Decemberings

Sorry for the lack of posting, been busy which led to shingles which led to inactivity which led to feeble excuse.

Anyway in the spirit of the season here's what's amusing me right now:





Thats right they're actually amusing me right this second, or actually a few minutes a go giving time to write the beginning bit, find the links, cut and past them and then write this bit. Plus the time it takes to write whatever else I write in the blog. So that could be a good twenty odd minutes ago, so they might not be amusing me any more, in fact I probably now hate them.

Anyway some other things that are amusing me right now:
1. The very full cup of tea next to me.
2. The fact it is christmas tomorrow.
3. The fact I'm managing to get home for christmas after illness scare
4. The fact I can recornise the Mighty Boosh Live from the upstairs flat because everything up there must be listened to at the volume of a concord engine.
5. The Sonic Screwdriver Tracy gave me for christmas (Which I opened already)
6. Lego Batman for the PS2 which Kieran gave me for christmas.(Which I opened already and completed)
7. Christmas
8. I have a new nephew
9. Christmas.

Bah Humbug to All!

Yup, can't be bothered with those videos anymore

It's Grim Up North

Well, so, some interesting news emerged yesterday which threatens to kill off the future of art and expression in Aberdeen. Ian Wood has pledged to donate fifty million quid of his own money to fund some bullshit scheme to "revitalise" the city centre. Two things: Aberdeen City Council has called the death knell for the City Centre by continually building stupidly huge shopping centres to take away business from it's main thoroughfare, and Aberdeen is hardly a city.

The proposed plan is to build a massive square over the top of Union Terrace Gardens, the railway line and the Denburn essentially paving from Union Street across to Schoolhill, which in itself is rediculous and will cost much more than the pledged £50 Million. The issue is that a feasibility study is to be put underway by Wood, and while this is going on any work on Peacocks will be halted in the meantime. If there is any slippage in Peacocks time the project will fall apart, they'll lose the Architects, the design team, the campaign team. There'll be job losses and in the long run, once the lease on the present building runs out Peacocks will probably just cease.

I know that a lot of people are sticking around in Aberdeen at the moment to help improve things and hopefully be a part of a changing culture up here, but any chance of that will be gone and im pretty sure all of the young artistic community will just up and leave. We've tried, we're still trying, we really want to make a difference, make a change. But how long can we just live with those in charge of Aberdeen pushing aside any kind of culture in exchange for short term solutions and easy cash?

It's not just Peacocks at risk, Whitespace, Citymoves, Cultural Enterprise and other organisations are going to be housed there. But if there was to be no peacosk that would be a pretty shocking state of affairs, because like it or loathe it, agree with the exhibitions or policy or not it is the closest thing we have to a Contemporary Art Centre and other galleries like Slogan need the support of Peacocks to thrive. if Peacock goes, art goes. Grays will be all there is left.

Two tunes in one day

Well, like a usual lazy sunday I haven't done much. Was pottering around on Logic this morning with a tune I started building last night, and tonight after the cinema I finished it off (Still need to do some vocals though) and wrote another one which is now finished. I'll pop them on the Myspace tonight maybe.

Anyway, this weekend, as per many, began on Thursday. Louise, Mhairi and Amy had been trying to arrange a screening at Grays on the grounds, it had fallen through, as had a back up plan of the beach so I ended up offering my back garden. There used to be some amazing parties in the garden here at Crown Street, but in the two-plus years I've been here there hasn't really been anything. So on Thursday Louise and that flattened out the grass, we put up a gazebo, got the projector and my new PA out and set up for a screening. The night went pretty well all in all and ended up with a load of us in the garden with a guitar. And general drunkenness, which made work a little difficult the next day.

Martin has some pictures, but he's busy out hob-nobing with celebrities and the like with his big lens, so I'll try and get them soon.

Anyway had a massive sleep to compensate and chilled out the rest of the weekend, watched Quantum of Solace today, which was pretty food despite my apprehensions. Not really sure the point of this any more, just boasting about my two tunes. Oh well.

Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management

I've just finished putting together a wee piece that I've had i mind for the Peacocks Christmas exhibition. Not everything worked out how it should have, and it was a lot of work for three little things, but now they're done, or half done.

One went to Peacocks unpainted, and I held down the other one and the empty box for Hamnavoe. I'll talk more about that later. I borrowed a camera from work and took a few we shots, wasn't entirelly sure of using the digital SLR, but I seem to have been using them more than compacts these days.



So there they are, the Cassetteboys, named after the cut-up musician and a parody of many generations of walkmen. The collective name for the piece is "Getting Ahead in the Lucrative Field of Artist Management" a track from Psyence Fiction, suggested by the ever insightful IAMMARTIN.

So these three were all originally intended for the Peacock's Christmas Show, but I missed the deadline passed on saturday with the boxes unfinished and one of the walkmen missing, with Halloween and general business and laziness i missed the deadline, but found out it was extended till today so i managed to get one done for Amy to hand in to peacocks, which was lovely of her.

I had got a facebook message from brian the painter saying he was arranging an exhibiton at the Hamnavoe gallery and asked if I had something to put in. I ended deciding to put one of the boxes in, but it ended up two (One with the tape player and one empty) so Martin and I headed down to the gallery with the pieces, and a wee painting of Katies.

I think I must have made a bad first impression cause I saw Brian and walked over to him, but had to be stopped by the owner because I'd strayed too far into the gallery. His reaction to the cassetteboys was a "What the hell is that?" Now, that's probably not the most encouraging reaction to a piece of work I've ever had. He didn't seem muchly impressed so I think I'll probaly have them back for the weekend. Ho Hum.

Did have an interesting journey home featuring a drunk talking about de-tox and some sort of strange jazzy music coming out of a building next to Shirlaws. Also Karl was putting out some computers at work today and got me to take a photo of them



just before a fleshy spider gets a blowjob from John Hurt.

Well its been a while. Been up to bits and bobs recently. My mate Jon has finished the video he made of my show, which is here:

He's done e over pimp my ride style and i make a bit of small talk with Tim Westwood's cyborg clone from the future about The Silver Machine. He's got a speeded up version of the journey to the space interspersed with Martin's photos. I like it very much.

Speaking of Martin, he and I got together and made a sortof music video. We started taking photos and constructions sculptures then I began to write a tune around a couple of animations and from there we built the rest of he visuals around the tune. It was a weird way to work but we we ended up putting this together:

Essentially all I've done in this blog is rip off jon's own blog, which can be found here. Jon's been doing all sorts of exciting things, he's running the future shorts nights in Aberdeen which starts on the 29th October in the Belmont.

Where did the Philanthropists go?

Been a funny ol' evening.

Went along to Earl Solomon's opening in the Foyer, was speaking to him for a bit at my opening and he invited me along, had a phonecall from Andy saying he was in town and going along so it would be good to meet up. Went along with Martin, had a quick chat with Jim Ewan before someone tapped a glass and some guy launched into a speech.

It was a little odd, but I expected it because Earl had been saying that he was asked to do a speech, and that's what the Foyer were doing from now on. But the speeches seemed to go on for ages, and then some woman had won something or other and she was congratulated. The whole thing was so fucking corporate. I'd just like to take this time to say that the work was really good, really interesting drawings, and any criticisms I am going to give were of the opening, and not the work. So anyway there were all these guys in suits and women in dresses about, I recognised a few faces from work and some artist and art folk about, and the Lord Provost pushed past with his chains and that, all very fancy. When the speeches passed we went for a wee look at the work before some guy in a suit practically pushed us out of the way (When I say practically, i mean he walked right into my confort zone when I was looking at a piece) The rest of the attempt was being pushed in this steady flow of people, around groups of folk talking like being in some sort of horrible fast flowing river smashing into some rapids or something.

That coupled with the disapproving looks from men in suits forced me to make a sharp exit. I'd like to have stayed to speak to Earl or Andy or someone but I just couldn't face staying. I had spent most of the day cleaning the living room and hadn't had a shower and did in fact look like shit, but that's never been a problem before. Anyway I wasn't a fan of the pomp or the ceremony or the clientelle so I made tracks. I didn't get any time to take in the work either which was a shame.

It struck me as such an odd thing. People don't make speeches at exhibition openings, just to appease the sponser, I dont think they should have to. Its similar to my opinions on statements in exhibitions. On top of it all, I wonder what the sponser intends to get out of it, and what the price of corporate sponsorship is.

Art is art, it justifies itself, its interpretation changes from person to person. I just don't see why a sponsor should need the artist to talk about their work, or advertise their business. It just seems like an advert, distastefully plastered onto the back of the work. I don't accept advertising in Cake, because i feel it compromises the space which is made available for work, and that it simply gets in the way and compromises the work. As the title of this blog asks, where did the philanthropists go? What happened to those rich guys who just donated to the arts, set up trusts, art schools, commissioned work simply because they liked it?

These days it just seems to be corporate agendas, logos plastered over events, fliers, publications. Its all very well, as artists there needs to be funding to make the work and attempt to make a living, but why does it need to be so in your face? It was a side of the art world that I don't like and don't particularly want to be involved in, but that seems to be the case in Aberdeen, there are more openings like this than otherwise. Perhaps its time to set sale for a different shore, just get out.

Tomorrow I'm going to Glasgow!

17

Well I've just finished 17. It was a pretty good book to read after my show. It was a good read full of interesting anecdotes, and as I've already said in some previous blog, provides an insight into the thoughts and motivations of a working artist.

I'm not going to say I agreed with everything he said, but overall his questions and explorations have given me a few ideas of ways of thinking, different approaches to making work and exploring music. Different ways of percieving work, music and where I am going. I'm not going to throw away every record I own, or restrict my listening tastes or proclaim that recorded music is at an end. The permeation, and the evolution of music tastes are something I plan to explore at some point, but not until I'm much older probably.

The whole autobiographical nature of the book got me thinking about my own life and things I have done. Probably added to the fact that this time next week I will be 25. I guess I've managed to fit quite a lot in, but theres also quite a lot I've missed out on, things I wish I had done but never, experiences I haven't....well experienced. It's not really that big an issue really, 25, but I don't like the thought of getting older. 25 always seemed ancient when I was younger, and now I'm here. Not that any of it makes any real difference, but it just feels a bit old. When I was a kid I thought 25 people were grown ups, and it just seemed so far away and never really though I'd get there.

I suppose I still haven't got there, to my idea of what 25 was when I was younger. When you're a kid you think that when you get older, when you get to 25 you have to be all sensible and settle down and have kids and jobs, wear a suit and have a haircut. Here I am at 25 and don't feel any more mature than when I was a kid thinking about the future. But there's always the thought that when George Harrison was 25 he was recording Abbey Road, having already gone through a massive pop career, spritual discovery and enlightenment and written While my Guitar Gently Weeps. I don't really know what I've got to show for my time here, other than a stereo on a bike and a record player stuck to a wall.

Tea

It's 12:52 on Saturday we've just finished a 80 bag of Tetley. The question is: Can we drink 100 cups of tea by my birthday?

You decide. Or rather we do.

Pictures of Matchstick Men

Just been lazing today mostly, but doing a bit of passive research as well. Was reading 17 and it reminded me of the proposal I had written for New Work Scotland at the Collective (For which I have recieved two individual rejections) so I ended up doing a bit of research behind that to see if I could improve the idea any. Through wikipedia I ended up reading about George Harrison, Pete Townshend, Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard and Keith Moon.

The Who were the first band I really got into properly, my brother wanted to be a mod, but this was in the late eighties and he had already missed the Jam-led revival of earlier in the decade and was just riding out the Madchester and Acid House era waiting for Britpop. It was years later when I got into The Who, but could remember my brothers listening to them. Shortly after my brothers when to their reuinion gig in Glasgow and didn't invite me, but that's beside the point. What I'm getting at is that I've rediscovered Baba O'Riley, and what a good song it was, the simplicity of the guitar, piano and bass, but this driving synth line all the way through, it's not a loop but a long continuous synth line created from specific details of the Meher Baba.

Before the release of Who's Next, Townshend was working on another high-concept follow up to Tommy, it was to be called Lifehouse and it was to be a fully immersive experience allowing the audience to Join together in the band to create the music as a fully inclusive experience. The project fell apart for some reason or another and they went ahead with making Who's Next, a more conventional, yet still amazing, album. Baba O'Riley was sort of a prototype for the Lifehouse project and just stands out.

I also found out that Townshend had set up a website and designed a piece of software to take people's details and turn them into synth lines, for possible use as a song. I went on to the site but they've stopped collecting details, so that's that avenue closed. Ho Hum.

Back to Baba O'Riley, I downloaded it for a listen and saw a few other tracks I'd downloaded, Born to Be Wild, obviously for Ezy Ryder, The Prisoner, Psycho Killer, On Her Majesty's Secret Service by the Propellerheads, Silver Machine (Infected By The Scourge of the Earth), Good Enough after seeing Dodgy at Wickerman, and Pictures of Matchstick Men.

I'd downloaded it a while ago after hearing it on My Name Is Earl and listened to it a few times, and a few times over the weeks since. Its weird, Status Quo's first offering and its a slice of pure psych, before Mssrs Parfett and Rossi become fond of that one riff and made music which still rings out through terrible terrible pub djs. Matchstick Men has this amazing hook, and then a crunching rythm which leads the song through the first verse before the whole mix is passed through a modulator and swirls throughout the room like some sort of bizarre trip.

A few songs for the first mixtape, perhaps.

The Golden Record? Hmmmmm

Ok, an afterthought. I also saw a not very good show today, and it seems wrong to post something negative but I've never really written a bad review. I'm not particularly known for writing reviews, and not entirely sure that I have even written one down before, in this blog that is.....

Anyway, after the Fruitmarket we wandered up to the Collective, just to see a bit more before we left. We had walked past earlier and it looked quite exciting. There was a massive print of Karen Carpenter and Carl Sagen with stars in the background and lots of colourfull record-sized prints. That, added to the title of the show The Golden Record made me think it would be quite interesting. I had read something about it and got a flier through from the collective the other day, but had forgotten what I had read when I went into the show, which was a good thing.

I was instantly confused by the show, on entering the first space in the exhibition. The walls were filled with LP sized paintings of lots of different things I couldn't really make any connections between. I wondered if perhaps they were an artist's recreation of records, because they all had titles and names underneath them, and what I assumed was a recreation of a Karen Carpenter record sleeve (I have absolutelly no knowledge to back this up on, only that it appeared as that) was attributed to Karen Carpenter and titled with the Album cover-like text from the painting. I thought this was just until I noticed a piece by Bedwyr Williams, then again I was thrown into confusion.

The rest of the exhibition consisted of two screening rooms. In the first there was video footage of Carl Sagan explaining the concepts behind the original Golden Record, from a documentary by Mel Brimfield, the curator, and Sally O'Reilly. And in the other room another screening, of people addressing the camera giving their takes on a subject which I missed.

The exhibition itself was a large scale project put together by Collective's Assiociate Producer Mel Brimfield, as a collabouration between artists, actors, commedians and filmmakers, the different groups involved with the Festival. She has based the exhibition around the record sent into space on the Voyager probes.

These idea of the collaboration between the different Festivals, and making work around the record is interesting (Especially the latter, for its relation to my own practice) but here combined, the show just doesn't hang, it doesn't work. With this knowledge and re-entereing the show, it all just feels forced. It all becomes a bit contrived, like a primary school project, with people from different types of people being given 12x12 canvases and asking them to react to random words to create a series of images which are a slice of our modern lives and expereinces. The use of the Golden Record is just completelly underdeveloped, and the exhibition seems to rely on its high profile celebrity participants (Including Kevin Eldon, and Karen Carpenter, the wife of Carl Sagan) rather than the work. The video pieces also follow this pattern, coming across amaturish and pointless.

Before reading about the background, the show confuses rather than intreagues, and even armed with the concepts, it comes across half-baked and self indulgent. The presentation of the outcomes is far from considered, simply hung on the walls and projected in darkend rooms. After the Cardiff and Miller show at the Fruitmarket, this failed to impress.

I don't know if I should really be reviewing art, or talking about other artist's shows. I'm probably not doing myself any favours. Its just what I think really. Its also not as though anyone reads this.

The House of Books Has No Windows

Just got back from the Edinburgh, more driving than other stuff, but I'll go back next week or something. Feeling pretty inspired after seeing the show in the Fruitmarket, got some new ideas brewing, a different way of thinking maybe.

On the way there and back we were looking through tapes in the car because the current location of my itrip, and, more disturbingly, my ipod. Anyway Kieran wound up a few that had come unrolled and we tried them out (after finding and listening to the actually quite good Now 44, but abandoning New Hits 99, as the utterly awful tracks outweighed those which might have had some novelty or nostalgic value) and popped one in which my friend Emma Collins had made me when we were in first year. I've been thinking about mix tapes a lot recently when I was doing the bike. Kinda wanted to collect some mix tapes for the opening, then decided on the tape adapter and iPods, then the battery ran out so we used an amp. Anyway, mix tapes: Finding old mix tapes is a weird experience, quite like finding old diaries I suppose. I found some old diaries at home and they were horrible, I should burn those, theres nothing interesting or nostalgic in there, just embarrassing and horrible things I've done well to forget and get over.

However, again back to mix tapes. I found this tape Emma had made me and I could remember when she made it, what I made for her, and what we had talked about before we had made them. I had already found a couple of tapes last time I was at home, and had thought of them when I listened to them I could remember when they were made, and it was a kind of chart of my music tastes throw time, how they change and grow and return over time.

To the main point anyway, I've decided to start making mixtapes again. Properly. In my bedroom with all my cds around me, everything properly recorded from cd like I used to, but anything I've downloaded with itunes, but I'll still have to listen to every track to record it. I'm going to do one a week and see what happens. But there you go.

Fat Arsed Lassies and Beyond

Well its been a wee while. Finally settled down after Thursday. All went really well, was really busy. Now I'm on holiday for the next three weeks which is great. Time to chill out, relax, see some art, visit some places, do some research and have a good time.

So Thursday, yeah it went really well. John, Martin and I headed off about ten past seven, John with a handycam strapped to his helmet, Martin prepared to max his body out keeping up with us on foot and me in my Peter Fonda cowboy hat and shades. We got the Silver Machine out of the car, I fixed up the speakers and gave it a wee blast of leftfield before we set off.





We headed down College Street down to the arches, there were a few honks, but probably more about John's helmetcam than than the speakers on my bike. We headed through the arches and then me and jon had to cycle round the industrial estate for a while to let Martin get to Torry bridge. Ended up making a mistake and coming out on Market Street instead of next to the river, we passed Cam and Roisin as I got to the bridge. Gave them a quick blast of the stereo and they gave me a quick blast of abuse as I got onto the bridge.

Martin caught us again as we headed over the bridge and on up to Slogan.
We got up to the space and there was a group of people outside, who I assumed was everyone waiting for me to get here. When I got to the window I looked inside and realised that the space was totally packed and it was a bit of a struggle to get the Silver machine into its place in the middle of the space.

Here's a few of my favourite photos from the opening itself once we had arrived.

Stew smiling next to a photo of Louise
The Haynes Manual. And some booze. We drunk Project Slogan dry. Twice.
Assorted people hanging out in the space.
Me talking to John and Mhairi about somehing.
Loadsafolk!
Say Hello!
More

The screening of Ezy Ryder. It was quite difficult to fit everyone in and project it at the same time.



So it all went well, was suitably drunk when we headed to the pub afterwords, although we went to Snafu and it was baws. The rest of the weekend was pretty good as well, my folks were up and Mr Brady paid a visit so just chilled out mostly, went to Banchory for a cup of tea and my mum was in search of some sort of mythological Victorian train.

So now to my holiday, technically I've been off work for three weeks, but that's been spent with the show so I can finally relax now. I'm going to go to Glasgow and Edinburgh for a few days each just to get out of Aberdeen for a while, as could be told from my previous blogs getting a bit sick of Aberdeen and just want to experience a real live city. Going to Edinburgh tomorrow to see the show at the Fruitmarket, apparently it's amazing.

Got Bill Drummond's new book at the weekend, 17. It's about this art project he has been working on creating a choir of non verbal, non musical music, working with a different seventeen members each time and creating scores of instructions. The book goes into his motives, and experiences that led him to the idea, also his doubts and failures during the project. it's refreshing to read that someone who is classed as a professional artist has the same doubts I do.

Last weekend in the run up to the show Martin showed me a piece in Creative Review about these Trinidadian kids in Queens who mod their bikes with the biggest stereo systems they can find. There's a documentary been made about them that was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival this year. (You can find out about it here www.madeinqueensfilm.com) At first I was a bit shocked and quite annoyed that I hadn't thought about it before, and obviously worried that people would think I had just nicked the idea, or assume that the work was being made about these kids. Although now I'm ok about it because nobody else I've come across has encountered the film or made the connection in any sort of negative way. Although time will tell if this happens. It was a pretty bad time to recieve the news, a week before the show went up, but with no time to try and react to it, not that I should have really, the ideas behind the show have been stewing for two years now.

I've also been putting together a proposal for my next show, something that is slightly older than Fat Bottomed Girls, but is also where the idea of that show came from. It'll probably end up quite a safe show, but it's something I wanted to do more and more when I was working on the photographs for Midnight Bicycle Mystery, to work on some more photographs, but this time something more sculptural. If that makes any sense at all. At the moment it's called The Pleasure Principle, and that's all I'm going to say for now.

Another idea, which with The Pleasure Principle will probably put and end to this transport stuff for a while, is building more, different models of the Silver Machine, and an idea Amy suggested, to take them on tour.

I think I've rambled on enough for now. I'll hopefully write a bit more over my holiday.

Three Days to Go

Three days and counting to the opening.

Slightly scared. Here's another wee sneaky peak. My first fully fledged photographical outcomes. They come with text as well, but that can wait for the show. I dont have a title for the series yet.....answers on a postcard.....

Fat Bottommed Girls

Fliers done. And its on this blog.
Photo beautifully taken by Martin Senyszak

Silver Machine

I just took a ride
in a silver machine
and I'm still feeling mean
I got a silver machine
Do you want to ride
see yourself going by
other side of the sky
Well I got a silver machine
It flies sideways through time
It's an electric line
To your Zodiac sign
It flies out of a dream
It's anti-septically clean
You're gonna know where I've been
In my silver machine

I found out today thanks to my friend and colleague Dr Teknikal, that Hawkwind's Silver Machine, is actually about a silver bike. The lyrics were a sort of joke at other bands writing songs about science fiction.

Its based on Robert Calvert's interpretation of Alfred Jarry's essay How to Construct a Time Machine as not how to construct a time machine, but a bike. He suspected that Jarry's essay was a joke, a description of a bicycle hidden behind some complex physics, so Silver Machine is a song which suggests that it is about space travel, when it is actually just about a bike.

Pretty weird that, although I would have known if I'd done my homework I suppose. The naming of the piece silver machine came from someones suggestion of Silver Dream Machine, some David Essex song with a tenuous link to a bicycle. I shortened it to Silver Machine after the Hawkwind song, after all who the hell with any self-respect would name an artwork after David Essex?

Anyway with this revelation a lot of things have fallen into place, a lot of aspects of the show make more sense, so I'm quite chuffed (The initial feeling of dread and doubts about the work had began to set in) and its given me a bit of a second wind for the show.

Wise Up!

If you have a city, which has serious cultural (or lack thereof) issues, problems with alcohol related violence, a main street full of empty shops, what would you do?

Simple! Solve the problem of empty shops by installing more pubs and clubs! Of course! That's it! You see it seems that aberdeen's short sighted solution to one problem is increase another. I wouldn't mind a few more bars and clubs in aberdeen, actually thats a lie, I would like some different clubs and bars. There are plenty of watering holes in this city, but they are all homogenous, bland, generic bars all catering to one crowd. I have even been refused entry to a pub for being "too casual for the weekend"

It just seems whoever runs this city has no clue. Aberdeen is a joke for other cities, and deservedly so, every attempt to do something different and try something out comes with so much opposition, that it becomes just so difficult that the only available option becomes to go somewhere else.

I am still in Aberdeen because I got a pretty one-of-a-kind job, working in Grays, but if it wasn't for that I would be off. After this Project Slogan emerged and allowed us few Artists who stay here somewhere to show, and allowed a community to build. Art-wise Aberdeen is a lot less grim than when I graduated two years ago. Sarah has done so well and worked so hard to not just establish two spaces and two studios for recent graduates in Aberdeen, but to give the art community somewhere to get together, regularly and this can only be a good thing.

But even then Project Slogan struggles, against the completely culturally retarded city council. A council who blow trumpets about how they are investing in the arts when all they are doing is paying lip service to the Scottish Governments pledge to improve Scotland culturally. Any offer of support they can give seems to come with so many strings attached that they wholly compromise the objectives and integrity of those. This isn't support and it just goes to show a complete misunderstanding of what contemporary art is about.

What an artistic community needs to survive and grow is more than just some more galleries, we need inspiration, community, interesting cafes and non-chain shops and bars, and the ability to pay the rent and still have money to afford to make work. Aberdeen in it's current incarnation is built on the discovery of north sea oil and the money it brings. Greed and money fuels this city, it is much more interested in making a quick buck than improving the quality of life for the mass majority. This has led to the draining, a situation where people come here, to study or work and then leave, a completely transient community of people just stopping off then leaving again. Not once has the city appeared to question this drain, ask why people leave at the first opportunity, because in the grand scheme of things having an art gallery does not generate as much revenue as a Liquid Nightclub or a MacDonalds.

Any large building left empty gets sized up for a retail development or extortionately priced luxury housing, (as an aside, you can get a flat twice the size for almost half the price in Glasgow) which takes us back to the beginning, the main thoroughfare of the city is full of empty retail units, yet they keep building shopping centres.

This city needs to stop scratching its balls and actually look at the mess and the joke that it is, continually creating its own problems. Those in power need to take their heads out of their arses and have a look around the country and see what real cities are like.

Boooo! Oh Well.

Got some bad news yesterday, I was supposed to be VJing at the wickerman festival, but I was cancelled. Still got a free weekend ticket.
Also, here's some more sneaky peaks of Silver Machine

Altogether Now!

Finally updated my website to a satisfactory level, changed the contents page, made the fine art stuff a bit easier to get around and stuff. Still bits and pieces to fix and change, but thats pretty much the biggest update since I set it up.

Work from my new exhibition will go up in time with the show. Check back in a week or so.

show me a sign

The Strands are still drawing together

storyboarded my film. Which was a bit strange because it involved taking apart an actual film and turning it back into storyboards.

A year in the making

more

Robots and Spaceships and battles oh my.

what people are searching for