Donnie's Debut

Here he is. This picture was taken shortly after I got home, so he was only a few weeks old. He's now grown into a fat Eastern European playboy.

Autumn Strikes Again!

Nothing too memorable to report. Everyone in the house is suffering from a hangover this morning, although Steven seems to combatting his by listening to the Beatles. Last night, everyone was poor and stayed in, so to commisserate with one another, we pooled resources and shipped a few bottles of red wine in. With the Ipod securely plugged in, KW showed off his breakdance skills and at midnight, there was a loud round of singing for Orion's birthday. It's the big 2-9.

Donnie the hamster has settled into the house nicely after a period of accidently being set loose in the wild while I was away in Greece. Now that he's had a taste of the real world, he spends little time in his cardboard toilet paper rolls and hamster wheel, and more often than not, I find him up on the roof of his clubhouse, holding on to the bars of his cage and looking wistfully out. Don't worry - I make sure he gets a near-daily run around in his ball, which satisfies his thirst for exploration.

My coffee's getting cold and I feel like climbing back into bed. I hope that there's a burst of creativity. The sun needs to come out and remind us to be hopeful !

Recent evictions

Haha. Only kidding. Pablo left in August - he's somewhere in Wales. Meanwhile, Sandra from Madrid has moved into his old room. She's an actress and friends with Orion & Nadege - who recently spent 3 weeks in Marseille and have now returned looking tanned, refreshed and bearing a big hunk of meat.

Steven has experienced several layers of joy, Grant got a first, and Harry spent quite a few weeks parked up in his mom's VW van in our driveway. The artist formerly known as Eddie Sveder* has been in and out - he's been on the festival circuit, and we're informed that he'll be out for another 2 weeks touring.

The newest addition to the house is Donnie, my hamster. He's rad.
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* Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

ProtoPLAY: "Deconstruction/Reconstruction" pictures

Here are a few - I'm sure there'll be a million more on the protoPLAY site, or somewhere...

This Is The Modern World

Steven was slaving away this morning in his room on the final touches for the protoPLAY poster for the Fringe when he suddenly shouted, "I wish I was in the Jam!"

Here is his dream realised.

DECONSTRUCTION/RECONSTRUCTION @ The Fringe

DECONSTRUCTION/RECONSTRUCTION

1st June , 2006

We have been exploring the concepts of evolutive displays, cultural recycling and the live development of work within the frame of art events since October 2004.
Building on our work with transdisciplinary process-based live events, we propose Deconstruction/ Reconstruction, a 96 hour experimental Live Art event from the 19th to the 22nd of June 2006, in partnership with Brighton Fringe Arts Production, and set in The Basement.

The concept for this project is to live, work and sleep in The Basement for 4 days and 5 nights, and to deconstruct and reconstruct pre-existing works from the individual artists involved and to create new work from them collaboratively.

The idea for Deconstruction/Reconstruction is to create an organic live-art installation that constantly shifts and develops in its form. Throughout the event, the space will gradually transform, as new works and new performances are produced collaboratively.

The discussions that arise from the engagement and reinterpretation of each other’s work will be framed within the event space, and feed into following day’s activities. This will also be accessible to the audience, via live video feed to the entrance lobby window and via video recordings and transcripts to be displayed in the exhibition space.

Deconstruction followed by reconstruction in a new order or with new elements, creates links between the old and the new and a new understanding of the whole. The event itself, as well the individual experiments within it, will also follow this structure, creating connections between the works and between different practices and practitioners. These connections call into question whether, the work is mutating, being transcribed, translated, or recycled. The intensity of living and working together for this time will, we hope, create a blurring of identity leading to a dissolution of authorship. protoPLAY stress the process over a particular end result, during which, raw creative energy is captured within the frame of an art event.

http://protoplay.net/

Lunch & the Irish Buddha of Surburbia

Here are pictures of the lovely lunch Orion and Nadege prepared for everyone. As well as the housemates sitting at the table, we also had three guests: Orion's mom & Nadege's two friends from Marseille. Salad, tortellini, pesto pasta, wine & water. In the bottom picture, you can see Orion's mom filming.

Buddha - found Steve sitting outside on some pallets. Thought he really was meditating until I saw him put his cigarette in his mouth and smile. It was beautiful sunny morning. Sigh. Wish we had more like that.

Last night, we had about 6 guests stay over. Lots of Grant's mates came down as well for the University of Brighton degree show preview. Both Harry & Grant won prizes and it was a bubbly afternoon that saw all of us wrecked as we drank our way into the evening. You can see how hungover everyone is by the grumpy expressions on people's faces. I wasn't that bad, touch wood.

Saw This & Thought Of You

When I was in the States over Christmas, I stumbled upon a magazine called "Found". The concept was simple. Get people to find things in the street or wherever and send them to you. The collection of notes, photographs, drawings etc are collated into a zine, along with the editors comments and drawings. It's genius and I wish I'd thought of it first. Here's my offerings.















Exhibit 1 "Sausage Thief"
I woke up the other morning, opened the fridge, and found someone had eaten half of one of my leftover sausages. There were only 2 in the bowel. Jesus, someone must have been desperate. I was more amused than annoyed, hence the sign. A few days later, responses started to come up.

Exhibit 2 "Best Friends Part 1"
Essex-boy found these two photographs on the bus home one night. It looks like the girls had a falling out or something.

Exhibit 3 "Best Friends Part 2"