The write stuff

Interesting online discussion initiated by Plymouth-based arts and culture publication Nom de Strip and Plymouth-based performer Hannah Silva. It's about the lack of serious writing about theatre in the South West - but much of what's said applies to the visual arts too. http://hannahsilva.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/where-are-the-south-west-theatre-critics/

Flat Food: A Gift for Berlin

This is my latest contribution to A Gift for Somerset, an ongoing exchange between artists around the world, which is being led by OSR Projects.  I'm asking artists at Kunsthochschule Weissensee, Berlin to organise a picnic of flat food in honour of Somerset.

This gift is inspired by Douglas Coupland’s novel Microserfs in which Michael, a programmer at Microsoft, is fed food that will fit under his locked office door while he obsessively writes code. It is also inspired by the landscape of the Somerset Levels, which is very flat.

More on my participation in A Gift for Somerset can be found here:
http://gabriellehoad.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/cultivating-collaboration.html

Virtually Manchester

Blast Theory I'd Hide You

Having written about Blast Theory's 2011 retrospective at Spacex, I was keen to actually experience one of their edgier, hi-tech games. I'd tried the contemplative phone-based work Ghostwriter at Exeter's RAM Museum and found it a little tame, but the high-energy I'd Hide You didn't disappoint.

Blast Theory are a multidisciplinary group of practitioners who present interactive art and immersive theatre, often in the form of games which explore ethical and technological boundaries. I'd Hide You ran over three nights in Manchester's Northern Quarter. Runners roamed the city, interacting with its citizens and trying to snap each other, all the time streaming video to a watching online audience, who were also armed with snap buttons. As an audience member you could also type messages (such as the whereabouts of rival runners) to your chosen runner.  Snap a runner onscreen and you scored a point. Get snapped by someone else and you lost a life.

I dipped in briefly early on Thursday and Friday nights and found the game a little frustrating. Time delays meant successful snapping was virtually impossible and the video stream was often broken up.  Plus my runner seemed to be running around a bit aimlessly. I was fascinated by the process and the general feel of the thing, but as a game it seemed a poor substitute for the purely digital.

By Saturday night some of the problems seemed to have been ironed out (or maybe I was just lucky). I joined in after dark and a couple of drinks, onboard with the wily and chatty Matt. The game seemed to be getting into its stride, though its faster pace revealed some of its flaws (both logistical and technological). 

There were moments (only moments mind) where the adrenalin pumped, where I laughed out loud and where I felt genuinely transported to another place, watching the the world through my runner's eyes. Most interesting of all was the emergence of strategic playing: audience and runners colluding in subterfuge, trickery, distraction and deceit. 

Even though I'd Hide You was slickly styled and presented, I feel I've witnessed a bold experiment rather than a finished game. But that's what makes it interactive art and not just entertainment. Where Blast Theory lead, mainstream culture will follow.

I'd Hide You was presented at Future Everything and as part of the new Arts Council online project The Space.

http://www.idhideyou.com/
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/index.php

Conversations with Zola #1

Mutter Erde (with soil) from 'The Library of Lost Books'

I'm working with a book issued to me by The Library of Lost Books, which will be returned in September to become part of an exhibition for the new Library of Birmingham.

It’s a German translation of a novel by Emile Zola - Mutter Erde (translates as Mother Earth, original French title La Terre). Apart from being fascinated by the text's transitions through translation, I'm interested in pursuing the idea of soil, earth, dirt (both as source of life and as waste) - particularly in relation to the final sentence of the novel which apparently translates as "Deaths, seed and bread grew out of the earth."...And so I was intrigued to find, on closer inspection of the book, that it already contains some soil, squashed between pages 444 and 445.

London - Bideford - Exeter

Emily Speed Star Fort (previous installation of work currently showing at Spacex)

I've mostly had to focus on things other than art over the past week or so, but I've still managed to squeeze in a few exhibition visits. While in London near Chancery Lane I managed to make time for the Hunterian Museum to look at the way they organise and present their anatomical specimens (I'm still mulling over work around collections and archives) and Sir John Soane's Museum, just for the joy of it.

Back in Devon, the Jerwood Drawing Prize is at the Burton Gallery Bideford until 11th June. Some stunning draughtsmanship on show,  but the exhibition doesn't feel as ground-breaking as it used to. A personal favourite was Jessica Killeen & Samuel Taylor's Interventional Drawing - not so much because of the process it depicts, but because of the film that resulted, which was funny, sexy and full of heart.  I also liked Nicky Rolls' Sketch 2011, a projection onto (and beyond) a notebook where people and vehicles escape the artist's framing to wander across the gallery wall. http://www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/page/3158/Jerwood+Drawing+Prize

Finally, Topophobia, which has just opened at Spacex. Curated by Polly Gould and Anne Eggebert, it revolves around the idea of fear of place and continues until 7th July.  I was particularly taken with Emily Speed's Star Fort - a surreal and emotionally resonant remaking of furniture as protection/incarceration ... and Louise K Wilson's video piece which sites the singing of a haunting madrigal in a former Cold War weapons testing facility.  The latter makes use of a subtle yet disorientating disconnect between what's seen and what's heard. http://www.spacex.org.uk/pl109.html

Lost book finds home

My book has arrived from 'The Library Of Lost Books'.  It's a German translation of a novel by Emile Zola.  I'll be working with/on it for the next few months, ready for return to the library and an exhibition in 2013.  thelibraryoflostbooks.blogspot.co.uk

Looking east

Meekyoung Shin - Ghost series

Plymouth is bouncing back after British Art Show 7 with another ambitious multi-site exhibtion Sinopticon. The exhibition is based on the 17th century notion of chinoiserie, a western construction of a fictitious orient, often expressed through decorative arts and household goods. (Willow pattern plates are the best-known example.)  The exhibition is billed as chance to explore issues such as value and taste, replication, stereotyping, racism, trade, authorship and the exotic.

I particularly liked the work at Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery which, apart from looking absolutely luscious in the recently refurbished galleries, throws new light on the museum's own collections. A highlight was Meekyoung Shin's Ghost series 2009-2011, a collection of exquisite glass-like vases fashioned entirely from soap. The work filled the whole gallery space with a scrubbed-clean, institutional aroma and drew interesting contrasts between the work of craft with the work of cleaning, holding the permanence of glass and ceramics against material that can just be washed away.

Sinopticon 28 April - 7 July 2012, various Plymouth venues www.sinopticon.org