Media Coverage and 2012

Re: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jan/10/power-tussle-2012-arts-olympics

I wrote this response to the above article on the cultural olympiad as it annoyed me. What do you think?

Dear Editor (and Vanessa Thorpe)

I am getting pretty fed up with the lack of recognition that the UK regions are getting with regard to the delivery of the Cultural Olympiad. The Cultural Olympiad has in fact been up and running since September 2008 and is already far more than the 12 pieces of public art and commissioning programme for disabled artists that are mentioned in this article. In England’s North West alone we have been in delivery for over a year having successfully launched a Cumbria wide programme of street arts called Lakes Alive (www.lakesalive.org) and a new trans regional festival of new cinema and digital culture called Abandon Normal Devices (www.andfestival.org.uk . Together these new cultural programmes of work which have been commissioned specifically for the Cultural Olympiad (and part of its hugely successful UK Inspire programme) have engaged through the delivery of 140 events over 750,000 audiences in culture and the Olympics through the Olympiad, involved over 800 artists/participants and provided volunteering opportunities for around 150 people . This is not all. There have also been a further 8 community projects which have taken place over the past year for the Inspire programme which have been engaging communities in the Olympic and Paralympic values, bringing our total regional public participation figures to around the 1 million mark and artist/participants involved to over 1000. This is a very good start for year one of what is a four year and UK wide Cultural Olympiad not as the article suggests an arts festival for the 2012 year in London.. Investment into cultural activity goes beyond the supply of arts and entertainment. It is building new partnerships and infrastructure to strengthen capacity in key areas of regional opportunity and need. Already in the North West we can count over 100 new partnerships generated as a result of the Cultural Olympiad. What I hope is that we will remember the Cultural Olympiad as a journey of endeavour and investment that raised the cultural offer in each and every region of the UK for years to come. It also needs to be recognized that whilst the three core values of the Cultural Olympiad which are welcoming the world, involving young people and creating a legacy might seem like vague and generic wishywash, they are in fact steering a vision which is coherent in terms of the artistic focus and direction of the UK wide programme. This is in itself a major achievement given the diversity and distinctiveness of British Culture. As a programmer for London 2012, I personally find both focus and a space to respond within this creative framework for the Olympiad which has in fact stayed static since the bid. Debbi Lander, Creative Programmer for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad in the Northwest

Neighbourhood 2012 stories in East London

One to watch over the next three years: Young people’s film making project by Marc Silver: http://www.facebook.com/l/59224;www.neighbourhood-stories.com/”

DadaFest 2009

Dadafest which is a disability arts festival which took place in December 2009 had the theme of ‘Imperfect Moments’.  I was invited to speak with Dr Andy Miah on their dadafest talks panel looking at  Creating art on the Edge. The day of talks for the disability community took as its inspiration, the Northwest theme for the Olympics of the Body and Economy. Dr Andy Miah  wrote up the notes of the debates. You can see them here: http://www.andymiah.net/?p=1621

Vancouver 2010 Politics

Resist 2010: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics http://vimeo.com/4872922

I circulated this video around some of my colleagues in the Northwest today. P ersonally i found it upsetting and also motivating. It made me think  about what opportunity London 2012 might have to tell how its story might be different from this Vancouver one (which incidently did not include any comment on the impact of Vancouver’s cultural programme). It  made me think about the role of artists and cultural creators as story tellers. How do artists understand the interactions between culture and community? What developments is London 2012 bringing  through the olympics that calls for cultural commentary and artistic attention?. As a programmer in one of the region’s and focussed on cultural programming we are only really relating to the opportunities London 2012 give us to profile and grow our creative and cultural sector and could just as easily draft eight reasons why we should engage. Id be keen and  interested to know what others think.  Can London tell a different and more truly positive story?  Its sustainability policy of a one planet 2012 olympics would suggest that it will. Certainly there is the opportunity to tell a positive 2012 story from a regional if not a host city perspective. The regional position and experience – particularly talking from the view of  the Northwest where only the olympic football is taking place as part of the sports spectacular does most certainly tell  a very different and more positive story to date, with grass roots cultural organisations and young people using 2012 to build their dreams, give us broader and more culturally diverse provision than we have at present, forming partnerships that can continue this provision after the games have gone, and importantly providing a platform for people and practices that are under and not currently respresented or supported well enough here in the north west. I hope an artist or media maker takes up this challenge and tells the story of the Northwest. I think they would find much of creative and strategic integrity to write and broadcast about.

2010 Winter Olympics on the big screen

http://tinkerblue.typepad.com/tinkerblue_the_daily_tink/

Play and Evolution

Some next stage thoughts on that potential future research project i posted some ideas around yesterday (Personal Reflections Tag/Category)

Andy Miah send me some links to Pat Kane and Brian Sutton Smiths work on play.

‘There’s some really good research on play from Huizinga’s classic text ‘homo ludens’ to Bernard Suits ‘ the grasshopper’ and Brian Sutton Smith ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Sutton-Smith), whose work has been applied to sports and computer games respectively. Some of these intersections I’ve explored in my digital olympic book, but the approach to science and art is quite unresearched. Also,  check out Pat Kane’s ‘the play ethic’ http://www.theplayethic.com/ there’s some nice ideas in it. These theorists would be a very good starting point in terms of literature.

Thanks Andy…….. This helped focus my mind on what my interest was within this growing and emergent field and have some thoughts on how i might link my interest in play to my interests in metaphysics, philosophy and multiverses. I re visited some of the writings by Ken Wilbar (his  Integral Vision) which helped me link and arrive at a focus (for now)

on Play and Evolution – its significance, function and potential- or explained in a more pop culture kind of way >>>>>>>>> Play in The Field >>>>>>>>>>> (of future possibilities and infinite potential).

Although I generally have a tendancy in my scope of thinking to be very broad ranging, interdisciplinary and integrative… i am also practical so in the interests of narrowing down i arrived at two research areas/strands  (for now). These strands (working on from and evolving two of the themes i set for WE PLAY) are

• Science >>> body and economy (ie enhancement/biotechnology)
• Art >>> play and space (ie live mass spectacles)

What follows are the trails of thought/questions which came in to my mind, to be researched and tested/rejected).

Play as a new logic for understanding that the processes leading to art and science are the same ie both based on invention/creation/imagination ie play. Play is also a creative philosophy to suit the new era/study of human futures. Creativity generates consciousness and our ability to transform reality. I believe its time to move beyond cultural creators ( I – Visions) to Integral Players (We – movements) – and there is increasing evidence of this shift emerging.

Some of the beliefs behind this research concept/idea are that you can map external/objective reality through understanding interior/subjective reality;  that evolution is marked by the emergence of new forms in transcendental leaps of creativity – self organization and self transcendence through play and that the development of more Integral Players will create more people developing their senses to perceive the invisible ie the collective consciousness movement as the next wave of evolutionary development or humans. This contains the  idea that the evolutionary development journey of play IS  this next wave consciousness (human) and next wave identity (trans-human (Pat Kane) and therefore play is a new cultural movement

IF i am going to pursue this research path then i am going to need to show how modern science is becoming compatible with art and spirituality (quantum physics). How do you try and demonstrate the idea that the inner dimension IS NOT not simply reducable to bio chemical/brain processes? (drug culture disproves this (?!) but play is analogous to neural potential – it actualizes brain connections… so what…..How do you try to explore play as a vehicle of consciousness for every level of existence? In science (complexity theory) play is regarded as a central process that brings order to the chaos of natural creation (I’d like to look at idea that perhaps play IS the process of natural AND Artifical creation).  If Creativity is the ‘stuff’ of evolution, then  is play its function?

Is play a new biology?

Is all creation and manifestation play?

Some of the theoretical/cultural topics to research could  include:

Creative Emergence, Quantum Physics, Meta Physics, Play and Imagination, Creativity and consciousness

Lalitha – ‘she who plays’ – the godess of creativity and play

Drug Culture

(Matrix) Energetics (and its relationship to play and/or creativity)

Some of the sexy concepts to explore would be…

Natural Creative Capital

Networked Energy

Adaptive Potentiation (BSS)

Integral Players

Natural/Artifical Creation (Art/Science)

PLAY leads to ART which leads us to HUMAN EVOLUTION

PLAY leads to SCIENCE which leads us to HUMAN EVOLUTION

Common Ground = Play

Human Impact and Potential = Evolution

If the processes leading to both art and science are the same ie rooted in play culture and i researched practice in both fields with a view to finding process commonalities in their differences as practices, would I find out something new regarding our understanding of being and the nature of existence ie make a contribution to the fields of meta phsyics, ontology and philosophy?

Current projects in development for NW 2012 programme

AND VANCOUVER: The Northwest is going to the 2010 Winter Games through an international exchange between W2, AND, FACT and Dada. Focussed around the body and economy theme, there will be a series of four AND salons and programme of film and new media works linked to each of the salons and the overall body and economy theme. This first phase brings UK/NW artists and organisations to Canada, making a clear link between the winter and summer editions of the Olympics. Looking forwards, the aspiration is ongoing exchange around the body and economy theme and co-production of debates and collaborations for presentation in the Northwest as part of its 2012 cultural programme.

WE PLAY 2012 Challenge - a mass participation project inviting young people to take up their own personal creative challenge for the olympics and/or take part in a specially crafted WE PLAY decatholon, made up of the events and activities being run by the Abandon Normal Devices, Lakes Alive and New Cultural Journeys legacy programmes. This project is currently at research stage, with a feasibility and operations study being undertaken across this Spring supported by NHS, Preston Guild and WE PLAY in partnership with the Beinspired (NWDA) and British Olympic Foundation. The aim is to launch this scheme for the London 2012 Open Weekend in 2010.

Woven  Cultures Showcase: Working with the GONW we launched a commissioning scheme for high quality arts projects from any discipline and any part of the region addressing issues of equality and diversity. The successful projects were: Brouhaha for a 2010 carnival around the theme of Reincarnation – remixing the Race of the Nation (Liverpool); Queer up North International Festival’s  Blast 2010, a ground breaking transgender project and programme of diverse activities in Manchester linking local communities with world class artists;  Action Factory Community Arts ‘Something Beautiful‘ programme of participatory art workshops and artist interventions which will faciliate the exploration of beauty in everyday life an result in a town centre installation and creative trail in Blackburn; Barracudas spectacular carnival performance for the Lakes Alive major event in Carlisle. Cumbria, Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall involving participants from economically disadvantaged areas of Barrow and Community Arts Northwest’s NXT X-Pression, a cross-art form creative and personal development programme, which will work with a core group of 12 young people (aged 15 to 25) from Greater Manchester’s refugee, asylum seeker and local host communities. These five commisisons are in development across this Spring and will be presented across February – November 2010. The next stage of the project involves the creation of a showcase bringing strands and elements of all five projects together for a one day event as part of the London 2012 Open Weekend.

Youth 2012 Expo: a youth led cultural celebration for 2012 is well underway in its research and development to create a major programme of work for the Northwest over games time. This project is being led by Youth Music and run by a Legacy Producers group of young people from across the region in association with Preston Guild and New Cultural Journeys. Videos of the research so far are posted on this site.

Still on the draft board are creative ideas for proposals for an Oceania Welcome programme, 2012 After Party and Future Of Play Commissioning scheme for innovative live sites projects blending the physical and digital through telematics.

Some thoughts on the future – a research idea

WE PLAY – The creative potential in Human Play (The Intelligent Human). What do art and science have in common with each other? The view of this research is that the common ground is Human Play – in terms of the processes behind (not the practice) of  art and science and it proposes to focus on the revolutionary work of artists, theorists and scientists who share this perspective. This research points to a possible future where Human Play is credited as a discipline in its own right and understood as being at the foundation of all invention in art and in science. The research proposes that both science and art should be viewed more broadly than in the past: as specialized inquiry yes but also as forms of human play; that the nature of being as invention can be understood through human play; that the future of science is leading us towards the creation of the universe and being as pure invention/creation ie play and therefore in the longer term future, art and science could be viewed as two dimensions of the same principle and the power of play understood as the as the means by which we create transformational differences in society, be that through artistic products or through scientific development.

‘Only a mind that knows how to play can make outrageous connections and it is only though new connections that society advances’

• How might art and science inform each other if taken from the vantage point of Human Play?
• What can human play tell us about the nature of being/existence?
• What principles of reality can human play teach or show us?
• How does human play relate to the nature of change?
• How does human play extend and enhance our human potential?
• What rights do we and should we have and exercise?

Young People inspired by 2012

In the northwest we have formed a legacy producers group of young people from manchester, liverpool and lancashire who are working as a group to research and develop a programme of youth led activity for 2012, celebrating the games and youth culture. So far they have created a number of film works as part of this research, the links to which are here:

Light write http://www.vimeo.com/4536984

slowmo                  http://www.vimeo.com/4537037

lads                    http://www.vimeo.com/7374509

ethos             http://www.vimeo.com/7792042

partners                http://www.vimeo.com/7792218

ANAT presents Super Human – Revolution of the Species Symposium

I attend the Australian Network for Art and Technology symposium – Super Human: Revolution of the Species which took place at BMW Edge in Federation Square in Melbourne Australia (I was on holiday and just could not resist this research opportunity). Day one of the programme which i attended included presentations and keynotes by Barbara Maria Stafford (USA), Michele Barker (Aus), Dolores Steiman (Canada), Kathryn Hoffman(USA), Ju Gosling (UK), Kathy Cleland(Australia), Natasha Vita-More(USA), Tine Gonsalves(Australia), Mari Velonaki(Australia) and Reva Stone (Canada).  Here is a range of programming notes i made during the day regarding programming around body and economy theme

 

1. ANATOMY AND ART, MEDICAL REPRESENTATIONS, EMBODIED PERCEPTION

• Bodies and pathological collections are often in storage as invisible heritage collections
• Wider representations of the body moving beyond the mono (ideal) body – who we are (under the skin) and other types of  coporeal spectacles
• Reveries of the body – this is what the olympics is – anatomical spectacles
• Art/history/science exhibitions – ie anatomical collections
• Cabinets of wonder – movement/user navgation through the displays, clustering as a way to present objects; baroque forms of interaction. We have lost ways of moving in relation to looking. The eyes are distant in virtual reality. It is hard to get people moving in exhibition space
• Getting people moving – a 2012 theme
• Challenges of exhibiting stored works.
• Telling stories about humans
• Use of new media and domes and technologies
• Showing human remains
• How human body has been displayed in past and how we can do that today with new media is an opportunity
• moving beyond 19th century views of body to it being a living system and a metabolism not a fixed object or carcus/skeleton
• Visualising energetics in science and art – how can this be done – needs collaborations with the health and healing practitioners/communities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. DISABILITY, SUPER HUMAN RIGHTS, PROSTHETIC BODIES,  HUMAN ENHANCEMENT

• Scene setting and definitions – what we mean by term disabled
• Technology enhancing the body
• issues of inclusion and reality of human condition
• images of the disabled – charitable or medical
• accommodating the needs of diverse bodies
• art as therapy and art as a creative process
• prosthetics dont match nature
• lack of support is the issue not the impairment itself
• value of non enhancement
• use of paralympics to spotlight issues – access to understanding the issues and our way of thinking
• What do we gain from being disabled?
• Can art and science change the world?
• Activist or arti
• How far can we split our identity – we need a mainframed identity- multiple selves in multiple environments
• Dont enhance or extend me – i am (im) perfect as i am.

 

 

 

Book reference – Don Ihde – Bodies in technologies
Robbie Cooper Book – phenomenlogy – feel and experience