards if you liked it. Or pay next time. That’s why it’s ‘donation based’ ticketing. If you’re looking for a guide price, though, it costs me roughly £350-£400 to put on each show. If I sell out the venue at £5 each ticket then I break even. More is more to roll forward into more print/acts/etc. So if you want to help more happen £5 or over is ACE, you’re effectively only paying £2.50 per nationally or internationally known performance at that price ;) also; buy drinks. More drinks bought = I get the venue deposit back.

And while you’re still reading, why not follow @performancepub on Twitter, Like it on Facebook, and invite EVERYONE IN THE WORLD to the Facebook event. You can also go onto performanceinthepub.co.uk and check out where I’m horrifically self-plagiarising. Oh yes, and Tickets. Go forth!

First up, FOLK PUNK AWESOME. ONSIND’s Dissatisfactions at first listen had me feeling it was a bit… I dunno, gaudy, but it properly, properly grew on me, and I always loved the first track, shouty righteous, and why the hell shouldn’t we shout about these things? Stand out track: Heterosexuality is a Construct

Next up, found – rather appropriately – on a late night stumbling through the internets. Biff from Crash of Rhinos morphs into Emphemetry (which I can never spell properly) with an album inspired by the streets of Derby. A Lullaby Hum for Tired Streets comes in a beautiful card/art booklet CD case. Sounds like orange streetlights and clammy streets and glimpses through the bright lit windows of strangers. Stand out track: Four Million Silhouettes.

Another Derby band, now, quite a new one, but full of awesome melodic energy and vocals with just the right amount of edge to them. Papayér’s EP (they also have a split with Nai Harvest on their bandcamp which you should definitely check out) is one of my favourite leaping-around-unnecessarily records. Stand out track: Dress for December

Last up from Derby, which I should really make an effort to get to more shows at in 2012, is the magnificent Crash of Rhinos with Distal. Physical copies put out by twitter mate Nick Moreton (@roundonefight). Tastily but not too thickly layered noise, bits of guitar feel nicely early-mid 2000s era Hundred Reasons/Reuben type stuff – but LOADS of well up to date vocals; feels like sheets of snow, crunchy, but you can sink into it really satisfactorily. Stand out track: Gold on Red.

In another version of this year I probably would have included Tellison here, I was going to SHOUT about them being STOLEN by associations with an evil* ex, but if it could be taken away I guess the music was only really loaned to me anyway. FEAR NOT, noble reader, it does not matter, for it made room for another ace Big Scary Monsters Recs band; the Sheffield-based Algiers. Their debut Four Priests EP has gloriously poppy vocals, ace driving drums, and nice chunky lyrics which I actually can’t resist singing along to. Stream one of their songs here. Better lyrics than Tellison, actually, I reckon. SO WHO WINS NOW, EX. Ahem. Stand out track: These January Versions.

*not actually evil, a nice chap, really.

Now this one, I actually could understand some people not liking, mostly because it relies so heavily on the lead’s quite distinct vocals. But I find them proper beguiling, so I love it – Winter Forever by Seahaven. Some really good storytelling in the lyrics, too, makes up for occasionally unimaginative guitar-ing. Which is definitely a word. Standout track: Black and White.

Birmingham-based &U&I are formed of most of Blakfish, who apparently you should know if you like your math rock, which no doubt you all do. Anyway, &u&i are a bit more palatable and driving than Blakfish, which I find all kinds of ace. The Chancer’s Paradise EP is another must, but linking to a part-stream of their Light Bearer album release here. All the tasty changes in timings you’d expect from math rock (this is where I pretend I know about genres), with soaring proper firery sounding vocals. Stand out track: Belly Full of Fire and a Heart Full of Blood; mostly for its ability to injure me if I run to it.

This next one is probably at least top 3 for me, Brighton trio Tall Ships’ EP There is Nothing But Chemistry Here. Samples, synths, guitars, really foot tapping drums; half instrumental but with a fucking gorgeous array of vocals and clever lyrics at just the right moments. Feels like floating in the sea, balanced, sometimes serene but unpredictable, prepared to proper hurt you*. Stand out track: Vessels. Just listen to it. And also buy it. Big Scary Monster Recs again. Might just head over to Oxford so they can put a face to who’s buying all of their stock.

*can you tell I was a rubbish surfer? Waves hurt.

“PETER FUCKING WYETH”, once you listen to him (which you must) you will see why this excited shout (from me) was frowned upon by most of the audience. Humming New Time is full of quiet, delicate, soaring, exquisite, sampled, looped sounds all made by one man and an array of instruments/pedals. I loved it so much I cornered him after the gig and tried to convince him he should be making sound installations for theatre. Which he should. And he actually looked more interested in the idea than frightened by me, so if you’re a) in a position to do so, b) actually still reading, and c) interested in commissioning quiet immersive, transporting sound from him, DO. Would fit ace into a small airy room of BAC for the one-on-one fest, for example. Anyway, here’s the record. Hand lithographed hard copies a must-buy, too. Stand out track: ALL OF THEM. But if I had to choose, Sing to Me.

And finally, from Worcester, Watch Commander’s Closer to Home EP. The opening of the first track totally makes me feel 17 again; full of hubris and energy and fucking joy. Classic punky guitars and a good grate-y vocal (I mean that as a quality not a complaint). The kind of thing to leap around to with mates. Which is always a good note to end things on. Stand out track: Places.

et la fin.

Have an ace Christmas, and if you like these tracks, give the bands/labels money for them. Bandcamp makes that uber easy.

Digital hat is an experiment in revolutionising how we discover and pay for theatre.

I am a punk fan. Other stuff too, but mostly punk, hardcore, screamo. Guitars, shouting, that kind of thing. I was 14 when Napster was released. My musical maturity was shaped by sharing; it was also shaped by the staring at of progress bars, and never needing to pay.

I was 25 when I started always paying for music.

Because over 2 years or so my whole relationship to music and its worth has changed. For one thing it has become a relationship, social media has, in a big way, connected me to musicians and the work that they do much more fully. For another, the ability to trial music, listen to it on spotify or youtube, means I know what I’m buying, and that friends also share what they like, in podcasts, blog posts, tweets, and playlists. And a final thing; pay what you think it’s worth. Not ‘pay what you want’, I think it’s an important distinction, because I probably (leaving aside the relationship with an artist) want to pay as little as I can, but as soon as it’s framed with the notion of ‘worth’, suddenly I want to pay as much as I can. Bandcamp and social media changed my relationship to musicians, and the music they produce. The trust that ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ puts in me, makes me want to respond favourably. And actually, how artificial is a price point anyway? An album may only be worth £4 to me, it might be worth £20. Don’t you want my money either way? Often I’ll buy an album for a fiver and go and give back more afterwards. How much is the song you danced to at your wedding worth? How about the album that saved your life?

I feel part of a community, one that the web helps me find, and support. And I want to support it.

Over the past two years my relationship to how I discover and pay for new music has been revolutionised. I may not pay much more on average, but I know that it’s going directly to an artist, and I also know that I’m buying an awful lot more. Plus, more awesome music! WINNING.

In the checkout area, how often do we see theatres linking to similar work in other venues?

And while we’re at it, when have you ever used an e-checkout system on a venue’s site that was even slightly bearable?

How often have non-theatre going friends expressed a general interest, but just not known a) where to start or b) if it wasn’t just a bit too expensive?

How often have you carried a piece with you for weeks, months afterwards? How much do you think that’s worth?

I think that there is a bandcamp for theatre. Not bandcamp exactly. Not Spotify, or Amazon, not twitter, not just a recommendation site, a place to buy stuff, not a review site. Though it may look a little like all these things, it may not necessarily be just an online or web based system, it could borrow a lot from physical things like Oyster cards or loyalty systems. But a way of regulating, sharing, exchanging, standardising, offering, equalising, and making easy the act of finding, going to, and paying for theatre.

Seth Honnor and I are going to r+d this. We want to look at the data generated from ticket sales – the sharing of that data in a way that the theatre-goer is completely in control of, and benefits from (rather than just the ‘untick mailing list’ box). We want to look at changing the experience of paying for theatre, work on a scalable model that could be used by any size venue, that had room for recommendations, sharing, simple video or audio trails, and that are used by many venues. Imagine only needing to remember one password for every theatre checkout system in the UK. Imagine syncing tickets with your smartphone, so you don’t need to have it delivered, or pick it up. Imagine subscribing to the arts events calendars of friends, or certain venues. Imagine a system that allows you to put a deposit on a ticket, but doesn’t take the money until after you pay, after which you are able to pay what you think it was worth. Throw your money in the hat; that’s why ‘digital hat’.

That’s where we want to start thinking. digitalhat.co.uk/ Let us know if you want in, what you would want from it, or if you think it already exists. We’ll let you know soonish about our next steps. Early days, but exciting ones, I hope.

So I wrote this thing for my mate’s punk and comics webzine. It’s about DIY punk, and DIY theatre. And mostly how we can learn from each other. You should go and read it, it’s over here. Go on. What are you waiting for? It has swear words and lots of semicolons. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT. Clicky. Also, when I was writing it, James of ace performance duo Action Hero sent me some of his own thoughts on being ‘DIY’ in theatre. Just after I sent my finished article off, but I’m reposting them here, with his permission, because they say a quite similar but still really useful thing.

“I think a comparison between DIY music and DIY theatre is long overdue. Not least because theatre suffers so much from an identity crisis and I think it could benefit from the association!

I would identify the work that Gemma and I do as Action hero very much as DIY but there’s an important distinction to made between two ways of using that terminology. There is much talk in theatre of a ‘DIY aesthetic’ and its a phrase often used to describe our work (I think we even use it to describe ourselves on our website) but the DIY element of our work is not ‘an aesthetic’ it comes from a genuine do it yourself approach. We sometimes do make decisions to deliberately use things that are lo-fi because of the way it changes the relationship an audience has with the work but more often than not its a genuine response to trying to make something with very few resources. So not an aesthetic choice as such. What interests me more is the punk use of the term DIY which doesn’t mean ‘ooh look their set is made from cardboard’ but is about an approach and a way of working that deliberately avoids mainstream modes of production.

So in the same way punk bands avoid signing to record labels so they can have more of a say over the work they are producing (and consequently have less money and end up doing more of the producing, marketing etc themselves) we too have always wanted to avoid trapping oursleves into conventional modes of production in theatre. i.e a set, lighting, cast and crew that requires significant investment from venues or funders. If we control the means of production ourselves it means we’re more flexible, mobile and responsive with the work we make which is how we like it. It also means we have less money because we don’t get huge marketing budgets of venues etc but we prefer it that way. We’ve always done absolutely everything ourselves and only very recently have we worked with anyone else and only then because we couldn’t physically do it ourselves because of a lack of time and it caused us great distress! I think what is important is that its seen as a deliberate decision that, like punk bands, isn’t to do with a lack of ambition, and its not because we subscribe to Dave’s big society but because we want to maintain control and we want to work in this way.

When we made our first show and we were so inspired by the way the relationship changes between an audience and an artist when there is more for the audience to do to complete the work, when they have to buy into what you’re doing and help make it happen. Seeing what happens when an audeince sees you genuinely trying to make something empowers the artist and the audience in a way that we think is actually quite political and I think similar to the ideologies of DIY music.

All that said, we could never have made anything we’ve made without funding support from the Arts Council and massive amounts of support from subsidised organisations such as IBT [In Between Time], Theatre Bristol etc. So we’re not like DIY music in that way. We can’t just pick up a guitar and start generating our own income because theatre is less commodifiable, less popular and way more expensive to make because it takes so long to make a show that is decent quality.”

#Dust was a first artistic response to the Splacist Manifesto. #Dust was a collaboration between writer/theatre maker Hannah Nicklin and artist Nikki Pugh. #Dust was a commission by MADE. #Dust is a fragment of a city.

There were two main components to #Dust, first the Dust Balls, and secondly the Dust Motes.

The Dust Balls are large fragments of the city. They are formed out of open source electronics, clay, hope and optimism. They begin by introducing themselves to the listeners, and instruct them to point the device in different directions in order to ‘pick up’ stories of individuals in the areas surrounding them. Depending on the timing and direction in which you are facing, different stories will be heard.

They are heavy, and designed to be listened to by two people at once – the weight and bulk of the object meaning that two are required to support it. The two people sharing each experience of overhearing the stories should be strangers.

The Dust Motes are small fragments of the city. Memories, secrets, and moments lost, dropped, found, discovered, gifted, stolen and spread throughout the city. All are from Real People. Be very careful with them. Select ones you like the feel of. Keep them safe.

These motes were spread around the area surrounding the carpark where the first section happened. Groups of 3 went out to collect Motes, which they were then asked to look after carefully. At the end of the walk back to MADE’s office, they were asked to make a decision. Keep it, or crush it and see if anything was inside.

Why Oh Why: This collaboration started with a number of aims; challenging Nikki and Hannah as artists (Hannah to work with more fragmentary narrative directly augmenting a city, Nikki to work with narrative and examine interfaces), challenging the perception of how space is inhabited, considering Birmingham as inhabited architecture, picking up the fragments that you often walk by, to consider our ways of getting at the world; a consideration of the map view and the street view. As well as responding to the Splacist Manifesto, which is concerned with these things and more.

The Brief: After starting with the manifesto and the aims above, we wrote ourselves the following brief. Out of this the idea for #Dust emerged. “Make something that examines interfaces and how to create resonance in space and place. Looking at fabric pre-woven and overlaid; of narrative/moments, that heats and lights and races hearts.”

Fragments and the city. Cities are made up of the people who move through them; without them they are like crab shells. In this metaphor, we are the crab meat. And to confuse it. Crab meat made up like that bar of soap your grandma used to make out of all the ends of other different coloured soaps. Maybe we should dispense with the crab soap. What I’m trying to say is that we are everything that a city is. That cannot be reduced to a map or a single path through the place. #Dust aims to bring to life (in a very small way) a very small part of the patchwork of experiences, moments, breath, that is being-in-the-city.

Read more: We are also dedicated to being open about our processes, so to follow the blog posts that accompanied the making process, head over onto npugh.co.uk/tag/dust/ and hannahnicklin.com/tag/splacist

No, these people don’t know what they want, but they’ve grown used to virtual spaces where that can be discovered; where a manifesto is on a wiki, and where consensus building allows populism, complexity and ambiguity to coexist. They are trying to forge these spaces in the city; simply come by the occupation, talk to some people, be Kanye West and stride silently through, be a banker who cannot help but face the perception of bankers, or be a police officer who is genuinely torn about what to do. The Occupy movement forces us to question the city in, weirdly, almost the same way that a facebook redesign manages to cause so much dissatisfaction; it throws a space we take for granted in our face and demands to know if this is what you expected. (read more)

Skateboarding, networks and the occupy movement. A brief flit through some ace thinking from Felix Cohen

I am making something with Nikki Pugh called ‘Dust’. It is a response to a manifesto that claims we will make things with you, not for you. This is one of the ways it’s with. You can read about where the project is at right now over here. If you can offer me a story, it will be made into a Dust Mote. Things that people will find and keep. The stories will also feed into and inform the longer-form narrative fragments in the work. Head over here for full context.

And because this is a two way thing, here’s a couple I will submit:

Object 1: A porcelain badge, square with rounded corners, the transfer of a rabbit with a balloon on the front.

This object broke. It was the last thing in my daily life that came from the boy whose hair smelled like raku firings. It fell off my bag in St. Pancras about 3 years ago and shattered. I still have the largest fragment.

Object 2: A small plush rat.

[no picture]

Bought because it looked lonely. Bought just before something went completely, bafflingly wrong. Now hidden.

…

I need some less emo objects, huh?