Night Soil

I am in the “quiet zone” or the “angry coach” as I like to call it. The man next to me is typing noisily on his laptop and I, usually a very forgiving person, am ready to rend him limb from limb.

Tappity tap tap tap

We are returning, separate seated, on the last off-peak train from London. Hayley, Annabel Cathy and myself have been in a meeting with academics (the second such event in two days). We had gone to Chelsea with high hopes of gaining massive funding to make work in response to the Baring Archive. We encountered another world with another way of thinking.

Tap tap tappity tap tap

This was not the world of banking, rather it was a world where apparently committees and research forae and laboratories are set up because they should be. Those that set them up have salaried employment or large research grants which only demand that they set up committees and research forae and laboratories. This seems vague and I would like to state I am not against the joy of knowledge by any means (The illustrations are great). But for we, unsalaried artists or even FE lecturers (a world where knowledge and research is not only frowned upon but legislated against) this is no practical help. How our dreams were shattered, what a sight of dejection was to be seen in the pub afterwards. So on the plus side the researchers and academics we met all seemed lovely interesting people, they want us to be involved in termly seminars and we shall get access to the Baring Archive. We will meet new people and make interesting contacts. But there will be no piles of gold or bearer’s bonds, no expenses, no gratuitous feasts. Damn damn damn. (tap tap tap)

Last night I was the warm up act at a Market Project event. I was paid, the cheque still rests in the top pocket of my very slimming and now slightly sweaty suit. I don’t usually spend so much time thinking about money but as their title suggests Market Project is concerned with the idea that artists should be financially respected for what they do. Generally I agree but it does lead towards a rather fruitless feeling of entitlement and pointless inflation of self worth in those such as myself.

Why should anyone pay me for what I do? What service or goods do I provide? How many people want them?

After I had scared (and even offended?) a few with my talk of gassing artists. The speakers began to discuss the idea that their are too many artists. Twice I heard the idea that everyone should be an artist, a cosy academic idea sheltered from the realities of trying to make and get art seen. We had art compared to baking bread an activity that is only a joy to those who don’t have to do it and can afford the time to dabble in the petit hameau. But mostly, although many interesting things were said, we had a fine display of macho intellectual jousting which only needed a David Attenborough voiceover to complete its ridiculousness. I fear that in the midst of the rut the other two panelists were a bit subdued which was a shame because they had equally interesting things to say.

Afterwards we realised that online it looked as if something terrible had happened. Because of the design of the lecture theatre no signal could penetrate once the doors had closed. The last thing the outside world read was:

“@rotagavin telling us how he’s about to cull the entire room”

Then silence for two hours.

Tappit tappity tap tap

We saw Grayson Perry’s show, the shop was crazy, full of not very good tourist-style Perry knockoffs.

TAP

Normal service will be resumed soon, tonight is bin night.

Alex Pearl- ranteur (tap tap)

Theatre of the Absurd

I am ready to go- six hours early. Actually I was ready by ten thirty – eight hours early. I am now waiting for Annabel to escape from work so we can head to Colchester. I have done a little run through, Mr Pig seemed to enjoy it. All in all I think I will be only talking for 6 minutes and then showing my film. I should feel relief, instead it has made me start to worry more about next weeks debacle in Peckham . I have looked at the adverts “Both Alex Pearl and Aliceson Carter will be presenting at the third Artists talking event.” *swallows bile*. These *s are from twitter, I haven’t quite got the hang of them yet, they seem to indicate what you want your reader to think you are doing while you write. They are often used either to reinforce or undermine something you have just said or just to add shorthand descriptive colour. Often (and quite obviously) they are not true, merely a bit of useful/less hyperbole which turns twitter into a sort of theatrical act. *cleans glasses and redirects telescope into next door’s bathroom window*

I think I may have overdone it for the talk this evening. I am not a performance artist, yet I have bought a suit, a sure sign of the “artist as performer” if ever I have seen one. It is a nice suit from the sixties and delivered via eBay from Wales by a lovely Croation woman. It is Chinese. I hoped it might give me an air of confidence but I just look like a nervous person wearing a suit for the first time in twenty+ years. Actually this was probably my original intention. To undermine myself to such a degree that whatever happens it looks preplanned. *smiles confidently*

The lovely Julie Freeman has promised to “do something spectacular” if I freeze, so I may throw in some long pauses to test her nerve.

Mr Pig is growling at a jay and a robin then running to her litter tray.

She eats only from the right hand bowl.

…

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.

Post Apocalyptic Adventure

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.