Category Archives: What I’m doing
To Southby or not to Southby
Well it didn’t come as a great surprise but I got confirmation yesterday that my panel about Tuttle2Texas (last year’s trip) has not been accepted in the (pretty much) final round of selection for the South By South West Interactive Festival.
I don’t know the reason it wasn’t selected. Obviously with the large numbers of entries, there isn’t any specific feedback. I can only assume that “they” don’t get “it” – I’ve not gone through the accepted panels and done any rigorous analysis on which British panels were chosen and anything I say looks like sour grapes anyway.
So it raises a question or two: Why do I still have Austin as a stopping place in the middle of the plan. Do I need to go to Austin? Was I only going to speak? Is it too much of a constraint? What could I do that was interesting in Austin without going to SXSWi? What could I do elsewhere in the states at the same time as SXSWi that would still be connected but not actually being there? Why am I going in March if it’s not tied in with being in Austin for March 11th to 15th? What is the trip called if I don’t go to Texas?
Hmmm….
at #c4cc creative collaboration even happens in the loo!
Racing
I had a chat at #tuttle with Al Robertson about incorporating some sort of racing element to the trip. He suggested instead of racing people to pit myself perhaps against some moleskins, USB sticks or other storage devices that could be passed on from person to person completely independent of my trip.
Hurrah (yet again) for Al – he is without doubt one of the key people I always turn to to get my creative thinking unstuck.
I’m drawn to as lo-tech a solution as possible – so notebooks sound good and although susceptible to water and fire damage they’re hard to get infected with viruses (or are they?) or destroyed by EMPs etc. So I’m thinking of doing a trial run straight after Christmas here in the UK.
I will set free a number of notebooks with an instruction page at the front and the intention that each should arrive at a certain destination by a specified date – at which point I will either be there to pick it up or it will need to be posted back to me.
The instructions will be to leave something personal, interesting, mundane, trivial whatever in the notebook, draw in it, write in it, stick things to the page etc. and then pass it on in such a way as to get it closer to its destination but without using the postal system. It also needs to be passed on to a person or group who understand the instructions. You shouldn’t just leave it on a train and hope that someone picks it up. Tweeting and blogging about your contribution will be strongly encouraged.
The plan is to liberate them on 1 January and have them arrive at their destination on or before 31st
Exploring Collaborative Social Art
Come and experience making social art together at the Centre for Creative Collaboration next Wednesday evening (15th December).
Please book on Eventbrite – it says “Free” but that means “pay on the day” 🙂
My definition of social art is “The process or product of skilfully bringing people together in such a way as to create a sense of beauty in those that see or participate in it”
I’m going to run a workshop from 5.30pm to 7.30pm on what I’ve learned so far about making social art in a collaborative environment.
The kinds of work I’m talking about usually has a significant online component but works to complement offline activity. Examples of my social art include Tuttle itself, Tuttle2Texas and Most Interesting
You will come away afterwards with:
- a new idea to work on or progress on an existing idea
- an understanding of the key elements of such a project – especially how to get started
- an appreciation of the work and roles involved
- a set of social tools ready for you to get started
- an action plan for starting your own collaborative social art project
As this is a brand new workshop I’m offering it on a “pay what you think it’s worth” basis – bring your cheque-book 🙂
Little Dad
Someone special just reminded me of this. Got my Thursday off with a grin.
30 fucking years
So let’s get one thing straight, kids. Thirty years ago today, on 8th December 1980, it was not cool to like John Lennon, it was not cool to like The Beatles. In what we had in place of iTunes back then, the record department in Preedy’s in the High Street, where I went every week with hard-saved pennies and swapped them for a piece of plastic in a paper wrapper, that lot came a long way behind The Jam, The Police, Blondie, The Pretenders. No doubt Paul Weller, Sting, Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde all listed the Fab Four very highly on their list of influences, but their time had now been a generation ago – John was 40 FFS. Who listens to records by a 40-year-old?
I was very familiar with these arguments because I was one of the nerds who was in love with them. I wouldn’t have put it like that at the time. Saying you were “in love” with four boys would mean getting your head kicked in. And I wasn’t in love with them, anyway but their voices and guitars and the urgent sexual rhythm of their early music. See I wasn’t even cool enough to be into the hippy trippy stuff recorded after I was born – the romance for me was four working class boys taking on the world, playing dirty rock and roll.
So on that day early in December 1980, two weeks before my sixteenth birthday, there were perhaps three or four people in the 1,000 kids at my school who would have admitted to listening regularly to John Lennon. Yet 24 hours later, you couldn’t hear anything else on the radio.
My mother woke me up on the morning of the 9th because my friend Sophie was on the phone at 8am and inconsolable and wouldn’t say why. Sophie spluttered out what had happened. I didn’t believe it. I had a typical shock reaction. I probably laughed. And felt nothing and then felt my chest going a bit weird and my arms feeling heavy and was suddenly very present and aware of being alive.
And so Soph came round and we pulled out the Bush portable record player on the floor of my living room and drank lots of tea and ate toast and listened to all his songs that we had between us. Skipping Paul’s treacle, George’s half-baked ditties and Ringo’s comedy numbers. Coming back again and again to John screaming his lungs out on Twist and Shout.
And then we put his new single on and heard those chimes at the beginning and the words:
“Our life, together, is so precious, together
We have grown… we have grown”
And that’s when the tears came – for a forty year old man who I’d never met but who’d taught me to sing, who’d made my heart beat faster, who was just getting back into making music again and who was shot dead on the steps of his apartment building in New York, thousands of miles from his real home.
UCC6 Fight 4: Nathan Brown vs Neil Thompson
This was the first Pro bout on the card – over in less than a minute. I didn’t catch how old Neil was but he looks like a kid to me and he didn’t seem to stand a chance.
This is the kind of experience Nick may have. Or maybe he’ll last longer. Maybe he’ll win…
And whether he wins or loses, I wonder whether he’ll ever want to do it again or if once will be enough for him.
How about a race?
So now that I’ve stripped this trip right down, I’m starting to bring in a bit more complexity. And this morning I was thinking introducing the idea of racing someone. Or more than one. How about it?
How about we choose a mutual starting point on the West Coast and pledge to attempt to meet up in Austin and then again at some finishing spot on the East Coast. But what happens in between is up to us and our networks.
What might happen? Who would you like to see “race” against me? Would I care if I “lost”? What would “losing” or “winning” look like? We could turn that into an event perhaps – a closing thing (in NYC or back home in London?) where we all got together and swapped stories in front of an audience…
(photo by Taylor Davidson)
So where to go and when?
These are the cafes that seem to be going on regularly in the UK. Realistically I think I’m unlikely to get around to any before Christmas, so I’m looking at dates in the new year. If you run one of these and I don’t know you well already, or if you’re doing one somewhere else, please do get in touch.
Manchester – First Tuesday? Evening
Thames Valley – 1st & 3rd Thursdays – Morning
Cheltenham – 1st Thursday – Evening?
Cornwall – 2nd Tuesday? Evening.
Coventry & Warks. – 3rd Friday – Morning
Birmingham – Last Friday – Morning
Nottingham – not sure… 🙂
Perfect Path 