2W37_FIFTY SIXTH POST

In some ways there is too much to do. Too many projects that demand attention and the only way that they get done are by moving to the front of the queue based on a time-running-out factor. I think that this is the wrong way to do it, a project should get priority based on merit but the reality is I cannot tell which project is more or less important. I consider them all of equal worth, as my need is personal satisfaction.

 

I noticed that David MacWilliam has mentioned on his blog thoughts on the expected audience for his work. I think it is a very interesting aspect of the artwork that we do. In the mill show, one of the artists was concerned about the profanity in his work and how this might be received. MTS is quite coarse at times. I say, fuck the audience. If you can, after show party and all that. PEEP! the gallery was censored last week, although in this case the artist was ridiculously stupid to try and show his drawings, as they were littered with foul language, sexual references and other topics that the narrow minds of the majority don’t like. In a gallery where you choose to enter, and where your attention can be drawn to signage stating that there is ‘adult material’, I don’t have a problem with any of those things. At PEEP!, where is it literally a window onto a children’s play centre, it was a little pointless. The owners of the business turned the galleries around, end of show.

 

Two days later, and I don’t think it is connected, PEEP! closed for good, in that location. I was installing the show in Huddersfield when I was called and asked to remove the gallery as soon as I could. I now have a dismantled PEEP! in the hallway. It has been replaced by an ice cream parlour. The people at the centre have asked me to build a wall mountable version of PEEP! for the ice cream eaters to look at, which I might do. It all goes back to there being too much to do and the need to focus. Another PEEP! in the same place or hold on a little longer to get a PEEP! elsewhere first, or even concentrate on something else altogether, like the paper version. I am starting to get emails from those people who submitted work; what did you do with my submission?

 

I did jot down all the various strands on a piece of paper and concluded that I need to carry on doing all the projects at the same time, the guiding factor being money or lack of it. The trailer for example, is the most expensive project but if I spread the cost/work, although it will take longer to finish, at least it will exist. With that project, there are other issues that I have no answer for at the moment such as storage of the trailer and where exactly to take it, how much involvement I try to have with other organisations. You can have the greatest art project in the known world but if no one knows about it, taking a PEEP! gallery all over the UK without so much as a whimper of publicity, is there a point? You might have ticked the worthy boxes such as ‘reaching a new audience for art’ and ‘fostering an empowered appropriation of imagery’ (I know it means nothing) or ‘facilitating the cross-cultural exchange of ideas within a non-boundary based issue-led programme’ but if none of that is official and merely an after thought or happy accident, is there a point? I can burn money travelling the country and having a good time, taking some mates’ pictures with me and seeing what kind of reaction a clown with a mobile gallery gets. And, so what?

 

Due to a very short season of one day shows, rather than the usual two-day orgies of alcohol and face painting, I am putting the ‘show’ version of PEEP! on hold; effort versus time and opportunity equals can’t-be-arsed. JW suggested that a good book could be had of that; travels with PEEP! and I think I will try that when and if the trailer ‘goes live’. The other issue with the mobile PEEP! is whether to travel alone or not. I don’t know if you really experience things on your own. I need people to get enthused and fired up. The idea of roaming across the nation on my own is very attractive though. I suppose I would make a point of stopping off to meet up with people that I know via the net; art contacts who remain an abstract construct. I think you fill in the gaps unwittingly, the knowledge that you don’t have about someone and that is the biggest danger for me. These people might do the same and assume I have something interesting to say. In the flesh, I am afraid I will disappoint. I find myself somewhat disappointing and I am used to me. So the journey would be punctuated with feeling shit and then dragging the whole project down with me. Unless I just get pissed all the time. I think I need some time alone. No idea why, I just sense it.

 

Time for a little light relief!

 

http://www.examiner.co.uk/views-and-blogs/reader-letters/2008/05/20/storm-in-a-polystyrene-cup-86081-20935734/

 

And a reply!

 

http://www.examiner.co.uk/views-and-blogs/reader-letters/2008/05/22/impressive-and-thought-provoking-86081-20947445/

 

 

900 words

2W36_FIFTY FIFTH POST

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah……blah.

 

This last week was the installation of the show of the century, when MTS took 10,000 styroweave insulated disposable cups that have faces drawn on them and placed them on the floor of a mill. Behind this was a projected looped piece of film of some of the cups; a stop motion run through of four hundred examples of the cups. This was our contribution to a group show that happened by accident rather than design. We showed with three other artists, none of whom we knew six months ago. In January a pub meeting confirmed that we actually got along, possibly even liked each other and had some common ground and from there the show was born. It has been the easiest, most enjoyable group show that I have worked on with no trace of ego or even that type of competitiveness that can be so restrictive. Everyone worked on what needed doing and the result was a successful show.

 

Ok, define success. Visually, it worked. Well attended given the location (North of England) and our (MTS) involvement. We have no friends. The photographs of the show will help in securing other proposals, I am sure of that. Win, win. I don’t know how you measure it in any other terms. No, the Guardian didn’t write a piece praising the cutting edge nature of the work and we haven’t been put forward for any art prize but we did make the front page of the ‘Huddersfield Examiner’ with a decent article on page three. That will do for me. For now. I did realise this weekend something that I probably already knew and that is that I want ‘people’ to see my work, more so than seeking any real vindication from whoever is the current cock of the art world. I think I knew that, or it could be an elaborate excuse to not have to justify my work. I’m too tired to care either way. If I am going to carry on making stuff and playing at being an ‘artist’, there has to be a reason to do it and the only one I can think of at the moment is that I enjoy it.

 

I’m not doing this entry very well. I tried to start the blog experiment and it has gone nowhere. I don’t like the questions, not because I refuse to reflect on any deep level, I just don’t find them useful for doing that; they beg glib responses. I do reflect, not necessarily always here and I suppose I ought to do so more as this is in part a tool for the MA. I do stuff and I learn from it and I put that learning into immediate effect. I’m a living, breathing human being; that is what we do. Do I have to cross every ‘i’ and dot every ‘t’? Do I have to drop my pants every time? Somewhere in the last few weeks I have lost the enthusiasm I once had for the course. Initially it seemed to be about making the work, documenting that work, reflecting on the process, make more work. I accept that some hoops have to be jumped through, it is a formal learning environment but increasingly it seems to be a course punctuated by distractions.

 

610 words

2W36_FIFTY FOURTH POST

You can tell (http://www.telltales.co.uk/) I (http://bobmilner.wordpress.com/) have got the hang (http://www.hang.org.uk/) of this hyperlink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink) thing as I am now linking (http://www.linkingmatters.com/) to every snippet (http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&freesearch=snippet&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact) of nothing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing) possible.

 

Fuck you. (http://www.c6.org/fuckyou/full.html)

 

35 words

2W36_FIFTY THIRD POST

I am not sure why we bother trying to be creative. It is hard work and fraught with worry. There must be a less mentally arduous way of getting some attention. Streaking might be the answer. Kegs off, dangling the undercarriage down average high street before hurtling through a little used ginnel in time to put some trackies on and avoid being caught by the Filth. At least the public will laugh and applaud rather than pick at, condemn and mock. No actually, I would relish such a reaction but mostly and even from fellow ‘creatives’ who are the biggest bastards at private views, there is nothing more than passing indifference.

 

I don’t understand why the streaker avoids art exhibitions in favour of sporting events. How can my cold and frightened little cockle compete with this room full of cocks?

 

I am fed up of art. Fed up of trying and failing. I think I will make silly films of stupid things for the rest of the course, get them edited together with a soundtrack of a woman crying, really sobbing, and see if I can’t wangle a decent grade from that and possibly move into the heady world of being a PhD student. PEEP! is little more than a cynical attempt to get other people to provide the work to get me the qualification at the end. Fuck it.

 

In the meantime I can think about other ways to avoid getting a real job; having a decent income is vastly over rated. Oh, I could build a website. Websites are the future or if not the future then my future. There will come a time when people are huddled around the warm glow of a laptop in some coffee shop and ask of each other; what was the internet like before Bob Milner went live? People will say that. They will, in time.

 

I like some websites, most are dull; I would say that 98% of the people on the internet have as little as 0.5% creativity in their whole body. I realise that some websites are purely for information and have no interest in the visual. I can’t back any of this irrational prejudice up but people who usually are most vocal about the joy of social networking sites, the brilliance of such-and-such a clip on YouTube and the awesome nature of some obscure website that they have found, are usually the most dull people. Fuck off and leave me alone. I was going to list the many ways in which I would ‘punish’ them but that might jeopardise any notion held that I am stable.

 

I should try to make my own but I am shit.

 

450 words