g l o b e b l o g

Topic Today Is : Good Bye.

Thursday, March 18 2004. Time now is 9.27 pm. Thanks (or apologies) once again to Andy Koh for a nice slice of melodrama to round things off. Last night was fun. Art can be fun. You can get drunk and eat pancakes and watch japanese girls singing karaoke and listen to a man on a train casually ranting over the soundtrack to The Elephant Man via amplified telephony, and enjoy it as art. Partially because its in the socially acceptable environment of the gallery, partially because its during a time set aside for and advertised as 'performance art', partially because it is the performer's intention, partially because of the willingness of the audience to receive it as such, partially because anything can be art if it is framed right, and so on and so on and so on.

With that in mind, I can happily resolve the (never-really-existent) dilemma of whether a blog (or more specifically this particular blog) can be seen as art. It has run side by side with the exhibition, occasionally commenting on it whilst at the same time claiming to be an external element of it. Last night there was a computer in the gallery with the blogs on screen and for the first and only time it seemed to have a physical presence in the exhibition. I would like to think it can be dipped into at any point by the lay viewer, but in reality it is probably quite arcane and needs to be read almost in its entirety to make much sense (if any at all!). To this end it seemed quite out of place in the gallery, especially on the performance night, as circumstances aren't suited to sitting and reading. Hopefully it has been read by people who didn't and couldn't visit the show, and they have been able to experience the exhibition in some abstract way (similar to the way in which we experience shows we haven't seen through written reviews in newspapers, magazines and on the net). Globe Blog is quite particular in the way it has been tied to an exhibition. There is probably more scope in a blog that isn't trying to fit in with such an obvious artistic precedent, but like Dan Fictum, whose 'art happens' he admits, was more important as a preliminary exercise, I consider this blog with a view to familiarising oneself with the whole world of self-publishing software. You'll be pleased to know that this is only the beginning!

Bye then.

Alright! I'm excited again now! I've done a rehaul of the blog so it looks like it does now - all black and magenta and cool. Also, I have linked to Adam's blog On My Way to Work, which he has got up and running, detailing his daily journey to the gallery. Plus it's the performance evening tonight, which should be ace, so all in all its all good.

I've been thinking about the exhibition and the collective (Normalife©) and the blogs and tangential strands and interconnectivity and feeling like its all coming together, admittedly as the show is about to end, but that's why it's exciting. I feel it has been a great way to approach an 'exhibition'. We (not all of us) have used the 'space' of the exhibition as a platform for developing work, rather than simply dumping pre-existing work in a gallery and leaving it there for a few weeks. It has become more of a project than an exhibition in the traditional sense, and those of us working durationally have been influenced (inadvertently or otherwise) by each other. Adam and I have both maintained blogs, and have also examined relationships between traditional modes of working and artistic ones (me with the faxes from my office and Adam with his working in the gallery). One of my faxes contains a poem inspired by Alison Briggs' drawing (albeit a bit of a tongue-in-cheek one). The whole faxing scenario will be echoed by Harry Palmer's performance this evening as it is relayed via mobile phone to the gallery. To name but a few, and those only from my perspective.

An exhibition need not be a pre-determined thing, its great when it evolves in relation to the space, the local environment, the fellow artists involved, the internet(!), and any number of other factors. Weblogs and other social software applications could then be put to use as an instant archive. Performances, like this evening's, could be broadcast live via webcam (I'll need to do a bit more research for that one), images of the work can be uploaded, sound pieces, everything. And new ways of working would evolve specific to that environment. You may need never go to a gallery again!

....but, er, then again, maybe not....

I sent through the final drawings for Modus Vivendi today. It is the last day I am in work before the exhibition ends. I came across a blogger's last post almost simultaneously, a parting gesture from a Chinese/Vietnamese/Singaporean named Andy Koh, and couldn't have expressed the sweet sorrow of departure any better myself. So here it is...


"Topic Today Is : Good Bye.

Saturday,March 13 2004.Time now is 4.38 am.I'm very tired n i feel so
restless,I'm so lost.There is no 2nd chance for me,there no ture back..I am a
very bad person when i was young and i did many bad thing but i hope there there
a 2nd chance now for me...Everybody did some thing wrong.I know i was wrong and
i don't ask for forgive.I just hope heaven will give me a chance.I will do my
best.

Maybe i will be away some time people,maybe 6 month,maybe 1 year cos maybe i
will be back to my work place and i will be very busy.I won't go any where else
only work.I wont ans any call untill i am back from work.I hope you people take
care of you self and i will miss you people.Thanks for support my website for
some time and i really very happy.I really enjoy speeding time with you
people.May all your wish come alive.Take care always,Many Thanks."

To see this in its excellent original setting click here.

If you live within a reasonable travelling distance of North Shields you should definitely definitely come down to the gallery on Wednesday night for the closing/performance event. All the durational works (like mine) will be finished and more importantly there will be fantastic performances including a bike being ridden around with a DVD projector attached to it, a house of cards being built/knocked down/built again, some kind of interactive smorgasbord, a performance from the legendary Harry Palmer and most excitingly of all, a karaoke-fest featuring Japanese girls singing Blondie and Ricky Martin songs with 'Mad Tommy T' as compere (....!?!)

Brace yourselves.

The 'drawings' I have been making and faxing to the gallery are varied and (for myself at least) exciting. I am doing them regularly and although certain narratives emerge between some pieces, as a whole it is non-linear and dynamic: ranging from portraits to poetry and from humour to homage. The blog on the other hand, is descriptive and unnecessarily intellectualised(ish). With the exception of a couple of entries it is dry, verbose and uninteresting. I wouldn't have thought of this as problematic necessarily until I considered the differing ways in which each relates to the exhibition. The fact that the blog is free from the (relatively) austere constraints of the gallery (as compared to the net), would have led me to believe it would be more divergent and exciting, but

(I have abandoned this train of thought)

Evening all. Can't stay for long, its Friday night and everything, and bloggers have lives too you know. Click here to see something much more entertaining. Go on, enjoy yourselves, its the freaking weekend after all.

There is only another week to go before the exhibition, and subsequently this blog, ends. It has not been easy to maintain the initial fervour I felt having had the idea to do it and imagining the possible outcome/s. It has become quite closed down and grows only very slowly, with not much scope for a lot to happen in a mere 7 days. Comments and contributions have been scarce, and likewise my attempts to initiate conversation (through invitation etc) have waned. Perhaps it should have been more of a 'stream of consciousness' type of monologue, with entries made every day regardless of applicable content (like most personal blogs). I will try to do that for the rest of the duration. Or I could have taken it the other way and written some sort of essay, with each entry being a specific chapter. It could still be done durationally, but I could edit it as I went along, and suggestions and references could be made by the audience. I suppose it currently lies somewhere inbetween those two polarities and that is not necessarily a bad thing. I said earlier that an exciting aspect of it is that it is organic and it's evolution can be traced right through from beginning to end.
Whatever.

I'll be in the gallery tomorrow (Tuesday), doing a spot of invigilating alongside Adam. If anyone fancies dropping in for a chat you're more than welcome. An impromptu open-surgery if you like. An important observation of social software is that it is best used not as a replacement for face-to-face contact, but as a useful additional component to everyday communication. See you in the Shields!

Interactive! Someone left a comment! Fair enough it was to criticise me for having named the artists in the show when some of the promotional material had suggested they were to remain anonymous, but to that end it was a fair point well made. My good friend Jemima Splendid has rushed to my defence, but I am happy for holes to be picked in this project, especially in how it relates to the exhibition or gallery practice generally.

I invited Jemima to join as a member, as I will the Normalife artists, so that they can leave posts as well as comments. Hopefully what has so far been very much a monologue can become something more akin to a discussion, with myself as chair.

There has been 'conversation' outside of the blog as well. A writer contacted us to welcome us as fellow 'Geordie' Bloggers (a 'Geordie' being a resident of Tyneside). His site, It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware, is seemingly a running commentary of all things Newcastle and of blog-related musings. Also, Dan Fictum got back to me about his art happens blog. I was pleased to hear that, as he had been neglecting this for a while, the very fact that a like mind had contacted him about it had inspired him to start it up again. He couldn't really say whether or not it was/is a successful work, but it is unfinished and, unlike this one which, if not 'finished' will at least be 'abandoned' on the 18th March, it probably never will be. He also said of his approach, 'I think that I was a little too self-conscious to let it become successful art.' but added, 'I have not given up on it yet.'

It may transpire that the best use of blogs and social software in the service of art is in how they provide for international networks of like-minded practitioners, who can share knowledge/opinions with their contemporaries.

Guten Tag! Well, I'm happy to report that the show is ace! I would say that, being in it, but I genuinely think the Normalife crew have pulled it off. It was interesting for me to see it for the first time, having been contributing at a distance from the gallery. A brief rundown of the work then:

In the first room, visible from the street, Where I End Is Where You Begin by Will Richmond Watson, is two sets of four or five brightly coloured strip-lights hanging from the ceiling. The colours are derived from surrounding shop-fronts and ad hoardings and have been described as Flavin-esque. Next, Sarah Harvey's paintings based, as I said earlier, on photographs by Ant Macari of local residents. These three small portraits are handled very competently and are also very affecting. Ginny Reed's 52 Card Pick Up is a fragile house of cards on a felt-covered table, occasionally collapsing and perhaps being rebuilt. Richard Phipps has numerous varied work in the show, from a line of dummy CCTV cameras and a bank of movement sensors which are animated by their audience passing in front of them, to a painting of the 'Lego' logo minus the letter 'L' (The Ego Has Landed), to a pack of 'Top Trumps' cards with famous artists as the protagonists. Alison Briggs' Rachel's Stone. Cold Day. Beach, is a sombre drawing of a pebble hung very low on the gallery wall. Ant Macari's Großmaul (hot-shot) is a sprawling wall drawing which snakes through a small space adjoining two larger rooms. Godzilla battles Ultraman in a world of Pikachu-flowers and toy aeroplanes with a cameo appearance from Colonel Sanders! Opposite this is George Vasey's untitled retort to the tight linear qualities of Macari's piece, perspex rectangles on a wishy-washy colour-field, also done directly on the wall. Vasey's other works on show include paintings and an homage to the apple iPod. Melissa Sharpe's Sphere 05 is a large circle made from tortuous layering of wooden veneers glued together with a large wedge cut out. Evee Gardner presents a series of untitled works on paper using masking tape, perhaps cast-off from another creation. Finally, Olly Walker presents Projection Bike, a DVD documentary revolving around a three-wheeled bike with attached video projector which will feature in a performance later in the show.

There's more as well. There will be several performances on the 17th March at the 'Closing Event', plus Adam Walker's Employee of the Week which, like my own Modus Vivendi and Globe Blog will continue throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Very varied work as you can probably tell even from those unenlightening descriptions, but with interesting cross-overs of interest and concerns. All participating artists have also completed a questionnaire set by George in an attempt to demystify their process, and these are handled with varying degrees of creativity/inanity which make for an interesting collaborative piece in themselves. I may try to create an online quiz based on these questionnaires, much like the ones I've been taking for 14% Geek, which will be able to determine which Normalife artist you are most like!

Enough for now. If you live in the North-East of England go and check it out. If not you'll have to content yourself with a descriptive text. I will focus on individual works in more detail in the next few days and also return to the discursive matter of the 'Blog as Art' potentiality business.

Nacht. xx

The show opens tomorrow! There is an opening 'event' on Tuesday, but if you happened to be in North Shields tomorrow and passing by the gallery, you could pop in and see Modus Operandi (apparently - though more than likely there will still be last minute hanging mayhem going on).

I took some time selecting an appropriate lever-arch file for my faxes to be 'filed' in, and a suitable position for it on a shelving unit within the gallery. I will aim to send a few through tomorrow and on Monday so there is some substance to the piece by Tuesday evening. With regards to other works that will be in the show, I am not 100% sure yet. Not being part of the 'Normalife' collective I am somewhat out of the loop. I know Ant Macari will display a wall drawing and has supplied original photographic portraits of three people who work in shops near the gallery to Sarah Harvey, who will use them as a basis for painted portraits. Adam Walker will be based in the gallery throughout as custodian and artist-in-residence of sorts, aiming to create works that promote the show. And something else to do with cards and Artist Top Trumps...? Anyway, I will give a thorough breakdown after Tuesday's event.

I have just written a review for the Static Pamphlet. Static is an art organisation based in Liverpool and the Pamphlet is their monthly newsletter/arena for critical writing. The reason I mention it here is that I found similarities in one of the works in the show I was reviewing, Put Your Hands Where We Can See Them, with this project. Becky Shaw's piece, 'The Production of the Critical Moment' aims to generate critical discussion surrounding the exhibition. Part of this is achieved through inviting artists/writers/curators etc to review it. Other elements include chaired discussions, firstly between the artists in the show, and later a public forum. It is the use of systems for critical discourse, presented as artwork, which interests me in relation to this little baby.

So don't be afraid of leaving comments 'cause this won't work if its all one-sided.

C U Next Tuesday! xxx

I've started a much more light-hearted blog which may or may not be art. I consider it another piece made for 'Modus Operandi', although it is only available online and doesn't have even the tenuous links to the gallery that this blog has.
It's called 14% Geek and is quite simply the collected results of numerous online personality tests and character-determining quizzes that I have completed, asking the eternally perplexing question, 'Who am I?'
The tests can range from 'What is your IQ?' to 'Which Pokemon are you?' Some are based on real psychological profiling studies, but most are done by American teenagers with too much time on their hands. Anyway, I have tried to answer all questions as honestly as possible.
Will the internet be able to help me in finding my true identity?
So far I have established that I am a 'Planner' with a 'Heart of Stone' who 'Desire(s) Darkness' and is not gay. And of course, I am only 14% geek!

Pierre Coinde and Gary O'Dwyer of London gallery The Centre of Attention have been very inventive in their use of blogging in the service of art. In an online exhibition called International Art Blog, they invited twelve artists/writers/curators from around the world to submit regular correspondence over the course of one month which related to the artistic environment of the city/country they were in.

'A network of operatives covering the globe. [The] show aligns and deploys art world practitioners using the power of digital technology to survey the art scenes from across the world.' (from their press release)

This would definitely fit into the diary model or journalistic approach to a 'blog-as-art', with most contributors offering fairly straightforward responses. (The most original entry seems to be from artist Dave Muller who reports from Los Angeles and Lyon by submitting his entire e-mail correspondence for a month, including love letters and baby photos!). But is it an 'exhibition'? It is perhaps closer in nature to a magazine. If those involved were willing, it is something that could easily have continued and become a useful ongoing resource for gauging the current artistic climate in various parts of the world. As it stands, it is a closed document which shows twelve views of the art world at a fixed point in time. Globe Blog will be similarly limited by the duration of 'Modus Operandi' (a regular exhibition) and this may be an important feature in determining to what extent it can be thought of as art.

Another imaginative exhibition from Centre of Attention, 'Email Art', was similarly closed down inasmuch as artworks were sent by email to a subscription base. This was free to join and the emails sent included works by Jenny Holzer, Sylvie Fleury and others. But they are not available online. Instead you can see submissions from artists on the subscription base, which were sent in response. If space is not a factor in determining what an exhibition can be (ie. it is online and not in a gallery), then time, it would seem, still is. Exhibitions have a beginning and an end, or rather they open and close. The interesting thing is, we can still experience online artworks in some way after the event.

A few developments then. Firstly I've added my blog to a couple of directories (Blogwise, Blogarama etc), and added a counter. So more people (very likely with no prior knowledge of the exhibition or of the gallery) may come across it via search criteria on these sites, plus I will be able to see how much attention it is getting via the counter (2 hits so far! Lucrative advertising deals here we come!)...

Secondly, I have found that I am far from alone in this art-blog/blog-as-art endeavour, and have added links accordingly. 'art happens', the four-month-old blog of New York artist Daniel Fictum, is scarily like this one. It even looks the same (except its blue where this is orange and he doesn't have the ads!). It started as a diary of the processes involved in putting together his MFA show, but it also has an ongoing awareness of the artistic potential of the form, he says of it, 'I am convinced that it is an art object, even if it becomes one by me say (sic) it is art'. Whether or not he has resolved this remains unclear, but I will contact him to find out.

Really though, asking whether or not a blog of this kind is art is much like asking whether a diary/journal is art or not. It is much easier to appreciate the works in 'blog.art' in this respect. These are online works, stemming from existing forms of net-based art, where '...the blog is the conceptual foundation of the work'. Each project creatively utilises the idiosyncrasies of blogging to form a digital media work (always involving collaboration of some kind) which is unique. But don't just take my word for it, go and have a look. Go on, both of you!

Modus Vivendi began in earnest today with 8 drawings made whilst I was at work (well, 3 really, but one of them is a six-parter!). The work won't really begin in its intended form until I start to fax these drawings etc through to the gallery. I mean, have you ever heard of a more inventive way of interacting with the physical space of the gallery? (I've actually robbed it off someone else but that's not the point!). Anyway, with that in mind, what follows is the copy from an email I just sent to the Globe Gallery to ponder a few practicalities...

"Hi,

I am participating in the upcoming student-organised show at Hub ('Modus Operandi'), and have been referred here by my good friend and housemate Ant Macari (one of the co-ordinators of the show).
Basically, my submission consists of two parts and I have two resultant questions/requests....

Firstly, I hope to make drawings whilst at work (at a-n) and fax them through to the gallery periodically over the duration of the show. So I guess my first question is, is there a fax machine at Globe Hub? and if so, what is the number? (if not, would it be ok to fax to Globe City and arrange for the drawings to be collected and taken by the students to the Hub site occasionally?)

The second part of my submission is called 'Globe Blog' and is a temporary weblog on the net. It is kind of like an online diary and will likewise develop throughout the duration of the show. I would very much like for its web address to appear on the flyer/promotional material for the show (Ant has agreed to this), and also, if possible, for it to appear on the Globe website (which I notice is not fully functional yet, but perhaps it could be placed on that page temporarily?)....

Anyway, the address is http://globeblog04.blogspot.com (note no 'www.') and it would mean a lot to the development of the work for this to be disseminated as far and wide as possible.

Thanking you very much in advance,

Phil Marsden"

Another day, another blog! I am debating whether or not I should be updating this everyday, or whether I should be doing it at all until the exhibition opens proper. Perhaps it is the sheer novelty value at the moment, but I think that if I am to regard this as an 'artwork' (we can come back to this questionable assertion another time), then it would be beneficial not to leave anything out. It is organic, and will grow to a certain point and then stop. Whether or not it will resemble a finished work is perhaps not as important as the fact that its audience will be able to trace its origins and the way in which it developed. This will all be helpful in finding out whether there is a place in art for social software of this kind.

Hi everyone! If I've learned anything about weblogs today its that they're often a lot less formal than the two dry entries that have appeared in this one so far! With that in mind I think I'll switch to a more personal writing style. Yes, why not.

Well, I've added a few links. They're over there on the right. See? Check out the British Blog Awards article on Guardian Unlimited to see what some of the more inventive bloggers are doing with the medium. And defo take a look at Nick Crowe's site. A Manchester-based artist whose work deals directly with the internet and such. His alternative websites for prestigious UK art galleries are a particular highlight (their MIDI soundtracks will be like music to your ears!). The iSociety, a branch of London-based think-tank The Work Foundation, looks at the impact of communications technology on UK businesses and social networks etc. and member William Davies' essay, 'You Don't Know Me, but..., Social Capital & Social Software' was kind of the inspiration for this whole endeavour.

I've also added a facility to leave comments. Your contributions are welcome and you can add to the whole sprawling, viral, web-based poisonous deluge of autonomous personal opinion!

xxx

Proposal for ‘Modus Operandi’

‘Modus Vivendi’ and ‘Globe Blog’


Where modus operandi is the way of working, modus vivendi comes from ‘way of living’, but is used to mean ‘an arrangement allowing conflicting parties to coexist peacefully’. The conflicting nature of art and the organisations which surround and support it will be examined through a series of works transmitted by fax from my office at ‘a-n The Artists Information Company’ to the Globe Gallery in North Shields. This activity will dually explore the notion of being creative whilst at work and that of a different approach to the gallery environment.

Although a-n (and other arts organisations) exist to promote activity in the visual arts and creativity generally, it is unlikely that this would be encouraged as part of day-to-day office activity. Productivity would likely suffer as a result, and artistic activity is not as quantifiable as revenue generated from selling advertising, for instance. Could a modus vivendi exist between creativity and bureaucracy?

These faxes, which will consist of drawings and probably scraps of writing, could be sent in varying numbers per day for the duration of the show (presumably on some days none will be sent as I work part-time and may be too busy even when I am there). I have thought that they could be collected into a lever-arch file in individual plastic wallets available to view by the exhibition-goer, extending the feel of the office environment aesthetic. The work is therefore durational and will not exist in a finished state until the exhibition itself has ended.

This is likewise the case with ‘Globe Blog’, which is to be a durational weblog on the internet. A weblog is essentially an online diary, and this is something I can update in real-time throughout the show. It is separate from the physical content in the gallery but can, I believe, exist as a component of the exhibition, exploring how ‘social software’ can be used in the service of art, in a way that is accessible to anyone, anywhere with access to the internet. Globe Blog is already online at http://globeblog04.blogspot.com/ where this proposal has been uploaded, and I will look into how content can be linked to the Globe Gallery website, and the possibility of allowing participating artists to add to it, forming an online journal surrounding the development of Modus Operandi .

Phil Marsden

Feb 2004

Welcome to Globe Blog! An experiment into the potential of social software in the realm of art!

An exhibition opens in a couple of weeks at the Globe Gallery (Hub) in North Shields, UK. The title of the exhibition is 'Modus Operandi' and it is co-ordinated by 'normal life' collective. Normal life are inviting proposals for work to go in the show. I am about to make such a proposal which will feature this weblog + a series of drawings/works on paper sent by fax to the gallery entitled 'Modus Vivendi', about which more later. Both will run and expand throughout the duration of the show, providing they are accepted.