Simulacra And Simulations

I was invited to Spire last Friday evening, as part of Frequency Digital Arts Festival, which proved itself to be a very inspirational evening.

Spire brought contemporary musical performances into the setting of Lincoln Cathedral.

Spire is a particularly poignant title considering that at the time the Cathedral had spires, it was the tallest building in Europe, and the music was meant to replace those lost spires.

So we were treated to Olivier Messiaen’s Chants d’oiseux, which I swear must be the soundtrack to a Jan Svankmajer animation, Philip Jeck, and my all time favourite, B.J. Nilsen, whose hauntingly Scandinavian sounds caused me to imagine that the Cathedral had been hewn out of a fjord, an icy glacier of a space, then the arched ceiling transformed into whalebone, as if I were Jonas inside a whale, swimming in frozen seas.

I got chatting to someone there by the name of Michael who had just returned from Graz supporting Apparatjik, and he introduced me to the festival organiser, Barry.

He told me that my proposal was the best one they’d had, and we discussed to work on it, then he offered to show me round an ice book and the rest of the festival, for which I have yet to receive a reply.

B.J. Nilsen @ Spire, Lincoln Cathedral

I’ve become distracted lately by a horrible issue with Orange, which I wrote in this blog:

http://helend-blackbird.blogspot.com/

Still no news from Ofcom yet, however, I’ve since been busy applying for funding for the Empty Shops project and just to be able to get the LAN going.

Last week I had the option of going with my G.C.S.E – stressed son to a post 16 presentation at school or the opening of Lincoln’s first Digital Arts Festival, Frequency, at The Collection.

In the end I attended neither. My son said he’d be fine going to the Post 16 evening by himself, and the Frequency thing became superseded by Tea Time.

Feeding the kids seems to be a priority for single Mums, over attending an event that I applied to be paid to take part in and wasn’t successful, and my omission from will only make me feel bad, so best to avoid. A tweet from someone involved saying “… YOU ARE MISSING OUT!” only served to add to a perception that the art world is blatantly discriminating against me because I am the sole carer of my kids, and I don’t find it responsible to go out at tea time when my son’s G.C.S.E.s take priority. Or will I have social services banging on my door again??… I always feel that it takes extra effort to attend such things, and I’m often ignored because I go alone, so why should I go to that much trouble? Why put myself through all that? I’ve never received any paid commissions, only people insulting me because I can no longer afford to work “voluntarily”. Having said all of that, I will go to Spire at the Cathedral. It won’t be any near as good as if JUSTICE were to perform there, or in fact APPARATJIK, but I’ll keep those thoughts to myself.

It’s half term now, so the usual frustration of being invited to arty things when I have a demanding 12 year old thinking i don’t love him if I don’t look what he’s doing 24 hours a day….. whilst ignoring ads for children’s workshops – I can’t afford to send my son to a workshop by another artist because I’m not working during half term, i can do them myself for free, but my son says he isn’t interested in art!! God knows what he IS interested in. Mostly breaking things. It cost me £30 to fix his bike, and he still needs a new brake cable. If I sit and draw things, he says I’m really good at drawing, and really quick, and that’s probably the best art education he’ll get. I learnt from sitting on my Grandad’s knee watching him draw stuff. Tony Hart and Rolf Harris don’t seem to be on telly these days. By the age of 11 I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I’m not so sure that was a good idea now!

I did receive a lovely message from Rosanne Robertson, from the AIR Activists meeting in Manchester back in March. She’s planning activist events in January and hopes to spread to other cities, so I’m hoping to support this in Lincoln. This is the kind of support we need!! But that kind of thing, ie work, can wait until November now.

I missed a Brothers Quay animation on SkyArts. Good, that would be art-related and classed as “work”. Then there was Vincent And Theo, which I left on, as my son was into Van Gogh, after that episode of Doctor Who. I’m not going to say what I thought of it, because again, that would be doing “work”, and it’s half term ;-) I don’t even know why I’m writing this blog!