Simulacra And Simulations

All of a sudden things have become very busy!

I’ve been in touch with Rosanna from Manchester Artist’s Bonfire, and have agreed to support this with an inaugural Artist’s Bonfire in Lincoln via Lincoln Artist’s Network. I have support from the University for this so hopefully students will be involved as well, and as I’m awaiting confirmation of a venue for Empty Shops projects, this space might not be ideal to be burning things in! Manchester artists have organised theirs at Islington Mill, but Rosanna will send more information about organising this soon.

I was having funding worries. I can apply for local arts funding, but the deadline isn’t until March 2012, so that’s no good for anything I want to do from now onwards. I was thinking of applying to the Arts Council again, for LAN projects, but need to do lots of research first and secure some match funding. This I’ve started by the Cash For The Community Fund. It all seems to take time just to be able to do anything, and I don’t know any other profession where your wages are some kind of lottery as to whether you can get paid to work!!

The Cash For The Community Fund means that the more people that support this, the more money we’ll achieve. Yesterday I organised a coffee morning at a nearby church that has been renovated and has facilities for the community. They have a business networking event this week, so I’m tagging onto that in the hope to gain support from people.

My own work seems to have taken a bit of a back seat at the moment, but I’m still applying for things relating to that as well.

My efforts at trying to have some kind of break for half term have been disrupted by accidentally getting involved in Frequency Festival events. This has been quite challenging considering Orange have completely cut off my mobile phone service, so no one can contact me when I’m out and about. Aside from the fact that I have to be able to be in contact with the kids if I go to do something without them, it seems particularly evil of Orange to make me go analogue during the Digital Arts Festival, but I’m not letting them get to me while I battle against their Mammon.

And I wasn’t sure whether I was there in my capacity as an artist or audience. As I wasn’t supposed to be working, I guess I’d have to put myself in the “audience” capacity.

On Saturday, Barry set up Ilana Reins’ “We Are Cylons” videohttp://frequency.org.uk/format/artists/ilana-rein which I could relate to with her use of fans of Battlestar Galactica, the themes seemed to match my own work in some ways, especially the notion that sci-fi is used to question and share philosophical ideas.

Luke Jerram’s beautifully crafted glass sculptures of viruses would’ve been better suited to being exhibited in a hospital setting.

http://frequency.org.uk/format/artists/luke-jerram

Rosaline-de-thelin’s fibre optical light pieces in St. Swithin’s church were reminiscent of Bill Viola’s Ocean Without A Shore at Venice Biennale 2007

http://frequency.org.uk/format/artists/rosaline-de…

Alex Posada’s The Particle within Roman ruins was an encounter with some kind of Nikola Tesla creation that caused the stone ruins to appear to move around it. Having recently watched something about a boy whose father invented a secret military teleportation machine, I did want to get out before some kind of Philadelphia Experiment occurred.

Friday night there was a projected piece by The Collaborators in The Jolly Brewer pub http://frequency.org.uk/format/artists/the-collabo…

This work was trying to reach out to a non-art audience, and as I was forced into the capacity of a non-artist, attending as an ordinary audience participant, I used this to my advantage to gain feedback from people there. A non-artist friend said it would’ve been better with some more information about the images shown.

I chatted with a musician that was in one of the bands featured in the montage, she hadn’t been to Lincoln since. Some of the footage showed high profile bands from the late 60s and early 70s that played at local venues. There was a huge rock festival hosting Jimi Hendrix and Cream in 1968 I think, and I’m fairly certain my Dad came to Lincoln for one of those gigs back then. Considering that I’m attempting to bring a contemporary high profile band to Lincoln for the next Digital Arts Festival, I can see how my ambition will blow away all of those old cobwebs, how these small pieces lead up to the kind of thing I hope will happen.

In other news, I applied to the Lincolnshire Echo Cash For The Community Fund via the local newspaper, and have received a registration pack. This fund has £20,000 for 200 organisations available, which I hope will go towards match funding for an ACE grant.

Barry wanted to meet up sometime over the past two days, but having done some work whilst on holiday, I was too tired to do anything yesterday, and I didn’t hear from him, which is a shame.

Amongst all of that, I have completed my first proper paid commission for a fellow fan of A-ha! She wanted a Take On Me style illustration of her and Morten for a book she’s trying to publish. As she’s not actually met Morten, this was a completely photoshopped portrait. However, despite my inclination to avoid all A-ha themed work, something is telling me that it would be better to get primary research for such work next time….

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