Below is a sample blog post from http://redundantalex.blogspot.com
A basic summing up of the last month would go as follows. I am redundant (from my place of employment, an FE college in Suffolk, actually Ipswich, ok its Suffolk New College). I have been working for free as an artist in residence at the Art School Gallery in Ipswich. I know this is a crazy state of affairs. I am not proud. My first act, to plant a small circle of cress in their carpet, brought over a special task force from the borough council’s health and safety unit. The cress was banned. I have mould in my downstairs toilet, the cat is at death’s door, and I have been rejected from two commissions a film festival and a residency. I wouldnt mind but I was personally invited to apply for one of the commissions and had my arm severely twisted (by phone) to apply for the other. Tomorrow I am presenting my recent, and failed, Arts Council bid to gain funding for the slaughter of a large number of Artists and next week, if I am not slain in Peckham, I shall be talking about blogging.
Something has gone amiss. The trains have gone. I have managed to catch the only one running with a few other brave souls. The conductor cannot and has not made any promises about our eventual arrival in London. Personally I find all this stuff exciting, it’s like a snow day or a petrol strike, the world has changed and all we can do is enjoy it. There is an armed presence, in a final attempt to keep society going two police officers patrol the corridors.
I am hoping to get to my parents house in time for tea. They have a number of jobs waiting for me: nailing up the doors and windows, skinning the neighbours, digging a bunker. Meanwhile, at home, Annabel awaits for the return of the Pig. Not to be released until she has a good feed it is likely this pickiest of eaters will run up a hotel bill in the late hundreds before she deigns to return.
Recently we have been dreaming up money making schemes as we drift off to sleep. The latest is the use of the common house fly
Musca domestica in a revolutionary beauty treatment. Inspired by it’s eating technique (vomiting stomach juices, trampling them in and then sucking up the, ahem, dissolved material) we have decided to pioneer a treatment akin to the skin eating fish pedicure that is so popular. Our Fly Facial will involve hundreds of specially bred flies being encouraged to vomit on the faces of the rich (and stupid) in a sort of organic derma-peel. We think the idea really has legs (sorry).
back in Ipswich I shall be absent from my residency at The Art School Gallery for a few days during which time the dangerous cress will wither and die of natural causes. While this is happening I am making a new film of cress growing in my basement at home. I am hoping to project the resulting film in the cloakroom where it’s insubstantial and art approved medium should protect it from health and safety legislation.
