BREATHLESS

I’ve just finished the first mobile prototype for Brendan Walker’s Breathless experiment for Nottingham University. A military gas mask has a tube coming from it which measures the velocity of air inhaled and exhaled. That data is then used to power wheel-chair motors push a swing. The idea is to have a ride which is powered by your own exhilaration. It’s been great working with Brendan, and I’ve gained confidence in prototyping in electronics. I enjoy tinkering, but I know it’s important not to loose sight of the big picture when working on projects which involve geeing out to this extent. I actually had to write some C++ to get the device to communicate over wi-fi. Pretty stoked about that. I hope Joe at Nottingham can use the code in the end. He’s the one who will take the programatic parts of this project further.

Hackney Wick Festival

Last night was the night before the Hackney Wick festival. Hackey Wick felt pretty lively. You’re usually hard-pressed to find anyone on the street. A couple people on my floor were having open studios you could walk into. My friend Sylvan Deleu knocked on my door. He’s french. 37. He’s been in the UK for 15 years but hasn’t lost his accent. He was carrying a 90s point and shoot nikon camera with some ridiculous analog gauges on the top which don’t seem to move. I’m wearing a jean jacket with an embossed horse on the back. Coolguys. We grab a beer at surprisingly busy restaurant called the Hackney Pearl, below my building. He says that i shouldn’t feel bad about leaving the UK if I have to. He says I can go back with a new energy and new ideas…with a new head on my shoulders.

Bahbak and Mateo show up. I was waiting for them before Sylvan knocked. We have a chat then, I spot Billy the manager of our building, and he lets us into one of the undeveloped units. He fills a mug full of whisky for us to share.  Every inch of the floor is covered in building materials. There are small piles of screws on the ground. It’s been like this for over a year. As we chat, people keep popping their head in to see the installation. Billy says we can take a screw home with us. He bets Bahbak a beer he can’t guess where he’s from. India? Pakistan? Bangladesh? Guess again. Mauritius? Getting warmer. He apparently grew up in  Kenya. Read the wiki entry on Indian diaspora in East Africa.

Psychologist’s house in Wimbledon

I’ve been painting Tina the Psychologist’s house in Wimbledon.  Wallpaperhangers owned by friend and collaborator Yair Meshoulam employs me. I like painting her house. The inside is filled with her photographs. There are photographs of the sky which look like they’ve been taken with a single use camera. There are pictures of her family taken in the same style, all framed nicely. There is a small Gautama Buddha holding a handful of ver small sea shells in the kitchen. Nearby is a motion activated key finder which makes a cheerful noise of what could be a baby monkey every time you walk by it. None of these things are annoying; the whole effect of the house is actually peaceful. It’s a beach-ouse which ignores the fact that there isn’t a sea close by. I play radio6 on the digital radio when I am painting. There was a comic on who has been writing a blog post every day since 2002. I’m going to start writing every day as well.

Late at Tate April 9th, 2010

Watch the video of the performance.

YEAH, oh yeah, thank you, I am grateful

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I got a bursary from artsadmin! Hasn’t quite hit me yet. It buys me breathing room to figure out what the hell I am doing.

Down with Puritanism (a religious workshop)

Dark Mountain Festival

The Dark Mountain Project started with a manifesto, written by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine. It offers alternative ways of thinking about our environment in an age of global disruption. It’s easy to by cynical about the environment, but it’s not easy to be cynical and still take action (welcome to dark mountain). I helped out by creating the logo (the mountain is made from a handprint). I will present my Eco-Pilgrimage project at the upcoming Dark-Mountain Festival in Wales.

UNCIVILISATION: The Dark Mountain Festival. Join us  in Llangollen, Wales, 28-30th May 2010 for a weekend of talking, singing, making and playing. Guests will include George Monbiot, Tom Hodgkinson, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly and Chris T-T – as well as many of the contributors to the journal.

http://www.dark-mountain.net/

http://uncivilisation.co.uk/

An old rant

I gave the following rant at an Alter-Futures meet-up a while ago:

We are estheticians, nothing more…we have a profound intuitive knowledge of the interesting, the provocative, the peculiar… the cerebral delights and delicacies which entice the mind, but leave the soul wanting…

We clamor to be first at the most emerging technology to generate elaborate and convoluted aesthetic experiments which photograph well for blogs. But I always thought we were making more than insider entertainment: clever ideas with no real value. Even our potentially socially transformative projects often never become more than thought experiments.

What’s the point? Are we really out to alter the future?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is interesting to devise new coping mechanisms for the future, as science and technology redefine our way of living. It seems that we increasingly need these strange emotional and psychological prosthetics as we abandon the old rituals and technologies used as coping mechanisms for ages. Out with religion in with the new…a generation of cyborgs… secular automatons, who carry their brains in their pockets, and their hearts in a clever power-point.  And you know you’ve arrived at the church, when you realize you have more peers than friends, but just remember, you did it for the future.

I love debate. I love things designed for debate, but I think we need provocation and empathy in equal measure. We’ve laid ample groundwork with our critical and cynical projects. Now it’s time to be provoked into empathy and action.