Weird connections sometimes happen… Gardening to We Think in a simple leap and bound… bear with me on this…
Having put together the Urban Gardening exhibition for Urbis last year I have taken to gardening in a big way. Now in my second year I saw that my nicely maturing redcurrant bushes were covered in what I learnt to be aphid eggs. When I investigated closer I was attacked by soldier ants, my hands getting covered in the little blighters protecting the pests munching away on my bushes.
So I set about finding out what was going on…turns out ants and aphids have a symbiotic relationship whereby ants love for honeydew (greenfly poo) leads them to farm aphids who produce the stuff to sate their sugary appetites.
I was intrigued by this idea of symbiosis between species and insects and insects and plants which led me to this…the RepRap…watch the video below for the connection.
Now, getting back on the 2.0 train of thought, here’s an idea that has implication for Urbis blogs recent thinking about social networking, free software and community led creativity and takes Charles Leadbeater’s notion of we think to a whole new level – we manufacture, anyone?
(and yes I know this got a load of press in 2005 but it’s finally coming to fruition having rightly made it to the finals of the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards in the “Most Likely to Change the Way You Do Everything” category)
By far the most interesting and relevant presenter of the day, for me at least, was Jon Ippolito. The man who describes himself as “a footsoldier in the battle between network and hierarchic cultures” presented a range of his network projects from Stillwater – the New Media program of the University of Maine at Orono which use the semantic web as a means of actually creating the linkages that everyone else seemed, at best, to be hinting at.
I’m going to have a play with The Pool and Thoughtmesh to see if they really can break the habit of hierarchical cultures and, as John has it, make me think more like a network.
Urbis blogs met BBC Blast last week to discuss how our projects are crossing over in October. While Urbis have the Homegrown: The Story of UK Hip Hop launch to look forward to BBC Blast are preparing for their production of Othello in association with Akala’s Hip Hop Shakespeare company being staged at The Lowry as part of Blast on tour from the 14th-17th October.
An additional strand to Blast on Tour will give 50 young people the opportunity to get involved in a two week workshop covering a range of creative practices from dance to drama to visual arts, culminating in the staging of Othello.
Having had Akala in action at Urbis last month this event promises to be of the highest quality and an amazing opportunity for a select group of young people to work closely with one of the UKs leading experimenters in hip hop.
Keep an eye out on Urbis blogs for more info on how we might be working together and the BBC Blast site for more details of how to get involved – the full programme to be announced in August.
Thanks to Blast Urbis will be allocating 8 places on the Blast Tour to young people already involved in our youth programmes here. At present these projects are in their infancy and only open to targeted groups but we’ll be rolling things out to a wider audience over the next year. To find out more about how you can get involved with Urbis’ youth programmes keep an eye on Urbis blogs by signing up to our RSS feed.
Having just posted about the role of the internet in cultural institutions came across an interesting example of those that lead and those that follow…or perhaps not…we’ll see later.
Icelandic Newspapers are reporting “Michael Jackson is dead” while the major news outlets are still claiming he’s only being hospitalised following cardiac arrest.
The Art of with- an original essay by Charles Leadbetter for Cornerhouse
Yesterday’s seminar at Cornerhouse proved to be a fascinating insight into how different actors in the Artworld see the promised power of Web 2.0 reshaping the balance of power in the cultural landscape.
The afternoon was split into 2 panel sessions (both chaired by Anne Bonnar) opening with Charles outlining the thinkers and doers that had helped shape his vision of “We Think” with responses from Simon Yuill and Laurie Peake.
Much of Charles’ talk went over what can be read in the commissioned essay with the central point for me being…
“We’re all sat in this room discussing the implications of Web 2.0, pre industrial, post industrial and technological tools. But to my 7 year old Ned it’s all just stuff” (I paraphrase but you get the point)
The result of this cultural shift is, the panel posited, that we are facing a new folk culture whereby the live, the experiential, and ‘the performance’ where the audience plays their part will take precedence over the artefact – or to put it in Leadbeater speak talking and doing experiences rather than enjoying experiences.
I’m going to have to consider the notion of the post-tech folk cultural before I comment further but I can’t help think that even within the notion of ‘folk culture’ there has always being those that lead and those that follow.
Tom Fleming, on the second panel suggested that ‘we build paths where people walk’, which, granted, is a good notion for those institutions that serve to sanctify the past. However, the difficulty for us at Urbis, where we are trying to keep at the cutting edge rather than commenting on established cultural collections, is how do we ensure we are part of that leading group rather than simply reporting on what has already passed? And I’m convinced that while having a blog, a twitter and a Facebook page may be part of keeping up to date with the current, it is the underlying infrastructures, relationships and trust between producers that first needs to realign itself with the shift in the ownership of information and possibilities for production.
After a week of chasing and playing phone tag the illusive Morgan Khan finally sat down to speak with Urbis about the exhibition and the huge influence his Street Sounds Electro albums had on the shape of British music.
Overlooking London from the St George’s Hotel Heights restaurant and bar Morgan explained how his journey from PYE Records A&R man to self made music mogul transformed how people bought and listened to music as it transformed what they were listening to. From 1983 to 1988 Street Sounds Electro albums ushered in a sea change in uk music, being at the forefront of electronic dance and hip hop from day one and making it affordable to the kid in the street.
Relaunched in April 2009, with a brand new electro album, the return of Street Sounds promises to be big news if it has a fraction of the impact the original label had.
For anyone who doesn’t know of the original albums heres a news snippet from 1988 when the original label went in to liquidation. Nice hint at the importance of Groove records to the UK scene in there too.
Friday morning saw Urbis blogs visit an icon of youth culture in the UK (for those of us from a certain generation) and one of the most consistent documenters of UK Hip Hop during the 80s and early 90s – Normski.
Over two and a half hours digging into his immense archive revealed roll after roll of previously unseen hip hop photography that clearly illustrates the UK scene in its infancy and early years including first hand evidence of some fabled events.
To get just a glimpse of what we’re going to tap into for the show head over to Normski’s new site and check out the galleries.
Cataloguing is part of any exhibition development and today was a long day of just that.
Huge thanks to James McNally for spending so much time with Urbis blogs going over his huge collection of UK hip hop and talking us through his take on the story as he revealed an amazing collection of UK music artefacts from early 80s sound systems to current hip hop treasures.
Seems fitting to include some early Westwood here…
Something strange is afoot in Manchester. Walking home last Friday night, we spotted what at first glance looked like an official BOMA flyposter – you know, those lovely posters with the Peter Saville/Jeremy Deller quotes we’ve used to publicise the awards.
And then, on second glance, we realised that said poster wasn’t quite… right. Have a look at the image below. The poster on the left is our official one; the one on the right the spoof version.
We’re not the only ones to spot the difference – check out Mancubist and the Manchizzle.
So, which mysterious designer/artist has gone to the trouble of making, producing and pasting up the posters? We’d like to know – not least because we’d like to feature the posters in this year’s BOMA exhibition. If you have any clues as to who Manchester’s answer to Banksy is, email marketing at urbis dot org dot uk. There’s an invite to the awards night in it for anyone who does.
