The Birds

I've been addicted to The Birds since I saw Lowell + Apparatjik perform live in Oslo, and I imagined an animated video inspired by Andrzej Klimowski's The Depository, white on blackboard background; a bit.... Mew. And I really want to animate that, but the kids are off for half term and have spent most of the time moaning, making more mess than they tidy, and then disappearing.

I've been overworking myself, and not being paid enough to show for it - as usual.
The Mail Art Exhibition seemed to attract a lot of interest, especially from passers by - postcards with messages on were attached to the window so that, in theory, people could see both sides.
After a disappointing start, stupid "handling fees" added by the Post Office, who seemingly can't even be bothered to deliver Mail Art, and an even more disappointing disruption caused by my eldest son being temporarily suspended from school, (for an issue that has been described as "trying to crack a walnut with a sledgehammer") otherwise I was pleased with how it went.

There was a steady trickle of visitors, some very positive feedback, and a few submissions from Lincoln artists to add to the ongoing work.

But my ability to not switch off went into overdrive when I reinstated Magne Furuholmen's Alpha Beta postcards back on the lounge wall, and it made me come up with this Nordic pixel heart Christmas card design, made out of old Christmas cards - I wish I could stop working on things, but I keep getting inspired to do things, as if I don't already have enough things to do, and not enough time or funding to do everything I really want to. 

Recently, I applied for International Artists' Travel bursary, because I hope to go back to Oslo again as soon as is humanly possible.
I just missed the October deadline, so that means I now have to wait until February to find out if that's successful.

It's annoying that I know Magne has an utstillling "Bouquet" in Asker that I won't be able to make, and there seem to be a lot of exciting things happening in Oslo that I can't be there for.

I wish I could always have expenses covered for travel etc, things would be so much easier, and it'd count as "wages". 

Lemons!

Nice to see my Jesus on Red Dwarf X episode "Lemons" this evening :-) I'm fairly sure that's him - with sandals, mind.

Mail Art Exhibition

Here's my mail art piece exhibited in the Empty Shop space in Lincoln as part of the Mail Art Exhibition. Further images of other work and the exhibition are here 

I'm going to post here of my experiences curating this. I organised the show to open on Tuesday, with a private view on Friday from 12.00p.m. This was because I had planned to have this on show for most of October, but have in fact been besieged by a cold, so I haven't been on top of things. And I've had to do this by myself with no help from anyone else.
The reason I set up the LAN was to keep working with a group of other artists as a mutually supportive group, however, I often end up doing most of the work myself these days, since I have less support than I did when I set it up.

The private view was disastrous. No one came at all, despite advertising on Facebook, twitter, email promotion, and posters around Lincoln, not one person within the Lincoln art community came to the opening for this exhibition. 

So of course, I'm really disappointed at this lack of support for what I believe is a really good show, and a fantastic opportunity to contribute work.
However, I really hope to gain more support as this show is on, and it won't put me off.

I also enjoyed the Pecha Kucha evening, in which I shared my experiences of my all-expenses-paid travels to Oslo and the Apparatjik performance to a small group of artists at The Collection without my cold presenting huge problems. 

Here is more information about Apparatjik and why I feel so much satisfaction from working with them as part of a collaborative project - an excerpt:

- Are you satisfied with the results of engaging the audience on the “Everybody is One Bar” Music Collaboration Project? Did the contribution of audience members affect the end result significantly?

- Oh yes, we’ve done a few projects like that: we did “Everybody is a pixel”, “Everybody is one bar”, “Everybody is on stage”. It started with “Everybody is an Apparatjik”. Our idea was that we are not Apparatjik, we are Apparatjiks, which means that Apparatjik is something bigger than us and that means that whoever is involved, whoever we guess is involved, is a part of Apparatjik. So it’s almost more like a system that we want to cultivate. I’m doing a book now, trying to document all the things we have done with Apparatjik. And it’s surprising how many creative things come from the fans or from the supporters. This is much more interesting than the band idea. In fact, I don’t really like all the music that we’ve made. I liked some of it. I have to play it, because this is Apparatjik, but I don’t have to like it. 

The work I've been doing and contributing with Apparatjik is a way of combining my own research and interests with what they do. I've been working with Magne since my degree for these collaborative projects, which I do because I love contributing to them and working with them, clearly, it's a two-way thing (or 5 way, whichever!) and when local UK based arts organisations ask me to pay £10, £15 to submit work for exhibitions etc, and I still get a rejection, to have these very high profile artists supporting my work, never rejected, to have the opportunity to show my work at some very prestigious locations, to not have to pay any money I don't possess to go to Oslo to see them perform, to participate myself as a fellow Apparatjik, but to have that cost offset as a work trip, to receive such excellent level of support this way. No, I didn't get the AA2A scheme either, but that isn't going to stop the graphic novel from happening. I've just been too busy to do any work on that lately. 

Apparatjik is for me a way of being able to work with artists / musicians that totally get it, and I know the cross over of concepts is mutually beneficial. The fact that when they first posted an image of a tree and a mirror, my first reaction was that it was Borges again. It probably wasn't at all, I don't think that was their concept behind AGreenerYouniverse at all, but that's what sprang to mind. I was thinking about The Garden Of Forking Paths at the time for my own work. And it isn't entirely inconceivable that in a parallel universe it IS Borges. It is Tlon. I'm not even sure what my work is about anyway. Sometimes it seems to be Borges, other times it's something else entirely, never absolute. Which is fine in Apparatjik's multiverse. So these occasional collaborations will continue, and I hope bigger and better things will occur, we'll see what comes of them. I hope they get some form of sponsorship, I'm still working on funding so they can come to Lincoln - that would be great fun for them, and fun for us here as well, for artists here to get involved. It just seems like this should happen somehow. The Viking Way is meant for Apparatjik.

Mail Art exhibition

I've uploaded more photos from the Apparatjik gig here and more adventures / exhibitions I saw whilst there, here.

Yesterday, a parcel arrived for the Mail Art exhibition that I've offered to curate for Marie Lousie Plum at the Empty Shop space. 

This touring exhibition features a piece of work I submitted, my own envelope that was posted to Oslo and returned at the time of the terrible events there in July 2011. As my twitter feed became worse with news updates from Norwegian news sources, I documented them on this envelope as illustrations, later adding 77 Nordic hearts to represent the victims.

This piece is included with work by a variety of artists and illustrators, and will be shown in the Empty Shop space in Sincil St, Lincoln - from Tuesday now - I don't think I'll get it all ready for Monday now by myself - I need some help.

I've offered to do a Pecha Kucha event on Thursday evening, to share my Apparatjik adventures at The Collection, Danesgate, with the poor, unsuspecting artist community of Lincoln! 

Oslo trip 2012

Takk to Headhunters / Momentum / Norwegian Embassy for providing this all-expenses paid trip to Oslo, which I timed especially to go and see Apparatjik perform live at the åpning of Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo.

mine Apparatjik sko 

Savoy hotel lobby, Oslo

Nikola Tesla style lamp stand in Carl Ungers Loft, Oslo

Carl Ungers Loft @ Savoy hotel, Oslo

whatever you do, don't order the whale

Jeg elsker Norge

mine Apparatjik sko @ Moods Of Norway

 I found these shiny Apparatjik Combat Disco boots before I left, they appeared around Oslo in various locations before becoming part of Apparatjik's gig.

AFM - we're practically related

      

Apparatjik Cube, dormant, within the architecture of the AFM

complete with audience

mine Apparatjik sko

images projected onto the Cube by the Eye On Committee

Guy A

Lowell

Lowell "Shake Him Off"

Lowell

Shake Him Off

previously unknown track 

Apparatjik live performance

Apparatjik live performance

Martin A, Jonas A, Magne A, Guy A

Martin A

Magne A plays the keyboard with boxing gloves on

L-R Jonas Bjerre, Magne Furuholmen, Guy Berryman, Lowell

Jonas Bjerre, Magne Furuholmen, Guy Berryman, bald headed security man!

snøkrystaller

01100001 01101110 01101001 01101101 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011

Dissassembling the Cube

This roadie van, as it turns out, was the same one that followed us past Stolper & Friends on Fredag natt. 

har det bra, Apparatjik Cube :-(

During this visit, I went to see some exhibitions in Oslo, I went to see "I Wish This Was A Song" at the Nasjonalmuseet, and contributed to the Apparatjik + Audiokolor installation for the compositional piece that they later performed with Sølvguttene / Oslo Boy's Choir. 
I was rather bemused that my own work was not included in this exhibition, but perhaps the Norwegian art scene need to familiarise with my work more. 
I left a card at the gallery. They tried to sell me a catalogue from the previous exhibition. That wasn't really why I was there!
Do all galleries try to sell to artists wanting to exhibit work? 

Obviously I went to look around the AFM on the day of it's åpning, although a fire alarm went off, and the AFM might have to replace that cup of Earl Grey I abandoned in a blatant act of guerilla tea party activism. 

Abandoned At The Exit mini exhibition

Last week, I curated a one day Lincoln Artists' Network exhibition in an Empty Shop space that we've been given permission to exhibit in at no cost to us. 
During a showing of video art, my usual digital camera, known to me as "The Lady Of Shalott" died on me, as I'd been using it all week to document the event etc, so usually I use a phone camera as a backup. As I currently have a cheap mobile that I'm using temporarily until I can sort out something more permanent, and one that got run over at one point(!), of course, the quality wasn't as good. So I had to explain this when documenting the exhibition, in case anyone thought Tom's video work was poor quality when it isn't. As such, I made sure that I noted and included a link to the Rip Off Britain programme in this blog

I don't want anyone to think that I'm a rubbish photographer just because I've been denied the ability to run my business quite as it should due to Orange's failures. If I'm a rubbish photographer, fair enough, but usually I can document work pretty well with proper working equipment. The old arcade space was an ideal location to showcase the effects Orange have caused by their failures. I don't, however, consider Orange a work of art. Orange are just rubbish. If they were a work of art, they'd be that distorted skull at the bottom of Holbein's The Ambassadors. They'd be a restored painting of Jesus by Cecilia Gimenez. They'd be a piece of elephant poo stuck to a painting. They'd be The Potato Eaters by Van Gogh. But Orange aren't art. They're just greedy.

The Lettings agents had been trying to ring me to arrange a gas safety check. They'd been ringing me on the landline, but I've been too busy to get back to them until yesterday. When I did, they told me they'd tried to call me on my mobile, but  they still had my old number. On the letter they sent me, it states that gas checks (as anyone knows) are essential for the safety of me as a tenant. Granted, I should've remembered to give them my new number, but I shouldn't have to keep changing my number because Orange have failed to provide the service they initially offered, and their failures could potentially put us at risk. I've done this, because there was a Rip Off Britain episode to highlight the issue, however, nothing has yet come of it, and last week I received a letter from another debt collection agent wanting me to pay money I do not owe. So in response, I do wish to publicise precisely the effect they're having. 

The exhibition itself went really well. It made a huge difference having the support of Revival, a business co-operative that runs the space, and being able to exhibit without worrying about costs as much. 
The space in an old arcade was ideally suited to Space Invader comics, digital work, video, animation and digital prints, as well as Alice Bradshaw's Museum Of Contemporary Rubbish, which was very well received.
Lots of positive feedback for my curation, and for the work as well. The title of the exhibition "Abandoned At The Exit" was taken from Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, although of course, it suits the space, and the experience of being a recent graduate. 
I didn't include any of my own work this time, although I probably have lots of work I could've included, I would've liked to have had time to have something blown up and printed on the plotter, but have decided to wait and do that if I'm accepted onto the AA2A scheme.

I will know after I get back from Oslo at the beginning of next month. I am finally going to Oslo on Friday, courtesy Jo Nesbo's Headhunters film / Momentum pictures, and am all set, apart from going to the Post Office to get some kroner.

upcoming Oslo trip

I haven't posted in here for a while, as I've been working on some self-directed illustration projects, including a graphic novel concept that occurred to me in a dream.

A while ago, I was lucky enough to win a free trip to Norway, courtesy Jo Nesbo's Headhunters film!!
This is 2 return flights, 3 nights at a hotel, and £200 spending money.
I was thinking of going over the summer, but when Apparatjik announced that they were performing a free gig at the brand new opening of the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, I decided to wait for that.

As you can imagine, this has required a considerable amount of organising.

As it's now term time again, I can't take the kids with me. I was thinking that I need a break from them anyway. It's been extremely stressful getting Kurt through his G.C.S.E. exams, never mind the phone bill incident, but this won't really be a holiday. It counts as work. And requires Mum to babysit for the weekend, so I can go with my brother.

There's an additional exhibition at the Nasjonalmuseet entitled "I Wish This Was A Song" with Apparatjik alongside Oslo Complaints Choir, and other work.

I plan to meet up with friends and illustrators whilst over there, and also take time to do the tourist trail to visit the museums over on Bygdoy.

The Astrup Fearnley Museet is designed by Renzo Piano, and displays a large collection of postmodern art, mainly American, but there's Damien Hirst and a variety of work. The museum was founded by the Astrup Fearnley shipping empire, and intrigued by the similarity, and non-Norskness of the name, I found that the Fearnleys originate from Yorkshire. Which is also where the Dearnley family come from. I also discovered that there was an Ann Fearnley that went by the name of Dearnley, so it wasn't even a joke that I'm probably related to the museum in some spurious way. 

A while ago, I mentioned an issue with an Orange mobile phone scam. Fortunately, things have been quiet on that score, as I successfully prevented them from escalating the problem with "debt collectors". 
On Friday, the problem will be covered on Rip Off Britain, so we're of course hoping it'll be resolved finally, and those of us affected will receive some form of compensation for 2 years of stress and costs. Fingers crossed!