Webs revisited

[devi]

Hello again Livejournal! This is what all that what-are-you-thinking-about stuff earlier this year was in aid of:



I have an exhibition, starting on Sunday 4th October, in a vacant shop in Templars Square mall in East Oxford, along with 17 other local artists (that number keeps changing) as part of The Oxford Empty Spaces Project. It features the results of my livejournal survey turned into a big hanging structure made of string and wire, plus some more normal pieces of artwork hanging on the wall. All the details are here.

Come and see! Or come to the launch party on Saturday 10th! Party start time's not settled but there will definitely be one (the organisers are a bit Tony-Wilson-ish, all "no rules! whatever! do what you want!", so I have DECREED that there will be a launch party), perhaps moving on to the Marsh Harrier when the shopping centre closes.

I'll be invigilating at the exhibition quite a lot over its run - if you let me know you're coming, I can give you the guided tour.

Big thanks to everyone who contributed. And especially to secretrebel, who put me in touch with the TOES people.

(Please excuse half-made state of website, obligatory art-wanky blurbage, and simultaneous LJ/facebook/twitter spamming. That's it for now.)

Comments

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

all i can see is a little red cross. in a way i hope this is what the art is, but in another way, i rather hope it is a bit more than that :)

good DECREEING there though anyway! will definitely try and come up at some point (i seem to only ever come up to ox for reasons of seeing art these days...)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Weird - the link goes where it ought to. Can you still not see it?

Would be great to see you!

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Ooh, awesome!

This sort of thing is the coolest thing in the world right now, since Bruce Sterling's been blogging about it.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

This sort of thing = crowdsourced stuff? To my shame I don't really follow Bruce Sterling regularly, just read his stuff when it pops up on BoingBoing or similar.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

There's no shame in it - he's incredibly prolific, so it's not easy to find the time.

This sort of thing = crowdsourced stuff?

Partly that, but more specifically the idea of repurposing abandoned shops and other unused urban spaces. (That link I posted on your FaceBook thread was via his blog at wiredbeyond.)

He's developed these two complementary concepts "Favela Chic" and "Gothic High Tech", which I can't do justice to in a short summary but a rough overview would be that the global corporations have become increasing vast in scale but are no longer quick or effective enough to shape the future. So all the cool, futuristic stuff is done in a rough, agile, improvised, ad-hoc manner by the general population (or at least the creative subset of it). It's all about living in the shadow of these huge, corporate undead entities and doing cool things with their byproducts (whether mobile phones and other techy things or less intentional output such as abandoned buildings, waste resources and so on).

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

That sounds fascinating - I'll look into that.

[glittertigger]

Sounds great. I will be along to have a look sometime.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Good stuff :)

[juliet]

Sadly am v unlikely to make it for the party (at least I hope not, b/c if I am not able to make it, it will be due to imminent DOG which I hope is actually going to happen!), but will try v hard to make it down for another time.

um. let me know when you're invigilating, maybe sometime in the November time, and I can sort out a visit? (scheduling things is good if poss. scheduled things happen.)

also: ART. aces.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

DOG DOG DOG DOG! Exciting!

I anticipate there might be several micro-parties spinning off from the main one. And yes, let's think about a date, but not now because that nice Norbital band have stolen my brain and I need to sleep...

[juliet]

DOG is here! (see lj)

OK, cool, let me know when the Norbital band have returned your brain :)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

He is lovely.

Okay, on sober consideration there's still a number of things I have to pin down before I know if I'm around or not - but I know I'll probably not be here in half-term week (the 26th Oct to the 1st Nov).

[juliet]

Cool - later in Nov would probably suit me better anyway, tbh. Hm - 4th or 5th Nov?

[bigcat23.livejournal.com]

oh noes, Octoberists birthday drinks in on the 10th too! How long does the exhibition run for?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Turns out all the brilliant things are happening on the 10th, bah! ("Octoberists" = great, though.) But it's running till the end of November, so lots of time for a secondary gathering...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Great! People are trying to get a similar thing in the empty shops here, but no joy yet.

I'm not going to be able to make the 10th, but am in Ox at the end of the month -- will it still be around?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

It will indeed! Though I might not be (see reply to julietk).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah well, in that case I'll admire it in your absence and hope to catch up with you later!

[kyte.livejournal.com]

That looks sooooo cool :-)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Thanks - now if I can just build the damn thing in situ...