Once upon a time , well four years ago, you just wrote a blog and posted it. No more.
Today you have got to make it interactive ( I am struggling with that) multi-media rich ( photos, videos,) and of course it must have links to social networking sites.
All this is a sign of the way the digital world is changing the way we communicate with each other.
We live in exciting times….check out my online blog at:
http://annshaw.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-garden-in-w…
I need to upgrade my computer ( Macbook or Imac? can’t decide) so I visit theApple store in Glasgow .
The place is heaving with young people , along with a sprinkling of oldies likemyself.
I need sharp elbows to get to the machines. But a lifetime in newspaper journalism has equipped me with that and I am soon lost in the latest Apple dream machines.
Buoyed up with this vision of our digital world I stroll along to visit an exhibition which had good reviews.
But the gallery is empty despite it being a very busy Friday in the city . Not a good sign. I soon realise why.
After the moving images and inter-activity of the Apple store the work hanging on the walls looks, not to mince words, dead.
I am overcome with a tremendous sense of deja-vu.
The paintings just hangs there. They tell me nothing about the world I live in. In fact they could have been done 20, 50 or even 100 years ago.
It’s said the average time spent in an exhibition is 45 minutes. I am in and out in less than ten.
Stunned I decide to visit my favourite bookshop, only to find it has been replaced by a mobile phone shop.
Welcome to the 21st century and the turbulent age we live in.
PS. Still undecided…do I need a laptop when I’ve got an ipad? but that’s another story.
Just returned from Jordan to find an email from BBC1 TV producer making a series on the social history of Britain in the last 50 years.
They want to include a piece on TB and to focus on telling it through the stories of children who were in a sanatorium – hence their interest in “The Children of Craig-y-nos”.
Received a copy this morning of the Medical Journalists’ Association 2010 Health & Medicine in the Media booklet.
I am listed in the Open Book Awards 2010 along with my co-author Carole Reeves in the commended category.
One spin off already from Forth Valley Open Studios is that last weekend five artists in Stirling got together and organised their own mini Open Studios weekend – and it was a great success!
Other spin-offs include a new gallery opening in Bridge of allan encouraged by the success of FVOS, new Life Drawing class starting soon in Delta Studios, Larbert and many artists have found an increased demand for their workshops and classes.
Well, the first Trossachs Open Studios weekend got off to a very wet start. I had some visitors that weekend from China so I took the opportunity to show them a side of British life they had never seen before.
They liked the friendliness and informality of the Open Studios where we just wandered into peoples houses…
Ann Shaw is an artist/writer based in Scotland working in new media. As a journalist she campaigned and wrote about many social and medical issues. She is a feminist and founder member of Falkirk Womens Aid, active in the trades union movement and former member of National Union of Journalists Equality Working Party, and founder member of Forth Valley Open Studios.
