Glasgow School of Art Degree Show
Visited my old college yesterday. ( I graduated from the Dep of Environmental Art in 2001).
The photographer Harry Benson is about to be made Honorary Professor and there was a private party for him in the Macintosh Room.
The Degree show, always worth a visit is outstanding this year. No point in listing individuals. Just go to the college web site.
The Painting Department is awash with rumours of the extraordinary sums that students have sold their work for. One is reputed to have made £20,000. I chat to another young man who has sold his double light box to a Dubai millionaire for £1,500.
But the students say it puts a lot of pressure on them to commodify their art and one expressed a certain envy at the environmental art students who are not under this same pressure to sell to galleries.
I recall six years ago one tutor telling me when I was about to graduate and I expressed a certain concern over my ability to earn a crust to support my artistic endeavours:”We don't care a toss whether you can earn a living afterwards. That’s not what we are about.”
Times have certainly changed at Glasgow School of Art…
“Duet”
All too often pieces from Degree shows disappear and are never seen again.
Well, I found a new venue for an audio sculpture I did for my Degree show at Glasgow School of Art in 2001.
I sited “Duet”, ( birds singing and cat purring) in my garden when it was opened yesterday for charity under Scotland’s Garden Scheme.
One teenager commented that she thought it was the best bit in the garden!…it certainly caused people to pause and think and talk.
The Secret Power of Objects
We knew about the power of the photographic image to unlock memories. Less well known is the secret power of things we hold dear.
Now Sherry Turkle, Professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has written a book, “Evocative OBjects” , exploring this little known area.
In my own research for “The Lost Children of Craig-y-nos” I am struck by the wealth of photographs and memorabilia that I have amassed, all bringing with them stories.
These objects, faded, often damaged tiny photographs, autograph albums, locks of hair, postcards and even certificates act as keys to unlocking memories buried for half a century.
Turkle’s book is published later this month by MIT Press and I have placed an order with Amazon.
I look forward to reading it.
Photographic exhibition
Have confirmed the dates for a photographic exhibition of archival prints of Craig-y-nos Castle when it was used as a childrens sanatorium.
This will take place in September.
This is a result of my current research for my book on "The Lost Children of Craig-y-nos" except they are now found! I have been inundated with photographs though not a word has been written or are there any records of this missing piece of 40 years of Welsh history.
The reason I suspect is that TB, the "white plague" was a taboo disease.
Meanwhile my videos on You Tube continue on their merry way notching up nearly 50,000 downloads. Suddenly realise I am now part of what is known as the "You Tube" generation.
Have they any idea how old I am?
Podcasts at Hay Book Festival
Thinking of the way we consume arts and media brings me to the recent week I have spent at the Hay Book Festival.
All the talks were available on a podcast. As the area is Wi-Fi you no longer need to sit in a stuffy tent on a plastic chair when you can sit back in your deckchair in the sunshine and hear it on a podcast.
So I did both. Those talks which were impossible to get tickets for I downloaded. But it raises an interesting question: unless there are visuals or something other than two talking heads (the author and the interviewer).
do you really need to see them in the flesh?
Only one event I attended did I feel that the physical presence of the author was essential and that was with the South African photographer Austin Stevens (“the snake man”).
He made his talk interactive: he produced a python and a boa constrictor for people to touch.
And yes folk lined up in orderly queues for the pleasure/horror of touching live snakes.
Now you cant get that on a podcast!
