Desk news

Right so the desk is almost completed, which will stand towards the back of the room, with myself using the desk on the opening night.

Dont forgot the performances today at Heaton Park (1pm), and the introduction to video and performance at pride cafe tomorrow (1pm).

All are welcome and should look forward to an afternoon of interesting live performance works.

The ball is rolling, gradually

So basically the work is slowly coming together, it’s not just going to be a showcase of our work in the gallery on the 5th October, there are other events planned out for the week prior to the opening too, which all are welcome to attend.

There will be two events focused on video and performance work, the first of which shall take place in Heaton Park on Thursday 27th September, at 1 pm, where members of the group, as well as other contributors, will be showcasing new performative works, all of which shall be filmed and displayed on the opening evening. The second event will be the next day, 28th September, and housed in the new Pride Suite Space (24 Scotswood Road, near the Centre for Life), and will be a basic introduction to the film and performance genre as a whole, spanning the last 40 or so years. Times are not certain, though we're hoping it will start at 1pm and run through until about 3. Updates soon. Follow us on twitter to hear more, and any changes to plans at @Populace_ Pro

 Everyone is welcome, and both events will be fairly informal, but please note that the Pride Suite Space is regrettably not wheelchair accessible.

Woop!

Funding meeting tomorrow! Exciting stuff! ill let you all know how it pans out.

Desk Designs

i want the design to be pretty simple, yet functional and fitting to the space and other work thats going on inside x

Some more possible sites for the shelters

Here comes Claire

Hey everyone,
Im inviting Claire Lavender to the group as shes helping me make all these shelter things, and said she might get involved with the performance thing in the park too. Shes also gunna help with documenting the shelters, as her camera is much better than mine. We went around yesterday hpotographing more sites, got some good spots sorted, i'll ask her to post them soon. Hope your all swell, in a bitty.x

Eddy's chair

 

first sketches of this chair im making, its gunna look basically like the biggest drawing in the middle, all out of wood. ill post piccys up when its a bit better looking, as i only started a few days ago. Two seats, one to watch the film from, and the other to either look at different work (prehaps phil and osc's live stuff) or just to have a gander at the show in general (thats the one with the foot rest) See you soon guys.x

Advertising

Phil: hey loves
yeah basically it all sounds like the show is properly coming together which is very exciting and its good to see some communication!
Just a couple of thingies:

ANyone got any sick ideas for a poster or advertising? The twitter thing is sweet and pretty 'modern' which is something that i think will go down very well with everyone involved. Cheers for sorting it out x
...

Also, as all these ideas develop, we need to start thinking a bit about how the room is going to be set up. We all know the size of the place (not huge) so it might be a case of getting imaginative. Ed and I have talked about having the bar either in the halls near the loos or maybe even out the front of lime street if its a nice day. The work appears to be pretty much 'sculptures' of sorts (being used as like installation performance platforms and interactive events for the viewer) and film, and i think this idea of ed's to project film stuff on like the tent and maybe the outside of the building (maybe even the side of hangar 51 ?????) is definitely something to work with.

hope all is good

Shelters

Ed: Anyway...Im basically planning to spend the majority of my time making all these pop up shelters out of old material/waterproof stuff/ with Claire and another girl called Kirsty Jackman, who graduated camberwell's sculpture course a few years ago. The general idea behind it is based around the fact that the rest of the work is going to an extremely individual experience for the audience, e.g with the performance work it'l be down to where the person is standing, whether or not they can hear, if they get to use one of hazel's contraptions or not etc etc and also the film of it will be totally different to actually being at the event in the park.So the tent things are just going to be made very quickly, and hopefully i'll get to make around 10 or so, with tracey and the 1st years making loads more.They'l all be documented through photography and film (Jessamy???) but im not going to hang around and see if they are actually used or not, i'll just go back to them a few weeks later, and they could either have been a massive help to tramps, a nice place to sit or get out of the bad weather, the chance to steal loads of tarpaulin for anyone in need of it, or just a massive annoyance to the council (though ill make signs saying dont move,art, will be removed shorty) or totally unused and ignored. But basically it'l provide the chance for people to intereact with the work if they see fit (something that i know Phil is keen for people to do in his performance) and this could be a way of potentially encouraging them to do so if they happened to have seen one of the structures about. I'll also leave cards about the project at each site, dates of exhibition, further promotion etc.

I was going to recreate one of the shelters in the gallery space ( a hanging work, top half of one) so people could walk into it, one at a time, again playing with this whole idea of the individuals response to a certain piece of work, and thought of potentially using the canvas as a projection screen for either some of the photos/ film work??? think that'd help tie some of the ideas together a bit too.

 

Nadia: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m80n0l8vjV1rwxo6zo1_400.jpg

with an open top lid. i have emailed architecture to see if this is at all possible to do. alzheimers attacks brain cells that carry messages to and from the brain ( obvs)

anwhoo...its unknown how its caused which i find fasinating. what i think is more fasinating is the fact we dont know how a person mind actually works from that point on, what they are thinking, what they believe, do they know who they are, ect. One medical term for alzheimers is atrophy which means the brain is wasting away and is being damaged therefore effects the strucutre of the brain. The atrophy effect something called the cerebral cortex this is a layer of grey matter that covers the brain. This is what helps process our thoughts. Is this cortex wa...

stes away plaques form and which destroy brain cells. Which is the basic idea of how it occurs.

I want to focus on these thoughts which are destroyed. I wanted to use a a box to be trapped in this idea of fustrating and annoyance of having this something you cant control. I wanted to use flour as it cleans and simple but i think this could be the idea of irritance of gradually this piling on you. The disease gets worse as you get older. like the flour will get more irritable as more comes in and traps me inside. I will be looking more in the cortex which i think will be the core of the piece of work. i want possibly to have sounds in this piece idea of sounds coming off the box , as a way of translasting emotion and feelins for this idea. Eddy suggested yesterday that flour be sometimes a bit wet , i wasnt sure but i like this idea of it being cloggy in the box, i imagion this cortex being grey and cungy to protect out thought process but as its being destroyed its being as cloggy therefore dryer...maybe dryer flour..i dunoo

what do u guys think

Potholios

Possible sites for the pothole resurfacing

Possible sites for the shelters

Right Guys

Right Guys

I have been away and i go away again next week so i prob wont be on here properly until sept...so if u hate my ideas text me ...07834993102

anywhooo
...

phil i proper took on board wht u suggested and proper thought about it over in italy. I read a book out there on the body in contemporary art. But anyway i thought it be a bore but might be useful for dissertation. Anyway...it wa good actually it showed me mostly performance work and how it have envolved by using the body. It was interesting but at the same time it just made kind of look at art in a different way. I was reading this thinking to myself why am i reading this in some aspects and most of the work was really 'outragious' nothing was suttle ( i sound like im contradicting myself) but some of the topics just in my opinion didnt need to be like that. It made me question this whole concept of contemporary art and why artists do is. Is there any particular reason for this.

Anyway i also been doing a lot of reading on alzeimers. You may not know but i work in an old peoples home and alot of the people there do have this disease . I was just reading it for please to get a clearer insight more just for my job and to be more proffessional and to understand the residents alot more. But it got me thinking.

As Phil you said the performance should be a video. I totally agree. I have been talking to a girl who is an artist here well known and her sister who is a medical student about this. She went into detail how it comes about ect. Its one of the liquids in the break counterbalance the other out which makes you confused and unclear. I thought the performance could be based on this. The flour could be this blocking of your mind the confusion. It may make me not hear as clearly. It be fustrating and annoying . Which is what i come across alot at work. I fount alot of artists who use their body but mine is more my body interacting with the environement i will be placing myself in. I would prefer a video performance as i would capture aspects that i could focus on.

ive read up on the artist martin creed and his sick film 2007 here is a link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AYIf3nHNxY

i idealy would want the scene that clean and crisp i feel the focus wud be on jus the reaction of the person in the box. a transparent box so it can be seen at all angles. anywhooo im coming to newcastle for a couple of days and heard their is a medical library so im gonna steal some books out there to get this more detail for you guys...sorry this is very vague...

Pride cont.

just in case you cant work it out ive been to this cafe today and basically sorted out exhibtion space for us (up to 7-8 shows in the next year) in return for a bit of donkey work sorting this space out. its a really good venue and the guy, oscar, is safe as houses. hes really keen on the project and also offered me office space with use of photocopiers and cheap/free printing. theyv got an artist in residence upstairs too, meeting him next week to talk aboiut more ideas. the owner was loving the idea for the show so i reckon hes gunna be a huge help, he said hel help with funding too.x

Email from Pride Cafe

Hi Eddy,

thanks for your offer of help; we need as much as we can get and greedily accept- especially if you've got practical "handy" skills!

We sent our first batch of funding applications last week to raise money to professionally refurbish our 46ft X 20ft "community space" and the 10 small offices on the second floor to a standard similar to the cafe-bar. In the interim, its important we get groups into the space ASAP so volunteers have been helping us to paint walls, create studwork and install plasterboard etc so if you're available for that sort of thing PLEASE get in touch.
...

I'm very interested in your idea about the students: this is exactly the sort of thing we're interested in doing. The Pride Cafe Centre is an LGBT space created as much to make connections with other communities as it is to serve LGBT people.

Let's talk! I'm at the cafe 09:30 - 17:30 Monday to Friday and John is here at all other times- but we're getting busier (hooray) most evenings so earlier rather than later if you want to have a proper chat and a tour.

Oscar: Hey guys, soz for lack of contact was away/bumming around. I literally havent had any good ideas (shit) but am thinking atm jus generally about the responsibilty of the artist, lines of what makes performance art but i will say as soon as i think!

Iv never done anything working with time/help so id be interested to no more? kind of would also be interested in the psychology behind why artists would want to make certain art, i dnt mean like psychoanalysing you all HA but i like the idea of the artist behind the work.

Id be quite keen on doing something physical not just like sculptures but like a video or a performance night. Although iv done video i dont think i personally wana do like documentary film.
...

I also kind of like the artist "displaying" their body materials as a kind of act?
I looked at this girl Andrea Buttner briefly last term and would like to go deeper into it. I would just be worried it wouldnt be exactly along the lines of help/time, but are we thinking it needs to be?

Soz this is just more rambling but i really havent had any good ideas come to me yet, so fingers crossed!
heres a link to the artist
http://mapmagazine.co.uk/9334/andrea-buttner-shame-culture/

Acts of Kindness

Hazel: Good thoughts boyz! Sorry for lack of communication been in germany.. What do you mean exactly by helping people? /theme of help, who do you think needs help?.. (i think its interesting idea i just wanna try understand fully)

In first year me oscar verity and ppl did a one week video project where we did some spontaneous things around the city, including digging up soil for some gardeners and filmed process (oscar you remember?) was hilarious. Do you mean something as literal as that? it was quite interesting also because no-one could understand why we would want to help with no reward they were utterly baffled; says something about our society i think. Eddy i like that idea about being a handyman around the city.

not sure if you seen Michael Landy's 'act of kindness.. same theme. but i find it to be a bit twee, and a route i think we shouldn't go down lol http://art.tfl.gov.uk/actsofkindness

this would include prehaps making a seat at the top of the hill in exhibition park ( i saw some whale almost pass out there the other day- the place needs a seat), theres a wall down ouseburn road too which is falling down and fly-tipping in front of it is bad. I thought about clearing the site, propping the wall up, and paying for the things to be sustainably disposed of. yea i'll have to keep adding to this coz i thought about it way too much....
and yea hazel i get what ya mean about Landy's tweeness. i think it can go either way, but i think as long we properly think about it should work. I dunno, i think if we decided to just make work in 5 days ( like the 60 hours thing) i wouldnt necessarily work as well, the space isnt as suitable as newbridges and itd just be good to try something totaly different to what we all normally do, not saying that we should just do this, phils told me about his idea and it does seem pretty sweet. I just thought of trying to prehaps intice as many different kinds of people to an art show, its getting boring seeing the same faces all over the shop ( we sahould speak to Toby in MFA about this, he does lots of socially enganged things)
 

alrreeeet people, basically im kinda on the same page as hazel, no computer for a while, and been thinking about what to do loads so this is gunna be a bit of a chaotic post. But basically i thought about this help idea because all the 4th years seemed impressed with all the help me ( and some of the others) did in hanging week. They seemed to think i'd/we'd done absolutley loads of stuff, but i found myself sitting around trying to keep busy for half the time i was in that week. So i thought if i really put my mind to it, i could get a tonne of stuff done in the space of five days ( sticking to a time frame) for anybody willing to accept it, though i think this too might be an interesting point, to see how happy people are to interact with and accept help from a complete stranger(s)
I was...

thinking of basically writing out a list of things i wouldnt do e.g nothing illegal/ nothing ethically wrong/ cause no harm etc, and apart from that it'd be anything is game really. I dunno, dog walking, collecting dry cleaning/ shopping/prescriptions, dirty or tedious jobs, things old biddys wouldnt want to do. literally anything, maybe be on call for the whole time as well.
Id advertise myself and any others who are willing to help with flyers/posters/word of mout5h and make a schedule, and if that dosent work, i though of just doing more handy-man type things around the city, but bring some kind of sculptural element into it too.

Early days

Basically my friend Ed and I have been brainstorming some ideas for the show. Following our meeting and talking about using the public, we believe that the public could and should be the main part of the 'collaborative' element to the work. Ed has a sick idea about helping the public as a sort of handyman around the city ( ill let him go into more detail) and I am thinking of possibly using underrated publications like the Sun or Big Issue to help the public out. I think this loose theme of 'help' is a good one, and would include in depth documentation ( therefore fitting the proposal) and could also provide an exciting and unscripted dynamic to the show. What does everyone think ?

 

https://twitter.com/Populace_Pro

Hey people heres the projects twitter account, this is just a prototype so tell me your thoughts and i can edit. I just put a wee bio in, ur only allowed 160 characters but iv started off following a range of galleries and art based places in Newcastle, in the hope that they follow back! and the picutre for now is just a standard P for populace so if any pics in mind, do post!
and if your on twitter giz a follow!
good thing is we can connect it to facebook,websites, blogs and youtube videos, so if we get a blog for the project people can see that, I could also post people in the groups blogs or tumblrs so the audience could see our pevious work? Just an idea. x