down by the water front

Its All About The Class

Hashtag Class

 

It’s All About the Class

 

 

I have been twittering and face booking this event over the past week ; it being the Hashtag Class Project which has been organised by New York Artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida in the Gallery owned by Ed Winkleman

They have effectively gathered artists from all over, mainly through the internet and social media, to contribute to an event that hopes to dissect the meaning of class in relation to art and the business of art. With New York being one of those places central to the art market they felt the need to address the inclusiveness of this in the wider context of the ‘aspiring’ artist and/or the compliance of the finished works that are ‘accepted’ into this inner circle (for want of a better name) on the base or grounds of that inclusion.

 

It has taken them weeks to get all this organised and they now also have a live stream as the event takes place Wednesday to Sunday from 2pm-6pm EST and 7pm-11pm GMT on their blog.

 

The Gallery itself has been going since 2001 and has recently moved from Brooklyn to Chelsea – even though it is effectively in the New York equivalent of London’s Cork Street or similar, it is one of those galleries that seem more connected with the meaning of art than the eventual star rated price tag. The gallery owner has also, as part of this event, set aside time to view any art submitted to him for a minimum of 10 seconds and pass comment on each piece see his purpose built blog Shut Up Already I'll  Look At Your Art!.

So I’m really chuffed that I am/was able to contribute (depending when you read this on Sunday 28th Feb 5pmEST 10pmGMT) with a piece done over the internet about the relevance of 3d digital art to fine art as a medium shrugging off art cliques, having wider appeal because of its increasing accessibility and demystification. I will have hopefully captured this on video and will post later.

Another part of the project is an ongoing written debate on chalkboards around the gallery - to which contributors offered their thoughts in writing to be disscussed rubbed out or added to, (hope mine's not the smudged bit in the middle!).

But if you get chance check out the stream and events calendar on their blog – I saw a really good performance art piece the other night called Warbonds by James Leonard done in the style (I think) of Samuel L  Jackson of the Pulp Fiction scene/Cypress Hill track ‘I will lay my finger upon you!!!’ only from stance and attitude of a southern accented pro war ‘evangelist neo con’ with Mickey Mouse ears, selling war bonds to the audience. Very scary and I wasn’t even in the real audience!. I think from hearing a later discussion the artist wanted to limit the audience in his performance to artists only – I guess the rest had to sit at the back.

 

So I’m looking forward to some top notch discussions and contributions, tune in if you can!

A really relaxed crowd, on the ball, and also comes complete with gallery puppies!.

 

 

snapshot of the calendar; see the blog for detail and live stream

Ripping off Indian Land Again

Ripping off Indian land again

 

East End .......West End

 

 

East Enders celebrated its 25^th anniversary last week I’m not really that into EE (I’m a Corrie fan at heart) but I was interested to see an article about the real life London East End square that the soap was based around. A group of Victorian houses in a wider inner city conurbation with pockets of dereliction, the square as the focal point for the immediate residents. A shared space for all.

The square unlike its tv counterpart has changed considerably over the 25 years, the shift away from manufacturing to city working brought new neighbours, new tastes and new prices. It was encouraging to hear that the square was still very much a focal point for parties and gatherings – still a communally cared for space. But the pattern struck me as a very familiar dance, which seems to have been happening for at least twenty years.

Sort of had a similar experience of this first in the eighties when I was living in a council maisonette, it was very close to the city centre (a walk of 5 minutes) close to a park and a river, really  convenient and nice views of the town hall and cathedral.

Around this time the Government decided to sell off a proportion of its council homes, some were given the option to buy, some not; I and my neighbours weren’t, but luckily for me I had already decided to move down the road to a new-build private home and was already in the process of getting my first mortgage.

For a lot of others in parts of that estate, the news came as more of a shock and they had to go where they were put (offered alternative accommodation) whether or not they had family close by or had children in the local school (usual sensitive kind of approach).

The maisonettes were surprisingly quickly turned from three bedroom dwellings into one bed roomed flats being sold for almost as much as any of the older three bed roomed houses in the vicinity. They were new and exciting, had smart new kitchens, were close to the city and had fantastic views - the estate agents ’blurbed’.

 

This happened in a different way about 12 years ago after I had moved to Nottingham, only this time I was renting studio space in Hockley. To call it a studio is actually over egging; it was on the top floor of one of the many Lace Market factory buildings that had lost their manufacturing kudos, sharing floors with amongst others a dance studio, and surprisingly on the ground floor a still fully functioning textile machinists business. The studio itself had shared floor space, two shared sinks, no lift, 5 floors up with narrow stairs, broken windows that blew gales in winter and a family of pigeons – all mod cons – but the building was good because we could access city centre venues and crucially get potential city centre art business to come to us.

Well that lasted all of 5 years, notices were given and soon Hockley became a warren of apartments; the buildings that weren’t protected were floored and shiny new apartments were built – I’m not knocking – for years I had been thinking the city would be better for a more Barcelona type model i.e. having people living in the city rather than it becoming a potential dead space after that very British tea time/home time thing of 6 o’clock.

I did live in one of these for a while too and although it was part of a small number that the council rented, they were pretty similar to the ones being converted - but the price of the ones for sale!.

The flourishing machinists business had to relocate – I remember talking to her – she was very disgruntled not least because the only comparable place she could afford to go to even with the inappropriate compensation (she had custom fitted machines for the space) was now 5 miles outside the city centre, a place where all her existing business customers would find it an inconvenience to visit – all her hard work at building the business up swept away overnight by property speculators.

 

 

I have vivid memories of staying in Raval in Barcelona by Drassanes or the port in 2004, so that I could visit MACBA and the Barcelona Forum/Expo. At the time the Raval area was being shown in an exhibition film by the photographer Joan Colom who took photos of three distinct inner city areas Raval, El Born, and El Somorrostro around 1964.

Raval has changed from its Port and Prostitutes barrio image (around the Olympics 1992; it was too close to The Ramblas and potential tourists) but is still a mixed rough and ready area, although in a trendy sort of way.

El Born once street market area is full of new converted apartments and Somorrostro which was effectively a gypsy encamp, or one of those places that wasn’t connected to the main city revenue streams, power supplies etc.,its own entity -  having been renamed Poblenou and paved and concreted over in the sixties and again revamped for the Barcelona Olympics had gone through yet another gentrification for the Expo site with hotels etc etc.

In 2004 - I asked a local in that area what he thought of the Expo ‘very good’ he said ‘but the people have paid a price this is no longer their space. Shops have gone houses have gone, it is becoming too expensive, different types of business are setting up to cater for the tourists’.

Joan Colom’s point in photographing these areas in the 60’s was to show what they were like – he was received with disdain and – stopped. The people who ran Barcelona didn’t want their city sullied by images like this, this was not their Barcelona, they would rather not know and as the men in suits show in these poignant photos of Somorrostro it didn’t look like they were going to be stopped.

The East Enders type of square and city centre/inner city refurbishment is being played out all over cities and towns across the Uk and Europe only the last 18 months have reined in the development – but how long before Berlin has its moment and even the people frequenting the affordable arty cafes, studios and homes get moved on.

Olympics and things like this speed the process up but ultimately  I keep thinking that the overly simple storyline tones of Avatar has a point; the concept is simple ‘I want what you’ve got – I’ll make ‘improvements’ and now you can’t afford it’.

Why is it, or what is it when a developer buys a few bricks or purchases some land do they automatically go into denial that the land had any previous history or people presence? With Somorrostro it was about the Gitanes or Romany ‘unruliness’.

But the idea that because you have bought the land you are somehow better or your land is worthy of higher profits over the inhabitants in the name of improvement – that word seeming to equal as many office or dwellings as can physically be squeezed into a space with a ‘healthy’ profit.

In the name of improvement at least let’s have some inclusion in the mix.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens in Berlin once the ‘poor but sexy’ catch phrase depicting their inner city creative buzz succumbs to the spit and polish of regeneration.

Never The Twain

Never the Twain Should Meet

 

Public Service Neutrality

 

 

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I might plan a gallery visit or two.... once the weather improves. So I have been sifting through the various heads-ups and gallery twitterings to see what’s going on.

 

As usual for me, the first one to catch my eye was a gallery behaving...well.... in a very un-art like way. This was the Beau Arts in Paris; apparently Clare Carolin senior tutor at The Royal College of Art and Chinese Artist Ko Siu Lan had been given a space to curate and create an installation outside the gallery walls. Outside - inside its all the same really - it is still connected to the gallery. But after the event was installed the gallery decided to pull the installation on the grounds of unsuitability – why after though? had the gallery not bothered to keep abreast of work in progress? had the artists right at the last minute bunged in some really visually offensive or epilepsy inducing strobes or something that was going to offend ‘those of a nervous disposition’ ? maybe it was offending language - racist even? .

No, the work consisted of four banners each with a word on it ; gagner, moins, plus, travailler  or  work, more, earn, less, the way the banners were positioned I guess you could read in any particular order you wished as they were hung vertically from the sides of the building.

I baffled over this one cos the words to me in any order didn’t seem ummmm ? offensive?. Maybe an obvious statement if you juggled them about to actually read work more earn less. Only when I saw a news article did the explanation come out, the gallery had decided that as these words had specifically been used in Sarkosy’s 2007 election campaign (only in the order; earn more work less) that they were too ‘explicitly political’ to use. Ohhh right that explains it then, they being a public gallery and all, this is about being publically accountable to the government yes? No absolument! Ok publically accountable to the public perhaps? No No!.....it is about ‘Public Service Neutrality’.

 

Yes, I am in still in the real world and have not slipped into another parallel dimension, I did get that right – public service neutrality. Didn’t Richard Branson have an ‘art’ and state moment 30 odd years ago when Virgin records were taken to court in Nottingham over their subtle window display of the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks album? I can use the b word here – as John Mortimer (bless him) proved at the time the word had an old English meaning and therefore could not be deemed to be offensive. Even the other spin off from that album which involved the Monarchy and the song God Save The Queen, didn’t have her Maj expressing anything more than ‘regret’ over decency and taste that such sentiments needed to be used against her. Now the behind the scenes details I have no idea of, but the overall outcome was that John Lydon and the group’s manager defended the song’s lyrics as being a more ambiguous take on the monarchy or monarchies in general. No doubt her Maj was not amused in the slightest with that explanation. But it passed without having the whole thing withdrawn totally from the public.

 

Posh spice I seem to remember also tried a different take on word use a few years ago when she wanted to TM the word Posh and failed – cos its a word !.

 

So, Beau Arts, as bastion of art for the public, what kind of ethic got in the way of this project then?, free speech perhaps? - even the artist expressed disbelief and she is from China.

 

Public Service Neutrality... boy that’s a line and a half... Public Service Complicity more like.

Simple as That!

Simple as That

 

Nurse! screens please!

 

 

 

 

I think I missed out on some rare tv – I tend to record Newsnight during the week (I know I’m a Newsnight nerd, but that’s another story). As the recordings overlap a little I had been subjected to the very end shots of a newish programme on the bbc called Nurse Jackie – I say subjected because I was convinced, and at the same time baffled as to how and why such dross was being screened, are things really getting that bad at the beeb? Is there some kind of moral shift that I had completely missed ? a back to eighties style slushy-family-perfect drama, the type of which was only ever pre-empted by the Walton’s ?.... Just to make sure I watched the end of a couple of the following episodes which showed up before my serious Newsnight fix.

 

Hackles started to rise on my neck on seeing Jackie get all slushily chummy on her mobile talking about starting dance lessons with her daughter as she walked out of the hospital after a hard day at work with the camera zooming out onto a typical New York night scene complete with nostalgic music. Hackles suitably raised I snapped and googled the programme and found that actually the story line looked pretty interesting and then I remembered Jackie (Edie Falco) as Carmela from The Sopranos. So now curious beyond that of any self respecting cat I subsequently watched two episodes – episodes 10 and 11 at the end of the series ( I think that says I’m hooked).

 

 

 

 

I was kicking myself, it was good, it said everything to me about that *perfect family* that The Waltons oozed, sickly and false and the sort of never going to be perfect family that we would all love to be, but for the want of trying cos somehow it never comes together like that. The gaping chasm of difference between wanting the best for your family and the kinds of storylined propaganda? of how it should be.

 

I’d also noticed a wider redefining of women workers as mothers in the media lately, with increasing overall interest in children’s upbringing – the shift that has taken place over a few generations from family oriented advice to government and experts sending out more and more guidelines. New and improved knowledge is good, in seeking what is best for the child, but there seems an emerging message of purity of motherhood that could take women back decades from their choice to work and raise a family.

 

The kind of message that screams bad mother if anything falls short of it. Experts giving out a moral message that may be at odds with the mothers own perceptions and so to a degree the child also. This is not about what is not good policy for the child, but what is optimally best for, as seen by some.

 

Nurse Jackie is, she just is, a you, a me, maybe not all shooting pharms up our noses, but never-the -less, far from perfect. The pieces are snapped together with the storyline being made all the better for including the *Waltonesque* slushy moments (god that must irritate some people) because she is essentially good, very good in fact, she is a nurse no less, and even though she is flawed you can’t really call her bad. She is seen to be a perfectly functioning, well intentioned, glossy (in a gritty way) on the surface mum and nurse with human needs and flaws underneath.

 

This for me is comedy drama with all the dots joined up.

 

 

Bringing Nothing to The Party

Bringing Nothing to The Party

 

 

Thinking for Common Good 2010 style – Michael Moore, Ethical Economy and Cloud Culture  (nope, still don’t have all the answers)

 

 

 

Now whatever you think of him Michael Moore’s new about- to- be film Capitalism: A Love Story is doing the advert rounds in the UK, so it’s bound to do well on the documented radar; he’s a loud mouth and I think sometimes goes wide of the mark – or over the top, but whatever,  we do need people to perform that task, to engage debate. This film is predictably? about capitalism, or rather the death of it. One of the things that struck me with what he said overall about culling capitalism was he didn’t have any answers – well! details, details - cant fix without details! – but what he did say although abstract and not connected to laws and regulation was;

 

"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."

"What I'm asking for is a new economic order," he says. "I don't know how to construct that. I'm not an economist. All I ask is that it have two organising principles. Number one, that the economy is run democratically. In other words, the people have a say in how its run, not just the 1%. And number two, that it has an ethical and moral core to it. That nothing is done without considering the ethical nature, no business decision is made without first asking the question, is this for the common good?"

 

Common good is how the internet started years ago in the sixties, by people who wanted a shared informative collective space. What we have now, according to Charles Leadbetter and the Cloud Culture debate (held last week at London’s ICA) is a space occupied by pessimists, optimists and sceptics. With it obviously being open to abuse and attack from sources with differing agendas. The hippy utopia days are long gone, if not the abstract idea of.

4 Minute version

So how do you get everyone to have a say, without masses of bureaucracy ? 1% of business is very much on a limb but the other 99% have a myriad of different goals and aims.

 

 

I don’t have any answers either, in one way its a timeless conundrum.  The idea of a coherent social common good or behaviour emerging without regulation is never going to happen, people just won’t do it, never mind businesses. it’s all very well sitting in a relatively cosy kitchen or whatever having one of those bon hommie moments saying the world needs a collective hug (which it does) but I think most of us got passed baffling that one when we were young and although we still cling onto some sort of idea of it as principle in a vague hope, something more concrete is needed. What Moore said about ethical and moral core in a democratic economy though, seems worth a regulatory nod; to make sure that question is asked; is this for the common good?. Because that question will never be voluntarily offered by someone sniffing, however legitimately, around a quick buck. That to some is human nature, in ravaged Haiti the really desperate people stampeding for food would probably not have even considered the decision is what I am about to do for the common good, maybe some, obviously I don’t know, but Christ ! what a decision.

 

Those gambling bankers didn’t ask that question either, catastrophically, with their actions linked to the social banking system. It was a bit like a nightmare episode of Family Guy; where this collective dysfunctional family (the world) with Peter as the main money-man losing it and blowing all his wages on a risky deal only to be left with no food on the table for the rest his disjointed and gooky offspring. Except these risk takers had no allegiance to the rest of the family in the first place. Surely this is what needs sorting the realisation of social responsibility or a regulation that gives an alliance to everyone especially the risk takers, then even the *diabolical* little Stewie won’t be left without his rusks.

 

Being enforcer is a tough call, you can lead a horse to water etc., but not without some kind of motivation a small edifying reason that resonates, that enables acknowledgment of a social responsibility. Any kind of regulation without that would be like wading through treacle, coming up against difference and denial. And it is not about that, the whole point being a realisation beyond the hippy ethic, a pragmatic sense of common good encouraged in business, that facilitates a sense of fairness.

 

People don’t usually forget their past for good or bad and so can be empathetic, but none of us can realise another’s experience totally. Eyes glaze over with detail especially if it is not what you are immediately interested in, so common good thinking in business would have to be able to reach even the most hardened individualist. Details are what bureaucracy is by nature along with the ability to be lost in translation, and single vision concepts without detail never work; they bring people together in a crisis but not when the cracks begin to show.

 

Despite this, this is where I veer to the side of realistic optimists’, everyone has had a shock - and social responsibility has never really been on the economic or business agenda. Not socialism or communism these had dictatorial and flattening flaws, but accountable social ethics and the sorts of social ethics that matter. Not resources being stripped at human cost for huge monetary gain. The lions and giants do a need a shot of responsibility, proper. And we all need some framework for an acknowledged empathetic responsibility.  And who is going to do that call?. ....details, details .....here we go again.

Voyage to The Bottom of Our Road (Big Lebowski Style) - dressing gown attached

Voyage to The Bottom of Our Road (Big Lebowski Style) – dressing gown attached

Costco, clothes, comfort zones vs slippery slopes

 

 

 

I found myself uttering words that I never thought I would the other day, on hearing about an imminent trip to Costco; ohhh I’ll come along I need some trakkie bottoms and some tees. The reasoning behind this is a few years ago I went on a walking holiday to Majorca – yup that’s right, walking and holiday in the same sentence. The terrain is wonderful, mountainous and in spring is gorgeous, the only obstacle you have to watch out for is the serious cyclist cos Majorca lends itself to that aswell – all those breathtaking windey roads and inclines; I imagine it’s a slightly more tranquil? version of Tour de France (and I am guessing here, having only ever cycled round a very flat Amsterdam and with a very basketty bike and certainly not aerodynamically).

 

 

But the walking trakkies and tees I took on that holiday have served me well – bought from Costco and on return from walkies, they were subsequently relegated to dossy-wear-around-the-house usefulness ever since,with most of them only just coming to the end of their operational days – that stuff lasts!.

The problem is I like clothes, I spend hours agonising over one item or immediately falling for another (Christ I hope this isn’t an analogy of my love life cos the shift to the above style choice might bode well practically but for aesthetics? dodgy ground indeed).

 

I do have practical stuff from Uniqlo (who somehow manage practical very well aesthetically), I’ve bought quick style fixes from H&M and the like. I have an APC would do if I could afford it habit for their timeless trendiness, look, look and look for new and ethical style, and can only ogle at things like Opening Ceremony and the Farfetch website. But Costco?

Worrying thing for me though, is this the start of a slippery slope ? – like when you find yourself at the corner shop in your slippers having a Big Lebowski flashback cos you were only popping round to next door but called in quickly on the way. Next thing I’ll be wearing my pinny down the pub (metaphorical pinny ! ) and turning into Hilda Ogden, no, reality check needed here, this is just not possible. Besides Hilda would always put on her best for an occasion – even her permanent curlers were tastefully *hidden* under her scarf.

 

Hilda's face off with Annie Walker at the pub

My uncle, never one to stand on ceremony, though, actually did do the slipper thing, he travelled all the way down from Warrington once in the car for Christmas dinner and kept his slippers on, admittedly he wasn’t driving and he was about 80, but I do see traits appearing.

 

Still I’ll comfort myself, it’s not got as bad as my hairdresser, (who should know better) when living in the city centre flats above the Victoria shopping mall – finding himself out of milk at the bottom of the lifts on the shopping level in his Mickey Mouse slippers on the way to Tesco in a full on Saturday crowd – very fetching.

 

 

NB ; I didn’t know this but apparently it was all over the news last week that Tesco’s are actually banning people from their stores for wearing Pyjamas and stuff – more aimed at the all night crowd me thinks – but hey! I got my style direction now – I’m just a subversive at heart!.....  now where are my PJ’s ?......a PJ and slippers flash mob outside Tesco’s anyone??  tune ; You Gotta  Fight for Your Right to Paaarty! Beastie style!  The Dude and Hilda lookalikes de rigueur!

 

The Dude in full on bathrobe dudeness...

 

More Social Internet Site Crumblings

 

I happened across an article the other day, on the BBC news website about the general rumblings on the demise of the virtual social-world of Second Life. Hmmm - I only ever remember Second Life getting any kind of remotely ‘hyped’ review from the BBC and a couple of smatterings in the press but nothing other than a whisper in favour, tinged with negative comments like its ‘limited appeal to weirdoes’ and it ‘not having a point’.Now apparently it is in its demise.

no its not an exact mirror image!

 

 

I have been a second life avatar for ohhh, about three or four years now. And I get the ‘weirdoes’ and ‘no point’ thing, but isn’t that the same with most social network sites? Apart from linked in of course – or maybe I’m missing something there.

 

Anyway don’t all networking sites have an appeal for different reasons?, the only (cynical) reason I can see for certain aspects of the media giving no press coverage and ones like the BBC actually covering it was because it posed no real threat to the beeb at the time; the BBC doppelganger, if you like, of second life - was an emerging 3d computer generated graphics/film genre - which although an inventive visual medium was by no means rivalling the likes of cinema style Matrix graphics or TV style imagery nor even communication for that matter- then it was another ‘game’. The printed press dismissed it very early on – it was just another on line threat I guess.

 

It has had its detractor comments like  ‘I couldn’t navigate my avatar, so I gave up’ , ‘I wandered round for days not seeing anyone’ and ‘if it’s not a game what is it?’ to ‘what’s the point?’.

These comments remind me of something someone said the other day about blogging; ‘I give up on bloggers – they just go on – and the tech ones are the worst’ (so that counts me out then). But it’s that broad sweep of opinion that doesn’t take into wider account, other than the immediate personal effect. A sort of attention deficit – want it now kind of thing. Indeed in Second Life you pay for the experience so you expect something in return – instant gratification? instant comprehension? it depends.

Along time ago I used to listen to the John Peel radio show – for the uninitiated he did an eclectic late evening show that featured barely known artists of all styles, some you liked others you didn’t – and then there was the gem – the one that really appealed to you, but you had to listen to an awful lot to get there – but all the while his presentation glued the thing together.

 

Second Life is new technology it has taken the different aspects that the net and graphics offer and put them together for the users to create (within reason) what they will. It has not been quite the same battle of ‘be cool be here hype’ of other sites. It has been in all aspects fairly organic in its evolution – a very different place now from its first inception and that has been down to the users mostly – so similar on that level, they create something out of an empty space and so on exponentially.

For the ones who ‘gave up’ I guess it wasn’t worth persevering with –maybe it didn’t hold enough bite for them just as football is all to some, it is just a ball being kicked around to others. All technology takes some ‘learning’  true and the ’don’t make me think’ adage is absolute but always there is some.

 

Second Life is a  visual interactive tool - whereas Face Book, You Tube etc.,  are not in that way. Second life is real time, whereas the others sometimes are not, Second life is or can be totally random, whereas the others are not as much - different things for different folks. Many second lifers, the ones who have stuck are people like Universities who use it as a learning tool, people who are involved in 3D graphics industry in real life, visual and media artists of all descriptions, and people and businesses who want an outlet for their creativity or equally to test and experiment their ideas.

Someone said it is a great big sandbox where you can go and create what you like.

 

So for me being a visual, arty and slightly (actually – make that quite a bit of a) tech person this has been my experience over the last four years;

I found the site at a time in my life when I was having difficulty with agoraphobia (does that make me a weirdo?)I don’t think so - but aside from the obvious social advantages for people unable to get out and about as much as they would like, I was able to hone 3d building skills that weren’t as complicated (nor as expensive) as the Maya graphics packages and such that were around and I began to use Photoshop and illustrator in depth – all those add-on visual skills that apply universally in CG. I met quite randomly other artists, photographers, lecturers and some of the people whom I remember specifically are a Norwegian artist/photographer who has won many accolades –we ’talk’ regularly through other sites now, a New York on line news site who offered me a news space video on my art work, and a London based film animator all of whom I am still in touch with. Both animator and artist were able to ‘physically’ show me their exhibitions and work in world while we had real time dialogue, their work being 3d produced, streamed in or reproduced. It just sort of clicked – for me.

 

Whether the SL model ‘will out’ is just the same as ‘will twitter out facebook?’, but not, will they just diminish. It is the technology – it offers different things to different people and the out and out nay sayers and bandwaggoners will always be around. The formats are changing – it’s not set in stone.

 

The difference with Second Life is the type of technology involved, and how it evolves - and it will. Simple.

Wear it Like a Badge

 

 

Wear it Like a Badge

Tormented artist as brand - enough! time please on this advert!

 

 

I love music and dancing I’ve always gravitated towards venues, clubs, and bars etc., that show similar affection towards that. The crowds attracted to these gigs in the uk seem to peek at around mid twenties to late thirties for the majority, now I am not particularly bothered one way or the other, I like to dance and listen, so it’s not particularly an age thing for me.

 

A few years ago I used to love going to a Spanish club called Tuareg, set in a river bed (dry of course) it was open air, speakers hanging from the trees and we’d dance until the sun came up. The funny thing was the club seemed to have two sessions one earlier in the evening (10 till 2) for a less clubby kind of music which attracted a slightly older – well a lot older crowd including their ageing parents in tow – an older family night out if you like. 2 o’clock came and they’d all toddle off home (no that’s patronising especially as most of them had hogged the floor for the best part of 4 hours).

 

But then the real late night thing started with a different mix of music and people, including older and younger, it was just a different type of crowd really, I wouldn’t say hedonistic, this wasn’t Ibiza in the madchester/manumission phase, this was a small Spanish holiday village, I don’t even think the man who ran it made much of a profit on bar sales, there certainly wasn’t much evidence of anything overtly clandestine in the substance department – and to top it the guy had his house and family on the site; it was a very friendly and chilled sort of place, and the music was brilliant.

 

Scenes change, I remember when I first forayed onto the club circuit, punk, hi energy, New York disco and all that dance thing was just taking off, we were one of a couple of crowds within a peer group, we had the twelve inch bpm, the rest were still listening to prog rock or had moved onto Iggy Pop and the like. A kind of progression out of the late seventies serious rock music versus pop scene. Well whatever the drift there did seem to be two sorts of camp – the ones who danced and the ones who got high, you couldn’t, it seemed on the surface, appear to do both.

Maybe it was the rock star lifestyle and a lot of raw, rougher music that these artists eschewed, but they seemed more edgy, less fashionably trendy but more out there, out of it chic attracting similar audience sensibilities.

The dance scene by comparison seemed, well, pretty light in that aspect even drink didn’t feature that much only because you can’t be drunk and dance particularly well and a lot of it was about how you looked!.  The nearest thing to being out of it was a spin off from northern soul all nighters ‘dexy’s or whizz’ and hi energy ‘poppers’ which was not de rigour either, and hardly the stuff of rock star on the edge, more of I’ve spent ages on this outfit and I’m going to strut it, so much so there was an element of stifling clique fashion seriousness that also prevailed in some.

 

But we were young and little tribes are part of the identity thing, we got on with our club scene and our other school mates got on with what looked like a more daring, rougher edged kind of scene.

That side of it though, the drugs in general had a more serious identity thing for a lot of the non dance crowd, and indeed it did become very serious for a couple of mates who we knew (and I’m not setting up an advocacy thing here) it was, that’s what happened - fact – they got heavily into smack and trouble did follow –health, addiction, money, illegality and all those related things. Now this is more about attitudes here than the ‘evil substance’.

 

Never more was I reminded of that fact on seeing Will Self wheeling himself onto tv at least twice in the past few weeks, both times he made a referral to smack or heroin as an analogy to explain something, now it might have been a very good analogy, but something about the sentiment just whisked me back to the eighties and all that serious rock star, tortured artist imagery that was flying around with its heavy reliance on smack and drugs in general to bolster the fact that you were an artist, a writer, intelligently serious and critical, dangerous and living on the edge.

 

My god Will ! surely you are not still using that as a brand – yes we know you shot up once on the PM’s plane – but that is not all you are known for? Is it?.

 

These acutely poignant lyrics to The Dandy Warhol’s hit sprang to mind ;

Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth
I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passé.
So passé nowadays.
You never thought you'd get addicted, just be cooler in an obvious way
I could say, shouldn't you have got a couple piercings and decided maybe that you were gay,
In a way, I can't help but feel responsible, I always knew that you were insane
With your pain, but I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passé.

 

This image mongering of tortured drug addled artist as cool, is I guess a convenient ruse to hide behind?  a badge? but surely after 20 years of this crap the Pete Doherty’s of this world; the misunderstood, the troubled, the tormented artists can at least stop being so bloody artily serious about a drug. It’s not edgy, it’s a drug; you get your high, simple (it may make you dream and give rise to the argument of creative release but so do a lot of things) and if you’re an addictive personality and you can’t afford it, chances are etc., etc.,

But please stop all this afflicted artist as brand crap. Artists’ lifestyles are precarious enough without the tortuous image still being promoted, especially if you have glamorising media coverage or just plain old media space, and not least as possible mentors from afar, seen to link intelligence and creativity and this drug with all the cool apparel of donning a shirt.

Time please on this advert! If only for your audience who may well be 20 years younger and may not see you see you for the old farts you really are.